WEBVTT 00:15.286 --> 00:16.087 Good evening everyone. 00:19.611 --> 00:20.172 Can you hear me? 00:21.093 --> 00:22.095 Hello? 00:22.115 --> 00:23.136 Oh, good evening everyone. 00:28.523 --> 00:29.564 Smaller group tonight. 00:38.896 --> 00:42.981 I don't know, last night's talk I gave a talk about Dhamma, the word Dhamma. 00:45.543 --> 00:46.984 I think it was particularly awful. 00:48.186 --> 00:54.872 I got several down votes already on YouTube, and today half of our crowd is missing. 00:56.594 --> 01:00.177 I don't know what was wrong with it, but I've driven everyone away. 01:02.840 --> 01:04.722 There could, of course, be another explanation. 01:09.346 --> 01:15.212 I didn't think it was particularly awful, but, oh, the internet, no? 01:20.221 --> 01:23.125 The past is not important. 01:23.926 --> 01:29.053 We should never dwell on the past, nor worry about the future. 01:34.481 --> 01:42.432 Simon thinks yesterday's talk was awesome, but he thinks all my talks are awesome. 01:57.667 --> 01:59.849 Anyway, today's talk is about the present moment. 02:13.641 --> 02:14.641 The present moment. 02:15.142 --> 02:19.365 There's a book that everyone says I should read or everyone asks me about. 02:19.385 --> 02:27.252 I'm constantly asked about this book called The Power of Now by 02:30.691 --> 02:38.662 by this famous author, speaker, motivation dude, or spiritual guide, I don't know, Eckhart Tolle. 02:41.126 --> 02:46.073 I think he has something to do with Oprah Winfrey or something. 02:51.621 --> 02:52.642 The Power of Now. 02:53.744 --> 02:54.425 He's right, though. 02:54.625 --> 02:56.247 That's a good title for a book. 02:56.267 --> 02:58.330 It's a good subject. 02:58.591 --> 02:59.652 It's a good phrase. 03:04.373 --> 03:10.660 not to be taken lightly. 03:27.119 --> 03:28.120 There's a story 03:30.698 --> 03:40.793 Well, there's a verse that actually appears in a couple of places but one well-known place is in the Tamiya Jataka 03:43.135 --> 03:45.679 If you don't know about the Tamiya Jataka, it's a long story. 03:45.719 --> 03:46.640 It's a really good story. 03:48.563 --> 03:51.848 It's one of the ten great Jatakas. 03:52.048 --> 04:02.684 Great meaning more than it has a lot of verses, but also great in that it's one of the more powerful moving stories. 04:05.488 --> 04:11.978 And the story goes that there was this prince who, even before he was born, he was an angel in heaven and 04:14.506 --> 04:24.816 This king on earth needed a son and the king of the angels persuaded the Bodhisatta to be reborn as a human being. 04:24.836 --> 04:29.281 I guess angels can sort of decide where they want to be reborn. 04:36.708 --> 04:39.771 And so he was reborn as this prince, but 04:42.856 --> 05:06.364 When he was very young, he was sitting on his father's lap, and his father was sitting in judgment, and these robbers came to the king, and the king sentenced them all to being stabbed with spears, impaled upon stakes, having their heads cut off, their hands cut off, and so on. 05:08.767 --> 05:09.808 Typical king stuff. 05:12.286 --> 05:16.070 But the bodhisattvas lying there was just horrified. 05:18.652 --> 05:19.413 This young boy. 05:19.473 --> 05:26.500 And as he was sitting there, it became all very familiar to him. 05:26.580 --> 05:28.061 And he remembered his past life. 05:28.982 --> 05:30.423 That in the past he had been a king. 05:30.464 --> 05:33.607 And he had done this same sort of thing. 05:38.031 --> 05:39.272 He had engaged in 05:40.754 --> 05:45.184 Sentencing robbers and really being a fairly nasty person. 05:47.830 --> 05:49.274 Whether the people deserved it or not. 05:51.018 --> 05:55.308 Engaging in all sorts of nasty torture and punishment. 05:56.811 --> 05:59.337 And as a result had been reborn in hell in this next life. 06:03.552 --> 06:14.049 And he had lived in hell for many years and he was just starting to get on the way up when he made it to sort of the lower angel realms. 06:15.752 --> 06:17.434 And he said, what am I doing back here? 06:18.196 --> 06:19.137 I'm back where I started. 06:19.237 --> 06:21.882 One day I'll be king and I'll have to do that very same thing. 06:21.922 --> 06:28.412 And so he decided that he would pretend to be 06:30.333 --> 06:31.434 pretend to be crippled. 06:31.474 --> 06:32.435 He would pretend to be dumb. 06:33.036 --> 06:34.217 He would pretend to be an invalid. 06:36.440 --> 06:37.821 And the story goes on and on. 06:37.861 --> 06:46.751 And for 16 years, he made as though he couldn't see or hear or he was deaf and dumb and mute and stupid. 06:50.014 --> 06:52.217 But the doctors looked at him and they said, there's nothing wrong. 06:52.237 --> 06:55.260 So they tried to test him and they tested him in all these ways by 06:57.687 --> 07:01.593 When he was sitting in his playhouse, they would set fire to it. 07:03.436 --> 07:07.001 Put him in this playhouse and then set fire to it, thinking that he'd run out. 07:07.923 --> 07:10.927 But he'd think to himself, the fires of hell are... 07:10.947 --> 07:13.351 These fires are nothing compared to the fires of hell. 07:14.553 --> 07:18.499 And he would lie there and be prepared to burn, and so they'd put the fires out. 07:20.442 --> 07:21.904 Anyway, eventually he leaves home. 07:25.589 --> 07:26.631 Eventually they... 07:27.742 --> 07:30.026 they decide they're going to have to just get rid of him. 07:32.130 --> 07:35.436 And so they're going to go and bury him and kill him and just bury him. 07:36.157 --> 07:48.619 When he gets out of the city, where this guy's going to go and kill him, he says, oh, here I am out, and they all think I'm going to die, so he just wanders off and goes and lives in the forest. 07:52.210 --> 07:58.444 Eventually the king and all the queen and all of their retinue and the whole city follows him. 07:58.644 --> 08:02.112 It's a long story, I really don't want to get into the details. 08:02.633 --> 08:11.552 But when they hear he's gone forth, the king says he's going to go forth, the queen follows him, and the courtiers and the royal palace all decide to follow instead. 08:11.532 --> 08:22.267 And when the populace hears about it, they all follow the king and everybody decides to go off into the forest and they set up a monastery, an ashram. 08:24.410 --> 08:37.349 But when they get to the forest to find the prince, they find that he's wearing some kind of bark cloth or something and sitting and he's quite alert. 08:37.409 --> 08:39.592 And so they talk to him and they say, you're not an invalid. 08:39.612 --> 08:40.273 And he said, no, no. 08:42.177 --> 08:46.242 I just knew I couldn't be king and this was my way of getting out of it. 08:47.163 --> 08:48.644 And so they asked him about his life. 08:48.724 --> 08:52.589 And anyway, the point of this story is it comes to this verse where they ask him, how is it? 08:52.869 --> 09:00.537 You know, you were a prince and we had to feed you and bathe you and you lived in such luxury. 09:03.200 --> 09:06.124 But here you are living in the forest and yet you look radiant. 09:06.264 --> 09:07.565 You look more alive than ever. 09:07.605 --> 09:10.969 And they asked him what he was eating and 09:12.552 --> 09:18.382 found that he was just eating simple leaves and the coarsest of coarse food. 09:22.428 --> 09:30.782 And so the king asked him, how on this food can you subsist and look so wonderful, so alive? 09:33.146 --> 09:34.408 And so he told this 09:36.532 --> 09:43.497 This rather poignant verse, he said, For the past I do not mourn, nor for the future weep. 09:43.517 --> 09:46.508 I take the present as it comes, and thus my color keep. 10:03.515 --> 10:18.680 There's another, and almost the same verse appears somewhere else where an angel comes to see the Buddha, I think, and asks why the monks are... 10:19.922 --> 10:24.069 I don't know, maybe this is the same jataka, I can't remember. 10:24.089 --> 10:25.371 Anyway, this is the verse. 10:32.928 --> 10:42.158 And it highlights this important concept of the present moment. 10:44.381 --> 10:59.458 And then the next verse, the verse after it says, when you worry about the past or for some uncertain future need, it dries a fool's color up as when you cut a fresh green reed. 11:07.606 --> 11:13.372 So this is the other side of the equation, the other side of the coin. 11:17.396 --> 11:24.563 The present moment is such a powerful concept or reality because it's real. 11:25.944 --> 11:34.272 Because the present moment is what is really and truly occurring, which really and truly exists. 11:38.167 --> 11:46.794 why the past and the future are inferior, and they are inferior, why they are a cause of so much problem, it's because they don't exist. 11:48.576 --> 11:50.858 Because they arise conceptually in the mind. 11:54.681 --> 12:06.992 And so the power, the amount of energy it takes to 12:09.588 --> 12:14.975 To live in the past and to live in the future is far more, far greater than in the present. 12:15.115 --> 12:21.543 And on top of that, it's much more complicated or it's much more open to complication because it doesn't exist. 12:21.923 --> 12:26.609 The nature of concepts is they can be infinite. 12:26.629 --> 12:27.350 They are infinite. 12:28.191 --> 12:30.174 And you can always add something to them. 12:31.996 --> 12:33.358 Imagination is infinite. 12:33.758 --> 12:35.140 Possibilities are endless. 12:36.453 --> 12:53.975 And so all of our complicated obsessions, desires, aversions, all of our egos, it's all caught up in these concepts, these and other concepts, but most especially the past and the future, what we're going to be, what we used to be. 12:54.015 --> 12:56.318 It can also be caught up in concepts in the present. 12:59.015 --> 13:02.280 But past and future themselves are some of the worst concepts. 13:02.680 --> 13:08.469 Worrying about the future, reminiscing or bemoaning the past. 13:14.097 --> 13:15.299 And so it really is like that. 13:15.339 --> 13:16.520 You uproot yourself. 13:18.183 --> 13:21.748 The present moment is like this rooted experience. 13:25.053 --> 13:35.465 Where you're well connected with reality, just like a reed or grass that is well rooted in the soil. 13:36.406 --> 13:38.008 And so it grows and it thrives. 13:39.990 --> 13:41.652 It's just the reality of the present moment. 13:41.792 --> 13:45.896 A person who's in the past and the future is cut off from that. 13:46.537 --> 13:47.778 It's cut off from what's real. 13:50.281 --> 13:54.486 And with no grounding point, right? 13:56.558 --> 14:01.905 with no anchor, gets lost and spun around and around in concepts. 14:02.846 --> 14:22.752 All of our theories and philosophies, all of our views and opinions, all of our likes and dislikes, all of the things we identify with or seek to escape from, all of this is caught up in concepts. 14:25.685 --> 14:26.967 And so we waste away. 14:26.987 --> 14:33.936 Anyone who lives in the future or lives in the past, they wither up. 14:34.918 --> 14:35.619 They dry up. 14:35.699 --> 14:37.061 Their energy is used up. 14:39.444 --> 14:44.832 They don't have this color, this radiance. 14:45.032 --> 14:46.213 They aren't alive. 14:46.254 --> 14:47.355 They don't even feel alive. 14:49.462 --> 15:05.569 A person who's never lived in the present moment might not realize it, but a person who has, a person who's practiced and who's seen and who's experienced what it's like to live now, will be able to tell you the clear difference. 15:06.230 --> 15:08.574 I mean, this is the real reassurance in the practice. 15:08.654 --> 15:12.059 Again, talking about how you know whether your practice is good. 15:12.079 --> 15:14.584 How do you know whether meditation is actually beneficial? 15:15.205 --> 15:16.026 How does it feel? 15:17.930 --> 15:27.401 If you haven't yet felt the difference between the present moment and dwelling in concepts, and you haven't really meditated, then you can say you don't yet get it. 15:28.663 --> 15:35.591 But at the moment when you're present, just that moment, in that moment you can feel the difference. 15:36.692 --> 15:40.797 Suddenly you're powerful, you're strong, you're in fact invincible. 15:42.740 --> 15:44.562 The present moment solves every problem. 15:45.062 --> 15:46.384 Problems are conceptual. 15:48.254 --> 15:53.402 When you're in the present moment any problem is immediately solved. 15:58.549 --> 16:01.995 For that moment there is no problem because problems are not real. 16:04.658 --> 16:15.455 Of course this conflicts with all of our conceptual desires and ambitions and relationships and our status and our ego and our personality. 16:16.436 --> 16:17.738 So for most of us it's not 16:19.523 --> 16:22.946 Living in the world, it's not feasible for us to always be in the present moment. 16:24.828 --> 16:27.951 But by no means is that the fault of reality. 16:28.011 --> 16:30.174 That's our fault for getting caught up. 16:31.715 --> 16:35.179 Caught up in ego and identity and desires and aversions. 16:37.021 --> 16:38.402 You get caught up in these things. 16:39.743 --> 16:42.206 Relationships with people, places, things. 16:44.788 --> 16:46.510 Attachments, aversions and so on. 16:48.245 --> 16:49.146 All conceptual. 16:49.587 --> 16:50.849 Nothing to do with reality. 16:58.722 --> 17:01.225 Kind of makes you want to go off in the forest and just live. 17:02.387 --> 17:02.868 Be real. 17:04.731 --> 17:08.357 People talk about, oh, yes, it's a nice vacation. 17:08.397 --> 17:14.927 I remember meeting the king of Uganda or something. 17:16.460 --> 17:17.121 in Thailand. 17:17.141 --> 17:19.705 He was a friend with the prince of Thailand. 17:20.206 --> 17:22.409 I was at this very famous royal monastery. 17:22.469 --> 17:29.600 All the royalty came through there and I happened to meet him. 17:29.760 --> 17:32.724 I got to tour him around this monastery. 17:32.744 --> 17:35.208 He was a bit of a jerk. 17:38.413 --> 17:41.538 Very Christian and very pro-Christianity. 17:42.459 --> 17:44.442 So he was asking me about the difference 17:46.261 --> 17:47.643 Christianity and Buddhism. 17:48.725 --> 17:52.750 He said, well, do you believe that Jesus is the son of God or something? 17:52.770 --> 17:53.732 Oh, we don't have a problem with that. 17:55.014 --> 17:55.835 What do you have a problem with? 17:55.855 --> 18:01.223 Well, we have a problem maybe with the eternal soul, the idea of an eternal soul. 18:01.243 --> 18:03.406 And he said, you don't believe in an eternal soul? 18:03.426 --> 18:05.589 I said, we don't really believe in a soul at all. 18:05.609 --> 18:11.998 It was really a bizarre conversation with this king of another country. 18:15.877 --> 18:17.198 I don't remember what my point was. 18:17.338 --> 18:18.399 What was I talking about? 18:20.181 --> 18:22.723 What was I talking about? 18:22.743 --> 18:24.605 Yeah, I know. 18:24.625 --> 18:26.847 What was the point of that? 18:33.153 --> 18:34.615 Oh yeah, living in the forest? 18:35.035 --> 18:35.635 I don't remember. 18:35.675 --> 18:37.958 I had a point, a reason for telling you about this guy. 18:42.362 --> 18:43.723 Got caught up in my story. 18:46.117 --> 18:48.159 Makes you want to go off and live in the forest. 18:53.965 --> 18:57.128 How did I get talking about the king of Rwanda, of Uganda? 19:06.458 --> 19:07.599 It'll come to me someday. 19:08.740 --> 19:12.664 Maybe I'll replay this video back and try and remember what I was talking about. 19:16.137 --> 19:17.279 Having to punish people? 19:17.339 --> 19:18.260 No, it wasn't that. 19:18.300 --> 19:23.588 There's something about him that was related to what I was just talking about. 19:27.493 --> 19:30.778 Concepts. 19:30.798 --> 19:32.540 Anyway, stay in the present moment. 19:32.580 --> 19:34.103 That's the deal. 19:35.004 --> 19:38.268 How wonderful it is to be in the present moment. 19:38.288 --> 19:39.911 How it solves all your problems. 19:42.254 --> 19:43.596 How there's a real power to it. 19:44.639 --> 19:45.681 I'll figure it out. 19:45.982 --> 19:47.404 I'll tell you a good story tomorrow. 19:49.448 --> 19:50.210 Anyway, there you go. 19:50.230 --> 19:51.513 That's the Dhamma for tonight. 19:53.296 --> 19:54.959 That the mind is also impermanent. 19:55.019 --> 19:56.643 Memory is also impermanent. 19:56.743 --> 19:58.166 It just disappears like that. 19:59.027 --> 19:59.829 It's non-self. 20:00.791 --> 20:01.633 You can't control it. 20:02.995 --> 20:03.757 Okay, thank you all. 20:05.420 --> 20:06.462 That's the Dhamma for tonight. 20:19.891 --> 20:21.473 I do have something else to talk about. 20:21.513 --> 20:26.060 I'm assuming I don't... 20:26.260 --> 20:32.488 I know some of you, some of you I think I know, some of you I don't recognize, but maybe just because of your online names. 20:34.231 --> 20:35.032 But here's an idea. 20:35.052 --> 20:36.053 Is Robin here? 20:36.073 --> 20:36.694 Robin's here, no? 20:39.338 --> 20:46.708 I was thinking, I was talking actually with May, the Thai woman who helps us out. 20:48.697 --> 21:07.047 And she was going to come here to meditate in early May, and I said, oh, well, early May, I'm hoping to go back to, early May is my birthday, and I was hoping to go back to my place of birth for my birthday, meaning to go back to Manitoulin Island, just, I guess, to sort of say that I've been back. 21:11.415 --> 21:15.261 But I thought, well, why not go to where I was born? 21:16.304 --> 21:20.612 And we got talking, but I said, well, why don't we do a, what if we were to do a meditation? 21:20.693 --> 21:22.296 She said, oh, you should bring some people up with you. 21:22.316 --> 21:24.540 And I said, well, what if we did a meditation course up there? 21:26.684 --> 21:33.157 And I was thinking, there are a bunch of really nice resorts up on Manitoulin Island. 21:34.881 --> 21:37.165 And we could actually just book a resort for a week. 21:38.461 --> 21:43.526 and invite people to come and stay at this island resort. 21:43.586 --> 21:52.435 Now, I was looking, and it's actually not quite as cheap as I thought it would be, but we could talk about it. 21:52.455 --> 21:56.119 And if there's people who would like to go, you know, Manitoulin is beautiful. 21:56.179 --> 22:00.583 It's really, in May, it's the best time of year because it's not too hot. 22:00.643 --> 22:01.564 There's no mosquitoes. 22:02.745 --> 22:06.409 And yet it's very much in the forest. 22:07.840 --> 22:09.102 sort of in nature. 22:10.764 --> 22:19.995 So if people wanted to book a room at some resort, we could find the right resort and we could just get people to pay their room. 22:22.138 --> 22:26.263 Talking about people who have money, I don't know, maybe it's a ridiculous idea. 22:26.283 --> 22:29.147 And there are other ways we could book. 22:30.529 --> 22:34.033 One of my friends on Manitoulin is looking into it. 22:35.414 --> 22:41.903 Maybe we could book some cheaper space to sort of hold some kind of meditation course. 22:45.468 --> 22:47.811 Anyway, something to think about. 22:47.851 --> 22:58.246 If anyone's interested in that sort of idea, coming up to meditate in Manitoulin Island, or do a real forest retreat in Canada, let me know. 23:00.309 --> 23:03.193 OK, so we do have some questions. 23:08.135 --> 23:10.298 We'd have to take a van probably. 23:10.498 --> 23:11.639 We'd have to drive ourselves. 23:15.263 --> 23:15.544 Okay. 23:16.104 --> 23:17.166 Questions from the site. 23:17.386 --> 23:20.349 Oh, a question about offering meals and food. 23:22.372 --> 23:23.213 Hmm. 23:25.175 --> 23:29.420 If you're eating on campus with a food card, how would you go about adding money to that account? 23:29.520 --> 23:34.446 Well, there's really no need because there's like almost $2,000 on that account still, so... 23:36.265 --> 23:38.570 It's already been paid up for the next couple of years. 23:39.632 --> 23:44.020 And I'm getting lots of food from the Sri Lankan community here. 23:44.341 --> 23:49.431 More and more Sri Lankan people in the area are signing up to offer food. 23:51.655 --> 23:58.592 But from time to time I still do use Subway, Tim Hortons, Pita Pit, Starbucks card. 23:59.193 --> 24:03.724 The most useful so far has been Starbucks. 24:04.005 --> 24:05.027 Not so far, but this year. 24:05.669 --> 24:09.057 Because Starbucks is just the only convenient location. 24:10.690 --> 24:13.935 Um, Starbucks is like on campus. 24:14.015 --> 24:15.337 It's on my way to campus. 24:16.499 --> 24:20.745 And so a Starbucks card is, and it's not for coffee. 24:20.785 --> 24:29.458 I don't drink coffee at Starbucks, but they have oatmeal and they have lunch sandwiches and they have, uh, they actually have juice as well. 24:31.126 --> 24:32.408 nice juices in the evening. 24:32.428 --> 24:39.601 They even have salads, but the problem with the salads is they leave them out and you have to pick them up yourself, which technically isn't allowed. 24:40.603 --> 24:48.416 I'm only allowed to do this because theoretically they're offering on behalf, they're giving it on behalf of whoever has left money with them. 24:50.921 --> 24:52.864 But they don't give everything to you. 24:54.262 --> 24:58.833 Anyway, but thank you Kathy for asking, but it's really fine. 24:58.853 --> 25:00.657 There's lots and lots of support. 25:01.900 --> 25:02.682 I'm getting enough food. 25:07.754 --> 25:12.625 Can I move my legs if they fall asleep during meditation and should the head stay in one position? 25:13.769 --> 25:18.216 You don't have to, because if they fall asleep, you just be mindful of it and keep sitting. 25:18.978 --> 25:25.589 But if you need to move more for pain, pain would be something that would really cause you to want to move. 25:31.879 --> 25:35.946 Then you would just say to yourself, wanting to move, wanting to move, moving, moving. 25:37.360 --> 25:39.784 And the head is the head the same, if you want to move the head. 25:40.224 --> 25:44.711 If it does move, you can just raise it back up, intending to raise, raising, raising. 25:53.364 --> 25:58.031 Does the approach of what can this meditation give me, will it make me happy, prevent progress? 25:59.894 --> 26:00.735 I mean, it can. 26:02.015 --> 26:08.102 Yeah, it can certainly become a hindrance when you're worried about that or when you're doubting or unsure. 26:08.162 --> 26:15.872 How can one ensure equanimity simply knowing the disliking frustration? 26:15.912 --> 26:21.458 Is it not necessary to try to intellectualize it by trying to replace my wrong attitude with the right attitude? 26:22.720 --> 26:24.923 No, right attitude has to come from wisdom. 26:25.403 --> 26:26.464 It comes from understanding. 26:26.505 --> 26:26.925 You can't 26:29.251 --> 26:33.579 You can't artificially create or intellectually create right attitude. 26:33.619 --> 26:36.144 It has to come from seeing things clearly as they are. 26:37.366 --> 26:42.635 Once you see reality clearly as it is, the right attitude follows. 26:43.677 --> 26:44.138 Excuse me. 26:48.944 --> 26:51.647 My question is on free will and non-self. 26:51.667 --> 26:59.556 With observation, I see whatever I do is because of things arising in my mind, my likes and dislikes, and judge it based on knowledge of Dhammas. 27:00.617 --> 27:12.010 Even when I incline my mind to focus in one direction or the other, it's based on these things are happening. 27:12.050 --> 27:13.872 The only thing that I can do is observe. 27:18.442 --> 27:19.003 I don't get it. 27:22.266 --> 27:24.969 I see whatever I do is because of things arising in my mind. 27:24.989 --> 27:25.510 Okay. 27:25.670 --> 27:30.154 Even when I incline my mind to focus on these factors, these things are happening. 27:30.215 --> 27:32.257 The only thing I can do is observe. 27:33.578 --> 27:35.800 You know, there is no good view about free will. 27:35.861 --> 27:43.789 If you're worried about free will, you should say worried, worried, or speculating, or confused, or doubting, or so on. 27:44.069 --> 27:44.770 Just let it go. 27:55.094 --> 27:56.556 Yeah, I think you're overthinking. 27:57.217 --> 27:58.378 You know what I'm going to say already. 28:00.040 --> 28:00.621 I mean, it's fine. 28:00.641 --> 28:02.483 It's normal in meditation to think. 28:03.184 --> 28:05.206 Just remind yourself, thinking, thinking. 28:08.730 --> 28:11.193 Present moment. 28:11.213 --> 28:12.815 All right, do we have some questions? 28:14.077 --> 28:15.579 Oh, here, you're copying them in. 28:21.926 --> 28:25.050 If you want to support the monastery... 28:26.414 --> 28:27.295 That's always good. 28:28.437 --> 28:29.539 You don't have to give me food. 28:33.785 --> 28:39.994 Pante, do you think King Bimbisara wouldn't have punished criminals since he was a Sotapanna? 28:42.458 --> 28:47.365 Well, yeah, King Bimbisara would never have had anyone killed, of course. 28:48.387 --> 28:50.891 Doesn't mean he wouldn't... No, he was in... 28:51.391 --> 28:52.573 There were cases... 28:54.241 --> 29:00.092 Actually, I'm not sure, but no, certainly he was a great king, a noble king. 29:00.733 --> 29:01.835 He would never have punished. 29:04.220 --> 29:05.001 Not in that way. 29:08.948 --> 29:12.054 Unfortunately, his reign was cut short by his son. 29:13.777 --> 29:15.220 But yeah, during the time that he 29:15.993 --> 29:17.755 I mean, he wasn't always a Buddhist. 29:17.815 --> 29:19.196 He didn't originally... 29:20.638 --> 29:23.441 He was a king for many years before he met the Buddha. 29:24.262 --> 29:29.968 But once he met the Buddha and then became a Sotapanna, from that time on, he would have never done anything cruel. 29:32.431 --> 29:33.752 Not overly cruel. 29:33.772 --> 29:41.781 You know, Sotapanna can still be mean, but not... not, you know, reason... not... 29:43.837 --> 29:50.289 Not mean in the way most of us think, but they could still get angry and be somehow cruel to people. 29:54.396 --> 29:58.183 And they wouldn't torture them, certainly not cause them to be put to death. 30:23.155 --> 30:25.059 I remember what it was. 30:26.242 --> 30:38.228 So this king of Uganda, at the last minute, after I've told him this thing about the soul and he's not really impressed by my whole philosophy, 30:40.385 --> 30:53.494 he says to me and this other monk, and I've got a picture right before, they took a picture of us, and I've still got this picture right before he said it, then he turns to me and he says, well, enjoy your vacation in the most snide way possible. 30:53.555 --> 30:55.218 You know, he was just totally condescending. 30:57.123 --> 30:58.225 And so the point was, 31:00.483 --> 31:08.257 People think of going off into the forest as a sort of vacation, a means of escaping your problems. 31:08.577 --> 31:14.367 And the thought was that people say it's about escaping real life, right? 31:14.387 --> 31:15.229 It's a vacation. 31:15.970 --> 31:22.221 And real life, people often ask me, well, how can I incorporate meditation into real life? 31:23.922 --> 31:26.105 which is kind of absurd from our point of view. 31:26.125 --> 31:30.171 We're like, no, no, we go off into the forest in order to live real life. 31:31.313 --> 31:36.100 The life in society is totally fake and contrived. 31:39.365 --> 31:40.287 So there you go. 31:41.388 --> 31:43.131 That was how the talk was supposed to end. 31:45.895 --> 31:46.496 Thank you all. 31:46.676 --> 31:47.297 Have a good night.