1 00:00:01,634 --> 00:00:04,659 Okay, welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada. 2 00:00:06,702 --> 00:00:14,393 Today we continue on with verses 51 and 52, which read as follows. 3 00:00:18,019 --> 00:00:30,257 Yathapi ruchirang pupang Vannavantang agandhakang Evang subhasita vaja 4 00:00:31,925 --> 00:00:55,837 Almost the same. 5 00:00:55,897 --> 00:00:58,000 They're actually a pair of verses. 6 00:00:59,923 --> 00:01:01,645 And the meaning is, 7 00:01:02,975 --> 00:01:32,104 just like a beautiful flower just means with beauty endowed with color but without a smell without a scent without a beautiful without a perfume such are 8 00:01:33,755 --> 00:01:54,143 well-spoken words are so too well-spoken words do not bear fruit for one who doesn't act according to them. 9 00:01:57,143 --> 00:02:11,202 And then the second one, just as a beautiful flower endowed with color and with a beautiful perfume as well. 10 00:02:13,565 --> 00:02:23,758 Or just so, words that are well spoken do bear fruit for one who acts according to them. 11 00:02:26,945 --> 00:02:47,907 So a fairly standard verse, the sort of thing you'd expect from the Buddhist teaching, which places so much emphasis on practice, on sincere appreciation and 12 00:02:50,114 --> 00:02:57,850 realization of the teachings as opposed to just intellectual appreciation or understanding. 13 00:03:01,438 --> 00:03:06,629 It's an interesting story that goes along with this verse. 14 00:03:06,669 --> 00:03:08,072 Interesting in that it 15 00:03:09,908 --> 00:03:18,764 As with many of the stories, there's not much explanation as to how the story relates. 16 00:03:19,305 --> 00:03:26,537 In this case, it's not even immediately clear why the story is told as it is in relation to the verse. 17 00:03:28,180 --> 00:03:28,982 But I'll explain it. 18 00:03:29,182 --> 00:03:33,630 I think I can see where it's all coming from. 19 00:03:33,710 --> 00:03:34,752 It's quite interesting, actually. 20 00:03:36,082 --> 00:03:37,203 It's a short story. 21 00:03:37,544 --> 00:03:59,372 The story goes, and a little bit of background to the story is that in the Buddhist time, there was a tradition to take the eight precepts for the Uposatha days, which 22 00:04:02,153 --> 00:04:32,127 would have been at the very least the Poya day but seems to have potentially been a weekly thing where on the eighth day and then the fifteenth day of the lunar cycle so every lunar month has 30 days 29 or 30 days and so the first after eight days the eighth day was the half moon 23 00:04:33,659 --> 00:04:38,865 Then the 15th day would be the, if I got it right, the full moon. 24 00:04:40,186 --> 00:04:54,061 And then the 22nd day, I got it right now, 15th plus 8, 23rd day would be the half moon again. 25 00:04:55,422 --> 00:04:57,985 And then the 29th or the 30th day would be the empty moon. 26 00:04:59,467 --> 00:05:03,531 So basically, with a little bit of fudging there, it turns out to be 30 days. 27 00:05:07,173 --> 00:05:22,962 And so it would be standard for the people who are endowed with virtue and goodness, but not yet enlightened. 28 00:05:23,022 --> 00:05:26,548 It would be their habit to go to the 29 00:05:28,739 --> 00:05:50,933 go to Jetavana or wherever the Buddha was staying or wherever the monks were staying and request the eight precepts just as we do now in Sri Lanka they do on the Poya day except they only tend to keep them till 5pm it's not true some places like Mitrigala or Mahamayona I think they do the whole 24 hours 30 00:05:57,477 --> 00:06:11,173 But the background to this story is that for enlightened beings, anagamis, anagamis on up, it seems they would keep the eight precepts naturally. 31 00:06:14,056 --> 00:06:20,464 I'm not sure that's ubiquitous, but it does seem, or whether that's... 32 00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:30,508 true for every anagami, but it seems to be, according to the commentary, true that, and it may be in the Tipitika somewhere, that an anagami always keeps at least the precepts. 33 00:06:30,548 --> 00:06:36,254 I think there's even some idea being floated around there that they keep ten precepts. 34 00:06:36,654 --> 00:06:43,321 You know, you have the story of Gatakara, who, he looked after his mother, but he didn't use money, it seems. 35 00:06:43,581 --> 00:06:44,502 He may not have used money. 36 00:06:46,283 --> 00:06:50,147 Anyway, the point is they have natural morality, so they don't go to 37 00:06:52,152 --> 00:06:53,735 They don't go and request the precepts. 38 00:06:53,855 --> 00:06:56,641 They're always keeping them. 39 00:06:56,661 --> 00:07:03,955 And there was one lay disciple of the Buddha who was an Anagami. 40 00:07:05,658 --> 00:07:10,988 He was in this category, but he would still go every Uposatha day to hear the Buddha's teaching. 41 00:07:13,668 --> 00:07:15,332 And here's where we get to the background story. 42 00:07:15,352 --> 00:07:22,529 He went to hear the Buddha's teaching and he paid respect to the Buddha and then he sat down to one side. 43 00:07:22,569 --> 00:07:29,325 And then King Pasenadi came along and he thought to himself, well, what do I do? 44 00:07:29,365 --> 00:07:30,748 Do I stand up? 45 00:07:30,728 --> 00:07:35,696 for King Prasenadi and pay respect to him. 46 00:07:35,776 --> 00:07:36,858 If I don't, he'll get angry. 47 00:07:37,479 --> 00:07:48,997 But if I do, then I'll be disrespecting the Buddha because it was apparently a custom when you're in the presence of a higher person, you would never stand up to salute a lower person. 48 00:07:49,558 --> 00:07:55,808 And because he held the Buddha as higher than the Badesa Raja, the Buddha was the Raja, the Agaraja, 49 00:07:56,463 --> 00:08:25,423 the highest king, the king of the Dhamma and Pasenadi was just a Padesa Raja which is the king of the country so because he held the Buddha higher he thought well I'll have to just sit still even though I know Pasenadi is going to get angry because King Pasenadi wasn't wasn't enlightened by any means and Pasenadi saw this and saw one of his his 50 00:08:27,715 --> 00:08:29,498 What do you call people under the king? 51 00:08:29,879 --> 00:08:31,742 Subjects, one of his subjects. 52 00:08:31,762 --> 00:08:32,863 Boy, my English is terrible. 53 00:08:33,985 --> 00:08:36,850 One of his subjects failing to stand up and salute him. 54 00:08:39,014 --> 00:08:40,115 And he got very angry. 55 00:08:41,658 --> 00:08:53,217 And the Buddha, of course, understanding what was going on in King Pasenadi's mind, he extolled the virtues of this lay disciple. 56 00:08:55,947 --> 00:08:56,788 Oh, how great he is. 57 00:08:57,730 --> 00:08:59,172 This is my lay disciple. 58 00:08:59,232 --> 00:09:05,862 He's endowed with virtue. 59 00:09:05,922 --> 00:09:10,389 He's very wise and humble and so on. 60 00:09:11,210 --> 00:09:11,651 Patient. 61 00:09:12,372 --> 00:09:13,654 Doesn't get angry easily. 62 00:09:15,016 --> 00:09:16,538 And Bhisenadi was appeased. 63 00:09:16,518 --> 00:09:30,120 for the time being but then later on Pasenadi saw this lay disciple walking near the palace and so he had his guards call him in and he was walking with his sunshade and sandals on. 64 00:09:30,460 --> 00:09:35,809 Immediately he took down his sunshade and took off his sandals and walked and paid respect to the king and stood to one side. 65 00:09:35,789 --> 00:09:42,098 And the king gets all sarcastic and says, oh, so I see you. 66 00:09:42,879 --> 00:09:43,600 That was nice of you. 67 00:09:43,820 --> 00:09:49,128 Why did you take down the sunshade and take off your sandals and pay respect to me? 68 00:09:49,148 --> 00:09:50,590 He said, because you're the king. 69 00:09:50,630 --> 00:09:54,796 And I said, oh, so today you realized that, did you? 70 00:09:55,677 --> 00:09:57,780 You just realized that today, did you, that I'm the king? 71 00:09:59,667 --> 00:10:01,970 This guy's an anagami, so nothing's going to faze him. 72 00:10:01,990 --> 00:10:03,472 He's not like, oh, I'm sorry. 73 00:10:03,492 --> 00:10:06,336 He says, no, I always knew that you were the king. 74 00:10:06,356 --> 00:10:08,800 And I said, what do you mean? 75 00:10:08,820 --> 00:10:09,761 I saw you. 76 00:10:10,061 --> 00:10:13,126 You didn't even stand up to pay respect to me when you were sitting with the Buddha. 77 00:10:14,408 --> 00:10:21,237 And so I explained to him, like an adult would explain to a child patiently. 78 00:10:22,415 --> 00:10:24,078 Words that he could understand. 79 00:10:24,098 --> 00:10:26,962 I was sitting with the Agaraja. 80 00:10:27,343 --> 00:10:32,210 I couldn't stand up and pay respect to the Badesa Raja, the king of the country. 81 00:10:32,491 --> 00:10:33,813 I was sitting with the highest king. 82 00:10:37,419 --> 00:10:39,462 Anyway, there's a point to the story. 83 00:10:39,482 --> 00:10:42,366 It's kind of weird how this all fits in here because it doesn't have anything to do with the verse. 84 00:10:42,386 --> 00:10:47,815 But the point being that he then tries to... 85 00:10:49,820 --> 00:11:11,862 use this to shame this layman into teaching his queens because he has this idea that Buddha had said that oh this is he's a very wise wise meditator and wise teacher so he says all right fine well to make it up for me you can 86 00:11:11,842 --> 00:11:16,008 I want you to teach Mallika and Wasabha Katia, is her name? 87 00:11:17,530 --> 00:11:32,712 Wasabha, I'm going to mangle the names, I think it's Wasabha Katia, who was the daughter of Mahanama, who got us in trouble in the last verse with Vitadaba, whatever his name was. 88 00:11:32,732 --> 00:11:33,733 Wasabha Katia. 89 00:11:34,855 --> 00:11:35,135 Wasabha Katia. 90 00:11:35,155 --> 00:11:36,337 Wasabha Katia. 91 00:11:36,357 --> 00:11:36,638 Wasabha Katia. 92 00:11:36,658 --> 00:11:36,938 Wasabha Katia. 93 00:11:37,508 --> 00:11:38,710 Virudabha. 94 00:11:39,070 --> 00:11:40,973 You know there's actually different ways to say his name. 95 00:11:41,334 --> 00:11:43,277 Virudabha. 96 00:11:43,297 --> 00:11:44,839 Different spellings. 97 00:11:44,859 --> 00:11:45,901 But yeah, Virudabha, right? 98 00:11:46,822 --> 00:11:49,486 Virudabha was the son of, was her son. 99 00:11:49,506 --> 00:11:54,774 The whole thing, Pasenadi, if you remember, Pasenadi married Malika. 100 00:11:54,914 --> 00:11:55,495 Malika, right? 101 00:11:55,535 --> 00:11:56,657 Was it Malika? 102 00:11:57,518 --> 00:12:00,723 And then he, what was this? 103 00:12:00,763 --> 00:12:02,065 This was one of our recent verses. 104 00:12:03,665 --> 00:12:07,452 the monks wouldn't stay and eat his food. 105 00:12:07,572 --> 00:12:11,560 And he thought, well, if I marry one of the Sakyas, then they'll respect me. 106 00:12:11,580 --> 00:12:13,083 They'll think I'm related to the Buddha. 107 00:12:13,143 --> 00:12:16,991 So they'll come and stay with me, which of course was a silly idea, but he did. 108 00:12:17,011 --> 00:12:20,357 And he demanded a wife and they sent him the daughter of a slave. 109 00:12:20,337 --> 00:12:47,965 who Mahanama had fooled around with a slave and had a daughter and she was quite beautiful and so they sent her along and it caused big problems when they found out and Pasenadi's son killed all the Sakyas as a result so that's who was the bhaktiya so he said he wanted to teach his two queens, his two queens wanted to learn the Dhamma they were both quite interested and so he needed a teacher and he said you can come and teach me teach them 110 00:12:49,784 --> 00:12:54,969 And this layman, he was adamant, he said, no, I can't do that. 111 00:12:55,950 --> 00:12:57,071 He said, what do you mean you can't do that? 112 00:12:57,752 --> 00:12:58,213 I'm the king. 113 00:12:58,993 --> 00:13:04,619 And he said, look, if I knew that, it's very dangerous for a layman to be in the king's harem. 114 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:10,385 Any rumor that goes around could get him in big trouble. 115 00:13:10,445 --> 00:13:11,726 It's not appropriate for me to do it. 116 00:13:12,247 --> 00:13:14,509 I shouldn't be doing it when it's the work of a monk. 117 00:13:16,058 --> 00:13:22,016 So the Sainadi argued with him and finally said, fine, then you may go. 118 00:13:22,096 --> 00:13:25,245 And then he went to the Buddha and asked the Buddha to send a monk. 119 00:13:25,265 --> 00:13:26,649 The Buddha sent Ananda. 120 00:13:26,670 --> 00:13:30,220 And Ananda ended up being the teacher of Malika and Vasubhagatya. 121 00:13:32,950 --> 00:13:34,412 So that's the background story. 122 00:13:35,033 --> 00:13:39,760 Ananda tries to teach the story that leads up to the verses. 123 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:50,455 Ananda, while he is teaching this, teaching the Dhamma to these two queens and of course all their attendants, he finds that Mallika is actually quite quick. 124 00:13:51,557 --> 00:14:01,371 She's very quick to memorize the teaching, quick to, she's very good at retaining it, keeping it in mind, pondering it. 125 00:14:03,005 --> 00:14:05,429 And moreover, she seems inclined to put it into practice. 126 00:14:07,212 --> 00:14:10,016 Whereas Vasubhakatia doesn't remember anything, doesn't pay attention. 127 00:14:10,958 --> 00:14:13,602 She's like one of those people, they say, that keep it in their lap. 128 00:14:15,525 --> 00:14:19,892 When they're sitting there, they can remember it, but as soon as they stand up, it falls out of their lap. 129 00:14:20,974 --> 00:14:23,157 It's like they keep the teachings in their lap, they say. 130 00:14:25,448 --> 00:14:34,385 The implication seems to be that she wasn't paying attention, she wasn't really sincerely interested, which is the case. 131 00:14:34,426 --> 00:14:35,808 You can't expect everyone to. 132 00:14:39,836 --> 00:14:46,950 Not everyone responds to the Dhamma the same, responds or appreciates the teaching in the same way. 133 00:14:48,517 --> 00:14:53,384 Much of the teaching is uninteresting on the sensual level. 134 00:14:53,444 --> 00:14:56,568 It doesn't inspire excitement in the mind. 135 00:14:57,369 --> 00:15:08,866 Some of it is dry and dull and requires great patience and depth of mind to appreciate. 136 00:15:10,268 --> 00:15:14,794 I would say actually the teaching overall is quite inspiring, but you have to be interested in 137 00:15:16,445 --> 00:15:21,190 meditation, you have to be able to free your mind from the sort of things that queens are not free from. 138 00:15:22,551 --> 00:15:29,559 Queens will often you would assume because they just have to sit around and look pretty in those times, it was quite a horrible sort of life to imagine. 139 00:15:31,261 --> 00:15:35,005 Sitting around looking pretty all day, that's that's your job. 140 00:15:35,025 --> 00:15:43,093 Like a flower, hence the verse, you know, when the Buddha comes out with the, he likens these two queens to flowers. 141 00:15:46,229 --> 00:16:04,997 But the point would be that it would be very easy to get caught up in the vanity of it and the attachment to sensual pleasures and sensual desire, beauty and scent and so on. 142 00:16:07,002 --> 00:16:23,285 And so the Buddha, so Ananda came back every day from King Saram to having taught these two queens, and the Buddha asked him one day, how's it going with the two queens, Mallika and Vasubhakatia? 143 00:16:23,305 --> 00:16:24,446 Are they learning the teaching? 144 00:16:24,506 --> 00:16:25,668 Are they putting it into practice? 145 00:16:25,708 --> 00:16:27,210 Are they remembering it? 146 00:16:28,452 --> 00:16:29,934 Are they respectful? 147 00:16:29,994 --> 00:16:31,055 Sakkacha is the word. 148 00:16:31,075 --> 00:16:33,298 Sakkacha is kind of respectful, attentive. 149 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:35,862 Are they... 150 00:16:37,462 --> 00:17:06,608 putting it sincere are they being sincere about it and Ananda said well Malika is very sincere about it and she's learning it and keeping it in mind and seems to be putting it into practice but he says but your your relative the daughter of your relative Nyati Dita or something like that the daughter of your relative your the Sakyan Masabakatya is a 151 00:17:08,309 --> 00:17:12,775 She's not picking it up. 152 00:17:14,338 --> 00:17:15,920 And the Buddha gives the verse. 153 00:17:15,940 --> 00:17:17,723 He says, yes, this is the way it is. 154 00:17:17,743 --> 00:17:19,705 Not all flowers have beautiful scent. 155 00:17:19,726 --> 00:17:32,244 And in the same way, not everyone puts the teachings into practice. 156 00:17:32,264 --> 00:17:35,749 Or you could think of it as kind of an admonishment. 157 00:17:35,809 --> 00:17:37,371 But the interesting thing here is 158 00:17:38,110 --> 00:17:47,411 If you look at the background, at first I couldn't see how this all fit together for the verse, because it's not quite clear that there was anything to do with practice. 159 00:17:47,491 --> 00:17:51,681 Ananda was going to teach them the teaching, but it doesn't say anything about them putting it into practice. 160 00:17:53,315 --> 00:17:57,321 And it certainly doesn't say anything about them speaking. 161 00:17:58,643 --> 00:18:01,027 But there's another interesting way of looking at this story. 162 00:18:01,087 --> 00:18:04,412 You have another two people, right? 163 00:18:04,432 --> 00:18:12,505 He's talking about the two queens as being flowers, or you could say speech as being like a flower. 164 00:18:13,784 --> 00:18:26,804 And so it's kind of an admonishment for Ananda to give to the two queens, not to just be content with hearing the Dhamma, not to just be content with learning the Dhamma, but should actually put it into practice. 165 00:18:26,844 --> 00:18:28,487 It's useless to them. 166 00:18:29,508 --> 00:18:30,089 It's useless. 167 00:18:31,111 --> 00:18:35,237 Good speech is useless if you don't put it into practice. 168 00:18:35,257 --> 00:18:39,083 But there's another two people, and that's the layman and Ananda. 169 00:18:41,105 --> 00:18:53,382 And why you can see this is because the beginning story talks about how for an enlightened being, an anagami, they don't even have to hear that. 170 00:18:53,402 --> 00:18:57,207 They don't have to say, I'm keeping the precepts, for example, which is what the commentary says. 171 00:18:57,227 --> 00:18:59,270 It says they just keep it naturally. 172 00:18:59,310 --> 00:19:02,134 They just practice the teachings naturally. 173 00:19:05,152 --> 00:19:11,365 So he, and he wasn't teaching it, he wasn't this layman was 174 00:19:14,770 --> 00:19:44,203 not reciting it and who knows maybe he didn't have so much great knowledge and he wasn't a monk but here he was practicing it quite well practicing it almost to perfection and then we have Ananda and you see this occurring more than just in this instance where the Buddha will give these subtle pokes to Ananda because Ananda was brilliant he was at the top of the class photographic memory 175 00:19:49,330 --> 00:19:51,575 And yet here he was sitting at the bottom of the totem pole. 176 00:19:51,595 --> 00:19:57,107 It was just a sodapana, which is nothing to shake a stick, more than you can shake a stick at. 177 00:19:57,347 --> 00:20:00,474 A sodapana is something quite special. 178 00:20:00,574 --> 00:20:02,418 It's a great, great thing. 179 00:20:02,679 --> 00:20:06,968 And he prays on and on many occasions for his learning and for his wisdom. 180 00:20:08,568 --> 00:20:20,640 But it seems to me that a better way of looking at this story is the Buddha taking a chance to remind Ananda and to even use Ananda as an example in this case. 181 00:20:21,982 --> 00:20:24,204 Anyway, the verse stands on its own. 182 00:20:24,224 --> 00:20:36,837 The two verses stand very much on their own and as sort of an epitome of much of what the Buddha reminded his students and which we try to remind Buddhists and remind ourselves 183 00:20:38,420 --> 00:20:45,122 in our own practice, that it's not good enough for us to have an intellectual appreciation of the teachings. 184 00:20:47,110 --> 00:20:49,433 This isn't what the Buddha would want for us. 185 00:20:49,533 --> 00:20:59,463 And these kind of verses are in this way good to keep in mind and recall to mind. 186 00:21:00,164 --> 00:21:07,812 They have a great power to kick you in the butt and set you in motion, set us on the path. 187 00:21:08,573 --> 00:21:14,940 We realize that appreciation of the teachings isn't enough. 188 00:21:16,253 --> 00:21:18,696 Even teaching the teachings is certainly not enough. 189 00:21:19,457 --> 00:21:28,148 Being able to recite the teachings, if you can tell me what the Four Noble Truths are, that isn't what the Buddha wanted for us. 190 00:21:32,714 --> 00:21:43,408 We see this very much in cultural Buddhism where we have Buddhist societies and it's not just in Asia but also here in North America. 191 00:21:44,789 --> 00:21:49,515 where you become Buddhist and somehow that takes on a meaning for you. 192 00:21:52,078 --> 00:21:56,284 Just being Buddhist somehow takes on a meaning for you as opposed to practicing Buddhism. 193 00:21:58,086 --> 00:22:07,438 And I've talked about this before, how it doesn't seem right to call yourself a Buddhist for any reason other than the fact that you're practicing the Buddhist teaching. 194 00:22:09,325 --> 00:22:18,567 Just like you couldn't call yourself a Marxist unless you were acting according to the teachings of Karl Marx. 195 00:22:18,587 --> 00:22:23,098 Or Groucho Marx, depending. 196 00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:41,919 And you see this in, I've seen this, I've lived in Thailand, I've been involved with many, in Sri Lanka, with many different cultural Buddhist communities, even here in the West. 197 00:22:47,268 --> 00:22:49,171 And you'll see this on all levels of the Buddhist teaching. 198 00:22:49,231 --> 00:22:56,123 Morality, for example, once I went to a dinner, a lunch, not dinner, lunch, 199 00:22:57,402 --> 00:23:02,969 at some lay people's house, I won't say which cultural group it was. 200 00:23:07,715 --> 00:23:19,591 They invited the monks to their house and so we sat down and I was invited to give the five precepts because they always like to see the Canadian monk give the precepts. 201 00:23:20,893 --> 00:23:24,237 So I gave them the five precepts, everyone took the precepts and then they fed us. 202 00:23:26,208 --> 00:23:33,697 We ate and right after we ate, we were sitting there and they took all our food away and then they brought out food for everyone else. 203 00:23:35,460 --> 00:23:39,725 And I sat there and we were just kind of winding up and getting ready to leave. 204 00:23:39,985 --> 00:23:45,973 And then I saw the coolers of beer come out and they started passing around bottles of beer to everyone. 205 00:23:47,956 --> 00:23:53,042 And I thought it had been about a half an hour, half an hour after I gave them the five percent. 206 00:23:55,013 --> 00:24:09,603 This is an extreme example of For one who doesn't put the teachings into practice, they're useless. 207 00:24:10,104 --> 00:24:14,473 They're just like a flower that has no smell, has no scent. 208 00:24:19,128 --> 00:24:23,813 So taking the five precepts, taking the eight precepts is not the important thing. 209 00:24:24,093 --> 00:24:24,794 So this we have. 210 00:24:25,475 --> 00:24:28,057 This is what I scolded everyone about on Vesak. 211 00:24:29,219 --> 00:24:36,787 That you can't just take the precepts without having any intention of keeping them. 212 00:24:38,689 --> 00:24:41,532 Vikalabhojana means you have to stay for the whole vikala. 213 00:24:42,873 --> 00:24:44,595 Otherwise it's not really keeping it. 214 00:24:52,253 --> 00:24:54,441 And the same goes for concentration. 215 00:24:54,561 --> 00:25:03,192 For meditation, it's easy to have an understanding of meditation and to know the technique. 216 00:25:14,140 --> 00:25:15,982 It's very easy to teach meditation. 217 00:25:16,062 --> 00:25:19,386 Teaching meditation and practicing meditation are two very different skills. 218 00:25:20,647 --> 00:25:25,893 There was a meditation teacher in our monastery who was still smoking cigarettes and I thought that was quite odd. 219 00:25:34,143 --> 00:25:38,248 To see someone teaching objectivity. 220 00:25:38,948 --> 00:25:40,550 But this is the case. 221 00:25:40,630 --> 00:25:41,812 They're two very different skills. 222 00:25:42,472 --> 00:25:43,894 Teaching meditation is 223 00:25:45,123 --> 00:25:50,912 It's difficult, but it's difficult in many ways it's difficult in a different way from actually practicing. 224 00:25:51,873 --> 00:26:10,841 So you see this often people after they finish meditation course they run back, rush back home to try to teach all their friends meditation and end up spending more time trying to convince others to meditate rather than doing the hard work of trying to cultivate their own meditation practice. 225 00:26:10,861 --> 00:26:13,645 Like I think everyone in this room 226 00:26:15,413 --> 00:26:45,066 knows about anapanasati about practicing the four satipatthana probably all of most of the people in this room could rattle off the four satipatthana for me but this is a quite different quite a different thing from actually being able to practice it if you look through all of the buddhist teaching so much of it is just about how to sit in meditation how to be objective how to be here and now the five khandas the five aggregates it does you nothing to know what they are 227 00:26:46,328 --> 00:26:47,569 until you actually look at them. 228 00:27:00,401 --> 00:27:13,213 But I think most pronounced is this concept of knowing the teaching but not putting it into practice is under the heading of wisdom. 229 00:27:15,218 --> 00:27:23,596 Quite often we'll see Buddhists talking the talk, but not walking the walk. 230 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:35,202 Very erudite scholars teaching Buddhism in university and giving dhamma talks that are just top notch. 231 00:27:38,101 --> 00:27:39,483 but not practicing themselves. 232 00:27:40,324 --> 00:27:41,826 I've given stories about this before. 233 00:27:41,887 --> 00:27:45,251 There's the story of Ducca Potila, how he memorized the whole Tapitaka. 234 00:27:45,752 --> 00:27:46,493 So he knew everything. 235 00:27:48,035 --> 00:27:56,668 And yet he, Buddha still called him empty book. 236 00:27:56,688 --> 00:28:00,173 And this monk who was a teacher and all of his students became enlightened. 237 00:28:00,193 --> 00:28:02,657 I've taught you that one before. 238 00:28:02,697 --> 00:28:06,943 And then finally he ran off into the forest and started meditating and 239 00:28:08,324 --> 00:28:12,333 He was such a good teacher that when he started crying, the angels started crying. 240 00:28:13,015 --> 00:28:14,438 And they said, he said, why are you crying? 241 00:28:14,458 --> 00:28:17,084 And the angel said, well, you're such a good teacher. 242 00:28:17,104 --> 00:28:20,372 I thought if you're crying, then it must be the way to become enlightened. 243 00:28:20,392 --> 00:28:21,594 So they cried along with him. 244 00:28:23,278 --> 00:28:24,361 But he was such a good teacher. 245 00:28:24,381 --> 00:28:26,265 He knew everything. 246 00:28:26,937 --> 00:28:36,430 This is a real danger in Buddhism because it can be so easily misconstrued as a philosophical teaching or an intellectual teaching. 247 00:28:37,632 --> 00:28:41,938 And people can very easily get caught up in learning the Buddhist teaching, studying the Buddhist teaching. 248 00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,124 And lots of crazy things happen when you just focus on the study. 249 00:28:46,164 --> 00:28:47,306 I've seen some. 250 00:28:47,326 --> 00:28:48,928 This doesn't just go with... 251 00:28:50,900 --> 00:28:54,267 with the large populations of Buddhists in Asia. 252 00:28:55,028 --> 00:28:58,475 But this man from England, he said he'd read the Tipitaka twice. 253 00:28:58,535 --> 00:29:00,760 He told me he'd read the Tipitaka twice in Pali. 254 00:29:01,902 --> 00:29:03,966 Read the Tipitaka in Pali twice. 255 00:29:06,030 --> 00:29:07,373 And he had some weird ideas. 256 00:29:08,163 --> 00:29:15,173 He had this idea that becoming enlightened was, you can only become enlightened by hearing the Buddha's voice. 257 00:29:16,394 --> 00:29:25,327 It's by hearing the Buddha's voice that you could imagine, having read the Thabitika twice, he had this view that there was some magic quality to the Buddha's voice that enlightened people. 258 00:29:27,630 --> 00:29:29,833 And that's what is Buddhism. 259 00:29:31,619 --> 00:29:32,380 Scary stuff. 260 00:29:32,860 --> 00:29:37,805 He also thought that, just as a side note, we had an argument, not an argument, it was a friendly argument. 261 00:29:38,346 --> 00:29:43,171 He's actually a well-known Buddhist scholar, and I met him in Bangkok, and we spent an evening together. 262 00:29:45,573 --> 00:29:46,555 Remember, who was it? 263 00:29:46,855 --> 00:29:52,040 Mahakasapa was going on alms round, and the leper drops a finger in his bowl. 264 00:29:52,881 --> 00:29:53,622 Have you heard this story? 265 00:29:54,002 --> 00:29:55,324 There's a leper, and his finger falls. 266 00:29:55,344 --> 00:30:00,529 He's giving food to Mahakasapa, and his finger falls off into the bowl of food. 267 00:30:03,597 --> 00:30:05,301 And how did the conversation start? 268 00:30:05,321 --> 00:30:07,204 He said, we're talking about meat eating, I think. 269 00:30:08,828 --> 00:30:16,063 And he said, well, you know, arahants, we were basically saying that, you know, vegetarianism is not, it's not certainly not spelled out. 270 00:30:16,263 --> 00:30:21,354 Obviously, the Buddha didn't require vegetarianism from his students. 271 00:30:21,394 --> 00:30:22,416 That was Devadatta. 272 00:30:24,421 --> 00:30:30,090 And he said, yeah, I mean, I think we were talking about how hard it would be to be a monk. 273 00:30:30,170 --> 00:30:31,673 And he said, I don't think I could ever be a monk. 274 00:30:31,893 --> 00:30:36,841 What you have to go through, like he said, like Mahakasapa, when he had to eat the leper's finger. 275 00:30:40,888 --> 00:30:41,589 And I said, what? 276 00:30:41,629 --> 00:30:46,297 Wait a minute, this isn't the story I remember. 277 00:30:47,719 --> 00:30:51,205 And he said, yeah, I remember the finger fell off and it says that he picked it up and ate it. 278 00:30:52,771 --> 00:30:55,617 And I said, no, I don't think that's what it says. 279 00:30:55,637 --> 00:30:59,486 I think it says he took the finger out and ate the food. 280 00:31:01,350 --> 00:31:04,277 And so we weren't upset. 281 00:31:04,297 --> 00:31:05,881 It wasn't an argument or anything. 282 00:31:05,901 --> 00:31:06,863 It was just a debate. 283 00:31:06,903 --> 00:31:07,785 He was like, oh, really? 284 00:31:07,825 --> 00:31:08,547 And he said, oh. 285 00:31:09,168 --> 00:31:11,353 And so I said, wait, wait, let's go back and we'll look at the text. 286 00:31:13,004 --> 00:31:21,053 And, uh, you know, I argued, I said, well, you know, because there's a rule against eating human flesh for one thing, monk cannot eat human flesh. 287 00:31:21,073 --> 00:31:21,834 It's against the rules. 288 00:31:23,156 --> 00:31:30,904 And so we went back and looked at the text and, uh, it actually doesn't say, it says the finger fell in. 289 00:31:31,845 --> 00:31:32,526 He took it out. 290 00:31:32,546 --> 00:31:35,650 He, he wasn't, the big thing was he wasn't moved. 291 00:31:35,670 --> 00:31:36,751 He wasn't turned off by it. 292 00:31:36,811 --> 00:31:38,573 He just took it out and ate. 293 00:31:40,072 --> 00:31:52,789 But it's quite clear, it quite clearly could be the case, and should be the case, that he took the finger out and ate his food. 294 00:31:54,091 --> 00:31:57,014 A finger went into his food, he took the finger out and ate it. 295 00:31:59,498 --> 00:32:01,120 That's what it says. 296 00:32:01,140 --> 00:32:04,965 So it actually could be construed either way, which is quite funny. 297 00:32:06,430 --> 00:32:09,514 Anyway, a little bit off topic, but an interesting story. 298 00:32:10,536 --> 00:32:15,222 He was a nice guy, but certainly didn't have any we're talking about, I was talking about meditation. 299 00:32:15,242 --> 00:32:16,083 I said, Have you ever tried? 300 00:32:16,143 --> 00:32:18,867 And he said, No, I tried to do it. 301 00:32:18,907 --> 00:32:20,069 And he's from England. 302 00:32:20,109 --> 00:32:22,693 And he said, I tried and I just, I can't sit still. 303 00:32:24,054 --> 00:32:29,502 Which, of course, is the reason why you take up meditation, because you can't sit still, you want to learn. 304 00:32:32,941 --> 00:32:37,046 But this is a big problem in Sri Lanka, I'd have to say. 305 00:32:37,486 --> 00:32:42,793 And I think everyone, we all kind of agree, accept this, is that there's a lot of study going on there. 306 00:32:43,534 --> 00:32:52,765 Sri Lanka is the number one, maybe Burma, I'm sure Burma must compete, but from what I've seen, Sri Lankans are very well versed in the Dhamma. 307 00:32:52,785 --> 00:32:53,646 It's incredible. 308 00:32:54,707 --> 00:33:02,897 I was talking to a bus driver about the Dhamma, I remember coming back from Kandy, and I was sitting in the front seat, and he turned to me and we started talking, and 309 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,908 I was just asking him about the Dhamma and he's giving me answers and he knows things that I don't about the Dhamma. 310 00:33:08,928 --> 00:33:11,633 It was quite surprising. 311 00:33:12,054 --> 00:33:13,397 And that wasn't an isolated case. 312 00:33:13,437 --> 00:33:14,499 People know the Dhamma there. 313 00:33:15,020 --> 00:33:17,044 There's not so much meditation. 314 00:33:17,084 --> 00:33:20,250 There is, but not to the level that you'd think. 315 00:33:21,312 --> 00:33:24,177 You'd think that in a country where 75% of the people 316 00:33:25,523 --> 00:33:39,299 maybe 75% of the 75% of the people, or let's say 50% of the population knows the Dhamma very well, that there'd be a lot more meditation going on. 317 00:33:39,319 --> 00:33:40,941 But again, it's a different skill set. 318 00:33:41,262 --> 00:33:47,549 It's one thing to appreciate the Dhamma, and it's a dangerous thing actually to get intoxicated by knowledge. 319 00:33:48,931 --> 00:33:50,873 You know what are the Four Noble Truths, 320 00:33:52,355 --> 00:33:53,497 And it seems like a simple thing. 321 00:33:54,138 --> 00:33:56,683 Four Noble Truths, everyone knows what those are, right? 322 00:33:56,703 --> 00:34:01,591 Every Buddhist in Sunday school knows what the Four Noble Truths are, no? 323 00:34:04,917 --> 00:34:07,221 Adit, what are the Four Noble Truths? 324 00:34:10,167 --> 00:34:14,735 Not to kill. 325 00:34:14,755 --> 00:34:14,815 Oh. 326 00:34:14,835 --> 00:34:16,017 Unlike. 327 00:34:19,996 --> 00:34:21,159 Want to show your brother up? 328 00:34:21,179 --> 00:34:21,519 That's it? 329 00:34:23,183 --> 00:34:23,404 No. 330 00:34:24,326 --> 00:34:25,107 The Four Noble Truths. 331 00:34:25,228 --> 00:34:27,012 You don't know the Four Noble Truths. 332 00:34:27,032 --> 00:34:27,693 That's okay. 333 00:34:28,234 --> 00:34:29,657 Because we're not so concerned about that. 334 00:34:29,698 --> 00:34:32,183 We're concerned much more about meditation practice. 335 00:34:35,082 --> 00:34:39,227 But if I asked any of the adults in the room, everyone would be able to tell me what are the Four Noble Truths. 336 00:34:39,328 --> 00:34:41,550 But that doesn't mean you understand the Four Noble Truths. 337 00:34:41,691 --> 00:34:44,895 Actually, just those Four Noble Truths is the core of Buddhism. 338 00:34:45,416 --> 00:34:55,108 If you can understand those Four Noble Truths, you never have to learn anything else for the rest of your samsaric existence, which would be very short, in fact. 339 00:34:56,510 --> 00:34:58,693 It would be very short anyway, because you'd be an arahat. 340 00:35:00,074 --> 00:35:04,821 Understanding the Four Noble Truths is the key to becoming enlightened. 341 00:35:05,201 --> 00:35:06,063 And there's just four of them. 342 00:35:06,563 --> 00:35:07,124 Quite simple. 343 00:35:07,825 --> 00:35:08,526 You better learn them. 344 00:35:09,407 --> 00:35:14,314 This is not to say that you shouldn't learn or memorize the Buddha's teaching. 345 00:35:15,757 --> 00:35:16,898 But you should put them into practice. 346 00:35:16,918 --> 00:35:22,386 For example, the First Noble Truth is the truth of suffering. 347 00:35:26,872 --> 00:35:36,546 So we know that birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, getting what you don't want is suffering, not getting what you want is suffering. 348 00:35:38,970 --> 00:35:39,190 Is it? 349 00:35:39,731 --> 00:35:42,315 When you get what you want, is that suffering? 350 00:35:43,096 --> 00:35:44,598 When you don't get what you want, is that suffering? 351 00:35:45,259 --> 00:35:46,861 When you get what you don't want, is that suffering? 352 00:35:50,206 --> 00:35:53,911 Like a knuckle sandwich from a monk. 353 00:35:55,293 --> 00:35:56,355 I would never do it, you know that. 354 00:35:58,006 --> 00:36:02,492 When you get what you don't want, is that suffering? 355 00:36:05,096 --> 00:36:06,297 What's your least favorite food? 356 00:36:09,101 --> 00:36:09,682 Do you like liver? 357 00:36:11,404 --> 00:36:12,886 What if you got liver, would that be suffering? 358 00:36:14,108 --> 00:36:15,890 You see, getting what you don't want. 359 00:36:21,618 --> 00:36:21,718 Yeah. 360 00:36:24,837 --> 00:36:28,268 We know this, but this isn't the noble truth of suffering. 361 00:36:28,288 --> 00:36:32,421 The noble truth of suffering is the understanding that all things are unsatisfying. 362 00:36:32,441 --> 00:36:35,691 The panchupa dana khanda, the five aggregates. 363 00:36:37,713 --> 00:36:40,916 It's understanding that the five aggregates are impermanent suffering and non-self. 364 00:36:41,317 --> 00:36:50,085 So it's basically the practice of vipassana meditation or the realization that comes from the practice of vipassana meditation. 365 00:36:50,105 --> 00:37:06,522 And this sort of gets closer to the point is that often people who practice meditation looking for or thinking about analyzing everything based on the three characteristics as opposed to just experiencing, as opposed to actually experiencing them. 366 00:37:09,353 --> 00:37:12,978 So it's one thing to sit here and think, oh, that's impermanent. 367 00:37:13,018 --> 00:37:16,844 Yes, that ceased out, means it's impermanent and so on. 368 00:37:16,864 --> 00:37:21,351 And to say, yes, yes, therefore it's unsatisfying and doesn't belong to me. 369 00:37:22,933 --> 00:37:28,401 It's quite another thing to sit here and be subject to impermanence, not know what's coming next, which is horrifying. 370 00:37:29,142 --> 00:37:30,624 And it's what creates all of our suffering. 371 00:37:32,066 --> 00:37:33,268 You don't know what's going to come next. 372 00:37:34,632 --> 00:37:37,415 Pain, maybe that pain will come back, that pain that was just there. 373 00:37:38,276 --> 00:37:41,800 Maybe it'll suddenly get hot, suddenly get cold. 374 00:37:45,364 --> 00:37:48,947 So just a second ago it was enjoyable, maybe I told a joke and it was kind of funny. 375 00:37:49,888 --> 00:37:52,111 Now that joke is gone, things have changed. 376 00:37:52,791 --> 00:37:54,013 It's insipid and dull. 377 00:37:55,494 --> 00:37:56,235 When can I leave? 378 00:37:56,275 --> 00:37:57,957 When can you go home? 379 00:38:01,531 --> 00:38:10,324 This is where the meditation starts with this stuff, dealing with impermanence, dealing with the difficulty of reality. 380 00:38:14,110 --> 00:38:28,551 And this is where the learning starts in changing our understanding of reality, understanding that reality is stable, satisfying, controllable. 381 00:38:32,716 --> 00:38:38,108 That we can come to a state where we're always going to be at peace and happy. 382 00:38:39,832 --> 00:38:45,004 That we can find something, find some way to live our lives in stability. 383 00:38:47,043 --> 00:38:49,165 Most adults in the world have a big problem with this. 384 00:38:49,245 --> 00:38:53,049 Children don't have such a big problem trying to find stability because they're trying to learn a lot. 385 00:38:53,069 --> 00:38:54,430 They're quite unstable. 386 00:38:55,832 --> 00:38:58,995 But once you become an adult, you really start to look for stability. 387 00:38:59,956 --> 00:39:04,900 Try to find a good job, a family, a house, settle down, find something stable. 388 00:39:06,122 --> 00:39:10,065 And so adults get devastated by change. 389 00:39:11,126 --> 00:39:12,588 This is where depression comes from. 390 00:39:15,230 --> 00:39:16,932 Stress, anxiety, and so on. 391 00:39:18,683 --> 00:39:22,973 worrying about the things that we love things that we cling to. 392 00:39:32,690 --> 00:39:37,620 So the only thing I want to stress here is that it's important to put the teachings into practice. 393 00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:54,833 It's important to differentiate between an intellectual appreciation and ability to rattle off and even explain and talk about the Four Noble Truths, the Three Characteristics, the Eightfold Noble Path, and to actually put it into practice. 394 00:39:57,378 --> 00:40:02,763 And most importantly, I would say the three characteristics because they're the most poorly understood and the most practical. 395 00:40:03,864 --> 00:40:04,645 They're the front line. 396 00:40:04,665 --> 00:40:15,416 They're what you first experience when you sit down and when you watch your stomach, for example, you'll be sitting here watching the stomach rise and fall and wondering where the three characteristics come in, wondering where wisdom comes in. 397 00:40:16,637 --> 00:40:21,302 And watching your stomach doesn't seem like a good way to bring about profound realization of the truth. 398 00:40:22,723 --> 00:40:24,685 It's kind of like if you ever saw the Karate Kid. 399 00:40:26,487 --> 00:40:27,209 You probably didn't. 400 00:40:27,730 --> 00:40:29,574 The original, the original Karate Kid. 401 00:40:29,594 --> 00:40:34,684 You saw the original with the... Yeah, I watched it. 402 00:40:34,704 --> 00:40:36,468 With the Italian kid? 403 00:40:36,729 --> 00:40:37,089 Yeah. 404 00:40:37,691 --> 00:40:38,372 Where he does this? 405 00:40:39,054 --> 00:40:39,635 Yeah. 406 00:40:41,058 --> 00:40:41,559 What was it? 407 00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:42,661 What was this one called? 408 00:40:42,701 --> 00:40:43,724 Down here? 409 00:40:43,744 --> 00:40:44,445 What did he call this one? 410 00:40:47,193 --> 00:40:49,316 Wax on, wax off. 411 00:40:50,177 --> 00:40:53,161 Wax on, wax off. 412 00:40:53,181 --> 00:40:54,383 And he thinks it's so stupid. 413 00:40:54,403 --> 00:40:55,464 What am I going to get out of this? 414 00:40:55,484 --> 00:40:59,530 This is very similar to the mind state of the meditator and the nature of meditation. 415 00:41:00,130 --> 00:41:08,762 The wisdom that comes from meditation is something very mundane or very ordinary. 416 00:41:10,092 --> 00:41:11,836 It's so ordinary that you almost miss it. 417 00:41:12,298 --> 00:41:20,358 Or it's so inherent or so close to us that we miss it. 418 00:41:20,378 --> 00:41:25,350 But it's what sets us off all the time when the things that we think of as stable change. 419 00:41:27,018 --> 00:41:32,485 Someone you love changes or disappears, runs away, dies, gets sick. 420 00:41:33,407 --> 00:41:36,631 Something you love breaks, malfunctions, is stolen. 421 00:41:36,651 --> 00:41:40,056 If you've ever had something stolen from you, it's a horrible feeling. 422 00:41:40,496 --> 00:41:45,182 You just feel like you're violated, like someone violated your body. 423 00:41:45,763 --> 00:41:46,805 This was part of me. 424 00:41:48,968 --> 00:41:50,089 Having things change. 425 00:41:52,229 --> 00:41:57,656 You know, this place, this wonderful monastery, it might burn down, whatever, burn down tomorrow. 426 00:41:58,299 --> 00:41:59,083 Then we'll be there. 427 00:42:03,248 --> 00:42:04,810 You never know what's going to happen in the future. 428 00:42:04,971 --> 00:42:08,356 So the meditation is not about thinking about these things. 429 00:42:08,396 --> 00:42:24,582 It's about viscerally realizing this, about absolutely everything that we cling to, even our pleasures, our identities, who we are, who we think we are, change. 430 00:42:26,873 --> 00:42:30,999 To see that the things that we find pleasurable are actually a cause for stress and suffering. 431 00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:33,903 They force us to seek. 432 00:42:34,724 --> 00:42:35,325 They push us. 433 00:42:35,365 --> 00:42:36,587 They impel us to seek. 434 00:42:36,787 --> 00:42:37,788 We become drug addicts. 435 00:42:37,808 --> 00:42:40,632 We become addicted to our desires. 436 00:42:42,135 --> 00:42:51,808 And to see that the things that we try to control, the things that we identify with, are actually out of our control. 437 00:42:52,529 --> 00:42:52,850 People. 438 00:42:53,030 --> 00:42:54,372 We try to control our children. 439 00:42:54,392 --> 00:42:56,695 We try to control our loved ones, our friends. 440 00:43:00,050 --> 00:43:03,954 We try to control our lives, we try to control our machines. 441 00:43:04,735 --> 00:43:08,600 Have you ever seen someone yelling at their car, kicking the car? 442 00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:09,380 Stupid. 443 00:43:11,703 --> 00:43:14,246 Have you ever seen someone hit their computer because it's not working? 444 00:43:17,510 --> 00:43:19,852 Punch a hole in the computer screen because it's not working. 445 00:43:21,234 --> 00:43:25,078 When you throw your Game Boy down, you get a Game Boy and you lose and you throw it down. 446 00:43:27,455 --> 00:43:38,832 We think we want to control, we want to be in charge, and we're not able to deal with not being in control when things are not in our control. 447 00:43:38,852 --> 00:43:39,533 It's very difficult. 448 00:43:41,977 --> 00:43:45,502 So just watching your stomach is a very good lesson in these three things. 449 00:43:45,542 --> 00:43:49,408 When you see that it's changing constantly, never the same. 450 00:43:50,510 --> 00:43:56,078 Sometimes it'll be smooth, sometimes it'll be tense, sometimes it'll be long, sometimes it's short. 451 00:43:57,205 --> 00:44:00,993 not under your control, not satisfying, not stable. 452 00:44:02,055 --> 00:44:03,598 Just the stomach, you can become enlightened. 453 00:44:03,679 --> 00:44:04,400 It's like a pill. 454 00:44:05,061 --> 00:44:07,106 My teacher said it's like a medicinal pill. 455 00:44:07,547 --> 00:44:08,368 It's got everything in it. 456 00:44:08,388 --> 00:44:13,459 You just take one pill, like the Matrix, take the red pill. 457 00:44:14,806 --> 00:44:16,388 It's just one pill. 458 00:44:16,448 --> 00:44:17,149 It's very simple. 459 00:44:18,009 --> 00:44:18,710 We have many more. 460 00:44:18,750 --> 00:44:20,472 Obviously, the four foundations of mindfulness. 461 00:44:20,492 --> 00:44:25,197 You should be mindful of pain and happiness and thoughts and emotions as well. 462 00:44:26,579 --> 00:44:35,648 But any one of these things, most especially the body, and for that reason the stomach, have an incredible power to bring about enlightenment. 463 00:44:35,749 --> 00:44:39,693 They help you to see things that are so obvious that you almost miss them. 464 00:44:40,153 --> 00:44:41,775 You think there's something missing. 465 00:44:41,755 --> 00:44:52,014 But if you practice continuously, watch your mind, watch your experience, you come to learn such profound things about yourself. 466 00:44:53,076 --> 00:45:00,169 Anyway, this is what is meant by the second verse, kubato, one who puts into practice the words. 467 00:45:01,702 --> 00:45:07,153 So the important point of this verse is that we should never be content with just knowing the Buddha's teaching, any of it. 468 00:45:08,215 --> 00:45:12,002 None of it is for the purpose of knowing and sharing with others. 469 00:45:12,082 --> 00:45:14,928 It's for the purpose of bringing home to yourself. 470 00:45:14,948 --> 00:45:18,054 If you want to spread Buddhism, first you have to spread it to yourself. 471 00:45:18,074 --> 00:45:21,902 There's this teacher in Thailand who said this to me, talking about spreading Buddhism. 472 00:45:21,922 --> 00:45:23,625 He said, first you have to spread it to yourself. 473 00:45:24,938 --> 00:45:27,541 It's very apt and it's very much how the Buddha would have it. 474 00:45:27,601 --> 00:45:30,664 He was never concerned about making teachers. 475 00:45:31,265 --> 00:45:32,366 He was about teaching people. 476 00:45:32,386 --> 00:45:33,427 You will all be students. 477 00:45:34,048 --> 00:45:37,611 The most important is to be a student, to learn the teachings. 478 00:45:39,173 --> 00:45:51,486 Someone who has learned the teachings is naturally a teacher, is an example and is a signpost and is so in line with the teachings that they give rise to 479 00:45:55,094 --> 00:46:00,101 All the time. 480 00:46:00,141 --> 00:46:07,270 Proper speech, good speech, they give rise to the teachings. 481 00:46:08,091 --> 00:46:11,356 They declare the teachings in its purity because they practice for themselves. 482 00:46:12,637 --> 00:46:17,524 Anyway, so that's the meaning of this verse. 483 00:46:19,208 --> 00:46:26,783 obviously a practical teaching of the Buddha, something that we can all keep in mind, something that we should constantly remind ourselves. 484 00:46:27,244 --> 00:46:30,210 It's not enough to know meditation. 485 00:46:30,250 --> 00:46:33,677 The question is, are we putting it into practice on a daily basis? 486 00:46:33,777 --> 00:46:34,939 This is much more important. 487 00:46:37,180 --> 00:46:48,095 The Buddha said a person who knows the teaching but never puts it into practice, this is not someone who has lived the holy life, it's still a waste of their holy life. 488 00:46:48,115 --> 00:47:00,893 But a person who even for a moment cultivates loving kindness or mindfulness, just for one instant, he says their spiritual life is not wasted. 489 00:47:01,227 --> 00:47:06,114 So it's not to discourage everyone or I'm not here to scold everyone or you're not practicing. 490 00:47:06,174 --> 00:47:12,703 It's to encourage us in putting into practice the teachings moment by moment by moment. 491 00:47:12,723 --> 00:47:15,226 Even one moment, that's a maha kusla. 492 00:47:16,428 --> 00:47:21,014 They say one moment of mindfulness kills off seven lifetimes worth of defilement. 493 00:47:23,678 --> 00:47:26,121 Because of the seven jawana. 494 00:47:27,738 --> 00:47:30,200 If you're mindful, those seven jawana are neutralized. 495 00:47:30,461 --> 00:47:33,583 And those seven jawana could give rise to seven births. 496 00:47:37,987 --> 00:47:39,529 Just by one moment of mindfulness. 497 00:47:40,770 --> 00:47:42,071 And it's accumulative. 498 00:47:42,091 --> 00:47:44,033 The power, the wholesomeness of the mindfulness. 499 00:47:44,994 --> 00:47:53,121 This is something that we shouldn't think of doing when we go to a monastery or even just in the morning or in the evening when we do formal meditation. 500 00:47:53,141 --> 00:47:54,943 We should be constantly 501 00:47:57,185 --> 00:48:00,492 striving to cultivate mindfulness throughout our lives, throughout our days. 502 00:48:02,075 --> 00:48:03,578 This is what the Buddha would have of us. 503 00:48:03,799 --> 00:48:11,194 This is the emphasis here clearly stated here and in many, many other places in some of the other Dhammapada verses as well. 504 00:48:13,722 --> 00:48:41,333 but we don't want to just be a beautiful flower being able to spout beautiful words if they're not put into practice they're meaningless and this is the point you can take the example of the two queens Ananda with the one queen he was wasting his breath they were beautiful words he was teaching and these are beautiful words that just float in the air like a beautiful flower 505 00:48:43,878 --> 00:48:52,007 But the Buddha said they're useless like a flower without, they're useless because they're not being put into practice. 506 00:48:54,009 --> 00:49:00,156 Whereas with the other queen, because she was putting them into practice, they were like a beautiful flower with a beautiful smell, beautiful scent. 507 00:49:01,137 --> 00:49:04,400 It means there was actually something that came of the flower. 508 00:49:04,500 --> 00:49:10,847 There was something that came of the teachings, some fruit that came from it. 509 00:49:12,076 --> 00:49:24,685 That's another part of it that for a teacher, the good doesn't come from the teaching, the good comes from the practicing. 510 00:49:25,863 --> 00:49:27,865 I'd like to thank everyone for coming tonight. 511 00:49:27,946 --> 00:49:31,009 We have a large crowd here and for everyone for tuning in on YouTube. 512 00:49:32,091 --> 00:49:46,048 And I'd please take this as an admonishment for all of us not to be content with just learning the teachings, not to be content with just coming and hearing the teachings, but that we should put these teachings into practice. 513 00:49:46,028 --> 00:49:53,278 and give purpose, bring purpose and meaning to our lives, give purpose and meaning to the Buddhist teachings. 514 00:49:53,418 --> 00:50:03,733 The purpose and the meaning of the Buddhist teachings isn't in the words, as beautiful as they might be, it's in our practice of the Buddhist teaching and the Buddhist words, which we should strive to do. 515 00:50:05,570 --> 00:50:12,134 strive to cultivate for ourselves, not just intellectually, but practically, morality, concentration, and wisdom. 516 00:50:12,977 --> 00:50:17,132 Thank you for tuning in, and wishing you all the best on your path.