Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 79, which reads as follows.
dhammapiti sukhangseti vipassanena cetasa ariyapavedite dhamme sada ramati pandito Which means,
Dhamma piti sukhang seti.
Seti means to dwell or it actually means to sleep.
But yeah, poetically, it's nice to say that sleep.
So I mean, one who has, who is ecstatic about the Dhamma.
Sleeps happily.
But you could say dwells happily or lies happily.
With a tranquil mind.
A bright mind, I think.
Yeah, it's a bright mind.
In the Dhamma that is taught by the Aryas, that is made clear by the Aryas, declared by the noble ones, by the enlightened ones.
Sada Ramati Pandito.
Always delights the wise ones.
The wise one always delights in the Dhamma that is declared or made known by the enlightened ones.
Aramatti means to delight.
This teaching was given in regards to Mahakapina, who was a monk who got in trouble
for being happy.
It's a no-no, right?
Buddhism is all about suffering.
Anyone who's happy is suspect.
That is kind of true, you know.
Because most people only find happiness in addiction.
So like a drug addict, their happiness is suspect.
And it is true that many meditators, many Buddhists actually suffer quite a bit as they deal with their addictions, as they deal with their attachments.
They fight with them and they strive and they work and they cry and they sweat.
Blood, sweat and tears.
This is true.
But the same can be said for healing a pernicious, a deep-seated illness like cancer.
Now, it's not an exact analogy, but if you take it as an analogy, most people will not hesitate to undergo harsh treatment.
I'm not sure that I would, but
the analogy holds because in order to gain physical health and get rid of the cancer most people will undergo chemotherapy for example which can be quite harmful it's quite painful but in the end it has the potential to eradicate the illness
Now meditation absolutely has the power to eradicate our mental illnesses, but it can be quite painful.
It doesn't have to be.
For some people it's quite pleasant.
But if you've done bad things in the past, if you've cultivated unwholesome mind states, if your mind has bad habits, it's going to be unpleasant dealing with those, unpleasant trying to change those.
It can be quite unpleasant.
Just like rooting out illness can be quite unpleasant, but there's no one who would say, if you have a cure for an illness, most people would jump at the chance.
to heal the illness.
It's just the mind is so much more personal, I think, and we're so much more sensitive.
The reason we want to cure the body is because we view it as a possession, as something that the mind can use.
We're very much less
able to do the same thing with the mind, with mental illness.
If someone points out a bodily flaw, you think right away, how can I fix it?
But if people point out a mental flaw, we're quite quick to discount the criticism, to get angry at the criticism.
If we're high-minded, we can take the criticism and do want to change.
Most of us do want to change, but we're far more likely with the mind than with the body to become upset when anyone tries to suggest that we need to change.
You've got a problem.
Who wants to hear that?
Very difficult to hear.
Anyway, this isn't telling our story.
I'm putting it backwards today.
But there's a story about Mahakapina who was very happy.
And he sat under the tree.
He sat under this tree after he'd ordained as a monk.
And he was saying, Aho Sukhang, Aho Sukhang.
What happiness, what bliss.
Well, he was just very happy.
I don't know if I'm going to go with sitting under the tree thing.
I think that's what the story says.
Yeah.
He went about the night quarters and the day quarters, breathing forth the solemn utterance, happiness, happiness.
I get the feeling that he was more just noting it like we do.
Happy, happy.
That would make more sense.
It's hard to imagine the... But it's possible, even for an Arahant, to be in such rapture,
That they just, it bubbles over naturally.
But he wouldn't be excited about it, you see.
It's not reasonable to think that he would be, oh, I'm so happy.
It's not the kind of thing you get from an arahant.
But certainly there could be something, some sort of remarking on the happiness.
But I'd like to think he was noting it.
Happy, happy.
But he was doing it out loud, that's what the story says.
And so they brought him to the Buddha.
Or they brought the case to the Buddha.
And the Buddha called for Mahakapina and said, is this true?
And Mahakapina said,
They accused him.
What did they accuse him of?
Because right away they assumed it was from his past.
And so this is where the story starts.
I've gone to the end of the story, but the story starts in the time of the Buddha Padumuttara, who is, I think, 28 Buddhas ago.
No?
Isn't he the first?
No, he's not even the first of 28.
But anyway, he's like many, many, many, many unfathomable amount of time ago.
Lots of unfathomable amount of time periods ago.
There was a Buddha Padumuttara.
And he made an earnest wish at the feet of Padmatra.
But it doesn't say what the earnest wish was.
Probably to become an enlightened being.
And then he passed away from there, and later on he was born in a time when there was no Buddha, because of course most of the time there is no Buddha.
But there were what we call Pacheca Buddha, which are private Buddhas.
So they become enlightened, but they don't have the perfections to really understand the path that they've followed.
They know what's happened.
They've realized that they have somehow become enlightened.
but they aren't clear enough to be able to explain how it happened.
Like most of us can't explain how insight occurs, right?
We've been given some instructions so we can say, okay, so by practicing rising, falling, stepping right, stepping left, I was able to gain this insight.
But for a Pacheco Buddha, they more, not fall into it, but they come to it naturally, without any structured practice, for the most part.
So they don't have this, even that.
But even, it doesn't explain, when you say stepping right, it doesn't explain how you got, how you became enlightened.
We don't have the knowledge to understand what's going on in our mind, and how our mind attains enlightenment.
So that's a Pacheco Buddha.
They don't have the power to teach, but they certainly have the power.
They're enlightened.
They've seen Nibbana, and you can call them an arhat.
So there were a lot of these, there was a time where there was many of these such recluses who had become enlightened on their own.
The meaning is they didn't have a teacher, so they did it on their own.
The text says a thousand, but it was probably, you know, that's usually a sign of a bit of an exaggeration.
A lot of these stories, and I'm not alone in saying this, Mahasi Sayadaw says that he thinks these stories have been exaggerated.
But anyway, quite a few of them.
And they came down for the rains.
They would live up in the mountains in the forest.
And they came down for the rains to spend some time closer to civilization because staying in the forest during the rains is difficult.
It rains a lot and there's leeches and snakes and mosquitoes and lots of nastiness.
So living in civilization for the rains is reasonable.
So they would do this, and they went to the king to see if there was a place where they could stay.
And the king said he was too busy, as he was doing the plowing ceremony, which they do before the rains.
And so they left.
They decided, well, okay, can't stay here.
So they went to find another place.
But on their way out, they fell in with this woman who was from this weaver's village.
The head of the weaver's village was Mahakapina, or the man who would be Mahakapina.
And so she invited them, long story short, she invited them and they spent the rains there and the whole village looked after them, built them residents, built them huts for each one of them, offered them robes, took care of them, and just basically administered to all the needs for four months for these enlightened beings.
As a result, the whole village, when they passed away, each and every one of them was reborn in heaven.
And they spent millions of years in heaven, only to be born in the time of Kasaba Buddha.
Kasaba Buddha is one of the past five Buddhas.
So I don't know how that works, but he's in there.
He's more relatively recent, which is still to say an insane amount of time, many incomprehensible.
Actually, I'm not sure, but a lot of time ago, depending who you ask, I think.
And in the time of Mahakassapa, they went to hear the Buddha teach.
So they were going as lay people.
These thousand people were again reborn as villagers, as householders.
And they went to see the Buddha teach, the Buddha Kasapa teach.
And when they got there, it was raining.
And they had no shelter because they didn't know any of the monks.
So they didn't know where to go or where it would be possible to go.
And so they realized that they had no sort of familiarity with the monks.
They were strangers here.
And so everybody ran inside and didn't invite them to find a place to dry themselves.
So they had to stand out in the rain.
And they said to themselves, you know, this is because we've been negligent.
We haven't really had anything to do with the monks up until now.
So they went ahead and built their own monastery for the monks.
Built a monastery for more monks to live, or for new monks to live, to expand the Sangha.
And so for a second time they did great deeds.
The reason for telling this and the reason why it's in the story is it's leading up to part of why he was so happy.
But there's another reason why he's so happy that we'll get to this more recent.
But it all leads up to the reason.
So because of that they went back up to heaven.
Did all these great things when they passed away.
Back up to heaven.
Spent lots of time up there.
And in the time of our Buddha
were born, Mahakapina, who was the leader of these guys, who said they should build this monastery,
And his wife, Anjana, who was the one who invited the Pacheco Buddhas, and who was right there with him doing all these good deeds, and they were all there.
So he was born as king.
Anjana was born as the daughter of the head family in the city of Kuttavati.
I don't know where that is.
Somewhere in India, I suppose.
and she later became the queen.
So he was king, she was queen, and all the rest of these guys were his attendants, and they all lived like royalty.
And it makes a point of saying this because they did good deeds together.
And there's a reason why they all lived like kings, because they had all done good deeds together.
This is why we are born in similar circumstances with each other, with different people.
When we find ourselves living together, even if we're related or not related, or
find ourselves in the same society.
It's because we've done similar deeds in past lives, or that's a part of it anyway.
But Kapina sent out these horses every day, it's said, to see whether a Buddha had arisen.
Somehow he had this idea from a past life of the Buddha, having such intimate contact with the Buddhas of the past.
he went out to send these riders out around the countryside to see if there was an enlightened being, see if they could find an enlightened being.
And they always came back negative.
Then one day, a group of merchants came to the city and someone met them.
the king met them actually, when he was wandering around his pleasure garden.
So the king lived in such great bliss and happiness.
He had such great luxury that he had everything he wanted.
And he should have been quite satisfied, but he wasn't.
Just like the Bodhisattva wasn't.
Just like Yasa wasn't.
Just like many people aren't, even when they have these great riches.
So this is why he was looking on the lookout.
So he stopped to chat with these merchants and he asked them where they come from.
And they said they came from the city of Savati, which we all know is near where the Buddha lived.
And he asked, is there any news?
And they said, oh, no, no news besides the fact that a fully enlightened Buddha has arisen in the world.
And he was stunned.
The text said he was literally stunned.
He was stunned on hearing the word Buddha to the extent that he couldn't even comprehend what they had said.
It's like he fainted almost.
That's what the text says.
And he snapped out of it and he asked them again, what did you say?
And they said, well, a Buddha has arisen in the world.
And again, it was just so powerful.
It may seem a little bit ridiculous that, yeah, right, this really happened.
And it may be exaggerated.
But you can imagine how close he had been to the Buddha, right?
Since Padumutra and the 1000 Pacheca Buddhas and then Kasapa Buddha.
It was really, really, this resonated with him.
This was a profound thing.
So the third time, and it was only the fourth time that he was actually able to understand what they had said.
And he gave them 100,000 gold coins for those words.
And then he said, is there any other news?
And he said...
Yeah, well there is, not only has the Buddha appeared, but the Dhamma has appeared, so he's taught.
And apparently the text, at this point you've got to wonder if it's just going a little bit overboard, because then he again is overwhelmed three times in a row.
And then the same with the Sangha.
They say that the Sangha has arisen, and again he pays them a hundred thousand for each piece of news.
And then he consults his 1,000 friends.
This is the group of people who he's lived with since the time of the 1,000 Pacheco Buddhas, who they've been reborn in the same company again and again.
He says, what should we do?
And it's time to go forth.
He says, I'm going forth.
And they say, we're going with you.
And so he takes off, right then and there in the park, he takes off his kingly attire, or I don't know what he, you know, he puts on ordinary clothes, gets rid of all his jewels, gives it all over to the merchants, and he says, look, I have a message I want you to take to the queen.
And tell the queen, Queen Anuja, that the kingdom is hers.
And if she asks where I've gone, I tell her the Buddha has arisen and I've gone to learn from him.
And so they went.
They went forth and they went to see the Buddha and they became, long story short, they became Sotapannas, all of them, upon hearing the Buddha's teaching.
And the Buddha ordained them right then and there.
and they began to live as monks.
Anoja, meanwhile, received this message.
These people came and they said, we have a message from the king.
He gave us 100,000 gold pieces.
Or no, he gave them some amount
write 300,000 pieces of money to give you this message.
Well, that's a great amount of money.
What was the message?
Well, the Buddha has appeared.
And she faints.
Or she becomes overwhelmed.
And again, three times, four times, has to hear it.
Same thing.
And she said, that wasn't enough money.
And she gives him 9,000.
900,000 gold coins, 300 for each utterance, the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha.
And she asks, she says, where's the king?
And he says, he's gone to practice, to become monks with the Buddhas.
And where are his followers?
They've gone as well.
And she turns to her ladies, the 1,000 women, and says, what should we do?
And she says, I'm going to become a monk.
She says, and this is a great part of the sutta, she says, when someone spits something out, like a wad of mucus out of their mouth, you don't go and pick it up off the ground.
And she said, him throwing away, he threw this away.
Why would I want to be queen in his stead, in his steed?
And so she takes off the jewels and everything and
goes after.
And they all go and see the Buddha and they all become Sotapanna as well.
And Mahakapina becomes an arahant and all the women go off to become bhikkhunis, to become monks as well.
And that's the background to this story.
They hear him sitting, and let's pretend that it was because he was noting.
Let's assume that that's the interpretation.
He was saying, happy, happy.
They thought, he must be.
What happiness would there be?
Here he is sitting in rags at the foot of a tree with mosquitoes buzzing around and snakes and leeches and measly alms food.
He was a king before.
He was a king over a great kingdom.
What could he be thinking of except for the happiness of the king life?
It must be hard to let go of that.
And he's remembering that.
So he's fantasizing about being a king.
And so that's why the Buddha calls him.
That's why they called him to the Buddha.
They told the Buddha.
And then the Buddha calls him and says, is it true that you're fantasizing about when you were a king?
Mahakapina was an Arahant, so he didn't even deny it.
He said, you know.
He said, the Lord knows whether.
The Lord Buddha knows whether that is why I am
whether that is the kind of happiness that I am referring to.
And the Buddha explains to the monks, he takes that at face value, and he turns to the monks and he said, it's not based on sensuality that he is happy.
In fact, you could say it's precisely because of his freedom from that state of kingship
Because you think what it's like to be a king.
Well, sure, you have lots of pleasure and so on, but you also have so many duties and you have people trying to take away your happiness and you're trying to assassinate you or trying to manipulate you.
You're constantly having to deal with crimes and foreign armies and foreign trade and negotiations.
It's certainly not the happiest sort of existence, no matter how much luxury you have.
And here he's living under a tree with nothing, no burdens, no worries, no cares, no nine to five job, no midterms to study for, no online broadcast to give, no questions from people to ask, answer.
No, all that's actually the good part of being a monk.
You do get to answer people's questions and help people.
That's a great thing.
But no worldly things to deal with, right?
So this is why he was saying, Aho Sukham.
And so the Buddha said, He that drinks the law delights in the law.
Drinks the Dhamma delights in the Dhamma.
The translation of dhammapiti is one who drinks, which is actually possible.
I'll have to look up whether that actually relates to the meaning of the word piti.
But I'm pretty sure that's not a literal translation.
It's just that piti, there's the root pi, I think, or piu, which means in regards to drinking.
Dhamma piti.
Dhamma payako.
Oh yeah.
One who drinks.
It's not piti.
It's not one who has rapture in the Dhamma at all.
It may be.
But the commentary takes it to mean one who drinks in the Dhamma.
piwanto di ato dammang piwanto one who drinks the damma so mostly people who drink alcohol they're the ones who celebrate and rejoice and jump around like crazy people when you talk about festivity people who are festive it's usually because of wine drink alcohol drugs music
romance, entertainment of all sorts.
But instead of drinking all of that, drinking the Dhamma can, to some extent, lead to a state
that is superficially similar to intoxication.
But that's dangerous to say.
I want to be very careful about how we understand this, because they don't actually become intoxicated, but there's a sense of piti, this rapture that comes, this state of bubbling over, where you just naturally come forth with this expression.
What happiness.
Aho sukham.
What happiness.
And the Buddha says, it is with reference to Nibbana, the deathless, that he is breathing forth these solemn utterances of joy.
And then he gives the quote, Dhammapiti Sukhangseti Vipassanena Jetasa
Ariyapavedite dhamme sada ramati pandito.
Pandito is a wise person.
Ramati, delights, sada, always.
Ariyapavedite dhamme, in the dhamma taught by or declared by the noble ones.
So how does this relate to our practice?
Well, unfortunately, as I said, for many of us it doesn't relate to our practice.
Our practice is going to be unpleasant.
But the unpleasantness is tempered and is
I guess tempered is the best word, with the joy, the joy of freedom.
Because every moment that you get something, that you understand something, that you change something about yourself in a good way, because of the meditation, which is what happens, for sure, you have this great joy, peace, happiness, contentment.
It changes something about you.
And so all we need is to cure all of our mental sickness, all of our mental problems, and we will have always this sense of clarity and purity, this peace and happiness.
then we will all say Aho Sukhang.
I don't think so.
I don't think all Arahants go around saying Aho Sukhang all the time.
It's just a curious case.
I think there's another case.
There's another monk who had a similar situation.
I think we'll find another story, if not here, then in the Jatakas, of another monk who had a similar situation.
just uh exultation realization of of remark how remarkable it was this happiness in relation to that what we thought was happiness before so there's things we can gain from this we can beyond um
the idea of happiness coming from meditation, we have the happiness that comes from doing good deeds.
So there's this whole backstory that's quite interesting.
And often the backstories have more to do with mundane good deeds, that which led one to reach the Buddha's teaching.
And that's a good note, a good point to note.
That goodness in all its many forms, whether it's by helping other people or whether it's by being moral, ethical, or whether it's by practicing meditation or studying, questioning or being humble, all these things, even being grateful and rejoicing in the goodness of others.
All of this is very important in keeping us and bringing us to the Buddha's teaching, bringing us to whatever good teachings exist in the world, keeping us away from bad people and harmful teachings.
So there's that that's very important in this story.
When it comes to the actual verse,
One important point is in regards to the very end of the story and the verse itself and why the verse was taught is the difference between sensual pleasure and true happiness.
Sensual pleasure has the fault of being addictive.
and it has the fault of not only being addictive but being unable to satisfy one's desire for it.
The desire increases while at the same time the gratification decreases.
It's what we call diminishing returns, the idea of diminishing returns.
The more you engage in sensual gratification, the less actual gratification you get.
Well, at the same time, the more desire you gain.
Desire leads to more desire.
Whereas happiness that comes from letting go, happiness that is not sought out, that is not clung to, that type of happiness is stable, is not a cause for disappointment because there's no expectation.
It comes from freedom from expectation.
So by its very nature, it's free from the pitfalls of addiction and attachment.
And that's what was being remarked upon here is
How ridiculous it is that we look for happiness in sensuality when in fact it's less and less pleasing all the time and it turns us into something like hungry ghosts where we're hungry all the time, where we're wanting more and more, left wanting without being satisfied.
So we should take heart and we should be, um, we should be strict with ourselves about this because it's easy to convince yourself that meditation is, is unpleasant when you're fighting with the unpleasantness.
It's easy to convince yourself that this meditation is just too unpleasant.
When in fact,
it's very easy to see the happiness that comes from the meditation, but it just comes in moments.
And because we're not clinging to those moments,
They don't make the same imprint on the mind in the sense of us thinking back to them.
Like when you've gained happiness from sensual pleasure, you'll constantly be thinking about it, right?
Oh, I want to get that.
How can I get that?
That made me happy.
Basically, you'll be saying, that made me happy, that made me happy.
But that's the addiction cycle.
That's the addiction part of the brain telling you, yeah, get that, that made me happy.
That doesn't function in regards to the happiness of detachment, the happiness of letting go, the happiness of contentment.
You don't have this, yeah, gimme, gimme, yeah, that made me happy.
It's not clung to in the same way.
So it's very easy to forget.
And it's easy to get discouraged as a result, thinking, well, I don't get this happiness that they're talking about.
You do.
If you're actually practicing, you'll get it quite often, but it'll come momentarily.
It'll be in the form of relief.
You'll feel this release.
Sometimes people will sigh and breathe heavily.
You'll feel the tension leaving your shoulders.
You'll feel your headache dissipate.
You'll feel your mind clearing up.
You'll feel honest for once.
You'll feel like you're honest with yourself and that you're really present.
You'll feel all of these things.
But then they'll go, you see, because it's a habit that you have to cultivate.
And when they go, you'll forget about them.
You'll say, this meditation sucks.
And it's easy to forget.
So these are the sorts of things we can learn from this verse.
That's the Dhammapada teaching for today.
Thank you all for tuning in.