Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verses 104 and 105 which read as follows.
Atahave jitam seyo yachayam itarapaja Atadantasa posasa nityam sanyatacari na Neva devo nagandhambo namaro sahabrahmana Chitam apajitam gaira tadharu pasacantuno
Which means, it's actually quite similar to the last one.
Conquest of the self is better than the conquest of others, of other people.
For one who has conquered themselves and is constantly
restrained one who fares restrained or controlled in the sense of not giving rise to uncontrolled behavior or activity that causes harm to others and that kind of thing
nevadevo na gandabo, not an angel nor a gandaba, which is also another type of angel, I guess.
namaro sahabramuna, not mara, which is like the evil Satan, nor Brahma's gods.
jitanga pajitanga ira, can turn
can turn their victory into defeat, jitang apa jitang.
Apa jita is defeat, I believe.
Jitang apa jitang means turning victory into defeat.
They will not be able to for such a person.
They will not be able to turn the victory of such a person into defeat.
Great verse.
Shows the power of self-conquest.
Simple story.
The story goes there was a Brahmin who came to the Buddha and asked him a question.
I guess maybe he was a follower of the Buddha or he understood how worthy the Buddha was or how wise the Buddha was.
And so he had this question.
He wondered to himself whether the Buddha, whether Buddhas, whether those who are enlightened, know only what is of benefit, or do they also know what leads to detriment?
Do they only know about gain, or do they know about loss as well?
Do they know only what is atta?
Atta means what is a benefit or what is a value.
Or do they also know what is a detriment?
Anatta, which is harmful or leads one away from success, leads one away from what is useful, that which is useless or harmful, really.
And so he went to ask the Buddha this.
I guess he had some idea that the Buddha only taught people good things.
He only taught, so everyone was praising how the Buddha's teachings would lead people to good things.
And they were talking about how great the Buddha's teachings, Buddha would teach you, do this, do that.
And so he hadn't heard the Buddha talk about don't do this, don't do that.
And so he went to the Buddha, and the Buddha gave him an interesting quote.
And I was just having a terrible time with it because the English is, it's incredible how sloppy they were with it.
They translate fierceness, chandikang, as moonlight, which is...
Well, I mean, it's understandable because chanda, chanda would be the moon, but chanda with the nda, with the alveopalatial nd, anyway, doesn't mean moon at all, unless there's another version that confuses the two, but it means ferocity.
So the Buddha says, gives a list of six things, and I think I've got them all down.
And he says, so he goes and asks the Buddha, do you know about loss as well?
And the Buddha says, of course.
And he tells him these, he says, I know both that which is of benefit and that which is to detriment.
And so he taught, says, please then tell me about what is to detriment.
And the Buddha says, well, then listen.
And he gives this verse, which isn't the Dhammapada verse, but this is often the case with these stories.
There will be other verses that, where they come from exactly, we don't know.
Where they've been recorded, we don't know.
But it's supposed to have been said by the Buddha as well.
So he says usura sayang, which means, that one's clear, it means sleeping beyond sunrise.
So sleeping during the day.
When it's time to get up and go to work, one instead stays in bed and doesn't do one's work.
Alasyang, laziness, when one is just lazy and doesn't want to do good things.
Chandigang means, again, ferocity, so being mean or nasty or cruel, being, you know, when people are overbearing and just constantly irritable.
And then digasondiyang is an interesting one, but I think, because diga means long, but sondiya means addiction to intoxication or addiction to drink, it usually refers to, and maybe intoxication is better.
So I think it has something to do with drinking intoxicating drinks, and it may be a corruption, but I probably just don't know what it means.
Anyway, but the English is terrible.
It doesn't have any of that.
What does it say?
Long continued prosperity, which is ridiculous.
Riga is long, but long continued prosperity is not a cause for ruin, except it can make you negligent, I suppose, but that's certainly not what's being said here.
And then we've got, I think it's Addiction to Strong Drink.
Why?
Because these come from the, or these are echoed in the Dīgha Nikaya Sutta.
the Sigalawada Sutta the discourse the Sigala Sigalawada Sutta talks about these various states that lead to loss right and addiction to drink is of course one of them so I believe means traveling alone
which they just translate as going on long journeys, but going on journeys doesn't lead to loss.
Going on long journeys alone can lead to problems.
In the time of the Buddha, it certainly could, because you could get robbed.
It was a big deal.
If you traveled alone, it just wasn't a good idea.
And finally, which means chasing after other people's wives.
which was apparently a thing, or is really a thing.
People commit adultery all the time.
Bad idea.
Leads to loss, leads to disrespect, leads to loss of friendship, etc.
So he taught these things, and maybe he taught others, but that's the sort of things he taught.
Certainly in the Sigalawada Sutta he taught many other things that are to your detriment.
And it's curious, you know, because he doesn't say gambling.
And yet gambling is considered one of the things that leads to loss.
I don't believe it's in here.
If I've translated it correctly, it's not there.
And in the Sigalavada Sutta it's clearly there.
And that's interesting because the Brahmin is then impressed and says, very good, very good, that's awesome, well spoken, you're really a great teacher and you really know what is a benefit and what is a detriment.
And then the Buddha asks him, so Brahmin, how do you make your livelihood?
And turns out this Brahmin makes his livelihood through gambling.
That's how he makes a living.
I guess he must be sort of one of these people who are con artists, right?
or something like that.
I guess there are professional poker players nowadays.
It's a big thing apparently to gamble online.
I have people who tell me about that, how they do gambling online.
So it's interesting that the Buddha didn't include it, but that is common to be very careful not to attack a person directly, right?
So if he had brought up gambling, it would have, there's a little bit, as a Buddhist, it's more curious than this Brahmin probably realized.
He doesn't bring it up, but yet he wants to make it clear that gambling is in there as well, without actually saying, oh, gambling is going to lead you to ruin.
It's as though he purposefully left it out or this story, part of the reason for telling this story is to or part of the meaning behind the story is to show that he didn't attack him directly.
It's quite curious.
But can be a really important aspect of teaching.
So anyway, point is he tells him
The Brahmin says he makes his living by gambling and this is the funny sort of inside joke that here we can kind of smile because we know it's kind of what's going through the Buddhist's mind to some extent that he's...
He knows that this Brahmin is on a state of loss and is heading in a bad way.
Anyway.
And so then the Buddha asks him, so who wins when you gamble?
Do you win or do your opponents win?
He said, oh well, sometimes I win, sometimes my opponents win.
And then the Buddha says, then the Buddha lays down the law and says, Brahmin, that's not a real victory.
As you can see, that's the nature of victory.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
We have this saying, you win some, you lose some.
It's not a really... I mean, on balance you come out with nothing, right?
You never come out ahead.
Or it's certainly not guaranteed that you're going to come out ahead.
And there must be some other factors.
Often people would say luck is all that allows you to come out ahead.
And as we've talked about, of course, it doesn't matter whether you come out ahead or not.
When you come out ahead, what happens?
Well, you beget enmity.
Your opponents are upset because they've lost.
When you win, someone has to lose.
That kind of victory is not really, he says, a trifling.
That's how the English translate it.
We can't really trust the English now, can we?
He says that's a low sort of belief.
That's a question, sorry.
So it's a trifle.
He doesn't say that's a bad kind of victory or that kind of victory is actually leading you to ruin, which in fact it is.
He says that's a trifling victory.
In a roundabout way, he's trying to get this Brahmin to see the error of his ways, provide him with some friendly advice.
The Brahmin did ask, after all, what leads to loss, and so he's trying to somehow tell him that his lifestyle does that.
But instead he says, so to be very gentle, he says that's a trifling victory.
A real victory is self-victory.
Real conquest, that's conquering yourself.
Why?
Because that kind of conquest you'll never lose.
And so it's poignant in relation to this story, the idea of
being invincible.
Because the win of a gambler is always subject to threat.
The next roll of the dice, the next deal of the cards could change your fortune, could spell ruin.
And much victory is like this.
Victory in war, victory in business, victory in romance, victory...
of all kinds is unpredictable and is unstable, is impermanent.
It doesn't last forever.
It's always subject to the potential of being overdone, overthrown.
But that's really the claim that's being made.
This is how it relates to our practice.
It's an understanding of the extent and the magnitude of the practice that we're undertaking.
This isn't just stress relief.
I was thinking today about advertising the benefits of meditation.
We're probably going to put up posters.
It made me think of, you know, people really, it's really catchy to say mindfulness-based stress reduction because it's non-sectarian, it's non-religious, it's really something that people can, it sort of rolls off the tongue.
But then I thought it's kind of, you know, petty to say stress reduction because that's not really what we're talking about, is it?
In Buddhism we go quite, it's mindfulness-based or it's based on sati.
But it goes farther than just reducing stress.
It uproots anything that could possibly cause you stress in the future.
There's no potential for future stress
meaning you're invincible, and it goes beyond heaven, it goes beyond God, it goes beyond the universe, something that goes beyond loss, something that can never be taken from you.
We're talking about invincibility.
How does this come about?
It comes about by a person who is Atadanta, Bosa,
who is constantly, constantly restrained.
Meaning they never, when seeing a form with the eye, they never give rise to likes or dislikes.
They see it as it is and they're objective.
They free themselves from the potential for
They free themselves from involvement in this game of gain and loss and happiness and suffering.
It sounds actually quite fearsome for people who are addicted to pleasure and who are caught up in this game of
gain and loss.
So it's something that you do have to kind of finesse when you talk to people.
And people often make the accusation that such a person would be someone like a zombie, right?
When they
are restrained means they are just suppressing their urges which isn't at all the case this is suppressing urges wouldn't work it's not something that is sustainable it's not the true victory true victory is is
is invincible, imperturbable.
I was thinking about this today, the whole idea of the zombie, right?
So we have this idea that a person who doesn't like and dislike things is just like a zombie.
Their life has no flavor, has no meaning.
But then if you look at people who are caught up, if you think of the state of mind of a person who's caught up in chasing after things, objects of their desire, how much like a zombie they are, how unaware they are of their own mind, of their own state, how inflamed the mind becomes with passion and hate.
How the mind just in general becomes inflamed and so is subject to greed, anger and delusion constantly.
Sometimes with such intense greed that they will do anything to get what they want, even at the detriment to other people, even at the cost of friendship.
Sometimes give rise to such states of delusion that they
alienate all of their friends due to their oppressive, arrogant, conceited nature.
The level of conceit that we're capable of, the level of arrogance we're capable of, and how awful it is and how harmful it is.
And anger, how we can be so caught up with rage and hatred, constantly depressed or angry, sad, afraid, all of these negative states.
It's kind of like a zombie, like one of those zombie movies or zombie shows that everyone's watching.
Evil zombies, how horrific they are.
That's kind of what we're talking about.
Enlightened people are nothing like that.
An enlightened one is the opposite of a zombie.
They are awake.
They are alive.
They never die.
They're invincible.
So this is what we're striving for.
It's something quite profound.
I teach meditation, now teaching at the university, and I teach to all sorts of people, and a lot of people are just in it for stress reduction, stress relief.
And so it kind of pulls you in and you start to realize, oh, it goes a little bit deeper and you end up down the rabbit hole, so to speak, where you don't recognize the world around you anymore.
Your whole world changes.
I mean, it's not like it's a trap or something.
It's just the sweater starts to unravel.
The whole illusion.
that you built up around yourself and who you thought you were starts to unravel and you see how asleep you've been.
You're like a sleepwalker, like a zombie.
That's how it should be, that's how it really is in meditation.
You start to wake up and see, oh, I've got these problems, my mind does.
my mind has anger, my mind has delusion.
Oh boy, I'm in trouble.
And so you start to do the hard work of changing that.
That's what we do in meditation.
So and that is the highest victory.
It's a victory that no one can take from you.
That's the point of this verse and it's very well said as are all the things the Buddha said.
So something that we should appreciate and remember to give us confidence that what we're aiming for is not something simple.
It's not just a hobby that you can pick up and put down.
Something that really and truly changes your life, transforms you, wakes you up, and helps you rise above your troubles.
So that even though the situation may not change, no matter what the situation is, you are above it, you are beyond it.
So, that's the teaching for tonight.
Verses 104 and 105.
We're almost a quarter of the way through the Dhammapada.
I think when we get to 108, that'll be one quarter of the way.
So, thank you all for tuning in.
I'm wishing you all the best on your path to invincibility.
Be well.