Hi, and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we go on to verse number 56, which reads as follows.
APAMATTO AYANGANDHO YAYANGTAGRACHANDANAM YO CHA SILAVATAM GANDHO VATI DEVE SU'UTTAMO
Which means, appamato minuscule or insignificant.
Insignificant ayanggando.
Insignificant is this scent.
That of the tagara and chandana flowers.
Yocha silawatang silawatang silawatanggando.
But the descent of the virtuous, the one who has sila, goes all the way up to the angels, or the gods, the devas.
So here we have another verse, if you've been keeping up, this is actually quite similar to the last couple of verses, the last few verses.
not much change in the theme.
The theme is the flowers and scents of flowers particularly and the kind of scent that is greater than the scent of flowers.
So it's the use of a simile that
The thing about the Dhammapada is the verses are arranged by topic, loosely by topic, and so you'll get various times during the Buddha's life.
It's not that he taught these in a sequence, but actually they were put together later in the sequence, and so as a result we have similar verses, especially in this chapter, that all have to do with flowers.
This is the flower chapter.
And as you see, the stories are actually quite different.
So the story here is
that Mahakasaba after spending seven days in the experience of cessation, nirodha which means he had gone through all of the eight jhanas which is the four form jhanas and the four formless jhanas, formless attainments
and then from there entered into cessation, entered into the experience of Nibbana.
And he stayed in that for seven days.
It's considered to be the longest anyone could spend in the attainment of cessation without passing away.
So after seven days he naturally came out of it.
The
just a little bit of background on this, what this means if you're not familiar, the four form jhanas are stages of absorption.
So when someone sits down to practice samatha meditation or to focus their mind and to make their mind calm and to fix the mind on a single object or a single point,
it starts by applying the mind to the object and it's kind of like hammering at the object and driving the mind creating this absorbed state and eventually that becomes
that becomes a constant kind of like we were studying the Visuddhimagga like a bird flying once the bird has attained flight all it has to do is beat its wings and the beating of the wings is this effort to stay with the object and that's the first jhana and the second jhana that effort is taken away and then there's it's like the bird soaring through the air and the third jhana is
successively deeper the third jhana then there's no there's no sense of ecstasy or or rapture with the experience the mind is just fixed in a state of joy and the fourth jhana is a state of equanimity where even the joy is is done away with and there's only a state of tranquil calm so this is
This is the basis of tranquility meditation.
Anyone who practices some transcendental meditation might be familiar with it or creative visualizations will be familiar with this kind of experience.
And after those four experiences then one goes on to the formless jhanas which may be much less familiar but if you study Hinduism you probably have heard of similar concepts or similar ideas where one gives up the object of contemplation and is aware just of the infinity of space and then the infinity of consciousness and then deeper than that the experience of nothingness and deeper than that
the experience of neither perception or non-perception.
So getting rid of, successfully getting rid of the more coarse attainment.
So what you do is you would take, for example, if you're focusing on a circle of color, one of the things that they would do is put a disc of color up on the wall and just fix on it, fix their mind on it.
and say to themselves, it was white, they would say to themselves, white, white, just being completely absorbed in the color white, until finally they wouldn't have to look at the disk, they could see it in their minds, and then they would expand this disk out.
People do this, this is how you practice, according to the ancient tradition, tranquility meditation in the Buddhist
in the Buddhist religion.
And so you would then expand the white to cover the infinity of space and then you'd remove this color white and just be aware of the expanse of space.
Just fix, instead of looking at the color white,
Once it's infinite, you focus on the infinity, and that's the infinite space, absorbed in the infinite space, and then you focus on your own consciousness, the fact that you're now aware of infinity.
And so you enter into infinite consciousness and then
when you get rid of even that consciousness then because you've left behind all that is physical there's nothing and so there's an experience that there is nothing even though there is the consciousness you're now focused on the experience of nothingness and then even
discarding even the experience of nothingness you enter into this sublime state called the state of neither perception or non-perception and all of these are mundane states none of these have gotten beyond samsara none of them have even the potential by themselves to free one from suffering to free one from suffering in any lasting form they're all temporary
But they're considered to be the pinnacle of mundane meditative attainment.
And so the pinnacle of super mundane attainment is to use all of these as a diving board.
It's like you have this pool, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and you could just jump in and swim.
But this is like going all the way to the top.
Have you ever been to these swimming pools where you look up and you see those divers way up at the top?
It's like going all the way up to the top before you dive in.
So it's...
You end up in the water anyway, but this is more exalted.
So this is what is called nirvana.
This is what Mahakasabha is said to have gone into for seven days, which is again the pinnacle of attainment without entering into parinibbana.
Mahakasyapa was an Arahant and he was also one of the Buddha's chief disciples, one of the 80 great disciples.
He was said to be the Buddha's foremost disciple in regards to keeping
was in regards to the ascetic practices, I think.
I think it was just generally ascetic practices, because he kept three of them, always going on alms round.
So he would never take food that was brought back to the monastery.
In fact, he didn't live in the monastery.
He lived up in Pipali Guha.
Pipali was his original name.
Up above Rajagaha, there was this cave that he lived in.
And if you go now, they've built a little kuti of stone.
I don't know how long it's been there, whether it was just a tourist attraction, but that's supposed to be Pipilinguha, the cave of Mahakasapa.
Now they built cement stairs up, concrete stairs up but in Mahakasaba's time he had to walk down the hill all the way to Rajagaha for alms and then walk all the way back up and everyone would always encourage him to, you know, look you're getting old why don't you come and stay in the city and he would always refuse to, for his whole life he refused to stay in the city.
He's also said to have
never lied down for his whole monk life.
He never lay down once or something.
I'm not sure if it was him.
But no, the three were going on alms round every day, living in the forest and wearing rag robes.
So he's also, there's many stories, and I don't know if all of these are in the Dhammapada, I shouldn't go into all of them, but another thing is he wore the Buddha's sangati.
He switched robes with the Buddha, that's another special thing about Mahakaspa.
Anyway, he was one of the greats.
Apparently, I think there's one story that says he was originally, no, maybe that's Mahakachayana, let's forget about it.
Anyway, Mahakaspa, one of the greats.
He's also the guy who after the Buddha passed away was the one who undertook to gather all the Arahants together to have the first council and to recite the Buddha's teachings.
So they had Ananda refresh their memory and sort of help to organize all the suttas and Upali got together the Vinaya and together they chanted the Dhamma in the Vinaya and that was the first council.
So he's a very special monk and as a result of that everybody wanted to give him alms.
But what he would do, especially, and this is another thing, according to tradition, anyone who gives, the first person who gives alms to a monk who has just come out of nirodha samapati, this attainment that I was just talking about, that he was in for seven days, whatever they wish for will be fulfilled.
This is what the tradition, it says something like that.
So it's a very special thing.
Once he came out of it, because it's so powerful, he looked around and he thought in his mind, who should I go to for alms?
He was thinking of someone who could really use the great merit or the great goodness of giving alms to someone so powerful and so pure.
I suppose it sounds kind of arrogant, but if it's the truth, he certainly wasn't arrogant.
And if you read his biography, it's quite clear it was very much the other way around.
But he understood the benefit of this, that it's a great thing.
And this is really something that
That is an important concept in Buddhism, that giving and sharing and supporting each other is not considered, taking is not considered to be a bad thing.
If someone gives you something, making use of it.
The point is to make use of it in the right way.
If you are pretending to be a meditator or something and you're using
facilities here and so on, and you're just like a spy for another religion or something, then you're a thief.
If you're here and you're really here, but you're not practicing, then you're borrowing.
You're a debtor.
If you're actually practicing the meditation or practicing the Buddhist teaching and you come and use our facilities, then you are a... What do you call someone who inherits stuff?
A... What do you call the person who inherits from someone?
Huh?
Successor, no?
Successor?
I don't know.
The person who, the inheritor is the word for it.
And the fourth one is if you've practiced already and have gained, become enlightened, then you're using it out of, you're using it as one who is worthy of it.
So here, Maha Kasaba had this, he was an Arahant and he had this great distinction so he wasn't afraid to allow people who wanted to give things to him.
But you see how careful he was.
He wasn't going around looking for rich people or looking for good food.
In fact, what he thought is he'd go and find someone who was very, very, very poor.
So what happened on this day is these angel, these nymphs or female angels, let's say, I think the word is female angels, I have to specify because these ones were female, came to see Maha Kasupa and stood there by the side of the road and he said, what do you want?
Oh, we want to give you alms.
He said, go away.
I said, I can't give alms.
You don't need my alms.
You don't need this merit.
Go away.
I'm going to find someone who is in need of it.
And they wouldn't go away.
And they cried and they begged and they pleaded.
And I think at the end, he snapped his fingers at something.
This is a very rude gesture in India, apparently.
Like this.
Yeah, we do that, no?
Like this.
It's a shock actually to read that Mahakaspa did this, but I guess that was the thing in India that he did.
It was like enough kind of thing.
He snapped his fingers and they were shocked and they ran away.
He knew that was the only thing that would get them, I guess.
And so he kept walking down to Rajgaha on alms.
The angels went back to heaven and they were all disappointed and Saka, the king of the angels,
came up to them and said, hey, what's wrong?
They said, didn't you know Mahakasabha just came out of Nirodha Samapati?
And he said, oh, so?
Wow, we wanted to give him alms.
This is the best opportunity for us to make merit.
Up in heaven, where do we get the opportunity to do good things?
So we were going to do a good deed and offer food to him, but he refused us.
He wouldn't let us.
And Sai goes, oh, so you couldn't get him to give you alms, could you?
And he thought.
and he called his queen and he said, come, come I've got an idea and they went down to Rajgaha and they saw Maha Kasaba going down a certain road and they went up on the road and they transformed themselves into two poor weavers and they just set up their loom by the side of the road and he was working the loom and his wife was feeding the wool to him and so on
and they were not loom no loom maybe the spinner i don't know whatever it was doing something with wool and they were very poor poor and shabby looking uh
I think they set up a hut or something.
Anyway, so Maha Kasaba sees them and he says, aha, here's some people who really need it, right?
Maha Kasaba thinks these are real poor people.
And so he goes right to them and he thinks these are people who could really benefit from this.
And
They see him coming and they say, oh, we want to give you something.
We have some food for you.
And they bring, they come, and they come with this old bowl covered up.
And they open it up.
they scoop the food into his bowl and as they're scooping it into his bowl the smell just fills the whole city because of course it's angel food it's the most delicious food and most delicate and wonderful food that there possibly could be and Maha Ghaziba knows something of that and he says who are you?
And Saka can't lie of course because he's actually Buddhist and he says, I am Saka the king of the angels.
Mahakasyapa says, you've done a terrible thing today.
You could have, you've taken this from someone.
You've taken this opportunity from someone.
There are people in the city who would very much like to offer food to me today.
And
And so he scolds him and he says, you've done a very terrible thing.
And Saka is shocked and scared.
And he says, are you saying I didn't get any merit from that?
Any goodness?
No goodness came from that?
And he said, yes, goodness came from it.
And Isaac goes, woohoo!
And he flies off into the air and he shouts from up in the air.
He gives some verse.
This is a story that's in there.
He shouts so loud, and he's an angel, of course, so that they hear him back in Rajika, in Vailuvana, or wherever the Buddha is staying.
And the Buddha perks up his ear and says, Hey monks, do you hear that shouting?
They say, yes.
And he says, that's Saka.
Why is Saka shouting?
Oh, because he offered food to
Mahakasapa, wow, it's that big of a deal, is it?
And he says, oh yes.
Even the angels know when Mahakasapa is going for alms.
He says, this is the way of the enlightened ones.
This is the way of those who have morality, those who are virtuous.
And then he gave the verse.
the scent of the virtuous, the ganda, the scent of one who is virtuous goes all the way to the angels.
So that's the origin of this story.
And what are we going to do with this story?
It's very much like the other ones, but I know I haven't yet talked about, I don't think I've talked about how morality, what it means to be someone who is virtuous according to the texts.
And I think a good, that we find a good description of what it means to be virtuous in the Visuddhimagga.
So tonight for this verse I'd like to talk about these four aspects of morality, what it means to be moral or what it means to be virtuous because we're not talking obviously about someone who just keeps rules or someone who doesn't do things.
There's a sense here that Maha Kasapa is someone who is perfectly virtuous
in every way that his mind, his speech and his physical acts are completely pure so that when he walks for alms he is perfectly humble and
cautious and careful, courteous, I'm assuming.
It's one thing that I've been thinking about going on alms in the West because people look at me very strangely walking down the street.
And I've debated with myself before, should I wear shoes?
Because people, when you go walking through the city, people
There's something wrong if you're not wearing shoes.
It just doesn't look right walking down the city street wearing shoes.
But I've tried it before.
I've tried going on alms in Los Angeles wearing shoes, well, wearing sandals.
and it feels very very wrong actually to do it that way so as opposed to feeling somehow strange to be going barefoot it feels wrong and this is exactly what I'm talking about here this feeling of being unassuming and humble because remember what you're doing when you go for alms people
think of this as as something like an expectation or a Kind of like a an arrogance that you think you can just walk around the city and get free food and So there is something that there is a delicacy there that actually what we're doing is something akin to begging or asking or expecting something and
or has the potential to become something akin to expectation or even arrogance.
And so it is incredibly important and an intrinsic part of the Buddhist practice of the alms round, the collection of alms.
that it be done in perfect humility and that the only alms that be collected be enough food to sustain oneself for that day so with alms we're not talking about money because monks cannot touch money we're talking about whatever food can be gotten
without begging, without asking, without expecting so a monk who goes on alms can't even show their bowl the bowl has to be under the robes until you see that someone wants to offer you food
So we're not actually going around knocking on people or asking people for food, we're just walking.
And if it happens, in Canada it doesn't happen, but if it happens, like in India, that someone is looking to give food to religious people, because in India they didn't give money to religious people, not so much, they gave food.
So all these people go off in the forest, they would come into the cities and people would give them food.
to keep them alive.
They think this is someone who is doing something good, has the potential to be a teacher, has the potential to help us, help us learn the truth and so on.
So we will feed them to keep them alive.
people who think this it's not unreasonable of course we're not talking about anything extravagant but on the recipient part for the monks it's very important that we be humble so I've come to see the importance of even though it might be a little bit weird it's important to maintain this complete humility
that we are totally unassuming and
putting ourselves at the lowest possible level so that we are not expecting or assuming anything So this is what Maha Kasba had perfected going on alms round every day He was the perfectly humble recipient of alms and of course perfectly pure and very powerful in his meditative attainments supremely powerful
And so when we talk about virtue or sila, we have to talk about more than just the precepts.
So we have these four types of morality.
The first type is actually the precepts.
So keeping to basic, or not basic, but keeping to principles of morality.
In basic sense, not killing, not stealing, not cheating, not lying, not taking drugs and alcohol.
But for someone who is dedicated to a perfect and a virtuous life, it means not having any sexual or romantic activity, not indulging in entertainment or beautification, only eating one meal or enough to survive for the day without eating many times during the day.
and sleeping only to a minimum and living a life of poverty and renunciation.
But for monks of course it means so much more.
For a monk there are 227 rules that we have to keep and it actually becomes quite a circumscribed lifestyle.
We aren't allowed to
We aren't allowed to eat food unless it's given to us, so we have to only eat that which people have given to us that day.
We aren't allowed to store food, we aren't allowed to prepare food for ourselves.
We really are at the mercy of our karma, at the mercy of the world.
We're only allowed to wear one set of robes and things like this as many rules that keep us in poverty and simplicity and renunciation.
So this is the first purification of morality that we're talking about here.
Of course, for lay people and for ordinary meditators, this means keeping basic morality of not killing and so on.
Which is really the basis of our, or the preliminary of our meditation practice.
If you are killing and stealing and cheating and lying and taking drugs or alcohol, it's highly unlikely that you're going to get anywhere in the meditation practice since these are antithetical to the goals of clarity of mind, purity of mind and sobriety.
So this is the first aspect of morality and incredibly important for meditators.
Anyone who thinks that they can get away with killing and stealing and so on and still attain meditative states of clarity and understanding of reality is sorely deluded because these, on the other hand,
On the contrary, create many states such as anger or addiction or delusion, arrogance and conceit and distraction and worry and fear and so on.
All sorts of states that come from the insanity that is involved with breaking these basic rules.
And so the higher rules are just a matter of refining that as your level of clarity of mind and concentration of mind increases, you're better able to keep a higher level of morality and higher level of virtue, even just naturally.
The second aspect of the purification of morality is
in regards to our use of our requisites, the use of our belongings.
And these are really as far as a preliminary practice goes.
But this is another important aspect of how we live our lives, so our interactions with the material world in regards to our use of robes, our use of clothing, our use of food, our use of shelter and our use of medicines, and by extension our use of really everything that we have.
So this really means contentment, not getting caught up in luxury and needing
the next best, or the next greatest thing, the next big thing, or this or that, needing a new car, a bigger house, nice clothes, not needing entertainment, not needing things that are not a necessity for our work and for our lives and for our well-being.
So when we use clothes, we use them only to cover our body.
We use them only to protect our bodies and to cover our bodies.
When we use food, we use it only to sustain our bodies and just to keep our life going, to give us energy in order to do good deeds, in order to do things that bring peace and happiness and further our goal towards enlightenment, further us on our path towards enlightenment.
We only use shelter for protection from the elements and for privacy.
We don't use it for luxury and comfort that we can live in indolence or laziness.
We use the shelter for the purpose of
having seclusion, not privacy, but seclusion, so that we're able to practice meditation and so we're able to do good things without being bothered by the weather and bothered by other people and so on.
So having a room to ourselves is enough.
Of course, having a tree is really enough.
The best is to just have a tree root to live at.
Although in the city that doesn't keep you very private.
I think you'd probably get in trouble if you tried to sleep under a tree here.
But in the forest that would be the best because then you don't have to take care of it and you don't have to worry about anything and you won't get lazy either.
You just have the root of the tree to sleep at.
But we have to just know how to use these things.
And our medicines we only use to cure sickness.
We don't use them to become addicted or to avoid problems or to intoxicate ourselves.
We don't get drunk on medicine as kind of an addictive drug or so on.
We try to use medicines that only cure illnesses.
allow us some peace of mind to continue with our practice.
They cure the physical ailment.
So this is using the requisites and by extension, of course, as I said, using everything.
So everything that we use should be used for a purpose and we should be careful not to engage in materialism, consumerism or
greed and the craving for acquisition.
The third aspect of the purification of morality is in regards to our livelihood.
So everyone has to make a living, even Buddhist monks.
Our living is to take our bowl and go through the city and see what alms or scraps of food we can cook up or we can drum up.
So here in the city actually, in Winnipeg, I didn't mention having people like tomorrow I'm going I think to Seneca's house, no?
So I have actually people who come and say tomorrow we'd like to give you food and this is our address and so I just go to their address.
So that's my livelihood.
I guess the other aspect of it is teaching the Dhamma.
So people do this because I teach them.
And so some of our meditators have actually taken the initiative to come and offer food, but actually we're quite well taken care of.
And so we have people requesting to offer food all the way back to, actually all the way into next year already.
There are some people who have sent emails saying, hey, I'd like to offer in February.
Am I going to still be here?
I can't think that far ahead.
But we have that.
But this is kind of an extreme sort of, not extreme in a bad sense, but it's a fairly, I don't want to say advanced, but it's a fairly...
Deeply committed sort of Buddhist livelihood basic Buddhist livelihood in general.
We're just talking about living your life According to moral principles so not selling drugs or selling alcohol obviously not selling poisons not Killing animal killing for getting involved with selling animal flesh Or selling human beings selling weapons this kind of thing Selling most traps all this is bad
And by extension, you can try to shy away from selling things that make people negligent, like selling games or selling things that have no benefit.
Of course prostitution would be another one.
These kind of things are probably considered wrong livelihood.
I once had a prostitute come and meditate with me.
It was quite interesting.
She came to me and I was sitting and I didn't have a man with me or something.
Somehow.
What happened?
Because normally we have to have a man sitting with me so I'm not sure why I didn't but
she ended up having a man come with her during reporting.
Normally I have a man, so it's very strange, but she was very uncomfortable.
And at one point we got talking and she said she had a problem.
And I said, what's the problem?
And she said, I'm a sobini.
It was all in Thai.
And I'm like, oh.
And she got very frustrated because she's like, don't you understand?
And I had no idea what this was.
And I thought, it's kind of from Nepali.
And I thought, oh.
Oh, I know.
And so we started talking.
I don't know whatever happened to her, but I can't remember.
It was an interesting story because I started asking about whether it was wrong, whether it was bad, and what was wrong with it, whether it was breaking the third precept.
And I said, well, no, I don't think it's breaking the third precept unless you're sleeping.
And here would be the point, is if you're knowingly sleeping with people who are in a committed relationship, like a married man comes and wants your services.
And in fact, she was.
And I said, okay, that's where we have to really draw the line.
I said, the whole prostitution thing, I'll say tonight, at the time I think I said, I'm not sure because I didn't want to get her, you know, I wanted to make people feel good, feel right.
Like Sariputta, when Sariputta went to this guy's house, he was the executioner.
He'd been the executioner in the city for many, many years.
and he was retired and Sariputta came to his house for alms and when Sariputta started teaching he was very agitated because he was thinking gee I'm such a what a bad person I am I've been killing people for years and Sariputta said what's wrong why aren't you listening to what I'm saying and he said I'm sorry I was just thinking about how I killed all those people and Sariputta said well Sariputta thought to himself I'm going to trick him a little bit here and he said
What?
Did you do it out of your own accord or did someone tell you to kill them?
He said, no, no, the king was the one.
The king ordered me to kill him.
It wasn't my orders.
And Sariputta said, well, then were you really to blame?
And he thought to himself, oh, I guess I'm not to blame for it.
And in fact, Sariputta never said that.
But he was kind of pulling a fast one over him.
Pulling a, what do you call?
Pulling a fast one on him.
Yeah.
but to good use because then he settled down and he didn't think about that anymore and this is the point you can't feel guilty about bad past deeds or you'll never get anywhere you'll always be stuck in this self-hatred and this sadness and so on you have to get over that so he put it aside and just listened to what Sariputta had to say and actually became a Sotapanna he was actually through his listening to what Sariputta had to say and practicing and reflecting on it he was able to come to some realization of the truth
This is, you know, I'm not saying I'm Sariputta, but this was the principle I was acting upon in not outright telling her that it was wrong to be a prostitute.
But I said, that's definitely wrong.
You have to put your foot down there.
No sleeping with married men.
This is breaking the third precept.
And so we talked about that for a while.
And it was really, I think, a delicate situation.
She was like living with this guy or something.
I don't know.
But yeah, wrong livelihood, have to be careful.
I don't think it mentions even prostitution as wrong livelihood, but I would say it's not certainly the best livelihood.
It's one of the, I would say one of the less desirable Buddhist life, forms of livelihood for a Buddhist, to say the least.
But there you go, finding a livelihood that is suitable, finding a livelihood that is in line with the Dhamma.
I'm not so keen on trying to find livelihood in the Dhamma, like people who try to make money off the Dhamma.
This is dangerous.
You see, my livelihood doesn't depend on my teaching.
I don't charge per head who comes here.
And the videos we put on the Internet, there's not even any advertising revenue, even though we could advertise totally, get nothing for it, totally for free.
So you couldn't say, well, by extension, the way I live, a lay person should be able to charge for the dhamma, because it's not working that way.
This isn't teaching as a livelihood.
Teaching is, I'm able to do this because I don't need to make a livelihood, because my livelihood is taken care of.
It is different where a teacher charges money for their services.
It's categorically different from, for example, what I or what a Buddhist monk does.
So that kind of thing I'm not so keen on because it's mixing principles.
You see, I'm keeping these very separate.
My going for alms is not directly related to my providing services, for example.
So when they become interconnected, where I'm giving the Dhamma because I'm getting paid,
then how pure can it possibly be?
Inevitably it becomes tainted because you're not thinking in your mind, how can I help this person?
You're thinking, how are they going to help me?
You're thinking per head and how to get more people interested and how to get, how to sell things.
Like I've heard from, I have one of my students was a, or is a,
motivational speaker in the US and he was talking about we were talking about ways that he could be more dharmic and so on and he said you know he can be laid back but he knows that if he's just laid back and just just teaches from the heart it doesn't sell subscriptions it doesn't sell people these these what these seminars so he's trying to sell seminars and he has to be
pushy about it and someone came up to him after one of his seminars and said you know you really are pushing this and and he said you know if i've tried not pushing it if i don't push it people don't buy it and you can't make a living off of it and so it changes when it becomes a business so this is something that i think we should keep in mind separate your livelihood out from
Like a lay person, look at the examples, business people.
Some of the Buddha's greatest lay disciples were business people.
Or they sold, the Buddha's greatest lay disciple was Gatakara, the potter.
who didn't sell.
He just went and made pots and put them by the side of the road and said, give what you want for them.
There's no prices on them.
People say, how much is that one?
He said, well, leave what you think.
Leave some beans, leave some rice, whatever you think it's worth.
And that was it.
He was an anagami, actually.
So totally separate from Dharma practice.
Our livelihood should be righteous, but you shouldn't try selling the Dhamma or trying to make a living off of the Dhamma.
I don't think that's in the spirit of the Buddha's teaching.
Although I'm not denouncing anyone, I'm not trying to denounce anyone here, even people who sell weapons.
It's their choice.
It's a shame and it's wrong, but
up to them so just for your information for your edification number three and number four the fourth part of aspect of the purification of morality the most important for meditators is the guarding of the senses and this is really a aspect or a facet of the meditation practice it's one way of looking at the whole of our practice is the guarding of the senses or the purification of
experience.
So letting experience in but keeping it at the level of bare experience.
So keeping seeing just as seeing, hearing just as hearing, smelling just as smelling, tasting just as tasting, feeling just as feeling, and thinking just as thinking.
And this takes on several levels as well.
There's the basic level of guarding the senses by closing your eyes, right?
You close your eyes, you don't see anything.
And if you close your ears, Tarindu, can you close your ears?
Do you hear anything?
You don't even hear me.
Even if you put your hands over your ears, you still hear something.
That's the problem.
Try it.
Do you not hear a ringing or a... or something?
You don't hear anything?
Not even a... sound?
I hear a sound when I do that.
No?
It's very hard to close your ears.
Someone, one monk in Bangkok, he pointed that out to me.
He was telling me this story, this really terrible student of his, because sometimes lay people, he teaches not meditation, but study.
And when you teach study, you get a lot of people who can be very argumentative.
And he was saying, you know, you can't close your ears.
And I said, what do you mean you can't close your ears?
They were saying, just close your ears.
And I said, try it.
And he was so fed up with this guy because he had been giving him trouble all the time.
I thought about it.
I said, yeah, you can't really close your ears.
It doesn't work.
You can close your eyes, but actually closing your eyes doesn't even work.
Because you still will see lights playing.
If you focus on the back of your eyelids, you'll still see stuff.
And as you sit in meditation, you'll see all sorts of stuff.
People see bright lights, colors, pictures, movies, all sorts of things.
So this isn't what we mean by guarding the senses.
You can guard the senses by forcing your mind to behave, fixing your mind.
You can focus on, like I said, focus on a light or a color and that keeps your mind pure.
But obviously in the
Tradition of the Buddha at the core of the Buddhist practice is this bare attention or mindfulness keeping them remembering Reminding ourselves keeping our bare awareness on the object deep pay deep tamatang bhavisati Making sure that what we see is just what we see Seeing is just seeing hearing is just hearing tasting smelling feeling is just tasting smelling feeling thinking is just thinking
So this is the essence of our practice.
This is what we're trying to accomplish.
But it's not about suppressing anything.
It's about maintaining an experience of reality.
It's about stabilizing the mind because the mind gets off track, gets caught up in the jungle.
If you say you're going down this straight path and if you're not stabilized,
very easy to go off track and get caught up in illusion and delusion and identification and projection and judgment.
and never get anywhere, just get lost in the jungle.
So what we're trying to do is straighten the mind and keep the mind on track.
This is why we have this practice of reminding ourselves when we see something, saying to ourselves, seeing, seeing, hearing, hearing.
This is the essence of the practice.
So altogether this is what makes a person virtuous.
Both the...
both the application of moral principles in terms of keeping rules, in terms of our use of requisites, in terms of our livelihood, and the application of practical
qualities of mind, so that from within, we're moral from within, without having to keep X, Y, or Z rule, or to have this principle or that principle, to be naturally moral or naturally virtuous, due to our direct and objective experience of reality, so that we are no longer judging or identifying or projecting on the experience.
This is what can be understood as the Dhamma and the Vinaya that they discussed at the first council.
The Dhamma is the qualities of mind from within.
The Vinaya is the abstention from the adherence to principles from without.
And these two things together protect us and keep us straight and keep us
traveling on our long and winding road to become enlightened and free from suffering.
So that's the gist of what I can squeeze out of that verse.
I hope that's been of some use.
Thank you all for tuning in.
This is another episode of our study of the Dhammapada.
May you all, through the study and the practice of these teachings, may you all find peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering.
Thank you.