Hi, and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 62, which reads as follows.
Which means,
Putamati, I have sons.
Dhanamati, I have wealth.
Thus the fool worries himself or is vexed or is caught up, is concerned, is distraught by these thoughts.
Atahi atano nathih, oneself indeed is not oneself.
Kuto puta kuto danang, how therefore could either sons or wealth belong to oneself?
The story behind the verse, the story goes that there was this rich man called Ananda.
Ananda Sethi, a rich man named Ananda.
And he taught his children, he lived his life and taught his children to not spend anything, to never give, he said, don't ever give away anything.
because wealth is difficult to gain, it's hard to hold on to, and it can vanish at any time, so you have to work very, very hard to keep it, and keep every coin accounted for.
And so, over his years of cultivating wealth and obsessing over wealth, he came to view it as
something that needed protecting.
He got so wound up that he thought every coin should be accounted for and should never give anything to anyone.
So never give away or foolishly spend your wealth.
Reminds us of the rich man with the pancakes, but no, this is a different man.
It seems to be that wealth, there's a
There's a common theme in the Pali Canon of richness often leading to miserliness, which of course you see in modern day as well.
There are some examples of rich people who are very generous and kind.
There are many rich people who can only think about how they can amass more wealth.
You can get more and more.
So the Buddha said, for this reason, even if it were to rain gold, you would never get enough for even one person.
So this is the story of Ananda and not much of a story because he passed away and left his fortune to his son.
And the story is actually about his reincarnation.
When he was reborn, he was reborn as an outcast in a village of, it says, around a thousand outcast beggars or
poor unemployed outcasts who were unable of course to get any but the worst of jobs and had to live either off begging or off slavery and slave labor etc.
Now from the moment that he was conceived in his mother's womb the entire village was unable to
to get anything, to make even the slightest bit of money or food.
They weren't able to beg.
They weren't able to work.
And the moment that he was conceived, he cursed the whole village.
And so the story goes.
Some kind of group karma at work, I guess.
And so...
They split the village.
They got together and they said, something must be wrong here.
Someone must be causing this.
And so they split the village in half and had them go in separate locations and go begging or go working or whatever.
And they found that one half was able to get by fine as per normal.
the other group still was, as it were, cursed.
And so they cut that group in half and then cut the other group in half and in half again until they got down to two families and they split them up and they found that this pregnant woman was the cause of all the problems.
So they kicked them out and sent them on their way.
And then when he was born,
his parents found the same thing that if they went on alms alone or if they went out working or whatever alone then they could get money just fine and they could get by as well as could be expected but if he was with them they would all get nothing so they kicked him out as well and gave him a little piece of maybe a piece of pot or something and said go you must
You must bear for yourself.
They kept him around until he was like seven years old and they sent him off.
You must go by yourself.
The other thing is he was very, very ugly.
So he kind of looked like an ogre.
And this is the horrible repercussions of being such a miser.
And
One day he was wandering around trying to get whatever alms he could which of course wasn't much.
He wandered back to his old home and he saw this house and he recognized it and so he just walked right in.
And he started looking around the house, not quite sure why he was there but seeing that it looked very familiar and kind of like home.
So he was walking around and he went into one room and there were his grandchildren, his sons' sons, and they freaked out.
And they called out and they said, monster, there's a monster in here.
And the servants came over and beat him and threw him out.
just as the Buddha was walking by.
So the Buddha is walking by going on alms round and he sees this young beggar beaten to a pulp, beaten quite severely, lying on the side of the road, not to a pulp, he's still alive.
He's beaten up and the Buddha looks at him and then he looks at Ananda, who is our Ananda, not the rich Ananda, walking beside and he turns to look at Ananda.
And Ananda knows to take this as an instigation to ask a question.
So he asked the Buddha, what's the story of this guy, Reverend Sir?
And the Buddha said he used to be the great rich man Ananda.
And this was his house.
And this is where he lived.
So Ananda called the rich man's son.
And the Buddha explained to him, this was your father.
And he said, I don't believe it, looks at him and he's this ugly outcast.
And he said, how can he go from a rich man to a beggar?
And the Buddha had him go in the house and find all his treasures.
And the kid was able to actually remember where everything was and so he proved it.
And then the Buddha taught this verse.
Simple story.
And the point here is to remind us not to be negligent.
It's a simple lesson.
We think of material possessions, all of those things, not just Buddha and Danna, our sons and our wealth, but everything.
Look at all of our belongings, all of our enjoyments in the material realm.
thinking of them as me, as mine, as somehow controllable.
So we either hold on to them as ours to enjoy, or we hold on to them as ours to control, or ours to own.
or ours to dwell in.
Our body, we think of it as ourselves.
Our house, we think of it as ourselves.
Our car, our bedroom, everything.
All of our family, we think of them as our family.
All of our friends, we think of them as our friends.
And so we get caught up in this habit of, or expectation of being able to control, of being able to rely upon, of being able to enjoy all of these things.
And the Buddha said, even yourself is not yourself.
It's funny, the more common one that people know is, which is, you wonder whether one of them is actually a, or the other one is actually a, anyway, the Buddha taught both ways.
Self is a refuge of self, which means one is one's own refuge.
But that's referring to the four satipatthana.
One makes a refuge by practicing on one's own, not relying on anyone else.
But even that one can't control.
One can't rely upon one's expectations.
One can't be fulfilled in one's desires and in one's demands.
So as a result, a fool is vexed by these thoughts.
They think of their children and their loved ones and all of the people in their life as being controllable and when they're not able to control these things, control these people.
then they suffer, they're vexed, they're worried all the time, worried about how they might be and trying to figure out ways to control people, ways to control their family, ways to control their friends, ways to control their employers, their employees, their co-workers and so on and so on.
How can I control people to be the way I want them to be?
And the same goes with our dana, our possessions, our wealth, all of our belongings, guarding our houses, guarding our
valuables, guarding our possessions, guarding our enjoyments, even guarding our own bodies, being careful to make sure that we can always enjoy the pleasure that we enjoy now.
But none of this can be controlled, and when it is out of our control, we're vexed by it.
especially foolish people who really believe that these things are going to make them happy.
People who believe in the world bringing happiness end up being vexed quite often.
And because of their lack of wisdom, they're not able to see this.
And so as a result, they are constantly vexed.
They do it again and again and again, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, forgetting that they are constantly upset.
The Buddha reminds us, even ourselves is not ourselves.
What this means is, we can't even control ourselves.
We can make choices, we can have intentions, but we can't really control it.
We can't say, I'm going to be happy all the time, or I'm going to be calm all the time.
We can't say that we're never going to feel pain, or we're not going to get angry, or we're not going to get upset.
We can't say this.
even about our own minds, even about our own being.
So how then could we possibly do this?
How then could we possibly hold on to these things?
How then could we expect that we're going to enjoy the possession of these things forever?
How could we possibly forget that we're going to lose them all when we die?
And this is what Ananda Sethi, this guy, didn't realize.
And really the most impressive part of this story is how quickly he was gone.
This is what shocked his son.
He was unable to believe that just like that, in one moment, the moment of death turned him from a rich, powerful, influential person to a nobody, to the lowest of the low, an outcast of the outcasts.
But that's the truth.
That's what the Buddha means by it's not self.
You can't even hold on to your own being, your own status.
I think I'm a monk.
The moment I die, that's gone.
You think you're a human being.
The moment you die, that's gone.
The next moment you could be an earthworm or a dung beetle.
Everything that we collect, everything that we hold on to, no security for us.
All these people in some cultures, they will bury their belongings with them, thinking that they can bring it into their next life or they'll burn certain objects.
In Thailand and China, they burn these really crappy houses and fake stuff and everything.
And you think, well, then they're going to get a lot of fake stuff when they go to heaven.
The idea is that they can take that stuff with them if they burn it.
And since it's all garbage, you think, well, it's not really, even if it did work.
Of course, it doesn't work.
We don't possess anything.
We just happen to be going in the same direction as all this stuff.
We happen to be in the same physical locale.
We manage to make choices that bring all this stuff near us and that's it.
We can't do any better than that.
We can't control.
Even our enjoyment is fleeting and
ephemeral, something that cannot be relied upon.
It's very much out of our control based on causes and conditions that are far more powerful than any one of us.
So, a reminder for us.
And in regards to meditation, a reminder for us to keep our minds clear and to be clear about all the things that we use.
It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be using our possessions.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't
We shouldn't live.
But it means that when we do experience even pleasure or when you're eating food, the pleasure of the food, when you're seeing beautiful things, the pleasure that comes from that,
But we should see it simply as a feeling.
We should see the experience simply as an experience.
The experience is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking.
And see liking as liking, see disliking as disliking.
And come to see that these things are not self, are not under our control.
Try to keep our minds clear.
Because all of this will catch you when you die.
And if you have great wanting, so someone who is very, very rich because they're clinging so much, what goes with them is the clinging.
And that's why you're born very, very poor.
That's why rich people are very quick to be born very poor because they have so much greed and attachment.
And it's that want that goes with you.
So you're born wanting.
You're born in a constant state of want.
Amassing wealth doesn't make you wealthy.
Being generous and kind
And having a mind of surplus.
When you think you have surplus, when you're content with what you have, then you'll always be content.
You'll never know the words nutty.
When you want something, you'll never be discontent.
You'll never know discontent because your mind is content.
It's funny how it works that way.
The mind that is clinging is the mind that is corrupt.
Clinging to self is the worst type of corruption because it leads to all other likes and dislikes.
so we have to keep our minds clear this is why meditation is important when we live our lives however you live your lives to keep your minds clear and to not cling to self either in regards to your own self or in regards to the things that you enjoy so a nice lesson from the Dhammapada and from our friend the former Ananda Sethi hope he managed to find his way out of that mess so thank you all for tuning in and
I wish you all peace, happiness and freedom from suffering and see you next time.