Good evening everyone.
Welcome back to Evening Dhamma.
Tonight we are ending the Sabasava Sutta and we've recently been over the topic of this section so I'm not going to go into great detail but
It's the kind of thing that it's okay to go over.
Tonight we're looking at the taints or defilements to be abandoned by developing or cultivating bhavana.
Bhavana is a very important word in Buddhism.
Bhava comes from bhū.
Bhū means existence or to be, being.
It's a simple word.
If you talk about something existing, you say it exists.
Bhavati.
Bhava.
Bhava is something coming into being.
It's existing or being.
But bhavana Bhavana means causing something to become, to be.
It's an important word because it describes Buddhist practice quite well.
Buddhist practice isn't about relaxing or running away.
Buddhism is very much about developing and cultivating.
So meditation, this is why I have to repeatedly
Can you get the door?
Why is someone barging into our house?
This is new.
So the idea is to become something, to not become something, sorry, to cause things to come into being and specific things.
When we practice meditation, we are not just... What's the problem?
I think he was trying to figure out what kind of place this was.
I guess now that I've got the speakers on, people can hear us outside.
That's interesting.
We're trying to cultivate certain qualities.
So meditation isn't just about closing your eyes and blanking your mind.
There's quite a bit more to meditation than people think.
It's not even just a question about it being about relaxing.
Meditation isn't exactly about one single thing.
There are ways of summing it up, but there's quite a bit involved with meditation, many qualities of mind, many facets to the quality of mind that we're trying to cultivate.
meditation and Buddhist practice in general involves producing, causing to come into being many qualities of mind.
And we're talking about qualities of mind that were weak or non-existent before.
I'm not talking about something physical.
I'm not talking about cultivating anything physical.
Buddhism isn't about building monasteries or shaving off your hair, putting on special clothes.
It's not about getting to the point where you can sit in full lotus posture.
What we're cultivating here is qualities of mind.
And that's something I think takes a little bit of patience but should be a focus when we have the question of what are we getting out of this practice?
I mean our focus is too often on how happy is it making me, right?
Which is fine and good but
It smacks of potential impatience and addiction, really, to pleasure.
If I say to you meditation is supposed to make you happy, well, we tend to ignore all the work that has to be done and focus very much on that happiness
When in fact it's our obsession with happiness that makes us unhappy.
If you want to talk about success and progress in the practice, you have to ask about your state of mind.
Because happiness isn't something that's easy to come by.
Happiness requires a strong and healthy and pure mind.
A well-developed mind.
So Bhavana, the Buddha said, Just like rain penetrates an undeveloped, a poorly thatched roof.
So to the undeveloped mind, Abhavitam Chittam.
allows the defilements in.
Defilements meaning those things that get us caught up in addiction and aversion and suffering.
We suffer because our minds are undeveloped.
Not because we're working too hard, but because we're not really working hard enough or we're not working in the right way.
If you want to be happy, there are many qualities that you have to develop.
Most importantly, mindfulness.
And this is the first one.
Mindfulness always is the first.
It's very important that it be placed at the beginning.
It's the one the Buddha said is always useful.
When you refer to the
The Bhoja Angas, what we're supposed to be developing are the seven factors of enlightenment.
Bhoja Anga, Bodhi Anga.
Anga is just a word that means member.
Bodhi means enlightenment.
Bodhi is that moment when everything comes together.
when one is perfect in all the many factors and qualities, faculties and qualities of mind that come together to create enlightenment.
That's bodhi.
So these seven factors are the seven things that we cultivate and having cultivated, realize bodhi, realize enlightenment.
Sati is the first.
We talk a lot about sati and of course this is how we come to see.
This is, as we talked about last time, how we abandon the defilements temporarily and with the pure mind that comes from being mindful we're able to abandon and free ourselves.
see clearly, and through seeing clearly, free ourselves.
So once we've developed sati, then there comes dhamma vichaya, which means in regards to the dhammas, the understanding that comes about, the shedding the light.
Mindfulness is like a very powerful light and dhamma vichaya is where you analyze, not intellectually, but you start to react really, or not react, but taste, taste your reactions.
Dhamma vichaya is where you start to discriminate, where you really start to be able to judge properly.
We talk a lot about how judgment is a real problem, but it's only wrong judgment that's a problem, or ignorant judgment.
Once you see things clearly, you start to be able to judge things properly.
and undeniably discriminate between good and bad.
This is undeniably bad.
Why?
Well, I've seen it with perfect clarity.
That's what we do in the practice.
It's like picking out the bad stuff and throwing it away and sorting everything into good and bad.
Not because someone told you so or because you think so or because you feel so.
Because you know so and you see.
Once you do that, to develop, you need to develop effort.
So you can have mindfulness, and through mindfulness comes this discrimination.
But for it to succeed, you need effort.
The third one is effort.
This means the first two are really the practice.
But for it to be successful, you need to put effort in.
You can't just do it once and give up, right?
Sit down for 10 minutes and that was that.
Now I've meditated.
I'm a meditator.
Something that you have to do, the Buddha said, satacca kiri avasena, to get into the habit or the activity of this continuous, satacca means continuous, mindfulness and investigation.
It means when you're eating, eating should become a meditation.
When you're walking around, sitting down, lying down to sleep, when you're in the shower, when you're on the toilet,
Everything you do, every moment is a moment when you can be cultivating these qualities.
It takes effort.
But once you cultivate effort and the effort comes, another thing about it is once you're mindful and you start to see things clearly, you free up a lot of effort.
You know, when we talk about being tired, we think of being tired as because you've worked too hard, but it's oftentimes not even a physical tired, it's a mental stiffness.
It's like a tension of the mind, really.
And once you're mindful, you suddenly feel all this energy come back, gradually feel all this energy come back as you start to let go and ease up.
Your mind becomes more focused and more alert.
And you gain more energy and then the final of the energy side is rapture.
And so once you become energetic, then you start to become, it becomes habitual.
So rapture is this state of gaining momentum, really, becoming powerful.
Through putting out effort, it becomes stronger and more, it's like inertia, really.
When it starts to get in the groove, it becomes habitual and easier, really.
More efficient.
Rapture refers to anything you get caught up in, really.
That's why we use the word rapture.
So it's easy to get caught up in many different things.
Here you start to get caught up in mindfulness, and that's a really good sign.
Once it becomes second nature, where you're just mindful constantly throughout the day, or it becomes very much a part of who you are, that's rapture.
You become enraptured by mindfulness.
What a great thing.
So those ones, well, mindfulness is in the center, but the other three are on the effort side.
And then we have on the other side of things, your mind becomes calmer.
So, your mind becomes more tranquil.
Samadhi, your mind becomes more focused.
And upeka, your mind, this is the most important one, your mind becomes more equanimous.
And once you've completely tranquilized the mind and the body,
to the point where you're able to be still, and you feel very sorted out.
Every experience becomes orderly.
It's still chaos, but it's manageable chaos, and there's a quietude to it, a stillness.
There's no more defilements or anything.
Samadhi means you're focused.
You have this perfect clarity of focus on each object as it arises.
And dupeka means you have no judging.
These are the qualities that we try to develop.
We put mindfulness in the center.
The other ones are on the side of effort and concentration.
So if you have a lot of effort, then you have to be clear that you're a lot of energy, over energy, you're distracted and restless.
Then you have to be clear about that and start to focus on the other three, calming your mind down, focusing a bit better.
Trying to be less jumpy and less judgmental or reactionary.
More equanimous.
I mean, just acknowledging those things helps you focus your mindfulness, really.
Mindfulness is the tool.
You don't have to get too distracted by this idea of balancing things.
It's more of an intellectual thing for you to step back and say, uh-huh, well, that's where I'm obviously not being mindful, or it's harder for me to be mindful because I'm out of balance.
And so knowing this helps you to focus your mindfulness and make you focus your efforts to be more mindful of those things that are important.
So this one, this one really pairs with the first one.
Remember we had the first one was seeing in this sutta.
So seeing is our practice.
We're trying to see the truth.
It's a very lofty sounding goal, but it's quite simple.
It is lofty, but it's simple.
We're trying to understand what's going on.
Why are we suffering?
Trying to understand our minds.
Understand our experience.
Understand reality as a mundane thing, as a process of experience that causes us so much stress and suffering.
And to change that.
To fix that, really.
Fix that through seeing, through seeing the problem, understanding the problem and naturally inclining or changing the way we incline our minds.
And so the other five that we've been through up to today are more supportive practices.
And indeed, each one of those supportive practices cuts off a part of the problem.
And these asala, which means these sort of threads that are getting us off balance, that are leading to
stress and suffering, really.
But the main practice is still seeing And bhavana is just bringing it back home That as you start to see and start practice seeing There are qualities that you are cultivating So bhavana is the qualities It's the same with the Satipatthana Sutta, right?
The Buddha goes through the Satipatthana Sutta And then at the very end Well, before getting into the truths He talks about the factors of enlightenment What you're developing through the practice
So this is this section, these seven things, mindfulness, investigation, effort, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.
These are the seven factors of enlightenment.
He says something interesting about each of them that I didn't mention.
It's... Which means... Each one of these factors is based on... Based on seclusion, dispassion, cessation.
And has...
giving up or relinquishment as its ending, as its result.
So the stress here is on the fact that these are the qualities that lead to seclusion or are associated with seclusion, dispassion and cessation.
These are the qualities of mind.
These are them.
These are the way to true seclusion in the sense of being secluded from the defilements, where your mind is away from all that heat and stress and fever of defilement, dispassion and cessation, the cessation of suffering.
and have letting go as their end.
So we talk about letting go a lot in Buddhism.
How does one let go?
Letting go is the result, parinaming.
It's the ending.
And it comes from all of these.
It comes when you're mindful and when you develop all the qualities that lead to enlightenment.
And so in conclusion the Buddha says, when one has removed all of these defilements, the ones through seeing that should be abandoned by seeing, the ones through using, through enduring, through avoiding, through removing, and through developing,
Then one is called a bhikkhu who dwells restrained with the restraint of all the taints.
It's not quite the language I would use.
I mean, it's difficult language.
Dwells restrained.
Having restrained all of the... Yeah, restrained is not the best word.
sabāsava-sammara-sambuddho, having restrained them, I guess.
So the āsava again, it's kind of this metaphor of streams or this imagery of these things that get us
Get us lost.
It's like a leak.
So it means you've plugged all the leaks.
Our mind ordinarily is at peace.
Why can't we just be here and now?
Ordinary reality, as we describe it and as we think of it, is really pure.
But it's the asawa that get us impure, that get us caught up in busyness and stress and friction.
They're the poison.
And so once one has done this, one has plugged up all the leaks.
Ache chitanhang, one has cut off craving.
We watai sangyojanang, one has untied.
We watai, I don't know.
What does Bikubodi say?
Flung off the fetters.
Sama mana bisamaya antamakasi dukasa
With the complete penetration of conceit, he has made the end of suffering, made an end of suffering.
So again, what's great about this sutta is it gives a really comprehensive look at the practice.
I mean, there's much more that could be said about each one of these and so many details and many ways of implementing all the aspects of the practice, but this gives a good summary of Buddhist practice, really.
And it comes back, starts at seeing and comes back to cultivating.
And it really gives us some good pointers and good reminders on how to keep our practice going and keep it going in the right direction.
So that's the Sabasavasutta.
And that's the Dhamma for tonight.
We can see if there are questions.
Is it useful to expose ourselves to situations we are averse to in order to learn about them?
For example, I have an aversion to reading, so it would be useful for me to try to read something and study my reactions using the noting technique.
I think I just answered this one.
It's not really a good idea to intentionally evoke defilements because then you're cultivating that triggering activity.
I mean, part of what we're trying to learn is neutrality or objectivity.
And if you're triggering it, there's the real danger of getting impatient or ambitious about the practice.
Hey, if I do this, is it useful?
Like this question of is it useful, it's potentially ambitious, where instead you should just
Live your life and then add mindfulness.
Let the changes come naturally.
I mean, instead of going out of your way to read a book, when you actually naturally are in a position where reading is the appropriate thing to do, then study it.
It's more natural that way.
There's a problem with sort of artificially evoking defilements, except in the most
innocuous sorts of ways, like doing sitting meditation, walking meditation, potentially evokes quite a few problematic mind states, but it's quite benign, I think, in the sense of it's just walking and it's just sitting, right?
But going out of your way, I think, is problematic.
Who is Sona Mahatera that Sayadaw mentions on page 87, a manual to insight?
There are two Sonas, but the main one is about inner effort.
He was a person who had too much, pushed too hard.
So I think this is where the simile of the three strings comes in, right?
You have overzealousness, is this?
87.
Right.
The heroic efforts made by Sona Mahatera.
Oh, this is different, right?
Thinking about...
Teacher reflecting on the attributes, considering the heroic efforts made by Sona.
So Sona was so, if you want to know about any of these sorts of people, the Dictionary of Polyproper Names is a really good resource.
You can look up Sona there.
It'll give you all the information.
But he was so delicate that there were hairs apparently growing on the bottoms of his feet
And the king, I think, even asked to look at his feet because he was astonished that someone could possibly have hair there.
But he had these fine hairs on the bottom of his feet.
He was so delicate, apparently.
And so when he became a monk, he did walking meditation and his feet started bleeding.
I'm hoping I'm getting this story right, but his feet started bleeding, but he persisted and it was because of him I think the Buddha eventually allowed the monks to wear sandals.
Monks would go barefoot before that.
But at one point it was, I think it was a Brahma,
I don't think it was the Buddha.
The simile of these three strings.
If a string is too tight, no, it may have been the Buddha.
If a string is too tight, it snaps.
If a string is too loose, it doesn't play.
The string has to be perfectly tuned.
And that's how your effort should be.
You shouldn't just push too hard.
So he worked really hard, and that's a good thing, but in the end, he worked too hard.
But I recommend looking up in the dictionary of Pali proper names because I may have butchered some of that.
Could you go over the Anattalakanasutta next?
Sure.
I'll do that maybe Saturday.
I want to become a monk.
How can I go ahead
I'm not going to answer questions about how to become a monk because I think it's misguided.
No, misleading.
It's problematic because people ordain... There's too much... It's often the case that people put too much attention and...
attention to ordination.
And that actually takes away from people's attention to meditation.
It's seen as sort of a quick fix and that causes problems for monasteries.
So I shy away from focusing on that aspect of Buddhism.
Ordination, it's certainly possible, but it should be related to your meditation practice.
And in that case, it'll come naturally.
I mean, you'll be at a center, and the opportunity will arise, and you'll just take it.
I mean, part of the problem is that it's hard to find a center where it's a good place to ordain, and it's hard for me to give a recommendation because there are many different, well, there are lots of obstacles to becoming a monk and for those who have become a monk in modern times.
I come from a Jewish family.
My family is worried that one day I might get the idea of becoming a monk.
They say for years I slowly transformed to a fundamentalist in my views through Buddhism.
How could I deal with its ignorance?
It is very difficult to talk to people who have no idea of Dhamma.
Well, patience and practice on your own.
And once you become very comfortable in the practice, people can't help but over time see that it's benefiting you.
Well, they can, but it becomes a matter of disassociating yourself with such people or bringing them over to your side.
where they accept the fact that it's a good thing.
I'm sorry if that doesn't really answer your question, but it's not really an easily answered question.
You can't just fix people's ignorance.
You can't just solve their concerns.
It could very well be Sariputta's mother was scolding him to the very end.
Sariputta, who was of great wisdom, and it took until he was dying for his mother to see the goodness of what he was doing.
There was another question about being a monk, and I just deleted it.
Yeah, I'm not really going to answer that.
Again, I don't want people to fixate on this idea of being a monk.
I know it's very romantic, and everyone wants, there's many questions about it.
It's quite an interest, and that's a good thing, but...
well maybe it's not such a good thing I mean I think I would discourage that and I would encourage people to focus more on meditation and because becoming a monk if you have to ask me you're probably not there yet right the only time it should be asked is when you're in a meditation in a monastery and you're talking to your monastic teacher
And you're just looking to further your meditation practice that you're already undertaking.
If you're asking me on the internet, I would say stick to your meditation for now.
Or find a place to go and do a meditation course.
It's much more practical, especially in modern times, to focus in that way.
So that's all for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Have a good night.