1 00:00:01,567 --> 00:00:04,230 Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada. 2 00:00:06,393 --> 00:00:12,581 Today we look at verse 178, which reads as follows. 3 00:00:30,745 --> 00:00:31,506 Which means, 4 00:00:37,595 --> 00:00:40,738 We have to start to translate it with the last word. 5 00:00:40,818 --> 00:00:42,619 Wara means excellent. 6 00:00:47,003 --> 00:01:06,741 Excellent more than being the one ruler, the one king or rulership over the whole world. 7 00:01:08,712 --> 00:01:17,584 to be the one king over the whole world. 8 00:01:19,286 --> 00:01:19,927 King of the earth. 9 00:01:23,012 --> 00:01:24,694 More excellent than going to heaven. 10 00:01:33,566 --> 00:01:35,749 More excellent than being the ruler of 11 00:01:37,062 --> 00:01:42,950 the ruler of the whole world, king of the earth, ruler of the world. 12 00:01:47,536 --> 00:01:59,492 More excellent than all these is the fruit, , the fruit of attaining the stream. 13 00:02:07,150 --> 00:02:09,293 It's one of the verses that I'm quite familiar with. 14 00:02:15,281 --> 00:02:25,636 And the story, not a long and complicated one, the story is of the son of Anathapindika. 15 00:02:25,896 --> 00:02:26,998 His name was Kaala. 16 00:02:30,607 --> 00:02:46,253 And we know, those who know anything about Anathapindika know that he was, you should know from some of the stories we've been telling, that he was a virtuous sort of person and a devout follower of the Buddha. 17 00:02:55,295 --> 00:03:05,547 But as these things often go, this sort of virtue and goodness is not shared with family members or shared in various degrees. 18 00:03:08,130 --> 00:03:09,772 They say blood is thicker than water. 19 00:03:09,812 --> 00:03:12,616 Blood somehow has some meaning to it. 20 00:03:12,736 --> 00:03:18,703 And I think in spiritual matters, that's not always the case. 21 00:03:21,569 --> 00:03:35,310 you'll find there's something spiritual about being born in the same family as someone else in the sense that there's some past that ties you to this life together. 22 00:03:37,814 --> 00:03:46,227 But that past is often very mundane and has very little to do with things like goals, spiritual especially. 23 00:03:52,417 --> 00:04:09,996 And so his son Kala, Natapindika's son, was not interested in spirituality, was not interested in bettering himself mentally, certainly not interested in going to see the Buddha. 24 00:04:13,359 --> 00:04:20,567 Not virtuous, not high-minded, an ordinary individual all around. 25 00:04:22,538 --> 00:04:26,244 Or perhaps you might say, not ordinary, but not inclined. 26 00:04:27,325 --> 00:04:34,056 He had never given any thought to the spiritual life. 27 00:04:35,378 --> 00:04:39,424 Anathapindika was very, perhaps over the top. 28 00:04:39,504 --> 00:04:41,227 I don't know if you could fault him for it. 29 00:04:41,848 --> 00:04:42,989 I would never want to do that. 30 00:04:43,089 --> 00:04:44,712 He's considered a great person. 31 00:04:45,934 --> 00:04:49,980 But he was quite over the top in his devotion to the Buddha. 32 00:04:50,483 --> 00:04:59,834 You might think that, hey, if he was really sincere and perfect, why didn't he become a monk or become an Arahant? 33 00:04:59,854 --> 00:05:00,615 And of course he didn't. 34 00:05:02,537 --> 00:05:06,501 He was a Sotapanna when he passed away, as far as I understand. 35 00:05:09,865 --> 00:05:16,693 And so you have to leave room for some element of imperfection. 36 00:05:18,108 --> 00:05:30,004 And those imperfections are often what impresses people who are not inclined immediately to the spiritual life. 37 00:05:30,084 --> 00:05:42,602 And so he must have seen that his father was a bit over the top in his lavish praise and devotion to the Buddha. 38 00:05:42,622 --> 00:05:45,145 And he was never inclined to go see the Buddha. 39 00:05:46,897 --> 00:05:48,039 Just an ordinary person. 40 00:05:48,319 --> 00:05:50,964 Someone inclined to enjoy life. 41 00:05:51,024 --> 00:05:53,368 His father was, his family was quite, quite rich. 42 00:05:54,529 --> 00:05:57,474 That's the thing about rich people is they often become complacent. 43 00:05:58,596 --> 00:06:02,883 When things are good, what need have you of spirituality, right? 44 00:06:03,945 --> 00:06:05,147 Buddha said it's very difficult. 45 00:06:07,310 --> 00:06:11,537 It's a, when things are good, when you're surrounded by 46 00:06:12,648 --> 00:06:16,534 Sensuality, it's very difficult to understand the truth. 47 00:06:16,574 --> 00:06:27,890 There's often a complaint of Buddhist teachers that we see in these texts where they would get a request to teach and they just feel it was a hopeless task. 48 00:06:28,411 --> 00:06:29,732 I can't teach you anything. 49 00:06:30,353 --> 00:06:33,718 And the Buddha would say, how could that person possibly learn anything? 50 00:06:33,958 --> 00:06:36,462 They're so surrounded by sensuality. 51 00:06:38,855 --> 00:06:44,080 mired in this pleasure that just keeps you complacent. 52 00:06:46,243 --> 00:06:50,748 Anyway, Anathapindika thought to himself, I can't let this stand. 53 00:06:52,269 --> 00:06:52,990 This is my son. 54 00:06:53,090 --> 00:07:03,301 I'm considered to be the greatest disciple, a lay disciple of the Buddha, greatest supporter of the Buddha. 55 00:07:03,321 --> 00:07:05,503 How could I not have my son be such a 56 00:07:07,306 --> 00:07:11,772 get him on the right path and interested in these good things. 57 00:07:14,616 --> 00:07:19,924 So when he said, don't do this, don't do that, I paid no attention. 58 00:07:22,287 --> 00:07:29,637 Oh, and he thought to himself, well, if he doesn't clean up his act and get his act together, he'll wind up in hell. 59 00:07:31,580 --> 00:07:36,807 Who knows what his future has in store, but he'll wind up doing bad things and 60 00:07:38,643 --> 00:07:41,187 Or he may wind up doing bad things and end up in hell. 61 00:07:42,208 --> 00:07:44,311 And he thought, I have to do something for him. 62 00:07:44,351 --> 00:07:50,260 And he thought to himself, well, everyone likes gifts, right? 63 00:07:51,382 --> 00:07:56,149 Everyone likes getting things. 64 00:07:57,691 --> 00:08:00,475 He's a businessman in Atapindika. 65 00:08:00,495 --> 00:08:02,298 And so you would have people who worked for him. 66 00:08:02,338 --> 00:08:06,945 And everyone has a price, is how they'd say it, in the crass sort of way. 67 00:08:08,123 --> 00:08:11,388 I thought, well, my son must have a price, he said. 68 00:08:12,950 --> 00:08:20,641 I said, look, I called his son over, I said, look, I'll give you a hundred gold coins, kahapana. 69 00:08:21,402 --> 00:08:22,965 I think the word is probably kahapana. 70 00:08:24,026 --> 00:08:32,258 It just means it's the standard measure of currency, probably worth more than a hundred dollars. 71 00:08:32,626 --> 00:08:34,068 an American or whatever. 72 00:08:35,089 --> 00:08:37,732 Probably more than that, though I don't have a calculation. 73 00:08:37,752 --> 00:08:38,553 So quite a bit of money. 74 00:08:39,474 --> 00:08:41,416 Or a substantial little bit of money. 75 00:08:42,317 --> 00:08:43,318 Maybe it's a hundred dollars. 76 00:08:47,663 --> 00:08:49,405 I'll give you a hundred gold coins. 77 00:08:50,587 --> 00:08:58,356 If you go to the Buddha's monastery and listen to the Dhamma and come back. 78 00:08:59,337 --> 00:09:01,479 And undertake the precepts. 79 00:09:01,539 --> 00:09:02,160 Eight precepts. 80 00:09:04,452 --> 00:09:07,276 Go to the monastery, maybe just five precepts, I don't know. 81 00:09:08,417 --> 00:09:11,581 It looks like uposatha, so that would be eight precepts. 82 00:09:11,601 --> 00:09:13,664 Which means he wouldn't eat, he would only eat in the morning. 83 00:09:13,744 --> 00:09:15,105 Do that for one day and one night. 84 00:09:17,128 --> 00:09:17,629 And come back. 85 00:09:22,455 --> 00:09:25,158 And he said, you give me a hundred kahapana. 86 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:27,221 Yes, I'll give it to you. 87 00:09:28,482 --> 00:09:31,506 So, having been bought, 88 00:09:32,161 --> 00:09:44,305 The son went to the monastery and probably ate something at the monastery, but he went to the monastery and lay down and slept. 89 00:09:46,830 --> 00:09:50,117 Found a place to sleep, off in a corner somewhere, maybe under a tree. 90 00:09:51,519 --> 00:09:52,802 Came back early in the morning. 91 00:09:55,229 --> 00:09:56,330 His father saw him coming. 92 00:09:56,350 --> 00:09:59,133 He said, oh, bring food for my son. 93 00:10:00,535 --> 00:10:02,197 Bring him some rice porridge. 94 00:10:04,620 --> 00:10:07,924 Yagu, morning food, breakfast. 95 00:10:08,925 --> 00:10:21,199 So they brought him food and they set the food out in front of him, but he stood in front of his father with his arms crossed and said, give me my money. 96 00:10:22,500 --> 00:10:24,122 I'm not going to eat until I get my money. 97 00:10:26,583 --> 00:10:32,831 And the father was perturbed because, you know, here's this son who hadn't eaten since the morning before. 98 00:10:32,851 --> 00:10:35,915 And he thought, okay, okay, give him the money. 99 00:10:37,477 --> 00:10:46,249 He gave him the money and then he sat down to eat and he said, he doesn't say, but I guess he must have told them what happened. 100 00:10:46,269 --> 00:10:49,493 He said, oh, yes, yes, I just went. 101 00:10:49,573 --> 00:10:52,557 And clearly he hadn't learned anything. 102 00:10:53,498 --> 00:11:03,050 I think the clear thing here is that he was still a grabby sort of person, greedy sort of person. 103 00:11:05,393 --> 00:11:09,338 Anantapindika could maybe tell by his behavior. 104 00:11:12,201 --> 00:11:18,749 So he said, okay, I tell you what, today I want you to go back again. 105 00:11:20,111 --> 00:11:22,594 I'll give you a thousand gold coins. 106 00:11:24,633 --> 00:11:28,337 If you stand, but this time, you must stand before the Buddha. 107 00:11:28,417 --> 00:11:29,759 Go before the Buddha himself. 108 00:11:33,062 --> 00:11:39,769 And master, memorize a single verse of his teaching. 109 00:11:40,370 --> 00:11:46,757 He thought to himself, the least I can do for my son, have him memorize a single verse. 110 00:11:46,817 --> 00:11:49,540 The Buddha will know what to teach him, give him something useful. 111 00:11:50,501 --> 00:11:51,602 Just a single verse. 112 00:11:53,388 --> 00:11:55,551 I mean, it's a trifle, really. 113 00:11:56,473 --> 00:11:56,693 Right? 114 00:11:56,733 --> 00:11:58,616 I just recited a verse that I've memorized. 115 00:11:58,676 --> 00:11:59,497 It's not that hard. 116 00:12:02,182 --> 00:12:04,465 It gets easier when the clearer your mind is. 117 00:12:04,625 --> 00:12:12,598 Some people are able to memorize the whole of the Buddhist teaching because they've devoted their whole lives to that and their whole of their attention. 118 00:12:14,060 --> 00:12:16,103 But he figured, well, my son can memorize a verse. 119 00:12:16,143 --> 00:12:17,465 That shouldn't be too hard. 120 00:12:18,447 --> 00:12:20,290 Then I'll have done something for him. 121 00:12:20,310 --> 00:12:21,792 Maybe he's just at his wit's end. 122 00:12:25,653 --> 00:12:28,176 So the son said, okay, it's your money. 123 00:12:28,577 --> 00:12:30,479 Well, it's going to be my money soon, but okay. 124 00:12:32,341 --> 00:12:34,264 And off he went back to the monastery. 125 00:12:36,146 --> 00:12:39,450 Went before the Buddha and listened to what the Buddha was teaching. 126 00:12:39,470 --> 00:12:41,372 Of course, the Buddha would come out every day to teach. 127 00:12:44,196 --> 00:12:46,999 And the Buddha saw him coming and, oh, the Buddha knew what's going on. 128 00:12:47,861 --> 00:12:53,888 He knew the mind of this young man and said, I'll give him something difficult to understand. 129 00:12:54,897 --> 00:12:58,765 difficult to memorize, difficult to get his mind around. 130 00:12:58,826 --> 00:13:04,057 And so he taught a verse, and the boy couldn't master it. 131 00:13:07,264 --> 00:13:08,787 I wonder what the word for master is. 132 00:13:09,709 --> 00:13:10,611 Let's look at the Pali. 133 00:13:26,437 --> 00:13:28,220 It just means to learn. 134 00:13:28,420 --> 00:13:29,422 It's not mastery. 135 00:13:29,662 --> 00:13:32,126 Learn a single verse, Dhammapada, in fact. 136 00:13:32,547 --> 00:13:33,629 Ekam Dhammapadam. 137 00:13:34,530 --> 00:13:40,520 So these verses that we have are called Dhammapada. 138 00:13:40,580 --> 00:13:41,822 Learn a single Dhammapada. 139 00:13:43,464 --> 00:13:44,085 I couldn't do it. 140 00:13:46,449 --> 00:13:53,220 The text says that the Buddha used his influence, some sort of magical influence, 141 00:13:54,550 --> 00:13:57,234 We talked about perfections. 142 00:13:57,495 --> 00:14:00,880 One of the Buddha's perfections was, of course, determination. 143 00:14:00,900 --> 00:14:02,162 And he could determine something. 144 00:14:02,182 --> 00:14:03,244 He could say, let it be thus. 145 00:14:04,466 --> 00:14:06,790 So he made it set in his mind. 146 00:14:06,990 --> 00:14:16,986 And the power of his mind said to be such that he was able to influence other people's abilities in this way. 147 00:14:17,668 --> 00:14:21,013 Or he could exercise some influence. 148 00:14:21,888 --> 00:14:28,937 over weak-minded people, let's say, because this man would have been easily distracted. 149 00:14:28,997 --> 00:14:38,429 So the Buddha contrived some way to make it difficult for him, just like a manipulative sort of person. 150 00:14:38,910 --> 00:14:45,178 I'm not saying that the Buddha was, but a manipulative sort of person could manipulate others into giving rise to certain emotions, 151 00:14:45,158 --> 00:14:51,953 giving rise to fear, fear mongers, propaganda and all that, how you can manipulate people with words. 152 00:14:52,835 --> 00:14:56,984 So the Buddha was able to manipulate this boy for wholesome purposes. 153 00:15:00,872 --> 00:15:04,821 And it was just so troublesome for this boy to 154 00:15:05,341 --> 00:15:16,539 Another thing you might throw into the mix is how pure the Dhamma is, and how it is quite difficult for people who are not clear of mind to understand. 155 00:15:16,559 --> 00:15:20,586 A person who isn't meditating will have quite difficulty understanding. 156 00:15:20,626 --> 00:15:30,302 If you've ever read the Buddha's teaching, you might find it quite difficult until you've undertaken some meditation practice, at which point it becomes quite much clearer. 157 00:15:31,784 --> 00:15:40,113 And so he was forced to suddenly have a goal, to suddenly have something to strive for. 158 00:15:40,133 --> 00:15:44,398 You know, his whole life he had just been kind of indolent and negligent. 159 00:15:45,159 --> 00:15:47,802 It wasn't even apparently that he was a bad person. 160 00:15:47,862 --> 00:15:50,605 He clearly had some good potential. 161 00:15:51,606 --> 00:15:54,590 And I think you could say that of a lot of people, great potential. 162 00:15:56,112 --> 00:15:57,353 But he clearly had never used it. 163 00:15:59,847 --> 00:16:05,954 And suddenly he had a chance, he had a reason, something to strive for, even though it was for money. 164 00:16:07,636 --> 00:16:10,300 And perhaps you might say it was no longer about the money. 165 00:16:10,340 --> 00:16:15,286 At this point it was the challenge and the fact that something was no longer easy for him. 166 00:16:16,707 --> 00:16:23,796 When you have money, when you're a rich, spoiled son, everything comes easy. 167 00:16:25,109 --> 00:16:40,529 especially when perhaps he was endowed with good qualities and was a strong young man and he had all the best teachers and so he was smart, skilled in business perhaps, and so everything came easy to him. 168 00:16:40,549 --> 00:16:42,912 And suddenly there was something difficult. 169 00:16:42,932 --> 00:16:48,619 I think that's something we all find in meditation, how surprisingly difficult it is. 170 00:16:48,859 --> 00:16:51,623 Like you talk about how difficult it must be to meditate, but 171 00:16:52,868 --> 00:16:55,372 You don't realize how surprisingly difficult it is. 172 00:16:56,013 --> 00:16:57,575 Difficult in ways you've never thought. 173 00:16:59,417 --> 00:17:02,382 It's like trying to, what's the word? 174 00:17:07,549 --> 00:17:08,711 What's the word? 175 00:17:08,731 --> 00:17:10,714 Like herding cats, I think is the expression. 176 00:17:12,616 --> 00:17:14,639 Herding your mind is like herding cats. 177 00:17:17,043 --> 00:17:19,306 They don't really form groups like that. 178 00:17:20,548 --> 00:17:22,791 The mind as well is not easily corralled. 179 00:17:27,327 --> 00:17:34,618 And so he cultivated, just in that one night, he cultivated so much goodness, spending the time. 180 00:17:34,658 --> 00:17:54,027 And perhaps, though the text doesn't say, perhaps he spent the night in deeper contemplation and, of course, meditation as a result of his newfound appreciation of the Dhamma, at least in terms of how challenging this exercise was. 181 00:17:55,205 --> 00:17:59,772 That's the thing about the Dhamma, it's open, it leads you on, it pulls you in. 182 00:18:00,854 --> 00:18:05,120 You might meditate for just a bit, but then you find how much more there is. 183 00:18:05,220 --> 00:18:12,471 It's like you find a thread on your sweater and you start pulling, and oh, pull and pull and pull until you find that there's no sweater left. 184 00:18:14,614 --> 00:18:16,918 The Dhamma does that with the world. 185 00:18:16,958 --> 00:18:23,608 It unravels so much of what we think is, so much of what we wrap ourselves in. 186 00:18:26,086 --> 00:18:33,153 And so he became a Sotapanna, which means he had realized the Four Noble Truths. 187 00:18:33,213 --> 00:18:52,633 He had an experience of realization, like an epiphany, where his mind was so focused and so clear and bright that he suddenly realized that clinging is only a cause for suffering, that nothing is worth clinging to, and that it's wanting that's the problem. 188 00:18:53,761 --> 00:18:54,462 And he let go. 189 00:18:54,502 --> 00:19:01,854 His mind, it's not an intellectual thing, his mind actually let go as a result of this clear and perfect realization. 190 00:19:04,558 --> 00:19:06,321 So he became what's known as a Sotapanna. 191 00:19:06,341 --> 00:19:12,992 It doesn't mean he was fully enlightened, but he had entered onto the first stage, what we call the first stage of enlightenment. 192 00:19:15,876 --> 00:19:17,659 And the next morning, of course, the 193 00:19:20,086 --> 00:19:40,052 Anathapindika was waiting for his son but also waiting for the Buddha and he came with the Buddha to Savatthi the Kala, the young son came back to Anathapindika's house with the Buddha and how changed was he the day before he had 194 00:19:41,618 --> 00:20:04,048 refused to touch the food without asking for money and now he saw they were coming closer to his father's home and as they approached he thought to himself, oh dear, he made a fervent wish, may my father not offer me money in front of the Buddha. 195 00:20:10,829 --> 00:20:34,537 Oh, may he keep it hidden, may he not let on the fact that the only reason I went, of course he was a changed person at this point, someone who had great respect and reverence for the Dhamma, and to feel like he had been a mercenary, he had been basically bribed into listening to the Dhamma. 196 00:20:34,558 --> 00:20:38,322 He had to be bribed, and the day before he had no interest in it. 197 00:20:40,462 --> 00:20:46,530 may he hide this from the Buddha, may he not expose me in front of all the monks. 198 00:20:49,174 --> 00:21:01,070 And so they sat down and they fed the Buddha and the son ate as well and after they ate right in front of the Buddha and in front of all the monks, Anathapindika came out with a bag of gold coins and said, here's your money. 199 00:21:03,954 --> 00:21:04,495 He said, 200 00:21:05,875 --> 00:21:19,672 He says, actually this text says, he says, Dear son, you will remember that I persuaded you to take up the obligations of the Uposatha and go to the monastery by promising to give you a thousand pieces of, a thousand kahapana. 201 00:21:20,513 --> 00:21:24,238 Here are your thousand kahapana, right in front of the Buddha, lays it all there. 202 00:21:28,944 --> 00:21:30,586 And hands it to the son. 203 00:21:31,407 --> 00:21:32,068 And the son says, 204 00:21:33,702 --> 00:21:41,293 Perhaps he doesn't say, but perhaps he crosses his arms over his chest and he refuses to take it. 205 00:21:42,495 --> 00:21:43,316 Greatly embarrassed. 206 00:21:44,918 --> 00:21:49,044 The exact opposite of the day before where he refused to take food until he got the money. 207 00:21:51,107 --> 00:21:52,649 He says, I care not for the money. 208 00:21:54,913 --> 00:21:59,239 His father is quite disturbed and says, son, take the money. 209 00:22:01,142 --> 00:22:02,123 He refused to touch it. 210 00:22:03,487 --> 00:22:30,709 turned away astonished and Adipinda of course goes to the Buddha and says wow my son has changed it's wonderful he says the day before yesterday I sent him giving him a hundred gold saying I'd give him a hundred gold pieces and he wouldn't eat because he got the money he wouldn't eat until he got the money and now he won't take the money 211 00:22:36,292 --> 00:22:52,552 And the Buddha leapt right to the conclusion and said, what he's attained is your thousand ghappana, hundred ghappana, thousand ghappana, hundred thousand, million, billion ghappana. 212 00:22:54,194 --> 00:22:54,735 It's nothing. 213 00:22:55,576 --> 00:23:00,983 What he has attained is greater than, greater than emperor of the earth. 214 00:23:02,617 --> 00:23:03,458 greater than heaven. 215 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:06,161 There's nothing greater. 216 00:23:06,882 --> 00:23:09,725 Well, it's greater than all those things anyway. 217 00:23:10,086 --> 00:23:14,891 It's not much greater than attainment of Sotapanna. 218 00:23:14,911 --> 00:23:15,933 How many taught this verse? 219 00:23:20,558 --> 00:23:29,248 So there really is only one lesson involved here, and that's really, I would summarize it all with goals, talking about goals. 220 00:23:31,658 --> 00:23:39,987 Many people in the world are like the sun, people who have no, you might say, have no real goals. 221 00:23:42,750 --> 00:23:49,938 Goals are not, I think, something that everyone subscribes to on a grand scale. 222 00:23:52,221 --> 00:23:53,102 We all have goals. 223 00:23:53,302 --> 00:23:57,767 They just tend to be, for the most part, quite capricious. 224 00:23:59,097 --> 00:24:06,995 They'll last a day or a week if we're lucky, but most often they'll last an hour or a few minutes even. 225 00:24:07,075 --> 00:24:09,862 We'll see something we like, our goal is to get it. 226 00:24:10,182 --> 00:24:18,000 We see something we don't like, our goal is to find some way to be removed from it or have it be removed from us. 227 00:24:22,250 --> 00:24:31,308 There are, of course, goals that creep up on us and end up staying with us and being long-term goals. 228 00:24:32,590 --> 00:24:36,538 When we're sick, our goal is often to be healthy and that might take some time. 229 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:41,187 When we're poor, our object is to be wealthy and that might take time. 230 00:24:42,567 --> 00:24:45,232 When we're in school, our goal will often last several years. 231 00:24:45,553 --> 00:24:49,400 Our goal is to get a degree, right? 232 00:24:49,420 --> 00:25:01,504 My goal, I've been trying to get a degree for, I made a promise with my father many years ago, and it's been 20 years almost. 233 00:25:02,902 --> 00:25:05,605 And I'm just almost getting ready to get my degree. 234 00:25:05,625 --> 00:25:07,367 So there's a long-term goal of sorts. 235 00:25:08,088 --> 00:25:09,329 But I go to university. 236 00:25:09,369 --> 00:25:10,350 I'm going part-time. 237 00:25:10,370 --> 00:25:15,696 And it's interesting to watch the students as they graduate. 238 00:25:15,796 --> 00:25:20,581 And it's clear to them that it's not much of a goal, really. 239 00:25:21,563 --> 00:25:22,564 You get a piece of paper. 240 00:25:22,624 --> 00:25:25,747 And what did I just do for four years? 241 00:25:27,409 --> 00:25:30,192 Oh, there's much that comes from studying. 242 00:25:31,167 --> 00:25:42,021 organize your thoughts and so on, but as with all goals in life, all of our ordinary goals, they tend to be hollow and empty. 243 00:25:45,245 --> 00:25:46,947 We talk about the midlife crisis. 244 00:25:48,850 --> 00:25:56,179 Midlife crisis often comes to people who have had their goals met, only to find out that those goals were 245 00:25:57,627 --> 00:26:02,092 far less impressive than they seemed 20, 30 years ago. 246 00:26:07,538 --> 00:26:26,638 Goals to get a career, family, house, even a station in life to become outstanding in your field. 247 00:26:28,508 --> 00:26:29,770 They become hollow in the end. 248 00:26:30,971 --> 00:26:33,415 Look at the history of kings. 249 00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,605 The kings of Britain, of the UK. 250 00:26:41,546 --> 00:26:43,369 The well-known kings in this part of the world. 251 00:26:48,716 --> 00:26:49,597 Look at their lives. 252 00:26:50,258 --> 00:26:50,859 The greatness. 253 00:26:50,919 --> 00:26:52,221 How great is their lives? 254 00:26:54,124 --> 00:26:56,507 Look at the presidents and the 255 00:26:57,803 --> 00:27:10,518 dictators throughout history, people who have ruled over great nations and great kingdoms and empires. 256 00:27:21,952 --> 00:27:23,294 There are many different types of goals. 257 00:27:23,354 --> 00:27:26,157 I think one of the reasons why we become complacent 258 00:27:27,503 --> 00:27:32,391 or have become complacent throughout history is our reliance on religion. 259 00:27:36,218 --> 00:27:48,499 You might notice that to the extent that one becomes proportionately less ambitious in a worldly sense, the more proportion, the more one becomes religious. 260 00:27:50,875 --> 00:27:56,941 So we studied Simone Weil recently in one of my classes, and it was interesting reading about her. 261 00:27:56,981 --> 00:28:01,967 I mean, it was inspiring in a way, even though I didn't agree with everything she taught, of course. 262 00:28:02,267 --> 00:28:17,203 She talked about how devoted she was to poverty, to giving up the worldly possessions and gold, because she was so sure 263 00:28:19,343 --> 00:28:21,666 of her religion. 264 00:28:23,488 --> 00:28:35,404 And so many religions, I think Christianity stands out to me because it's very familiar from my upbringing, from the society I grew up in. 265 00:28:36,085 --> 00:28:46,498 Much of Christianity, many strains of Christianity are about faith over 266 00:28:48,638 --> 00:28:49,539 over ambition. 267 00:28:50,881 --> 00:29:10,830 And by faith I mean being content and, from a Buddhist perspective, being complacent and believing that your belief alone will help you attain a goal. 268 00:29:12,532 --> 00:29:13,854 Your faith in someone else. 269 00:29:15,457 --> 00:29:18,561 We put our faith in something outside of ourselves. 270 00:29:20,583 --> 00:29:22,726 and it makes us complacent. 271 00:29:22,746 --> 00:29:24,249 I mean in a good way in some ways. 272 00:29:24,389 --> 00:29:26,593 It makes us less ambitious in a worldly sense. 273 00:29:28,456 --> 00:29:32,923 Religion has that power because we believe in heaven. 274 00:29:33,924 --> 00:29:35,447 There's this belief in these things. 275 00:29:36,508 --> 00:29:40,375 In Buddhism of course we have parallels as well. 276 00:29:41,256 --> 00:29:42,959 There are strains of Buddhism. 277 00:29:44,261 --> 00:29:46,945 There are strains of Buddhism that have come to believe 278 00:29:48,190 --> 00:30:05,033 that it's far more efficacious to purposefully avoid good deeds, purposefully avoid good acts, virtuous acts, purposefully avoid bettering oneself. 279 00:30:05,053 --> 00:30:17,370 Because if you better yourself, it means you don't have faith, you have imperfect faith in your salvation through another. 280 00:30:19,156 --> 00:30:36,726 There are Buddhists who believe that our salvation comes through another, who believe that there are Buddhas who will save us, and if we try to save ourselves in any way, it shows a lack of faith. 281 00:30:40,604 --> 00:30:42,208 So there are many different types of goals. 282 00:30:43,190 --> 00:30:49,946 I suppose this is not just about the striving for a goal, but it's about those goals themselves. 283 00:30:50,026 --> 00:30:51,369 What's the difference? 284 00:30:51,610 --> 00:30:52,572 What's the distinction? 285 00:30:53,554 --> 00:30:58,225 As they say in the Buddhist texts, what's the distinction between these various goals? 286 00:31:02,390 --> 00:31:21,934 So there's something very base about ordinary goals, goals of getting good food, goals of having sexual intercourse and romance, goals of finding pleasure of the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body. 287 00:31:23,062 --> 00:31:28,927 There's something very base about these, and we've come to understand it scientifically as what we call addiction. 288 00:31:30,529 --> 00:31:33,011 But addiction is ongoing throughout our lives. 289 00:31:33,231 --> 00:31:37,795 You don't have to be addicted to cocaine to be an addict. 290 00:31:37,815 --> 00:31:39,517 There are people who are addicted to alcohol. 291 00:31:39,597 --> 00:31:42,920 There are people who are addicted to sex. 292 00:31:42,940 --> 00:31:47,824 But there's addiction throughout our daily lives for ordinary people of all types. 293 00:31:49,085 --> 00:31:50,266 We're addicted to good food. 294 00:31:50,286 --> 00:31:51,988 When we have bad food, we're not happy. 295 00:31:53,740 --> 00:31:58,486 We're displeased by plain food or ordinary food or even the same food. 296 00:31:58,526 --> 00:32:03,192 Food we were really keen to have yesterday might displease us today. 297 00:32:04,974 --> 00:32:12,903 Kind of an addict sort of mindset. 298 00:32:12,924 --> 00:32:14,726 And then there are worldly pursuits like money. 299 00:32:14,766 --> 00:32:17,249 This young man's pursuit of money. 300 00:32:17,309 --> 00:32:20,693 While his father saw, we must assume, 301 00:32:22,023 --> 00:32:25,708 the baseness of that and the limit of that, that there's a limit to money. 302 00:32:27,531 --> 00:32:29,273 And philosophically we understand this. 303 00:32:29,333 --> 00:32:34,540 There are rich people in the world who... There's something noble and great about that. 304 00:32:34,620 --> 00:32:44,554 It's certainly better, more lofty a goal, I think, than simply enjoying the base pleasures of life because it has 305 00:32:45,884 --> 00:32:48,347 loftier nature. 306 00:32:49,348 --> 00:33:01,180 Money, for all we say bad about it, when you get lots of it, there's a certain intellect required in attaining it, keeping it, using it. 307 00:33:02,301 --> 00:33:04,163 Money is removed from pleasure. 308 00:33:04,924 --> 00:33:07,787 Of course, money can be used to get lots and lots of pleasure. 309 00:33:08,508 --> 00:33:14,874 And rich people do abuse it and end up becoming drug addicts of the worst type. 310 00:33:15,175 --> 00:33:15,435 But 311 00:33:17,407 --> 00:33:26,258 Having as your goal when you seek to make money, there is something about it that's as base as it might be and as much as it's derided. 312 00:33:28,881 --> 00:33:43,819 There are rich people who do great things with it, because money is something a bit intellectual, to be able to use it, spend it, invest it, just to be able to keep it. 313 00:33:45,841 --> 00:33:59,698 requires some loftiness and you have to think you have to plan and you see rich people not most rich people but some rich people doing things like trying to eradicate diseases around the world 314 00:34:00,826 --> 00:34:05,111 and poverty and hunger, finding ways to set up foundations. 315 00:34:05,772 --> 00:34:17,305 I was once staying in a residence owned by a house owned by a very rich, a fairly rich woman in California. 316 00:34:17,365 --> 00:34:24,273 And she had quite a, it was quite a feat for her to try and manage her wealth. 317 00:34:24,534 --> 00:34:26,496 She inherited it from her husband. 318 00:34:26,476 --> 00:34:30,600 And she set up a foundation. 319 00:34:30,660 --> 00:34:37,467 And so just learning about that and the troubles she had to go through just to do good deeds. 320 00:34:37,487 --> 00:34:40,771 She went to quite a bit of trouble to work it out. 321 00:34:41,251 --> 00:34:43,654 So money is, there's something about it. 322 00:34:44,495 --> 00:34:46,697 But it's base, relatively base. 323 00:34:46,797 --> 00:34:47,898 You worry about your money. 324 00:34:48,118 --> 00:34:49,019 You lose your money. 325 00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:50,661 You become obsessed with your money. 326 00:34:52,058 --> 00:34:57,244 You become like Ebenezer Scrooge and let it consume you. 327 00:34:57,565 --> 00:35:02,671 And often, the more obsessed you are with keeping your money, the less you actually enjoy it. 328 00:35:02,951 --> 00:35:11,081 The less happiness you have in life because you're constantly caught up in gaining money just for money. 329 00:35:12,743 --> 00:35:14,025 And again, you become an addict. 330 00:35:16,388 --> 00:35:19,872 And there's kind of a theme we should be seeing here that it's all caught up in addictions. 331 00:35:21,843 --> 00:35:28,191 Kingdom, royalty, rulership. 332 00:35:28,211 --> 00:35:29,393 Yes, that's the next one. 333 00:35:30,014 --> 00:35:39,606 What does it mean to be a mayor or a senator or a president? 334 00:35:40,968 --> 00:35:42,290 What does it mean to be an emperor? 335 00:35:44,633 --> 00:35:46,095 Well, there's a greatness there, no? 336 00:35:47,493 --> 00:35:56,024 We can acknowledge a certain greatness even in Hitler in the fact that he was very great in his diabolical, we might say, pursuits. 337 00:35:57,025 --> 00:36:01,411 There was a greatness in the sense that he didn't aim for simple goals. 338 00:36:01,972 --> 00:36:05,416 He aimed to conquer the world, and it was great evil. 339 00:36:06,077 --> 00:36:09,822 But it wasn't just evil, it was greatness in the sense of 340 00:36:09,802 --> 00:36:12,926 having something higher to pursue. 341 00:36:13,027 --> 00:36:16,652 But it shows that greatness itself isn't necessarily good. 342 00:36:17,493 --> 00:36:18,454 You can have great evil. 343 00:36:20,096 --> 00:36:21,058 Hitler wasn't content. 344 00:36:21,098 --> 00:36:23,501 Apparently he was a painter early in his life, I think. 345 00:36:24,282 --> 00:36:26,005 He wasn't content with simply painting. 346 00:36:26,045 --> 00:36:27,186 He had greater goals. 347 00:36:29,049 --> 00:36:36,660 Yes, and he carried out, apparently, it seems, he carried out, it seems, what seems to be many of his goals. 348 00:36:37,100 --> 00:36:39,724 He did terrible things and he was responsible for 349 00:36:40,767 --> 00:36:44,856 a lot of suffering. 350 00:36:44,876 --> 00:36:54,456 And so again, we're not free from this evil or addiction or suffering. 351 00:36:54,516 --> 00:36:57,221 Rich people are not free from it. 352 00:36:57,923 --> 00:36:58,945 Powerful people 353 00:37:00,410 --> 00:37:03,916 You look at some of the rulers in the world and you think, wow, what evil they're doing. 354 00:37:04,758 --> 00:37:07,723 But not only what evil, what suffering must be caught up with that evil. 355 00:37:08,625 --> 00:37:12,632 The corruption of their minds, the downfall of their whole being. 356 00:37:12,672 --> 00:37:22,570 If only powerful people would listen to these things, if only powerful people would take ear, lend ear. 357 00:37:23,630 --> 00:37:24,792 Spiritual teachings. 358 00:37:26,375 --> 00:37:29,641 How different the world would be if they would just listen to me sit here and talk. 359 00:37:29,681 --> 00:37:32,326 Hey, this is your downfall. 360 00:37:32,507 --> 00:37:36,153 It's not me, I'm just passing on the Buddha's teachings. 361 00:37:38,738 --> 00:37:46,633 My teacher once said, oh, if those, very simple, it just seems like a trite thing to say, but he said, 362 00:37:48,014 --> 00:37:58,331 When he heard about the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Towers, he said, oh, if those people had meditated, they would have never done that. 363 00:37:58,351 --> 00:38:00,454 It's simple. 364 00:38:00,474 --> 00:38:04,521 It seems perhaps trite, but oversimplified. 365 00:38:04,501 --> 00:38:07,466 It really is, all of it. 366 00:38:07,486 --> 00:38:08,869 It's so easy to get lost. 367 00:38:09,270 --> 00:38:13,136 We're like lost in a vast ocean, like the sun. 368 00:38:14,018 --> 00:38:21,852 He was lost and all it took was something to strive for, some simple thing, memorizing a verse. 369 00:38:23,857 --> 00:38:52,817 suddenly had to take stock of his mind and what he'd been doing to it and realized that it was his own fault that he really that he couldn't memorize this verse he was vulnerable susceptible to manipulation and susceptible to distraction and being emperor of the world doesn't change that going to heaven doesn't seem to even change that we hear about angels and all in some of these stories we have many stories of angels who were quite foolish 370 00:38:54,518 --> 00:39:13,033 negligent, indolent, lackadaisical, and suffer the consequences as a result, and lose their station, have their fall from grace. 371 00:39:19,544 --> 00:39:24,909 And so there's one goal that stands out as different. 372 00:39:25,009 --> 00:39:27,791 Every religion will tell you this, well, ours is different, this is different. 373 00:39:27,831 --> 00:39:40,362 But we have to state, regardless of the fact that everyone else is stating it as well, we have to point out there is one goal that's different. 374 00:39:40,382 --> 00:39:42,163 And the Buddha says greater, it excels. 375 00:39:42,483 --> 00:39:44,085 Warang means it excels. 376 00:39:44,205 --> 00:39:49,129 But not only does it excel as being better, it's categorically different. 377 00:39:50,729 --> 00:39:54,634 Sotapanna is different, this state of entering the stream. 378 00:39:55,195 --> 00:40:01,363 It's called entering the stream because it pulls you on, it sets you on a course. 379 00:40:04,226 --> 00:40:07,050 And it sets you on a course because it involves not wanting. 380 00:40:09,033 --> 00:40:11,115 It involves freedom from wanting. 381 00:40:11,676 --> 00:40:12,757 It involves letting go. 382 00:40:12,777 --> 00:40:18,745 It involves the knowledge, the realization that wanting is the problem. 383 00:40:20,648 --> 00:40:27,656 It's not that we have the wrong goals or that we're not achieving our goals. 384 00:40:30,339 --> 00:40:34,564 It's this goal seeking, this seeking out for this or that. 385 00:40:36,987 --> 00:40:43,635 The real goal is, in essence, to be free from seeking, to be free from goals. 386 00:40:46,450 --> 00:40:49,013 And it's quite different from the ordinary state. 387 00:40:49,053 --> 00:40:51,436 We say, well, I'm free from goals. 388 00:40:51,937 --> 00:40:52,798 But it's not really true. 389 00:40:52,858 --> 00:40:54,820 We have goals every moment of every day. 390 00:40:54,860 --> 00:40:59,906 Something good comes, as I said, our goal is to get it. 391 00:41:01,829 --> 00:41:11,480 And that's only a difference of scale from, I want to be emperor of the world, I want to go to heaven, I want to be Brahma, God, whatever. 392 00:41:14,003 --> 00:41:15,445 I want to become this or that. 393 00:41:18,108 --> 00:41:20,350 There's only a matter of degree involved there. 394 00:41:21,271 --> 00:41:23,814 But quite different is letting go of wanting. 395 00:41:25,395 --> 00:41:28,779 Sotapanna is someone who has seen nothing is worth wanting. 396 00:41:30,180 --> 00:41:31,482 That wanting is the problem. 397 00:41:33,063 --> 00:41:39,530 Not the not getting part, or the getting what you don't want, the not getting what you want. 398 00:41:39,550 --> 00:41:41,312 That's not the problem, that's the symptom. 399 00:41:43,074 --> 00:41:45,516 That's the suffering that comes from wanting. 400 00:41:50,710 --> 00:41:52,332 And so this is a verse that's important. 401 00:41:52,452 --> 00:41:53,193 It's important. 402 00:41:56,357 --> 00:42:03,205 It really sets up Buddhism, the Buddhist philosophy, in a very succinct way. 403 00:42:05,728 --> 00:42:19,705 Goals are a very important part of spiritual dialogue, to put in perspective material goals, even spiritual goals, to put them all in perspective. 404 00:42:21,929 --> 00:42:28,538 Help us ask ourselves, what is the reason that we do all these things? 405 00:42:30,801 --> 00:42:33,805 These things that we strive for, are they worth striving for? 406 00:42:36,649 --> 00:42:41,976 Our direction is our direction in a way that's going to lead to peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering. 407 00:42:43,398 --> 00:42:48,004 Or is it going to lead to stress, unhappiness, and suffering? 408 00:42:54,616 --> 00:42:57,339 So that's the Dhammapada verse for today. 409 00:42:58,961 --> 00:43:22,311 That the realization of this truth and entering onto the path towards complete freedom from wanting is greater than all goals, any other goal that we might attain in this world or the next. 410 00:43:23,489 --> 00:43:26,229 So thank you all for tuning in. 411 00:43:26,776 --> 00:43:28,217 Wishing you all the best.