Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to our live broadcast.
We're going to skip ahead tonight.
Let's continue on to the Book of Twos.
I'm just going to skip ahead to, so does that seem a little more relevant to actual meditation practice?
So we're skipping on to Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Twos, first chapter, number five, the Upanyata Sutta.
It is an example of one of the more well-known quotes of the Buddha.
Book of Twos, so there's two things.
The Buddha says, I've personally known two things.
Upanyasing, I have come to know.
Upa means to come or to arrive.
Nyah, to know.
Come to know two things.
Things by things are dammas.
In regards to two dammas, I have come to know.
I have come to knowledge.
I have come to know two things.
And the meaning here is these are two important things.
These are two things that the Buddha singles out, not perhaps as being the only central important things, but these are
two qualities that impact one's practice.
So they aren't the practice themselves, but these are two things that determine success or failure, have an important, plain important part.
And in fact, these two things are similar and a part of the same thing.
So what are they?
Asantuttita kusalesu dhammesu.
Discontent in regards to wholesome dhammas, wholesome things.
And by things here is, in an ultimate sense, referring to mind states, mental qualities.
Discontent.
This is one of the rare usages of the word discontent in a positive sense.
Buddhism is very much about contentment, santutthita,
in regards to your possessions, in regards to your lodgings.
in regards to experiences, but not in regards to mind states.
You should not be content with your unwholesome mind states, and you should also not be content with your wholesome mind states, thinking I've gone far enough, this is good enough.
And the other one is, the other of the two Dhammas that the Buddha mentions is apati vanita padhanasmi, unrelenting or unshrinking effort, exertion, never giving up.
So they're very similar, actually.
They're parts of the same thing.
But you can give up for many reasons, and you can slack off for many reasons.
But Buddha singles out one specific reason, and that's being content, being complacent.
Very common in meditation.
You'll make this mistake again and again in practice.
It'll get easy, and you'll begin to slack off.
confusing what this is is confusing the practice and the fruit
You practice mindfulness, and it brings about fruit.
And then you get excited, and you fixate.
Rather than on the practice, you fixate on the fruit, which, if you think about it, is kind of silly, because it's clear that the fruit came from the practice.
And as soon as you focus on the fruit, thinking, oh, this is easy, this is great, being content with that, you stop practicing.
If you stop practicing, you lose the benefit of the practice.
At least until you reach Nibbana.
It's actually a different level of this problem for Sotapanna.
Because Sotapanna has some kind of reassurance.
They have some strong stability of mind.
So the Buddha was actually specifically singling out, not here perhaps, but he at times would single out even anagami.
The anagami are those who have no more greed or anger, but they still have delusion.
No more greed or anger for sensuality, anyway, towards sense experience.
And the Buddha scolded them, scolded a group of anagami for being complacent, which is a really good example for us.
An anagami is someone who is so pure, so pure they can never be reborn in the world of sensuality.
They'll be born in a very pure realm called the sudhāvasa, the pure realm.
And they'll become enlightened as arahants there.
They'll never come back to be born as human beings or animals or in hell or whatever.
But even they can become complacent, can be even conceited about their attainment.
How much more should we not be complacent about our attainment?
It's something to watch out for in all regards.
When things are good, it's very difficult to
put out effort to make things better, right?
Things are good, good enough.
And if we're unable to remind ourselves or be reminded of the impermanence of our state, impermanence of our situation, potential for further suffering and falling back, we can become complacent and overestimate our progress.
That's the first part of this teaching.
The second part is where the quote comes in.
The quote is, and it's an instructive quote for meditators complaining about their problems in meditation or the situation that they're in, the environment that they have to be in and the state of their body with pain and so on.
The Buddha says, if you would strive indefatigably
resolving to yourselves, and this is the quote, willingly let only my skin, sinews, and bones remain, and let the flesh and blood dry up in my body, but I will not relax my energy so long as I have not attained what can be attained by heroic strength.
I don't think it's manly strength, but I'm not sure.
Now it might actually be, yeah, purisatamina, purisavirina, manly strength, energy and exertion.
That's how you should think.
If you do that, you too will in no long time realize for yourself, with direct knowledge in this very life, the unsurpassed consummation of the spiritual life.
Therefore you should train yourselves thus.
We will strive indefatigably.
Not slacking off.
You have to consider where is the Buddha coming from?
I mean he actually lived this.
He left his life.
He did something that most people would never dream of doing.
And even those who dream of it would never actually dare to do it.
And those who dare to do it
Very few would actually succeed in finding success in it.
But he left, and he put himself through such torture, pushing himself to the extreme, doing all sorts of practices just to try to, in a sense, being willing to
to make the ultimate sacrifice, any sacrifice, to do anything, basically, to attain the truth.
This is the sort of incredible resolve that is possible, that exists, that we can strive towards.
that we should strive to emulate.
This is not a teaching for a weak person.
This is a teaching for someone who is bold and brave.
It's quite refreshing, actually, to be able to be so bold.
Religion does this.
Religion has this great power to it.
In Christianity, you have many bold statements by Jesus that are similar in nature to this.
Jesus said, let the dead bury their dead.
One should discard one's family and follow me.
He made these bold statements that give people such faith and encouragement.
They give us the opportunity to be real, to reach our potential, to go jump headfirst into something that feels meaningful.
Obviously, I don't particularly agree with Christian concepts of meaning.
Certainly in Buddhism you have this.
You have the path.
The path is here.
The path is open.
Nibbana exists.
The path to Nibbana exists.
What are you waiting for?
And so this is the
You have to understand this isn't a hobby.
This isn't something that you can't have your cake and eat it too.
If you're not willing to give up everything, you can't ever hope to be truly happy.
There's no halfway.
So just a little dhamma for tonight.
Every night we give a little bit.
Eventually we'll skim through the entire Anguttara Nikaya.
This is our next task.
And the Dhammapada, I will try to do Dhammapada videos.
I'll see about Mondays maybe.
I don't have my camera all set up here.
I have to set everything up.
We'll get around to it.
If we don't die first.
If I don't die first.
It's always a possibility.
Anyway, tonight's theme is striving.
Let's look and see if we have any questions.
Hi, Robin, are you here?
Yes, I'm here, Bante.
We have questions.
Give me some questions.
I became a gardener recently, and I often destroy the insect habitat.
I don't intend to kill these insects, but by moving the earth or stones, I know I kill some.
Sometimes when I can, I move bigger insects to other places, but I can't always do that.
What can I do?
Is Gardner right livelihood?
Thanks, Bonte.
Well,
It's problematic.
Being a gardener is a real problem.
There are ways, I suppose, to get around it.
But you could do hydroponics, maybe.
I don't know.
But yeah, you're always going to have that worry and that sadness in your mind at the unpleasantness that you're meeting out upon these living beings.
You know, Moggallana once offered to, and it's a really strange passage, but apparently the earth has some nutriment in it.
In northeast Thailand, actually, people are very poor.
They actually do eat dirt.
There's a certain kind of dirt that you can actually get nutrition from.
So Moggallana offered to use his magical powers once to remove the nutriment from the earth and feed the monks that way.
This was early on before there was rules and set up to not allow that sort of thing.
But the Buddha said, no, you'll disturb many living beings that live in the earth.
What do you do with them?
I said, well, I'll take them out in one hand and I'll remove them from the earth in one hand and take the nutriment from the other hand.
I mean, this is all, believe it or not, but this is in the realm of psychic powers.
So he was able to do that.
But even that, no death, no suffering to these beings, the Buddha wouldn't allow because it would disturb them.
even disturbing the home of these beings.
So there's definitely something there that you have to be aware of.
It doesn't make you not a Buddhist to harm other beings, especially when your intention, your direct intention is not to do that.
Obviously killing, if you intentionally kill beings, if you intentionally kill beings, you can't be said to be really, truly Buddhist.
But if you have a borderline case here where you're not intentionally killing, but you're doing something that you know is going to lead to death, there's a pretty much 100% chance that you're going to kill something.
Not good.
Not really on the up and up.
It's like manslaughter rather than murder.
You could argue you're not guilty of killing, but the precepts, I've said this before, precepts are just fence posts.
They don't make the fence.
So killing is definitely a fence post that you don't want to cross, but there's a lot of fence in between that you also shouldn't cross.
If you really want to have a perfect fence, you have to be very careful about the things you do.
I think Gatakara is another example.
He made pots, but if I remember the story correctly, and I may not, but it seems to me that he wouldn't...
He had to get clay for these pots, but he wouldn't dig...
clay from the ground because he knew there would be...
He got it from termite mounds, I think, like old termite mounds that were deserted or something like that.
But I thought I read he also would get it from the bank of rivers when the banks of the rivers would be crumbling and there would be clay that had no insects or no animals living in it, that kind of thing.
So there's definitely something there.
Gardening is a really tough one.
I wouldn't worry intensely about it.
As I said, just because you're harming other beings doesn't mean you can't progress in meditation.
But you're always going to have that sense and sensitivity if you're practicing meditation.
You'll have the sensitivity towards their suffering.
I mean, when I was living in Sri Lanka in a cave,
Lots of animals and you'd often feel guilty about the harm that you did towards like chasing us.
I chased a snake out.
There was a snake in my room once and a big snake, like a long three foot long snake.
and I don't think I don't remember it was poisonous or not yeah I think it was poisonous anyway dangerous snake but it had eaten it had eaten a rat or something or maybe a frog and so its stomach was big and I chased out the room with a broom but it got stuck it went in between the door and it got stuck at the rat this big bulge in its stomach and it
barely got through but I think it was quite hurt by doing so and it was definitely scared sometimes you can't avoid harming beings dealing with termites you know trying to get termites out of the cave because they were eating up my book and my books in my tent and I had to take them out one by one by one and put them in another termite now and then sometimes the other termites would bite them as they came in it was just kind of awful
So there's no easy, sometimes it's messy, especially for lay people.
Is gardening wrong livelihood?
No, not unless you use pesticides that actually kill living beings, but
It's not perfect.
It's not perfect livelihood.
It's probably not up there with the best livelihoods.
I mean, many people would be upset to hear that, because gardening is seen as such a wonderful occupation.
But it's generally not.
Farmers can be some of the cruelest people around.
Even vegetable farming is not perfect, unfortunately.
It's very difficult.
OK, next question.
I have a strong inclination to shave my head, but I'm insecure about myself.
And always turning the clipper on, my body just freaks out.
How can I become less attached to becoming ugly and being judged and shyness?
Well, those are all emotions.
Practice.
Have you read my booklet on how to meditate?
If not, that's where I'd recommend you start.
If you have, then definitely all of that is meditation fodder.
Meditate on it.
Don't react to your reactions.
Just learn about them.
If you're afraid or worried, say afraid, afraid, or worried, worried.
But you also have to get around the view.
The question is, do you really believe that it's good for you to shave and important for you to shave your head?
It's not.
I mean, shaving your head isn't really that important.
But you have to decide for yourself, are you sure this is what you want to do?
Intellectually, I mean, don't worry about your emotions.
But intellectually, if you've set yourself on doing it, then focus on the emotions and just let them go.
I think there is a bug with the meditation timer.
When I put a number in and click start, it immediately shows the number, but with 10 reduced.
Is this going to be fixed?
I haven't noticed that bug, but this whole platform is going to be changed hopefully fairly soon.
We're just finalizing the new platform.
It's really ready to go.
It's just a matter of switching, which should happen in the next month, I hope.
How close is the Buddhist teaching to Maslow's hierarchy of needs?
That's a good question.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Yeah, there is a sense of the hierarchy of needs.
It's not an incredibly important teaching, but there is a sense of the need for certain things before you can get to spiritual practice.
I wouldn't want to overplay the importance because there's also a sense that when you have to do without, it's an important part of the practice to be content to do without.
But there's also a sense that without certain requisites, practice becomes increasingly difficult.
I just wouldn't overemphasize it.
If you get attached to that idea, then you'll make excuses.
I'm hungry, so I can't practice.
I'm hot, so I can't practice.
I'm tired, so I can't practice.
None of which is really valid.
If a human keeps the five precepts, he is basically guaranteed to be reborn human.
What does a human have to do to be reborn as a Deva or a Brahma?
And is it easier to become enlightened as a Deva or a Brahma?
I'm not guaranteed, but it's a general rule of thumb.
If you're keeping the five precepts and not doing anything, not engaging even in mental activity that is regarding breaking the precepts.
Like if you think about killing someone, you don't really have to kill someone to go to hell.
If you've got terrible anger in your mind, it can be enough.
But generally, generally not.
Generally, if you're,
if you're of a mind state not to kill and steal and lie and cheat then or take drugs and alcohol then generally you're you're pretty good to go to become a human being it's necessary if you're not keeping the five precepts and you're intent upon breaking them then it's really not conceivably possible to be born a human
and it's still it's these aren't magic it's just a general rule of thumb as far as becoming an angel it requires what we call maha kussala so goodness beyond just not doing bad things you have to actually be charitable you have to be learned you have to be you have to have a sense of confidence and composure of mind so you have to do lots of good deeds you have to be generous and moral
and keeping religious practices.
helpful to people.
You have to have love and kindness and all those things.
To be born a Brahma, you have to enter into tranquility, absorption.
You have to fix your mind on a single pointedness that takes you out of the sensual realm, takes you away from the senses.
So you're no longer hearing or seeing or tasting, smelling or tasting or feeling.
And then if you die in that state, you'll be born in the Brahma realms.
Are there any other beings other than Buddha that reached the state of enlightenment in the Buddhism history?
If yes, did they come to the same conclusions as Buddha did about life?
Anyone who becomes enlightened is either an arahant or a Buddha.
Depends what you mean by enlightened.
So all of his followers who were called arahants were considered enlightened.
But there's a special kind of enlightenment that makes you a Buddha.
And anyone who attains that is a Buddha.
Yes, we have lots of stories of past Buddhas, but they're still called Buddhas.
And just anytime anyone realizes that, they become a Buddha, either a private Buddha or a fully enlightened Buddha.
A private Buddha doesn't teach, and a fully enlightened Buddha does.
Fully you mean.
I have a question regarding the idea of self.
So as you said, in one of the live broadcasts, if we consider every moment of the present as discrete experience, why do we still remember the experience that happened previously?
There should be something that unites these experiences together.
Thank you for addressing this question.
I don't know.
I don't know the answer to that.
There just isn't.
The only answer I could offer is that Buddhism doesn't exactly talk about what's out there.
You have to get a new paradigm.
It's not the paradigm of this thing exists or this thing exists.
It's completely based on empirical observation of experience, and that's it.
So it's not saying that there is or isn't something uniting or that even that these mind states are like billiard balls that click, touch each other.
it's just saying that there is this experience and it leads to this experience to that experience this leads to this and that there are patterns that you can find between mind states experiences rather than things they're not exactly things so the idea you know because we have this paradigm of thinking of things reacting to other things it's not really like that so the argument would be that the universe is not made up of things
It's made up of experiences.
Like Buckminster Fuller said, I am a verb.
It's a little bit more like that, I would say.
Pante, is there any benefit or any appropriate reason to focus on noting one of the Satipatthana instead of noting all four of them?
There are passages in the Canon where someone talks about practicing just mindfulness of the body, for example.
Yes, well, first of all, the body is a good place to start, the body specifically.
sort of encompasses all the other three, right?
Because if you're focusing on the body, you're going to be aware of the feelings, the mind, and the dhammas.
They're all going to come within this frame, this bodily frame.
The body is just therefore the greatest of all meditation objects because it's
It's our universe, really.
But that being said, focusing on one or the other actually relates to your character type.
If someone is lustful or passionate, if someone is passionate, as opposed to intellectual, there's passionate and intellectual.
If someone's passionate,
but they have weak wisdom, they should focus on the body.
If someone is passionate, but they have strong wisdom, they should focus on feelings, vedana.
If someone is intellectual, but they have weak wisdom, they should focus on the mind, citta.
If someone is intellectual, but they have strong wisdom, they should focus on dhamma.
Generally speaking, absolutely you should focus on all four.
No one should ever give up all four.
But it does help you sort of get a sense of which one is going to give you the most trouble and which one is going to be the most fruitful.
Don't ever just do one of the four satipatthanas.
and the other one is if you practice samatha before and you have weak wisdom you do body if you practice samatha before and you have strong wisdom you do vedana if you practice vipassana only not ever practice samatha and you have weak wisdom you focus on citta strong wisdom you focus on dhamma
Fante, would a meditator be able to figure out for themself which character type they are?
Or is that something?
You can.
But yeah, they're much better to worry about.
Let the teacher worry about that.
And even the best, Ajahn Tong, he would give this teaching and then explain them.
And then he'd say, but we just give all four to everyone.
That's true.
Don't pay too much attention to that.
It's interesting and it gives you a little bit of inclination or a little bit of information about how to go.
But in the end, you have to use all four.
Could you explain the difference between a Theravada bodhisattva and a Mahayana bodhisattva?
I have taken the vow myself, but I don't know if I'll stick to it.
So there is quite a difference.
A bodhisattva in Theravada is someone who's going to become a Buddha.
I mean, it's arguable that there may not be.
It's funny because the Mahayana in India
is a little bit disjointed and we don't really have a strong sense of what the Mahayana actually was.
There's just too many suttas and a lot of them are apocryphal and the Theravada we have a really good sense of what it is.
We have two versions of the Theravada Tipitaka.
We have the Chinese one, we have the actual Theravada Pali one, but
The Mahayana sutras are kind of all mixed up.
And they do say different things.
And in China, they were put together and fused into one religion.
But that doesn't mean that that's actually what they were.
But the big difference, as it's presented today, is that Mahayana bodhisattva makes a vow to not enter into nibbana until all beings are capable.
Now, I do know that many Mahayana practitioners will say that that's just a vow that you take.
You don't actually mean it.
Keep this in mind that they will say that you don't actually mean it You know that it's impossible because what does the vow say beings are endless.
I vow to save them all So you immediately it's a paradox, right?
It's not possible.
You're making about it's not possible What that means is the idea I understand is it's to give you unlimited energy it's to not put a limit on your effort and
So that you'll go all out is the idea.
Criticism being that we put some limit on our effort and therefore are complacent, lazy, selfish, etc.
That's the big one.
And then, you know, the bodhisattva in Mahayana actually gets a lot more complicated than that.
There's weird teachings and esoteric teachings that I really don't know anything about.
Yesterday you said that the internet is a great way to disseminate the Buddhist teaching, but that it's certainly not going to last in the future.
Why?
Internet control?
No, I was just suggesting that the internet's not going to last.
I mean, eventually there's going to come a time where this is all going to collapse and it's incredibly unstable.
All it would take is a very strong solar flare, apparently, or some burst from the sun to destroy absolutely everything.
electronic device as I've heard this may be wrong but my understanding is it's possible that there could be some solar occurrence that's happened in the past that would just totally wipe out all of our electronics it's just an example I suppose that's not even the big one but there's going to be wars there will eventually be a breakdown of society and you know whatever
20 years, to think that something that's lasted 20 years gives us any indication of whether it's going to last 1,000 years.
Nothing lasts even 1,000 years.
And 1,000 years is nothing.
10,000 years.
10,000 years from now, you think the internet's still going to be here?
We probably won't even be here.
The earth is going to look a lot different in 10,000 years.
I think even the electrical grid is kind of questionable in the US, at least.
Yeah, I mean, it's so, so ephemeral.
It's becoming more.
This is what the singularity is doing, this talk of a singularity.
It's not just making things more and more impressive.
It's making things more and more unstable.
Whereas before, a book, you have to burn it, right?
A hard drive?
Just a moment, and all the information is gone.
All it takes is a little bit of damage and poof.
Anyway, I guess the point is that everything's impermanent.
When Mara dies, what happens?
Would another Deva take his place?
Would Mara go to the realm of hell or some other lower realm?
Well, apparently there is a class of angels called Maras.
They are the paranimita-savati, meaning they rejoice in the creations of others.
So what that means is they want us to be reborn.
That's why Mara is such a thorn in the Buddhist side.
Well, not exactly, but he tries to be.
because the Buddha is actually a thorn in Mara's side, because the Buddha is taking people out of samsara, so they're not going to create things anymore.
He's trying to encourage people to do things.
Maras are not actually really evil.
They just delight, they just try to encourage people to do things, good deeds, bad deeds, whatever.
They like to see action.
Buddhists are kind of boring.
What kind of Mara would like to see that?
That's the point.
So there's a whole class of them and they're born and die just like every other being.
What is the difference between vedana and feeling?
Is it the same thing?
Is vedana about emotional feeling, physical feeling, both or neither?
Emotional feeling, that's a slippery term.
It's about physical and mental feeling.
And the mental feelings are associated with emotions.
But the positive, at least, like a happy feeling in the mind, that's just a feeling.
And it can be associated with wholesomeness or unwholesomeness.
An unhappy feeling in the mind can only be associated with unwholesomeness.
But the unwholesomeness and the wholesomeness, those are the emotions, anger and greed.
The happiness is just the feeling part.
Feeling is just a word, but that's what Vedana means.
It also refers to physical, so pleasure and pain are also Vedana.
There's five types of Vedana.
Physical pain, physical pleasure, mental pain, mental pleasure, and equanimity.
Those are the five.
She possibly harbors souls.
Possibly.
Actually, I think that's possible.
It's unlikely, but for the most part, they don't.
And the idea of a mind actually being able to manipulate, like you create a cyborg or an android, and somehow it's about consciousness, it's not quite that.
But certainly, the mind can inhabit anything.
I only ask this because of all the horrible news stories.
This was the question about Mara.
Oh, I'm sorry.
No, different question.
What is the karmic or past life connection in a mass shooting?
I have heard it said in Buddhism, we get what we deserve always.
So why does a person shoot a room full of strangers?
Could you give a Buddhist explanation for this disturbing mass shooting epidemic?
I've stopped watching the news because of this.
No, that's not true.
New karma can be created.
Now, there is some connection usually with past karma, but there doesn't have to be.
New karma can be created.
This is an important point.
So a person who goes into a theater and kills a theater full of people, now,
There may be and there likely is some connection, but there is also this new creation that can start something fresh that wasn't there before.
And much more common would be to increase it.
So maybe in past life, all these people got together and laughed at this guy or something.
And that fed this anger that he had towards them and this vow that he made to one day get them back.
But he took it to the next level, right?
That's a potential situation.
I mean, who knows?
But it certainly is possible to create karma towards people who never did anything to deserve it.
Arguably, I guess I don't want to quite be so extreme, but there is definitely a sense of being able to create.
Not everything is because we did something bad in the past.
It can just be the chance we got there.
Much more telling is the reactions that people have when they're in those situations, how they react to being killed, being shot.
The ones that already attained enlightenment, who left the earth plane, are they now helping us in some ways, or are we on our own?
There is a sense that they might help.
There are many stories, of course, of Brahmas even coming down to help humans.
I don't know how reliable those stories are.
I mean, generally speaking, they don't.
Generally speaking, they don't have much to do with the human realm.
The human realm is just so fast-paced.
A day in the life of an angel is 100 years as a human.
So the Brahma realms are even more so, even longer.
So they don't really, there's not really that connection.
The time scale is just so much different that they couldn't keep up with us.
We move so fast.
Thank you, Bhante.
I think you're caught up on questions.
I have to go anyway, so let's stop it there.
Do you have just one moment, though?
Sure.
Some of us in the volunteer group, we were, as usual, concerned of you having enough food, as it's always challenging being in Canada.
It's not like a Buddhist country where you can go on alms rounds.
So we've put together an online campaign for
For anyone who's interested in sending food, Donna, to Bhante, I'll paste it into the comments section.
It's an online campaign, like other ones we've done through YouCaring, and it would enable you to send funds to an account, which we'll put on Bhante's student account at McMaster University.
So he'll have access to fresh, healthy food,
paid for by supporters, by anyone who's interested in doing so.
And that way he doesn't have to ever get involved in things that he wouldn't get involved in, such as using cash or anything like that.
So anyone who's interested, I will paste those links into the comment section.
Keeping me alive.
Keeping you alive.
It's an honor, Bante.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone.
Have a good night.
Good night, Bante.
Thank you.