When you thought of being a monk, were you asking yourself too much questions like us here?
Do you think we are relying too much on the ideation level of consciousness?
Yeah, too many questions.
Well, some questions are a little bit much, but most of the questions seem to be really well thought out and important to people.
I think a lot of the questions here are actually important to people.
You guys deal with a lot more than I do.
You have a lot more factors to deal with, and it makes things more complicated.
It's a lot easier for someone on the outside to help you out with that.
And a lot of the helping out is just to bring you back to a more simple, to pull you into a more simple life, help you to rearrange things so that you live a more simple life, so that you think in a more simple way, that you live your life more simply.
But that's not the first question It's not either question really but asking too many questions was I asking too many questions She I don't know I wasn't I didn't have people to ask them.
I wasn't really asking a lot of questions No, but what I would say is that I was I was I
I was totally in the dark.
So I didn't know.
I think the problem here, and that's often a problem, is people think they should ask something.
And so they come here and they think, well, okay, so this is Buddhism.
You come and ask questions of the monk, which is a bit of a problem, no?
I mean, that's the negative side of this, is that people get the idea that, well, this is their Buddhist practice, is to come and ask questions.
Because before we've practiced meditation, we're in the dark.
We don't really know what is the path.
I went to Thailand looking for wisdom.
And that's what I said, what the meditation said.
They said, why are you coming to meditate?
I said, I want to find wisdom.
And they said, oh, that's a good thing.
But it was absurd, because I hadn't a clue what wisdom was.
And when I found, or when I began to develop wisdom,
It turned out to be totally otherwise than what I thought, and it's a surprise when you really gain wisdom.
It totally shocks you.
It's totally other than what you think.
So...
Asking questions here is incredibly limited.
It shouldn't ever be considered your practice, or shouldn't ever be considered to solve things.
If anything, it should be, if I'm answering these questions correctly, it should incline you more towards meditation, incline you more to find the answers.
I'm not answering, I'm not giving you the answers.
I'm trying and hopefully, I don't know if I'm succeeding, but trying to lead you to encourage you to find the answers, to look for the answers.
The best thing would be if people came away thinking, I want to go on a meditation course.
I want to go off and really dedicate myself to this.
This was the problem with the meditation videos and even a booklet on how to meditate.
Great, they've helped a lot of people.
But people, the one downside, and it's not a reason to stop, but the problem is that people get the idea that that's enough.
And so they say, if they do say I'm going to go on a meditation course, they think it'll be just the same as practicing meditation at home.
And then it just totally blows them away because it's so much, it's on a totally different level.
So, yeah, you should never be content with this sort of an activity.
This is just for people who are new, I would say, or people who come back and have some free time from their meditation and they want to hear the Dhamma, listen to the Dhamma, maybe even share the Dhamma themselves.
So I would say don't ask too many questions and don't rely too much on the ideation level of consciousness.
Whether people are or not, I get the feeling that people are fairly sincere here.
So I hope that helps.