1 00:00:00,031 --> 00:00:02,795 Okay, so welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada. 2 00:00:04,098 --> 00:00:08,685 Today we continue on with verse number 41, which reads as follows. 3 00:00:26,694 --> 00:00:27,355 Which means, 4 00:00:29,225 --> 00:00:40,783 Before long indeed, atirangvata, ayangkayo, this body, patuwing atisesati, will lie on the earth. 5 00:00:42,666 --> 00:00:54,625 Chudho, chudho, means discarded, apetawinyano, without consciousness, or with consciousness having left. 6 00:00:56,056 --> 00:00:57,779 Consciousness having departed from it. 7 00:00:59,242 --> 00:01:06,395 As useless as a log. 8 00:01:07,357 --> 00:01:09,941 As useless as a dead piece of wood or a log. 9 00:01:12,266 --> 00:01:18,537 So, this is seemingly a little bit depressing verse, no? 10 00:01:21,250 --> 00:01:26,217 the referring to death, before long we will be dead. 11 00:01:26,858 --> 00:01:32,927 This is a reminder of the negative aspects of life. 12 00:01:32,947 --> 00:01:41,740 So this was told in regards to, it's a fairly famous story and it's a fairly famous verse. 13 00:01:43,322 --> 00:01:44,524 This verse is used 14 00:01:45,803 --> 00:01:49,447 as a reminder of the inevitability of death. 15 00:01:50,768 --> 00:01:57,535 And so it's often used at giving discourses and used in ceremonies in traditional Buddhism. 16 00:02:03,481 --> 00:02:11,710 So the story goes that there was a man in Savatthi 17 00:02:14,288 --> 00:02:27,609 who, having listened to the Buddha's teaching, became very convinced of the Buddha's greatness and the greatness of the teaching to the point that he decided to go forth. 18 00:02:27,669 --> 00:02:39,688 And it says, He gave his heart, or he gave himself up to the Buddha's asana and went forth. 19 00:02:41,862 --> 00:02:45,347 Now, in a very short time, he became quite sick. 20 00:02:47,109 --> 00:02:54,920 For whatever reason, he contracted some sort of illness and had these boils all over his body, kind of like the chicken pox or something. 21 00:02:56,522 --> 00:03:07,157 And they grew bigger and bigger, and I believe it says, eventually, they burst, and he was covered in this filthy fluid. 22 00:03:08,659 --> 00:03:10,722 And even eventually, his bones... 23 00:03:10,702 --> 00:03:20,031 broke, you know, just some horrible sickness that totally destroyed his body to the point where he was about to die. 24 00:03:20,832 --> 00:03:27,358 But he became so vile and putrid that the monks didn't want to take care of him. 25 00:03:27,398 --> 00:03:37,267 So they left him alone and he was lying on his bed in his own urine and feces without anyone to look after him. 26 00:03:37,287 --> 00:03:38,228 Now the Buddha 27 00:03:39,457 --> 00:04:00,503 The commentary here says that the Buddha, it's his nature, it's his way to twice a day to look out into the world around him to see who would most benefit from his teachings. 28 00:04:01,799 --> 00:04:12,157 So sometimes he would look out at the whole universe, looking around through the whole of the earth and all of the heavens and so on. 29 00:04:13,379 --> 00:04:16,604 And then all the way back to where he was staying. 30 00:04:16,684 --> 00:04:20,330 Or sometimes he would start in the monastery and work his way out. 31 00:04:22,634 --> 00:04:26,541 And whoever his mind alighted upon, 32 00:04:26,909 --> 00:04:37,674 as someone who could benefit from his teachings, he would make his way to them and give them the teaching that they needed. 33 00:04:38,716 --> 00:04:45,812 So on this day, or on one day, near the point where this monk was getting closer to death, 34 00:04:45,792 --> 00:04:57,523 The Buddha saw him in his mind's eye and knew that besides the Buddha himself, there was no one else who was willing to be his refuge or who could be his refuge. 35 00:05:00,035 --> 00:05:03,020 And so he headed out into the monastery. 36 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:05,063 This was in the same monastery as the Buddha was staying. 37 00:05:05,103 --> 00:05:06,005 And he walked out. 38 00:05:06,085 --> 00:05:15,440 And he firstly went to the place where they lit fires, the specially designated place in the monastery for lighting fires. 39 00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:18,305 And he lit a fire and boiled some water. 40 00:05:18,345 --> 00:05:26,278 And he brought the water to this monk's room and proceeded to... 41 00:05:27,524 --> 00:05:31,371 or began to help the monk to wash himself. 42 00:05:31,411 --> 00:05:35,398 And then when the monks, of course, when they saw the Buddha come in, they said, please, let us do that. 43 00:05:35,499 --> 00:05:36,120 And so they helped. 44 00:05:36,561 --> 00:05:47,220 And with the monk's help, they were able to take his robes off and wash his robes and wash him and wash the bed and lie him back down in a clean robe. 45 00:05:49,867 --> 00:05:52,251 And then the Buddha gave him this teaching. 46 00:05:52,691 --> 00:05:57,639 So this is a teaching specifically given to a very sick person. 47 00:05:59,122 --> 00:06:12,583 And you might even think that it's a little bit of a specific teaching, dedicated specifically for someone who is sick or someone who is dying. 48 00:06:14,875 --> 00:06:26,958 I'd like to talk a little bit about this verse and, as usual, how it relates to our practice. 49 00:06:28,621 --> 00:06:31,987 I think it's an important verse to understand. 50 00:06:32,047 --> 00:06:37,137 It's important to understand that it has a broader reach than simply dealing with sick people. 51 00:06:40,390 --> 00:07:01,032 This very short and brief teaching of the Buddha happens to be one of the major reasons why people begin to practice the Buddha's teaching. 52 00:07:02,817 --> 00:07:06,360 So we ask ourselves, what was the use of this teaching at that time? 53 00:07:06,420 --> 00:07:10,404 How is it that this teaching helped that monk? 54 00:07:10,424 --> 00:07:16,289 Because according to the text here, he was able to become an arahant as a result of listening to this teaching of the Buddha. 55 00:07:16,309 --> 00:07:21,314 Just this very simple teaching was enough to set him on the path to become enlightened. 56 00:07:21,334 --> 00:07:32,824 So you would understand that this was the beginning for that monk, just as it's the beginning for all of us on our path to the realization of the truth. 57 00:07:32,804 --> 00:07:41,209 If we think back to the Buddha's story himself, one of the reasons why the Buddha went forth is because he saw a very sick person. 58 00:07:42,132 --> 00:07:44,940 And he realized that sickness was 59 00:07:46,388 --> 00:07:48,571 was something that he himself was subject to as well. 60 00:07:49,433 --> 00:07:52,678 He saw a very old person, he saw a very sick person, he saw a dead person. 61 00:07:53,840 --> 00:07:59,709 And these were three things that moved him to the point of wanting to find a way out of suffering. 62 00:08:00,249 --> 00:08:13,510 It moved him to realize that there was no point in pursuing sensual pleasures or things outside of the body or even pursuing the 63 00:08:13,490 --> 00:08:17,847 the wellness of the body itself, even pursuing life itself. 64 00:08:18,389 --> 00:08:23,770 There was no point in trying to extend life because eventually it would be all for naught. 65 00:08:29,048 --> 00:08:36,999 And so the first important way to understand this verse is as an impetus for us to begin the practice. 66 00:08:37,580 --> 00:08:55,005 Here we have this monk who was feeling useless, perhaps feeling afraid or feeling great suffering and depression because of his sickness, feeling like he was now going to be unable to practice the Buddha's teaching until the Buddha reminded him 67 00:08:54,985 --> 00:09:02,532 of the importance now of putting this teaching into practice. 68 00:09:03,288 --> 00:09:17,943 And this allowed the monk to approach things in a different way, to begin to look at the body and the whole world as being not self, as not belonging to us, and to begin to give it up. 69 00:09:19,165 --> 00:09:22,869 This is how the Buddha began his quest to give up attachment. 70 00:09:24,290 --> 00:09:28,114 And it's a very common reason for people to give up. 71 00:09:28,094 --> 00:09:40,065 give up the world or to begin meditation practices when they get sick or when they realize that sickness, old age sickness and death are an inevitable part of life. 72 00:09:40,646 --> 00:09:55,840 For some people this can be a great crisis, the realization that one day they are going to have to die and all the people that they love and all the things that they care for are going to leave them. 73 00:09:56,495 --> 00:10:10,030 And it also happens to be the beginning of a much longer teaching, which gets closer and closer and closer to a direct realization of impermanent suffering and non-self. 74 00:10:10,250 --> 00:10:15,035 So this is really the beginning of the practice, or one of the important beginnings. 75 00:10:15,095 --> 00:10:21,422 If people ask, why should I practice meditation, why should I torture myself, or why should I be concerned 76 00:10:21,402 --> 00:10:24,347 about the purification of the mind, about understanding the mind. 77 00:10:24,707 --> 00:10:31,218 Why should I be concerned about trying to let go of attachment? 78 00:10:32,860 --> 00:10:40,913 Why shouldn't I keep clinging to these things or pursuing worldly pleasures and so on? 79 00:10:45,010 --> 00:10:57,186 And it's this sort of teaching that really answers this question for us and turns us away from our pursuit of sensual pleasures. 80 00:10:57,807 --> 00:11:14,308 Because you begin to realize that let alone those things outside of us that we might pursue, the things outside of us, even our own body, our own being, 81 00:11:15,048 --> 00:11:16,955 We can't say that it belongs to us. 82 00:11:17,538 --> 00:11:21,392 In the end, this is the meaning of juddho, abheta, vijnana. 83 00:11:21,995 --> 00:11:24,484 The mind will eventually be gone from this body. 84 00:11:25,122 --> 00:11:41,746 this very body, this very being that we hold to be ours, that we hold to be ourselves, this one thing that we cling to more than anything in the world, even this one thing is in no way ours, is in no way under our control. 85 00:11:41,806 --> 00:11:43,288 It's not something that we can keep. 86 00:11:44,009 --> 00:11:53,222 At best you can say we're renting it at a high price, having to feed and to clothe and to care for it, and having to suffer a lot because of it. 87 00:11:53,202 --> 00:12:00,113 So we're renting it, kind of like renting this thing because we think it's going to bring us pleasure or we're trying to find pleasure with it. 88 00:12:02,998 --> 00:12:12,493 Until we come to realize that actually it's not worth the cost of it, that it's actually not something that is going to bring lasting peace and happiness. 89 00:12:14,144 --> 00:12:18,211 It's not something that we can ever fix, that we can never hold on to. 90 00:12:18,271 --> 00:12:27,447 In fact, the nature of reality is that nothing can ever possibly be so. 91 00:12:28,088 --> 00:12:32,736 There's nothing in this universe which, when clung to, will lead to happiness. 92 00:12:33,377 --> 00:12:34,819 The nature of 93 00:12:36,048 --> 00:12:50,344 reality of objects, of possessions, is that they are temporary, that they come and they go, that all of the work that we put into keeping them and maintaining them is in the end 94 00:12:51,353 --> 00:13:01,183 leads to no lasting and sustainable purpose due to the change and the inevitability of losing everything. 95 00:13:01,263 --> 00:13:07,189 So let alone all of the things in the world, this very body that we have is not even ourselves. 96 00:13:07,770 --> 00:13:11,894 The body is really the key possession. 97 00:13:11,914 --> 00:13:19,302 So when we talk about the body as being not self, as the body that's not belonging to us, we also 98 00:13:20,378 --> 00:13:25,106 by extension, understand the rest of the universe, the rest of the world to be so. 99 00:13:26,188 --> 00:13:37,307 When the body is not subject to our control, how could we possibly find control and stability in the things outside of the body? 100 00:13:37,287 --> 00:13:43,958 So starting from here, this is where we begin this movement inwards. 101 00:13:44,139 --> 00:14:02,670 This is the first realization among many realizations, where we come to realize that let alone this inevitability of death, there's actually the inevitability of change on increasingly 102 00:14:04,355 --> 00:14:05,537 shorter intervals. 103 00:14:06,659 --> 00:14:10,967 When I was young I was one way and now I'm older and then I'm getting older. 104 00:14:11,508 --> 00:14:28,337 When our body changes and when we begin to get sick, when we begin to get old, when our physical appearance or our physical nature changes, when the mind changes, sometimes 105 00:14:28,317 --> 00:14:46,309 when we find ourselves becoming addicted to something or attached to something or we find ourselves the mind changing maybe forgetting things more and so on the change that comes in the mind will happen in the body and the mind will occur many times over the course of our lives and 106 00:14:46,289 --> 00:14:58,261 eventually getting shorter and shorter and shorter until we realize that actually this idea of death is really just the tip of the iceberg and actually death is something that occurs at every moment. 107 00:14:59,362 --> 00:15:08,732 This teaching is something that begins us on this course to look inwards until eventually we see that every moment we're born and die. 108 00:15:09,352 --> 00:15:10,734 Every moment things are changing. 109 00:15:10,754 --> 00:15:13,917 There's no 110 00:15:13,897 --> 00:15:19,365 reality that exists more than one moment. 111 00:15:20,306 --> 00:15:29,679 An ordinary person, when they're sitting, for all of us, when we come to practice meditation, at first we see the body as being an entity. 112 00:15:30,300 --> 00:15:33,604 We think of it as being a stable, lasting entity. 113 00:15:35,266 --> 00:15:39,432 And an ordinary person who has never thought about these things, 114 00:15:39,665 --> 00:15:46,125 will even, will generally give rise to this idea that this is something that is going to last, something that I can depend upon. 115 00:15:47,710 --> 00:15:49,877 And they will become negligent in terms of 116 00:15:51,022 --> 00:15:52,124 clinging to it. 117 00:15:52,284 --> 00:15:58,474 They will expect it to be there the next moment, the next day, the next month, the next year, and they will plan things out. 118 00:15:58,494 --> 00:16:05,526 So people will have plans for tomorrow, next month, next year, even many years off into the future. 119 00:16:05,566 --> 00:16:12,557 They have a retirement plan, they have very, very long, you know, having grandchildren and so on, and just plans like this. 120 00:16:17,026 --> 00:16:21,811 And then this realization comes that eventually you're going to die. 121 00:16:21,852 --> 00:16:24,074 And for some people it comes quite quickly. 122 00:16:24,114 --> 00:16:26,577 Suddenly they get sick and the doctor says they have a month to live. 123 00:16:27,258 --> 00:16:32,163 And this is an incredible shock that changes their whole outlook on life. 124 00:16:32,444 --> 00:16:37,610 Suddenly from months or years it becomes days. 125 00:16:38,170 --> 00:16:39,892 What am I going to do tomorrow? 126 00:16:39,912 --> 00:16:42,375 And realizing that 127 00:16:42,355 --> 00:16:49,968 You can't cling to things beyond maybe the next few days or the next few weeks or even months. 128 00:16:52,953 --> 00:17:05,815 That's how we begin to come and practice meditation, with these sorts of realizations, realizing that we can't possibly find satisfaction, that in the end we do have to come to terms with change, with the inevitability of losing the things that we cling to. 129 00:17:07,718 --> 00:17:20,252 Once we begin to practice meditation, we take this to the next step of starting to see the mind is changing from moment to moment, the body is changing from moment to moment. 130 00:17:20,332 --> 00:17:26,179 And even sitting here, our experience determines the reality. 131 00:17:26,860 --> 00:17:37,692 So the reality is not this body lasting from one moment to moment, not even from moment to moment, let alone from day to day, or week to week, or month to month. 132 00:17:37,672 --> 00:17:41,138 It's not that we're going to die in days or weeks or months or years. 133 00:17:42,099 --> 00:17:47,989 It's that actually the we, the body, is something that is born and dies at every moment. 134 00:17:48,930 --> 00:17:51,374 As we begin to practice meditation, you'll begin to see this. 135 00:17:51,394 --> 00:17:53,257 You'll begin to see that actually there is no body. 136 00:17:54,098 --> 00:17:55,441 There is only the experience. 137 00:17:55,761 --> 00:18:00,068 So when you look at another person's body, look at your body, then you see. 138 00:18:00,048 --> 00:18:05,356 And at that moment the body arises as a thought in the mind based on the image that you see. 139 00:18:06,197 --> 00:18:12,447 When you experience the tension in the legs, the tension in the back of sitting here, that's when the body arises. 140 00:18:12,467 --> 00:18:14,350 There's the mind and the body in that moment. 141 00:18:14,990 --> 00:18:21,060 Once the mind moves somewhere else to hearing or seeing or so on, that experience disappears. 142 00:18:21,761 --> 00:18:23,243 And therefore the body disappears. 143 00:18:23,283 --> 00:18:25,466 The body is at that moment gone. 144 00:18:25,506 --> 00:18:28,671 The reality of the body has ceased. 145 00:18:33,865 --> 00:18:39,132 So this sort of realization starts with what is explained in this verse. 146 00:18:39,152 --> 00:18:40,895 So that's really the importance of this verse. 147 00:18:40,915 --> 00:18:47,904 We should understand it as the beginnings of Buddhist practice or as an example of how we begin Buddhist practice. 148 00:18:47,924 --> 00:18:53,812 We begin by accepting these very simple truths of life, that death is inevitable. 149 00:18:53,852 --> 00:19:00,902 This body, anyone who clings to this body has to face the question of... 150 00:19:02,587 --> 00:19:04,652 what they're going to do at death? 151 00:19:04,752 --> 00:19:09,382 Or what is the purpose of clinging when we're going to lose this body in the end? 152 00:19:09,623 --> 00:19:11,046 Why would you worry? 153 00:19:11,106 --> 00:19:12,790 Why are you worrying about this body? 154 00:19:12,850 --> 00:19:14,012 Why are you concerned with it? 155 00:19:14,073 --> 00:19:20,106 Why are you attached to it when it's not obviously going to bring you lasting satisfaction? 156 00:19:21,267 --> 00:19:25,015 In the end, this body is going to lie like a useless log. 157 00:19:25,035 --> 00:19:35,016 It's a vivid image for people who cling to the body because we tend not to like to think of our body as something that we have to throw away. 158 00:19:35,437 --> 00:19:40,508 We try our best to not have to lose the body, to care for it and concern about it. 159 00:19:40,488 --> 00:19:48,757 and we'll be concerned about all the limbs and organs, and if we lose a finger, if we lose a hand, if we lose a leg, you know, this would be travesty. 160 00:19:48,797 --> 00:20:04,774 If we go blind, if we go deaf, if we lose a tooth, even if we lose a tooth, it's an incredible travesty for us, because we cling to this body as being me, as being mine, as being stable. 161 00:20:04,754 --> 00:20:09,537 As the last verse said, it's like a pot, and these verses clearly go together. 162 00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:11,727 They're along the same sort of theme. 163 00:20:13,529 --> 00:20:20,797 that the body is fragile and in the end it's going to break and become useless like a charred log. 164 00:20:20,817 --> 00:20:38,878 Once we begin on this sort of introspection and many other introspections, the idea that habits can change the whole of your being, for example, this realization that craving leads to clinging leads to suffering and so on. 165 00:20:38,858 --> 00:20:42,521 The realization that the way we're carrying out our life is unsustainable. 166 00:20:43,002 --> 00:20:52,191 And in the end we're going to lose this due to the inevitability of things like death and change. 167 00:20:52,211 --> 00:20:53,231 And this leads us inward. 168 00:20:53,352 --> 00:20:56,675 It leads us to approach life from a different point of view. 169 00:20:57,295 --> 00:21:06,604 And it's the beginning of a longer course of practice to see not only that death is inevitable, but that death occurs at every moment. 170 00:21:06,584 --> 00:21:13,614 And that not only can we not cling to things next year or ten years from now, we can't even cling to things in the next moment. 171 00:21:14,576 --> 00:21:17,641 That they're going to change and they could come at any time. 172 00:21:18,261 --> 00:21:19,523 Death could come at any moment. 173 00:21:20,365 --> 00:21:22,488 We don't know what the experience is going to be in the next moment. 174 00:21:22,548 --> 00:21:28,016 Once we begin to practice meditation, we will begin to see the mind is changing, the body is changing. 175 00:21:28,076 --> 00:21:32,523 And this occurs in the beginning, it occurs in terms of day by day, right? 176 00:21:32,543 --> 00:21:36,068 So you come here to practice meditation and today was a really good day. 177 00:21:36,048 --> 00:21:40,613 So you come and tell me about it and you're very happy and then the next day you come back and tell me how horrible it was. 178 00:21:40,813 --> 00:21:43,837 How you can't understand how all of a sudden today was a very, very bad day. 179 00:21:44,878 --> 00:21:48,922 Or today was a very bad day and you're thinking of quitting and then tomorrow is a very good day. 180 00:21:49,864 --> 00:21:55,250 And then this happens again and again until finally you realize that this is the nature of life. 181 00:21:55,530 --> 00:21:56,631 That you can't depend on it. 182 00:21:57,472 --> 00:22:03,719 And then you begin to look closer and closer until you realize that it's first meditation practice to meditation practice. 183 00:22:03,739 --> 00:22:05,481 You can't expect it to be the same. 184 00:22:05,461 --> 00:22:10,706 You can't cling to even a single meditation practice as being dependable. 185 00:22:10,767 --> 00:22:12,949 The next meditation practice might be totally different. 186 00:22:13,049 --> 00:22:17,814 And then eventually it gets to the point of realizing you can't cling from one moment to the next. 187 00:22:17,874 --> 00:22:20,316 And eventually this is how you let go of everything. 188 00:22:20,337 --> 00:22:24,261 In the end you're able to let go of not only your body but the mind as well. 189 00:22:24,881 --> 00:22:26,923 And not be concerned about any experience. 190 00:22:27,204 --> 00:22:32,329 Realizing that the true cause of suffering is our attachment to things. 191 00:22:33,541 --> 00:22:36,707 So it's this sort of realization that sets us on them. 192 00:22:36,747 --> 00:22:49,812 This was the benefit of this verse, especially for this monk who was being sick, was to remind him and to alert him to the fact that this was real and was a serious... 193 00:22:50,922 --> 00:22:58,972 a fact of life that he was going to have to face now and to set him on the right path and help him to come to terms with this and to not be lax. 194 00:22:59,112 --> 00:23:11,867 Because when people are sick, they'll often... We think the correct response is to get sad and upset and cry and depressed and angry and cry out for medicines and... 195 00:23:11,847 --> 00:23:24,827 Or maybe even cling more to happy things and say, well, now I've only got so many days to live, I've got to get as much happiness in before I die, not realizing that this is going to make you cling more and more and be less and less satisfied. 196 00:23:27,963 --> 00:23:35,675 And so for the most part people get depressed and upset because they're not going to be able to cling to the things that they're clinging to. 197 00:23:35,715 --> 00:23:43,388 And so here's the Buddha reminding him that it's too serious for us to be lax and negligent in this way. 198 00:23:43,448 --> 00:23:47,334 Realize that in the end this body will lie on the earth. 199 00:23:47,654 --> 00:23:48,756 It's something that... 200 00:23:48,736 --> 00:23:50,219 we can always come back and think about. 201 00:23:50,419 --> 00:23:55,690 It's something always useful to come back and remind yourself that this body is like a log. 202 00:23:55,991 --> 00:24:01,041 Eventually it's going to fall and lie useless on the earth just as a log. 203 00:24:02,472 --> 00:24:16,825 This is a reason why this verse has become quite famous because it's a good meditation to use to remind yourself from time to time whenever you're clinging to the body or worried about the body or when you find yourself. 204 00:24:17,866 --> 00:24:31,399 Or you can use it to test yourself, to point out to yourself how ridiculous is your love and your attachment to your body as being beautiful and wonderful and a source of stability and happiness and so on. 205 00:24:31,379 --> 00:24:33,963 So just one more verse. 206 00:24:34,003 --> 00:24:43,238 We're going through these one by one and using each of them to give us a little bit more food for thought and explore the Buddha's teaching from one more point of view. 207 00:24:43,658 --> 00:24:44,720 So thanks for tuning in. 208 00:24:44,740 --> 00:24:45,561 Thanks for listening. 209 00:24:46,483 --> 00:24:49,067 And until next time, back to our practice.