Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verses 131 and 132, which read as follows.
Sukha kamaani bhutani, yodande na vihing sati.
Atano sukha me saano, pecha so na sabaddehi sukhaan.
It's a twin pair of verses.
They're saying the same thing but in opposition.
So 131 means
Sukhakamani bhutani, those beings that desire happiness.
Yodandena vihingsati, who harms them with a stick or with a weapon.
Atano sukhamesano For this, for buy one
by one who is seeking for happiness, meaning the person doing the harming.
So a person harming someone who wishes for happiness, harming beings that wish for happiness, they themselves seeking happiness.
In the future they do not attain happiness.
And 132 is the opposite.
If someone does not harm others with a stick, the other beings that seek happiness, that wish for happiness, want happiness, oneself seeking happiness, one does find happiness in the future.
So this is the Dhamma for today.
The story behind these verses is regarding a group of boys who the Buddha saw on his way to Savatthi.
So the Buddha lived in Jetavana for many years of his life.
You can still go and see the ruins of the ancient monastery in India.
And you can walk from, it's actually quite a ways, but you can walk from Jetavana to Savati.
And in Savati, there are two...
kind of pyramid type things, or probably, maybe they were round at one point, but they're kind of square, kind of pyramid type things that are said to be the monuments to Angulimala and Anathapindika.
And if you go up on top of the stupa, you can see the walls of Savatthi.
You can see the ruined city.
And so when the Buddha was on his way into Sabati, he saw a bunch of boys beating a snake with a stick.
It's an interesting sort of a humanizing story where the Buddha meets with a bunch of children and how he teaches children.
Of course, this is the commentary again.
We don't have any evidence that this actually happened, but it's an interesting look into how the Buddha behaved or how people remember him, the things people remember him to have done.
So he asked them, what are you doing?
Kumāraka, young men.
King Garota, what are you doing?
Ahim bante dandakena paharāma.
It's a snake, Venerable Sir.
We are beating it with a stick.
And the Buddha said, For what reason?
And they said, We're afraid of its bite, Venerable Sir.
When the Buddha shook his head, he said, Tumhe, you think to yourself, Atano sukhang karisama, we will make happiness for ourselves.
We will bring ourselves happiness.
And for that reason, imang paharanta, you beat the snake with a stick.
But he said, you will not be in whatever places you are born.
You will not be ones who attain happiness.
When it's not able to, you know,
the beating with a stick does not go for I don't quite get that but basically beating others doesn't lead to happiness and so he taught this verse
So simple.
I mean, it ties in a lot with ties in a lot with the past two stories.
In the past two verses about one should not hurt others, oneself not wishing harm.
But the curious thing here is the logic of the boys.
Because it seems like sound logic, right?
We are afraid he'll bite us.
We're afraid of the bite of the snake.
But of course, if you think for a moment about it, the snake wasn't actually, most likely wasn't actually a danger to the boy, right?
We just found this snake and they thought, oh, well, he might bite us, so we better kill it.
But the snake wasn't looking to bite a human.
The snake was probably looking for a smaller animal to kill.
Not to say snakes aren't vicious, evil animals, but
I mean, we do recognize that as at least a small evil.
I mean, fair evil, snakes killing other animals and biting them.
But it wasn't doing harm to the boys.
And so it's a good example of our tendency to focus more on a cure, focus more on the cure to a problem than the cause of a problem.
So there's a good example of that, but it's an important delusion or error that we make.
It was a problem that we have that leads to errors in judgment.
So take these boys for example.
They think the problem is this, they think the cause of their problem is the snake, right?
The snake is causing problems.
And so immediately,
They look for a solution.
They don't consider and they don't look closely at the cause and what the real problem is.
And so they focus on the solution and immediately beat the snake.
If I get rid of this snake, then my problem will be over.
But they haven't
understood the problem.
And in fact, the real problem is not the snake, it's the fear.
That's what they say, we're afraid he will bite us.
And so without investigating and seeing what is the real problem, whereas an adult would look at it and would say, well, don't be afraid of the snake, it's not going to harm you, right?
There's no reason to be afraid of it.
But we do this with so many different things.
We take the status of mental illness in the West.
As soon as we have a problem like depression or anxiety, we're very quick to find a pill that will give us a solution without looking at the cause, without really looking and seeing what's the problem.
I think I can't cope, I can't handle.
And when in fact the experiences that we have aren't the problem, it's our reactions to them.
And a doctor will tell you, of course, that if you want to cure a sickness, you have to find the cause.
You have to look at the cause.
Well, the same should go with the mind.
The same should go with our addictions and our aversions, our mental problems.
Because when you look at what's causing you problems, when you examine it, you find that really the answer is not in finding a cure.
The cure is not in fixing things.
The cure is learning to see things differently, learning to let go and release yourself from the very idea that there's a problem in the first place.
And so, I mean, the real thing, the real deal is our, I mean, the real problem, it's not that we seek for a cure, it's that we don't understand.
So we don't understand the problem and we're inconsistent in our solution.
So some of our ideas might be good, some of our ideas might be bad.
we're unable to be consistently successful in solving our problems because we don't look closely at the cause.
It's just this idea that in Buddhism we do focus much more on the cause.
We're not immediately looking to solve our problems.
That's sort of the difference between Samatha meditation and Vipassana meditation.
In Samatha meditation you're looking for a quick fix.
It doesn't solve the problem.
With vipassana meditation you put aside the cure and the fix in terms of being happy and being peaceful.
And in fact insight meditation can be quite unpleasant and chaotic, stressful even.
Yes, you're putting it aside in favor of looking at the problem.
When you have pain, you look at the pain.
Well, that's not pleasant.
But the focus on the cause instead of the cure means that you're able to solve problems, to come up with solutions that are actually beneficial.
These boys were looking to be happy.
The Buddha points this out quite clearly.
They were seeking happiness.
That's why they were doing it.
They were doing it to bring happiness.
They had the right intention.
They just, their minds weren't clear.
They hadn't studied the problem and the situation to the extent that they would really understand what the problem was.
And the Buddha goes into, you know, the Buddha sees things beyond what most of us can see and says, not only is it going to be a problem for your minds now, you're going to, when you're reborn, you're going to get beaten by a stick or you're going to be in trouble.
You might go to hell, that kind of thing.
Lots of bad things can happen.
So for our meditation practice, we spend our time studying causes.
We don't concern ourselves so much with the peace and the happiness.
And that's really kind of the beauty of the practice.
We're not dependent on results.
It's much more about the process.
And when happiness does come, because it does come from inside, make no mistake, Insight Meditation is designed to bring peace, happiness, freedom from suffering.
But when it does come, we're not attached to it, we're not dependent on it.
We kind of just chalk it up to good results and keep going back into the bad stuff.
It's like when you're cleaning house.
When the room's clean, you leave and go find a dirty room.
You do that until you're clean.
That's how you clean your house.
That's how you clean your mind.
Don't sit there and marvel at the clean room and forget about all the rest.
Oh, well, at least this room's clean.
Maybe I'll just live in this room and not live in the rest of the rooms in my house.
So in meditation we focus on the bad stuff mostly.
It's important that we do.
I think that's proper to say.
Don't focus on the good stuff.
Don't worry about it.
Focus on the bad stuff.
Including how we react to good things.
It's not all pain and suffering, but there's greed and addiction as well.
But on either side, focusing on what's wrong.
Just like a doctor would, just like someone cleaning house would.
A doctor focuses on the sickness, tries to find the cause.
They can give you medication to suppress the symptoms and even cure the sickness.
Like if a person has...
has abused their body, the doctor can fix the symptoms, but if you go back and abuse your body again, what good is it to cure the symptoms?
Even if it's a cure, you just do the same thing over again.
So much more important is it to find the cause, and they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right?
That's the old saying, for this reason.
So we're not so much concerned with results.
This is a problem meditators have.
They're worried that meditation is not comfortable.
Is this meditation actually any good?
Where you should find results is in the fixing, in the solving.
Sorry, not in the fixing, in the solving, in the moment of addressing.
Not the fixing, but the addressing.
when you address the experience and and purify the moment where you look at the experience in a new way when you have pain you look at it as just pain when you have thoughts you look at them as just thoughts even your emotions learning to look at them and see them just as emotions and not reacting to them
So that's the Dhammapada verses for today.
We're now at up to 132.
Wishing you all the best.
Have a good night.