Hello and welcome again to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we go on to verses number 26 and 27, which read as follows.
PAMADAM MANU YUNJANTI BALADU MEDHINO JANA APAMADAN CHA MEDHAVI DANNAM SE THANGVA RAKHATI
So two verses again on the practice of meditation.
The Appamada Vaga is going to be mostly about the practice of meditation because the word Appamada, we translate it as heedfulness, but it's really the core of what is meant by meditation or meditation practice in Buddhism.
It's translated directly by the Buddha as mindfulness.
It says the meaning of the word Appamada is to be mindful all the time, to never be without mindfulness or without sati, without remembrance or recollection.
so the direct meaning of these verses they indulge or they partake of heedlessness or negligence the fools and the unwise people but those who are wise the wise
partake in apamada, partake in heedfulness, and guard it, rakati, danang setang, like a high or a special treasure.
So the wise guard mindfulness or heedfulness as a great treasure.
And then the Buddha says, don't engage in heedlessness, in negligence.
Don't partake or indulge in, or don't become intoxicated by sensuality.
Because only those who are heedful and meditating attain great happiness or attain a profound happiness.
A profound happiness is attained.
So this is a very important teaching to understand.
And it's something that really cuts right to the heart of our attachments in the worldly sphere.
Really good story, very short story.
But the story goes that in Savatthi, there was a holiday.
And it kind of seems like a strange holiday, but there are parallels even in modern times.
It was a holiday where anything went, anything was allowed.
So there was no sense of respect for anyone.
The people who partook in this holiday would abandon all sense of respect for mother, father, for boss, for teacher, and so on.
And they would go from house to house, probably drunk, and abuse and revile everyone, you pig, you cow, you goat, calling them all sorts of horrible names.
And the game was that if you wanted them to go away, you had to give them stuff.
So it was like trick or treat, basically, like Halloween, except they really didn't.
They were really mean and nasty.
And they would stay there until you give them some money or some wine or I don't know, whatever, food, and then they would go away.
And so the thing was that in Savatthi there was a great proportion of people who were enlightened.
Or Sotapanna or Sakitagami at some stage of enlightenment.
So they obviously wouldn't partake in such a festival.
And so they had a horrible time for seven days.
And they asked the Buddha not to come to Savatthi because if the Buddha went there they would revile the Buddha.
And that would be very bad karma for them.
So they said to the Buddha, please stay in Jetavana and we'll bring you food every day.
So they brought food for seven days.
And then after the seventh day, they came to see the Buddha and said, oh, venerable sir, we stayed so awful for these seven days.
It was so tiring for us to have to put up with this silliness.
Why are people like this?
Why do people...
act in such a way.
Isn't it crazy that they do?
And the Buddha said, oh yes, this is the difference between those who are enlightened or those who have understood the truth and those who are still mired in delusion.
And so the first verse here, and then he told these verses, and the first verse explains the difference between the two, that
An ordinary person, a person who has no idea about what is right and what is wrong and has never contemplated these things or investigated what might be the truth, what the things that they value are the most base and useless qualities.
For instance, negligence or drunkenness.
So an ordinary person and people in ordinary life will actually, the things that they will cherish are the times when they were the least mindful and the least clear in their mind.
So when you think in lay life, would people, or not in lay life, for people who haven't practiced meditation, the kind of things that they cherish, they cherish those times when they were drunk or when they did something silly and they were having a great time.
and doing all sorts of crazy things when they were young and crazy and how wonderful it was and so on.
They cherish these times when they do the craziest things.
And so people who, for instance, in this festival, they would always think back to, oh, wasn't it a wonderful time where we could say whatever we want?
Didn't we have a great time then?
And they make it out to be this wonderful thing.
And a person who has actually taken the time to see the consequences of our actions and the consequences of every individual mind state is totally the opposite and actually cherishes as a treasure those times when they are cogent, those times when they are aware.
And one of the big reasons for this, I think, is that a person who has no idea or no skill in understanding experience will have a very difficult time just being with reality.
Reality is the worst thing for them, the last thing they want to focus on, because it's unpleasant, it's difficult to deal with.
So pain comes up and they're...
tears in their eyes and when someone's saying things to them that they don't like and they get angry when they have to do work and then they can become frustrated or bored or depressed or so on.
the last thing they want to do is to focus on reality.
So the whole goal or the point in Buddhism, in the Buddhist teaching, is to come back to reality and to find a way to be happy at all times, in any situation, not have our happiness depend on some specific circumstance.
and not have it require some specific situation.
Because when your happiness depends on something, it becomes an addiction and it becomes a partiality where you aren't able to accept the rest of reality.
because you're thinking about or wanting or striving after a certain experience and the experience has to become further and more and more extravagant in order to satisfy the cravings because our pleasure stimulus isn't a static system when you get what you want you want more of it when you get more of it you want even more and it gets
builds and builds and builds until you the only way you can be happy is to have some crazy festival like this where you go and do something you know because you're repressing these desires you're repressing your your you know your greed your anger and so on there i heard about this one society this one uh group of people where they will engage in in uh
group group sex they will get all together and have a big orgy just like animals and for them I mean this may sound coarse and rude to say but it's actually a philosophy that they have that well if this is a way to find pleasure then you should strive to indulge in it to the most extreme extent possible and so it's a philosophy that they have and the idea being that as long as you can get it
Then what's wrong with it?
Because you can be happy all the time.
This is the idea.
So this is for people who don't see what they're doing to their mind.
They think it's somehow static.
Well, if I want it, any time I can get it.
And then if I don't want it, I can come back and not have it.
Without seeing the effect that it's having on your mind and on the pleasure stimulus systems in the brain and so on, and how actually...
you're creating an addiction and you're creating an intense partiality this is an example of an extreme state there are societies where they don't allow this sort of thing and where you have to be totally formal and polite and proper at all times conservative, ethical and so on and any kind of showing of emotion is considered bad form
But then they... So they still have these desires and they repress them and repress them and repress them.
And then they have these festivals.
So there are... I've heard places where...
Everything has to be proper and everyone has a role and a hierarchy and so on.
But then they have these parties where they get drunk and anything goes.
And like you have... I heard about the boss getting together with, you know, having crazy things.
So these are the things that I hear in the world.
And these things really do go on.
I mean, it's actually kind of embarrassing to talk about these things.
But this is what's really happening in the world.
People are so...
that they actually think these things are a cause for happiness.
And so there are scientists and researchers who have studied this and see that it really goes step by step by step until finally it becomes such a perverse thing where you're involving these groups or even, they were saying on this one site, this one article that I read
It eventually gets to with animals and so on.
This is where you find your pleasure.
And so this is the kind of thing that we would have seen in Savatthi.
Of course, it just talks about reviling people.
But for sure that they had other festivals in regards to sensuality.
And this is where the whole Kama Sutra came up and so on.
And this is how people in the world think that they can find happiness.
So there are two ways that we understand this.
For someone who practices meditation, it's obvious that these things don't lead to happiness.
You engage in them, you indulge in them, and you find that you're just back where you started from.
You're still unhappy inside.
You're still unsatisfied even with these things.
Really, the idea is that we're trying to find happiness here and now.
Even if you can say that, well, I may be unhappy here, but when I get what I want, at that time I'm happy.
So what's wrong with it?
I'm getting a happiness, right?
At the time when I get it, there's pleasure.
But the point is that the bare fact that you want that is a sign that you're not happy.
If you are happy, you wouldn't need to strive for something, you wouldn't need to go for something, you wouldn't need to build something, you wouldn't need to create something, you wouldn't need to attain something or get something.
So the radical task that we have is to find happiness without getting that, without getting anything.
To find happiness here and now.
And it's actually really a simple thing.
And if you think about it, it's how it should be.
That we should find happiness here and now.
Why should our happiness depend on something over there?
Why can't our happiness be here and now?
It's a very valid question, but it's one that we never ask and we always overlook.
We think, obviously, if you want happiness, you have to strive for it.
You have to go for it.
Well, the truth is that even to find happiness here and now, you have to strive for it.
And so this is why actually often people will find that the practice of meditation is something that is uncomfortable and unpleasant, right?
The point being because you always want to go out for something.
You want to go after that and you're trying to train yourself out of that.
So sometimes you stop yourself and you say no and then you feel...
or sometimes you go after it and then you feel guilty or so on, until you finally are able to change your mind and straighten your mind so that you're able to see the goal, to see the object of your desire and to simply see it for what it is.
and to be able to live with the perception of something without having to chase after it.
So when you think of something that you normally would like, you're just thinking of it.
When you hear a sound that you find pleasant, you just hear the sound.
When you see something beautiful, you just see it.
And you're able to experience happiness in that moment without having your happiness be only
when you get that object and you find yourself at peace here and now.
But it's something that you have to strive for.
So we can say that there are these two strivings.
This is what the Buddha said, people who strive after pleasure and trying to find some object of happiness and people who strive to be free from that, to find happiness here and now.
It's really two different paths.
It's not that we're striving to achieve something or get something.
We're trying to stop striving, to stop achieving, to stop chasing after.
It's also very difficult.
So these are the two paths and this is what the Buddha lays out here.
That for ordinary people they will just let themselves go.
Drink alcohol and take drugs and engage in all sorts of foolishness.
enjoying the happiness, but they don't see how it's changing their minds, and they don't see how it's building these mindsets.
We're not static beings.
Another thing is, this shows how important the Buddha's teaching of karma is.
And it goes a lot deeper than we actually think, because I don't have karma, you don't have karma.
Karma is the truth of reality.
There only is karma.
We create ourselves out of karma.
The whole of our being is created out of karma.
The whole of our life
is created out of karma.
There's no I. There's only the actions, the things that we do.
So everything that we do creates us.
The reason why we get angry is because we've built up anger.
The reason why we have greed and want things is because we build up greed and want things year after year.
That's all we are.
We're this accumulation or this conglomeration, aggregation of mind states, both positive and negative.
Why we have love and kindness is because we've developed this.
because we've come to see the truth, because we've come to see how horrible it is to suffer, and so we don't want to see other beings suffer and so on.
We are what we do.
We are according to the things that we do and the qualities that we build up.
So it's important to understand the difference here, because I think all of us can see in our own lives and in our own past this attachment to negligence, this attachment to having fun and enjoying life and so on, without seeing how it's creating addiction, how it's actually feeding our dissatisfaction.
So it's making it harder for us to just be here and now.
When we come back to be just here and now, we say,
how radically opposed these two paths are.
Just being here and now is something totally different and completely opposed in the sense that the more we strive to achieve happiness and strive to achieve pleasure, the harder it is for us to find happiness and peace here and now.
The more we find peace and happiness here and now, the less we want, the less we need of anything.
If you think just where we are right here, right now, when we find happiness here, everything else disappears.
suddenly the whole world, all of who we are, our lives, our friends, our family, all of our thoughts, all of our ambitions have just
disappeared, vanished in thin air.
That's the first verse.
The second verse is an injunction by the Buddha, that once you see this, if you're a wise person, you should not engage in negligence.
Don't engage in it, because it will make it harder for you to find happiness.
It will make you less happy, less satisfied, less at peace with yourself.
Don't get caught up in delight in sensuality.
This is what the Buddha says.
Because this is, sensuality is really the worst of them.
It's the most coarse of our desires.
We may have ambitions or so on, but our desire for sensuality, sights and sounds and smells and tastes and feelings,
is the worst because it involves the body and it involves chemicals and hormones and so on and dopamine in the brain and so on and this addiction cycle which as I said is actually creating what we call sankhara it's forming our reality it's changing who we are from the very core it's not us doing this this doing becomes us this is who we become
And he says, why should you follow what I say?
Why should you not be negligent and why should you not indulge in delight and sensuality?
He says, because it's only the appamato, only by being heedful, jayanto and meditating.
Does one attain the profoundest happiness?
So the happiness here is the happiness of peace.
The Buddha said, There is no happiness without peace.
The happinesses that we call happiness, the pleasures in the world, the things that we say are our happiness or our way to find true satisfaction, are not real happiness because they're impermanent, they change.
they're dependent they require some attainment that is also important they require an object and they create partiality they create their opposite which is suffering and dissatisfaction and so one
The more one indulges, the more one goes back and forth between one and the other, pleasure and pain.
And one is never at peace.
One is never able to just be here and now.
One's life is always about seeking after this, running away from that, seeking, running, seeking, running, being pushed and pulled back and forth.
And one can never just be here and now.
One never has the...
the ability or the safety or the stability of just being here and now.
They can build up some kind of pleasant state of being for some time and then see it washed away in the end.
At the very end, then, when they die, they will be in a state of loss because of their attachments, because of the things that they still are clinging to.
So the profound happiness that the Buddha is talking about is peace here and now.
Being able to be in the here and now without any clinging or any attachment.
So that's the teaching today.
That's Dhammapada verses 26 and 27.
Thank you for tuning in.
I wish you all to find peace, happiness and freedom from suffering.
Thank you.