Good evening everyone.
Welcome to our live broadcast.
Today we're looking at the Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Threes, Sutta number 36, Devadutta Sutta.
Devadutta.
Dutta means messenger.
Messenger.
Deva means divine.
So it seems that there are clearly defined roles and interactions that angels undertake in relation to the human world.
They don't just come down and walk down the street or poke their head in your window or
sit and chat with you and don't see angels coming down and visiting you over breakfast or saving you from car accidents or that kind of thing.
seems that um there's some regulated interaction which makes sense i mean it's certainly not completely regulated but there would be some regulated interaction i mean what's kind of befuddling is why don't angels have breakfast with people or just come down and poke their heads in
And I guess there's a few reasons for this that still allow for the existence of angels because of course many people would take that to the evidence that there's no such thing as angels, the fact that we never see them.
It's pretty good evidence, right?
But it seems that the angel realm is, the divine realms are
so much different in terms of the way they operate the speed at which everything moves and one day in the angel realms is a hundred years in human realms would you imagine how difficult it would be to coordinate and it seems like because they're so different that there's a sort of a difficulty or
a barrier to the interaction between the angel realms, the divine realms, and the human realms.
It seems that they're able to.
Angels are able to come down.
But it seems like it would take some coordinated effort and that they just don't do it.
In fact, they may, but it would be so rare that no one would ever believe if it actually happened.
But apparently, there are ways that the divine realm interacts with the human realm.
In fact, it might not even be the case.
It's laid out this way to suggest that there are divine messengers
Honestly, that's not what this sutta is about at all.
Let's scratch that.
The divine messengers aren't actually divine messengers at all.
But anyway, it's interesting to think that there are regulated interactions.
But that's not even what this sutta is about.
I apologize.
but this guy the this the idea is that there are something that there are these things that are given the designation because they are similar or they should be treated as these divine messengers as as if they were this regulated sort of sort of the thing that the angels want us to see
And I guess that's the point is that we're all as a species, we're very much obsessed with
what the divines have to say.
What is God telling me with this?
What is the lesson that I'm supposed to learn?
And so anything that happens that's out of sorts or out of the ordinary in our lives, we think of it as a lesson from God or the angels trying to tell us something, heavens trying to tell us something, or even just the universe.
We say these things.
And so honestly it's more a human superstition than actual fact.
So the Buddha is actually just picking up on this.
He's picking up on the idea that people have that there are this divine
signals signals from heaven telling you what you should and shouldn't do giving you hints reminding you of things that you need to be reminded of giving you advice and support and direction giving you direction this is what we think this is what most religions have to say and folk religion in general even folk buddhism
It was all about how the angels give us these signs and signals or they save us or support us or bless us.
Even as Buddhists, many Buddhists are very keen to get the favor of angels.
I apologize because that's not what this sutta is about at all.
The Buddha is actually playing on this.
Or not the Buddha even.
There's this King Yama.
Yama is like the Hades or the god of death, the god of the underworld.
And so the way it goes, why this sutta, why I even brought this up, is because it's an interesting example of a description of how things go when you die, what happens when you die.
And it's a variation on this, what I guess scholars would call mythology, the death story mythology, the afterlife mythology.
In Christianity, they have the pearly gates, right, where you
stand on a saint, I can't remember which one, St. Peter, standing up at the pearly gates, letting people in or not letting people in.
And then you have the Greeks and the Romans with their god of the underworld waiting for the reaper waiting to ferry you across or that kind of thing.
So here's the Buddhist version.
that there's this king of the underworld and when people die they go and have to stand before this king if they die and they're going to go to hell
And then they come to the entrance of hell and there's this King Yama who, it sounds like he has a pretty depressing job and he's not really all that keen about his job.
It must have been some sort of bad karma that he had that he, some specific karma that he has to sit and greet all these wretched souls who are about to be thrust into hell.
And so he meets them and he asks them about the divine messengers.
He says,
What are you doing here?
Didn't you?
The guards grab him and say, Your Majesty, this person was mean towards his father and mother, was mean towards religious folk, did not honor the elders of their family, blah, blah, blah.
Didn't do wicked and evil deeds.
Punish him.
And the king is actually not, see in Buddhism no one punishes, it's not the person who punishes, it's the power of the deeds.
So the king doesn't actually punish, but he's going to give this guy a lecture.
So he says, didn't you see the first Devadutta, the first divine messenger that appears among human beings?
And in general, the people think, whoever it is standing before the king would think, well, I didn't see such a messenger, you know, no angels, no divine messenger coming to warn me against doing evil deeds.
And he says, what, you didn't see anyone?
You never saw a man or a woman 80, 90, 100 years of age, frail, bent like a roof bracket?
crooked, wobbling as they go along, leaning on a stick, ailing, youth gone, with broken teeth, with gray and scanty hair, or bald, with wrinkled skin and blotched limbs.
I never see such a person.
Oh yes, of course, I've seen old people like that.
And he said, good man, didn't it occur to you, an intelligent and mature person, that I too am subject to old age.
I am not exempt from old age.
Did he never think that this was a sign that you should make use of your youth and do good deeds and prepare yourself for getting old, for when you would not be able to just do whatever you want and try and avoid the consequences, when the consequences of a corrupt mind would inevitably get back at you in your old age?
And he said, no.
No, I didn't.
I kind of, you know, feels kind of ashamed of the fact.
All right, well, didn't you see the second type of, well, then he admonishes him and says, oh, you didn't, you failed to do good deeds through heedlessness.
And because of that heedlessness, you're now going to be
That bad karma of yours was not done by your mother or father or by your brother or sister, by your friends and companions, nor by your relatives and family members, nor by the deities, nor by ascetics and Brahmins.
You were the one who did that bad karma and you yourself will have to experience its results.
The guy sort of hangs his head or her head.
And he says, so what?
And you didn't see the second divine messenger?
I said, look, I didn't see any divine messenger.
He said, well, okay, you never saw a human being who, a man or a woman who was sick, afflicted and gravely ill, lying in their own urine and excrement, having to be lifted up by some and put down by others?
And he replies, oh yes, I did see such a person as that.
A good man, good fellow, a good woman.
Didn't it occur to you, an intelligent and mature person, that I too am subject to illness and I am not exempt from illness, that this is going to come to me and that I should make use of my health.
to make something of myself, because when the sickness comes, I'm going to be gravely afflicted by the mental corruption that I have cultivated in its stead.
The person says, sorry, I didn't think such a thing.
And then he repeats himself.
Because of your heedlessness, you did bad deeds.
You avoided good deeds.
It wasn't your brothers and sisters, your mother, your father, your friends and companions, your relatives and family members or deities or religious people who did these deeds.
You can't blame anyone.
You are the one who did them yourself.
And you were upon them.
You will suffer for them.
The person kind of starts to realize the extent of their falling and says, but seriously, you didn't even see the third divine messenger?
What was the third divine messenger?
He said, tell me you didn't see a person who was dead?
You never saw a person lying in a coffin or lying in the charnel ground?
A person who had been dead one day, two days, three days, a bloated corpse lying on the side of the road, did you never see that?
And I said, well, yes, I did see, I have seen dead people.
And it didn't occur to you that you too are subject to death, that you're not exempt from death, that this is going to be you someday and that you should wake up, make use of the life that you have, do something with your life.
Don't die heedless, don't die with a corrupt mind so that you have to come and stand before me like this.
As a whole, Lord, I was heedless.
And he repeats a third time.
Through your heedlessness, you have failed to do good deeds.
You have cultivated evil deeds.
It wasn't your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, and anyone else who did these deeds.
You did them yourself, and you will suffer the consequences yourself.
And the Buddha is relating this.
He says, when he questions him like this, this person, man or woman, falls silent.
And Dhamma says, get out of my sight.
Well, he actually doesn't say anything.
Actually, it says when, it doesn't say who falls silent, whether it's the king or whether it's the person.
Anyway, the king kind of steps back.
And this is important.
The king doesn't actually do the punishing.
The king is actually a kind of a good guy.
And, you know, it's actually a fairly useful position.
It's just a shame he didn't get around to teaching people when we're still alive, when we still had a chance to change.
It's kind of like...
And then comes the torture.
And the sutta goes on to describe how the wardens of hell torture this person with a five-fold transfixing.
They drive a red-hot iron stake through one hand and another red-hot iron stake through the other hand.
They drive a red-hot iron stake through one foot and another red-hot iron stake through the other foot.
They drive a red-hot iron stake through the middle of the chest, this person's chest.
And this is actually a mild description.
There are other commentaries that describe in much more detail the various types of punishment.
I think actually in the commentary,
To one of the searches we didn't go over, there's the various types of punishment that either a king or the wardens of hell will inflict.
Here's a bunch.
The wardens of hell throw him down and pair him with axes, hack him up with axes or her.
Then they feel painful feelings yet do not die.
As long as the karma of their deeds is not exhausted.
Then they turn them upside down and pair them with adzes.
I don't know really what an adze is, but it sounds painful.
They harness them to a chariot and drive them back and forth across ground that is burning, blazing and glowing.
Using them like horses in the fires of hell.
They make them climb up and down a great mound of coals that are burning and blazing and glowing.
And then they turn them upside down and plunge them into red-hot copper cauldron.
I mean, it's a red-hot copper cauldron.
I guess a cauldron of water or else a cauldron of molten copper.
I don't know.
probably informer probably it's water or oil or something yeah because they're cooked in a swirl of foam and as they're being cooked they are swept up down and across and they feel painful racking piercing feelings i gave these uh i talked about these are the more detailed version to a bunch of young cambodian kids who had become novices at our monastery a long time ago
really helped, really sobered them up.
Of course, that night they ended up sleeping with a head monk because they were so afraid of ghosts and hell and that kind of thing.
He wasn't very happy about it.
I think it had its effect.
All right, so that's about it for the sutta.
why this is interesting to us well it's interesting to think of what actually does happen when you die and and what sort of beings there are in the universe that we don't see we as the most some of the most coarse beings in the universe what's going on with the divine what's going on with
with the bureaucracy right we're very obsessed with our own bureaucracy well imagine what divine bureaucracy is like people like this king yama who has to stand there in judgment i wonder who's waiting at the pearly gates really probably not saint peter but there very well may be bureaucracy involved but more important
This is a really important teaching of old age, sickness, and death.
These are the real divine messengers.
And that's really how I started off on the wrong point.
it's quite clever that in Buddhism we're not supposed to be at all concerned with what the divine are actually doing.
They're generally portrayed as ineffective or impotent to some extent, that angels don't actually do, the divine don't actually do much.
They don't actually affect the human world.
They don't actually get involved with humans, not in the ways that we think.
But there's something that takes the place and something that we should watch out for.
There are things that we should see as guiding principles, as things that will direct us and guide us.
Old age, sickness, and death, these are considered to be
message from the gods, message from heaven.
This is the most divine and holy message, messenger that you can have.
They are the only messenger that matters.
They are the messengers that remind us of our own mortality, of the borrowed time we are living on.
The fact that
It's not just borrowed time, it's the impermanence of it.
It's not that death is the end, but it's that whatever we have right now that seems stable and that we try to cling to and make stable, all in the end will be thwarted by the reality of change.
And everything that arises ceases.
And it ceases without warning,
without consultation.
You've got no say in the matter.
It's going to come when it comes, and it's very much dissociated from our desires and our ambitions and our expectations.
Old age comes to all.
We're all getting older moment by moment.
Sickness comes to all.
We're all getting sick.
We all will eventually suffer sickness and death.
In the end, we all die.
The old, the young, the middle and age, the poor and weak, the wise.
For rich or poor, one end is sure.
Each one among them dies.
That's our teaching for tonight.
Do we have any questions?
I wasn't here last night, so I
We've probably lost some questions.
The new interface is actually going to have a filter version where we can filter the chat so that it only shows questions.
That'll be kind of neat.
That does sound good.
And we do have questions.
All right, go for it.
Bhante, I may have recalled wrongly, but I thought I'd read before in some sutta that the Buddha named four causes operating in the world.
The karmic cause, genealogy cause, physical laws cause, and something else.
Is there such an exposition?
There are five niyamas, five orderlinesses, that I think are in the commentaries.
I'm not sure if the Buddha actually said them.
I don't know.
I don't have much to say on that.
What is the difference between awareness and knowing?
After a car accident, I can mentally play back the events that led up to the crash, even though I was not consciously aware of them at the time.
So at a subconscious level, I must have known that seeing, hearing, touching, etc., even though I wasn't aware of it.
Yeah, right.
It's not subconscious.
There's no such thing as subconscious, but you could argue or you could explain it as the brain keeps track.
But there's also a sense that
And the nature of the mind, not just the brain, but the nature of the mind is such that it's able to recall or it's able to give rise to mind states that are very similar to mind states that happened before.
And that's how you have to explain it because a memory doesn't come back.
Something from the past doesn't come to the present.
It's like an echo.
It's not exactly the same, but there's a similarity.
It's similar to something old.
And the mind is able to, there's a process by which this occurs.
But that would require you to actually have experienced it before.
It seems that the brain is also able to record even without potentially the mind being aware of it and play it back later.
So there's that potential.
I don't know.
I mean, again, this isn't all that important.
I mean, the question is between awareness and knowing.
They're just words, and there are many definitions of both.
What's important for us is mindfulness.
When it does happen, to remind ourselves it is what it is.
That's all.
So if you're not doing that, I mean, the thing about a car accident, it's quite traumatic, and therefore there's a strong imprint, and that's why it's actually easy to remember the things.
But that's nothing to do with mindfulness, not in the sense that we're looking at it.
The mindfulness we're talking about in Satipatthana is quite a specific type of mindfulness.
It's reminding yourself, this is this, it is what it is.
In the sleeping well talk, you speak of how extreme is the effect of lust on us.
What is the antidote of lust when it arises to a very extreme level?
Will just recognizing it as lust, lust help?
Thanks.
If it's really extreme, there are other things you can do, like focus on the body, focus on your own body piece by piece to help you see that there's nothing worth lusting after in the body or in the physical realm at all.
But yeah, in the end, it's just a matter of whittling it away through looking at it and seeing it as it is, seeing lust arise and seeing that there's no reason to react to it.
There's no reason to have lust in the first place.
There's no benefit to it.
It doesn't actually make you happy.
It doesn't actually do anything positive.
And that just comes from lust, lust.
You know, lust is maybe a bit abstract, so it's liking, liking, or wanting, wanting.
It's more clear.
In modern society, it's been widely spread that human beings should sleep at least eight hours.
I'm finding that by doing so, I'm less focused during the beginning of the day, and I also have an excess of energy manifested as nervousness or restlessness.
I'm beginning to think that sleep isn't the best rest for the body after all, although necessary.
How long is it suggested that lay people sleep?
I guess the idea is sleep as little as you can and still be able to function.
I mean, the question is a bit loaded, I suppose, or it's a bit...
It's not exactly a simple question because...
it's none of our business to tell you how much you have to sleep because what you're talking about is
Really what the answer is, is how much do you need to do your job, which has nothing to do with Buddhism.
We're not going to tell you how much you need to do your job.
I'm not trying to criticize you, but you have to understand that that's really the deciding factor.
How much sleep do you need to do your job, clearly.
Because Buddhist meditators are not concerned if they're dazed or confused or even feeling nauseous or whatever.
It's all good practice.
If you can get away with not sleeping at all, then you feel dizzy sometimes.
It's a big deal.
You can't remember things or whatever.
It's fine.
I mean, it's a great opportunity.
It's not fine, but it's something you can work towards and you can actually work through and eventually be fine with very little or no sleep.
But that's a training.
But you can't do that if you're also working a day job You know if you have a nine-to-five job or something so you need more sleep But how much sleep you need is going to depend be dependent on what kind of work you do and how much work you do
So the idea would be to work less so you don't have to sleep as much.
Because as you can see, when you sleep, you lose a lot of your clarity of mind.
And the more you sleep, the harder it is.
The more you have to drag yourself out of that.
I mean, it's pleasant to sleep, and it brings back a lot of energy, but it doesn't help with your mindfulness.
It's harmful to your mindfulness.
Madi says sort of the same thing.
You don't need me.
You guys can answer your own questions.
Answer each other's questions.
Maybe I won't do an everyday broadcast anymore.
You don't need my answers anymore.
What do you think, Mohamed?
Maybe we'll just do, Mondays I'll do Dhammapada, Wednesdays I'll do this, and Fridays I'll do this.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Saturday and Sunday is probably more
Monday, Wednesday.
Monday, Thursday, Saturday.
Maybe we move our Visuddhimagga study class to one of the night spots.
Hm.
Could do.
We could have a volunteer meeting for one of the night spots.
Replace one of these with a volunteer meeting.
I might not be able to.
I'm also thinking with school, I might not be as free to do this.
But anyway, let's get through this first.
What do we have to talk about?
OK, this isn't exactly a question, but it's sort of a question.
A person who was trying to meet you for the reporting session, and the Hangouts wasn't working.
And I know we've got the new website that we're going to be transferring over to soon.
The old one should be working again.
Any updates on that?
The old one.
Suddenly it's working.
Suddenly the other people who had the problem are all saying it's working, and I've checked in the script.
Got a script that was missing the code, now apparently has the code.
I haven't tested it, but it seems to be complete, which reminds me, I haven't actually updated our code, which is what I should do.
Okay, thank you, Bonte.
Last night, you gave a teaching saying that change hides suffering and mentioned changing postures.
I was wondering if there are other practical adjustments to the formal and non formal practice one would make if using suffering as a vehicle.
Thank you, Bonte.
Sorry, the practical practical adjustments.
There's kind of another part to it as well.
Also, I wondered if one should strive not to change postures in daily life as well as during formal practice.
I mean, yes, noting first before you move, definitely.
Obviously, it's more difficult to do during daily life, but noting first before you move.
You're looking for tricks.
Sounds like you want me to give you some tricks and tips.
It's not really like that.
Yeah, this is a trick.
It's a tip.
It's just to not... You don't use suffering as a vehicle.
You use mindfulness as a vehicle.
You'll see suffering.
The point is be mindful rather than reacting.
If you move, it's because of reaction.
So it's a good teaching.
But...
I don't have any other advice for you specifically on that front.
Sorry.
When trying to sit completely still, should one know even slightest intention to move, relax muscles, swallow, et cetera, and not act on it?
Or would that be overdoing it as it leads to a lot of discomfort and shaking?
It's fine.
I mean, shaking is fine.
Yeah, if you can sit completely still.
You know, if it gets overwhelming, you might actually feel it's more beneficial to actually move because otherwise your mind is becoming stressed until you're able to take it.
But once you're able to bear with it, once you're able to sit still, you don't have to move.
You're better off without moving, yeah.
Monty, is it fair to say that if you're forcing yourself to sit still and you're having extreme pain and focusing on the pain, doesn't it at some point become like a samatha?
No.
No, you're not forcing yourself to sit still.
You're just not reacting to the
If there's a strong desire to do something, it's true.
If there's a strong desire to move and you're not moving, it's often not simply because you're mindful.
It's because you're saying, no, I'm not going to move.
And you're just repressing or you're cultivating aversion to the desire to move.
And that creates stress.
That's what I was saying.
If it's just building up more and more stressed,
then you should probably move because you'll find your practice is actually... Until you get good at being able to sit still.
But if it's just physical and if it's just a desire to move and you're able to say wanting to move and then it disappears and you don't have to move again, it doesn't matter how the body goes.
Unless you're going to injure your body.
I mean there are certain extreme cases where it can cause injury But for most people that's not the case you can sit and let your legs go numb and there's no problem Yeah, I know with myself if like there's a certain part on my knee begin to hurt and it you know that pain can really build and build and build and that's the only thing but just the tiniest adjustment and It goes away.
So it's
It's a good opportunity, a good example of learning to let go rather than react.
If you can just stay with it.
Thank you, Bhante.
When you are talking about beings not being in your experience, just as light touching your eye, could you explain a little in relation to meditation and in relation to life?
Because at the end, I exist, others exist, even when, of course, I cannot have their experience as a being because I can only have mine.
Thank you.
Well, beings don't exist.
You don't exist.
I don't exist.
Others don't exist.
That's just a concept.
What exists is experiences, and experience arises and ceases.
You have an experience of seeing, hearing, spelling, tasting, feeling, thinking.
To postulate that someone exists is just a conjecture.
You'll never have a knowledge of that.
You see, Buddhism disregards conjecture and hypothesis.
It only deals with what you can know, which is very, very little.
You can only know experiencing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking.
You can know impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, or inability to satisfy, and the uncontrollable nature of things.
And you can know Nibbana.
There's not so much you can know.
Everything else, you, I, etc., is just a concept.
Is it harder to reach enlightenment having a woman's body?
Apparently a woman can't become, you can't become Buddha in a woman's body, apparently.
I mean, who knows?
This came out of a highly patriarchal society, but
May very well be true.
I don't know.
I mean, it's not like, it just seems to women that seems kind of silly and absurd, you know, and it hints, it sounds suspiciously like misogyny, right?
I don't know.
Maybe it's just a misogynist teaching, but maybe it's true.
Because the same goes for Mara, you know, a woman is apparently unable to become Mara.
I think even Brahmas are all, they're all single gender, but whether they're male, I suppose they're not male either.
That's the thing I was talking to this Israeli monk, he's a really good monk, and he said, you know, men can't be Buddhas either.
An ordinary man, it's not like they're just going to become a Buddha.
The Buddha's body, forget about his mind, the Buddha's body is a special type of body.
yes it happens in in orthodox views to be of the male gender but it's highly specific i know that doesn't really it doesn't you know it's not a it's not a solution it's not a good answer but
that's all I got but easier to become enlightened to become a Buddha in this life the person to become a Buddha is always apparently male, masculine but as far as becoming an Arahant becoming enlightened even a Pacheco Buddha I don't know about a Pacheco Buddha but I think even a Pacheco Buddha male or female is kind of meaningless
We don't know.
We don't know for sure if there were Pachanga Buddhas that were female.
Good question.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any.
I may even say that a woman can't become a Pachanga Buddha.
I think they're all, you know.
I wouldn't dwell too much on that.
If you want to become a Buddha, just focus on becoming a Buddha.
If it means, oh, suddenly I'm a man, okay, suddenly I'm a man.
I guess the big problem is that it kind of makes women feel inferior, and it makes men feel superior, and it seems kind of like a sexist teaching, which I can understand.
I'm not trying to defend it.
I don't really understand it itself, but it's all I got.
Life isn't perfect.
But the Buddha in the Jataka stories, was he sometimes male and sometimes female in his past lives?
No.
He was always male?
Always male.
Ah.
There was one story of him being female, I think.
I think he was this woman who got hit with, I think, who got hit with a rolling pin.
But it's a story he tells apart from the Jatakas, before he was a Bodhisatta.
Actually, I can't remember if it's actually him or not.
There's one story of the woman, but maybe him, maybe not.
Someone who remembers these things better probably can say.
But no, that's the commentary saying that once he makes a determination to become a Buddha, he will always be born male.
Always be born male.
I don't think he'll ever go to the hell realms.
I'm actually not sure about that.
I don't know.
I mean, it's all, this is all commentary.
Could be right, could be wrong.
And it's all just,
It's not really all that important for us.
I sometimes find myself suppressing my anger, but doing that doesn't make it go away.
In fact, I think the feeling or sensation gets bigger in my experience and makes me suffer even more.
Sometimes I've heard from psychological teachings that the best way to actually liberate these feelings is to express them and acknowledge them.
What are your thoughts about this?
Thank you, Bonte.
Well, there's a difference between expressing and acknowledging.
Acknowledging is acknowledging.
Expressing is cultivating.
Expressing is cultivating as a habit.
Everything we do becomes a part of who we are.
And the more you do some, the more you engage in a certain type of activity, the more that type of activity becomes a part of your habitual tendencies.
You're more inclined to do the things that you do.
So when you choose to get angry, you're more likely to get angry.
It doesn't actually solve your problems.
It doesn't make you less likely to be angry.
Of course, suppressing, what we call suppressing is actually, it's like a reaction to the reaction.
So it's another layer of reaction.
So it's actually better to get rid of that, to stop trying to suppress it.
That's true.
Pure anger is just anger, but when you get angry at the anger, you're messing yourself up.
You're creating layers of complexity.
When you feel guilt about your anger, that kind of thing, it just makes things more complicated.
So you create complex chain reactions.
Something happens, makes you angry.
Angry makes you guilty.
Guilty makes you angry.
It becomes all messed up.
Then you get worried and afraid.
This is what leads to paranoia, neurosis, this kind of thing.
So, yeah, suppressing is not so good.
But acknowledging is the best way.
Acknowledging I'm angry.
That's it.
Taking the meaning out of it.
So what?
That's it.
I'm angry.
Not like I'm angry.
Oh, my gosh, I got to do something.
This is a problem.
This is bad.
This is me.
This is mine.
No, this is anger.
That's all it is.
As a new meditator, I ask if there's a difference between thinking and reflection, contemplation, study.
Sometimes I find that I've been thinking about the teachings in one of your videos and gain some insight from this.
Is this just thinking?
I've been noting it as thinking.
I mean, if you're meditating, these kind of teachings should have an impression on you and they should resonate with you because you're experiencing things, but you're not really clear on what it is that you're experiencing.
So the teaching helps that gel or helps that...
It helps clarify what it is that you're experiencing.
So yeah, it's a very important part of the practice.
If you're meditating, listening to the teachings is great direction to sort of clear up and help you realize what it is you're experiencing.
And it's only because you're meditating.
If you weren't meditating, you wouldn't really gain those feelings, what you call insights.
A rather long question, the core of which is, what do you think of Jiddu Krishnamurti's teachings?
Yeah, again, I don't.
I had a long, long debate with someone who tried to tell me that he was probably an arahant or at least an anagami.
I don't have anything to say about it.
Sorry.
Okay.
Bhante, what was the last teaching that Lord Buddha gave to Mahamoggalana?
I searched online and could not find it.
He didn't.
Mahamoggalana gave a teaching.
He asked Mahamoggalana to teach the Dhamma.
I don't think there is any recorded explanation of what exactly was the Buddha's last teaching.
But he wasn't teaching Moggallana at that point.
Moggallana was an Arahant, so he didn't really need teaching.
The Buddha did teach Arahants sometimes, but not really, not so much.
But when Maha Moggallana went to see the Buddha before he passed away, the Buddha asked Maha Moggallana to give a teaching.
which he did, which would have been just basic teachings.
So it wasn't recorded, I don't think.
On the other hand, it may not have ever happened, because this is just what we have in the stories.
We don't actually have anything in the original texts to corroborate it.
Bhante, aren't angels the Christian concept, and Buddhism does not focus on this?
No, there's lots of angels in Buddhism.
There's a whole section, two sections of the Sanyuta Nikaya dedicated to the angels that came to see the Buddha to ask him questions.
Really worth reading if you want to get a sense of
The Mind of an Angel, because the questions they ask are somewhat different from the questions that humans would ask, and you really get a sense of what an angel is like.
Definitely worth reading.
The Sanyuta Nikaya, I think it's the first and second Sanyutas, right?
The Devata Sanyuta and the Devaputta Sanyuta.
Really worth it.
Sankha just had an interesting information that Buddhas, Pacheco Buddhas, Mara, Saka, Mahabrahma, and Chakravartis are all male.
Yeah, even Pacheco Buddha.
Sorry.
I thought I read somewhere that the Buddha said a woman can become an Arahant the same as a man.
Is this correct?
See, the point that this Israeli monk was making is that a man can't become a Buddha either.
You can't just be born and say, OK, this life, I think I'm going to become a Buddha.
It doesn't work that way.
The person who's going to become a Buddha in this life is already very clear that this is their last life.
They're ready to become a Buddha when they're born.
They're ready to become a Buddha when they're waiting to be born.
They're up in heaven just waiting for the opportunity, saying, this is it.
I'm ready.
And then they have one last life.
And the point is that it's male, which I know doesn't sit well with a lot of people.
And I understand that.
But I think we pay way too much attention to it because none of us have that opportunity.
If you want to become a Buddha, start working because it's a long journey.
And you're going to get to the point where you're like,
I'm ready to become a Buddha, and that's it.
Apparently, you'll be a male.
I'm sorry if that irks people.
It's not my teaching, and it's not really worth obsessing over, I don't think.
There's all these people who want to become a Buddha as a woman.
Eh, I think it's barking up the wrong tree.
Don't waste your efforts.
Man, woman, just become a Buddha.
If you want to become a Buddha, go for it.
Forget about the man, woman.
If you're a man, you're a man.
Maybe it's a part of nature.
I don't know.
It does seem kind of unfair to women.
But hey, maybe, and this isn't what people want to hear, but maybe reality is unfair to women.
Maybe there is something about that.
Maybe reality is, I don't know.
I mean, women and men is a construct.
It is an artifice.
But it may be that there's something unfair to women.
I don't know.
There's no God saying, you know, Buddha didn't make these rules.
He just observed them.
So maybe it is the case.
I don't know.
I just don't think it's worth obsessing over.
It wouldn't be the first time that the women had the short end of it.
There is the whole birth thing.
Having to give birth.
Hello, Bhante.
Thank you for your teachings.
I have been learning how to meditate using the loving-kindness method.
How should one meditate to resolve problems?
My Bhante at my temple said you have to break apart problems piece by piece until it doesn't exist.
I feel the meditations I have been leaning on focus on now and stopping yourself from thinking.
I feel not thinking as being foolish.
Can you elaborate?
It sounds like you haven't read my booklet on how to meditate.
So that's where I'd direct you to start.
I'd rather not elaborate.
I'd rather you, if you're interested in my teachings and my answers to your questions, that you read my booklet on how to meditate and practice according to that teaching.
And if you find that meditation teaching useful, then by all means, I'm happy to answer questions about it.
It sounds like your Bhante has a similar idea because yes, we very much are about breaking things up into their constituent parts so we can see what's really happening because problems don't exist.
All that exists are experiences and they're momentary.
They come and they go.
Do read my booklet if you haven't.
And the link is right up at the top of the website.
When sitting down after walking, should one sit down comfortably or just bear with whatever sitting posture one finds himself in?
You mean during formal meditation?
During formal meditation, you should sit cross-legged with one leg in front of the other or in a lotus position, if you want.
I don't understand, really.
If you're not talking about formal meditation, then I'm not going to dictate how you have to sit and walk.
I'm interested to know who or what set the law of karma in motion?
Yeah, well, if you ever find an answer, let me know.
So we're caught up with today's questions and yesterday's questions.
I had a little bit of a question after our last broadcast.
One of the last questions was talking about Buddhist funerals.
And we were saying, well,
You know, in Buddhism, there aren't really the formal funerals.
But I think maybe the question, or maybe an add-on to the question, is not so much what the person cares about in terms of their own funeral, but a lot of us are in families where no one else is Buddhist.
No one has any interest in Buddhism or has any idea of the customs, traditions, or what would be appropriate, what wouldn't be appropriate.
So I think possibly, you know, that that's something that would be interesting to hear about, because it's certainly in my family, you know, no one else has any concept.
If I were to pass away tomorrow, they wouldn't have any idea.
So I guess no, I mean, there's no
There's no like, oh, my family didn't do a proper Buddhist funeral for me or something.
Let them take your ashes and throw them in the wind.
Take your body, dump it in the river.
It's dead.
That's true.
So maybe it would be a good thing to donate your body to science.
Now that's a Buddhist thing to do.
I did that.
I'm an organ donor, I think, a long time ago.
Absolutely.
Donate it to science.
Make you feel good about your body that you actually did something good with it, not spiritually good.
If you want, what people do is they donate their bodies to monks so that they can practice meditation, watching the corpse fester and fall apart.
It's a great meditation object.
Really?
People really do that?
They donate their bodies?
I don't think they can do it anymore.
But there are monks who actually go to morgues these days.
But yeah, I mean, that would be great.
Donate your body.
I think that's probably illegal.
But donate your dead body to the monks, to a monastery.
We went through that in the Visuddhi Manga with the objects of meditation they were very specific about.
the bloated bodies and the dead bodies.
And yeah, I can imagine it would be hard to come across that.
If you could argue, if you could specify in your will, you want your body put out in an open field and left there to rot.
I think it's illegal.
I think you can't do that.
I think there's contamination issues and I don't know.
Like if you lived in the countryside, would you be able to?
I don't know how it works, but human bodies, I think they're highly regulated.
Maybe it depends on the country.
I think in Tibet, don't they toss them off the mountain or something for the vultures to eat?
Yeah, I mean, in Asia, I mean, in Sri Lanka, the old abbot died at our monastery.
It's one of the few times, you know, I've been around where someone died.
He passed away while I had dengu.
So I got back and he had just passed away.
And then a few days later,
Or a day or two later we had the funeral and we just burned his body down at the bottom of the hill.
Had a big celebration, a big ceremony.
But, you know, not a big ceremony.
We just had a ceremony and then just built up some logs and people built up some logs and put his body on it and watched it burn.
And they were all afraid.
The other monk, who was really the acting head for a long time, he was jokingly suggesting we should go and meditate there, but it was like he wouldn't do it because it was too scary.
That's because of the ghost factor.
It's kind of bizarre how in the West it's kind of like ghosts, really.
I think in the West we'd be more freaked out about seeing a dead body, a burning body, a bloated body.
The ghosts, eh, not so much.
What are Buddhist views on transgender people?
I've talked about this a bit before.
I think to me it's an obsession that you'd be better off letting go because gender is something that we do try to let go of.
If you're a man and you feel like, if you're in a male body and you feel like more comfortable being in a female body, I've learned to let go of that attachment.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm not such a person, so I don't know.
I mean, I could feel just as comfortable being in a female body, I think.
It's just a body is the point.
learn to let go of the body because if you've got to take hormones and you're just we're just asking for trouble I think I wouldn't I wouldn't mean it's not an obsession I would worry about gender I'm a man you know who cares man is a male body female but so it's like it's kind of like homosexual people people who are homosexual there's nothing wrong in my mind with being homosexual no more than being heterosexual but the problem is
is that for the longest time they've been obsessed with it because it's weird, it's different, it's queer, right?
And because of it being exceptional, I mean, heterosexual people don't obsess over the fact that they're heterosexual, for the most part.
Some do, actually.
Some are homophobic.
But homosexual people, the problem that I would see is potentially being concerned about it.
Everyone is.
Like, my cousin is homosexual, and my father told me, he said, you know, so it turns out your cousin is gay.
And I said, you know, really, why are you telling me?
You're going to tell me that you have sex with women next?
I think I was a Buddhist monk already at the time.
It was just
I don't know.
I mean, my reaction was kind of like baffled.
Like, it's not really information that I need to know.
This guy's having sex with men.
Okay.
You know what I mean?
Don't come to me with that information.
You want my advice on it?
So yeah, transgender, all that.
Don't go down that road.
Learn to let go of gender entirely.
That's more important.
That's the Buddhist way.
Anyway, that's all for tonight.
Thank you, Robin.
Thanks, everyone, for tuning in and for your questions.
Thank you, Bhante.
Good night.