Do you ever get frustrated with answering the same questions?
And if not, how do you continue to do so and seem so patient?
Teaching is really easy.
There's so much happiness that comes from helping other people.
It can actually become intoxicating.
It can become a hindrance to the path.
It can for sure be a hindrance
even if you're not intoxicated in it, because it takes your time away from your meditation.
So that's one thing, is that it's actually not as unpleasant as it seems.
The more unpleasant thing is to sit around learning how to teach.
when you have to sit and listen to someone teaching the same things over and over again.
So some of you have been with me for a long time and you hear me saying the same things over and over again.
This is more difficult.
But what I'm thinking of more is when I do reporting,
When I'm sitting and reporting, I can do reporting for hours and hours and hours.
Reporting means meeting with meditators.
I can have 20, 30 meditators and actually feel quite relaxed and refreshed afterwards.
But people who have to sit and listen to me say the same things again and again and again and again...
that's where the suffering comes from.
Because they don't have the same happiness that comes from it and the same ghusla, the same wholesomeness that comes from it.
But the other thing is there is something to be said because there is a, it's a training.
And I've been teaching now for, I started very early.
I was teaching when I was only two years a monk.
So it's a skill like anything else.
I used to give Dhamma talks.
If there's anyone still around from Doi Suthep times, they can probably attest to the fact that when I first started giving talks and teaching,
It was not much fun for the meditators.
Sometimes I would give horrible talks.
Just totally, not put people off, but put people to sleep.
And not be able to get my point across, not be able to be interesting to people.
So like anything, it's really a skill.
And that helps, because when you make a misstep, when you say something inappropriate, when you lose your train of thought, when you start getting flustered,
like in this case, are unable to come up with the words properly, then it creates stress in the mind.
So as you get better at things like teaching, it does get a lot easier.
But the real thing I want to say in regards to this question, which I think makes it an important question, is that teaching is not the most difficult thing.
The most difficult thing is the practice.
People think that teaching is actually a sign that you are enlightened.
It's a sign that you are advanced.
And as I said, it's really just a skill.
People can be great teachers and not have the greatest practice on their own.
or even be on the wrong path.
There are examples in the scriptures of people who were great teachers but were not enlightened themselves.
So don't get too... I wouldn't get too confident in someone.
Don't think of me as some great...
enlightened being just because I can teach.
Enlightenment is something that you get from yourself, from practicing the teachings.
It's not the same as being able to give
convincing and clear answers.
Even though obviously clarity of mind does help, meditation does help.
If I wasn't meditating, I can't say that I would be able to stay patient and answer people's questions.
For sure not.
For sure I would try and fail miserably.
But
They're not exactly the same.
And so it's important not to get too preoccupied with one's ability to teach.