Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 76, which reads as follows.
nidhi nangva pavataram yampase vajatasinam
Which translates to One who, like one who
unearths or uncovers buried treasure.
Whatever person seeing one's faults, passeh, when seeing one's faults, wajjadasina, lets them be known, lets one know one's faults.
Let's one know of one's own faults.
So point out one's faults.
Someone who, this person, one who speaks in censure or gives one admonishment, admonishes one.
Medha wing should be considered a wise person.
Such a person should be associated with by the wives.
If a person is wise, such a person
to be associated with by wise people.
When one associates with such a person, things get better, not worse.
They get better.
You don't go to evil.
They don't get worse.
So associate with people who point out your faults.
When you do, things get better, not worse.
This verse was told in regards to a student of Sariputta named Radha.
Radha was a poor Brahmin who heard the Buddha's teaching and went to live with the monks but the monks were unwilling to give him any ordination.
I think somewhere there was a comment that it was because he took such great care of the monks and they were reluctant to
give him the ordination because they needed someone to look after them.
Which is sort of an interesting situation.
It doesn't say that in this version of the story.
But for some reason it may have been that he was old,
It may have been that they had no trust in him.
But the Buddha saw this and the Buddha discerned through his vast knowledge and understanding that Radha would actually be capable of becoming an Arahant if he were to ordain.
So he went to the monks and he said, who is this man?
Kind of pretending that he didn't know or not letting on that he knew.
And they told him who he was.
He said, well, why aren't you ordaining him?
I think maybe that's where it says.
It may actually say why they didn't ordain him.
But anyway, so he said, hey, does anyone, do any of you, can any of you think of a reason why you might be inclined to ordain him?
Can any of you remember something that he did for you?
And Sariputta piped up and said, I remember once when he was living at home, he gave me a spoonful of rice.
And the Buddha said, well, Sariputta, don't you think it's appropriate to be grateful and to repay people's kindness?
Which is interesting because he didn't do that great of a thing in the grand scheme of things.
All he did was give him a single
spoonful of rice.
But it's a testament to the Buddha's sensitivity and Sariputta's gratitude in remembering, you know.
So when you ask someone, did they do something, has this person done anything for you?
It's not common for people to think, to keep that in their mind that this person did such a simple thing to him.
But Sariputta was a person who
had this great sensitivity.
He didn't take for granted the fact that he had been given even a single spoonful of rice.
And so he spoke up and the Buddha said, well, in that case, don't you think it's worth ordaining him?
And Sariputta immediately said, in that case, I will ordain him.
And so Sariputta gave him the ordination and I guess there was some skepticism as to whether this monk would actually, whether this man would actually make a good monk.
But Sariputta was fair with him and honest with him and found that actually Radha was quite amenable to training.
So Sariputta would tell him, don't do this, don't do that.
And he would take everything Sariputta said to heart.
When Sariputta told him, you have to do this, you have to do that.
He would only have to hear it once and he would immediately adjust himself.
And when Sariputta admonished him saying, you're doing this wrong, you're doing that wrong, this is not right, you have this fault, you have that fault, he was completely amenable.
And so the Buddha asked him at one time, you know, how is your student going?
Do you find him amenable?
Sariputta said he is the perfect student.
When I tell him not to do something, he stops doing it and never have to tell him twice.
And the same goes with telling him what he should do.
He is the perfect student.
And the Buddha said, if you could have other students like him, would you ordain people, others, if you knew that they were going to be like him?
And he said, if I could have a thousand students, I would gladly take them on if they were all like Radha.
And the monks got talking about this and they said how amazing it was, how wonderful it was that Sariputta had found such a wonderful student and that Radha also had found such a wonderful teacher who was willing to point out his faults.
And in no long time Radha became an Arahant as predicted.
And the Buddha heard the monks talking like this and then he as a result spoke this verse.
saying, indeed, Radha is very lucky.
Sariputta is very lucky, but Radha also is very lucky, because Sariputta is someone who is like a person who points out buried treasure.
And he spoke this verse.
So that's the back story.
It's a fairly well-known Buddhist story among Buddhists.
and it relates to our practice in regards to the role of a teacher and one's relationship with one's teacher.
You could also say it relates to our own ability to receive
criticism in general and therefore to our relationship with anyone who gives us criticism because we receive criticism from all sorts of sources, from many people who are not qualified to criticize.
How do you deal with people who criticize you unjustly, for example?
This doesn't directly relate to that, but that's the general subject that we're dealing with.
And it relates because this is so contrary to the state of an ordinary human being, which is to incline towards hiding one's faults and becoming upset when people point out our faults, from criticizing people for being critical.
Everyone's a critic, we say.
And there are teachings that instruct students, teachers will sometimes instruct students, or there's books that are written that say you should accept criticism and thank anyone who gives you criticism.
And I think there's some truth to that, but the response and the skepticism is that it leads you to allow others to walk all over you, and to give unjust criticism and to leave unjust criticism behind.
unchallenged.
And I think that also is a good point, and it goes against the Buddha's teaching.
In the monastic society, a monk should be criticized, not criticized, but a monk is wrong,
is at fault when they get angry at criticism.
So respond angrily or criticize in return.
So you tell me I did this wrong and I say well you did this other thing wrong.
or to ignore people's criticism and not accept their criticism.
All of this is faulty.
But what's also faulty is to not speak in one's defense.
One is at fault when one doesn't speak in one's defense.
So that's
So there's a sense of having to be mindful and to be wise and to be balanced.
In many issues that we deal with in life, Buddhism doesn't have a be-all end-all answer.
Buddhism is much more dealing with the building blocks.
What are the things that make up any given situation?
So they're much more general principles.
And the general principle is to be able to discern the truth from falsehood and right from wrong.
But here we come to this specific example of when the criticism is warranted.
So we're dealing with someone who actually points out true faults.
Because I think it can be said that
There's quite often a grain of truth in every criticism.
There's a reason why we're being criticized.
Often people will criticize us unwarranted, not wishing to help us.
People criticize us often looking to upset us or looking to humiliate us or looking to
to hide our own faults.
We criticize others to hide our own faults, this kind of thing.
But even still, even in those cases, it's much easier to see the faults of others.
And we hide our own faults, but we're very good at picking out the faults of others.
But here, in the case of a teacher, we have another dilemma and that's our inability to accept reasonable and our inability to accept criticism, not because it's not correct, but
because it shows a fault.
It hurts our ego.
It attacks something that we are protecting, and that is ourself.
We hold ourselves dear.
We cling to an image of who we are or who we want to be.
And when that image is threatened, like anything, any belonging, anything we hold dear, we react, we get upset.
And so this teaching is actually quite important for meditators in a meditative setting because we need to take advice from others unless you're the kind of person who can
become enlightened miraculously by oneself, we have to take advice from others.
And as a teacher this is something that is quite familiar.
It often, it becomes so difficult that teachers are often afraid to give advice.
And much of a teacher's role and duty
is to find ways to admonish one's students without upsetting them.
A great part of the skill of being a good teacher
is the ability to not upset one's students.
Because anyone can give advice, and a real sign, unfortunately, of a poor teacher is not being able to, it's not that they can't give advice, but not being able to couch the advice in such delicate terms or means that the student is actually able to accept it.
So you'll often hear people giving advice as a teacher and you cringe because you know that's not going to work and you're just making the student upset.
What you're saying is correct, but it's not going to get through.
And that's unfortunate because it often makes the teacher's job more difficult and it hampers the teacher's ability to be frank with the student.
Often a teacher's duty requires upsetting the student and sometimes you have no choice.
Your choice is to not teach them or to hurt them, to upset them, and you have to gauge how far you can push a student.
which is unfortunately usually not very far.
Usually, unless you're dealing with a special person like Radha, which is why Sariputta was so happy, but for most people it's very difficult for us to take criticism, very hard for us to prevent the anger and the self-righteousness when people try to, even well-meaning, try to help us.
And so we have to be aware of this and that's one of the important aspects of this teaching that I think a lot of people react favorably to when this imagery of pointing out buried treasure.
So we try to remind ourselves of this and to think of it as someone pointing out buried treasure and that's why we'll
come up with these teachings where we tell people, anyone who criticizes you, you should thank them.
You should thank people who criticize you.
I don't think it's, as I said, when a criticism is faulty, I don't think you should be hesitant to point out when it's faulty.
Like my teacher said, if someone calls you a buffalo, you just turn around and feel if you have a tail.
If you don't have a tail, you should tell them, I don't have a tail, I'm not a buffalo.
He didn't quite say it like that.
In fact, it's more knowing for yourself.
And I think that's the key that we should point out is it requires wisdom.
You have to be wise and know, is this person, what is their motive for doing this?
First of all, but regardless of their motive, is there truth behind what they're saying?
Criticism is a very big part of the teaching dynamic, as mentioned, but also a very big part of our practice because, of course, it's dealing with ego.
it's a good test of our state of mind and our purity of mind how well we're able to take criticism.
So criticism is actually a useful tool in our practice when to put ourselves in position or to allow others to criticize us and to be mindful and to meditate on the criticism on our reactions to the criticism seeing how our mind reacts
An enlightened being is the same in both praise and blame.
When people praise them it's as though they didn't even hear it.
They don't have any pleasure, they don't take pleasure when others, they aren't excited when other people praise them.
But it's the same when others have insulted them or criticized them.
It's also as though they didn't hear.
In a sense, they take it for what it is.
They take it at face value.
This person just said, I'm doing something wrong.
And so, okay, well, they look at it and, right, I was doing that thing wrong, and so they change it.
Or, this person's upset at me and they want me to do this, or they want me to stop doing that.
Okay, well, I'll stop doing it because...
that would upset them, you know, to a certain extent.
But they do everything mindfully and with wisdom, knowing what is the right state.
It's not that they're a pushover and someone tells them, you know, you're too fat, you should go on a diet.
They don't really see the point of that.
Why would I concern myself with my weight?
You're too skinny, you should eat more.
Well, that's not why I eat.
But they don't get upset, you see.
The point is, they're unperturbed in both praise and blame.
And we have to look at both because this is relating to the ego.
It's relating to our conceit, our self, our view of self.
So it's a good indicator.
And the other part of this quote is in regards to staying with such a person, the point, the specific point that things get better.
And that's a very useful advice to give oneself when one is angry, because you'll often get angry at your teacher.
It's a common thing.
I had one student recently who said, I'm very angry at you.
Recently, I think those are the words.
I'm very angry at you right now.
Because it wasn't even criticism, it was asking them to do something that just seemed utterly ridiculous to them, seemed totally above and beyond what they were capable of.
And I said, well, I didn't.
I didn't, this wasn't my idea, I wasn't the one who created this.
And they said, well, I'm very angry.
They were very angry about it.
And this is quite common.
It's quite common for meditators to get angry at their teacher.
And so there's no shame in that, and there's no reason to get upset.
It's why we ask forgiveness when we do a meditation course.
We often formally ask forgiveness of the teacher, and the teacher asks forgiveness of the student, both when we start the course and when we finish the course, to sort of clear the air.
But the point is, this verse is quite useful.
It's been useful for me to remind myself that no matter how difficult things get, staying with a teacher and at a meditation center, we have to remember that we want to do that which makes things better, makes it better, makes us better people, improves our situation, makes us happier.
We have to remember that we know this.
We know that staying in the meditation center with a teacher is going to make things better.
We often make excuses.
I'm not ready, or the environment's not right, I'm not at the right point in my life.
We have to remember that this is all excuses, that the truth is staying in a meditation center with a meditation center, things will get better.
And whatever excuses we have for not staying are invalid, because here is a person who is willing to help us with our faults.
The faults are what we're focusing on.
And people looking to criticize Buddhism will use this as a criticism that Buddhism is very pessimistic, which is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, harmful.
It's a terrible, terrible criticism.
made often by lazy people who aren't interested in looking at their faults.
Because it's very damaging to say that the faults are the only reason for self-development.
It is our faults that we want to focus on.
Not so that we can feel bad about ourselves or feel we're horrible people, but to actually fix something, to make something better.
How do you make something better without looking at what's wrong, looking at the problem?
And this is what we do.
If you don't have someone who can show you your faults, who can point them out to you, who can help you fix them,
Obviously it's not enough to point out one's faults, but to actually help you fix them.
This is where things get better.
This is where true development and progress and goodness comes from.
So a very useful verse, something that we should remember.
Someone who points out your faults, when they see them, you should liken them to a person who points out buried treasure.
You should associate with such a person.
The wise should associate with such a person.
When one associates with such a person, things get better, not worse.
That's the verse for today.
That's our teaching on the Dhammapada.
Thank you for tuning in.
Wishing you all the best.