Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to our live broadcast.
Those of you following along on the meditation server may notice that it has changed.
We're now using the new server, the new platform, new server to new platform to
So great appreciation for the people who've worked on this, Sebastian and Martin, Doug, and anybody else who submitted issues and has been commenting or helping out with it.
Looks great.
And I'm sure there's going to be some difficulty transitioning.
But that's always good.
It's always good to shake things up.
So we don't get too complacent.
If you do have issues with the new site, there is a way to post.
You have to find the source on GitHub.
So maybe I can post or someone can post a link to that.
Anyway, let's get on with it.
Tonight we have a broadcast.
Tonight we have meditators here.
Sorry, we have two meditators.
From America, I think.
So we'll be trying to focus as much as possible on meditation teachings.
Tonight's teaching is, I think,
quite pertinent, something for all of us to keep in mind, why we do the things we do, why we devote ourselves to meditation.
And when we devote ourselves to meditation, how we
cultivate the encouragement and the motivation to continue meditating?
What is it that you rely upon?
What do you rely upon to give you motivation to make yourself a better person?
And the Buddha gives us three.
This is a fairly well-known list of three.
Adipatthaya.
Adipatthaya is a lord or Bhikkhu Bodhi translated here as authority, but it's usually used to refer to somebody, a person who is president or
the number one authority, the top of the totem pole.
But here it's being used specifically in the sense of authority, or I thought chief might be a good translation.
It's something that overlooks, that lords over your actions, directing them.
something that you always have to be aware of whatever you do so in a worldly sense this is like the law or the government you want to drive down the street you can't just drive however you want you have to keep in mind that there is authorities there are
Those beings and institutions that will punish you, that will get in the way of you doing things however you want and have an enforcing of certain rules and regulations.
So we have to keep that in mind.
In the Dhamma, the Buddha recognizes three authorities or chiefs, maybe authority is a better word.
The three things we always have in the back of our mind and that are useful to have in the back of our minds to remind us and to keep us on the path, keep us going in the right direction.
These are the three Adipataya.
And the first one is Atadipataya, taking oneself as authority.
Here is the Lord, Director.
Let's say authority.
Stick with that.
Number two, Lokadipataya, taking the world as authority.
And number three, Dhamma Deepataya, taking the Dhamma as authority.
The self,
the world, and the Dhamma.
These are the three good sources of motivation and direction that keep us on the path, keep us heading in the right direction.
Why?
Because the self is always aware of what you're doing.
We don't recognize a self in Buddhism, but what we mean is yourself.
You always know what you're doing.
My Dhamma teacher, we took these basic Dhamma studies in Thailand and he was kind of a funny monk.
But he was teaching all the new monks and he was supposed to give us lessons to help us pass the exam and he just gave us one day.
We all got together in the classroom and we had a one, two hour session or something like that and that was it for the whole course.
But during this, he was talking about morality.
And he said, suppose in the evening, I go and take a salad.
And I look around and make sure no one sees me.
Because, of course, in Thailand, it's interesting.
Monks can be very obsessed with the fact they can't eat in the evening.
So it's very difficult for many of them not to eat in the evening.
I think Asian society, especially, there's sort of an emphasis on the evening meal more than the West, I think.
And he says, so I take out this salad, and I look around, and no one's there.
And I eat the salad in the privacy of my room, and then I tie it up in a plastic bag and stick it at the bottom of the garbage can.
And he says, is anyone going to know?
And they were saying, oh, well, you know, angels might know.
He said, it doesn't matter who knows.
You know.
You know what you do.
No matter how much you pretend or try to hide the bad things that you do.
In the verse, at the end of the Sutta, the Buddha gives three verses.
So the first one is, Nati loke roho nama, papakamang pakubato.
And there is no privacy.
There's indeed no privacy for one who does evil deeds.
The self knows.
The self knows you, man.
Poisa, poison the man.
It's like talking, hey man, the self knows you.
Whether you are true or whether you're living a lie, you know.
You can't hide it.
And so the Buddha describes this, taking yourself as authority.
You think of yourself.
I can't hide from myself.
And you think about yourself.
I didn't come here to be lazy and to sit around just to eat and sleep.
I have a goal.
And I have a reason to practice.
He says, I am surrounded by birth, old age, sickness and death, sorrow, lamentation and despair, suffering and pain.
Surrounded and overwhelmed by suffering.
Immersed in suffering, afflicted by suffering.
I have this
Problem, I have a reason for what I'm doing.
These problems are not going to go away on their own.
You think about yourself.
It's the best reason to practice.
Why are you doing this?
You're not doing it for me.
You make the world a better place.
You're doing it for yourself.
That perhaps an ending to this entire mass of suffering can be discerned.
You think about yourself.
What is proper?
Wouldn't it be proper for me to seek out these things that I've left behind?
And in this way, thinking about oneself, one arouses energy, establishes mindfulness, cultivates tranquility of body, tranquility of concentration of mind.
and then abandons unwholesomes and develops the wholesome, abandons what is blameworthy and develops what is blameless.
The practice of insight meditation is supported by this, supported by a reflection on your own mortality.
and your own immorality, and the importance of cultivating goodness for yourself, for the overcoming of suffering, and for the attainment of peace and happiness.
That's the first adipatthaya.
Lokadipatthaya, number two, is you also think of the world.
And this is where it gets into angels.
There are things, well, there are people who can, their angels and their ascetics and Brahmins who have psychic potency and the divine eye who know the minds of others.
Putting aside that, people will know.
People will know you when you talk, when you act.
If you're not a meditator, if you don't have a mind, if you aren't cultivating mindfulness,
There's a difference.
You can fake it, but faking it only gets you so far.
You don't have the clarity of mind.
if you're not intent on cultivating mindfulness, it's going to affect your relationships with other people.
You're going to get angry.
You're going to be greedy and stingy and jealous, conceited and arrogant.
All of these things will come out in your relationships with others.
The world will censure you.
The world will punish you in so many ways.
And they will know you.
Look at this person.
I know they've come.
It's talking about monks specifically, but they will know you if you will get your reputation based on your mind.
And so we think of our relationship with the world, our role in the world, our place in the world.
And it reminds us of the importance of having a pure mind, as the potential for suffering is great, the potential for stress and conflict if we're not mindful, if we don't cultivate clarity of mind.
So that's the second adipataya.
And because of that, thinking of that, then when it arouses energy, cultivates mindfulness, the body is tranquil, and the mind becomes focused.
And through the practice of insight, based on this motivation, one abandons the unwholesome and develops the wholesome.
And the third, adipataya, dhammadipataya, you know,
putting aside the importance to oneself, putting aside the importance to another.
One thinks of the Dhamma itself, the teaching itself.
One remembers how pure the teaching is.
This teaching that we have is not something you find every day.
One of the greatest motivations for a meditator is the study of the Buddha's teaching and the confidence and the appreciation of how pure and how profound it is.
And through appreciating how pure and how profound the Dhamma is, how great it is, how directly visible, how immediate, how open it is, how accessible it is, that you can experience if you practice on your own.
And having this Dhamma, what am I wasting my time for?
Why wouldn't I cultivate great things, better myself?
And using the Dhamma as a base one.
One motivates oneself, cultivates energy, establish mindfulness, tranquilizes the body, concentrates the mind.
And taking the Dhamma as authority in this way, one abandons the unwholesome and cultivates the wholesome.
These are the three authorities.
So here's a reflection.
If we were talking about reflections yesterday, this is an example of a reflection that you can do.
It's a metta.
It's M-E-T-T-A.
It's not meditating.
It's not part of the meditation, but you back off and you think about these things and they give you encouragement and motivation and they straighten you out and put you on the right path, keep you from straying because you think about the consequences of straying.
consequences from your own point of view how you're going to be have shame and guilt consequences on how the world is going to look at you and the simple consequence that it's not according to the Dhamma this Dhamma is the right is the truth it's wrong greed is wrong anger is wrong delusion is wrong
Getting involved in them is just not that anyone has to say it's wrong.
It's just the truth.
There's no good that comes from them.
The only thing that comes from them is bad.
And so with these three, we cultivate meditation.
So there you go.
That's the Dhamma for tonight.
I'm going to stop there.
For local meditators, this is, you guys can go.
You don't have to stay for the questions.
Drew, are you clear on the rules?
You know the meditator rules that we have?
The eight rules?
Because you don't sleep more than six hours, and only eat in the morning, and no entertainment or communication with the outside world, internet, that kind of stuff.
And number three change is no sexual or romantic activity.
All right.
So yeah, the audio broadcast isn't working yet.
I'm not sure what's wrong.
But we have to transition over.
So that's going to be down for the near future, unfortunately.
Oh, let's take the new site for a spin.
How's it working?
We've got a question-only mode, so we click this button and we only see questions.
I think I can click on the questions and get room.
I can.
Because I'm the admin.
Okay, so YouTube is the only way to listen to the live broadcast for now.
Hopefully we'll have the audio up soon.
I'll have to work on that.
All right.
Robin, you're going to be my questioner.
Sure.
This new site is awesome.
I also have print screens of the questions from our old site, if you have time for those.
,, I've heard that cohesion element cannot be directly experienced.
But when you feel tension in the belly as it expands, isn't it a sign of things trying to stick together?
Or am I just intellectualizing it?
No, you feel tension.
You don't feel stickiness.
Stickiness creates tension.
But what you feel is the tension.
Apo, dato.
Apo means water.
Dato is the element, the water element.
Water element is a name for the cohesion aspect of matter.
But you don't experience it.
You experience tension instead.
If your hands stick together, you don't feel stickiness even if you think you do.
What you actually feel is a pulling, and pulling is tension.
Are there any beings that will never attain nirvana?
Well, never is a long time.
I mean, in the face of eternity, you can't really say never, can you?
But there's no reassurance that every being is going to attain nirvana.
I don't even know that there's an assurance that there's a limited number of beings.
Beings might be unlimited, infinite, whatever that means.
But this kind of question is just speculative.
I wouldn't worry about it.
I mean, I guess the question, a better question is, well, I don't know.
I guess it is a question, are we all reassured?
It is useful to ask, are we all reassured to attain enlightenment?
And I guess the answer is no.
There's no reassurance.
There's no reason to think that everyone will become enlightened.
We don't work.
No reassurance.
Don't be complacent.
Last year, I spent about a week in pretty deep bliss, which led me to think I had attained stream entry.
Any advice on how not to fall for the trap of thinking you're enlightened when you're not?
Well, don't ever think you're enlightened.
Look at your defilements.
Do you have less greed, less anger, less delusion?
Worry about that.
The only real way to know you're enlightened is, at least a Sotapanna, is that you attain Nibbana.
And if you can attain Nibbana and repeat the experience and be clear that what you're attaining is freedom from suffering, the cessation, but even that, it's very easy for an unenlightened being to think that they're attaining Nibbana and not actually.
I wouldn't ever really think, oh, I've attained stream entry and so on.
You should look at your mind.
Look at the state of your mind.
That's all that's important.
With sincerity, what is the benefit of studying scriptures for you?
How does one cultivate an unknowing mind with intense scripture study?
Thank you.
You don't need an unknowing mind.
That's not what we're cultivating.
I mean, intense scriptural study can get in the way, not for that reason.
It gets in the way because of the habit it creates.
It creates a habit of mental fomentation, mental reflection.
So it creates more thinking, which is potentially problematic unless you can learn to be mindful of it.
There's no reason to do intense scriptural study, I don't think.
Not unless you're, say, a teacher or a monk and you've got the time.
If you've got the time to study as a monk, for example, then it can be good because it gives you more ammunition to teach with.
But I think there's limited benefit to scriptural study.
It's not to say there's no benefit, and certainly there is benefit.
It's a good thing to do.
But anyone who thinks there's great benefit, I think it's easy to overestimate the benefit.
There's not a huge benefit from studying scripture.
It's much more important to understand them and then to put them into proper practice.
And concern yourself more with proper practice, because that's the most difficult thing, to be able to practice correctly.
Is there going to be a feature where you can see everything on one page instead of the tabs?
Yeah, I was trying to.
I think so.
I was hoping for that as well.
I'm still hoping one day we'll have the circle.
No such luck yet.
Not whatever this works.
I mean, the most important is, you know, we're not supposed to anyone be meditating during the broadcast.
So that's the meditation section, right?
And then you click on this one, and this is for when we're doing the broadcast.
So now we're here.
And the commit tab is just, there's lots of people committed, which is great.
But that's completely personal.
I don't think it's necessary to have everything on one page.
Does playing video games that are violent leave karmic traces in the mind?
These are questions from the other side?
Yes.
I mean, not violent.
I've had to answer this question a few times already on this in the recent times.
It's not like it's the same as killing or even violence necessarily.
But there's much more the excitement.
I mean, violent video games are still just puzzle games, I would say.
I used to play, we used to play Doom and Quake.
Quake was awful.
Quake was like, Quake was evil, right?
So was Doom.
I mean, they were pretty awful games.
But it's more like, I mean, you could.
But I don't know that anyone actually, unless you're already quite perverse, I don't think anyone actually plays these games happy about the idea of torturing and killing other living beings.
It's not really the case.
It's more of a sport, right?
I mean, sports are like battle, but you're not hurting anyone.
You're just trying to win.
And with these video games, well, it's just a sport.
No one's actually getting hurt.
Your intention is not that anyone is getting hurt.
And imagine, ask yourself if you knew that this was actually a representation of something you were really doing.
And ask yourself if you'd still do it.
That being said, I mean, it's not clear cut.
It depends on your state of mind, right?
Could there be some cruelty involved or cultivation of cruelty?
I suppose.
I don't think it's as pronounced as people think.
I can't imagine someone becoming more cruel because they play these games.
Desensitized to violence, but that's much more about the seeing it than the doing it, I would think.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, the only thing that's clear about it is the attachment to it and the incredible waste of time used to spend hours on these games.
I always have to chime in my two cents and say with the multiplayer games, incredible amounts of greed and anger can come up playing these games.
I have heard these horrible culture.
I've seen examples.
I've seen transcripts of some of the horrible culture that is involved in these online games, right?
Yeah.
I mean, there's good culture, too.
It's just like society.
It's a microcosm of society.
But because people are anonymous, it can be very cruel.
Yeah, it can be very cruel.
Worse than YouTube comment.
Yeah, and the greed for the loot and everything is intense.
Bhante, do you recall which book from the Mahasi Sayadaw talks was regarding the rupa stands?
It's a follow-up question on behalf of a member of our meditation community.
The rupa what?
Rupa stands.
Oh, right.
No.
One of the basics.
I mean, I can... Let me see if I can find it for you right now.
That didn't work.
Yeah, I don't know.
I can look for it for you.
See if I can find it.
I don't want to waste too much time.
More questions?
Yes, Bhante, one moment.
Can we focus Dhamma Talks on practical topics that are applicable to our practice and maybe skip things that lean toward the abstract and metaphysics like angels and heavens and hell, for example?
No, I get to choose what we teach.
That's a criticism of the last two Dhamma Talks, I guess.
Didn't the Buddha spend one third of the nightly watches answering the angels' questions?
Yeah, what's wrong with angels?
I know.
OK, that was a bit, last night was a bit, but I said it was.
I said it was light.
It's interesting, too.
It's interesting to think of the angel realms.
I guess people are so reactionary, I think.
People don't want to hear about these things that require faith, you know, really.
to believe in them or not.
I mean, it's just part of the universe.
Do good deeds, good things happen to you.
I don't know.
I don't know what people expect from these broadcasts.
What do I have to tell you?
There's not much to tell you.
If you don't like it, you can go somewhere else.
That's fine.
Go read the Buddhas.
If you're really interested, go and read the suttas for yourself.
I was meditating this morning after a very vivid dream.
And as the images of the dream appear to me during meditation, I realized that in the dream, there was nothing to claim to, nothing to be attached to.
The experience was just happening, and it didn't matter if it was good or bad.
I was able to experience alertness if there was danger, but not aversion to it, and pleasure if it was pleasure, but not desire, not any wanting.
So my question is, if I experience alertness or pleasure in that sense without any claim to it, any desire or wanting, can you be considered closer to enlightenment when in this case, as it happens in a dream, you are not mindful of it?
I doubt it.
I don't think a dream is really a good example of any positive or beneficial state.
A dream is a sign that the mind is not focused, that the mind has distraction in it.
And there is another question along with it.
Can a person with Down syndrome become enlightened?
Thank you.
I don't know.
I imagine there would be a strong suspicion that they couldn't, because there are certain beings that don't have the requisites, certain humans who don't have the requisites to become enlightened, and someone with Down syndrome might fall in that category.
I don't know.
There's no direct...
labeling or recognizing Down syndrome as one of those people, but it requires a certain clarity of mind.
I mean, I don't have Down syndrome, so I don't know what it's like, but it seems to be fairly oppressive and
I don't know.
I've never really dealt with people with Down syndrome either, so I couldn't say.
I mean, obviously it's something to be fairly skeptical about.
I have a friend who did something not good, and I lost a lot of money because of what she did.
I am angry at her, and I like being angry at her, and I want her to suffer because of what she did to me.
When it arises in meditation, I note the anger, then the liking of the anger, then it all fades away and I'm back to rising and falling.
But I know the anger is still there simmering.
Should I purposely bring it to mind so that I can keep practicing my noting?
The anger is not there.
The anger is, I mean, nothing is always there.
This is what you're trying to see.
You're trying to see that things come and go.
That person who you're angry at isn't always there, doesn't exist.
It's all part of the same realization that we're striving for.
Once you start to see that your anger arises and ceases, the thoughts that you're angry about arise and cease, then you'll see that the person also arises and ceases.
It's a concept in your mind.
And you'll stop obsessing over these things.
You'll start to see that they're meaningless, pointless.
that everything arises and ceases.
So try and see what is there.
When you say it's simmering, well, what does that mean?
Is there a feeling that's there?
If there's a feeling, then note the feeling.
If there's not anger, don't note anger.
And don't go looking, absolutely, because that creates bad habits.
That creates the habit of looking, the habit of instigating.
It's a bad habit.
Try to see what is there.
Don't try to create something.
Don't try to find something.
If it's not present, don't go looking for it.
Are we ever going to be able to add commitments to the new site?
Maybe, if you're really nice.
It seems the three marks of existence are all pointing to accepting things that you cannot control.
Is there an explanation for the calm, silent state that arises from acceptance?
Again, it's not quite, well, it's not quite acceptance.
Although I suppose from, yeah, insofar as you accept that you can't change things, that you're not in control.
I mean, yes, absolutely, because you're not, you're not, you're no longer getting upset about things.
It's because we try to control things.
It's because we try to cling to things.
It's because we try to achieve things, obtain things, that we suffer, that we stress, that we're anxious, worried.
I mean, isn't it obvious?
If you stop stressing, you're calm.
You stop worrying.
judging and reacting.
And of course you're going to become more calm and more peaceful.
But ultimately we're not looking to accept things.
We're looking to reject and let go.
Not reject in terms of dislike, but reject in terms of dismiss, become disinterested in.
So don't focus too much on acceptance.
It becomes problematic because it just makes you calm and peaceful.
It doesn't free you from suffering.
I'm trying to see things to the point where the mind lets go of them and says, enough.
I have no use for this, and it lets go.
So the three marks of existence, the three characteristics of sankharas are for the purpose of cultivating the dispassion and renunciation and the giving up and letting go.
What are the requisites for a human to be eligible to become enlightened?
You have to have, there's something called something like that.
Asanka probably knows a little more about this than I do.
I did look it up.
But I think you need the You have to be born with a good mind.
You have to die with a good mind.
To be born as a human with moha,
I think that's what it is.
If the rebirth linking consciousness is with moha, then I think it sets you up for a bad rebirth, something like that.
I don't know.
It's all technical and I can't verify any of it, but I think it's better to just in general know that certain people are clouded by delusion and they're in the category that they're not able to realize the truth.
I would say it's fairly rare.
No, maybe not.
I would say it's those sorts of people who never even think of meditating, most likely.
If anyone thinks to meditate, that's the other thing.
It's not the most important.
Well, it's not something to obsess over whether you can become enlightened or not.
I think a lot of people worry too much about this, worry whether they'll actually be able to become enlightened.
And they waste time worrying.
When, in fact, we're just trying to make our minds better.
We're trying to become better in the mind, heal the mind, cure the mind, purify the mind.
And that's gradual.
That's something you do every moment.
Anyone can do that.
Even animals can do that.
They can't become enlightened, but they can better themselves.
So that's what we're aiming for.
That's where we should put our focus.
Put one foot in front of the other.
Whether you get to the end or not, it's going to depend on how much you put one foot in front of the other.
It's not going to depend on how worried you are about whether you're going to get there, whether you're going to make it.
That just cripples you.
It actually gets in your way, sets up an impediment.
You're all caught up on questions, Fonte.
So when I click on the questions, they put answered on them.
That's great.
You guys really went above and beyond for the server.
Yeah.
One thing we don't have is who's online, right?
We don't have a list of who's online at the top.
That was nice.
It was nice to know how many people were actually tuned in.
Well, at the moment, since you can only hear it on YouTube, you could also see on YouTube how many people are listening.
That's true.
Let's see.
40 viewers.
Nice.
And this certainly seems like it was a very smooth transition, too.
What a super team.
You should mention how far away everyone is from each other that worked on this as well.
Right, we've got, well, two of them are in Germany, aren't they?
Isn't Sebastian also in Germany?
I'm not sure.
But Doug is in Australia.
Yeah.
And basically the three of them, I mean, I did the original site here in Canada, but
And this the app that this is based on the Android app, which will no longer work.
I was supposed to redo the app to turn it into just a notification.
Hey, don't use this anymore.
I didn't do that yet.
Maybe I'll do that tonight.
And there's a testimonials page on this.
So if you've been practicing the meditation that we teach and would like to say some words about it, find the testimonials page in the menu and submit some words.
So newcomers can see the benefits, can hear about the benefits of the practice.
We're all caught up, huh?
I thought we were, but it actually looks like we missed one.
Do you ever do teachings in Toronto?
um rarely i'll do them in mississauga but nobody's invited me to toronto yet
Who's clicking?
Someone else is able to click on the questions.
Is that what that means?
Because I didn't click on those questions.
Yeah, I was wondering about that.
They show as answered as well.
There's a bug or something.
Or else other people are clicking on it.
Yeah.
And when we go to question only mode, there's nothing there now.
So that's kind of a cool feature that everything gets cleared away as you do click answered on it.
And it looks like they're being cleared away without us clicking them.
All right.
OK, we'll work on it.
If you do have issues with the page, please .
I think this is the issues page.
If you go to that page, you have to sign in, sign up.
OK, who else?
Can anyone else click on that question and make an answer?
Robin, are you able to click on that question and make it answered?
No, but it disappeared.
So it seems like maybe someone else does have some admin rights, possibly.
Yeah, it did disappear.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't have admin rights.
Did you try clicking on that question?
I did, but it didn't go away.
Was it clickable?
It didn't seem to be.
No, I don't think it was me that was able to transfer it over to answered mode.
Oh, Drew did it.
Ah, okay.
No, that's not allowed.
Shouldn't be allowed.
Yeah.
Well, if you can tell, because for me, they're they're highlighting when I have a hover over and they're highlighted in green.
Oh, bond thinks it might have been him.
And that makes sense because he was working with the IT team.
Is he an admin?
Um, maybe.
Okay, so this new question is testing thing.
Does everyone when you hover over it doesn't turn blue and give you a pointer?
Not for me.
Because for me, it's green.
And if I hover over it, it's blue.
Bond has admin.
Yeah, I used to have admin rights a while back on the old site.
And it was actually awful because I always used my phone.
And if I would accidentally press on somebody's comment, like if there was a link on it or something, it would cause it to disappear on the phone.
So that wasn't too advantageous to me.
So Bond has admin rights.
So I can click on them.
If I click on them here, they're both answered.
What do you recommend for meditating on not-self?
Have you read my booklet on how to meditate?
That's the meditation I recommend.
You don't meditate on non-self.
You meditate on the four satipatthana.
Non-self is what you see.
You see that everything that you experience is non-self.
During walking meditation, I had back pain.
My timer went off.
I felt that I could have stood there till I dropped.
I gave up the disliking.
Can I reach giving up the wanting the pain to go away incrementally, or do I stay with it until I learn that it's not worth it and give it up?
Well, disliking can't stay for 15 minutes.
I mean, I'd be impressive if it did.
But I would try to, I mean, it takes some time.
But over time, you should be able to see that the disliking is one thing.
The disliking arises and ceases.
And there's a lot of pain as well.
And there's feelings and thoughts and so on.
But you won't give it up.
It'll keep coming back.
Because we're not trying to force it away or turn it off.
We're trying to see.
And that's what you're doing.
It's actually pretty good.
For 15 minutes, you were able to see and learn a lot and get a real taste of what disliking is all about.
And the fact that you can see that disliking is causing you to suffering is really going to impact your future.
I mean, it changes the way you
Look at anger, at disliking.
You're going to be less inclined to dislike in the future.
So incremental, yeah, in general it's incremental.
You start to ease up, ease up your hold on things and the intensity with which you cling.
And if you do it again and again, eventually you let up, you let up, and you become more objective and more clear until you're able to really see the experiences just as they are.
And that's when the mind lets go.
That's when you no longer see any reason to react, any reason to fuss or fret or worry about the pain or anything.
It takes time, and certainly in cases where the pain is intense, it's not going to be easy.
There's nothing easy about this practice.
It's simple, but not easy.
But just don't expect it to go away or things to get better.
The thing that's going to get better is your reactions, your approach, your point of view of these things.
And be no longer inclined to get angry, no longer concerned about things like pain.
And become much more patient with it, that's the idea.
There actually are a couple of other questions, Bonte.
I think they just hadn't gotten, they didn't have the question marks near them, so they didn't go into question mode.
Do you have a couple of minutes?
Yeah.
A few minutes ago, I took a living rabbit from my cat.
It's probably going to die.
Is it right to just put it somewhere outside away from my cat so it can die?
Yeah, that's reasonable.
Someone brought a wounded bird to Ajahn Tong once.
And this kind of drove it home for me.
He was...
He didn't want to have anything to do with it.
He said, go put it away.
It was almost, go put it somewhere in the...
In nature.
And to me, it was...
It was interesting.
It was really interesting to see his reaction because... You know, it's a...
Dealing with wild animals is a very complicated affair, right?
Dealing with other beings in general and their suffering is a complicated affair.
You certainly don't want to get involved with it.
You only cause more stress and trouble.
better leave the natural world on its own.
Because otherwise you get caught up in it and you try to save all beings and then it's down the rabbit hole.
No pun intended.
Is there anything about the causes of schizophrenia or mental illness in Buddhism?
I mean, they don't mention schizophrenia, but there's certainly some implication that one's state of mind when one passes away is going to affect the base mind that one is reborn with, and the brain, and so on.
But I guess schizophrenia has a lot more to do with the brain than the mind.
And the nature of the brain is potentially corrupt.
Not corrupt, but it's not even corrupt, you see.
And that's really the point of these things, is to be able to see the difference between the brain and the mind.
Because if you're hallucinating, well, that's still just experiences.
But the paranoia is something different.
It's not the hallucinations.
being able to separate those two is crucial to be able to experience solutionate hallucinations without without becoming paranoid but um yeah so i think that makes it easier to see how it happens because we don't affect we don't we aren't reborn with this messed up mind we're reborn with the breast messed up brain based on our our
moment of death.
So and also you could argue based on the nine months in the womb that we're mucking around with this new fetus.
So the mind is there getting caught up and excited and putting giving its all to this to this new state.
So if the mind is all messed up at that time,
I wonder if you could argue that that's why alcohol, mothers who drink alcohol have children, get children with potential problems, right?
Could it be that you mess up the mind or you disturb the being and so the mind gets upset?
That's just conjecture, but.
Yeah, I mean, I would say the brain is much more likely the culprit there.
And that's what's being affected by things like schizophrenia.
And that comes from past lives.
You would think it comes from the state of mind when one dies.
When I click on question, it only shows me one question.
Is there a way to show all the questions?
I think that question was from a while ago, so maybe there was only one question submitted at that time.
And then a question about something we talked about within the last couple of days.
What does Buddhism think about transgender people?
Can transgender people reach enlightenment and nirvana?
Are there any texts that talk about transgender people?
There are, yeah, there is some discussion.
They're not allowed to become monks simply because they, wait a second, transgendered as someone who changes their gender, right?
I probably wouldn't be allowed to become a monk.
But becoming a monk, there's lots of restrictions, and it's a fairly conventional state.
Becoming a monk is not reality.
It's just an artifice that the Buddha created.
So he had some fairly stringent artificial requirements that have nothing really to do or don't necessarily have anything to do with reality.
But in terms of reality, as someone who's transgendered, there may be something in the commentaries about it not being possible for them to become enlightened.
But I would say, as I mentioned before, it's probably more difficult.
It's most definitely more difficult because they're going to be much more all other things being equal.
It's going to keep them obsessed with their sexuality, with their gender, with their body.
You know, there's more of an obsession there, in general.
There's the generalization.
You know, someone who's transgendered and then just gives it all up and realizes how futile it all is, then certainly they can become enlightened, I would argue.
How should you treat your relationships with non-meditators?
That's a good question.
I mean, you should treat your relationships with everyone mindfully.
Obviously, if someone's not meditating, it's going to be clear that, and maybe even before it's clear, you can remind yourself that most likely
they're not going to have the most wholesome mind state and the best of intentions.
So there's going to be increased problem and difficulty dealing with these people.
And so you want to spend less time with people who are not meditating if possible.
But you treat people mindfully and don't think of people as people.
Deal with people in the present.
What's happening now?
What is it?
What is the situation?
Deal with things as they arise.
Deal with the present moment.
If someone's yelling at you, it's not the person.
It's the yelling.
It's the experience.
Try and stay in the present moment.
As with everything, it solves a lot of your problems.
Don't hold grudges.
Don't have expectations.
Try and let go of the past.
Don't worry about the future.
Those are words to live by.
And then Bando's asking about posting the livestream link.
Are you still recording the audio-only portion?
No, I tried.
It's not working right now.
Oh, OK. All right.
So that's all for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
And thanks for bearing with us as we transition to this new site.
And thanks to all the people who worked on it.
Thank you, Bhante.
Good night, everyone.
Good night.