Hello and welcome to our broadcast.
What have I forgotten?
Oh, it started automatically.
That's funny.
Alright, I no longer have to start it.
I think I just messed it up.
Good evening everyone.
Welcome to our broadcast.
Tonight we're looking at Anguttara Nikaya, Book of Sixes, Sutta 53.
The Appamada Sutta.
And so it starts, At that time, a certain Brahmin approached the Bhagava, the Blessed One.
Having approached the Blessed One, he chatted with him.
Samodhi is pleasantries.
After having exchanged pleasantries, pleasant talk, that was kind and so on.
He sat at one side and then he asked,
This should be a familiar question, I think.
Well, at least this part of it.
Tell me, Gotama, Reverend Gotama, is there one Dhamma, one thing,
It's a common question, no?
We want the short version.
We want one Dhamma.
Give me one teaching.
Don't give me all these lists of things, right?
You'll be happy tonight we don't have a list of six, even though it's the book of sixes.
We just got one thing.
Eko Dhammo Bhavito Bahuli Kato
when cultivated, when made much of, that I don't quite understand that.
It's able to accomplish, I'm not sure how that works.
It's able to accomplish both benefits.
I'll just read in English the benefits in this life, or benefit in this life, and benefit in the life hereafter.
Atto samparāyiko.
I say this is familiar because it sounds like he's looking for a shortcut, right?
He's looking for a quick fix.
This should sound familiar.
Many of us were looking for a quick fix.
It's kind of lazy in a sense.
We don't want to have to work or anything complicated or involved.
Something you have to get caught up in.
That's a good question, it's not a bad question.
The question is, what is that one thing?
Here the Buddha's been teaching for 45 years, so many different Dhammas, so many complex teachings, and here this guy wants him to sum it up in one Dhamma.
Can he do that?
And indeed the Buddha does that, and it's given away in the title of this sutta.
The Buddha says, There is indeed one Dhamma.
And you go, well, what is it?
And the Buddha says, Appamada is that one Dhamma, the Buddha said.
Appamada.
Appamada is the, many people will call it the key to the Buddha's teaching and it's the summary of the Buddha's teaching.
The commentary says all of the Tapitika can be boiled down to this one thing, the path of Appamada.
It's the last words of the Buddha, right?
become accomplished or fulfill your self.
Become fulfilled with, filled up with, accomplished in .
One of the most useful aspects of this teaching is trimming away all the fat.
You might have doubt that it was actually possible to boil it all down to one Dhamma.
It might seem like an impossible task, but the immediate benefit of being able to do so makes things a lot more simple.
Unfortunately, at the same time, it removes any excuse or escape from actually doing the work.
Because it's basically saying, how do you succeed?
You work, right?
So for anyone who thought they could find a quick fix or a shortcut, a way around the practice, no.
Because up a moda,
Appamut is a difficult word to translate.
We have translations and we can make approximations, but it's also useful to go down to the root of the word, which comes from mud.
Mud is a root.
Root means it's the kernel in the middle of the word that spawns all sorts of other words.
And it relates to, it has a kernel of meaning relating to confusion, darkness, cloudiness, that kind of thing.
Muddy, maybe where the word mud comes from in English.
It's clear as mud.
But when it becomes pa-mud,
Pamad is a little more serious, because pa strengthens.
But pamad is generally used to refer to intoxication, a drunken state.
So not just confused in an ordinary sense, but in a really bad way.
Confused in the bad sense.
Because a good person can be confused.
If you ask someone something, if you're not clear, then they might be unsure.
But only a person who has unwholesomeness in their mind can be intoxicated.
It's also used to talk about physical intoxications.
That's where the word... That's where the word... That's also used there.
So in the fifth precept, alcohol is something that leads to pamada.
And that pamada is just a negation.
So it's the opposite of being intoxicated.
It's the opposite of being inebriated.
And so you can think of it as analogous to
Physical intoxication.
Just like physical intoxication with alcohol.
It's a big problem for you.
There's also mental intoxication.
There's intoxication through greed, through anger, through delusion.
Greed is something that intoxicates us.
A person full of greed can't think clearly.
A person full of anger certainly isn't thinking clearly.
And a person full of delusion, arrogance, conceit, don't think clearly.
Egotism, high self-esteem, low self-esteem, it all muddies your thought, muddies your mind.
So apamāda is this clarity of mind, really, this unsulliedness, might be a good translation.
We often try to find a positive, or we often translate in a positive sense, which is problematic.
Like if you say vigilance, which I've used tonight for the name of this talk, and heedfulness, these are positive versions.
But apamāda is actually a negation of something.
It's like not something.
But you can see how it relates to vigilance, heedfulness, non-negligence.
It's a little bit awkward.
The unconfusedness, the unconfused nature of the mind, the mind that is not confused, deluded, distracted from the reality.
The mind that sees things as they are, that's appamāda.
If you have that clarity of mind, that perfect sobriety, that's appamāda.
And so if you ever, this should answer a lot of questions.
I hear the Buddha is saying it relates to benefits even in this life, or benefits in this life, but even benefits in terms of your afterlife, in terms of your soul, for lack of a better word, your spiritual journey through samsara.
And unspoken, of course, is the benefit
in an ultimate sense, in terms of freeing oneself from samsara.
This is the Dhamma that you need.
But there's no shortcut.
There's no way around it.
A lot of the questions, how do I deal with this?
How do I deal with that?
Or even, how do I know my practice is working?
How do I know I'm practicing correctly?
There's only one correct practice in Buddhism, really.
All other practices have to be relegated to a supportive role.
And the only Dhamma that is truly the path, that is intrinsic to the path, is Appamada.
That's maybe not quite true.
There are many Dhammas that come along with it.
But the leader, the Dhamma that is the chief,
And so that's what the Buddha says in this sutta.
That's why we have Book of Sixes.
There are six similes.
He says, just like the elephant's footprint is the biggest footprint, and all other animal footprints fit into the elephant's footprint.
So the elephant's footprint is foremost.
Appamada is like that.
Or the rafters of a house.
If you have a peaked house, one of the houses that's like a round roof or a tipi kind of.
They all lean towards the peak.
In the same way all Dhammas lean towards Appamada.
And he has a simile of a reed cutter.
I don't understand that.
I guess you cut a bunch of reeds, you grab them by the top.
I think that you have to grab the reeds by the top for some reason.
So the top is appamāda, I guess.
When you cut a bunch of mangoes from the tree, they all cling to the stalk and follow the stalk.
So the stalk is appamāda.
And just like all princes and royals are vassals of a wheel turning monarch.
Wheel turning monarch is like the king of the world.
The king is in charge.
So Appamada is like the king.
Or just as in the sky, when you look up at the light from the stars, you have all the light from all these stars, bright, twinkling bright.
They don't amount to a 16th part of the radiance of the moon.
So the radiance of the moon is foremost.
The light of the moon is far brighter than the light that we see from all the stars.
The same way Appamāda is like the moon.
Compare that to the light from all the other stars.
It means all other dhammas are insignificant really.
And so this is what we have to cultivate.
Appamāda is like this continual state of clarity, the cultivation of moments of clarity.
the changing or building up of proper habits and the cutting down of improper habits, just like cutting down a jungle to make arable farmland.
You cut down all the thicket and you organize.
make the land livable.
We do the same with our minds, cutting down all the habits and all the cobwebs in our minds, all those things in our minds that cultivate our breeding ground for greed, anger, and delusion.
It's quite a simple practice.
I mean, this is what mindfulness is, right?
The Buddha said, to never be without mindfulness, is what the Buddha said.
This is what apamada is.
Mindfulness is really what he means here.
Or sati, when you remember yourself.
So this act of reminding ourselves, the clarity of mind that you feel, I mean, it's a shame that there's so many questions about
about the benefit of the practice, where everyone's focused on some measure, which is very difficult, especially in the beginning.
How can you measure how far you've gotten, how good this is for you?
And we ignore the greatness of the moment.
At that moment when you're mindful, how can you doubt that?
That state of apamada, where you're perfectly sober, see things perfectly clear.
Really, in a sense, who cares what comes from it?
Why would you focus on what comes from it when you know that your mind is pure, is clear?
That in and of itself is the first benefit of mindfulness, the Buddha said.
The purification of beings.
Just the purity of mind.
And the building up of that habit.
Changing the way we look at things.
So rather than reacting and being all muddled and intoxicated by experiences, to live our lives free from intoxication, to live our lives objective and pure and clear.
That's what we're aiming for in the meditation.
That's what we get every moment.
And as you build up moments and moments, it's like rain pouring down.
Little drops of rain.
This is why it's discouraging, because each moment is just like a drop of rain.
So people say, well, is this really doing anything?
Just like the people who see the rainfall and say, it's not going to flood.
Yeah.
And they get swept away by the flood.
This is a good flood.
It's a bit of a bad analogy, because this flood is actually
Don't worry, the flood will come and sweep you away for your betterment.
Alright, so that's the Dhamma for tonight.
That's a simple talk on Appamada.
But good to remember, keep to the principles.
And it's good to see there's not that much we have to learn.
You learn the four Satipatthana, then you've got Appamada and
You're good to go.
Okay.
Do we have any questions?
Yes, we do.
We have one person asking many, many questions, and I'm going to single you out because, as I said, the person who asks a lot of questions, it's often a sign that they're not meditating.
I'm going to keep a close eye on those people who ask lots of questions, and we'll be especially hard on them
Sorry, Bhante, my screen is loading.
Should be just another moment.
Let's see if I can... Yeah, I got the first one.
These are actually good questions.
I was being hard and I was trying to go through and delete some, but couldn't come up with any worth deleting, so that's a good sign.
If the Buddha had created comprehensive teachings on rebirth, yet he had previously relinquished religious dogmatism and pursuit,
Could it be assumed he had an actual source for his information?
Is it safe to just trust someone's unwieldy and lofty claims at how rebirth works?
How would he have known, upon his awakening?
The Buddha saw it happening.
He was able to use his mental powers to watch people being reborn and dying and further was able to remember his own past lives.
So that's the best way, to be able to remember your own past lives and to be able to see with your mind, to be able to watch the spiritual plane of beings being born and dying and going according to their karma, which is incredibly instructive.
in terms of seeing the ways in which it works and how complicated it was, right?
So he was able to see the complexity and the intricacies of how the mind works at the moment of death and how it leads to rebirth.
That's the realm of magical
powers so most of us well most people will doubt that that's even possible let alone ever have a hope of realizing that power for themselves but I mean rebirth isn't something that takes faith it takes faith to believe that at death the mind stops you know if you take on
the paradigm of experiential reality, where you see things in terms of the very, which turns out to be the very basis of reality, experience.
We only have the conjecture of the world around us, this body, this life, because of experience.
So we conjecture, we extrapolate, but we extrapolate based on our subjective experience.
And so the idea that this ceases because of some extrapolated
reality that we interpret from a perceived event that we've no recollection of experiencing ourselves there's problems with that the idea that death stops everything is speculative so it's not fair to say that death is the null hypothesis in my mind I mean obviously many people would disagree with that but
That's all I got to say about that.
And I say that many times.
I've talked about this in my other videos.
Can I meditate on anger?
How do I do this?
I get angry and anxiety a lot.
Well, it sounds like you might want to read my booklet.
Because if you had read my booklet, it should have told you that.
Yes, you can meditate on anger and anxiety.
You might want to look up my video on anxiety.
Probably better that I don't get into it here because I've got lots of videos on these things.
You can go to Video Wiki.
If you look at the top there, there's a link to it.
And it's got lots and lots of videos on different topics.
But definitely read the booklet.
That would be a good place to start.
We should probably include a link to the booklet here in the notes at the top, if anybody from the IT team is listening.
So we've got the video wiki and the FAQ.
We should have something that says, please make sure you've read our booklet.
That booklet is, I mean, I'm sorry to make it a Bible because I wrote it, it's kind of disgusting in that way, but it's not my teachings and it really is, the reason for writing that is, look, this is what you really need to know if you want to follow this tradition.
I mean, unfortunately, it would be nice if we could cater to all Buddhists, but it makes it much more difficult when we deal with people who have different views and then start arguing.
Do the three characteristics mutually evidence themselves?
If so, how does Fuuka provide evidence of Anata?
There is a sense, I just recently did a talk on that, that you understand dukkha through anicca, and you understand anatta through dukkha.
So dukkha provides not evidence of anatta, but leads to anatta, because when you see things as dukkha, you don't want to have anything to do with them.
You lose any sense of connection with them.
I mean, if something is dukkha, then how can you say it's yours, say in terms of...
In terms of being under your control.
If it was under your control, why would you torture yourself?
Why can't you stop it from hurting?
Why can't you make it satisfying?
Why can't you make it stable?
So dukkha and anicca both provide evidence or lead one to the idea of anatta in that sense.
That you can't control it because if you could it wouldn't be dukkha, obviously.
But also that it's a bit more simple than that.
It's not intellectual.
It's just in the sense the person gives it up.
Anatta means it's not mine.
I don't want anything to do with it.
It's like if a guy finds out that a woman's pregnant, he immediately wants to disavow fatherhood because he knows how much stress and suffering.
It's a terrible example, but it is a good example of how the mind feels when it realizes that this is suffering.
It says, oh, no, no.
Ajahn Tong tells a funny story.
It's actually from the Visuddhimagga, but of course he tells it in a more entertaining way about this guy who wakes up early in the morning to drive his cow.
So he has to, in the pitch dark, he has to go and find his cow and then he starts beating it, hitting it and driving it up to the pasture.
And he gets up to his pasture and just as the sun is coming up, he looks at the cow and he realizes, that's not my cow.
And he gets scared because he's stolen somebody else's cow.
There's a lot of stories like that in the Visuddhi Manga, this realization that something isn't yours, that something isn't, there isn't a goodness to your attachment to it, basically.
There's a sort of realization that comes,
disavow the thing once you see it clearly.
I know that's even a little clearer because when you look at things you see clearly that they're non-self.
That doesn't actually relate to the other characteristics.
But it's the idea of this waking up to the reality of things.
But I wouldn't overthink that connection.
You don't have to realize.
What the cow example shows, you don't have to realize one, and you don't usually actually realize one from the other.
But they do go hand in hand.
Realizing one is enough to have an understanding of the other.
But the way you'll perceive them, not often, you'll always perceive them one by the other.
But what it means is that understanding one is enough to already understand the other.
Once you see that something is dukkha, it'll be very unsatisfying.
There's no question of it being impermanent and it being non-self.
And likewise, if you see something as impermanent and you really see that, the corollary is that it's suffering and non-self.
so it's more like that they really mean pretty much the same thing in an ultimate sense what is citta?
is it actually actual metaphysical entity?
does it abide in any sense of the word?
no, citta is something that arises and ceases citta refers to the moment where the mind experiences a thing the thing which experiences
the knowledge, or not the thing, but the knowledge of something, the knowledge that arises and ceases, the awareness that arises and ceases.
So when you see something, there's an awareness of the seeing, and that awareness arises and ceases with the object.
It's a little, even a little bit more complicated than that.
It'll arise and cease many times for the same object, but that's maybe a little overly technical.
How do you define Karuna?
Karuna is the mental bent, for lack of a better word, or inclination towards preventing the suffering of others.
And in an ultimate sense, the basis of it is not causing the cruelty.
So inclining away from causing harm to others.
That's karuna.
Now it can manifest itself positively in terms of actually working to alleviate other people's suffering.
So this is opposed to metta, which is working towards the promoting of happiness.
But they're in some ways different sides of the same coin.
Because freeing people from suffering also makes them happy, right?
Which of the four elements is pain?
It's not one of the four elements, but...
I mean, vedana is mental, but there is something called dukkha-kaya vedana.
And I think that's just a technical term.
Because pain is actually mental.
The feeling of pain, vedana is a mental thing.
The body doesn't feel pain.
So technically it would be when the body is, when the elements are out of balance.
Like you have an extreme amount of pressure.
Pressure is probably, the vayodhatu is probably the most common cause of pain.
the physical pain, too much pressure.
So swelling will do it, bending of the body, pinching.
But then the whole idea of the nerves, right, the nerves in the body, that doesn't work.
It's the experience.
But it's different.
Pain and the elements, the elements are just a cause of pain.
They're not the pain.
Good evening, Bhante.
Can you tell me what exactly is enlightenment as defined in the Theravada tradition?
It seems different schools of Buddhism have different ideas on what this is, which is confusing.
I did a video on this, I think, that was fairly comprehensive.
Again, I don't want to make a long answer to any of these questions, so you can go and hopefully try and find that, or maybe someone in the chat can...
People are so good about finding these videos if you can find it and post it.
But we don't actually use the word enlightenment so much.
The word is budjati which means to awaken or to come to know.
to wake up, so awakening, or to come to know, there's two meanings.
But it actually is the same meaning, right?
Because when you're asleep, you don't know, right?
In a general sense.
And when you wake up, you come to know.
That's where Buddha comes from.
But the word enlightenment is generally used to refer to...
I would say two different, let's make it simple and say there are two different aspects, two different things.
So, the Buddha is enlightened in the sense that he knows everything.
But an Arahant who follows him is enlightened in the sense that they've given up everything.
Now Buddha also gives up everything, so that's part of his enlightenment.
But the other part of the Buddha's enlightenment is to come to know everything, generally.
I mean there's a few more aspects to it, but the main aspect is knowing everything.
That's a very simple explanation.
It's a bit of an oversimplification, but there it is.
The corollary or the consequences of that is that an arahant isn't personally able to explain the path without the help of a Buddha.
And the Buddha, on the other hand, is able to teach.
I have found Vipassana useful for panic attacks.
However, for me there is much restlessness and I feel I need a more comprehensive approach at overcoming this.
I read the Buddha for this restlessness prescribed the calm abiding factors of enlightenment.
However, could you elaborate on what it means to exactly calm the mind, and whether such only suppresses the restlessness, or if the mind is made more resilient to restlessness and more adept to handle it?
Are the effects of the mind's aforementioned calming entirely impermanent, or does it truly make the mind more resilient?
No, I mean the real point there is a bit more intellectual.
And the real point is that there's only one of the seven factors of enlightenment.
There are three that are calm and there are three that are energetic.
And the seventh one, the only one that's always useful is sati.
So if you want to follow that teaching, and that's the thing, in a sense it's pointing out that you have a problem if you try to cultivate any one of them because they're only useful in certain instances.
but the one that is useful in terms of balancing the rest is mindfulness or sati which is again getting back to this idea of apamada so that's how you do it if you're very restless you would still use mindfulness not vipassana you don't use vipassana vipassana is the outcome
And it will, yeah, if you cultivate eventually vipassana, it will calm you down, but the practice is mindfulness.
So you should be mindful of your anxiety and you should stop trying to control it in terms of trying to get rid of it, trying to cure it.
Mindfulness is more about understanding and seeing and letting go of it.
And of course the anxiety does disappear when you do that.
But it's the approach.
Your approach should not be seeing anxiety as the enemy.
It's not really a matter of seeing enemies.
It's a matter of seeing things as they are and being objective.
A judge doesn't make judgments.
A judge acts impartially and goes according to facts.
So you try to be as neutral about things as you can, just seeing them as they are.
And that will calm the mind.
It kind of sounds like you want a quick fix and you're not satisfied by the fact that you've been practicing and it's still not all gone.
So welcome to the path.
It's not going to just all go away just because you want it gone now.
Maybe more patience, maybe.
In the case of malignant laughter in which one laughs at an individual but cannot refrain from doing so because one cannot purportedly help but laugh,
Is such, in Buddhism, understanding of the nature of karma still bad karma, if suffering of the laughed at is nonetheless caused?
You keep asking questions about laughter.
I'm starting to get the sense that you're a bit attached or obsessed with this.
So I just point that out because that will be a hindrance in your practice.
But in this case, karma is momentary.
Karma is the mental state.
When you have greed, anger, delusion in your mind, that's bad karma.
So non-greed, non-anger, non-delusion in your mind and everything you do based on that mind will be good karma.
So it's very much one state of mind.
It's nothing to do with the suffering that's caused, not directly.
It's the goal of meditation to just be in the present moment as in the here and now experiencing things as they come with your five senses without using any memory, but just reacting within the moment.
The goal of meditation is to see things clearly.
The practice of meditation is the reminding yourselves of the objective nature of things.
So when you say to yourself, seeing, seeing, you're reminding yourself that that's just seeing and it cultivates the ability to see things clearly, to see seeing just as seeing and therefore as it is.
Once you see things as they are, you let go of them because you see that nothing's worth clinging to and when you let go, then you're free.
So the ultimate goal is freedom.
My question is why enlightenment?
What if people just want to live as they are and die and get reincarnated?
No problem.
Power to you.
That's probably what happens most of the time.
Yeah, I mean, don't do anything.
Just go home.
If you're satisfied with it.
I mean, I guess the one thing you could say is that, well, you know, good luck and
don't turn on the news and find out all the suffering that's going on out there and all the potential suffering that you are faced with.
I mean, we would argue that most people have their head in the sand in terms of the potential future waiting for them, the dangers.
Maybe you want to watch my talk on dangers.
I read about the Buddha's teaching on the dangers of samsara because, you know,
There's a reason.
When I was a young boy, I sat down and I realized that all my family members were going to die and it really moved me because I couldn't do anything about it.
That's just a simple suffering, death.
It's shocking for a young child, but there's a lot more suffering out there than that.
Enlightenment frees you from suffering.
If you want to continue to suffer, power to you.
Good evening.
I am a man interested in becoming a monk and would like to know if it is possible to have you as my teacher.
Yep.
That's what I'm here for.
You don't have to call me your teacher or anything.
If you want to learn, you're welcome to learn.
There are ways.
You can set up an online meeting every week.
But you should read my booklet.
And if you're just interested in becoming a monk, well, that's not what I teach.
I teach meditation.
Of course, if someone is a long-term meditator in our tradition and is committed to this tradition of meditation, the possibility of becoming a monk is there.
Someone just phoned me from Mexico this evening asking basically that.
Everyone wants to become a monk.
Sorry, it's not that easy.
If only it were that easy.
Sometimes when I do sitting meditation and start I get this feeling like I'm losing my body consciousness.
Then it's like I'm lifting it up suddenly the whole outside world disappears and I start expanding.
Pardon?
Sorry, I should just let you finish but there was no question there.
Right?
And I think this person should probably read the booklet, because if you read the booklet, you will hopefully not have these types of questions.
I think the next one is a little bit of a continuation.
Is this okay?
Omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
That would be awesome.
If you were truly, you'll have to excuse me for being skeptical as to your omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, because if you're omniscient, you wouldn't have to ask me if it was okay.
I think it's maybe hyperbole, knowing you just have this wonderful experience that makes you think that you're, makes you overestimate yourself in this way.
Read my booklet.
That's not the meditation I teach.
If it happens, you should note it.
I'm much more interested in the mundane reality, the mundane aspects of reality.
Dear Bhikkhu, I am a long-time practitioner of Vipassana.
Recently, I came across a book titled Working with the Five Hindrances, and it says that any person with a mental disturbance should not practice meditation.
I have mental illness.
Now, is this true?
If you ask me, that's not true.
But...
with the proviso that with the qualification that
There are only certain types of meditation that you should practice.
I mean, there are certain types of meditation that would be very, very dangerous for a person with mental illness.
Samatha meditation would probably be pretty dangerous.
And I would recommend sticking to Satipatthana meditation.
But it shouldn't make you more crazy.
I've worked with people.
It can, but, you know, it does because people don't understand how to practice.
or the teachers, you know, lead them into craziness.
Crazy person, I mean, a person with, let's say, schizophrenia or psychotic delusions, I don't know, a bipolar, something fairly serious, you have to be very careful dealing with them, and the teacher has to be on point.
And I've only had sort of fleeting experiences
interaction with such people.
There was one girl came to our meditation center in Thailand and she had, I mean, from what I could see, she was caught up in delusions and sort of psychotic delusions.
I guess you'd say, you know, not really in reality.
And I made the mistake of leaving.
I was young and I was caught up in other things and I went to Bangkok to teach meditation.
I was trying to get some sort of support, I suppose.
I don't know.
My rationalization was people invited me to Bangkok, so I went to teach in Bangkok.
But I left this woman with a nun who had been given permission to teach.
But there was this one morning, like, I said, okay, you teach this woman.
Didn't know that she had mental problems, but it was like, okay, you'll teach her because Ajahn Tong has given you permission.
There you go.
And then she was concerned, so she brought her to me, and I spent, like,
five, ten minutes with her and I could tell what was wrong with her and it was pretty easy to see how to help it and so I talked with her and I was able to talk her down from her episode and sort of clear some things out and just that memory of that experience makes me confident that if the teacher knows how to teach and sticks to the books and doesn't start obsessing or feeding the person's delusions
worrying about the meditator.
Because this nun, she ended up worrying about the meditator and obsessing over her, telling her she had to meditate together with her.
Don't ever do that.
When you start fussing over a person with mental delusions, you're just feeding them.
So what you want to do is talk them down and help them feel normal, you know.
help them get into the sense of seeing things as just normal, just ordinary, and not ascribing meaning to things or inventing meaning where there isn't any.
But then I left, went to Bangkok, and she went crazy and ended up in the mental hospital.
So that's my one story of dealing with a person with mental illness.
I went to visit her in the mental hospital, but I couldn't do much then.
I actually went into her cell.
They had her in this prison cell in the mental hospital.
And I actually was able to go in and talk to her, but she was gone by that point.
I wasn't able to help her after that.
She had sort of lost any interest in meditation.
It was deep in her fantasies, unfortunately.
So long story short, no, don't let anyone tell you that, but be careful.
Find a teacher, a practice, a way that is simple and objective, and you have to stick to the objectivity like glue.
Don't ever let yourself build any delusions or emotions or anything like that.
Just let them go.
See them, note them, let them go.
It's not easy.
So it goes without saying that it'll be more difficult for a person with mental illness.
I have been a long time meditator.
However, I do not live near a monastery.
Is there one you can recommend in either the US or Canada?
Not really.
Not particularly.
There's one in San Jose.
I guess I could maybe recommend that.
I've never been there, but at the Tagata Meditation Center in Half Moon Bay, California.
That would be the only one I could think of.
Oh no, there's another one in Las Vegas, the Burmese Monastery in Las Vegas.
I think I could do well to recommend that.
Just because they're both in our tradition.
So if you're looking for other recommendations, you've got to ask other people.
And you're all caught up, Bhante.
All right.
Good night.
Thank you all.
Thanks, Robin, for your help.
Thank you, Bhante.
Good night.