Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we'll continue with verses number 11 and 12, which read as follows.
asāre sāra-matino sāre ca sāra-dasino te sāraṁ nādhika-canti mī ca saṅgapa-gocara
So, it's a twin pair of verses.
The first one, for a person who understands
what is essential to be unessential.
Or understands, sorry, understands what is unessential to be essential.
And understands what is essential or sees what is essential as being unessential.
Such a person doesn't come to what is essential.
Because they dwell in wrong thought, in a wrong understanding.
A person who knows the essential to be essential.
And what is unessential to be unessential.
Such a person does come to what is essential because they dwell in right thought.
These two verses were told in relation to the Buddha's two chief disciples.
And their story, in brief, is that they were living in Rajagaha in the time when the Buddha had just become enlightened.
And they had left the home life because they had seen that there was no essence or nothing, it wasn't essential or there was no benefit to be found in the life that they were living.
They would go to these shows and they would laugh and they would cry and
they found that it brought them no real true peace and happiness because it was bereft of any sort of essence or any depth and so they left home and they went to try to find a teacher and they found a teacher the first teacher they found was named Sanjaya Sanjaya was a teacher in the time of the Buddha and he taught his students how to avoid how to avoid views how to avoid
any kind of teaching, actually.
So when people would ask them questions, they would say, well, I don't believe that, but I don't believe otherwise.
And so they would find this way to avoid answering the question and therefore avoid committing to any stance.
Well, of course, this has the benefit, at least superficially, of keeping a person from developing wrong views, but it becomes a real conceit and attachment in itself.
And, of course, the mind is always running around in circles trying to avoid any kind of stance, the theory, and you develop a theory.
As a result, there's this theory that any stance is untenable.
Which of course would make sense when no one has an understanding of reality, because all of the people's views in the time were based simply on their partial or incorrect understanding of reality.
But once you find the truth, then they would avoid even that.
They would avoid committing even to the truth.
And so at first they thought this was kind of a neat idea, and so they practiced it.
And when they realized that it was really quite superficial and shallow and simple actually, all you have to do is just avoid everything, avoid answering these difficult questions, and there you have this teaching.
So they left it behind as well, and they went to find another teacher.
And then it so happened that one of them, Upatissa, their names were Upatissa and Kolita,
Upatissa, one day he saw one of the Buddha's disciples walking for alms.
It was one of the first five disciples of the Buddha.
And it had such a profound effect on him, just seeing this monk walking on alms, because obviously this was an enlightened being.
And so the way he walked, the way he held his robe, the way he held his bowl, the way he looked, the way he
He would talk, the way he would keep silent.
Everything about the way he acted, his whole deportment said that there was something special about him.
It was just so natural and so clear and so perfect.
It wasn't that he had some heavy kind of focused or forced way of behaving.
It was that it was very natural and very fluid.
And it spoke volumes about his inner character.
So he took this as a sign and decided that he would go up and talk to this monk.
He waited for him to finish alms and finish eating and then he asked him, he came up to him and asked him and said, Venerable sir, please tell me who is your teacher and what is his teaching?
And the monk, Asaji was his name, said, my teacher is the great Buddha.
the fully enlightened Buddha.
And as for his teaching, he said, I've only recently gone forth.
I'm new to this religion.
Of course, the Buddha's teaching was new, so he was one of the seniors, actually.
But it was true, he was still relatively new.
So he said, it would be very difficult for me to teach it in depth.
And of course this was a reasonable thing to say, but it also had a profound effect on Upatissa because it made him think, wow, if this is what a novice acts like, then I wonder what it would be like to be someone who fully understands the teaching.
So he said, please give me whatever you know, because obviously you know something.
So please give me the essence, whether it be a lot, what you survive for great words and long speeches.
Just give me the essence.
So Asaji gave him the essence, and it's so core that it's very difficult for us to understand, and even more difficult to understand how such a simple teaching could have the effect that it did have on Upatissa.
The verse that he gave, that he said to have given to Upatissa was, Ye dhamma hitu babawa, tesang hitung tatagata ahu.
Which means, those dhammas or those things which arise based on a cause.
The cause of those dhammas, of those things, is what the Tathagata has taught.
The Tathagata has taught us the causes of those things.
This is the first part.
Now, when he finished this first part, which is half of the verse, Upatissa became a Sotapanna.
He realized the truth just from half of it.
Most of us, we listen to this and it's incomprehensible.
Those dhammas that arise based on the cause.
The Buddha taught the cause of those dhammas.
It seems so simple that it would be very difficult.
It's near impossible for us to imagine how it could lead someone to become enlightened.
And I'd assume that most people listening probably didn't become enlightened just hearing that.
The second part, and the cessation of those dhammas.
The great samana, the great sage or the great recluse, this is his teaching.
His teaching is the cessation of those dhammas.
So actually, what he's teaching here is the Four Noble Truths that he learned from the Buddha in the original teaching.
And it's so simple.
And maybe the idea is to humble Upatissa because Asaji may not know that he would be able to understand it.
but it's also so core that Upatissa was able to grasp what is essential and he was able to see that actually this is the essential is that suffering has a cause that the problem in life for all of our questions
can be answered based on cause and effect.
That every problem that I have, and this is based on his meditation, it wasn't based simply on thinking, but when he looked inside, he was able to see all of the suffering, all of the delusion, all of the passion, all of the hatred, and all of the conceits and problems that we have inside, they all have to do with cause and effect.
And when you see cause and effect,
You see this leads to this, this leads to that.
You're able to break it apart.
When you look at the things you're looking at, you see how they react with each other.
Then you're able to change that.
You're able to refine your behavior as a result.
And more importantly is the second part where it talks about the cessation.
That actually what the Buddha focused on was the cessation of these dumbness.
That actually there is the realization that there is nothing that is going to bring true peace and happiness.
There's no one reality.
And so when you give them up, when you let go of them, that's true peace and true happiness.
This is the meaning of it.
Very difficult for us to understand.
But for Upatissa it was actually quite simple.
He had been training for a long time.
In fact the story goes that
he had gone throughout India or throughout that part of India and he would go up to teachers and ask them questions and he would answer all of their questions but they couldn't answer his questions and so he was never able to find a teacher
So he was actually quite keen.
He was able to debate with anyone and to best anyone in an argument.
So he had a very keen mind and that's why he was able to, he was ready to accept this.
And when he tried to find fault with it and tried to examine it in terms of his own experience, he actually, it allowed him to open up and to become free.
So immediately he said, stop, that's enough.
Thank you.
Please tell me where is our teacher.
At this point he had no doubt.
And Asaji said he's staying in Veluvana, which is the bamboo grove.
So immediately Upatissa went immediately back to where his friend was staying.
And his friend Kolita saw him coming and knew right away, just as Upatissa had known, that this was an enlightened being, that something was special.
And so he said, something's different with my friend.
He said, please tell me, Upatissa, have you found the truth?
And Upatissa said, yes, I found the truth.
He said, then please share it with me.
And he told them the same verse.
And as a result of this teaching, Kolita as well was able to become a sotapanna, which is the first stage of enlightenment.
And so he said, let's go, we have to go and meet our teacher now.
And Upatissa said, but first we should go and see our old teacher, and give him the opportunity to hear this as well, out of respect for his patronage.
And they discussed it, but Upatissa said, you know, I really think that he'll be able to understand it, and
and appreciate it.
And if he does appreciate it, he'll be able to come with us and very quickly realize the truth as we have.
So they went to see Sanjaya and it was not really as they expected.
They explained the case to him and Sanjaya said, oh yes, go ahead.
They said, well, come with us.
You can come and learn as well.
And Sanjaya said, my sons, how can you say such a thing?
Look, here I am a great teacher.
I have my own students and I am famous.
You want me to go and become a student again?
Someone very big and important like myself to go like that?
He said, such a thing is impossible.
And Upatissa said, that's really not the point.
Does it really matter?
Do these things really have any meaning?
What is essential is that we've now found the truth.
And Sanjaya said, look, let me put it to you this way.
He said, are there more wise people or more foolish people in the world?
And Upatissa said, or Upatissa Sankalita or whoever said,
Oh, surely the foolish people are far more.
What number of wise people in the world are very few?
And Sanjaya said, well then, my sons, you go and be with the wise Gautama, which is the family name of the Buddha, and all of the foolish people will come to me, and I'll be very famous and have a great following.
This is what he said.
Anupatissa and Kulita, you know, it was like the last straw.
It really broke their faith in their teacher entirely.
And they said, you know, well, in that case, bye-bye.
It's time to part ways.
He said, how can you?
This is crazy.
If that's all that's important to you, that you should be surrounded by fools instead of being with a few wise people, then let's go.
So they left.
And what happened when they left, interestingly enough, is that Sanjaya lost all of his followers.
That he thought as a result of his teaching something foolish, he would gain a lot of followers.
Well, what happened is actually most of them left with Upatissa and Kulita.
And as a result, he got very angry and upset and got very sickened.
and is said to have vomited blood as a result.
That's what the story says.
So Upatissa and Kulita went to see the Buddha.
And when they went to see the Buddha, they got ordained by the Buddha, and then eventually they became enlightened.
It took them longer than actually most other of the Buddha's disciples.
for Kolita it took him seven days, for Upatissa it took him 15 days, which, you know, considering their perfection of mind is quite a long time.
But the commentary says this is because of the profoundity of their wish in the past, that in past lives they had made wishes to become the Buddha's chief disciples, and so as a result they had to do all the... their mind was set on that, and they had to therefore go through a very profound understanding of reality.
before they could come to their final liberation.
Especially Upatissa, it took him longer.
Now their names changed.
Upatissa became Sariputta.
His mother was Sari, so they called them Sariputta.
Moggallana, I believe, the village or the family was called Moggallana, so they called them Moggallana.
I believe the family.
So they became Sariputta and Moggallana.
And they're very famous in Buddhist circles.
Very well known.
Now, after they became enlightened, they happened to be discussing, or they went to ask the Buddha to talk to them, and they said, you know, look, venerable sir, when we wanted to come see you, we told our teacher, and this is what he said, he said that he would stay with the fools, and that therefore be very famous, and you could go with Buddha Gautama, and be surrounded by just a few of the wise people, and therefore be relatively insignificant.
And this is when the Buddha gave this verse.
He said, This is what happens for a person who dwells on what is unessential.
They'll never come to the truth.
But for a person who does see what is essential as essential, and what is unessential as unessential, such a person does come to the truth.
It has to do with right understanding.
And obviously Sanjaya had a very wrong understanding.
Now what this verse teaches us, it teaches us many things on many levels.
The first thing that it teaches us is about our lives and how we often dwell in things that are unessential.
The example of Kolita and Upatissa is a good one, that they were living a life of luxury and opulence and great sensual pleasure.
So they would go to these shows and it's said that at this show they would have so much fun and be entertained until one day they just realized how pointless it was.
And most of us have a very difficult time coming to this realization.
We might have great suffering and depression and sadness at times in our lives, but we're not able to make the connection.
We still are living under the misguided belief that somehow this sensual enjoyment is going to bring us someday, or somehow is going to bring us true peace and happiness.
Or we believe that something's just wrong with us.
The fact that we can't find happiness in this way means there's something wrong.
Often we'll take medication for our depression or so on, thinking that somehow as a result we're going to be happy and enjoy all of these things that aren't really bringing us true peace and happiness.
So Riputta and Moggallana were able to see through that, and they were able to see that, you know, and it's a difficult thing to see because there's so much pressure on from society.
Society says this is good, this is right, this is the sort of thing that we're supposed to enjoy.
So this is something that we should take to heart and to use to help to change our view and our understanding that actually it's true that we're not going to find true peace and happiness through these things.
And if we expect to, we're only going to be disappointed again and again and eventually meet with the ultimate disappointment when we have to leave it all behind and realize that we've wasted our whole lives on things which are unessential and useless.
As a result, we'll never come to the truth.
We'll die without coming to the truth.
And this is how people live their lives.
We waste our time.
So it's important that we should remember the Buddha's teaching not to let the moment pass us by.
Don't waste your time in this life that we have.
The second thing it has to teach us is in regards to the unessential in the religious path.
Now, Sanjaya was someone who you could expect had gained some of this realization and therefore had left the home life.
He may have done it for the wrong reasons, but it's possible that he left the home life under good intentions, trying to find the truth.
The problem is that, in the end, he hit upon that which was totally unessential.
And he got caught up in what we say are the loka dhammas.
He got caught up in fame and praise and...
wealth and pleasure, all of these things that he got from being a great teacher.
And as a result he saw that these were essential.
He thought it was essential to have lots of students and to be famous and that this was the most important, even to the point where he thought it was better to be surrounded by foolish people than to be surrounded by wise people, which he figured would be a lot fewer.
And so you find this often, or you do find this in religious circles and in terms of religious teachers, that often people get caught up in teaching and put aside their own practice, or that people get caught up in... You see many, many people who put on this robe and then get caught up in, as I've said before, get caught up in fame, get caught up in...
In wealth, and we talked about this in the verses about Devadatta, that it's very easy to get caught up in these things.
And you see monks, even with the best intentions, will eventually get caught up in luxury and so on.
And then they need this and that and a nice bed and nice good food.
And they'll often start to obsess over these things.
And they won't be able to see that these are unessential.
People who become a monk and then worry about their health, who worry about their food, who worry about their bedding and so on.
You know, I've been through all that, but I think if you practice meditation, you should be able to overcome it.
And there were times where I said to myself, you know, I don't have, I don't even have, I didn't even have soap or I didn't have laundry powder.
And these things, you know, it just came, it just was such a shock to me.
It was so, such a stress that I didn't have these things.
What was I going to do?
And then I said, well, well, then I realized, well, then I just won't wash and I won't wash my clothes.
That's the answer.
And so I was able to let go of it and realize that that's really unessential.
All of these things are unessential.
When,
Some days we will go hungry.
And then you think, oh no, what a terrible thing.
What am I going to do?
And the answer is, well, you're going to be hungry.
And that's it.
It really doesn't mean anything.
Maybe you'll get sick.
Maybe you'll die.
It doesn't really mean anything.
And when you put your emphasis on these things, oh, may I be healthy.
Oh, may I have a full stomach.
Oh, may I be alive, even.
When this is your essence, you've missed the point.
What is the essence according to the Buddha?
There are five things.
And the third thing this teaches us is that even in regards to what is essential, we have to prioritize or we have to be complete.
So the Buddha would always give talks on what is the essence, what is the core.
And there are five candidates.
There's morality, concentration, wisdom, release or freedom, and the awareness or the knowledge of freedom.
And we need all five of these.
Some people are able to put aside the worldly pursuits and pursue, at least, morality.
And so as a result, they're able to keep morality.
They don't touch money.
They only eat once a day.
And they wear robes and so on.
They even maybe wear rag robes.
They're able to do all these practices of morality.
but they become conceited as a result.
And they see that as the essence.
And the Buddha said, no, this is not the essence.
This isn't the core.
It's part of the essence, but it's only the first part.
If you don't go any further, you still haven't found the essence.
So next, some people develop concentration.
So they're able to focus their minds and fix their minds on one object.
Their minds become very quiet and very focused.
They can even gain magical powers.
Devadatta himself
had a very focused mind and even gained magical powers at some point he was able to apparently I think fly through the air he was able to change his appearance so he looked different to people and so on but so obviously this is not the essence and it leads people like Devadatta to become conceited
And therefore, or it doesn't lead them, people can still become conceited based on these things.
And if they have conceit inside and haven't gone further, then they'll become conceited and they'll use them for the wrong purposes.
The next one is wisdom.
Now even people who gain some wisdom and insight can become conceited if they don't get to liberation or freedom.
Their mind will still become conceited and they'll believe that they're enlightened just from the insights that they've gained.
people who practice even insight meditation if they haven't realized the the perfect truth if their minds haven't become freed and liberated they haven't realized then they will still fall into conceit and there's still wrong understanding and the wrong belief that they're enlightened
as a result they will give up the practicing and think that they've done good enough and will feel content with what they've gained so this is also not the essence but finally is the fourth and the fifth one and really they come together but but they are separate things the fourth one is release so when a person does become released and free and enters into nirvana where the mind
It's no longer coming out.
It's no longer seeing or hearing or smelling or tasting, feeling or thinking.
The mind goes inside, really, and for that time doesn't come out.
That there is no experience of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling or thinking.
And that's true release and freedom.
The mind has just found its center, really, and it's not wavering anymore.
At that point the mind is free and this is called freedom.
This is really the essence and really there's nothing more that needs to be done.
But the fifth one is just the aspect of coming out again and realizing what it is that you've experienced and to actually start thinking about it.
And the realization that you've become free, this is the greatest benefit, the greatest essence.
Once you become free, the life that you live and the existence as someone who is free, as someone who has seen the truth, and as a result doesn't have the clinging in regards to that which is unessential or in regards to anything that has arisen.
all of the arisen Dhammas, because you've seen the cessation.
You've seen all of these arisen things.
You've seen their cessation.
So this is the essence and the person should be inclined towards these things.
This is really what we're aiming for in Buddhism and this is kind of a teaching for us to see what is to see what in our lives maybe we are clinging on to that is unessential and to remind us of what is truly essential and how we should give up what is unessential because it winds up, it leads us to
waste our times and to lose the opportunity that we have in this life to put into practice those teachings that lead us to the realization of the truth and true peace, happiness and freedom from suffering.
So that's our verses for today.
Thank you for tuning in and wish you all the best.