Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to our live broadcast.
So we'll continue on with the Book of Threes.
We're just skipping over and trying to find passages that are interesting, particularly to meditators.
So we're going on to Sutta 16 in the Book of Threes.
Apanakapatipata.
Apanakasutta.
Apanaka.
This, this teaching is one, why it caught my interest, because it's one that Ajahn Tong gives, I used to give often.
He used to give these morning and evening talks.
So every morning he would do morning chanting and be up three o'clock or three thirty and then
At 4, 4.20 or so, he would walk up from his kuti to the main hall and
do chanting, 4.30.
And then after morning chanting, and any of the monks who were there, he would sometimes praise us for having the energy to get up early in the morning.
But then he'd give some teaching on the Dhamma, five minutes, ten minutes.
Usually short, you know, five, ten minutes.
But every morning and then every evening, if he was there,
In the evening, it was less sure that he would be there for the chanting.
But if he was in the monastery, he would come morning and evening and give us a talk.
And I recorded a lot of these for about a year.
And I've got like 50 hours of his teachings recorded.
And I gave it over to the monastery before I left.
And I made some books out of them.
But this one is one of them that he liked to teach often.
I think because eating is a problem, giving up three meals a day is a problem for some monks.
I think this was a teaching directed to those monks who had a problem with that precept.
I never had a problem, so it was never all that.
obviously pertinent to me.
But the three qualities, it's interesting that the Buddha put these three together at all and called them the faultless practice.
Just three things, you know.
They're kind of, I would say, comprehensive.
And each of the three is unique in the sphere in which it works.
And it's neat to look at these different lists.
This is one list that is actually somewhat curious to me, why these three and why not more?
Why not others?
But they do make a somewhat comprehensive practice for just three things.
And so they're interesting to look at, very useful for meditators.
So the first one
Well, first let's explain what these are, the introduction.
What's important about these, he said, the Buddha says, bhikkhu possessing these three qualities is practicing in a faultless way and has laid the groundwork for the destruction of the taints.
So these are practices that allow one to be sure one is not doing anything wrong.
Obviously, there's more than just these three, but they make a good guide.
Ajahn Thang says there are three practices that are not wrong.
If you want to be sure of what's not wrong, do these three things.
Focus, fix your mind on these three things, on practicing according to these three aspects of the practice.
The first one is guarding the senses, the eye door, the ear door.
the nose, the tongue, the body door, the mind door.
Number two, observe moderation in eating.
And number three, be
Fixed on wakefulness, vigilance, keeping awake.
But wakefulness, a wakeful state of mind.
Don't sleepwalk through your day.
And then he explains about these three.
So I'll just explain.
But this is one of the many passages where the Buddha makes this clear explanation, this important point.
Having seen a form with the eye, a bhikkhu does not grasp its marks and features or signs in particular.
How do you guard the senses?
It doesn't mean not seeing, not hearing.
It doesn't mean avoiding any sounds or sights or tastes.
smells, feelings, thoughts.
It doesn't mean not thinking.
Having cognized a mental phenomenon with the mind, so when you think, one does not grasp its signs and particulars.
What does this mean?
See, when you experience a sight or a sound, it's just seeing and hearing.
It's light.
It's sound.
Each vision is different only in its particulars.
In its nature, it's the same.
Whatever you see, it's just a field of light, different colors, different wavelengths of light.
When you hear, it's just different wavelengths of sound.
But you see, it's the particulars that's where the problem is.
Like they say, the devil is in the details.
Seeing isn't the problem.
In fact, the details aren't the problem.
The problem is when you fix on the details, that's where your defilements arise.
That's where the problems arise, liking it, disliking it.
You can't like light.
You can only like the particulars.
the concepts that you associate with the thing, with the experience.
Experience itself arises and ceases.
It's just light, sound, smell, taste.
And if you're able to just see it as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking,
You're fine.
There's no problem.
But the Buddha says, if you leave the mind unrestrained, let it follow after the particulars.
Bad, unwholesome states of longing and dejection will invade your mind.
Desire and aversion will arise if you're not careful.
If you don't keep your mind objective, if you're not able to see that seeing is just seeing, deep te, deep tamatang bhavisati,
Let seeing just be seeing.
I mean, this in and of itself, this is our meditation practice in a very brief explanation, brief form.
It's about all we're doing.
And what are we doing when we sit and meditate?
What is this technique all about?
Let seeing just be seeing.
You remind yourself, not about the particulars of the experience,
but about its base nature, simple nature, all it is.
Whether you see something, a flower or a pile of dung, it's still just seeing.
The difference is only in the particulars.
You see a man or a woman, there's no difference.
The difference is in the particulars, in your conception of it.
You have a thought, a bad thought or a good thought.
What makes a thought good or bad?
You think about someone who hurt you in the past or something you did in the past.
What makes that different from a thought about something nice someone did for you?
The thought is just a thought.
But if you let it get to you,
If you react to it, if you become focused and caught up in the particulars, ah, this was a good thing they did, this was a bad thing they did, then you'll get upset, liking and disliking, attachment and aversion, problems, stress, suffering.
guarding the senses this is the first one the second one curious that food is number two but this this sort of points to the more mundane aspect of our practice the number one is really enough that's practice but if but the pointing out the food to me signifies
that we have to be alert and aware and vigilant, mindful about our mundane existence as well.
What are you eating?
Where are you sleeping?
What sort of people are you associating with?
Even what sort of clothes are you wearing?
If you read the Visuddhi Manga, there's lots of particulars to our mundane existence, conceptual existence.
Food is certainly the most pressing of all.
Everything else you can do without, right?
Even clothes, you could theoretically go naked.
But food is something that you will die without.
I suppose air is more pressing, but it's not usually an issue.
Water.
But food is the big one, not only because we need it, but because we obsess over it.
We worry.
If you had to go without food for one day, many people would be stressed and worried about it.
Not having food in the evening scares many people.
For meditators, eating too much can be a stress on your practice.
Eating too little can make it impossible to practice.
Eating heavy foods, eating too much sugar, eating
Too much salt.
Too much fat.
Moderation in eating.
There's not much to say there, but it is a skill and a practice.
For many people, food is an obsession.
So to point this out, I think it's proper and practical.
Because it is something, hey, what do we do every day?
It's the one thing that we do every day while we eat.
got to be an important part of our lives.
We don't realize how attached we are to good food or having food.
It's the kind of thing that will give us the inclination to work on our eating habits, overeating, undereating, poor eating.
If you eat poorly, very difficult to keep the body at peace, and very difficult for a beginner meditator to gain any sense of mindfulness.
That's number two.
Number three is in regards to the daily routine.
I guess you could say apart from eating.
So it's the routine of the practice, because the Buddha actually explains this one.
How do you stay awake?
How do you become intent on being awake?
Here's what it is.
And this is also incidentally one of the places where the Buddha actually mentions specifically walking meditation, walking and sitting.
Buddha says, during the day, while walking back and forth and sitting, Bhikkhu purifies his mind of obstructive quality.
So you purify your mind by seeing, experiencing things objectively, cultivating the four satipatthana.
Walking and sitting.
For anyone who thought the Buddha didn't teach walking meditation or wonders why our tradition insists upon walking and sitting meditation,
You might be surprised to know that the Buddha himself was the one who clearly explained meditation this way, walking and sitting.
It makes great sense.
Sitting all the time is not good for you.
But it was from the time of the Buddha.
The regimen was thus walking and sitting.
When you're walking, you purify your mind.
When you're sitting, you purify your mind, back and forth.
That's during the day.
So you've got 12 hours of the day.
Then at night, you have another 12 hours.
The night is, in olden days, it was split into three watches, yama, three yama.
The first one, in the first four hours, which would be like 6 PM to 10 PM,
no change you do walking back and forth and sitting purifying your mind of obstructive qualities and in the middle watch of the night that's like 10 p.m to 2 a.m four hours you lie down that's the time when you lie down but you don't lie down to go to sleep you lie down in the lion posture that's on your side with one foot on top of the other
Have you ever seen these Buddha statues lying down?
Mindful and clearly comprehending after noting in his mind the idea of rising.
So you accept the fact that you might fall asleep.
But in your mind, you fix your mind on the time of getting up.
And this is a common thing to do for meditators.
If you want a good alarm, you can say in four hours, may I wake up.
My intention is to wake up in four hours, to stand up in four hours.
And you'll find that after four hours, you wake up and you do actually stand up.
It's a good way to keep time, sleeping time.
It only really works if you're doing a meditation course and your mind is clear.
And after rising in the last watch, which would be 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., again, walking back and forth and sitting.
So that's for the better part of the day, for the better part of those 20 hours, just walking back and forth and sitting.
Now, there's got to be breaks for eating and urinating and defecating and breaks just to rest and stretch your limbs and so on.
But that's a fair amount of wakefulness.
Become intent on this.
This is a good description of effort.
Effort doesn't mean pushing yourself.
Not from moment to moment, making a more effortful practice.
Effort just means doing it again and again.
You know, it feels often like you're doing it wrong, but that's only because it's tough.
You're fighting, struggling to not cling, struggling to see things as they are without judging them and failing again and again.
And that's difficult, just doing that.
Doing that for 20 hours a day, give or take, lest the time that you take breaks.
That takes real effort.
This is the true measure of a meditator, to attain this state where they're comfortable doing, lying down for only four hours, just doing what they've been doing, doing it for all of their walking and sitting time, all of the time that they're not lying prostrate.
That's effort.
That's wakefulness.
Some meditators won't even fall asleep.
They'll lie down, and they won't sleep, or they won't even lie down.
The story of Chakabala didn't lie down for months.
There are monks who do this sort of thing, usually living off in the forest.
But it's the kind of thing you can do in the meditation center.
So these are the three practices that the Buddha says, if you possess these three qualities, guarding, you're able to guard and keep your experiences pure, clear, objective.
You're able to be moderate in eating, really only eating once a day, a little bit in the morning, but then one main meal.
And if you're able to be awake, keep yourself awake and be devoted and intent on wakefulness.
This person is practicing the unmistaken way, the faultless way, and has laid the groundwork for the destruction of the tape, the destruction of the things that cause suffering, the bad things inside that we would rather do without.
We would be happier and more peaceful without.
So that's the teaching for tonight.
We have questions.
I suppose yesterday I've decided that Monday is because Monday is actually I'm going to have class.
So I won't be doing, I won't be even here starting next month.
So I thought, well, that's a good excuse to do instead the Dhammapada.
So during the day I'll do a Dhammapada video and then I'll post it in the evening instead of doing this.
I think that means we have some questions from yesterday.
Well, we probably can't see them.
They've probably been obliterated by now.
What's the sitch?
I think we have a lot of questions.
Sorry.
The one that I was looking at just went off the screen.
Sorry.
Well, they could ask it again if it's important.
Yeah, I think actually, some people were being helpful and reposting the ones that looked like they were going to go off the screen.
When doing sitting meditation, is it okay to rest by leaning back for a little while?
I'm speaking of novice level.
Yeah, for sure, it's fine.
You want to be mindful of whatever it is that's causing you to lean back.
If it's intense pain, well, that's simple.
You just note the pain first.
And then when you just feel like you can't take it, then fine, you sit back.
But sometimes it's just laziness, boredom, distraction.
So be careful to note all of that.
Are you really being mindful?
But absolutely, once you can't, once you have to, just be mindful.
Wanting to lean, wanting to lean, and lowering, leaning, leaning.
If you need, you can sit in a chair sometimes.
You want to train yourself.
So training the body is useful.
So eventually, you want to be able to sit cross-legged without sitting back.
But consider it a training, a progression,
something that you have to work at.
Eventually you'll get it.
Which means you shouldn't be getting more reliant on leaning back or on sitting in a chair.
We had one meditator once, he
He was in great pain, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
It was incredibly painful for him.
So he asked if he could sit with cushions.
He said, yeah, sure.
So he put some cushions under his legs, and then that wasn't good.
So he put some cushions under his bottom, and it was OK for a while.
And then the pain came back, and so he went higher and higher and higher until finally he might as well have been sitting on a chair.
And I said to him, look, it's fine, but you're really supposed to be getting lower as you go.
It's easy to, because you can't make the pain go away.
There's always going to be pain as long as you're alive.
And if you're just trying to run away from it, that's the problem.
You have to be aware that every time you avoid the pain or run away from the situation, you encourage the aversion to the experience.
You increase it.
You reaffirm it.
Bhante, have you seen these meditation cushions that have like a back on them?
Mm-hmm.
Is that your question?
You're asking me, right?
No, no.
I don't use one, but I've seen people bring them to meditation groups.
What are your thoughts on those?
Well, same as what I've been saying.
You know, I've said this before.
The monk who teaches, I don't know if he's still there, but in Section 5 in Wat Mahathat,
He used to teach in America.
He may even be in America now.
I haven't kept in touch.
He was in Florida for a while.
But he said, Americans or Westerners are so soft, he said, because he comes and he sees these big cushions, even just the cushions people are using.
And that may seem incomprehensible or shocking to hear a monk say such a thing about or criticize these cushions.
But in Thailand, we sit on the floor.
We'll sit on a thin mat.
flat you know that's just everyone does no one uses big cushions some people now in Thailand do use these back supports old people generally there's a lot of old people come to practice and they may not even need them but they think they do and
The excuse is that they're old.
Now, I don't know.
I'm assuming that old people, it's reasonable to suggest that they have more pain, but I would wonder whether they actually do need them more than, say, young people, or whether they have just become so averse to pain that they're not able to deal with small amounts of pain.
Now, some people have genuine back problems.
Like, I know I've had meditators who have, like, a slipped disc or...
some genuine back problem and obviously then they need back support or else they can actually injure themselves there are real problems apparently it can come but for most people and I mean I would suggest if you can it's a great training to learn to do without it and to learn to deal with the pain if you can't then use them use whatever you need but be clear
that generally, unless you have a real injury, you're just avoiding the pain.
And avoiding pain is undeniably problematic.
You're reaffirming the aversion to it.
Thank you, Bhante.
Does the Theravada tradition use mantras like Om Mani Padme Hum?
What are your views on them and how does one use it?
Well, we use mantras.
We use mantras all the time.
Seeing, seeing, that's a mantra.
Hearing, hearing.
Pain, pain, that's a mantra.
If you've read my booklet, then you...
I'm assuming you haven't.
Let me see.
Well, you've done a little bit of meditation here.
I don't know if you've read my booklet or if you're practicing our way.
Maybe you didn't realize this could be considered a mantra.
Absolutely.
Early Buddhist meditation was very much about using mantras.
Patavi, patavi, patavi, read the Visuddhimagga.
It's full of mantras of all kinds.
Lumpo Chodok did a book, and I don't have it, I don't think, but in this book, he goes through all 40 meditation techniques and explains the mantra for each one of them and points out that saying rising, falling, or seeing, seeing is absolutely in line with the ancient tradition of using mantras.
When you do earth casino, you don't just look at earth.
You look at the earth and you say earth, earth, earth.
That's actually what the texts say to do.
So mantra meditation is very much about what Theravada Buddhism is.
It's just a shame.
And you know, even today they do it to some extent.
They'll say buddho, buddho.
That's a common one.
Or samma arahang, samma arahang.
They just don't think to do it with mindful meditation.
When they practice mindful meditation, they give up the mantra for some reason.
It's an incredibly effective tool, and we certainly use it.
A mantra is something that fixes your attention because you're thinking all the time anyway.
There's always thinking about whatever you experience.
All we're doing is replacing the ordinary, unfocused, unconcentrated reaction and discursive thought with a clear thought.
The thought that this is this, it is what it is.
This is seeing, this is hearing.
It's not creating something new, it's just replacing the old thought with a more clear and focused one, objective one.
I'd like to ask how or what is the best way for me to handle depression?
depression that came with contemplation of some elements of the Dhamma like non-self.
I was perfectly fine today and there's nothing in my current state of affairs that warrants unhappiness.
And I'm normally very optimistic and often experience feelings of pity while wishing well-being for myself and others.
But something happened today that made me experience the dissatisfactory truth of non-self and impermanence.
And I don't quite want to get happy again and put this out of my mind.
and neither do I feel the heavy-heartedness is that useful to me.
How can I turn this energy realization into something productive, something that allows me to deepen the realization without this heavy-heartedness?
That's funny.
OK, well, it's a little bit.
It's a very good question, very well explained.
But there's a little bit of misunderstanding.
That's common misunderstanding.
Non-self isn't a good thing.
seeing non-self is should be a shock and it should upset you why does it upset you the realization itself isn't a cause for suffering the suffering comes from the attachment to the thing that is non-self why do you attach to it because you thought it was self you thought it was controllable and when you see that it's not not getting what you want is what upsets you not having it the way being denied
the illusion that you thought was reality.
Having reality turn out other than you thought, other than you wish it were.
We're so happy that we can control things, that we can possess things.
It's great happiness, but it's also great addiction.
That kind of happiness is adulterated.
It's associated with greed.
It's associated with clinging.
So that kind of happiness that you're talking about, absolutely you don't want to go back to it because you're setting yourself up for the fall when you experience non-self, which is the reality.
It's an unfortunate reality.
It's a bad reality.
It's the problem with the world.
Non-self isn't great.
It isn't like, oh, awesome, non-self.
Non-self is the worst thing in the world.
If everything were self-controllable, forget Buddhism.
Enjoy.
Control.
Problem is, it's not.
This is what the Buddha saw.
He wasn't happy about the way things were.
He didn't rejoice in the fact that everything was impermanent, unsatisfying, and uncontrollable.
But he saw that it was true.
He saw that we're deluding ourselves into thinking when we think that things are satisfying, controllable, predictable,
So, you know, don't concern yourself more with the, the addiction to things that's causing, that's the true cause of your heavy heartedness and focus on the sadness and the anger that comes from not getting what you want.
Cause it's anger, disliking, unpleasantness, heavy heartedness.
It's all based on anger.
this base mind of aversion to something.
So meditate on that and try to be objective.
Absolutely.
Having your illusions shattered is heartbreaking.
When you lose someone you love, why do we cry?
Even though as Buddhists we know, we've heard all these teachings before, still we're overwhelmed because of our addiction, not because we don't understand or even at least intellectually.
but because we have addiction, because we're attached to these people, these things, these illusions, really, the illusion of stability, the illusion of satisfaction, the illusion of control.
So be glad that you've had that illusion shattered.
Because it was going to happen eventually.
Be glad that it happened sooner than later.
And now you can start to learn more about reality and admonish yourself.
Hey, don't fall for that again.
It wasn't the realization that made you depressed.
It was the truth.
And more importantly, it was your lack of understanding the truth, which is why we suffer.
We suffer because we don't see things as they are.
We have expectations that are not going to be met.
And when they're not met, we suffer.
When what is perceived to be a stressful situation in the body is present, can one note disliking, disliking, while focusing on the sensation?
What confuses me is thinking that the sensation is not the disliking and that it may not be appropriate to keep focusing on the sensation when noticing a mind state.
But then how can one focus on a mind state itself?
Good question, Ruslan.
Thank you, Chittavi, for posting all this.
It's a simple answer.
It isn't the disliking, but there is disliking associated with it, or there can be.
If you perceive the disliking aspect of the experience, say disliking, disliking, if you perceive the stress aspect or the pain
for example, then note it as pain.
It doesn't really matter.
It's much more how it appears to you objectively.
What is it?
So if it appears as a disliking experience, some mental experience, I don't like this, then say to yourself, disliking, disliking, it's fine.
But if you experience it as pain, if that's more how you're looking at it in that moment, then say pain, pain, and you can go back and forth.
It's not magic.
You don't have to pick the right word and then you win.
It's about training yourself to be objective.
Creating that state of mind that sees something just objectively.
It is this.
So it doesn't really matter which one you pick.
As long as it is what is clearly observed.
What you observe about it.
Are thoughts of wanting something required to note wanting, or can I just go ahead and note it when sensation associated with craving arise?
In other words, smelling food might lead to sensations of a watery mouth, seemingly without any thought of wanting the food.
In this case, should one note both feeling, wanting, or both?
Never note something that's not there.
I'm surprised at this question.
The first question was good.
I'm not sure how good this one is.
I mean, I guess it's a good question.
It's good that you asked it.
But be very careful.
Never fall into the idea that why would you ever note something that is not there?
I don't think it's a bad question.
I think it's an important question to answer and to be clear.
This is one we have to be clear about.
Because if you start noting what's not there,
That's where craziness comes from.
That's where you start to get lost.
You start to anticipate and get obsessed, and you get worked up.
Because what isn't there is infinite, you see.
It's like concepts.
Concepts are infinite.
If you start noting concepts, you can get lost.
You start noting what's not there, you'll tie yourself in knots.
Never note something that's not there.
Never no anticipation, expectation, nothing.
If it's not there, don't note it.
This is important.
Really good question, actually.
Important to answer anyway.
It is so hard to maintain mindfulness when my friends are venting their problems to me.
I know they only want me to be there and be a moral support, but it is so tiring.
Bonte, how should I proceed?
Well, good practice for you.
If you want to be a Buddhist, it's not about taking an easy path.
An easy path would be to tell them to get lost, take their problems and go.
The Buddhist way is to be patient and bear with difficult situations.
It's great practice, dealing with situations that make you tired.
That being said, to some extent you have to preserve your energy.
So don't like put yourself in those kinds of situations.
I would say find friends that don't.
Find friends that are mindful, you know, meditative friends.
It's the importance of good friends.
You can see it through this.
Absolutely be there for people as much as you can, but
Find time for yourself as well.
I mean, don't go seeking out friendship, especially with people who are intent upon complaining, for example.
But, you know, whatever you can do to help people, it's good on you.
It's a good deed.
And it's good practice.
I have recently reverted to using the mantra rising and falling, but can't understand how the abdomen is doing either.
Through my few years of practice, I've come to see that it contracts muscles to expand the whole and expands muscles to contract the whole abdomen.
When there's tensions, the shoulders rise and fall.
And sometimes the mind focuses on the rising and falling feeling of the diaphragm.
But it rises when relaxed, contracted abdomen, and lowers when tightened, expanded abdomen.
But that is opposite to the prescribed mantra usage.
What are your thoughts and determinations advice for this?
I am being mindful of the states, thoughts, and circumstances brought about by this already.
Just to be clear, I do, however, understand how I can use these words to stay focused on what is happening.
A little bit more.
I understand the purpose of using the words rising and falling.
And yes, it seems more accurate when lying on my back, which I don't do during formal meditation.
Well, that's the thing.
These words only make sense to a native English speaker, which I'm pretty sure you are.
But in English, colloquially, the word rising is this.
It's not actually rising.
But a rising of the abdomen is an expansion.
We say this for rising.
So for a non-English speaker, it's kind of baffling as to why we would say rising.
It's not actually rising.
It's a problem, actually.
And so in many languages they'll say instead expanding and contraction like in French.
Some people say gonflé, dégonflé, inflating, deflating.
In Thai they say pong which means like expanding really or inflating.
And yuk means to collapse.
So, to inflate and to collapse.
German, heben sink and sink into sink.
Heben to, I guess, I don't know German.
But English has this curious rising, falling.
But you should understand it not as increasing in elevation, but rising is like bread rising.
It's this expansion.
So yes, it does probably come from lying on your back when you can actually see it rising and falling.
We don't have to use those words.
You can say inflating, deflating, expanding, attracting.
But for me, rising and falling just means this and this.
Those are the words I use.
Is it wise of me to choose this tradition of Buddhism and you as my teacher based on feelings of liking?
I have listened to many teachings, and I always come back to yours as they seem to talk to me more deeply, and I have a sense of truth in them.
Well, I mean, let me talk about myself.
I tend to think that the teachings that I give are
Not my teaching it, but the things that I teach are better than some of the other things out there.
That's why I teach them.
So using that as an example, I would say if the teachings, a specific sort of teaching, strikes you as better than another type of teaching, then that is ostensibly, on the surface anyway, superficially, a good reason to choose those teachings.
If it's just about liking the teacher, I would say that's problematic because there are lots of charismatic people out there who teach things that are all messed up.
So be somewhat circumspect.
And even if something does seem right to you, you have to ask yourself, well, who am I?
How do I know that I'm not just misled, misguided, that I just don't have wrong understanding?
So to some extent, you have to challenge even that.
The best way is to keep in mind that when you put something into practice, it's the results.
it's the experience of doing something like if someone if you have a charismatic teacher and the teachings seem reasonable and impressive but then when you go to practice it feels like you feel like you're doing something wrong like you're not actually working out your problems not actually facing your problems
that you're doing something strange.
I mean, a lot of the bad teachings, I would say, are very specific.
Like they suddenly tell you to focus on some specific entity or thing or start to give you weird practices.
That's where the warning signs should come up.
I mean, the teaching that we do is very, I would say, very neutral, objective, natural.
Non-specific general applicable to in all circumstances, and I think that's what great about its universal It's not like compassion say compassion is very specific.
It's a good thing, but it's quite specific To say that compassion is the ultimate state Doesn't really ring true
You know, love, people who say love is all you need, right?
It's all about love.
Well, no, not really.
Love is a good state, a great state.
Other beings who talk about God, you know, if someone starts to talk about something like God,
immediately you've got a problem because that's very specific.
It's a specific aspect of the universe.
You say, oh no, God is all-encompassing.
Well, not really.
God is a concept.
I mean, even if he were real or it were real, it's just something we conceive of in the mind for now.
But it's not really anything to do with the reality that we're faced.
The practice we do speaks to every situation, every experience that we have.
I think that's important.
It doesn't quite answer your question.
Short answer, be very careful.
It's a good indication.
If someone is charismatic, well, that's a good thing.
If someone is able to explain things clearly, well, that's a good thing.
If the things that they explain sound reasonable, that's a good thing.
But hopefully some of the things I've just said about it being universally applicable can help you to sort of see why a teaching like this would be worth appreciating.
And I think this question wasn't necessarily directed to you.
It might have been to the community.
But it's kind of a good question, I think.
A person used to meditate without a timer.
And they meditated as much as they needed.
And they didn't feel distracted.
But now that they're using a timer, they feel distracted.
Yeah, well, that's reasonable.
And you don't really have to use a timer.
But there is something there.
At the very least, you could say it's a good practice, watching yourself get obsessed with time.
because but that's not the reason we don't use the timer to give us that challenge is the timer to make sure that we're not doing more walking than sitting or more sitting than walking and to make sure that we're not shirking our our our determination so if you say I'm going to sit for 30 minutes it's important that you know that you actually sat for 30 minutes and didn't flake off after 10 that's why we use the timer to keep ourselves honest and to force ourselves
you don't want to follow your, your heart, you know, your desires, sit, walk until you want to sit, sit until you want to sit.
Bad move, bad idea.
Because it's those desires, it's those partialities that we're trying to do away with.
So forcing yourself to sit and walk exactly the same amount is a very important practice.
Even just forcing yourself to sit for a specified time.
Because you can't follow your desires.
This is why listening to a Dhamma talk, listening to a Dhamma talk like this is far inferior to listening to one live.
for several reasons, but the most obvious reason, because if you're listening to a Dhamma talk live, you have to sit still.
How many of you are sitting still?
How many of you are not clicking back and forth between things?
How many of you are checking Facebook while I talk?
I don't know maybe hopefully none but I wouldn't be surprised so the timer is a way of keeping yourself if you follow the timer while it keeps you from just getting up whenever you want so that's a really important quality but also it's important to eat to practice
objectivity about your obsession with the time is it going to go off am I done those kind of worries because they're very they're the exact same worries that we have in in our ordinary life about everything else about our work about study about the way we live our lives everything is everything is connected we react in similar ways to all aspects of our life meditation just shows them to us
So take that as an opportunity to train yourself to be more objective and less obsessed with time.
Do you think, Bhante, just like the meditators and, of course, who can determine to wake up after four hours, can you get to the point where you just kind of know when that amount of time has passed?
Yeah, yeah, certainly.
But it's not certain.
You can, but it's not always going to work.
In the olden days, they would use incense.
You take an incense stick, and when the incense burns down, you know you've sat long enough, or walked long enough, or sat long enough, just to keep it even.
One incense stick, one walking.
One incense stick, one sitting.
One other good reason to use it so is not to miss the Dhamma talk at night.
Looking at evolution and the technical evolution we are in right now, Buddhism speaks of the next Buddha called Maitreya when looking far ahead.
Could Maitreya be an AI system?
I did read your booklet, and I do meditate.
The reason I'm asking this is because there is no proof consciousness is only limited as an organic form.
Also, this question won't help my meditation practice, but I am just curious.
Let's be clear.
Consciousness isn't dependent on the body.
Now physical states can give rise to mental states.
There is that kind of interaction.
But mental states can also give rise to mental states.
So there are beings without a corporeal body.
The idea that a being could inhabit a silicon-based brain or something, machine, it's not impossible because it's whatever the mind clings to.
Now, it would be in a far different form for a human to go to that form directly.
think would be somewhat in somewhat unlikely because we're we're so caught up in the system that we have being born and die and born and die as humans and animals that
Oh, I don't know.
It's all speculation.
We can be born.
There are cases where we're born as angels.
So that's born immediately, fully formed.
Um, but your question whether Medea will be an AI.
No, he won't.
Medea will be a human being.
Um,
What kind of human being he will be, I don't know.
I mean, maybe there will be some technology that we're using to live longer.
Maybe his body will look different.
But I'm sorry.
I think I've actually misunderstood your question.
Because if you're actually suggesting, I was thinking you were talking about a physical basis that was machine-based.
But you're actually talking about artificial intelligence.
I've answered this question before.
Artificial intelligence isn't real intelligence.
I mean I can program an artificial intelligence well actually I get I've used when I what I mean to say is when I was six years old I used an artificial intelligence way back in the 80s they were there were programs for the Apple TV where you would it would play guessing games so you think of something and it would ask you a question about it so it knew only like one question and
Is it an animal or is it a vegetable?
Something like that.
That was the question.
Animal, vegetable, and minerals.
That was something.
Is it an animal?
No.
Is it a vegetable?
Yes.
OK. And then it would say, is it a carrot?
No, it's not a carrot.
Well, what was it?
And you'd say, it was an apple.
What question could I ask to differentiate between a carrot and an apple?
And you'd teach it.
You'd tell it, well, a carrot is orange, an apple is red.
So you'd ask, is it red?
You could actually do this, and this basic machine would learn.
Now, is that to say that there is a consciousness?
It's ridiculous to think that there's a consciousness behind that.
It doesn't take consciousness to do any of that.
So no matter how complicated that gets, the idea that suddenly, poof, consciousness arises,
Consciousness doesn't arise like that.
If consciousness came to manipulate a silicon-based brain, then you could have a being conscious in the AI system.
But the ways in which it would interact, I mean, I don't know.
It's all getting very speculative.
But it's important that you don't
confuse artificial intelligence with true consciousness.
Artificial intelligence has nothing to do with consciousness at all.
It doesn't even come close.
It doesn't come closer to consciousness than a rock at all.
It's just manipulating of energies, manipulating of systems by human beings.
manipulating of systems to provide information that we then process in meaningful ways.
We manipulate systems in ways that are meaningful to us.
instead of allowing things to go allowing energy to go towards entropy we pull the energy together and manipulate it in such a way as to create electricity computer circuits and finally what we call ai but it's all our device it's all only because we find it meaningful we do it we set it up in a way that we find meaningful it's based on our intelligence
There's no such thing as AI doesn't become conscious.
It's not related.
It's not related to consciousness at all.
Some might disagree, but yeah, pretty sure pretty confident in that answer.
Fonte, in our tradition, is it believed that only humans will become a Buddha?
Yeah, that's the orthodox understanding.
I mean, it's pretty clear that it's not exactly a human because the orthodox understanding is that they live for thousands of years.
So could that be bionics?
I don't know.
I mean, there's nothing stopping us theoretically from living much longer than we do.
We can just stop the aging process and they're working on it even today.
Some people believe it's right around the corner.
But the idea is it's the human realm.
And I guess by that, it just means the height of the animal realm, the height of the realm of corporeal beings as opposed to divine beings.
Beyond seeing them clearly as they arise, how should one deal with feelings of ostracization?
being ostracized.
Why are you looking for another way?
Are you saying the Buddha's way doesn't work?
I mean, everything can be dealt with conventionally.
There are all sorts of auxiliary practices you can use.
So reading the Buddha's teaching and learning about how the Buddha taught to be alone is good for you.
Being alone is the greatest.
Being alone is like being God.
Gods are alone.
Gods live singularly.
It's only angels and human beings that live in groups.
So there's greatness in being alone, that kind of thing.
I guess I should be able to provide you with some encouragement.
Don't worry about being ostracized.
But you have to understand it through your practice.
You have to see that the feeling is the problem, not the ostracization.
So ultimately, meditation is the best way.
Bhante, can painful, unpleasant mental feelings, uidana, arise without ignorance, aversion associated with them?
No.
No, because doma nasa is always associated with patiga.
Patiga is dosa jita, dosa jita.
All are associated with ignorance, delusion.
Moha.
I don't answer questions about Kundalini because I don't really even understand what it is.
Certainly not a Buddhist concept.
Sorry.
Bhante, have you seen the Buddhist tooth and how huge is it?
The Buddha was obviously a perfect one.
Do you have any thoughts?
Some people say apparently inside the tooth relic there's actually a real tooth and that the outside is just a casing.
They took some x-rays of it.
Some British people did, I think.
I don't have any thoughts on that.
And that's a good note to end on tonight.
Some good questions.
Thank you all.
Let's call it a night there.
Thank you, Bhante.
Good night.