Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to our live broadcast.
I don't know what happened to our live meditators.
I think they're not here yet.
But we have three meditators now.
We'll just wait a couple of minutes, see if they come up.
We have now two Canadians, two Ontarians.
That's new.
We've been...
blessed by having so many people come from faraway places.
Here comes one of them now.
There's our Englander.
But today, someone came from Windsor, Ontario, which is on the border of America.
So we're pretty much on the border here.
We have three meditators, and I think we're expecting a fourth one sometime soon, right?
We're going to be full up.
Our new meditator may not come up.
She may be getting settled in.
So today we're looking at Anguttara Nikaya Book of Sixes, Sutta 22 Sutta 22 is a good example of the topic we'd like to talk about tonight The topic of tonight's Dhamma is Parihāniya and Apparihāniya It's a concept that the Buddha looks at
from time to time.
We have in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, at the beginning, we have Ajatasattu, I think, or is it Pasenadi?
A king sends someone to the Buddha to ask him, Hey, I want to go and invade this country.
Am I going to succeed?
And the Buddha asks Ananda whether this country that he wants to invade, whether they're keeping to a certain number of things.
It's a set of Dhammas that lead to civilization not to decline.
Anyway, it sets the stage for a long talk, several lists of things that lead to non-decline.
That's not this list.
It's not these Dhammas.
But it's a
It's a topic that the Buddha has brought up.
It's a way of discussing the Dhamma that the Buddha employs.
Because it's really a big part of it.
It speaks to the concern that a person has on any path, success and failure, progress
and whatever the opposite of progress is.
Getting better and getting worse.
Are we becoming a better person, right?
Are we getting closer to the goal?
Am I on the right path?
Am I doing the right thing?
Am I practicing correctly?
Am I doing what's good for me?
Is what I'm doing the right thing, the good thing?
So we have this question of how we how we should know or how we should act and what we should do to keep progressing.
How do we ensure that our
whether it be spiritual or mundane, that it leads us in the direction of peace, happiness, of success.
So this is one list here that we have tonight.
There's a couple of different ones in this section.
And this is also in the Book of Sevens.
I think it adds another factor, but that's okay.
These six are good enough.
It's a good list.
That's one that my teacher brings, used to bring up a lot.
So that's one that piqued my interest as I skimmed through.
I came to this one, and ah, here's one that we have to bring up for meditators, because this is a sort of a classic advice for meditators.
practicing, doing everything right, you are engaged in the practice of insight meditation, which is praiseworthy, worthy of admiration.
It's wonderful to see people actually dedicate their lives to hours and hours of meditation.
It's incredible to see something that is
very much worth our appreciation and our support.
We support it.
It's a wonderful thing to be able to say that we invite people to come here for free and just give them the opportunity.
It's wonderful to be able to say that we have people who take this opportunity.
This camera
We've got a camera facing the room, right?
So you can see these people, two of them anyway, right now.
I mean, part of the reason for that is to say, see, see, there are people who are doing this to impress and to make it
To make real the fact that people actually do take this time to provide a role model, if you will.
To provide the inspiration.
Part of what being a monk is, or going into society as a monk, it feels like there's some sort of inspiration there, where you offer people an interesting, novel example of a way of living one's life.
But a meditator is so much more.
When you see someone meditating, when you hear about people meditating, it's a wonderful inspiration.
We have all these questions and concerns, we have problems.
People I talk to, people you must talk to, we talk to in the world, dealing with their issues, breaking down, crying.
How many tears every day are crying in this earth?
How many tears are shed per day?
We should see if we could
calculate how many gallons how many metric tons of water are shed of tears are shed per day everywhere take a survey of any given neighborhood and the pain and suffering you'd find so when people are dealing with their issues
and here we have we have a we have a means for overcoming the suffering so here you are come to meditate come to cultivate the path of insight the path of purification but
With your nose to the grindstone, plodding away, walking and sitting, walking and sitting.
Waking up early, going to sleep late.
There comes this question, or as a teacher we have this concern to make sure that you stay on track.
Because it can happen that while you're meditating, certain things will take you away from the practice, detract from your practice.
There's a lot less of this here.
It's actually quite wonderful if you can bear with it.
Being in a place like this,
To meditate in a place like this is actually a rare opportunity.
It might not seem like that, and I think people will, in many cases, be turned off of coming to practice in a house in Canada, right?
Who would want to come here when you could go to Thailand?
That's what I would think.
I wouldn't have come to a house in Canada to meditate.
I just wouldn't have done it.
Not when I could go to Thailand and get the real thing, right?
The funny thing is you go to Thailand and well, there is something genuine about it.
Because in Thailand meditation centers are very well established.
You've got the problems of stagnation.
which are that in a large, well-established meditation center, there's a lot of busyness, there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of distraction.
There's many opportunities for getting off track, unfortunately.
Because as with everything, as it grows, it rots.
Not entirely, and there's good in it, power in it, but there's also a lot of rot.
unfortunately.
So here you don't have a lot of these problems but still if you want to optimize your practice there are certain things that you have to fine tune about your practice.
So what are they?
Here are the six.
Finally we get to them.
After all that introduction.
The Buddha says, O bhikkhus, I will
teach you these six Dhammas that lead you not to not to fade away not to decline not to get off track or get lost fall away from the Dhamma looking to gain something to cultivate spiritual insight clarity of mind get closer to the
understanding of the truth of reality things that will keep you from that that will cause you to lose your way on the path so what are these six?
the six that will cause you to lose your way and if you avoid these you will stay centered on the path so kamma ramata
being delighted or enjoying, liking.
Work.
So when you're meditating you have to be careful not to work too much.
Some people will fill up their days with work.
There's one good story in the Dhammapada about a monk who swept all day.
And the other monks were quite impressed.
And they would say, wow, yeah, this guy is a real energetic person with a good work ethic.
He's an energetic monk, not lazy.
It's a good quality.
The Buddha said, you need energy.
And so they told the Buddha.
And the Buddha said, a person who sweeps all the time isn't called a monk.
They're called a janitor.
I have this story.
What happens is, of course, meditation is difficult.
It's difficult to be patient and to be still and to stay with your experiences.
So we find ways of mitigating that.
And to some extent it's good to take a break, right?
You want to have a cup of tea.
Not because tea is important, but because it's a way of relaxing.
It makes it easier.
It's stepping back and saying, okay, I need to relax and try again.
It's admitting your failing and your imperfection.
Yes, I can.
I should just be meditating all the time, but I just need a break.
I'm not perfect, so I need to take some time off.
But then you start to take longer breaks and then you do some cleaning up, right?
You take time out of every day.
I remember having a daily ritual of, okay, this is the time of day when I'll do my sweeping or this is when I'll do my cleaning.
And it's good to have that kind of a ritual.
It gives you some stability and gives you, as I said, a chance to step back.
But in certain cases it becomes a crutch and then you find more things to do and you start looking for work.
It's easier.
It's easier to sweep all day than it is to meditate all day, certainly.
And so some monks would sweep the whole monastery, sweep in the morning, sweep in the afternoon.
There was one nun in our monastery who did this.
And she was a little bit off.
So she'd come around and I remember, I had no idea, she'd come around and she'd mutter things.
And I had no idea what she was saying, but I remember sitting with a monk and found out that she was actually quite, she had quite a foul mouth.
But for the longest time, I thought she was maybe quite an impressive person, sweeping the whole monastery every day, every day, working, working very hard, and muttering to herself.
She was crazy.
She was actually quite foul-mouthed in a way that I didn't understand.
It's a simple point.
Don't get too caught up in work.
Don't get caught up in extracurricular activities.
Of course, in truth, if you're sweeping, you can do it mindfully.
And to some extent, that's a good part and a proper part of the practice.
I mean it is necessary and even in our center I'm telling all the meditators to do cleaning, to spend some little time every day because we don't have a janitor, we don't have anyone looking after this place, this is our place to look after.
And so mindful cleaning is an important part of your day, it should be a part of your schedule.
But just don't get caught up because it can happen that you, hey, this is easy.
I can vacuuming.
I can be mindful.
Not as mindful, but you think, well, it's more comfortable.
So I'll do a whole bunch of other work.
Later on in the course, you know, in a standard
In the meditation center we would never have people cooking, even reheating their own food.
Near the end of the course we'd actually bring the meditators food in a container.
We'd have these stacked containers and we'd bring the food to their room and we wouldn't even let them leave their room.
In fact, even times before my time, apparently, anyone who came to the monastery, they wouldn't even let them leave the room from day one.
So they'd bring them food every day, and the teacher would come and see them at their room, come to the door, knock on the door, ask them about their practice, and then close the door and move on.
So for 21 days, for 30 days, you'd just be in your room the whole time.
Now, we don't expect meditators to be able to handle that, but it's a good example to think of.
Don't get too caught up in extracurriculars.
Number two, bahasa Ramata.
So the second one is some people get caught up in talking.
Again, here we don't have such a problem because there's not too many meditators, but we're in close con... close quarters, close confines.
We have four rooms in the basement and there's not really a living area, but there is a tea area, so it's possible that while you're getting a cup of tea, someone else might be getting a cup of tea and then there's an inclination to chat
And it's quite a relief to be able to talk, right?
To take your mind off of the practice.
Of course that means to put behind your mindfulness and to stop thinking about your reality, your universe, and to start to
expand your mind into other people's universes and their problems and you get back into the realm of concepts and relationships you get into all sorts of potential difficulties
At the very least, you fall back into this idle chatter of the mind.
You find that after you've relaxed talking to someone, it's that much more difficult to get back to your meditation.
Your mind is distracted.
Your mind is diffused.
You're not able to focus on your experiences because your mind is caught up in the world of concepts.
caught up in the other person.
I remember when we did this, our teacher was a terrible meditator when I first started.
I had no clue what I was doing.
But none of us did.
It wasn't just me.
Must have been some kind of karma because the day I arrived and like the day after there were like four of us and I'll still remember those guys.
We just all showed up at the same period.
It was like we were probably monks or ascetics in a past life together.
And so me and Har...
Harvey.
Me and Harvey and Cosmo.
Cosmo was another Canadian and one other really tall guy.
I can't remember his name.
But we were all, we sat around and talked and there was an old guy from England who later became a monk and he was a real troublemaker.
But our teacher came up, we're sitting at the table in the morning chatting and this guy from, this old guy's telling us all sorts of crazy things like about his child abuse when he was younger and our teacher walks up and says,
Yeah, you know, I got in trouble.
Anyway, he starts hinting at the fact, telling us this story about how his teacher got him in trouble, or his teacher scolded him, or he had to beg with his teacher to let us out of our rooms and let us come and eat in a common area, but he had to promise that we wouldn't talk together.
It just went completely over our heads.
We're like, oh yeah, that's interesting.
And we started chatting with him, and
he's just glaring at us trying to because in Thailand they'll never tell you outright hey you guys have to be quiet and go back to your rooms they just hint at it and here we are these dumb westerners who couldn't take the hint and to a great extent it made practice that much more difficult
I think there were only two of us who actually finished the course.
Maybe I was the only one.
I'm not sure about the other two.
They had more difficulty.
Harvey didn't finish the course.
And I remember feeling quite bad about it because
Near the end of the course, they have you do some fairly difficult, the practice gets fairly difficult, and I couldn't take it.
So I went, they gave us this exercise to do, and I went to see Harvey.
And I said to Harvey, I said, man, are you doing this?
I don't think I can do this.
And he said, I don't know.
I said, yeah, I'm thinking I might leave.
And then one of the teachers caught me talking to him and said, hey, you can't talk to him.
Go back to your room.
So I went back to my room and I struggled with it and I actually ended up finishing rather poorly and not satisfactorily, but I finished.
And then I went and talked to Harvey after I finished and he said, yeah, I thought to myself, he said, I didn't finish, I thought to myself, Noah's not going to do it, I'm not going to do it.
So I ruined his practice by talking to him.
So my long-winded way of giving an example of how speech causes all sorts of problems, talking to other meditators can be a big danger, a big hindrance in the practice.
Try to be careful.
Don't share your conditions with others because you affect each other's emotions.
We're quite vulnerable, right?
You've dropped down all your guards and you're trying to be honest.
In meditation, sometimes really violent emotions come up because you're allowing them to come up.
When you're angry, you're no longer saying, okay, find some way to avoid that.
Let's go out and pretend it's all good.
And your anger, you're letting the anger come up.
When you're angry, when you're greedy, whatever state your mind is, you're saying, okay, okay, let's look and work through this naturally rather than repressing it.
So if during that time you go and connect with someone else, you can ruin each other.
You can cause more harm to each other than you would in normal life.
Meditation practice is a vulnerable sort of time.
Meditators will leave here thinking they're quite more relaxed.
They've been able to let their guard down and they feel stronger because nothing's
Nothing's confronting them.
They're not confronted by any challenges, so they feel much stronger, like they've gained a lot from the practice, more than they actually have in truth.
But it's simply because living in the meditation center, there's nothing, they're not confronted by any conflicts or challenges.
And when they leave, because they've let their guard down, it can be quite difficult.
So just to say that
Meditators are vulnerable and getting too involved with each other is a problem.
So don't talk too much is the point.
Number two.
Number three.
Nidaramata.
Sleeping.
You get caught up in sleeping.
You like to sleep.
This is a real challenge, but it's kind of a liberating challenge.
Meditators tend to, I would say, tend to find this a fairly, on the whole, a fairly reasonable challenge.
Learning to see how attached we are to sleeping, how pleasurable it is to sleep, to...
To fade into oblivion, to put our problems behind and just let go.
So comforting to sleep, right?
Comforting to be able to lie down.
So we get attached to this state of oblivion.
Of course, what you start to notice in the practice is that when you wake up in the morning, you've lost a lot of your mindfulness.
It's not nearly as peaceful as we think.
It's actually all mixed up.
If we sleep muddled, if we fall asleep with an agitated mind, we're agitated throughout the night.
Because we don't have the mindfulness working, we wake up in a muddled state.
And so we try to restrict our sleep to the bare minimum, what we need.
We don't sleep more than six hours, and then we try to later cut it down to four hours.
And you can see that if you really fine-tune your practice, four hours is actually plenty of sleep.
It's quite surprising, actually.
Most people wouldn't think that four hours of sleep would be enough.
But when your mind is fine-tuned, you wouldn't want more.
and feel like more would be actually deleterious to your state of mind.
You have to be careful about sleep.
Sleep is an obstacle to your practice.
So Mahasi Sayadaw describes this effort by the meditator to stay awake.
that you should look at sleep as your enemy.
Sleep is this enemy waiting for you.
It's like death.
You don't want to die soon.
You don't want to give in to your enemy.
You want to fight to the bitter end.
Some meditators should fight to the bitter end not to fall asleep.
Maybe not to that extent, but
And to some extent you should look at sleep as your enemy.
And when you do lie down and you concede that you can no longer sit up and your head's nodding and walking isn't going to work anymore, sitting isn't going to work anymore, then you give in to sleep.
But you don't give in.
You lie down.
You give in to your fatigue and say, I'm going to lie down.
But you don't yet try to fall asleep.
You don't wish for sleep to come.
You don't wait for sleep to come.
You try your best to be mindful, watching the stomach rising and falling.
And eventually, until eventually you fall asleep.
If you think like that, it's not difficult.
And the Buddha said, before you fall asleep, you make a note of when you're going to rise.
And what that means is that the last thought in your mind, or conscious in your mind to the very end, is the sense of the boundaries of that sleep, that you're not going to oversleep.
And as a result, you wake up generally on time.
It's quite interesting how the mind can
can time six hours or four hours.
And you find after a little bit of time, you wake up just before your alarm goes off.
Every time.
It's quite impressive that the mind is able to do that.
I'm quite sure how that works.
Nidaramata.
Don't get attached to sleep.
Number four.
Nasanganikaramata.
This is like number two where it's hand in hand.
Sanghanika is community.
One way of looking at this apart from speech is the need for community.
A lot of meditators swear by meditation in groups.
Our tradition doesn't really.
And meditators here will find they do a lot more meditating on their own.
But it is possible.
It's one way of looking at this, is the need to be in a group.
The problem with being in a group is you tend, it's better, it's easier because in a way you're performing.
You know people are conscious of your presence.
And so it's partially an act, right?
To stay still, to stay mindful, to not look.
like the dope that you are.
We know when we're in our rooms we're struggling, but when we come up in the hall everyone looks like a Buddha.
That's not quite real.
So there is some benefit in terms of cultivating concentration, and there's a benefit to that in terms of keeping you honest.
Whereas in your room you could peek, you wouldn't peek when you're in the meditation hall.
Not so much.
You'd be embarrassed too, and that's good.
But it's also good to be on your own.
And it's, I would say, in the end, better to naturally overcome these things rather than have to be artificially forced by others.
Anyway, in general, all of what I said for speech applies to community.
This is about you, your universe.
Your universe is within your six-foot frame.
That's where your mind should stay.
It should have nothing to do with others.
A true meditator doesn't require or doesn't take reference to the other people in the room.
Their reality is the six senses and so therefore it doesn't matter where they are.
And this is something liberating about the meditation.
It's impressive that you're able to stay on your own for so long.
I mean, just the thought for most people of staying in a room for hours on end, it's like prison, right?
Prison doesn't, that aspect of prison doesn't actually sound so bad for a meditator because it can be quite peaceful.
Number five, sovajasattva.
Sovajasattva comes from sut.
Sut and vajja.
Suwacca.
Su here means easy.
Wacca means speech.
One towards whom it is easy to speak.
What this means is that you're obedient.
You do what I say.
I tell you to stand on your head, you stand on your head.
Being easy to admonish.
Not being argumentative.
When I tell you to do something, to do it.
to be careful to follow the teacher's advice.
It's quite important because we have, I mean, in this tradition, I think it's something we can get away with saying.
I mean, you wouldn't always want to follow that advice, right?
Sometimes you want to question if you don't know what the teacher, you're not confident of what the teacher is teaching.
But in this tradition, there's nothing to doubt about.
There's no question that what we're teaching is somehow biased or
perverted or something it's quite simple what we give you to do but there is a method to it if you push ahead beyond what the teacher gives you it's dangerous because you start you start to you get beyond yourself and you'll end up just concentrating or you give up what the teacher is teaching and you won't progress
You start doing something different and you get totally off track and who knows where you're going to end up.
We have a fairly regimented program that's tried, tested and true to keep you on track and keep you going at a patient but steady rate.
And help you build up power at an appropriate rate.
And so ideally the teacher, I mean this is a skill that the teacher has to learn,
how to, when to push the student, when to hold them back, and this delicate balance of not pushing too hard and yet continuing to challenge the meditator.
That's our job as a teacher.
It's your job as a meditator to listen, to be easy to admonish, easy to teach.
And number six, kalyanamitata.
It means good friendship.
You need a teacher.
You want to progress.
This would be important for someone living in a monastery, a monk living in a monastery.
It would be important that they consider their friends and that they consider the teachers in the monastery, that they don't lose track of their teachers.
It's important for all of you out there that you find someone
who you can have a relationship with as a teacher-student.
This is what we offer here through our online courses.
or come to a meditation center here.
We offer modest facilities, both online and here in person.
Of course, we can't help everybody, but finding a place and finding a teacher, that element of good friendship that exists between a teacher and a student, the teacher is considered to be the best friend.
Not because they sit with you and hold your hand, but because they give you the opportunity to practice and they give you the advice
direction that you need to continue on the path.
These are the six things.
It's not that difficult.
Keep to them.
It's as good a list as any to keep you on the path, keep you from getting off the path or backsliding.
Yeah, there's more, but we'll stick to these ones for tonight.
That's the Dhamma for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Do we have questions?
We have questions.
We will now go to answering questions.
A relative whose son recently got married came today to offer clothes and sweetmeats, etc.
as the trigger division here.
After greeting them, I guess one was also expected to engage in small talk, but that proved to be rather difficult.
Seeing that they were totally consumed by the pleasure the occasion brought to them, I couldn't help but remind them and myself that instead we should
Instead, we should be remembering that death can strike us at any time, and therefore we should not get carried away by emotions and always be mindful of our thoughts and actions.
And this is the advice we should be giving the newlyweds, too, so that they may also reduce and ultimately get rid of suffering.
I felt that the mention of death and suffering on the auspicious occasion upset them, and they left soon after without saying much.
I felt bad for bursting their bubble and for being cold, but I genuinely could not see the point behind all the excitement.
However, I did write them a text apologizing for hurting them because that is not what my intention was.
One thing my question is, what is one to do in such worldly situations where customs and traditions demand from you that you must say and act in a certain way no matter how false and meaningless that might be?
How does one get these worldly fears done without hurting others, yet remaining in line with the teachings of the Buddha?
Thank you very much.
Yes, you have entered the world of the religious people.
Do you think with this age-old dilemma of the religious person, how to live your religion without being a total and utter jerk about it?
There was this Czech monk who called it Buddhist jihad.
That's maybe an awful thing.
I don't know.
Is that PC to say?
I don't know, but that's what he called it.
What he means is Buddhists often go on a rampage trying to convert other people.
Maybe a better one would be Buddhist evangelical.
Buddhist evangelical.
It's like being a Buddhist wet blanket.
Yeah, well, we fall into it.
It's quite a simple rule of thumb.
It's just a shame that it's not often taught or adhered to.
Anyway, this is a chronic problem.
But the general rule of thumb is if they're not your child, your student, or in certain cases, your sibling,
You have no reason to, you have no right or no duty, and duty is maybe the best way of putting it, to teach anyone.
It's not your job.
I mean, it's quite different.
I understand how you fall into this, and this is a common thing to fall into, but it's quite different to ask what you're asking.
How do I deal with worldly things?
It's quite different from, that's quite different from
addressing how you should force or convince other people to act appropriately, right?
So, I mean, I guess it might seem at times easier to just convince everybody else not to engage in idle chatter and small talk because otherwise you're the odd one out, right?
But that really is maybe the harder way in that instance.
But it is a divide you have to make.
And so the way it should truly go is you yourself maintain your equanimity, your silence, your calm, to some extent.
I mean, you can engage in small talk, pleasantries.
There is a purpose to that.
It's not idle chatter.
Wishing each other well, that kind of thing.
Expressing your appreciation of others.
Asking people where they're from, telling people where you're from, this is all information, informative.
And it takes a certain amount of mindfulness to be able to find the boundary between basic conversational etiquette and idle chatter.
There's a fine line.
Remember Ajahn Thong would
We all, there was a group of us who were around him.
When I was learning to teach, I would sit with him for hours and some of those hours were consumed by people who just wanted to talk his ear off.
There was an old nun who would come and sit with him for like at least a half an hour, telling him nothing, talking to him about just her aches and her pains and her relatives and his relatives.
And he would just sit there and kind of nod and smile.
And he would even ask questions at times.
He just has a heart of gold.
There's not a bitter bone in his body.
It's quite impressive.
And the rest of us are kind of like looking at our clocks and wondering when it's going to be over.
And he's just at peace with it.
So to some extent, a truly skilled meditator can blend in quite peacefully, but most of us can't.
I mean, it's understandable if that creates conflict.
And that's where the conflict would come, when people start accusing you of being stiff and so on.
But it should never come to the point where people feel affronted.
You know you've done something wrong when people feel affronted by your speech.
And that's normal.
It's normal to get it wrong.
But it's wrong to try to convince people to practice the Dhamma.
It's not your job.
And as you can see, you can see the results.
Never do something that has bad results.
And you can see if it has bad results.
Well, that's not always the case.
Sometimes you can do something for the right reason at the right time and yet...
due to unforeseen circumstances, or sometimes even foreseen, the party might be upset.
Sometimes you have to upset people, but I would say that's much more rare than actually doing or saying the wrong thing.
You shouldn't feel bad or guilty about it.
That's of course not wholesome or useful, but it should cause you to realign yourself.
And over time a Buddhist meditator will become more comfortable with themselves and less eager to push their ideas on others.
So what you will get, and this is much more, I think, in line with the Dhamma, is the times when people accuse you of being quiet and aloof, boring, antisocial.
That should be, as I said, should be appeased over time.
I remember going to my mother's wedding.
I'm still a layperson.
And I actually...
quite eagerly took up the job of cameraman because I kind of wanted to get away from the social aspect of it.
So I took up the camera and I started snapping all sorts of photographs.
But then we were sitting down to eat and I just remember sitting there and everyone all around me is singing and chatting and carrying on and drinking alcohol.
Weddings can be terrible things.
Alcohol.
And I'm just sitting there eating my food, chewing, chewing, swallowing.
And if you're peaceful about it and you don't engage and you don't try to...
I mean, to some extent you can pull back and not be a wet blanket.
about it, but sometimes it's unavoidable.
I mean, absolutely, some people who are ignorant and uncultured are always going to expect you to act in certain ways that are actually unwholesome.
And you can just tell them, tell them that you're a meditator.
That's where the conversation could come, should come, when people confront you about your antisocial behavior.
then there's an opening for teaching.
It's an appropriate opening and that's where the dialogue should take place.
Not that you're trying to convert people or you have any duty to convert them, but that's where true
peace comes from.
Because then you have this dialogue whereby that person becomes aware of a new way of looking at the world that is not entirely boisterous and overjoyed.
It's more sublime and relaxed and content.
You can talk about meditation.
It's a good way to relax.
I'm a meditator.
It's just the way I am.
I'm okay.
I'm happy.
But
I'm not really a social being.
I try to stay mindful in myself.
I mean, in India you can certainly get away with that sort of thing.
I think as soon as you bring up the concept of religion, you can get away with walking around naked, for example.
So if some guy could get away with walking around naked, I'm pretty sure you can get away with being a little bit quiet.
Of course with family there's expectations, but you're definitely going to disappoint your family if you become a meditator.
That's pretty much guaranteed in this day and age, unfortunately, unless your family is a bunch of meditators.
For the most part they'll be disappointed in you and shaken up by the change because we expect our family members to be
It's the word to be constant, unchanging.
And this is why conflict arises, because family members change.
They do things that are unexpected, that are undesired.
When you change, it disturbs your family members, and that's inevitable.
You're going to have that conflict where you meditate, they don't like you as a meditator,
I don't agree with this new quiet, unentertaining you.
But yeah, going the next step of trying to convert everybody around you is generally not a very good idea.
And certainly it's not your duty as a Buddhist.
That's an important distinction to make.
I'll click on this one as well.
Hello, I have two questions.
One is, is there another way besides meditation to balance the five faculties?
Is it effort, belief, concentration, wisdom, and mindfulness?
Reason for asking, not enough time to meditate, you feel a very slow mindfulness.
That's a good one.
It's kind of, I don't know.
I'm not able to do the thing that's going to cure me, so is there anything else I can do?
It's kind of what you're asking, right?
There are other ways to temporarily balance things, right?
If you don't have enough effort, well, you can have a cup of coffee.
You can artificially cultivate energy in different ways.
You can have someone walk around with a stick.
This is what they do in Zen monasteries.
They whack you with a stick.
And to some extent, that's a useful crutch.
But that's all it is, is a crutch.
It doesn't actually help you walk.
It can help you when you're too weak to walk by yourself, but
The only thing you can do, I mean, I can't, there's no guarantee.
I think this is something that has to be made clear to all of us, and it's scary.
Because I think we often fall into this sort of Hollywood illusion of the happily ever after.
And we hear this a lot in spirituality.
Everything works out in the end.
Everything happens for a reason and it all works out in the end.
It will all work out in the end.
which is just a bunch of rubbish.
There's no reason to believe that any of that is true.
Maybe it's true, but there's no reason to believe it.
We have no evidence to support that.
How often does it turn out all wrong, right?
How many people's lives have just turned out miserably?
And we say, oh well, you know, it all happened for a reason, which is just rubbish.
It's this new age, feel good,
unsubstantiated religion.
It's not Buddhism.
There is no guarantee that things are going to turn out right.
So how this applies to your question is I don't really have an answer necessarily for a lot of these questions.
How do I in my present circumstance become enlightened?
You just may not become enlightened, I'm sorry to say.
you might fall away from the path, many of us might unless you become a Sotapanna there's no guarantee that's why these guarantees are so important and why the Buddha reiterates the guarantee when one has become a once one has seen Nibbana, that's a guarantee and why that's important to say is because that's an important goal to strive for to the point that the Buddha left his home, right?
this is an important point he left home he dropped everything
The Buddha said a person who isn't a sodapanna should think of themselves as a person with their head on fire.
What are you going to do with your head on fire?
You say, well, I'll take care of that later.
I've got work to do.
No.
No, your head is on fire.
Right?
So, I mean, I know you're not, I know who this person is and he's doing a course with me and you're not negligent and you're not unaware of these issues, but
It's important to realize that you have to...
There's no guarantees.
And so at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, you have to put in the effort.
And this person actually is putting in effort and practicing every day, so that is making progress.
But doing limited practice, you're just going to have to be patient.
There's no better way to balance the faculties.
There's no...
I mean, all those things I just talked about can be supports.
Don't talk too much.
Don't eat too much.
Eat, I think, is in the Book of Sevens, which we'll maybe get to.
It adds, don't eat too much.
Don't talk too much.
Don't eat too much.
Don't sleep too much.
Don't work too much.
All of those things.
Don't do too much of them.
Practice a lot.
Be mindful as much as you can.
I mean, I guess the other thing I'd say is you always have time for mindfulness.
You say you don't have enough time to meditate.
You always have time.
You can meditate right now.
You can meditate while you're eating.
Meditate while you're drinking a cup of tea.
Tasting.
Okay, go for it.
Having balanced posture while doing sitting meditation.
I am a bit tall, and when holding my hands close to the abdomen with thumbs touching, there is a great strain on the leg muscles to maintain balance.
So sitting meditation becomes an object of pain and strain only after, only, especially after five to ten minutes.
The only way for me to maintain it without losing balance is to place my hands on the side of my knees.
Should I crunch it?
Because you once mentioned it should be comfortable sitting.
Well, you want to ease into it.
You don't want to make it completely comfortable, but it sounds like you're in a position like I was that it's totally unbearable.
So you want to find a sort of a medium, not a happy medium, but somehow a middle way that's slowly easing you into it.
Because it will get better and you will become more tolerant and eventually you should be able to sit on the floor if you keep up with it.
But you want to sit with your bottom a little higher.
Sit with some padding under your knees, under your knees, keeping them propped up.
Do that in the beginning with the goal that you should slowly reduce the padding, which means you're going to have to, to some extent, put up with the pain.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with meditating on pain.
It's just you don't want it to be too overwhelming.
So reduce it and make it more manageable, certainly, but don't try and find a way to get rid of it.
And certainly don't force your legs down.
Putting your hands on your knees is probably too much forcing the issue.
And when you sit, just put one hand on top of the other.
You don't have to have your thumbs touching, just naturally on top of each other.
So go easy on it.
And if it gets too painful, you can always sit on a bench or a chair sometimes.
But you should be working on getting to sit on the floor.
It's a good line in the sand, or a goal to look for.
It's a very physical sort of goal, but it's an accomplishment because once you're sitting on the floor, it says two things.
It says that you've put up with pain, that you've successfully born with the pain, and two, that you've started to relax because to get in a proper sitting position on the floor doesn't come from stretching.
It comes from relaxing.
So pushing down on your knees or all that is just stretching.
It's not real relaxing.
You want to get there naturally.
Think of it as kind of a goal.
That's a good one, one we should all think about, or beginner meditators should all think about.
Get to this position.
And use it as a test, a sign if your knees are way up here.
Okay, well, once your knees get down here, you can feel like you've accomplished two things.
One, you've accomplished patience.
And two, you've become more relaxed, less clinging, less stressing.
Which is a big part of why the body is so tense.
Bhante, I am having trouble meditating due to tinnitus, constant ringing in the ears.
Despite trying to see it as hearing, I feel that it is being a hindrance to the meditation.
I was thinking about turning a fan on when I meditate to cover up the ringing until I felt ready to go without it.
But could this cause more aversion to the ringing?
Do you have any advice?
Thank you.
Yeah, that would generally cause more aversion.
There's nothing wrong with hearing.
In fact, that's a very powerful, because it's so constant, it's a very powerful meditation tool, something that you can focus on.
And because it's something that you don't like, all the better.
It helps you learn to overcome disliking.
So it's a good challenge for you.
I had a meditator who had very, well, actually moderate tinnitus, I would think.
I think it was not that bad, but it was fairly constant.
And I had the same problem.
I mean, it's not a really simple thing because it's not going to get better and then you can go back to your meditation.
No, it's probably going to be there throughout your meditation.
So you have to incorporate it.
But you shouldn't see it as a hindrance.
A hindrance to what?
a hindrance to quiet, yes, but we're not concerned about physical quiet.
Like right now I have this whirring sound of the laptop, and that's constant, it's always there, but it doesn't bother me.
And so, you know,
Some people can live their whole lives with very loud noise and it doesn't bother them.
If you go to Asia it's quite impressive in some of these more highly dense populated and less technologically advanced or
you know less rich affluent countries where everyone is crammed in and loud noises and just craziness you think how did these people stand it and yet no one notices no one is concerned by it because it's ordinary for them we uh in in our monastery every year they have two weeks they have this uh carnival
on the monastery property and they've got these walls of sound loudspeakers blaring this electronic Thai music not electronic but like the drum loop beat thing twenty four hours a day almost twenty hours a day maybe and so I've had to do meditation courses through that it's quite quite challenging that's worse because it's got a rhythm to it right
It's not that bad, but it's also got words and music and singing to it.
Tinnitus is real.
It's sound.
Read through the Buddha's teaching.
How often do you see the Buddha talking about sound, hearing?
Hearing is a part of the Dhamma.
It's not a hindrance.
It's real.
It's reality.
And reality is what we're trying to understand.
So that's a very useful meditation object.
Try and consider yourself somehow lucky to have such an interesting meditation object to focus on, to challenge you.
Certainly not a hindrance.
It's not getting in the way of anything.
It's like saying reality is a hindrance.
That's basically what you're saying, is that you feel like reality is a hindrance.
To what?
Reality is what we're trying to see.
So, see it.
Even if it just means sitting there saying hearing for ten minutes.
There will be times where your mind gets comfortable with it and then you can go back to the stomach rising and falling, but if your mind gets caught up in the hearing again, go back to it.
Eventually your mind will become fairly comfortable with it and you shouldn't find it overwhelming such that other things you're not able to experience them because it's just like
I mean if it's very loud it'll take maybe more time but it's just like environmental noise.
Some people deal with very loud environmental noise and you can meditate with a very loud environmental noise without always having your mind focused on the sound.
It just takes practice.
Covering it up would not be useful.
That would be saying to yourself that, reaffirming the dislike and the intolerance.
Hi, Yotsudamu.
I always wanted to become a monk.
However, I have a student loan.
I have enough funds in the bank to repay it.
However, to access most of the funds, I have to stay overseas for more than a year.
I need to stay as a lay meditator in the monastery for a year.
This is so I can access my bank account.
Do not break when they up by becoming a monk and touching money.
Once I have spent a year there, I can take the money from the bank to pay off the student loan.
Can I get a Thai visa for this?
A year-long Thai visa is not easy to get.
They've even made it more difficult.
I don't really know.
Maybe they made it easier now that tourism is declining.
If it's still declining, I don't know.
It's very difficult.
There's no such visa.
Until you become a monk, you can't get a religious visa.
Unless you're a woman.
Women can get the eight precept nun visa.
You have to become a nun, shave your head.
But I tried.
We had one man who couldn't become a monk because he was Iranian and he wouldn't ever be able to go back to his country if he became a monk and his mother wasn't going to give him permission as well.
So we worked really hard to try and get him a nun visa.
I went and argued with the people at the Buddhism Affairs Office in Chiang Mai.
I said, look, women can do it.
Here's a guy, you know, he wants to become a nun.
So can't he become a nun, we call it.
And I had proof, you know, backed up by the Sri Lankan tradition of Anagarika, right?
And they wouldn't go for it.
They said, no, no, because he already has a,
he has a path for him, he can become a monk.
And because men can become a monk, we don't allow that.
It was all just arbitrary garbage, but that's such is politics.
I mean, that's what you find.
There's a lot of arbitrary rules that don't really make much sense.
I mean, most of the time to get the visa,
you need a letter of support from a monastery.
But no monastery is going to give you that letter until you go and stay with them.
So it's like a catch-22, I think.
You have to go there to get the letter, but to stay there, you need the letter.
So what you have to do is go, meditate, leave, or arrange to get the letter, leave, apply for the proper visa, go back.
It's a two-step process.
And the first step, you can only stay there, it depends what kind of visa you get.
Some places, some countries, you only get a month.
In Canada, I usually am able to get three months.
Two months is easy, but three months I can apply for, and I've never been denied in Canada a three-month Thai visa.
But I think I have heard of some people getting denied a three-month, even in Canada.
So, YMMV.
I don't know.
It doesn't sound like a... What would I advise you to do, I guess?
Let's ask that.
You need to stay in the monastery for a year.
I mean, it's a little bit too worldly for me to... Hey, wait, this isn't a question I'm supposed to be asking.
This is a worldly question.
I'm sorry.
But...
I can't go into too much detail there, beyond what I already have.
Does that sound reasonable?
Good luck.
The Asian visa system is just messed up.
Asian, I guess that's a blanket statement, but I can't imagine it being any better in other countries.
From what I've seen, Burma might be a little bit, but it's still some of the regulations they have are just...
I mean, some of these countries are strong military presence.
In Thailand, the police force runs the immigration.
And it's weird because the police force is one of these political factions.
It's really...
And in Sri Lanka, they've got this similar bureaucratic nightmare.
I remember in Sri Lanka going back and forth between the Buddhism office and the immigration.
I went back and forth five times.
It was funny because I'd go to one and they'd say, well, we want to help you, but the Buddhism office isn't, they're the ones who are holding, they've tied our hands.
And I go to the Buddhism office and I tell them and they say, that's not true.
We'll do whatever we can.
We'd love to help you, but it's the immigration office that is tying our hands.
And it's classic.
And you get passed around.
It's like hot potato.
Would have been fun if it weren't for the fact that...
Sorry?
You're bursting all my... What?
You're bursting all my bubbles of, you know, fantasy.
Going to Asia would be so wonderful and so easy.
Yeah, well, stick with me.
I'll burst all your bubbles.
I'm sorry, but Canada is much more comfortable for me.
I mean, Sri Lanka is a great place, don't get me wrong.
Thailand I have some issues with, but Sri Lanka was a great place to live as a monk.
But it's getting that visa, the bureaucracy is not fun.
It works much better if you're ordained.
This is what we're going to try to do with, I forgot his name, a guy from Norway.
Look at how bad I am with names.
Alexander?
Alexander, that's him.
If he does become a monk, we'll have him become a monk here and then send him to Thailand.
Or no, it's just Sri Lanka.
Maybe Thailand, but more likely Sri Lanka.
Try and think of a place or contact a place where he'd be able to learn how to be a good monk.
in a monastery setting with lots of monks.
Maybe Nisarana would be a good one because it's a meditation center and you'd learn quite well how to become a good, because there are really good monks there.
It's a quite impressive place.
Well organized.
Maybe a little too regimented and ritualistic, but it's pretty good.
And, yeah.
And see, that's the thing.
Once he's already a monk, they do a lot more for you.
They're not so keen to help people who are not yet monks.
But once you're a monk, they'll give you free visas and yearly visas and so on.
They're actually quite easy once you're in the system.
So again, it's quite arbitrary.
The points that you get blocked at are kind of silly in that way because certain aspects of it are often very easy and certain aspects are just ridiculously hard and unreasonable.
And then people just are too lazy to try and change things or not too lazy.
That's unfair.
But structures, you know, struggles are difficult to change, especially in a system that is somewhat conflicted.
Maybe you've got conflict and
Bureaucracy can be a nightmare.
We know that everywhere.
It's nice to see American bureaucracy, honestly.
The visa system in America is much more organized.
I don't know so much about Canada because I've never needed one, but when I had to get a teaching visa for America, it was a breath of fresh air, which really surprised me, but I guess it makes sense because America's got a lot more money and wealth and therefore organization.
Anyway, that's all the questions, huh?
That is.
All right.
Well, that's good to see.
Thank you for your questions.
Please don't be shy.
And I know I can sometimes be a little bit critical of certain questions.
And I apologize for any untoward behavior.
I appreciate everyone coming on here and meditating together, asking questions, even just watching on YouTube.
That's all for tonight.
Thank you, Robin, for your constant presence and help.
Anything else?
Anything going on?
We have a pumpkin.
We got our pumpkin.
And someone even sent tools to carve it.
But now I'm not sure.
Suddenly I hesitate.
Because I was thinking about this Buddha image I saw on the pumpkin, and I thought,
Is it really a good thing to put the Buddha, the image of your teacher on a pumpkin, right?
The image of the Buddha on a pumpkin, it's actually not really, it's somewhat incongruous, right?
Like a pumpkin is not a place for a Buddha.
It's going to rise.
I mean, a Western cynical Buddhist would say, well, that's a great thing.
It teaches you impermanence.
But you don't get away with that in Asia.
You want the Buddha to be as permanent and as stable as possible, knowing full well that impermanence is a part of reality.
You want to preserve the Buddha as best you can.
So they make the Buddha out of materials that are going to last thousands of years.
A Western cynical Buddhist might say, oh yeah, well that's delusion.
A real cynical Buddhist might say that making an image of the Buddha in the first place, this is sort of a me type of Buddhist, might say making images of the Buddha in the first place is problematic.
It's not something the Buddha would want us to do.
But certainly putting an image of the Buddha on a pumpkin is problematic.
So then I thought, well, what about the Dhamma wheel?
How problematic is it to put a Dhamma wheel on it?
It's probably the same type of problematic.
Maybe not.
I mean, I think the Dhamma wheel is a little more simple and you could say it's kind of a sign.
I mean, there's a real wholesomeness in it in the sense of proclaiming to the community, this house is a Buddhist house.
We do a Buddhist Halloween.
And it's meant to be a sign for the kids to know that they can come and we will give them fruit leather.
Did we get fruit leather?
I don't know.
I didn't check.
Yeah, we had three boxes.
They just put...
Boxes of raisins.
Boxes of raisins and fruit leather and fruit juice and vegetable juice.
Okay.
Vegetable juice?
Yeah, they're fruit and vegetable juice, but I think they're things like carrots that are kind of sweet.
I don't think there's any asparagus.
Cabbage.
Yummy, mummy, I got a carrot.
Yes.
I don't know about that.
I wouldn't have cut it when I went trick-or-treating.
I think about the little boxes of raisins along with the broccoli.
They can take what they like.
Some kids are really happy to get those.
I don't think everybody else is good.
But that's not what we were talking about last year.
I thought it came out really beautiful.
I hope you make it to show it on air because it's really
Quite simple.
We have to patent it and publish the design.
This tool comes with instructions.
You have a piece of paper and you wet the paper and you splat it on the pumpkin and then you wrap the pumpkin in saran wrap.
And I guess that helps you when you're cutting something.
I don't know.
Anyway, that's not, this isn't broadcast material stuff.
What else?
Nothing else.
I think we're good.
Tomorrow, Wisudimanga, right?
Hopefully.
I might have a meeting.
I might have a meeting at 2.30.
If I can get a ride, I actually might go.
So I'm actually kind of thinking that someone will call me with a ride, but maybe not.
I'd be more comfortable staying and doing the Wisudimanga, but
We do have to, this is the Hamilton Interfaith Peace Group, so it's me putting on the Buddhist face.
We also now have a interface advisory board at McMaster, and I have yet to be
Yet to see whether it's actually going to be a force for any sort of Buddhist or non-Christian presence at McMaster.
Here's something.
I just got another email about the 10th Global Conference on Buddhism.
So I have been invited to speak at the 10th Global Conference on Buddhism.
It's a great privilege and honor to have you speak.
Truth is, I was sort of because they couldn't find anybody else, I think.
they're kind of i'm kind of on the border where they're kind of like is he what do you think toronto 10th global conference here i'll show you can i screen cut no i can't oh yeah i can't you can't see it but i can show it um whatever not gonna get into it so um you will receive a second email shortly explaining more details there's a program let's see in the program
I gave them two, they asked for two topics.
So let's see what we have.
So Bhante Saranapala, Brahma Vangso is doing guided meditation, mindfulness meditation for 15 minutes.
And then, oh, here we are, wrong mindfulness.
Oh, this is not the, not the, oh.
Wow, this is scary.
Brahma Vangso is the first speaker.
Dhammaji Vahamdaro is the second speaker.
And Yutta Dhammo Bhikkhu is the third speaker.
Wrong mindfulness and its consequences.
That's not the topic I offered.
OK.
Whatever, you know, whatever they want.
So Brahma Vangsu says, what is right mindfulness?
Dhammaji says, teaches mindfulness methods used in Buddhist meditation.
And then I have to talk about wrong mindfulness and its consequences.
I can do that.
It would be interesting.
Right, and then sessions...
Yeah, this is in Toronto.
This is on June 17th of next year.
The other monks, they're also Narada area monks?
No.
Brahmavangsa is from, he lives in Australia.
And...
Yeah, everyone calls him Ajahn Brahm.
I mean, his real name is Brahm Longso, and he's not Maya Jahn, so... And Dhammaji... Yeah, well, I'm a bit of a stickler for tradition.
I mean, he's not Maya Jahn, so I don't call him Ajahn.
It's a fun...
In Thailand... All right.
Okay.
Yeah, no, I'm not trying to correct you.
I'm just not going to correct me.
And Dhammaji Vahamdaro is the guy from Nisar, and I was just talking about his monastery, saying that's where I'd send people.
So he practiced with Upandita, I think.
He practiced that in Burma for quite a while at the Mahasi Center.
So he teaches, I think, a sort of a modified version of Mahasi Sayadaw teaching, probably now using Anapanasati with the nose, because it's a big thing in Sri Lanka.
But yeah, he's a Sri Lankan monk whose English is not that good.
And he admits it.
His talks in English are not, I heard a talk that he gave in English and he was actually kind of taken off guard because he didn't, he was given the topic at the last minute.
So it wasn't a great talk.
His English was okay, but apparently his Sinhalese talks are just wonderful, so I think it's much more comfortable teaching in Sinhalese.
That's the morning.
So it's in an hour.
Three of us have to teach in an hour, so it's only 20 minutes for me, which is really not much.
And then we have Q&A.
Wow, it's going to be the three of us on a panel.
I've got to be with these two.
These are the two, like,
Whatever, I'll let them do all the talking.
Yeah, right, huh?
Me keep quiet?
We had a Muslim, a professor of Islam, come and give a talk.
And he gave a talk, it was called Fundamentalist versus Fundamentalist, an Islamist critique of ISIS.
So it was heavy into the nitty-gritty details of Islam and part of the one of the gists or one of the
big parts of the talk was how the methods of ISIS are in fact contrary to their goals of Islam so they are shooting themselves in the foot by their violence they're actually they can argue that there may be keeping to some interpretation of Sharia law Sharia but
given that the overall goal of Sharia is to bring people closer to God, they're not actually doing that.
They're not creating a Muslim state.
And so he's looking at other fundamental kind of radical Muslims and how they actually critique, even they critique, is basically what he's saying, even the more extreme Muslims.
critique ISIS.
So I asked a question.
I got up, couldn't keep quiet.
I asked him a question whether that made these people, because then he mentioned something interesting.
He said, but they still say that some of the things these people do are, go against basic moral principles of what it means to be a man, I think is the words he used.
And so I asked him, so when they call themselves
pure consequentialists, these other Muslims, or whether he could sort of comment on whether there was some sense of absolute moral ethics, or was it purely, like, if ISIS was succeeding, would that make their methods proper?
And he acknowledged that there was a tension and didn't really give a, he just said they didn't really discuss it.
But he appreciated it.
He said, you know, yes, there definitely is that attention.
He called my question perceptive.
Anyway, if I can't keep quiet, I'm sure I'll be talking.
That's what happens when you teach.
You become a talker.
Okay, here's another one.
Let's see what's going on here.
This is going to be an interesting session.
All right.
So that's in the, where are we here?
17th.
So in the morning, that's what I said.
After lunch, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff that doesn't involve me.
And then at 2 p.m., are we building a mindful or a mindless society?
It's time to rethink.
And then we have three teachings.
Teaching Mindfulness and Compassion in Schools by Dhammaji Vahamduro.
Number two, teaching mindfulness to police officers in Toronto by Bhante Saranapala.
Again, see the word Bhante Saranapala, Bhante is not a word you should use to refer to someone.
You shouldn't say, oh, there goes Bhante Saranapala.
Bhante is evocative.
It's a word you only use when you're talking to someone.
That's picky of me.
And number three, the use of mindfulness in society and the development of compassion amongst different cultures by a venerable Dr. Wei Shan, who I don't know.
And then the moderator of the session is Yuta Damobiku.
Whatever that means.
Your time is up.
It'll be like the presidential debates and I'm Anderson Cooper or something.
Showing no compassion.
I should have paid more attention to the presidential election, right?
These debates that have been going on.
Wasn't there another debate with Trump and Clinton?
Yes, last night and this day.
And they're all on YouTube.
The full content is all on YouTube.
That would probably be breaking a precept.
We'd probably be breaking some precept.
All right.
And then Sunday.
That was Saturday.
And then Sunday.
Looks like I'm not on anymore.
Oh, here we are.
Here's another one.
Sunday at 2 p.m. Future of Buddhism in a Changing World.
Hold on here.
I'm giving the first talk.
Enlightenment in a digital age, the challenge of practicing ancient spiritual teachings in the modern world.
This is the topic I did give them.
It was more because that's what they were asked.
They actually suggested it, so I typed it out like this.
So Yutta Damobiku is giving the talk on enlightenment in a digital age.
And then the second one is Buddhism in a secular age by Dr. Tony Tonyato.
And number three is Buddhism, Gender Equality, and Sexual Identity by Brahma Vangso.
Oh, and the moderator is Medha Nandi.
I get to finally meet Medha Nandi, maybe.
Medha Nandi is this bhikkhuni who lives in Ontario.
It's funny, there's a bhikkhuni in my own province, and I've never even met her.
I haven't met the monks in my own province, the bhikkhus.
I'd have to go meet them all some day.
Are these talks open to the public, or is this just for the monastic?
No, it's very much open to the public.
I think you have to probably sign up and pay like a $100 fee, or it could be even more.
It could be exorbitant.
But you probably have to register.
I'm actually not sure.
You may have to be... No, there's usually two types of participants.
There's the delegates...
It may just be delegates, you know.
You may have to be invited.
I don't know.
That's a good question.
Good question.
I'll ask.
I'll find out for y'all.
I'll get all of my internet community to join.
We'll take them by storm.
There's much more.
I mean, I didn't go through the whole program.
There's several sessions that I'm not involved in
It takes place in June 2017.
June 2017.
Saturday and Sunday.
It's just two days.
It's nice that they're doing meditation.
They've kind of caught on to that.
That's great to see.
Saranapala, who is this monk who has now gone global,
He's pretty happy about that.
His teaching of police officers.
So there was this picture that went viral on the internet and then it got picked up and really it's gone around the world and it's gotten major publications.
Picture of him teaching, because police officers, of course, it's a big hot topic right now.
And he's done it again.
Now apparently the police in Toronto want him to teach.
This was the police in Peel, which is sort of Mississauga area, but now the Toronto Metro Police, who are a scary bunch of people, can be, some of them can be quite scary.
It'd be nice if they learned some meditation, so apparently that's going to happen.
So we're having meditation both days, looks like, in the morning, oh, and then in the afternoon, Dhammaji gives meditation.
So there'll be morning meditation and afternoon meditation.
That's good.
Looks like a good conference, as far as Buddhist conferences go.
The topic is Buddhism, neuroscience, and mental health, making a mindful connection.
So they've got other sessions with actual neuroscientists talking.
All right.
That's enough for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Have a good night.