Okay, welcome everyone to our morning session in Second Life.
Good morning.
For those of you in Europe, good evening.
Today I thought I would talk about some of the
criterion, criteria, by which we use to, by which we decide what is the Buddha's teaching and what is not the Buddha's teaching.
I gave a talk I think last week, or not so far in the past,
about all the different schools of Buddhism.
In my mind, it's really going against the purpose of Buddhism to split up into different groups.
And that really, when you look at all of the different types of Buddhism, what they claim to be unique about their school
is actually is actually generally not unique to any one school and in fact what it seems is that
Each of the schools, the one that I belong to included, tends to go to extremes in regards to their specialty.
And so rather than having a balanced approach, a Buddhist approach, they have a very specialized approach towards Buddhism, which tends to really miss the point and miss the whole elephant, as I said.
So, following up on that, I thought it would be of interest to people to know what exactly
is a good criterion.
If we accept the idea that we should all just be Buddhist, then how do we know what is true Buddhism and what is not true Buddhism?
And it's really not that difficult.
We actually have some guidelines as to what is the Buddhist teaching and what is not.
And so today I thought I'd bring up one such list
in the tradition that I follow.
But I think there's nobody in any tradition who would be likely to go against the general feeling encompassed in these teachings.
So it's in Pali.
I thought I'd give everyone a treat and bring up some Pali so that we can have some original words of the Buddha.
and sort of get a feel for the language that the Buddha spoke.
So probably most of you are not going to be able to understand this, but let's just go through it.
Atako maha-pacchapati-kotami ye na bhagavate nupasankami.
Atako means at that time, maha-pacchapati-kotami, the
the Bhikkhuni, who was a female monk named Gotami, Mahapachapati Gotami.
Pachapati means...
Sort of like mother.
It's an ancient Indian word.
And so it could either be used as her name or as an epithet to mean that she was the one who looked after the Buddha as he was growing up.
Maha just means great.
Gotami was her clan name or her given name.
The Buddha's clan name was also Gotama.
So we also always hear about Buddha Gotama.
Where the blessed one was, there she went up to.
It means she went to see the Buddha.
It just means it's an epithet for a leader of a religion.
And so in Buddhism it means the Buddha.
Having approached the Buddha and abhiwadi, tua, paid respect to the Buddha, means most likely bowed down to the Buddha, ekamantangathasi, stood to one side or stood in an appropriate place.
Because when you go to see the Buddha, there's always going to be people attending upon him and coming to ask him questions, coming to listen to what he says.
He generally would be surrounded, just as all famous teachers generally are, would be surrounded by people.
So she stood to one side.
And while standing to one side,
She said this.
He says sadhu.
Sadhu is a word that means good.
Many people recognize this.
We use it or it's used in India in the present day to talk about a holy man.
And so it has a double meaning here.
It means someone who is a good person, a sadhu.
And it just means good.
So sadhu here means good.
She said it would be good for me, Venerable Sir, if the Blessed One could teach the Dhamma in brief.
Sankhitena, in brief.
Dhammang is the Dhamma.
yamahaṁ bhagavato dhammaṁ suttaḥ eka vipa uvupakaṭha apamata ātāpi nīpa pahitata viharyanti Lots of words that are difficult to understand.
yamahaṁ bhagavato dhammaṁ suttaḥ So, she wants a teaching by which, having heard the Dhamma from the Buddha, she would be able to
Go off alone into seclusion.
Eka means one.
Wupakata means to go in seclusion.
Apamata means to be diligent.
She would be diligent and put out effort and dwell, giving up, abandoning the defilement.
So basically speaking, she wants a brief teaching.
And just going through this, we can understand, okay, what is she asking?
She's asking for the most concise teaching that the Buddha can give her.
And the Buddha gives her something very interesting.
And this is the subject of the talk today.
The Buddha says, He says, whatever Dhammas, whatever teachings, Gautami, you understand or you know to be, when you know of those teachings that
Number one, they are for the purpose of developing lust, not for the purpose of giving up lust.
They are for the purpose of becoming attached, not for the purpose of giving up attachment.
Or for the purpose of bondage, not for the purpose of freedom from bondage.
They are for the purpose of building up.
not for the purpose of giving up.
They are for the purpose of great wanting, having great desires, having many desires.
not for the purpose of being of little desire, or having few desires, fewness of wishes.
Asantuttya samvatantino asantuttya, therefore the purpose of discontent, not for the purpose of contentment.
Sankhanikāya samvatantino pavivekāya.
They're for the purpose of congregation or society, socializing, not for the purpose of seclusion.
Kosacāya samvatantino vīryārambāya.
For the purpose of laziness, not for the purpose of putting out effort.
Therefore the purpose of being difficult to support, not for the purpose of being easy to support.
What do you think?
Are these things likely to be the Dhamma of the Buddha?
No.
The Buddha says, ekam sena.
You can be sure that un... What do you say?
they are totally on the side of, you can be sure completely, you can hold perfectly to be true that neso dhammo, this is not the dhamma, neso vinaya, this is not the vinaya, netang sattu sa sananti, this is not the teaching of the teacher, of our teacher.
And then he goes on to say the exact opposite.
He said if those teachings that are for the purpose of giving up lust and so on, and not for the purpose of having lust, of gaining lust, and so on, then you know these are the teachings of the Buddha.
And this is, I think, a really good list.
Something that we can always use to verify for ourselves and to not get caught up in particulars.
Really, the Buddhist teaching is not something high and mighty or high and, what do you say, it's not something esoteric or hard to understand.
It's not something that is philosophical or theoretical.
It's something quite simple.
It's just
It's generally totally against the way we look at the world.
It's totally against our ordinary way of life.
Diametrically opposed to our approach to existence.
So it's not something, it shouldn't be thought of as something that you have to read or have to study or have to spend years and years just to understand it.
The years and years should be spent in practice in trying to perfect it.
So what do we have here?
We have altogether eight criteria by which we can tell whether something is the Buddha's teaching.
The Buddha's teaching is for the purpose of giving up lust, for the purpose of giving up all desire.
And a simple explanation of this is that anytime you desire something, it means that you're not happy with things as they are.
It's a very simple fact that desire is basically saying to yourself that given two realities, the reality in front of us and the reality that's not yet in front of us, the latter is more preferable.
So it's a basic state of discontent.
At its root, it's basically a state of suffering, a state of discontent, of dissatisfaction with things as they are.
And this is totally contrary to the Buddha's teaching, because the Buddha teaches us to find contentment in the here and now,
to accept this reality or to find the way, the means by which reality becomes the preferred state or becomes a totally peaceful, totally blissful state where there is no need, no hopes or dreams or wishes
and especially no lust.
Lust is, I suppose, one of those things that is on the extreme end.
It's the most basic teaching.
In Indian religion, this was widely accepted, not only in Buddhism and not even something that the Buddha came up with himself.
Even before the Buddha
was born even.
There were teachings on giving up lust.
It was agreed that the passions of the sense, attachment to sights and sounds and smells and tastes and feelings were not a religious path, were not a spiritual path.
They were not something that could lead one to spiritual contentment.
In fact, it was agreed upon through the various practices that were in place that there was a much greater happiness and peace that could be found by giving these things up.
That this was the root of addiction.
It's the same as a drug addict to be addicted to sensual pleasures.
In fact, it is a drug addiction because according to science, it's clearly understood in this day and age that
What occurs when we receive a pleasurable stimulus at one of the senses is a chemical reaction in the brain.
There's a release of certain chemicals, dopamine and whatever else is involved with the pleasure receptor system.
And that leads to a pleasurable feeling.
It's a drug that gives us happiness.
It does that for a short time and then goes away and leaves the receptors in a less than optimal state so that the next time we receive the stimulus, there's a release of less of the chemical and the receptors are not able to
not able to process as much and so on.
And so the system is not able to bring as much pleasure, as much happiness as the first time, and so on and so on.
So it leads to more work for less pleasure.
It's a drug addiction.
When we talk about sex, when we talk about even just ordinary sensual pleasures, at the very base it's a drug addiction.
So this is the most coarse of the defilements, I guess you could say, the most coarse of our addictions that we have to get rid of.
It's one of the most widely accepted in religious traditions.
And I'd say the problem is not an agreement on giving them up.
The problem is once you've given them up, how to then
overcome the drug addiction because as we can see many people who for instance become celibate wind up repressing the emotions and as a result there are quite dire consequences to repression the eventual explosion of desire the release in other ways that can often be quite perverted perverse
But at any rate, the Buddha's teaching is for the purpose of giving this up.
It's for the purpose of seeing the negative side of this and seeing that in actual fact, lust and the happiness, the pleasure that comes from it is not sustainable.
It's not really intrinsically positive in any way.
It's a feeling that arises and ceases.
There's nothing bad about it.
And I think really the problem that comes from religious people is they start to feel guilty when they have these feelings.
They hear that people like the Buddha gave these things up, and so they feel guilty when these feelings arise, rather than actually acknowledging them and coming to understand the feelings.
But at any rate, we can understand that any teaching that is for the purpose of giving rise to lust, there are even some religious teachings that encourage people to give rise to passion, to give rise to states of sensual intoxication.
In fact, there are quite many religions.
From what I've seen visiting and taking part in other religious traditions,
you can see that a lot of the ordinary service is geared towards sensual stimulus.
I would say even in Buddhism there's a lot of this, in sort of cultural Buddhism, where the means of attracting people's attention is sensual stimulus.
encouragement of this sort of addiction and the stimulation of the addiction system in the brain.
And so this clearly is not the Buddha's teaching.
It's something that we should get straight for ourselves that the practice of the Buddha's teaching has to be very clearly for the purpose of giving this up.
The second one is
That Buddhism is for the purpose of freedom from bondage, not for the purpose of bondage, becoming bound.
So obviously in our life, in a worldly sense, this is easy to see the difference between being bound and being unbound.
In our lives we become bound by so many things.
We become bound by our work, bound by our debts, bound by other people.
We get caught up in so many things, so much
We get caught up in the world very easily.
But in spirituality we also get caught up in this as well.
We become bound to rites and rituals.
We become bound to our duties and to our station.
We can even become bound to certain practices.
We get caught up in the idea of being this or being that.
Sanyoga, which means to be bound.
This is why
I stressed last time about not identifying as this type of Buddhist or that type of Buddhist.
That we follow the Buddhist teaching should really be enough and we understand that the Buddhist teaching is not to become anything, not to be bound to anything, to say that I am this.
Often when talking with Buddhist meditators, there still is this...
attachment to a tradition or attachment to a teacher.
And there's an immediate judgment when we hear someone else practicing in a certain way.
And rather than using the Buddha's principles to say why we believe this is better than that,
we cling instead to our tradition.
And everything is seen through the lens of that tradition.
When I'm talking to Buddhist meditators, they immediately
begin to repeat the things that their teacher has said, rather than actually looking at things from the point of view of the Buddha, from the point of view of the Buddha's teaching.
It's very difficult to speak with such people.
These sorts of people, they tend to just regurgitate whatever their teacher has said.
are unwilling to accept the fact that other traditions might actually be of great benefit or actually have a viable practice for the purpose of realizing the truth.
When we practice Buddhism, we're simply trying to see reality for what it is.
We have right here in front of us certain phenomena that are rising and ceasing in our body and our mind.
We're not interested in being anything or being attached to anything.
There's no need to call yourself Buddhist.
There's certainly no need to call yourself this or that type of Buddhist.
Even in the tradition that I follow, there are different nikayas or groups.
And these groups now don't talk with each other.
I put a picture up that one of my old students sent me of her ordination.
She's ordained as a female monk.
I put it up on my website.
And a monk from Europe sent me an email saying, he said, Bante, please don't get involved in this schism.
And so I wrote back and said, well, you know, these people look quite harmonious to me.
There doesn't seem to be any schism going on at all.
They were happy and smiling and there were monks and nuns.
There's about 20 of them in the picture.
I said, you know, honestly, you sound more like a schismatic to me.
We cling to this.
They have this idea that this is not correct and that is not correct for really no reason, no purpose, and without really even thinking.
And so without thinking, we create barriers.
We cling to things and we compartmentalize reality into our way, your way, right way, wrong way.
When all the Buddha was really trying to teach us is to understand reality,
something that we should think about rather than clinging to principles and ideas
Sure, as best we can, we should try to keep rules and the regulations of the community.
There's no question about that, but it goes beyond that, and we cling to my practice, your practice, mine is right, and this idea that our teachers are perfect, and so on.
Therefore, they must be right all the time.
The Buddha said we're not to cling.
And when you see something that leads to clinging, that's not the Buddha's teaching.
The third one is for building up and not for taking down.
Buddhism is not for building anything up, not for creating anything, not for becoming anything.
We don't want to become this or become that.
We don't want to become a Buddhist or a Buddhist teacher or even become a monk.
I always looked at becoming a monk, for example, is really more about what you aren't than what you are.
The Buddha called it giving up, giving up the house life, going forth, leaving behind.
This is a good example because in the Buddha's teaching we don't want to become anything.
We don't have any desire to become anything.
We don't want to...
build up in our minds identification with anything.
We're not trying to build a Buddhist empire or a Buddhist, what do you call, we're not trying to spread the Buddhist teaching to everyone or so on, or turn Buddhism into this missionary religion or so on.
In fact, we're trying to take down, we're trying to take down much of who we are.
We're trying to give up our identifications with this and that, with who we are and with our status in life, with ideas like class, social class and gender and so on.
We're trying to, in our minds, give up the attachment to self.
We're not trying to build up anything.
We don't have the idea that we want to become reborn again as this or that.
We don't have the idea that in this life we want to become famous or rich.
Even become enlightened.
In meditation practice, it's very easy for people to get attached to this idea that we're going to become enlightened.
As though enlightenment were this attainment, this badge that you get to wear.
Oh, you've achieved something.
You've become enlightened.
Actually, enlightenment is all about what you aren't.
An enlightened being is not greedy, is not angry, is not deluded.
An enlightened being has given up, hasn't taken anything on.
And so in our meditation practice, it's very important, extremely important that we give up this notion of trying to attain anything.
We're not trying to reach some state where the mind is perfectly calm all the time, never thinking anything, never feeling any pain.
We're trying to give up all expectations, all wants and needs, all attachments whatsoever.
We don't need to become anything.
It's more of a giving up.
of the path and the taking on of any path, giving up of all paths.
The path of the Buddha is to be here and now, to stop going, to stop coming.
Buddha said in Nibbana there is no going and no coming.
Nibbana isn't somewhere else.
Enlightenment isn't a place that we go to.
It's when we stop going and stop becoming.
The fourth one, mahichataya samvatantino apichataya.
Those things that are for the purpose of wanting many different things, not for the purpose of wanting little.
I think this goes along with much of what I've already said.
I'm not going to go into much detail here.
But it's just another reminder that our wants are really the problem.
I mean, we have these in our minds at every moment.
We want things in our daily life.
Every situation in our lives becomes a want.
Wanting this, wanting that.
Chasing after this, chasing after that.
We can't even sit still.
We can't be happy with things as they are because of our many wants.
Buddhism is to be a fewness of wishes, to have few wants.
To not want a lot.
To be able to live without.
And this is a very practical teaching.
in terms of, for instance, our necessities, when we're not able to acquire the things that we would normally feel necessary, we need this and need that, to be able to live with little, to be able to live a simple life, a content life.
And this is number five, so these go together.
Number five is
If the teaching is for discontent and not for contentment, then it's not the Buddhist teaching.
Number six is rather important that I think is often missed in Buddhist practice or in spiritual practice.
It's the need for solitude, the need to take time off,
you hear a lot about how important it is to meditate in a group and how important it is to have to sit together in a group when you meditate and I think it's really it's actually a sign of the importance to not be in a group when we practice in a group it's obviously much easier because
Your mind is constantly being reminded by the people around you, reminded to focus, to not become distracted.
And so it's quite easy in that sense.
But the problem with it is, and you can see this if you ever take the time to go off on your own, is that when you're in a group, your mind is constantly distracted.
You're constantly going out to the people in the room around you.
You're not actually as focused as you think you are.
We think it's so easy to sit in a group because you constantly think of the people around you and you feel kind of embarrassed if you slouch or if your mind wanders or if you think bad thoughts and so on.
But there's actually, I would say, far less focus when you're together than when you're alone.
And when you're alone, you can actually see how your mind works much better because there's nothing for your mind to cling to.
There's no external stimulus.
I think it goes without saying that
In the Buddhist teaching, it's not for the purpose of socializing, sitting around talking and meeting up with friends.
And this is a very important teaching in and of itself, that when we practice the Buddhist teaching, it's very important that we can give up our need to socialize.
That actually it's quite a detriment to our practice to be addicted to friendships and association and going out to parties and chatting and socializing.
A Buddhist meditator should be content with solitude.
There is no replacement for being alone, spending time with your own mind.
Because it's really the only time that we can really be true to ourselves, where we don't have to put up a front and pretend to be something.
Even when we're meditating, when we meditate in a group, so often we put on a front.
We don't want
other people to think that we're a bad meditator.
So we sit up straight.
We put on the front, even when we're meditating.
But when we're alone, we give this all up and we're able to be true and completely with ourselves, not focusing on anything else.
Number seven is that the Buddha's teaching is for putting out effort, not for being lazy.
It's important when we meditate, we're not just meditating to feel peaceful and calm, to sit down and to get something.
Meditation in a Buddhist sense is a work.
The word we use is kamatana.
It means to focus your mind, put your mind to work.
When we practice meditation, we're not going to simply just sit there and fall asleep.
It's not just a relaxation time.
It's not our vacation time, our time away from life.
Meditation is for the purpose of clearing the mind, for developing the mind.
I think it's very easy to become lazy in our practice, where we practice maybe once a day, twice a day,
I mean, not really developing our minds, but simply falling back into a state of peace and calm.
It's important when we meditate that we actually examine our state of mind, that we're looking at it and trying to develop our minds to become a better person, to clear our minds, to go deeper and deeper and to understand our minds clearer and clearer, to understand reality.
We have to examine ourselves when we practice.
Are we just practicing to feel states of peace and calm and be content with that?
Or are we actually learning something?
I would say if you're practicing correctly, every time you sit down you should learn something new about yourself.
This is really a test as to whether you actually meditated.
Meditation is the contemplation, the examination of oneself.
And number eight, to be easy to support, not difficult to support.
This one, I'm taking it two-fold.
First, in terms of our daily lives.
I would say it's very easy to become very difficult to support.
For most of us, we are quite difficult to support.
We need so many things.
Our minds are constantly searching out, seeking out.
And so it's like looking after a little child.
Looking after ourselves is like looking after a little child.
Our wants and our needs and our nagging and complaining.
It's very difficult for us to, for instance, find a good position for meditation.
We often need the perfect position, and so rather than simply sitting on the floor, we need a cushion, and the cushion's not enough.
We need a backrest, and then the backrest's not enough.
We need cushions under our legs, and a pillow behind our neck, and so on.
We live our lives in a state of general discontent.
Not being able to stick with the here and the now.
Even right now, you can examine yourself.
When things arise in the mind, when things arise in the world around you, you're just sitting here listening.
Maybe suddenly you start to feel pain in the legs, or it's too hot, or there's an itching sensation in the body.
Maybe it's been...
half an hour already and it's starting to get boring.
The mind starts to wander, starts to think of other things.
You can see the mind is quite difficult to take care of.
It's not easily amused.
It's not easily entertained.
It always needs something new and exotic, something fun and interesting.
It can't be content just being here, just being now.
It can't be content with reality.
So the Buddha said the Buddha's teaching is for the purpose of being easy to take care of.
We don't need other people to take care of us.
We don't need so many things.
We don't need constant attention, constant gratification that we can accept reality for what it is.
That we only need a certain amount of food to eat, simple clothes to wear.
we're able to put up with anything that arises.
So I thought I'd point this list out to everybody and let you know that there are general principles by which we can say what is the Buddhist teaching.
So that was a list of those things that aren't.
Just for completeness, here's the rest of it.
And just to recapitulate, to recapitulate, to go over it again.
Those things that are for the purpose of giving up lust.
Those things that are for the purpose of giving up bondage.
Those things that are for the purpose of not collecting or not building up oneself.
Those things that are for the purpose of having few wants or few wishes.
those things that are for the purpose of contentment, for the purpose of seclusion, for the purpose of putting out effort, and for the purpose of being easy to support.
You can be sure, O Gotami, that this is the Dhamma, this is the Vinaya, this is the teaching of our teacher.
Okay, so that's the Dhamma for today.
Thank you all for
staying the course.
If anyone has any questions I'm happy to take them.
Otherwise, thanks for coming.