1 00:00:01,195 --> 00:00:04,258 Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada. 2 00:00:04,278 --> 00:00:10,084 Today we continue on with verse number 113, which reads as follows. 3 00:00:20,235 --> 00:00:28,384 Which means, 4 00:00:31,115 --> 00:00:34,262 It's very similar again to the ones we've been dealing with. 5 00:00:34,302 --> 00:00:44,224 The one should live 100 years never seeing the rise and the fall. 6 00:00:47,491 --> 00:00:50,878 Better it is to live better is the life of one day. 7 00:00:52,394 --> 00:01:01,282 Better is a life of a single day for one who does see the rise and fall. 8 00:01:04,025 --> 00:01:06,927 Udayabayang. 9 00:01:06,947 --> 00:01:08,068 I want to talk more about that. 10 00:01:09,610 --> 00:01:15,495 But first, we'll tell the story behind this saying. 11 00:01:17,477 --> 00:01:21,861 This is the story of a woman called Patajara. 12 00:01:23,866 --> 00:01:27,693 It's the name of quite a famous bhikkhuni. 13 00:01:28,094 --> 00:01:29,416 She's famous for her story. 14 00:01:30,518 --> 00:01:40,997 She's also known as the bhikkhuni who was preeminent among the Buddha's disciples. 15 00:01:40,977 --> 00:01:47,767 in regards to the Vinaya, which means the code of conduct. 16 00:01:49,069 --> 00:02:07,457 She was an expert in the rules, the code of the monks, the way of life, the discipline. 17 00:02:09,867 --> 00:02:13,471 But well before that, she was an undisciplined youth. 18 00:02:15,112 --> 00:02:24,882 And her parents, like seems to be a sort of a trend in the time, afraid of the recklessness of their daughter. 19 00:02:26,704 --> 00:02:37,815 When she was 16 years old, they put her up in a seven story palace, locked her up and made sure no men had had anything to do with her. 20 00:02:39,230 --> 00:02:40,872 except for the servants. 21 00:02:43,115 --> 00:02:48,381 So she was not allowed to have any male friends and she was kept locked up and I guess tutored in the home. 22 00:02:48,441 --> 00:02:54,609 They were very protective, seems to be a little bit perhaps overprotective of their daughters. 23 00:02:56,451 --> 00:03:01,677 And because it wasn't exactly protection, it was more like captivity in a sense. 24 00:03:05,487 --> 00:03:30,200 And as they were to find out, forcing people to behave is not always the best way to go about things, because it turns out that Padachara fell in love with and had sexual relations with one of her servants. 25 00:03:33,044 --> 00:03:35,207 And so for some time this was going on, 26 00:03:36,875 --> 00:04:04,452 and the parents, unbeknownst to the parents until one day the parents came to let her know that they had found a suitable husband for her and that she was to be married but to someone who was equal to her in social status this would have been a well-to-do family in India at the time 27 00:04:07,739 --> 00:04:18,120 And goes without saying that she was quite distraught and her lover was quite distraught. 28 00:04:18,360 --> 00:04:24,372 And so she she made it quite clear to him that something had to be done. 29 00:04:24,392 --> 00:04:28,380 She said, You must get me out of here, or else we'll never be together. 30 00:04:29,845 --> 00:04:34,069 And so indeed, they made plans to escape and she dressed up. 31 00:04:34,149 --> 00:04:42,296 She would have been very light-skinned probably because the light-skinned people were considered to be higher class or something like that. 32 00:04:43,077 --> 00:04:50,303 And so she used clay or powder to darken her skin and she wore rags and she dressed up like a servant. 33 00:04:50,383 --> 00:04:57,810 And when the servants went out to collect water, she went out with them and then made off with her 34 00:04:58,904 --> 00:05:03,430 lover, the man, and went and lived with him in the forest. 35 00:05:05,033 --> 00:05:10,180 And the commentary says something interesting, bears discussion. 36 00:05:11,201 --> 00:05:23,258 It describes her life in the forest, which was full of hardship, where she had to do all the work herself, she had to clean the house herself, she had to do so many things herself. 37 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:28,257 And it says, because of the evil deed, because of her evil deed. 38 00:05:29,181 --> 00:05:33,501 And I was thinking for a second about what exactly that means, her evil deed, because 39 00:05:34,055 --> 00:05:43,547 Well, coming from the West, we're quite fond of our physical freedom and our emotional freedom. 40 00:05:44,128 --> 00:05:51,718 So our ability to make friendships and romantic involvement with whoever we please. 41 00:05:51,778 --> 00:06:00,670 And the idea of an arranged marriage is just... 42 00:06:02,708 --> 00:06:04,751 is a horror. 43 00:06:04,771 --> 00:06:06,553 It's just an awful thought. 44 00:06:07,214 --> 00:06:13,822 It seems unjust, unrighteous, and it seems that, of course, Bhattacharya was well just in what she had done. 45 00:06:13,862 --> 00:06:22,993 But I think there is an argument to be made for the problem with what she did. 46 00:06:23,013 --> 00:06:24,295 The problem with any 47 00:06:24,865 --> 00:06:26,687 romantic attachment. 48 00:06:27,668 --> 00:06:29,290 So it goes deeper. 49 00:06:29,610 --> 00:06:36,979 From a Buddhist sense, I don't think the problem here was not wanting to be enslaved in a tower. 50 00:06:37,359 --> 00:06:42,966 There's some sense, I think, that that was as well unjust. 51 00:06:43,106 --> 00:06:49,834 It certainly wasn't very wholesome of the parents to be arranging their daughter's life. 52 00:06:51,436 --> 00:06:53,438 But her problem 53 00:06:53,806 --> 00:07:11,779 was that actually she was living quite a comfortable life, a life that many people would, some people anyway, no, many people, people who live in poverty, people who live in hardship, would look upon with jealousy. 54 00:07:13,582 --> 00:07:17,890 And yes, agreed, she was restricted to her activities, 55 00:07:18,916 --> 00:07:21,100 But on the other hand, she lived a life of luxury. 56 00:07:21,902 --> 00:07:30,057 So it's a question of whether the goldfish living in the aquarium is better off than the guppy living in the ocean. 57 00:07:30,578 --> 00:07:41,599 In the ocean, the fish is free, but it's also subject to great hardship and the potential for danger from bigger fish and that kind of thing. 58 00:07:43,182 --> 00:07:54,199 But the point being that with any romantic activity she followed her heart and ended up in a life that was actually full of quite a bit of greater hardship. 59 00:07:54,900 --> 00:07:58,606 And so ideologically she was free and she was with the man she loved. 60 00:07:59,528 --> 00:08:04,195 But if she was able to be free from her attachments, like for a Buddhist monk living in a 61 00:08:04,175 --> 00:08:05,719 in a prison isn't a big deal. 62 00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:13,880 For a Buddhist meditator living in that kind of solitude, not having to work, not having to do anything, it's just ideal for the cultivation of meditation. 63 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:18,792 So there is an interesting two sides to that one. 64 00:08:20,864 --> 00:08:27,155 But I think also you could look at it as sort of from a societal point of view, that from society she did a bad thing. 65 00:08:27,175 --> 00:08:30,280 From a societal point of view, she acted against society. 66 00:08:30,361 --> 00:08:32,444 Not that I think that that makes it wrong. 67 00:08:33,246 --> 00:08:37,573 There's no sense that simply acting against society is evil. 68 00:08:37,553 --> 00:08:40,797 But there was something wrong with what she did, or it was just a deed that she did. 69 00:08:41,798 --> 00:08:44,741 Based on her decisions, she reaped the fruit. 70 00:08:45,542 --> 00:08:51,189 And so part of the fruit was being with someone who she felt compatible with, which is ostensibly a good thing. 71 00:08:51,890 --> 00:08:55,975 But part of the fruit was that she now had to work very, very hard. 72 00:08:55,995 --> 00:08:57,296 I just thought that was interesting. 73 00:08:59,859 --> 00:09:05,586 So they lived that way, and she became pregnant and was heavy with child. 74 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:13,126 and living in the forest because they were now outcasts and they had no, no social status at all. 75 00:09:14,047 --> 00:09:15,109 They had no one to help them. 76 00:09:15,149 --> 00:09:21,215 And so she was worried about her, her impending, uh, birth, the impending childbirth. 77 00:09:22,116 --> 00:09:35,590 And so she thought to herself that, um, it's going to be really difficult if I live here, but really my parents have to, certainly they'll, they'll out of love of me, they will take me in and help me. 78 00:09:36,076 --> 00:09:36,998 raise my child. 79 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:42,329 They will care for my child while he's too well, it can't take care of itself. 80 00:09:43,692 --> 00:09:49,545 And so she asked her husband to bring her back to help her get back to her family home. 81 00:09:52,158 --> 00:10:00,949 And of course her husband wouldn't do it or her lover wouldn't do it because he knew that if he went back he would have no place. 82 00:10:00,969 --> 00:10:01,830 He would be thrown out. 83 00:10:01,910 --> 00:10:04,854 He would maybe even be imprisoned or tortured. 84 00:10:06,236 --> 00:10:10,141 If they were to see me, he says, they would subject me to all manner of tortures. 85 00:10:11,863 --> 00:10:18,351 And so again and again she begged him and again and again he refused to go with her, to take her. 86 00:10:23,579 --> 00:10:30,396 And so one day while he was out working, she told the neighbors that if he comes back, tell him I'm gone. 87 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,609 And set off on her own to go back to her parents. 88 00:10:36,551 --> 00:10:39,799 And she made it part of the way and he found out that she had gone. 89 00:10:41,703 --> 00:10:45,630 ran after her, caught up with her and begged her to come home and she refused. 90 00:10:47,293 --> 00:10:57,831 And so he had no choice but to follow her, to go with her as she went back to be with her parents. 91 00:10:57,851 --> 00:11:04,723 But along the way, because they had waited so long to go, she went into labor along the road. 92 00:11:06,053 --> 00:11:14,469 And so the husband made a place for her to lie down and helped her as best he could and she gave birth to a young boy. 93 00:11:14,489 --> 00:11:19,759 At which point they figured better to go back. 94 00:11:20,360 --> 00:11:27,994 For some reason it was better to go back and I guess the idea was the biggest issue was childbirth. 95 00:11:27,974 --> 00:11:30,116 Having given birth, there was no reason to go home. 96 00:11:30,737 --> 00:11:34,620 That was, I guess, or maybe it was too difficult to go home, I'm not sure. 97 00:11:35,241 --> 00:11:37,223 So he convinced her anyway to return. 98 00:11:38,244 --> 00:11:41,907 And they lived that way for about two years with a son, and then she became pregnant again. 99 00:11:41,927 --> 00:11:49,414 And again she asked her husband to return, help her return to her family. 100 00:11:49,434 --> 00:11:54,319 Sort of the banal aspects of worldly existence, having to raise your children, 101 00:11:55,666 --> 00:12:09,425 But then the issue again of having the trouble of childbirth and wanting to be with her parents, maybe it was more emotional than anything, wanting to be with your family when at such an important moment. 102 00:12:10,927 --> 00:12:15,734 And so again she begged him and again he refused and again she went off on her own while he was out. 103 00:12:16,515 --> 00:12:17,876 And again he caught up with her. 104 00:12:19,559 --> 00:12:21,421 Only this time she had a young boy with her. 105 00:12:22,363 --> 00:12:24,846 And only this time there was a terrible storm 106 00:12:25,940 --> 00:12:30,425 unseasonable storm picked up while they were on the path. 107 00:12:30,525 --> 00:12:38,174 So the husband told her to wait and he would go and find wood to light a fire. 108 00:12:38,254 --> 00:12:39,355 And so he went around. 109 00:12:40,276 --> 00:12:44,641 She huddled down in the rain with her son and with the pains of labor. 110 00:12:46,743 --> 00:12:53,871 And the husband went running around through the forest trying to find wood so that he could somehow build a fire for her. 111 00:12:56,855 --> 00:13:00,500 And he came upon some dead wood that was on top of an ant hill. 112 00:13:00,981 --> 00:13:02,323 And so he grabbed for it. 113 00:13:02,503 --> 00:13:10,776 And as it apparently is the case with ant hills or termite mounds, snakes like to live in them. 114 00:13:10,796 --> 00:13:11,477 I'm not sure why. 115 00:13:11,557 --> 00:13:12,638 Maybe because they're warm. 116 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:14,581 Or they like to live on them. 117 00:13:15,002 --> 00:13:17,946 And there was a poisonous snake living on this termite mound. 118 00:13:19,088 --> 00:13:23,154 And when he went to grab at the wood, the snake bit him and killed him on the spot. 119 00:13:23,294 --> 00:13:24,516 And he was instantly killed. 120 00:13:29,086 --> 00:13:43,669 Meanwhile, Bhattacharya was kneeling, crouching, huddled in the rain and gave birth with great difficulty and then had to hold on to both of her children, huddled in the rain and it says that 121 00:13:46,113 --> 00:13:55,409 She crouched with her hands and knees pressed together and her whole body looked as though there were no blood left in it. 122 00:13:56,632 --> 00:13:59,797 And her flesh had the appearance of a sear and yellow leaf. 123 00:14:02,262 --> 00:14:03,083 Bad. 124 00:14:03,103 --> 00:14:04,746 She was in bad shape. 125 00:14:08,843 --> 00:14:34,869 And finally, in the morning, the storm let up and weary and cold with two crying, crying children, young boy and even younger boy, younger child, baby went off in search for her husband thinking that probably that somehow for some reason he had just left them. 126 00:14:34,889 --> 00:14:37,652 And so she went searching and she found his dead body. 127 00:14:40,012 --> 00:14:49,846 And this was the first time in her life, for the first time in her life, she knew great sorrow for having lost the man who she loved dearly. 128 00:14:52,149 --> 00:14:56,075 Just instantaneous. 129 00:14:57,116 --> 00:15:06,289 Sort of nothing prepared, nothing you could, nothing that was foreshadowed or foretold. 130 00:15:10,623 --> 00:15:13,346 It's amazing how in an instant your life can change like this. 131 00:15:15,328 --> 00:15:17,831 They say, animita. 132 00:15:18,372 --> 00:15:22,656 This is the things that you can't prepare for. 133 00:15:22,716 --> 00:15:24,398 There's no sign. 134 00:15:25,099 --> 00:15:27,702 There's no signal, no warning. 135 00:15:28,503 --> 00:15:30,805 Death comes without warning. 136 00:15:30,886 --> 00:15:32,547 We don't know when we're going to die. 137 00:15:32,728 --> 00:15:34,049 We don't know where we're going to die. 138 00:15:35,030 --> 00:15:36,732 We don't know how we're going to die. 139 00:15:38,416 --> 00:15:41,439 We don't know where our body is going to go after we die. 140 00:15:42,501 --> 00:15:44,883 We don't know where our mind is going to go after we die. 141 00:15:45,504 --> 00:15:46,946 These five things we can't know. 142 00:15:47,546 --> 00:15:56,457 There's no warning, no sign, nothing to indicate in advance. 143 00:15:56,477 --> 00:16:01,943 And so unprepared for this fact of life, this inevitability of death, 144 00:16:03,627 --> 00:16:04,368 She cried. 145 00:16:04,448 --> 00:16:15,539 She was quite upset and with two crying babies carrying the one, the baby on her arm and holding the hand of the other baby, the other child as they walked. 146 00:16:17,181 --> 00:16:19,604 She figured there was no point in returning home. 147 00:16:19,684 --> 00:16:23,007 It was time now to return to her family, to her parents. 148 00:16:24,609 --> 00:16:32,217 But before she came to Savatthi, which would have been where her parents lived, right? 149 00:16:32,237 --> 00:16:32,537 Yep. 150 00:16:33,867 --> 00:16:40,318 And they actually came to a river, the great river, which was called Achiravati. 151 00:16:43,404 --> 00:16:50,897 It would have been a river in the time of the Buddha in India, 2,500 years ago. 152 00:16:53,864 --> 00:16:59,934 And it was because of the storm, it had become full overflowing with water. 153 00:16:59,954 --> 00:17:01,857 So it was actually quite difficult to cross. 154 00:17:01,957 --> 00:17:04,101 And so they would have to swim across. 155 00:17:05,503 --> 00:17:07,266 There was no way to cross by the fort. 156 00:17:09,069 --> 00:17:14,337 And so she left her older son by the side of the river and said, you wait here. 157 00:17:16,139 --> 00:17:44,880 and she started to cross swimming across with the bait holding the baby in her arms or crossing however she could and when she got to the other side she placed the baby she broke a tree branch with leaves off and placed it on the ground and placed the baby on these leaves and then she began to swim back across the river or walk across maybe she didn't have to swim but she she was 158 00:17:46,750 --> 00:17:49,553 hesitant, reluctant to leave her child. 159 00:17:49,573 --> 00:17:57,500 So again and again she would look back and she kept looking back at him to make sure the baby was alright, this newborn baby. 160 00:17:59,361 --> 00:18:13,434 And she got about halfway across the river and she turned around and she watched as an eagle or a hawk swooped down and picked up her baby and made off with it. 161 00:18:13,454 --> 00:18:14,455 Right in front of her eyes. 162 00:18:14,955 --> 00:18:15,576 Huge bird. 163 00:18:18,678 --> 00:18:23,786 And she screamed and wailed, horrified, just to watch. 164 00:18:23,926 --> 00:18:26,089 Could you imagine a mother having to watch this? 165 00:18:29,014 --> 00:18:31,858 And she waved her hands and she shouted at the bird. 166 00:18:34,542 --> 00:18:35,624 But it was to no avail. 167 00:18:35,644 --> 00:18:38,669 The hawk was gone with the baby way up into the air. 168 00:18:41,753 --> 00:18:47,402 Worse than that, her other son, who was sitting patiently, 169 00:18:48,901 --> 00:19:00,317 on the near side of the bank saw his mother waving her hands and yelling and thought she must be calling to him. 170 00:19:00,337 --> 00:19:10,251 As any good son would do, he immediately picked up and started to walk towards her and jumped in the river 171 00:19:12,239 --> 00:19:38,854 and was quickly carried downstream and Bhattacharya turned and watched as he was carried away by the current At this point her sanity was being severely tested I don't think it's possible to describe at this point the state of her mind but suffice to say she was not in a good place 172 00:19:42,580 --> 00:20:01,520 So half crazed, with the only thing in her mind to return home, she crossed the river, wailing, crying, horrified, thinking about having lost the three most important people in her life in one night. 173 00:20:01,540 --> 00:20:02,783 She returned back to Samadhi. 174 00:20:11,656 --> 00:20:15,180 When she returned to the city, she wanted to get news of her parents. 175 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:26,191 She sort of, I guess, pulled herself together and asked a man walking down the road, said, do you know of this family? 176 00:20:27,452 --> 00:20:28,534 Asking about her family. 177 00:20:31,276 --> 00:20:36,702 And he said, I know them, but please don't ask about them. 178 00:20:40,445 --> 00:20:41,867 And she said, what do you mean? 179 00:20:41,907 --> 00:20:44,731 That's the family I want to know how they're doing. 180 00:20:46,493 --> 00:20:47,875 Ask me about any other family. 181 00:20:47,895 --> 00:20:50,157 No, this is the family I want to ask you about. 182 00:20:53,101 --> 00:21:00,471 I said, well, I don't want to tell you, but did you see the storm last night? 183 00:21:00,511 --> 00:21:04,596 And she said, yeah, I was out in the storm all night. 184 00:21:06,365 --> 00:21:08,948 But tell me, what does that have to do with this family? 185 00:21:10,609 --> 00:21:14,694 Last night in the terrible storm, their house collapsed. 186 00:21:16,015 --> 00:21:26,646 And the husband and wife and son were all killed in the accident, which was her mother, her father, and her brother. 187 00:21:29,209 --> 00:21:33,233 So the other three most important people in her life also passed away. 188 00:21:36,537 --> 00:21:41,644 And he said, they've died and their neighbors and kinsmen are burning them. 189 00:21:42,325 --> 00:21:44,088 You can see the smoke over yonder. 190 00:21:44,128 --> 00:21:51,438 And it says in the story, instantly she went mad. 191 00:21:53,782 --> 00:21:55,344 I don't know what the Pali is for that. 192 00:21:56,446 --> 00:21:58,348 It's probably something equally concise. 193 00:21:58,489 --> 00:22:01,633 The brevity of these stories is quite remarkable in certain cases. 194 00:22:03,706 --> 00:22:05,408 Her clothing fell from her body. 195 00:22:05,868 --> 00:22:08,111 She walked around, but she didn't notice. 196 00:22:08,151 --> 00:22:20,345 And she wandered around, began to wander through the streets, weeping and wailing and crying out, both my sons are dead. 197 00:22:20,425 --> 00:22:22,307 My husband on the road lies dead. 198 00:22:22,687 --> 00:22:27,773 My mother and father and brother burn on one funeral pyre. 199 00:22:31,634 --> 00:22:36,884 This story stands out as the epitome of loss, sadness. 200 00:22:37,024 --> 00:22:39,750 That's why it's an important and a well-known story. 201 00:22:40,652 --> 00:22:43,938 It's used as an example of loss. 202 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:48,647 And it's setting loss in a Buddhist context. 203 00:22:50,045 --> 00:23:07,463 Because she wandered around and people called her crazy, crazy old woman, crazy fool, as we often do, you know, thinking we think people are crazy and if we knew their backstory, maybe it would be rather pitiful than repulsive. 204 00:23:14,699 --> 00:23:42,850 And it so happened, as chance would have it, though we might say not chance, we might say rather a result of past association, because it is said in the past that in the time of the Buddha Padumuttara, one of the Buddhas of ancient prehistoric, pre pre prehistoric times, that she saw 205 00:23:44,247 --> 00:23:45,675 the bhikkhuni. 206 00:23:45,796 --> 00:23:51,507 She went to see the Buddha or she happened to be in the presence of the Buddha and she watched 207 00:23:52,465 --> 00:24:16,127 One bhikkhuni come in front of the Buddha and the Buddha bestowed upon her the rank or the preeminence, give her the position or the honor of preeminence in regards to the Vinaya, in regards to the discipline. 208 00:24:16,107 --> 00:24:39,837 you know told everyone made it clear to everyone that she was the best and gave her praise on that regard and I guess she was a Patachara was the woman who became Patachara was a Buddhist at the time and so she was very happy she was very keen on that she made a strong wish 209 00:24:41,572 --> 00:24:43,814 to one day be in such a state. 210 00:24:44,475 --> 00:24:54,604 So she desired to emulate this incredible woman who had become the chief of the Buddha's disciples in regards to the Vinaya. 211 00:24:55,305 --> 00:25:05,315 So this is one of those positions that she was the go-to person for the Vinaya, for the discipline of the rules. 212 00:25:08,698 --> 00:25:10,920 And as a result of that wish, 213 00:25:12,453 --> 00:25:16,099 She was carried into the Buddha's presence. 214 00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:20,465 Not only that, but when she saw the Buddha, she was affected. 215 00:25:21,907 --> 00:25:29,379 And so she walked towards the Buddha and the monks saw this naked woman coming and they tried to push her away and the people tried to keep her away. 216 00:25:32,644 --> 00:25:41,177 The Buddha looked at her and recognized immediately that this was from a past Buddha, from the time of a past Buddha, someone who had made an earnest wish 217 00:25:42,676 --> 00:25:58,537 whose desire was now to be fulfilled, that she had come to the point through all the rounds of samsara, through all the trouble and trials and tribulations that she had gone through to get here, she had now come to the end where she would fulfill her wish. 218 00:26:00,380 --> 00:26:04,986 And he told the monks, he said, leave off, stop, don't push her away, bring her to me. 219 00:26:06,608 --> 00:26:10,033 And they brought her up and they gave her room and she walked up to the Buddha. 220 00:26:21,050 --> 00:26:26,577 And he said to her, wake up, basically. 221 00:26:27,558 --> 00:26:32,084 He said to her, return to your right mind. 222 00:26:35,168 --> 00:26:45,442 And through the power of his voice and the power of her wish and just the power of her prior association and practice, she came to herself. 223 00:26:45,522 --> 00:26:47,985 She came to her senses. 224 00:26:49,535 --> 00:26:55,406 became cogent again. 225 00:26:55,667 --> 00:26:58,212 She became sane, at least temporarily. 226 00:26:58,232 --> 00:27:03,342 And she looked at the Buddha, and she began to cry and said to him, 227 00:27:04,705 --> 00:27:06,427 Venerable sir, be my refuge. 228 00:27:07,709 --> 00:27:08,630 My son is dead. 229 00:27:09,651 --> 00:27:10,753 My husband is dead. 230 00:27:10,833 --> 00:27:14,317 My two sons have died. 231 00:27:14,358 --> 00:27:18,102 And all my family has been killed in the same accident. 232 00:27:18,423 --> 00:27:19,064 I have no one. 233 00:27:19,084 --> 00:27:19,724 I have nothing. 234 00:27:21,046 --> 00:27:22,588 Please, please be my refuge. 235 00:27:22,628 --> 00:27:24,030 And weeping and crying. 236 00:27:27,672 --> 00:27:38,166 The teacher listened, the Buddha listened, and said, Bhattacharya, what you say is true, may be true, this all, be it as it may. 237 00:27:38,206 --> 00:27:47,859 He said that the tears that you're crying now, the tears that you're crying now are nothing. 238 00:27:49,061 --> 00:27:57,392 In all the rounds of samsara, the number of tears that you've shed, 239 00:27:57,878 --> 00:28:09,551 from birth to birth to birth, for the loss of kin, for the loss of love, for the loss of life and limb. 240 00:28:11,413 --> 00:28:19,882 All the tears that you've shed in the rounds of samsara are greater than the waters in all the oceans on earth. 241 00:28:21,844 --> 00:28:23,886 That's how long is samsara. 242 00:28:28,692 --> 00:28:31,919 And then he's uttered these verses, which I'll now relate to you. 243 00:28:32,982 --> 00:28:39,016 But little water do the oceans for contain, compared with all the tears that man hath shed. 244 00:28:40,319 --> 00:28:46,633 By sorrow smitten and by suffering distraught, woman, why heedless dost thou still remain? 245 00:28:53,633 --> 00:29:22,830 and she began to change her perception for the first time in her life she began to look at the world in a different way that instead of seeing loss as something that you should mourn over she began to see the mourning and the sorrow and the sadness as being something that should be overcome and seeing it as a habit and as merely a 246 00:29:24,430 --> 00:29:26,294 part of the problem. 247 00:29:28,458 --> 00:29:32,626 We think the problem is the loss, the problem is the problem. 248 00:29:34,230 --> 00:29:40,482 But the bigger problem or the mourning and the 249 00:29:41,272 --> 00:29:45,977 The seeing it as a problem is a part of the problem, a big part of the problem. 250 00:29:45,997 --> 00:30:04,697 And in fact, if we didn't see it as a problem, if we were to look at the world in a different way and rise above it and see this as just nature doing its thing, if we could see like that, if we could see like that, then we would be free. 251 00:30:10,178 --> 00:30:17,245 And interestingly enough, he also taught to her, it says, two of the Dhammapada verses that we're going to learn later on. 252 00:30:17,385 --> 00:30:22,330 So I'm not going to relate those to you because they come much, much later on. 253 00:30:22,410 --> 00:30:24,012 He related verses 288 and 289. 254 00:30:24,292 --> 00:30:29,097 So he reused these verses. 255 00:30:30,078 --> 00:30:34,663 These verses were... The Dhammapada verses are the pithy sayings of the Buddha. 256 00:30:34,683 --> 00:30:36,945 They're the sort of... 257 00:30:38,208 --> 00:30:43,813 iconic or exemplary or the sort of 258 00:30:45,768 --> 00:31:14,847 it's iconic maybe is the word the teachings that stand out and the Buddha would use these verses would teach using these verses at different times and so teaching these verses Bhadachara became a Sotapanna while he was giving this teaching her mind was fixed and focused and she was able to see the truth and through the power of the Buddha's voice and through his presence she was able to calm herself and was able to see things clearly 259 00:31:19,771 --> 00:31:33,733 And at the moment, after becoming a sotapanna, she became aware of the fact that she was naked and she, for the first time in quite some time, she became modest and she huddled down and tried to cover herself up. 260 00:31:34,615 --> 00:31:39,282 And someone in the audience handed her a cloth and she wrapped the cloth around herself. 261 00:31:41,540 --> 00:31:53,237 and at that point she requested that she to be admitted into the community of monks and she was admitted and she became a bhikkhuni and indeed became 262 00:31:53,791 --> 00:31:57,516 the Buddha's eminent disciple in regards to the discipline. 263 00:31:58,577 --> 00:32:07,628 Now the story of the verse itself comes from a story that occurred during Bhattacharya's life as a bhikkhuni. 264 00:32:08,649 --> 00:32:17,200 The story goes that she was, because she was intensely in meditation, as a sotapanna, she was engaging in the practice to become an arahant. 265 00:32:18,175 --> 00:32:24,681 And so one day, being very mindful, she was pouring water out to wash her feet. 266 00:32:25,582 --> 00:32:36,432 And she watched as the water went out into the soil on the ground and it would go out for some ways and then sink into the ground. 267 00:32:37,292 --> 00:32:41,516 And then watched as the water went out further and then again it sunk into the ground. 268 00:32:41,556 --> 00:32:46,541 And she saw how it would go out and then it would just disappear. 269 00:32:46,661 --> 00:32:47,862 And she was watching this 270 00:32:49,276 --> 00:32:53,228 And it's interesting how it hit her as 271 00:32:55,604 --> 00:33:24,025 really just the nature of beings because she was so fixed in the meditation she saw this as the life of human beings so some water would go out a little ways and then fall into the ground some water would go out further she thought this is like human beings some human beings are born and die quite quickly quite soon because she would have been consumed still with the thoughts of her children some go out a little further like her husband 272 00:33:24,005 --> 00:33:32,974 And some go out very far, but in the end, all the water, just as all the water disappears into the ground, so too everyone dies. 273 00:33:33,535 --> 00:33:35,557 And it was just this idea of change. 274 00:33:36,718 --> 00:33:42,364 Equating the two had to do with her perception of everything ceasing. 275 00:33:42,745 --> 00:33:44,727 Things arise and then they cease. 276 00:33:44,847 --> 00:33:47,029 The water comes out of the pot and into the ground. 277 00:33:48,290 --> 00:33:52,695 Humans come out of the womb and into the ground and end up in the ground as well. 278 00:33:55,510 --> 00:34:09,607 And the Buddha was, the story goes, I mean this is apparently a common thing, the Buddha was able to psychically become aware of Bhattacharya's thoughts and present himself to her psychically. 279 00:34:10,128 --> 00:34:15,554 But if you don't like that version of the story, you can change it and say he came to talk to her. 280 00:34:17,096 --> 00:34:24,505 But the point is that he taught her the verse that would end up leading her to become an arahant, and that's our verse. 281 00:34:24,485 --> 00:34:29,514 And it emphasizes a very important aspect of the Buddhist teaching, and that's the arising and ceasing. 282 00:34:29,554 --> 00:34:32,940 So the Udayabhayam, the rise and fall. 283 00:34:34,262 --> 00:34:41,234 And so I didn't explain it, but to explain it now, it refers to the fact that everything in the world arises and ceases. 284 00:34:41,294 --> 00:34:43,017 In fact, reality 285 00:34:42,997 --> 00:34:46,503 which is based on experience, arises and ceases every moment. 286 00:34:47,725 --> 00:34:53,514 And so more than just what she was seeing with the water, it actually goes quite deeper than that. 287 00:34:54,175 --> 00:35:00,605 And through the practice of meditation, she would be seeing that actually everything arises and ceases momentarily. 288 00:35:00,625 --> 00:35:04,752 And by watching that, by looking at that, even just for a moment, 289 00:35:05,710 --> 00:35:11,075 Seeing that, if you see it clearly, even that can lead to enlightenment. 290 00:35:12,316 --> 00:35:13,557 It shows you impermanence. 291 00:35:13,738 --> 00:35:15,800 It shows you what we call suffering. 292 00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:21,165 But by suffering, it's just a word that means it's not happiness or it's not satisfying. 293 00:35:22,966 --> 00:35:24,588 Because it's nothing. 294 00:35:25,289 --> 00:35:27,631 If it arises and ceases, you can't hold on to it. 295 00:35:27,971 --> 00:35:29,953 You can't depend upon it. 296 00:35:30,113 --> 00:35:32,095 It can't bring you true satisfaction. 297 00:35:32,155 --> 00:35:32,816 Of course it can't. 298 00:35:32,976 --> 00:35:34,097 It arises and ceases. 299 00:35:36,052 --> 00:35:38,975 and non self, which means it's not an entity. 300 00:35:39,195 --> 00:35:49,586 It's not a thing that an atom because we know from from school that energy, physical energy and matter can never be created or destroyed. 301 00:35:50,487 --> 00:35:53,470 But experience is created and destroyed constantly. 302 00:35:53,711 --> 00:35:57,415 And experience arises, wasn't there a moment ago, and it ceases. 303 00:35:58,436 --> 00:35:59,697 And isn't there ever again. 304 00:36:01,853 --> 00:36:10,007 So seeing this for a moment is better than to live a hundred years and never see this. 305 00:36:10,983 --> 00:36:17,010 And this story really drives that home because life is full of great suffering. 306 00:36:18,011 --> 00:36:22,577 And so to say that life is great and long life is great and it's good to live long and so on. 307 00:36:23,598 --> 00:36:26,201 There are people in the world who hope to die when they're 60. 308 00:36:26,722 --> 00:36:27,843 Oh, 60 is enough. 309 00:36:29,144 --> 00:36:32,889 Remember, I think when we were young, some people, some kids would say that. 310 00:36:33,490 --> 00:36:36,633 When I'm 60, I'm just going to kill myself because anything older than that. 311 00:36:40,077 --> 00:36:40,618 Silliness. 312 00:36:42,303 --> 00:36:45,427 But we do, for the most part, we're keen to live. 313 00:36:47,370 --> 00:36:54,759 And there's a problem with that line of thinking, with the idea of long life. 314 00:36:55,801 --> 00:36:58,284 Because it's not the quantity, of course, it's the quality. 315 00:36:59,486 --> 00:37:06,755 And mostly we live our lives unprepared for the sort of things that Patachara had to go through. 316 00:37:07,196 --> 00:37:11,922 Unprepared, but fully susceptible, vulnerable to these things. 317 00:37:14,602 --> 00:37:17,287 Nowadays there's great suffering in the world. 318 00:37:17,327 --> 00:37:19,932 There's great tragedy and it can strike. 319 00:37:20,033 --> 00:37:23,980 It's not just something that happens to other people in other places of the world. 320 00:37:24,020 --> 00:37:26,305 This happens all over the world. 321 00:37:26,345 --> 00:37:28,609 It could happen to us anytime. 322 00:37:29,010 --> 00:37:30,032 Something we should consider. 323 00:37:30,112 --> 00:37:34,180 Something that a Buddhist would consider. 324 00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:45,688 The fact that I could walk outside and run over by a car or be shot with a gun or be gored by a wild bull, a wild cow. 325 00:37:49,478 --> 00:37:50,380 Anything could happen. 326 00:37:51,710 --> 00:37:54,654 And we're, for the most part, not prepared for it. 327 00:37:54,674 --> 00:37:54,894 Why? 328 00:37:54,974 --> 00:37:55,896 Because we don't see it. 329 00:37:56,036 --> 00:37:58,279 We don't see reality as it is. 330 00:37:58,499 --> 00:38:00,482 We think of things as stable and lasting. 331 00:38:01,544 --> 00:38:03,106 We think of things as satisfying. 332 00:38:03,426 --> 00:38:07,091 We think of things as controllable, stable, under our control. 333 00:38:07,972 --> 00:38:17,886 We try so hard, live our lives constantly, working to bring things under our control, to make things stable, to make things satisfying, to attain and to 334 00:38:17,866 --> 00:38:22,434 Hold on to things that we think will satisfy us and never are we satisfied. 335 00:38:23,276 --> 00:38:27,683 Never are we content, never are we at peace and we're never quite sure why that is. 336 00:38:28,565 --> 00:38:32,652 We always think just if I get this, just this next thing then I'll be satisfied. 337 00:38:36,648 --> 00:38:41,335 And so seeing the rise and fall is very important. 338 00:38:41,896 --> 00:38:48,406 It's actually, on a basic level, it's the entrance to vipassana insight. 339 00:38:49,308 --> 00:38:57,661 So when you first start to see things as arising and ceasing, that's the moment when you begin to practice vipassana meditation. 340 00:38:57,701 --> 00:39:01,727 And that's the first of the insight knowledges. 341 00:39:01,707 --> 00:39:05,436 Udaya bhajnana, knowledge of arise and fall. 342 00:39:05,497 --> 00:39:09,467 So seeing that everything, it's not intellectual, it's actually seeing. 343 00:39:09,687 --> 00:39:15,061 When the meditator practices enough, they'll begin to see that everything, they'll see things arise and cease. 344 00:39:15,121 --> 00:39:17,607 And so they'll see that everything arises and ceases. 345 00:39:19,460 --> 00:39:29,434 Of course, as they practice on, and once they get a sense that this is the case with everything, they really get a sense that it's universal, they'll come to a point where it just hits them. 346 00:39:30,135 --> 00:39:32,378 And that's the moment of the realization of Nibbana. 347 00:39:32,398 --> 00:39:35,783 So that's the real knowledge of Udayabhaya. 348 00:39:36,864 --> 00:39:49,382 Whereas, as we know from Kondanya, the first of the Arahants, the first of the Sotapanna followers of the Buddha, the first person to see Nibbana after the Buddha, 349 00:39:50,206 --> 00:40:01,262 And what they say about him is that he saw that everything that has the nature to arise also has the nature to cease. 350 00:40:06,035 --> 00:40:07,738 So that's the teaching. 351 00:40:08,459 --> 00:40:10,042 It relates directly to our practice. 352 00:40:10,062 --> 00:40:11,224 It's a very important one. 353 00:40:12,025 --> 00:40:15,171 It's a very important aspect of meditation that we should see this. 354 00:40:15,572 --> 00:40:17,134 Of course, it shouldn't be intellectual. 355 00:40:17,195 --> 00:40:20,941 It's not something I should describe to you and you try to appreciate intellectually. 356 00:40:21,742 --> 00:40:27,913 It's something that you will see, and when you see it, it's good to have it described to you, have it pointed out to you that that's what you're seeing. 357 00:40:27,933 --> 00:40:30,658 You'll see things arising and ceasing. 358 00:40:30,638 --> 00:40:40,649 You'll see that whereas before you thought there was me and mine and I and there were entities, now you see that actually it's just phenomena arising and ceasing experientially. 359 00:40:42,210 --> 00:40:43,932 It's an important aspect of our practice. 360 00:40:43,992 --> 00:40:51,440 So, a good teaching, very much worth explaining, and a moving story, I think. 361 00:40:51,761 --> 00:40:58,688 It's a story that we talk about quite often, one that we come back to again and again as an example of 362 00:40:58,668 --> 00:41:10,967 someone who changed the way they looked at the world, someone who was consumed by grief and hardship that most of us, well many of us, never have to deal with, have never had to deal with. 363 00:41:12,069 --> 00:41:13,932 And she was able to look at it in a new way. 364 00:41:13,972 --> 00:41:25,329 She was given this wise advice of the Buddha, a very famous quote, that all the water and all the oceans is nothing compared to the tears that we have shed. 365 00:41:25,349 --> 00:41:27,072 So why are we still crying? 366 00:41:30,005 --> 00:41:31,588 And indeed she stopped crying. 367 00:41:35,175 --> 00:41:36,057 As should we all. 368 00:41:37,419 --> 00:41:38,802 So that's the Dhamma for tonight. 369 00:41:39,423 --> 00:41:40,545 Thank you all for tuning in. 370 00:41:41,087 --> 00:41:42,129 Wishing you all the best. 371 00:41:43,110 --> 00:41:44,453 Keep practicing and be well.