Good evening everyone.
Welcome to Evening Dhamma.
Today we're going to look at the Salekha Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya number eight, if you're interested in following along.
The Salekha Sutta has a special place in
In our tradition, in my heart, Mahasi Sayadaw wrote a book on it.
And I highly recommend if you're really interested in this teaching to go and read his book.
Of course, I recommend anything that he's written, that he wrote.
We're not going to go into such detail, but we'll try and go through it all.
The Salekha Sutta.
The word Salekha, I'm still not quite sure exactly what it means.
I get the feeling that it was a word that was in use in the time of the Buddha.
Like dharma or karma or that kind of thing.
We have the word salekana that the giants used.
Salekana was the practice of giving up food until you die.
And the idea was that that slowly burnt away as you starved yourself to death.
You would slowly become free from defilement.
The word I think comes from, or they say it comes from leek, which means to scratch, to make a scratch in something, make a mark.
And so I think the idea has to do, in some colloquial sense, with scrubbing or effacing, really, polishing perhaps, sanding, that sort of thing, scraping off the, making a dent in the problem, slowly, slowly cutting away at the
And so it came to mean this idea of purification, this process of purification.
Effacement, to remove the bad stuff.
Slowly, slowly, scratching, scraping it off.
But effacement is a good word, I think.
And so Chunda, one of the Buddha's great disciples, I'm pretty sure was an Arahant at this point, came and asked the Buddha a question.
And the commentary says he asked the question because he was observing monks.
He was observing a problem and he wanted to address this problem with a question.
So he asks the Buddha.
He says there's all sorts of views in the world.
views about self or views about the world, cosmology and that sort of thing.
When one begins to practice, does one give up these views?
And so what he's asking is, is it enough to decide
hey, I'm following the Buddha's teaching, I'm following this view, this person who has these views, and I'm taking on their views, is that enough?
And so the commentary says there were a lot of monks who were of this, perhaps not of this view, but they fell into this trap of thinking that it was enough for them to be Buddhist or enough for them to be monks.
And that somehow they were able to, they were pure.
And the Buddha understood what he was asking.
Are these monks who think they're pure because they're Buddhist and because they can repeat the things the Buddha has said, because they wear monks' robes and because they look and act like monks, have they purified their minds from views?
And the Buddha says something very important.
He says basically no.
He doesn't use the word no.
No is not something the Buddha says very often.
He instead tells him what the truth is.
The truth is if and when the object that those views are based upon
that the object that causes those views to arise, if and when one sees that object as it is, one then gives up those views.
If one sees that it is not me, not mine, not myself, then of course there's the abandoning of the view.
So what he's saying is that
We can learn and we can study.
Take non-self, for example.
So the view of self is quite pernicious.
It's quite deeply embedded in us, the idea that we have a self or a soul or that we have an identity.
So much so that even the idea that it might not be true, the suggestion that it might not be true is met with great
concern and fear.
And yet many people take up Buddhist practice and try to claim that they have this view of non-self.
The three characteristics are often like that.
People learn about the three characteristics and they get this idea, oh yeah, impermanence.
I understand that.
Because they talk about it and they think about it.
And so you could say to some extent they believe it.
But the view isn't abandoned, not until they see clearly the thing that the view is based upon.
That it's actually not like that.
So it is true that upon reflection you can say, hey, yeah, this body is changing.
And this body is not really able to satisfy me and it's not really under my control.
Just by thinking about it and by reflecting on your experiences.
And because you see that, because of that sort of vision in a conventional sense, you're able to, to some extent, take on the view of non-self or impermanence, suffering non-self, such that you don't cling as strongly to things.
But that's really what it's all about.
Until you see that, until you see the wrongness of your view,
You'll never give it up.
And of course, simply intellectually, understanding impermanent suffering non-self is not nearly enough to break through the core view of things, of experiences being permanent, satisfying, controllable, that kind of thing.
Stable, satisfying, controllable.
And so in the context of reality, what's really important and our experience and goal as the experience of freedom from suffering, it's very important to understand the inadequacy of taking on a view or intellectually understanding something
or even more perhaps subtle, the conflation between concentration and wisdom, the conflation between strength of mind and purity of mind.
Or perhaps purity of mind states and purity of the mind, if you will.
I mean, it's just conventional, but purity of mind states is achievable in many different ways, right?
If you just distract yourself from things that upset you, then you have a pure mind for a time.
You can momentarily have a good pure mind.
If you're kind and generous to people, you can have a pure mind for quite some time.
But when confronted by things that are displeasing, you can still become displeased.
And so the next thing the Buddha says is, and this is interesting for those people who are unsure about the place of concentration, of tranquility meditation and insight meditation.
The Buddha points out something that he's talked about and encouraged his monks to practice quite a lot, and that's the aid attainment.
The four form jhanas and the four formless jhanas.
These are the tranquility meditations, where one goes deeper and deeper into a state of trance, if you will, or a state of concentration.
A powerful mind that's based on some object, maybe love, compassion, maybe just a candle flame or something like that, maybe the breath.
By focusing on that, one's mind becomes very fixed and focused and actually very pure in that moment.
But you can't really say that the mind itself is pure as a conceptual thing.
The mind doesn't really exist.
But overall, there's a lack of something very important that leads to another level of purity, and that's the purity of potential.
See, an enlightened being, it's not that they aren't angry.
That's important.
What's important is they don't have the potential to be angry.
We're not all angry all the time, but an enlightened being doesn't have the potential to get angry.
Not because of concentration, for sure, but because of wisdom.
They don't have a potential to be greedy.
They don't have a potential for delusion, for doubt, for worry, for fear.
There's no potential because they've come to see things.
Their mind truly is pure in a very different way.
And so the Buddha says it's possible that one enters into any of these eight attainments of tranquility.
And they're just, you can research them.
I'm not going to go through them, but let's just say simply one can enter into a tranquility state, a state of tranquil mind.
where one is very mindful and very clearly aware, but focused on a concept, focused on a specific object.
And one might think, I am abiding in effacement.
I have attained this scraping away of the defilements.
I have cut them off.
I have purified my mind.
And the Buddha says, and this is important that people don't perhaps know, he said, these attainments are not called effacement.
It is not these attainments that are called effacement in the noble one's discipline.
These are called sukha, dita dhamma sukha viha, dita dhamma, what is it?
ditta dhamma sukha vihara is what they're called ditta dhamma sukha vihara the first ones are anyway let's see the the the the first four the second four are called peaceful abiding
That's it.
They are ways of finding happiness and peace in the here and now, in the present time.
And so they're good.
They're beneficial.
They can be used.
The power of them can be used as a basis for insight.
If you then switch to practicing insight meditation, but they aren't in and of themselves cleansing of the mind.
And then the Buddha begins to teach what he actually calls effacement.
And there are 44 ways that one goes about cleansing the mind.
But let's step back and talk about the idea of cleansing the mind first.
We're going to go through these fairly briefly.
I don't want to spend too much time on them.
So we have to talk about what it means to cleanse the mind and how we go about cleansing the mind because there's this question of, well, if you actually work to change yourself, well, you certainly run the risk of
of trying to fix things, of trying to be in control.
You run the risk of cultivating a view of self.
And it can be quite wrong
headed, you can get in the wrong direction if you try to force your mind, if you try to forcefully cleanse the mind.
And so it's important to understand, well, you'll see as we go through them, they're actually quite good.
But this is why the Buddha talks and Chunda brings up views, because it's really in many ways all about your view.
And so when we go through these, it's not even so much about, hey, I'm going to do all these things.
It's about understanding what is right and what is wrong.
So getting, first of all, this knowledge.
When you're taught something, when the Buddha expounded all these teachings, simply teaching them to people.
If I have the view that there is a self, that I have a soul, I have a self, I am me, this is me, this is my body.
Well, that's going to affect everything I do.
It's going to affect my intentions.
It's going to affect my actions.
It's going to affect my speech.
It's going to affect my whole attitude and my whole behavior.
It's going to affect who I am quite deeply.
Christians, being a Christian affects who you are.
Muslims, being a Muslim affects who you are.
It changes you, the views and beliefs that you hold.
It changes many things.
It changes the world around you as well.
And so then if someone like the Buddha comes along and teaches something very different, then it's like throwing a bucket full of black marbles and you throw a white one in.
There's something new in the mix.
And depending on the individual, how much of the new stuff gets in and how deep of an impact it has, well, it depends on the individual.
But we understand there's this power of teaching, and the Buddha describing these things, even just starting off talking about non-self, changes the way, you know, it threatens this view, it challenges this view.
And in many ways, just challenging the view is a way of changing your direction, right?
It's what leads people to decide, hey, well, this person is teaching something, but then they give all these reasons for it and it makes sense.
What if I were to try that and see where it leads, right?
Point being that learning
And experiencing this teaching.
I'm sitting here and the Buddha is talking to me.
And that experience changes me.
That's the very beginning.
And of course as it changes you and you start to look at the world in a new way, that looking at the world in a new way changes you as well.
So when we go through each of these 44 things, just hearing about them, each one is going to change the way you think about that situation.
There's a power of teaching, the power of listening to the Dhamma, is a part of the process of change.
So when we ask, how is it that you change if we talk about not being in control and so on?
And how do we go about changing who we are if we're not supposed to force change?
So we understand it all, it comes naturally.
It's not deterministic, not exactly, but it's more in the present moment.
Changes come each moment based on our experiences and our reactions to those experiences.
So let's go through these 44 and hope that, well, we expect that some change comes about in all of us by going through them.
So this is how, he says, this is how effacement should be practiced.
This is how we cleanse our mind, these 44 ways.
This is what we're doing in our meditation practice.
And in many ways all of this just means changing the way we look at things and seeing the problems in certain practices.
So the first is other people will be cruel.
We won't be cruel.
This is how we practice.
We make a determination not to be cruel.
So by hearing this and by deciding in our minds, yes, cruelty, that's not the way to purify your mind.
It's so interesting when you think about it.
It's quite a shock to think there are people who wish for other people to suffer.
Isn't it kind of absurd, right?
People who actively pursue harm towards others.
It's kind of shocking, I think, living in Canadian society to think that that's true.
In many ways, we're kind of sheltered, I think,
We think, I don't know, I'm sheltered for sure.
But I think many of us are rather sheltered and it's a shock when we meet with someone who is out to hurt other people, out to hurt us.
And we suffer greatly because we're not prepared for it, and we're upset by it.
And it is upsetting.
I mean, it's quite shocking to think that.
I mean, it's not.
Of course, it's not a surprise.
And we know that the world's full of this.
But if you actually think about it, what an absurd state for someone to want to hurt someone else, for cruelty, for someone to be cruel.
Of course, as we practice mindfulness, we start to see how tainted, how defiled that state is, how unpleasant it is to be cruel to someone else.
People do it often with great relish and joy.
They take joy, they take pleasure in being cruel to others.
Buddha said it's like a leper.
Just like a leper takes pleasure in cauterizing their wounds with fire.
Not exactly the most blessed sort of pleasure.
It's an awful sort of, it just feels all wrong to be cruel to someone else.
And you can feel the toxic energy building up inside you as you do it.
So we decide not to be cruel.
Others will kill, we will not kill.
Abstain from killing living beings.
Such a powerful thing to do when you finally make that decision.
If you've killed before, if you were inclined to kill, where you make a vow to yourself never to kill a living being again.
Others will steal, will take what is not given.
We shall abstain from taking what is not given.
Others will be un-celibate, we shall be celibate.
Okay, so this is for monks.
Some Buddhists are not celibate, but this is a practice of purity.
Really, the closer you can be to celibacy, the more powerful your practice leading towards purity, because our sexual activity is addictive.
It's a very powerful, pleasant state in the brain and the mind, and it's highly addictive, of course.
So it leads to, I mean, it leads to, as you're mindful, you can feel again the toxicity of it, the actual defilement of the pleasure, right?
This isn't something intellectual, but you start to feel how it's not actually, it's kind of gross, really.
You start to become uncomfortable with it.
You see that there's a lot of discomfort associated with sexual pleasure, for example.
Not to mention, of course, the addiction and the stress and suffering.
I mean, really, that's a part of the stress and suffering that comes from not getting what you want.
And there's the lie, we shall abstain from lying.
Others will speak maliciously, we shall abstain from malicious speech.
Others will speak harshly, we will abstain from harsh speech.
Others will gossip, we shall abstain from gossip.
Wrong types of speech.
Speech is, of course, it's a challenging one because it's very quick to speak, to say things that perhaps we regret.
Speech is one thing that we should be very careful with as a result, right?
Because it's so quick.
It's so easy to just say something that sometimes you say something that you can never take back.
You regret and the deed is done.
Very powerful words have many, in many ways, much more meaning than physical acts, right?
Because there's a meaning to your words.
You express something.
can in many ways be more harmful than physical acts.
Others will be covetous, others will have ill will, others will be of wrong view.
And I'll separate those.
Others will be covetous and have ill wills.
So this is really the key.
And when it gets right down to it, most of our problems have to do with liking and disliking.
It's quite simple.
Most of our emotional states, no matter how flowery we make them, come down to liking or disliking.
I read something today about how depression is a
something but they said depression may be a they're talking basically saying it's a physical problem which is such an absurd thing to say they're so intent people are so intent on finding the cause finding the depression in the brain and fixing that
It's never going to happen.
The brain is very much dependent on the mind in the sense of our experience.
You can cut out big chunks of the brain so that you don't experience this feeling or that feeling.
It's not actually going to solve anything.
The potential.
You never cut off the potential because you can't create wisdom that way.
You can't cut off the potential.
I mean, in this life, of course, you can give someone a lobotomy.
They'll never get angry.
Not in this life.
But you haven't fixed the problem for them.
Others will have wrong view, wrong intention, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, wrong concentration.
That's the eightfold ignoble path.
Others will have these eight bad things.
We will be of right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.
So the wording is interesting.
And there's actually, he's going to go over these 44 things in several different ways.
But the wording of this section is, it's, I think, perhaps significant in terms of not concerning ourselves with others.
Right?
Being very, very much focused on our own purity.
That's not central to this message, but it is important.
We're not trying to change the world.
This isn't a social activity.
This isn't something we do externally.
I mean, really, that's the point.
It's not about whether we help others or not.
It's about this being an internal practice.
Hey, we're talking about something that goes on inside.
It's not something that goes on outside.
So even when surrounded by people who are angry or greedy or gossiping or lying or cheating or killing or stealing, we will not
This is how we purify ourselves.
You want to purify yourself, you in many ways have to go contrary to your own environment.
The world is full of these things.
And then we have wrong knowledge and wrong deliverance.
So based on the Eightfold Noble Path, there comes right knowledge and thus freedom, deliverance, freedom.
But other people have wrong knowledge.
Their views are wrong.
And so what they see, what comes about from their practice or lack of practice is all wrong.
And so they're not free.
We will not be like that.
We will not get caught up in wrong view and wrong inclination.
And thus we will not get caught up in the wrongness of the results.
Others will be overcome by sloth and torpor.
We will be free from sloth and torpor.
Others will be restless.
We won't be restless.
These are determinations.
This in and of itself, it's not going to change things just because you say, hey, I'm not going to.
But they incline the mind and give you very strong guidelines for how to direct your mind, direct your practice.
And when you make a determination to be objective about these states, because when you see things clearly, none of these problems will arise.
So you make a determination that when these things come up, you'll make effort to see them clearly.
And that in and of itself will free you from them.
Others will be doubters.
We shall go beyond doubt.
It's very easy to get caught up in doubt and think that somehow you're doing what's appropriate by doubting.
And it would be true if this were some sort of religious, you know, faith-based teaching, but when we talk about practice, what we're really talking about is overcoming doubt, you know.
So we say to ourselves, doubting, doubting.
It's not for some other nefarious purpose.
It's just to be free from the doubt, really to see the doubt clearly and see how it's causing you your stress.
And when you give up that doubt, you don't have to believe anything else.
You just gain the knowledge that doubt is stressful.
And that's it.
And then you're free from doubt, not because you learned something else, but because you learned about the doubt.
Others will be angry, we shall not be angry.
Others will be resentful, contemptuous, insolent, envious, avaricious, fraudulent, deceitful, obstinate, arrogant.
Really good words, right?
As meditators, we recognize these things in ourselves.
Often you remember things you've done in the past that were arrogant, deceitful, obstinate,
We all have these things.
It's important not to feel guilty or hate yourself because of them.
Just make this determination.
Say to yourself, this is where I'm going.
Or be aware that the Buddha said this at any rate.
And being aware that the Buddha said this will incline you, will challenge those states and make you recognize them.
Oh yes, this is something that I have inside me here.
This thing that's coming up is one of those things the Buddha said.
Buddha pointed out is a cause of defilement.
We can see, oh yes, he was right.
This thing is not good.
And you give it up.
Others will be difficult to admonish.
We will be easy to admonish.
We shall be easy to admonish.
This is an important one.
Some students are very difficult to admonish, always arguing with their teachers.
It's a problem.
It's a sickness sometimes.
You can't help yourself, but you argue with your teacher.
It's not always wrong.
Sometimes it's good to argue with your teacher, but some people are intent upon it and they
It's very difficult to teach them.
Teachers are disinclined to help them out.
Others will have bad friends.
We shall have good friends.
Bad friends are a huge part of the problem.
You get surrounded by bad people.
It's very hard to pull yourself out.
Very easy to follow after their bad example.
Others will be negligent, we shall be diligent.
Others will be faithless, we will have faith.
Faith here is confidence.
Others will have no confidence, we shall be confident.
Others will be shameless, we shall be shameful here.
And fear of wrongdoing.
Shame and fear of wrongdoing are just conventional words.
They don't actually mean shame and fear in the way that we think of them, because that would be involving anger or aversion, a disliking of the state.
But shame and fear of wrongdoing have to do with this visceral understanding that the act is wrong and the results are wrong.
seeing the negative, they go together.
They're really part of the same experience.
When you see the nature of an experience and its results,
You gain this.
It's called hiri otapa.
Most of us have a sense of this because we've been through bad things.
We've lived countless lifetimes where we've done nefarious deeds and reaped the results.
And so, having come through hell countless times, we're naturally shy and averse to doing... Most of us are averse to doing horrible things because...
we know where that leads.
And that's a sort of a sense of hiri-ottaba based on experience.
But it comes very strongly from meditation as you start to recoil, just naturally recoil from the whole idea, the very idea of doing anything evil.
Others will be of little learning, we shall be of great learning.
Yes, the Buddha did encourage his monks to learn, to study, to listen to the Dhamma, to repeat and review the Dhamma.
Others will be lazy, we will be energetic.
Others will be unmindful, we will be established in mindfulness.
Others will lack wisdom, we shall possess wisdom here.
Others will adhere to their own views, hold on to them tenaciously, and relinquish them with difficulty.
We shall not adhere to our views or hold on to them tenaciously, but shall relinquish them easily.
So views are one thing.
It's possible to have wrong views just because you don't know any better or you fell into it.
But the Buddha said the worst, there's no greater evil than someone holding on to a wrong view.
Where you tell them they're wrong and they disagree.
They stick to it.
Even you give them reasoned arguments and it's the greatest evil.
You can't teach such a person.
You can't help them.
Someone who won't see reason, who won't question their views.
We should all question our views all the time.
As long as we should question whether we actually know what we say we know.
It's interesting, this sutta reminded me today I was just reading the apology of Plato's apology with Socrates.
And Socrates basically says this is all he did.
He went around
Showing people or pointing out that people who said they knew this and knew that didn't actually know anything.
The things they said they knew, they didn't actually know.
That's basically what he's talking about here.
People hold on to views.
They say this is true, that is true.
And when investigated, when interrogated,
turns out to be just empty words.
There's nothing to it.
So this is how we practice effacement.
That's 44.
And then he goes over them again.
He says, even just inclining your mind towards all 44 of these states is of great benefit.
even if you don't actually do anything physically.
I mean, before you actually go and do something physically or verbally, just inclining your mind towards this and saying, yeah, cruelty is, wouldn't it be great if I could, if I could be not cruel, free myself from cruelty.
Just that inclination of mind is very powerful.
So he says the mind should be inclined in all 44 of these ways.
Then he says something additional that adds to this.
He says, what is the, how do we avoid?
Oh no, it's just the same thing actually.
Sorry.
He says, he points out that each of these 44 bad things has the opposite as its means of avoiding them.
So just as one were to avoid an uneven path,
by taking the even path you see how this path turns out to be fraught with thorns and brambles but fortunately there's another path I mean that's really what's great mostly we live our lives without any clue as to the right path and we acknowledge that the path I'm on isn't great but I don't see any other way ah so the Buddha for each of these 44 bad things he gave a way to avoid them
So being cruel has non-cruelty as a way of avoiding it.
It's just the opposite.
And then he says, just as all 44 of these lead downward, and all wholesome states lead upward, so cruelty has non-cruelty to lead one upwards, outwards, to freedom.
down being a sort of metaphorical down being into bondage he says just as one who is himself sinking in the mud
One who is themselves sinking in quicksand or in the mud in the swamp could never pull someone else out.
But one who is not sinking in the mud could be able to pull someone out of the mud.
So I guess what he's saying here is, in a way, people who are not cruel, for example, who are not all 44 of these things, are a means of helping one become free from all 44 of these things, extinguishing them.
They're extinguished by one who doesn't have them, meaning a teacher or a friend.
But not really.
The point is that the non-states, non-cruelty, and that state of being non-cruel helps purify the cruelty.
That's basically what he's saying.
And that's it.
He says, I have taught.
So it's a highly abbreviated version, but
You should read Mahasi Sayadaw's book if you're really interested.
He says, effacement has been taught by me.
The way of inclining the mind, the way of avoidance, the way leading upward, and the way of extinguishing.
These are the all different ways of looking at these 44 things.
What should be done for his disciples out of compassion by a teacher who seeks their welfare and has compassion for them, that I have done for you, Junda.
So the Buddha has done what he can do.
This is a standard passage.
He says, there's the trees, there's the empty rooms.
Meditate.
Don't be negligent.
Don't be remorseful.
later on.
Don't regret it later.
As Bhikkhu Bodhi says, or else you will regret it later.
This is our instruction to you.
And that's the Salekha Sutta.
That's the Dhamma for tonight.
Thank you all for coming up.