Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse 130, which reads as follows.
Sambetasanti Tandasa Sambesang Jivitang Piyang Atanang Upamangkatwanahanaya Nagatayi Which...
which is almost the same as the last one.
It means, all tremble at the rod.
But this is, what is different is, jiwi tang piang, life is dear, sabesang, to all.
Life is dear to all.
And then the same as the last one, na tanang upamang katwa, having made a comparison with oneself, na anaya naghatayi,
And the story actually is said to be almost the same as the last one.
The Buddha laid down two rules.
And so that in the last story, it's about how he laid down the rule against hitting other monks.
The group of six monks who were infamous for their escapades.
breaking a lot of rules and being the instigation for establishing many rules.
They hit a group of 17 monks who had taken up residence.
So this one doesn't say what actually happened, but for some reason or other, they were angry at these Sattarasa Vagye Bhikkhu, a group of 17 monks.
And, but in this case, it's interesting, the English translation, I think, gets it wrong.
It said, the English translation says, they hit them.
And then this group of 17 monks held up their fists.
in response to scare them away.
But I don't think that's what the Pali actually says.
I can't quite get it for sure, but it certainly doesn't make it clear that it was in response.
It appears to say that just like in the last one, where they actually hit the group of seventeen, in this one the group of six monks just held up their fists to scare them.
And again the monks scream.
And again the Buddha heard and asked, what's that scream all about?
And someone told him.
And he said, From here on, monks, this is not to be done by monks.
Whoever does it has broken a rule.
And then he explains it.
He says, Just as I, so others tremble at the rod.
Just as to me, and just as to me, so to others life is dear.
Knowing this one should not strike or kill another.
And so this is sort of the, as I already said, this is sort of the Buddhist version of the Golden Rule about doing unto others as they would do unto you.
But there's two interesting points that I can talk about for this one.
The first is that they haven't actually done anything, you know, they didn't actually harm the other monks.
And so often we place
a lot of emphasis on the action you know when you actually harm someone
And I mean, it's not any deep or esoteric teaching, but it's interesting to remind ourselves that it's not actually the acts itself.
It's our own viciousness in the mind when you raise your hand against someone, even just raising your hand.
You know, a lot of abuse is not even physical.
It's emotional.
It's the fear.
And oftentimes it's the fear itself that is more harmful, that the actual bruises, the actual scars heal much easier, much more completely than the mental scars.
You know, you hear stories about parents who tell their kids to go get them their belt, right?
Go get me my belt.
Could you imagine
Having, knowing, like when you know what the meaning is, you know, you have to actually go and bring them the weapon they're going to use against you.
And trauma.
So that's one thing is remembering, especially for meditation purposes, you know, remembering to focus on our mind states, our intentions.
It doesn't matter whether you actually kill or harm someone.
It's the viciousness, the cruelty, the lack of compassion, the
slavery to anger, you know, getting lost in our own anger so we can't even see what we're doing.
And that's the second thing to point out is that this isn't just an intellectual exercise where we say, yes, I don't want to be harmed and therefore it makes sense that I shouldn't harm others.
It's not like that.
It's
The very fact that you don't want to be harmed yourself makes it perverse for you to harm others.
And that's what makes it, or that's one way of explaining what makes it karmically active.
that when you harm others it comes back to harm you and you subject yourself to harm because you know in your mind that this is wrong there's a sense that this is an evil thing and by evil I just mean something you wouldn't want to happen to you and because you know that when you do it to others it leaves a scar on your mind it
it perverts your very reality.
Because doing things that you want to happen to you is easy because there's a sense of the goodness of them.
This is a good thing to do, so you do it for someone else.
Why?
Because it's a good thing.
You don't have to feel the other person's happiness.
You know that this is something that leads to happiness, so when you do it for them, it makes sense.
To do something that causes harm to someone else,
actually is perverse because you know the harm in it.
You know that this is an evil thing and by evil again this is a suffering thing, a thing that leads to suffering.
So anyone who says that you should try and maximize your own happiness even at the expense of others or who argues that anyone who says look out for yourself first is being selfish because then they go and harm others doesn't really understand how it works.
You can't be selfish and work for your own benefit.
Anyone who is selfish is not working for their own benefit because they're doing things that they know are wrong.
And again, wrong simply means things that lead to suffering.
It's wrong because it leads to suffering and there's no distinction that can be made between the suffering for oneself or the suffering for another because in your mind there's an awareness, there's an understanding that this is a cause for suffering.
There is
There's that.
So it necessarily involves anger.
It involves unwholesome mind states.
And leads you to be susceptible to harm yourself when you harm others.
I mean, the practical fallout is that you'll be afraid and
You'll put yourself in the situation where you're paranoid about retribution.
When you die, it will be an obsession in your mind.
It's the kind of thing that comes back to haunt you, the harm you've done to others.
And so when you die you end up with that as part of your rebirth, with that as part of who you are.
Potentially leading you to hell even, but more likely just to lead you to a situation, an abusive situation.
Often this is what leads to these cycles of retribution where
one person harms another, then they're both reborn, and the other person, you know, one person is the aggressor, the other is the victim, and it cycles like that.
This kind of thing can happen because of the psychology of it.
You harm others and you pervert your own situation.
And there's a sense that that is how karma works.
And so the kind of thing that we look into, that we discover through our practice, how these things affect our mind.
And so it's not just a pretty saying, yes, don't harm others because you wouldn't want that to happen to you.
There actually is some depth to it.
And in fact, that's very much an intrinsic part of how the mind works.
So anyway, not too much to talk about because it's very similar, but we're continuing on.
We've started the tenth chapter.
This is verse number two.
So we're on next to number 131.
Thank you all for tuning in.