1
00:00:02,933 --> 00:00:06,217
Okay, welcome back to our study of the Dhamma Pandita.

2
00:00:06,237 --> 00:00:11,204
Today we continue on with verse number 64, which reads as follows.

3
00:00:14,389 --> 00:00:32,333
yāvajīvampi jebālo panditam payirupāsati naṣo dhammāṁ vijānāti dambhi suparasangyatā

4
00:00:33,511 --> 00:00:50,676
Which means, a fool who for his whole life attends upon or associates with a wise person,

5
00:00:55,415 --> 00:01:07,089
Such a person, such a fool, even though they spend their whole life with the wise person, doesn't realize the Dhamma for themselves.

6
00:01:11,294 --> 00:01:22,587
Just as the spoon in the soup doesn't taste the soup.

7
00:01:28,861 --> 00:01:40,056
So this is a story, a verse based on a story, another very short story of the Venerable Udayi, who was, I guess, a bit of a fool.

8
00:01:40,837 --> 00:01:51,651
I'm not sure if this is Lal Udayi or just another Udayi, but he's one of those people who never really caught on to the actual teaching.

9
00:01:52,752 --> 00:01:56,657
He may not have been a bad monk, but he just kind of stuck around.

10
00:01:58,375 --> 00:02:01,911
He didn't really have a clue as to what the Buddha taught and certainly hadn't realized it for himself.

11
00:02:03,558 --> 00:02:06,411
But when the elders left the Dhamma hall,

12
00:02:08,551 --> 00:02:09,532
And there was nobody around.

13
00:02:09,572 --> 00:02:18,141
He liked to go and sit up in the Dhammasana, the Dhamma chair.

14
00:02:18,201 --> 00:02:30,874
They have a special chair where someone, when they're giving a Dhamma talk, sits so that even a younger monk would be sitting higher than the senior monks for the time that they were giving the Dhamma talk.

15
00:02:30,894 --> 00:02:35,959
So whoever's teaching the Dhamma, they would have them sit higher as a show of respect.

16
00:02:44,275 --> 00:02:50,062
And so he used to go and sit on it and pretend like he was some great elder and he knew what he was doing.

17
00:02:50,903 --> 00:02:58,171
So one day he's doing this and a bunch of visiting monks come in and they see him up on the Dhamma chair and they think, oh, this must be some great elder.

18
00:03:00,433 --> 00:03:08,022
And so they all go up and they sit around him and ask him all sorts of questions about

19
00:03:09,419 --> 00:03:22,245
It says about the aggregates and very deep subjects, about the five aggregates and the twelve ayatana, the twelve bases and the eighteen datas, the eighteen elements.

20
00:03:23,407 --> 00:03:24,489
I ask him all sorts of questions.

21
00:03:24,549 --> 00:03:25,972
He's like, I don't know.

22
00:03:26,012 --> 00:03:30,060
He turns out to be a fool and not have any answers.

23
00:03:31,525 --> 00:03:40,897
And the other monks are appalled because the monastery where he was staying was the monastery of the Buddha.

24
00:03:40,978 --> 00:03:43,781
So he said to themselves, how can it be?

25
00:03:43,821 --> 00:03:44,482
Here you are.

26
00:03:44,502 --> 00:03:45,424
How long have you been a monk?

27
00:03:45,444 --> 00:03:50,330
And I guess he was an elder, so he'd been a monk for at least 10 years or at least he had been there for some time.

28
00:03:50,390 --> 00:03:55,998
And they were appalled that he had been with the Buddha all that time and hadn't learned anything.

29
00:03:58,341 --> 00:03:59,322
And so...

30
00:04:00,905 --> 00:04:03,849
criticizing him, they went over to pay respect to the Buddha.

31
00:04:05,953 --> 00:04:18,271
They waited until the appropriate time and made an appointment to see the Buddha and went in and paid respect to the Buddha and said, Venerable Sir, there's this monk and he's sitting up in the Dhamma chair and we asked him all these questions and he hadn't a clue.

32
00:04:19,353 --> 00:04:28,026
And we're thinking, how could it be that someone who'd been with you so long, living in the same monastery as the Blessed One himself,

33
00:04:30,368 --> 00:04:32,793
still wasn't able to realize the Dhamma for himself.

34
00:04:32,813 --> 00:04:33,955
He had no clue about the Dhamma.

35
00:04:36,359 --> 00:04:40,708
And the Buddha taught him, gave him his teaching and spoke this verse.

36
00:04:40,728 --> 00:04:46,639
He said, even if a fool, even if they live together with wise people for a hundred years,

37
00:04:49,876 --> 00:04:55,388
Because they're a fool, they never realize the Dhamma, no matter how much time they spend.

38
00:04:56,610 --> 00:05:00,839
And then he said it's just like the spoon.

39
00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:08,796
When you put a spoon in the soup, it never has an opportunity to taste the soup, no matter if you keep it in the soup for 100 years.

40
00:05:11,847 --> 00:05:15,353
So that's the verse and that's the story and that's the verse.

41
00:05:15,773 --> 00:05:21,222
The actual teaching behind it is obviously more generally applicable than just the story.

42
00:05:22,705 --> 00:05:24,167
It's a caution to us.

43
00:05:25,429 --> 00:05:28,675
And some people might even be surprised that this is possible.

44
00:05:29,135 --> 00:05:35,526
How could it be that you could spend so much time, even your whole life, with wise people and never become wise?

45
00:05:39,235 --> 00:05:42,178
And the analogy of the spoon and the soup is quite apt.

46
00:05:43,239 --> 00:05:46,562
It's because of the nature of the people.

47
00:05:47,683 --> 00:06:09,242
If a person is of a nature to be cruel and lustful and arrogant and deluded and all these bad things, so performs unwholesome acts and is unwholesome in their speech and unguarded in their behavior and

48
00:06:09,222 --> 00:06:13,928
unwholesome in the mind.

49
00:06:15,370 --> 00:06:20,156
If they are inclined towards unwholesomeness then physical presence doesn't help them.

50
00:06:22,599 --> 00:06:29,648
You see this acutely with even people who can answer questions and do have knowledge of the Dhamma.

51
00:06:30,389 --> 00:06:36,377
People who studied a lot but have never practiced can

52
00:06:38,517 --> 00:06:52,054
can still inside be incredibly clueless to the truth, unenlightened inside.

53
00:06:52,777 --> 00:06:57,522
So they actually have trouble answering questions in a cogent fashion.

54
00:06:57,582 --> 00:07:04,509
They aren't able to put together the Buddha's teaching into a way that's understandable because they themselves don't understand it.

55
00:07:05,250 --> 00:07:17,502
So when asked deep questions, even people who have studied a lot, it's easy to tell whether they have or not practiced based on their ability to explain the teaching in a cogent manner.

56
00:07:18,950 --> 00:07:20,192
Meditation is really the key.

57
00:07:20,212 --> 00:07:23,078
I always try to bring these videos back to our meditation practice.

58
00:07:23,439 --> 00:07:28,829
And it's the meditation that allows you to taste the soup, so to speak.

59
00:07:28,849 --> 00:07:39,490
If a person isn't practicing the teachings, it's like reading a map but never driving, or reading the driver's manual and never actually getting behind the wheel.

60
00:07:43,081 --> 00:07:48,848
our knowledge of the Buddhist teaching and even our rational understanding and agreement of the Buddhist teaching.

61
00:07:49,809 --> 00:08:00,641
It's similar to any philosophy where you will find philosophers passionately arguing for a certain philosophy but not following it themselves.

62
00:08:01,482 --> 00:08:08,350
It's like doctors who smoke cigarettes or themselves have poor health habits.

63
00:08:11,493 --> 00:08:12,835
It's this kind of

64
00:08:14,519 --> 00:08:21,340
hypocrisy is one way of putting it, but it can just be a superficial understanding or a lack of understanding.

65
00:08:21,601 --> 00:08:23,045
I mean, there are many reasons for this.

66
00:08:23,066 --> 00:08:23,888
There are monks who

67
00:08:25,758 --> 00:08:28,122
become monks for the wrong reason.

68
00:08:28,182 --> 00:08:35,253
They ordain because they have nowhere else to go, there are social outcasts and so on.

69
00:08:35,453 --> 00:08:43,786
In Asian countries it's often poor people who ordain like as novices.

70
00:08:43,866 --> 00:08:53,841
Novices will become novices not because they have this keen interest at seven years old to become enlightened but because at seven years old they don't have enough food to eat and their parents can't feed them so they go

71
00:08:53,821 --> 00:09:20,588
to the monastery and they're promised a meal and shelter and getting off on the wrong foot like this they grow up in the wrong way and by the time they become monks they're in there it's entrained in their mind they're they're trained in the wrong way they're set in being a career monk and as a result they don't have the inclination or the they're inured you can say against against the realization

72
00:09:22,238 --> 00:09:23,861
Inured, I don't know if that's the right word.

73
00:09:23,881 --> 00:09:25,785
I'm looking for a word like insulated against it.

74
00:09:26,767 --> 00:09:33,180
They're not able to realize it because of the... No, they're... Inured, I think, is the word.

75
00:09:33,841 --> 00:09:35,985
But they're far from it.

76
00:09:36,005 --> 00:09:37,007
They're not able to...

77
00:09:38,253 --> 00:09:49,220
connect with the Dhamma because their way of thinking about it is as a livelihood and as an intellectual pursuit or as a culture.

78
00:09:50,323 --> 00:09:54,152
There's so much ingrained in them that is wrong.

79
00:09:54,605 --> 00:10:07,184
The way the Buddha said it's... I think the Buddha said or also was one of the commentaries that it's harder to remove right view than it is to remove wrong view.

80
00:10:08,626 --> 00:10:09,207
Paraphrasing.

81
00:10:09,728 --> 00:10:16,719
But the point is a person with wrong view, you can teach them meditation quite easily because their wrong view is very easy to change.

82
00:10:16,779 --> 00:10:19,543
When they realize how wrong they are, they give up and they follow the teaching.

83
00:10:19,964 --> 00:10:23,329
But a person who has right view and who knows all the truth intellectually,

84
00:10:23,309 --> 00:10:26,132
It's very hard to teach because no matter what you say, they say, yes, I know that.

85
00:10:26,152 --> 00:10:26,993
Yes, yes, yes, I know.

86
00:10:28,095 --> 00:10:30,838
And they don't realize that actually they don't really know what they're talking about.

87
00:10:30,858 --> 00:10:32,340
They know everything, but they know nothing.

88
00:10:39,528 --> 00:10:46,296
And then there are monks who are corrupt, who are just using it as a livelihood or even engaging in evil practices.

89
00:10:51,659 --> 00:10:53,203
And then there are just people who never get it.

90
00:10:53,323 --> 00:10:55,609
I mean for most of us it's very difficult.

91
00:10:55,629 --> 00:10:58,316
We were talking last night about the four types of lotus.

92
00:10:58,356 --> 00:11:01,263
There are just some people who will never get the Dhamma, never realize it.

93
00:11:02,386 --> 00:11:04,131
Maybe their minds are in the wrong place.

94
00:11:05,314 --> 00:11:07,018
But

95
00:11:06,998 --> 00:11:08,301
That's too discouraging.

96
00:11:08,322 --> 00:11:09,986
I think that's not really what we're talking about here.

97
00:11:10,006 --> 00:11:22,138
We're talking about people who don't want to learn, people who are foolish, who are engaged in wasting their time and who are too lazy to actually put the teachings into practice.

98
00:11:22,118 --> 00:11:40,584
Again, it's not a criticism or it's not really... I don't want to go around pointing fingers, but it's an admonishment to all of us to take this seriously, that we should never be complacent just because we're Buddhists or obviously just because we're monks.

99
00:11:41,345 --> 00:11:42,406
I think that's often the case.

100
00:11:42,466 --> 00:11:45,050
There are people who think that just because we're monks we're perfect.

101
00:11:45,711 --> 00:11:50,758
Of course, then there's the opposite case, people who don't ever give monks a break.

102
00:11:50,738 --> 00:11:55,092
and are always criticizing the smallest faults in monks.

103
00:11:55,112 --> 00:12:00,529
I know there's people like that who don't realize how difficult it is to be a monk.

104
00:12:01,808 --> 00:12:03,591
But it certainly isn't enough.

105
00:12:04,132 --> 00:12:05,795
It's not enough to call ourselves Buddhist.

106
00:12:06,235 --> 00:12:07,177
Lay people are the same.

107
00:12:07,257 --> 00:12:12,486
It's very easy to become complacent, thinking that I'm Buddhist now and that's enough.

108
00:12:13,848 --> 00:12:14,669
It's certainly not enough.

109
00:12:15,130 --> 00:12:19,157
The Buddha said a person can live their whole life with a wise person and never become wise.

110
00:12:19,678 --> 00:12:21,741
It has all to do with our own practice.

111
00:12:21,721 --> 00:12:28,758
Good companions are only useful if we emulate them, if we follow them, if we learn from them.

112
00:12:28,778 --> 00:12:32,727
Otherwise we become a burden on them and they're better off without us.

113
00:12:35,525 --> 00:12:48,911
So our practice of cultivating wholesome actions, wholesome speech, wholesome thoughts, and cultivating wisdom, the burden is all placed on us.

114
00:12:49,512 --> 00:12:56,706
It's at every moment, how we act, how we speak, how we think, whether we have mindfulness, whether we have

115
00:12:56,686 --> 00:13:03,441
awareness, whether we're cultivating insight and wisdom for ourselves.

116
00:13:03,762 --> 00:13:06,749
That's the determination of whether we taste the soup.

117
00:13:07,571 --> 00:13:08,874
Otherwise we're just like a spoon.

118
00:13:09,555 --> 00:13:15,910
You can be surrounded by the teachings but never realize the teachings for yourself.

119
00:13:17,206 --> 00:13:18,188
Still not a bad thing.

120
00:13:19,310 --> 00:13:24,479
There's lots of good that can come from being surrounded by the Buddha's teaching and being a monk and so on.

121
00:13:25,481 --> 00:13:29,748
But to realize the Buddha's teaching, you have to practice for yourself.

122
00:13:30,049 --> 00:13:32,373
Buddha said, even the Buddha is just one who shows the way.

123
00:13:33,295 --> 00:13:35,198
It's us who have to walk the path.

124
00:13:36,157 --> 00:13:45,047
So simple teaching, something as a reminder for us, and it's a nice analogy for us to remember the simile of the spoon in the soup.

125
00:13:45,948 --> 00:13:48,911
Tomorrow we have the other side of the coin, those who can taste the soup.

126
00:13:49,272 --> 00:13:50,613
So tune in, not tomorrow, next time.

127
00:13:51,394 --> 00:13:52,215
So tune in next time.

128
00:13:52,875 --> 00:13:55,538
Thank you all for keeping up and for the positive feedback.

129
00:13:55,558 --> 00:13:56,299
I appreciate it.

130
00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:59,683
And I'm glad to know that these videos are a benefit.

131
00:13:59,663 --> 00:14:07,782
I wish for everyone out there to be able to put the teachings of the Buddha into practice and find true peace, happiness and freedom from suffering.

132
00:14:07,802 --> 00:14:08,003
Thank you.