Hello and welcome back to our study on the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 110 which is as follows Which means
Whoever should live 100 years, immoral and unconcentrated, unfocused, uncentered, unbalanced in the mind.
One life, one day, a life of one day is greater.
For one who has morality or is ethical and who meditates.
One who meditates.
So this verse was taught with the story of Sankiccha Samanera as the instigation.
But our story starts with a group of 30 monks, 30 men living in Sawati, who heard the Buddha teach the Dhamma and decided to go forth.
There's this funny expression called Urang Dhamme, I think, Dhamme Urang Dattwa.
Sasane, sorry, Sasane Urang Dattwa.
And the English translates it as yielded the breast.
Yielded the breast to his teaching.
I don't know who thought that would be a good translation of sasane urang tatva.
So having heard the teaching they yielded the breast.
I don't know maybe a hundred years ago these translations are a hundred years old.
Maybe a hundred years ago they thought that.
Maybe that was an expression a hundred years ago.
sāsane in the sāsana or to the sāsana maybe to the teaching of the Buddha urang is the chest but it can mean we would say heart dhatva means having given so they gave their hearts up they gave up their hearts or they they gave themselves yielded the breast it is kind of poetic
Just never heard it before.
And so they became monks, these 30 men, and they went to the teacher and asked him, what are we supposed to do in this religion?
And the Buddha taught, as he always did, that there are two aspects of the teaching.
There's the study aspect, you have to learn, and then there's the practical aspect, insight, the practice of attaining insight.
These guys were actually a little bit older when they ordained and so they decided that it would probably be too difficult for them to undertake both duties.
So they requested permission to practice vipassana, insight meditation.
So they went off.
they prepared to head off into the forest and so they went to the Buddha and they asked permission to leave after they were five years a monk after being five years a monk they all were full-fledged monks who were independent of a teacher and so they I mean technically independent and so they were allowed to go off into the forest so they went to ask permission or to let the Buddha know and
And the Buddha looked at them and said, he thought to himself, is there going to be any trouble for them?
And with his profound insight, he saw there's going to be danger.
There's going to be danger to these monks.
Going to be danger to these monks in regards to, and here they translate an eater of broken meat.
I'm not sure what that means.
Something broken, something, someone who eats leftovers, maybe, you could say.
Eats scraps.
A scrap eater, maybe.
Some danger, danger, because there's danger in the forest, right?
Bandits and monsters and demons pretending to be cows.
There's lots of different things.
Yesterday we had a demon who was promised a little boy.
So again, with all these stories, believing whether this story actually happened isn't the most important.
I'm telling a story and I don't have a problem thinking that maybe it happened.
I do admit that some of them seem a little bit outrageous, but for the most part they're instructive and they're insightful and they're interesting.
But most important is the verse, the teaching that we'll get to.
Anyway, the story goes, and this is an interesting story.
It's got some interesting points to it.
The Buddha said they were going to get into some danger, but that danger will be averted if they bring with them the Samanera Sankicca.
And if they do so, the danger will be removed and they will be able to practice and fulfill their goal.
So now the story continues with Sankicca Samanera.
Now Sankicca Samanera, we have to give some background for him.
He was... He was the...
son of a daughter of a rich man in Saboti and his mother died while he was still in the womb some disease she became sick and died and maybe not knowing that he was inside or thinking that he was dead probably thinking he was dead and they didn't have the tools I suppose back then there was no ultrasound back then they burnt the body with him inside
And how they would burn the bodies, they just put them out on some wood and burn the body up.
Now, when you burn the body, it doesn't burn all the way through.
And the hip area especially is, especially on women, I think, because there's generally some bulk there.
And so that's the one part that doesn't burn.
And so they have this stake.
that they actually stabbed the body and turned it over with.
And so they got this guy whose duty it is to stab and turn.
And they let it burn for a while, and then he's supposed to stab it and turn it, and he stabbed it.
And he turned and the body sort of decomposed and it was on the ashes and so on.
And it exposed this baby boy and the stake had got him right here or somewhere in his eye.
I don't think it blinded him, but it struck the outside of his eye.
That's supposed to be how he got the name Sankhya because they found him and they found him alive and they took him and raised him and it was prognosticated that he would become a monk and indeed at seven years old he became a novice and became enlightened during his ordination ceremony.
When the razor first touched his head he became enlightened when they started to shave his hair.
And the commentary says that's the reason why he didn't die in his mother's womb.
These sort of strange things do happen.
Not exactly this.
This is, I think, a fairly unique case, but cases where people should have died, where babies shouldn't have survived,
miracles I mean it's not a miracle because it's not like it's coming from God or something like that but strange coincidences do happen they're rare and the skeptic would say well they're just random you know they happen and of course so many different things will happen there's no there's no reason to think that's unlikely occurrences will happen but
We don't know exactly why they happened.
The commentary says why this happened is because he was destined to become an Arahant.
So there was some strength there.
It wasn't destiny in the sense of predeterminism, but it was...
His karma was so strong, his goodness was so strong that it protected him from death.
I mean, it wasn't like exactly that the flames, he was impervious to fire, it was that
The circumstances made it just so that the guy caught him.
I think actually the story goes on to say that it's a little bit worse than that actually.
I think I'm secularizing it a little bit.
Because the story says that
the body itself burned, but then there was another body or something.
It's a little bit weird.
I'm not going to endorse that simply because this is too much of an open forum.
But for the Buddhists among you, I don't want to insult you either.
If you're happy with the more religious, more magical version of this story, then I apologize for
watering it down a little bit.
But the story again, not so important.
That aspect certainly not important.
It's interesting how karma can protect you and how there are unseen forces that sometimes protect us.
Unseen forces not meaning God, although it can be angels as we've seen in the last story.
I mean that if you have any inkling that angels might exist or beings that are not in the realm of human physics,
or are able to go outside of it so that they're undetectable.
So if they're angels and beings that we can't detect, then the whole idea of them protecting people or getting involved or coming into the human sphere, coming into the realm of what we can detect physically, it doesn't seem that unreasonable.
But here it was just his karma that protected him.
So that's the story of Sankicca.
Because this is a sangka or something.
What is it?
A sangku.
Sangku means a stake or a spike.
So he got the name Sankicca as one who, I don't know what the ending is, but sangku, maybe it was ika or something because I. Aki, sorry, aki is I, right?
Anyway.
Because his eye had been pierced with a stick, Sanku, they gave him the name Sankicha.
So he became an arahant and that was that.
Now back to our story about the 30 men, the 30 monks.
The Buddha said to them,
He said, well, I have to get this novice to go with him.
Somehow the Buddha saw that this novice, because he's a very powerful sort of novice, you know, the whole not dying through fire thing kind of tipped, kind of should tip you off to that.
And so in order to facilitate this, he said, go see the elder Sariputta.
Go see Sariputta before you leave.
He didn't want to say no, and he didn't want to
He wanted it to be more roundabout.
I think that you can see sort of the methodology here, because if the Buddha says, well, bring this Samanera Sankiccha with you, this would cause problems.
You'll see how it would cause problems.
It's an interesting story.
The Buddha didn't say, bring Sankiccha with you.
And you'll see the reason why as we go through the story.
He says, go see Sariputta.
So they go to see Sariputta, and Sariputta is a little bit, not puzzled, but the question arises in his mind, well, why did the Buddha send them to me?
And somehow Sariputta, whether he has some kind of magical insight or supernatural insight, or just he's so profoundly wise, he knew exactly what, or he was able to guess, or he was able to get the answer as to what the Buddha was thinking.
And he said, do you have a novice with you?
And they said, no, no, we don't have a novice.
Yeah, yeah, it would be nice, but it's not really necessary.
And Sariputta says, bring Sankiccha with you.
And no, no, no, no, he'll be a hindrance to us.
He'll get in our way, and we've got to look after a seven-year-old child.
Come on, what are we going to do with this seven-year-old kid?
I have to take care of him.
And Sariputta said, look, did the Buddha or did he not send you to me?
Do you not think there was a reason?
And now you're going to argue with me?
He said, the Buddha sent you to me and I'm telling you to bring Sankiccha.
So you're going to bring Sankiccha with you.
I mean, he didn't force them, but he laid out the logic of it.
And they're like, okay, well, I guess that's why the Buddha sent us to you, though they don't have a clue why.
Because the Buddha never said there was a danger, so they don't know that there's danger.
And so they took him and the 31 of them headed off to the forest and they found a suitable place and a suitable community.
And the community asked them what sort of place they were looking for.
They said, oh, we're just looking for a place where we can be at ease, be at peace and practice our meditation.
And they said, well, then please stay here near our village.
You can stay in the forest nearby.
We'll build you kutis.
We'll take care of you.
And if you do, then we'll be able to learn the Dhamma as well.
We'll be able to hear your teachings, practice along.
And we'll be able to keep the five precepts and so on and practice the Uposatha, which would be the full moon, the empty moon.
They have these religious activities and it's nice to have.
They like to have monks or religious people around.
So they accepted.
And they built them kutis and walking meditation areas with a roof, you know, they'd have a walking path, meditation hall kind of thing.
And they did duties and ministered faithfully to their needs, it says.
And they made this deal among themselves that they would never be together except on the days of doing the duties.
Now every two weeks they had to get together to recite the Bhati Moka, to recite the rules of the Sangha.
But apart from that, let's stay apart.
When we go for alms round, whatever we do,
Except for in the early morning, except for when we go on alms round.
And in the evening when we wait, when we do our duties to our teachers and so on, to the elder.
Let's not be together, let's always be apart.
So they spent all of their time alone so that they could dedicate themselves to meditation.
And so you never see anyone talking.
The monastery was completely quiet throughout the day.
Except for when they had to do their duties or when they were eating or that kind of thing.
And so having made that agreement, they entered into the reigns, this three-month period where you engage in meditation practice, you don't go anywhere, that kind of thing.
Now during the rains it happened that there was a poor man who had gotten sort of kicked out of his house when his daughter went to live with her husband and the husband had no use for an old man and the daughter didn't protect him, didn't take care of him and they just kind of ignored him.
Nowadays it would be the equivalent of sending them to the old age home but now they don't have old age homes so they just forget about you I guess.
Nowadays, sorry, back then they had no old age homes so they would just forget about them.
And so that's what they did.
And so this guy became a beggar.
And he came to the monks and he was begging for food.
And the monks offered him some of their food.
They didn't offer him anything special.
They just offered him whatever they had to eat.
And he looked at the food that they had given him.
Each monk of the 30 gave him a little piece.
And he looked at it and he thought, this is better food than I got as a layperson.
He said, is this some kind of special day?
And they said, no, this is, no.
What do you mean?
Well, why the special food?
This is the kind of food we get every day.
And this man, suddenly the gears started turning in his head.
From the get-go, he didn't have the best intentions.
Remember, this is what the Buddha prognosticated, foretold, how do you say, that there would be trouble from a guy, from a beggar, a person who ate scraps.
And so this guy says to them, hey, do you think maybe I could live here and take care of you?
Do you need someone to help take care of you or help sweeping or help cleaning or this kind of thing?
And so they let him stay.
And I guess he kind of said, you know, I can learn the Dhamma as well.
And so they let him stay at the monastery.
And
And eventually he gained their trust.
He wasn't bad-hearted, it doesn't seem.
He was a little bit greedy, perhaps, and didn't have the intention, really, I don't think, to learn the Dhamma.
I'm not sure.
It seems like he didn't really learn the Dhamma.
Because then one day he desired, he wanted to go back to see his daughter.
And so without telling the monks, he just up and left.
And on his way back through the forest, he was grabbed by a group of, a large group of thieves, bandits.
So danger came to him.
And this large group of bandits took him to their hideout and tied him up.
And then he watched as they began to sharpen knives and prepare an altar, a sacrificial altar.
And he was watching and he was wondering what they're going to do.
They're going to have some kind of a sacrificial offering, goats maybe.
He didn't see any goats.
He didn't see any cows.
And so he asked one of them as they were walking by or something.
He said, you know, I see you're preparing a sacrifice, but I don't see any, I don't see anything to be sacrificed.
And the men turned to him and said, well, you're the sacrifice.
We're preparing this to sacrifice you.
And supposedly, they said that they had made a vow.
And this was common in India, to make a vow to a spirit, some kind of spirit that if they were able to
Well, not if, they just said whoever entered this forest, they will kill the first person to enter the forest and make an offering with flesh and blood.
So the idea was that the spirit would then protect them, I think.
And the man started freaking out and realized suddenly, suddenly had this fear of death thrust upon him.
And he started freaking out and pleading and begging and
Finally, he came upon this idea.
He said to them, look, I'm not who you want to perform a sacrifice.
I mean, what kind of a sacrifice am I?
I live off of scraps.
I eat broken meat is what it says, but I think it's lives off of scraps.
He said, I mean, listen to me.
Just back there a ways.
There are 30 monks, monks, Buddhist monks, bhikkhus, samana, shamans, real shamans, true shamans.
All of them are spiritually advanced beings, powerful beings.
Surely if you made a sacrifice of one of them, that would be far more beneficial, far more weighty, far more meaningful.
Can you imagine, you know, talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
He says, kill them, make an offering with their blood and your spirit will be pleased beyond measure.
And they thought, well that's a good idea.
What this guy says makes sense.
And so they have him lead them to where the monks are.
And they get to the monastery, the place where the monks reside, and they don't see anybody, of course.
And they say, what are you lying to us?
There's no one here.
And he says, ring the bell.
Ring the bell and they'll all come out.
And so he tells them to ring the bell.
And he rings this bell.
I didn't mention the bell.
The idea is they had this bell, and when they heard the bell, it would mean someone was sick or there was some emergency.
In the case of an emergency, then we'll come together.
So they had this bell.
And so he rang the bell, and all the monks come out.
All the 30 monks and Sankiccha, the Samanera, come out.
And they see this large group of thuggish-looking men, and maybe women, I don't know,
And they say, they call them laypeople upasaka.
Upasaka, what, I think it's, you know, not exactly the title that they should be given, but it's a polite title.
Why have you rang this bell?
And, or who struck this bell?
And the head of the themes, the ringleader, came to the front and said, I struck it.
Well, what for?
And then he tells them he made a vow to a forest spirit to kill someone and offer their flesh and blood as a sacrifice.
So we're going to take one of you with us.
Now these guys were not like this silly beggar guy.
How it happened with them is the head monk, the elder monk,
turned to his brethren and said, brothers, when we have business of the Sangha, it always falls on the elder to make a decision.
I will go with these men and all of you strive on with diligence.
And then the second most senior monk steps forward and says, venerable sir,
It's the duty of the junior.
It's a duty of the junior monk to protect the senior monk.
I will take your place.
You stay here and lead these monks.
I will take your place and go.
And then the third senior monk came forth.
and said, Venerable Sir, let me protect you.
I will go with them, you stay here.
And so on, with the fourth and the fifth, and all the monks came forward and said, to the last monk, until the most junior monk said, not one of them said, Hugo, not one of them would let another go.
So what do you think happened?
Suddenly, they hear this squeaky seven-year-old voice.
Not squeaky, I suppose.
He was an Arahant after all.
This melodious, enlightened voice of Sankiccha Samanera pipe up and say, Venerable sirs, I'm junior to you all.
Let me take care of you.
Let me go.
And what do they say to them?
They say, dude, even if we all were going to die, even if they were going to kill all of us, we still wouldn't let you go.
And Sangeetja says, why not?
They say, listen, Sariputta gave you to us.
Sariputta entrusted us, entrusted you to us, trusted us with you, with your well-being.
Can you imagine how it would look if we came back without you?
Or if we came back having to tell Sariputta that we sacrificed you, we abandoned you to a bunch of thieves?
How do you think that would look?
You think that would be respectful?
And Sanketra shakes his head and says, the elder Sariputta sent me with you.
Why do you think he sent me with you?
This is the reason.
He sent them because somehow they knew.
Well, the Buddha knew, actually.
It's not clear that Sariputta knew, but Sariputta knew what the Buddha was looking for.
I guess there was something special about Sankiccha.
I mean, he seems to be very powerful in some way.
But we'll see.
He is actually quite powerful.
He doesn't die.
But they can't believe.
They just...
are in awe of this seven-year-old boy.
I mean, of course, they have been from the beginning because he's awesome.
He says, the Buddha sent you to my preceptor.
My preceptor told you to bring me.
This is why I'm here.
I am here to take care of you.
And he bows down to all of them and pays respect to them and says, Reverend Sirs, if I have been guilty of any fault, please forgive me.
It's a comment.
It's what you would do when you're taking leave of someone.
And so he took what was to be the final leave of all these monks.
And they were all moved with tears in their eyes and mourning the loss.
They were profoundly moved, their eyes filled with tears, and their hearts flesh trembled.
Their hearts flesh trembled.
And so the chief elder before they left, said to the head ahead of the themes, he said, Look, this is just a boy.
When you when you prepare for the, can you can you like not let him know what you're going to do before you do it?
They took him aside and asked him this.
And they had the head bandits.
Yeah, fine.
And so they took the guy, they took the novice and they
sat him down and they said, you stay here and we'll come and get you when we need you.
And they put him off to one side and the novice, Sankitja, of course, as he would do anytime he was left alone, went into meditation, entered into maybe Nirodha,
was probably in a state of freedom, in a state of emancipation.
It says here he was in a state of trance, so some jhana of some sort.
And then the head bandit took his sword and came up behind Sankicca quietly so he wouldn't frighten the boy.
And
stabbed down with his sword to kill him.
And the story goes that the sword bent back upon itself, like bent back on the hilt, wouldn't strike.
When he looked at this sword, he couldn't believe what was going on, so he bends it back
And he strikes again.
And this time it actually shatters.
The blade breaks into pieces.
There apparently is something to certain trances that you can't be hurt when you enter into a trance.
Like we'll have a story of a woman who had a whole pot of butter dumped onto her and was unharmed because she was in a trance.
She was in a trance of love, of kindness, loving kindness.
But okay, so this is the story.
Many of you will probably be unhappy about that, thinking, why is he telling us such silly stories?
Whatever.
Breaks.
And the great thing, the great thing comes next.
He looks at this broken sword, and he looks at the novice sitting perfectly peaceful.
And he starts to shake.
And he shakes his head and he says, this sword, this sword is an insensitive being and it knows better than to harm such a noble being as this.
Who am I?
How can I ignore?
how can I not how could I miss this what am I doing you know they just woke him up to fix to the insanity of what he was about to do and he bows down to the novice and he says please forgive me and then he asks he says he says venerable sir Reverend Reverend sir
We dwell in this forest robbing people, and we're well known.
We have a very bad reputation, a bad reputation that if 100 people, a caravan of 100 people comes through the forest, if they see us, they get afraid.
If two or three of them go walking through the forest and see us, they get petrified with fear.
And you, a seven-year-old kid, sit here unmoved, unperturbed.
And then he pronounces actually a verse of poetry.
Or that's how it's encapsulated here.
You tremble not nor fear.
Namor, your appearance is tranquil.
Why weep you not?
That's such a horror.
Probably sounds better in Nepali.
And Sankicca coming out of his jhana.
replies in verse as well.
He says, for someone who is free from defilements, they don't get afraid.
He says, when they've given up existence, they have neither elation nor deflation, neither fear or excitement, neither good nor bad.
They're at peace.
So they don't become afraid of things, but they don't yearn after things.
And so his verse is, his stanza is chief.
He that is free from desire has no mental suffering.
Seer, he that has rid himself of attachment has passed beyond all fear.
As a seer.
If the I of existence is destroyed as it should be in this life, death is without terrors and is like the putting down of a burden.
Death is like the putting down of a burden.
The five aggregates are indeed a burden.
That's how an enlightened being sees it.
They're just carrying it around until it's time to let it go.
and the head of the thieves, just the power emanating from this seven-year-old boy.
He looks at him.
He turns and looks at his group of monks, a group of thieves, sorry, a group of bandits.
And he said, what do you guys want?
What do you guys want to do?
And they said, well, what do you want to do?
You're the leader.
He shakes his head and he says,
I've witnessed such a miracle.
I have no more use for this life.
I'm going to become a monk.
And I'm going to become an ascetic, a shaman, a shamana, a samana, and follow this novice.
And the other guys are like, us too.
That was easy, no?
This whole group of bandits moved.
I mean, I think if anyone experiences such a miracle, it can be quite moving because miracles like that don't, you know, that doesn't happen that often where you do something like they were all watching this when the sword breaks over the flesh of this young boy.
And so they all become novices, they can't become monks because of course this isn't a monk, but somehow he's able to ordain them as novices, maybe not officially.
But then he takes them back to see these monks and lets them know.
I don't even think he tells them that it's the bandits.
He comes to them and he says, I've got some new monks with me.
I'm going to take them back to see the Buddha.
And they say, oh, you've got some followers.
Okay.
And so they...
I mean I guess his point with going back was to relieve the elders of their sorrow so they go back and so that it won't be a hindrance in their meditation a feeling of guilt or sadness and so he goes and shows them that he's still alive and that indeed he's got some followers and so he's asked permission to go back to see the Buddha and they give permission and he goes back to see the Buddha
And he tells the Buddha this story.
And the Buddha turns to these ex-bandits and he says, is that true?
And they say, indeed, that's true.
And the Buddha then teaches this verse.
He said, if you live a life for a hundred years, corrupt, immoral, unconcentrated, unbalanced in mind, perturbed in your mind,
better is one day of life life of only one day better to live only one day living ethical and meditating now curiously that's not the end and curiously he recites the verse one more time
It's an odd story actually, but Sankiccha grows up, becomes a monk, and ends up later on with a novice of his own.
And this novice gets captured by a large group of bandits as well.
And they threaten to kill him, but they make him promise.
He teaches them the Dhamma.
And so they let him go, but by teaching the Dhamma, it softens them up, and they decide to let him go, but they say, you must vow never to tell anyone about us, that we're here.
And
He makes that promise.
Now it's interesting because promises are not considered lying, but there is something wrong with breaking your promise.
And this clearly shows that the commentary is very, very anti-promise breaking.
Because this novice refuses to do it.
What happens is he's on his way home.
I think he's going to see his parents.
So his parents come out to meet him.
And
Somehow, it doesn't specify, but I'm assuming what happens is they want to go to the monastery or they want to go, maybe they're taking him back to the monastery.
And so they're going to go through this forest where these bandits are and then the novice goes with them, but doesn't tell them that there are bandits up ahead.
And so he gets there, and the bandits recognize him and say, you're back, huh?
You brought some people with you.
And they grab the other two people.
They grab his parents, and they tie them up, and they abuse them, and so on.
And the parents turn to the novice, and they're shocked.
And they say, did you, you knew, and you led us to these bandits?
Thinking that he was in collusion with them.
And the novice was quiet and the bandits heard this and they turned to the novice and they said, is that really?
Even to your parents?
That's how much your moral, ethical principle is worth to you?
And they were moved by it.
That's the story.
It's quite odd because to imagine doing that to your parents, most people would say, I'm going to break my promise for my parents.
Somehow I get the feeling, I mean you could defend it by saying that he, that's why he went with them and he had the idea that he would fix things.
Because he did, he taught the Dhamma and they all became, all these bandits as well became monks and they went to see the Buddha and the Buddha said, this is true and so on.
And again the Buddha taught the same verse.
So he taught this verse both to the followers of Sankiccha and the followers to the novice who was a follower of Sankiccha Samadhi.
So that's our story.
What this verse means to us, it's not giving us any deep deep teaching but it's a very strong reminder
Why we should be meditating.
Why we should be keeping morality.
And it reminds us what's important.
What we're going to see for the remainder of this chapter, the next series, about five or six verses, it's all going to be very similar to this.
Better to live one day than to live a hundred years.
And so there's various factors that make a life valuable.
A life that is...
no matter how long it is, is worthless and should not be seen as worth anything compared to a very short life, a life of one day that is useful.
Why?
Because it has benefit.
If you are mindful, if you are focused, if you are ethical, then death is not to be afraid, not to be feared.
Death comes and you go on to only good things.
It's people who have done bad deeds and cultivated all sorts of unwholesome deeds that should be afraid of death because it comes and we're unprepared and who knows where we go.
So the Dhamma for today that determine the benefit are morality and concentration you could say or focus or meditation.
But Samahita means
Kind of like focused, because sum is level, you know, sum is like same sort of in English.
So it means to be level-headed, but it's kind of like when a camera lens gets into focus.
But also implies kind of concentrated in the sense of being focused on a single thing.
Focused on the present moment, for example.
And so these are the two defining factors.
If a person has these two things, there's not much more that you need.
I mean, the thing about Buddhism is there's not a lot of teachings in the end when it comes right down to it.
I mean, there are tons of teachings and they're all worth, it's not to belittle and to minimalize that.
But when it comes right down to it, I mean, there's nothing about God that you have to think about.
There's nothing about the soul.
There's not even a lot about karma or past lives, future lives.
It's very much about here and now.
It's not about rituals that you have to perform or certain things you have to abstain from.
The abstentions are very simple.
It's about ethics.
If you are ethical, not killing, not stealing, not cheating, not lying, not taking drugs or alcohol,
And if you practice meditation, you've pretty much accomplished, you've pretty much set yourself on the path to becoming a Buddhist or becoming a successful practitioner of the Buddhist teaching.
So that's about all.
It's more beneficial because of the result.
Even one day, even one moment of meditation is in a whole other league from a hundred years of immorality.
A hundred years of immorality is worse and worse and worse, building up worse and worse and worse karma, leading you to a bad place.
So that's our Dhammapada story for this evening.
Thank you all for tuning in and watching and keeping up with this series.
Please do remember to check out my other videos because personally I find them a lot more informative and useful.
These ones are much more
entertaining and and sort of I guess allegorical or they provide morals a moral or they are examples they provide examples of life and insightful into the lives of Buddhist monks, but they don't give you deep teachings and I think there are other videos out there that might be more beneficial in that regard so don't become
negligent just by watching videos or listening to stories or even listening to the Dhamma.
It's all about practice.
Are you being moral?
Are you ethical?
If you're watching this drunk or if you're planning to finish this and then go out and commit all sorts of nefarious deeds, then it's not really of much use.
You don't really benefit from it.
So thank you for your practice.
Keep practicing.
We wish you all the best.
See you next time.