Good evening everyone.
Welcome to our live broadcast.
Tonight we are looking at Anguttara Nikaya Buku 4, Sutta 49.
The Vipalasa Sutta.
Vipalasa is...
I usually translate it as perversion.
Bhikkhu Bodhi translates it as inversion, which to me is kind of too technical.
It's not the word that the Buddha would have used, I don't think.
Inversion is, you invert something, like an inverted letter or something.
Perversion is more to the point.
But perversion is, of course, probably... Well, it's a good word because it's so provocative.
And that's good because we can talk about what we mean by perversion.
Good question.
What is perversion in Buddhism?
What does Buddhism consider perverse or perverted?
So if we step back and think about how society looks at perversion...
Sometimes it's a little bit arbitrary, usually based on religion, but tends to be what society thinks is perverse.
So for example, for a long time, in many societies, polygamy seemed like a reasonable way to live.
Nowadays it's considered perverse, perverted.
The majority of the world still considers homosexuality perverted, I think.
And yet many high-minded individuals are starting to say, well, there's nothing terribly perverse about it.
There don't seem any reason to think this or that is perverse.
There was a time when eating pig was considered perverse, perverted, perverse.
There are people in the world, vegetarians, who think meat eating in general is perverse, disgusting.
So it tends to be those things that society or the beholder, I suppose, considers to be wrong.
So it's basically about what's wrong.
It's a decision, sometimes arbitrary, about what is right and what is wrong.
There are many things in society that we consider perverse and perverted.
Now, perversion in Buddhism is, of course, different.
The idea of something being perverse has only to do with whether it's right or wrong about reality.
So if you believe something that doesn't go according to reality or if you think something or even if you feel something
That doesn't go according to reality, isn't in line with what is appropriate, what is reasonable, what is logical, what accords with reality.
That's what we consider perversion.
And so there are four perversions in Buddhism.
But before we talk about them, we have to talk about the levels of perversion.
There are three levels of perversion, meaning that altogether there's twelve, three times four.
The first level of perversion is just a feeling you get, or a perception.
A perception, a reception, how you receive something.
A perception is the word.
Sanya vipalasana.
The second one is beyond just getting a sense that something is like the way it isn't, wrong perception, wrong sense.
There's wrong, there's perverted thought and perversion of thought, citta vipalasa.
And beyond even that is the perversion of view, which we call ditti vipalasa.
So the way it goes is someone might perceive something.
You might see something that is very bad for you, poison, say.
And you might perceive it to be good and wholesome and healthy for you, medicine.
So you see it and you say, oh, that looks healthy, that looks good.
Well, I think that there's a perception, sorry, not even the thought, but just the positive perception
It works better when you think of something ugly, something, something not even ugly, but something.
Well, it'll become clear when we talk about the four different types of perversion.
And it's just a sense you get, a perception, the recognition, oh, that's nice, or not nice.
Citta Vipala says when you think something, when it actually becomes a thought, so based on the perception usually,
there comes about a thought.
And ditti is when the thought becomes a view.
So you can think something and not actually believe it.
So the thought comes up and you say, well, that's ridiculous.
I guess it would be in a non-ethical sense, it would be if you're sitting and meditating, say, and suddenly you get a sense of yourself being upside down,
You get a sense of, more common, you get a sense that you have no body, a sense that your body disappeared.
Or sometimes you see bright light and you get a sense that someone has pulled the roof off your kuti, your room.
and the sun is shining down.
Some people actually open their eyes because they think the sun is shining down.
There's a hole in the roof or something.
Or the door is open.
Someone opened the door or window.
So that sense is wrong.
It's not according with reality.
But then if you think to yourself, oh, someone, maybe someone opened the door.
When you think it to yourself, that's citta vipulas.
And if you firmly believe
Say, for example, a ghost.
You're sitting and meditating and you hear a sound and you think, you perceive it as footsteps in your room.
A ghost in your room.
And then you think to yourself, there's a ghost in my room.
But then it happens every night and you have the belief, you come to believe that it's a ghost in your room.
Until someone explains to you, oh, it's probably just the mice in your ceiling or something.
I have an example I often tell of there was a shutter banging in my house.
I was alone in the house at night and I heard this noise.
Boom!
It sounded very much like footsteps pounding on the stairs.
I woke up in the morning and I found that it was just this shutter banging against the window.
But I was convinced that it was some monster, ghost or something.
Terrible thing to have to hear when you're alone in the house.
But this is not relating to ethics or anything really important.
This isn't really what is important.
So what is important from a Buddhist point of view is these four types of perversion.
It's got them in the wrong order for me, but OK.
Not start at the beginning, start at the end actually.
So we're going to put them out of order because...
Okay, let's do them in order first.
So the first one the Buddha says, In regards to what is impermanent, one has a perverted perception or perverted sense of it being permanent.
So when we meditate, this is mostly related to the mind, in the sense of the mind lasting.
If you don't actually meditate, there's a sense that your mind continues from one moment to the next.
We exist from one moment to the next.
There's something that exists permanently, stably.
And this also relates to stability.
You think of things as stable, everything around us, our possessions, our bodies.
Yeah, I know my body, my body is, you know, I have this temperament and this digestion and so on.
My teeth are like this, my nails are like that, my hair is like this.
And you think, you feel, you get a sense that it's stable.
Of course this is a perversion or it's wrong.
It's a perverted sort of view because it doesn't accord with reality.
Our bodies change and they can change in quite dramatic ways.
Our whole temperament, the whole nature of the body can change in a moment, quite quickly, with sickness, with age, many different things, through an accident.
And then if you think to yourself, well, yes, this mind lasts from moment to moment, or this thing is stable, or my character, my personality is stable.
You think like that.
That's citta vipadasa.
And then if you believe it, if you say, yes, the mind, this is true.
The mind lasts.
The mind is stable and permanent and lasting forever.
There's a soul.
This is the idea of a soul.
a lasting soul in that sense.
This is a perversion of view because none of that's true.
The mind is just, what we call mind is just moments of experience.
And the idea that anything might last is just a thought in our mind.
It doesn't have any basis in reality.
Because in reality all that, everything that arises is uncertain.
It's uncertain what's going to come next.
There's quite a bit of chaos.
That's the first one.
The number one is duke bhikkave sukantin.
In regards to what is unsatisfying, one sees it as satisfying.
What is unpleasant, one sees it as pleasant.
What is happiness, one sees it as suffering.
What is suffering, one sees it as happiness.
So this is, of course, in regards to all the things that we chase after.
Food, sex, music, art, beauty, all these things.
We chase after them because we think they're going to make us happy.
Mainly, when it all boils down to it, it's the pleasant sensation.
So this one mostly has to do with weight and feelings.
You feel happy when you feel a pleasant feeling, you think, well, that's happiness.
And so we get this addiction to it.
There are so many ways by which we can come by this pleasant feeling that we build up a repertoire of habits, personality based on the habits of addiction, of clinging, of desire.
And it doesn't make us more happy.
We don't become happier over time.
We become actually less satisfied.
So this is, if we feel something, we have a pleasant feeling and we have a feeling of liking it.
If you like it, that's the sannyavipala.
Citta vipala says when you think that's good.
You think to yourself, yes, I would be really happy if I had some pizza right now.
You think that to yourself.
You think, oh man, what I wouldn't do for it.
That would really hit the spot, this kind of thought.
But then when you have the view, this is just a thought that most of us have, but many people actually have the view that, of course, pleasant feelings make you happy.
That's what happiness is.
That's where true happiness lies.
Happiness lies in getting as much pleasant feelings as you can.
That's true happiness.
And that's dittiri palasa, view that is perverse.
It doesn't hold up.
You just become less satisfied, more distressed, more cranky, more frustrated, more bored, more depressed.
The more you cling, the more you crave, the more you desire.
That's number two.
Number three, in regards to what is not self, one sees it as self.
So we think, oh, this is self.
We have this perception of something being self.
Self can mean it's mine.
We look at things and we think, hey, that's mine, right?
It could mean this is I.
We look at the body and we think, hey, this is me.
We think of our personality and we think of a being who exists, an I.
Good or bad, it's me.
And if it's just a perception, it's sannyavipalatsa.
When it becomes a thought, when you think to yourself, hey, that's mine.
When you say out loud, that's mine.
But when you really believe that there's something to this, that you can possess things and that things are you, that this body is me, that there is an I, that's view.
The view that there exist things like people, places.
objects, possessions because it doesn't hold up it's perverse because it doesn't hold up in reality reality is completely impersonal you can call something yourself but it's meaningless in terms of ultimate reality you can say this I am, this is me, this is myself this is my soul doesn't have any basis or any
The only repercussions is it makes you act and all of these make you act and speak and even think in ways that make you ridiculous and that cause you to be out of order, out of harmony with reality.
So our meditation practice is about righting these wrongs, righting the wrong perceptions.
It's not about all the other kinds of perversion.
Although many kinds of perversion that society thinks of as perverse are also done away with.
That's not the focus in Buddhism.
The focus is on our misunderstandings.
Perversion in Buddhism is a misunderstanding of reality.
Oh, sorry, I missed one.
The fourth one.
Or did I skip one?
Asubhe bhikkhuve subhanti.
So the fourth one is in regards to what is ugly, one sees it as beautiful.
Or just simply asubha could just mean not beautiful.
In regards to what is not beautiful, one sees it as beautiful.
So beauty in terms of Buddhism, I think you could give a blanket statement as being delusion.
Beauty just means you like it.
That's all beauty means.
Beauty means you're attracted to it.
So we think of certain things as attractive.
It may seem kind of cold and impersonal, but there's no such thing as, you know, beauty isn't real.
Beauty is a desire, a liking, which makes you happy.
Something makes you happy, makes you feel pleasure.
We're able to transform sensory experience, which is completely neutral.
We're able to transform that into pleasure or pain.
When we see something, certain things, the mind is able to trigger a pleasure response.
When we see other certain things, the mind instead triggers a displeasure result.
When we hear certain things, smell certain things, taste certain things, some things trigger pleasure, some things trigger displeasure.
But there's no rhyme or reason to it.
This is why they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
What they mean is it's a delusion.
That's not what they say, but it's not what they think they mean, but what it means is there's no truth to beauty.
A dog finds another dog attractive
dogs find feces attractive.
They eat.
Many dogs eat feces.
Some humans apparently do as well.
It's based on a delusion really, but a habit of attraction.
Usually based on the body.
The body is the most common.
We look at the body, we think of it as beautiful, and we spend so much time looking in the mirror
Trying to find the sign of beauty.
Change a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Tweak it so we can find the sign of beauty.
Wear different clothes.
Make it attractive.
We get caught up, intoxicated by beauty.
Beautiful sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, thoughts.
So we cultivate addiction.
Addiction is an interesting thing, of course.
Addiction is not static.
You can't be stably addicted to something.
The more you indulge in your addiction, the more addicted you become.
So most people mitigate this by vacillating back and forth, by going through withdrawal.
So they'll work all day and they'll be going through withdrawal and it's unpleasant.
Where in fact working all day wouldn't be unpleasant if we weren't constantly jonesing for the hit, aching for the pleasure.
And then when we get the pleasure, well, we can become addicted again, but we're able to be stable in it because, more or less stable, because we go through withdrawal.
We take the time to go through withdrawal.
If you didn't have to go to work, you would just become more and more addicted to the things that please you.
And some people do this.
This is how children become spoiled.
This is how rich people become spoiled.
So meditation is, the four foundations of mindfulness actually are designed to, one way of looking at them is that they're designed to counter, to dispel these perversions.
If you focus on the body, you'll start to see through the idea that anything could be beautiful.
You'll see that the body is actually quite repulsive, which makes it quite clear that this idea of beauty is not something rational.
You could say the body isn't repulsive, but for an ordinary individual, if they are not attracted to it, the body is quite repulsive.
Of course for a meditator they are repulsed by it, but they come to see that if anything we should be repulsed by the body because it's quite disgusting.
But it just goes to show that beauty and repulsiveness are very much in the mind of the individual.
This body that is full of blood and urine and feces and smells bad.
It looks ugly.
There's nothing beautiful about this body full of veins and hair and wrinkles.
It's just disgusting.
If you were to think about it, it's actually quite...
I know most people don't like to hear this and they're not happy and disagree, in fact.
Ultimately, it's neither beautiful nor ugly.
But objectively, as an ordinary individual, there's no reason why we should think the body is attractive.
I mean, the reason why we don't think apes' bodies are attractive or dogs' bodies are attractive is because they're not, but neither are human bodies.
We've just become so habitually inclined to think of the body as attractive, life after life after life.
You focus on feelings, you start to overcome the idea of happiness, that anything in the world can be happy, or the idea of things that are suffering as being happy.
Because you start to look at pleasant feelings, and you see that they change, that they disappear, they don't last, they aren't under your control, and they don't satisfy.
They're replaced by pain.
uncertain and so to cling to them is a bad idea there's nothing happy there's no happiness to be found in pleasant feelings we don't need the true happiness and peace
If you focus on the mind, you start to see through the perversion in regards to permanence.
You see the mind is actually made up of moments.
You really do see this as you meditate.
You'll see the mind arising and ceasing first here, then there, sometimes completely unrelated from moment to moment.
You start to see through this idea that there is a permanent mind.
And dhamma is the main one that's said to relate to atta.
That's really a good way of looking at what we mean by dhamma.
Dhamma is things like aspects of reality.
So you've got the hindrances, I mean it's a specific dhamma, but it's mainly our emotions.
Our emotions are not who we are, they're just experiences.
They arise, they cease, they're unmanageable, uncontrollable.
The senses, when you meditate on the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, you come to see that that's really all there is.
That's what makes up me and I.
There's no I besides that, no self besides that.
There's no concrete whole, compact entity.
When you focus on the aggregates, of course, you're able to break reality up into its constituent parts.
Helps you see through the idea that there is a complete whole or an entity or a self or a soul.
So this is quite a useful teaching, one to keep in mind.
It's something we should recognize in our meditation.
Sometimes we have perceptions that are just wrong, objectively wrong.
This is really what we're going for because we often don't realize that.
Through meditation we slowly, slowly uncover these and we're able to see through them.
Sometimes it's a thought, but even a thought is not a view.
So if it's just a thought, we just say thinking, thinking.
It's a problem that often when a thought arises, we stress about it.
Oh, I thought something terrible, how awful of me.
But thoughts are just thoughts, they're not views.
You just see them as a thought and let them go, there's no problem.
It's the views that are the real problem.
If a person has a view of self or a view of beauty or a view of happiness or a view of permanent, this is what really gets in the way of meditation.
Once it's got to the point of being a view where you believe it, it's very difficult for you to see the truth because you'll constantly be misinterpreting and diverting your attention away from what's really going on because it doesn't accord with your beliefs.
Anyway, this is our goal.
It's our goal to do away with our wrong views, our wrong thoughts, and our wrong perceptions.
Wrong not because society says they're wrong or religion, the Buddha says they're wrong.
They're wrong because they're just wrong.
They're not true.
They don't have any basis in reality.
That's what we mean by wrong.
So it's a challenge.
It's a claim that can be challenged.
There's no need to believe or argue.
This isn't something to be argued about.
It's something to be seen or disproved through your own practice, through your own observation.
When you see for yourself these things, all that we ask in Buddhism or all that we press is that you
Investigate.
Investigate these beliefs.
Because it would be wrong to think that something that is ugly is beautiful, or not beautiful is beautiful.
Something that is not happiness is happiness.
Something that is not permanent is permanent.
There's real profound implications and consequences in believing any of these things.
This is what informs our actions and our ambitions, our desires, our goals and so on.
So we wouldn't want to be chasing after something that was any of these, was not any of these things, chasing after it thinking that it was beautiful, happy, permanent or controllable self.
That kind of thing.
So,
That's the demo for tonight.
One more little bit.
I'm assuming we have some questions from not broadcasting last night.
We do have some questions, Vande.
The audio's not so good.
We should shut off video.
Would it help if we turned off video in the video conference?
Sure.
Okay, try now.
Okay.
How's that, Bhante?
Yeah, much better.
Okay.
Anjali Bhante, would it be possible to revive Srimongalo International Presents series and possibly have Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi and other inspiring people on it?
Even if not, I think just a simple Skype session between yourself and Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi discussing Dhamma-related topics would be most helpful.
Could that be arranged?
Thanks very much.
Yeah, it would be very much up to Bhikkhu Bodhi for that example.
He's quite busy.
We are friends, mostly on the internet.
But I don't think I'd want to personally invite him.
I don't know if someone knows him and would like to talk to him about it.
I'm not sure I'd personally want to bother him.
I don't know how interesting it would be for me and him to talk.
I'm better off listening to him talk or listening to me talk.
We probably have different views on various things as well, I'm not really sure.
It's sort of the kind of thing you'd only want to do with someone in your own tradition.
I must avoid junk food and other types of food that tempt me.
Before starting vipassana meditation, my resistance to these foods was strong, because I had, from a meditative point of view, an unwholesome fear of eating them.
However, I have found that vipassana is dissolving this fear as it purifies my mind, but much to my displeasure.
Could I say wanting, wanting to form a more wholesome awareness of my desire to eat these foods in order to avoid temptation?
Thank you.
To clarify, would saying wanting, wanting whenever I feel tempted to eat something I should avoid help me avoid it?
Thanks again.
Yeah, I mean, it will help.
It's often not strong enough.
One thing you have to realize is deep down you don't believe that they're bad for you.
Deep down you don't see the problem in eating them.
In fact, there isn't a big problem in eating them.
And this is a good example of the sort of thing that we overreact to.
And I don't mean you're overreacting in an intellectual sense.
But your mind doesn't believe you.
Your mind is not falling for it.
Your heart is saying, you know, no, really I want these things.
That's why you have to force ourselves.
So what meditation really does is it shows you what's really going on.
It helps you see clearer and see habitually, to see again and again what's wrong with certain behaviors.
So eating junk food is actually not a big problem.
Liking junk food is a problem.
and not just because of your health reasons it's actually not related to your health health is a really bad reason to to try and hammer something home you know to think okay i have to stop this because it's bad for my health why because it's too hard for your your psyche to believe it the best reason is because it causes you suffering
And so you could argue, okay, well, if you're sick, that's suffering.
Well, sure, but it's too hard for you to process that in terms of reality, on a visceral level.
What we can understand viscerally is that desire itself is stressful, because you can't always get what you want.
And that's how you have to approach it from a Buddhist point of view.
That's the only way to really and truly be free from desire, is to see that desire itself is...
useless, stressful, problematic, and creates addiction.
And the things that you desire are likewise useless, undesirable.
So not only wanting, but when you do eat the foods, to say to yourself, tasting, tasting.
Meditators, if you talk to my meditators who've been here for quite some while, they don't even want to eat anymore.
We have so much food piling up, I'm going to have to tell our people to stop, our organization to stop sending food.
We have too much of it.
The meditators are not eating.
I mean, they're eating, but they're eating just basic food.
They don't have any desire for special food or lots of food.
It becomes more a chore, like, oh, I've got to go up and eat again?
Why?
But the food is fine.
The food is great.
I keep asking them, and they keep saying, oh, the food is wonderful.
They're not really inclined to eat.
You have to get to that state where you start to see that food is just medicine.
It's just something to keep you alive.
So rather than avoiding it per se, you would want to learn to be mindful of it.
here is a laconic version of yesterday's inquiry in summary i don't feel really anxious or any extremely potent negative emotions from my vipassana meditation practice yet my insomnia persists fairly strongly i just started vipassana september 1st 2016 but have been meditating since may 2016 though without a real technique this is the same guy who didn't
He's still not asking a question.
No good.
Is it good?
It's no good, isn't it?
There's no question there.
No, I'm not going for it.
I'm not going to conjecture on what your question is because there's no question there.
I get a sense of what you're probably going to ask, but I'm not going to conjecture.
You ask it or you don't ask it.
That's all right.
Is there merit in taking care of old people as a nurse?
Does that bring good karma even if helping them is mainly for money?
Karma again is momentary.
You can think of things in terms of their potential for setting you up for good karma.
Working as a nurse has a potential for you to set yourself up for good karma.
Working as a teacher I think also does.
But it's only potential.
If you're a mean and nasty nurse, you're not building any good karma.
Not very much anyway.
So it's very much your state of mind and so so most of your if you're getting paid for it most of your good deeds so-called good deeds are going to be mixed because Part of you is doing it only for money only because you have to Not out of any realization that it's good for you But remember that remember that Karma is momentary that's what sort of Karma rests in the moment
So you can do anything and make it good karma.
If you're scrubbing toilets, it can be good karma if you think of the benefits that that brings to people.
Or if you do it mindfully, it's good karma.
If you do scrubbing toilets mindfully, it's very good karma.
Is getting old a good result of karma or a bad result?
It depends what you mean by getting old.
If you mean living a long time, well, living a long time is a result of good karma.
But the aging process is a result of bad karma, more or less.
I mean, it's a bit more complicated than that.
It's just, I mean, getting old is a part of life.
It's the nature.
So you want to say it's a result of bad karma.
What that means is the desire to be born as a human being with such a coarse body.
That is of a nature to get old.
You set yourself up for it with your karma.
That's what it means.
Set yourself up for the potential old age, sickness and death that is an inevitable part of the birth.
The strength that comes from youth and health and life.
I think I am interested in becoming a monk, but do not know with certainty.
Would you recommend that I at least get a bachelor's degree in computer science as a backup?
As well, being an African American male, I am uncertain how I would be received in foreign countries.
in foreign country monasteries, not to sound ignorant or suggest bigotry.
Thus, if I would intend to become a Buddhist monk, would you recommend I join a United States or Canadian monastery?
Thanks.
Let's deal with the first part.
I think in general, no, getting a degree as a backup is
I don't know.
I mean, probably I should be saying yes, it's a good idea to have a backup.
But it sounds like you're probably not at the point where you should become a monk.
You should only become a monk if your practice takes you to the point where you say, I just can't live in lay life anymore.
Up until that point, I wouldn't concern yourself with becoming a monk.
I tell this to everyone.
Because so many people become monks and don't last, which isn't in and of itself a problem, but I don't know that it's in the end as useful as it, as much trouble, worth as much as it is trouble.
I think it might be more trouble than it's worth, is what I'm trying to say.
As far as being African-American, I do know that Thailand, I mean, I've heard Thai people get rather racist and have no compunction against being racist.
They feel no guilt in being racist.
Not racist, it's not actually race, it's skin color.
They think dark skin is ugly, is dirty.
One monk actually said to me way back when he saw a black person, he said, oh, that's dirty.
So, you know, full disclosure, that sort of thing, but
It wouldn't really be a problem even in Thailand.
Absolutely not.
I've had people from Africa come to study with me in Thailand.
They were treated fine.
This one guy had been in Thailand for quite a while, from Nigeria.
Unfortunately, he eventually wrote me a letter from jail.
He failed to leave the country in a timely manner and they caught him.
So you might argue that potentially if he had white skin he may have, you know how it goes, racism is alive and well, so if he had white skin, it's not even race really, well maybe it is, but it's more the skin color.
So Thailand, yeah, there's that.
I don't know how Burma is, but I imagine there may be something like that.
Sri Lanka has it, but there's a lot of dark-skinned people in Sri Lanka, so it's not nearly as pronounced.
Of course, Canada has it everywhere.
Maybe Canada not so much.
But I wouldn't let that be a deciding factor, because I don't think it would be an issue.
If anything, it would be a fun sort of practice to have to deal with it and to help to challenge people's
Colorism?
Racism?
I wouldn't let that be a deciding factor.
It's a good question.
But becoming a monk is much more about are you at the point where you just have to do it?
I think.
I mean, maybe that's more related to modern times because it's much harder to be a monk in modern times unless you find one of those places where you can go off in the forest and live.
But even then, you really should be ready for it.
Often these places have a year where they make you train before they'll even think to ordain you, which might be a replacement for what I'm talking about.
You've got that year to really consider what you're doing and to prepare for it.
But I guess simply, if you're not going to become a monk right away, then sure, go ahead and continue on as you were.
Maybe that's not even still good.
If you're inclined to become a monk or a meditator, why not find a simpler way of living?
One that's cheaper, so you don't have to worry too much about money or that kind of thing.
So you don't have to stress going to university.
I don't know.
It's hard for me to give specific advice.
Should I do this?
Should I do that?
I'm not going to tell you you should or shouldn't get a computer degree, I guess.
Sir, I would like to study the Satipatthana Sutta in more depth.
Do you have a recommendation for a publication that is annotated or has commentary?
Well, there's the ancient commentary that's translated as The Way of Mindfulness.
I've been mentioning that book.
It's worth picking up, the book called The Way of Mindfulness.
It's on the internet.
You download a copy, print it up, whatever.
About a modern commentary?
It's a good question, really.
Mahasi Sayadaw's commentary, I haven't even read because it's not in English.
But his books on vipassana are very much based on mindfulness.
I would read his books.
It's just not directly on the sutta.
It would be interesting to find someone.
Gee, I wish I was in a position to be able to write a commentary on it.
I wonder if I could put something together from the Thai and Burmese sources that I have.
Maybe I could write a commentary on it.
I don't know how good it would be.
Maybe that's something to do once I get my PhD or something.
Is intelligence important on this path, in being mindful?
Not really.
I think intelligence in a worldly sense is good.
There's a power to intelligence.
So I'd say from a Buddhist point of view it would allow you to do more.
You're better equipped to teach, for example.
but it's independent of your progress.
So if you're intelligent but not enlightened, the intelligence isn't going to do you all that much good.
And then if you're enlightened but not intelligent, it's not really a problem.
Of course, they aren't independent entirely.
Enlightenment does tend to make you more intelligent because your mind is clearer.
And conversely, being not enlightened tends to make you dumber.
Oh, we still got lots of questions.
We do.
Okay, although the self is illusory, corporal forms have limitations that also have a limiting effect on the mental.
If men are inherently non-equal, how does one overcome the physical mental limitations in the meditation process?
Is the hardware capable of objectivity?
My brain hurts.
Does your brain hurt reading that?
I'm not really hurt, I'm just being facetious.
That's a tough one.
I don't really get it.
There's too much going on in this complex question.
I can grasp the not overcoming physical mental limitations, but we're not trying to.
There are certain limitations, sure, but they're not hard limitations either.
The limitations are soft limitations.
It means they can be broken, perhaps not in this life, not necessarily, but certainly in the next life.
I think you may be on a different plane than me with that question, maybe overthinking things a little bit.
But I wouldn't say that there's any hard limitation, or not many anyway, and certainly none that we're interested in.
Because from a meditation point of view, it's much more about learning about the nature of our mind and the limitations and the interactions, the way it works.
Is it okay to think of things like science or math when you're doing other things like walking in a park or eating food?
Is this wholesome?
I feel satisfied and happy when I crack through questions in theory.
I'm not sure how to relate this to mindfulness.
Some insight would be helpful.
Thank you.
That's a good question.
It's probably not wholesome.
It's much more related to delusion.
What that means is that there will be a subtle undercurrent of identification.
I'm thinking.
Anytime that you're not absolutely mindful and present and seeing things arise and cease, there will be an undercurrent of identification and it builds up this delusion, feeds our delusion that we're doing things, feeds the ego.
So when you come to this conclusion, you feel proud of it.
That's where the pride comes from.
But liking the fact that you've solved something is greed, is attachment, and it becomes addictive.
It sounds like you're actually somewhat addicted.
It's a mild addiction, but it is an addiction.
So it's something you should say, liking, liking, that kind of thing.
But is it okay?
It's not going to kill you.
It's not going to send you to hell.
It's probably going to get in the way of rapid attainment of enlightenment.
During daily life, I try to be mindful of my body sensations and of my emotions.
However, I often feel sleep deprived and foggy brained.
And so I have difficulty with immediately and thoroughly noting these things.
Should I just try my best to not worry about quickly making note of these things?
Would that be enough?
Well, if you worry, you should say worried, worried.
I mean, the idea is you'll get better at it if you're dedicated to it.
So absolutely worry is not useful.
It's not meant to be easy to practice.
I hope I've never said that it's going to be easy, because it certainly isn't for most people going to be an easy path to walk.
Does one necessarily need to have a spiritual crisis if one is going to become spiritually enlightened?
No, but one has to have a desire to change, and the desire to change usually comes about with, not necessarily a crisis, but a realization that something's wrong.
If you don't have a realization that something's wrong, why would you want to change?
And spirituality is all about, and Buddhism is all about change, so if you have no desire to change things, it's not likely to, you're not likely to be inclined towards enlightenment.
On the other hand, that's just part of the process.
We're always seeing things that are potentially wrong, so it's just a matter of being clearly aware when something goes wrong.
When you misunderstand something and it has consequences, it makes you upset or suffer.
That's always going on.
All you have to do is start seeing it.
Of course, usually it's the slap in the face when something big goes wrong.
And you're not ready for it.
You're not prepared for it.
You suffer intensely.
That helps you to start to wonder, why is this?
Why is it that I... How can this be?
More like, what can I do to prevent this?
What can I do to cure this?
And you start to see, well, it's just your attachment.
If you were reactionary, none of your experiences would have the power over you.
power to hurt you.
Is there such a thing as mental fatigue, wherein you've used your mind a lot, and it doesn't function as efficiently as it used to?
For example, you can't think or comprehend clearly?
Yes.
It's dinamidha.
It's one of the five hindrances.
What is your understanding of the culmination or continuation of all things in comparison to the understanding of other religions?
I don't understand.
Sorry.
Buddhism advocates to not cling to things, for it might lead to suffering.
However, how do you see the wanting liking for learning, such as when studying or working intently to gain knowledge?
Can this also lead to suffering, for otherwise it acts as a big motivational tool?
I don't quite understand.
Any insight on this would be helpful.
Well, not all things we do are from desire.
Some things are just from the natural inclination of the mind or the natural path that the mind is currently on.
Often they are echoes of past desires.
So if you used to desire something, chances are it will be habitual for you to continue doing that even if you don't desire it.
For example.
But that being said, any desire is unwholesome.
Desire for even to meditate is unwholesome because it leads to stress, it leads to disappointment, it leads to withdrawal eventually.
And so wanting to learn is just the same.
I mean there's a lot of ego involved with learning, feeling good about yourself, being intelligent, but even just desiring, wanting to learn is going to leave you disappointed because you can't, because it's addictive.
It's called bhava tanha, I think, I would think.
Bhava tanha is desire for something to be that's not exactly clinging to something that's attractive, but it's clinging to the idea of being learned or so on, or learning something, knowing something, being smart, makes you feel good.
is burnout real if so how should we deal with it can one be burned out from meditating too much it's just a habit what we would call burnout would be a habit of disliking meditation say you get so averse to it that eventually you just can't bring yourself to do it the energy to do it is less than the aversion it's easy you just you just start reversing it i mean we would know disliking disliking
or just note whatever it is.
I mean, it's just a habit that will change.
Or it's a result of habitual behavior.
Looking forward to your commentary on Satipatthana Sutta.
Were you referring to the Manual of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw?
No, I think he actually did a commentary on the Satipatthana Sutta.
Yeah, I wouldn't hold your breath about my commentary.
I'm not that smart.
I probably get things wrong.
In meditation, we keep the noting to simple hearing, seeing, thinking, et cetera, trying not to jump too much from object to object.
How does one note more complicated things in everyday life, such as putting on shoes or tying shoelaces or pulling your jumper over your head or buttoning a blouse?
You can be general about it.
As long as it helps keep you present, it's helpful.
But if you can be specific, you note the bodily movements and sensations.
So you lift the jumper, it's lifting.
You stretch it, it's pulling.
raising your arms, raising, lowering.
When it touches your head, you say feeling, pulling, pushing your arm out.
It's complicated.
And it obviously takes a lot of work to get good at that.
But it's quite useful if you can.
You can turn everything into a meditation and I'm good on you.
But you can also just, what would it be like, wearing, wearing or something.
If you're lazy, it's helpful.
It keeps you aware of what you're doing.
Putting on, putting on.
It's not as useful as being actually aware of the individual movements.
Please explain the significance of a person's mindset before death.
Do drugs have any effect on this?
Drugs, yes, because we react to our state of being on drugs, and it's very hard for us to generally overcome the drugged state.
But the drugs affect the brain.
So when you die, the brain stops working.
And once the brain stops working, the mind is free from the effect of drugs.
The bigger problem would be during the time that you're on drugs, you're cultivating all sorts of confused and unwholesome mind states.
So when finally you're free, you've got to deal with all of that.
So it's much harder for an ordinary individual to cultivate a clear mind.
Through drugs, when they're on drugs.
I mean, I would say that's actually somewhat speculative, but certainly drugs don't help things.
But that is a good point, that at the moment of death the drugs won't have any effect because the brain is already dead.
The brain dies before the mind moves on.
During my visit in Thailand I often saw food offerings left rotting in the sun.
What is your opinion on that?
Thank you.
What would you have the monks do if monks get so much food?
One thing you might have them do is not accept so much, but that's not easy.
The Buddha wasn't critical of it.
He said putting the food somewhere where ants might get it is actually merit.
That's the only comment that you'll find the Buddha.
He said don't throw in water because...
It can kill the fish kind of thing, but putting food on the ground somewhere where there are no beings to be crushed by it is actually good merit, letting the ants have it or whatever.
Buddhism is not our Buddhism.
There are actually types of Buddhism that are very critical of leaving leftovers.
Our Theravada Buddhism in general is not.
Because what do you do?
What is it?
It's just rupa.
It comes and it goes.
The important thing of the food is not how much you get or how much is given or so on.
It's the intention of giving.
So suppose the monk only eats part of the meal.
Did the givers only get part of the merit?
No.
They got the merit of giving.
It's not about amount.
It's about state of mind.
I have to throw away food.
We have to throw away food.
But I don't feel bad about it.
It's just rupai.
It has nothing to do with the actual gift, actual good intention.
But practically speaking, you should be somewhat circumspect about such things.
I've been getting too much food lately, so I'm going to have to tell them to cut back.
It's hard for me to tell.
It's a new regimen, so I'm going to have to say, you know, look, I can't eat all that.
But after years and years of being a monk, I can only eat so much, and I know exactly.
I can't, you know, it's very hard to eat, to overeat, because when you eat only once a day, I guess, or when you're mindful, you eat so much, and then that's it.
All right.
I guess the other thing is not being led by your desire, because having been a meditator for a long time, you don't listen.
You aren't fooled by your mind telling you to eat more, by your tongue saying, I want more taste, I want more taste.
Yeah, tough luck.
So you eat just enough.
And then there's often leftovers.
So sometimes I actually eat a little too much, because if I'm eating in public or something, I don't want them to criticize me for not eating, for leaving leftovers or something.
Bonte, for a person who has the view of that everything ends at death, is there any spiritual progress possible?
I've heard of it being called as both Sagawarna blocks the path to heaven and Magawarna blocks the path to Nirvana.
Yeah, but only if you cling to it.
Of course, anyone can give up their views.
What is bad is niyata michaditi.
You've heard of this, I'm sure.
Niyata michaditi.
It's niyata michaditi, which is the worst.
The worst form of evil there is.
Niyata meaning certain, when you're unable to let go of your view, when you're certain of the view, certain or stuck in the view, when you're fixed.
Niyata means fixed or certain.
That's what's bad.
And so if you have those at the moment of death, then they're sa-ga-varana, ma-ga-varana.
Or whenever you have them.
But it doesn't mean having had them when you were young, say.
You can't possibly ever become enlightened again.
That would make no sense.
Simply at the time that you hold them.
And the problem is some people are unwilling to let go of their views.
During examinations, or just learning in general, you are encouraged to recall information and think of relating information.
This inlines to the more conventional notation of education.
Is this still being mindful?
Would you classify conventional education as hindering one's path to enlightenment?
Anything?
Well, no, I mean, no, I wouldn't.
Potentially there's some small hindrance in the thinking, right?
Because there will be a cultivation of ego and a cultivation of identification and that kind of thing.
And that's a hindrance.
But for the most part, all it would do is slow you down.
That's all.
I mean, that's what a hindrance is.
But it would be a sort of slowing down because you're not meditating, basically.
I would say it's on a higher level than, say, dancing or listening to music or playing computer games.
Pokemon Go.
Are they still playing that?
I think it's actually died.
We're so fickle, aren't we?
Yeah, it was all over the news, and then it wasn't.
Is wanting to avoid criticism a desire?
How does one avoid clinging to this?
Wanting to avoid criticism is more likely an aversion.
You can phrase it as a desire, and the Buddha, I think, did at times, but it's more aversion, directly speaking.
So if you're afraid or worried, let's say, it would be a fear or worry.
You say afraid, afraid, or worried, worried.
anxious, whatever.
There's no way to avoid clinging.
You can only learn not to cling by watching and seeing how much suffering you gain from clinging.
If you haven't read my booklet on how to meditate, I would recommend it at this point.
It sounds like you may not have.
Once you've read it, you'll get a sense of the sort of answer I'll give to such a question, because it's all about denoting.
Just in regards to that mindfulness in the last question, he's asking, is this mindfulness?
It's important to clarify, there's two ways of understanding mindfulness in the conventional sense.
Sati can refer to being able to remember things, having a good memory, that's sati.
But in terms of the meditation, it means specifically being able to remember the present moment, being able to remember yourself, not losing track of the present moment.
So it's a very specific thing.
In our tradition, it would mean saying to yourself, seeing, seeing, hearing, hearing.
That's what it would mean to be mindful.
All right, we're caught up.
Quick, while we're still caught up.
Good night, everyone.
Thank you, Robin, for helping out.
Thank you, Dante.
Good night.