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Tonight's Dhamma is Anguttara Nikaya Book of Fours, Sutta 14.
There are these four strivings.
Four ways of striving.
Striving, of course, big part of
What makes us who we are?
What do we strive for?
Do we strive at all?
How much do we strive?
Are we lazy or are we ambitious?
What are our goals in life?
In Buddhism we have four, well here the Buddha gives four types of striving that are
of spiritual benefit.
These are the kinds of striving, the kind of work that you can do to better yourself spiritually.
And spiritually just means bringing about better mental health, more peace of mind, clarity of mind, freeing yourself from the bonds, bondage, which we talked about last night.
So what are the four kinds of striving in Buddhism?
Sangwara padhanam, striving to restrain.
Pahana padhanam, striving to abandon.
Number three, bhavana padhanam, striving to cultivate.
And number four, anurakarna padhana, striving to protect.
Restraint, abandonment, development, and protection.
These are the four ways, and they each
describe a different facet of the practice or a different way of looking at the meditation practice or the path in general so restraint is in regards to the senses and this is this famous quote that comes back again and again not famous but it's one that I keep bringing up again and again this common quote of the Buddha's having seen a form with the eye
He is not one or she is not one who grasps at the signs or one who grasps at the particulars.
Meaning it's just seeing.
You don't make more out of it than that.
This is the whole of the practice.
The challenge of trying to just see things as they are.
To keep it real.
Keep our experience, our interaction with reality to just what's real.
Just the bare reality.
To not have any speculation or belief or view or attachment or aversion or identification.
Because
When you leave the eye unguarded in this way, when you do delve into the particulars, what is it I'm seeing?
Is it good?
Is it bad?
That's nice.
That's not nice.
That's beautiful.
That's ugly.
And then the Buddha says, abhija domana sa papaka kusla dhamma anvasawayo
They might attack or enter into the mind.
Abhija Domanasa liking and disliking basically or wanting and aversion and all evil dhammas, evil and wholesome things.
All the problems, the causes of our suffering, they will all arise.
They will all attack the mind.
So when one practices restraint, seeing, let seeing just be seeing.
Keep the mind at just seeing.
Guard the eye, guard the ear, guard the nose, the tongue, guard the body and guard the mind.
You should guard these six doors and free yourself.
Keep yourself protected.
Keep yourself protected from the dangers that come from clinging and aversion.
The suffering that comes from our bad habits of mind.
That's number one.
Number two, pahana padhanam, through abandoning.
Another way of looking at it is we strive to abandon.
So we strive to guard.
That's the first one.
That's what it means is striving.
It's the hard work that we're doing here is reminding ourselves.
It's just seeing.
That kind of striving is striving to abandon.
Abandon what?
Upanam kamavitakam nadivaseti padyahati vinodeti payanti karoti anabhavam gameti Upanam kamavitakam nadivaseti padyahati vinodeti We used to chant this.
an arisen thought of sensuality.
One doesn't bear it, nadi vasiti.
One abandons it, bhajjati.
Vinodeti, dispels it, bhyanti karoti.
Makes an end to it.
Anabhavangam eti causes it to go to cessation, makes it cease.
So when there's a desire arises, one dispels it, one doesn't give it quarter, doesn't chase after it or allow it to take root.
Mindful, seeing liking as liking, wanting as wanting, and not
Not giving it room to grow.
The same goes with thoughts of aversion or disliking, hatred, ill will.
It doesn't bear a thought of ill will.
Don't let it take root.
Don't identify with it.
Don't take it as your own.
See it clearly as just a thought of anger and let it go.
Abandon it.
Don't take these things on.
And the same goes with vihingsa-vitaka.
And these are the three wrong sorts of thoughts.
Vihingsa means any kind of oppressive mind state of arrogance or conceit or that kind of thing.
Delusion-based, really.
And any kind of unwholesome dhamma.
Upanupane papakeya kusale dhamme.
Any kind of arisen evil unwholesome dhamma.
One doesn't bear them.
Don't bear with them.
Don't let them take root in your mind.
Simply remind yourself, liking, liking, disliking, disliking.
You're confused or deluded or attached to something.
Abandon it.
Give it up.
Number three, bhavana padhana, striving to cultivate.
So there are things that we should abandon, we should abandon these thoughts through our practice.
Then what is it that we should keep?
What are the good things?
Buddhism isn't all about bad things.
There's lots of good and healthy things that we have in our minds that we can develop.
Most important, well, what do we develop?
We develop the seven bhojangas.
Bhojangas, the seven things that lead to enlightenment or factors of enlightenment.
Mindfulness.
We cultivate mindfulness.
It's a great thing to have.
It's a great tool to have.
You can use it throughout your life in so many situations.
When you're suffering with physical pain, when you have mental distress, when you have challenges or
fears, anxieties, doubts, confusion, sati is what clears it all up.
Dhamma vichaya, discriminating between the Dhammas.
Once you're mindful, then you're able to investigate.
You're able to see what is good and what is bad.
Mindfulness is the cultivation of objectivity.
Once you're objective, you're able to see into your mind, is this good for me, is this bad for me?
Is this worth holding on to or is this worth throwing away?
Virya, you cultivate effort.
Strive to cultivate effort.
The effort to be mindful, really.
Once you're mindful, virya just means doing it again and again.
It's quite a lot of work and you need effort and encouragement to continue it.
Piti Sambhojan Changa
Piti means rapture.
Rapture just means getting into a groove in this case.
And you have put out the effort, eventually it becomes habitual.
Mindfulness actually becomes a habit.
Pasadi means your mind calms down, becomes more tranquil as you practice.
Because you start to work out.
I mean, it doesn't feel like that at first, but you're dealing with all the chaos inside.
And once you deal with it, it starts to become more orderly.
And you do find yourself calming down.
Samadhi, as a result of calming down, your mind becomes focused and you start to see things just as they are, arising and ceasing.
You become more equanimous about things.
That's the seventh.
The seventh is upeka.
Once you become more focused, then you become more equanimous, not judging things as good or bad.
So this is what it means through development.
So what do we have?
We have restraint, restraining the senses, abandoning, abandon the defilements in the mind, development, develop the bojangas, develop good qualities of mind, starting with mindfulness.
And number four, guard or protect.
And this is guarding the meditation practice.
Guarding.
Guarding the meditation object.
And here the Buddha talks about actually Samatha meditations, which is quite interesting.
Protecting, but in general it means protecting your meditation practice.
Don't let go, don't stop meditating.
Try to meditate throughout the day.
When you find yourself doing something that takes you away from your meditation practice, be quick to come back to it.
Remind yourself, when I was doing that thing I couldn't be mindful so now I should try harder than ever to be mindful.
These are the four types of striving.
.
Someone cultivates effort in regards to these .
They attain the destruction of suffering.
The ending of suffering.
Which is the only goal we're trying to aim for.
Just the complete end of suffering.
There was one monk in the time of the Buddha who, when he disrobed, he went around telling people, oh, the Buddha, you know,
not really worth following.
All he does is teach you to end suffering.
And if you follow him, all that's going to happen is you're just going to end suffering.
And then Buddha shook his head and said, well, Buddha said, you know, this guy thinking he's insulting me is actually doing me a favor by going around and telling people the truth.
That's all we're trying to do is end suffering.
Suffering doesn't come from our experiences, it comes from our minds, our reactions.
So if we guard our reactions and keep our reactions neutral and learn to see things objectively, abandoning unwholesome thoughts, cultivating good qualities of mind, and guarding our practice, guarding our minds so that we don't slip,
Eventually it builds up, it becomes habitual and your mind starts to shift.
And eventually you're able to let go.
And attain Nibbana, become enlightened.
That's all.
Alright, so that's the Dhamma for tonight.
The four kinds of striving.
Hmm?
Can you hear the sound?
I was silent.
It was a result of concentration.
I was scared.
I was shocked.
Was it strange?
It was strange.
It was so strange.
I couldn't sleep.
My mind was like this.
It was strange.
Canada Canada like hotel many know they'll go high me chair right get rid of the room and I'm not not sure about that room thing but there it was anyway let's Oh Robins already unmuted so there you are
Hi, Robin.
Hello, Bonte.
I wish I could see the room.
What I see is a little bit different.
I don't see the room.
Yeah.
You're on a direct line to me.
I could probably set it up so that you could see the window.
That would be weird.
Would that work?
I don't know.
Yeah, it probably would, actually.
Let me see here.
See if I can do that.
Oh no, it doesn't let me because it's not a hangout on air.
Is it?
Huh.
Share screen.
Oh, I can.
Okay.
Now you should see.
Hmm.
Now you should see.
Basically.
Except now it's got this green bar at the top, which is not really good.
Forget it.
sorry oh that's okay are you ready for some questions i'm ready go ahead do we need to apply dependent origination to our walking or sitting what is dependent origination and why do some people say it's important to learn about it dependent origination is the law of cause and effect it's basically the four noble truths in depth and even it's not the final
Even it's not the most complete.
I mean, even it's still an abbreviation.
To get true understanding of cause and effect of the Four Noble Truths, you have to study the Mahabhadana, which is a huge, immense, incredibly dense work.
but it goes through all the different permutations and types of conditionality.
There's 24 types of conditionality.
Dependent origination is just one way of a simplification actually, just as the Four Noble Truths are an even further simplification.
So learning about it is useful.
It's what you come to understand through the practice.
It's what the Buddha came to understand.
Anarahan need not understand it exactly as the Buddha understood it, because as the Buddha understood it, it involved past lives and it involved the whole...
It was basically a summing up of samsara, the essence of samsara and how samsara works.
having observed it.
But for meditators, we only need to concern ourselves with this life.
We only need to concern ourselves with the present moment.
So, people talk about paticcasamapada, dependent origination having to do with past lives, future lives.
Well, really that seems to be how it was taught, but
The essence of it is the Four Noble Truths and it's that ignorance of the truth leads us to crave and craving leads to suffering, basically.
But you don't apply it because dependent origination is the nature of things.
It's just the truth.
So through the practice of satipatthana you see this.
Don't be confused.
The only thing you should be practicing is the satipatthana.
Wisdom, things like dependent origination are things that you'll start to see.
You'll start to see that things are dependent on other things.
There is a relationship.
When you react in certain ways it leads to certain results and you start to incline towards positive results and away from those things that cause you suffering.
Sir, what is a good way to measure the meditation, to measure if the meditation sessions are going well?
For example, could it be the length of time during a session that I'm able to focus on one of the Satipatthanas without being interrupted by one of the hindrances?
The reason I ask is so I can measure the correctness and then take corrective steps if required.
But you can't be aware of anything for more than a moment, so any sort of duration would be most likely forcing your mind on a single object, so that wouldn't be a good idea.
The only way you can really measure it is by the moment.
How many moments were you clearly aware of something?
Were you reminding yourself, this is pain, this is thinking, this is rising, this is falling, this is stepping right, this is lifting, this is placing, that kind of thing?
It's the quality of the moments that's the only real measure.
So even if you're just aware of your hindrances, that counts as well?
Oh yeah.
It's great learning.
Sir, of late I have been mostly bothered by distraction and drowsiness.
To remove them I have played with ratios of walking and sitting, as well as the number of objects in sitting and number of phases in walking, sometimes changing them on the fly.
Thinking back, today I was able to have two relatively prolonged periods of focus on rising and falling after 15 walking, 30 sitting, but with relatively forceful breathing.
Is forceful breathing okay?
Is the overall approach of experimentation okay?
Again, you're forcing your mind.
You're trying to find a trick to get it under control, which is antithetical to the actual practice.
You being bothered by distraction and drowsiness, well, the problem is that you're bothered by them, that you want to get rid of them.
You should say disliking, disliking, or frustrated, or however it appears to you.
But the idea is not to find a trick to get rid of them.
The idea is to learn to not give rise to them in the first place.
It's not to avoid the opportunity for them to arise, but it's
It's to allow the opportunity for them to arise, but not give rise to them.
So whatever condition is causing you to become distracted, it's to learn about that situation and learn about the distractions to the extent that you no longer react in that way.
If you just find a way to avoid the situation, it doesn't actually solve anything.
So any kind of trick that you might have, making it easier, making it better,
It's not really going to help you in the long run.
It's just trying to control things.
Forceful breathing is really bad practice.
And your general experimentation is also bad practice.
If you're really distracted or really drowsy such that you just can't conquer it,
Then you would want to change.
So if you're sitting, you'd walk.
If you're walking, you sit.
But otherwise, don't play with the ratios.
Keep it equal.
Because otherwise it becomes partiality and trying to control.
Trying to avoid, for example.
We want to learn about our hindrances.
They're part of the practice.
When you feel drowsy, the only real way to overcome it is to say to yourself, drowsy, drowsy.
Who did the Portuguese translation of your booklet?
I read it, and some parts of it seemed like they could be improved.
I'm sure I have who it is in my, I don't know offhand who it was, but I have it in my email somewhere.
So if you want to get in touch with me, I can put you in contact with them, or if you want to help out and improve it, that'd be great.
Do you see any benefit in studying things like reincarnation research, Jim Tucker, Ian Stevenson, or other kinds of research like that, that shows that the mind is more than just physical?
Yeah, sure.
Interesting stuff.
I've sometimes started treating the mind as if I were training a child.
For instance, when there's been thinking and I catch it after some seconds, I have started saying to it, now that was thinking.
If there's itching, I might say, as if I'm speaking to a child, that's the experience of itching.
Is this okay?
Thank you, Panthea.
Yeah, that's fine.
I mean, it's more efficient to just say itching, itching.
Otherwise, it kind of becomes a thing, you know?
Like, yeah, you're including the idea of a child, for example, you know?
Or you're adding a tone to it, which we don't really want.
It should be as neutral and as unflavored as possible.
Or is it unadulterated, maybe?
I mean, you don't want to... Again, there's no trick.
Anytime you find yourself trying to find a trick, a way to make it better, a way to make it easier, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
It'll work for a while, and then it doesn't work, and you wonder, oh, maybe I have to find a new trick.
You're trying to control.
It's not going to be easy.
It's not supposed to be easy.
It's supposed to teach you patience because it's like a child, you know?
The best way to deal with children is to have no attitude whatsoever.
Give them the truth, right?
That's the best way to deal with children.
So try to keep it neutral.
Don't try to make it some kind of special noting.
Just simply itching, itching or thinking, thinking.
Don't put any tone on it.
It's not going to work in the long run.
You talked about Kama Yoga last night.
Are there any extraneous practices that you would recommend to help overcome or hasten the understanding relating to this problem?
Any extra advice or help for anyone dealing with it?
Everybody wants to find a quicker way.
I mean, okay, yeah, I mean, I do answer this one quite frequently.
Kama is the best way to deal with it outside of satipatthana.
Never forget that that's the best way, but it's mindfulness of the body, the parts of the body.
So you do mindfulness of the hair, and you focus on the hair, and you say, geza, geza, or hair, hair, hair.
And then you do the body hair or the facial hair or whatever, the nails, the teeth, the skin.
And you do one piece by one piece and you'd start to see that the body is not something worth clinging to.
Any kind of sexual attraction is weakened.
through that.
That's the main practice for dealing with sensual attraction or sexual attraction.
I almost always have two through six seconds at the bottom of the falling of the breath, where there's no breath, no rising, no falling.
I'm just waiting for the next rise of the stomach.
Stop being distracted during this period.
I have been noting still still or waiting waiting or nothing nothing Yeah, that's fine.
That's actually correct, but At that point and probably where you are.
I can't remember where you are in the course, but at this point we would Once that's that starts to happen It's about time to give you the third part So you would instead say rising falling sitting so switch to being mindful sitting rising falling sitting and
Sitting doesn't have to be between breaths, but sometimes it is.
Sometimes there's room.
So it doesn't matter.
You just switch to sitting even if the breath continues.
So rising, falling, and then switch to sitting.
And after you know sitting, then go back and look at the stomach and wait for it to rise again.
But yeah, we start to give you more objects to be aware of to help because the breath is, over time it becomes insufficient to keep your mind focused.
Your mind is able to see the gaps.
It's got nothing to do in between.
What reason is there to be specific with labeling?
For example, if I observe pain or calmness, why use pain, pain, or calm, calm?
Wouldn't it be better to inculcate the least conceptual label possible?
In other words, feeling in this case?
I mean, it's not wrong, but...
Pain is more quick to, it's closer in your mind.
I mean, it's all about what brings your mind to the experience.
If you're experiencing pain, you don't think of it as a feeling, right?
You don't think of it as, oh, now I'm feeling this thing.
It's like, no, now I'm feeling pain.
That's, what is that?
That's just a feeling.
No, no.
You think of it as pain.
Feeling is more for something that appears to you as just some type of feeling.
Pain appears to you as pain.
Calm appears to you as calm.
So it's not wrong to say feeling, but it's a little more intellectual because it's not the first thing you think of.
It's not how you perceive it.
You perceive it as pain.
That's how we know it.
It's not wrong to do either one, but it's whatever allows you to quickly remind yourself it is what it is.
Through meditation, can you see or experience the heaven or hell realms?
Thank you.
Depends what type of meditation you're doing.
Absolutely, there are lots of meditations.
There are meditations that allow you to do that, sure.
I don't teach them, but you could read the Visuddhimagga.
It's got lots of practices like that.
I think you're all caught up with questions, Bonte, unless somebody didn't put the question mark on it.
I'll check.
How's YouTube doing?
I don't have YouTube up.
Hmm.
So the comments on YouTube, they disappear as soon as the live stream is done?
I don't know.
I think there's just a live chat that people can chat about.
Yeah, it seems to go away once the live stream is over.
Right.
Yeah, they aren't actual comments.
It's just a live chat feature.
So people can chat when they should be actually listening to the talk.
Maybe I should turn that off.
I probably should just turn that off.
Because we've got the chat on our side.
I'm just going to turn it off.
There.
Now there's no live chat.
All right.
Well, then that's all for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Thanks, Robin, for all your help.
Thank you, Bante.
Good night.