Good evening everyone and welcome to our live broadcast.
Today we're looking at Anguttaranikaya Book of Sixes, Sutta 45, Inna Sutta.
Inna means
I didn't change the title.
Okay.
Ina means debt.
Yeah, it means debt.
So this is the sutta about debt.
But the suttas, I guess you could say it's about debt.
It starts with poverty.
It's talking about a Dalit.
I think they have the word Dalit.
Yeah, they have these people they call Dalit.
A Dalit is a low class person or an outcast person.
In the time of the Buddha, it just meant a poor person, I think, a vagrant, a beggar, the wretched people of the society.
People who live down the streets without any refuge, without any support, without any money, without any wealth.
Dalida.
Dalidiyang bikawe dukhang lokasminga mabhogino di.
It's actually asking a question.
O monks bhikkhus, you who have seen the danger of samsara, for one who partakes of sensuality in this world, is poverty not suffering?
Most people are quite afraid of the loss of their wealth.
We hear stories about misers who fear for the loss of even the smallest amount of money.
We have people who are worried about making ends meet.
and people who are worried about their jobs.
The fear of being impoverished is one that a person must live with in the world, for as long as they are desirous of sensual indulgence.
Because poverty would mean the inability to indulge, it would mean being faced with sensual experiences, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling unpleasant sensations.
A homeless person has to experience much that is
fearsome to most people.
Sort of things that most people would never want to experience.
And so the monks say, evangbandhe.
Yes, of course, for a person who's left behind sensuality, being homeless is actually a wonderful thing, right?
Even being penniless is in many ways a wonderful thing for one who has given up sensuality.
No need to concern oneself with money,
If one's hungry, it's just hunger.
If one's thirsty, it's just thirst.
If one's assaulted by heat or cold.
Most people in the world couldn't fathom such a situation.
I mean, I suppose for Buddhist monks it's made a lot easier because we have this fallback of relying on Buddhist societies to care for us.
We have the inheritance of the Buddha.
The Buddha called it an inheritance.
His fame, his glory, the reverence people showed towards him has fallen over.
But even that being so, being a monk can be quite troublesome in terms of the physical well-being.
Having to sometimes go without food, oftentimes go without shelter, forced to be patient with heat and cold,
mosquitoes and insects and things that crawl and things that bite and so it is really a great training if you live as a monk in the forest or as a monk in the countryside even in a Buddhist country where you might get enough to eat from time to time you still have to put up with a lot and you, not that exactly, you learn
And you broaden your, you open your mind to the idea of having nothing.
The idea of being without.
And it's not so scary actually.
There's a guy who wrote
A guy who wrote in 1984, George Orwell, right?
George Orwell wrote, I think it was him, he wrote about being poor in Paris and London, I think.
It's called Down Note in Paris, London and Paris.
Really interesting book to read.
It's about his times.
He was expecting to get a job and then it fell through and suddenly he found himself without any money.
and having to live off scraps, live with hunger, live with thirst, live with the most base of dwellings.
And he said there's a great freedom that comes from it, because you realize you can't fall any further.
For most people it's great suffering even to think about poverty, but for someone who's poor,
And so there's a reassurance there, because you've nothing to fear.
It can't get much worse.
You've fallen as far as you can fall, is what he says.
And so it's like a person standing on a cliff versus a person standing on the ground.
The person standing on the cliff is afraid of coming in contact with the ground at the bottom of the cliff, but the person on the bottom of the cliff doesn't have anything to fear.
They've already fallen.
Anyway, it's not over.
Work that.
Indeed, it is great suffering for people in the world who are still clinging to sensuality.
And he said in the book, he says,
Basically, for one who is, he uses a bunch of synonyms, but for one who is destitute, helpless, asako, analaho, not even having a measure of rice.
Suppose they come into debt, because they have no money, they have to borrow money.
just to get food, maybe they have to borrow money to get a place to stay, borrow money just to get a bowl in which to eat out of.
Now isn't that great suffering?
Debt, no?
Many people, even if they're not incredibly poor, understand the fear and the anguish that comes from being in debt, the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, the feeling of slavery, of being in debt.
Well, isn't this also suffering?
And so for one who has a debt, وَدِنْ بَتِسُنَ سُنَّتِ
They have to pay interest on their debt.
Isn't that suffering, right?
Of course, because once you're in debt, it's not just about paying it back.
Sometimes all you can pay back is the interest.
Say, yes, indeed, that's greater suffering.
He's building up to something here.
It's actually not as simple as it sounds.
He's got something.
He's actually using this as a comparison to something.
There's more to this sutta than this.
Although even this, it's a good example of how sensuality can lead you to suffering because we often go into debt.
And we suffer from debt due to our desires, wanting a big car, a big house.
I have a couple of students near Toronto and they were talking to me about this.
I finally went to visit their house.
They might actually be listening.
Probably they are listening now.
And they were explaining to me how they're going to sell this house because before they bought this house when they hadn't meditated yet and like
Many other people, they were caught up in the idea of having a really nice house, and indeed their house is exceptionally nice.
They don't have any children.
So just the two of them in this big, nice, beautiful house.
And then when they started meditating, they realized, you know, what is this?
We're deeply in debt.
And...
So they've decided to sell the house and they're going to buy a house that is more reasonable, that they can still take care of their parents and have their parents move in with them, which is always nice.
But for those who are caught up in it, you see so many people buying these big, luxurious houses and living the rest of their lives in slavery.
Right, so interest.
And for one who has interest, what else happens?
They don't give the interest on time.
Let's read the English, I'm going to mess this up.
It's promised to pay interest, cannot pay it when it falls due.
They reprove him.
Isn't that suffering?
Oh yes.
Have you ever absconded on a debt and had to deal with debt collection agencies?
They are the worst.
This once happened to my family.
Someone in our family had a long-standing debt, student debt from many, many, many years before.
And they were still trying to catch up with this person.
So they would call us and say nasty things to us.
Just anything they could do to make us upset.
Pretty awful.
You have to deal with this as well.
Anyway, isn't that suffering?
Yes, it's suffering.
And when they're not able to pay and they're chastised in this way, if they still don't pay, they prosecute them, right?
They take them to court.
They find a way to make them pay.
Maybe they repossess their possessions.
They do whatever they can, get a court injunction and get them kicked out of their home or whatever.
and after being prosecuted they even put them in prison.
So this is the fate of a debtor, one who has debt.
In and of itself it's a somewhat stinging indictment of sensuality, right?
Because this happens to many people.
It happens to people
Even not living extravagant lifestyles, right?
But it causes suffering when we have attachment to these things, when we've built up a stable life and then this happens to us.
I mean, there's great suffering in losing all that you have.
Not having a home is certainly stressful, especially in a cold climate.
What are you going to do?
Having to go to homeless shelters or worse, live on the street is great suffering.
But it's much worse suffering for one who's attached to those things, right?
It's double suffering because those things had meaning to us, had value to us, because we clung to them.
Much more than just the functional value that they held.
There's more to this sutta, and actually the more wonderful thing about this sutta is that he's only using this as a metaphor, an allegory.
So he says, the Buddha says, suppose you have a person who doesn't have faith.
Let's look at this, what is Pali?
Iti ko bhikkave, even so monk.
Let's see.
A person who doesn't think to keep moral presets, doesn't have any interest in ethics, doesn't have any interest in meditation, has no thought to understand, to cultivate understanding.
has no shame in regards conscientiousness in regards to wholesome dhammas has no fear in regards to not fear exactly but something like that
in regards to wholesome dhammas.
It puts out no effort in regards to wholesome dhammas.
It doesn't work to cultivate wholesomeness.
It has no wisdom in regards to wholesome dhammas.
Basically, it's devoid of any wholesome qualities.
ayam ucyati bhikve aryasavinaye dalido asako analhi
This is called, O monks, in the Vinaya, in the discipline of the noble ones, alias savinaya.
Dalido, this is called a dalit.
So this word that in India they're very familiar with, the dalit.
This is called a dalit in the Buddhist sasana.
Asako, one who has nothing, anarchiko, not even a measure of rice.
doesn't have the smallest bit of anything, it's worthless it's destitute is really the point so remember this is the first one, it's a poor person so that poor destitute person in the Dhamma without any
not having any confidence, not having any shame or dread or energy or wisdom, such a person will will do evil deeds with the body will do evil deeds by speech they will do evil deeds with mind, their mind will have evil thoughts
So it's impoverished as someone who doesn't have wholesome dhammas right off the bat.
But just like a person who's poor, the problem with being poor is you can't afford the things that you want.
You can't afford good things.
You can't afford things that bring happiness.
Even much more so, a person devoid of wholesome qualities has no power to cultivate wholesome mind states, to cultivate mind states that lead to happiness.
Happiness is not something that just falls in your lap.
It doesn't even come just because you have a big house and a big car and
Beautiful clothes, delicious food, it doesn't come from any of that.
Did you guys get chocolate today?
Did you see the chocolate?
It doesn't even come from chocolate.
No, I had some chocolate.
No, I said happiness doesn't come from chocolate.
It was chocolate.
But even chocolate doesn't bring happiness.
It brings pleasure.
Pleasure brings some happiness, it's true.
But that's adulterated happiness.
It's happiness that's associated with desire.
It also makes you kind of edgy.
You have to be careful not to eat too much chocolate as a meditator.
So a person, as a result, they get in debt.
So the debt in the Arya Vinaya is they do evil deeds.
It's not only that they can't do good deeds, but they also do evil deeds.
Because they're devoid of any goodness, they fall prey to their own anger, their own greed, their own delusion, and they hurt others, they hurt themselves, they hate others, they hate themselves, they desire things, they become addicted to things, they have conceit and arrogance.
And this is called debt.
Karma is a debt.
Have you ever heard of the karmic debt?
A person who is in debt in Buddhism is a person who has cultivated unwholesomeness and just waiting to have to pay it back.
And often they'll get into this cycle where they have to keep doing evil deeds just to push back the results.
It's doubling down on their debt by running away from the consequences, finding ways to dig themselves deeper and deeper.
That's how addiction works.
You get addicted to something and then every time you indulge in the addiction you just dig yourself deeper and deeper.
running away from the consequences.
Of course, the same goes with when you hurt others, and then in order to stop them from hurting you back, you keep hurting them, or keep acting in mean and nasty ways to keep them away.
So that's debt.
Debt in the Buddhist teaching is that.
It's the evil karma that we do.
This I call debt.
And doing all those evil deeds, let's see.
They hide their evil deeds.
This is what I was talking about.
They hide their evil deeds.
May this person not, they wish, may people not know what I've done.
They think, they speak words to the effect, or no, they speak the words, may they not know me, may they not know what I've done.
And they hide their, what do they do?
They exert themselves with body.
They do deeds to make sure that no one finds out what they've done.
They speak words so that people, they lie, for example.
What is this called?
This is the interest.
This is compound interest on your loan.
Making it worse, basically.
Maybe it's the interest that you have to pay.
You have to pay interest when you're not able to pay it back until you have the wholesome qualities necessary to stop being such a terrible person.
You pay the interest of having to hide it.
That's number three.
Number four.
well-behaved monks fellow fellow monks let's not just say monks no it's not monks your fellows in the holy life so that's all of you guys fellows it's all of us as a community our fellow holy people fellow spiritual beings fellow religious
They say, what do they say?
Do they say good things?
No.
These are the good people.
The wise ones.
No, sorry, the well-behaved ones.
Thus has this person done.
They've acted in this way.
So they say nasty things about this person.
Not nasty things, they tell the truth about them.
Everyone knows what they've done and the word spreads and who wants to be with such a person?
When you go to meditation centers you become known as the troublemaker.
Now thinking about it in society, as a mean and nasty person,
People spread bad, bad report about you.
This is when you're, how do you use the word, reproved.
You're reproved.
This is just like the people you've borrowed money from reproving you.
Hey, when are you going to pay me back?
person who has done evil deeds gets this.
Hey, when are you going to pay back those evil deeds?
When are you going to stop being such an evil, terrible person?
They don't say it like that, but they're scolded for being such an evil person.
No one likes.
This is one of the reasons for realizing the importance of
True meditation, not just meditation that makes you feel happy, but meditation that helps you become a better person.
That's number, what were we on?
Number four.
Number five.
having gone to the forest, having gone to the root of a tree, having gone to an empty place, they are overcome, they are remorseful, evil, unwholesome,
Thoughts?
Bad and wholesome thoughts accompanied by remorse.
Yes.
It's an interesting use because it shows the Buddha's recognition that feeling remorse is not wholesome.
It's not good that you feel remorse.
It's natural that you feel remorse for doing bad deeds.
But it's not good.
So anyone who sits around feeling guilty about the bad things they've done isn't helping things.
It's not doing any benefit.
And he makes this clear by saying they're akusa lavitaka, papaka, they're evil thoughts.
So this person is so caught up in evil that even the guilt that they feel is evil.
They hate themselves for being such an evil person.
They scold themselves, and that's more evil.
It doesn't actually make you a better person.
You might argue it comes from a knowledge of having, it's better than the opposite, which is feeling good about yourself because you've done evil deeds.
But it's not the right response.
It's a natural response.
Of course, the better response is to start smartening up and working to become a better person and changing your way, realizing that what you've done is wrong and working as a result to change.
It might not even be guilt, but it's fear and, well, yeah, guilt, I guess, it's remorse.
So what do we call this?
This is called being persecuted, prosecuted.
Prosecuted, like the wording, no?
This is like a court, the karmic court.
It's not a person, it's not people.
This is when you're off in the forest alone, that's when the law, you become prosecuted, the law prosecutes you.
You become an outlaw, a karmic outlaw.
living off in the frontier.
But you can't escape karma.
No one can escape their karma.
That's what my old friend Udi used to say.
Yeah, they'd be prosecuted.
And number six, eventually put in jail.
What does it mean to be put in jail in the Buddhist teaching?
So this, this poor,
Remember we're talking about this person in terms of this destitute, impoverished, penniless person having done evil deeds with body, speech and mind.
They become bound or they...
Yes, they become bound, imprisoned by the binds of hell.
At the breakup of the body, after death, nirya bandhaneva bhajati, they become bound by the bonds of hell, tirachanayoni bandhaneva, or the bonds of the animal realm.
Oh, because I don't see a single bind, a single imprisonment.
That is as terrible, harsh, cruel.
That is as painful, severe.
Buddha likes to use, this is a, I've talked about this before, this is a means of teaching, a teaching method, repeating yourself using different words, because remember you're talking to a live audience.
This is meant, this is something that Buddha would have spoken.
And to get the point across, you repeat yourself.
It evokes
feelings.
There's a master at this.
Ewang darunang, ewang katukang, ewang antarayakang.
Antarayakara.
Antaraya.
The most dangerous.
Anuttarasa yoga kemasa adhigamaya.
Yoga kemasa adhigamaya.
What does that mean?
It's such an obstacle for attaining the unsurpassed security from bondage.
It's a danger that creates such a danger, such an obstacle, such a problem for becoming free from suffering.
Hell and the animal realms are the worst prison because they make it so impossible to ever become free from suffering.
The concept of an animal even coming to keep five precepts or to have, not just keep them, but to have the thought, the wholesome thought of
wishing well to their fellow beings and refraining from evil purposefully.
It's not just, well, you're born as a cow so you don't eat meat or you don't kill other animals.
It's the refraining from, because even cows will swat their tails at flies, perfectly content to kill the flies if they're able.
very difficult for an animal or even worse, I suppose, for someone born in hell to ever make their way back to the human realm.
It happens, but it doesn't happen a lot more.
So there you have it.
This is a really powerful one.
I like this.
I'm happy to have found it.
Comparing
Our evil deeds with debt, going in debt.
It's a good description of the idea of karmic debt, how bad karma is like incurring a debt.
So there you go, that's our dhamma for this evening.
It's a good motivation for us to practice.
That's what we're doing when we practice meditation.
We're working out these karmic tendencies, the tendency to perform evil deeds, protecting ourselves in this way, paying back our debt in many ways by changing the way we are, changing our minds, giving up greed, giving up anger, giving up delusion.
Only good can come of it.
Freedom from debt.
All right, that's all for tonight.
I have some questions.
Thank you, Bhante.
When saying happy, happy, happy, or sad,
That aren't we judging our feelings?
Is saying feeling, feeling, feeling vague or thick of the feelings?
Thanks.
No, if you feel happy, it's a happy feeling.
You say happy, happy.
Sad, you say sad, sad.
If you were to say good, good, good, that would be judging.
Bad, bad, bad.
That would be judging.
But a happy feeling is distinctly different from an unhappy feeling.
That's subjective.
Bunthe, I have anxiety issues.
There are some days I can regimentally follow meditation schedule and it helps reduce my anxiousness and even meditate more.
But other days I feel so much anxiety in the morning itself about samsara stuff such as my work, school, etc.
that I can't meditate.
So I end up jumping from one thing to another without being mindful and wasting more time.
Be more anxious and not meditate throughout the day.
Why is every morning so different?
How can I make sure I don't skip my first morning meditation in the morning as it seems to have the biggest impact on my day?
Well, impermanence.
You're not in control.
Just because you want it to be the same every morning doesn't mean it's going to be.
Meditation always takes flexibility.
It's one of the things you learn is that you can't expect it to be the same.
You can't rely upon your abilities yesterday to help you through today's meditation.
You have to adapt to today.
I mean, if you only meditated when you weren't anxious, well, you'd never actually learn to deal with the anxiety.
And don't be too hard on yourself either, just because you don't meditate the same amount every day.
I mean, it's good if you can do at least an hour or two a day, but if you're working all day, just try to be mindful throughout the day.
Sometimes you might not be able to do the meditation you want to do, but instead you can be mindful during the day as you're doing your work.
And when you're anxious, why aren't you meditating?
You should say to yourself, anxious, anxious.
You say, I can't meditate.
If you feel anxious, you can't meditate.
Well, what have I taught you?
Haven't I taught you anything?
If you're anxious, meditate on the anxiety.
I've heard that as one becomes more advanced, the duration of one's time in the jhanic states are progressively extended.
Does one who meditates only with vipassana experience this as well, like being able to remain in a jhanic state for a week rather than for an hour?
Or does this extension only occur for samacca jhana?
If such does not occur for vipassana jhana...
I'm sorry, I'm not going to interrupt you, but I guess I'd rather not, because I don't think I'm going to answer this question.
It's a little too...
I don't like obsessing about the jhanas.
I know a lot of teachers do talk about them, but it just gets too technical and too complicated.
It's not what I'd want you to focus on as a meditator.
Focus on the four satipatthana and the three characteristics, learning to see and understand and let go of the things that you cling to by seeing the three characteristics.
Don't worry about the jhanas.
Okay, Bonte, the next two questions are about the jhanas as well.
Should we just skip down to the one that's not about the jhanas?
So okay, the jhanas.
Yeah, I don't want to answer that one.
Not really my cup of tea.
Yeah, neither that one either.
Okay, sorry, we're gonna, I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna answer those.
I'm getting old, you know?
I feel like I'm getting older now.
I'm not as... No, that's not a good excuse, but... You know when you get older and you can start to say those sorts of things?
Oh, I'm too old for this.
I was talking to one of my professors and she used that excuse.
I said, yeah, but don't we use that excuse throughout our lives?
And she said, well, you know, there's got to be something good about getting old if I can't use it as an excuse for my memories.
I'm over here laughing because I'm thinking of your teacher, Bhante, who's, how old is Sanjantong now?
About 94?
And I've never heard him complain about being old.
I know, and I think he would probably smile at you complaining that you're too old to answer questions.
That's right.
But he doesn't.
Oh, you know, you'd never get away with these questions.
All these questions I've been asked, you'd never get away with any of them from him.
He just wouldn't answer them.
He really wouldn't.
No, he'd answer them, but he'd give you an answer that set you back on track.
He was really good at giving answers that didn't actually answer the question, but gave you the answer you needed, or answered it in such a way as to remind you of what you should be asking.
Definitely.
He definitely had that ability.
I remember asking him one time a simple question about whether Nibbana was Rupa or Nama.
And the answer he gave me, wow, it was...
I mean, he didn't even say all that much.
He just said it's Dhamma.
Nibbana is a Dhamma.
But the way he was saying it was like, you want to talk about Nibbana?
Here's a guy who knows about Nibbana.
Anyway, it's...
I know I sound like a fanboy or something, like I'm enamored with him, but you really have to meet him.
It's not, this isn't, I mean I've met lots of people.
I suppose it's true that I've always been kind of giving myself over to teachers, but I've never met anyone else like him.
Well, even as someone who's obviously never met your teacher, I just watched a couple of videos, and of course I couldn't understand what he was saying, but there was a presence.
There was something special.
It was kind of captivating, even though I couldn't actually understand what he was saying.
Clearly a special person.
So don't think that he'd be answering all these questions.
He'd probably shake his head at the fact that I'm even entertaining him with these questions.
He asked me once, are you trying to become a Buddha?
I said, no.
Just crazy Westerners.
Yeah.
No, but I like that question.
Are you trying to become a Buddha?
Basically saying to me, why are you, what are you doing?
Working.
He's very focused.
He's sort of, people would say he's done what he has to do.
Hello, Bhante.
I've been thinking about the Brahma Viharas recently, and I was wondering how does an Arahant view, use, interact with them if an Arahant has transcended good and evil?
Do they still carry moral weight?
Are the Brahma Viharas inherently good?
Thank you.
So the Bhyamaharas are inherently good.
That's interesting.
It's an interesting question.
Are they inherently good?
I mean, in a mundane sense, yes, they are inherently good.
But there's no state that arises that is inherently good.
It arises and it ceases.
So in one sense, you can't say anything is inherently of any value.
but functionally they're of great value in a mundane sense and in terms of helping you become an arahant they're a good thing but what you're asking is something different whether they're any good to the arahant obviously they aren't any good because an arahant doesn't have any good to gain I would say you have to understand the best way to look at an arahant is to understand that they're at that point acting on
acting functionally, acting on, I want to say, almost habit.
And their habits will still change, but the only thing that's missing is any desire, any aversion, any greed, any impulse to change.
It's very difficult to talk about, because they don't seem to have
They won't seem to have lost the impulse to better themselves, but that's only because that impulse was already there and they're simply acting the way they were.
So an Arahant, I think it's arguable that an Arahant would be working to better themselves, but only because that's just the sort of person they are, is always working to, so, I mean, in terms of like learning more about the Buddhist teaching, they might study the Tipitika, continue to study the Tipitika, and you'd say, well, they're an Arahant, why are they doing that?
You could say one way of looking at it is kind of out of habit, but I think it's a little deeper than that.
It's more just out of a sense of what is right.
and it's just the proper thing to do.
It's proper.
And so all our aunts are different because they have a different situation, but they're all the same in terms of doing what is proper, as far as they can tell at that moment.
And they sometimes get it wrong.
They sometimes do things that turn out to be improper, but because they had no intention of harm or greed or so on, it's not an unwholesome thing.
It's a good question.
Those kind of questions are reasonable.
Are some of the Brahma Viharas considered to be harder than others?
I have this idea that, like,
upeka would be more difficult than mudita or karuna.
Is that just a perception or is that kind of commonly understood?
No, it's not commonly understood, but you could argue based on the way it's used that upeka might be more difficult in terms of in the sense that it's sort of overarching, but right, because you sort of use you need upeka for the other ones or
I don't know.
No, it's conjecture.
There's certainly nothing that I've ever read, and I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be.
If it's not in the Visuddhi Manga, no, there's no way.
That sort of thing.
I mean, you see very little of that sort of thing where this is more difficult than that.
There's no...
So it's all speculation at that point.
Like there may actually be a truth to that.
The human beings might be more hardwired or something.
You know, there might be something about metta that makes it easier, but
There's no interest, I suppose, in those types of questions.
I mean, there's not anything that's significantly more difficult about one than the other.
Some people might find one more difficult than the other because they have different nuances.
Like Karna and Meta are very similar.
Metta is the impulse to bring happiness to others or help them keep their happiness.
Karuna is to help people avoid suffering.
But what's really the difference?
It's still wishing well or having good wishes towards others.
Well, it is, but in my perception, sympathy is easier because that's almost a natural feeling, whereas mudita, sometimes you have to really not be jealous.
Sometimes the first instinct is jealousy, and then you have to get over that before you can feel mudita for someone else.
But maybe it's just perception.
No, it's a good point.
It's different, and I think a lot of us have that problem.
On the other hand, we might miss some of the, I mean, no, on the other hand we get angry at people, which means we don't have metta towards them.
And I think we are, you know, if you think of it in terms of when you actually sit down to practice it, they're pretty much the same.
You know, you have to overcome that natural inclination to hate the fact that other people are doing better than you, or you have to get over the natural inclination to dislike someone.
like metta isn't you know it's uh right so metta when well when when aimed at those people who you're different towards or even those people you hate it's difficult either way mudita it takes a bit to get over that jealousy but then it can be quite easy once you get into it thank you pate
I suppose some people are more prone to jealousy than others as well.
Some people are just prone to hatred.
There are some people who don't like others.
As I said, it's probably more like...
But upeka seems to me to be the most potential for difficulty.
It's a little more sublime.
Upeka in terms of the Brahmaviharas is actually not having any
not wavering over the suffering of others.
So we talk about karuna in terms of feeling upset when other people are sad, but that's not karuna.
Karuna is not getting sad when other people are sad, and upeka is what stops that.
Upeka is the work to stop you from...
being moved by other people's suffering.
Or not moved, but from being upset by other people's suffering.
And from being partial to one over another.
And that seems to me to be especially difficult.
Because we're inclined towards partiality.
Hello.
Detecting or observing emotions, such as anger, without reacting during my day.
I observe thoughts that provoke emotional reactions without reaction during my sleep, but throughout the day I find it difficult, especially when dealing with family members.
well formal meditation will help with your daily life but there's nothing better than actually working on it you know trying to make an effort making an effort to be mindful during the day when your emotions come up why don't why can't you say to yourself angry and work at it
It can take years.
I mean, the best way to start meditating is to come and do or go somewhere and do an intensive course.
So if you have time, take the time to do a few weeks.
Your head is on fire.
Take the time to put it out.
Take three weeks out.
Quit your job if you have to.
Find a way to do three weeks of meditation and change your life.
And then you can go back and have a foundation.
You might even be enlightened by that time.
Barring that, work at it, be patient with it.
No one said it's going to be easy.
If you were thinking that it would be easier, if you're trying to find a way for it to be easy,
It's not easy.
That's something you have to realize.
And it's not meant to be easy.
It's meant to be challenging.
It's meant to challenge you, to change you.
We were born because of defilements.
So the whole essence of what it means to be human is based on defilements.
to be born in any realm we're only born because of our bad things so who we are is a bundle of attachments working to free ourselves from that is not easy especially in regards to the problem with dealing with family members is that they're so close we cling so strongly to them it's more difficult
I don't know why you're breaking up.
You shouldn't be breaking up.
The internet's gotten a lot worse, I think.
I don't know if it's on my end or your end, but yeah, we've had a lot of problems.
I think that's why we're having problems with the audio broadcast as well.
We're having some problems with the video broadcast.
You know what I was thinking I wanted to talk about.
I was wondering if we wanted to look at the idea of setting up a virtual reality world like Second Life where we were all sitting around together.
Hear me out.
There's one good thing about it is that it's a really good
conversation.
I mean, it's good for dialogue.
because it provides spatial audio and it provides interactive audio.
So everyone in the virtual reality, I mean, you can see where people are.
So you get a sense of how many people, I mean, it's not just the illusion of being in the space, although that is interesting, but the illusion of being in the space helps to organize, you know?
So like what we're dealing with now is a page that makes it very hard to visualize that these are actual people, right?
I mean, this is more artificial than an artificial reality.
I mean, the comfort of being in something that's similar to what would really be a room full of people is actually useful.
And you can feel it when you get on Second Life and sit with a bunch of people in a deer park.
And they say, okay, you've got a question over here, a question over there.
And they can actually talk to you as well.
We could set something like that up, or we could just use Second Life.
We could use the Buddha Center they have there.
Maybe something to think about.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Are you thinking of doing that during this time instead of this?
Yeah, I was thinking.
That'd be cool.
Yeah.
We have to think of whether we wanted to use the Buddha Center or we could create our own.
One thing about creating our own thing, and I was debating this, is people could have their own spaces because it's free.
It's just the server.
We'd have to pay for the server.
So we could use the Amazon server for $50 a month that the organization is spending for nothing right now.
Or whatever.
I don't think it takes much CPU on the server side.
But people could have their own spaces.
So our members could set up their own little huts or something where they could have a Dhamma world.
We could have a Dhamma community.
And it sounds kind of ridiculous when you get that far, and it seems like it would waste a lot of time.
So I was debating whether you could consider that as useful, because it puts people to using their time to set up like a shrine, basically.
An online shrine, and they could have their kuti with a poster of Ajahn Tong or something, you know?
And they could have a bookshelf, they have a Buddha statue.
and the sense of community it would create, I think would be interesting.
There's nothing, it's all conventional.
Having a real kuti is no more real than having, I mean, it's only in terms of quantity, not quality.
I mean, it's not categorically different than having a virtual reality kuti.
They're both conventional.
They're both not real.
Real is just experiences, right?
So whether you experience a virtual kuti,
I don't know if I'm getting too far off there.
But it's something interesting to think about because we've got this online community.
I don't think this is going to change.
Not in the near future.
I don't think in the near future we're going to have a local community because too many of our community are stuck where they are.
So the idea of creating something, I don't know.
Tell me what you think of that.
No, I think it's great.
I spent a lot of time in virtual reality, part in video games, and that part of my life is gone, but I still love virtual reality.
The only thing I wonder is, are this a second life?
Are they considered difficult for some people to get on?
I think it's easier now.
I mean before the problem was you needed a good computer.
But I think now most computers have the requirements.
I don't know.
I'm assuming that at this point the requirements aren't so hard, so harsh.
So that would be awesome then.
You know, the only unfortunate thing would be if some members of our community weren't able to access it for some reason.
We wouldn't have to rely upon it.
You know, we might, I don't know, that might be something to think about how that would relate because YouTube's, of course, still a great platform, even just in terms of letting people know that we're here.
So potentially, you know, holding the session in Second Life but broadcasting it on YouTube?
Could be done.
That would be a screen share.
And I can do that with this OBS software.
Yeah.
Pretty useful.
You know, we have a couple of people that frequent the Dhamma talks that already have things set up in Second Life, and I'm sure they would invite us.
I don't know if there's anyone in the community who would be willing to look at some of the technical aspects.
I've done it before.
You need to know, oh, it's not even that difficult.
I mean, you just need to be the sort of person who can work with configuration files mainly.
There's a little bit of working on IP addresses and the technicalities of that, but it's mostly working through the configuration files to set it up and just basic knowledge of how to use a bash shell.
If there's anybody out there who wants to help set that up, or maybe our IT team could, if anyone wants to join the IT team and be interested, because the back end's a bit of a...
It's a task to get it all set up and running.
And then getting voice working.
We can get a license to use the Vivox servers or something.
I don't know how it all works.
Never done that part, but apparently you can get voice.
So we'd have our own server and we can set up this vast landscape that people could build on.
They upload their own images and make shapes and stuff.
So that would be better than just using the standard Second Life platform?
The Second Life platform would require us to either pay an exorbitant amount of money to get our own space, or use a space that someone else has already made, which isn't a bad idea, because we wouldn't be using it all the time, but there are limitations there.
It means you get
Yeah.
Another good side and bad side.
The good side is it's already there and you get a large community.
I think there's a limit to the number of people.
So you get 20 people, which is actually far fewer than we have right now.
Although I don't know that we'd get many more actually showing up in a virtual reality world.
Particularly if you were if you were simulcasting it or whatever, you know to YouTube so then You know people that weren't interested in Being in in person so to speak could still watch it on YouTube so maybe we can do a two-stage thing we can try using second life and and then in the meantime work on setting up our own place potentially if that seemed to be somehow useful beneficial
The Second Life is free if we're, you know, they need donations to keep it running.
So people wanted to, I mean, they'd be very happy to have me back because I tend to bring people in and it helps them with donations and that kind of thing.
And then we'd have to look at their schedule because they'd have to be open at this time every night.
We'd have to ask for this slot every night, which may not be open anymore.
All right, well, I can look into that.
Because it's nice.
It's nice to, even just using Second Life, it's nice to have that, the people voice questions and a little bit more of a community of the chat is there.
But we could also take questions.
I mean, the question then would be, what do we do with this platform?
And I don't think our website would have to go to waste
we can still answer the questions on this platform.
And our meditation, of course, will still be logged here.
Yeah, definitely.
The chat and the meditation features are awesome.
It's the core of our community.
Yeah.
Let's see what the people are saying about Second Life.
peanut galleries, right?
In the meantime, one more question already just like my talk is that maybe someone doesn't like second life.
In the meantime, few more questions popped up.
Would you like to hold those over till tomorrow?
Okay.
can we mention our good news oh yeah yeah for sure we should go ahead oh um surimangalo international buddhist meditation society which has been um for a long time you know was a casual group and then it was a provincial non-profit
finally received the status of being a federal charity in Canada.
So it's just a good thing people in Canada who contribute to a charity can deduct those donations from their tax returns and so forth, and it makes us more official.
So that's kind of a cool thing.
One of our volunteers worked very hard on putting together an awesome application, and it was accepted and we're now official.
We are now official.
And we're done for tonight.
We are.
Thanks, Robin, for your help.
Thank you, Bonte.
Good night.