Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 112, which reads as follows, Yo cha vasasatang jiwe, kusito hinaviryo, ekahang jiwitang seyo, vidyaram bato dalhang.
Which means,
Very similar to the last one.
A person who should live a hundred years lazy and idle with hinavirya, with inferior effort.
Better is life for one day.
Better is one day of life.
for a person who is steadfast in their effort.
Dalhang is unshaken, unrelenting, relentless effort.
So here we have an interesting story.
It's a story of suicide, a story about suicide.
One of these suicide stories that often gets talked about in Buddha's teaching.
This one is one of the not so controversial ones.
There's not much controversial here.
These are quite interesting.
We have a story, the monk's name was Sapadasa.
Sapadasa.
Which means the snake slave.
The snake servant.
It's his name.
Sapa is snake.
Dasa is servant or a slave.
So he was born in Sahwati to a respectable family and he got in his mind that he would become a monk.
Now I think reading between the lines, this was probably something that cut him off from his family.
Probably something that his family wasn't very happy about.
Or maybe reading too much into it, but there's something there.
Because it happens that he became quite...
fed up with the monastic life.
He tried practicing meditation, practiced for a while, and he just found it horrible, found it terrible.
Suddenly, just inexplicitly, I suppose it's not inexplicitly, but almost like it came out of nowhere, suddenly he was dissatisfied.
And found himself caught between a rock and a hard place.
He was still young.
But it says it's not appropriate for him to go back to the lay life.
So something like he had made his choice in life.
And the only thing he could do if he went back to lay life, he would have to get a job.
He would have to work as a menial laborer.
I guess somehow he had lost his station in life.
Maybe that was it, is that he had a rank or something, and he lost it.
But he couldn't go back to the lay life, because if he did, he'd be shaming his family by having to work an ordinary job, something like that.
Anyway, he found himself unable to disrobe.
This happens, this is quite common for people as they get older.
Old monks, or monks who ordained when they were people who ordained when they were older, they find this very difficult to disrobe.
And so they end up staying as a monk, but not being a very good monk, good at what they do, not being very dedicated.
But here he was, a young man who couldn't disrobe, but couldn't bear to stay as a monk.
He said, death is preferable to remaining a monk.
It's kind of shocking, really.
Many people I know who are really keen to become a monk, and some people actually are dying to become monks.
But it's true, many people out there, even those who think it might be interesting to become a monk, once they become a monk, find it very difficult, trying, and find themselves dissatisfied with the life quite easily.
So he tried to find a way to follow up on his reasoning.
Death is preferable, so he tried to think of a way to kill himself.
So he started to think about, started to have suicidal ideation as we call it today.
And so this is a common state, even in, this is sort of a description of a state that leads people to suicide, the state of no hope.
Can't do this, can't do that, no way out.
And it's interesting because
Meditation really provides that way out, right?
I mean, it's the third way.
Meditation, the middle way could be described as the third way.
When you're caught between a rock and a hard place, you can't bear to stay with the way things are, but you can't change, you can't find, you have no way of fixing the problem, right?
The problem is unbearable, whatever it is, your life, your situation, your physical state, your mental state, but
You're unable to fix it, unable to change your state.
So meditation is like the third path, the way of rising above in a sense, pulling yourself out of the problem so it's no longer a problem.
So he didn't have this though.
And so he decided that the way out, the third way out was to kill himself.
Of course we know as Buddhists that's not really a valid way out because he's still going to have all the same habits and proclivities and so on after he passes away, after he moves on.
Anyway, so he started hunting around for ways to kill himself.
And the story goes that the monks had caught a very, very, very poisonous snake.
And so when he was walking around and he was walking through the monastery, in the morning he came into the hall and he saw a jar, maybe a glass jar or something with a snake in it.
And he looked at the... He asked the monks...
What's with the snake?
Oh, that's a very, very poisonous snake.
So we have to get rid of it.
They had caught it in this jar.
It was in the hall.
And
So he said to them, well, what are you going to do with it?
They said, well, we've got to go take it far, far away and get rid of it.
When I was in Sri Lanka, we had to do this as well.
You had to catch them in a jar.
It's really funny.
People are afraid of snakes and make them out to be monsters.
But they're really simple animals, actually.
And they're very easy to deal with if you're smart.
People who handle snakes know that you can walk up behind them and grab them by the back of the neck and pick them up, even the most poisonous of snakes, well, for the most part.
If you know what you're doing, walking up to them, if you have a jar, you just cover the glass jar, and they might try to get you through the jar, but just make sure that you get them in the jar.
It's quite easy to catch them.
And so they caught him up.
We're going to take him out and get rid of the, we have to throw it away.
And he thinks to him, well, here's my chance.
I've got a poisonous snake.
I'll just let it bite me, and that's it.
And so he says, well, I'll take it.
Let me do it for you.
And they go, well, that's kind.
Thank you.
So he takes the snake from them.
Then he comes to this moment of truth.
He sets the jar down and he looks at it.
He says, I can't take it.
I've got to do this.
Maybe he tries to meditate and he can't do it.
And he's just constantly upset.
And maybe he's desirous of things in the worldly life that he knows he can't get.
And he says, that's it.
I can't take it anymore.
And he plunges his hand into the jar.
And nothing happens.
And he looks down, and there's the snake, sort of coiled up around his hand.
He shakes his hand around.
Nothing.
He flicks the snake, pokes its head.
Nothing.
He starts to get a little bit upset and he pokes his finger at the snake's nose.
And then he takes his other hand and nothing happens.
He takes his other hand and he pries the snake's mouth open and he sticks his finger in the snake's mouth and nothing happens.
The snake pulls back and avoids him.
And he shakes his head.
He said, that's not a poisonous snake.
That's just a common grass snake.
And he goes and he throws it away.
And then he goes back to the monastery, goes back to the monks.
They say, oh, did you get, they said, did you throw away the snake?
Did you get rid of it?
You know, make sure that you got rid of it.
You know, did you make sure that it was a far ways away, that it's not going to come back?
That wasn't a poisonous snake.
That was just a common snake.
So, no, that was a real poisonous snake.
It hissed and rose up and it made as if it was going to bite us.
And he says, whatever, I just stuck my hand.
I just stuck my finger in the snake's mouth.
Why did you do that?
Well, I'm trying to kill myself.
Or he doesn't quite say that.
But he said, I tried to make it bite me, putting my finger in his mouth.
And the monks were quiet.
Basically, he's saying that he was trying to kill himself.
So OK.
Interesting.
And they didn't understand either.
It's kind of a weird thing to say.
How could that possibly be?
It's an odd occurrence for sure.
Nonetheless, the monk was unsuccessful in trying, Sapadasa was unsuccessful in trying to kill himself.
And it happened that he was acting as the barber for the monks, the person who shaved their heads.
And so he always had access to razors.
And on the full moon day when we shave our heads, he got out his razors.
He had two or three razors, and he shaved the heads of the monks with one and put another one down on the floor.
And when he was done and all the monks had left, he picked up the unused razor.
And he said, well, this is a way.
I'll cut my throat with a razor.
I'll just end it like that.
And so the text says that he does something that I guess is a little strange.
I'm not quite sure.
I think you'd have to have been there to understand exactly what he did.
But it says he put his neck against a branch, maybe to support it.
I don't know.
And then he took the razor to his throat.
And then he paused for a moment, and he considered the life he had lived as a monk.
You know, just as a last moment, this is it.
He said, well, what have I done as a monk?
And he realized he'd really actually practiced quite well.
His whole time as a monk,
followed the duties, followed the rules, practiced meditation, was respectful to his teacher, was respectful to the Buddha, the practice.
He was actually quite spotless.
And as he thought about it, his mind became calm.
He's got the razor against his throat.
suddenly his mind starts to focus and he enters into a state of meditation again almost as though it came out of nowhere and he enters into a very powerful state of meditation and then he applies it to his situation and he feels the razor against his throat and the branch against his neck and the mind that is full of discontent and he watches them arise and cease and right then and there he becomes an arahant
Almost as though it was magic.
And he puts the razor down and he walks back to the monks.
Walks back to the monastery and they say, where were you?
And he said, oh, I took a razor out and I was going to kill myself.
He just says it.
He's an Arahant, right?
There's no...
one of the meanings of araha means a-raha.
Araha means private or secret.
Araha means an arahan has no private side, no secret.
They're the same outside as inside.
So they don't hide anything.
They don't have anything to hide.
And he says, oh, I took a razor outside thinking I'd cut my windpipe and kill myself.
And he said, well, how are you still alive then?
And he says, well, instead of cutting my windpipe, I cut off the defilement with the razor of wisdom.
And the monks look, turn to each other and say, oh my gosh, what a huge, what kind of a lie is this guy telling, right?
How is that possible?
So they go and tell the Buddha and they say, we got a monk here who thinks he's enlightened or he's lying about it or something.
You know, we can't let this stand.
And so the Buddha calls this monk up and he says, he doesn't call the monk up.
The Buddha listens to them and already knows the truth.
So he says to them, you know, the people who are enlightened can't tell a lie.
Basically saying he's enlightened, he's not lying.
And they say, Bhante, the way you're speaking, it sounds like he's actually enlightened.
But how could that be?
He was trying to kill himself.
He was so discontent.
He was discontented about the holy life.
And another monk pipes up and says, yeah, and how is it that he tried to kill himself and this snake wouldn't even bite him?
What's the story of this guy?
Why are these strange things surrounding this monk's life?
And like any strange things that occur in anyone's life, they often do have mysterious beginnings.
And so we have these two aspects that the Buddha then talks about, what the origins of these two things are.
So there's the origins of this snake that refuses to bite the monk.
And yes, that's where he gets the name Sapadasa, the snake slave.
And the Buddha doesn't go into details about that one, but he says that in a past life that snake was a slave or servant of this monk.
And so it was this connection, by this connection, that snake refused to bite.
just as his servant, because he was used to being a servant and he knew that he would get punished.
So it was a reflex action of not wanting to harm.
It's very interesting.
You know, it's not very karmic.
You'd think it would be otherwise if it was karmic.
But again, karma is just the
the impression that our acts leave on our mind.
So again, this is an impression that the snake left on his own mind before he was a snake that has now passed into this life.
The impression that he should respect his master, respect this other person who was once his master.
And then he tells a story, which is also, it's not that big of a story, but the story goes about why he was discontent and how it's possible that he could become an Arahant.
And it's an interesting little story.
There are these two monks in the time of the Buddha Kasapa.
Buddha says, oh, in the time of Buddha Kasapa, there were two monks.
One monk was discontent and wanted to leave the monastic life and become a layperson.
And he was ready to do it.
He had given up the practice.
He had given up his duties.
He'd stopped taking care of his possessions and so on.
And he came to this other monk and said, I intend to disrobe.
And the other monk, being a good friend,
to some extent, he convinced him, he talked to him and explained to him and reminded him about the problems of being a lay person and how much freer and how much purer it is to live a homeless life, to live a life in renunciation.
So much so that he actually convinced the monk not to disrobe.
And the monk was very grateful and thankful.
And she completely changed his mind just based on the advice and the support of this other monk.
And so he goes back and he says, well, I better try again.
And he picks up where he left off.
He cleans out his kutti and he picks up all his belongings and finds that his bowl has rusted and some of his metal stuff because there was no stainless steel back then.
So they had to care for your bowl.
You have to oil it actually to keep it from rusting.
And so he went out and he started to do this, started to clean and he was cleaning his possessions.
And he was sitting near the other monk who was maybe eating or doing something.
And he says, as he's oiling his bowl and sort of scraping off all the rust and so on, he says, you know, I was going to give these to you when I just wrote.
It was a bad thing to say because suddenly the other monk...
thinking to himself, if I hadn't have said anything, I would have gotten all this guy's belongings.
I guess somehow they were worth having or not.
I mean, it's very easy to get covetous.
When you're living a life of renunciation, the smallest thing can grab at you.
It's very easy to become attached.
So suddenly he became obsessed with these things and he hitting himself over the head for having
You know, really horrible, actually.
I mean, it's quite surprising, but, you know, people can be very petty.
So he became very petty, and he thought to himself, who cares if this guy stays a monk?
If I can get him to disrobe, I'll get his stuff.
And so from that day on, he started dropping hints and even outright describing the benefits of being a lay person, how good it was and how preferable it was and anything he could do to reignite this other monk's discontent.
It's an interesting story.
And then the other monk really started to become discontent, but then he started to think to himself, you know, why is this guy now, you know, before he was so good at keeping me in the monastic life, now he's making me want to quit again.
And then he thought to himself, it was after I told him about my requisites, after I told him about my belongings.
And that's the end of the story.
It doesn't elaborate beyond that, which is very typical of these stories that they're not really interested in the narrative or making it flow.
They just want to give information and they'll just stop abruptly like that.
So that's where the story ends.
Now he was the monk who was discontent.
The Buddha does say he was the monk who was discontent.
So that karma of cultivating the habit of being discontent followed him into this life.
But I guess ostensibly the story ends there.
It seems likely that he didn't leave the monastic life.
The Buddha says something about how he spent many, many years in meditation.
So I assume that's after that fact.
He realized that he was being conned.
and maybe tried to find better friends and continue on in his meditation.
Because of that, so those two things, the two aspects, this proclivity towards wanting to disrobe, but also the powerful meditation that he'd done, that's what came together.
So suddenly, in this last life, he continued that desire.
When he became a monk, immediately it was a recognition, oh yeah, this is that thing that I hate, that thing that I don't want to do.
And so that consumed him in the beginning.
But the awesome karma that he had of practicing meditation,
that when he tried to escape, when he tried to leave by killing himself, it came up, it bubbled up as well, and propelled him directly, quite quickly, to enlightenment.
And the Buddha told this story, these stories.
And then the monk said, wow, that's amazing.
So it really is possible to become a monk, to become an arahant that quickly.
And the Buddha said, yes, of course, a monk, a meditator who strives with all their might can become enlightened when they lift their foot up, can be enlightened when their foot touches the ground, or can be enlightened even before their foot touches the ground.
So meaning one step you can become enlightened.
For it is better, and then he says, for it is better for a man who strives with all his might to live but a single instant than for an idle man to live a hundred years.
Then he tells this verse.
Better to live one moment, one day, better to live one day with effort than to be lazy for a hundred years.
So the key here is effort.
Effort in Buddhism is interesting because it is possible to have too much effort, just as it's possible to have, not too much, but a predominance, sort of an excess dominance of effort or concentration, and they have to balance each other.
So by effort here and by effort in Buddhism is actually meant something quite specific and not precisely effort in the sense that we understand it like just pushing yourself.
Effort here is directed effort or effort directed in the right direction.
It has to be accompanied by wisdom.
It has to be accompanied by mindfulness.
So it's the effort to straighten the mind, the effort to give up unwholesome crookedness of mind, the effort to prevent the mind from becoming crooked, to keep the mind straight.
There are four parts.
To give up unwholesomeness in the mind when we have defilements, to prevent unwholesomeness from arising, to cultivate wholesomeness in the mind and to maintain wholesomeness.
So we have different mental qualities.
Meditation, one way of looking at it is it's the adjusting of this balance, cultivating more positive and rooting out the negative.
And by positive we mean beneficial, wholesome, helpful, good qualities of mind.
By the negative we mean unwholesome, leading to suffering, leading to harm, leading to evil, leading to problems.
So our meditation starts with just looking and learning.
really mindfulness it's not about judging it's about looking and learning but then the judging comes through the wisdom the judging comes from a point of view that is able to see clearly once you can see clearly then your judgments the things that you cultivate and the things that you
abandoned.
They're based on wisdom, right?
Because we have partialities in our life and judgments in our ordinary life without mindfulness, but they're based on delusion.
They're based on confusion.
They're based on misperception and wrong view.
Once you practice meditation,
All it's doing is focusing, creating clarity in the mind so that your judgments are based on clarity.
You don't have to judge.
You don't have to actively figure out what is right, what is wrong.
You don't have to feel guilty or anything.
Look clearly.
You'll see what is right and wrong.
You don't have to question.
You'll see what leads to suffering.
You'll see what leads to happiness.
You'll see what changes the mind for the better.
And you'll see what changes the mind for the worse.
That's what true effort is.
Effort is this sort of work that is done.
If you talk about right effort, it means to practice mindfulness.
It means to actually practice.
Get off your butt and sit on your butt.
It's like you have to get up and sit down.
Like this funny saying, there's another one, don't just do something, sit there.
It's a very Buddhist thing to say.
That's important because effort is not just doing something, it's not just working.
Like Henry David Thoreau says, like these men in the field who move rocks around in their field and they're constantly removing rocks from their field.
He's talking about, like, Sisyphean labors.
Like, Sisyphus was this guy who pushed this rock up the mountain, and when it got to the top, it would roll back down, and so he was constantly pushing it up.
And yet, in the world, and that's considered, you know, an example of a useless labor, so we use the word Sisyphus.
Sisyphean, I think.
I don't know if I got that right or not.
to describe some useless endeavor, some hard work.
And yet, in the world we often do do work that turns out to be useless, turns out to be pointless.
You know, like me writing this essay this week.
Not exactly true.
I'm writing an essay on free will, which is an interesting topic, and it's something that philosophers have discussed, and probably the most interesting thing you can find is that people have a very hard time with it.
It's something that is very hard to pin down.
Anyway, totally unrelated.
But the point being, effort can be useless, and for effort to be right effort, and to be the effort the Buddha is talking about,
It simply means the effort to adjust, the effort to straighten the mind.
Like we've seen before, like that novice, Pandita Samanera, who saw them directing water, saw them straightening the arrow shaft, and he realized what's most important is to straighten the mind.
So that's what this means.
A person who is
has right effort and has a mind that is sharp and strong and fixed and focused.
Better that they live one day than an ordinary person who lives 100 years.
So the question is, how do we become that person?
Sapa dasa had a big head start.
So it's not to be discouraged if you're that person still.
It's just a reminder of where we should be.
You don't have to work really hard, work, work, work.
It means you have to balance your mind.
You have to be mindful.
You have to cultivate this rectitude, this upright state of mind.
That's what we do in the meditation where you remind yourself seeing, seeing, or pain, pain.
Your mind is straight in that moment.
That's right effort, right concentration.
It's all in there.
Just like the ingredients in a medicine.
all the ingredients come together you just have to take one pill you don't have to go looking for each one so all of these that's why each one of these verses is correct the one talks about wisdom the one talks about morality the one talks about effort and we've still got a couple more to go
But all of them are correct because they all refer to aspects of the same thing, different ingredients in the same pill.
The pill is the practice of meditation, of cultivating clarity and understanding, knowledge, true knowledge, empirical understanding, empirical realization.
So that's our Dhammapada for tonight.
Thank you all for tuning in.
Keep practicing.
Be well.
Good night.