WEBVTT 00:01.364 --> 00:02.426 Good evening everyone. 00:02.987 --> 00:06.692 Welcome to our evening Dhamma. 00:15.967 --> 00:18.491 I've been thinking a bit about society. 00:23.298 --> 00:27.625 I find myself in society to a limited extent. 00:31.486 --> 00:48.651 In going to university, I meet people who I might otherwise not meet, get a taste of the diversity of character types in the world. 00:52.478 --> 01:01.732 It's quite a blessing to live in a monastery, in a meditation center, to meet only with wonderful people who are keen on bettering themselves. 01:05.178 --> 01:13.992 To not have to worry about things like lying or cheating or stealing or manipulating. 01:16.315 --> 01:18.098 To live in a world that is 01:20.491 --> 01:21.952 for the most part, drama-free. 01:23.294 --> 01:34.524 Free from all the problems associated with ambition and passion and arrogance and conceit and so on. 01:37.968 --> 01:50.059 Not that we all don't, in the meditation center, that there aren't defilements, but there aren't a whole greater level of refinement, more subtle level 01:53.296 --> 02:10.812 So when you go out in the world, you get to see a taste of the unmindful society, and the unmindful, and unmindful environment. 02:15.496 --> 02:22.662 Not just unmindful, but filled with people whose views are far, far from mind. 02:36.496 --> 02:50.961 I think either way, whether we talk about a Buddhist society or whether we're talking about society in general, the greater non-Buddhist or pluralistic society, global society, 03:03.260 --> 03:05.604 our intentions remain the same generally. 03:06.486 --> 03:14.060 It's to get along, to have peace, to find happiness. 03:16.805 --> 03:25.842 I think in general, there is movement in societies to try and find some sort of peace and happiness. 03:27.037 --> 03:29.640 Sometimes it can be rather selfish. 03:30.240 --> 03:40.891 The people in power are not so concerned with the unwashed masses, only concerned with their own peace, their own happiness. 03:41.031 --> 03:44.495 And so maintaining the peace means oppressing people, that kind of thing, right? 03:50.060 --> 03:56.807 But let's put it this way, as Buddhists, whether we live in a meditation center or whether we live in society, 03:58.475 --> 04:10.008 our goal remains the same, which is to get along, to have a peaceful society, a kind and compassionate society. 04:17.636 --> 04:26.946 They're the same principles that we aspire to here in the Meditation Center, of course, hopefully much more successfully 04:28.597 --> 04:46.660 in the meditation center, and less something for us to remember, something for us to think of, and something maybe even to see as a positive outcome of our meditation practice. 04:46.680 --> 04:50.765 The Buddha called, the Buddha talked about something called the sarniadamma. 04:50.785 --> 04:51.946 I've talked about this before. 04:53.208 --> 04:57.473 I think I'm inevitably going to repeat myself again and again as I make more and more videos. 05:00.727 --> 05:26.548 The saraniya dhamma are dhammas that make us think well of each other, or that make us worthy of friendship. 05:29.313 --> 05:36.880 and that allow us to think fondly of each other and to have a peaceful and harmonious society or community. 05:46.308 --> 05:51.213 Siksaraniyadam is a simple teaching, something for us to keep in mind. 05:52.774 --> 05:57.278 The first one is bodily acts of kindness. 06:01.865 --> 06:13.719 Now with kindness of any sort, this isn't the practice of vipassana, but it's in many ways the outcome of a practice of insight meditation. 06:13.739 --> 06:21.328 Something for us to strive for is to be a kinder person, to do things. 06:23.210 --> 06:25.813 So when we live in a society where everyone is 06:27.768 --> 06:39.306 observant and caring and outgoing, noticing when there's a need and working to fulfill that need with kindness. 06:40.227 --> 06:41.990 Someone who is hungry, feed them food. 06:44.874 --> 06:49.101 Someone who is poor, give them money. 06:53.975 --> 06:57.746 Someone who is scared, provide them with shelter and so on. 06:57.766 --> 07:02.601 Someone who is confused, provide them with insight, with wisdom. 07:12.368 --> 07:14.471 So the first one is bodily acts of kindness. 07:14.491 --> 07:17.795 This is actually doing things that benefit others. 07:18.756 --> 07:27.488 Giving them food, giving them help, helping people, helping old people across the street, that sort of thing. 07:28.469 --> 07:33.095 Helping your parents, helping your grandparents, helping your children, helping your friends. 07:37.241 --> 07:42.207 This is how we'd expect to work in a monastery as well, monks helping each other 07:44.144 --> 07:46.667 The story of these monks who didn't talk to each other. 07:47.729 --> 07:50.713 They would only talk once every five days they would get together. 07:52.475 --> 07:54.638 And the rest of the time, they wouldn't open their mouths. 07:55.919 --> 08:00.726 If there was a chore, they would just beckon with their hands and not say anything. 08:01.407 --> 08:06.253 Just use the hands to beckon to them. 08:09.203 --> 08:16.494 When it was time to eat, the first person there would set out the seats for eating and eat. 08:16.634 --> 08:20.340 The last person to come back from alms round would clean up. 08:22.023 --> 08:31.397 And there was no communication, except once every five days they would get together and recite and memorize the Buddha's teaching, go over it again and again, and talk about it. 08:38.819 --> 08:39.901 but acts of kindness. 08:41.444 --> 08:45.932 The second one, of course, is words of kindness, words spoken out of kindness. 08:46.092 --> 08:50.560 So it's not just kind words like, may you be happy. 08:51.742 --> 08:55.790 But it can be advice, but given out of kindness. 08:56.892 --> 09:02.582 Any speech, the intention of which is the benefit of the other. 09:04.958 --> 09:06.480 We speak with thoughtfulness. 09:06.520 --> 09:23.845 We don't speak, we try not to speak, but that is out of a desire to hurt, to harm, out of a desire to assert our dominance, right, arrogance and conceit, to cultivate fear or jealousy. 09:25.563 --> 09:35.995 How much of our speech is just designed to make us look good, impress others, which of course is just designed in the same way to make them feel inferior. 09:40.660 --> 09:51.672 I think it's innocent to want people to look up to you, but all it does is encourage them to resent. 09:54.858 --> 09:58.003 It's not a very wholesome, it's quite selfish. 10:03.350 --> 10:16.630 Kindness is praising others when you see someone doing something good to be happy for them and to encourage them and to compliment them in a true way, not flattering, trying to make them like you, but 10:18.938 --> 10:23.805 affirming the good in them, that they might be wavering about, did I do a good thing? 10:24.666 --> 10:26.068 Good for you, you did a good thing. 10:27.070 --> 10:28.812 That's kind of kindness of speech. 10:39.588 --> 10:41.691 The third one, of course, kindness of thoughts. 10:42.893 --> 10:44.355 We think of each other kindly. 10:49.735 --> 11:10.003 That which leads to the other two, to all acts and deeds of kindness, of course, has to be thoughts of kindness, because it's actually possible to be kind with body and speech and yet hate someone, or be very corrupt in mind, because we can suppress it. 11:11.365 --> 11:16.452 But it's not enough, and it's not true, and it's not real, it's not sincere, right? 11:19.874 --> 11:27.710 Much more important than our acts and our speech is our thoughts and our intentions, our state of mind. 11:27.750 --> 11:32.500 That's what we see in meditation now. 11:33.779 --> 11:36.523 ultimately we're going to become whatever we think about. 11:37.664 --> 11:49.700 We're going to, not what we think about, we're going to become physically and verbally, our acts and our speech are going to come inevitably from our mind. 11:50.701 --> 12:03.398 If our mind is impure, inevitably speech and acts are going to be impure, going to be corrupt, going to be cruel, unpleasant, cause for stress and suffering. 12:07.833 --> 12:19.906 So even just cultivating thoughts of love, I mean this is a great sort of artificial way of cultivating positive thoughts, thinking about all the people around you, may they be happy, may they be free from suffering. 12:23.310 --> 12:30.718 And then of course cultivating insight, more natural, more sustainable, more true. 12:33.500 --> 12:35.143 Because it makes you a nicer person. 12:35.183 --> 12:41.072 It helps you see the disadvantages of being a cruel and manipulative and unpleasant person. 12:43.396 --> 12:44.358 You don't have to believe it. 12:44.458 --> 12:45.480 You don't have to pretend. 12:45.520 --> 12:47.343 You don't have to force yourself to be good. 12:48.725 --> 12:59.322 If you're trying to force yourself to be pure, to be free, to be enlightened, if you're pushing for it, you can know that you're actually quite far from enlightenment and not going in the right direction. 13:01.647 --> 13:27.317 It's only when you stop forcing, when you start looking, and when you begin to see, when you begin to see the difference between right and wrong and good and bad without any reference to anyone's beliefs or teachings, it's only then that you can truly become a good person and have pure thoughts that are natural and sincere. 13:32.140 --> 13:41.543 The fourth is sharing your possessions. 13:42.940 --> 13:45.083 Let's say communion, let's make it more general. 13:45.924 --> 13:51.791 So it refers to anything from what you get, share it with the community. 13:51.811 --> 13:55.917 I mean, taxation, voluntary taxation, I suppose. 13:56.517 --> 14:03.987 People don't like, many people, or there are some people who are critical of taxation, saying it's like forced. 14:03.967 --> 14:05.851 But I don't look at it so much as force. 14:05.891 --> 14:09.619 Taxation is an agreement that we've come to as a society. 14:09.639 --> 14:15.773 That we haven't abolished it is ideally because we agree that we should be sharing. 14:18.599 --> 14:24.051 If I am very lucky and very fortunate and even very good at what I do, 14:27.507 --> 14:30.310 and I become very wealthy as a result, I should share. 14:30.330 --> 14:42.585 I think many of the things, the social, in Canada anyway, we have a social net that prevents people from suffering terribly. 14:47.071 --> 14:54.240 Many of those things are what we consider to be important as a society, which is a really good thing to see. 14:54.260 --> 14:56.282 It's really encouraging and heartwarming. 14:57.528 --> 15:04.276 We have this principle of charity and, well, just charity, but communion. 15:06.418 --> 15:12.105 Or if I get very happy and very lucky and very fortunate, I don't do it alone. 15:12.906 --> 15:15.069 I bring everyone else with me to some extent. 15:20.555 --> 15:27.383 Communion means seeing the community as important 15:28.747 --> 15:33.956 On the one hand, in Buddhism we are very focused on the self. 15:37.703 --> 15:40.467 Set yourself in what's right. 15:41.850 --> 15:43.633 Do what's in your own best interest. 15:52.709 --> 15:59.142 But what's in your best interest, of course, is a harmonious community. 16:02.058 --> 16:13.574 Not only that, but how can you be concerned about your own best interest if you're not supportive of other people seeking out what's in their own best interest? 16:13.734 --> 16:28.555 If you deny other people the opportunity to find peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering, how could you find it yourself if you're not supportive insofar as it's in your sphere of activity? 16:32.939 --> 16:50.649 So one of the greatest aspects of harmony is communion, community, commune, communal resources, communal benefits, communal happiness. 16:53.453 --> 16:54.475 The fifth is 16:58.505 --> 17:15.803 purity of ethics, a common purity of ethics, meaning quite obviously that to have a harmonious community you need laws, and everyone has to be keeping those laws. 17:18.305 --> 17:23.010 You need good rules, and the rules need to be kept. 17:26.011 --> 17:35.532 You see this very clearly in Buddhist monastic circles because we have a monastery is an interesting place because you have people 17:39.578 --> 17:44.906 and dealing with the very innermost poisons in their mind, right? 17:44.966 --> 17:46.629 They're dealing with their mental issues. 17:46.829 --> 17:50.274 They don't have a lot of outlet for them. 17:50.295 --> 18:04.236 And so it can be quite a stressful activity until you learn to be without chasing after the things that you want and avoiding and running away from the things that you don't want. 18:09.987 --> 18:22.116 And you have such a diverse group of people whose reasons for being together have nothing to do with anything like friendship or common history. 18:22.717 --> 18:27.388 Often in a monastery monks will come together from very different backgrounds. 18:28.887 --> 18:38.458 And so there's a great, in monasteries, surprisingly to some, there's a great potential for conflict and strife for these reasons. 18:39.519 --> 18:42.102 And everyone's dealing with emotional issues. 18:43.203 --> 18:47.008 It's not a good time to be around other people who are also dealing with emotional issues. 18:47.068 --> 18:50.171 So rules become increasingly important. 18:52.033 --> 18:57.780 And so we have this very rigid, in fact, strict set of rules, pretty much for that reason. 18:59.583 --> 19:10.056 You have such a charged environment and such a diversity of backgrounds and karmas, right? 19:10.196 --> 19:22.911 It's in some ways a clashing of karma, because our narrative that we've built up, that's led us here, is often very different from where we find ourselves in the monastery. 19:23.251 --> 19:29.539 I was supposed to be, I don't know, personally, I was supposed to probably be a mathematician or something. 19:30.953 --> 19:32.397 And I've cut that off. 19:32.677 --> 19:42.803 I could have become probably quite a successful mathematician or, I don't know, even an author. 19:44.133 --> 19:48.598 many of the different things in the world and cut them all off when they became a monk. 19:48.618 --> 19:49.119 And you see that. 19:49.139 --> 19:50.140 You have stories like this. 19:50.180 --> 19:51.401 Everyone had their paths. 19:51.541 --> 19:57.468 Anyway, the point being that when you come together, there's a need for rules. 19:58.309 --> 20:00.011 The same thing goes for society. 20:00.311 --> 20:08.841 There's such a diversity of opinions and backgrounds and potentials, capabilities. 20:13.141 --> 20:17.626 Until or as long as things aren't sorted out, you need rules. 20:20.629 --> 20:24.914 Harmony comes from keeping rules, obeying laws, and having good laws. 20:27.477 --> 20:30.059 There are people who believe that laws should be abandoned. 20:30.139 --> 20:36.246 They think there should be no, one of the laws is there should be no drug laws. 20:37.610 --> 20:44.818 And I can sympathize with that because drug laws only serve to put more people in jail because there are people doing drugs. 20:44.938 --> 20:59.635 But it doesn't take away the fact that doing heroin and to a limited extent I would say marijuana, alcohol, these are not good things for society in my opinion. 21:01.893 --> 21:03.675 And it's much more complicated than that. 21:03.876 --> 21:06.419 It doesn't mean we should do away with all laws or rules. 21:06.519 --> 21:28.710 It means we have to have a better way of actually ensuring that the rules are kept, that we're able to build a society where we have an order whereby people don't fall into behavior that is conducive to conflict, either inner conflict or conflict in society. 21:32.285 --> 21:44.978 And eventually, ideally, a society that encourages people to become wiser, to become better, to become more pure, more free, more happy. 21:50.780 --> 21:59.497 And the final one is having common purity of view. 21:59.517 --> 22:01.481 So this relates to what I've been talking about. 22:02.022 --> 22:03.625 Not only do we need rules, but 22:05.123 --> 22:15.260 to have a pure society, to have a harmonious society, you really do need to some extent a community of a common purpose, right? 22:15.360 --> 22:23.133 So most of Canada is in agreement that providing healthcare to all people is a good thing. 22:24.976 --> 22:30.726 And having that right view of kindness and support 22:32.073 --> 22:34.896 and caring for our society. 22:36.337 --> 22:38.920 You could say that's an important part of creating the harmony. 22:39.781 --> 22:43.405 If you look in America, there's incredible disharmony. 22:45.026 --> 22:58.640 America is very much divided down party lines, and probably there's some intent behind that, the intent to create a divide and conquer, a divided society. 22:58.660 --> 23:01.303 I don't want to get too much into it, 23:05.198 --> 23:10.323 when you've got such ideological diversity, that's where conflict arises. 23:10.363 --> 23:27.240 So this recent, in Canada, it's come up recently, there's been a move to, I mean, I'd say it's fairly radical, but this move to try and criminalize, or criminalize hate. 23:29.442 --> 23:34.007 And not just hate, but physical and verbal acts of hate. 23:35.692 --> 23:41.183 and to apply some fairly broad criteria for what we understand as hate. 23:41.283 --> 23:55.793 So if you deny a person's identity, gender identity is the big hot topic now, that can be considered hate speech or an act of a hate crime. 23:57.123 --> 24:01.791 I mean, if it was done with malicious intent, it's not like policing speech. 24:01.851 --> 24:03.554 It's not what everyone thinks it is. 24:04.896 --> 24:11.888 If you are doing so in a dismissive fashion, where you really and truly... 24:12.389 --> 24:12.990 Anyway, I don't know. 24:13.010 --> 24:20.262 It's a bit complicated and perhaps radical in a sense, but it's caused a great division in our society, I think. 24:21.423 --> 24:42.851 I mean, on the one hand, there's one side, there's people who are quite militaristic in their push for their own rights, a push for their own, what the other side calls agenda, the liberal extremist agenda. 24:46.897 --> 24:49.320 I mean, in the end, there's some real good there. 24:50.752 --> 25:14.515 trying to make sure that people feel and have this sense of self-worth and sense of grounding in who they are and that they're not left out of the conversation, that they're not dismissed or forced to be something they're not. 25:16.283 --> 25:18.806 that they can have this space to breathe. 25:20.108 --> 25:31.303 But it does get quite vehement and angry, which is not conducive to progress and harmony. 25:31.943 --> 25:33.485 Not when it gets to that level, I think. 25:36.349 --> 25:41.616 It can be so much better done if it was tempered and, you know, 25:42.490 --> 25:44.673 associated with kindness. 25:45.935 --> 26:04.583 On the other side, there is an incredibly vile and corrupt form of hatred and bigotry that is cloaked in the guise of free speech, but really is just about hating people who are different and people who have 26:06.554 --> 26:08.156 a different way of looking at the world. 26:09.377 --> 26:21.731 We see this in society, we see this in monasteries, the story of many stories of monks beating on monks and monks attacking monks and monks fighting with monks. 26:22.352 --> 26:31.262 We have stories going back to the Buddha's time, this sort of thing. 26:33.605 --> 26:34.988 Right now we're talking about view. 26:35.048 --> 26:40.398 We have stories of monks arguing with monks. 26:40.698 --> 26:43.043 We have divisions from the time of the Buddha. 26:43.063 --> 26:45.407 Right after the Buddha passed away, there was right away a split. 26:46.950 --> 26:48.694 And it split, and it split, and it split. 26:48.754 --> 26:53.082 And now we've got forms of Buddhism that I don't even recognize has anything to do with Buddhism. 26:55.610 --> 26:56.912 very different forms. 26:57.712 --> 26:59.535 I've got splits among communities. 26:59.675 --> 27:04.040 I was in a monastery once where there were three groups of monks. 27:04.400 --> 27:05.462 They had a split. 27:06.182 --> 27:10.528 And in the monastery, there were three communities. 27:11.208 --> 27:12.790 And they didn't interact with each other. 27:13.831 --> 27:15.273 They schemed against each other. 27:15.874 --> 27:21.921 It was quite, well, 27:25.057 --> 27:26.399 impressive in a way, I guess. 27:29.903 --> 27:30.804 Having the same view. 27:31.344 --> 27:37.492 Now, for us as meditators, this means really having a view of the Four Noble Truths. 27:39.174 --> 27:40.595 That gives you the greatest harmony. 27:40.655 --> 27:42.778 When you see that, then there's none of this. 27:44.360 --> 27:47.363 There would never be a question about identity. 27:47.383 --> 27:54.051 There would never be a question about a clique or a group or a division of the Sangha. 27:55.820 --> 27:58.705 It just wouldn't have any sense or meaning or purpose. 28:01.229 --> 28:05.656 Not to mention all the anger and greed involved would just have disappeared. 28:10.343 --> 28:15.051 It's important that we're clear and that we have these debates in society. 28:15.071 --> 28:16.172 It's important that we debate. 28:18.656 --> 28:19.738 It's important that we discuss. 28:19.818 --> 28:22.823 It's important that we listen to each other. 28:25.621 --> 28:33.993 It's one thing that being in the university has taught me is how to listen, and how to listen to people who I might disagree with. 28:35.215 --> 28:45.050 And it gives you interesting perspective on why people think things they do, and it helps you understand how people get to the views that they get to, even though you might completely disagree with their views. 28:47.053 --> 28:51.139 You at least can understand what that makes them and where they come from. 28:55.405 --> 29:04.842 And by listening and by talking we can break through and come to an understanding with each other. 29:06.239 --> 29:09.323 There's many aspects, many factors involved. 29:09.664 --> 29:16.833 You need rules, you need kindness, you need a desire for truth and a desire for harmony. 29:18.155 --> 29:22.961 The worst enemy to harmony, of course, is the desire for conflict. 29:23.782 --> 29:31.673 If society is keen to hurt and to cause harm and to disrupt, 29:33.172 --> 29:47.395 It doesn't matter how well-intentioned you might be or how clear you might be in your mind, you're never going to succeed in bringing harmony to society. 29:50.681 --> 29:53.425 And that's a sort of view in itself, right? 29:54.772 --> 29:57.676 The view that harmony and peace are worth working towards. 29:57.796 --> 30:03.404 The view that the true goal should be happiness and should be peace. 30:04.285 --> 30:06.148 That there is no happiness without peace. 30:06.188 --> 30:13.438 Once you have peace, you have happiness. 30:17.637 --> 30:18.298 So there you go. 30:18.679 --> 30:20.182 Those are the Saraniya Dhammas. 30:20.222 --> 30:25.914 They're Dhammas that we should all recollect and they help us think fondly of each other. 30:25.954 --> 30:30.885 They help make the community a harmonious community. 30:32.228 --> 30:34.051 So thank you all for tuning in. 30:35.154 --> 30:35.815 Have a good night.