Hello.
Today I will be beginning a new series of videos on a text called the Dhammapada.
The Dhammapada is a group of 423 verses that are said to have been taught by the Lord Buddha at various times during his life.
So, it's generally considered to be a fairly good summary of the Buddha's teachings.
And so I thought it would be quite a good subject for videos in order to spread the Buddha's teaching and help more people to realize the benefits of the teaching.
So what I'm going to do is read you here, I've got the Pali verse, I'm going to read it in Pali, one verse at a time.
and after the verse I will translate it piece by piece into English, give you an understanding of what it means.
Then I will tell the story
which goes with the verse, because each verse has a story that was passed down that gives the occasion and the circumstances in which the Buddha gave this teaching.
And after I give this sort of a short summary of the story, then I'll explain how I think we should understand this verse and how it can relate to our lives and to our practice.
So one note about the stories is that there's two ways we can go.
Some people will pay more attention to the stories than the verses and remember the Dhammapada as a series of stories.
Another group of people will never have heard or have read the stories and will therefore think of the Dhammapada as a group of verses.
And I think I'm going to try to hit a happy medium where we don't go to either extreme, because the verses have a great benefit to them in providing a good example of how the teachings can be applied and of how they apply to our lives.
They provide us with encouragement when we hear about people practicing good things and help us to adjust ourselves when we hear about the results of bad things and so on.
They help put it into context to some extent.
But what I'd like to say is that we should not let the stories dictate the context of the verse because even though they do provide some context, it's clear that the Buddha was not
meaning to apply the verse only to the context in which it was taught.
The teaching came as a result of a certain event or occurrence in the Buddha's time is true, but
The teaching, of course, is much more broad and deep often than the circumstance allows for.
So, today I'm going to give the first verse.
And this is of the Yamaka Vaga, which is the first group of verses.
The Dhammapada, 423 verses, is separated into different sections.
So this is the first verse of the first section.
And the verse goes in Pali.
This is the Pali translation.
All dammas are preceded by the mind.
All things, all reality, everything is preceded by the mind.
governed by the mind and made by the mind.
They are governed by the mind.
They are made or formed by the mind.
All things.
This is the Buddhist words.
If with an impure mind,
bhāsati vā karoti vā, one acts or speaks, if one acts or speaks with an impure mind, tato naṁ duḥkha-manveti ca kung vā vahato tadam, suffering follows therefrom, just as the wheel of the cart follows the ox that pulls it.
So if an ox is pulling a cart,
The wheel has to follow the ox.
There's no way that it can't.
It can't stop.
It can't change its course.
It will have to follow after the foot.
So on the path you will see the footprint of the ox and you will see the print of the cart following it always, as long as the ox is pulling the cart.
In the same way, when we act or speak, if our heart is impure,
suffering will follow, just as the cart follows the ox, as the saying goes.
So this verse was given in relation to the venerable elder monk Chakulpala.
Chakulpala, Chakul means eye.
So Pala and Pala means guardian.
So his name means one who guards his eyes.
And this is a name he was given.
His original name was actually Pala.
But the story goes that he became ordained under the Buddha a little bit later in life.
And so he didn't spend so much time studying.
He stayed five years with the Buddha to do the basic training as a monk.
but after that he asked permission to go off and practice in the forest with some of his fellow monks.
And he spent three months of the rain season in the forest and he made a determination not to lie down for three months.
So he undertook this practice to only do walking, standing and sitting.
And so he would do walking meditation, he would do sitting meditation, he would do standing meditation, but he would never lie down, not for three months, no sleeping.
That's what this means.
Unless he would sleep sitting up or nod off sitting up by accident.
This is a practice that monks will undertake when they've developed and
after they've progressed in their meditation or become proficient and confident in their practice.
So he did this for three months and during this time he developed a disease of the eyes, a sickness in his eyes.
this doctor told him that he had to take this medicine, and he said he would have to lie down to take this medicine.
Something like put it in his, it was put in his nose or something, some ancient Ayurvedic cure.
And now Jakapala, he didn't say yes, he didn't say no, he took the medicine and he went home and he thought, went back to the monastery and he thought to himself, you know, what should I do?
He said, well, I've given this vow that I'm not going to lie down and I really want to
to carry out my vow and to really exert myself in the practice.
And so as a result, he sat up and he kind of took the medicine sitting up, but he didn't lie down.
As a result, his sickness didn't get better.
In fact, it got worse.
And he went back on alms round and the doctor came up to him and asked him,
how is the sickness?
Is it getting better?
And he said, oh, the wind is still hurting my eyes.
And he said, well, did you lie down to take the medicine?
And he didn't say anything.
He just stood there.
And the doctor said, sir, you have to lie down to take it.
And he said, well, thank you.
And he went away.
The doctor started to get suspicious.
And so he went back to the monastery, followed after the elder.
and went and looked at his dwelling and saw that there was no bedding and he said venerable sir where is your bed and he said and he didn't say anything and he said venerable sir you can't do this you're going to go blind if you do this you have to take care of your eyes you need them if you want to be a monk you're going to need he gave him a little lecture
And the monk said, thank you, but I will know what to do by myself.
I'll figure out what to do by myself.
And so the doctor said, fine, but don't tell anyone.
Then you tell anyone that I was the one who cured you or who gave you the medicine.
And don't tell them that I didn't want to have anything to do with you.
And he said, yes, thank you.
And so the doctor went away.
So Chakopala, or Pala, he sat down and he thought.
And he said, well, then what do I do?
I can either take care of my eyes or I can take care of my practice.
I can either guard the physical body or I can guard the truth.
And he said to himself, if I don't take this medicine, if I don't take it properly, then I might lose my eyes.
My eyes will be ruined.
And he said, but these eyes, these ears, this body, this self, this thing that I cling to,
eventually it will all be ruined, it will all fall apart.
He said, why should I base my life on the well-being of something physical?
And he said, it's much more important that I should guard the Dhamma, I should guard the truth, than that I should guard this physical body.
And so he didn't lie down and he didn't take the medicine, and he continued on with his practice.
As a result of this, two things happened.
First is he lost his eyes, and the second is that he gained his eyes.
And this is how the text goes, that as he was doing walking meditation, at the same moment, his eyes got worse and worse and worse, and finally they deteriorated or something changed, something switched off.
His eyes suddenly became useless.
and his physical eye.
And at that same moment, as this was happening, and as he was watching it, and worrying about it, and looking at his worrying, and looking at his clinging to the body, and letting it go, and seeing the suffering inherent in this clinging mind, wanting and liking the fact that he can see in his eyes, and
the self and the ego and so on, seeing that this is the suffering.
He saw the portable truth.
He saw suffering and the cause of suffering.
And when he saw that, he let go and realized the cessation of suffering.
So at the same moment, he saw the truth and he lost his vision forever, his physical vision.
He became an arahant at the same time.
So at the end of the rain season, after his practice and after he helped out the rest of the other monks to practice correctly as well, he made his way back to the Buddha and spent some time back at the monastery where the Buddha was staying, I believe in Savatthi in India, and in Jetavana, the great monastery of the Buddha.
And while he was there, of course, there were other monks taking care of him, and monks who he would teach, and they would look after him physically.
And many visiting monks.
And his name got around as a fairly proficient teacher.
People thought, you know, the rumor went that he was enlightened.
And so monks would come to visit him.
One day...
One night, in the middle of the night, he was doing walking meditation.
And he would do the walking meditation outside.
And it had rained.
So it had rained heavily all night.
And then in the early morning, 3 a.m.
or so on, he got up to do walking meditation.
Now, at those times in India, and even now here in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, they have these, something like a termite or an ant that is really the most useless animal in the world.
I don't know how they manage to survive because they die in droves.
They fly around and they lose their wings and then they just
lie there and die, it seems like.
And these insects were coming in the night, they come when it rains, because I guess their lairs get flooded.
And so they were covering this walking path.
And Chakrapala came out in the morning after the rain started, 3 a.m.
or so, and started doing walking meditation.
And as he was doing walking meditation, many of these insects died.
As he was walking back and forth, he had no idea that they were there.
And they died.
Many, many of these insects were squashed.
So in the morning these monks came to see him, to meet him, and said, where is the venerable Chakupala?
This is the name he was given.
And the monks who looked after him said, that's his monast, that's his kuti over there.
And so they went over to look, and they saw this walking path that was covered with his footprints stepping on these termites, or these ants, or whatever they are.
And these monks were terribly offended.
And they thought, this isn't right.
How can this be an enlightened monk who's here engaging in wanton slaughter of these innocent creatures?
And so they were very offended.
And they went to see the Buddha.
And they said, this isn't right.
This monk, he should be taught how to practice correctly.
How can he be an elder and still not know how wrong it is to kill?
And this is where the Buddha gave this teaching, which actually becomes a part of a very famous, or the very important part of the Buddha's teaching, is the Buddha's teaching of karma, which actually denies the efficacy of karma.
So people say the Buddha taught the theory of karma, and in fact,
You can say the Buddha taught against the theory of karma because the Buddha said, my son, Jagupala, is not guilty of anything.
He's innocent.
And then he said, the mind precedes all dumb.
The mind is what leads to suffering.
If you act or speak with an impure mind, that's where suffering falls.
So the Buddha took this verse, this verse was given in a negative context.
The point was not to say that suffering is going to, in a positive sense of suffering will lead to this, he was saying,
if your mind doesn't have those things in it, then it can't lead to suffering.
So it's the fact that karma cannot lead to unpleasant results.
And this is an incredibly profound statement, I think, because it's not something that we would think of
ourselves.
You know, if someone gets hurt because of something we do, then we think of ourselves as guilty.
We feel bad.
And if we don't feel bad, maybe the person is angry at us.
And they can get angry at us whether we meant to do it or not.
But the point that the Buddha is making here really shows the emphasis on the meditation practice.
How the Buddha's teaching is really a practice of meditation and of
of contemplation.
Why?
Because we don't understand things in terms of beings, in terms of concepts, things that we think of.
We think of that person and I hurt them and so on.
We think of it in terms of actual reality in the experience.
So maybe the person does get angry at me for something that I did.
Maybe these monks got angry at Chakrapala and therefore they think, oh, that was bad karma because it made people angry at him.
But at the same time you can say, well, Sakopala doesn't face him at all, really.
He had no bad intentions towards the insects.
He had no bad intentions towards these monks.
And if they get angry at him, it's really water off a duck's back, or it's like the Buddha said, like a mustard seed on a needle, or water off of a lotus leaf.
It doesn't stick.
So, because his mind is pure, because his mind doesn't have any of this clinging, any of this anger.
Whereas on the other hand, if he did have anger, if you did want to have
bad intentions, and if he did intend to kill these insects, that is what would lead him to suffering.
And that's what makes it unethical.
An act is not unethical, as I've said before, simply because it fits into a category, like killing is unethical, or so on.
Killing is only unethical because of the mind states that are required to kill.
In order to intentionally kill something, you have to give rise to a harmful
and actually a perverted mind state, one that doesn't want to die oneself and yet wants to cause harm to others.
So the mind is of ultimate importance, and this, as I said, shows the emphasis on meditation, because it's only through meditation that we can affect the mind, and mind is
The mind is what is affected through meditation.
As we practice meditation we see the clinging, we see the craving, we see the stress that is caused by the impure mind.
And we come to differentiate and we come to affect a change on our minds.
When we see things as they are, so we're doing walking meditation or we're doing sitting meditation, we learn to experience life in an interactive rather than a reactive way, so that when we see and we hear and we smell and we experience things, we're able to experience them as an experience.
So someone yells at us, we experience it as a sound.
Someone hits us, we experience it as a feeling.
We don't think of the person, we don't cling, we don't hold on.
Because we've seen the suffering, and this is what the Buddha was referring to, that the mind that clings, the mind that is impure, the mind that has stress in it, this is what leads to suffering.
Suffering only comes from the mind.
All of the things that we create, all of the things that we do only have an influence on our minds if we cling to them, if we have some attachment in the mind at that moment.
And this is a warning from the Buddha that anything that we do
with an impure mind will have this influence on our lives, an influence on our minds.
It will lead to greater stress in our minds, greater clinging, greater suffering, just as the cart follows the foot of the ox.
So this is the meaning of the verse.
And the Buddha said, in fact, all things come from the mind.
If you act with an impure mind, it will lead you to suffering.
want to know where suffering comes from.
This is where it and all other things come from, from the mind.
And this is the first verse of the Dhammapada.
So I'd like to thank you for tuning in, and I hope that we will have many more of these, and I'll be able to get through all 423 verses before my time is up.
So, thank you for tuning in again.
I wish you all the best.