Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue with verse 224, which reads as follows.
Satchambhane nakujhaya Dajja appampi yajito Etehi tihe thanehi Kache devana santike
Which means one should speak the truth.
One should not get angry.
One should give even a little when asked.
With these three bases, or through these three bases, one will go to the abode of the angels.
So this was apparently taught in response to a question posed by Maha Moggallana who as we have heard was wont to visit heaven and talk to the angels there.
He was also wont to
seek out ghost spirits that were in trouble and get a sense of why they were born in troubled states.
But we have many stories of him up in heaven talking to angels, often asking what they did to deserve to go to heaven.
Very useful skill, listening to these stories.
You can't help but marvel at how beneficial it would have been to have someone around to tell you what's going on in places that you have no ability to connect with.
You think of what the internet has done allowing us to see what's going on in places that we would have otherwise had no idea.
It's kind of an extension of that.
Moggallana was able to bring back news from other places, uplifting in a sense.
There's quite an uplifting quality to a lot of Moggallana's stories and his descriptions of what went on in heaven.
Anyway, on this occasion, he started to notice a pattern.
He went to heaven, saw some heavenly mansion and an angel standing at the door of the mansion, divine radiance glowing with a halo of some sort.
And the angel comes out, came out, saw he was a Buddhist monk and was quite
Impressed Came out and paid respect to Moggallana And Moggallana said Wow you have great power And Great glory And said what is it that has caused you to be born With such glory here in heaven And the angel kind of looked away And said oh no don't ask me that And Moggallana said Well
Come on, tell me, what is it that, obviously you've done some great deed, what is it that caused you to get this position as an angel, as a glorious deva in heaven?
And when pressed, the angel said, I didn't do anything, really.
He said, all I did when I was in the human world so long ago,
I guarded the truth.
That's all it says.
It doesn't go into detail, so maybe they talked more and got more detail about it, but that's all he got.
He was quite impressed by the fact that that alone led the being to be reborn as an angel.
So he continued on and talked with other people.
One woman in heaven, he asked her what had she done.
Same thing.
Don't ask me that.
And he said, come on.
And pressed, she said, well, when I was on earth, I was a servant.
And my master was a cruel, cruel being.
And I didn't do anything special.
I didn't do anything noble.
But I knew that if I ever got angry, you know, he would beat us and he would punish us and scold us.
And he was a very terrible person.
All I did is what really what anyone would do is I determined in my mind that I shouldn't get angry.
Because I said to myself, if I get angry, he's going to beat me.
Maybe he cuts off the hands of slaves and does terrible things.
These sorts of terrible things, of course, have happened in the history of humankind.
Slaveholders torturing other human beings who they called slaves.
And he said, all I did was set in my mind that I wouldn't get angry.
And because of that, somehow I'm here.
Quite marvelous, actually.
And he went on and he noticed this pattern.
A lot of them would be kind of embarrassed and maybe surprised at how they got there.
And many others, he said, many of them
When asked, all they'd say is, I'd say, well, I didn't do anything special.
But one day, there was a monk at my door.
I didn't have anything, so I gave a little bit of, a handful of rice.
Or I gave some beans.
Or I gave this, or I gave that.
And it turned out to be a very powerful thing, and somehow I was reborn in heaven.
And so Moggallana collected all these stories and he went to see the Buddha and he said, Venerable sir, is this really possible?
That someone who guards the truth should be born in heaven or someone who simply determines that they won't get angry and sets themselves in that promise to themselves, that determination.
Or if someone just gives a small handful of
almost worthless food that has very little value.
Is it possible that this alone could lead one to be reborn in heaven?
And the Buddha, as usual, these stories go, why do you ask, Moggallana?
Do not save for yourself.
And then he taught this verse.
So,
Some people don't like, I think, these stories.
I often comment on this, that there's a bit of a discomfort that comes from the sense that we might be talking about things that are based on faith, because many people have a strong sense that it's unlikely that such a thing as heaven exists or angels exist.
Which is unfortunate and from a Buddhist perspective it's kind of unfortunate and self-limiting.
But it says nothing about the actual lesson, so we don't have to discuss this in terms of what it is that leads to heaven.
That's not really the most important lesson.
But if we can just say a little bit on what it means to be reborn as an angel, why one goes to be reborn as an angel, and how we can have a sense that something like heaven exists without relying on blind faith, is because
based on the actual lesson of this verse and this story, our universe, our lives, our rebirth of course, our course, our journey in samsara has very much to do, not everything, but very much to do with our state of mind and our inclination of mind.
And our existence as human beings
our coming into being as a human, we can see how it's very much tied to many of the emotions that we share as human beings.
Many of the mind states, likewise with animals, there's a tendency towards similarity.
And the idea that a very pure mind
could be reborn in a very pure state, or should be born in a very pure state.
It's something very comfortable that sits quite well and seems quite reasonable to anyone who practices Buddhism.
I'm not providing that as any kind of proof or evidence, but through the practice one comes
without actually having any kind of magical power similar to Moggallana or having angels come to visit you or anything like that one comes as close to evidence close enough to evidence to make one comfortable in one's assessment that things like heaven do exist
simply because of the power of the mind and the nature of the relationship between the physical world and the mental world.
That is, it's hard for people to see intellectually.
It's hard to understand unless you've looked inside, and not just inside, but looked at the world from a mindful, from a fundamental, experiential point of view.
Where you're able to see what's happening.
You're able to see the relationship between our minds, our intentions, our inclinations, and the world around us.
So what are the lessons, besides that, what are the lessons we can get from these, the verse and the story?
The most obvious lesson of course is that good things are good.
Doing good is good and this is a common theme throughout not only the Dhammapada stories and verses but also the Buddhist teaching in general.
That truth is very good, I mean from a worldly level.
Telling the truth is something that keeps you out of trouble.
But another something that I've been talking about, and of course many more people than I have been talking about it, is that these days there's a situation in the world in general
relating to truth that I think is not quite appreciated for its connection to the truth.
Not quite as appreciated as it should be.
We talk about people protesting violence and racism and all kinds of injustice.
And we miss the fact that the greatest power, I think to some extent we miss the fact that the greatest power, one of the greatest powers of a protest,
It's not the anger, and I'll address that because I think it's important to point out and separate the two.
It's the truth.
Why these protests against injustice are so powerful is because injustice is false.
Injustice relates to what is false.
If you say, oh yes, I'm right to do this, this, and this, and you're not right to do it, we call it injustice, but it's actually, in fact, at its most basic level,
Falsehood.
False.
It's not true that that's a good thing that you're doing.
It's not true that you're right to do this, this, and this.
And so what we call protest, when we feel the power of a movement that gains the ear or gains the attention of the world as a whole,
It's most powerful because of how it resonates with people.
Yes, they're right.
The greatest power of a prodigal is people with all these signs.
They're telling the truth.
And if they're not telling the truth, it has a different result.
But the greatest power, how it becomes powerful and really brings about great change, is because it's an example of speaking the truth.
The Buddha didn't just say, don't speak falsehood.
He said, speak the truth.
Now, I'm not suggesting that the Buddha encouraged us to go out and protest.
I think there are some challenges and concerns with that, but I'm not going to criticize or judge the way of the world.
I think for people who are engaged in the world, there's much more room for things like protest than someone like myself who just kind of tries to help teach people from the outside.
But at least to some extent, the Buddha was affirmative in his appreciation for speech, actually saying, telling someone when they're doing something wrong.
If you tell someone when they're doing something wrong and your focus is on bringing the truth,
It can be very powerful.
The reason why it's often not very powerful and doesn't have great results is because of our being in contradiction to the second part, which is, don't get angry.
So a big part of protest is anger.
And these days we see a lot of people angry, even a lot of Buddhists getting angry, which is unfortunate.
And there's danger in that.
Of course there's suffering in that.
We read something on Facebook or watch the news and it makes us very angry.
I have to tell this person.
I have to set them straight.
So we think we're telling the truth.
Got to tell them the truth, right?
But it's not the truth.
Our intention, our inclination is not to promote the truth.
Our inclination is to
make that person feel bad, hurt that person.
It's not even really a conscious intention, it's just this anger, the desire to change, the need to remove, to eradicate, to destroy.
It's the same emotion that has led to so much violence from the other side, from police, from people in charge.
I remarked earlier, and this is of course the Kodavaga, the anger chapter.
I've been talking about this.
I remarked earlier how
When we watched in high school these protests from the civil rights era, it was quite remarkable.
And I read something recently about Martin Luther King Jr.'
's struggle with anger.
He struggled with it because he strived to love the people who were so horrible, who didn't seem to deserve any sort of love whatsoever.
And yet he was a Christian and he wanted to follow Jesus' example of turning the other cheek.
But there's a great power in that when you're not angry.
In a worldly sense, we can see when we get angry, we suffer.
When we get angry, we hurt others.
We create conflict.
And the third, there's good in giving.
When you're kind to others, you build good relationships.
You feel good about yourself.
The world becomes a better place.
We're seeing it, I think, in many of the protests, people coming together as communities, helping each other.
When someone asks, you give even a little.
When someone asks, give even a little.
You don't have to give a lot.
So this is from a worldly perspective, but there's a much deeper lesson here.
There is a much deeper lesson and it's that it has to do with Moggallana's puzzlement, right?
Because he knew that good deeds had good results.
Why was he confused?
He wasn't confused but he thought it remarkable.
Why?
It's because this seems to be highly out of proportion.
It seems to have nothing to do with the significance of the actual act, which is an important lesson that goodness, karma, goodness and evil,
have much less to do with the significance of the act as they do have to do with the significance of the state of mind when you do the act.
So telling the truth was much more about how it affected this person's mind.
And the reason why telling the truth is so powerful and why lying is so dangerous, from a practical perspective, it doesn't seem like that.
It seems like
Sometimes if you lie, good things happen, right?
If you tell the truth, you get in trouble and so on.
But the reason why it's so dangerous is because of how it affects the mind.
It may not have real consequences in your immediate reality, but it has lasting and significant consequences on your mind.
Because when we lie, we're doing the exact opposite of what we're trying to do in meditation, is come closer to reality and closer to the truth, to straighten our minds in relation to what is true and what is real.
That's why we have this mantra of repeating to ourselves, not some religious mantra, but just reminding ourselves, this is this, it is what it is.
When you lie, you do the exact opposite.
You say, this isn't what it is, that isn't what it is, no?
What it is that it is not That's basically what a lie is And this affects you And because of your interaction with others And you're pushing that on other people There's a very strong inclination towards perversion And by perversion it just means That which is out of touch with reality That which is inconsistent or out of line with the truth Crookedness
Lies are a form of crookedness.
They're a very strong form.
They're crossing a line.
Anger is not necessarily harmful in the sense that you can often use anger, people will say, and this is the rebuttal.
You can use anger for good purposes.
The anger of protesters, they see, hey, we're getting things done and our anger is really motivating us.
even if that point could be argued, which I don't think it could be very effective.
I don't think it's a very good argument to say that good things are going to come out of everyone getting angry.
I think the real reason why that's the case is not necessarily because of the results of our actions.
You yell at someone or even you have physical violence and somehow that brings good or it brings harm.
It's in how it affects your mind.
And so one thing that this verse and this story reminds us of, it's another important lesson,
is that our good deeds are not just about the results of the actions that they help us perform.
It's about the ways that it changes our mind, and the ways that the change of our mind will affect our future.
Even if you don't believe in heaven, of course if you do it's much more significant, but even if you don't, you're going to come home at the end of your day, and you're going to have to live with yourself.
You're going to grow up.
You're going to grow old.
And you're not going to live with all the other acts and deeds of the people.
You're not going to live with all the things that you did, but you're going to live with your memories of them.
You're going to live with your habits that you have cultivated based on your actions.
You're going to live with your state of mind.
And that's going to affect everything.
It will affect your domestic relationships.
It will affect your interactions with society.
It will affect your ambitions and your goals, your direction.
It will affect your meditation.
It will affect your spirituality.
And it will affect your travel in samsara, in this world and the next.
Nakujeya.
And dhajja, you should give, is not, the most important thing is not that it benefits other people or that it benefits you in terms of your relationship with them.
As I said, this is a benefit, but a very worldly benefit, a much more important benefit.
Is the effect that it has on the mind of course And that specifically is why the amount has nothing to do with it And has everything to do with the reasons for doing it The mind state of doing it The inclination to do it You know really what one thing the Buddha I think is saying here is that It doesn't matter what you give, where you give, how you give Why you give To some extent And all those things are factors
But giving, as an example, whether it be material giving or whether it be giving help to others, is an inclination of mind.
It's a practice.
And if you take charity or kindness as a practice, even if it's just rote, you just say, yes, yes, I'm going to give.
And it's not even something that was valuable to you, perhaps.
That affects your mind.
That becomes a practice.
That becomes your inclination, your way of life.
You're a kind, generous individual.
I've met people in Buddhist countries and people who are not Buddhist whose immediate thought
When you go to their house, not just as a monk, but you go to their house or you go visit them, you meet them, is what can I do for you?
What can I give to you?
Can I get you something?
Of course as a monk I often get that from Buddhists, but even not as a monk, you hear about different cultures and different traditions, even outside of Buddhism.
that talk about charity to strangers, hospitality.
Hospitality was a big thing in the Jewish tradition in some places that I grew up with.
It's a way of life that is very powerful.
Not because of, you know, then your guest is happy or then you have a good relationship with your guest, but because of how the effect that it has as a practice.
And this is the real lesson that we get from this story and this verse, I think.
It's all about practice.
How are you going to live your life?
Because when you start to focus on goals and you say, yeah, that's my goal, and you'll do anything to get it, you'll get angry, you'll lie, you'll be greedy, you'll, you know.
You'll cultivate all sorts of unwholesome, you'll get what you want, you'll cultivate all these unwholesome mind states and you'll get what you want, but at the end of the day, you've missed what's really important, the essence of the experience, which is what meditation seeks to help us fix.
Our perspective.
Our perspective on things should always, always
be an experiential one, that we are with the experience, not caught up in some intellectual concept of what is right and what is wrong, but really in the present and seeing this is right, or this is wrong.
And to some extent the three examples, though they may seem a little bit arbitrary, are quite indicative of this because they relate to one of the three qualities of experience that we consider to be right or wrong.
The first one is delusion.
So telling the truth, one should tell the truth.
relates to delusion.
Delusion means the state of mind that is unclear or out of touch with reality.
And there's many ways you can be out of touch with reality.
You can be perverted in your, you know, can be biased in your assessment of yourself, which is ego or conceit, self-esteem and so on.
You can have wrong views.
You can just be ignorant or you just don't know.
You're just in darkness.
This is all delusion.
Anger, of course, is the second one.
And greed, the third one.
So giving as a practice, its most important benefit is how it serves to reduce our craving and our attachment.
Because it's the opposite.
It changes from acquiring and getting to giving and giving up.
And so these three serve to remind us of the importance of the mind and the importance of our qualities of mind, the quality of how we do things above and beyond what we actually do.
So the important lesson of the verse is, again, what we do is not nearly as important as our state of mind, whether we are greedy, whether we are angry, whether we are deluded.
Not just because of the effect that they will have on the results of our acts and our speech, because of course they will.
but also because the effect they will have on our mind and on our mental health, even on our physical health, and ultimately on our fate as beings.
So again, an important lesson for us as people who seek to see clearly and to understand reality and to free ourselves from suffering.
So that's the Dhammapada for tonight.
Thank you for listening.