Hi and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Full house tonight.
Tonight we continue on with verses number 58 and 59.
Which read as follows.
Yatha Sankara Dhanasmingh Ujjitasmingh Mahapate
Two verses tonight.
The meaning of which is approximately
yathā saṅkāra-dānasmiṁ just as in a rubbish heap discarded by the side of the highway a lotus can grow even there that is well scented and delightful
So too, e wang so too, or just so, in the heap of beings, or the heap of becoming, no, the heap of beings, sankarabhudesu, in the heap of becomings.
who are blind and full of defilements.
The disciple of the perfectly enlightened Buddha shines exceedingly, or outshines, outshines them all with his or her wisdom.
Atirochati Panyaya.
So two verses, two verses, one saying of the Buddha and one story.
Now, again, as with all these stories, sometimes we get complaints about the stories being too fanciful or unbelievable.
And I think there's a confusion between the actual teaching and the history behind the teaching.
Now, I'm among the first to say that these histories are fanciful and most likely exaggerated.
But that should have no bearing on the teaching.
Whether something happened or didn't happen, a little bearing on the teaching.
Obviously if you don't believe in magic at all, then you're going to have a hard time with many aspects of the Buddha's teaching.
And so there's some reflection on the teaching and the fact that these sorts of things could actually happen.
And I would say probably not as extravagant as they are portrayed to have occurred, but certainly some sort of magic, or what seems to be magic, some sort of extrasensory perception appears to be quite possible and existent in the universe.
But that isn't the core of the message of what's being taught here.
Obviously this here teaching of the Buddha has nothing to do with anything supernatural, but the story does.
It's a good story.
It's a funny story.
It's one that's quite memorable.
And so I hope I can do it justice.
It's quite long as well, relatively speaking.
So there are these two, two friends and
One of them's name is Sirigutta, and the other one's name is, if I remember correctly, Garahadina.
Does anybody remember the name Garahadina?
Sound familiar to anyone?
I think it's Garahadina, I think is his name.
Anyway, we'll give him these two names.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
Garahadina and Sirigutta.
and two friends living in Sawati.
And Garhadina was a disciple of Nigantanatta Buddha, who was also known as Mahavira, the leader of the Jain religion.
and well-known for its naked ascetics.
In the time of the Buddha, these were the guys who walked around naked.
And even still, apparently today, you'll see some of them.
I never saw them when I was in India, but apparently they're still walking around naked.
In India, this is their religious practice.
And Sri Guta was a follower of the Buddha, a supporter of the Buddha.
And they were both fairly well-off, so they were considered to be
considered to be some sort of main supporter or important supporter of the two schools.
Now Garahadhina for a long time he would, I know Garahadhina was once speaking with the Nigantanathaputtas, the naked ascetics, and they would say to him, hey why don't you tell Sirigutta to come and pay respect to us, he's got lots of money and
What is he doing paying respect to the Buddha?
What is he doing supporting the Buddha?
What does he hope to gain from supporting Samana Gautama?
Why don't you tell him that he should come and support us and give us stuff and give us offerings instead?
Of course, you can imagine that they only had his best interests at heart, right?
And so Garhadina, he took this to heart and he thought, wow, these guys must really, yeah, of course I should tell my friend about the great teaching that I'm getting from these naked guys.
And so he went to, kind of funny, huh?
Mark Twain once said, naked people have, what is it, clothes make the man.
You know the saying, clothes make the man?
Clothes make the man.
Naked people have very little influence on society.
Well, in India that's not true.
Naked people had quite an influence because there was an idea that they'd given up everything.
You see, you still have attachments because you're wearing clothes.
If you weren't attached to anything, you could just go naked.
What you got to say to that?
So he was thinking, yeah, these ascetics, these Gautama and his followers, they don't know what they're talking about.
Look at them, they're still wearing clothes covering up their bodies as though they've got something to hide.
Well, the truth is there is kind of something to hide, right?
And the body is something distracting.
So we wear clothes as a matter of norm, not because we're attached to something.
We wear clothes in order to keep from distracting each other.
with our bodies that's part of the reason another part of the reason is for warmth you guys who are naked they're actually part of it is torturing themselves they want to go around in the cold so imagine walking naked in winnipeg in the winter no maybe an icicle and for heat when it's too hot and you put them on and put them over your head and keep cool
And when there are mosquitoes, right?
Imagine going naked with the mosquitoes and the leeches and everything.
And thorns, not to mention thorns walking through the forest.
Hard to walk through the forest if you're naked, let me tell you.
Not that I've ever done it.
Right, so he goes up to Sri Guta and he starts bugging him constantly about this.
He says it once and Sri Guta says, hey, what are you doing paying respect and following and listening to the teachings of Samanagottama?
Come and listen to the teachings of my teachers and give them offerings and so on.
And Sri Guta didn't say anything.
Because he's Buddhist.
He was still a ,, he was still an ordinary world thing.
But he was a follower of the Buddha.
And so he understood, you know, you don't fight.
Fighting and arguing and so on is not useful.
So he just would sit still and hold his peace.
Until again and again and again and again and constantly he was being bothered by Gara Hadina, come and pay respect to these guys.
And he says, look, finally he gets fed up and he says, look, mister, what is so great about these guys?
What's so wonderful?
What is it that they know that you keep bugging me about that I should go and listen to their teaching?
And Gara Hadina says, what do they know?
What don't they know?
My teachers are masters of the past, the present, the future.
They know all about everybody's bodily actions, verbal actions, mental actions, past, present, future.
They know, they're able to read everything about other people's minds.
They know everything.
So if you did something, they know it.
There's no hiding from them.
It's like Santa Claus.
They know when you're naughty, they know when you're nice.
They see you when you're sleeping, you know, that's just creepy, no?
And Siriguta, Siriguta is a clever man.
He looks at him, he says, really?
Oh, shame on you for not telling me beforehand.
Why didn't you tell me that these guys were so wonderful?
In that case, bring them on over to my house.
I want to pay respect to these guys.
Bring them over and I'll feed them all and I'll worship them.
That's just wonderful.
You bring them over.
I want to pay respect to these naked guys.
And Gara Hadena is so excited, he says, yeah, I knew I could convince you.
And so he goes back to the naked ascetics and he says to them, hey, tomorrow he's going to invite you to his house.
Come on over.
And he's going to offer you food and worship you and so on, pay respect to you and so on.
And they say, did he tell you that?
Yes, he told me himself.
Oh, wonderful.
So maybe not the next morning.
It's like a week later.
He needs some time to prepare.
And so here's how he prepares.
There's a spot at his home.
He's a rich guy, you know, so he's got these two buildings.
And in between these two buildings, he digs a, he digs a, not funny yet.
He digs a long ditch.
And he fills it up with cow poop.
And then he ties two stakes, one on either end of the ditch, and puts a rope between them.
And then he takes some seats, some wooden benches, kind of thing.
Or maybe they're like chairs.
Maybe he had like stools or something.
And the front legs would be on the ground, and the back legs would be on the rope.
It was probably some kind, they were probably touching some kind of, like in Thailand, they have these square, like about this big, and then it's got legs down, and the monks would sit on them.
And so the legs would be probably big legs, like this big, and you just, and it's on the rope.
And he set them up, and then he covered them up with these coverlets, red carpets or something.
And then he took these big, he had them scrub out these pots of, these clay pots, wash them out, scrub them, and cover them up empty, and then smear the outside with food, like porridge on one and ghee on the other, put some splashes of ghee on it, and one with cake crumbs and so on, and cover them up with banana leaves or so on.
and put them out and then Garhadina came along and he said so have you have you have you prepared oh yes yes I made lots of food and I set out the seats and Garhadina says where is it he says over there and he shows him the pots and the pots look like they're full of food and he shows him the seats and they look wonderful and really great and Garhadina goes back and he gets his naked ascetic guys
and they come back to the house, and Gara Hadina says, so,
You're the ones who are supposed to know everything, right?
You know everything about the past, the present and the future.
Well, we'll see.
If you go in there, there's no food in there.
If you go in there, you're going to fall into that ditch and I'm going to beat you with sticks, have you beaten with sticks and chased away.
And he does.
They go in and one of them is about to sit down.
He says, wait, wait, wait, we've got a custom in this house that you have to follow when you sit.
It's a time-honored tradition.
everyone has to stand in front of their seats and sit down all at once and they're like okay men in rome no it's his house his rules so they stand in front of the seats and he says and when he's got his he's got his he's told his um his guys to stand behind the seats
This, I think, was added.
I don't think this is... It seems kind of a weird part of the story.
But anyway, apparently he's got these guys prepared to grab onto the cloth because he doesn't want to get the cloth dirty.
So just as they're about to sit down, he says, OK, sit down all at once.
These guys pull the cloth out and they sit down on the benches and the benches fall into the cow dung and they're all mucked up, naked and dirty.
And then he closes the gate of his compound and has them beaten with sticks.
And once they're all beaten up, it's not really a Buddhist thing to do, which is why I say this guy, he's a supporter of the Buddha, but he's certainly not an enlightened being by any means.
Anyway, we'll see that there is a difference between a Buddhist Bhutujana and a non-Buddhist Bhutujana.
The end of the story is that
bit of a bite to it.
So he has them beaten and then finally when they're all beaten up he has them open the gate and chases them out and they all go running back to their monastery.
But the last thing he's done, just to add insult to injury, he's put this whitewash, I don't know quite what that is, but he's put down something on the road to make it slippery, like rice flour or something, I don't know, or powder of clay or something.
like mud and he's made the whole road slippery and they're slipping and sliding and getting muddy and dirty and unable they just look like fools basically he's just made total and complete fools if you want to make someone a fool of someone remember here's how you do it not that Buddhists do such things
practical joke.
It was like a terrible, terrible practical joke he played on them.
But his point was, you guys are supposed to know everything and here you are suckers to, he taught them a real lesson.
Don't claim to be omniscient when you fall for such a stupid trick as that.
And Gara Hadina gets really, really angry and he goes to the king and he has Sri Guta brought forth before the king and he tells the king to punish him and the king asks the story and Sri Guta says, well, this guy was bugging me and telling me these guys were omniscient, so I wanted to test them out.
They're obviously not omniscient.
He was lying to me.
It was a real setup to me.
They set me up.
And the king says, yeah, well, that's true.
And so he punishes Garahadina.
He has him beaten and has all the naked ascetics beaten again, apparently.
So Gara Hadid is not a happy camper.
And for two weeks he refuses to talk to Siriguta until finally he comes up to Siriguta one day and says, look, I know we had a disagreement, but we're friends.
Why are we not talking?
And Siriguta says, well, it's because you weren't talking to me.
I was waiting for you to...
come and talk to me and Garahadina says that's fine let's go back and be friends and after that they were friends until one day Sirigutta says to Garahadina well why don't you come and check out the teaching of the Buddha see what his teaching is like maybe you'll get something from it and Garahadina is like oh tell me what is so good about Samanagottama's teaching
Oh, he knows everything.
There's nothing he doesn't know about the past, the present, the future.
He can read people's minds in 16 different ways.
I don't know what the 16 different ways are, but that's what the story says.
So Garay Dinda says, oh, well, then invite him to my house next week or whenever.
I'll feed him and I'll worship him and da-da-da-da-da, listen to his teaching.
He says, okay.
And he goes to the Buddha and he says to the Buddha, look, I got an invitation for you, but I've got to warn you.
This friend of mine, he's offered to invite you for food, but I kind of played a practical joke on him.
So he might be trying to get me back for it by maybe dropping you in a ditch of cow dung or something.
And the Buddha says, I accept.
He thinks about it for a second.
The Buddha thinks and sends his mind out and
sees the future and sees what's going to happen.
So I accept.
And meanwhile, back at Gara Hadina's place, he gets a whole bunch of wood and digs a big trench, pit, ditch, right?
Fills it up with wood and lights it on fire.
And all night he has it burning and smoldering until he's got red hot coals, this pit full of red hot coals.
And he covers it up with this, some kind of logs that are smeared so that they don't burn, but they kind of smolder.
I don't know, some way of keeping it under wraps, but still really, really hot.
And I guess like these are like supports or something that they're not gonna burn.
And then on top of those, he puts these benches
right with the rope as well I think so that they're gonna fall in no no no he doesn't put benches he put some kind of very very weak wood that's just gonna snap and break and and fall in and then covers up covers it up and goes off and
Does the same with these pots.
He takes these pots and smears the outside with whatever kind of food and leaves them there.
Sri Guta comes along and says, oh, did you make food?
And the story makes him want to be kind of gullible because I'd want to check in the pots after I did something like it.
But he doesn't.
He sees the pots and he says, oh, OK, great, you've got food.
Goes and gets the Buddha.
The Buddha comes along with all the monks.
And Srigutta says, OK, but there's a rule in our family.
We've got this custom where the head teacher has to go in.
Or maybe he doesn't say it's a custom.
He said, what I would like is for you.
And he says to the Buddha, go in first and sit down.
And then the monks come in.
He did this because he didn't want the other monks to see the Buddha fall into the pit.
He wanted to ridicule the Buddha on his own.
He thought if the other monks were there, I don't know, they'd get in the way.
So he decided he just wanted to make fun of the Buddha himself.
Now here is what the story says happened.
the Buddha walked over to the pit of fire and put his foot on to where the hot coals would have been where he would have fallen through to the hot coals and as soon as he put his foot down a lotus
about this big burst up from the coals and lay itself out as a seat and the Buddha went up on top of it and sat down on the lotus and lotuses began to burst all along the trench and all the monks came in and sat on the lotuses that's what the story says happened
And so suspend your disbelief, because it's a cool story anyway.
Garhadena, how do you think he felt when that happened?
Not a happy camper.
He became agitated.
And when you see such a miracle like this, he got very, very agitated and upset.
And he came up to the Buddha.
And he bowed down at the Buddha.
And he held his hands up.
And he said, please, venerable sir, be my refuge.
And he was just totally frightened.
And the Buddha said, why, what's wrong?
And Garahadina says, truth is, I didn't make any food for today.
I was just pretending to make food.
And you were supposed to fall into a pit of hot coals, which I see has just disappeared.
And the Buddha said, well, didn't you tell me that, or didn't you say that there were
there were these pots of food here and here and here and he says yes but I was lying there's nothing in those pots and the Buddha says well then go back and look at them again and so Gara Hadina goes over to the pots opens up the one with rice and it's full of rice opens up the one with ghee and it's full of ghee opens up and all of the pots are full of whatever food that he said was in them before
And the Garahadina becomes very, very excited and gains faith in the Buddha and comes back and offers the Buddha food and all the monks food and they have a wonderful time with it and everyone lives happily ever after.
No.
So the Buddha and the monks eat the meal, and after the meal, the Buddha takes his hand out and washes his hand, and then is going to give the anamodana, which is give a teaching in thanks.
So the tradition is in thanks for giving a food after the meal.
The Buddha or whatever senior monk is there will give a teaching as a sort of a thanks.
And in thanks he taught something based on this verse.
So he explained about how disciples of the Blessed One have great wisdom, and it's because of that great wisdom that they shine amongst ordinary people, even if they are
born in a family or live in a town or a society that is full of evil and defilement and worldliness and blindness they are still able to shine and are still able to maintain their beauty and retain their beauty just as a lotus can grow even from a rubbish heap and still be beautiful
So the teaching really has not much to do with the story.
It just happens to be the teaching that he gave to these guys.
But the connection is that there's a difference between one who is a real disciple of the Buddha and one who is not.
There's a great power and goodness that comes from it.
Anyway, it's accentuating the difference between the two teachings.
Now, as a result of the teaching, both Sirigutta and Garhadina became Sotapannas.
And many other people there were able to gain benefit from it as well.
So then they both became true disciples of the Buddha.
That's the story.
The teaching, there's not much there, but it's an important teaching nonetheless.
I think the most important part of it to me is the encouragement that it gives to us.
This image of a lotus coming out of the garbage or coming out of dirt or even in cow dung.
A lotus can grow even in a rubbish heap.
It can grow in a compost heap.
And so too, a person who is dedicated and sincere can become enlightened even amongst people who are blind and evil and mean and nasty and so on.
even in that case.
So that when we're in a place or in a situation where we're surrounded or when we have to interact with people of that sort, we should just think of ourselves as the lotus.
And the Buddha said, just like a lotus doesn't get wet when it rains, the water just slides off the lotus.
Even so, we should try to retain our purity even when defilements come at us, when other people come at us with their defilements.
This is really a quality of the meditation practice, of insight meditation practice, where it makes you stainless.
It makes it impossible to disturb the mind when you see something and it's just seeing.
Then any defilements, right, the Buddha said,
When you are na nubhayan janagahi, na nimitnagahi, na nubhayan janagahi, when you're someone who doesn't take the signs or the characteristics of the object, just takes the object as it is.
If it's seeing, see it as seeing.
If it's hearing, know it as hearing.
If it's smelling, know it as smelling.
Thinking, know it as thinking.
Pain, know it as pain.
Liking, disliking, know it just as liking and disliking, and so on.
This creates an objectivity that
That makes the mind perfectly invincible, impenetrable, imperturbable, unsusceptible to harm.
this is the quality that we aspire to in our practice and on our path in the Buddhist teaching to become objective so that we like the lotus even surrounded by people shouting and screaming people beating and hitting and fighting and surrounded by hardship and suffering even there we can find happiness just like the lotus can grow even from the from the rubbish heap
That's the first part of the teaching and it's really I would say the most important one, this idea of being stainless, of being imperturbable, of being unsullied by the world, by the Anda Buddha, the blindness around us.
People who cause suffering for themselves and suffering for others simply because they don't know any better, they don't see, because they can't see the truth.
Putujana means full of defilements.
They have so much desire and addiction and aversion and hatred and miserliness and stinginess, meanness.
all these evil qualities.
So our ability to stay above that, it really is possible to stay above that, and our ability to do so comes from the meditation practice, comes from our objectivity, our ability to take when someone's screaming at you to just know it as hearing, when someone's hitting you to know it as feeling or pain.
when we have unpleasant sounds or smells or tastes or feelings or thoughts to just know them as they are when you have racking piercing pains even such as would take your life might take your life away
Then you know them just as pain, not as good, as bad.
And as a result you are like the lotus that's unstained, unsullied by the dirt in which it rises.
The second part is the emphasis on what makes a person shine and that's the wisdom.
And that's the essential quality of the meditation practice.
What makes us shine and what allows us to become objective is wisdom, is seeing objects clearly as they are.
This comes first with the actual application of the meditation.
When you're just saying to yourself, seeing, seeing, or hearing, hearing, there arises a sort of a wisdom.
You see the object clearly as it is, that seeing, that hearing.
And that wisdom keeps the mind stainless, but that's only temporary.
That's a freedom from defilement that is momentary.
As you begin to practice more and more and more, it becomes habitual.
And then the mind starts to incline towards that state, and the mind becomes more and more objective by nature.
This is a habitual objectivity that comes from someone who practices meditation long enough.
And the third is through the extended application and this habitual application and inclination towards objectivity, eventually the mind breaks away from defilement.
It gives rise to this epiphany that allows one to
enter into nibbana means the mind doesn't go out to seeing hearing smelling tasting feeling or thinking there's no awareness whatsoever there's a complete cessation of any kind of any kind of sensual experience or non-sensual experience any kind of awareness whatsoever so the mind and the mind
enters or stays put, the mind stops.
And with that there is the experience of nibbana.
Now that's what cuts off the defilements because that experience even just for a moment allows one to see what true peace is, what true happiness is.
And so that is considered the highest form of wisdom, even though there's no thinking at the time.
But this insight that allows us to see or that is comprised of the seeing that everything else, everything arises and ceases, that everything is susceptible to cessation.
It's possible to enter into the cessation of all arisen things.
this changes one's mind and shifts one's view and idea about happiness and peace and freedom from suffering because one has realized true peace happiness and freedom from suffering and that's the kind that sort of wisdom is what truly makes one shine because from then on it's natural
and then on one is naturally and inherently or by default objective and free from clinging.
Now in stages of course it takes repeated application and realization to fully and completely become enlightened but even just the first time causes one to
become dedicated to a certain level of objectivity.
Now this is different from the kind of wisdom that we would see in an ordinary person.
So an ordinary person might claim to have wisdom, but it's completely on the side of worldly wisdom.
So it's through
through reading and studying and hearing so people who have wisdom they've heard from other people they have these pithy sayings and ideas and beliefs that they've heard which all of us as Buddhists also have and then also they have which comes from thinking
And often as Buddhists, we think this is the wisdom that we're looking for as well.
So when a thought arises, yes, this is impermanent, yes, that is suffering, yes, that is non-self.
So we think that's wisdom when we think about it like that.
We think about our lives as being impermanent, changing all the time.
We think of this as a type of wisdom.
Now, these are both good and useful if applied in the right direction.
Of course, if applied in the wrong direction, they're harmful if you apply...
these sorts of wisdom to building a nuclear bomb then they're quite harmful.
But they're not true and they're not the highest wisdom and they don't lead one to shine because they're not natural.
A person can have all the knowledge of the dangers of samsara and the problems with defilements and can even think about it and logically work it out and can still get angry.
Still deep down have anger and greed can still become addicted to things They might be able to keep the precepts Because they've heard about keeping them But the anger is still there that might cause them to kill the greed is still there that might cause them to steal These are not done away with because it's not It's not something that you see for yourself.
It's not experiential wisdom
the true wisdom is that which comes from seeing for yourselves, comes from experience, comes from changing your
your perception of the world.
This comes from actual application and the observation and the study of reality.
So meditation in Buddhism is really the study of reality and this is what causes one to shine.
There's a radiance to someone who sees things clearly.
The things they say, the things they do, the things they think.
are pure and clear, peaceful, are beneficial, are pleasant to others.
Their presence is something that is appreciated by other people.
So they are in that way like a lotus
even surrounded by people who are defiled, they don't become defiled as a result.
They are beautiful and radiant and delightful to others.
They are delightful to the mind.
So that is the teaching today, verses 58 and 59.
Thank you all for tuning in and everyone for coming out tonight.
Now we will continue on with some meditation practice.