WEBVTT 00:00.031 --> 00:11.227 Okay, so today we'll be continuing to talk about the Mangala Sutta, which we stopped some time ago. 00:19.219 --> 00:23.946 Just to recap, the Mangala are those things that do away with evil. 00:25.428 --> 00:32.215 So we've gone through three stanzas. 00:35.699 --> 00:45.510 And now we come up to some that are not so directly related to the meditation practice. 00:46.171 --> 00:47.813 So we'll try to skip quickly through them. 00:47.833 --> 00:52.718 But in order to be complete, we'll go through them in order. 00:54.959 --> 00:59.346 And there are things that you can say on these blessings about meditation. 01:05.055 --> 01:22.823 These are blessings that generally relate to people who live in the house, people who live ordinary lives and have jobs and make money and employ people or are employed by other people. 01:25.402 --> 01:33.395 But the general purpose of these blessings is to create peace and harmony just the same. 01:35.939 --> 01:49.722 And for people who are looking to make their way closer to a meditative state of life, 01:50.866 --> 02:05.249 who find themselves surrounded by obstacles or surrounded by worldly activities. 02:08.174 --> 02:14.865 These are very important ways to create peace and harmony and a 02:17.866 --> 02:24.966 meditative state or a meditative way of life that will bring anyone closer to the Buddha's teaching. 02:27.092 --> 02:32.888 If someone's goal is to ordain, then it will bring them closer to that goal. 02:32.868 --> 02:38.534 because of the peace and the harmony that it brings. 02:38.554 --> 02:44.520 If someone's goal is to live a meditative life as a lay person, then these are the sorts of things that will allow. 02:44.861 --> 02:50.467 Besides the things that we've already talked about, here are more things that are useful for all of us. 02:51.748 --> 02:56.513 As monastics, some of them aren't even directly useful. 02:59.362 --> 03:10.838 But they are those things that we have to keep in mind and the general principles that we have to keep in mind in terms of creating peace and harmony. 03:10.858 --> 03:13.081 So the next ones are... 03:16.025 --> 03:28.322 So, caring for one's parents, caring for one's mother, caring for one's father. 03:29.652 --> 03:59.271 having good relations with one's relative with ones or having a good relationship with one's spouse and children and doing work that is uncomplicated or that is not crooked having straight straight affairs Affairs that are not crooked or not complicated 04:02.204 --> 04:05.891 So this is the next stanza, and it goes with the next one, so we might as well add them all in here. 04:05.931 --> 04:24.786 The next one is, dana means charity, dhammacharya, the practice of the dhamma, 04:27.533 --> 04:45.734 nyāta kānaṁ ca saṅgahu, having good relationships with all of one's relatives, and anavadjāni kamāni, performing deeds that are not blameworthy, that are free from blame. 04:47.236 --> 04:52.242 So what we'll see here is now a progression and the Buddha begins 04:53.487 --> 04:59.615 in these stanzas by talking about those things that will be useful specifically in the lay life. 05:00.677 --> 05:09.348 But we can see towards the end it starts, or in the second stanza, it starts to get a little bit more involved with the meditation. 05:09.789 --> 05:12.512 So we'll go through all of these today. 05:12.552 --> 05:16.517 They're all quite similar, actually. 05:16.558 --> 05:22.245 This is something, looking after your parents is something that meditators... 05:24.301 --> 05:30.069 will quite often overlook, forget about, or even disdain. 05:30.349 --> 05:46.731 I've even had arguments with people who have told me that, have explained their view that their parents only gave birth to them out of desire, out of lust for each other, 05:48.145 --> 05:52.613 And they only cared for us in their womb because they wanted to. 05:54.215 --> 05:56.820 And it was all because of their desire to do so. 05:58.363 --> 06:00.166 And therefore we don't owe them anything. 06:00.246 --> 06:02.189 We never ask them to give birth to us. 06:03.992 --> 06:07.318 And even when we were growing up, we didn't ask them to take care of us. 06:09.155 --> 06:24.970 Of course, some people have the misfortune to have bad parents, parents who didn't look after their children, who didn't perform the duties towards their children, didn't take care of them and maybe even abused them. 06:24.950 --> 06:42.840 And so these people will argue or either argue directly or at the very least have a difficult time appreciating this teaching or figuring out how they themselves, because of their history, can put into practice this teaching. 06:44.103 --> 06:49.690 So with all of these, we have to understand the situation that we find ourselves in. 06:49.710 --> 07:04.788 Scientifically speaking, it's correct to say that, or biologically speaking, that human beings procreate based on instinct in the mind. 07:06.971 --> 07:08.052 And there's nothing... 07:09.297 --> 07:13.122 really special about the relationship between a parent and a child. 07:14.583 --> 07:24.835 If you break down the chemical composition of the parents and the child and all beings, it's only the genes that get passed on by our parents. 07:25.777 --> 07:33.786 There's no part of our existence from a materialist point of view that gives us some responsibility towards our parents. 07:37.276 --> 07:56.933 this is from a materialist point of view, but from an experiential point of view, we have to account for our birth, our conception in the womb of our parents, which from a point of view of experience is not at all an obvious outcome of the deeds in this life. 07:57.033 --> 08:00.600 It's not obvious to us how 08:00.580 --> 08:09.081 I mean our goals and our dreams, we're not preparing ourselves, not intentionally, to be born in a human womb. 08:10.825 --> 08:14.775 Very difficult to understand how it is that we come to be born in a womb again at all. 08:22.248 --> 08:33.270 And the answer to this question is a very important part of why we have such an important duty towards it or why we have such a profound relationship to our parents. 08:34.769 --> 08:43.884 Even before arguing this, what we should point out is that it's clearly the case for a person who comes to practice meditation. 08:43.944 --> 08:48.572 This is why this one actually does have some relationship to meditation practice. 08:49.173 --> 08:54.482 Anyone who comes to practice meditation who does have a bad relationship towards their parents, 08:56.521 --> 09:10.035 will be struck by the feelings of guilt and shame and even anger or sadness towards their parents if they've had a bad relationship. 09:10.115 --> 09:22.107 Anyone who's had a very good relationship with their parents or who has had very loving and kind parents will come to feel great love and appreciation for their parents, first and foremost. 09:24.685 --> 09:51.925 And it will really, for a new meditator, it will be quite a surprise that this should be the case because they didn't come with the intention of cultivating love towards their parents directly or for dealing with the issues involved with their parents directly perhaps, but they will be shocked by how deep this relationship really goes. 09:55.077 --> 10:00.843 So it doesn't have to be argued that this relationship is an important one. 10:00.863 --> 10:04.407 It just has to be understood why it's an important one. 10:04.427 --> 10:10.774 From the point of view of a meditator, it is important to argue it with people who have never practiced meditation. 10:10.854 --> 10:21.085 But perhaps the easiest way to argue it is to point to people who have meditated and explain that, listen, when you do take the time to look at your own mind, 10:21.065 --> 10:29.758 you're going to realize how important, how... what a profound effect this relationship has on your mind. 10:31.223 --> 10:41.036 But just briefly to explain the theory behind why this occurs, it has to do with the theory or the fact of us being born as a human being. 10:41.316 --> 10:45.141 To be born as a human being, you can't just arise in a lotus flower. 10:45.762 --> 10:52.230 Apparently in the Buddha's time there were cases of people who just arose spontaneously in a lotus flower. 10:52.771 --> 10:54.032 These are stories or legends. 10:54.573 --> 10:56.636 Whether they're true or not, I don't know. 10:57.437 --> 10:58.598 But what we do see 10:59.658 --> 11:10.309 99 out of 100 times, or 99 million out of 100 million times, or more, is human beings being born in a womb. 11:12.131 --> 11:15.834 And as I said, from an experiential point of view, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. 11:15.955 --> 11:21.700 Why should we be born into the womb of another from the point of view of experience? 11:23.462 --> 11:28.247 So the point of it is, 11:30.775 --> 11:39.126 Our minds and our lives are very much geared towards this reproductive cycle. 11:39.346 --> 11:51.221 This is why shortly after we're born, maybe five or ten years, we begin to have interest in the opposite gender in general, or in an ordinary, for the most part. 11:51.582 --> 11:55.787 Of course, homosexuality and so on is a part of the human state, 11:58.585 --> 12:04.783 For the majority of humanity, there is this heterosexual reproductive desire. 12:05.364 --> 12:13.708 Even for people who are not attracted to the opposite gender, there will often arise a desire to have children. 12:13.688 --> 12:26.067 The male gender will often have desires to protect others and the female will often have desires to develop stability or a nest or a home or so on. 12:26.929 --> 12:36.203 So in this way we behave a lot like animals and the materialist scientist will explain this in terms of genes and so on. 12:38.191 --> 12:43.538 We explain it in terms of habits that are accumulated from life to life. 12:43.558 --> 12:45.200 So our experience cultivates habit. 12:45.801 --> 12:54.533 From an experiential point of view, looking at the human state, you have to say this is quite an intensely contrived state. 12:55.374 --> 12:56.415 It's not at all obvious. 12:56.435 --> 13:05.287 You wouldn't think, well, if you have experience, if you start with just basic raw experience, that somehow you're going to get beings being born inside of each other's bodies. 13:05.787 --> 13:06.949 It's quite a contrived state. 13:08.144 --> 13:20.737 And so our very existence as in this state relies and depends on two people, depends on our parents. 13:22.319 --> 13:27.424 And this is where our mind is at. 13:27.985 --> 13:35.873 If we deny, like if we have parents and they've taken care of us and so on, and we deny that, 13:37.405 --> 13:40.832 We reject that. 13:40.852 --> 13:48.609 We're basically rejecting the very foundation of our very being, this brain, this body. 13:49.391 --> 13:57.388 This is the implication of what it means to inherit them from your parents, is that we have a very strong connection to these people. 13:59.798 --> 14:09.136 So, this is just some ideas of where this comes from, that really our parents are very much a part of who we are. 14:09.176 --> 14:14.747 And we chose really to be born in their womb. 14:14.807 --> 14:22.802 We came to this through a cultivation of habits and relationships in past lives. 14:25.111 --> 14:27.958 When you reject this, you reject harmony and stability. 14:27.998 --> 14:43.035 So what I would like to explain for many of these is whether or not you understand that it's truly wholesome or unwholesome to do either way, to leave behind your parents or to take care of them. 14:43.015 --> 14:53.893 When you live in the world, if you're going to have children of your own, if you want to live in the world and have a stable life, you have to play by the rules. 14:54.935 --> 15:09.158 If we become anarchist and reject societal norms of some sort, or the basic norms of what it means to be a human being, then all that we'll find is chaos and confusion. 15:10.420 --> 15:14.988 And many problems will arise. 15:15.008 --> 15:25.628 So some sort of system of stability has to be appreciated, has to be honored. 15:26.992 --> 15:31.117 the care that we take for our parents is a very important part of this. 15:31.357 --> 15:33.319 It's something that brings stability to the world. 15:33.880 --> 15:39.727 When people stop taking care of their parents, then of course the whole system breaks down. 15:39.787 --> 15:53.583 Parents will begin to neglect their children, or neglect their children's education, will not have any interest in taking care of their children, and the cycle breaks down. 15:53.603 --> 15:54.484 Of course it goes on. 15:54.464 --> 16:19.948 either in both ways our future when when we have children they will not think to take care of us having seen the the the example that we've set for them and so on and society becomes quite upset of course then we we stop respecting elders in general and we stop expecting respecting experience nowadays people will often think it's intelligence that is more important and will 16:19.928 --> 16:23.543 laugh at our parents and their old ways and so on. 16:24.326 --> 16:28.825 And it's only when we get old ourselves that we realize how important wisdom and experience really are. 16:31.977 --> 16:44.097 So care for your parents is, not only is it a very wholesome thing to do, to take care of them, to be grateful, but it's also something that leads to stability and harmony in the world. 16:44.438 --> 16:46.862 On top of that, there is something to be said about gratitude. 16:47.323 --> 16:51.029 The argument I've had before is people don't understand this word gratitude. 16:51.890 --> 16:54.795 They don't understand why they should be grateful towards others. 16:55.957 --> 17:01.846 Gratitude is, and in this sense you have to just understand what gratitude is like. 17:02.588 --> 17:03.910 Gratitude and ingratitude. 17:04.771 --> 17:07.476 Ingratitude is a shriveling mind state. 17:07.536 --> 17:13.525 It's a mind state full of anger and aversion and discord. 17:14.667 --> 17:17.712 And it's a selfish mind state. 17:19.109 --> 17:26.511 Because you have this logical one-to-one relationship where someone has done something for you and you have the opportunity to do something for them. 17:28.096 --> 17:31.887 When you don't do that, you create friction. 17:32.137 --> 17:34.783 You create tension and you create suffering in your mind. 17:34.823 --> 17:41.237 This is something that you have to see, but meditators become more and more grateful as they practice. 17:42.199 --> 17:51.158 And so if we have gained whatever benefit we have gained from other people, we tend to be very keen to pay it back, even if the other people are... 17:52.589 --> 18:04.671 are in general mean and evil people, even in that case we think more and more about the good that they may have done for us, and less and less about the bad things that they've done. 18:04.691 --> 18:09.400 So if your parents have done bad things for you, the meditator will still find themselves 18:09.380 --> 18:15.786 wishing and having great love towards their parents for whatever good that they did do for them. 18:16.367 --> 18:19.470 This is how the meditator's mind starts to incline. 18:19.510 --> 18:38.728 It inclines away from revengeful and reactionary mind states and it inclines towards grateful and loving mind states. 18:40.632 --> 18:58.945 So this is actually quite important for meditators and it's important for people thinking to come to practice meditation who should realize that starting with their parents they should clear up all their relationships, they should create a stable life where they are, at least in terms of 19:00.595 --> 19:03.398 settling all their affairs, all of their relationships. 19:03.418 --> 19:07.083 So if you have a problem with your parents, don't run away to come meditate. 19:07.103 --> 19:07.724 It won't work. 19:08.524 --> 19:10.507 Many meditators run away for that reason. 19:12.750 --> 19:18.296 Settle your affairs first and then come and meditate so that it won't bother you when you're practicing meditation. 19:18.316 --> 19:20.719 Now, there is one sort of exception. 19:20.739 --> 19:25.725 I mean, monks are not expected to have direct contact with their parents. 19:27.578 --> 19:32.755 We're not expected to take care of them when they're old or so on. 19:33.417 --> 19:36.547 We're not expected to have much relationship with anyone at all. 19:37.249 --> 19:41.402 A monk can go off in the forest and leave the world behind. 19:44.977 --> 19:59.886 But even as monastics, we shouldn't take this too literally and think that if our parents are in need, we should avoid contact with such worldly people, even if our parents are worldly sorts of people. 20:00.607 --> 20:04.875 The Buddha was quite clear on this, and it's a good example of how 20:06.188 --> 20:15.808 Rather than seeing relationships as an obstacle to our practice, seeing them as our practice, monks are allowed to take care of their parents. 20:15.908 --> 20:24.366 There was a monk who was praised by the Buddha for taking care of his parents. 20:25.730 --> 20:27.554 So, anyway, this is the first one. 20:27.574 --> 20:36.654 Taking care of your parents, of course, what needs to be said, the core of this blessing, this is just explaining why it's important, but the core of the blessing, what does it mean to take care of your parents? 20:37.275 --> 20:45.072 It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to give them medicine and you have to bathe them and clothe them or however, when they get older or at any time. 20:45.052 --> 20:48.417 The Buddha said that in this way you can never pay back your parents. 20:49.057 --> 21:09.625 If your parents have, even to the extent that your parents have given birth to you, to the extent that your mother carried you in her womb for nine months and your father was protecting her during that time and the love that they gave and the years and years that they put into raising you. 21:12.828 --> 21:15.752 As the Buddha said, it's very difficult to pay back such parents. 21:16.453 --> 21:36.540 Of course, if your father ran away after your mother got pregnant and your mother had no interest in you and abandoned you when you were born, it's a little more difficult to see, even though we understand this to be karmic and it still points to the strength of the relationships. 21:39.558 --> 21:45.209 The Buddha said the only way to clear this up is with the Dhamma. 21:45.229 --> 22:01.600 Even if your parents are mean and evil people, if you think that your parents have done nothing for you or so little or have done so much bad to you that the good that they've done is totally outweighed. 22:03.858 --> 22:11.548 Even still the teaching applies to administer to them with the Dhamma. 22:11.568 --> 22:31.013 If you still have a relationship with your parents or have an abusive relationship with anyone, a bad relationship, or if you have a good relationship, if your parents have done great things and you feel somehow you want to pay them back, somehow you want to show your gratitude or you have the chance, the gratitude that we should show is in the Dhamma. 22:30.993 --> 22:42.131 That we should practice and we should teach and we should set an example and we should encourage them in the practice. 22:42.351 --> 22:47.941 We should be a support for them to find peace, happiness and freedom from suffering. 22:48.361 --> 22:49.884 And not just in a material sense. 22:50.605 --> 22:51.787 Of course this goes with anyone. 22:51.827 --> 22:55.633 Happiness in a material sense can easily be bought 22:55.613 --> 22:57.916 can easily be found in the world at least for some time. 22:58.798 --> 23:01.221 But happiness in the spiritual sense takes much more. 23:01.882 --> 23:12.897 It takes wisdom, it takes mindfulness, it takes diligence, it takes patience, it takes contentment, it takes many qualities that can only be gained through the practice of meditation. 23:12.958 --> 23:21.790 So the best thing you can do for anyone, especially your parents, is to encourage them in the practice of meditation or help support them in the practice. 23:22.850 --> 23:23.931 Okay, so this is the first one. 23:25.392 --> 23:33.720 Then we have in terms of, we'll just lump them all together because here we have in terms of one's spouse and children and relatives. 23:34.561 --> 23:45.611 And the commentary even goes further and says this is even in terms of our employees and our employers and really everyone that we have relationships with. 23:46.492 --> 23:52.738 It could be our fellow employees, it could be fellow students if we're studying, it could be fellow monastics in the world. 23:53.798 --> 23:56.281 this harmony in the community. 23:58.303 --> 24:05.031 And on the one hand, many of these, as I said, are not directly related to meditation. 24:05.091 --> 24:18.526 But if you look at it another way, these are really an indication of the mental development of the individuals. 24:21.089 --> 24:22.270 If someone doesn't have 24:23.617 --> 24:29.593 good relationships with other people then you might want to 24:31.193 --> 24:35.659 assume that that person has not a very good meditation practice. 24:36.400 --> 24:55.446 If someone is constantly causing friction and strife in their family, arguing and bickering and backbiting and so on, and jealous and stingy and so on, 24:57.788 --> 25:14.632 with their relatives, with husbands who fight with wives, and parents who fight with children, and employers who scold or treat their employees poorly, employees who cheat their employers, friends who backbite and gossip and so on. 25:16.555 --> 25:21.282 All of this is because of a lack of mental development. 25:23.422 --> 25:28.789 The important point I want to make is that we can't separate our meditation practice from our life. 25:28.809 --> 25:37.821 A beginner meditator will often want to discard the whole world and give up all of their relationships. 25:37.841 --> 25:42.608 So when a person comes to bother them in their meditation, they might even yell at them or scold them. 25:43.709 --> 25:45.632 I'm trying to meditate, why are you bothering me? 25:48.987 --> 25:58.758 And this can go on for some time until they finally realize that relationships, as I said, should not be seen as an obstacle to the practice. 25:58.798 --> 26:00.200 They should be seen as the practice. 26:00.220 --> 26:02.983 When someone comes to you, the Buddha was clear about this. 26:03.043 --> 26:09.490 He said, when people come to me, I think, what can I do to teach them that will make them go away the quickest? 26:11.232 --> 26:13.936 And so when we hear this, we think, well, just tell them to go away, no? 26:16.158 --> 26:17.880 But it actually doesn't work that way. 26:19.261 --> 26:21.247 We've all tried that. 26:21.267 --> 26:24.877 As meditators, we've all tried to push people away. 26:25.559 --> 26:26.662 And we think, well, that's the way. 26:26.722 --> 26:29.450 Get rid of them. 26:29.530 --> 26:34.063 Tell them, look, if you don't like meditating, I don't want to have anything to do with you. 26:37.823 --> 26:39.346 But relationships have to be solved. 26:39.927 --> 26:49.328 The fact that there is a relationship with parents or relatives or anyone is because of some past karma that we have with them. 26:50.731 --> 26:56.102 So while it might be possible for us to go off in the forest and send loving kindness and never be bothered by anyone, 26:58.293 --> 27:13.028 If it happens that in the course of our quest to find such peace, we are bothered by other people, then we have to treat them with dignity and respect and give them the time and the support that they need. 27:13.088 --> 27:14.952 Otherwise, they'll never leave us. 27:16.130 --> 27:18.514 I've even tried this with evil people. 27:18.674 --> 27:24.623 There was one monk who was always causing problems and I tried to just shut him off and it just fueled the fire. 27:26.325 --> 27:36.461 It's like in India when you go to Bodh Gaya or you go to these Buddhist places and the beggars come and the worst thing you can do besides giving them something is to say no. 27:38.063 --> 27:42.610 If you give something you get a thousand of them swarming you and then you're in real trouble. 27:44.125 --> 27:47.491 But if you say, no, no, no, then they continue to pester you. 27:48.032 --> 27:49.054 This is the way of people. 27:49.094 --> 27:52.520 It's only by being patient and kind. 27:53.321 --> 28:01.936 So in India, the example of India is a good one, I think, because there's such greed in these, even these little kids who are actually not, they're not without. 28:01.996 --> 28:05.222 They're going to school and they have a little bit of money, I think. 28:05.202 --> 28:10.711 But they found how easy it is to get money from dumb tourists. 28:11.813 --> 28:14.197 So they come up and they ask you for money and money. 28:15.599 --> 28:16.962 And many people just say, no, no, no. 28:16.982 --> 28:17.723 And they never stop. 28:17.963 --> 28:18.885 Because for them it's a game. 28:20.548 --> 28:22.611 Or else it's serious and they really do need the money. 28:22.691 --> 28:26.177 But what I found was that when you just give them a big hug and say, what's your name? 28:26.558 --> 28:28.020 Learn a little bit of their language even. 28:29.198 --> 28:30.981 And suddenly they're a totally different person. 28:32.043 --> 28:35.149 And they say what their name is and you ask them what they're studying in school and so on. 28:35.710 --> 28:36.451 And then they go away. 28:38.094 --> 28:41.040 Like you untied the knot and there was never a problem in this respect. 28:41.060 --> 28:47.211 It's kind of like they talk about aikido or jiu-jitsu or these kind of ways of redirecting energy. 28:47.993 --> 28:52.962 Anyway, relationships are an important part of our practice. 28:53.735 --> 28:55.678 And we all have them even as monastics. 28:55.978 --> 28:59.222 At the very least, we have a relationship with our teachers or with our students. 29:00.144 --> 29:03.128 And these relationships are very important and should be treated as such. 29:04.269 --> 29:06.372 No one is an island. 29:07.573 --> 29:12.140 Buddha told us to be an island to ourselves, but he also said, associate with wise people. 29:13.361 --> 29:22.273 So part of being an island unto yourself is to respecting and assisting other people to do the same. 29:23.755 --> 29:26.479 So we have this supporting of our parents. 29:26.539 --> 29:37.874 Now we have two more here that can be associated and that is not having crooked work and not doing blameable deeds. 29:37.995 --> 29:40.077 The first one has to do more with livelihood. 29:40.137 --> 29:42.000 The second one has to do with our deeds. 29:43.499 --> 29:46.984 And so these are generally used as teachings for lay people. 29:47.445 --> 29:54.015 But since we're in a meditation center and we're dealing mainly with meditators, we should talk about them in terms of meditation. 29:56.279 --> 29:59.644 Obviously we have to give up bad deeds, not killing, not stealing. 29:59.664 --> 30:00.926 We have to give up not cheating. 30:01.627 --> 30:10.941 The Anakula Chakamanta refers to not cheating, not acting in a... 30:12.980 --> 30:23.023 a tricky way not to cheat other people, not to be crooked. 30:25.231 --> 30:26.353 But we do this with everything. 30:26.413 --> 30:30.259 As I was saying before, we will do this with all of our things. 30:30.320 --> 30:32.443 Even as monastics, we do this. 30:32.463 --> 30:40.457 We have all these rules that monastics have to keep, and we'll find a thousand and one ways to break the rules, to not break the rules, but to somehow get around them. 30:40.477 --> 30:51.475 I had a conversation with a monk, and the argument were, and he was quite with me, we were talking about cheese, how monastics have found a way to say that cheese is allowable in the evening. 30:51.455 --> 31:00.052 It's like stepping from one to two to three and eventually you get to the fact that cheese is allowable because somehow it could be allowable as a medicine. 31:00.072 --> 31:03.600 It really can't, but somehow there's a way you could think that it could. 31:03.660 --> 31:12.197 But then rather than as a medicine, once it's allowable, then every night they're eating cheese and chocolate because they find a way to say that chocolate's allowable. 31:13.662 --> 31:17.288 We do this with, as I said, with robes or clothing and so on. 31:17.869 --> 31:19.271 We do this with lodging even. 31:19.732 --> 31:22.857 We come to say that we need this kind of lodging or that kind of lodging. 31:26.082 --> 31:30.089 With all of these things, the Buddha said contentment is the most important. 31:30.530 --> 31:37.341 Rather than trying to accumulate or trying to find some perfect situation, we should be content with what we have. 31:37.321 --> 31:42.581 Our actions should not be to find anything or even to keep anything. 31:43.584 --> 31:47.820 Our actions should be to maintain 31:49.117 --> 31:51.201 a state of clarity of mind. 31:51.241 --> 31:56.171 So we should always be wary of what's going to take us out of this state of clarity. 31:56.191 --> 31:58.735 Clinging to anything will do that, clinging even to good things. 32:00.459 --> 32:11.580 If we cling to, for example, cling to staying in a cave, if you want to stay in the cave and that's somehow important to you, then it will cause, it will be an obstacle in your practice. 32:11.560 --> 32:34.362 If you cling to staying in a room, you say monks shouldn't stay, or real meditators shouldn't stay in rooms, and then you come here and you're in the forest and you think, oh, now I get to stay in the cave monastery, and then we put you in a room with a bathroom and tiles and so on, lights and windows and curtains and so on, and then you think this isn't appropriate. 32:35.185 --> 32:39.252 Buddha said, be content with whatever you have, whatever it is, even to that extent. 32:39.933 --> 32:41.415 Of course, it usually goes the other way. 32:41.455 --> 32:50.910 People will expect to have, they will think, okay, I'm coming to the forest, but I need a washroom, I need lights, I need a fan, I need a mosquito net, and so on. 32:51.972 --> 32:58.763 We practice meditation, but we think, well, you need a roof, and you need a mosquito net, and so on. 33:00.076 --> 33:03.962 And so when you don't have these, you have a great problem. 33:05.204 --> 33:15.359 I think it was a good test for us to try to do walking meditation in the rain because it does fight against many of these things, the idea that you can't do meditation in the rain. 33:16.340 --> 33:19.485 There's apparently a monk who even did meditation in the snow. 33:19.465 --> 33:24.112 So the point is that all of our actions should be clear and should be strained. 33:24.473 --> 33:28.799 That we should never even use speech to try to get something from other people. 33:28.839 --> 33:46.806 We should be very clear that if we truly need something and it's appropriate and it's something that is blameless and something that is according to the Buddha's design, Buddha's teaching, 33:48.338 --> 33:54.611 then we should say openly and clearly about it, talk openly and clearly about it. 33:54.631 --> 33:55.552 I mean, it's just an example. 33:55.633 --> 34:02.446 But the real point from a meditator point of view is that every moment, every action we do should be clear. 34:02.827 --> 34:05.873 When we step with the foot, we should be very careful. 34:05.933 --> 34:10.903 My teacher said just like when someone is rocking a crib, 34:11.913 --> 34:22.750 In the old days they would have a string, they would sit in a chair and they would pull this string and they would have to be very careful to pull the string or the hammock maybe it was. 34:24.080 --> 34:26.564 to pull it in an even fashion. 34:27.426 --> 34:32.114 If their mind slipped for just a moment, then they would lose it and the baby would wake up. 34:32.935 --> 34:34.218 And it's the same with our meditation. 34:34.258 --> 34:44.215 If even for a moment our mind slips away, we'll lose the focus on the foot and the mind will wander and start to dream in the mansion and take us away in fantasy. 34:45.427 --> 34:47.390 When we're sitting in meditation, it's even worse. 34:47.550 --> 34:53.217 The mind is, as we learned in the Dhammapada, the mind is flighty, lighting on whatever it desires. 34:54.219 --> 34:57.423 And so to guard this mind is something very difficult. 34:57.843 --> 35:04.132 In the Tao Te Ching they talk about this, how a master has to act like a soldier in enemy territory. 35:04.672 --> 35:06.235 So you should always be on your guard. 35:07.076 --> 35:14.185 The enemies are inside, the defilements, and the mind will chase after them, liking or disliking or so on. 35:16.122 --> 35:18.265 So this gets us through many of these. 35:19.026 --> 35:21.729 Then we have dana and dhammacharya. 35:23.532 --> 35:24.293 Just the last two. 35:24.313 --> 35:26.075 So dana is charity. 35:27.257 --> 35:32.744 Charity is another one that seems only indirectly related to meditation. 35:34.126 --> 35:40.594 And indeed, during the time that you practice meditation, you're not expected to give charity. 35:42.110 --> 35:48.238 as human beings, whether it be monastic, meditator or lay people. 35:49.602 --> 35:50.884 is a very important part. 35:50.924 --> 35:57.856 And this leads back into what I said before about relationships, how you can't just avoid them, you can't just give them up. 35:59.058 --> 36:04.447 Part of the dealing, working out the relationship is the dana, the charity that we have. 36:05.449 --> 36:07.232 This is what I was talking about earlier. 36:07.532 --> 36:10.417 I wrote a web blog post about the free lunch idea. 36:11.820 --> 36:14.344 You don't give thinking, I have to give so much. 36:16.130 --> 36:17.452 per day. 36:17.472 --> 36:20.615 This is in terms of material or in terms of spiritual. 36:21.216 --> 36:24.099 You don't think, I have to give a talk every day or so on. 36:24.159 --> 36:29.305 I have to teach people, teach everyone who comes to the monastery. 36:30.847 --> 36:33.610 Obviously, if I did that, many people would run away. 36:33.630 --> 36:41.399 If they came up, and everyone who came, I had to find the need to teach them, give them long discourses and so on. 36:41.439 --> 36:42.981 Many of them would run away. 36:44.311 --> 36:47.899 So it's obvious from a point of view of teaching that you only give where it's necessary. 36:47.919 --> 36:57.500 But people will often think that in terms of material support and in terms of how you are charitable and generous that somehow there is an obligation. 36:58.543 --> 37:00.126 And so we have a real difficult time 37:00.106 --> 37:03.010 figuring this out in Buddhist sense. 37:03.050 --> 37:04.291 People have discussed this. 37:04.532 --> 37:07.416 When you hold a meditation course, should you charge for it? 37:07.516 --> 37:08.817 Is it okay to charge for it? 37:08.898 --> 37:11.181 And there's so many views about this. 37:11.581 --> 37:13.904 Would you charge for the lodging and not for the teaching? 37:13.944 --> 37:19.171 Should you charge for the lodging and ask for a donation for the teaching or just ask for a donation for the whole thing? 37:19.211 --> 37:20.713 Or how are you going to 37:20.693 --> 37:23.762 conduct meditation courses if you don't ask for donations. 37:24.645 --> 37:27.834 But it really is all beside the point. 37:28.135 --> 37:31.986 Dāna is giving when the opportunity arises to give. 37:33.451 --> 37:35.314 when it is appropriate to give. 37:36.255 --> 37:44.987 See, an arahant doesn't do good deeds in the sense that they don't do deeds with the expectation of creating something. 37:45.027 --> 37:53.799 They don't do deeds that are for the purpose of having a good result for themselves, thinking this will make me happy or this will make someone else happy. 37:53.819 --> 37:55.080 They do it because it's appropriate. 37:55.801 --> 38:00.808 When someone comes and asks an arahant for something, if it's appropriate, they'll give it without hesitation. 38:02.105 --> 38:05.348 Often even if it means they are without, they will have to go without. 38:07.353 --> 38:08.935 So this is the idea of the free lunch. 38:09.095 --> 38:11.397 You give someone a free lunch because they are hungry. 38:11.477 --> 38:14.380 You don't give it thinking, well then they'll give me something back. 38:15.201 --> 38:17.724 You don't even give it thinking, well they will go and help someone else. 38:18.165 --> 38:19.786 You give because they need a lunch. 38:20.627 --> 38:28.035 When someone comes to the monastery and wants teaching, we don't think, well then this person will have to give some sort of donation to us. 38:28.055 --> 38:31.519 Even to that extent, that is inappropriate to think. 38:31.539 --> 38:33.681 We teach them because this person has come to teach. 38:35.399 --> 38:39.045 And it may be that our support comes from totally a different place. 38:39.085 --> 38:43.332 It may even be that people who support the monastery have never gained any teaching from us. 38:44.253 --> 38:49.382 When we go on alms round, the people in the village, some of them have never come to listen to Dhamma from us. 38:50.724 --> 38:53.408 But they know that we need food, so they give us a free lunch. 38:54.856 --> 38:57.321 And the people who come here to practice, we may never see them again. 38:57.401 --> 39:08.061 Some people come from other countries and they come and they use our facilities, they eat our food, they use the electricity, they use the rooms, they take the practice, they get everything. 39:08.862 --> 39:12.609 And they might go home and have supported the monastery with nothing. 39:14.673 --> 39:18.400 And I've heard people rail on about how awful this is, how ungrateful it is. 39:21.198 --> 39:23.862 I don't think it's not necessarily ungrateful at all. 39:24.584 --> 39:25.806 They came for a purpose. 39:25.866 --> 39:30.694 They came because they were hungry, because they needed something spiritually. 39:31.555 --> 39:33.178 And we gave it because they needed it. 39:34.019 --> 39:40.590 We're not looking for X number of dollars a month or so. 39:41.853 --> 39:45.398 When we need support, there is the idea that people will give it. 39:45.619 --> 39:49.805 People who understand this concept of dana will give it because it's needed. 39:49.845 --> 39:53.129 Once it's no longer needed, we don't expect everyone else to give as well. 39:53.630 --> 39:59.659 If one person gives us what we need to survive for a month, we don't expect everyone else to give as well. 40:01.360 --> 40:06.716 These are examples of this concept of dana that I think is very important to understand. 40:06.756 --> 40:14.138 Dana is giving when it's appropriate to give, when the need arises and when you perceive a need. 40:17.071 --> 40:18.053 Why this is important? 40:18.113 --> 40:21.139 Well, for obvious reasons, it's important for any system. 40:21.921 --> 40:25.288 If you take the meditation center as an example, it's incredibly important. 40:26.069 --> 40:36.210 The meditation center is only existing because of the support, because people want the teachings first, because there are people who can give the teachings. 40:37.507 --> 40:46.339 If people wanted the teachings but there was no one here to give, no one to give the Dhamma Dhamma, then there would be no teachings. 40:46.540 --> 41:01.000 But even if there is a teacher but there is no one else supporting the meditators or supporting the center, even anyone working in the center, even people coming to sweep the center or coming to clean or coming to build or coming to repair, coming to fix. 41:02.127 --> 41:07.716 then there's no way the teacher can, if I were here alone, there's no way I could run a center with international meditators. 41:08.978 --> 41:26.114 And on top of that, if there were no one supporting the monastery financially, giving support for electricity, support for construction and repairs and all of the many expenses that we have, then it couldn't run as well. 41:26.715 --> 41:37.365 So the first very good reason to give dana is it's an important part of creating this stability, which will be a very important part of our meditation. 41:40.450 --> 41:45.075 Another very good reason, of course, that we all know is that dana makes you happy. 41:45.115 --> 41:50.442 Dana, charity, brings you peace of mind. 41:50.462 --> 41:54.587 One of the reasons it does that is because you know that you've done something appropriate. 41:55.027 --> 42:04.798 You know that you've come one step closer to living the life of an arahant. 42:04.818 --> 42:07.842 When there was need, you filled that need. 42:09.307 --> 42:10.669 This creates peace in the mind. 42:11.229 --> 42:14.473 It creates stability in the mind and it's a great support for meditation. 42:14.533 --> 42:17.356 It removes the greed in the mind. 42:18.918 --> 42:21.380 So it brings happiness to know that we've done a good thing. 42:24.244 --> 42:27.247 And it changes our habits, our ordinary habits of wanting. 42:27.267 --> 42:29.429 It changes our attention. 42:29.469 --> 42:31.051 Our attention is normally on getting. 42:32.393 --> 42:33.594 For all of us this is the case. 42:33.654 --> 42:34.935 It's how we were born. 42:34.975 --> 42:39.060 We were born looking for our mother's milk, looking to get something. 42:40.627 --> 42:42.433 And constantly, constantly getting. 42:43.336 --> 42:45.283 If you think back over your life, what was it all about? 42:45.303 --> 42:46.005 It was about getting. 42:47.189 --> 42:49.236 Even when we came to meditate, it was about getting something. 42:51.443 --> 43:11.022 And it's only when we break away from that, when we cultivate the other side, that we can overcome this need to feed ourselves, to feed our desires and to accumulate or to cultivate craving and attachments. 43:13.077 --> 43:15.902 So dana is very important from a meditative point of view. 43:15.922 --> 43:24.197 If you haven't done good deeds for others, this is what we learned earlier, if you haven't done good deeds for others, very difficult to practice meditation. 43:25.699 --> 43:32.431 It's very important for us to support each other and to help each other and to give generously in whatever way. 43:32.892 --> 43:37.600 When there is the need, we should all be ready to fill that need. 43:40.870 --> 43:42.652 And the final one is Dhammacharya. 43:43.473 --> 43:59.571 Now Dhammacharya is quite broad, but if you look in the context, it's probably a little more directed towards lay people, reminding lay people to live a righteous life and so on. 43:59.591 --> 44:03.555 But certainly this is only an excuse to use this word. 44:03.575 --> 44:07.079 The Buddha certainly wasn't talking only about lay people being righteous. 44:07.459 --> 44:09.882 It may have been directed towards the lay people in the audience, 44:11.330 --> 44:14.374 But the word itself is, of course, a very powerful word. 44:15.435 --> 44:18.038 Dhammacharya, living or faring by the Dhamma. 44:18.979 --> 44:26.929 And this, my teacher would always say, this relates to the Dhammavihari Sutta, one who lives by the Dhamma. 44:26.949 --> 44:32.496 If you know that discourse, I've often given the talk that my teacher would always give about the five kinds of people. 44:33.637 --> 44:36.561 Dhammacharya is one who practices... 44:37.705 --> 44:39.428 mental development. 44:39.668 --> 44:41.712 This is one we call one who lives by the Dhamma. 44:41.992 --> 44:44.176 Because Dhamma means reality. 44:44.196 --> 44:45.718 So it doesn't only mean righteousness. 44:46.680 --> 44:47.762 Dhamma means reality. 44:47.802 --> 44:54.933 It's one who lives according to reality and whose mind is in line with reality, whose actions are in line with reality. 44:56.416 --> 45:00.042 This is the interesting thing about the Buddha's teaching that it's not a belief or a faith. 45:01.144 --> 45:04.489 It's just doing things that make sense. 45:06.157 --> 45:12.915 The theory behind Buddhism is that we cause suffering because we think it's going to bring us happiness. 45:13.457 --> 45:19.935 The theory is that we would never cause suffering if we understood that our deeds were causing suffering. 45:19.955 --> 45:21.178 You could never do it. 45:21.158 --> 45:24.442 It's impossible for the mind to knowingly cause itself suffering. 45:25.363 --> 45:26.584 It's intrinsically impossible. 45:27.325 --> 45:30.989 This is something that people will argue with this. 45:31.790 --> 45:42.583 But when they come to practice meditation, they'll see that when you truly understand moment-to-moment reality as it's occurring, you can never give rise to unwholesome mind states. 45:44.225 --> 45:45.747 You can never give rise to suffering. 45:45.867 --> 45:48.550 You can never do something because you know that it's going to cause you suffering. 45:50.015 --> 46:01.351 You know the object for what it is and you know the causes and the effects that lead to suffering and that lead to happiness. 46:01.431 --> 46:11.685 Once you understand it, it would be illogical for the mind to do something that was against its own best wishes or its own benefits. 46:13.522 --> 46:15.865 So living by the Dhamma means living according to reality. 46:15.886 --> 46:16.506 That's it really. 46:16.767 --> 46:23.276 Once you live according to reality, you're also an intrinsically or inherently good person. 46:24.358 --> 46:27.643 You don't need to try to be good once you understand reality. 46:28.284 --> 46:35.074 Buddha said ignorance is the only reason why we give rise to unwholesome mind state. 46:35.054 --> 46:40.691 So all we have to do to be free from unwholesome mind states and therefore suffering is to get rid of delusion. 46:41.774 --> 46:43.720 This is the importance of our practice here. 46:44.422 --> 46:47.612 This is really talking about the practice of meditation. 46:48.858 --> 46:55.409 The only way to live a righteous life, a truly righteous life, is to live according to reality. 46:56.230 --> 46:58.954 And the only way to live according to reality is to understand reality. 46:59.215 --> 47:02.701 The only way to understand reality is to see reality. 47:02.941 --> 47:04.664 The only way to see reality is to look. 47:05.746 --> 47:07.048 If you don't look, you won't see. 47:07.088 --> 47:08.470 If you don't see, you won't know. 47:09.496 --> 47:13.843 So vipassana meditation, insight meditation, is the looking. 47:13.903 --> 47:26.745 The four foundations of mindfulness are our reality that we're looking at so we can see clearly reality, so we can give up our greed, our anger and our delusion and be free from suffering. 47:27.721 --> 47:37.862 Okay, so that is a fairly lengthy talk about these topics because it's longer because it takes time to explain how they relate to meditation. 47:37.922 --> 47:42.051 So thank you all for being patient and now we'll continue with our meditation.