Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we go on to verse number 46, which reads,
Which means, having known this body, having known this body, by the simile of or as similar to a bubble.
You who see, who penetrate, or who come to know perfectly, or penetrate into the higher knowledge, awaken to the higher knowledge.
of the body being in nature like a mirage.
Abhisambhudana, you who awaken, who have become awakened to the knowledge that the body is like a mirage,
Having cut the flowers or the flower-tipped sensual pleasures of Mara, go to where the king of death cannot see you.
So this is an exhortation to someone who has seen the body as being like a bubble and come to realize its nature of being like a mirage The instruction is having cut through the flowers of Mara Those things which are tipped with flowers or look like flowers are enticing like flowers
Go to where the king of death or Mara cannot see you.
Go to Nibbana.
So this is another short story.
There's not much of a story to it, but it's instructive and it's an example of how realizations in meditation can occur.
The story goes that there was a monk who became desirous of practicing meditation and so he went to the Buddha and got a meditation subject and went off into the forest and practiced ardently.
But no matter how much he practiced, he felt like he wasn't getting anywhere.
He didn't get any higher realizations or wasn't able to penetrate to the truth.
So after some time he got kind of frustrated and decided that he would head back to have the Buddha clarify the kamatana, clarify the meditation for him, to give him a better explanation or to help him see where he was stuck.
But on the way back on the road, off in the distance he saw a mirage, because in the heat it was the summer months, and off in the distance he saw something shimmering that looked like there was maybe a city there, or it doesn't say what, but some kind of mirage he saw that looked like this or looked like that, and as he got closer he realized it disappeared.
And because he had just come out of meditation, because he was so focused on the contemplation of the body and maybe he was contemplating on the loathsomeness of the body or something, that he immediately
picked up this idea and realized that the body is just like this mirage.
That really is all it is.
This body which we take to be solid and we take to be ours and an entity and something that we carry with us wherever we go is actually just a mirage.
Actually it's something that arises and ceases and it's of the same nature as a mirage.
When you have experiences like seeing and hearing and so on, you see it as
Or you identify it as being an entity when in fact it is just experiences.
And so he thought about this and it really kind of hit him and gave him some insight.
It helped him to let go and it brought him deeper in his meditation or more intent on his meditation.
And so he kept walking and as he was walking suddenly a storm cloud came up and it started raining heavily.
So he went quickly under a tree and as he was sitting under this tree, he's meditating on the body and meditating on this idea of the body being like a mirage and watching the experiences arise and cease and parts of the body arise and cease.
he had his eyes open, he was looking out and he saw the rain falling on the ground and he saw it splashing and hitting the ground and hitting the puddles and making like a bubble and rising and ceasing, rising and ceasing, going and going.
And he thought to himself, well the body is just like this, this being, this atabava, this being is just like a bubble, or just like a series of bubbles.
It rises for a brief moment and then disappears.
It comes into being only to vanish.
It's not permanent.
And so again he had this deep sort of, not exactly a realization, but this
awakening of some sort to the truth of these things and realizing that this was actually what he was faced with.
The body and this being of his wasn't the solid entity that he thought it was.
And the story goes that the Buddha realized this and taught him this verse, somehow projected himself from a distance to this monk and spoke a verse to him or somehow connected telepathically or whatever.
The point is there was this teaching and the Buddha said that's correct and he said now go the next step and cut off your attachment to the body and so on, attachment to sensuality and go beyond death, go to where the king of death cannot find you and he spoke this verse.
So here's one that you don't have to stretch or twist to see how it fits with our meditation, but it's maybe a good chance, a good opportunity to help to explain or to explain the nature of Buddhist meditation and our goals and our aims and where we should be heading and why it's important to see these things.
So the realizations that this monk had are not really vipassana insight because they're still dealing with concepts or comparisons.
But they're the kind of concepts that lead one to cultivate or to develop
this kind of sense of urgency and desire for for for a greater and more intense practice when one realizes these things they can be a real cause for insight because or a stimulant for stimulus for the arising of insight because of how they direct the mind
The first stage in meditation is to see what really exists or to begin to understand what we're dealing with, what things make up ultimate reality.
So as long as we take the body as an entity and we take the mind as an entity,
We're not able to, these are not things that you're able to change, not things you're able to understand.
It blocks any further kind of understanding because the body is, well, it's just the body.
And the mind is just the mind.
Anger is just anger.
Greed is just greed.
Attachment is just attachment.
Without really understanding the process of what's occurring when we say body, when we say mind.
So well, this is often the case with meditators that they'll go off into the forest or go to a meditation center and feel frustrated that they're not getting anywhere.
They're just seeing everything is changing and they're seeing it's unsatisfying and they're seeing that they can't control it.
And they feel like something's wrong with their meditation because they're not really able to control the experience.
They're not able to control their mind.
And they're not experiencing anything super mundane.
They feel like everything is mundane, boring, unattractive and so on.
When actually this is what we're aiming for.
So these kind of realizations that this monk had when he was on the road kind of adjusted his understanding of what he was looking at.
He had been spending all this time, only someone who had been spending all this time looking at ultimate reality would have these kind of observations.
Of course, a person who sees a mirage doesn't normally think right away, wow, the body is just like that mirage.
But he had really missed this about his practice, that really this is what he was seeing, what he had been seeing all along.
Because he had been so intent on the body and watched it rising and ceasing, and he didn't realize how important this was, but he would be seeing parts of the body disappearing, where he would be sitting and suddenly he wasn't sure if his arms were there or his legs were there.
He would be having...
You know, seeing the pain arise and cease, seeing the feelings arise and cease.
If you're watching the stomach, watching the breath, the stomach is arising and falling and the arising or the rising arises and ceases.
The falling arises and ceases.
And they don't come from anywhere and they don't go to anywhere.
They arise out of nothing and they disappear back into nothing.
But of course you wouldn't see this without this kind of instructive realization, which you'd normally get from a teacher who would explain to you, you see this is the truth.
What you're seeing is that everything arises and ceases.
and so this was kind of like a teacher to him to remind him that this is the nature of things and he saw this mirage he thought well you know the body was acting in just this way I would think the stomach was there rising and falling but then suddenly it would disappear there would be no rising no falling or I would see it fall apart and disappear and there would be the experience of sitting and then even that would disappear or my hands would disappear or my legs would disappear
and watching the mind to these mind states where you have emotions that you think are somehow existing that somehow are entities that maybe boil up and then go back down or something but they're always in there and then you see that actually this isn't the case you'll notice them and you'll say to yourself angry, angry or frustrated or bored or wanting, wanting or so on you see it crumble and it disappear and you realize that this is just like a mirage
So when he saw this mirage, he thought, well, this is exactly how the body and the mind were acting.
And he starts to rethink whether he really did get, maybe he really was getting something out of the meditation.
He realized that this is what's actually most important in the meditation, to see these things.
Why?
We'll get to why that is.
But he was seeing that this is the truth.
Well, the first most important reason is that he's seeing the truth.
But there's ramification.
There's benefits to that.
The second thing he thought about the bubble as well, just really more of the same, but it comes back to, well, first of all, seeing that the body is like a bubble in that it arises and ceases.
So this is how this commentary frames this, that he was seeing his whole existence.
It seems that this is what they're implying is that he saw his whole existence.
like a bubble something that is temporary and this is one way of understanding impermanence the most gross way of understanding impermanence is that we're not going to last it's a very important realization that this body is eventually going to lie on the ground before long this body will lie flat on the ground like a useless burnt log
And this kind of thing, of course, creates a great sense of urgency, realizing that everything that we're holding on to, we have to let go of.
All of the things that we like, all of the things that we cling to as special as me, as mine, as our, as me, as mine, as ourself, or ours, our possessions, all of these things we have to give up.
Even our body won't go with us when we die.
But it gets a little bit deeper than that.
And actually in terms of meditation, he would have been seeing quite a bit deeper than that.
So, you know, the next step is seeing that now we're a certain age and, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, we were a different age.
Maybe when we're old, we see how we were younger, how we were
When we were younger, we see how we were a child, we realize that that's gone, that this is the impermanence of, it's like a bubble.
Where is that bubble gone?
It's disappeared.
And eventually a person is able to see quickly, see closer and closer and understand that even yesterday we were a different person.
Even a moment ago, we were a different person.
Our thoughts, our body and our mind is just like many, many drops of rain, one after another.
All of our experiences arise and cease in a brief moment.
So he realized that this is just like experience.
There's no underlying soul or self or me or mine.
There's only experiences arising and ceasing, like raindrops falling on the ground.
And again, this is the sort of thing that was very much connected to vipassana insight, even though the thought itself isn't the insight.
The thought itself comes from the insight.
And this is something that helped him to realize he was actually seeing the truth.
And then the Buddha, coming in there and reaffirming it for him, helped him to propel him on, and he actually became enlightened.
After the Buddha gave this verse, he was able to see the truth and became an arhat as a result of this.
And so this is the benefit of seeing the truth.
Once he saw like this and started to look and started to examine and appreciate and come to accept this truth of life, this is the next part of the verse that the Buddha was exhorting him, saying, now that you see this, look closer until you can be free, until you can cut your craving for these things.
Because all of the things that we cling to, this is what the Buddha called the pupakani, those things that have flowers at their tip.
so the translation that they use is flower tipped arrows so I'm not sure if that's exactly the if there's any commentary to back that up but what it means is all the central flowers you see the flower you know this like from Macbeth the flower but underneath it there's a snake so this is like this is what is meant by these things that are beautiful on the outside
So you don't see the snake lying under the flowers.
Mara's pleasures are all like this.
But the idea of flower-tipped arrows means there's poison underneath, or there's a sharp arrow underneath.
When you grab the flower, you get the blade that's underneath the arrow point.
and it poisons you and it kills you or it leads you to suffering.
Because this is how we understand sensual pleasures.
All of the things that we cling to are based on the idea of concepts.
You can't cling to something that's arising and ceasing.
When you look at reality, when you look at the reality of our experience, there's nothing there that you can cling to.
If it's a moment of seeing, it arises and ceases.
The ultimate reality of it is not only you can't cling to it, but it's not something that anyone would have any reason to cling to.
So the ultimate reality doesn't lead us to clinging, but our inability to see the ultimate reality and therefore taking these things as concepts like the body.
This body is me and my hands and my feet and so on and my face and I'm beautiful or I'm ugly or I'm tall or I'm short.
All of these things that we cling to as entities, this is what creates our attachment.
These are the things that we attach to.
So once you see reality, you have no reason to attach.
But then there's the other question as to which is better, right?
Maybe some people say, okay, that's fine, but am I not better off to believe in concepts then?
Even if I agree,
that they're just conceptual, why shouldn't I cling to them?
Doesn't that lead me to pleasure, to sensual pleasure?
What's wrong with sensual pleasure?
And this is why the Buddha points out that they're flower-tipped, because he said, I know the gratification, the pursuit and the gratification of sensual pleasure.
There is this gratification.
For flowers, for example, they give you pleasure when you see them.
This is the gratification.
But then there's the danger of sensuality.
And the danger of it is that it's not real.
It's like a mirage.
There's a very important danger to that because there is a reality underneath and this reality is changing.
the reason why we fight, the reason why we cheat each other, the reason why we waste so much of our effort trying to attain even the smallest bit of sensual pleasure.
It's all because of this attachment.
All of the suffering that we have is because we can't get what we want all the time.
Because the objects of sensual pleasure are not real.
The underlying reality is impermanent, unsatisfying and uncontrollable.
So you may be enjoying something wonderful and then someone comes in and ruins it.
Maybe breaks when you're looking at some flowers, someone comes and cuts them off.
When you hear this verse, cut the flowers of Mara, you think cutting flowers.
What if I came in and took your flowers and stepped on them and smashed them into a pulp?
How would you feel?
You'd feel unhappy.
And you'd say, you made me unhappy.
And I'd say, no.
Your attachment to those flowers made you unhappy.
I can't make you unhappy.
If you weren't attached to those flowers, I would be totally impotent.
But you give me power.
And we do this.
We give people power over us.
situations power over us.
It's an incredible weakness to be addicted, among other things, but it's an incredible weakness in the world to be addicted to sensuality because this is where they get you.
They get you, right?
You watch commercials and if you are, if you watch, if you like pizza and then there's a pizza commercial, they've got you.
If you like hamburgers, there's a burger commercial.
This is, they've got you.
People get us as well.
When people know that we want something,
They have a claim over our hearts.
They have a claim over our actions.
And this is what leads to being manipulated by others.
You can't be manipulated if you don't have any wants, if you're not bothered by anything.
You can't be manipulated if you
If you do away with the delusion, if you see things as arising and ceasing, if you look at everything as ultimate reality or experiential reality, it's seeing, it's hearing, it's smelling, it's tasting, it's feeling and thinking, then there is no... It's like neutralizing the poison.
Nothing can... These things can't hurt you.
You cut off the...
You cut off the attachment to sensuality or you cut off sensual desire at the root.
So this is what it means to see things as they are.
This is what the result of the practice is.
When you practice, when you see things as they are, you cut off this craving, you do away with this.
and it's not as a result you don't experience sensual pleasure but you don't experience sensual desire so you may still eat and there may be the feelings of well there's at least the physical pleasure but the mind doesn't find its pleasure in that sort of thing it doesn't rely upon sensual mental pleasure or this joy that comes
momentarily from getting what you want.
It's all really the same.
People will say, well, what about relationships?
Or many people are, what about romance?
What about food even?
People will say, what about beauty?
But there's no what about.
It's a chemical process in the brain.
There's no exception.
It's a physical and a mental experience.
You experience pleasure.
So the question is whether that should be considered as happiness.
Because it actually is momentary.
It's something that
arises in a moment ceases and it's something that creates this dependency creates desire which creates addiction which creates this striving and this need for things that of course as i said puts us in a dependency um takes us out of our out of our state of contentment it's discontent
It creates need, it creates addiction, it creates trouble for us when we can't get what we want.
When someone interferes with our ability to enjoy things or even suggests, as I'm suggesting, then we give it up.
Of course this makes many people unhappy, displeased.
This is what is meant by the disadvantages.
So the Buddha said there are three things.
There's the gratification, then there's the disadvantage, but most important there's the escape.
the escape from these things.
You don't need to depend upon sensual pleasures, even beauty, even nature, even flowers.
You don't need to depend on these things for happiness.
You can be far happier when you let them go.
Your mind is far more free and independent, not tied down to this or that.
not subject to the whims of reality.
You find your mind is unshaken when things change.
So this is the importance of seeing these illusions, seeing the truth of these illusions, the truth of the body as being an illusion and all of the things like flowers and beauty as being just a sequence of events and seeing them for what they are because that's where true happiness and peace lies, from being free from our need, free from our partiality.
So this is what is meant by the practice.
The final part of the verse is where you go beyond the king of death.
And this is a little bit of explanation needs to be made here.
Because Mara is the king of death means he's this, whether you believe he's real or not, it could be just a simile or you could think of it as just a simile, a metaphor.
for all of our existence.
Our attachment, our sensual craving is what leads us to death.
You say, but everyone dies.
But you see that one death is one thing.
But the fact that we die again and again and again, the fact that death is something that we have to deal with ad infinitum.
is what is meant here our craving is what keeps us coming back for more again and again and again and so to go beyond this we have to give up becoming we have to give up our attachment to experience this is what is meant by nibbana
So this is something that is probably the most difficult.
Reaching all the way to the end of the Buddha's teaching gets quite difficult because it's the most frightening.
Well, we can understand giving up our attachments, that's okay, but the idea that when you give up all your attachments, you don't come back and get the things that you're attached to,
Very hard to understand because we're so attached to them.
But this is what it means.
It means that in the end when a person gives up, they really give up and they're free.
They don't have any reason to come back.
So we don't have to... I think this is not something that's easy to teach or something that really should be contemplated by people.
You don't have to accept this.
All you have to accept is that you'd be better off not clinging to certain things and that can be very coarse things that you see are harming you.
Because once you give those up then you'll see clearer those subtle things that are harming you, that are causing your suffering and so on and so on.
It will be more and more subtle.
until you are convinced that you're better off without clinging.
It doesn't have to be an all or nothing and you don't have to subscribe to the teaching.
Buddhism isn't about faith.
The more you practice, the deeper you see and the more you want to practice.
The deeper you want to go because you see the next thing, you see more subtly those things that are causing you harm on a more subtle level.
So that's the...
correct way of approaching this.
What it ultimately leads to is being free from death, not having to come back again and again and again, which some people seem to think would be a nice thing.
And well, yeah, maybe I can understand how that would be.
You could think that a few times.
But I think for most people, if we're honest with ourselves, we wouldn't really be happy having to come back
But there's nothing you can say because infinity or eternity is not just a long time, it's eternity, it never ends.
So there's no choice really.
Eventually you either keep doing this, keep doing what isn't all that meaningful in the end, in the end it's completely meaningless.
When you have goals and you say, I'm going here, I'm going there, and you get them and then that's it and you do it again or you don't do it again or you go the other way and you try everything.
Once you've tried everything, eternity still hasn't come yet.
It never will come.
So the only option is to stay or to go.
And eventually a person who cultivates understanding will eventually give up and let go and be free.
So that is the meaning here.
That's the teaching in this verse.
This is verse number 46.
So continuing on.
Thank you all for tuning in and I hope that this has been instructive and is useful in your meditation practice.
Look forward to our next talk.