So today we continue our study of the Dhammapada on with verse number 24, which is as follows.
uthānena-pamādena-sanyamena-dhamena ca dīpaṅkāirātha-medhāvīyaṅ o go nābhikīratī
Which means, through striving and heedfulness, restraint and training, a wise man should make an island for themselves.
Deepam kayiratam idhavi.
that the flood will not overcome, will not wash away, will not cover over, will not be carried away by the flood.
So this was told in regards to a monk who became an arahant.
After failing to learn
a single stanza.
So how the story goes is he and his brother became monks.
They had been raised by their grandparents.
Their mother had run away with a servant and had lost all of her repute with the family.
So in the end, she had no money and nowhere to live.
So she had to send the children back to live with their grandparents.
And so the grandfather was a disciple of the Buddha.
And so he would take his grandchildren to listen to the Buddha teach.
And so the elder son...
Mahapantaka became a monk and through his practice of the Buddha's teaching became an Arahant and he thought to himself wouldn't it be great if I could give this to my younger brother so he convinced his grandfather to let his brother become a monk and he taught his younger brother this stanza he tried to teach him this stanza that was basically praise of the Buddha
And for four months, every time he would learn the first line, remember the first line, then he would go on to memorize the second line.
And as soon as he memorized the second line, he'd forgotten the first line.
It's a four-line stanza, just like the one that I gave was, I think, a two-line stanza.
So, like, just twice as much of that.
And for four months, he couldn't memorize it.
And the story goes that in the past, in a past life, he had...
He had been a good monk, but he had always looked down upon those monks and just disparaged those monks who couldn't memorize things, and laugh about them and so on, and brag about it and so on.
And so as a result he became dumb in his next life as a monk.
And so he became quite discouraged.
And his older brother figured that this monk was a dullard, was useless.
And so he said, look, for four months you've gained nothing.
And he said, you're better off not to be a monk.
And so the younger brother was quite dejected.
But he didn't take his brother seriously until he heard that his brother...
his brother was responsible for organizing meals.
So when they went to people's houses, the elder brother would organize monks to go.
And so one day this lay person, I think Anathapindika, came to invite them to his house.
And he said to the older brother, Please, how many monks do you have?
Bring all the monks together with the Buddha for tomorrow's meal.
And the older brother said, well, my younger brother is not a real monk, so I'll accept the invitation for everybody but him.
And the younger brother was sitting there and he heard this.
And at that point he became quite dejected and said, my brother says I'm not a real monk.
And so he decided that he better quit, he better disrobe.
But the truth is he was happy being a monk.
He didn't have a problem.
He and his brother had this idea that somehow you had to memorize.
It may also have been that his older brother was thinking that this would make him go to see the Buddha and the Buddha would give him a meditation object.
Because that's what happened.
The Buddha found out about this and saw him walking around dejected or...
about to leave.
And he went up to see him and he said to him, what's wrong?
And he said, oh, I can't memorize even a single stanza and my brother says I'm useless and I should leave and disrobe.
And the Buddha said, that's not what makes a real monk.
He said, you don't become a monk just from memorizing.
He said, here, let me help you.
And he took a cloth, he took this white cloth, clean cloth,
pure white cloth and he gave it over to him.
And he said, go stand in the sun, hold this white cloth and say to yourself, and rub it, rub it between your hand and say, which means taking out the dirt, rubbing out the dirt.
And he sent him off to practice this meditation.
So repeating to himself, Rajoharanam, taking out the dirt, taking out the dirt.
And then the Buddha went off to accept this invitation.
Now, what happened was, he went off into the sun.
and he's standing there and of course the sun comes up and it's getting hot and sweating and as his hands start to sweat the cloth becomes soiled becomes impure loses its white color and he looks at this and he starts to become turned off of course because it's a beautiful white cloth and suddenly it starts to get ugly and so he's standing there taking out the dirt and here's this cloth getting dirty right before his eyes
And as a result it starts to open up his mind and his attachment to the cloth and to the idea of purity starts to be loosened.
So his mind starts to calm down as a result.
The cravings in his mind start to go away.
And the Buddha finds out about this and the Buddha sends him this telepathic projection.
So suddenly he sees the Buddha and the Buddha says,
Chula Pantaka.
It is raga, raga rajo, rajo.
He says, this is a play on words, rago rajo.
The dirt he's talking about is lust.
Lust it is that's dirt.
Lust is another word for dirt.
And he said, by understanding this, one should take out the dirt.
Take out the dirt that is lust.
And then he says, doso rajo, dosa, anger is dirt.
And moha.
His dirt.
So these three things.
So he helps him to look.
And then Tula Pandaka looks inside and he becomes an arahant by listening to this teaching of the Buddha.
The Buddha said it's not this dirt on the cloth that we're talking about.
The dirt that we want to take out is our cravings, our attachments.
So attachment to the beauty of the cloth, attachment to the beauty of the body.
It's also helping to see the impurity in the body.
And so as a result of seeing that, he became an Arahant.
Now the Buddha was off at this invitation and Anattapindika came to offer the food.
And he came over and he comes to offer this ceremonial water that they pour when they give a gift.
But the Buddha covered his bow with his hand and said, Anathapindika, the Sangha is not complete.
Not everyone is here.
And Anathapindika looks at Mahapantika and said, are all the monks here?
Mahapantika said, all the monks are here.
And the Buddha said, there's still a monk left in the monastery.
And so Anathapindika sent a man to the monastery to find out.
Now the story goes that Chulapantika, when he became an Arahant, he also gained magical powers.
So he had several.
And also he gained knowledge of the Pitikas.
So he gained quite an array of mental powers.
He lost all of this...
this cloudiness in the mind, so the stupidity left him.
He was no longer dullard and he was able to remember the whole of the Buddha's teaching.
Everything that he had ever heard the Buddha teach, suddenly it came back to him when he became enlightened because his mind became clear.
And also he had these magical powers, so he knew what his brother was saying.
And he said, my brother said there's no monks here.
And suddenly he made a resolve
that the whole monastery should be full of monks.
And there were a thousand, suddenly there were a thousand monks filling Jetavana, this monastery.
Some of them were dyeing their clothes, some of them were washing their clothes, some of them were sweeping, some of them were meditating, some of them were sitting, some of them were doing walking.
And this man came and saw these monks and he went back and he said, there's a thousand monks in the monastery.
And to Anathapindaka, Anathapindaka told this to the Buddha and the Buddha said,
Go and tell them that you want Chulapantaka.
And so the man went back to Jetavana and he said, Where is Chulapantaka?
And all one thousand of them said, I am Chulapantaka.
I am Chulapantaka.
And so he went back again and he told what to do.
They're all Chulapantaka.
So the whole point is to show his brother that he's not useless and to make clear what the truth is.
And so the Buddha says, no, no, go and say it again, ask it again.
And the first one who says, I am Chulapantaka, grab onto his robe.
And so he went back and he grabbed and he said, where's Chulapanta?
And they all said, I am Chulapanta.
But he saw the one who said it first and he grabbed him by the robe.
And suddenly all the rest disappeared.
And he said, please come, the Buddha is waiting for you.
And so they invited him to go.
And then after the meal...
Everyone was kind of not sure, is this guy a real monk or is he not a real monk?
And the Buddha said, at the end of the meal, he said, Chulapandaka, please you give the thanksgiving.
So you give the talk after the meal.
Because after they had a meal, they would always give a talk to the lay people.
And so the older brother and everyone was thinking, what's he going to talk about?
He can't even remember a single stanza.
And suddenly he gives this talk about everything the Buddha taught.
And he goes through the whole of the three tapitaka.
And everyone realizes, wow, something has changed and he has become enlightened.
And the story goes on to explain why he became like he was.
The story goes that in the past he was a king, and he had this idea of impurity, because he was going on a voyage through the city as the king, going on a tour to see what was going on in the city.
And it was very hot and so he started sweating and he wiped his face with this pure cloth and he saw it get dirty and he realized that this is the way with everything.
Nothing stays pure and perfect.
Everything is subject to change.
And so that's what the Buddha saw when he gave him this cloth.
He saw that in his past he had already used this meditation subject.
So then the monks were talking about this.
How could it be that he couldn't even memorize this single stanza?
How could it be that he is able to make this refuge for himself and find the ultimate refuge and become free from suffering without even being able to memorize a single stanza?
And the Buddha said,
It's not by listening, it's not by memorizing, it's not by all this.
The way a person is able to make a refuge for themselves, an island for themselves, is through four things.
Through effort, through heedfulness, through restraint and through training.
This is how a wise one makes an island for themselves.
And then he said the verse, utanena pamadena
Which means precisely that, that these four things lead one to make an island for oneself.
So that's briefly the story.
applies to the meaning of it.
This is a really important verse, and one that is wonderful for us, if you can remember, to remember it, or at least keep in mind what are these four things.
Because even just reminding yourself of this teaching is
of great use for us in meditation.
The first one, utha nena, with effort.
When we're able to put out the effort in the practice.
This is necessary.
This is the way that a person makes a refuge for themselves or makes an island of themselves.
First of all, what we mean by island here is we're talking about a person becoming enlightened.
And why we mean island, and the Buddha uses this simile of the island and the flood.
So, all beings, we understand samsara is like a flood, or it's like an ocean.
And the ocean is drowning us.
We're swimming about in this ocean aimlessly.
The whole of the universe, the whole of samsara,
you can't find a purpose, you can't find an aim, whatever you aim for, whatever you go for, whatever you reach, whatever you attain, becomes meaningless, and it's like carried away by the flood.
Whatever you build up, whatever great things, cities or palaces or learning that you gain, it all disappears.
Anything you remember, eventually you forget.
Everything you create, eventually is destroyed.
So it's like an ocean and there's nothing to hold on to.
There's nothing that is a secure refuge.
You build up a refuge, it disappears.
It leaves you without refuge.
So the finding of the real refuge is like building an island or finding an island that the flood can't overcome.
No matter how much the waves come or tsunami or any kind of tides of any sort, can't overcome this island.
This is what we're all looking for in life.
We're trying to find the stability and the security.
The Buddha said the way to find this is by these four things.
So uttana means effort, that we have to work hard.
that this is a work that we see that Chulapantaka did that it wasn't effort at studying it wasn't effort at in arts or in being a monk or so and it was effort in seeing the truth and in cleaning out the stains inside so just this practice of meditation and then going through moment by moment going through his mind seeing the lust seeing the anger seeing the delusion that was in his mind and
weeding it out, rooting it out.
This is the effort that he put out.
This is the effort that we all need.
We have to do the work.
So this is what it means to meditate.
When we talk about meditation, some people, they say, being mindful doesn't require meditation.
A person can just be mindful in daily life, and that's enough to become enlightened.
And the truth is, it's possible, but it's very, very difficult
It actually takes a lot of work and you have to actually do something to raise yourself up.
People say that just naturally it comes, you can naturally become enlightened.
And that's quite misleading and I think quite inaccurate.
The person has to work.
This is what we mean by the word practicing meditation.
The word meditation means to apply yourself to the practice.
Second one, appamada.
Appamada means the clarity of mind, the mindfulness.
So, not just pushing yourself to practice meditation, but actually bringing the mind back and guarding the mind.
mind applying the mind to the object and when you see something clearly knowing that this is seeing when you hear something knowing this is hearing being with reality from moment to moment and not letting yourself slip away the mindfulness or what we call what we call sati reminding yourself this act of reminding yourself of what's going on this is what we mean by heedfulness being heedful being aware of the object
The third one, sanyamena.
Sanyamena means keeping the mind from getting distracted.
At the same time that we're watching the object, we have to watch ourselves when we get distracted.
Sanyamena means keeping the mind within boundaries.
So not letting the mind wander, not following after things that you see or things that you hear, not getting caught up in random thoughts or daydreams or so on.
This is sannyamena, keeping the mind restrained.
And the fourth one that goes quite along with sannyamena and means very much the same thing as damena, damma.
But Dhamma is more like training yourself so that the mind doesn't run away, so that the mind doesn't get distracted.
Sanyamena is guarding it so it doesn't get distracted.
Dhamena is the aspect of the practice that changes the mind, straightens the mind, so that the mind no longer wants to go away, wants to be distracted, no longer wants to follow after daydreams or addictions or desires or so.
Basically, this refers to the practice of meditation.
You put out the effort in the practice and then apply yourself correctly in the practice.
You guard yourself from getting distracted and train yourself so that in the end you don't want to become distracted, so that your mind is focused and resolute and intent upon the object.
This is really how Chulapantaka, even though the text doesn't go into detail, this is how he became enlightened.
because when the Buddha started explaining to him what he was seeing this change that was going on in the cloth and also in his mind
when the mind started to lose its interest and its attachment to the beautiful cloth, was that, oh, it's the greed, it's the anger, it's the delusion that we're trying to change, that is changing here, until eventually your mind simply knows the object for what it is.
And so he applied himself to this with effort, with mindfulness, clearly aware this is greed, this is anger, this is delusion, this is seeing, this is hearing, this is smelling, this is tasting, and so on.
and guarding himself and training himself in this way.
And as a result, he became an arahant.
So, just another small teaching, and one that's very important for us as meditators, something that we can all take to heart.
So that's our teaching on the Dhammapada for today.
Thank you all for tuning in and listening, and for joining us today.
Now we can go back to our practice.