2019 - Shortcut to Nibbana - Ajahn Brahm

very good so welcome everybody and when the emcee said she wanted to introduce Who I am and I'm always very made lots of attention to try and find out who I am because even recently I decided to apply for a Commonwealth of Australia seniors card mother I get any benefits from it but just because I could so when I I went online they said no you have to come in person to prove you know your identity the identity fraud is a common problem these days so that I had to go personally and when I turned up in front of a counter the woman said very good now can we see your driver's license I said I don't have a driver's license and then they said can we see your credit card I don't have credit card your bank account I don't have bank account your rental agreement I don't have rental agreement your house mortgage or your ownership of a house I don't have that either and the next thing they asked for was my marriage certificate which I certainly don't have and everything they asked for I didn't have and so they said well I'm sorry you don't exist and I said I always thought so that's exactly what the Buddha said well fortunately I did have a passport and got dual nationality so that meant I exist but only just so it's always interesting to try and find out who I am or rather who I'm not but when it comes to the short cut to Nirvana there is a short cut a very short cut is called bored so this is the short cut to Nevada but of course many people just a few people you know on the short short part of Nirvana the fat when it comes to people wanting to get short cut to Nirvana a lot of people don't know what they're doing they don't like getting on a bus not knowing where the bus is going to go to while going on an aircraft for a mystery tour do you really know what Nirvana is so when you get there will you'll be happy and the reason I say that because it's one of the reasons why I chose Buddhism for many other different religions and paths I did get a scholarship to a good school before I went through to Cambridge and that school I had a chaplain and so I remember one day going up to that chaplain to ask know what is God what does it mean because I was not disrespectful I just wanted to know as a young man who's important and because this was a chaplain a priest which was ordained in the Anglican Church I thought well he should know so I asked him and he said well God is in effort it's beyond words here's the Alpha and Omega I the eh-2-zed it is the ground of all being it's the infinite is beyond words yes but what it's got and I said because everything you've told me it just makes no sense the Alpha 2 Omega the 8 has said that sounds like a street directory of London which we used to have in those days there is so much else they said the ground of all being I know what ground me so know what being is but what is the ground of all being and as a young man I wanted to have something a bit more understandable I know even these days I must have it sometimes people criticize my toes because they're not deep enough and sometimes the reason I always tried to explain it so everyone can understand is that one day I remember just going to put his talks when I was a lay person and after the talk we'd all go out afterwards and say that was really deep that was profound so did you understand any of it no but it was really deep and very profound and so a lot of times it's a case we missed understand depth and profundity know for something which is really what it really is is just people don't understand what they're talking about so anyway then I managed to find a monk a monk who could speak good English and I asked him Nevada Nevada what is davana that nirvana is ineffable is beyond words they said well Honda will be his the infinite is then I said I've heard that somewhere before you tooth don't know what you're talking about so if you really understand what you're talking about then at least you should be able to explain it to anybody even a non Buddhist so once we understand what Nirvana is is a shortcut there is a shortcut to Nevada but you want to take it that's a difficult one because in brief that it's a saying from this is not the suitors but the closest you can get to the Buddha's words is called the commentaries from the receding marker the path is but no traveler on it is seen Nibbana is but not the person who enters Nirvana now what does that actually mean first well just to go to the last part that Nibbana is but not the person who enters it so you have to disappear you have to let go we wrinkly give up not I mean your possessions and your money and something like that no relinquish who you think you are linguish your ego your sense of self that is one of the hardest things to abandon so before the path to letting go how do we do that the path is but no traveler on it is seen and somebody was asking me even on the way here they have many of my books they've gone so many retreats and they haven't got anywhere in their meditation and I think oh my goodness such a promise about teacher am I are you supposed to get somewhere in your meditation or is meditation not about getting somewhere but I see getting nowhere that's what you're supposed to do in meditation getting nowhere because what is nowhere mean it's accommodate of now and here now plus here equals nowhere so if you really are in the present moment and you're in this present space then you are nowhere so why do you want to get somewhere all the time it's a place you already are is that not good enough here's the next place gonna be somehow better we spend our whole life trying to get somewhere and when we get there we find us another place to get and then it's another place so the short cut to Nirvana is cutting off all comings and goings and just being that is why I've just come from Hong Kong this morning in Hong Kong or especially when you go you know to the Central District that all these other important districts or it's so busy there is it and all the eight days I was in Hong Kong I never very rarely saw any human beings very few human beings in Hong Kong human goings yes human doing things yes but not human beings though is doing something going somewhere being something but one thing I did find out that I don't know if any of you can speak Cantonese but the word for no good or okay is ho ho oh yeah oh yeah so so that's where I really found out that that's that's where Santa Claus comes from he doesn't come from Norway well Lapland or somewhere he doesn't come from the North Pole he comes from North Point which is a district in Hong Kong where I was staying but anyway there being a sign why is it that people always want to go somewhere or do something or get something and they think that that is going to get them to Nirvana when I get there then I will be free when I get rid of this then I'll be at peace Nibbana is obviously one idea of what the burner is his piece de please really amazing piece so how can you be peaceful if you're trying to be peaceful if you can let go of all trying then maybe you could be peaceful the path is but no traveler on it is seen so the short cut to Nirvana is not travelling it's not a sword cut it's a short beam here but if you try being here you will find that is more difficult than you can you expect one of the wonderful stories about Nippon ER and how difficult it was for even gifted meditativeness and people with enormous faith people who even deep cut their hair off the Buddha's chief attendant Ananda so what was his story of how he became enlightened many of you know that story many of you have tried that method many times for those of you who do not know the UH nanda method he was the disciple of the Buddha he listened to the Buddha again and again and again and he would witness many monks and nuns come up to the Buddha's presence and to listen to all of these amazing experiences they had and the Buddha just announcing that this mark was enlightened that nun was enlightened and it was so inspiring except Ananda wasn't enlightened at all so you can imagine what it must be like after all those years of everyone else becoming enlightened the Buddha was about to pass away and Ananda thought now the Buddha's passed away what hope is there for me I couldn't get it aligned when the Buddha was sitting right next to me now there's no chance when he's dead and gone and no teacher no inspiration anymore so he got quite depressed but yes exactly about two or three months after the Buddha passed away more than five months they decided to have a big conference a big meeting together with 500 as in 499 fully enlightened beings Plus Honda and if ever you've been invited to a bee conference and they're professors and PhDs and experts except for you if you have been a member of the Buddhist fellowship for so many years and all these other people to become enlightened but not you there will be so difficult to to accept but Ananda decided to give it one more try one huge effort one big last give it everything what many people say these days enlightenment or bust so he meditated all night giving it everything he could for effort not giving in to aches and pains sitting and sitting and sitting and when the door came up past [Music] he wasn't enlightened at all not even close so what did he do he's off there's another hour or two before the meeting starts so I will go and take a nap so he went to his room and he laid down and before the head hit the pillow he was fully enlightened the five hundredth our hat so if you're not in life's Indians the shortcuts and Aparna is go to bed [Music] [Laughter] the head hits the pillow see what happens you probably won't get enlightened but according to a probability theory just like a lottery the more tickets you buy the more likelihood there is of you winning the lottery it's another case probability theory so the more times you you lay down and hit your head on the pillow but of course that that's not what it meant the point was Hernando was letting go stop trying he gave up his ego wanted to attain something had been abandoned diviner is but not the monk or the nun or the under or the anyone who enters it you have to relinquish your sense of self if you really want to go all the way but that's a hard thing to do so there is a way of letting go of who you think you are or who you believe you are which is why I started the story on my identity crisis trying to get Common Wealth Australia seniors card found out it's very hard if you exist what ID have you got I'm not talking about your passports or your driving license we are marriage certificate what ID have you got in this life who do you think you are if you start thinking like that you just spend your whole life thinking and philosophizing and that's one of the reasons why thought can only take you so far but there's more to be done than just thinking thinking is what we do when we go around things we think about something just like a satellite orbits the the the planet or the Sun it goes round and round and round but to be able to actually to penetrate to go into something we stop the thoughts and we go inside when you stop thinking who you are it's scary because there's many things and you assumed you we're now made no sense it disappears which is one of the reasons why the the shortcut to Nirvana is an art of disappearing of letting go what does that mean letting go first of all the volunteers the volunteers who just give expecting nothing back in return in the door we call that Chaka if you give expecting something you pick a gay donation and you get your name written on the monastery hall this is we're gonna know but not say anybody okay this is Oliver Hall because Oliver donated some funds for it that is not donation to me that is buying advertising rights for your ego you may give a lot of money but it's just advertising rights but the best donors are those who give and no one knows they gave anything at all they give expensing nothing back in return and it's not cash he said time giving even though they're tired and they've been working all day and the volunteers come and they help and they serve and they look after they give they expect nothing but when you let go of your ego and self by actually giving your time giving your kindness giving your forgiveness you are letting go of your ego your himself what you want for somebody else that is why volunteers they are the ones who are the shortcuts to do banner because their ego is vanishing it's like their simile of the five fingers on a hand remember that simile five fingers which finger is the most important which member of the Buddhist fellowship is the most important is it the president Metin the five fingers on a hand this finger said I am the most important I am the strongest I am the opposable thumb I may be short but I am strong and when you say okay which finger do you put up me I'm the okay finger and this one said no I am the most important why because I have the finger of wisdom the index finger are a point out to people know where the water is and where the empty seats are and wisdom is so important so I am the best finger and then this one said I am the most important finger I am certainly the most powerful because if you put me up the other way you will see how powerful I have but more than that I'm the tallest I see farthest and I'm also the middle finger and the middle way is the best way according to Buddhism and then the fourth finger she put her finger up and said I have the most important I have the finger of laughs when you get engaged the ring goes on me when you get married I get the wedding ring I have the finger of laughs now without love where would this world be I'll tell you where you will be you'll be bouncing and I left the most insignificant finger the little finger who everyone thought was not important at all and that little finger said yes even though you use me to do dirty things I have the most important finger why because when you pay respect to the Buddha Buddha here anyway I am always closest to the Buddha that's why the little finger is the most important so it was just when you give sometimes these are people who clean up afterwards so do all the dirty work who no one knows who they are they are sometimes the most important they're Lessing they're eager for their doing a lot of really good work it's called giving expecting nothing back in return it's letting go of things sometimes we say what do you mean by letting go they have another word called party called Amalia the alia is that's a word which you may recognize from the compound him a liar Himalaya the mountains there is where the snow the himor res fanciful ting settles Meghalaya in North India the land of the clouds earlier is a place where something settles on earth and an Alaia is actually where nothing settles and not Anala yeah nothing settles at all what do we mean by that as a shortcut to Nirvana someone praises you and next day they criticize you can you let that go it's one of the reasons why the Buddha gave the simile of the lotus flower someone comes along you may go to work tomorrow morning and they criticize you they tell you off they say terrible things you've done that is like somebody urinating on the lotus flower if you urinate on a lotus flower all that Uranus falls off and none of it settles and sticks on the Lotus which means afterwards Lotus still smells like a beautiful lotus flower it does not smell like a toilet and then somebody pause should know number five over the Lotus you know it's amazing that that Chanel number five it's still popularly no way I know what the most popular perfumes are because these days you have to walk through airports whatever Airport you tend to walk through these days is a shopping map before you even get to the gate to depart and even ID notices one perfume called samsara perfume I thought that's very out to call it for anyway there we are you pour some sour perfume just over the Lotus now what happens the nothing sticks it doesn't settle so afterwards it all falls off and it still smells just like a lotus nothing sticks to it and that was wonderful simile of praise and plain wonderful experiences in the past or terrible experiences in the past nothing sticks you're letting go nothing is kept can you do that it's actually a scary thing to do or sometimes people like to get rid of all of their disappointments in the past but letting go or your achievements in the past I was telling somebody recently that when I first went to visit my mother in UK alright she had my degree certificates ba and ma I know that some monks have got two mas which is why we call them mama but I had because it's weird in Cambridge even though it's science they still call it they don't have Bachelor of Science is also all BJ's so anyway when I got my two certificates I thought I'm a monk I don't need these I let these go so you know what I did I tore them up into shreds and put them in the trash can I know my mother she just looked at me never said a word but then I went to I think my room to meditate when I came out she had all the bits on the kitchen table putting them together and gluing them all back together again and I felt so terrible stupid arrogant monk trying to be enlightened for myself I don't care about these pieces of paper but not realizing that other people did especially your mother I felt terrible about that so you can let it go yourself other people is important to them so even letting go is not personal what are other people require from you so anyway when you let go of past and future especially the past who are you if you ask yourself who you are already there in the introduction they gave a quick history of all those when I was ordained where I went to university you know the degrees you got and if anybody asks me about deep theoretical physics now my property would forget it all I wouldn't pass him my degree now time has passed and I have to let it go to even where were you born that doesn't define you my mother said I was born in Middlesex but I don't know was I money taken my mother and father's word for it but now when we let go of who we think we are what happens when we don't identify with a race a country a background hey education hey lore the pain of the past the successes of the past in these really who you are and I interesting piece of psychology there was that a grief and loss conference where I went some years ago that's one of the people who was listening was a celebratory sorry a celebrity celebrity griever she was a mother of what they called the Clermont serial killer victim now apparently they've arrested somebody in Australia but here since I've been to trial yet but when I was talking to her about how to let go of grief and loss to somebody who loved very very much I gave some really good advice I'm not gonna repeat it here that's another talk but I gave some really good advice on how to let go of the pain of losing somebody your daughter to a murderer and afterwards he came up to me and nose-to-nose she was so angry at me what rights of you she said to take away my grief as well the first times you saw how we get attached no make our identity even around painful things being a well-known soul depe tree griever men that she did have a lot of sympathy a lot of entry into many organizations it was who she was and it made her somebody and if I took away her grief we've seen followed the advice which does work then she would not be grieving anymore and she'd be a nobody which is one of the reasons why that we make identities egos sense of self not only just out of achievements but also out of tragedies as well out of pain which is one of the reasons why the people who do you now have a very very difficult past the victims is very hard for them to let go of their victimhood is who they are but anyway if you want the shortcut to Nirvana we have to let go of everything every parts of your history who you thought you were to let that go and go deep deep deep deep deep deep so as we do that we always find that notice the shortcut to Nirvana the the passes but no traveler on it is seen no person no history the whole baggage so can you do that this is one of the reasons why the shortcut to Nirvana is this the learning how to they're basically the old Eightfold Path in brief just that these opening up to the suggestion there's no one in here opening up to that suggestion and then when it's nothing in it for you then you can let go you can not want to get stuff but instead to serve that second factor the Eightfold Path make peace otherwise known as let go it's called Nokomis on Cooper through Annunciation they didn't go being kind being gentle our wire powder and hosaka I'm doing this because there's meditation teachers here it's the motivation where you're coming from to be able to let go what is being kind being kind the definition or the explanation which often give coming for my father and is building on it to open the door of your heart to this moment to who you are to what you think you are in this moment always changing to let this moment be open the toe of your heart is kindness gentleness and then in God and you know from that we get all of our morality all of our precepts all of our virtue well there's nothing in it for me it's just giving and being kind you can't break precepts virtue becomes natural and all the other factors you know of this way all comes when we let go we restrain which is another form of letting go we realize the beauty of simplicity not having stuff but giving away stuff small houses small apartments small cars in Singapore the small vehicles can find a parking place more easily that's why I like the Hinayana small vehicle cost less in fuel it's environmentally far less of a threat to climate change but just being small and tiny having small footprint on this that's one of the reasons I always travel in a car or on an aircraft so I don't leave many footprints ok that never went that well but sometimes you come to a place like Singapore you go to Australia why do people have such big houses and such flash cars and such expensive clothes why this is to say that you've arrived baby you've arrived have you so it's small stuff let him go that's a path to Nirvana so a lot of times people don't know and how wealthy or how poor you are the path is but you let go give up I often say that one of the the most amazing donations which we ever got was started off on nuns monastery for bhikkhunis you know you all know that you know I work very hard and sacrificed got into trouble by giving ordination for ordination to women so they could live obviously as bhikkhunis fully ordained nuns but it's not just giving alternation they needed a place to stay and what happened was that trying to raise some funds for monastery for the bhikkhunis not for me there's more problems for me I never got anything out of this except expelled but that one day this man came and I never forget the amazing generosity of this gentleman he was Australian he came in Australian national dress you know Australian national dress you know eighties songs in his shorts and a dirty Singler and caught Australian national dress in any way that he came up and came out of an old car in a beat-up old car and he said to me that he his wife had just given birth to his first child it was a girl and he was a Buddhist he said and he said I hear your connection donations to build a monastery for women so yeah so I want to make a contribution so that if my daughter when she grows up was to become a nun she can I doubt if she'd ever want to but I want her to have that opportunity so he gave me a check for $250,000 and he drove away in his old car and I never saw him again that was generosity he didn't look like a rich man he didn't ask for a receipt he just vanished and the cheque never bounced you know sometimes I try that sometimes that people give me a check I just drop it on the floor one day I did that just for a joke you know and he did bounce you know it actually it was on a sort of a mattress or a cushion or boa and they bounced up again so this is a bad sign and actually deep balance afterwards you know it's really some weird psychic stuff sometimes goes on but anyway so then when you start to to let go of stuff you live very simply it's very easy to be peaceful one of the biggest problems for people who try to meditate is they try to meditate they try tomato they're still doing stuff they're trying to get something and if they get something that's more attachments there's more things to own soul attachment holding on I'm my hand is holding on to this clock so put it down stop it and then I go pick up something else stop it pick up something else stop it there's no matter how many times you let go of the object of your attachment you're not realizing they can now attach to something else next there were two ends to attachment there's a thing you're grasping onto and there's a thing which is doing the grasping my hand and I can let go all my life put it down item four put this down put that half but you find that you'll still pick up something afterwards when I became a muck I had to let go of of girls and then as soon as I started becoming a muck then I was attached to food so you give up food then you start thinking fantasy you give up fantasy and you start picking up something else you're always picking up something why it's not what you pick up it's a thing doing the picking up so the simile is if you want to stop this is only a simile if you want to be free of attachments you've got to cut off your hand [Music] and so you got a hand who'll pick things up and I thought that there was a really neat cool original ajahn Brahm simile until I found it in the suitors their simile of the hand from the Lord Buddha how can you cut off your hand cut off your sense of self who wants to attain things and get something and be somebody and be enlightened so this is a toughest thing to do to let go of the sense of me and mine and a being fortunately there's a very short path to that it's called meditation which leads to such a deep statuses illness that you disappear you vanish you're gone that is as you all know this is coming that is the Janice the eighth factor the Eightfold Path it just creeps up on you and don't think that that is beyond you it actually happens to people just like the story of our Nanda there was a story of this other girl who's actually a nun at Thomas Sawa now but I won't say who she is but she was on one of those retreats meditating and meditating and meditating and meditating and meditating and meditating and getting nowhere and at the end of one of those retreats after eight or nine days getting nowhere so what does he do we finished off the retreat and her taxi wasn't gonna come for another hour so what does he do she meditated to kill time that's what he told me nothing else to do just waiting for a taxi she'd be meditated for such a long time nothing was working so I might as well just sit down and kill time and that was after she came out of her meditation she was kneeling on the floor and she said to me if I would make it as an actor probably not but it gives you some idea of this the emotional after Claire after a really powerful deep meditation because she'd given up and stopped trying things started to happen when she least expected it when she stopped training aspiring trying doing something like an under there is when things happened my best simile many of you have heard this but this is an original that is of the donkey and a Julian I do change that when I go from country to country here I used Julian in Australia I may use carrot here Fitz in UK I used biker a a packet of fish and chips but whatever people like to eat a donkey usually a donkey and a carrot the donkey is a most stubborn animal in the world you can beat it but it still won't pull any carts so you don't use a stick to beat the donkey you tired a stick to the back of the donkey's neck so the front of the stick is tuefel in front of the donkey and you tie a string to the end of the stick and a carrot or if it's in Singapore a julienne or the end of the stick and if the Singapore donkey likes to - yeah that donkey will move towards the jury who tried to catch it like many meditators they moved towards the turn they moved towards new ponder tried to catch Nibbana they move towards it and what happens when they move the julienne moves the donkey starts running after the julienne and the durian is still too far in front of the donkey's face no matter how hard the donkey runs the julienne is still two-footed fat so how does a donkey ever catch the julienne how does anyone ever get enlightened the jute the donkey the donkey overhears somebody talking about meditation so what does the donkey do the donkey stops stops but it needs faith that's what the positive people people just don't have faith and patience these days even just yesterday somebody asked me the question about what is patience meaning Buddhism as in Hong Kong and I said well I'll tell you the next time I come I didn't appreciate that out sir the donkey weights now what happens when you let go when you stop trying that Julian goes further away from the donkey further away never been that far before that's one of the problems when people let go they think it's not working so they go and do something again not patient you know you want too much of a shortcut this is the shortcut it's not as short as you think but it's short enough so you're patient and they carrot other so the jury so further away and has never been before and I don't hate this it's a nice and patients just like you know a good Buddhist just sitting there according to verse this is waiting being in the moment not watching anything in the whole world and then soon the Julian starts swinging towards the donkey and before it knows it that Joey and his two foot in front of the donkey's mouth as it normally is but this time it's coming really fast towards the donkey's mouth it comes so close to the donkey's mouth that the donkey has to remember the last instructions of the Buddha the great compassion of the Potter the donkey has to remember to say Julian as it comes right close to its teeth Julian the door of my mouth is open to you otherwise you seen the big teeth miss donkeys have otherwise it bounces off his big front teeth and it misses it that is how donkeys catch Julian's that is the shortcut to enlightenment you've been rushing after enlightenment now you got to stop and wait for it to come to you if you want to get the deep meditations you have to weigh it still until it comes to you chase after it and you chase it away or I don't charge great simile many of you when you say these similes especially first of all you think this is crazy this is not Buddhist and this doesn't work and that's exactly how I regarded ajahn Chah so simile or I thought he was one crazy monk I didn't believe him at all it didn't make any sense to me but I remembered it because it was so profound and so many years later just what a great simile that was and that was a simile of the mango orchard he said that his monastery what pawpaw this was many years ago was a mango orchard where the mango trees were planted by the Buddha himself I said this is this is madness crazy now the Buddha never came to Northeast Island maybe deep any mango trees would be able long dead by now and he said these mango trees are now for of jute rope and juicy mangoes but he said if you try and shake that tree to get a mango nothing will fall if you climbed a tree you'll never be able to climb high enough if you throw sticks up at the tree you always miss the mangos you trying to find a ladder the ladder would not be high enough to reach there's only one way to get the mangoes from the trees planted by the Buddha and that is you have to sit perfectly still not moving how do the mango tree hold out your hand and a mango before you see that's crazy talk you know what mangoes in Singapore you say under a mango tree how long would you have to sit before a mango fell and even if it did for it'll probably fall on your head instead of in your hand so crazy talk but we do not establish simile perfect if you shake the Bodhi tree trying to get enlightenment you'd never get that anything for you try to climb it try and get a ladder to go up it nothing Falls still perfectly still until nothing moves just like the donkey the carrot comes towards you to be perfectly still shouldn't that be easy you have to let get rid or least somehow put aside the sense of self the doer the will there which does and stops you being still if you have a will and a choice you'll always be interfering and doing stuff that is why letting go being still means the doer what you take to be yourself settles down even in Cambridge in the philosophy department rather on the outside on the walls of the philosophy department in Cambridge when I was a student there I actually saw this with my own eyes graffiti the first line of the graffiti was a quote from many Descartes the French philosopher who said to do is to be and underneath that jean-paul Sartre the existentialist it turned it upside down not to do is to be but to be is to do and underneath that summed up by the contemporary American philosopher Frank Sinatra do be do be do and that wasn't just a joke he was saying and pointing out the connection between doing and your sense of being and self you are what you do I'm among some but that's one name I'm a monk I do month business I do monks stuff maybe a pilot here because you do pilot stuff you are her mother because you do muttering how much of our being is taken up by what we do imagine that you stopped doing stuff just a meditation you sit perfectly still don't do anything you know the search for after truth you don't even think you artists are to speak that's one of the reasons it's hard to be still because you have to let go of everything you think you are to be really still you have to vanish the path is but no traveler on it you've seen fortunately the less you do the happier you feel it is beautiful sense of joy the piti sukha which comes up as a cheetah's Ankara with your breathing or anything else this is a mind getting powerful because it's not wasting this energy doing stuff and so you become very happy the less you do the more the bliss that is almost like the payoff for disappearance you bliss out so it's scary it is like I was saying to somebody in Hong Kong annuity when my running out of time oh yes when you start to get very still and your body starts to vanish the your sight your hearing or smell your taste your physical touch that's scary who you think you are is disappearing your sense of safety because these are the alarm systems which we have especially sound increased somebody's creeping up on us they're scary but it's so blissful so it's a trade off you go into places you've never been before or rather you disappearing blessed just too much fun so what happens is the are disappearing useless your body vanishes it is left with the sixth sense the mind and then that starts to vanish your will goes and so much our scars what's the point of this when you experience things disappearing vanishing this is what enlightenment means what nabarro means Nibbana cessation disappearance XING's stopping going the in a retina Souter the Buddha come pancetta snip auntie dear au Taeyang / deeper this light this oil lamp just goes out just like when the wind blows out the flame and the word for cessation going out in the bonus finishes stops is that scary for many people it is but the closer you get to disappearing the more you let go the more bliss it truly is that's why this is the great fantasy that is one of the reasons why I wrote that book the art of disappearing and that was a very well read book especially from that fellow in Malaysia JLo he read that book and now no one can find him I think my house is up and doing that talk I said some stupid things and banal things but also some very powerful things as well there was a mixture because as I was giving that talk I was looking at here sometimes I'd lost you went too deep so I came back with a little joke and then went deeper again and then a joke to see how many of you I could take with me in the short cuts to enlightenment okay so thank you for listening thank you for for not disappearing by which I mean going out of the door so who's gonna to have the first challenge ask the tough questions what do you got a few properties yeah go on just to kick starts I already have two questions with me they'll send in earlier so the first question would be how would I know which expects of the Noble Eightfold Path which I have yet to develop property is there any way for us to get feedback if you're still trying to develop the Eightfold Path see if you can stop don't develop things just let go of things don't try and get more attainments this is a judge has one of his sayings to us we practice not to attain things but to get rid of things to let go of things so what happened you let go of yet check that out thank you there's another question ever half year sent in was how do we see self in practice and let go of self totally the only way to let go of your sense of self is who do you take yourself to me try that first or not who are you because that assumes that you are something but see if you can what do you take yourself to be am i a monk am ia man am I an unmarked white loss or pool a pool a monk that quit you do anything yeah who are you and it's it's great who do I take myself to be when you start to disappear you can be anything whether you want to be you know much more fun like you worship million you know you can take on many different forms for convenience so you're not anything so this is how we take myself in practice so number one don't look at trying to get more attainments if you try and get some things you always be tense so and how do we was the other one the how do we let go so forth how do we let go of the South anyway you can let go there so here's my stillness and happiness stillness this is one of the reasons why it's not just a because of know who's taught by ajahn Chah this is there from the party from the Sanskrit or from everything it's actually learning this it's not concentration concentration is what you do stillness is what happens when you let go when you disappear we leave things alone I know simile I think many of you have seen this before about doing very quickly how do I get this water to be perfectly still as it stopped moving it actually you're the MC come here as it stopped moving it look that why because I'm not being mindful I'll be mindful you stop moving it because I'm not concentrating I now concentrate I be mindful this is not the way to find stillness you will never be able to hold a glass of water perfectly still and about how long and how you concentrate there's only one way to get this water to be perfectly still which is put it down yes let go stop grasping it stop attaching to it put it down let it go I'm still moving and be patient and after a short while that water will be more still that I could ever hold it because we remain still for hours so it's the stillness come from letting go so that's actually how we learn to actually to be still let go okay thank you that that question is it necessary to get into jhana through meditation to arrive at Nibbana yes the Buddha said many many times if you want to find out that saying is that the this was in the maja will look your puto suitor number 64 matching mini kya you know sometimes I don't quote suitors I leave that fragile body I tell the jokes but I don't know my suitors I taught him party and suitors but Mohammed look you put a suitor number 64 just like you cannot get to the heartwood of the pith of a tree without first going through the bark and the SAP wood so you cannot get to Nibbana without first going through what actually the bark is is that is the the factor for the faith the confidence and the sapwood is the was it the virtue I said the virtue only the restraint that's the only way to get so he knows so the the bark under the bark was a virtue the SAP wood was see the the meditation the chalice that's the only way you can get to the piss and the buddha said in the same simile the only way he can get to Nibbana is through those Janus and it's obvious why not it's not you getting through this is just your disappearing that's what the Jana's are like in the Janus number one the five senses stopped that's one of the great signs you can't hear you can't see you can't smell taste or physical touch five senses have stopped that's why sometimes it's caring of people but you're very safe and in the next jhana the second Turner your will has gone that's why it's also really scary but it's blissful not having a body having to come back again to the body so you see experiencing can I tell the tadpole and the simile whether you say yes or no I'm gonna tell it anyway sad Poland the Frog little tadpole bought an award to lived all his life in the water went to school in the water at the University in the water studied a be Dharma in the water that everything about water but how could little Taupo know anything what water really was because she lived all her life in the water could not know water no more than a fish could go one day little tadpole she grows arms and lakes she becomes a frog how one day little frog not knowing what she was doing jumps out of the pond when she jumps out to the pond it's something very different and what she therefore experienced before trial and now only now can she understand what water is or rather what water was that strange stuff which was always there what is now vanished there's so much about our world our life though we don't notice she's always been there for us but when he goes wow that was actually wonderful when our five senses the pain our will which people cherish as one of their most basic possessions your freedom to choose any psychologist knows it's not a freedom but we believe is we who make those choices once the wheel stops disappears no because you want it to stop it is not there anymore then he can understand what the will say to no choice and that's scary to think about but it's wonderful to realize you have the data for insight how can you ever know what the five senses are or the will is when it hasn't disappeared in Syria experience okay hey Thank You Arjun for answering the first three questions the next question is some agents in the forest tradition teach that the mind is eternal like a soul this may lead one to clinging on to the - self so how do you reconcile it with another and letting go you can't reconcile it it's not how to put at all so clear and is what would be left to bide and eternal mind a mind has to have an object the mind is not just some some ephemeral thing mind has to know something let's even know what the Buddha said consciousness has to have an object of consciousness just like the the two sheaves of reeds using the metaphor from the agricultural society of those days to dry the straw after the harvest you'd get the sheaf of wheat and other sheaf of reed and balance them against each other so they could drive if you take one of those sheaves away the other one would fall you can't have knowing without knowing something and if you know something if it's always the same it will just vanish and the mind will disappear as well the mind is not a constant it is a nature subject to coming and going it is dukkha that's a hard one for people to accept that to know is to suffer that's what the buddha said if you can see the blood disappearing all the consciousness vanishing then you'd understand what freedom truly is I'm just going for broke this evening I'm just teaching deep down the last time I taught deep Dharma here in Singapore was and when I first came here when the president of the time member soon had yeah because after a couple of talks of just the the two bad bricks and open the door of your heart all the nice soft no fluffy cuddly talks he said can you please give me a deep talk said you really want my said yeah okay so I gave him what really deep talk about an ATAR and would know will and disappearing and the next day when he picked me out for breakfast he said don't ever do that again I turn partly because he trusted me enough to know I knew what I was talking about and he never slept that night he wasn't ready for the deep talk just like I could never understand that anyhow at first I thought there's nonsense and even he might see the teachings of the Buddha sometimes you teach at Orkut not so for you disappearing and people get afraid we're really afraid taken away your deepest fear you know that sometimes the deepest fear I remember in Christianity was the devil coming to take over your mind to sell your soul if the devil came I want you to buy my soul it'll be a very good deal I could get a lot of donations for the Buddhist fellowship dev will get nothing at all there's no one in here okay a few people got that yeah so Cory just needs to the next question about how can I achieve my dreams if I were to just let go of it because there won't be any direction in life then the direction is not going out there how many girls have you had in life once you get them if you do get the number one they know exactly what you want I do many marriage blessings and I'd never forget doing a marriage blessing for this from the lovely woman I knew for such a long time and at the marriage though she said this is supposed to be the happiest day of my life is this it she said that was her goal aspiration a dream and when she met her dream then he was very disappointed he was not exactly as they said in the marketing campaign for marriage so what what are you dreaming off what you want there is rather those old curses which they mad for the Middle East once told me that the two curses the worst curse is Middle Eastern that I meant that the first one is a bit of a gross one but it's funny the second worse curse is to tell someone may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits don't tell that to your wife pace or your husband or your boss but worse than that was the refined one I thought how cool this is the worst curse is may you get everything you want as soon as you want it immediately it's a curse all your dreams as soon as you dream them they're there right away it takes away the pleasure of the chase the happiness of what we take to be happiness of striving the stretching yourself for something more you know I think if you had that wish and you could do that whatever you wanted it was there straightaway I think he wanted to be a suicide life would lose a lot of this meaning leave that for you to contemplate getting what you want as soon as you want if what happy like Thank You Barbra so next two questions are shorter and their own meditation as well so the first one is can lay people like us get into jhanas yes I hope the answers whoever posted this question yeah this is a open-ended it's a closed-ended question right okay the next one is if meditation makes one disappear so why would one want to continue living because we got no choice the wood is not up to you it's an interesting that once you understand what stillness is and it is how blissful it is when the world is just about vanishes you can imagine the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree freshly enlightened and some I was a skeptic a physicist they said that the Buddha even with his eyes open to stared at the Bodhi tree for seven days is that possible yes because the world is so still nothing moves and after the Buddha was sitting still for about seven weeks I think at all or something I'm not quite sure but then it was promised a thumpety barometer hampered he was a an a Nogami a non returner from the Sudha wasa well who came to congratulate his friend because they were both monks together and the previous Boudicca super if you look at the whole stories of Siham potty and he came because he knew that this was his friend there were monks together and a casaba listened to suitors and he said to the newly enlightened Buddha efforts what congratulations please teach the Dhamma for others there are beings with little dust in their eyes please teach how to compassion when the will has been so calm down you can't start it up again yourself you do need someone something that will spark someone asking you to teach then the Buddha started his teaching career as far as I understand if so hampered he had not come to ask Gautama Buddha to teach the Gautama Buddha would have been Pacheco Buddha the silent Buddha the will had been so calm down so still frozen it's something just to get it going again here out of compassion to teach for other beings and when I recently went to Thailand to teach a retreat the pollution levels were so high I thought of not going over there but when the pollution level lessened I thought well there's not so much pollution there now so I can teach because beings didn't have so much dust in their eyes I'll come you can see that coming okay so in interest of time I just go and ask agenda three more questions okay so one sense in sometimes when I look in and see that there is nothing permanent that I can hold on or cling to fear arises so how do I overcome this fear and then move on in my practice how you overcome that fear you don't overcome that fear joy happiness overcomes the fear freedom overcome Saphir are you afraid of death people say they're not but actually you don't really know and so I see their faces yeah but see if you can find that so BBC documentary I was trying to find it somewhat I don't know where to where to look for it but BBC documentary near-death experiences about this old English woman who know died on the operating table and when she went out of her body that she was so free and happy and when she met the spirit the spirit said I'm sorry but you're not supposed to die yet go and she said no I'm not going back but you have to I refuse well you must you try make me I'm not going so she was this old dead English lady with lots of attitude and she refused to go back and they had this big argument on the psychic plane until the spirit took hold of her and threw her back in her body and when she was interviewed by the BBC and she told what had happened and then what she was going to do to that spirit when she died properly the next time the things we were gonna do to him she was so upset and angry sending her back into this old body what it meant was sometimes we are afraid of disappearing but once we disappear a little bit we understand how free and how happy and our joyful how light how wonderful it is same notices the same fear as a prisoner who's been in jail for many years and tomorrow they're being freed and they don't want to go free because they got used to being in jail or any of the Indonesian youth here will know my books over there were titled the cha-ching had the filthy laugh that was a story about the monk who got reborn as a worm in a part of cow poo and his friend tried to get him out of it we didn't want to go sometimes we were afraid of leaving our filthy pile of cow if you were worm that's your home as your food that's what I like that's a bit gross confronting it's a great simile the next question even though I can feel peaceful and rested after the meditation session I still find the mind gets irritated when faced with unpleasant situations so those irritations do not last as long as before I would like to know how should this irritation be handled in daily life the irritation in daily life is all because one asks from the world what it can never give you you can't always get a boss who this is so nice and lovely to you and you feel a bit tight I'll go and take a rest today you can't pay your bill so how much more money to wanna a raise of salary and life is irritating can you find any place in this world where you can work for a week and it's not irritating so where thinking from this world something good and common ask your fellow workers you're irritating to ask them and why irritating of course I'm irritating as soon as I speak yo-yo rotating to four in a good way life is irritating so first of all oh it's just life so in other words we let it go as soon as it arises attempt ours it's not the irritation disturbs you issue who disturb the irritation okay the last question for tonight we're just tying it back to the topic for today's dumb at all so this lady she is currently pregnant and she's trying to and she wants to ask what can she do to encourage her unborn child to start on the shortcuts and Ivana you have to start first mom so it is true that connectedness of human beings so if you can meditate there's not just meditating to be kind be peaceful be really gentle and not push anything just really relax to the max to them and you may be able to feel your baby with a ass to the max and then you'll probably find write this one disciple in Perth who told me this and it freaked her out but true story as soon as the baby was born and about to tour day two or three days afterwards she was in the hospital had been come out of hospital yet now a natural birth a good birth whether sustained a couple of days in hospital just to make sure everything was okay and she just finished breastfeeding her kid got after breastfeeding the child the child called on her mother's tummy crossed its legs in full Lotus put the right hand over the left hand left hand closed its eyes and to all intents and purposes was meditating and it freaked her out she never expected to see that in a little know two or three days old kid but that kid maybe that was on a shortcut to enlightenment

Channel: Buddhist Fellowship

Views: 3,776

Rating: 4.9111109 out of 5

Keywords: buddhist followship, dhamma

Id: WUxQLstQAQM

Length: 94min 46sec (5686 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 16 2020