39. Emptiness (2005/12/09) Ven Ajahn Brahm

just last week when I gave my talk I was very tired after a long journey at that particular day from the United States from Los Angeles even though I've been working very hard to last weakness I'm very rested and so I thought it might be a good opportunity to give and what powerful talk than usual simply because as a monk you want to change things around I do get a bit tired of telling the same old jokes myself and talking about two bad bricks and so while I was in the United States I was not just talking to people buying a book I was also visiting many monasteries and teaching some deeper teachings there so today I'm going to talk about the Buddhist idea of emptiness to try and bring it into the way we meditate and while we meditate in this way and to also answer some of the questions which were raised when I was in the United States many of you will know that because in the United States there was so many fundamentalist Christians that they have huge power in the media and they started this silly thing called intelligent design and because of that many people ask you about what's the Buddhist understanding of such things about life the world consciousness the whole thing so today I'm going to try and answer all those questions in one hour the whole meaning of life will be revealed to you so stay awake again that iceland's going to start with such as science and about the nature of this world because I was a theoretical physicist before I was a monk I still keep in contact with some of the science which is happening now but also they had a very solid grounding in that field and I can say that I can understand very deeply the principles which were being espoused at the time so know roughly what I'm talking about birthing many of you even if you may not be scientist just know that the nature of the world and by the world I mean what most people think is the world know the things of which you can touch which you can feel which you can see you know the the store which you sit on the hall which are in the the country the earth the sky the planets the solar system the universe all of that is sometimes thought of as a totality of the world but well I'm going to start with what people think is the totality and then expand from there and actually to see some parallels between what we know is the world and the world of our minds one of the things which I knew I found out when you start studying science is this how this thing which we think of and perceive as being very solid is just so empty and vacuous you all know because I'm sure you've seen this on TV documentaries or even read it in books just even it's solid earth in which we're sitting now seemingly so thick and so dense when examined in detail you see just full of space and holes even the concrete underneath the carpet there we all know and it's a truth this the atoms which make up that concrete that just spaced so far apart that it's hardly anything there at all what do they say sometimes like it was a if the atom of the concrete was a tennis ball the next tennis ball the next atom will be probably at the moon or somewhere it's that distant away so we can imagine like one tennis ball another tennis ball at the moon and the next tennis ball the same distance away you can imagine just how empty sort of this even solid piece of concrete is we saw sitting on the thing with the scientists had never stopped there that even an atom and see what that was and father that - this is smear of electrons and a tiny tiny infinitesimal little nucleus in the center again the same sort of proportions like a tennis ball than they the next nucleus is just so far away but then they went further looked in the nucleus and found that too was empty this is flux of energetic particles called a quarks and there was nothing there and it was the mazing thing about looking in with deep profound insight into what the nature of this particle world is it's just completely empty of anything solid this is shifting that's all and I mention that because people ask when I talk about intelligent design in Buddhism where did our world come from and if you think about if you got a mind which reasons you'll understand that if there is actually something here in this physical world then how can you create this something out of nothing it's a big problem there but how could you get this universe with his plan is and if there was nothing there to begin with and because of that that people have to invent this idea of a God Supreme Being or something which changes nothing into something it's almost like like some act which actually breaks the laws of science and the laws of reason because it cannot make sense that we can get something out of a void and if you think there's something here you have to have some sort of God or some sort of creative impulse to make this world which we can see and feel however the scientists also know that because literally this which you sit on is just full of emptiness and space that there is actually nothing underneath your bottom if you look deeply it appears is something but there's not it's completely empty full of space full of holes and then maybe the solution to the creation of the physical matter of this universe might become clear to you it is true you can't create something out of nothing but you can certainly create nothing out of nothing maybe there's nothing here now which is why this world can evolve out of nothing there's the plays of energies and it is being bothered which is actually what happens in the world for those of you know physics it is like two particles anti particles could suddenly appear that's part of the laws of science when the sciences are so finely balanced like the Avalanche just waiting to happen you can get this huge effect from just no cause this is what happens with this universe came from nothing it's nothing now and therefore you can disappear into nothingness that is hard science now what does that mean with regard to the other parts of the world the mind a thing which knows this this is where Buddhism is always said from the very beginning just as this world is empty of substance empty of a core so that would have said is your mind empty of substance empty of a core there's nothing there it feels solid just like the floor which you sit feels so solid and your mind a sense of I the knower the doer the me is seemed so solid but the Buddha said is nothing there which is all very well but how can you accept that the thing is that the only way you can accept that is with this path which we have of meditation this meditation is learning how to find out for yourself the emptiness of the body and the mind in the same way that a scientist has spent years and years centuries two centuries looking into the nature of this thing we call stuff and finding it just so empty they can't pin anything down in the same way the Buddha would look through meditation at the mind and again not pin anything down but how does this happen so now I'm going to take you on the journey the journey of meditation which leads to enlightenment and how this whole process is about seeing the emptiness of things by allowing things to disappear there's a fundamental analogy which I'm going to bring up at this spot which I've used many times in my talks to the monks I love analogies because they put in very simple words what is sometimes very hard to describe which give understanding by invoking a picture which you can all recognize Co simile metaphor of the tadpole in the lake as you all would know it had Paul born in the lake lived in the lake all its life will never be able to understand what water is it's been around all the time surely it may understand the ripples and the currents in the waters maybe the temperature of the water some aspects of the water but not what water truly is how can you when it's been there with you all the time but with the tadpole as we all know that one day the tadpole grows its legs and grows into a frog and then leaves upon for the first time it's only when the tadpole is upon couldn't really know what water is can know it's true nature this is a problem with the delusion human beings sometimes it needed sort of some astronaut to actually to leave the planet to be able to get this view from you know a hundred thousand hundred thousand miles away to be able to see just what this planet really looks like and certain those images back to us so we can get that perspective of what it's like when we leave our home in our area where we usually have our experience the way of meditation is expensed ending your experience meditation is very much like that's had Paul leaving the lake you are leaving the body and your mind for the first time so this is actually why when we sit down we close our eyes in meditation sometimes people ask me can you meditate with your eyes open and so you're missing the point if you meditate with the eyes open because the whole point of this meditators allow things to disappear and it's just too much happening out there with your eyes open you tend to get distracted pulled with the colors and changes of the world outside and in fact you spent all your life with your eyes open except when you're sleeping and just particularly they're just unconscious and there's so much going on there you're in the lake you don't know what it's like when you leave that pond so we close our eyes in order for the world of what I call the body and the five senses to completely disappear the point of the meditation as I mentioned at the beginning of the thirty minutes meditation is not to get things the personal meditations allow things to disappear not to gain more but to allow what you have to disappear it is a letting go and this is why what happens when you even close your eyes many things which usually occupied your mind disappear literally the world outside vanishes and all you have left is your body and as you meditate more and more this is one reason why we sit still an accountable person we don't need to scratch or move because when the body is still it begins to disappear sometimes people get afraid when the body disappears I've heard students who've on meditation retreats or at other times they're sitting there and their hands are disappearing and they get afraid and what's that why are people so afraid when your body disappears this is what's supposed to happen in meditation the point is because for many people we've always been alert to the feelings in our body when it disappears it's just strange that's all it's like left had Paul leaving the lake when things disappear we go into experiences who have never been before where we lack familiarity and it's the nature of our mind to be scared in areas where we haven't been before which is why the path of Buddhism and finding out the truth demands great courage from everybody the courage to let go which is a tough one to ask before tchen Utley there's something which actually helps the letting go son which can overcome the fear something which does encourage you it's not just a pursuit of truth although that that is a great incentive to fund to go deep into the mind but even more than the pursuit of truth is the sheer peace and pleasure of this path of letting go it just feels good it feels very good and it's that attractive nature of letting go which actually pulls the mind deeper and deeper into States of literally abandoning sure that if you think about it the hands aren't there you might get worried but it feels so good when you have become peaceful and parts of the body tend to disappear and the more your body disappears they're more peaceful and the more blissful you start to become as you get deeper and deeper into the meditation there are many times when you can't feel your body at all to the point when even if a mosquito landed on you you wouldn't know it even if it puts his nose into you wouldn't feel it well there's no itches or aches no heat not cold where the body starts to completely disappear these are wonderful states of meditation simply because when you have nothing to worry about it's like finishing the work on the weekend many of you have been working hard and now it's the weekend you're free of all that business is another delight of the weekend so we have our holiday period vacation don't have to go to work on a Monday morning at last free when you understand what happens when your body disappears you understand that this body is gives you so much work to do usually told this little exercise now that sometimes you have to scratch your nose sometimes you have to play with your hands sometimes you have to move your body back wasn't forward sometimes you have to scratch and move your jacket sometimes you have to break your eyes sometimes you're scratching your lip so I'm just describing what I'm seeing cuz everybody's moving all the time you can never stay still why why do you always have to scratch something or move something scratching your arm moving your legs and moving your knees scratching your foot just all of these things you do why because this body will never give you a moment's peace it's always asking for something asking to be scratched asking to be fed asking to be adjusted ask to be taken to the toilet ask to be sort of bed this way or that way because that you've never noticed this you think it's normal but when someone points it out you just look at the people around you and see how many can actually sit absolutely still without fidgeting or doing something or why they fidgeting while they're doing something because his body is just so demanding and when you meditate and get into a state of stillness when the body disappears is like a tyrant has gone to sleep it's like a busyness has now finished it's like the work has been completed at last you can leave your body alone and attend to other business it's like the great weekend of meditation when your body can be put down forgotten about and you can attend to other things which is one of the reasons why when people meditate they get to this stage when the body disappears their mind feels so free they start to think about all sorts of things that last they're free to think without being disturbed by the body needing to be taken to the toilet or scratched or whatever now this is interesting because we're starting to leave the world of the body and with it the world of the five senses we're letting go of something when we really let go of his body when it gets so still in Buddhism the Buddha called at Chaya Posada the tranquility of the body when he gets tranquil it disappears now the point I made in the talk I gave to the monks on Wednesday night the sign of tranquility and peace is a disappearance of those things when your body baguettes peaceful it literally disappears it falls off the radar is not a problem anymore it's finished with its disappeared you let it go and now this is the most important point meditation is to allow things to disappear to let them go and the way that happens is we just make it tranquil and peaceful and then the things disappear by themselves so we just sit comfortably we sit still eyes closed in a place where there's not too much noise to disturb us if there is a noise a hum of the traffic in the background is okay as long as it's not sudden noise the five senses turn off and with it the physical world disappears you've let go when you actually start to let go of the body the next thing you notice is a world of the mind sometimes that people have great discussions on what the nature of the mind is sometimes I've given a simile to people I was given this simile very often in my tour have United States is the simile of the emperor in the five pieces of clothing imagine an emperor and you don't know who that emperor is whether it's male or female whether it's Republican or Democrat whether it's because I was in the United States and all this stuff now whether it whether it's a Chinese a Caucasian or African old or young because this emperor is clothed in boots which go up to his thighs he's got a trousers which cover his waist and go or its waist and go over the boots it's got a jacket which covers the trousers to its neck and down its arms gloves which go over the top of the arms and a helmet which covers its head and overlaps the top of the jacket the five clothings the boots the trousers the jacket the gloves and the helmet cover that Emperor so completely you can't see who's inside you just don't know what it is in this simile I'm describing the mind and the five senses otherwise known as the body that mind is like the Emperor inside the one who's responsible for so much the one in control the one who's actually sees and understands things that's what I call it like an emperor X is such an important thing inside the human being actually inside all beings but it's always covered so much by the five senses of seeing hearing smelling tasting and physical touch that many people have got no understanding of what this mind is they have theories and inferences but they don't really know the path of meditation is to take the clothes of the emperor to take away seeing hearing smelling tasting and touching and see what's left when all those five senses disappear when the body disappears when it's all let go off while you find when that happens is his beautiful states of inner bliss where the mind is released from the body I don't mean going floating out into space because space it's all part of these five senses it's all part of the body this is not just a mind floating out in the near-death experience this is the whole world disappearing no space left this is a realm of the mind what we call in Buddhism the jhana experiences here what's happening is you for let go of the body and the five senses and you're left with this mind business this mind is incredibly important thing to understand one of the great things about I really enjoyed about the Buddhist path is this is not theory anymore you're going to direct experience so no one can argue with this this is actually what you're feeling what you're experiencing what you're seeing what you're you're knowing directly without anybody having to tell you about it so you don't have to rely on some authorities which is I will sound very very annoying when people actually tell you what to believe you say why second I told you so and all these authorities sometimes they could be right most often they are wrong so as a young man as a spiritual seeker I wanted to find out for myself and this is the way to find out and there's a very simple simile which made it very clear what you're supposed to do but most importantly how you're supposed to do it what happens is when you're letting go of things when they disappear you find they're not so important going back to the simile in the beginning just the nature of the ground in which is sitting on you find there's nothing there in this body of ours the five senses because they disappear you see there is nothing there sometimes that people make a big thing about race or about gender about age and very often I've told those people to be coming here long enough you know you should never think of yourself as a woman or as a man as old or young as Asian Caucasian African or whatever that's the surface stuff for goodness sake just what's on the surface is defining you of those things but when you go deeper and deeper beyond the body you're not a man anymore a woman that's while it was great being a monk because sometimes you're not either in Thailand I was taught when I was young there are three sexes three genders male females and monks I quite like that idea it's grace of being out of all of this no dualism of male or female and actually you might notice that that you know the the monks and the nuns who come and teach here as soon as you shave your hair and your wellies loose-fitting robes no makeup it's very difficult to tell who is a monk and who's a nun that's the only reason why he have insisted that marks where the lighter robes and the nuns are sisters where the darker robes just so you can tell but if they being a woman or being a man was so essentially part of you you should be able to tell even if you're a monk or a nun but you just can this is completely superficial and so when we get into these things we understand those sorts of things which we argue about we make a big deal about which sometimes run our world it is empty of real meaning when they're empty of real meaning we can play with them we can leave them alone because they're not substantial they're not important we can leave them alone but the most important part of this is actually to get into this realm of the mind of find out what this mine is already you've done the way of calm carving this body until it disappears and then you go deeper into calming this mind until it disappears this is actually the way of the deepest stages of meditation which few people actually follow even in that first stage of meditation we call the other first jhana in such a stage because you've left the lake as you've known it the pawn of your normal experience has been this has been transcended a new experience of freedom and a bliss which you've never had before a oneness of mind and whenever I've read the Christian mystics or even the Hindu mystics it's very clear to me that those traditions which claim a union with God but that's exactly what they're describing this here we get to the mystical experiences as defined in our world you can imagine where everything you've known has disappeared and you've got this incredible bliss and stillness of mind oh joy which is I've used this as a marketing tool joy better than sexual orgasm and there it's still not moving for hours and hours and hours and you wonder what is that if you were sort of in the middle ages and gots to some of those states which some of you here have done you'd be considered a saint it's great powerful experience but in Buddhism we take it deeper than that we see this is only the start the body has disappeared but there's still left is mind and as you stay in those states more and more and more even the mind starts to disappear this is a fascinating experience of the deep stages of meditation to see as you go calm and calm and karma because these are all stages of letting go for seeing how much you can abandon seeing through stillness how much disappears and see was left this is where one gets Stiller and Stiller and Stiller one of the great stages of these jhanas in the second stage is where will disappears this thing we call intention and choice will the choosing sometimes people write great articles about the nature of the will what actually motivates you what is the process which makes you decide what you do decide how does that all work I've had great fun talking about the will and experiments which have been done with the will and choosing but when one goes into it into these deep meditations and you find that the will disappears this flight of tadpole has now left the water for the first time you've left the work realm of will of choice that would you which you thought I was being freedom when you experience a state when the potential to do the potential to choose that potential to move your mind or your body is completely removed but you're still incredibly aware and alert this is like the experience of the fog only when you've moved out of the water can you know what water is only when you've moved completely beyond the potential to do things only thank you understand what this thing we call will choice truly is this is a place where great insights arise from strange but powerful experiences so often we think that the will is coming from us that we are the ones who choose that we are the ones who do things there's so many examples of that I think that before I go too deep I should tell a few funny stories about the will just to give people might get lost in this deep talk a bit of relief one of the stories which I'd like to tell you about the nature of the will is when you understand it's not really coming from you it's completely conditioned and brainwashed because I remember once well not just once many many times you can see the way that advertisements work and how they condition the mind and how they make you do things which you think that you're doing but someone else has been completely controlling you well the first times I notices was when I was a young man I remember watching a television and this particular advertisement which really got me sucked in was for Saint Bruno tobacco I still remember it clearly there was a little advertisement in which this ordinary-looking young man bought some Saint Bruno tobacco put it into a pipe lit it I was walking down the road of a typical English town and the aroma from this tobacco wafted into a bank and one of the tellers behind the counter was incredibly beautiful girl some model who as soon as she smelt the first fragrance of San Bruno tobacco became completely besotted jumped over the counter and started following this man fully in love and then she passed a news age and the same thing happened to this a gorgeous redhead who also had to leave her job as a news agent and follow this man and then somebody in some laundry also came out in the face of one or two minutes this older looking man was being followed by the most gorgeous attractive girls you could imagine stupid isn't it advertisement like that who believed in something back there and I did I brought some of that tobacco leave it in a pipe walk down the street but no one jumped over any counters for me it's just as well because they did I might not have ended up as a monk but when you look back upon their I thought I was an intelligent sensible young man why did I do that as some years ago I remember being in Melbourne and it's a very very cold day and I saw all these girls and his tank tops I had this huge area of exposed chests around their midriffs I felt so sorry for them they must have been freezing what do they do that for did they really have any choice or was it the fashion the dictates of the media their advertisements had conditioned their will into doing something which was completely barmy why do you do all this fashion stuff is it really your free choice or have you been completely conditioned what is actually free will are you free I know because when you get to these deep states of meditation and actually you come out art with you know the nature of the will my goodness is completely conditioned the reason I tell bad jokes is because my father told bad jokes with his fault nothing to do with me he conditioned me completely and that's the way it is I don't blame me we need to understand the nature of the will when you've allowed it to disappear it shocks you to the core you really think that you were in control but you're not so close a process which goes through a very complex web of cause and effect once you know that you have to be very careful because you notice how you can be conditioned by others but how the media especially how politicians they could know how to press the buttons they know how to look at I remember a few years ago Princess Diana's funeral why was it there's so many people who weren't even related to her sort of watch their funeral and also cried that there was so sad you were being manipulated I thought it is why in movies do you get sucked in and start crying Sonya Mooney for goodness sake would you do that for and you pay for it as well it's crazy but a lot of this you can see that the entertainment industry is brilliant and be able to control people they can control your emotions so easily even this is a Christmas time you get to control your emotions and therefore those of you who come from the Caucasian background you see a little Christmas tree a few cows and you start getting all soft and mushy it was great when making use of that because I know the way the mind works so well that when I was going in England even the first time that people weren't at all sort of used to seeing a monk but I will say Merry Christmas and that put them in a difficult spot there's no way they had to say Merry Christmas back in the United States in some places in which were very heavily Christian you just say good morning to somebody psychological pressure they had to say good morning back when you know the way that the mind works you notice how many of our responses are completely conditioned they even predictable you know exactly how people are going to behave at least if you know that you can use it to your advantage as we do here every week we're for good purposes that's why that you know marcsa got this incredibly high virtue so we will never abuse or exploit you but if we do do any brainwashing it's always this for good for peace for kindness for charity know looking after you and it's true because if you whatever you go that actually affects your will if you listen to these teachings long enough you will become enlightened yourself simply because you can't avoid it you know we'll guess we conditioned I've been doing that in maimana see for the last ten eleven years since I've been the other putting these suggestions into the minds of my monks to be peaceful to be virtuous to be kind to be peaceful and it works as I'm doing it for you you find if you come to places like this afterwards you're more peaceful kind compassionate person why you've been brainwashed into doing in this way you know some people as the United States sometimes people put all these talks which we have on the web on iPod and they go down the beach and they listen to it they're in their car two or three hours in LA going to work they listen to these talks they completely brainwashed by now imagine three or four hours a day listen to the same talks it's not that you just hear the jokes again again the message the jokes are just a sweetener the message is peace kindness compassion for those sorts of things so understanding just how this always works you can also recondition your own mind and this is something which I've been using for the last few years when you understand just how the mind works and what the will truly is you can play with your own will I call this programming mindfulness if you've got some bad habits you know say that you're always arguing you know with your partner always saying these these snide remarks which is quite common when you be married four or five years or more I've heard it is crazy that people love each other but again this bad habit of always finding for pointing out the other person's weaknesses so all you really need to do when you see any bad habit the reason you do that is just conditioning that's all it's just you've done it for so long it's just the way you do things - in order to reprogram their mind I tell people when you're feeling quiet calm relaxed only those times when you feel good you got a bit of energy not when you're stressed out or burdened with so many other things to do in a calm quiet time of your day think of that problem and just tell your mind when I meet my partner I will never say anything hurtful to him or her when I meet my partner I will never say anything hurtful and I meet my partner I will not say anything hurtful you say that to yourself I usually do this three times paying full attention its most importantly the attention which you give to what you are even is for listening completely and then you forget it leave it alone and you'll be so surprised that when you meet your partner you're about to follow the old habits of saying something mean and nasty but the thought comes up no I will say something nice and you do that thought which you you may have imagined was on the spur of the moment came because you programmed it in there you put it in there sometimes days before and now it's come up it's a great way of understanding how to change behaviors even with smoking drinking or whatever else you think it is whatever is a bad behavior something you want to try and change in your life try programming your mindfulness remember just to sum it up again quiet times of your day when you feel relaxed energetic at peace make a resolution three times listen carefully and then leave it alone it's gone in it what happen it will work great way you're doing things it understands the nature of the will so as you go deeper into meditation the potential to do disappears the will has vanished remember this meditation is all about being still being peaceful and it's this will things which keeps on moving the world the strange thing I was mentioning this today that the nature of the Western world we're very will fall one of the reasons we will fall is because we are neurotic fault finders I don't know what it is about our Western world but because we're always finding fault we're never satisfied with ourselves with our partners or with life because of that we're always so active trying to change develop and make things so-called better that our civilization has done so much we built so much we've got so much technology we can't ever stop we can't ever stop to enjoy what we've achieved our Western world is completely neurotic in that way it works ever harder and harder and harder more and more things more more inventors more more work why why can't we say this is good enough there are how many of my so-called disciples were very happy in their house and they decided to buy a bigger house the investment for the future no investment for the future always means more housework that's all more worries why always always try to change things we don't have any appreciation of what we already have we're always seeing the faults and what is the same when we look at ourselves too many people have lack of self-esteem and I always think I think there's a huge correlation there an absolute correlation I would say between the pace of our life which is for fighting try and make things better because we've never actually experienced or appreciate what we have and sort of the lack of our own contentment we don't think we're good enough so we want to force it go more and more and more the fault-finding mind drives our civilization and at the same time it creates this enormous angst unhappiness discontent inside the mind to be able to get this deep states of meditation you have to oppose the fault-finding mind develop a mind of appreciation of loving kindness adored my heart's open to this whatever it is the ability to be at peace with things to appreciate things not to see the force but to see the good things there to learn from your successes not learn from your mistakes that I've been saying the last few years this positive energy rather than negative energy is the only way you can get stillness and peace this is good enough what more do you want you start wanting more there's no end there's only an end with contentment because contentment gives stillness stillness stops is doing this wanting and everything becomes calm in the great stillness of the mind that which once the will stops often wondered about the nature of time time is driven by craving by will it's actually craving and will creates time so the more we want the more time is important when we are not wanting anything when we are still time disappears the whole flow of life stops and I'm not just saying that as a theory because that's what happens when you get into meditation how many of you have set still and experience timelessness ten minutes half an hour two hours have gone by and you haven't been asleep people can actually take photographs of you've been perfectly upright you haven't been sonali perfectly alert but time has lost this meaning why because you've been content the mind has become still craving creates time and for those scientists here who want to know this thing about the arrow of time because the laws of physics can go back both ways why does things flow in one direction this because craving flows in one direction that actually directs a movement of time when craving stops when the mind stops willing and doing everything becomes very still that it becomes still just like your body disappears gradually when you stop moving so does the mind disappear the deeper meditations are seeing the mind vanish as though the appearance of seeing the mind vanishing and here I mean that which knows the knower vanishing these give even a more powerful insights to see that even that which knows that which does just lightly ground underneath you is empty of everything there is literally nothing there when you see it vanish you investigate deeply you understand just how insubstantial it is it is just a process and interplay of energies if you wish this likely solid matter underneath you just like this solar system this universe which any scientists will describe to you in the same way your mind is the same these are the insights which people have in the deep meditations it challenges as to our core because we think the evidence in front of us is that this thing is solid or how can heat it but the evidence is dumb times misinterpreted misunderstood it's not as straightforward as people would want to see and sometimes it's not what you want to see one of the great things about truth then we expect truth to be what you want to believe there's too many people have vested interests in wanting it to be this way wanting to be that way insite takes you out of your comfort zones challenges you and sometimes makes you very afraid strange thing but it's a joy the bliss of freedom which would overcome that fear even though you're losing so much of what you really thought you were in these deep states of meditation it's so much bliss so much profound stillness you can't avoid it it's just too attractive freedom real freedom it's just too attractive for you so you just get pulled along as your mind disappears as everything goes as it really is nothing left when you understand about the nature of the mind of consciousness of knowing and doing and seeing it that empty only then can you understand just where did this mind come from and where would it go to when is nothing there even now when you see it's full emptiness you understand they can come from nothing and you can also more importantly understand you can go back to nothing you can only do that it was nothing now you can't destroy anything you can only change it even if you blow up a building you got rubble laughter afterwards the only way things can disappear if they weren't there in the first place this is why when we meditate we allow things to disappear as they disappear we understand just how empty they were as the whole world disappears and with it your mind then you can understand the deeper teachings of a Buddha you understand this is nothing here after a while there'll be nothing left all that ELO's will one day disappear and pass away to end this story of emptiness I want to repeat one of the great moments of my life was my master ajahn Chah he was a a teaching which he gave me personally I don't know if he gave this teaching to anybody else no one else has told me he taught like this but one occasion when I was going to help a young child this great teacher at the sauna because I John Chow was getting very sickly we built him a sauna at our monastery in Thailand his monastery was just a little ways away I was mentioning justice on the side that one of the greats gifts of this teacher ajahn Chah was he didn't just teach us to be monks he taught the Western disciples how to be teachers because he got some land a little ways away from his monastery and he told all his Western max here you are you run your own monastery of course we made a lot of messes many times and he had to come and sort them out but that's the only way we could learn and so that now when every way when I went over to United States when he went to Europe there's so many monasteries of his tradition in the West and they're very very popular even actually this is another asylum going off an attack now come back to the story about in China stone in a moment but the CEO of Ford Corporation I think it's called John Ford he's a Buddhist but I always thought he was like a Tibetan Buddhist but apparently that he went to Thailand recently to negotiate the opening of a car plant in Thailand and obviously he had to meet the prime minister Thaksin to discuss the plant and when they had the meeting instead of discussing you know the plant and the economics of it and the deer they're going to make with the government the CEO of Ford said to the Prime Minister of Thailand have you heard of a man called ajahn Chah because the CEO of Ford had read many books of ajahn Chah and of course the Prime Minister of Thailand his previous teacher was ajahn Chah secretary a monk called Aslam Unni because I remember him when I first went to John Charles monastery he was a secretary the one who did my visa for the first time but he left because it was too busy said himselves up became a teacher in his own right and was teaching the Prime Minister of Thailand when of course that meant that tax lien also had huge number of books of ajahn Chah so it's fascinating just how these teachings have actually reached even like these CEOs top company in the United States now so ajahn Chah was an enormous e powerful monk and this actually shows a depth of his power because when I was he came for a sauna one day one of the reasons why we built that soil just to get the teacher to the monastery every week because he would give us a Dharma talk like a sermon before he had his sauna and now and again he just really hit the spot and this particular occasion he gave his incredibly profound talk when he'd have a profound talk and it inspires you it's so easy to meditate afterwards the whole mind has been moved in one direction and so instead of taking my body to the soil to help my teacher I just went around the back of the hall and meditated it's so easy to go into still peaceful states when you're inspired so there was in the back of the hall sitting meditation enjoying myself because when you meditate is so much bliss so much peace it's profound it's deep you feel that it's beyond all sort of theories and dogmas and arguments about what religion is right what's the right tradition and what's the right teacher what's the right thing to believe or what just shut up and be still and so when you ask do you feel it when you feel it is so beautiful and wonderful the liberation when you just allow things to disappear and everything becomes so still it's the best bliss in the world that's why stand remain as a man that's why people become nuns so that beautiful stillness so there I was enjoying myself and I don't know how long I was in that meditation when I came out my first thing I thought wow this was really nice but then I thought I should go and look after my teacher that's no the the job of monks to look after the ones who teach you especially in the Asian tradition so they went off to find my teacher maybe I could do some little service for him but I was too late i gen cha had finished his sauna because I met him on the path I was going to the sauna he was coming the opposite direction is one of these wonderful encounters now with a great teacher because he took one look at me and I'm not joking that sometimes he's great masters they look at you they look right through you and you feel they're getting right into your mind some of these people do have psychic powers they can read your mind and that's what he was doing can you saw I know the features on my face when you have a good meditation you're relaxed you've got a big smile on your face just a whole body language shows you you're peaceful so he saw that saw that I've been in a nice meditation he decided to try and enlighten me because sometimes when you're ready all it needs is just a little piece of information just to create an Enlightenment experience so he looked me in the eye and said bum along so why that's how he said it sharp right to the point why the biggest question of all and I promised you at the beginning this talk I should tell you about the meaning of life he was asking that question why I answered I don't know because I was only a young bank I was stupid I didn't know what I was doing I had a nice meditation I didn't really know what it meant so I was honest I said I don't know and this great teacher you know it's obviously disappointed it didn't work but he just laughed there's this great teachers too they never put you down sometimes when you're really stupid and did something idiotic they think it's so funny and that's what I really learned making mistakes and being stupid is a wonderful compassionate act for all other people because it makes them happy really stupid I remember this one time when I went up to see a giant charge this burning tight and because I needed some soap for the shower I went up to him and I saw some soap in Thai I was just learning Thai for goodness sake but the word for soap is sebou I said suppo which means pineapple so it wouldn't do one and I said I want pineapple notes it to wash with that's how he heard it he thought these western violets are really weird is it really true in England you wash with pineapples you never let me forget that but from that time I always knew the difference between a pineapple and a bar soap but he never sort of criticized you just thought it was a big joke of what a wonderful entertainment it was overly stupid Western monks around so he made him happy so that was a wonderful gift for a teacher so there was being stupid again saying I don't know but then he looked me in the eye again he stopped laughing and he gave me one of his other big looks right inside you he said I'll tell you the answer he said if anyone ever asked that question again this is the answer this is one of the great teachers of our modern times the answer the question why he said my mio I which is tigh for there isn't anything there's the answer there's nothing and then look to me do you understand I said yes he said no you don't do you understand no you don't what a brilliant teacher that was so what a great answer the answer the question why emptiness nothing there it's powerful this is what you see and everything disappears that's the only place where there can be any stillness it is something left there's always some business left there can there be an ending of things never any stillness never any freedom never any peace whenever there's something left there's always something to do when there's nothing left at all only then do you have real freedom so that's what Nibbana is when everything disappears when there's nothing left how can that happen because the Buddha sex is nothing here to begin with there's nothing here now that's the answer to the question why there is nothing so all you nothing so just wasted your time listening to sweet nothings so that's the talk today and a little deeper talk today I hope I entertained you but also provoked you giving you some powerful deep teachings because I thought at that time I gave a deeper teaching rather than two bad bricks and all these other jokes so has anyone got any questions or comments about the talk about nothing emptiness and the meaning of life any questions or comments yeah that'll be very cheeky but also be missing the point because actually that I'm clear to maybe ask that question because sometimes that I've seen people ask questions like of monks or teachers and instead of getting a straight answer you've asked a question back I think that's very unfair because you know if you're a teacher you're supposed to be given the answers students supposed to ask the questions so no that would be the wrong thing to do I thought if you've ever been a in a teacher-student relationship and if you'd go to somebody like a psychiatrist and say what has happened to me and they say why not you know this so nobody do their job so don't know the answers they should be charging the fees basically yeah but I might prefer it when people if I ask them the question I don't ask a question back because that's what politicians do very often they avoid the the question I think that's just being slippery so if ever I do that please tell me off if ever you ask me a question and they say no why did you ask that question and then I'm just avoiding so a straight answer and I don't know I've had enough experiences of actually asking questions of teachers or goos or something and they're beginning a straight answer I've had enough experience that though why can't you give us great art if you don't know just say you don't know but it stops us sliding around and shifting the grout ask me directly and I think that's really being dishonest and lack of integrity on part of the teacher so if anyone asks a question I want to give a straight answer if I don't please aspect so when you ask the question you know is it okay to say I've got a member this club member in the United States is that whenever a question is asked please repeat the question for the tape so the lady asks why didn't you answer the question why with why not so now who had the answer first the question comes afterwards so I hope you don't mind those people listening on the tape oh yeah absolutely so stop bothering stop craving just shut up sit down and disappear the thing is that we do do things because we don't understand yeah yes yeah yeah that's right he's saying that why bother if we have no choice I think that's a question you answer I think because you have no choice but to bother it's all part of the beautiful process sometimes people say if you've got no choice why bother didn't even come to the temple because you've got no choice but to come to the table you try not to come to the temple you try not to meditate you tried not to to go into the pursuit of truth and peace and happiness yeah this is actually how its answered you find you're almost like on this journey of cause and effect this process and in a lot of times even in your life so far you probably have thought that you made all these decisions but a lot of your life has been out of control and as soon as you realize that it's not just part of your life basically most of your life the sooner you can be at peace and harmony stopped by the control life so much it's being a control freak which creates all the problems of life the more we can just actually flow with things and just embrace things allow things to develop you find the more peaceful and harmonious and also then what prosperous you will be one of the stories was in a newspaper in Israel the doctors went on strike for two weeks and during that fortnight the death rates in the hospitals in Jerusalem plummeted sometimes with more we control them what we messed things up isn't that so in your life even your relationships and we try and control your relationships more difficult they become so it's a great thing about not controlling so much look at our Western society which is so into control and one of the nice things which I learned in my patient societies the village societies people don't see flow with things and there was one it was a big deal we've got a house is in good enough we got one water buffalo we got a field is used to have this whole saying this this water in the field says fish in the water what more do you want in life then we had that simple contentment before until we thought this is not good enough how much do you want how much do you need so after a while we found a contentment is the best way for with contentment the world disappears that's a problem people they don't want the world to disappear that's why they keep doing things so make sense thinking ok nothing is a process which what yeah okay there's a post that which is void of anything I'd love to simile of just the nature of this physical world because that is almost like a direct paradigm of the nature of the mind so just because it's nothing actually physically here asked any scientists just a flow of energy or no basically even the energy is actually nothing there a balance of energy of negative energy of positive energy put them all together and just disappears vanishes nothing is underlying the process process coming out of nothing really nothing now we'll end it nothing there no really beautiful nothing is there nothing gained nothing Ross okay one one there's a question over here afterwards yeah no no if you're thinking so well you go from your thoughts today of course you have to be able to yeah can anyone become a lightened how to become aligned again Oh without meditation what meditation is is letting go so you kind of become aligned you can't disappear without letting go of things I know what meditation is is the part of letting go you just sit here and just let go you allow things to disappear that's what meditation means allowing things to disappear so obviously you have to let things disappear to get to nothingness that's why meditate just said we're still when still when you're still the whole world disappears when you move you create the world that's why we create such a big world because we moved so much we move so fast so what are we creating we're just creating this turmoil so I think if the world you must illness and people just didn't do so much rested more with because they didn't have such a fortified in mind are more grateful appreciative mind I think we'd have more happiness will have less progress but more happiness and peace take your choice yeah yeah feelings of awe and wonder about the nature of the world and nature of relationships yeah sure especially when you see what's underlying at all so the more deeper you see and the more all you have the more wonder you have when it's a whole way of the path of awe and wonder gets you to investigate deeper and deeper so or and wonder is not a finishing point of the path because actually generates a more deeper investigation into things wow this is wonderful I wonder what's deeper in here but the thing is that the or sometimes becomes a bit too much for people and they get scared and that's where the joy and the bliss takes over they even actually I remember reading I think in the Christian Bible that the idea of a God is fearful and frightening and awesome and what could that maybe mean but maybe just you have to let go so much to go into those deeper stages it's frightening because we're all fear is about something so precious to you is about to be taken away fear is always about losing something when your feet know you have got anything to lose there's nothing there of course all fear disappears and vanishes and then maybe in a Christian para diving get as close to God as you want this is nothing there which is why in a Christian paradigm you have to let go of yourself with your soul have to let go of your ego your person your being and surrender that is a part of Christian peace and mysticism what a surrender mean but just letting go of will doing moving still that make sense you was another question over there yeah okay you've heard emptiness described as bright as emptiness have qualities it really depends on how much emptiness which you you develops as you empty out more and more the mind becomes brighter more beautiful this is actually the brightness of the Janice or just before the Janice this is where there's a term in party called upper bus or tea to the brilliant and radiant mind and that's the stage just before you enter a jhana well I called in the books and nimr to this beautiful bright light which comes out which and gets hope credibly brilliant and what brilliant and sort of anything you've ever seen before in this world what that means is the mind is becoming energizer seeing a purity the brilliance of all this there's quite cause as you go deeper into the the deep states of meditation and then the whole concept of brightness disappears there's peace and stillness becomes even more delicious than this course ecstasy the different types of happiness in this world as we taste each one we find the one which is most electable is the Bliss of peace utter contentment stillness wow that's nice and many of you have got an idea what that's like we have been meditating here why did you meditate here this after this evening instead of going to a movie I'll go into the real party what are you doing this for a lot of it because you find that when you meditate even for half an hour this so I'm gonna get the amateur you're so nice it's more delicious you know then sort of the joy and happiness of seeing a movie or watch it listen to music so it's fascinating that you get led into deeper and deeper happiness and peace and that's what takes you into emptiness they're saying the burning power monks who can the Barna is the ultimate happiness emptiness is the highest bliss

Channel: Sadaham Arana

Views: 59,148

Rating: 4.6760831 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: LqlTYyq7At0

Length: 74min 27sec (4467 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 23 2013