How to Move Forward in One's Practice - Ajahn Brahmali - 20181231

okay you're the boss does please tell me what to do it's nice not to be the boss there's to be the slave as to follow along it's really nice actually no need to think you no need to do anything like that that's really that's wonderful here anyway it's nice to see so many people here on New Year's Eve yeah New Year's Eve people usually do stupid things but not here he would do smart things on the easy which is very nice and I know that ajahn brahm he left bank for Perth just last night this morning actually this morning and he got straight back to the DA Malacca Center in Perth he went straight into the Malacca center and they're starting their New Year's Eve party right now in Perth yes that's happening it for her that's happening here so it's really nice actually that this is going on there it's so important that we take these opportunities to do something good rather than doing things that I stood stupid and foolish like getting drunk or whatever else it is that people do on the day like today's I'm very very happy I'm very pleased to see so many of you here and the title for tonight's talk is how to make progress on the path how to overcome obstacles and that sort of thing yeah which is a nice very nice and really good title I think because it's one of those things that we want to really try to achieve as Buddhists to always move forward and move forward to something positive move forward to a greater sense of happiness greater sense of ease in our life less suffering and less problems this is really what the Buddhist path is about and this is what the Buddha promises hussar yeah he says that if we do the practice in the right way you will make progress you would leave the suffering behind and you will gradually increase in happiness it's not a great message it's just so what else is there to life than that this is what life is all about isn't it finding more happiness in life reducing suffering here and this is a promise if we live in this life in the right why here now of course there are sometimes people are quite satisfied we're just happening and even live they're not really looking for necessarily an increase in happiness and it can use the Buddhist teachings in that way just to have a more even and smooth experience in life that is okay but also it is also good ultimately to try to actually achieve a greater state of well-being when we mean when we're talking about happiness and what is and we don't just mean kind of you know euphoria or anything like that we mean anything which is gonna and I think which is positive you know anything which is kind of you feel whatever it is that's good in life more contentment more compassion more kindness more peace all of these things are what we're actually talking about and these other things that are so close to us and ultimately these are the things that give life real meaning and real purpose everything else is kind of secondary huh so how do we measure it first of all how do we measure progress in Buddhism how do we know that what does actually progress mean this is kind of the first issue we have to deal with that and the Buddha is very explicit about this in the suit as it talks about this because the Buddha of course realizes that as long as we are making progress as long as we are moving forward eventually we will get to those goals yeah we will get to John as we get to New Bern and all these kind of things that so as long as you are making progress yeah then you're moving in the right direction you know one day maybe not this life but eventually you'll get to these kind of goals that we're looking at because that's what happens if you keep making progress so what does it mean and the way the Buddha defines this and it defines it of course as increase in mindfulness yes your mindfulness gets better over time it talks about your Samad your ability sustain your attention on your meditation object increase in say but in general it is about increasing in wholesome states the good states and declining in the bad ones this is basically what it is about and what are these good states well there's obviously mindfulness is one of the most important one but really everything your degree of kindness your degree of compassion in the world your understanding of other people the decrease in ill-will decrease in powerful desires decrease in confusion and all of these kinds of things and if you see this happening here and you have to measure over quite long periods of time it can't just measure from one day to the next right because one day happy next day kind of it kind of goes like you yo-yo sometimes a but you measure over a certain period of time six months yeah a year perhaps so you go on the retreat yeah I don't know Johnny girl perhaps have many of you been to jhana Grove oh yeah yeah only one okay okay that's that's more like it okay good I was getting whatever second we've been really bad marketing John I grow only one person okay we better do some marketing tonight so you go on the retreat it doesn't have to be done ago it can be anywhere way it is nice and peaceful and conducive to meditation practice and then from one year to the next one you measure you feel are you feeling any better than you did last year here and if you are then you know you're heading in the right direction if you're not yeah if it's the same yeah it usually doesn't go down it's very real for things to go down sometimes maybe a little bit for a while but usually doesn't go down but if it still stays the same that is when you have to have to ask yourself what is the obstacle is there is there a problem here is there a reason why I'm not making any progress because if there is no progress it is almost as if you lose the purpose of the spiritual path and if you lose the purpose eventually you're going to be fed up with being a Buddhist yeah and you're gonna end up as a Christian maybe or maybe something else is anyone here who is thinking about giving up on what isn't me you have become a Christian instead yeah no okay so maybe it doesn't matter but the point is that to really sustain this to really keep your faith and confidence and the Buddhist teaching going here you're going to have to feel a sense of success and accomplishment that you're moving towards a greater purpose or greater aim yeah then it's gonna work out for you so this is how the Buddha says we measure success and so what do we do then to actually enable us to move forward all the time and I have just been finishing a little retreat in moire moire up in Malaysia you know next nextdoor true in Johor but close to my life girl right next door to Monica pretty much and one of the things we did there we had a look at the life of the Buddha we just spoke about the life of the Buddha for a couple of days the life of the Buddha is always a very good starting point for deciding how to do our practice because the way the Buddha talks about his own life and talked Simha had his own practice is as an example for all of us and how we should live as well here yeah the Buddha says this is what I did and of course what the Buddha did is precisely practicing those things that lead to greater happiness in fact all the way to awakening itself so when we read the sutras when you read the word of the buddha it is good to remind yourself that the word of the Buddha is supposed to be when he talks about his own practice it supposed to be an inspiration for each one of us to practice in the same way and to be able to do that one of the critical things is actually to look at the Buddha in the right way here one of the problems very often with a traditional Buddhist country I have noted Singapore is that a traditional Buddhist country it's kind of it it's a little bit eration a little bit non-traditional there's kind of a mixed mixed bag of things but very often what you find in a traditional Buddhist culture is that they kind of place the Buddha on the pedestal which is so high that what I becomes like different from what it is to be an ordinary human being the Buddha once becomes like a god yeah and then you pray to the Buddha I got a please help me but it's like you know it's really exactly like a god there's no different from the Christian God and the board that basically all comes down to the same thing here but this misses the point yeah the point of the Buddha is that he was a human being here he was like the rest of us and the practice that he did because he was a human being he is exactly the same practice as we should be doing as well so for the Buddha Buddha's life to be meaningful for us what we have to do is we have to first of all understand that the Buddha was a human being just like the rest of us but this difference between the Buddha and I saw is that the Buddha took the human potential to its highest possibility that is really the difference but in essence we are the same and once we get that then when you read the sutras then when we start to see how what have the Buddha talks about his own life it becomes an inspiration for each one of us you think wow this is what the Buddha did he was human he could do it I can do it too this is what the Buddha is trying to say this is how we should read his message then you understand the Buddha in the right way and then you can actually take some of that message out of the sutras and then use that in your own practice so what is that message and one of the one of that those messages as can be lots of messages but one of those messages is not to make progress on the Buddhist path one of the essential thing is is that you use wisdom in how you look at your practice yeah use your ability to reflect use your ability to look at things with a higher wisdom rather than using willpower or force all of these kinds of things wisdom power is far more far better and far more useful far easier far less stressful and always using willpower here so use a wheel pal use wisdom power don't use wisdom power in the Franco Zen you'll be on the right track so what does that mean how does that how does that come out in the in the story of the Buddha and one of the place is it comes out and this is before the Buddha becomes the Buddha he is still the Buddha to be his practicing or he hasn't actually started practicing yet and this is why he's still living at home and one of the things that he thinks while he's lived in the home life he thinks that there is a problem in life there is death there is all age there is suffering there is there is a basic problem and the basic problem is that we're all gonna die eventually that is essentially what it comes down to her so the Buddha then uses the idea that I'm gonna die not only am I gonna die but all the things that I hold onto in the world all the people all the things I have I also gonna die they're gonna have to be taken away from me here and he uses that idea and it takes it so deeply understand it is such a high degree that actually that becomes the thing that makes him go forth and become a monastic yeah yeah very often we think that the Buddha is all about compassion for all beings is it mad kind of this big cosmic view about what reality is about is going to help everyone in the whole world but no the Buddha's own story about why he went forth it's basically because he understands that suffering is a problem in the world how can I overcome suffering for myself and the main thing there is actually the idea of death yeah because death is one of the most difficult things to face in life I just went to hospital today and saw someone who was very sick with cancer and you can see how hard it is when it come to that stage in your life it's actually very difficult and one of the reasons why it is difficult is because we have built up so many attachments so many things in the meantime that when it comes time to let go you don't actually able to do it so the difference between us and the Buddha is that the Buddha took a simple thing like death it's so simple it's so obvious we all know we're gonna have to die here yeah is anyone he was not gonna die here no there's why everybody's gonna die we know the height we know it but we don't know it we know it superficially we don't know it in a deep way here and that is the difference but the Buddha he knew it so deeply here that he actually decided to go forth and on the basis of that he found awakening itself and he started the Buddhist teachings and now two and a half thousand years later we're still here still reading the sutras of the Buddha and the reason we're doing that the reason why we still have this teaching two and a half years later on her is for one simple reason that one person thought about death in such a profound way that this is what actually was the outcome of matter that's amazing isn't it and it shows you the difference between using wisdom in a really profound way and using it in a more superficial way here more deeper the more powerful the wisdom is the more ability it has to drive us and do something for the path so this is the first example in the life of the Buddha where the Buddha uses wisdom in this way a second example is after he goes forth them and after he goes forth he has just like all other human beings he has problem with defilements in his mind but yeah so if you ever have defiled nuts in your mind you are in very good company so anyone here who doesn't have any deformers ever in their mind it's kind of it's it's just the common human experience almost everyone has deform and so the buddha has these developments and then what he says he says that the way he designs the way he overcomes these defilements is actually very interesting here very often when you have a problem in your mind you might kind of push it aside and get rid of it and kind of thing yeah I don't want that you know this is bad you have kind of you have a will and then use more ill-will to kind of get rid of the availa and you can see how that doesn't really work yeah I kind of mean it because this makes the problem worse in many ways so what would I say when he sees a problem in his mind yeah instead of using willpower he uses wisdom to deal with this problem he asks himself what is the result what is the consequence of having this defilements in the mind what happens if I have ill will and where does it lead and what he says is that when you have ill will in your mind it leads to suffering here it leads to suffering for myself at least is suffering for other people at least are suffering for both yeah suffering is unavoidable when you have a mind of ill-will huh and we know that's true right if you have ill will usually just the ill-will itself is much feels much nicer to have a sense of friendliness or Metta but also the outcome of ill-will is often that we end up doing things that we unhappy with later on her so it's a double whammy there and it's bad for other people it's bad for us it's bad for both and when you see that and the Buddha says as soon as he saw that he was able that entire defilement just disappeared from his mind just like that yeah and this is just using wisdom power there's no willpower that at all it's just a reminder that this is problematic and if I don't deal with this it's going to lead to problems down the road suffering for myself for my family and for other people whoever it is so wisdom power has this ability to eliminate a problem bang it just like that why is that why is it that when most of us think that ill-will is bad or suffering it doesn't go like that and the reason again is because we haven't really reflected on it enough to see the full ramifications of ill-will to see the full ramifications of other defilements and the reflection isn't deep enough that is why it doesn't really disappear just like that if you see that something truly is suffering here truly is problematic what happens you know it's simply that I always like to use which is very clear how this works is that similarly if you have a hot plate in your house yeah you have a hot plate in your house somebody has turned it on you're not aware of that so you go you put your hand on the hot light now if you put your hand on the hot plate what happens if you by accident yeah what happens is that bang you just withdraw her yeah you don't have to think should I remove it or not yeah if you think it's too late already already burnt yourself really badly it just happens automatically here and it's exactly the same if you have a defilement in your mind and you fully understand that this is problematic what happens the mind withdraws from that by itself just in the same way as the mind withdraws the hand from the hot plate why because it's suffering it's problematic yeah so the reason why we don't withdraw our mind from these things is because we think there is some degree of happiness there is something to be had from awareness yeah and that is why we don't withdraw from that so again it's about using that wisdom power reflecting on these things and then eventually you as a consequence of that you actually withdraw from these things and it's no longer a problem in the same way here so this shows you the potential for using wisdom on the Buddhist path and if we use it in the right way we're gonna have far more success in how we deal with things so what does this mean in practice what does it mean for each one of us in terms of how to live our lives in terms for improving our own abilities and doing in in speeding up the path or whatever and one the first example is this may sound like a fairly trivial example but sometimes the trivial examples are sometimes the best ones because often the things we deal have to deal with are quite trivial yeah this is kind of life life is like this and one of the the problem is in life is things that we get addicted to her and these days the thing that people get addicted to one of the main things it's like smartphones yeah have you seen people getting addicted to smartphones and I have some I think it's I've seen people being addicted to these things I've seen they have they have come to me in bodhinyana monastery sitting in front of me yeah asking me questions of wildly asking questions they're holding the smartphone ly1 fund and I think you know there's no focus there and then you talk to them and they are really Restless they are fully yeah agitated you can see that there is no peace there and all they're doing is looking at the smartphone and looking up and looking around and it's kind of no nothing going on and you realize there is a problem with these smartphones and of course you then you also you read a model in the newspapers as well you well this is actually a quite a serious problem in the modern world this is something that we kind of have to be careful where there so if you find yourself being slightly addicted to your smartphone or addicted to anything else the question is how can we deal with these addictions in such a way that we can let them go or more easily here and a thing like a smartphone yeah because it because it really is quite addictive what you have to do is not to rely on your willpower to get rid of it because getting using the willpower is never really going to work because willpower was very weak yeah I don't know if it there was an experiment that was done quite a while ago this was an experiment to show how weak willpower is and this was a bunch of people who were supposed to be on that they're supposed to be on a diet or something yeah and then they had them walk past this pastry shop you know they were on the dives they're probably quite hungry and when you're in a diet they walk past a pastry shop and in this pastry shop they have got this beautiful pastries and they were all for free here yeah all had to do is walk into the pastry shop and it would give you a pastry for free and it can eat as much as you like yeah and what happened and this is was the interesting thing yeah what happens that they were not supposed to eat those pastries because they weren't on a diet but they had so these people had different strategies in how to avoid eating the pastries er and there were some people what they did they said to themselves as they were walking past or I'm just gonna have a quick look yeah and then I walked past afterwards there and those people they would usually succumb to the temptation they would walk inside and then they would have that pastry it was just too delicious but those people who were successful in avoiding the pastry and keeping the diet going here were the ones who realized the weakness of their willpower here and because they realized that that didn't even look at the price to resharper they pretend that it didn't exist and because it pretended it exists they were actually able to walk past the knew the fell ability of their own mind they knew the weakness the temptation that was going to arise as a consequence of going there so they avoided even looking at it and this is a very good lesson in how to deal with temptations in life yeah if you're going to be able to give up your smartphone or whatever you have to make it inaccessible if it's sitting there next to you and you try to meditate and it's kind of there you are it's gonna be really really hard it's gonna be impossible so what you have to do is after a certain time at night you have to actually put it somewhere with isn't accessible and when it isn't accessible then it tends to also disappear from your mind so get your partner your husband or wife or your mom or dad or whoever it is in your family and you know that this smartphone is not bad for you say take my smartphone put it somewhere I don't know about yeah give it back to me tomorrow morning here and that is kind of the way that you can actually deal with these things you have to make it really hard for yourself then there is a chance you will be able to deal with these things there so this is just an example but you can expand this example to suit much so many things in life and you have to be careful to be used wisdom yeah don't just try to use willpower you're not gonna succeed and by using wisdom you will actually succeed in getting rid of some of these addictions that we all succumb to every now and again here so this is just a a fairly small example a more powerful example how to kind of grow in qualities is to often use the adversities that we have in life adversities are often sometimes when you have adversities in life we kind of wallow in the suffering we think oh it's so terrible it's so hard it's so difficult but instead of wallowing in the suffering which is kind of useless we use it the experience of suffering as a potential for growth yeah and this is sour powerful because what actually what that does it give isn't there suffering a kind of meaning it gives us something on the spiritual path that can help us move forward and when suffering has a meaning it transforms the suffering for something unbearable to something that actually becomes even useful on the spiritual path that I'll give you an example this is couple and give you a couple of examples of how this works and one example is sometimes when people look at the modern world they look at the politics of the world I look at some of the politicians that are around I shall not mention any names of course but you can have some ideas some of the politicians we see around the world and some of the kind of sometimes terrible policies that are put in place that are so inhuman and unfriendly and compassion and all these kind of things or you have a look at the environment in the world yeah you see kind of whales washing up on beaches and the full of plastic inside because they've eaten so much plastic because there's all this rubbish everywhere the oceans are full of rubbish yeah one of the biggest rubbish dumps in the world other ocean is what a terrible thing it is and you don't get all the all the refugees everywhere who are kind of war-torn countries desperately trying to get away from terrible suffering here but of course by often very difficult because nobody really wants too many refugees because it overwhelms their own society so some so much suffering so many problems and sometimes so few solutions yeah where are the solutions to these things and because it is so hard to find the solutions to many of these things what often happens as a consequence is that people sometimes become depressed yeah if you watch too many news on TV it's easier to get depressed by the state of the world and many people do that and still they go back and watch the news I'm getting depressed or but I got to see the news again and we kind of carry on watching the news sometimes I would really recommend it is forget about the blooming news yeah turn it off don't go back it's not all that useful you know it's gonna be the same thing again every day anyway yeah a few different actors are basically the same plot every day here more more suffering more killings more murders more bad things it's like it died last kind of all the worst thing that happened in the world put together in 20 minutes now that's gonna be pretty pretty bad all the good things that happen in the world we never hear about it you never hear about people coming here to the B F for New Year's Eve yeah that's really good news yeah so it's it's actually a very distorted outlook on humanity what you see on the news so for that reason I sometimes much better just to turn it off not worry about it so how can but how can we use this how can we use all this suffering and all these things that are happening around us in a positive way to enhance the spiritual path and you can this is kind of the pointer and the way to do that is to understand that the world is really outside of our control we do our little part we help out a little bit we clean up a little bit around our area we give a donation every night now and again to a good cause of whatever it is we do our part but in the end you cannot decide it's not up to you who is in the White House yeah it's not kind of you know and all of these things and whether the pollution the all the oceans get polluted or not is really outside of your control and once you start to understand that the world is essentially out of control the world is basically going to have to go its own way the deeper you understand that the more you let go and the less interest you actually have in kind of many of these large pictures yeah and you can let go of the world and one of the powerful consequences of letting go of the world having a sense of oh it's just too much is that you turn away from that and then when you close your eyes and you go into meditation actually your meditation works so much better why because the world is no longer of as much interest as it was before here the reason why meditation doesn't become peaceful is very often because we think about the things of the world yeah we think about the future what we're gonna do et cetera about our hopes or whatever it is but when you understand that the world is out of control the more you get that the less interest you have in worldly phenomena the more you turn inwards the more you can let go and the better is your meditation experience as a consequence so how we look at it is actually yeah by far the most important thing in how to deal with life when you look at the news yeah don't get depressed see it as an opportunity it's an opportunity in letting go and opportunity in allowing things to be actually you have no control over here this is really the ideal way or dealing with a set so that is the the world and actually there is in the suitors I always like to quote the Suez the other word of the buddha huh said okay can I quit Nancy okay thank you so the word the Buddha actually has a word for this this actually exists right there in the sutras and in the panel is called the scible oka and ability Sanya which means the perception of non delight in the entire world er yeah and that perception of non delight in entire world is one of the perceptions that helps you in your meditation practice seeing that the world is out of control understanding you have no idea where it's gonna go next yeah and once you see that you stop taking refuge in the world then what does it mean to take refuge in the world it means that you expect the world to go in a certain way you expect the political situation to be stable to expect environment to be sorted out and when that doesn't happen you suffer because you're taking refuge in the world there instead of taking refuge in the world which is out of control you take refuge in the triple Gemini could it before here you take refuge in your spiritual practice you take refuge in the happiness and contentment economist from living well rather than in something which by its very nature is a door controller some belukha and ability Sonia I'm gonna test you on that word next time I come here yeah it's a long one yes something but it's one of these nice words that can give you an idea of what the Dhamma is about when it becomes very profound and also very useful huh so this is about letting go a little bit of the world don't worry too much don't worry too much about it withdrawing a little bit closing your eyes when you close your eyes actually it's so happy to just go inside of yourself and let all that suffering of the world leave that outside and let that kind of go its own way or whatever here this is the first thing to do huh yeah that makes sense everyone yeah yeah make sense okay good yeah so I tried out and with so many of these things you had to develop it over time yeah it only really worries wanted to vent a bit over times you have to do it again and again and again and after a while it starts to sink in and then it becomes something powerful in your practice and as you do that as you let go of the worldly things of course it's kind of kind of enhance gonna get rid of the defilements and things are gonna happen and whatever it is that you're doing here the second thing I want to talk about briefly is how to deal with other people huh yeah one of the biggest suffering is in life is other people huh is that true yeah it's true isn't it because people can often be one of the greatest sources of joy in life but they're also one of the greatest sources of suffering here so it's important to know how to deal with it and of course sometimes there are people we find very difficult in our life and need to be able to deal with those but sometimes the most important people to be able to deal with in a good way is that people who aren't closest to myself yeah people like our family members our work colleagues and people that are very close to our hearts often very important because if we get those relationships right then the rest of the relationships we have tend to be fairly easy to sort out and one of the things that always struck me when I was reading the suit as against I always kind of refer back to the suit as the word of the buddha is that what the Buddha talks about how to create harmony in the Sangha in the monastic Sangha how do you create harmony between the monks and perhaps you think that the monastic Sangha is like a heaven realm where nobody everyone is just kind of always friendly here yeah there's no problems of course it isn't like that there's no such thing it as long as you're I in the human realm there's always going to be disagreements sometimes arguments and sometimes problems that's just the nature of human beings because we look at things differently and all of these kind of things so what the Buddha says if you want to have harmony in the Sangha the very first thing we should do is to obviously have Metta for each other madam is loving kindness friendliness so how are we going to have this loving kindness and friendliness to each other and sometimes people sit down in a meditation and say oh may all beings be happy and well and it snow in any kind of whatever wait a minute yeah maybe up in well huh and it doesn't really buy it yeah it doesn't really actually work all that well huh so that when I says the place to start with having meta is not just sitting down and kind of trying something which doesn't really have all that much effect do it in your actions yeah have meta in your actions and so this is a very practical way of thinking about meta and not only having meta in your actions then meta in your speech comes afterwards but the people who we should have met that avoids the Buddha says specifically to the monastics the people you should have met her to orange the first ones are you fellow monastics yeah these are the most important ones and this is very interesting and is interesting precisely because that the people who are closest to us often the people who are most difficult to have meta towards her it's like when you live in a family because the habits are so strong yeah because we know each other's weaknesses and bad qualities and good qualities whatever it is so well it's very difficult to have consistent meta and love and friendliness for the you closest family members it's easy to have meta towards some idealized person in your mind yeah oh ajahn brahm is such a saint or may you be well and healthy ajahn brahm yeah so easy you don't even know why I'm brown for goodness sake you know you should but the point is that that idealized person is far easier and that's why often when you do metal meditation you don't actually do it towards individuals you do it maybe towards a direction or something like that we don't actually have to deal with individuals because individuals are too hard to deal with her so this is what you do is I have Metta towards the people who are closest to you towards your family members your mum your dad your kids your husband your wife and if you're able to be kind to them then I guarantee you it is very likely you will be able to be kind to almost anyone in this world out there because that is really the basic ground or practice the people who are close to you if we have a harmonious monastery and putting down a monastery down in Perth and usually it's very harmonious yeah we don't do that very rarely enough to see the monks arguing about anything yeah I can barely remember last time I was actually is very very rare and that happens precisely because you learn to focus on the good qualities in the monastics around you and it's very easy yeah because the one that's least at least at the very least at trying to have a very high standard a very high ideal it's very beautiful and the same thing with the members it'll be fo that right i Lang here yeah yeah okay have a very high standard yeah people come here why do they come here because they want to be good they want to have a good heart at least I want to try the intention is in the right place and that is worthy of so much respect and if you remember that you remember this all the time keep that upper most in your mind then you can have have that kindness and compassion to the people around you huh yeah same spent in your family is exactly the same thing look for the good qualities the guaranteed there are lots of good qualities and the people closest in your family look for those focus on those remember those all the time let go of those silly habits that you have from the past and then you will be able to be kind and generous and all those things even to the people who are closest to you it's hard work but it's really really worthwhile so this is what we start out and once you start out like that you're generous you are kind in body in speech to your family member is a yeah if you can sometimes it is very very hard if it is if you are in a family where it is very difficult then it is not you know you don't become a bad person just because you can't it's important to recognize that some people have very difficult family relationships so you just do your best and if you're at least you're doing your best that is all you can do and then once that is in place then you also start to have Metta in your thoughts yeah towards these people you think about them in kind ways one step at the time bodily action verbal how you speak and then how you think about people yeah and then eventually when you think about people in the right way then you can do the Metta meditation because then your heart is kind of open to the people around you then it's possible to actually wish people well in a very meaningful and profound way here so getting things right so coming back to the problematic people in the world how do we deal with a really problematic people in the world yeah people that work for example who are just absolutely impossible and really kind of so much do got to be around it what do we do when someone has no good qualities yeah someone's become a ghost people I can't see any good qualities in them what do I do please give me some advice and there's actually some very simple advice to use when you have people who are absolutely impossible here and that is to always remember that people who aren't so difficult they have also had a lot of suffering in their life people who are very hard to work with it people have lots of bad qualities will usually feel really bad about themselves and not only do they feel bad about themselves now but they carry with them all this backlog of bad qualities that they will take with them into the future here and they will carry on their suffering for a long long long time in the future so when there is someone that you cannot see any good qualities in all we can see is bad qualities have compassion yeah here is a person who wants to be happy here here is someone who thinks they're doing what will lead to happiness in the future but actually they are doing things that will lead to suffering in the future here yeah they haven't they don't understand they are deluded about reality they don't understand the connection between our actions and our happiness because they don't understand that connection here they're acting in a way here which actually leads to their own suffering here the Buddha says in a very nice suit I'm not actually Buddha is actually king pasenadi who says this to the Buddha he says not those people who are acting it towards others with unfriendliness their acting is as if they are their own enemy here yeah why is that because if you act with others in an unfriendly and unkind way you're causing suffering for yourself in the future and that is what your enemies want for you yeah so you're acting as if you are your own enemy but not being kind and friendly to other people so be your own friend yeah be your own friend while acting with kindness towards others it's a beautiful way of thinking about this this idea that being kind to others is actually being kind to yourself being your own friend so this is the way to look at this yeah people who really way you cannot see any good qualities it doesn't mean they haven't got any good qualities ask mister you can't see them here sometimes we are blind to other people's good qualities and people haven't got any good qualities remember they are worthy of compassion and when you do that something marvelous happens and that marvelous thing that happens is that instead of being so self-centered instead of always thinking about ourselves oh so much suffering how to be around this person it's so problematic that self-centeredness is a kind of small mind and narrow we feel kind of in our own little world yeah everyone else is dangerous outside and we can do this what ill-will and the greed feels like it feels like you are confined into your own little space yeah you're kind of trying little world but once you turn things around instead of thinking about yourself instead of having that selfishness there instead you have compassion for the other people suddenly things expand out and suddenly the world kind of becomes largely blue and everyone else in your world and when you do that the mental state that you have is so beautiful compared to the state of ill will or the state of greed or whatever it is which is narrow and confined it's a wonderful thing here it's a little trick of perception turn your perception around and that little trick of perception is enough to change the feeling from being small narrow confined to being large and expansive in occluding of all other beings around you it's a wonderful thing when you see this little things happening here because these are the things that make life really meaningful and you feel that you are really progressing on the path when that when that happens so this is a nice way of looking at other people remember when other people do bad thing is it very often they are trapped by their bad habits they are trapped by the personality here they're trapped by things that they ideas and things that will lay down maybe in the past life long long time ago oh they don't have any choice they have to be like that yeah no point in getting angry if someone is acting for their own suffering or whatever because of a program inside of them because they're acting like robots your only thing you can have which makes any sense is compassion for them everything else doesn't make any sense at all then you are on the right track then things start to change in your practice so all of these things are general principles that you use and as you apply these general principles in life you actually start to see things happening things changing here so that is that is about other people what about our own problems yeah what about our own kind of things that aren't perfect is anyone here who is absolutely perfect yeah okay would be really fun if somebody raised they are I will be here actually I'm perfect and this is the thing yeah people generally speaking aren't perfect and the one other thing is that in this and for that reason it is not painful to admit sometimes that we have flaws yeah it's okay to admit that and one of the beautiful little passages that we find in the Dhammapada is where the Buddha says that when somebody points out the flaw in your character you should see it as someone pointing out a treasure here I think I Pro to mention is here before because it's a nice little little thing I found in Dhammapada and the idea is that sometimes it is very hard to see our own flaws yeah because we're so close to them and we don't really want to see them we don't really want to know that we have all these flaws so because I we kind of shut it out and sometimes it takes somebody else to point it out yeah so if somebody comes to you and says to you actually you know you have a problem yeah listen know the students if I say it like that of course then it's kind of it's already wrong already but if somebody come is out of compassion and kindness like a spiritual teacher or a close friend or someone you trust yeah and they say that a compassion listen yeah there is a that maybe there is something that we can do here maybe there's a problem that we can resolve and somebody says it in a nice way it is always worthwhile listening here it is always worthwhile saying what they have to say because sometimes they point out things that are so deeply ingrained of us so much the habit of how we do things that is impossible for us to see without somebody else pointing it out it so it's useful to be open to these things yeah so next time someone comes to you and complains about you say Oh thank you for pointing out the treasure here yeah that's kind of the nice attitude to have especially if they're coming from the right place they're coming from kindness and that is kind of a good attitude and it's difficult sometimes we have to be brutally honest with ourselves then sometimes it is possible to make progress on this path we have to actually really see what is there if we try to hide from reality if we try to stick our head in the sand like an ostrich yeah pretending reality goes away by sticking your head in the sand then you're not gonna succeed but by being honest by seeing things as they actually are not stupid what kind of blaming ourselves which aren't really true but when there is a problem to accept that there is a problem and then deal with it as a consequence then you're going to go a long long way in this practice so these are some of the ways that you can deal with problems I'll mention it maybe a couple of more thing is that because we have a little bit more time I don't know how yeah it's a couple of more things that I find very inspiring that I use in my own practice and what sorry I think yeah I think a drink okay thank you yeah you can see that compassion in action is very very kind of you huh okay so one of the things that I like to use and I often talk about is the idea of death yeah that we're all gonna die one day and it's one thing that I would really recommend you to bring into your life because it's a very very useful thing to give rise to a sense of priorities what actually is important in life what really matters and we can use this in many ways but they want the way that I like to use it is I often think to myself that because I could die at any time I don't know when it's gonna be one day I am gonna die and that one day that I'm gonna die that day I have no future anymore the future is gonna be gone when you die you don't know where you're going next but certainly the future of this life is disappeared yeah so because I don't know when it's gonna be the only time for me to be ready is now so really the way to be ready now is to think of myself now I have no future here yeah I have and when I think of myself that I have no future here because I want to be ready now what happens and something very beautiful happens when you have no future there's nothing much more to think you matter yeah if you look at your mind you look at the things that kind of are important to you that you think about is very often things that have to deal with your family it has to do with your work perhaps it has to do with duties that you have to do is always very often something about the future where you gonna go huh but if you have no future I think you matter yeah you mind goes blank empty here so the idea of of death contemplation of reminding yourself that all of these things have to come to an end one day you're gonna have to give all these things up anyway it's all gonna have to go huh yeah how much should we think about this thing is how much should we invest in all the things of the world when it's gonna have to go one day anyway here don't make this into something heavy and negative use it only if it works for you and it gives you a sense of peace and quiet this is very it's a very powerful reflection it is a reflection at the Buddha asked us to use again and again again in the sutras it occurs so many different times yeah and because it occurs so often in the certain is a it is something that is very important in our lives and I remember a man many years ago that I met in Australia he was from Sri Lanka originally it was a psychologist and he told me that the way he did the death contemplation was to remind himself in the morning when he left his wife and children in the morning here he would always make sure that he'd left in a good way why because today I could die I don't want to leave my children and my wife in a bad way if I can die if I could die why because how do you feel when you're dying if you have kind of had an argument with somebody or whatever you feel bad about it you're not ready and because of that we can really never really afford to have an argument with anyone yeah because what happens if you die after winter you feel bad you don't want to die feeling bad and what a terrible thing that is a so my keeping it in mind the fact that you could die means that you can never afford to have an argument with anyone you can never afford to do a bad action you can never even afford to have a bad thought yeah that's pretty hard there huh that's just difficulty you can't really afford it but it still it's gonna happen sometimes because it's just too hard to avoid that but theoretically you can't even afford to have a bad thought and you can see you're moving that way moving in that direction huh whereby you understand you get your priorities sorted out you know what is important in life you don't allow yourself to be carried away by the stream of life you have the craving which carries us forward on such in such a fast way that sometimes you forget what is up and what is down what is black and what is white what is good and what is bad so keeping these things in mind is so important on the spiritual path the last thing I would like to say it was very briefly here which is a very useful and general practical advice is always to remember what really matters in life what is important it is so often that we forget the things that are really crucial here but remember that even our ordinary life your family life what is it that makes family life useful what is it that makes it good it's not just the fact that you have parents or children or a wife or a husband or whatever it is but that fact in itself is neutral it what makes family life useful is the quality of those relationships if those relationships are based on love compassion understanding kindness generosity wisdom all of these good qualities then they become useful then they become a good relationships so it is the spiritual and all of these qualities if you think about them they are spiritual qualities so it is the spiritual qualities in our life that make family life actually worthwhile that make it important make it work out it is the same thing with all the relationships in our life yeah whether it is going to work or whatever it is even at work if you just work for money and promotion after a while it becomes really hopeless it becomes a joyless task of going to work every day if it's just for material things it is how you were yeah how you deal with your customer is how you deal with your family work isn't all these things that is what makes worth life work life also happy yeah my work life is like that Turner yeah when I work I try to do it with a kind of gentleness and kindness and all these kind of things that of course it's easier when you're a monk yeah that's what you are you in mind yeah doesn't really count it's it's too easy but it's the same idea that you when you're a monk or you are an ordinary ordinary job same ideas that you have to bring to it then it makes it meaningful and when you start to look at life like that you start to realize what actually matches what makes life worth worthwhile what makes it work out spiritual qualities what is about that should always be the priority that should be number one if you live your life with spiritual qualities and you're always going to feel more happy and content about things because that is what spiritual qualities do when you come to the end of your life when you die here you feel that you have lived your life in a good way here now you come to the end of your life you have to give up everything else everything else has to go in the world your family your relationships all the people you know all the things your own in the world have to go where your identity in this world has to go even your body has to go there's only one thing that you carry with you into the future that's your spiritual qualities that is what matters again so these are the things that ultimately give life meaning both in the short run and the long run so make sure you prioritize those thing that give life meaning don't prioritize those things that actually are temporary that are gonna be there for a while they're gonna disappear again afterwards then you are on the right track then you know what what is what is valuable and what actually works in this world and what happened is one of the marvelous thing that happens when you do that if you live the spiritual life everything else did you do in the world whether it's the family or work or whatever that becomes partly the spiritual life you do those in such a way that it supports kindness compassion it supports a meditation practice everything is subsumed under the spiritual life the spiritual life is priority number one everything else is secondary here what happens when you live like that is that when you sit - meditator yeah instead of thinking about all those other things in the world all those things that I you think are important because they are secondary huh you don't think about them anymore huh instead you stay with a meditation object because you know it is now you're doing your spiritual practice this is what matters everything else is secondary you don't think about it so much but in so much of the world these days the idea of meditation practice or mindfulness or whatever people do this to improve the ordinary life so your ordinary life is number one the spiritual life or the mindfulness or whatever is secondary here and because it is second day because it is there to improve your ordinary life it means that as soon as you close your eyes and because everything else is more important you're gonna think about it yeah but turn it around make the spiritual life more important when that is primary then there is a possibility of finding peace a peace of mind and then you can become calm even in the midst of all the hustle and bustle at least sometimes not always there occasionally it can become calm even when things are really busy around you here so this is my suggestion for you if you want to have a kind of a New Year's resolution do you do that in Singapore in New York resolution sir sometimes sometimes if you want to have any others would make the resolution of putting a spiritual eye first and everything else all the other things that you want to do make them secondary because that is really the right attitude to having a good life now and also for the future here okay whoa okay that's pretty much now we're talking already so good yeah so if you would like to ask some questions or comments please please do so now wait this is a last chance to ask questions for 2018 yeah this is the end of the site enter please now take the opportunity no he's a human just like our insurance Confucius so then he say oh why don't you trust in our Christianity our God is almighty my friend I don't want to our relationship as you know religion where we talk about the kind of our friendship so I'm not sure in future if I encounter this how am I supposed to okay yes it is very touching you know they say that in English culture you're not supposed to argue about anything so you never talk about religion and politics yeah because that always ends up in an argument so it is it's a good point so it depends on what kind of friendship it is if the friendship is something you value just because it kind of feels good and it's nice and as you good friends and is good for emotional support or whatever then don't think about religion but if it is a friendship that is also has kind of an intellectual side a side where you want to talk about serious topics yeah and some friendships are like that then it's okay here to be honest about things and you have to talk about it otherwise the friendship itself can stagnate it doesn't really have any purpose anymore after a while there so I think it is good to talk about these things and if someone says that our God is Almighty you know that the problem with that kind of argument isn't that you know where does this idea come from in the first place and these I often just ideas and the fact that someone is ordinary human being well everyone can accept that because it's as obvious everyone is ordinary human beings but that something is Almighty is actually much more difficult proposition to accept much more difficult to to kind of deal with intellectually here and there are so many problems with that idea yeah when you think about it if God is almighty why did he create all these problems in the world is an obvious one isn't it if you all might you to create something better why did he create me here I'm pretty bland for the floors are you full of Louis why did he create someone so full of flaws ask your friend well you aren't you have all these floors why they God created like that see well let's see what if so and and this is actually a very serious philosophical problem yeah that this fact that I click God is supposed to be almighty and all loving and still he created this big mess it's that's really problematic so it's ok to have sometimes have a discussion but I one of the things that I for me Christianity never made any sense at all I find it very very strange personally and to me Buddhism was at least something that you the very idea that it's all based on faith is problematic already one of the beautiful thing about the Buddha stating that it tried out a little me to check it out ok so you put assess big kind ok kind of make sense anyway to be kind to try that you do a bit of meditation you see what happens when your mind become peaceful you see what at least the results that word I was talking about and lo and behold it does yeah wow it actually works so so you have something you can actually feel directly and immediately is powerful there whereas when Christianity is far more based on just faith faith is often the end all and the be or be all the Christianity and to me that is problematic if it is true it's great but if it isn't true it's seriously problematic yeah anyway it's just some some ideas but yeah when you talk about letting the world I mean the world is a mess so you just you cannot do anything about it and you just have to let it go yeah it disturbs me a bit actually you know it's like our local lingo you know you butch up you know we miss you don't care okay right how do you balance between these kind of feeling you don't care yeah and that you have to do something about yeah yeah yeah III don't really mean that you should let go completely what I mean is that you do your part yeah in society for the world in in general yeah I don't mean that you but I the point is more like you you know what you can do and you know what you can't do you know the distinction between the two huh and this is one other thing one of the signs of wisdom is that you work as much as you can and when you have done your part then at that point you let go and you allow things to be here this is really the critical thing here but when you you know very often what happens when people watch too much news on TV they despair and the despair over things that actually they can do nothing about at all yeah they think Oh Donald Trump is in the White House how come how come he ended up in the White House yeah you can't do anything about that he's gonna be there until he is kind of until his term is over it but you can't sit there kind of being angry and upset about it's not gonna making a difference and so many things that we are disturbed about in the world make us angry are things we cannot do anything about so do the good do those things that you can do something about be friendly to the people around you be kind and generous to your family member is a supportive Buddhist fellowship ya know this is this is I expect some kind of Commission on that one so and also little thing is in your kind of in your immediate area around you and then that you are doing what you can without being despairing over the big things in the world of them okay anyone else one thing how does one know when one has attained so on how do you know when it and so on huh okay okay so the meaning of that question is how do you know when you have become a stream entry so one is the Sinhala with the stream entering here and the stream entry is one of the high attainments on the Buddhist path yeah when you I kind of see the Dumber for the first time and one of the ways you you know that well first of all you have to attain to Samadhi first of all because Samadhi is the root is a cause for stream entry to happen yeah and so first of all you know if you haven't attain Samadhi there's no way that you are a stream entering so first of all you have to become incredibly peaceful incredibly bright for the very powerful mind it also happen is enjoying her in the meditation and then there is a possibility that you can make a kind of breakthrough that kind of insight and how you know it's better well one of the ways that you know is that something explodes inside of you the whole world gets turned upside down and suddenly you're looking at the world in a very different way here one of the one of those ways of course that you understand the idea of non-self that there is no inherent essence in you one of the beautiful teachings in the suitors is this teaching that whatever ordinary people think is happiness you know as a stream mentor is suffering here yeah whatever ordinary people think is suffering here yeah you know it's actually happiness so the things have really turned around almost absolutely you see the world an entirely new why here sometimes the idea of stream enter is very devalued in modern society all kind of people claim to be stream entries yeah and I have had so many examples of people coming to me and they I said oh I went on this retreat I was told I was a straight man to her but I didn't believe it behind her and that's problematic if you don't believe it then the chance is that your history mentor is just a bad zero is absolutely you know is there's no way at all you always dramatic you know something has happened if you're always three mentor is a massive experience and it is said in the Sutra specifically that the place where you became a stream enter is a place that you should remember for the rest of your life so you know where that was because you know that's when the revolution happened yeah the inner revolution happened at that particular place so you know so if you have any if something really happens in a meditation and you were completely blitzed out for the next week you don't know what to do then go to a John Brahm and ask him oh and this happened what does it mean I don't see what he says okay okay sorry exactly my question is similar to the previous one okay sorry yeah actually I I know that you have to meditate that's the only way to get to where we want to go but I've been sitting and nothing is happening I'm just you know like I just feel that it's it's useless you know I mean I'm sorry to say that but yeah I know that's the only way yeah but I don't seem to see anyway okay okay so the the answer is that if you're not going anywhere it's because you haven't really looked carefully enough at the calls is that actually support meditation of practice and one of the things there's two things that support meditation practice according to the suitors one of them the most important one is sila sila means morality it means much more than morality means you're bought your entire character development in all of these things and so what you have to do is you have to look at your overall sila yeah remember see that does not just mean keeping the Five Precepts it means everything to do with how you relate to other people the degree of kindness do you have how you think about them all of these things are part of the idea of sila so ask yourself if you can do something more in the sila area this is number one oh yeah the second one is many other things I was talking about tonight are things I have to do with your attitude to the world how you look at the world and that attitude is really part of right view yeah it's called woodrick Aditi in Pali it means right view and it is one of the supports specifically said to be a support for meditation practice for satipatthana according to the suitors so ask yourself about your view of the world ask yourself if you can straighten it out a bit more ask yourself of the consequences what is rebirth actually mean what does it mean in terms of how I look at the world how I relate to things and one of the things that it means is that you started to value your spiritual life more and you start to value less there other ordinary things in life it's one of the consequences of having the idea of rebirth so go to those things you read the sutras a bit more the suitors it's just one big mass of right view yeah it's ten thousand pages of right view huh start with page one and it's read through it so very handy yeah it's all there and let's read the suit is that you enjoy read the world that would die if you don't enjoy suit I just kind of let it alone go to the next I don't like that one next one next one next one X okay this one is good yeah and then you read that one huh and this is the right attitude to have to the sweetness to the word of the buddha so you have to be inquisitive you have to really ask yourself these questions in a deep way what can I do better here how can I be more kind hard data a very kind-hearted person is also a person who have success in the meditation practice okay so what we had with till midnight is that why two and a half hours of questions lately I've been struggling between uhm so they're like two questions here the very first one how like we are now living in a worldly situation where we'd go to work we perform our best like everything is measurable that we have to come you know like be the best and everything so how do I manage to perform very well and at the very same time I will have to take care of the spiritual path so how do I combine between spiritual path and what we path and at the same time if I were to put like something like more to its spiritual then I kind of like fail under what you have yeah it has been you know um confusion there yeah thank you okay okay so how to how to succeed both in the world and the spiritual father yeah that's the one yeah okay so the one of the I don't know about you but one of the things that I have found is that the people who are most successful in life are the people who actually are very kind and caring people i I don't know if that's true sometimes you're kind of the scallywags and they were all that successful but the people who really are successful in a very kind of honest way where people trust them and people cannot carry them forward because there are good people there are precisely those people with good qualities so in the long run if you aren't kind to the people around you if you're kind to your co-workers to your customers or whatever they won't be afraid of you you know people are often afraid of those people who are very competitive yeah I'm competitive because I'm gonna kind of get to get the better of everyone else and whatever and people get afraid of you and they don't want to promote you but if you are a person who doesn't really care so much about promotion you don't care so much about the worldly values but you just have a kind heart you are a good person often automatically you would like float to the top yeah almost automatically because people won't be afraid of you it was oh yeah this person they can kind of be be promoted or whatever so kindness and care in my experience is actually a very powerful tool for success in the worldly life so you have to find the balance somewhere have you never you should never throw the kindness out of the window if you feel that you have to throw the kindness out of the window you are you are prioritizing your short term happiness network over your long term happiness it is not worth it it is a crazy thing to do do you want to have a short term happiness but long term suffering it its mad yeah it doesn't make any sense so you have to always be able to be be kind and if the work is so demand and you can't be kind you're pretty better off finding another job to be honest because otherwise your priorities are all wrong here so that's what I recommend but it just doesn't mean you should be lazy at work I always recommend people to you know to do what they have to do because you always feel better about yourself if you work well but don't work so hard that you actually destroy your your other things yeah find that middle way somewhere here and then you have a happy life long-term and short-term and medium-term and super long-term or whatever else yeah yeah so I have a question regarding spiritual practice so what do you have to say about laying man people who comment to listen to know more about Buddhism but to develop psychic abilities so someone is coming to Buddha's because they want to learn psychic abilities and do that do they want to do black magic as well yeah that is really bad really bad come by you know if you develop kind of meditation to kind of do black magic it's actually terrible because you want to hurt other people that's really really bad news is that you and usually doesn't work out because if you have bad intentions actually somebody doesn't usually work if you have bad intentions so usually doesn't work so I would say that if that is your motivation for learning meditation practice chances you will succeed are actually very small because you have to you have to actually go into all of this with a very high and Noble intentional the more noble your intention is you have to have the kindness there you have to have the love the compassion of all people the more noble your intention is and more chances you have in your meditation practice if your intention is just to have the third eye yeah it's kind of it's not very noble it's kind of very worldly it's a bit like I'm gonna have a higher salary the similar kind of thing here it doesn't really actually get you anyway so I think it's I think it's a waste of time you know you can't really stop people from doing it you kind of you know whatever shrug your shoulders but they are they're not actually going to I think it's very unlikely they will succeed so it try to kind of sum time is what you need to do is that people who have an interest in meditation you kind of okay come yeah if that's what you want to do fine and then sometimes they actually learn something later on there they learn something at my Buddhism to learn something about these teachings that is profound and it's time to change the attitude you know they come around they the reason why they want to have the third eye because they think it's gonna be cool yeah it's gonna be nice it's gonna be happiness for me I can go to my mates and I can tell them yeah I got the third eye yeah I can see your mind I can read your mind or whatever here and I think that's great but actually it doesn't lead to much happiness imagine if you have the third eye and it can read everyone's else rubbish rubish thoughts yeah it's terrible there it was a story about this Indian solder the word sound oh by the way Sodom is like holy man yeah or holy person and if you read the sutras the word of the buddha this was already used in india two and half thousand years ago it was already called solder so you can see this words continuing across but there was a story of this Indian solder and he said that for some reason the third eye or was the third eye but that mind reading anyway mind reading opened up and he wasn't sure exactly how it happened it certainly can read everyone's thoughts ER and he said it was a it was kind of cool for a while but then it became so oppressive because those thoughts what is so terrible usually here but then he wasn't able to turn it off anymore he couldn't turn it off yeah so he had to read all this terrible thoughts all the time and he had no choice in the holiday and this is kind of and but what that shows you is that reading other people's thoughts actually it is not really worthwhile actually it's not pretty pretty useless thing to do because most of the things that we think about may not be terrible but the kind of you know pretty boring stuff yeah mundane ordinary things we think about kind of little small things tiny things I don't know what you think about but I'm gonna look at my own minds and I wonder why am I thinking about this this is completely crazy there was a meditator down in our Center in Perth and he said that after a while his mind started to kind of you know after while he ran out of things to think about because I had thought about everything pretty much and once they had run out of things to think about his mind started creating new stuff so he had just washed a shirt or something and it hung that shirt on the line outside and now he was sitting in meditation he was thinking about what was the best way to hang that shirt on the liner yeah yeah rad heard everything else and that kind of getting back to the really stupid stuff and this is what our minds are like sometimes we think about things that are so pointless and so useless so hopefully your friend you were able to convert him yet to real Buddhism after well it's allowed them to come along it's okay learn a bit of meditation and hopefully they will kind of see common sense after a while and kind of come to something more useful there okay thank you John I really enjoy your talk tonight I like to come back to one other point you talk about having compassion for someone who's really pre-programmed to be disagreeable yeah so I'm just wondering in opinion how much can we reprogram or so to speak to rewire our brain okay oh we can we can rewire it that's kind of the that's that's like that's a good news yeah it can be rewired it can be reprogrammed there so the program doesn't mean we are stuck and we kind of we have to be like this forever because that would be like determinism there would be no way out there would be no way of spiritual developing yeah but the point rather is that at this particular moment yeah you can only be the person you are right now because all the cause and conditions that come to you now you can't really do anything about that but if you over the long term the person you are tomorrow or the person you are the day after tomorrow or next year or whatever will depend on how you react to what is happening to you in the present moment so who you are now is given but how we react to who you are that is not given her and we can change that reaction if you have good influence on you like the Buddhist teachings or whatever else it is so there's enormous potential for spiritual developing and changing yourself it just depends on your ability to persevere and commit to the practice the more you persevere in commitment the more ability you will have a which start with yourself and one of the kind of interesting thing is when you start with yourself and try to change yourself is that you learn how difficult it is because that programming is often very strong yeah yeah if you say to yourself that I'm from now on I'm not going to get angry in these particular situations it's actually very hard to do that yeah because there's a certain habit that is so strong you know whenever your wife says eh you always get a bit upset yeah because it's them that if thousand times before and now you kind of stuck you stuck with that perception in a sense have you got a wife by the way huh yeah yeah okay sorry the reason why we're sitting apart is this life yeah I know what life is like even though I'm mark it so yeah and but so you know you you understand that there is development there's also do change our habits and one of the things that comes out of that is that you start to have much more compassion for other people very often we demand other people to change yeah especially husband and wife often demand change from each other yeah but actually when we understand how difficult that is to do it even with our own mind we start to become less demanding of the people around us and this is one of the great benefits for having some insight into you know the how conditioned we actually are here and also it becomes kind of scary yeah you see how conditioned you are you see how strong your habits are and then you know that if you don't do anything with that you will carry it on into the future here so you may carry those same habits into a future life yeah in the future life there may be no BFF yeah you may not may not be reborn in Singapore you may be read but who knows where I get reborn on Mars or something yeah yeah there's no guarantee there's Buddhism on Mars even if they have : is there so because of that you you because of uncertainty in the future if you carry these habits with you you don't know how they're gonna develop what under what circumstances they make it even worse it might kind of sprout out and it may become you know you maybe get reborn in a mafia family or something like that and then your defilements really have a chance to play out badly here so you understand two thing is understand not to place too much demand on other people because you know is difficult that is a change your own habits but you also understand the danger in these habits so again more of a incentive to actually do something about them and change yourself so in the future you don't fall under this way so easily yeah that answer your question or yeah thank you yeah okay okay very good huh thanks for the top just now my question is related to today's topic how to move forward in our practice so clearly we need to practice yes that's number one and also how to move forward rather than in circles okay in my experience everyone learns a bit differently and that probably our paths will be a bit different even though it's based on the Four Noble Truths and the fo path and also I would think that the gradual training is a kind of general structure or would you say that it is recommended for all or do you have other recommendations for for better learning okay I would say the gradual training you know a lot about the suitors already as pretty as pretty good yeah that's very nice the gradual training is applicable for everyone yeah so you can use that in your own practice too can sort of figure out where you are you can see the gradual trainer you can sort of see where you're at roughly in that training yeah yeah and what you have to do what you have to focus on you will see your weaknesses there you will see your strengths or whatever in that gradual training here you can always use that and then you know one of the things that I think is important is to again the idea of commitment is kind of the really important one and then once you gain a sense of faith and understanding in the Buddha suit as an obviously you have quite a bit of understanding already and stick to that which you understand stick to that where you have your faith and confidence don't move too much around with all kinds of different teachings all kind of things yeah once you feel confident with a certain thing stick with that to a certain degree here and there once you stick with something and you investigate that fully here and you use that in a very deep sense in your practice then eventually the results will come huh yeah it was a matter of really committing to one particular thing in a deep way here and then things will start to start to happen as a consequence but it is it is not always easy and particularly even in monastic life sometimes it can be hard but certainly in lay life much more difficult because there's so many more distractions so many things more going on yeah so you have to commit even more and you have to be even more careful huh so make one of the things that is the most important thing is and this is what comes out of the idea of kalyanam it in the suitors is to make sure you get a regular doses of Dhamma yeah a regular suit a regular talk about the suit or whatever it is and as you do that you will gradually it will kind of keep you it will lift you up yeah we'll keep you aloft and keep you kind of heading in the right direction so but yes it does take a lot of contemplation and reflection and all of these kind of things that to sort of to keep you moving in the right direction but as you as you do that it will eventually bear fruit I think so yeah okay very good Thank You Arjun I'm asking this question on behalf of my friend so when is the next Maitreya Buddha coming okay that's the wrong question yeah you got the wrong questions I've had the wrong question there's no good as not answering so the Buddha says when you have the wrong question he does remain silent so I've already said too much this is the this is the problem so this is one of the things about the one of the biggest problems in Buddhism is often looking to a future which is kind of uncertain and unreliable and no idea when it's gonna come and what it is about and there's so much of Buddhism around the world isn't that worshiping Maitreya Buddha this mythological person who may come one day and who may not come one day who knows yeah and all we know and this is quite certain we know that the idea of a Buddha arising in the world that happens at regular intervals because that is like a natural phenomenon huh every now and again the Buddha arises in the world and that sort of happens so we know but whether it's gonna be Maitreya Buddha or Karuna Buddha kurama's compassion without my tree as meta Buddha yeah so whether it's gonna be one or the Buddha time would that we'll pick a Buddha or some other Buddha we don't know her yeah but the point is it will happen at some stage but actually it is something that we cannot say anything about the point is and the problem is that this whole idea of worshipping some Buddha in the future really what it does it takes away the value of the Buddha we have now you have a Buddha now the teachings are here with that Buddha reserves respect for having worked so hard to make these teachings available for us and then we go worshipping a pie in the sky that we have no idea about and that is very very wrong yeah yeah is actually it's being disrespectful I think to the Buddha we have already huh so the whole question about Maitreya Buddha is really I think is is as a flawed question to start with her and the idea of Maitreya Buddha in the Pali Canon only occurs once in the Pali Canon and that particularly one occurrence seems to be a late addition to the Canon yeah it's not something that was actually there from the beginning this has been studied by people do comparative study of the suitors so really there is no it said it's a later myth that came after the Buddha the Buddha never predicted Maitreya Buddha someone else did that probably someone who was a scholar or something who had no insight yeah they are okay we know this but let's call him my tray as I read that in there so have Maitreya Twitter that's probably what something like that probably won't happen there so it is going down the wrong path and I think it's so important that we stop these kind of wrong trends in our society because it is such a common thing you know you can see this enormous temples being built in Maitreya Buddha around enormous statue is and people are becoming it becoming like a god you worship Maitreya Buddha yeah he doesn't have any teachings nothing - can't really practice what he says yeah has nothing to practice but kind of worship Maitreya Buddha as some kind of God or something like that and the whole thing becomes very very problematic as a consequence er to tell your friend to come up with a better question there and then we might this might answer it next time around okay two last questions my question relates to one of the earlier ones where as we we go deeper into our practice you're supposed to feel more joyful and and feel more compassionate and so does that mean that for someone who is practicing but doesn't necessarily feel more joyful or or more happy its regressing in in the practice in the sense that for example when one tries to follow the Five Precepts you cannot kill for example and then you see a cockroach or a lizard in the house for example comes and then you're supposed to clean you know try to follow the precepts it's a bit of book are there yeah okay so this is just a very trivial example but it's also a in a sense like how you deal with other people especially like parents if you if one finds that certain behavior the parents it's exactly what Buddha says should not do and you see that in the parent and in you you you know it's wrong and you you're very worried that you you don't want to be influenced into becoming you know influenced by people around you so then that becomes this this pain as well because you see in others what someone was very close to you but it goes against the teaching of the Dharma and yeah so how how does one I mean how does one how should one think about such things of being true wanting to be true to the Dharma and the teachings and yet you know not not wanting to feel that that pain and Duke are as well you know one of the the thing is is that sometimes there is going to be pain there is pain that comes from you know the spiritual practice and it is sometimes that is unavoidable but so really what it is about is using that pain in a skillful way to then again to advance your understanding of things and it's always difficult you know you see that all the pain in the world you see that you can look on TV you see all the refugees and it kind of feels terrible the world is for is there is a lot of pain in the world that's the reality but there's also a lot of joy in the world at the same time there are happy people out there there are people who practice the spiritual prank the path so you've tried to find that balance and when you find a balance then you can carry on because you know there is hope on the one hand even though there's also a lot of suffering in the world there so that's suffering is you know you you do your best to influence the people around you to kind of give them a chance to see something better whether it's your parents or whoever it is that kind of about doing doing the kind of the wrong thing yeah but the the ultimate lesson in so many of these things is sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and say I can't do anything morning I've done my very best and you have to let go at a certain point yeah you can support your parents now one day they're gonna die here so what are you gonna do when they die you definitely have to let go you can't do anything more than they could have died already in which case you already cannot they would have moved on and you wouldn't worry so much about it so just remember this you do so much as we can while they're here but also you understand the limits and what we can do and if that comes a point where you have to learn to let go you have no choice and because you understand you have no choice when you understand that it actually helps you to do that yeah with the cockroach so the idea with a cockroach is that you have to try to see the world from the cockroaches point of view huh yeah uh-huh it's very hard yeah but it can't be done what is the cockroaches point of view it wants to leave her yeah I want to leave I just want to run around I want to eat a little bit here eat a little bit there here yeah coke even cockroaches have feelings yeah this is kind of the important point so if you able to see the world a little bit from the cockroaches point of view just knowing that they want to leave knowing that what they want to do you straight away you have more compassion towards Empire yeah same thing with the mosquito mosquito comes and wants to bite you it's one of the kind of really hard things when you have the if you want to sleep at night and there's a mosquito in your room buzzing around it's very hard to sleep sometimes but I remember mosquito also they just kind of want to do their own thing they want to live they want to have a meal yeah anyone have some blood or whatever in here yeah and actually so you have to put yourself in other other beings position and when you do that you actually are able to have much more compassion for the minute to try to catch that cockroach in a humane way in a humane cockroach away whatever it is so and that is the kind of this is one of the things that makes these things possible I remember what some of the you know even in the Christian tradition some of the great signs like st. Francis of Assisi it was a very famous saint in the Catholic tradition in the 13th century or whatever and he was famous for having he had lice in his hair yeah people would have at those times and he would kind of leave them there because he realized I don't want to kill those lies there too much compassion for the lice this is in Christianity where they don't really have at this idea of looking after animals in the same way that we have in Buddhism but he just naturally had compassion he understood the lice what they wanted live yeah they want to kind of have a good life as well so you allow them to you die him to live as well so you find a balance in your life yeah and this is kind of the the thing you find this sometimes it is on occasion it may be okay to kill if you have some kind of intestinal worm for example if I hadn't in tested the testing of worm I probably would go to the doctor and ask for something to get rid of it because it's just that's that's too much that's going too far so occasionally you may break your precepts but you try to the best of your ability to keep them in those difficult situations and very often it's just a matter of your attitude yeah your frame of mind is often gonna make the whole difference or whether you're able to keep them on alter so these things are difficult thing is there but you you know if you are wiser and we keep on thinking about you know how to deal with this I can guarantee you you will find solutions to it that are suitable and appropriate in accordance with the Dhamma teachings we take to try to combat 10:45 thank you jump remedy for adultery yeah regarding the topic today about practice one of the eight four puffs is about right effort right I mean you want to maintain wholesome actions and carry off the connections yeah as you mentioned early on we are all the oil floss imperfect so sometimes we do things that we know you're not supposed to do yeah so my question to you is that this is any practical tips or advice that you have for people at some times you may may be on impulse or off without being too mindful that you start to do some things that are not so wholesome what can we do to stop those thoughts or actions before it comes to becomes okay well the the obvious answer is to be mindful yes so that's that's the obvious answer here so the question is how to be mindful as the question yeah how can we actually improve the mindfulness yeah sorry yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yes exactly yeah yeah you sure yeah exactly so the answer the answer is mindfulness but the question is how to be mindful you know how can we actually be mindful when things go when things get difficult or things get very busy or whatever that's kind of the trick here and the first thing to remember is that you have all you really need is enough clarity to know that now I'm not mindful and sometimes you know that sometimes you know that you kind of go in the wrong track already you know something isn't quite right so very often when that happens you know that now I should act and speak as little as possible because whatever is gonna come out of my mouth is not gonna be very good yeah so this is the first thing to actually have enough awareness simply to know that now I'm something isn't quite right and therefore I have to be careful that this is the first thing here but the other thing which is is you know fundamental to mindfulness is one of the things I was saying before is that mindfulness arises from two things and that is your sila in general but the other thing is your view huh yeah and the view woodrick aditi the right view the more you have view that isn't accordance with the reality the more you understand how important the spiritual practice is how fundamental that is for all happiness in life for everything to work out the more you get that the more scared you will be of doing the wrong thing here and because you are scared there will be something at the back of your mind that will remind you yeah at all times okay now I'm about to go wrong now I'm about to head in the wrong direction so often what you have to do is to reflect more on what really matters in life what is important these things that we call right view putting the spiritual life first and putting everything else make everything else secondary here and as you do that the mindfulness will actually arise at the time when you need it why because those things that are very important to you those things that you really value in life yeah they will be there at the back of your mind and it will kick in when you need it in this kind of situation sir so reflect on it again and again what actually really matters in the world what really at the end of the day what that's really important to me what is it I'm gonna be feel good about when I eventually have to die and we all know what that is so make that strong make it powerful now and then you will tend not to make these kind of mistakes in the future this is a long-term thing yeah you have to do it again and again and again but as you do that eventually it will start to kick in and something we start to do have in there so yeah okay thank you I joined bro Mandy let's say three sidles so let's pay respect and let a Chan go in a rest first while I make some announcements XP respects to the Buddha together

Channel: Buddhist Fellowship

Views: 5,598

Rating: 4.8032789 out of 5

Keywords: buddhist followship, dhamma

Id: CvNJggGW6Jo

Length: 94min 28sec (5668 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 14 2019