Navigating skilfully the rocky waters of conflict | Ajahn Amaro | 21.07.2019

[Music] [Music] so sunday afternoon talks for 2019. uh as uh people are probably aware this is a feature of uh summertime with amravati since about 1985 or 86 i think um bosomato started these so very happy to carry on this tradition and the theme for this first talk this year is navigating skillfully the rocky waters of conflict so my guess is that most of us here have had experience of conflict of some kind or another i wouldn't ask for a show of hands of anyone who's never had any conflict in their life so this is a common experience for all of us so i thought this was a good place to say begin the reflections for this year now i don't uh come up with these titles myself i invite the nuns and the monks to to uh say produce a number of themes so we have about four or five pages of suggestions and then i can pick through and select a variety of topics from that that list but this one i thought would be a good place to begin since it's such a common human experience uh the um uh in reflecting on this this area the first thing that came to mind was well we speak of conflict in terms of uh conflicting with other people uh or conflicting with uh life outside us but a lot of the experience of conflict is within ourselves and so that's a in a way a whole a whole other topic uh inner conflict but uh i'll try to stick to the theme of conflicting with those uh outside of ourselves first of all but there's the opportunity for questions and discussion later on so that inner conflict can it's not a forbidden topic but there's enough to say about conflicting with other people to begin with secondly um one of the things and reflecting on this theme that uh first of all you start off by assuming that conflict is a bad thing or people don't want conflict you know most of us are are buddhists or interested in in buddhist practice and so we think well i don't want any conflict in my life but uh my experience of living in the world is that some people really like conflict and that actually um there's this urge to look for an argument look for something to complain about or to criticize or get upset about and and for some people it's how they feel alive is to find fault with things to to complain about the people around them to this is wrong and this is wrong this shouldn't be this way that shouldn't be that way and he's wrong and she's wrong and he's really wrong and so even though it's not saying that there are not things worthy of criticism but it can be a an invisible um say motivation that uh to one to oneself that actually it's more getting a feeling of being alive by complaining criticizing conflicting looking for an argument so you'll feel like somebody you're so you'll feel alive so um if you're now thinking how did he know it's a it's a it's not psychic powers it's just the law of averages that sometimes we are we are like that and so i feel it's good to consider that if your mind is inclined towards conflict and argument and and complaining criticizing to to consider and how much of that comes from me needing the feel to the feeling to of being alive am i looking for an argument by looking for conflict as a something that gives me energy gives me a a charge so that's one aspect of conflict but i'll assume that most of us don't want conflict either consciously or unconsciously so most of what i'll i'll talk about is how to uh understand that sense of conflict or argument and and disagreement between ourselves and others and how to to bring about uh resolution for that uh again i don't have psychic powers i can't read and look into people's lives but i can assume that most of us have had conflict either with our uh our siblings our brothers and sisters and our parents our children uh feeling um slightly spouses ex-spouses of particularly good territory for feeling conflict and and grief the the the one that you walked down the aisle with is the one that you you feel most difficult to have loving kindness for that again i'm not reading anybody's mind if you think how did he know it's like again this is just statistics it's not anything miraculous but that's uh often love and hate are very very closely related and so that um uh or our adjans you know the the ajahn who sort of betrayed you or felt he's you know he's done you wrong or mistreated you or used to be so inspiring and now he he didn't give me what i wanted so now he's he's really bad and awful and i reject him and he should be i thought he was wise and kind why didn't he give me what i wanted why did he tell me to to drop that bad habit and so forth so that uh it's a a a human experience whether we're living in a monastery outside the monastery whether we have a a marriage or no marriage we whether we have siblings or uh certainly in the world we live amongst the the human family and we find the sense of of friction or say argument difficulty conflict between ourselves and others and so it's it's important to understand um where does this come from how does this work and how can it be brought to an end one of the most famous teachings of the buddha from the dhammapada is the verse that says hatred is never conquered by hatred hatred is is only ever conquered by love this is the law ancient and inexhaustible so that uh that um is very very clear and it's stated over and over again in the buddhist teachings how more more hatred or the feelings of wanting revenge um not wanting to forgive those are a uh they're painful to to the person that's receiving those those negative feelings but also they're painful for ourselves it's a it's a punishment for ourselves as well to carry around that kind of grudge that kind of anger and aversion it's it's making our own life miserable so the the buddha pointed out you know this isn't the way to to resolve conflicts or difficulties more more hatred is not going to help revenge is not going to really help so that uh when we we look at the this area of uh of conflict the rocky waters of conflict uh it's important to to consider where does this come from and how does our mind relate to that uh how do we we deal with those feelings of uh disappointment or resentment that our feelings have been hurt our hopes have been have been they um say disappointed or rejected our feelings have been um say overridden our particular perspective or our wishes have been uh overridden by somebody else well in reflecting on this i feel one of the the one of the core issues is our attachment to views and opinions our own judgments when we when we think something uh we assume that it's true so if i say that's person that person is wrong they shouldn't have done that she shouldn't have said that you know he uh he was really unkind when he did that whatever it might be in our life our parents our children our ajahn our spouse partner the teachers or whoever it might be our boss at work a very convenient object for aversion our our boss and our managers so that sense of if i think it it must be true is a a a principle that is i feel very worthy of examining and challenging and it's uh something i talk about a lot because it's it's so strong in our society we're trained our education is around attachment to thought you're trying to have a clear logical meaningful thought and to defend it to to argue your point to uh to debate the school i went to had a debating society and you know it was like a afternoon's entertainment was having an argument trying to prove that you're right so that uh our society it worships thought and there's that uh unconscious assumption that most of us have that if i think something it's true if i say this is delicious then we assume that's a true statement if somebody else thinks differently then we assume that they're wrong or they they haven't got good taste like we have we say that's an ugly color that's a and if someone thinks it's beautiful then they're obviously deluded um this is a obviously uh somewhat sweeping statements but i think you can get the impression that and and if we look at our own minds it's very very uh easy for us to assume that if i think it it's true and so we believe the judgments that our mind makes and are the opinions that we have uh this person they should have it should be this way they shouldn't be that way and we don't challenge that we don't look at that just as a passing impression but we we take it to be absolutely true so i see this is a one of the major routes of conflict is that sense of uh taking our our opinion our point of view and assuming it it's an absolute reality the um uh though the way that the mind then takes hold of that um so maybe the the first of the ways of navigating these rocky waters is to look at that that area of thought and opinion and how we judge each other we say oh this person's good that person's bad and then we we create that person we create ourselves uh as uh as a reliable judge we create that other person as someone who's good someone who's bad someone someone we admire someone that we criticize and so forth and uh we uh we assume those value judgments are true and real and we also don't notice how with thought we are creating each other we create each other this is my mother this is my father this is my uh these are my monks these are my nuns these are my you know this is my lay community uh this is uh say a creation of the mind but we don't see it as that we we just take it that kind of labeling and that way that we create each other i can say i am the agile i'm doing the talking you're the audience you're listening so i can create you as that that's the only role that you have in the universe at the moment is being the sunday afternoon dumbo talk audience but it's not true it's just one tiny little piece of what you are and me being in the role of teaching is also just one tiny little piece of what i am but yet we can take we can grasp those roles and judge each other in those terms so the first of the ways of navigating those rocky waters is to not believe our thoughts so much to to challenge our thoughts and uh one of the the helpful reflections that i like to encourage is to take the the simple phrase you put this on your fridge or write it over your bathroom mirror or you know put it up on a on the wall embroider it and say just because i think it it doesn't mean it's true after that for reflection just because just because you think it's because i think it it doesn't mean it's true it just means it's a thought passing through the mind i mean i can say today is sunday which is true here in england in new zealand it's already monday they're 12 hours ahead so it's quarter past two in the morning in new zealand so is it sunday or is it monday a very simple way of saying bringing that to our attention to reflect on that and to say well yeah this is just one particular perspective or if i say which direction is my finger pointing to the left or to the right again to me it's obvious it's pointing to the left from where you're sitting it's like no john it's pointing to the right and then tantana and anagarika max is pointing right at them it's not pointing left or right it's pointing at me so where is my finger pointing it depends on where we sit doesn't it so one of the stories that uh long possumato uh told many times and i feel is a a very uh say a perfect illustration of this issue is how uh the mind attaches to its own opinions its own views and its own rightness um that uh and uh i brought along this copy of this little booklet called i'm right you're wrong which is kind of on the same theme as today's talk it's about loving kindness but the title of the book is i'm right you're wrong seeing that that's the the may one of the major obstructions to kindness is this quite this habit of attaching to thought so in this little book and i'll recount it today there's a story that um uh le por sumeter would tell when he was a young monk and uh in uh in his monastery what papong where he was training with ajahn chah there was a very eccentric monk a thai monk and he was unusually loud very outspoken uh his voice was was quite strong he would use quite coarse language and he was a very very very different character to most of the other monks living in the monastery and generally speaking in in thailand people are not very confrontational they're not that they tend to be quite quiet and polite and and and say socially very graceful and he was kind of the opposite he was very loud very confrontational very very noisy and so it was um very noticeable that this monk was upsetting the way he operated was upsetting to the other monks in the community the lay people who came were i'm sort of shocked and a bit uh put off by him and um the young agency couldn't understand why arjun chad just sort of quote unquote let this month get away with it why doesn't he say something he's just so noisy so loud it's of course and yeah his language is really awful you know surely lumpur should say something or put him set him straight and uh he he was there for quite some time and and the young adjunct couldn't understand why arjun shah wasn't doing something to fix this monk or correct him because it's what bafang was famous for being a very strict and orderly very um very uh say um say impressive in the quality of training and restraint of the of the nuns and monks who live there so anyway what happened was that arjun shah went away to visit some branch monasteries for the a few weeks and during that time they had the meeting of the the regular fortnightly meeting of the sangha and at the end of that where we recite our rules the the senior monk will say has anyone got any business they want to discuss with the community and the young agency said yes actually i have something i'd like to bring up um and so he sort of waited until ajin shah was away because uh uh he was sort of um kind of choosing his moment as it were and so then he he brought up the this the behavior of this very loud uh loudmouth monk and as quite a loud mouth person myself i can empathize talkative loud uh character myself i can there's a certain connection i feel anyway uh so he brought it up and also during that that sort of criticism uh he sort of named the occasions when he uh certain people were upset or things that he said and quoted the time and the day kind of accurately and who was there accurately and what was said it was quoted accurately so he had all his facts straight he had all his information was correct but uh during this time the the monk who was being criticized was looking at the floor predictably and uh and so as i said in thailand and many thai people here will know it's a non-confrontational culture people don't tend to to face off with each other you tend to pass your criticisms along through the side door and make things known in a kind of quiet and a small subtle way anyway at the end of the meeting um uh the senior monk ajin liam who was the was the second monk of the pong so he was looking after it he said well thank you tansumato for sharing that yeah we we've heard what you have to say and uh uh duly noted so then uh he felt that maybe some of the other monks were going to come up to him and say well done tomato you know you really let him have it long overdue but people were strangely quiet and then within a day or so that the the loudmouth monk had had left and and disappeared and uh sort of took took leave and and and vanished from so a couple of weeks later when lumpur came back and word reached him very quickly about this encounter and he waited for the right moment and invited the the young arjun samado to come and have a chat with him and he said you know somato i heard what you had to say about our loud mouthed friend at the uh the patimoca recitation and uh yeah it's true he was loud do you think i hadn't noticed that do you think i was unaware did you did you think i i couldn't recognize that he was out of order but also did you consider that he's been chucked out of every other monastery he's ever lived in and what this was the last place he could stay because i was ready to make a space for him he said his mouth is evil but his his heart is good his his mouth is evil but his heart is good he said but now you shut the door on him he can't come back here you shamed him publicly so he can't come back here you know because of the way you you you spoke so you have to accept that he said you were you were right in fact but wrong in dhamma so that's really the principle that i wanted to put across today or where's that effect that's probably not the perfect time but it's like you're right in fact your facts were correct but you are wrong in terms of dhamma so that's very important in terms of conflict and working with our minds our thoughts and our attitudes our judgments even if we got all our facts correct yeah she did say that and that was really out of order yeah he shouldn't have done this and he and he really was unkind when he said that but that is say the the information is one thing but the way we put it across the way that the we the attitude we have in our heart when we speak that's something else altogether so uh when we are in a state of conflict and we want to resolve that it's not just a matter of having facts on your side it's not just a matter of being say say righteous as we would say in english that uh it's also the the uh assessment weighing up the time the place the situation okay i want to give this feedback i feel this person needs to receive this feedback what's a good time to say it what's the right way to say it what's my intention in saying it do i just want to punish that person for disappointing me or upsetting me or do i actually want to speak in order to help them to see how they've been harming themselves as well as upsetting other people what's what's in my heart so that uh that way of of say taking a second look at our own judgments and seeing how we are typecasting casting each other uh our wife our husband our ajahn our our our fellow nuns or monks uh uh the people on our street the next door neighbor our boss our our staff we type cast people you say you know uh this is the boss he's like this or you know my my uh my wife she's like this or my husband he's like that and we make those judgments and we we take them to be absolutely true if we just take a step back and say well that's just one part of it that's one perspective or my experience was and on seeing that or hearing that was feeling upset or feeling annoyed but is that the whole story and even if i have these feelings what's the best way to convey that to to speak on that to bring that to the other person's attention so then we can be not only right in fact but also write in terms of dhamma we are say attuning to the the whole being that we're relating to rather than just our image of them we we don't create ourself as uh or as a particular personality we don't create the other but rather we're guided by mindfulness and wisdom that the heart is attuned to the time the place and the situation in a skillful way so another of the aspects of dealing with conflict is the the emotion that we feel so feeling angry or feeling vengeful or um feeling feeling hurt and that when there's an emotion in the heart then it's uh it seems very real very very solid and substantial right when we're angry then it seems that that you know that person is to is to blame that they're wrong and they're bad or if we're if our feelings are hurt we're upset because of what someone has said or done to us then that pain feels very very real and we feel um alienated separate and and in conflict with that other person so the attention goes to the other that person my boss who's treated me really badly my arjun who's just said something really annoying he really shouldn't say that it's really let me down or you're my my child or my parent and the attention the more the stronger the emotion the more the attention goes to the other and so um one of the the incredibly um helpful teachings or areas of teaching that lumposumeto focused on in the early days of amravati through the late 80s early 90s he taught a lot about mindfulness of emotion so if you're feeling angry so rather than just focusing on the person or the thing that you're angry with you know look at that feeling of anger get to know that the emotion of anger to don't take it personally but look at that as a as a a an experience within your heart within your mind that and that takes quite a lot of effort because the attention goes to what he did that is annoying or what how she is that's really upsetting and so to turn the attention around say well how does anger feel in the heart how's this feeling of of loss or separation or or grief uh how does this feel in the heart and uh i found that was extraordinarily helpful and there's a couple of approaches to that um firstly just naming what the emotion is when we're feeling it like this is the feeling of jealousy like sort of what about me i want one too that's not fair to to be able to catch that and even if you have been treated unfairly it's not as though the other other people are always innocent you know it might be that someone is being unkind to you they do deliberately want to upset you it can be they're usually not in monasteries it's not generally that more kind of noble-hearted people come and live in these places but not always but usually but uh it doesn't mean to say that that uh that feeling is has no basis but rather this is the feeling of being left out you know maybe you have been left out but to take the attention and put the attention and turn it around take it and direct it inwards to say this is the feeling of me being left out this is the what about me feeling that's what this is or this is the um how dare you the angry resentful feeling this is the angry resentful feeling it's like this and i found that extraordinarily helpful because you're not uh and over and over again lumpus tomato would emphasize you you don't get uh you don't free the heart from it's suffering by suppressing emotion buddhist the buddhist path is not about suppressing or having no emotions but rather is through understanding emotions so sometimes when we read buddhist literature or we hear dhamma talks it can come across if you're really if you're practicing really well if you're a really good buddhist you'll have no emotions at all you kind of just be a sort of data reception unit like one of these these video cameras just sort of collecting data you know seeing hearing feeling resenting loving hating but it's not it's a and those of you who've been around lumpus tomato will know he's uh he he's very very clear on this and i found this was extremely helpful we're not trying to to get beyond suffering by having no uh no emotions and no no pain no love no hate no fear but through knowing them through understanding them and learning how not to take them personally so it's it sounds remarkably simple but just by naming what's present this is the feeling of resentment it's like this and again being around lumpus omega how many times have we heard him say it's like this so this is the way it is it's it's this way it's exactly this way when we might remember it in one particular way but uh he would over and over again he'd use this kind of language to to bring the attention to them so naming what the emotion is uh without criticizing it without saying it shouldn't be there um or that we want it to to be over but just naming exactly what is present is a very helpful and powerful tool so another method of navigating then these uh the the the tricky rocks it's the ones just under the surface of the most dangerous uh is the um the physical sensation that goes with with uh anger or conflict if you have a sense of a grudge or a conflict um again the attention will go to that person what you know what he said or how she how she talked to me and she shouldn't be like this and how dare she that's really unfair so uh to let go of the whole let go of the person let go of the the story the narrative whether it should be there shouldn't be there and this feel what does that grudge what is that grudging like in your body where is where is anger felt where is that sense of of division or or resentment and you know we're all different so we can experience these things in different ways we can have a kind of cold fury like discreting our teeth kind of going rigid and and icy we can feel very agitated very hot uh or like a steel bar across your shoulders can be all kinds of things but that that emotion however it takes shape when there's conflict in the family in the workplace or wherever there's a physical sensation that goes with it and just bringing the attention to the the physical feeling that goes with that emotion often is quite shocking like this is this is really uncomfortable why do i want to do this to myself and it's not like i oh this is this is really this is really stupid i should stop it as a kind of mental command but just it's like suddenly noticing that you're carrying five suitcases oh this is really heavy this is really hard work yeah why didn't i notice this before and so then the natural response is to put things down and have at least have a bit of a breather so uh in working with conflict and navigating conflict and especially if you're in the middle of an argument with your beloved or you know say hearing it listening to a dumber talk and the angina is saying something that you don't agree with or is confusing or like what's she talking about like oh he's telling that story again how many times have i heard that but to bring the attention inwards and say what does this feel like this uh resentment or grudging or this this agitated feeling of being in the middle of a s of a spat a a a conflict how does it feel where is it is it in your shoulders in your face in your hands in your belly you know where is it what does it feel like and then it's again that this is the kind of thing that uh lumpur sumeta would focus on and it's it's really startling how how strong the physical sensations are often with uh states of conflict and simply by being aware of them that the presence of that awareness that the impact of the awareness that is like shining a light on a on a tight mount shining a heat lamp on a tight muscle it's like the muscle starts relaxing you can't sustain that kind of stressing and tension if the if you're aware of it like if you notice you're carrying five suitcases it's like you you make a you make the effort to put them down because it's so burdensome it's so uncomfortable and awkward difficult so with uh uh these uh different uh uh approaches so then with uh the um the quality of of uh the emotional side of it then another aspect of dealing with conflict is like social engagement and when you recognize you're arguing with someone again or you're grumbling about your boss or you're you're carrying the aging around and got this long list of things that are wrong with him or her and uh or that your or the agile is carrying around one of the junior people all the things that are wrong with them and and a sense of the mind say carrying around that negativity then it doesn't it doesn't just have to be resolved internally and one of the the practices that we have in our uh tradition is that of asking for forgiveness and this is something that's it's mentioned a number of times in dhamma talks and i feel it's even though it's a part of a monastic tradition or a custom from from asia is something that we can bring into our own homes and we can use that between ourselves and our in our family or in the workplace or wherever we might be that we can ask for forgiveness we if we realize we've been carrying around a grudge carrying around a lot of negativity and aversion the mind um say filled with with the kind of hatred and and criticism and absence of meta then to to recognize that and to acknowledge that within ourselves and to see that yeah we don't just have to to be passive or deal with that internally we can actually uh approach the other person and acknowledge that say yeah i'm terribly sorry i've been i've been carrying you around for the last two and a half years you know you might not have noticed that but you've been part of my luggage you know and uh and it's also it's important when when we do recognize that and we see the unskillful quality of it that uh we all make mistakes we that we we lose our way we get distracted by feelings of aversion by feelings of desire or greed or selfishness feelings of jealousy again many of you who've listened to lumpus tomatoes dumber talks over the years you'll notice notice he talks a lot about anger and he talks a lot about jealousy and there's a of strong emotions that he would uh be experiencing he would like to not experience them they're major parts of his character and i feel it's also part of the strength of of the forest tradition and the way that we we teach is that where we we use our own shortcomings uh as uh some material for for giving instruction so i think that that recognition that we make mistakes we we miss our shot and that we we find ourselves carrying around resentment we make judgments about others or others uh have version towards us through something that we have done and that uh it's it's uh uh a kind of strength within us to recognize yeah i didn't i didn't speak well there that was unc i wasn't being thoughtful i the way i acted that was that was uh selfish that was cruel i was being lazy or being uh egotistical that's right you know my my actions were worthy of criticism that person is is angry with me and there's conflict between us because i didn't do very well i didn't speak well i didn't act well i could have done better so that kind of acknowledgement the buddha said to to recognize our mistakes as such to see our transgressions as such and to acknowledge them and then to endeavor to do better in the future this is called development in the in this dhamma and discipline in this teaching so that's not a weakness and to to be wrong to have made mistakes or to carry around a a grudge it's a um in a way it's it's a part of the human condition that we do that we all make mistakes even the buddha if you any of you who studied the monastic discipline that nuns and monks certainly have done you'll see that there's many many of our rules the buddha established them then he had to change them because of he he didn't take account of of every uh every aspect of the situation so he had to keep several rules he amended many times over i think that the record is one that was amended about seven or eight times because of you know the buddha not not thinking things through he would establish a rule uh he and then people would misuse it he said okay well don't do that do it this way instead and uh or his own actions like say for example when he uh when he went back to kapilawatu and his former wife princess yoshodara sent his his son the seven-year-old rahula to go and pay respects to to his father the buddha and then the um uh that was his mother princess yeshua said go and ask your father for your inheritance uh it's not sure exactly what was on her mind when she said that or what was behind that that exchange but that's what she said she said to rahul go and ask your father for your in for your inheritance and um so the rahula said my mother says i'm to ask you for my inheritance and so the buddha had been the the crown prince and had left the household life and gone off to be a monk when when he came back and so he thought well i am of the lineage of the buddhas and so uh i've undertaken the monastic life my son is asking for his inheritance so i'll give him the precepts of a novice so he or he ordained him as the first summoner the first novice monk so some people find some difficulty with that and think well is that really what he meant or you know was that really fair or uh you know i know he was a fully enlightened buddha and and so he had to his own pure hearted reasons but you know is that was that done wisely or correctly or thoughtfully uh anyway his father did not think so so king sudojna took great exception to that to the to the buddha say well my son is asking for his inheritance uh i am of the lineage of the buddhas i'm a monk so uh he wants the my his inheritance from me so the inheritance is the robe and the monastic life so rahula became the first novice and later he became a fully enlightened being as well and arahant but at that time the buddha's father king sedona was very upset and so he uh he went to the the the buddha and he uh he said uh even though the buddha was rahula's father and king sudodna was the grandfather he had become very attached to the boy and so so he criticized the buddha and said love for our children cuts through the skin and reaches the flesh it cuts through the flesh and reaches the bone it cuts through the bone and reaches the marrow and having reached the marrow it lodges there it is uh inappropriate for you to give the for a young child to be given the precepts without the permission of their parents even though the brother was actually his parent his father the king suddenly had a become his sort of parent by by proxy uh his adoptive parent and so the buddha acknowledged that and so from that time uh it was always the case that uh the uh a novice has to have the the permission of their parents before they they take the robes and even for a um the full ordination uh then you uh have the question do you have your uh uh your the permission of your mother and your father do you have the the permission of your mother and your father so that was established because the buddha quote unquote made a mistake and that might might sound heretical but the buddha acknowledged yes my father the king is correct it's uh this has an impact on people and um so therefore let's do things differently in the future so even a fully enlightened buddha can recognize that their choices have a negative impact on other people and then they can adjust their behavior so i feel this asking for forgiveness um recognizing that uh we we make mistakes or we we do things or say things that hurt people's feelings that's really important and in the the ceremony that we do uh we we say in pali uh by body speech or mind any of the three doors body speech or mind if there's anything that i have done intentionally or unintentionally um that has been hurtful to you then i ask for your forgiveness and then the other person who's being spoken to says i forgive you and please forgive me also. and uh that's the the it's a kind of ceremonial a customary exchange but it's also a um uh it's meaningful it's meaningful insofar as hopefully people understand the party but also the meaning behind it is at that time you are acknowledging that even if you don't know it there's things that you can have said the things that you could have done just things that that in the way that you are that can be upsetting or intimidating or or challenging for people yeah in the the sangha um i remember years ago one of the the monks my accent isn't quite so extreme now as it used to be i lived in america for about 15 years so my my accent is a bit more uh mid-atlantic rather than totally english but i used to speak like prince charles and i had a sort of english boarding school accent and when i lived here at amravati in the in the uh in the uh mid 80s early 90s i remember one of the the monks who was a londoner yes from the east end of london kind of came to me and said yeah i have to let you know that um i've just been carrying around all this aversion for you because of you know the way you speak it's like i just hear your voice and it just says officer class you know you know and i'm i'm from the east end i'm the kind of cannon fodder end of the the the that's in the army about the the uh the poor guys in the in the infantry set out to into the front lines to to soak up the the gunfire from the cannons called cannon fodder it's a really ugly kind of term but it is but uh the officers will be back back at the command post is giving orders and sipping gin and tonics and uh sending the the the the working class people out to the front lines unfortunately that's not too far from from the the reality of things as as war has been fought so he said i hear your voice and that's what it says to me it's like you're one of them even though i know you're a monk and that it's it's stupid that's the effect of your your accent and so i'm terribly sorry but i've been carrying around this of this negative you know aversive feeling towards you and so i said i'm frightfully sorry you know i don't think i said it quite that but yeah the uh what can you do you know that's that's how you that's the impact that you have on on others you don't wish for it but i appreciated him um stepping up and saying that because it just never occurred to me it just didn't cross my mind that that it because to me it's just talking it's just and it wouldn't have registered in my mind that i had a negative impact but for someone who's grown up in the working class life and been oppressed and and taken advantage of by the the people with voices like this then there's that negative reaction so uh whether something has been done intentionally or unintentionally whether we know about it or we don't know about it you know that you can be doing things that are upsetting to people it's a very it's a very beautiful and wholesome way of clearing the slate so we have that ceremony of asking for forgiveness at the beginning of a retreat so the the reigns retreat began after the day after the full moon last week so we have that ceremony of asking for forgiveness to begin the retreat so we can clear the slate so clean the clean the whiteboard and and make everything as as as open and as clear between each other as possible and then at the end of the retreat after having lived together for three months then we do the same by body speech or mind whatever i have done that's been hurtful to you in any way shape or form intentionally or unintentionally then i ask for your forgiveness and it's kind it's interesting that if there's something that you don't want to forgive um that you're still carrying around um there uh there's a as a lovely uh a a a line in in um the rabbi burns poem tamo shanta which it talks about a woman waiting for her drunk husband to to roll in from the pub and it describes her um excuse my bad scottish accent there's any scottish people here nursing her off to keep it warm so nursing her wrath her anger to keep it warm like looking after her baby like i'm gonna keep my anger nice and nice and warm so it won't cool down before he gets back and gets the gets the frying pan yeah in the um in that particular story the poem of tamil shanta so the nursing heroth to keep it warm so that sometimes when you're carrying on that ceremony and there is some wrath that you're nursing it comes to mind it's like uh pl uh um please forgive me also because i haven't let go of this one yet i'm still keeping this this grudge i can't quite drop it yet and and again going back maybe to the beginning of this talk i said sometimes people get a charge or a sense of being alive by being contrary by kind of always opposing or criticizing or or finding faults or or causing looking for conflict to make them feel alive sometimes we don't want to let go of our grudges we don't want to let go of our broken heart or our our how we've been mistreated by our our teachers our spouse or your that you know your old head teacher you know who who persecuted you in your primary school uh that you want to carry that person around because what will you do if you haven't got that who will you be if you haven't got that that sort of that lust for revenge or that hatred so sometimes the um we want to keep that that sense of no i can never forgive i won't forgive and i won't forget because of the sense of being it gives us but again the buddha uh points to that helps helps us to see well that's a a a weakness in us that we just it's that sense of keeping a grudge going keeping hatred going just because of the giving us a sense of being that's giving us continued self torture we're we're say injuring ourselves we're harming ourselves we're damaging our own life we're burdening our own heart with that so it's understandable enough and again if any of you are feeling like how did you know like oh my goodness i do that all the time here's my list you know the uh the list of people are either that deserve uh vengeance and uh so it's it's it's a a question of recognizing that you can't just snap your fingers and make it go away oh it's a bad habit i'll stop that but oh i won't get angry anymore i'll let go of all of that but recognizing it seeing yeah there's i'm still carrying that person around the one who let me down or the one who betrayed me the one who really hurt my feelings that was that was really unfair and my life has been ruined i've been scarred damaged because of that and and perhaps there really is not just mental scars but your physical damage you you're in a car crash with someone who is was drunk and you've been physically disabled because of someone's foolish behavior you know that that happens but still uh the the buddha's encouragement is that even if that that you've got good reason to be resentful to be negative it only harms us to be carrying that around to not to forgive so that uh when we we talk in this way this is um they uh sometimes people feel well you can't just let people get away with it or you know if you if you forget that it's as if it uh the person you know they should be punished they shouldn't they shouldn't be forgotten or shouldn't be forgiven and so it's a good area to explore it's like well yes perhaps i can i can remember that and i can see that was that was um poorly done and yes it's had a negative impact on my life or or maybe something that i've done that i hate myself for that's had a negative impact on others but the we can we can forgive but not forget we don't have to carry it around as some kind of permanent uh permanent wrong but rather we can let the memory of it we can the take the the recollection of the not forgetting as an encouragement well um let me give my life to encouraging people to not be drunk when they're driving or to let me give my life to the encouraging people to be more uh me be more caring to be more uh thoughtful to be more mindful of the impact of their actions and their speech on others so that we take that painful memory the damage that has been done in our life or somebody else's life and we take that pain and we make it work for us we take that pain and use it to help energize something beneficial and skillful in our lives one of the maybe the last thing to share um is um that comes to mind with respect to the um this area of conflict and whether it's in a conflict um within ourselves or conflict with with other other people whether it's um whatever it's been based on one of the the exercises i i like to teach is a is a what i call it a death rehearsal or death meditation and uh it's a it's a kind of visualization practice and so it uh the usual format of it is you're sitting down in meditation you can be sitting or you can be lying down and then the message is okay this is the last 40 minutes 45 minutes half an hour of your life and when the bell goes at the end then that's your last breath so this is the last moments of your life um it's like so it's an imaginative exercise um and so okay this is the last moments of your life's last last half hour last 40 minutes of your life maybe 45 maybe 50. who knows it's not not fixed but uh your life is coming to an end when the bell goes that's your last breath and you got to from the time that the bell rings till the sound fades to let go of everything so during that that period of um half an hour or so then i i encourage people to bring four different things to mind so firstly your resentments that all those grudges you know the people who've done you wrong ex-partners the the uh the ones that um uh the that have hurt you or that um have betrayed you disappointed you either close to you in the family or can be political leaders or other significant people in the world um to look at those resentments okay well you've got half an hour to live do you still want to be carrying that person around again like long force tomato will often mention this the chief petty officer on his ship when he was in the u.s navy who had it in for him who gave him a particularly and deliberately bad time he was a medic on the supply ship on the pacific for several years four years and the chief petty officer of his ship didn't like him and gave him a bad time so he said even 50 years later i can think of his name there's a reaction so he would use that as something to meditate on so all those people in your list that horrible headmistress who treated you badly your ex spouses the ajahn who let you down or made fun of you in public uh and uh you know the whole list say okay that's this is my list of grudges this it's my revenge list so do i want to be carrying them around at the end can i look at those grudges and and let them go so that's the first one of the four is is resentments grudges the second one is uh is regrets are you right looking at your own life things that you've done where you let somebody else down where you hurt their feelings where you were selfish or greedy or indulgent you were deceitful or cruel the damage that you caused and again to say okay well you've now got 20 minutes left to go do you want to be carrying this around and with your last breath can you can you acknowledge that we make mistakes as human beings and can you forgive this being as well as forgiving other beings those are the first two so we're down to about a quarter of an hour now so then uh appreciations to think of all of those who have been a source of blessings in your life and benefit your parents maybe your parents are in the grudge category usually they're in the benefit appreciation category your parents your teachers your friends the people that you've you've learned from the people you've been inspired by the people who've helped you who fed you who supported you and and made your life uh valuable and rich in in whatever ways to consciously recollect those appreciations and the feeling of gratitude not to create a sense of debt like i i don't want to die owing you but rather the the the quality of gratefulness how wonderful that i was able to have such a wonderful mother a wonderful father or how i was great that school teacher he you know he was so good and so uh so helpful yeah so those appreciations so we're down to about five minutes now and then the last one is the most challenging which is to appreciate your own goodness which is almost illegal in the in the west uh in in asia it has much more of a culture it's called chaganus the buddhical calls it chaganusati chaga chaga is c with a long a g a chaga is it can mean generosity but it also means your own goodness so to recollect your own good qualities so the judeo-christian um particularly the christian take on things is that you're not you're not supposed to have positive thoughts about yourself you don't because of the fear of being inflated or conceited or or proud so that often when you grow up in a christian society you're encouraged to be self-critical i'm a terrible person i'm a sinner i'm awful you know i'm not worthy i'm not worthy like the jesus prayer lord jesus christ have mercy on on me you know a uh a poor and feeble sinner you know please have mercy i'm a sinner so that has its own own place in in in contemplation contemplative life but if we take that in a superficial way it's like i'm bad i'm stupid i'm awful you know i'm sorry i'm sorry i mean it's i'm i am english by birth and it is amazing how often when english people meet each other they say excuse me you're like i'm in the way you know i'm sorry i'm sorry yeah we apologize for existing it's a strange thing and not maybe it doesn't happen so much nowadays but it's uh it's a very common trait we say i'm sorry i'm sorry please excuse me well we assume we're in the way yeah and so that um which i i would perceive as a very english trait it's a small crowded island so um to recognize your own goodness and a way of working this exercise if if somebody else had done the things that you have done with your life you would be quite ready to congratulate them oh well done you've been really kind really helpful really unselfish really thoughtful um if somebody else had done those things you'd say well done because it's me it's like well it wasn't really anything and anyone would have done that and you know i only did it because i had to and people expected it of me and so step out of your own shoes and look at your life from outside and and say yeah to say yeah that was that was well done i did a good job there um not to be inflated or conceited not to be proud or to think of yourself as yeah well actually you're really lucky to have me around you know you know but uh to be kind of inflated in a foolish way but to give credit where it's due as they say say yeah that was well done that's that those are some good things and that that's the the last of the challenges as the final moment comes so i thought i would share those with you as a way of ending inner conflicts and external conflicts that what do we want to be carrying around at the end and that sense of letting go of ourself letting go of others and to to free the heart from those those those limitations those burdens that's the most complete and full way of resolving conflicts so on that note we can end things so my question is that there are many teachers in the world who can be a real mixture of things they can be brilliant teachers but they can also maybe for example there was that very famous tibetan teacher wasn't there i can't remember his name yeah he was a brilliant teacher on one hand on the other hand he had was an alcoholic and and there are people like that who can be brilliant and also mixed and if we encounter those kind of teachers should we take a very moral high ground and say that their conduct is not correct we shouldn't we should reject them or do we take a broader view obviously depending there's different if they're very harmful obviously they can be very harmful they can also have something to to offer and obviously here in this monastery you have very good conduct so you are supported by that and not everybody else is and that obviously when people don't form following moral precepts they can also cause a lot of harm and confusion and and fear so do you have anything to say about that that's a good question um yeah sometimes if you spend too much time on the moral high ground the you need oxygen up there so uh it's a um it's it's skillful to have a very um rigorous standard of sealer for oneself but then part of that um you know what i was saying about uh about judgment is that uh sometimes people are are so filled with their own rightness this their way up on the sort of himalayan altitude of the moral high ground they really do need you know oxygen cylinders with them and that uh and they there can be a even though the standards that they have are quite admirable they can be actually filled with quite a lot of hatred and aversion and also feeding that sense of of their own uh to atta their own uh self-view through blaming this person that person this person that person so um uh the the kind of approach that lumpur had was he didn't spend a lot of time finding fault in in public ways or denouncing the other people around him or people who are less uh say well behaved but he was he basically he put his attention on being part of the solution rather than just complaining about the problem so with teachers like uh with like shogun trungpa there's as many people um who have been his students like uh pema children who's uh extremely admirable you know very wise and noble being and uh she's a great teacher and her own standards of conduct are impeccable and she still holds her choking trungpa in high regard even though she acknowledges he was he drank himself to death before he was 50. and he was extremely promiscuous as well and so that the the amount of time we can spend finding fault with others is infinite and so i think that uh also seeing that well someone like payment children can see the the good side of her teacher and can focus on that um then you can't say well trunk was bad and everyone who's been his student is bad therefore everything is bad that's connected with that it's going too far because i've spent time i never met shogun trungpa but i certainly spent time with with pema children and that very she's a very inspiring and wise person so i feel that um in some respects you you you take whatever is good from the things that you meet and so there are there are words that trungpa has said that are very inspiring very very true very helpful but also um if you say therefore everything about trungpa is good it's going too far so um it's like long possumato he was telling me about uh a conversation he had with another um well-known spiritual teacher i think it was firozmita who used to give they both used to teach at the buddhist society summer school and he asked fear osmeta this same kind of question what's your opinion of chogyam trumper and and his teaching and firoz mehta who's a very very thoughtful and wise and admirable teacher he said well it's rather like being offered a a beautifully delicious meal on a plate that is not clean so that yeah the the food is delicious but the the the receptacle makes you say i'm not quite sure if i want to eat any of this so so that was the the way that lumpur sumeta would talk about it afterwards well i feel it's it gets tricky is where people start to use the sort of the ultimate reality escape clause or that that sort of ultimate truth trumps everything maybe trump isn't the right word to use but a few years ago it was an okay word to use but in terms of card games ultimate reality trumps everything it kind of outplays uh the other cards and so that becomes uh uh really confusing and difficult for people so i was at a conference once with a number of western buddhist teachers with his holiness the dalai lama and one of the teachers there had just received dharma transmission from his his teacher a zen master by reputation and he had that he had received diamond transmission and then had dissociated himself from his teacher and then at this conference he said yeah that his teacher was a quote-unquote narcissistic psychopath that's that's the polite part of the sentence i won't i won't repeat all of it because i'm on camera and this is being recorded but it was more colorful than that that was the less colorful part of the description so and he said i have no doubt that my teacher was totally enlightened but his behavior was appalling and the dalai lama so heard that and went into a huddle with his translator like am i understanding this correctly and then his translator jinper who was a had a doctorate from cambridge in western philosophy said yes that's what he means and then dalai lama said i think your understanding of enlightenment and mine is quite different and it was a very helpful conversation because within the the bounds of buddhist philosophy as that person had inherited it you could have someone who's totally enlightened and have appalling behavior where uh the dalai lama is much more akin to sort of classical buddhist expressions of things and what we find in the southern buddhist world which is like no you those those don't go together that dips there if there is um a uh a mind that is truly enlightened then that would manifest as skillful behavior there in thailand you have a number of famous arjans who are quite quirky or um eccentric in their conduct one of jinja's teachers arjun tongarat was was famously unpredictable and but also regarded as as an arahant um and uh but his his conduct would always be within the bounds of the monastic rule and that he uh that was you know very strictly kept even though he's extremely eccentric and unpredictable in various ways so that uh i feel that you know if you are reading the words of of some in some dumber book and you find it inspiring and then you find out that the author was alcoholic okay well yeah those words are helpful within the context but i don't think i'll be voting for this person i don't i don't want to sign up for more any of their retreats or that i don't particularly want to advocate that person is a great teacher but that phrase that that says something to me so you can't uh override the fact that that is meaningful to you or that speaks to you in a in a helpful way so you can take the these the useful words from that but um the degree to which you draw closer say therefore i i'm supportive of this person and what they do and how they do it that's another thing altogether so i hope that's that's useful i think it's we can be very moralistic and be uh and again speaking about that uh the id the the the monk the the uh the uh difficult speech um habits that uh we can be very righteous and we can have good justif you know justification we can have a list of all the evidence that proves that we're right and not be noticing that we're torturing ourselves we're we're creating a lot of suffering for ourselves with our own rightness and and it makes us less able to be an effective of of skillful change in the world because we're so filled with all the the the wrongs that everybody else is doing that we we're kind of tying ourselves up in knots so that i feel that that way of um say appreciating or being aware of the the the wrongdoings or the shortcomings of others but not creating suffering within ourselves about it that's a in a way that's one of the the skillful aspects of compassion that you you uh that you're able to uh acknowledge the suffering of others or caused by others but you're not creating suffering in yourself on account of that so any other questions yes okay if you can wait for the microphone down there in the in the corner with the white jackets here yeah my shirt i just want to ask uh what is karma i mean sometimes i i'm chinese i listen chinese monk talk as well and they always talk about past life future although i got very confused and competing well kama just means action that's what it means or in sanskrit karma it just means action when people speak about that in the sort of everyday use they tend to mean action and its results and often they mean action from past lives that's having its effect in this life but in its in its essence kama just means action so you just created karma by asking this question and the result of that karma is me responding to you so it's come and then the the word for the result is vipaka so it's not anything very mysterious it's just uh an action based on an in a person's intention that's all i don't know if that's helpful always listen to uh talk on the youtube and then they have those mango talk about past life someone being someone's daughter then become a husband or become a father or that sort of thing very confused and i get quite terrified thinking what i've done wrong like past life and the best basically i think in china the buddhists always talk about um then i don't know what what my past life was well not neither do i so it's like uh uh peop people often ask these kind of questions but um it's uh and even though in the buddhist scriptures the buddha quite comfortably talks about past lives and future lives and that that's very say frequently spoken about i think it's more important to base our our spiritual life our spiritual practice on our own experience so somebody if somebody has memories of past lives or what appear to be past lives then they it's up to them to make sense of that or make use of it most people don't have any memories of past lives or um and so that uh it's more skillful than to uh say be paying attention to their uh say the choices that we make here in the present moment and my own teachers would emphasize that a lot they say yeah arjun samayto who what was i in a past life and he said he'd say i don't know he said who are you in the past life though i don't know and uh quite true quite truly he would say that that's not something that's within his experience but what we can know is that we are seeing hearing smelling tasting touching we can think we can remember we can imagine we can see how our mind works and so that it's more helpful to see the the way that we make choices we make decisions and they have results here within our own lifetime so from when you uh what you what you did last week or what you did when you were a child you can remember and you can see the results of the choices that you made so karma doesn't have to be anything more mysterious than that uh what you hear on youtube is there's a big variety of things that all kinds of dumber talks and other things there so if it's confusing i would just say switch it off because dharma is not to create more confusion but to create clarity and to help the mind to be free of suffering so if you put more attention on what your own experience is and see okay if i if i act based on on friendliness on on generosity on kindness on harmlessness then what's the result oh that means i feel comfortable are people around me are comfortable uh it brings a lot of peace okay if i act out of selfishness or aggression or fear or greed what's the result it makes me more agitated more confused there's more conflict okay that leads in a bad direction so you can see from your own actions your own experience in the present lifetime in your own life how things work so it's a it's more helpful to focus just on that you know the the buddha gave a really interesting teaching in the majima nikaya the middle length discourses uh suta number 60 is called the the apanaka the incontrovertible teaching and he says it may be to say that there's a here's a person who lives a good life they are kind they are generous they are moral they are they're honest um so a person who lives like that they attract good people to them they are praised by wise people in the society they sleep easily at night and when they come to the end of their life they have no regrets so maybe it's the case that there there is no life after this one um and even if there is no life after this one they've made a pleasant uh living place for themselves here and now and if there is a life after this one then they've set things in place to uh reappear in a pleasant destination another good person who lives immorally they are unkind they're cruel they're selfish they're greedy they're deceitful they will attract unskillful people they'll attract bad people to them they will be criticized by the wise people in society they will sleep badly at night and at the end of their life they will have regrets so even if there is no life after this one then right here and now they've made an unpleasant living place for themselves and if there is a live after this one then they've said they've set the conditions for reappearing in an unpleasant destination so let the the wise person choose for themselves how they want to act so to me that's a really interesting teaching uh the buddha is saying you know uh that maybe there is no life after this one but even if there isn't uh the important thing to do is to live in a skillful way that's what uh say is the best use of of the life that we have so that is a um i feel a very very helpful teaching in this way because also buddha dhamma doesn't require us to believe in past lives or future lives you know the buddha encourages us to go by our own experience to be guided by our own experience as in what's called the kalama sutra he said don't just believe what people tell you he didn't mention watching youtube it didn't exist in the buddha's time but equivalent uh don't just believe what people say in the what people talk about in the village or in the family or what's passed down from your parents hmm yeah but uh it's uh um the the important thing is even if it's the book in that kalama suit of the buddha said yeah even if it's a trusted spiritual teacher like he himself so don't believe what i say just because i say it but rather test things out and see for yourself what is beneficial and so that he's almost the only spiritual teacher who said don't believe me the buddha but rather test things out and see what is beneficial for yourself so that it's not he's not making the religion around believing the spiritual authority to be telling the truth but rather okay you hear these words try it out and see what what's what's valuable what's useful for you from your own experience and then be guided by that okay yes the okay okay evgenia you can go first yeah oh there's this gentleman here with the the white t-shirt gray t-shirt there's a switch on the side which yes um you talked about conflict generating emotions such as anger and resentment um and even people like adjunct with all his wisdom um experiencing those emotions and observing them but as if if we just doesn't that reflect um attachment to em ideas and feelings and thoughts and so on and is and ultimately if we don't have those attachments shouldn't we not be feeling those emotions but if somebody like adjunct even with all his wisdom was still feeling them what hope is there for the rest of us well it's uh it's like the uh i mentioned kama and viparka so viparka is the resultant comma so if uh certain sort of wheels have been set in motion in years gone by like the impact of that chief petty officer on his ship in during the korean war you know more than 50 years ago more like 60 years ago now um that uh that the effect of those wheels having been spun all those years ago it's like they don't just stop or that you know or the maybe also not just with with um anger but they say sadness you know maybe uh the uh the memory of your your uh of your beloved mother having passed away something like that so that uh the emotions might arise but the um the issue is how the the mind relates to that so there can be a feeling of disliking or a feeling of liking uh like a bitter taste or a sweet taste but it's what the mind does with that so that uh and so you get different renditions of this in different buddhist teachings but out of the thai forest tradition it's very much the way they talk about these kind of negative emotions or afflictive emotions is that yeah even in our hunt they will arise but there's no landing place for them like uh um one of the great forest nigerians lumpur dun um when he was in his 90s one of his disciples asked him you know very very politely i hate to ask this but do you spill do do you still experience anger he said he said oh yes he said uh me down my owl which is like it it arrives it's there but i don't accept it it's like the the the delivery van comes but the the the the parcel is not nobody signs for the parcel so that you know the the delivery person takes the parcel away again it's like they're not accepting it they're not receiving it there so that that um that emotion might take shape but there's no there's no um uh imputing reality or solidity or value to it so in the uh in the in the scriptures you get a lot of dialogues between the buddha and mara the subject of next week's dumb talk so in these dialogues between the buddha and mara is depicted in the form of mara as this kind of uh entity the sort of demonic um sort of like a music hall villain almost like hahaha i'll get him this time you know this kind of um uh almost like a joke-like figure coming along to try and trick the buddha and it's portrayed in the scriptures in those ways and the buddha always says you know i know you mara yeah i know you evil one and uh mara so has to scurry away and it never manages to trick the buddha but i feel what that's representing is those feelings of worry or greed or self-criticism arising in the mind of the buddha but they'd have no place to land so like his as an incident where he's sitting in the himalayas and mara comes to him and says you know you've got the kind of power you could turn the entire himalayan mountain range into solid gold you could do that go on and then the buddha says i know you mara yeah it's true i could turn the whole himalayan mountain range into solid gold but twice that amount would not be enough for one person's greed so then foiled again so mara goes scurrying off and so that that that's depicted in this kind of um exchange between the buddha and mara as two sort of living beings talking with each other but i feel as it's also a representation of that thought arising in the buddha's mind you know i could turn all these mountains into solid gold but then immediately there's the recognition that even as that thought takes shape yeah that what would be the point of that because that wouldn't be uh twice that amount would not be enough for one person's greed or um the buddha lying down to take a rest in the middle of the day during the hot season amara comes along says you're supposed to be a fully enlightened buddha what are you doing lying down in the middle of the day lazy lazy monk yeah what kind of a spiritual teacher are you and then the the buddha says you know i know you mara and says you know it's the hot season and there's there's nothing unskillful whatsoever and in the heat of the day to lie down mindfully on my right side to set in mind the time for awakening to let the mind go to sleep and then to let it wake up again there's nothing unskillful there at all yeah i know you mara so then there's many incidents like that and i feel what it's doing is representing those those uh say self-critical or greedy uh fearful habits that arise in the mind but there's like a long poor dun saying there's no no there's no one receiving it there's no place for it to land there's no there's no validity given to it but those forms will uh will arise and so the um i realize that's debatable other people might disagree but i feel it's a that's a very um realistic way of viewing those kind of dialogues and so that the uh i would say don't be afraid of those feelings of aversion or jealousy arising because the more mindfulness and wisdom there is then the sooner they're caught and there's there's no there's no um say strength given to them if it's you've if you signed for the parcel and you've already opened it and said actually do i really want to open this so you actually signed for it so it's yours now so when we're less than enlightened then that's what happens we we pick things up and we we follow those but i would say that the the um the the more that we uh the the heart is really freed from greed hatred and delusion then those different feelings of a fear or desire or aversion the judgment can can arise but the the mind is totally capable of not making anything out of it so it's not suppressing the emotion or not or turning yourself kind of numb um but rather say recognizing it for for what it is so like with one of the reasons why ajahn chah was such a a highly admired teacher was because he would he would accept people like that the the the loud mouthed monk and that he could accept eccentricity he could accept difficulty and that and he was quite he would didn't generate it on purpose apart from running a very very strict routine but um he would be constantly encouraging people to use that the friction that came from living with difficult people or um say that say being ready to accommodate things that were difficult or challenging because that's how you develop more wisdom there is it's often quoted how in when arjun samaya in 1981 he went back to visit ajincha in thailand and chit house monastery had been open for a couple of years and it was the first time they'd seen each other since shenzhal had had left england in 1979 and so uh uh aj and sumaida got back to what wapong and lumpur said so how's it going tomato and he said harlem boy it's amazing yeah chitters is going really well i've never never lived with such an inspiring group of monks they're really dedicated they're committed they're very diligent they're very self-disciplined self-motivated and you're the nuns community there there's there's four of them living down in this little cottage and they they work really hard at their practice and their inspiring group of women is i've never lived with such a really uplifting and um magnificent group of practitioners waxing lyrically like this thing thinking that long paul was going to say oh well done sumaida i feel very happy for you but instead long paul was completely unimpressed he said huh but he won't develop very much wisdom living with that lot you know it is completely yeah you know indifferent to all the kind of positive side of it i don't think he said i'll send you a few difficult monks to spice things up people that the difficulties came along anyway but uh if we push conflict and difficulty away if we try to suppress it um then a we or we try we just avoid conflict or avoid difficulty avoid emotions then we get we can get quite good at suppressing but then we also make things stronger we we create by by pushing something away you you you empower it as i um actually in here there's a little passage from the the one thing that uh ajanchar's teacher vanderbilt and man wrote called the ballad of liberation from the five kundas says wanting what's good without stop that's the cause of suffering it's a great fault the strong fear of bad good and bad are poisons to the mind like foods that inflame a high fever the dumber isn't clear because of our basic desire for good desire for good when it's great drags the mind into turbulent thought until the mind gets inflated with evil and all its defilements proliferate the greater the error the more they flourish taking one further and further away from the genuine dumber so that you know that sense of fear of difficulty or fear of that challenge you you empower it by pushing it away and that uh ajanchar's style was to in sense be open to difficulty open to difficult people difficult situations difficult feelings illness and so forth and to be consciously using that that friction as a way of waking up in uh in greek mythology um there the the cause of the trojan war was because there was this wedding in mount olympus and they they wanted the wedding to go really smoothly and so i think if it was i think it was cadmus and harmonia were getting harmony was one of the people was the bride getting married and so they thought was harmony's harmonious marriage we don't want anything to go wrong so we'll make sure that aerys the goddess of discord is not invited we don't invite aerys because she only causes trouble the goddess of discord so of course aerys found out about the wedding and thought hmm didn't invite me so being the goddess of discord then she famously she created this golden apple and on the apple she wrote the words for the most beautiful and then rolled it into the wedding feast oh look what's this beautiful apple oh oh for the most beautiful so who's the most beautiful so then that caused the beauty contest between hira aphrodite and athena and there was differences of opinion about who should win the contest and then that led to the uh none of the none of the gods would would be the judge the uh they all scooted off and then paris was a um was chosen as the person to judge the the contest he chose aphrodite and then the other two hera and athene were upset with the choice and then that led to the whole trojan war so um it's a that's a mythological story but uh and interpret it in your own various ways if you're if you think that um beauty contests are um politically incorrect i'm apologize for that but it's a greek myth you know it's from two or three thousand years ago so but the point being that trying to push discord away created a whole 10 year long war when thousands and thousands of people died and it was the cause of great conflict so it's a myth with a message that says don't push their discord or conflict or identity shut that out or try to just suppress it because it'll only amplify it it only makes it stronger so i feel it's um that kind of message embodied in agent charles style and lupus tomato very similarly his followed his his uh his dear teacher very closely that had that much more of an inclusive openness quality open quality to to difficulty to difficult emotions to difficult situations difficult people and that that um their readiness to to acknowledge conflict and difficulty then that helps to i say um access the resources that can really bring it to an end if you push it away and say i don't yeah i don't i don't want any difficulty i don't want any kind of challenges i want to have a nice harmonious tidy completely secure environment and anything that's difficult or problematic you know is is exiled you are you're you're creating a kind of um numbness in yourself and also a uh that very act of pushing away in powers like ajinmanu saying you're wanting what's good without stop is like like foods that inflame a fight a high fever it sort of it creates more difficulty creates more tension in the system so that uh that i feel is is uh we're not asking for trouble we're not looking for conflict we're not looking for difficulty but if there is wisdom then when it arises then we're taking the the the friction of that to uh to be something that helps us to awaken so aj and charles would often liken it to the way you sharpen a knife on a on a grindstone that you need friction to get the edge of your blade really keen really sharp i said if you get the angle right you get the pressure right then you can get a really good edge on your knife and so that's the skillful use of friction is uh uh in a way that the way that we use dukkha suffering and and conflict difficulty as a way to to wake up rather than i want you know i don't want any duke or any difficulty any problems in my life like asian child kind of grunting to the poor tomato yeah you won't need to develop any wisdom without a lot so if they don't uh don't shy away from the conflicts and difficulties that we have but rather as we are seeking for ways to bring them to conclusion or to to resolve them it use that that the difficulty the painfulness or the friction that comes from it as a way of waking up there may be one more there's a yes we need to mark that switch a bit is that yes sorry thank you uh you touched on something on your in your talk there about uh like a meditative mindfulness exercise that i've come across many times about uh either labeling thoughts or labeling emotions and and i just i just wondered how you can you can do that without it kind of detracting from one's personality you know you mentioned that about not becoming like a data like characterless person and i must admit over the years with buddhism that's one thing i have struggled with that i think obviously this idea of who you are as a self or a personal personality or one's character but as soon as you start speaking personally as soon as i feel like i start to label thoughts separate thoughts separate and separate emotions from this concept of who i am then i feel like i'm always running the risk of becoming less of who i am if that makes sense and i've seen personally firsthand experience long very long-term meditators not necessarily those in the monastic community but we shouldn't say many names but i've seen people who who have managed that very well and have adam semaido being one obviously who managed to keep his character and a great sense of who he was and he maintained it as you do a great sense of self so how how do you manage that how do you manage to detach thoughts and emotions from the concept of who you are without becoming very data-like yeah that's a good question i think the um it's a like learning how to ride a bicycle you know you can't really define exactly how you learn how to find that balance but by doing it and doing it and doing it you you know you fall over to the left fall over to the right get your feet tangled in the chain and then suddenly you find yourself oh my goodness i just rode for 10 yards and didn't fall off how did i do that so i think it it's my experience of it is that yeah we can bit be too mechanical about it and we get to over zealous in sort of naming everything and and then we've we uh we make it uh make it far too clunky and there there's a suppressiveness and so then to but to recognize that although i'm making this very um uh say false and mechanical so then sort of uh loosening the attention and lightening the grip so rather like riding a bicycle you sort of adjust this adjust that and then slowly you you get a feel for it so that then as you are um engaging with with the world or you're watching your mind in meditation or talking to somebody then you find a way of oh i'm getting really you know this is really exciting or i'm enjoying this or or um oh this is this is really challenging and that uh that way of of no being able to be aware of what's going on the the feeling is still there but the heart is not entangled in it in the same way so i like to use this phrase unentangled participating when we talk about being the watcher or the observer or the one who knows sometimes it gets gives too much of a sense of this sort of abstracted disconnected observer like sort of the video camera that has no consciousness but just sort of recording the data of your your life but uh so that that and that language is used quite regularly many dumber talks like the silent witness the watch for the observer being that that and uh i feel when uh when that's sort of grasped or that's that's taken too literally or seriously you can create this this full sense of disconnection but then that in you which realizes this is always feeling a bit clunky or this is a bit dead or like this this is really i'm tripping over my own feet here that's the the thing that's recognizing that is the thing to trust if you see what i mean the thing that's recognizing this is clunky rather than i'm doing my practice really well this is the mind noting i'm doing my practice really well you know that so that i i the the term unentangled participating is trying to inc a uh uh embody um a quality of of engagement so that the the heart is attuned to the sense world and to feeling and perception and and interaction but without entanglement without being uh say tied up with that without being identified with it and so that there is the unentangled quality there isn't there's no limitation or restriction on account of that but um there's a participating there's not a i am the observer you know this is this is this is data being uh being received and that because i feel that's a false abstraction and that when people uh are say relating to their meditation in that way can often come across like well i was told to just watch so therefore i shouldn't the body should be completely frozen in meditation just not move a millimeter because i'm just watching but you can also just watch your ability to to uh move your body that your your capacity to act is also part of the way things are if you see what i mean and so that that's why i like the word participation because it's not making a a false separation um and i feel that's that's very much what the the buddha's speaking of in terms of the middle way but with his enlightenment he didn't just become kind of spaced out or disconnected to the the world yeah it actually it was the like this buddha image is the buddha's touching the earth that's the the moment of enlightenment when it was when he reached out and touched the earth and invoked the earth to be his witness at the moment of enlightenment and so that it's if that quality of enlightenment is just an inner experience of you know watching what's happening and it's not connected to the body and the living world and then it's it's incomplete and so that the uh i feel that the uh the buddha's response to his enlightenment was to teach and to engage mindfully with the world he was available to connect with people and to offer his understanding to others so that after the enlightenment they say every every word that he spoke was appropriate to the time the place the situation was perfectly honest and and uh uh and suitable for the people he was with uh through for the whole of the rest of his life so there was an intense attunement to the living world to living beings and to to people and things the mindful use of of of food and clothing and shelter and so forth so that the the the buddha's detachment manifested itself in a a total attunement to the way things are so that's why i think the word participation represents that you know the buddha was kind of quote just watching but what is also he's watching his own engagement with the living world with his own body with the society with the needs of the people around him and so that um getting a feel for that middleweight that's why like like riding a bicycle or learning how to swim it's like you can't you can't ride a bike by reading a book about it because you've got to get on the bicycle and and it's a whole body learning so in a sense what you're asking is like is that the there's a whole body learning it's a whole being learning and the middle way it's a quality of balance of oh yeah there's there's a feeling of anger and i know there's anger i'm not there's not an identification with it but here it is it's a hot feeling and and uh it doesn't have to be suppressed it doesn't have to be followed but here it is it feels like this just as feeling the heat of the sun on your skin or the the wetness of the rain oh it's it feels like this so um it's a uh if you like a living quality of balance is that that attunement of the of the heart and then recognizing where things are off like too loose too tight too far the left too far the right oh okay hi i'm i'm doing it i'm riding my i'm riding the bike hey look at that then you fall off again so that you uh the more we practice the more we learn how to to find that middle and then being mindful in a conversation or in a social situation or watching your mind in meditation then you you recognize that oh it's too slack too tight too far this way too far that way and and you get to know that middle just like when you're riding a bicycle you don't think how am i balancing you just you do it by doing it it's not a concept it's not a verbal thing it's it's a an attunement of the whole being so i hope that's useful so i think that's enough for today so thank you for your good attention you

Channel: Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Views: 4,312

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Keywords: dhamma talk, Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, meditation

Id: hngxK9tf5lg

Length: 107min 22sec (6442 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020