on the podcast today we are going to dissect chapter 52 of the daing which makes up the 52nd episode of the 81 meditations on the daing and as usual gang will read ja fuang and Jane english's translation and I will read Derek Lynn's translation the beginning of the universe is the mother of all things knowing the mother you also know the sons knowing the sons yet remaining in touch with the mother brings freedom from the fear of death keep your mouth shut guard the senses and life is always full open your mouth always be busy and life is beyond the Hope seeing the small is Insight yielding to force is strength using the outer light return to Insight and in this way be saved from harm this is learning constancy the world has a beginning we regard it as the mother of the world having its mother we can know her children knowing her children still holding on to the mother live without Danger All Through Life close the mouth shut the doors live without toil all through life open the mouth meddle in the Affairs live without salvation all through life seeing details is called Clarity holding on to the soft is called strength utilize the light return to the clarity leaving no disasters for the self this is called practicing constant y so this chapter is about the da as the mother her children as a 10,000 things and how we can understand through ourselves by fasting the Mind through its application of U way and so these two elements are some of the core principles within DM fasting the mind and U we find this in the drun of text and also the D the ching and also in this chapter you see this through guarding the senses but that comes later after understanding that the da is the mother and her children are the 10,000 Things yes which we are yes that's why uh lots are clarified in the first paragraph here the mother and the son mother being as you said th itself or II before the birth of everything or you can also say Brahman in a sense and the sons 10,000 things so it's a material world with material Universe which came from the mother which came from the center of universe so that there could be like Atman kind of concept and also material world including ourselves as a species that's right so D in its original nature is Uchi is Da and Stillness and so you can say Dow in nothingness or da in complete space darkness which would be similar to the womb and so everything comes out of the womb of existence so the womb of the universe and so there is an inherent seed within the womb in this case which is taii which is Da in motion which creates the 10,000 things and so laa here is kind of discussing that and saying that the da is the mother of everything but it's its nature is soft gentle and complete nothingness actually as opposed to the 10,000 things where we're in this reality of Duality yin and yang he said she said all of these type of opposites that from the mother's perspective don't exist at all or the D's perspective they don't exist at all yeah so if we understand the mother concept so the Dow II aspect then you will know 10,000 thing you will know the children of mother so to be able to do it here again in the second paragraph saying it keep your mouth closed and guard your senses so they basically saying guard your senses as in shut down your desires and temptations and also the dualistic way of thinking as well here so then everything will taken care of life will just be smooth and easy for you but if you do open your mouth and you stay busy doing things to fix everything then the life will be beyond the hope that means um yeah things not going to go the way they should because you are kind of interfering with how it should be exactly in Egyptian mysticism there's the r of Horus and the ey of Horus symbology is related to guarding the nine Gates which is similar to this concept and you actually find this in India as well through ADV Vidant this concept of Guardian the nine Gates and in Egyptian mysticism the nine gates are the two eyes the two ears the nostrils the mouth and the penis vagina and anus so you've got these nine Gates which you guide to protect your inner world and and so the point here is that you you guard these nine Gates so that you can understand the Dow through your own existence right so you can't understand the Dow if you're interfering with other people's Affairs you can't understand the D if you have a lot of opinions and agendas and this and that and this is why I feel sorry for a lot of people who are so addicted to social media and the media in general particularly young people because a lot of young people these days have a negative opinion or spirituality and God and da and everything because it kind of circumvents and pulls a rug from underneath their own sort of way of thinking because their way of thinking is that you should have an opinion on everything and you should follow the herd and and Obey and this and that where L are and drun are are like are you serious no way like why would you follow the herd why would you do as you're told DSM is a technology that critiques socialization and so it doesn't just critique confusion ISM as it did in the Waring States period of China it critiques all societies and cultures because it sees it from its original natural perspective as opposed to being involved in a type of way of thinking or an ideology where dosm is the ideology of no ideology it isn't really an ideology but I I use that tongue and cheek because that's the only way some people can explain it and so in guarding these nine Gates you're guarding yourself from particularly things coming in through the eyes and the ears that's the big problem right because if things come in through the eyes and ears that can change the way you think right this is what the importance of of guarding these nine Gates so that you don't have your way of thinking warped or changed according to a narrative or a culture or someone else's perspective of Who You Are supposed to be right laa and dranga are imploring us to lean into our own nature to be radically human to lean into our own Lee our own organic pattern that has that was not touched by the world it's inherently part of your nature but nowadays we say no to that we say we should express ourselves in accordance with what the society and culture thinks is acceptable and again this is a complete disaster I think the big problem nowadays is that people are all really Desiring to fulfill their Temptations and desires and in the old days I guess it's a progress of time that things have changed but maybe changed too much so that it uh in the end harms Us in some way so for example like a 50 60 years ago our desires were what just really fulfill the hunger literally just hunger like because we need to to eat to survive so that we need to eat and we need to sleep this kind of a very basic desires right so those are the main desires that we wanted to be fulfilled with but nowadays we have the this desire to fulfill our like a like I don't know our head or something like that I think if people don't fill their head with lots of stories let's say you know like tons of movies and TV series that there are available for us to watch then that turn into kind of a essential desires these days just like how we need the food and sleep for example because it they never learned to sit with their own bordom or they never learned how to explore their own mind when they have spare time so always what what what do people do usually always looking at the phone whether you know just scrolling down the to the social media feeds or watching something or reading news it just constantly there is the stories they just they literally stories even they say news I just look at what's going on and this and that but that is also kind of a stories right if you cut that off of your life cut that out of your life and if you don't take part in that sort of story line you're not interested in really what's going on outside world and also nothing really changes even if you don't know anything about what's happening outside world really it doesn't affect you but because we are so addicted to knowing all these stories that the fulfilling the desires of our head space is kind of becoming essential desires I think it became essential desires so that like if you don't watch something if you don't have a like a TV series or movies that you're currently watching it's like a you're missing something right and you are hungry in a s your brain is hungry your mind is hungry why because you start to feel boredom so that is kind of a terrible thing it's actually very disastrous I think yeah and you can't trust the media because IND or social media a lot of the time because the media for example has a political leaning it has a certain political leaning so it's not objective and a lot of people have actually only come to realize that in the last 10 years through the Advent of fake news and and this and that but it's always been that way these media organizations have always had a political leaning and usually those who have just got Pure objectivity understand that and so you are being manipulated by media networks that already have a certain agenda they're not covering the news objectively and people need to know that you need to understand that all of these networks all have a political leaning and to get to speak to your point about how these creat stories right like you're watching these programs you're binging on Netflix all of this and that it creates a story in your head and this is what evokes sort of a hyper imagination so people have this hyper imagination now where there's they drift off with their mind they're so imaginative and this is actually what's become probably New Age spirituality in some sense even though New Age spirituality has been around a long time which basically in a nutshell is the over sensationalization of Eastern spirituality through westerners and so a lot of that is related to imagination so you'll see a lot of people just cook things up in their mind and say that it came to them intuitively but it was just their imagination you you need to remember e spirituality is very grounded it's not about leaning into your imagination you lean into your imagination if you're writing a fiction book because you know maybe there are some things to explore there maybe you could become next Christopher Nolan but it's not there for spirituality you're not supposed to explore the depths of your imagination if you're trying to understand the nature of yourself because it's just a story imagination itself is just a story and the accumulation of s scarers within your subconscious these are the sub subliminal imprints and mental Impressions you've accumulated over your lifetime and we are downloading so much more into our mind than ever before in history and people say why can't why is there no great art created these days or why is why are there no great gurus these days and it's because most of the time people are just distracted and even those who refrain a lot from it are still distracted to a certain degree right where the Old Masters and the great artists of yesterday year didn't have many things going on in their mind so they could really hone in into the depth of their being and so that's one of the big problems where people are getting so engrossed and involved in their imagination without realizing that that's actually eclipsing true understanding of the Dow true understanding of that Atman is Brahman because you're just you're dreaming you're cooking things up in your own mind right yes I think it's the biggest problem with the people who trying to understand Eastern philosophy is that because we are so used to think through some sort of framework and we like to apply logic to everything and reason to everything right but Eastern philosophy is not quite logical or reasoning or you can put any kind of framework because framework itself is already learned right from your society and the surroundings and education and whatnot right whereas um Eastern philosophy itself has no framework really because I just say it's so grounded so and it's very open and all the Eastern Traditions are teaching us to be away from reasoning and logic and unlearned everything that we have learned any kind of framework any kind of logical thinking rational thinking is they are all actually against Eastern philosophy it's very ungrounded in a sense being grounded means that to be extreme human extreme human is what we need to undo all this way of thinking of categories and dissect things and the separating things put into you know certain Fields so we can understand no it's not about that we need to down regulate that part of our brain so we need to reach that intuitive sense and that is what's really helping to understand the most fundamental essence of Eastern philosophy so people like to interpret their own way of for example Buddhism and DSM for instance and they keep they keep them in a certain way and they apply this philosophy in their own imagination using their imagination into to you know conveniently to suiting to their own beliefs as in fundamental Christianity or their own interpretation of Buddhism to apply to current narrative for example which is completely against what these Eastern philosophy is all about Eastern philosophies again to come back to very ground of our being and unlearn everything and strip out any kind of concept that we have learned just going back to the really ground of being yeah that's a good point because if you look at the problem with Western's understanding uh spirituality or understanding is philosophy and spirituality is that it's seen from an individualistic perspective and seen through a hard wide ingrained Christian lens even though someone may say that they're atheists for example right they still have Christian principles that they abide by subtly and there's still that individualistic mentality so you're looking at the E Traditions which are not individualistic it's about getting rid of the identity it's about merging with the all as opposed to making yourself somebody so what you see in the west a lot now is again this comes through a lack of understanding and this is part of the big problem with new AG spirituality is people make a claim that they are enlightened or they had their Enlightenment nobody body can have their Enlightenment because the person has disappeared that's how someone is enlightened so no one can claim it so as soon as you hear someone claim it that's a red flag on the plate and you need to keep your distance from that individual because they're obviously seeking attention or they want something from you or they want agulation but you you should not give it because that is actually disrespectful to all of the great Masters throughout Asia who have really attained MOA STI Nirvana and so you can't go around claiming that because there's no one to claim it Ram maharashi never went around saying I am enlightened and people knew that he was enlightened and gravitated towards him he didn't need to claim it because there was nobody there to claim it right and so this is part of the big problem when westerners try to understand Eastern SP spirituality because they're thinking through an individualistic lens and then so they're thinking about how can this benefit me whereas e spiritual reality is about there is no you and so it won't benefit you but it will give you ultimate Liberation not you as the person but we will it will remove the person away for you so that you can understand the true nature of the D of Brahman itself and that's part of the big problem right and so that's why in this chapter there's an emphasis on guarding the nine Gates because if you don't then these type of ideas can infiltrate your mind and you'll start to think that you are enlightened or you'll start to think about as you said DSM and Buddhism in very strange ways where Buddhism has been completely hijacked particularly in America where it's now a tool of activism which would make the Buddha roll in his grave because altruism doesn't have a political leaning altruism doesn't have a certain agenda you just act altruistic not according to a political narrative or what social media and the media are telling you Buddha is telling you to keep your faculties together and don't go off with the fairies you need to keep center of gravity and so it's completely disrespectful to Buddhism and the Buddha himself as to what is happening to Buddhism in places like America where it's used as a an activist tool and so to refrain from that and to understand the true nature of these Traditions as low to recommends in this chapter is that we need to guard the senses and he he mentions about keeping your mouth shut right this is very hard right so if you keep your mouth shut about things that don't matter right if you if you're just in conversation with your your friend or your family he's not talking about this don't OV exaggerate it but if you're talking in a sense where you know you're speaking to someone about maybe a sensitive issue and this and that you don't want to speak carelessly because a lot of the time when you speak carelessly a lot of untruths can come out and this only causes problems for yourself and for other people around you and this is why there is an emphasis on fasting the Mind here about keeping your mouth quiet and following the path of non-interference O way so that you don't create these problems for yourself right and in with that as what Derek says in his chapter you're shutting the door right so you're shutting the door to Temptations you're shutting the door to all of the things in life that cause you problems and so keep your mouth shut sh shut the door to Temptations follow the path of O way and this in some sense is a recipe for success for your life because you don't encounter many obstacles in your life you are coming back into alignment with the da because you can't understand the effortless nature of the Dow if you're being effortful right and um what I mean by effortful is not going out I don't mean like you're going out there and doing doing your job but mentally effortful like I have an agenda to push and I want to subtly push this on other people or I'm an activist and I have an agenda that I'm going to promote through my social media Network or I hit the streets with my picket sign and so this is anti-d that's what it is dosm is not a tool for interference it's a tool of path of non-interference and and look I know that a lot of people may say that oh it's very difficult to keep your mouth shut and this and that but L are saying like I said keep your mouth shut in things that you don't really know enough about I mean and even if you know a lot about it keep your mouth shut anyway because it's only from your subjective Viewpoint it's not truly the way things are keeping your mouth shut here also means that to slow down your way of thinking I think it slow down the speed of thinking the the reason why we speak a lot is because a lot of stuff is in our head right that's why we have a lot to say but if you empty your mind that there is not much to be said really it's uh if you think it that way it may be a bit easier I need to say something but you know like is it going to be a lot or a lot of words or not not in this way if you just slow down your mind and just be select Ive with your own thoughts and be aware of your thoughts and when you slow it down actually you realize there is not much to be said and you soon realize that all the speech that you have done is was actually meaningless and pointless in in a sense is way waste of energy really so if you slow down your mind then you soon realize that there is not really much to be said and if there is something to be said it's it's all going to be something necessary or something fruitful in a conversation for example so that you naturally will have a less words to say really and yes guarding your senses in a sense that uh it's easy to say how to be let's say have a peaceful life peaceful life leads to successful life individually personally at a personal level but to be able to do this it's actually method is very simple you just stop listening to the news stop listening to the what social media got to say to show and just stop it all together and yeah guard your senses and keep your mind into something very small here the seeing small is the Insight right just pay attention and be more observant to your own life and to the world in general then you'll be able to see the world and your life a more simplistic way and in that way things will be in order then your mind is not going to be as distracted and it'll come to more of a calm state of mind so that you'll be able to do things a bit easier like you said mentally having less right not physically doing something you go out and Yeah become an activist fix this fix that problem we need to do something about it's not about that actually all we need to do and be aware of is that slow down what's happening in your head really then physically it'll just naturally will slow down that's right that's right and so like I like what you said about the the small because if you just look at your life and you just pay attention to your own immediate life and your immediate reality and what you can do in your life then everything is easy nothing is difficult in this day and age because of the Advent of the internet people are thinking about problems in other parts of the world where they don't understand the culture they don't understand the Nuance of language they don't understand the people and so people are having opinions on things these are bigger matters that are not for you to speak about it's for those people in that area to concentrate on the small deal with their own situ a and that's the problem in the modern day because we're trying to focus on all things right whatever the next thing is we're going to try and resolve that and nothing gets resolved CU you're just going from the next thing to the next thing to the next thing and nothing actually gets resolved people forget about conflicts after a week because they're already on to the next thing whatever that may be right and so that's how shallow that type of culture has become yes and so in this chapter lus imploring Us in some sense through fasting the mind and ouway to come back to that motherly nurturing quality of the Dow the gentle aspect of the da the softness of The Da because that's actually what truly transforms the world it's not about being an activist it's not about having your two cents on every matter in the world it's about being soft being someone that you can trust you can't trust someone who's highly opinionated because you you never know what's going to happen with that person yeah probably emotionally unsteady and like you don't know who you're going to get really exactly because like what you said with the unsteady mind that those vibrations in the mind are vibrating and they're reacting to it and we've all probably experienced this that those who are highly opinionated and have a lot of agendas and this and that who pretend to be Pious are the first one to throw you under the bus you can't they they're not trustworthy people a lot of the time yeah and so it's best to keep your distance follow the soft path be a nurturing person be a caring person be a forgiving and compassionate person but don't be an opinionated person you know don't be a son of a gun you know just be a genuine person as you are without all of these stories in your head and once you slow your mind down as ler says to in this chapter as we're talking about guarding the nine Gates and those vibrations in the mind beginning to subside then you can see the clarity in life you can see into the subtle nuance and detail of existence and you can understand that the small picture and the big picture are the same picture but you can't understand that when your mind is vibrating at a high level with a lot of information and and just garbage in your brain you can't understand you can't even see the reality that's why Danga says in the Danga text when there's no more this and that I can see the infinite and all things from the still point of the doubt he's talking about that moest Ching concept of getting rid of that species specific Essence which in humans is a flaw this ability to dissect between this and that according to your conditioning according to your likes and your dislikes this is what mayia is in Sanskrit is the illusion of measurement measuring the reality according to this you got to cleanse the subjective lens so that you can truly see the clarity of existence and you can then you can understand that one is the true reality you can't understand Oneness is the true reality if your mind is vibrating on a higher level with a lot of garbage in your mind and you you've got a point about this you've got an opinion about that you're you're an activist about this situation you'll never understand you'll never understand the nature of existence itself yeah from that place I think is you have a actually the weak mind I think from the weak mind which means that you get pers easily persuaded by influenced by all these ideas and it's all borrowed but because you want to be part of something and you pretend to agree to that sort of agenda narrative and you become mouthpiece of that right and that is actually very the weak mind you don't have your own stance you don't have your own Center of your heart so that you just move by someone says that that you follow that someone else says that this and then you change your mind just like that which is very weak mind but here again the yielding to force is strength Y and having the softness within your heart it actually takes a lot of courage and strength because a lot of people don't see being soft or being humble is any kind of uh strength right but that is a true strength because you are allowing things to be way they are without your own interference you from your own conditioning right interference all come from your own conditioning and believe that what is true and what is correct right which is again of to interpretation so we just you just allow things to be way they are and just follow that naturalness that zuran zutan is naturally of itself and seasons change without anyone's effort right it's effortless um when the thing the rain comes when it's necessary right naturally of itself so without any Force things just all work it out on its own by itself and in a sense that we need to have a trust trust is something that from our perspective trusting nature right nature is always how it was and how it is and how it's doing itself before us after us it will be like that forever if this universe has its time to end there is another universe will be born so it's always constant again here it says constancy this is learning constancy that eternity The Eternity keeps going on without you whether you trust it or not so it's our point of view you need to trust trust means you are aware of that you are that awareness comes into your heart that that constancy is constantly happening that's right we were at a River recently where the Rapids were going and we were discussing the constancy of the river right the river just keeps going that's just what it's doing and there's a constancy to this life that for whatever reason people aren't accepting in this day and age and look people haven't accepted it ever because dsam hasn't never been taken on Lock Stock or let's say advit viant hasn't never been taken on Lock Stock as well but there's this constancy right and so if you're if you're caught in the constancy of life and you've got got an opinion about this and that then you're missing the beauty of what's happening in front of you and we need to be a little bit like The Farmer in the farmer and Sun's end story where the sun went through a multitudes of up ups and downs and the Village People were grief stricken at one minute and then happy at the next and then the farmer was always indifferent his philosophy was like we'll see that's it we'll see and so we'll see what's going to happen but nothing is a final conclusion people are going around acting as if that things are conclusive in and of itself like oh this is finished that's done we're on to the next thing and it's like but you're discounting constancy that's right you're disc counting this eternal Dow that is ever present in this reality and you don't even know that it's imminent within all existence you can't you're not even paying attention it's imminent and it also transcends but you can sense it in your life when you begin to slow those mental vibrations in your mind down so that you come to this place of Stillness then you can understand that there's this constancy within life and it's about aligning with that like you said it's about aligning with zitron that naturalness and then we will be like the farmer and the farmer and story we will approach life with a whe see mentality yes and that's the fin sort of conclusion for all of us on the path that's right again we never should make any final judgment upon any kind of outcome no in life always yes we will see we will see and we will see you guys next time [Music]
