Awakening To Dhamma Through Morality, Serenity & Wisdom

The path to understanding Dhamma is presented as a sincere journey of cultivating the mind through generosity, moral conduct, and meditation. The central message emphasizes the importance of training the mind to achieve a state of peace, which is essential for gaining true wisdom.

Ajahn Anan highlights the necessity of continuous effort in meditation and mindfulness throughout the day. This practice helps one to reflect on the impermanent nature of life and the body. A peaceful mind allows for a deeper understanding of Buddhist teachings, such as the body being a "nest of sickness," by seeing the arising and ceasing of phenomena directly. This wisdom leads to the realization that all things are subject to decay and are not-self.

A core theme is the letting go of the sense of self, which is identified as the root of suffering. The talk also underscores the importance of forgiveness and compassion, particularly when faced with anger from others, as their actions stem from ignorance.

Transcript

Having been born,

We will study and get an education,

And we hold it as being a self,

Which is normal and natural for everyone to do.

We work,

And later we get to meet the Buddha sasana,

The dispensation.

And we understand about dukkha,

Samudaya,

Nirodha,

Magga,

Suffering,

Its cause,

Its cessation,

And the path,

And then we will search for the path to freedom from suffering,

In order to find true happiness.

This then is on the level of bhavana,

Mental cultivation.

Bhavana maya is the act of cultivation,

To make the mind more developed in dhana,

Generosity,

And sila,

Moral conduct.

But what is important is that the mind is more developed in the training of the mind to be peaceful.

And having gained peacefulness,

We have rapture and inner feelings of fullness.

This is from having trained in it from the past.

In this life and in the past life,

We have trained in it,

So then this life,

It is done easily.

But for some people who have minds that go all over the place without stop,

Don't reduce or give up your efforts.

Keep trying.

Even if it's not peaceful,

Keep trying.

One day it must become peaceful,

Because of your determination.

So don't let your faith back down and retreat.

We have belief and confidence in the Buddha's teachings.

His dhamma will certainly lead us to the end of suffering.

So we will meditate with our full strength.

So whether one has a little or a lot of faith and effort,

It is up to spiritual accumulation and training.

But if the mind has wisdom to see the benefit coming from a peaceful mind,

Then the practice will go by itself.

There's no need to force it.

So when the practice gets to a certain point,

Then our meditation will be comfortable.

It goes by itself.

There's no need to force it at all.

The mind will tell itself that this time we must walk meditation.

At this time we must sit meditation.

But what is important is during the day that we have sati,

Mindfulness,

And sampajjana,

Clear comprehension.

From the time we wake up to when we go to sleep,

We have mindfulness.

So here is giving dharma still present?

It is there.

We keep the precepts.

We are complete with sila.

Like Lady Visakha and the wealthy merchant Anattapindika.

And more so Lady Visakha because she had seen the Dhamma since she was seven years old,

Being a Sotapanna,

Attaining the first stage of enlightenment.

And she would give dharma as normal.

She would keep sila as normal.

And she could have a family.

But it was just that her views had changed,

Seeing that rupa and nama,

Material and mental phenomena are not really ours.

They are not permanent.

It must change.

But the liking and satisfaction in the body is still there.

But there's nothing wrong with that.

It's still within the level of sila-dhamma,

The five precepts.

As laypeople,

You have the chance to see and know the dhamma without difficulty as well.

Because many of Anattapindika's group saw the dhamma.

Many of King Bimbisara's retinue knew and saw the dhamma.

Why?

Because they had built it before.

They had built merit and goodness.

Built dana,

Sila and bhavana before.

So we try to make merit,

Give alms,

Give sangha dana and make as many opportunities to train the mind as we are able to.

When we see someone old,

Someone sick,

Someone who has died,

We take it inwards to reflect on life.

And especially for doctors and nurses who see it every day can do this.

Each life,

Our life and others,

Is like this.

We will gradually understand what this body is like.

When we hear that the body is a nest of sickness for the first time,

We are still physically strong so we don't see how it could be a nest of sickness.

There is no sickness,

Illness,

Danger,

Pain affecting us.

We hear it as somebody else's.

There is that sickness and it spreads all over their body.

But we don't think it's going to happen to us.

We may be aware of it,

But it's known only through memory.

It's not known through wisdom.

To know by wisdom,

The mind must be peaceful.

When the mind is peaceful and knowledge arises,

That this body having arisen will cease,

Cease and cease.

Their ears are rising and ceasing.

This sankhara,

Bodily heap,

Is very scary.

It's a living place of sicknesses.

The sicknesses will arise in this body.

So the Buddha taught us not to be heedless.

When the Buddha was about to pass away to final nibbana,

He taught first bhikkhus.

And bhikkhus means all those who see the danger in the cycle of samsara,

Whether monastic or laity.

The Buddha taught us to be established in heedfulness.

Sankharas have decay and ending as being normal like this.

So we remind ourselves every day that the days and nights are passing by,

Passing by.

Right now,

What are we doing?

How much of our life is left?

It revolves very quickly.

The days go by,

Then month,

Then year.

It is dark and bright,

Dark,

Bright,

Dark and bright.

Whatever we have in this world,

Whether a little or a lot,

This world revolves on constantly.

Time doesn't stop.

If it revolves quickly,

Then we see,

Oh,

We're already on the path towards death.

If we see it with insight,

Then we see it like that.

It's very quick.

Like we are sitting here and we forget ourselves.

Then oh,

We are 60 already,

50,

60,

70 years old already.

From 70,

Then we'll soon be 80.

If we are a young man or woman,

We feel like it's still a long time left.

But when one gets older,

We feel,

Oh,

Why does it feel like time goes by more quickly?

Nature is reminding us not to be heedless.

Why?

Because the body has started to get weaker and is declining.

It is normal for it to be like this.

Sometimes they ask us,

How are you?

We answer to please them,

I'm well.

But in reality,

That wellness is deteriorating every day.

It's not as good as before.

But it hasn't deteriorated excessively,

So we can still get by.

The elements of the body can still endure.

If it can't endure anymore,

Then it decays and breaks apart.

To learn to gain wisdom is to understand into the heap of Sankara,

Conditioned phenomena,

According to the truth.

We change wrong views to right views,

That it's not self,

Not us.

Seeing this is equal to us seeing the Dhamma,

Seeing the truth.

Currently,

We take conditioned phenomena as a self,

As us,

And it's sticky and tight.

Sticky here means it's deeply embedded.

No one actually would want it if they knew that attachment and clinging is suffering.

Being attached in a sense of self is suffering.

Attached to people we love,

It's suffering.

Attached to a pet,

It's suffering.

We don't want suffering.

But when the cause of suffering is there,

Then suffering arises.

All phenomena arises from causes.

If we don't want to suffer like that,

And we want to meet with happiness and inner coolness,

Then we learn Dhamma and we practice Dhamma.

We start from giving Dhana,

Which is letting go of the self from the material objects that we have.

We keep Sila,

Which is letting go of the self to another level.

But we still have the self in our scattered thoughts,

So we try to give up self by training to become peaceful first.

And this gives us good benefits.

Giving Dhana and keeping Sila gives the benefit of a Deva,

Divine being arising,

Which is having the happiness of the heart.

It's happiness arising from goodness,

Arising from a heart of generosity.

If we have only greed and want all the things in the world for ourselves,

Then the heart gets heavier and heavier.

We will have possessiveness and worry on and on.

But when we can give it up,

We are light.

We call this making Bharami,

Spiritual accumulations and making merit.

The body and heart are light.

So we are intelligent in gaining wealth and intelligent in managing that wealth.

It's not that we give it all away.

We give in order to have it be a mood,

A mind object of goodness in the heart.

And it promotes us to have the quality of Sila and the quality of wisdom arising within us.

Sometimes people ask the question,

Can I just do meditation?

Yes,

You can.

You can just meditate to enter the core of the Dharma teachings.

But for those who have seen it,

Seen that it's all not us,

Not ours,

That everything belongs to this world,

Then the mind will have metta,

Goodwill.

It will have karuna,

Compassion.

And we will share and help those in suffering and difficulties.

And not everyone can do these acts of goodness easily.

So whoever has goodness arise in them,

Even just a little bit,

We give our anumodhana,

Rejoice.

We sattu with them.

We see someone donating,

Giving alms,

Listening to Dhamma,

Doing good acts,

And helping society in various ways.

And we establish our minds to rejoice.

And if they do good towards us,

We sattu that a lot.

Each mind in reality has no name.

It's a conscious element.

The mind is supported by the body.

Then it can be named this or that name.

But take away this body,

And there is the mind that has avijja,

Ignorance,

Which proliferates out and has the sense of self arise.

If we don't have ignorance to proliferate on,

Then there is no self,

No us,

No them,

No female or male.

So we want to get insight and wisdom to liberate ourselves from suffering.

We rejoice with everyone who has goodness,

And do not make it worse for those who have been lowered from the mental defilements covering over them.

Each person,

Each mind,

All want to be free from suffering.

They want freedom.

But in the beginning,

They have no idea what freedom is.

When we ourselves can know of some freedom of heart,

But others have greed,

Delusion,

Ignorance covering over them,

Then,

When we can see and know that they have anger,

We don't get angry back at them.

Because we see the drawbacks of this.

The Buddha taught that if someone is angry at us already,

And we are angry in response to them,

Then it shows our meditation is not really there.

We need to give our forgiveness.

Especially if we have authority and power over them.

We are able to speak back harshly to those under us,

To those who have less strength than us.

But we endure it,

Through not doing it.

And this is harder to do.

It's hard to do.

We could do it,

But we don't harm them.

And this is harder to do.

But for those who are under the authority of another,

Who have little power,

Then they can't respond back to their superior.

This is still kanthi,

Forbearance,

To one level.

But those with higher power and authority have more forbearance.

They don't say it harshly back to them.

They give forgiveness,

Have equanimity,

And don't put the other down.

This is a lot of merit and barami.

So we train our minds until the ill-will lessens.

And the more we understand,

Dhamma,

That in truth there is no self,

Then why would we have ill-will towards them?

Because it is just ignorance that conditions their minds.

It's not them doing it.

Their mind doesn't actually want it to be like that.

But they are still deluded.

Those with wisdom see that people with ignorance,

Craving and clinging covering over them,

Are minds like little children.

So we forgive them.

Don't make it worse for them.

Wait for the time and opportunity to help them.

So this is the Dhamma of the four Brahmaviharas,

Sublime abidings.

It will maintain our minds to be well balanced,

To have samadhi,

Concentration.

When samadhi is well established,

We will see all the things in this world as Dhamma.

We see it as a convention.

The mind becomes liberated.

We see all things are just named.

A beautiful tree is named an acacia tree.

Sometimes it has one name or another place calls it another name.

But in reality it has no name at all.

The tree has no name.

The species has no name.

We have labeled it afterwards.

If they want it to sound beautiful,

They name it a certain way.

So when we learn and understand this way,

We see that all things are just labels and just conventions.

There is no self within truth.

And our self is the same.

Here we will see the Dhamma.

But it's not that we attain Dhamma.

But it's just changing wrong view to right view.

And this is not beyond our ability to do.

That which has been deeply embedded for a long time is this sense of self,

Self,

Self.

And we will let go of it.

So there is no self through bhajna,

Wisdom.

For wisdom to arise,

We must train in samadhi to be firmly established,

Which we are training in.

And it's not just sitting meditation here.

We continue it on by training our mindfulness and clear comprehension all day.

We contemplate the Dhamma often.

And ultimately sila,

Samadhi,

Bhajna gathers together and we will see clearly.

We have no doubts in the practice of not liking or disliking as this is the path to see the Dhamma.

So may you improve your samadhi and have sila as normal.

And the mind and body feel light.

And this is easy to practice with then.

So we try to train to get to samadhi of this level.

From the beginning you have been determined to build goodness.

Doing it every day,

Every month,

Every year.

This is creating and ripening your spiritual virtues.

Ripening your mind.

Ripening your goodness.

Ripening the heart.

Then our heart gets brighter and becomes more beautiful.

From being a human to a mind of a deva.

From a deva the heart becomes a venerable one which is having excellence through the seeing of the truth,

Of material and mental phenomena as being impermanent,

Unsatisfactory and not self.

Our views change and it destroys delusion and wrong view.

Then right view arises.

And it's not beyond our ability to do.

May you set your hearts on this.

May you grow in blessings.

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