Healing A Heavy Heart

Sometimes we feel discouraged, depressed, agitated, or hopeless. This is normal. We can apply the medicine of the Buddha’s teachings on generosity, virtue, and meditation. With the arising of samadhi the heart is uplifted and energized again.

Transcript

So today is the 29th of August,

2021.

We've come together to train our minds,

And we recollect that the well-trained mind brings happiness.

This is a teaching,

A saying of the Lord Buddha.

So this is the well-trained mind.

And what is the mind that's not well-trained?

The mind that's not trained at all,

What is that like?

That's the mind that doesn't know anything.

It's born,

Has a sense of self,

And follows that sense of self,

Follows whatever its wants and desires are,

Wanting to be,

Wanting to have.

Because the untrained mind sees that getting what it wants and having what it wants will be happiness,

And thereby the mind gets lost in the pleasure of these things,

And lost in trying to seek out what it wants.

And in the present day,

This is easier to do.

Before,

When society is less developed,

For instance,

Going to see a movie or getting something one wanted would be more difficult,

Or certain types of entertainment would only happen on holidays,

Like the Songkran holiday,

And so on.

But nowadays,

The global society is much more materially developed,

And so it's easier to get lost in the pleasures of the senses,

The pleasures of the world,

To get lost in all the various moods and sense objects.

Whatever we like or we want,

We're able to get that more easily.

So this is all about ignorance,

Craving,

And attachment,

Vijja,

Tanha,

And upadana.

The mind that doesn't have knowing simply follows ignorance,

Craving,

And attachment.

And anything that the mind dislikes,

Then vibhavatanha arises,

This desire not to be,

Not to have.

So for ourselves living in the world in the present day,

Our minds receive a lot of moods and sense impressions in a given day.

And this can lead to a lot of agitation,

Chaos,

Doubt,

And complexity in the mind,

To the point where the mind may start out having energy,

But ends up with no energy left.

There's no fire left in the mind,

No hope left,

Just left with disappointment and a feeling of discouragement or disheartened.

So whether one is a student or perhaps a new employee at a job,

Or one's raising a family,

Building a family,

Or in one's meditation,

This experience happens,

This experience of disappointed,

No hope left,

Or discouraged.

And in one's meditation practice,

One may have a lot of hopes.

One may think,

Oh,

This year I must attain to this level or reach this level.

Next year I have to reach that level,

Attain to that level.

And this is too much hoping,

Too much expectation.

And then when one doesn't reach one's expectation,

Then one feels disappointed.

And one has no fire left,

No belief or conviction left.

One has no inspiration or faith left.

So one may have faith in a monk,

In a Krupa Ajahn,

A great teacher,

Or perhaps faith in a fellow good student.

And you try to follow their example,

Practice following that individual.

And we see that whatever it is that we have faith in,

We'll have striving in whatever that is.

For instance,

Like a child who's a student at school,

They may have striving and effort in their study of a foreign language,

Such as English.

They have faith,

And so they put forth effort to try to speak and read and understand the language clearly.

So they have this firm intent,

This faith,

This striving,

And they enjoy doing that.

So we see to have this quality of faith,

What do we need?

If we have no wisdom,

Then faith can degrade and go away.

And if we have faith without wisdom at all,

We can also end up believing anything we hear.

So this is a faith without wisdom.

So we see that sometimes we need to use our wisdom with our faith.

So we can see that sometimes a heart has faith,

But when this heart gets disappointed,

Then one starts to think in another way entirely.

One may have faith that a certain individual has attained to this or that certain level,

But then when that faith goes away,

Then you see them as a person with thick defilements,

Not attained to that level at all.

So we see when the faith changes and the feeling in the heart changes.

So therefore we must train our minds,

Train our hearts,

To have faith in the Buddha,

The Dhamma,

And the Sangha.

This is something very excellent.

We can increase our faith and improve our faith in this way,

To have more clarity,

To have more wisdom,

Which leads to Dhamma understanding.

So we see the use,

The value of training our minds to see the drawbacks of the mind that lacks mindfulness,

Collectedness,

And wisdom.

And we practice to have wisdom to see chaos and agitation,

To see doubt for what it is,

Because people need hope in their minds.

And if one doesn't contemplate properly,

One can easily get lost in the worldly winds,

Wanting the pleasant ones and not wanting the unpleasant ones.

So one needs to contemplate with proper wisdom these worldly winds of praise and blame,

Gain and loss,

Disrepute and fame,

Pleasure and pain.

So we see that one with faith and wisdom will have faith in the Buddha,

And then practice according to the Buddha's teachings.

Practice generosity,

Sacrifice and giving,

Practice virtue,

And whatever duties they have in their lives,

They carry them out with sincerity,

Straightforwardness,

With clarity,

With mindfulness and wisdom,

With firmness of heart.

This is someone with integrity,

With virtue in their heart.

And such a one respects others with integrity and goodness as well.

This is respecting the Buddha,

The Dhamma,

The Sangha,

Or it could be a friend,

Someone you know who has good qualities,

Who has integrity.

It could be a boss,

A co-worker,

A friend,

And so on.

Someone with inner value,

With inner integrity.

Someone has this respect,

Belief,

Or faith,

And then you one practices according to what one has studied about the Dhamma.

And practicing in this way,

The mind can develop quickly and can realize inner value and integrity in one's own mind as well.

And one of the ways we study Dhamma is by listening to Dhamma.

And by listening to Dhamma,

We can bring these qualities into our own hearts,

Like sacrifice and giving,

And right speech,

Like speaking properly,

Speaking at the right time,

Not speaking in a harsh way,

Or not speaking falsehoods,

Not speaking divisively,

And speaking that which is useful,

Not speaking that which is useless.

And then faith increases,

And we can understand the Dhamma more clearly.

You see,

If we don't train our minds,

If we don't practice,

Then we won't know clearly.

And this is about samadhi,

This quality of collectedness,

Or unification of mind.

So we sit in meditation,

Bring our mind to stillness.

And for some individuals,

They may not have the faith to practice meditation every single day.

Sometimes they may feel bored,

They may feel tired,

They may feel disheartened,

And they simply don't want to practice Dhamma,

They don't want to meditate.

So this happens sometimes,

And don't worry about it.

It's not a big deal.

It's just a small thing,

And don't worry about this.

It's natural for this to happen sometimes.

But it's important to set a certain time of day to be the time for Dhamma practice.

And then when we'll see at this time of day,

The mind will want to gather together.

The mind will gather together more easily if one sets a regular time every day,

Gather together in samadhi.

And when that time of day comes,

The feeling will arise in the mind that,

Oh,

It's time to rest the mind.

The mind needs rest now.

Because we have a dwelling,

We have a house that we use for our body.

When it rains heavily,

When there's cold weather,

When there's hot weather,

We have this physical dwelling to reduce the suffering of these things like weather events,

And different types of weather.

We're able to rest in that dwelling,

In that house.

But what about our minds?

We receive moods and sense impressions all day long.

And if we don't have a resting place for our minds,

Then all we have is agitation and chaos.

So this practice of samadhi,

Of collectedness,

Is that which brings a resting place for our mind.

Samadhi is the resting place for our mind.

So we should understand this and know what our home is,

Know what our place to call home is,

Whether it's an outer or inner home.

So we have this faith,

And then we practice according to the teachings.

And in a given day,

We may have a lot of doubt,

Agitation in the mind.

We can recollect what Lungpu Chah taught,

That if you're lazy,

Then practice.

If you're diligent,

Then practice.

What this means is to practice having mindfulness.

So we practice to train our minds,

And we may start to become peaceful.

And when we start to become peaceful,

Then this quality of laziness will disappear and go away.

We can sit knowing the in and out breath.

We can repeat bhut on the in breath and do on the out breath.

Bhut on the in breath and do on the out breath.

Bhut,

Do.

Or we can count one,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five on the in breath,

One,

Two,

Three,

Four,

Five on the out breath.

And even if you're sitting in a place where there's many people around,

When the mind becomes peaceful like this,

You may feel like you're sitting all by yourself.

This is the mind starting to become peaceful.

It's not interested in the body.

You sit there,

You're not interested in these outer things.

This is the mind becoming still and collected,

And there is very few thoughts left.

There may be some thinking,

But not very many thoughts.

The mind is still,

Is empty,

Peaceful in the samadhi.

The body and mind feel light,

Feel rapture and happiness and pleasure in the mind.

Sitting with many people in the room,

You feel like there's no one there,

And there's no room there either.

There's no walls,

There's no building.

This is the mind in a state of emptiness,

A state of samadhi.

This is when the five jhanic factors of applied thought,

Sustained thought,

Rapture,

Happiness,

And one-pointedness arise in the mind.

So this is a mind with good energy,

And the mind has this very good energy like this from samadhi.

But when the mind has a good energy like this,

Then later on people may encounter various problems and difficulties,

And then the energy of the mind disappears,

Goes away,

And one ends up feeling depressed or having a low mood.

One feels disheartened,

And these qualities of depression,

Low mood,

Or disheartened,

These are dhammas of an unskillful type,

Dhammas of a painful or depressed or sorrowful type.

And the qualities like joy and happiness,

Fullness of heart,

These are dhammas of a skillful type,

Of a meritorious type.

And when dhammas of a skillful type arise,

Then it's impossible for dhammas of an unskillful type to arise in that moment.

But it's normal in a given day to have skillful and unskillful dhammas arise in the mind.

It's like the trees in a forest,

Of which there are many types.

There's short trees,

Tall trees,

Broad and wide trees,

Narrow trees,

Evergreen trees,

Deciduous trees,

And so on.

In the same way,

The mind has many types of moods and sense impressions.

One may feel agitated,

Distracted,

Feel annoyed or bored,

Tired,

Bothered,

And thinking in a good way or a bad way.

This is natural to have both types of thoughts.

The mind that's untrained is like this.

It simply follows after moods and sense impressions.

And when the mind has the wrong view,

Then the mind thinks wrongly,

Speaks wrongly,

And acts wrongly through body,

Speech,

And mind.

So therefore,

The Buddha taught to have generosity,

To practice virtue,

To practice cutting off selfishness,

To cut off that which is unskillful,

To cultivate that which is skillful,

To purify the mind.

So every single day we practice to do acts of merit,

To do good things.

And in a given day,

We may have a lot of work.

We may work eight hours,

Ten hours,

Or twelve hours in a given day.

And after working like this,

We may feel tired and weary.

And we may feel like we can't chant and sit meditation because we're too tired.

Sitting in meditation before bed feels like we can't do it.

So at this point,

One can rest to the point of feeling recovered,

Rest fully,

And then practice Dhamma after one has rested.

And then when a day comes when one has free time,

Then one can use that time to practice Dhamma,

To use that free time for the sake of Dhamma practice.

In one's Dhamma practice,

One cultivates mindfulness,

Cultivates loving-kindness and compassion.

We train our minds to have mindfulness to watch over our minds,

To have carefulness and care with regard to our minds.

And one may have a lot of thinking and sometimes be in a low mood,

Sorrowful or depressed mood.

So see this as impermanent,

Something uncertain.

Use samadhi,

The strength of samadhi,

To teach the mind with wisdom,

To teach the mind that,

Oh,

This is something impermanent,

This is something unsure.

And the mind that's peaceful will be able to accept this.

But the mind that lacks sufficient strength and collectedness won't be able to accept this.

But never mind about this,

Don't worry about that.

Just practice and see that the suffering,

This sorrowful or depressed mood,

This is natural,

It's normal,

It's one type of Dhamma.

So practice to know it in time.

And when one knows it in time,

You'll see it pass away.

When the energy of knowing is sufficient,

You can see these moods arise and pass.

And when the energy of knowing is insufficient,

Then the mood takes over the mind.

But either way,

The feelings and moods,

They all arise and cease all the same.

If one doesn't contemplate and observe it with mindfulness,

One will see it as me and mine.

One will see it as self,

The self,

Or one will cling to things as self at all points.

But we see in our Dhamma practice,

We don't cut off the sense of self right away.

What we do is we cut off the bad self first,

And then we have a good self,

A good sense of self that does good things,

That builds goodness,

That has respect for the Buddha,

The Dhamma,

The Sangha,

Has respect for one's mother and father,

For the great teachers,

And for individuals with good qualities,

With integrity,

Which could be a friend or someone else one knows.

So one respects the good qualities in these individuals.

So this quality of respect,

It's a great blessing in one's life.

And in our lives,

We have this goodness,

And we have the good fortune as well to meet with the Buddha's dispensation.

We've been born as humans,

And we see that to be able to meet with the Buddha's teaching,

It's something of incredible value,

Greater than all other valuable things.

There may be some individuals who have a lot of material wealth,

Who are very,

Very wealthy,

But they don't have Dhamma,

And they don't practice Dhamma,

And therefore it ends up being empty and valueless.

So we have this belief and faith in the Buddha's teaching.

So we practice and cultivate our minds together.

We practice to arouse the energy of the mind every day,

To bring up the energy of mind to practice meditation,

To practice bringing our minds to peace.

And if one is able to bring one's mind to peace,

Then the body and mind feel empty,

Feel light.

At this point,

There's no need to control or force oneself to practice,

But faith and belief arise in the mind.

One sees the fruits of practice arise in one's own mind.

One feels fullness of heart,

Happiness of heart.

And this listening to Dhamma as well is something of importance in our Dhamma practice.

In the past,

I used to think that,

Oh,

The chance to listen to the Dhamma is really something not easy to come by.

A long time period would go by and there'd just be only a single Dhamma talk.

And this was the style with Lumpu Chah.

Lumpu Chah said to practice a lot,

But to find a tape recording of a talk or to find a video recording of a Dhamma talk,

These would be very hard to find.

So this was 47 years ago.

It was very hard to find Dhamma talks.

But nowadays,

The world has developed a lot,

And this makes it easy for people to get lost in the things of the world.

People that are deluded are deluded more than before,

And they become lost in the world more easily as well.

We can think of the story of an ascetic who traveled about the universe.

He would send his mind out through the universe every single day,

Except for the times where he would eat and take care of necessary duties to take care of his life.

But all his free time that wasn't spent eating and so on,

He would spend taking his mind out of his body and sending it around the universe and traveling.

And he did this for a hundred years,

And he still didn't find the end of it.

He didn't find the end of the universe after that long time.

So we can think to the present time,

And we see nowadays with the internet,

In a single day one can receive a lot of information from the internet.

And even if you do that every single day,

You'll die and you still won't have seen everything on the internet.

You won't have seen all the information because there's just so many things,

So much information there.

But all that information,

All that material,

It won't bring your mind to peace,

Won't bring your mind to collectedness.

But with this development,

It's very easy to be interested in Dhamma,

To meet with Dhamma teachings.

Nowadays on the internet,

All the great teachers are there.

And so one's able to study Dhamma through the internet,

Listen to Dhamma,

And learn many things.

One can be interested in study about the Dhamma all the time.

So we see that the situation is like this in the present day.

And so we see that the body is something unstable,

It's uncertain,

It doesn't last long,

But it's unstable,

Constantly changing.

So given this,

We try to find a resting place for our minds.

Sometimes the mind may be hot,

Agitated,

Chaotic,

Filled with doubts,

Complexities,

Worries,

And anxiety.

And when samadhi arises,

Then these issues,

This heat in the heart,

Is dispelled.

And faith and effort arise,

Samadhi and peacefulness arise.

These are all for the sake of developing,

To reach wisdom,

Of developing our wisdom.

So this wisdom,

This right view,

We chanted about it in the Noble Eightfold Path chant that we did this evening.

And so this right view,

It's knowing dukkha,

Knowing the cause of dukkha,

Knowing the cessation of dukkha,

Knowing the path to the cessation of dukkha.

And we also see in the Noble Eightfold Path,

The quality of generosity is something good and valuable.

Not being selfish is a good thing.

Helping society is a good thing.

We help society to progress.

We help the poor and disadvantaged.

We help all those in society.

This is a very good thing to do.

We try to make use of our life in a way that's not hot and agitated.

So to bring,

Or to use our life in this way is something of importance and helps us to develop wisdom as well.

It's using our wisdom.

We use our wisdom to help others,

And we help in a way that's not selfish.

We make ourselves firm in virtue,

Firm in sila,

To develop to the point of collectedness of samadhi.

And when we have samadhi,

Then we cultivate wisdom,

This wisdom which is a quality we need.

And sometimes we do the bhutto mantra,

Bhutto,

Bhutto,

Bhutto.

And if our mind is busy,

Then we must do bhutto very fast.

We chant faster.

And so sometimes we feel lazy,

But we keep practicing like this and chant faster and do it to the point where samadhi arises.

Then we see the fruits of dhamma practice for ourselves a little bit at a time.

We see a goodness and skillfulness,

And this arises one day.

If we have effort continuously and steadily,

Then one day this goodness,

This skillfulness will arise on its own.

So we practice to see this for ourselves.

And when samadhi arises,

Then we're able to see arising and ceasing clearly.

Then at this point,

Our faith becomes firm and well-established,

Becomes acara-satta,

Unshakable faith in the Buddha,

The Dhamma,

And the Sangha.

In Thailand,

The Buddhist dispensation has lasted for a long time here.

All the kings in Thailand have supported and helped spread the Buddhist dispensation.

You can say these kings were Dhamma kings helping to support the Buddhist dispensation.

And so therefore,

We ourselves have this very good chance as a society to practice and train our hearts.

And for the Sangha as well,

They have the opportunity to ordain and practice as monastics.

And this gives all of us the chance to see the Dhamma for ourselves,

To make our hearts liberated and noble.

We can think back to Lumpu Man,

Lumpu Cha,

Who have practiced and gone before us.

So we see that this is something of great value in our lives,

Something of incomparable value,

That we can be taught and know the way to bring our mind to peace,

To understand the Dhamma clearly.

So therefore,

We must have effort in our Dhamma practice to train our minds to know the truth clearly,

To bring about the Buddha arising in our own hearts,

So that the Buddha arises in our own hearts.

So we can make a mind that starts out with agitation,

Chaos,

Doubt,

And troubles,

Make that mind firm in peacefulness.

This is something that's possible to do.

Then we really see the value of Dhamma practice.

And at this point,

One doesn't need to control.

The practice happens by itself.

So may you set your hearts on this practice to bring your mind to peacefulness.

And when this peacefulness arises,

The rapture and bliss that arise in the heart have no compare with any external happiness.

All the various sense pleasures and outer happiness can't compare with the mind in samadhi.

So therefore,

We train our minds to bring up this energy of mind.

If you only have a little energy of mind,

Then you must have effort.

And sometimes you might watch a movie or listen to music to reduce the worry and reduce the tension tightness in the mind.

And then once the mind is in a relaxed and easeful state,

Then you go back to your meditation practice,

Because sometimes it's difficult to do only meditation practice.

You may have family,

Friends,

Work,

And so on.

But all these various activities you endeavor to do with mindfulness.

But in the end,

One must practice samadhi.

One must be able to bring the mind to collectedness in order to give rise to wisdom.

This is something that's important,

Because we see that the days are ever passing by,

Passing by,

Passing by every single day.

Sometimes it rains very heavily,

Sometimes for many days in a row.

Maybe we dislike this experience.

We should think in the hot season,

If it didn't rain,

We'd have no water.

So therefore,

We see the value of this heavy rain.

We see that it's actually good,

Because we can use the water in the hot season.

So we contemplate this in order to bring about acceptance in our minds,

So that our mind isn't agitated and troubled with outer conditions.

And sometimes training the mind,

It's something that's difficult.

We may have a lot of work,

But we must be able to bring the mind to peacefulness,

To collectedness,

To have a resting place for our hearts,

To have a home for our hearts.

And this way we can meet with true happiness.

So this is the way to travel.

This is the way to walk in order to understand the Dhamma.

The sotapanna,

The one who enters the stream of Dhamma,

Walks this very path.

And in the end,

When one's parami,

One's spiritual virtues,

Have reached a point of ripeness,

Then one is able to see the Dhamma.

But firstly,

One must build one's parami,

One must build one's spiritual virtues.

And as one practices,

One sees impermanence,

Suffering,

And not-self a little bit at a time.

Wisdom arises a little bit at a time,

Seeing materiality and mentality clearly.

So may we all practice in this way.

May you all set your hearts on this practice.

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Sadhu sadhu sadhu anumodami

Thank you so much for this offering. May you be well. Namaste from a cabin in rural ON 🙏🏽🇨🇦🤲

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