The Heated Mind From The Defilements | 24 Nov 2023

Greed, anger, and delusion make our hearts hot and affect us worse than the weather. Yet the cool and calm mind free from defilements exists.

Our practice is to make the path of morality, concentration, and wisdom clear and firm, so it has the strength to fight the defilements and bring about the realization of peace and true happiness.

Transcript

We listen to Dhamma.

We chant.

We spread metta,

Goodwill,

So that our hearts will have coolness arise.

Because what makes our hearts hot,

It affects us worse than the weather.

Even hot weather is bearable.

But greed,

Anger,

Delusion is that which is hot.

The forms,

Sounds,

Flavours,

Odours,

Tactile sensations and mind objects is that which is hot.

The eye sees form,

The ear hears sounds,

The tongue tastes flavours,

The nose smells odours,

The body feels tactile sensations,

The mind experiences mind objects,

And then heat can arise.

We call this ayatana,

The inner and outer senses contacting.

The Buddha gave a talk on fire,

The Adhita Pariyaya Sutta,

The fire sermon.

It was given to the three fire worshipper brothers,

Uruvela Kassapa,

Nadi Kassapa,

And Gaya Kassapa.

The elder brother had 500 followers,

The middle brother 300,

And the younger brother had 200 followers.

Together,

There were 1,

000 followers,

1,

000 yogis or hermits.

So there were 1,

003 of them,

Who were practising and absorbed in jhanas on the banks of the river.

Here the Buddha gave a talk on burning.

And on that day,

Many of King Bimbisara's retinue had come,

Because the hermits were respected by the Magadaha people who had a lot of faith in them.

They were also respected by King Bimbisara.

And the Buddha gave the talk on burning.

It made the 1,

000 and these three hermits understand that the heat doesn't arise on the outside.

It arises in the heart.

It arises because of upadana,

Clinging and attachment,

To just these forms,

Sounds,

Flavours,

Odours,

Tactile sensations,

And mind objects.

Here their minds had deep peace already.

They had samadhi concentration of a high level,

But they did not have the wisdom to be liberated from suffering.

They had built barami,

Spiritual perfections,

And aspired to be a savaka,

A noble disciple of the sammasambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened Buddha.

And they were in the net of the Buddha's direct compassion,

And the Buddha went there to teach them.

The minds of the 1,

003 hermits gathered together,

And wisdom arose.

They saw suffering,

The cause of suffering,

The cessation of suffering,

And the practice to the cessation of suffering.

They attained to becoming noble beings,

From Sotapanna,

Sakadagami,

Anagami,

To Arahantship,

Fully enlightened.

They listened to the Dhamma on one occasion,

And they attained to Arahantship.

If the hermits did not meet the Buddha,

Then there would be no one to teach them.

Even if they had jhanas and psychic powers,

They wouldn't be able to know by themselves.

It is only the sammasambuddha who could know by himself,

And who could attain enlightenment through his own efforts.

There was no one in the three world systems,

In the human realm,

Deva realm,

Brahma realm,

Who could know for themselves.

There was no one who could abandon avijja,

Ignorance,

By themselves.

They needed to rely on the instructions and teachings of the sammasambuddha.

So he was called sattva-deva-manussanam,

Bhutto,

The one who knows,

Who is awakened,

Who is joyous,

Bhagava,

The one who explicitly classifies and expounds the Dhamma.

The sammasambuddha had gained 1003 disciple Arahant monks who would spread his teachings.

But here the townspeople,

As normal,

They had faith in their teachers,

And they didn't know that their teachers had attained enlightenment.

They saw the Buddha,

But did not know who he was.

They were not yet accepting.

Here the Buddha called Uruvela Kassapa,

Who was the chief leader,

And who was respected by the yogis and the people.

And he came and bowed down to the feet of the Buddha.

He was respecting the Buddha as his teacher.

He had known and become enlightened to the Dhamma because of listening to the teachings of the sammasambuddha.

So the people there could reduce their views and ego,

And they listened to the teachings of the Buddha,

And many of them could attain to sotapanna,

Stream-entry.

So we see that this was something very difficult to do,

That the Buddha could lower the views and ego of Uruvela Kassapa,

Nadi Kassapa,

Gaya Kassapa,

And their followers.

The Buddha had to be more skilled,

More capable,

And have more wisdom than them all.

So in this world,

The hot weather is an external heat.

But if one does not bhavana,

Cultivate their minds,

Then it will be an inner heat as well.

When experiencing things that we don't like,

We have dissatisfaction,

We don't want to get something but get it,

Then suffering arises.

But we don't see where the suffering arose from.

We seek coolness,

And so we need to have the wisdom to look for it correctly.

So here we look that the heat that arises in the heart arises constantly.

The weather is hot,

And the heart is hot.

When the weather is nice and good,

Do we think that we will be comfortable?

The heart is still hot with a fire of greed,

Anger,

Delusion.

Being in a mansion,

It's hot.

Being in a small house,

It's hot.

Just because our views are not yet correct.

But if we try to practice dhamma,

Then we see that the external things that we have,

They don't make our greed,

Anger,

Delusion reduce at all.

We need to practice and develop the mind,

Like by giving dhāna and keeping sila,

Moral precepts.

When we have been born and are still in time for the teachings of the Sama Sambuddha,

Then we need to try and make an effort to practice dhamma.

How do we practice?

Alright,

We'll have a lot of mindfulness.

Here we have mindfulness,

But it's a mindfulness that has me and mine.

We stand,

And we have mindfulness,

But it is a me that is standing.

A me that is walking.

A me that is sitting.

A me that is lying down.

We feel pain.

It is me feeling pain.

It is me that is sick.

We have me all the time.

This word,

Me,

That is there all the time,

Is sakhya diti,

The view that is deeply embedded.

Have we seen someone getting a tattoo?

They embed the ink.

It binds onto the skin.

That which is deeply embedded,

It wraps around and binds our heart.

Each birth,

We have been born being in these four elements,

A body,

And the mind is wrapped around it already.

It is having only upadana,

Clinging which is firm.

But this is normal.

If there is no clinging,

Being uninterested in the body,

Then the body would unlikely be able to sustain itself,

Because one lets it go and doesn't care for it.

This is someone who has lost their mindfulness.

But here we are training in sati,

Mindfulness.

The mindfulness in the beginning is the mindfulness that we know that it is a self,

A me,

And it will change to see that it is not self,

Not me.

It relies on a me first.

I want to be good.

I want to be free from suffering.

I want to get happiness.

It is a me that is kusala,

Wholesome.

In a simple way to practice,

We eat and we have mindfulness.

We speak and we have mindfulness.

We are silent and we have mindfulness.

We are listening and we have mindfulness.

When the eye sees forms,

Ear hears sounds,

And so on,

We have mindfulness.

We see the heat in the heart,

And then we can put it out.

We see the chaos and disturbance in the heart,

So we train in mindfulness a lot,

And make samadhi to be firm,

By having chanda,

Effort and diligence.

This is so that our minds can be peaceful.

If we walk meditation for a long time,

Stand meditation for a long time,

Sit meditation for a long time,

And we have mindfulness,

But it's not yet peaceful,

Then the mindfulness is too weak.

You can't fight against the sense or mental object.

So that which has covered over our hearts,

As a me and a mine,

We have had for a long time.

But it's not that we can't be victorious against it.

Whether we are laity or monastics,

If we practice,

We will be able to abandon it.

We can do it.

It's not beyond our ability.

But we need to endure.

We need to be determined.

Even if it's difficult and troublesome,

We have to be able to pass it.

Like those studying.

Or when one is a baby,

Is it difficult?

They crawl,

Try to stand,

And stumble over,

But keep trying.

They want to be able to stand.

When they can stand,

They want to step and walk,

But they fall over,

Again and again.

They stumble around,

But keep trying.

Samadhi is like that.

Mindfulness is like that.

Wisdom is like that.

It is stumbling over,

But we keep on going.

We must be able to get it to be well-established.

We establish mindfulness to be firm.

We establish samadhi to be more stronger.

And then wisdom comes.

So there is the question,

If I have peace already,

Then how will wisdom arise?

I'm afraid to be stuck in samadhi,

Stuck in jhana,

Stuck in rapture and bliss.

Don't get worried like that.

May you have samadhi and good mindfulness.

Then you look,

In this body of ours,

That we think it is me and mine.

Then how come we can't control it?

The qualities of mindfulness and samadhi that we have,

We can't even control.

It arises,

Stays,

Then ceases.

This is vipassana,

Insight already.

The in-breath and out-breath is samatha,

Tranquility.

It brings up samadhi to arise by levels,

Khanika,

Upajara,

Apana.

When there is a lot of samadhi,

Then wisdom is clear.

If the samadhi is less,

Then wisdom is less.

So let us train in this,

So we can see arising and ceasing.

The object of vipassana is aniccaṁ dukkhaṁ anatta,

Impermanence,

Unsatisfactoriness and not-self.

Or it is dukkhaṁ aniccaṁ anatta.

May we train in it.

We try doing this.

Then we can abandon that which binds over us.

We can see the dhamma.

We see the forms,

Sounds,

Flavors,

Odors,

Tactile sensations,

Mind objects.

We see that when the inner sense bases and the outer sense objects contact,

Then there is heat arising.

If we can know this in time,

This is seeing the dhamma.

That all dhammas,

Phenomena,

Have causes for them to arise.

When the causes cease,

Then so does that phenomena.

The eye sees a form,

And we have a feeling arise.

When sense contact ceases,

Then the feeling ceases as well.

We can see that we have had happiness and suffering in the past,

Which has arisen and ceased already.

Where is it now?

It does not exist here,

As something that is a self or me.

But the sannyā,

The memories,

Remembers it again,

That it is me and mine.

So the sense of self has arisen again.

So we need to train about that whenever we attach to forms,

Feelings,

Perceptions,

Mental formations,

And sense consciousness,

That it binds our hearts,

And it takes it as a self and me.

It takes us to cycle around death and renewed birth.

But if we are not there yet,

Then we should cycle around birth and death in a good realm,

The human and deva realms.

We try not to be born lower.

So we have to cut off the wrong views first,

Change them to be right view.

Then we will see the dhamma.

We will be born in this world without an eighth life,

Or we say born in the seventh life and attained to nibbāna.

The mind will gain supreme happiness,

That it does not need to be born and die again.

Because in whichever life we are born into,

Then it is me and mine.

And then we throw it away again.

Then we search for it again.

We get it,

Then we are separated from it again.

It is like this.

It is suffering continually onwards.

If we are born as a human,

Then it is better.

But if we are born lower than a human,

Then it's so difficult.

So may you make an effort and be determined in this life,

So that you see the dhamma,

Seeing everything as something hot.

The five khandhas,

The aggregates,

Are something hot.

Wherever one attaches to,

It's hot right there.

Like a hot iron ball,

Wherever you touch it,

It is hot right there.

Seeing this drawback,

Then we see the dhamma.

We see with wisdom.

May you grow in blessings.

Reviews

Clear explanation on a not so easy topic. This was helpful. Gratitude! 🙏

Gratitude 🙏🏾 V