Cessation: The Third Noble Truth

Ajahn provides insights into the third noble truth of cessation. Most of us know nothing about cessation and modern psychology has not discovered it. Cessation is not to be seen as annihilation which is getting rid of something through desire; this is not letting go. The proper understanding of cessation reveals the empty mind - a useful and potent resource for getting along in the world.

Transcript

Right now I'm conscious of that,

But I can talk at the same time.

It's where your mind is,

You can reflect,

You can talk,

You're not kind of shut away,

You're not having to reject the world and concentrate on anything,

Because in that space,

In the empty mind,

Then one is quite capable of working or doing,

Speaking,

Doing what one has to do as a human being.

The empty mind,

Where if you're concentrated on refined states then you have to shut away things.

If I'm going into a high level of concentration,

I can't talk to you anymore.

I have to close my eyes,

I can't look at you anymore.

And if you're coughing or sneezing,

You have to go someplace where there's no noise,

There's distracting sounds,

And to keep everything in like,

Go off to a cave,

In the dark cave,

Where there's no sound and no light,

Then I can really get this powerful,

High conscious state.

But as soon as I leave,

And there's sounds and distracting things around,

Then it's gone.

What good is it?

Except that it's very nice while you can control the environment,

But once you're out of control,

You're subject to even,

Because you're attached to that refined state,

You find the rest of the world even more coarse,

More unbearable than it was before.

I remember trying to get these high states of consciousness.

And then I'd go back,

I remember walking one time in the town in Thailand,

In Nong Khai,

And I was in a state of heightened awareness,

And everything was just too much for me.

It was like life was just beating on me,

Punching me wherever I looked.

Just ordinary street scene in Nong Khai,

Which hadn't really bothered me much before,

But in that state,

It was like being bruised all the time.

Now this isn't high like that,

This is clear but not high,

So that you can operate in the world without having to reject it.

It's a very,

It's a balanced state in other words,

Where we can abide and we can live our lives wisely without having to run away from anything,

Without having to create something special for ourselves in order to survive.

Our reflections on the Four Noble Truths,

The night before last,

The first one on Dukkha,

The suffering,

Existential anguish of our human condition,

Ignorance,

Grasping at mortality,

Wrong identification,

Not understanding things as they really are,

So that there's this suffering.

It's a common human experience.

This suffering should be understood,

There is this suffering,

It should be understood,

And by practicing then we have insight that there is this suffering,

It is understood there is this,

This suffering is here,

It's something in the mind,

Is it?

The unenlightened person is always blaming somebody else.

We think it's due to somebody else that I'm unhappy,

Or we blame ourselves as a personality,

We think there's something wrong with me,

Something basically wrong,

So that's the reason why I'm unhappy.

And there is this blaming of oneself or others,

Our external forces,

For one's existential anguish,

But in this reflection on the First Noble Truth is merely seeing it as it is,

Not as a personal thing anymore,

No longer blaming others or with the view of blaming yourself,

But mere a recognition,

Awareness of it as it is,

Wanting something we don't have,

Not wanting what we have,

The fears and anxieties,

The sickness,

Old age,

Death,

The sorrows and grief,

All these things are common to all of us.

In the Second Noble Truth,

Which I talked about,

The samuddhaya,

There is a beginning,

An origin to suffering,

It's something that arises,

It's not the ultimate truth.

So even though it's a common human experience,

It's not an ultimate truth,

It's not absolute,

It's merely conditioned into our lives through ignorance and not understanding things,

So it has an origin.

So we look for the origin of it in our own mind,

Not abstracted out and theorizing about the origin of suffering as if it was due to Adam and Eve,

Adam eating an apple and therefore we're suffering the consequences.

I don't think you believe that anymore.

That we began to look at the origin,

What is the origin of suffering in our mind?

So we start looking at desire,

Desire for sense pleasures,

A sense of grasping this movement,

There's desires going on,

Natural desires,

And we grasp them,

So we're caught always in this movement of desire,

Being pulled along by desire for sense pleasures or desire for becoming or desire for getting rid of,

Three kinds of desires.

So we see this grasping at desire is the problem,

So the insight is it should be laid aside,

Should be let go of,

Desire should be let go of,

And then through actual practice of letting go,

The actual practice of letting go of desires,

Then there's the insight that desires have been let go of,

The origin of suffering has been laid aside,

Has been abandoned.

So those are the three stages for each of those two noble truths,

This is a kind of formula,

Buddhist formula to remember,

A way of contemplating.

First there's the statement of the problem,

There is dukkha,

There is an origin to dukkha,

Then there is the suggestion to the mind that it should be understood,

That dukkha should be understood and the origin should be laid aside,

And then the realization from the actual practice of having done that,

The insight that dukkha has been understood and that the origin of dukkha has been laid aside.

Then the third noble truth,

Now we're getting to the more interesting one,

Of niroda or cessation.

So cessation is something that most people in our society know nothing about.

I was invited several months ago to give a talk to a group of psychology students at the University of London and I decided to talk about cessation because I knew that nobody would know anything about it in psychology.

And I was right,

Cessation has not been understood by psychology yet,

At least most not,

I imagine there are a few,

Maybe Buddhist psychologists that understand it.

And generally modern psychology has not understood this,

The third noble truth.

They kind of get the,

They already kind of intuited the first two,

Some of them,

But the third one is still to be discovered by the Western mind,

Cessation,

The truth of cessation.

Now having let go,

Say from the insight into the second noble truth,

Of laying aside or letting go or abandoning desire,

Through having done that,

Then you have the realization there is the cessation of suffering.

They're called niroda sacca,

The cessation of suffering,

There is the cessation of suffering.

So you have that insight,

By laying aside desire,

Letting go of desires,

Then you have this insight into the third noble truth,

There is a cessation of suffering.

It's like grasping fire and you say,

You're holding onto some fire and you say,

Oh it's so painful,

It's so burning,

What do I know?

I say,

Lay it aside.

And so you lay it aside and then you realize,

Oh,

Cessation of the burning,

It's quite obvious,

Isn't it,

Cessation of suffering.

So when you let go of things and you actually reflect on it,

You're not just suppressing or getting rid of things out of aversion,

You're actually just letting,

Laying them aside like this clog,

Like last night I gave that demonstration of laying it down,

Do it again,

Just like that.

If it's fire,

You could do a little more quickly I think.

But the attitude is one of non-aversion,

Of just letting go of things,

Rather than this annihilating tendency of getting rid of things.

Because that,

You're creating more fire with that,

You're burning yourself even more by trying to get rid of everything.

But laying down things,

Letting go of things,

Then you realize that there is an end to suffering.

And this end should be realized,

Realized,

To make it,

To really make this very clear,

To realize this,

The state of your mind when there's no suffering.

To really,

Like we've been doing that in our practice,

Now just like being aware of the space around a thought.

I am a human being.

There's emptiness,

There's no,

There's not the,

If you abide in that empty state,

Then you don't,

You aren't looking for anything.

Of course desires will start wanting you to start looking for something,

Habit formations.

But at least for a moment,

If you really contemplate that empty state of mind,

If you really contemplate that and really reflect on it,

You'll realize that that's quite blissful place to be in,

There's emptiness,

Peaceful,

Still.

So you've realized that,

It should be realized and then there is the insight that cessation has been realized.

Now ceasing,

Cessation is in the flow of nature,

Things that arise cease,

It's a natural flow of things.

You're not out of ignorance and grasping and stupidity,

Making,

Getting rid of things,

You're allowing things to cease according to their nature.

Now when you don't do that,

What we,

Sometimes cessation we think is annihilation,

Getting rid of things is cessation,

But that's not.

Cessation in the roda,

The Bollywood Niroda means allowing things to go according to their nature.

So that you're,

But annihilation is getting rid of them according to your desire,

Isn't it?

There's a great deal of difference.

So annihilationists are trying to get rid of things out of desire,

To get rid of,

Where the Buddhas are letting things cease according to their nature and that is a,

That makes all the difference.

So you realize the truth of cessation takes you to peace and calm,

Stillness,

Where annihilation takes you to confusion and suppression and fear.

So whatever you're getting rid of and trying to annihilate is going to cause you fear and anxiety.

But when you let things cease,

Then things,

Then that takes you to stillness and peace and calm.

You're not interfering with the natural flow according to what you want as a,

Out of fear and desire and thinking,

I don't want these things,

I want the world to be different and always kind of manipulating,

Controlling,

Suppressing,

Annihilating everything.

Your life is just one busy effort to manipulate everything according to your desires and fears.

And what happens is you feel increasing amount of anguish,

The amount of existential anguish will multiply very quickly.

The more you try to control and manipulate life according to your desires and fears.

So the more desires you have and the more frightened you are,

Then enormous burdensome thing this life becomes.

It's just increasingly heavy as you get older and becomes more unbearable because of that,

Of annihilation,

Of trying to grasp and keep and hold on to and then get rid of.

Just note the state of our society now.

They were here in Europe,

We're all concerned now about the environment.

We hear terrible predictions about the pollution of the environment.

Why?

Because we've been trying to annihilate everything and create all kinds of things for our desires,

And of our desires to have everything we want and to get rid of everything we don't want.

And what happens is we pollute the planet.

The word ecology now,

Before,

Say,

20 years ago,

Never knew,

Never heard that word ecology.

And now it's a very common word.

Study of the environment.

Trying to realize a natural order where human beings fit into the environment rather than just exploit it and impose their desires onto it and pollute it is what we've been doing.

Out of ignorance and greed and fear,

We have been polluting not only ourselves,

Our minds,

Our bodies,

But the planet that we live on.

When you think about the nuclear testing on the planet,

When you really contemplate that,

That is the most stupid thing to be doing.

Dropping nuclear bombs on the planet.

It's like dropping nuclear bombs on your home,

Isn't it?

Would you go around dropping nuclear bombs on your home?

Oh,

If you were crazy you would.

You might go and drop nuclear bombs on somebody else's home.

Now that's the mentality,

Isn't it?

We think as long as it's somebody else's home,

It's alright,

As long as it's not ours.

French are busy trying to do their nuclear experiments in the Pacific because it's not their home,

Is it?

Of course the people in the Pacific don't like it at all because it's their home.

That's different because France doesn't consider that their home,

It's far away.

But when you realise that the whole planet is our home,

Whether it's on the Pacific side or the Atlantic side,

And you realise that if you're going to bomb part of it,

It's going to affect the rest of it,

Then you begin to get the point that maybe this tendency to just impose our will and desires and fears onto the environment is destroying the very things that we,

The beauty of the planet and its livability.

Trying to destroy the pests,

Spraying crops and all that,

Trying to get rid of the pests.

The more we wage war on the pests and pesticides,

I was told by a scientist that they have very few alternatives left,

That the pests eventually adapt and learn to survive the latest horrible killing pesticides and then they come back and they have to figure out a new one to annihilate the pests and it keeps going on.

Now they're almost totally out of new ideas,

They've kind of reached the limits.

The pests will start taking over again.

And then these chemical plants like the Union Carbide seem to have endless problems because actually the pesticides now are beginning to leak out of the factories and kill the real pests,

The human beings.

Because I think we're the real pests to this planet,

More than the little insects,

And we've managed to destroy and pollute so much of it,

So that maybe these pesticides we're building and these we're developing and these nuclear weapons will destroy,

Will end up being the very pesticides that kill us.

Maybe that's way,

That's comic justice.

The Frankenstein monster turns on the creator.

That's a grim thought,

Isn't it?

A sense of comic justice in it though.

There's also,

Within human potential,

Something greater.

We can be pests and nuisances,

We can be that which can actually be the instruments which will bring blessings to this planet and to all the creatures on it.

Like this evening,

We've been chanting every evening the Metta Sutta,

Spreading Metta and sharing our goodness and our blessedness with all sentient beings.

So human beings,

We have a choice of being selfish little pests that are more dangerous than any of the pests that they make pesticides for,

And or we can be noble beings which can bear blessings,

Where that which is benevolent,

That which blesses everything can manifest through these bodies onto this planet.

So I think that's where we should start looking,

Is toward that more,

That potential for the perfection and the true nobility of the human being rather than just thinking maybe annihilating them is the only thing left for us to do.

Because after all,

I'm a human being too and I don't want the idea of being annihilated isn't particularly pleasing.

But ceasing,

Cessation is somehow very pleasing,

Very peaceful.

When I let selfish desires,

Stupidity,

Fears,

Anxiety,

Greed and all that cease in my mind,

When I just let them go,

Lay them aside and then they cease,

I experience cessation or stillness,

Calm.

The mind itself,

The mind ground is like that,

It's blissful,

It's calm,

It's still,

It's bright and as I let go and lay aside my stupidity,

Laying it aside then it all ceases in the mind ground,

In the stillness,

In the peace,

In the calm.

So one experiences calm,

A calm outlook,

A peaceful mind,

An empty mind.

And an empty mind is like a spacious mind.

There's room for things to come and go in it,

It's not locked up,

It's not fixed,

It's not discriminating and picking and choosing and prejudiced and frightened.

It's free so that whatever comes can go,

Can cease in it.

Because there's this knowing,

Knowing that all that arises ceases in the mind.

This is what Buddhas know,

This is what the Buddha,

When he was enlightened,

Realized.

The Buddha,

What did he realize when he sat under the Bodhi tree,

Sat there and contemplated all this till he realized the truth,

He was enlightened.

Then he gave the teaching in a very direct way,

All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing.

And all that is anata or not self,

This word anata,

Not self.

You cannot find yourself in other words,

You can only be that.

So in meditation now you're being that,

Being yourself by observing what is not self.

As we sit here and meditate,

As we walk,

Being alert,

Being awake,

Using our ability to reflect,

Wisely reflect on the way things are,

The simple characteristic of anicca,

All that arises ceases.

And that's in regard to everything that you can think of,

That you perceive in your mind,

Conceive of,

Emotions,

Sensory objects,

Sense organs themselves,

The bodies,

The consciousness that arises,

All this is,

All that is subject to arising is subject to ceasing.

But now your emphasis is on cessation,

Noting cessation,

Become aware of this cessation.

Now when you practice this evening,

Really reflect on,

When you observe the space in the mind,

The space around the thought,

Really take that image,

Listening to one thought and noting the space.

So you become very familiar with the space of the mind,

Empty mind.

It becomes something you can turn to it,

Whenever you get lost in your emotions and fears and all that,

You turn,

You realize you're getting carried away with things,

You can always turn to the silence,

The space,

That sound of silence,

The primordial sound,

Sound of the mind or whatever it is,

It's the sign for emptiness.

Now don't attach to that as anything but observe it,

Know that and you can reflect,

Reflect from that empty mind,

Because in that,

In space then you can,

You can actually bring things up,

You can look at things.

When you know how to let things go,

Let things cease,

Then you don't have to be constantly manipulating and controlling everything around you because you can actually take things up and look at them.

Oh yes,

And then lay it down without making a problem about it.

If all I know is grasping and I'm afraid of it,

I shouldn't be grasping,

Then I go grasping the clock again,

I'm making a problem about it,

I'm obsessed with time,

Don't have my clock with me,

Then I'm making problems,

I get angry,

I have proof that I'm not attached or thrown away,

So forth,

I can make a real problem out of just picking up a clock.

But in an empty mind,

What,

There's space for picking up clocks and putting them down without making problems.

You don't have to,

It doesn't have to be a problem or anything complex,

It's just this way.

When it's time to look at the clock then you can do so without making a problem about it.

When it's time to eat food,

You can eat food without making it into a complex and difficult thing.

When it's time to talk to somebody,

When it's time to work,

When it's time to go to bed,

When it's time to bathe,

So forth,

All these things are part of our lives so that they can be seen in perspective through emptiness rather than just mere perfunctory habits or make them into complex personal problems.

I've known many a monk to make life into a problem,

Like eating food in Thailand,

In the monastery,

Some of the western monks especially,

Very good at complicating everything,

They'd make a problem about eating food.

So that we'd always eat from an alms bowl,

You see,

So they'd put the food in the alms bowl and then the complicated minds of some of the western monks would think,

I shouldn't feel any greed for this food,

I'm so greedy.

Because you feel this naturally when you're hungry,

You feel a kind of natural desire to eat food,

Perfectly natural thing to feel.

But they may take it and make it into a personal thing,

Like I'm a very greedy person,

I want to dive into the bowl and gobble it all down.

So then they start trying to control it.

So they try to make it difficult,

They go on fast,

Some monks will go on fast,

I think they're anorexic.

Some of them start,

Then they get lost in it,

They're trying so hard not to be greedy,

And they feel guilty,

They spend the afternoon feeling guilty.

But in an empty mind you reflect that this is alms food for,

This is the food for eating,

For taking care of the bodily needs and so forth,

And then you eat it,

It's just part of it.

And one can eat with an empty mind.

And one can still taste the flavours,

Good and bad,

It doesn't destroy anything,

But it doesn't,

It's not complicated,

It's allowing things to be,

Knowing that this is a very,

This is the right thing to be doing when you're eating a meal,

To eat it.

It's nothing wrong or greedy,

The body needs food.

It's not personal anymore,

It's not like,

If I want to make it into a problem,

I'm greedy and I shouldn't be,

Because I feel an attraction towards this food,

I want to eat it.

But when I reflect on it I realise this is a very natural thing for the body,

The body needs food,

So the body is very much attracted,

Wants to consume that food when it's hungry and it needs it.

So then one feeds the body without making it into a personal,

Complicated situation.

The same with sleep or whatever,

Situations in life,

With an empty mind you can,

There's a room for what has to be done,

For talking to others,

For working,

For living one's life as a member of the society.

Cessation doesn't mean that we get rid of everything and then we,

And that's it,

We live in a kind of void all the time.

I mean that'd be nice,

I'd actually like to do that,

Live in the state of this blissful state and not have to talk or work or do anything because it's a nice place to be in.

But we can't do that,

Can we?

Somehow life doesn't allow us.

It's always making us do other things,

Like I remember our teacher in Thailand was very good at kind of not letting us attach to that blissful state.

Realize it and know it but we also had to work,

We had to teach and we had to do all kinds of things that we didn't particularly want to do.

Once you start this sitting practice sometimes you don't want to do anything else.

You hear people,

Modern day meditators on the meditation circuits,

They,

I heard somebody talking one time,

I went and sat in Sri Lanka and then I sat in Burma and I went over and I sat in California and I sat in IMS in Massachusetts and went and sat in England,

Sat in Switzerland and there's a new way of talking isn't there,

You don't have a holiday anymore,

You go and sit somewhere.

You don't go to Switzerland to see the Alps anymore,

You go to Switzerland to sit.

But during this retreat the reason why we're emphasizing sitting and quiet and all this is because it's in contrast to maybe what your life is most of the time,

Where you have to live a very active life,

You may not have much opportunity or occasion for sitting for long periods of time.

So this we try to provide but this is not the be all or end all of meditation,

This is merely a kind of extreme situation,

Very kind of set up and controlled for this practice but don't think that this is the way it has to be all the time because when you leave here then you have to go back to your ordinary living situations and all the things that you have to bear with in those particular places but if you're increasingly more aware of emptiness and cessation then you can bear with those if your life is complicated or you're working in a job that is quite difficult or your family life is complicated or all this kind of thing,

You can reduce the complications by taking it all to emptiness.

And at least you aren't making problems about those things anymore,

You begin to let them go.

When you let them go then you can cope with them in a much better way because you see them differently than when you're attached.

When you're attached to that,

Attached to your family,

Attached to your work,

Attached to your home,

Attached to your relatives,

It gets very complicated and sometimes just a hopeless unsolvable situation arises,

At least it seems like that.

But in an empty mind one begins to be aware of how to do things in a way that you wouldn't be aware of when you're attached.

It's like seeing things in perspective,

Isn't it?

If you're just obsessed with something like this,

I can't see anymore.

It's like an obsession,

It's like this,

It blinds you,

Can't see.

I say,

I can't see,

Where are you?

How can I solve this problem?

I can't see,

I want to see again.

And you say,

Ah,

Little tomato,

You've got your hand over your eyes.

This is like the meditation retreat,

You know,

I'm just telling you,

You've got your hand over your eyes.

And you say,

Oh,

Just let it go,

Relax.

Relax.

Oh yes.

Now if I said,

If you were doing this,

I can't see,

You've got your hand over your eyes,

And then you think,

Oh,

I should get rid of the hand.

Cut it off.

Terrible hand,

No good,

Always got into trouble.

Cut off the hand and then what?

You've got a bloody stump.

You can't pick up the clock to see what time it is.

David brings in the tray of chocolate and you can't pick up the chocolate,

You have to go and pick it up with your teeth.

So that makes it even worse,

Isn't it?

Not only you're missing a hand,

But you're none the wiser for it.

Just this gentle warning of the problem of this,

It's not the hand's all right,

Don't do anything to the hand,

Just let it go,

Put it down.

So then I can pick up the clock,

Can lay it down,

Can do what has to be done.

I can live my life because I have a perspective now on it.

I know the hand's all right,

The eye's all right,

These things are all right in themselves,

There's nothing bad or terrible about them.

It's just the ignorant use of these things that is the problem.

So obsessions are like being blinded by something,

You can't see beyond it.

You can't see beyond the obsession,

You have no perspective,

So you're just caught in a blind alley,

A dead end,

Can't see.

But as you abide more in emptiness,

Then you can see,

You have a space,

You can see things.

So it's like taking your hand away and then you see,

You can see everybody's here,

Who is here,

If there are any kind of problems,

You're aware of it in a perspective rather than making an obsession out of it.

So all your personal life,

Your relationships with others,

Your family,

Where you work with your profession and so forth,

As you learn to abide in emptiness,

You'll be able to work in a much better way,

To be a good friend,

A good husband or wife or whatever to the people around you.

It's not going to make things worse,

It's going to give you the opportunity to do what you can.

Sometimes there's nothing we can do.

Sometimes situations are such we just have to be patient and wait.

And I remember with me,

There was one situation I found very irritating,

I wanted to solve it immediately.

So I thought,

I've got to solve it,

There was another bhikkhu I couldn't get along with.

I said,

I want to get along with this other bhikkhu.

So I said,

Go and tell him,

We've got to get on with each other.

And he said,

No way.

So there was this urgency,

I don't like this idea of not getting on with somebody.

We should be friends with each other.

Buddhist monks said,

At least we should get on well,

We should at least make some attempt,

Shouldn't we?

We shouldn't be acting like this is ridiculous.

That kind of situation just made it worse.

Bhikkhu said,

No way.

I don't want the likes of you around me.

So out of an ideal,

I said,

It shouldn't be like this.

We should get on,

We should be friends,

We should be mutually supporting the sangha,

Working together for the welfare of the dharma.

And all these high-minded ideas for monks sounds great,

It's all true too.

But how is it in a situation right now,

As an existential situation,

Is that there doesn't seem to be any way that that's possible.

In order to have that,

It means that maybe a change of mind or a change of attitude has to take place.

Maybe it just takes patience.

Maybe we have to just be patient and wait for the right time rather than forcing it.

If you don't like me,

I don't like that,

But I'm going to go up and say,

Like me,

Or I shake you.

You know what I'm saying is the actual words may be right,

It's the right thing to like me.

But the gesture and the kind of mood behind it doesn't create the situation where that is possible,

Is it?

I mean,

You can say,

I like you,

But still run away.

So the words are easy to say,

But sometimes we have to wait for the time,

Right time in the right place.

And then that,

Of course,

Is where when we have this spacious mind,

We can have time to wait.

We don't force in situations or trying to compel people or make anything otherwise,

But we can be aware and sensitive to time and place when the person is receptive,

When the conditions are there for reconciliation or for understanding.

On an ideal level,

Everybody should love each other and have compassion.

But on the level of reality,

That existential reality,

People don't.

Many times they don't,

They can't stand each other.

So even though they should love each other,

We find in many situations people,

Even though they know they should love everybody,

They don't.

So what do we do?

We wait.

We're patient until the situations are such people are evolved enough and they're receptive enough for that actual ideal to be realized.

That's why we always,

You know,

It's very,

I realize myself how important it is to forgive each other,

To forgive oneself and others.

Because sometimes we don't realize when somebody hurts us or does something against me,

You know,

I might not realize why.

You know,

I take it personally and I feel hurt and then I tend to make a judgment that it shouldn't be or that person is bad.

But if I don't do that and I go to emptiness,

Then I can forgive any kind of insult or harm done to me and wait and see.

And then things begin to become clear why that happened,

Why that person acted like that.

So this forgiveness,

Christianity,

This is one of the kind of brilliant teachings of Jesus Christ,

Isn't it?

His forgiveness,

Very powerful Christian teaching of Jesus forgiving the people that were persecuting him.

They were doing everything that we wouldn't want anyone to do,

Nailing our hands and feet to a cross.

I wouldn't like that.

Can you imagine forgiving somebody who's doing that to you?

And then laughing and jeering and making fun of you?

And even your disciples refusing to have anything to do with you.

Even the disciples didn't want to know.

And then on the cross,

In the end,

Even God betrayed Jesus when he was thinking,

At least God's standing beside me and then he suddenly realizes God's forsaken him.

Everything removed,

Isn't it?

Absolutely everything.

Being miserable,

Painful,

Despairing,

Alone,

Sick,

Humiliated,

Is what we most don't want,

Most fear,

And yet to be able to forgive.

Because we realize that as you're mind in emptiness you become much more sensitive to the fact that evil actions and unkindness and rudeness are done out of ignorance,

Not out of that anyone is a kind of permanently malevolent force.

But these things operate out of ignorance,

Selfishness,

Not understanding things properly that these things operate in the world.

So that we can see that in our own lives how many foolish and selfish and ridiculous things that we've done,

Hopefully the people that I've harmed have forgiven me.

I certainly hope they have.

Sometimes it wasn't intentional.

Most of the time,

In fact,

I think the harm I've done to others wasn't really intentional,

It was just insensitive stupidity.

I wasn't intentionally a very evil person,

I was just stupid and insensitive.

So that kind of thing always tended to harm and cause grief to other beings.

I certainly hope that they have been able to forgive me.

Then I reflect on that and anything that's been done to me out of people,

I don't recall anyone ever just being deliberately malevolent,

Just being determined to be just evil,

But people have harmed me or hurt me out of the same thing,

Out of stupidity and ignorance.

And so then I think,

Oh,

Forgive them.

So we forgive each other,

We forgive ourselves,

The sense of forgiveness is to be an ongoing thing because even when you're practicing Dhamma you're going to make mistakes.

Somebody is going to be hurt sometimes,

Somebody is going to misunderstand you.

There's such a complex web of sankaras around that it's not,

You can't expect everyone to understand and appreciate what you're doing.

Some people will feel hurt or resentful.

So we keep asking for forgiveness,

Forgiving ourselves,

Forgiving others,

And moving toward this abiding in emptiness.

Really note this in the practice now,

In these next few days,

You're calm now and you're receptive to this,

You can really make this very clear in your mind.

So as when you leave here you have that insight,

You have at least a more clear understanding of where to abide,

How to develop your practice in your daily life.

In meetings I know,

Like in Sangha meetings or committee meetings where people have different opinions or people have arguments.

When I first came to England,

The English Sangha Trust had a lot of problems.

So they used to have these terrible meetings where they'd argue,

Horrible things they'd say to each other,

Sit there and cringe.

I just thought,

I don't want to hear these things,

I want to get away from here.

I didn't have to bear this in Thailand,

Why did I come to this country?

I think maybe I'll go back to Thailand.

I didn't like to be in a situation where people were quarreling or saying nasty things to each other.

Then I decided to use it for practice,

So I started just using the situations.

I'd abide in emptiness.

I'd go to these meetings,

I'd go empty.

But I still,

In emptiness I still could be aware of what was going on.

You're not like shutting things out,

You're just open to it,

Not taking sides,

You're listening.

But when you have that space you begin to see where the misunderstandings lie.

You're not being caught up in all the emotions that are being generated,

But you're aware of where this person is not listening or doesn't understand,

Or if somebody's just been downright stubborn,

Or if there's a lot of pride and determination to get one's way,

One can become aware of that as it is,

Rather than taking sides or getting caught in aversion and anger or wanting to get away from it.

When there's a person like that in the room it always helps,

Because other people begin to understand also.

Things can be pointed out,

And people begin to,

If you have at least one mindful person in the room it helps with the rest.

One silent mind is a mirror for all the rest,

Even if all the others are going at each other tooth and nail,

They begin to slow down,

It's reflected in the mind of the one empty mind.

This is our great gift that we have as human beings,

And not very many human beings are aware of it.

Most of us are trying to avoid unpleasant situations,

Or trying to dominate situations,

Or trying to hide away,

Or trying to control everything,

Or whatever,

But when we contemplate our own human predicament,

We think,

This life is a transition between the birth of the body and its death.

So it's an opportunity to learn something.

And this Buddha wisdom,

It seems to me,

From what I can tell,

The most important,

The most valuable thing to learn during a lifetime,

Compared to anything else,

All the rest is of no use.

It is absolutely no good to you when you're dying,

Does it?

Worldly knowledge,

University degrees,

Worldly attainments,

Wealth,

Social position,

Achievements are of absolutely no use when you're dying.

What is useful then is mindfulness,

Wisdom,

Emptiness,

Seeing things as they really are.

So in this way you have,

You say,

Beginning to realize how to perfect your human life,

This human opportunity,

How to realize it,

How to perfect it,

So that at the end of it,

When it's time for this body to die,

You will have no regrets.

You have done what you needed to do,

You've understood,

You've learned the lessons,

Realized the truth.

Reviews

So powerful

Such wisdom straight to the heart of it and a giggle along the way! So grateful for this sharing and the conditions that brought us together 🤩🙏🏽✨

What a wonderful lesson for our practice! Talks about emptiness in a new, peaceful way. 🙏

Most interesting. Thank you.