The Eight Precepts - Part 2 - Meditation, Using Our Natural Wisdom

Ajahn offers advice on meditation - finding and using natural wisdom.

Transcript

So this form isn't just a kind of reconditioning process. We're not trying to make you into Buddhists or into any. . . We're not trying to make you believe in anything. There's nothing that you have to believe in. Like the three refuges of Buddha Dhammasangism and belief, It's a practical kind of statement of one's intentions to be wise, To use wisdom, To take refuge in what is the truth and in virtue. But it's not a kind of, It's not a like Buddhist belief. So you're not asked to believe in Buddha or believe in any kind of Buddhist teachings, But to take the teachings and use them in order to watch and learn and listen. So the Buddhist meditation teachings are all designed to kind of get you to look at yourself. Ways of perceiving, Ways of watching so that you begin to understand. That the Buddha wisdom is the simple wisdom that all that arises passes away. And if it arises and passes away, It's not yours, It's not what you are. You're not a condition that arises and passes away. Then you say, Well then what am I? And this is the ultimate question. Maybe by the end of the retreat or somewhere you might actually begin to know who you are. But you can only know who you are when you know what you're not. So we start with examining what we are not. And this is what we're doing when we're seeing the conditions of our bodies and minds, Feelings, Thoughts, Memories, Opinions, Views. All these are conditioned, They're conditioned into you. They're not ultimate realities. They're conditioned into you by your society, Families. So that they're where we take them quite, We quite believe in them as being our personalities, Ourselves. Now we're looking at them not as our personal kind of possessions but as conditioned perceptions. We're breaking through this habitual grasping of perception to understand the truth. To begin to recognize the ultimate truth. Which is always here now but which we don't recognize because we're so busy with all these conventional things. Caught up in our feelings, In our emotions, In our habits, Likes and dislikes, Fears, Doubts and worries. Who has time to ever recognize anything other than just being caught up in the momentum of habit? Until you take time, You have to make the time, You have to turn to the truth. You have to, The truth doesn't come and zap you. Not just truth like God standing out there, They wake up you so and so. You have to turn, You have to look, You have to listen, You have to put forth the effort yourself. So that's what we mean by practice meditation, Being mindful. Mindfulness is really a turning to the truth. It's not a rejection of the world, It's not that you're going to pass judgment on the world and reject it and say I don't want anything more to do with the world. Don't like it and go off and live in a kind of special celestial realm. That's what, That doesn't happen. But you're seeing the world as it really is rather than as you perceive it, As you've been conditioned to perceive the world. You're using wisdom rather than desire in your life. All of you have wisdom. There's not one person here that is lacking wisdom, It's just not of using that result. So in meditation we're using wisdom, We're not acquiring it, It's not something you get through meditation, It's something you use to meditate with. Now meditation is completely different attitude is necessary than that worldly attitude you have in your mind. Like when you come here you have your mind's conditioned to think in all the attitudes of your worldly habits. Which might be alright for worldly conditions but are obstacles for Dharma, For the truth. So take the worldly habit of thinking if I practice now hard then sometime in the future I will become something. It's like going to university, If I study diligently in three or four years I will attain my university degree. Which is true on the conventional level isn't it? We all have been through that, You don't start out with a university degree, You start out with doing something and going along for a few years to attain it. That's the world, That's the world of birth and death, Of division, Of discrimination. Now the attitude of a worldly person is one of doing something and expecting a result in the future. So that worldly people are always expecting things, They think I have to do this now, I have to get rid of my lazy habits and I have to get rid of all my bad things in order to become this kind of saint in the future. So we often times live our lives with this kind of, Always trying to get rid of things. We see weaknesses, Faults, Fears and all this and we try to get rid of those things because they're inhibiting, Causing us a lot of misery, Blocking us in our pursuit of happiness or success, Worldly success. So in order to be really happy you have to get rid of unhappiness and this is the worldly attitude. Now the dharma attitude for meditation is rather than doing something now to attain something in the future, It's a being, Like being wise now. Using wisdom now, Not meditating now, Hopefully to gain wisdom by the end of the retreat. That's the worldly attitude. That doesn't help really. What you need to develop to just now reflect on this attitude of now being, Using wisdom, Meaning being aware, Looking at the conditions that arise in your consciousness. Now using wisdom now doesn't mean you're going to become wise in the future, It means you're being wise now. So it's an attitude of being rather than of becoming. So Buddhist meditation is a very direct kind of practice. It's even being enlightened now. If you read Buddhist books too much you think, Oh there's no chance for enlightenment in this lifetime, It's so difficult to do that you'll probably have to be reborn, I don't know how many more times before you'll ever get even near to it. That's how books tend to make it sound. And even in countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka they talk like that. Some monks in Thailand will even say, There's no point in even trying now, The day is gone, The day that era where people were enlightened is over. Now this is the Kali Yuga, We can only just hope to be maybe reborn again in a deva realm or something. So many people, Some mena jantsal would hear this, Hear monks talk like this, He said, Well then why did you ordain? Why did you ordain as a monk? Because when you ordain as a monk you say, I ordain as a monk to go to Nibbana. So it's a direct thing, You're going, Inclining to Nibbana, The whole point of monastic love of a Buddhist monk is to incline to Nibbana. It's not to be reborn and the next life is a deva now. This is where traditional religion is really, You know, Has lost the spirit, Has lost the essence of Buddhist teaching. Because it makes it sound too difficult, Too remote a possibility, Something that takes lifetimes of being reborn into this and that before you can ever possibly be enlightened. But if you really understand Buddhist teaching, It's not, Buddha didn't teach like that at all. It's not becoming enlightened, It's being enlightened. It's always being. It's not finding Buddhas but being Buddha, Being wisdom. It's not thinking you're Buddha, But it's being that Buddha wisdom. This is a completely different mind blowing attitude to Western mind. You think, Well I have to do all kinds, I've got a bad temper, I'm greedy, I have a lot of fear and how can I be a Buddha if I have all these things? I've got terrible habits, I've done some really wretched things in the past and how can I ever hope to be a Buddha when I've got so many faults and weaknesses? So you think like that, You know, It seems hopeless. But being Buddha means being that knowing, Knowing those thoughts as thoughts, Those feelings that you somehow have so many faults, So many weaknesses, So many defects that you couldn't possibly hope to ever get near to it in this lifetime. You recognize that's conditioned perception, That's thinking and that's being Buddha. Buddhas know that conditions are the conditions, That's all. Buddhas are very simple beings. It's that knowing that the conditions of your mind are conditions of your mind. It's not believing that those conditions are yours anymore. So what you think you are is a condition, It's a condition of your mind, It's thought, It's not the ultimate truth, It's not Buddha. So in meditation, Buddhist meditation is that direct, It's actually a being, Being awake, Being mindful, Listening, Being attentive. So like we sit and we meditate, We are going out playing games, Reading books, Dancing, Singing, Drinking, Sleeping, Chatting, Going out hunting, Skiing, Fishing, But we're sitting, Looking like we sit here. We can shut our eyes, We don't have anything to look at, Not much. Nobody's dressing up to make themselves incredibly alluring, So that there's nobody to really worth looking at now. The So there's nothing to bother to look at but yourself, The thinking and looking, Watching, Listening, Being attentive to whatever comes, Whatever happens. It doesn't matter what it is, If it moves and changes, You're aware of it. If it's good, Pleasant, Or if it's horrible or nasty, If it's a good feeling, If it's a murderous feeling like you want to murder me, That's alright, You still just recognize it as a condition. Don't do it because you've got the precepts. That's why I have to give these precepts. So that you, If you feel like murdering me, Just recognize that as a feeling, Let it go, Don't do it. Only thing, You're free to think what you want, Not what you want but what comes up. Allow your opening the mind to allow things to just appear, Things that before, You know, Under certain conditions you think, Oh I shouldn't be thinking like that. You're thinking maybe Ajahn Sumedho can read minds. I'm sitting up here reading everything that's going through your mind. But I can't read minds, So you don't have to worry about it. So whatever comes up in your mind, Only you know. And that's for you to know that that is a condition, Just to recognize conditions as conditions. You don't have to figure out why do I think like that, Why do I have thoughts like that. And you start to think, Well because when I was a child my mother dropped me on my head. The concussion always made my, I've always resented that. Because now I have this problem. And you just think about yourself again. This is just bare tension on conditions. One time in London, A woman who used to, When we lived in Hampstead, A woman that used to come there almost every night, She was a middle aged English woman who liked to think of herself as a kind of mother, Earth mother. A very maternal kind of woman. And she always, You know, The image she had of herself was one that was always loving everybody. So she would always talk about love and loving everything. And then one day she came to the Vihara in London and she was really upset. And she said, I'm really, It's terrible. I don't know what's going on, What's happened to me. And my daughter-in-law, My son's wife just had a baby, The first grandchild. And I went to see the baby for the first time and I picked it up and this thought came to mind, I want to poke its eyes out. And she said, I was so horrified by this thought that I had to leave. And she said, Why would I think a thought like that? What's wrong with me that I would think something like that? And I said, You didn't do it, Did you? And she said, Well no, Of course not. Well, It's just a thought that comes. If you try to think out why would I think you start analyzing, Just recognize that the condition is a thought. The thought is a condition. It's something you don't do. If you have thoughts like that, Just don't act on them, Let them go. But also, It's obvious isn't it, Someone that's trying so desperately to be maternal, Obviously trying to cover up a lot of hostility. But then, You know, If I told her that, She'd start thinking about herself a lot, Which she already does too much. Thinks about herself, Tries to figure herself out all the time. Where the real help comes in recognizing conditions and letting them go, Not creating complications around things. Recognize that you might have evil thoughts, But just you don't act on them. It's something you refrain from doing. So if you want to steal something, Don't go and spend the night worrying about being a thief. But just recognize that that's something you don't do. Sexual thoughts, Just recognize those are conditions of the mind rather than personal problems. All these things, You're recognizing conditions of the mind as conditions, Rather than as personal problems, Personality problems, As me and mine, As a neurotic hang up, As a terrible fault and flaw with me. Me and mine, Don't do that, Don't fall for that anymore. But recognize. So then it's a genuine opening of the mind, So you feel a freedom to let these things come up into consciousness. Because there's a lot that we do not allow ourselves to consciously, To arise in our consciousness. We have a kind of repressive mechanism, That there's a lot that we have to keep away all the time. We won't allow it to come into consciousness. Now to be conscious of something means to allow something to come up so you see it directly, When you're fully conscious of it. But say, Hatred, Lust, Things like this, A lot of it, We just never allow into our consciousness. It only comes when we're completely heedless, Like drunk or asleep or something. When you're asleep you have oftentimes weird, Horrible dreams, Don't you? Where really awful things happen. Because you're not holding, You're not filtering, You're not repressing anything. So in sleep, What you wouldn't be able to allow in consciousness arises in dreams. It's a release also, Because otherwise, You know, If you don't, They did I think experiments one time where they'd wake people just before they started dreaming. And they became very neurotic. They couldn't get through their dreams which are released. But now, In meditation, You're releasing the irrational, Repressed conditions in a skillful way. By allowing them to come into consciousness and letting them go. So that's why the Buddhist teaching of anatta or not-self is so helpful. Because if you don't, If you think these are yours, Then of course there's a lot of things you just couldn't bear to identify with. Thoughts and feelings that you just, You know, If you thought, Is that what you really are? You'd think you were a really horrible being. But when you can recognize it's just consciousness, And sensory consciousness is not a person, Not a self. It's a condition in nature that is not you, Not what you are. Then you're not afraid to allow repressed things to arise into consciousness. Because when you do that, You let them go. It's the catharsis, The kind of release or purification of the mind. But it's skillful because it's done with wisdom, Not with desire or repression. It's done with, So that it's always wisdom is being used. And it takes you to the truth. All these things as you begin to purify the mind, Relieve it of all its repression, Open it, Cleanse it. You know the truth then. You are your true nature, Your true self, Which is not conditioned, The unconditioned. So, That's why in what happens here, Don't be like, Be quite brave. Allow things, It's an opening, A liberating, Even though on one level it looks terribly restrictive. You can't do this, You can't do that, You can't talk. You're being contained physically and verbally, Mentally you're being freed. Physically you can't do this, You can't do that, Verbally you can't, If you hate somebody you can't say it. But you can recognize it. So that it's not, You're not doing anything to hurt anyone else. But you're not repressing it. So if you hate anybody here, Just don't say it. Don't say I hate you. But bring it up into consciousness, Recognize hatred as a condition and then let it go. So that you're letting go of aversion and hatred without creating more habits around it. When you're willing to do that, Then your comic patterns begin to cease. Your habitual hang-ups, Your obsessions, All these begin to cease, They begin to fade away. You begin to feel a relief of not being and begin to recognize that the kind of joy that comes from liberation, Of not being just a bound limited conditioned creature of habit, A helpless victim of fate. Now how many of you here feel that your lives are just kind of hopeless or that you're too limited or that maybe you've ruined your life or that your life is pointless and so forth. This is very strong in people because they have not used wisdom. So in the talk that I give, In the meditation, It's all to encourage you. I can't make you use wisdom, It's something you have to use. I can't give you wisdom, It's something you have to use and you do it by watching, In opening, Recognizing, Being very very patient, Humble, Humility, Willing to learn from even the nastiest conditions in your mind, Willing to learn the ultimate truth through the most humble kind of conditions. Rather than thinking, I've got to have everything, I've got to have the best teacher, The best conditions, For me, I'm kind of conceited, I have to have the very best of everything. But say here to see what you can do under the conditions you find yourself. So now if you'll just kind of stretch your legs a bit, We'll have a sitting meditation.

Reviews

Thank you, Ajahn Sumedho. I fouund your phrase We can only act as best we can, given the current conditions"" very relevant, given the current state of the world 🙏🙏🙏

Very insightful discussion on Buddhist methods of meditation. This is a talk that can aid anyone with feelings of listlessness or in returning to our center.

🎯😀🙏easy to understand, enjoyable and helpful. Thank you Ajahn Sumedo.

Vintage 1982👍🏼

Absolutely lovely. Felt all tension removed from my body. Thank you! 🙏🏻