Transcending Self

Ajahn points to the personality view as something one can observe, contemplate and transcend. Consider: “What do you really want to be in the eyes of others? What do you expect as a person in society?” Listening to your own views and expectations. Whatever you suppress will come back to torture you. So notice it all in consciousness and allow it to cease.

Transcript

Beginning of a day,

Reflections,

To bring our attention,

To be alert to the way it is.

This is a continuous practice.

Monastic life itself offers a whole reflection every morning,

Every evening,

Ways of constantly bringing into one's attention the way it is,

So that the forms we use,

The conventions are helping us,

They're not ends in themselves,

But merely tools that one can use.

Listening to the silence,

Being attentive to that,

Not trying to,

Not sinking into just the mood or the feeling,

But rising above that,

To listen to the silence,

You have to pay attention,

You have to give up indulging in thoughts and moods,

Feelings of the moment,

And in that,

There's a transcending of that,

And you see with moods and emotions it's easy to sink into a mood,

Because that's what we're used to doing.

And when we've not trained ourselves to transcend mood,

Then we sink into it,

Either we suppress it,

Try to get rid of it out of aversion or indulge in it,

But transcending it is acknowledging it but not believing in it anymore,

Not giving it a second thought or a second glance,

But rising above it,

So that we use this silence as a way of transcending the worldly conditions.

But when we use the word transcendence,

This is a word that's increasingly more used now,

People are beginning to awaken to that,

I think people have forgotten about that,

Religion has been pushed aside for many decades now,

My generation considered religion for the archaeological museum,

We come to Europe,

Americans come to Europe to look at cathedrals like they were museums,

I remember visiting Strasbourg one time,

Going in the cathedral there,

And I sat down and started meditating,

And I noticed that the place was almost totally empty,

And then tourists started coming in,

Tourists with guides,

And then they started looking at the cathedral as if it were a kind of museum,

The history,

Who did what,

Who painted this and sculpted that,

And on and on like that,

So that it's a cathedral that was designed to remind us of transcendence and become another pretty decoration in the history of man's cultural achievements.

But now we began to say,

Maybe we can start using these old symbols more for reflection and reminding ourselves of the transcendence of immortality,

And that's what they really were meant to be,

Rather than just this interesting,

Aesthetically interesting or historically interesting objects of bygone age.

Transcending the personality view,

This is a difficult one,

We're committed to being a personality oftentimes,

The idea of being an individual,

Unique person has been given very much a priority in our lives.

So personality view is quite strong,

But one can reflect on the personality,

The view,

The perception of being a person is something one can observe.

If one is really a person,

Then one couldn't observe that,

But because personality is a condition,

Conditioned into the mind,

The view of being a person,

That perception is something that can be contemplated.

So in order to do this,

Sometimes I would bring up into consciousness,

I deliberately think out my personality,

What I wanted to appear like to others.

What do you really want to,

What is your view of what do you want to express and be in the eyes of others?

What do you think others think of you?

And what do you have to offer others?

And what do you want from other people?

And what do you expect as a person in a society?

What are your expectations and hopes in the country you're living in,

The society you're a part of?

What are your complaints and discontentments and so forth as a person,

As a man or a woman in the society that you're in?

So that you hear,

You're listening to this thing that goes on in the mind of me and mine,

Wanting rights,

Privileges,

Or complaining about being at disadvantages,

Or being exploited,

Misunderstood,

Wanting other people's attention,

Or respect,

Or wanting to arouse envy in the minds of other people,

Or feeling envious,

Or feeling anxious,

Or threatened by the presence of people.

All this is,

We begin to see as conditions of the mind.

But it does take a certain amount of willingness to bring up into conscious state things that might be very unpleasant for you,

To have to admit.

If it is,

If it's really a personal thing,

Then of course it is.

One is maybe reticent to have to admit a lot of things,

But when you see whatever you're bringing up into consciousness is not self,

Then one feels much more free and willing to bring up even the most kind of frightening personal problems into a full consciousness.

So then you can let them go.

Remember,

Only when they become conscious can they go away.

Oftentimes in Britain,

People have repressed anger a lot.

They're considered very ugly to express anger,

To show anger so that one is trying to not do this,

And anger becomes something that one has suppressed.

Hatred and aversion and all the kind of negative states,

Because they seem wrong and bad,

And that we shouldn't have those kind of thoughts.

We shouldn't think that way,

We shouldn't feel that way.

The guilt and remorse,

Regret,

Self-hatred,

Self-disparagement results.

Because on that level of ideas,

That's true,

Isn't it?

Recognize that on one level that's true,

The level of ideas.

Ultimately,

On the ideal level,

We shouldn't hate,

We shouldn't be jealous of others,

We shouldn't be threatened by others,

We shouldn't get angry.

Those are kind of the ideals.

But then the realities of being a sensitive being,

Remember as I said,

Ideals don't have senses.

They can't feel.

Ideals are kind of static images that can be very beautiful,

But they don't feel anything.

We're very much involved with the world of feeling,

Emotion,

Sensitivity,

The sensory world.

We're feeling it all the time,

Aren't we?

The cold,

The heat,

The beauty,

The ugliness,

The pleasure,

The pain of it all.

So that when we attach to ideas of how things should be,

Then our feeling existence,

How we feel,

And that sometimes is rejected out of consciousness by fear and anxiety about it.

So it is never allowed,

It's never admitted into consciousness.

So it never really is let go of.

It's never really allowed to cease.

You develop a habit of repression,

And repression,

It means that your repression conditions,

It's opposite of having to,

It will arise again.

This is the interesting thing.

As long as you're alive and you're not letting things go,

Then things that you're trying to get rid of will always come back on you.

Annihilation brings back birth.

So whatever you're trying to kill off will come back.

That's why suicide is a total waste of effort,

Because you have to come back again,

Have to go through it all again.

That's why,

In wisdom,

We bear with this mortal coil until it dies naturally,

Allowing it to die a natural death,

Whatever way it goes,

As long as we aren't out of aversion and hatred of it,

Making it,

Annihilating it.

We'll apply that mentally,

To mental conditions.

As long as you're busy annihilating things,

It's suicide,

Isn't it?

You're actually killing things,

But they keep coming back.

They'll keep bothering you,

They'll keep pestering you,

Keep torturing you.

Whatever you suppress out of ignorance,

Aversion,

They'll keep torturing you,

Until you allow it into consciousness,

Which means you're letting it be as it is,

Bearing with it,

And allowing it to go away.

So then it reaches its cessation,

Its karmic force is expended,

It ceases.

What arises,

Conditions arise out of the unconditioned and cease in the unconditioned.

And the karmic force has ended because you've not acted out of greed or aversion to it.

So it's when we live more in this consciousness,

When we use consciousness for allowing things to cease,

That our karmic problems start fading away.

We begin to experience cessation,

And in cessation there's peacefulness.

You keep practicing like this,

You begin to really have a very peaceful mind.

The mind naturally is peaceful,

It's in its natural state.

As an unconditioned,

It is truly peaceful still.

That's where intelligence is,

Where things manifest in a human being when there's no self,

When there's no ignorance.

Then what manifests through these human bodies is metta,

Kindness,

Karuna,

Compassion,

Mudita,

Joyousness,

And upeka,

Serenity.

These aren't personal anymore,

Are they?

These qualities are what we call the divine qualities.

The earth qualities are the body,

Isn't it?

The earth condition is the body.

So that has its karmic force,

And when it's time for this body to die,

It dies.

While this body exists,

When there's no self,

When there's no ignorance,

No attachment,

Then the divine manifests through these earth conditions,

The bodies of human beings.

So we say divinity,

Or that which is divine or celestial,

Which is truly beautiful,

Can manifest through the human form.

Of course,

There are human beings who do this,

The selfless human beings,

The enlightened beings,

Who are that very kind of condition which manifests the divine onto this planet.

And that's why it's a blessing.

Human beings can be great blessings to this planet,

To all sentient beings.

Or we can be nuisances.

I think we tend to be more like that these days,

Causing endless problems.

Curses,

Some of us.

Absolute curses.

But this is not the way it has to be.

As humanity awakens and fulfills itself,

Then humanity will be a great blessing.

Because it's through these kind of earthbound limited bodies and minds that divinity can manifest,

Can appear onto this earth and bless all beings.

Now really contemplate this.

When there is no self,

When there is just clarity and purity,

Brightness,

There is also one realizing what real intelligence is,

And wisdom.

And then what is natural to that state is these divine abodes,

The Brahma-Viharas.

So the heavens and the earth,

And say it's the marriage of heaven and earth,

Poetically speaking,

Where the human being is that which brings the heavens and the earth together,

Or the child,

Say,

That which is born with the marriage of the heavenly father and the earth mother,

If you want to use those symbols.

These are religious symbols,

Aren't they,

Dating way back,

Who knows when.

Because these symbols are the tools that we can use to remind ourselves.

Symbols,

That's what they're for,

They're to be contemplated,

Not to be grasped.

Like this Buddha image,

It's to be contemplated,

It's not.

Superstition,

You think it has magical powers,

Maybe,

You're prone to superstition,

You think that Buddha Rupa has magical powers.

Or you're the kind that says,

I think all those images are just terrible,

Worshipping idols,

Bowing down to idols,

We should just throw them all away.

Or,

What is that really,

What is it?

Contemplate it.

Why do they have such a form as a Buddha image?

When we go into cathedrals or churches,

Rather than going in with a bias now,

They say,

I'm not a Christian and I don't like it.

Or,

Trying to look at it,

Trying to get too analytical or intellectual about it,

Just observe it.

How to use a Christian church to remind yourself.

In Europe,

There is a Christian background,

And Christianity has existed for so long here,

That there's all these Christian symbols around.

So we can just think,

Won't pay any attention to Christian symbols,

Don't believe in Christianity,

And just reject it.

Or to think that if we start contemplating Christian symbols,

That we'll become Christians and have to give up Buddhism.

Or to contemplate,

How can we use these churches and symbols for reminding ourselves to be awake,

To be unselfish,

To be alert to the way things are.

This is a way to skillfully use the existing conditions that we do have in the cities and towns and villages that we live in.

My reflection,

For example,

On churches in England.

There's something very satisfying,

Very pleasing,

When you're driving along the English countryside and you see a church.

Somehow the old churches in the villages,

Their presence there,

Is something that I find very pleasing,

Something very kind of reassuring.

It's a beautiful form,

Isn't it?

The old European church is a form that kind of fits into nature.

It's one of the more beautiful kind of creations of human beings.

Because most of the churches,

They were built for,

Out of that sense of devotion.

They weren't just kind of egotistical creations.

Also their form,

The sense of a steeple in that,

Something that's pointing upward.

Where you notice so much of modern architecture is very squared off,

Kind of big blocks,

Blocks on top of blocks.

And in London,

Where you see some of the modern buildings are merely building blocks,

Blocks on top of blocks,

Squares on square.

Everything's kind of squared off,

Earthbound.

So they don't inspire the mind.

When you see the modern buildings,

Banks and insurance buildings and so forth,

They might be very impressive in their kind of solidity.

They give that feeling of being very solid.

But they don't inspire the mind.

There's nothing in them,

Usually that,

For the most part,

To me anyway,

That brings any kind of inspiration,

The sense of looking upward.

When we lived in Oxford,

We used to go on alms round in the colleges.

Sometimes we'd walk down to Christchurch College,

Down by the river,

And we'd look up at the skyline of Oxford.

In that old part of Oxford,

It doesn't have any high-rise buildings in it.

So all you see is a skyline from the river of church steeples.

And actually it looked,

Looks like a celestial city.

You can see the kind of vision that probably created such a place of building a celestial city.

It has that kind of feeling about it.

Look at all the kind of church steeples on the horizon.

The same in Thailand.

If you've ever been to Thailand or lived in Thailand,

The Buddhist temple,

The Wat and all that,

There's something when you're traveling in Thailand to see the Wat,

The monastery,

The temple.

It's something reassuring,

Something that is a beautiful thing that humans have created,

Rather than an ugly thing.

Because this is what people's aspiration was,

Their religious energy.

One time I was invited to a place called Dartington Hall in Devon,

A famous kind of New Age school,

Quite famous in Britain.

And while I was there,

They had an American architect who had created out of his mind the kind of futuristic city.

And he had a model of it,

Very nicely made model of this idyllic city for the future.

Very great kind of aesthetic values were very important.

Everything was done to a very high standard of beauty,

Refinement in form.

But I looked over this model and I thought,

It's quite lovely,

Yes.

But I said,

I said,

What is at the center of this city?

And he said,

The coffee shop.

And I asked,

Where is the church?

And he said,

Oh,

Well,

Then he pointed off beyond the model,

It's somewhere over there.

So that the temple of the church was not the center,

But it's something that you didn't even bother with.

It was outside the model.

Then all around the coffee shop were the other businesses.

Well,

That's significant,

Isn't it?

That to people,

Like on that level,

Creating the perfect city,

It's an ideal,

Isn't it?

This kind of idea for an architect,

Maybe creating this perfect image of a city where you can actually build a model and try and get it to the kind of proportion where everything is,

Is just as,

You know,

According to your aesthetic taste,

Everything is right.

But yet,

Say in Europe,

You notice the really beautiful towns and cities are all that the centers are the churches,

Aren't they?

In the old,

Old cities anyway,

Old towns.

So that the center of the place that is the center,

The center symbol,

Central symbol is something that's pointing upward to the heavens from the earth.

It's solidly like placed onto the earth,

Its foundation is on the earth,

But then it points up towards the heavens.

It doesn't just bind us to the earth.

Religion isn't that which holds us down onto the earth and rubs our noses into the mud,

But it's what is inspiring us to aspire to,

To move upward,

To rise upward rather than just sink down into,

Into the muck.

And this is,

This we need to really contemplate in our own life,

That our life needs this,

This inspiration,

This,

This movement upwards to rise up in life,

To hold ourselves up,

To move upward rather than to just sink downward.

The body eventually will sink downward.

You know,

As you get older,

Your body tends to sink downward because the bodies and they get old,

They're,

They're moving back into the planet again.

They're,

They're,

That's their karmic,

That's their karma to be born out,

Kind of independent for a while.

With the bodies,

These,

These earthbound bodies,

They have a sense of rising above the planet a bit.

I mean,

You can actually walk and you can move,

Not stuck into the ground like a tree.

So this human form has a sense of having,

Having freed itself from just being stuck in one place on the planet.

But eventually it'll be taken back to the planet again,

Will absorb back into,

Into the earth.

But during this transition that we're involved in of this human lifespan,

We,

Because of the pressure of the body and the tendency to the,

The force of gravity on the planet,

This,

We have to put more effort to rise up to.

How did humans evolve anyway?

How did we get to kind of walking on two legs and,

And why are our aspirations always towards getting outside,

Getting beyond the planet itself?

There's,

There's kind of madness that,

You know,

Trying to send rocket ships in outer space.

There's another one,

Isn't it?

Trying to get the body even farther away from the planet.

But in reflection,

We see that the body actually,

It doesn't need to,

We don't need to,

To make the body move off into outer space because mentally we can do that.

Mentally we can aspire.

But we need to have the balance between the heavens and the earth,

Not prefer one over the other or grasp one and reject the other.

So that in mindfulness,

Wisdom,

We find the harmony,

The harmony,

The peace of mind,

The true peace and stillness comes from the proper relationship between these two,

The heavens and the earth.

So in this way,

We can contemplate that the body,

The instinctual nature,

The planetary experience that we're involved in,

The emotions,

Which if when they're undeveloped,

When they're caught up in selfish,

Selfishness,

Then they become just things that carry us all over the place.

But when matured,

When the emotional nature is balanced and mature,

Then it expresses itself always as compassion and love,

Joy,

Serenity,

And then that supreme intelligence of knowing,

Wisdom,

So that the heavens and the earth are no longer at war with each other.

In the human mind,

We can be at war,

Can't we,

All the time between these two,

Constant struggle and resistance,

Either falling down to the earth and groveling in it or trying to get away from it and resisting it,

Trying to get up to the heavens.

These two kind of extremes of what kind of emotional imbalance is about,

Isn't it?

Either you're sinking down,

Groveling,

Wallowing in the mire,

Or you're desperately trying to get out of it and trying to get away from it,

Rising up to something out of aversion to the other.

But note,

In meditation,

It's all taken into account.

We're not taking sides,

We're not condemning the earth,

Trying to get away from it by living in the heavenly realms,

But learning to find the perfect harmony between these two,

This body and its earthbound condition,

And the emotions and the intellect.

So the things that we experience on the visual plane,

The here,

And all sense of experience,

Then we start contemplating in this way.

We begin to see it as dhamma,

As truth,

Rather than seeing it as personal,

Seeing it as making something out of it,

Exaggerating it,

Or just refusing to accept it.

In Pali they have a word,

A very significant word,

Called papanca.

Now papanca means conceptual proliferation.

In English we say this proliferating tendency of the mind.

For example,

When we contemplate,

This is the way it is.

Say this,

For example,

Just say this clock.

Let's say in its suchness,

As it is,

It's just this way.

You don't even have to think of it as a clock,

Really.

You don't have to even think clock,

It's just this way right now.

When you just mindful of it.

But then the papanca starts,

And this is my clock,

And I like this clock,

And I don't want anyone,

Or I start being critical of it.

I don't like this clock.

It's not the kind of clock I want.

I want another kind of clock.

That's conceptual proliferation.

So the reaction,

Isn't it,

The habitual reaction of attraction or aversion,

And just the spewing forth,

This proliferating tendency to see this,

And then to proliferate on it.

You can see it with pushing people's buttons,

They call it these days.

You push a button,

And they go off.

You say,

Nuclear bomb,

And then they go,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

You say,

Mrs.

Thatcher,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Proliferation,

It's almost like conditioned response.

Ronald Reagan,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

That's conceptual proliferation.

Some people,

You can just,

You can push a button,

And you whine over it,

And they'll go,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

And then you go on to something else.

Then you push the same button,

And they'll say,

And the response will be the same.

And it's conditioned,

Isn't it?

It can be just that kind of,

Just programmed to,

When this particular thing is pushed in us,

Then this response is given out.

I remember one amusing,

When I was a,

Had a few,

Only a few years among somebody came,

This was during the Watergate scandals in America.

American came,

And I said,

Whenever I said the word Nixon,

He would give this incredible tirade.

So I thought,

Well,

First I said Nixon,

Then the conceptual proliferation went on for a while,

Went on to something else,

And then I thought,

Well,

Let's see what happens.

I said Nixon again,

And the same tirade.

Tried it a little later,

Nixon.

Contemplate yourself,

Like,

Like,

Like when you're,

When you're really empty,

There's just this way,

It's just this way,

There's,

There's no Sumedho Bhikkhu or,

Or anything,

It's just this way.

Contemplate like this.

Right now,

This,

This being here,

It's this way.

Now,

In this statement,

It's just this way.

There's no,

It's merely a,

A reflecting,

Ability to reflect.

There's not a,

It's not papanche,

It's merely a skillful means to,

To be alert.

The,

The name Sumedho,

Ajahn Sumedho or something comes up only when,

When something stimulates that,

That,

That kind of thought,

Isn't it?

I don't sit here thinking Ajahn Sumedho,

Ajahn Sumedho,

Or a Buddhist monk,

Or things like I'm a man,

Or an American,

Or whatever.

These things,

These things don't,

They come according to,

To,

To other conditions.

But right now,

They,

If the mind's empty,

It's just this way.

There's no person,

Personality,

There's no man,

There's no monk.

In,

In a sense of,

In the mind,

It's just emptiness,

If things are just as they are.

That doesn't mean that,

That one isn't seeing or one is not aware.

It means that one isn't creating anything onto this moment as it is.

It's just this way.

So you,

In contemplating like this,

You begin to feel this sense of emptiness with the moment as it is.

And you don't feel that you have to make anything out of it.

You're not,

You don't have to create anything onto the moment.

It's,

It's complete in itself.

But before one ever realized this,

One was always creating things,

Like you'd be thinking about yourself,

Or wondering about someone else,

Or fiddling with something,

Or there's always this thing,

A kind of papanca,

This proliferating tendency to be doing things,

Or thinking about,

Or worrying about,

Or,

Or creating some kind of complexity onto the moment.

Believing in yourself all the time has been a kind of permanent personality,

A permanent man,

Or a permanent woman,

Or a permanent monk.

Like if,

If you're attached to being a monk,

Then you're kind of permanently a monk.

So that you feel,

You're attached to that perception that you're permanently a monk.

But you're never permanently anything.

Being a monk is a relative thing.

The idea of being a monk is something that comes up according to conditions.

It's not a kind of,

It's not the natural state of affairs.

It's not the way it is.

But it's the way it is only when the conditions for it are there.

So even though the body is in a,

In a monastic looking apparel,

What I'm pointing to is the mind.

Even the mind is,

Is empty.

And so even the,

The monastic robes are just this way.

They're just this way.

And this way,

Just this way is,

Is merely a recognition,

But not a,

Not a statement of quality or a personal attachment.

Now in reflecting like this,

You,

You know,

We perceive,

We say,

Say a clock,

We perceive this,

We all know,

Perceive this as a clock.

I hope.

I think we do.

So we all agree to call this a clock.

But actually it's just this way.

In suchness,

It's,

It's,

We give it a name,

We call it something.

And it,

And it,

And it was made to be,

To have a function.

But in,

In its suchness as it is,

It's just,

It's just this way.

And so in the empty mind,

Things are just what they are.

They're just the way they are.

They have no name.

They have no,

They're,

They're,

There's,

We,

We needn't give them any quality or create anything about them.

So that there's this,

This peacefulness in the sense that one is accepting things as they are without feeling compelled to,

To accept or reject or name,

Give it a name or,

Or anything else.

It's just this way.

Now that's a peaceful state to be in.

But then we get attached to,

To the ideas that we place on them.

So that the mind,

We see a clock and it stimulates,

This is my clock.

This is a quartz clock.

It doesn't tick.

It's silent.

It keeps good time.

It has a tiny little battery.

It's very light.

You can put it in your bag and it's not very heavy and convenient.

It's cheap though.

It's a throwaway clock.

It's not worth,

If it breaks down,

You might as well just throw it away because not like a Swiss clock made in Switzerland by Swiss clockmakers that have great value,

Treasures of the world.

This is a cheap plastic clock made in probably Japan.

I don't have my glass on so I can't see.

Throw away.

That's proliferation,

Isn't it?

Plastic.

Plastic is another button in people's minds.

Plastic.

The new age mind considers plastic terrible.

Plastic clocks.

Or maybe plastic is something you really like.

You say,

This is really like plastic.

But actually,

This is just what it is.

We needn't give it,

We needn't even call it plastic or think anything about it.

It's just this way.

In its suchness,

It's as it is.

Then we say it's plastic.

It's a clock.

We go,

It's a cheap clock.

Or we might look at it in a positive way.

If we're looking at it critically,

It's a cheap clock.

But if we look at it in a positive way,

It's a very light clock and it keeps good time and it's not expensive.

So you don't worry about if somebody takes it or it breaks down.

You don't feel tremendous sorrow.

Or if it were a really valuable clock that had something with jewels in it and all that,

Then you'd have to really be careful.

Because the expensive buttons have been pressed in your mind.

This is something really worth something.

There's an amusing story about the Sangha Raja of Thailand.

And he likes to tell his story about himself,

The Supreme Patriarch of Thailand.

And he was invited to China several years ago.

And so a kind of official visit to China,

To Peking,

And of course they gave him nice presents and whatnot.

They gave him a beautiful teacup,

A Ming,

A very valuable,

Very beautiful,

Old kind of porcelain teacup.

And so the Sangha Raja said,

When they gave that to him,

Then he became very concerned about this teacup.

And all the way back to Thailand,

When they boarded the airplane,

He said,

Now put the teacup in the safe place.

You're sure it's not going to break?

All the way back to Thailand,

When he went back to his monastery,

He said,

Where's that teacup?

Did you put it in a safe place?

And so it became a burden for him,

This beautiful teacup.

Because whenever the thought,

The perception of that teacup came,

He said,

It's very valuable,

It's very beautiful.

I've got to protect it.

I've got to see that it doesn't break.

And then one day,

A Samanera novice,

Young novice,

Clumsy oaf,

Broke it.

So the novice was frightened,

He thought,

Oh,

The Sangha Raja is going to really,

Really be upset.

So he went and he said,

He said,

Sir,

He said,

The teacup is broken,

And the Sangha Raja said,

Oh,

Thank goodness.

I don't have to worry about that anymore.

That's proliferation,

Isn't it?

The values we place on things.

Now,

Conceptual proliferation isn't bad.

I'm not condemning that,

But to know it,

Because to give qualities and names can be a very skillful thing to do.

And to take care of things is to be mindful.

This can be a skillful,

Mindful experience or a mere obsession,

Kind of blind obsession,

Grasping at this and fearing and possessing.

But in our contemplation now,

Dhamma,

We're looking at the mind,

The kind of conditions and the predicament that we have as being a human being.

We're not condemning anything or saying that we shouldn't proliferate or we shouldn't care about a beautiful old porcelain teacup.

We shouldn't,

We shouldn't,

It shouldn't make any difference.

I'm not saying that.

But we can use this human situation and its absurdities for reflection.

We learn from it.

And pointing out in this way,

Let's say,

This is the way it is.

This is just what it is.

It's just this way.

And then,

Say,

As we abide in that state of emptiness,

We're still looking,

We can still see it.

We have a name for it if we need one.

But it's beginning to see it without this need to make anything of it,

To compulsively go on about it.

So when we do that,

Even with our thoughts and names and loved ones and all that,

We begin to have space around the things that we love and like too.

They're no longer going to harm us or be great burdens to us if we can see them in their suchness.

Then the beautiful things and the love we have for others and all that is in a perspective.

It's not an end in itself.

It's not something that we proliferate endlessly about and worry about and create a problem about.

So you're freeing yourself from suffering by seeing things as they really are,

Which means that you're still with them,

But you're not suffering from them.

You know,

It's like when you're young and you fall in love for the first time.

You fall in love with somebody else and you're naive and you don't know what to do,

So you do it all wrong.

You have this feeling,

Say,

For the first time that you want to give yourself to somebody else,

A kind of pure feeling of total unselfishness at first,

Say,

That really wonderful thing we call love is experienced in a moment,

Maybe,

Of wanting to become one,

Totally give ourselves to someone else unselfishly.

But then because of a lack of wisdom and all that,

We tend to start,

Because we like that,

That's such a beautiful feeling,

A beautiful experience,

Then we start grasping at it.

You think,

Now if I own that person,

If I can own that person,

Then I can feel that way all the time.

So then we become possessive and jealous and we create and we mess it all up,

Don't we?

What was at one moment a very pure,

Unselfish experience becomes a very selfish,

Demanding,

Grasping,

Horrible disappointment.

So in that,

One reason why love is rated so high is because it actually,

In,

One does,

Say,

For a moment,

Actually have,

Feel totally unselfish in giving.

And that's a very beautiful,

Blissful state to be in.

But out of ignorance,

Because we're not wise,

Then we remember that we think,

By owning the other person,

With all kinds of controls,

That we're going to be able to have that all the time,

Isn't it?

So out of ignorance,

Out of not understanding things as we are,

As they are,

We create a problem about it.

And so that problem makes it into a burdensome thing,

Into a horrible,

Disappointing,

Heartbreaking experience.

But that's how we have to live.

We always seem to,

I mean,

When I hear the pop songs,

They're all about broken hearts and lost lovers and great anguish and sorrow and disappointment and having lost or been separated from the loved one.

Because this love,

What,

Is a unitive experience,

Isn't it?

There's no self in it.

But then,

Without wisdom,

It becomes possessiveness.

It's like when we see something,

Some beautiful object,

Say,

Just a material object.

That sense of the true kind of experience of enjoying its beauty is from a pure place.

Suddenly something in us is fully with that beauty.

But then,

Out of ignorance,

We want to possess it.

I want it.

So then it's covetousness.

We create a proliferation,

A conceptual proliferation.

So then we start trying to,

We are stealing or trying to get it in some way,

Thinking that by owning it,

By actually holding on to it,

That we're going to enjoy its beauty.

But if you notice,

When you own things,

When that sense of ownership comes into something,

One doesn't tend to enjoy it anymore.

It becomes a burden.

Because that true enjoyment can only come from an empty mind,

When there's no demand,

When things are as they are,

And the sense of me and mine has not risen yet in regard to it,

The conceptual proliferation.

So note this in your own experience,

Because you can be aware of this.

This is bringing into your consciousness now the way things are,

And then you can be aware.

You have something to work from.

You begin to know the habit tendencies that you create onto anything,

Onto yourself,

Onto someone else,

Onto the world,

So that you have a clear understanding of this is the way it is,

And then the papancha,

That which we create,

That which we're out of ignorance.

Papancha is the stuff we create out of ignorance.

Reviews

A lighthearted and enlightening talk. „It’s just this way. 🙏

Love this one! 💕

A wonderful talk that makes it so clear

This helps me to cope with life and the noise in my own head with his wonderful words, thoughts and sense of humour. Thank you so very much. I listen to this several times a week and it grounds me.

Thank you for this insightful talk

Insightful talk into self view, what rouses and releases karma, with humor and wisdom.

Great talk, thank you 🙏

I love this man... he has so much wisdom and makes me feel so grounded