The Superpower of Patience | Ajahn Brahmali

The Buddha described patience as the highest spiritual quality. But why should we be patient? It is in the context of the Buddha’s profound teachings on non-self that the true power of patience can be understood. Drawing on the teachings of the Buddha as well as his own extensive meditation experience, Ajahn Brahmali explained how we can harness the power of patience to propel us on the Path.

Transcript

Anyway,

So welcome everyone.

We're going to talk a little bit about,

I think,

What is the title,

Superpower of patience?

It's interesting,

In the suttas they have this word,

It's actually called the Kanti Bala.

Bala in Pali means like a power.

So Kanti is the word for patience or forbearance or something like that in the word of the Buddha.

So it actually means the power of patience.

So it is considered a kind of power,

Which is interesting.

So maybe we'll try to uncover why it is a power and how we can cultivate it during this talk.

That's the theory.

When I start,

When actually the talk happens,

We're not sure what's going to happen,

It's very uncertain.

So you have to be very patient.

Can you do that?

You can?

Okay,

Well that means there's nothing to say.

I've already sorted now.

So,

Just messing around because I'm a disciple of Ajahn Brahm,

He always messes around,

So I'm trying to kind of follow up on his way of doing things.

But I want to start with just considering the modern society a little bit,

Because we seem to live a time when there's very little patience around.

Everything is kind of as instantaneous gratification as we can.

So much entertainment and things available on the internet and it seems like we are kind of becoming very short-tempered almost because of these things as well.

The internet creates all sorts of problems for us and all sorts of arguments and people doing all kinds of crazy things.

We're becoming maybe slightly less civilised.

Is that true?

We're becoming less civilised?

Maybe,

Yeah,

Maybe not,

I'm not entirely sure.

But sometimes it feels that way,

Especially if you are active on the internet and people say all kinds of bad things and there's a lack of patience I think sometimes,

A lack of forbearance,

A lack of standing back,

A lack of mindfulness,

A lack of clarity about what we're doing.

I think that is kind of one of the scourges of our modern life with the internet and all these kinds of things.

So I think it's time to kind of take stock and maybe do things differently,

Especially if you're interested in spiritual practice or Buddhism.

It's kind of a good chance to see if we can look at things in a different way and maybe we can become part of the solution rather than being part of the problem.

That's usually kind of useful to be part of the solution rather than part of the actual problem that we're having.

It's kind of interesting,

I think it has always been in our kind of humanity,

We always want to have our satisfaction more quickly.

We always want to,

This idea of instantaneous gratification,

It's almost like in our genes,

The quicker we can get things,

The quicker we can achieve things,

The more,

The better we think things are.

So much of our life is about making sure we have enough money so when you're hungry,

Your fridge is properly stocked and you can have something to eat straight away and you have your internet,

You can get whatever entertainment you want and you want these things as quickly as possible.

This is kind of a craving once,

You want kind of now,

Now I want the satisfaction for that craving.

If you kind of take that to its final obvious conclusion,

The obvious conclusion is having instantaneous gratification,

Gratification straight away,

That's kind of the ideal,

This is what this lack of patience really is kind of leading towards.

But if all your desires were instantaneously gratified,

Would you be happy?

Think about it,

Imagine every desire you have,

As soon as you have the desire,

Bang,

That's it,

You're satisfied straight away.

What kind of life would that be?

Would that be a happy life or would it be a life completely without meaning and purpose?

I think it would actually be the most depressing kind of existence you probably could have,

If everything is satisfied straight away.

I think a large part of the reason for that is because so much of our life is actually in the pursuit of these things.

The purpose of life actually exists in trying to get hold of the things that are important to us,

Getting a nice house,

Getting a nice partner in life or whatever it might be,

That is kind of what life is often about.

So if everything is satisfied straight away,

You would probably lie down and just die.

Is that right?

What do you think,

Would I?

Maybe,

It's kind of hard to know.

So that to me,

I think actually would happen,

Life would become really,

Really utterly unbearable if everything was satisfied straight away.

Especially when we talk about the five sense realm,

Very often the fun is in the pursuit,

Very often when you have had that meal,

Or you have enjoyed that entertainment,

You're kind of satisfied,

After a big meal of satisfaction,

You feel kind of empty,

It's not really all that satisfying.

A lot of the satisfaction is the getting to the meal,

It's like tasting it and craving as you are eating.

Have you noticed very often when you eat a meal,

It's like you're eating one spoon and you're all looking at the plate,

Looking for the next one.

It's like you're never really satisfied,

Right?

You're kind of always moving forward to something else,

The satisfaction is never there.

So the actual achievement of the thing is not very important for us at all,

The achievement is often quite empty,

It is the pursuit of the goal that often is the meaning of life,

Especially in this five sense realm that we have,

Which is really a bit different from the spiritual realm.

And so the idea of life,

This idea of always kind of having instant gratification is actually a real problem.

And what that means is that when we actually pursue all of these things,

It is actually the craving is part of the fun,

The craving is part of the purpose.

In fact,

If you start to look at what you identify as a person,

We identify a lot with the doing,

With the craving,

With actually moving towards the goal,

It's a very,

Very important part of what we take ourselves to be.

And this,

When we talk about the five khandhas,

For example,

The five aspects of a person,

If you can call it that,

One of the most important parts of that is the sankhara khandha,

The idea of the will,

Basically,

Is what that is all about.

We identify with the will and because we identify with the will,

We want to do the things that get us to the results.

And so what all of this means in terms of patience,

It means that we should never really be too concerned about getting things too quickly,

Because that's not the meaning anyway.

It's much better to be patient,

Wait for things,

To allow things to come,

And put in the effort that actually gets us there,

And then we will have some kind of sense of meaning in life,

Because the effort,

The work,

Is actually the fun very often,

That is actually the purpose and the point of all this.

But that is in the five sense realm,

And as a spiritual practitioner,

We really want to go beyond the five sense realm.

This is kind of part,

And the reason we want to do that,

Is because the five sense realm is very often really not that satisfactory in any way.

I'm just talking now about the idea of when you finally get your full,

And you finally are happy in the five senses,

Actually it feels kind of dull,

It feels a bit depressing.

It is the work,

The getting that is interesting.

Actually,

The joy and the happiness that comes from the five senses,

Often is very limited.

And the Buddha has this beautiful simile of the dream.

Have you heard about the simile of the dream before?

One person,

You have not heard of the simile of the dream?

OK,

Good,

I'm glad.

At least one person I can talk to,

So that's really nice.

So very often we have this idea,

Especially in Hinduism,

We have the idea that the whole world is not really real.

The whole world is kind of like a superficial appearance of things,

But the reality behind the appearance is actually something else.

It is often compared to a dream,

That's kind of the Hindu idea.

In Buddhism it's not quite like that,

But in Buddhism it's the five sense world that we consider a bit like a dream.

It's actually a very interesting idea.

This is the idea that when you have your kind of a vision about where you want to be,

Where you want to go in the world,

The reality never really lives up to the dream or to the vision that we want to get.

This is a very interesting point,

I think it's very important.

I just remember when I was young,

I was at university,

I was dreaming about what kind of job I was going to have and all these kind of things.

I never dreamt of it being a monk,

And now I'm a monk,

I never even thought about that.

But you have these dreams about this job,

This kind of girlfriend,

This kind of relationship,

Everything is kind of set out,

This kind of really glossy kind of idea of the world.

Of course the reality turns out to be very different.

This is very different from what I was dreaming.

Very,

Very different.

Not the ordinary glossy kind of world at all.

This is always true of our reality,

When you get that house of your dreams,

Actually the house is not as good as you thought it was.

It starts to fall apart as soon as you get it.

There's always things going wrong with it,

And then a burglar comes and burgles it.

The dream of your dream house,

You never think about the burglar,

Right?

Never,

I guarantee you.

The burglar is completely out of your mind.

The reality is always far worse.

When you get into your perfect relationship,

Actually,

Maybe it isn't as perfect as you thought it was.

Sometimes the relationship is downright disappointing,

Because the people don't really live up to the standards of our minds.

So there's a really big problem in the way we think about the world.

It's not what we think it is.

What we think it is,

Is a made-up dream,

And the reality is very,

Very different.

This is kind of the Buddhist idea of the dream.

My teacher Ajahn Ram,

He had this very nice idea about how to break through that delusion,

The delusion of things and how things are not as real as they are.

He said that you should always ask the question,

And then what?

That's a really good question.

I don't know if you have seen,

When you see a western movie,

At the end of the movie,

The hero rides off into the sunset,

And he's got the cowboy,

Has the cowgirl,

And they ride off,

And they're happy ever after.

That's kind of the idea you get.

Ajahn Ram said,

As soon as they ride off into the sunset,

You should ask yourself,

What happens after they ride off into the sunset?

They go back home,

They have to wash the dishes,

Vacuum,

Actually maybe not vacuum,

Because this is a cowboy movie,

But whatever they did in those days,

Sweep the floor or whatever.

And then maybe they have a little bit of argument,

And that is the reality of things.

So always ask yourself,

When you have a dream about the future,

The dream house,

The dream relationship,

Always ask yourself the very important question,

And then what?

What happens after that?

Because the dream always stops at the point where you acquire the thing of your dreams.

It never really goes beyond that.

And then what idea breaks the spell of the dream?

And suddenly you can see that reality in a very different way.

And what that does,

It actually makes the sensory world slightly less interesting,

And what that does,

It drives you on to the spiritual path,

It makes the spiritual life far more interesting as a consequence.

So first of all,

We then realize that instant gratification is no good,

So we go towards a more patient life,

And then the next step is to understand that even the patient life is not all that great if it is in the five sense realm.

We need to bring patience into the spiritual realm,

The real patience that really matters is the patience of the spiritual life,

That is what is really important,

And that is what we want to talk about today and any other time I suppose.

So what does it mean,

The patience in the spiritual realm,

In the spiritual path?

One of those very beautiful little sayings that you find in the Dhammapada,

Do you all know about the Dhammapada?

Anyone does not know about the Dhammapada?

You know about the Dhammapada?

Don't know about it.

You know about the Dhammapada?

Don't know about it.

Okay,

Good,

Don't know about it?

Okay,

Excellent.

So Dhammapada is one of the very favorite Buddhist books,

It is kind of a book full of verse,

400 and something verses in this book,

And it's the kind of book you have on your night side table,

When you go to bed at night,

Instead of checking your phone,

Which many people do,

You check out the Dhammapada instead.

You find a beautiful verse,

And sometimes it's amazing,

If you have something very inspiring before you go to sleep,

You sleep much better,

Because you feel a bit uplifted,

You feel a bit better about yourself,

And that kind of helps,

And if you have a good night's sleep,

Wake up in the morning,

Feel more energized,

All these kind of things,

It's a very useful thing to do.

So that is what I recommend,

And I was saying the other day that if you are going to have a mobile phone on your night time,

On your kind of night,

What is it called,

Bedside table,

Make sure the only thing you use it for is to read verses in the Dhammapada.

So you have it connected to the internet,

You go to the website,

And you read those verses,

That's what a mobile phone really should be for.

Everything else,

Check it out.

I'm being naughty here,

But anyway.

So,

Beautiful book,

And I really recommend people to read this,

Because it's very inspiring,

Very uplifting,

Sometimes the word of the Buddha can be a bit dry,

The prose can be a bit boring perhaps,

Or dry,

Or technical,

And it may not lift you up in the same way,

But verses have a different effect,

And can be very very powerful,

Just like verse in any language really,

I suppose.

So one of these verses in the Dhammapada,

The first line,

It says,

Kanti padamang tapo titika,

And that means,

And you're just going to have to take my word for it,

Unless you know Pali,

Kanti is patience,

Padamang means the highest,

And tapo is asceticism,

And titika is something similar to that.

So kanti is the highest kind of asceticism,

It's what this is saying here.

It's a beautiful saying,

And of course asceticism,

Tapo in this context,

Is really a shorthand for the spiritual life.

The idea of living the spiritual life well.

So kanti,

Patience,

Is the highest part of this.

That's kind of very interesting.

Why is it that patience is the highest ascetic quality,

Or quality of forbearance?

How can that be?

I think in many ways,

When people actually do ascetic practices,

And India was very famous for all the ascetic practices,

And the Jains,

Who do all kinds of crazy things,

Like standing on one leg for a year,

And sitting on a super hot rock,

And burning themselves,

And doing all kinds of mad stuff,

That was extremely painful,

And of course that kind of asceticism works the best when you are patient.

If you're not patient,

It's going to be unbearable.

So from the point of view of asceticism,

Patience is actually what you are aiming for.

In that sense,

It is kind of the highest kind of ascetic practice,

If you like,

Tapo,

Titika.

That is one way of thinking about the idea of kanti,

And why it is the highest asceticism.

It is also,

In another way,

If you're going to be an ascetic in Buddhism,

Buddhism doesn't really believe in this idea of burning up your kamma,

Or practicing very severe tormenting of the body,

That is not really part of the Buddhist path.

So in the Buddhist path,

Kanti,

Which is a kind of,

Can be painful,

Patience can be painful,

Just like ascetic practice can be painful,

It is much better to just have patience,

Rather than all of these painful practices.

So in that sense,

It is also kind of the highest thing.

But to me,

Maybe the most important part of the idea of why patience is so powerful,

Is that tapo,

Or asceticism,

The way it is used in India,

Was used to burn up qualities that you wanted to get rid of,

So as to move forward on the spiritual path.

And the Jain idea,

Of the Jain ascetics,

Was the idea of burning up your bad kamma,

The bad karma,

Because when you burn up your bad karma,

Eventually you eliminate all of that,

And then that's how you gain liberation.

But in Buddhism,

That is not the way the Buddha taught.

We don't burn up our bad karma,

In fact we do the opposite,

We create good karma,

And when you create good karma by living well and doing all the right things,

Your bad karma gets dissipated and diluted by all the good karma that you are making.

So on the Buddhist path,

We are burning up something else,

Which is interesting,

And what are we burning up?

There is one thing that doesn't like patience,

There is one thing that really hates patience,

That really hates patience,

Kind of counteracts,

And that is the sense of self.

Because the sense of self wants to act in the world,

I said before that the idea of agency is a very important part of who we take ourselves to be,

So the sense of self is kind of counter to the idea of patience.

So by being very patient and by allowing things to be,

You are actually countering the sense of self.

So in a sense,

We are burning up that sense of self by being patient.

So do you want to burn up the sense of self,

Or do you want to strengthen the sense of self?

I don't know how much you know about the Buddhist teachings,

But from a Buddhist point of view,

The sense of self is a real problem.

It's like the ego in life,

I'm sure you know that the ego can be really problematic sometimes,

Leads to conflicts,

Leads to all kinds of problems,

Leads to a sense of conceit,

Or all of these kinds of things.

So when the ego goes down a little bit,

Actually it's a very beautiful thing that happens when that occurs.

Have you ever had that idea of the ego kind of lessening a little bit?

So one example of the ego going down is when you do some meditation.

You do some meditation,

You become a little bit peaceful,

The thinking mind starts to die down.

When the thinking mind dies down,

Actually there is less ego,

Because the thinking is usually produced by the ego.

The ego wants to think,

Because it wants to,

I don't know,

Get angry with someone.

What is it that gets angry?

Well,

It's the sense of self.

What is it that desires things,

To amass things for itself?

That is also in many ways the ego.

So when you calm down the mind,

The ego is less.

And when you calm down the mind,

What does it feel like?

It feels pretty blooming nice,

Right?

When you become really still,

You don't have all this thinking,

This restlessness,

Agitation all the time,

Actually it feels very beautiful and very powerful.

And so when the ego goes down,

If you understand this idea correctly,

It is not really scary,

It's actually a very beautiful and very powerful experience.

And so when you use patience to counteract the sense of self,

Counteract the ego,

Actually doing something that is very beautiful and very powerful and actually leads a long way on the spiritual path.

But you have to kind of see this to be able to really believe it sometimes,

Because people are sometimes afraid of losing their sense of self,

But actually it feels quite nice.

If you lose yourself in the wrong way,

It feels bad,

But if you do it in the right way,

Then it is very useful and very nice.

So make sure you do it in the right way,

Otherwise you're going to have a problem.

So this is a little bit about the idea of patience and why it is spiritually very powerful and very useful,

And how it kind of relates to the idea of non-self,

Or the idea of an ego and all of these kind of things.

So how do we do this in practice?

What can we actually do on the spiritual path to engender this kind of process?

And one of the things I thought I would talk about just a little bit to start out is what happens in the monastery.

I come from Bodhinyana Monastery in Perth.

Have you heard about this monastery?

You have?

OK.

Have you heard about Ajahn Brahm?

Has anyone not heard about Ajahn Brahm?

Everyone heard about Ajahn Brahm?

OK.

Not Ajahn Brahm?

OK.

It's better to ask if anyone has not heard of him,

Because there's actually more people who have heard of him usually.

Ajahn Brahm,

He is my teacher,

Venerable Chanda's teacher,

Venerable Pekka's teacher in Perth.

He's actually British originally.

He comes from London.

You have heard of him?

OK,

Good.

You're just kind of not connecting the dots.

That's fine,

Don't worry.

And he,

It's very interesting how he runs our monastery,

Because that has this idea of patience about the way he does that.

It's very fascinating.

Because Ajahn Brahm never tells anyone off.

He just allows things to kind of flow.

One of two things happen.

Either you can't deal with it,

And it's kind of too difficult,

And you realise you weren't the right person for monastic life,

And you leave the monastery,

Or you start taking responsibility for yourself.

If you have a teacher who always tells you what to do,

And you go this way and that way,

It's almost as if it's difficult to take full responsibility for yourself,

Because you expect the teacher to always tell you what to do.

But with someone like Ajahn Brahm,

You can't do that.

Ajahn Brahm,

You come to Ajahn Brahm,

And you complain about something,

He will just say,

Oh yeah,

Very good,

Very good,

Carry on,

Carry on.

And you go,

What?

This is kind of Ajahn Brahm,

Very good carry on is kind of his mantra,

It's actually quite a nice mantra.

Or anything,

Whatever you say,

He will normally say just very good carry on.

And if you say,

Oh yeah,

This other monk behaved really badly,

Ajahn,

Please say something to this other monk,

He's kind of lost the plot,

Please bring him back into the fold again,

Ajahn Brahm will say,

Oh yeah,

Very good,

Carry on,

And he will never say anything at all to this other monk.

This is Ajahn Brahm for you.

And of course,

There are situations where he would,

Because there are situations where it really is too bad,

And it's kind of over the top,

And of course then he will take that responsibility,

Because he is the leader of the community.

But what happens after a while,

Is that you start to realise you cannot rely on Ajahn Brahm to tell you off every time you do something wrong.

He's not going to correct you.

What you have to do is look after yourself.

You have to take responsibility for yourself.

You are the final decider of what is right and what is wrong.

Of course,

You can ask Ajahn Brahm,

If you really have a deep question about Dhamma,

About the Buddhist teachings,

And you are uncertain about whether your conduct is right or wrong,

You can go and say,

Ajahn,

Please,

Please,

Out of compassion,

Please help me.

And then he will help you,

He will guide you of course.

But he will not guide you unbidden,

Or because someone else is complaining about you.

And after a while,

You start to take responsibility for yourself,

And that is very empowering.

It means that you are responsible for your own life.

No one else is really giving you general guidance,

Not specific guidance,

And you use that general guidance as a way of deciding what you should be doing or not.

And to me,

This is one of the things that actually appealed to me with Buddhism from the very beginning,

Because I looked at all the theistic religions of the world,

And in the theistic religions of the world,

It is always God who has the final responsibility,

And I wasn't happy with that.

I wasn't happy to give responsibility to some being that I didn't know anything about.

I didn't know anything about this God.

Is this God nice,

Or not nice,

Or neutral?

Who is this?

Is it the she,

Or he,

Or it?

What is going on there?

And I was very,

Kind of,

I thought it was scary to put my life into the hands of something I could not understand.

And so I decided the Buddhist way is far better,

Because in the Buddhist way,

You are responsible for yourself,

If things go well for you,

It's because of your self-responsibility,

And if things go bad for you,

Well,

Then you can actually change,

You can make things different.

That to me is very beautiful,

It's very empowering.

You are in charge of your life.

You don't rely on some kind of unknowable external thing that is completely beyond your cognition or whatever.

And so this is the same thing with Ajahn Brahm.

Ajahn Brahm also is not God.

Have you ever considered that before?

Some people think,

Oh,

Ajahn Brahm is like God.

It's scary enough with Venerable Pekka and Vachanda and myself,

But if Ajahn Brahm comes up,

It would be really,

Really scary.

And some of these monks are much more scary than we are,

Right?

We are kind of cute monks and nuns,

But some of these monks are not as cute as we are.

They are kind of,

Wow,

Very powerful,

And they might read your mind,

These kind of things,

That's kind of really,

Really scary.

So,

I think monastics should be a bit cuddly,

Right?

I'm not suggesting anything,

Please don't cuddle,

I'm just saying we should kind of,

Cuddling from a distance,

Cuddling from a distance,

That's what I'm saying.

So,

Even though some people maybe think of Ajahn Brahm as kind of,

Wow,

Ajahn Brahm is like,

He's going to read my mind,

He's almost like God,

Or he can tell me exactly what to do,

Because a good teacher does not usually give individual guidance like that,

They give general guidance.

Then it's up to you to decide what is right,

How you should be living your life.

And that means,

Again,

It comes back to this idea,

Ajahn Brahm has to be very patient,

Right?

Patience is the way he runs his monastery.

He allows people to do,

And if there is a problem,

He just goes with the flow.

Very,

Very patient with how he deals with things.

Never really interfering,

Always allowing nature to take its course.

And this is one of those critical things,

Why patience actually works.

And this is again from the Buddhist idea,

That everything in Buddhism is causal.

Everything relies on cause and conditions.

Nothing stands on its own without cause and conditions.

So if that is the case,

If you want to meditate,

If you want to make spiritual progress,

The reason why you make spiritual progress,

Is because the causes and conditions have been put into place.

And then the path progresses by itself,

According to nature.

Buddhism is really an idea of natural phenomena,

How natural phenomena evolve,

That's kind of the idea of Buddhism,

It's all really about nature,

About the nature of the mind,

Not kind of the physical world of course,

But still it's about nature,

How natural phenomena evolve,

According to cause and conditions.

And if things evolve according to cause and conditions,

If things are according to the natural world,

If you like,

They are like an expansion of the laws of physics,

Or the usual laws of nature,

The laws of the mind,

If that is the case,

Then doing something,

To try to hasten the laws of nature,

Is not going to work.

If things happen according to causality,

You have to allow that causal process to happen,

Giving it time to work out,

Then things will happen as a consequence.

So if your meditation isn't working,

It doesn't help to be patient,

Work,

Work faster,

Buddha said it's supposed to work,

It's not working,

Buddha is a fraud,

I don't believe the Buddha anymore,

Or whatever it is that you kind of think,

When you get really kind of frustrated,

Frustrated with the meditation sometimes.

And so you actually start to look instead at the causality in this process,

How does the causality work?

Because it is according to natural phenomena,

It is not according to how you make the process work.

We try to want to make things work,

And that is the problem.

But once you understand that,

Once you understand that everything falls into place according to cause and conditions,

According to how a natural process unfolds,

You start to become patient.

Because you cannot hasten this process anyway,

The process will only happen if you put the cause and effects into place,

So you put those into place,

And then you are patient.

Because if you are not patient,

Actually you tend to destroy the natural process.

So this is kind of the root idea of why patience matters so much.

And if you understand this basic idea,

That everything happens according to laws of the mind,

Or laws of nature,

Once you get that,

And you understand this whole thing,

Actually you withdraw,

You withdraw the kind of human tendency to always interfere,

Always put your fingers in there,

Trying to turn the knobs or whatever,

And make things happen,

And you actually withdraw from that,

And you allow the whole thing to happen as a consequence.

Let me give you some examples of how this works.

So one example,

For example,

Is let's say that you decide to practice the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path,

Which of course begins with the idea of morality,

Begins with the idea of being kind,

Avoiding bad things,

Acting badly towards other people.

So one of the things that you recognize,

Is that you recognize that we all come with very powerful habits from the past.

We come into this life,

We have been brought up in a certain way,

With certain kind of parents,

We go to school with certain kind of teachers,

Society has influenced us in a certain way,

Maybe there are things from past lives.

Does anyone here have any sense,

Think past lives might be possible?

Anyone who thinks past life is complete nonsense?

No one thinks it's complete nonsense.

Okay,

Good,

We have a good group here,

Some kind of idea,

Because this is the Buddhist idea,

That there are kind of past lives,

It's part of the Buddhist idea.

And so,

Your conditioning,

Your personality,

Your habits,

Don't only come from this life,

They also come from past lives.

And because the past life is like an unfathomable depth,

There's no kind of end to past lives,

It means that our habits can be sometimes extremely strong,

Really,

Really powerful.

If you try suddenly to be a completely nice guy,

Suddenly from now on today,

I'm going to be super nice,

Never going to say a bad thing,

Never do a bad action,

Never going to think a bad thought,

If you say that,

Are you going to be able to do it?

Probably not.

I'm actually very,

That's really cool that you actually thought about it for a second,

I think that you must already have a pretty good foundation,

I reckon.

Give it a go,

He's going to give it a go,

Okay.

That's really not,

I'm sure this isn't working anymore,

But anyway,

We'll do our best.

But usually,

If I say to someone,

For the next week,

Don't have a single thought of anger,

Or even irritation,

Usually it can't be done,

Because there are irritating things happening around us all the time,

And what I like to say,

Everyone is irritating,

Because we're all irritating,

Always irritating each other,

Actually it's very hard never to be irritated,

At least a little bit,

Even on one single day.

And that thought experiment,

And if you try,

You probably won't succeed,

Is enough to show you how conditioned we are.

We cannot actually guide our mind in such a way that we always think positive and good thoughts.

It actually turns out to be impossible.

That is because of the habits of the past.

And that means that when we are on this path of trying to live better,

Trying to be more kind,

Have less ill will,

Treat people better,

All of these kind of things,

It means that we are more patient with ourselves,

We're more forgiving ourselves,

We know at the outset that we're going to fail,

And failure is okay,

This is patience with yourself,

This is kind of the idea here,

When we set the bar very,

Very high,

To a very high degree of morality,

If you fail to clear that bar,

Which you will,

It's very easy to feel sad,

Oh,

I can't do it,

I'm hopeless,

And these kind of things,

We're really misunderstanding the Buddhist path.

The idea is to set the bar high,

Try our very best to achieve a very high standard of morality,

But at the same time be very forgiving of yourself,

Understanding that you're never going to be fully successful without that.

And this is kind of the idea of using patience.

You have a high standard,

At the same time you are forgiving.

That means you never despair,

You always try again.

You know that the habits of the past,

I like to use this simile of the super-tanker,

The habits of the past are this powerful momentum going forward,

And because the momentum is so powerful,

It takes a long,

Long,

Long time to turn that super-tanker.

I don't know if you have seen this super-tanker,

This enormous ship,

Half a kilometre long,

Weighing half a million tonnes or something like that,

A ridiculously large vessel,

And it takes kilometres to turn around,

Sometimes tens of kilometres,

And we are like that,

It takes a long time to turn around,

So we need to recondition slowly,

Slowly,

Slowly,

And eventually we start to get it.

So be very patient with yourself,

Be very caring,

Look after yourself,

And what you will find when you do that,

Is that if you get angry with yourself for not being able to live up to your own standards,

You're actually blocking your ability to learn from your mistakes,

Because the anger is a reaction that does not allow you to watch very carefully what is going on.

The moment you get angry,

Your learning curve goes down,

But if you are patient with yourself instead,

You stand back and you watch,

And you say,

Oh,

I'm getting angry,

Okay,

That's alright,

No big deal,

And then you watch,

And then you learn why you're getting angry,

You can see what's going on,

Okay,

This person was irritating,

Okay,

Why were they irritating?

Was it just my perception?

What kind of qualities do they actually have?

Maybe they have some good qualities I can focus on instead,

Right?

And you understand the causality of what is going on,

Then you can change.

So patience is actually a very important part to enable change.

It enables us to stand back,

To watch carefully what is going on,

Understand the causality that is inherent in all our actions,

And then change our habits,

Change our view,

Change the way we think,

Because we understand what is going on.

Am I making any sense to anyone?

Okay,

Good.

I always feel that I'm making sense to myself,

But I better check with the audience as well.

Good,

I'm glad.

So that is like the initial thing,

Right?

To have patience with the way we act and the way we do things.

You can also bring this into the idea of not just how we are towards ourselves,

But also how we are towards other people as well,

How we look at other people.

One of the things I really recommend you to do is start to look at people in a new way.

One of the biggest problems in life,

One of the things the Buddha said we should always try to deal with is ill will and anger,

Because it's so destructive.

It destroys our interpersonal relationships,

It creates wars in the world,

It creates all of these terrible things,

All this ill will that we have.

So if we can reduce ill will at least a little bit,

What a wonderful thing that would be for society,

For ourselves personally,

For everything really.

So how can we do that?

First thing is to understand that ill will or anger almost always has to do with other people.

Other people are the most irritating thing in the world.

There was a famous,

I think it was Ajahn Brahm who told me this,

I get everything I know from Ajahn Brahm.

What did he say again?

There was something about the biggest problem in the world is other people,

Something to that effect,

I think he said,

I think it was one of the,

Anyway,

Some kind of philosophy.

And that is true.

People are both the things that are closest to us,

That mean the most to us,

And they're also the biggest problem in our life.

It's kind of this very two-edged sword in a sense.

And so how can we learn to look at people in the way so that we have more understanding,

More compassion,

More time,

We don't react so quickly,

We don't get irritated and angry so easily.

And one of the ways of doing that is to remember that just like you are conditioned,

They too are conditioned.

And the conditioning runs incredibly deep.

And if you are faced with someone and they are behaving badly towards you,

Actually it has nothing to do with you,

It has to do with the other person.

It is their conditioning that happens to come out in your presence.

It may feel like they are attacking you,

It may feel like they're saying bad things to you,

But it's not really about you at all,

It's just about you being present when these things come out in them.

If someone like you had been exactly in that position,

They too would have to bear the brunt of that negative qualities in that person.

So you depersonalize it.

It is the other person who has a problem.

You don't actually have a problem at all.

You just watch them.

Don't say those things,

Just think those things,

Otherwise you get into serious trouble.

And you realize that actually their conditioning is what is coming out.

This is another aspect of this idea,

Buddhist idea of non-self.

People don't act out of a sense of self because I want to be nasty towards you,

I want to be nasty towards Ajahn Brahmali,

Ajahn Brahmali is a bad monk,

I'm going to do bad things,

I'm going to tell him off or whatever,

Something like that.

And it's not because of a sense of self that they decide that,

It's because of cause and conditions coming together at that time,

And then they can't stop themselves.

These things come out of them whether they want to or not.

And I'm sure you have often seen that in your own life,

Sometimes things come out of you,

You may say things or do things that you rather not say or do,

But the power of the conditioning is so strong at that time,

Actually you can't stop it.

And other people who have less kind of spiritual inclination than you have,

They may have no awareness at all of what is going on,

It just comes out of them.

And what you can do then at that particular point,

Because you are now being patient with them,

You understand that there is a problem,

What you can do at that point is actually have compassion for them,

Because they are conditioned in the way that they do bad things,

And if they do bad things,

It is not the other person who has to face most of the consequences,

It's they themselves who have to face most of the consequences of their bad actions.

If you live a life of a lot of badness,

You tend to feel bad about yourself,

You lose your sense of self-worth,

And of course from a Buddhist point of view,

Down your track,

If you get reborn or whatever,

You have lots of bad qualities,

It's going to have terrible consequences.

So the moment you realise that,

First of all you get patient with the other person,

Because you understand,

Actually it's nothing to do with me,

They are the one who have the problem,

You get patient,

And then you turn that patience into compassion afterwards,

Because you understand,

They have a problem,

They are heading in the wrong direction,

They are like a sick person,

Said the Buddha,

It says in the Buddhist sutras,

Someone who is acting badly a lot,

Is like a sick person,

It's a very beautiful way of thinking about it,

Because the moment you see that,

They are sick,

Because they are deluded,

Because they are walking in darkness,

Because they have no idea what they are doing,

The moment you see that,

You have compassion for them,

Just like you have compassion for a sick person in real life.

So this is how patience again,

Allows you to stand back,

Allows you to see people in a new light.

So first of all,

We use the patience I've been saying now,

To be more moral,

And to change the direction of our super-tanker,

Then we use patience,

How to deal with people,

And to reduce our reaction towards others,

Have more time for others,

Not get angry so easily.

But the last and the most powerful way of using patience is in your meditation practice.

And this is something that I say whenever I teach a meditation retreat,

I say this in almost every talk I give,

So if you have heard this before,

It's probably because you have heard it before,

And what this beautiful discourse by the Buddha,

He talks about the process of meditation,

What it feels like from a first-person perspective,

What does meditation actually feel like?

And he goes through a long process,

And he shows stage by stage how it evolves mentally,

What it feels like to meditate.

And he starts off by saying at the very beginning of this process is sila.

Sila is the Pali word for morality or ethics or kindness,

These kind of things.

And from that sila comes a sense of non-regret.

Non-regret means that your mind is bright,

Your mind is clear,

Because you don't have any darkness in there which kind of drags you down.

That non-regret leads to what is called pamuja in Pali.

Ok,

I'll translate it for you,

Pamuja means like joy,

That joy then when you keep carrying on your meditation,

You're watching the breath or whatever,

Leads to what is called piti,

Piti is considered like rapture,

Rapture is often kind of a physically felt pleasure.

Now it's already beginning,

Very very pleasurable.

Then from that piti comes pasadhi,

Which is a deep sense of tranquility in meditation.

That deep sense of tranquility leads to an even more powerful sense of happiness called sukha in Pali.

And that sukha,

Because the pleasure is so incredibly powerful,

Leads to the complete stillness of the mind,

Which is known as samadhi in the Pali language.

That is the process of meditation in the suttas.

Isn't that extraordinary?

If you look back on the terms I was just mentioning,

It starts off with virtue,

Maybe not so interesting,

Non-regret,

That's better,

Already kind of on the right track,

Then joy,

Now we're getting into business,

Then rapture,

Rapture is even more joy than joy,

It's like a physically felt rapture in the body and in the mind as well.

Now it's getting really really good.

Then tranquility,

So based on that rapture you go even further down to a very deep sense of peace and tranquility in the mind.

From that deep sense of tranquility you get an even higher kind of happiness,

Sukha.

From that higher kind of happiness comes this complete stillness of the mind called samadhi.

That is the process of meditation for you in brief.

It can be expanded out a lot as it is in the Anapanasami Sutta,

The Sutta on Mindfulness of Breathing.

But that is what meditation is about.

Isn't that extraordinarily attractive?

All about happiness,

All about peace,

All about tranquility,

All the way.

And what does that lead to,

All that tranquility and happiness,

It leads to what is called yatha bhuta jnanadasana in Pali,

Which means knowledge and vision according to reality.

So it leads to insight,

It leads to understanding,

It leads to uncovering of the nature of the mind,

And the nature of who we are basically as human beings.

So the process of meditation which is so beautiful,

And has so many beautiful aspects to it,

Also leads to the most powerful insights we can possibly have on the Buddhist path.

Everything coming together.

I don't know,

When I read Suttas like this,

I thought,

Wow,

I'm going to be a Buddhist.

You can't hold me away from Buddhism.

This is exactly what I want.

This is so powerful.

And who doesn't want happiness?

Everyone wants happiness in their life.

Is that true?

Is there anyone here who would rather not have too much happiness?

Everyone wants happiness.

No one wants more problems,

No one wants more suffering,

No one wants to break a leg all the time.

Because it's painful to break a leg.

You want to have less suffering,

You want to have more happiness.

And so when you read things like this,

And you understand that the happiness that is described here,

Is not just ordinary happiness,

It is actually very,

Very profound.

It is a happiness that people like the Buddha would have,

Like the great meditation masters in the world would have.

We are so still.

When you see a person like that in meditation,

So still,

You wonder whether they have died.

Have you ever seen that before?

Someone meditating so still that it looks like they have died.

There is a nice story about that.

This is kind of,

Again,

One of these meditation stories.

It just comes to mind now as I'm talking about this,

But it's a nice story.

This was a story from Thailand,

I can't remember exactly where I heard it.

This was in the early days when Ajahn Brahm himself was a young monk,

So this must have been maybe 35,

40 years ago,

Maybe 45 years ago.

In Thailand in those days,

In the International Forest Meditation Monastery,

They would have all night sits,

Sit meditation all night.

So they go from maybe starting at about,

I don't know what,

Sometime at 7 in the evening,

And then go till the next morning.

The next morning they would just go straight out,

Arms around afterwards.

During those meditations,

Very often most people can't really make it,

It's too arduous to do that sitting all night.

So the monks are there,

And then all the lay people,

These are the lay people from the Thai villages,

And these people in the Thai villages have been sitting on the floor all their lives,

And they know how to sit cross-legged,

They can sit cross-legged probably for days,

But at least for hours without any kind of problem.

Many of these were ancient Thai ladies,

Who come to the temple all the time to listen to the Dhamma and take part in these things.

So they would sit there on one of these nights,

And as the night was going on,

More and more monks would leave,

More and more lay people would leave,

And at a certain point during the night,

There was only two people left in that hall,

In that meditation hall.

One of them was Ajahn Brahm,

He was sitting on the high seat,

The monks all were sitting on the high seat,

And one of them was one of these ancient Thai ladies,

Who could sit forever on the floor,

And she would observe Ajahn Brahm,

And she would observe Ajahn Brahm,

And after a while she realized that he hasn't moved at all for the last two hours,

No movement,

He looks like a rock,

When a human being looks like a rock,

Something must be wrong,

Right?

So she keeps on observing him,

And when she is absolutely sure of her case,

She leaves the hall,

She goes out,

And she gets hold of another monk and says,

There is a dead monk in the hall,

Please go and check it out.

That's kind of a cool story,

Because of course Ajahn Brahm wasn't dead,

Unless he has reincarnated and come back,

But he is still here.

So the idea is that when you go into deep Samadhi,

It is so profound,

It is so deep,

The bliss is so utterly encompassing,

That you don't move at all for hours upon hours upon hours,

You look like you are dead basically.

There is another story about that,

Which I won't tell now,

Because time is getting short,

But there is another story about the monk who was burned on the funeral pyre,

Because they thought he was dead,

So they put this big funeral pyre,

They lit it all,

And then they went away,

And the next morning that same monk came for Pindavat,

For alms round,

Right?

They came for alms round,

But we burnt you yesterday,

On the funeral pyre,

What's going on here?

This is because the Samadhi was so profound,

According to the Sutta,

The fire can't even touch you.

That's the story anyway.

I'm just telling you the story,

I'm not sure what exactly happened there.

So the idea anyway here is that meditation at this level is extremely interesting.

You are starting to find the meaning of life itself,

And this is the promise of the Buddha,

That actually you are discovering the meaning of life itself when you practice these things,

Because the stillness,

The sense of purpose,

The sense of having no more craving,

No more urge to go anywhere,

Basically means that you are discovering the meaning of life.

So if you want to discover the meaning of life,

Practice Buddhism,

If you don't want to discover it,

You can do something else,

That's entirely up to you,

But I really recommend the meaning of life discovery,

Pretty useful to know the meaning of life,

Because then you have a sense of direction,

You know what to do with your life.

So my point here is,

Because this talk is about patience,

So my point here is that how you move between these various stages in meditation is actually very interesting,

Because you move then from non-regret to pamujja,

To joy,

You move from joy to rapture,

You go from rapture to tranquility,

How is it that you move between these stages?

And the Buddha says something very interesting in this context,

He says that this is not to be done by an act of intention or by an act of will.

So in other words,

This whole process does not happen because you make it happen,

Right?

Intention and will is actually a mistake in this case.

So the Buddha then says it is Dhammata that you go from one stage to the next one,

Dhammata means it is in accordance with nature.

This is what I said before,

Everything in Buddhism,

All of these things we do is always in accordance with nature.

So if you want nature to take its course,

You cannot really make nature happen by using willpower.

If you try to use willpower on nature,

You have a problem.

And the simile that I always hear,

That Ajahn Brahm always tells,

Which is a nice simile,

It's like you have a little child,

Right?

And the mother takes the little child and says,

I'm going to show you how to grow plants.

So she gives the child a little sunflower seed or something,

And the mum says,

Put that sunflower seed into the ground,

And then you water it,

A little bit of water every day,

Not too much water,

Not too little,

Otherwise it might dry out or it might drown,

And then you see what happens.

And after a few days,

The child does what his mum has said,

It starts to sprout,

And the child gets really excited,

Mummy,

Mummy,

It's coming out of the ground,

Yeah,

Look at this,

And there's a little thing coming out of the ground.

And then after another couple of days,

It is growing so slowly from the child,

Right?

It's not happening,

So the child decides,

I'm going to help nature a little bit.

So grabs hold of the little sprout,

Starts pulling it,

And that is a very,

Very bad idea when you're dealing with a little plant.

If you pull a little plant,

You're going to destroy the little plant.

And this is the idea of using willpower on nature.

If you use willpower on nature,

You're going to destroy the natural process itself.

So what do we need to do?

We need to stand back,

And we need to allow nature to take its course.

That is really the only way nature can happen.

And of course,

To be able to stand back and allow nature to take its course,

You have to be patient.

You have to really understand that this is actually what is going on.

And so the whole process of meditation is the ability to stand back and allow things to grow according to its own cause and conditions.

And then you're going to be able to do this meditation properly.

Patience is ultimately what this is all about.

Standing back,

Cause and effect taking root,

And when cause and effect are strong enough,

The process will happen by itself.

And you will have noticed when I talked about this process,

I said that it starts out with sila,

Sila being virtue,

Morality and kindness.

So if the process is not working fast enough,

What you have to do is you have to work harder on your morality,

On your kindness.

That is what makes this whole thing happen.

Then it starts to come out as a consequence.

So this is,

In brief,

The idea of how patience can be a superpower on our path.

Instead of trying to make things happen,

Using willpower,

Causing nature to happen in a faster way than nature actually can happen,

What we should always do in Buddhism,

We should always stand back and ask about causes and conditions.

The moment you stop to interfere,

You actually have more ability to observe properly.

And when you observe properly,

You can see how the causality,

The nexus of causality works.

You can see when I do this,

It leads to bad consequences,

When I do that,

It leads to good consequences.

And then you start to get an understanding of how the process of spiritual growth actually happens.

And then when you do that,

What you do is that you fortify those cause and conditions that give rise to spiritual growth,

And you try to eliminate those cause and conditions that reduce spiritual growth.

And you become wise about the path,

Rather than using willpower.

And this is one of the beautiful teachings that I always got from Ajahn Brahm.

Ajahn Brahm always said,

Use wisdom power,

Don't use willpower.

It is wisdom power that gets you somewhere on the spiritual path,

Not willpower.

So you stand back,

Observe,

You learn about causality,

You learn about conditionality,

And as you learn that,

Then you enable this whole path to happen in this way.

And this is really how the Buddhist path works.

And to be able to do that,

The one thing that you really need is patience.

And if you understand the nature of causality,

You will be patient,

Because you will actually figure out that driving the process through willpower is never going to work.

So learn to think like this.

Gradually,

Gradually,

As you do this,

You're taking the sense of self out of the equation,

Taking this idea that I am going to do this,

You leave that to one side,

And you're also undermining the sense of self at the same time.

And of course,

Ultimately on the spiritual path,

It is,

From a Buddhist perspective,

The idea is to eliminate the sense of self entirely,

Because the sense of self is the root problem.

And now you can start to see a little bit why the sense of self is so problematic.

Because the sense of self wants to do nature.

Instead of allowing nature to happen,

It interferes in natural processes.

And when it interferes in natural processes,

It destroys the ability of those processes actually to happen on their own accord.

And that is why it is so problematic.

So if you can undermine it a little bit,

Great,

Then you're going to be on the right track.

Reviews

Wonderful talk🙏🙏🙏