A Complete Practice of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is often taught in an isolated context yet the most effective practice occurs in an holistic context. Ajahn fleshes out a rich and deep context.

Transcript

Today's Dharma talk with an apology because I'm not sure how clear or lucid it's going to be but I'm going to try.

First of all we're going to take the precepts and always good to recollect what we're doing when we do this ceremony.

So we're recommitting to a process or a training.

So these precepts are a training.

It's actually very difficult to keep them purely,

Especially in the area of speech.

Many people will know.

It's not telling lies,

It's not just not telling lies.

This Musawada is also a harsh speech,

Frivolous speech,

White lies,

Exaggerations,

All the stuff that we do around speech.

So when we come to take the precepts we wipe the slate clean and we start again and we recommit to,

We understand that these rules,

These five precepts are what the Buddha recommends as a foundation for successful meditation,

A foundation for feelings of well-being.

And we have a look how we've been going,

How we've been going on them.

So are we killing beings?

Have we killed any beings or are we being violent or aggressive towards beings?

Taking that which is not given?

Are we only taking that which is given freely?

Where are we with our second precept?

Sexual misconduct.

I try to think of this in terms of being responsible with sexuality.

So are we being responsible?

Are we being careful in this area?

And the speech that I was talking about,

The intoxication.

Where are we with intoxication?

It's very difficult in Australian culture.

Alcohol is everywhere.

Just noticing yesterday how all of the Woolworths have the Woolworth supermarket and right next to it is all liquor Woolworths.

That's a new thing.

I mean it's probably been happening for a few years but I just noticed it yesterday that liquor is everywhere.

So there's a lot of social pressure to drink.

I think it's,

If possible,

It really is better not to at all,

Ever.

And for a few reasons.

One reason is if you want to feel confident about your Buddhist practice.

This is something you can do which gives you a feeling of confidence.

This is not always understood that if we're keeping these precepts in a really squeaky clean way we can feel confident.

And then we can feel confident about our respect for the Buddha as well.

If we offer this to the Buddha out of respect.

So there is the mind that says half a glass with dinner is okay.

Okay,

It's true.

Probably isn't too bad.

That's true.

But what we're doing is we're justifying doing something that we want.

But if we say okay I'm going to give up that half a glass because I respect the Buddha and I respect his teachings and I want to,

I want the confidence and the dignity and the well-being that comes from knowing that I've surrendered to this training wholeheartedly.

You probably get more well-being and more happiness if you if you can forsake the half a glass.

The other thing about the half a glass is that often becomes two glasses.

I know.

So once you've had a few sips and it's very pleasant and the people around you are drinking as well.

So sometimes it's just really nice to have that very clear line.

And then you have the happiness that comes from having pure ethical conduct and knowing that you've surrendered to this training in a sincere way.

Intoxication isn't just the drink and the drugs.

It's good to have a look at what we do with these big screens.

How much time we spend in front of them.

And this one's off so that's okay.

I heard someone told me there's a famous monk in Taiwan who has a TV station which apparently has a couple of million viewers and apparently this monk is quite gifted in Samadhi.

Apparently Mara appeared to him in his meditation and said what are you doing using my tool?

Apparently Mara was upset about this.

But that's interesting isn't it?

If Mara considers the television to be his tool well then there's probably something.

Intoxication can be just allowing the mind to be lost,

Allowing the mind to be dull.

So that's a kind of an intoxication.

And so I guess work all day you probably need to relax a bit.

It's okay to watch a little bit of TV but it's like we show some discernment,

Some discrimination.

What are we watching?

The problem of course is like once you're there on the lounge chair and you're having some chips and whatever nuts or whatever and you are relaxed and the mindfulness isn't so clear and the things in your hand,

The control.

So then it's very easy to look at what's the next thing and then the next thing and the next thing and then you're going to bed with a very dull mind.

So that's to be avoided if possible with the TV like watching only what is useful or consciously relaxing but then kind of putting a putting a limit to it.

But after you've relaxed you're going to go and do something skillful.

Perhaps even more challenging,

More dangerous now is the internet.

I know I don't use it very much myself but I know that when one is using it that time seems to go very fast.

When you can read about the very particular thing that you're interested in and also the stuff around pornography is very dangerous actually.

So to be careful what you expose your mind to.

Ask yourself are you nourishing wholesome dummers or are you nourishing unwholesome dummers?

So just because we like something doesn't mean it's good for us.

And it's the same with the news.

We can get kind of fascinated with the news.

It's a very engrossing but how much do we actually need to know?

Sometimes watching too much news it can be depressing.

We can also become very self-righteous.

We can end up feeling despairing when you lose your sense of trust in human beings and all these kind of things.

And so keeping the amount of news at the right amount and keeping the entertainment at the right amount,

Keeping distraction at the minimum.

So that's the point I think of that precept around intoxication is that we're trying not to be lost,

Trying not to be distracted,

Trying to maintain a focus in our life.

Refuge.

Thank goodness we have these refuges.

The Buddha.

So the Buddha was the proof that there's something much more in life in terms of our potential.

There is a state completely beyond dukkha in all of its manifestations.

That's pretty amazing.

And we we glimpse this when we have those moments of peacefulness.

We have insights.

We do glimpse what it's like to have an absence of dukkha.

All Buddhist practitioners will be experiencing that in moments to some degree.

And the Buddha is symbolic of someone who's gone completely beyond all forms of dukkha,

Transcended,

Liberated.

So that's amazing.

So the Buddha is a refuge of that historical being.

It's also a refuge of our potential.

So we understand that the Buddha started as a deluded being,

Someone deeply affected by greed,

Hatred and ignorance.

And through training himself he became the Buddha.

And then the Buddha had this capacity to explain reality.

And now this is our problem is that we don't perceive reality correctly.

All unenlightened beings are ignorant and because of ignorance we're deluded.

Because of delusion we don't perceive things correctly.

So the Buddha explained things more correctly in a lot of detail and in many different ways.

So we have a better way of understanding the conventional reality and then we have a training which leads to directly perceiving and then transforms the mind,

At least the conscious experience is transformed to a state beyond suffering.

If we live according to the truth.

So this is a very important principle.

When we take refuge in Dhamma we're taking refuge in truth,

In ultimate truth.

And then when we're training in the precepts of Dhamma also includes the path that we cultivate and that we live in accordance with so that we might realize that truth.

So that's training in the precepts,

Training in meditation,

Being generous.

And then sangha is refuge.

All of those people who have practiced correctly since the time of the Buddha and have realized the same result.

This is also incredibly encouraging.

It's not just this very special being that comes around every few eons.

We're in this eon,

Apparently there will be five,

One more to come this eon.

It's not just the Buddha that gets liberated,

It's anyone who follows that training.

And so even today I believe in this world we have people who are liberated,

Free from suffering,

Experiencing that state.

Sangha also includes,

So that's the highest end of sangha,

People have actually realized the training.

Sangha also includes those who are practicing correctly.

So that someone who's keeping the precepts meditating a lot and that's also your lay friends,

Your good lay friends,

That's your lay sangha.

Monks and nuns who are putting in a fair effort and those are also sangha.

And people who put on robes that aren't really training themselves,

Didn't have a good intention to become a monk or a nun,

That's not sangha.

So sangha is people who are cultivating mindfulness,

Cultivating wisdom,

Cultivating samadhi on that foundation of ethics.

This is your sangha and those people who've realized the result of practicing in that way,

That's the sangha.

So I just like every now and then to go over those refuges and those precepts so that when we do this ceremony we do it with some understanding and we're resetting that intention to continue to train ourselves and we're holding this up as a mirror in a way.

Where am I with these five precepts and the principles that they highlight?

How am I going with these five precepts and how deeply am I taking refuge?

I wanted to talk today a little bit about the four brahma-vihara and sometimes called divine emotions or the highest emotions.

So these are among wholesome qualities,

These are the extreme end of wholesome mental qualities,

Emotional qualities.

One of the reasons I'd like to talk about it is often a lot of what we're experiencing,

A lot of our attitudes aren't based in these qualities.

So when we consciously recognize that these are attitudes,

These are qualities that are wholesome,

Skillful.

Again I use the word a mirror,

This holds a mirror to what's functioning in the mind,

What's present in the mind.

But not only does it hold a mirror to it,

This is the wonderful thing about the brahma-vihara is it gives us an option.

Now something that can be observed about our culture but not just our culture,

Perhaps modern life is people become seem to become quite seriously affected by cynicism,

Suspicion.

We become somewhat hardened and the way we're educated and the way media works we become very critical.

We're all very good critics,

We become very fault-finding.

And so if this is pervasive in a culture we might not even notice it.

It's just like that's what you do,

You complain a bit,

You say what's wrong about the government,

You say what's wrong with the economic policies and you say what's wrong with the immigration policy and the environment policy and whatever.

We can all grumble about lots of things.

And it's not to say that there aren't things that are wrong.

It's just to notice,

To ask the question is indulging these kind of thoughts and acting from this attitude helpful or skillful?

And is it going to help us to be happy people?

Is it going to help us to have some samadhi?

Is it going to help us to develop wisdom?

So the divine abidings,

These emotions,

Starts as thoughts and then becomes an emotion.

I'm going to read a definition that I found on the Dharma Encyclopedia.

Something that that definition doesn't say,

Which I think is very important,

Is that it becomes samadhi.

These four qualities when held in the mind with right intention and with skillful effort become a very powerful form of concentration.

And so if we can train ourselves to hold any four of these qualities in the mind that means that other qualities are not present in the mind at that time.

So it's like we might know that we're a bit cynical,

We might know that we're critical,

We might even know that we have a habit of withholding kindness towards ourselves,

But we might not feel that we can do anything about it.

We just kind of know that.

And this is part of the,

I'd say,

The problem of the modern world.

And I was attending a talk recently in America actually,

By a man,

A layman,

A lay teacher,

Who,

A Tibetan,

Grew up in a very traditional religious Buddhist family surrounded by other Tibetan Buddhists,

But then went and studied in England and got a couple of degrees.

I think he has a,

I think he has his Geshe degree from one of those Tibetan monasteries,

But he also has a PhD in psychology and PhD in comparative religion or whatever anyway.

He studied lots of things and I was interested in his perspective.

What he was talking about,

Western culture,

He was saying that,

He just gave one example,

He said when it comes to psychopathology,

When it comes to knowing the various things that can be wrong with people psychologically,

There's this manual which is this thick,

This thing,

Everything that's wrong.

I think it's called a DPSM and DPSM-4 and they're just about to come out with a DPSM-5 which is probably going to be thicker.

And so,

But then he said when it comes to like real manuals that you can grasp,

Which outline things which are good,

Things that you can do to stimulate wholesome mind states,

Things that you can do to be happy,

He said you can't really point to anything.

There's no,

There's no manual that we look to,

There's no standard that we look to as modern people that's like this is,

This is how you go about being happy,

This is how you go about having a healthy mind.

And well I thought that was very revealing about our culture.

But this is something that intelligence in the head,

Intelligence in the head tends to kind of discriminate,

That's very good at knowing what's wrong.

So our culture's cultivated that a lot.

Now this does have some advantages but it needs to be in perspective.

The Brahma Vihara is emotional isn't it,

It's in the heart.

So we train our,

We train our thoughts,

We train our thoughts,

Suppose you want to cultivate loving-kindness,

We start with the wish may I be well,

May I be happy,

It's a thought,

May all beings be well,

May all be be happy.

But then we're trying to stimulate a blossoming of an emotion in the heart center.

So this is bringing us,

It starts with the head but it's bringing us down into the heart.

Similarly with compassion,

May I be free from suffering,

May all beings be free from suffering.

With compassion we're trying to feel with or empathize with the suffering of ourselves and of others.

So this again it's coming into the center,

It's and it's not looking at why there's a problem and who,

Why there shouldn't be a problem and and who should be doing something about the problem.

It's going underneath that to the central,

To the central fact of suffering and then responding with something wholesome.

I'll talk a little bit more about that now and I mentioned now that next Saturday's workshop is going to have compassion as the as the main theme,

If anyone's interested,

We're going to do a bit more work there.

Mudita,

Incredibly helpful,

Empathic joy,

Sympathetic joy.

Now this is a wonderful antidote to cynicism,

Sarcasm,

Suspiciousness.

This is where we train ourselves,

We force ourselves to notice what's okay about ourselves and good and about our situation and our life and also that in others.

So this is a very good and powerful tool.

And then equanimity,

Equanimity is actually very profound.

We tend to think that equanimity is nothing or we think it's indifference.

Equanimity is more like understanding things the way they are.

Because of having a very good understanding of the things as the way they are,

One can remain in a state of equipoise or a state of perfect balance,

Serenity.

So it's actually a very,

It's a powerful emotion which is neither moving towards or moving away from,

But it's an emotion with an incredible amount of clarity and stillness and balance.

So equanimity is a wonderful thing.

And so the thing I think I just want to hold up to remind us all,

Remind myself too,

Is that there are these powerful tools that we have.

So if we have our,

Which we can we can train our mind with.

So we have our habits and then we can in this world,

In this training,

Mental training,

We can choose to train the mind in a different way.

So we have our social conditioning and we have the way that society affects us.

And then at a certain point as a Buddhist,

Buddhism is a religion,

A philosophy,

A science for people who want to take responsibility.

The Buddha says that he only points the way and that we have to walk that way.

So it's a religion for grown-up people,

People who want to take responsibility.

So at a certain point we decide that we're going to train ourselves,

Whether the people around us are behaving skillfully or not,

We are going to train our own minds to become more wholesome and lay that foundation for developing insight.

So I'll just read this definition.

The four Brahma Viharas are considered by Buddhism to be the four highest emotions.

The word Brahma literally means highest or superior.

It is also the name given to the supreme God in Hinduism during the Buddha's time.

Vihara means to dwell,

To live or to abide.

Thus the Brahma Viharas are not emotions one occasionally feels but that one lives in and lives by all the time.

So that's what we would aspire for.

That would be the result.

Like any emotion,

Any mental habit,

The more the mind becomes acquainted with it,

The more the mind takes on the qualities of that habit.

So just like we might have a suspicious tendency,

A cynical tendency,

An angry towards oneself habit,

If we train ourselves in responding in these ways,

In cultivating these as attitudes,

One is able to abide in these attitudes.

It's not something that one can just do.

So that's the one thing I'm not so.

.

.

Just by understanding this concept doesn't mean that one can do it.

But we understand the potential.

That as people being generous and practicing these precepts and meditating,

That we can through meditating skillfully become habituated to abide in these attitudes most of the time.

I really think that is the result of Buddhist training.

These four Brahma Viharas,

Loving kindness,

Compassion,

Empathic joy and equanimity,

Can be understood from several different perspectives as four related but not separate qualities or perhaps as four different ways the spiritually mature person relates to others according to their situation.

So they are mature ways to relate to oneself and others.

So most modern people think a lot and so in our meditation I think it's a good thing to learn to use thought.

So when you come to your cushion and you find that you're thinking a lot,

Well then we we can pick up these phrases and these words and we can even contemplate for a while why it's helpful to have loving-kindness.

We can look at the drawbacks of being grumpy,

Getting angry,

Holding onto grudges and we can look at the benefits you know just using your own contemplative faculty.

Look at the benefits of thinking with loving-kindness and then we come to a sense yes loving-kindness is wholesome,

Skillful,

Valuable.

We have to understand ourselves.

We have to want for to have success in meditation you have to see the value of what you're meditating on and you have to really bring that into your heart with sincerity.

So we actually spend a minute or two contemplating.

The Buddha says loving-kindness is a really valuable,

Really helpful.

Is it?

So you can ask yourself because if you just come and you sit and you think may I be well,

May I be happy,

You know it might not happen.

It might not get much of a response but if you really recollect why,

Why loving-kindness is valuable,

What is it the antidote to,

What does it balance in the mind,

What's the result and from the experiences that you've had where loving-kindness meditation has been effective,

What was the result,

Did you feel happier,

Was the mind brighter,

Was it more spacious,

Was there an absence of habitual heaviness or hardness or darkness and then you think yeah okay I agree loving-kindness is wholesome,

Skillful,

Valuable and then we use our thought may I be well,

May I be happy.

Another thing we can do is we could ask what does it mean,

What would it mean to be well.

I like to encourage people to invest these words with special meaning so you can spend some time contemplating what would it mean to me to be well.

It might mean that I can,

Partly it might mean that I have three espressos a day instead of four and that I spend one hour on the internet instead of five and that I get my credit debt,

That I only have one maxed credit card,

That you know for you what would it mean to be well,

You know it means we want to do a little bit better than we're doing so that we have more well-being and then when you say this may I be well you really wish that you know may I make skillful decisions,

May I maintain healthy disciplines,

May I abandon that which isn't skillful,

That's what it means to wish to wish yourself well.

So you can spend a couple of minutes and then be careful here not to when you do that not to get too far out of the contemplation,

Start just proliferating too much.

You just want to establish a sense of sincerely applying oneself to the meditation,

Seeing the value of it and then may I be well,

May I be happy and then opening,

Hopefully opening the heart some warmth,

Some love really,

It's kind of goodwill,

Unconditional love and just aiming that in the heart and then opening that up and then just allowing that and using the breath,

Breathing in may I be well,

Breathing out may I be happy and just allowing it to abide there in the body and then we train in radiating it outwards.

When we train in this way we train at first with people who it's easy to have loving kindness towards so we bring them to mind and breathing in may I be well breathing out you actually picture that person or get a feeling not everyone's visual just get a feeling for that person being there and radiate that warmth out towards them.

You don't try to send your mind if it's your long-lost friend who's in London,

You don't try to send your mind to London that's too exhausting,

You just try to bring that person to you and there's a sense of don't send the mind too far away just keep it keep it there and feel confident that person's there.

The thing about mind that's very interesting is it's not bound to space and time in the same way that bodies are.

I've heard many stories of people even though they were on the other side of the world feeling it something when people radiated loving kindness towards them or when they dedicated merit towards them so you can feel confident that if your loving kindness meditation really is has some integrity that it will affect people in a positive way.

The near enemy to,

I just wanted to talk about the near and far enemies,

The near enemy to loving-kindness is affection so this is something to be to be careful of so when there's affection there's attachment so loving-kindness is goodwill it's not a grasping at the being it's just wishing them well.

So the next step in the loving-kindness meditation is that we move on to neutral beings this is actually very important if we want to take it on as a discipline we radiate loving-kindness to neutral people so that might bring we actually bring to mind the cleaning lady that we we hardly ever talked to but that we know or the gardener or the taxi driver all of those Indian taxi drivers may they be well may they be happy just people that you don't know personally but that you see may they be well may they be happy and then we train in really being able to hold more of these people who are not in the category of our friends those who are close to those who we habitually have contact with we train the mind and actually being able to offer this attitude to more and more beings then we start to include those that it's difficult to have loving-kindness for so once we can maintain the thoughts in a in a focused way and then it becomes a wholesome feeling and then that wholesome feeling really gets some power it's then possible to to aim that at even people who we would usually find it very difficult to have loving-kindness towards and that again is really helpful in having the meditation not being affected by the near enemy of affection as if we can train ourselves to having loving-kindness even for people who suppose have hurt us or have hurt people that we know or who are hurting people now or who are making really stupid decisions which affect us all badly that we we can radiate loving-kindness towards that person it doesn't mean that we we don't understand what is conventionally skillful or not skillful it just means that we truly wish people well and in fact if people were well they wouldn't be doing the unskillful things that they do so we actually wish that may they be well may they be happy ill will is the far enemy of loving-kindness so again when we habituate the mind to this we'll probably notice when those feelings of ill will come up has actually want to hurt somebody okay well then you know okay that's definitely not loving-kindness that's the far enemy sometimes before we meditate we might not have even noticed how often we have these little moments and we begin to meditate and we we realize oh even though I'm a fairly nice person every now and then I want to kill somebody and it is important to become truthful about that and become aware of it because we all have that potential actually is these you know I think the prisons are full of people who who many people made one bad mistake and we tend to get this image in our mind murderers you know bad people but it might have just been the case that people were pushed into a painful corner and lost their temper and ended up in jail with this word murderer we actually all have this potential if we're in enough pain if we don't have enough mindfulness we can all end up being the murderer in jail so very important to become very mindful of these things very important to be cultivating their antidotes weakening the tendency towards this quality and and deepening the tendency towards other qualities compassion also subtle a subtle quality very profound compassion is feeling with suffering at the same time one isn't distressed now this is this is tricky and this is why it's a type of Samadhi because if it wasn't Samadhi we wouldn't be able to maintain that center with an integrity so it starts as thoughts but it's important to know what it is compassion when it's really functioning what is it like so it isn't pity in pity that's the near enemy by the way the near enemy to compassion is pity pity is where there's an us someone they're feeling sorry for that person so there's too much self in that and and we're forgetting if we're feeling pity we're forgetting that we are still in this samsaric story we're still in the situation where we might be that person so it might be the care you know you feel sorry for the starving Ethiopians but you know what if we run out of petrol and we can't get you know and there's no food in the supermarket and then we're going to be the starving Australians it's like really possible so it's a you know we understand that any of us could all of a sudden be in a situation with very coarse suffering unfortunately this is part of our samsaric predicament so compassion is aware that human beings all conscious beings not yet liberated are prone to vulnerable to terrible suffering and so it's a it's a feeling with and responding with wishing that it was otherwise and even wishing to do something about it and yet not being distressed now this is tricky you don't take on the suffering as your personal suffering you just really wish it was otherwise so if there isn't some Samadhi there it's not actually possible and I think loving kindness is a little easier to do than compassion and doesn't get mentioned very much in Theravada Buddhism actually compassion but it's tricky to really have compassion is requires a lot of maturity and that area of knowing it's an understanding but it's not pity and that it's not about taking on the suffering it is about wanting to do something and actually doing something if you can but then there needs to be a certain amount of equanimity as these qualities balance each other it's a set of four emotions and equanimity is very important it plays a role in making sure that meta really is meta there isn't that affection there goodwill impartial goodwill there's some equanimity there that compassion isn't pity and that we're not falling into a state of misery because of the suffering in the world that actually even if you have a lot of compassion in that moment you'll be part of the mind will be very serene very peaceful if it's real compassion and yet you really want to do something to make there be less suffering in your experience and other beings experience and if you're capable you will mudita sympathetic joy empathic joy that's feeling good genuinely feeling good about the good fortune that you have and that others have this is a really good thing to do if you find that you're depressed if you find that you're just grumpy or find your night negative you find you couldn't be bothered so we all find ourselves in that state at times you come to your meditation you can ask yourself okay what is it in my life that I could feel good about and if it's if it's really bad you think nothing and that's something that you shouldn't believe very important here to have perspective and we need to have this samsaric perspective it's like if you have food on the table today you a person of extraordinary good fortune because I think about 70% of the planet is malnourished so it's like we forget this we forget when we live in our suburban worlds we forget that most beings on the planet are struggling just to get enough to eat and then if you live in a place where you're not confronted with a very coarse violence on a daily level you're very fortunate because there's a lot lots of parts of the world where little children grow up playing with guns that guns are so pervasive in cultures particularly South America Africa parts of Russia there's so many guns around and parts of rural America and that violence children see from childhood and and and people are confronted with inner cities in America there's a lot of violence around from from early childhood so if you're a person who's not experiencing threats to your life on a daily basis you're very fortunate we forget this we completely forget although it's on the news and we see it we tend to forget it it's somewhere else we don't realize the incredible benevolence that we're currently experiencing so having food having relative safety okay this is a result of merit so this is the thing that you can rejoice in you can rejoice in the fact that you're experiencing the results of having lived with virtue having not been violent having been generous well that's why you have enough food on the table and that's why you're not being confronted with violence daily but you have to do some work first of all you have to recognize the good fortune there's an enormous amount of good fortune here I'm not recognizing it I'm going to challenge my depression and a challenge my cynicism where's the good fortune your physical health having and we can always complain about the health care system but it's one of the best in the world in Australia so it's recently in America in America you have to have a insurance and when you get your insurance policy usually any pre-existing condition is not covered so what that means is like that's not a health care system is it it means that you can be treated for any sickness you have after this point but anything you've had before or anything you have now where we won't cover that's not very nice and then a lot of people don't have any health insurance at all and health health costs in America are incredible so you have these situations where someone loses a job and their health care was given to them by their their employers and they're covered for six months after they're fired and then all of a sudden this person who was living this middle-class life defaults on their mortgage and has no health care so this doesn't happen to us we're very lucky it's just kind of recognizing again there's a lot of benevolence we can and we can always find fault with the way things are but the amount that is good in this culture is extraordinary so it's like there's a lot to feel joy for there's a lot to feel grateful for now gratitude is something very similar to Medita when one feels grateful and it doesn't really work to say to yourself you should feel grateful you have to bring to mind a sense of comparison to recognize and then gratitude is the response and you recognize that most beings are hungry our biggest issue is you know I don't want to get fat so it's like we've got more we have more suffering about feeling fat than we have about feeling hungry well that's you know that's people smiling and a suburban reality I don't like being fat either by the way well you all stare at me after you offer the food and I feel like I have to eat it anyway so sympathetic joy that means well what about if someone else gets the promotion that you wanted and this is this is where this is where we have to train ourselves if someone has done something good and is rewarded for that that we feel happy for them we feel happy with them so this is the opposite of competition jealousy so this is an antidote to all a lot of those negative things so we actually feel happy suppose you want a baby for ten years and you didn't have one and your sister's just had her fourth boy you feel happy for her and maybe ask for one is that when things that you want happen to other people you you feel happy for them this is a training it doesn't happen automatically we have to train ourselves to think in this way but it's perfectly possible appreciative joy sympathetic joy recognizing what is good in your life and appreciating it and seeing what is good in other people's lives success and other people's lives and being happy for them and equanimity I was talking about that a bit I think the very best way to cultivate equanimity is meditating because when we meditate we see it we're seeing a thought as a thought and we're pulling back from it we're seeing a feeling as a feeling and we're pulling back from in that process of cultivating breath meditation and we're developing an understanding thoughts will arise they'll stay for a while and they'll cease feelings will arise they'll stay for a while and they'll cease and then this is establishing equanimity that that part of the mind which is mindful and can see phenomena as they are and is not moving either towards or from that's equanimity so we meditate more and more and more than equanimity as a result equipoise Arjun Samedo uses the word serenity equanimity in terms of the types of Samadhi it becomes fourth jhana so it's very profound quality we have to one if one is training in jhanas most of us aren't but it's just nice to know where these things go and the first few jhanas intense rapture and tranquility and then the mind becomes deeper more deeply peaceful that it actually goes beyond more deeply into peacefulness than into the rapture or the pleasure the pure pleasure the types of pleasure that come in Samadhi as a type of pure pleasure a deepening of Samadhi is when the mind is going more and more deeply into peacefulness so that it's not attached it's not even holding on to the pleasure it's a Samadhi is more of a process of letting go letting go of the five senses letting go of the world letting go of outside conditions turning inwards when we do that incredible pleasure arrives that arises in the mind and then one goes even deeper into the Samadhi into this state of equanimity that's the fourth jhana and so according to what I've read and what I've discussed with my teachers once people become Sotapannas and Sakaragami so stream enterers and people who just have a couple of lives together the this fourth jhana is the foundation for purifying the last remaining defilements is by placing the mind in this deeply peaceful unmoving state that the remainder of the greed and the remainder of the hatred gets starved of its nutriment so it's a very profound quality and has a very profound role to play and it's just nice when we're trying to kind of embrace a training and we're trying to understand the value of something it's just nice to see where it goes so equanimity is a very wonderful and profound thing will take us all a great distance if we whatever we can do to cultivate serenity equanimity equipoise mindfulness and wisdom that results in equanimity it's very good to do it as much as that as possible so I think I've probably said enough I did pretty good considering I have the flu thank you I was just thinking sitting meditation and I was thinking I don't think this is going to come together and what I thought was due to the merit of these people coming to listen to Dhamma may there be some Dhamma so thank you there any questions about the Brahmi Biharas anything I was talking about how many people practice loving-kindness meditation very good how many people practice compassion as a meditation a few people they're very closely related it's very it's very helpful to acknowledge suffering because one can open the heart of loving-kindness I often teach that that we just bring to mind the very fact of suffering and then we respond to suffering with kindness so it is good to give compassion a little bit more attention so hopefully some of you will come next Saturday and do a bit more work on that it says there's this beautiful phrase in the Sutta the Buddha's mind imbued with compassion quivering for the sake of beings so he did go to enormous trouble to help us so that's an expression of the compassion and there are examples in the suitors where the Buddha scans the world and he sees that 20 miles away there's one person who could be liberated and he walks that distance so there are there are examples of his incredible compassion but also when he was under the Bodhi tree and he was thinking this which I've discovered it's very refined very difficult to realize beings won't understand it and if I try it will be troublesome for me and wearying so maybe I won't the fact that he did is is compassion isn't it so when he was experiencing the bliss of liberation under the Bodhi tree he didn't have to teach anybody but he did started amongst a late monks order and then a nuns order and then this huge lay following this is all an expression of his compassion and then when the monks were fighting and kosambi they're going and trying to sort out their fight and they said this is our problem Buddha don't worry about it because and he admonished them three times and you know it's there most of the suitors you can see is a it's a response his compassion doesn't talk so much about compassion but you can see the fact that he's trying to train the king that he's trying to train the court as in that he's even training that you know the prostitutes he's incredibly compassionate and that his order was open to beings from every caste this at that time was profound so his compassion was also impartial anyone who had the faculties and who was free of debt was able to become a monk or a nun pretty amazing it's coming from that exactly it's coming from the mind imbued with that quality there's that beautiful phrase put those susudho Karuna Mahanavoh the Buddha absolutely pure with ocean-like compassion beautiful yeah yeah okay yeah social workers psychologists nurses I think compassion can come easier for people who have suffered I think so suffering leads to a humility suffering can lead to a humility it can also lead to kind of bitterness resentment feeling closed off kind of a victim consciousness but suffering can lead to a greater empathy and it's one of the quotes I did bring something just in case I couldn't think of anything I bought a few quotes Jack Cornfield says compassion is the heart's response to sorrow we share in the beauty of life and in the ocean of tears the sorrow of life is part of each of our hearts and part of what connects us with one another it brings with it tenderness mercy and an all-embracing kindness that can touch every being part of what connects us with one another so if we have the insight that just like me I'm a vulnerable and sensitive being and right now I'm suffering if we then have that insight that basic insight that every single other being has this same vulnerability the same sensitivity and the inside of wow suffering is is serious phenomena and has its own validity they're very real to the person experiencing it and then the empathy and sensitivity and we come aware of okay so what would be helpful to me in this situation and what wouldn't be helpful to me in this situation we notice certain things are helpful certain things aren't helpful and then we we bring that to others with it hopefully so that I do I think that having suffered a bit is very good for being compassionate we're less arrogant when we know that we too also suffer terribly and and can suffer terribly and then with the other thing about compassion fatigue that would mean that there's not yet enough Samadhi so it's like not really having the energy in terms of a collectedness because when we when we have compassion in terms of Samadhi it charges up the battery it charges up that center this quality is there and it's radiated outwards so if there isn't the Samadhi but that you have to hear about this misery and then have to hear about that misery you have that misery you become another suffering being there isn't the clarity there isn't the centeredness and that's part of what happens in our in our culture when people everyone specializes so it's the social worker that has to hear about the terrible suffering day after day after day and the nurses that have to work with the people in terrible pain day after day after day and in a more traditional culture you have that be kind of a shared burden that the whole village would be somehow helping with the old ages and the death and the sorrows and the griefs so that becomes a question of how do you if you are someone who works in those industries if you are someone experiencing compassion fatigue what do you do many people end up doing retreats because I find that that's the best thing the best thing to do to recharge the heart is to give yourself that kind of tension and bring the energy back inwards have a break for a while so people having to spend a lot of time with people who are suffering cause suffering need to find ways to set boundaries with it and take care of themselves as well understanding that they're one of the beings who also suffers I think it's a good thing to do when we are suffering is to set that intention okay I'm going to do my best to cause as little suffering to other beings because suffering hurts that's a good time to set the intention I go this is what it feels like to have been humiliated this is what it feels like to be insulted this is what it feels like not to be able to work you know we develop sensitivity to other people experiencing difficulties and set that intention to try to be a wholesome influence and not an unwholesome influence in people's lives then at least our suffering has some benefits but sometimes people who are heady that wisdom and understanding can sometimes not be very compassionate and sometimes people who are kind of like your grassroots granny who might not have very much intellectual understanding may be very compassionate so you don't necessarily need to have understanding to be compassionate you don't necessarily need to have wisdom it's a heart quality is that when you see suffering you wish that person wasn't suffering it's here and if you apply your intelligence to it as well it's good you can train it as a discipline but a lot of traditional a lot of people in agrarian cultures just respond to suffering with you know traditional cultures are strong to suffering with acts of kindness so it's not you don't have to have a profound understanding you don't need to know that it's a Brahma Vihara to do it you know it's just a and it's a challenge for people who are too intellectual to actually really get down to what it is you have to be more specific what particular area the thing about justifying is there'll be a sense of self there and so if there's a sense of there's a sense of self justifying and there will be an agenda so the thing that you want to do or why you had to do the thing you had to do so that's the thing to be a bit suspicious of so if there's a me there justifying the usually Buddhist reflections it's not there's not the sense of self will be in Brahma Vihara's will be a very spacious and porous so there's a particular feeling about that may I be well may all beings well be well may I be happy may all beings be happy that's very open but if it's you know if there's a if you're justifying something you'll have a sense of there's a sense of self there and and the thoughts won't be peaceful so it'll be agitated so if it's a if we're that's that's kind of my experience anyway if we're justifying something there's a sense of agitation and there's a sense of holding so if it's a wise reflection I'll be a sense of spaciousness a sense of opening hopefully that's helpful okay I think it's time to you

Reviews

Very insightful! On 5 precepts, on higher emotions, on applying Buddhist teachings in the modern world. Thank you, Ajahn!

Ajahh Achalo is really good at presenting the most intense way to practice Buddhism, then explaining the reasoning behind it and reminding me that I don't need to go extreme to receive benefits.

Bhante’s teaching is so clear and filled with great kindness.

Steady and wise on the troubled waters of today's world. Peace here.

Excellent talk. Listening to you felt like a conversation. Thank you.

Thank you Jon you always put together such a great training and I am thanking you .

A serendipitous find this talk was for me, dear teacher. Thank you. 🌸

Beautiful and wise teaching on the precepts and Brahmaviharas.

a lot of golden nuggets in this teaching and worth repeating

Wonderfully clear teaching embracing the wisdom of the Buddha in a very accessible way. Thank you. 🙏

Thank you for your insights, it was very interesting!

I really enjoyed listening to this talk, beautifully delivered with loving kindness, compassion and clarity😊

I was deeply moved by this talk and could come to understand the precepts in new ways. I am deeply grateful.

This was excellent!! Lots of nuggets here thank you.

Thank you dear Ajahn for your teaching 🕉

Practical, open, and exactly on point to something I recently read about and puzzled my mind~ thank you!

Very informative and given with such kindness. Thank you!

Excellent inspiring overview

His way of speaking is full of loving kindness. He not only explains it but practices it towards us.

Thank you for this talk that lead me to further understanding. I am grateful to have had the insight on my own requirements to practice compassion.