MJ22 - 38 Blessings - Respect (23 Of 39)

This is the twenty-third session of the Buddhist path of practice leading from the mundane to the transcendental based on the 38 Blessings of the Mangala Sutta. This twenty-second blessing concerns developing an attitude of respect, particularly towards the Triple Gem, as the groundwork to training the mind toward more esoteric states.

Transcript

Last time you saw me,

We looked at blessing number 21 on living with intention.

With the Dhamma talk today,

We'll continue in our series on enlightened living to the first blessing in the instilling oneself with basic virtue subsection,

That is,

Number 22 on respect.

In the sixth group of blessings,

Seen over the last three sessions,

We have already removed the weeds from the soil of the mind ready for the seeding of virtues.

At this point in our pursuit of virtues,

In the seventh group of the blessings known as the instilling ourselves with basic virtue subsection,

We still need to till and fertilize the ground of our mind before seeding the virtues we want to cultivate.

There is no seed that grows well on stony ground,

And accordingly the first four of the five blessings in this subsection,

Respect,

Humility,

Contentment and gratitude,

Are concerned with softening up the mind and making it more receptive to the seeds of dharma which are to be sown in blessing number 26,

Which deals with regularly listening to dharma teachings.

The subject of respect which we are dealing with today is difficult to understand for many of us who grew up in an egalitarian society.

Furthermore,

There is a misunderstanding about the role of respect evident in accepted sources of self-help wisdom such as Tumblr,

Where many taken-for-granted slogans promote the idea that you only treat others with respect so that they will respect you in return,

Which is not really relevant to what I want to talk about today.

It's more about the democratic idea of accepting diversity as long as it's harmless.

It is even more suspect if,

Like Dennis Franz,

Apparently of NYPD fame,

You are only respectful because you expect others to treat you with respect.

I hesitate to think what would happen if that person's respect is unrequited.

A second group of slogans justifies respect in terms of being good-mannered towards others no matter how undeserving they are,

Because it reflects well on you.

Although some of these slogans are,

Rightly or wrongly,

Attributed to the Buddha,

Again they seem to miss the point about respect that I will be trying to convey today,

And are more about maintaining good manners.

And hopefully as a result of today's session,

We will see that having respect for someone goes a lot further and a lot deeper,

And is more selective than merely treating them politely.

Lastly,

There comes a set of slightly confusing slogans about self-respect as a path to getting respect from others,

Which I probably would refer to as having self-confidence or self-gratitude.

And again,

It is borderline problematic because it seems to feed into the promotion of narcissistic attitudes which may make things worse for those who already suffer from delusions of grandeur.

The difficulty in understanding the proper role of respect is further increased these days when there is so much pushback against the idea of those who feel entitled or who are just narcissistic,

Where any sort of expression of respect may seem to be encouraging such attitudes.

We have already seen expressing respect to those worthy of respect right back in blessing number three,

Where we already respect people by singling out those who are somehow worthy of such treatment.

And by this point in the blessings,

The expectation is that it will no longer be going through the motions or indiscriminate,

But it will have matured and internalised to a steadfast attitude or a character quality that we project towards others in the world around us,

Who have a particular potential to guide us on our pathway of spiritual self-transformation.

So the relevance of the respect I'm talking about today is as a learning skill to facilitate our absorption of spiritual knowledge,

To transform passive absorption of the spiritual knowledge of others to active seeking out and acquisition of the knowledge we still lack.

In many companies,

If you don't have the requisite skill set,

When you are interviewed for a new job,

You will be turned away.

In the old days,

And I hope hasn't changed more recently,

The Dhammakaya organisation regarded new volunteers as being of unlimited potential.

If they didn't already have a skill when they started helping the temple,

Then they would be expected to pick it up as they went along.

This is only possible because in our community,

It promoted an atmosphere where those with more knowledge were open handed with sharing their expertise with those less knowledgeable,

Thereby facilitating the flow of knowledge to the newcomers.

Similarly,

Many multi-billion net worth businesses such as Lucent or Cisco have discovered that an unsupportive learning environment actually costs them money.

Sometimes in a company with a hundred employees,

One employee may find a way to work faster or make products better.

Their discovery is such a good idea that really it should spread like wildfire throughout the company.

However,

Without a special effort,

It turns out that good ideas spread very slowly.

Sometimes people are reluctant to learn because they have a personal dislike for the inventor.

Sometimes they would prefer to compete or reinvent the wheel for themselves.

The problem of sharing knowledge has given rise to a whole new management science called knowledge management.

So let's see what we can learn from knowledge management to support a respectful learning environment for spiritual growth.

And I've adapted principles from a 2012 book by Carla O'Dell and C.

Jackson Grayson Jr.

Entitled If Only We Knew What We Know,

The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice.

The book starts with the gruesome observation by Arthur C.

Clarke that cave dwellers froze to death on beds of coal.

Coal was right under them,

But they didn't know how to recognize it,

Mine it,

Or use it in a way that could have saved their lives.

This is one clear case of what you don't know can and will hurt you.

In corporations,

Valuing innovation,

Failing to communicate knowledge can also be a matter of life and death,

At least for the competitive potential of the corporation.

So what I'll do today is apply some of the corporate practices for creating respect in the mind of the meditator,

Together with the negative consequences of overlooking these factors.

First of all,

The meditator needs to be open about the things they have not understood clearly,

Otherwise they will waste time reinventing the wheel.

Secondly,

A meditation student needs to be able to admit their shortcomings,

Otherwise they will not be able to improve or learn from their mistakes.

Some meditation students are afraid to ask those stupid questions when they haven't understood something,

And this makes life hard for the meditation teacher who has to try to guess what the student needs to learn.

Failing to ask in this way means that the teacher ends up communicating their ideas ineffectively and the students will end up competing with one another.

Students need to focus on the good in the teacher and the tradition,

Otherwise they will have a reduced ability to absorb the knowledge.

If students concentrate on finding fault with everything,

They will end up learning only overt aspects of the knowledge rather than the unspoken role model that the teacher is exemplifying.

If the students show enthusiasm for learning and make themselves helpful to the teacher,

Even on a subconscious level,

The teacher themselves will become more enthusiastic and effective at sharing the entirety of what they know.

If the meditation students make the effort to conjure up the mood they need to sit down and meditate,

They will manage to reach beyond passive learning and achieve active learning.

Finally,

The meditation student needs to put in sufficient time to learn meditation,

Otherwise they will not have enough time to get the new ideas meditation involves.

This is why we try to create an atmosphere where we can help each other to learn and where learning is not just osmosis from teacher to student.

The transmission of subjective knowledge is in many respects like the transmission of data signals more generally.

Like for an analog television broadcast,

There are many reasons why the results we get from our meditation may not be faithful to the original.

To start with,

Reasons that are closest to hand,

The reasons to do with the student themselves,

Even if the knowledge is there for the learning.

If the student fails to let go of old misunderstandings or fails to open up to new knowledge that is being taught,

They will be unable to learn from the teaching.

A good student needs to be active in the search for beneficial things in the new knowledge they learn,

And this is what we mean by respect from the point of view of a student.

Secondly,

The student who is still a beginner has to rely on a teacher to guide them,

Rather like the wooden stake planted next to a sapling tree to help protect it from wind damage,

Until one day it will be strong enough to withstand the wind on its own.

Sometimes the teacher,

Here the teaching monk,

Has plenty of knowledge,

But if the student lacks enthusiasm,

They will not retain much of what they learn.

You don't believe me?

Ask yourself what your best and worst subjects were at school.

You often find that the worst subjects correspond with the teachers who you didn't personally like.

Your best subjects would correspond with the teachers that you did like.

Consequently,

You can see that even the warmth of your relationship with a teacher can affect how much you learn.

This is what we mean by respect or appreciating the good qualities of a teacher.

Thirdly,

The body of knowledge which we wish to study may disappear from the world if respect for the tradition or learning process is lacking.

For example,

Historians such as Edward Gibbon and Arnold Toynbee speculated that the fall of the Roman Empire was due to the loss of vision about what it meant to be a good Roman.

In other words,

A loss of virtue in the public imaginary.

It's likely that the same thing happened for other major civilizations such as the ancient Egyptian one and the Aztec civilizations as well.

Similarly,

If meditators fail to see the value of the meditation which they're learning,

It will speed the day when the intellectual capital or knowledge of meditation is lost from the world.

Lastly,

If we fail to understand and have respect for the founder of the tradition,

It is as if we cut ourselves off from the lineage of the knowledge from which we are trying to learn.

Without respect,

Whole bodies of knowledge quickly die because neither student nor teacher will be willing to go out of their way to help one another.

The death of knowledge is the death not just of altruism but also of that civilization as well.

And this is why respect needs to be cherished by all reliant on oral bodies of knowledge passed down by word of mouth to bring each generation to enlightenment.

The key value which we need to develop in order to activate our spiritual learning is the ability to look deep enough into the personality of others to identify the good qualities from which we can learn.

To recognize the essential qualities of things,

Whether it be the healing properties of plants or the application of minerals,

Is a sign of wisdom.

Anyone blind to the usefulness of the objects or people around them misses the opportunity to benefit from those things around them.

Unfortunately,

With our practice we tend not to see others as they really are.

These qualities are human invested,

Which means that they often don't exist in the textbooks separately from the people exemplifying them.

They are living knowledge,

Which means they have to be learned afresh from generation to generation and,

Often because they are complex to learn,

A student needs to invest significant time and personal contact with the person they have apprenticed themselves to.

All of this effort is required to overcome the tendency of being caught up in superficial appearances instead of being able to tell what virtues a person really has.

The only chance we have of appreciating people's true value is if we make a specific effort to look for the good qualities in those people.

However,

We have a tendency not to do this.

Because we have a certain arrogance,

Thinking that we are superior to others,

Often we overlook the good in anyone else.

If we are not able to see the goodness in others,

Then what chance do we have to emulate that goodness for ourselves?

Even when another person's virtues are manifest,

They are veiled from our own perceptions by the impurities in our minds.

In order to overcome possible blindness in the mind,

We therefore need to focus on respect and how to cultivate it.

So having gone to considerable lengths to eliminate what we don't mean by respect,

We now come to the part of our session where we start to talk about the sort of respect that will facilitate spiritual learning.

Respect according to its Buddhist definition means to open up sincerely to the ways in which others are in truth more valuable or important than ourselves.

It means voluntarily expressing sincere and humble praise deserved by others through body,

Speech and mind,

Whether we are in their presence or not,

As a way of showing that we appreciate their goodness.

Such a definition helps us not to confuse respect with its near neighbour,

Expressing respect,

That we have already looked at in blessing number three.

Such behaviours as bowing may be sincere,

But they are often not.

A soldier's salute,

For example,

Doesn't mean they have respect for a senior officer.

The key factor which makes respect useful in the cultivation of virtue is the attitude behind the respectful behaviour.

Having emphasised so much on the attitude of respect,

The reader might be tempted to think that expressions of respect are superfluous and having respectful thoughts is enough.

However,

Expressing respect is also useful in itself,

Because it helps to reduce one's selfish views,

Cultivates humility and lends value to the cultivation of virtue in any society.

For a young child taught from an early age to bow in respect to monks,

Parents,

Elders and teachers,

In the beginning it may be an automatic response out of the child's blind faith or obedience.

However,

When expressing such respect becomes habitual,

Later in life,

When the child is older and more reflective,

It will start to ask itself the question,

What's so great about my parents or teachers or spiritual teachers that makes them worthy of such respect?

And at that time,

The child will start to look for the virtue in those people,

Which will be the fully-fledged attitude of respect.

Respect is also easy to understand if we say that it is the opposite of finding fault with others.

If you look at the epistemology of the word respect,

Then you will find it's made up of two parts,

Re and spect.

Spect means to look,

Re means to do something again.

Putting the two parts together,

The meaning of the word respect is to look at something a second time,

But specifically to find the good qualities of something that we are looking at.

There are six reasons we show respect,

Which includes supporting us to look for good in a person or a thing,

Reinforcing the goodness in other people,

Or at least forcing them to re-examine whether they deserve such respect,

Perpetuating humane culture,

Reducing our own selfish views,

Training ourselves in humility and human relations more generally,

Which is enabling us to get along with other people,

And publicising the goodness of ourselves and the person who is on the receiving end of your respect.

If a person to whom we have paid respect feels embarrassed by the respect because of their lack of virtue,

Before long they will feel motivated to improve themselves.

For example,

Teachers often forget that their duty consists of two parts,

Both of which need to be fulfilled in order to qualify for the respect of their students.

The first duty of a teacher is the duty to explain,

In other words to teach a subject in theory.

But with this comes a second duty,

To exemplify,

Especially the ethical red lines concerning the subject which they teach.

If a person lacks respect,

It is as good as saying I am so dumb and devoid of wisdom that I can't see any goodness which I can learn from you.

The fear to express respect to others,

Or to acknowledge the respect shown to one,

Is usually rooted in the assumption that it would diminish one's kudos to let another person take the limelight.

However,

Such thirst for self-importance and entitlement generally creates a dead end to any career of self-improvement.

Respect in its British context is not about relinquishing power or self-determination to another person of perhaps questionable virtue,

But it's more about how we can sponge up knowledge and good habits from everyone we meet.

So we have time for a quick story about why promoting respect in groups,

Even by an artificial means such as seniority,

Can benefit the greater good in a community.

There's a story from the Tittirā Jātaka,

Which is the 37th jātaka story from the Buddhist scriptures,

Of three animals,

A partridge,

A monkey and an elephant,

Which lived in a banyan tree.

As with many of the early jātaka stories,

The animals had the ability to talk to one another,

But despite their capacity to communicate,

They failed to show any respect or consideration for one another.

The elephant thought it was the best because it was the biggest.

It would scratch itself against the tree so roughly that all the other animals would fall out of the tree.

It would also trumpet so loudly that it would wake up all the other animals.

The monkey was no less inconsiderate.

It thought that it was the best because it was fast and could climb the tree more quickly than the others.

It would throw down red ants' nests on the heads of the other animals if it felt dissatisfied.

If it was bored,

It would destroy the partridge's nest just for fun.

The partridge said nothing but did a dropping on the monkey's head,

And also the partridge would sing loudly whenever it felt like it.

In the end,

None of the three animals could get a proper night's sleep.

The three animals met together to decide what to do because if they carried on being so inconsiderate like this indefinitely,

Their lives would become drudgery.

To solve the problem,

They decided to respect each other according to age.

They didn't have a way to work out how many years old they were,

So they counted their relative ages by how much of the history of the banyan tree they could each remember.

The elephant said that his first memory of the tree was when it was only as high as his navel,

So about a meter high.

The monkey's first memory of the tree was when it could sit on the ground and nibble the top of the tree,

Which meant it was when the tree was about six inches high.

The bird said it could remember the tree since it had not yet sprouted.

Therefore,

The bird was the most senior,

Followed by the monkey,

Followed by the elephant.

The way seniority between siblings works out in Asian cultures is that the elder sibling must take care of and teach the younger siblings,

Whereas the younger siblings must be compliant,

Humble,

And eager to learn towards the elder siblings.

Now each animal knew where it stood in relation to the others,

They could put their goodness to work.

The bird would get up early in the morning and fly up high in the sky to do a reconnaissance on which part of the forest had ripe fruit on the trees.

Once they got this knowledge,

Then the elephant and the monkey didn't have to guess where to go in order to get the fruit anymore.

The bird and the monkey would sit on the back of the elephant and go directly to where the fruit was ripe.

Now instead of the elephant having to wait for the fruit to drop,

The monkey would climb the tree and collect the fruit for the other two.

They would pick so much fruit to be transported on the back of the elephant,

They could store the fruit at the bottom of the banyan tree so the next day they didn't have to go looking for fruit anymore.

As a more general principle,

The benefit of respect according to seniority in bringing forth the goodness in every person,

Even in the monastic community,

It is this principle that allows for the cooperation and sharing of knowledge too.

So to return to our subject matter for today,

Let's turn to look at some of the things Buddhists regard as worth having respect for.

The Buddha taught in three places in the Anguttarinigaya,

That is in the Abhamada,

Gimila and Sakkatcha suttas,

That there are seven objects of respect in the spiritual world which are so imbued with potential benefit that even if a person is unable to appreciate those benefits at first,

Simply by having respect for those things,

Some of those benefits will start brushing off on them.

In fact this is a logic that we've already come across in the third blessing.

The seven objects of respect comprise the personality of the Buddha,

The phenomenon of the Dharma,

The community of personalities,

That is the Sankha,

The phenomenon of education,

The principle of meditation,

The principle of non-recklessness and the principle of hospitality.

All these things are so potentially beneficial to our well-being that we cannot afford to overlook them.

If we have no respect for these things,

It's hard to know what will be more helpful than their stead.

So let's look at each in turn to see the attitudes and practices appropriate for having respect for each of these.

To start with the Buddha,

The nine traditional qualities Buddhists respect,

To quote the translation from the chanting book,

Are having traveled the eternal path of righteousness,

Being worthy,

Being fully self-enlightened,

Having attained super mundane knowledge,

Being of perfect conduct,

Having clearly understood the whole world,

Being a most capable charioteer who trains his followers in the highest spiritual life,

A teacher of all human and celestial beings who is enlightened and exalted.

By respecting the Buddha,

Some of these qualities will brush off on us too.

There are different ways of expressing one's respect for the Buddha which depend on whether the Buddha is still alive or has already passed away.

When the Buddha was still alive,

Monastic disciples would go to him for audience three times a day,

While lay Buddhists would attend him as regularly as they could.

In terms of manners,

Disciples would also show respect by not wearing shoes when the Buddha was shoeless,

Not standing or sitting in a place higher than where the Buddha was located,

Not putting up an umbrella or parasol within the Buddha's sight if the Buddha had not done so himself,

And not leaving oneself alfresco within the sight of the Buddha.

Also,

Monks wouldn't wear their robe in the less formal manner than the Buddha,

Which mostly relates to whether one shoulder is covered which is more humble or both shoulders are covered which is less humble.

Once the Buddha has already passed away,

Which would include the present day and age,

The posthumous ways of paying respect have been adapted because they mostly refer to paying respect to relics,

A pagoda or a statue rather than a living person.

So ways of paying respect to the Buddha posthumously may include respecting a pagoda containing the Buddha's relics,

Conducting a pilgrimage to the four holy sites of Buddhism or Sanvejya near Sathana,

Which comprise Lila Grove in modern-day Nepal,

Where the Buddha was born,

Bodh Gaya in northeast India,

Where the Buddha was enlightened,

Sarnath in northeast India,

Where the Buddha gave his first sermon,

And Kusinaga in northern India,

Where the Buddha passed away into nirvana.

The Buddha stated in the Dighinigaya that anyone making the pilgrimage to the four holy sites of Buddhism with faith in their hearts would go to heaven at the end of their life for sure.

As for paying respect to Buddha images,

Respect may be paid by bowing to a Buddha statue with a normal five-point bow,

Which you can find in the preface of every temple chanti book,

Or anointing the Buddha image with water on appropriate occasions.

If one is visiting a temple,

It is customary to pay respect before the shrine of a temple upon arrival and before leaving.

If visiting a pagoda or temple,

There is usually an area beyond which shoes must be removed,

And removing one's shoes in this way would also be considered an act of respect.

It's also customary not to put up an umbrella or a parasol in the pagoda grounds,

Nor chatter while walking the pagoda grounds.

One should maintain one's composure throughout one's time in the temple or pagoda compound,

And of course practicing what the Buddha taught.

Again,

For monks it is customary to change their manner of roving from the formal style of covering both shoulders used outside the temple to the more humble style of covering just one shoulder when entering the temple or pagoda compound.

The next on the list of objects to respect is the Dharma,

And the Dharma is the collective name for all that the Buddha taught about the nature of life in the world.

The six traditional qualities of the Dharma that make it worthy of respect,

Again according to the Chanting Book translation,

Include having been properly expounded by the Buddha,

Being clearly perceptible within oneself,

Being timeless,

Being inspiring to those who see it to call upon others to come to see it,

Being of the nature that it should be internalized,

And being realized subjectively by the wise.

It's also a pathway which if followed will lead to an end of suffering.

Even the Buddha himself paid respect to the Dharma.

He had so much respect in fact for the Dharma that some of his final words were to declare not a person but the Dharma,

Together with the monastic code of conduct or the Vinaya as his successor to lead Buddhism after his passing.

So ways to respect the Dharma are never to miss the opportunity to hear Dharma teachings,

Listening to Dharma teachings attentively,

Peacefully and with composure,

Rather than falling asleep or picking one's feet during the teaching,

Taking respectful care of books containing Dharma teachings,

For example by not shoving them in our back pocket,

Leaving them more than a floor or in places where they'll get dirty or wet,

And not using them as coffee mats.

And it's also considered respectful not to make fun of the Dharma and if you have the opportunity to teach the Dharma to others you should try your best to teach it accurately.

Next on the list is that of the Sangha and by this we mean the Sangha are a group of monks who have trained themselves towards enlightenment and who help to teach others to follow in their footsteps.

The nine qualities of the Sangha that make them worthy of respect,

Again following the Chanti book translation,

Are being excellently practicing disciples of the Buddha,

Having taken the direct path of righteousness,

Having behaved according to their inner wisdom,

Having mastered themselves on the way to salvation,

Having attained any of the eight stages of enlightenment,

Being worthy of offerings,

Particularly on behalf of those who have passed away,

Being worthy of reverence and homage,

And being a supreme field of merit in this world.

Customary ways to pay respect to the Sangha are Raya bowing,

Again with the five-point bow,

Or saluting with one hand in a gesture of prayer.

It is considered to be respectful to sit with composure when in the presence of monks,

Rather than let's say lying down,

Not putting on shoes or putting on umbrellas in the middle of the monastic community,

Not making exaggerated gestures such as amateur dramatics when in the presence of monks,

Not standing,

Walking,

Lying or sitting down in a way that impedes or encroaches upon monks,

Not boasting of dharma knowledge or answering questions on dharma unless specifically invited to do so by the most senior monk,

And on the contrary looking after the monks' needs with a faithful heart and keeping an open house to them.

The next on the list is education,

And this may include education in both spiritual and worldly ways,

Because education as a principle is so beneficial to one's welfare.

A respect for education doesn't mean bowing to your textbooks,

It means being sincere in your studies rather than reckless.

You need to avoid taking an attitude that you already know it all.

You need to study in a way that you try to get to the core of the subject that you're studying.

The next on the list of things to be respected is practice of meditation,

And we are all probably quite familiar with the idea that meditation is vital to our well-being and should be respected as such.

Since it's the final and most important link in the Noble Eightfold Path that will allow the mind to break free of suffering,

As such it is an essential part of the threefold training,

Standing between self-discipline and wisdom.

Meditation is also crucial to the cultivation of all sorts of virtue,

Especially removing defilements from the mind and entry upon nirvana.

Some people overlook meditation because they think they can attain enlightenment by reading about it.

Unfortunately,

No matter how much they read,

They have no chance of coming closer to enlightenment because all their theoretical knowledge can do nothing to help develop inner experience or transform the mind on a subconscious level.

Even after his enlightenment,

The Buddha set an example of meditating every day for several hours.

So,

Relevant ways of having respect for meditation include reminding ourselves of the benefits of meditation,

Practicing meditation regularly for as long as we can,

And being quiet in order not to disturb others who are meditating.

Next comes respect for non-recklessness.

As we've seen in the previous blessing,

Those who are non-reckless need to be habitually mindful of avoiding unwholesomeness,

Cultivating good deeds,

Remembering the retribution coming from unwholesome deeds,

Remembering the suffering inherent in continued rebirth in the cycle of existence,

And reminding ourselves always to keep our mind on the object of meditation.

Keeping these considerations in the forefront of our mind are equivalent to having respect for non-recklessness,

As well as maintaining our own sense of human dignity.

Last on the list is respect for hospitality,

Which means helping guests overcome inconveniences experienced as a result of being away from their own home.

You can consider hospitality to be a very practical application of compassion towards others.

Guests visiting us can provide a great opportunity to exercise respect for hospitality.

Of course,

We should be friendly and supportive to guests,

But further than that it means enabling everybody in our circle of influence who might receive guests in our place,

Whether it be our children,

Our employees,

Or our home help.

Thai people are so hospitable in looking after foreign visitors,

Even those who are strangers to them,

They'll often even do something like getting off their own bus and getting on a bus in the opposite direction in order to take a tourist to their destination that they require.

As we've seen in Blessing 17,

It's also customary to give up their own beds and sleep on the floor rather than let a guest sleep on the sofa.

Hospitality is very important if you want to become a pillar of society,

And hospitality as it's described in the Angkutra Nikaya distinguishes between material and spiritual hospitality.

Material hospitality,

Or Amitsat Padisantan,

Conforms with our conventional definition of meet and greet,

And means providing guests with the material things they lack,

Whether it be a tube of toothpaste or a guest's towel.

The second part of hospitality,

Referred to as spiritual hospitality,

Or Tammat Padisantan,

Means talking about things that are useful for the guest's spiritual transformation instead of just engaging in small talk.

Hospitality is the final item on the list of seven things to be respectful about,

And since the most important item usually occupies the final place in any Buddhist list,

Our teacher in Thailand,

Venerable Theratachibor,

Claimed that if we can practice hospitality,

It will open the way for us to respect non-recklessness.

If we can practice non-recklessness,

It will open the way to practice respectful meditation.

If we can practice respectful meditation,

It will open the way to us to practice respectful education.

If we can practice respectful education,

It will open the way for us to practice respectful the Sangha.

If we can practice respectful the Sangha,

It will open the way for us to practice respectful the Dharma.

And if we can practice respectful the Dharma,

It will open the way for us to practice respectful towards the Buddha.

If we are able to cultivate respectful all the seven objects I mentioned before long,

We will be able to gain the ability to see the virtue not only in these objects,

But in everything and everybody around us in the world,

Whether those things are of a spiritual nature or not,

And we will gradually overcome the habit in ourselves of finding fault with others.

Daily life is not only the seven spiritual objects which deserve to be treated with respect,

Since benefits exist in many forms,

Even in the mundane world,

The Buddha advised us additionally to have respect for certain secular personages,

Especially if those people are themselves respectful towards the seven spiritual objects of respect that I've already mentioned.

Such secular objects of respect might include monarchs or national leaders,

Established in the ten virtues of a monarch that we've already seen in Blessing 16,

Parents or at least a good part of the parents that is virtuous,

Virtuous teachers and preceptors,

Elders,

Older brothers or sisters,

And younger brothers or sisters if they have exceptional virtue.

Appropriate ways to express respect towards these secular objects of respect might mean making way to let that person pass,

Standing up to receive that person,

And greeting them with a culturally appropriate body or hand gesture.

To finish off with today,

I'd like to leave you with a couple of scriptural examples that illustrate why it is important to respect people for the 99% that is good,

Rather than finding fault with the 1% that is imperfect.

The older monk Sariputta,

Who was second only to the Buddha in terms of wisdom,

Still had certain faults remaining even though he was already enlightened.

When he led other monks on alms rounds,

Sometimes instead of using bridges to cross canals in his path,

He would leap across the canal.

If he led a group of monks on a Dutanga pilgrimage,

He would like to set up camp for the night,

Not on ground level but at the top of a tree.

Some people were curious and asked the Buddha,

With all these strange habits,

Is it really true that Sariputta is enlightened?

The Buddha confirmed that Sariputta was really enlightened.

Unsatisfied,

They asked,

Then how come Sariputta still jumps across canals and camps at the top of trees?

And the Buddha replied,

Although Sariputta is enlightened,

There are some deeply ingrained aspects of his character that his enlightenment has not changed,

Because previously he was born for many lifetimes as a monkey.

Similarly,

There was another enlightened monk called Pilinta Vacha,

Who whenever he met someone would greet them with the words,

You peasant or Vassala.

If you weren't actually a peasant,

And you got called a peasant every day,

It might get rather irritating even for the most patient of people.

Even aristocrats and kings weren't spared the peasant treatment.

Many people asked the Buddha if Pilinta Vacha was really enlightened or not,

Since he seemed to be so insulting to everyone he met.

The Buddha again confirmed that Pilinta Vacha was indeed enlightened,

But like Sariputta,

He had certain deeply ingrained aspects of his character,

Because he had been born only as a king and as an emperor continuously for many previous lifetimes.

The moral of the story is that even when a person has become enlightened,

It is still possible to have faults.

So what about humble likes of ourselves,

Who have still not made such progress in our Dhamma practice?

With this in mind,

It's better to remain respectful for the overwhelming proportion of goodness in a person,

Rather than focus exclusively on their minor proportion of faults.

So this session I have introduced to you,

Blessing 22 on having respect.

For my next session we continue with the seventh group of blessings,

With Blessing number 23 on humility.

Hopefully as a result of today's session,

You will be more able to understand how to look for the best in every person and thing around you,

Through the quality of respect.

So for today this is me,

Pratt Nicholas,

Tiniest Roast,

Signing off for now,

So long folks and stay safe.