Vipassana Meditation: Day 8 - Morning Discourse

Vipassana is the most powerful ancient technique for attaining mastery of the mind. Taught by the Buddha, Vipassana meditation is arguably the most famous & effective form of meditation. Retreats are held in cities and towns all over the world & have been instrumental in the transformation & healing of countless millions of people.

During the retreat, you will be guided to practice the foundational techniques of Vipassana, and follow the core principles of the philosophy.

Transcript

Let's talk a little bit about the sacred and the profane.

We talked about it in the beginning and throughout.

It's easy to draw this line between the practice and the not practice,

To have a space where we practice and a space where we do everything else.

It's good to enter ritual space to enhance our focus when we step into practicing.

But we don't want to have this dividing line between the practice and the not practice.

Because what we're doing isn't some serious complex routine.

It's basically just learning to focus.

To really focus and really be present.

And we can take that to everything.

We can take that everywhere we go.

There's everything that we do,

This can enhance.

It can help us to be able to bring our total self to it.

That's all it is.

It doesn't need to be a belief system.

Doesn't need to be a religion.

Doesn't need to be a new group that you've joined.

It's just a very simple method refined down to perfection.

That is a way of enhancing our focus.

Enhancing our function as a human.

It's the quality of the consciousness that we bring to every moment.

And it's the consciousness that produces our conditions,

Not the other way around.

So if we can bring a sacred consciousness to every situation,

To every moment,

Then we can transform that moment.

Transmute it.

Activate a different level of potential than would be there if we brought a profane consciousness to it.

A more mundane consciousness.

I've always loved the practical techniques,

But I did try some other ones when I was younger as well.

I used to do Zen meditation.

Spend a lot of time chanting the sutras in a loft in North London,

Ringing bells,

Waiting for amazing insights to come to me in the middle of that.

For it to be the moment when I would feel the touch of the Buddha.

Like I said,

I love to read books by Daisets Tataro Suzuki,

One of my favorite Zen authors.

But I got to a point where I'd read all the books of his they had in the local library when I was younger and libraries still existed.

We used to go to them to take out books.

Except for one.

And I left it to last because it was one that I wasn't very interested in.

It was one on Pure Land Buddhism.

It was called the Buddha of Infinite Light,

If I remember correctly.

For those of you who don't know Pure Land Buddhism,

It's the form of Buddhism that comes from Chan and Zen Buddhism where you sit and you chant a very simple chant called the Nenbutsu.

And that is meant to allow you to be reborn into a sacred paradise,

Into the Western paradise that this Buddha,

Amitabha Buddha created for all of his followers to be able to enter.

As you sit there and you chant this chant over and over again,

Sometimes very simply,

Very statically,

And sometimes with bells and whistles and all the beautiful surroundings that come with Zen practice,

Depending upon where you do this.

And that's the opposite of the type of practice I was interested in.

I wanted practical results to solve my real life problems,

To help me and my family right now.

I didn't want to sit there and do nothing about things and wait to be reborn into the Western paradise.

But it was the last of the books by Daisetsutaro Suzuki,

So I reluctantly took it and decided I would read it because anything written by him is a pleasure.

The quality of his mind is amazing.

And when I finally did read it,

It reframed what I thought about this practice,

About Pure Land Buddhism.

And I realized that I hadn't understood things correctly.

Buddhism obviously was started in India,

Northern India,

Nepal,

Where the Buddha was from,

And then traveled around the rest of the world.

Got taken to China.

This turned into Chan Buddhism,

And then got taken to Japan,

Turned into Zen Buddhism.

And Pure Land Buddhism is one of the practices that runs between those two traditions.

And what Suzuki tells us in this book is that Pure Land Buddhism was started by Amitabha,

Or in Japanese,

Amida Buddha.

Amitabha Buddha,

Amida Butsu.

And Amida Buddha is a primordial Buddha,

A legendary Buddha that existed a long time ago,

Some say in a completely different world cycle within the Buddhist cosmogony.

And he was so deep in practice that he got to the point of enlightenment in all the known universes.

I'm not sure how that's different from getting to enlightenment in just this universe,

But he got there,

And it sounds like a very big achievement.

But while he was there,

He decided not to cross over into Nirvana,

Not to cross over into that state,

Because he looked back at the universes,

And he saw all the beings in suffering,

All the beings existing in ignorance.

And he made the primal vows of Amida Buddha,

Amida Butsu.

And the first of those is that I will not cross over into Nirvana until all the living beings in all the known universes can cross over with me,

Until we can all go through this together.

What a beautiful sentiment.

That's an example of stable,

Loving awareness right there in action.

And so he gave us a practice to be able to cross over with him.

What Suzuki tells us is that a Buddha land,

A Buddha field,

Is nothing more than somewhere where there is the presence of a Buddha.

If there is a presence of a Buddha there,

It's a Buddha land,

It's a Buddha field.

It's a state where we can achieve full liberation.

And Amida Buddha gave us a practice to bring these two things together.

Suzuki says on one side there's I,

Self-power,

The mundane,

All the details.

And on the other side there's other power,

Amida Buddha,

The sacred.

And the simple chance that Amida Buddha gave us is to bring these two worlds together.

It's just Namu Amida Butsu in Japanese.

And what that means for everyone here who's not fluent in Japanese is simply I,

Amida Buddha.

It's bringing the I and the Amida Buddha together.

It's bringing the profane and the sacred together.

We see this in a lot of traditions.

In Rastafarianism they refer to it as the I and I,

The small I and the greater I.

And when someone is really acting in power,

They're bringing the two I's together.

That's why they say I and I said instead of I said because they believe they're speaking within the spirit in that moment.

Being able to unify these two things and allow them to work together.

In Taoism there is the individual and there is the Tao.

And once we enter into the flow of the Tao,

Then we're working with the force of the universe,

Not against it.

And all you have to do to be able to bring these two worlds together is to chant Namu Amida Butsu.

But there's a catch.

You have to chant it ten times with a pure heart.

And so it becomes like a mirror.

When I'm there chanting Namu Amida Butsu,

Am I just saying the words or am I really feeling the I and the Amida Buddha?

And am I really doing it with a pure heart,

With the same love that he felt to bring all beings into liberation?

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be free.

May all beings be liberated.

Or am I just sitting in a room ringing bells and chanting something that doesn't mean much to me?

It's both of those.

The Buddha gave us a way to approach this as well.

He had a disciple,

Our Buddha,

Siddhartha Gautama,

The one we've become familiar with,

The one in this world cycle.

He had a disciple who was wondering about this thing that he'd said,

Which was that enlightenment can be attained,

But it cannot be produced.

And he was sitting there meditating on it and he couldn't figure the whole thing out.

And he's like,

This is the one thing I've heard the Buddha said that doesn't make complete A to Z sense.

What is this?

As he started talking about some nonsensical mysticism,

Is there a gap here in his teaching?

So he made a vow to himself.

He said,

Unless the Buddha can explain this to me today,

I'm leaving.

I'm giving up these robes.

I'm not being a monk anymore.

I'm done with this whole thing.

Back to the world.

And so we went and the Buddha was practicing,

Tugged on his sleeve and said,

Buddha,

I've got a question for you.

Buddha said,

Okay,

How can I help you?

And he said,

How can enlightenment be attained,

But it can't be produced?

Buddha said,

Good question.

So he sat there and he looked at his environment around him and he said,

Okay,

Can you see that river over there?

And there was a big river next to them,

A very wide river,

Strong currents.

And the guy said,

Yeah,

Sure.

And he said,

Can someone in the full of their strength swim from this bank of the river to that bank of the river?

The guy waited up and was like,

Yeah,

It's a very strong current.

Maybe someone will get washed away,

But yes,

Someone in the full of their strength,

Someone fully capable,

They can make it from here to there.

He's like,

Great.

But could that same person in the full of their strength bring that bank of the river to this bank of the river?

The guy said,

No,

Don't be ridiculous.

Of course not.

The Buddha said,

Good,

You're getting it.

And then he looked around again and he saw the biggest mountain that he could see in the area.

And he said,

You see that mountain over there?

And he said,

Yeah,

Sure.

Could someone in the full of their strength climb to the peak of that mountain?

And he said,

Yeah,

It's difficult.

Some people die from exposure.

They need to prepare properly,

But yes,

Someone can make it to the top.

But could that same person bring the peak of that mountain down to us here?

And the man said,

No,

Of course not.

He said,

That's how you can attain enlightenment but cannot produce it.

There's a river for us to swim across.

There's a mountain for us to climb.

And if we follow the steps,

We can get there.

But we cannot bring that thing here without following those steps.

And that's what the Buddha really did that's so exceptional.

And I mentioned this in the beginning,

But I intentionally didn't go into detail with what I meant by it because we really need to have a bit of an experience of the technique to be able to go deep into it.

And that's the fact that what makes this so exceptional isn't all of this philosophy around it.

It's the fact that it's a muscular skill that leads to mystical results.

It is a mundane skill that leads to supramundane results.

It takes us from the profane to the sacred,

Step by step.

What does that mean when I say a muscular skill that leads to mystical results?

I mean that it's something that we do by repetition and that we can repeat.

It's a repeatable process.

We know exactly what we're doing.

There's no gap of knowledge.

There's no confusion in it.

We can repeat this process and step by step it will produce results.

It will take us there.

And it's so exceptional to the extent that you can almost not believe it when you find it.

Because if you're used to practicing all these kinds of techniques that take us to the mystical,

These amazing techniques that do exist,

You're used to there being,

As a regular part of the technique,

This gap in knowledge.

Where we have to have some kind of belief system or faith or give ourselves into something or over to something to jump us from here to here.

It's not a thing that we're walking step by step.

It's not something that we can do ourselves.

And this is just a regular part of religion,

Traditions,

All these things that we're talking about.

This technique is the only one that I found that actually makes sense from here to here and where you can follow the steps and it produces those results.

There may be other ones and if there are,

I'd love to hear about them.

But this one's enough.

And that's what's so exceptional about it.

It has the whole alphabet of the practice,

Which we're used to seeing ABC,

XYZ.

And then just believing the fact that there's this space in the middle to be able to help us to move across.

The thing that feels so weird about this is that we don't have to believe anything.

We literally just have to do the work,

Put in the practice and it takes us to those results.

We may never get to Z.

It's a very high goal,

But we can definitely go from A to B and from B to C.

And like we said,

Even if we don't,

This technique teaches us to be happy with A,

Happy with B,

Happy with C.

Doesn't matter if we get to Z.

Because it teaches us wherever we are is a beautiful position and it has something for us.

We can be content here without the movement.

But if we want to,

Then we can learn the language and we can get there.

Easy,

Or simple maybe,

Maybe not easy.

It's almost like the first time you might meet a truly honest person with no agenda.

You're like,

You mean you're actually telling me what you really think and feel?

I don't have to read between the lines.

It's hard to believe at first,

To just take this person at face value and to be able to accept the fact that they're just being honest with you.

That's all this is.

The Buddha was about to not teach us our Buddha,

The Siddhartha Gautama.

Right after his enlightenment,

He sat there and he sat in meditation and he realized it's going to be real troublesome for me to teach all these people who don't understand what I'm talking about this technique.

And he sat there before he decided to and he wasn't sure if he wanted to.

He's like,

I'm going to have to go through all this stuff and people are going to misunderstand me and they're going to do all of this.

I imagine he had some amazing foresight from his abilities and he saw what he'd have to do.

And so he was undecided whether he should teach or not.

But then apparently a being from a higher dimension came down to speak to him and begged him to teach us and said,

There are beings in the world that only have a little bit of dust covering their eyes and with your teaching,

You're going to wipe that dust off and allow them to experience reality.

So please do it.

And I remember that story every time I read the Buddhist sutras and I realized how cut and dry the Buddhist teaching is.

It's literally just if he can say three words,

He won't say four words.

Sensation as sensation.

That's it.

That's the teaching.

Focus on that.

I think about that because I think,

Okay,

This is someone who really didn't care that much about teaching.

He just wanted to help us and he wanted to say it in as direct and simple way as possible so we get it like that.

So we don't have to have this leap in faith,

This leap in belief.

We don't have to believe in him.

We don't have to believe in the Buddha.

The teaching is right there.

We don't have to change your religion.

We don't have to change anything except for the fact that you are right here,

Right now,

Present and focused as opposed to somewhere else acting from unconscious conditioning.

But we've got to do the work,

Not just put in the time.

We can't just be punching the clock.

It's like going to the gym.

If I want to get strong and develop muscles,

I've got to go to the gym.

If I see someone who looks like they're in good shape,

I ask,

What do you do?

Jason tells me,

You've got to go to the gym,

Got to put in the effort,

Put in the work.

I'm like,

Okay,

Great.

So I see Jason six months later and I say,

I've been going to the gym and I haven't been putting on any muscle.

He's like,

Oh really?

How often have you been going?

I say every day without fail,

Spending three hours in the gym every day.

He's like,

Wow,

How come Dave's not getting stronger?

What's going on here?

What's he doing wrong?

So he tries to figure it out and help me out.

And he says,

Are you lifting weights?

I'm like,

No.

You're using the machines?

Nope.

And what are you doing in the gym?

I'm just sitting there watching old movies and that's what we're doing here.

We can sit in here and we can flex our muscles or we can sit here and we can just watch old movies.

Putting in the time is good,

But it's only good if we're also putting in the work.

No one can hold you accountable for that.

I'm not going to come up to Josh and be like,

I see you're thinking about something there Josh.

I'm going to stop fantasizing.

Only he knows.

We got to be the mirror to ourselves.

We got to know what we're carrying into this situation.

Like we talked about yesterday with relationships.

It's easy to blame someone we're in a relationship with for our problems because they're a constant in our lives.

So when you say,

I feel upset because of you.

I feel sad because of you.

I don't feel fulfilled because of you.

As opposed to,

I am this set of sensations and I'm experiencing this and I am entirely emotionally responsible for it and you are simply just another stimulus in my life that can at points trigger those things.

Maybe it's not quite as simple to get into an argument from that standpoint.

There's another Japanese book I love called the Hagakure written by Yamamoto Sunotomo about the 16th century,

The William Scott Wilson version.

And there's a poem they talk about in there that helps us to be able to face this mirror of ourselves.

And it goes,

To tell others that it's a rumor will not do.

How will you respond when your own heart asks?

So there's no point with us pretending that we're in a state we're not in.

Pretending we're walking around full of love and light and happiness when inside we know we're carrying turmoil.

This has to start with authenticity.

When our own heart asks us how are we doing,

How are we really doing?

What work are we really doing?

What's the condition we're really dealing with?

There's no point pretending.

We've got to come back to ourselves and be honest and really relate with the genuine conditions we're working with.

And then from there we can start to build it up.

It's like me going in the gym and wanting to pick up 300 kg all of a sudden and then walk around and tell everyone,

Yeah,

I can lift 300 kg.

Instead of going in and realizing,

No,

Maybe I need to start with 60 kg and then slowly work up.

65,

70,

Slowly build it up until we get to the point where we really are doing that heavy lifting that we imagine ourselves to be doing.

And that's how we get there.

That's what the Buddha gave us,

This bridge,

This beautiful bridge.

It's exactly the same thing really because the nenbutsu,

We need to say 10 times with a pure heart.

And the Buddha just closed that gap for us.

He gave us a way to get a pure heart,

A pure focus so we can engage with anything with that same focus.

We can close that gap between the sacred and the profane.

I really just said this whole talk so that when you guys leave the hall you don't stop meditating so that this isn't the sacred and that isn't the profane.

That when we walk out of here we carry our consciousness with us.

This is our Buddha field.

If we can be purely focused here,

100% focused and in the presence,

Then we can carry that with us.

We can carry that state of consciousness everywhere.

It doesn't end here.

It doesn't end when we leave the hall.

It doesn't end when we get up from sitting.

And it doesn't end when this course is over.

This course is just the beginning.

It's just a bit of training that helps us to realize a universal truth that we can consistently apply.

And then maybe we can help Amida Buddha to achieve his goal of bringing all our sinners to enlightenment and liberation.

So let's give him a hand.

Or we could just go and sit outside in the sun and chant Namo Amida Butsu.

Maybe we'll try that on day 10.

But for now,

Let's use this Buddhist technique and let's start to experience the benefits of it and carry it with us.

Okay.

Let's practice.

Pick your best position.

Get yourself ready.

And let's start bringing these two worlds together.