SOTERIOLOGY: Nirvana, Salvation, Immortality by Bhante Punnaji (Washington Buddhist Vihara) - YouTube

 (10) SOTERIOLOGY: Nirvana, Salvation, Immortality by Bhante Punnaji (Washington Buddhist Vihara) - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqcSZHadVWo

Transcript:

(00:04) today we are going to talk about a very important subject you'll be able to understand it better if you were here last time uh how many of you were not present last time this is a series of talks where it's a gradual process of explaining the teachings of buddha and if you miss the earlier part then it will be a little difficult for you to understand everything but you might be able to understand something at least today

(01:14) there is a lot of interest in united states and also in canada and even europe about this thing called enlightenment they have started the new magazine some of you may have seen this it's called what is enlightenment that's the name of the magazine and a lot of uh writers below software's modern philosophers buddhist students of buddhism and students of all religions have been writing articles to this magazine it's not only just students it's professors are also writing

(02:20) so it has become a great interest in the west because when we speak of the buddha that word buddha means some people translate it as the enlightened one of course i translate that as the awakened one it's not just enlightenment it is awakening like if you are all sleeping here and someone comes and switches on the light that doesn't make much of a difference because you are still you may not be in the dark outside but because your eyes are not open you are not awakened so the first thing is switching on the lights and then later

(03:20) you have to gradually awaken so that awakening is the important thing but it starts with the enlightenment so the enlightenment really means an intellectual understanding of the problem of existence just survived existence is a problem which people don't know people normally begin to celebrate birthdays why do they celebrate birthdays they think to be born is a great thing and they are very happy that there is a birth taken place

(04:27) but from this buddhist way of thinking to be born is to be born into a state of suffering unhappiness because everyone that is born begins to grow old begins to fall sick and then die that is not something that we like what we call life is birth aging sickness and death that's what we call life so life is not a static thing it's a dynamic process that begins with birth and ends in death that is the problem now

(05:31) just being aware of that is not enough because why should we become unhappy when we begin to grow or fall sick or die why do people cry about this why do they lament why do they mourn why because people don't like to people don't like to fall sick people don't like to die they like birth that means they like to exist but that existence is simply an illusion we are not really existing now when we speak about

(06:35) a wave you think the wave exists if you ask the question does the wave exist no way is simply a change in the service of the world but we think water exists but if we really question to find out whether water exists we'll find that that is also a change everything that we think of is a process of change the change may be a quick fast change or it could be a slow change so when the change is slow we begin to think that it is a real existence that's the problem

(07:47) now the thing is this unhappiness when we see this reality of change unhappiness is because of our emotions that want permanence in an impermanent world it is our emotion which is blind when people fall in love they want eternal love and then lately are disappointed when they find that it is also impermanent that's the problem so we are most of the time carried away by our blind emotions this is the problem so the real cause of

(08:54) his unhappiness this suffering is not the change it is the emotion that is blind emotion is what is called tanha which is today translated in the wrong way as craving so this craving is simply the emotional impulse that is blind it is the same emotion that modern psychologists like sigmund freud was talking about he was the one who started this thing called psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and he was mainly dealing with emotions because we are born

(09:59) with this potential which is to be aroused by emotion and to be carried away by emotion so when the child the small child is troubled by these emotions there comes a problem the problem is that the adults like the father mother or the older brothers or sisters or whoever is looking after the baby begin to say don't do this don't do that that's not correct why the small child is mainly dominated by these emotions like

(11:05) most animals they are mainly controlled by emotions so this ability to think and reason out and understand what is going on comes later as the child begins to grow so now when these emotions come up like maybe anger or it may come up in the form of desires for things and when the older people begin to say don't do that then this child doesn't know how to deal with the emotion so naturally this emotion

(12:09) when the child is not able to control it will begin to forget about it throw it out in the mind that is what freud saw as repression what he called repression and that begins to create all kinds of problems like neurosis psychosis all these things begin to be based on this so that itself is a suffering now some people say buddhism is pessimistic that buddha has been talking about suffering but what are the psychologists talking about today then they must also be persuased you see to talk about the problems of

(13:15) life it's not pessimism it is realism trying to deal with real problems what are these people who advertise all kinds of things begin to talk about always problems everything that they sell is simply a solution to a problem if it is not a solution to a problem people won't pay the money and buy it so the important thing is that we have to learn to deal with these emotions which are blind so what the buddha pointed out was that if we want to be happy we have to learn to deal with the

(14:20) emotions this is what modern psychologists talk about also dealing with emotions most of us think that the way to deal with emotion is to control the emotion what is control our we have two parts of the mind one is the emotional part and the other is the thinking reasoning part so it is our thinking reasoning part that is able to become aware of reality this is what freud called the ego so the ego of freud it doesn't mean just yourself

(15:24) it is simply the rational faculty the thinking part the intellect that's what freud called the ego it's not just the self but why did he call it the ego there was a reason he was following an earlier philosophy deka who said i think therefore i am saw the mistake he he was a great philosopher in the sense that he began to doubt everything and questioned everything but ultimately he came to one point even for me to question and doubt i have to be thinking therefore the

(16:28) only thing that i cannot doubt is that i am taking if i am thinking then there must be me so he thought i think therefore i am but the mistake he made was he started with i think if he started by saying there is thinking then he cannot come to the conclusion i am if he started with i then naturally it has to end up with so if he said there is thought then he cannot say therefore i am but because he said i think then

(17:31) there's not really a conclusion you are just carrying what was at the beginning what he assumed it's an assumption that he carried but of course at that time this was accepted as a truth and so freud also thought the thinking was the ego so that's why the thinking part was called the ego and the emotional part the feeling part he called it why it simply means it is the latin form of the english word it it now it is neutral gender we refer to inanimate things as it this is because he saw

(18:36) that the emotional arousal and emotional behavior is a mechanical process it just happens mechanically even the thinking part is happening mechanically he didn't realize that but he saw it to a great extent because he was a neurologist who knew how the brain and the nervous system works so when he examined it he saw that he thought but simply in order to identify a person a personality he had to use the word ego because whenever we

(19:40) when someone does something we can always ask a question why did you do this and what we ex expect is a rational answer so that rational part of the mind he is responsible for answering that question and that he identified as the ego now if it is an emotional answer we would say that was not a proper answer like a child if a child does something and you ask why did you do this the child might say well because i want to that's all there is no rational aspect but if you ask an adult the same person

(20:45) why did you do this even if it was emotional that person will try to make it rational and that is what is called rationalization that you rationalize the emotion and that rationalization itself is a method of repressing the emotion or forgetting about the emotion so the important thing to understand is that we have two parts of the mind the emotional part which the buddha called chitta and the rational or thinking part is what buddha called mano towards you and today we have two words normally that we use

(21:53) the thinking part we call the head the feeling part we call the heart so we speak of the head and the heart but the problem is that this emotional part or the hard part comes in conflict with the thinking part because the thinking part is aware of the world and what is happening but the feeling part is not aware of anything it's simply feeling that's all i like it how i hate it whether it is rational or irrational it doesn't matter this is what it is doing

(22:58) that freud called it so it's a matter of controlling the id the ego is always trying to control the heat and if the ego is able to control the id properly then that person will be a sane person according to freud and if the person is unable to control the heat then that person is either neurotic or a psychotic now when we begin to see this we begin to understand the importance of what the buddha is trying to say but even today we find that people are not able to fully gain control of the emotions

(24:04) this is the biggest problem so the buddha pointed out away there is a way of doing it but very few modern psychologists care to look at buddhism for the teaching of the buddha partly because today the teaching of the buddha is hidden because even the buddhists themselves have lost touch with the original regions today we have different schools of buddhism that try to interpret the teachings of the buddha in different ways so when a non-buddhist or a westerner comes to study buddhism there is a problem

(25:09) the tibetan buddhists will say this is the teaching of the muslim and teach them that their dogma is taught the chinese will say no no that's not the real teaching of the buddha our way is the real teaching of the buddha or the japanese will say no no we have the real original teaching and teach that or maybe the burmese will bring another point of view and say this is the real teaching or the sri lankans will also come and say well that is not what it is this is the teaching so different schools of buddhism begin

(25:52) to say different things we have mainly three kinds of buddhism today what is called theravada mahayana and bhajraya but they are all interpretations of the original teachings it's not the original teaching i of course was born in tehrawa the country but from my young days i began to question this is the real teaching of the buddha because i was a student of science and so i began to doubt some of the things that was taught as the teaching of buddha so i began to find the original teaching what is the

(26:56) original teaching of people i found that it was preserved by the theravadins in the sutras but they had commentators of commentaries written down explaining the sutras and it is the commentaries that make the mistake but people are beginning to blindly follow those things as a tradition this is what is called traditionalism people blindly follow traditions so every culture is doing that the christians blindly follow the christian bible the jews uh blindly follow the jewish

(28:06) and muslims blindly follow the quran and the hindus blindly follow the vedas so the buddhists blindly follow the what they call the tributary but even there they are mainly following the commentaries and what is called the abhidhar but the real teaching is found in the early sutras but there is a difficulty in getting at the sutra the difficulty is the language it's a dead language so because it is a dead language the meanings are lost because certain words have been

(29:10) getting into modern languages like for example the word nirvana that was the word used by the buddha but it has become an english word also now it's in the dictionary so in a similar way you have the words like karma also similar word but this happened in the indian languages more more words got into the indian language like even the word similes in sri lanka or hindi in india so when these words have been picked up in the modern languages the meaning of the word gradually begins to change and when the meanings change

(30:14) when they read the sutras they begin to think oh that word means this that means the meaning is different so things like that happen so it's a very difficult job to understand these things so i have been struggling through many years to understand this i don't say that i have discovered everything and i have found the real truth but i would say that whatever i have found i think it is correct i may be wrong at the same time so it's for i can only share what i understand with you and you have to judge for yourself there

(31:10) is one way that buddhism can be properly judged whether it is original teaching or not because it is talking about a problem and its solution and if the problem is solved by what i say or whatever you find then you can say that is the real teaching of the buddha because the buddha is supposed to have solved the problem so it's not just something some dogma coming from one culture it has to be discovered and every person has to discover this for himself for herself that's the important thing you cannot just

(32:05) take it from another person because you have this doubt that the other person can be wrong so according to your level of maturity in your thinking you will be able to understand the teaching of the buddhism that's the important way to see it and when it is understood you will find that your problem has been solved also so it's the solution of the problem that is the the real test that's why the buddha said just as gold smith will test what is given as goal by

(33:09) a particular method and it is only by doing that that person can really find out whether it is real gold or not so in a similar way when anyone speaks about the teachings of the buddha you should test it with your own experience as the crucible put it into that crucible and test it so in a similar way you should test what i say also you should not take it blindly so the important thing is that even before the buddha the problem was recognized by the indian yogis the indian mystics

(34:13) who had developed certain psychic powers and they became aware of this problem and this problem was not a problem that was within this present life it extended to many lives after death and many lives before death this is the important thing what we discussed last time was that we are being reborn again and again without end we may be reborn not just as human beings we can be reborn as animals also or we can be reborn in the health in buddhism health are there but not

(35:17) exactly like the christian or jewish health but the hell is there in the form of a pain world and there are heavens also and we can be reborn in the heavens also now i said last time that the word transplant of oneself reincarnation is a wrong word to use because reincarnation means a soul being reincarnated means a soul creeping into a body that's not what is happening and even the word transmigration is not correct because that also involves the soul going from one life to another now in buddhism we don't speak about the

(36:23) soul there is no soul to speak about but still the real birth takes place it was very difficult to understand how that could happen during the time of the buddha people found it difficult but today fortunately if we understand modern science lot of things are happening in this way which is rebirth is happening all the time now when i speak and it is recorded in a tape recorder and the voice comes back when you play back that is a reproduction

(37:30) you don't need the sword creeping from my mouth to the deep recorder and coming back there is no such thing because everything in this world is an activity not an entity that's the important thing there are no entities in the world entities are created in our mind we think there are entities everything is an activity but one activity can lead to another activity so there can be a chain of activities that's how river takes place it's simply a change of activity i am not an entity when i use the word i

(38:30) there is this illusion taking place that is i think there is an entity here called i but there is no entity here there is only activity the whole body is an activity you you go and ask a doctor about you will see that the doctor will tell you that the whole body is simply a machine that is working it's an activity going on even the thinking process is an activity that is going on the feeling process is also an activity going on and that activity can lead to another activity so when we talk about my voice being recorded or my voice

(39:27) being carried away in the air and received somewhere else in a radio or even my picture being received somewhere else in a tv it's the same thing activity being transferred from one place to another is simply activity simply you're shaking movement that's all so if there are no entities in the world then it's very easy to understand what we mean by rebirth even when we speak about a wave in the water it's simply an activity the water rising and falling or going up coming down that's all when the water at this point starts

(40:28) going up and down the water next to that also starts going up and down then the water next to that also goes but we see it as something going like that but there is nothing going like that it's only how we see it so this is the important thing all movement is actually ultimately another concept that we have observed and we have formed a concept we are all the time observing things and inferring observation and inference that's all that we have observation and inference so when we begin to think like that we have this problem

(41:31) that is that we think we are living we but we are born we begin to grow old we fall sick and die that is also an activity that's all that's going on but we become attached to this thing that doesn't really exist which is the entity the entity is the self and we think that there is this entity which is growing old falling sick and dying and then we ask where did this entity go all this time there was an entity here talking to me and i was talking to the entity and the entity was answering me but now it suddenly stopped

(42:25) what happened where did this entity go this is why when someone during the time of the buddha asked this question the buddha said well he saved a fire here and then the fire goes out and i ask you the question where did this fire go how do you answer in that man said well when the fire has gone out it has not gone anywhere what has really happened is that there were there was some firewood here which was burning and when the firewood disappeared and burnt off then the fire disappeared he said in the same way this is what is

(43:29) happening to you there is no person here or any entity that has to go it simply comes to an end but that activity can lead to another activity this is the problem so in any case after the buddha's awakening from this dream of existence so existence is just seen as a dream from which we have to awaken and once we awaken we'll realize that there is knowing but after he became awakened later worse that is supposed to have been a statement of the buddha it's very interesting i have

(44:35) been traveling in this samsara sansa in this chain of freebirds i have been going from life to life in this sansa in search of the creator now some people say the buddha never spoke about the creator that's not true it's all in the sutras here it says i have been searching for this creator means the builder of the house the believer of the house is simply the creator so i have been going in search of this creator but i never met him i never met this creator it is

(45:39) very painful to be born again and again which means to be born again and again is very painful that was the first verse now that is thinking in the ordinary way and then the second verse he says i have seen you created the second verse i have seen you created you will not create any more all your creations have been destroyed all the supports have been broken down the mind

(46:51) the chicken has stopped creating panda and kai marty that emotional urge has disappeared who is the creator it is that emotional urge that he's created the blind emotion is doing all the creation but the blind emotion is doing it along with the thinking part it's not only the emotion that is doing it because it is the thinking part that leads to the emotional excitement and then the emotional excitement combines with the thinking part to create the whole world

(47:56) and including yourself that was the awakening that was awakened from this dream of existence he saw that the whole existence is a creation of the mind that's the important thing so this is what i call a paradigm shift you know someone wrote a book about how science is progressing every time science progresses there is a paradigm shift taking even in philosophical thinking if you study the history of western philosophy you'll find that paradigm shifts are taking place

(49:01) always changing of concepts going on there is one very important paradigm shift in western philosophy that took place which is very significant in understanding the teaching of the buddha this was done in england by three philosophers one was rock the other was berkeley the other was hume it's very important these three people lock was a person who started saying that there is no such thing as a mind

(50:10) people think there is there are two entities one entity is the body the other entity is the mind it was this illusion that has created a problem even in psychology law pointed out what we have is the brain and the nervous system there is no mind it's the activity of the brain and the nervous system that we call the mind it's like the engine of a car when the engine begins to work the car begins to move and when the engine stops working the car stops moving

(51:14) so the movement is not created by a separate entity it's simply the activity of this machine so in a similar way the mind what we call the mind is simply the activity of the brain and the nervous system which is the body now this other philosopher berkeley he was a bishop he was a christian he didn't like this idea because he wanted god somewhere so so because he wanted that so he wanted to find out a different way of

(52:17) attacking this so he said no you are completely wrong it's not correct because you are talking about matter and there is only matter in the world there is no mind but what is it that you call matter what you call matter is produced by this process of perception when you open your eyes you see something oh you can hear a sound or smell or taste or touch and you touch something and say this is hard piece of iron or something you can say this is very hard and you can see with your eyes but ultimately it is simply a picture in

(53:19) your mind so what you call matter is a picture in the mind so how can you have a picture in the mind if there is no mind so what you find in this world is only mine there is no such thing as matter he said that is also true you can't defeat that value so one man asked well if there is a tree in a forest which you have never seen but there is a tree in a forest you have not seen and that tree falls breaks and falls who sees that no one has seen this tree

(54:24) who sees that if everything is in the mind then there must be a mind that says that then he said he he thought about this he can't give a stupid answer so he said that is in the mind of god god cheese so he got something for god also there so but of course there came another philosophy and that was few he came and said you are both wrong

(55:30) berkeley uh lock prove to you that there is no such thing as mind and berkeley proved that there is no such thing as matter that means there is no mind there is no matter then what is there there is only we can only speak of one thing that is sense experience that is all that we can talk about sense experience there's all the eyes then of course

(56:37) came another philosopher emmanuel can't was the one who started going into a more detailed description of this and then he spoke of two things called the phenomena and the pneumonia he said yes what we what hume said is correct so whatever we have perceived through the senses what we experience is what is called the phenomena but there must be something outside there which we can't really directly know because we are limited by our senses and because we are limited by our senses

(57:43) we can know and talk about only what we have perceived which is the phenomena but there must be something outside there which is producing this and that is what he called the pneumonia which people cannot know so he went on a different direction and then of course there was another philosopher who started saying well that pneumonia can be known it can be known through extra sensory perception by mistakes mystics can know it and that is good so like that of course the later philosophers started questioning that also

(58:35) and rejected that you cannot talk about anything outside your sense experience even the extra sensory perception is a kind of conception and therefore it is all sensory perception so when we come to the buddha the buddha said the same thing that hume saw which is buddha says in one of the sutras this is the all what is the all the i and what is see the ear and what is her the nose and what is smile the tongue and what is taste the body and what is touched and the thinking process if a person says i will talk to you

(59:41) about something other than this he can be questioned a cross question and ultimately he will not be able to make good disposed so in other words we can talk about only this and that is what the buddha called dhamma or dharma this is the important thing to understand the word dharma some writers say this word dharma cannot be defined properly because it takes different meanings and in different contexts different meanings but that is not true there is only one meaning when a gudha used the word he has only one meaning for that

(1:00:40) and people who don't understand that meaning begin to hide their ignorance by saying that there he meant one thing another place he meant another thing why should the intelligent person do things like that normally people do things in their conversation but a scientist will always use one word to mean one thing one word like energy or false or how every word will be defined the philosophers also do that so why should the buddha start using different words that's not correct he has only one meaning which is

(1:01:31) this experience sense experience that was the dhamma but the word dhamma means that which bears that's the important thing that which bears what does that mean that means the ground of being the ground of being that people talk about the ground of existence the ultimate ground on which everything rests and that is this sense experience this is what people are unable to see this is why some people say the ground

(1:02:37) of being is existence or the ground of being is god all kinds people begin to say that but the ground of being the buddha points out is this sense experience that is why it is called dhamma dharma means the ground of mean other words normally people think i exist i exist in the world the world exists i exist and i come and see the world oh if i take an object like say this this temple or whatever we call it bihar or monastery is existing and you

(1:03:39) have been existing somewhere in your home and then you come here and see the vihar oh you see me i am in existing and you have been existing and you come and see me right so in other words we are talking about a subject that is yourself and an object what you see so the subject exists the object exists and then the subject sees the object right this is how people think in other words existence precedes experience right that's what people think that existence receives experience existence comes first then comes

(1:04:46) experience but what the buddha is pointing out is experience comes first then comes existence this is the difference experience comes first means you see it is in the scene that you think of a subject that sees an object that is being seen if there was no seeing then there would be no something or object right that's the important thing that is how the experience becomes the dumb the existence has been called bhava the word that the buddha used for existence is bhava and

(1:06:02) power so he defines nipah is the the cessation of existence is divided or the freedom from existence is divided or liberation from existence this this is the important thing to understand so when we talk about nipah we are talking about a complete transformation of our way of thinking this is a paradigm shift it is only when we have

(1:07:07) changed our way of thinking that we cease to be carried away by blind emotions it is this existence that brings about this emotional arousal young man walking on the road sees the nice looking girl and you see i am here there is that nice sexy girl there and then the emotion is around all that is coming from existence you are thinking in terms of existence but if you see if you can look at this whole process of

(1:08:12) perception and conception as an activity that is simply going on is an impersonal process there is no personality here there is no person there there is no person here it's an impersonal process that is going on and you become free of that impersonal process you are not carried away by that then all fashion lust anger hatred worries anxieties all that disappears and your mind is calm it is this disturbance of the what we call the mind that is creating the whole problem the original state of the mind is a calm tranquil state

(1:09:12) the mind is tranquil for it in the original form it gets disturbed by seeing things hearing things smelling things tasting things touching things and thinking about things the mind gets disturbed but if he can stop that disturb the mind becomes tranquil the mind is actually trying to come back to this original state of calm all the time all the time it is trying to come back to the virgin state this is something that freud himself saw freud also saw he spoke about if you read some of the books written by freud you'll see that

(1:10:19) he talks about this but still he never saw nirvana properly because he saw the problem the conflict but he thought that these emotions cannot be got triggered that's why he called them instincts he called them instincts we are born with it we can't do anything about it other than find some kind of satisfaction some way of gratifying the emotion and the solution to the problem that he found was what he calls sublimation which is to gratify the emotions in a socially acceptable way if your emotions

(1:11:23) are coming in the form of sexual desires the only way is to socially acceptable way is to get married and have a family any other way is not socially acceptable but of course today you have other kinds of uh marriage which is acceptable less in the modern world after fraud but at that time the only way was that going the other way is if you become angry you want to kill the person or to take revenge on a person how can you do it in the socially acceptable way go to courts while action that's the only way you could take

(1:12:25) revenge now they say revenge is a wild form of justice but actually justice is a glorified form of revenge so so this is the point that he saw only this because he believed in this thing called instincts which cannot be got triggered so only way is to gratify the emotions in a socially acceptable way and so you become a normal person instead of an abnormal person so his method was always to bring abnormal people to a normal state but the buddhist method

(1:13:34) was something more than that his method was not so much to bring abnormal people to the normal state but to bring normal people to a supernormal state and that supernova state is where the emotions are completely goated and the mind stays calm all the time the unshakable mind that's the important thing that is of course the ordinary people are the normal people they are not able to achieve this suddenly but through a gradual process which can take many lives depending on the person's

(1:14:37) level of maturity or what we call emotional maturity and intellectual maturity it's the emotion and the intellect that is important here so the head and the heart so the maturity of the head and the heart according to that maturity you can do it this this life or maybe the next life or maybe many lives after everything depends on where you are now but the important thing is to learn to gain control over this emotional impasse this is the main thing and to gain control over the emotional impulse we have to learn

(1:15:34) that the emotional empower starts with the thinking process now today there is a form of psychology called cognitive psychology and this cognitive psychology they have understood this point that the cognitive part which is the intellectual mind the thinking part determines the arousal of the emotion and so it is by changing the cognitive part that we can change the emotional part this is why what is called the noble eightfold path of the buddha begins with right understanding this is the important thing that the

(1:16:41) thinking part has to be changed it's only when the thinking part is changed that the feeling part becomes changed and the feeling part is goal oriented this is the important thing to understand he's always seeking a goal either he is seeking pressure or he is trying to avoid pain this is what the emotion is doing all the time either seeking pressure or avoiding pain this is what freud saw at the end the it is dominated by the pleasure principle that's what means the pleasure principle is to seek pleasure and

(1:17:38) avoid pain so when we have understood the problem and its solution then we begin to move in the right direction which is the original state of tranquility so tranquility becomes the goal in life if tranquility becomes the goal because unconsciously we are all the time seeking tranquility that's why people say i want peace of mind i don't like to get disturbed but it has to be consciously directed so we have to understand that our main goal in life should be tranquility of

(1:18:43) mind so what this means is these emotions are not instincts not built inside the emotion is simply a disturbance of the mind original state it was calm and this calmness has been disturbed so it has to come back to the original state so there is nothing unnatural about this is the natural the most natural thing is to come back to the original state like the word in biological thinking which is called homeostasis that homeostasis normally people speak about it when we speak about say the healing of a gold

(1:19:46) now if you are if your leg breaks or even and gets cut there is this tendency of the body to come back to the original state which is the healing process but this healing process is prevented by something what is the that the bacteria come and start working on this so when so it's not the doctor who does the healing what the doctor is doing is only preventing the bacteria attacking the wound so even sickness inside the body

(1:20:50) happens in the same way so there are other organisms trying to prevent the healing process in the body other than the bacteria what's that like the virus virus is another kind of thing that prevents the healing so this is how it works so this natural process of healing or coming back to the original state is found not only in the body but the mental process is also doing the same thing it is always trying to return to the original state of tranquility but again like the bacteria there is something that begins to prevent this

(1:22:00) and this is simply the disturbance of the mind due to environmental stimulation things happening in the environment begin to disturb the mind so what the buddha points out is there is one way to get rid of that and that is what the buddha calls guarding the senses increase somewhere means to god guarding the senses it's like a boxer when the other person tries to hit you you hold the arm and stop that that's guarding so in a similar way

(1:23:03) when a stimulation takes place from outside you have to have the god to protect and that god god is simply awareness of what is going on that awareness is what is called sati today that word sati is wrongly translated as mindfulness it's not just mindful i call it attention you have to be attentive all the time to what is going on so gradual focusing of attention that is very important you have to pay attention to

(1:24:08) whatever is happening every time you see an object you have to become aware of seeing his any disturbance taking place and so this is why the buddha says when you see something don't think about the presentness or the unpleasantness of what you see if you think about the presentness of what you see you become attracted if you think about the unpleasantness of what you see you are prepared you begin to hate what you see these are the two basic emotions the lust and the hate and that could be stopped only by guarding the senses

(1:25:12) now when you do guarding the senses and practice it properly you'll be able to somehow gain control over that process but there is something else happening thoughts come from the memory what happened in the past comes into your mind you have to be able to get rid of that also and again you have to pay attention to that you have to be aware and then do you do the same thing not to be thinking of the pleasantness of this memory or the unpleasantness of the memory you have to be able to throw it out of your mind so this can come to you constantly

(1:26:20) every time it comes you throw it out and if you keep on doing that it will stop coming it's like a visitor is coming to your house someone knocks on the door you open the door and you find a person that you don't like to receive so you can just talk about the unpleasantness of that like i don't like you don't come in then that person will go away if you do that every time that person comes it might be that the person comes several times every time the person comes you can say that and then the person will gradually

(1:27:19) stop crying so in a similar way when the thought comes to your mind you have to do the same thing when the thought comes oh i don't like you i don't want you here this is why christian speaks about this in a different way they say let god come into you don't let the devil come in when the devil comes throwing out then god comes you receive you take the word god simply is what is good the devil is what is evil so from a buddhist point of view god and devil simply means good and evil that's all from good you take one

(1:28:23) o out then you'll have god from the devil you say put one lead to it it becomes evil i mean from the devil you you yeah so it's the same thing the important thing is to learn to watch what is happening this is the meaning of sati and we have this word sati patana sati pathana is also usually translated as mindfulness but satipatthana is inside satis attention attention focused inside

(1:29:29) not attention focus outside this is the important thing when when i look outside i see something nice and i think about how nice it is then the desire comes but instead of doing that he stopped focusing my attention on that object i begin to focus my attention on the reaction to the object here a desire was in my mind and now i look at the desire instead of looking at the object the moment i do that the desire is obvious why because the desire is aroused only because i am focusing on that object when i stop focusing on the object the

(1:30:27) desire cannot arise so it disappears that's how it goes but there is a problem here the problem is the desire is not just a mental thought it's a physical change because when the desire rises the message goes to the glass and the hormone is secreted into the blood and this hormone goes to various parts of the body and creates changes in the body so it's the complete physical thing not just a mental thought and therefore even when you take your mind away from the object and focus on the thought it doesn't disappear at once

(1:31:31) it's like the hot plate you switch it off it doesn't become cool at once you have to wait till it gradually cools down so in the same way when the emotion is aroused and you take your attention away from the object and focus on the emotion it doesn't disappear at once and if you become impatient then again that becomes another emotion so instead of that you have to relax and just wait watch and gradually you will find it cools down that's the important thing to understand so it's a very simple matter

(1:32:18) take your attention away from the object focus on the reaction to the object just be aware of it that's all and this is what we call meditation so meditation is not just sitting like a statue the important thing in meditation is the mind not the body so it is something that you have to be doing all the time not just once a day or twice a day or even thrice a day all the time you have to be watching what is going on we'll be discussing this part gradually next time

(1:33:20) the practical part but today we discussed about nirvana i hope you understood but if you didn't understand is the time to ask questions so you can ask questions and we can discuss yeah yeah um who is directing uh this attention uh this consciousness this awareness if i understood you

(1:34:23) earlier in the lecture that um [Music] there's nothing in existence when we were to when you were talking about existence so who or what is directing uh guarding consciousness uh attention yeah that's a good question thank you the only thing is that the moment you talk about the hoops you are talking about the circuit so we cancel the subject and the object there is only the action part there is really no subject or object it's the experience and it's the experience that is creating the subject and the object

(1:35:27) so we can talk about seeing but we cannot talk about who sees or what is being seen there is only the sea so this is why in this vipassana meditation sometimes these vikasana teachers talk about that there is a story where some person was taught in a in a simple way in a very short way how to practice vikasana and he said in the scene there is only the same in the hearing there is only the hearing in the smelling there is only the

(1:36:30) smelling in the tasting there is only the tasting in the touching there is only the touching what it means is there is no subject or object there is only the experience just importantly so all that comes really through the meditation process you begin to understand it fully now you can only think but our thinking is also going on in the normal way which is the normal paradigm so we have to come out of that paradigm and to get into a different paradigm where we begin to think in a different way now this is what the buddha was

(1:37:25) trying to say in that verse two words that i spoke earlier he was talking about traveling in sansara looking for the creator there he's assuming the existence of a person going from life to life and that there is some person who is doing the creation and then in the second verse he says i have seen your creator ultimately that creator is his own mind itself which is doing the creating there is no create outside it's the mental process itself that is doing the creation that process of perception seen here in this manner

(1:38:24) if you read the modern book on psychology one of these textbooks that people use in studying psychology in universities there is a chapter on perception if you read that chapter you'll begin to understand how your mind is creating modern people have understood this fully but that understanding has not been assimilated properly this is what is happening it has to get into your life that's very important this is why the meditation process

(1:39:28) the meditation process is a method of getting that into your life the the whole noble eightfold path starts with samadhi which is the right understanding but let us enter that is the enlightenment that i spoke of the right understanding will be the enlightenment but that's not enough that has to end your life your thinking your speaking your action your living that's how it works any other questions the more you ask questions the more you will understand yeah could you explain a little more about a little more about emotions being a

(1:40:34) mechanical process of all this happening to you it makes me think of depends on the origination of cause and effect um starting with stimuli entering the set gates and then you have an emotional reaction it basically happens to you and it's like a new personal process well good that's a good question something that i need to explain enough i suppose the important thing to understand that i have a method of explaining this first we start with an assumption because we have to start somewhere so we start by saying

(1:41:31) that we are not people here we are organisms that's all when we speak of an organism we are speaking of something like a machine a biological machine is called an organism a machine made of made by people is of course called the machine but what the machines that are formed automatically through the biological process is called an organism so as an organism we have five senses the eyes the ears the nose the tongue and the body and of course there is a brain which is doing the thinking

(1:42:36) process and perception brain and our system now when these senses are stimulated like some electromagnetic wave coming and falling on the eye like what we call light light is not what we really think of it is an electromagnetic wave that comes and falls on the eye and then that stimulates the retina in the eye what is called the retina i hope you know which is the bad some thing at the back of the eyeball huh and now there is a now what is called the optic nerve that goes to the brain and now impulse goes

(1:43:41) like like a telephone and so no impulse goes to the brain and then you see you see colors you see shapes so those are the things that you see then of course in the brain you begin to create concepts now first what you see is simply what you might call a percept or a sensation and then you begin to think about it interpret what you have seen you form concepts and according to how you interpret the message is set to the glass and of course the glands begin to

(1:44:45) secrete hormones and then an emotional arousal takes place a sound emotional arousal according to how you interpret now if a person comes here and begins to say something you might interpret that as a joke if you interpret that as a joke then you begin to laugh if you interpret that as an insect then you become angry if you interpret that as a threat you might get frightened so the kind of emotion that is aroused depends on your interpretation and once the emotion is aroused the body

(1:45:50) gets ready to act and attention rises in the body and that tension makes you uncomfortable till the tension is released in action so you release the tension to obtain what you desire or to get rid of what you hate or to run away from what you fear and if you can't do any of those things you start crying and lamenting so that whole emotional arousal and the action is a reaction it's the reaction to the stimulus the organism is reacting

(1:46:57) to the stimulus that's all that is happening so that is in short how the emotion of us is aroused so if you can learn to stop that that's what the buddha taught how to stop that if you can learn to stop that you you remain calm you won't be disturbed but today what has happened is you don't know how to stop it so it happens to you and when it happens to you you think you have done it say when you are angry you think i am angry as if you have done the anger

(1:48:02) and when you begin to fall in love or something you think i can fall in love as if you did it you have not done anything it's just happening to you you are just working like a machine that's all so if you can see this see it as an impersonal process there is no self involved in this whole thing then the power is lost it's your personalizing this that gives power to it thank you uh for your talk it was very i got a lot out of it

(1:49:07) just now you're talking about um a stimulus coming into the sensory perceptual process and we react to that stimulus part of that reaction i think i guess i should say my understanding of part of that reaction is internal because we have probably as a result of prior learning and this is what i think gives us the sense that i am is this this prior learning bespoke of memory of building up of our experiences with that particular stimulus so that when the stimulus comes in part of what causes us to label it and respond to it as a thread

(1:49:50) or as a joy or whatever have you is something that we have on coded and that as i'm sure you're aware neuroscientists have now determined also occurs at the level of the neuron that there are actually changes that go on in that cascade of processes that you talked about in the brain in the neuron as we experience the world and as we learn those processes do change the brain just as the physical body can act upon the world that physical world acts upon actually the brain as we learn so i guess what i'm asking is how does

(1:50:24) one um become impersonal when there's both a response to something that's external as well as a response to something internal that's part one of my question yeah good that's a good question see i will answer that question uh the important thing is that what you said is very important something that i didn't mention so this is why asking questions is very important because there are some places where i have not really come out with the details then i'm able to come up with it every time we form a concept

(1:51:21) we are bringing the past into it this is important to understand whenever we look at an apple and say this is an apple we are bringing the past memory into it we have seen efforts before and so we are putting this new apple that i see i put into that same category and call it apple so in a similar way if we have been having past experiences of different kinds even as a child we begin to bring in that to the present and we interpret the present in terms of our past experience this is what freud saw this is the meaning of

(1:52:18) point psychoanalysis which is to recall the path and see the connection between the past incident and the present experience so this is what i think what you call coming from inside what is internal so there is that internal factor as well as the external factor that produces this new experience is that what you ask yeah okay i haven't i haven't really put this together yet so i don't know if it's going to make sense from parts of what you were saying i i really got a lot out of your description of um

(1:53:15) the fact that basically all there is is action right that's in my experience that's what i what i believe and that was very helpful uh that's gonna be very helpful for me in meditation in particular i was thinking about something you said about justice being a glorified form of revenge yeah and i was thinking about the concept of karma attached with the concept of action and you talked a lot about how some of these words have not been translated properly and how we may not understand what they truly meant

(1:53:52) so my understanding of karma was always that um if i engaged in certain actions you know like good actions that at some later point you know some good result would occur and if i engaged in some you know bad actions or evil actions at some later point something evil would occur but based on what you're saying i think that's extremely simplistic and so i was thinking about how if there's a there's just a series of of a chain of activity uh in in myself and all other non-entities uh that that interact

(1:54:32) then if if one entity interacts with another envy in a way or when one chain of activity interacts with another chain of activity in a way that is um that may be perceived as an injustice are you then saying that that interaction itself is not how should i put this something that's a part of a meaningful fate but is maybe more just of a random occurrence uh and that we produce the meaningful fate out of the way that we respond to it and then that becomes whatever like perhaps maybe that's not what you look at the consequences of

(1:55:26) that uh that occurrence that interaction right i i don't know if i'm as i said i haven't totally thought this through that do you oh i think i understand what you said this is something that we discussed earlier when we were talking about karma you are not here the important thing is today people think karma is some kind of law of punishment and reward similar to god punishing and rewarding people but karma is not a thing like that there is no punishment and reward in karma it's like you drive in the wrong way and then you

(1:56:30) meet with an accident now the accident is not a punishment but if the police catch you and take you to courts then of course you will get a punishment so punishment is always given by people but these are all like inanimate things and everything in the world is really inanimate in that sense even what we call animate also inanimate so that there is no punishment and reward or judges in the world everything happens due to the presence of the necessary conditions when the necessary conditions are there something occurs

(1:57:26) and that is how karma works it doesn't work like someone judging and then punishing so this is if you begin to understand it that way i suppose your problem will be will disappear did you understand that yes so did you find that your question was answered or not answered i i think that your comment is very helpful i i pretty much probably didn't really have a question with more just sort of muddling through ideas became about what you were talking and your clarification was very helpful thank you any other questions

(1:58:31) normal questions back here understanding the concept of delusion and i noticed when you were talking about um when you covered the kalisas you seemed like you only talked about the blunting and the uh aversion uh part of it i didn't hear you talk about delusion in that you just mentioned the other two and i was just wondering why and could you explain for me the concept of delusion because i

(1:59:36) just haven't had a lot of trouble with that okay that's also a good question uh [Applause] the buddha spoke of three things that determine our behavior and our actions refers to desires for things or the passion or the last that is lower those are refers to the aversion or the hatred of things which is really lower is the desire for the pleasant

(2:00:40) things and dosa is the hatred of the unpleasant now he spoke of a third thing called mohammed refers to the blindness of this emotion it's not only that the emotion is blind the emotion prevents you from thinking in the proper way so i spoke of two parts of the mind one is the emotional part and the other the thinking part now the emotional part when the emotion is aroused the thinking part is unable to think properly this is the problem and that

(2:01:45) is what we call mohammed moha is the inability to form proper concepts and so we begin to often rationalize the emotion so in other words when emotion and reason are in conflict what happens emotion always wins this is what happens the emotion becomes dominant and the reason begins to obey the emotion or begin to interpret the emotion in a rational way and point out that what i did was right you might be angry and you kill the person

(2:02:48) and then you rationalize and say well i did the right thing i had to kill the person you might say that person tried to kill me now this is why dale khan again his book how to win friends and influence people so very interesting book you should read if you have not read that there he points out he was talking about some uh criminal ancient united states al capone you may have heard this he says a man he was driving and a policeman stopped him and asked for the license and he took his pistol or revolver and shot him

(2:03:56) and it was later that he was caught somehow and he was taken to prison and so what happened was he says this is what i do for my heart is very kind and compassionate and this is what i get for being so you see something like that where he he never admits that he has done something wrong he's always defending himself and he's trying to show that he was a good person so

(2:04:57) this is very important to understand that when emotion and reason are in conflict emotion becomes awful and dominant and the reason becomes a slave to the emotion and this is why people fight this is why there are wars in the world this is why there is crime in the world because people emotions become dominant and so they destroy things all this destruction all the destructive things happening in the world all that is due to the emotions dominating reason and but at the same time today people always trying to defend

(2:06:04) emotion they say if if we take off emotions uh we'll be like inanimate things that's what people try to say they are so much attached to the emotions but if you study the biological theory of evolution you will begin to understand that before the brain was properly evolved the animals were mainly guarded and protected by emotions that is true but once the human being gets a better brain and the ability to think and reason out those emotions are unnecessary the emotions

(2:07:13) can be removed completely and reason alone can do what emotions were doing in the wrong way now if you see these movies by what's that movie channel where you get animals all the time the discovery channel there you get tigers or lions chasing after animals and catching them and killing them but the animals are running because of the emotion they get frightened and they run but

(2:08:17) they don't escape really because this other animal who can run better can catch them and eat them so that emotion didn't really help them [Music] but if that animal had intelligence the animal could have found a way of escape you see so intelligence is more powerful than emotion emotion has been helpful in protecting lives in some animals but not all together but at least it has been helped in fully in some way but if the animals had intelligence they would have been doing much better now human being is a very small animus

(2:09:20) we have to understand that human being is very small compared to the elephant but the human being with that intelligence is able to do better than the elephant and the human being can control the elephant and get things done by them although he has a big body maybe even the size of the brain may be bigger than the size of the human being but still the human being's brain is more evolved think and can think and do things better than the animals so what is important for the human being is to become fully human we are only half human because we are

(2:10:17) being carried away by the emoji we are not fully human so the aim of the teaching of the buddha is really to become fully human by getting rid of these emotions which are blind and misleading we can use our intelligence now some people say if we don't have emotions we'll have no love that is again a mistake there is this psychologist eric from who wrote the book called the art of loving if you read that book you will find that he is able to distinguish between three kinds of love he says the english word

(2:11:21) love is confusing it is not really very clear what is meant by love some people call sexual activity is also love they to talk about sexual intercourse they will say making love so what is love now he says there are three kinds of love one is heroic erosis or erotic love eros which is a greek word and then there is family love where love between mother and children and between brothers and sisters which is a different kind of love which is not sexual love and that he calls filia and then there is another kind of love where

(2:12:22) when when jesus says love thy name and thy self he's not talking about erotic love or even family love he's talking about a kindness and compassion that is what he called agape a greek word against so when the buddhists talk about mecca or my three the buddhists are also talking about this selfless love or i translate this as universal benevolence for goodwill universal goodwill which is an interest in the welfare of all beings not only human beings all beings even animals and even inanimate

(2:13:27) plants and life of any kind so that is universal love or universal benevolence so that is that kind of universal concern for the welfare of all beings is not an emotion this is the important thing because all emotions are self-centered it is only when our mind is free of these self-centered emotions that we are really able to become interested in the welfare of others that's the important thing to understand so only when the mind is free of this low dose and more the lust hate and the delusion which is

(2:14:30) the delusion main delusion is to think i am that is created by these self-centered emotions the self-centered emotions because they are self-centered the center is the self so the concept of self is also born out of this emotion which is self-centered the self and the other and so when the mind is free of these emotions we become selfless and we become selfless concerned about the welfare of all beings not just one person or just our family or just our nation but all beings not even just human beings all beings that is possible only when our mind is

(2:15:34) free of these self-centered emotions and therefore this love selfless love is not an emotion it's a calm tranquil state of the mind is that okay so now i think it's almost 6 30 so we'll stop here and so we are coming to the end of our series of talks but we have this other talk also but we can continue and if you are interested till i

(2:16:37) stay here and the important thing is we'll be talking next time more on the practical part like the noble eightfold about the practice of the teaching of the buddha and how it can be done so today it was more on the theoretical aspect so so you know the goal of the buddhist which is defined which is to return to the original state of khan and stay there so that the mind can never be disturbed that is a very high goal but you don't have to be discouraged if you are not able to attain that high state

(2:17:41) at once but it can take many lives not only one life but if if you try this life you'll be able to get into a better position in the next life and if you don't try it and if you ignore the whole thing you might go down further in the next life so this is why it is very important to be practicing this in this life himself not to be postponing okay i will end up by chanting as blessing to bring you good health happiness and success in everything that you do and put your hands together like this palms together