Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / Who and what did the Buddha teach first?

Transcript

Who and what did the Buddha teach first? · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

0:11
Great. So good morning and a very warm
0:14
welcome again to Buddhisticious Tour, especially if it's your
0:18
first time here. Extra warm welcome to you.
0:23
So those of you that are in the WhatsApp group or that come here
0:26
fairly regularly will know that next Sunday we'll be celebrating
0:31
what's traditionally called Wesac, which gets translated as
0:35
Buddha Day, basically a celebration of the the Buddha,
0:40
Yeah, the his attainment of enlightenment.
0:43
And yeah, we'll be celebrating that.
0:45
Next Sunday is a festival day, which you're very welcome to
0:51
join. So I thought in preparation for
0:54
that, I'd, I'd have a look at the Buddha's, well, at the
1:00
Buddha, basically following the Buddha, especially after his
1:04
enlightenment. I always find I've, you know,
1:08
I've done a fair amount of talks and I always find it slightly
1:13
unsatisfactory trying to describe the Buddha because it's
1:18
impossible. Yeah.
1:21
We have an image of the Buddha. We have some kind of idea, but
1:24
we really have zero idea what a Buddha is.
1:28
Yeah. And we've probably got less idea
1:30
of what a Buddha is if we think we know what a Buddha is, if you
1:33
know what I mean. We're like, Oh yeah, it's kind
1:34
of a, you kind of have an idea and then you just switch off.
1:38
You've got the Buddha as something compartmentalised in
1:41
your mind, as something you understand and you're interested
1:44
in or not interested in. The truth is we have no idea
1:46
what a Buddha is really. So I'm not going to talk about
1:50
the Buddha in that way. There's all sorts of epitaphs or
1:53
titles for the Buddha, the Conqueror, enlightened, he was
1:58
liberated, all these things, but I don't know if they help us so
2:01
much. So today I kind of wanted to
2:03
look a bit more that the Buddha's teaching, Yeah.
2:07
Because I guess the closer you, the more you practice or the
2:11
more you engage with his actual teachings, the more likely it is
2:16
that you'll have any sort of sense of what you're moving
2:19
towards, IE what a Buddha is. Yeah.
2:22
And the Buddha said himself, those who see me see the Dharma,
2:26
The Dharma is Buddhism is the teachings.
2:28
Yeah. Those who see me see the Dharma.
2:30
Those who see the Dharma see me. Yeah.
2:33
So I thought we'd look at the well, the, the, the initial
2:40
teachings of the Buddha, the something to do with the
2:43
eightfold path. I'm not going to go, we don't
2:45
have time to go into all of that fully, but I want to talk a
2:47
little bit about the eightfold path.
2:50
But before we get to that, because he, the, the eightfold
2:54
path was taught to his friends. Yeah, he or people that he used
2:58
to be with. He he attained enlightenment and
3:00
then he thought, don't worry, I'll backtrack in a minute.
3:04
But then he went to go and teach his friends.
3:06
Yeah. But before that happens, loads
3:09
of other stuff happens as well, which is the context is always
3:12
important. I think that's why I think
3:14
that's what you discover in Buddhism, isn't it?
3:15
The context to the actual teachings are almost just as
3:19
important as the teaching itself.
3:20
They have. And in a way, it's a bit like
3:22
you have to learn how to read, read the the context, and then
3:26
the teachings start to make more sense as well.
3:30
Yeah. So for those of you that are in
3:32
the WhatsApp group, I posted a picture.
3:35
I didn't write anything under underneath it, but I posted a
3:40
picture in the WhatsApp group. It's an image that was drawn by
3:44
Arloka, and it's basically an image which describes the
3:53
Buddha's decision to teach. Yeah.
3:57
So in this image you have, it's a really beautiful image
3:59
actually, but you have a river and you have the Buddha looking
4:04
like he's meditating against the tree.
4:07
And in the in the river or the water, it looks like there's
4:11
loads of lotuses. Yeah, some are coming out of the
4:14
water, some are underneath. And then above that river,
4:18
there's a kind of, it almost looks like a thought bubble.
4:23
It's a little bit cartoonish somehow, but not, it could be
4:27
either. It's the Buddha's thought or
4:31
it's something coming to the Buddha.
4:33
And in this bubble, in this bubble is a kind of figure, like
4:38
a, an angelic looking figure, some kind of radiant being.
4:41
Yeah. So it's a really, I love this
4:44
image. I have it on my shrine.
4:46
And this image basically communicate.
4:49
It's basically communicates where the Buddha decides to
4:54
teach. It's a symbol of compassion.
4:55
Yeah. So the story goes, well, I'll
5:03
read. I'll read the beginning of of
5:04
this, of this image. Yeah.
5:06
So the Buddha's there and he has this kind of thought and he says
5:10
what I've discovered with difficulty.
5:13
There's no point in making it known for those overcome by
5:17
sensual desire. And I'll will.
5:19
This truth is hard to understand.
5:22
Those who are excited by sensual desire, obstructed by a massive
5:26
darkness, won't see what goes against the stream, what is
5:30
subtle, refined, profound and hard to see.
5:35
Yeah. So in a way, we're dealing with
5:36
a story. I'm.
5:39
I'm. I Yeah.
5:41
It's a story. It's a myth, but it communicates
5:43
something. Yeah.
5:44
So this is the Buddhist thinking.
5:45
The Buddhas discovered this enlightenment, this awakening,
5:50
which again I'm not going to get into with all sorts of clever
5:52
head, head, head trips and but in a way I'd just like to
5:57
emphasise, sometimes we emphasise how close the Buddha
6:03
is and how it springs out of our own experience, which is true.
6:07
But for today, for some reason, I'd just like to emphasise the
6:10
Buddha's otherness. Yeah, it's a bit difficult
6:14
sometimes for people that are maybe of atheistic background.
6:18
We have an atheistic background to understand why Buddhists
6:20
Revere the Buddha. Yeah, they think, well, he's not
6:24
a God. That's strange.
6:25
So why you Revere? So why would you Revere some
6:28
bloke who's just nice? Yeah, like someone said, goes
6:31
around being nice to animals, for example.
6:33
It's like, why are you going to dedicate yourself to this?
6:37
Or they misunderstand Buddhahood.
6:39
Yeah. But yeah, I just wanted to
6:43
emphasise the Buddhas, the otherness which relates to what
6:47
we'll get into. We all have these experiences
6:50
sometimes where we're not on our usual level of experience,
6:55
something happens to us. It could be a collapse in our
6:59
own life, or it could be an opening to another kind of level
7:02
of reality. And all of a sudden all of this
7:05
is put in a completely different context and it's feels quite
7:08
other. So I just want to emphasise
7:10
that. So the Buddha, A Buddha lives in
7:13
that, you might say. Yeah, and it's So what he's
7:18
discovered is so. Well, I think he's almost
7:22
surprised at one point. It's unusual, but he's free.
7:25
And he thinks then why? Why would I trouble myself
7:28
trying to teach people this? Because people are just not
7:31
going to get it. You know, we're so obsessed and
7:34
locked in our stuff, aren't we? You know, it's very difficult to
7:36
breathe, almost. Sometimes we're in our thing.
7:38
It's very difficult. But then what happens is this,
7:44
according to the myth, this God turns up Brahma Sahampati, who's
7:47
like the highest of the gods. Interestingly, he's the kind of
7:50
one of the highest gods, but he's not higher than the Buddha.
7:53
So again, that's kind of strange for us, isn't it?
7:55
You've got this kind of high God, but he's not higher than
7:57
the Buddha. So he, the Brahma Sahampati's a
8:00
bit worried. He thinks, Oh dear, the Buddha's
8:02
not going to teach. And so he, he implores the
8:05
Buddha to to teach, basically saying there are people that
8:11
have little dust in their eyes. Yeah.
8:14
Some people have lots of dust in their eyes.
8:16
Some people have little dust in their eyes.
8:17
And for those that have little dust in their eyes, please
8:22
teach. Yeah.
8:25
And then the Buddha, well, the Buddha doesn't think about it.
8:27
I'm not going to add any dramatic effect, but the Buddha
8:31
has a vision. Yeah.
8:33
So in this image, again, you have the Buddha, you have Rama,
8:36
Sahampati, you have this beautiful pond, but you have in
8:38
this pond loads of lotuses. And they're us, you know, So
8:43
it's like an extraordinarily positive image of us, you know,
8:50
challenging perhaps, but positive because some of the
8:52
lotuses are right down in the mud.
8:55
I know what that feels like. We all know what that feels
8:57
like. You know, you kind of this is
8:58
almost darkness, but you're still a Lotus.
9:01
Yeah, Some lotuses are near the surface.
9:03
Some are kind of breaking through the surface.
9:05
And so this is the Buddha's vision of us that there's,
9:08
there's, we're just in different stages and different levels of
9:11
receptivity or understanding or awareness.
9:14
And so that's how he he sees people and that's why he decides
9:19
to teach. So, so that's the, that's the,
9:28
the Buddha has the decision. He makes the decision to teach,
9:33
and without going into it, he reflects that some of his former
9:37
companions will understand. Yeah, they were a bit like him
9:41
at the time, before he went on his own path.
9:44
They were a bit, I don't know, say misguided perhaps.
9:48
They were basically doing a whole aesthetic practice, which
9:50
basically means torturing yourself.
9:52
It was a whole idea that you would separate, quote, UN quote,
9:55
your soul from your body by dominating your body and
9:58
mastering your body. That didn't work.
10:01
The Buddha. The Buddha nearly died basically
10:03
before he became the Buddha. He tried all this stuff and he
10:05
was like, this isn't working. Yeah, he'd, he'd done the whole
10:08
hedonism thing when he was young.
10:10
Like, went in. Yeah, like more than people in
10:14
Berlin, probably. I don't know about that.
10:16
But anyway, actually, probably not.
10:20
No, he definitely didn't. But he went in, He got, he
10:23
probably did it in a nice way. He probably did it in the best
10:25
way possible. Yeah.
10:27
Anyway, he tried all that and he was like, no, it's kind of run.
10:30
It runs empty. In the end.
10:31
It's like, OK, it's fine for a while, but in the end it dries
10:33
up, doesn't it? It's not working.
10:35
Then he tried torturing himself. I'm simplifying a bit, but he
10:38
tried dominating his will, his body, you know.
10:44
Anyway, he was with a number of other people at that time.
10:47
They were doing the same thing. Then he began to realise this is
10:50
the wrong way, started eating food.
10:52
They were like, Oh my God, what a lightweight.
10:54
He's a, he's a total disgrace and they left him, but he
10:57
realised they were still serious, you know, they were
10:59
still kind of going for it. So he goes to them.
11:02
He thinks, OK, I'm going to teach them.
11:04
I think they'll get it, you know, So it's interesting.
11:08
So there's different accounts of that particular journey from
11:11
where he is under the Bodhi tree, which some of you, well,
11:14
Damasar was there not so long ago in India.
11:17
And he goes from there to his, to his friends.
11:23
And well, it's interesting. There's, like I said, it's
11:30
different accounts of who he meets first.
11:32
But I'll go through both of them.
11:34
You know, the first one, he the first one is a meeting with
11:39
Brahmin. And I guess you could say
11:42
Brahmin is the highest of the caste system, like a priest
11:46
caste. Yeah.
11:48
And well, let me just read it. Then after seven days, the
11:52
Buddha came out from that stillness and went from the
11:55
Bodhi tree to the goat herds banyan tree.
11:58
He too sat there cross legged for seven days without moving,
12:01
experiencing the bliss of freedom.
12:04
Then a Brahmin devoted to mystical mantras went up to the
12:08
Buddha, exchanged pleasantries with him and said Good Gotamer.
12:14
That's the Buddha's name. Gotamer.
12:17
Good Gotamer. How is 1 of brahmin?
12:19
What are the qualities that make one of Brahmin?
12:22
So he's basically asking the Buddha what is the highest
12:27
person? You might say, what is the
12:29
highest? He's obviously from, he's been
12:32
born into this priest, cast into this highest caste, and he's
12:35
asking the Buddha what is the highest person?
12:40
The Buddha seeing the so seeing the significance of this, the
12:44
Buddha uttered a heartfelt exclamation.
12:47
The Brahmin, The Brahmin who has shut out bad qualities, who does
12:52
not murmur mystical mantras but is free from flaws and self
12:56
controlled, who has reached final knowledge and fulfilled
12:59
the spiritual life. He may rightly proclaim the
13:02
highest doctrine, having no pride about anything in the
13:06
world. So this is really interesting.
13:08
It's something that a friend of ours, Padma Badger brings up a
13:12
lot. This particular incident, it's
13:14
curious how almost the 1st, the first engagement of the Buddha
13:20
is a kind of clash with, I guess society at the time, you know,
13:26
which is unusual. So he, he immediately and
13:29
there's, there's been lots of disputes, I guess between
13:33
Brahman caste and the Buddha and his teachers over the centuries.
13:37
That's been something that has unfolded in various ways.
13:41
But this is what the Buddha had to do.
13:42
There was a whole language at the time of a spiritual language
13:48
or just a language in general. And he basically transformed
13:51
those words. So he used the same words but
13:53
gave them new meaning. So instead of a instead of a
13:56
Brahmin, according to the to the Buddha, being someone who is
14:00
born into the highest position, he still keeps the Brahmin as
14:05
the as the kind of point of what is highest.
14:08
But he says the Brahmin is someone of worth, not birth,
14:10
essentially. Yeah.
14:12
So that's quite interesting. So it's an immediate engagement
14:18
with the world around him. So that's the first interesting
14:22
thing. Yeah.
14:27
The second interesting. He's basically, he's going along
14:29
his way. He says.
14:32
It occurred to me, the five groups, my 5, these five
14:35
mendicants were very helpful to me.
14:37
They looked after me during my time of striving.
14:40
Why don't I teach them first? Yeah.
14:42
So he goes along to them. So while he's walking there, he
14:48
bounced into someone else, someone called Upaka.
14:50
You know, And I have to say, I think this particular story is
14:55
one of the reasons I'm a Buddhist.
14:57
You know, I couldn't really tell you why, but there's something
15:00
about the fact that it's been put almost at the front of the
15:03
tradition that I find gives me trust somehow.
15:07
Yeah. So he's going along.
15:10
And then Upaka, this is, I won't do the Buddha's basically saying
15:14
his experience, but Upaka saw him.
15:16
Yeah. And he says to him, Sir, your
15:19
faculties are so very clear and your complexion is pure and
15:24
bright. In whose name have you gone
15:26
forth, Sir? Who is your teacher?
15:28
Whose teachings do you believe in?
15:30
Yeah. So he's.
15:33
This was the custom of the time. Apparently it was very
15:35
uncultured to not have a teacher, a spiritual teacher.
15:38
Yeah, it was a kind of almost unbelievable.
15:40
So he's just been very polite. He's asking who his teacher is,
15:44
whose name is he gone forth. So going forth is basically
15:47
there was a whole, the Buddha was from a whole tradition of
15:50
Wanderers. People would wonder people would
15:52
support them in their in their striving.
15:54
Yeah, it was. It was the culture.
15:57
Yeah. And he's asking, what do you
16:00
believe in? Basically.
16:01
Yeah. So the Buddha replies to him.
16:04
I am the champion, the knower of all unsullied in the midst of
16:09
all things. I've given up, all freed through
16:12
the end of craving. Since I know for myself whose
16:16
follower should I be? It's quite a statement, isn't
16:19
it? He's the champion.
16:21
I have no tutor. There is no one like me in the
16:25
world with it's gods. I have no rival, you know.
16:29
So this guy's like just asked him this.
16:32
For in the world I am the perfected one, I am the supreme
16:35
teacher. I alone and fully awake, called
16:38
quenched. I'm going to the city of Karsi.
16:41
I think I pronounced it right, to roll forth the wheel of the
16:43
Dharma to teach. Basically, in this world that is
16:46
so blind, I'll beat the drum of freedom from death.
16:51
So he got quite an answer there, Upaka, didn't he?
16:53
He was like in other, in other translations of this.
16:59
I think he even says he's can't even figure out what the Buddha
17:01
is. Are you a God or what are you?
17:03
He's like really curious. Yeah.
17:06
So then Upaka replies, according to what you claim, Sir, you
17:10
ought to be the infinite victor. And then the Buddha says the
17:15
victors are those like me, the victors are those like me, have
17:20
reached the ending of defilements, have conquered bad
17:23
qualities. Upaka, That's why I am a victor.
17:28
Yeah. So Packer's there.
17:29
And he says if you say so, Sir. And walks off, unbelievable.
17:40
Shaking it says, shaking his head.
17:42
He took a wrong turn and left. I don't know why.
17:45
I just find it so inspiring. Partially because it's like me
17:52
on a bad day and past you, like, pretty.
17:56
Because it's like, most of us. Yeah.
17:57
We're kind of like, oh, my God. And then we're like, on our
18:01
phone, on our phone somewhere else, like, we just lost it.
18:04
But also, I find it encouraging that it's at the forefront of
18:07
the tradition as well. The upaka doesn't get struck
18:10
down by lightning. The floor doesn't open.
18:12
And, like, he doesn't get swallowed into the reaches of
18:14
hell. He's just like, all right, See,
18:17
some people won't get it. Yeah.
18:19
And that's the way it is. Although apparently, which I
18:23
did, I found out on Thursday, apparently Ukpaka comes back
18:27
later and does attain enlightenment.
18:29
So the Buddha. Yeah, the Buddha does teach him,
18:32
Yeah. So, yeah, maybe that's enough to
18:37
say about that. So not everyone would we.
18:43
We like to think we might recognise A Buddha, don't we?
18:46
We like to, we, we, we hold ourselves quite highly, don't
18:48
we? Like.
18:48
Oh, yeah, Perhaps we wouldn't because there's also other
18:52
stories, like when he goes to meet these three friends, the
18:56
Anirudhas, it's a bit unfair because they're not all called
18:59
Anirudhas. But anyway, the three Anirudhas,
19:02
and the park keeper doesn't let him in.
19:04
He's like, oh, who's this tramp you know, let's get rid of?
19:06
And they have to come and say, no, no, it's the Buddha.
19:08
Yeah. So it's worth bearing that in
19:10
mind. We don't really know who people
19:11
are, you know, especially not in spiritual circles.
19:14
There's all sorts of interesting, especially on
19:15
Instagram these days, There's all sorts of kind of interesting
19:17
people doing their kind of mystical.
19:21
Come on this course, it's only €5000 and I'll transform your
19:24
life in a weekend. Oh, my God, it looks so cool.
19:28
Maybe maybe they are enlightened.
19:30
Who do I? I don't know.
19:31
Anyway, maybe not, but we don't know.
19:35
So. So the Buddha goes to his
19:39
friends. He arrives at Varanasi and the
19:43
Deer Park. Somehow.
19:44
That's beautiful. Yeah.
19:45
So this is where Buddhism begins, in the Deer Park.
19:47
Yeah, at Isipatana and his friends remember Gotemer, who's
19:55
now the Buddha. They remember him from before.
19:57
And they weren't impressed because he was doing so well.
20:00
You know, he was like, all his hair had fallen out through
20:03
starvation. His fingernails were rotten
20:05
coming out. He wasn't eating.
20:07
He nearly died trying to wash in the stream.
20:09
And they were like, yeah, go, go, go.
20:12
And then he just took some rice pudding, essentially, and they
20:16
left in disgust. Yeah.
20:17
So now he's coming back. They see him in the distance and
20:21
they're like, we're not going to stand for this person.
20:24
Yeah, we're not. We don't treat, don't treat him.
20:28
What do they say? We shouldn't bow to him or rise
20:30
for him or receive his bowl and robe.
20:33
But we can set out the seat if he likes.
20:38
Yeah. So and then it says, yet as he,
20:42
well, he, this is the Buddha speaking.
20:44
Yet as I drew closer, the group of five mendicants were unable
20:48
to stop themselves as they had agreed.
20:50
Some came out to greet me and receive my bowl and robe, some
20:54
spread out a seat, while others sent out water for washing my
20:57
feet. But they still addressed me by
20:59
my name and as Sir, so they can't help themselves.
21:03
This is interesting. Again, it's the context.
21:05
It's clearly the Buddhist, but this, this happens throughout
21:09
the whole of the tradition that it's that the Buddha's presence,
21:13
it's not just the teaching, it's his actual presence is their
21:17
direct experience of someone who is free, which is what Buddhism
21:22
is about. Yeah.
21:23
That's why we do all of this. We're looking for liberation.
21:26
Yeah. So their, their experience of
21:29
meeting the Buddha is does something to them.
21:33
It draws something out and they can't help but be interested.
21:35
Yeah, and and they say to him, Reverend Gottemer, that
21:46
practice, that gruelling work by through that gruelling work you
21:49
did not achieve any superhuman distinction, knowledge and
21:52
vision worthy of the noble ones. How could you have achieved such
21:56
a state now, Now that you've become indulgent, strayed from
22:00
the struggle and returned to indulgence.
22:04
So by indulgence, they mean like 1 bowl of food a day.
22:08
Yeah. And probably not starving
22:10
yourself. So, so basically he says to
22:13
them, it's very nice actually. He says to, he basically says to
22:17
them, have you ever heard me talking this way before?
22:20
You know, because he says he's liberated, he's free and he can
22:23
teach them. And they're being I'm about
22:25
rude, but they're doing their thing.
22:27
And he's he, he doesn't, He just says, have you ever heard me
22:30
talk like this before? And they say no.
22:33
And then he starts engaging with them and.
22:40
And that's the that's the beginning of what you would say
22:42
is Buddhism. Yeah.
22:44
So he teaches them teachers. He's engaged with them over a
22:48
number of days. And the way it comes down to us
22:54
is quite formulaic. And the way it comes in these
22:56
different teachings which have existed for 2 1/2 thousand
23:00
years. But one particular part of it
23:04
that I wanted to focus on is what's called the Eightfold
23:06
Path. Yeah.
23:08
The eightfold path is central. It's the path, basically.
23:13
Yeah. The Buddha basically said to
23:15
them, which was his idea for leaving in the 1st place.
23:19
Their suffering. Yeah.
23:19
We all suffer. Yeah.
23:24
And he's, and there's, there's there's a reason for that
23:26
suffering. Yeah, and he also says to them,
23:30
but there is actually a way out of suffering, which is what a
23:32
Buddha is. A Buddha doesn't suffer anymore.
23:35
Yeah. And there's a path.
23:37
Yeah. And this path is the eightfold
23:39
path. I don't really want to talk.
23:43
I'm not going to talk about the whole path in detail.
23:45
It's impossible anyway. But in 20 minutes.
23:50
But I just wanted to talk about 1 distinction, which is the
23:57
first part of the eightfold path and the other parts.
24:01
Yeah. So, well, we've been, I've been
24:07
in a study group recently. We've been looking at this year.
24:09
And our own teacher, Sangarachita, makes a
24:12
distinction with the eightfold path, and he says it's split
24:15
into two parts. So the eightfold path, you have
24:18
the path of vision and you have the path of transformation.
24:22
And you could say that's the whole of Buddhism.
24:24
It always kind of works like that.
24:25
There's a path of vision and there's a path of
24:27
transformation. You see something and then if
24:31
you're able to, you will transform your life in
24:35
accordance with what you know to be true.
24:37
That's the what the Buddha is saying.
24:39
Yeah. So I'm not going to go into all
24:45
the other seven parts. I just want to talk about the
24:47
first part, this path of vision. Yeah.
24:50
Which is a translation of term samyuk, Samyuk, drishti.
24:56
Yeah. So samyuk can be translated as
24:59
something like proper, thorough integral, and it normally gets
25:04
translated as right. Yeah.
25:06
So you have samyuk and you have drishti, which means like view,
25:09
you know, it means, it means to see.
25:11
Basically, it's something direct, so it sometimes it gets
25:16
translated as right understanding, but our own
25:18
teacher and I think it's fairly obvious that it's not head
25:22
knowledge in that sense. He makes the point.
25:25
You don't sit there with a load of books and learn all about the
25:28
history of Buddhism, all the different schools of Buddhism
25:30
and everything like this. And then you do the rest of the
25:33
stages. It's he makes the point.
25:34
Drishti is a view. It's as in something direct and
25:38
immediate. It's to do with sight, you know,
25:40
it's like, as if now you're looking.
25:42
Well, I guess at me, like around.
25:44
I'm looking. It's something direct.
25:45
I don't have to think about this.
25:46
It's an experience. Yeah.
25:48
And some yuck is like, well, like I say, could be right.
25:51
But he prefers the word perfect. None of these words are
25:54
particularly satisfactory. But the whole path, in a sense,
25:59
begins with this perfect vision. You know, you see something
26:03
directly for yourself, undeniably.
26:07
Yeah, in that moment. It's undeniable.
26:09
And you transform the rest of your life on that basis.
26:17
So we'll have all we'll we'll have all experienced these
26:19
moments in our life. Yeah.
26:21
And I think that's probably in a wise, in a way, why sometimes
26:26
Buddhism gets called a natural religion.
26:28
We're not asked immediately to place ourselves within a a myth
26:32
or into a whole story in a sense, which may be beautiful,
26:35
but that we have to adapt to. It's more talking to our direct
26:38
experience as it's lived now and then taking it to the next step.
26:42
Yeah. So all of us will have
26:44
experienced a glimpse of perfect vision somehow.
26:48
Yeah. It could be in Sangaracheta.
26:52
He makes all kinds of examples. It could.
26:54
It could be from something deeply painful, like the loss of
26:58
a loved one. Or maybe your your career all of
27:02
a sudden just looks empty. You're just like, wow, I've
27:04
spent 50. I'm 50 years old.
27:06
I'm nearly 50. But you spent anyway.
27:08
But you spent a long time doing this thing, and what's it for?
27:14
Yeah, maybe someone of your friends died and you're there
27:16
with like, OK, maybe you made some money, but blah, blah,
27:18
blah. What's this for?
27:18
It could be that. It could be a visionary
27:22
experience. It could be you just see
27:25
something clearly. You just see something somehow.
27:28
You have a moment of beauty. It could be to do with nature,
27:31
it could be to do with the way someone behaves and your whole
27:35
being is elevated. You know, something opens.
27:40
I'm sure everyone's experienced this, you know, I mean, some
27:47
people have had those kind of experience on psychoactive
27:50
substances. I don't want to read too much
27:52
into that because then the rest of the path sometimes falls away
27:55
and you end up staying with the psychoactive substances as if
27:58
that is the path. It can be a, it could be part of
28:01
the path. It can certainly open things and
28:03
you can see things, things that you wouldn't normally see.
28:07
Like we, our day-to-day bandwidth, I feel, I mean, I
28:09
might be wrong, but it's almost like we're being squashed more
28:12
by our technology. Our bandwidth seems to be
28:14
shrinking somehow, at least in my experience.
28:16
Yeah. We're all kind of speeding up on
28:18
some treadmill. And then all of a sudden the
28:21
bandwidth opens and you're like, you can breathe again and you're
28:24
like, there's actually a much bigger picture.
28:26
Yeah. So that's perfect vision, a
28:29
glimpse of it. You've seen something.
28:33
It could be in a dream, even. He says, yeah, you could have a
28:37
dream, a certain dream that just stays with you and can change
28:40
your life. It's not something you forget
28:44
so. Well, by way of example, I just
28:49
thought I'd give a few examples from my own, my own life, just
28:55
because it can be helpful. I find sometimes to hear someone
28:58
else's. And then you think, ah, what
28:59
have I? What's happened to me in a way,
29:00
and what, what's been my experience?
29:02
Yeah. The first one I thought was that
29:05
a glimpse of perfect vision? Maybe it was, but I was on my
29:08
bed when I was about 14 listening to jungle music, which
29:11
I love anyway, and I had all these strange visions, like all
29:15
these kind of like elevate. It was like an elevator.
29:17
I was pretty stoned as well. But anyway, I had all these kind
29:20
of elevated visions of a different world, like a
29:24
different dimension of reality. The weed wasn't that strong.
29:26
It was, it was, there was something else going on and it
29:31
rose me up and I would say it changed my life because I
29:34
followed that music. I just wanted to add that
29:39
because I, I didn't want to do injustice to it.
29:41
So I thought, no, that was something that really did
29:43
something. It opened me up.
29:44
It moved me in a certain way. It lifted me out of all the
29:48
things going on around me at the time and the world and offered a
29:53
glimpse of something. You know, the first one, the
29:57
second one I thought funnily enough was related.
29:59
I was in a jungle rave when I was in my early 20s and I was, I
30:04
was really into this music and all my friends were and that was
30:07
the life and it was everything. And I had such a strange
30:11
experience all of a sudden of like being there and just having
30:17
I was with friends and whatnot, but I was zoned out a bit.
30:19
I wasn't on drugs at all. And then I just had AI just had
30:23
a sort of vision of myself being like 80 years old in the same
30:29
sort of club with the same friends dressed in Adidas three
30:32
strike track suits with walking sticks and like white hair.
30:37
And I was just like, I felt sick.
30:39
I was like, this cannot be me, you know, in terms of a cycle of
30:42
like me doing the same thing, getting more painful and, and
30:48
also this. And I thought it related to
30:50
insubstantiality as well. It felt so real at the time.
30:53
And then you think, oh, wow, this being cool, me being like a
30:56
cool kid is going to disappear quickly.
30:59
And then what? I'm going to be pretty alcohol
31:01
or something, you know? So there was impermanence and
31:05
also it just didn't feel tangible anymore.
31:07
And weirdly enough, I would say that moment was definitely part
31:12
of moving towards Buddhism, because I went to the Buddhist
31:15
centre very close after that. So something gave way.
31:19
Yeah. There was some kind of
31:20
indication of the life I'm living now.
31:22
I'm so into this. This is me.
31:25
But it's going to look very different in 10 years or 20
31:28
years or 30 years. Yeah.
31:32
I can't rely on it in a sense. So that was 1.
31:39
Yeah. The other one was actually a
31:40
dream. It was.
31:41
And I, I was, it's funny because I had a bit, I would say a bit
31:44
of a spiritual crisis a couple of years ago where I thought,
31:48
have I actually experienced anything that I'm.
31:51
I've been involved in like Buddhism for 20 years.
31:53
Have I actually experienced anything that correlates to what
31:59
you might call transcendental states or higher states of
32:01
consciousness that I could concretely say I have?
32:07
Yeah. And I and I thought, no, I have
32:09
because it, it was a dream. But, and it's also important
32:13
that our own teacher makes the point when you have these
32:15
visions or you have these experiences, you need to take
32:17
them seriously. You need to kind of cherish
32:20
them, maybe even make a shrine to them in your mind because you
32:24
forget them, he says. And it's true, isn't it?
32:27
You have some kind of elevated state, clear vision.
32:30
You know exactly what it is. The next week, it's like it
32:32
never happened. And then it's a memory like a
32:36
year later, you're like, oh, was that real?
32:39
It was real, but it's kind of still in you, but not that
32:43
conscious. So I just reflect anyway, this
32:46
dream, those of you who know me know this dream.
32:49
Sorry. It's the same dream, hasn't
32:52
changed. Anyway, this dream, when I was
32:56
again, I was in my 20s, I would say.
32:58
I think it was just after I got into Buddhism.
33:02
So in this dream, I was in this. What was it like, a cafe?
33:08
Yeah, like a cafe in the South of England, place called
33:11
Bournemouth or somewhere like that.
33:12
I don't know. It was in the South of England.
33:15
And there was like these old ladies with like purple hair
33:19
like they used to have. I don't think they have any
33:21
more. But, you know, it is quite, I
33:22
don't really like it now in Berlin, you know, blue rinse or
33:25
purple rinse. And it's great.
33:27
And they were serving tea and stuff and, and scones, like
33:30
little cakes. And so they were there.
33:34
And then on this big table, there was Tony Soprano, you
33:38
know, Tony Soprano, the the, The Sopranos.
33:42
Yeah. OK.
33:42
I just thought I'd missed a generation.
33:44
But anyway, Tony Soprano, it's from the early 2000's, The
33:47
Sopranos. And he was there with all his
33:48
friends, all these mobsters. Yeah.
33:50
It's like this mobster series. Yeah.
33:52
So they're all there. And I sat down with him and we
33:57
were having, it's a bit too much detail.
33:59
Anyway, we're having, what are they called?
34:02
Prawn cocktails. You know, doesn't matter.
34:05
Anyway. So we were there, and I suddenly
34:08
became lucid. You know, when you wake up in
34:10
your dream. Have you ever had that?
34:12
Yeah. Where you where you where you're
34:13
dreaming. And then all of a sudden, you
34:14
know, you're dreaming and you're like, interesting.
34:17
What is this? So I looked around and I just
34:20
thought, oh, this is obviously just like the thoughts of the
34:22
day. I'd watch.
34:24
I was watching Sopranos heavily at the time.
34:27
I think I'd been on holiday like a few years before with my dad
34:30
to this place. Yeah.
34:31
So I was just like, all right. But the the light bulbs, well,
34:38
it was kind of coming from the light bulbs, but it was coming
34:40
from everywhere. There was a light.
34:41
Yeah. Which I which was like, like a
34:46
white light. Yeah.
34:47
Like, well, like a pearly white light.
34:51
Really bright, but not harsh at all.
34:54
Yeah. The light was.
34:56
The light also seemed to have a personality.
35:00
It was love. Yeah.
35:02
I just felt and all this, I just felt so relaxed.
35:04
I just sat in this chair like, God, yeah.
35:08
It was like love. And it was intelligent.
35:11
Yeah. It was like, it was like a, oh,
35:13
like a super intelligence or something.
35:15
These light bulbs, it's not light bulbs, but the light
35:18
coming through these light bulbs.
35:19
So the context was just the detritus, the regular whatever
35:24
nonsense of my mind or stuff. But the light was, if I don't
35:30
even know how we describe these things because you can't really
35:33
make these definitions, but it felt like it wasn't me.
35:35
Yeah, it almost felt like something was reaching out.
35:39
Yeah, yeah. Sorry.
35:56
Yeah. So God.
36:00
Anyway, yeah. So that happened.
36:03
And yeah. So there you go.
36:08
So that was, that was an experience which is worth for me
36:14
has been worth remembering because you can doubt yourself
36:17
sometimes, especially when you're practising Buddhism,
36:20
because you can have dry periods, you can have periods
36:22
for years where you're just doing your duty, so to speak.
36:25
Or you're involved with things and you're kind of not quite
36:28
sure why you're doing it anymore and maybe you're not even
36:31
enjoying it. But then you have to remember,
36:34
or I think I've had to remember, that I chose to do this because
36:38
it relates to something. It's not a random.
36:41
It's not just because it's fun. It's like, oh, it actually
36:43
relates to your, your a glimpse of something.
36:49
Yeah. So the Buddha's basically saying
36:53
you have these moments of perfect vision.
36:55
You have a glimpse of something and you need to act on them
36:58
before time runs out. Yeah, you need to act on them.
37:02
And it may be quite confrontational.
37:04
It might change. It might mean turning your life
37:06
upside down or not a bit, probably both.
37:10
So you have this vision, but the Buddha doesn't leave it there.
37:14
He doesn't just say it's not just, it's not just a big
37:17
mystical experience and then you just leave it there.
37:20
Yeah. The whole point of Buddhism is
37:23
there's a path. Yeah.
37:24
There's, there's pragmatic things you need to do in order
37:27
to, as our own teacher says, bring yourself up to that level,
37:31
to bring yourself to, to move yourself towards that highest
37:36
point in your experience. Yeah.
37:39
So I'm just going to run through them quickly.
37:41
I'm not going to say much about them, but just to give you a
37:43
sense, because in a way, I think if we talk about this, we get a
37:48
perhaps a clearer sense of what a Buddha is, because a Buddha is
37:52
an individual who's transformed conclusively all these different
37:56
aspects of life. Yeah.
37:58
So we could sometimes you get a sense of the Buddha through
38:02
ritual, don't you? You have these kind of, you have
38:04
mantras or you have offerings and you have, it's non cognitive
38:11
and it's direct and it's a kind of, you might even call it a
38:14
mystical experience. You have a sense of something,
38:16
you know, beyond your current experience.
38:19
But sometimes it's, there's work to be done.
38:23
Well, there's definitely work to be done.
38:27
They're both. They're both true.
38:28
So you have this perfect vision. Yeah.
38:32
Then you have perfect emotion. Yeah.
38:35
So you're basically immediately stepping into your into the
38:38
driving seat of your life, which is your emotions.
38:40
Your emotions dictate everything.
38:42
We're very irrational creatures, as we all know.
38:45
We like to pretend we're very rational these days, but we're
38:48
not. It's quite clear.
38:50
You just have to look at the state of the world and maybe
38:53
even one's own mind to realise that we're not very rational.
38:56
So the first thing is we step into our emotions and cultivate
39:01
positive emotions. Yeah, We cultivate what is good
39:06
with a determination. So yeah, that's something like
39:11
what we did today, the metabath. Now you're directly engaging
39:14
with your emotional life off the bat.
39:16
Yeah, you just jump in. It's like Buddhism would say,
39:19
you can't leave that to random. You can't just leave.
39:21
You can't leave your emotional life up for grabs, You know,
39:25
it's it's you have to kick into it and do stuff with it and
39:30
engage with it. Maybe it's also to do with
39:36
knowing yourself as well, knowing what's going on.
39:39
Yeah, because your emotions are actually driving you to make
39:42
your decisions. And all your moves, all your big
39:44
moves in life, there's a thin layer of rationality to it, but
39:47
it'll generally be your emotions.
39:49
There'll be some intuition, even maybe perfect vision, maybe not,
39:51
but there'll be some intuition driving you.
39:53
And your emotions are are your kind of engine, aren't they?
39:57
They're your powerhouse. So you have perfect vision, then
40:00
you have to engage with your emotions.
40:03
Then comes perfect speech. Yeah, we have to get on top of
40:07
our speech. It's basically truthful speech,
40:09
kind speech, helpful speech, harmonious speech.
40:12
Yeah. That's what we need to engage
40:14
with. And for most Buddhists, this is
40:16
our working ground. Speaking personally, it's, it's,
40:18
it's almost like a battleground, perfect speech.
40:21
It just jumps out your mouth before you've had a chance to
40:23
get on top of what you even think, it's already out of your
40:25
mouth. It's making ripples over here.
40:28
You're trying to drag it back, but it's gone.
40:33
Then there's a whole load of consequences.
40:34
Then you get seen in a certain way.
40:36
So then you have to come. It's hard work, isn't it?
40:39
So the Buddha didn't mess about. He's saying you need to.
40:42
You need to deal with speech as well.
40:43
Transform that. Perfect speech, hard work.
40:48
So you have emotion, speech, perfect action.
40:52
I guess it's in the realm of karma.
40:53
Yeah. Karma.
40:55
Action means karma means action. Yeah.
41:00
You can shape your whole life. That's the Buddha's main point.
41:03
The main point is you're not fixed beings.
41:06
You're not. This whole business of not
41:14
having a soul in Buddhism, I think maybe poetically we have a
41:20
soul. There's something in us that's
41:22
definitely us. You know, you can feel it, your
41:24
heart. Buddhism's not really saying
41:25
that there's something particular about us and deep and
41:27
amazing, but we're movable, we're changeable.
41:30
We're like a clouds to use the cliche, but we change.
41:34
And so perfect action is you can, Buddha's basically saying
41:38
you can change yourself by changing your actions.
41:41
You know, it's the key point in Buddhism, you know, everything's
41:45
changing. You need to know that
41:48
concretely. Even though we behave as if
41:50
we're solid and everyone else is solid and the world is solid and
41:53
we fight each other about all this like we do all the time,
41:56
the Buddha is saying, duh, we're not, We're actually in process
42:01
all the time. Understand that and act in a
42:03
certain way that will deliver certain fruits.
42:06
You know, then there's perfect effort.
42:11
I'm not going to say too much about that.
42:13
But we need to make an effort, don't we, to cultivate the good
42:15
and to, to deal with the mind, deal with the bad, deal with our
42:20
kind of evil side, you might say.
42:22
And encourage and take care. Take care of what's good in US.
42:32
It's the most precious thing we've got.
42:34
Is, is our our heart? Really.
42:38
Yeah. And we need to make an effort
42:39
with that. Again, leaving it to chance to
42:43
me these days seems like insanity.
42:45
It seems like absolute madness to just leave your kind of leave
42:50
your heart and mind without actively taking it as the most
42:54
central thing in your life. Because it is your life.
42:57
There's nothing else. It's your life.
42:58
So not engaging with it and just it's nice to go to the gym.
43:02
I started going again. I don't feel so decrepit, you
43:04
know, terrible. It's nice to go to the gym, but
43:07
we're obsessed with our bodies, you know, and our health.
43:10
And I was almost going to swear, sorry, but our kind of green
43:13
smoothies and optimising ourselves and.
43:15
But what about our mind and our heart?
43:17
Surely that has to be the central issue.
43:20
Yeah. So we have to make effort in
43:22
that. Yeah.
43:23
Sort of this great career ladders, money, fantastic.
43:27
But the main event, Yeah, perfect awareness.
43:34
Maybe you could say it's to do with meditation.
43:36
You're, you're just well, it's awareness.
43:40
You're not forgetting what you're doing.
43:41
You know, that's a very important thing in Buddhism.
43:43
It's that's why we have Buddhism.
43:45
If we forgot what we were doing, if we weren't sorry, if we
43:48
didn't forget what we were doing, wouldn't need Buddhism.
43:51
You'd have perfect vision. Then you'd be like, boom,
43:54
everything would be in place. You'd know what you're doing,
43:56
even every moment. You'd be kind to everyone.
43:57
You'd be an amazing, you know what I mean?
44:00
But we, we need to be more aware.
44:03
We need to remember for a for a start, you know, which is why
44:06
you have a tradition. It's why we meet every Saturday
44:08
or every day. Some of us we meet because we
44:10
need to remind ourselves what's important and act from that, you
44:14
know? So there's that and perfect
44:16
samadhi. I'm not going to say anything
44:18
about that today. That's maybe along the lines of
44:26
the Buddha awakening. Yeah, I'm not.
44:30
We'll deal with. You can deal with that yourself.
44:33
Yeah. Yeah.
44:36
So I'm not going to say anything about enlightenment, but you can
44:38
understand, can't you? If you look at, if you look at
44:41
that path that's been laid out, that's basically the Buddha.
44:47
The Buddha's what you might call spiritual genius, to use that
44:50
word. He's he's trying to communicate
44:52
something incommunicatable. So you can't actually tell
44:55
someone what a Buddha is, obviously, because it's you have
44:59
to know it yourself. So how do you know it?
45:00
You know it by getting there yourself.
45:04
And so the Buddha's laying this thing out as a way for us to
45:07
move towards our own liberation and our own freedom from
45:11
suffering. Yeah.
45:13
So if you can just imagine for a second transforming all those
45:18
areas of your life conclusively, you know, not like you're
45:22
working on them anymore. Not like, oh, I need to be more
45:24
this, or I need to make more let effort or less effort or I need
45:28
to be more kind. None of this.
45:29
It's all been well, they call him the Conqueror, the Jinnah.
45:34
It's all been conquered, you know, weird language.
45:37
Maybe, maybe not. You know, if you can imagine
45:40
that, then maybe you get some sense of what a Buddha might be
45:43
and the reason Buddhists, the reason we worship a Buddha.
45:49
The Buddha is not a God, you know, but he's not just an
45:52
ordinary human being. There's, it's almost like a
45:54
special leap and you have those little moments in your own
45:57
experience when you clock that in your own life.
46:00
So there's something much bigger.
46:02
And if you can imagine being in that much bigger at every moment
46:06
ad infinitum or have you say it, then maybe there's something
46:09
you're you're moving towards what a Buddha might be.
46:13
Yeah. So come next Sunday to Buddha
46:17
Day. Good.