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The Spiritual Community - Sangha · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

0:10
Good bell again, Very warm welcome.
0:12
As you might have heard, tomorrow we are going to
0:16
celebrate a very important Buddhist festival day.
0:18
Yeah, it's called Sanga Day. It's one of the big Buddhist
0:22
festival days. I just looked it up.
0:25
It's actually a traditional date because sometimes we come up
0:28
with our own versions of Buddhist festival dates.
0:31
But this, this one is, is sort of commemorates A Buddhist
0:36
gathering where the Buddha sat together with like over 1000
0:40
monks. And that sort of started a kind
0:43
of oral tradition of kind of unifying the kind of teachings
0:47
where they where they were kind of reciting a lot of teachings
0:51
towards each other because it was an oral tradition.
0:53
So I thought just to sort of get us started on on that theme of
0:58
Sangha, which means spiritual community.
1:01
It means community. I will talk about that and then
1:06
you can come tomorrow if you want to.
1:08
The whole day goes from 11:00 to 5:00.
1:11
There's some different bits in the program that you can come
1:14
to. There'll be sort of meditations
1:16
and talks and rituals even, and then you sort of know what we're
1:20
talking about, which is always a nice thing, a nice thing to do.
1:27
So I will explore, I will explore this whole theme of
1:34
sanga with you. So Sanga, maybe I'll start why
1:40
we are celebrating sanga. So again, sanga means community.
1:43
Yeah. Sanga means a group of
1:47
Buddhists, a group of people who practice Buddhism together.
1:53
Yeah, that's kind of that's that's what that word means.
1:57
And it's important to us because traditionally the sangha is one
2:02
of the core ideals in Buddhism. Yeah.
2:07
So sangha is one of those core qualities, the core ideals in
2:13
Buddhism. It's what makes you a Buddhist.
2:16
Yeah. If you want to become a
2:18
Buddhist, if you're interested in becoming a Buddhist.
2:21
You say that the Buddha is really important to you, which
2:24
is sort of obvious, isn't it? That's sort of in the name of
2:27
the religion, Buddhism. So he's our teacher.
2:31
That's kind of what we what, yes, the person who's gained
2:33
enlightenment, which we drive inspiration from.
2:37
The second one is the Dharma, which is the teaching or the
2:41
truth. It's also kind of obvious.
2:43
I mean, if you want to be a Buddhist, you should be
2:45
following the teaching. And then the third one is the
2:48
community. And I used to think that's
2:52
weird. That's a bit boring.
2:55
I just want to be a Buddhist myself.
2:56
Why do you have to care about other people?
3:01
I really like the first 2 is like, you know, Buddha.
3:03
And so she seemed like a wise person.
3:05
And then there's this sort of the teaching.
3:07
And I was really into the Dharma.
3:09
I was really into teaching philosophy and all those kinds
3:12
of things. But a community is, I guess
3:14
there's also other people around.
3:17
What can you do? But anyway, but so if the Buddha
3:20
says, well, it's kind of important, that's why, why it's
3:23
one of the three jewels, we call them, yeah, those three things,
3:27
they are the three jewels for Buddhists.
3:30
So they're not literally jewels. They're just it's a metaphor for
3:34
something precious, right? They're really precious.
3:36
So if you see these sort of three jewels on here on our
3:39
cases, so the people with the Buddhist names, the order
3:43
members, they have the three jewels on here, you know, So
3:46
that's what that's the symbolism, by the way, just as a
3:49
fun fact. So, so I want to explore with
3:55
you what, why the Sangha, why the community is such a
4:00
essential part of Buddhism. I'm sort of saying that mainly
4:04
because I'm, I'm, I'm really interested in that myself
4:07
because as I said, I didn't get it first and I thought it was a
4:11
bit weird. I mean, there's lots of people
4:13
who think who say that the Sangha is like the most
4:15
important thing to them. Looking at Sangadashini, for
4:19
example, she finds Sanga Sanga really important.
4:22
For me, it took a while to get there.
4:24
Yeah. For me, it took a while to get
4:26
there. And it, it was just one of those
4:29
things which I think I'm now mostly interested in.
4:32
I'm mostly interested in in community because I think that
4:38
sort of sangha is sort of the whole point why we're doing
4:41
Buddhism. Yeah.
4:43
You know, we can have our meditation practice.
4:44
We can have our inspiration, we can have our teachings.
4:49
Really at the end of the day, I think sort of our relationship
4:52
with other people. That's sort of the whole point.
4:54
Yeah. It's the whole point of our
4:56
practice is what we do with others.
4:59
But more, more to that later. And what I will, what we will
5:06
explore together is a way of talking about community, which
5:12
comes from our founder, Sang Rakshita.
5:15
Yeah, because he was looking at the traditional way that
5:20
Buddhism has developed to understand community.
5:22
And traditionally what happened was that community was only, or
5:28
the Sangha was only seen as the sort of the community of monks.
5:33
Yeah. So in traditional Buddhism, if
5:36
you say Sangha, you usually only mean monks.
5:39
Yeah, well, there are no nuns anymore.
5:43
So in in traditional society, in traditional Buddhism these days,
5:49
the non ordination has died out. Yeah.
5:50
So you only mean monks in East Asia.
5:53
You have that still. You still have a few nuns, but
5:56
they're really struggling. Yeah.
5:57
So that is a problem. So you do, you mainly have, you
6:00
mainly mean monks really, which is, which is sort of which is
6:06
sort of an overemphasis on a sort of monastic lifestyle,
6:10
right, where you sort of say that, you know, if you're a
6:13
layperson or a woman, you can't really practice.
6:17
Yeah. You're not really a real
6:20
Buddhist. You're not really doing it.
6:22
Yeah. Now, if you if you sort of go to
6:24
Buddhist countries sometimes if you sort of see those monks, you
6:28
do see them, you know, some of them are impressive Buddhists.
6:32
But just because you sort of tick the boxes doesn't mean
6:35
you're like a real practitioner, right?
6:37
Like that's just not, they can't be, they can't really be the
6:41
main focus. They can't really be the
6:43
deciding principle of whether you're whether you're a Buddhist
6:47
or not. So what sang Raksha then sort of
6:50
he, over many, many years, him himself, being a monk was sort
6:54
of realising or thinking about was that, well, you know, he did
7:00
actually see people who are really impressive practitioners
7:03
who are really putting those 3 jewels, the Buddha, the Dhamma
7:08
and the Sangha at the core of their lives.
7:10
But just by the nature of, you know, their ordination or the
7:15
lack of ordination, they weren't really considered members of the
7:18
Sangha. They weren't really officially
7:20
considered proper Buddhists. So that's obviously a problem
7:24
that's sort of taking, you know, something that might have had
7:28
value a bit too literally. Yeah.
7:32
So, so obviously I imagine that at the day of the the time of
7:37
the Buddha, yes, most people were, you know, if they were
7:42
really into it, they were becoming monks or nuns because
7:44
they existed at the time of the Buddha.
7:48
It's a sort of, it's a sort of that was that was the majority.
7:53
But but you see in the scriptures again and again that
7:56
the Buddha, when he was talking about people who are really
7:59
going for it, you do see people who had families as well, who
8:01
weren't monastics, etcetera, etcetera.
8:04
So it seems to be that the division used to be 1 of whether
8:09
you were really on the path and you were really going for it, or
8:14
if you were sort of just trying it out and just sort of dabbling
8:18
within it. And I think Samraksha was trying
8:20
to get back to that. Yeah.
8:21
So I think he was really trying to get back to that original way
8:27
of thinking of like, well, are you, no matter, you know, what
8:31
lifestyle you're choosing, are you really putting those 3
8:34
jewels at the core of your life? Yeah.
8:37
And are you, are you, are you, you know, no matter where you
8:41
are on your path, are you putting those 3 jewels at the,
8:46
at the core of your, of your life?
8:49
So that's sort of what we are. That's what the other members
8:53
are. Yeah.
8:54
So we've all decided to put, you know, no matter our background,
8:58
no matter our lifestyle, we decided to put the three jewels
9:03
at the at the heart of our life again.
9:04
We really want to follow that, and we really want to want to
9:09
follow that. So that's just a bit of a
9:14
background. So what he came up with was sort
9:15
of was sort of different ways of looking at what that actually
9:22
means to be a Buddhist in a community.
9:24
Yeah. And what I find fascinating
9:26
about that is that it's a way of seeing practice wholly in terms
9:32
of our relationship with others. Yeah.
9:35
So if we're talking about Sanga, we're not talking about
9:38
something separate to meta. We've all been practicing meta
9:42
loving kindness today. It's not something separate to
9:46
mindfulness. If we're talking about
9:49
community, we are actually talking about exactly that.
9:52
We're talking about awareness, we're talking about
9:55
friendliness, about Meta, we're even talking about insight and
10:00
wisdom, which is also something sometimes people are interested
10:04
about, interested in when they come to the centre.
10:10
So, So what I find fascinating is that, you know, we we've
10:12
heard about meta, we've heard about awareness, we've heard
10:15
about, you know, all these practices, all the meditation
10:18
practices. But we could be looking at it
10:22
from completely different angle. We could be looking at it from
10:25
the point of view of, well, what do we do with others?
10:29
What do we do with our friends? What do we do within a
10:32
community? Yeah, so and he sort of the way
10:38
he phrases it is he says that, you know, if you're sort of not
10:41
really practising Sanga actively, practising community,
10:46
spiritual community actively, we revert back to becoming a group
10:52
member. Yeah.
10:52
So he, he calls it the group. So and he, he defines it in a
10:57
certain way. And then on the positive side,
11:00
the more we practice, the more we become aware of ourselves,
11:04
the more the friendlier we become, the more we sort of
11:09
become what he calls a true individual, which is sort of
11:14
which is the, the person who you know, who can then be in a, in
11:18
a, in a proper spiritual community.
11:19
Yeah. So you can again see here sort
11:22
of a path of development. Yeah.
11:25
Not just within ourselves, within sort of friendliness and
11:28
with within awareness, but also a path of development of
11:31
community. Yeah.
11:32
Of friendship, of relationships. So.
11:35
So I just want to go through those two modes of being with
11:39
you. Yeah.
11:40
What does it look like if we are not practising the sanga and
11:44
what does it look like if we are practising sanga?
11:47
Yeah. And I would like to do that
11:50
because I think sometimes we say sanga, we sort of use that word
11:55
quite lightly usually. Yeah, usually when we say sanga,
11:58
we just sort of mean people who come to the centre.
12:01
Yeah, we sort of mean everyone. And that that is one way of
12:05
using that word. But because I like to be a party
12:08
pooper, I want to remind us that actually sanga is a really high
12:13
ideal. Yeah.
12:15
If we took that word really seriously, we would be saying,
12:20
actually we are not a sanga. Yeah.
12:21
We would actually be saying, actually this isn't a sanga.
12:25
If anything, this is sort of a group trying to be something
12:27
else. Yeah, trying to be something
12:30
maybe a positive group of sort of a group which enables Sanga.
12:35
So this is this is sort of what I would like to point out that
12:38
what we are celebrating tomorrow at Sanga Day is that ideal of
12:43
community. Yeah, it's that ideal what we
12:47
what we are aspiring to. So just that sort of my sort of
12:56
my, my little, I kind of like to be like, yes, but and make
13:02
everyone be like, I know, but OK, So what happens with us when
13:09
we're not practising Sangha? Well, well, we do that most of
13:13
the day. Probably it's quite difficult to
13:16
actually, you know, be practising Sangha.
13:20
So then Sangra actually says, well, usually our sort of go to
13:23
attitude is that we find identity within groups.
13:26
Yeah, We find identity as a group member, which sort of
13:30
means, which is sort of our basic human nature, isn't it?
13:34
It's sort of our basic human thing, sort of a survival
13:37
instinct almost. We just want to sort of belong
13:39
to just sort of collective of people, which provides
13:45
affirmation, which provides identity, which provides shelter
13:50
and security. And that's what's, you know,
13:53
sort of, you know, got us through all the years of
13:56
horrible evolution that are behind us as a species.
14:00
That's the sort of, you know, survival trick.
14:03
But we still obviously have that.
14:05
We still have that in US, right? That we sort of, you know, we,
14:08
we, we, we, we, we, we're looking for security both
14:12
physically and emotionally in our families, for example, in,
14:19
you know, our partners, in political views, in our, well,
14:25
our sexuality, maybe even sort of identity in our state, in our
14:30
ethnicity. And we noticed that quite
14:33
strongly, don't we, if we come to another country.
14:36
So usually people tell me, well, I'm not really that identified
14:39
with my country or with my state.
14:41
Germans love to say that because it's sort of field, but it's a
14:47
sort of, but you just need to put a German to put them in any
14:50
other country and they will complain about the windows,
14:53
about the lack of insulation and how Germany does that all
14:55
better. It's like, oh, there's quite a
14:59
bit of group there, quite a lot of identification with the way
15:02
you do things. I always think that, I mean, I
15:06
had that experience quite strongly when, well, when I went
15:09
to Japan, it was a sort of, I wanted to sort of belong to to
15:14
that group. I was sort of admiring the way
15:16
they were doing. They were sort of, you know,
15:19
leading the country and the culture in Japan.
15:22
And Japan has quite a strong version of that whole group
15:25
Think. Yeah, you've got the sort of the
15:28
whole country is run on group thinking.
15:31
You know, you've got those concepts of uchi and Soto, and
15:35
uchi means you're either inside and Soto means you're outside.
15:38
So the biggest group you can be part of is to be Japanese.
15:42
But if you're part of a company, you're uchi, you're inside and
15:46
everyone else is not. Part of the company is Soto is
15:48
outside. So it's quite, and the way you
15:50
talk to people changes. Yeah.
15:52
So it's different vocabulary, which is amazing if you're
15:55
learning Japanese, like another layer of difficulty.
16:00
That's sort of, it's a very fascinating system.
16:02
And I remember I spent a year in Japan and I really wanted to
16:06
make my way into the inside, but it can never be because you
16:09
don't look Japanese. So it's sort of automatically
16:11
excluded, which is very problematic for people who are
16:14
born there, you know, who just sort of look slightly different,
16:17
but who are actually Japanese. And I, I do get it, you know, on
16:22
the other way as well. When you, you know, when you are
16:24
sort of for longer in a different country, you sort of
16:27
you, you notice that your sort of creature habits of the way
16:31
your culture is doing things, you know, become sort of
16:34
superior. You know, that's, that's sort
16:35
of, that's the way to go. Again, I have myself complained
16:40
about windows in England, especially the lack of double
16:45
glazed windows in some places, the lack of insulation.
16:48
I just remember going to this one English retreat centre and
16:52
it was closing the window. And even though it was closed,
16:54
there was this big gap in the window because it didn't close
16:58
properly. And it was amazing because I was
17:00
like, I was like Germany that wouldn't ever happen.
17:05
It's a that's, that's what I mean.
17:06
It's, it's not, you're not sort of identified on a sort of
17:09
superficial level. Yeah.
17:10
You're not sort of thinking about to being German all the
17:13
time. It it sort of comes out in
17:15
arrogance, doesn't it? In a sort of, you know, like,
17:18
why do I care about Windows so much?
17:20
Like, really, it's like, but it's sort of it's a way to
17:23
identify yourself. Yeah.
17:27
Because nothing comes through. Yeah.
17:29
Yeah. Well, we're very proud of our
17:37
windows because, you know, anyway, at least one thing we're
17:43
good at. But you see what I mean?
17:47
It's like it's very easy to to grasp identity right over the
17:51
smallest things. And this is what happens all the
17:54
time, always in the state of trying to find a belonging,
17:58
right? We're always trying to belong
18:00
either in wanting to belong somewhere and wanting affection
18:04
or in, you know, sort of making fun of windows.
18:10
The other way I think I've experienced that quite strongly
18:14
was well, when I was sort of 14/15/16, when I had my coming
18:19
out and when I realized I was gay, you sort of, you
18:22
immediately feel expelled from the group, right?
18:27
Immediately. So that's sort of the, the core,
18:30
that's sort of the, that's the essence of that experience.
18:34
Well, at least for me, and I think I know a lot of my friends
18:37
have had the same experience. You immediately think, OK, well,
18:39
I'm an outsider now. Like I don't know how people
18:42
will react to me. It's a sort of that's sort of
18:45
what my you know, what my family expel me, will, you know,
18:48
society throw me out, etcetera, etcetera, because you've sort of
18:52
lived with an expected. Everyone tells you, you know,
18:55
you're going to be married and you're going to have children.
18:58
So that whole world view just sort of comes tumbling down and
19:01
you and you realise, oh gosh, now I'm, you know, I must hide
19:05
that fact so that I can still belong to the, to society, to
19:09
friends and family. And so then what usually happens
19:13
and what happens with me is you then sort of find identity in,
19:19
you know, eventually, you know, first there's just crisis and
19:22
depression. After a while you gain some
19:25
confidence and you go to, I don't know, like an LGBT group
19:29
or whatever. And you sort of then find
19:31
identity in there. And I have a lot of friends who
19:35
are, you know, queer or LGBT, who then, you know, you, you
19:40
sort of start finding a friendship circle just around
19:43
that theme. And before you know it, the only
19:46
friends you have are gay, lesbian, transgender, you're
19:49
part of the queer community, etcetera, etcetera.
19:51
And you never ever meet a straight person or something
19:55
like that. I have, I have AI have a lot of
19:56
friends who say, oh, I don't really have straight friends
19:59
anymore. And isn't that a shame?
20:01
Isn't that? I mean, I know that.
20:03
We, we, you know, it's, it's good for a while, you know, to
20:06
sort of build up confidence again and to build up that self
20:08
worth. I think it's very important to
20:10
have those sort of groupings. But isn't that a shame that we
20:12
then sort of sort of settle in that and then say, well, that's
20:17
now where I should stay. I, I really, I really felt that
20:20
on my Buddhist path, I had to overcome those boundaries.
20:24
I really felt like I on my Buddhist path, I had to
20:27
consciously then say, OK, well, that's done me some good.
20:30
I'm now more self confident, more self worth through those
20:35
friendships. Well, let me go up with that.
20:37
Yeah. Let me, let me actually make
20:39
friends again. Let me actually, you know, not
20:43
sort of let that become my whole identity.
20:48
Anyway, sorry, I got a bit emotional about these topics.
20:54
Where was I? It's the same with sort of
20:59
politics, isn't it? Sort of we before we know it, we
21:02
just sort of in echo chambers and, you know, social media
21:05
media is doing its own thing with the algorithm about that.
21:08
I think one of the main problems we just have is that we these
21:11
days isn't so much polarisation. It's just that we, you know,
21:15
it's sort of that we that we sort of believe that the group
21:18
that we're in is on the moral high ground.
21:22
So we we sort of stop listening towards each other.
21:25
If we were all in the same room together, you know, you
21:30
wouldn't, you wouldn't, you would just sort of listen to
21:31
what other people would have to say.
21:34
That's a bigger topic. But I did notice that quite
21:37
strongly with it was part on my sort of project.
21:43
It was sort of, it was ATV series where we sort of we're
21:47
all together with sort of people from different beliefs and
21:51
religions. And there was one guy,
21:54
especially the Muslim, he was saying, well, according to
21:58
Islam, homosexuality is a sin. So he believes that.
22:02
So that's that's he's convinced by that.
22:05
And we had a sort of we obviously talked a lot about
22:07
that. But what what I found amazing
22:11
was that we were find we were able to find a way of
22:16
communicating with each other where we could say, OK, we can
22:19
be friends, this is fine. But we but we understand where
22:24
the other person is coming from. Yeah, I can, I, I understand
22:27
that if you want to be a proper Muslim, that's what you have to
22:30
believe because that's part of your religion.
22:31
OK, that's your choice. But can you appreciate that?
22:35
This is really painful for me to hear.
22:37
And he was, he was really, he was really acknowledging that
22:39
and and, and, and and being really, really tender with that.
22:44
Because to be a problem, proper Muslim also means not to judge
22:47
other people, which sometimes they forgot that that's also in
22:50
the book, not just the Muslims. Do you see what I mean?
22:55
It's like, I think it is possible.
22:56
I think the only way we can actually create those sorts of,
23:01
we can actually relieve those boundaries is by just meeting
23:04
people and talking and sharing our stories.
23:08
This is not in my notes anyway. So, so I I think it becomes
23:20
clear, isn't it? It's it's we this way of falling
23:23
back into a group mode is usually comes from, well, a
23:28
sense of an urge to look for security right And affirmation.
23:35
Sorry, that's that's sort of that's our natural mode.
23:40
And I think it's, we shouldn't sort of get ahead of ourselves
23:43
and sort of try to just alleviate, said alleviate
23:46
ourselves for all group thinking.
23:48
I think as I said, you know, temporarily that can be a good
23:51
thing to do to surround yourself with people who are supportive.
23:54
I think that's very important. But sort of eventually on the
23:57
Buddhist path, eventually we are being asked to also not identify
24:02
with that, to let go of that as well, to really see how, you
24:08
know, the Buddhist, the human mind loves to sort of form
24:13
categories and form fixed selves around almost anything.
24:20
Yeah. And that is exactly what the
24:21
Buddha said is the core and the cause of suffering, right.
24:26
That is what what gets us into trouble again and again and
24:29
again. Because if we sort of build up a
24:31
self, if we build up that kind of identity, well, we're just
24:36
going to, you know, either get that attacked or it'll change,
24:42
It'll sort of vanish in time or we will sort of, well, we just
24:48
get disappointed because we set up expectations which won't be
24:51
met, right. So the the Buddha is sort of
24:55
saying, and I think the Buddha is saying that through Buddhist
24:59
practice, through more and more mindfulness, through more and
25:02
more meta, which is what we've been practicing today,
25:05
friendliness, kindness, we can actually overcome that.
25:07
Yeah. We can actually become what Sam
25:09
Raksher calls a true individual. Yeah.
25:12
The true individual is someone who's first of all self aware as
25:17
someone who's knows themselves quite well, who just who doesn't
25:24
just knows themselves in terms of kind of just sort of knows
25:28
what what I don't know, washed away by our needs and sort of
25:33
likes and dislikes. But actually someone who well,
25:37
sort of knows themselves on an on a sort of almost any every
25:40
level sort of physically got body awareness and awareness of
25:45
feelings of emotions, even awareness of sort of threads in
25:50
our lives. One practice that we, for
25:52
example, do within our order is we keep telling each other life
25:56
stories, right. And it's very interesting to do
25:59
that. It's a very interesting practice
26:00
because you do pick up on threats from the past that you
26:04
never realised you had interests, motivations.
26:09
When I tell my story now, it's almost as if at every corner
26:13
there was like a big sign saying you will become a Buddhist.
26:16
But it's. But sort of at the time I didn't
26:18
see that. I didn't see that sort of my
26:19
life was sort of pointing me into some sort of direction like
26:23
that. Yeah.
26:24
So this is, so This is why mindfulness of breathing, those
26:29
kinds of practices are really, really important.
26:32
We need to become more and more aware of ourselves, the body,
26:37
you know, what's it doing, the emotions, the feelings, our
26:41
thoughts to really know what's going on because most of the
26:45
time we're not really aware of what's going on.
26:47
I mean, I'm very bad at that. I recently discovered, well, I
26:51
didn't discover, but I recently sort of realized that Oh yeah,
26:55
all mindfulness is it's sort of knowing what you're doing while
26:59
you're doing it. It isn't just, it isn't just
27:03
sort of sitting on the cushion and sort of being like really
27:06
deep and bliss. And well, it's also that, but
27:08
it's sort of mindfulness really starts by, you know, knowing
27:13
whether you're closing the door quietly or sort of remembering
27:17
that you've put on a coffee or something on the on the stove
27:19
and not sort of immediately getting distracted.
27:21
I mean, I'm very bad with that, saying that to myself, because I
27:26
think I'm, I don't know, probably the most clumsy person
27:28
I know because I sort of think about these deep things all the
27:32
time, and then my body is just sort of trying to get a meal
27:37
together or something. Anyway, So this is where it
27:43
starts. It starts about about inhabiting
27:46
your experience, you know, fully inhabiting yourself.
27:49
Yeah, this is what that means, knowing ourselves.
27:54
And then, well, what happens then is we we, we are able to
27:59
contact energies. Yeah, this is, I think the one
28:03
thing that I noticed most strongly through Buddhist
28:06
practice is that there was a lot of energy, sort of psychic
28:09
energy or whatever you want to call it, locked up, sort of
28:12
divide it up. So I knew I had, I had energy,
28:16
but I couldn't quite get it moving in a direction I couldn't
28:18
quite get. I never knew what I wanted to
28:20
become later. I never wanted, knew what I
28:22
wanted to work as. I never sort of knew what I was
28:25
interested in that that was a that was sort of a problem in
28:28
terms of I never quite, I couldn't quite bring all those
28:31
parts of me together through Buddhist practice.
28:35
What I noticed is that you sort of, you are able to bring all
28:39
these different bits of yourself together.
28:41
You're all, you are sort of able to bring all these things in
28:45
alignment. Yeah.
28:47
I mean, part of the problem was that I was just interested in
28:49
too many things. You know, I wanted to become a
28:52
musician that was also interested in Japan.
28:55
I weirdly was interested in biology and science and all
28:58
that. I even have a bachelor's in
29:00
biology, which I don't know how I did that.
29:02
But because of the last year I was like, I don't know what I'm
29:06
doing any, but I don't understand anything.
29:08
I'm sort of putting roses in anyway.
29:13
But do you, do you see what I mean?
29:14
I think we all sort of have that degree that we, our sort of
29:17
energies are sort of quite like desperate.
29:21
They're sort of quite sort of sort of spread thinly over too
29:25
many things. Mindfulness can kind of at least
29:29
shine light into them at the same time so that they don't
29:32
sort of come up at different times of our lives.
29:36
They can sort of start working together into into the same
29:41
direction, or as in my case, kill biology and get that out of
29:46
my life immediately because that was a weird idea.
29:50
That's very bad. Then what happens?
29:54
A true individual is supposed to be emotionally positive.
29:58
Yeah. If we have energy available, if
30:00
we are aware of ourselves and we will be aware of others as well.
30:05
Yeah, we will be quite aware of other people.
30:09
And that's all that matter is. Yeah.
30:11
Again, it's nothing like, like Ratner said in the meditation,
30:15
it's nothing sort of special or something.
30:17
It's just, it's just genuine interest in other people,
30:21
genuine sort of broadening the horizon, not taking ourselves
30:25
too seriously. Yeah, this is sort of at the
30:28
core of Buddhist practice is that we don't take ourselves
30:30
that seriously. We're not that special.
30:33
Like, come on. It's like we, you know, there's
30:36
all this sort of, I think one of the dangers with spiritual
30:39
practice is that it can be, can become overly precious, you
30:42
know, about ourselves. It can become overly sort of
30:44
self absorbed and and sort of like, but my mental States and
30:49
my sort of there's a bit of uncomfortableness of God, what
30:52
does it mean? You know, that's sort of, it's
30:56
good to become aware of all these things and it's good to
30:58
take responsibility for them. But there needs to be that point
31:01
where we say, OK, let's just broaden that out.
31:03
Yeah, let's be aware of how I am and let's broaden that out and
31:07
see there's all these people around us.
31:09
Yeah. Isn't that amazing?
31:10
Isn't that incredible? I mean, that's life right at our
31:15
doorsteps. Yeah.
31:16
I think when I'm in a good mood, I can contact that, you know,
31:20
getting out of my apartment, stepping onto the busy streets
31:23
of Norco, being like, wow, life. It's a rare occasion that I feel
31:28
like that, I have to admit, especially Norco.
31:32
You sort of think life, a lot of life around us, but but through
31:43
matter, we can, and I promise this, we can actually get into
31:47
that state of like, like, isn't that amazing that there's all
31:51
this sort of, there's all this life unfolding.
31:53
There's suffering, there's like intense pain, there's love,
31:56
there's sort of drama, there's happiness, there's all these
32:00
things just unfolding right in front of us.
32:04
Yeah, there's people, human beings living their lives all
32:10
around us. Isn't that amazing?
32:13
This is sort of if you, if you can dwell in that, if you can
32:17
just sort of dwell on that without sort of being threatened
32:19
by all that. This is really what that for
32:22
becoming a true individual would look like.
32:25
I think to sort of be emotionally positive because
32:28
you're sort of you don't feel because you have to let go a
32:32
little bit of that self preciousness.
32:34
You feel less threatened by things, less kind of taken aback
32:38
by life. Because usually, I mean, if if
32:44
we could really take up that view, we wouldn't be surprised
32:48
anymore by anything, not even by war, because it's just too
32:51
human. It's like it's just life is just
32:54
that's just what we signed up for.
32:55
Well, we didn't no one asked us if we wanted to get born.
32:57
But anyway, it's sort of that's just what sort of life is to
33:01
offer. It's just the sort of, you know,
33:03
safety, security, happiness and then sort of goes away again.
33:08
So to to dwell in that would be to be this true individual where
33:11
we're really in the world, but we're not threatened by it.
33:22
Yeah. So, so to become a true
33:23
individual is, is a direct result of awareness of knowing
33:29
ourselves, freed up energies and of matter of of kindness, of
33:35
friendliness towards ourselves and others, of that sort of
33:38
being connected with life itself.
33:41
Yeah. And because of that, a true
33:46
individual is happy to be unpopular.
33:51
Yeah, this is also another characteristic.
33:53
They are happy or they don't mind if they are unpopular
33:59
because you don't sort of look at, you know, what, what sort of
34:02
other people think of what you have to say.
34:06
It doesn't mean that you that you have to seek out to be
34:08
unpopular, sort of be really sort of say provocative things
34:12
all the time just to be unpopular.
34:13
That's not what that means. Yeah.
34:15
It's more like, well, you just you, just you and you say what
34:19
you think. And sometimes people will like
34:23
what you have to say and sometimes people won't like what
34:24
you have to say. But you're sort of not fazed by
34:27
that. That's a big working ground for
34:30
me. I can hear you most recently as
34:35
part of this panel discussion, again, sort of different people
34:38
from different religions. And there was 1000 people in
34:40
front of us. And you sort of say something
34:43
which you think was really smart.
34:44
And then nobody claps and you're like, OK, I don't think I'm a
34:49
true individual. That didn't go down well.
34:52
So you sort of keep making jokes so that people so that you get a
34:55
response. But it doesn't have anything to
34:57
do with the theme. That's, you know, that's not a
35:02
true individual. It's sort of and then, you know,
35:05
the Muslim says something again, everyone's like very deep.
35:08
So I'm going to turn off the microphone.
35:12
Next step. So that's what.
35:16
So do you see what I mean? You would just say what you
35:18
think and would be like, well, that's what I think.
35:21
I don't care what you think about it.
35:23
That would be the ideal. You know, that's what, instead
35:26
of being happy to be unpopular actually means.
35:30
And another characteristic of a true individual is because of
35:33
that, you're also happy to be alone.
35:35
Yeah, Two individuals is fine with being alone by themselves.
35:43
And I think, I think, I think what that means is more they're
35:46
not well, because it's sort of not psychologically,
35:49
neurotically dependent on the affirmation of others.
35:54
You can. You are very happy to be just by
35:57
yourself. It doesn't mean that you sort of
36:01
want to be by yourself all the time.
36:03
A true individual can really cherish other people.
36:06
Yeah. They can really cherish friends
36:10
that can really cherish life. But if you were to be alone, you
36:15
wouldn't mind. Yeah.
36:16
Because you you sort of where you're sort of less dependent.
36:20
You've got your meta. I think this is one of those
36:25
experiences I think I had on a solo retreat on a solitary where
36:32
where you are alone, you go away on a retreat somewhere where you
36:37
don't meet anyone for a period of time.
36:41
I remember having this one moment where I thought, oh, I
36:44
don't feel alone. Like I am alone, but I don't
36:49
feel lonely because in my mind, all my friends are there.
36:53
It's one of these weird effects that the matter above can have
36:58
on you is that you that you sort of feel like your friends are
37:04
just there. Yeah, Your loved ones are just
37:08
always there. So I think that's what that
37:09
means. It's not that you sort of are
37:11
literally happy to be really alone and just singular.
37:17
It's more that your awareness has broadened out so much that
37:20
you just don't feel like they've ever gone.
37:24
I mean, it's, it is interesting again, our, our teacher Sang
37:26
Raksha. He had a, a close friend, a
37:29
Tibetan lama called Dadu Rinpoche.
37:32
And they had a, he was his teacher, but they were also good
37:35
friends. And I think, I think Sang Raksha
37:38
when he went back from India to to England, he, he sort of
37:41
reported. Well, he never feels separate
37:43
from him. He never feels like he's
37:45
actually, he's sort of gone anywhere.
37:48
He's just sort of, he's always present his friend.
37:51
Yeah. So I think that's what that
37:53
means. It's not that you are sort of
37:55
have to sort of cut yourself off from all your friends and you're
37:58
like really happy to be alone. It is you are actually more in
38:00
contact with them. Yeah.
38:03
So, yeah. So that's actually.
38:04
So if you want to try that out, solitaries are quite of a kind
38:08
of a good opportunity to do that.
38:10
So this is something we do is we, we go regularly, we sort of
38:15
train to be alone. We train and being by ourselves
38:19
through going on retreat alone. It's a sort of, it's a special
38:24
form of retreat. Usually we're in a group,
38:26
obviously, but I started doing that, I can't remember 7-8 years
38:32
ago or so. Every year I tried to go on a,
38:34
on a solitary. I started with a four day one,
38:38
which was absolutely horrible. I didn't do well.
38:45
You know, I thought, I thought I'm an introvert.
38:47
By that moment I realized you sort of like people and you like
38:51
chatting and you like kind of hanging out and.
38:55
But just that I think that experience of being alone is
38:58
really valuable. Yeah.
39:00
Just that in itself is a really valuable experience because you
39:03
do notice how you keep pushing and pulling within relationships
39:09
here. You keep sort of sort of sort of
39:11
trying to sort of fiddle around with getting affection and
39:16
responses from other people. Yeah.
39:19
I mean, you can especially see that in a relationship,
39:21
especially a new one. It's just you're just trying to
39:23
find the right button for your partner to sort of give you a
39:26
positive response, don't you? So going on solitary is kind of,
39:31
well, it's a bit like that, isn't it?
39:34
Does this work? No.
39:35
OK, what about that? And then first time you're like,
39:39
what about that? Anyway, sorry, I lost my plot.
39:48
Anyway, be alone. Because when we can do that, so
39:54
this is this is sort of the point.
39:55
Through practice, we can become true individuals, or at least
40:00
aspire towards becoming true individuals because they are
40:04
then the people who can. Fully engage in sanga, you know,
40:09
those are the people who can then fully engage in what we
40:11
call sanga, in what we call spiritual community.
40:14
Yeah. So that isn't a fixed group of
40:18
people. Yeah.
40:19
It's not an institution. It's not a group in that way.
40:23
It's when you're sort of working to become that kind of aware,
40:27
positive, find another word, which sounds cool person, you
40:37
know, that we're an energetic person.
40:40
If you then see, oh, there's other people who are also on
40:43
that path who have the same values, who've also worked on
40:46
that, you can then actually enter into a communication which
40:49
goes way beyond ordinary human communication.
40:54
Yeah. So this is what Sanga really
40:56
means. It's a sort of community of
40:58
people who've dedicated themselves to a high ideal, and
41:04
they're working with a lot of effort on themselves to walk
41:08
towards that. And then you realize, oh gosh,
41:10
there's all these other people doing the same thing.
41:14
And then Sanga can become this sort of this.
41:21
There can be glimpses of something which sort of goes
41:24
beyond just the people who are part of that, that, that, well,
41:29
that group, for lack of a better word.
41:31
Yeah. So sanga is a form of
41:33
communication. Sanga is something that is
41:37
characterized by a lack of ego. Yeah.
41:41
It's something that's characterized by a lack of.
41:45
Well, here's me and there you are.
41:48
And you're, you know, it's it's, it's a sort of, it's
41:50
characterized by the sort of, well, our friendship, really.
41:54
Yeah, but genuine friendship. So this is what we're trying to
41:59
aspire to. Yeah.
42:00
This is something that we're trying to get at when we're
42:02
talking about celebrating Sanga. It's just celebrating that, that
42:07
high ideal. So here in the Buddhist Centre,
42:11
well, in some ways we're not even, it's not that we actually
42:15
have the Sangha. Yeah.
42:17
It's something that in the Buddhist centre, we in some ways
42:20
we're not even, you could say we're not even trying to make
42:24
everyone be part of the sangha. Yeah, we're just trying.
42:27
This is the way I see it is we're trying to create
42:30
conditions where sangha can happen.
42:33
Yeah. Because sangha isn't something
42:35
static as well. It isn't something that is
42:37
always there or not there. It's something that can happen
42:40
between three people, something that can happen in a team.
42:43
Sometimes when we have, you know, team meetings here, you
42:46
can feel a bit like, oh, something's sort of working
42:50
through US. It might not even happen in the
42:52
centre at all. It might happen, you know, when
42:55
you meet friends at home or something, when you, or when you
42:57
go and retreat together. It's, it's that quality.
43:01
Yeah. Again, we mustn't take these
43:02
words too literally. It's something that can sort of
43:05
shine through us in our friendships and in our in our
43:12
communication with one another, where we, where we feel like
43:15
we're because we've really worked on awareness and on
43:17
matter. Something else is coming to
43:20
play. Something else is sort of
43:22
shining through. Yeah.
43:24
So we are what we're trying to do is we're trying to allow
43:27
pockets of spiritual community to emerge.
43:32
And if not, that's fine. Yeah.
43:34
If not, that's well, try tomorrow again.
43:38
Because again, we're just all too human, Andre.
43:41
We're all, it's just it's, it's all, you know, trying our best.
43:47
That's that's that ideal of, of Sangam.
43:53
I think I'll end it here, actually, yeah.