Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / Commit Yourself

Transcript

Commit Yourself · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

0:05
Start by saying Happy New Year. I don't know if I should say it
0:09
from Buddhist Vicious Tour. It sounds a bit official.
0:11
I don't know if I'm in that position to say Happy New Year
0:14
from this place, but Happy New Year.
0:20
Great. So I thought I thought we'd have
0:25
a look at or we'd have a look at resolutions.
0:28
Yeah, because we've all, I imagine some of us, most of us
0:31
have probably done some kind of New Year's resolution.
0:37
Usually it's something like going to the gym or I don't know
0:40
what people do. I've been doing the same thing.
0:42
But I just wanted to, Yeah, have a look at, I actually looked up
0:46
the word resolution. It's quite interesting.
0:49
It's connected to the word solution and probably the word
0:53
solve as well. And it's from Latin and it has
0:57
something to do with unbinding, interestingly, unfastening,
1:03
undoing like a knot or something, which I found quite
1:06
interesting. It's changed its meaning a bit
1:08
in time to mean like maybe a commitment to something.
1:13
But I just found this whole business of kind of unfastening
1:18
and unbinding quite interesting because actually the Buddha
1:22
talks about, well, we're a bundle of knots.
1:26
Apparently we're bored. We're like I said, he's, he
1:29
likened us to a string ball, you know, all tied up and knotted
1:33
and you just have to start undoing the knots basically.
1:37
And then there's there's a kind of freedom, there's a, a
1:39
loosening that happens, which is a kind of, I guess you could say
1:42
your energy's flowing. You're you're probably happy.
1:46
Yeah, you're not a tied up ball anyway.
1:48
So that's resolution. And I guess really the
1:54
resolution is something to do with commitment.
1:56
You know, as it's, it's basically you're, you're kind
1:59
of, however seriously you take it on a New Year's Eve, you're
2:03
kind of committing yourself in some way to something new in
2:08
your life, you know, something that you want to change or let
2:12
go of or bring into existence. So, yeah, so we, I thought we'd,
2:17
we could have a look at the word.
2:19
Well, have a look at commitment basically.
2:20
And before that, I just would like to say a little bit about
2:25
what I did on New Year's Eve, because it was actually the best
2:27
New Year's Eve I've had in, I don't know, 16 years longer.
2:32
And I was staying in, I was staying in London in the London
2:37
Buddhist Centre and which is an amazing place actually.
2:42
And I think they celebrate their 50th year next year.
2:47
So they've been going for nearly 50 years and it was so
2:51
inspiring. I've seen it for, well, I've
2:53
been involved for however many years and seen it kind of go
2:56
through a number of changes and transitions.
2:58
And it seems like a really healthy place.
3:00
Like when I stepped in there this time, it felt like London,
3:04
like all different people from all different places, classes,
3:07
races, everything, all, all, all there, all committed.
3:10
And it had a, it had a, it had an effect.
3:13
And there's about 200 of us on New Year's Eve, which to me was
3:19
wild. Like when I they, they decided
3:21
to put me on the team for some reason.
3:24
And I thought 200 people. But it was actually really,
3:27
really inspiring. Yeah, it was a really inspiring
3:30
evening. And yeah, there there was, there
3:35
was, there was talks, meditation, very good
3:38
atmosphere, some great music. Actually, there's some really
3:42
talented professional musicians that come to the centre.
3:46
It's really good music. And we did this thing.
3:49
I think maybe some of you did it if you went on retreat on New
3:54
Year's Eve, where you have, you basically get a piece of paper
3:57
and on one side of the paper you write your aspirations.
4:00
Yeah. You write aspirations of things
4:04
that you want to do, things that you want to achieve or the kind
4:07
of something new for your life that you want to want to do.
4:10
Yeah. On one side.
4:11
The other side, you write confessions, you know, so things
4:15
that you did from the previous year that you wish you hadn't
4:17
have done. Yeah.
4:18
Maybe you'd hurt people or you'd hurt yourself or you just made
4:20
a, you did something stupid. Yeah.
4:23
And so you, you're careful which one you put where, but you put
4:26
your aspirations on the shrine. Yeah.
4:28
And then you go outside and there's a bonfire and some
4:30
chanting. You burn your confessions.
4:32
Yeah. It's very important to get the
4:33
right way round, apparently. And it was really fantastic, I
4:40
have to say. It felt charged, you know, it
4:42
felt especially somehow this year.
4:43
I think the world has changed enough somehow that this year it
4:46
felt particularly kind of poignant.
4:48
But I'm not going to share all my well, I'm definitely not
4:52
going to share my confessions. And but in terms of aspirations,
4:59
I had some good ones. So I want to be less resentful,
5:02
you know, resentment. Does everybody know what that
5:04
means here? You get into a kind of victim
5:06
thing where you're like, oh, they did this to me and you get
5:09
into, oh, this didn't work out. So I want to, I want to be less
5:12
resentful. I want to be less ironic.
5:15
Yeah, less, because I think it actually can destroy, destroy
5:19
your energy and destroy your kind of, you don't take yourself
5:24
seriously in the right way. Everything's just ironic and
5:28
it's kind of crap and you kind of just weep anyway.
5:32
So I don't want to be less ironic.
5:35
And I also, I also want to, there's a couple of friends of
5:37
mine. I'm not going to mention anyone
5:39
here because that'd be embarrassing, but I've got
5:41
another friend in London called Dayanata, and I actually
5:44
thought, I want to be like him. I want to be more like him.
5:46
I was so impressed when I was there that everyone ridicules
5:50
him. Yeah, he's kind of like, he's
5:52
like a figure of ridicule, but in a nice way.
5:56
And he just, he's amazing and he doesn't mind.
5:59
He likes it. He likes being ridiculed.
6:01
He's like, because people love him and he's, so he really gives
6:06
himself like, it's really incredible.
6:08
I have to say. I was just preparing everything
6:11
for people, making things happen for people, looking after people
6:16
in his kind of quirky Jewish kind of.
6:19
Well, he's not. You keep saying he's not Jewish.
6:21
He's a Buddhist, obviously, but he does it in his way.
6:24
Do you know? I mean, he's got a certain way.
6:25
And I thought I want to be more like him.
6:28
Yeah. So that's that's that.
6:31
And there was a really good talk on the evening by an older
6:36
member called Vandana Jyoti, who some of you probably know.
6:39
I was so good. I think she must be in her mid
6:41
70s. And I was like, people, these
6:44
people were kind of a bit flagging.
6:45
And she was like on fire her talk.
6:47
And she was really, and it was a really inspiring talk.
6:49
So I found it inspiring as well, because what she was talking
6:54
about kind of mirrored the thoughts that I'd been having in
6:58
recent times. And so it's nice, you know, when
7:01
you feel like you have things going on for you and you hear
7:03
someone talking and you're like, wow, that's really, she
7:07
articulated it in a way that I couldn't really get to.
7:10
And she'd obviously thought about it more deeply.
7:12
So I'm basically just going to copy her talk and that's what
7:16
I'm going to do. Yeah, repeat her points.
7:21
But maybe before I, before I do that, I was, I was in London,
7:25
like I say, and I was planning to stay for a week, see my dad
7:30
and see Diana to see other people.
7:35
And then because most of their, they live, there's a community.
7:38
So in the, the London Buddhist Centre has been going for 50
7:40
years and they have a number of communities above the centre.
7:44
And in this one community, there's normally 12 or 13 of
7:49
them. And I think 10 of them had gone
7:52
to help help out on retreats, help run things, blah, blah,
7:55
blah. And so they had space.
7:57
So they decided, well, Dianata and Suridasa, another guy,
8:00
they've generously decided to open their doors to people.
8:03
You know, they just invited a few people to come for what they
8:05
called the Holdovers Retreat. Had no idea what that was.
8:08
Yeah. But I just, I, I was there.
8:11
So I thought I'd stay in London. Yeah.
8:12
So I stayed there and stayed in the community for the week.
8:16
Holdovers, by the way, is a film if those of you that have
8:19
Netflix and we watched it, actually, I just kept asking,
8:22
what's it about? They wouldn't tell me and it's a
8:24
basically I'm not going to go. It's basically like a boarding
8:26
school and everyone goes home apart from A1 kid and it's
8:30
really great. It's a great film.
8:32
I thought it was very good, very human kind of film.
8:35
So yeah, we had this retreat and I don't know, for me it was an
8:41
example. It was, it was the first time I
8:43
went to the London Buddhist Centre actually was in 2009 I
8:45
think. And it changed my life going
8:48
there because the previous Buddhist centre I was in, I
8:53
mean, if you've just been coming here, you might take this for
8:55
granted. But most of the places, at least
8:57
in the UK, sometimes they can be a bit sleepy and a bit, not many
9:01
people. And when I first came along, I
9:03
was hands down the youngest person there by a very long way.
9:08
So when I went to the London Buddhist Centre, it blew my
9:11
mind. It was like 100 people on a
9:13
Wednesday night, all these kind of vibrant, well, generally
9:16
young people. And I was like, wow, this is
9:18
crazy. So that was my first experience,
9:21
and I've just found it a kind of point of inspiration ever since.
9:25
And yeah, so on this retreat, we did normal things.
9:30
We had to retreat life, meditate in the morning, die and after
9:35
made all sorts of amazing food, did his thing.
9:38
We did some study. And in a way, it was all just
9:40
like, it was like, yeah, it was like a little strangely monastic
9:45
kind of little environment in the middle of London.
9:48
And it was such a fantastic atmosphere.
9:50
It's very difficult to get across, but it was so beautiful,
9:53
such a nice atmosphere, so warm, The best, you know, the best of
9:58
humanity. And then I, at the same time, I
10:02
decided to go to Oxford St. to maybe buy something.
10:07
Yeah. To the sales.
10:11
Well, not quite January sales yet.
10:14
And that was mad. It was such an extreme.
10:19
I was so open and kind of receptive, but I was also
10:23
positive. So it was quite good.
10:24
I went into Five Guys, you know, this like burger place.
10:28
I was hungry, so I had some chips and I had some fries.
10:30
And I sat there and I just saw PNP.
10:32
It was madness, absolute carnage.
10:35
And I I had my initial resentment of just like, oh,
10:38
these people are disgusting. You know, it's kind of like.
10:41
And then I just thought, oh, my God, they were all
10:43
consciousness, just like me. It was like really amazing.
10:45
Yeah, this is, how can this be? How can this be that all these
10:50
people are like consciousness, potentially infinite
10:54
consciousness, and they're all going to die and they're all
10:56
going to live their life. And it was really amazing.
10:59
So that was a positive. And then I went in to look at
11:03
some trainers, which I 100% don't need in a number of
11:07
different shops, feeling more and more degraded each time I
11:11
went into each shop. Like, and I, it was, I was like,
11:14
this is bleak. It was so bleak.
11:17
And the Oxford Street, I think it's like the original
11:20
capitalist kind of driving wheel on the planet.
11:23
You know, they really, it's where it all began in a certain
11:27
sense. And Oh my God, it was like, it
11:31
was so unbelievably empty. And I kind of looked around at
11:35
people's faces and they look empty.
11:37
And I've looked empty. And I was like, this is
11:39
horrendous. This is really not good.
11:43
It's really not good. And so it was interesting to
11:49
have that clear because what normally happens is you end up
11:52
in a city and you get acclimatised to its particular
11:56
kind of atmosphere. Berlin has its own, I was kind
11:58
of slightly bulletproof when I arrived last night, but Berlin
12:01
has its own negatives and positives.
12:03
But it's kind of you get, you get acclimatised.
12:05
So it's quite rare to go to a place, be in one kind of retreat
12:09
environment and then dip out into kind of the madness of it,
12:14
which is why I really liked Vanda majority's talk because
12:18
it's a very inspiring talk. But she was kind of saying, and
12:22
I think it's true, Like it's we, we live in troubled times.
12:24
You know, that's just that's how it is.
12:26
And we have a lot of problems and a lot of people even here,
12:32
even here, even in in London, you know, Pete, she was saying
12:36
like a lot of people have had a hard year.
12:39
Somehow things have been difficult.
12:40
Yeah. And she said in a way which I
12:45
found I've always find it helpful with Buddhism.
12:47
You know, it's like you can feel like you live in a specific
12:52
particularly terrible time, you know, like your time is.
12:55
It's never been worse than this. But she read a quote which I've
12:59
heard before from a poet called Yeats.
13:03
Yeah. Which was written in 1919, just
13:07
after the First World War, you know, so almost 100 years ago,
13:12
just over 100 years ago. Where?
13:16
Anyway, I'll read the quote. I'll read the.
13:17
It's a part of a poem. I won't read the whole poem.
13:21
It's a small part of a poem, which it seems relevant anyway.
13:28
So a quote says Yeats. The quote from the poem is
13:33
things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.
13:38
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
13:41
The blood dimmed, tide is loosed, And everywhere the
13:46
ceremony of innocence is drowned.
13:49
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of
13:53
passionate intensity. Oh, wow, that was something for
13:57
New Year's Eve. Yeah, I'll read it again.
14:00
Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.
14:04
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
14:07
The blood dimmed, tide is loosed.
14:10
And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
14:14
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of
14:18
passionate intensity. Yeah.
14:22
So I I think, yeah, I think she wanted to kind of bring that in
14:28
in a way, because it's something to do with commitment.
14:30
It's the whole, this whole business of in a certain sense,
14:34
the best lack all conviction. Yeah.
14:37
And I think especially now it's fairly obvious that we're
14:41
another, what do they call it inflection point in history
14:44
where there's choices to be made, aren't there?
14:48
There's a, there's a kind of you have to, there is a kind of
14:50
alignment that is going to have to happen because we do.
14:53
I mean, the truth is we, we do this whole business I've been
14:56
thinking recently is like the centre cannot hold.
14:58
We do live in a kind of people talk about privilege.
15:01
It's privileged. But we, we live in a kind of
15:04
very nice soft secular kind of technology at the moment,
15:09
technologically quite soft bubble and that won't hold.
15:12
Yeah. So in a way this whole business
15:15
of commitment, one has to find something else.
15:17
I think 11 has to find something that will see you through
15:21
difficult times, good times, something that will move through
15:23
because there's not really going to be, there's not really an
15:26
alternative. It's not it's not possible in a
15:29
certain sense. So commitment is, well, from a
15:36
Buddhist point of view, from any point of view, commitment is
15:39
absolutely essential to find something that is real, that is
15:47
true, and that actually works. You know you have those.
15:51
It has to be all three. It has to be true, it has to be
15:53
real, it has to work. And then to commit yourself to
15:56
that wholeheartedly, because the alternative is a kind of
15:59
vacillation, a kind of wobbling around with all these different
16:02
things. You've got nothing to build your
16:04
life around. In fact, I don't think your
16:06
energy can flow if you're not committed to something.
16:08
You know, you just kind of, and in a certain sense, I think
16:14
living the, the we've, we've, we're all infected by this kind
16:17
of, we've got a modern ethos. Yeah.
16:18
And I think kind of living for kind of just pleasant experience
16:22
alone and trying to tinker your life.
16:23
So you've just got nice, a few nice sensations after another.
16:27
It's not good enough. It's just not going to work.
16:28
So that's the kind of thing we've been living under and I
16:32
think we've been, we have been, we've been in sucked into it and
16:38
it just doesn't work. And I think in coming years,
16:41
it's not going to hold up. Actually, it's just not going to
16:44
hold up. I just want to read a quote from
16:52
another quote that she read. These are all from her, by the
16:55
way. Her talk is I'd, I'd rather
16:56
listen to her talk, but maybe not.
16:58
Maybe this is got my little specific edge on it.
17:01
Yeah. And she wrote, she read a quote
17:03
from, which I've again heard before from someone called
17:06
William H Murray, who's a Scottish explorer, one of those
17:09
amazing Scottish explorers. And it's from a Himalayan
17:13
expedition in 1951. But it's, it's really fantastic.
17:16
It's basically about commitment, you know, the kind of power of
17:19
commitment. So he says, until 1 is
17:23
committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back always
17:28
ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation.
17:33
There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills
17:37
countless ideas and splendid plans, that the moment one
17:42
definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
17:46
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never
17:50
otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue
17:54
from that decision, raising in one's favour all manners of
17:58
unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no
18:03
man could have dreamed would have come his way.
18:06
I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets.
18:11
Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it.
18:16
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
18:20
Begin it now. Wow, fantastic.
18:23
So there's one quote on commitment, which I think is
18:26
true, isn't it? I think in one's own life, if
18:28
you, if you make a, if you draw a clear line in the sand and you
18:32
definitely decide to go for something, you don't have any
18:34
other options and somehow things happen.
18:37
It's very strange, isn't it? You're kind of alert, you're
18:40
you're alert to something, you're sensitive to things.
18:43
So in a way it's just depends what you're committed to because
18:46
it's a bit like the Buddha said, we're, we're all committed to
18:49
something. We're all committed to, to what
18:52
we think is going to work, going to make us happy.
18:54
You know, sometimes they can work on a certain level.
18:57
There's nothing wrong with them. Maybe one's committed to making
19:00
a lot of money to, I don't know, having a wonderful family or,
19:08
but I don't know, they could be all manner of things, which in
19:11
and of themselves are fine. They're just not big enough.
19:15
So 1 needs something on a kind of existential level that you
19:21
can do that with, and then you've got a life, it seems to
19:24
me. Yeah.
19:26
Another quote which she read from a cultural anthropologist,
19:32
which I found quite interesting. Her name's Margaret Mead.
19:35
I think she was around in the 1950s, which actually gave me
19:40
some hope because if I'm honest, in recent months I've been
19:43
feeling a bit overwhelmed with the state of affairs on this
19:47
planet and the way things are going.
19:49
And I so it's, I found, I found her talk particularly moving
19:53
because I realized there's something in myself like I'm a
19:56
card carrying Buddhist. I've been doing this for, I
19:59
don't know, over 20 years. And I just thought I don't
20:02
believe it enough. There's something in me doesn't
20:05
quite I, there's some, it's not working.
20:07
Yeah, I'm, I'm still, I'm doing this kind of vacillation thing,
20:10
which is kind of natural. But something needs to change.
20:13
Yeah, something needs to change. And because I know when I've
20:17
been in that mode before, it's not something you can force.
20:20
When I've been in that mode before, where you're living for
20:22
something beyond yourself, for other people, and you can tell
20:28
it's working, then life is fine. Yeah, death is all right.
20:31
The whole thing works. But as soon as that's gone, it's
20:34
gone. And also, more to the point as
20:37
well, there's a whole kind of, I guess we're again, the whole
20:40
irony thing. Yeah, we're all very good at
20:41
being ironic. And to be fair, you couldn't
20:44
understand that the mess of kind of utopian ideals that we had in
20:48
the last century, which kind of resulted in the massacre of
20:51
million, literally millions of people, has meant we don't trust
20:55
anymore. But in a certain sense, there is
20:57
a sort of call again, for some kind of utopian even vision, not
21:05
in its kind of pitfall literalistic sense, but there
21:08
has to be some idea that you're going to actually change things
21:11
in this world without approaching kind of burnout or,
21:14
or, or you have it has to become, it has to come from a
21:17
different angle. And she read a quote from
21:20
Margaret Mead, which I thought was very good, actually,
21:23
Margaret. And she, she, by the way, Vanda
21:25
Najyoti was listening to this guy called, what's his name,
21:30
Rutger Bregman. He's like, he's worth listening
21:33
to. He's an interesting guy.
21:34
This Dutch guy, he was his he wrote a book called Moral
21:37
Ambition, you know, saying that the way the left especially has
21:41
become a bit lethargic and kind of in a state of managed
21:44
decline. It's just not, it's not
21:46
inspiring. They're losing people.
21:48
So you have to have some kind of sense like, oh, you want to
21:50
change the world, which when you're young, you can't or
21:53
you're young, maybe not anymore. When I was younger, I did have
21:57
that kind of idea. And then I, you know, you get
21:59
beaten up by life and you think, oh, it's all doom and gloom or
22:03
it's sort. But actually she's, he's arguing
22:05
from a different position. And she was kind of making that
22:07
point that with a, something like a resolution or a
22:11
commitment, there has to be some sense that you can get engaged
22:14
with this world. And there's, there's a, a, a
22:16
so-called fight on, not in a kind of political sense, but in
22:20
a moral sense, like all your decisions, all the actions, all
22:25
the, all the kind of particulars that you'll decide to change the
22:28
world with or get involved with have to come from somewhere.
22:30
They have to come from a a certain set of values, which and
22:36
those values in themselves need to come from something that you
22:38
trust some kind of, I wouldn't say authority, but something
22:41
that you look look up to, you know.
22:43
Anyway, so the quote at last she says, never doubt that a small
22:49
group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
22:53
Indeed, it is only this thing that is only this that ever has.
22:58
Actually, it was good. Yeah.
23:00
So never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
23:03
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is only this that
23:06
ever has. And I think you can see it in
23:09
the in the opposite direction as well.
23:11
Can't you like the whole kind of well, let's take terrorism here,
23:15
like the whole business on like Bondi Beach on Hanukkah.
23:18
That was a very small, two committed individuals that kind
23:23
of ruined the whole people load of people's lives and kind of
23:26
sent shock waves through the world to people.
23:30
Yeah. So Buddhism saying, in a way, do
23:35
the opposite. Yeah.
23:36
It's like there's a level of commitment.
23:38
They can't say they're not committed.
23:40
Yeah, they were certainly committed to their kind of
23:42
cause. And Buddhism saying if you go
23:45
the other way, that's basically what we need.
23:47
Yeah. So somehow we have to kind of
23:49
rouse our energy and believe in that.
23:52
You have to believe that it's possible, and I believe it is
23:54
possible. And I think that the reason that
23:55
it has happened is we have it here, but I haven't been here
23:58
for the past two weeks. But to see it in London, for
24:00
example, we have a whole load of people that actually take it
24:04
very seriously. They're helping out, they're on
24:07
teams, They're not like too cool for school.
24:09
You know, they're all like people kind of doing things in a
24:13
community that I would say has actually has changed London.
24:16
It's certainly transformed East London.
24:18
Yeah, in the someone was saying like in the 19 when they first
24:24
got there in 1977, Bethnal Green was not really a place you in,
24:28
East London was not a place you wanted to be.
24:30
Yeah. It was completely destroyed.
24:33
It basically hardcore old school racist skinheads.
24:38
Yeah, a Bangladeshi community. Everyone's impoverished.
24:43
It was rough, like really rough and very violent.
24:48
And within the course of, well, 50 years, that whole, I don't
24:50
think it's just gentrification. You can see that that particular
24:54
Buddhist centre with the numbers and the energy has bit by bit
24:58
transformed the surrounding streets, surrounding area.
25:01
Then you've got other people moving in and actually it's not
25:04
just gentrification because loads of the people that I met
25:06
there, whether they're from Jamaican families or Bangladeshi
25:10
or old Cockney families, all practicing Buddhism, they're
25:13
there together. So it's not just like a whole
25:15
new people have been imported. There's something that has
25:18
actually happened there and transformed that whole community
25:22
and actually, I would say rippled out further into London.
25:24
Yeah. But it's a very, it's a kind of
25:26
at the core, which seemed to be a fairly small group of
25:29
individuals that were committed to something.
25:32
Yeah. And I would say the opposite as
25:35
well. Like I, I, I went to, I was part
25:37
of a Buddhist centre in West London.
25:39
And when they moved there, it was on the corner of this
25:41
particular St. It was near where I grew up,
25:43
actually, this particular St. There would be literally be
25:46
people, men being thrown through plate glass windows every Friday
25:50
night in the pub. Yeah, it was a, it was just
25:52
violent. It was a rough area.
25:55
Again, Cockney, Jamaican. It was a, it was a, it was a
25:57
kind of, it was that whole area was a slum essentially.
26:02
And then, like, you get a load of Buddhist turning up on this
26:05
corner and the whole area is like it perfumed the whole area
26:09
and that whole corner changed. Yeah, it was.
26:11
It was noticeable. Yeah.
26:12
That whole kind of district was very, very different.
26:15
And then they left to go to a new place.
26:17
And I went there a while ago, and it's just dead.
26:20
It's interesting, the whole kind of that kind of.
26:22
So it does something. Anyway, I'm diverging.
26:28
But commitment essentially is what makes these kind of things
26:31
happen. You know, they don't happen.
26:32
They happen by people having, having something in the middle
26:38
of their lives that they're willing to live for, you know,
26:40
and, and, and give everything to and whatever that is.
26:44
I think the, the, the, the, the, the imperative in a certain
26:46
sense is not to become a Buddhist, although personally I
26:50
would say that is what is real, what's true and what works.
26:52
That's what I feel, but it's more a case of do your own
26:57
homework, isn't it? Like find out what is real and
27:03
what is worth your short time on this planet giving yourself to,
27:08
and then just give yourself to it 100%.
27:11
And then you can't really go wrong.
27:14
So in a way, I think in a way, maybe you could say commitment
27:19
is threefold. Yeah.
27:21
Or at least to to some extent. And our own teacher says so to
27:25
begin with. In a way, commitment is always
27:27
to the unknown. Yeah.
27:29
You wouldn't need to be committed to something if you
27:31
knew what it was already. It's like commitment is to the
27:34
unknown. So you don't really know what
27:36
you're going towards, but you're committed towards it.
27:38
Yeah. And then from a Buddhist
27:39
perspective, that's the sacred. You know, you can't really put
27:42
the sacred into words. We all know what that means.
27:45
You know, we all know what the sacred is.
27:48
We've had experiences of it. It could come through a tragedy
27:54
or it could come through through a beautiful snowy morning, or
27:58
you could be on retreat, or it could just come out of the blue.
28:00
You just have a sense of the sacred or you're with somebody
28:03
and it's there's some kind of beautiful atmosphere.
28:05
And if you like, you know what it is, you know, you can't
28:08
explain it. No one can explain it to anyone.
28:12
Buddhism tries sometimes to explain the sacred and it get a
28:15
bit lost with it. You know, it's more like an
28:18
evocation. It's where poetry's more helpful
28:21
and images, you know, you just, you just, it's a direct thing
28:24
and when you experience it, you can't help but give yourself to
28:28
it, hopefully on a good day. I think the tragedy in a certain
28:33
sense is that everybody, I would imagine, or most people
28:37
experienced what you would call the sacred, something that they
28:41
know to be true. It's undeniable.
28:43
And then they just, it just disappears.
28:45
You think I'll never forget this?
28:47
This is the most important thing that's ever happened to me.
28:49
I'll never forget this. And then you go to work and then
28:52
you're on Instagram and then ten years have gone by and then
28:55
you're like, oh, what was? Never mind.
28:58
So that happens. So yeah, commitment is to, is to
29:01
the unknown, is to to the sacred from a Buddhist perspective,
29:04
would be to the Buddha. You know, the Buddha represents
29:07
enlightenment, which you could say is the ultimate, the
29:12
ultimate unknown. It's what you want.
29:14
You know, forget Buddhism, the whole the good thing about
29:17
Buddha, I was actually having a conversation with my dad.
29:19
I had a really nice time with my dad, actually.
29:20
It was very beautiful. But having this conversation
29:23
about Buddhism with my dad, like he's quite funny.
29:26
But anyway, we got into this thing about, well, this way you
29:31
could forget the word Buddhism. Wherever you have a self
29:33
reflective consciousness, you could have a planet 15,000,000
29:37
billion light years away. And if you have a self
29:39
reflective consciousness, you will have the same experience.
29:42
They won't, maybe they, they probably won't call it Buddhism
29:44
there. They might be a massive squid
29:46
like with eyes and I don't know. But if they're self reflective,
29:50
then they've got Buddhism under a different name.
29:53
Yeah. So it's basically the sacred.
29:54
It's, it's, it's the way things are.
29:56
It's the truth. And I think in a way, in a way,
30:02
it is an experience, but it's also you've got to use your
30:04
brain. Yeah.
30:06
In, in, in a certain sense, to be a Buddhist and to commit
30:08
yourself, you have to RIP it apart with your mind or attempt
30:12
to do that. And that's what the Buddha's
30:14
telling saying to us. Like, test it.
30:16
Yeah, really. Test it like a Goldsmith.
30:18
Test gold. You have to test the theories.
30:21
Yeah. It's not just like a feeling.
30:22
You have to take it to peace. Is this true or is this false?
30:26
Yeah. And if it's false, then you can
30:29
leave it and look for something else.
30:31
And if it's true, then you've got something true, you know,
30:35
OK, so that's the first thing. The first thing is basically
30:37
commitment to, I would say the sacred, You know, the second
30:41
thing you probably need, well, you need is a method.
30:43
You need some practical method of implementing your, your
30:47
feeling. You can't just be a nice
30:49
feeling. You can't just have a nice
30:50
feeling and kind of think, oh, I'll never forget this.
30:51
And I you need practical steps. You need things you're actually
30:54
going to do on a moment to moment basis.
30:56
You need a method of technique, which is basically where the
30:59
part of where the Buddha's genius came in comes in.
31:01
You know, it's like developed a kind of a method which it works.
31:06
It just works, you know, simple as that.
31:08
If you actually try it. And by try it, I mean actually
31:11
try it and not just read a book and do a course and anything
31:13
else is rubbish. Yeah.
31:14
It's like actually, if you actually try it, your life
31:18
changes. It's as simple as that, you
31:19
know. So there needs to be a method.
31:23
There needs to be a well, what in Buddhism we call the Dharma,
31:26
Yeah. Or what you could call Buddhism,
31:27
Yeah. Methods, things you try and you
31:29
implement on a daily basis, moment to moment basis.
31:31
Yeah. Do you see what I mean?
31:33
So you've got, it's in a way, it's on levels.
31:35
You have a vision, you have something you worship.
31:39
You might say, yeah, that's a life for you.
31:45
And then you have a you. Then you have a set of values
31:47
that come off that and things you will and you will not do,
31:49
you know, And that gives you a backbone because you need a
31:52
moral backbone, isn't it? Right now we're kind of all
31:54
right. It's a bit soft still.
31:55
We're kind of like wobbling around a bit.
31:57
And Berlin, well, no, it's all right.
31:59
It's not too bad. Probably won't stay like this,
32:01
unfortunately. You don't mean to be the bearer
32:03
of bad news, but it's probably not going to carry on like this.
32:05
So you need something that that kind of informs your choices, I
32:08
think like in a very strong way, you know, you need a kind of
32:10
moral backbone. And I'm glad there are people
32:13
out there in the so-called secular world as well.
32:15
That push of kind of recognise this.
32:18
It's beyond just small causes anymore.
32:20
Is it like environment? I don't mean small causes, but
32:23
environmentalism, war, catastrophes, disease, poverty.
32:28
It's beyond that. You need something in the middle
32:30
that informs the way you're going to respond to all of that,
32:32
you know, So you need a method. You need, you need and you need
32:35
a, you need a structure of values, you know, like that
32:38
actually, that actually thought through.
32:39
Because otherwise what we do, we just tend to default to what we
32:42
think is true. And what we think is true
32:44
generally has to do with what we like.
32:46
Yeah. And, and, and us and our
32:48
preferences. Yeah.
32:50
So you need some, you need some values.
32:51
Yeah. You need a method.
32:52
And the third thing to commit oneself to is people.
32:56
Yeah. It's not abstract, is it?
32:58
You need at least in your, in your inner circle or maybe outer
33:01
circle, you need people in a way you need to live for others, you
33:05
know, which is brings me back to my whole experience at the
33:08
London Buddhist Centre. I was so impressed.
33:10
I was so impressed. It was like, it was amazing.
33:13
Just like a load of people doing things for other people because
33:21
that's what they wanted to do, you know, and living for each
33:23
other. And we're doing that here.
33:26
And it takes time. Like they've been running this
33:27
for 50 years, building this, and we've been, I don't know, less
33:32
than that, but it's coming. Yeah.
33:34
And I think in a way, this relates to this whole business
33:36
of like this whole utopian thing.
33:38
Buddhism does have a utopia. Yeah.
33:41
You could call it a pure land. You there.
33:43
There is a there is. It's not just internal.
33:45
I think it's the thing that's important, which I think.
33:49
And sometimes Berlin, it's a bit difficult because we're so cool
33:52
and kind of ironic here. We kind of, we lose the picture
33:56
a bit. We think, oh, it's all about my
33:58
personal experience, me as an individual.
34:00
Duh, duh, duh, duh. I'm not going to get into any
34:03
kind of big ideologies. That was so, that was so last
34:05
century and kind of did so many, so much damage.
34:08
So let me just do my thing. Yeah.
34:11
Which I think is a problem in London.
34:15
It's kind of quite obvious. Yeah.
34:17
You're going to get fried. Yeah.
34:19
And a lot of people that come to the Buddhist centre in London,
34:21
it's clear that they've tried, They've tried going that way and
34:24
they're cooked. Yeah.
34:26
And you can just see they're not happy.
34:27
They're more and more unhappy at their work.
34:30
So for them, it's for them, it's clear, it's obvious.
34:33
It's like, OK, I've got this. It's not working.
34:35
And I found this place and it is working.
34:38
Yeah. So I'm going to do this.
34:39
Berlin's a bit different, bit different.
34:41
We're all very kind of groovy and kind of individualistic.
34:46
And I would say even kind of we're kind of interested in,
34:51
which is not a bad thing. We're interested in our own kind
34:54
of special experience and having a groovy time, even being
34:58
spiritual. But it's, I think there's a call
35:01
for a kind of something more communal, something kind of more
35:04
that you are actually trying to change things externally as
35:07
well. You know, and I have to say,
35:09
there's certain people here that I've been really inspired by.
35:11
I don't know why I look at Sangodarshan here, just so
35:13
there's one person that is actually sorry about this, but
35:18
not really someone that actually gives themselves really with
35:22
integrity that gives themselves I would say to other people, you
35:25
know, and just keeps doing that. And that's really important to
35:30
be involved with. It is can't just be an
35:31
individual affair. I don't think, again, I think
35:34
it's a luxury. We've got a kind of luxury life
35:36
at the moment that won't hold either.
35:38
I think there's there's there is a necessity to be part of a
35:43
community or whatever it is of people that has an influence on
35:48
the outside world. Yeah, there's loads of problems
35:51
on this planet, as we all know. It's very difficult.
35:54
And so you need something, you need a kind of core, a group of
35:58
people or a core value, a core place you're coming from in
36:01
order to tackle that. Yeah.
36:03
Yeah. So I think in a way, in a way,
36:05
one does need to find something that you can actually believe
36:08
in. Yeah.
36:13
It's interesting. I don't know why I'm always
36:15
interested in debates like between Christians and Muslims
36:19
and Jews, and they're all arguing with each other.
36:21
Not normally Buddhist. Buddhist don't.
36:23
I don't think it's they're that good at it or they're not, that
36:26
it's not quite the same because they're not.
36:29
Anyway, there was a quote, there was a quote from Nietzsche, good
36:35
old Nietzsche, which was which I think in a way, yeah.
36:39
Would you say belief in God has become unbelievable?
36:42
It's good, isn't it? Belief in God has become
36:44
unbelievable. And at the moment, seems like
36:48
the far right are trying to kind of resurrect God again.
36:50
You know, I can't even quote him on the, you know, trying to
36:53
bring him back to life and there's all sorts of weird stuff
36:56
going on, you know, ethno nationalism.
36:58
It's unbelievable. You just, what do they call it?
37:00
The Overton window, you know, with a needle shift so far in
37:02
the other direction. And so you've got kind of ethno
37:05
nationalism, at least in the UK, which I find astonishing.
37:08
Yeah. So you've got all this kind of
37:12
concoction, this mix going on. And which is why I think you one
37:15
need we in terms of commitment, we need to be a little bit more
37:19
energized. And I'm talking to myself
37:23
actually, which is where it all begins, obviously.
37:25
But we need to be a little take ourselves a bit more seriously
37:28
in terms of our practice, in terms of our communities.
37:31
And because in a way it relates to the earlier quotes, you know,
37:36
with this whole business of the centre cannot hold, I think it
37:39
won't hold for that much longer. So in a way, you we need to be a
37:43
bit more taking our practice, taking ourselves more seriously
37:46
instead of being this kind of to our ironic again, talking to
37:49
myself. Yeah.
37:53
And in a certain all it is in a way is finding something that
37:57
you actually believe in, something that I think you
37:59
actually can put yourself to because it's another one of
38:05
these things, isn't it? I hear it all the time.
38:06
I've even said it myself recently.
38:08
It's like you say these crazy things that, oh, it can't get
38:11
much worse than this. It's like I can get much worse
38:14
than this. Like much, much worse than this.
38:18
And I think that attitude is quite pervasive in our society
38:21
at the moment. Yeah.
38:22
And, and the way this guy, Rutger Bregman makes the point
38:26
that we're semi blindfolded at the moment.
38:28
We with our phones, we've got our ear things in here, we've
38:31
got our thing here. We're kind of a little bit head
38:32
in the sand blindfolded. It's kind of not good enough.
38:36
Again, talking to myself, I'm sick of myself, honestly.
38:39
I'm sick of myself. That has to change.
38:45
Yeah. So I would say in terms of
38:47
commitment, New Year's resolutions, going to the gym,
38:53
that's a good one. I want to eat more healthily.
38:58
I want to be nicer to people. What else do I want to do?
39:03
I want to, I want to be less cynical and ironic, but I also
39:08
want to, I also want to find my commitment again and actually
39:13
challenge myself, like what I actually believe in and put
39:16
myself to that. Yeah, be clear about what my
39:20
values are and actually live from them, knowing that they
39:23
make a difference. Yeah, they do actually make a
39:25
difference. I think that's the sometimes the
39:29
the propaganda that you get from certain quarters is almost
39:31
overwhelming that everything, you can't do anything.
39:34
Everything's finished. Oh my God, you've got techno
39:36
feudalism coming over here. There's AI, there's the
39:40
ecological. Oh, my God.
39:41
Yeah. And it can be crushing.
39:44
Yeah. And you just then retreat into
39:46
your own personal world of experience, your own personal
39:48
spirituality. I'm here.
39:49
This is me, you know, And that's why that.
39:52
And it wasn't named Slavo Zizek. And actually, Nietzsche again,
39:56
said, was he? He said Western Buddhism was a
39:59
terrible thing. He said, he put, he said Western
40:01
Buddhism was like what would be perfect for capital consumerism.
40:05
You know, you just have a little bit of meditation.
40:07
Go and buy some stuff, have a nice experience, you know, just
40:10
smooth it out. Yeah.
40:13
So I think there needs to be, I don't know, one can take oneself
40:18
a bit more seriously in terms of 1's values.
40:20
Yeah. And if you're a Buddhist, that
40:21
will be the Buddha, you know, the unknown, the Dharma, the
40:23
method and and your community. And it ripples out from there.
40:29
So I will leave it there. Do I have any inspiring quotes
40:32
to finish? No, let me actually, no, let me
40:36
read, let me read the Scottish Explorer guy again.
40:39
He's good until 1 is committed. There's hesitancy, the chance to
40:44
draw back always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of
40:49
initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth,
40:52
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid
40:56
plans. That the moment one definitely
40:59
commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
41:02
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never
41:05
otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events, issues
41:09
from the decision raising in one's favour.
41:12
All manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material
41:16
assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his
41:19
way. I have learnt a deep respect for
41:22
one of Goethe's couplets. Whatever you can do or dream,
41:26
you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power and
41:31
magic in it. Begin it now.