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What is the Dharma? · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

0:09
I'm going to speak today on, well, in a way, the the title of
0:13
my talk, not that I've exactly given it a title, but the title
0:16
could be what is the dama? You've probably heard that word
0:21
and I'll talk a little bit around that.
0:25
So, but first of all, let's just start.
0:28
What I'd like you to do is just think of a river, any old river
0:33
you can think of, and that could be the river's spa in Berlin.
0:38
And you know, because that river is flowing, that if you travel
0:45
along its length in the opposite direction to its flow for long
0:49
enough, you would eventually come to the point where it
0:54
emerges from the earth. You'd come to its source,
0:56
couldn't you? So if you followed the river
1:00
Swar all the way, you'd get to an area called Laustitz.
1:05
As far as is that connect, is that correct?
1:10
That's foot 400 kilometres away where that river emerges from
1:15
the earth. All rivers have a source, and we
1:19
know that. And you know that when you look
1:21
at a river, it's flowing, you know it comes from a source.
1:24
So in the same way you can, you can apply the same principle
1:30
when you come to a Buddhist centre.
1:33
You see the activities of Buddhists, you see order
1:36
members, you see mitras, you see people teaching and leading
1:41
meditation and study and discussion groups.
1:44
And because you can see that flow of teaching and
1:49
communication, if you listen carefully and pay attention and
1:54
practice what it's what's being taught, you can discern that it
1:59
comes from a source. And if you work your way back,
2:04
as it were, through all the teachers and the lineage of
2:08
teachings, the source that you get to and, and, and that you
2:14
can discern that in a Buddhist centre, the source you get to is
2:18
the Enlightenment experience. The, the, and the person who
2:22
experienced that experience, as it were, is the Buddha.
2:26
So that's the source. Just like water emerging from
2:30
the earth is the source of this incredible, beautiful, broad,
2:36
deep flowing river in Berlin, the Enlightenment of the Buddha
2:43
is the source of this, this Buddhist centre, the Buddhists,
2:49
the ordinance here, all the other Buddhist centres.
2:52
So that's, that's important with the, the Buddhist centre here is
2:56
not just sort of sprang up out of nowhere, it comes from a
3:00
source. And that source is the Buddha's
3:03
experience of enlightenment. And the Buddha didn't sit
3:09
quietly once he'd had that experience, whatever that
3:13
experience of enlightenment is. I'm not going to try and
3:16
describe it. I don't think the Buddha
3:17
described it either, but he was mainly interested in, or you
3:21
could say entirely interesting, was communicating that
3:26
experience and how other people can also attain that experience.
3:32
That's what the Buddha did. You could say that's the only
3:35
thing that the Buddha did after his enlightenment experience.
3:39
He communicated to other people in ways that they could
3:43
understand, very simple terms, how you as an individual
3:47
experience what he experienced, that liberation of the mind.
3:52
That's what the Buddha did. And if you add up all the all
3:57
the sort of collection of everything he said and
4:00
everything he did, all his communication, the sum total of
4:05
that is what we call the Dharma. So that's a really important
4:10
word, the Dharma as Dharma Silas said at the beginning, it's one
4:15
of the three jewels that we pay salutation to every every time
4:20
we come into the shrine room. And a lot of the time we have
4:25
Buddhists gathered together, before they do any formal
4:28
practice, they recite what's called the tea Ratana Vandana,
4:32
which is salutation to the Three Jewels.
4:36
So you pay salutation as it were, honour to the Buddha, the
4:40
Dharma and the Sangha. So in this talk I want to
4:43
explore the Dharma Vandana. So the salutation to the Dharma
4:50
and the Dharma is very important clearly, because if you want to
4:56
attain what the Buddha attained, you need the Dharma.
5:00
If you haven't got the Dharma, you can't do it.
5:03
So the Dharma is the only way to the liberation that the Buddha
5:08
experienced. If it doesn't get you to that
5:10
experience, as it were, it's not the Dharma.
5:16
So yeah, it's really good to be clear what the Dharma is.
5:20
You need to, you need to be clear.
5:22
And there's two may, there's, there's a very rich word and
5:26
there's two main descriptions of, of the Dharma.
5:30
So the first is it's a truth, law, principle or reality.
5:35
So it's a principle. It's a, you could say it's a
5:38
founding principle. So an example of that would be
5:43
this. So these are lines from the
5:45
Dharma Pala, very sort of foundational teaching of the
5:49
Buddha. Not by hatred.
5:52
Are hatreds ever pacified here in the world?
5:56
They are pacified by love. This is the eternal law so that
6:02
you can't, you can't finish off hatred with more hatred.
6:07
You can't combat hatred and and finish hatred with hatred.
6:12
You the only way to finish hatred is with love.
6:17
So that's a law like a law of gravity.
6:20
It's not a it's not, I don't know, it's not a preference or
6:25
it's not an idea. It's a law.
6:27
Like, try it out and see that's what you need to do.
6:31
So. So the Dharma is like that.
6:33
It's like a law. It's a governing principle like
6:37
the law of gravity. And if you want to practice the
6:41
Dharma, you need to work in accordance with that law.
6:45
Do you see what I mean? Because it's a law, just like
6:51
the law of gravity. When you're walking across a
6:54
mountain edge, you don't go near too near the edge because you
6:58
know the law of gravity will pull you down a rapid wave.
7:03
So in the same way you apply the same assessment to the law of
7:09
the Dharma, but it's also a teaching.
7:13
So it's a teaching mostly. This is what we think of when we
7:16
think of the Dharma, is the teaching of the Buddha.
7:19
It's what he said, the words he uses, the communication he gave
7:24
us to how to attain his experience.
7:27
And that's the doctrine or the teaching.
7:30
And you know, it's an exposition, it's a making clear,
7:33
it's a presentation. So that's that's the Dharma.
7:36
And and then in the salutation to the three jewels, there's
7:44
some very lovely descriptive words of the Dharma.
7:47
So I thought I'd go through those just as a way of making
7:52
sure that everyone in the room is clear what the Dharma is, so
7:58
that when you come to the Buddhist Centre, you can check
8:01
up on the order members here and check they're teaching the
8:04
Dharma and check that what they're doing is leading you
8:09
back to the source where the Buddha's enlightenment started
8:13
it all. OK, so we've got to be clear.
8:19
So, so the first word, the 1st as it were, quality of the
8:24
Dharma is called swargato, which means well taught or well
8:29
communicated. OK, so the, the teaching of the
8:32
Buddha is well taught and well communicated.
8:37
And so you, you, you need to check that.
8:40
That's the first thing you need to check, is what's being taught
8:43
being well communicated. And the Buddha was
8:50
unenlightened. He started off as an
8:52
unenlightened human being, and through his own efforts he
8:55
became enlightened. So the Buddha knows both an
9:01
enlightenment and enlightenment for everyone in this room.
9:06
I presume we only know an enlightenment.
9:11
So when you only know one thing, it's a little bit difficult to
9:15
get objectivity about it because you're in it all the time.
9:19
The Buddha can be objective about an enlightenment because
9:22
he's not in it anymore. He's enlightened.
9:25
He knows what enlightenment is, and he knows what freedom from
9:29
an enlightenment is, so he can talk about it.
9:33
So he knows what we're like more than we do, because he can see
9:39
an enlightenment more clearly than us.
9:44
The Buddha knows about difficult mental states.
9:48
The Buddha knows how to make it clear how to free yourself from
9:54
those limiting negative mental studs.
9:58
The Buddha knows that we don't really know that.
10:00
But if you follow the teaching of the Buddha, you, you can free
10:04
yourself. So what you have with the Buddha
10:08
is an enlightened mind communicating with an
10:11
unenlightened mind. That's what the Dharma is.
10:13
And the Buddha only communicates what is necessary for the
10:20
disciple football for us to know.
10:22
He only communicates what the unenlightened human being needs
10:26
to know in order to gain enlightenment.
10:28
That's it. That's all he does.
10:30
You could say that the Buddha didn't do anything else.
10:34
He just communicated what is needed for the disciple and it's
10:40
his Dharma. He discovered it.
10:44
No one else had discovered it before him.
10:48
He found the way to it, He discovered it and he
10:51
communicated it. He was the first person to
10:54
communicate it, and everyone else after him, including me,
10:59
including Dharmasawa, including everyone else in the long line,
11:03
has just been communicating his Dharma.
11:05
They haven't been communicating like anything else.
11:08
Well, they might have been anyway.
11:10
Let's leave that aside. If they have been communicating
11:12
the Dharma, it's the Buddhist Dharma.
11:14
It's not their dad. And that Dharma has has spread
11:20
all over the world. The reason we're here today is
11:24
because of that Dharma, that communication, and it's not
11:28
going on just in Berlin, it's going on all over the world.
11:31
So that's the first thing, well taught, well communicated.
11:36
And then the next descriptive word is san ditico, which means
11:41
immediately apparent and visible, which means that you
11:48
experience the results of practising the Dharma
11:52
immediately. If you practice the Dharma, you
11:56
experience the results immediately.
11:58
It's visible. You can tell in your own
12:01
experience that because you've practiced the Dharma, you can
12:06
see it. You don't have to wait until you
12:10
die to go to heaven. You can see it.
12:14
Now, if you do the mindfulness of breathing like we've just
12:18
done, you can see, you can experience the results.
12:22
They might not be the results that you want.
12:26
We have to remember that you might have come here this
12:28
morning expecting a bit of bliss, perfect tranquility, calm
12:34
insight into the nature of reality.
12:37
You might not have experienced that, but you will have
12:40
experienced results. Even if he sat down on the
12:44
cushion and all he realised was how utterly distracted you are,
12:51
that is a result. So practising the Dhamma shows
12:55
you what you're like. It shows you that you're only
13:00
nice and, and yeah, if you keep practicing, you experience
13:03
greater depth and calmness and bliss and all of that.
13:08
So yeah, you might not get the results.
13:10
You won't. You might be brought up against
13:12
your own limitations, the limitations of your life.
13:16
You're you're reactive, repetitive mind.
13:20
Yes, you'll be, you'll be brought up against those.
13:24
But but the Dharma is creative and gives you the tools to work
13:28
creatively with those. So you will experience the
13:32
results now visibly if you practice the Dharma.
13:40
OK, so, so again, you can, you can try that out.
13:43
You come along to the Buddhist centre, you get told to meditate
13:46
in a particular way or try it out and see, see what the
13:50
results are. You don't need to worry about
13:52
anything else. You just try it and see if it
13:54
works in your experience. And then the next word, akaliko,
14:00
which means not connected with time, universal or eternal.
14:05
So it's not connected with time. So if you were meditating doing
14:09
the mindfulness of breathing 2 1/2 thousand years ago, and the
14:14
Buddha was leading the class, you would experience the same
14:17
results. It would be the same Dharma,
14:20
you'd experience your same mind. You'd still, if it was the
14:23
bullet here, you'd still be distracted.
14:27
So but the effect of meditation will be the same.
14:32
It will fire it by your mind. So wherever you or whatever time
14:37
period you practice the Dharma in is the same.
14:40
It's the same Dharma and the results are the same.
14:43
And you can practice it anywhere.
14:45
Even if you practised it on your own in the North Pole, it would
14:52
be the same fact. It would be the same liberative
14:55
result. OK, so wherever you are in
15:00
whatever time period you happen to be in, you can practice the
15:04
done. There's no limitations.
15:06
You don't have to go to a particular place to practice or
15:10
to be a Buddhist. You can practice in any
15:12
situation you're in. So this this is from the Dharma
15:18
Pada. Again, experiences are preceded
15:22
by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind.
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If one speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows.
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If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows
15:36
that. That holds true wherever you
15:40
are. Even if you practised on the
15:42
moon, that would still hold the boom.
15:46
So the so the Dharma is eternal, but we have to remember that
15:51
just because the Dharma is eternal, Buddhism is an eternal
15:55
Buddhism. Presumably at some point will
15:59
die out and you won't be able to come to a Buddhist centre and
16:02
you won't be able to go on a Buddhist retreat.
16:03
And then at one point maybe there won't be any Buddhists at
16:06
all. So you have to put energy into
16:09
cultivating, you know, culture where Buddhism is flourishing.
16:16
But the Dharma as a principle is eternal.
16:22
OK. And then one or two more
16:24
qualities. So the next one is called a, a
16:28
hippasico. So a he means see, does it?
16:33
No, it means come, come and see. So this is what this word means.
16:37
Come and see. So this is this is great because
16:41
there's absolutely no need for blind faith in Buddhism.
16:46
You don't need to do it because other people do it.
16:51
You don't need to do it because it's written in the holy book.
16:56
You don't need to do it because your guru tells you to do it.
17:00
You don't need to do it because it's the state religion.
17:04
You don't even need need to do it because the Buddha tells you
17:08
to do it. What it means is that it's
17:12
available and you come and try it for yourself.
17:16
You just come and try it. You don't need to believe it.
17:18
You don't need to have any beliefs.
17:20
You just come and try it, see for yourself what it's like.
17:24
And that's the attitude really. You know, if some of your
17:28
friends ask you, well, you know, what's the Saturday class like?
17:33
You know, should I come or shouldn't I come?
17:34
Do I need to be a Buddhist? Do I need to light incense and
17:38
offer it to a shrine? You know, I can't meditate it
17:41
anyway. It doesn't matter.
17:42
You just say, you just say, well, come and try it for
17:45
yourself. See what see, see what you make
17:47
of it. If you want to come and keep
17:49
coming, well, great. If you don't want to come, no
17:52
problem, no problem. So come and see it for yourself.
17:55
So it's very, very experiential and it feels like a personal
18:02
invitation. That's what it should be like.
18:05
So you should feel that you as an individual, you know, are
18:10
getting invited in. Come and see for yourself.
18:14
Not because you're a particular person of a particular group,
18:18
because you're you. You come and see the Dharma for
18:22
yourself. Try it out for yourself.
18:24
That's all that's required. You don't need to believe,
18:30
believe things blindly, OK. And the next quality of the
18:37
Dharma is open eye echo. So that means leading forward
18:45
and progressive. So if you practice the Dharma,
18:49
it will lead you to higher and higher levels of spiritual
18:55
development. That's what it does.
18:57
That's what the Dharma is for. If it's not leading you to
19:01
higher and higher levels of spiritual development, it's not
19:06
the Dharma. So that's what it's for.
19:10
So the Dharma is a path, as you know, and it's a path of regular
19:16
steps. So you start off, ideally you
19:19
start off on the first step and then you take the second step,
19:25
and then you take the third step.
19:27
And if you keep going, you'll go all the way to enlightenment.
19:31
That's, that's, that's the myth, isn't it?
19:34
Of course, often we don't want to take the first step or the
19:38
second step. We want to start on the 5th
19:41
step. You know, educated,
19:43
sophisticated people like us. We want to, we don't want to be
19:46
taught the basics. We've already listened to some
19:49
exotic meditations on podcasts and on Headspace and so forth.
19:56
We know about all of that. We've we've read books on
20:02
insights and wisdom. We know about no self.
20:06
OK, so let's let I'm ready to start on step ten.
20:12
Well, you, you can try that, but in a sense there's nothing
20:16
stopping you apart from your own life.
20:20
You can't start on step 10. Because you haven't started on
20:25
Step 1, you might think you can start on Step 10 and you can
20:30
give it a go, but you'll be held back by the unintegrated,
20:34
undeveloped aspect of the life that you've forgotten about
20:40
while you've been involved in, you know, thinking of yourself
20:46
in that particular work. So it's like any craft, you
20:49
know, if you were going to take up a musical instrument, if you
20:52
were going to take up some sort of creative pursuit, if you were
20:56
going to take up something like woodworking, you'd start at the
20:59
beginning, wouldn't you? You'd just say, OK, I want to do
21:02
this. Tell me what's the first thing I
21:04
need to do to be able to learn this craft?
21:07
And you'd learn it from the start, and you'd get taught it,
21:10
and you'd follow the path and you'd follow the train, and it
21:15
would make you a better pianist, woodworker, whatever, whatever
21:20
it is you were trying to do. So it's a path of regular steps.
21:27
And if you follow the steps, you will transform yourself.
21:32
You will become transformed. If you're not transforming, if
21:36
you're not changing, you're not. You're not practicing the
21:40
diamond. You might think you are, but
21:44
you're not. And you know, in the, in the, in
21:52
the past, before we had all these books and technology, we
21:57
would have, you know, you'd have been, you'd have seen a monk.
22:00
You'd have seen them wandering around, sitting under trees,
22:05
talking, discussing, meditating, whatever.
22:08
You'd have seen a monk. And you'd think, I want to do
22:10
that. It's different to what everyone
22:13
else in the world is doing. I want to do that.
22:16
And you'd go up to them and say, I'd like to do what you're
22:18
doing. It looks different.
22:21
It's attractive, it looks better than what I'm doing.
22:25
Tell me how to do it. And, and you'd get progressive
22:28
instruction. So we need to remember that.
22:31
That's our attitude that we come to the Buddhist Council and we
22:37
just want to give it a go and see if it leads us to higher,
22:42
higher spiritual states. OK, so one more, one more
22:50
quality and I'll say a few other things.
22:52
So the last quality is Pachatang Vaidi Tarba venue.
22:57
He something like that. This these are, I think this is
23:00
parlour, isn't it? So this all these are parlour
23:02
descriptions. It's what what you chance in
23:04
Parliament, which means to be understood individually by the
23:09
wise, which means the Dharma needs to be experienced by each
23:16
person individually. You as an individual need to
23:22
experience the Dharma and understand it.
23:25
It's your lunch. Only you can do it.
23:28
No one else is going to do it for you.
23:31
There's a lovely quote from the Dharma Pada again by you.
23:35
Must the zealous effort be made? The Buddhas are only Proclaimers
23:41
of the Way, so the Buddha in a sense probably doesn't really
23:45
mind if you practice the Dharma or not.
23:48
I'm sure Dharma Saba doesn't. I don't find your free citizens.
23:53
You can do as you wish, but but if you want to, well, you need
24:01
to do it. You need to take responsibility
24:03
for your life. No one else will do it.
24:07
The state won't do it. Your parents won't do it.
24:10
Your family won't do it. Whoever else you can think of,
24:13
they won't do it. Your guru won't do it.
24:16
You need to take responsibility for your life.
24:21
That's, that's really what this means, because only you can do
24:24
it. No one can force you to practice
24:27
Saddam. You can't even be colluded with
24:32
to practice the Dun. And you've got to practice the
24:35
Dun. So what that means is that, OK,
24:39
you come to the Buddhist centre, you take things on as though
24:43
they're true. You give people the credit of
24:47
their experience. OK, I'm going to listen to this
24:49
first and see what they say. And you'd be open, you know,
24:55
don't be cynical. Don't write things off too
24:57
quickly. Don't be sceptical.
25:00
Not not a good, not not good for your life to be sceptical and
25:04
cynical. You come in.
25:06
OK, let's give it a go. Assume that what they're saying
25:09
is true and correct. And then what you need to do is
25:14
you need to investigate it for yourself and see so that you
25:18
know whether what people are saying is true and correct.
25:24
Yeah, if you don't do that, you, you have to resort to blind
25:27
faith. And that's not what the Dharma
25:29
is. So when, when you come to the
25:31
Buddhist centre, OK, open positive mind, non cynical,
25:36
let's see what they've got to say and put it into practice.
25:40
And, and so that you know, for yourself whether it's the Dharma
25:44
or not, like a Goldsmith might test gold to see if it's the
25:50
real deal. Yeah, you get, get some gold.
25:53
And I don't know how you test gold, but I've absolutely,
25:56
absolutely no idea. Presumably it involves heat and
26:00
all sorts of things. So you test it.
26:02
Is this the real thing? And you need to do that when you
26:07
when you come to the Buddhist centre.
26:11
So those are the qualities of the Dharma.
26:13
The other, the other thing, of course is you need to approach
26:21
the Dharma in the right spirit. So you need to not only be clear
26:25
about what the Dharma is, but you also need to approach it in
26:30
the right spirit. Because if you approach it in
26:33
the wrong spirit or in the wrong way, again, that won't be the
26:37
Dharma. It'll slip through your fingers.
26:40
So you as an individual need to be clear, this is the Dharma and
26:44
I need to approach it in the right way.
26:48
And the, the way for doing that was given by the Buddha.
26:54
This is a slight deviation from the T rat Nawanda.
26:58
It's not in this, but the, the Buddha talked about the, the
27:02
Dharma as being like a raft. So let's go back to the river
27:07
metaphor, except let's like change it around a bit instead
27:11
of trying to go to the source. You're all on one bank and you
27:15
want to get to the other bank and there's a raft just sitting
27:19
at your feet by the bank and you think, ah, I can use that to get
27:23
over that. So this bank, the one that
27:26
you're standing on is your ego bound, self preoccupied, limited
27:33
experience of life, painful, sometimes happy but not very
27:39
long lasting, etcetera, etcetera.
27:41
You might, you've probably heard all about that.
27:45
You want to get to the other side because the other side is a
27:49
state of liberation. It's a state of positive
27:53
emotion, unending creativity, bliss, happiness, liberation,
28:00
enlightenment. That's, you know, it's the real
28:02
thing. That's that's what you want to
28:04
get to. And you feel.
28:06
Yeah, that that's what I want to do with my life.
28:08
I don't want to just stand on this shore in this limited way.
28:12
I want to, I want to get over that.
28:14
So there's a raft and I'm going to make use of the raft.
28:19
And what the Dharma is, is the raft.
28:22
That's what the Dharma is. The, the teaching of the Buddha
28:25
allows you to get from this shore ego band limited
28:30
experience to the other shore enlightenment.
28:33
That's what the Dharma does. When you get to the other shore,
28:36
you leave it behind. You don't carry it with you, you
28:39
just carry on. Once you're on the other shore,
28:43
you just carry on in this progressive creative life,
28:48
unending creativity, you could say unending liberation.
28:53
But to be able to get there, you need the Dharma.
28:56
Once you're there, you let it go and then you carry on.
29:01
So that's the purpose of the Dharma.
29:03
It has a function and it has a use, and you don't use it beyond
29:08
that function or use. But of course there's dangers in
29:15
spirit in which we come to the Dharma.
29:17
So you might think, OK, I'm going to get on the raft and on
29:23
you get. And then you just don't make use
29:25
of it. You know, you don't use the
29:27
oars. Maybe you don't even push off
29:29
from the back. You just get on the raft and sit
29:33
there reading books about rafts. Don't go anywhere.
29:38
You know, you've got to practice.
29:39
You've got to do the rowing. You can also get on the raft and
29:44
start making it quite comfortable, you know, get some
29:47
weird really good ore, better, better ores and get a really
29:51
good cushion and you know, decorate your raft.
29:57
And again, that's not what the dam was for.
29:59
It's not making, it's not making you have any programmes.
30:03
You're still on this shore. The other danger is we don't
30:07
even get on the raft. We stand on the bank and we look
30:10
at the raft and we criticize the raft.
30:15
We say no, no, that's a load of rubbish.
30:16
That's just religious nonsense. I'm not getting on that.
30:20
OK, well, no problem, but you won't make any progress.
30:24
The other The other danger, of course, is you.
30:27
You stand on this bank and you admire the raft.
30:30
You think that's a wonderful one.
30:31
That's really, that's really lovely.
30:34
That's a, that's a top quality you are.
30:37
But you don't get up. You stay in your limited
30:42
experience of yourself. You're unwilling to change.
30:47
You know another word. Danger is you.
30:49
You already sort of think it's yours.
30:51
You already think you know it. You think I know what that
30:54
laughter's like. I know what it does.
30:56
I don't even need to get on it. Well, fair enough.
30:59
But again, you won't make any progress.
31:03
And of course, you might get on the raft and row out into
31:09
midstream and then get frightened and turned back
31:14
again. No point.
31:16
Better not to better not to start.
31:18
You would just get swept down the stream in the opposite
31:22
direction to the place you wanted to go to.
31:25
So if you're not going to go all the way, don't bother.
31:31
That's what I would say anyway. So that's the that's the way you
31:36
need to see clearly what the damo is.
31:39
It's a meme from getting from this shore to the other shore,
31:43
and you need to do that. You need to get on the raft, use
31:47
the raft to get to the other shore, to make spiritual
31:51
progress, to gain enlightenment. Then you get off the raft and
31:55
you carry on. That's what the Darna's for.
31:58
So you need to take it in that spirit.
32:01
So the Darna is, I shall recapitulate, well taught and
32:06
well communicated. So when you hear the Dharma, it
32:09
needs to be clear to you, You need to understand it.
32:13
It needs to be straightforward and easy to understand.
32:18
That's the Dharma. And if you practice it, it needs
32:22
to be immediately apparent what it does.
32:25
You need to be able to say, Oh yes, I've tried this out and it
32:29
does this well. It shows me this.
32:31
So you need to be able to see very clearly what the results
32:36
are. You also need to be clear that
32:40
it's not connected with time or place, that you can practice
32:44
this Dharma anywhere. If you're told that you can only
32:47
practice the Dharma in the Buddhist centre, then you need
32:51
to challenge that you can practice the Dharma any way you
32:55
you go in conditioned existence at any time.
33:01
And when you hear the Dharma, you need to be able to see that
33:08
it, that you can do it and you don't need to believe anything,
33:12
that it's a very practical way of transforming your life.
33:16
So you need to check that. You also need, once you've tried
33:20
it, to check that it's progressive, that it's not
33:23
repetitive, that it leads you deeper and deeper into your
33:27
life. You could say, or out of your
33:30
life would be another way of putting it.
33:34
And it needs to be practiced by you.
33:37
That's, that's the final point. No one else can do it.
33:43
Even in this room, if no one else is practising the Dharma,
33:46
you need to practice it. And no one else can do that.
33:51
So if you can see if you can see things in this way, if you come
33:57
to the Buddhist centre with its attitude and look out for these
34:00
qualities, it will give you a lot of confidence because you'll
34:04
be actively CERN. Yes, this is the Dharma, and it
34:08
will give you confidence. And if you have confidence in
34:12
it, you can commit to it. If you don't commit, it's very
34:16
hard to make progress. So in order to be able to commit
34:20
to practice, you need to be able to have confidence in it.
34:24
So you need to see the Dharma in this way and practice it in the
34:29
right spirit. Because if you do that, if you
34:34
can see that, you'll be confident that yes, this is the
34:38
Dharma, that if I keep practising it, if I follow
34:41
through, I will go upstream, as it were, and finally reach the
34:48
source of what's happening here. If I do that, I'll reach the
34:53
source, which is liberation, which is the Enlightenment of
34:57
the Buddha, which is the source of the whole river of Saddam.