Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / Love, Death & Dragons in the Life (and ‘Afterlife’) of the Buddha

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Love, Death & Dragons in the Life (and ‘Afterlife’) of the Buddha · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

0:11
So I'm going to speak about love, death and Dragons in the
0:16
life and afterlife of the Buddha.
0:19
So that's my fancy title. I was joking this week with a
0:24
friend about talks that I give at the Buddhist centre and I
0:29
said to her, really I just give one talk.
0:31
It's like 1 talk all the time. Or at least I'm always trying to
0:34
do the same thing. So you probably all know this.
0:38
If you've been before and heard me speak, this is probably not
0:42
news to you. But I I just want to share what
0:45
I'm trying to do. I thought it would be an
0:48
interesting experiment just to share what what I'm trying to
0:51
do. So first of all, I'm trying to
0:54
find an image. I'm looking for an image when
0:57
I'm giving a talk. I am the kind of person who,
1:02
without an image, can't connect with something.
1:05
I don't know if it's similar for other people, but with an image,
1:09
then I can connect and I can relate.
1:11
But until I've found the image, something doesn't feel right.
1:15
Yeah. So we're lucky in Buddhism that
1:18
we have so many images to connect with and speak the
1:22
language of images. But it's not enough just to have
1:25
the image. I also feel like I need to
1:27
somehow integrate that image with other images.
1:32
So let's say I take a Buddhist image, I feel the need to
1:36
somehow connect that with images from particularly from Western
1:40
culture, because that's in a way how I think, how I see things
1:44
because I've been raised in a, a Western culture.
1:47
So there's this, this journey of integration that needs to happen
1:52
with an image in order to understand it more deeply.
1:57
And then the third thing I want to do is to apply that.
2:01
So to apply that to life now, how does having an image and
2:06
integrating it actually make a difference in my life?
2:11
Yeah. So anything that I would say you
2:12
explore at the Buddhist Centre, it needs to be applied.
2:17
It's like when we leave at the end and we go through the door
2:20
and we click the door behind us. That click should be like
2:24
switching something on. It's not that we're leaving
2:27
something behind, we're switching something on.
2:29
We're taking it outside and that's where it needs to happen.
2:34
So I'm always trying to find an image, amplify or integrate it,
2:39
and then apply it. How does that then influence my
2:44
life? So that would be my first
2:47
suggestion. Is anything you hear at the
2:50
Buddhist Centre, just ask those questions like, well, how does
2:54
this integrate with what I'm already familiar with?
2:57
And how do I take that deeper, take that further by taking it
3:03
out, so to speak. So that's what I want to do this
3:07
morning with love, death and Dragons in the life and
3:11
afterlife of the Buddha. So if you like, that's a series
3:15
of images already and I'm going to amplify, integrate those
3:20
images and then we'll see if we can apply them to our lives.
3:27
So let's start with death. So death, because the shrine is
3:34
indicative of this. We're celebrating, as I said,
3:36
the Buddha's para Nirvana. In a way, I could say that means
3:42
we're celebrate, well, celebrating, marking,
3:45
commemorating the Buddha's death, but it doesn't sound
3:49
quite right to say the death of the Buddha.
3:53
We have this term para Nirvana, which means the final Nirvana,
3:58
the final enlightenment. Yeah.
4:01
So when the Buddha dies, in a sense we speak of it as his pari
4:04
Nirvana because his enlightenment, what he'd
4:08
realized in his life, the wisdom, the compassion of his
4:11
life at the time of death and the dissolving of the body,
4:17
whatever that enlightenment is, just goes further.
4:22
The the limitation of a body within time dissolves and, and
4:28
whatever that enlightenment is kind of continues or expands.
4:35
And we could, we could explore that kind of mythically and
4:38
mystically. But in a sense, we can also just
4:41
explore it quite logically and rationally and see that since
4:45
the time of the Buddha, his life, his influence, his
4:50
teaching has spread. It's expanded.
4:54
Within 40 years of his life, after being enlightened, he
4:59
couldn't reach that many people. He reached a lot of people.
5:03
But it's been more since his death that that Buddhism has
5:07
expanded and spread even as far as Germany in the 21st century.
5:15
So in a sense, Buddhism doesn't die.
5:17
It it has expanded, it has continued, it has amplified.
5:23
So after the the death of the Buddha, the teachings were
5:27
preserved and passed on orally and eventually written down.
5:34
But what happens is you get this spread to different countries.
5:37
So out of northern India, Pakistan, into Nepal, Tibet,
5:42
China, Japan, Southeast Asia, there's this geographical
5:46
spread, but also a diversification in the ways in
5:51
which people related to the Buddhist teaching.
5:54
So you get the emergence of different schools of Buddhism,
5:57
different traditions, all kinds of things.
6:00
So you can have different forms of Buddhism, different schools
6:04
from different countries that look very, very different, but
6:08
they're essentially the same. So there's this, this kind of
6:12
spreading out, this expansion, not just geographically, but
6:17
also in terms of understanding or a richness, an enrichment.
6:24
So I want to talk about one of those traditions that emerged
6:29
after the death of the Buddha, after the Buddha's para Nirvana,
6:33
and that's known as the perfection of wisdom tradition.
6:38
Now I've got your attention, the perfection of wisdom tradition.
6:44
So this emerges a few 100 years after the Buddha's death.
6:48
The the origins of these things are always obscure, but a few
6:53
centuries after the death of the Buddha, certain texts begin to
6:58
appear which become known as the perfection of wisdom texts or
7:03
literature. I think there are 35 texts that
7:08
are grouped together in this perfection of wisdom corpus, and
7:17
they're very strange. You could have a look at some in
7:20
the library later, if you like. They're very strange.
7:23
They say things that don't seem to make much sense.
7:29
Somebody has described it as a kind of wisdom of nonsense.
7:35
Yeah, sometimes it's described as a wisdom of contradiction.
7:39
So the Heart Sutra, one of the most famous, says that form is
7:43
emptiness. So if we have a form for
7:47
something, actually in reality it's empty.
7:50
But it also says that emptiness is form.
7:55
So form is empty, emptiness is form.
7:59
Then there's a text called the Diamond Sutra that says the the
8:03
life of a Buddhist should be dedicated to saving all living
8:07
beings from suffering and at the same time one should recognise
8:14
that in reality there are no beings and that's why you should
8:20
try to save all living beings from suffering.
8:31
So this is seems like a contradiction, doesn't it?
8:34
To our rational mind and our reason?
8:37
How can one thing be the other thing, but that thing be the
8:42
other thing when they seem to be opposites or in opposition or
8:47
intention? So if you like the the purpose
8:51
or it seems like what the perfection of wisdom is trying
8:53
to do is to show our rational minds the limits of its
8:59
understanding. Because only taken to the limits
9:03
can we then go beyond the limits.
9:06
Yeah. So the the texts are trying to
9:09
attack or undermine our effort to understand just rationally
9:14
and open us up to something more than just a rational
9:19
understanding. Yeah, there's even 1 perfection
9:23
of wisdom text that declares the perfection of wisdom in one
9:27
word. I'm not going to say what it is
9:36
or even in one syllable, in one, in one sound.
9:41
Yeah. So it's not, it's not
9:43
necessarily clever intellectual stuff.
9:45
It's just trying to make a stop and see things in a different
9:49
way. But the question I want to
9:53
explore is where does this perfection of wisdom come from?
9:57
Yeah. So it emerges a few 100 years
9:59
after the Buddha's death, but where does it actually come
10:02
from? And the story is, and this is
10:06
where we come into our next image, this story, or the myth,
10:12
if you like, of where the perfection of wisdom comes from.
10:16
It comes from or it's discovered by a Buddhist monk about 100
10:22
years before the Common Era called Nagarjuna.
10:28
Nagarjuna. And apparently Nagarjuna was by
10:32
the side of a lake somewhere in India.
10:37
And at the side of this lake he encountered A not a.
10:44
So a not a is like a water serpent.
10:48
I guess the closest thing would be a western dragon.
10:53
Yeah. So some creature that is serpent
10:55
like described in different ways, but but some kind of
11:00
serpent water dwelling creature. So Nagarjuna meets, I think it's
11:06
actually the Prince of the Nagas, from the land of the
11:10
Nagas. And it's the not a that gives
11:14
the perfection of wisdom texts to Nagarjuna, and then he makes
11:18
them known to other people. Yeah, but where did the not a
11:23
get the perfection of wisdom from?
11:25
Well, the story is that the Buddha, before he died, he
11:29
entrusted the texts, the perfection of wisdom to the
11:33
Nagas to keep hidden and secret at the bottom of the ocean until
11:40
a time that people were ready to understand it.
11:44
So this is the story. So the Nagas are protectors of
11:49
wisdom, protectors of the Dharma, and they keep the wisdom
11:54
hidden in the depths until a time when it's ripe and ready to
11:58
bring that to light and to be spread and to be shared.
12:04
So Nagarjuna takes the perfection of wisdom and he
12:08
makes it known. So this, this, I'm interested in
12:12
this image. Like I said, I need an image to
12:15
understand things. I'm interested in the image of
12:17
the not a, the not a that lives in the depths of the ocean or
12:23
the, the water. So let's see what, what can we
12:28
do with this as an image and, and see if we can then apply
12:31
that. So taking the image of the, the
12:34
not a, I've said that the not a is a protector, protects the
12:41
perfection of wisdom. And you could trace that back
12:44
also to the, the time of the Buddha, the life of the Buddha.
12:48
So there's another story where the Buddha, after his
12:51
enlightenment at Bod Gaia, when he's still in the middle of his
12:56
life, he's had this profound realisation, understanding,
13:03
experience, if you could call it that, the ending of all his
13:08
suffering and limitations. And it's said that after this
13:14
momentous event in his life, a great storm comes.
13:20
For seven days it rains and thunders.
13:24
And while the rain and Thunder is coming out of the ground
13:29
comes the not a King called Mukkalinda comes out of the
13:34
ground, coils himself around the Buddha's body 7 times, I think 7
13:41
times coiled round and then uses the the hood.
13:45
He's kind of Python like hood. No cobra, isn't it?
13:50
Yeah, Cobra like hood over the Buddha's head and shelters the
13:54
Buddha for seven days from the storm.
13:56
And then when the rain stop, Mukkalinda uncoils and
14:02
transforms into his human form, bows to the Buddha, and then
14:08
joyfully disappears back to the land of the Nagas, back to his
14:12
Kingdom. So we've got this symbolism,
14:19
haven't we, of protection and in a sense, benevolence?
14:24
So the Nagas are on the Buddha's side.
14:27
They're benevolent forces. We can relate to these things in
14:31
different ways. If if anyone sat there, because
14:34
I'm aware this could be a an issue if anyone sat there
14:38
thinking like this is nonsense, that that never happened.
14:44
Maybe not in a literal sense, but maybe it happened in another
14:49
way that is equally as real as the things that we take
14:52
literally. So this is another way, the not
14:55
A and this story is another way of taking our rational mind to a
15:00
limit of understanding and then opening us to something else.
15:05
So we don't have to take it literally, but can we just open
15:09
to these images and these stories and this symbolism?
15:16
So Nagas as protectors and benevolent forces.
15:22
I want to now try this amplification and integration of
15:27
this kind of Eastern tradition and yeah, kind of particular way
15:35
of relating to this, this not a, this serpent, this dragon.
15:39
Compare that just for a moment with Western tradition and
15:43
Western imagination, which as I said, even if you didn't grow up
15:47
in a Western culture, you're here in one today, even if
15:52
you're visiting. So it's it's around the way that
15:55
the Western mind works is, is here in this building and in
16:00
this atmosphere and environment. So one of the images that came
16:08
to mind for me just just dwelling on this story is the
16:15
Uroboros. A few nods.
16:19
So people have come across this before.
16:21
So the Uroboros is the snake that eats its own tail and it's
16:26
very ancient image and symbols, I think.
16:29
I think it's been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and
16:33
things like that, this serpent or snake that is eating its own
16:37
tail. And sometimes I've seen images
16:40
where it has legs and even little wings.
16:42
So it's not, it's not just a snake.
16:45
It seems to be something more than just that.
16:49
So it's got very ancient, you know, it's very ancient as an
16:55
image. Then it gets developed in in all
16:58
different kinds of ways throughout the Western
17:00
tradition. The one that really came to
17:03
mind, because for something I should have said, let let me do
17:06
a short diversion. Now that Nagarjuna, the guy who
17:12
encountered the Nagas and the perfection of wisdom, when he's
17:15
depicted often he has snakes coming out of his head and he's
17:20
in front of the not a Prince, but he has all these snakes
17:23
coming out of his head. And I had an image of this.
17:26
We used it on a retreat recently.
17:29
And this morning I spent about 45 minutes trying to find the
17:34
image and it's disappeared. And I thought maybe I've left it
17:38
in the frame here, but I've looked and it's not there
17:41
either. So again, it's like the Nagas
17:43
have gone, disappeared somewhere.
17:48
So there's this hidden image somewhere.
17:49
If anyone finds it, can you come?
17:53
Come and tell me? But it's this image of him sat
17:56
there with all these snakes coming out of the head.
17:59
So that that triggered another image from Western culture,
18:02
which you're probably all familiar with.
18:05
And that's the image of Medusa, the gorgon from the Greek
18:09
tradition. Yeah.
18:11
So she had Snakes on on the head.
18:15
And one of my favorite films growing up was Clash of the
18:18
Titans from the early 80s, where the story is depicted of
18:24
Perseus, the hero and his journey.
18:29
And there's a city, is it Argos, maybe ancient Greek city that is
18:37
threatened by a sea monster? So again, something coming out
18:40
the depths of the ocean, but this is a sea monster, the
18:44
Kraken, which threatens the city.
18:48
And to try to placate the gods, the inhabitants of Argos or
18:54
wherever it is, they offer a human sacrifice.
18:59
And the human sacrifice is Andromeda, who's this beautiful
19:02
young woman. So Perseus goes on his quest to
19:06
try to somehow find a way of destroying the Kraken, and that
19:11
takes him to Medusa's lair, where he has to somehow
19:19
decapitate Medusa. Cut off the head.
19:22
Yeah. But the problem is, whenever she
19:25
looks at anything or anyone, she turns it to stone.
19:28
So he has to use his shield to see her in his reflection.
19:32
And then he manages to chop off the head, and he flies on his
19:36
winged horse over the sea where the kraken's about to kill
19:40
Andromeda. And he takes out Medusa's head
19:43
from his bag, and he shows it to the Kraken, turns the Kraken to
19:47
stone, and then everything's OK. So that's one way in which we
19:53
see the serpent coming into Western culture.
19:57
But it's very different, isn't it?
19:59
The the serpent Medusa is a threat to be defeated.
20:05
Yeah. The Kraken, the monster from the
20:07
depths of the ocean, is to be defeated and killed and slain.
20:13
And then as western culture develops, that becomes the
20:17
archetype for other myths. Like anyone from England in the
20:21
room will know of George and the dragon Saint George, who also
20:26
has to kill a dragon. Doesn't something like that
20:30
happen in Beowulf as well? Is there a dragon in that?
20:34
But anyway, the point is the dragon is usually a a threat.
20:39
The dragon is something that needs to be destroyed.
20:43
So what have we got? We've got a contradiction.
20:46
We've got the the nagas of Eastern mythology that are
20:49
benevolent and protective, and the Dragons of Western mythology
20:53
that are a threat and to be attacked and destroyed.
20:59
Yeah, I suppose the biggest, well maybe one of the most
21:07
powerful ways in which the the serpent appears in Western
21:11
culture and imagination is in the Garden of Eden and the,
21:16
yeah, the tempting of Eve to eat from the Tree of Wisdom.
21:21
So the the snake there becomes a symbol of temptation, sin, the
21:27
devil. And yet also it opens Adam and
21:33
Eve in that tradition to wisdom. So as much as the snake or the
21:39
serpent or the dragon is this, this malevolent force, evil
21:43
force, there's an ambiguity. It's also related to wisdom.
21:49
So even within a tradition there is a ambiguity, a contradiction.
21:56
So I would say that this this image of the snake, the serpent,
22:01
the dragon, the not A, is itself an image for the perfection of
22:06
wisdom, which is also about contradiction.
22:10
Yeah. We can't understand Dragons.
22:14
That's the point, isn't it? You can't understand Dragons.
22:17
You can't pin them down. So even within Buddhism, you get
22:25
this kind of ambiguity, contradiction.
22:30
So I've told you already that the Buddha, after his
22:32
enlightenment, is protected by Mukkalinda, the serpent King,
22:37
and that Nagarjuna discovers the perfection of wisdom that the
22:41
Nagas have guarded and hidden in the depths of the ocean.
22:46
Now I'm going to tell you a story where the Buddha meets
22:49
another not A and things don't go so smoothly.
22:55
Yeah. So sometime after the Buddha's
22:57
enlightenment, I think quite soon after the Buddha's
23:01
enlightenment, he leaves Bodgaya where it's happened.
23:06
He leaves behind the Bodhi tree, he leaves behind Mukkalinda and
23:11
the protection and the storm. And he also goes off into a
23:17
period of wandering. Yeah.
23:21
And he meets various people, he teaches them, he manages to
23:25
communicate the Dharma to them, but always he moves on.
23:30
So he just keeps going, meeting people, communicating and moving
23:34
on. And eventually he comes upon a
23:38
camp by the side of a river with the text says, I think 200, 200
23:48
people meditating in the forest doing some kind of spiritual
23:52
practice. They're actually described as
23:56
matted hair or dreadlocked ascetics.
24:00
So they're doing all kinds of crazy punishment practices, but
24:03
they all have the dreadlocks. This is their defining
24:08
characteristic, according to the text.
24:11
So 200 of these dreadlocked practitioners, and they're led
24:17
by a chief Brahmin called Kashyapa.
24:25
So the dreadlocked ascetics of Kashyapa, and in the middle of
24:29
their camp they have, well, I guess a small building which is
24:35
their fire chamber. They keep a sacred fire burning
24:40
inside this chamber. And the Buddha meets them, says
24:46
hello, and decides that he wants to stay for the evening in this
24:51
camp with the 200 dreadlocked ascetics.
24:56
And he says, would it be possible for me to stay in that
24:59
fire chamber for the evening? And Kashipa, the leader of the
25:05
the clan, says to him, well, you could, but you need to know that
25:09
inside there's a royal savage not a serpent in there.
25:19
And the Buddha says, well, OK, but I still think I'd like to
25:23
stay in there overnight. And Kashipa says, well, just
25:29
know that it really is a royal savage not a serpent.
25:36
And the Buddha says, OK, but I still think I'd like to stay in
25:38
there. And he tries 1/3 time.
25:41
But the Buddha is quite clear that that looks like the best
25:44
place for him to go for a good night sleep.
25:50
So he does. He goes inside this fire chamber
25:54
and he lays down some grass, a kind of grass straw mat on the
25:59
floor to begin to meditate. And then he looks up and sure
26:06
enough, there is a royal savage not a serpent inside the fire
26:10
chamber with him. And that not a, seeing the
26:15
Buddha have the guts to come in and then to lay down his stuff
26:23
and sit there, it's made him really mad.
26:27
So the Not A starts producing smoke, filling the whole fire
26:32
chamber with smoke. So the Buddha sees this
26:36
happening and the Buddha thinks the nagas producing smoke.
26:42
Maybe I should produce smoke of my own, but I'll do it without
26:48
doing any damage to his skin, his bones, his muscles, his
26:53
sinews. So the Buddha starts producing
26:57
smoke, and then the not a, seeing the Buddha producing
27:03
smoke, gets really, really cross and starts producing flames.
27:09
So he's going to show this punk what he can really do.
27:15
So he just starts producing all these flames.
27:20
So the Buddha notices the flames being produced, and he thinks,
27:24
ah, the nagas producing flames, maybe I should produce flames,
27:31
but without doing any damage to his skin, his bones, his muscles
27:35
and his sinews. So the Buddha starts producing
27:39
flames too. So imagine, imagine the room
27:44
just flashing with all this fire and smoke, and outside there are
27:50
200 dreadlocked ascetics wondering what the hell is
27:56
happening in there. And one of them says to another
27:59
one that poor wandering monk is being destroyed by the royal
28:06
savage not a serpent. And kind of disappointed, they
28:11
all retire and go to bed for the evening.
28:16
And then in the morning they come back and they gather around
28:18
the fire chamber, kind of sad. And then suddenly the door opens
28:25
and the Buddha steps out, and he walks over to them with his
28:30
begging bowl in his hand. He's ready for breakfast.
28:34
And they say, what happened? We can't believe that you're
28:37
alive, what happened in there and what happened to the not a?
28:43
And the Buddha shows them the inside of his begging bowl.
28:47
And there's this tiny little, not a just curled up asleep
28:52
inside the Buddha's bowl. So there you go, that's the
28:58
story. So what can we do with that?
29:06
I, I soft promised, didn't I, that we'll find a way of
29:09
applying this to our actual lives here in 21st century
29:14
Berlin. So how do we take all this
29:18
imagery of snakes and Dragons and myths, and particularly this
29:23
story of the Buddha and the not a in the fire chamber?
29:31
I think the the most important aspect of the story or the key,
29:36
the keynote of this event in the life of the Buddha is just the
29:42
the obvious exemplification of love.
29:48
Yeah. So the Buddha is so clear that,
29:51
OK, he's producing smoke, he's producing fire, but he will not
29:56
harm. Yeah, he will do no harm to the
29:59
Dragon's skin, bones, muscle, sinew.
30:04
So for me, this is a story about the Buddha's love, about the
30:09
Buddha's meta, his kindness, his kindly awareness.
30:14
Yeah. But there's a few finer details.
30:20
Yeah. So if we think about the the way
30:24
in which the Buddha showed a willingness to go inside the
30:27
fire chamber, I think that's the first point.
30:31
So there's a willingness to go in.
30:35
And for us as practitioners of the Dharma, particularly in
30:41
relation to this centre and our Tri Ratna Sanga, we put a lot of
30:46
emphasis on the metabhavna as a meditation practice.
30:51
So this is the practice may have been the first time for some of
30:54
you that we did this morning. So this cultivation of, of
30:58
loving kindness, we put a lot of emphasis on that has been an
31:02
important practice. But more generally, I think with
31:08
meditation, meditation is an opportunity to go into the fire
31:13
chamber. So we're creating a specific
31:17
space when we sit down with this stuff, the the cushion, the mat,
31:23
the blanket, we're putting down our mat and our grass, just like
31:30
the Buddha does in this story. We're saying this is, I'm going
31:34
to sit here and I'm about to do something that I think is, is
31:40
positive and going to lead to some kind of transformation and
31:45
some kind of spiritual experience.
31:51
You know, that's, that's what we're doing.
31:52
We're, we're laying the conditions, we're putting things
31:55
down and you could say we're opening.
31:59
So there's this real openness to the Buddha's entry into the fire
32:06
chamber. So I would say we can take that
32:08
as a a piece of advice, a suggestion, an invitation, that
32:15
whenever we meditate, we sit down and we are opening, opening
32:22
to what's really going on because we know, don't we, that
32:27
that we miss a lot of what is really going on because of being
32:31
busy. Yeah, like I said before, we'll
32:34
go out the door, it will click behind us.
32:37
And if you're anything like me, the first thing I probably do is
32:39
look at my phone. I'm about to walk home, but for
32:43
some reason I should check first that do you have any messages?
32:47
Do I need to go to Neto on the way home?
32:51
So already I'm in something else.
32:53
And then there's the traffic that I have to dodge, there's
32:55
the snow, will I slip? There's walking past people at
32:59
the hospital and ambulances and sirens and Swans crashing into
33:05
the bridge sometimes and all kinds of chaos.
33:09
So it's no surprise is it that we get thrown.
33:12
So meditation is our opportunity to experience life in a
33:18
different way. So just stopping all that
33:21
opening to what's really going on.
33:24
We don't have to have the same defences.
33:26
I think we we do need boundaries walking through the city.
33:31
If you're walking through kind of too open that that could be,
33:38
well, it could lead to things that we don't necessarily want.
33:43
So to some extent we have to be on our guard.
33:47
It's natural. But when we meditate, it's like
33:50
we're sitting and we're opening. So I think one way to to do that
33:57
at the beginning of meditation is, is not to do anything.
34:02
So again, speaking for myself, I think in the past I would set
34:07
up, sit down, crack on and get straight into being aware of my
34:12
breath, cultivating meta. And it sort of works, but I've
34:17
found it more helpful to sit down and just think, OK, first I
34:22
do nothing. It's like if you're driving a
34:25
car, if you start the engine when you're in first gear and
34:30
lift the clutch, if cars still have clutches, the car just
34:36
stalls, doesn't it? If you're in neutral, then you
34:39
have the choice. Then you choose, OK, I'm going
34:42
to go into first gear and now I'll start.
34:45
So we're kind of just going into neutral at the beginning.
34:50
I think that's that's really important in the meta Barbna
34:55
because it's a practice where we're exploring emotion and
34:59
emotional responses and emotions are like Nagas because they're
35:04
often deep down. Not always are they, sometimes
35:09
they're right in the forefront, but in the busyness of things
35:13
and the the necessity of closing down, sometimes the emotions
35:18
retreat into the depths. So if we sit and we open and we
35:23
allow, then that can start to come up, you know, come into the
35:28
light. I've got a poem here.
35:35
I think I will use it. This is a poem by Rumi, and he
35:41
describes the human experience as being like a guest house.
35:48
So this openness, willingness to open to whoever is coming or
35:53
whatever is coming, this being human is a guest house.
36:01
Every morning a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness,
36:10
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
36:16
Welcome and entertain them all. Even if they're a crowd of
36:22
sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.
36:27
Still, treat each guest honourably.
36:31
They may be clearing you out for some new delight.
36:36
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
36:41
Meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
36:47
Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a
36:51
guide from beyond. It's nice, isn't it?
37:01
Yeah. So this sense of openness and,
37:04
you know, willingness to see what's there, see who is there,
37:08
see what comes to the surface. I think there's also a
37:14
suggestion here. And again, another tip for Meta,
37:18
and we see it in the story of the Buddha.
37:21
There's a suggestion of a need to be sensitive to what comes.
37:27
So a joy, a depression, a meanness.
37:32
Can we be sensitive to what emerges when we sit down?
37:36
We're tuning into our emotions, but that could be all kinds of
37:40
things. So can we be sensitive to what
37:43
our real emotional experience is?
37:47
Again, particularly when we do the metabhavna and we're working
37:50
with emotion before we start to cultivate or express A wish for
37:59
positive emotion? What's really going on?
38:02
1st what what are the real emotions?
38:05
What are the things moving in our depths, in the deeper waters
38:11
of our mind or our imagination and just that just accepting
38:18
them. I Rumi goes a bit far for me
38:21
saying to laugh, laugh at the door and invite them in.
38:24
It doesn't always feel like that, does it?
38:26
We sit down and we feel slightly sad or depressed, and it's not,
38:31
it's not something to laugh at, but you can see what he's
38:35
meaning. He's exaggerating.
38:37
All experience is welcome. So we're tuning into the the
38:42
real emotion that is going on. It's only if we do that that we
38:46
can begin to then transform it. And we need to transform
38:52
emotions. Maybe just being aware of them
38:54
already begins to modify them or transform them.
39:00
I don't want to just stay as I am for the rest of my life.
39:05
Do you? It's not that I think there's
39:10
fundamentally something wrong with me, but I would like to
39:14
think life will continue to be 1 of growth and yeah, growth.
39:21
And I don't. I don't know what else, but my
39:24
hand gestures suggest expansion beyond limitation, less limited.
39:30
That would be nice. So I I definitely want that.
39:35
But that's not going to happen unless I embrace what's going on
39:39
moment by moment. Yeah.
39:41
And what the habits are, The force of habit.
39:48
So I see this in the story of the Buddha in the fire chamber
39:51
with the not a. He's very sensitive.
39:54
He's not rash, is he doesn't bring the flames immediately.
39:58
It's he's, he's pondering this is happening now.
40:03
Maybe I could do this, but without doing it like this.
40:07
So there's this sensitivity. So we have an openness, we have
40:12
a sensitivity. But then the third thing I think
40:20
that comes through is the, the Buddha's very clear.
40:23
It's clearly love, isn't it? When he asks, suppose I do this,
40:30
not really asking, as if there's an alternative.
40:33
For the Buddha, love is just the obvious response to stepping
40:38
into this fire chamber. So when these things emerge, the
40:43
the clear choice is to acknowledge, but also to respond
40:50
with kindness, to meet with kindness, to bring kindness to
40:56
the forefront. So I think in the meta Bovner,
41:00
we have this when we use the phrases here.
41:03
So may I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from
41:07
suffering. That's very clear.
41:11
Sometimes people say I don't like using the phrases.
41:15
Fair enough. We've got to explore the
41:17
practice, but also can we be clear what the phrases are for?
41:24
And the phrases are an expression of a particular
41:26
direction. So the practice needs to have a
41:29
clear direction. Yeah.
41:32
So whether we say, may I be well, may I be happy, may I be
41:35
free from suffering in English or in German or in Spanish or
41:40
Portuguese or any language, fine.
41:44
Maybe the the words need to change.
41:48
Maybe there are other resonant ways of expressing that hearts
41:52
wish for ourselves and others to be happy.
41:55
So we can, we can play with it, but the practice needs to have a
42:00
sense of direction, a clarity about why we're doing it, Where,
42:06
where is it going in a sense? And then it's like we have an
42:15
openness, a sensitivity, a clarity in terms of direction.
42:20
But once we've had the clarity, then again, we need the
42:23
openness. What does it do when we drop in
42:27
those phrases? What does it do for us?
42:31
Does it change anything in the practice?
42:33
Does it change anything in the afternoon or the next day or the
42:37
next year? So, so we do something and then
42:41
we come back and see dropping in and see we're like, I think
42:47
Buddhists are like, I'm going to say it, scientists as much as
42:55
we're like poets. You see my prejudices here,
42:59
can't you? As much as we can be poetic and
43:03
talk about images, there is a logic, there is a, a science,
43:08
there is a yeah, a, a clear process.
43:12
If this, if we put this in place and do this, then this will
43:16
happen. If we do this, then this will
43:18
happen. That's also really important.
43:22
So if, if we do it like that, then we're going to be cycling,
43:25
aren't we? From openness, sensitivity,
43:28
clear direction, Openness, sensitivity, clear direction.
43:32
It's a snake that eats its own tail.
43:35
Yeah. The practice is, is
43:37
self-contained. Yeah, it's, it's not just
43:42
circular like that where we're noticing opening, what's there,
43:47
dropping in a direction, changing, transforming, opening
43:51
to what's there, dropping in direction, changing,
43:54
transforming. It's circling, but I would say
43:57
it also expands. So there's a sense of this
44:00
expansion through one's life, just like the Buddha's teaching,
44:05
as I mentioned at the beginning, goes beyond his death and and
44:08
expands and develops. That's what happens with our
44:12
meta. Yeah.
44:14
If if you do the metabhavna as a regular meditation practice,
44:18
that will happen. From one Buddhist scientist to
44:25
perhaps another. Yeah.
44:30
On the basis of doing this, this can happen.
44:33
We create the conditions and something else can happen.
44:36
I never thought I'd describe myself as a Buddhist scientist.
44:40
I hope the the rest of the talk has shown that there are other
44:46
things going on as well, other movements in my mind and
44:51
imagination. Anyway, I'm waffling, so I think
44:58
I might leave it there. Maybe I'll, I'll come back at
45:02
the end with another image and back to the Buddhas Para
45:06
Nirvana. So the image on the shrine here,
45:08
the small one, the silver one, very beautiful actually in
45:12
silver, is of the Buddha reclining in the royal ease,
45:18
resting on his head on one hand and the whole of the body laying
45:22
down. And it's said that this is the
45:25
position that the Buddha adopted at the time of death, at the
45:30
time of the para Nirvana. And there were petals kind of
45:34
raining down upon him from the salt trees that he was laid in
45:39
between. And shortly before that, his
45:43
cousin and closest companion and dear friend Arnander had been
45:49
weeping and crying because he knew that the Buddha was about
45:53
to go. And the Buddha knows this and
45:58
sends somebody else to go and get Arnander.
46:02
And they see Arnander and they ask Arnander why is he crying?
46:07
And he says the Buddha's about to pass away into para Nirvana.
46:12
And he says he who has been so kind to me, he who has been so
46:18
kind to me. So Arnander had known the Buddha
46:22
all his life and in the last couple of decades, I think of
46:27
the Buddha's life. He was his personal attendant.
46:29
He was with him all the time, He'd heard all the Buddha's
46:32
teachings, and the one quality that he drew out that was that
46:38
the hallmark of the Buddha's life and being was that he was
46:42
so kind. So again, another indication
46:46
here of how important Meta is, how much the Buddha is defined
46:52
by this unlimited heart, this universal love and kindness, and
46:59
how in doing the meta barvner we are.
47:01
That's our direction, yeah, however far away from that ideal
47:06
we might feel. It doesn't matter.
47:08
If we're tuning into what's going on and we're dropping in
47:11
that direction, then we're well on the way to also dwelling in
47:20
that kind of mind that the Buddha enjoyed, in which after
47:24
the para Nirvana just pervaded in a mysterious and different
47:29
kind of way. So we've had death, we've had
47:34
love, we've had Dragons, nagas in the depths, the perfection of
47:38
wisdom, but also some indication that the perfection of wisdom is
47:44
also the perfection of love and that we can practice this on a
47:50
very basic, everyday level. And it's probably having much
47:55
more profound effects on the world that we might be able to
47:59
see and honors too. So I'll finish there.
48:03
Thank you.