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Leaving the Buddha Behind · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

• 0:07
  And I wanted to look at a Sutter, which is like an early
• 0:12
  text called the Megia Sutter for two reasons.
• 0:17
  One, because we studied it already on Tuesday, so it's kind
• 0:21
  of hopefully still in my memory. And the other because it's
• 0:27
  really important and it kind of gives you a flavour.
• 0:31
  The Sutter gives you a flavour of Buddhism in a way that
• 0:34
  sometimes it's hard to get from other sources somehow.
• 0:39
  Yeah, it has a kind of particular, it's telling us
• 0:43
  something particular. And I have to say I really
• 0:45
  enjoyed researching the Megia Sutta.
• 0:49
  It's one of these suttas that if you've been around for a while,
• 0:51
  you would have heard, at least in this tradition, many times in
• 0:55
  different places. But I really enjoyed going a bit
• 0:59
  deeper with it. And our own teacher and founder,
• 1:02
  there's a, there's a seminar that he did on the Meghea, which
• 1:05
  I found really interesting. So I'll probably bring some of
• 1:09
  those points out as well. So it's called the Meghea Sutta.
• 1:16
  Sutta means something like thread.
• 1:17
  It's a text. Yeah.
• 1:18
  It's about as from the Pali Canon.
• 1:20
  Pali is probably about as close as we will get to the Buddha's
• 1:23
  actual language and communication.
• 1:25
  Yeah. And Meghea is the name of, well,
• 1:32
  probably for a short time, one of the Buddha's attendants.
• 1:34
  Yeah. So the Buddha had attendants
• 1:37
  like, I don't know how you'd say it, like APA maybe someone
• 1:40
  that's with him all the time. Yeah.
• 1:42
  And Miggia was one of these people.
• 1:44
  And so this is a story about Miggia basically, and his, his
• 1:49
  adventure. So it seems like the Buddha and
• 1:55
  Megia were alone together. Yeah, they were alone together
• 1:58
  for a for a certain period. The, the Buddha had sometimes
• 2:02
  spent periods of time, well, spent periods of time completely
• 2:05
  alone, or he spent periods of time with large numbers of his
• 2:08
  disciples. But it seems there was just
• 2:10
  those two together, Megia and the Buddha.
• 2:13
  And, well, I think, well, Sang Grachter makes the point that,
• 2:23
  well, Megia goes on his arms round.
• 2:26
  Yeah. Which basically means he goes on
• 2:27
  a begging round. Yeah.
• 2:28
  He goes to the local village and asks people for food.
• 2:33
  That was the culture at the time.
• 2:34
  If, if you were, if you'd, if you'd renounced the world, so to
• 2:38
  speak, you'd gone into the forest and you were there to
• 2:40
  just practice meditation, wander.
• 2:44
  There was a culture where if there was a bit of food left and
• 2:47
  someone knocked on your door, you'd plop a bit of food in
• 2:49
  their bowl and they'd go around all the houses.
• 2:51
  And then by the end, you'd end up with a bowl of disgusting
• 2:54
  kind of squad stuff, yoghurt, bits of goat.
• 2:59
  So who knows what was in there. Yeah.
• 3:01
  And that would be your, your dinner, your one meal for the
• 3:04
  day. Yeah.
• 3:05
  And Bansi said, well, Sangra, she said, well, maybe he's Megia
• 3:09
  goes for the Buddha as well. Yeah, he's got a big bowl and he
• 3:12
  gets food for both of them. So Megia goes off, he goes to
• 3:20
  the village, the Jantu village, wherever that is.
• 3:23
  And he goes, he does his arms round, he comes back to the
• 3:26
  Buddha. And on his way back to the
• 3:28
  Buddha, he notices a beautiful mango Grove.
• 3:32
  Yeah, apparently. I mean, some of you I'm sure
• 3:34
  know what a mango Grove is, but it's apparently the best place
• 3:39
  to be. Yeah, it's like, especially if
• 3:41
  it's super hot, there's kind of like apparently very thick green
• 3:44
  foliage, leaves, very cool. There's also mangoes which grow.
• 3:48
  Yeah. So it smells nice and it's a
• 3:50
  nice environment. So Megia sees this mango Grove
• 3:55
  and thinks this is the perfect place for me to go and meditate
• 3:58
  and attain enlightenment on his way back to the Buddha.
• 4:01
  This is. I was just quite interested.
• 4:03
  So. So Megia is obviously serious
• 4:07
  about practice and meditation. I guess we see things dependent
• 4:12
  on our needs and our wants. You know, some of us might see a
• 4:15
  mango go over and think, oh, this is a nice place to sleep.
• 4:17
  Yeah. Or something else, I don't know.
• 4:20
  But he sees it as a place to go and meditate.
• 4:28
  So he goes to he goes back to the Buddha and he says, if the
• 4:34
  exalted 1. The Buddha gives me leave.
• 4:37
  I would go to that mango Grove to strive for concentration.
• 4:41
  You know, there's different translations to exert, exert
• 4:44
  myself to meditate. And it says at these words, the
• 4:49
  exalted 1 the Buddha said, Venerable Megia, I am alone
• 4:53
  until some other monk arrives, which is quite interesting,
• 4:57
  isn't it? So the Buddha's not outright
• 4:59
  saying don't go, but he's just saying, can you wait because I'm
• 5:03
  alone until another monk arrives?
• 5:06
  Yeah. Begs the question, why would the
• 5:08
  Buddha need an assistant? In a way, the Buddha doesn't
• 5:10
  need an assistant. The Buddha's free.
• 5:12
  He's liberated. Yeah, but maybe, I mean, many
• 5:18
  people wanted to see the Buddha. You know, there was some, there
• 5:20
  was like, things to arrange on that front.
• 5:22
  So Maggie had taken the responsibility to look after the
• 5:26
  the Sangha, essentially to look after people that wanted to see
• 5:28
  the Buddha. Maybe more importantly, the
• 5:34
  Buddha's assistant, especially his, his last assistant, Arnanda
• 5:38
  was, was, was also kind of there to remember or try and remember
• 5:41
  what the Buddha said. Because there was nothing
• 5:43
  written down. It was a oral tradition.
• 5:45
  So maybe it's important if you have a Buddha, it's probably
• 5:49
  quite good to know what the Buddha said.
• 5:50
  And that's Megia's job as well. So then a second time the
• 5:58
  Venerable Megia said to the Exalted 1 Sir, the Exalted One
• 6:02
  has nothing further to be done. There is nothing more to add to
• 6:06
  what he has done. There is more to be added to
• 6:09
  what I have done. If the Exalted One gives me
• 6:12
  leave, I would go to the mango Grove to strive for
• 6:15
  concentration. Then a second time the Exalted
• 6:18
  1, the Buddha replied. Wait a little, Megia, I am alone
• 6:21
  until some other monk arrives. Yeah, but Megia doesn't leave it
• 6:26
  there. He says it again.
• 6:28
  Yeah, he says for 1/3 time. He says I want to go to the
• 6:30
  mango Grove. You're fine.
• 6:32
  I'm not fine. I want to be enlightened.
• 6:35
  Please let me go. And the Buddha says, well, when
• 6:39
  you speak of striving, what can I say?
• 6:42
  Do what? You think it is time for Megia?
• 6:44
  Yeah. What can you do?
• 6:45
  He's going to go anyway. So.
• 6:48
  Which is quite interesting, isn't it?
• 6:49
  There's nothing. The Buddha doesn't force him to
• 6:51
  stay. And that actually, Megy has made
• 6:55
  his mind up anyway. Yeah, he's made.
• 6:57
  There's nothing you can do. If someone's made their mind up,
• 6:58
  there's no point trying to do something about that.
• 7:01
  They're they're doing what they're doing right.
• 7:03
  And in a way, Banti Sangra actually makes it.
• 7:07
  He says it's interesting, Megia. Megia's point is logical.
• 7:11
  Yeah, it's logical and rational, but it's kind of, it's missed
• 7:14
  something. Yeah.
• 7:15
  So it makes sense. Megia wants to be enlightened,
• 7:20
  he says. Oh, the Buddha's already in
• 7:22
  line. It's all right for you.
• 7:23
  But what about me? You know, think of what?
• 7:24
  What my needs. I want to go and get in line.
• 7:27
  So logically, it makes sense, doesn't it?
• 7:31
  Sanga actually says. On the surface of it, it appears
• 7:33
  not only logical but quite reasonable.
• 7:36
  But only on the assumption of a particular conception of
• 7:41
  Buddhahood itself. Yeah, he says he, Meghia has
• 7:46
  over. Meghia overlooks the fact that
• 7:49
  Buddhahood involves what we call compassion and that therefore
• 7:52
  the Buddha, if he is a Buddha, cannot be indifferent to
• 7:56
  Meghia's needs. Yeah.
• 7:57
  So the Meghia obviously doesn't know who's looking at.
• 8:01
  In a way, when he's looking at the Buddha he's seen, he's kind
• 8:03
  of trying to remind the Buddha of something that I'm pretty
• 8:06
  sure the Buddha knows. You know, I'm trying to, I won't
• 8:11
  say manipulate him, but push him a bit.
• 8:15
  And he seems to think that the Buddha needs reminding.
• 8:17
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:21
  So. And he goes on to say clearly he
• 8:23
  doesn't think that Megia doesn't think that spending time with
• 8:26
  the Buddha is helping him on the path to enlightenment, which is
• 8:30
  extraordinary. Yeah.
• 8:32
  If we had the Buddha next to us, we'd probably just be like, I
• 8:36
  just hang around here with the Buddha, get rub off, let the
• 8:40
  good vibes rub off. And, you know, it makes sense,
• 8:43
  right. But not for Megia.
• 8:46
  And in a way, maybe it relates to some point that we've got
• 8:50
  because in a way, Megia, in this Q&A, in this seminar that I'm
• 8:56
  reading from here and there, someone says, do you think
• 8:59
  there's any significance in the fact that he wants to go off to
• 9:01
  meditate? Do you think he's got an idea of
• 9:04
  seeing spiritual life only in terms of meditation?
• 9:09
  And Sangra actually says it could be that.
• 9:11
  I mean, no doubt meditation occupies a very important place
• 9:14
  in the spiritual life. I might even say that Occupy is
• 9:17
  a central place. But perhaps Maggie has got too
• 9:22
  fixed an idea about meditation. And he goes and say, I mean,
• 9:26
  meditation means being in a certain mental state.
• 9:28
  It doesn't mean necessarily going and sitting in a mango
• 9:32
  Grove. It means being in a certain
• 9:33
  mental state. And perhaps he hasn't
• 9:35
  sufficiently considered the possibility that he may be more
• 9:39
  likely to be experiencing something like that mental state
• 9:42
  in the Buddhist company than on his own supposedly meditating.
• 9:46
  Yeah. So in a way, in a way, Maggie is
• 9:51
  just a bit immature. You know, he's lucky he doesn't.
• 9:54
  He doesn't quite. I say this with all due in
• 9:57
  humbleness because I'll give a few personal examples in a
• 9:59
  minute, but he's just not really.
• 10:02
  He's not really. He's a bit naive in a way.
• 10:06
  Yeah. He's basically saying he's a bit
• 10:09
  cheeky, isn't it? He's like saying, well, you're
• 10:10
  in line. What about me?
• 10:12
  Yeah. As if he just doesn't know who
• 10:14
  he's looking at. And again, maybe Meggie is
• 10:18
  seeing enlightenment or the pastor enlightenment as as, as
• 10:21
  just meditation. Yeah, having an experience for
• 10:24
  himself, having some big experience, and then that's what
• 10:28
  enlightenment's all about. So I think it's uncontroversial
• 10:33
  to say that Megia is wiser than No, the Buddha is wiser than
• 10:37
  Megia. Yeah, But Megia is not really
• 10:39
  listening. So he goes off and the Buddha
• 10:40
  says do what you think it is time for.
• 10:43
  Yeah. And I don't know if it's that
• 10:46
  easy to pick up humour in the parley can and not for me, but
• 10:50
  apparently, like Lala Taratna always makes the point.
• 10:53
  He says he thinks it's a joke. But maybe that says more about
• 10:56
  Lala Taratna's personality. Like he, he brings light to it.
• 10:59
  So he's like the Buddha's like, well, when you speak of
• 11:01
  striving, what can I say, Megia, you know, go.
• 11:03
  And so apparently that's funny, but it's kind of funny.
• 11:08
  Maybe it's funny. So anyway, Megia goes off.
• 11:10
  Yeah. He goes off to the mango Grove.
• 11:12
  You can just imagine. That's lovely place.
• 11:15
  You know, he's got a, he's probably got a good opinion of
• 11:17
  himself, Megie. He's like, yeah, I'm the
• 11:18
  Buddha's assistant. I mean, to be fair, to be asked
• 11:21
  to be the Buddha's assistant, you must have something going
• 11:24
  for you. Yeah.
• 11:24
  So it's probably like, yeah, I'm going to sit down.
• 11:26
  I'm going to meditate. I'm going to be Megie of the
• 11:28
  Mango Grove, you know, like, get big.
• 11:30
  I'm going to do this. It's a disaster.
• 11:34
  Yeah. He just gets tons of like sexual
• 11:37
  thoughts, harm, hateful thoughts, harmful thoughts, and
• 11:41
  it doesn't work. Yeah.
• 11:43
  His big moment to go into the mango Grove after kind of saying
• 11:46
  to the Buddha. Yeah, yeah.
• 11:47
  Let me. So he comes back to the Buddha
• 11:49
  afterwards, after this kind of not a good solitary retreat,
• 11:53
  basically. Yeah.
• 11:54
  He's he's not had a good time at all.
• 11:56
  And he comes back and he says something amazing.
• 11:58
  He says, oh, Lord. Well, he doesn't say it like
• 12:00
  that, but he says, oh, Lord, how incredible.
• 12:02
  How amazing. Yes.
• 12:04
  He's stunned. He's completely.
• 12:06
  I can't believe it. I've gone forth out of faith
• 12:09
  from you could say the home life to homelessness, but I am still
• 12:13
  harassed by these three kinds of bad, unskillful thoughts,
• 12:17
  sensual, malicious and cruel thoughts.
• 12:21
  Incredible, isn't it? So Mig is genuinely shocked.
• 12:24
  You know, he thought he was going to go and rock up on the
• 12:26
  solitary and just like attain enlightenment and he just can't
• 12:30
  understand what's happened. You know, he's he's like, it's
• 12:33
  been the complete opposite experience.
• 12:35
  He's been humbled, you know. So yeah, you could say in a way
• 12:41
  it's, there's a certain level of naivety, yeah, you could say
• 12:46
  there's also an A not understanding what leads to
• 12:50
  what. He doesn't quite understand
• 12:52
  conditions, what conditions actually lead to someone being
• 12:55
  able to meditate a depth and really sustain that.
• 12:58
  And he hasn't quite, hasn't quite clocked that.
• 13:01
  Yeah. Before I move on, I just want to
• 13:06
  say it's quite Sangaretta makes an interesting point about
• 13:11
  probably from his own experience, but people asking
• 13:14
  for permission to do things. Yeah.
• 13:15
  So Megia asks the Buddha to leave initially to go to that
• 13:21
  mango Grove in the 1st place, but he's going to go anyway.
• 13:25
  So it's like, why did he ask? And in a way, so Sangaretta
• 13:31
  says, it means you're just seeking confirmation.
• 13:33
  You know, you're not really asking, you're not really open
• 13:35
  to the possibility of your request not being met.
• 13:38
  You've assumed it will be met. You just want the other person's
• 13:40
  approval. But why should you want their
• 13:43
  approval? You know, if you've made your
• 13:45
  mind up to do something, why not go ahead and do it?
• 13:48
  Why do you want to ask someone's approval?
• 13:50
  So that you so that so that you have to go through the motion,
• 13:54
  so to speak, and asking for their permission.
• 13:56
  And he says in a way, 11 aspect is like you don't want to take
• 13:59
  responsibility for what you're about to do.
• 14:01
  You know, if someone you kind of if it's your teacher and they
• 14:03
  say yeah, you should do it, then if it goes wrong, at least you
• 14:06
  have someone to blame, you know, And also he says in a way you
• 14:12
  can see. Yeah.
• 14:13
  So you can see them as an authority figure.
• 14:14
  Yeah, you can put it on them essentially.
• 14:18
  And also it's maybe like you just want to fit into the group
• 14:21
  still. It's like you want to do
• 14:23
  something, but you might you might be worried that there's
• 14:26
  you're going to get some group disapproval, especially if
• 14:28
  someone hears from the Buddha. The Buddha said no and you did
• 14:31
  it anyway. That's not going to go down well
• 14:33
  in a group situation, isn't it? So yeah, he makes Sangre
• 14:38
  actually makes the point in a way, like just how we how we
• 14:41
  look at this, this whole business of asking for
• 14:44
  permission like or, or Megia asking for permission to leave
• 14:46
  when he's already made his mind up group dynamics anyway.
• 14:52
  I'm not going to go into that. What I did want to go into was
• 14:58
  just this whole business of not realising the conditions we're
• 15:03
  in awe or how that can work. So I was thinking about my own,
• 15:08
  in terms of my own solitary retreats.
• 15:12
  I've been lucky enough to know in some respect that one needs
• 15:15
  friends and one needs good conditions.
• 15:17
  Yeah, but it's quite interesting.
• 15:19
  Like I've lived in loads of, with loads of good people and
• 15:23
  they influence you, don't they? They kind of perfume your mind.
• 15:26
  They have an effect on you. And I found myself going on
• 15:29
  solitary, sometimes solitary retreat.
• 15:31
  And I don't have those people around.
• 15:32
  I don't have all this, just just me, you know.
• 15:36
  And it can be quite difficult sometimes.
• 15:39
  You know, you're kind of like in a way you get a sense of where
• 15:44
  you are when you're on solitary retreat.
• 15:46
  It's quite clear. You're kind of like, oh, OK, for
• 15:48
  good and for bad. Yeah.
• 15:50
  So it's like you you get a clear.
• 15:51
  There's no once all the other conditions are gone, it's just
• 15:54
  you and your quote UN quote level, so to speak, of where
• 15:57
  you're at. And I have to say, I think
• 15:59
  solitary retreats for me personally have been a way that
• 16:03
  I've navigated life over the past however many years because
• 16:06
  you kind of go on solitary and you kind of know what you need
• 16:08
  to do next. It's kind of undeniable in order
• 16:11
  to go deeper because sometimes I'll get on solitary retreat and
• 16:14
  I just can't meditate properly. I'm quite superficial.
• 16:16
  It's like bouncing and like, why is this?
• 16:20
  You know, I'm a card carrying Buddhist.
• 16:22
  You know, I've been doing this for however long.
• 16:24
  I should be able to just rock up, sit down, meditate Diana's
• 16:27
  depth, you know, read suttas all day, you know, proper Buddhist.
• 16:32
  And there's something there which is like staring me in the
• 16:35
  face and you kind of, oh, I need to do this now.
• 16:38
  And this, it's helped as a process over the years to kind
• 16:41
  of, well, just to know what to do next in order to be able to
• 16:47
  be more present and have some depth and content.
• 16:51
  And let's think, let things unfold.
• 16:54
  Because I think in the beginning when I was going to solitary, I
• 16:56
  was just trying to use willpower, you know, which on my
• 16:59
  first solitary, I thought, oh, I'm going to be a proper
• 17:01
  Buddhist. I'm going to meditate for 898 or
• 17:03
  9 hours a day. Boom.
• 17:05
  And I did it. I'd geared in for like 4 days,
• 17:07
  got an extraordinary migraine and just lay on the floor for
• 17:10
  three days afterwards. And I was like, OK, that's just
• 17:13
  doesn't work. That's like severe willpower.
• 17:16
  So in a way, if you're going to unfold, there'll be things that
• 17:22
  you will need to deal with outside of meditation, outside
• 17:26
  of a solitary retreat. The shape of your life,
• 17:29
  essentially, Yeah. So, you know, what to do next.
• 17:34
  Maybe this is what happens to Meg here.
• 17:36
  It's hard to say because, well, we'll get on to what the Buddha
• 17:38
  says to him. But maybe that experience
• 17:41
  affected him. He was like, oh, you know, I
• 17:42
  thought I was just going to go and.
• 17:43
  But then all this other stuff came up.
• 17:45
  I had all these thoughts, and you're kind of like, oh, right.
• 17:46
  Why is this happening? Yeah.
• 17:50
  So I think solitary retreats can be really helpful in terms of
• 17:55
  just having a sense of what you need to do next to become a more
• 17:58
  substantial person and to become happier.
• 18:00
  I think actually, yeah, you become you just it becomes
• 18:03
  clear. It's like there's no one to talk
• 18:05
  to. There's no one to blame.
• 18:06
  You just stay with your life and you're like, what needs to
• 18:10
  happen next? Yeah.
• 18:12
  So my other, the other thing I was thinking about in relation
• 18:16
  to this was I think sometimes, sometimes when you're practicing
• 18:24
  the Dharma, especially in a context like this, it can be
• 18:26
  quite difficult to see how you've changed over time.
• 18:29
  You know, you can become more, I don't know, you can be, you can
• 18:36
  feel kind of a bit bulletproof sometimes in a good way.
• 18:40
  So I was thinking about about 15 years ago, if you, if you know
• 18:43
  me, you've heard this story a million times.
• 18:46
  But if you don't, then it's going to be new.
• 18:47
  So anyway, so about 15 years ago, I was in West London and I
• 18:52
  was doing loads of stuff. I was like running an outreach
• 18:55
  class. So, you know, you travel for
• 18:56
  like, I don't know, 40 minutes somewhere way further.
• 19:00
  You set up a class, it's exciting.
• 19:01
  And then people come along and you interact and you feel like,
• 19:04
  oh, you're doing something good. Yeah, you're doing something
• 19:06
  good for people. So doing that, I was helping
• 19:10
  make tea, doing things like this and these sort of classes.
• 19:13
  I was living in a community. I was living above 2 amazing
• 19:16
  people, the Jinan and doing Paramount.
• 19:20
  And then I used to, I was in a community with them.
• 19:23
  So it's just like the atmosphere of my life had kind of come to a
• 19:26
  certain temperature where I felt like I didn't even realize I'd
• 19:30
  changed. I just felt good.
• 19:31
  All the most of the time I just felt good.
• 19:33
  I was around good people doing good things.
• 19:36
  I just felt good. And I say that because maybe
• 19:40
  it's a bit like Megia. You can imagine if you were the
• 19:42
  Buddha all the time, if you're with someone who's literally
• 19:44
  fearless, Yeah. And just pure, really kind all
• 19:48
  the time and knows how things are and you're with them, you're
• 19:52
  going to feel good about. It's going to feel good and
• 19:54
  you're going to start feeling like that's you.
• 19:56
  Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm the Buddha.
• 19:58
  I'm like, I just got to meditate a bit.
• 20:01
  And. And so I was a bit, I was a bit
• 20:03
  like that. I think what happens when you
• 20:05
  practice the Dharma in a good way is you become a bit.
• 20:09
  A bit bulletproof. You can do.
• 20:11
  You can because if you really, if you really intensively
• 20:13
  practice, you can start to feel. And it's not just you
• 20:16
  fantasizing. You can.
• 20:17
  It's in Buddhism, they call it ponyo or merit.
• 20:19
  You have a kind of merit. And sometimes in these pictures
• 20:25
  of the Buddha, these paintings, you get like an aura around the
• 20:29
  Buddha's head, which is said to be like the wisdom aura
• 20:33
  something. Yeah, And the one around the
• 20:35
  body is to do it is basically merit.
• 20:37
  It's punya. It's like your actions.
• 20:39
  Yeah. So it's it's that's in that
• 20:40
  image. It's communicating something
• 20:42
  that there's a kind of by your consistency and energy and of
• 20:46
  effort. You start, you just start to
• 20:48
  feel all right. You know, you're like with
• 20:49
  people, strangers. And if you're not careful, you
• 20:55
  can start to just think that's just the new you.
• 20:57
  Yeah. And that's what I thought.
• 20:59
  So I was like, I thought, I think it's time for me to go on
• 21:02
  another adventure. Yeah.
• 21:03
  So I had a well, I had AI have a cousin in Copenhagen and he knew
• 21:10
  loads of people, like music people.
• 21:13
  And I was like, you know what, I can do both.
• 21:15
  I can do this. I can probably set up a Buddhist
• 21:17
  centre in Copenhagen and at the same time I can do an amazing
• 21:21
  music career with my cousin. Yeah, so let's do it.
• 21:24
  So yeah, so I turned up and I felt great for about 3 months
• 21:32
  and I felt like because I knew my cousin was involved in
• 21:34
  organised crime as well. He's not anymore, thankfully,
• 21:36
  but he's involved in all these. Yeah.
• 21:38
  He went to jail a lot. He was with a lot of bad people.
• 21:40
  And like, I knew those sort of people.
• 21:43
  I grew up with those sort of people.
• 21:45
  That's why I felt like it was a revisiting of a life that I just
• 21:50
  felt good now, like I could be with these people.
• 21:52
  They're not proper gangsters, not like pretend ones, you know?
• 21:54
  And I was just like, I felt good with them.
• 21:57
  I was talking to them and like, you know, talking about their
• 22:00
  life and even getting them into meditation, you know, like some
• 22:06
  of them were like, Oh yeah, you know, guys from from, from jail,
• 22:09
  they I think prison people that have been in prison, they like
• 22:11
  religion, you know, it's like a big thing.
• 22:13
  So I was like, yeah, this is going to be great.
• 22:16
  I'm going to convert all my cousin's friends.
• 22:17
  They're all like mobsters, but they're going to be like, it's
• 22:19
  going to be a really interesting Sanger then, you know, like that
• 22:23
  was my plan. That was my plan.
• 22:25
  So maybe it's naive, but I was really naive.
• 22:28
  So, you know, like some of them were like Palestinians, some of
• 22:31
  them were like big Danish dude. And I said, alright, this is
• 22:34
  going to be a great sound. Exciting.
• 22:36
  And yeah. And that was going, it was going
• 22:41
  great. And I was bulletproof and that's
• 22:43
  how I felt. And I was genuinely interested
• 22:45
  in them. And then it just got a bit.
• 22:47
  I I had no other. I had no one else there with me.
• 22:49
  Yeah. I was meditating interestingly,
• 22:51
  still out of desperation in the end, but I was meditating and
• 22:55
  listening to loads of Dharma talks.
• 22:57
  And. But there was like a lot of guns
• 23:00
  and like machine gun type things.
• 23:04
  And I just start to feel really unsafe at a certain point.
• 23:06
  I was just like, like, you know, like my cousin shouldn't
• 23:10
  incriminate him. Allegedly, my cousin pulled out
• 23:13
  like it's AK47 out of a sports bag.
• 23:16
  Yeah, they got from some guy from Afghanistan.
• 23:18
  And, like, I held it. And, you know, I don't know if
• 23:20
  you've ever held something that's killed someone, but it's
• 23:22
  got a weird. It's like a talent.
• 23:25
  It's like a voodoo thing. You just hold it and you're
• 23:26
  like, it made, it made me feel like, you know, like, I can
• 23:30
  imagine it's what, like when you're an abattoir, you know,
• 23:32
  and you kill cows for a living, that stunt, that gun thing.
• 23:35
  It's a bit like that. And I was just like, oh God, let
• 23:39
  me put this away. And I started to get, feel
• 23:41
  really unsafe. Yeah.
• 23:43
  And, and my merit was gradually shrinking.
• 23:47
  My little aura was like getting smaller.
• 23:50
  And I think the, the, the, the, the nail in the coffin was he
• 23:54
  had a, he had a friend called Frank Goodfellas and not a very
• 23:58
  original name, but, and he was like, he was from Thailand or
• 24:02
  he's, you know, Thailand origin, right.
• 24:04
  And he was like really small. He's like 5.
• 24:07
  I had. Anyway, he was like, up to here.
• 24:09
  Yeah. He was really dangerous.
• 24:11
  He was like, mobsters would use him to collect money from other
• 24:16
  mobsters. So it's like a private detective
• 24:19
  for gangsters. Yeah.
• 24:23
  So he would like, because if he can't go to the police, so you
• 24:25
  have to go to someone, you know, because it's all bad.
• 24:29
  So I I met, I was with my cousin in his Jeep and I met Frank and
• 24:34
  these two thugs with him that were about 6 foot, like massive.
• 24:39
  Yeah. Like what?
• 24:40
  I don't know. He said 183 like huge guys.
• 24:44
  And they just caught, they just found somebody and got money out
• 24:48
  of him. Yeah.
• 24:48
  So basically, essentially they've been torturing this guy.
• 24:51
  Yeah. And this big guy had like one of
• 24:54
  the big ones put his head through the car and I was
• 24:56
  talking to him and I felt like, I mean, I love animals, but I
• 24:59
  felt like this is a crocodile. Like, I'm literally talking to a
• 25:03
  crocodile, you know, someone who's just like, like a a
• 25:06
  crocodile just I was like, what's going on?
• 25:13
  What's happened to my life? Like just dead, dead inside.
• 25:18
  And I was like, and then I started changing.
• 25:20
  I began to feel much more reactive skit.
• 25:22
  And I was like, I have to get out of this place.
• 25:25
  Yeah. My little adventure in the mango
• 25:26
  Grove just went sideways. So I was just like, so I went
• 25:30
  back to the UK and I went back to the Buddhist.
• 25:33
  And to be fair, Janananda, who was like my one of my spiritual
• 25:37
  friends, like my teacher, when I was leaving, he was a bit like,
• 25:41
  you're doing what? Yeah, he was a little bit OK.
• 25:48
  You know, when you love someone, you're just like, all right, you
• 25:50
  do you. I love you anyway.
• 25:52
  But I came back and it was interesting.
• 25:56
  Like I I said it before, but I was in the office, like we have
• 25:59
  an office here somewhere. We have an office here and I
• 26:02
  came back and I, I've got a picture of my passport picture
• 26:05
  at that time. It's horrible.
• 26:08
  I look like, you know, like not good.
• 26:11
  Anyway, I sat in the office with him and there's a, a, a older
• 26:14
  member called Bodie Leela, Bodie Leela.
• 26:17
  And she wanted to buy a pint of no, he wanted a pint of milk.
• 26:20
  And he said, oh, can you buy a pint of milk?
• 26:22
  And she said, yeah. And just the way they talk to
• 26:24
  each other, I was just like, I was almost in tears.
• 26:27
  Like, this is amazing. Like it was so much like if you
• 26:31
  step out of this environment into a this terrible environment
• 26:34
  and you come back here, you realise how amazing this is.
• 26:37
  You know, just like the kind of care people take.
• 26:42
  So that, so I can understand Megia.
• 26:44
  You know, it's like you around all these great people and you
• 26:48
  think it's you all of a sudden and that you're just going to.
• 26:50
  And unfortunately you can't be told.
• 26:53
  Yeah, I've had it. It's been a few times where
• 26:55
  people are like, yeah, yeah, I'm off to do this thing now.
• 26:58
  And you feel like saying to them, I've been through this
• 27:01
  before. It's like, there's a reason why
• 27:03
  you feel good right now. You can't tell someone that
• 27:06
  because they feel good. Yeah, they're like, what's the
• 27:09
  problem? So you have to learn yourself.
• 27:11
  So in a way, maybe Maggie, I needed to.
• 27:13
  Maybe it's Maggie I needed to know for himself.
• 27:15
  You know, he's just like, it didn't work so well.
• 27:18
  So he comes back to the Buddha and basically tells the Buddha
• 27:27
  to be fair to McGhee. He's completely honest.
• 27:29
  He's not kind of. He can't lie to the Buddha.
• 27:31
  Imagine the Buddha's there and you're just like, you know, and
• 27:33
  you start kind of the Buddha knows.
• 27:36
  So it's not going to work, is it?
• 27:38
  So he's just honest with the Buddha.
• 27:40
  And it's amazing. The Buddha doesn't tell him off.
• 27:43
  He doesn't say you're an idiot. I told you, you know, he could
• 27:47
  have done. He could have said you're
• 27:48
  totally a you left. You're completely irresponsible.
• 27:51
  Yeah, You had a job to do. You'd gone off by yourself in
• 27:54
  this stupid thing, which I told you not to do, and now you're
• 27:57
  back with your tail between your legs.
• 27:59
  What's this? Now here he doesn't do any of
• 28:01
  that. He just.
• 28:02
  He just says when the heart's release is immature, there's
• 28:06
  five things that leads to. It's maturing.
• 28:09
  Yeah. Which is a lovely phrase, The
• 28:11
  heart's release, which maybe you could say is another way of
• 28:15
  talking about enlightenment, but it's more, it has a more of a
• 28:17
  poetry to, doesn't it? The heart's release, you know,
• 28:19
  it's like it gives a sense of what may be enlightenment is, is
• 28:24
  like, yeah, because it's important to know the Buddha
• 28:29
  used different ways of communicating, not just method
• 28:33
  and and like the Internet, he used images as well.
• 28:36
  So, you know, he was said, he said like the Enlightenment is
• 28:39
  like you in a in a desert and you're really thirsty and you
• 28:43
  find some, some pure water. Yeah.
• 28:47
  There's a relief. Yeah, you can imagine that.
• 28:49
  Or like I said, it's like carrying a burden on your back.
• 28:53
  Yeah. And then you take this burden
• 28:56
  off. It's a relief, isn't it?
• 28:58
  And we're like being released from prison.
• 29:01
  You've been locked in this dark prison and you're out.
• 29:04
  You're free. And it's a bit.
• 29:06
  And when you have glimpses in your own experience, it's a bit
• 29:09
  like that, isn't it? It's like we were saying in a
• 29:12
  study group the other day that sometimes I I find it a bit.
• 29:16
  I used to find it a bit difficult going on retreat
• 29:21
  because especially meditation retreat, because kind of once
• 29:25
  you start getting into it, your whole body just at a certain
• 29:28
  point can just relax. You're just like, yeah, you
• 29:31
  just, everything's gone and you just like, I can't believe how
• 29:35
  tense I was. I didn't even know.
• 29:37
  I was just like, even if if you haven't been on retreat for a
• 29:40
  while, like 6 months, you're just going and this is your new
• 29:43
  probably like now you're just on your normal state.
• 29:47
  And then you have a period where it's almost that you get your
• 29:49
  senses back. Yeah.
• 29:51
  Your heart's back in order, you know, what the, your values are.
• 29:54
  You're with good people. And your body relaxes and you're
• 29:57
  like, oh, my God, was I really that tense before?
• 30:00
  Because we don't know, you know? So I knew it relates to this
• 30:04
  heart's release. Yeah.
• 30:05
  And this the Buddha says, when the heart, when, when the
• 30:08
  heart's release is immature, there's five things that lead to
• 30:10
  it maturing, which is quite interesting as well because
• 30:12
  Negir, like us, is kind of immature, you know?
• 30:20
  Yeah. So he goes, he goes into these
• 30:21
  five things. And the first one is friendship,
• 30:26
  you know, which in a way is you can understand from the whole
• 30:28
  flavour of this. Sutter.
• 30:30
  The first one is friendship, spiritual friendship.
• 30:33
  Kaliana Mitchell people that it's important to have some
• 30:36
  sense of what spiritual friendship might be.
• 30:38
  Yeah. Without making it too, I don't
• 30:42
  know, just weird Spiritual friendship.
• 30:45
  Yeah, but actual spiritual friendship.
• 30:48
  What's the difference between spiritual friendship and regular
• 30:51
  friendship? Well, I guess spiritual
• 30:52
  friendship is a friendship that is really based on you genuinely
• 30:57
  wanting the other person to grow and not just to like each other
• 31:01
  or not just to, you know, you can have friends with you that
• 31:04
  you collude with, like, oh, this person very, very rare.
• 31:07
  They're horrible, aren't they, blah, blah, blah.
• 31:08
  And you can go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:10
  Or you can have certain certain qualities of your own that they
• 31:16
  might pick up. Like I've had friends of mine
• 31:18
  say to me things that other friends just won't because they
• 31:21
  don't want to rock the boat or something.
• 31:22
  They will say to you, do you know what you're doing this
• 31:25
  thing? And actually, it's not great.
• 31:28
  You know, there's a kind of, you're holding each other, you
• 31:33
  might say, to a higher standard, not in a kind of bookie way,
• 31:35
  like, oh, here's the you broke number six.
• 31:38
  You know, not that just like a general flavour of a shared
• 31:41
  values. Yeah, So you have shared values
• 31:45
  and you will help each other, whatever it takes to kind of
• 31:49
  grow into those values. Yeah.
• 31:51
  Not just to be on each other's side.
• 31:52
  You of course there's there's loyalty and solidarity, but that
• 31:56
  loyalty can also express itself in taking risks maybe and well,
• 32:04
  going through things together. Yeah, like, I think sometimes,
• 32:07
  like it's a slightly sideways thing, but I've had friends of
• 32:10
  mine that have been in the Army and like been in wars together
• 32:13
  and combat at least and done. But their bond of friendship is
• 32:18
  very strong. Yeah.
• 32:20
  It's not just like a real. I need to be jealous of that.
• 32:22
  And I think it's because you go through a life and death
• 32:24
  situation together, it will bond you.
• 32:27
  It will. And your friendship will be
• 32:28
  deep. And I think unless you have
• 32:30
  something deep to bond you as friends, it's going to be a bit
• 32:35
  superficial by default. Yeah.
• 32:37
  You haven't really been through those things together.
• 32:39
  And I think the good thing about, for example, the Dharma,
• 32:42
  like, I've been through so many things with so many friends of
• 32:45
  mine. Yeah.
• 32:46
  That you've got a history together.
• 32:48
  You've been through some really, actually quite difficult things.
• 32:51
  That means something, especially over time, over decades,
• 32:54
  perhaps, Yeah. So the Buddha's basically saying
• 32:58
  the first condition is spiritual friendship.
• 33:00
  Yeah, that's that's number one. And I would say, and he says
• 33:04
  it's a bit of a, you probably heard it before, but the Buddha
• 33:06
  also said spiritual friendship is the whole of the spiritual
• 33:09
  life. Yeah.
• 33:11
  And when we hear that, it can be a bit like, oh, well, for some
• 33:15
  of us, oh, great. You know, well, if I don't have
• 33:17
  any spiritual friends, what am I supposed to do about this?
• 33:19
  Yeah, in a way, it's quite simple.
• 33:21
  I've heard people put it in a really simple way.
• 33:24
  If you're into the Dharma and you like this, you just turn up.
• 33:28
  You just keep turning up. Yeah, you keep seeing people.
• 33:31
  You keep being in the same environment.
• 33:32
  I was here the other day. I was very tired, and I want to
• 33:36
  have a nap in the basement. And there's someone here called
• 33:39
  Juliet, and she was here. We just bumped into each other,
• 33:41
  and we had a really nice conversation for like half an
• 33:43
  hour, like just in the same space, in the same environment.
• 33:46
  It's like the same community. So in a way, you just keep
• 33:48
  turning up. Yeah, well, maybe that's not
• 33:50
  enough. So the Buddha goes on to #2
• 33:53
  which is the second thing that leads to maturing is basically
• 33:58
  you could say your ethical behaviour, you know, getting on
• 34:01
  top of your behaviour, the precepts, we call it.
• 34:04
  Yeah, you can't really be. And as well, it's impossible to
• 34:07
  be friends with somebody, as I was like, from my little
• 34:11
  adventure, for example, in Copenhagen.
• 34:13
  It's impossible to be friends with somebody who has a
• 34:15
  different set of, like, ethical values than you.
• 34:18
  It's just not possible. Yeah, if somebody thinks it's OK
• 34:21
  to physically hurt people or mentally hurt people, how you
• 34:25
  been friends with them? Yeah, well, it's OK to steal.
• 34:28
  Yeah, it's OK. No one saw.
• 34:29
  But it's OK to like slack people off or to be very horrible in
• 34:33
  your speech. Things like this.
• 34:35
  Yeah. It's like you need a shared set
• 34:38
  of values. So anyway, friendship is #1
• 34:43
  taking your, your ethics seriously, like they like,
• 34:45
  basically, basically means that you take your actions seriously,
• 34:49
  that they actually affect the world.
• 34:51
  Yeah. And we'll change the world
• 34:53
  around you, which sometimes we don't feel we get a bit
• 34:55
  impotent. At least speaking for myself, we
• 34:56
  can be about, oh, what's the point?
• 34:59
  So that the third thing is speech.
• 35:02
  Yeah. Which is interesting.
• 35:05
  We need to get on top of our speech.
• 35:06
  We all know that. And the Buddha is basically
• 35:09
  saying that's number three. Yeah.
• 35:12
  So you have friends, you get you're, you're really take your
• 35:16
  behaviour and your ethics. You kind of clean your act up.
• 35:18
  Yeah. And also you try and speak well.
• 35:21
  Yeah. You try and speak well.
• 35:23
  You try and speak kindly, truthfully, try and bring people
• 35:27
  together with your speech and try and make it helpful.
• 35:32
  Yeah. So that's it.
• 35:35
  And then #4 Energy. Yeah.
• 35:38
  So you need to cultivate energy, maybe especially in meditation,
• 35:41
  you know, like your culture, you you put, you're basically
• 35:45
  putting energy into cultivating positive mental States and
• 35:49
  you're putting energy into getting rid of negative mental
• 35:51
  states, to put it very. Yeah.
• 35:54
  So you're, you're using energy skillfully to mature yourself.
• 35:59
  Yeah. And then #5 is where you could
• 36:04
  say insight. You need to develop insight,
• 36:07
  which, I don't know, in a way it's quite simple, isn't it?
• 36:10
  You, you. You're really trying to get into
• 36:12
  your bones that things are impermanent.
• 36:14
  Yeah. Which will avenge, which in a
• 36:17
  sense will stop you clinging. You're trying to.
• 36:24
  Yeah. You're trying to basically
• 36:25
  cultivate a way of seeing the world.
• 36:31
  Yeah. That that leads to you probably
• 36:34
  being able to sit and meditate actually, you know, some sense
• 36:38
  of like, because if, you know, everything is impermanent, like,
• 36:42
  I don't mean like we've all heard this now on our Yogi tea
• 36:45
  thing, everything impermanent. I'll have a cup of tea out in
• 36:48
  one ear and out the other. Yeah, we're going to hear this
• 36:50
  today. It's probably not going to mean
• 36:51
  anything to us. But the good thing about
• 36:53
  practicing the Dharma is like, you circle the same material
• 36:56
  over decades here. And it's interesting that
• 36:58
  recently this whole impermanence thing, thankfully there's been a
• 37:01
  bit more. It's it's doing something to me
• 37:05
  at the moment. It's like it is has a flavour of
• 37:07
  liberation about it, Like, oh, I'm going to die.
• 37:09
  Everyone's going to die. Everything's impermanent.
• 37:11
  My, my negative mental states are impermanent.
• 37:14
  There's a freedom to it. It's all things are growing.
• 37:16
  Things are coming into existence.
• 37:18
  Things are coming out. There's a yeah.
• 37:20
  So that's what the Buddha's saying to Megia.
• 37:22
  He's saying like, you need these five things.
• 37:23
  Yeah. But he makes the point, which
• 37:26
  maybe I'll wrap up with. He makes the point that
• 37:29
  friendship, in a way holds all these five things.
• 37:32
  Spiritual friendship. Yeah.
• 37:33
  If you're around those kind of people, it will rub off on you.
• 37:36
  And you will, you will. I mean, I know I was saying when
• 37:39
  you leave, you kind of maybe you.
• 37:41
  It's less easy, but it does change you.
• 37:44
  And I think I've been shaped by the people around me and
• 37:47
  thankfully been intelligent enough or aware enough to know
• 37:52
  that the people that I'm with will essentially you become
• 37:57
  them, don't you? What's that saying?
• 37:59
  You. You are your five best friends
• 38:01
  or something. There's some.
• 38:02
  You know what you eat? You know what you eat.
• 38:04
  Yeah. You are what you eat.
• 38:06
  Yeah. You are what you eat.
• 38:07
  Basic. Yeah.
• 38:11
  So, yeah. Yeah.
• 38:18
  It's tricky, isn't it? Because sometimes you have to
• 38:19
  let go of certain friends and that that can be.
• 38:22
  That can be quite difficult. Like, I think after that episode
• 38:25
  in Copenhagen, I basically had no friends, which is shocking.
• 38:28
  I was in my early 30s, which most people would assume you've
• 38:31
  got all your besties and you've got your friends.
• 38:33
  And I was like, I've got no friends, which was shocking.
• 38:36
  Yeah, now I've got lots of good friends, but then I had no
• 38:39
  friends. And it had to be like that,
• 38:41
  because if you don't have good friends, then you need to be
• 38:43
  alone until you find some good friends.
• 38:55
  Yeah, maybe I'll leave it there.