A Cool, Calm Heart Draws Near To Nibbāna | 6 Sep 2024

In our daily life.

Since when we wake up,

We can notice that we start to have thoughts,

Ideas,

And proliferate to different subjects.

Or someone building goodness,

Who has set up their wholesome intentions.

They will also think and proliferate as well,

But will proliferate about subjects of merit.

On subjects of kusala,

Goodness.

That today I will go give alms,

Will listen to dhamma,

Will sit meditation,

And they will train in their mindfulness to be still and in the present moment.

So this is about bringing to mind,

Setting up the wholesome intention and thoughts that are of the subject of merit and goodness.

And when we think and bring to mind subjects of merit a lot,

Then our mind is at ease.

The mind is peaceful from being scattered,

Irritated,

And distressed.

When our mind proliferates due to our sense experiences,

Which bring up a feeling of anger,

Then we will keep bringing to mind the memory that made us angry again.

Then the anger arises again.

There is ill will and intentions to harm coming up.

And our mind also thinks about those sense experiences that we delight and desire.

We call this thoughts of sensuality.

There is delight and satisfaction with all the sights,

Sounds,

Smells,

Tastes,

Tactile sensations,

And mind objects.

Our heart has been darkened as well.

It's not brightened.

But it is the moods of delight and satisfaction.

But it's not a peaceful heart.

We can notice that we will think and proliferate to the mind states that are the moods of delight and moods of anger,

Ill will,

And harming.

Then the mind is turbulent.

There is heat arising.

Greed,

Anger,

Delusion are compared to a fire.

There is heat arising in the heart.

So how can we put out that fire?

Because we know that it's hot.

And we don't want that burning as well.

Whenever it arises,

It is suffering to our heart.

It is like this every time,

On every occasion.

There is no one who wants to have their hearts be like this.

We want coolness.

Coolness of heart.

If we can train our mind,

Then our mind can be cooled.

This heat is there constantly.

But we develop goodness,

Build merit,

Build skillfulness.

We offer sangha dhāna,

Or make a big offering like contributing to a monk's ordination.

Then all the various acts of merit and goodness makes our mind to be cool and at ease.

We can bring to mind,

Or go to pay respects and homage to important places.

For example,

The places where the Buddha was born,

Enlightened,

Taught the Dhamma,

Entered final Nibbāna,

And the Mahabodhi tree.

When Venerable Ananda asked the Buddha on how one should recollect the Buddha after he had passed away to final Nibbāna,

The Buddha said to recollect the place where he was born,

Enlightened,

Taught the Dhamma,

And passed away into final Nibbāna.

And there is the Mahabodhi tree,

The eight basic requisites of the Buddha,

The Buddha's relics,

Or acetya,

A stupa.

So the community of the followers of the Buddha can recollect the Buddha,

And they will have faith arise,

And rapture and happiness arise.

This is merit.

This is buddha-nusati,

Recollection of the Buddha.

And from this,

Then the mind is calm,

Serene,

Peaceful,

From all the moods that I have mentioned earlier.

So the heart that is cooled is important.

And however much our thoughts reduce,

Then our heart will be peaceful and cooled by that much.

So we need to train in regards to samadhi,

Concentration.

In the beginning,

It is the merit from recollecting the Buddha,

By going to pay our respects in the four holy places.

This is merit and goodness already.

But the Buddha taught further,

That though giving homage like this is good already,

But you need to practice Dhamma.

You can't just give homage,

Bow,

And anjali only.

You must practice more,

Which is to grow in sila,

Samadhi,

Bhajna,

Morality,

Concentration,

And wisdom.

This is building our heart.

We are one of the individuals of the Buddha sasana,

The dispensation.

The Buddha sasana contains the sasana vatthu,

The material objects of the dispensation.

The sasana bhuggala,

The people of the dispensation.

And the sasana dhamma,

The truth of the dispensation.

We have bowed and given our respects to that which is important in the Buddha sasana already.

And we are joyous and happy.

The one who bows is an individual of the sasana.

And they are also an individual that practices dhamma as well.

If there is no one who practices dhamma,

Then the Buddha sasana can come to an end.

And practicing dhamma,

What is it for?

It is to gain dhamma in our hearts,

Bit by bit.

When we have listened to dhamma,

We have contemplated dhamma.

Then,

From not having faith,

Our faith grows.

From not having any mindfulness and wisdom,

We have more mindfulness and wisdom.

And I want to share a story to you from America.

I have one disciple,

An American monk named Venerable Nathan,

Who had ordained and practiced before here in Wat Marp Chan.

He later went back to America.

And there was one man there who had faith in Buddhism.

But his wife had no faith at all.

Later on,

The wife learnt dhamma from Venerable Nathan.

With the support of her husband as well.

In the end,

The wife gained a lot of faith in Buddhism.

And along with her husband,

They are looking for a place to build a monastery.

So there would be the buildings of the Sasana Wattu arising,

To have a place to practice dhamma.

So this is one example.

And this is giving one's dhamma practice as homage.

After having listened to the dhamma of the Sama Sambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened one.

And this may come from one of the Buddha's Savaka,

An enlightened disciple.

Or even from one of their disciples.

Or even coming from reading a dhamma book.

It can lead to faith and confidence arising.

And then being intent to practice dhamma and to bhavana,

To cultivate the mind.

Like you here,

You practice samadhi and meditation.

And every nationality,

Every language,

We can all practice it.

It is being an individual in the Sasana.

If there are no individuals of Buddhism to practice and to ordain,

Then Buddhism can disappear and end.

But here,

Buddhism is prospering in the West.

With the people there having faith and confidence.

And we can take pride in that.

From India,

King Asoka spread Buddhism to Sri Lanka and to Thailand.

From Thailand,

There were the senior and other monks who had spread Buddhism overseas.

By having disciples of the great Venerable Ajahn Mun and Venerable Ajahn Chah vows to take dhamma and to spread it overseas.

Then more people would know of it and become interested in Buddhism.

So in Thailand,

We could say we are the beginnings of it.

We know that greed,

Anger,

Delusion is a fire.

They are the root of all defilements.

If fire arises,

Suffering arises.

So we have to put the fire out.

Whenever we can put out the fire,

Then coolness arises.

Do you see?

There's no need to make Nibbana arise.

We just put out the fire,

Then coolness arises.

Just like darkness.

If we make our heart bright,

Then the darkness disappears by itself.

Even though the darkness is still there.

If brightness is there,

Then the darkness can't do anything.

Like when the sun has risen and the darkness is still there.

But the darkness doesn't have any effect on us.

This is because the brightness of the sun covers over darkness.

But when the sun drops and the brightness lessens,

Then the darkness comes out again.

So for our heart,

We have to make brightness arise.

We have insight and knowing arise.

That is,

We put out the greed,

Anger,

And delusion that arises.

We put out the heat.

Then coolness arises by itself.

And how do we put it out?

This has its own nature.

Which is that we need to walk in sila,

Samadhi,

And bhajna.

Us sitting here,

We have sila.

We restrain our actions and speech.

And we establish samadhi so that the mind is stilled and not agitated and distraught.

Then wisdom will arise.

But if the mind is very scattered,

Then wisdom doesn't arise.

Even being a child,

You need to have mindfulness and wisdom.

With it,

When competing in various sports,

One can win as well.

Getting a medal,

A trophy.

Or with it,

We can make ourselves overcome a bad situation and be safe.

There is one example of this that you may have read about.

This situation happened on 30th July 2024 in Chuzhou city in Zhejiang province,

China.

There was a young 8-year-old girl who was on the way home after class with her grandfather.

But as what happens sometimes,

This 8-year-old girl got lost and separated from her grandfather and couldn't contact him or any family.

But this child had intellect and quick wit.

She had mindfulness to recollect first.

What did she recollect?

Her mother had taught her,

If you are in trouble,

Go push the red button next to the ATM machine.

The little girl remembered this.

She could recollect the teaching of the mother and had mindfulness to overcome the situation and to be safe.

She entered the ATM booth and pressed the red button instantly,

Following what her mother had taught her.

This button connected her to the bank monitoring centre.

The bank connected her at that ATM booth.

Here the staff worker,

Zhou Dongying,

Picked up the phone and comforted the child.

He asked the child,

Do you have your parents' or grandfather's phone number?

The child couldn't remember.

So if we have a young child or grandchild,

We can write a phone number attached to their bag or their shirt to protect them first.

Or else we may have a phone number attached to every shirt of the child.

We buy a shirt for them and we write the home phone number and stick it on.

Whenever we turn it,

Then the number is revealed.

And if the child is lost,

Tell them to turn it over to see the number.

So we can do this.

So that they're able to contact an adult who can help them.

But here this child couldn't remember.

So here,

What did the bank do?

The bank staff tried to comfort the small child.

Because what does a little child experience?

She had fear arise.

She had delusion.

She was scared and worried.

When we were a child,

We would have experienced this.

We are a little child.

We go to school and there's a big storm and we can't go home.

We have fear come up and cry out for our mother.

We may think,

Why are we crying?

But it just comes out.

We won't stop.

The worry doesn't stop.

So children are like this.

But sometimes we may have mindfulness come up that we probably should stop crying.

But because of being a child,

Our mindfulness is weak.

The defilements pull us.

So this bank staff was trying to comfort the child to calm her down.

To calm down.

The words calm down means for the mind to be peaceful and still.

To not worry and be anxious.

To be away from delusion and from all the fear.

And the staff contacted the police to help this child to get out okay.

And they could contact her relatives and the child could be protected and safe.

So inner stillness and coolness is important.

What we are training in here is to train the mind to be peaceful.

Away from the hotness.

To a temporary stillness.

It is stillness by covering over the defilements first.

And we also need to learn about that which makes suffering arise.

Which is greed,

Anger,

Delusion.

We reflect that what comes from attachment and clinging is a sense of self.

It's the cause that there then exists greed,

Anger,

Delusion.

So we train to let go of self.

By giving dana.

Keeping sila.

Developing our meditation.

Have wisdom arise.

Then the mind is cool.

Can we see it?

We train from the beginning stages and the mind is cooled bit by bit.

We call it nibbana.

So it's not removed from our life.

Whenever we are inwardly cooled then nibbana arises.

We keep trying to train in this on and on.

When we are able to sit in meditation well then coolness arises.

Then it's amazing.

It can be cool as if we're sitting in an air-conditioned room.

It's cool in the heart.

Walking it is cool.

Sitting it is cool.

It can even be like this for months on end.

It is amazing about samadhi.

When it's cool like this it's cooled through peacefulness.

Which is suppressing over the defilements first.

We don't yet see nibbana.

But it is an important step.

When the mind is peaceful like this we see the moods and mental states that comes to make our minds unsettled.

We have mindfulness which is aware of it and we can let go.

We can let go of all the moods and mental states to have wisdom arise.

We can use wisdom to instruct the mind so that samadhi arises.

And the samadhi that we have leads to wisdom.

We practice it like this.

And we need to train in this from the time we wake up throughout our daily life until we go to sleep.

Try to have a lot of mindfulness.

That which makes suffering arise is the sense objects,

The experiences that enter by way of the eye,

Ear,

Nose,

Tongue,

Body and mind.

The mind will proliferate from this.

So may we know it and be aware of it in time as it arises.

Whenever we can know it in time then wisdom arises and the heart is cooled.

When the sense objects pull us and we don't know it in time,

We aren't aware.

Then it's all chaotic and turbulent.

Then we have to come back to practice samadhi.

Train to be peaceful.

Train to be skilled at it.

Doing it this way is the path that we will understand the Dhamma.

That we will know and see the Dhamma.

Here this will overcome the suffering in our heart.

This is merit and goodness.

This is the Sasana Dhamma arising in our heart.

So the Sasana Watthu or the important Buddhist places which we give homage and respects to,

Having brought them to mind,

Then we are determined to practice Dhamma.

Those who practice Dhamma are the people of the Sasana.

And they practice for the arising of the Sasana Dhamma.

So the people of the Sasana are the Upasaka,

Upasika,

Bhikkhu,

Bhikkhuni,

Laymen and laywomen,

Monks and nuns.

And they practice to understand the Dhamma in its truth.

May you all have success and growth in the Dhamma.