Give Up The Bad, Do Good, Purify The Mind | 7 Feb 2025

The important days in the Buddhasasana dispensation are when the Buddha was born,

Gained enlightenment,

And attained to Parinibbana.

The Sammasambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened one,

Gave the first teaching on the day of Asalaha Puja,

And on this coming 12th February is the commemoration of Magha Puja.

And so after the Buddha attained enlightenment,

He had taught,

Instructed,

Revealed the Buddha's dispensation at the Isipatthana Deer Park,

Where the Pancavagya,

The five ascetics,

Understood into the Dhamma.

And the first one who attained was Kodanya Brahman,

Who attained to Sotapanna,

The first level of enlightenment.

So this was the day when the triple gem became complete in this world,

Having the jewel of the Buddha,

Jewel of the Dhamma,

And the jewel of the Sangha.

Then the Buddha went to teach the three Kassapa brothers,

Who were fire worshippers.

And all 1,

003 hermits attained to becoming fully enlightened Arahants.

And when it came to the full moon day of the third lunar month of Magha Puja,

There was a Sangha of 1,

250 monks who were all Arahants.

They were Arahants of a special type,

Which the Buddha had ordained himself,

Which is called Ehipiko Upasampada.

And they gathered together without any prior notice.

And it was in this gathering that the Buddha taught the Dhamma,

Which we call the Owada Padimokkha.

And this gathering for the Padimokkha was a Visuddhi Uposatha,

Where those gathering for the Uposatha were all Arahants.

There was no one who had any galesas,

Mental defilements at all.

It was a Padimokkha that was pure.

And here the Buddha would bestow the principles of the Dhamma teachings.

And we see that there are principles of practice that lead to becoming Arahants.

All Buddhas have principles of the practice that lead their minds to enlightenment.

And the Buddha would teach this,

Even though those who were present were 1,

250 Arahants who were already enlightened.

But these were the principles that needed to be continued to practice so that others would attain to Arahantship as well.

And the principles were three aspects.

And so we look at why we have to give up all the actions of wrongdoing.

It is because it is normal and natural that the mind of us humans,

Which are born already,

All of them have that which can control over our minds.

This is ignorance,

Or not knowing.

When the mind is ignorant,

Or doesn't know,

Then the mind has no strength.

So the Buddha will teach from the beginning about Sila Dhamma,

The quality of morality,

Of virtue.

In keeping Sila Dhamma,

You need to have Sati,

Mindfulness,

And Panya,

Wisdom,

In order to keep it.

If we don't understand this,

It will bring us suffering.

And so Sila is kept so that we get happiness and peace in our body and speech.

When we can maintain peace in this,

Then the mind becomes peaceful.

The mind is able to control over actions and speech to make it correct,

Which is called Sila.

In the time of the Buddha,

The Buddha taught those who had Sila already,

And those who had Samadhi concentration already.

And the Buddha taught them to gain wisdom,

And they attained to becoming Arahants.

Like the three fire worshipper brothers,

They had Sila already.

They had firmly established Samadhi,

And they were taught about wisdom.

To understand that the forms,

Sounds,

Odors,

Tastes,

Touch,

Mind objects,

Were hot.

Just that much.

And they understood,

Because they had trained in Samadhi.

They had trained in using a Kassina meditation object.

The mind was ready.

The Kusala,

The skillfulness or goodness,

Was ready.

And they heard the Dhamma,

And they attained to becoming Arahants.

It made their minds to be purified.

To maintain Sila,

Maintain our actions and speech well,

We need to be able to take into consideration and see the drawbacks of not having Sila.

We see the benefit of having Sila.

We have hiri,

Shame in wrongdoing,

And otapap,

Fear in doing wrong.

If we break the precepts,

Then we will have wisdom come up to keep our Sila well.

Even if we aren't able to do it every day,

But we gradually get to be able to keep it.

For example,

We commit to keeping the precepts by ourselves.

Like,

Today I will keep the five precepts.

Or,

On our day off,

We will keep the eight precepts for one day,

One time a month.

Or if we have more strength,

Then in one month we can keep it two,

Three or four times.

This is up to our circumstances and the time we have to train our own mind.

And when we do it like this,

Then all the merit and goodness will arise in us.

We will have inner readiness.

We will have happiness in the heart.

But then we will see the mind that thinks and is scattered to all sorts of things.

The mind is not peaceful.

The mind is not still.

So the Buddha taught progressively about the principles,

Which is the principle that will make the mind still and peaceful,

That will make goodness to be well established and make it to be all ready,

Which is that one must practice kamatthana,

A meditation object.

This is the foundation where all our work will be established,

Which will be skillful and good.

And this is having mindfulness,

Having samadhi and having wisdom.

Whether walking,

Sitting,

Standing or lying down,

We must be training and aware of ourselves.

If we sit,

We can know the in and out breath,

And we can meditate repeating a particular chant or verse,

Which when we keep mentally repeating it,

The mind gains a good level of peace.

Or we can use the way of with the in-breath we mentally repeat but,

And the out-breath we mentally repeat do.

Or it can be dhammo or sangho.

Or we can contemplate that the in-breath is empty,

The out-breath is empty.

So these are the objects of meditation that are used in order to make our mind still and peaceful.

And then we will see our mind that is turbulent.

Before,

We have never been aware and focused on it.

We have never looked at our own mind.

We never sat in meditation before.

So when we sit in meditation,

We see the mind is so hot,

It's chaotic.

It thinks and spins and shoots off without stop.

So we see the dangers of a mind like that.

We now understand about the mind that is chaotic like this,

And so we try to train it.

When we see the drawbacks and see the benefit of training the mind,

Then we try to do it.

And ultimately the mind gets more peaceful.

Before it was sitting meditation for 5 minutes,

And later we can sit 15 minutes,

30 minutes or 1 hour easily.

So here,

This mind that has been well trained and is still and peaceful,

What benefit does it have?

We are able to suppress down the mental defilements,

That is greed,

Anger,

Delusion,

Which we call the kilesas.

This is what makes our minds hot and suffering all the time.

And all minds don't want suffering.

But because of delusion,

When we are deluded,

And we are deluded in greed and anger,

There is a sense of me and mine.

And it is the cause for suffering to arise.

So this suffering that arises has its causes and conditions,

Which is attachment and clinging.

When we have attachment and clinging arise,

There is a mind that has delusion.

It has dhanha,

Craving and upadana attachment.

So we know we don't want it to be like that.

But when we don't want it,

It doesn't mean that the delusion,

Greed and anger will disappear because of our not wanting it.

It doesn't work like that.

Because all dhammas,

Phenomena,

Arise from causes.

If we have the cause that the delusion is there,

Then suffering arises.

And even if we don't want to suffer,

We will suffer.

Because dukkha,

Suffering,

Is the noble truth of suffering.

It is natural.

It arises,

Persists and ceases.

But it does arise because of the cause,

Which is craving and attachment.

So the Buddha taught us to understand this principle.

Then we will be able to get what we want.

We will make our minds pure and bright.

And to have no suffering mixed into our hearts.

Or the suffering will gradually reduce bit by bit.

If ignorance,

Craving and attachment lessens,

Then suffering lessens as well.

The suffering that lessens like that is called nirodha.

The cessation of suffering.

Or nibbana.

And so how to do it?

The Buddha taught us further.

He taught us everything about the path of practice.

He told us to follow this path.

The path that we won't suffer.

Of which there is only one path.

And this is a path that no one could discover.

It was only the Buddha who could discover it by his own efforts.

And he told it to us.

He taught us that it is sila-samadhi-bhanya.

The noble eightfold path.

And the Buddha gave a talk and instructed the three Kassapa brothers to understand and let go of attachment.

That all the sense and mental objects,

The form and so on.

They are something hot.

The hermits had been practicing for a long time.

So they understood that which is hot should be let go of.

When we can let go of self.

When there is no attachment.

Then the heat in the mind doesn't arise.

So they saw the danger already.

They understood it clearly.

This is called wisdom arising.

They had the mind walk in sila-samadhi-bhanya.

But we are just starting.

And the samadhi isn't stable in jhana.

Mental absorptions all the time.

Or we can't enter jhana yet.

But we can have some samadhi arise.

And with a little bit of samadhi we contemplate with wisdom to get rid of the sense of me and mine.

Contemplate that there is no me and mine in reality.

That which arises is convention.

But the mind is deluded in it as being me and mine.

But when we contemplate into its reality.

We get to the heart of the teachings of the Buddha.

And it cleanses our mind to be purified.

Because we see that there is no self,

No I.

The mind is pure.

The mind is more radiant.

Then we start to see the right path.

Oh,

It's just this path.

This is the path that will truly take us to freedom from suffering.

And each life that is born heads towards aging,

Sickness and death.

There is nothing at all that is really ours in this whole world.

We are just someone who comes,

Stays for a while and then has to leave.

When this is the way it is.

Then we train our minds.

We practice Dhamma.

And when our faith is well established.

We have effort and diligence that is determined and firm.

We are determined to understand and see the Dhamma.

To get to the ending of suffering.

So try to develop in the teachings of Sila Samadhi Bhanya.

Have effort.

Have mindfulness and Samadhi.

Train like this.

Have wisdom to control over the actions and speech to be within Sila always.

And ultimately our Samadhi will be well established.

The mind and body is light.

Whether we stand or walk,

The mind is very light.

The Samadhi is very well concentrated.

And mindfulness looks at the mind.

Whatever object arises in the mind,

It's known quickly.

And we can put it down quickly.

The mind doesn't go attach and cling to it.

But in the beginning it's not like this.

Whatever object,

Mood or experience comes into the heart.

The heart goes attaching to it always and constantly.

It just brings in suffering.

There is just a sense of self.

We have a me and mine.

But when we practice in the principles of Sila Samadhi Bhanya,

Then our Samadhi becomes well established and wisdom arises.

Then here it's not difficult.

We understand the path of the practice.

The doubts we had will disappear.

When we have walked this way,

We contemplate and we will see that this body are just natural elements.

It breaks apart.

And there is no self.

There is nothing that is ours.

It's emptiness.

The gathering of all the elements makes our heart attach that these elements are me and mine.

But when we contemplate with a refined mind,

Then we will see that there is no me and mine.

It's empty.

We will understand deeply.

We call this seeing the Dhamma.

When we see the Dhamma,

We practice further.

We continue to make Samadhi firmly concentrated and then we will gain deeper knowledge and understanding.

We will be able to let go of rupa and nama,

Material and mental phenomena.

And so this is making our mind to be purified.

Therefore,

When it comes to the day of Magha Puja,

May you offer your practice in homage to the Buddha,

The Dhamma and Sangha.

May you all gain growth and prosperity in all your duties and work.

And in your livelihood,

May you have happiness and peace.

May you be established in the Dhamma of Sila,

The Dhamma of Samadhi and the Dhamma of Banya.

May you have development and well-being in the world and in the Dhamma.

May you grow in blessings.