Sometimes the practice,
Tradition in the Theravada at first glance can seem depressing or pessimistic.
We wake up in the morning,
We do our chanting,
Birth is suffering,
Aging is suffering,
Death is suffering.
And then we do our five reflections.
I will age,
I will sicken,
I will die,
I will be separated from all that is loved.
And I am still ensnared in this realm of karma.
That's one aspect of how we reflect.
And on another,
When you look at the actual practice,
Breathing in Bhut,
Breathing out Bhutto,
Bhutto,
Theravadan practice is also incredibly affirming.
And in many respects the wisdom reflections are supposed to be a slap in the face to delusion.
They are supposed to wake us up and give our eyes to sobriety.
And then with Bhutto we are affirming something much more profound than our current limitation.
On one level bound by birth,
Aging and death.
On another level cultivating that which knows these things,
That which can be liberated from them.
In the last part of the metta sutta,
The pure hearted one having clarity of vision,
Not born again into this world.
So it's pointing to a potential isn't it,
Bhutto.
The potential to be pure hearted with clear vision and liberated,
Not subject to birth.
I remember the story of the bodhisattva leaving the palace as a prince and seeing a sick person,
An aging person,
A dead body and a wandering ascetic.
And these sights were shocking.
It said that the vanity of use,
The vanity of health,
The vanity of life left the bodhisattva because his spiritual faculties were so ripe.
It was very quick to see Dukkha and the danger in samsara.
And then seeing the wandering ascetic,
What's that?
Well that's somebody who's seeking to go beyond the round of birth and death.
And the bodhisattva realises,
Oh there is something else beyond life in the palace.
And he also goes forth seeking that which is beyond birth and death.
And so we can be lost in the vanity of use,
The vanity of health,
The vanity of life.
So many people suddenly get sick and wonder,
Why me?
There is this tendency to think that disaster strikes others.
Unfortunately,
Disaster strikes all of us.
Sometimes the Buddha refers to birth as a calamity,
A wound,
A dart.
Because once you have one of these bodies in this realm,
It's very vulnerable.
At the same time,
We've been born at a time where we've met teachings of a sammasambuddha.
One who knows things as they are has come into this world.
An arahant,
A perfectly awakened being.
Arjuna Nan frequently says,
If we're practising our dana,
Our sīla,
Our meditation,
Even if we don't attain sotapanna in this life,
The number of rebirths is getting less.
So that's an encouragement,
Isn't it?
So however much practice we can do this lifetime,
There will be less cycles of birth,
Aging and death.
Less calamities,
Less wounds,
Less darts.
So we embrace our practice wholeheartedly and use the opportunity that we have.
So the causes and the fruits will come when the conditions are right.
An Arjuna Chah's focus to his practice is being very determined to be mindful and wise in the present moment.
So on one level,
We're not completely liberated yet,
And it might be some time until we are,
But if you recognise conditions as conditions and don't expect them to be otherwise,
He gives us these wonderful examples.
You don't expect a chicken to be a duck.
Don't try to make a cat into a dog.
I'm just recognising what's possible with conditions.
Recognising their nature,
Recognising their limitation and then being at peace with that.
Understanding that the plate will break,
Taking care of it anyway,
But when the plate breaks,
Oh,
I knew that was going to happen.
The present moment dhamma generate these factors of mindfulness and wisdom consistently and the capacity to let go in small ways the causes of suffering.
Cause of suffering,
Arjuna Chah often says,
Is wrong thinking,
Incorrect understanding.
If we're really applying the right view,
We can let go.
We see our attachment,
We can let go.
Arjuna Chah also says if we can't let go,
At least these powers that arise in the mind,
Greed,
Hatred,
Liking,
Disliking,
They arise less powerfully and they stay for not as long.
So practising correctly there is much less dukkha.
This is the point of what can initially seem depressing,
Is it's taking the bitter medicine that actually works.
You don't expect more from conditions than they can offer and then you can let go of your deluded inflated expectations and in humility be to a significant degree liberated from suffering.
It's not expecting too much from conditions.
At the same time wholeheartedly embracing your mind's capacity to be at ease with conditions,
Cultivating unshakable peace.
So we have our gradual training moving towards liberation on one hand and we have our momentary liberations,
Temporary liberations and the peace that can be attained in the moment with mindfulness and wisdom,
With regards cultivating both aspects of this training the most important thing is on that foundation of sila to be consistently generating the mindfulness and not letting that meditation object slip,
Not falling into deluded fascinations,
Proliferations,
Preoccupations or reactions.
So we do have to keep coming back to the breath and sit on that chair.
Be the one who is sitting on the chair,
That which knows taking the seat and seeing the guests that come in and seeing them come in and then seeing them to the door,
Seeing them leave,
That which knows being firmly established consistently.
So in some respects being born is a disaster,
A calamity and it's as a human being who meets the Buddha's teachings at the same time it's the best opportunity in the universe.
Different ways to look at these things,
We have to take some bitter medicine so that we can wake up but how wonderful that we can wake up among all the deluded beings,
Hell realms,
Ghost realms,
Animal realms,
Blissful heavenly realms,
Very difficult to develop insight in any of those places,
Billions of beings who don't have very good chance to develop wisdom and yet here we are and that's why we take the bitter medicine,
That's why we slap the face of delusion because we embrace sobriety,
We embrace clarity,
We recognize our potential but we have to be awakened from our delusion to recognize something much,
Much better.
There's something better than youth,
There's something better than health,
There's something better than beauty,
There's something better than wealth.
And so that's what we're cultivating here in our retreat,
Encourage everybody to make the most of the time that remains,
Placing the awareness on the breath consistently,
The footsteps consistently and using the metta practice.
We do those five reflections but we often also do the metta chanting,
May everyone abide in well-being,
The brahma viharas,
Divine abidings,
Pleasant mind states that the Buddha wholeheartedly encourages us to embrace so that also helps us,
Wholesome blissful states obviously help that process of sobering up from delusion which can be bitter.
And so becoming on some levels disenchanted,
Worldly conditions and weary,
At the same time cultivating our potential to be boundless and kind,
Boundlessly compassionate and to have appreciative joy for others good fortune.
The Dalai Lama says if you cultivate mudita sincerely you increase your chances of happiness by six billion,
Very optimistic.
So the various things we can do with our mind and keeping it balanced,
If it does get dejected,
If it gets dry,
If it gets brittle,
Our practice,
Then we need to nourish it with metta,
Praised by the wise,
A divine abiding,
A sublime abiding.
And it's okay to have compassion for oneself,
We don't keep whipping ourselves on the back.
You have to encourage your efforts and just say however much effort I can put forth now,
It's definitely reducing the amount of suffering I have to experience in the future,
That's a result.
We might not have complete cessation of suffering now in this moment but that moment is coming closer.
And so on the other hand we also need to know when we need to be firm and remind ourselves,
We could die today if we're being heedless,
Getting stuck in a negative projection about someone else.
Do you want to die with this mind state?
We have to ask ourselves,
If you die with this mind state,
Where do you think you'll be reborn?
Sometimes for myself not so much fear of death but then I remind myself,
What about rebirth?
Be careful what kind of mind state we have,
We're heedful.
We want to die with a lot of clarity,
We want to die with a balanced mind.
We want to die with the aspiration to keep practicing because in many respects it's the body that dies and the mind,
If it's not liberated,
Has to go on.
So aware of death and aware of rebirth.
But if we keep the sila,
We keep up the practice,
It's very likely that rebirth will be in an auspicious place but no guarantee.
But very likely anyway.
What we can do is,
As much practice as possible,
This is always going to increase our blessings in the future.
It's a blessing now and a blessing in the future.
So everybody is putting forth a lot of good effort,
A lot of harmony,
A lot of cooperation and it's rare for human beings to come together and support each other in these kind of special circumstances so we can all rejoice in the current blessings ripening in our lives and the blessings that our practice will generate in the future.
Wholeheartedly practicing is already generating more opportunities to practice and that's really wonderful.
Sincerely practicing now,
You will have opportunities to practice again.
So coming back to our breath,
Maintaining that awareness,
Learning how to let go of the causes of suffering,
Experiencing the potential of the mind at least to be peaceful in moments,
Liberated temporarily and take that as a positive affirmation of your true potential.
