Last time you saw me we looked at the blessing number five,
Having done good deeds in one's past.
With the time I talk today we will continue our series on enlightened living with blessing number six,
Setting ourselves up properly in life.
I should point out from the start that this blessing has a lot in common with the eighth lecture of the meditation for beginners series,
Which I've already given as a 008 and the introduction to meditation and self transformation series,
Which I've already given as a 011.
But this session we have a few more scriptural stories and some elaboration of the dangers of prevarication.
The sixth blessing is the last in the second group of blessings on the theme of turning towards virtue.
It builds upon what has gone before with the nurture of blessing four and the nature of blessing five,
Bringing spiritual development to a point where the third grouping,
Making oneself useful can start to become meaningful.
The objective of studying this blessing is to help extricate ourselves from unwholesomeness,
To become inspired to stand on our own two feet financially,
To avoid prevarication about accruing merit and to learn to set priorities and overcome obstacles concerning our aim in life.
What I will argue is that anyone who wants to understand the importance of being their own refuge and of accruing merit does need to have direction structured by a clear aim in life.
Setting oneself up in the proper way refers to setting up both material and spiritual aspects of our being where of course the material means financial matters and where setting up the mind properly means the intention to pursue a pathway towards self improvement.
So what is to say that we don't already have a proper plan for our material and spiritual aims in life?
A telltale sign is the feeling that life is passing us by at an alarming pace.
All of us started out as a mere baby growing up to elementary school and then to high school.
Some of us went to college to get a degree with the expectation that a nice degree would help us to get a nice job with a nice income so that we could get a nice partner.
Before long we could have our own family but then we find ourselves getting older and the doctor starts to visit you more frequently and then they bury you under the ground and if you are lucky perhaps there will still be some people who remember you enough to come and put flowers on your grave.
Without intending to be overly morbid such a whistle stop overview of life forces us to consider whether there should be more to life than this.
If we are not careful it is as if life is living us instead of us living our lives.
The short space of our lives come past us by in the blink of an eye without us achieving the things that we really wanted to do.
The end of the day we will regret not having done more with our life that really mattered to us.
Each day of our lives is made up of 24 hours but how much of that time do we spend asleep?
Five hours?
Six hours?
For some people it's as much as 10 hours a day but on average it's about 8 hours.
How much of our time do we spend working or studying?
For most people it is an 8 hour day and that doesn't include any overtime you might have to do.
So that's already 16 hours of your 24 hour day gone without even starting to do the things that matter to you.
What do you spend the remaining 8 hours of your day doing?
Walking up and down?
Cooking?
Eating?
Washing up?
Chatting or binging Netflix?
Before you know it you can find that the whole of your 24 hours is filled up with things of no great value to you.
If it were only a single day it wouldn't matter but over the course of a lifetime this might be all you manage to achieve in your life.
If this is the case where will you find the time to meditate?
If you are lucky enough to live for 60 years according to a recent survey,
On average people will have spent 29 years connected to their online life,
25 years asleep,
17 years trying to lose weight,
4.
8 years with their friends and family,
2.
5 years cooking,
A whole year picking out outfits,
5 months grumbling and only 115 days of their entire life laughing.
This is why you can see that our assumption that life is long is definitely disingenuous.
We are reckless to think that our life is long.
You can see that we need to organise our time properly if we are going to find time to develop the quality of our minds.
You need to make time to meditate.
You need to carve out space in your life in order for your own self transformation to be accomplished.
Otherwise old age will creep up on you leaving you with aches and pains,
Fatigue,
Shortness of breath and no opportunity or energy to devote yourself to your self transformation even if you do have time for it when you are retired.
What can you do if you'd like to achieve more from life but you never seem to have the time?
One way is to add clarity to your priorities and aims in life.
It helps to protect us from interruptions in life which are urgent but not important like a ringing telephone which can upset the whole pace of our lives.
Such interruptions can leave us unable to organise our time as we would wish.
Sometimes these interruptions are really unavoidable and at other times we give them too much importance so they end up robbing us of our time.
One reason why we are unable to set the priorities we want is because we lack a clear perspective of the things we really value.
With meditation we are dealing with a practice and a tradition which has lifelong consequences for us.
Therefore for the practice of meditation and for setting up complementary priorities in life we cannot afford to overlook a clear perspective of our own lives.
We can call such an overview our aim in life.
As meditators,
If we have a certain clarity of aim in life,
As intelligent human beings,
We'll be able to use our wisdom to plan out our lives according to our priorities.
If we have no priorities and no direction,
More often than not,
Life will pass us by as if on autopilot.
So having a clear aim in life will ideally include plans for our life on three different levels,
The worldly,
Heavenly and transcendental levels and we will look at each in turn.
Everybody comes into the world with nothing but all of us have the same basic needs for survival whether it be the food on the table,
Clothes on our backs,
A roof over our head or the medicine that keeps us healthy.
If any one of these things are lacking,
Survival is jeopardized.
According to the law of threes,
You can survive three minutes without breathable air,
Three hours in an extreme environment,
Three days without drinkable water and three weeks without food.
This is why it's only natural that people should aim to be self-sufficient in their basic physical needs.
If their aim in life is any lower than this,
They either risk their own survival or they become a burden on others.
Of course,
Some people are not satisfied with just surviving.
They may want to be millionaires,
They may want creature comforts,
To realize the American dream and retire at 40.
In fact,
However much or little you want,
Whether it is just to fulfill your physical needs or to satisfy your physical wants,
Such an aim in life is still quite short-sighted.
It's based on immediate rewards,
To eat,
Drink and be merry.
In their youth,
Such people seek experience.
In their middle age,
They amass wealth.
Towards the end of their lives,
They try to find an heir for their wealth.
Such aims in life are called world-bound because they extend no further than this world and this existence.
Without doing down Western materialism completely,
I would advise that budding materialists who want to set themselves up properly in life should at least make sure they earn their living in a way that doesn't deviate from wholesomeness or what is known as right livelihood.
In fact,
Setting oneself up in a proper way for those with a world-bound aim in life needs to consist of two components,
Avoiding unwholesomeness and standing on your own two feet.
Apart from conforming with right livelihood,
Which I will return to in more detail in the 18th blessing,
Those with a world-bound aim in life need to avoid unwholesomeness.
And this means specifically avoiding the six roads to ruin or Abaya Mukha,
Which comprise drinking alcohol or taking intoxicating drugs like opium or heroin,
Nightlife such as requenting red-light districts,
Being a junkie for entertainment that has content that is either romantic or frivolous,
Gambling and lotteries,
Associating with unwholesome companions and being too lazy to earn your living.
In fact,
We have already met up with four of these roads to ruins as things that fools are likely to persuade us to do as part of the first blessing.
As for standing on your own two feet,
We have a retrospective to the four chambers of the millionaire's heart which we met up with in the second blessing as part of our association with the wise.
These are the prerequisite virtues for accruing benefit in the present lifetime,
Namely being diligent and honest in the acquisition of wealth,
Taking good care of your earnings,
Communicating only with good friends and spending within your means.
All this hard work will only be a benefit to us in the present lifetime.
However,
If you also want benefits in future lifetimes,
You need to know how to accrue merit as well to go beyond limitations of the world bound aim in life to avoid a meaningless life.
It is important to have an aim in life that runs a little deeper while recognizing that we do need to earn a living.
We need to accept that our salary is only a means to an end.
While we all suffer from physical hunger,
We also suffer to a greater or lesser extent from a hunger of the spirit or the mind as well.
If the mind is left hungry,
It will deprive your life of a sense of meaning.
The upshot of which is that alongside your worldly pursuits,
You also need to find time to reach towards a higher spiritual dimension.
With this thought in mind,
We come to the second level of aim in life,
Which you could refer to as the heaven bound aim in life.
The second level of aim in life is known as heaven bound because it extends beyond the mundane world and this existence.
Setting yourself up properly in a way that conforms with our heaven bound aim in life consists of three components,
Namely avoiding unwholesomeness,
Standing on your own two feet and cultivating virtuous speech and action.
Avoiding unwholesomeness and standing on your own two feet are the same as for those with the world bound aim in life.
However,
On this level,
We have the addition of virtuous speech and action.
If we cast our mind back to the virtues comprising benefit in the hereafter,
Which we met up with in the second blessing,
Then we will remember that there are four things that we need to do to set ourselves up properly on the heaven bound level.
The strength of spiritual aim in life we are talking about means that we need to cultivate the faith or confidence that doing good deeds is of some benefit.
We must not exploit or take advantage of those weaker than us.
We should be generous and we should try to become wiser as we go through life.
Especially on the level of the heaven bound aim in life,
The main danger we are up against is leaving our cultivation of spiritual values until it's too late in life.
In this connection,
There are five possible pitfalls that we need to avoid,
Mostly to do with prevarication.
Firstly,
We shouldn't wait until we're too old before getting spiritual.
We need to start exercising the muscles of our spiritual heart from the time we are young and healthy.
We should be like the Buddhist son,
Rahula,
Who started his spiritual apprenticeship at the temple from a time early in his childhood.
If we attend the temple from an early age,
We can learn from our own and other's successes instead of having to learn from our disastrous mistakes in life,
Such as addiction to intoxicants,
As one of the main pitfalls that comes to mind.
A second caution is that we need to avoid delays in setting ourselves up properly in life.
We should work hard to make sure we're self-sufficient in life at the earliest possible opportunity.
Anyone who is still couchsurfing their parents should regard gainful employment as a matter of personal self-respect.
A third poignant piece of advice is not to delay in paying off any debts that you might have.
You shouldn't let your debts be something that you carry with you until your next life.
Often it can be interest-owing that cripples our finances rather than the actual principle that we need to pay back.
Apart from paying back what we owe,
Rather than taking out loans,
We should save up before making an investment rather than borrowing in advance for purchases we can't afford.
Otherwise,
If you die before you've paid back your loan,
Next lifetime you'll have that debt hanging around your neck like a dead albatross.
Suppose you borrow a dollar but die before you can pay it back.
Supposing you're an angel for a thousand years,
Just think of what the compound interest will add up to in that lifetime.
You might never manage to pay it back at all.
The fourth piece of advice is not to prevaricate about improving on your bad habits.
If you know anything about yourself as a bad habit,
Then drop it as soon as you can.
You need to perform a personal inventory of your habits as a regular part of your practice and improve yourself instead of wasting time finding fault with other people.
Last but not least,
You need to be careful of mixing up bad deeds with our good ones.
And an example of that might be wishing for unskillful or irresponsible things on the basis of the good deeds that you have already done.
So having looked at setting ourselves up properly in life on the world-bound and heaven-bound levels,
We should turn our attention now to a level of aim in life which involves breaking free from rebirth altogether.
This might be referred to as the transcendental level of aim in life or perhaps the unbound aim in life.
There are certain people,
Perhaps quite rare ones in the world,
Whose awareness of the hunger in the mind is so great that they need to deal with the hunger at its root.
So great is the intensity of their calling that they seek opportunities to devote themselves full-time to the pursuit of spirituality,
Not just to improve their sense of meaning in life but to reach spiritual perfection.
They hope to purify themselves so completely that the hunger in the mind may be completely extinguished.
They have to have sufficient time to devote to spiritual study without having to compromise their time in order to earn a living.
They will spend their time learning the spiritual way and teaching it to the best of their ability so intensively that the life of the householder and the family no longer holds any attraction for them.
Such a level of aim in life is known as the transcendental because it is like the express lane that seeks to bring a person to the end of all further suffering and to help others to do the same.
This is mostly the domain of monks and nuns but it can also be sampled by spending time following eight precepts or participating in a meditation retreat.
This was the level of aim in life needed by the Bodhisattva himself when pursuing perfections in the lifetimes leading up to his eventual Buddhahood.
This is why even on the unbound level of aim in life some sort of structure is still needed in order to waste no time in pursuing the goal of purifying the mind to a point where it can enter upon nirvana.
On this level even material convenience is sacrificed in order fully to cultivate spiritual development.
So having looked at all three levels of aim in life necessary for setting ourselves up properly in life there is time for a quick story which in this case concerns how the virtue of setting ourselves up properly in life affected the destiny of 500 fishermen and the fish they caught over the course of several lifetimes.
In the time the previous Buddha named Kasapa there was a gang of 500 violent robbers who are running amok in a kingdom in ancient India.
A posse of householders got together with the king's army and chased the robbers deeper and deeper into the forest.
Eventually the band of robbers came to a clearing in the heart of the forest and there they met a monk of particularly peaceful countenance.
Seeing the monk the robbers started to realize the error of their ways.
Realizing they were at death's door they were suddenly much more receptive to what the monk had to say.
The monk taught them that they needed to keep the precepts even if they had to put their lives on the line to do so since if they were captured no one would spare their lives.
The thieves took the five precepts and didn't try to evade their captures anymore.
They concentrated all their attention on keeping their precepts pure.
Keeping the precepts meant that they could not hurt even a mosquito let alone an armed soldier who was chasing them.
Before long the soldiers caught up with the robbers but the robbers kept their word and put up no resistance.
All 500 thieves were executed but through the power of keeping the precepts to the degree that they would sacrifice their lives their bad deeds didn't have the chance to catch up with them at that time.
They were born instantly into the heaven realm.
However the unwholesomeness of their past did not disappear but was waiting for the opportunity to give its retribution.
After a period in the heaven realm the 500 returned to the human realm but the karma from their violent past caused them to be reborn as fishermen all in the same village.
However even though their livelihood meant they had to kill fish through the power of their good deeds in the past they still had faith in Buddhism.
Even so the fishermen continued to collect demerit as a result of their habitual killing.
One day a group of fishermen caught a giant gold colored fish as big as a boat.
No one had ever seen such a fish in their lives.
So they captured the fish alive and took it to present to King Pathanati of Kosala who was so mystified that he took the fish to show the Buddha.
The most mysterious aspect of the fisherman's catch was that when the fish opened its mouth it had a terrible smell on its breath.
King wanted to know why such a beautiful fish would have such foul smelling breath.
The Buddha revealed the story of the fish's past.
It turned out that in one of the fish's previous existences it had been a learned Bhikkhu named Kapila during the time of Kasapa Buddha.
Kapila learned the three Pitakas and intoxicated with his learning disagreed with everyone whether they were right or wrong.
He would heed no admonition and followed a life of evil conduct.
One day when Kapila was reciting the Patimokkha none of the other monks gave the responses required and in anger he declared there's no such thing as Sutta,
Abhidhamma or Vinaya it makes no difference whether you listen to this Patimokkha or not and turned his back on them.
The misrepresentation of the Dharma was thus perpetuated amongst his followers although the other monks including his teacher Narahans warned him of the danger of his misrepresenting the Dharma.
But he would not listen and eventually he developed false view.
When he passed away these false views dragged him down into the unfortunate realms for a long time.
Only subsequently could he be reborn as a fish.
The good karma of having kept the precepts of a monk in his past life gave him a beautiful golden appearance of the fish.
But the retribution of misrepresenting the Dharma gave him his stinking mouth.
Hearing the previous karma of the fish the 500 fishermen considered all the unwholesome deeds that they had done as a result of their livelihood since their youth.
They realized that their retribution would certainly be no less than the fate of the fish they caught.
So they decided collectively all to become monks and to devote themselves to Dharma practice for the rest of their lives.
In conclusion the power of having sacrificed their lives for their precepts in a previous existence in other words having set themselves up properly in life meant that before long they could all become Arahants and were no longer subject to the retribution of the unwholesomeness in the karma of their past.
So to return gently to today's subject matter of setting oneself up properly in life it may be all very well to know about the three levels of Ayman life in theory and how to apply this guidance in our everyday lives and how to know how ambitious we can afford to be.
After all if we are too ambitious we might drive ourselves to despair.
Is there an art in knowing which aspects of ourselves to change and which ones that we need to put up with for the interim.
Gaining clarity about our Ayman life and working out what to change and what to endure is knowing your own strengths.
To see your strengths you need to have looked deeper than your surface.
In order to really know yourself then you need to consider yourselves in terms of several factors.
Sometimes a list of factors runs to a total of five core virtues referred to by the Buddha as Sara Tama.
In other places they are elaborated further to a total of seven based on a set of virtues found in the Wati Sutta of the Anguttara Nikaya.
Whatever set you choose to base your self-evaluation upon you can regard the list as a mirror which you can hold up to yourself to clarify your own Ayman life while at the same time assessing your potential for ambitious changes in your life.
The first quality is your level of inspiration otherwise known as faith or confidence or in the Pali language Satha.
You need to believe in what you're doing.
It means believing that the good deeds that you're doing are really having an effect.
For example if you train to be a doctor but you don't believe in the value of modern medicine perhaps you would be better off doing something you generally do believe in.
In much the same way how much you are inspired to do good deeds may affect your ability to see them through to completion.
If you know for example that joining a meditation group or hearing a Dhamma talk will make you less lazy to meditate then you may need to build up group attendance or Dhamma talks into your practice.
If you want to go further than this and become a pillar of society you need to be able to inspire not only yourself but also inspire those around you in society as well.
This means believing in the appropriate things.
It means train yourself to be responsible but not be gullible.
The difference between being faithful and being gullible is that the latter has no reason for their confidence.
This is why wisdom is always an important component of faith.
From the Buddhist point of view the basis of faith is confidence in the existence of the Buddha,
The working of karma,
That doing good deeds really does give rise to good results and the result of one's actions will have a corresponding karmic outcome.
The second quality you need to look at is the integrity of your precepts.
The person with integrity is probably the sort of person you would like to share your house with or the sort of person you would trust to babysit your kids.
The level of earnest in maintaining a baseline of morality and not taking advantage of others differs from person to person.
A sloppy person might raise their hand with the thought of slapping a mosquito but then remembers they're trying to keep the precepts and so chases the mosquito away as quickly as they can in case they change their mind and do some harm.
Such a person's level of commitment to morality is still not very strong.
A slightly more morally together person,
When they realise they're being bitten by a mosquito,
Might still harbour irritation and chase the mosquito away without any further anger or vengefulness.
A more accomplished person,
Whether a mosquito bites them or not,
Will maintain their basis of morality as a bright sphere which they perceive at the centre of their body the whole of the time.
In any case,
We will return to the subject of integrity in keeping the precepts in the ninth blessing.
A third quality is how much learning you have under your belt,
Technically known as Bahu Sutta.
This depends mainly on the depth of studies you have made in virtue and morality.
It also depends on how much you can remember of what you've learned and how much you understand too.
It includes being diligent in the acquisition of knowledge of both spiritual and worldly matters by listening to many teachings.
The fourth quality is knowing the limits of your own generosity and the ability to let go of the things which you are attached to.
The technical name for this in the Buddha's teaching is covered by the Pali word Chakka.
Some people find it difficult to let go or to give up the material things they possess.
Other people will not teach others anything of what they know.
Others are still unable to forgive others or let go of the angry feelings they have towards certain other people.
If this is the case with you,
Then you need to know that you are still limited in a degree of your generosity.
Society can only survive because of the generosity between the members of that society.
If you are still selfish or angry with others,
Don't be surprised if people treat you as a nobody because a nobody is exactly who you are in the eyes of a society where everyone must share to be loved.
The fifth quality is your level of knowledge,
Common sense and insight referred to by the Pali word Panna.
Wisdom is more than just knowledge or worldly experience.
Knowledge arises as a result of the power of the still mind to gain insight into the reality of situations and see through to problems at their roots.
Society needs people of vision.
If you develop such vision through your insight,
You will be that much more valuable and important to society and able to take on more in terms of an aim in life.
The sixth quality is your ability to answer questions on your toes without having the chance to go and prepare beforehand.
The more ability you have in this department,
The more quick-witted you are.
If you are still lacking in this department,
Then you need to make the effort to train yourself further by rehearsing before live performances.
Possible seventh,
Not actually mentioned in the scriptural list but still relevant I think is how healthy you are.
You can take on more spiritual transformation if you are in good health.
If your health is compromised,
Then you need to reduce the scope of your ambitions for spiritual transformation.
Apart from defining the limits of yourself in each of these seven departments,
You need to meditate every day or at least sit for meditation before you go to sleep each night.
If you know your own strengths,
Then you will also be able to set up your ability to change things successfully for the better in your life.
If you are serious about clarifying your aim in life,
You might try pinning this list of seven factors on your mirror and ask yourself each day which factor has improved since yesterday.
In a Buddhist context,
The idea is that sooner or later everyone will make it to the highest level of aim in life,
Being able to break free of the cycle of existence or samsara.
However,
There are certain preconditions to reaching the point where you can successfully embark on the journey to the highest level of aim in life.
To have a chance at the transcendental or unbound level of aim in life,
Then you need to have all your ducks in a row.
There are six ducks that are prerequisite to the highest level of aim in life.
Firstly,
You need to have been born in an amenable location as described in the fourth blessing,
And you must have done good deeds until getting used to them as mentioned in the previous blessing.
These come together with the four accomplishments to give us a total of six prerequisites known as the six catalysts or accomplishments.
So,
To list the six prerequisites in order,
We need to have catalytic circumstances or gati sampati,
Catalytic timing or gala sampati,
Catalytic location or padesa sampati,
Catalytic family or gula sampati,
Catalytic state of well-being or upati sampati,
And catalytic view or diti sampati.
These latter four will ensure that the merit from your past will give its fruit without delay in the present lifetime.
If you find that you are hampered in setting yourself up in life in the way you'd wish,
It's possible that you will have to master the blessings number four and five to contribute sufficient accomplishments to your spiritual quest to give the escape velocity that you need to forge your destiny to the full.
British cosmology gives special significance to the human realm as the common market of opportunity where people can forge their destinies for the better or the worse.
The human realm is seen as a waystation between the fortunate realms above and the unfortunate realms below.
Wherever you have come from and wherever you're going,
The human realm is the place of opportunity for you to fulfill your dream.
In this connection,
There is a discourse called the Tamasutra,
Which is found in both the Tiangutra and Samyuttanikayas,
Which describes four possible trajectories through the human realm.
The first of the four trajectories is out of the darkness and into the light.
The slide shows the pagoda,
Which is our usual representation of the Buddhist cosmos,
Where the human realm is the bell-shaped part with fortunate realms above and unfortunate realms below.
This human trajectory is where people use their human lives to turn over a new leaf on their unskillful past by doing only good deeds and thereafter hopefully progressing only between the fortunate realms and the human realm from that lifetime forth.
Even though they might be short of merit at birth or neglected by their parents,
But given good surroundings or kind grandparents,
For example,
And with a willingness to resist the temptation to relapse into old habits,
They might have the opportunity to do a lot of good deeds during their life,
Although they have to prepare themselves to meet with many obstacles every time they think of doing something good.
For example,
When they want to give alms,
There may be no monks available or it might be raining heavily.
However,
If they keep up the effort,
In the end,
They will be able to accumulate merit for themselves until the end of their life,
And they can make it to the fortunate realms.
However,
It's not many people who can transform their destinies for the better in such a way.
Most are hopelessly handicapped by the circumstances they have since their birth.
Nonetheless,
The opportunity is there for those willing to give the chance at confronting adversity.
The second of the four trajectories is where beings descend from light into darkness.
This is where people waste their chance as a human and simply use their privileges and charmed life to exploit those around them.
The bad karma they amass for themselves will drag them down to the Netherlands of bad rebirth for hundreds of thousands of lifetimes.
Instead of building upon their advantages to further their goodness,
They think to themselves,
What's the point of doing any good deeds,
Even without lifting a finger,
Everything has been automatically been easy for me since birth.
With this attitude,
They spend their time maybe drunk or playing around in life doing no more good deeds and doing unscrupulous things.
This is why when they pass away,
Instead of returning to the fortunate realms,
They end up in the unfortunate realms instead.
The third of the four trajectories through the human realm is where people are born out of the darkness and into the darkness.
When born in the human realm,
Their old weaknesses gain the upper hand and again they waste their opportunity as a human doing no further good deeds until they are eventually relegated back to the unfortunate realm from where they came.
The final of the four trajectories is where people are born out of the light and pass away into the light.
At the crossroads of destiny,
Are represented by the human realm,
They use the power of the good deeds they have accumulated over the course of many lifetimes to progress closer to Nirvana.
Of course,
They have many advantages because their parents have prepared everything in advance.
They have the best of opportunities and things to facilitate their pursuit of good deeds.
It's like a chalice filled almost to the brim at birth,
It only takes a few more drops for it to overflow.
Everything they wish to do is accomplished with ease.
However,
Even such people cannot afford to be complacent.
No matter whether a person has arisen in the human realm by way of the fortunate realms or the unfortunate realms,
As a Buddhist they cannot afford to be reckless.
Buddhists who understand the working of the cycle of existence try to make sure that they are always born out of the light and into the light,
Never straying outside the two worlds of the heavenly and the human realms.
If you have a clear and accurate aim in life,
In other words,
You have set yourself up properly in life,
Then you'll be able to maintain and upgrade your destiny as part of your time in the human realm,
Going out of the light and into the light in every lifetime until you can eventually enter upon Nirvana.
In the time of the Buddha,
There was a Brahmin couple who lived in the city of Rajagaha.
The husband was an elder of the Arhatavacca clan,
Which was a very strict clan for its Brahmin observances.
The husband had never shown any interest in Buddhism,
But his wife,
Dhananjani,
By contrast,
Was a secret admirer of the Buddha and had already become enlightened at the level of a stream-enterer after hearing the Buddha's teaching.
One day,
The husband wanted to hold a feast for all the Brahmins of high standing in the city or the clerics of that religion.
Accordingly,
The husband and wife started their elaborate preparations for the feast,
But when it came close to the big day,
Because it was the habit of the wife always to exclaim Buddho whenever something surprised her,
Her husband appealed to her on the day of the feast not to mention anything about Buddhism or to say anything in praise of the triple gem in front of the clerics.
The wife said,
My mind is unified with the Dharma,
Therefore whatever I say will also be Dharma.
There is nothing you can do to stop my mind from being that way.
And the husband said,
And what if I take a sword and cut you into little pieces,
Will that help you to educate your mind?
But the wife retorted,
Even if you were to make mincemeat of me,
I wouldn't help me from having the Dharma as my refuge.
The husband didn't know what more to say,
So they got on with the work of providing the feast.
Everything went well until the wife slipped over on a pile of spilled rice and exclaimed Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arhato Samma Sambuddhassa.
All the clerics heard the wife's exclamation.
They were so angered by what they had heard,
And previously they understood the wife had invited them because she admired them,
Now it was revealed that she had invited them on false pretenses.
So they were especially angry,
Because they were opposed to everything that the Buddha did.
All those who had finished their meal immediately stood up and shouted insults at the couple.
Those who had not finished eating overturned every plate of food on the table.
They stamped their feet and walked out on the couple.
The husband was so angry he didn't know what to say.
He couldn't do anything to punish his wife,
So he thought to take out his anger on his wife's teacher,
The Buddha himself.
So he buckled on his sword and he turned in the direction of Jetavana monastery with the intention to put an end to the Buddha and his teachings.
The husband walked straight up to the Buddha without paying respect and in his anger shouted the rhetorical question at the Buddha,
What does a man have to kill in order to get a good night's sleep?
The Brahmin thought that putting an end to the Buddha was the only way he could save face and sleep soundly that night.
But without waiting for an answer,
The Brahmin continued,
And what does a man have to kill to cure his sorrow?
And still without waiting for an answer,
The Brahmin asked the Buddha,
And so what form of killing would you support?
The Buddha knew what was on the mind of the Brahmin and coolly answered the first question with the words,
A man must kill his anger in order to get a good night's sleep.
If you don't kill your anger,
You will do things that you regret later,
Being put in a prison or punished.
But if you kill your anger,
You don't need to undergo the sorrowful consequences of your angry deeds.
The noble ones praise the killing of anger,
Whose root is poison and whose crown is sweet.
When the Buddha said that the root of anger is poisonous,
He meant that the anger has suffering as its result.
When he said that the crown is sweet,
It means that we get strange twisted satisfaction out of expressing our anger to others or losing our temper.
After hearing only these few words,
Bharata Vacha was impressed by the Buddha.
He was so impressed that the Buddha was not angry in response to his anger.
He had prepared his sword to chop the Buddha to pieces at the first unwelcome word,
But instead of hearing anything to irritate him further,
The Brahmin had been so impressed by every part of the Buddha's reasoning that he threw down his sword and invited the Buddha to teach him further.
In the end,
He was motivated to practice the Dharma further and ended up ordaining as a monk.
In conclusion,
Putting an end to your anger is one of the ways of setting yourself up in life.
To ordain as a result of a teaching is to set yourself up in faith,
In the precepts,
In wisdom or in meditation.
It was in this intense way that Bharata Vacha set himself up in life and before long could practice until attaining Arahantship.
So this session I have introduced blessing number 6,
Setting oneself up properly in life.
For my next session with you,
I'll move on to the seventh blessing on the topic of artfulness in knowledge,
Which explains how to transform our study skills into a path of blessings.
Hopefully as a result of today's session,
Even if you didn't start out with a clear idea of your aim in life,
You will now be sufficiently savvy and motivated to set yourself up properly in life.
So for today,
This is me,
Pratt Nicholas,
Tiny Zero,
Signing off for now.
So long folks and stay safe.
