Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
		Learn to Practice Buddhism
	Home About Us  Current Program John D. Hughes Recorded Teachings Teachings Links  Contact Us Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. 33 Brooking St   Upwey, Victoria   Australia  3158    A.C.N. 005 701 806  A.B.N. 42 611 496 488   Phone: (03) 9754 3334 Fax:     (03) 9754 3334  email: wbu@bdcu.org.au         Disclaimer	A do it yourself approach to Buddhism Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 1 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 2 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 3 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 4 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 5 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 6 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 7 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 8 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 9 Learn to Practice Buddhism Part 10 Learn to Practice Buddhism - Part 1 I saw on TV recently part of the final concert of a very famous 1960's pop star named Cat Stevens who at the height of his fame and success walked away from his music and everything he had achieved to begin a new life as a Muslim. At his final farewell concert the last thing he said before he walked offstage was along the lines of this. "We have only got this life. So we had better do something exceptional with it. I hope you can find such a path". We will give a short overview of what it is that Buddhism offers us that could justify us making the considerable effort to learn and practice this religion as against any another religion or as against not practicing anything particular at all in our life. There are many ways of explaining Buddhism. We would like to present you with the notion that: Buddhism is a set of knowledges which enable a person to take control of creating their own happiness and wellbeing. The teachings of Buddhism are based upon the way nature works, the way our minds work naturally. They arise from the Buddha's perfectly clear observation and insight into the mind and into the processes of life. The Buddha simply saw things perfectly clearly. That was the quality of his attainment as a Buddha. His vast incomparable Buddha mind had this attainment which was the essence of what formed into the religion Buddhism. There were 52 religions in Buddha's time. Why did he start another one? The Buddha saw with perfect vision what no one else at his time could see. What none of the 52 religions at that time or since offered humanity. He saw the true nature of the mind - the nature of feelings, the nature of the different types of consciousness we can experience, the nature of thoughts, memory, self images, the natural laws upon which our minds function and the most deceptive of all things - the self. And in recognising the nature of mind he also discovered a particular state of mind, a sublime jewel, unseen by us in the noise of our mental phenomena, a unique and liberating state which has no mental pain whatsoever. It is named Nirvana in Sanskrit, or Nibbana from the Pali language used in the Buddha's time. It is a natural state of mind which is the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice. The Buddha having discovered the existence of Nibbana for himself, then for the next 45 years of his life taught countless others the path or practice through which Nibbana could be known each for himself or herself. In our times we have learned through science that horizons of what we can see are ever expanding. Back through millions of light years in time, through quantum physics we can see into the infinitesimally small dimensions of reality's building blocks, yet all these impressive visions are in the world outside of ourselves. Our inside world really we don't see much at all. We see further and further outwardly, not far at all inwardly. Why is that? Our mind is all we have got to deal with the events and processes in our life. Buddhism says it is possible to understand our own mind and it is the most important thing we need to understand and develop. The quality of our experience of life is most determined by the quality of our own mind. Many persons in Australia who are not socially isolated, are well educated and have affluent lifestyles frequently experience many forms of unhappiness. These include worry, stress, anxiety, insecurity, sadness, anger, frustration and depression. Australia has one of the world's highest rates of suicide, particularly among our youth, yet our biggest cities are regarded as being amongst the top 20 cities in the world to reside in. Our material standards of living are among the worlds best. Our mental culture appears by this criteria to be one of the world's lowest. Buddhism gives us the mind tools and methods to be able to see our own mind with increasing clarity and understanding. This is the Buddhist approach to developing and maintaining a healthy mind. This is what the Buddha did. After his many years of training and practice he learned how to look into his own mind with perfect clarity and insight and he understood it. Whilst we may read about Buddhism it is not enough for us to have an intellectual understanding or even respectful appreciation of what the Buddha found out. Just like looking at food on the table will not cure you of hunger, merely appreciating Buddhism will not make you happy. Buddhist teachings are instructions and methods to be used to cultivate, develop and improve our life situation. So Buddhism is a do-it-yourself religion. During our course at the DRCCC we will focus our attention on how we can build our own happiness through "Learning to Practice Buddhism". To make this process effective immediately we recommend that you identify a couple of key ideas from each night of the course to take away with you and apply during the next week. This is called "active listening" when you listen to find something definite you can use. Sometime during each teaching when you recognise the usefulness of a practice decide straight away "I'll try this out this week". It's called use it or lose it. Our Teacher John Hughes used to say if we find out something new, and can recognise its usefulness we must put it into practice straight away. At the time we discover something new our mind has the best understanding of why we need to change our habit and adopt the new behaviour. The next day our sense of urgency to change becomes weaker, the day after less again. We are creatures of habit, our habit energy sometimes is difficult to overcome, our best opportunity to make a change, the best conditions to make a change is generally as soon as you understand clearly the need to change. Be bold, decide quickly to change once you can see the need to change - take no prisoners as they say. Now to get started we will listen to a recorded Dhamma or Buddhist Teaching given by a Buddhist monk Ajarn Brahm who lives in Perth, Australia. Audio Transcription of Ajarn Brahm "Now, we're back when I was a young monk, in the monasteries of Thailand. This was in the jungle a long way from civilisation. It was tough, it was hard and even, though I was from a privileged background in Cambridge, in England. Now I had to work really hard. On this particular occasion, we were building the main hall in Ajahn Chah, my teacher's Monastery. Now I know that this is a new hall here and it's always built on a high place, because that's our tradition to build things on high places, so we had to build a hill out of earth. It was a monk made hill! Fortunately I wasn't there at that time, I visited afterwards and when I visited there was a lot of earth left over so Ajahn Chah called all the monks together, maybe 60 or 70 monks and he said "move that earth". We only had one meal of the day and it was very, very poor. But nevertheless from about nine-thirty, maybe ten o' clock, all day, to about ten o' clock in the evening, we'd shovel earth, put it in wheelbarrows and move that wheelbarrow of earth down to the place where Ajahn Chah wanted. We took three hard days of labour, sweating, aching, being bitten by misquotes, but I had faith. I thought this was good karma, so I kept pushing those wheelbarrows, but I must admit when it was all over after three days I was very happy. I thought wow we've finished it, tomorrow I can have a rest. I can meditate. That evening Ajahn Chah thanked us all and announced the following day, now that the work was done, he was visiting one of his other Monasteries. The following morning after breakfast, the monk in charge, this deputy monk, he brought all the monk's together and said I've been thinking "I don't think that's the right place for that earth, lets move it 'round the corner". Now that was testing my faith. But I thought no, I respect that monk too, I am a Buddhist, I will let go, I will push those wheelbarrows…for another three days of hard work toiling under the hot conditions of a Thai jungle. Working so hard, enduring all those mosquito bites, after another three days we'd finished. Now I was really happy, really relieved, we'd moved it and they were happy. But that night, Ajahn Chah came back, and yes you guessed what happened, he got all the monks together and he said "what did you put it there for? I told you to put it over here, move it! Another three days of pushing wheelbarrows was in front of me. "I didn't become a monk to push wheelbarrows! I didn't put on the yellow robes to be exploited like this! We monks should form a union! We should stand up for our rights! Because the senior monks, they didn't push wheelbarrows, they were just telling us what to do and so I got very upset, I got very angry. In fact I started swearing in English so the Thai's couldn't understand. But they did understand, they could see my facial expressions. One monk came up to me and gave me a teaching, which helped me for so many years. He came up and told me this. He said "pushing the wheelbarrow is easy, thinking about it is the hard part. Pushing the wheelbarrow is easy, thinking about it is the hard part". How true that was, as soon as I stopped complaining, as soon as I stopped thinking about it and just pushed that wheelbarrow, that wheelbarrow was lighter and there was no suffering anymore. It was the thinking, which caused me the suffering. Why me? This is unfair! Can't those monks decide what they're going to do? Why did I join a disorganised religion? So once I stopped complaining it was easy to do, I pushed those wheelbarrows and it was no problem. I learnt a lesson. I learnt that whatever you do in life thinking about it is the hard part, doing it is easy. Whether it's giving a talk in public, whether it's going for an exam, whatever test you have in life, stop thinking about it so much! Just do it. And the talk this evening is sponsored by Nike! You just do it. Now, how much in your life do you think too much? Thinking too much is a great cause of suffering. There are so many things you have to do in life so stop complaining!" So Ajarn says in his talk "Thinking too much is a great cause of suffering" Can you relate to that in your life? So Buddhism is like this. We analyse something we do as a habit and decide whether this thing we are doing is really good for us or not. If it is beneficial we should do more of it or learn to do it better. If it is not good for us we need to find out how to reduce it or produce something else which is better. So we generally agree too much thinking is a great cause of our suffering. We may worry and have regret about things we have done in the past, we worry and stress about things we are doing in the present (like Ajarn with the wheelbarrow) and worry and fear about things yet to come. But how do we stop it? Ajarn Brahm said at the end of the talk "There are so many things we do in life, stop complaining". Stop complaining??? Now look at what your own mind is saying when you hear the instruction "Stop complaining". "Stop complaining - what will I have to talk about?" There is a teaching given by our Teacher John D. Hughes some years ago which you may like to try this week as a step towards reducing your stress and worry. You adopt the position of the following statement: "My life is going extremely well". You say this to yourself many times a day. "My life is going extremely well". Usually our minds pick up every little thing that is not going perfectly for us. We seem to let our attention focus on disagreeable things. We tend to complain about this, and whinge a bit about that. There may be 100 things going fine, but still our mind gets caught up in the little things which maybe only last five minutes. For example, someone cuts us off when we are driving, we burnt the toast, it's raining when we want it to be sunny, it's sunny when we wanted rain, or someone says something unkind to us. We need to get used to being happy when things are just going along normally, imperfectly. Normally the world is imperfect; that is "normal" if you like. We don't need some special event or great thing to happen to us before we think we can be happy. Some people in the world haven't got enough food to eat today, some are in war zones, and some are in hospital with life threatening illnesses. Why should we be complaining about the guy that cuts us off in traffic. "My life is going extremely well". Even when things do go "wrong", our minds tend to exaggerate the problem making it seem much bigger than it really is. The logic system of anger tends to blow things way out of proportion or over reacts to events. We come out with emotional global statements like: "You are always criticising me!" We would all agree it is not likely one person could actually criticize another person 24 hours a day. Get things back in proportion by saying "My life is going extremely well". Ok, something went wrong - life's like that, it's always going to be like that. Cut off the worrying mind, the frustrated mind, the annoyed mind - all of them are unpleasant to experience anyway. Just say, "My life is going extremely well". Finally there is another meaning. From a Buddhist point of view we are in a wonderful life. Above all, we have a life where we can learn how to overcome suffering forever, which is the purpose of Buddhist teachings. We have a healthy human body, which is the best birth of all to practice Buddhism, we have sufficient leisure time and the teachings we need are in our world, available to us now. There is a clear path of practice and there is nothing to stop us from achieving the goal if we are determined enough to do it. So the real view is: "My life is going extremely well". This can be your homework for the coming week! Make your "normal" life happier. May you be well and happy, may all beings be well and happy. Reference 1. Piyadassi Thera. 1975. The Book of Perfection – Parita. Union Printing Works, 210 Colombo Street, Kandy, Sri Lanka. Back to Top    Learn to Practice Buddhism - Part 2 The Dalai Lama has said many times that what all beings want fundamentally is to be well and happy. We did a survey at our course on Buddhism a few weeks ago when many of the students wrote in a booklet about what they hoped to get out of this course on Buddhism. Most of their answers were to do with developing inner peace and happiness. It is not often that we meet persons who say they have developed long lasting happiness. As it is our fundamental wish to be well and happy you would think over our lifetime we would gradually get better and better at achieving that for ourselves. But it doesn't seem to work out that way for most people. Buddhism says you can achieve long lasting happiness for sure. Ajarn Brahm whom we listened to at last week's class tells the story about moving a pile of dirt with a wheelbarrow and says later in the same talk, he has found deeper and deeper levels of happiness through practicing Buddhism. In his words he says he experiences happiness upon happiness upon happiness. From the Buddhist perspective the key to achieving happiness is to understand the real causes of happiness. According to Buddhism it is not a mystery at all. The process of how and why our minds experience happiness and suffering is what the Buddha found out. If we clearly understand in ourselves the factors that produce our happiness then we have an opportunity to work towards increasing the happiness in our life. Our effort to be well and happy can only produce reliable outcomes if it is based on really understanding the way the system works. Most of us have already got some of the information about how to be happy. But if we only have half the information needed it is unlikely we will become progressively happier and happier throughout our life. So I'm going to relate a story of something that happened to me many years ago as a way of illustrating the part of the happiness system we don’t know about. This is the part Buddhism tells us we need to find out each for ourselves. During the early 1980's I was travelling in Tunisia and I had contracted food poisoning. Basically I had to sit in bed at the equivalent of a bed and breakfast for three or four days as I was too sick to continue travelling. I managed to find a local bookstore, however virtually all the books were in French or Arabic and I could only find 5 or 6 books in English. There was only one book which appealed to me, and it was about the development of the mind and insight. For a couple of days I just sat in bed and read this book. The book itself was not very long, perhaps 80 - 100 pages but it had one section in it that was quite unique. The author was describing the Buddhist Teaching of not-self or no self (anatta in Pali). The author described the meaning of this teaching quite clearly so I thought I had understood it, but then he wrote something like the following: "you may think you have understood what was just explained however, believe me, you don't really understand it at all. If you really understood this teaching, right now you would be happier than you have ever been. Your mind would be free and lucid and you would have a transformed view of your own existence." I sat in bed reading this page over and over again because I thought I understood what was written, but there at the end of the page the author had made this statement - "believe me, you don't really understand it at all". Normally if we are just reading a book we would stop for a moment to puzzle over what the author had written and then continue on to read the next page. However I was stuck in bed and couldn't go anywhere for two days, so I remember reading this maybe 15 - 20 times. I really wanted to figure it out! Then one time, in an instant, my mind new directly that the "self" I had been relying on and serving for my whole life was only a concept. The thing about myself I had the most firm conviction was "real" actually was not real. The "self" I had always known had vanished. In its place was a luminous vibrant peaceful energy which filled my mind. My sickness completely disappeared instantly and I could get up. I was happier than I had ever been, just what the author had said would happen. For several days I had this bright, happy, lucid view of everything. I walked around the town where I was staying in a mixture of delight, vibrancy and joy. But then gradually it began to dull and by another day or so I was back in bed with my sickness. In Buddhism it is taught that there are two levels of reality. The first level is named conventional or deceptive reality. This is the part every one of us already has understanding about. From this level of reality comes what we know about how to create happiness for ourselves and others. We operate successfully in the world by understanding conventional reality and building the skills and attitudes from childhood to relate to our life that way. However in Buddhism it is sometimes called deceptive reality because it appears to us that it is the only type of reality that exists. Buddhism says there is another level of reality called absolute or ultimate reality. This is the fundamental reality which is not so much to do with what appears to us to be happening from moment to moment, but more to do with why those particular things are happening, and how they happen. Let us explain this view of two levels of reality by using the example of the Buddha when he was young, before he set out on his path to enlightenment. His name was Siddhartha. You may know that he was a Prince who lived a wonderful life in a royal palace in Northern India. Whilst his living conditions were fabulous there was still discontent in his mind. He was looking at the life with concern because he could see the suffering other beings experienced. He wondered about his life and the life of others. He was deeply affected by the things most people tend to accept as being just part of life. Such things as sickness and old age, sadness and sorrow and finally, death. He saw these things as fearsome burdens and difficulties which we all must face. His wife, father, children, in fact everyone he knew would have to die, and yet, at the same time everybody he knew lived their life seemingly unconcerned about these things. They were unconcerned because they believed there was nothing that could be done about it. Siddhartha however could not be unconcerned. He wanted to find out why the world was like that. He wanted to know what was the truth about life. What was really going on. What caused these different sufferings to happen in unequal measures to individuals and was there any way that could be found which would stop suffering? This is where we get back to the difference between conventional and ultimate truth. Siddhartha was asking questions which could not be answered by understanding conventional truth. He had reached the ceiling, the limit of what conventional truth could say about the world. No one else knew the answers to his questions. Even though some holy men at that time, known as Siddha's or Yogi's, did know of deeper levels of truth than conventional reality, they did not know the ultimate reality. That was Siddhartha's quest. It is history that the Buddha eventually became enlightened. What we mean by that is that he did discover what he had vowed to find out. He discovered it when his mind penetrated to another level of reality besides conventional reality. It is referred to as being an ultimate reality. An ultimate means there is nothing further, nothing higher, nothing more than this. Not only did Buddha discover that an ultimate reality exists, he gave the world the method by which others could know it for themselves. From his perfect knowledge of both types of reality the Buddha described the engine that powers an individuals experiences of suffering and happiness. In ultimate reality view Buddha saw that just as there are laws of nature that operate in the physical world - the many laws we recognise through science, so there are also laws of nature which operate in the mental world and these laws together govern all the processes of life and living. In this way Buddha fully understood where and how suffering arises. So now we come back to our own situation. The problem that arises for us and the reason we have not already developed sustained happiness in our lives is that our knowledge is missing fundamental parts of the process through which our happiness and unhappiness come to us. So where do we start to fill in these gaps? There are approximately 40 volumes of Buddhist texts explaining what the Buddha found out, and the methods he taught his students so they could develop their minds to see ultimate reality directly for themselves. How do we get a vantage point that can help us use this knowledge to move forward in our own lives? There is one natural law the Buddha discovered, beyond any other, which if we understand - even at an intellectual level, is a key to learning what Buddhist practice is all about. This is the Law of Kamma or the law of cause and effect. If we can get an intellectual appreciation of ultimate reality we can begin to see the importance of applying that type of new information in our lives. The Law of Kamma holds that every action we do intentionally, either through our body, speech or mind produces an effect that will be experienced by the doer at some time in the future. These actions we do may be: 1. morally good, kind and helpful actions to ourselves or others - by nature these produce outcomes that are beneficial and conducive to the happiness and well being of the doer. 2. morally neutral actions - these do not contribute either positively or negatively to the well being of the doer. 3. morally bad, unkind and harmful actions to ourselves or others - by nature these produce outcomes of harm, difficulty and unhappiness for the doer of the actions. As the Christian teachings put it "as you reap so you will sow". The Law of Kamma applies not only to our physical world but also to our mental world and affects the destinies of all living beings. It is described that each action we do with intention plants a seed or seeds which will fruit at some future time into an event or experience we will have. When we actually experience the result or effect of this seed it is similar to what happens in nature. If we plant a seed of a tree it does not grow up instantaneously. It is in the soil unseen by us. When the natural conditions are right it germinates and then we see it. And also like nature, the type of seed we plant determines exactly the type of plant that grows as a result. So it is described in Buddhism that our kammic seeds are like the fuel for all the events and experiences we have in our lives. As we live each event and each experience we use up and exhaust some of our kammic seeds. Our morally bad or unwholesome kammic seeds are used up when we experience hardship, sorrow or difficulty, our morally good or wholesome kammic seeds are used up when we experience such things as honour, wealth and happiness. It is important to remember that for an act to cause kamma it must arise from an intention of the doer. For example, when we walk on a grass lawn, we inadvertently kill many small insects. Yet we have no intention to kill or harm them as we walk, therefore as the intention to kill is absent, the kamma of killing is not produced. Buddha understood the workings of kamma through remembering his own past lives going back through vast periods of time. He saw the actions he did in one life with intention always produced a corresponding effect that he experienced later in that life or in another life. For example, the Buddha had a sore back and experienced back pain from time to time. He said the cause of the back pain was produced in an earlier life when he had been a wrestler and hurt the back of another wrestler.   Why Do We Get Things In The First Place? We can look at how kamma affects our day to day experience considering wealth as a practical example. We could use health, or we could use education or we could use happiness as our subject, however we have chosen wealth as it is easy to relate to for our purposes. There is something very clear about a bank account - we can see exactly how much money is in it and we recognise the purchasing power of the amount of money instantly. As it starts getting low we see it, we can work out how much money to put in it to cover our needs and this process is so clear we can plan our financial security into our old age. We track and respond to the balance in our account very closely because we recognise the dependence we have on it. The Buddha taught that our life itself and everything that comes to us including our happiness depends on another type of savings - it is the savings of our actions made by us in the past, our past kamma savings. Everything we receive every day of our life, both the things themselves and our pleasant or unpleasant experiences, and our feelings, thoughts and beliefs come to us from the kamma made by us in the past. We may know about the Buddha's teachings on kamma, but because we don't perceive the law of kamma directly as we live our life, it is very difficult to appreciate its true consequence. Unfortunately for us we cannot print a statement of the contents of our kammic savings account. We don't have the pin number. But the Buddha and beings who have clear insight and knowledge about the way things work do have the pin number, they can see with their minds this type of kammic savings account does exist and that for all beings, from the day we are born in whatever birth we have, we are drawing on its savings in many, many areas. As we have never been able to view the balance of our kammic savings accounts for ourself we rely on the conventional view of reality to determine our choices and decisions. Our conventional view of reality may say that we acquire our wealth through our paid work, for example. We may feel it to be obvious that if we work more or work harder or work better increasing wealth will come. Conventionally that may be a true statement. However Buddha says the reason why we receive wealth in the first place, no matter how we received it, comes from something totally different to what is happening when we get the money. How we get the money is we work and get paid for it, why we get the money comes from something else. The Buddha taught that the wealth we receive comes from our own past generosity. Things we have given away in our past come back to us in the form of the wealth and goods we receive. If work was the true cause of wealth everybody would get wealth from work all the time. That's what the word cause means - it means the results never vary. That is the proof that our paid work, whatever the amount, whatever the quality, whatever the type, is not the true cause of wealth. If something is a true cause, when the cause is made, the result must occur all the time, the same for everybody. Many other persons in the world, who also don't know about their kammic past, work extremely hard yet live in pervading poverty. Actually they are doing much the same things as we are to get wealth, but from the absolute point of view, because of lack of past generosity, or because of other negative causes made negatively affecting the wealth of others, they have far too few kammic causes (seeds) available to them to germinate into sufficient wealth. Since we cannot see this situation ourselves, beings such as Buddha, Jesus and other great spiritual masters advise us and teach us to do many good things in our life to accumulate the stores of good kamma we need to help secure our future happiness and wellbeing. At some point along the Buddhist Path practitioners do see for themselves how the Law of Kamma works. At that point practicing generosity is not something they do from time to time, when it comes to mind. Their mind has the quality of generosity, and knowledge of the dependence we all have on making good actions every day of our life to ensure our kammic savings account grows larger as we get older rather than become nearly empty as we reach old age. So from a Buddhist viewpoint we have to understand and look after the conventional reality as we already do, but the reason we are not getting great happiness and joy and everything else we may want to experience is because we are not looking after the absolute reality as well. We need to understand and look after both, especially because they operate in conjunction with each other. We can say this much already. Whatever causes we make over time becomes our future existence. Our future is a mixture of the causes we have already made in the past and the new ones we make from now on. This means ultimately we are our own creators. So in Buddhism we think like this. In reality over time I will experience the kamma of my actions. Therefore by making the right actions I have the possibility of becoming what I really want to become. This is how Buddhism empowers us to take responsibility for ourselves and gives us tools we need to be successful in what we want to achieve. We have to do so many things to look after our lives as it is, so we might as well do them in a way that makes our happiness and wellbeing increase throughout our life. Back to Top   Learn to Practice Buddhism - Part 3 The Happiness Map This teaching is about what we have called a Happiness Map. This map is not all Buddhism has to say about how to develop happiness. In fact if you look at Buddhist texts you won't find such a thing as a Happiness Map. It is an extract we have made of the main components of the Buddhist Teachings that together produce a stable platform upon which our wellbeing and happiness can increase throughout our life. We are not really talking about the happiness that comes when we experience something we like or acquire something we wanted. That form of happiness from a Buddhist point of view is not very reliable or stable because as soon as we loose the thing we were happy about or as soon as the experience we like stops happening our happiness can shrivel up. The pleasure of hearing a great new song fades off, our new clothes become old fashioned, your new car becomes outdated, our cutting-edge computer is soon too slow, and maybe even a past friend becomes a new enemy. The person you loved now seems to irritate you. These scenarios we all know too well. Getting what you want doesn't make you really happy. Maybe it looks like it will make you happy at the time, but from a Buddhist viewpoint it is an illusion. Also this type of happiness that depends on something outside ourselves often has too much dependency and attachment in it. This dependency tends to work against our happiness. For example, we may experience some happiness with our partner yet at the same time, because of our attachment to them we may experience such things as jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity and resentment because they won't be what we want them to be. If our old view of how happiness is produced did work we would be really happy all the time. But we're not really happy all the time. Our happiness will never have a secure base if it is tied to external events and conditions which are outside our control. With this understanding, we strive for a more reliable basis for our well-being and happiness. Our Happiness map is drawn with a base or platform of the bottom which depicts the different parts of Buddhist practice we do everyday. The platform itself is named a "Virtue Platform" and its components are: generosity, the morality of five precepts, mindfulness, reduce unwholesome mental states, increase wholesome mental states, letting go and finally Buddha Refuge. These different practices we will talk about during this program. Together they form a stable platform upon which our happiness in life can improve. As our practice of these improves our merit is increased and our mind becomes more clear and peaceful. The second part of our Happiness Map sits above the virtue platform. This is called meditation. With a base of virtuous minds our meditation will be clear and peaceful with stable concentration. There are factors which can lead one eventually to the goal of Buddhist practise which is known as Nibbana or Ultimate Happiness. The top section of our Happiness Map shows that Nibbana comes from the practice of Right meditation which itself comes from our practice of the factors that form our virtue platform. What is the underlying principle upon which our Happiness Map is based? It is based on the principle that we can take charge of our own mind. Buddhists know this. Mental states such as worry, regret, stinginess, ill will, doubt, laziness, dullness of mind, greed, restlessness, attachment, conceit, aversion, boredom, jealousy and envy are all producers of unhappiness now and in the future. If we harbour these mental states they are drivers of unhappiness now, and because of the law of kamma they make causes for similar mental states to come back to us again in the future. Together they make an unhappiness producing platform, or a stress producing platform, or a confusion producing platform. As the Buddha says in the Dhammapada, Chapter 1, "Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief: they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of an ox." (Buddharakita) 1. We gradually train ourselves through Buddhist Practice to stop the unwholesome minds arising now and in the future by applying restraint to our behaviour in the present and applying the correct antidote behaviour in the present. Buddhist ‘loving-kindness meditation’ is one example of how we can prompt and cultivate in our mind wholesome consciousness and behaviour. The wholesome consciousness of metta or loving-kindness is our minds natural antidote to resentment, aversion, jealously and hate. As our love strengthens the negative states become progressively weaker and easier to give up. This is the function of the "Letting Go" part of our Happiness Map. We give up and let go our unwholesome habits and behaviours. Gradually through practice we can recognise our negative states at both the gross and subtle levels, then we can let go of them instead of maintaining and strengthening them through our negative behaviour. We don't have to stay annoyed with someone who did something we didn't like. When you see yourself starting to get stuck in any unwholesome thinking tell yourself to let it go. You actually say that as an instruction for your mind to follow. Tell the unwholesome state to stop. It's not actually you, it's not a self or something precious or important; it's just one possible state that can arise for a period of time. Because it produces unhappiness and clouds your view give it up. You can get quite good at dropping the unwholesome minds if you act quickly - cut them as soon as you first see them, before they become established in your mind. Learn to apply the correct natural antidote. Better still, don't let them enter your mind in the first place. One of Buddha's instructions regarding this practice is to protect your mind like a well-thatched roof keeps the rain out of a house. In the Buddha's time roofs of houses were often made from grasses or straw that was placed in a pattern called thatching. The Buddha advises us to protect our minds like a well-thatched roof keeps the rain out of a house. You need to develop good mindfulness to do this. Mindfulness is another of the factors in our Happiness Map. You could also describe mindfulness as being like a guard that stands alert and sees what type of mental state arrives at the mind's door. Mindfulness stops the unwholesome entering the mind in the first place. You don't have to remove unwholesome mental states because they never get in. The second part of the Dhammapada quote reads: "Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief: they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow." 1. We train our minds to produce the wholesome mental states such as confidence, mindfulness, friendliness, generosity, alertness, forgiveness, patience, fear of unwholesomeness, joy, equanimity, lightness of mind, adaptability of mind and loving kindness. According to the Buddhist texts there are 25 possible wholesome states of consciousness we can develop. The reason that is a secure base for our happiness is because it is robust, it is resilient, it can bend with the wind rather than stress and break, it is intelligent, it is built on inner strengths which can deal with the difficulties of life much better. Over time through practice as your virtue platform becomes stronger your ability to handle misfortune without becoming upset increases. We decide to be a kinder person, we decide to relate with others we know and meet with generosity and lightness of heart. We choose to become friendlier, offer others more warmth, more love and we consider others needs and offer our help when it would be beneficial. We start to view other people we know as our guests. Training your mind to be wholesome is the way a true platform for your happiness in this life is built, and, as they say in the commercials 'But wait, there's more!' According to Buddhism, the wholesome minds and actions you build in this life become powerful causes for you to have good rebirths in your future lives. So the bottom line of this 10 part course on Buddhism is - developing wholesome minds and actions is a true foundation of your long term well being and happiness. You're going to get old age, sickness and death this life - that's your body's inescapable future destination. However, it is possible to maintain your wholesome minds as you get older, it is possible to maintain bright, intelligent, happy minds even as your body wears out. Many people's minds deteriorate along with their body's deterioration because their minds are not trained to stay wholesome. So what are some of the other components of our Happiness Map. In our culture morality tends to be overlooked and its importance underestimated because it is generally understood in terms of our historical Christian perspective or from the perspective of non-religious logic systems. Our modern perspectives do not deeply appreciate the underpinning role of morality to an individual’s mental health and long term well-being. From Buddhist understanding and experience when morality has been strongly practiced and developed it becomes a very clear and powerful level of mind. In Buddhism there are no commandments or similar authoritarian type rules of behaviour. This is because at the very heart of Buddhism is the principle that the individual is solely responsible for his or her own welfare, happiness or unhappiness, which arise just as a result of the persons own actions. Buddhist morality does not accept that our life and wellbeing are the outcome of the will of a supreme or higher being. The basis of a person choosing to maintain moral behaviour, therefore, is not because it's a commandment of the religion but because there is a clear understanding and comprehension that morality is our first and best defence against creating more suffering for ourselves in the future. The Buddha advises us to train our minds and actions so that we keep five precepts. The five precepts are: To not kill living beings To not steal To not commit sexual misconduct To not lie To not take intoxicants which cloud the mind The reason why the five particular negative actions that the precepts stop us from committing are highlighted, is that the Buddha recognised that some negative actions are more powerful than others. They are more powerful in the sense that they produce more powerful kammic results. He identified that the five negative actions of killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and taking intoxicants produce the most potent negative kamma or most concentrated negative kamma for ourselves to inherit in our future. Our Teacher John Hughes told us many times that in ultimate reality most of the suffering we had experienced in our life came from us breaking the five precepts in past times. If you take time to consider this you'll agree many of the problems that afflict people and society at large arise from individuals not keeping these five precepts. Buddhists see keeping precepts as Occupation Health and Safety for our life. These precepts are just like that - they are the minimum standards of safe action of our body, speech and mind so we do not come to danger in this life or future lives. Precepts are our most powerful form of personal protection as from the ultimate reality viewpoint they keep you safe and healthy. Further, the practice of morality reduces and weakens defilements of the mind and promotes and strengthens wholesome states of consciousness. This is a platform or foundation of peaceful, content, happy minds and wholesome mental states. The practice of morality produces powerful good kamma as it is the opposite of the five actions that produce the most powerful negative kamma. This type of good kamma is experienced by the doer as pure, peaceful virtuous minds and peaceful living conditions which are both needed by us to develop on the Buddhist path. There is no such thing as a virtuous person who kills other beings, or steals from others. It is also a foundation of coming to see things as they really are as the peace and purity that comes as a result of keeping precepts enables our mind to develop right concentration in meditation, which is a prerequisite to developing wisdom. Mindfulness is the only way to keep your precepts We do not become paranoid about the precepts. We have all broken precepts time and time again in our past, but we decide from now on we have the intention to keep them. We learn how to keep them well and we train ourselves to guard them in whatever we are doing. If we do break a precept we don't react to that with guilt or regret. We just note "I have more training to do!" We re-affirm that we intend to keep that precept from now on. We can only keep precepts really well by being mindful of what we are doing in the present moment. We come into the present- we stop thinking that we will keep the precepts at some future time. We look at our situation now. We focus on what we are doing with our body, we consider for a moment before we speak or act and we watch the thoughts that are arising. In this way we can guard ourselves and take control of our actions, our speech and thoughts to not kill, to not lie, etc. It is in the present time that the kamma is being made. If you do not recognise what is happening in the present, you cannot change anything. Finally today we will consider what it means to have Buddha Refuge, which is the remaining part of the Happiness Map. The refuge we have in Buddhism is actually in three parts. We take refuge in the Buddha, we take refuge in the Dhamma, which is Teachings given by the Buddha, and we take refuge in the Sangha, the community of Buddhist Monks and Nuns or even the community of enlightened Buddhist masters past and present. We don't worship Buddha or any other being. We have respect for Buddha. We respect the qualities of the Buddha and what he did in his life. We identify with the will of the Prince Siddhartha who dedicated his life to finding out about the truth of life itself. We identify with the journey he undertook which resulted in him becoming awakened or enlightened. We are all on a journey in our lives, perhaps many journeys within one life. For Buddhists having refuge in the Buddha is a statement that we want our personal journey in life to be that of becoming awakened. That we recognise our life is an opportunity to overcome suffering for ourselves completely and perhaps, help others to do the same. So refuge in the Buddha is like the compass bearing we have set for ourselves in life. We choose to journey towards enlightenment because for us we are using our life for something of great value and meaning. If our Happiness Map does not have Buddha Refuge in it the destination of our journey will end up being completely different. As we practice the other components of our Happiness Map we create so many good kammic causes for our future. However just like we have a choice in life to spend our money to buy anything we want, so we can spend these good kammic causes or merit to get whatever we want. So it is our refuge in Buddha that sets the direction our good causes will take us. Taking refuge in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha makes many kammic connections to Buddha Dhamma so that we can meet it again and again in the future until we complete the Buddhist Path. Without that refuge our merit could take us to a destination such as a birth in a high heaven with no knowledge of the Buddha Path, or perhaps many human lives of great wealth and comfort. We can all appreciate that such lives could be wonderful to experience but there comes a day when that good kamma has been used up, and as our merit bank account eventually runs dry we will have nothing whatever to show for our past efforts. Instead we use much of our merit to help us progress on the Buddhist Path. Happiness is defined in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "The state of pleasurable content of mind which results from success or the attainment of what is considered good". I think this definition refers to the types of happiness we experience when things are going well for us. We may be happily married, or have success in achieving our ambitions or have material comforts or whatever it is when we achieve what we want. In Buddhism we talk about deep levels of happiness which we know can be experienced. These types of happiness can more easily withstand the ups and downs of life which have in the past usually caused us to experience suffering. Buddhism says even this happiness can be surpassed by the nourishment of deep contentment and serenity and finally the sublime state of nirvana where the mind becomes unshakeable and never strays from perfect peace. We wish you success with your Buddhist practice. May you be well and happy. May all beings be well and happy. References 1. The Dhammapada. Translator Venerable Buddharakita. Published by Sukhi Hotu, 1A-2, First Floor, Mayang Plaza, Jalan ss26/9, Taman Mayang Jaya, 47301 Petaling Jaya, Selangor Darul Ehsan Malaysia. Back to Top Learn to Practice Buddhism - Part 4 Today we start the Learning to Practice Buddhism part of our course. As we say in our brochure "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll get the same results". Buddhist practice offers us the opportunity to realise our innate wish to be happy and fulfilled. Following on from last week we have chosen as the main topic for today's program the mindfulness component of our Happiness Map. If there is a magic ingredient in the Buddhist Path then it would be mindfulness. Last week when we talked about the Happiness Map we said the underlying principle it is based on is that you can take charge of your mind. Mindfulness is what makes this possible. We need to be able to recognise in real time what we are thinking, doing and saying if we hope to take charge of any of these components of our behaviour. The following two quotes from Chogyam Trungpa's book C > utting Through Spiritual Materialism will give you a taste of the flavour of what we mean by practicing mindfulness. "If you pour a cup of tea, you are aware of extending your arm and touching your hand to the teapot, lifting it and pouring the water. Finally the water touches your teacup and fills it, and you stop pouring it and put the teapot down precisely, as in the Japanese Tea Ceremony. You become aware that each precise movement has dignity. We have long forgotten that activities can be simple and precise. Every act of our lives can contain simplicity and precision and can thus have tremendous beauty and dignity." (Trungpa 1973, p.156) 1. "There is the story concerning the Buddha which relates how he taught a village woman to develop such mindfulness in the act of drawing water from a well. He taught her to be aware of the precise movement of her hands and arms as she drew up the water. Such practice is the attempt to see the nowness quality in action, which is why it is known as ‘shamatha’, the development of peace. When you see the nowness of the very moment, there is no room for anything but openness and peace". (Trungpa 1973, p.157) 1. Both of these quotes should surprise us because they each say that within the ordinariness of our normal living, within the mundaneness of our daily activities, is the possibility of contentment, nourishment and joyfulness. Right in front of us in our simplest actions we can find peace and beauty. The quality of attentiveness being described in the quotes is certainly different to our habitual way of doing things. This is a conscious observance of the nowness of living, a patient attention and an alertness, which comes from the effort to stay aware of the present moment. According to Buddhism reality exists in the present instant. Reality is occurring second by second. You exist second by second. The past is gone and the future hasn't arrived. Only the present is in fact real. What you were one minute ago is gone completely. Just an ancestor! What you will be tomorrow we can't say with certainty. Therefore if you wish to see what you really are you can only do it by looking at your experience in the present. If you want to take charge of your mind and your behaviour it can be done most effectively through your awareness of the present happenings. Normally we don't live like this. We usually take our actions and reactions for granted and we operate mostly from our habit or our default settings. Our normal state from a Buddhist viewpoint is similar to living on automatic pilot. This state in Buddhism is likened to being asleep. Buddhism says the foundation of developing on the Buddhist Path is we have to wake ourselves up. The more we train our attention to stay in the present, the more stable is our foundation for improving the health of our mind. Automatically our mind becomes brighter, more alert, more intelligent and more energetic - all from this simple process of being awake in the present. Even as our body deteriorates through ageing as our mindfulness is improved by our practice the power of our mind can still be increased. It is quite a radical change to how we live. We decide to be awake to our momentary experience of living. We train ourselves until it becomes our new habitual way of living. This is called the awakening mind in Buddhism and it is considered our most treasured possession because it builds and strengthens the very essence of our enlightenment. So please be convinced the effort to become mindful is well worth it. This commitment to living with mindfulness is a commitment to your own wellbeing. Through your effort to become mindful you can eventually overcome every obstacle that can arise within your mind, you can eventually defeat every unwholesome state, every unwholesome action, every cause of unhappiness can be removed. "Mindfulness, O monks, I declare, is essential in all things everywhere" ~ The Buddha. 2. (Piyadassi 1991) So how do we begin? It's not too difficult if you remember you only have to stay mindful one second at a time. Just what you are doing right now only. It's a little bit at a time practice - one second, one second, one second. Just like the meditation on the breath, we keep bringing our attention back to the present. We observe how usually the mind gives us a running commentary on anything that gets its attention. Then we get caught up in our thinking. Don't get caught up in all these stories our mind produces. In Buddhism this day dreaming and internal dialogue is called the "monkey mind". Stop being interested in all the stories and internal commentary. Many of them are meaningless gibberish anyway. What do you think you mental chatter would look like if you wrote it all down? When you read the chatter back to yourself later do you think it would be very coherent? Do you think it would be worth the time it would take to read them? When something happens we don't like we often dwell on that for sometime afterwards. We replay what happened over again and again in our head. We revisit our disturbance. This is a sure-fire way of prolonging our negative mental states and keeping ourselves annoyed. When we notice our attention has strayed off the present or we are lost in our thoughts we let go of the thing we have been playing with and focus our attention back to what you are doing in the present. So for this weeks teachings we can put this instruction into practice immediately, right now as we are listening. Practice being in the present now. You sit as if in meditation, relaxed but with a gentle awareness of your body, with your mind contained in the volume of your body. You bring your mind home. Feel your body, feel your arms, your legs, your weight on the seat, relax any stress you are holding in your body. Be comfortable. As you hear me talking you still keep some of your attention relaxed in your body. Just listen gently with interest to what is being said. As it turns out, even though your attention is not focused out here on me any more, you can still hear everything you heard before. You will find, over time, you hear more of what's being said when your mind is inside your body like this. This is because gradually your mind becomes quieter and more focused. You can do this many times a day. Try it when you are driving your car, or travelling on a train, when you are watching TV or cooking, mowing the lawn, sweeping the floor, and so on. Washing the dishes is an excellent time to practice mindfulness because your body is active in a small area and generally there are not many other distractions. Try 'washing the dishes meditation' at home. Move consciously, in a relaxed manner. Use care and alertness to put down the washed dishes quietly. At your work look for opportunities to develop awareness of your body both when sitting and when walking. Just start applying it whenever you can. It is going to take some time to build up your mindfulness. Like anything else we try that is new. There is a learning curve and it does take time to get out of our habit of being unmindful. Just know that gradually week by week as you work at it your mindfulness will improve. You can be mindful anywhere, any time, no matter what you are doing. It is practiced alongside every other practice, hand in hand with every other practice. You practice generosity and kindness with mindfulness. You practice doing good actions with mindfulness. You guard and protect your mind from generating negative states such as resentment or anger by using mindfulness. It is the practice which you can develop to be like a constant companion, at your side, protecting you, looking after you, helping you create benefits for your self and others through the recognition of what's really happening instant by instant. Now you may see how the calmness and brightness we develop in meditation can be extended into our normal lives. We make an effort to keep our mindfulness after we end each meditation session. We've probably given you enough reasons why your experience of living will feel and be better if you can train yourself to be mindful. You're only going to find out about it by doing it for yourself. You can't learn to ride a bike by reading about it. You can't know the taste of coke unless you drink it. You really can't appreciate the value of mindfulness until you have tried it thoroughly for yourself. Don't expect too much too soon. Be patient, apply yourself gently minute by minute. If you train yourself this way one-day you will suddenly recognise something very liberating is happening. Chogyam Trungpa wrote in his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism: " When you see the nowness of the very moment, there is no room for anything but openness and peace". (Trungpa 1973, p.157) 1. May you practice and develop mindfulness in all your actions. May you be well and happy. May all beings be well and happy. References 1. Trungpa, Chogyam. 1973. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.Clear Light Series. Published by Shambhala Publications, Inc. 1123 Spruce Street, Boulder, Colorado 80302., p.156, 157 2. Piyadassi, Mahathera. 1991. The Spectrum of Buddhism. Published by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 11th Floor, 55, Hang Chow S. Rd., Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Back to Top Learn to Practice Buddhism - Part 5 As we listen to the teachings given by the Buddha in many instances we can recognise that to really follow these teachings means we will change something in our lives. We have to change either our attitude, or our behaviour, or both. It means we need to follow the map the Buddha has given us, instead of our old habits which are familiar territory to us. Recognising the need to change and being willing to change support our ability to follow our Happiness Map to reach our goal of being happier and free from suffering. As we go on to the next part of this course which is about the Five Precepts component of our Happiness Map when you see something you want to change about yourself, we advise you to manage the change to your new behaviour so it really sticks. Having found something that can help us become happier we don't want to waste that new learning like it is just another thing of minor consequence. You need to support the new behaviour so it doesn't falter before it gets established in your behaviour. You have to nourish it and tend it like it was a small beautiful plant starting to grow in the garden of your mind. Don't support the old weed which is causing the problem! The Buddhist Path is described as having three major components. These are morality, concentration and wisdom. These three go together supporting each other as a path of training. This Buddhist training enables a person to recognise the causes of suffering in their own lives and then overcome them as a means to becoming stable and happy, and ultimately to do what the Buddha did, to become fully enlightened. When you read or hear about what people do in their life to improve their happiness they don't usually mention morality or concentration or wisdom! They don't say "I'm practicing generosity to reduce my stinginess" or "I decided to refrain from slandering others", they say something like "we're planning to move into our new house next year" or "we're going to Disneyland for our holidays", or something like that. When you read or hear about what people do in their life to improve their health or long life they don't say "I'm focusing on how I can keep the five precepts better" or "I'm learning how being kind to others makes many causes for health and long life". They don't say that. What they generally say is something like "I'm planning to loose 3 kilograms on my new diet" or "I'm going to take up golf as I think that would reduce my stress levels". As we saw a few weeks ago the strategies of dieting or taking up golf come from seeing the situation only in conventional reality terms, everyday tables and chairs understanding. However such a viewpoint does not take into account the way things work from the ultimate understanding, the way the Buddha taught that the world really works. Buddha taught about cause and effect, the Law of Kamma. From this viewpoint our true well-being and our path to becoming happy comes about from the development of wholesome minds and actions. This is the basis of all Buddhist morality. Buddhists see keeping precepts as Occupational Health and Safety for our life. These precepts are just like that - they are the minimum standards of safe action of our body, speech and mind so we do not come to danger in this life or future lives. Precepts are our most powerful form of personal protection as from the kammic or ultimate reality viewpoint they keep us safe and healthy. Further the practice of morality reduces and weakens our negative states of mind or defilements as they are sometimes known, and promotes and strengthens our wholesome states. "Morality restrains the defilements in their coarsest form, their outflow in unwholesome actions; concentration removes their more refined manifestations as distractive and restless thoughts; and wisdom eradicates their subtle latent tendencies..." (Nyanaponika Thera 1986) 1. From Buddhist understanding and experience when morality has been strongly practiced and developed it becomes a very clear and powerful level of mind. In Buddhism there are no religious commandments or similar authoritarian type rules of behaviour. This is because at the very heart of Buddhism is the principle that the individual is solely responsible for his or her own welfare, happiness or unhappiness, which arise just as a result of the persons own actions. Buddhism emphasises that we should study, learn and realise directly about things, rather than follow them as a simple directive of the religion. If we understand something in our own minds through our own wisdom then our commitment to practicing that thing becomes unshakable. The Buddha advises us to train our minds and actions so that we keep five precepts with understanding. The five precepts are: To not kill living beings To not steal To not commit sexual misconduct To not lie To not take intoxicants which cloud the mind The reason why the five particular negative actions that the precepts stop us from committing are highlighted, is that the Buddha recognised that some negative actions are more powerful than others. They are more powerful in the sense that they produce more powerful kammic results. He identified that the five negative actions of killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and taking intoxicants produce the most potent negative kamma or most concentrated negative kamma for ourselves to inherit in our future. Most people naturally tend to be able keep some precepts better than others. That's pretty normal for persons when they start practicing Buddhism. Some of the precepts make sense straight away so the person can easily commit to keeping those precepts. However keeping each of the five precepts creates it's own powerful kammic effects, not just the ones that seem on the surface to make sense. Remember what we said a few weeks ago. We do not become paranoid about the precepts. We have all broken precepts time and time again in our past, but we decide from now on we have the intention to keep them. We learn how to keep them well and we train ourselves to guard them whatever we are doing. If we do break a precept we don't react to that with guilt or regret. We just note "I have more training to do!" We re-affirm that we intend to keep that precept from now on. We will examine the precept of no lying as an example. First before we begin the explanation please decide that you wish to find out something new which makes sense to you. Something you can use everyday of your life to protect your wellbeing and happiness from now on. You think like that. You involve yourself and commit to your own improvement. You don't be too passive. To Not Lie or To Refrain From Lying Buddhist practice is all about coming to the truth about ourselves and the processes of our life. Seeing within our own mind how we create our own happiness and unhappiness and then being able to correct our errors and negative mind states. Progress on the Buddhist Path is to do with us waking up to the truth of the way we really are. The act of lying however is an act of distorting truth or distorting the reality in a way which suits the person lying. The lying itself creates kammic causes for difficulties or obstacles to recognising or receiving the truth in the future. Either people lie to them, or they get poor information about things they wish to know, or if they are told the correct information they will tend to not believe it, discount it or mistake what they heard. Even in a worldly sense it is important to find out the truth about things. It is a common occurrence to find that a person has believed you said something; but it wasn’t what you actually said. Quite frequently we find out we have acted on some incorrect information about something and so we have wasted a lot of time, or bought something we didn’t need, or went somewhere to meet someone and got the time or place wrong. And so on. It happens to us regularly. These types of examples of mis-information we get are caused by us having given out mis-information or lies to others in the past. For a person who is trying to understand the truth and intending to create good causes towards that for learning and becoming happier it is a necessity to keep the precept to not lie. Not lying creates the kamma for us to understand ourselves, others and the world we live in better. By being truthful we are creating causes to come to a clearer view. At the ultimate level of reality truthfulness is an antidote to ignorance. Now, having heard that information you may decide you really do wish to practice that precept, to refrain from lying. You may think it is important enough that you want to change your speech so you no longer lie at all, for any reason. Practically if you don't take a position like that which is uncompromising you generally won't succeed. We already know it can be difficult to give up an old bad behaviour because of its habitual nature so it's not much use applying the new behaviour half-heartedly. This would be planning to fail because you are not using enough mental will power or energy to overcome the energy of the old behaviour. It is like saying I'll give up smoking - but then saying "Oh maybe I'll just have an occasional cigarette". That will never work. Therefore if you are "fair dinkum" you decide to give up lying completely, with happiness! Another way to examine the precepts is to consider the positive outcomes that come to a person who observes a particular precept. We will use the precept to refrain from taking intoxicants that cloud the mind as an example so we can appreciate the type of powerful good kammic causes that are produced when we keep that precept. "The person who vigilantly and steadfastly observes this Surameraya Precept reaches the world of devas on his (or her) death. When he (or she) expires in the world of Devas, and is reborn in the world of human beings, he (or she) is endowed with the following qualities: 1.being mindful of anything that is to be done at a given time; 2.being endowed with intelligence and intellectual power; 3.being always alert at all times; 4.having initiative and enterprise to meet all contingencies; 5.being industrious; 6.being free from deafness and dumbness; 7.being free from madness; 8.being free from shocks and alarms; 9.being free from oppression or restriction; 10.being free from a hateful attitude toward others; 11.being free from grudge and envy; 12.having always truthful speech; 13.being free from rough and futile speech and from back-biting; 14.being aware of the gratitude owed to others; 15.being able to make return for the favours of others; 16.being generous and charitable; 17.having Moral Practice; 18.being fair and just; 19.not being given to anger; 20.having a sense of decency and a dread of evil; 21.having true belief; 22.being in a noble or worthy state of life; 23.being wise; 24.having discretion and judgement as to advantages of any situation or question. You can see from this list something of how kamma works. Particular actions we do at one time create our future dispositions, abilities, and characteristics. Many actions we do are not quite as powerful or influential in shaping our future as the five precepts but nevertheless, as we train ourselves to be consistent in doing good actions we are using our natural power within ourselves to create good and happy futures for ourself to inherit. To Refrain from Killing "Life is dear to all, and all tremble at punishment, all fear death and value life. Hence, we should abstain from taking a life which we ourselves cannot give". (Venerable Piyadassi, 1991) 3 Going back to first principles of Buddhism - kamma, we believe that whatever we do to others we will make the kamma or sow the seeds to experience this same thing at some later date. We no longer want to experience pain or suffering so we decide to stop killing. It is a very simple change with profound results. First, change your attitude by having the intention to not kill. If you walk in your garden often you will kill beings such as ants as you walk, it is frequently unavoidable as you cannot even see them. In this case you have no intention to kill the beings. It is the intention which creates kamma. We see other beings as doing what we are doing - surviving. They also have families. They do not know that they are causing us discomfort or harm. For example, in the case of a mosquito - it is their nature (or kamma) that they need to drink blood to survive. So instead of becoming angry or annoyed by them we look out for them. We do things to stop them annoying us such as we wear anti-insect sprays instead, we make sure our fly-screens are secure or we get a mosquito net. When we see a spider or mouse in our house, we catch them and release them out side. You can get mousetraps that do not kill. There are electronic devices that generate a signal to keep mice etc away from an area. We sweep ants up and take them outside. We use talcum powder to prevent ants coming in. We attempt to keep our kitchen clean and free from food scraps and spillages. Even then, we have an ongoing job of watching where the ants are coming in and blocking the hole. We live in a very fortunate place - we do not have to kill to eat meat. Meat is available to us in the supermarket. Many persons find this a difficult concept to accept - that Buddhists eat meat, yet they practice no killing. Well, we see the two actions - eating meat and killing as two different things. Many beings are killed to grow vegetables and grain, fruit that we buy in the supermarket. Insecticides are sprayed on the vegetables for example. We cannot avoid the fact, that for us to have this food, many beings are killed. It is the nature of this world. Just like every time we walk, many microscopic beings die. Every time we clean, many beings die. Every time we wash ourselves, many beings die on our body. It is the nature of our existence that beings die in our process of living. I understand this, yet I have no intention to kill these beings. When I clean my house, my intention is to maintain healthy living conditions for myself and my family or friends who live here. So, if meat is available and we do not have to kill for it, we will eat it. If it was not available, we would not kill for it or ask someone else to kill for us. We would eat vegetables. For some persons kammically they really need to eat meat to maintain their health and strength. Buddhism is not a religion on food. It is a way to end our suffering through calming the mind and seeing things as they really are. Finally tonight we will briefly mention the other two precepts of no stealing and no sexual misconduct. All the precepts have many levels of understanding. When we first hear them we can recognise the gross levels of meaning. However as we practice we find each precept has a more subtle level of meaning. As our mind becomes brighter we find we practice the precept at both the gross and subtle levels and this practice helps us refine and purify our mind even further. The gross level of the precept to not steal includes not taking anything which is not freely given to us. Although it may appear that this relates to taking material things from others we also consider it to include for example, not trying to overhear a persons private conversation with someone else, not illegally avoiding paying taxes which should be paid, or not attending to our personal or private matters during the time we are paid to be working. At a more subtle level for example, sometimes we get ourselves churned up about things that are really none of our business. In some instances this could be viewed as stealing. The precept of no sexual misconduct includes such things as no adultery for example and also not using your sexuality to manipulate another person. Some of the kammic outcomes of keeping this precept are being able to maintain stable relationships, being able to associate with your loved ones, not being assailed by doubts and suspicions and being able to sleep well and peacefully. Last week we saw how developing mindfulness gives us the possibility of not being so easily tossed around by life's ups and downs like a cork on the surface of the ocean. As we develop mindfulness of the present moment our mind can start to gain a foothold on the firm ground which is reality itself. The Five Precepts component of our Happiness Map adds to this powerful causes for us to experience a safe and secure set of living conditions both now and in the future which are harmless to others and peaceful for ourselves. It is our Occupational Health and Safety Guidelines for living. Practicing these precepts with mindfulness is also the first level of reducing our unwholesome minds and replacing them with wholesome minds and mental states. Therefore it is the right basis for our peaceful, content, and happy minds to develop which in turn is the correct foundation for us to understand ourselves and the world. References 1. Nyanaponika Thera. 1986. The Vision of Dhamma. Published by Rider & Co. Ltd., 62 - 65 Chandon Place, Covent Garden, London, England, p xxi 2. Maha Upasaka U Nu. 1982. The Five Precepts - Panca Sila.. The Young Buddhists, the annual journal of the Singapore Buddha-Yana Organisation (SBYO)", and reproduced in the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Newsletters No. 11, May 1983, No. 12, September 1983, No. 13, December 1983, No.14, May 1984, Newsletter No. 16, February 1985. 3. Ven Piyadassi. 1991. The Spectrum of Buddhism., Published by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation, 11th Floor, 55, Hang Chow S. Rd., Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. P 78 Back to Top Learn to Practice Buddhism - Part 6 Generosity Our Teacher John Hughes spent a lot of time teaching us how to give things. Why would he bother to teach us how to give? Giving appears to be simple enough. We have been giving all sorts of things to others many times a day for most of our adult life. If we are parents that is all about giving, as our children are dependent on us to use our skills and resources to support them. It seems like simple stuff. We have a book in our library at the Buddhist Discussion Centre about giving called "Dana" which is the Pali word for generosity. The book is 778 pages long. That means there is a lot about giving we have not learned yet! So this is not just information about what we could refer to as conventional giving. This is teachings about the Buddhist practice of giving. The practice of giving called "dana" in the Pali language, is placed first in the order of things, as a foundation for the process of us becoming free from suffering. Firstly it is important if we can recognise our dependence on giving as the means by which we will have what we need in our future - both this life and future lives. We can recollect what the Buddha found out about absolute reality. Buddha says the reason why we receive wealth in the first place, no matter how we received it, comes from something totally different to what is happening when we get the money. How we get the money is we work and get paid for it, but why we get the money comes from our past acts of giving. We can reflect that Buddhism teaches us that our life itself, and everything that comes to us such as material goods, the services we consume, what we have been taught both formally and informally, the resources we depend on everyday, the kindness we receive from other's, and so on, come to us ultimately from our past generosity. In Australia we have such an abundance of things we encounter everyday so if you are not familiar with this way of looking at things, it's hard to imagine we have made causes to have access to all those things. But we can recognise that our wonderful conditions are a rare exception in human history. For most of recorded history the vast majority of the human population in all geographical areas has had to live in moderate to severe poverty. It has only been in the second half of the twentieth century that a majority of persons in some of the world's wealthier countries have been able to acquire modest levels of material wealth. We can still see many countries of the third world where their citizens are living with not enough basic foods to eat and with personal ownership of only a handful of possessions. So in terms of human history we live in exceptional times. The living conditions of the majority of persons living in Australia today are superior in many ways to that experienced by Kings and Queens in past times. Whilst most Australian citizens must have very large stores of good kamma from our past to enable us to live in such good conditions we are at the same time consuming a lot of our good kamma or merit just to live our daily lives. We are very high merit consumers. This is a characteristic of our modern world, we consume a lot of resources to function effectively in our society. When we consider that our giving is the true cause of why we get these things in the first place if we improve our knowledge about giving it will have a mighty impact on our future wellbeing. So first we need to have this appreciation that just like we have to keep putting money into our bank account to maintain or improve our standard of living, so to at the absolute reality level, we have to keep creating sufficient kammic wealth for our future wellbeing, particularly through our generosity. That is the first level. However, if we just practiced generosity without any other purpose than accumulating causes for worldly wealth and comfort, we could be born rich over and over or live in sensual heavens for long periods of time. Once all this good kamma has been used up however our real situation is the same as it always was. Therefore our practice of generosity should be directed towards helping us to come to something better. This is the second level of understanding generosity in Buddhist practice. We don't give just to satisfy the requirements of living for ourselves and others, we learn to give in ways which will change our life absolutely. Sooner or later for any practice to be effective in reducing our suffering we have to address the active ingredients in our mind that produce our suffering. We have seen from our earlier classes that negative or unwholesome minds are the root of all unhappiness. Now we have to introduce some powerful antidotes into our lives to reduce these unhappiness drivers and their resultants. Whilst Buddhist texts explain our unwholesome minds as being 14 in number, the 14 can be distilled down to three root causes of all our unhappiness. These three are greed, hate and ignorance, with ignorance meaning not seeing the type of reality we call absolute reality. "Viewed as the quality of generosity, giving has a particularly intimate connection to the entire movement of the Buddha's path. For the goal of the path is the destruction of greed, hate and delusion, and the cultivation of generosity directly debilitates greed and hate, while facilitating that pliancy of mind that allows for the eradication of delusion." (Bodhi, 1990) 1. The Buddhist Path of reducing our craving and selfishness is how we can discover Nibbana, the highest and only absolutely secure happiness available. We therefore practice generosity with the purpose of removing greed, selfishness and craving. At this stage we may not recognise very clearly how greed or craving is at the root of our unhappiness. One of our members remembers when he was first told over twenty years ago that craving was the cause of his suffering and he couldn't believe it! He remembers walking along in disbelief thinking "no way could craving be causing suffering"! He said he didn't think he had much craving for a start so how could it be such a big deal? The thing was he didn't know his own mind. We can see the craving operating quite clearly when we watch the "monkey mind" in meditation. The "monkey mind" is our normal untrained mind. It can't sit still for a moment. It chases one sensation after another. After a few moments of watching the breath the mind gets caught up again thinking, daydreaming, worrying, being disturbed by noises, itches, restlessness and so on. This is the craving. The mind is thirsty to experience all these things. It is not content to look at the breath. It grabs at one sensation after another because it is in a state of being unsatisfied. The nature of craving is it can't find anything that will satisfy it. It is unsatisfiable. You can see how our craving makes it difficult for us to be happy. Instead of being content and happy with what we've got we incline towards being dissatisfied. "People crave for pleasant experiences, crave for material things, crave for eternal life, and when disappointed, crave for eternal death. They are not only attached to sensual pleasures, wealth and power, but also to ideas, views, opinions, concepts and beliefs. And craving is linked to ignorance, that is, not seeing things as they really are, or failing to understand the reality of experience and life. Under the delusion of self and not realising anatta (not self), a person clings to things which are impermanent, changeable, perishable. The failure to satisfy one's desires through these things causes disappointments and suffering". (Dhammananda 1999) 2. So you see, we need to find out about generosity, the minds natural antidote to craving. But, didn't we recognise earlier that we already give many things to others everyday of our lives. If we are already giving a lot why isn't this generosity working to reduce our craving? The act of giving itself makes the kamma for us to receive things in the future. How we give is the factor by which we can reduce our greed and craving. Nina Van Gorkom writes in her essay Generosity: The Inward Dimension: "The giving away of useful or pleasant things is an act of generosity. However, if we only pay attention to the outward deeds we do not know whether or not we are being sincerely generous. We should learn more about the mind which motivates our deeds. True generosity is difficult. While we are giving, our thoughts may not all be good and noble. Our motives for giving may not all be pure. We may give with selfish motives - expecting something in return, hoping to be liked by the receiver or our gift, wanting to be known as a generous person. We may notice that there are different thoughts at different moments, some truly generous, and others having different motives." (Gorkom 1990) 1. Often we are happy enough to give to others if certain conditions are met, such as the person is someone we like or know well, maybe we don't particularly want the thing we are giving or we have enough for ourself too, and the person thanks us afterwards, which we normally would expect. If the receiver of our gift did not express thanks for the gift or if they did something with the gift we did not like, we may feel disappointed or resentful of their behaviour. This is giving with expectation of something in return. When we give in this way we are not really giving freely. We could be giving because it is our duty, because it is our role in our family or because it is expected of us, because we were told to do it, because it is part of our job, because we want someone to do something for us in return, a quid pro quo, I'll do this if you'll do that, and so on. This is fine in the sense that most or maybe all these things do need to be done but probably, if you look, you'll find you are not actually doing these things with generosity. While all this type of giving is going on, what is your mind doing? Is your mind just rushing to get the food on the table, is your mind tired and wanting to sit down for a cuppa, is your mind just mindlessly handing something to someone else, or is your mind really engaged mindfully in the act of giving WITH kindness, generosity and love in your heart? How to Practice Generosity There is a story in the Buddhist texts about a young boy named Priyadarshi. He knew about the Buddha and had great respect and love for him. One day, unexpectedly, he had an opportunity to meet the Buddha face to face. Immediately he wanted to make offerings to the Buddha and pay respect to the great man. As he looked around for something to offer he realised he had nothing to give. He was not carrying anything to offer yet in his heart his wish to give something to the Buddha was so strong that he bent down and scooped up a handful of dirt from the ground. As the Buddha looked at him Priyadarshi offered the dirt with his heart filled with love, joy and respect. As the Buddha blessed Priyadarshi he said that his offering would bring him to many lives of great wealth and good fortune because of the way it was offered. The offering was done with strong volition to give accompanied by heartfelt generosity, gratitude, and joy. Buddha's Teachings are practised with our body, speech and mind. Generosity as part of Buddha Dhamma practice is performed with body, speech and mind. So you can see that the mind component of giving is the bit that offers us the possibility to reduce our stinginess and craving if we learn to do it correctly. Give like you were giving to your child. Give like you were giving to your love. Give like you were receiving the gift. Give completely. Give freely. Once given it belongs completely to the other person. It is no longer your property. If the person then damages or throws away what they received from you, it should not raise any pain or concern in your mind. If it does, maybe you still have an idea that it belongs to you. You have not given the object freely. You give someone some chocolates. They put them away. You say to yourself. "They should have shared the chocolates with everyone". In this case you have not offered the gift freely or completely. Your mind still thinks it has some control over the object you gave away, as if in some sense it still belongs to you. Generate joy for the person receiving the gift. Be happy for their good fortune. Praise them for making the good causes to receive this gift. See yourself as the connector between them and their good merit. What you are giving them is coming from your merit and then from their merit, yet by you doing the giving, you are able to make good causes, to develop your practice of giving and to make merit. You can see how having a generous heart is at the core of what it means to be kind to others. Generosity is the willingness to help others, the willingness to get up out of your chair quickly and happily when your help would be beneficial. Generosity has the openness, flexibility and lightness to put our own needs down for a while and consider the needs of another, to be sensitive enough and patient enough to find out what the other person really needs to be well and happy. Our teacher, Master John D. Hughes, on meeting students for the first time would often recommend they start their Buddhist practice by offering food, drinks and flowers to their parents, particularly their Mother. He would also encourage and arrange for us to make the most of any opportunity to make offerings to the Buddhist Monks or Nuns. This introduces another aspect of generosity. The reason why John would suggest new students made these offerings to their parents in particular and also to monks or nuns is because there is something about the qualities of those recipients of the gift that make any offerings you do to them produce very great kammic returns to the giver. Lily de Silva writes in her essay entitled Giving in the Pali Canon: "Another sutta (A.iii,336) maintains that it is not possible to estimate the amount of merit that accrues when an offering is endowed with six particular characteristics. Three of the characteristics belong to the donor while three belong to the donee. The doner should be happy at the thought of giving prior to making the offering. He should be pleased at the time of making the offering, and he should be satisfied after the offering is made. Thus the nobility of thought - without a trace of greed before, during and after the offering - makes a gift truly great. The recipient also should be free from lust, hatred and delusion, or they should have embarked on a course of training for the elimination of these mental depravities. When an almsgiving is endowed with these qualities of the donor and donee, the merit is said to be as immeasurable as the waters in the ocean." (de Silva, 1990) 1. In fact there are quite a number of factors which can greatly increase the amount of merit made by a single act of giving. If we can rapidly increase our merit making the result is we can improve much faster. It is a key factor that determines the rate our happiness increases, and the rate of our progress on the Buddhist Path. The Buddha said the kammic connection between a son or daughter and our parents, particularly our Mother is the strongest kammic connection of any type of relationship. Therefore a gift to our parents creates the greatest amount of good kamma compared to an equivalent gift to any other person. The relative amount of good kamma produced by a suitable gift to our parent can be a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand or even more times that of the same gift to someone we have a weak kammic connection to. You would have to give the other person up to ten thousand or more equivalent gifts for the kamma made to be equal to one single offering of that item to your Mother, for example. According to the Buddha this is the nature of how the Law of Kamma works. It is a similar case with regard to making offerings to beings whose minds are very pure. The kamma of such gifts is also greatly multiplied by the qualities of the receiver of the gift. Hence this is why when the small child Priyadarshi gave a handful of dirt to the Buddha the kammic result was so vast. Not only was the child's mind having many good qualities, so too the Buddha's mind was completely enlightened. As laypersons we train to keep a minimum of five precepts. As our purity