Simply This Moment - Buddhist Meditation and Theravada ...

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Watch this inner conversation going backwards and forwards with a sense ofdetachment. The more we watch it with detachment, with mindfulness, the more wewill loosen our belief in the accuracy of our thoughts. But if we can’t believe in whatwe think, what can we believe in? The answer is: we can believe in the silence, inthat emptiness. That emptiness is far more truthful, far more real than the thinking.Thinking is just a commentary. I sometimes criticize the commentaries of theBuddhist teachings. The Buddha’s teachings are much more real than thecommentaries. Commentaries are just people’s ideas about what happened, in thesame way as the commentary we have about our experiences. That inner conversationis not accurate, it’s just a thought that comes up and goes away. It comes conditionedaccording to the moods of our mind. If we’re upset we have rotten thoughts, if we arein a great mood we have nice thoughts. Which thoughts are real? Neither of them,they’re all just coloured and bent by conditions. That’s why now, when we see that,we don’t believe in any of those thoughts. When I want to leave, I don’t believe in it;when I want to stay, I don’t believe in it. When I’m annoyed because a monk didsomething really unskilful – ‘He shouldn’t have done that, he should have knownbetter’ – I don’t believe in that. When a monk has been really, really, great and donewonderful, marvellous things, I don’t believe in that. Instead I believe in the silence.The Fabric of RealityIf I have faith in anything, it’s in silence. When I believe in that silence, it’s anexperience that is real. It’s also an experience which gives much more happiness. Itgives perspective to all these thoughts. It puts the thoughts in their proper place. It’snot that the thoughts are not real; it’s just that the thoughts are disturbers of thesilence. Once you let the thoughts go the silence returns. The silence is more like thefabric of reality. That’s why in a monastery, if you listen closely enough, you canhear that silence around you and you can hear the silence in your mind.Once we can hear that silence of the mind and touch that emptiness, there issomething about it that we know is real, even before we start thinking this ismeaningful, this is peaceful, this is happiness. After a while we become a connoisseurof that peacefulness and we value it. We look upon it as a great jewel, a great gem59
that is very valuable. This world doesn’t value silence at all, it doesn’t valueemptiness. Wherever there is nothing people want to put something in. When there isquietness they want to speak. When there is a space they want to fill it up. That’scraving; that’s foolishness; that’s a lack of confidence; it’s fear. We think because offear. We move because of fear. We crave because of fear. It takes courage just to letgo.Because you’ve come to a monastery, there is something inside each of you, whichhas sensed that in silence, in letting go, there is peace. Each of you has already livedenough years to have been disappointed many, many times in the search forhappiness. But once you start to turn to silence and to emptiness, you will rememberit and value it. That silence, that emptiness, begins to be noticed in so many places.You notice the emptiness in your room; that’s why the best monks are the monks withthe fewest possessions. You notice it in the emptiness of your daily schedule withfewer duties. You notice it in the emptiness of your mind.In other words, fewer thoughts are needed. We notice that in the emptiness of ourmovements. We tend to stay still more, rather than always coming and going. We’reletting go, we’re simplifying. The more things we have, the more things we do. Themore places we go, the more complicated we make our life style. Those of you whoare travelling will know how complicated it is to travel, the family arrangements andhow it involves so many other people. Sometimes we think what are we travellingfor? Wherever I go, there I am. What is the point! I sometimes look at that, and ifit’s not for someone else’s benefit, I can’t see the point in travelling for myself. Imight as well just stay here, because whatever is over there is also over here. Thatemptiness, that silence, that space, you can see it anywhere. Especially the silence,the space between our ears, it’s the emptiness of the mind.It is strange that when some people become quiet in their meditation, even just for amoment, they feel so challenged by that silence that they disturb it. I think manypeople actually leave a monastery, because they can’t stand the silence. They’reafraid of it. They want to fill it up with activity or with movement. There’s a lot oftruth to that in a very deep sense. We can see that sometimes in meditation, whenthings start to get still, ‘Wow!’ that’s a bit much. But after a while, a person in60
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Simply ThisMoment!A COLLECTION OF T
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CONTENTSPage1 Ways and Means into J
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This gives one great insights into
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ūpaloka, even though we are only a
Page 10 and 11: too much body-awareness. With body-
Page 12 and 13: and thoughts - apart from the exper
Page 14 and 15: faculty of the mind to sustain and
Page 16 and 17: - and this is a natural phenomena -
Page 18 and 19: involved I stress the word ‘fully
Page 20 and 21: though he was a Noble disciple pass
Page 22 and 23: Anyone who claims the experience of
Page 24 and 25: Sometimes people have so little con
Page 26 and 27: the shelf and we know how this whol
Page 28 and 29: The Delusion of Freedom‘That whic
Page 30 and 31: monk telling me once that his fathe
Page 32 and 33: say that in the Anupada Sutta (MN 1
Page 34 and 35: it’s been still for a long time,
Page 36 and 37: 3 DETOXIFYING THE MIND2 nd of Febru
Page 38 and 39: consciousness - or as I would prefe
Page 40 and 41: is letting go of the pleasures of t
Page 42 and 43: never overcome thirst in that way.
Page 44 and 45: Use the triple practice of sãla, s
Page 46 and 47: after another, hundreds, thousands
Page 48 and 49: much fire in their minds. This is w
Page 50 and 51: 4 LOOKING FOR THE SWEET CHILLISeeki
Page 52 and 53: Listening to fine music. Is this it
Page 54 and 55: freedom is not freedom at all becau
Page 56 and 57: We have a story in Buddhism of the
Page 58 and 59: This is real contentment! This is r
Page 62 and 63: monastic life does respect the sile
Page 64 and 65: delusion because it has kept us goi
Page 66 and 67: This is the opposite of suffering.
Page 68 and 69: ight view. It’s very hard for a h
Page 70 and 71: always be on the wrong path, and on
Page 72 and 73: “Look, if this is causing sufferi
Page 74 and 75: out of control. The monastery goes
Page 76 and 77: the past and the future, and we’r
Page 78 and 79: at all. Who can trust memory? In me
Page 80 and 81: can. Give it full attention every m
Page 82 and 83: in the morning, afternoon or evenin
Page 84 and 85: yourself from all that’s happened
Page 86 and 87: mutti is releasing and anālaya is
Page 88 and 89: instructions without question.It’
Page 90: comes into the mind, then we start
Page 93 and 94: hold in the mind’s eye and I was
Page 95 and 96: of letting go, not stages of attach
Page 97 and 98: Sayutta there is something that imp
Page 99 and 100: pushes you out of sasāra whether y
Page 101 and 102: 7 DHAMMA PRACTICE10 th May 2000I’
Page 103 and 104: Adult people look after their own k
Page 105 and 106: many people in the world who write
Page 107 and 108: What if you make that your goal, an
Page 109 and 110: things really complicated. It’s s
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‘The monks here, or the teacher,
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and surrender to the path. Surrende
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8 HUMAN RIGHTS IN BUDDHISMDhammalok
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doesn’t really have any meaning o
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These things are not freedoms, they
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told me in Malaysia and Singapore t
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When Jerusalem fell in 70AD, becaus
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To question is a right for people.
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embarrassed by my fellow Buddhists.
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many countries between laws which a
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It’s a very narrow truth. The tru
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guilty you have to be punished! You
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the Zendo - but the more you smile
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Having planed off the rough parts,
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got the flu and cancelled your appo
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I was taught to choose to watch the
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From Diversity to UnityMeditation i
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usually if someone is dead they wou
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There are other cases like that. On
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10 CONDITIONED REALITYDhammaloka Bu
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The Buddha very clearly outlined th
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even your bare perception is alread
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way, there has to be some other exp
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Seeing Truth and RealityI want part
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talked with one of the people - who
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was able to follow to get into deep
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ideas are not actually the true Nib
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that the air around it is not movin
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and find out what that pain really
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mantras, all words of instructions,
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just observing. Surely the thinking
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without valuing, without weighing o
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so difficult to attain. It is becau
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12 REFLECTIONS THAT ARE CONDUCIVETO
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the mind, and that’s the jhānas.
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need the calm which is developed by
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can try it with virāga.VirāgaPeop
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with all of its difficulties and al
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clinging stops us from experiencing
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the thirteenth giving up the critic
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13 THE OUTFLOWINGS OF THE MIND12 th
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from peace. The will ‘to be’ is
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the future, to fantasies, to the pa
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taught here. Going into the present
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that the core of all this is ‘emp
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14 STARVING THE TIGER TO DEATHOverc
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inappropriate for a monk to be doin
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When a person really understands wh
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getting angry and upset. This way y
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You will find simplicity means that
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use them to make progress in your m
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By developing seclusion from all th
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People in the world say everything
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15 THE LAW OF CONDITIONALITY3 rd Ja
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elate that sort of smell to a very
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When you start to see the will ceas
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up. You see that anger is not the c
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Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be a
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Once you can see this whole cause a
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whether you like it or not. So you
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anymore than you can break the laws
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is the barrier of the five hindranc
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experiences, resting on them, based
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attention to the sensory world, we
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Instead of having kāmacchanda we h
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distraction of ill-will? Outside, w
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Sloth and TorporSloth and torpor ar
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wherever you want mind, I’m compl
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Wherever there’s thinking, it goe
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17 I KNOW YOU MĀRA25 th August 200
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“Come on, who do you think you ar
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you don’t have a clue, that so ma
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unfolding. In fact, the more you le
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they’ve got into that habit. What
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As the Buddha said in the Indriya S
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about anything because worrying is
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seeing clearly. Sometimes people ge
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There is just so much happiness. Th
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see so much detail. It was always t
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after us, yet there is this loud mu
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When you start to see that, it’s
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this. So if we see where that disco
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mindfulness, you get pīti, more jo
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you can meditate, you can teach, be
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and restlessness cannot survive. Th
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19 PERFECT STILLNESS29 th June 2005
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Have You Come Here to Die?At one re
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At the last retreat I taught in Ipo
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process is about. You also understa
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go of everything. Letting go is wha
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the moment. It doesn’t matter wha
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moving up and down, the nimmitta is
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So, look upon your life as a journe
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Nirodha. Nirodha means cessation, t
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20 THE ENDING OF EVERYTHING7 th Dec
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delusion, to think of things as bei
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samatha and also the word upasama b
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quoting the suttas here; they are t
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I was talking earlier this evening
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opposite is true. The less ‘self
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senses are. Before that it’s just
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The mind creates; this is what it d
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Get into the jhānas, the real jhā
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whatever things come into existence
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2. Dukkha - suffering.3. Anattā -
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Painissagga: “Letting go”, aban
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