Subtitles
I want to start by reinforcing the point 00:00:00
I want to start by reinforcing the point that what I call the religions of the 00:00:05
East and the ones we're discussing 00:00:11
Hinduism Buddhism and Chinese Taoism 00:00:11
they don't involve that you believe in anything specific and they don't involve 00:00:20
any idea of obedience to Commandments 00:00:27
from above and they don't involve any 00:00:33
conformity to a specific ritual although 00:00:37
they do have rituals but their rituals 00:00:40
vary from country to country and from 00:00:43
time to time their objective is always 00:00:50
not ideas not doctrines but a method a 00:00:54
method for the transformation of 00:00:57
consciousness that is to say for a 00:01:02
transformation of your sensation of who 00:01:05
you are and I emphasize the word 00:01:08
sensation because it's the strongest 00:01:11
word we have for feeling directly when 00:01:16
you put your hand on the corner of a 00:01:17
table you have a very definite feeling 00:01:20
and when you are aware of existing you 00:01:26
also have a definite feeling but in the 00:01:30
view of these methods or disciplines the 00:01:34
ordinary person's definite feeling of 00:01:36
the way he exists and who he is is a 00:01:39
hallucination to feel yourself as a 00:01:45
separate ego a source of action and 00:01:50
awareness that is entirely separate and 00:01:52
independent from the rest of the world 00:01:53
somehow locked up inside a bag of skin 00:01:56
is seen as a hallucination that you are 00:02:01
not a stranger in the earth that comes 00:02:05
into this world either as a result of a 00:02:08
natural fluke or of being a sort of 00:02:12
spirit that comes from somewhere else 00:02:13
altogether but that you in your 00:02:18
fundamental existence you are the total 00:02:26
energy that constitutes this universe 00:02:29
playing that it's you playing that it's 00:02:34
this particular organism and even 00:02:36
playing that it's this particular person 00:02:40
because the fundamental game of the 00:02:42
world is a game of hide-and-seek 00:02:47
that is to say that the colossal reality 00:02:53
the energy that is everything that is a 00:02:59
unitary energy that is one plays at 00:03:03
being many at manifesting itself in all 00:03:07
these particulars that we call you and 00:03:10
you and you and you and you and you and 00:03:12
you and you and this and that and all 00:03:14
around us and it's fundamentally a game 00:03:19
and you can say that this goes really 00:03:23
for all the systems that I'm talking 00:03:26
about it's the basis of Hinduism of 00:03:28
Buddhism and of Taoism this intuition 00:03:32
now today we're going to talk about 00:03:34
Buddhism Buddhism is an offshoot of 00:03:40
Hinduism you could in a way call it a 00:03:44
reform of Hinduism or Hinduism stripped 00:03:47
for export it originates in northern 00:03:54
India close to the area that is now 00:03:57
Nepal 00:03:57
shortly after 600 BC there was a young prince by the name of Gautama Siddhartha 00:04:04
who became the man we called the Buddha now the word Buddha is not a proper name 00:04:14
it's a title and it's based on the 00:04:22
sanskrit root would be udh 00:04:27
which means to be awake and so you could 00:04:33
say the Buddha is the man who woke up 00:04:36
from the dream of life as we ordinarily 00:04:41
take it to be and found out who he was 00:04:46
who he is 00:04:46
it's curious that this title was not something new there was already in the 00:04:58
whole complex of Hinduism the idea of 00:05:05
buddhas of awakened people and curiously 00:05:14
they are ranked higher than gods because 00:05:23
in the view of Hinduism even the gods or 00:05:27
the Angels the divers are still bound on 00:05:34
the wheel of the the sort of 00:05:37
squirrel-cage 00:05:39
of going round and round and round in 00:05:43
the pursuit of success and the idea is 00:05:48
that if you pursue something that you 00:05:52
can call success pleasure good virtue 00:05:57
which originally of course means 00:06:00
strength magical power all these 00:06:03
positive things you are under illusion 00:06:09
because the positive cannot exist 00:06:11
without the negative to be you only know 00:06:16
what to be is by contrast with not to be 00:06:18
so if we say now there is a coin in the 00:06:26
left hand there is no coin in the right 00:06:28
and from this you get the idea of to be 00:06:32
and not to be and you can't have the one 00:06:37
without the other 00:06:39
so if you try to pursue to gain the 00:06:42
positive and to deny get rid of the 00:06:47
negative it's as if you were trying to 00:06:49
arrange everything in this room so that 00:06:51
it was all up and nothing was down you 00:06:57
can't do it you set yourself an 00:06:59
absolutely insoluble problem because the 00:07:04
basis of life is spectrum I'll consider 00:07:08
the spectrum of colors when you think of 00:07:12
a spectrum in what form do you think of 00:07:13
it most people think of it as a ribbon 00:07:16
whose red at one end and purple at the 00:07:19
other but the spectrum is actually a 00:07:24
circle because purple is the mixture of 00:07:30
red and blue it goes right round and so 00:07:38
in this way all sensation all feeling 00:07:41
all experience whatsoever is moving 00:07:44
through spectra you don't only have the 00:07:48
spectrum of color you have a spectrum of 00:07:50
sound you have various complex spectra 00:07:54
of texture of smell of taste and you're 00:07:59
constantly operating through all the 00:08:01
possible variations of experience and it 00:08:05
implies that you can't know one end of 00:08:07
the spectrum without also knowing the 00:08:09
other so if you wanted to say your 00:08:13
favorite color is red and you wanted 00:08:16
only red and you had to exclude 00:08:21
therefore blue and purple without blue 00:08:24
and purple you can't have red behind of 00:08:29
course all the various colors in the 00:08:31
spectrum is the white light and behind 00:08:35
everything that we experience all our 00:08:38
various sensations of sound of color the 00:08:41
shape of touch there's the white light 00:08:41
and I'm using the phrase the white light 00:08:47
rather symbolically I don't mean it literally but there is common to all 00:08:57
sensations what you might call the basic 00:09:04
sense and if you explore back into your 00:09:09
sensations and reduce them all to the 00:09:11
basic sense you're on your way to 00:09:15
reality to what underlies everything - 00:09:20
what is the ground of being the basic 00:09:24
energy and to the extent that you 00:09:26
realize this and know that you are it 00:09:30
you transcend you overcome you surpass 00:09:34
the illusion that you are simply John 00:09:40
Doe Mary Smith now what have you so then 00:09:49
the Buddha as the man who woke up is 00:09:55
regarded as one Buddha among a 00:09:59
potentiality of myriads of Buddhas 00:10:03
everybody can be a Buddha everybody has 00:10:06
in himself the capacity to wake up from 00:10:10
the illusion of being simply this 00:10:14
separate individual the Buddha made his 00:10:18
doctrine very easy to understand because 00:10:21
in those days there wasn't very much 00:10:24
writing being done and people committed 00:10:26
things to memory and so he put his 00:10:29
doctrine or method in various formulae 00:10:33
which are very easy to remember and I'm 00:10:35
going to explain it in those terms so 00:10:37
that you can remember it just as well he 00:10:42
of course practiced the various 00:10:45
disciplines that were offered in the 00:10:48
Hinduism of his time but he found in a 00:10:51
certain way that they had become 00:10:53
unsatisfactory because they had over 00:10:57
emphasized asceticism 00:11:01
had overemphasized putting up with as 00:11:05
much pain as you can there was a feeling 00:11:11
you see that if the problem of life is 00:11:13
pain let let us suffer and this is the 00:11:19
root of the ascetics you see who lie on 00:11:21
beds of nails who hold a hand up forever 00:11:25
and ever and ever who eat only one 00:11:27
banana a day who renounce sex who do all 00:11:32
these weird things because they feel 00:11:35
that if they head right into pain and 00:11:39
don't become afraid of it but suffer as 00:11:41
much pain as possible they will by this 00:11:43
method overcome the problem of pain and 00:11:46
they will set themselves free from 00:11:50
anxiety there's a certain sense in that 00:11:55
as you can obviously see supposing for 00:11:57
example you have absolutely no fear of 00:12:00
pain you have no anxieties you have no 00:12:03
hangups how strong you would be nobody 00:12:11
could stop you you would have ultimate 00:12:16
courage but the Buddha was very subtle 00:12:23
he is really the first historical 00:12:28
psychologist the great psychologist 00:12:31
psychotherapist he is very subtle 00:12:34
because he saw that a person who is 00:12:34
fighting pain who's trying to get rid of pain is still really fundamentally 00:12:44
afraid of it and therefore the way of 00:12:53
asceticism is not right equally the way 00:12:57
of hedonism of seeking pleasure is not 00:13:00
right 00:13:01
so the Buddha's doctrine is called the 00:13:04
middle way which is neither ascetic nor 00:13:09
hedonistic 00:13:09
so it summed up in what are called the four noble truths and the first is 00:13:17
called dukka dukka means suffering in a 00:13:44
very generalized sense you could call it 00:13:49
chronic frustration and it is saying 00:13:53
that life as lived by most people is 00:13:57
dukkha is an attempt in other words to 00:14:03
solve insoluble problems try to draw a 00:14:08
square circle you can't because the 00:14:11
problem itself is meaningless try to 00:14:14
arrange the things in this room so that 00:14:16
they're all up and none of them down it 00:14:19
is meaningless such a problem cannot 00:14:22
ever be solved so try to have light 00:14:27
without dark or dark without light it 00:14:31
could never be solved so the attempt to 00:14:38
solve problems that are basically 00:14:41
insoluble and to work at it through your 00:14:45
whole life that is dukkha now he went on 00:14:52
to analyze this that there are what he 00:14:55
called three signs of being the first is 00:14:59
dukkha itself frustration the second is 00:15:03
Anita and this means the the the letter 00:15:09
a in sanskrit at the beginning of a word 00:15:12
is often the equivalent of our nan so 00:15:17
Nita means permanent Anita means 00:15:20
impermanent that every manifestation of 00:15:24
life is impermanent 00:15:25
and therefore our quest to make things 00:15:34
permanent to straighten everything out 00:15:37
to get it fixed is an impossible and 00:15:41
insoluble problem and therefore we 00:15:44
experience dukka dukka or this sense of 00:15:48
fundamental pain and frustration as a 00:15:50
result of trying to make things 00:15:52
permanent and the third sign of being is 00:15:55
called an Atman now you know from my 00:16:03
talk on Hinduism that the word Atman 00:16:05
means self are not man means therefore 00:16:09
non self that there is in you no real 00:16:18
ego now I've explained that already I've 00:16:21
explained in talking about Hinduism that 00:16:24
the idea of the ego is a social 00:16:30
institution it has no physical reality 00:16:30
it is simply the ego is your symbol of yourself 00:16:43
just as the word water is a noise which 00:16:49
symbolizes a certain liquid reality so 00:16:53
the idea of the ego the role you play 00:16:56
who you are is not the same as your 00:17:00
living organism your ego has absolutely 00:17:04
nothing to do with the way you color 00:17:08
your eyes shape your body circulate your 00:17:13
blood that's the real you but it's 00:17:18
certainly not your ego because you don't 00:17:21
even know how it's done from the 00:17:24
standpoint of your conscious attention 00:17:27
so the idea of an Atman is firstly that 00:17:31
the ego is unreal there isn't one 00:17:31
now then this then is the first truth there is this situation that we have 00:17:41
dukkha or frustration because we are 00:17:47
fighting the changing nosov finns and 00:17:51
because we don't realize that the ego 00:17:55
the AI is unreal the second of the four 00:18:01
noble truth is then called Krishna 00:18:01
Krishna is a Sanskrit word again and is the root of our word first and it's 00:18:13
usually translated desire but it is 00:18:20
better translated clinging grabbing or 00:18:20
there's an excellent modern American slang E word hang up 00:18:30
that is exactly what Trishna is a hang 00:18:36
up Krishna is clutching as for example 00:18:43
what we call smother love when a mother 00:18:49
is so afraid that her children may get 00:18:51
into trouble that she protects them 00:18:55
excessively and as a result of this 00:19:00
prevents them from growing or when a 00:19:04
when lovers cling to each other 00:19:07
excessively and have to sign documents 00:19:11
that they will curse and swear to love 00:19:15
each other always they are in a state of 00:19:18
Trishna and this is the same thing as 00:19:23
holding on to yourself so tightly that 00:19:25
you strangle yourself now so the the 00:19:31
second truth in about Trishna is that 00:19:33
the cause of dukkha is Trishna clinging 00:19:39
is what makes suffering if you don't 00:19:42
recognize that this whole world is a 00:19:46
phantasmagoria and an amazing illusion 00:19:51
a weaving of smoke and you you try to 00:19:56
hold on to it you see then you start 00:19:58
suffering 00:19:59
seriously suffering Krishna is in turn 00:20:03
based upon a Vidya the same- ah Vidya 00:20:16
from the root vid means knowledge as in 00:20:20
the Latin video and the English vision a 00:20:25
Vidya therefore is ignorance genesis 00:20:31
guna means of course to no college is 00:20:36
the same thing as Geonosis in greek to 00:20:43
know so this is not to know to ignore to 00:20:48
overlook and I explained in the first 00:20:52
talk in this series how we ignore all 00:20:56
kinds of things because we notice only 00:21:01
what we think noteworthy and therefore 00:21:05
our vision of everything is highly 00:21:07
selective we pick out certain things and 00:21:11
say that's what's there just as we 00:21:13
select and notice the figure rather than 00:21:16
the background sometimes I draw this on 00:21:19
the blackboard and ask the question what 00:21:23
have i drawn what would you say what 00:21:26
have i drawn the circle 00:21:28
any other suggestions yeah you're 00:21:33
getting the point I've drawn a wall with 00:21:36
a hole in it you see but ordinarily 00:21:40
you've been reading my books so but 00:21:46
ordinarily people see the ball the 00:21:49
circle the ring or whatever and never 00:21:52
think of the background because they 00:21:56
ignore the background just as one thinks 00:21:59
that you can have pleasure without pain 00:22:02
you 00:22:04
pleasure the figure and don't realize 00:22:06
that pain is the background so avidya is 00:22:13
this state of restricted consciousness 00:22:17
restricted attention that moves through 00:22:21
life unaware of the fact that to be 00:22:27
implies not to be and vice-versa so now 00:22:36
the third noble truth is called nirvana 00:22:36
this word means blow out Neera is a negative word again like ah 00:22:55
vana is blowing so it's a kind of out 00:23:06
blowing now in breathing you know that 00:23:14
breath is life the Greek word you may 00:23:22
pronounce it Ponemah or plasma is the 00:23:27
same as spirit and spirit means breath 00:23:31
in the book of Genesis when God had made 00:23:34
the clay figurine that was later to be 00:23:36
Adam he breathed the breath of life into 00:23:39
its nostrils and it became alive because 00:23:44
life is breath but now if you hold your 00:23:49
breath you lose it he that would save 00:23:52
his life will lose it so breathe in 00:23:56
breathe in breathe in get as much air as 00:23:58
you can and Trishna cling and you lose 00:24:02
it so near vana means breathe out 00:24:02
what a relief that was the sigh of relief let it go 00:24:16
because it'll come back to you if you 00:24:21
let it go but if you don't let it go 00:24:26
you'll just suffocate so a person in the 00:24:32
state of Nirvana is what we might call a 00:24:35
blown out person like blow your mind 00:24:35
let go don't cling and then you're in the state of Nirvana and I reinforced 00:24:47
eyes the point this is not I'm not 00:24:57
preaching see not saying this is what 00:25:00
you ought to do I'm simply pointing out 00:25:03
a state of affairs that is so there's no 00:25:07
moralism in this whatsoever 00:25:08
it's simply pointing out like if you put 00:25:11
your hand into the fire you'll get 00:25:12
burned you can get burned if you want to 00:25:19
it's ok but if you so happens that you 00:25:23
don't want to get burned and you don't 00:25:26
put your hand in the fire so in the same 00:25:28
way if you don't want to be in a state 00:25:31
of anxiety all the time and again I 00:25:34
emphasize if you'd like to be anxious 00:25:36
it's perfectly all right if that's si 00:25:40
Buddhism never hurries anyone on they 00:25:42
say you've got all eternity through 00:25:44
which to live in various forms and 00:25:46
therefore you you don't have just one 00:25:49
life in which you've got to avoid 00:25:51
eternal damnation 00:25:51
you can go running around the wheel and the rat race and play that game just as 00:25:57
long as you want to so long as you think 00:26:01
it's fun but if there comes a time when 00:26:05
you don't think it's fun you don't have 00:26:08
to do it so I wouldn't say to anyone who 00:26:14
disagrees with me and who says well I 00:26:17
think we ought to engage the forces of 00:26:20
evil in battle and 00:26:21
this world too right and so on and so 00:26:23
forth and arrange everything in this 00:26:25
world so that it's all up try it please 00:26:28
it's perfectly okay go on doing now 00:26:32
[Laughter] 00:26:32
but if you see that it's suitable then you can let go 00:26:42
don't try to cling relax and if you do that you're in the state of Nirvana and 00:26:51
you become a Buddha and of course it 00:27:00
means that you become a rather 00:27:01
astonishing person you may of course 00:27:05
will be subtle about it and make like 00:27:09
you a very ordinary person so that you 00:27:12
don't get people mixed up 00:27:17
and so in Buddhism the Buddha explained 00:27:21
that his doctrine his method was a raft 00:27:25
it's sometimes called a Jana the word Y 00:27:29
a na Jana means a vehicle a conveyance 00:27:33
and when you cross a river on a raft and 00:27:42
you get to the other Shore you don't 00:27:44
pick up the raft and carry it on your 00:27:45
back you leave it behind but people who 00:27:51
are what I would call hooked on religion 00:27:54
are always on the raft they're going 00:27:59
back and forth back and forth back and 00:28:00
forth on the raft 00:28:01
so that clergyman tends to turn into a 00:28:04
ferryman who's always on the raft and 00:28:09
never gets over to the other Shore 00:28:11
himself now it's something to be said 00:28:14
for that because how are we going to get 00:28:16
the raft back to the first Shore to 00:28:18
bring over the other people see somebody 00:28:21
has to volunteer to take the back 00:28:23
journey but he must be awfully careful 00:28:27
to realize that the real objective is to 00:28:30
get the people across and set them free 00:28:31
if you dedicate yourself to ferrying 00:28:35
people across don't ask them to come 00:28:39
back on the raft with you because you 00:28:43
get overcrowded and people will think 00:28:46
that the raft is the goal rather than 00:28:47
the other Shore 00:28:49
so when I find this in in actual 00:28:52
practice that when clergymen do not ever 00:28:57
ask for money and it's alright you know 00:29:01
like a doctor who simply charges a fee 00:29:04
says you come to me you pay me so much 00:29:07
but the clergyman says he doesn't say 00:29:10
pay me so much he says we would like 00:29:13
your pledge your voluntary contribution 00:29:16
see and then nobody knows what to give 00:29:20
that's the idea of the raft now then the 00:29:23
fourth noble truth is called Moraga this 00:29:38
word means path and the way of Buddhism 00:29:44
is often called the Noble Eightfold Path 00:29:44
because there are eight phases I won't say steps because they're not sequential 00:29:55
I mean the samyak is a very curious 00:30:06
phrase doesn't mean right in our sense 00:30:08
of correct some is the same really as 00:30:13
our word some total complete 00:30:19
all-inclusive we might say we might use 00:30:24
the word integrated as when we say a 00:30:26
person has integrity that a person who 00:30:29
has integrity we mean he's all of a 00:30:31
piece he's not divided against himself 00:30:31
so in this sense of samyak Drishti 00:30:36
this is related to the word darshan which means the point of view or viewing 00:30:50
when you go to visit a great guru or 00:30:57
teacher you have darshan you look at him 00:30:59
and you offer your reverence to this 00:31:05
darshan many senses of it but it means 00:31:08
simply to view look at the view 00:31:11
so the Sameach darshan is the complete 00:31:14
view for example let's take the 00:31:18
constellation called the Big Dipper we 00:31:22
look at it from a fairly restricted zone 00:31:25
in space and it always seems whatever 00:31:28
the season of the year because we are so 00:31:30
far away from it that the stars in the 00:31:33
Big Dipper in the same position but 00:31:36
imagine looking at it from somewhere 00:31:38
else in space altogether and those stars 00:31:41
would not look like a Dipper there'd be 00:31:44
in another position now then what is the 00:31:48
true position of those stars don't you 00:31:51
see there isn't one because wherever you 00:31:57
look the position alters you could say 00:32:02
that the true situation of those stars 00:32:04
is how they are looked at from all 00:32:07
points of view all possible points of 00:32:09
view inside the constellation looking 00:32:15
outwards outside the constellation 00:32:18
looking inwards from everywhere and 00:32:20
everywhere but you see there is no such 00:32:24
thing as the truth the world in other 00:32:31
words is not existing independently of 00:32:34
those who witness it because the world 00:32:39
is precisely the relationship between 00:32:43
the world and its witnesses and so if 00:32:46
there are no eyes in this world the Sun 00:32:49
doesn't make any light nor do the stars 00:32:54
so what is is a relationship you can 00:32:58
free 00:32:59
sample prop up two sticks by leaning 00:33:01
them against each other and they will 00:33:03
stand but only by depending on each 00:33:07
other take one away on the other falls 00:33:07
so in Buddhism it is taught that everything in this universe depends on 00:33:15
everything else that we have a kind of a 00:33:23
huge Network and this is called the 00:33:26
doctrine of mutual interdependence all 00:33:33
of it hangs on you and you hang on all 00:33:37
of it just as the two sticks support 00:33:40
each other and this is conveyed in a 00:33:48
symbol which is called indras net 00:33:51
imagine a multi-dimensional spider's web 00:33:55
in the early morning covered with dew 00:33:57
drops and every Dew Drop contains the 00:34:03
reflection of all the other new drops 00:34:05
and in each reflected dew drop the 00:34:10
reflections of all the other dew drops 00:34:12
in that reflection and so ad infinitum 00:34:12
that is the Buddhist conception of the of the universe in an image the Japanese 00:34:20
call that GG muguet a G means a thing 00:34:32
event a happening so between happening 00:34:38
and happening mu there is no gay 00:34:39
separation GG mu gay now so the first phase of the Eightfold Path has to do 00:34:55
with one's view understanding of the 00:35:07
world 00:35:08
the second phase has to do with 00:35:13
action how you act Buddhist idea of 00:35:18
ethics is based on expediency if you are 00:35:23
engaged in the way of liberation and you 00:35:28
want to clarify your consciousness doing 00:35:34
that is inconsistent with certain kinds 00:35:36
of action so every Buddhist that makes 00:35:43
five vows 00:35:45
five precepts and you may perhaps have 00:35:53
heard the Buddhist formula of taking 00:35:57
what is called pancasila the five 00:35:59
precepts and they take what are called T 00:36:04
solana the three refuges and the Five 00:36:07
Precepts the refuges are the Buddha the 00:36:11
Dharma the doctrine and the Sangha the 00:36:15
Fellowship of all those who are on the 00:36:17
way so the priest or the big who the 00:36:25
Buddhist monk and the laypeople will 00:36:28
chant the formula would hum Saarinen 00:36:31
guitar me hyung hyung Saarinen Tommy 00:36:37
sungchung Saarinen Tommy those are the 00:36:42
three refuges the Buddha the Dharma and 00:36:44
the Sangha then they take the Five 00:36:46
Precepts on our Tea Party nominee 00:36:50
sakaram Samadhi AMI Dina Donovan ISA 00:36:57
carpet on Samadhi army kami Sumi cha-cha 00:37:03
Rivera manisa karin-sama Yami Musa 00:37:12
Cappadonna Samadhi an army camisa 00:37:15
meetcha Hara Romani surah maryam etapa 00:37:20
Madonna 00:37:21
Monisha kappa damn samadhi army so they 00:37:25
take these Five Precepts vanity powder I 00:37:30
undertake the precept to abstain from 00:37:33
taking life Edina Donna I undertake the 00:37:39
precept to abstain from taking what is 00:37:43
not given karma sumit Sahara I undertake 00:37:47
the precept to abstain from exploiting 00:37:50
the passions 00:37:52
moussah vada I undertake the precept to 00:37:56
abstain from falsifying speech surah 00:37:59
maryam a a Madonna I undertake the 00:38:02
precept to abstain from being 00:38:04
intoxicated by surah maryam and much of 00:38:07
a madonna whatever they were i presume 00:38:17
toddy with his alcohol i don't know i 00:38:22
don't know what else it was nobody does 00:38:24
know because you see if you start 00:38:29
killing people or taking life you're in 00:38:34
trouble you set up an opposition and 00:38:37
you've got to become involved in taking 00:38:38
care of it if you start stealing you 00:38:44
worry people you upset people's 00:38:47
orientation in life because if you 00:38:49
suddenly come into the back home for 00:38:51
dinner and find somebody's stolen your 00:38:52
table where you gonna serve dinner 00:38:55
if you exploit your passions it means 00:39:00
that when you're when you feel bored and 00:39:07
somehow that life is a little bit empty 00:39:09
you say well now out of what are we 00:39:11
going to do this evening let's go and 00:39:12
get stuffed a lot of people who suffer 00:39:15
from obesity trying to simply fill their 00:39:18
empty psyche by stuffing themselves with 00:39:21
food oh it's the wrong cure so likewise 00:39:28
Musa vada if you start telling lies to 00:39:31
everybody you know what happens when you 00:39:32
start telling lies you have to tell ech 00:39:35
sterilized to cover up the first one and 00:39:37
you get into the most hopeless 00:39:39
misunderstanding speech collapses and of 00:39:43
course the intoxication is the same 00:39:46
problem as the exploitation of the 00:39:48
passions so there's a purely kind of 00:39:51
practical expedient utilitarian approach 00:39:54
to morals there's another side to this 00:40:00
which doesn't enters into the into the 00:40:02
treaty precepts which I will explain 00:40:04
later 00:40:04
so that's the third phase of the Eightfold Path then another second phase 00:40:11
then the third phase has to do with your 00:40:17
mind with your state of consciousness 00:40:17
and this has to do with what we would ordinarily call meditation there are the 00:40:29
two final the seventh and eighth aspects 00:40:38
of the path are called samyak Smriti and 00:40:46
some young samadhi Schmidty means 00:40:55
recollection that's the best English 00:40:58
word for it now do you understand the 00:41:01
word recollect is to gather together 00:41:06
what has been scattered what is the 00:41:11
opposite of remember obviously dismember 00:41:17
what has been chopped up and scattered 00:41:22
becomes remeber so in the Christian 00:41:27
scheme do this in remembrance of me you 00:41:33
see the Christ has been sacrificed 00:41:36
chopped up but the mass is celebrated in 00:41:42
remembrance one of the old liturgies 00:41:46
says the wheat which has been scattered 00:41:48
all 00:41:49
the hills and grows up is gathered again 00:41:52
into the bread remembered 00:41:56
go back to your Hindu bases the world is 00:42:01
regarded as the dismemberment of the 00:42:07
self the Brahman the Godhead the one is 00:42:12
dismembered into the many so remembrance 00:42:17
is realizing again that each single 00:42:21
member of the many is really the one 00:42:25
so that's recollection you can think of 00:42:32
it too in another way and it's really 00:42:34
the same way if you think it through I'm 00:42:36
going to leave you with a few puzzles so 00:42:38
that you can think them through and I 00:42:39
won't to explain them but another way is 00:42:42
to be recollected is to be completely 00:42:47
here and now are you here now 00:42:50
are you really here there was a wise old 00:42:55
boy who used to give lectures on these 00:42:56
things and he would get up and not say a 00:43:00
word he would just look at the audience 00:43:02
he had examine every person individually 00:43:06
and they're all start feeling 00:43:08
uncomfortable he wouldn't say anything 00:43:10
he'd look at them all and then he had 00:43:14
suddenly say wake up you're all asleep 00:43:18
and if you don't wake up I won't give 00:43:21
you any lecture are you here recollected 00:43:28
see most people aren't they're bothering 00:43:31
about yesterday and wondering what 00:43:32
they're going to do tomorrow and aren't 00:43:35
all here that's a definition of sanity 00:43:37
to be all there so to be recollected is 00:43:43
to be completely alert available for the 00:43:48
present because that's the only place 00:43:53
that you are ever going to be in 00:43:56
yesterday doesn't exist tomorrow never 00:43:59
comes 00:44:00
there is only today 00:44:02
a great sanskrit sort of invocation says 00:44:07
look to this day for it is life in its 00:44:14
brief course lie all the realities of 00:44:16
our existence yesterday is but a memory 00:44:22
tomorrow is only a vision look well then 00:44:26
to this day 00:44:28
such is the salutation of the dawn so 00:44:28
the Schmidty amines then recollected this in the sense of being all here in 00:44:43
the sense that this is the only only 00:44:51
where there is then beyond that comes 00:44:55
Samadhi again 00:44:58
notice the presence of this word sa m 00:45:00
some Samadhi is integrated consciousness 00:45:09
in which there is no further separation 00:45:11
between the knower and the known the 00:45:13
subject and the object you are what you 00:45:20
know 00:45:20
now we think in the ordinary way that we are the witnesses of a constantly 00:45:34
changing panorama of experience from 00:45:41
which we as the knowers of this in a way 00:45:44
stand aside and watch it we think of our 00:45:51
minds as a kind of tablet upon which 00:45:53
experience writes a record and the 00:45:56
tablet is always there although the 00:46:00
experience goes by and eventually the 00:46:04
experience by writing so much on the 00:46:06
tablet wears it out it's all scratched 00:46:11
away and you die see but actually if you 00:46:18
will investigate this and you have to 00:46:20
experiment on this because I cannot 00:46:21
explain it to you in words you can only 00:46:24
find it out for yourself there is no 00:46:26
difference between the knower and the 00:46:28
known when you say I see a sight I feel 00:46:38
a feeling you are using redundant 00:46:40
language I see implies the sight 00:46:47
I feel implies the feeling do you hear 00:46:54
sounds no you just hear or you can say 00:46:59
there are sounds either one will do so 00:47:07
you will find if you thoroughly 00:47:08
investigate the process of experiencing 00:47:11
that the experiencing is the same as the 00:47:15
experiencer and this is the state of 00:47:20
Samadhi I put it originally in this form 00:47:24
that the organism and the environment 00:47:27
are a single behavioral process so 00:47:32
likewise is the NOAA and the known 00:47:32
so you as someone who is aware and all that you are aware of is one process 00:47:47
that is the state of Samadhi and you get 00:48:02
to that state by the practice of 00:48:05
meditation every buddha-figure 00:48:08
practically is seen in the sitting 00:48:10
posture of meditation which is sitting 00:48:17
down quietly and being aware of all that 00:48:24
goes on without comment without thinking 00:48:29
about it and when you stop categorizing 00:48:35
verbalizing talking to yourself inside 00:48:37
your head but naturally the separations 00:48:41
between for example Noah unknown self 00:48:45
and other simply vanish can you point to 00:48:50
the difference between my five fingers 00:48:50
where will you put your finger if you want to point to the difference you see 00:48:58
the idea of difference is an abstraction 00:49:01
it just isn't there in the physical world of course that's 00:49:10
not saying that the fingers are joined 00:49:17
like a duck's claws with a web but that 00:49:24
it's just that they're not the same 00:49:27
that's an idea they're not different 00:49:29
that's an idea and these ideas I just 00:49:36
aren't here see you can't point to it 00:49:40
can't put your finger on it get then to 00:49:45
the state of affairs where you see the 00:49:47
world free from concepts 00:49:47
that's what Buddhist mean by void and they say the world is basically they use 00:49:56
the phrase shunya that has a meaning of 00:50:10
like empty void everything is shown 00:50:13
young this has certainly also the 00:50:16
meaning of anita of transience but 00:50:19
basically it means you can't catch the 00:50:24
world in a conceptual net just if you 00:50:28
try to catch water in the net it all 00:50:30
slips through if you try to tie up water 00:50:33
in a paper package or grab it in your 00:50:35
hands it all flows through so soon yeah 00:50:41
it doesn't really mean that the world 00:50:43
itself that the energy of the world is 00:50:46
nothing at all it means that no concept 00:50:49
of it is valid you cannot make any one 00:50:59
idea or belief or doctrine or system or 00:51:03
theory tie the thing up so if you go 00:51:08
through this and you get completely 00:51:11
blown out and released and are in the 00:51:14
state of Nirvana for no reason that 00:51:22
anybody can explain they're just as for 00:51:25
example you as I pointed out when you 00:51:28
see that you can't change yourself you 00:51:29
can't lift yourself up by your own 00:51:31
bootstraps you then get a new access of 00:51:33
psychic energy so in exactly the same 00:51:36
way when you get to this state of 00:51:38
Nirvana there Wells up from within you 00:51:41
what the Buddhists call Karuna or 00:51:44
compassion the sense that you aren't 00:51:51
different from everybody else everybody 00:51:52
else is suffering is you're suffering 00:51:55
and so this tremendous sense of 00:51:55
solidarity with all other beings arises 00:52:02
so that he who reaches near vana doesn't as it were withdraw into a sort of 00:52:14
isolated peace but as always coming back 00:52:23
into the world into the difficulties 00:52:27
into the problems of life in compassion 00:52:33
for everyone else you can't be saved 00:52:37
alone because you're not alone you are 00:52:41
the whole cosmos you've been listening 00:53:04
to following the middle way with Alan 00:53:07
Watts from the Alan Watts radio series 00:53:09
number six on Buddhism for information 00:53:14
on how to obtain the radio series on 00:53:16
cassette tape call one eight hundred 00:53:18
nine six nine two eight eight seven or 00:53:22
you can write to the electronic 00:53:24
University P o box two three zero nine 00:53:28
San Anselmo California nine four nine 00:53:32
seven nine when you call or write please 00:53:35
indicate the name of your local station 00:53:37
that you heard the program following the 00:53:39
middle way from the Alan Watts radio 00:53:41
series 00:53:41