On Basics Ben 2 09 27 24

Video

Transcript

Dhammarato: Hello.

Speaker B: You hear me?

Dhammarato: Good to see you again.

Speaker B: Here. Good to see you, sir. Have you been.

Dhammarato: Oh, everything is fine. Everything is okay.

Speaker B: There.

Dhammarato: Not a worry in the world. So what can I do for you?

Speaker B: I. I can say I’m. I’m doing really well. It’s. Yeah. I mean, every day.

Dhammarato: That’s good to hear. That’s good to hear.

Speaker B: Better. Yeah. It’s you. You’ve. You’ve given me. Sometimes I think you’ve given me everything I needed already. It really is. It’s been very helpful. I’m seeing exactly where I need to look, what I need to look at, how I need to look at it, what to do with it. It’s all very nice. I suppose I can summarize kind of what I’ve been dealing with as the fallout of never having been loved, ever having been back to when I dialed. Not having been loved. Not. Not being loved by my parents when I was a child and having very few friends and everything through all those kinds of social situations and. Yeah. And then seeing now how that that manifests in.

Dhammarato: You can have lots of friends now.

Speaker B: Insecurity.

Dhammarato: You’re a big guy now. You can have all the friends.

Speaker B: Oh, that’s the thing is I’m fine. And I. I’m. I’m okay whether I have them or not.

Dhammarato: I didn’t catch that. You’re having water or not.

Speaker B: That’s. I said I’m. I’m okay. The connection is not very good. It’s probably. Everyone tries the Internet around this time here.

Dhammarato: Okay. I having a little trouble understanding you. The microphone today seems to be muffled would be the word for it.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think it’s the. It’s the Internet connection here because around this time everybody’s. Everybody’s trying to call over to Cambodia and it’s.

Dhammarato: Yes, this would be just in general, in the US this would be the time to call, but this would also be a time for the. What folks to call Cambodia. Opportune time. Because everybody’s using. It is not so Opportunity.

Speaker B: Yeah. The problem is.

Dhammarato: So anyway, I’m glad that you’ve gotten the point about the Eight Full Noble Path, that for some reason there are so many millions of Buddhists that just don’t get the real teaching of the Buddha. And the real teaching of the Buddha is the Four Noble Truths, Most specifically, the Eight Full Noble Path.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s like I hear monks talking about the Dhamma and they very rarely talk about the Eightfold Path. And I’ve always wondered why that is never been able to get a good answer about it either.

Dhammarato: I think that it may be because people consider the Eightfold Noble Path sort of kindergarten Buddhism, and they’re looking for PhDs. But, but the point in mathematics is that PhDs can’t. They work a lot with symbols, but if they don’t have numbers in there, their symbols don’t mean anything. And so back to the basics, back to the numbers. Remember Sati to look ditty and to make a change. Right. Noble effort. This is the 1, 2, 3 of Buddha. We have to apply it on a hourly, moment by moment basis to look at those thoughts, make change. And if you can do that, you’ve got everything that you need out of the teaching of the Buddha. So we change thoughts of selfishness and the thoughts of non selfishness. We change the thoughts of greed into thoughts of altruism. We change the thoughts of fear into the thought, into thoughts of accomplishment and power. Any thoughts that we have can be changed to something better. And that’s really all the teachings are. And it’s funny also in a way that so many teachers want to find something new to teach.

Speaker B: Yeah, that’s, that’s the one that gets me is the Buddha warned about that. He said, you can’t, you can’t add anything to the Dharma. You can’t take anything away from it. It just is what it is, and that’s all it needs to be.

Dhammarato: Well, people have been adding a lot. I mean, have you seen the size of The Tripitica?

Speaker B: I have.

Dhammarato: 50.

Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, it’s, it’s quite substantial. I’m grateful that it’s all there. It all is, seems to be. I found very little in the Topitica that I can. There, There are a couple things that seem to be added on later that are. They’re pointed out usually by the commentator. It’s the commentaries and subcommittees. And I think even the Abhidhamma was the last addition to the tapedic. And sometimes I wonder if that hasn’t kind of misdirected people away from.

Dhammarato: The.

Speaker B: Message of the suttas, or at least, or maybe they’ve misunderstood it from there. I know in my experience, I’ve encountered some people who feel like because it’s the ABHI Dharma, the Greater Dharma, the Higher Dharma, that means it’s better in some way. But it’s, it’s just a distillation. It’s the same thing.

Dhammarato: Actually, we would be very lucky with the same thing.

Speaker B: Yeah, I, I have my contentions about it. I, like, I, I didn’t learn anything about it until I’d already been meditating and reading the suttas for well over a year and I did just fine.

Dhammarato: Well, for one thing, we don’t have adequate translations of the Abhidhamma. In fact, the only translation into English that I know of is with the Politics Society and they are the number one top worst translation of any of the Buddhist tripetic languages.

Speaker B: Yeah, it’s all Christian language and it’s very stilted and very. Yeah, I mean, the trans. The fact that they did the work of making it available is good, but we need to, we need a new translation convention around a lot of the Bali.

Dhammarato: Well, Bhikkhu Buddha. Dasa has said of both the Abhidhamma and the Basudi Maga that they both could be thrown in the ocean and that the teachings of the Buddha would be better.

Speaker B: Ah, wow, that’s. Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I have to be careful because there’s, you know, the monks I’m around here are. They’re very dedicated to learning the apitama and I usually don’t like to hear it when I. When I bring my doubts to bear on it. Well, actually, the Wasuti Maga, that one.

Dhammarato: In particular, in a way, the human mind is like our hands. We need to put handles on things so that we can carry them around. And at the same time, if we have our hands full, we’re likely going to drop something. And so if you’ve got car keys and your wallet and your cell phone and your passport, et cetera, in your hands, the likelihood is that you’re going to drop one of them. And so when you’ve got Abhidhamma and Vasudhimaga on mind, you’re more than likely going to drop suttas.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and then the contortions that people go through and they look at and they try to see, is this chitta, is it rooted in dosa? That means it’s this. That means it’s like, no, just. Is it dukkha? Does it feel good? Stop doing it. If it’s dukkha. You don’t need to like, try to pigeon analyze into a category.

Dhammarato: It’s. Yes. In fact, the Abhidhamma probably fits in that realm exactly the same way that the Westerners are practicing the Mahasi method, which by the way is rooted in the Basutimaga.

Speaker B: It’s the same thing. Yeah.

Dhammarato: Have I told you my little story about that? I probably have already. Yeah. You’re walking down the sidewalk and there is a dog pile about 10ft ahead of you. Okay, well, the avid is taking that dog pile into the kitchen, slicing it, dicing it, powdering, mixing it with onions. And that’s what they’re doing. They’re taking the duka and they’re just mincing it all up and putting a lot of powder on it and frying it up and all of that kind of stuff to where the Buddha recommends. Right there in Suta number 117, the great 40. He recommends to remove those unwholesome thoughts and put wholesome thoughts in the mind.

Speaker B: Now there’s don’t have to.

Dhammarato: A couple others.

Speaker B: Oh, there are a couple other. There’s the two kinds of thinking in the Majamanakaya where he gives a list of recommendations when you see something in your mind. 19. Yep, that’s the one of how to get that stuff out. And then I can’t think of which one it is. But he says that you should react to something unskillful in your mind as if your hair is on fire. Get it out.

Dhammarato: I think that’s in the samute, which is later literature.

Speaker B: Yeah, and that’s sounds about right. I noticed you, you, you. All the suttas you’ve mentioned that I’ve heard anyways, all come from the Majuma. I don’t think I’ve heard you refer to any other nikaya, which I don’t. I don’t blame you at all. The Majuma is my personal favorite.

Dhammarato: But I. I would.

Speaker B: Is there a reason you have the preference?

Dhammarato: Yes, I would say that in fact that I would stay with the Udana, the Sutta Nepata and the Majumana Kaya.

Speaker B: These are actually the exact three I’m reading right now. I just finished the Sutta Napata, recently started the Udana reading through the Majesty. I want to read the whole thing cover to cover. I’ve read most of it, not all of it.

Dhammarato: Yeah, the Udana and the Sutunapata are known both in context and in style, as well as deeper research. That this is the oldest stuff that mag, in fact is most likely that they were written at least memorized, but probably written down in the lifetime of the Buddha, as well as the Terry Gita and the Terry Terragitha and Teri Gita. Those were written down in the time of the Buddha and the Tamajamanakaya kind of closed the book because that was done the year after the Buddha died. Interesting things like the Mahapiri Nibbana Sutta, this in the Dinga Nikaya. Actually, most of that stuff was taken out of the Udana.

Speaker B: I did not know that. Actually the diga is the one I’ve read the least of. I maybe a handful of suttas out of it.

Dhammarato: The Udana is where Bhikkhu Buddha Dasa found and pointed out that the Basudi, excuse me, the Paticha Samupata was what the Buddha was doing during that six week period after his friends left him, that he was figuring out actually how the mind worked.

Speaker B: Yes, yes, that’s a. To imagine that looking in your mind seeing birth and death and asking what lies on either side of them and then figuring it all out from there.

Dhammarato: Well, it’s. It’s funny how many people want to believe all kinds of things that the Buddha didn’t teach rebirth and reincarnation. He didn’t teach that. But in fact the English, English language translations, they all will translate jati as rebirth. To where it doesn’t translate well, to is just birth. And what he means is actually there’s the birth of the blues, the birth of this moment.

Speaker B: Yeah, this, that’s happening right now. This is it. And it was actually, it was one of John Buddha Dasa’s a transcribed talk of his that I read where he said exactly that, that the Buddha didn’t teach rebirth, he just taught that moment by moment there’s birth happening. And just see that. And that was actually. Yeah, that was. I still remember that. That of all the things I’ve read, that one sticks out. That one really struck me.

Dhammarato: I think part of the problem that many people have had in, let us say, more recent centuries, there is a Tonka of the Potica Samupata on a wheel being held up by a bear. He’s got his teeth on the top of it and his paws around it and he’s holding it. And step 11 there, no 10, is a picture of a pregnant woman. Signaling. Signaling Literal, physical or process. Baba, the becoming and having a pregnant woman. Pregnant. That’s kind of a metaphor. But it’s so far off that people really get confused thinking that there is actually a pregnant woman. Where in fact the pregnancy is in the mind.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, it’s like it’s the same issue where people think Samsara is a place. Samsara is not a place. It’s. It’s the activity in your mind.

Dhammarato: Actually, it’s the circles. Everything is in cycles. When we say in nature, we’re actually talking about everything is in a cycle. For instance, there is a cycle between oxygen and hydrogen. They come together, they fall apart, they mix with other things. Sometimes you’ve got oxygen by itself. Sometimes you’ve got O3, sometimes you’ve got O2. And then it goes back with water as hydrogen. And so that there’s. The number of things that can be happening are few. And they run around in circles in one another. And that’s the. Everything is in cycles. Some cycles take centuries.

Speaker B: Yeah. It all just comes back to itself. It doesn’t go anywhere. It never really moves from where it is.

Dhammarato: Well, spinning in circles, but not actually. You could even say in that regard is a spiral like a slinky toy.

Speaker B: Ellie’s and.

Dhammarato: And the slinkiness is going off into the future while things are just spinning around as it goes.

Speaker B: Right. I visualize her. I always see dependent origination is like it’s. It’s spiral. But if you imagine a spiral expanding from a center in all directions, it’s like if you try to point in which way is time moving, time seems to just be expanding out from the center. So you could say coming inward. Either way, it’s kind of the same. But even Einstein said, I believe it was him, that the difference between past, present and future is just an illusion. And I think that’s really what dependent origination is saying at its core is that, you know, you can’t say that the past or the future exists. You really can’t say anything exists. You can only define it, describe it based on its observable condition. And then when that condition changes and the thing.

Dhammarato: But the only time that you can observe it is right now. So there’s a difference present. There’s a big difference between present in the regard of past, present and future. And that none of that exists. The only thing that really exists is right now.

Speaker B: And that’s where the past and the future, if you think about those things, that’s where they are.

Dhammarato: That’s right. All the past is just right here. All the future is just right here.

Speaker B: If I can dare to overreach. I had this understanding that hit me. That was very. It was something. Because if you look in the Majuma 9, I believe it’s in that one. It might be another sutta where dependent origination is given that Nama Rupa arises dependent on Vinyana. Vinyana arises dependent on Nama Rupa. They go back and forth. They feed back into each other. And it. It hit me that. And it seems so simple because it’s like something I’ve known. But all of a sudden it just became real that in any moment all it is is. It’s this instance of Vina arising There is no. The Vinyana that thinks of something now is not the Vinyana that experiences it in the future. It’s a totally separate experience. And the Upadana, the ignorance, all that in the mind is what says, no, this is me experiencing it now and I’m going to experience it in the future. And that’s the whole delusion, that’s the whole confusion. Some level I have to keep coming back to that because that keeps solidifying into, you know, I’m thinking about this and I’ll be the one that experiences it when it happens and come back to it. No, no, no, that’s not it.

Dhammarato: Well, we keep coming back then. At the basis of that is the April noble path of making a change, seeing where we go off in that direction or this direction here, looking up into the past, inventing fancy Dhammas. And it’s all really very simple just to remember I said, you’ve got a choice. The.

Speaker B: The other thing that was. That was quite striking about that realization was in it and like, was this recognition that, so why would I ever be afraid of death? Why would I ever want anything? If what’s thinking about it now is not what’s experiencing it, if there’s no continuity, then what’s the big deal? And it’s that I feel like in that understanding, when that really locks in and you got it, as long as it keeps getting away, rather, it’s not that that’s going away, it’s the ignorance that’s clouding it out again, obscuring it.

Dhammarato: Yes. Death and funerals and dying and morgues and ways to go and all of that kind of stuff. When someone has recently had a parent or someone close to them die, I often play with it to get them out of their grief and thinking about how terrible death is to where. Nope, it’s just a racket. The morticians have a racket, the doctors have a racket. The undertakers have a racket.

Speaker B: Oh, they sure do. Yeah. They’re making a killing and they’re making.

Dhammarato: A feeling because you feel. Making killing because you feel bad. If you don’t feel bad, they’re not going to make so much money.

Speaker B: Yeah, they got to play it up. Get this sad obituary and bring your friends and your family and everybody sob it up together. Yeah.

Dhammarato: And if you’re Irish, you got to.

Speaker B: Get drunker at the temple here. Yeah, no, thank you. But seeing at the temple here a lot, a lot of times, the only time that I see people is when somebody’s died and people come out Then to make their merit and dedicate it, and then we don’t see them again until somebody else dies. In fact, wonder. This isn’t necessarily.

Dhammarato: I have a story about that, too. Yes, there was one, by the way. They were Cambodian. A Cambodian family had some old croaker die and all of the grandsons. And there was a crowd of them from one that was nearly 20 years old, but still under 20, all the way down to about six or seven, I think that there was nearly a dozen of them. And for some reason, their family wanted them to ordain and stay ordained a whole week. And so they ordained on Friday, the services were done on, and cremation was done on Saturday. And then they disrobed the next following Saturday. And they were all there at the watt. And so my idea was to teach them the Dhamma. And Maha Samsak’s idea was to put them to work. And so we did those two things. And so for a while, I taught them the Dhamma. And for a while, they cleaned up the place, fixed it up, and so that was their week. Guess what? After that, we never saw any of those guys again.

Speaker B: Yeah, I bet you didn’t. Oh, yeah, I. We’ve had people do that. They’ll ordain their. Their children, their grandchildren, sometimes even. I’ve seen, I think, like, adult children. You know, people in their 30s, 40s, they’ll ordain for a weekend, usually just a few days. And I started to notice that, you know, one of the other monks here will take them and they’ll meditate a little bit in the morning, but most of the time they’re just sitting around, don’t know what to do. And so if they speak English, I’ll. I’ll take the time to teach them the Dhamma. And I found. I think maybe it’s just because they’re bored out of their minds otherwise, but they’ve been very appreciative of the. You know, what I’ve had to say. And even. Even practicing meditation, I think for a lot of them, they didn’t realize it’s something that they could do, that it is accessible, and that it is kind of a good thing.

Dhammarato: In a way. Meditation is best defined, is the. The practiced and eventually the art of stopping of everything.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

Dhammarato: Yes.

Speaker B: It’s like Angulimala. But I asked him, when are you gonna stop? That’s exactly it.

Dhammarato: Yeah. I have stopped. Angulimala. You stopped, too? Just stopped.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And you just get tired of it. Within myself, it’s like, yeah, when am I going to stop? When is it enough?

Dhammarato: How much do I have to suffer right now?

Speaker B: How much pain?

Dhammarato: What is this? When.

Speaker B: Right.

Dhammarato: That’s past and future stuff.

Speaker B: When? Right now.

Dhammarato: That’s the only time there is. When? Right now.

Speaker B: Yeah. And so here it is. What is it? Interesting. And you gotta get quiet. You gotta like. It’s funny how it’s the thing in the back of the mind that’s creating all this is so obnoxious. And then when you look for it, it gets real quiet and doesn’t want to show itself. And then it’s. I started to figure this out too, that it’s the thing that’s looking. That’s the problem, is the thing that is looking for it. It’s like a dog chasing its tail.

Dhammarato: Mm, mm.

Speaker B: Yes. If you stop and you look at where is this coming from and then you start to get a sense of what’s going on.

Dhammarato: Exactly. That in the beginning, people just have thoughts, random thoughts, monkey mind thoughts, unwholesome thoughts. And then they have those thoughts often enough, they start to talk about it. And then they’ll have them, those unwholesome thoughts long enough to start acting on them, building up habits, and that becomes their destiny.

Speaker B: So, yeah, scary stuff.

Dhammarato: If we can remember that we have a choice when we’re having those thoughts, that we have a choice about what thoughts we’re going to have. We can’t change our destiny directly, but we can certainly change the thoughts that give rise to our actions. And if we have thoughts of stopping right now and continue to have thoughts of stopping, pretty soon our actions will stop. You know, the Buddha talked about four kinds of comma. And the fourth kind of comma was neither good nor bad, neither bright nor dark, but it brings the end of action.

Speaker B: Way out.

Dhammarato: Yeah, the action that brings the end of action.

Speaker B: What an interesting idea. But maybe you can help me. I’ve been trying to figure out. I’ve been trying to find it, or I think about it once in a while. The. It’s one of the verses where the Buddha described his experience of awakening. And he said it wasn’t by pushing forward and it wasn’t by staying still. When I pushed forward, I was whirled about or swept away. When I stayed still, I sank. And so by neither pushing forward nor by staying still did I cross the flood. And he leaves it at that.

Dhammarato: Which would. Which would be another word of saying, relax, just relax. Because here’s a way of looking at it. A car can either you have the gas pedal on going forward, accelerating. Or you can have the foot on the brake stopping it. This is what he’s talking about. And the third option is take your foot off the accelerator and off the brake and just let it coast to a stop.

Speaker B: It’s the hardest thing in the world to do because it’s not doing well.

Dhammarato: It’s non doing. Exactly.

Speaker B: Exactly it. Yeah. And the mind wants to do something. That’s the trap. That’s the whole.

Dhammarato: Well, that’s the habit.

Speaker B: It’s like. That’s the habit, you know, that keeps arising, that like in meditation, when things get nice and quiet and you’re in a good spot, the first thing that happens is, now what do I do? Nothing. What do you mean?

Dhammarato: Enjoy the nothing. That’s what you do? Yeah. Oh, this is nice. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. And the spring comes and the grass grows all by itself according to Japanese haiku. So just sit there. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. So the stopping is what we begin to practice in the beginning. Like angulimal. That was the first. He think he said to angulimala. And so stop. And once we start, when we take our foot off the accelerator and start putting it on the brake, pretty soon we realize we don’t have to put it on, put the brakes on either. But the best thing to do is just stop by not accelerating, not doing so stopping in that regard is an active job to do.

Speaker B: Yeah, you got to the effort. That leads to the end of effort. Karma. That leads to the end of karma. Yeah. And if people will hear that and they think, I’ve heard this, that, you know, they think Nibbana is just nothing. Or like then. Then you turn into a robot. You just have no thoughts, no emotions. And it’s like, no, you come alive more than ever. You. You reach a place that is here.

Dhammarato: Here’s something that you might want to use for the issue of Nibbana. Imagine a car that’s been out on the road, been traveling here, there and yon, going to the truck, going to the store, going to the repair shop, going to the bank, et cetera. Like that. When it comes home, it was building up heat all of that time. And when the car comes home, you turn the engine off, the tires are still hot, the radiator is hot, the engine’s hot, the exhaust is still hot even after you turn it off. But if you leave it off, it’ll cool off. Batch nirvana is the cooling off that we do after we stop, after we come to a rest, then things will cool Off.

Speaker B: I want to be very careful because I don’t want to misunderstand the.

Dhammarato: What.

Speaker B: When it comes to talking about Nibbana, it’s. Make sure that we’re forgetting it because you say you stop and it cools off. You stop and it cools off.

Dhammarato: Yeah, because there’s no more friction when we’re stopping. There’s a lot of friction, especially in the brakes that get hot. But if you just roll to a stop, then everything just cools.

Speaker B: I want to say more, but I don’t want to talk about Ned Bon. Feel like it’s too delicate a subject.

Dhammarato: You’re. You’re. Well, the subject is not delicate. It’s the mind of the people who don’t want to hear it. How easy it is. It’s not delicate.

Speaker B: Well, and even to. Because you’ve put it in a way that is. I think that’s very easy to understand and accurate to what it is and to really. To say more than that is to complicate it. And that’s, you know, Nibbana is the simplest thing there is. That’s what makes it difficult.

Dhammarato: Well, this has been great. Why don’t we bring this talk to a close? I’ve really enjoyed it. Ben, thanks so much for calling again. And it looks like you’re moving along just fine towards that. Stopping.

Speaker B: Yeah, it’s. I’m not worried. I’m not terribly worried.

Dhammarato: That’s great. Isn’t that marvelous? Wow. What a relief it is from the last two times that you called, especially the first time.

Speaker B: What a relief. Well, you know, we all need.

Dhammarato: We all need help.

Speaker B: I’m so glad you’re here to provide it. I can’t even imagine how many people you’ve helped. It’s. You’re an inspiration.

Dhammarato: I mean, just having fun.

Speaker B: Exactly. It’s got to be fun. If it’s not fun, it’s terrible.

Dhammarato: All right, well, we’ll see you.

Speaker B: Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Have a good day.

Summary of this Dhamma Talk

Dhammarato emphasizes returning to the fundamental teachings of Buddhism - the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path. He discusses how many practitioners overcomplicate the teachings by seeking advanced concepts while missing the basics. Through practical metaphors like a car coming to rest, he explains how meditation and practice are about the art of stopping, and how Nibbana is as simple as letting things naturally cool down when we cease creating friction. The talk provides a refreshing perspective on Buddhist practice that emphasizes simplicity, present-moment awareness, and the practical application of the Buddha’s core teachings.

Outline of this Dhamma Talk

Back to Basics of Buddhism

• The real teaching is the Four Noble Truths, specifically the Eightfold Noble Path
• Many teachers overlook these fundamentals seeking “PhD Buddhism”
• The basics are: Sati (to look), Ditthi (view), and making changes (Right Noble Effort)

On Buddhist Texts

• Recommends focusing on Udana, Sutta Nepata, and Majjhima Nikaya
• These are considered the oldest texts, likely written during Buddha’s lifetime
• Cautions against overreliance on Abhidhamma and Visuddhimagga
• “The teachings would be better if these were thrown in the ocean” (quoting Buddhadasa)

On Birth and Dependent Origination

• Buddha didn’t teach literal rebirth/reincarnation
• “Jati” refers to birth of moments, birth of experiences
• Everything runs in cycles (Samsara)
• Present moment is the only reality - past and future exist only in the present

On Stopping and Practice

• Meditation is “the art of stopping everything”
• Like a car: don’t accelerate (push), don’t brake (resist) - just coast to a stop
• Nibbana is like a hot car cooling down after stopping
• The path is about making choices about our thoughts moment by moment

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