The Sangha UK 252 09 22 24

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Dhammarato: So welcome to the Sunday afternoon call. It’s 4pm in Thailand and it’s morning time in Europe, and that Thomas has asked a question about seclusion. And so that would be a very good topic for us to discuss. So the Buddha actually highly recommended seclusion. What does he mean by that? Is to get away from all other people. He says, go to the forest, go to a foot of a tree, go to an empty hut or a pile of straw and sit down. And in the translation it says, bring mindfulness to the fore, which means start looking at what’s going on. Start looking what’s going on inside of you. And that the seclusion part means that we are limiting what’s happening on the outside when we’re in that empty hut. We’re not paying attention to the empty hut or its contents. We’re paying attention to what’s going on on the inside. And, well, let’s talk about what kinds of inside we’re talking about. This is called the Satipatthana, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. So when we’re paying attention to what’s going on on the inside, we’re going to be paying attention to the body, the body postures, the body movements, the sensations, especially around breathing. Because when you’re sitting still, the body is not doing very much. And so we’re paying attention generally to the bringing, because that’s about the only thing that’s happening now when we are breathing. That means that there’s going to be a rise in the fall of the chest. The shoulders will go up and down. You can feel the touch of the cloth if you’re wearing a shirt or something. You can feel the breeze, the wind, the touch of the body. You can actually feel where your feet are and how they’re touching, et cetera, like that. There’s two kinds of feeling systems in the body as far as sensation goes. One is touch, and the other was called proprioceptic, which means that you can feel what body posture you’re in without having to look in a mirror. That when you’ve got your hand in the air, you know, the hand in the air, you don’t have to look at it to see that the hand is in the air. How we know that is because of a proprioceptive system in the body. And so when the Mahasi talk about it, they have rising, falling, touching, sitting. How many people have heard that phrase, rising, falling, touching, sitting. What that means is the rising of the breath, the falling of the breath, the touching, which is your pants, your shirt, the breeze Your breathing, all of that is the touching. And then the body’s posture is the sitting. So that’s the body part. And that we become aware of what the body is doing on top of the other three, which are more mental. And that is the feelings that we have. Basically, feelings are of three kinds. Liking, not liking, and something else. Now that’s something else. It can be either a mixture of liking and not liking, or it can be an absence of liking and not liking. Almost always it’s referred to then as confusion because we don’t know whether we like it or not. It also leads to doubt and that will lead to worry, questions and all kinds of stuff. But if we like it, then that’s going to lead to wanting it. And if we don’t like it, that’s going to lead to wanting to get rid of it. And we are almost always ignorant about our feelings, which is that third kind of feeling. I don’t know whether I like it or not. And I don’t even know whether I’m thinking about do I like it or not. I’m lost altogether. I have no clue about what my feelings are, is where a lot of the people are. So the next group is the state of mind that you’re in. This is called in the palace. And people normally confuse the difference between the state of mind we’re in and the actual contents of the mind or thoughts. And the state of the mind can normally be seen as either the state of mind of being underdog or down or the victim or wanting something. And then the other attitude that we can have would be, I’m okay, I don’t need anything. I’m on top of the world. Now, most of the time our mental states have to do with being a victim, blaming someone else, feeling that we’re inadequate, wanting help. All of that kind of stuff is associated with, with the victim. And that when we get into seclusion, that really does show up. Because we think we need love, we think we need other people, we think we need this, that and the other thing from the outside world. And in fact, the reality is that we’re probably a whole lot better off in seclusion. Now, the fourth item is not the mind states, but it’s the mind’s objects. And the mind’s objects are generally whatever thoughts we’re having or whatever way that we’re spending this particular mind moment. So it can be discursive thought. It can be, for instance, using the eye door or looking. We can be listening, we can be feeling the touch. And so these Mind objects move around quite a lot. And so we can take the body as a mind object, we can take our feelings as a mind object. We can take the state of mind that we have as a mind object. We can take our thoughts in the sense of discursive thoughts. And all of these are various ways of thinking. So when I use the word thinking, that’s got a large, broad vocabulary and that we can generally refer to it then as whatever you’re doing in this particular moment is what you’re thinking. But the state of mind generally lasts a bit longer. Our feelings sometimes last even longer than that. And the body can last for years and years. If you can stay alive, it’s going to change and grow and whatnot. Feelings change and grow, but they do linger for a while. For instance, you can find someone in your memory that you didn’t like him in high school. You found a bully in high school, and you’ll still think of him as a bully, and you don’t like him. Even now, 15 or 20 years later, you still don’t like the guy. All right? So that cuff can hang around for a long time. Attitudes can hang around for a long time, but the thoughts come and go very quickly. So when we get into seclusion and get away from all that means that now we have removed about 90% of the input that’s coming from the outside so that we can gain time alone. And one of the things that we do realize when we go into seclusion to get away from the world is that we brought the darn thing, the whole world with us. All of our past, all of our thoughts, everything is still there. And so now that’s how we spend our mind moments, basically, is in the past or in the future when I get out of seclusion. And the correct practice is to use your time and seclusion to really think about what you’re doing right now. So the Buddha has a story in Sutton, number 36. And that story I refer to as the log in the bog. What he’s talking about is, is that if a. If a log is in the water, it will get waterlogged. And sometimes, in fact, there is a situation that there were a number of ships that were lost at sea. Not sea, but lost in the lake, like Lake Superior. And when the ship was sunk, it took the logs all the way to the bottom. They’re completely waterlogged, but that they’re still good logs, that they have actually harvested some of these sunken logs, brought them back up on shore, dried them out, and use them as lumber, as timber. But when that log is in the water, it cannot be set on fire. Now, in the time of the Buddha, there was a profession of professional fire starters. And so in the story of the log in the bog, the Buddha says, if a professional fire starter came to set that log in the bog or set that log in the water on fire, could he do it? Nowadays, I imagine that you could with a nuclear reactor, or you could do it with an acetylene blowtorch, but generally, no. But if you take that log out of the bog and put it up on the shore, then after you take it out, Mikey, can you set that log on fire?

Speaker B: You have to let it dry first.

Dhammarato: Yes. That’s the whole point now about getting out of the bog of our own environment and getting up on the shore so that we can dry out. That’s the seclusion. But when you first go into seclusion, your first 10 minutes or maybe even four or five or 10 days is not going to be enough to dry you out. You need to stay on the shore. You need to stay in seclusion long enough for all of those old memories and all of that old hatred to kind of dry out to where you’ve got really nothing left to think about. This is the value of the seclusion. So when you run out of things to think about, that’s when you can begin to see how and what you think. You can really see the four foundations of mindfulness. You can see the body because you don’t have intervening thoughts coming in. You can see your feelings because you don’t have any of those intervening thoughts come in. You can see your mind states because you don’t have any intervening thoughts come in. And then you can begin to see how those thoughts are formed that give rise to the feelings that we have. This is where we work with the fourth Jhna. In the sense of being able to see how we’re thinking, in the sense of the thinking process itself. So if we can do that, then we can begin to control the way that we feel. In the beginning, you cannot change perception in the sense of turning it on or off, but you can in fact begin to color it, change it, give it new information to work with so that you can begin to change the way you feel. You can change the way you feel. When you remember now most of what happens when people get off into the woods and seclusion, they get bored, they don’t like it, there’s nothing to do, no place to go, no stimulus left, where in fact, there’s a Huge amount of stimulus coming from within their own mind. In fact, one of the things that they’re stimulating themselves with is the boredom itself. Can you begin to see that boredom? Can you see how you made that boredom up? The boredom didn’t come to you down the hall, it came to you inside of your own mind. It didn’t waltz up out of the woods and slap you. You invented that stuff, your boredom, all right, and all of the thoughts that come with that. And so we can then begin to deal with that boredom by changing the thoughts that we have. Instead of having the thoughts of, oh, I would be better off someplace else. We can have the kind of thoughts of, oh, I’m just where I need to be in order for me to deal with bored. So this is how we work with boredom. And that in some traditions, they spend quite a lot of time in seclusion. One of the places, in fact, the Tibetans have a system to where after a monk has been a monk for a while and knows how to do it, they’ll put him into seclusion for a period of three years. And sometimes that’s not enough. In Thailand, they generally do it in three month segments that you go out into the woods and stay there for three months, somebody will bring you food, or you do come down and they eat with the monks and then go back into seclusion and spend almost all of your day with no place to go, nothing to do. You don’t see anybody. You begin to make friends with the, the monitor lizards and the big geckos and the snakes that you find off into the woods because you got nothing else to do. So as we spend time in seclusion, we begin to dry out. And what are we wet with? We’re wet with the world. We’re wet with everything that we’ve ever been taught. We’re wet with all the rules, rites, rituals, and everything’s about how you should be a monk and everything like that. You begin to let that stuff go. You get drained of all of the stuff that you’ve been carrying around. Now the question would be, can you get out of the seclusion and come back into the wat or come back into, let us say, the world? The answer to that is that if you dry out a log, it’s probably not all the way dried out. And if you put it right back into the bog, it’s probably going to get wet pretty quickly. It takes a whole lot more time to dry out than it does when you put it back in the bog. It just sucks that water right back up. Now, one of the points about setting the log on fire is. And we’ll talk about that just a little bit. How do you think, David, how do you think that in ancient, ancient times they made a dugout canoe? How would it be? What would be the process? We’re talking about people who have enough intelligence. They do it for a living, and they know how to do it. How would someone actually make a dugout?

Speaker C: You burn it.

Dhammarato: Yes. But if you burn the whole thing down, where’s your dugout canoe?

Speaker C: Oh, there’s an art to that, apparently.

Dhammarato: Well, here’s the trick is that you soak it in water and get it completely submerged in water, and then you bring it to the shore and it starts to dry out on the top, the water will seep down from the sides and into the bottom of the dugout log. And so you can set the log on fire on the top of it. And after it goes down just a little ways, it’s going to reach the water again, and it’s not going to burn very well. And so now all of the log dugout canoe builders have to do is take their primitive ax and chop out the cinders, and then they’re going to put water in it again, and then they’re going to let it dry out some more like that. And when they do, now they can burn a little bit more. They don’t want to burn the sides of it, they don’t want to burn the ends of it. They certainly don’t want to burn the bottom of it, but they want to burn that part that’s on the inside of it. Okay, so now we can go back to the point about seclusion and recognize that that’s probably what happens is in the beginning, we’re not ready to burn down our whole logic. We’re just sort of setting the top of it on fire like they do a dugout canoe. Now, you can take that dugout canoe and put it back in the water. But if you don’t put it back in straight, if you’re not watching what you’re going, it’s going to tip right over and you’re going to drown. You need some sort of outrigging. You need some protection. But if you can keep the log upright, then it’s not going to fill with water so quickly again. So we can use that analogy also for how do we go then back into society, knowing that we haven’t completely gotten our logs completely dried out yet? Because when it’s completely dry, it will be completely buoyant. The more water that the log has, the deeper into the water it goes, and if it’s pretty well already wet and it’s got a, let’s say, a load of cargo on it, it’s going to sink easily. So the dugout has a whole lot to do with how much load that it’s carrying and how wet it is. So you can use this analogy now for your own mind to recognize that you can either be very careful and come in and out. This is in fact what lay people have to do because they’re not ready to go to the backwoods of the wat. They’re not even ready to go to the wat the first time. So how do they come out of seclusion? In fact, one of the things that you can say is, well, I’ll go do a 10 day meditation retreat and that’ll be 10 days of silence. That means it will be 10 days of actual seclusion. The problem is that the silence is artificial and the seclusion is non existent. When you go into a meditation hall that’s got 100 people in there, guess what? You’re not seclusion. You’re in a room with 100 people with coughing and spitting and farting and moving around and showing kneecaps and all kinds of stuff. And we think that we’re in seclusion. It would be much better for you instead of spending the money to do the retreat, is buy some food for a couple of weeks, get yourself some camping gear and go to the woods. Be really alone. Seclusion is really, really alone. It’s not a retreat. So this is one thing that we can say about the Buddha. The Buddha didn’t say go to retreat that’s run by Jack or run by some Mahasi group or whatever like that, and sit down and mindfulness to the poor. No, he says, go away from people altogether and get away from it all. And now we can begin to practice. And what is that? We’re going to actually do things. That’s going to help drain the mind out. We’re actually going to do things to make that water leave the log. This is what we would refer to then as Annapanisanta. We’re just not going to go out in the woods and spend a couple of months in the woods. I know people like that. One of the really famous ones is Serpico. I don’t want to go too deep in the story of Serpico, but he went to the woods to get away from the north, the New York police. But he carried the New York police with him and he couldn’t get rid of them out of his mind because he wasn’t practicing. He didn’t even know how to practice. He was just escaping, winding up, not escaping from them at all. So we actually have to then think about any time that we have wet thoughts, unwholesome thoughts, thoughts of why we left, why we escaped, to go and throw those thoughts out and start with the wholesome thoughts. If everything is okay, everything is fine. That in fact, this is the whole point is the drying out process means that we’re drying ourselves out from unwholesome thoughts and trying to ensure then that we’re making a new habit. So that when we are practicing well, we don’t have a lot of unwholesome thoughts and we have a lot of wholesome thoughts when we’re in seclusion. So that when we go back into the bog, when we go back into the world, we’re going to maintain that state of mind that we have of everything is okay, we’ve been changing our attitude, we’ve got a winner’s attitude. But when we go back into society, somebody’s going to say something that hurts your feelings. You let them in, you let them hurt you again. Okay? They’ve literally just pissed all over your log and you’re wet again. So how can you prevent that? Well, that’s the protection that you build up. You build up the protection. And one of the ways of protecting yourself is to not get back in the bog. Or if you do get back in the bog, get into a very shallow bog. Don’t go out into the deep water, don’t go out where it is rough. That’s an important point. It depends upon where you go when you leave society, because seclusion is one thing, but society is either shallow, deep, calm, turbulent and all of that kind of stuff. And I would recommend to stay out of turbulent waters. An example of turbulent waters in America is politics. Stay out of politics, don’t let them drown. You stay out of turbulent waters, stay in fact very shallow waters. So when you go back into society, the very shallow water would then be the watt. But leaving the watt goes deeper into the water. And so if you are practicing seclusion at a watt, then when you come out of seclusion at the watt, you can be around noble people, you can be around friends, you can feel in fact that yours kind of still in seclusion because they kind of feel like they’re still in seclusion. But if you go to town, you’re going to have a lot of wetness there. That’s getting into shallow water. If you go to the city, you’re getting into deep water. So be careful about where you go when you come out of seclusion. And by the way, going out of seclusion and getting a job and going to work, that’s pretty rough seas. And so you have to guard against that. Most Westerners who are practicing just a little bit, they’re actually practicing drying out while they’re sitting at their desk, which is a good thing to do. But they’re likely to be swamped by their thoughts of getting the job done or performing or whatever like that. And so the real teachings of the Buddha is actually best by really getting away from a job. And there are some jobs that are downright unwholesome, heavy duty. Okay, I’ll give you some examples of some of the professions that I would recommend people who are practicing the dharma stay away from. One would be being in the military. Another one would be being a cop, being a policeman. In fact, I have actually been able to talk one cop, an old timey cop, out of it. He quit his force after having three or four conversations with me because he did see how desperately dangerous that is. A cop’s job is to make duka. A cops job is to make it difficult and hard on other people. And cops are generally not liked because it’s their duty to create shit for people. And so I would highly recommend you don’t take a job as a cop because you’re creating all kinds of stuff. You can tell how much turbulent water they’re in when you see that cop grab a hold of his gun. It’s still in the holster, but he’s got his hand on that gun. Do you know how he feels when he puts that hand on his gun? Does he feel like that he spent three months in seclusion? Not a chance. Oh no. When he puts his hand on that gun, that means he’s in real, real fear. And they are in fear a lot. So the best thing to do is to stay away from professions that create fear. Another one then would be a prosecutor. To be a prosecutor means you’re actually in the profession of making a huge amount of misery for somebody. You can say, well, they deserve it. Who are you to say? Another one would be a court judge? I would say that in fact, court judges are even more difficult and more difficult situation than a prosecutor. But all of those kind of professions should be avoided. Now what kind of profession would be Only shallow water would be like a dirt farmer. All you’ve got to do is take care of a Few animals and plow a few fields and plant some rice and harvest the rice. And that’s really easy to do. But if you get a combine, if you’ve got a hundred acres or maybe a thousand acres, or maybe 5,000 acres, and you’ve got a whole lot of farm equipment, that’s getting pretty heavy, that’s getting into turbulent water. So there’s a lot of different varieties that we can look at to see how much of this I’m going to come out of my seclusion and how much of the world I’m going to go into. There’s another point would be there’s a whole lot of neighborhoods, especially in the cities, but even in smaller towns, there’s neighborhoods you do not want to go into. They’re deep water, dangerous. Not just dangerous because the people there might do something to you. The danger comes in what you might start thinking when you see those people. So this is the whole point about coming in. Now the next point would be, is to don’t spend much time even in shallow water. Because if you spend a lot of time in shallow water, your logs going to get soaking wet again. So you need to come back into seclusion, dry yourself back out again, and then go in and stay in the world for as little time as you can. This is actually a process that I would say for laypeople is to start guarding your senses. What do we mean by guarding the senses? Like, you don’t look at the things that would create danger. Guarding your senses would be like, don’t go into those neighborhoods in the south. Don’t go to the other side of the tracks. Not only is it dangerous there, but it’s going to be dangerous for you when you come back to your side of the tracks, because you went over there to the other side of the tracks. Now as dangerous on both sides of the tracks for you. So this is the way to begin to understand is that we want to make sure that we’re creating as little danger as we can. And the way that we do that is by guarding our census. One way of guarding the census is don’t go there. Another way to guard the census is don’t look at that. Another way of guarding the census is don’t think about it. Now, when I was studying psychology, One of the PhD professors, he had a little story to tell and it was pure Dhamma, but I didn’t even know it then. In fact, the story is similar in the Suttas. And his story was, is that you see that pretty girl on the Other side of the room, don’t look at her. But if you look at her, don’t go over there. But if you do go over there, don’t touch her, don’t speak to her, don’t invite her to have a drink, don’t ask her out, don’t take her home with you. But if you do, don’t mess with her. Okay? So you got a choice along the line. First, don’t look at her, don’t talk to her, don’t get close to her, don’t want something from her, don’t get her to say yes, etc. Like that. Now in the sutras it’s exactly the same. The Buddha says it exactly the same. Don’t talk to them, don’t look at them, don’t touch them, stay away from them. Now you can take that to anything, like a billboard. You’re driving down the highway, don’t look at the billboards, that’s dangerous. And in fact there was in the 1960s, Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of the President Johnson had a program called Beautify America. And her idea was to get the billboards off the roads because people get distracted when they’re looking at billboards. This happens to everybody. We’re not talking about just domadudes, but we can use that as our point is that if you’re driving down the road, don’t look at the billboards, look at the traffic, look at the people that you could hit with your car. But don’t pay attention to the stuff that’s on the side of the road. Don’t look at the market, look at the traffic, look at the traffic lights, look at the traffic signs, look at only what’s got to do with traffic while you’re driving and don’t pay attention to anything else. No doubt you’ve heard of the phrase rubber necking. You know what rubber necking is? Is when you want to look at what happened. And so as you drive by, your neck is rubbery, you want to see what happened, you want to look. Okay, the right way to do that is that let it go, never mind. Don’t even pay any attention to the accidents on the side of the road. Your job is to pay attention to what you’re doing or you’re going to get in an accident. Also that in fact that’s where major pileups happen is because people are not paying attention to what they’re doing. So we can actually now apply this idea of seclusion in the sense of guarding our sense doors. Now one of the ways that we know that they did. This was the Buddha when he was out on Beindabad, and he recommended this. And so nowadays they practice this in Thailand, that when the monks are out on Bendabad, they keep their eyes down and focused about 4 to 6, 10ft in front of them so that they can see feet, but they’re not looking up, they’re not looking at. When they see those pair of feet, they’re not looking at how young or old the woman is. They’re just looking at feet. Guard the eye doors. Keep your eyes focused on what’s worthwhile then. In fact, one of the best ways to guard your eye door or to guard your senses is to not travel, not be out on the road, not be exposed, not go to shows, not go to hoochie Gucci shows, not go to concerts. Stay away from that kind of stuff. This is in fact, one of the higher precepts, I think that it’s either 8 or 9, depending upon the way that you look at it. Nacha, gita, watida, visukadasana. Now, Ananda is dancing, Gita is singing. But the issue is visukadasana. Now, the end of the word is dasa, which actually means a slave. And it actually is talking about being a slave to entertainment. So if we’re guarding our eye door, that means that we’re not being entertained, that we’re paying attention to what’s going on. You might have your cell phone, you might be watching YouTube, but you’re also watching everything else around you that you’re not getting too stuck into. You begin to guard your eye door so that you’re there in the room and not stuck into the cell phone. And yet you can see our entire, let’s say new generation gets stuck. They go to lunch or dinner with their friends. All four of them are sitting at the dinner table with each other, and all four of them got their cell phone up. They’re not paying attention to the restaurant, they’re not paying attention to their food, they’re not paying attention to each other. They’re stuck in that cell phone. But someone who is guarding his eye door, he’s either going to set that phone down, put it in his bag, or turn it off. Be here now is what we’re talking about. So this is a way of dealing with the world, is when you’re in the world, don’t get too much into it, guard your senses, don’t pay attention to all the stuff that the world and YouTube has to offer, and then spend a whole lot of time not looking at the cell phone at all, just laying or sitting and basically being, doing nothing. Even when you’re thinking, you’re thinking happy thoughts. So this is the way that you would want to have small times of seclusion. Have a whole lot of small times of seclusion. Drag that raft out of the bog on a regular basis. Let it dry out, don’t put it in deep water. So this is the way to handle seclusion is by getting a whole lot of it, a whole lot of nothing, a whole lot of drying out. And spend as much time in the bog only as you need it. And this is why the monks are invited. And in fact, one of the points about the monks here in Thailand is that the senior monks will talk to the younger monks when they see them leaving the wat, especially at the wrong time. The only right time to leave the wat is to go on Bendabad. But you don’t go to the market, you stay out of the city, you stay out of town. Then in fact, the only thing that you would do as a monk in town would do the kind of business that’s necessary. For instance, taking care of visas. And when you finish with the visa, you come back to the wat. Because when you’re in the watt, it’s a whole lot easier to guard your eye doors. Because in the watt there’s not much to see. And it’s better when you’re in the watt to not be in the front of the watt where all the activity is. We go to your kuti, go to your room and stay away from all of the excitement of the what? If you’re going to go talk to somebody, talk to only one person, not a whole group. If you’re going to talk to people, it’s better to talk to someone who is in the Dhamma, who knows the Dhamma, and talk about the Dhamma to them. So when you’re in the wat, you’ll talk to the. To the other monks in the wat, you’ll talk about the Dhamma. If you’ve got friends, you’re in the Dhamma. This is one of the reasons why I invite the friends that I have is to meet with each other because you’ve got something in common, and that is you’ve got the dharma in common. And some of us are noble. And so you’ll have. You’ll develop noble friends. And so if you develop noble friends, that means that you’re in. When you’re in the bog, you’re only in shallow water. So this is the way that we live our lives is start guarding the eye door, start doing things that keep us. Let us say, in that mind state of joy, happiness, success, and dealing with a whole lot of people who have no joy, no happiness and no success are going to just piss all over your dry log. So it’s better to stay away from them. So let’s open this up for discussion. Thomas, let me hear it. What do you think about what I just said?

Speaker D: Yes, I agree. I like the metaphor of piecing for your luck because I think that describes it very well. I have noticed that, yes, you do have some protection. But as you say, in my case, my law was not too dry to begin with, so the protection was very limited and it got wet really fast. But, well, it’s always a good moment to get it dry again, so.

Dhammarato: So, Anna, you’re now in the Bahara in Sri Lanka. Do you understand what I’m talking about? Because this applies actually to you. Yes, actually, it’s clear now why Debbie Cooney told me to not speak with everyone. So, yes, it made it more clear for me.

Speaker E: Everything.

Dhammarato: Thank you, Zamarato. All right, Carl, how about you? Do you have any comments?

Speaker D: I was going to say, even if you. If you do go back in, into, into the world, at least, like, keep your head out of the water. You might get, like, your body wet, but keep the head out.

Dhammarato: Yeah. Your log is already sunk down to neck level. Huh? I got you.

Speaker D: Precisely.

Dhammarato: Yeah. Don’t drown. That happens a lot. Don’t drown. So, David, you’re actually in the white now. What do you think about this talk?

Speaker F: Oh, yeah, it’s great. I totally agree with everything you said. And yeah, I love. I love staying dry. I’ll keep staying dry here. And I noticed the. There’s still a lot of people that come into the lot from outside and I find, like, I have to be very careful. Like, there’s a lot of strange people that come stay in the lot. Actually, like you said, it’s like a hospital. So. Yeah, I’m very careful who I interact with here too.

Dhammarato: All right, well, in fact, the dorm that you’re in is not a really good environment for someone who is staying at the what for long term. I would highly recommend that you move over to Don Kiem and take a cootie over there.

Speaker F: Yeah, I hear you. Except actually, well, this. This room is not bad. Actually. There’s no one ever comes in here since I arrived. No one’s come in this room, so.

Dhammarato: Oh, all right, well, that’s good enough then.

Speaker F: Yeah, if. If it becomes a problem.

Dhammarato: Yeah. Secluded enough. And not only that, but you’re within three minutes of the kitchen, right?

Speaker F: Pretty good.

Dhammarato: We’re at over Dom Kiem. Getting food is an hour walk.

Speaker F: Actually, I. I hear sometimes they. They go out until like noon. They don’t come back until like noon.

Dhammarato: Well, I haven’t gotten much yet.

Speaker F: It’s crazy sometimes.

Dhammarato: Lamb pickens.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Dhammarato: So, Adelino, do you. Have you understood what we’ve been talking about? Have you gotten anything?

Speaker G: It’s difficult for me to speak. Sorry. Damarado. It’s very difficult. I listen to you many, many day, every day. But I don’t. I can’t speak very well English. I’m so rebel for that. I want.

Dhammarato: I don’t listen. I don’t understand all the languages I hear either. So I know where you are. I can understand. And congratulations for continuing to listen. You probably picked up a lot of English just by listening.

Speaker G: Yes, yes, yes. This is another. Another thing is that for me is very. It’s very good. Yeah, it’s good enough. But I listen you every day to YouTube with under Peter. No. And I can understand very well. But for speak is very difficult for me. I’m sorry for all gay, but I’m.

Dhammarato: Not sorry for you. I appreciate that you’re doing what you’re doing. Good for you.

Speaker G: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Dhammarato: Thank you for all. Where are you, Dean? Are you out? You here? Dean Gardner? You own the line. He’s come in and out a couple of times. How about you, Orlean? Oh, Dane. Yeah. So what do you get out of today’s talk?

Speaker H: Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask you. Could you tell us a bit about Don Kiem? Because I’ve heard you talk about it before about. About Kahul. Is there something special about the Don Kim? Or is it a training? What or what? Could you tell us a bit more about Don Kiem and Ajahn Mehta, is it? Or Meti.

Dhammarato: Yeah, Ajahn Meti. He’s an old friend of mine and I highly recommend him. He’s very good. He does put the people to work some, but sometimes not. Dam Kiem can hold about 50 people easily. For as far as room goes. As far as eating, they have to go out. Now, sometimes when the. When retreats are happening, it’s easy enough to get food by going to the International Dharma Hermitage because it’s easy to get there. But most many times during the month you have to go out. And some of the routes are long and sometimes there’s not A lot of food, which is actually a really excellent part of the practice of going on Vendabat and guarding the eye doors and following Achahn Netti as he’s moving about. And so I would highly recommend anyone to go. In fact, that’s what the wad is for. It’s a really excellent training watch. It was built intentionally for Westerners. Built a place intentionally for Westerners. And Achahn Methi is a really good abbot. He’s really good. Highly recommend him. Ariane, how are you doing, boy? I’m doing great.

Speaker E: This talk has been very time appropriate for me as like I mentioned in the past, so university is starting next week and I’ve been in seclusion quite a lot, so it’s going to be difficult to stay dry. But I think with right action and skillful action, I’ll do my best to, like Carl said, keep my neck above the water and well continue joining these calls and discussing with noble friends. I think it should be good.

Dhammarato: Yes. In fact that was our point to make, is that when you’re at university, you came to university to be at university to where some people, especially back in the 60s when I was in university, they didn’t go to university to go to university, they went to university to party.

Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. And yeah. So no, I’m really looking forward to it. I can’t wait to start learning. Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.

Dhammarato: Yes.

Speaker E: Thank you for the talk.

Dhammarato: Stay with your good happy feelings and stay with what you’re learning at university. And don’t be a party boy. Stay away from guard or guidor.

Speaker E: I was, I was thinking about starting maybe a meditation and yoga society if possible with my university. Maybe I could host some guided meditations or something or possibly.

Dhammarato: Really good idea. That’s really good. And then.

Speaker E: Yeah, so it’s all fun and I’m not really a party. Yeah, it’s no desire for me to do that stuff.

Dhammarato: Alcohol.

Speaker E: They say when you drink alcohol you’re paying with tomorrow’s sunshine. So. Yeah, yeah, no good for me.

Dhammarato: So Lars, you have something to say?

Speaker C: Well, that was very interesting. So when people are in seclusion, do they have to chop wood or do any cooking or. I noticed that Thailand is like 363 people per square mile.

Dhammarato: So I’m sure there’s some. Well, it depends upon when you where you are in seclusion. There was when I as the seclusion that I’m familiar with, there was no chopping wood or hauling water. But that’s the Zen story, the chopping of the wood is actually to remove the unwholesome thoughts. And the carrying the water is to carry those unwholesome thoughts out.

Speaker C: If people bring you food so you just eat like cold food or something.

Dhammarato: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.

Speaker C: If people are bringing you food to eat, then it may not be heated. It’s just cold food.

Dhammarato: Or. Yes, yes, if they bring you food or more than likely you’re going to have to leave seclusion to go out to the wat to get the food at the kitchen, if the watt has a kitchen. Or maybe go on Bendabot. But in any case, your food’s going to be cold and that’s okay. Cold food is all right. Hot food was only useful for people who were in the northern area. But here in Thailand, we don’t need hot food. Hot or not hot, it’s still food, still does its job. A lot of mosquitoes. Yeah, we’ve got mosquitoes. Got a whole bunch. I got more friends when I turn the videos off. Some Buddhists, like, don’t. Well, it depends upon whether you like them or not. If you don’t like mosquitoes, then you’re in a state of not liking. But it’s actually possible that when the mosquito bites, you just put on a coil and everything is hunky dory. You don’t have to go through the state of I don’t like mosquitoes before you light the coil. You can just light the coil if they bite you. Well, remember that the bugs are not bugging you. You’re bugging you because of the bugs. All the bugging that’s going on is inside the mind. Bugs don’t bug you, you bug you. When bugs come, that’s how we do it. So, Mikey, let me hear it, friend.

Speaker B: Thomas, do you want to say something?

Dhammarato: Yeah, let’s get Thomas in there. Thomas, you raised your hand. Go ahead. Okay.

Speaker D: Yeah, it was just a comment about the bugs. This summer, there were a lot of bugs here. I was practicing that you were walking me and I tried to practice. I perceive that contact as maybe pleasant or at least not unpleasant. And it was very interesting because it could actually feel really pleasant, weirdly enough. So I think it’s an interesting thing to try. I don’t know. Mosquitoes, probably harder, but with. Life was kind of easy. That’s all.

Dhammarato: You’re kind of breaking up. Mikey, can you help with what he was saying? Yeah, I’m not sure.

Speaker B: Something about flies being friends.

Speaker D: Yeah, that’s. That’s the gist of it. Yeah. Sorry. My Signal is not too good here now.

Dhammarato: All right, well, Mikey, this wrap this up. What have you got to say about today’s talk?

Speaker B: Ah, so nice to be dry and seclusion and wonderful to hear this talk and be good friends today.

Dhammarato: That’s it.

Speaker B: OpenTalkathFoundation.org there’s more added to it every day. There’s all sorts of cool features, things to check out. Definitely something, something new since the last time you’ve been. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, go ahead and subscribe to the channel and give this video a like leave a comment. And we also have episodes available on Spotify, itunes or whatever your favorite podcast app is.

Dhammarato: Yes, we have what Podbean and Podbean puts the stuff all over the place.

Speaker B: Yeah, I honestly don’t even know where all it is.

Speaker G: It’s.

Speaker B: It’s all over.

Dhammarato: All right, well, thank you, Mikey. One point and that is that we do have polls now. I’m not talking about Polish people. We’re talking about surveys and polls and things like that. And we’ve just added of some code so that you can add your own poll. So please everybody go and pick up a poll, a question like do you think Sri Lanka is hot? And those are the kind of polls that we can put in. So everybody add a new poll. We just finish that package. Actually, the. The plug in didn’t allow. You had to go to the back end to add a new pole. But I just put the shelter in there so that you can. Everybody can add a new pole. So have at it. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. This has been a good day. Now I’ll go back into seclusion or something. We’ll see you. Bye.

Summary of this Dhamma Talk

Dhammarato explores the Buddha’s teaching on seclusion using the analogy of a log in water that needs to dry out before it can catch fire. He explains how true spiritual practice requires periods of genuine solitude to “dry out” from worldly influences, and provides practical guidance for protecting one’s practice when returning to society. The talk offers valuable insights for both serious practitioners seeking extended seclusion and laypeople looking to incorporate elements of seclusion into daily life.

Outline of this Dhamma Talk

The Buddha’s Teaching on Seclusion

• Go to forest, foot of tree, empty hut or pile of straw
• Bring mindfulness to the fore - look at what’s going on inside
• Practice with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness
• Limit external input to focus internally

The Log in the Bog Analogy

• Like a waterlogged log that can’t burn
• Need to take log out and let it dry before it can catch fire
• Similarly, need seclusion to “dry out” from worldly influences
• Takes longer to dry out than to get wet again

True Seclusion vs Artificial Silence

• Real seclusion means being truly alone
• Meditation retreats with 100 people aren’t true seclusion
• Better to go to woods alone with camping gear
• Need to be away from all people and influences

Protecting Your Practice When Returning to Society

• Stay in “shallow water” - limit exposure to turbulent situations
• Guard your sense doors - don’t look, don’t engage
• Avoid professions that create dukkha (police, military, prosecutors)
• Spend minimal time in “the bog” of society
• Associate with noble friends who share Dhamma

Practical Tips for Modern Practice

• Guard eye doors - limit phone/media use
• Be present rather than entertainment-seeking
• Take regular periods of seclusion
• Practice in short periods if long seclusion isn’t possible
• Choose environments and company wisely

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