You Don’t Need Love Tomas D 1 05 09 24

Video

Transcript

Dhammarato: There you go. All right. So now it’s recorded. So anyway, you were listening to a video. Tell me about it again.

Tomas: Yes. So it was this video with, as I said, I think his name was Andrew. It was quite recent, like three weeks ago or something. And he was just. It was a long conversation, let’s say two hours. And what he was doing was, for example, you say, you should be able to say that the world is okay as it is right now. It’s good enough. And then he would say, yeah, but there’s climate change. There’s this bad thing that we need to change. And I really thought about that and I decided for myself that thinking that there is something wrong with the world is not the mindset you need to change the world.

Dhammarato: Well, it’s whether you’re actually able to change the world or not. We’re not sure of. We don’t know. We don’t know the future. But what we do know is right now, you can change your own mind, you can change your attitude, you can change your thoughts. And right now is all we have. Right now is real.

Tomas: Yeah. The only real thing is right now.

Dhammarato: At one time, steam locomotives were real and every train had one. But now steam locomotives are few museums, they’re for toys. And real steam locomotives are almost gone. They don’t exist anymore.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: So that’s the point right there, in a big way, that you can understand that what you did this morning is gone. It doesn’t exist anymore.

Tomas: Why should I have constant questions on what I’m doing right now?

Dhammarato: Yeah, that’s what we have. That’s the question to ask is, what are we doing right now? And then that sense, the question is not a question in the sense of pondering and in the sense of doubts and worries and questions. It’s in the sense of investigation what’s happening right now, to look at what’s happening right now. Because only now, when you see what’s happening right now, especially between your ears now, you have a chance of doing something about it. If an archer from across the field shoots an arrow and it’s coming right at you in your direction, you can see it coming and you have a chance or a choice to get out of its way or to catch it if you’re fast.

Tomas: But if in panic, you cannot do.

Dhammarato: Anything, if you’re in a panic mode, if you’re afraid you’re going to get shot by that arrow, you probably will get shot by it.

Tomas: That’s kind of funny.

Dhammarato: And same thing happens with criticism. If somebody criticizes you and you don’t like it. Guess what? You got hit by that criticism. But if you say, ah, that criticism went right by me. It missed me. Now you’re satisfied that it missed you. But if you let it hit you, now you’re dissatisfied. So the criticism that somebody levels at you and shoots at you is not the problem. The problem is whether you let it hit you or whether you let it miss you. Are you watching what’s going on?

Tomas: I’m trying to imagine myself, for example, I’m just sitting there and my mother comes in and says, your haircut is bad.

Dhammarato: Guess what? It’s her opinion that the haircut is bad. And when you believe her, when you buy it, then you feel bad. Specifically because it’s my hair.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: And she invited you to think of it as my hair. And the reality of it is that it’s just hair. You can’t stop it growing. You can’t make the fibers of the hair or each hair strand big, fat or skinny. You can’t control the speed of the hair. Why do you think that that stuff that’s growing at the top of the head is your hair? That in fact that when you took it to the barbershop is now the barber’s hair? You can’t control the hair. So when your mom says, your haircut is bad or your hair is bad, why do you say, it’s me, My hair, It’s not yours at all. So if you say it’s my hair, you get. You’re getting shot right in the chest with her criticism. But if you say, oh, it’s not my hair, went right by you. Not my problem.

Tomas: Is that why monks shave?

Dhammarato: No, monks shave to keep the lice down. And mostly they shave because it’s tradition. But the original point was no hair, no lice, no hair, no problem, no hair, no barbers. So the easy way out. No hair is easy. There’s nothing to it. But for you, it’s a big deal. And it’s when your mom comes in and criticizes your hair. Oh, it’s you that feels bad. The hair doesn’t care what she said.

Tomas: When you say that. This is something that we were talking about the meditation. And a big thing from what I learned from that meditation is that the me, let’s say, is not per se, my body or my mind.

Dhammarato: So, well, the body changes slowly. But you are a moving target. Can you move out of the way so that when she says your hair, it’s not your hair? Can you move out of the way so that it’s not yours.

Tomas: Yeah. Okay.

Dhammarato: When somebody says you’re fat, can you move out of the way so that the fat body is not your body, it’s just a bad body. Yeah. The Buddha is about anatta, not self. It’s not yours. Stop owning it. Because when you own it, that means when it’s broken, you’re broken. A really good idea that you can see that is with politics. If you identify with a particular nation, let us say I’m an American or I’m a Scot. Then when Scotland burns down, the Scott people feel bad because they say I am Scott. All right? Same thing with the political party. If you say I am a Democrat and then the Democrats lose an election, now you feel bad. It’s the Democrats that lost the election not you. You didn’t lose the election. You had nothing to do with it other than identify. I am a Democrat.

Tomas: Then can we identify with anything at all?

Dhammarato: You don’t have to identify with anything at all. That’s the best place to be. Don’t identify with anything. Don’t identify with any beliefs. Don’t identify with any facts. Don’t identify with political parties. Don’t identify with countries. Don’t identify with a religion. Don’t identify with anything because anything you identify with, when it gets hit with a criticism, you feel bad. Just like you identified with your hair, calling it yours and mom criticized that hair and now it’s your hair. So you feel bad and the hair doesn’t even care.

So it’s identifying. That’s the self. You become it. If you’re going to become something, become something wholesome. That’s something untouchable.

Tomas: For me what I, what I do in a day to day basis, I’m a very much perfectionist.

Dhammarato: How about a moment by moment basis.

Tomas: Moment by moment is what I am gonna start doing, but I’m just saying what usually happens. I’m very much a perfectionist and I’ve, or at least I had decided that that was because I was very critical of myself. I did not want to be criticized by anybody.

Dhammarato: So you criticize yourself and start a lot of sense. I make a lot of sense. If you don’t want to be criticized, there you go criticizing yourself so you won’t get criticized outside.

Tomas: I would want to wake up at 5:30, let’s say I want to wake up early, early bird, guess the worm or whatever it is in English, I don’t know. Then I wake up, let’s say at 5:45, which is still perfectly okay. But then I started feeling bad about it, and I started thinking, why am I feeling bad about this? I didn’t do anything that’s bad. I just woke up a bit later than I had planned.

Dhammarato: There’s an easy answer to that question, because you’re in a habit of feeling bad about things, and you just plugged waking up early into that formula. Bad formula. Habit of bad feelings, comma, waking up early, closed parentheses, semicolon. And it’s a function that you have, and so you wind up with bad feelings. You can plug anything in. ¹ The way you brush your teeth. You can feel bad. The way you put your clothes on. “Oh, I should have put my right foot in the shoe before I put my socks on.”

Tomas: So the right mentality in this case would be, I woke up at some Time…

Dhammarato: “Hey, I’m awake. Isn’t that wonderful? I didn’t die in my sleep. I’m awake. Hot dog. What a marvelous day this is. I’m still alive.” That’s the kind of wholesome thoughts that you would have. But most people, when they wake up, they start to feel bad. “Oh, I’ve got so much to do today.” “Oh, I’ve got to be perfect so I don’t get criticized” “Oh, I’m going to go criticize those guys as a defense for them criticizing me.”

Tomas: I was very much my own biggest critic.

Dhammarato: So stop criticizing yourself. Stop with the critical mind. See the critical mind, see the criticism and say, “hot dog, I see that.” “Hot dog. I see that” is already making a change.”

Tomas: These same monk friends I told you about I met in another Discord server. They told me that maybe the biggest step in making the change is just noticing the pattern of behavior, noticing the thoughts, noticing that that is there. And then from there on, you kind of automatically will.

Dhammarato: When did you hear that from them? How many months or years ago was it?

Tomas: A few days ago.

Dhammarato: Okay. And here you are not practicing it.

Tomas: Yes, very much so.

Dhammarato: All right, so they should have told you, you got to practice this. You got to start looking at the thoughts you have and start to make changes to them. You can do that walking around. You can do that sitting on the toilet. You can do that while you’re putting your socks on. You can do it anytime. This is why it’s not meditation. Because meditation is when you put your butt down on a special pillow, in a special place, with a special altar, special candles, and a special photo or a special Buddha statue, or a special monk, in a special meditation hall. All of that kind of special has got to go.

Tomas: and you want to feel special.

Dhammarato: Yeah. Including the feeling of wanting to be special and say, I’m already good enough. I don’t have to be special. Now here’s something that’s a catch 22 in that regard. Since everybody that you’ve ever met wants to be special and you don’t care about being special anymore, that ordinary is good enough for you. Guess what? They’re still ordinary because all of them want to be special. So that’s ordinary. But you don’t want to be ordinary anymore.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: So that’s quite a catch-22, isn’t it? By not wanting to be special anymore, you do become special.

Tomas: You know, it’s. It’s very funny. I’ve noticed this so many times. I for. I don’t know anything about some topic, let’s say. And then I just try doing the thing. Then I started.

Dhammarato: You try it or you just do it?

Tomas: I just do it. Then I start learning about how I should be doing it. Then there is a long period of me not being happy with myself. And at the end, when I kind of master the thing, I end up going back to the same conclusion of just doing the thing in the beginning.

Dhammarato: So you spend all that time working, and failing at it, and feeling bad about it. And then when you were successful, now you begin to feel good. When in fact, while you were working at it or while you were working at it, you can instead have thought of it as being playful and play with it. And every time you fail, you’re happily playing with it. So it. Because it doesn’t matter. And then when you succeed, now you really feel good. You felt good in the beginning, you felt good in the middle, and then you felt good in the end. But no, you choose a different. You feel good in the beginning and then feel rotten for a long time in the middle, and then you feel good in the end. And the Buddha. That’s actually part of the teaching of the Buddha. You can find it in many suttas, including in the Dhammapada, where the Buddha says that this practice is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end with the right phrasing and timing. ²

Tomas: Right phrasing.

Dhammarato: Yeah, you gotta understand it. You gotta change that phrasing from “I screwed up” into “oh, look at that, I did something. Mm.”

Tomas: Yeah, Fair. When I was thinking of I’m good enough, there was still. I was using that as an excuse, let’s say. So it would be I screwed up in the morning, but something, something, something…

Dhammarato: You didn’t screw up in the morning just say that I was playing.

Tomas: I was doing something in th emorning.

Dhammarato: Yeah you were doing something in the morning and you learned something from it.

Tomas: Fair.

Dhammarato: That that’s one of the things that most people in our society miss is that making a mistake is a learning experience and they will learn something if they can see the mistake. But mostly they don’t learn anything because they’re too busy feeling bad because they screwed up.

Tomas: Can I ask something else about a friend of mine? Now I’m starting to wonder. Right now let’s say he’s feeling very critical of himself, he’s depressed, he is having suicidal thoughts and we’ve talked with each other very often and every time I just tell him, “You need to stop being so critical of yourself.”

Dhammarato: No, don’t do that. The thing to do is to hand him a loaded gun and say, “I want to watch.”

Tomas: But I don’t want to watch.

Dhammarato: Well, tell him you want to watch and do it enthusiastically. Tell him you want to watch. Go ahead and do it now. Guess what? He won’t. He won’t do it now. People who have suicidal thoughts are at least lucky enough that they’re only thoughts, but they still feel miserable and they don’t do it. Almost all successful suicides is just another screw up. What they did, they wanted to pretend to do suicide, thinking that they’d get out of it alive. So hand him the gun and say do it now. I want to see, I want to watch. What do you think his answer to that would be? Is he going to take the gun and blow his head off then in fact, when he even puts the gun, you say, oh no, you got to make sure that you get through the temple, through the right through the frontal cortex, right down through the other side. But the better way to do is to shoot it through your throat so that you make sure that you get the amygdala brain and the reptilian brain and that which controls all of the feelings and all of the hearts beats and all of the blood stuff. That’s the place to do it, is to shoot yourself right in the top of the throat so that it goes and blows out all of the really good stuff. Then in fact you can shoot yourself in the temple and survive. So you can shoot yourself right between the eyes and survive. But if you shoot yourself this way, then it’s going to get to the back into the old reptilian brain and that’ll do it. So hand him the gun and make sure that he understands how to do it correctly and he won’t do it. He’s too afraid. That’s the reason why he’s thinking about suicide is because he’s afraid. Only then when you confront him can you start to teach him the Dhamma.

Tomas: So call him out, basically.

Dhammarato: Yeah, yeah. Check him out, freak him out, test him. Say if, well, if you’re not going to do it right now, then why do you have thoughts about doing it at all? You really don’t want to die, you know.

Tomas: And he has said that. He has said that. He says, like, I am very afraid of doing this thing. I’m trying to find help. That’s what he says.

Dhammarato: So the first thing that he can do to help himself, because you can’t help him, you can just play with him.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: That’s why I recommend doing all of this playfully. In fact, don’t give him a real gun with real bullets. Give him a water pistol, but a realistic looking one so that he thinks it’s real. By the way, where I learned this particular technique was from a group of psychiatrists that this is what a psychiatrist will do if somebody comes into their office and says, I want to kill myself. The psychiatrist pulls the gun out of his door, which is a plastic gun, and answered to him says, do it. It’s not just plastic, it’s a heavy gun. It’s realistic. It’s a real gun, almost. Except that it’s not deadly.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: All right, so nobody does it. But what it has them to do is to start really looking at what they’re doing because nobody wants to die. Everything about you, here’s the point. If somebody, and you can ask him this. If somebody did have a gun pointed at your head in such a place that you knew that it was going to kill you instantly, would you rather, would you rather them do it right now or wait five minutes? If you were in front of a firing squadron and they were all loaded and ready to shoot, wouldn’t you rather that the guy who gives the orders for them to shoot automatically or has an urgent nature call and he goes to the toilet before he says shoot?

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: You want him to wait. You want him to wait. You want him to go home and have dinner, but don’t pull that trigger yet. This is an instinct. And the instinct is called a self preservation instinct. It’s his thoughts of being miserable he wants to get away from, not life itself. We all cling to life. It’s part of the nature of clinging to life.

Tomas: Isn’t that also the same Thing with the hair, though.

Dhammarato: With what?

Tomas: With the hair we talked about before.

Dhammarato: Like, in a way, when mom says your hair looks bad, that’s a little death, isn’t it? She just killed you.

Tomas: Yeah. Yeah. And should we still.

Dhammarato: We don’t like it. We don’t like being killed even a little bit.

Tomas: Isn’t the best case scenario if you think about life the same way you think about the hair. Like, I am living a life. I’m not living my life. I. I’m not sure if that makes sense.

Dhammarato: Well, I. If what? In. In his case, he’s having thoughts of suicide because he doesn’t like something.

Tomas: Yeah, for sure.

Dhammarato: All right, what is it that he doesn’t like? His life. Well, why doesn’t he change his life rather than destroying it?

Tomas: Because it’s his life.

Dhammarato: Well, he could do that. He could make the changes, just like we’re talking about. So this is what you’re going to tell him. Then when you have the opportunity, you can tell him, hey, why don’t you change your mind state, Start changing your thoughts from unwholesome thoughts rather than changing life into death to just start changing your attitude. Have the attitude of a winner. He’s got an attitude of a loser. That’s why he wants to die, is because he feels like he’s losing. He’s a victim. So why now? He’s going to be a victim to a bullet that makes no sense at all. He’s just making more victimhood.

Tomas: And he’s also a victim to being a victim.

Dhammarato: Yeah, absolutely.

Tomas: So that state of mind.

Dhammarato: Mm. Because he’s in a victim state of mind, so he’s going to do victim kinds of stupidities.

Tomas: I’m thinking about how.

Dhammarato: Tell him to give me a call, and I’ll really laugh at him.

Tomas: I. I could. I actually should probably. You know that.

Tomas: That’s again, bad language. God damn it. God damn it. I will. I will tell him. But I was just thinking about how when I was speaking with him, I don’t even want to think about him doing anything to himself. But that is also me kind of being a victim of the fear of him killing himself.

Dhammarato: Mm.

Tomas: And that’s why I cannot…

Dhammarato: And he feels even more of a victim. So we could change that attitude from being a victim into being, okay, I’m fine. Not a worry in the world.

Tomas: Yesterday we talked, and I just noticed his thought pattern, and I told him, like, you think I did something bad in the past, Then you think I should not feel bad about doing something bad in the past?

Dhammarato: So I feel bad twice now.

Tomas: Then he goes and feels bad a third time saying something about feeling bad.

Dhammarato: Feeling bad about Feeling bad about feeling bad about doing something bad in the past.

Tomas: Exactly.

Dhammarato: Okay, so you see, that’s the habit of the mind is you wind up with whatever ever happens you feel bad, until you start to recognize that that’s the thoughts, those unwholesome thoughts. And we can begin to change them, one at a time as we see them.

Tomas: And when we have urges. So for me personally, I struggle a bit with watching porn.

Dhammarato: With watching frogs.

Tomas: Porn, P O R N.

Dhammarato: Well, what’s good about it and what’s bad about it? It’s just porn. Porn is actually because of the people who read a bible, don’t want you to do it. And they didn’t even read the bible. Very well. Wouldn’t you rather be, let us say, accused of watching porn rather than tearing girls pants off and watching the inside of her cunt?

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: Okay, so I don’t see that much wrong with porn other than you’re supposed to feel bad about it because you’ve been taught that it’s not good for you. In fact, if you do a bit of porn, you’ll recognize, hey, this is not much. There’s nothing to this. Because what I’m actually seeing is pixels on a computer screen. I’m not in reality.

Tomas: I feel bad not because porn is a bad thing. I feel bad because I think I should.

Dhammarato: Well, it’s a bad thing because you say it’s a bad thing.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: And then you still do it because you like to do it. So why are you saying that it’s a bad thing and then feeling bad for doing it? I thought that if you’re going to watch porn, you’re going to watch it and feel good. And if you watch it and feel good, then you feel relieved. And now you don’t want to watch porn anymore. I mean, there’s such a thing as too much porn, right?

Tomas: Yes, definitely.

Dhammarato: Yeah, there’s too much of it. So now let’s go play sudoku or fast car games. You know, I don’t know the names of the games.

Tomas: I don’t play much video games. I like. I like chess.

Dhammarato: All right, so it’s better to play chess, make you think. Play Sudoku, makes you think. Look at something that has some value to it. But watching porn is not bad. Only that you’ve been told that it’s bad.

Tomas: And I also feel like I’ve.

Dhammarato: And you bought that crap.

Tomas: I taught myself in a way that it is bad. Because my thought process was always, will.

Dhammarato: You ask your mother? What will your mother say? Is porn good or porn bad to watch?

Tomas: I. I actually think she would say it’s something normal. It’s something we do.

Dhammarato: Well, you’ve got a pretty wise mom if she’s going to think that porn is normal. Most porn is going. When you ask her about porn, she’s going to answer you with a frying pan in her hand.

Tomas: We’re not.

Dhammarato: We’re not about the side of your head. Wham. Don’t tell talk to me about porn. That’s terrible.

Tomas: We’re not the most Christian household. Let’s say that. We don’t really…

Dhammarato: You’d be surprised at how Christian every household is. It’s part of the culture.

Tomas: Fair enough.

Dhammarato: Just because you don’t go to church doesn’t mean that you are not stuffed, solid full of Christian crap. All atheists are full of Christian crap. They’re just rebelling from it, but they’re still full of it.

Tomas: That makes sense. Yeah. Now that you say that, I just started thinking, for example, in society where I used to live, women that sleep around a lot, let’s say, are judged very heavily.

Dhammarato: They’re what?

Tomas: Judged very heavily.

Dhammarato: Criticized.

Tomas: Yes, also.

Dhammarato: Okay.

Tomas: And I come from Eastern Europe. So there, tt’s funny because it’s.

Dhammarato: They’re even more. They’re even worse about it.

Tomas: Yeah, they’re very bad about it, but it’s also very common.

Dhammarato: Right. That’s very bad about very common things.

Tomas: Sorry.

Dhammarato: I say, aren’t those people very bad about very common things? If it was very, very rare, they wouldn’t have much to say. They go around complaining about things because it’s too common. Then, in fact, many, many years ago, nobody thought about, let us say, homosexuality in its various forms. LGBTQ is a new word and all of that. The only reason why the Christians hate it so much now is because they see it happening often. A hundred years ago, when it was completely in the closet, nobody had anything bad to say about it because they never saw it and never heard about it. The more you see it, the more complaining about it it’s going to be, no matter what the topic. For instance, if your friends never heard or never thought about chemistry, they wouldn’t hate it so much. Yeah, but now that they’re in high school and it’s been driven down their throats by the chemistry teacher who might, in fact, like chemistry. A lot of chemistry teachers don’t.

Tomas: Mine at least really liked chemistry. He was Very passionate.

Dhammarato: But a lot of the students aren’t. And so they’re getting too much of it. But if they never got any chemistry, they wouldn’t have anything to say against chemistry. It’s that when there’s too much of it. Well, the same thing is with porn. A little dab will do you, but then you don’t like it anymore.

Tomas: Yeah. You know, it’s funny, when you go into these websites, there is always comment sections, right?

Dhammarato: Like on some websites. Yeah. Well, on Reddit is the comment section.

Tomas: I mean. I mean, in the porn website.

Dhammarato: I’ve never been on one.

Tomas: I’m telling you from my experience.

Dhammarato: Okay, there’s a comment section, right?

Tomas: Yes.

Dhammarato: Okay.

Tomas: For example, you open a video and there’s comments down below and there is even like some.

Dhammarato: Does anybody make the comment? Well, if you have such bad things to say about it, why are you even watching?

Tomas: But it’s not bad things about the video. It’s never bad things about the video. It’s very often just people saying, for example, I don’t want to be. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I don’t.

Dhammarato: So they’re watching porn because they want to feel good.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: And they watch the porn and they don’t feel good. They watch the porn and then they feel even worse, and then they’re looking. Yeah, but they’re all right. So the same thing can happen with anything that. In fact, the whole point. Look at alcohol. It’s exactly the same thing.

Tomas: It is.

Dhammarato: Look at any drugs. People are taking the drugs because they feel bad and they want to feel better, and the drugs don’t help. In fact, they make things worse. Alcohol makes it worse. Porn makes it worse. So the issue is not the porn, and it’s not the alcohol and it’s not the drugs. Drugs are okay sitting in on the shelf. Porn is okay on somebody’s website that you don’t watch. The problem with porn is that people watch it because they’re looking for something and the porn does not have what they’re looking for. Just like your friend is suicidal, he’s looking for love in all the wrong places³ and he wants to die because he can’t find what he’s looking for, and he’s just looking in the wrong place. The guys who are doing porn, they’re looking in all the wrong places for love. You’re not going to find love there. In fact, the real point that I can teach you right now is to stop looking for love because you’re not ever going to find it and be satisfied without it.

Tomas: I really identify with this because some people. This really annoys me. It really annoys me when people talk about relationships. Oh, can you hear me right now? I think something changed. Okay, sure. So it really annoys me when people talk about relationships and they always come out with this perfect scenario. For example, we’re gonna find each other on a…

Dhammarato: They can dream all kinds of good stuff. And then when the reality happens, they don’t like it so much because it’s not the way they dreamed it.

Tomas: Exactly. And nobody ever thinks of the responsibility. Nobody ever thinks.

Dhammarato: Well, that’s an interesting way of putting it. How about putting it this way? The girl they feel fall in love with is a girl that they create in their mind, not a real girl. When they find that the real girl is not what they imagined her to be, they want to change her. And she’s not wanting to change. She’s too busy trying to change the boy.

Tomas: Yeah, that’s very true.

Dhammarato: And so the right way of looking at it is that you were okay before you met that girl. You’ll be okay without her. There’s 50 ways to leave a lover. Slip out the back, Jack. Get a hop on the bus, Gus. Drop off the key, Lee. And set yourself free.⁴ You don’t need a relationship because you’re not going to get the love that you want from any girl or any porn or anything.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: Where you’re going to find your love, in fact, when you actually find it, you recognize that you really don’t need it anyway. And that is to love yourself, to nurture yourself, to be kind to yourself. And when you start doing that, you don’t need love anymore because you already have it, because you’re already good enough. You don’t need love.

Tomas: Yeah. All right.

Dhammarato: What you need is to be kind to yourself, to be nurtured to yourself. Loving yourself is what psychopaths do.

Tomas: Okay.

Dhammarato: Like Donald Trump.

Tomas: Sure, I don’t know much about Donald Trump. I just know. Good for you, boss on Twitter.

Dhammarato: Yeah, good for you. But he’s in love with himself. And see where that gets you. No, you don’t need love. What you need is friendship to yourself. You need to take care of yourself. You need to stop criticizing yourself. And how you do that is by recognizing when you are critical. Then, in fact, people go looking for love for the very reason is that they’re busy criticizing themselves and they’re hoping that some girls is going to make themselves make him feel better. In fact, she’s not going to make him Feel better. She’s going to make him feel worse. Yeah, just like the drug. The drug, you take the drug, it’s not going to make you feel better, it’s going to make you feel worse. The alcohol is not going to make you feel better, it’s going to make you worse. And in your case, the porn is not going to make you feel better, it’s going to make you worse.

Tomas: Yes, that’s why I, I’m very critical when I do it.

Dhammarato: Yeah, you’re making yourself feel worse, aren’t you? You’re critical to yourself when you do it. Exactly,

Thomas: I am.

Dhammarato: So the first thing is to stop being critical of yourself and just enjoy the porn. And then you’ll figure out that even then the porn doesn’t have any value and then you’ll stop watching it because then you don’t need it. You’re already okay, so this is what we practice with the teaching of the Buddha, is to see that dissatisfaction and change it.

Tomas: If you stop being critical, you can actually see it for what it is. It’s just a thing.

Dhammarato: Right, because criticism is always based upon a set of standards, a set of rules, the way it’s supposed to be. Idealism: this is how you’re supposed to be. You’ve been taught how you’re supposed to be. Perfection. Okay? So when you see that you’re trying to be a perfectionist and it creates enormous amount of discomfort and unhappiness for you. Now when you have that dissatisfying or that perfectionist thought, you say, “aha, I caught that. I don’t have to be a perfectionist at all. I’m already okay. I don’t have to get myself perfect because I’m already okay just the way I am. Nothing else is needed.”

Tomas: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It does.

Dhammarato: You’re already enlightened, so stop claiming or clinging to becoming in anything. Don’t try to become anything. Just be what you already are, happily. And then life is easy.

Tomas: I’m just catching thoughts coming out. When you said just be what you are right now, and then I just see it immediately. What if that’s not good enough?

Dhammarato: And then that’s the thought that you need to change. The “What if it’s not good enough?” to say, “yeah, I see that thought and I am good enough.” You’re already good enough. And so now you can enjoy studying chemistry, you can make chemistry your friend because you enjoy doing it, as opposed to I’m not good enough at chemistry. And now you feel bad. And while you’re feeling bad, you’re not actually learning and playing with chemistry. You’re too busy feeling bad about not knowing chemistry.

Tomas: Yeah, that’s true. That’s the whole thing with my education right now. I really like everything I’m studying. I find it very interesting. But then I. I think I need to do this, and then I just don’t do it. For example, I need to do this.

Dhammarato: Well, enjoy not doing it. And then when you enjoy not do it and you get really good at enjoying, now you can go do it and enjoy it.

Tomas: Yeah, it’s the same thought process with the porn. Just enjoy what you’re doing right now, and you’re gonna see you don’t need it eventually. Well, okay.

Dhammarato: It’ll be over one way or the other.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: But you can actually complete the job happily, and then you don’t do it anymore because you’re finished.

Tomas: This kind of feels like the only way out, to be honest. Like, I don’t think any. Like, I’ve tried a lot of things. I’ve tried absurdism, which is like believing that there’s nothing special in the world. There is nothing sacred. It’s just what it is.

Dhammarato: But that’s just a belief system.

Tomas: Yeah. That is just.

Dhammarato: We can have that thought by thought. If you keep remembering that there’s nothing special, everything is ordinary, it’s okay the way that it is, and you keep remembering that over and over and over again, then, “wow, what a relief it is. We’ve already arrived. We don’t have to travel anymore. We’ve already come to the place that we wanted to be all along, and that is comfortable and happy.” So just be comfortable and happy. And you’ve already arrived. And now the journey is finished. Whether you ever get a degree in chemistry or not is irrelevant. You can be happy with the chemistry degree and you can be happy without it.

Tomas: Without it.

Dhammarato: And you can be happy while getting a chemistry degree.

Tomas: So the whole thought process, “I’m on a journey to something” is very wrong.

Dhammarato: Right. Don’t be on a journey. Stop. Stop being on a journey and start being already okay. And then everything becomes a toy. University degrees in chemistry can just be a toy. Writing a website, writing code can just be a toy.

Tomas: Okay.

Dhammarato: All right.

Tomas: That makes a lot of sense.

Dhammarato: All right, we’ll go practice it over and over and over again. Every time that you remember that. In fact, the main skill to be developed is the skill to remember this. To remember, do it again. To remember to do it again. Every time that you turn the porn on or think about turning the porn on, you can say, “oh, I’m okay without it. I’m all right.” When you’re watching porn, you can say, “oh, I’m okay. This is fine. Those are nice nickers, but I can do without them. She can do without them. And now that she’s doing without them, I can do without her.” It’s okay to like stuff, just don’t want it. I like it, but I don’t want it. That’s the way to live your life is. Everything is beautiful, everything is marvelous. I just don’t want it. The Democrat Party is okay. I just don’t want it. The Republican Party is great. I don’t want it. Putin is a wonderful emperor, but I don’t want him. Ukraine is a nice place, but I don’t want it. Gaza, that’s an interesting place, but it’s not my business.

Tomas: So I don’t want it.

Dhammarato: I don’t want it. Not my business, not my problem. And then you don’t have any problems at all. You don’t have any political problem. You don’t have any world problems. You don’t have any chemistry problems. You don’t even have a problem with your friend who has a problem and wants to kill himself. It’s not your problem. Hand him the gun. Say, I’d like to see you do it. It’s not me your problem. Just stand where the blood’s not going to get all over you. Or you can take a bath and get all the blood washed off, and that’s still not a problem. There’s just no problem. Can you begin to see the world as if there is no problems with it and let those people who see the problems have the problems they see?

Tomas: It’s like trying to reprogram my brain. It feels very weird.

Dhammarato: Here’s a little example of that. The female dog may be in heat and might get pregnant if she’s out on the street. But I don’t want to take her to the vet to have her spayed or neutered. I forget which one is which. But if the person over there grabs the dog and takes her to the vet to have her surgery, that’s still not my problem. So I can not do something, but somebody else does it. That’s okay with me. It’s not my problem. This is actually a real issue. Pimpui had puppies. Lucky was one of them. So Tam fixed Punpui. That’s okay with me. She fixed Punpui. I wouldn’t take Pimpui to the vet. But Tam took her to the vet. That’s okay. Not my problem.

Tomas: And so then you do whatever it is because you like doing it.

Dhammarato: Yeah, you do what you want to do, but you don’t criticize other people for not doing what you want to do. You let them do what they want to do, and you’re happy with whatever they’re doing, and you’re happy with what you’re doing. You don’t have to get your life straight and then expect everybody else to get their life straight because you’ve got your life straight. Because if you want other people to get their life straight, you ain’t straight at all. You’re in a great deal of misery wanting other people to get their life straightened out. If you get your life straightened out, then you’re okay with people not having their life straightened out. That’s compassion.

Tomas: I feel like this whole negative thought process comes from me knowing that something is good and something is bad.

Dhammarato: Right. Okay.

Tomas: That’s where I find it, going back to constantly.

Dhammarato: All right, let’s do this and end it. I’ll give you a story. It’s a Bible story. The Christians don’t understand it. It’s the story of Adam and Eve, right? And the Christians get all uptight about talking snakes and the girl did it first and who ate the apple and all of that kind of stuff. Okay, they miss the point. Here’s the actual story. Adam and Eve got tossed out. Or they actually threw themselves, or actually destroyed paradise by eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, what eating of the fruit means is they had to put up with the results of their judgments of good and bad. So here they are in paradise, and it’s a paradise. Until they start thinking, “oh, well, this part of paradise is better than that part of the paradise. In fact, that part of paradise is not paradise at all. I’m going to have to destroy it.” And they wind up destroying all of paradise. Why? Because they got into the habit of right, of judging what is right and what is wrong. And as long as you judge what is right and what is wrong, you will be miserable because you’ll always find right that you want and wrong that you want to get rid of. But if you see the world is okay and you don’t judge it, then you can be happier in paradise. It’s a paradise. Stop judging it. Live your life as if you lived in paradise. Because you do. That’s the reality. The reality is okay. So you be okay with an okay reality. And you’ll have a marvelous life.

Tomas: Okay.

Dhammarato: Okay. That’s the right answer. Okay. Everything is okay. The paradise is okay. My attitude about it is okay. And everything is hunky dory. That’s the right attitude to have. That’s the winner’s attitude. Because now you’re not a victim to anything. Because it’s all okay. But you got to practice. Because you keep coming back to things are not okay. You keep coming back and start judging things. So when you see your judging stuff, say, aha, I see that judgment. Don’t judge yourself for judging, because that’s just two cases of bad feelings. Instead, be very happy that you catch yourself judging. “Aha. I see. I’m judging.”

Tomas: Yeah. Because that. Then I have to think about not feeling bad about feeling bad about.

Dhammarato: You don’t feel bad about feeling bad. You don’t have to feel bad at all. You can start to feel good now.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: Because you stop judging yourself. You stop being critical. You start to nurture yourself. This is paradise. That’s nurturing.

Tomas: And like, I even get the thoughts of like, isn’t being happy at all scenarios wrong. Like, this comes into my brain, and that’s confusing thought. Like, why? Why should I feel bad about feeling good about everything?

Dhammarato: Don’t ask why questions. That’s the whole point. Be happy that you don’t know you’re still okay. Even if you don’t know. If you don’t know the answer to any of the why questions, you’re still okay.

Tomas: Yeah.

Dhammarato: Because the why questions all are coming out of a state of doubt. “Aha. I see that I’m doubting about this.”

Tomas: Yeah. Then, okay.

Dhammarato: And I could just be okay. I don’t have to know.

Tomas: This must take a while to get good at.

Dhammarato: Yes, it does. It takes a while. Over and over and over and over again. Keep practicing. You’re already okay. You don’t have to know. You don’t have to find out. You don’t have to figure it out. You’re already okay.

Tomas: Sure. Sure.

Dhammarato: All right. So as I say, I don’t teach. What I do is I make friends. And I would like to have you as a friend.

Tomas: I would like to have you as a friend as well.

Dhammarato: All right. So call me in the next week or so and tell me how you’re doing, all right?

Tomas: Sure.

Dhammarato: All right, Thomas. Go enjoy yourself.

Tomas: Thank you.

Dhammarato: Enjoy your life, especially the rest of the next five minutes. Because that’s right now.

Tomas: That is right now. I just want to say I usually wake up quite early, so I. Let me just make the calculations I.

Dhammarato: Think I would call, like 10aM 10aM on Thailand. Sure. That’s good.

Tomas: Sure.

Dhammarato: All right. See you.

Tomas: See you. Goodbye.

Dhammarato: Okay.

Summary of this Dhamma Talk

In this talk, Dhammarato discusses how to break free from self-criticism and perfectionism by recognizing that we’re “already good enough.” Through conversations about various topics including self-criticism, porn addiction, suicidal thoughts, and relationships, he emphasizes that most suffering comes from judging things as good or bad rather than accepting reality as it is. He explains that seeking love or validation externally is futile, and true contentment comes from being kind to oneself and stopping the habit of criticism. The talk concludes with an interpretation of the Garden of Eden story, explaining that paradise is lost through judgment of good and evil, and can be regained by accepting things as they are.

Outline of this Dhamma Talk

Introduction to Self-Criticism and Acceptance

• Discussion of climate change activism and accepting current reality
• Importance of focusing on what we can change now
• Understanding that the past is gone

Breaking Free from Self-Criticism

• Recognizing critical thought patterns
• Learning to see thoughts without judgment
• Understanding we’re “already good enough”

Dealing with Suicidal Thoughts

• Confronting fear behind suicidal ideation
• Understanding the self-preservation instinct
• Changing victim mentality to empowerment

Addressing Addiction and Shame

• Discussion of porn addiction and social judgment
• Understanding addiction as seeking love in wrong places
• Breaking free from societal conditioning

Relationships and External Validation

• Why seeking love externally doesn’t work
• Understanding projection in relationships
• Learning to be content without external validation

The Paradise of Non-Judgment

• Interpretation of Adam and Eve story
• How judgment destroys paradise
• Living without categorizing things as good or bad

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References