24 March 2002: Conquer your own mind

The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast for Sunday 24 March 2002

Broadcast Script 217

Today's broadcast is entitled: Conquer your own mind

The Most Venerable Phra Acharn Plien Panyapatipo visited Victoria, Australia, in February and March 2002. Members of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. listened to some of the Most Venerable’s Teachings given at Wat Dhammarangsee, 387-389 Springvale Road, Forest Hill, Victoria 3131, and wrote about their understanding about what was taught. We are happy to broadcast this information for you today and we apologize for errors in understanding that may have arisen in what we speak today.

When you want to practise dana (offering), you cannot start at the top level. First you have to make many physical offerings, such as flowers and water. When you have practised correctly and cultivated your mind for a long time, eventually, you will reach the top level of how you can make offerings. Some persons who have attained this perfection of dana can make offerings by paying respect to the Buddha. It is done with the mind.

However, this is the top level to make offerings to the Buddha and it can only be done by a person that has the correct mind to do it.

The goal of having Buddha rupa altars is to get persons to pay respect to Buddha. This can only come when confidence (saddha) is very high and the basics of why one should pay respect to Buddha is understood. The standard method of paying respect is to join the two hands at chest level over the heart chakra and bow to the Buddha rupa represented at the altar.

So in one case one of our Members was in one of the temples where the Most Venerable Phra Acharn Plien Panyapatipo was about to teach and noticed the altars were in three parts. The middle altar had large images of the Buddha and everyone appeared to have made offerings to this altar.

On the left was a small altar with ancient Buddha figures of great powers. Inspections showed no one had made offerings to this smaller altar. Our Member had brought flowers to offer to Acharn.

Because offerings had not been done specifically to these many fine Buddha images on the left altar, the need was to offer more flowers. So the many flowers that had already been offered at the middle altar were re-offered to the left altar, then other offerings were needed such as water and so on.

It took about 20 minutes and then the realisation was made that the other altar on the right hand side of the big altar had also not been offered to.

Using the multiplying effect of the mind to offer the available items, both sides of the altar came to have the same amount of offerings as the middle altar.

When our Member asked the Most Venerable Phra Acharn Plien Panyapatipo had sufficient offerings been done that evening to make the three altars suitable, Acharn gave a long reply covering this successive teaching of dana at different levels and said, that because the functions of the altars is to practise refuge in the Buddha, if the mind is correct, joining the hands and bowing is much more effective than offering any physical items.

The Most Venerable said: “your practise is the offering”.

This is the most powerful way of offering. The highest levels of Buddha Dhamma practise are done with the mind.

You are all competing with each other. This means you want to win, like in a sports game. You want to win over someone else. This is suffering.

To win implies that somebody else has to lose. The attitude of competing brings suffering to both sides, both the ‘winner’ and the ‘loser’. This is not Buddha Dhamma practice.

What you really have to win over is yourself. You have to conquer your own mind. All suffering comes from not having conquered your own mind.

Do you control your mind, or does your mind control you?

There are a lot of bad things in the world, such as alcohol and drug problems, that cause much suffering. These problems come from not keeping the Five Precepts. Keeping the Five Precepts will cultivate your mind and help you to come out of suffering. Practise mindfulness. Keep the Precepts not only with your speech and your body, but also with your mind. Cultivate wholesome actions in body, speech and mind.

If you see unwholesome minds arising in you, stop them and do good things. Develop wholesome states of mind and this will eventually dilute your bad kamma. Do good things and someday you will have eradicated all negativity in your mind. But you have to do it. If you practise correctly you will conquer your own mind.

Practise is a long, gradual activity. Just keep going, and one day you will become enlightened. Many of you here listening this evening have so much merit that if you wanted to you could be born in a heaven world quite easily.

You can practise the Five Precepts every day as a lay person. You do not have to be a monk to practise. Keep the Five Precepts at all times. A lay person who has a family and keeps Five Precepts can become a Stream Enterer.

The Five Precepts are:

1. To refrain from killing living creatures
2. To refrain from taking that which is not given
3. To refrain from sexual misconduct
4. To refrain from lying
5. To refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which cloud the mind

At some stage, you might get the opportunity to practise the Eight Precepts at a Temple, or do a retreat to speed up your practise.

The additional Three Precepts are:
6. To refrain from eating after noon
7. To refrain from dancing, singing, music, going to see entertainment, wearing garlands, using perfumes, and beautifying the body with cosmetics, and
8. To refrain from lying on a high or luxurious sleeping place.

The advantage of the Sixth Precept is that you have much more time. After noon, once you have eaten, you can apply yourself to other things, without the need to think about eating again for the rest of the day.

One of the advantages of the Seventh Precept is that you are not spending a lot of money on cosmetics or adornments, and so you save yourself much money!

One of the advantages of the Eighth Precept is that it reduces craving. You no longer care about having a comfortable bed.

Practice of these Three Precepts reduces craving, and as you will not wear any jewellery, ornaments or perfume, you will save a lot of money!

Note that if you are keeping the Eight Precepts, the Third Precept becomes abstinence from all sexual activity. If you have a spouse or partner, you cannot practise the Eight Precepts. That means you sleep alone. If there is someone next to your pillow, you don’t sleep alone.

Eventually through practise you will come to be content with whatever situation you are in. You don’t have to worry any more about the latest fashion or having a comfortable bed. Practising Eight Precepts helps to come to be content and stop craving.

But concentrate on getting the first Five Precepts right first. Five Precepts is all that you need to become a Stream Enterer.

Mindfulness (sati) is one of the seven enlightenment factors. If you practise mindfulness, the other factors will follow. Be mindful of your body, speech and mind. Without mindfulness, you cannot conquer your mind. Be mindful when you walk, sit, lay down, sleep, everything you do. People do very silly things sometimes when they are not mindful. You might break a glass if you are not mindful, or if you are not mindful when you sleep, you might fall out of bed. Your mind will become quiet when you are mindful.

Some people think that practising mindfulness is boring, however it will give you great energy.

To learn to control your mind, you must practise mindfulness. When you first begin, you struggle to become mindful for even a moment. As you practise you can sustain mindfulness for longer periods of time, and that is what you must aim for—longer and more sustained periods of mindfulness. The mind is the fastest thing in the universe, much faster than the speed at which you can move your physical body. Only through sustained periods of mindfulness can you become aware of your own negative minds as they arise, and so begin to eliminate them. Know what your mind is doing.

The answer to understanding better the Law of Cause and Effect, or kamma, is also to study mindfulness. Be mindful of what you are doing, and consider what outcome your actions will generate in the future.

Also, when you are experiencing some negative kamma that has arisen from past unwholesome actions, be mindful in your condition, and that will help you to understand the causes of the present negative experience.

Equanimity is another one of the Seven Enlightenment factors.

The world is very confused now. Many men want to become women, and many women want to become men. It is understandable that women want to become men, as men have stronger bodies, however if you are already a man, then it is better to hold on to your male body.

Women can do everything that men can do. The only advantage of being male is that men have more physical strength.

Women have intelligence, they can study at university, and they can improve their minds through practice.

Women can attain enlightenment just as men can.

What is more important for a woman – to aspire to become a male, or to aspire to practise?

Acharn blessed all beings present. He said that he will come back to Australia to teach if we practise and he wished us good luck.

In the meantime, he said that if we have questions while he is away, then we can either wait for him to come back to ask him, or we can ask someone else. Acharn said it is better for him to come to Australia, because when we go to see him in Melbourne, all we need to do is to pay for petrol, but if we go to see him in Thailand, then we must pay for air travel.

May the merit of attending these Teachings and writing them down and making them accessible to many beings help our Centre’s Members and Friends become proficient in learning and practice of Buddha Dhamma.

May you do good things and cultivate wholesome minds.
May you practise mindfulness.
May you come to the highest level of practising dana.
May you conquer your own mind.

You can find today’s broadcast script online on our website www.bdcublessings.net.au as well as previous Buddhist Hour radio scripts including the script of Sunday 3 March 2002, which contains some more of the Teachings of Most Venerable Phra Acharn Plien Panyapatipo given in Victoria, Australia, in 2002.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes, Leanne Eames and Evelin Halls.

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