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Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 363 for Sunday 9 January
2005CE
2547 Buddhist Era
This script is titled: "A
Dhamma Talk by Venerable Viriyananda, A Discourse on Nama Rupa by
John D. Hughes"
The following Buddha Dhamma talk was given by
Venerable Viriyananda and John D. Hughes at the Buddhist Discussion
Centre (Upwey) Ltd. during a five day meditation course held at the
Centre in June 1988. It is the fifth tape in this series.
The
authors apologise for any errors or misunderstandings that may have
occurred in the process of transcribing the talks from the original
audio tape recording.
Venerable Viriyananda began in the
following way.
Friends of the Dhamma. I'm very happy to see
everyone who's sitting here, the friends of the Dhamma. I'm very,
very happy with you, all of you, with the teachers.
This is a
very hard subject aniccam dukkham anatta. The Lord Buddha said,
aniccam; unstable, impermanent. dukkham; suffering and pain, anatta;
no soul, soulless, no self. If we say about anatta, anatta we cannot
see by our eye, also we cannot have experience. Because anatta is no
form, no picture, no anything.
Just compare the Dhamma, the
Teachings of the Buddha, like the trees, the rocks around here. If we
compare the trees, the rocks, and everything around here; anatta is
not like this, we cannot see by our own eyes. Because anatta is no
soul, no self, difficult to understand and are very hard.
Paranibbana; we can compare paranibbana, means anatta, no soul, no
self. Finish suffering and pain. This we call anatta.
If we
try to know, we must compare ours, the ultimate reality, the supreme
knowledge, abhidhamma or citta, anatta means higher and higher
ultimate realities. Abhidhamma, this we compare with anatta. Also
still very hard to understand the greatest scholars who learned about
the Buddhism, Pali and Sanskrit, so long times. If say anatta, still
very confused, if we attained enlightenment, become arahant, that we
can understand anatta. Also, clear mind, no confusion anymore.
Guru, our teacher, tried to teach you, tried to bring the
Dhamma, tried to teach. Tried to give the special knowledge for
everyone, and very hard, not so easy. If no energy to reach, to find
out the knowledge, it's very, very hard. Like a monk, if lazy monks
never study properly, they will not know anything, only just cover
the world with nothing. Must practice, must learn, must do correctly.
Then we have some knowledge, but still not the real knowledge.
The
real knowledge means attain arahant. The goal of Buddhism is to
attain arahant. That the final goal. So, like a learner, all of us
still meditators, learners, must learn, must practice all the times
until we attain ultimate reality, supreme knowledge. To achieve
arahant, that [is] the final goal for us. No suffering, no pain
anymore. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone who came
along.
John D. Hughes continues.......
So although this
is only a few pages, it will take probably five days of commentary to
get you to understanding. Because what is understanding is not like a
parrot mind which just repeats the words. You've got to get the minds
to cognate what we are talking about to understand that. So we got to
the point where we found at some level, the arguments, for the fact
that this world is like a mental construct. We can't see the Samsara,
we can't see the world as it is. Because between there, and what we
see, we have got a set of error minds, which they translate here as
afflictional, meaning making you unhappy, misknowledge, and the main
affliction mind is this ego mind. This I, my, my, me, me, me, me, I,
my, ego, me.
But then we found out from the text, that the
"me" is not one mind. While you think I'm being "me"
and you think it's one mind, you're already in error. The "me"
arises out of two minds, hitting together like this. It's like you
take a piece of iron and you make a spark. The sparks, the clash of
the two minds produces a mental formation. Ah like that. And that
object is already untrue in reality. But that is what your ego says
"that is me". These minds have to be found.
So
there's a lot of preliminary meditation to get your mind off your
body into what's called third arupa jhana, which is called Sunyata or
Sphere of Nothingness. It's a different type of consciousness. So
this teaching has to be taught at a very high level of mind, because
low minds can't do the work. So we've got two things. We've got
personal self habit[s], now that means we're alive in human birth.
Why? Because a whole series of events happened in the past and this
is the result.
If a different series of events happened we'd
be born in the animal or hell being, or heavenly being or something.
So we are driven by our past actions which appear like here. So in
the long infinite past, we've been everything, we've been born man,
woman, heavenly being, animal, hell being. Everything is uncertain,
because everything is driven by a cause, and it's our ego mind, our
stupid mind, that made the causes.
So for example, at a
worldly level you can say, the action of killing (up there on the
board) brings short life. Why do some little babies, say you go to
Bangladesh, little baby is born, no food, no medicine, gets sick,
dies, one year old? Why is that? Other people, I'm 58 this year, ohh,
happy, happy, healthy, healthy, not much trouble, all my life, easy
to get. Cause lay back in the past lives. I know my past lives, I
know what I did, generous, generous generous. So easy for me to get
everything.
Not killing gives long life. Not harming people
means healthy. Harming people, killing insects, killing animals,
killing anything at all, is harming other beings. You get illnesses,
so illness is caused, it doesn't just happen, it just has a cause. So
all these conditions, say you get one human life, in one thousand
million lifetimes. Very hard to get to human birth, because you have
to have a lot of merit to get a human birth. You might have been an
animal many, many times. Can't make merit, except you're, say a cow,
give milk to a human. But animals are always killing, killing,
killing. That's the nature of animals. Kill, kill, kill. So they can
never get better.
Hungry ghosts always hungry, always
starving. Have no food, couldn't give food, can't get food. Not even
for themselves. And then other times we get into heaven worlds,
everything is perfect for a while. We are so happy we don't practice
generosity. But in human birth, you can actually practice. In human
birth it is possible to give other people food, and that will create
a cause for your future to get food.
Now if you gave an
animal food, the animal is not much merit. If you gave the same food
to a very bad human being, ten times more merit. Average human being
ten times, above average another ten times. If you could find a very
bright being, very intelligent, very bright, very kind, gave food,
better. If you could give the food to a monk who keeps a lot of
precepts, better. If you could find a monk or a layman enlightened in
the first stage of nirvana, better. If you could find someone in the
second stage of nirvana, better still. And if you could find an
arahant, fully enlightened being, you could give something, much
better.
But there is only eighty enlightened arahants in the
world at the moment. Some in some countries, some can't meet, because
some in China, some in Thailand, very difficult to get near. But if
you've got good kamma, good actions in the past, you didn't slander
the Buddhists, you can get near the arahant. And because of my good
kamma, I can easily meet in many countries, China, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, Thailand. I can meet the arahant, and because of my good kamma
I always have something to give them. Rich enough.
So in this
life it is easy for me to make big merit for my future. Now to get to
that stage you must practice every day for many, many lifetimes. The
reason it's easy for me, is in the past lifetimes long time ago, I
practiced the Buddha Dhamma. And in this life I can remember, ahhh
that's like that. You can do that even with an ego.
Now the
ego says like this, it says, I give the offerings so I will be well
and happy. Well that's sanity. But then when you get enough, bright
enough, and your mind becomes bright enough, you think "I am in
suffering, other people are in suffering, how can I help other
people?" When you come to happy enough yourself you start to
change a bit. And so all the good things you do initially are only
for your ego, and all the bad things you do basically are for your
ego too. So the ego is the problem. And that is a habit, very bad
habit to be selfish and it's very difficult not to be stingy because
you are always thinking of yourself.
Now the Buddha instructed
the laypeople, he said like this, he said, and this is sound economic
sense too, he said, "twenty five percent of your wealth use for
yourself". You know buy clothes buy food, buy this, buy that.
"Twenty five percent give as dana and fifty percent save for
your future prosperity in business".
Now most people in
Australia pay about, maybe, twenty five percent of their income in
income tax and that helps other people. But they certainly don't save
fifty percent of their money. Now that is the perfect formula for
wealth, prosperity, health. And you say it's not possible to do that.
Well, anything's possible if you know what you want to do. If you
know what you want to do.
If you want to get very happy, very
bright, then you see other people are mad, some people say; "Oh,
I'll be generous, I'll give everything away" and some people
actually do this. They are insane. They give everything away, the
next day they have no money. Where do they get their money from? Then
people have to give them.
Now when you get good things; when
something is given to you, you are using up the good merit from the
past times. When you give something you are making more. To stay
alive you must consume, you must use up things. So if you have got
food you must eat or you will starve to death. But until your mind
understands correctly what the simple things are, it's no good
practicing the complicated things.
So you see Mothers, for
their children, some Mothers kill for their children, they break a
precept. Other Mothers lie for their children, steal for their
children. Some Mothers work as prostitutes sometimes; I know one
woman she had two children, she worked as a prostitute, mainly
because she was lazy. There was plenty of other work around she could
have done but she worked as a prostitute to get easy money for her
children. And then the intoxicants; no alcohol, no drugs.
Now
until you've got the five precepts correct; for a layperson only five
precepts are needed; for monks 227, for Chinese monks 250 and then
sometimes they takes eighteen Root Vows of Bodhisattva and then very
high people take forty extra vows. But for five precepts for
laypeople; if you meditate on the precepts you will understand the
Dhamma.
So when you have maintained the five precepts good
enough then you find, over many lifetimes, then you find your life
gets easier. I have the easiest life probably of anyone in Australia
because whatever I want to do I can do, whatever I want comes. Just
automatically, no trouble, I don't have any trouble. Food comes,
flowers come, everything I want comes.
A monk came today. I
gave him offerings; I gave him some tea, I gave him a photograph, I
gave him, someone brought me some eucalyptus like medicine lolly, I
gave him that. I know he's got a little cough, he didn't cough but I
know he has a cough. Someone brought me some butter menthol like
medicine. I gave two sorts of medicine to the Monk. The kamma of
that; his health improves, my health improves.
Now when you
understand that what you do, what you give out will come back to you.
I gave the monk one newsletter so things will come back to me. Now
that is the most simplest elementary thing. It's by not understanding
the law of cause and effect that every trouble you've ever had came.
So the first thing you have got to do is to understand in
your mind that nothing can happen to you unless there is a cause.
Nothing can happen if you like by luck. Cause effect, cause effect.
Now everyone likes to dream. You know that ladies think some
handsome prince will come, millions of dollars come, and castles
come. Fairy stories, not true. Other people think I will win Tatts
lottery or something. Not true. If you win, because of generosity,
money comes and then it's gone. So this, what keeps you alive, why
you didn't drop dead today was because of giving food at some past
time, keeping other people alive.
There are four nutrients
that keep you alive. Three are mental ones, one is food. One is food.
Three mental nutrients. If any one of those four nutrients drop you
will be dead. Just phew, dead, and then rebirth to wherever. Now we
did a meditation the other night where we started to meditate on our
body to see what is the difference between this body and a dead body.
There's many ways of doing this.
The outside skin on your
body, if you meditate, you meditate on the outside skin on your body
now. Look at the skin. You meditate, you meditate on the actual skin
of your own body, you will realise it is dead. It is living inside,
but this is dead. You can rub off dead skin. You meditate on your
hair, the tips of your hair, you will realise that hair is dead.
That's why you can cut it with scissors without pain. You meditate on
your finger nail. This part, you will realise it is dead.
Now
you keep meditating like that for long enough and you will realise
that this body is partly dead. It is like living on the inside and
dead on the outside. And you meditate powerfully enough like that,
and then you start to understand something that your ego mind doesn't
want to hear about. That this body is going to die. It's going to
come to death. Until you know that absolutely with insight knowledge
you can't get very far.
Know that this body is on the way to
the cemetery. This body is going to die sooner or later. And you
meditate because it is showing the marks of the death on it. Even a
little baby you meditate; the same. And then if you meditate very
powerfully, if you become a good meditator, you will actually see
inside your body four great elements; heat element, air element,
water element, [earth element]; you resolve the body.
And then
you meditate on a body in a cemetery and your own body and you
realise there's not much difference. Except under the force of your
mind, because remember you're not just a body; you're a mind body;
the dead body in the cemetery has no mind, just body only. But you
are mind body; nama rupa in Pali. You will realise at that point why
the body can still move. It can't move of its own accord because
otherwise dead bodies could move around. You will realise if you
meditate enough on your body that what moves it is your mind. And
that's what the Buddha tells you; that the mind is the boss.
Now
Buddhism doesn't cultivate the body. If you want to cultivate the
body go down to the gymnasium. The Buddha trains the mind because the
mind is chief. What the mind does the body follows. If the mind says
move this, moves. If it says stop this, stops.
Now, there are
meditators, some who have done very powerful meditation. There are,
in Burma, there are five monks who can levitate their body in the
air. They don't show ordinary people. But in the forest they can,
they've got so much control over their body, such a powerful mind,
they can levitate the body. In Thailand there is a couple of monks,
there is one monk I know, he has levitated. There is another monk,
this man, this monk, a waterfall, he was in the forest in Thailand, a
big waterfall. He could get his body to go up the waterfall, get to
the top have a look at the top and then shoot down the waterfall
without killing himself.
The mind is what is to be
cultivated, not the body. The body is on the way to the cemetery.
It's only a matter of time and everyone here will be dead. But the
mind travels on and then rebirth. The mind travels on and then
whatever happens you are in your next birth.
So the first
thing to do is to understand, when you understand that very
powerfully you will want to get your body to have long life because
in a human birth you can practice the Buddha Dhamma. If you're born
an animal can't, hell being can't, hungry ghost can't. In most heaven
worlds, you can't practice Buddha Dhamma, just one or two of them. As
a human being, you can.
So you've got to meditate enough till
you know one thing. One; the body is subject to death, sickness, old
age and dying; the body. You've got to know that. Now if you know
that and your best friend dies, you're not upset. Because what is
born must die, you don't get upset. When my Mother died, one tear
only. When my Father died, no tears. Because if you go sad when
people die, the dying person picks up the negatives on your mind.
You must know, when you've done enough meditation, you'll
know this is like a walking corpse and its destination ends in the
cemetery. And then you'll realise the reason your body moves around
is your mind. Until you get to that point, until you get to that
understanding, you've got no basic understanding of anything. Until
you know that the mind is the chief and the body is the servant you
get nowhere. You're not fit to practice. But because of the ego many
people spend hours and hours a day looking after their body. And they
don't cultivate their mind. So you see you've got to understand this
body, this one is like a walking corpse. Where is it walking to? The
cemetery.
Now when you are clear of that in your mind you'll
stop being too neurotic about your body. If it aches you'd say "well
what do you expect from a corpse?" If it gets sick you'd say
"well what do you expect from a corpse?" If you think it's
something other than it is, it goes ahh, creak - what do you expect
from a corpse? You know. Stomach goes rumble rumble - what do you
expect from a corpse? And then you don't waste this valuable human
life.
It shows, that is one way of showing the body is like a
corpse. The other way of showing is like this. This is in the
Buddhist texts. A corpse is decaying and smelling. You get an amen e
or putramine. If you've ever smelt it you'll remember it. It is a
straight line amen e and it's a characteristic of a dead body
smell.
If you don't wash your body for a few days does it
smell sweet or does it smell funny? If something was pure, it would
smell sweet If you don't wash your body - stinks. Therefore the body
is impure. And anything impure must decay. So another text, another
way of looking, by examination of the body - it is impure therefore
it must end up like smelly corpse. So you've got to wash it to stop
the stink.
Also, you say it's my body but if you put under a
microscope many little bacteria inside. On this body, billions of
little bacteria say "this is my home, this is my body, this is
my cemetery". If you analyse, if you've done a lot of biology,
and you've looked at a microscope slide, you'll find all little
living things in your body. Millions of them. Each little living
thing is a sentient being. They say "this is my home, my
cemetery, my dunny". Go to toilet in your body.
There's
only one of you, millions of them. If they had a vote, you're out.
Can't lay claim to this body. So the Buddhist text approach, in many
ways to get you to do what's called kayanuppasana, meditation on the
body.
Thank you very much.
The MP3 file of the
original recorded teachings read on today's program will be available
online at www.edharma.org during January 2005.
May you come to
see the reality of your body.
May you come to see the reality
of your mind.
May you be well and happy.
May all
beings be well and happy.
The script was transcribed,
prepared and edited by Julian Bamford, Frank Carter, Leanne Eames,
Travis Heenan, Anita Hughes, Leila Igracki and Alec Sloman.
References:
John D. Hughes Collection Recorded Dhamma
Teachings. Transcription Of Dhamma Teachings
Recording Title:
"Venerable Virayananda Talk"
Tape 5, Side 1
Teacher:
Venerable Viriyananda, John D. Hughes.
Date of recording:
26/6/88
Transcribed by: Travis Heenan, Frank
Carter
Transcriptionchecked by: Frank Carter 2 January, 2005
CD
Reference 26_06_88T5S1A
File Name:
26_06_88T5S1A_JDHtranscribe.rtf
Word count: 5082
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