The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives
Buddhist
Hour
Script No. 377
Radio Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0
FM
for Sunday 17 April 2005CE
2547 Buddhist Era
“Ajahn Thanasanti Dhamma Talk”
On the 23rd of March, 2005, Ajahn Thanasanti, a
Buddhist Nun of Ajahn Chah’s forest tradition, came to speak at
the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
During the days
that preceded, the Centre had held a 5-day meditation course on the
subject of anatta, selflessness, and Ajahn Thanasanti’s Dhamma
talk marked the official end of that course.
On today’s
program, we would like to share the first of two parts of the
Buddha's teachings as spoken by Ajahn Thanasanti with you. We hope
that you can benefit greatly from these precious words.
We
thank Ajahn Thanasanti for taking the time to come and share the
precious jewels of the Buddha Dhamma with us. We wish her long life,
good health, happiness and great success in all of her activities.
We also thank Leanne Eames for the effort she made to have
these beautiful teachings come to us. We wish her happiness and
prosperity and expedent success in the Buddha Dhamma.
The
authors apologise for any errors or misunderstandings that may have
occurred in the process of transcribing the talks from the original
recordings.
After our President, Julian Bamford, gave a short
introduction and welcomed Ajahn Thanasanti, she began her talk in the
following way:
So, what a lovely, warm-hearted welcome. It's a
real joy to me to see various different people in little sections and
corners and houses and come into gardens with Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas and Kuan Yin and Ajahn Mun and everybody here. And just
to see the warmth and the radiance in your face, your interest. It's
a joy to me to meet people who are interested in practicing so thank
you for the invitation and the very, very warm welcome.
I have
been doing allot of teaching in Melbourne and one of the themes I
have been emphasizing is the importance of being a good human being.
We can be a little bit focused on our particular spiritual
aspirations and we can forget sometimes the importance of being a
good human being, and so beyond our religious identity, our spiritual
practice, beyond our, anything really, when we go back to basics and
we think, well, you know, more and beyond all of that, you know, what
I really want to do, or as the basic thing that holds us all in
common, is just this longing to be a good person. What does that
involve?
And when we look at what that involves there are many
different qualities, I think, but they're pretty simple. One of them
is a simple quality of respect, that we have respect, we live with
respect. Another is generosity, that we give and we serve. Another is
kindness, that we, we live in a way where not only are we ceasing to
harm but we are actually cultivating the positive quality of
kindness.
Then there also is the foundation which this rests
upon which is moral integrity, precepts, and understanding the value,
importance of living with skill and skillfulness and not harming with
the various different ways. So the five precepts, not killing, not
stealing, refraining from any incorrect use of sexuality, refraining
from incorrect speech, refraining from drugs and drink, all of that
can be boiled down into the one precept of refraining from harm.
Because when we refrain from harm genuinely, wholeheartedly and
sincerely then it's impossible to do any of the others, because why
would we hurt something? Why would we take something that doesn't
belong to us? In what manner would we be able to misuse our
sexuality? How would we be able to speak that which was untrue if we
didn't want to harm? You know, if we are coming from a heart of
kindness. And similarly, if we are committed to harmlessness we
refrain from drugs and drink which cloud and confuse the mind because
that dissolves the container that makes it possible to keep the other
precepts.
So, when we look at this interest to be a good
human being, you know, there's these common themes that emerge and
they are truly independent of our culture, independent of our
religious affiliation, independent of just about anything. They are
basic human qualities that all of us can cultivate. And so then when
we take up spiritual practices and we long to awaken then it's really
important that when we do that, that they are not in conflict with
these basic human principles, and so our longing and aspiration to
awaken to the truth and our affiliation with a particular group needs
to not be compromising our basic aspiration to simply be a good human
being.
So when we look at this, when we look at these
qualities of respect and generosity and kindness and moral integrity,
we can see that these things come into the need to be in right
relationship with self, with others, with community, with family,
with the earth and with the creatures who inhabit the earth. And this
is the kind of way in which we can find skillfulness and which our
sense of ease and well being and peace can grow in this world.
Now,
one of the, I think this is a common denominator which we all share,
this longing to just simply be a good human being. And so what's
interesting is to question, "What is it that blocks this, that
gets in the way of this. How come it's not possible to do this if
this is something that we all want, that we all long for?" And
so I think when we look at it carefully we have to see that it's our,
the presence of negative emotions that are the obstacles and
obstructions and the way we relate to them which gets in the way, and
the lack of positive emotions.
So when we're working with
these emotions that pull us around and pull us out of balance and
seem to obscure our basic longing for human goodness and prevent us
from acting in accord with our noblest aspiration, then we need to
examine well, how do we deal with this? And, having access to the
Buddhist tradition, there are many Suttas and many volumes that
specifically deal with brining about balance to difficult conditions
and bringing about balance to mind and to emotion and working with
the breath and working with the body and cultivating generosity,
cultivating the precepts and brining the difficulties into a place of
resting so that they're not so strongly overwhelming us. And as
meditators and spiritual aspirants I think that each one of us has a
task to become skilled in developing tools to deal with the specific
things that throw us off and throw us out of balance because that is
going to be the obstacle to our aspirations, both as a good human
being as well our spiritual aspirations, to awaken for the benefit of
all beings.
But when we look at this spectrum we can see that
there's a variety of things involved of that, and one of them, and
one large component of this is brining balance to the conditions, and
that includes working with the conditions in order to minimise
harmful effects and to increase beneficial effects of positive
emotions. But, as adept as we are at this, there is always a
limitation because it's based on control whether is subtle and
whether it's with a positive motivation, it's still based on control
and there is a limit to the extent in which we have ability to
control in this world.
So what we need to do is, in addition
to learn how to develop balance, is we need to look at the deeper
underlying aspects of what things are made of. What is the reality,
the inherent reality that stuff is made out of? Who is this me that
seems to be getting thrown off course, getting out of balance,
getting blown around? And as this discussion, this subject of anatta,
is rich and meaningful and it's one of the components which
distinguishes the Buddhist tradition from other traditions.
Now,
as an intellectual concept, anatta is not an easy one to grasp
because it completely goes against our natural perception of things.
We perceive ourselves to be here, to be here solid, to be how somehow
separate. I see myself as here, and I perceive you as being there,
outside of me. And this is the way our nervous system and our
perceptual apparatus sets things up, this is the way the conditioning
operates. But we know that when we look a little bit deeper that this
is only an apparent reality, not an absolute reality. This is a
construct.
And so when we look deeply into the nature of
things there needs to be a profound questioning, "To whom is all
of this occurring?" Who is experiencing this? And so rather than
spend the next twenty minutes talking about this I just want to pause
for a moment and ask everyone to have a time of meditation and we
will see what we will come up with through meditation and then we can
further explore through discussing, ok?
So let's just find a
sitting posture that's comfortable and just... the basis of all
meditation is just having a sense of ease and well being so, just
beginning by relaxing. Relaxing any tension in the forehead and the
jaw and the neck. Relaxing any tension in the back and in the chest.
In the abdomen, in the pelvis, in the legs. And now we can conjoin
the breathing with this effort to relax so we can just breathe in a
sense of ease and wellbeing. Feel the cool, evening air, coolness as
it comes in and energises. And as we breathe out just release and
relax, let go of any accumulated tension, ideas, thinking, planning.
So breathing in the cool air, and breathing out, releasing, letting
go. Thoughts of the future, planning, letting go any tension that's
in the body.
So as one breathes in allow the ease, the
renewal, the inspiration of the in breath to begin to fill and spread
throughout the whole body so that the body begins to feel more and
more comfortable. More and more relaxed, peaceful, centered, at ease.
The cool air coming in, followed by the warm air. Inspiration
followed by release.
(Period of silent meditation)
Letting
go deeper and deeper into the present moment. Feeling a sense of ease
and well being from breathing, breathing in and breathing out.
Feeling the trust and safety of the present moment, of receiving the
present moment. Feeling the body, sensations. Feeling the
breath.
(Period of silent meditation)
Now bring a
question to mind. "Who am I?" And being open to what you
experience, continue to ask this question, "Who am I?"
Sounds come and go, "Who am I?" Feelings come and go, "Who
am I?" Sensations come and go, "Who am I?" Ideas about
myself come and go, "Who am I?" Allow this question to take
you to the end of the question, "Who am I?"
(Ajahn
Thanasanti poses the question, "Who am I?")
Now
bring to mind a situation where there was strong emotion, positive,
negative, very difficult to stay centered in the midst of it so we
can use our thoughts to conjure up by remembering something that
happened. Allow the feelings to become present as a physical
experience. Allow the breath to be affected. Allow the mind to be
affected, the heart to be affected. Allow it to become as if it were
real and ask yourself, "Who am I?"
(Ajahn Thanasanti
poses the question, "Who am I?")
Now allow the field
of attention to change and once again receive the breath as it comes
in and goes out. The cool evening air, the coolness as it comes in,
releasing, letting go, breathing out.
(Period of silent
meditation)
And gently open your eyes, and as you hear me
speaking allow your attention to stay focused in your own experience,
your breath, your body, and the question, "Who am I?" as
you hear the various things being said and spoken.
So you
see, when we use meditation in a particular way it can bring us to an
understanding that could take hours and hours and hours and hours and
days and days and days and we still don't touch it, because it's not
a concept that we're touching in meditation, it's a direct
experience. So I will be interested to hear how this was for you, how
you found this meditation?
Anita Hughes, the abbott of our
temple responded, 'It was very clear. The experience I used was
John's death. I was present at his death and I could feel the very
painful emotion of losing someone you love. All the fears of what's
going to happen, how are we going to continue the Centre, all those
sort of incredible feelings of despair. Feelings of loneliness,
feelings of hopelessness, loss. Very strong feeling, right deep in
your the pit of your stomach, and seeing that just by thinking about
that experience all those feelings arise as if they were real. But
really, it's not really happening. In the present it's not really
happening. So it was very powerful experience of seeing how we label,
how we say, "That's me and I'm experiencing this, this, this and
this." But it wasn't happening in the present, yet the power of
the mind to recall, just by thinking of that event, all those
feelings and concepts. Thank you.'
Would anyone else like to
share their experience of the meditation?
Another student
added, 'When I was first thinking about "Who am I?", I
could only think of answers that were relative, like "I'm this
to that person", or "This to these people". Like, "I'm
that person's family", or "that person's mother", so
it was only in relation to other. And then during the experience of,
about strong positive and negative emotions I realized that it was
just feelings that I was experiencing, I could call those and
experience them again. But those feelings, like I strongly associated
with those feelings, but I realised that they just come from
perception, reacting, liking, disliking, wanting, not wanting. Thank
you.'
Did anyone find this difficult?
'I did,' one
student responded, 'a little in that, when I was recalling an event,
I suppose I experienced all the emotions and everything of that
event, and again when I was talking about when you mentioned to ask
yourself "who am I?" I just kept coming up with "I'm a
mother, I'm an employee, I'm a friend, I'm this, I'm that, I'm that",
and all those sorts of things came up and when I went deeper it sort
of came up that I don't know. I don't know who I am. I just don't
know (Laughs). I just felt really, because I still feel that I don't
know who I am. I'm everything to everyone else, but I haven't really,
don't know who I am to me? Does that make sense?'
'I suppose
it's similar for me too,' commented a fellow student. 'It's like, "I
am this and I am that", and it was making me sort of laugh,
thinking I’ve got all these different, different beings that I
am. First I was thinking that I am my name, but I thought, no I'm
more than just my name, you know, I've got a body too. And then I
thought there's more than that as well because when you taught us to
do the excersise to go back and think about a painful experience or a
positive experience in the past, I realised at those times when
you're really over-emotional you are that feeling. You are sad, or
you are happy or joyous maybe, but you're, everything else doesn't
matter. So I just, really kind of, it was like a relief, I really
feel like just that I'm all of these things, but none of these
things.'
Another student responded, 'I went to the first, the
automatic response to "who am I?" was to try and put some
kind of jigsaw, and get all these little bits of, like filling out an
application form. So, "Yes I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm
this", and the idea "who am I?" I have to then
fabricate some sort of cobbled together collection of stuff and then
it's going to be me? It's just a collection of stuff, none of it's,
it's just a collection of stuff. There's nothing. And then looking at
a past experience, I looked at something that I've been, some
resentment that I've been holding on to very strongly, and just
looking that when you adhere to something like that very strongly
that's when you get that strong sense of "I, I'm, you know,
indignant. So and so did that to me", and how that creates some
sort of reaction that you think is "I" and that looks as
though it's solid.'
So this is exactly what the discussion of
Anatta is about. This is what it's about. It's not about some
abstract intellectual concept that we can't wrap our minds around.
This is what it's about. It's about looking at what we experience in
terms of the fact that we identify it as being who we are, but when
we look deeper it doesn't hold water, it actually doesn't sustain.
Now there are a couple things that different people
mentioned. One is, is that the spiritual journey actually requires
that we have a deeper understanding about who we are. It actually
requires that we do that, and so that, you know, when we have spent
our whole life identifying ourselves in terms of our relationships
with somebody else and we don't know who we are, then the absence of
not knowing who we are shows up and we sit silently and quietly and
we spend time alone it becomes apparent that it is something we need
to find out, "Who are we?", for ourselves. Not for our
relationship with everyone else, or by defined by being in
relationship with everyone else, but "who are we?"
And
in addition to kind of having a sense of who we are then we also
begin to see that no matter what we come up with, no matter how clear
we are with it, all of it eventually dissolves. There isn't actually
anything that holds.
So we're living in a society where we
are defined by position, by role, by possession, we are human
havings, this society of human havings and human doings rather than
human beings. And so, you know, what we have can confuse, or what we
do, is the way we define who we are. So when we look at the concept
of anatta, when we start allowing an analytical process to reflect on
what's actually happening, we can begin to see that there isn't any
unchanging aspect to whom this whole configuration is belonging.
Now, this does not dismiss the fact that there are ways in
which we need to know who we are. It doesn't dismiss the
psychological component of being in touch with ourselves and knowing
who we are. But when we are able to sit still and do this deeper
work, do this deep work, then we see that there is nothing to whom
the whole thing is holding, there's no place, there's no element,
there's no body part, there's no personality characteristic, there's
no specific role, there's no specific memory, there is nothing that
is holding the whole thing together.
So, the principle of
anatta, when we understand it carefully, it can show us this
nothingness of phenomena, of emotions, of experience, of ideas, of
concepts, of who we have taken ourselves to be. And when we can
understand that experientially it can shift our relationship with
what we are experiencing. Normally we are someone, we are a blob, a
something. A something blob sitting here and you're a something blob
sitting there and because of that somethingness than it's important
that I protect the thingingness that I experience that it has all the
qualities that I like to associate with being a thing. So I like
warm, fuzzy things and friendly things and pleasant things and
beautiful things and kind things and nice things and bright things
and energetic things and delightful things and spontaneous things and
compassionate things and I don't like cold things and not nice things
and unfriendly things, yeah?
So there's this sense that when I
identify myself as being a something then I am conditioned to want to
manipulate the situation, to collect the things that I like and get
rid of the things that I don't like because of the identity with
being a someone. So, a someone is going to suffer because a someone
is only partially able to have what one likes and to get rid of what
one doesn't like.
So the principle of anatta is a direct
experience with how we actually experience things. What is actually
happening for us, and one of the reasons why this can be so powerful
is because it dismantles the root from which suffering emerges. The
grasping for identity that "I am". Can you see? Do you
follow what I'm saying? Some yes, some no.
So the point of
this is not to have fancy language that we can impress each other
with, that's not the point of this. The point of this is to have a
direct experience of reality so that we can dismantle the suffering
that is created. That's the point of this. Because when we see the
emptiness in self, in phenomena, in emotion, then it doesn't have the
same catastrophic effect when it's going the way we'd like it to. So
initially I said that the one thing that keeps us from fulfilling our
aspiration to be good human beings is the presence of negative
emotions, but it's only the presence of negative emotions when we
attach to them. When we just see them for what they are they don't
have that effect on us and that is in fact the way in which we
dismantle negative emotions.
May all beings be well and
happy.
May the Buddha Dhamma flourish all around the world.
May
many beings come out of suffering.
This script was spoken by
Ajahn Thanasanti, and was recorded, transcribed and prepared by Paul
Tyrell, Alec Sloman, Anita Hughes and Frank Carter.
Recording
Title: 'Ajahn Thanasanti Talk'
CD 1 of 2
Teacher: Ajahn
Thanasanti
Date of recording: 28/03/2005
Transcribed by: Alec
Sloman
Checked by:
CD Reference: 28_03_05T1S1
File Name
I:\28_03_05T1S1A_JDHtranscribe.rtf
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