Buddhist Hour
Script No. 410
Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0 FM
11.00am till 12midday.
On
Sunday 11 December 2005CE (2549 Buddhist Era)


This script is entitled:
“Applying the Buddha's Teachings to Everyday Life”
Class 3

We now continue with our series “Applying the Buddha's Teachings to Everyday Life” and Class No.3 presented on 6 December 2005 at the Dandenong Ranges Community Cultural Centre, Upwey.

We will talk today about Right Thought (samma sankappa) which is the second training in the Noble Eightfold Path.

"When a person has Right Understanding, the first of the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhist training he or she develops Right Thought as well. This factor is sometimes known as "Right Resolution", "Right Aspirations" and "Right Ideas". It refers to the mental state that eliminates wrong ideas or notions and promotes the other moral factors to be directed to Nibbana. This factor serves the double purpose of eliminating unwholesome thoughts and developing pure thought. Right thought is important because it is one's thoughts that either purify or defile a person.

There are three aspects to Right Thought. First, a person should maintain an attitude of detachment from worldly pleasures rather than being selfishly attached to them. He should be selfless in his thoughts and think of the welfare of others. Second, he should maintain loving-kindness, goodwill and benevolence in his mind, which is opposed to hatred, ill will or aversion. Third, he should act with thoughts of harmlessness or compassion to all beings, which is opposed to cruelty and lack of compassion for others. As a person progresses along the spiritual path, his thoughts will become increasingly benevolent, harmless, selfless, and filled with love and compassion.

Right Understanding and Right Thought, which are Wisdom factors, will lead to
good, moral conduct".

"Thoughts are all important; for a person's words and acts have thoughts as their source... The good or ill results of our words and actions depend solely on our thoughts, on the way we think.

To be able to produce Right Thought depends on first understanding the difference between unwholesome and wholesome minds. If a mind is unwholesome it is incapable of generating Right Thought.

In the Dhammapada it is written:

"Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief: they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts, suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of an ox.

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief: they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow."

Unwholesome minds are those which are rooted in one or more of the three main defilements of the mind which are greed, hate and ignorance. The thoughts and actions that come from unwholesome minds are stained by the defilements and the kamma produced by these actions is not conducive to the well being and happiness of oneself or others.

The unwholesome minds are really the cause of all our problems because a mind with ignorance cannot see things clearly and cannot understand how to be free from suffering. The greedy minds generate the craving that causes attachments and is the thirst for sensual desire. The hateful minds generate aversion to things and people, causing us to make negative kamma and break the precepts.

Buddhist practice is to reduce the unwholesome minds that have arisen and reduce the unwholesome minds yet to arise, and to increase the wholesome minds that have arisen and increase the wholesome minds yet to arise.

The wholesome minds are developed because they are antidotes to the unwholesome minds. Loving kindness, for example, is the antidote of hate, generosity is the antidote to greed. Confidence is the antidote to doubt. The antidotes can be described as medicine for the mind and the defilements as mental poisons.

So it is important to learn to recognise the true nature of our mental states; to be able to recognise unwholesome minds when they arise, and which type of unwholesome mind it is. If we can see the type of unwholesome mind then we have the power to reduce and eventually remove it by applying its correct antidote.

The difficulty arises because our mental states are habitual, unless we have trained our mind, we use whichever mind happens to come to us; without discerning whether it is good for us or harmful. We may accept the minds that come as inevitable or normal, or maybe think basically our minds are OK but we occasionally have ones which are a bit off.

Buddhism tells us that if we developed our minds to the level of sustained wholesome we would mostly experience various combinations of wisdom, peace, friendliness, compassion, love, patience, gratitude, happiness, mindfulness. We would only experience unwholesome minds like anger, regret, doubt, worry, fear, jealousy or pride occasionally, they would not be very powerful and they would not last for long periods.

Most Buddhist texts will explain that this is usually not an easy task. That we have had our habits for a long time and some of our unwholesome minds are strong and will take much determination and effort to subdue, and then eventually stop them from arising.

A common unwholesome mind is anger. Many things can happen in a day that brings up anger in us; someone may cut in front of us while we're driving, we may get criticised for something we didn't do. We may get held up so we are late for an appointment. Our angry response comes automatically into our mind and we may think that is fine, however, what is really going on? Is the anger a pleasant feeling for us, or is it unpleasant? Are we happier because of our anger? Does it make us get to work on time? Does it help us deal with these events that are themselves unpleasant?

Intellectually we may recognise that anger compounds the problems, makes them worse, causes us to continue to feel bad about something that may have stopped happening ten minutes earlier.

So how do we get beyond just believing intellectually, anger is not good for us and not good for others. We need to apply Right Understanding and then Right Thought to change our response for the better.

Firstly through Right Understanding we can recognise the unsatisfactory nature of life. Life is unreliable, a mix of things we like and things we don't like. That is the nature of life. If something unpleasant happens it doesn't really mean that something went wrong. Life is just like that; so why expect it to be abnormal - to do everything we want when we want it?

The more we expect it to do what we want the more we will be disappointed and become frustrated or angry. We need to practice letting go, accepting that life is unsatisfactory without becoming stressed. The natural way of life is inconsistency, unreliability. This is what is known as the first of the Four Noble Truths the Buddha taught, life is unsatisfactory. The word used to describe this characteristic of existence is called dukkha in Pali.

Buddha taught life is unsatisfactory on all levels. Even what may seem to be the best conditions such as being born in a high heaven as a god or deva is unsatisfactory as one day it too will finish. When the good karma which sustains that birth is exhausted the god or deva will die and then take rebirth. This is an aspect of the unsatisfactory nature of existence or dukkha.

Then Right Understanding tells us that what we are experiencing every day, every minute, comes from our own side, comes from causes we made ourselves in the past. From this perspective the world is running perfectly well the way it is because it runs on cause and effect. The causes made in the past are what run the world, and they are what run our own world that we experience directly every moment.

If we don't want to experience people upsetting us then we should determine to cultivate kindness and considerate behaviour toward others from now on. If we don't like people being angry at us then we should ourselves give up reacting to others with anger. Stop giving out to the world what you would dislike experiencing yourself.

Use the unpleasant event that would normally make you angry to reflect and determine that you will train yourself to never behave like this to others. You give up making this type of negative kamma as a result of feeling how unpleasant it is when others to it to you.

Right Understanding tells us that whatever it is that we are experiencing is impermanent. This is called anicca in Pali. Like dukkha, anicca is also a characteristic of existence. Events change; pleasant comes, pleasant goes, unpleasant comes, unpleasant goes. The thing that is upsetting us will often stop within a few seconds or a few hours - so why get upset? It's going to stop by itself anyway - so one ought develop the attitude of patience.

Patience is to be happy to accept change, to let things change without holding a fixed view that things should happen the way we want or expect. To let things be different to our preference without getting bugged by that.

Right Understanding recognises that anger is unwholesome so we should restrain our mind from following out the thought of anger or resentment that may start to arise when we encounter something unpleasant. Mindfulness enables us to see that an event happening to us is starting to bring up some aversion in our mind. Right Understanding allows us to recognise we need to avoid this aversion or anger that is starting to arise now by using Right Thought as the antidote.

If we have good mindfulness we will see the first moments of the unwholesome mind as it starts to enter our consciousness.

If the unwholesome is anger, Right Thought is thought which produces the antidote to getting angry which is loving kindness. First as our protection against anger, but secondly to create new good causes with the other person.

Loving kindness towards the other person is the medicine to stop anger developing. We wish the other persons(s) to be well and happy. We wish the other person to be free of suffering, to be free of hate or enmity. Like a Mother wishes her own children to be happy we cultivate the wish that the other person be happy and free from their own unwholesome minds. We think "that person is only doing this because of my past actions so how silly to resent them now. Think, "may I never make the causes to see this situation again. I wish this
person to be well and happy. When I meet this person again in the future may we be friends. May they be well and happy".

"The Buddha exhorted that we should return love for anger. If someone displays anger towards us "Hatred can never be overcome by hatred. Only by love alone can it be appeased. This is eternal law."' he said. "Conquer the angry person by love", he said."

Loving kindness is an important practice in Buddhism. It is used to reduce minds of hate, aversion and enmity and promote minds that are kind to others, minds that act for the benefit of others. There is an important Buddhist meditation designed to increase a persons loving kindness until it becomes consistent and powerful. It is called metta meditation. It works by developing the wish that all beings be well and happy. This practice extends our feeling of kindness further than just our friends or family, that we build a mind with love to all beings.

With loving kindness we recognise when others need help. We are willing to act to build friendship and goodwill with the people we know and people we have just met.

The Buddha stated there are eleven kammic benefits that come to the practitioner of loving-kindness. Some of these are: he or she sleeps easily; wakes up fresh; dreams no bad dreams; is dear to human beings, is dear to non-human beings; deities or devas protect him or her; he gains concentration easily; his or her features are serene, he or she dies unconfused, if he has not attained enlightenment he or she will be reborn in a heaven realm after death.

Right Thought includes these thoughts of goodwill and also of compassion or non-harm to other living beings. Therefore the intention to keep the five precepts of not killing, not lying, not stealing, not taking intoxicants which cloud the mind and not committing adultery are Right Thought. Thoughts of good will and compassion "are to be cultivated and extended towards all living beings irrespective of race, caste, clan, sex or creed. They must embrace all that breathe, with no compromising limitations. The radiation of such ennobling thoughts is not possible for one who is egocentric and selfish.

Right Thought extends beyond how to deal with anger or resentment arising. This was just an example chosen to illustrate how Right Thought uses volition to turn our mind away from our habitual responses toward wholesome responses. Right Thought is thought that directs us to maintain wholesome minds and good actions at all times. Even when our life is going well, which is only our good kamma from the past. We should continue to prompt wholesome minds and make good kamma rather than be defeated by pleasant feeling arising or success, happiness or well being occurring.

Right Thought is to maintain wholesome minds in all circumstances, to make good kamma whether in adversity or prosperity.

One other aspect of Right Thought which we have not mentioned is that it also includes thoughts that lead to dispassion about the world. If we remember that craving is the root cause of suffering and attachment, then it is easier to see that thought which curbs that craving will lead us away from suffering.

This is the second of the Four Noble Truths that the Buddha taught.

Venerable. K. Sri Dhammananda notes in What Buddhist Believe that "People crave for pleasant experiences, crave for material things, crave for eternal life, and when disappointed, crave for eternal death. They are not only attached to sensual pleasures, wealth and power, but also to idea views, opinions, concepts and beliefs. And craving is linked to ignorance, that is, not seeing things as they really are, or failing to understand the reality of experience and life. Under the delusion of self and not realising anatta (not self), a person clings to things which are impermanent, changeable, perishable. The failure to satisfy one's desires through these things causes disappointments and suffering".

To reduce craving a person should maintain an attitude of detachment from worldly pleasures rather than being selfishly attached to them. He or she should be selfless in his thoughts and think of the welfare of others.

Renunciation has the characteristic of departing from sense pleasures .....; its function is to verify the unsatisfactoriness they involve; its manifestation is the withdrawal from them; a sense of spiritual urgency is its proximate cause.

The sense pleasures do not provide more than momentary satisfaction. If we want more satisfaction then we have to have more sense pleasures to experience. The pleasant feelings we may get in this process are fleeting. If our craving for sensual pleasure is not fulfilled we experience distractedness, restlessness, boredom, disappointment, and so on; and this will not lead us to a mind with peace or contentment.

If we understand the unsatisfactoriness of the present moment we recognise we need to train our mind to let go. Our habit is to crave, grab, and hold on to things. We need to let go off all these things. But this habit is causing our unhappiness because we are holding onto things that have the nature of dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), and anicca (impermanence).

Let go of anger, let go of sadness, let go of regret, let go of enjoyment, let go of feelings. Learn to not prolong them when they arise in our minds.

During the meditations we can observe how our mind runs after sense objects, thoughts and feelings that appear from moment to moment. The process of gently bringing the mind back to observe the breath is the start of training the mind to not grab at these sense and mental objects.

Over time once the mind has developed greater one-pointedness on the breath it has also developed greater renunciation.

Here we conclude the dhamma talk given by Anita Carter. It was followed by the sitting meditation while listening to a teaching by John D. Hughes on Anapannasati meditation titled Knowing Mind and body.

We will read you an excerpt from that teaching. If you wish you may like to follow this meditation as we read.

John Hughes began by requesting the students to bring their minds inside the body.

So if you put your mind on your breath, know if it is hot, the in breath. If it’s hot, know it is hot. If it’s cool, know it’s cool. The in-breath, like anapannasati. So if the in breath is hot know it’s hot, if the in breath is like cool, know it is cool. Just watch the breath. You'll see impermanence how everything changes.

Don’t strain. Just relax. Too much effort. Drop the effort. It’s only breathing.

So the breath arises, the in breath you are looking at, passes away and vanishes.

Now the breath, your mind is watching the breath. The breath is four great elements like body is four great elements. Breath is part of the body. There are two breaths. There is an in breath and there is an out breath, they are not connected. Because of continuity you think there always has to be an out-breath. But one there will be an out breath and no in breath and your dead. And then you will see the out breath is one and the in breath is one, two different phenomena.

So normally we don’t worry about the out breath, but you might see that, it’s like saying the in breath can be hot and the out breath cold...or the in breath could be short and the out breath could be long. Don’t control the breath, just know.

So the combinations and permutations that occur are never the same. There is arising, arising, passing away, cessation, plop. That's the in breath and then an out breath. Then a fresh one different. So you know impermanence.

Now if you only realised that the breath, see people used to speculate the breath, because their minds used to follow the breath down, they thought the breath was mind, but its not its just four great elements, like body.

So your breath shows you your body is impermanent. That it can’t last. Arises, passes, gone, finished.

If you put you mind, say on the top of your head, say on one hair on you head and hold it on the same hair and you gaze on that hair on your head, you'll realise that hair is dead, that hair is dead. So your body discloses its destination, it’s going to drop dead. Your body is not your mind. If you put your mind inside your skull, like in side the front part of your skull and think bone, bone, bone, bone, bone, bone, bone...bone...sometimes you'll see inside your skull...like celestial eye...bone, bone, bone, bone...you'll realise there are two things...bone and the mind looking at it.

Mind is one thing, body or in Pali rupa is another. There's two things. What you are is mind...body complex...bone, bone, bone, bone. Mind couldn't be bone...so therefore you know body, mind is not body. Body is not mind. Mind is not matter. matter is not mind. They're two separate phenomena; they're in two separate baskets. One is the mind looking for stuff. Two, is the body which you conventionally say is my body. If you quickly scan your body from head to toe you will realise there is no self in it. just the mind. It’s devoid of self. There is no owner to the body, the mind looking is your mind, the body, as long as you've got your mind in your own body is conventionally called your body, but the body is changing. It’s like its appearing and disappearing. See the body as four great elements. Take the colour off the four great elements and you will see like grey ash. Little unexciting grey ash. Four great elements minus the second characteristic colour, just grey ash. Nothing to write home about.

So that grey ash is nothing to write home about. So that grey ash is how the body looks. Now if you put the colour back on it starts to get more exciting. More sensuous looking. Body is not self, mind is not body. The body does one thing. The mind does another. So you can sing over your body as much as you like, but your body will do what it likes.

There is a mind body relationship...the mind can effect the body...if it grabs the body normally the tighter it grabs the sicker the body becomes. Great skilful minds know how to treat the body properly so the body can get better not worse. But for most people the minute their mind grabs their body, its just a habit, they grab it so strongly, they say I'm my body. In the extreme view they forget they've got a mind and they think they're just a body only. Then they say 'oh well, when my body dies I'm dead and they think with the cessation of the body the mind will stop. But look at your mind. Put it in the inside of your skull. Bone, bone, bone. If that skull of yours blew apart right now into a million atoms, the mind looking at it would be still there.

So mind is not body, body is not mind. If your mind gets brighter, brighter, brighter, brighter, clearer, better understanding, more power...if you like...it will stop grabbing at the body and the minute it does you will be in the sphere of infinite space. Then if you stop grabbing at the space you'll be in the sphere of infinite knowlege....worldly knowledge though not lokutara. So the target of Buddhism is not to train the body...........and its not to train certain types of minds......for example...Buddhism is not to....if you've got angry mind Buddha wont teach you.... jealous mind Buddha won’t teach you....greed mind Buddha won’t teach you.

There are some wholesome minds and when you produce those you start to learn. Until you produce them, you're learning waffle, hearsay...Buddha says don’t listen to hearsay.

Don’t put your mind outside your body.

One day the body just falls over and the mind is left or is it....so which mind you've got depends on what you do next.

When you come out of meditation watch your mind.

Watch how the mind learns things in meditation, cognates things, comes out of meditation, two minutes later... forgotten. No sati - no mindfulness. You think you'd learn something once and remember it forever but it doesn't work like that.

That concludes the mediation talk on Knowing Mind and body and today’s Buddhist Hour talk “Applying the Buddha's Teachings to Everyday Life” Class 3. We welcome you to come to the weekly Dhamma talk at the Dandenong Ranges Community Cultural Centre each Tuesday evening at 7.30pm.

May you learn to recognise the true nature of our mental states, come to eliminate unwholesome thoughts, apply the correct antidote and develop the pure thoughts that lead to nibbana.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was prepared and edited by Julian Bamford, Anita Carter, Frank Carter and Helen Costas.


References

Chan Academy Australia, Applying the Buddha's Teachings to Everyday Life, Tuesday Night Teachings Class #3; 6 December 2005, Prepared by Anita Carter, and Frank Carter 2005. (online at www.bddronline.net.au)

Dhammananda,.K Sri. What Buddhists Believe. Yayasan Bella Buddhist Malaysia. Malaysia 199. P81

Piyadassi Thera. The Buddha's Ancient Path, Rider & Company 1987. 3rd Edition.

Piyadassi Thera. The Spectrum of Buddhism, Writings of Piyadassi Thera. Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation. 1991 Taiwan.



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