Ringkasan dibuat dengan bantuan AI • Belum diverifikasi
Ceramah Ajahn Kevali membahas tentang keseimbangan antara kerangka praktik dan pengalaman langsung, serta bagaimana kehidupan dalam komunitas yang akrab dapat mendukung praktik. Beliau menekankan pentingnya melepaskan identifikasi dengan diri sendiri dan pandangan-pandangan yang membatasi, sehingga dapat menemukan kedamaian dan kehadiran di saat ini. Dengan tidak terlalu fokus pada tujuan atau teknik yang kaku, praktik dapat membawa kejutan dan energi baru. Pesan utamanya adalah untuk merasakan kebahagiaan sederhana dalam praktik, tanpa perlu mencari pengakuan atau menjelaskan diri, serta menjaga sila dan niat baik.
Namoh dasa bhagavato arahatto sama sambuddhasa
Namoh dasa bhagavato arahatto sama sambuddhasa
Namoh dasa bhagavato arahatto sama sambuddhasa
Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, Namasami, Itto, Parang, Sakajang, Dhammo, Sotapoti
I'd like to ask for permission to say a few words after
our Patimokkha. When we practice many times use that say dual way of being
one way we use parameters, descriptions, instructions, methods, Sanya, perceptions
and on the other hand we use our more intuitive side and our direct
perception and on the other hand we use our more intuitive side and our direct
experience without any judgments without any aims and goals and try to be
in the present when we're practicing and not anticipating things should be any
other way than they are so it's quite a skill to balance that sense of using the
conventions like for example the time
where you sit or walk the duration
particularly when we are on our own now
more there's not always a bell there's
usually just our own determination that
will just sit for half an hour 45
minutes or an hour or so and then the
other part is while we're in that
framework then we have a sense of
experiencing the here and now without
any anticipation.
or any kind of framework or so and while we are practicing also there is a more
discursive way of approaching meditation for example with sati as a recollection
where you tell yourself let's look at the breath look at the beginning middle
end or whatever your way of looking at the breath is and then there's a thing
where you just don't think much it just happens.
and you actually feel very say uplifted
by the actual experience without any
input from your your own side other than
the awareness so in our own say rhythm
of doing things there's a lot that we
can do to have somehow a framework which
we so to say predefined and don't have
to really debate all the time for example
waking up in the morning if there's no
morning putra what do you do and I can
just try out for a while and then set it
as a personal routine and this frees
oneself from then having to kind of
discriminate whether what to do next
what to do now just do it just do it the
way you've laid it out once for this
period not for eternity but like for
this particular period whatever works and
And we have that then throughout the day,
there's parts where we can just simply go along
with what we laid out for ourselves to do,
or what was on the communal schedule.
And there's parts where we have to improvise
and feel it out.
So important is that we generally build up a sense
of not judging ourselves or not judging
also the decisions in that sense that we make,
not doubting about them.
Say for example, whether one does sitting meditation
or walking meditation, both are good.
Sometimes there may be 40 reasons for doing
sitting meditation and 60 for walking meditation.
And if one then chooses sitting meditation
over walking meditation, one so to say,
loses out a few percentage points in effectivity.
But both are good and both are lending themselves
to opening up the mind.
Into the present.
And so actually it doesn't really matter.
So a lot of the things we do actually to be frank,
don't really matter too much.
Say the activities in the monastery, in our routine,
they're all ethically correct.
They're all in the realm of sila.
And then they're all of communal benefit.
Even if we do things around our own kuti,
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
and just sweep the path, it's still of communal benefit.
And even if we just sit alone in the sala
when there's nobody there,
it still is of communal benefit.
Sometimes people just know about it, hear about it,
or see or suspect, and they pick up on your efforts
and they kind of like have mudita with that.
So it's all in the framework of benefits.
So we don't have to worry about that.
now in this period where we are
with a fairly constant group
there's also not much
adaptation in that sense that
we have to kind of
say integrate or adapt
or make lots of efforts to
communicate
I think the conversations
at tea time are getting less
and one can actually see if
there's one or two of the monks coming in
for their visa reasons
how much talk they bring in there
and how much suddenly one gets
into a different mode
not saying that we shouldn't be friendly
and exchanging our experiences
and our greetings and so forth
but we can see the difference
just being in this kind of
fairly acquainted mode
where we just more or less
don't have any news
to ponder upon
at least that's for me many times
not the case
at Sanghati I don't know really what
kind of news I can present you
so
it's not too much there
compared to the pace
that we used to have
like around January and June
this is pretty much minimal
so we can rest in that sense
of familiarity and that sense
of the framework that we're in
and the amount of acquaintance
that we have even with the monks
that pop in for a day or two
is so much as a basis
already that we can just rest in there
we don't have to get excited or so
I feel that's
that's a very good good thing
and also we don't have to define ourselves
we know each other quite well
we don't have to say impress or define
or prove or whatever is the case
many times for new people coming in
at the Pakkha time
many times when it's a classic training
I say not to elbow too much
and not to kind of shine too much
not to be too overly perfect
and at the same time also not to
to be letting the others down and be too sloppy.
So that sense of like, here I am, I've discovered this now
and this is who I am, look at me,
that gets less the longer we are in here
and there's no need actually coming back from other places
with somebody that we spend time together
in the monastery, in other monasteries or so.
So there's a sense of familiarity
which we can just rely on.
Very different than from trying to explain what you are,
who you are, where you've come from
and having a lot of investment on this is who you are.
Now I found something better or worse
or now I'm super inspired or completely uninspired.
That value judgment that we sometimes communicate
becomes less and less if we've been through
a certain amount of experiences together
and we know it's all part of the deal,
it's all part of the practice.
I was reminded by one of the monks that came in
describing a little bit how he feels
in the monastery where he is right now
and actually making a point of saying,
I actually don't know, I just know I feel good
and I can't really pin it down and actually, I don't want to,
to pin it down, it's maybe good enough just to say,
I'm really saying kind of enjoying it
and I'm having a good time,
can't really exactly describe where and why and how.
And I felt reminded that I had experiences like that
as well in my practice in other places
that there's an experience or say presence in the sangha
that sometimes you don't feel you actually know
how to describe it.
You can just be there and feel familiar, feel adapted,
feel in a non-worldly way.
You can say you feel at home with the experience.
And so I think that's a great gain
and I've been reflecting on that.
It's probably really part of our training, our meditation,
our way of seeing the world that we gradually approach
that sense of sangha, anatta,
like that perceptions or value judgments
or mental say kind of discursive gradings
or memories or stored up perceptions
that they are not really who we are.
And it becomes quite apparent if we think back now
to our lay life, I feel it very difficult right now
to think that I was really this guy
that was studying in Berlin,
had a kind of...
I know, I mean, like I had a few guitars
and I had a bicycle
and I know still some of the clothings I used to have
as my favorite clothings,
but it doesn't feel any more relevant to who I am now.
And it's moved far away.
So there's no sense that way other than telling good stories
maybe every now and again,
but like there's not a sense of this is who I am right now.
It's maybe going a bit forward.
I don't know how far to say
this person doesn't exist anymore
because there is some kind of overlap,
certain habits and certain qualities
or non qualities one has from lay life,
but they become less and less relevant.
And that sense of using those parameters of one's existence
as a way of showing others or introducing oneself to others
has become very, very much less.
If we ever ask ourselves,
what does this holy life actually bring to us?
I think we can actually say less identification
with who we are.
We're maybe not fully enlightened
and cannot boast certain very refined states of mind,
but we can say, actually, frankly,
I just feel much more just in the present
and I just feel much more here.
And I actually don't really know so much why,
what, what.
I'm just experiencing these things.
This is a quality of this present moment,
nama that we practice when we meditate.
It's not so much the judging one where you say,
I'm sitting for that and that long,
I'm counting my breath,
or I'm doing a supakamatana or whatnot.
It's basically just the simple sense of
just being here is good enough
and just being whatever I am, who I am is fine.
I don't have to say, explain it to anybody.
I don't have to say, explain it to anybody.
It's a decision to oneself, one doesn't.
It's part of what we practice when we talk about
letting go, for example.
If there was something during the day or during the week
that you felt had a strong investment of self,
for example, a view around something,
a view about what to do, what not to do,
what should be done, what should be done by the whole sangha,
what should be done by the abbot,
or what should be done by the lay people,
so, or, because also coming in, what should,
and sometimes we do have views around it
and there's little issues here and there.
We can see when we practice then and we sit down,
this quality of letting go and going back
to something in ourselves that actually is independent
from our views and our thoughts,
even from, say, very important views about
whether we get vaccined or not or so.
Basically, when we shut our eyes and sit down,
we are not this or that.
Basically, we're just here and everyone is like that.
Like, everyone goes back to this point.
I would say in this way we can live together
very, very peaceful, also very, very allowing
and acquainted in that sense that we know.
Actually, whenever there's a trace of somebody
giving others the impression, I am this,
I should be, you should be,
then it's just a temporary thing.
Eventually, we'll let go.
We'll let go of this bit by bit.
Or it just kind of levels itself out to the, say,
amount of equally valid experiences
that we go through over time.
I think one gets more experience,
then gets more to see certain things,
dynamics and characters and also gets to deal
with one's own issues and character traits
and so forth over time that one can, what is, forgive one.
and let it be and be back to normal somehow,
back to normal meaning,
not a standard that we wish and define ourselves with,
but back to normal as the normality of our practice
of being in the present without any judgment
about what is right or wrong.
This thing that we try with our intuition
to have present when we are sitting meditation,
when we are walking or when we're doing our chores
or when we're interacting with people,
coming back to that sense of I'm actually not important here,
I'm just doing my bits and pieces
that fit in in this whole thing.
Basically, no need to look at me, no need to notice me,
no need to make a big fuss about me, I'm just there.
So this is quite a cool way of being, I think,
and I do believe we have good examples in the sangha of that.
And also in the bigger sangha,
we also sometimes in our own relationships
to our teachers, to our Ajahn's,
we sometimes experience the feeling of letting go
and dropping our issues, our agendas,
or even our problems every now and again.
I remember, for example,
last time when Lungphu Sumedho was here,
Ajahn Asoko sometimes makes special time for the abbot
because there's so much, kind of,
there's so many issues that he might want
to talk about with Lungphu Sumedho.
And just like in the presence of somebody as practiced
and as experienced as him,
basically one lets go of one's petty little things.
And I couldn't think of a single issue, actually,
that was kind of worth presenting
and explaining and then getting some kind of take on.
And sure enough, we had a good time talking
about all kinds of things.
And surely, enough there was enough food for thought,
thought to me to make myself ready for the stuff that comes up and the general feeling of being
nourished by just being there and just enjoying the presence of a very well-practitioned senior
monk and just enjoying the presence of the Dhamma where one doesn't just start getting into issues
or problems. That's a real good thing. I felt like nourished. I remember last time when Lumpa
Sumedho was here and I think some of us know that quality of being in a situation where
it doesn't really count whether one was angry or one feels things should be different or
the place isn't so great or another place is greater or even the other way around that one
feels one's got something really special to share and sometimes one doesn't even want to share it
and it's just good enough. It's just nice. Yesterday going to see Lumpa Liem, I had a few
points in his biography which didn't make sense from the stuff that is the draft right now,
and it should be the official biography and so forth and the biographies before and the notes of
people and so forth. So I asked him a few dates and he said, well, this one here and there and
I went to study Abhidhamma then and then and I went too long then and then, blah, blah, blah.
I said, well, Lumpa, it's wrong in the books. It says differently. We got it all wrong. He says,
might have been right. I thought, wow, that's pretty cool.
Somebody, say for example, he writes in your biography when you're 50 years old or 70 or 80 or so,
forgets that you've basically chanted your first padimokkha in what banana chart in your third
panca or so and they write, you chanted it in your seventh panca or like forget that you went too
long for a whole year or something like that and it doesn't appear in your biography in official
account of your life.
And somebody kind of discovers it or you discover it, we just say, never mind, it doesn't matter.
So I believe that sannyā, anatta, perceptions or stored up memories, perceptions, they are not
really who we are. This sense of groundedness in it's all right, kind of no need to kind of add on
anything, no need to make a story out of it. It's good.
It's there. And it's helpful for us to face new situations. The deeper we feel this presence of
all rightness, the more we can actually trust in that, like the next phase, the next panca, the
next visit, the next upataking shift or the next whatever thing that happens can just be added to
our experience as one of the things that happen.
And with that trust of being there, basically, we'll do the right things. We'll do things that are
dhamma. We're not doing things that are ourselves and they're only our views or our ditties or so,
but we just do the right thing.
You know, it's this intuition of, say, being nobody and therefore having a lot of options, rather
than being somebody and limiting our ways, thinking again, like a bit like more practical, what
sometimes spoils it.
It's really conversations where you present yourself to somebody that you basically admire or want to
impress or so and then you say something and later you regret it or you say something and intimidate
somebody who is less, say, proficient in certain areas. And there's residues of personality there,
of course. I mean, we're not completely neutral. We're not completely nobodies. But the time that
we then take to let go of it and just go back to, so what, you know, like,
I'm happy. He's happy. We're in it together. And he's also got dukkha. I've got dukkha. So that time
until it takes to come back to that sense of equality of experience, that there doesn't have to be
a single thing that we just hold on to and point out or exaggerate. The time that we need to get to
that point, I would say, gradually gets less. And we can say that's a big sattva for our holy life,
sattva for our
training, sattva for our practice. And there's many things that fall into that category that
add to it. It's not just one single technique. These single techniques are those projects that
we have. Sometimes they actually work in the other direction. Like, as much as they're necessary for
certain areas, there's lightness that one could, say, add to them. Similarly to when we say
ourselves, like, we'll meditate for an hour and even though it's already late or early, very early,
let's just do it. And then we can say, okay, let's do it. And then we can say, okay, let's do it. And
then we can say, okay, let's do it. And then we can say, okay, let's do this. And then there's
something that kind of like really doesn't work out and we have to change our plans. Say, for
example, we're trying to light some incense and some candles and it looks all very beautiful and
you just start chanting and so forth. And then there's insects coming, have to change again,
can't hold on to our fixed perceptions. This is what I'm doing right now.
So we have a lot of that interplay between things that we feel we are, we should be, and that we
communicate. And then we can say, okay, let's do it. And then we can say, okay, let's do it. And
that interplay is very important and makes us grow bit by bit. And sometimes the time until we
realize that we got hooked up on something maybe takes a while. And particularly if it's a project
that one has invested a lot of effort or so into, then sometimes it is difficult to gradually let
let it go or soften it up.
Sometimes this does happen with aims and goals
in our practice as well, you see.
We really want to do this now.
We've maybe read something very inspiring
or found some kind of new account on the practice
or some technique or some kind of convincing agenda
we've never heard about.
And then we want to emulate it
and we hold onto it for a while.
But it's a trial phase
and we already have a certain sense of openness
and honesty about what we are doing
and the appreciation of the sense of being grounded
in the presence that hopefully we don't get lost,
hopefully we don't develop another sense of atta
with practice of the practice.
The other part is like that sometimes the practice
has its own dynamics and we're actually surprised by it
and we just go along with it.
Say one hasn't really actually expected to be able,
for example, to walk,
to walk and feel, say, very light and inspired
and usually maybe more mechanical or so,
but suddenly things happen and then one feels,
oh, great, I can just keep walking.
And you notice actually just walking
is already a timeless activity
and then you need to go to the chores and you keep walking
and just kind of keep carrying some buckets
and you're just basically in the same state of mind.
So these are surprises that come up.
They're, say, independent.
Actually of the program.
They come from this quality of being in the present
and they come from this quality of actually having let go
and that moment and then that opens up an energy channel
that takes us to new situations
that we can also kind of enjoy, appreciate or be part of.
So there's also surprises coming sometimes by surprise.
And the things that maybe sometimes block us is that,
like when we try to describe it or like with other people,
when we revert to, say, telling them about what it is,
what we're doing,
because like describing what you're doing sometimes spoils it.
You have all the rights to not constantly give an update
on what you are doing.
And it's more the quality of the conversation that counts,
being a good listener and so forth,
but to make a big story about this and that,
no need really, like, and, you know, like, you know, like,
also to say, describe everything is sometimes even impossible.
How can people in another country that have never been here
or never experienced our particular devotion to the place,
the time, to the practice and to the setting,
to the culture, to Buddhism,
how can they actually really get it?
What it means for us to be kind of quite tedious
to describe it all.
And it puts us into that justification mode again.
What I feel really counts is being relaxed
and being able to just kind of say,
yeah, fine, wonderful.
It can be true or like,
might be quite surprised that you're actually at ease
and actually happy with things.
So it's more the quality of the interaction
than the amount of information
or slipping back into the role of directing the sannyā,
the perception of what you are,
who you are of somebody else, like trying to manipulate
other people's sannyas and giving you some credit points
like parents or friends, other teachers or so, no need.
Just do what we do and we're happy with it
and that speaks for itself and don't fall into the trap
of giving it credit or wanting it to be given credit.
I know it's sometimes difficult but right now
since we're quite shut off and basically a bit self-centered
as a community, it may be even easier.
Just simply do your stuff and don't get bored
but go back to that sense of, say, deep breathing
into the experience right now rather than whatever aims
and goals and techniques or like, say, future aspirations
or so, just like, say, a bit like, I think I've mentioned
that before, that expression, sukhno, isn't that happiness?
Happy, I'm not saying you have to pretend
but like, the feeling of like, just, oh yeah, so fine,
so, so good and this is one of the exclamations
of the Arya Savakas, like sukhno, I actually don't know
the Pali thing, I have to ask our experts
but like, it's in the Naktam that they, there's a few of them,
they just walk, when they go sukhno, sukhno
and people think, what's he experiencing, the bliss
of the heavenly nirma?
So, so, but it's just the bliss of being just simply there
and it's just like, somebody who's like, got nothing
to worry about and there's nothing to explain or talk about,
just simply being very happy to be able to live
this lifestyle and then being able to experience
what one is experiencing.
So we keep doing what we're doing, making ourselves
feel at ease, not getting too much into assessing
what's happening.
Knowing that we're actually doing things according
to the, as I always say, the most excellent allowances
of the Lord Buddha, because we're all very intent
on sila, we're very good intended, we have a lot
of wholesome aspirations, we're always inspired
and we try our best, so what else can we do?
So I offer that for reflection for tonight.