Ringkasan dibuat dengan bantuan AI • Belum diverifikasi
Dalam sesi tanya jawab Dhamma yang berlangsung di Birken pada 8 Februari 2026, Ajahn Sona membahas berbagai pertanyaan praktis dan filosofis seputar praktik Buddhis. Ceramah dimulai dengan diskusi tentang hubungan antara meditasi dan pikiran kreatif, di mana Ajahn Sona menekankan pentingnya menetapkan tujuan meditasi dengan jelas—apakah untuk menenangkan pikiran atau mencari inspirasi—sambil mengakui bahwa ketenangan batin dapat menjadi lahan subur bagi munculnya ide-ide kreatif. Ia kemudian menjawab pertanyaan tentang menghadapi kenangan menyakitkan, menyarankan untuk melihat penderitaan sebagai bagian universal dari kehidupan daripada terpaku pada trauma pribadi, serta melatih pikiran agar tidak terus-menerus mengunjungi kenangan tersebut. Ajahn Sona juga menjelaskan bahwa samatha (ketenangan) dan vipassana (pandangan terang) adalah dua aspek yang saling melengkapi dalam praktik, seperti lensa dan teleskop: samatha memurnikan pikiran, sementara vipassana melihat realitas dengan jelas, dan keduanya harus digunakan bersama untuk mencapai kebijaksanaan. Selanjutnya, Ajahn Sona memberikan saran praktis untuk berbagai tantangan sehari-hari. Bagi mereka yang mengalami aphantasia (ketidakmampuan membayangkan secara visual), ia menyarankan penggunaan buku tempel berisi kata-kata, puisi, atau gambar yang membangkitkan cinta kasih sebagai alternatif visualisasi dalam praktik metta. Untuk mengatasi rasa malas setelah makan siang saat retret, ia merekomendasikan berjalan kaki, menggunakan minyak mentol, dan menghormati kebutuhan tubuh dengan tidur siang singkat. Dalam mengatasi kecanduan hiburan, ia menyarankan pendekatan 'cold turkey', seperti pergi berkemah tanpa perangkat elektronik, sambil mengingatkan bahwa manusia dapat hidup tanpa hiburan modern dengan melakukan aktivitas sederhana seperti berjalan atau merenung. Ajahn Sona juga membahas transisi dari tingkat pencerahan pertama (sotapanna) ke kedua (sakadagami), yang ditandai dengan melemahnya kemarahan dan keserakahan, serta pentingnya refleksi dan kebijaksanaan dalam proses ini. Ajahn Sona kemudian menjawab pertanyaan tentang berhenti merokok dari perspektif Buddhis, menjelaskan bahwa kecanduan membuat normal menjadi abnormal, sehingga diperlukan ketekunan untuk tetap merasa tidak nyaman sampai keadaan baru menjadi normal. Ia juga menegaskan bahwa Buddhisme awal bersifat dualistik: samsara dan nibbana adalah dua hal yang berbeda, keduanya merupakan kondisi mental, bukan tempat, dan ia mengklarifikasi perbedaannya dengan aliran non-dual. Terakhir, ia menjawab pertanyaan tentang tantangan menjadi bodhisattva, menyatakan bahwa mereka menghadapi banyak kesulitan, termasuk 'dark night of the soul', dan bahwa menjadi Buddha adalah pilihan yang sangat langka dan sulit. Secara keseluruhan, ceramah ini memberikan panduan praktis dan pemahaman mendalam tentang berbagai aspek praktik Buddhis, menekankan pentingnya keseimbangan, ketekunan, dan kebijaksanaan dalam perjalanan spiritual.
Welcome to Birkin Forest Monastery's live stream. I'm Ajahn Sona. Drop a question into the chat bar and we will endeavor to answer it. Let's have the first question.
The first question for today comes to us from Dan from New Jersey. Dear Ajahn, I've been going at it alone, and there are times where I'm bursting with ideas and want to communicate the Dhamma with others. I've tried writing down essays and poetry, but there is still a lot of discursive thinking that excites the mind. Do you have any recommendations?
Yeah, it's irony that when you attempt to scientifically
silence the mind, it comes up with its best ideas. And actually, a lot of people realize this. So sometimes artists and idea people, creative people, come to monasteries or practice meditation because they've noticed this side effect. So they don't actually come for meditation, they come for good new ideas. So this is a natural side effect.
Thinking is allowed.
But you have to decide what you're aspiring to. And you have to decide at the beginning of the process. So if you're going to do breath meditation, the purpose of breath meditation is reduction of non-discursive activity, non-discourse, non-inner chatter, no inner dialogue going on. Or monologue, rather.
So you have to commit to that to begin with.
Say, I'm not interested in creative ideas. Quite often, the after effect, if you can manage to silence the mind, and appreciate that silence for, you know, half an hour or an hour, the after effect is that good ideas sort of bubble to the surface afterwards, and you're allowed to retain them and write them down. But you have to decide ahead of time whether you're, this is a thinking process, or you're going to do breath meditation.
process, or you're looking for inspiration kind of thing. You remember, a lot of the artists, poets and so forth, in the past, used to invoke what is called the muse. So they would, they didn't think their ideas, the best ideas don't seem to come from us, they just, they appear. And so, you know, like, if you read Milton or somebody, they, he will say, you know, let them use, you know, let them use the muse.
come and inspire me. So because the, where thoughts come from in the mind is a mystery. Things come out of stuff that you don't really think you know, even, and they appear. So in the older times, they attributed to this external agency called the muse, this divine inspiration.
And meditation is a kind of a way of accessing the muse. A lot of people, a lot of artists, try to get thoughts. Thoughts appear to them, they write them down, they have some success, and then the thought process dries up. They don't have any, nothing to, no creativity. It's called the dry period. It's a mystery.
One of the ways to
sweeten up the dry period is to
meditate and try and not try to generate creative ideas at all just try to dwell
in silence and then sometimes the the wellspring is initiated again but the
primary purpose of the these types of meditation is for your personal benefit
is to you know restructure your emotional processes to make your life
better your emotional structure better and there are times when you really
can't afford too much thinking thinking of course is quite often praised your
whole educational system is asking you to think and you get marks for thinking
you get an A for thinking but that thinking itself is not this secret to
how to do it.
It's just a matter of how to do it and that's why meditation is so important
because it's a way to bring happiness or well-being and certainly one of the
strange things is that the ability to control or reduce or even eliminate
thinking is much more conducive to emotional well-being and without that
you quite often thinking is a burden and harassment. So meditation you confront
this.
It's uncontrollable it just can't stop thinking can't it wanders into the past
the future it's quite a shock because you can be a very successful competent
person very good at what you do and so forth but that doesn't mean at all that
your mind is under control you just that when you try to meditate you find out
how out of control your mind is so it's a it's a very it's a super normal demand
on the on attention especially breath meditation the silencing of thoughts.
It's super normal it for the ordinary person it never occurs to the ordinary
person to do this to silence the mind and just pay attention to a non
discursive activity like breathing. So what an interesting a brilliant insight
by the Buddha he's a great clinical psychologist in a sense he's
discovering these things by his own practice he's going into caves in
the inner labyrinth of the mind where most people wouldn't dream of going he's
coming out having great benefit from his risky endeavors and then he's sharing it
so what a simple thing an amazing simple thing try to reduce discursive
activities and see what happens the mind actually improves in the quality of its
happiness and its clarity and afterwards there's this after you manage to
get the mind to settle down and stop talking to itself and wandering the
after-effects is lasts for a period of time maybe an hour or two or maybe a day
even or more and your your equanimity is strong you what used to set you off or
worry you or cause anxiety just doesn't it's kind of like a pharmaceutical
in a sense that's why they give people these these pharmaceutical drugs is
because their the mind is out of control and it's it calms them but your own
capacities are much more sophisticated than that and they don't have any side
effects they only have positive side effects so this is why we we practice
meditation so that's the kind of the relationship between these this creative
burst of creative thoughts that come out of meditation you've got to decide
what's your first benefit the secondary side effects what are beneficial side
effects is that you come up with more creative ideas and can think more
clearly as well okay let's go to the next question the next question from the
chat is from Marquis from Boston United States I can usually moderate excess
thought and rumination but I recently had to relive a lot of painful memories
for a divorce custody problem and I've had to relive a lot of painful memories
for a divorce custody problem and I've had to relive a lot of painful memories
now I can't shut them off do you have any advice yeah well that's what happens
when you open that that casket yeah eventually one can look at what were
painful memories this is of course a major part of of psychotherapy is the
kind of the approach to psychotherapy for a lot of people PTSD and so forth is
to kind of relive these memories Buddhism doesn't use that process it
doesn't think it's all that valuable to just open these difficult moments in
life it prefers to just look at the general picture of life and this is what
you can do is like those if you can't shut down that thinking now that you've
opened it up you have to jet maybe generalize it more
reflect that this kind of thing that happened to you
can happen to anybody and and in some form or another it's going to happen to everybody
everybody is subject to illness aging death loss subject to failure to
um criticism like blame uh people around you uh are subject to that as well
no one is exempt from this so we're we're precariously in this situation all the time
it's just a matter of a split second and what was a success turns into a failure
what was praise turns into blame what was good fortune turns into bad fortune
you know you hit it on the stock market and then the next day the
company goes out of business and you lose everything and this kind of stuff happens
it it's always imminent you're living in a continuous situation where that can happen so
any kind of attitude where you you don't think that's going to happen to you or somebody that
you care about is a dangerous attitude so we have to turn towards it and so sometimes it you can
get solace from realizing that throughout history everybody has the same issues in the end and
quite often by reflecting on other people's misfortune your own misfortune seems
more acceptable so that's one way out of the out of the situation you're personally
your your own personal tragedies and so forth you you turn towards the generalized situation
that we're in in the world you then you become a philosopher you you have a you're looking for
a view that allows you to somehow be well in the midst of this inevitable tragedies you know and
the inevitable difficulties and problems of life and so this this pushes you towards um dhamma
higher truths in life suffering is the cause for the arising of
faith and by the way this is the path starts with some sort of trust situation you you give it a shot
you don't know whether it's going to work for you you're not sure that it worked for anybody
maybe it's all stories or so forth but you don't have much choice you got to give it a shot so
you put down your skepticism and you just step into it and then as it begins to work
then your your your faith is confirmed by the actual experience your own personal experience
and that accelerates the process but uh buddhist basically early buddhism doesn't
indulge in psychotherapeutic type of structures of examining opening old wounds and
plunging into them or reviewing these things it tends to just
practice uh seeing if you can get the mind to not not get preoccupied with these things those
circuits kind of uh grow over so they weaken if you don't use them they tend to weaken and eventually
they uh close up and also if you deliberately use other positive types of circuits
uh they become the dominant this your second nature they become second nature otherwise
for most people these failures and traumas of life they they don't know enough not to go there
and keep going there and playing with it and it becomes their second nature they be it becomes
automatic and at that point they feel that they're not not in control they they don't
have a choice they have to go there but they don't have to go there it so it the buddha is saying you
you must gain control of your mind you must not go there and you must train your mind to go someplace
else and if you do this again and again and again you'll find out it was a choice it's not something
that isn't a choice it's a choice and it's a it quite often a slippery and difficult choice but
you make the choice again and again and again and the this new correct choice the better choice
becomes
second nature it becomes easy and automatic and doesn't even require effort after a while
the next question is from questitor from melbourne australia did the buddha teach meditation
techniques for developing samatha and vipassana that can be used in conjunction with each other
yes he practically taught nothing else all of these meditation subjects are
complementary they they work with each other
so he uh recommends this and i i i think last week i talked a little bit about this this is
there's a question about given to sari puta i believe about the relationship between the samatha
and vipassana samathas are serenity meditate focus meditations developing strength of
mindfulness and concentration and vipassana is not a technique but it's actually a result of doing
that is the samatha is like polishing the lens on a telescope and then vipassana is like looking
through the telescope but you if the lenses are not if the lenses are warped or dusty or anything
like that you can't get an accurate sight through the telescope this is actually so big part of
scientific research
uh developments in the from the renaissance on is is lenses first of all you know a tremendous uh
benefit of developing lenses like for glasses for for short-sighted and etc and then uh telescope
lenses and then a whole new world appeared because they could see clearly but the lenses are very
crude so they this is what happens is we keep getting better lenses and then we
keep getting more accurate visions of the how the world works and then the next one was microscopes
so as lenses got better there was a whole world that nobody was aware of and now we have we we
understand what's called germ theory there was a whole little tiny world that we had not been
aware of and then we understood how why things are happening so this is samatha is the lens makers
the lens cleaners the lens shapers and uh the vipassana is to gaze through these this new
newly clarified lens of the mind and you see things differently so they're complementary
sariputta gives an example of a white ox and a black ox pulling an ox cart you can harness them
in three ways you can put the black ox in front the white ox behind it so in the end it's a sort of
the white ox in front the black ox and behind or you can put them side by side and this is
the white ox samatha the black ox is vipassana but in all those three structures they both
oxen pull the cart so you can't do vipassana if you have no samatha and you can't you you won't
develop insight with just samatha you you need to reflect as well vipassana shouldn't be turned
into it's not really a technique you'll see some vipassana kind of vipassana schools vipassana
means to see clearly it's not seeing clearly is not a technique it's a result of the previous
um development of the previous parts of the path right understanding and insight so
the first noble truth is the first uh path factor is right view so that's a kind of an
intellectual process of understanding the nature of why suffering and what why we suffer and
that there's a possibility of of reducing it so we turn that over in our mind and
eventually
but we need to develop mindfulness and concentration in order for that to become
knowledge so the samatha and vipassana combine together and eventually result in
knowledge knowledge uh of the way things really are and liberating knowledge so the
knowledge turns into liberation and uh that's the relationship so samatha practices are breath
meditation
any uh loving uh all of the four rama viharas of loving kindness compassion sympathetic joy
and equanimity the four color casinas and the four element casinas of water fire earth and air
and those are for developing concentration and mindfulness and the reflective uh ones are anicha
dukkha anatta the the three characteristics of reality of that everything is impermanent that
it's an unsatisfactory the the the nature of the flowing universe is you can't find a satisfactory
position in it and the last is that there's no essential lasting core self within that as well
there's no core personality so
that's the where the reflection and insight arises out of that
so they they they have to be used together so those are the techniques
you can look up in brief um there are 38 you know classically there's like 38 topics for meditation
and uh you can easily become familiar with that with the just type it into ai
the next question from the chat is from clb105
dear longport
i cannot visualize and have found it difficult to be creative when trying to practice metta
do you have any advice on this for those of us who don't have a mind's eye yeah so make yourself a
scrap book a loving-kindness scrapbook where you put in anything that moves you in the direction
of this loving-kindness or compassion or sympathetic joy or equanimity there's all kinds
of uh so literature poetry literature literature literature literature literature literature
uh art paintings uh even music can push you towards some of these emotions
and yeah there's a there is a type of uh very interesting phenomenon in certain people
quite often in very bright people very intellectual people that they lose the
capacity for inner visualization some people seem to be born without this this aphantasia
a fun yeah i think it's aphantasia uh the inability to to have any
visual internal visual idea you know that no you can't visualize an orange like you
when somebody says imagine an orange nothing comes up it's a very interesting phenomenon
uh others are very highly visual so if if any of the visualization
uh meditations are just not available to people have this aphantasia um so use
words uh the the what moves you and with poetic words or are actual images that move you so make
yourself the scrapbook on any of your topics so i often urge people to make a loving-kindness
scrapbook of things that have moved them in life and and just keep that when you can't just
generate it then you just scroll through your your loving-kindness book you know or your loving
kindness computer program or whatever you want to get the get the uh the juices rolling and then uh
you can use that yeah aphantasia is can be found amongst uh
people who have more or less used uh their intellect a lot they don't they don't think in
concrete symbols they think abstractly so the process of abstract abstract thinking which is in
you know philosophy and mathematics and something may eventually result in the inability to conjure
any kind of visual elements up this is i i first came to the university i came to the university i
came across this with uh william james the this uh the great psychologist at the first uh faculty of
psychology at harvard university you know this idea this notion of psychology is only a recent
thing isn't it it's about the 1880s the first development of university courses on psychology
are at harvard in the 1880s
the professor from of philosophy william james because there there were no professors of
psychology so they had to get a philosopher to do this and he was uh asking his students
you know first-year students to visualize something and report on that and most of them
could do it vividly and he was just in the the faculty lounge chatting with his some others
professors you know
and he was talking about this and they they many of them said well that's just a a manner of
speaking isn't it you know to to a map to visualize to imagine something you don't actually see it
it's just a way of speaking and he's no it's not a way of speaking these young people could
visually see these things you know and they were doubtful because they couldn't do it and he had he
was dangerous um he was eating a lot of flour and he was eating a lot of produce he was having
depression um and and at times he was really sad and he was hurting so he had to go to the library
but he had to be able to talk to his family to kind of um to just to talk to his friends to his
family and that uh you know it was really a culture change you know and that was really really in my
mind at that time wasn't it
Next week I'll be on retreat at Deepavavan Kosamui. How can I work with
this recurring after-lunch dread? Kosamui is in Thailand and it sounds
like it's a meditation vipassana kind of retreat center, something like that.
Deepavavan. Bhavana meaning cultivation place. And afternoons,
well, you're gonna have trouble with afternoons for sure in
Kosamui. It's hot. And the main meal is at noon, so it doesn't, it's really
afternoons. In tropical countries doing meditation retreats, the afternoon is the
hardest because it's hot.
And the main meal of the day is in the middle of the day. So depending on how
they run their place, it's probably better that you, first of all, after the
main meal, walk if they allow you to. Because some of these places don't even
allow walking meditation. Walking meditation is built into Buddhism. It's
highly recommended by the Buddha. The Buddha walked, the monks walked, and
there's, there are schools of Buddhism that
don't want you to do walking meditation. Well, walking meditation is a very good
thing recommended by the Buddha. So especially after a heavy meal, the best
thing to do is walk for a while. You know, do 45 minutes or an hour and a lot of
the heaviness of the meal can be taken off. And you might be able to then start
sitting, maybe by 2 in the afternoon, but try to find the coolest place in the
monastery. Put some
water on your hair so the evaporation cools your head. There's
also something you can get before you go to the mall. There's
a little bottle of red menthol oil. He calls it the oil of
Dr. Singh. What is it? Something... Na man maw Singh. Na man maw Singh.
Maw is doctor and Singh.
Sing. It's in a tiny little red bottle and you take a little bit of that and
just put it on your nostrils like that. So every time you breathe in, it's
like a personal air conditioner. The air is cool as it comes through your
nostrils with a little menthol. Any menthol will do the same
thing, but this happens to be available and that helps. A lot of monks use that.
You can almost get addicted to the the personal air conditioner, you know. So
those are some hints for that. You need energy. Afternoons are harder for a lot
of people because that's when your energy declines. As you see,
there's whole countries, whole cultures that have a nap. It's called a siesta.
They say, I give up. But they stay open till
the next morning.
The shops stay open till 8 at night. They eat at 830 at night. So there is
some wisdom in having a nap in the afternoon, the siesta. And then you wake
up, you feel energetic. Some of the retreat structures don't allow
that napping stuff, but this is very difficult to push through. The Buddha
himself took afternoon naps in the hot season. So he was asked,
and
in fact, Mara visited him. You know, Mara is like the tempter, the devil and so
forth. The Buddha was having a nap, lying down in the afternoon. And Mara
said, see, you're out of energy and so forth. He says, no, it's all right in
the heat of the afternoon and the hot season. It's alright to have a moderate
nap. I have a nap.
Ha ha.
So yeah, we have to be respectful of the
the workings of the body. Okay, let's go to the next question.
The next question from the chat comes to us from Heximeter.
Dear Ajahn, how can I decondition myself from the craving for entertainment?
Well, go cold turkey. One way is to go on a camping trip and don't bring any books or your phone
or anything like that. Take a week where you just don't have it. It's not possible to get a hold of
it. And you see that your mind changes. Another way is just go on a retreat. And a lot of retreat
centers take your phone away right at the desk, you know. And they don't allow reading through it.
So that's cold turkey. You just can't get access to it.
But you can do it yourself. You won't, you know, nothing happens. You don't die.
There's a whole culture. You think before, well, first of all, there was no television before
sort of the mid-50s. Everybody lived without televisions. There were no computers, of course.
There were radios. But before, you know, 1910 or something like this, no radios.
So how do people exist?
And a lot of people didn't even read very much. It wasn't widespread education. So if you went,
if you go into a hotel, imagine going into a hotel in 1900. There's a, your hotel room has
nothing in it, you know. It's a bed, a dresser. And how did people manage to stay in a hotel room
without a television or a radio?
You know, actually, people, one of the things they did was pace. They slowly walked back and
forth across the room. Interesting. This is what, you know, meditation structures do too. We
call it walking meditation, but it's just pacing. Yeah. You'll see this in Victorian
novels and everything, that they enjoyed pacing back and forth in a room or outside. They didn't
have to go for a long walk.
Sometimes it's raining or etc. They just paced back and forth. It's a very beautiful way of
being, you know. And you can reflect while you're pacing. Sitting, gazing out the window, that's
another one. Get a chair by the window, just gaze out the window. You can read Dhamma. So that is
not considered media addiction. You can read Dhamma. It's very good for you. So these are the
things that you can do.
So, one, this is my own process, was very deliberately going on these long, like, walking trips. So you
walk 20 miles in a day, and you sit before a fire in the evening, you know. Another way of just
gazing at the fire. So this is how you break it off. And it changes your mind. It changes your mind.
It changes everything. And, of course, this is the age of incredible over-stimulus addiction to
these media and so forth. And it really is not satisfactory. You need to find spaces
of media reduction. Yeah, it's very important.
The next question is from John.
Dear Ajahn, how does one develop the practice to go from stream enterer to once returner?
Is a sense of urgency a sign of the Sotapanna? Or is, quote, taking one's hands off the wheel
just as much of a sign?
Yeah, so this is the first and second stage of enlightenment. Sotapanna is stream entry,
and Sakaadagami is once returner. What happens, there are sort of roots that drop away in the
first stage. And one of them is Sakadagami.
And that's why Aditya, the fixed view of like a permanent self, the way most people think about
themselves. We think about ourselves as this real person who looks out from behind your eyes and
was there 10 years ago and will be there in 10 years. You know,
this is kind of a substantial personality who is real and is there. That firm conviction has been
changed.
So the Aditya, the view of that, has been undone. You've investigated this idea of yourself. And
you can't find this one who looks out from behind your eyes. Everything you find is a continuous
flow of change. So this doesn't occur to most people to investigate this. But the more you
investigate this, the fact that everything about you is changing. So there is no you that doesn't
change.
The other thing is attachment to rites and rituals.
Rites and rituals are strange, acausal ideas about how the world works. Like you wish fulfillment,
you know, you, you look at your horoscope or something like that, and you're like, oh, this is
something to see if your future is secure or you perform some kind of ritual. You know, people even
writing exams and university people get, you know, they, they think that, you know, if they they do
certain activities or rituals, that it'll help them pass the exam and so forth. You see this in
sports, people put on a special ring or
turn around three times before they play. You know, this, this is attachment to rites and rituals.
This, this dissolves it, stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment. You don't, you know, you
know how things work now. You, it's, it's how you view the world is how it works. Ethics is how it
works. It's not, it's not, it's not delivered by, from on high or from outside. Your own knowledge
and your own intentional activities are working. You're not, you're not, you're not, you're not
what makes things work. And then also confidence in the, the Buddha, because the Buddha is teaching
these two things. There is no permanent self and don't look for rites and rituals to control your
life. You, you're responsible for your ethical actions and that's very important and it will
affect how you feel and think. So you have confirmed that in yourself. You've investigated.
Now you know.
So that's, now you're, you've got the right view of things. Now to move on to the next thing,
you still have, you still are somewhat irrational. You still have anger and greed,
but it's been reduced. You would not step across certain lines. You won't kill anybody. You won't,
in a fit of rage, you won't murder somebody or to, to get their money. You won't kill them. You know,
you won't steal. You, you have understood the
nature,
of ethics and, but you, it's still there, but it, it won't push you across lines,
these ethical lines. Now to get, now that person though, maybe their householder, they got
three kids and a full-time job and a lot of responsibilities and
they don't have much time for meditation. It's going to be hard to move along. They,
they have a vision that's, that they can't lose. They, they've seen this situation,
but they're still in the middle of life and they, they don't have time for more meditation.
So this would be, this would delay the progress. There's a sense of urgency. They sh, and the Buddha
is always saying, you know, get, move on if you can. The next stage, all that happens is that
these two things, anger and greed,
become less. You, you, you just not as, basically you're not angry much and you're not very greedy.
You don't, you don't feel a lot of lack and, and wanting things. It, it can still happen. It's just
being weakened. It's not being eliminated, but only on direct provocation. So somebody, you know,
slaps you in the face, you know, or spits in your face in public, you know,
and, and, you know,
then you might have a little anger. Normally you're not angry, but somebody shouts at you,
steals your car or something. You might have a upwelling of anger. It's only on direct provocation
though. And somebody waves your favorite chocolate cake in front of your face and you feel like,
ah, I really like some chocolate cake. But normally you're not preoccupied with these things.
People who have greed and anger are simmering with this stuff all the time. Doesn't, doesn't take any
time to get rid of it. It's a direct provocation. You'll see this tragedies unfold because the
person is simmering with anger all the time. And it's unprovoked. Nobody's bothering them.
Nothing's happening. And yet they're generating all kinds of reasons and hostilities. Why everybody,
everything's against them and et cetera, or why they, they need to get this thing and they want
this thing and they'll do anything to get it.
So this is the cause of a lot of
social degeneration and ruin of personal lives is anger and greed, you know?
So now it's, that's the transition from first stage to second stage is that the
anger and greed is just, has fallen greatly and is only available under provocation.
How does that happen? It happens through reflection about the, the pointlessness of anger.
Like, you know, some people, they,
their hand hits the door and they get furious at the door. It's irrational.
So you become a more rational person. It's like, you're not angry at,
at things for no reason anymore. Occasionally things intrude into you and you might have a
little reaction, but that, that reaction is actually irrational. There's no need for anger.
There's all kinds of other responses to the world that are much, much more lucid and better responses.
So your, your knowledge and your wisdom is increasing. That's all between those two.
And that, that can be done by reflection. You don't have to necessarily sit for hours
in stillness to get that. You, you, it's a kind of a philosophical advancement.
It's between the second and third stages where to push beyond that is where a lot of
meditation is involved.
Especially Samatha meditation, strengthening the, the mind, its capacity for mindfulness
and its capacity for focus and clarity. And that allows the transition to the next stage where
anger and greed are gone. They just don't arise even under provocation. Yeah. Okay. Next question.
The next question comes from Ram
Tina B Contextual. Do you have any advice regarding quitting smoking
from the Buddhist point of view?
Yeah. I've um, I've talked to people like, I don't have much experience with it. I quit when I was
eight, so I stopped smoking when I was eight. So I didn't have, it wasn't hard. So um, but I,
I see a lot of people who smoke and they say, and there's people who have been addicted to heroin,
all kinds of stuff. They tell, they say, uh, I've loved smoking, you know, I've been addicted to,
say, smoking was harder to quit than heroin. Harder to quit than, it's a
diabolical addiction. It's very, very hard to quit. And there's some
interesting analysis. There was a British monk who had become a monk
in the 1950s. His name was Jnana Viro and he had smoked. He was of that
generation. Lots of people smoked and he became a monk in Sri Lanka and he was, he
found it very difficult to quit smoking. And his analysis was that you make
the decision to quit smoking while nicotine is
in your system. While you're...you're feeling quite normal. You're...a person who
smokes does...begins to feel abnormal when the nicotine starts to withdraw from the
system. They're feeling abnormal. When they smoke, they don't...it's not a...they
begin to feel normal again. So he said, whenever I would decide to quit, you know,
I'd have a cigarette and decide to quit smoking,
but...
But as the nicotine left my system, I would need a cigarette in order to confirm the determination
to quit smoking.
I need to feel normal again to keep up the decision.
I was feeling too abnormal to maintain the decision to quit smoking.
So what addiction is, is the pendulum always wants to swing to normal.
And when you become normalized to any kind of substance like alcohol, nicotine, any of the drugs,
when that starts to feel normal, that's when it's a difficult situation because when you stop
taking them, you become abnormal.
And the thing you most need in order to maintain your determinations and convictions is normality.
So the pendulum always wants to swing to normal.
It doesn't want to stay at abnormal.
And in order to quit, you have to stay, you have to determine, I am going to feel abnormal.
And I must persist in that.
I must stay in an abnormal situation.
An uncomfortable, abnormal situation until it's the normal situation.
And eventually it does.
But most people, they don't, they can't delay gratification.
They can't delay their normality.
So they're not willing to, they think, I'll quit drinking or I'll quit smoking and then I'll feel better.
Everybody tells me.
But they don't feel better.
They feel worse.
And they're not willing to persist in feeling worse.
They feel worse until they feel better.
So that's the determination when you decide to quit smoking is like, I'm going to feel abnormal.
And that is, I am, I'm not going to deceive myself.
I am going to feel abnormal and I must remain feeling abnormal until that becomes the new normal.
And that's how to quit smoking.
The next question comes to us from Anthony.
Hello, Ajahn.
Is Buddhism inherently non-dualist?
How can non-dualism be reconciled in a world of motion and contradiction?
Early Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism is not non-dual.
It's dualistic.
There's samsara and nibbana and never the twain shall meet.
There's some confusion.
The person attains nibbana in the midst of this life.
It's not after you die that you become enlightened, etc.
We're looking at Christianity.
You go to heaven after you die.
You don't go to heaven while you're alive.
You go to heaven after you die.
From a Buddhist point of view, you develop the heavenly mind while you're alive.
You can't go to heaven if you don't have a heavenly consciousness.
The only...
Heaven is not just a place.
Heaven is a station of consciousness.
You know, some people are dwelling in...
They're experiencing heavenly...
The heavenly kind of qualities in this very life.
So they're called...
These stations of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity
are called brahma-viharas, the dwellings of the gods.
So you're going...
You're going to enter the dwellings of the gods while you're alive.
You're going to sit down this afternoon, maybe,
and enter the dwellings of the gods, the heavens.
Where do the gods dwell?
They dwell in heavenly mansions.
This is literally what they call these.
These are houses or mansions, divine mansions.
But they're not entered just by the...
By the element of dying or by believing in somebody,
or nobody's going to grab you by the hair and pull you there.
They're only entered by a transformation of consciousness.
And when you purify the consciousness,
you find yourself in the company of the wise,
in the company of the gods, you know.
So this happens in the midst of this...
Samsara is not a place, and nirvana is not a place.
Samsara is an attitude, and nirvana is an attitude.
Samsara is primarily ignorance.
Samsara is ignorance, and nirvana is wisdom.
This might clarify a lot of things for people who say,
what we're talking about here is,
people are walking around in a...
What do you call this? Alternative reality.
Everybody has their own reality.
In philosophy, they call this idealism.
The mind is the only reality.
To speak of an objective external reality,
which we're all participating in, is not verifiable.
The only thing that's really verifiable
is that we all have consciousness.
We all feel.
We're all experiencing a reality.
Some people are missing parts of the other person's reality.
For instance, if you're blind,
you're missing the whole visual reality.
Deaf, you're missing the audio reality.
Some people can't smell.
Some people can't taste.
There's even people who can't feel.
They're in a reality.
And it's the direct experience of reality.
If you're talking to a blind person about sights,
they can only guess that you're probably sincere,
but it can't possibly mean anything to them.
But everybody's in this little reality.
And the suffering reality is based on ignorance.
It's just like you haven't figured out
why you generate suffering.
And the nirvana is...
By the way, nirvana just means that the wind has stopped
or it's blown out.
A candle has been blown out.
What has been blown out?
The greed, hatred, and delusion has been blown out.
You've extinguished the stuff
that makes you suffer.
The generation of intelligence and wisdom
has extinguished your self-generated suffering.
So the self-generated suffering is samsara,
and that which blows it out is nirvana.
By the way, it's knowledge that blows it out.
It's wisdom that blows out the ignorance.
So they're dualistic.
They're not non-dualistic.
So this is quite a confusion.
There's whole schools of Indian philosophy called Advaita,
meaning not to.
Advaita, Vedanta.
This is based on the Vedanta, the Vedas.
It's a kind of a later development,
the non-dual Vedanta.
I would say that it's been influenced by Buddhist thought.
Then there are schools of thought,
schools in the Mahayana that went back to this non-dualistic thing,
where nirvana and samsara are the same.
They both share the quality of emptiness.
I would say again that that's kind of influenced
by certain types of Vedantic logic.
But it's not the original Buddhism.
Original Buddhism is very dualistic.
Samsara is samsara, and nirvana is nirvana,
and never the twain shall meet.
They're two different things.
You're either suffering or you're not.
You're not both suffering and not suffering.
You're suffering or you're not.
This is the teaching of the suttas, you know.
So there's a lot of...
People now have access to all these giant
compendiums of philosophy and so forth on YouTube,
and they can access it all,
and you just go in on Buddhism
and you download a bunch of three schools of Buddhism,
and you don't even know the difference.
And then they throw in some philosophy,
Western stoicism, and...
You're downloading this huge compendium,
and it's very confusing.
But these are different schools of things.
They don't think the same way.
It's not all the same.
And when you say the word Buddhism,
which Buddhism?
Because they are definitely very different.
They have some commonalities,
but they're definitely different in certain ways.
Okay, one last question.
Yes, the final question for today
comes to us from Abhishek.
Can you say what major challenges
a Buddha-to-be will face?
Is it a wave of fear, detachment,
the dark night of the soul,
or internal turbulence?
And what are the methods
to overcome these?
Well, yeah, I have two minutes
to answer this question.
So, yes, all of the above.
They will face all of the above
because they're not enlightened.
A Buddha-to-be is some...
The term is a bodhisattva,
and it's a very daunting choice.
Apparently, it's a choice
to remain in samsara
until you develop all of these
charismatic and amazing qualities,
then you would become a Buddha.
And a Buddha is extraordinarily rare.
No two ever arise at a single time.
There's never two Buddhas in a world system.
They arise from time to time,
but sequentially, never at the same time.
And eons can go by without a Buddha arising.
So it's a very rare thing.
The idea that one should commit
to becoming a Buddha is a very...
It's not from the early schools.
It's too remote for most people
to even think about.
But anyway, the process is long.
So there are many sort of tales
of the travails,
the hard, difficult process
that the Buddha-to-be has undergone,
and it's dreadful.
So a lot of...
There'll be a lot of dark nights of the soul,
and there are a lot of patience
and agonies and so forth along the way
before one arrives
at this exalted position of being a Buddha.
Okay, so we will wrap it up for today,
and we intend to be back next week as well.