Ringkasan dibuat dengan bantuan AI • Belum diverifikasi
Ceramah ini membahas tentang cara melarutkan kemelekatan yang melekat di hati melalui praktik Buddhis. Ajahn Ñāṇiko memulai dengan nasihat untuk bersikap 'chill' dengan melihat segala sesuatu dari perspektif hidup dan mati, sehingga masalah kecil menjadi tidak berarti. Ia kemudian menjelaskan bagaimana pikiran menciptakan realitas kita melalui Paticca Samuppada dan kamma, dan bahwa meditasi dapat menunjukkan bagaimana penderitaan berkurang dengan mengalihkan pikiran ke objek yang baik. Dasar praktik yang diuraikan meliputi moralitas, meditasi, dan pengembangan kebijaksanaan, dengan refleksi tentang makanan, tubuh, dan bukan-diri sebagai fondasi untuk melepaskan kemelekatan. Menggunakan perumpamaan umpan beracun dan kisah labu, ia menunjukkan bahaya kepuasan indria yang tidak pernah cukup, dan menekankan bahwa kebahagiaan sejati datang dari melepaskan, bukan mengejar. Pengalaman tudongnya menggambarkan penerimaan dan rasa syukur dalam kehidupan pertapaan. Ia menjelaskan kammaṭṭhāna sebagai fondasi praktik yang melarutkan 'kelengketan' di hati, dan merenungkan Nibbana sebagai tujuan akhir, dengan kehidupan pertapaan sebagai jalan terbaik menuju pembebasan. Pesan utamanya adalah bahwa dengan melatih pikiran dan merenungkan bahaya kemelekatan, kita dapat mengurangi penderitaan dan maju menuju kebebasan.
So I was thinking that maybe come full circle back to some of the things I was reflecting on during the morning reflection today.
And I was remembering some advice that Ajahn Achalo gave me one time.
And actually, I think he gave it to me two or three times.
And it was just one word.
And that word was chill.
It's a good word.
Especially when it's hot out.
And the context was, yeah, I was just spinning out about something, some sort of worry.
But it's stepping back from it.
It's not really a big deal.
And so that's, yeah, it's just when we look from a Dhamma perspective, nothing is really that big of a deal.
And I was like, yeah.
And Agarika Theo and Agarika Leo coming back from the dump, from a dump run, bringing a dump trailer, a very large dump trailer to the Ukiah Valley Transfer Station.
And they got back and Agarika Theo said, I have some extremely bad news.
And but in the meantime, I got started getting worried because they weren't getting back at the time.
I thought they'd get back.
So I started getting worried about them.
And because I've seen death before.
And so I thought, well, anything, anything could happen.
I started getting worried and started fretting a bit.
And then they got back just late.
It had to go slow because it was a very big dump load in the trailer.
But just as I was about to go out looking for them, expecting the worst.
Then they just they got back and Agarika Theo said, oh, I have some.
I'm really sorry, Ajana.
Some very, very, very, very bad news.
And then he said, well, going, I'd forgotten to roll the foot up on the trailer enough.
It was actually I was helping prepare it in the morning and it hit a bump in this big weld broke on the chin.
I said, oh, that's nothing.
That's good news.
If that's the only thing that went wrong.
I'm just glad you're here.
Glad you're alive.
So it's a it's like putting things in.
The perspective of, yeah, because I, I have seen death before.
I've found someone who died in Thailand at a monastery.
So having seen it, then everything else just seems small and petty.
And even if the trailer was completely destroyed, I in that moment, I probably wouldn't have cared very much.
I might have cared a little bit more than what had happened.
But.
So.
When we see in the.
In the from the light of life and death, then these any any sort of little conflicts or petty issues just seem very small and meaningless.
And they are actually actually nothing's happening.
There's actually nothing happening.
Or like it might seem really busy, like we have these 30th anniversaries and actually in reality, there's actually nothing happening.
It's just.
It's just bodies moving around and and sounds being shared, and it's just sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, thought.
So on a Dama level, there's all that's happening is on one level.
You could say there's nothing happening on another level.
You could say, well, it's just bodies moving around.
It's just elements.
It's just the four elements interacting.
But things just seem so real sometimes.
Sometimes in the mind and the mind is everything, actually.
So things might seem to be coming from outside.
Things might seem to be happening to us.
And yet even what's happening outside is just created by the mind.
So the mind is in the comma.
This is a very profound insight of the Buddha, and it's kind of seems straightforward.
Comma and rebirth.
It kind of seems simple.
It's like the Buddha teaching on dependent origination, Paticca Samuppada and venerable Ananda saying, oh, this teaching on Paticca Samuppada seems as clear as clear can be.
And as just simple and straightforward and makes perfect sense.
And the Buddha says, do not say that, Ananda.
Do not say that.
Paticca Samuppada is deep, profound, hard to see, hard to understand, not readily apparent.
Extremely subtle, discernible only by those who have penetrated to wisdom.
So Ananda was still only a stream enterer at that point.
So he hadn't penetrated through to the more profound knowledge of Paticca Samuppada.
So Paticca Samuppada is comma and rebirth, is the four noble truths, all of these things.
Four noble truths is a summary of dependent origination.
And.
So the four noble truths by extension is extremely profound, subtle, hard to see, hard to understand, not readily apparent.
And comma and rebirth is subtle, profound, not easily understood and not readily apparent.
And so we can do a bit of a thought experiment to just illustrate how the mind creates our world.
And if we think about just meditation.
So we may have had all sorts of experiences during the day, but then we sit down and meditate and the mind calms down a bit and we feel better.
So the mind calms down a little bit and we're able to focus on our meditation object, whether it's Bhutto or the breath.
And then we feel better.
And yet nothing changed externally.
Those experiences still happened.
Whatever we might have been suffering over.
Still happened.
But then now it's changed.
We were able to place the mind on a meditation object.
And where did the suffering go?
You know what happened?
So the mind turns toward the wholesome and the suffering becomes less.
And we'll feel that in the body as well.
So when the mind becomes more calm, the body will become more calm.
And we might start to feel quite happy, actually.
So when we start to feel quite happy.
And cool.
It's very interesting.
It's just created by the mind.
Or we could say it's created or it's uncovered.
It's uncovered when the mind is in a space where it can just drop things.
So it'll be experienced as a dropping away.
And things become much, much lighter.
And the heart isn't heavy.
And it's interesting.
It's interesting to think about.
It's very interesting.
And so...
So this, just this basic practice, aligning our behavior with sila, with virtue,
and then practicing meditation on a regular basis
and reflecting in a way that we develop wisdom and discernment.
And then that's what we call the path.
And just thinking about very basic things like desire,
different types of desire and what types of craving lead to suffering
and what types of desire, for example, desire for the wholesome,
what types of desire lead to happiness and ease.
And just directing the mind in that way on a regular basis.
And these basic things like thinking about our food,
reflecting on our food, wisely reflecting on Yislam's food,
not for fun, not for pleasure, not for fattening, not for beautification,
only for the maintenance and nourishment of this body,
for keeping it healthy, for helping with the holy life,
thinking thus, I will lay hunger without overeating,
so I may continue to live.
Blamelessly and at ease.
That's the reflection that we do before eating in the dining hall,
monastic dining hall.
So reflecting on food, something we deal with every day,
and reflecting on the body, the body as elements, the body as not-self.
So the Buddha recommends this practice of not-self, not me, not mine.
So seeing that, needing to see how we take,
take the body as me and mine,
and we take ownership of the body,
and we take ownership of other things as well.
And so that's the word that's normally translated in the suttas as acquisitions.
So taking ownership.
So this sense of ownership.
It's very interesting that one of the qualities of our haunts
is that they can't accumulate things.
Like they can't actually store things up.
They're unable to really,
store things up longer than say a week or so
because they have no,
because with wisdom,
there's no real concept of,
of really being around longer than that period of time
or even being around longer than the next breath.
So this is a very basic thing as well.
Death contemplation.
And we were born, so we all have to die.
That's just absolutely natural and normal.
It's not something that's,
it's supposed to be depressing.
It's just a natural truth of life
that whatever comes into being has to change.
So whatever was born,
whatever being is born has to pass away at some point
or change states at some point.
So these bodies get old and die eventually.
So it's not me, not mine.
If it belonged to me, I could take it with me.
What can we take with us?
When we die.
And so the teaching, that's the teaching on Kama,
only our good and bad actions follow us.
So if that is the case,
we can't, most of us won't be able to see that this is the case.
This is one of the Buddha's teachings.
This is a main tenet of the Buddha's teachings.
There's other things that the Buddha taught that we can verify.
For example, generous people are never without friends.
The Buddha teaches these very,
very basic things about living life.
And there are many things we can verify.
So at a certain point,
we'll be able to verify enough of a percentage of the Buddha's teachings
and see the truth of them for ourselves
that the things we can't yet verify,
then we have enough confidence to take them on faith.
And so that when the Buddha says we create wholesome action
as provisions for the journey,
that's what we can take with us.
And we don't just take it with us after death,
but we take it with us.
And we take it with us in this life.
And we build up these accumulations of good action,
of goodness.
And that becomes a foundation for our lives.
So when we think about these basic things
and we wisely reflect on things,
this is what we call Yoniso Manasikara,
which is wise attention, right attention.
And we pay attention in a way that leads to discernment.
So as we go about our Dhamma life,
then it's a craft.
It's like learning a craft.
We develop skill in that craft.
And over time, we develop enough skill
that we start to gain insight and we learn.
We develop a muscle memory in the practice.
And we learn how to be very skillful
and even masterful at a certain point.
So we learn how to be masterful
and how we deal with situations.
And the Dhamma is all about,
being able to deal with mental impressions as they arise.
So when some difficult,
we say,
like a mood,
a mood or emotion arises,
then we know how to deal with it.
And dealing with it doesn't just mean we get rid of it.
Dealing with it means we know how to practice with it.
We know how to reflect on it.
We see that it's something that arises,
persists for a bit,
and then passes away.
And normally, if the mind is enmeshed in the world,
then we're only stuck on the arising part.
So we don't really care so much about the consequences.
So it's good.
I don't care about the consequences.
Just give me that good thing.
So to look at the,
if we only see the gratification of things,
then we don't really know what's right and wrong,
unless we contemplate the drawback of things as well.
So something might be enticing,
something might be,
something might taste good,
but it could have poison in it.
So we have to investigate.
Anjan Shah said that a lot of practice is like,
it's like somebody's giving you good food,
and they actually tell you there's poison in this food,
but it's so good.
It's your favorite food.
So are we going to eat it?
So if we only look at the gratification,
yes, we'll eat it,
but we'll get poisoned.
So we're doing that all the time with the moods and the emotions.
We're gobbling them up.
We're gobbling them up,
poison and all.
Or you could,
the Anjan Shah like to use the analogy of fish and frogs.
So like there's when somebody goes fishing,
they use bait and the fish goes for the bait and it gets the hook stuck in
its mouth.
And it's incredibly painful for the fish,
but then frogs,
they don't do that.
They just swallow the bait down into their guts.
And he said,
that's what people are like.
They don't just get the bait stuck in their mouth.
They get it.
They swallow it all the way down into their guts.
So these things are,
are difficult to extract.
Sometimes it's kind of mysterious why we get interested in practice and
different people are going to get interested for different reasons.
And I just remember first reading Anjan Shah and his teachings.
And for some reason they just made sense to me and it seemed to have a
certain energy around them.
And I thought these are different.
Like even other spiritual teachings seem to be still somehow aligned with
worldly ways of thinking or still aligned with just trying to get what we
want and avoid what we don't want.
But Anjan Shah's teachings just seemed,
there was a different feeling around them,
different energy.
So I remember reading Anjan Shah's teachings and then that gave me enough
confidence to want to come here and go all in,
devote my life to this particular path in this world.
In this particular monastery.
But then once I came here,
I forgot all that.
And the mind was just back to its old habits.
So then it's this very long drawn out journey.
And then some good experiences,
some bad experiences.
But then as the years go by,
always coming back to,
oh,
right.
That's what originally inspired me.
That's what,
that's where my confidence was.
And I still have to look into this.
So when,
when Anjan Shah is saying,
just kind of step aside where it's cool and try to step back from the moods
and the emotions and watch them rather than get caught up by them,
having to always come back to those basic teachings because they're so
alluring.
The bait is so alluring and little worms that Mara is dangling in front of us
are so tasty.
They're like sour worms.
They're gummy worms.
They're very tasty,
but we can get sick from eating them.
But it's just,
it's so getting so enmeshed in the moods.
And I think,
wow.
Yeah,
this is,
it's a really difficult practice.
This practice of trying to cultivate virtue and meditation and insight.
It's very difficult because we,
these moods and these emotions and these ways of being are all habitual.
And needless to speak of this life,
we might,
however many lives we've been cultivating habits that are antithetical to the
path,
to the path of peace.
And of course it's going to be difficult because there is some,
when we get gratification,
the Buddha recognizes there is like when we eat something we like,
there is a charge,
there is a gratification.
And if we can imagine our favorite food and just getting as much as we want of
our favorite foods,
let's say we really,
really like donuts and we,
somebody just sets a huge pile of donuts and says,
okay,
I'm going to shut the door.
Nobody's watching.
Just go for it.
Just eat those donuts and indulge as much as you want.
Eat them as fast as you can eat as much as you want.
But then what happens if we actually do that?
And the mind becomes very murky.
And when we're done eating those donuts,
we might feel sick and we might have indigestion afterwards.
So was it worth it?
So that's experience is so fleeting.
That happiness is so fleeting.
There's a story of,
uh,
monk who was on Tudong in Thailand,
a Thai monk and his favorite food was pumpkin.
And so he actually,
sometimes what will happen for monks who are wandering on Tudong,
they'll get to a village and the villagers will have be inspired and have
confidence in that monk.
And they'll invite them to stay for the rainy season outside of their village.
They'll usually build a Kuti and maybe a small Sala,
a small Dhamma hall for them and invite them to stay and go for alms every day
in their village.
And so this place,
uh,
this monk was extremely surprised and happy because this particular village
grew pumpkins and he got a lot of pumpkins on,
you know,
like cooked pumpkin is his favorite food on alms round.
And then they invited him to stay for the Vasa and he was just overjoyed
because he was going to get pumpkin every day.
And then,
uh,
over the course of the Vasa,
he actually ate pumpkin,
but that's pretty much all he ate every day.
It was just pumpkin.
And then,
uh,
by the end of the Vasa,
every time he saw a pumpkin,
he actually wanted to throw up.
He actually felt physically ill whenever he saw a pumpkin.
It was then it went from being his favorite food to his least favorite food.
It's just anything other than pumpkin,
just anything.
So the mind can change quickly like that.
So with insight,
we say,
yeah,
we have to switch it up.
Sometimes there's no set way.
That is going to,
that the gratification can be set up,
but no matter how our,
how we try to set up our gratifications,
it's never going to be enough.
It's never going to be right.
If it is just right,
it's not going to be just right tomorrow.
If it's perfect today,
it's going to feel different tomorrow.
So it comes with just dropping things.
It's a real blessing to be in the monastery because just taking what's offered,
we might suffer a little bit about it.
Like,
Oh,
I wish,
I wish this or that food,
we'll just come in just once.
But then over time,
it just takes a huge burden off the mind,
not having to think about it.
And if it's beans and rice one day,
and that's fine.
If it's,
I don't know,
use your imagination,
uh,
crepes.
And if it's,
uh,
grilled cheese and Nutella the next day,
that's fine too.
If it's,
uh,
you know,
cherry tort,
whatever,
then that's,
that's okay too.
And it can be like that on walking on two dong in five shortish two dongs that I've done in America.
I've only not received alms food one day.
If I combine all five of them together,
but there were some days where it was very little food.
So,
uh,
so in 2014,
we went,
my,
me and my walking companion went to Bikku's no lay person after the Vasa.
And it was very cold and rainy.
We did a walkabout from here to the,
actually,
we started at three jewels and we went North and did a walkabout back to a
by Gary.
But,
uh,
there was one day where all we got was a miniature apple pie and two bananas.
And so we each had a banana and half of a miniature apple pie.
And that was our entire meal.
And then we walked 17 or 18 miles or something that day.
And then that night it rained and we had these little,
not big enough,
10,
10 tent shelters with no bottoms on them.
And we were just kind of sitting up all night in the rain,
asking each other if we were still dry.
And then I thought,
okay,
well,
at least we still have a little burner with some black tea.
And then I hooked up this little jet boil stove and then lit the stove.
And then the flame went down to nothing.
The fuel canister had just run out.
So we couldn't make any tea.
So then we decided to start walking back toward the monastery.
And the next day we were extremely hungry and we stood for alms round at a abandoned restaurant.
And there was a,
one of these like Bigfoot shops.
This is in Avenue of the Giants.
One of these like Bigfoot souvenir shops.
And they invited us in for coffee.
And I think they gave us some candy bars.
And then we went back outside and there was a,
a guy,
a tourist from Germany who saw us and he couldn't believe we were real.
He thought we were just cut out,
cut out cardboard monks like on the side of the road.
He couldn't believe we were actually real.
And then he wanted to offer us things.
And then there was a lady also who lived there and she wanted to offer us something,
but she said the only thing she had in her,
she had no food at all except a pack of frozen hot dogs and her refrigerator.
So she had to go thaw them out for us.
So she could offer them,
which was extremely kind because that was everything.
That was the only thing she had in her refrigerator.
And so this guy went to get,
got us some food and she gave us the,
she eventually came out with the half thawed hot dogs.
And then,
so we,
we got a whole bunch of food then and we were walking to look for a place to
eat,
but we were both really hungry because the day before we'd walked a long way
and we had very little to eat.
So,
so we each pulled out a hot dog and then we thought we were going to,
okay,
we have to look for a place to eat this big meal,
but let's each eat a hot dog to honor that offering.
And,
and,
and then so I started eating this hot dog while I was walking.
And then,
and then my walking opinion,
his body was so hungry that as soon as he put the hot dog to his mouth,
it just went down into his guts.
It just like his body just sucked it in.
And he's like,
I just swallowed that hot dog hole.
And that was,
we were having kind of a strange conversation about owls already because we
were kind of delirious from our hunger.
And so I,
my only response was like an owl.
They swallow things whole.
And then I don't know why I'm telling that story,
but maybe it's like the swallowing the bait.
It's like the swallowing the bait story.
And,
and we eventually found a nice place on the eel river to eat our meal.
But,
but yeah,
these,
we have these experiences and all of these things,
just like food,
it's very primal.
And just reflecting on these basic things,
it's kind of,
it's kind of baffles me.
Why,
why reflect on these basic things?
And these are the foundation of liberation.
Just thinking about things,
something like food or thinking about how the body is just elements.
Now,
these are the foundation of liberation.
This is what we call Kama Tana.
Kama Tana.
Kama means action.
Like it's the same word,
Kama,
but it also means work.
And so Tana means foundation.
So Kama Tana is the,
the word we use for the foundation of our work or our practice.
And so the,
whatever Kama Tana we're using,
whether it's meta,
we would say meta Kama Tana for the practice of cultivating goodwill for
ourselves and others,
or a Suba Kama Tana is the reflection on the unattractive nature of bodies in
general.
So these Kama Tana,
these are the foundation for our work,
for our practice.
And,
and eventually the mind when reflecting on these things,
it can let go,
but it's difficult because it's like the mind is sticky.
So I think a lot of the practice is just,
it's like balm that it's rubbed on the heart,
which slowly dissolves the stickiness that's accreted for a long time around
the heart.
And once that stickiness starts to dissolve,
then things start to slide off and slide,
there's less clinging.
The stickiness could be an analogy for clinging.
And as the clinging becomes less,
then things just don't affect us as much.
And it's not that we don't care,
but it's more like there's more insight and openness and the,
and everything is metabolized in a way that it doesn't affect us in a way of
suffering.
So this is what Lung Por Sumedo,
would call the way of non-suffering.
And also we might think,
well,
I don't,
I wouldn't want to get too far in the practice because I've got this bucket
list of things I want to do in my life.
If I was to reach some sort of liberation from suffering,
I won't be able to finish my bucket list and do all the things I want to do
in my life.
So that,
you know,
if I was to somehow get to Nibbana,
then what about all these other amazing and interesting things I haven't done
yet?
And all these adventures I haven't had,
and what about those?
And,
oh,
and but then if we just shift a little bit and,
and think,
well,
our haunt ship is the best way to live.
It's nothing is going to compare to that.
There's no loneliness.
There's no sense of dissatisfaction.
There won't be any sense of lack.
There is,
there won't be any sense of lack.
There'll be,
there'll be fullness.
So this is just a reflection on reflecting on the possibility of Nibbana.
So for us,
as practitioners that can prod us in and keep us going in the right direction.
So I'm kind of spent.
It's been a very long day and tomorrow is the lunar observance day,
the opposite a day.
So I will leave it at that for a reflection this evening.