(upbeat music) This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for Your Life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - It's my great pleasure to introduce the Duma for this morning's talk. I was talking to him earlier and he was kind of looking at a concern at the schedule which showed that he had from 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock with nothing, but his talk listed and was wondering about whether he was going to do a two hour talk. We told him that wouldn't be necessary. But actually, I was going to rejoice in his merits and count all of his virtues and good qualities it probably would take a couple hours. And so I'll resist the temptation to leave time for him to talk. But he is a very good friend of mine, has contributed so much to the development of the order here in North America. It's just one of the most generous and kind people that I know. But also, if I was kind of thinking about it in many ways, he's one of the most American order members that I know. And I don't know, I realize why that jumped out is because I've been listening to his talks on the GFR retreats and he's somebody who's steeped in American culture and American literature, especially from New England where there's the longest history, at least of the current United States of America. And so as the Dharma moves from country to country nation to nation and adapts to the local culture, he's the kind of person that kind of helps see what's already in our culture in many cases that resonates with the Dharma and is excellent at communicating the Dharma for us in this particular cultural situation that we're in now. So I am very pleased to introduce the Duma. (audience applauds) - Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. How good any man live up to that kind of an introduction though. So thank you all for coming. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to give a talk, which I've been asked to give, about maintaining inspiration. And I'll be talking more about that, but I want to start with a few preliminaries. I do want to thank you very much. And I want to thank you and all the organizing committee for the great convention. It's really been excellent just to be here. I want to thank all of you, really, and I'm offering this talk in the spirit, really, of a gift to you for giving me your time and attention. At the end of the talk, and I don't know how long this talk is going to take. I mean, I have notes and I have a talk really here, but I find with talks often I lose myself in the course of the talk and forget what page I'm on and just sort of go on. I'll try not to do that, frankly, but I haven't timed this talk. I haven't like rehearsed it and haven't clocked it, so I don't know exactly how long it's going to take. But there's an elastic quality to it, so don't worry. If it looks like it's going on long, there are things I can easily leave out and you'll never know if it looks a little too short, which I doubt, I can always fill it with interesting things. (audience laughing) So, the title of this talk is every atom belonging to me, and I'll be explaining that to you in a little while. I want to start, though, by just kind of setting a stage for the talk, which is not only expressing my appreciation, which I hope I have. I mean, I could spend the whole time expressing my appreciation to a large number of people for all that has contributed to my being here today, having the opportunity to talk with you, but it wouldn't be inspiring for me to do that, although it would be a rich experience for me. So I'm going to start in this way with a few words before I actually get to the talk. I take my refuge in the Buddha and pray that with all beings, I may understand the great way, and thereby the Buddhist seed may forever thrive. I take my refuge in the Dharma and pray that with all beings, I may enter deeply into the sutra treasure, and thereby, our wisdom will grow as vast as the ocean. I take my refuge in the Sangha and pray that with all beings, I may reign in great multitudes and have nothing to check the unimpeded progress of truth. So there's a few more preliminaries, actually, before I get to the talk. I want to dedicate this talk to Sangha Aksheda who has made the Dharma comprehensible to me and given me a way to navigate this wretched and magnificent life in a dignified and holy way. I'm deeply grateful for that. I'm still learning about how to do that, but I wouldn't have begun without that. I also want to give a special dedication to Mandravajan, I know he's not here right now, but he is the first living Buddhist I ever met. He was a great, great teacher, and more than being a great Dharma teacher, he's the first Buddhist I ever encountered that I could see was making every effort and every fiber of his being to live a spiritual life as he could best manage to do it. And it's been very inspirational to me to think about Mandravajra and to see him here now and to hear about his life now. So I'm dedicating this also to Mandravajra. When I give talks or presentations in my work, I have to give disclaimers. They actually have to sign disclaimers that I have no conflict of interest. I'm not being paid in any way in receiving any remuneration for trying to convince you of anything. I do have a conflict of interest, which I want to disclose to you however, which is that I hope something comes out of this. I have an interest in this talk that it will benefit you and that you will use this. I'm not being sponsored by a drug company and I'm not providing any medications in this talk. (audience laughing) The last of the preliminaries is this. Nothing I say is going to be original. There's no original thought in it. Everything I'm gonna be telling you has been said, probably by many people, but at least by certain people. It's too long a list for me to begin to say all the people I'm plagiarizing. I just want you to understand that everything here is actually borrowed from someone somewhere sometime. And they deserve the credit for it. - You're expelled. (audience laughing) - Oh, that's a relief. (audience laughing) Well, as you all know, I was asked to give a talk this morning on maintaining inspiration. My immediate reaction was to say yes, although I have no pre-thought about inspiration. This is not something that I have given much reflection to, actually, and I had no firm ideas. So this is kind of a new topic. And I'm grateful for that, because actually in the, this happened on June 9th that I got the invitation. In the 89 days I've had to live with this, which I have, I've lived with this. This has been very much in the forefront of my mind. It's been a very fine experience for me. And I hope that I'll be able to find some way to convey to you some pieces, at least, of what has been a very fine experience for me in reflecting on, thinking about and trying to put into expression some of my sense of inspiration. So I'm gonna be talking about my and other people's experiences, but I hope, I hope it's my hope that some of this will get through the medium between us and register somewhere for you. I was also told, I mean, in the spirit of, as Obama says, transparency, my instructions went on to say that I should make this, or could make this, but the could was actually a should, I think, a quote, "poetical dynamic talk "that would look at the heart of our practice." (audience laughing) And again, I'm quoting, "The goal of the talk "is to help us all refresh and deepen "our devotion to the Three Jewels." (audience laughing) So this is what I've lived with in the last 18, 19. (audience laughing) But fortunately for you and for me, I did conclude this. I cannot say to myself or to you that I will do any of that, which I have been instructed to do. (audience laughing) All I can do really is speak to you about my thoughts and my experiences. I'm gonna be kind of spraying them out there. I'm gonna read some poetry and some other people's thoughts. I'm gonna invite you to give me some comments and questions at the end. I mean, in a way, I am giving this as a gift, like Socrates gave his questions as a gift for you to think about and respond to me about. If we have a few minutes, if I don't carry on too long, we could do that here if not some time later. I'm gonna be talking about singing and celebrating, actually, that's a big part of it. And I'm gonna be talking about singing and celebrating a spiritual life. The fullness of a spiritual life. How much can a spiritual life hold is the question? How much can you hold? How much can you carry? That's framework for some of what I have to say. So I wanna start with every Adam belonging to me. So this is the beginning verse of Walt Whitman's great song of myself, which of course is a song about everybody else, but himself and also of himself because he's absorbed everybody else into himself. So there's no line of demarcation between himself and everyone else, which is splendid. So this is the origin of the talk and I hope that this theme will become clear. I hope it will as I go along. I celebrate myself and sing myself and what I shall assume, you shall assume for every Adam belonging to me as good belongs to you. (clears throat) So every Adam belonging to me is the, again, is the title. I'm gonna read that again and when you hear the word assume, think of, this is a terrible metaphor, but think of a bank assuming a mortgage. It means take on or bring on to myself. Whatever I bring on to myself, you will be bringing on to yourself. Whatever I take on, you will take on. I celebrate myself and sing myself and what I shall assume, you shall assume for every Adam belonging to me as good belongs to you. Every Adam, and we're talking about the most indivisible, tiny piece of me as good belongs to you and what belongs to you as good belongs to me at the level of the Adam, got it? I often begin talks with definitions because I think it's important for us to have a clear meaning of what we talk about. I usually go to dictionaries, actually, for definitions. Would you like to sit down? Would it be more comfortable? - I'm sorry, I believe-- - Oh, okay. - So I'm just-- - You wanna be ready at the right moment to just slide out. That's fine. - I'm gonna be less than talking to anyone. (audience laughs) - So I didn't look up a dictionary definition of inspiration. I think we have, in our minds, a good definition that we can all go by, which is, I mean, from the Latin, you know, it means breathe in. But it means breathe in in a special way. It means breathe life into. So I'm using it as infusing with life, bringing to life, breathing life into. So we're talking about inspiration. Let's all just assume we're talking about breathing life into something, making alive something, which is an even stronger word than my instructions about refresh. Don't you think it's bringing to life is a little stronger than refresh? Okay. (audience laughs) I also have a definition for heart. I did look this up in the dictionary. And of course, it includes a long list of things like center, core, foundational, also will, determination, also emotional inequality. As almost any word can be put with it as a combining form, strong-hearted, weak-hearted, heavy-hearted, light-hearted, and so on and so on, also heart-break, heart-filled. But I'm actually, as I talked about this today, the heart of our order, I'm gonna be using it in its more strict biological sense, which is this. This is a dictionary definition. A small organ made of specialized tissue in vertebrates that pumps blood to all areas of the body. In humans, it pumps blood to the lungs for exchange of gases, and then to all other tissue. So I'm using this in a, I hope you get it, a biological metaphor for the order. I mean, the heart of the order, sure it's the core, it's the center, it's will, it's determination. But actually, it's this little throbbing machine that pumps blood out to the finest areas of our body, of our order, and returns it to get cleaned and pumps it out again. And I'll be talking a little more about the heart and the heart of our order in a little bit in a biological sense later, too. Okay. The first thing I wanna say about inspiration is that it is not a feeling, it is not a thought, it is not a state, although it may be related to thoughts and related to feelings and may be experienced as kind of a state. Actually, inspiration is something larger than all of those things. Now, I gave you a little bit of a sense of what I'm gonna be using as a definition for inspiration, but actually, I think for me to try to say what inspiration is, is impossible. It's not an inner or outer thing, it's not any kind of a thing. I think it's an activity, actually, I think it's an energy. But I don't have a clear definition, and I'm sorry for that, but it's the same with most of the important things about a spiritual life. They don't have a definition that you can put into words. But I will tell you this, that to try to figure out what inspiration is, is worthy of a life's endeavor, and that men and women live and die miserably all the time for lack of an understanding of inspiration. So, whether we have a word for it, a nice, handy way to explain what it is, isn't so important as the fact that, believe it or not, inspiration exists, and without it, the quality of life is something very, very different. And for efforts to live a spiritual life, I think inspiration is even a more essential element or energy. So, here's the heart of my talk. Here's the whole thing I'm gonna be droning on about for a while. Inspiration generates itself, arises, is present, because of how we live. It's not that inspiration is a cliff energy bar, we can take at low points and feel pumped up. It's not something that comes from outside of us, it's not something that comes from inside of us. It defies those easy ways of thinking about it. But, if you are living a spiritual life, the activity of that spiritual life will generate its own inspiration. That's the essence of what I'm gonna be talking about. So, in a certain sense, inspiration and a holy life, inspiration and a spiritual life, are almost interchangeable terms. So, inspiration of any kind from any source, and there are many sources and actually many kinds, requires us to develop it. It requires us to live it, actually. It's gonna be continually changing, it's gonna be continually developing. It's not something that we come upon once, figure out and we can keep going back there and get it the same way. I mean, it's not like that. It really depends upon how you're living your life. So, if your life is lacking in inspiration, to me that means it's lacking in some essential spiritual activity that you need to work on. So, a person can be inspirational. I mean, are they giving you an inspiration? Well, it's probably not their intention to do that. I mean, there are inspirational speakers. We see their little lines on these beautiful pictures of people climbing mountains and things like that. But actually, the kind of inspiration I'm talking about is something that is a very deep feeling. And this feeling comes from something outside, when we move outside ourselves. Do you know that the Greek expression for outside, the usual, outside, the ordinary is "eck" outside and stasis? So, we have "eck" stasis. The feeling of inspiration is ecstasy. It's a very pleasant feeling. It's not like a high of a drug, which unfortunately, ecstasy has come to note. But it's a more deep, peaceful, joyful, at ease feeling. That's how you know that you're inspired. That's how you know that your spiritual life is generating inspiration for you. So, this tells us, the feeling itself tells us that what's essential to inspiration is moving outside the usual, moving outside ourselves, our usual selves in a way. So, while this is moving outside the usual and outside ourselves, I want to emphasize to you that it's also not an experience that's bizarre or strange. It's not, although it's the result of effort, it's not like climbing a mountain. It's more like, I think, a walk around the pond. It's more like a perfectly natural feeling. It's not like we're striving for something that's so outside of experience that it's going to give us a high. The point is we're living our life in such a way that it generates its own special energy, a rejuvenating effect. It's pumping new life into us. It's bringing us to life because we're living it. So, if you were to say to me, I need some inspiration in order to live a spiritual life. I would say to you, you need to live a spiritual life in order to feel inspired. I think of inspiration as maybe more like a homecoming, more like, I don't know, flowers blooming in the spring, leaves dropping in the fall. I think of a lot of spiritual experiences as like that, not striving for some strange and phenomenal peak experience, but actually striving for something that's going to feel to us like we found our natural place. We found the rightness of us in this life. And I go back to the Buddha's memory at the time, just before his enlightenment, his crucial memory, in spite of all the meditation experiences and states that he could accomplish, the central experience of a memory when he was a child under the rose apple tree. And there's a certain, he didn't strive when he's sitting under the rose apple tree to have a complete awareness of everything around him. He wasn't striving for an ease of mind. He wasn't striving, but he naturally in that setting felt that. And that's the feeling that he came back to, which actually was at the core of his inspiration for enlightenment. I mean, that's my take on it. Different people may have different takes. But there's no doubt that that memory of that experience, reliving that experience, if you like, was a very important piece of the Buddha's experience the night he became enlightened. I think inspiration needs to be like that. It's not like, how can I find something outside of myself that's so different from the rest of my life that I will feel inspired? It's more like living your life as you are in such a deliberate, careful, thorough, dedicated way that you can't help but feel like you're continually moving and becoming the person that you are. You're not stasis. You're not steady. You're not locked into something. You're continually feeling your own movement. And it has a natural, beautiful, inherent quality to it that you just can't get enough of. So I don't want this to just be the human theory of inspiration. So here's two time-tested sources of inspiration. This sort of x-stasis experience, time-tested for centuries, necessary for inspiration, or at least not the only things necessary for inspiration, but lead to inspiration. And by the way, happen to be, as it turns out, central parts of leading a holy life. So what are these two? Well, first, we have meditation, meditative states, states that move us out of our usual consciousness. So inspiration and meditation have a definite interrelationship. I have to say that because it's true. I mean, it's my experience, but that's irrelevant. It's the experience of people much smarter, much holier, much more knowledgeable about all this, and by their experience as well as by their thinking than I am. One tried-and-true method for working at inspiration is meditation. I'm not saying any one particular meditation, but the point of it is, and the word meditation to me, is I'm just talking about changing your state of consciousness, having a heightened state of consciousness, having a heightened state of awareness, having a deliberate process for knowing what's going on in your mind, being fully aware of it at that time, and appreciating it, using it. And here's the second. I know you're itchy to hear this. But it's nothing new and exciting either. But saying these two things, because they're simple, doesn't mean they're easy. So the second one is acts of compassion. Acts of compassion that bring you outside yourself. So I'm going to use this expression because it seems like a very good expression to me that I came across. Acts of self-emptying compassion. So there's compassion that is like being nice, being kind. But there's a difference between those. I mean, there's always room for kindness. We could always be more kind. There's some famous quote by Huxley, by all this Huxley, "Braid New World." So there's a quote at the end of his life where he says something like, it's kind of embarrassing to be at the end of my life having studied human behavior. And all I can say is try to be a little kinder. That's the only advice I can give people. So I mean, there's always room for kindness. But when I talk about self-emptying compassionate activity, I'm talking about compassionate activity where you're aware that it's stretching yourself. That some sense of self is not involved in it. That it actually is moving you beyond your ordinary sense of self. So self-emptying doesn't mean that you're emptying yourself. It actually means you're preparing room in yourself to be filled. But it's emptying you of your ordinary sense of self. So this is not like forced acts of self-emptying compassion, not like even necessarily dutiful acts of self-emptying compassion. These are self-emptying acts of compassion that you willingly, happily, naturally undertake. You just find yourself doing them because in whatever situation you're in with whatever people you're in, it feels like the right thing to do. You can feel it. I mean, it's an experience that's based on something that's going on in your interaction with what's going on around you. So we have meditation and self-emptying acts of compassion. That's enough. But of course, there are 1,000 things that inspire us, actually. And if we can't be inspired by the events that occur in our everyday life, we have misconstrued something at a serious level. There are things in our everyday life that allow us plenty of room to be inspired. There's always-- many of you may not agree with this. And I don't mean to make it sound as simple as I'm saying it. But actually, it's not all that complicated. There's always an opportunity to meditate, isn't there? I mean, there might not be time for a 50-minute sit. But there's time to stop. There's time to take a meditative state on. The more you deliberately meditate, the easier and easier it becomes to put yourself into a meditative state. There's no excuse or reason why a person's life is too busy for them, almost every situation level, to find they have the opportunity, a choice, really, they can make to put themselves in a kind of meditative state, a metaphor state, a state of acute awareness, right? There's no opportunity in most of our everyday-- I mean, there's no reason in most of our everyday lives. But we don't have plenty of opportunities for self-emptying compassion. If you find your life without opportunities for self-emptying compassion, this is a serious dilemma that you need to examine, because there is something fundamentally wrong with a life where on an everyday level, there aren't opportunities for that. Maybe you don't have the right kind of contact with people. Maybe it's something else. But I mean, compassion doesn't necessarily mean there's a person in front of you, and you're doing something for them. We can take on compassion for the world, compassion for the earth, compassion for any person we know who's suffering, right? Thank you. So one of the next points I want to make is that these are intentional behaviors. They don't happen randomly. Meditation doesn't happen randomly. Self-emptying acts of compassion don't happen randomly. There are lots of other things, by the way, that are very conducive to inspiration. I'm not choosing to go into all of them, because these seem to me to be the two key ones. But listening to music can be very inspirational. Thinking about people's lives can be very inspirational. Think about Sanger actually as life. Just think about that. How could you not be inspired by the choices that he made, the situations that he faced, the decisions that he made, the clarity of mind that he had and has? So there's a long list, which I am not going to go through, sorry, for you, about ways to find inspiration. But the critical thing is you have to find those that work for you. You have to discover those and keep discovering those. It's an ongoing thing. It varies from person to person. There are the big ones, but there are really a long, long list of other ways to do it. I'm going to tell you another shortcut here, though, I think. Experiences that are common to all of us as human beings are likely to be inspiring. If we can bring ourselves to those experiences that are common to all people, that puts us in a sort of right attitude or creates some good conditions for inspiration. So what do I mean by experiences common to all of us? Well, rain, the sea, desire, the warmth of the sun on the skin, the sting of unrequited love. Everybody knows those experiences. The movement of leaves and the wind. And here's the big one, which I'm going to talk more about, in case you're getting bored, this will help wake you up. A very important, common one that we all know all too well are struggle with the certainty of death and the uncertainty of death. Our death and the death of all the people that we love. It's part of a common human experience. It's a source, instead of being depressed, actually, for dedicating your life fully to living. So bringing us to any of these common experiences, I think I forgot to say the night sky, which is a big one for me, but I don't know if that is for everybody, but I mean, that's a common experience for us, the night sky. Do you stop and look carefully at this night sky? Do you breathe in those stars? And I mean, you can't help but feel something when you do those things. OK, so I'm going to talk about death a little later. I'm switching gears dramatically to go back to every atom. I want to read you-- song of myself goes on for 50 some odd pages, depending upon the size of print and what edition you have. I'm going to just read you a few lines to capture what this means about celebrating myself, singing myself. And what I shall assume, you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. So here's a little more of what Whitman is explaining that. I suppose you could say explaining. It was really just singing it. What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest is me. And this is me with a capital M. Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me. I am of the old and the young of the foolish as much as the wise, regardless of others, ever-regardful of others. Maternal as well as paternal. A child as well as a man or woman. Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine. One of the nation of many nations, the smallest, the same, the largest, the same. A learner with the simplest. A teacher of the thoughtfulist. A novice, beginning, yet experienced of myriads of Caesar. Of every hue and cast am I, of every rank and religion. A farmer, fancy man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest. This song is the meow equally said. This the meat for natural hunger. I will not have a single person slighted or kept away. In all people, I see myself none more and not one of barley corn less. I am he that walks with the tender and growing night. I'm the hounded slave. I wince at the bite of the dogs. I flag in the race. I lean by the fence, blowing, covered with sweat. The twinges that sting like needles my legs. The murderous buckshot and bullets. All these I feel or am. I mean, this goes on for page after page after page. I just want to give you a sense of the depth of feeling that he's talking about. Agonies are one of my changes of garments. I do not ask the wounded person how he feels. I myself become the wounded person. My heart turns livid upon me as I lean and observe. Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go up to and am tried and sentenced. Not a color of patient lies at the last gas, but I also, and that's the last gas. My face is ash colored, my sinews gnarled. Away from me, people retreat. I do not ask who you are. That is not important to me. You can do nothing and be nothing, but what I will unfold you. To cotton field drudge and cleaner of privies, I lean. On the right cheek, I plant the family kiss, and I swear I will never deny you. On and on and on for many more pages. Something in all these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, and such as it is to be one of these, more or less I am. And of these, one and all, I weave the song for myself. So if you could sing such a song, if you could be each and every one of the experiences that you confront, if you could put yourself in the place of all these people, Adam for Adam, you would never have to think about inspiration, again, for the rest of this life. OK, I want to, again, switch gears pretty dramatically and talk about Bahia of the Bartgarmand. I find this little episode in Bahia's life, and also in the Buddha's life, a remarkably good one for thinking about inspiration. It has several elements in it that are great, and I think that pertain to all of us, especially as I read it over and read commentaries about it and reflect it on it. So Bahia is a merchant. He travels far and wide. He's made seven trips from India to other places as an merchant, and on the eighth trip, his shipwrecks. He's washed ashore naked on the beaches near this big city called Subparaka, which was a big city somewhere north of Mumbai today. He covers himself and his nakedness with a bark piece of big bark. People think he's eccentric and strange. They begin to think he must be a holy person, because holy people are the people that clothe themselves in bark. They begin to ask him questions. He gives them good answers. He's revered as a wise person and actually seen as a holy person. And he begins to think of himself, although he's not a monk, not anybody's follower, not practicing austerity, he's not doing all the things that holding people did, let's say, I'm oversimplifying all this. But he begins to think, "Maybe I am an Arahant. Maybe I am like a truly deeply religious person who's found his calling, and I have become this." Well, as soon as he has that thought, what do you think happens? A deva comes down and blisters him. Who do you think you are? You're not an Arahant. That's a joke. You're not even living a life that's going the direction of an Arahant. So this is like, suddenly, this is a moment of inspiration for Bahia. Like, he realizes, however long he's been living this way, we don't know, but he's been wearing his back arm and he's a holy man revered by everyone. They think he's an Arahant. Maybe I am pretty spiritual. Maybe I've accomplished a very great deal. The deva is maybe a dream. Or, you know, it's those moments when we see ourselves naked of our illusions about ourselves. See ourselves for who we are and realize, who am I kidding? I'm not who I am, like, like to think I am, I'm not. And we all know, actually, that whoever we are, we're not who we think we are. I mean, we know that. Well, Bahia's case is a remarkable one because he actually was beginning to believe in his life the way it was. Well, this dream or awakening or night of Gethsemane, those times when we really are stripped away and have to face life on very bare terms, he realized, what am I going to do? He immediately asked the deva, again, in his dream or in his deepest part of himself, what am I going to do? And the answer, the voice, was, go find somebody who can tell you what an Arahant is and how to lead a holy life. There is such a person, if you go to Savati, Siddhakta Gautama, find him. See what he can tell you. So we're told in the story of that out. He takes off, it's a long way to Savati, but the story is, he stops only for one night. I mean, this is hundreds of miles. So he was on a mission, so to speak. And he was on a mission. He was going to find the Buddha. He goes to Anatapindikas Park, but the Buddha is out getting arms. They tell him that, just wait, he'll be back. No way, Bahia is on a beeline to find the Buddha. He goes into Savati. He sees, I mean, he recognizes instantly, this is the Buddha by the Buddha's bearing, described as like a noble elephant. His mind is that there's a calmness and a radiance about him. He goes right up to the Buddha, please, I've come all this way. Can you give me a teaching? And the Buddha says, you've come unseasonably from gathering arms. Now, this tells you how inspired Bahia was and what was inspiring him, which could inspire all of us, actually. There is this thing, he says, to the Buddha, the danger of the uncertainty of the span of life to you and to me. Please, give me a teaching. You've come unseasonably. But, I mean, we all know at the third time the Buddha's going to do what's asked of him. The danger of the uncertainty of the span of life to you and to me. Can you give me a teaching? So you can imagine this moment, after the third question, when the Buddha is looking intently at Bahia, taking him in. And Bahia is waiting and the seconds are kind of ticking. And the Buddha says, train your mind thus. I mean, a very simple, straightforward thing, but the beginning of it is, train your mind thus. Not like, go, just do this. It's like, train your mind thus. In the scene, only the scene. In the herd, only the herd. In the imagined, only the imagined. In the cognized, only the cognized. And goes on to just say another paragraph, which is, "No, thereby, no." Wherefore, in other words, no mental proliferation. Don't make the experience yours. Be the experience. Be in the experience fully. Don't be thinking of a theory about it. Don't be thinking, this is good, this is bad, making a judgement about it. Train your mind thus. In the scene, only the scene. Now, this is pretty similar to what Damarati was saying last night at him. I was glad to hear at the end of Damarati's talk that his talk and my talk are pretty much in harmony, although mine is very different. And from a much more superficial basis of practice and all that, but we're in harmony with each other. I mean, the focus for us and the heart of this order is in the scene, only the scene. In the herd, only the herd. In the imagined, I mean, we have wonderful imaginations, but in the imagined, only the imagined. Don't make it like a true story about yourself or your life. I mean, he's talking to Bahia. What you've imagined you know is only the imagined. What in the cognized, only the cognized. Don't stop the mental proliferation. That's the message, basically. So, the last part of Bahia is that he respectfully leaves the Buddha goes on with his arms around. We learned that shortly after, but he is killed by a wild cow. So, suddenly we realize, oh, all this stuff about death was actually of central importance to Bahia. And it allowed him to not only go to the Buddha and get this teaching, but take it 100% to hide. No fooling around about it, like, oh, that's good. I'll start tomorrow. Because the Buddha tells us he actually became a non-returner. In this one life, Bahia did this. Actually, all that led up to Bahia is going to the Buddha isn't as important. I mean, he was kind, he was wise, he paid attention to people. But actually, train your mind thus. In whatever short period of time, we know it wasn't a day, even, that Bahia lived after that. He became a non-returner. So, if that isn't inspiring to us, I don't know what it is. And what I want to say about this is the importance of the awareness of death. That Bahia wasn't afraid to say, look, I'm not here because I'd like to be your follower, I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that. I'm here because before I die and you die, I want to learn everything I can learn. Can you give me a teaching? And the Buddha recognized he needs a sharp, clear, immediate teaching. This isn't about the Deanna States, this isn't about other stuff, this isn't about, this isn't about the four noble truths and the seven spiritual factors. And on and on, this is about train your mind thus. Live this way from this moment on. Okay, I'm getting here. I want to read you a poem along that same line, this is by Mary Oliver. It's about death, this most common of all human experiences. When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn, when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me and snaps the purse shut, when death comes like the measles pocks, when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering, what is it going to be like that cottage of darkness? And therefore, I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood. I look upon time as no more than an idea and I consider eternity as another possibility. And I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy and as singular. And each name, a comfortable music in the mouth, tending as all music does towards silence. And each body, a lion of courage and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life, I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom taking the world in my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made my life something particular and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened and full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. So, I mean, for me, this is about the same as singing the song of myself. It's about living and it's about dying. But it's about being married to amazement. It's about living every moment as fully as you can. Now, this spiritual life, nobody made you choose this. Lots of things happen in your life that you had no choice about when you were born, where you were born, conditions of you growing up. But you chose, when you became ordained, to lead this particular spiritual life, your choice. Nobody forced you to do this. Something made you do that, right? I mean, something important made you do that because there were lots of other things going on in your life, but you made this choice. So, every day from your ordination on, you have to keep renewing that choice. You have to keep living that spiritual life. It's not given to you. Now, we all felt, I think we all felt, and I can't help but believe we all felt two days ago at Bodhi Lochina's ordination. This amazing, full, let's say inspiring feeling. And it probably brought reminiscences of our own ordination and other people's ordination and some sparks of what it was in the first place anyway that asked us to be ordained into this order. And that wanted us to live this life. So, I mean, my question to you really about inspiration and maintaining inspiration is this. What are you doing to maintain that inspiration? We could have ordinations every weekend, like the beautiful Bodhi Lochina. But that's not gonna happen. You're not gonna wait another year or two for the next ordination to feel that wonderful feeling. That was a high. But it's not impossible that you should live every day without some of this ex-daces being part of your life, renewing your spiritual living. Okay. I'm gonna skip to the end right now, although I'm leaving out lots of things that would be kind of nice. I'm just gonna read you two more things. I'm gonna read you three more things. (audience laughing) So, when you think about how you're gonna live your life, this is a thought about something to remind you about living your everyday life. This is from James Stevens, who was an Irish poet and storyteller in the early and middle 20th century. This is a story called The Crock of Gold, which is a great story, actually. It's out of print though, but you could borrow mine if you're nice to me. (audience laughing) The crown of life is not lodged in the sun. The wise gods have buried it deeply where the thoughtful will not find it, nor the good. But the gay ones, that's with a capital G and a capital O, the adventurous ones, this is the best part, the careless plungers, they will bring it to the wise and astonish them. All things are seen in the light. How shall we value that which is easy to see? But the precious things which are hidden, they will be more precious for our search. They will be beautiful with our sorrow. They will be noble because of our desire for them. So you might have to go into some dark places. These things are hidden. You won't find them just by thinking them out. You won't find them by being good. Nothing wrong being good. But you might have to actually find these precious things, this careless plunging in you, this adventurous one in you, this gay one in you, this happy one in you. You might have to do some searching for that. But what you find is gonna be, I mean, this message is more precious because of the search, maybe because of the sorrow, and mostly because of the deep desire. Okay, I can't resist reading this, I thought not to read it, but it's so, well, it's pre-inspiring. So this is from Thoreau. This is a chapter from a chapter in Walden about what I lived for. The first part I wanna read too, because it has to do with us being Buddhists, believe it or not. The millions are awake enough for physical labor, but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion. Only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life, which by the way is what you have committed yourselves to, in which I hope you recommitting yourselves to every day, a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I've never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I look him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn. Don't you like that? An infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundous sleep. So if you think you can't be inspired, he's saying, "Look, even in your soundous sleep, even in your deepest sleep, the infinite expectation of the dawn, that could do it." I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of every person to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It's up to you, but you have the potential to do it. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful. But it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we do every day. Whether you're aware of it or not, Prateecha Samupada, you're making choices. Those choices are leading you somewhere. Why not make choices that are very deliberate, very conscious, and are going to keep you on a self-generating, inspired, spiritual life? I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live that which was not life. Living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life to cut a broad swath and shave clothes, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it and publish its meanness to the world, or if it were sublime to know it by experience and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. This is about, I mean, it's about living and dying, isn't it, but it's about living deliberately, wanting to suck the full marrow out of life. Okay, here's my last concluding comment. I'm coming back to actually near the end of song with myself. You are asking me questions, and I hear you. I answer that I cannot answer. You must find out for yourself. But sit a while, here are biscuits to eat, and here is milk to drink, but as soon as you sleep and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a goodbye kiss and open the gate for your egress hence. Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams. Now I wash the gum from your eyes. You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and every moment of your life. Long have you timidly waited holding a plank by the shore. Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, to jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair. So although these are all about life and death, I'm gonna just read you a little bit of that again for our campuses. They're about living happily, aren't they? They're about living in a very free, beautiful, ecstatic way. They're bringing this element into your life, not just inspiration for leading a spiritual life, but leading a life that in every atom, every detail is you feeling alive and sharing that aliveness in a self emptying way with other people. I mean, the biscuits and milk are important actually. I'm not gonna read you that part again, but after the biscuits and milk, you get a kiss goodbye. I mean, you know, somebody's caring, somebody's there, but you have to go off, you have to do this. This is leaving home. Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams. Now I wash the gum from your eyes. You're not awake. You must habit yourself, this is really it. This is what I want you to get from this whole talk today. You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and to every moment of your life. Long have you timidly waited, holding a plank by the shore. Now I will you to be a bold swimmer, to jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again and nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair. (upbeat music) We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You
