(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. - So I kind of hope she might say come and talk about death 'cause I find it an easier topic in some ways. I mean, partly because I've had a lot more experience of whacking people who are dying. And actually I've given at least two talks seeing the Manchester centre about death in the past. So one of them was way back, I think at New Open, a series of talks in this centre. So I could have pulled that out of the hat quite easily, but not Surya Kaffan said peace, so. And don't we all? So I thought I'll give it a go. But I thought actually I haven't had a lot of time to think about it. And when I did try and start to think about it, I thought, oh my God. Why did I say I could talk about peace? Because it really is a big question. So I know this series is the big questions, isn't it? Which is such a great, tight and such a great series. And I think partly I went to say yes, 'cause I thought it was such a good idea to have a series looking at these kind of issues and really encouraging people to kind of look at how their Buddhist practice, if they have one, might interface with those big questions. And for those of you that maybe don't have a Buddhist practice, but think about the big questions, maybe offer some insights into what Buddhism might have to offer to the world today. So, but it really is a big question. In fact, it's so many questions. I ended up the other night just with this headache, really thinking how to pull all this together. There's just far too much to talk about. So I feel a little bit daunted. I'll say unusually I feel a little bit daunted. I don't usually feel daunted given talks, but I do a bit today. So I thought I don't have any answers, just like to say that to you before I start. So even though it's a big question, I don't have any big answers, sorry. So you can still get your money back. Well, you probably haven't paid anything yet, but you can still leave if you went to the big answer. What I thought I'd do really is just explore the questions a bit and just talk really a bit from my own experience. So that's mainly what I'm going to do. So I've always went to change the world. For as far back as I can remember, very young, I remember being very aware of what seemed like injustices in the world. I grew up in a very political household. My father was a Communist. He was a member of the Communist Party and he had a lot of people around a lot the time. And there was always a lot of talking about things in her home. Religion and communism. Bit James Joyce, actually, my family. And my dad had these friends. I was listening to Radio 4 the other day and there was somebody talking about Esperanto. Remember Esperanto? Some of you are too young to have probably ever heard the Esperanto, but my dad actually ran the Scottish Esperanto newspaper. And it was really committed to this idea that there was one language that as many nations and races could use to communicate with each other. So I kind of grew up quite politically aware, really. And I went to change the world. So I also got into politics, but I decided communism wasn't far enough left. So I had to look at some of the other alternatives. Now some of you who are of the same generations, you might remember some of those alternatives. And it's I used to sell newspapers at street corners. And I used to harangue people. And I was also a member of CNDs. My father was a member of CND. So I remember going on CND marches. You can remember shouting at people about them being nasty capitalists, that next thing. And looking back, I can see that, actually, if you went to create an ambiance of peace in the world to stand at street corners and scream at people, probably doesn't actually do it. So I realized at some point that I was part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Although I couldn't have articulated it like that at that time, obviously. But looking back, I can see that now. And most of my experience in politics was anger. It was anger-fueled, in a way. And I also realized, looking back, that most of my experience, not just in the political sphere, but really generally was very oppositional. Now, it's partly temperament. I'm partly a bit oppositional by temperament. But also, politics can be quite oppositional. So certainly my experience was very much us and them. It was very much good guys and bad guys. It was very much kind of looking for solidarity. But solidarity was looked outward rather than looking inward. So rather than kind of seeing what Win had in common, it was very much related to difference. And very much looking for an identity that was kind of based on difference, really, rather than similarity. And as I say, I harangued people a lot. I was quite well-known for haranguing people, both people that I knew well and people that I'd never seen in my life before. I was a street corner, haranga. And one of the things as well, looking back-- and at the time I did realise this, actually, was that I had a lot of violence in myself. I grew up in quite a violent environment. Both my immediate environment was quite violent, but also the environment around me was pretty violent. I grew up in a part of Glasgow that was famous for gang warfare. And my cousins were quite high up in some of the local gangs. So I have quite strong memories. Win memory of a bit six years old, getting my cousin running up to me in the street and sticking a knife in my school bag so that if he got caught, he wouldn't be carrying a weapon. So I grew up in an ambience. I don't know if any of you have ever seen any of Jimmy McGovern's stage plays, but I can agree on one of them. So when I first came across Buddhism, it was quite a shock to my system, really. But I'd come to the point to realise and that you couldn't actually change the world without changing yourself. So I had realised that-- you see, I couldn't have articulated it as such, but I did realise that I was part of the problem. And I had such a lot of anger in me, really, such a lot of anger, which was partly to do with external objective things that are so happening around me in a broader sort of world. I remember I don't know what age I was, but I read somewhere that 7% of the population in Britain owned 84% of the goods. And the reason I knew this was because there was a theatre company called the 784 Company, and that was widely chosen, that name. And I was so angry, I wrote to the prime minister. I can't remember who the prime minister was, but they never answered me. I was so cross. And I was decided I was going to become prime minister, and I was always going to answer letters from children. But I didn't become prime minister. I took a slightly different kind of route. But anyway, I was at this point in my life where I could see that you had to change yourself really before you could change the world. I always say this, as some of you might have had this before. I couldn't even change my library books in time. I was a mess. I was part of the sex and drugs and rock and roll generation. So actually, I was too stoned to change the world anyway, even if I had had a decent plan for doing it. And I was in this very strange space. This is 1977, and some of you are very young. And I just, for various reasons, knew I had to change something in my life. And I was sitting, actually, in a pregnancy advisory service office waiting to hear why that I was pregnant, which would have been extremely disruptive to my life. And I wasn't. But while I was sitting there, I was thinking, I've got to change my life. I must change my life. I wasn't pregnant. I walked out like, yes. And I walked out the door, and there was a big poster that said, change your life. I thought, OK, I could give that a go. So this was a poster advertising, a series of taped lectures by Sanger Daxter, the founder of our order of movement. And the talks were called Buddhism for Today and Tomorrow. I thought, oh, well, it might be interesting. So I phoned up the number, and they said, yeah, just come and have your dinner with us and listen to the talk. A bit weird, but anyway, I went off and I did that. And it was amazing, actually, because this talk was a talk called The Blue Print for a New Society, available on Free Buddha Studio. And it had been given in 1976, the year before. And this guy, we're a very strange, some nambulant voice. Is that the right word? That's not what I mean. Some never knows what? Yeah. Put you to sleep. I kind of put you to sleep, sort of a voice, was given this talk. And he said, you can't change the world without changing yourself. But he said, you don't want to change yourself just for its own sake. You change yourself to change the world. I thought, OK, where does sign up? This sounds good. And the reason I mentioned this voice was because it was a bit surrealistic, because it was kind of-- I think, actually, the recording was a bit slow as well. It was a one of those recorders. Do you remember those recorders? No, even I could-- no, I know some of you don't remember. But it wasn't even a cassette. It was a big tape recorder that kind of went round with that. And I think it was a bit slow. I think it was finger-actually even slow. But actually, why, in the same, is completely electrifying. So there's something about this contrast that really hooked me in a way. So I thought I would really give this Buddhism a go. And I'd come across Buddhism before, but that's another story. It's quite an amusing story, but I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to invite me back for another talk. At first time, at the end, I'll tell you. Anyway, the thing that I really liked about Buddhism and when I came across, particularly this movement's approach and way of describing and teaching Buddhism, was that there were methods. There were things you could do. So it wasn't just a case of a philosophy, which in itself was fascinating and interesting. But I liked the fact that there was also a methodology. So that's basically what I want to tell you about today. And I'm aware that some of you are quite new to Buddhism. Some of you maybe don't know anything it's all about Buddhism. And some of you have been at it as long as me. So it's hard to know quite where to pitch. So one of the things I remember hearing about very early, that I was very taken by and have continued to return to again and again, is what's known as the threefold path in Buddhism. So this is a way of describing the spiritual life or describing when spiritual practice. And it's the path of ethics, meditation, and wisdom. Now, the not three separate paths and the not three sequential paths, it's much more a rounded approach to the spiritual life. And all of those aspects need to be there and cultivated and walked with. And there's a bit of a feedback loop between the three of them. But I want to have a look at that. So I'm going to start by having a look at meditation and how that might be a tool that one can use in terms of the cultivation of peace and the changing of the world. So there's a couple of different types of meditation that we teach in all our public centers, at least I hope we do. And one of them is a practice known as the mindfulness of breathing, which is a practice of health and is to develop our awareness. Very soon after I came along, I got a little book of aphorisms of Sangrechta. And one of them said, awareness is revolutionary. And give him a background to quite like that. I liked the idea of something being revolutionary. And the more I thought about this, the more I thought it's absolutely true. To the extent that one was really, truly aware of oneself and really, truly aware of other beings around us, it would be completely revolutionary. You couldn't be exploited nor could you exploit, really, if you were fully aware. If you really knew what it felt like to be in another person's shoes, for example, it would dictate, greatly, how we acted. So I found that really an interesting approach because meditation itself, I must confess, was not what drew me in. In fact, I thought it sounded extremely boring. I was more interested in the kind of ideas, really. And then my friend Damarati, who was teaching in the Grasca but a cent at the time, said, if you're really serious about changing yourself, you've got to meditate. Oh, god, really, I mean, boring, sitting there in a cushion for 40 minutes, you know. And he said, well, give it a try. And I said, well, I have it in the past, given it a try. But it was a different kind of meditation. And anyway, I gave it a try. I was so knocked out by it. It was that you come into something a bit resistant and actually it has a really strong effect on you. And I found that practice actually quite challenging the practice of mindfulness, the breathing. I found quite a difficult practice. And the reason I found it so difficult was because it was to do with inner stillness and inner peace. And it was to do with coming into contact with yourself and coming into an awareness of your own body, your own feelings, your thoughts, your conditioning, who you are. And I found that really challenging. And for all sorts of reasons, I felt very uncomfortable. And I realized just how much anger I was sitting in. So I remember somebody talking about, well, meditation's great. It kind of gives you this inner peace. And although it's not in my head, it doesn't-- my first experiences in meditation were just songs, music, movie scenes. And some of the movie scenes were from movies, and some of them were from my life. And they just played out again and again. And yet, actually, little by little, I did start getting that sense that, actually, there was the possibility of stillness. So people that knew me then-- I mean, actually, people that know me now might find it hard to believe that I was more speedy than I currently am. But I was extremely speedy and kind of all over the place. I've always had a lot of energy, but it was very unkempt. So I really kind of started feeling-- and it was quite physical in a way. This sense that, actually, I could sit by myself and even kind of feel comfortable and start getting a sense-- not only of an inner stillness, but a kind of expansiveness. Strange kind of mixture of a coming in, but a real sense of awareness of what was around me. And a real kind of sense of-- well, sense a bit. But a real sense of kind of oneness, actually, were things a sense of kind of identification, I suppose. And that was also very much from the other practice that we teach, which is a practice called metabarvana, which is the development of loving kindness. And now that I found the really revolutionary practice. So for any of you who haven't ever done that practice, it's a practice in which you learn and to kind of open your heart and feel an empathic identification, a concern for a love of eventually all beings. But we do that in a particular way in which we develop meta, love towards people, towards ourselves, towards somebody close, towards somebody that we don't really know. And then, ha ha, this was the one that I really got me, towards somebody that you have difficulty with, and then spreading it into the whole world. And I just remember thinking, well, why in earth would I feel love towards somebody that I don't like? It's a ridiculous thing to ask you to do. Now, remember arguing with a person teaching the metabarvana and saying, well, why should I? And, you know, mentioning these particular figures that I had known, political figures, that I had no intentions of developing any sense of loving kindness and kind of wish they'd just go in, jump off a cliff somewhere. And, but actually strangely, I found that practice easier in a certain way than the mindfulness of breathing. But those two practices together, an extending awareness, a sense of becoming more and more still, becoming more and more at one way oneself, and this going outwards towards the world, were just such an extraordinary combination and such an extraordinary kind of opportunity, really, to work very directly with what I experienced as mowing in her violence, mowing in her anger. And as I said, I realized that very little in her peace, quite quickly. There's a text called the Bodhichari Avatara, an eighth century Buddhist text, very poetic, but deeply philosophical. And in a particular chapter of that, when Shanti Deva, who's written the text, is talking about the development of patience, he says, one's mind finds no peace, neither enjoys pleasure nor delight, no goes to sleep, no feels secure, while the dart of hatred is stuck in the heart. And I can still remember the first time I read that, there was a different translation, but I can still remember the first time ahead as a reading in a devotional practice. And this dart of hatred in the heart, I felt it physically. I really had this sense that I was carrying around such a lot of that. I'd like to do a wee segue before I carry on here, just to look a little bit of the difference between anger and hatred. Because sometimes I think we get a feeling of anger, and of course, when doesn't mean to act from that anger. But I think sometimes it's worth just thinking that the anger itself, in the sense of an arising feeling, is not necessarily always a bad thing. I think sometimes to block that anger or to somehow suppress the fact that we feel anger towards things, can be quite unhelpful. And it's worth distinguishing between anger as a kind of feeling that arises, a response to something, and the actions that we then engage in. And we can use anger as quite a positive feel sometimes. And I think that's what, before I met Buddhism, I was incapable of doing. My anger did immediately just lead to more anger and rage and fury and hatred. So, I think there's a difference between getting a sense, often a sense of anger does come from seeing something that we feel is unjust, that we feel unhappy with, something that we feel really needs to change, and there can be a positive energy in that. But we need to learn, well, I say we, maybe you don't, but many of us need to learn how to work with that kind of sense of anger when it does come up. I know how to use it to fuel positive action. And a lot of positive actions over the years have been fueled by that initial sense of an anger, injustice of some sort. So, I think it's worth finding ways to work with anger rather than thinking. And I sometimes think, as Buddhist, you know, those of you who do consider yourselves to be full in a Buddhist path, we can sometimes have slightly unrealistic ideas about that and think, oh my God, I shouldn't be angry. I'm a Buddhist, after all. But the actual feeling of anger, in a sense, is often a result of something past. It's not necessarily a cause for something future. So we can feel this sort of emotional heat of something. And there's a gap that we can sit in while we decide what to do with that. And for me, that's very much one of the things that meditation has given me, is an ability to sit in that gap and then act more skillfully, act more in line with my values and my principles, rather than just that kind of heat, anger, rage act that's been meditating for a long time. So it would be a wee bit short and if I didn't have a bit of that. But I think even quite quickly, I realized that meditation could give me that little, just that little edge, that little gap between the feeling arising and then the act. And there are all sorts of ways that we can learn to work with that. So all of this, in a sense, is about the finding of inner peace. It's about a search for inner peace. And for those of you who've come into the center, perhaps through meditation, often that is what people are looking for. Often people are, you know, in this, the world that we live in today and all that for all those reasons, people often feel that they don't have much peace, either in their head or their heart. You know, they kind of feel very full of what they're doing. People often have very stressful lives. There's many, many people come to learn meditation or come into the center because they're meant to learn how to deal with that and find a sense of inner peace. And I think we do have things we can offer that can really help that sense of peace to be developed. But is that enough? Well, I would argue it's not enough, really, that the seeking for inner peace, it cannot be the end of the story. And I think even if we don't mean it to be anything else, to the extent that when does have an inner peace, then we will start having an effect around us anyway. And I've often had this experience of getting into some kind of situation where an argument might arise. I don't mean people, friends. I mean, the person in the post office that shuts the window just as you get to those frustrating moments in life where you just feel frustrated and blocked. And I can feel that sense of being to engage with that in a particular way which is argumentative. And actually feeling how, when I've occasionally fallen into doing that, how it just heats up and it just, you know, escalates. So even in a very immediate sense, if I can approach that, if we can approach those very minor, but sometimes quite frequent situations in life, with that bit more calm and that bit more peace and that bit more kindness, actually it diffuses something, and I'm sure all of us have had that experience, and it does diffuse something, and it does mean that that other person also can get a little bit more space around them, and can actually maybe then not move the chain and to get an angry with somebody else. I'm sure all of us have kind of had that experience. And the point for me of a Buddhist practice is not just to feel better. So for me, the sense of that sense of inner peace can only really be a starting point. So can we really stop hatred and violence in the world? Well, it's a big question. And we don't have, most of us are not going to have the opportunity, probably to work at the kind of level where we're effective on a national or a global level. So it's probably unlikely that most of us are in the sense peacekeepers in a kind of situation where we can actually act in a way that is going to stop a war from happening somewhere, or is actually going to stop some kind of escalation of violence on the planet. Maybe we can do things that do move towards that. But I think even if we just start by thinking, what can we do in our immediate environs, then it does start to have an effect. The Damapada, which is one of the most original, one of the earliest Buddhist texts says, he abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me. In those who harbor such thoughts, hatred is not appeased. He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me. In those who do not harbor such thoughts, hatred is appeased. Hatred never ceases through hatred in this world, through love alone, does it cease? This is an eternal law. So that seems to me to be a very clear statement of intent and a very good piece of advice. And again, I'm sure we probably all had that experience. When we can meet anger and hatred, we'll love. And it's not easy to do, but where we can do that, it does have an effect. We create an ambience. I'm sure most of you remember the photograph of the young girl given a soldier, a flower, facing the barrel of a gun. You know, there's all sorts of images like that where it seems to me not naive to believe that those kinds of things do have an effect. So again, I think the thing about this is it's breaking through this us and them thinking. So when I look back at my own early days, and as I say, my own experience of the world was so positional, it was so us and them. It was so right-wing, left-wing, women and men, gays and straits, sports in English, Celtic and Rangers, for those of you that know glass, wedge and football. You know, and honestly, these things go so deep. They go so deep, these group identifications. Extraordinary. It's only really two world cups ago that I felt okay about England doing well. (audience laughs) And I've been meditating for over 20 years by that time. And I remember sitting in a flat, watching the world cup with some friends, and it was England, and they were doing really well, and I found myself saying, God, they're playing really well. Oh my God, who said that? You know, because in case you don't know, Scots support two football teams at a national level, Scotland and anybody playing against England. And you know, it goes really deep, and it's a laugh, and we can all have a good joke and a laugh about it, and I'll have a laugh about it, and I confess it to all my English friends. But it goes so deep. It really does. It's extraordinary how identified we are, with what really is a complete and utter piece of rubbish, you know, it really is, isn't it? And, oh, you know, Celtic and Rangers. I grew up in a Celtic family, but I don't mind now that Rangers do better sometimes. So practice works. (audience laughs) But this is in them, this kind of identification, you know, if we think about it, it is the root of so many conflicts. You know, why do we defend and only ourselves? Why do I'm defending me? Or am I identifying my group in the face of the other group, whatever that might be at that moment, depending on which particular identification is upwards at that moment? It separates us, it immediately puts us into a possession of, or possession. It immediately polarizes. And where does that kind of polarization, that cannot be pieced, that can only be conflict? Which is not to say we don't identify. There's all sorts of things that we need to positively identify with sometimes before we can move on, you know, or even just to positively identify so that we are proud of who we are. I'm not saying we can't do that, but it's something about when that is only valid, when it's in opposition to the other, and so much of our experience is other, and so much of conflict and lack of peace arises through other identity, you know, that pushing of the other away, or the putting of other inter- particular books. I'm gonna just share a dream with you, if I may. I've got a couple of dreams in here, but I might only bore you, and probably about the early 1980s, I was doing a solitary retreat, and I had a dream, and in this dream, I was singing songs to help the dying, that was my task in the dream. So, this was an adjacardion dream, actually, that I used to have, so I was somewhere, and I was singing whatever song it was, it was gonna help the spirit of people die and to move on to their next, whatever they had to go. So, then it was over Nicaragua, in this particular dream, and I was singing my song, and there was a battle happening, and these spirits were arising, and I was singing to them. Sandinistas are conscious, and if they were Sandinistas, I was happy to sing to them, and if they were conscious, I said, sorry. I'm not happy to sing to you. I woke up, I was so shocked. I mean, I haven't been practicing for very long, I've probably been practicing about five years or something, but it made me realize how my practice of metup really did not cut the mustard. You know, that my practice of metup was still so based on my prejudices. Now, it might be the end of the day, I might analyze something like that, co-infliced in Nicaragua, and have an opinion about it, but this was very different. This was a gut prejudice, it was just prejudice, really. And I was so shocked for myself that, you know, I was, here I was, I'd been practicing five years of metup ovena, and I was already in my eyes a trainee bodhisattva, which I'll explain later, what I mean by that. And there I was thinking, no, sorry, you're, you know, conscious, you're funded by the American CIA, I'm not saying it to you. I was really, really shocked. But again, it made me realize just how deeply these kinds of things go. And it seemed to me that, for the to be any sense of peace in the world, it really needs all of us to be willing to dredge in and see what our prejudices are, and not just act on our knee-jerk reactions. Not just think that, you know, our opinions are actually based on, you know, it's the same, it might at the end of the day, maintain the same opinion. But if that opinion separates me from a whole group of people, even if it separates me from one person, then actually ethically, that is not what I'm trying to do as a practicing Buddhist. And if it separates me from one person, it leaves the seeds of conflict in my heart. So non-violence is very much the basic principle. And the meditation practices that we offer and that we do very much help us to work with those values and work with those principles, to have an ever-increasing sensibility towards other. And the ability to move out towards other, even where other might well be somebody or a group of people whose opinions, whose actions we can or don't want to condone. So we might still feel that, you know, we're not happy to accept somebody's behaviour or somebody's, you know, we might want to challenge somebody's opinions, but really, if we can do that, we'll love. So I mentioned the three-four path. You might remember, it was a while ago. The second part of that we already touched, you know, which is the path of ethics. So we create a world around us. And in Buddhism, we have some very basic presets, which are about a behaviour towards each other. And to the extent we're following those presets, it seems to me that we're creating a world, an ambiance, of love, of generosity, contentment, truthfulness, kindliness, harmony, clarity. We're overcoming those basic poisons. So the presets give us the possibility of creating a world around us, which is much more in harmony, where desire to foster peace. And actually gives us an opportunity to see where conflicts arise. And how do we contribute to that creation of an ambiance of peace and of kindness? And people here will find their own ways of doing that. There's all sorts, you know, for me being a vegetarian is part of that, part of trying to be part of a world that respects life, rather than participating in what seems to me often unnecessary cruelty. But I'd like to particularly just think about speech, because speech is so often where conflict is found, or it's where it expresses itself. And I suspect most of us here are probably not likely to go out and bash somebody in the nose, you know, when we disagree with them. But we might well, in terms of speech, be quite harsh, or be quite, you know, push somebody away through her speech. And speech has been my own challenge in area, you know. Again, as a glass pigeon, we love the one-liner. Can't resist a one-liner. If you know any glass pigeon comics, you'll know that. The one-liner is food for us. But that one-liner is almost all with cynical, and it's almost all, is at somebody else's expense. And again, it's a kind of mindset. It's not necessarily cruel, it's not necessarily that awful. But it does kind of still, sometimes, just bring in an atmosphere that's just a bit, you know, not comfortable. And there's a really, just been a mention, there's a sutta in the Majiminakaya, which is also part of the early Buddhist text, which is really good about speech. So it's sutta called the discourse on non-conflict. Those that like references, I seem to recall it, sutta 139 in the Majiminakaya. If that means nothing to you, don't worry. And in this, the Buddha says something about speech. He says, before you talk to somebody and you say something to them, ask yourself some questions. First of all, is it truthful? So that's a good question. Because so much of what happens and speaks sometimes is I hear something and I repeat it. So when we do that, we sometimes forced a conflict within our community, whether that's the Buddhist community or whether it's whatever community it is, the family, work, you know. So it's always really good to check out if something is truthful before we pass it on. I'm in a possession of getting lots of bits of gossip coming at me. I travel around a lot. I hear lots of things about people. I've had to train myself not to kind of immediately assume that what I'm told is true. And hope, you know, a lot of it isn't true. A lot of it's complete exaggeration and the wrong end of a stick and somebody's had this and then they've added that. So I've learned about that. But anyway, so the Buddha says, is it true? And well, if it is true, is it helpful? Which is a good point as well. So it might be that we even feel something about somebody else and we know it to be true, but is it actually helpful to tell them? Well, we might decide it is helpful. And then the Buddha says, is it the right time to do this? So just a very simple thing that I think can really help to create harmony and work against conflict. Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it the right time? And in therapeutic circles, we talk about the hand and the doorknob moment. I don't know if you know the hand and the doorknob. It's when your client is about to leave and they're opening the door and they say, by the way, my mother tried to kill me when I was six. Bye. And off they go and you're left thinking, OK. And you know, we can have those hand and the doorknob moment. So you're with somebody and you've got something to say. You're having quite managed to say it. And then just as you're leaving, you say, by the way, I really thought that talk you gave last week was rubbish. Bye. Or whatever your particular thing is. So it's really good to think, is this the right moment? Is this really going to be helpful? So all of these kind of things can help us create an ambience of kindness. And maybe it's naive to think that doing that will actually start having an effect outwards. But I do believe it does. I did believe it has a ripple effect. And other things like just learning to apologize. Sometimes it's so hard, isn't it? You know, when you've done something and you know you've done it. Well, I bet you know as you've done it. And there's another bit that's kind of rather stubbornly refusing to recognize that you've done it. But it's so important when we do realize that to be able to apologize. But also, it's important to learn how to accept apologies. There's nothing worse. But maybe there are other things that are worse. But it is painful when you're going to somebody and said, I'm really sorry for that. And they kind of go, yeah, well, you know, well, it was really horrible. And you think, yeah, no, that's why I'm apologizing. And maybe they're not quite ready to accept it. And you just have to kind of live with that really, don't you? But actually, if we can be magnanimous enough to accept apologies when they come to us, I think it really, really has a big effect on the person. It's a learning to forgive, learning to accept apologies. I've got another dream here, but I don't know if I think maybe you've had enough for my dreams. David Lawy in a book called Money Sex War Karma, which is not only a good title, but actually a really good book. Quite recommend it. He says about war, he says, Buddhism offers us a different perspective. In place of this battleground of wills, where good contends against evil, the most important struggle really is the spiritual win, between ignorance and delusion on the wind hand and liberating wisdom on the other. Seeing the world primarily as a war between good and evil is one of our most dangerous delusions. It strikes me as really true, on the kind of national and international global level, that is so true. And I'm sure others of you remember the occasion after the bombing in 9/11, the Twin Towers, and the response of the American government at the time, the administration at the time. And actually, the terminology used by Bush at that point was completely the same as the terminology used by Al Qaeda. It was exactly the same. It was the axis of evil. It was the evil, evil, evil, and the need for a righteous and just response. And it was horrifying. I mean, I remember very strongly sitting and listening to this kind of speech and just thinking. There was no question of how did we get here? There was very little sense of, well, perhaps, conditions have led us to this point, or a sense of what responsibility does a nation have for the conditions that are part and parcel of something like that happening. And it's so easy to just describe blame. And I found in my own head, I knew exactly where my blame was going, not that in any moment, I can do an act of such violence. But at the same time, I found myself thinking, you know, but doing you realize, kind of, you know, what's behind that? I don't realize what else is happening. You know, what are the conditions that have led to that? And it seemed to me such a lovely opportunity for looking at conditionality and causality. And it was missed. It was an opportunity missed, at least by the leaders of nations. It seemed to be. But one of the things that I think did happen around that, and that seems to be continuing to happen, is the belief in people power again. You know, there does seem to be a belief that people can actually demonstrate or can actually make their feelings known. So in some places, that has had very little effect, but I was living in Spain at the time. Actually, later on, many of the things that happened in Spain was, you remember the bombings and the Madrid trains? And there was an immediate assumption that that had been done by ETA, the terrorist group from the north of Spain. And Asinar, who was currently the Prime Minister at that time, the President at that time, just, it was amazing. And I was sitting in my flat watching BBC World, which was saying that they already knew it was an alcada bomb. And the Spanish TV was still saying that this was ETA. And there were mass demonstrations in the street. There were amazing though there were silent demonstrations, which for Spain is an extraordinary phenomenon. Spanish in the whole my years of living, there had never seen a silent anything. And the idea of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people congregating in silence to demonstrate against that. And it overthrew the government. The elections were very soon after that. And the socialist government came in with a massive majority. Now, whether that was good or bad, whether that was a bit of government or not, is not the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is more of that there was actually an action taken, a peaceful action taken by people, which in fact did seem to have an effect. And I think it's important to remember that things can have an effect. Currently in the Valencia Sangha when I was there, you know, there's all these people congregating in the streets at the moment in Spain again. They're in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona. They're sitting in Seville. They're sitting in the main square at the town hall. And they were sent to their running meditations every Sunday. And I went alone in Saap for a while when Sunday in this meditation group. And it's very pretty. The town hall square in Valencia, it's green and quite sort of nice. And they were under a particular tree. And people were coming and joining. And some of the other Buddhist groups were meeting as well. And I think they ended up with about 70 people, certain meditating. And for me, I sat there in point and I suddenly remembered my herringing days when I stood at the corner and shouted and tried to invoke peace by screaming at people. And it was quite moving, actually, just sitting there. There was all sorts of other things going around. And there were speeches happening and talks happening. And there was a band playing. And there were jugglers juggling in between the meditators. And there was a fire-- you know, some do a fire, things. And it was quite something, actually. And just sitting there, I felt a sense of inner peace. And it was really interesting because it wasn't in contrast to what was happening around me. It was in harmony with what was happening around me. And I had this sense that people were just doing what they felt was how they could show what was important to them. And that for 60, 70 people sitting there meditating, this was what was important. And it got a lot of curiosity. And they had a big banner that said hatred never ceases by hatred, only by love. And they had something else in open meditation classes on the hour in another bit of a field somewhere. And it was just very moving, actually, very moving. So I think we can sort of think of things like that, that at least help raise consciousness of another way of being and help raise consciousness of the fact that if one can sit in stillness, then one is creating a different kind of atmosphere. Just going back a bit before I end to this us and them, dichotomy that we still often can get caught in, and which is often the cause of conflicts, whether they're in a small scale or in a big scale. In the Bodhicharya Vittara, which I mentioned before, Shanti Deva says, "Vittya is perpetually ever so feeble, while the power of vice is great and extremely dreadful. If there were no spirit of perfect awakening, what other virtue could overcome this?" So this spirit of perfect awakening is Bodhichitta. It's the heart of the Bodhisattva ideal. The Bodhisattva ideal is a very beautiful and sublime ideal within Buddhism, which says that we don't seek personal liberation, but that our desire to be liberated is a desire to create the conditions for the liberation of all beings. So sometimes described as a leviate in the suffering of all beings. It is that, and that might have practical implications, but it's also a desire to create a world in which liberation is possible, a world in which beings can live not in conflict. And that liberating wisdom that David Loy mentions is also compassion. They're the twin wings, as it were, of liberation, is liberating wisdom and liberating compassion. It's the overcoming of the separation of self and other, that identification with me and mine at the expense of them and theirs. And peace can never be engendered while that identification is still alive. So to end with wisdom, wisdom is peace, because peace is the absence of greed, hatred, and delusion. And for the Buddhist wisdom is not static, it's limitlessly dynamic, it's expansive, it's love, it's compassion, it's clarity. It's a going beyond self and other. It's the true peace, a true peace in our hearts can come only from a deep understanding of the nature of conditioned existence. It can come only from a recognition that nothing in this world is permanent, that nothing lasts forever, and also is the Buddha taught that nothing has separate selfhood. The all phenomena arise in dependence upon conditions, where the cessation of these conditions, the phenomenon cease to exist, the phenomena cease to exist. And that is true of every atom, it's true of you and I, it's true of the universe, it's true of the cosmos, it's true of whatever goes beyond that, that everything arises in dependence upon conditions. And we two are part of those conditions, and the recognizing of that is also a recognizing of our brotherhood, of our fellowship, of our sisterhood, a recognition of the need to break through that separation. Shanti Deva also says, "Although it has many divisions, such as arms and so on, the body is protected as a whole, likewise different beings, with their joys and sorrows, are all equal, like myself, in their yearning for happiness." So in other words, you know, your right hand doesn't go bashing into your left hand. If we can really see the world as made up of interconnected beings, then why would we have an us in them? Why would one being, when group, one nation, really feel the need to dominate another? And I realize I'm running out of time. So I'd like to finish a quote from a talk given by Sanger, actually by our founder and teacher. The talk given in 1983, and some of you might be familiar with this talk, this was an amazing talk. I was there actually when he gave it. It's a talk called Buddhism World Peace and Nuclear War. And he gave it at the opening of our Arts Center in Croydon, in 1983. And I don't know quite why he chose to talk about nuclear war. I can't remember what would have been happening, particularly in 1983. It was preacher Noble. That was 85, if I remember correctly. So I don't know quite what the circumstances were that made him decide to talk about nuclear war. But he did. Some of this is, I think, says a lot about how a inner peace can actually move outwards. But also the responsibility that we have in the world today, that it isn't enough just to sit quietly and feel peaceful when the world is burning around us. So he says, peace has become a seamless garment. And the world has either to wear the whole garment or go naked to destruction. There can no longer be any question of a scrap of peace covering one part of the world's nakedness and not another. Since peace is indivisible, the stark choice before us is either world peace or no peace, one world or no world. We shall be able to achieve peace only if we realize that humanity too is indivisible. And if we consistently act upon that realization, we must identify ourselves more closely with all living beings and love them with an ardent and selfless love. We must be a louder and clearer voice of compassion and sanity in the world. Above all, we must intensify our commitment to the great ethical and spiritual principle of nonviolence, both in respect to relations between individuals and relations between groups. And then he says, and remember, this is 1983. So just maybe ask yourself, have things got better. He says, the situation in which we find ourselves today is dangerous in the extreme. Perhaps more dangerous for humanity than at any other period in history. Time is running out. Why do we shall be able to achieve world peace and avert nuclear war? We do not know. We can but do our best in a situation which to a great extent is not of our own personal making. Now, I think that bit of the end is quite interesting because sometimes we do our best, and yet bad things happen. And I think one of the things that's important is to act locally, even though we think globally, if I can steal a phrase from Friends of the F, I think it is. To the extent that we can start to create those ambiances, those atmospheres of kindness and compassion around us, we need to believe that that can have an effect. And we can be revolutionaries for peace. There can be a peace for revolution. It starts where revolution of the mind and the heart, and it starts where revolution of the individual. But it's also important that individuals find other individuals with whom to create the revolution. I'm a great believer that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. And those of us living, working, and really having a desire to create a better world, need to find others who are also acting in that way, whatever we find them, and unite with them. I suggest, if you're interested in the idea of a peaceful revolution, a book by Nagabodi called Jai Bim, Dispatches from a Peaceful Revolution, which is about the Ambedkarite community in India, with whom we have very strong and deep connections. And there's a part in that where Nagabodi says-- oh, he talks about Dr. Ambedkar's-- he calls Dr. Ambedkar saying, if I had picked up arms, we would have had a mess in the country in five years. So he recognized that really the only way to put out the fires of the suffering that was happening to the Dalit class with whom he was working was to find another way, a revolution of the mind, a revolution of the heart. The world is on fire. There are conflicts. Perhaps there will never be complete world peace. Perhaps there will never even be peace in a more local sense. Perhaps there will always be conflict. Because as the Buddha said, the nature of human beings, unless we walk with that, is that we are admired in the poisons of Greek hatred and delusion. Well, Greek hatred and delusion are going to find expression. And these days, that expression is global. That expression is not just local. It's global. It's institutionalized. And they're for very, very hard to come back. But I do believe-- do I'm starting to sound like a preacher? I do believe. I do. I do. I actually do believe that the revolution that might happen in our own hearts and minds, when we come together with others in a community who also want to create a revolution, that however little peace we can bring around us is still peace. And it still puts something in the balance. And therefore, it's worth doing. So even if we don't see an end result, which is the absolute ending of all word and conflict, I still think it's better to put an end to the wars in our own hearts, the wars in our own family, the wars in our own street, the wars in our own nation to the extent that we can. And I do hope that for those of you with the Buddhist path, this might just help you think of ways that you can really take that on board. And those of you who are interested and curious about Buddhism, I hope maybe you'll find something in what I've said and something in what's an offer here in the center and out of the centers that will help, even if it's just a little drop in the ocean. But as somebody when said, the ocean is made up of drops. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
