(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, are you sitting comfortably? (laughing) (laughing) - Exactly. When's the point of time? There was a Jedi Knight. (laughing) And the Jedi Knight asked his great master, why is the power of darkness so much stronger than the power of light? And the Jedi master said it's no stronger. It's faster, easier and more seductive. That's the story for today. (laughing) - "Buddhi Chariavatara in the seventh century." Shanti Deva said, "The power of evil is exceedingly strong and the power of good is weak. If it were not for the awakening mind, how could evil ever be overcome?" So just hold those two quotes. A Jedi warrior and a warrior for the Dharma in the seventh century. So the awakening mind that Shanti Deva talks about, the awakening mind which can overcome is the only thing that can really overcome. Not so much overcome evil has overcome the dichotomy between evil and good. Is the body heart, it's the awakened heart of the awakened mind. It's a translation of "Buddhi Chittar." So "Buddhi Chittar" is a term that we often find, where we find very centrally to certain schools of Buddhism. So sometimes translated as the thought of enlightenment, the "Buddhi Chittar" but thought is a very weak translation for Chittar, Chittar's mind or heart. In fact, it's mind and heart together. So it's volition, Chittar's volition. So it's the volition towards awakening and the awakened heart that results from that volition. And it's an awakened heart which is awake to all beings and awake to the needs and the cries of all beings. So I'm going to come back to that, to "Buddhi Chittar." "Buddhi Chittar" is the very heart of what's known as the Bodhisattva ideal, the wonderful and sublime ideal that's central to Mahayana Buddhism which is the whole kind of thrust of Buddhism in which personal practice is not only in terms of when's personal, it's not only a method of personal development, but it's also an orientation of life towards interconnectedness and towards working in the service of all beings. So I'd like to, what I'm going to explore really this morning as a very important background to the work that we connect is the whole idea of interconnectedness. So we bandied the term around quite a lot and I'm sure we all have a felt sense of what we mean by that. We've all had an experience, I'm sure, of interconnectedness. But what I'm going to do this morning is maybe unpack that term and at least share what it means for me and just, you know, hopefully bring that into relationship in a way that might be useful and helpful for people. So I thought, first of all, I'll just tell you another little bit about my history, my history. You know, I said the other day that now I've got five planets in Liyo, I think I'm the most fascinating thing in the universe, I was Liyo's 10, too. (audience laughing) And strangely enough, I'm an extrovert with all that, so. But more seriously, I often think when I hear other people talk about their own particular history of how Buddhism's affected them or how they've come across it or whatever, I find it quite deeply moving. Maybe it's what Sophia was saying this morning about speaking from that very deep and real place and ourselves quaking, as it were, where they needed to share and the need to hear. And, yeah, I feel as if I could, maybe I could be in a 12-step program just now, you know, I could just say to you, "My name's Paremy, and I'm an ego-holic." (audience laughing) "My name's Paremy, and I'm a sung-sada-holic." And, yeah, and I'm working with that. So, speaking from that, I'll tell you my story, as we do sometimes in such meetings. So, I won't give you the whole good details, but there was one spoon at a time. I was walking up Saki Hall Street. So, I was walking down a flight of stairs into Saki Hall Street. And I'd been sitting for about the previous 20 minutes, thinking I must change my life. I really must change my life. My life is full and apart. I must change my life. So, I was 25 years of age. It was very recently. (audience laughing) It was in 1977, and I'll leave you to do the math. So, I was thinking I really must change my life. And I walked down this flight of stairs into Saki Hall Street, and saw a poster which said, "Change your life." Okay, I thought. Not being able to turn my back on the messages of the universe. I rang the telephone number at the bottom, and it was the gospel Buddhism. And it was advertising a series of taped lectures by Sanger to call Buddhism for today and tomorrow. So, I'd already come across a bit of Buddhism. Most famously, the Tibetan Book of the Dead read to me while I was on acid in local home and beach. (audience laughing) With one of my first encounters with Buddhism. So, that had been some years previously. And so, there I was, 1977. Quite deeply disillusioned by a lot of things in my life. Disillusioned by relationships. Disillusioned by politics. Disillusioned by education. Disillusioned by career. Disillusioned, and this was the hard one. Disillusioned by sex and drugs and rock and roll. You know, there was... Yeah. I meant to change my life. And I went and listened to this tape lecture given by Sanger, actually. A couple of years I made it a year before. He'd given this series of four talks called Buddhism for today and tomorrow. So, what I meant to do is read you a quote from one of those talks. I can't remember if this was the very first or perhaps the second of the tape lecture that I have. So, it was a talk called the blueprint for a new world. So, I was quite interested in this idea of the blueprint for a new world. And there I was, and I sat and I listened to this. This is a little quote from that talk. And Bante Sanger actually was talking about how there are two different views, kind of polarized views in how to change, around how to change, he says. The first view that we must change the system is generally regarded as the secular view, not to say the materialistic view. And the second that we must change ourselves is generally regarded as the spiritual view. Personally, I cannot agree with either view completely. In fact, they are not really mutually exclusive. Spiritual movements, especially those of Eastern origin, those who trace their wisdom from the wisdom of the East, trace their descent from the wisdom of the East, are generally expected to adult the second view, that is the spiritual view. The view that we must change ourselves, improve ourselves, and then everything will be all right. The world almost automatically will be a better and a happier place. But the FWBO does not share this view. In the FWBO, we certainly are concerned with the development of the individual. We regard this as absolutely crucial, fundamental. Even where the question of transforming the world into a spiritual community is concerned. But at the same time, we do recognize that external conditions can and do help or hinder. So this was my first introduction to the thought of Sangerajta. And I was completely knocked out by it actually, because what he seemed to be saying, and what he said in the other talks in the same series, and the discussions with the older members that happened, was that if we changed ourselves, we could also work on the world. And if we worked on the world, we could work in ourselves. So there's something about this dichotomy that just wasn't so relevant, as I think I had previously thought it to be. Having spent a long time trying to change the system and realizing, apologies to the heaviness of this before, but realizing I couldn't even change my library books and time well and change the system, that I realized that I had some work to do and mowing kind of personal practice. But I never felt like I went to give up the idea change in the world. So something about just him, it was also very funny, 'cause those of you that have heard, thank you actually, his voice can be a little so niferous. (audience laughing) And yet what he was saying, I felt was completely waking me up. So it was a very strange kind combination and very impounding, are we, for me, because I could feel myself kind of listening to this. ♪ English, slow ♪ Whereas I was used to kind of, you know, a rather more aggressive approach to my discussions. And yet at the same time, what he was actually saying was having this quite electrifying effect with me. So it was very powerful. And yeah, the discussions were the order members, I looked back and I do feel a bit for them, because I'd come from a very particular background, had very particular way of asking questions, which I think some of them found a little threatening at time. Anyway, fortunately they stuck with me and I stuck with them and here I am. And then straight after that, I had a series of tape lectures called the "Buddy Sat Videal", which we listened to and my first retreat. And again, I was completely knocked out by that series. And again, something about, I remember in that I almost fell asleep in every talk, it was in a retreat and we were listening to these talks and I think it might have been the afternoon. And I remember kind of it almost every day kind of lying about it, kind of a bit like that. And yet actually the material was so incredibly inspiring and electrifying, so it's quite strong. And for me, I suppose since then, that was 1977, early '78, that "Buddy Sat Videal" has, to the extent that I've been able to hold it in my heart, been my driving force, really. I feel it's been my northern staff, the northern staff in my practice. So when, you know, obviously I go off in other directions, sometimes that's been what's brought me back to my practice and my path. And the heart of that "Buddy Sat Videal" for me is the idea of interconnectedness. So I said I went to unpack that a little bit for you. I think we can think of interconnectedness in three different ways, which is what's different ways to think of it, but I'd like to share three particular ways that I've been thinking about interconnectedness. So when's more cognitive or even metaphysical? When's more emotional, although perhaps volition is a better term, and the other is more engaged, and it's the sphere of ethics? So I'd like to look a little bit about how interconnectedness can, how we could look at it under those three kind of headings. So cognitively or philosophically speaking, it's the very heart of Buddhism, really. So the Buddha in his enlightenment had an experience. He awoke to an experience. Going even further back, when the Buddha set off in his quest to look for an answer to his experience of seeing the suffering of the world, before he remembered an experience that he had as a child. Do you remember two experiences, actually, one of them came a bit later. Before he went off in his quest, he remembered watching a plowman, his father had land, and he remembered watching a plowman taking a plow through the earth and upturning, along with the earth, upturning the insects and the little creatures that actually lived in the earth. A bit like that buns pulling, a bit loose, having its views kind of upturned. The Buddha to be is quite a young man, just looked, and he saw these creatures being this insect life, just saw them all being upturned and losing everything in just that simple act of the plow. And he realized that all beings were like that, that all beings were chugged by the plow of conditioned existence, and that that was dukkha, that that was suffering, inevitably, however good life might be. Dukkha exists, conditioned existence, just throws you up again and again, whereas the plow moves through your life. So he went off in his quest, and when he finally, as it were, attained Buddhahood under the body tree, it was an experience. As far as we can tell, and as far as I can understand, it wasn't a cognitive. He didn't, in the moment of enlightenment, necessarily formulated cognitively. It was, it would seem, more of a felt experience, of a realization, a realization that went so deep into it, being it changed him completely, from human to something human and more. And I can't remember the word that she used. I can't remember the word. I can translate it as compassion, but it really means to shake with, or to vibrate with. And his experience, he talks of that experience, he vibrated with everybody living being in that moment. There was no barrier between him and the whole of existence. He just shook, he coaked, he vibrated with all beings. And in that realization, he realized the dissolution of the barriers between self and other, between him and between all of conditioned existence. And he had a vision in which he saw how things arise and fall away. So of course that was then cognitively expressed in his teaching. I mean, I really don't know how to tell, but my impression is that in the moment, it was more of an experience, which he then in time made sense of and expressed and shared through particular conceptual formulation, formula. So the most basic description of that experience when he did come to teach it, was the law of conditionality, or the law of conditioned co-production. So sometimes we talk to his first teaching was of the Four Noble Truths. Of course, it was of the Four Noble Truths. But the Four Noble Truths, in fact, is an expression of the law of conditionality, an expression of causality. So the underlying principle of the Buddha's experience, the underlying principle, when he came to describe that experience, was the law of conditionality. It was conditioned co-production. Paticha Samad Pada. And that teaching states that all phenomena, all things arise in dependence upon conditions. And with the cessation of those conditions, the phenomena cease to exist. So the Four Noble Truths is exactly that. We have something, we have suffering, we have its cause, we have its cessation, and we have a method to take us to that cessation. So the Four Noble Truths, Buddha's first expression of that teaching, interestingly addressed the human condition in a very accessible way. Very much people's life experience. You know, I think Sanger actually gave a little paper, years and years ago called something like, why Buddhism starts with suffering. And that little talk he gave in India. And he talks there about how people understand that. You know, it's very real. We all of us know what Dukhah is. As soon as Dukhah's pointed out to us, we can think, ah, yeah. We have one of those kind of, ah-ha, kind of experiences. So he starts with that. But in fact, those Four Noble Truths are an expression for a manifestation of that underlying principle of cause and effect, of causality. So the law, if you like, and by law, I mean the nature of something, the law of conditionality, the nature of condition existence is that it arises in dependence conditions, with the cessation of those conditions, the phenomena in CCS2XR. Independence puts this, that arises, with the cessation of this, that CCS2XR. Very fundamental, very basic law. Another way of looking at that, another way that's kind of maybe a little bit more accessible is to think in terms of what the Buddha talked of the three marks of conditioned existence. So conditioned existence has three characteristics. There's some teachings that has four characteristics. I'm gonna concentrate on the three, known as the three likes. And so the three marks of conditioned existence. So all conditioned phenomenon from the smallest, most finite, to the largest, seemingly infinite, have three characteristics. They're impermanent, they're insubstantial, and they are subjected to dissatisfaction and suffering. So just to be illustration of that, which many of you have had me use before in talks, but I do find it quite helpful. We have unpacked this teaching. So if I just ask you to imagine a leaf, plenty of them out there, a leaf upon a tree. So we imagine a leaf, and I say the word leaf. We can all of us have a memory of a leaf. Some of us are more visual and we might be able to see a leaf if we close our eyes. Some of us are more, you know, not quite so visual, but we might remember going for a walk and picking up a leaf. And if we really start clicking, just actually look out the window 'cause there's loads of them out there and see a leaf. And when we imagine the seed, remember that leaf, we imagine it as something which has substance, which has existence in a way. Of course it has existence, we can see it as existence. But the Buddha's analysis of that is the existence is not quite as we think it is. We see the leaf and we imagine it to have some inherent, substance, some inherent leafness, if you like. But actually, if we think about the leaf, the leaf comes into being, they're a particular point, because the conditions are right for it to come into being. So the sap rises, the weather's been okay. It's had whatever it's needed. The trees had whatever it's needed to be able to give Beth to a leaf, so to speak. The leaf appears, it appears in a particular form. It's small, it's probably quite closed up. It might be white in color, it might be a bit funny. It's, you know, it has a particular texture, shape, form, weight, color, et cetera. Time passes and the conditions change and the leaf changes. So it opens, it goes from being white to being green. It's shape changes, it's weight changes, it's texture changes. Time passes, the conditions change and the leaf changes. So it becomes brown rather than green, it becomes gold. It becomes, there's wonderful autumn colors that we can see at the moment. And it's texture changes. It might be soaking wet 'cause it's lying in the rain, but if it's dry, it becomes crisp and it becomes powdery to the touch rather than smooth to the touch. So everything in that leaf has changed. As the times move down and as the conditions have changed. So where does the leaf in all that? Well, according to the Buddhist analysis, not only is that leaf impermanent, which is fairly easy to take in. It started, it grew, it stopped. It was boring, it went, it died, point taken. But the Buddhist analysis goes ever so much deeper than that and it says, well, not only is it that that leaf is impermanent, but there is no thing called leaf which we can take hold of. There are only the characteristics that have gone together. There are only the conditions that have come together. There are only what's known as the attributes rather than an essence to that leaf. So the color, the shape, the form and the very changing phenomenon itself is the leaf. The change is the leaf. And we look at the leaf and of course, we don't see it like that. We might see the change. We might be able to see the particularities of the change. But generally speaking, we fix every single instant of that leaf into something solid and something which has independent existence. In this teaching, this teaching which says that the leaf has no independent existence, but arises in dependence between all these conditions and characteristics is formed of all these conditions and characteristics. And as those conditions and characteristics change, the leaf ceases to be, as it was. That is the teaching of shunya ta. That is the teaching of emptiness. Sometimes you could read these terribly laminated tones, the whole school. There's a whole corpus of literature based on emptiness that goes from a one syllable teaching to a hundred thousand lines. They all say the same thing in different ways. They say the leaf has no independent existence. You, I, the universe, as we know it, has no independent existence. That's what that teaching of emptiness is saying. Now we read that sometimes, and maybe you haven't yet come across this. If you carry on exploring Buddhism, at some point you will. And people come across it and they think, "Oh my God, emptiness!" Clinging into the chair a bit, 'cause I am. And certainly it can seem like the great, big kind of big bang going backwards or something, you know, the sort of very nihilistic, very, it's saying that there's nothing, there's nothing there so it's just empty, it's a big black hole. That is not what my understanding of the teaching of emptiness. For me the teaching of emptiness, and at least I sometimes get glimpses of this, it's hilarious, it's wonderful and it's joyful, because what it's saying is that everything changes, everything moves, everything's alive and full of life. So it isn't that the leaf doesn't exist or that you don't exist or that I don't exist. Of course we have existence, but we have existence of a different nature to the nature that we usually ascribe to early existence. If you see what I mean. We fix early experience, we make a mistake. I think Sangha actually says somewhere, something like the ego is just one big mistake. You know, it's true, that's all it is really, it's just a big mistake, it's now that we don't exist. It's that we fix that existence and we understand it in a way that isn't actually in harmony with the reality described by the Buddha. The Buddha's reality is that everything changes, the independence, pun conditions, the rise of phenomenon, the change in those conditions, the cessation of those conditions, that phenomenon ceases to be. So it isn't that in the existence, in the moment there is no existence, but it's not the kind of fixed, independent existence that we think it is. So that's the kind of philosophical or metaphysical underpinning of interconnectedness. If we think that everything arises in dependence, pun conditions, and if we think that everything is part of those conditions, everything is part of the conditions that give rise, we come together in a great dance of life, we come together in a great web of life that arises, exists and falls and has an effect. So at this moment, of course, you all exist. However, your existence is contingent and no absolute. That's the Buddhist teaching. Our existence is not independent of, you know, we don't just somehow have inherent existence that comes into being in some strange and miraculous way and then disappears again, but we actually arise, we come in to be in, and we, at some point, as we know it will cease to be. So that's the kind of philosophical heart, if you like, of interconnectedness. Now, I think when I really get a sense of that, sometimes in meditation, sometimes in all sorts of different ways, sometimes sitting in silence and hear somebody speak. And as they speak, I'm touched so deeply, it's as though my own voice is speaking. I know sorts of ways I can have a sense of that. I can sometimes really have a sense in meditation or sometimes after meditation. I've really known in quite a serious and deep level that that truly really is no different from me from a certain point of view, but it is made of something similar. Of course, it's different, but that it's all part and parcel of this horizon and fallen, arise and fallen. So in a way, then maybe we can come into contact with the more emotional or volitional aspects. I've just realised I didn't mention the said mark of conditioned existence, which is, of course, dukkha or unsatisfactoryness. And of course, that happens because we don't manage to live in harmony with insubstantiality and impermanence. And sometimes there's nothing up with conditioned existence, really. Conditioned existence is just conditioned existence, you know? It's no out to get us. However, because we don't easily live in harmony with those truths, it does feel sometimes like it is out to get us. We don't get what we win and we get what we don't win. Well, we do get what we win and then we're terrified that we lose it anyway, you know? Or we get what we win and actually it wasn't what we win to. We get what we win and we discover that as getting what we rented meant that somebody else has not got what they rented. We come together as well as a great web of life and beauty and wonder. We did come together in a web of unsatisfactory. (laughing) Joined in the hip by unsatisfactoryness. So, yeah. So that's what dukkha comes in, if you like. That's where suffering comes in. That's where unsatisfactoryness comes in. You know, again, you read these things about Buddhism and certainly when I first came across Buddhism, I'm an avid reader. I read everything that I could get my hands on and, you know, the first flush of whatever and didn't understand a lot so of it, but got right into it, you know, irritated everybody or the older members that I could come across by asking them, "Gris!" (laughing) Right, to sign your action. When you said, actually, it wasn't like that, was it? It was like, "When you said..." (laughing) Anyway, what was I gonna say? Yeah, so then you read things and it says, "Well, you know, the first truth of Buddhism "is that life is suffering." You say, "I'm caught in the door." He's a break, it's really much of that, you know. And I suppose it takes a while to kind of really come into relationship with that and see that it's only suffering because we've not actually really live in life, because we're constantly trying to fix it and some kind of way and hold onto it and pull it towards us to kind of shore up that real, we insecure, kind of feeling that we have, push away everything that threatens it, drag in everything that shows it up. So of course, how can we suffer? How can we know, you know? We really do cause conditions for our own suffering. So, in a way, as we do realise that, in fact, the kind of response, if we can really come to that and this is where met is so important. You know, loving kindness, a real robust sense of care and love and kind of kindness is so important. 'Cause I think if we come across this, you know, and we have a little bit of a sense as to how we realise that life and reality is not quite what we thought it was, it can be very kind of challenging. And I think if we can come at it if you like, we're full heart, a heart full of meta, then the natural response to that is, in fact, compassion. Compassion for ourselves, what feels we are. Compassion for other beings as we see them again and again and again creating the conditions for their own suffering. As we see ourselves again and again and again, seemingly noteworthy from life's hard knocks. So, we've moved into, if you like, the more volitionally, emotional component of interconnectedness. As we really see, as we really get in touch and have that feeling of being in connection with other beings, it's almost as though our heart opens to not only the joy and the beauty of that truth, but also opens to that truth that we don't usually experience that interconnectedness. We feel the absence. We feel the separateness. And the response to that, if we really in touch with meta, is compassion. So, I wanted to very briefly say- - I do repeat the last sentence. - Probably not. (audience laughing) Shouldn't think so. It was something about compassion. (audience laughing) - Absence, yeah, makes the heart go on. (audience laughing) And then that is probably a teaching. So, yeah. So interconnectedness, from interconnectedness, arises compassion, is what I said. Briefly meant to look at three levels of compassion. I'm in list mode this morning. So, three levels of compassion that you might find in Buddhism. So, first of all, there's what we could just call situational compassion, which actually isn't called that in the text, it's called something about episodic. But that always makes me think of the West Wing. Seadial, seadial compassion. (audience laughing) But I think situational compassion is possibly a way in. So, this is compassion, which just arises because we're faced with suffering. So, it's kind of quite straightforward. It comes from the basis of, again, a heartfelt meta. We have some sense of loving kindness. We might know be what we always experience in every moment of every day of our life. But, yeah, we do, we do. And I don't think you need to have done the meta, but I've been a practice to have that. I think it's a human quality of solidarity and a human quality of care and love and kindness. However, doing the meta, but I can really hone it. It can really sort of give you the tool for it. I'm a great fan of the meta, but I'm myself. Anyway, through that, we come in contact with suffering. We see suffering and we're able to respond to it. So, it's situational, it's dependent on the situation as it arises. And that is a wonderful level of compassion. That is compassion, you know, when we can feel that and it's true compassion and we can act on the basis of it, then that is a wonderful thing. But then there is a level of compassion that's deeper than that. And that compassion, which kind of goes a bit beyond just the response, and it comes from a more deeply rooted place in ourselves. And this comes from that understanding of impermanence and insubstantiality. It comes from an understanding of what Dukkha is. So, the more we understand Dukkha, the more we can respond, we're compassionate response rather than horrified anxiety or terror or numbness. So, back to the heart that stays asleep. As we really come into contact with impermanence and insubstantiality, that starts to kind of molders in some way. As the experience starts to be shaped and shifted by that, then in a way what can happen is rather than the numbness, rather than the sleep, we can start to wait. We can really feel a heartbeat. And we can feel how that heartbeat is in harmony and in tune with a heartbeat of every single being, with a whole planet, with a whole world. It's as though I've borrowed this heartbeat for the course of my life, however many years more I have. I've had it now for 50 or years. Hope they have it for a few more. But I've borrowed it, but I think it's mine. I've made this big mistake in thinking that I own that heartbeat. But that heartbeat is the heartbeat of life itself, which temporarily I manifest. And hopefully I do it as much justice and respect as I can. That's my task in life. So, for the time being, I have this heartbeat, which is not my heartbeat, it's your heartbeat, and it's the heartbeat of the whole universe. Manifesting temporarily in me. And in this level of compassion, where we really do realise that there is no separation, one of the shifts that happens in this level of compassion is that we don't divide the world into doer and done to. So, we don't only identify, if you like, with the sufferer of whatever violence or, you know, whatever the particular suffering is coming from. But we also are able to feel a strong, real compassion for the doer, the perpetrator. We still see the world in that divided way, but we manage somehow to have a heart that's big enough. Which doesn't mean we can do in the actions. Of course not, and it doesn't mean we don't act when we say a need to act. But what it does mean is that we manage to find ways of actually being big enough to stay in relation. There's a wonderful tick-net-hand poem, which some of you know, which is called, "Call Me By My True Names." And in that he talks about identifying imaginatively with a person who suffers, and the creator of that suffering. And in a way, this is moving us into quite a deep level of compassion. I'll just tell you, quickly, a little dream. I had to, some of you have heard this before. It was a bit meta, but it was kind of compassion for me. So, this was years ago, I was on a solitary retreat. And I had this dream that one of my tasks in life was to sing songs for the dying. So then I was, and I would be whatever I was needed. I would just go whatever I was needed. And I would sing this song, which would guide the souls. OK, I know, I'm a Buddhist, but soul. Take that poetically. I would guide the spirit of the dying to whatever they needed to go. So then I was above Nicaragua in this dream. And the souls, there was a battle happening. This must have been in the mid '80s. There was a battle happening. And as these, whatever, spirit, conscious and soul, entities were coming towards me, I was singing. Sandinista or Concha? [LAUGHTER] And if they were Sandinistas, I would then sing them to their next whatever. And if they were Conchos, I'm afraid I turned my back according to them. And I walk out of this dream really quite deeply shocked, because I realized how very conditioned my responses of meta and compassion really were. And in a way, I didn't get myself a very hard time about it. I thought it was kind and natural. And in a way, even amusingly understandable. But I felt deeply, deeply uncomfortable without a response. I did not want that to be my response. I didn't want to go through my life, dividing the world into those that I felt for and those that I felt again. So I think that's been quite a practice for me. And it times I manage it, and lots of times I don't. But it's something that I do hold as an ideal. And this level of compassion we were unable to reach it, I think we'd really be able to feel that same level of compassion, while still acting against injustice, against what we see as behavior that causes suffering. But nevertheless, still somehow holding their heart open to the doer, as well as to the doner too. And then the very deepest level of compassion, my hakara and my hak compassion, has completely broken through that distinction and is just the compassionate heart beating in the world. So those are the levels of compassion. And for most of us, most of the time, we're going to walk somewhere between situational compassion, responding when we see something. And again, now and again, having a sense of that bigness and that really being able to be a bit beyond kind of own responses and eroding likes and dislikes and just feeling in touch with that sense of the need for compassion. And of course, as I say, it comes from a real understanding of impermanence and suffering, because we're able to see that the doer of the deed is in some way that we probably cannot understand and we'll get our head really nipped if we try and understand it, is causing their own future suffering. I say that because sometimes I look at people who seem to be very cruel and not very nice and they seem to have the way for railway. And I look at people who seem to me to be people who are very kind and generous and they seem to have such a hard thing. So at some point somewhere along the lane, I just have to think, okay, I don't understand that. I still believe very deeply in the law of conditionality and I just don't understand it. And I really do it meant to have a simplistic response to it and think, well, if somebody's having a hard time, it's because they've done something to deserve it. I do not accept that view of karma. I think it's much, much, much more sophisticated and complicated than that and beyond my kin. However, I do have a sense that somebody who is in some way acting and causing suffering to others is not happy and is causing... It is planting the seeds of future suffering. And I try not to think I hope so anyway. (all laughing) I wouldn't be very nice. So I'd like to briefly move on to ethics. I said I'd like to look at interconnectedness in the realm of ethics. So in a way, this is kind of where, this is for me, the edge, the cutting edge of engaged Buddhism would be around looking at ethical practice. How does my ethics as a Buddhist practitioner, how does that interplay in the world? How does that engage with the world? It's not, you know, I do it meant to practice loving kindness just so that I feel better. I mean, I'd like to feel better and enjoy feeling better and it's really not what interests them motivates me to be honest. You know, it's good. It's a good by-product. But actually, I'm much more interested in how I can ethically kind of live in a way that has value for me and has meaning for me. And I kind of trust that when that happens, I do in fact feel good. So that's nice. Anyway, just because I've mentioned engaged Buddhism the other day, I thought I'd just share with you the definition of engaged Buddhism according to the International Network of Engaged Buddhist. So they say, engaged Buddhism is engagement in caving and service in social and environmental protests and analysis, in non-violence as a creative way of overcoming conflict and in right livelihood and other initiatives which prefigure a society of the future. It also engages with a variety of contemporary and often controversial concerns of relevance to an evolving Buddhism. Engaged Buddhism combines the cultivation of inner peace with active social compassion in a mutually supportive and enriching practice. So for me, I'll quite like that as a definition. Because I think sometimes, within the order in the movement, talk about engaged Buddhism and people say to me sometimes, oh, I don't want to go in protest marches. I think fair enough, don't go, I do have a problem where you're not going in a protest march. I might go, because I quite enjoy them. But I don't mind other people not going in there. And there's something about what does engaged Buddhism really mean. We don't have to pick up the flag and go to the barriers and the barricades, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, even though some of us might choose that as a way of working. But it is much more to do for me with this analysis of what's actually happening, the world and finding a way of engaging with that that works for us. And it is actually alive for us. And to engage in initiatives which prefigure a society of the future, what that means, for me, I suppose, really, is a society based on the ethics and the values that have meaning. And actually, I think probably what it comes down to is, if I may say so, love. At the end of the day, that's kind of what it comes down to. So I'm just going to talk a wee bit about ethics, because I think I'm very interested. So in a sense, Buddhism doesn't have a great metaphysics of ethics. Buddhist ethics is practice, it's practice, really. Think about the best known lists of Buddhist ethical suggestions or guidelines, the Vinaya. The Vinaya arose in response to behavior. So something that happened within the community and it would become obvious that that had caused some problem and then a rule would come. That's a very simplistic way of looking at the Vinaya, but it is a way of looking at it. And in more contemporary terms, there are lots of lists of precepts. Most Buddhists will follow or be interested in living their life according to at least the five basic precepts, which we chant in the morning. So ways of actually living were non-violence, not taking what's not given to us, living in contentment, living truthfully, and living in a way in which we don't intoxicate our mind, heart, and body. So those five quite basic kind of principles. Buddhist ethics is practical. It's a mind-based ethics, but it's actually also a practical ethics. It's to do the engagement with the world. It's to do with energy coming out of values in a way enacted in the world. Unlike Western ethical or moral philosophy, which has hugely-- it's got all sorts of channels and ways of describing ethics, et cetera. The three main ways in the West of looking at ethics, philosophically speaking, which are Kantian ethics, utility in ethics, and Aristotleian ethics. I would like to say a little bit about that, because I think it's kind of quite interesting. So ethics, as Kant described it, is a kind of ethics in which we look backwards for the reasons for our behavior. It's put us incredibly simply because it's only a little tiny, tiny bit in my talk. But it's ontological. It looks backwards, and it's jutty-bound in a sense. Kantian ethics. And that's not a negative thing. It's based on responsibility and duty. So if I am going to pay a Cooper back the five pounds that I borrowed off from, because I made a promise to you, actually, this is just an example. I have not borrowed five pounds. It's because I don't get excited. You are not getting five pounds. But had I borrowed five pounds from a Cooper, and I'd said to him at that moment, I will give you that five pounds back by next Thursday, then I would be duty-bound to give you-- as an ethical being, I would give you that five pounds back next Thursday, because that was a promise that I made. So it's based on a past promise, if you like. I'm morally obliged because of previous decisions to act in a particular way. Utilitarian ethics, which has mainly been some in mills, is more future looking. It's more dependent. The consequences is what interests the utilitarian. So I will give him back his five pounds, because he would benefit from having that five pounds back in his pocket. And I would benefit from having acted in an ethical way, so I would therefore be a more ethical person. Aristotle in ethics is more vitre based. So it's a kind of vitre. It's a middle way, really, between those two. More than a middle way, it's maybe a synthesis of those two. So it's to do with a vitre of the person, really. So I become a moral person by acting morally. So I give a cup of back his five pounds because I made a promise and because you feel better for it. And because I might know, actually I don't really want to give him back his five pounds. I quite like having that five pounds. I can think of all sorts of things I could do with the five pounds, but I will give him it back. And in the giving it back to him, I will be a more morally upright person. And that isn't just a kind of intellectual thing, but it will have had an effect on me having done that action, having acted in that way will have an effect on me. So the virtue is the transformation of the person through the adoption of a consciously chosen action. And that's important, it's a consciously chosen action. So we're not just talking here about kind of, well, if I don't pay him back, he might get the low end and make me pay it back because actually it's against the low and it's a crime to not give him back his five pounds. It's not a contract in that kind of a sense. It's not moral justice in that kind of a sense. It's more something to do with, I have a very strong value of honesty. And if I act in accordance with that value, that value will each time become more deeply rooted in my person. And when I don't act in accord with that value, I'll feel out a kilter with myself and that won't help me in my path. So that kind of starts with a decision. I mean, you know, I did make a promise, I'd give you that back. And actually it's carried through to action and in that action that my self is transformed. So you can see Buddhist ethics in a way, actually is a bit of a kinder. It has some of the elements of all of those things. If we take precepts, you could say, well, we make a promise to behave in a certain way. If we think in terms of the consequences of our actions, well, of course, we interact in a way that benefits beings. And in a sense, it is to do with-- it probably comes down mostly in terms of virtue, I think. Buddhist ethics is mostly a vitre-based ethics. We went to transform the self through action, acting in a particular kinder way. So this I'll just kind of remember. And Mahayana, if you like, Mahayana ethics is an ethics of virtue which has very strongly there the consequences of our actions alongside a very strong virtue, which is the virtue of compassion. The compassion fed by wisdom, if you like. I'm reminded of a quote by somebody called Joseph Fletcher, who was quite big in situation ethics. He was a Catholic actually, who was quite influential in the liberation theology movement in Latin America. And he says, "The only standard of right and wrong in this world is the maximization of love." I like that. The maximization of love. I think we could also say, or I would like to say, for me, what the standard of right and wrong in this world is the maximization of connectedness with life. When my actions connect to me with others, then I feel that I'm living in harmony with my values. And of course, I mean, it's another way of saying love, really, isn't it? The same cup of tea, really. So the ethics of engagement, if you like, is a virtue-based ethics for me. It's coming into relationship, it's coming into connectedness. We can see the five precepts under that light. We can see the five precepts that we take as a kind of moving away from, even a going forth to use that terminology, from behavior that cuts us off from others, and a moving towards behavior which connects us and which maximizes love and connectedness. So the very first precept in terms of nonviolence, we undertake to stay in from actions which cause harm. And we move towards and create actions that bring us into loving kindness, et cetera, through the precepts. In fact, some year, a couple of years ago, we come up with a slightly different approach into the five precepts which starts without feeling my interconnectedness with all being. I, whatever, have looked them out, maybe we could recite them at some point. Not as a substitute to the five precepts that we take as a Buddhist, but as I kind of open them out, I'll understand them from a slightly different viewpoint. So that ethics, how we live in our suffering world. And for me, I just realized, actually, this morning when I was meditating, that those three ways of looking at interconnectedness are kind of cognitive and philosophical looking at shunya-ta, really trying to kind of unpack and get a sense of what impermanence and substantiality is in a real way, and not just as a kind of theoretical thing, but a real sense, a real felt sense of what does that mean? What does it actually mean to have a sense that I'm impermanent? What does it actually mean to have a real felt sense of kind of not being separate? And the volitional sense of that, you know, the living and solidarity without really being willing to kind of try and open up in compassion beyond my own sense of what's right and wrong beyond my own likes and dislikes. And that engagement of ethics, I suddenly thought, oh, it's the three characteristics of the enlightened mind, obviously, but, you know, it's the kind of-- we say that the awakened heart of the awakened mind, traditionally enlightenment has three aspects, wisdom, compassion and energy. I thought that's actually what it is in a way, isn't it? It's the wisdom to really explode into impermanence, the wisdom, the kind of-- but wisdom in a heartfelt sense and the compassion that would naturally arise out of that. And then the energy that that gives us, the energy that we have to actually move and act in the world in a way that's in accordance with those values. So how do they already do those little moments? And the world needs this, I suppose, is where I went to finish. The world needs us so much. And this is why this work that reconnects for me is so important. It's not a substitute for Buddhism. For me, as a tool within my Buddhist practice, it's something that makes great sense to me in a way and gives me tools and ways of working. And that's what I'm interested in. In a way, I'm interested in tools that help me work with my own tendencies to separateness, with my selfishness, with a big mistake that I'm living, and thinking that I have independent existence. So it's a tool for me. But that context of wisdom, compassion, and energy, that context of the awakened heart and the enlightened mind is the backdrop for that. That's the kind of the driver. And I want to just share another couple of little quotes for you if you will indulge me just that little bit more. So this is a quote from a talk by Sanger, actually, which he gave in 1983. So it's a talk that I revisited last year because of the Trident debate, because the whole debate about why the Trident should be renewed or not. I said, I'll ask about what Banti said in that talk, he gave in 1983, which was called Buddhism World Peace and Nuclear War. Or maybe it's other way around, I don't know if you quite remember, maybe it was Buddhism, nuclear war and world peace. But anyway, it was one of the peace and nuclear war, wasn't it? And I remember him giving this talk. He gave it a couple of times, actually, he gave it in a few different locations. So the best of my knowledge, the best one, was in the Croedon Centre in South London. And it was the opening of a city of a, a series of talks on non-violence. It was the opening of the Croedon Centre. They were opening this new centre that they had there in South London. And they decided that a good opening season would be to have a series of talks or non-violence as the basic Buddhist principle. So they invited Banti, sang director, to come and give me the opening talk. And this was the talk that he gave. He gave it again, at least twice. I can remember him giving it again. I thought that it was very similar. Anyway, off I went to here. And I remember at the time, I was in a bit of a bad mood with Banti for something or another, which I don't totally remember, but he said something I didn't like and I was in a bit of a bad mood with him. And I kind of, anyway, I went off from the LBC East London where I was with him. We went and I, an old Ford Tranny, sitting back at his old Ford Tranny, all the way down to Croedon's that you could have been doing something nice. Anyway, I did also went to go and hear it, but I wasn't, I don't think I was terribly receptive as I arrived. And this talk blew me away and it made me think, "Yes, this is really my teacher. This is my teacher." However much I might sometimes get in a half about things that I don't like. At heart, this is my teacher. And this is a way, I'd like to just read your quote, it's a couple of quotes, it's a little bit long, so I'll pin it up later and you can read it. 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 strap of peace "covering one part of the world's nakedness "and not another." This makes it impossible for us to think in merely geopolitical terms. We have also to think in geo-ethical, geo-humanitarian or geo-philanthropic terms. Since peace is indivisible, so that 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 on that realization. In other words, we shall be able to achieve peace only by regarding ourselves as citizens of the world and learning to think, not in terms of what is good for this or that nation state, this or that political system, this or that ideology, but simply and solely in terms of what is good for the world for humanity as a whole. I was pretty knocked out by that. But then there was more later on in the talkie, coming close to the end of the talkie, so some. In order to achieve peace, world peace in this fuller sense, we shall have to deepen a realization of the indivisibility of humanity. We shall have to identify ourselves more closely with all living things and love them with a more ardent and selfless love. We shall have to be a louder and clearer voice of sanity and compassion in the world. Above all, we shall have to intensify our commitment to the great ethical and spiritual principle of non-violence, both in respect to relations between individuals and in respect to relations between groups. So I felt I'd been given my mission statement really. From that point, 1983, I sort of, I suppose, yeah, I just felt, in a way, that is so much how what I'm interested to keep my life to. And I kind of almost don't really mind what that means in a certain sense. The things I enjoy and things I maybe don't enjoy so much, but I don't really mind if I feel that what I'm doing is in the service of that principle of the indivisibility of humanity. I really do believe that we can, by working together, achieve quite a lot. And that's why I suppose we come together in these kind of workshops and we explore things and we move into the phrase that we're moving into now in the spiral of the work where we honor our pain. We honor a sense of the suffering of the world and we honor a sense of what's not right and what we're not happy with in the world. In a sense, we're moving into the phase of dukkha. And dukkha's always present, but we're moving into a phase where that is what we're maybe gonna share with each other and experiences of. And I think it's very important to know that we don't do that just to stick our finger in the wound or just to wallow in it in some kind of way, but actually in the service of the indivisibility of humanity to learn through solidarity, to learn through healing and witnessing and testifying to just really learn what we do feel about the state of the world and what we feel we can offer to that world. So I really went to this to have that in mind as we move into this next phase of the world, the what. And I started with a little quote from the Bodhacharyavatara, I'd like to end with the Bodhacharyavatara. So that was Shanti Deva who said, "The power of evil is great and strong "and the power of good is often weak. "If it were not for the awakened in heart mind, "how could evil ever be overcome?" So he also says later on in the same work. Interestingly, so this is in the meditation section of the work he says, "Just as the hands and other limbs "should be protected as a single entity, "so too should this entire world, "which is divided but undivided in its nature to suffer "and be happy. "Just as the body with its many parts, "divided into does not cause distress "in the bodies of others, "I should nevertheless find this suffering intolerable "because of the affection I have for myself. "I should dispel the suffering of others "because it is suffering like my own suffering. "The end of the day, it just doesn't really matter "who's suffering it is. "I should help others because of their nature as beings, "which is like my own being." And he says, "When feeling suffering is disliked "by me and others equally, "what is so special about me that I protect myself "and not the other? "When happiness is liked by me and others equally, "what is so special about me "that I strive after happiness? "Only for me." So that is his sense of awakening. So Shantideva too had been awakening to realizing that his heartbeat was the heartbeat of the universe. We don't need to protect and defend. We can open and enter in contact with that heartbeat and just give whatever support, care, love and solidarity you can. 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. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
