Welcome to this weeks FBA Podcast, “Fields of Creativity”, a sparkling talk by Sangharakshita on a theme close to his heart. Full of warmth, wit and stimulating ideas.
Talk given in 2001.
Free Buddhist Audio
Fields of Creativity
(upbeat music) This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. - Well, thank you. (speaking in foreign language) - Well, it's a introduction and thank you everybody for the warm welcome. I always seem to get a warm welcome when I come to the LVC. I'm not quite sure when I was here last. I'm not quite sure when I last spoke to you, but I think it must have been rather more than a year ago. And in the course of this last year, quite a lot has happened. Quite a lot has happened in the world. Quite a lot has happened in the FWA view. And quite a lot has happened, I might say, in my own life. One of the things that has happened, I think one of the most important things that has happened for me personally is that I have, at last, finished the volume of memoirs on which I was working. (audience applauding) In the course of the last year, two years, three years, people have often asked me, "Fine, tell me." (audience laughing) Have you finished your memoirs? And I've had to say, "No, not yet." But at last I can say, "Yes, I have finished them." I have finished writing them. Or rather, I should say I've finished dictating them because the last 10 chapters have had to be dictated for reasons of which most of you, I think, are aware. So yes, they're finished. And wind horse publications is hoping to bring them out by August of next year. This is, of course, in a way, by way. I have a little trailer one might say. (audience laughing) Perhaps I could also mention that the title of this new volume is, unless the publishers decide otherwise, moving against the stream, moving against the stream. And it covers the period from August, 1964, when I returned to England after an absence of 20 years, up to April, 1967, when the F.W.B.O. was founded. And it covers, I would say, quite a lot of ground. Someone asked me recently whether there were any particular themes which emerged from the memoirs, as far as I could recollect. And I had, at first, to admit that there were no particular themes which they thought emerged. I had, after all, been working on the book, on and off for some five years. And it was difficult for me to get a sort of overview of it. But there was one theme which perhaps I did see as emerging. And that was the fact that after 20 years, that after 20 years in the East, mainly in India, I was re-engaging reconnecting with Western culture. Because even while I was in India, I was keeping up my contact with some extent, with English literature, with history, and so on. And of course, I was writing poetry. But I didn't have any opportunities to see any examples of Western visual art. And of course, I didn't have any opportunities of hearing classical music. But once I got back to England, I started re-engaging with Western culture. And especially, I re-engaged with it, in the course of the tour I made, in '66, in the company of a friend, a tour, first of all, Italy and then of Greece, which was a very rich experience for me, and about which I have written at some lengths in this volume of memoirs. Some of you may remember that I've read portions of those particular chapters to you a few years ago. But not only that, not only was I re-engaging with Western culture, I was also having to present the dharma in terms accessible to a Western audience. In India, of course, I had been accustomed to addressing Indians brought up in there that a distinctive and rich and ancient culture. Some people, of course, were Westernized, Western educated and first in Western culture, but the vast majority were not. In fact, many of those who might address had very little higher culture at their disposal at all. So I was there addressing a very different sort of audience, from the sort of audience that I was having to engage with and to whom I was having to make good as some accessible in the West. And I started, as you were presenting, the dharma in somewhat different terms. The fundamental principles, of course, did remain the same, the fundamental principles of the dharma. They were the same whether I was lecturing, teaching in India or in England or, in fact, in any other part of the world. But there was that difference. There was that theme at least emerging in the course of the volume of re-engagement in these different ways with Western culture, which, of course, was to be of importance for the future of the FWBO. There are also a few sort of story threads in this particular volume. Story threads such as the way in which I related to the existing Buddhist organizations. At that time, there were only two in London, in fact, really only two in Britain as a whole. And on my arrival, at the time of my arrival, they'd been at loggerheads for about a year and went on speaking terms. And one of the threads of this volume is an account of how I tried to bring together these two Buddhist organizations, which had been in conflict for so long. Another important thread of course is the development of one of the most important friendships of my life. And that story I have told in some detail. So this volume, beginning in '64, and ending with the formation of the FWBO in '67, covers this sort of material, this sort of ground. Now, some of you who've read my previous volumes of memoirs may come up with a question. You may recollect that the previous volume of memoirs ends in 1956, '57, the Buddha Jainty year. But as this volume, moving against the stream, begins in 1964. So what about that intervening period? Or for that intervening period, as there is no volume of memoirs, and is probably unlikely that I shall be able to fill in those missing years myself for various reasons. But all is not lost because that missing period has been filled into some extent by my old friend, Conti Paolo, in his book, 'noble friendship'. Conti Paolo arrived in India from England in 1959. And he met me, he came to see me in 1960. 1960 with a Thai bikku who was a great friend of mine. Conti Paolo had been ordained as a Shramanera, or novice monk in London about a year earlier by a Sri Lankan bikku who was another old friend of mine. And on his, on his, on Conti Paolo's arrival in in Budagaya, where he was going to stay at the Thai monastery for a while. He heard that there was an English monk, sangrakita by name, in Kaling Tong. So he and my Thai bikku friend, Vivekananda, came together to see me. Conti Paolo spent all together three years in India. And out of those three years, one year was spent with me, not in one instalment. There were two very lengthy instalments and this one, a regional short meeting at the Triyana Bharatanavi Hara. As I think, what Nogosha has already mentioned, Conti Paolo at that time was about 10 years younger than me. Well, he's still 10 years younger than me. (audience laughing) And I remember him very well. And he was quite a bit taller than me. He was rather angular and rather awkward in his movements. He had a very high forehead. He had a regular bone of a head. But I soon found he was very, very sincere, very, very willing to learn. He himself in the course of the book says somewhere that as a young man, he was very conceited. Well, that's for him to say. But I certainly didn't notice any trace of conceit during the time that he was with me. He was very humble in a way, very willing to learn, very receptive, very helpful, very cooperative. I found all these virtues in him. And yes, we did develop something of a friendship. He spent, I think, about six months with me uninterruptedly on one occasion in Kalimpong. It was partly during the rainy season. And it was also at that time that we paid regular visits, regular weekly visits to one of my teachers that had to say to Yogi Chen, about whom some of you may have heard. Yogi Chen lived as a hermit on the outskirts of the Kalimpong bazaar, and spent most of his time in meditation. He allowed himself half an hour a day in which to write, and in this way he produced quite a lot of books. I was already visiting him quite frequently, I think even once a week, he goes on Saturdays. He didn't usually allow visitors, but I was privileged. I was allowed to see him whenever I wished. So I took Contipalo to meet him, because Yogi Chen was a great meditator. And very deeply versed in the dharma, and I thought it was good that Contipalo should become acquainted with him. By the way, perhaps I should mention that Contipalo was not then called Contipalo. He became Contipalo when he became a fully ordained monk, or bikr. He was then called Sujiva, the well or happily living one, which I felt was quite appropriate. So we had many discussions with Yogi Chen, and to cut the long story short, eventually, Yogi Chen offered to give Contipalo and myself a series of lectures, just for the two of us, on the subject of meditation. Hinyana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Chen, the whole field of Buddhist meditation, in which he was deeply versed. So week by week, we went along. Yogi Chen prepared his talk, his discourse, very carefully, and for one hour, we listened. Contipalo made very extensive notes, and when we got back to the Vihara, he wrote and typed them out. He showed them to me. I made suggestions, corrections. We checked them with Yogi Chen. And in this way, a book was produced, which was eventually published as meditation, systematical, and practical. So Contipalo and I worked together, collaborated together, in this way, at that time, during his stay at the Triyana-Vahara. And incidentally, in the course of his book, he gives a quite engaging picture of our life at the Vihara. And I must say, when it was read to me very recently, I was a bit shocked. Because we were living so simply. And our food was very simple. Contipalo doesn't exactly complain about the food, but he clearly did find it very, very simple. Very, very sparse, even, indeed. And of course, we didn't usually eat after 12 o'clock. So I hadn't realized just how simple, how austerely we were living, how I was living at that particular time. And it was something of, well, yes, an eye opener. It wasn't about surprising that when I returned to England, after 20 years, I weighed only eight and a half stone. Yes, and I'm a little more than that now. So yes, Contipalo writes about that period of his stay in India, his time with me at the Vihara, very, very engagingly. But I also took him on tour with me among the Indian Buddhists who had recently converted to Buddhism under the guidance of Dr. Ambedkar. And he assisted me greatly in the course of one of my very extensive tours in the course of which I visited dozens, even scores of towns and villages and gave many, many lectures for the benefit of these newly converted Buddhists. In fact, in Pune, we held a training course for newly converted Buddhists for some, maybe even about 50 of them. And the training course lasted one month. And the courses were held in the evenings because everybody was working. Everybody had a full-time job. But that was quite a historical occasion, quite a milestone. And at least one person was present on that occasion. I think it was in '60 or '61, who afterwards became a member of the Western Buddhist order, or Trelochia, Boda, Marsanga, about who recently, unfortunately, died at a quite advanced age. So I had this contact with Contipalo. He had this contact with me, both in Kalingpong, at the Triyana Farsana Bihara, and also on my lecture tour, or preaching to a month, the newly converted Indian Buddhists. So we did have a very good, even a quite deep contact. And he has written about this in a very engaging way. He also writes the course about his impressions of India. He writes about the time he spent in Nepal, where he met people that I had met many years earlier. So the book as a whole is very, very readable. And I hope that quite a few of you will find time to go threat. But this is as it were by the way. I've mentioned, yes, that I have finished my memoirs and the most recent volume. I've mentioned that Contipalo's book feels a gap, fortunately. And now that my memoirs are finished, I have, of course, much more time for reflection, meditation, and so on than I had while I was working on the memoirs, especially during the period that I was obliged to dictate the last 10 chapters. So what have I been reflecting on? What have I been thinking about? Well, just a couple of weeks ago, I was in Birmingham at March Maloka. And I was sitting out on my patio in the sunshine. Yes, in the sunshine. And I started thinking about creativity. For some reason or other thoughts about creativity started coming into my mind. And I thought, well, perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea if I shared some of these thoughts about creativity with some of my friends, some of the people within the movement. So my first thought was, well, why not go down to London? Why not share them with people attending the LBC, who are always so receptive and enthusiastic and always give me such a wonderful welcome? So I made a phone call or two, and very smoothly, very efficiently across it was all arranged. So here I am. And, of course, also launching here Kanji Paolo's book. So I use a very unrealistic expression, killing two birds with one stone. [LAUGHTER] So anyway, now for the second stone, creativity. [LAUGHTER] One of the things that occurred to me, one of the thoughts that occurred to me was that term. Nowadays, we use this term creative in it rather loosely. It's been rather debased, rather vulgarized. Some time ago I heard of something called creative accounting. [LAUGHTER] Well, it used to be called falsification. [LAUGHTER] But it's become creative. All sorts of things have become creative. You sort of get a sheet of paper and you scribble on it a bit, and probably you'll be in creative apparently. You believe him in a prize, who knows? So this term creative and the term creativity, these terms have become rather overworked. They've become cliched. They've lost much of their significance. So I was just trying to think what it really meant to be creative, what creativity really meant. I don't want to spend too much on this topic because it is rather abstract. I want to get on to something more concrete as soon as I can. And this just lingered up for a few minutes on this question of, well, what is creativity? Creativity, we could say, means producing something new, bringing something new into existence. But it isn't just that, because everything that is new is not necessarily creative, even though what is creative is new. Or the creativity does consist in the bringing into existence of something which is new. Or if you like something which is original. Of course, people nowadays also set great store by being original. But you can't really be original by taking thought. That sort of originality is a force. It's an artificial originality. It's not the real thing. You can only be original. You can only produce something original if you are original. That doesn't mean being eccentric. It means, in a way, being yourself. It means being in touch with yourself. Knowing who and what you are, having or developing insights, vision, having imagination. If you can be yourself in that way, well, you will be creative in the sense of producing something original. Something which part takes of the nature of creativity. So I think it's quite important to understand this. Well, so much for the more abstract aspect of the topic. What I want to go into now, and I think this is quite important, and perhaps in some ways, the crux of my talk this evening. I want to go into the different fields of creativity, the different areas within which creativity manifests itself, or the different areas in which we are creative, or the different ways in which we are creative, different ways in which creativity manifests. The first is, of course, the rather obvious one of the arts. Music, poetry, literature, in general, film. The visual arts, painting, sculpture. These are all at their best manifestations of creativity. They are original in the sense that they are the products, the expressions of someone's genuine, a vision of actually experienced vision, imagination, insight even. So there's artistic creativity. I need not press this point, it's a pretty obvious one. And then, something which is perhaps less obvious, the second area of field of creativity is meditation. For some of you may think of meditation as hard slog, but actually, meditation is creativity. When you're meditating, you're being creative. So the point of this is, well, when you meditate, what are you creating? When you're creating thoughts, in a way, or at these mental states, mental events, of course, skillful, kusula, mental states, or mental events, you are bringing them into existence. Previously, of course, there was rather a mixture. Perhaps there were many unskilled thoughts passing through your mind, or at least wandering thoughts, dispersed thoughts, unconcentrated thoughts. But when you meditate, you bring into existence a succession of skillful, or wholesome, kusula, mental states, and mental events. And the more deeply you're going in meditation, or the more meditative you become, the more continuous does that stream of positive mental events which you are producing become. So meditation, in this sense, is a highly creative activity. You are bringing into existence, and hopefully sustaining in existence, something which is positive, something which is wholesome, something which is skillful. And with experience, you can do this uninterruptedly, or at least with only intermittent breaks. And when I say uninterruptedly, I don't mean that you're doing it just when you're sitting on your meditation cushion. Ideally, you do it with the help of awareness, whatever you are doing, that your mental estate, your sequence of mental events is skillful, not un skillful. You are constantly, whatever you are doing, bringing into existence is positive, is skillful, these really creative mental estates and mental events. So I think it's important that we think of meditation, not just in the way that we usually do, but think of meditation as a creative activity, as one of the most creative activities in which we can possibly engage. This creation of an uninterrupted series or sequence of positive mental events, whatever we are doing, whether we're on our cushion, or whether we're moving about in the world. So this is meditation as creativity, or creativity as meditation. We could also, of course, more specifically, refer to some of the Mahayana and Vajrayana meditation practices in which we use our imagination. We are being very creative. For instance, when we visualize the pure land, or when we visualize the figure of Volokitesvara, or Manjugosya, or Padmasambha, or Tarda, and so on, that is a much more specialized form of meditation as creativity. And this, of course, does have tremendous emotional and spiritual value for those who engage in this particular type of meditative practice, or sadhana as we call it. All right, now we'll go on to the... The third area within which creativity manifests itself. And that is the area of friendship. Now, perhaps you don't always think or don't often think of meditation, sorry, a friendship, as being something creative. We don't think of creativity as such manifesting within the field of the area of friendship. But when two people meet them, when two people become friends, and especially when they become spiritual friends, well, what happens? Well, they have an influence on each other. They produce something between them. They produce between them, a relationship, an experience, a mental estate, which we call that, a friendship, metal. The English word friendship, of course, is rather weak. Even the word metal, even called the on the metal, is perhaps a rather weak expression for the kind of experience that you can bring into existence between you when two friends get together, and especially when communication between them is deep and honest and sincere and intense. A lot can happen within the context of a friendship, as I'm sure many of you know. As you interact with your friend with openness and with honesty, rough edges get smoothed. Corners get rounded off. And perhaps more importantly, even, if you learn, perhaps, to do for your friend, or for the sake of your friend, what you would not perhaps hardly even do for yourself. And in this way, friendship becomes, what I've called somewhere in the past, a sort of mutual transcendence of egoism. John Cadeva, of course, sheds a lot of light on this sort of situation in his Bodhicarya, Abertara. And if, of course, you get a number of people, several people, now in a relationship of mutual friendship, or something very great and very precious, you know, it can be produced. I remember reading many years ago in Aristotle. I think it was in Aristotle's Ethics that friendship is something which is possible only between the virtuous. Now, by the virtuous, it didn't mean the good you could eat. Aristotle, like other Greeks, wasn't interested in that sort of virtue. We mustn't forget that virtue means something like excellence. And when Aristotle said that true friendship is possible, only between the virtuous, he meant something like the fact that in order to be truly friends, you must have something, some principle, some ideal on which the friendship is based in the context of a Buddhism, in the context of the Dharma, Kalyanamitrita is based, essentially, on the fact that both parties concerned are living and working for the Dharma, are committed to the Dharma, are dedicated to the Dharma. That is the basis upon which the friendship is founded. So the friends are, therefore, the spiritual friends, especially helping each other to engage more deeply with that common Dharma to which both of them are dedicated and committed. So in this way, there comes about what I call that mutual transcendence of self, of separativeness. So in this way, friendship becomes a manifestation of creativity, something new is brought into existence in the field of human relations. Friendship is something unique. If you have a real friendship with someone, you get from that friendship something you don't get from your relationship with your parents or from your relationship with your employer or your relationship, say, with your children or your relationship with your sexual partner, you get something completely different, something completely new, something unique, which, unfortunately, nowadays, very, very few people in the world at large seem to have any experience of. So this is the third area, the third arena, in a way, within which creativity manifests itself within that of a friendship. And then there's the fourth and last one. And this may surprise you. It might even shock you. The fourth one is institutions. Oh, groans all round. The word institution has rather a bad breath, hasn't it? It has rather a bad press, even within the FWA, in some areas, at least. But really, we shouldn't be misled by that. Institutions are very important. With our institutions, there's no civilization. There's no culture. Everything that is alive is organized. This organization means death. If you look at a plant, it's organized. It has a structure. And when the plant dies, when it's deprived of water, when it withers, what happens, it disintegrates. So long as it has life, it has structure, it has organization. It's the same, obviously, with the human being. So long as we are alive, we are a structure. We are a structure of bones, and blood, and flesh, and phlegm, and bile, and all the other things you mentioned in the contemplation of the ten stages of the decomposition of a corpse. But when we die, what happens? The body becomes disorganized. It refers to the elements of which it consists and from which it was originally drawn. So that which is alive is organized. If you're not organized, you're not alive. So the organization within the context of civilization and culture is a very important development, a very important manifestation of creativity. And it takes usually a lot of people to bring an institution into existence. And it takes a long time for them to do it, a long time for the institution to develop within itself the efficient life, sufficient energy, the efficient vitality for it to be able to endure and survive under changing circumstances. So we do see in the world all sorts of organizations, all sorts of institutions. And among them, of course, there is the FWA. I think we need not hesitate to refer to the FWA as an institution, despite the fact that the word has unpleasant connotation for some people. I can't think of any other word. If someone could think of a better word, I'd be very glad to hear it. But the FWA is something, as you know, that has been built up, created over the years. So many people have put their creativity into it. Well, you could say the LBC, the London Buddhist Center, which we originally used to refer to as Succavity, is an institution. So much energy went into its creation. So many people committed themselves to the creation of our London Buddhist Center, from which so many people over the years have benefited. I could remember, when was it, 30 years ago, roughly? Or maybe, no, it was less than that, 20 odd years ago. There were, well, there were some 30 odd men working on this semi-delelict old fire station and transforming it over a period of some two for and a half years into our present London Buddhist Center. And this was a great creative achievement. We mustn't think of it just as bringing into existence an institution in the ordinary rather negative sense of the term. But the creation of something valuable, something important, something beautiful, something which would be a great benefit to numbers of people. So we have the FWA also as an institution. We have the LBC as an institution. We have many other FWA peers, all of them in their own way, institutions, team-based right livelihood, businesses, chapters, communities. These are all our institutions. And we put our creative energy into them. So these are these four areas, I would say, within which creativity manifests. Obviously, there's the arts, there's meditation, there's friendship, especially spiritual friendship. And finally, there are institutions, especially those which we ourselves are in process of building up. So I would say that in the course of my own life, I have been quite fortunate. In the course of my reflections over the last few weeks, I've been wondering, among other things, how I could categorize my life. If I was asked to be quite objective and to look back at my life as though it was somebody else's life and try to categorize it, I was asking myself, well, what would I say? How would I categorize it? One of the things that I thought was, well, in some ways, that means, well, how would I categorize myself? It occurred to me that if I was asked, and if I had to be quite objective and honest, I wouldn't say that on the whole, I was a religious-minded person. That it was, they're not religious-minded in the conventional sense. I don't think I've ever been a pious person. And in fact, I don't think I'd like to be described as, well, a religious person. It seems to have all the wrong sort of connotations. So how would I describe myself looking back on my life? Well, I think I'd like to describe myself as a creative person. I would like to think that I was someone whose life was dominated by or whose life was an expression of creativity, even if only in a relatively small way. After all, I've written quite a bit of poetry. I've written quite a few volumes of memoirs. I know that not everybody in the F.W.B. appreciates my poetry. I'm quite well aware of that. I'm quite well aware of the fact that it's, in some quarters, considered rather old-fashioned and non-experimental. But never mind, I've written it. I've expressed myself through that particular medium. So I can say, yes, justly say, I think, I've been creative in that way, whatever the objective value of that particular creation of mind may be. And then, of course, yes, I've had the good fortune to come into contact with very good spiritual teachers, spiritual friends, like Yogichen, for instance. And I've had the opportunity of taking up meditation, having meditative experience, including experience of those thousand hours, which I've mentioned. So in this respect also, my life has been a creative life, an expression of creativity. And then, of course, I've been fairly fortunate in my friendships. I think, I consider this one of the great blessings of my life that I have had, both in India and in the West, many good friends. Some have been friends for decades now. Some, sadly, have departed this life. Dr. Johnson famously said, it's important to keep one's friendships in repair. It's important to keep in contact with one's friends, especially one's old friends, not to lose contact, to keep in contact by one means or another. And I think I have tried to do that. So I have a number of good old friends. And I'm glad to say that even my old age, I think we're making some new good friends as well. So yes, I have had an experience of creativity in that form too. And of course, when we come to institutions, the question of institutions, yes, I think I can say I've played a significant part in the creation of the FWA view. Now, of course, I've been able to hand on many responsibilities to the College of Preceptors and to the Council. And they are continuing that work of creativity, as, in fact, are all those who are, in one way or another, involved with the Western Buddhist Order and with the friends of the Western Buddhist Order. We are all engaged in one great, creative endeavor, manifesting itself in many cases in the creation of our institutions. So I consider myself, you know, very, very fortunate that I have been able to lead a life of creativity in this way. And I think I can also say that a creative life is a happy life. If you are being creative, whatever the difficulty is, you are happy. If you're painting a picture, you may be experiencing all sorts of technical difficulties. You may be tempted to give up even, same as writing a poem. But deep down, you're very, very happy. Creativity is a very positive experience. While you are creating, you are happy. And I would also say that if someone is not creating, not creating anything, not creating in any way, or creating on in a very, very limited sort of way, then the likelihood is that you're not very happy. To be creative is to be happy. But creative in this broader sense, which I've tried to describe. Now, thinking about creativity, it occurs to me that in an early talk, I spoke of mind, creative, and mind-reactive. I think most of you have heard this talk on Temple, already in the little book that has now come up called "Put a Mind." I've described creative mind as being the mind that is independent, the mind that is spontaneous, the mind that is aware. And in the same way, I've described the reactive mind as the mind that is reactive. It doesn't originate anything, it just reacts. And the reactive mind is therefore the dependent mind. It is the repetitive mind. It is the mechanical mind. I've gone into all this, I think, in some detail in this particular talk and perhaps on other occasions. But thinking about these things has occurred to me recently that I could add another characteristic or epithet to the reactive mind. But the reactive mind is not just reactive, not just repetitive, not just mechanical, not even just unaware. It's something else. The reactive mind is not just non-creative. The reactive mind can be anti-creative. The reactive mind can be destructive. And this put me in mind of something I'd been reading recently, or rather, something to which I had been listening recently. And this was to Ted Hughes' translation and reading of that great old English or Anglo-Saxon epic bear wolf. I don't know how many people are familiar with bear wolf. But it's world worth being familiar with. And it's illustrative of what I'm talking about now of a certain aspect of it. The poem, it seems, as far as I can make, how it was written down in the 10th century. I believe there's only one surviving manuscript. But it seems it was composed, perhaps orally, in about the 8th century, and relates to happenings which probably occurred in the 5th or 6th century, as far as I can make out. That's probably different from one another on all these points. And the story of the epic, at least the first half of the epic is set in, it seems, what is no Denmark. And it begins with the description of the descent of the then king of the Danes. The Danes, it seems, are called "shieldings" for some reason or other. And the poem relates, I think, four or five or more generations of kings down to the king who was reigning at the time of this particular story. The king, it seems, was very famous. He attracted many young men into his service. He was a just ruler. He accumulated great riches. And one day, he decided to build a great, a magnificent hall. And he sent for architects and artists from all over the world. This couldn't have been very historical. But anyway, this is what the poem says. Perhaps we'll see the significance of this in a moment. And this great hall was built, this enormous hall. And the poem describes it as a wonder of the world. And it describes how it was adorned inside and outside with gold, neglected from afar. It was the most magnificent building at that time in the whole world, we are told. So clearly, the building, this great hall, comes to have a sort of, we must say even, archetypal, significance. And it's referred to as a mead hall, the hall in which the warriors gathered to drink mead, to rejoice, to celebrate. And we're also told that when this hall was inaugurated, the first time it was used when the king was there, with all his men, the queen was there. The minstrel started singing. The court poet thought he would start his singing. And his song was of creation, the creation of the sun and the moon, the creation of the earth, and of all living things. So it seems to me, the first time I read, because it was many years ago, the first time I read this poem. When I came to this passage, I felt, well, here is something of great archetypal significance. It's almost as though this great hall, the dawned with gold that the king has built, represents the whole structure of civilization and culture, of the whole of humanity. It's what we've built up, the values that we've created over the centuries since the dawn of history. It seems to me to have that sort of significance. So the story goes on that there was great feasting and rejoicing in the hall. And everyone was pleased, everyone was happy. I say everyone, but there was someone who was not happy, someone who didn't like to see that great hall, who didn't like to hear the rejoicing, didn't like to hear the song of the minstrel. And that was a demon, a monster called Grendel. Now I don't know what word Grendel, the name Grendel means, but it has a very hard sound. To my mind, it has a sound as of the gnashing or grinding of teeth, Grendel. So Grendel, this demon, this monster, who is described as being descended from Cain, who murdered his rather abled in your testament, this monster was not at all happy to hear the feasting and the singing. So one night he crept up, he broke down the door of the hall, and he slaughtered 30 of the men who were sleeping there that night and took them away to eat them, to devour them. So after that night after night he came and pillaged and wrecked that hall so that while it became deserted, people could not feast, could not make nobody there, could not hear the song of the minstrel there anymore. There's just another, a little significant detail. The hall was also the throne room of the king, and we're told, in rather mysterious way, that Grendel was kept from the throne. Now that has, I'm sure, a deep significance. I may go into it some other time, but we'll leave that aside for the moment. But we're told that for 12 years, Grendel was visiting that hall and disboiling it so that it could not be used. And word of this spread, you know, quite widely throughout the area, spread even to distant countries. And again to cut a long story short, the hero Beowulf comes from the land of the Geats, which seems to be not very far away, perhaps since southern Sweden. And he and his men sleep in that hall. Grendel comes. He kills one man, but then he comes to Beowulf, and Beowulf has in his hands the strength of 30 men. So he sees his Grendel's arm and doesn't let go. And Grendel is so desperate to get away that, well, he leaves his arm behind Beowulf winches it off. So again, there is feasting, and there is music, and there is singing in the hall. But that's not the end of the story because Grendel has a mother. We're not told her name. He's just referred to as Grendel's mother. [LAUGHTER] And she lives, where Grendel also used to live, at the bottom of a deep, dark pool in the midst of a very sinister sort of forest to weigh up in the mountains. So she is very upset that her son has lost his arm and died as a result. So she comes again to the hall, and she snatches away. The king's close friend and favorite advisor, and then she gets away before Beowulf can catch hold of her. So the next morning, Beowulf and the king, they follow her track, and they discover this deep, this black lake overshadowed by rocks and trees deep in the forest. And Beowulf plunges down into the depths where he kills Grendel's mother. So this is-- I'm dwelling a little on some details, but I think there are some significance. Grendel is defeated in the hall. He comes to the hall, and he's defeated there. But in order to defeat Grendel's mother, Beowulf has to track her and go down into those depths as though she represents a force even more primordial. Then Grendel himself. So I'm mentioning this. I'm dwelling on this episode in the story of Beowulf. And this is only half the story, by the way. There's another half, where Beowulf fights and kills a dragon and is killed himself at the same time, 50 years later. So I'm using this just as an illustration, as it were, of the fact that the reactive mind can be destructive. Grendel represents or even symbolizes or embodies that aspect of the reactive mind, which is not only not creative, but is even opposed to creativity. And we can see this operating on or within all the different fields of creativity, which I've mentioned. Or take, for instance, the arts. In what way does the destructive reactive mind operate here? Well, we could say it is through the carppings of small-minded critics who can't appreciate true greatness. I remember in this connection quite recently, I was listening to some of the music of Richard Strauss. People have been very kindly giving me CDs of the music of Richard Strauss, to which I've been listening. And one of his compositions is called "The Life of a Hero." And in the opening movement, you get the sort of hero theme. And in the second movement, or what appears to be the second movement, we get all sorts of sound, all sorts of odd little sounds, sir. Little sort of sharp quavering sort of sounds, which, according to the program, represents the critics who were criticizing Richard Strauss for his music. So you always get those sort of people. Of course, if you're criticized, it doesn't mean that you're a genius. But a genius may be criticized, which is another matter. So in the field of the arts, you get this sort of niggling criticism. You get in other fields also, of course. But then I think where the destructive force operates, perhaps most, is within the life, within the psyche, if you like, the soul of the artist himself. Some artists begin to compromise. They start off very well. They're inspired, perhaps they are geniuses. But then they start compromising. They want success. And therefore, they start supplying the public with what the public wants, you know, with what will sell. Because perhaps they've got all sorts of domestic responsibilities and commitments off. Perhaps they want to build themselves a magnificent house and entertain in style. So they compromise. So this, we could say, is the working of that reactive mind. In its destructive aspect, within the mind, within the psyche of the artist himself. Sometimes I think that the pre-refillate painter Mille was an example of that sort of thing. He produced some really wonderful work in his early days. That was the end of his life. Though he did sometimes paint very fine pictures. He seemed to my mind, at least, to compromise more and more with his public that wanted just pretty pictures. And you know, like printers, bubbles. And if you know that from-- it's a good example, I think, of that kind of thing. And, of course, writers do that, too. Some of you may know that very fine novel by George Gissing called "The New Grumbler Street." Which tells the story of a novelist, a literary man, who's set up with great ideals, but who gradually compromised and was writing for the sort of novel that the public wanted to read. And which would, therefore, sell and bring him in a lot of money. The old Grub Street, of course, was the street in which hack writers lived, who sold their pain to the highest bidder in the days of good old Sanderson. So the new Grub Street illustrates this sort of thing. And then we come on to from meditation. But in what way does this anti-creative force manifest itself? I think I would say here that it manifests when meditation becomes just a matter of technique. When you think that if you get the right technique and you practice it regularly, even forcefully, even forcibly, then you're sure to obtain results. So one can develop this sort of attitude towards what any particular kind of meditation practice, you can start seeing it as an aim in itself, almost a sort of magical solution to your problems. If you can only just go on doing it, however repetitively, and heard them mechanically, even though it's lost whatever life was originally in the practice. So it's very important that we refresh our meditation. Practice from time to time. I need hardly dwell on this. I think this particular question is familiar to most of you. And then, of course, there's the question of how that destructive impulse, this anti-creative impulse, manifests in the sphere of friendship, well, in the sphere of human relations generally. I thought about this quite a bit recently. And I was recollecting what, for instance, Aristotle also says, about friendship being possible, only between men who were free. Aristotle didn't think it possible whether to be friendship between a free man and a slave, because a slave is a slave. He's not his own master, he's not independent. In order to be a friend, you have to be independent. You both have to be independent. So the destructive element enters in when one of the friends is dependent on the other in an unhealthy sort of way, who is no longer emotionally and spiritually free. And sometimes it happens, even in a friendship, that one friend dominates, who even controls the other, or even takes over the other, the life of the other, in the name and the interests of so-called friendship. But this is not true friendship. Mankar also say that, you know, looking at the whole question from a broader point of view, that the same destructive element enters in when the individual is taken over by the group, when the individual is made to submit to the group, when the individual is swallowed up by the group, or perhaps even wants to be swallowed up by the group to merge with the group. So this is where the destructive element, the destructive aspect of the reactive mind, manifests in the field of friendship, and in fact, of human relations generally. It can also, of course, manifest in all sorts of other ways. And of course, it can manifest in the field of institutions. Here, that destructive aspect of the reactive mind manifests when, well, to take a very obvious example, when say a universal religion becomes an ethnic religion. And of course, this is a danger facing all universal religions, whether it's Buddhism or Christianity or Islam. There's always a sort of gravitational pull by virtue of which they are in danger of becoming from universal religions, ethnic religions. We have to be on our guard against that all the time. So we can see that what I've called the destructive aspect, the anti-creative aspect of the reactive mind can operate in all these four fields which I have mentioned. But there's another way in which this, another way in which this reactive mind can be characterized. It's not just destructive. You could say it's more than destructive anyway. You could even say it's devouring. I happen to be reflecting recently on William Blake. Blake, of course, is an excellent example of a truly great artist and poet. And a truly creative person, perhaps one of the most creative people that we've had in the course of the history of English art and literature. Blake, in the marriage of heaven and hell, distinguishes between the prolific and the devouring. I'm mainly concerned this evening with the devouring, but I'll say a few words about the prolific. The prolific is that which is enormously and constantly productive and creative. Blake is also concerned with other aspects, social, economic, and so on. I'm not concerned with those. I've noticed that many of the greatest artists, the greatest writers, were also very prolific. Not turning out just one or two little masterpieces, but perhaps dozens. One thinks, for instance, of the great Greek dramatists, of Sophocles, of Euripides and others. Well, according to tradition, they each produced a hundred or more plays. Only a fraction, of course, survive, unfortunately. And then when we come down to modern times, when we come down, say, to the painters or the renaissance, we think of people like Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco, Rembrandt, Rubens, Michelangelo. They're so prolific. They're working all the time. Greating is happiness. They're working all the time. We come down to the great Elizabethans. We come down, for instance, to Shakespeare, think how prolific Shakespeare was. Think how prolific, for instance, the Gertia was. Think how prolific Dickens was. Think how prolific the great Russian novelist were. If one goes to the East Rock, one thinks, for instance, of a Sufi poet like Jullaluddin Rumi, how prolific he was. He was constantly producing, constantly creating, sometimes in a state of ecstasy, just dictating. First after, first after, first. Thousands and thousands of verses. Couldn't stop. And in modern times, India, the great Bengali poet, the Bintranath Tagore, think how endlessly creative he was. He not only produced an enormous amount of lyric poetry, short stories, novels, plays. And as if that wasn't enough. In his old age, he started painting. He produced about 2,000 paintings. And he also composed and set to music. 2,000 or so songs, which are sung today all over India. So endlessly created. So I've noticed that some of the greatest, or many of the greatest artists and poets, have been very, very creative. They've been prolific. And well, come on to meditation. Meditation can be prolific too. And they say, one good turn deserves another. One good thought, one skillful thought produces another. So the more you meditate, in the sense in which I've described all, the more you are likely to meditate. But not just that. Meditation is prolific in another way. Because if you are the meditator, if you are creative in that particular way, you can teach meditation. So from you, other people can learn to meditate. When I started the FWBO, I was teaching mindfulness of breathing. And I was teaching the metavavana. Now since then, just because of the fact that I was not keeping my practice or experience of meditation to myself, but I was teaching it for hundreds, perhaps thousands of others, I've learned to meditate. I've had meditative experience. In that way, meditation has become, one could say, prolific in not only a course within the FWBO. Wherever your meditation is taught, there is that spread. There is that creation and recreation of a certain very positive state of mind. I remember, back in the '60s, we had something called Tronsen Dental Meditation. Some of you may have been around at that time. I know some of you, some of the older order members, have probably come to us. After practicing Tronsen Dental Meditation, well, I don't think there was anything very transcendental about it. But what was very positive about it was that at that time and, scientifically, it popularized the practice of meditation. So we can be very grateful to the old Maharishi, [INAUDIBLE] new for doing that. So we could say that meditation is inherently prolific, because once you have a meditative experience, just as when you have another positive experience, a positive experience of anybody, you want to share it with other people. So I'm very happy to learn that here at the LBC, the meditation classes are thriving, that meditation is being taught that more and more people are learning to meditate, are learning to be creative in that particular way, in their lives. And then what about friendship? Isn't that prolific, too? I was thinking about that. And I thought, well, if you make a friend, if you make a new friend, you like normally to introduce that friend to your old friend. So in that way, a sort of network of friendships grows up. You introduce your new friend to your old friends. Perhaps they introduce that new friend to other friends of theirs. And in that way, old network of friendships is created. And I know that sometimes we speak of the FWA itself as being fundamentally a network of friendships. Network, you might say, is another name for organization, a network of friendships, of people who are in that relationship, of mutual friendship, one with another. And I'm reminded of that old simile, which we get in one of the Mahayana sutas, of a flame being lit from another flame, one flame being lit from another. The first flame doesn't lose anything by propagating itself in that way. And so in the same way, friendship propagates itself. The flame of friendship passes from one person to another and then to another, until there are all these flames, is it where burning, brightly, together within what we might describe as the mandala of friendship. But yes, I've rather gone a little out of my way. I hadn't intended you to say quite as much about the prolific. I was going to say more about the father. As I mentioned, Blake says that in manager heaven and hell, there are two kinds of men. The prolific and the devouring. So I was thinking about, well, devouring, devouring. Do we have anything corresponding to that aspect of the reactive, anti-creative mind? I thought, well, yes, we do. That's a very important word in Buddhism. I wonder if you can think of it, a word that occurs in the chain of the Niddhanas, that is to say the Niddhanas, which are part of the wheel of light. That word is Krishna, Krishna craving. So what is craving? Craving is still a desire, the urge to devour. He wants to swallow, whether it's another person, another idea, or a thing, or an object. Well, craving is the devour. So let's just have a few words about that if I start thinking of concluding. You'll remember, I'm sure, exactly where it comes in the Niddhanas chain. Perhaps I better remind you. You have, of course, first of all the cause process of the past. The past life that it is said. That it is said you have a Vidya ignorance, and this thing scarves. The fact is, conducing to rebirth. And then, of course, in this life, you have, first of all, you have the effect process of the present life. And then you have, first of all, Vignonna. In the sense of the seed of consciousness, this comes into being in the womb of the mother. Then, of course, you have Namarupa, the psychophysical organism that comes into existence, independence upon that Vignonna, that initial consciousness. And then independence upon that, you have the thick, sensed organs, included in mind. And then you have contact, contact with an external object, physical or mental. And then you have the feeling, pleasant, painful, or neutral end of result process. But not the end of that chain, because what usually happens is independence upon feeling, especially pleasurable of feeling that arises first or craving. You want to devour that pleasant experience, that pleasant person, that pleasant idea, that pleasant possession. You want to have it. So it depends, as upon Krishna craving, that arises Upadana, clinging. I need not trace the process any further. The point I want to make is, well, I've made it before, and you must have come across this before, that this is a very crucial point. The point at which the result process of the present passes over into the cause process of the present. What we have to do is to maintain our awareness. And when we experience Vignonna, whether pleasant, painful, or neutral, we have to be careful not to react. We mustn't allow the reactive mind to come into operation. We must be creative. We must respond. And especially, when we experience Bhukra, when we experience suffering, well, independence upon that, we should try to develop strata or faith. Now, when we are enjoying ourselves, we don't usually think very much. I had to say, enjoying ourselves in the ordinary way. We don't stop ourselves, well, why am I enjoying myself? Why should I be so happy? Why should I be in such a good state? No, we don't. That sort of state, that sort of condition is not one that is conducive to the asking philosophical questions. But when we experience pain, when we experience suffering, whether it's physical suffering, illness, old age, decrepitude, or when we are partied from those whom we love, especially when they die, or when we are faced with unpleasant experiences of loss of another kind, we start thinking, we start reflecting. And I've noticed this happening quite a lot within the movement and within the order recently, because many people within the FWA are now of an age when their parents die. So there have been many reminders of recent things, of course, the last few months, reminders that, well, life can hold some quite painful experiences. We can suffer. That human life inevitably involves suffering. So suffering makes us think, we start thinking, well, why am I suffering? Why is this? And perhaps we start thinking that, well, there must be something more than this present life, of alternate happiness and enjoyment, suffering and pleasure. And when we start thinking in that way, we start lifting our minds to want to something higher for want of a better term, to a higher value, to something more truly satisfying. And in Buddhist terms, our aspiration eventually comes to rest on what we call the three jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, and faith in the sense of the placing of our heart on the three jewels, arises. In this way, we take the first step out of the ground and up the spiral, which leads eventually to enlightenment. So as I'm sure all of you know, or at least have read from time to time, independence upon faith that arises, a feeling of sort of joyous contentment, a deeper, more heartfelt satisfaction. And then, independence upon that, they may even arise as a state of experience, which is, so to speak, ecstatic, very intense sort of bubbling joy and happiness. And independence upon that that arises an even loftier experience, which consists in the calming dawn of the previous experience without the lessening of its intensity. And in this way, we come to experience what you call soka, or bliss, a truly blissful experience. And we then become concentrated, samadhi. And when we're concentrated, we're able to see things as they really are, to see things as they really are. And that really does constitute a tremendous turning point in our whole spiritual life. From then onwards, the attainment of enlightenment, we might say, is certain. So we've covered quite a lot of ground, haven't we? And, well, we've got rather a long way from Bhikkhu County, Parliament, his book level friendship. But in a way, we haven't. We haven't, not really. Those of you who've heard me speak before know that very often, after these long detours, I come back to the original point. Consipalo was a quite remarkable person. Perhaps I should mention that after his three years in India, he spent, I think it was about 12 years in Thailand as a folio-daint monk. He then moved to Australia, set up a meditation center. And a few years ago, he decided he didn't want to be a Bhikkhu anymore, and he broadened out his spiritual approach. And now he's running a Buddhist center in northeast Australia. So looking over Consipalo's life, I think I can say that, well, his life, too, was a life of creativity. This has mind this being. And I think his life on the whole, therefore, has been a happy life. And a fulfilling life. In the first place, of course, yes, he's been productive. He's written a number of books and poetry. He's written this book. So yes, his creativity, too, has expressed itself in illusory terms. And then again, he is a person with considerable experience of meditation. He's been creative in that way, too. And he is a person who has made many friends. And, of course, as you know, his book itself is called Noble Friendship. And it says in part about his friendship with me, his friendship with my old friend, Brother Akhita, who was his teacher for a while, and his friendship with my old friend, Vivekananda, the Thai Bhikkhu, who was one of my closest friends at that time. And then, of course, Consipalo had other friendships in Bangkok and in Australia. So he was creative in that respect, too. And I could even say he's been creative in this field of institutions, because when he was a Bhikkhu, he created a quite important retreat center near Sydney. And he's now engaged in the creation of the Bhuddhicitta center, as I said, in north-eastern Australia. So I think that Contipalo's life, as I've said like my own, has been a life of creativity. And therefore, I'm very pleased to see the appearance of this book of his entitled Noble Friendship. And I hope that many of you will be able to find time to read it and, of course, to purchase it. I always have to mention these little practical details, and the publishers who are always joking by elbow and reminding me that, well, I must mention this and mention that. And one of the things I've been asked to mention is that the book is illustrated that occurred across at Contipalo. There's a picture of Dr. Rinpoche, whom he also met. And there's a picture of him with me and Vivekananda. There's a picture of Dujong Rinpoche, whom he met. There's a picture of my bi-hard Inkani Pron. There's another picture of me. [LAUGHTER] And yes, there's a picture of Buddha Gah, where Contipalo spent so much time. There's a picture of the aging Contipalo, I must say, of these 10 years younger than me. And there's a picture of a procession. I don't know on what occasion among the Indian Buddhists, among whom we traveled. And of course, I have also to inform you that the price of the book is, I believe it's £11.99. Just a mere trifle obviously. So I harshly recommend the book to you. I'm very glad to have the opportunity of showing my friendship to my old friend Contipalo by launching his book here and in other places. I must say that reading the book or having read to me, I was quite touched to find how deeply Contipalo had been affected by the time he spent with me and the way in which he remembered me with so much affection and appreciation. I was very much touched by this, especially as over the years. We haven't had much communication. It's only during the last four or five years, perhaps, that we've again been in regular correspondence. So it's quite touched and quite moved by some parts of this book. And I hope you will be, too. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com forward slash community. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] You You