(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. - Welcome to anyone that hasn't been welcomed already to the event. Welcome to somebody at almost every single session. So welcome. Yeah, this morning I'm going to give a short talk on renunciation and then Vajra Tara is going to give a talk on the bodhicitta. I've got a slight concern about this talk. I do get concerns about my talk. So I think while I was thinking, I was thinking as I was walking across the lawn, I was thinking, what do I feel really concerned about? And I feel concerned that I won't communicate to you the inspiration that I feel at this moment about the practice of renunciation. And it's like maybe it's like I've been walking around this dream or this sort of vague idea about how it would be a really good idea if I got enlightened or be a really good idea if I got more concentrated or be a really good idea if I, what would it be, became more spacious and kind, something like this. And then one day somebody sat down with me and said, okay, so how are you going to do that? And we worked out a little plan about how that could happen. And it was such a relief because I realized you could plan something and you could work out what you need to do. And then you could just simply surrender to it. And in that process, you would achieve the very thing that you wanted. So I'm a little bit in alive, that's very alive for me at the moment, that sense of things are possible and renunciation is part of that. And just occasionally we'll touch in with the text. You know, there are a few lines where I think, my goodness, it's like we're all surrounded by stuff, aren't we? We're all surrounded by things we want. We're all surrounded by things that we find pleasurable or whatever. And you know, there are different times in these verses where Banti or whoever is saying to us, if you simply work with that attraction, you will be free from it. And I can't quite believe it, but there's a bit of me that is slightly believing it, a bit more than I did. And I don't know how I'm going to be able to communicate that to you. But just to say it, the renunciation's a very alive practice and can be a very alive practice, not just a denial practice. Yeah, so I'm gonna look at renunciation just generally, then I'm going to look at some composites versus, and then I'm going to look at areas of renunciation, possible areas of renunciation. So I looked up in the dictionary, just to start with the dictionary. I looked up in the dictionary, renunciation, mean self-denial, giving up of things. And I've got here, honestly, at your experience of the false refuges, which I'm gonna come back to later. But I think sometimes the difficult thing about giving something up is that we've got a rather romantic idea about what it is. But if we really looked at our experience, we discover that it really wasn't like that. It isn't what we think it is. And then Sangarachta uses the translation of withdrawal. So withdrawal's got a slightly different definition. Means retire from presence or place, go aside or apart, and adopt detached mental attitude. So I'm going to mostly use the word renunciation, but withdrawal's a good word as well, and that's what Sangarachta uses in his translation. So we're going to be looking at the aspect of the path, which means the giving up of things, and the retiring from the presence or going aside or becoming a separate from something. Where I want to start is just to say that renunciation is a part of everybody's life, probably already. If you've got anything you wanna do in your life, a value, something you want to achieve, something you've got to make a priority. So that could be a career, it could be a family, it could be a value of trying to develop in yourself, you're gonna be practicing renunciation somewhere. You can't really make choices and say yes to one thing and not have to say no to something else. And if you've got a family, you probably say no to a lie in on Sunday morning, for instance. I mean, just basically, and mostly you don't resent that because you know exactly why you're doing it and what you're doing it for. And it just makes sense to you. That giving up of your Sunday morning lie and makes sense to you. So I'm gonna start with a poem by Naomi Shiyab Nai, called The Art of Disappearing, which I really love. Here's the poem. When they say, "Don't I know you?" Say, "No." When they invite you to the party, remember what parties are like before answering. Someone telling you in a loud voice that they once wrote a poem, greasy sausage balls on a paper plate, then reply. If they say, "We should get together." Say, "Why?" It's not that you don't love them anymore, you're trying to remember something too important to forget. Trees, the monastery bell at twilight. Tell them you have a new project. It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store, nod briefly and become a cabbage. When someone you haven't seen in 10 years appears at the door, don't start singing him all your new songs, you will never catch up. Walk around, feeling like a leaf. No, you could tumble any second, then decide what to do with your time. So poets have got a very nice angle in life, haven't they? And she's also in touch with something herself there. Maybe being a poet, she's got an ambition or she's got ideas about what she want to do with her life. So she's inviting us, or she says, "Look at parties." And remember what parties are like. Look at your experience, honestly. And see it for what it is. Don't maintain unrealistic expectations from activities that never deliver. Lameyeshi says in the book called "Introduction to Tantri" he says, "Renunciation is not the same "as giving up pleasure or denying ourselves happiness. "It means giving up on unreal expectations "about ordinary pleasures. "We don't expect them to give us "ultimate lasting satisfaction." Quite interesting, isn't it? How relaxation is about giving up unreal expectations? I mean, how free would your life be if you just gave up that? I can, yeah. Relunciation is not the same as giving up pleasure or denying ourselves happiness. It means giving up on unreal expectations about ordinary pleasures. We don't expect them to give us ultimate lasting satisfaction. But I think if you just remember that thing about, just give up on unreal expectations about what I'm engaged with. See what that looks like in your life. Then the poet's telling us, "It's not that you don't love them anymore. "You're simply trying to remember something "too important to forget." So, "Renunciation is circling "and based on a sense of continuity, "myfulness of continuity of purpose." "You know what you're trying to do with your life. "You know what you're trying to achieve. "Therefore, you're making active choices "and you're making them well." Andrew Cohen says, "Renunciation is where you are "allowing yourself to be obedient "to the call of the heart." "I got all these quotes "when I'm Vajadevi was doing fundraising "for Karshavana. "She collected loads and loads of quotes and things. "All around renunciation "and also about money and all sorts of things. "I've got quite a lot of them. "They're fantastic, aren't they? "Renunciation is where you are allowing yourself "to be obedient to the call of the heart." So, what are you really wanting to say yes to in your life? 'Cause to really say yes to that thing, you're probably gonna have to say no somewhere else. And often we keep it very vague. What we're saying yes to, we keep very, very vague. And then the procedure or the process or the way, the plan of action, we keep vague as well. And then walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any seconds, then decide what to do with your time. So she's brought in here that reflection on impermanence. When you realize you don't have a lot of time, you make up your mind more readily. And it's clear to you what your priorities are. So, following on from that point about continuity of purpose, Sangratya says in his little book, we're on 15 points for new and old order members. He says, "The fifth point. "Think more in terms of renunciation." And in there he says, "We could say that really there is no spiritual development "without renunciation." So, we cannot think exclusively in terms of spiritual development, taking that language literally. We also really do have to think in terms of renunciation. There is no spiritual development without renunciation, without giving up something. We cannot always wait for things to just drop away. Sometimes we have to actually give them up, even though it might be rather painful at first. And similarly, there is no renunciation without spiritual development. I'm not speaking here about renunciation through feelings of irrational guilt, which you should not be having anyway. So, we should not think of development and renunciation as antithetical, much less still, contradictory. If we renounce on skillful things or practices, words, activities, we really will develop spiritually. It really will help us. So, think more in terms of renunciation. You'll notice, I'm not saying think only in terms of renunciation, but think more in terms of renunciation. So, question for you. Is it true that there is no spiritual development without renunciation and no renunciation without spiritual development? Okay, so I'll have a quick look at the verses. In Sankarbar's verses. I'll just read them straight through. We've got two translations. So, one by Banti. Sorry, Tina, I've got your copy. I'll give it back to you in a sec. Without a pure withdrawal, there is no means to steal the longing for a happy outcome of the sea of existence. And by craving for existence too, those who have bodies are fettered all about. Therefore, seek first withdrawal. The fancies of this life are banished by keeping in mind that we have no time to spare of opportunities and advantages hard to find. The fancies of the hereafter are banished by repeatedly thinking of acts and their fruits infallible, the miseries of the round. When, by so practicing, there is born, not even for a moment, desire for the round's well-being and a sense of longing for deliverance all day and night arises, then it is that withdrawal is with born, is born. And the other translation, Geshe Wongel? Wongel, what did you say his name? Does anybody know Geshe Wongel? Wongel, Geshe Wongel? Let's see, where does it start? Those with bodies are bound for the craving. Those with bodies are bound by the craving for existence. Without pure renunciation, there is no way to still attraction to the pleasures of Samsara. Thus from the outset, seek renunciation. Leisure and opportunity are difficult to find. There is no time to waste. Reverse attraction to this life. Reverse attraction to future lives. Think repeatedly of the infallible effects of karma and the miseries of this world. Contemplating this, when you do not, for an instant, wish the pleasures of Samsara and day and night remain intent on liberation, you have then produced renunciation. So the first, the first verse is about why one should develop renunciation. Without a pure withdrawal, this is Banti. Without a pure withdrawal, there is no means to still the longing for a happy outcome of the sea of existence. So unless we get a handle on ourselves in this area, we will always be hankering after the pleasures of Samsara and we will make it very, very difficult for ourselves to free ourselves from that longing or that hankering. It's a bit like saying, I don't know, I'm trying to give up chocolate and living surrounded by chocolate and thinking you can, if you just had a little bit every now and then, it will be fine. And you know what, you have a little bit at 11 o'clock in the morning, don't you? And then you think, I didn't eat much for lunch. I'll just have a little bit this afternoon as well. And then you think supper wasn't much either. And before you know it, you're entrenched in this whole kind of habit and way of being and in your life. So you're saying, this is all gonna end in tears. It's all gonna end in tears. And you're gonna have to curb your appetite, curb that desire or that hankering. And you're gonna have to work with that. You don't think you're gonna be able to get free from that attraction of always thinking everything's gonna be all right. Being attracted to things that are gonna work out for you in this lifetime, desire for a happy life, all that sort of stuff. You're not gonna get free of that if you're continually indulging in things that reinforce that pattern, reinforce that pattern. So without pure renunciation, there is no way to still attraction to the pleasures of samsara. I remember saying to Vajrayita quite a few years ago, we were talking about somebody else going out with at the time, somebody else in a relationship with. And I said to her, and it's slightly proud way at one point. Well, I didn't fall in love with them. And she said, no, sudden Andy, but you wanted to. I thought, oh, dear, I'm only half there, aren't I, really? It was quite an interesting thing, 'cause I think sometimes what we hanker after, we don't get it anyway, but we still hanker after it, don't we? So in a way, I didn't fall in love. I think I could see through what I was doing enough to know I couldn't completely fall for that person. But at the same time, the desire to fall for that person was so strong, that desire to just give myself over. The desire to have this complete sort of joining up or something was so strong. I couldn't quite give up on that, that hope that that possibly would happen, even though mechanically it almost didn't wasn't working. Alan Bennett said, most people can do without the objects they own. It's shopping for them that they can't give up. (audience laughs) He's fair, isn't he? These poets and these artists, these writers. So what is it about shopping? It's partly the experience of shopping, but it's also that belief that there really is the pair of trousers. There really is the piece of software, whatever it is. I don't know, you know, the kind of computers or whatever. There really is the telephone that's gonna make our life, is gonna transform our life, something. So that's just very interesting. I think this is what he's getting at. Most people can do without the objects they own. So actually giving them up, we could give up the telephone or we could give up those trousers. But the shopping for them, the possibility that they might really do it, that hope, that continual hope and longing. When are we gonna face that? So we're in a process of choosing. We're in a process of saying yes to those things that are helpful to our growth and saying no to those things that are not. We're in a process of choosing and establishing freedom. It's the whole area of freedom, so it's interesting, 'cause renunciation sounds like you're not free to choose. And of course you're saying you're not free to choose. If you want to get slim, you are not free to choose to eat a lot of chocolate. That's as simple as that, really, isn't it? But we've got this idea of freedom is about choice. And yes, what the Dharma's teaching us is to really be free. You've got to make the choices that are gonna develop your ability to be free from the lack of choice that you have in relationship to certain things. I don't have freedom in relationship to chocolate or to the archers or to my cat. And I don't have freedom in that sense in the sense that I'm still a bit driven in all those areas. And yes, I can maintain this idea that I've got freedom because I choose as if I choose, but we don't choose. What do we choose? Where do you really choose? And where are you really driven? So what you're trying to establish in yourself is a really deep freedom, a real point of freedom for yourself that you can move, take into all areas of your life. I've got here mastery and empowerment in orange. So that's good. That's what, I think, that is partly what drives me, that desire to have real mastery over myself, to really feel empowered in every situation that I move into. And I know when I don't have that. And that's in all sorts of situations. And what is it going to take for me to get that freedom back? So, but we have to really want to be free, really free in the real sense, and most of us don't. Like, I want to be free of falling in love. I just don't want to give up the idea that that might be possible. So just play around with that. Do you really, really want freedom? What does freedom mean to you? So the next set of verses is more about how one develops this. I mean, actually, because it's a particular text, the how and the why and the what and all that sort of stuff is very technical, I'm not going into very much of it. So there's all sorts of meditations stacked behind a lot of these different verses. So Banti says, "The fancies of this life are banished by keeping in mind that we have no time to spare of opportunities and advantages hard to find. The fancies of the hereafter are banished by repeatedly thinking of acts and their fruits infallible, the miseries of the round." And the other translation says, "Leisure and opportunity are difficult to find. There is no time to waste. Reverse attraction to this life. Reverse attraction to future lives. Think repeatedly of the infallible effects of karma and the miseries of this world." So I'm just going to go into a couple of things here. Leisure and opportunity are difficult to find. And it's because they're difficult to find that there is no time to waste. So this is focusing on a motivation. So what is leisure? So leisure is in the Tibetan school. Leisure is to be free of the eight ways that a person can lack freedom. And I'm just going to list them simply. I will stick this talk up on the noticeboard. So if you don't write it all down, then just leave it. You'll see it listed. So leisure is where we are when we're free of the eight ways that a person can lack freedom. And the eight ways that a person can lack freedom is to hold wrong views such as not believing in karma. To be born as an animal or as a hungry ghost or as a hell-being. To be born in a land where the Buddhist teachings are not available. To be born in a land where that lacks morality. And to be born as a human being with disabilities that stop us from practicing. And to be born in a temporary paradise of pleasure. So all these things are going to undermine our ability to connect with a dharma. They're going to undermine our ability to make changes and to have mastery and be empowered. So all of us sitting in this room will, well as far as I can tell, all of us sitting in this room will be free of the eight ways that a person can lack freedom. So all of us have leisure under that school of thinking. And then we have fortune or opportunity. And these are inner and outer opportunities. So on the inside we're born as a human being. We're born in a central land with traditional morality. We're born with all our faculties intact. And we have not committed deeds such as killing one's parents. That's going to have such a huge effect on us that that's inescapable. And we have faith in the teachings. And our outer opportunities are that we live in a world where a Buddha has come or is taught. So we're in contact with a dharma. These teachings are still spoken. These teachings have not been lost. People are around us that are practicing. And practitioners generally enjoy the kind of support that they require. So I think again, even if you just don't go into the technical details, I think it's worth noting that we have a life of leisure and opportunity. When you lead retreats at Taraloka and you see the kind of women that come to Taraloka, you know how much leisure and opportunity there is in people's lives. I mean the fact that as women, you lot can practice wheel art. Us lot can practice the dharma. Been contact with a dharma. We can create enough money and leisure time to actually attend retreats. We're not so concerned or preoccupied with keeping our children from starvation, keeping our children from war. We don't have to practice in a secrecy where our lives are in danger. Our life does not demand so much upon us that we haven't got any room to think of anything else. I saw about 20 or 30 years ago and I went to Egypt. I was watching donkeys circle a well. You know how they draw up water from a well and they have these donkeys that walk around and they're harnessing. They just walked around and around and around. They have a dullness in their face because of that action. I had this awful moment, this was long before I got involved with the dharma, this awful moment where I saw those faces on some of the people around that well. Their life of tragedy and sort of survival I think was just the same. So take these opportunities, do not arise very often and make use of them. Don't just assume you'll have them forever. Politics can change, financial circumstances can change, we all know that. We know that quite a lot alone. You don't know what your life looks like in the future. So contemplate the value, our value of our own leisure and freedom, our own opportunities and also contemplate how hard they are to find. When you take humanity as a whole population, the people practicing, the people able to practice, the people that have those kind of conditions that just being described are very, very small indeed. So don't get distracted, don't get distracted with your life. You've got an opportunity now to use it, don't waste it. Don't waste it on the worldly winds. Don't get caught up in things that just don't deliver the goods. Then the last two verses are the last verse, sorry, two translations. When by so practicing there is born, not even for a moment, desire for the round's well-being and a sense of longing for deliverance all day and night arises, then it is that withdrawal is born. And the other translation? Contemplating this, when you do not for an instant wish the pleasures of samsara and day and night remain intent on liberation, you have then produced renunciation. So renunciation here isn't just a state of what you're trying to do, it's actually a state of being. So you're not experiencing any desire for worldly happiness or worldly winds. In the commentary there's this lovely line, the thought of achieving freedom rushes into your mind and you genuinely want freedom. It's very interesting, you know, just checking in when you're doing something, having a conversation with somebody, just checking in, what am I really wanting from this? Am I generally wanting freedom or am I just feeding the worldly winds? Am I just wanting this person to like me? Or am I really wanting the communication to move forward? You know, what are you feeding right now, I don't mean right now where you could think about that, right now what are you feeding, in your mind what are you feeding? You know, are you genuinely interested in the spiritual life, in transforming your life and transforming yourself? Or are you doing what one teacher said to one of my friends, polishing the wheel? Just quite good. And the dharma isn't a bad polish, it will polish the wheel to something for them. You know, we are a bit freer, we are a bit more empowered, we do have a bit more, you know, if we have more matter, life is a bit more pleasant. If we are more mindful, life is a bit more pleasant. So the wheel does run a bit more smoothly. So are you just polishing the wheel, or are you really trying to do something right now? Another question for you. What is the difference between discontulment and disillusionment? Sanger actually sometimes says, we need to be disillusioned with worldly happiness, not disquantals. So I am just going to end now with just a little flurry around what to give up, everything, what to give up. I'm on a bit of a track because of a year ago I led some study in Sheffield and I got very taken with a particular line from Know Your Mind, and I've been using it ever since. So the line is, this is from Sanger Ashta, the nature of samsara is compulsion. So what we are giving up is compulsion. So where do you function in a compulsive way? Activity, so I'm going to list three things that you can go into. Activity, stories, and unreal hopes and expectations of Dharma practice. Activity, so we can be compulsive around activity, I can be compulsive around activity, getting things done. Sometimes when I'm whizzing about Tara Locra, I make a bargain with myself. I think, okay, it would be really good if I went over to the retreat centre and did such and such. I think, okay, Salandi, you're only allowed to go across the car park if you can walk mindfully, which is quite interesting. Can you walk mindfully across the car, but I have to, okay, I won't mind fully across the car. Just to sort of give myself a little break between one compulsive activity and the other. It doesn't look good. Compulsive activity does not look good on people. Myself and Karen Avape used to have a bit of a joke actually when she used to work at Tara Locra because she could sometimes have compulsive activity and I could have it as well. And I remember once Karen Avape's saying to me that, Nandi, you're a bit driven. I see you're quite driven at the moment and I think you just need to stop and wind down. I said, yes, Karen Avape, I know. It doesn't look any better on me than it does on you, does it? I mean, it's a lot of line. But it's so interesting. It looks very unattractive. When you see people like that, just very sort of driven and they don't have choice in what they're doing. So just check in with yourself. What's really going on there? What is the compulsion? Then stories cut. We're really quite compulsive around stories. There's this lovely story that Pema Chodron tells actually about a boat crashing into another boat, which I've told in a few retreats. And it's where somebody's on a boat and it's nighttime, I think. And they see that there's a boat coming towards them and they shout out, get back, get back. You're going to crash. You're going to crash into me. And the boat does move towards them and crash into them. And so the person on the boat's absolutely furious and he jumps onto the other boat, determined to have a real go at whoever was driving this boat, this other boat. And there's nobody there. It's just a loose boat on the ocean. And it's just a very good metaphor for what's often happening, which is we think somebody's just crashing into our boat. When all they're doing is there's nobody there. There's nothing going on. It's not there at all. And it's just based on stories. We're telling ourselves stories all the time about what's going on. We're quite compulsive about them. Recently I was staying with a couple of friends and I was staying in one of their rooms and I was reading a particular book, a sort of self-help book. And I accidentally left it in the room and I went off to stay somewhere else. And then I phoned them and said, "Oh God, I've left my book in your room. Can you give it to me the next time you see me?" They said, "Oh God, San Andi, I assumed that belonged to the person whose room you're staying in." And I got into two hours of stories about how they didn't talk about how they were reading this book and they never share their lives with me and they haven't mentioned this book to me. I did two hours on that. I thought, "It's my book. I'm sorry. Can you send it back to me?" They just watched the story. We're involved in stories all the time. Just watch them. And hopes and expectations of Dharma practice. Yes, well, we do get quite a lot of that, didn't we? One area where I reflected on this was when I watched a couple of people resign as chairman. This was quite a long time ago, actually, and they just stepped right out and then they were quite resentful of how their lives had been. And I thought, "Gosh, I wonder how does one engage with, say, being chair and not get resentful, not end up resentful?" That's quite an interesting question actually. How does one engage with anything and not get resentful? And I suspect it's to do with we've got unconscious hopes and expectations of the thing that we're doing. And that's what leads us into resentment because it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen like that. And we also crave experiences. We crave experiences from Dharma practice. Recently, I was reading a little lecture by Sankarachtha called "Enlightenment as Experience and Non-experience." And he talks a little bit about this in that lecture. It's worth looking at. He says, "If you've got a lot of craving, you're not craving about spiritual life, then you can begin to expect experiences from three main areas. You expect them from somewhere special, you expect to have an experience that comes from somewhere special, from someone special, or from something special." And then he describes that. I'm going to try and do it very briefly. So from somewhere special means somewhere exotic. So we're interested in the exotic rather than just interested in saying truth. We're interested because it's Tibetan. Whether it actually fits in with reality or not doesn't really matter so much, but the fact that it's got lots of red and green bits on it is really interesting. So we're fascinated by the exotic rather than the truth. Then when we want it from someone else, we think it's going to come from a particular teacher, a particular relationship or guru. We look for it from that particular relationship. This is a bit tricky. And the fact that we're going to get that experience from someone, because we believe in them completely, so we have to have absolute faith in them. But what they ask us to do, all of that's the word of God, I suppose, that's the word of the language. You've got to believe in a guru who is God. So we're looking for a particular relationship that's going to give us an experience, the experience that we want from the spiritual life. And then we look from something and he says this can come from us hooking in or homing in on a particular meditation technique. So it says this consisted of touching exaggerated importance to particular methods of practice, especially with particular methods of meditation. We think that if only we can only find the right one, the right technique, it will automatically give us the experience. Sometimes of course we think we have found the right one and we become very dogmatic and very intolerant about that. We want to dismiss all other methods as worthless. Only our own technique is the right one or the good one, the only one that is of any use. And we forget that there are so many different methods of meditation, so many different concentration techniques, especially in Buddhism. Buddhism is very rich in this field and all of them work. Every single one of them has been tried and tested for centuries. Every single one of them works. One method may be more suited to a particular temperament or a particular stage of development, but we can never say that any one method is intrinsically better than any other. So then what he goes on to say, and I'm just going to mention this, is how you counteract that neurotic craving for experience in the spiritual life is to look towards growth, work and duty. And I'm not going to say anything, you can just have a look at the lecture, you can look that up yourself. But what I will say and what I found very interesting was, he's asked you to go very broad in your spiritual life. If you get overly concentration or looking for an experience, maybe the antidote to that is to look more roundedly, that's why I say growth is so important. If you just think, am I growing? You can usually answer yes. If you think to yourself, am I having a big special experience? You know, that's more complicated. I think that's one of the achievements is that it's put the spiritual life into indirect methods. Growth is in communities, centers, retreats, communication. It's in a lot of broader things than just simply say meditation. Say one more thing, sorry about this. I've got three things on this page, I'm just wondering what to say, and one thing. Okay, discuss. In somewhere, in your life, discuss this. Commitment is primary, lifestyle is secondary. What does that mean? Banti brings us out, Sanger actually brings us out when he is talking in a Vimala kurti nadesha seminar, and he says, it means that renunciation is essentially a spiritual thing, a spiritual activity. The outer action is of value, only to the extent that it is an expression of an inner attitude. So what's important for us is we understand what our inner attitude is. What are we really trying to develop in our self? If you have an inner attitude of kindness, then it's quite clear what you're going to have to give up. If you have an inner value of being more centered, then it becomes clearer what you're going to have to give up. So commitment to the value, commitment to what you're really trying to achieve is the primary. How you're going to go about doing it is up to you, but your lifestyle, the way that you're going to go, the way that you live your life is going to have to support that value, that commitment. Renunciation is developed through contemplating that we need to change, that things need to change, that things aren't really working for us. It's based on realizing we've got choices to make that will take us in a more conducive direction and direction of a spiritual life, in the direction of growth. And it means becoming more free and it means renouncing things that we begin to see create suffering, like the activity of compulsion is an activity of suffering. And through the contemplation of our own suffering, there we then start noticing other people are involved in those things as well, other people are also suffering in the same way that we are. And that's the nature of Agitara's talk. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
