(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. - Good morning brothers in the Dharma. Let's just think about that statement. Good morning, well that's pretty clear. But brothers in the Dharma, let's just reflect on that expression. We are brothers in the Dharma. It's a simple statement, but it's a very meaningful one. In fact, it's a crucially important one. Brothers in the Dharma means, I think, that we are all Buddhists. I'm assuming, from now on, I'm assuming that we are all Buddhists. When I greet you and say, brothers in the Dharma, it means, first of all, that I am a Buddhist. And if I'm a Buddhist, then I have someone who's taken on the obligation to try and speak the truth in all circumstances, to try and communicate as truthfully as I can. Now to communicate truthfully, I have to take into account the person or persons to whom I'm communicating. In other words, you. So I have to assume that you are brothers in the Dharma. And I have to assume that you are also Buddhists so that I can communicate to you effectively and truthfully. So I'm going to talk to you on that assumption. I'm going to talk to you on the assumption that we are all Buddhists together. We are all brothers in the Dharma. And I think, I hope, that this is a reasonable assumption. If it's not, just think about it. If it's not, you might perhaps like to go for a little walk or something. Yeah, it's a lovely day. You might like to just go and enjoy the nature. 'Cause you're perfectly free to do that. But if you stay here, I'm going to assume that you're a Buddhist and I'm going to talk to you as a Buddhist. I'm not going to make any apologies for that. We have all our, I should give a little pause there to see if I actually want, like, nobody's stirring, okay? There's nobody showing that they're stirring. So we've all asked for ordination or we are ordained. We're related to each other on the basis of our going for refuge to the three duels. This is what we have in common. This is the core that we have in common. This is why we've come here this weekend. This is why we're together. Now it's useful for me to make this assumption for a number of reasons. Firstly, it means I can speak my mind without having to explain my perspective. I can just say what I believe and I can assume that you will at least respond to it positively, that you will at least have an understanding of what I'm saying. Also, talking as one Buddhist to another in a quite uncompromising manner will emphasize the Buddhists in us. It will emphasize the Buddhist aspect of our being. It's almost as though we've got a Buddhist within. That needs to be communicated with. I've got a Buddhist within, you've got a Buddhist within, and if we can communicate on that basis, then it will strengthen both of our Buddhists within. It will be to our mutual benefit if we communicate on the basis of the fact that we're practicing Buddhists. Now this applies not only now when I'm communicating to you, but also when you're communicating with each other. If you communicate with each other on the basis, on the assumption that you're speaking to a brother in the dharma, then it will be a mutual benefit for both of you all of the time. Now, when we speak to other as Buddhists to Buddhists, relating on the basis of our going for refuge, relating on the basis of the Buddhists within us, we also become aware that there is a non-Buddhist within as well. There is, we find that non-Buddhist within squirming a little bit now and again. But this is perfectly okay. This is perfectly acceptable. That should happen in a way because we want to eat out this little chap and see what he's up to. Putting it in Buddhist terms, we might say that we feel the barbs of Mara pulling now this way and now that way, trying to pull us away from our going for refuge. So being aware of that again is no bad thing. It's best to know what the pools and pools are, but it's also best to try and relate with other Buddhists on the basis of being Buddhists so that we can all strengthen our commitments to the three jewels. So brothers, we are Buddhists, but we are also human beings. All living beings do things. They all act. They all perform various actions, a whole variety of actions. You can't be alive without acting. You're doing something. You're always at least breathing. You're always at least thinking. Things are going through your mind. You're always doing something. As long as we live, we act. Not only do we act, but we perform willed acts. In other words, we put our energy behind our actions. Our actions don't just happen. We do them. We put will behind them. In fact, the energy, the will that we put behind our actions is in a way what we actually are. And in as much as we have self-consciousness, we will our actions and we know that we will our actions. We do things and we know that we do things. And in as much as we're self-conscious, we know why we do things and we know the results of the things that we do. This comes with being a living being, particularly with being a human being. If we were animals, we wouldn't have the self-consciousness. So we can get away with a lot of things as it were. But we aren't, we're human beings. And human beings have self-consciousness. They know what they're doing. They know what their willed actions are. So we're alive, we perform real actions, we're aware of it. We perform actions with our body. We perform actions in the outside world. We affect our environment. We perform actions within our minds, within ourselves, within our inner landscape. And we perform actions in between those two, actions of speech and communication, where our inner world extends out into the outer world. So we perform acts of body, of speech and of mind. We need to know which actions to perform and which actions to avoid. This is what comes from being a human being. We need to know what's right and wrong. We need to have a certain ethical perspective. We need to have ethical principles to live by, even if those principles are that we have no principles. That itself is a principle. The fact that you're a human being and have self-consciousness means that you have to act in accordance with some kind of ethical principle. It's too late to say that we don't have to have ethical principles. We have, to borrow a metaphor, left the Garden of Eden. It's gone, brothers. We took the apple, we ate it. It was a good thing. Actually, it's interesting that the devil of the Christian religion is probably more the Buddha of the Buddhist religion, because that apple was the apple of knowledge. It was the knowledge of good and evil. It's the very thing that makes us human beings. Certainly, it drives us out of the garden of the innocent animals. But we've gone out into the world. We've been driven out into the world. We know what's right and wrong. Never more can we rest in blissful ignorance. We're out there. We are human beings. We've left the human realm. Bye-bye, ignorance. Hello, ethical principles. This is what we have to do. There are all sorts of ethical principles on which people base their actions. And these fundamental ethical principles change during the course of our lives. Perhaps I can just give a little sketch of the sort of ethical principles that we follow at different stages of our lives. For example, consider the infant. The infant is totally self-interested. The infant is at the center of their universe. They identify with what they want as being the good and what they don't want as being the evil, the bad. Infants, in a way, are just like animals. They're only beginning to become human. Their whole ethic is a self-centered ethic that what is right for me is right. What is wrong for me is wrong. As we grow, we come under the influence of our parents. There's a communication that goes on. And the parents start to take control of the child. As soon as there's enough self-consciousness there, as soon as there's enough wilfulness, but as soon as there's enough self-consciousness, the parents can start to take control. So we move into a period where our ethics, where our understanding of what's right and wrong, is under the control of someone else, under the control of our parents. We're forced into acting right and wrong because of external controls. Sometimes, of course, we psychologically continue this into adulthood. And the ethically immature are quite often still looking for a parental substitute. They're looking for someone who will control their actions so that they don't have to take responsibility for it themselves. They'll be looking for controlling authorities, or they'll be looking for a judging God to tell them what is right and wrong. Anyway, let's assume there's some development beyond that kind of parental, that desire for parental control. The next thing it seems to me is that what happens to a youth is that they start to become very aware of the group around them. They want to conform to the actions of the group that they're joining. So one takes on the principles, the ethical principles of the group that surrounds you. This carries on also into adulthood. And in a way, it's by no means a bad thing. It's actually, it's actually probably not a bad thing at all. For most people, this is probably the dominant way in which they are going to gain some kind of ethical management of their lives. So we shouldn't sneer at this, you know, just going and conforming in a way to the group norms of the society around us. Hopefully, it's a positive culture, a positive society, in which case our actions will be helpful and positive. If it's not of that type, of course, then we'll be performing unschoolful actions. But what happens then is we get emotional maturity. We actually move into adulthood. The mature adult takes on various ethical principles, various views of the nature of reality and the ethical principles that go with them. And they take on individual ethical responsibility. They're no longer doing things because they're forced to do them. They're no longer doing things just because they want to conform and be accepted by the group around them. They're doing things because they've taken initiative. They've taken personal individual initiative, and this is what they personally want to do. They've achieved a certain degree of individuality and maturity to be able to do that, to be able to take that on. The mature individual, the mature person, the mature human follows ethical principles that he personally holds to be true. We might say even there's a stage beyond this, and that is the ethical perspective that grows out of a vision of things as they really are. In other words, the ethical perspective that grows not out of opinion and sort of guesswork, but a set of ethical principles that grows out of genuine knowledge of the vision, genuine knowledge of the state of reality, of vision of things as they really are. And that, of course, comes from wisdom. And that, of course, is the level of ethical practice, we could say, of the Buddha, of the enlightened means. So each of us, I'm sure, has some experience of each of these levels of ethical practice even now. No doubt, occasionally, we function at a low level of ethical responsibility, sometimes maybe even just like an infant with unalloyed self-interest. Sometimes we look to authorities, consciously or unconsciously, to tell us what to do and free us from having to take personal responsibility. Sometimes we, quite often, rightly, conform to the norms around us. We take on the values of our group. As I say, this is not necessarily a bad thing. And sometimes we take personal responsibility for our own actions based on what we hold to be true. We may even base our actions on some flicker of a direct personal vision of the way things really are, the glimmer of a flicker, even. But we are probably going to have this level of practice by taking the initiative to base our actions on the ethical principles given to us by the Buddha, who we believe had that vision. This is not because the Buddha is an authority figure. We don't have to do what he says. It's not because we simply wish to conform to what all Buddhists do, but it's because we believe that his experience was genuine and his principles, therefore, sound. We adopt them personally and take individual responsibility for our choice. As Buddhists, we are all in the process of placing the three jewels at the center of our lives. This is the primary act of the Buddhist life. But what does this mean? We should always keep coming back to this, reminding ourselves that this is the core of our lives. This is the core of our spiritual practice and see how it applies to whatever else we do. Taking the Buddha as refuge means that we, like all beings, experience our lives as unsatisfactory. But as Buddhists, in particular, we resolve this unsatisfactoriness of life by moving towards the Buddha, by moving towards the state of bodhi, the state of enlightenment, which the Buddha has experienced. That's what we do. What is it? What is this state that we're moving towards? Well, it cannot be described fully with words. It can only be pointed out. And one of the most widespread of these pointers, one of the best of these pointers, in a way, is that bodhi consists of the eradication of a fixed and permanent self. It consists of the eradication of a sense, of a fixed and permanent self. If we don't have a fixed and permanent self, neither does anybody else. And this means that we are not isolated entities. We're not isolated individuals. We are, in fact, connected in many, many different ways, on many, many different levels. We are interconnected. What I do affects all of you. And what each of you does affects me. So this is part of the insight. This is part of the experience of bodhi. This is what we're moving towards in our spiritual lives. This interconnectedness is also the source of the love and the compassion of the Buddha. By realizing this interconnectedness, what arises is love and compassion. So we learn to live from this insight because it is true, on one hand, and because we want to clarify and deepen our experience of it. So this has important implications on the way that we act. Our actions as effective Buddhists, as effective Buddhists, will be supportive of this insight of interconnectedness. Which really is the Buddha refuge. We take refuge in the teaching of the Buddha. To generate in ourselves the Buddhist vision, the Buddha's vision, we follow the path that he has laid out. We study that path, we reflect upon the teaching of the Buddha, and we put it into practice. In particular, for the sake of this talk, we study, reflect upon, and put into practice the Buddha's teaching of ethics, on ethics. So finally, we take refuge in the Sangha. Essentially, this means the community of those who have achieved stream entry and beyond. But in either the absence of such stream entrance, or in the absence of our ability to discern who is and who is not the stream entrance, we have to lower our ideas a little bit. We have to lower our sights a little bit. We have to start working within a spiritual community of other Buddhists to build and to help to bring into being a true Sangha. One of the reasons why the Sangha is an indispensable part of the Buddhist spiritual life, an indispensable part of the Buddhist spiritual life, is that to experience at least a glimmer of the truth of interconnectedness, which is the equivalent of our loosening hold on a fixed view. We need a community of like-minded people. We need persons who have the same vision, who are moving towards the same vision, so that we can really experience that interconnectedness. We can't do it by ourselves. It's a logical contradiction. If you want to experience the dissolution of a fixed view of self, and the internet connected with other people, interconnectedness with other people, you've got to have other people. There is absolutely no way to get away from it. So we need each other. We need to work with each other in order to generate the conditions for that kind of experience. I think this is why Bante has said that the bodhisattva, the bodhichitta, arises in a community. It can't arise in an individual because it has this communal dimension to it. So our commitment to work in such a community means that we act always in accordance with this vision of interconnectedness. And so our actions must tend to support our experience of interconnectedness. So they will be actions that are dominated by concern for others, by affection for others, by love, by appreciation, by delight in each other's company, and ultimately by compassion. So as Buddhists, we use Buddhist principles to determine our actions, to determine what is right and what is wrong. Often we're more interested in wisdom than in ethics, but just it's worthwhile just stressing that these are not actually different. Pragya, the word which is frequently translated as wisdom, has four levels of meaning, the first of which is the ability to discriminate between those actions that are skillful and those that are unskillful. We practice according to the principles outlined by the Buddha, our teacher, in numerous places in the pile in the canon, and also on those teachings given to us by our teacher, and we practice always within the context of the spiritual community. So we practice Buddhist ethics, and we practice these ethics on three levels. Firstly, we practice them provisionally. Now what I mean by this, you'll recognize these three terms, they're fairly familiar. I'm gonna talk about provisional, effective and real practice of ethics. We practice ethics provisionally by conforming to the values of the Buddhist world around us. In other words, by being a member of the Buddhist group. We come along to the FWBO, we start to connect with a Buddhist group, with the Buddhist world, and we start to adopt the values and the ethical principles that are practiced within that world. This is how we start, and this is the level of our provisional practice of ethics. Then we move on to effective ethical practice. Effective ethical practice occurs when we start to take individual responsibility for the practice of those ethics. We're no longer doing it just because it's the norm of those around us, we're doing it because it's what we personally, individually, actually want to do. And this is quite an important shift of perspective. Thirdly, to really practice ethics means to act in accordance with our own insight into the nature of reality. And through understanding reality directly, then our actions will be in accordance with Buddhist principles, not because we particularly as individuals want to. I mean, that's just how things are. We would just do it as because that's how things are. There's no, in a way, there's no choice left anymore. It's just in accordance with reality. So one who effectively goes for refuge to the three jewels as a mature individual has taken on individual responsibility for the practice of Buddhist precepts. We don't do it because we're forced to do so. We don't do it because we have to do it to get ordained. We don't do it to conform and win the approval of the group to which we belong. But we do it because we ourselves see it as an authentic way to judge our actions. We see it as the way in which the truly wise would act. So we as Buddhists judge our actions by the 10 precepts. What are they? I'm just going to remind you, I'm not going to say actually very much about them. I'm going to leave that to the GFR entry that each of you has been or will go on. But just to remind you, just let's reflect upon them, contemplate each of them in turn. Firstly, not to take life, but to practice loving kindness. Secondly, not to take that which is not given, but to practice generosity. Thirdly, not to indulge in sexual misconduct, but to practice contentment. Fourthly, not to speak falsely, but to tell the truth. Not to speak harshly, but to speak kindly. Not to speak frivolously, but to speak meaningfully. Not to slander, but to generate harmony. Not to indulge in covetousness, but develop tranquility. Not to indulge hatred, but to develop compassion. And not to hold false views, but to develop wisdom. So those are our ethical principles. By practicing these 10 precepts, we transform both our minds and the world in which we live. We can fulfill our aspirations. These 10 precepts are first and foremost principles. They're principles which we have to apply with intelligence to every single ethical situation, which is every act that we do. That's a tall order, but they're good principles. They're very clear, they're very straightforward. In a way, they're very simple. What we have to learn to do is apply these principles to the actions that we ourselves perform moment by moment through our lives. But they're more than just principles. They are actually rules under which we train ourselves. We recognize ourselves to be an unruly bundle of desires, conflicting desires. We're a wild horse. Well, I'm a wild horse. I hope you're a wild horse, but you're a horse that needs training. We don't want to kill the energy of the horse that is ourselves. I was talking recently about a film called Horse Whisperers. I don't know if you've seen it. It's quite a good film. It's about someone training a wild horse, a superb horse with lots and lots of energy. We want all of that energy, but it needs to be trained. It needs to be managed. It needs to be brought together. We can do that, then we can really do something with ourselves. We need to train ourselves. So these 10 precepts are also the rules of training that we apply to ourselves. We take them on as rules of training. But if we're going to join the Western Buddhist Order, these 10 precepts are even more than that. They are actually not just rules of training. They are obligations. They're things that we're actually obligated to. We take them as vows, as it were. Not really, not technically vows, but we take them when we join the Order. When we become a member of the Western Buddhist Order, we receive these 10 precepts from our preceptor. We take them on as obligations. There's no choice after that. You can't say, "Yeah, I want to be the Order, "but I don't want to do generosity. "I do the others, but not generosity." What we do is we take on these as obligations. So reflect upon that. There's still time to leave and go for a walk to the nature reserve. But this is what you're doing as potential Order members. You're considering. You're moving yourself to the position where you can actually take on these 10 precepts as obligations. So we have to learn to reflect upon the ethical implications of our actions. We have to learn to confess any breaches of the precepts and resolve to change our ways. This is the way that we work with precepts. We reflect on our actions in the light of the principles of the precepts. We then confess any failures to follow our obligations. And on the basis of that confession, we can strengthen our resolve to change our ways and do things differently. So I want to give you an example. This is a personal example and it's a true story. It's a true story that happened last week or two weeks ago actually. Now I have just bought a computer. I've got a new computer and I enjoy fiddling about with it. I enjoy setting up the systems. I enjoy playing with the programs. I've even got a couple of little games that I play around with and so on. I like changing the screensaver. I like doing all sorts of things with my computer. I found that I would skip off to my room to play with my computer. I even missed a couple of poojas and I used to stay up so late that my morning meditation was a complete mess. After a few weeks of this, I became aware that I was feeling a bit kind of superficial that I wasn't really very connected with things. I was okay, I was happy, but I just wasn't feeling very sort of connected. I was aware that something was going wrong in my life. So I started to reflect on what might be happening. I knew it had something to do with my computer. So I reflected on the precepts. Am I breaking any of them? First precept, no, I'm not harming anyone. Second, no, I'm not taking not giving, it's my computer. Three, no sexual misconduct. Not most of the time anyway. Four, I'm not speaking untruthfully. Five, I'm not speaking harshly. Six, I'm not speaking uselessly. I'm not speaking at all. So I'm not breaking any of the speech precepts. So, well, this is very good. Maybe I'm breaking a little bit of the first and second precept. Maybe I'm missing opportunities to be generous. So I am perhaps breaking the first precept. Second precept. But, I mean, I must admit, none of these carried very much weight with me. They didn't really, they weren't waiting enough breakages to make me want to change my actions. But then I considered precept number eight, covetousness. And I realized I'd actually hit the nail on the head. I was experiencing craving. I want the experience of playing with my computer. I like it. I enjoy it. And at times, this craving becomes completely obsessive. You know, at one o'clock in the morning, this isn't just ordinary life. This is obsession. This is seriously, seriously obsessive. I can't stop it. I could carry on all night. So I realized that this was what it was. So I'm breaking the eighth precept. Well, nobody knows about it. I'm not hurting anyone and everyone, well, most men anyway, enjoy playing with computers. And it's much better than a million other things I could be doing. And anyway, what about him? He does far worse than I do. But I am breaking the eighth precept. I'm afraid there's absolutely no getting away with it. I know I don't actually do this, but I know others that do. I could, for example, say, "Well, I wonder why I'm breaking the precept." Maybe I'm lacking love. You know, I'm not getting enough love, so I have to sort of get it from my computer in some way. Maybe if I got a girlfriend, it would solve the whole problem of my computer obsession. OK, maybe I get another one. Maybe I could think my mother neglected me when I was younger. And she left me all alone to play with my chemistry set, day in and day out. Maybe that's why I play with my computer now. Maybe I could think, well, I am supporting the military industrial complex by playing with my computer. But then I support it by buying a car anyway. You know, the community just bought a car, so we supported anyway, so why shouldn't I just carry on? And then I think, now, hang on, hang on, I'm the Buddhist. I'm just an ordinary, simple, you know, simple act, I'm the Buddhist. I've taken on certain obligations, and I'm failing to practice the eighth precept. There's no way of getting around it. I'm just going to have to confess this to my brothers on the ordination team. So next morning, or as soon as possible, I confess what I've been doing to my confession crew. I just simply confess craving with respect to the use of my computer. No excuses, no rationalisations, just the straight facts. So I've done that, I've made that important step, I've confessed, and I mean, this is a true story, I actually did this. But I also need to do something about my failure to uphold my obligations. So I make some kind of resolution. I tell my brothers that I probably won't stop messing about with my computer completely. I mean, that would just be too big a change to make. But I will stop using it long late into the night, and I will neither skip meditation nor pooja for reason of obsession with my computer. Neither will I ever turn down a request to go for a walk so that I can play with my computer. Okay, so I'd make these resolutions. And I'll do this for two weeks at first, and see how it goes. Later that night, after the pooja, I go to my room, I send off a few emails, and then decide just to try for a little bit my new voice recognition program, you know, just to try it out. But I soon become aware that the older session is taking hold of me, and that this is not necessary work. And if I give into it, I'll be in for another late night. And anyway, I confess this, and I just don't want to have to do it again in the morning. So I catch myself, I click on, log off, and I get an early night. From then onwards, the whole process gets easier. One can maintain one's ethical observance by relying on the two local parlors, Cree and Apatrupper. Cree arises by thinking, by feeling, actually, by feeling that this is not me at my best. This is not what I really want to do with my life. I can do better than this. I'm feeling a certain, well, even disgust at oneself. The one is doing what one is doing. So with this kind of energy, with this sort of emotional support, I was able to put aside a particular action. Apatrupper is the realization that my friends, my spiritual friends, will be upset for me if I do this any longer. It's not that the members of the ordination team are going to hate me, or withdraw their love for me, because I'm playing with my computer late into the night. But it's just that they will think, oh, you know, what, pity? You know, in a way, they just feel upset for me on my behalf, for my benefit. So just calling that to mind, just reflecting upon that, again, is enough to stop me doing that particular action. So these two positive emotions are crucial to the Buddhist life, and one should make every effort to recognize them in the first place, and then once you recognize them, to strengthen one's confidence in them, and to act increasingly in accordance with them. I could give a whole talk, I think, on pre and Apatrupper. They're two very important. They're one's ethical sensibility, if you like. These are the forces that enabled you to support your ethical insights, your confessions and your resolutions. Okay, now this example about the use of my computer may seem very simple, and may seem not particularly, you know, a big thing. Actually, for me, I think it was a big thing, but it's a very general applicability. You could replace my example of playing with my computer by your own thing. I mean, I doubt if it's this, but it might be, you know, just having a quick beer, or it might be a quick cigarette, or it might be just a little skimmed through the triple X sights on the web, or it might be just one more pack of biscuits. To me, it could be any obsession of your choice. Just put your own in there, and reflect upon it. Work out a way to work on it. And I'm only talking about one precept here, as a whole, other nine precepts that one could work on in similar ways. However, sometimes ethical decisions are indeed a lot more complex, and they require very thorough investigation and deep reflection. But those, that investigation, that reflection, is always to be done on the basis of the ten precepts. It's also useful to discuss these matters with your spiritual friends, particularly to your caliana matras, and when you have them, your preceptors. Note that I say spiritual friends, not relations, and not non-buddhist friends. They have to be spiritual friends because your non-buddhist friends will be working on different systems, different sort of ethical values. They won't understand your ethical decisions. They won't understand your ethical choices. So it must be spiritual friends. It must be people with whom you share the same ethical perspective. It's important that as Buddhists, we should base our ethical decisions on Buddhist ethics and not rely on other systems of ethics. I confess that I find myself sometimes referring to non-buddhist ethics, and I also see and hear other people doing the same. There are many different principles of action in this post-modern world, and we are under the influence of many of them, often only semi-consciously. I want to give a few examples. I'm just gonna read through these fairly quickly because my time is running out. Firstly, I think we need to watch out for the ethics of the me generation, the ethics of individualism, the ethics of self-centeredness. This is a bit like the infant who sees his needs and wants as the determining factor in his actions. It appears in such innocent sounding phrases as I just need to do what I need to do. Do what you think is right for yourself at this time. My feelings tell me this is the right thing to do. When we say those sorts of things, a little flag should come up, and we should think, is this a Buddhist speaking, or is this someone else? The criteria for actions is sometimes based on psychological theories. I am not incidentally trying to run down psychology. Many people have psychological problems that require psychological treatment. And also, knowing something about one psychology can be very useful. But the widespread application of psychological analysis to ethical issues is something that should be treated with caution by Buddhists. Over preoccupation with the wise and wherefors of the working of our own personal mind can often board up on the truly narcissistic. We as Buddhists have our own way of working on the mind, which we should develop with confidence. And that confidence can only be developed if we actually put it into practice and benefit from the results of our actions. This means practicing ethics and meditation. Just a few examples of the kind of psychological thinking that can be confused with ethics, while with Buddhist ethics. Firstly, negative emotions need to be expressed. Letting out anger on a cushion allows one to purge negative feelings. Not Buddhist, psychological. Another example. Sometimes I think we can be far too quick to assume that we're acting out of neurosis. You know, Freud and his followers told us that we're all a great bundle of neurosis. So we assume that everything we do is neurotic. For example, we might feel that I should not eat this nice tofu ice cream that is being freely offered to me. Because I am craving it. Or maybe you are craving it. But if you are, be aware that you're craving it and confess the eighth precept. But if not, oh, we might also take the view that I'm craving this because it's a desire for sweet things. It's very well known to be the basis of a neurotic need for love and so on. It may be, but it may also be that you just enjoy the taste of tofu ice cream. And you're a little bit hungry and you want to have an ice cream. You see what I mean? It's like sometimes we can't interpret all of our actions as being a basic from coming from neurosis. Where some of them just might be quite simple, innocent little pleasures. Thirdly, sometimes in psychological quarters there can be an unquestioning assumption that a sexual relationship is necessary for a happy and healthy life. For example, I spoke to a friend recently who was shocked that his therapist, who was also a Buddhist, did not countenance the view. That to be without a sexual relationship was a clear and healthy alternative to deal with the kids' continual frustrations with affairs of the heart. You know, a chap has continually been frustrated, say, with affairs of the heart. So a perfectly sensible solution to that would be well. Just give them up, don't do them. I mean, that's perfectly valid from the Buddhist point of view. In fact, it's probably a very good idea. But quite often I think, want to go to a therapist and, you know, they would tuck tuck, say, "Well, no, no, this is definitely not home." Let's move from psychology to feminism. Feminism is perhaps the ideology that produces many of the views that people who come along to the F.W.BO, women and men, maybe even especially men, and they take this as the norm and apply to ethical decisions without realizing that they're actually doing so. I'm going to give three simple and rather crude examples. First of all, there's the view that any kind of sexual desire of a woman by a man, however mild, is yet another case of male exploitation and domination. I once actually had the experience of a friend who expressed very deep guilt for a passing sexual desire for a woman who was not his wife. He felt, he genuinely felt, that this passing sexual desire that he'd had was his male exploitativeness coming out and his sort of attempt to dominate all of woman kind. Which, if you knew him, you'd know it was absolutely ridiculous. Second example, spoken to me by a friend in United States of America. Something should be done about this, the men seem to be taking the initiative and doing things. (audience laughing) Thirdly, the view that there is something wrong with any expression of male assertiveness, good male competitiveness and hierarchical organization. I've seen them all. Thirdly, the third area of, but I think we need to be careful about. I think there's a lot to be gained from the environmental movement and environmentalism generally, but I think there are some dangers. I'm not gonna spell them out, but I'm gonna tell you a little story and leave you to interpret the story as you see fit. This might be a good topic for discussion later. There were two women on a bus and they were talking about their husbands. One said to the other that she and her husband had come to a very good agreement about family responsibilities. She explained that she worried about the little things and her husband worried about the big things. When her friend asked her what she was responsible for, the other woman, she said, "Oh, well, I look after, "my worries really extend to the house. "I look after the house in the garden. "I look after the family finances. "I look after the kids. "I take them to school, to sports. "I take them to hospital, dentists and so on. "I do the cooking and the cleaning. "And I also keep in touch with the rest of our family "because my husband doesn't like doing that, "just to make sure that the rest of the family is okay." So the second woman said, "Oh, so what are your husband's "responsibilities?" And the second woman said, "Oh, well, "my husband spends most of his time "well worrying about the war in the Balkans, "being concerned about famine in Africa "and the greenhouse effect and the political situation in India." (audience laughing) Next point. (audience laughing) Christianity. Without going into it too much, I think that we've often imbibed Christian sexual attitudes and that we continue to hold them semi-consciously. We need to, we are Buddhists, so we need to apply Buddhist ethics and Buddhist ethical principles if we're to make any progress at all in working our way through the complex jungle of sexual ethics. The very last group, and I will finish fairly soon, the very last group of ethical views that I'd like to flag for care may seem a little bit of surprise. I want to warn you about Buddhist views. And what this means generally is being too literalistic about certain teachings or certain ethical practices within the Buddhist world. Again, what we often do is we take these Buddhist principles that are part of the Buddhist world and we turn them into universal ethical principles. Let me give you two very quick examples. In the Theravada tradition, for example, you're not considered to be a serious Buddhist if you don't follow the Vinaya. Now, I'm sure none of us would put it as crudely and as boldly as that. We wouldn't consider people to be not real Buddhist if they weren't following the Vinaya. We wouldn't be here if you felt that. But sometimes that kind of attitude can creep in in different ways. So one needs to watch out for that. Secondly, there's what I call the Sudo Zen or the Sudo Zogchen position. And this is that if you're practicing any form of ethics, you're actually falling short of the ideal of wisdom and that you're actually expressing ignorance. Now, that particularly stupid view is one that does run around in the Buddhist world. I'm sure nobody here holds it, but you might well come across it. We might well have to challenge this at some time or another. Finally, there are two other non-Buddhist extremes of ethical action that I think we should try and avoid. The first is over-subjectivity and the second is over-objectivity. What I mean by this is, firstly, by over-subjectivity, well, we've discussed this really. It's the kind of narcissistic indulgence in self-centered actions. It's basing one's actions only on what one wants or feels like doing or of being obsessed with the subjective factors at work, particularly one's own psychological motivations. We have to look at the effect of our actions on others to avoid acting out of ignorance. Our awareness of our action on others is an important component of the mental state with which we perform an action. So we have to develop concern for others. We have to develop an active concern that increasingly sees the interest of others as not different from one's own interests. Now, acting from over-objectivity means looking overly into the objective effects of one's actions and judging the value of the act by those effects only. I've covered some of this in considering what considering some of the environmentalist extremes. But another example might be that it didn't matter what one did as long as it affected no one else or you could get away with it. The idea of maybe sort of kicking the wall, if nobody was there or yelling abuse at other drivers is in the privacy of your own automobile, this does no direct harm to others. But it is an action that comes from hatred. It clearly breaks the ninth precept and is from the Buddhist point of view unskillful. Even though it does not harm another being, except of course yourself. We have to look at mental states from which our actions evolve and act in accordance with the principle that unskillful actions arise from the various forms of greed, hatred and ignorance. Eventually, we'll see that our mental states, the subjective conditions out of which an action arises and awareness of the objective effects of that action are inseparably interrelated. It is ultimately impossible to completely distinguish the two. It is perhaps from an increasing awareness of this non-duality that true insight can arise. It's from seeing that for the Bodhisattva, the mental states that lead to an action and the results of that action are not different, both in fact are a field of compassion. It gradually becomes clear to us that the path of ethics leads to an increasingly refined understanding of the interrelatedness of all beings. And that is what wisdom is. It's worth recalling I think that there are two names for the primordial Buddha. The primordial Buddha is the purest expression of enlightenment. The primordial Buddha is completely beyond words. The primordial Buddha is the goal of the Buddhist spiritual life, the goal to which all of our actions are directed, which should have influence over all of our actions. Now, the primordial Buddha is often referred to either as a Bodhisattva, the pure Adimantime being, or as Samantabhadra, the all-good. So, dear brothers in the Dharma, let us strive together for the pure and the good. (audience applauds) - We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
