(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. - It's with Chairman and Frank. And let me begin by saying that as I look around for all tonight, I really do see quite a large number of friends in the fullest sense. Not simply people who belong, so to speak, through the SLB view, through our own movement, but quite a lot of people whom I know personally and have in fact known for quite a number of years in some cases, after a long interval. It is about a year since I gave a lecture, a public lecture in London. After about a year, it is a very refreshing experience indeed to see gathered together through many friends. I'm going to start, as I often do, with a question, a question that might have come to your lips at some time or other during the past few years, even the past few months, even the past few weeks, from time to time. And that question is, what is Buddhism? What is Buddhism? What is Buddhism? There have been quite a number of attempts over the years to define, to describe this protein term. It's been described as a code of ethics, for the system of ethics. It's been described as an Eastern philosophy, even as a form of Eastern mysticism. It's been described as a spiritual path. It's been described as a tradition. By some people, at least on some occasions, it's even been described as a religion. Worse still, for the last hundreds of years, it's been described as Buddhism. Until then, until about a hundred years ago, what we call nowadays Buddhism was known simply as the Dharma, or a little more elaborately, as the Dharma Vinaya. If you like the principle and the practice. But if we go back, if we go back to the beginning, if we go back to the Buddha, we find, so that the Buddha himself gave us what is probably the best definition of Buddhism, or rather perhaps I should say the best description. And the Buddha gave it in the form of an image that he would say in the form of a figure of speech, not in the form of a concept, not in the form of an abstract idea, not of form or definition. And the Buddha said simply that the Buddhism, that the Dharma Vinaya was an ocean. In fact, he said it was a great ocean, a mighty ocean. And he is represented as describing, Buddhism describing the Dharma Vinaya, in the terms in the Pali text, called Daudana. I don't want to go into matters of detail. Let's begin in the middle. Daudana tells us that it was a full moon night. And that the Buddha was seated in the open air, surrounded by a great number, surrounded by a great host of what the text calls Miku. The word Miku is usually translated as monk or brother, but neither translation is really very satisfactory. We could perhaps better translate, translate even more literally, this word Miku as simply partaker. That's what it actually means, a partaker. The Buddha was surrounded by a great number, a great host of partakers. Partakers of what? Sharers of what? In the first place, partakers of the food of the land. They took just their share, given its own, took just what they needed to keep them going from day to day. And partaker also of the spiritual life. Sharer in the spiritual life. Sharer in it with the Buddha and with fellows with brother disciples. So the Buddha was seated on this occasion in the open air, surrounded by a great number, a great host of Miku, of partakers. And the text tells us that they sat there, violently together, not just for one hour, not just for two hours as we might, but all night. And they didn't say a word. They didn't take it. They didn't even blow their noses. We could say that they meditated together, but perhaps by the time you've reached that stage, you don't even need too many things. You just sit there, sit there all night. And further, the text says that towards dawn, just as day was about to break a certain incident into the details of which I'm not going to enter, a certain incident occurs. And as a result of this incident, the Buddha gave a description of the dharma vinya in terms of the great ocean. He said, addressing the partakers around him. He said that there were eight strange and wonderful things about the great ocean. First, he said that the great ocean flows down. It slides down. King's downward gradually. He said that there's no abrupt precipice as you make the transition from the land to the sea. The great ocean, he said, gets gradually deeper, little by little. Similarly, he said, in the dharma vinya, in his principle and practices, the training, the path, the course, the procedure is gradual, little by little. There's no abrupt penetration of knowledge, he says. We could say, bearing in mind a lecture I gave some time ago, that the path is a path of regular steps. Second, the Buddha said that the great ocean is of a stable nature. It does not overpass its boundaries. Similarly, he said, even at the cost of life itself, the Buddha's disciples do not transgress the path of training he has laid down. In other words, in more familiar terms, perhaps, they are committed, fully, totally committed to the dharma vinya. The great ocean, he said, rejects a dead body. If a dead body is cast into the great ocean, the great ocean throws it up onto the shore. In the same way, the Sangha of spiritual humility of the Buddha's disciples reject someone who is not really, who is not truly leading the spiritual life. Even, he said, even if he is seated in the midst of the Sangha, he is far from the Sangha, and the Sangha is far from him. In more contemporary terms, we may say, that there can be no nominal membership of the spiritual community. You can't be an honorary member of the spiritual community. Sooner or later, a merely nominal member will have to inverted comments leave. He'll find himself literally outside. For, when the rivers reach the great ocean, the Buddha said, they lose their former names and lineages. From then on, they're not called ganges and so on. They're called simply great ocean. They become part, their waters become part of the great ocean. In the same way, those who go forth from home to the homeless life, in or under the Dharma Vinaya, proclaims by the Buddha, lose their former names and their former lineages, and they're called, in the words of the Party text itself, asketics, summoners, who are sons, who are daughters of the Sangha. They do the same, who are disciples, followers of the Buddha. They become part of the spiritual community. They become so-to-seek merged with the spiritual community, but without losing their individual identity. Their spiritual identity. The Buddha of course spoke in terms of caste identity. That's the identity that you lose. He spoke in terms of losing one's name, losing one's lineage as noble, or brahming, or merchant, or serf upon going forth. The noble, the brahming, the merchant, and the serf were of course the main caste, or regulatory caste of the Buddhist day. And we can extend that, we can amplify that. We can speak in terms of losing our national identity. Because in the spiritual community, there's no question of national identity. There's no question of being English, or Irish, or Scotch, or Welsh. No question of being British, or American, or Indian, or Australian, or Finnish, or Dutch. A spiritual community, or in the spiritual community, one is simply an individual, a true individual. One is simply a spiritually committed human being, relating as such to other, spiritually committed human beings. Fifth, whatever streams fall into the great ocean, whatever rains for, the great ocean remains the same. There's no shrinkage or overflow in the great ocean. This may not be quite literally true, of course, because in the Buddhist day, people did not, it seems, know anything about polar ice caps. However, that doesn't really matter. We're concerned with what the simile, what the comparison is meant to illustrate. We're not concerned so much with the factual accuracy of the details of the simile. So let us say, let us assume that the great ocean remains the same. In the same way, nirvana remains the same. However many partakers attain nirvana, with a few or many, nirvana remains the same. However many may, so to speak, disappear into it. Nirvana does not shrink, does not overflow, it remains the same. Sixth, the great ocean, the Buddha said, has one taste, the taste of salt. It has a saline taste throughout. And similarly, the dharma vinaya, his principle come practice, has one taste, the taste of relief, the taste of emancipation, the taste of freedom. Seventh, the great ocean contains all sorts of gems. Or, as the English poet Grace puts it, full many a gem of purist ray serene, the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean down. Similarly, the dharma vinaya of the Buddha contains all sorts of freshest gems of spiritual teachings. It contains such spiritual teachings as the four foundations of mindfulness, the five spiritual faculties, the seven factors of enlightenment, the eightfold path and so on. And eighth, and lastly, the great ocean, the Buddha said, is the abode of great creatures, even the abode of monsters. The Buddha, or at least the parley text, at least Diodana, is a little uncertain about marine biology here. Evidently, the Buddha or Diodana means creatures like sharks and whales, besides more mythological creatures. But similarly, the Buddha goes on to say, the dharma vinaya is the abode of great creatures. It's the abode of streaming of one's returners, of non-returners, our hands. And we could add, so the text does not go on in this way, but we could add the abode also of Bodhisattvas and Maha sitas, the abode of gurus and devas, the darkest, darky knees and dharma palace. So these are the eight strange and wonderful things about the great ocean, the eight strange and wonderful things about the dharma vinaya. And tonight, obviously, we're concerned with the sixth of these eight. We're concerned with the fact that the dharma vinaya, what we've got into the habit, unfortunately according to Buddhism, has the taste of freedom. What then is this taste of freedom? What is freedom? That is perhaps the question that we ask ourselves, even more often than we ask ourselves, what is Buddhism? The word for freedom in the original Pali text of the bodhana is vimutti, and it's equivalent to the Sanskrit vimutti. It can be translated as release or emancipation, or also as freedom. The word for taste is rasa, which means use, taste. Special qualities, flavour, relish, pleasure, essential properties, extracts and essence will come onto that shortly. Now, in recent times, we've heard a great deal about freedom, usually of course in connection with civil and political liberties. And we have therefore come to think of freedom in a certain kind of way. We've come to attach a certain meaning to the word. But in speaking tonight of the taste of freedom, I'm not really concerned with the meaning of the English word as such. I'm concerned with the English word only as a provisional equivalent of the Pali word. I'm concerned with freedom in the sense of vimutti. So, what is vimutti? Before going into this question, I want to say just a few more words about the dana passage in which the Buddha describes the dharma vinaya in terms of the great ocean. You remember that the Buddha says that there are eight strange and wonderful things about the great ocean and that similarly there are eight strange and wonderful things about the dharma vinaya. And one of these things is, of course, the fact that the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, and that the dharma vinaya has one taste, the taste of freedom. For the moment, I want to concentrate on these two epithets, strange and wonderful. You might have missed them, might have overlooked them, but they want to give them their full thought. So, the great ocean is strange. The great ocean is wonderful. The dharma vinaya is strange. The dharma vinaya is wonderful. What does this mean? How is the great ocean strange? We must remember where it was, that Buddhism, as we call it, arose. We must remember where it was, that the Buddha taught. He taught in the valley of the Ganges. In other words, he taught many hundreds of miles from the great ocean. So far as we know, the Buddha himself had never seen the great ocean. Under vast majority of his disciples had never seen it either. They knew it only by his sake. They heard the rumor of this great ocean, this great body of water far greater than any river, even the Ganges itself. They knew it only by his sake. So to them, the great ocean was a forest, an unfamiliar element. And it was the same, it is the same, with the dharma vinaya. The dharma vinaya is strange to us. We could go further, we could elaborate on that. The spiritual life is strange to us. The unconditioned is strange to us, the transcendental is strange to us. It's something of which we have only heard. It represents a foreign element. It's not our native element. The Buddha himself is strange to us. The Buddha is the strange earth. He comes as it were from another world, another dimension. He stands as our daughter, but we do not recognize him. Even, even the spiritual community is strange to us. Strange, that is, if we are not ourselves, true, individual, if we are not spiritually committed. So the great ocean is strange. The dharma vinaya is strange. How is the great ocean wonderful? It's wonderful in its vast extent. It's wonderful in its perpetual movement. It never rests. It never stands still. It never stays not even for an instant, not even the tiniest particle of it. It is ever in movement. It's wonderful in its uninterrupted music, the sound of the sea. It's wonderful in its ever-changing lights and colors. The blue and the green and the most, the purple, the gold. It's wonderful in its unfathomable depth. And it's particularly wonderful when we see it for the first time. When we come into contact with it, for the first time, when perhaps we swim in it, for the first time when we plunge in, maybe on a hot stage, maybe on a cold stage, but we plunge in, we move our arms and we move our legs, and for the first time in our life we're swimming in the great ocean, or at least paddling. So it's the same with the Dharma Vinaya. The Dharma Vinaya is not simply vast in its extent. It's infinite. The Dharma Vinaya, the principle and the practice of the Buddha, is a sureless ocean. We can see no end to it, and it's not something thick or rigid, static, unmoving, unchanging. It's full of life. It's full of movement. It's continually adapting itself to the needs of living beings. And it's continually speaking to us. This ocean of the Dharma Vinaya, it's singing to us. It's playing its own inimitable music to us, in its own indescribably appealing and fascinating ways, not dull, not uninteresting, but alive with all sorts of brilliance and tender lights, all sorts of vivid and delicate colours, alive, we may say, with the radiantly colourful forms of goodness and bodhisattvas, dark hearts and darkenies. And it's so deep, this ocean of the Dharma Vinaya that we can never hope to present its depth. So the Dharma Vinaya is wonderful in all of these ways. But we don't usually think of it in this kind of manner. But this is what it's really like. The Dharma Vinaya is wonderful. The Buddha is wonderful, as the mantra-chatur himself says in his 500 verses of worship. What steadfastness, what conduct, what form, what virtue, in a Buddha's qualities that is nothing, that is not wonderful. The spiritual humility is wonderful. Spiritual life is wonderful. It's wonderful that we can stick and meditate together. It's wonderful that we can live in residential spiritual communities. It's wonderful that we can work in team-based, right livelihood projects. It's wonderful that you're all listening to me here tonight. It's wonderful that I'm speaking to you. So the Dharma Vinaya is in these wonderful, strange and wonderful, but we don't usually experience it like that. After a while, we start experiencing the Dharma Vinaya Buddhism. Spiritual life is something old and familiar. It's a stage we've gone through when we were young, a naive. It says that familiarity breeds contempt. It's probably more true to say that familiarity breeds indifference. In the case of the Dharma Vinaya, familiarity breeds indifference. Only when we've been familiar, simply with words, with concepts and external forms. With the words, concepts and external forms in which the Dharma Vinaya finds expression, but with which it is not to be identified. But if we have been familiar with the spirits, as we may say, of the Dharma Vinaya, if we've had even a little taste of it, we will see the Dharma Vinaya as more and more and more wonderful. It's important, therefore, to keep alive this feeling, this sense that the Dharma Vinaya is a wonderful thing. According to Plato, philosophy begins with a sense of wonder. Certainly, there's no spiritual life without an ever continuing sense of wonder. A sense of wonder with regard to the Dharma Vinaya. But we can go further than that. Your Dharma goes further than that. The Buddha himself goes further than that. After describing the eight strange and wonderful things about the Dharma Vinaya, the Buddha says, "These things are the eight strange and wonderful things about this Dharma Vinaya, seeing which again and again, because partakers take delight in this Dharma Vinaya. I want to concentrate on these two points too. I want to give them, also, their full force. First, the bhikkhus, the bhautakas, the followers, the disciples, see the strange and wonderful qualities of the Dharma Vinaya again and again. Never becomes tired of them. Just like some people see a film again and again. Never becomes tired of it. In the same way, the partakers, they see the Dharma Vinaya. Look at the Dharma Vinaya. Here the Dharma Vinaya, again and again. Never becomes tired. The more they see, the more they hear of the Dharma Vinaya, the more wonderful it appears. And second, the bhikkhus, the partakers, the Buddha says, "Take delight in the Dharma Vinaya. The Dharma Vinaya is not only wonderful, but enjoyable. It's enjoyable because it's wonderful. It's wonderful because it's enjoyable. Spiritual life is enjoyable. Meditation is enjoyable. Living in a residential spiritual community is enjoyable. Working in a team-based, right livelihood project is enjoyable. Having our thoughts pointed out is enjoyable. Being thrown in at the deep end is enjoyable. Not being allowed to rationalize is enjoyable. It's important to remember this, that in every way the Dharma Vinaya is enjoyable. Buddhism, to use that term, is enjoyable. It's something in which, since again and again, we take delight. I hardly need to point out how greatly this difference from the usual conception of religion and religious life. But it's time we got back to freedom. Freedom in the sense of the Mutti. What then is the Mutti? In order to understand this, we shall have to see what place the Mutti occupies in the complete scheme of spiritual self-development. And we can do this by looking at the series of the positive Nidanas as they call them. These Nidanas represent stages of spiritual development. They're called Nidanas or links because each one arises independent on the one free series. Arrizes, we may say, even out of the fullness of the one free series. Thus, as some of you at least will be familiar with these formulae, independence on suffering arises face and devotion. Independence on space and devotion arises satisfaction and delight. Independence on satisfaction and delight arises rapture. Independence on rapture arises tranquility. Independence on tranquility arises bliss. Independence on bliss arises samadhi. The word I'm not going to try to translate. Independence on samadhi arises knowledge and vision of things as they really are. Independence on knowledge and vision of things as they really are arises disengagement, disentanglement. Independence on disengagement or disentanglements arises dispassion. Independence on dispassion arises vimutti. Independence on vimutti arises knowledge of the destruction of the biases and knowledge of the destruction of the biases is equivalent to tantamounts, to enlightenment. It represents the goal and consummation of the entire spiritual life. It represents the complete overcoming of the conditions, the mundane. And by implication it represents the complete realization of the unconditioned and transcendental. There's no time for me to give you any details of these links or stages, these nidans. I explain them fully on other occasions. At present I'm concerned with just one thing. I'm concerned with the place of vimutti in the whole series. The place of vimutti in the complete scheme of spiritual self-development. We can at once see one thing. Vimutti occupies a very high place. In fact, it's the penultimate link, the penultimate stage. Vimutti, therefore, is not what we ordinarily understand by freedom. It goes far, far beyond it. It goes far beyond any question of political and civil liberty, far beyond freedom in the ordinary psychological sense. So let us look into this a little more deeply, let us try to understand exactly how it is so. Independence on rapture arises tranquility. Independence on tranquility arises bliss. Independence on bliss arises samadhi. These four nidanas, rapture, tranquility, bliss, samadhi, represent the process of what we usually call meditation. Meditation that is to say in the sense of an actual experience of higher states of consciousness. Meditation just in the sense of preliminary concentration. It's meditation in the sense of what is technically called shamatā, or calm, calm with a capital C. Now the next link, or the next stage, the next nidana, after samadhi is knowledge and vision of things as they really are. And the formula for this is independence on samadhi arises knowledge and vision of things as they really are. And this stage, this link, this nidana is extremely important. The transition from samadhi to knowledge and vision of things as they really are is absolutely crucial. It represents a turning point, even the great turning point in the spiritual life. It's the point at which our most refined, our most blissful, our most beatific experience of the condition of the mundane is succeeded by our first experience. There's no other word for us here, our first experience of the unconditioned of the transcendental. Knowledge and vision of things as they really are, thus is a form of what is technically called vipassana, or infinite. Now vimuddhi is the fourth stage on from knowledge and vision of things as they really are. The fourth stage on in between come disengagement or disentanglement and dispassionate. So what does this mean? It means that there's no vimuddhi without insight. Or if you like, there's no real freedom without insight. Freedom cannot be a blind thing. Now when knowledge and vision of things as they really are arising, when we make that crucial transition, that transformation from calm to instant, something happens. In traditional Buddhist language, we enter the stream. We become what is called a stream entrance. And as that happens, or as we do that, or as that happens to us, all these expressions have here the same meaning. At the same time, we break, or they are broken, or to call the first three fetters. The first three of the fetters, the binders, through the lower, grows the level of mundane existence. We become free from the first three fetters. We become what is technically called an aria putgila, or true individual. Thus we see that only the true individual can be free. You can be free only if you are a true individual. You can be free, or really free, only if you break the first three fetters. Only that will give you a real taste of freedom. What then are the three fetters? I've spoken about them on a number of occasions before. I've written about them, rather technically. But tonight, I am going to describe them in very general terms, even in very basic terms, if I may say so, down to earth terms. In those terms, the three fetters are, one, the fetter of habit. Two, the fetter of superficiality. Three, the fetter of vagueness. I am going to say just a few words about each in turn. The fetter of habit. The dictionary defines habit as the tendency or disposition to act in a particular way. Thus habit is a matter of action. Action, however, is an essential part of ourselves, not something just added on. In fact, according to the Dharma Vinayas, we are our actions. What we usually think of, what we usually refer to as a person, is the sum total of his or her actions. The actions of body, speech, and mind, and the person does not exist apart from them. The fetter that we have a tendency or a disposition to act in a particular way means, therefore, that we have a tendency or a disposition to be in a particular way. Thus, we are not just the sum total of our actions. We are the sum total of our habits. We are our habits. We could even say that we ourselves, each one individually, we ourselves are simply a habit, probably a bad habit. The person we think of as George or Mary and recognized as acting in a particular way is simply a habit that a certain stream of consciousness has got into it, that like a knot tied in a piece of string. But since it has got into it, it can get out of it. It can become free from it. So, breaking the fetter of habit means, essentially, getting out of the habit of being the kind of person we were, or even are. Just getting out of the habit of being that particular kind of person is only a habit you've got into. There has to be the way you are, there's no necessity about it. Breaking the fetter of habit means, getting rid of the old self, getting rid of the past self, throwing it into the dust bin. It means becoming a new man. It means becoming a true individual, one who is aware, emotionally positive, responsible, sensitive, creative. It means becoming continually creative, continually recreated of our own self. The Buddhist doctrine of no self, incidentally, the Buddhist doctrine of unattached does not mean too much that we never have a self. It means rather that we always have a new self. Always have a new self, and ideally, each new self that we have should be a better one than the last. That's what we mean by progress. Now, it's not easy to get out of the habit of being the kind of person we were, the kind of person we are. It's not easy to get rid of the old self, not easy to get rid of the past self, and to become a new man. And one of the reasons for this is, other people. Not only have we ourselves got into the habit of being in a particular way, but other people have got into the habit of experiencing us as being in the habit of being in a particular way. So the sum total of people to experience us as what we were, rather than as what we are, is what we call the group. It is in this sense that the group is the enemy of the individual. That is to say the enemy of the true individual. The group will not allow the true individual to emerge from its ranks. It insists on dealing with him not as he is, but as he was. And to this extent the group deals with someone who no longer exists. You may experience this sometimes when you revisit your family after an interval of several years. So breaking the factor of habit means becoming free from the old self, free from the past self. It means becoming free from the group. That is to say free from the influence. The habit reinforcing influence of the group. It doesn't of course necessarily mean that we break off actual relations with the group. To the factor of superficiality. The word superficiality is derived from superficial. Superficial is defined as of relating to being near or forming the surface. Hence, displaying a lack of powerness and care. And only outwardly a power rather than genuine or actual. So in the present context superficiality means acting from the surface. Acting from the surface of ourselves. Acting without powerness or care. Acting in outward appearance only rather than genuinely or actually. Now why do we act in this way? Supervisually. What is the reason for our superficiality? The reason is that we are divided. More often than not the conscious rational surface is divided from the unconscious emotional depth. We act out of intellectual conviction but we do not succeed in carrying the emotions with us. Sometimes of course we act out of the fullness of our emotions. But then only to often the rational mind holds back. Perhaps even does not approve. In either case we do not act totally. We do not act with the whole of ourselves and therefore we do not really act. We are not wholehearted in what we do. And this state of affairs is very general. We could say that superficiality is one of the greatest curses of the modern age. Matthew Arnold more than a hundred years ago spoke of our sick hurry, our divided aims. That is just about to describe the situation. We are in a hurry, a sick hurry. Yet our aims are divided. We do not really and truly do anything. We do not do it with the whole force of our being. When we love we do not really love. And when we hate we do not really hate. We do not even really think. We have to do all these things. And it is the same. Only to often when we take up the spiritual life when we try to follow the dharma vinya. We meditate with only parts of ourselves. We communicate with only parts of ourselves. And we work perhaps only with parts of ourselves. We go for refuge even as we think only with parts of ourselves. And consequently we do not get very far. We do not really grow. We do not really develop. We do not carry the whole of our being along with us so to speak. A small part of us is prospecting ahead. But the greater part is lagging far behind. To breaking the set of superficiality means acting with the whole of ourselves. Acting with tiredness and care. Acting genuinely and actually. It means in a word committing ourselves to the spiritual life. Committing ourselves to being a true individual. Three, lastly, the setter of vagueness. We all know what vagueness means. We all know what a vague person is. But what is the reason for the vagueness? Why should anyone be vague? We are vague when we are undecided. We are vague when we don't want to decide. We are vague when we don't want to commit ourselves. And the vagueness is therefore a dishonest vagueness. After all, spiritual life is very difficult. Growth and development is often a painful process even though it is enjoyable. So we tend to shrink back. We tend not to commit ourselves. We keep our options open as we say. We keep up a number of different interests, a number of different aims. On which we can fall back and we allow ourselves to oscillate between them. Even to drift between, at all costs we remain vague, woolly, cloudy, dim, indistinct, faint. Making the fetter of vagueness therefore means being willing to think clearly. It means being willing to think things out, to think things through. It means being willing to see what the alternatives really are. It means being willing to sort out our priorities. It means being willing to make up our minds. It means being willing actually to choose the best and to act wholeheartedly upon that choice. It means not postponing the moment of decision. These then are the three fetters. The fetter of habit, the fetter of superficiality, the fetter of vagueness. And these fetters are broken by means of influence, by means of the knowledge and vision of things as they really are. Or, if you like, they are broken by our becoming creative. That is to say, self-creative, creative of our own new self, committed and clear. Creative, committed and clear. And when we develop influence, when knowledge and vision arises, we enter the stream. The stream that leads directly to a nightmare. We become a stream entrance. And being a stream entrance, we are a true individual. And as a true individual, we can experience being much. We can enjoy the taste of freedom. So, two main points have emerged so far. The first, the only true individual is really free. And second, that we become a true individual only by developing insights, vibrations, the three fetters. We become a true individual only by becoming creative, committed and clear. In speaking of the taste of freedom, we must bear both these points in mind. But there is another point that requires our consideration. The Buddha used the expression, the taste of freedom, with regard to the dharma vinaya. Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of thought. So, the dharma vinaya has one taste, the taste of freedom. What does this mean? It means that the dharma vinaya is pervaded, wholly pervaded by the taste of freedom. It means that every part of the dharma vinaya has the taste of freedom. The dharma vinaya, of course, consists of a great many things. Perhaps more things than in the Buddha's own days. It consists of all sorts of teachings, all sorts of practices, all sorts of institutions. It consists of philosophies, concentration techniques, ethical systems, rituals, art, culture. But there is a question that must be asked of all of them. Do they have the taste of freedom? Do they help us directly or indirectly to become free, the mukta? Do they help us to develop insights? Do they help us to break the free sessions? Do they help us to become true individuals? Do they help us to enter the streams? If they do not, they are no part of the Buddha's teaching, no part of the dharma vinaya. We must admit that there are many things in present days, Eastern Buddhism, with regards to which we cannot answer these questions in the affirmative. There are many things that do not have this taste of freedom. Many things in the terabartas, many things in Tibetan Buddhism, many things in Zen. This is why in the SWBO we do not identify ourselves exclusively with any one form of traditional Buddhism. We follow the Buddha's own advice and accept as his teaching only what actually helps us to grow. Only what actually has the taste of freedom. Now in the course of the last hour or so, we've had quite a lot to say about freedom, quite a lot to say about the mukta, quite a lot to say about the taste of freedom. But we've not had very much to say about taste itself. It's interesting that the Buddha uses the word taste in this connection, the taste of freedom. He doesn't speak of the idea of freedom, he doesn't speak of the concept of freedom, he speaks of the taste of freedom. He could say that he speaks of the Dharma Vinaya as having the taste of freedom, only because he has already spoken of the great ocean as having the taste of salt. But why did he speak of the great ocean in this way in the first place? Presumably the Buddha selected certain qualities of the great ocean because they enabled him to emphasize certain qualities of the Dharma Vinaya. He spoke of the great ocean as having the taste of salt because he wanted to make it clear that the Dharma Vinaya had the taste of freedom. In other words, wanted to emphasize that freedom was something to be tasted, something to be experienced. So let's just look at this a little more closely. We've seen that the Pali word for taste is rasa. Rasa in the first place means youth, youth of course is a liquid, a fluid, and a fluid is something that flows. It's something that has no fixed form, and freedom also is like that. The Mutti also is like that, it's not something fixed and specific, it's not something conditioned. On the contrary, it is absolute and unconditioned. Similarly with the Dharma Vinaya itself, the Dharma Vinaya has the taste of freedom. It is pervaded by the taste of freedom, it is in fact we may say an uninterrupted spontaneous flow of spiritual and transcendental things. That flow may crystallize into different teachings, practices and so on, but it is not to be identified with them. Rasa also means just, not just but taste. And taste of course is a matter of direct experience. To say that the Dharma Vinaya has the taste of freedom means that if you practice the Dharma Vinaya, you will have the direct experience of freedom, you will become free. Again, Rasa means special quality. The direct experience of freedom is the special quality of the Dharma Vinaya. It's the quality by which you can recognize it. If it doesn't have this quality, it isn't the Dharma Vinaya. Just as if something doesn't taste sweet, it can't be sugar. So this special quality gives the Dharma Vinaya its special flavor as it were. So Rasa also means flavor. With practice we begin to appreciate this flavor. We begin to relish it. We begin to take pleasure in it. We begin to enjoy it. Rasa therefore means relish and pleasure. In addition it means essential property. The experience of freedom is essential to the Dharma Vinaya. There's no Dharma Vinaya without it. Whatever else you may have, if you don't have the experience of freedom, you don't have the Dharma Vinaya. And finally, Rasa means extract for essence. If you boil the Dharma Vinaya down, so to speak, what do you get? If you go on boiling and boiling and boiling, this vast ocean, until you get a single drop, what do you get? What is that drop? You get freedom. You get the mutti. If you want to reduce the Dharma Vinaya to one word, what is that one word? It is the word freedom. The word the mutti. So, we've covered quite a lot of ground through night. And it's very nearly time to conclude. We began with an image. So let us end with an image. We began with the image of the great ocean. Let us end with another image. The image of something equally great is not great. Let us end with the image of space. The image of the sky, a sky infinite in extent, deep blue in color and perfectly pure. In the midst of this image, there is another image. We see a figure flying through the sky. It's a naked red figure. It's a female figure with long black hair streaming out behind her. And her face is uplifted in ecstasy. And there is a smile on her lips. She is what is known in Buddhist tradition as the dark in need, the lady of space. And she is absolutely free. She's free to fly in any direction. North, south, east, west, up, down. She's even free to stay still. Because her is the liberty of infinite space. She enjoys the taste of freedom. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [ Silence ]
