Today’s FBA Podcast “Talks of a Free Spirit – 45 Years of the Buddha’s Life” explores the life and teachings of the Buddha as they’ve come down through the stories of the tradition. Vajrasara has a veritable genius for making clear the relevances for contemporary society, and this talk is a most engaging example as she takes her own favourite tales and draws out the beautiful challenges of it all.
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Tales of a Free Spirit – 45 Years of the Buddha’s Life
(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. - So the thing about those bats is you never know when they're gonna give up on you. So let's hope I make it through to the end of this retreat. Thanks a lot, not a bunch of you. So I've got the enjoyable task by telling you about 45 years of the Buddha's life in about 45 minutes. And before I even go any further, I'd like anyone at the back in either back to wave if you can't hear me. Yeah, are you waving now? Okay. So yes, 45 years and 45 minutes, I'll do my best. The exciting thing about that is, of course, that I can choose exactly what I like because I inevitably can't cover everything. So I've just chosen my favourite bits, and yeah, that seems to be fine. So last night we heard from Madhirbandu a little bit, something anyway, about the enlightenment, about what happened to the Buddha under the Bodhi tree all those years ago, and pulling away the ramifications of that. So now, rather than list one of the many lists that Buddhism goes into, the teachings come in a range of lists of three, four, five, six, and so on. I thought, well, we weren't going to that. I thought I'd like to focus on some of his encounters, the manner of his encounters, and some of the teachings that came out of the numerous people he met during that time. So for a start, he carried on living very simply. He carried on sleeping outdoors under trees. He traveled from village to village, always on foot, and he met a huge range of people. Some of them were really interested in spiritual questions, and some of them, not at all. But before long, he had, as his disciples, he had kings, murderers, sometimes both. He had playboys, labourers, lunatics, a whole gamut that was around in northern India. The Buddha seemed to encounter. And he seems to have had an incredible impact on people. It seems to have been his being as much as what he said to people that seems to have affected them. His presence, his level of consciousness, his kind of disarming compassion. Even when people came to kind of challenge him, or try and test him in verbal combat, seemed to have happened a lot, yeah, they were disarmed. It's not, in fact, that he was always popular. He wasn't, but he had an impact. And partly, anything that's unconventional is not gonna be popular in all quarters. Because what he was teaching was revolutionary, and very uncompromising in some respects. So it challenged the customs of the day. It challenged caste, it challenged things like animal sacrifice, and many of the other customs. And you could say, in a way, that Buddhism isn't for the conventional, even today, or particularly today perhaps, because it's challenging our conventions, our habits, our assumptions, and asking us in a way to ditch them if they prove limiting. So he was offering a viable path, a viable path which is definitely relevant today. But it was to everybody, to men and women, to householders, to full-timers. And although the scriptures really emphasized homeless wanderers, we know for sure that a number of his lay disciples became enlightened. And well, that's very encouraging for those of us who aren't interested in a homeless life or a monastic way of living today. So there are many, many stories of the Buddhist encounters, and lots of them reveal his compassion. Now, when I thought I'd choose, he is an encounter he had with a man called Sunita. And I think this shows not only his kindness, but it was, in a way, an outrageous challenge to the status quo. Sunita was an outcast at what's called an untouchable in those days. And what that meant was his job, his lot in life was to shovel ship. It was to do all the menial tasks that other people didn't want to do. And he had to make sure he didn't so-called contaminate higher caste people, particularly holy men. So if he saw one coming, he would make himself scarce. And so one day he sees the Buddha coming along the road and the Buddha's seen him. And so he scuttles into the next lane and the Buddha follows him. So he nips down a side street, the Buddha keeps on coming. He turns the next corner, the Buddha keeps on following. And soon, Sunita has nowhere else to hide. So apparently, he flattens himself against the wall. And as the Buddha approaches, he puts his hands together in respect. And he's dismayed when the Buddha comes right up to him and says, fellow or friend, something friendly, would you like to give up, give up this horrible life and follow me? And Sunita's astonished, dismayed, appalled. And when he says, sir, no one has ever spoken to me in such a friendly way. If you're happy to have a dirty scavenger like me, then I'll gladly follow you. And it seems as simple as that. The Buddha ordains him on the spot and says, come, brother or something like that. And there he is. He had no aspirations to be spiritually. He got no thoughts like that in the world. And yeah, I think he was reeling in shock, probably. But in a flash, that was just an example. In a flash, the Buddha spotted him, knew that he had a wretched life and just went for it. And knew that he also had potential, like all beings he had potential. And yeah, so this is both his kindness and yes, his daring, his audacity. And it also gives a great sense of the breadth of the Buddha's vision. It was truly egalitarian in the very best sense that every being, no matter what race, what gender, what age, whatever, has that potential for enlightenment. And well, it was very radical, as I said. Those of the higher cast, particularly the Brown ones at that time, were outraged. They felt the spiritual matters were there preserved and didn't like it at all. But the Buddha was strongly against that. He said that it kept people fixed and degraded many people. And so he carried on ordaining untouchable, ordaining all sorts of people that wouldn't normally have imagined they could have a spiritual potential. So yes, but yeah, this was, this was irksome to some Brahmins. So we've got an example here of one day when the Buddha was on his arms round, he was going out with his begging bowl and he comes across a Brahmin landowner and this landowner scoffs at him. And he says, "Look, Gautama." Gautama was his family name, he says, "Look, Gautama, "I plow and sow and having done so, I eat." Now, you plow and sow and then you two could eat. And the Buddha replies, "Brahmin, I too plow and sow." And then I eat. And the brah says, "Well, I don't see your plow, "I don't see your oxen." And the Buddha says to him, "The seed I plant is faith. "My harness is self-mastery. "My plow is wisdom. "And its course is secured by conscience. "The rope I firmly hold is mind. "And my good is mindfulness. "And ever watchful of word and deed, "I eat only as I need to. "My oxen are unfulturing effort. "And this leads to the end of sorrow and regret. "So this is my plowing. "And his end is freedom." So Brahmins silenced by this. And in this way, the Buddha explains that while his life might look passive and dependent on others for his food and so on, actually it demands continual work, continual inner work. And anyway, the prior landowner was convinced and offered him food from his golden body. I think this meeting is typical of quite a number that you read in the scriptures. And it shows the Buddha meeting like with like. Whatever comes towards him, he meets it, but kind of turns it around. So he addresses people in the way that they're best able to hear using farming methods within us. And flexibility, it's known as skillful means in the Buddhist tradition. So he taught people in their own language, literally and metaphorically. He was very, very keen that his teaching was communicated in the language of the people, not the elitist language that usually religious doctrines were taught in. And yeah, he did want to exclude less educated folk. So he also used similes and parables to illustrate his points and very much timeless in imagery. So it's still relevant today. One wee story I like is of a monk called Yassa. And Yassa, we may recognise ourselves in Yassa. I certainly do. Yassa was distracting himself with busyness. There wasn't a great deal to do if you were a monk. He only had something like four possessions, but nonetheless he found his way to fiddle with them. He spent time mending robes, running errands to the village, fetching and carrying water, chatting with other monks, anything in a way to avoid the challenging business of being aware of himself. However, the Buddha's onto him. And he draws a parallel between Yassa and the nearby hen. So this hen, one of her chicks has hatched, but the other eight eggs haven't hatched. And they're abandoned in the nest. The hen, apparently, like Yassa had wandered off to the village and left her nest. So when she returns from the village, she's pecking away at her eggs and there's not much sign of life. So the Buddha says to Yassa, you're like that hen. You want the result, but you don't want to do what it takes to bring that result about. How are you gonna manage? If you wander off the village, you divide your attention, you neglect. You don't brood your eggs, you neglect your meditation. How are you going to train your mind? And so again and again and again, in these kinds of simple ways, he's pointing out that actions have consequences. And I'm sure lots of us can relate to this kind of teaching. We want to train our minds, we want to grow, we want to integrate, and we don't necessarily brood our eggs. We distract ourselves with busyness. Perhaps I know that in certain moods, anything, even the hoovering, can seem more attractive than applying myself to meditation. So yes, Yassa and the eggs, brood your eggs. (chuckles) So as the Buddha gathered more and more disciples, they started finding different ways of practicing. Some of them went off meditating alone into the jungle, and others formed small groups to support groups, you might say. And there was a group of three monks, which we sometimes refer to as the Annie Rooders. Actually only one of them was called Annie Rooder, but they come across from the text a bit like an ideal community. These three, they live together in a grove, and they co-existed the scriptures say like milk and water, and looked at each other only with kindly eyes. So they're rather perfect, and they carried out their daily tasks in harmony, in silence, cooperatively and everything. And it seemed, they only discussed the Dharma, they didn't talk about anything remotely superficial, and they were in so much harmony that they could read each other's thoughts. Anyway, so the Buddha comes along, and he's written each other, he's very impressed, praises them and their lifestyle. And I've often studied this text in communities, or teens, or on retreats, and it's sort of held up as something ideal that we can aim for. What can we learn from, well, about kindness, about mutual support, rejoicing in each other, communal living, all that kind of thing. So I found it really heartening. A few weeks ago, I was reading in a count of the Buddha, and well, it tells us a bit about the early life of Anirudha, and he wasn't born perfectly spiritual. Apparently, once the Buddha's stature, once he'd become quite well-known and he's been widely acknowledged, it came about that local families had a great pride in sending one of their sons to join the Buddha's order. And so one day, Anirudha, who comes from a well-off family, his elder brother came along, and he says, well, it would shame our family if one of us doesn't go and join the Buddha's disciples. And Anirudha's this decorous young man, he's lying on a couch, listening to musicians. I imagine he's sort of being fed mangoes or something, but he's generally having a very comfortable life, and fairly young, I think. And he says, no, no, not a bit of it, brother, I'll stay here. And so they have this little dialogue, and his brother says, no, no. And he said, yeah, I'll manage the house, so you go and join the monks. And then his elder brother gets into quite a long description of the household life, the responsibilities, the onerous tasks, the chores, the effort of the household life. And Anirudha's going, oh my God, obviously hasn't taken that into account at all. He seems to be even more appalled at the thought of staying at home, the leaving home. So, you know, we're very much echoing the Buddha's point that came up in his earlier life, that household life is hard work and narrow. So, basically, Anirudha says, okay, I'll sign up for the spiritual option, reluctantly, reluctantly. And like the young Buddha, the Buddha, as was, he found it very hard at times. Apparently, he found the begged food revolting, and that he missed his soft bed sheets. But he persisted. And Anirudha becomes renowned for his clairvoyance, and very much an elder in the Buddha's sanga, and eventually enlightened also. So, I found that a little bit heartening, from small beginnings. Yeah, and sometimes, like the young Anirudha, I can get into thinking I've chosen the tough option by trying to train my mind, trying to transform my ethical behavior. But it all goes against the grain in some way, which, in a sense, it does. And so, you know, all these kind of thoughts, I'm sure we've all had, like, couldn't I just relax a bit? Lion a couch listening to music, lean fewer retreats, ease up, take more holidays, that kind of thing. And, well, I know this is called self-doubt. But anyway, I was reading San Gerekstra, our teacher, said, "Well, he makes the point that spiritual life "is actually not more difficult than worldly life. "We can think it is, high contributors." And he says, "Our tendency is perhaps to think "that worldly life is easier, less trouble." But there's no objective reason for that. He says that trying to be happy, find a partner, have a successful career, bring up a family. It all brings a lot of stress and strain. And that plenty of things also upset our plans. He says that, "However, if one follows a spiritual path, "sooner or later, success will come." Now, I know we've heard a lot about success, and I think San Gerekstra means it in a slightly different way. But, yeah, he's really pointing out the law of cause and effect, that actions have consequences. If we apply ourselves to growth, growth will happen. And I think also on a deep level, you know, I said I thought it was about working against the grain, but in a way, on a deeper level, it's actually working with the grain of our minds, because there's something in the human mind that, well, enlightenment is an active force in our minds, that we can learn to be receptive to, we can learn to cooperate with if we choose. So, in a way, that's quite heartening. We're not really going against the grain. It only seems that way. So, when I crave an easier life or more pleasure, I really value the Buddha's teaching that foolish people seek to have experiences, wise people seek to understand experience. Because I think hankering after experience is very common. It's almost like something we can add on to ourselves, a good experience. Like, I've had this really big intense experience. Often we want that. It's in a way something that makes us feel significant or makes us feel special. Perhaps some of us are hoping for a big experience on this retreat. And in a way, why not? In a way, why not? But, yeah, there's a downside. I think it isn't exactly a modern phenomenon, but it's very much emphasized these days, big experiences, collecting intense experiences. So, it might be sex or skydiving or celebrities going off to try and survive in the jungle or whatever it is. But they're kind of elevated in our culture. But I think what we're probably all wanting is to feel more alive. But we go for the quick fix. And actually awareness is much, much more satisfying. Much more satisfying and sustaining than adrenaline. But what we go for is adrenaline. The gratification, the instant gratification. And yet, as we know, or at least as we've heard, ordinary experiences are enriched by awareness. And we can gradually learn to hang loose to those. The teacher, Christopher Titner, says that wise people stop clinging to experiences to sustain their ego. And then, left with nothing to feed on, ego feels powerless. And, in time, it withers away. So, there are two distinct strands that make up Buddhism. Kind of theory and practice, you could say, or doctrine and method. And the doctrine is, metaphysically, it's very subtle. We've heard a little about this condition co-production last night. Not as much as some people wanted to hear, perhaps more than others wanted to hear. The Buddha said that everything is continually arising and passing away. Nothing stays the same for even a nanosecond. In fact, it never really exists at all from a certain point of view. And seeing this, if we can really see this, we stop clinging to it. And that's it. If we could really see it, there would be no problem. And he taught that the doctrine of becoming says that consciousness isn't fixed. So, there is a momentum, there is an energy that flows through life and even flows from one life to the next. But, in a way, this can't be grasped. It slips through your fingers the moment you try and think about it, actually. So, you can puzzle over the ungrasable, and it's probably quite valuable to do so. Getting as clear as you can about it. But, actually, when that all gets too much, it's fine just to set it aside and focus on practice, focus on method. And on the level of method, it's really quite simple. It's summed up famously in the tradition by, "Seats to do evil, learn to do good, purify the heart." And we've all got a fair bit to do, just on that level. I know we could discuss what evil is and what good is, what purity is. We're not going to that now. But, there is something that is quite simple about what is practice on that level. So, last night, Mitro Bandi talked about wanting, and I'm afraid I've got a bit more to say about wanting. And that's partly because wanting is so central to what the Buddha is talking about. He says that the cause of all our trouble is craving. Craving for food, craving for love, craving for ideas, craving to be rid of things, craving for people, craving to be rid of people. And, right up to the most subtle cravings, craving to be alive or craving not to exist. So, on all those levels, we just want, want, want all the time. I'm sure you've noticed. And, of course, the Buddha wasn't the first to notice this. Not to see the last. It is the human condition. He was just pointing out the facts. But his path is a very clear path. It's not the only path, but it's a very clear path in addressing this problem of wanting. And I was reading lately that the Greeks noticed it. I'm not quite sure when, but in Greek myth, there's one symbol for the human dilemma. It is an image called the wheel of Ixian. And Ixian apparently was a king who was very disloyal to the god's use and use being a powerful chap. Punished him by binding Ixian to a fiery wheel that rolled round and round and round and round. It early. Never stopped. And this reminded me of the Buddhist wheel of life. Vidya Joti in her talk mentioned the wheel of life. A Buddhist symbol for worldly existence, in which we too are bound to that wheel. I could say more about that, but you can talk about that another time. We're bound to it, but we can break free. So we're not bound in perpetuity necessarily. We can break free. The Greeks also had another image that connects with this wanting. And it was of a guy called Tantalus. And he also dared to defy Zeus and again Zeus punished him for his pride. And his punishment was that he was to be eternally tempted, but never satisfied. Hence I imagine the word tantalizing. And well again, yes, this is just human life revolving around craving followed by satiation. But are we satisfied? The hell we are. Or maybe just briefly. So immediately, almost immediately, boredom sets in, doesn't it? I'm sure you've noticed. And then again, we get into wanting something else or wanting the same again. All to escape the terrors of boredom. And why do we want to dispel boredom? Well, partly I think, I mean, it's not great fun, boredom, but it's partly, I think it goes a bit deeper than that. Because boredom is a distraction-free state that dig a bit deeper and what you find are these underlying truths of things like our own insignificance and the fact that we are, well, we're on an inevitable regression to old age and to later death. So it's an uncomfortable state boredom, isn't it? It's a disconcerting state. So we want to be free of it and, yep, a bit more wanting. So we're in a tight bind. And until we can slow down, slow down the wanting, perhaps lead a simpler life, reduce our self-preoccupation, we're going to be stuck. And, well, in a way, wake up to the predicament of human life. I find watching people wake up, watching my friends wake up, seeing it on tele, whatever, is very moving, actually. I was at a film a week or two ago called "Stranger Than Fiction", some of you may have seen it. And it was all about this middle-aged tax collector, fairly blocked man, I would say. He was leading his life on automatic. And he has a premonition of his imminent death. And this leads to a rapid softening, a rapid opening up of his experience. So I think the first thing is he learns to enjoy chocolate cookies. He falls in love fairly quickly. Quite soon after that, he has sex, probably for the first time. And the bit I found most moving, actually, is he took up the guitar, something he'd been longing to do for years. And it's just, I mean, in a way, what we're talking about is waking up on the first level that Mitro Bando mentioned last night, the happy, healthy human level, waking up to what we could be. And then, obviously, we can move on from that first stage. But even that's fine, even just on quite a simple, ordinary level, it was very moving, seeing him come alive in this film. And so I suppose I'm just saying, let's cherish our wake-up calls. His wake-up call came in a rather strange way from a voice in his head. But wherever it comes from, let's cherish our wake-up calls. We might enjoy life rather more afterwards. So the Buddha said that our minds create our world, what we feel, what we think, what we intend, all determines how we experience ourself and the world that we find ourselves in. So the fundamental nature of our mind is that it's moving, it's moving, moving all the time. But we do have choice about how it moves. We can't stop it moving, but we can influence how it moves, how we are, how to act. There's one teaching I've relied on a lot recently, and it's that of the two arrows, the parable of the two arrows. And it's really sustained me over the last four or five months, because I've been suffering with acute insomnia. And what the Buddha says, he says that when we're suffering, it's like being pierced by an arrow. And on that level, we can't do much about it. In this case, well, I'm trying to do something about the insomnia, but you can't do much about some of the first arrow. You may in time be able to affect it. We may not ever be able to affect it. We may have to learn to adapt. In my case, I can't just make myself sleep. Anyone who's had insomnia will know that quite well. But what we often do, the Buddha says, is throw a second arrow at ourselves, increase our own pain by making ourselves angry, by being resistant, or denying the pain of the first arrow. By fighting the experience, we double that suffering. So I've been trying really hard not to fight the first arrow of insomnia, not to add the second arrow. So, for instance, if I've had one or two hours sleep, I could think, "Oh, no, today's going to be all right off." And I feel really down. Or, on a good day, I can accept feeling rough as just how it is and try not to double the suffering. Of course, I've been tired frequently. But I've discovered how often I can stay positive and manage a lot more than I thought if I don't get into the second arrow. The second arrow I've noticed comes along at about five in the morning, when I'm feeling at my lowest ebb. Perhaps a bit tearful, "Oh, God, how long is this going to last?" That kind of thing. And then you can really get into all the fantasies of this is going to go on for years or whatever. But that is all the second arrow stuff. I don't have to add that. And I'm sure I'm not wanting to labor this point nicely, but we all have our own particular sufferings. And we don't have to make them worse. And I think this is just really liberating teaching. I find it moving because it really, really helped me not to be as depressed as I might be. And actually manage a lot more every day than I would have thought. So, yes, the second arrow is dispensable. So the Buddha communicated in a range of ways. He urged people to open their minds and challenge those who insisted on their own opinions and didn't listen to other people. So, as I said earlier, many people turned out trying to defeat him in debate. But what he was teaching was pragmatic. He was teaching a path, a means to an end. He wasn't concerned to win any debate. He was just concerned to address people's real concerns, their real issues. Sometimes people would come just really wanting to have a go or, yeah, as I say, beating them to pay. But again and again, he just invited them to look at the world that they assumed they knew, look at it and see. He had challenged their own assumptions really. And sometimes he did this in silence. People might ask abstruse philosophical questions and he just said nothing. Sometimes, at one gathering, he just held up a flower. Nothing more. He just held up a flower and apparently one of his disciples smiled and understood. So he had a range of ways of communicating. And in a way, he needed to because what he was trying to teach was beyond reason. It was beyond concepts. And as Mitrobanda also said last night, images often communicated where words would fail. He also talked very much by example. There's a story, lots of you will probably know, of him visiting a monastery and coming across a sit monk. He's alone in his cell and he's suffering from disciplinary. In fact, the text says he's covered in urine and feces. The poor man, the Buddha says, "Well, why is nobody looking after you?" And the monk says, "Well, it's because I'm old and of no use to the other monks." So the Buddha and his attendant wash him. They clean him up, wash his robes and put him on a bed and make him comfortable. And later the Buddha gathers together the other disciples and he says, well, he rebukes them and he says, "Don't neglect your fellow companions." He says, "He who attends the sick attends me." So he was on failing in his care in big ways and small. And he was, yeah, his example did easily as much to communicate his message as his discourses did. Sometimes people didn't like his teaching, as I said, and so they blamed the messenger. I was remembering times when I've done this myself. Well, once a few years ago, well, quite a few years ago, I was talking with a friend about impermanence. And I said to him, "Yeah, impermanence, that's the ugly bit about the Dharma." And he said, "No, that's the ugly bit about life." And he was making a really important distinction, which I hadn't noticed until that point, which in some ways I've taken the unappealing message that all things are impermanent. And if you get attached to the lonely need to suffering, I didn't like that message. And so subtly I was blaming the Buddha for it. Of course, I also knew that impermanence can be free and all that. But at this point, that's where I was. I was blaming the Buddha for it. But actually, the Buddha's only pointing out how life is. If I stop being the Buddhist, things will still be impermanent. So no point giving off on it. And I think my confusion came because, well, basically I'm an optimist, and I used to think that if I tried hard enough, things might or would work out. Things might last, or I could make things like relationships work out. So in the early years, while I broadly appreciated the Dharma, I was still kind of blaming the messenger for the teachings that really grated. So a bit of picking and choosing going, well, there wasn't that conscious of it. And this conversation I have here very much highlighted that for me. People, I should say, also do this with the FWBO, blame the messenger. So beyond the look out for it, it was really helpful seeing that distinction for me. Because actually, the Buddha's on our side. He's only trying to help us be free from suffering. We don't have to listen to him, but if we do, it might help. So that's a good one. So the Buddha was also a living example of fearlessness. There's quite a number of incidents involving threats to his life, in which, of course, the Buddha stays characteristically calm. And he talked that all our fears ultimately stem from the fear of not existing. And if you're no longer attached to the idea of self, well, you're not going to be bothered. You're going to be cool about that. You've got nothing to defend, nothing to fear. So we see the Buddha boldly walking into frightening situations, or what most of us would find frightening. For instance, there's a mad and elephant. It's deliberately set loose on him to try and kill him. And it's halted in its tracks, apparently. So the legend goes, this mad elephant is halted in its tracks by the serene figure of the Buddha. In the same way, apparently he overcame up fire-breathing serpent. Not sure if these exist, but anyway. In that legend, he overcame the serpent again by love. And perhaps the most famous is the serial cutthroat, Angulimala, he was known as. And the Buddha's only power over the murderer is his love. And his fearlessness lies in his complete surrender of himself. Whereas, of course, Angulimala, the murderer, crumples. And sure enough, he's soon become a disciple too. Fearlessness is taken very seriously in Buddhism. The Abaya Mudra, this mudra, is very common on Buddhist statues, you've probably seen, around the world. And it's not just saying, "Do not fear." After all, it's not quite as simple as that, is it, in practice. But it's looking deeper, the teaching is, there's nothing to fear. There's nothing to fear, because there's nothing to lose. And developing fearlessness is a really crucial aspect of Dharma practice. It's not an aspect that Buddhism's widely known for, I don't think. When Sanger Echstor was once asked which historical figure he thought was most like the Buddha, he surprised a few people by saying, "Julius Caesar." Sanger Echstor made the point, and I emphasize this now. It's not for his warmongering, it's not for his bloodshed. But for Caesar's heroic qualities, his boldness is courage. I don't know if we could say he had fearlessness, but his boldness is courage and his promptitude. Those are the things Sanger Echstor mentioned. So I think it's just important to say that, because Buddhism isn't just about quietening the mind. As Mitra Bandhu mentioned last night, it's also about liberated energy. It's also about heroic qualities, developing strength as well. And I think we don't generally regard fear as that bad. Not nearly as bad, say, as hatred or malice or violence. But the Buddha classifies it as a deep-rooted negative state of mind. He says it saps our energy and spawns all kinds of defenses. I'm sure we know that in ourselves. So fear underlies restlessness. Plenty of us have that on the cushion and anxiety, which is a daily feeling for many of us. And also, when we feel threatened, it increases, doesn't it? And it can easily lead to spite, malice, hatred and so on. Fearlessness is also said to be one of the fruits of deep meditation. And you do hear these amazing tales of monks and nuns in the Far East. Well, in all sorts of places, actually, braving, various dangers, torture, persecution and so on. Yeah, so how do we develop fearlessness? I think partly we develop fearlessness by sitting with the things that we don't like on the cushion. Particularly the things that frighten us. And in the West, obviously, we can't just head off into the jungle. But we do need to face our fears and, you know, experience aloneness like the early monks did. In the F.W.B.O., there's the practice of solitary retreat, where we take ourselves off for a week or two or three, and somewhere peaceful, and just spend time alone. Getting in touch with us ourselves without the ordinary mix of froth, of thoughts, distractions, negativities, whatever it is, daydreams. And in a way, it might sound a breeze, particularly for introverts. You might think that doesn't sound particularly challenging. But very often fears do arise. Fears that you wouldn't imagine you'd have if you had a companion there. I certainly know that for myself. Yeah, often when we're alone we can feel quite naked, quite uncomfortable, quite reluctant to sit with our own experience. Certainly I've found coming eyeball to eyeball with myself on solitary, really quite sobering, quite challenging. And also being an extrovert, I'd never, never have imagined that I would look forward to a fortnight alone. But actually I've had some of my happiest times on solitary, not the first solitary, that was pretty tricky. But you know, one size sort of got the hang of it in a way. A subtle level of tension that I'm hardly aware of in ordinary daily life seems to fall away when there's nobody else around. Different even than being on a retreat with other people, something definite changes. And, you know, the ante is up. So there's both the relaxation, the tension release and the x-man, the cometh and the feeling. So, yeah, it's, you learn a lot, you learn a lot by taking yourself off to do something like that. And in a way solitude is a chance to feel most fully yourself, I would say. So moving on to probably my favourite Buddhist teaching. And it's, well I think one of the things that's always appealed to me about Buddhism is that it doesn't defend your reason. You're not asked to believe anything that you can't sooner or later check out for yourself. So there's no question of blind faith. And what is or isn't Buddhism or the Buddhist teaching is basically experiential. And we learn this from the Buddha's advice to his foster mother, who turned up and she wanted a pith teaching. She wanted to go off to the jungle and enlighten herself as well. And she just said, "Give me the pith." And the Buddha said, "Right, what is Dharma you alone can judge?" Whatever teachings you be aware, whether they lead, to peace and not to anxiety, to freedom and not to bondage, to wishing for little and not to greed, to solitude and not to superficiality, to sincere striving and not to laziness, and to contentment, not to complaining. Not particularly metaphysical, not particularly complicated, quite difficult practice. But I really love that teaching. So what is the Dharma? It isn't settled by logic, it's not settled by the scriptures, but in our own experience. You alone can judge. So the Buddha, again and again, he urged people to test things out for themselves, not just to take his word for it. There is a little caveat here, because what helps us grow may only become clear in time, maybe over quite a long time. So wishful thinking can easily creep in, I think. So we should consult our own experience and also a teacher or other people who have been at it a bit longer, with a bit more Buddhist training under that belt. I find this teaching that the Dharma's whatever helps us wake up, a new alone can judge. Well, it's very broad, isn't it? And it helps us to see the spiritual as a way we can approach anything. It's not just what's in the Buddhist scriptures, it's anywhere, it's everywhere, in a sense. And it also emphasizes personal responsibility. Not long ago, I was at an exhibition of the sculptor Rhoda, and I was very affected by this exhibition. I've seen his work a few times, but I kept noticing that this exhibition will have the truths of Buddhism, the truths that the Buddha was pointing to, particularly suffering and change. So his bronzes, to me anyway, seem very vital and expressive and often bittersweet. There's nothing idealized with one or two exceptions, nothing idealized. And I was very much feeling my age that weekend, very aware of wrinkles and bags under my eyes from no sleep, a range of unpleasant things, and yeah, obviously not eager to look any older. But also I was quite aware that that sort of vanity is just convention. Because also, in another mood, I'm determined to look life full in the face. I'd actually rather let life mark me in a certain sense. I want to be affected, I want to let it life change me through adversity. I want to open my heart with compassion, born of difficulties, because in a way, how else can we learn? What are our options actually? And looking at Rhoda and his busts of famous people, they had really lived in faces. They were etched with worry, with love, with laughter, work, life. And I was thinking, I've got quite moved in this exhibition, I was thinking, who wants idealized beauty and no wrinkles? There was one sculpture in particular, it's called Man with a Broken Nose. He was a fairly old guy, and yeah, it really choked me up. There was something in, well, in the look in his eyes. You know, he was definitely ravaged by time, but he was so alive. That's how it seemed to me. So, in a way, the fact of suffering is everywhere, and I can't say I like it. I'm sure none of us like suffering, but actually I don't want to whitewash it. It's there, and I'd rather look at it, most of the time anyway, I'd rather face it. It's how life is on this earth, and if we're lucky, suffering will help break open our heart. In a way, it's the crack in our beings that lets the light pour through sufferings. So, one of Rodan's most famous works, which probably lots of you will have seen, because it's beside the houses of Parliament in London, or one of them. It's called the Burgers of Calais, and that had a very strong effect on me. So, they're these huge figures, towering figures, six of them, and they're medieval martyrs, and they're roped together on their way to be executed. They're very strong stuff, and actually they're giving up their lives for their whole time. They're from Calais, the British have surrounded Calais, and they're going to their death, one of them's carrying the key to the city. So, it's very moving work actually. Well, probably if you're in a certain mood, that is, which I seem to be. And there were some people beside me, a couple, and one of them said to the other, "Look at them, they don't look too happy, do they?" And then they wandered off, and I was outraged. I stood there, "Well, no, they don't look happy, and why would they?" You know, they're off to give up their lives, to save their city, surrendering to the enemy through noble self-sacrifice. I was indignant. Why would they look happy, and who cares about looking happy when you're doing the ultimate human thing, really? Acting on their deepest values, presumably. And, you know, hopefully, perhaps they had the satisfaction of doing what they felt was right. It was honourable, haven't you? Yes, sir. And the historian, Simon Sharma, was saying in his recent TV series on the power of art, that art is to instruct us in the obligations of being human. Art is to instruct us in the obligations of being human. And in a way, I felt that obligation of being human. I felt it while looking at Rodin's work. I felt it loads of times, actually, but I just felt it very strongly that day. And I think spiritual practice is all about what makes us more human. I don't want to wince when I read that famous line of Mary Oliver who says, "Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?" Yeah, it can make you wince, can't it? But I don't want to wince, and I think of that. So, yes, finally, to return to the Buddha. So, we've heard a whole range of his teachings. Like his message, he had no fixed approach. He was always adapting to whatever situation he found. He taught sensitively, he taught compassionately, he was radical, and willing to be provocative when necessary. He taught in people's own language, and he met them on their own terms, on their own territory. He taught by example, he taught fearlessly, and he urged people to learn from their experience and realize their potential. But his great refrain was to wake up and live in the moment. We've heard that many, many times. Wake up and live in the moment. And I think by following his example, we'll become wiser, warmer, and more alive. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]