In this talk, “Demon of Choice” Aryadhara works with a team from the Young People’s Group in Cambridge (England) to give a series of short talks under the theme “Taming the Demons of the Modern World” in celebrating Padmasambhava, the Great Guru of Tibet. Choice is something we all have – we have the choice to act the way we act, the choice in the way we live our lives, which is very positive. The Demon of Choice is more about consumerism which can alienate us from our deeper selves. This type of choice keeps us in a superficial state of alienation preventing us from asking deeper questions such as what gives our lives meaning? Transforming the Demon of Choice involves overcoming doubt, the practice of renunciation, and living simply.
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Demon of Choice
(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. - Okay, so I've been off to talk about the team of choice, so that's what I'm gonna do. It's very, and I think it's very connected with my Trigosa's talk actually. There's a lot of connections between consumerism and choice, obviously. The consumerist world, there is choice. There's a lot of choice. But I'm just gonna sort of draw out more about choice as a demon in itself. So that's what I'm gonna focus on. But I'd like to make clear what I mean by choice, because I think choice can also be a very positive thing. So I want to say what I'm not going to talk about. I think choice can be something that we all, or is something that we all have. And it's almost like our birthright. We have the choice to act in the way we want to act. We have the choice to be ethical. We have the choice to choose the way we live our lives. So these are all choices. And of course these are very positive things. These are things that we have, we own, that we have as human beings. And you could call that choice, it is choice. So I'm not talking about that. That's not what I'm talking about. The sort of choice I am talking about is going to vote a phone and seeing 50 phones in the shop. Going to look at the TV listings and realizing that there's 60 different channels that you can choose from. And deciding what program you're gonna watch. So that's the sort of choice that I'm talking about here. Yeah. A personal example from my recent history, it's getting dark, autumn's coming. I need a new bike light from my bicycle. So I'm, I go into King's Bike Shop, just on the corner near the Grafton Centre. There's a bewildering array of bike lights to choose from. I don't know which one to choose. There's some expensive ones, there's some cheaper ones. There's a big selection. My man's really friendly, tries to help me, but I just can't decide which one I'm going to choose. Too many. So I leave it, I'll go to another shop. I try another shop and exactly the same thing happens. They're too expensive, they're not quite right. The following weekend, I go into London to go to the Shakespeare's Globe on the way down. I think I'll go into another bike shop. I buy a 30-pound bicycle light, which I think must do the job. I switch it on, the flashing light's really weak. I'm not, I'm not at all impressed with it. I take it back and get a refund. This is all true, by the way. Two or three shops later, I'm still looking. Can't decide which one to buy. Finally, finally buy one, it costs 20 pounds or something. I think, "Oh, that'll be all right, I'll go for that one." I'm fairly happy with it, it's all right. It doesn't flash. So it hasn't got everything that I want to. It doesn't quite have everything I want, it's not flashing. Total time spent looking for my bike light, I don't know, four, five hours, six hours, something like that. I don't know, something like that. Yeah, there was a bewildering array of choice. I didn't know what to choose. How do you make a decision? And that is characteristic of the world we live in, isn't it? There's choice everywhere. You're going to the supermarket. There's 80, 100, 200 varieties of cereal on the shelf. There is choice everywhere. And we feel obliged to make choices. We feel that we have to make a choice because we're offered choice. So we have to kind of think, "Well, will I take that one?" Or, "Will I take that one?" And my point with this is I think that choice can alienate us from our deeper selves. Choice can make us stay on the surface. It can keep us very superficial. It's like, "Well, I don't know what to buy, what to do." And in a way, we're kind of left in this superficial kind of state of alienation that kind of keeps us away from asking deeper questions about what is really important in our lives, what keeps us in line with meaning and deeper value. And I think actually the demon of choice keeps us in a superficial place. It keeps us on the surface. Yes, we seem to think that we're obliged to engage with the choices that we're presented. My preceptor, Mitro Bandhu, has done some research into the psychology of choice, which I'd like to share with you. I think it's very interesting. He says that apparently if you have a little bit of choice, we quite like it. For example, if you're offered a banana or an orange, you think, "Oh, that's quite nice." I think, "I'm going to go for a banana." Great, I've got a choice. I'll take a banana. That's fantastic. But then picture this. You've got the choice of a banana, an orange, an apple, a pear, a peach, a plum, a strawberry, a grapefruit. You've got a whole cornucopia of fruits. Which one are you going to choose? You might think, "Well, I'll just choose all of them." But then you might end up getting a bit sick. But if you have to choose one, you think, "Well, then I'm going to miss out, aren't I? Because I'm not going to have the other ones." If I have an orange, I'm not going to be able to have a pear. Do you feel less happy? Another example I was with a girlfriend of mine. We were in Camden shopping for shoes. She wanted to buy a pair of shoes. We looked around at a few different shops. She just wanted a regular pair of sandals. She looked at two or three different pairs of shoes. And in the end, she bought a pair. And I thought, "Right, okay, that's right. It's all done. I'll finish." But then she thought, "I'll just carry on looking. I've got a pair of shoes. I'm going to carry on looking." And I thought, "What do you want to do that?" So then she found another pair that she liked better than the pair she'd actually bought. And I thought, "Oh, dear." She was kind of less happy with the pair that she bought. I thought, "Oh, that's terrible." Yes. Touching a bit on the philosophy of, I think, choice and consumerism are very linked. It's almost like it's nobody's fault with the rise of the industrialization. It's like demand creates supply. We have choice. It's almost like we create it through one thing, and then it's there. And it's nobody's fault, but it's just there. We have all of this choice that we can choose from. But there it is. There it is. It's out there. We can choose from any number of shoes, any number of fruit, any number of bite lights. Yes. And of course, this can lead to doubt. We can not know which way to turn. We can not know what to buy, what to choose. There's so many things out there. How do we make a choice? Everything is relative. Well, I could buy this, or I could buy that. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Well, so we think, you know, all the choices are on a particular level. Yeah. Yeah. Banti talks about doubt in terms of being in two minds about things. So, if you're in two minds about things, you can't act. You're divided. You think, well, you know, I'm presented with these options. They both seem good. What am I going to do? We're in this state of not knowing how to act and move forward. That's how Banti describes doubt, is that we're in two minds about things. And it stops us from acting. Yeah, so that's a little bit of a characterization of this demon of choice and doubt. Yes, it's sort of a feature of our modern world. So I'd like to say a little bit about transforming the demon of choice and doubt. The first thing is sort of a psychological term. It's transforming the demon of doubt. First of all, it involves naming the demon. So in psychological terms, if you've got some kind of negative habit, it's really important just to be able to sort of say, well, yeah, this is me. This is who I am. This is what I am. You know, I get angry. I get irritable. I'm extremely greedy in certain situations. You just recognize the fact that you're like that. And that's half the battle you sort of acknowledge, well, yeah, this is me. This is how things are. And I think with choice, it's really important to just name choice as being a demon. There's something out there. And it's not that having some choice, as I say, is a good thing. But being overwhelmed by 80 or 100 different types of cereal in the supermarket, do we need that? Is that helpful for us? So it's kind of been clear that there is something worth having values in relation towards. So this quality of naming the demon and seeing it as a demon is really, really crucial, I think. Yeah, I don't know if Pabmasanava is particularly associated. It's in my pocket and I've got something in there. This is called a demon dagger. Most of you know this ritual implement. It holds the demon so that you can see it. It's about naming the demon, isn't it? It's about symbolically Pabmasanava holds the perba and he holds the demon where you can see it. Usually demons sort of lurk a little bit out of the light, don't they, in the corner of a room or something like that, or outside of your awareness. But Pabmasanava holds the demon right in front of you so that you can name the demon so you can actually see it. So I think just kind of what helps in this process of transformation is just reflecting. Is choice helpful? Is it going to kind of lead to deeper meaning? Is it going to lead to deeper understanding? Yeah, so that's the first thing. Next thing is renunciation. Often when people hear this word renunciation, it can seem very cold and that you have to sort of cut off a bit from yourself, don't you? Oh, I've got to give up all the things I love and that's what renunciation is about. Well, I would say that it's not quite like that. What's something I've got in mind is something a bit more joyful where you sort of just kind of say, well, actually I don't need it and it can feel quite joyful, it can feel quite free. There can be a process of giving things up which doesn't feel joyful as well, but it's actually kind of useful. You know, you think, well, actually I'm really attached to spending three hours looking at BBC Sport, but is that actually helpful for me? You know, so it might be a bit of a painful process. But maybe in the long term, joy and freedom can result from that process of renunciation. Yeah, I want to pat myself on the back. I've recently sold my car, I've given up my car, I've renounced my car. I do feel free, I do feel happier as a result. It's tricky saying this to people who 90% of the people listening don't have cars. Yeah, I don't have a car. I don't have a car now, so I feel very pleased about that. Again, symbolically with Padmasamova, he holds what's called a skull cup, doesn't he? There's the skull cup of renunciation. Yes, Padmasamova is a figure who represents a complete renunciation from everything that hinders us, everything that gets in the way. All of our mundane preoccupation with our confusions, our sense of being overwhelmed by choice. Padmasamova has renounced all that. Yeah, and that's what the skull cup represents. But what's in the skull cup? Well, in the skull cup is the red nectar, the red nectar of bliss of liberation. So what can come with true and deep and full renunciation is more and more sense of freedom actually, more and more sense of living a life which is self-dependent, isn't relying from external sources for its happiness. So that's sort of what the red nectar, the red bliss in the bowl of the skull cup, represents. It's this nectar of liberation, really. Yeah, so renouncing choice, not feeling like that we have to engage with it, living a life that is more simple. And that leads on to my next point, which is more or less the same point, and it's to do with simplicity itself. In Buddhism we have the term "guarding the gates of the senses". And for me this is a really, really important part of my own practice. I try to keep my bedroom very, very simple without too many things, and almost like my bedroom is an outward manifestation of my inner mental state. So if my bedroom is in a bit of a mess, maybe my mind is in a bit of a mess. So I try to keep my own bedroom as a sacred space. And I think there's something really, really important about creating sacred spaces. And it's about sort of consciously reducing input and consciously moving away from the world around us that seems to be preoccupied by offering us choice. We're sort of kind of consciously stepping back from that world and creating us, trying to create more of a sacred space. This room here, being a fantastic example, but it can also mean in our own being, just creating space in a meditation practice or something like this, where we're actually withdrawing from the external world. We're withdrawing from the world of the senses into a world which is reduced from all of this input. I was thinking like societally, I'm talking a lot about personal practice, but I think also Banti's Sangeriches talked a lot about the new society, the new society being a society based on values, on deeper values, on renouncing things that get in the way of living in a sangha. Living together with other people who have the same values as us. And Banti's been very strong about the importance of this. And so in a sense, you could say that this is a collective guarding the gates of the senses. If you're with other people who value the same things, it's much easier to guard the gates of the senses with relation to the wider world and the sorts of choices that we feel obliged to make. So being with other people who share the same values could be a collective version of guarding the gates of the senses, you could say. So that's the third thing, simplicity and guarding the gates of the senses. Very very very connected with renunciation, I would say. Again, symbolically, Padma Samabas said to wear three robes, as most of you know, one of the robes he wears is the yellow robe of the monk. And the yellow robe of the monk symbolises going forth from the world, leaving behind everything that gets in the way from practising the spiritual life. And don't take this symbol literally, it's not that we literally have to go off and become a monk, although it might be useful to spend some time living in a much more simple way going on. And these kinds of things. But the symbol really symbolises our own inner sense of going forth from things that get in the way, going forth from choice, all of the confusion, all of the complexity, all of the doubt, leaving that all behind, living a simple, more joyful, stripped down life. And that's one of the robes that Padma Samabas wears. Yes, so just some more connections there with Padma Samabas. The last thing I'd like to suggest in terms of transforming and taming the demon of choice is commitment, actually. This world we live in is a world where we have so much choice, but also this choice leads us to thinking that if it's not quite working, we can do something else. So if our marriage isn't working, if our community isn't working, it's okay because we can try something else, can't we? We can try this thing over here. And there's so many possibilities that we can find it very difficult just to commit to one kind of lifestyle, to living in a particular kind of way. Marriage divorce rates are very, very high, for example. Yes, but the value of commitment as an antidote to the demon of choice. I've recently started working in the wind horse kitchen, having done quite a few years of kitchen work before, but then having a period after that where I was very, very confused, not really knowing what I was going to do with my livelihood. And there seem to be so many different choices out there that I felt sort of stuck. I felt sort of not sure how to move forward. And it's almost like, at a certain point, I made a decision while I'll go for this job, I got it. But now it's the thing of actually trying to just work through difficulty. I'm engaged with the work, and now I'm trying to work with whatever difficulties come up. And there are difficulties that come up. And my own personal demons kind of rear their heads. It's like, well, I don't want to do this particular part of the job, but okay, I'm committed to doing it. So I'm getting into a deeper dialogue with my own demons through committing to actually seeing something through. And and I think that's a very strong part of what Pam, some of the represents is this willingness to keep going through difficulty. Leaving behind the things that keep us on the surface and working through our own personal difficulties. Yes, so so commitment as well. So that's those are the four areas that I just wanted to touch on in relation to transforming the demons. So naming the demon, seeing it for a demon for what it really is. Renunciation, going forth from feeling like we need to engage with that world, guarding the gates of the senses and commitment. And of course these are just suggestions and there's all sorts of ways of working with this demon of choice. But there are just a few things that I wanted to touch on. Yes, and hopefully the more we can begin to work with this demon of choice. And the demon of choice, as I said is, well, as Marjigosha said, in a sense choice is neutral, you know, choice is neutral. So almost like the demonic version of choice is that we're presented with things that keep us as superficial. But we can as human beings make a choice to live in a particular way, in a simple way, in a way that does take us to more depth and to take us to more meaning. So this you could maybe see as choice in its more refined or transformed aspect. And that the more that we can engage in the kind of the negative aspects of choice, the more we can more deeply transform ourselves and reach deeper meaning. Then when he was very old, he passed away. In the Mahabharana system, he describes what it's like being old. He feels like an old cart held together by rope. And he only felt any comfort when he sat in meditation and took himself into a samadhi, whereby he no longer was in touch with his bodily sensations. So that sounds like a very ordinary experience of old age. These early scriptures represent the Buddha as a friend of kings. I think this is a lovely quality. He obviously had a strength of personality, a kind of charisma, you can say, which meant that he could relate to kings and they regarded him as a friend and advisor, even when he disagreed with them. He was a teacher, that's obvious, but he was a lover of solitude as well. This is important. Sometimes the monks would make him quite fed up. They would argue they would be noisy and he would, as it were, go off. There's a couple of suttas where he says, "I've had enough, you're too noisy and I'm going to go into the forest." And in one lovely story, which is clearly a story, he goes into the forest and is joined by a bull elephant who has got fed up with elephant family life. He's got hassled by the she elephants and the bull elephant attends on the Buddha for a little while. They share the solitude before the Buddha returns to the world. This is quite important, I think, because it shows that the Buddhist preference, you might say. He wasn't just a teacher and, as it were, wanderer. He was a full-time spiritual practitioner and never stopped enjoying solitude and meditation. He was a meditator. He continued to meditate a great deal, and when asked about what he did, of course, it was very hard for him to say. But he was clearly able to teach a huge range of meditation practices, which he obviously knew about through personal experience. In addition, he was clearly an intellectual genius. The philosophy of Patitya Samapada, dependent arising, was, as far as we know, the product of the mind of the Buddha, and it's a magnificent philosophy of life, really. It embraces all levels of existence, and yet boils down to a very simple formula. It steers a middle way between the theism, a belief in God, and a theory that nothing has a cause, and we can't do anything about our lives. It's a very flexible, basic philosophical position, and almost certainly it comes from the Buddha. And he developed that in dialogue with various teachers of his time. So that gives you a picture of the Buddha as far as we can talk about him historically. I'd just like to conclude by mentioning an aspect of the Buddha that is clearer to the devotional mind, and is not so obvious when we think historically, and yet which bridges these two. And that's the Buddha as someone who's motivated by compassion. There's a lovely set of where the Buddha says, he explains to the monks. Monks, there is one person who is born and comes into the world for the welfare and happiness for the people, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit, welfare and happiness of gods and human beings. Who is that person that a targetter, the worthy one, the fully and completely awakened one? So he describes his own person, if you like, his own nature as a Buddha, as essentially rooted in compassion, the desire to improve the lot of people. And the word for compassion here is Anu Campa, which you may have come across. It's the word that literally means trembling with. And so it suggests someone who was, without any limit, able to sympathize, which has the same sort of etymological root, feel with their plight of human beings, and yet help. And the Buddha spent the greatest part of his life doing what he could to benefit the people he came into contact with. So no wonder, in a way, the Buddhists, in the years after the Buddha died, went on to spin out a story which gave some expression to the unusual qualities that the Buddha had, the compassion, the intellectual genius, the strength of personality, by way of imaginative exaggeration and archetypal inflation of what people had known of as the historical Buddha. We hope you enjoyed the talk. 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