I was very, very pleased to be asked to speak on mindfulness of reality and even more pleased that you're able to rearrange a schedule to fit in with me because I'm off to get your local tomorrow morning to do a short solitary retreat before joining the ordination thing up later in the month. And so I was unable to fit in with a normal schedule and I'm very, very grateful that you were willing to change the order of talk so that I could have this opportunity on speaking to you on this subject. Because mindfulness of reality or the question of reality, what is reality, is something that interests me a great deal and has preoccupied me in fact for many, many years. It's something that I've thought a lot about and it's something that I think has motivated me in my own going for refuge to the three jewels for more than 20 years now. When I came to Britain in 1972 from South Africa, one of my purposes was to come here eventually to university where I wanted to study philosophy in order to find out what was really going on. Because my short experiments with psychotropic substances up to that point had given me cause to think that what we normally think is really going on is not what is actually going on at all. And I thought that the great philosophers down the ages would have had some idea, would have given this matter. Some thought would have come to some conclusions about what was really going on. So I wanted to look into that. I went to university and encountered Oxford logical positivism as taught at the University of East Anglia, which has very little to do with what is really going on at all. And rapidly became disillusioned with formal philosophy, unfortunately I think, and went on back to my experiments with psychotropic substances and tried to find out in that way what was really going on. And it was a preoccupation, a continuous concern with what is really going on that led me to Buddhism. I don't remember exactly what the root was, but that's what interested me. And I remember my first encounter with David Mitra, who'd come to Norwich to start a Buddhist center there. One of the first questions I put to him is, tell me about the void, which I sort of envisaged as this sort of vast sort of black hole somehow floating up in the cosmos out of which everything emerged into which everything would return. David Mitra very sensibly said, "Well, I don't know anything about that, mate." And I thought, "Oh dear, he doesn't know anything about Buddhism so much for him." Fortunately, the next day I encountered him again, I was very impressed by him just as a person, just from his communication, and so got involved with the Dharma. Thank you very much for that, David Mitra. I'm very grateful. So, what is really going on? I mean, one can make a bit of a meal of this subject, and I could sit here talking in very abstract and abstruse terms, no doubt, for quite a while. I could do it for hours, probably, but time is money. And I think Vajra Kati would very quietly bring out his shepherd's crook and hook me away from this microphone. So, it seems to me that in some ways the simplest descriptions of reality are the most apt and most appropriate. It is, in fact, very simple. The business of being mindful of reality is very simple. It amounts no more, really, than to being realistic. That's what it's really about. We just need to be realistic. And if we can think in those terms, rather than perhaps thinking in terms of mindfulness of reality or what is reality, then perhaps we can get our feet a bit on the ground and start to go somewhere useful and somewhere meaningful. So, it's important to think of being realistic, but what does it mean to be realistic? And here again, we could launch off into abstruse territory, but let's keep it simple. To be realistic in the terms in which I'm using the term, I think, we can think of just being aware of the fact that things are impermanent, insubstantial, and ultimately unsatisfying. If you can just retain your awareness of the fact that things are impermanent, insubstantial, and ultimately unsatisfying, then it will be much easier to be realistic about the way you lead your life. Now, when I say that things are impermanent, I may be saying a bit more than we tend to be used to when we use the term impermanence. Most of the time, when we speak about things being impermanent, we have this idea that you have something, say, a favorite coffee cup. Yeah, you have this favorite coffee cup, and maybe even like my favorite coffee cup, it's porcelain. And being porcelain, the coffee just seems to taste nicer in it. It doesn't absorb quite so much heat, it's nice and thin, it's rather elegant. So, you have your favorite coffee cup, your coffee tastes good in it. It's a pleasant thing to own, and one day it breaks, oh dear, oh well, everything's impermanent, there you go. And being a sensible, realistic sort of person, you just sort of grin and bear it, and there you go, you've done your bit about mindfulness of impermanence. It's not quite like that. It's not quite like that. When I say that things are impermanent, what I mean is, I don't have a white coffee cup. There is no white coffee cup to have, and there's no me to have it. Things really are impermanent, everything really is impermanent. And when I say impermanent, I mean impermanent, utterly impermanent, which means that there is no duration whatsoever. Anywhere to be found in this universe. Nothing endures, even for a microsecond. So, when we reflect on the fact that things are impermanent, something we need to reflect on to be really in tune with the idea of impermanence, is that things come into being and pass away in the same instant. Things come into being and pass away in the same instant. So, it's not that something comes into being, hangs around a bit, and then impermanence gets the better of it, and does away with it. It never really fully made it into being in the first place. Because no sooner did it, this poor thing struggled into being than non-being overcame it. Things come into being and pass away in the same instant. Rather than being, we have becoming. Things are constantly becoming. So, what this means is that everything is in constant flux. Everything is constantly changing. There's no one moment of time, no matter how small, that is ever the same as the previous moment of time in any respect. Everything always changes. Now, that can sound awfully abstract, and it can sound awfully theoretical and somewhat impractical and unuseful. What does this idea have to do with being realistic? So, I want to try to unpack this for a moment or two. What the fact of becoming has to do with the business of being realistic means that we're only really are in reality, with reality, when we are fully located in the present moment. We're only dealing with things as they really are, if we're dealing with things as they are occurring, with what is really happening. And this we tend not to do. We tend to see the world, not so much in terms of becoming. Things arising and passing away continuously, but rather we tend to see it in terms of being, as if it endured. We tend to treat it as solid and unchanging, and so we don't live in touch with what is really going on. We're not realistic. We're not in the present moment with reality as it's happening, as it's unfolding. So, the way this tends to work is that we tend to live in terms of expectation and hope. We tend to live our lives in terms of hope and expectation. We're constantly casting our minds forward out of the present situation, out of the present moment, towards what we think is coming, and we live our lives there. So, we tend to expect things to be in a certain way, all the time. We tend to expect things to be in a certain way, all the time, and so we don't live with what is actually happening. We live our lives in terms of our expectations. So, think of this in terms of your communication with other people, your communication with a friend, say. You have certain ideas about your friend. You have certain ideas about how they are, who they are, what sort of person they are, what sort of mental states they tend to occupy, what sort of habits they tend to have. And you expect them somewhat to be like that. And then you relate to them in terms of your expectation. You relate to them in terms of your expectation, oh, so and so is always cheerful, or so and so is slightly cynical, or so and so is slightly grumpy, or this or that. And you relate to people in those terms, rather than relating to them as they currently are in the present unfolding and changing, right here, right now. Or we have an expectation of how our day is going to be. It's a great day, I'm feeling slightly down, things aren't going to go very well, et cetera, et cetera. And so you live your life in terms of the expectation of how the day is going to be. You don't live your life in terms of how it actually is in the present moment. One way or another, continuously, we live in terms of expectation. We look forward to things, for example. We set ourselves future pleasures and treats to get us through the day. And so we don't attend to what is happening now, because we're thinking, oh, well, it's great. So and so is cooking at the community this evening, and they're a really good cook, and we'll have a curry, and that's something to look forward to. So I'll just get on with this bit of picking or packing or whatever, answering the phone and get it out of the way because there's something to look forward to this evening. And so we're living in terms of expectations. So one way or another, either in terms of anticipating what people are going to be like, or anticipating what our day is going to be like, or looking forward to certain treats, we take ourselves out of the present moment. Now, when we take ourselves out of the present moment, we're entirely unable to function creatively. And I mean entirely unable to function creatively. You can't function creatively except in relation to reality. If you work in terms of what is not happening, all you're doing is making transformations of delusion. You're just fiddling about with what is not happening. Yeah? And if you want to be creative, you have to deal with what is happening. Only by dealing with what is happening, can you change things for the better? Really change things for the better. Because if you're not dealing with what's really going on, you're not dealing with what's happening. Really change things for the better. Because if you're not dealing with what's really going on, then all you're changing is your ideas about what's going on. Other people's ideas about what is going on, and that is not what is really going on. And no matter how much you change your ideas about what's going on, you can't really change the situation itself. So this is a very important point. Only by dealing with what is really going on, can we be creative? Only by dealing in the actual present, in the moment of unfoldment, can we be creative? So what one image I have to think about this with myself is an image I've spoken of once or twice. The image of a fountain. Every moment is as it were coming into being, afresh. Every moment is coming into being afresh. And I think of life in a way as a sort of fountain. It comes into being, things come into being, and they break away. They come into being and they pass out of being, as it were simultaneously. There's this water spout, lifts up and falls away at the top. And reality is as it were that point at the top, just as it emerges and just as it's about to break away. That is the point of reality. That's what's really going on at every moment. And if we're at that point where things are really happening, where reality is as it were manifesting, where becoming is taking place. If we're poised at that point, the more we live at that point, the more creative we can be. At that point, you can begin to make changes. At that point, you can begin to direct things. At that point, you can be creative. You can, as it were, direct the water spout, to some extent, because that's where it's happening. But we tend to live our lives sort of somewhere up the fountain and down the fountain and away from the point where it's all really happening. And so we're somewhat impotent. Now, in order to be where things, where it is really happening, in order to be at that really creative point of emergence, the creative point of becoming, you could say we need a great deal of mindfulness. And this is the purpose of mindfulness. This is one of the great purposes of mindfulness. Mindfulness brings us into the point of reality. When we are mindful, when we're really attending to what is actually happening, rather than what we think of is happening, actually closely investigating, sitting with what is actually going on, then we're able to change things for the better. Mindfulness and creativity are intimately linked to each other. So that, I think, is the business about being aware of impermanence, being mindful of impermanence. That's the force of being mindful of impermanence. If you're mindful of impermanence, if you're mindful of the ever-changing nature of things, of the fact that things are never the same from one instance to the next, that they're never the same as your expectations, that every moment is utterly unique, utterly different, and that if you attend closely, then you can sit with that changing reality, then you're actually able to function creatively. So I can't emphasize enough the importance of cultivating mindfulness itself, just being mindful all the time, as much as possible. When you're mindful, you can change things for the better. When you're not mindful, you can't do very much at all. So that's mindfulness of impermanence. Next we come on to mindfulness of insubstantiality. Since things come into being and pass away are in the same instance, there is no substance anywhere to be found. There is nothing that lasts long enough to have the qualities that we attribute to substance. If there is substance, it is so changeable, it is so malleable, so fluid, that it has none of the qualities that we attribute to substance. So it doesn't make sense to speak of their being anything substantial, lasting, enduring, solid, fixed and unchanging in the world. There's only a changing flux, and a flux is not a substance, a flux is not a substance. Things are so fluid that they are utterly insubstantial. Now, it's hard to see really what the force of this idea is, at first. I think on further investigation when it comes to realise that things are so insubstantial that the primary medium of occurrence is the mind. There is no stuff out there that we apprehend. There is just mind changing in the world. There is no stuff out there that we apprehend. There is mind changing. And it's not as if it's my mind changing or your mind changing, but my mind and your mind are all aspects of mind itself. All there is is mind. There is no substance. And this is a very hard one to be mindful of, to use practically, to do something with. And it's taken me a very long time to sort of arrive at this definite conclusion in my own life and to be able to sit here and say, with my own conviction, that there is only mind. There is no matter. There is only mind. There is no matter. But it's worth pondering on this thought. It's worth pondering on it from time to time when you have a free moment. What would matter be like? If things are as impermanent as they appear to be, what would matter be like? What would have the qualities of matter if things are as impermanent as we say they are? Now, for me, the significance of the fact that all that happens only in mind is it shows me the priority of mental states. When you change your mind, you change the world. When you open your mind out, you open to the world. That the thing that we really have to work with in our spiritual lives is mind. And we place sometimes a great deal of misplaced effort on trying to make the conditions in which we live right, trying to get all the conditions really right, so that we eliminate discomfort from our lives. And this is a misplaced effort because no matter how much we change externals, the thing that really matters is the mind. It's mind where the action is all taking place. I don't want to get too much into the metaphysics of this. It's something that perhaps we could talk about more in study groups. But for me, the important thing about insubstantiality, shunyutah, the empty nature of all phenomena is that what is going on is above all a transformation of mental states. This is not to say that there's nothing as it were objective going on because there are so many of us, we between us, as it were, share our mental states which make the world. My world is the product of my mental states, and the shared world that we all share together is the product of our collective mental states. So there is an objective dimension to this, there are other minds, and we all share a certain human world. And that human world is the result of our shared human mental states, so there is an objective dimension that has to be dealt with. There is suffering out there, suffering really occurs in minds my own and others, and suffering has to be dealt with. So there is a large objective element that must be addressed as a matter of priority. But what has to be addressed has to be addressed by way of the mind, primarily by way of the mind. So we need to work on our own mental states, make them as positive as we can. Because through cultivating positive mental states we can begin to change reality for the better, and only by cultivating positive mental states for ourselves and with others will we change reality for the better. We change by cultivating positive mental states we change our own world for the better, by helping other people to cultivate positive mental states we help the whole world to change for the better. We change the world for the better by changing mental states. So for me the real force of the fact of insubstantiality throws me back on the priority of the mind, the primacy of the mind, and the importance of working directly on the mind to change mental states for the better. But perhaps we can go more into that sometime in some of the study groups that we'll be having together, I'm sure, over the years to come. The third lecture on unsatisfactoriness, dukkha. We're only really realistic if we can bear in mind that ultimate satisfaction is not to be found in samsara. As long as we keep pursuing ultimate satisfaction in samsara, we're not living realistically. That's fairly obvious, I think. That's pretty straightforward. But there's something a bit more to it than that, something a bit more to the idea of dukkha that I find really interesting. I find the first two links on the spiral nidana chain are really interesting, the links between dukkha and shraddha. For me, the links between dukkha and shraddha represent the eruption of reality into our lives. They represent our first tremulous experience of things as they really are under response to it. When we experience dukkha and we feel this is not how things should be, there should be more than this, there could be more than this, there must be more than this. That is an intimation of reality. And I think it's a tragic fact of our society today, the secular world that most of us have been brought up in, that this idea that there must be more than this is conditioned out of us very young. Or is it society attempts to condition this out of us at a very early stage in our lives? I think many of us will have had this experience when we were much younger. Even sometimes when we were five or six or seven or eight years old, there must be more to it than this. Surely, this can't, this itself, just this life, these people living in isolation from one another. These people with limited pleasures and pains, these people with limited expectations, surely there's more to it than this, surely there's more to it than this. This experience that we then have as we grow older in our adolescence and we see the prospect unfolding before us of growing up, getting a job, getting married, getting a mortgage, getting some kids, getting dead, just can't be what it's all about. Surely there's more to it than that, surely that's just not good enough, surely there's more to it than that. Now for me, that is the link, Dukkha Shraddha, this sense that there's more to life than just this, there's more to life than just this, that is Shraddha, this is not good enough, that is Dukkha, this won't do, that is Dukkha. And I think we need to stay with this, there's more to it than just this, because that is the point at which, as it were, transcendental reality is knocking at the door. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are trying to get through, things as they really are, or as it were, trying somehow to manifest through the fog of delusion in which we and most of our compatriots have been living our lives. So staying with the fact that things are not satisfying, this is not satisfactory, this is not good enough, and that things must be able to be made better is a really important aspect of awareness of reality, it's the first step in actually becoming increasingly aware of reality. And if you can stay with that and live in tune with that, then you take the next step on the spiral path. Especially if that affects, you allow that information, that fact to affect your behaviour, especially your ethical conduct, because after that you can begin to act in a more skillful and a more ethical way, and there is a result of that innocent delight arises, and there is a result of that joy arises, and so on and so on, and so you're up the spiral path pretty quickly. But that's the first intimations of the spiral path, or there must be more to it than this, this is not good enough, this won't do. So these feelings of Dukkha and feelings of Shraddha are incredibly important and to be remembered and dwelt upon. So awareness of Dukkha isn't just a matter of going around sort of in a rather gloomy, mental state, thinking, "Oh dear, it's all suffering, there's only suffering, everything's unsatisfactory, what's the point of it all?" And Dukkha comes along with real Dukkha, along with the real awareness of Dukkha, should come Shraddha. If it's a real awareness of Dukkha, if it's a real awareness of the reality of unsatisfactoriness, along with it comes a sense of, "Well it's just not good enough, and there must be more to it than this." This is not the end of it, there's more to it than this. So there's a looking up, as well as a looking at what is really happening. So with mindfulness of unsatisfactoriness should come a faith, an openness to change for the better. And if you're not open to changing things for the better, then you're not really seeing how things really are. Because a kind of cynical belief that this is all just rubbish is not an experience of Dukkha. An experience of Dukkha is an experience of how things really are. But they're unsatisfactory because they're limited, and that they could be less limited, they could be more open, they could be more positive. So an experience of Dukkha will always contain this element of faith in it. If there isn't an element of faith in it, then what you have is a disgruntled, not disillusionment. So for me those are the three main elements that I try to work with in my own dwelling upon the three luxioners. In the first place that things are so radically impermanent that nothing lasts at all, that there is only becoming, there is no being. And that to experience this one has to be really in the present moment, really attentive, really mindful. In the second place things are insubstantial, and what this means is that mental states have priority, and I have to work on my mental states to change things for the better. And things are Dukkha, they're ultimately unsatisfactory. I'm not going to get the final satisfaction that I'm looking for within the Sanghsara, and therefore I need to try to make things better. I need to try to look to what is better, I need to try to cultivate my sense of Shraddha, my openness to change for the better. But there are two other avenues to the awareness of reality that I want to speak of as well. Two that are quite important in my own life, and which I'd like to share somewhat. I want to say just a little bit about beauty, and a little bit about love. When one is aware of beauty, I believe, when one attends to beauty in the presence of beauty, and when it's conscious of beauty, then I think when it's conscious of more reality. This is really important point. I think reality is reality, reality with the capital law, is the experience of beauty. In the presence of beauty, when we're experiencing something really beautiful, what happens? What happens to us, for example, when we're standing in front of a very beautiful picture in an art gallery, or when we're standing in front of a beautiful sunset, or up a mountain with a beautiful view in front of us. And we just attend to what's going on. What's the experience like? I think one of the main aspects of the experience is that our ego identity, our appropriate ego identity, is somewhat pacified for a time. It goes somewhat out of the picture for a time. It's put somewhat to the side. So in the experience of beauty, we stop to some extent when we're really experiencing beauty. To that extent, we're not really there owning the experience. I want this. I want to own this thing. I want to take it away with me. As soon as those feelings start to come up, we lose the immediacy of the experience of beauty. And unfortunately, very often this happens very quickly. We experience something as beautiful, and it's almost like a shock. And independence upon that shock, or following from that shock, other feelings soon come in its train. So we experience a beautiful sunset, and rather than just be able to be there, experiencing it, we start to have thoughts like, "Oh, I wish my friends could see this. I wish I could take it to them. I wish I could keep this. I wish I could own it somehow." That's sort of feeling. Or we see a beautiful picture, and we think, "Oh, I must get a poster of this." Or, "I wish I owned this picture." Or something like that. So the experience of beauty doesn't always last, because very often there's some sort of kickback from the ego. But reflect a little bit on the actual moment of the experience of beauty. It's a moment of complete openness, a moment of complete presence, a moment of being in the present, a moment of, to some extent, self-transcendence. And this happens to us, I think, in many different ways. Sometimes in the presence of beautiful music, or in the presence of nature, when the presence of fine works of art, or even in moments of communication, when we see the real beauty of the person with whom we're communicating. I don't mean the sort of conventional beauty, but I mean the real human beauty, the life, the vivacity, the magnificence, the mystery of the person with whom we're communicating. So in the presence of beauty, reality comes through. When we're experiencing beauty, to that extent, we're also experiencing reality. We are experiencing reality. When we're experiencing beauty, we experience reality. And for this reason, I think, it's quite important in our spiritual lives, not just to focus on the three luxioners, say, on impermanence, in substantiality, and unsatisfactoriness, which can, if we're not careful, be quite a dry focus and quite a dry set of thoughts, if we're not careful. But we should turn our minds also to the experience of beauty and seek it out. Because the more we can experience beauty, the more we're in touch with what is really going on. But it's not easy to experience beauty. It's not just a matter of sticking yourself somewhere beautiful, or plonking yourself in front of a beautiful picture, or putting on your stereo and putting on your favourite CD, and sort of expecting the aesthetic moment, as it were, to arise and unfold and engulf you completely. It doesn't happen like that. If we want to experience beauty, we have to lead lives which are conducive to the experience of beauty, which means that we have to be mindful. We have to cultivate a certain degree of calm, appreciative awareness in our lives in general. And the more we can cultivate calm, appreciative awareness in our lives in general, in our working lives especially, the more liable we're going to be to experience beauty when the opportunity arises. As much of the time, our minds are just too chopped up. Our thoughts are too chopped up, our activity is too disconnected and discombobulated. And so when beautiful moments arise, we're unable just to stay with it. We don't have the calm necessary to stay with it. We don't have the mindfulness necessary to stay with it. So if we wanted to experience beauty more, and I think that all of us would get a great deal from trying to experience beauty more, we need to cultivate mental states which are susceptible to the experience of beauty. And mental states which are susceptible to the experience of beauty are those which are mindful, which are somewhat calm, which are somewhat continuous. So again, mindfulness is of primary importance, if we wish to experience beauty, and through experiencing beauty, experience reality. But love is also important. This world is a most remarkable place. It is perhaps just a transformation of mind, just a transformation of my mind and your mind and all the minds that are about. Perhaps it is no more than that, a vast transformation of infinite mind, but it is unbelievably magnificent, unbelievably beautiful, and it contains magnificent beings of all sorts. And only when we can respond to this magnificence with feelings of love and defection and concern and consideration, will we see it as it really is? The world may be just mind, but only through loving it, can you really apprehend it? Only through loving others, do you ever apprehend them? Only through responding to things with feelings of love, do you actually deal with what is really going on? So the apprehension of reality is not a static, cold, clinical, distant, conceptual matter. The apprehension of reality has to be warm, informed, open, aesthetic, appreciative, kindly and loving. Because the world is alive, the world is fully alive, throbbing with life in every aspect. And only by loving it, loving others, are we able to deal with them as they really are, with what is really going on? When we cease to love, we cut ourselves off, and we return to our own isolation and to entrapment within our own minds. And when we respond to the world with love, and we come out of our own minds, out of our own isolation, out of our own entrapment, and we join in with the flow of life, with join in with reality, join in with what is really going on. So the cultivation of feelings of love are of absolute importance in becoming aware of reality. So I hope that somehow or other, in the course of this talk, I've managed to evoke, to some degree at least, the importance of mindfulness and the importance of matter in dealing with and being aware of reality. Thank you very much. [applause]
