Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;The Dharma is Everywhere, is a beautiful short talk by Aryashila of the Croydon Buddhist Centre exploring impermanence. She uses the challenging poetry of Leonard Cohen and others, as well as her own deep life experience, to show that reality does not conform to ordinary wishes, but yet facing it squarely can be supremely uplifting, not sad. Talk given at the Sangha evening of the West London Buddhist Centre.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
The Dharma is Everywhere
[Music] Dharma Vites 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. [Music] One title might be "The Dharma is Everywhere". The alternative title might be "Why don't I find let it go under pressing?" Or "Why do I find the sad poetry uplifting?" Or "The third title is "We're all gonna die, so let's just be happy today". So, and yeah, it's really nice to be back in West London. It's a place that, as you were saying, I became a Mitra and made a real strong and definite decision to take the Dharma as my path in life. And as I say, the theme tonight is something I have reflected on a lot, even before I was the Buddhist, because I, you know, when you are a fan of people like Leonard Cohen and Virginia Woolf, you get a lot of "jip" from people. And it's like, you know, what's the matter with you? They're sad, they're depressing, gloomy. The thing is, I don't find them sad. And I find it curious that I don't find them sad. And it was when I became familiar with the teachings of Buddha that I realised why I don't find them sad. It was actually, and, you know, and I guess when I look back now, the kind of things are interesting to me when I was a teenager on the words, whether it was poetry or music, the kind of things that appeal to me. I must have always been a Buddhist, because, you know, that's one explanation anyway. So what do I mean to the uninitiated of the Leonard Cohen fan club, in the first instance? So let me just read you. I mean, the man writes poetry and song, and there's very little between them, except the reframes, or they're all common reframes if it's a song. And I wasn't thinking about playing some of these teaching out, but I think they stand just beautifully if you just say them. And there's some strong language in this one. Text called "Here It Is". Here is your crown and your seal and rings. And here is your love for all things. Here is your cart and your cardboard and piss. And here is your love for all of things. May everyone live and may everyone die. Hello, my love and my love goodbye. Here is your wine and your drunken fall. And here is your love, your love for a soul. Here is your sickness, your bed and your pan. And here is your love for the woman, the man. May everyone live and may everyone die. Hello, my love and my love goodbye. And here is the night, the night has begun. And here is your death in the heart of your son. And here is the dawn until death do us part. And here is your death in your daughter's heart. May everyone live and may everyone die. Hello, my love and my love goodbye. And it goes on. And it's beautiful. And it's depressing. And it's about death. And I was saying to someone at work, it's one of the best moments of my life was going to see this man sing these songs at the auto just a couple of years ago. And they said to me, "Oh my God, that's a bit sad." So what is it about this that resonates me? What's it got to do with the Buddha? Well, it's impermanent. Obviously, she says to myself, I'm not saying this. It's just kind of, it's there. It's the sense one of the more central teachings in Buddhism. In fact, it was one of the final things, the final instructions on my fear that the Buddha gave as he was dying himself. Everything is impermanent with diligence, mindfulness, strife on what he said. It's a simple truth that we all know. We are loved ones. Everything we care about will end. And as they say it on the box set of six feet under, another very darmic piece of modern culture. Everything, everyone, everywhere ends. And I'm also so donic torn from Mr. Corn again. A song that's been used a million and one times in lots of different films and sort of different productions. I heard it the first time in a very strange, dark, high school murder mystery called Heathers many years ago. And this was the theme tune and it's another cornerstone. Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows that the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed. The poor as they poor. The rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows. Everybody knows that the bolt is leaking. Everybody knows that the captain lied. Everybody's got this broken feeling like their father or their dog just died. Everybody's talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and along's them rolls. Everybody knows. So why do we need to take these lakes to help? Because I do think they've got something important to say. How can they help us to live our lives well? Well if I think if we really took on both the facts of the matter we would be able to live more generous and more compassionate lives if we really relished every breath. If we woke up every morning and said yeah I'm still here. Life would be so much more joyous. And at the same time if we really appreciated our fears of dying and those of others about the prospect of dying we would be free to live more honestly and compassionately with each other. How much did we shrink back from conversations about death or sickness or old age? Again you know one of the earliest insights of the Buddha was witnessing all things as a young man realizing he had to try and do something about it. I really for example become fonder and fonder of my parents as they get old and they're getting terribly old. My dad was 91 three months ago and the tenderness I feel towards him now because I can see his frailty and I can almost feel his fear. How can he not be thinking about when he's going to die? Although he clings on to a comment from one of his consultants he has many consultants that look after him who said you'll live to be a 100-year-old. He probably will. But my heart opens so much more now when I see the reality of his frailty in front of me and the tangibleness of his fear. My heart opens when I hear sad songs. Poignant is a beautiful word and it is what that experience is. It's that tenderness of our frailty and the reality of our impermanence that touches me. And I find it liberating and moving. It does get me a compassion of me. There's a Buddha called Ajahn Chal who I've come across recently through listening to some Joseph Goldstein lectures on the internet. And he once said if you haven't worked deeply you haven't begun to meditate. And I think there's something in that really touching impermanence in your life. And whatever it is that helps inspire that. If it's poetry or song or people's stories I think it's worth going into it. It's what makes us human. I'm going to read you another piece of drama from 18th century to betting. He'll be here again. I just came across a couple of weeks ago. His name is Sharap Thar. Sort of drug run draw. He'll apparently go to betting you'll be at the end of the 18th century. And he wandered from place to place living a solitary life. And a bit like Miller Ripper which songs would spontaneously come to him. And I'm not going to say it though against just a poem. So, here we go. Another day I went out for some fresh air to a meadow covered with flowers. While singing and remaining in a state of awareness I noticed among the profusion of flowers spread out before me one particular flower waving gently on its long stem and giving out a sweet fragrance. As it swayed from side to side I heard this song in the rustle of its petals. Listen to me, mountain dweller. I don't want to hurt your feelings. But in fact you even lack awareness of impermanence and death. Let alone any realisation of emptiness. For those with such awareness, out of phenomena, all teach impermanence and death, an eyed flower will now give you the beorgi a bit of helpful advice. As a flower born in a meadow I enjoy perfect happiness. With my brightly coloured petals and full bloom surrounded by an eager cloud of bees I dance scarily, swaying gently in the wind. When a fine rain falls my petals wrap around me. When the sun shines I open like a smile. Right now I look well enough. But I won't last long. Not at all. An unwelcome frost will dull these vivid colours, till turning brown eye with her. There to still winds, violent and merciless will tear me apart until I turn to dust. You, hermit, are of the same nature. Surrounded by a host of disciples you enjoy a fine complexion. Your body of flesh and blood is full of life. One of those prayers you you dance with joy. Right now you look well enough. But you won't last long. Not at all. When healthy aging will steal away your healthy vigour. Your hair will whiten and your back will grow bent. When touched by the merciless hands of illness and death you will leave this world for the next life. Since you, the mountain roaming hermit and I am mountain born flower or mountain friends, I have offered you these words of good advice. Then the flower fell silent and remained still. And reply outside. Or brilliant exquisite flower will discourse on impermanence as wonderful indeed. But what shall the two of us do? Is there nothing that can be done? The flower replied. Among all the activities of Samsara there is not one that is lasting. Whatever is born will die. Whatever is joined will come apart. Whatever is gathered will disperse. Whatever is high will fall. Having considered this, I resolve not to be attached to these lush metals. Even now in the full glory of my display, even as my petals and fold and splendor. You too, while strong and fit, should abandon your clinging. Meditate and solitude, seek the pure field of freedom, the great serenity. That's marvelous. And it's all a flat work telling all of this, telling us all of this. And I think that's the kind of, for me, the other side of impermanence is like a case that we've got. We have to face the fact of art and lies, the demise of everything we know. But that also applies to things in the natural world. But there's another fact about this world, because as everything decays, new things emerge. And beauty moves along in manifesting in lots of different ways. That ever-changing, marvellousness, but is human existence and nature. It's really sort of, again, as something that I kind of really learnt to appreciate when I discovered the Dharma and the Buddhist teachings. I kind of made this joke that I don't think I really understood what the countryside was for until I became Buddhist. Now, I would go out into it, but it wouldn't affect me. You know, I would just be like, "So, when are we going to go to the pub?" It would be like a usual thought-back story. I was having with myself when I was out on country water to the young woman, with whoever was the bore of the moment. But now, I mean, it's extraordinary how that stems. I'm currently experiencing the nearest I think I've ever gone in, fields in maternal instincts. About this gang of enormous sunflowers that are proudly standing in my garden that I grew from seed. I'm truly astonished by them. They're six-foot tall. Every time someone comes out to my house, they go, "You have to come and see my sunflowers." And they haven't even bloomed yet. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll be beside myself when that happens. But I'm genuinely full of hope that this little tiny thing, put in a bit of soil, is now this big. I mean, it's extraordinary. And the changing seasons, which are another example of their permanence, is a very huge joy to me. I lived at Dara Coleshoe, a retreat center in Scotland for 12 months, over the four seasons of that Glen. And watching the Glen change from icy snow-bound stillness in winter to blossom up the spring, somehow, and then the glorious autumn colours, and the deer shouting in the forest, in the mountains. It was just totally amazing. I wouldn't appreciate any of that if I wasn't in touch with the fragility of it all, and the amazing nature of it, of it constantly changing. Going back to sort of writers and people who I think kind of are in touch with something that is sort of in their nature of existence, as opposed to another person who I really admire and again get quite a lot of confusion from people about why it is so like a woman. It's Virginia Woolf. I think she is someone that is very, what's very misunderstood. And yes, our novels ramble on and on and on, and she talks about death and suicide, and she herself was seriously depressed woman and killed herself. But sometimes, when I read to her novels, I think that her mental suffering was because she really did have some insights into the truth about reality, and pretty much nobody around her could understand that. And you know, imagine feeling like you read the teachings of the poet, but you have no one to talk to that. Maybe I'm being a bit presumptuous, but I do think there was something about the way she saw the world that was very insightful. And this might not, I mean it might not work, but I mean one of my favourite books of course is The Waves, and I could pretty much sort of open this A page and read something and I'd be impressed by it. You know, I can't promise that you will be, so I'm not, this is not random, but I did just, last night, in search of that paragraph, and after a few pictures of all that, that'll do, because that's pretty amazing. This book is essentially the story of a group of people from childhood until all age. But it's not told in episodes and neat stories, it's just the mind conversations of these eight disseminate people and some of their external conversations with each other. So you know about their lives simply by listening to their thoughts and their internal conversations, and this is kind of towards the end of the book. It's just one of the character thinking. I spoke to that self who has been with me in many tremendous adventures. The faithful man who sits over the fire when everybody has gone to bed. Staring the cinders with a poker, the man who has been so mysteriously and with sudden secretions of being built up. In a beach wood sitting by a watery on a bank, leaning over a parapet at Hampton Court. The man who has collected himself and mourns of emergency, and banked his spoon on the table saying, "I will not consent." The south now, as I lean over the gate, looking down over fields, ruling in waves of colour beneath me, made no answer. You throw up nor position, you attempted nor phrase. This fist did not form. I waited, I listened, nothing came, nothing. It's like not getting anywhere, but it's saying so much, and I do think she's got tremendous insight into the human condition. So being human, I guess what I'm saying is big for me. Being human is amazing. In its sadness and its joy and in its the relishingness of it, I think, has got an idea when I hear some of these songs and we've found these novels. And it's not like, I didn't know that I was going to do this bit, but I think I am. It's not like I haven't, I didn't want to sort of, I don't want to make sure that. A poem that is very sad, and this poem, Paramount, the first person that read this to me was Paramount. And the interesting thing about this was, so I heard this poem 12 months apart. I heard it on a retreat in September 2004 at Donna culture. Oh my God, that's an amazing poem. And a week later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I didn't know anything about that. I didn't want to hear the poem. And then a year later, I'd been through all of the treatment to come out the other side. I'd really touched impermanence right in the face for 12 months and I'd come out the other side and I was well and I was happy. In fact, I was happy a lot of the time during the time I was having the treatment. There's something about just letting that amount of fear inside and expressing it. But actually, it has to keep dropping away because you can't, well, I just couldn't maintain that sense of fear. Several days at a time, so a lot of the time, I just felt really glad to be alive and really happy. And then a year later, Paramount came to Croydon and did a day retreat and then out of the bloke, he just read this poem again. And that's what God makes. It's like, there I was sitting, having had my tumour removed. It's relevant, there's references to this, and having survived and got through the inside. And in my hair doing the meditation that's followed in reading this poem, this little voice sent to me. It doesn't matter if you die, it will be okay. And that's something, something, sort of shifted to me then. That was seven years ago, I touched wood, you know, I'm still well and back in invincible and permanent mode. But, the man who wrote this poem still something and showed me something. It's called sweetness. Just when it has seemed, I couldn't bear one more friend, waking with a tumour. One more maniac with a perfect reason. Often a sweetness has come and changed nothing in the world, except the way I stumbled through it. For a while lost in the ignorance of loving someone or something, the world shrunk to mouth size, hand size, and never seen in small. I acknowledge there is no sweetness that doesn't leave a stain, nor sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet. Tonight a friend called to say his lover was killed in a car he was driving. His voice was low and guttural. He repeated what he needed to repeat. And I repeated the one or two words we have for such grief. And so he was speaking only in tones. Often a sweetness comes, as if on low, states just long enough, to make sense of what it means to be alive. And then returns to his dark souls. As for me, I don't care where it's been or what bitter rule it's travelled to come so far to taste so good. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] [BLANK_AUDIO]