Good morning. Yesterday I got a number of wonderful questions. Here is one by Sky. After the Buddha passed away, the Buddhist monks and nuns gathered and they repeated, they recalled what he had taught during his 45 years of teaching.

[01:09]

and all his teachings were put in a basket called Pitaka, Sutra Pitaka. Pitaka means a basket. But this is kind of basket that you cannot see, because at that time the sutras were handed down only by the oral tradition. They were not written down yet, so that basket is in here. So the Buddha gave so many lessons on the Dharma. And each lesson like that is called sutra. And there was a basket of sutras.

[02:11]

And there were many monks who had the art of reciting the sutras. They learned by heart. And they recited the sutras every three days, or five days, or seven days. and they were very important in the community. And then the monks also recited the Vinaya, which means the precepts. There are precepts for monks, precepts for nuns, for lay people, and also how these precepts come to be adopted by the Buddhist community. And each precept has a story behind it. In the beginning, the community of the Buddha did not have any precepts. But since the numbers of monks and nuns increased, some mistakes were made by individuals in the community.

[03:15]

And that is why precepts were proposed in order for the community to enjoy more the harmony living. And the second basket is called Vinaya. Vinaya Pitaka. And then, not long after that, we have the third basket, which is the Abhidharma. Abhidhamma Pitaka. Abhidhammas are work done by monks and nuns and lay people in order to systemize the teaching of the Buddha, in order to offer commentaries on the teachings of the Buddha in the Sutra Pitaka.

[04:19]

And that kind of literature was becoming very important a few hundred years after the death of the Buddha. And so there were so many works under Abhidhamma Pitaka. And finally, around the 5th century of our era, There were so many eminent pastors who summarized all the work in the Abhidhammas in just a few volumes for the sake of the people who do not have much time to study all the Abhidhamma works. And Now many of these works are still available in Sri Lanka, where the Pali Canon is still maintained.

[05:30]

Visuddhimagga is the most famous work summarizing the teaching of the Abhidhamma. Visuddhimagga. The English translation of that work is The Path of Purity. It has been translated into English. It is available now. At the same time with the Visuddhimagga, there is another work called Vimuttimagga. This was also written in Pali, but the Pali version is lost. But fortunately we have a translation in Chinese, and therefore we also have a translation of this work into English.

[06:39]

We are very lucky. This is the path of liberation. This is the path of purity. Visuddhi, purity, and vimutti, liberation. At about the same time, there was a man whose name is Vasubandhu, who lived in North India. He spent sometime in Kashmir also, he learned the Abhidharma of all other schools because there were so many schools of Buddhism by that time.

[07:50]

And each school has its own Sutra Pitaka, Vinaya Pitaka, and Abhidharma Pitaka. So this gentleman, he spent time learning the Abhidhamma and the sutras of many traditions. And finally, he summed up his understanding about the teaching of Abhidhamma in a wonderful work called Trimshika, Vishnapti, Matrata, Karika. Well, it's long like this, but Premsika, it means 30. Tarika means verses, gata, something like gata.

[08:57]

Vishnapti-matrata, it means only consciousness exists. It means everything you see, everything you feel is consciousness. And this work consists only of 30 verses, but it's a very wonderful work. Ten teachers who came after him gave wonderful commentaries on that work. We can translate this by the teaching of the teaching of vijnana-vada, vijnana-vada, a word that you know already. Vijnana means consciousness in 30 verses.

[10:07]

I had the opportunity to learn this work when I was 19, and it has helped me quite a lot. And what I present to you in the first Dharma talk concerning alaya-vijnana, mano-vijnana, and manas, and also the 51 mental formations, are all from that work. It was written in Sanskrit, and the Sanskrit was rediscovered by a friend professor when he visited Nepal. But when I studied it, I saw it in the Chinese version. And I have made comparative studies of the two texts. And it was a wonderful translation. It was translated by the famous Chinese pilgrim, Vientiane, during the 7th century.

[11:16]

So if you like to know more about the teaching of Vishnana Vada concerning the unconscious, Concerning the visas, mental formations, and the way the mind works, please approach Premsika Visnati Mathrata Karika. It is available in English. But first of all, I would like to draw attention to the few basic texts of Buddhist meditation. If you belong to the Vajrayana tradition or Zen tradition or Vipassana tradition, and even if you are not a Buddhist yet, You should try to learn, because this is a very precious thing handed down from our ancestors.

[12:42]

I think Buddhism is just part of our heritage, and if you don't know how to make use of it to profit from it, that would be a pity. First is the Sutra on Mindful Breathing. The title of the Sutra written in Pali is Anapalasati Sutra. Anapana means breathing in, breathing out. Sati means mindfulness. Sutta means the text. Sutta. And in this sutra, the Buddha proposed 16 exercises on breathing.

[14:03]

And our gatha, E-Noun, Deep Slow, we just extract some elements from these 16 exercises. And if you want to know more about that gatha, then the study of this sutra is very important. the exercise has to do with the body, has to do with the feelings, has to do with the mental formations, and has to do with the objects of the mind, which is the world. So everything is dealt with in that sutra. The sutra was taught by the Buddha on a full moon night. in open air for many, many monks and nuns at the end of the three-month retreat. And I have translated into English and written commentaries on it, and it is available.

[15:14]

And I wrote commentaries for people all over Thailand, not only for monks who live in the forest. The Sutra on Mindful Breathing, that is the title. And I don't think that anyone who would like to practice Buddhist meditation could ignore that sutra. In fact, the monks, in the time of the Buddha, they learn, they memorize it, they know by heart. And I think a deep, thorough study of the sutra and effort to put them into practice now in daily life is very important. The second text that is equally important is Satipatthana Sutta. I wrote down the title of these sutras in Pali because we don't have the original Sanskrit.

[16:40]

We only have the original Pali. And when I was a novice, I studied them in the Chinese version. Satipatthana-sutta, sati means mindfulness, like in here. Satipatthana-sutta is translated by the foundations of mindfulness, the sutra on the foundations of mindfulness. In fact, there are four foundations. That is why we translate the sutra on the four foundations of mindfulness. The first foundation being the body, the second foundation being the feelings, the third being the mind, and the fourth being the object of the mind, which means everything. And these two sutras, they go together perfectly. No detail in these two... You cannot see a single detail in this sutra that contradicts other details.

[17:49]

And monks and nuns have learned by heart these two sutras from generation to generation. And that is why during my studies I noticed that foreign elements have not penetrated into these two texts. They are still very pure. And that is why these two texts are so precious, so important, that if you want really to practice or to try Buddhist meditation, you just cannot ignore them. whether you belong to the Buddhist tradition of the North or the South. The four areas of meditation, as you know, the four foundations of meditation is body,

[18:51]

mind and object of mind. And everything is included in these four foundations. If you read the Satipatthana Sutta, you will see things like this. The practicer contemplates the body in the body, contemplates the feeling in the feeling, contemplates the mind in the mind, and contemplates the object of mind in the object of mind. The idea is that while you practise contemplation, you do not remain a separate subject of contemplation.

[20:01]

You are not only an observer. You have to penetrate deeply into the object of your contemplation and become one with it in order to really understand. So if we think that we can contemplate something and remain only someone standing outside well, and we can still understand the nature of the object of our contemplation, we are wrong. We have to go into it, to be one with it, in order to really understand it. Like in the French word, comprendre, comprehend. There is the prefix kom and the verb praun.

[21:07]

Praun means to pick it up, and kom means to be one with it. So understanding something is to pick it up and to become one with it. The idea is like that. In India, they like to use the example of a grain of salt. Who would like to know how salty is the ocean water? And the best way, according to the story, is that the grain of salt jumps into the ocean, and then the understanding will be perfect. But for many Westerners, That is a dangerous thing. You lose yourself. You lose your identity. I remember that when I was talking at the United Nations Church Center, a lady who came to see me told me a thing like this.

[22:22]

I asked my friend to come along. But she refused to go. I asked why. She said, well, I may be persuaded by him to oppose the war in Vietnam. She was afraid of understanding, of losing her point of view, herself. When people love each other, well, they are just doing that. They become the other person. If they don't become the other person, they cannot be one with the other person, love is not really there.

[23:22]

So when you love, you give yourself up somehow in order to interbe with the one you love. otherwise love would not be possible. In the circle of scientists, nuclear physicists, they have already started talking in that kind of language. They said that if you want to understand an elementary particle, then you have to become a participant. If you want to continue to be an observer, a mere observer, you cannot understand. And the particle is, first of all, your mind, your concept about the particle. The Buddha stressed very much on this aspect.

[24:28]

Contemplating something as a mere observer outside of it, you can never understand really the nature of that something. And therefore, when we contemplate a flower, we have to look in a way that we can be the flower so that we can understand the true nature of a flower, the non-flower elements within the flower. And that is called insight. That is why insight is different from the kind of knowledge we have in scientific research or other kind of research. Because insight has the capacity of liberating you. But knowledge may not have that capacity.

[25:31]

So even if you learn a lot of the Buddhist teachings and sutras and abhidhammas, that is not insight. And that cannot liberate you. The insight is a proof of meditation. By penetrating deeply into the object of your contemplation, you become wanted and you see the true nature of it. And by that kind of comprehension, that kind of understanding, that kind of insight, you are liberated. One of you asked the question as to whether insight is enough. We should have good behavior. Does insight lead to correct adaptive behavior?

[26:34]

Or we need both? If we understand that insight is the direct experience of the true nature of things, then insight would be enough. But if you understand insight as some knowledge, especially conceptual knowledge of things, and that would not be enough. And sometimes you feel that you have the insight, but that's not certain that you have the insight. You have to go into the world and test whether that is insight or not. And this is very tricky. Sometimes during our meditation, we feel that we can be in peace with that person. Now we are able not to hate him. We'll be kind with him. Well, we feel like that.

[27:36]

But when we stand up and go to that person and listen to something she says, we know that that's not inside yet. Maybe tomorrow we shall have time to speak a little bit on contemplation of the body, in the body. But today I would like to answer a number of your questions. We know from the Dharma talk yesterday In each one of us, there is a river of feelings flowing day and night. And contemplating feelings means to sit on the bank of the river and just observe.

[28:46]

We observe, acknowledge, experience. look into each feeling as deeply as we can in order to see their nature. And each feeling is a drop of water in that river of feelings. But we know that from the first Dharma talk that the feelings sometimes exist in the form of seeds. and they are not there on the surface of the river. So what we are practically observing are feelings that are being manifested on the surface of the river. And also each feeling manifested like that on the surface has a root or several roots underneath, at the bottom of the river.

[30:07]

So when we look at the feeling, we look deeply in order to see at the same time the roots of that feeling, who are in form of bija seeds. And from the second sutra that I just quoted to you, Satipatthana Sutra, the sutra on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, there is a word that is worth our attention, sannyosana. translated in Chinese by két or nồi két. It means bun, bun. or sometimes internal formation.

[31:34]

When someone says something cool to you or did something unpleasant to you, well, you have a way to take it, to receive it. If you do not practice, if you do not know how to deal with these words or with these deeds, then a formation takes place in you. A samurana is formed. And it will be one of the sources of your suffering. But if you are trained, if you have enough insight, wisdom, then these words or these acts won't be able to become a Samyogjana in yourself.

[32:49]

So it depends on your way of receiving, your state of being, your wisdom. your power to understand the roots of things. And if you are not strong enough, then these words and deeds will create a formation in yourself. But that formation What you receive might be unpleasant, but might not be unpleasant. It means something quite pleasant can also give you some jhana that could be the cause of your suffering. Like love.

[33:52]

When you fall in love, And if you love someone who does not want to respond to your love, you have a formation. You have a samyosanna and you have lovesick. Lovesick is an internal formation. First, the feeling is pleasant. Not like the feeling you get when someone shouts at you. It's pleasant, but it can give you a seed of suffering in yourself. And you become addicted to it. And you lose your peace and your joy. So unpleasant feelings may cause some nyojana, but pleasant feelings also can cause some nyojana in you.

[34:57]

And this not only applies to your feelings, your mind, but also to your body. Like many people who become alcoholics because they got a formation from alcohol. They just have a good taste of alcohol and they are addicted to it. So it applies also to the body, not only to the mind. So the practice of mindful living according to the Sutta of Mindfulness is that you do not let, you present Samyogjana to be planted in you.

[36:16]

And when it has been planted in you, you meditate in order to neutralize them and to transform them. The first case is like this. Someone tells me something very unpleasant. I am wise enough, I am smiling enough, I am tolerant enough in order not to get hurt. because of these words. So there is no formation in me. Like a mother hearing her son saying something not polite, but she knows that because of her fault, she has exposed her son to other children who are not very polite. So she understands that she did not blame, she did not get hurt. So there is no Samyurana in her. Or a child that is not happy, she might have some headache or something like that, and something the child says may not be pleasant, but the mommy or the daddy won't mind because they know that the child has a headache.

[37:35]

So there is no... no inner formation, internal formation. Because we have a lot of seeds of delusion, of ignorance, of anger in us, that is why things can easily cause formations to take place in us. They say something, they did something, and then we have formations. And we got formations every day. Suppose a couple who is just married. One morning during a reception, the young husband said something that did not inspire much respect in the heart of the wife.

[38:49]

He was boasting, he was saying something not really true. And during that reception, it's not convenient for the young lady to ask him. But she feels that she has lost some kind, a little bit of esteem, because her husband was not telling the truth. So she got a formation, internal formation. But if she is a practicing person, she will say that, I cannot let it go like that. Now I should not talk about it because there are guests, but tonight I must remember to talk to my husband about it. Otherwise it will be a seed that will last in me. So after the guests are gone, she cleans the house, she arranges everything, and she finds an opportunity to sit down with her husband and she asks,

[39:58]

darling, this morning you said such or such thing, please explain to me. Well, if the husband is also a practicing person, he would say that, I'm sorry. Really, I did not tell the truth. I was boasting a little bit. I was trying to impress people a little bit, and I made you suffer. well, please forgive me, I shall not do anything like that anymore in the future. So with that kind of commitment, the internal formation in the lady is transformed. But if she did not do that, it continues to be there. And for the second time, he will do something like that, and then the formation will grow up, grow up. And living not mindful like that for three years, five years, there will be blocks of formations in her and in him, and that will lead to a divorce.

[41:08]

And that will not be a good present for the children. But we do not need to get married now to get internal formation. As a little boy or a little girl, we can get a lot of information, especially when we are from one to four years old. Even if we are just born and if we don't know the language yet, and if between daddy and mommy there is a problem, we know.

[42:17]

Because the atmosphere is so heavy, so suffocating, And although we don't know what they are talking about, but that atmosphere can already kill us. So as a baby, three months old, I got formation from my parents. They may think that I am a baby, I don't know anything yet, so they let it be like that. But they are wrong. I feel very well the atmosphere around them. And when I touch them, I know, I know in some way that they are suffering, and that their suffering penetrates into me, penetrates in me. And when I grow up, five or six years old, I understand their language. I don't want to be in that atmosphere.

[43:22]

I want to go to the the toilet and lock the door in order to avoid that kind of atmosphere, but still I cannot avoid because the atmosphere, the air still tries to penetrate. And alone in the bathroom I cried. I want to explode. Even before I was born, I could also guard the formations. Because my mommy, everything she drinks, everything she eats, every anger she undergoes, every joy she experiences will penetrate in me. Therefore, I began to get formations already when I was in the womb of my mommy. That is why Future mothers should know that during the time they bear a child, they have to practice smiling, breathing, being happy.

[44:36]

Otherwise, she will start making her child unhappy already. So the practice of mindful living is to avoid internal formations to take place in us and in our children even before they are born. And this is not a practice only for the Buddhists. The non-Buddhists have to practice well. And the teaching might become non-Buddhist. It's not important. But that is the principle we have to practice whether we are Buddhist or not. Of course, that evening,

[45:40]

The young lady sitting with her husband invited the internal formations from the depth of her consciousness to come to the upper level of consciousness. She knows that it's easy to talk about it. It is possible that she can talk with her husband neutralize it. That is why she invited the seat up and had it taught and contemplated. Sometimes you do it by yourself, sometimes you do it with another person. And meditation is also like that. Sometimes you do it alone, sometimes you do it with your teacher, sometimes you do it with your sangha. only. It is just like in psychotherapy, you have to do it with another person.

[46:46]

Suppose you are practicing metta meditation, meditation on loving kindness, and you are sitting there contemplating and nourishing your compassion, your loving kindness. And you may have the feeling that now you have compassion, loving kindness, everything is all right. But it's not certain, because when you come to people, you get angry. It means you have to practice with people in order to shake the fruit of your work during your sitting or practicing alone. So practicing with a sangha, practicing with a teacher, is what is going on in Buddhism for 2,500 years. And if you say that the Buddhist practice of meditation differs from the practice of therapy, in which the Buddhist practice alone, that's not correct.

[47:54]

Even the Buddha, he practiced with other monks, he practiced with children. So there are times where we have to invite the eternal formations up in order to have a conversation with them and to transform them right there in the upper level of our consciousness. Sometimes we can do it alone. Sometimes we do it with a friend, with a teacher, and with a sangha. But sometimes we don't have to deal with them. You just plant new seeds, seeds of healing, seeds of understanding, seeds that are refreshing, and they will be able to take care of these seeds. There are many ways. The other night I was suggesting that if you have a seed of pain, of suffering that is too important, that alone you don't have the capacity to deal with it.

[49:30]

Because once you invite it up, it will make you suffer a lot. It will crush you. I said that in that instance, don't invite it up. Try to practice in order to plant new seeds, healing seeds. But if you find it difficult, then go to another person, a brother, a sister, a friend, a sangha. Therefore, the practice should be with other people also from time to time. I was not telling that we should not invite internal formations up to have a conversation and to transform them from there, from up there.

[50:33]

I only said that there are times you can do that. do that alone or do that with another person or many other persons. And sometimes we don't have to do that. If they consent to be at the bottom of our consciousness, then we have a chance to work in order to transplant, to plant new seeds. And it can have the same kind of effect sometime later These will be transformed. Vipaka is an important term in Buddhist psychology. Vipaka. I don't know how to translate. Professor Levy translated it as concoction.

[51:36]

Is it English? Yeah. It means the seeds in yourself, when they become ripe, and together with other seeds, they become a concoction, a karma fruit. First, The seeds do not rise at the same time. Some seeds will need more time to rise. And they are different types. The second principle is that There are different kinds of seeds.

[52:41]

Seeds of sorrow, seeds of peace, seeds of joy, different species. And when they are ripe, they are not the same. They are transformed. Like an orange fruit. An orange, when it was young, is sour, is green, but when it is ripe, It's red and it is sweet. So different taste or something like that. So that is the way that seeds within our alaya vision operate. They are of different species. They take a different length of time to ripe, and when they ripe, they become different.

[53:46]

And when they are looked at as a totality, they are called vipaka kind of constructions. Suppose I draw a line, I imagine a line, and I say that if I go into that direction, I will be happier. If I go into that direction, I will suffer more. So if I stay here, I don't suffer a lot, but I am not very happy. Now suppose I don't know how to practice living in mindfulness, understanding, and you give me an internal formation, a seed.

[54:55]

And that seed is a seed of suffering. But the intensity of that seed is represented by the length of the line I draw. For instance, like this. Or this. If I suffer more, the line will be longer. So I would call that S1. Of course, that seed determine my faith. I suffer because of the existence of that seed. And tomorrow, someone gives me another seed of suffering. Let's say, not a seed of happiness to make it easier,

[56:03]

Someone took me out, showed me the blue sky, and taught me how to be in touch with the blue sky. So he has given me analysis in this direction. Suppose this much, this number 2. I have a lot of seeds in me, but now I just want to show the way the seeds operate in concoction. And I know that at that state of being, my condition of happiness is something like this. And if tomorrow you are my good friend, you saw that I suffer less by this kind of help, she will make another effort and give me seed-free.

[57:14]

So I will have this." So now I am a much happier person. Well, that is the way. some seeds would need more time to ripe. And they influence each other, they modify each other, they transform each other. So looking at the concoction of my alaya vision now, I know my value as a human being, happy or less happy, unhappy or happy. And that is called vipaka. To me, a therapist, the practice of the therapist should be directed to himself or herself first.

[58:25]

Because if she is not very happy, she cannot help many people. And we practice it on ourselves. We practice joy, peace, happiness, the capacity of enjoying the positive elements in life in order to nourish the part of the flower in us. And also we practice in order to transform the seeds of suffering, to bring them back to flowers. And that is the basic work of the psychotherapy, I think. Without that, you cannot succeed very much in your work helping other people. If I am someone that needs therapy, I would look for a therapist who is happy.

[59:32]

happy in his family, in her family, with her children. That is my criteria. I could look for a therapist who is really happy. I would tell my friends to do so also. And I know that so many people are suffering. I talked with the peace activists. They are doing their best in order to help. But they know that the suffering is immense. I also told them the same thing. If you are not yourself, if you are not happy enough, healthy enough, you cannot continue. Therefore, go back to yourself. Because helping yourself is helping all of us. Be yourself. Be in peace. Be in joy. And all of us who have practiced looking at the state of the world, we have the feeling that each of us should become a peace worker, a therapist, because so much suffering is going on.

[60:54]

And I also believe that therapists should be also peace workers. Because the destruction of our environment, the corruption of our society have led to a tremendous amount of people who are mentally sick. If you only deal with the sick people, if you do not make effort to prevent the destruction of our planet and our society, Well, we are not dealing with the roots of the problems. That is why I believe that therapists should also engage deeply in the work to protect our environment and to prevent the destruction of our society by the way people actually live. Alcohol, sex abuse, and so on.

[61:59]

We have to attack the problems of their roots. You cannot spend all your time with your patients. You have to save some time for yourself in order to give us a helping hand.

[62:11]

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