About this talk
Transcript
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Let us begin the Dhamma talk by first paying homage to the Buddha, and most of you can recite Namo Tassa, I believe.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato
Arahanto
Samma Sambuddhassa.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahanto
Samma Sambuddhassa.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahanto
Samma Sambuddhassa.
I believe most of you have already read the book "Snow in the Summer," right?
So, those who have read the book know enough about me already.
And you can see that, um,
my thoughts are mostly
very unconventional. I don't
force myself, um, to do something that I don't believe. So whatever I do, I do it because I believe it.
And whatever I do, I do it because I love it.
So my motivation comes from my positive attitude and love for it. Sometimes people do good things because they want good results, which is very good.
And most people avoid doing bad things, bad deeds, because they're afraid of the bad results. That is also very good. But I do mostly good things because I love to do it. It doesn't matter whether I get any results or not. But I believe that good deeds, good actions bring good results.
I believe that. But even though it doesn't bring any result for me, I will still do it, because I just love to do it. And I try my best not to do evils, because that's what the Buddha taught.
Not because I'm afraid of the evil consequences. Not only because. Because if I get evil consequences, well, surely I'm afraid of that too. But avoiding doing evil deeds,
um, the motivation for avoiding evil deeds is not fear, for me.
I don't want to be an evil person. That's my motivation.
I want to be a good person.
So most of what I do comes from positive motivation.
So if you are not thinking too much about the consequences, but you do good deeds because you love to do good, because you want to be a good person, and you avoid doing evil deeds, bad things, because you don't want to be a bad person, which means I love myself too much.
I want to be a good person. I love myself.
So when I really think about why I do something, it always ends up, uh, the answer is, "Because I love myself."
Sounds selfish, right?
What do you say?
I think that's a good way to be selfish.
Because if I don't love myself, can I love anybody else? I don't think so.
And you have read Metta Sutra, and you practice Metta meditation too. Who do you begin with? You begin with yourself.
So
only when we love ourselves, then we love other people. And only when we really love ourselves, then we do good deeds and avoid bad deeds. So all of my motivations comes from self-love. And some people say that, "Oh, that's very selfish."
And I believe that that's a very good way to be selfish.
So when I wrote that book, "Snow in the Summer," actually I did not write the book. I wrote letters to my friends. They asked me questions. Sometimes they asked me why, how I was living. So whenever I have some time, I'll just sit and relax in the shade under a tree, or sometimes in the shade of my little cabin.
And I'll think of them all of them, um, lovingly, send them letters. And then slowly I write, one word after another. And those friends who have those letters, they love my letters just because I wrote in a very good handwriting.
And they can feel that I wrote those letters with love, with metta.
And I wrote with real honesty. That's why sometimes I'm afraid that when people read my book, they'll find out too much about me.
I'm a very conventional man. I know that. Since I was very young, I've always been very unconventional. I don't follow anybody's demand.
And I don't like people giving me too much incentives to do good things. For example, sometimes parents, my parents told me that if you pass the exam with good grades, we'll give you presents. I said, "I don't want the present. If you give me the present, I won't study anymore." I study because I love knowledge so much.
Sometimes I can't even sleep because I want to know. So that is my strongest motivation. And I wrote about that in this book, "Snow in the Summer." My strongest motivation in my life is love of knowledge. I want to know. And I really want to test whether something is true or not.
So I studied engineering, and I learned how the, I mean, I studied science engineering. I learned how scientists think. I don't try to remember their theories and formulas only, but I try to find out how scientists think. I think that's what students need to learn, how to think like a scientist.
That is education. Not remembering all the formulas and theories.
So since I was very young, I questioned everything and everybody. Sometimes my parents and my teachers got very upset because I questioned too much. I asked too many questions, and they could not answer the questions.
So this DMG book, I have already published one of my books. But actually one book in two languages.
In English and also in Thai translation. And we are planning to publish another book. I want to call it "My Mind Is My Friend."
And I'm going to give you the gist of the idea of that book. And this is also an unconventional idea. Because I am more interested in unconventional ideas, I think. I like to read books. Since I was about 10 years, I started reading books from the libraries.
And because I read books from the libraries, I get to read all kinds of books.
And I was exposed to many different kinds of ideas and religions and philosophies and psychology, history, culture. Very interesting. I was stimulated by many different ideas. And because I read so many books, many times I have very conflicting ideas in my mind.
I cannot decide which one is good or which one is bad, which is right or which is wrong. So it took me a long, long time to decide what is right and what is wrong. What is, uh, conventional, what is not conventional.
And I think that keeps me awake all the time. I challenge myself all the time. So that book is based on a poem. I call it a poem.
It was written
by a Japanese samurai. Very unconventional. How can a samurai write a Dhamma poem, you may ask. But please be patient.
You can find different versions of the same poem if you
search in the internet. This is the simplest version. And I like it very much because it is very simple. Because it is written as a poem, it uses many metaphors and images. And poems have very few words, but the meaning is very deep.
You need to take a long time. You need to read it again and again, and mold over into your mind. And leave it for a while, and then read it again, and think about it again. So at first, when I first got this poem, even the first verse made me think a lot.
And many times I thought, "I don't like it." But it is very strange. When you don't like something, it's very hard to forget it. For me at least, it is true. I keep thinking about the same poem, and then I will pick up again. I pick up again and read it again. And I got more interested.
So after I've read that poem many times and thought about it for a long, long time, I was so excited of the meaning that I wanted to talk about it. So I talk about this poem many, many times already.
Are you interested now already?
It's very thought-provoking. I'll read you the first line. The first line is, "I have no parents." No parents. Impossible. That's why it is very interesting.
Now I'm going to read the second line. The first line is, "I have no parents." The second line is, "I make the heavens and earth my parents." I make the heavens and earth my parents. What does that mean? I have no parents.
I make the heavens and earth my parents.
So now you have heard the poem, the first verse. Can you forget it? No. That's how it is powerful. That's a very powerful poem, because you cannot forget it. You may like it or you may not like it, but you will not forget it. So what does heavens and earth means?
Heavens and earth means the whole universe.
Taking, taking together, it means the whole universe. It means nature. And in Chinese culture also, they talk of heavens and earth as nature.
So heavens and earth created everything. So when I thought about it, I thought, "Well, heavens and earth, it's the whole universe. It's nature." So nature has given birth to us. Is that wrong or right? It's right. The whole universe gave birth to me.
Not only my parents. My parents themselves cannot do that.
My parents are themselves children of the whole universe. The whole universe and nature. And I kept thinking about it. In Burmese, we have a saying that, I will say that in Burmese language. Khan da a mi, khan da a pa. A mi means mother.
A pa means father. Ka means karma. Karma means deeds. Your thoughts, uh, what you think, what you say, and what you do, all that is karma. All your deeds are your father. Only your deeds are your father. And all your deeds are your mother.
So we are children of our own karma. Very interesting. So to get this life, of course our parents contributed their part. But our parents are not the sufficient cause. The main cause for us to be a human being here is our own karma.
So my karma is my parents. Isn't that true, in a way? In a deeper meaning? Yeah. So we must be very careful of karma. We are still creating ourselves.
I feel it that way, very much. Whatever I think creates myself, changes myself. So I'm creating myself, I'm changing myself all the time by what I think, what I say, and what I do.
So deeper meaning of this verse is that
karma is our parents. Nature is our parents. The whole universe is our parents. Without the whole universe, there won't be this world. Because this world is part of the universe. And without the whole universe and this world, we won't have a place to stay.
So our parents are not the only sufficient cause to give birth to us. The whole universe, taken together, is the cause of us. So when you think about it, it makes you feel connected with the whole universe.
And that feeling is really amazing. It's a very wonderful feeling. Many times, especially when I was living in the forest, very quiet and peaceful, nobody around, nothing to do. And that is not easy. Nothing to do is very difficult. That's why people are running around and trying to do something, trying to keep them occupied.
But I was so interested in meditation, I gave away all my books, and my teacher told me not to read any books. It was very hard for me to do. I stopped reading for a few years. It was the hardest thing for me to do, actually. So I lived in the forest for a long time, just keeping my mind right in this moment, in the present.
Meditating. That means meditating. Not thinking, thinking too much about the past, not thinking too much about the future. But just keeping my mind right in the moment, in the present. Paying attention to what I see, what I hear, what I think, what I feel. Sometimes not thinking much, just paying attention. Just knowing what is happening.
So the mind becomes almost empty and calm. Empty doesn't mean it has no content. Empty of thought only, but it was very calm and quiet and peaceful. The mind was full of calmness and peacefulness. And I felt very free too. Because when you don't think too much, you feel free.
It's the thought that makes you bound. So once you stop thinking, you can feel that your mind expands. It becomes free. So sometimes I was doing walking meditation in the forest, and the night was moonlit night with a lot of stars, very clear sky.
And my mind was very calm. I was meditating while walking. And when you get right in the middle, right in the moment, you even forget about yourself. You are not thinking about yourself anymore. And then suddenly I felt like
I'm connected with the whole universe.
I was not living on the world. I was living in the universe.
I felt connected with even trees and birds and animals. Everybody. All the stars and the moon also.
So that feeling was a very powerful experience in my life. To feel connected with the whole universe. These days, people become more and more isolated. They don't feel connected.
Not even with their family members. Some people I know, they don't feel connected even with their family members. They don't feel it anymore. They feel so isolated and alone. They feel very, very lonely. But when you get into this feeling of connected with the whole universe, you don't feel lonely anymore. So I was living in the forest alone, with nothing, no possession.
Nobody to talk with, not even a book to read. But I did not feel lonely. I found out something very powerful and meaningful to me. I never feel lonely anymore. So once you feel connected with everything and everybody, your loneliness disappears. So then I remember that loneliness doesn't mean there's nobody around you.
Loneliness means you don't feel connected. You may be alone far away with nobody to talk to, but if you feel connected, you don't feel lonely.
So to overcome loneliness, most people just go around and look for somebody to be with. They get attached to somebody. They want to hold on to the person. Stay with me. Don't go away. Don't leave me. Even when they leave for a few hours or for a few days, they become very agitated and restless and feel very lonely. They will call on the phone, "Where are you?
When are you coming? I feel so lonely." So remember, why are people feeling so lonely these days? The more people there are, the more lonely they feel.
So how can you overcome loneliness? First, learn to meditate. To live in the moment. By living like that, your mind becomes calm and peaceful and quiet and strong. Very strong. Mindfulness makes you very strong. You will develop inner strength.
So the first verse, "I have no parents. I make the heavens and earth my parents." It's very deep and profound, the more you think about it.
And another one,
"I have no home." I believe everybody, all of you, everybody has a home. At least a roof and walls and a floor. That's a home at least. It may be a big one or it may be a small one. But there's a place where you belong,
where you stay. But here, the poet is saying, "I have no home." How do you understand that?
And the second line, "I make mindfulness my home." Ah, that is the profoundest part. I make mindfulness my home. So the poet was not talking about the physical home. The poet was talking about mental home.
A home for your mind. You may have a big house physically, but mentally you may be homeless.
I have seen many people, homeless people. I was in Kolkata in
January and February. In India actually. I visited many places. I saw many people living on the roadsides, on the sidewalks. Homeless people. I was very sad to see those people. It must feel really terrible not to have a home, a physical home, where you can be safe.
You can close the door and you can say, "Nobody allowed inside. This is my place." But these people living on the roadside, on the sidewalks, they have no home. They cannot close the door. How terrible that must feel. So I feel very sad for these people.
We need a home. We need to feel that we belong somewhere.
But here, this poet said, "I have no home. I make mindfulness my home." So from the first time I read this verse, I felt so happy. I said, "Oh, this is so true. This is so true. Mindfulness is my home."
If you are not mindful, what happens to your mind? Your mind just wanders around and around, running around. No place to rest.
But when you are mindful, you can really feel it. It's not just a metaphor.
Just practice mindfulness. Pay attention to your body and mind. And you know what you're feeling. You know what you're thinking. At one point, if you keep practicing for a long time, really diligently, systematically, one point you'll come to the point where you know that you know. First, you know that you are seeing.
You know that you are hearing. You know that you are talking. You know that you are moving your hands. But
one point you come to see that you are thinking. And then thinking stops. Then you know that there's no thought. The mind is just quiet. Very calm. And you know that although it is quiet and calm, there's still this knowing there. Knowing, knowing, knowing. Mindful. And you know that you know.
It is called awareness of awareness. And at that point, you feel a kind of energy and power also. To know that you know is very powerful. No animal can do that. And most people cannot do that because they have never practiced mindfulness. But if you practice mindfulness long enough, you will come to that point
when thinking stops and there's only knowing without any thought. And there's also knowing of knowing.
And one of my students who practiced mindfulness, who has been practicing mindfulness for a long time now, because once you really learn to be mindful, it is very hard for you not to do it anymore.
Naturally, your mind gets into that mood, that mode of being. Knowing, knowing, knowing. So that person at that time was quite young, I believe. She was about 18 or 19. Quite young. But she started meditating since she was 16. And one day in her meditation practice, her thinking stopped and she knew that there's no thought anymore.
The mind is just quiet, peaceful. And she knows that she knows.
And then after that, she came to me and she said, "I had a very wonderful meditation experience today." I said, "I never really encourage her to meditate. I just talk about how wonderful it is to be mindful. How unique it is to be aware. Nobody, no animal can do that. It is unique human quality to be mindful, to know.
It's a unique human quality. And
when you practice mindfulness, you become more calm and peaceful. You become lively. You become alive. When you are not mindful, you are dull. You are absent-minded. But when you are mindful, you are present." She came and she said, "I was meditating and at first I was paying attention to breathing."
So I knew that breathing in and breathing out, the air rushing in and rushing out, the coming air was cool and the air going out was warm. And then I noticed that my mind was thinking of something else and I was aware of the thought. And then after that, thinking stopped.
And then my mind was very calm and quiet. And then I knew that I was I knew.
I knew that I knew. I was aware that I was aware. Then she said, "At that moment, I felt that I have become a real human being. This
is not my word. This is not my sentence. I never thought that way. Although I practiced mindfulness and I had very wonderful experiences too, I never felt it that way. But this young lady, she came to this point and she knew that she knew.
And she told me that at that moment, I felt that I had become a full human being. How wonderful it is to feel that way."
So I said, "Oh, this is something really wonderful. So beautiful also. To feel that you have become a full human being. That means that you were not a full human being before that." And I thought, "That must be really true. That must be a very powerful experience."
So when you are mindful, your mind is at home. You feel safe and secure. You feel dignified. You feel very strong too. Just like people with a very strong home, well-built home. You live in your home.
You're secure. You're safe. You feel dignified. But look at those people who have no home, living on roadsides. They don't feel secure. They don't feel safe. They have no dignity. People don't respect them. And it must be very difficult for them to have self-respect even. I'm not sure whether they have self-respect or not.
I cannot know. But it must be very difficult to feel self-respect if you are living on the sidewalk. So in the same way,
when your mind is mindful, then your mind is at home.
Then you have real dignity. You really have self-respect. Your mind is calm and quiet. Your mind is strong. So when I read this verse, I thought, "Oh, this is so beautiful and powerful. I have no home. I make mindfulness my home." Another verse, "I have no life or death."
Another shocking idea, right? How can that be? I make the tides of breathing my life and death. So conventionally speaking, we were born once, a long time ago maybe. I was born in 1947, August the 5th, Tuesday.
I remember that because my mother told me. I did not know I was born on that day, but my mother told me. It must be true. I cannot prove it. I don't know.
And I will die someday, probably a long, long time from now. I hope so,
because I want to live a long life.
Because life is so precious, especially when you know what is right and what is wrong, what is proper and what is not proper, what is good and what is bad. When you're living a good life, you should try to live a long life too.
This is true conventionally. Everybody knows that. We have a life and we will die. But this poet is saying, "I have no life or death. I make the tides of breathing my life and death." You will understand only when you meditate. When you meditate, you live right in the present moment
and you stop thinking. When you are really mindful, you are not thinking anymore. Because you can only think about the past or the future. You can never think about the present. The present is so short that there's no time to think about it. The moment you think about it, you're already thinking about the past.
It is impossible to think about the present.
When you meditate, you pay attention to whatever is happening right in this moment.
For example, you pay attention to breathing. First, you think that you are breathing in. You think that you know the whole thing from the beginning to the end. And you breathe out. You know that you feel that you know a big breath, a whole breath. But when you get closer and closer, you'll find that even in this breathing in one process, there are many small bits and pieces of awareness, of processes.
So the more mindful you become, the shorter the present becomes.
And when you can pay attention to whatever is happening right now, you can see that something arises right now and it's gone.
It was not there before. It is not there after that.
So the more mindful you become, the more you see that whatever you pay attention to, it arises at that moment and it passes away immediately. Very short. And that is life and death.
Life and death is so short. What we ordinarily know as
a birthday and a long life and death is an idea that we create in our mind. It's a conventional life and death. But the real life and death, the ultimate life and death is happening every moment. Something is arising and passing away. Right now, right now, right now, right now.
It's very short.
So only a meditator knows that death is very near. Most people think that, "Oh, I'm so healthy. I can live a long, long life." Probably. You can predict that. You go to a life insurance company. They'll ask you how old you are and whether you have any diseases and they'll calculate.
They'll think that this person is going to live a long, long life. Therefore, we'll make many profit, much profit. That's how they calculate. But if you are old and you have diseases, they'll think this person is going to die soon.
So this is conventional thinking. But even though we are healthy, we don't know when we will die.
Nibbā accidents. Many people die every day by accidents. Healthy people die.
So the real life and death is happening every moment. Therefore, this verse is also very profound. And only if you are a good meditator and have experienced every phenomenon in this moment
arising and passing away, you'll understand what death really means. What life really means too. In the same way.
And another verse, because there are many other verses, I think. I don't have that much time. I have no divine power.
So people want power.
Many different kinds of power there. And even meditators sometimes they want psychic power. But this poet is saying that I have no divine power. No supernatural power.
I make honesty my divine power.
How beautiful. I like this verse also very much. As you know, those who have read this book Snow in the Summer, you know that even when I was a young boy, I was very unconventional
and very rebellious. I did not believe in any religion.
Even when I had to fill the form
for the question, "Your religion?" I said, "No religion yet."
How can I decide what is right and what is wrong? I don't know what to believe. I don't know whether this is true or not.
So I lived for many, many years without saying that I'm Buddhist or whatever.
But I thought, "How can I live as a good human being?" Whether I believe in this religion or that religion
or not, at least I want to be a good human being.
A decent human being. How can I do that? I don't want to be a bad person. I don't want to be an evil person. I want to live a good life with many friends. I want to be happy. How can I live a good life with many friends? How can I be happy?
It's a very important question. That's where I begin. That's my beginning point, starting point.
So I want to be happy. I want to have many friends. I want to live a good life. I want to be loved. I want to be respected. I want all that. What about you? All of you want that. Yes. How can you get that?
If you want to have many friends, how can you get real good friends? By being a good person. At least. By being friendly. By being honest. By being fair and just. By being kind. By being generous.
By being friendly. All the good qualities.
So can you have good friends without being honest? Can anybody trust you if you are not honest?
If nobody trusts you, can you have real good friends? And if you have no friends, can you be happy?
So these are the basic qualities, human qualities that we need no matter what religion we believe in.
Most of you must have heard that honesty is the best
policy. But I don't like the word policy because policy means you're calculative.
But anyway, this is true.
The best way to have anything you want in life is to get it in an honest way.
So when you are honest, even though some people don't believe you, you are not afraid of that. Let them find out. I have nothing to hide.
So I feel it that way too.
I have many friends since I was very young and we still meet each other. And some people who don't know much about my childhood ask my friends about me, what kind of a person he was. Well, I like that. Go and ask them. I have nothing to hide.
As a human being, I made some mistakes, some minor mistakes. But I did not harm anybody intentionally. I did not deceive people. I did not take advantage of anybody. I can say that. So this gave me a lot of energy, power.
So I like this verse very much. I have no divine power. I make honesty my divine power.
In Metta Sutra, all of you know Metta Sutra, Buddha talk about the qualities of a meditator. And one of the qualities is in Pali, Ujucha, Su Ujucha. You know that. Thank you very much.
It means to be straight. Uju means straight, not crooked.
And Su Uju means very straight.
The same word, but with more emphasis. So why? Why did Buddha emphasize that? Sometimes we are honest with other people, but we are dishonest with ourselves too. Sometimes it can happen. So self-deception is very dangerous and it's very hard to overcome.
Conventionally, in our dealings with other people, we can be very honest. But deception is very subtle. You will really
find out about deception when you pay real attention to your thoughts and feelings. If you are not aware of your thoughts and feelings,
your mind will deceive yourself. It will deceive you. So as a meditator, we should never deceive anybody, our teacher or our friends with whom we are meditating together. And also, we should never deceive ourselves. Because if we deceive anybody, including ourselves, we cannot make real progress in meditation.
It is a big hindrance. Dishonesty or deception is a big hindrance.
So when you really pay attention to your mind and see how the mind works, what you are thinking and feeling, when you are greedy, you know that I am greedy. No justification. Just plain truth. I am greedy. When you are angry, you look at your mind. I am angry. I am upset.
No justification. Why or this or that. Just plain truth. So if you can wash your mind and see it as it is without trying to justify it, then you make real progress in your meditation practice. And that leads to liberation.
Some people are really afraid of
finding out who they really are.
And when I talk about mindfulness meditation and mindfulness of thoughts and feelings and emotions, one of my friends told me that
when I really wash my mind, all I see is how bad I am.
And it was very painful, he said. He said, "I don't want to do that. Because every time I sit and meditate and wash my mind, I see all these bad thoughts coming in my mind. I'm so bad." He said, "I feel so bad about myself. I feel so unhappy. I want to stop meditating."
So some people are trying to run away from themselves. But
no matter how much you try to run away, you can never escape from yourself.
There's no way you can escape from yourself. So no matter what you are thinking or feeling, no matter how bad your thoughts or feelings may be, just face the truth with honesty and courage. It needs a lot of courage to really look at yourself and see that this is me. Look in the mirror and say, "This is me."
Once we have really seen the truth about ourselves and face it and accept it, then we can learn from it and go over it. This is the only way.
To overcome anything, first we must see it clearly. We must pay full attention. Because attention itself is purifying.
This is one function of attention and very powerful. You know Buddha said not to do evil, to do all the good, and to purify your mind. This is the teachings of the Buddhas. How do you purify your mind?
By paying attention.
And in the beginning, when you really pay attention, you see impurities. Naturally, they are impurities. But when you really pay attention and accept it, then it is easier for you to overcome it.
No resistance, no control, no justification, no blaming, no judging.
So when you meditate, don't resist. Don't try to control. Don't blame. Don't judge. Just see and admit what is.
That is very powerful and that is honesty.
Another verse, "I have no friend." Really? You have no friend? I have no friend. I make my mind my friend.
See how beautiful it is and how true it is. If your mind is not your friend, then I don't think you can have any friend.
If you are your own enemy,
how can you make friends with anybody else?
So the other day, two days ago, I was chatting with one of my friends
and he asked me, "Why are you in Bangkok?" I said, "I'm here to publish another book." And he asked me, "What's the book about?" I said, "Well, I call my book My Mind Is My Friend." And he laughed and he said, "There are so many people for whom their mind is their own enemy."
And it is true. Because
when your mind tells you to do evil things and you do it, you get into trouble.
And when you get into trouble, will you call that mind your friend?
Definitely no. And when you are doing evil and you tell another person to do evil, are you friends? No. Both of you get into trouble. Anything that gets you into trouble is not your friend. Our mind is not always our friend. Because sometimes we think of doing something that is not proper, not right, and we do it.
We make aksala.
So we cannot say that our mind is always our friend. Sometimes it is our enemy. Sometimes it is our friend. But how can you make your mind your real friend? By practicing mindfulness. This is the only way. That's why Buddha said this is the only way.
By really watching your mind, by really paying attention to what you are thinking or feeling at any moment throughout the day, you will see
the truth about your mind. And only when you see the truth about your mind, gradually it will become purer
and it will become your friend.
When your mind becomes your friend, your true friend, then you are a really happy person.
This is the only way to be happy.
You may have other friends, but if your mind is not your friend, you cannot be really happy.
Because actually, when you think about it, that which makes you really unhappy is your own mind. And that which brings you true happiness is your own mind.
So
only when you meditate and pay attention to what you think throughout the day, it will become your friend.
And another verse is connected to this verse. "I have no enemy."
Really? Even Buddha had so-called enemies. He did not think of anybody as an enemy, but there were a lot of people at the time of the Buddha who wanted to kill him and tried to kill him too. And I think most of you already know the stories.
But that is external enemy. You can avoid them most of the time. You can run away. You can hide.
But here, this poet is saying, "I have no enemy. I make carelessness my enemy." And this word carelessness has many synonyms. Heedlessness is also one, which is the opposite of mindfulness. Forgetfulness
is also another one. So heedlessness, forgetfulness, carelessness really degrades our life. It degrades our mind.
And mindfulness, awareness, attention, it upgrades our mind, uplifts our mind.
So when we really think about it, our real enemy is not out there. Our real enemy is right here inside. Carelessness, heedlessness, not paying attention, not knowing.
Another verse, "I have no armor." Armor means the protective clothes, very strong. They used to make it with iron, steel.
So I have no armor. I make benevolence my armor. Benevolence means generosity, kindness, charity, and all that.
So we try to protect ourselves from other people attacking us by wearing very strong armor. We may be able to avoid being harmed that way, but we cannot always escape from danger that way.
Because if we are not kind and gentle and generous, if we hurt other people all the time, then other people will hurt us and someday they will succeed it.
So the best way to protect ourselves from being harmed by other people is by being kind, by being helpful, by being generous, by being loving. So loving-kindness and compassion actually really protects us. And I want to put mindfulness also here. Sometimes some of my friends or some of my disciples,
they are going abroad. They are going a long way, a long trip.
So some of them, they came to me and asked me, "We are going a long way
and we want to be safe. What shall we take with us? Can you give us something we can take so that we can be safe?" I said, "Take with you loving-kindness and mindfulness. That's the only thing I can give you.
And that will keep you safe. If that cannot keep you safe, nothing else can."
So all of us want to be safe. We don't want to be harmed. So the best way to be safe is to be kind, to be loving, to be generous, to be helpful. I can elaborate a lot on that, but I think
the gist of this is quite enough. The more I think about it, the more ideas come in my mind, and I want you to do the same thing.
Another verse, "I have no castle." Castle means a big house built with stone. Very strong house.
"I have no castle. I make immovable mind my castle."
Immovable mind. That means samādhi. Samādhi is immovable mind. And when you have sati also, when sati becomes really strong, it becomes something like samādhi.
Very similar. So sati and samādhi makes your mind really strong.
So to have a strong mind, we need to develop sati and samādhi
by practicing meditation. So people want to build
a castle and live in the castle because they want to be safe and secure. But who are your enemies? Your own thoughts.
If you don't have sati and samādhi, all kinds of thoughts will come into your mind. You can never be safe. So if you really want to be safe, you need to develop sati and samādhi.
So you cannot feel safe in a castle. You can feel safe only if you have strong sati and samādhi.
Another verse, "I have no sword." Sword.
Samurais, they carry a big sword. But this samurai is saying that I have no sword. So this samurai must be a very different kind of samurai.
A meditator samurai.
So he said, "I have no sword.
I make absence of self my sword." Absence of self. No attack.
People carry swords because they want other people to be afraid of them. Or if another person comes and attacks them, they will use the sword to attack another person to protect themselves.
But no matter how many swords you carry, no matter how much you protect yourself,
you will be attacked and someday they will succeed and you'll be killed.
So we can never feel safe
as long as we have big ego. People carry swords and they feel that if they are carrying a sword or even a gun, they feel powerful.
They feel protected. But as long as you have big ego, you are always afraid.
And that makes me remember and think about something I read in the Pali literature. Well, I must contradict myself now. Buddha said there are two persons who are not afraid of anything.
One person is a person with big ego. See, I have contradicted myself already. Another person is a person with no ego.
So during the war, in the war, you see some people, they are not afraid to die.
I have seen some movies about Second World War where the Japanese fighter pilots, they dive down on the American warship. They knew that they are going to be killed that way, but they were not afraid to die. They killed themselves.
So they were not afraid. So I'm sorry I contradicted myself. Buddha himself said that there are two persons who are not afraid. One person is with very big ego. Another person is with no ego. Which one do you like?
So
I make absence of self my sword. That's a real powerful weapon in a way.
So
ego always feels insecure. Ego is always trying to prove itself.
People who practice Vipassanā meditation,
when they develop real good mindfulness, they see that there's only physical process and mental process going on. Only process. No person. No being. No ego. No self. This is a little difficult to understand. But if you really practice Vipassanā meditation, you'll see it for yourself.
Because all nature is always process. Nothing else. Nothing more than that.
So when you see for yourself that there's only natural processes going on, there's no self, no ego, then you don't feel so afraid of it anymore.
Some people, when they really develop Vipassanā insights, are not even afraid to die. They die very calmly, quietly, peacefully, meditating. Some of them died meditating.
I know some people like that and I want to do that too.
So if we really want to live a good life and feel safe and die with no fear,
what is the best thing we can do?
Mindfulness, right? To live mindfully and to die mindfully. That's the main point I want to talk about today. And I think I've really
covered all the points clearly.
So I'm trying my best to live a good life. As a human being, I'm not perfect like everybody else. But mostly, I feel very happy about my life. I've learned how to meditate. Once I got not only once, I think at least three times in my life I got very close to death.
Once I thought I was really dying and my friends also thought that I was dying.
So I gave up hope and they also gave up hope. Then I thought, at least I want to die mindfully. And I meditated. And because of that, my mind became very calm and after a while I thought I fell asleep. But my friends thought that I was unconscious.
Then I woke up, I was feeling really good and I recovered.
I think it was mindfulness that saved my life. And from that time, I found out how to die. But I want to go on living. So I also found out how to live. And how to die and how to live are the same. Live mindfully and die mindfully.
So that's the end of my talk and I'm very happy to be here today. And I thank Konda Nā here very much for making this happen. Actually, I was feeling not well yesterday and I was really worrying. Can I really go there and give a long talk for two hours?
I don't know how long it took.
But I thought, it's okay, I will go anyway. And I sat here, I was not really feeling well, but I am feeling really well now. So I thank all of you very much. Sād.
Sayadaw U Jotika was born on August 5, 1947, into a Muslim family in Myanmar. In his youth, he was sent to study at a Christian seminary, graduating with a degree in electrical engineering and conducting extensive research in science, psychology, and Western philosophy.…