2021-10-17-Four Principles for a Buddhist Life
IInsight Meditation CenterOct 17, 2021 at 6:14 pm45min
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00:01Gil Fronsdal
Hello everyone and welcome. So this is the first hybrid Dharma talk here at IMC. So with some of you here and about 25 of you here today, thank you for coming. And for the people online, thank you for being here. appreciate it very much. And we're still in our county has a masked mandate. And also out of caution, so we're even giving the talk will be with a mask. And I find it kind of cozy to meditate with the mask on Actually, I keep my mouth slightly open. And the humidity of my mind feels kind of cozy for me. And so anyway, each person has unique response to this mask thing and meditating with it. And so so the whole sort of beginning to shift here and hopefully this shift in this direction will continue and will slowly open up more and more and here at IMC and offer start offering some of the programs we offer before a new programs. And so the but for those of you online, it means that some of the format will shift probably a little bit. And we'll see how much guided meditation I do. It used to be before the pandemic that we didn't do it Sunday morning. And now. So we'll see if we continue or don't continue with it. And then the other thing is that I felt like during the was all on zoom, or on YouTube, it felt too long to speak for the full time we used to do Sunday morning, I felt like just felt more appropriate to talk less and so I was a half an hour on Sunday. And but the old format was closer to 45 minutes or 40 minutes or something was more variable, we were scheduled to go until 1045. So for those of you who are on YouTube, that will put that all shifts will go back to the 1045 ending. And whether the talk will be that long or not, or whether we talk for a shorter time and have a question period for q&a. And it's variable depending on the situation. So for today, the talk I want to give I want to do, I'll tell you what I'm going to try to do. I want to first recite four line verse that captures what the Buddha had to teach in a kind of nutshell. And that kind of sets the stage for the talk. And then I want to kind of just name this whole period from March 7 or something like that, until now that we've been closed. And what a big impact it's been in for individuals for society. And then here we're coming together after we've all been through this thing that people will be talking about for decades. You know, what were you doing back then? It was like when I was young, younger people who say well, where were you when join fk died when he was killed? JOHN F. Kennedy. And the people would, you know, talk about oh, I was there, you know, those are nine or 911, where were you What happened? Then people were talking about what were you doing during that pandemic. And it'll be kind of like a reference point. And then I want to talk a little bit about one of the little sub sections of our society, or big subsection of society that had its own impact around the pandemic, but which is the medical field, but with in particular harm inspired by medical ethics, and the kind of the, what we can maybe tap into and learn from that, as Buddhist practitioners. And also as we open IMC, about how we can be as a community perhaps, that would give us a kind of a different orientation for how maybe we can be as new opportunities opening up to kind of open up in a fresh way or new way with new perspective. And so I wanted to borrow from that medical ethics and see if we can maybe get a different angle on what we're doing here. And then there's time try to then apply that also to our practice and into IMC. So that that's kind of the plan. So that so the verb
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05:01Gil Fronsdal
Is, is kind of significant because it the last verse of us line says, this is a teaching of the Buddha's something plural of the Buddha's, you know, some idea that is Buddha has been Buddha's for, you know, periodically down through the aeons Buddha's appear in the cosmos, in Buddhist cosmology, but they all have this teaching, and it's kind of so the teaching is don't do any harm very simply, it's quite literally exactly right. But it's close enough for now. Don't do any harm. Do things which are wholesome, purify the mind. This is the teachings of the Buddha. That's it should memorize that. Don't do any harm, do what's wholesome, purify the mind. And this is the teachings of the Buddha. If you want, you can forget about memorizing the last line. And so that's kind of kind of the background for this today. And, you know, I think that we shouldn't underestimate how big this whole pandemic time has been, and continues to be for probably all of us. Some of us have been in more fortunate circumstances during this time, and some people have not, and but even the people unfortunate circumstances, I think it's probably a much bigger impact on the psyche, on the heart, than most of us can realize. And if you have been impacted by it in all kinds of ways, you should probably also assume it's probably a bigger impact than you actually realize. This point that, you know, it's remarkable to me that the ages in the United States one and 500 knows, all right, I think it's one in 500 Americans have died from COVID. It's quite something, it's quite a large amount of people. 700,000 people and the, the world, it's almost 5 million people that died. And that's just the people who've died. And they're, you know, there's a ripple effect those people who lost someone, if you didn't lose someone you loved and cared for, and probably, you know, someone who has said, you know, it's not so far steps away. And then there's other effects of the pandemic that you know, you know, ripple out that had been difficult, shouldn't have as a health, we certainly just COVID has been hard for people who didn't die. And, and then there's, but there's all kinds of other things, you know, like, I hadn't several family members had hospitals for different not for COVID during this time, and it was hard to have them in hospitals or because you couldn't visit sometimes. And then there was kind of certain kind of fear around like, what does it mean to be in hospital this time, Around this time, especially before the vaccine came out. And and then not not going to the doctors are not having access to the doctors. And I had to have a tooth extracted. And it turns out, it was hard to find as someone who would do it because everyone had to put off I did I put her put off with things, right? All these people put off things. And so then finally, when I got around to it, everyone had to getting back in the summer, and doing things. So this has been the biggest recession in the United States since 1930s. And so the people economically have been impacted huge. People have lost their jobs, some people, their homes, and all kinds of things. So just the pandemics been huge. And then in addition to that, maybe and kind of compounded by the tension of it all is some of the social challenges of these last years. You know, you know that tremendous focus on racism and the pain of that and the disparities that exists in this country that have become more and more evident. The tension between different political factions has has gone up much more dramatically and so much has been politicized in a way that maybe was never before. And so we're regardless of what side of a political divide, we sit on, we feel the tension and the challenge of it. And then there's death care California and other places all these fires like fire after fire after fire and
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09:56Gil Fronsdal
and it's quite impressive and other places. There's floods and hurricanes and all these challenges and and then just the challenge of Qi, some getting sort of getting supplies supply chains being disrupted. And, you know, like, what does that mean that we can't get the things we usually want. And there was a time pandemic, there was a time people kind of frightened about getting just basic goods. And so these, these are all challenging times. And one of the places those challenges were huge was in the medical field, before the vaccine hospitals, and even after the vaccine, it's been quite challenging. And there was a time under, you know, 100 years ago is a year ago, that feels like a long time, when there was a real emphasis on medical workers being heroes, superheroes. We know and I think they deserve that name, because it was quite the dedication to show up at the hospital and work before the vaccine, for example, and just do what it took to try to meet the people who came who were dying and very sick and offer the best care that could and and now, in some places in the country, they're still doing that, then there's surges. But now they're also they're dealing with hostility from people who don't believe in vaccine vaccinations or not believe in the medical establishment feel, feel excluded or feel criticized or feel, somehow they're going to be abandoned by it. And so they're angry. And, though one friend of mine who works in hospital, and in some states said that they're that to go to work, she has to go through protests outside the hospital. And he said people do to people who hate to hate us, we're just going to try to save lives, and we're hated for what we're doing. So, so there's, you know, so and then some of them said, I've read that some of them will take off their uniform and their badge when they go shopping in a grocery store in some communities, because if they're seen as a medical worker, people express hostility to them. So that makes it the job of, you know, offering medical care much more difficult when you you know, they were heroes a year ago now in some communities, they're the opposite. So the with medical, I've been, I've had some conversations with people and I'm on an ethics committee for a local hospital. So I hear a little bit of this as well. And, and one of the things that inspires me is how often the medical people I've talked to evoke medical ethics. And, and one way they talked about it is they're, they're committed, they're committed to care for anyone who comes in through the door to the emergency and anybody who comes they're going to offer the best care they can. And they're committed to that to offer equal care. And one of the people said, explicitly, it means that if someone had been a rapist, or had murdered someone, our job is to offer the best care we can we don't turn anyone away. We know everyone's treated equally. Whether they're vaccinate or not vaccinated, we're committed to caring for them best we can, it's not our job to distinguish who should get or should not be getting care. And, and this kind of is complete willingness and are willing commitment to just be available for everyone equally, and, and to care. And these challenging circumstances, I think is quite inspiring to me. So in the field of medical ethics, there are four principles for medical care. And they have kind of flattened ish kind of big name words in that field. I'll tell you kind of the big words. And they are because the medical folks will we will use these big words because it's part of their understanding. So, the first is autonomy. The second is beneficence The third is non maleficence. And the fourth is justice. And autonomy means is written not consenting, as I understand it refers to the idea that every patient has the right to make their own decisions unless they have some like dementia or something and they can't let the and then there's our you know, if someone can't make a decision for myself, it usually evokes often evokes the ethics can be the hospital to really consider is that really the case and make sure that it's not the whim of someone who they have to relate to really caring for that sense of autonomy that people have.
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14:48Gil Fronsdal
And, and so that's kind of a fundamental value, at least in this country around around medical ethics and then beneficence me That that dedication is to do what's beneficial for that patient for the person there, whatever is beneficial to support them and help them. And is it does it help the person is at benefit the person. Non maleficence means doing no harm. And occasionally there's a conflict between those two. And so, you know, then sometimes the medical ethics committee is brought in to discuss that, or we have to say, you know, what to do if there's seems to be a conflict. And then, and then justice in this context seems to mean that a fair use, everything's offered fairly to everyone. It's a fair access to the medicines, procedures, everything in the hospital specially, is offered equally to everyone with no distinction between any kind of, you know, like economic status, or, you know, any any kind of distinction, race, whatever, everyone is treated equally. And so that's sometimes a challenge, because sometimes there's limited resources and hospital. And so and so how do how does it limited resources distributed in a fair way to everyone? And so again, sometimes the ethics ethics, people in hospital have to come in and really kind of consider this carefully and figure out how do we do this? And this became particularly important during the COVID times when the hospitals reach their, you know, beyond their peak limit? And how do you do they had triage kind of situation set up because they had to figure out how to do this as fair as fairly as they could, but they couldn't do everyone because it was impossible. And so how do you make this decision? So, so it's a little similar to that Buddhist verse, do no harm to non maleficence, the Buddhist thing is do what's wholesome, which can be considered what's beneficial, do what's skillful, what's useful, helpful. And, but the, the two things which are not, you know, in that verse, the same way is this idea of autonomy and justice. And, and I find it, you know, this idea of, and, you know, they're one of the challenges around autonomy, especially if we take it outside of the hospital, setting, the grant everyone to their autonomy, it lends itself or it can be very supportive of a certain kind of selfishness. And whatever I want, I'm supposed to be autonomous, and I can get what I want, I want what I want. And, and there's a lot of selfishness, a lot of self centeredness. But some of that autonomy, and some of that insistence on being able to make choices for oneself is also very healthy and appropriate. And how do we distinguish between that and find our way with it? And I don't have a good answer in the abstract. But I think that that's one of the advantages of embodied mindfulness or really careful attempt to settle the tension is that we can start feeling very, very carefully, what is beneficial and what is harmful? What promotes stress, and tension and, and undermines our well being, and what promotes it. And it turns out that selfishness undermines our well being if you're really attentive, you can feel that and healthy sense of autonomy, healthy sense of self. You can feel you can feel and sense the difference in what that when it feels right. And the greater the mindfulness, the more settled and focused we are in meditation. I think it's remarkable how that better and greater reference point we have for, for finding the difference between these two modes of being. And so and so eventually, in meditation, the sense of autonomy becomes more and more interesting. Because in the end, it's not that we become autonomous. But like, I look how Dharma autonomous person, I'm gonna be my own person, in a sense, but rather, it's the awareness that becomes autonomous. It's awareness set free. And sometimes they talk about Buddhism, the mind set free, the mind liberated from through mind, the mind liberated through non clinging.
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19:40Gil Fronsdal
But I like to think about what exactly the mind is. It's a little complicated, but I have this clear, clear idea that they can, if we understand it to be awareness, that we're saying awareness is becoming autonomous. And what's it becoming autonomous from? It's becoming autonomous from ourselves. Any kind of baggage of self, any kind of association beliefs we have about it. So I'll give you an example for myself. As at some point, in my practice, I recognize that that I could be aware of things I could be mindful and be present. But I recognize that that mindfulness came along with an attitude. Like with baggage, it kind of it kind of penetrated or, or kind of diffuse the awareness itself. And that was something like whatever I'm, whatever I'm doing whatever I'm aware of, it's the wrong thing. Where I will, if I'm, if, if it's happening to me, it's not the right thing. If it's, if I'm being aware, I'm not aware of the right way. So so it was kind of subtle, but it was kind of like a policy that mind had made up. And so and so as I got quieter and quieter, at some point, I could see that that I was operating through this filter of that all the time. And it kept my awareness, my mindfulness, a little tense, a little pulled back from the experience. And, and so as I started stealing, being this pulled back this, this tensor tension and how the awarenesses and the kind of contraction around it, that had to do with this kind of view, then I was able to relax that. And for a short time, I actually played around with kind of just assuming the opposite is happening to me, it's okay. If I'm aware, I know I'm doing it just right. And that was actually useful for a little while to have that kind of try the opposite. Because it helped it helped me stay free helped me find a different way. And then at some point, at some point, I stopped doing that. And it was easier for me to to have this kind of awareness then be autonomous, independent from this policy these ideas is baggage I had, but what I needed to do or what's happening to me my judgments about things, and so became about the awareness, art becomes simpler and simpler. And this idea of awareness becoming simpler without any baggage associations, judgments, even a sense of self that came along, I'm the doer of mindfulness was part of the wonderfulness of this kind of awareness set free. So so you know, to have the awareness be autonomous, is kind of comes along with this liberation process in Buddhism. But the fourth medical principle of justice is unfairness. How does that play out in Buddhism? And I think that's one of the ones I think our society has maybe the greatest need for is, as a society community, is a community a society, that's fear that somehow everyone seems to have a fear access to, to the opportunities that many times only the people who were very fortunate certain circumstance has available to it. And how does IMC offer itself fairly to the world? How do we make me give access to a wide circle of people so that it feels like we're just open and available? And, and how do we, if we turn IMC inside out, if we turn ourselves inside out, as I said, in the meditation, as it as we settle in, as today, so awareness is set free, it's also setting the heart free. It's also this grid, deeper sensitivity, as we go out, onto out into the world. And it doesn't make sense to meditate, be settled and peaceful and calm and be kind of open and sensitive to what's happening. And then leave the meditation and immediately shut down immediately kind of get caught up in our desires and our buisiness of stuff. And, and kind of then to have a barrier to really block to really feel and sense and be and care for this world around us. And it doesn't make sense because it's a way of not caring for ourselves. And we when we shut down or be closed up, we get so preoccupied and caught up in our thoughts or feelings or concerns or dizziness.
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24:39Gil Fronsdal
We lose something about ourselves. And this is something also that can be felt if you're mindful. But sometimes we're so distracted. We don't know that we're distracted. But if the mindfulness becomes second habit, second nature, and you're really sensitive and aware, you feel that as we get caught up Beyond distractions, it actually is a kind of kind of harm a kind of self limiting kind of a undermining of ourselves of something that we discover in meditation perhaps, or in other ways that feels so healthy and so appropriate and so wise to be settled and peaceful and present. And so even though the social world is a complex and difficult world, part of the task of mindfulness practice, is to learn how to bring this kind of presence and attention, open heartedness, perhaps, into the world with others as well. And so to turn ourselves inside out. So that part of that sensitive to us like the, like, if we walk around with a closed fist, the most sensitive part of the hand is protected. That's very nice. No one's going to harm my sensitive had ever again, because I'm going to walk around this way. But that doesn't make sense, right? And, but you want that sensitive part of your hand to be available. You know, if you have a cat you want to, or if you want to touch the shoulder of someone who feels kind of, as in touch, difficulty in their lives, and just I'm here with you, and or hold the hand of someone you care, they care for, like little, maybe this little kid in your life. And so the kid wants to hold your head, no, sorry, of keeping my sensitive part of my my hand, you know, safe number, you know, so you're available for all kinds of things. So the same thing with the heart with the inner life. If we keep it closed, closed up, then we limit ourselves. But if we turn ourselves inside out, like the the head turns itself opens up. But then we learn how to be stable. We learn how to not contract, we learn how to take care of ourselves from that place. We learn how to recognize all the subtle policies and attitudes that we brought with us to being aware to being attentive. And we realize that there's a lot of reactivity beliefs, judgments that are sometimes quite subtle, that in ordinary life, most people don't see because they're so busy with, you know, too busy with doing things. But the advantage of getting quiet and still in meditation is we can start seeing these subtle ways things, attitudes we bring along that often don't make us safe. This lack of safety that many people feel some of its real world said unsafe place. But for many people, also, the greatest danger for our safety is not the other people but ourselves. And so to understand how we bring our safety with us, not insisting that the world become a safe place for us, we just little bit of a difficult, you know, little bit complicated issue, but sometimes become less self the left's less safe if we insist that other people make us safer. But how do we carry our safety with us? How do we discover that it's a challenging thing, not easy, but it's boys at a powerful thing to discover that. And then it's easier to be open harder, it's easier to have this keeper, our sensitivity open and allow others to allow ourselves to be to register the presence of other people, the existence of other people, that it register in that place within where we care. Where there's goodwill, where there's generosity, and but not in a way that we're obligated to care not in a way that we're obligated to be generous or have goodwill. Because I think that doesn't work so well. What's phenomenal I kind of been miracle is the degree to which sometimes we can feel that it just, it's part of our nature, to have goodwill, it's part of our natural kind of flow or natural response the ability to feel warmed to feel cared to feel goodwill. And and to stay close the close to that place with that it just seems to flow it arises and then a non obligatory way in what one reason to stay close to it. Is that the
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