2022-08-29-The Dharma (1 of 5) Visible Here and Now

2:54PM Aug 29, 2022

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

dharma

buddha

experience

states

confidence

mind

teachings

visible

unhealthy

discover

present moment

part

happening

sense

practice

capacity

caught

proclaimed

present

chant

So warm greetings to you all. And for this week, I'd like to take the theme the dharma, the dharma that the Buddha taught. And there is a ancient teaching about this dharma that the Buddha taught, that describes a how someone understands the dharma, when they have a confirmed confidence in the dharma in the Buddha in the practice that we're doing. And this idea of confirmed confidence means that we've we know something, we've experienced something for ourselves, that we know what the dharma is about. We know something in a pub dharma, that there's a confidence, a deep sense of maybe, maybe faith, maybe trust. But the most common way to talk about this is a confidence, which is peaceful, a peaceful confidence. And this and so to practice to come to an enough to have one's own personal experience, that from that experience, one feels Oh, this dharma, this teachings of the Buddha, this world of practice, is something I know for myself, that well enough that I have confidence in it. And one of the kinds of tests for this confidence is if someone comes along, and like, for example, I came along and came down, sat down in one of these seven AMC sittings, and said, Well, you know, something, I was completely wrong, that all this dharma stuff that we've been teaching and doing, you know, it's not really, you know, right. And, and, you know, there's probably better things to do with your life. And, you know, I recommend you to kind of give it up. And when one has a confirmed confidence, because one has experienced this, the benefits and the transformations and the, and the freedom from this practice, that doesn't matter what I say, because you would know, you know, well, I'm sorry for you guilty, you might say, but I know for myself how much I've benefited out, I know for myself, the value of the dharma, this practice that I do, and I'll continue. And because I know for myself, and and so this idea of this really knowing it, and having this competence, so how does one come to that kind of confidence. And so the five, there's a five part description of what this wealth proclaimed dharma that welcome proclaimed, we could say teachings of the Buddha, but the dharma is not a teaching in the abstract, like a set of a creed or a set of propositions, that dharma is is part of our lived experience, things that when we discover in our lived experience, that shows us a way to live, wise and, and good life. So what is it about dharma that provides that? What do we see what's going on here? And so there's a five part description, and of what we have confidence in or what we know. And, and it's possible in a sense to do kind of reverse engineering to understand these five parts. And this will tell us what the dharma is, in in some kind of deeper way. So as opposed to some abstract teachings of the buddho, or some kind of vague, I don't know, principles or natural forces that we connect to. It's, you know, we really discovered for ourselves, and these five qualities, the dharmic five characteristics are frequently chanted by and people do in our Tera Vaada. tradition they chant and the English goes like this. The dharma is well proclaimed by the Buddha Without by the Blessed One, it is visible here and now. Immediate,

inviting inspection, onward leading, and to be personally experienced by the wise. So I'll take each of these days we'll take one of those, and look at its more deeply. So the first one is that is called a son DT Ko and Pāli. And, and it has, it refers to the fact that it's directly visible. The duty here means to see what you can be seen. And, and we often say in English for this phrase, visible here and now. The here and now is not in the word just like it the word is to be is it's seen, it's known. And seeing always happens in the here and now. And so by adding here, and now it's really emphasizing the immediacy of the experience, and, and the immediacy of the knowing of it. And it doesn't have to be only with the eyes, it says the word is visible. But it's visible with a mind's eye with all the different capacities we have for direct attention. We can sense we can hear we can feel, we can know in the mind directly what's happening. And so this is. So the dharma, their welcome claim proclaimed by the Buddha is not something that you have to believe or find it a book is something that we can see for ourselves. And in fact, sometimes it's said that everything you need to know in Buddhism can be discovered by your own powers of observation. All but you have to look carefully and maybe the what the teachings do and the instructions do is to point us to how to see in the present moment, so that we that dharma really comes alive for us. But so far today, that is the value of our direct experience. And to see it clearly, when the Buddha wanted to explain a bit further what this means, Sunday Tico that the dharma was directly visible here and now. He referred to our psychological states that we can feel we can know we can see experienced directly, that there is a kind of unhealthy states of mind present, there can might be greed, or hatred and delusion, there might be jealousy or envy or there might be abolitionists, it might be lust, there might be anger, there might be resentment, all kinds of things might be in the mind. conceit, one can know it directly. That is presence. And there's two things that can happen without direct seeing this, that in that clear seeing, we are seeing is clear enough, strong enough that we are not then identified with those states, we're not involved in participating in those states, it's almost like we can step take a step back and observe what's happening, rather than being in the middle of the fray. And this is a powerful thing to do. For all the kind of difficult states of mind activities and forces that exist within a human being, to not be invested in it not be caught by a thought be reactive to it, not to be struggling with it. But to step back, step back and a sense, open up open up in a sense. So there's an over overview of it, with mindfulness with awareness. There's a clear sense, this is happening in the present moment. This is here. And and this is what it feels like. And this is what it's like to know it. This is what it's like to step back far enough for Step Get the overview high enough. So oh, this is what it's like. And then we're not caught in it and involved in it. And if we're not caught or involved, if we really discover how to see it that kind of way. Then it the these unhealthy states of mind have much less or maybe no power over us. And to see that and to see that to see the presence of unhealthy states of mind. clinging and grasping and re resistance and hating to see it out there and then see ourselves being

unattached to it and entangled with it, to see that we can clearly know it, without believing it or being pushed around by it, or this is a phenomenal thing to discover. Even more phenomenal, is to see that these unhealthy states of mind can disappear. For some people, certain kinds of chronically unhealthy states of mind, can be so deeply ingrained with, we know, you know, we don't even know we have it, or we don't, we assume that it's always this way this is part of the universe was built this way to have the states of mind. But to have these drop away, to have the experience of life without them can be a life changing for some people to know that there's another way Wow. You mean I don't have to always be afraid or don't have to always be aversive I don't have to always be critical are always kind of fighting for what I want. It's possible to find some peace in a different way. So when that so that's how the Buddha kind of elaborate on this idea that the dharma is visible here. And now. And, and so what it means is that we want to be able to see clearly what is happening for us here now. And what is can be quite marvelous, wonderful and wonderous, is we discover our capacity, to see other unhealthy states of mind within us. And, and not to believe in them or react to them, or to use them as a basis for criticizing ourselves. All we're asked to do is to know it directly, for what it is. And then we can start seeing the freedom from it. The ways in which we can kind of know it, so clearly, we're not caught by it. So so to see that over and over and over again, to see that that develop this capacity to be here and now is it can be that that's kind of the direction that's going. So we're cultivating and developing our capacity to be in our lived experience, the experience of hear the experience of now. And the stronger that capacity can be, the more we're interested in this, the more we decrease the drive, some of the unhealthy, often unhealthy drive, that pulls us into the world to the past pulls us into the world of the future, pulls us into the world of fantasy and and rumination. And, and as we do this, we get to appreciate the richness and the texture and the and the all the different heightened opportunities potential that is available here in the present moment. Now. I think of the being fully present here and now as like, like opening a door into it into a multi dimensional experience of life. That is not available. If we spend our days in our thoughts of past future fantasies, desires, whatever they might be. So the dharma that the Buddha taught is something that's directly visible here. And now. I'd encourage you for this day of practice that stay that you have before we meet again tomorrow, that maybe you can begin that again, but kind of make it a make it a task make it a real activity of the day to really be present in a relaxed, calm way. With what can be experienced directly here and now. The dharma is visible here and now. Thank you