Today hybrid urban retreat - it's the 26th of November 2022. And for this and the next teisho, at least, we're going to be reading from and commenting on "Our Appointment With Life: The Buddha's Teaching on Living in the Present." And this is a little booklet from Thich Nhat Hanh, who died recently, getting over a year ago now, and he gives a translation and a commentary on a bunch of sutras that address this living in the present. And he originally was translating the material into Vietnamese and that was then translated by Sister Annabel Laity.
I don't think that Thich Nhat Hanh needs much introduction. He's, he's probably the most well known of all Buddhist teachers, the current contemporary ones, at least. There's a little bit of biographical material on the back of the book. It says that he is a Vietnamese or was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist. He was the founder of the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon, and was more nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. And at the time of this printing of this book, he was the author of 75 books, very prolific, and I'm sure that figure would be quite a bit higher now. And probably his, among his most well known books are "Being Peace" and "The Miracle of Mindfulness." And when this book was published, he was giving many retreats on mindful living throughout the world, and lived in exile from Vietnam in France.
So now to return to our text
Thich Nhat Hanh quotes a number of short sutras that include reference to this living in the present. But he gives at the beginning of the book he gives, He gives two of these sutras in full they're quite short. And they they form the basis for his his commentary, his practical advice to us. And they, these various Sutras, the two we're going to read and follow and the other ones, they, they, they sort of present variations on a theme that that builds a picture quite a vivid picture of what it means to be living in the present. And the first the first of the sutras that he presents to us. It's called the Theron amo sutra sutra. It's translated here from the Chinese version.
It starts I heard these words of the Buddha one time when the Lord was staying at the monastery in the Gita Grove, in the town of Sravasti. Now all the all the sutras start the same way, traditionally is translated. Thus I have heard and that is a Nanda speaking who had this prodigious memory and was able to remember all all the teachings of the Buddha and pass them on to others after his passing. So this the scene that set for us the Buddha was gathered, we'll get together with his his followers in Jetta Grove and then towners show vasty. At that time, there was a monk named Tara, who always prefer to be alone. whenever he could, he praised the practice of living alone. He sought arms alone and sat alone and meditation. One time a group of because that's monks came to the Lord paid their respect by prostrating at his feet, stepped to one side, sat down and at a distance and said, bless at one there is an elder by the name of terror, who will only wants to be alone. He always practices that practice of living alone, he goes into the village alone to seek arms, returns home from the village alone and sits in meditation alone. The little bit that comes before what they say, about prostrating and sitting to one side is always just the convention of showing respect to the teacher in this manner. So they you find them at the beginning of have many, many suitors, if not all. So he were presented with this image of of this particular monk and his practice alone. The Lord Buddha told one of the bakers please go to the place with a monk there is and tell him, I wish to see him. The big who obeyed when the monk Thira heard the Buddha's wish, he came without delay, frustrated at the feet of the Buddha step to one side and sat down at a distance. Then the Buddha asked the monk there? Is it true that you prefer to be alone? Praise the life of solitude, go for arms alone, come back from the village alone and sit in meditation alone? The monk replied, It is true bliss had one the border then asked him, How do you live alone? The monk replied, I live alone, no one else lives with me. I praise the practice of being alone, I go for arms alone, and I come back from the village alone, I sit in meditation alone, that is all. And we get a flavor of the these, this party suitors that that there's often a lot of repetition. And this may have been, may have been structured as structured in this way, in order to facilitate memorization because, for the first 200 years after the time of the Buddha, these these teachings were passed on orally, they weren't written down. The Buddha taught the monk as follows, it is obvious that you like the practice of living alone, I do not want to deny that. But I want to tell you that there is a wonderful way to be alone. It is the way of deep observation, to see that the past no longer exists, and the future has not yet come and to dwell at ease in the present moment, free from desire. When a person lives in this way, he has no hesitation in his heart. He gives up all anxieties and regrets, lets go of all binding desires and cuts the faders that prevent him from being free. This is called the better way to live alone. There is no more wonderful way of being alone than this. So, this is the first presentation we have of this teaching.
Going beyond the mere appearance of being alone, you could say then the blizzard one recited this gutter. In observing deeply it is possible to see clearly all that is not enslaved by anything. It is possible to put aside all craving the result is a life of peace and joy. This is to truly live alone. Hearing the words, the monk Thira was delighted he prostrated respectfully to the Buddha and departed. We're coming back and commenting a little bit more on this later. And just we'll have a look at the the other one the other short SUTA that we have in full here and this one has been translated from the Pali I heard these words of the Buddha one time when the Lord was staying at the monastery in the Gita Grove in the town of Sravasti. He called all the monks to him and instructed them because and the because replied, We are here, the Blessed One taught, I will teach you what is meant by knowing the better way to live alone. I will begin with an outline of the teaching and then I will give a detailed explanation because please listen carefully And this gives us another aspect of the sort of structure of the Pali suttas. That, and in Sanskrit ones as well, that often there will be a presentation of the teaching in verse form, and then it'll be told also in prose. And again, there's no doubt this is this structure is also to facilitate people learning the teaching by heart was the, the rhythm and rhyme of the verse and helping to, to internalize the teaching. So the first part is given in verse, do not pursue the past, do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is, the future has not yet come, looking deeply at life as it is in the very here and now. The practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today, to wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly, how can we bargain with it? The sage cause a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day, one who knows the better way to live alone. So that's the that's the summary of this teaching. And this, this particular verse, is, is found not only in these two suitors in the Sudan, but in quite a few others that come at it from various angles. Now, we have the pros part of this. Because what do we move mean by pursuing the past. When someone thinks about the way his body was in the past, the way his feelings were in the past, the way his perceptions were, in the past, the way his mental factors were in the past, the way his consciousness was in the past, then he thinks about this, when he thinks about these things, and his mind is burdened by and attached to these things, which belong to the past, then that person is pursuing the past. So, we get these, these five categories and these are known.
In Buddha's teaching as the five skandhas, body feelings, perceptions, mental factors are Formations and Consciousness. They they're categories. For our experience, you could say and we mistake through these these five ways in which we experience the world, we mistake them for a solid abiding self. In Tibetan Buddhism, they refer to the five skandhas as the perishing collection Skanda means heap. So if we can imagine these these categories is shifting and changing like sand dunes. Say a little bit more about these, each of these Skanda sometimes translated as heap, sometimes as aggregate aggregates, and this is a brief explanation of them. So the aggregate of material form Rupa includes the physical body with its sense faculties, as well as the external material objects. So experience of sight is, is conditioned by our organ of sight, the eye, what we're looking at what the visual objects, and also the process of how we how we process our vision. So there's somebody waving wanting to come in. Oh, you just gone out again. Maybe we'll check it out on you. And the same the same for the other sensors, so It's not just not a neutral process, but an interacting process with our site, objects of sight and the process of that we have to go through to, to make sense of that, that what we see the aggregate of feeling the donor is effective, the LF effective element of experience. In other words, everything we experience we experience as pleasant, painful or neutral. So, that's the feelings. Perception is the food aggregate and is the factor responsible for noting the qualities of things and also accounts for recognition and memory. The formations, egg aggregate, mental factors, Sankara is an umbrella term that includes all volitional, emotive and intellectual aspects of mental life. And the fifth one consciousness. Vision Asana is the basic awareness of, of an object that is, is indispensable to all cognition. So it can be hard to get kind of get our minds around these, but they're really all interrelated, they all they overlap each other, they're not not completely separate. But they're one way of making sense of all all that is that we experience that we mistake for a solid and abiding self. So in soutra, her experiences brain being presented broken down into these categories. So he can to the border continues. Because what is meant by not pursuing the past, when someone thinks about the way his body was in the past, the way his feelings were in the past, the way his perceptions were, in the past, the way his mental factors were in the past, the way his consciousness was in the past, when he thinks about these things, but his mind is neither enslaved by nor attached to these things which belong to the past, then that person is not pursuing the past. So again, we get this this repetition of the series, but this time, it ends with not being an enslaved.
So it's an important point is being made here and is saying all of this, and ended up with not being not being enslaved, is that we will have memories, it's not it would be strange, very, not part of human nature to be totally, without ever, thoughts are coming into our minds about the past. But the point is that not to pursue them not to fixate on them, let them let them arise, let them have a certain life and let them pass away.
Then he continues to Buddha continues, what is meant by losing yourself in the future, when someone thinks about the way his body will be in the future, the way his feelings will be in the future, the way his perceptions will be in the future, the way his mental factors will be in the future, the way his consciousness will be in the future, then he thinks about these things and his mind is burdened by and daydreaming about these things which belong to the future, then that person is losing himself in the future. primary example we'd have just in a sitting like this is, is where we're experiencing some pain. Maybe it's more intense than we expected. And then we add on top of that pain, if it's like this now, how bad is that going to be in in three hours or how awful will it be tomorrow? So we extrapolate from what's happening right now, and actually make make the whole thing so much worse. It also can come up for us, for instance, when we were sick, we're experiencing some kind of infirmity, then we assume that we know what it's going to be like, in the future, we imagined dire consequences of what's happening now, going into the future. And of course, the way to think about the future is to disempower ourselves, because we can't do anything about it until its its present.
So, then, we, in the next section, he goes again about what is not losing yourself, and mentions again, all the the five skandhas. And then ends with he thinks about these things, but his mind is not burdened by or daydreaming about these things which belong in the future, then he is not losing himself in the future. And then finally, he, he talks about what does it mean to be not swept away by the present? It's a little different, this third one, when somebody does not study or learn anything about the awakened one, or the teachings of love and understanding, or the community that lives in harmony and awareness, then that person knows nothing about the noble teachers in their teachings, and does not practice these teaching as and thinks, this body is myself, I am this body, these feelings are myself, I am these feelings, this perception is myself I am this perception, this mental factor is myself, I am this mental factor, this consciousness is myself, I am this consciousness, then that person has been swept away by the prison. So first in this, he mentions the three treasures Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And so when we know when we don't take refuge in these, then we're allowing ourselves to be swept away. And then the other part is that we identify with our feelings or sensations, of habits and so forth our consciousness, we turn them into a thing and then and then cling on to that strongly onto that identification. Then he goes through again, what does it mean to not be swept away by the present
when someone studies and learns about the awakened one, the teachings of love and understanding, and the community that lives in harmony and awareness, when that person knows about noble teachers and their teachings, practices, these teachings and does not think this body is myself, I am this body and go through the rest of the scandals and that way, then that person is not being swept away by the presence. So, this is presented as the way to to stop ourselves being swept away. We can just take take one example here. So we take the mental factors, saying this mental factors myself I am this mental factor, we think of how the mind is formed. Well how what
how our habits are, like, sort of, ingrained in our brain in then, we can see that they're much more than what we think of as the self. Our habits are conditioned by all sorts of things by society, by family we have by our peers by cultural norms, and all of that is other than what we would normally think of as self. They contain, they contain so much that we can identify as as not self. So we can, we can reify all of us into something solid. And then we coat we are carried away. By the present as well. So he ends because I have presented the outline in detail explanation of knowing the better way to live alone. Thus the Buddha taught and the because we're delighted to put his teachings into practice
now a little bit of more information on variations on this, this theme that appear in this in the suitors
here's another Nether gutter, sitting alone, resting alone, going forth alone without laziness. He who understands deeply the roots of suffering, enjoys great peace, while dwelling in solitude. The Roots he who understands deeply the roots of suffering because this is a reference to the three poisons, craving, aversion and delusion so to truly understand these as to be able to act in ways that don't and distorted by these, these three so we get coming to two
the the deeper meaning of of being alone, is you could say to be or one not not separate from our surroundings, not mentally separating ourselves from other people.
There's a little bit more here about Thira, who was in the first SUTA that we read. This monk was not praised by his fellow practitioners or by the Buddha. Perhaps he had heard this is taken at her now speaking, perhaps he had heard that the practice of being alone was commendable, and he wanted to practice living alone, but he lived the solitary life only according to the outer form. And his fellow practitioners notice that there was something unbalanced in it. They told the border about him, and the Buddha invited them to come and see him. When Thira presented himself the Buddha asked people say that you like living alone, and that you praise the practice of solitude. Is that true? The monk replied, Yes, Lord, it is true. What is your way of living alone to the Buddha? The tariff replied, I walk into the village for arms alone, I leave the village alone, and I come back to the monastery alone, I eat the midday meal alone, I practice sitting mitad entation alone. And then the Buddha replies Montera it is true that you live alone I cannot deny that. But I wanted to tell you of the way to live alone that is much more enjoyable, more deep and wonderful. Then the Buddha taught him let go of what is past let go of what is not yet observe deeply what is happening in the present moment, but do not be attached to it. This is the wonderful way to live alone.
He goes on a little bit later. I believe that after the monk Dara heard the Buddha's teaching, he changed his way of living alone. The Buddha taught that being in the present moment is the way to live alone. If a person cannot live mindfully in the present moment, then even if he or she is all alone in the forest. It is not truly living alone. It's reminds me of a story of a Zen student who was fired up to do is to do solitary practice and went to a to a hermitage in the middle of a forest and was was delighted to be in this quiet place and no distractions nobody telling him what to do. And he started to, to sit strongly in his little hut and then became fixated on the sound of the stream that was running past his heart and started to hear hear like, notes of of the changing sounds of the stream and it was getting more and more annoyed by this, this, this was a repetitive monotonous tune, you could say that the stream was playing and found himself at a certain point going down to the to the stream and starting to rearrange the rocks to change the this annoying sound that he was hearing. And of course, there wasn't any fault in the stream, it was what he brought to that environment. So, even even when we can have this maybe a perfect environment and to sit in, in the depths of the forest, we still have our baggage we take that with us wherever we go.
As the Buddha toward a person who knows the better way to live around loan does not necessarily live isolated from society, to put society at a distance and to live isolated in the forest is no guarantee of being alone. If we continue to go back to the past worry about the future or drown in the distractions of the present, we can never be alone. One who knows the better way to live alone can do so right and society. Quite a lot of people will will be attracted to you training then in a monastic environment or a Zen Center because they have a strong aversion to the the their own experience of ordinary life when when I was a receptionist at the Zen Center would start with sometimes get calls of from usually almost entirely young men at that stage saying I want to be a monk and it was it was always a red flag to receiving those calls because this was somebody who'd never been to the center had no idea whether whether he was suited to that life even if they had been monks we didn't actually train monks but monk a monk like existence and it was it was really clear when those calls came that that person had to be slowed down come to the workshop come and see see the experience a daily practice and because that desire wasn't coming out of a real place it was coming out of an idea about society.
Visit a section where take note on explores the different different different sutras where this these these teachings are found there's another one called the mega mega Jalla SUTA
The Buddha instructed Myka Jarrah, the forms and images which are the objects of our vision, can be pleasant, enjoyable and memorable and can lead to craving and desire. If a monk is attached to them, then he is bound by them, and he is not alone, he is always with another. And this applies to any of the senses, not just objects of our vision, but of hearing and tasting and smelling and touching. The expression being with another is translated from the word Sati, your diva of Vihari, it is the opposite of living alone. When the water use this word, he did not mean that the monk was living with other people, he meant that the monk who is bound by any objects, even objects of consciousness, is in fact, living with those objects. When we chant the the four vows, we say the first one we say all beings without number I vow to liberate. And you can say most obviously, this is reference to our aspiration to to help others to awaken to liberate, to liberate all beings. But we can also understand it as liberating the beings that we hold in our hearts and minds. That to release, you could say, to release what we are enslaved by mental and emotion notional beings that we cling to chains that we drag around. This is this is the way in which we are with another as well.
There's a there's another Zen story that is relevant here. Again, it's two monks going on pilgrimage, and where they reach a particular river, which is quite high. And this is a young girl there who's concerned about getting to the other side safely. And so one of the two monks picks her up and carries her across. And the his companion monk, stews on this for a while, but then then certain point is they've left the river and gone on and their journey. He says, What do you do there? We have a vow not to touch women. How come you would do that? And the monkhood carried the girl across the river said I leave the girl at the at the river's edge, why don't you put her down to.
To live to live and attached to to not be
caught up in ideas of right and wrong. Tourists respond and move on. The Buddha taught that taught mega Charla that a person who knows the better way to live alone as someone who lives at ease, not bound by the internal formations which are based on the objects of the six senses, ie form, sound, smell, taste, touch and the objects of the mind. The Buddha concluded mega Jala if a monk lives like this, then in the center of the village, even in the center of a village with monks, nuns or lay practitioners among royalty or high ranking officials, or with those who practice another way, he is still someone who knows the better way to live alone. He can be said to be living alone because he has freed himself from all attachments among this list royalty officials and so forth we could maybe add today we could add celebrities beautiful people influences the rich and the famous and the the powerful can be can we be around these people without being perturbed? By having a practice disturbed
Well, I'm being signaled that that our time is up. So we'll tomorrow we'll continue with this and we'll get more into practical teachings on how to put this true this this profound living alone into practice. We'll we'll stop now and recite the four vows or beings without number to liberate, and last blind. The teaching
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