Namo tassa bhagavato, arahato samma sambuddhasa,
Namo tassa bhagavato, arahato samma sambuddhasa,
Namo tassa bhagavato, arahato samma sambuddhasa,
Buddham dhammam sangham namassami.
Excellent.
So for today's talk, someone did offer a suggestion at tea time
to give a talk on sensory restraint.
Actually, I should advertise the talk beforehand,
so if you don't like it, you can look.
Now, it's good to talk about sensory restraint,
and often, as you know, I don't prepare these talks,
so there's always something new comes up.
So, you know, for sensory restraint, you often, first of all,
why? Why do you want to do sensory restraint?
We have senses, and we know why we're restraining them for.
And the purpose is, believe it or not,
you do get greater peace and happiness from sensory restraint.
It's almost like we have these,
the symne I gave years ago, like we have these six telephones,
you know, on our desk.
And the different ones keep ringing.
There's a conflict between which ones you should attend to.
And after a while, there's all those telephones,
the messages which come from them.
They're always just not really that important,
but we still have to deal with them somehow or other.
And those six telephones, as you would have guessed by now,
are just your six senses, the six senses,
seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, touching and knowing.
So, there's whatever you wish to call them,
you can call them different names,
but that's basically those six senses.
And when you have those six senses,
they're always just competing for your attention.
And sometimes that if we don't train our mind,
of course, there's an overload of attention.
And that really can tie us out, quite immensely,
especially when you get to my age.
Was there a gig all there?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
But anyhow, it can tie the senses out.
So, sometimes it's great to have sensory strain,
but you find out that sensory strain is difficult.
Sometimes you don't look at something,
sometimes you see something,
sometimes you don't go listening to something,
but you hear it, sometimes even,
experiences in the body, you don't feel these sensations,
they grab your attention.
A lot of the places where our senses go
are just kind of automatic, they're out of control.
You see something, you hear something,
and you feel something, and your mind goes there.
And sometimes you wonder,
just all this noise of the five senses,
is there a way of overcoming that?
And what is the cause for those senses?
Sometimes we think it's the kind of automatic.
But a lot of times, I figure out that the reason
why that we go for those senses is two main reasons,
either for delight or out of like fear.
And the delight thing first of all,
something I noticed a long time ago,
is just why do you tend to want to listen to sounds?
Why do you want to see beautiful sunsets?
Or why do you want to look at magazines
or go on the internet?
Why?
And I've noticed that when you get into some nice meditation,
meditation, I'm talking about the pleasant stuff of meditation,
like people do when they're on retreats,
like monks can do when they have their personal retreats.
Sometimes your meditation is just so pleasant.
You can give up these sensory,
you might call them addictions.
You can give them out for a long time
because you're satisfied.
I kind of wondered why that was the case.
You're on retreat, you're having some good meditation.
You're just not interested in anything.
And just to make it very clear in those early days as a monk,
there was no internet, there was no seeing screens,
there was no sort of sounds of music or talks.
And the only talk you had was the live talks.
And even those who just sometimes went on and on and on.
So all those senses which you had in those days,
they were very, very in these days,
and not that interesting.
But I still remember just after the Khatina ceremony,
after we cleaned up and everything was put away,
I remember that I'd saved us up and I had a chair,
I sat down on that chair in the forest,
a Wobanana chair, I had a time magazine
and a bottle of Pepsi Cola.
And to me, I thought at the time
that live doesn't get better than this.
Honestly, just a time magazine,
all these city articles about what was happening in the world,
photographs of interesting places and stuff,
all that sort of stuff, that was just all you had
to interest your senses.
But it was still enough to just,
to what you might call disturbed senses.
And I realized afterwards,
and experiences like that,
your mind needs some kind of pleasure.
If it doesn't find it from the meditation,
it finds it from fantasies,
it finds it from going into the office and looking at the internet.
Are you really looking at the news
or are you looking at just trying to disturb yourself,
giving yourself something to think about?
Why are you doing that?
And a lot of times,
if you find that your meditation is not going well,
you'll find you'll seek for the sensory,
sensory happiness.
That you won't want to practice sensory restraint,
because the sensory happiness is number one,
it's much easier at the beginning,
but you all know that after a while,
the pleasure which you get from the five senses
gets less and less and less and less and less.
You get bored with the old pressures.
You've been there, you've seen that, you've done that.
And after a while, it doesn't stimulate so much.
It's like a law of decreasing satisfaction
from sensory pressures, the same pressures,
but they don't sort of excite you as much as they used to.
Which is one of the reasons why,
that when you get to a certain age,
actually before then, people get depressed.
One of the reasons for depression
is the fact that the mind needs pressure
to get up in the morning,
something to stimulate you,
something to look forward to, something to get done.
And I remember like many monks here,
and over in Kusula, we have,
that sometimes just doing stuff, building stuff,
that was really important,
because that gave me something to do.
It was sensory pressure,
even though it was for a very, very, very good purpose.
It was getting involved in those senses,
trying to make the bricks level,
trying to make the building look good,
trying to make it sort of comfortable.
But that was actually, yeah, you had to do that,
but sometimes I saw that was,
and almost getting addicted to those sensory pressures.
And of course, you get less and less return from them.
And there was a lot of stupidity involved
in when I was doing the building.
The stupidity was,
I was going to do this, sacrifice myself
to make sure these hearts and everything else was done.
Do it once, and then you don't have to do it again.
That doesn't work that way, does it?
You do it once, and then somebody wants to do it better,
and they do do it better,
and then they need more,
and they need something else.
They need to add something, to improve it,
to do something more to it.
And so the building work never finished,
and that kind of just jolted me.
Why?
Why do we always need to keep on improving things?
And the expense of our sensory restraint.
But at least we had these range retreats,
and in the range retreat, it's wonderful
if we can kind of try to finish off the work projects.
Try not to plan for new work projects.
Try to find that time where we can stay in our house,
and practice sensory restraint,
because then we find a different type of pressure,
the pressure of simplicity, of stillness, of peace.
And it's something which I've been emphasizing,
just in even last night in the talk I gave to the Armadale group.
They call it Armadale group, but they're all over the world.
And that sort of group mentioning the importance
of joy in the meditation, the pleasure in the meditation.
It's not a sensory pleasure.
Well actually, I suppose it is the mind pleasure,
but that is not worth restraining,
because that type of pressure means that you love meditation.
You're inclined towards meditation.
And of course, the Buddha said it leads
to these beautiful states of enlightenment.
But why does it lead to those states of enlightenment?
Because you're letting go of the sensory world,
the five cents world.
And you're going into the six cents world,
the beautiful states of mind happiness and freedom and peace.
That's one of the reasons why we have things
called like the Ata Remoker, the eight remokers.
Actually, there's nine remokers.
There's the eight in the suitors,
and there's the one sitting here in the back somewhere.
I've got a little bit of a laugh, thank you.
But the real remokers, you know,
the remoker means like freedom.
Freedom from what?
And I would say that's really the freedom
from the five cents world, Jhanas and immaterial states.
One of those things like freedoms.
Why would you want to be free from that sense world?
I just remember of all people who said it,
there was, actually Mahabor used to say
that the five cents are the playground,
you know, four art departments.
They always promise that they will satisfy us.
They sometimes they do, but in the end they let us down.
And especially as you do get older
and your senses get weaker and they're just more out of control,
sometimes as you go old, if five cents is just reveal
their true nature, they promise everything,
but they're always unfaithful to their promises.
Just whatever you want to do, look at a movie,
listen to some performers, just go out and see different things
in this world.
They promise you have some satisfaction and happiness.
And sometimes you can for a little while,
but eventually they let you down.
They're unfaithful.
And this is one of the reasons why
that if you can have the opportunity and the good karma
to be able to have some time to meditate,
and doesn't take us about five, ten minutes,
and we're like days to meditate, you're in your heart,
then you have the opportunity.
Please don't waste that opportunity
because if you can get some joy, satisfaction
out of those meditations, you can taste
a much, much better happiness than anything
can get out of the five senses.
And that would mean that your mind gets satisfied
from something outside of the five senses.
The sense pleasures are weakened.
The addiction is what I call the most wonderful part
of sensory restraint.
You're not restraining your senses
to get some sort of prize or to become
the most sensory strain monkey body
in the unamodestrian, get the monthly prize for that.
This is not what you're doing.
You're doing it because the mind will automatically
incline towards the restraint of the senses.
Sensory strain is not what you do.
It's what you realize, and the mind loves it,
and always inclines towards it.
You find that many of the things you love
and incline towards, is it really your choice?
Or is it really where you find peace and happiness
and satisfaction in your life?
A lot of time, as you notice, it's not your choice.
It's just where you've had some happiness and peace
in the past.
And if I can somehow just allow people, let people,
encourage, inspire people to taste the freedom
of the five senses and get into these beautiful mind states.
They are something so far superior
that anything the five sense world can give.
It means that you will have a natural restraint of the mind.
You don't want to go out.
They're just checking in what's happening on the internet.
You want to go and talk so much.
Why do we talk so much?
A lot of times, a lot of what you hear is rubbish,
if you're honest.
It's only just because it's something
we need to do to check in on each other's health
and well-being.
But most of the other chit chat.
Even when you're working it, I agree.
It's really good to have a bit of a chat
and just have that sense of harmony and fun.
Because at least when we are living our monastic life
and doing our monastic duties, it brings us some joy.
That doesn't actually keep you attached to those five sense
world.
I do remember when we started a range retreat many years ago
that we had a Thai monk who stayed with us for the range retreat.
And this Thai monk, who's a junior monk,
when I told him that during the range retreat
we're going to focus on sense restraint.
And when we focus on the sense restraint,
I want you all to speak little to one another
and be no tea time in the evening
unless you have a question to ask them the senior monk.
And number two, don't chat to each other after the meal.
Just go back and meditate or rest or study whatever it is.
But have some solitude.
We found out this Thai monk was going around arranging a roster
of who he could go and visit in the afternoons.
He said, I've got a day three on Wednesday afternoon.
It's going to come and see you.
And so it was a case that he was afraid of just losing
the stimulation of other friends.
Yes, kadiana meter is important.
But it's also solitude is important.
Sensory restraint is.
And sometimes that sensory restraint
doesn't happen when you're sitting together having a cup of tea.
And it's not that you're trying to stop people being happy
and stop allowed as this monus
to be a miserable monastery.
It's the fact that if you do practice that sense for restraint,
you do have much greater happiness.
That's what I've found out over all these years.
It's not a torture to not say anything to anybody.
It's not suffering to just keep your eyes closed.
It's not sort of unhappiness.
You notice that the body be comfortable,
but let the body disappear so you're not feeding things.
All of that sensory restraint, when you see the purpose of it,
it becomes a natural way that you live.
It's not what you do, it's what happens when you see the truth
and the suffering from the five senses.
It's what you incline towards, not what you do.
Remember Ajahn Shast's stories?
He made a resolution because when he was a novice monk,
like most of young people, only about 18 or 19 years of age,
he had a lot of lust.
And so he made this vow.
He had a strong will.
But throughout the whole rains retreat,
he wouldn't actually look up when he was outside of the monastery.
When he went on arms round, he just keep his head down.
He'd open his bowl, look at his bowl,
he would look at the person offering the food.
When he was in the monastery during the talk,
he would keep his head down and listen to the dumber.
Because he knew that if he saw a girl,
they were making very excited and he couldn't stop it.
So for three months, for three whole months, he kept that vow.
He never saw a woman in six and three months
when there was no one around in the monastery.
Look at the monks, the teacher, but nobody else.
And at the end of the rains retreat,
so if his vow was over, he kept it perfectly.
He said he went on arms round, he looked up.
And the first girl he saw, he went bonkers, bananas.
He realised that that restraint was not enough.
That was coming from willpower.
Yeah, you can restrain yourself for a while through willpower,
but it's coming from the wrong place.
Sensory strain has to come from wisdom power
to realise what you're watching,
if it's something which excites you or upsets you,
is not worth it.
But when you restrain yourself and allow the mind
to find the pleasure in this freedom from sensory control,
though you find that freedom is really beautiful and inspiring.
A much more pure than anything you can get from the five cents world.
So to be able to do that, it's not just a case
of making a resolution and using willpower.
It's also using wisdom power.
And one of those wisdom powers is to make sure
that you arrange the place where you live,
where you eat, where you sleep, what you do during the day.
So there is nothing much of the five cents world
to excite you or upset you.
That's one of the reasons why
that I'm so grateful when people made a cave for me.
That's a wonderful place for sensory restraint.
You're in that cave, there's no windows.
Wow.
I don't, if I even felt like seeing outside,
I couldn't do that. I had to get up and open the doors.
If I wanted to hear anything, all I can hear is just,
you know, they're my own breathing.
There's nothing to hear. There's nothing and feeling in there.
I got it all worked out, so it's nice and comfortable.
It's warm enough.
And so it's really comfortable. By comfortable, I don't mean
why indulge in the body in my cave.
Just you realize that it's comfortable, it's peaceful.
I can let my body disappear because there's nothing really to
stimulate it. And it's all so safe.
I do notice that many of the senses are there
to preserve the body, not just the playground of the body.
Not the bus, the body being the playground in which there's five
senses mess around, but also that these five
senses are there to protect you. I always know that's one of the
reasons why the last sense which disappears before you enter a
genre is your, your hearing.
It's just like when you go to sleep at night. Many people wake up
because of the alarm clock going off.
Sometimes they don't wake up even for that, but never that's
actually usual where that gets into the mind much more so than
anything else. That's why sometimes people are
afraid to let their senses disappear simply because
it takes a lot of trust that the place where you're sitting
is safe for you. And that's one of the reasons why
that in a monastery it's one of the safest places in the world.
That no monk has ever died in this monastery.
It's almost 40 years now. Of course we had anagoa kakraig
that died here. We've had a layperson die in a year,
but no one has been attacked here. It's a pretty safe place.
And I want to keep it that way as much as we can because when it's
safe then people can relax and they can feel they can turn off
their senses and they will be safe. Even like when people meditate
and they close their eyes, sometimes you feel, well maybe
somebody might steal something from me. And of course many of you got
nothing much to steal, but I have to be very careful
because some of the stuff which I have, even my, my yarn,
in the really old yarn, I've had it for years, it started to have holes in it.
Even that when I was over in Singapore, that was auctioned off for 12,000
Singapore dollars.
Where's my yarn?
Ha! That's over there. But you have to have it safe
and you can trust people in the monastery because of the precepts because
of the kindness which everybody has. It means you don't have to keep checking
on things. You don't keep looking. You don't have to worry about your body.
And that's one of the other things with sensory restraint.
Sometimes can you let go of the feelings in the body?
A lot of time, no. Why sometimes? Because
deep down you're concerned if it's not aware of your body,
if it vanishes and you're aware of the mind,
if you really restrain and let go of the sense of physical touch,
how will you know if somebody hurts you?
I did mention to you years ago that there was this,
all these lovely stories, but this is just recently,
there was this disciple over in Sri Lanka who said that one of his disciples,
I won't say his name though, many of you wouldn't know him,
one of his disciples used to get into meditation very easily into jhanas.
And this teacher, who was actually a doctor,
when he was leading a group of meditators, this doctor
told me that once during the meditation when his
student was in a very deep meditation, he just
bared this man's shoulder, rubbed it with some anesthetic,
anesthetic, sorry, with some, to clean the
planets, and he said it, thank you, this is a
antiseptic, took out a scalpel to actually do an
incision on this man's arm.
And he videoed it and he's actually sent me the video, I've seen it a few times,
doesn't need to be translated into English so everyone can really experience
exactly what's going on, but the scalpel wouldn't go in his arm.
He tried drawing the scalpel a real sharp scalpel which he uses
on other patients, but he wouldn't penetrate the skin,
and that was just a couple of years ago. So now these things actually happen,
you are safe indeed meditation, safer than you'd think,
yeah okay you may think it's psychic or something, but yeah you see it, it happens.
So and later on he took him out of, when he came out of meditation he told
him what he'd done, the guy was surprised and
he, the doctor told him again, he'd remind if I tried again next time, but this
time with your permission, he said yeah sure,
so he did it again, this fellow went into a genre again,
they got the scalpel out and this time after disinfecting the arm
the scalpel penetrated and they drew blood and the doctor had to
sew it up, put a bandage on it, disinfected again,
when the fellow came out from the meditation, yes it's done,
but he couldn't feel anything, one was in a deep meditation.
It was kind of a really interesting experiment, just on how this
meditation works, you are safe and I only mention that to you,
otherwise it's hard to know, to have that sense of restraint
where you can totally let go of the physical feelings of the body,
you don't have to worry about safety.
And so this sense of restraint, it goes very very deep,
you put yourself in a position where you can feel safe,
so there's no worries which causes disturbance of the mind, just maybe,
I'll just keep a little bit of body awareness just in case,
I'll just keep a little bit of my hearing going just in case,
maybe I can put one eye open just in case to try and protect you,
you can let go totally. The reason I say that for this sense of restraint,
I'm going to let go totally, so you can experience what it's like
when the five senses all turn off and the mind's sense is still working.
Yeah, five senses turn off when you go to sleep and light,
they turn off when you have an anesthetic and you know you're out
in the hospital beds, but to do it so the five senses vanish first
and the mind is still very alert even though it's very still,
but you are certainly aware, no doubt about that,
then when you are aware, highly aware and the five senses are in there,
that's always blissful.
There's many advantages, you're safe, you're blissful
and it doesn't take a genius to realize that that's what happens when a person
dies, the five senses turn off and the mind is still alive, it's still alert,
so it takes away a lot of fear of death, if not all fear of death.
Number two, it is happy, it's joyful, it's present,
and that gives you the experience that you're not so interested
into the stuff of the world, you're more interested in just letting that go
and becoming a real monk or nun, so when it inclines towards solitude,
not just because you think that solitude is going to make you more
merit points, but the solitude is just where you incline,
you're a natural person who loves sensory restraint,
so this again is not something you do, it's something which,
the practice which we do here, just makes you
value more. In this monastery of course, as so many people come for lunch,
the lunches are very delicious, as you go into town, as
other stuff which happens, but please during our range retreat try and limit
the amount of sensory excitement which you experience,
try to not go on the internet, try not to look at the news,
now for years I didn't look at the news, I'll listen to the news, I'll read the
news in Thailand, and I remember that time when
somebody came into my monastery, they came and said,
oh I can't dwell on your English, aren't you?
I said, yeah, why? He said, oh your country's at war with Argentina,
yeah, what's the punch line? I thought it was a joke, honestly,
so you know we don't do wars anymore, and they said, no you really are at war,
now come off it, you know you can't fool me,
and I was the fool because it was the Falklands war,
one of my cousins was on one of the boats and got blown up in that war,
but nevertheless I couldn't believe it, and didn't really matter if you knew
there was a war, didn't know there was a war, it's not going to be important to
you, even though you know a relation died,
but nevertheless what it did do, it made it much more free and easy,
and if you did read a newspaper like a time magazine once a month or a couple
of months, I often noticed this, the news you read,
it was the same stuff like wars, corruptions,
abuse, scandals, but in just different countries,
different, but not the same stories but just they changed the names,
it's nothing, I remember, okay I remember just
when I was a student in Immanuel College,
I had a film club, I had a movie every week,
and I remember this fellow who was running it choosing the movies,
he had to write the blurb on what was on every evening,
the program for the term, and I remember he was just brilliant
what he wrote, he had something like the first movie like
Zulu, Sex and Violence in South Africa,
they had, I forget the other one was
bullet, sex and violence in San Francisco or something,
and it was exactly the same, whenever movie it was, it was always sex and
violence but in a different city or in a different age,
we laughed at that because there was so much truth to that,
it was the same plot only, just different actors, different scenarios,
but pretty much the same, so sometimes that you wonder
all this stuff which is part of the sense world,
it's actually the same stories, just different people,
so when we have to practice sense restraint,
yeah it's kind of good, is it good I'm not sure, I haven't made my mind up yet,
to use force, I kind of don't like the force,
use your wisdom, why do you want to do those things?
Is that going to cause you happiness, satisfaction?
And you may answer honestly say yes, but temporarily
is the happiness worth, just know the
sense of missing out of peace and quiet, the solitude
and the joy of that solitude, is it worth that?
And if you reflect honestly and you know you understand something about
Buddhism meditation in the mind, hopefully you'll be convinced
that just looking at that sort of stuff,
it's temporary happiness and a lot of suffering,
it's just not worth it and after a while,
especially during range retreat times, you take the opportunity,
I don't have to do all that stuff, I don't have to answer emails, you know,
put a message on your email account that I'm on retreat for three months,
please don't disturb me, it's amazing how much people respect you for that
and it means that you have much more peace, more opportunity
to practice sense of restraint and when you practice like that,
hopefully you'll be able to see what most monks and nuns see,
it's really valuable to have this beautiful peace.
Now why don't you know what peace is in those guided meditations which I do in
Nolomara, I try and make it so clear why are we doing it this way,
doing a like a guided meditation sweep through the body
and then to experience what peace really means
and not something boring, it's incredibly joyful,
it's brilliant, it's beautiful and once you can experience those things
called peace, you realize where they come from,
you have restrained the body, you have restrained the eyes, you've got them
closed, you're sitting in a quiet room or a quiet
hall, you're not having to use your ears, smell taste and physical touch,
you've got your body very comfortable, that's one of the best ways of sense
for restrainth, sitting down meditating in comfort in peace
in dark, just not hearing anything and your body's not feeling anything because
it's all relaxed to the max, then the senses are so restrained
they almost turn off and when you experience the peace of mind
which that provides for you, any sensory joy and happiness just
just doesn't compete, in no way it can compete
I just remember years and years ago when I used to go to Bunbury prison to
teach, I used to stay in the, it was in the Catholic parish house
there gave me a room there, remember one day when they were taking me to the
railway station to get back to Perth, they took me by the beach,
I'm sorry not by the beach, by the ocean
and the, remember the priest asked me,
and that's unblum, what does the ocean tell you?
and I was honest, I said the ocean tells me like
too much movement, lack of stillness
and they hadn't heard that before, to him like the ocean had a different
meaning, but to me it was just not still, it was just
too noisy and I was being honest with him, I was a
meditator, you find far more peace, so in a cave,
far more peace in your room when you turn off the lights and you close your eyes
and you, you just don't listen to anything and you're sitting comfortably
that's the sense is to start to disappear, it's far more interesting
it's a weird thing, the sense is disappearing, the first time that ever
happened to me, it was just gorgeous, I couldn't believe it
just how peaceful and beautiful this existence was
when there was no disturbance from these five senses
when I was young I thought these were again the playground, I could go and enjoy
myself, you know see a good movie, find a nice girl,
have a nice meal, drink something, listen to something, listen to some great rock music
but after a while you lost your interest
in those things, why? we weren't negative towards them, I wasn't negative towards them
just you found something much more beautiful, the peace, the joy, the release
from the burden of stuff and the other thing with the five sense pleasures
you always have to go out searching for them and they finished too early
you know concerts I went to they were over just so soon, it had a wonderful time there
so I thought but you couldn't keep it, you couldn't maintain it
girlfriends, food, the food, I always used, there was a buddhist when I was young
I always used to contemplate, you know when you had a nice fish and chips
and it didn't last very long in my play, it went way too fast
you ate and when you were four you didn't want to eat anymore
it was only delicious when you were hungry
so many of those sense pleasures you looked at and after a while they made no sense
why are you going after them? but that was all you had
because that's all you had before you really get into your meditation
that had power over you, that had the greatest value
the pleasures of the five senses and I really thought for a while even when I
first became a monk I really thought even then
that being a monk would just mean you can have more skill
with your five sense pleasures, in other words
that you get more beautiful sense pleasures and less unpleasant ones
you can find skillful means to keep the beautiful pressures, the pleasant ones
and get rid of the unpleasant ones
have less of them but of course that's not really how it works
after a while you realize you didn't need five sense pleasures anymore
and even the thoughts about those five sense pleasures
can you really call that sort of a six sense pleasure I suppose you could
but the real six sense pleasures when everything became so peaceful and so
still it was like nothing was happening
when nothing was happening it was seeing the five senses kind of vanish
when they vanished it was so more beautiful than when they were there
and active you find out these things were disturbance
they weren't a pleasure when you realize these things are disturbances
sounds smells tastes touches I miss one out
doesn't matter anyway you know what I'm talking about when these things disappear
that's far more peace far more joyful it feels much better it's peace
peace of mind it's not disturbed by these things coming from outside
and when it's peaceful and satisfying and you stay there longer enough
you appreciate it you understand what happens when you practice sense
restraint properly you don't have to hold your head down
and not look at anything you just close your eyes and you can't look at
anything you don't sort of avoid sound after a while when you go inside you've
got something more beautiful than sound
there's an interesting point there because I was telling quite a few people
when I was in Indonesia about walking meditation the simmies come up quite
often in the last few days the simmery of when I was walking
meditation in Bangkok in the the imposter to hold of what's
the cat I told you the story many times but this is
emphasizing another part of it I used to really get into it and walk in
meditation it was naturally slow I wasn't forcing it at all
there's so much happening just lifting one foot
and just moving forward and there's one morning
I've gone about 40 45 minutes and then I could hear a sound
we're just talking about the divine ear that dipper soda is at the tea time
today I could hear this sound a long distance away
and it was my name blah mowang soul blah mowang soul
I thought it was like a divine oh honestly I really thought it was like a divine
ear at the time I never heard a sound like that before
it was such a long distance away but I could hear it clearly
and then of course what happened that I stopped and investigated
and I found out it was another monk had his
his lips almost in my ear hole I was shouting at me
blah mowang soul really loudly but because of the sensory restraint
I'm just so enjoying the movement of my feet
you could hardly hear him it was just such a distant voice
and that kind of just showed me just how you can turn away
from sound even though he was shouting right no
a nave and a centimeter a millimeter probably
is a bit further and then his I could rule of field his lips in my ear
that's how close it was he needed to get my attention because I was supposed to
go to an appointment and I forgot I was just
too into the meditation but that's what sensory restraint does
the piece was so gorgeous you just almost like your senses refused
to go listening to anything and of course you know the
I was aware of my body but just my feet and my lower legs moving it was just so
pleasant so a lot of times sensory restraint I'm
teaching in a different way not just the ordinary way of just so you don't have
last or you don't have too much desire you don't have ill will
it's just seeing that these five senses with wisdom
you can let them go when you do let them go
you find that it's much more happiness and peace in your life
and also much better health as well I don't know how it works but I already
mentioned about that video which I've got about that
monk not monks of that disciple the doctor who can just
do what he can't do in operation the person in
jhana just the sculpt will can't so penetrate
and it gives prior permission so that's actually how safe you are
and just how peaceful everything becomes when you can start to experience those
things that really gives you the sense of safety
and the sense of benefit from these sensory restraint
sensory strain is not just avoiding sort of what you consider to be
dangerous sensory stimulation the sensory strain goes
total so all sensory stimulation of the five senses
vanishes and you get into peace and stillness
and that's far more beautiful far more delightful far more beneficial
than all these other sense of stimulations and
enjoyment and excitement which you can experience and when you realize that
you will take you go deeper and deeper and deeper
into the deep meditations from sensory restraint
then the mind can let go from what's here from kaya pasadi and chitta pasadi
the mind can go into the jhanas samasamadi
easily it's not something you do it's what you incline to
it's not something you choose it's just something which happens
the five senses are no longer a burden for you
they're no longer a barrier they're no longer a big wall which you have to
find a way through they just vanish or when they go
this nothing else which basically can happen
they go into the beautiful mind states and that
encourages you more and more and more to have sensory restraint
you think all these five senses and all the stuff well what do i have to worry
about those and all the beautiful sun sets the
stars at night the kangaroos the forest the flowers i don't know what else
turns you on in this monastery but all of that tends to vanish too
it did become a monastic a meditator someone is really interested in
seclusion so from the range retreat that's what we're
supposed to be doing with this range to do more than anything else
have that sense restraint books computers if you possibly can
please turn them off and see how the mind can enjoy the piece
and the signants when nothing is stimulated because
sometimes when you have a thought it's not just like one thought
it creates ripples on your mind and sometimes those ripples
one thought leads to another thought which leads to another thought
it's called papancia
and that papancia keeps on going going going going going
i thought i'd love if i should say this but yeah
oh why not i'm not afraid that um the password or one of my computers
papancia just proliferation
it's a good password i kind of like it
proliferates if you want to go in there and just delete all my material please
do so
but nevertheless i'm not afraid of that that's just five sets stuff
the mind is much more beautiful
when the mind is so beautiful the peace the silence
at least you get into the the deep meditations
and they're much more freeing and if you disagree with me afterwards and
anything uh being there done that and it's not satisfying you think the
five senses are more important and you can just give up all
sense of restraint
but you find the opposite if i why do i want to just indulge these
senses they promise everything they give nothing
they make me want to control them try to get them
and with the the deep meditations it's not something you try to do
you try to do it and it never works but sometimes it is by chance sometimes
you get so frustrated you give up and then it works but then
the real way of meditating is just to relax to the max
to let go not to do things not to search the things not to make things happen
let me see the senses not so interested
in that way you do become a real man a real monk
someone who's peaceful inside it's on offer
an arrangement treat is coming great opportunity
to practice sense of restraint as much as you possibly can
anyway that's my sense of restraint talk.