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So we had a few different ideas about what Sutta to do today. One of them was the Metta Sutra. I kind of felt that it was a good idea. So I'm going to go through and have a look at the Metta Sutra today. And as you would know the Metta Sutra is found in the Sutta Nipata, one of the books of the Kuddhaka Nikaya. And it's Sutra No. 8 in that section, in that book. That's why it has the 8 number on there. And it is an interesting Sutra because it is one of the few sutas that talk about the idea of Meta in quite a bit of detail. In fact, many parts of that Sutra, you wonder what has it got to do with Meta at all? Because it starts off with all kinds of ideas about being humble and not conceited and whatever. What's that got to do with Meta? And so it's interesting to kind of understand that Meta is much more than what we call the Meta of meditation. And in a sense, many of the things that we do on the path, everything that has to do with morality, everything that has to do with reducing the ego, in one sense, all of that is also Meta.
Because we are treating people well, we are putting ourselves out of the way, getting rid of those obstacles on the path to being kinder. So that is also Meta. And so when you look at the Meta Sutra in that way, you can see that the first part of it is all about the ordinary Meta of ordinary life. The Meta that comes through Sila, through kindness, through generosity, through reduction of your defilements, through the being more humble, in other words, reduction of the ego and all of these kinds of things. That's what it starts with. And that also is Meta in a certain way. And then it moves on to Meta as a meditation, further on in the discourse. And that's where it is like the Meta of the mind. So Sila Samadhi, as a Samadhi part of it. And then towards the very end, you take that Meta and use that as a foundation for making it end of the defilements. And of course the highest kind of Meta, the highest kind of Karuna, the highest kind of all the Brahma Viharas, of course, that comes through insight into the nature of the five kinds of things, natural reality, if you like.
So the whole path of Sila Samadhi Pandya is right there in the Meta Sutra, and they are just varying degrees of Meta, really, that you see there. And so everything really fits together quite nicely once you understand it in that way. But before I look at some of the details of the Sutra, one of the interesting things about the Meta Sutra is that it is only found in the Pali Canon, which is kind of unusual. Very often, many of these famous Sutra that we have, they are found also in ancient Chinese translation. Sometimes they are found in Tibetan translation, sometimes in Sanskrit, and various other dialects of ancient India. But this one is only found in Pali. And of course that makes you wonder, is it really authentic? How far back does it go? Usually the authentic Sutra is found across many different traditions. And this one seems to be only found in the Pali.
So that is an indication that it may, this Sutra may be a little bit younger than the majority of Sutra is found in the Canon. I'm talking about the four Nikayas in particular. It may be a little bit younger than that, precisely because it seems to be found only in this particular, only in the Pali. On the other hand, it is no proof that it doesn't come from the very earliest time, because as you probably know already, the way that the Chinese to Pitaka is organized, it doesn't really have a complete part of any specific school. There's a little bit, there's a majority, some are still in the school, then there's some down regup to get, some from the Mahasangika, and some from unknown schools. And it's all kind of put together in this enormous Canon. And because of that, because it doesn't have a complete set of one single school, there may be things that are missing across the board. So things may not actually have been certain Suttas, may never have been transmitted in any of the school.
In any, may not exist in any of those schools, even though they may have existed in those schools separately, because we don't have the complete cannons of those schools available. And so there is no final proof there that this is only in the Pali, or was only in the Pali, but it doesn't have maybe the same kind, fully the same kind of authenticity as some of the other Suttas, even though it's hard to say with certainty here. And one of the things that you do recognize in the Suttas is that the more developed the Suttas is, usually the later it is, one of the, I always found one of the kind of strange things about the Suttas of the Buddha is that they are often very kind of schematic. They're often kind of skeletons without much meat on it. Yeah? Yes, you have the skeleton, but no meat. It's like the gradual training, which just gives you the bare idea as a morality, sensory strength, go into the jhanas and become enlightened.
It doesn't give you much detail about what you're supposed to do. And this is kind of typical of the way I think the Buddha taught. He was very kind of, he gave a very skeletal idea of the dhamma, and then it is for us to kind of add the meat to the bones to make it more complete. And so, and for this reason you find also the ideas of loving kindness are often spoken about in a very kind of abstract way in the Suttas.
Yeah, you have loving kindness to the north, the south, the east, and the west up and down everywhere without hatred and ill will. And that is kind of the usual way it is described. And not many Suttas go into detail about it. And that's kind of typical. And so the fact that something is very detailed tends to be also a sign of it being slightly later, because it is putting that meat on the skeleton, if you like. And so you will find that many of the Suttas in the Pali Canon, Suttas like Venerable Sariputta's big, says famously the analytical monk, and he will analyze the word of the Buddha.
And he will give a lot of detail, like the longer sutta on the elephant's footprint, the Mahatipadho pama sutta, and the satsabhibanga sutta, the analysis of the four noble truths, and these kind of things. Typical Sariputta suttas, and they have this feeling of being a development of the basic ideas, and the metasuta is similar to that. So the suttas in the Pali Canon, they talk about meta, or talk about the Brahma Viharas, apart from the usual standard exposition of the four Brahma Viharas. One of the main suttas, which is also a very beautiful sutta, a very nice sutta, and I would really recommend you to have a look at it. And it's fascinating for how it develops the idea of meta quite different from the traditional approach you find in the Vissudimaga, is the kakacupa. The kakacupa sutta, the simile of the sore, Majmanaka 21, where the Buddha goes through how to deal with people in difficult situations, and that thing, ending up with the simile of the sore.
In other words, you should never get angry with anyone, even if they kind of pull you apart from limb. So that is a classic one. And then you have the suttas that talk about the benefit of meta, found in the Angutra 10s and 11s. Metanisang sasuttas. And they also very nice, they give you an idea of the benefits of the meta, things like you sleep well at night. One of the ones I like is the one that you're protected by the day it is, if you have meta. It's kind of cool, isn't it? The day it is full of your round, bing, ding, ding, and you kind of look after you. So I think that, I don't know personally, I would say, I don't have any problem believing in those things actually. There's something about when you feel really good about yourself, you feel protected. I mean, it could have been internal perception, but I wouldn't be surprised if it all actually goes out into the world around as well. So that's the meta and isang sasutta. And those are the, I think the suttas on the greatest detail about loving kindness in the suta, apart from the metasuta itself. So that is just a little bit of background for you on this suta.
And so let's have a look at it in a little bit more detail. So we're going to look at this line by line for the whole sutas. Let me just, this translation by the way is Benable Bikubodi's translation. I had a look at Bantasuta's translation, but it felt so experimental sometimes. I think he just loves to play with things a little bit. And it becomes almost like a little bit experimental the way he had expressed that even when he translates it.
And I, I sometimes I, I just baffled by his translation. I'm sure he has a good reason for it, but I'm too baffled to be able to really make sense of it. So I decided to go to the more conservative Bikubodi translation instead. So this is the first verse of this particular suta. So this is what should be done by one who is skilled in the good. Having made a breakthrough to that peaceful state, he should be able, upright and very upright, amenable to advice and gentle without arrogance. This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness and who knows the path of peace.
And who knows the path of peace. I can see the difference here in translation there. What's next? What's the path of peace? Aboulin upright. Straight forward and gentle in speech, right? Okay. Yeah. So here, gentle in speech. Yeah. There we go. Thank you. Yeah. There's a four-hundred-antlest beach. Humble and well-conceded. Okay. Okay. Let's start from the beginning. So this is what should be done by the one who is skilled in the good. And so karaniya, what should be done, is skilled, kusalena, karaniya, atta, kusalena. The good is atta. So karaniya, atta, kusalena. And so karaniya, what should be done is clear enough. Kusala often means skilled. I think that's often, sometimes it means wholesome, sometimes it means skilled, depending a little bit on the context. But the interesting word here is atta, because atta is a word. It has lots of different meanings in the sutas. And good or beneficial or advantageous is only one of the meanings of atta. So one we're translating this is what should be done by one who is skilled in what is beneficial. Yeah, that's one way of thinking about it. To me, a bit more meaning, the good is a very kind of ambiguous term.
But beneficial is kind of beneficial for you here and now, and also beneficial for the practice of the path in the future. That kind of makes sense a little bit to me. That is a nice way of thinking about the idea of atta, I think. But the sujato has the one who is skilled in the scriptures, I think, behind there. And he refers to a sutta in the good refives that apparently he reckons supports his view. I had a look at that sutta, I could not see that it was supported his view. And so that's when I started to wonder whether I would be able to uphold his view by referring to it. So I usually atta is not the scripture, the dhamma is the scripture. The dhamma is the word of the Buddha, that is closer to the scripture. And usually the dhamma and the atta are two terms that go together in the sutas. The dhamma is the source. The source is the scripture, it is the teaching of the Buddha
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And the atta is the benefit or the goal or the meaning that you derive from those scriptures, from that dhamma. And so you have source and you have result, yeah, atta and dhamma. And the two important words are kind of parallel each other in the sutas.
So skilled in the good, skilled in what is beneficial, is very useful. Skilled in the purpose, yeah, because atta means the purpose, is the aim, is the goal of the past, skilled in the goal. Understanding in other words why we are doing this, what is the purpose of this?
You can kind of see what this is heading, you can see the movement of the mind towards something positive. You have no idea, maybe vague idea anyway, what nibana might mean, certainly what samadhi states might mean. And this is the atta, this is where the mind is moving towards, it has the goal or the benefit of the path. And this is the kind of broader idea of the meaning of atta. In other words, atta also means like meaning. So for example the commentary is called atta, kata. Kata is discussion, atta is meaning, so discussion of meaning.
So it also has the idea of meaning, but of course meaning and goal are basically the same thing, yeah, because the meaning of the practice is to reach that goal. And so that gives the meaning to the practice, the fact that it has a good goal. So these are very closely related to each other. So this is the idea here, when we are skilled in the goal, skilled in what is beneficial, skilled in nibana, skilled in the meaning of all of this,
all of these terms kind of come together and give you a sense of what is actually being talked about here. So this is, if you have an idea of what the goal is, if you understand what the dhamma really is about, what the purpose of it is, then this is what you do. This is the point here. And so how then do you get skilled in the good? How do you understand this? I'm so sure whether you really want to do it. Well of course the answer is you have right view, yeah, and that right view comes from the sutas. It comes from the word of the Buddha, it comes from your own practice, whatever little insights and understandings we have.
It comes from that. As you do that, you become more skilled in the ata, and then the consequence is that you practice according to this. And so that right view is a very important part at the beginning to gain that skill in what is good, understanding what the good or the beneficial, the purpose and all these things is about. So right view is just kind of in one sense, it is everywhere in the sutas because it is the foundation of everything. Okay. So once you have all of that, then the next sentence having made the breakthrough to that peaceful state, breakthrough abisamacha, and yangtang santang padang, yes, santang is peaceful, padang here is translated as state. And so you make brag through to that peaceful state. Padang means foot, padang, does it mean that in sintala as well? Padang, padang, yeah, so padang.
And so it means foot, it means step, it means a line of verse, it has lots of different meanings, padang, it has this kind of very broad range of meanings. But here it is a word for nibana, the peaceful foot. Almost literally, right? But of course here it doesn't mean foot, it means like condition or state or something like that, it has a much broader kind of meaning. But here it is referring to nibana, santang, when something is peaceful, in Buddhism it always is, in the ultimate sense, always is a reference to nibana because that is, if there is peace, that is the real peace. But one of the, it's interesting that it can be called padah, because padah usually means something solid, something physical, like foot or step, something real. And so people would normally think, well if that is the meaning of the word, if it means something real, like a foot or something, they clearly nibana itself must also be something real. Right? How can you call it a state or a condition or whatever, if it is not real? And this is where you have to be very careful, you have to be very careful with the way language is used.
There are many, many words in the parley canon that can be taken to refer to some existing reality when action, that are really words for nibana, but you would be wrong if you take them as an existing reality. Dattu, Ayatana, padah, there are three words, and very often those who want to reify nibana, by reify means you make it into something concrete, you make something abstract into something concrete, that's the word reify.
It's a nice and fancy word, but if you want to make nibana into some real existing reality, these are the things they will use from the suttas and point to those words, Ayatana, dattu and padah. But when you start to look at those words, you start to realize, actually they are used incredibly broadly here, they don't just refer to anything physically existing here. Or take for example the word dattu, which is often translated as element, you have the four great elements for example, sometimes the word dattu is used for renunciation, you have the renunciation element. Obviously renunciation is nothing physical, you have the cessation element, cessation is nothing physical. And so in those cases I think element is actually the wrong translation, it should be translated as property or something like that, the property of cessation. And here we have something similar, with padah also you can show it through the suttas various places, it doesn't really refer to anything specific, it refers more to some property or some possibility or something like that.In this case it could actually mean to the nibana in the present life anyway, to the arahant nibana, which is another very important meaning of the word nibana.
In fact that is what it probably means here, the santang padang is just the life of the arahant, the arahants understanding of nibana, that's why the arahant is peaceful, and that's why in this case state probably is an acceptable translation here. So these are really important things in the suttas and you will see that these are the kind of arguments you find about nibana everywhere, what is nibana? And people try to make it into a state and it's a very powerful drive in human beings to make nibana into existing entity because our sense of self wants it to be an existing entity. And it's very hard to go against that particularly drive or craving for things to be in that particular way. And so it's important to understand these things. Again I praise Manabusunya for having taken up this discussion very, very powerfully and he has really made a lot of good points about this particular discussion on nibana and I thought it's great what he has done, he has written a book about this actually, so he already has his first book out, so in case you didn't know how. So soon you're at the kata, the soon commentary here. And then we have this idea of having made the breakthrough, abhisam echa, and what that means usually abhisam eta means that you become a stream mentor, you become make a breakthrough to the dhamma.
So the natural understanding of this particular phrase is that having become, having made the breakthrough to the peaceful state, in other words having become a stream mentor. So from that point of view this suit seems to be only for noble ones. So that's what it seems to be saying here. But the commentary understands this differently. The commentary understands this to mean that for those who want to make a breakthrough, you should do this. Whether the parley can be written that way, I don't think so, I think it's impossible, I don't know what the commentary is talking about in this particular case, I find it really weird. But it gives more meaning, and sometimes the commentaries have some idea of grammar which maybe I haven't got quite possibly, because grammar can often be very loose in certain cases, and because of that it's maybe it's possible. So either way, there's two ways of understanding this, either this which comes now is the instructions for the noble ones.
It means that only the nobles one can do this fully, everyone should still do it, but it means we just can't do it quite to that extent. Or it is meant for everyone, in which case there is no problem there. So that's a slightly strange thing at the beginning of the sutra. So this is what you should do, after making that breakthrough to the santan padang, the peaceful foot. You should be able upright and very upright. So able is sakko, upright is uju, and very upright is suh-huju. So su is like very right, so it kind of just adds an extra dimension to the idea of upright. So in the suit, as able here of course can be probably understood very broadly, kind of just being a person who is able in the broad kind of variety of ways.But one of the ways that I know it is used in the vinapitica, this is when you have someone from another sect or another religion who wants to become a monk, and they have to be in probation for four months.
And while they are in probation, you should watch them and observe them.And you should look at them and look, is this person, have they got the act together?And one of the things you should look for is if they are able to work with the monastic community.If they are able to help out with what is happening in the monastic community, are they skilled, are they sakko?I don't think there were sakko's used there, but a similar kind of word is used there.In other words, are they helping out? Are they supportive? Are they doing their part in the duties?And so I think that is one of the things that this may be referring to.It is also found in the sutas, but not about monastics, but about lay people, especially married relationships and that kind of thing.
So you are able in the, you kind of watch out what needs to be done in the monaster.
You look for, you know, you ask if you can be of help or whatever service.
And you find maybe your area where you are, you know, you have something to benefit a little bit extra because you have some knowledge and understanding. And this is one of the great things about this community. We have people from all walks of life with different kinds of understandings. And everyone contributes, I was going to say little, but everyone contributes a lot actually, I would say. So that is great. Yeah, and that is really the way it should be in a monastic community that works well together. So you have that ability here and willingness to try out. That's kind of the basic idea of able. And then of course a higher kind of able would then be the ability to practice the path and to, especially the basic factors and use that in the right way here. And we have this nice word, a priter, uju. And the word uju is found in the sutas in a couple of different ways. It is found, for example, together with the idea of morality, especially with the idea of the mind. So for example, when you have the char, the char, what are they called now? The Anusatis, the six recollections, in the six recollections, then you reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, Sangha, generosity, or your sealer or the devatas.
Then when you do that, the mind becomes uju. And uju there means that the defilements die down, because your mind is moving towards the Dhamma, your mind is delighting in the Dhamma. That is where you want to be. And this is one of those beautiful things about those Anusatis, how they are talked about in the sutas. This beautiful sequence, how you start off by reflecting on the Buddha, it takes you all the way to Samadhi, via this idea of reducing the defilement as you are reflecting on these Dhamma qualities. Because the Dhamma goes in the opposite direction of the defilements. If you understand the Dhamma, then you are not interested in sensuality, you are not interested in anger, because you know that that is done. It is dangerous. That is what the Dhamma means. It means that sensuality is problematic. And so your mind moves in a different direction. The defilements die down. And when the defilements die down, your mind becomes straight. The crooked mind is said to be the mind which is defiled. It is crooked.
It doesn't go in a straight line, it is all over the place. The straight mind is a metaphor for the idea of the mind. That is uju and straight. And by the way, the word uju is directly related to the English word straight and right. Uju in Sanskrit. So this is kind of where it comes from. And so this is one idea of the word of uju, that you are straight in without defilements. But the other one is ujukaditi, that you have straight view. And this of course is very similar to the idea of samaditi. It is maybe not quite as strong as samaditi. When we talk about samaditi, we often talk about the stream and some very high manifestation of right view. Ujukaditi is probably more basic idea of the diti. More basic idea of right view. So ujukaditi is what you get maybe when you read the suitors.
When you learn a bit more about the dhamma and you gradually practice the path, you develop your perceptions or whatever, and you can feel that your diti is gradually becoming more straight and down.
It is interesting this idea of diti because the idea of view is really two-fold, two kinds of right view really as well. And one kind of right view is the right view that comes from reducing the defilements. Because as the defilements go down, you actually see the world more clearly. The defilements, they bias the mind. So when you are successful in reducing defilements, that is actually a kind of right view, because your mind is less biased. So it is a kind of right view that everyone can have in the world. So even a person who is an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim can have more or less right view.
The more defilements they have, the worse view they have. If they have less defilements, their view is more right. That is the first part of right view. But the other part of right view is more the right view that comes from either from deep insight or from accepting the teaching of the Buddha. That is the right view that has things like rebirth and things like non-self and these kind of things. That is a more kind of profound right view which can only come through insight.But both of these are really avenues to right view.
So just by reducing the defilements, already right view is kind of coming. And also by developing the various kind of perceptions on the path. That also is a development of right view. So ujju is a kind of nice word, which has to do with the straightness of the mind, both in terms of defilements and also in terms of view. And then we have sujju, very upright. So I guess that is just even less defilements, even more right view, I presume. And then we have the last part here, a meanable to advice and gentle without arrogance. So this is suvachur mudu anatimmani, the last line of the first verse.
And so a meanable to advice suvachur. This means that you are literally means you are easy to speak to, vacho su, someone who is easy to speak to. And that means that when someone wants to talk to you about anything, you are not too defensive. You are open about it. And if you feel really defensive and say, oh, maybe not now, today is a bad day for me. Let's do this some other time. There are days when no one really wants to be talked to. So it's kind of fair enough.
But at least when you are ready, then, okay, let's listen, let's see what you have to say here. And it's a beautiful kind of quality to have, that when someone kind of says something, then especially when someone like Andrew Brahm says something, you can assume that he has your best interest at heart, then you listen, what does he have to say here? And it's kind of easy to take admonishment from Andrew Brahm. It is very easy because he never gives it anyway. So that kind of makes it super easy. But if occasionally he does give admonishment, yeah, it's kind of, I don't know, it's very, very easy to take from Andrew Brahm. It's more difficult if it is from one of your kind of more common aspects, yeah, not your teacher. It's a bit more difficult. But even then it is worthwhile, at least listening here. And if you understand that they are coming from the wrong place and they don't have a point, okay, just dismiss it. But it's nice at least just to be, okay, I will respect this person enough.
We're all trying our very best. We're all trying to be good people. We're all trying to live a very honorable life. And because of that, it is worthwhile listening to each other, yeah, having that respect for each other is beautiful. So being open amenable to advice from other people. And if you're having a bad day, say, okay, maybe tomorrow. That's all right to say as well then. So, yeah, the idea of suvacho, suvachasata, dhamma, has the qualities that make one easy to admonish, easy to speak to, is one of the qualities you find in the suttas, which basically is the same thing as what you see here. Then you have the idea of being gentle, yeah, this word here is mudu. And mudu is made kind of something like soft. It is a quality of the mind that is used very quite often in the suttas. And it is often used in connection with samadhi, especially when it comes to the fourth jana and these kinds of things, very, very high qualities. And when the mind is kind of gentle and soft. And it's often used in connection with the word kamaniya.
And kamaniya means like workable.
Workable means that the mind can be used for whatever you want to use it for. So if you want to use the mind for insight, you can use it for that. If you want to use it for remembering your past life, so you can use it for that. That's also insight, I suppose. If you want to use it for psychic powers, you can use it for that. The mind is very flexible. The mind doesn't have any stiffness. The mind doesn't have any resistance. It does what you want to do. That gives a very strong idea what the idea of softness or gentleness of the mind actually means. It's this mind that is not stiff. The mind that doesn't resist. Sometimes you try to use your mind and the mind doesn't refuse to obey. Sometimes you want to read the book and the mind is not interested in reading the book. You try as your mind and it's just really hard. Other times you read and it flows easily. It's like a mind is kind of on the wavelength of you. It kind of goes easily.
And everything is like that in the dhamma as well in terms of meditation, in terms of everything. Sometimes the mind has this quality of following along or being workable, of doing what it is told to do.
And that comes from a lack of defilements. That lack of defilements makes the mind workable and gentle in this way. And it also comes with other words as well. I just looked it up very briefly this afternoon. It also comes with words like pabhasara. And the word pabhasara means like the shining mind, the luminous mind. The radiant mind. Pabhasara is this very beautiful word that you find in the suttas that are really about the mind that is kind of large and powerful and beautiful. Pabhasara is like words used for the sun and the moon when they shine and they are brilliant and beautiful. That is the idea of pabhasara. And that is the word gentle here. It goes with that, this idea of gentleness. So of course it starts much more early on the path, the idea of gentle. The idea of gentle and soft mind is from the very beginning. It means that you have a mind that is amenable generally speaking, that is not too stiff and not too problematic.
It means a very important part of it is not to be too proud or too arrogant.
That is where the next one here is without arrogance. I think there is a very clear combination here of these three terms. These three terms have a very strong connection with each other. Being amenable to advice, being gentle and being without arrogance are closely connected to each other. Anatimani. Atimani means that you see yourself as better than others. It is not just pride, it is kind of an arrogance or a superiority conceit or something like that. That is what this really refers to. And so these are these kind terms go together because they kind of point in the same direction. I find this idea being without arrogance. It is interesting, this idea about anatimani. Because obviously when we talk about arrogance or we talk about pride or we talk about conceit, these are all terms that you find in the suit as well. They are kind of terms that are closely related to each other, conceit, arrogance and pride. These are all very closely related to the sense of ego. The ego is what wants feeling arrogant because you want protecting yourself.
You are proud of yourself. This is me or you are conceit, I am good, I am better, whatever it is. And so this is all about ego. And if you have that ego, it is very difficult to be amenable to advice and difficult to be gentle. Because the ego is like a protective advice. You are protecting yourself. And if your ego feels challenged and if you have a big ego, you are going to feel challenged sometimes. When the ego feels challenged, it will not want to be gentle. It will want to say no, I don't want to hear this. It becomes strong, it rejects other people's advice. It rejects other people even if they try to say something. You don't want to hear it. Why? Because you can't. The ego gets in the way of your ability to take other people's advice. The gentleness is gone. It is kind of substituted with some sort of hardness of the heart, a certain harshness. Because the ego is now protecting itself.
And I don't know, but I find this whole feeling of ego is a very ugly feeling inside. When you see the ego kind of makes its space, it is not beautiful anymore. Because you can feel that now your morality is being challenged. You are no longer able to follow the morality 100% because the ego is more important than your ability to practice the path properly. You can almost feel that when that happens. To me, the idea of ego is a very ugly thing in seeing it in oneself, but also seeing it in others sometimes. Like just others I don't really care so much about. But seeing it in oneself is really kind of painful and ugly. I don't really want to see it. It is something that blocks you. You can feel that it blocks you from being able to live the life properly. And that is kind of very problematic. And so it is useful to see these kind of things. Because when you see that and you reject that sense of ego, you reject that feeling of that when the self protects itself, just knowing that much means it is easy for you to let go of that. Knowing that much means it is easier to become amenable to advice and to be gentle to all of these kinds of things.
Because you understand how painful, how bad, how unfortunate it is as a feeling and as a posture, as a defensiveness in life. So being without arrogance and ego is obviously good. So that is the first verse. And as you can see here is that there are all of these qualities and to a large extent they really congeal around the idea of morality.
Some of these words also have very high meanings, but the ordinary meaning is probably what is meant here. It is about how to be moral on the path. But it is a different angle on morality. And I think this is why it is such an interesting take on basically everything, all of this the entire path almost. So let us move on to verse number two. So let's just read it out first of all. This is verse number 144. So he should be content and easily supported him. Of few duties and frugal way of living. Of peaceful faculties and judicious. Curious without greed when among families. So contented and easily satisfied, having few duties, having few duties, not busy with duties and frugal in their ways, peaceful and calm and wise and skillful, not proud and demanding in nature.
Doesn't fit quite well does it? So I think this translation is better. The one with chant is probably a bit more made to go flow well rather than to be super precise. I think the kibbutas here is more reliable. So you should be content and easily supported. And the idea of contentment and other one of these really beautiful qualities on the Buddhist path. The idea of being happy with whatever you have in terms of, in terms of requisites, obviously. But also just a general contentment with where you are, with the community around you, with your station, whatever that might be. Not seeking for all kinds of things, whether it is things that speak to the ego or whether it's material things in the world or whatever it might be. A general sense of contentment that actually encompasses everything. Both external things but also internal life at the same time. And not, you know, so this is kind of one of those beautiful, beautiful qualities on the path. And I've always found it very beautiful the way it is described in the gradual training. Contentment is described as like a bird with its wings as the only bird in there. You fly off with your wings as your only bird in there. In the same way, a bikku or a monastic or bikuni or whatever, they travel in the world with the robes and the ball as the only bird in there.
And there's a very sort of beautiful idea of freedom in that. Yeah, like a bird is free in the same way you are free when you are content. Because when you are content, that means that your mind is not like driving you in a certain direction towards certain things that you have to have. And when you don't have to have certain things, then you are free to actually to move about without having to worry about what you want or what you want to do. You don't need to control the world anymore and that liberates you. So it means that you have the ability to move around, content like a bird with its wings as its only bird in there. Something really kind of fascinating about that particular picture. So contentment is beautiful. It comes in all kinds of ways about everything, all parts of the monastic life really. And of course when you have that contentment, one of the important things that happen is that both the desire and the illusion of the life of the human being. And the will, they tend to die down because these things are things that come from discontent.
The desire, which is the Kama Chandam talking about now, the desire for the five cents world, that obviously dies down when you are content. Because it means that you are happy with the kind of basic meal and the basic things that you have. You don't need anything more than that. But so does ill will, yeah? Because ill will is a kind of discontentment with your people around you. Yes, where ill will arises from. You are not really happy with the people around you. So contentment kind of broadens out to incorporate kind of the first two hindrances. And then it also includes the hindrance of restlessness and remorse, yeah? Because restlessness is just another expression usually of discontent. So also that one goes as well. And I think ultimately also has an effect on the tightness and lethargy because that is often driven by the other defilements on the path. So contentment has this kind of very broad ability to reduce the defilements of the mind, to minimize them, and then to make the mind ready. And you can see here again how it ties in with the defilements. It ties in with living the life of morality.
It's a kind of sealer starting moving from the ordinary sealer of life over to the mental sealer. As you are content, we are moving towards the sealer of the mind instead as a consequence of that. So then you have the idea of being easily supported. Again you can see how these ideas are obviously very closely related to each other. Subbaro, Subbaro, I was going to say Subaru, but not Subaru. Subbaro is the word. Bada is burden. So it means like little burden basically. So it's good burden. In other words, no burden. So in other words, you are easy to support. You are not demanding in the monastic life. Whatever you get is good enough. You are happy with what the lay people bring. You don't go looking for things that are special or anything like that. If you get something special, then maybe you want to even give it away. It's nice to give away special things sometimes.
Sometimes I think we have the wrong idea in monastic life. Sometimes I hear this idea that as monastics we are like a field or married for the world. So we have to receive everything. I think that's nonsense. It doesn't say that anywhere in the suit is that you have to receive everything. In fact, it doesn't say that at all. It says, I would say, rather, the opposite. So I think this is sometimes almost... Maybe this is going too far, but it can become an excuse for receiving all kinds of things. I'm the field or marriage, so I have to receive all this kind of stuff. No, you receive things when it is useful. Or if something is given to the... If you don't need something, you can say, okay, maybe you want to give this to the Sangha and it can go to the store and someone who needs it can use it. Or if something is really inappropriate for a monastic, tell the person that this is inappropriate. This is not which shouldn't really be having this. We don't need all the voices in the monastery. You can keep it yourself. It's a nice car, but it's better for you than for us. That actually is often very inspiring for lay people.
When they see that we don't take things just because they are available or whatever,
but you say, no, actually I have enough, I'm all right. I think that is what is inspiring. It is not about them giving you whatever it is about using those things that actually are useful for us. That is inspiring. Then they start looking for things that are useful, that makes the lay people understand what they should be giving. And when they look for what is useful, actually that is when they start to make more merit because they are not giving at the right time. They are giving things that really make sense. They support in the community in the right way. That is when things really come together. I think in the long run people are actually very very very inspired by that. People love going to Ajahn Brahm's cave because there is nothing in that cave. It's very simple.
Don't tell them he has an office next door.
But if we go to the cave, his office is also actually quite simple. It is much there. There is a little bit more than in the cave, but it is not really great. When you hear stories about Ajahn Shah who didn't have anything at all in his monastic life, it is wonderful. Sometimes when I go back to my cute look inside, I think I should throw out a few things on my cutie. Because it feels like sometimes when you throw something out, actually it feels nice. When I come back this evening, I should throw a few more things out. it is good. The reality is that it is so easy to have too many things in one's cutie.
I must admit I have a few things I don't actually need, which I could easily get rid of.
This is the idea of being easily supported. Not being afraid of saying no to the lay people. But in a nice way of course. Not in a harsh way. But saying no, actually I am okay. I don't need that. Maybe I am going to leave tomorrow. I can't carry it with me.
It is not nice. Maybe you are going to leave tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow you are going to die here. Maybe tomorrow you go to Sri Lanka. Maybe tomorrow you go to who knows where. This is kind of the beautiful thing about the monastic life.
This is the idea of having your wings as your only burden. It is that you can leave at any time. You can't go somewhere else. Ajahn Brahm can I please go tomorrow? He probably will say yes. So then you are off. And this is kind of the idea here. Contented and easily supported, obviously factors that go together very beautifully here. Of few duties and frugal way of living. Few duties, up a kithsho. It does not mean unburden with duties. That sounds like you could have heaps of duties. It is not not burdened by them. That is not what it means. Up a means few. Kithsho means duties or obligations or work or whatever else. Up a kithsho. So it means that we should have few duties. And that can be difficult in monastic life sometimes. Sometimes you accumulate many duties. And sometimes it is good to have a few projects. Because a few projects I think is good. For example, if you have a good electricity, great to help out with electricity in the monastic. I think that is wonderful. If you have good with computer skills, great to help out with the computers in the monastic. If whatever skills you have, it is wonderful that you help out. So you have your little project area. And I think that is good. It gives you a sense of being able to contribute. It gives you a sense that you are doing actual generosity and kindness.
I love that myself sometimes. I feel that I am contributing to the community. It feels very meaningful. If I sit in my kithsho long, I feel really nice at all. Sometimes I like to come out a little bit. And if I stay in my kithsho long, please drag me out. So I do not forget about the broader kind of idea of support in the community. And so it is good to have that. Because it can give you a sense of meaning in monastic life. But also it should be limited. Few duties. Enough to feel that your monastic life is meaningful. Enough to feel that you are doing something positive for the monastery. But then you can not let it go. And of course the better your meditation is, the more you can let it go. You can allow these things to be. And then gradually you build up. So you find that beautiful balance in monastic life. You do not become... there is a tendency in the monastic world. There is always a tendency to go to extremes. Either you find monastics to work all the time. Or they translate all the time. Or they study all the time or whatever it is. Or they try to meditate all the time. But most monastics are not made out for either of those. Those people who try to meditate all the time, most of them fail. Even Ajambrah was just about the most best meditator that I have probably ever met in my life.
Even he spent a lot of time in his early days kind of working and helping out. And so I think that balance, human being, we seem to like extremes. I think extremes somehow feed the ego. Because then we feel that we are doing something 100%. And the ego kind of likes it. And the real deal. I translate 100%. I meditate 100%. I keep all the dutangas. And the ego can do that for how long? Three years. And then you disrobe. And that's the down-sider. And I was just telling the story just yesterday to some people here. But we had a very, he was a very good monk apparently. He was an Australian monk. He was a farm boy. And farm boy is often kind of the toughest of people. But a very, very nice character. Very good person. But he was also very austere. He didn't have shoes.He only had three robes. There was no heater in his cutie. He only shouted in cold water. This was the way he was. And it was like that for a long, long time. Then he went off to Sri Lanka and to Thailand. And he went to Ajanggana's monastery. Ajanggana took one look at him.
He said, yeah, this westerner. He is a real deal. Because he was like, wow. He was kind of really going for broke. And so he carried on like this. And then he went on for about, I think he maybe eventually had about 20 reigns. And eventually his meditation didn't work. He wasn't able to get it together. And then he ended up just robing. Even though he had so many good qualities. And probably he didn't find that balance in his monastic life. And it's kind of a shame that you don't find the balance. Even though you have so many other qualities. And then you end up on the wrong path because of that. So be careful. Know what you need. Feel, be, don't come from the sense of self. Don't come from ideals. Don't come from theory. Come from what works. I think it's way too easy to come from theoretical ideas of what the path is about. Instead of feeling the path. These days when people ask me what monastery they should choose. And people are, these are the kind of questions I get quite a lot.
I always say, which, first of all, there should be a monastery where they keep the vineyard. It should be a monastery where they teach the suit. As in other words, the word of the Buddha. And it should be a monastery where you feel good. Where you can relax. Where you can be at ease. Where you feel a sense of friendship. Don't go to a place where you feel tense. Where you feel that your fault find it with. Where you feel that you can't really live with the people. Because if you go to that kind of monastery, you're not going to be happy. If you're not happy, meditation isn't going to work. If your meditation isn't going to work, you're going to disrupt. So how the place feels. Be practical about it. How the place feels is probably more important than any other thing. Apart from the fact that you should teach the vineyard and also teach the suitors. Then you are on the right track. So, again, a few duties. This balance with few duties. A few important duties that really are necessary for the monastery to work out.
Where you feel that you are kind of part of the monastic community. The whole in this community together. But then also finding the balance of the part of the monastic life.
And a frugal way of living here. This is Salaoka. Salaoka. Salaoka. Salaoka. That's what it is. Salaoka. Salaoka. Salaoka means light. It is obviously related to the English word light. Lahu. Son Lahuoka would be living or practicing or operating according to lightness. This is what this is about.
In other words, living in life of lightness. And so you have a light kind of existence. And the way this is described in the commentaries is that you are frugal. You live with few things. It is very closely. We have not been so before. But not being a burden for the lay people. You have a simple life. You have frugal. Your cutie is mostly empty. You look for what you can throw out rather than what you can accumulate. I remember this was a teaching that Abraham gave many, many years ago. Probably before any of you were here, maybe 20 years ago or something. And he said this was in these days when he was much more kind of stronger in the way he taught Dhamma. He was just like a soft puppy. And those as he was kind of steel there. And he would say, always go back to a cutie. See what you can throw out. That was one of his pieces of advice in those days. And I think it is a good piece of advice actually. But he hasn't said that for a long time now. So you have a frugal way of living. You are simple with things. Again, very beautiful part of this thing. Let's just go to the end of this verse before we call it a day here. Then we have the idea of peaceful faculties.
Sant Indria, Indria faculty, Santa again. Santa peaceful. Judicious is here, nipako. So the idea of peaceful faculties basically means that you have a degree of sensory strength. Your faculties here means the six sense faculties, especially the five ones. You don't get attracted to the things of the world and rejecting and having aversion to the things of the world. But you have like a mind that is kind of smooth rather than kind of going up and down all the time. The idea of Sant Indria. And so this is very closely related to the idea of the sensory strength. And there is a very beautiful sutra on sensory strength that you may want to have a look at in this particular connection. And I thought maybe you are having a look at it at some point. That is the Indria Bhavanasuta, the last sutra and the Magi Manikaya, 152, the development of the faculties. And it talks about the three stages of development of the faculties, the three degrees of peace if you like. And the first one is the ordinary development of the Putujana, the ordinary person who is practicing the path. This is the ordinary sensory strength where you try, you understand the danger and you kind of move your mind away from those things that are problematic and give rise to all kinds of reverberations in your mind. The ordinary sensory strength. Then you have the sensory strength of the noble ones, the second factor. The noble ones they know what is going on. And so they just have to keep it up and kind of carry on, remind themselves of this one.
This is a much higher level of peaceful faculties. And then you have the peaceful faculties of the Arahant, is the third stage in that particular sutra. And the way it is described is beautiful. It talks about how to have a sensory strength. And it's one of the really nice ways of talking about sensory strength, where you how to reflect on that. The reflection that all of these things are conditioned, they are made up, they are not peaceful and these kind of things. And some very beautiful reflections there on the, which is different from the ordinary formula for sensory strength. So maybe one day we can have a look at that because it's quite nice. So you have peaceful faculties, you keep that sensory strength. You don't allow your mind to be buffeted around by the things in the world. You are judicious. The English word judicious means that you have good judgment. You have judgment about what is good, what is bad, who to hang out with, who not to hang out with. You are judicious about the world in general. So you know what you should follow and what you should not follow. The Pali word is nipakkou. Nipakkou is one of these words that is actually quite hard to pin down. And Bantu Soudrato tries to alert. And he argues it has more to do with mindfulness.
You are alert. So we are kind of in the area where we are as a crossover between wisdom on the one hand and mindfulness on the other hand. So there is like sati sampajanya instead, kind of coming together in this particular word. So the commentary is they talk about nipakkou as having to do with wisdom. And that is why the bikubodi tries it as a judicious because making good judgment means a degree of wisdom. But the good judgment also has to do with sati sampajanya. Sati sampajanya is about going into the village, having sati sampajanya, but going in at the right time, in the right way, eating and talking and all of these kinds of things. So it also is part of that in a sense. So it has this double meaning alertness, wisdom, sati sampajanya. All of these things are kind of part of this idea of nipakkou. I have to admit, it is not a very common word in the sutta. So the flat reason is a bit difficult to really pin it down. But I remember Adasudhata once had this long explanation for why it meant mindfulness. And I think he was probably what he does, he said probably quoting pre-Buddhist texts as well. That is kind of what he does these days, and trying to draw out the meaning from that, which can be very interesting.
But it is generally interesting, but obviously one has to find a balance between using that and using the kind of received Buddhist meanings of these things. Okay, last line of this particular verse. So here we have kirtius, upagaboh, not kind of bad, not pagaboh, in what is the word insolent, I think is one of the words that is used for translating pagaboh. Insolent means like opposite or kirtius, it is like you are rude or whatever. So kirtius, it is kind of nice word. It is almost like an old-fashioned word, you are kirtius. It is like a butler or something like that, you know, kirtius. You treat people well, basically, it is what it means, kirtius. You treat people with consideration. You are considerate in the way you treat other people. Kind, these kind of things. You can see the variety of sea lahir, the sea lah, of course, not doing the bad things, but kirtius is a very positive thing. You treat people with care, it is a very positive way of treating people. It is not just avoiding the bad, it is actually going out of your way to treat people with kindness. So it is kind of a beautiful way of thinking about the sea lahir. And then you have the last one here, without greed among families. Kulesu, an anugido. And kulesu is the kula, is the family, or the clans among the clans. And an anugido, anugido is literally greed or desire, so it means without greed among families.
And that means that when you go out to visit people, and that was common in those days, you go to a dana, you go to visit somebody, because maybe they are going to off a cloth after the rains retreat, or whatever it is. When you do that, you are not greedy about things. You go to someone's family, you are, you accept whatever it is. And if they give a donation, you do not say, is that all? I am joking, of course. I don't think anyone, that would be extraordinarily rude to say if anyone said that. So, but you are not, you don't even think that. You are kind of just, you are, of course, you are very, you just kind of are happy, or whatever happens basically. So this is the idea of not being greedy among families, this idea of just accepting what comes when you are out there. And it is actually a nice thing. I mean, like you can see that sometimes in your mind, sometimes you do things, and you put in a lot of effort, yeah, you go somewhere, you do a funeral service or whatever. And then, I don't know if you know something like that, just say, okay, good bye, see you later.
And, you know, normally you expect people to give a donation, because you have been using $20 in petrol, you come all this way. So it is kind of reasonable to give a small donation if you do that. But sometimes it doesn't happen. Okay, you have to shrug your shoulders and carry on, right? So you can see how easily it is to have that expectation, yeah, that someone is going to do something, and to do things without any kind of expectation. That is really the holy grail here of not having greed among families. No expectation at all. You come to someone's house and they give you exactly what you don't want. I remember Jean-Brahm told me the story, he went to California once. And in California there was this Sri Lankan man, yeah, and he had called up the monastery beforehand, asked, what does Ajahn Brahm want to eat? He said he likes this, he does not like Sri Lankan food, that's bad for his tummy, he likes kind of fish and chips, like these things. And then Ajahn Brahm comes to this person's house, and what does he get? Sri Lankan food, yeah.
That's kind of, okay then you kind of, maybe you might feel a bit sort of what's going on here. But I, as one of those very interesting moments for Ajahn Brahm I think, yeah.
But still, yeah, okay, you go with the flow, so you accept what is going on, you don't have greed among families. And this idea of being greedy or being stingy about things is a very kind of common refrain or common kind of thing that you find in the suit, as it's called machari in the suit, as Ajahn being stingy or about things. So one of the things about greedy who can extend this idea to stinginess, and one of the kind of stinginess, which I think is quite interesting, is that one kind of thing is actually stinginess when it comes to families, yeah. These are my disciples, they kind of look after me, don't come to my disciple, yeah. My disciple, they only look after me, that kind of thing, yeah. That is not a good idea for monastics to have my person or disciples look after me. And one of the things that I have noticed in Ajahn Brahm always says, sometimes you get people, and they come to you, and they say, I would like to be a disciple. It happened to me many, many times. It happened to Ajahn Brahm probably lots of times, like heaps of times. And I always say, no, you shouldn't be a disciple of an individual, you should be a disciple of the Buddha-Dhamma-Sanga.
And I think that is the right way, not having personal disciples, but pointing everyone towards the Dhamma, because then that makes them independent in their understanding of the Dhamma. They don't become reliant on a single person, which is always dangerous. That person may disrupt. One day you may feel incredibly hurt, because the person you had faith in actually turns out to be much less than you thought. So never have that sense of these are my disciples. Don't be greedy with families. Okay, this is my person has offered me, offering. If you have a fellow monastic who needs something, you can go to that person who's made nothing. Would you mind helping my fellow monk instead? They need something. Share everything. Share even the people who support you. Another kind of stinginess, which is kind of really nice, is the idea, not nice, which is bad, is the idea of stinginess with the Dhamma. Stinginess of the Dhamma means that you have certain people you teach in a certain way. You give them the Dhamma, but these other ones, no, you don't teach them as well, because they're not your close disciples or whatever it is.
So you have this idea of a core group of people who become your real disciples, and you have an outer ring of people, not as core. This is how you create sects. This is how you create cults, because cults are always about this idea having an inner circle, an outer circle. And one of the things that the Buddha warns against in the Maha Pandey Vana Sutra specifically, I don't have a teacher's fist. They're one of the things you see in the Maha Pandey Vana Sutra. And so again, this idea of not being stingy with the Dhamma, that Dhamma be open to all. That is why we have the Dhamma on YouTube. That's why we have the Dhamma available for the whole world. That is why even the talks that Rambram is giving here, during the reigns retreat, are now being released on the internet. So everyone can hear the Dhamma that they feel ready for. It's a little bit dangerous, because not everyone is ready for all kinds of Dhamma. But in general, I think it's a really, really good principle. So this is a very extended idea of without greed among families, but just adding a few things for just for, because they are there in the sutas. And so for that reason, interesting. So two verses, I had expected to get much longer, to be honest, but this is what happens.
Does anyone want to make any comments or say anything about this? Please, sir. Who is in court in the world, and how did you talk about the certain people who have been in court with Dhamma? That is a very interesting point. I haven't even considered that, actually. So now you have caught me, was caught me red-hand? What's the word? It caught me in the difficult state of not knowing what to say. Have you looked at the commentary? No, I don't. So usually what you would do, go to Bikubodi's translation.
It's in the library. He has a big fat translation, and the whole commentary is translated in there as well. And the commentary will give you an explanation. Usually we give you the background story, and why this was spoken. So, yeah, it's probably that probably I would guess that these are spoken by, would be said to be spoken by the Buddha. Very, very likely I would say. It doesn't say that, but that's probably who it would be attributed to. I would think. So, yeah. So of course, the commentary explanations are always uncertain. We don't know, but sometimes the commentary may have some real information that is interesting.
So it may be worthwhile to have a look anyway. The Padamata Jot D. Ka, the splendor of the supreme, the ultimate meaning of something like that is the name of the commentary. Anything else, everyone happy? Anyone unhappy? Those who are unhappy should speak up. That was a chance. Okay, let's go a little bit.
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