117: Retreat Dhamma Talk 12: Five Qualities Needed for Successful Meditation

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SPEAKER_01 0:38

Retruit series. I'm on top number twelve. Yeah, we are practicing Satipathana Vipassana meditation. At least immediately to get peace in our life, whatever level that we can have based on the level of our practice. As you are practicing this meditation, always we gather and listen to the Buddha's Dharma. And when you listen, there are two things we need to understand. First of all, you need to listen very carefully and attentively. And secondly, you listen in such a way it goes from your ear to your heart. Those are the two things that's needed. Not simply just listen for the gist of it. And if you listen that way, what happens is as your understanding of Buddha Dharma grows, your confidence in it also grows. And then what kind of things are required as you go along at a certain stage, at a certain condition. These are all a part of the talks. And each talk, a certain aspect of the Buddha's instructions are contained. And in here we are listening. The purpose of this listening is to grow a confidence and to learn more information or facts about the Dharma, especially on a practical level. All the practitioners we are called the yogis. And of course there are many different levels and many different objectives towards the practice. But for any yogis who would like to practice so they can reach the final objective, the goal. And if there's the final objective, there are five dhammas or five qualities that the yogi needs to possess. These are absolutely necessary so that one can attain a final objective. For the serious practitioners, the people who are going off, doing the long retreats. And what are these five? These five qualities that is required for a yogi to possess. The first one, of course, we always know what is the starting point of everything. The starting point of everything is sadha, faith and confidence. That is totally required, not only this, for anything, whatever you are going to do, if you don't have a confidence in whatever you are going to do or approach or deliver, nothing would really run well. It is the beginning of the success for everything that you do. So in here do sattha, faith or confidence is necessary. And secondly, the Buddha said health. Health is necessary. In other words, you must be healthy. Healthy so that you can practice the Dharma with great seal. And in here, what does it mean by you must be healthy? We all have some degree of illness or disease. Especially nowadays, the most science advanced. Or maybe the environment has changed, the number of diseases increase and increase and increase, new diseases arise. So in here doesn't mean that you must be totally free of any kind of disease or illness. Because it is the nature of humans. We are born with a certain disease and we have a certain disease and we experience a certain disease. Some diseases are in your body all the time. It is that your immune system is so strong it keeps you under route. But as soon as your immune system goes down, go up, they arise. So that is the health aspect of it. And the third one, the third one is sincerity. A yogi who is going to succeed to the stage of enlightenment. That quality must enhab it. And the third, that is the third, and the fourth one is we all know too well one quality that nobody can do without for anything. Any project, anything that is achievable. Especially in this practice, varia, energy and effort. And the fifth one is binya, insight or wisdom. So those are the five. These are the five qualities or five constituents or parts that a yogi must possess if once wants to succeed in the practice to the final objective. So the first one, sadha. We have heard many a times. We have taught since from our beginner class, we approached the sadha. Sadha translate as verifiable faith or confidence. Some people just mostly you will see only fake confidence. But I like to add it an extra word, verifiable faith and confidence. So in here, first and foremost is what do you have faith in? You must have faith in the Buddha. That is number one. And in here, for people who are born as a Buddhist, born and raised in a Buddhist world, Buddhist country, they don't have much problem of believing or having faith in the Buddha. But in the West who are not grown, grow up in this Buddhist world, sometimes there's a difficulty. Some people do, some people don't, but because it is more on a personal basis, a person. Buddha, a person, and actually he was a person. He was on this not as a God. He's a human being like us, but he had practice like eons and eons of lives so that he could become a Buddha. That much effort he put. His first life when he wished, or when he wished to become a Buddha, when he decided at one day he would like to become a Buddha, at that moment he could have attained Nipanna, the end of all physical and mental suffering. In a few seconds, if he had listened to the Buddha Dharma, at that time the Buddha's name was Buddha Sikhi. If he listened it simply he would have attained Nippana. But he decided, no. He looked at that Buddha Sikhi and he was so overwhelmed with what the Buddha has done for the human race, including every being, whatever there is in touch with that. So he wanted to become and he pride, decided, said to that Buddha, I would like to become a Buddha one day, just like you, and helped many people, many living beings. And the Buddha assessed his qualities and he knows that he could become. He said, Okay, one day you will become a Buddha under the name of Gaudama, Buddha, but till then you have to practice. That was based on the confidence in the Buddha. Based on that confidence, his chanda. Desire is so strong. Desire is so strong. He even gave up his own enlightenment and liberation, which he could have had instantly if he simply listened by simply listening to the Dharma talk of that Buddha. It started with this faith and confidence and the chanda or desire that arises out of it. Even a Buddhahood, to become a Buddha, starts with sadha and faith. And that kind of a thing for the Westerner, it is difficult to accept. There are many stories, of course. And if that's the case, so be it, because you are not born in this world where the whole country, the parents, everything, the environment is a Buddhist. It's understandable. And for those kind of people, the suggestion would be focus on the Dharma. Dharma is what the Buddhists taught. Dharma is what we are practicing. So approach from the angle of Dhamma. Because Dharma is no person involved. No person involved. And also everything is accessible, readable, understandable, discussable, and it's dug up to any kind of analysis and criticism for over 2500 years. Time tested. So direct your faith or sadha towards the Dharma and look into the Dharma. Approach through Dharma for this practice because it is totally, absolutely necessary, this faith and confidence is if you are approaching this particular project or any other project. That is the beginning of the success, step one of the success. So in here, confidence into the Buddha or confidence into the Dharma, whichever one you like, and also confidence in the Sangha. Sangha is the persons who practice Buddha Dharma, totally invested their life in the Buddha Dharma. Learn, practice, and when they are filled enough, they turn around and share with others, teach others. Those are Sangha in general. But more specifically we call it Ariya Sangha. Ariya Sangha is one word practice and then attained the noble status, Ariya Sangha. They have gone beyond the putujana or ordinary worldings and pass the threshold and go into the noble domain, Ariya domain. For those people, you have a faith and confidence in it. And also in the law of causal effect, causal relationship, cause and effect. Everything in this universe is explainable and operated through the causal relationship, cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect. Nothing is beyond that cause and effect. Nothing is outside that cause and effect. That one needs to believe. And another name for that cause and effect in a scriptural sense is called karma. Karma is also the law that explains cause and effect. You cause this, this happened, you cause that, that happened. That relationship. So whenever you approach something, you always use this to cause and effect. If things are explainable true, under the microscope of cause and effect and logic, you understand and you can accept very easily. Everybody can accept very easily that it's true and correct. It is true. I take it as truth because it is provable. So that is one thing. And as you have been steady, have you studied and then also practice and understand to a certain level? You know everything you have done so far is explainable and verifiable through the tool of cause and effect. And these are the tools and these are the process, these are the investigation, what we know as sada, that give rise to sadha. So when you have verified as such, you become more certain, it's assured, you by yourself that it is true and correct, acceptable, and it is provable. To a certain degree it's already proven, but based on that assumption, if you carry on, if it follows and falls in the realms of this cause and effect, must be true, and you carry on. The sadhas become very strong. And with that stada, you can approach. And of course, first level is the intellectual and a certain small steps of the beginning of investigation. In other words, the practice. And as you practice, things unfold through your own experience. And then what happened is you begin to understand what the scripture says, the points in the scripture sets through your personal experience and the practice. And then sadha arose again. So that is sadha. Sada is not static. If you practice, it keeps growing, it keeps increasing, it keeps growing and increasing. And people with sadha become unshakable. Even only at this first step level, if you possess this quality, sadha, you become unshakable in the cause that you are searching or practicing or following. That is one of the qualities a yogi must have. And secondly, we already touched to a certain degree the health. We know that we all have illness and diseases, things like that. But that doesn't mean that from the Buddhist point of view you are unhealthy or not healthy enough not to practice. And then what? The answer is if one is, okay, every day we have to take food and water. Air is given, air we breathe all the time. Next to the air, food and water for nutrition, for sustenance, to sustain this body going alive. And that is a very important matter because that sustains your existence, provide nutrition. In other words, it's called ji life. Jiwa, which is the physical. Physical aspect of life and mental aspect of life. This physical aspect of life needs nutrition. So we eat, we eat, we eat. When we eat, what is the next step? The body has to digest. And the body knows what to do, what to keep, what to provide into the bodily system of nutrition and what to discuss. Waste is discarded. That is the digestion process. You eat, properly digest it, as long as it is going well, then it is going quite well. If not, your nutrition doesn't go into the system. It might go into the waste because digestion is not good. Or if not, you can't even digest, become bloated, and you know exactly what happens then. No need to go into detailed explanation. So if one is able to eat well, and then able the body is able to digest, that part from the Buddhist point of view, you are healthy. You can have a sustain that sustain the body. If you have a good digestion, if you can eat well, if you can sleep well, and if you have a good digestion, that is considered healthy. Healthy enough to practice the Dharma. You may have blood pressure, you might have a high cholesterol, you may have anything, diabetes or this or that. But as long as you can eat well, you can sleep well, and you can digest well, it is considered healthy. So that is what it means by health. And that is also absolutely necessary. If you don't have that health well, you won't be able to practice. And in here too, if you look at it, some people have, especially in the East, misnomer. Or when you're young, even the tradition, belief, you're young, you go after education. After that, in the midspark, you go after your wealth, family, things like that. And when you get old, retired, that is the time you settle down and you practice dharma. That is the way some of the traditions, some of the culture, belief, not only belief, that is the way people live. But just look at the digestion and see how it goes. When you are young, that is where you have the best sleep and the best eating system and best digestive system. The older and older you get, that becomes more and more deficient. And also many things creep in, all sorts of things. That is when you start finding your arteries are clogged up. It takes about 60, 70 years to clog up. That's a time your diabetes goes up, your blood pressure goes up, and so on and so on. So that concept we should abandon it. It is not only when you're old you start practicing this. Start when you're young. Start whenever you have the opportunity. So that concept, this normal of wait till you are finished all your life work looking after yourself, your family, your children, then I do. That is too late already. Your energy starts to wane. After 50, start to wake, not very noticeable. After 60, very noticeable. 70, no need to talk about it anymore. Of course, always there's an exception to the rule, but in general that's the pattern. And also your mental faculty, your memory system starting to fail. So I'd like to add one thing. Don't wait. Don't wait. As soon as you see the opportunity, that's when you stop. Regardless of how young. And even when you're young, you have the opportunity. If you have a chance, push as much as you can. Oh no, I'm busy with this, I'm busy with that. Oh, I'm starting to accumulate information, I'm starting to get a little bit of stamina in the meditation. Don't do it that way. Whenever you have an opportunity, push. That is the little side story I'd like to relate it into this health system. Don't wait. And the third one is sincerity. Sincerity is extremely important in this practice. One must be sincere. And we are talking about yogis who are practicing. You are already practicing. Those are the yogis. Especially the Sitiputana Vipassana. In there, as you know, there is a constant relationship between the teacher and the student on a daily basis. Especially at the beginning. You report and teachers listen and correct. Basically, correcting what you do wrong and then inserting a few things, what you do back. That's about it. It's not a psychological analysis. It is about reporting exactly what happened and then adding up what needs to be done, correcting what needs to be corrected. That's it. So in there, you find we have all sorts of personality among the practitioners. Some have ego, some are humble, some are a little bit sharp and bright, and they're quite quick with mind. And all personalities, some are simple, honest and straightforward, some are very humble. But regardless, there's always an environmental pressure. Because you are practicing and practicing. Of course, when you practice it, you practice under a teacher who you have confidence. So as you are practicing under a teacher who you have confidence, you don't want your teacher to think that you are not doing well or working well or smart enough. That kind of a thing. In other words, ego and pride. In a different way it's presenting your ego. So what happened was some people are well read, some people heard many other people talking about it. Among the yogis they discussed, about 50, 100 yogis practicing. There's always a discussion going on. Little clip, little group that you have. And you are supposed to be reporting what you are doing, in other words, what you are doing is whether you are doing it correctly, that is manifested or shown by what you are experiencing. And these kind of reports, some exaggerate a little, some exaggerate a lot. Some even say. Whatever they perceive that the teacher might like to hear. Those are the things. Basically, you can call it a little white lies. No, nothing, I don't hurt anybody. At the same time, you don't want to be looked down upon by the teacher. But the teachers are not there to look down, the teacher is there simply to help you, to correct you wherever that little things are going wrong. And they are so happy whenever someone is progressing, someone is trying really hard. But the perception is different. So you have white lies, you exaggerate, you boast, that kind of thing. So sincerity and the morality. Your morality, in the aspect of the morality, you must be sincere. Report exactly as it. Some have they call it in what is called Maya. Maya is let's call it pretender. Pretender. It means in front of the teacher, they act like perfectly opposed, very well managed, nothing, don't talk, nothing. As soon as you go around the corner, next building, next corner, another building, as soon as you meet your fellow yogis, you start talking. Cha-cha-cha-cha. In fact, some of the yogis they even look to somebody to chat. Because this is not one day, two days, three days. We are talking about two months, three months, six months. So when I go to that stretch, long stretches, our old urges take over, like to talk. But as soon as you come in front of the teacher, they might even say, please give me permission to talk. Like I said, it was just, you will never talk without the permission. But around the corner, two hours ago, you already talked. That is called Maya or pretender. This is just a little example to see what it means by sincerity. These little things, it seems like so small, not effective. But when you are training the mind, when you are practicing the objective is the most valuable thing in humans to be totally liberated from physical suffering and mental suffering. That is priceless. You cannot buy with any amount of gold or money or whatever. That is the one. And for that, you need that total sincerity and morality. And also in terms of virtues, you must be totally sincere of a virtue of your virtues. Okay? Let's say let's simplify it so that we can understand. You're practicing. You're practicing and of course you have experienced and understood what is mind, discriminative awareness of mind and matter. The causal relationship between mind and matter. You have experienced it. But you want to let the teacher know, or even other yogis, fellow yogis know, oh, I have experienced this rising and falling and such and such, such and such. You retold the story of what you have heard from somebody or where you have read from somewhere. In other words, you are virtuous, you are filled with these kind of qualities. Or some people even, oh, I'm Sautapana, which is the first noble person, the first dream winner. That kind of thing. They say, I am. Some people actually say oh love, I am. And some people they don't say they act like they pretend to be. Virtues that you don't have, you try to float around. That is insincerity, immorality, and virtues, and also many other things, of course. We can go on and on. And in those aspects, when you are practicing, you have to be that honest and sincere. Exactly as it is. You practice, what do you know? All that you really know is rising, falling, rising, falling, rising, sitting, falling. If that's the case, you just say only that. One day, there, a week later, that's all you know. Just say that. A month later, you know that, just simply say that. You haven't experienced anything, just simply say it. But after about a month, you can't report anything new. Automatically, the pressure comes down on you by yourself. It's not the teacher who is pushing, it is you automatically having that pressure. And even the honest, normally honest, sincere yogis, after about a month, if you have no progress, automatically the condition force you to do these insincere things. I'm talking especially for people who are going into long retreats and who are doing long retreats. And as soon as you do that, automatically you break one of the most important foundations of the practice. Sila. Morality. It is not that you have to lie, somebody fall down and die, or this or that, or get lots of money, lose love, nothing. In here is so settled, you are working on the mind. You are working for the purity of the mind. So sincerity is extremely important for a yogi who want to really excel and attain the final objective. First sadha, second is health, and third is sincerity. Number four. Number four is everybody's know. We have heard all we have talked, discussed so many times. Some people even probably tired of hearing. Energy and effort, variya. But let's have a little summary about it, even though we have heard before. This effort is in a practice you need three levels. Again, we are talking about the serious practitioners. Right at the beginning, you have the initial effort. Initial effort is a lot easier because you are very eager. Because of your eagerness, as soon as you have sattha and desire, chanda, there's an abundant amount of energy, and that really keeps you up to a certain level. And after a while, that's used up, the energy is gone. And the next step, the next step is you have to actually boost up that energy. In other words, you have to crank it up. Because the next step is the level where you see difficulty. As an example, is you come, you don't have much progress, you have no progress, then energy wanes, and that is difficulty. That is the time you have to crack it up. Or you are practicing the pain, it is torturing you so much, eventually it exhausts you. You're physically exhausted, mentally exhausted, you want to give up. That is difficult, that is obstacle. That is the time you have to boost up your energy. So you can imagine this and that, and all sorts of difficulties and obstacles come your way in the middle section of your practice. That is about after about three weeks or four weeks, those things come in, that is what will take you down, make you weak, and make you want to surrender. That is the time you have to boost up your energy. That's the second stage. And when you can apply enough effort to overcome all these difficulties, you have passed that. After you pass that, still you have quite a distance to go to the final objective. At that time, you need another determination. I'm going to keep on applying this energy till I reach the goal, the objective. That is, your final goal is liberation, to be liberated from all physical and mental suffering. That's why we can name it that energy, the final distance running. It's called liberating energy. Just like long-distance runner, the last mile or the last couple of miles is the toughest. You have nothing left but as a determination, I will reach the finish line. So that is the three levels of energy one needs to understand. And most importantly is to be able to apply to overcome the difficulties. So this is effort. And effort needs to be applied in many things, of course. You need to sustain your meditation, you need to overcome. And you need effort to apply so that the mind could always direct and in contact with the object that is arising. You need your effort, you need your energy. So directing the mind. And secondly, not only directing the mind, not only once, not only twice, to be able to keep doing the same thing for an extended period of time, which means continuously applying in the same process again and again and again. That's another part. You need to apply energy in there. And then after a while, difficulty comes in and your confidence wanes. Your fate wanes in the process. At that time, you need to apply to keep maintaining that confidence. It's not just only applying towards the mind towards the object. You have to apply for this confidence to sustain the level not to drop. You have to do that. And also, while you're practicing, especially when you're down, or when especially when you're progressing, what happened? There's an attack. Attack of what? Slop and torpor. Simply put, laziness and sleepiness jump onto you. At that time, you need this effort. This effort is apply to keep yourself alert, to keep yourself awake. Alert and awake. See? You just say apply effort, apply effort. What is it for? If you want to look in details, see other details. All these things are like we are talking separately, but everything is happening. You need to apply to keep yourself awake, alert, and sharp. That's also rather needed. And then there will be a lot of what you call the surrounding environmental disturbance, which is fellow yogis, or it could be meditation teacher, because in the big center there are many teachers, you don't get along with it, you don't like it, you felt like you have been singled out, and all these kinds of things. There's a food, I don't like this food, this is spicy food, or this is too bland, and so on. Oh, the volunteers were doing there so much noisy, they don't understand. All these things, environmental, anything that can create aversion in you from your surroundings, these are and will be always there. When you have that, you have to have effort to maintain the patience and tolerance towards all these things that can create aversion in you. There's an effort. These are the effort I'm describing in on a practical term. There's effort. And then you practice. Eventually you sink into a certain level. Sink you're in a certain level and you are growing, you are progressing. At a certain level of the progress, you begin to feel all the nice and good experiences that one will encounter from the meditation. These experiences are, if you are truly experiencing continuously, they are extremely good, extremely pleasant. It is like nothing you have ever experienced before. It is nothing to all the experience that you have, sense pleasure in your daily life, any kind of sense pleasure, superior to that. So what happened was it is really enjoyable and you got hooked into it. You like it and you stay into it. At that time you need effort. Effort to abandon those nice experiences, effort to let go of these experiences. So effort is in every part of the stages of your meditation, is needed. All different aspects. And in these three levels, all these little things are involved. One must be acutely aware. Sometimes you work the effort with patience, sometimes you work the effort with tolerance, sometime you work the effort with confidence, or to maintain the confidence, that kind of thing. So that is effort. Number four quality that yogi needs. And the fifth one. The fifth one is pinya. Vinya is called insight or wisdom. To put it very straightforward, it is the understanding of the mind and matter as they really are. Stage by stage, you go. There's a vipassana insight or vipassana wisdom. That is just in this world, you haven't passed the threshold to be a real honorable person yet. In the scripture, you will find 13 different stages. You go through all these things and your understanding of these things. And your understanding of these things, when you talk it, it is in the book quite easy. You read the five phrases, oh I understand. But when you are practicing and your experience to connect with these, what is described in the scriptures, that is a little tricky one. There you need an experienced and competent teacher to point you up, not ahead of time. Whenever you are experiencing, when you become skillful in your experience, that is what it is. That is where again the relationship between the teacher and the student, or in other words, the fit or confidence the students have in the teacher, Satta come into play again. These are the qualities the yogi needs. So the 13 stages. And if you even go over the 13 stages, there's still more insight. At that time they don't call it insight anymore, they call it binyana. Meka nnana. Jnana is also wisdom. Binya is also wisdom. Insight is also wisdom. So that is the wisdom of the path. And there are four different levels of parts. These are binya. But we won't discuss those in detail because it is better to discuss and talk about it when you are there. Otherwise, it gives you for the room just simply to imagine and live in a land. Because of that, you might even think or dream that you are there because the mind wants to be there at the spinya. So those are the five things that a yogi who wants to be successful in this practice must have. The five qualities. So in here we stress again about effort. How to what support this effort? What create this effort? What are conducive to effort? First and foremost is you must have the right practice, the correct practice. If you don't have the correct practice, you might be putting a lot of effort. If you don't do the correct practice properly as instructed, you might do an enormous amount of effort, but it is not the productive effort. To put an example, in front of one of the scriptures, it's written here. At night, there was a person who has to cross the river. He's running away or whatever for a certain reason and can't see anything. There's no moonlight. So he goes there by the river, jump into the boat, and there's a paddle. He was so happy, he just rowing and rowing and paddling and paddling and paddling. When the lights come in, he found that he's still on this side of the river, at the right by the top, where the canoe is. Why? Because he hasn't untied the rope, the dock. The boat was tied to, but he was rowing and rowing. But he hasn't moved an inch. What is that? If you tied up yourself, which is English. That's attachment. Sanyosana. Attachment. If you haven't cut the attachment, and if you jump into the practice, you might be practicing for three months or six months, but your mind has never left what you are attached to. Your home, your family, and so on. You will not go an inch farther. That's one thing you need to know about effort. And then for the Westerner, the Westerners, some of the weatherers, they just jump in with both feet and they really go in. They left everything, they don't think about anything. I'm going to do it. But even those people, they have one big attachment they must be very careful about. Their attachment is you're practicing. As you are practicing, they are well read. They are well-versed, they listen, they work very hard. And they like what they hear, they like what they see, they like what they read, and they practice very hard. But one thing is, one of the attachments left is the Dharma, they practice and they analyze and they figure out and they try to put all the Dharma theory into it. Oh, it is this, what I am practicing, this, this is the Dharma, this is where it be. The analysis and reflection of the Dharma goes on and on and on and on. And if you are at that stage, there is no meditation in you anymore. But in your mind, you think you are doing a fantastic job, great job, just like rowing the boat, which is tied to the dog. You might be rowing ten hours, you won't move an inch. The same thing. If your mind is on the reflective awareness or analysis or thinking, not other things, simply about Dharma and the practice, you won't move. In other words, your attachment is to the reflective or thinking process of the Dharma. That is the most common obstacle or attachment for the Westerner who are practicing very hard. That's one thing. So faith and confidence can produce effort. Chanda can produce effort. If you have desire, it will produce effort. Faith and confidence will produce effort. If you have the right method or the right technique, it will produce effort. Because the right method and the right technique, following instruction to a T, it will show you progress, it will unfold the mind and matter very quickly and easily. Because of that, your effort grows and grows. They unfold, they reaffirm what you know. They are confidence grows, effort grows. These are the things that produce or increase your effort. Chandar, desire, the right technique, the right method to follow. Effort is everywhere as we all know. And these are the things that we need to know. And if you are really practicing hard with the objective of releasing the objective or the final goal, you must possess. These are the jewels or the property of a serious yogi. Sadha, faith and confidence, health, sincerity, effort, and wisdom. So may all of you be able to practice Satipathana Vipatana meditation seriously. And may you all process these five qualities to attain the objective and soon as possible.