129: Retreat Dhamma Talk 24: Refined Heedfulness: Objective and Responsibility

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SPEAKER_01 0:05

Ramado Samma Sam Bodhasa Ramado Samma Sam Bodhasama Ramado Sam Bodasa Retreat Series Tamata Number Twenty Four. We are discussing about refined heatfulness. There are three level. Our teachers taught us in the three level, not in the script, but for us to understand. The gross form of heatfulness is observing precepts. The middle form or middle length level of heatfulness is restrict to the senses. And the third one is the refined form of hatefulness, which is in short practicing vipassana. Okay, Satipattana Vipassana. And in here, the Buddha has taught us the same practicing vipassana in many different ways from many different angles based on the people, the group, situation, and their understanding. We have discussed quite a few ways of approach to the refined form of heatfulness. The last time we have discussed ordina wokti and an ordina wokti, which is inferior, subscended, vulgar habits that people may practice while they are practicing vipassana meditation, satipatthana vipassana meditation. If that's the case, that is called heedless, refined level of heedless. And if one is not practicing these substantive, vulgar, inferior way of habits, then it is the refined form of heedfulness. So in here we already know what they are. What they are is you are practicing, and in there you stop and you start, you look around. It's all at the retreat level. You gaze around, you dream, daydreaming. And when you are putting these habits into the practice or observation, automatically your energy becomes weak. If that's called a fine form of heedlessness. Kilesa mental defilements come in. In other words, you still involve, live with these mental defilements in a very refined way. Keep that the key word is refined. But if you are observing those periods are the periods that you have totally abandoned your mental defilements. And when you abandon the mental defilements, these periods are called refined form of heatfulness. And the in the scriptures, in the commentators, have given example as a chameleon. Okay, we all we all know chameleon. Chameleon is they really run. If they see a food, they run. Or if they see a mate, they run and they run and they stop. They ran and they stop. They ran and they stop. They don't continuously run. So that's one example it gives. The yogis who are practicing that kind of a stop here, stop there, gaze here, gaze there, daydreaming, and so on. Those are like a chameleon type of yogis. And if that's the case, you will never get momentum. And if you don't get a momentum, that is definitely you won't have a continuous and constant mindfulness or hatefulness, which means you'll find form of heedlessness. That's one way of experiencing. And if you want to look in a yogi in an hour sitting within an hour or two, what it is is you move here, you move there. Whether you are thinking or you're not thinking or daydreaming, nobody knows, but you know yourself. You stretch here, you stretch here, change position, sometimes open air, eyes, and then look around who's here or who's doing what. Instead of observing yourself, you go around and observe other people. That is what in reality within an hour and even within a day two, okay, you practice really hard. Okay, in the morning, and suddenly the afternoon comes. The afternoon comes and you become lazy and you slow down. You don't put as much effort. In the evening, afternoon, late afternoon comes, you try hard again, and then when the evening comes, oh I'm practicing the whole day tired and you relax again. That is what it means by stop and start. You are still practicing, but the energy level that you apply is not the same. That's the chameleon yogis. That kind of thing. If you keep on doing that, what happened was the mind becomes weak. When the mind becomes weak, you are not alert anymore. And if you are not alert, and automatically there are many breaks and gaps. The same goes round and round. So in here you can see direct relationship between effort, effort and momentum, or continuity of observation. It's directly proportionate. The more effort you put, the more alert you become, the more continuously you can observe. The less effort you put, the more breaks and gaps arise in your observation. That's the chameleon yogi who practice inferior, substantive, vulgar habits in the in your meditation practice. So you become weak and tired, and in here there's two dhammas or two mental states we need to know. Okay, we already know, but just to be very clear about it. The first one is vitakha, which is called apply thought. In other words, you are directing your mind constantly to the object that is arising. Okay, apply thoughts or vitakat or samasankapa. Another one is virya effort. So vitak and varia, these two dharma. And whenever you are applying your mind, directing your mind towards the object, what it does is it expand and it spread the nature of the mind. Because whenever you are applying, you come in contact with the object and you're observing the object and the mind is busy, busy being. In other words, the mind expand, the mind spread, the mind is constantly keeping it busy. That is the weak deck, apply thoughts and effort. And whenever you put through effort, okay, just imagine moments and periods that you are really putting effort, something that you are doing. At that moment, you are in a you are very fresh. Freshness is there, you are not in a dull mode. You are fresh, you are alert. That is what effort does. Okay, apply thoughts, make your mind to expand and spread and cover. Effort makes you fresh and alert. People thought if you put effort, you become tired. But in accurate in practice, if you apply effort, the yogi become even more fresh and alert. Those are the two dharma one needs to know when you are practicing. So if you don't have these two mental states, automatically what happened? These substandard habits and practice comes in heedlessness, refined heedlessness. So it is just a summary of what we talked last week, approach in a slightly different way. And also we talk about sandatan, okay, desire, last week too. This sandatan or desire or chanda, noble desire. If you if your desire is not strong, if your desire is not strong or weak, that is called refined heedlessness, you are in a state of heedlessness. And if your desire is strong and firm, you are in the state of refined heedfulness, just in one word, that is what it means by chandata in here. So in here too, these to have these chanda, we focus on the chandak. But one thing is whatever you are going to do, in this case we are practicing this pure vipassana. Okay, satipattana vipassana. And if you are going to do, first and foremost, you must truly understand its benefits, what kind of benefits I can get. Okay, truly, not just one, two, three, four, five, and repeating these words. No, each word you know in depth. What are the consequences? What are the benefits? What kind of things apply? What can I gain? What kind of suffering that I am doing right now will disappear or abandon in that way. Don't just lightly look at it, okay? You all have a handout. Seven benefits of practicing vipassana. That is seven benefits is directly on the Lokudra, okay, ultra mantane level. But along with it, Lokia, even in this mundane world, that is not described in there. In fact, the yogis put more emphasis on it to have less stress, to be happy, to be peaceful, to be healthy, to get rid of the illness, and so on. We give more emphasis, but they are actually side benefits, small little one, which means the real seven benefits we don't truly understand. As you don't truly understand, you don't even give much emphasis. You give emphasis on stress and activities and illness and disease and curing diseases. That's the first thing one must truly and deeply understand what are the benefits. And once you understand the benefits, you are already practicing, so you have interest in it. And when you're practicing and when you understand the benefit, then you believe even stronger and stronger. When you understand deeper, your belief becomes even stronger and stronger. What is this belief? Sadha, verifiable faith. Simply put the word you believe. You believe in what you're doing, the verifiable faith. And when you have this faith and confidence come in, that is the time. The desire arises. This faith or belief or confidence. That is the cause and the desire, chanda is the effect. That's a relationship. So one must know the benefits really well. And you also believe in the practice what the Buddhist is taught, and you also believe if you truly practice this, these results can be attained. You can get it, you can become the possessor of it. And once you have that, automatically the desire starting to arrive, which is called chandak, noble desire. So in here, you must have this kind of step-by-step cause and effect relationship to get into the desire. And when you have this desire, what happens? The desire is the cost. Applying effort is the affair. The desire is the cost, applying effort is the effect. And applying effort, okay? Wariya. You must know that the energy is the effort. And once you have that energy, then what could happen? You actually actually go into execution and action. Efforts mean your energy is there. That energy has to be expanded. You actually go into action. And once you do this action, what happened? The results will follow. And in here, this chanda desire. We just talk in a one big word. Okay. I'm waving. Now you can split into each. First and foremost, you must have a desire to chanda, desire to receive or to get the benefits. And then because of that, suddenly what happened? The energy arises, an effort. So in here, you must have a desire to apply the effort. Now the desire is splitting into pieces. And then with that energy, with that effort, you are executing all these actions. You must have a desire to implement those actions. And then once you apply those desires, implement those desires, how do you put? You don't put mediocre, you both put average, you put it boldly and you put it bravely. You must have a desire to put boldly and bravely. So this chanda is simply not at the beginning, oh I want this. This chanda, this is applied to each and every aspect of this cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect length. Desire to receive the benefits, and then desire to apply the effort, desire to execute with precision, and then desire to practice boldly and bravely, and then at that moment you will experience the result. You will get the result. The result that you understand at the beginning theoretically because what is said in the scripture, now you are actually experiencing it. In other words, you are tasting the benefits of your own practice. So to be able to have this desire, desire, desire, desire aspect, you must have the continuum and constant desire in every aspect of this whole process. And if you have that continuing and constant desire in the whole process, definitely that means you have the refined heatfulness. If you don't have that, that means you have the refined heedlessness. So this is a different way of explaining chanda. The last talk we explained it, but this talk too we still re-explain, resummarize, but showing you from a different angle to understand. So those are the two. And then again, Buddha taught us again about this, how to practice in a different way again. And in here, the key words it dura. Okay, this is a dura. What is dura means? It is the we can translate it as uh duty and responsibility. One aspect of this dura means duty and responsibility. Doesn't matter, we don't know really much about Pali words. It is the duty and responsibility, that's one aspect of it. Plus, another meaning in there is the you can call it goal or objective. Those two meanings are in there. So based on the duty and responsibility and goals and objective, based on that, the Buddha explain to us again about how to practice the Satipatthana Vipassana. And in here, actually, the Buddha is showing how to practice from the angle of effort. Okay, varia itself. This effort you will hear this word. In whichever angle he is talking, this effort is always there. You already heard that effort so many times, but in here he totally emphasized the main, okay, the main point of this whole explanation is effort. So effort is what is application of the processes. While you are practicing mindfulness insight meditation, you apply effort. And this effort they are at least for us to understand, we would have put in the three level of understanding. The third is the initial, okay, initial element of alpha. He just put the use datu. Okay. Arambat is the element, initial element of applying effort. And the second one is so we takama datu. That is the sustained application of applying the effort, the element again. And the third one is but it's all in Pali. But act to make it very simple, when you're applying effort, there are three levels and three stages. The first level is when somebody starts something, it is quite easy to achieve it. Because whenever you take on a project or you start something a course of your personal interest, there's that again come back. The great desire and the great confidence. That desire and confidence automatically give you a bonus amount of energy. That energy can be used at the beginning. That's what it means by initial application of effort element. So that is the trying to translate as closely as possible based on the presentation. And here they keep on boosting element, element, element. So three level. Three level is let's put um example. Okay, heavy weight lifter is lifting a weight. Lifting a weight, what's called first and foremost is there, he has a desire to lift, bend over the weight is hundred kilos, two hundred kilos, and so on. And then initial is you really want it. So what do you call the first application of all your effort, all your muscle, just okay? Pull it up. And I think most of you all know it's clean and juck. You just pull it up, that weight just come up, but still it's in the middle. The weights come up, your knees are bent, it is up on your palm, and then second. Second is what? He has to push your from the chest level to the higher level. That's a second push to go up. And once it goes up, finally, you have to straighten your legs and knees so that it totally completed. Three levels. If you look at it, that weight lifter is applying three levels of effort. The first level when he starts pulling up, second level he starts pushing up, the third is total and complete put up. Three level. Initial, the middle, and the final. We have talked in other Dhamma talks with using the rocket as an example. When is the takeoff lift off? There's an enormous amount of energy has to be applied. It goes up and up and up, and then at a certain point, the first boosters, uh the first rocket base is gone, engine is gone, drop, and then the second booster comes in. The second booster put up, and then it burns, and finally the third one, it has to sustain and keep on going till it goes out of the gravity. Only then it becomes totally liberated and free from the pull of the gravity. Three levels of push, the same thing. That's what is showing the what the energy three level means. In meditation too, you need that three level. The first one we already know we got it, the main engine pushed off, or you pulled it up, and the second one is the one because that is the time. The first one you pull it up quite easy, the weightlifter. Second one is really tough, that is when you are pushing. In other words, second phase is the face where you come across with all the difficulties, all the difficulty facing. If you do not go through those difficulties, you would fail. And in fact, you have seen in the weight lifting, you go up there and he tried to push, try to push. Finally, what he can't push, and he dropped the weights. You abandon, you surrender, you put aside the job, the responsibility that you have. What is your goal? The goal is for the weight to go over your head totally and clean and the legs are straight. That's a goal. But the first phase you do, second phase you do, the third phase, the difficult phase you cannot overcome. You drop the weight, you surrender, you cast aside. In other words, in meditation sense, that you don't keep on applying effort to observe the objects. Constantly and continuously, so that there is no mental defilements can come in and disturb your mindset. In that way, the Buddha explained the effort. Okay, three levels of effort. So in here, the last one, the last one is called, also called the liberating effort or fulfilling effort. Fulfilling effort is finally you totally go over the stage. That is where you have the persistent and consistent. The objects in mind. If you do not have the objects in mind, if you do not have the goal in mind, you will cast aside. What is the object? Or what's the goal? For the weightlifter to totally cling lift it up. For the rocket to be escaped from the pull of the gravity field. For a meditator, the object is to be totally away and abandon the mental defilements. That is the goal, that is the object. And these two are related. To be a way to be free from the mental defilements. You can put it in a different way to eliminate and abandon all physical and mental suffering. You can put it in a popular way to attain nibbana or enlightenment. That is the goal, that's the objective. And to get that, you have a duty and a responsibility to do. What is that duty and responsibility to observe the physical and mental object that is arising at the present moment, at all times, continuously, constantly, uninterruptedly. That is your responsibility and duty. And that responsibility and duty is nobody is put on your shoulder, you put it upon yourself. Why? Because you want that objective or the goal. And if you truly want it, you will not cast aside what your duty is, observation. You will not abandon that project. What is that? Continuous observation so that you pick up momentum. Till you get the momentum, then it goes on. So in here, you observe and you observe and you observe. And you pull it up, and while you are pulling it up, at that moment, you don't need much muscle power to pull it. Because of the initial grab, the weight just at a certain period, a certain zone, it just floats around with its own momentum. And then of course, another push, enormous amount of push. Once you apply that push, when the weights go up from your chest level to over your head, it just floated up. And only at the end you have to sustain it. So in between, there is a zones where you do not have to apply effort at all. And why is that? Because you created a momentum. That momentum, that huge amount of effort you applied it, created a certain momentum. That momentum carry up, that momentum carry up. And once you have that, which means when you have that continuous mindfulness, automatically momentum comes in. When the momentum comes in, you will find that your observation is become automatic. Okay? Before you have to watch and watch and watch, even your eyes might squint. But at that, when the momentum comes up, automatically the objects are arising, you are observing. Objects are arising, automatically you are arising, you know, and you know, and you know, and you know, and you know. The reason you know is that momentum. That's why it is stressed very often. Don't take a break, don't take a gap, don't break a break, don't give a gap. Which means you are applying enormous amount so that you reach to that zone of momentum. When that momentum zone comes up, whatever level that is, it becomes continuous, continuous, without effort. You simply know, you simply know, you simply know. It seems like everything is happening on its own. You are simply like an observer sitting and watching. That is why we need this. No break, no gap, continuous observation. To build up momentum, when you have that momentum, it's become automatic and you start tasting the flavor of the Dharma. That's why you don't have to really strain yourself. You know everything, whatever is arising, you know. Not only do you know that they are arising, you know their characteristics, you know their qualities, you know their connection, you know their cause and effect. Everything becomes continuous. That is the flavor of the food that you cook, you are tasting, the practice that you put effort, you will see that. And at that time it is so so satisfying, and you will have a great feeling, okay? Let's say great feeling of satisfaction. And at that moment, you don't want to stop observing. For that reason, we keep stressing, we keep stressing, no break, no gap, just one little thing. But in here the Buddha show us using the mental states of effort to understand the practice. So what is this? We are talking about dura. What is dura? In general, two aspects in it. Responsibility and duty. And the other aspect is goal or objective. If you truly want to reach your goal and objective, you must carry out your duty and responsibility without fail. It's a must-do. It's a must-do. So you must know this is a must-do. This practice. If you don't do it, you will not taste that flavor of Dharma. You will not understand, you will not reach the domain of wisdom. Must do. That's number one. Number two, you cannot do by proxy. There's a lot of things. You can ask somebody to do it for you, you can pay somebody to do it for you. A lot of things in this world. Nowadays, you even pay somebody to go and write an exam for you, to post a certain exam, ESET, and so on and so forth. But in here, you cannot hire, you cannot use proxy to do you must do it yourself. One is you must know this is the must-do project. Number two, it is you must do it yourself. That's number two. And when you do it, how do you do? You do not do it in a mediocre way, superficial way. You must do with great effort, urgent effort. Effort where all three stages of effort are applied accordingly, appropriately, and properly. So these are the ones and if you apply that effort, what happens is eventually you will start tasting the flavor of the Dharma that you are practicing. Of course, knowing that you are doing it correctly and rightly and properly execution according to the instruction, what is being done. So that is the way one can approach. And this is how Buddha has taught us again, using effort from the angle of effort, how to practice satipatthana, vipassana meditation. And if you practice that way, you are having the refined form of heatfulness. And if you have reached this refined form of heatfulness, you are already on the path to the cessation of all form of physical and mental suffering. May all of you be able to practice Satipathana Vipassana meditation precisely, correctly, knowing your goal and objective and not discarding your responsibility and duty, seeing it to the end as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Thank you very much.