Shift Within, Live True.

True personal growth begins the moment you stop chasing external validation and start turning your attention inward. While your internal compass has shifted, the people, workplaces, and societal systems in your life may still expect you to show up as the person you used to be. 

Bridging the gap between your internal clarity and external expectations is where the real work begins. The key lies in honouring your personal truth while staying grounded in your everyday roles.  

In this episode, we explore practical strategies to help you navigate this delicate balance, ensuring you remain anchored in your authentic self without getting lost in the noise of external demands. 

Share your experience with us on WhatsApp at +916361803371

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Art of Being Happy, Buddha's Guide to Modern Living from Jetavanarama Buddhist Monastery, Sri Lanka. This intriguing talk series brings timeless Buddhist wisdom to help you navigate life's challenges through simple practical insights. Each episode offers gentle guidance for finding peace and joy in everyday moments. Join us on this journey toward lasting happiness and inner peace. Brought to you by Sanatana, the voice eternal.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

After a sermon, usually people come up to me and talk to me and they say, Swami Nasa, life is getting difficult now. I'm beginning to hear these stories from you now. Swami Nasa's life is getting difficult now. I say, why sir? Why matter? Well, those days I used to get along with my friends, my family, and you know, things used to be fine. We used to go on parties, tricks, and do all sorts of useless things that now I realize is useless, but those things, you know, those were they were the things I did for my kicks, but now I begin to understand. But now I begin to lose interest in them because I realize happiness is not in the sights, happiness is not in sound or smell or taste or touch saninas and begin to realize that happiness is is all within my own mind. So I have stopped pursuing happiness by indulging myself in sensuality. But then the people I spend my life with, the people I spend my time with, they expect me to be the same person I used to be. I'm losing interest in these things. What am I supposed to do? I said you can do one of two things, sir. Either stop listening to the Dhamma. Because right now you're on a fence. Stop listening to the Dhamma and all will be fine. Because what's gonna happen when you stop listening to the Dhamma? You get plugged back into the matrix. Life wasn't so difficult before you started listening to the Dhamma, was it? You didn't feel that it was weird to go to a party. You didn't feel that it was weird. But now perhaps you're listening to the Dhamma, you're beginning to understand how the mind works and how the mind in its desperation seeks pleasure from physical movement. How is it that this makes someone happy? I mean, it's ridiculous. You know, the other day I went to the washroom to brush my teeth, right? You know, there are these little insects. I don't know if you've seen them, and I don't know what you call them, I'm still trying to find the the name. Like they're like little mosquitoes, but they're bigger than that, about ten times the size of a mosquito. Anyone know the name? A crane fly. You know what those things do? They come and pitch themselves somewhere on a surface, and then like for the rest of its life, for as long as it's there, it's there or until a gecko comes in and feeds on it. So I was I was watching this, this insect doing this. And then I thought to myself, what is the difference between this and a dance? You're just knitting a bit of music. In my old days, I used to beatbox. So in my olden days, in my late time, right, if I'd seen that, I would have probably done a bit of a beatbox. And that would have been a dance. So I then began to wonder, what do people do? You know, people dance. Do you know how silly you look when you dance? No offense. If you've been coming along for a few weeks now, you know that none of this is said to offend you. Yes, it's all done with compassion. But I need you to take a moment to think about how you spend your precious human life, ladies and gentlemen. That is my ask of you. You know, doing this makes you happy. Why? What is it about this that makes you happy? Dancing only makes you happy because you think you're dancing, not otherwise. If I asked you to do this for the next hour, just do that for the next hour, would you be happy? You just come up here and just keep doing this for the next hour. You say I'll look like a fool. But if everyone else is doing it and you have some music, now you think you're dancing. When you think you're dancing, now it's it's okay, it's fun. You know, next time you see someone dancing, like especially if you're on, you know, maybe watching it a video of someone dancing, turn off the music and then watch it. Just do it as an experiment, okay? And you get back home tonight, go on YouTube and like put some, you know, like uh crazy dance moves or something, just punch it in on YouTube, switch off the music and just watch people and see what they do. Then you will begin to realize what I'm talking to you about. But with the music and the moves, the two of them together, in your mind, you create this picture that people are dancing, and when you think that one is someone's dancing, now it becomes okay. Otherwise, you know, honestly, folks, you know, tell me how come this can make you happy? Why does this make you happy? You see someone doing this, someone's grieving, huh? They lost someone, someone in close in the family. You go to a funeral, right? People are crying all over the place, right? You said, hello, everyone, everyone, everyone, hello, right, right, stop, right, just do what I'm doing and you'll all be fine. See, now you laugh. But when you're invited to the dance store, then you should look in yourself. All those swanky dance moves that you have. Next time you have to dance, dance, okay? Don't not dance. Like I said, if you're be among them. Be among them and do what they do. Next time you dance, be cognizant of the fact that you're actually dancing. Just be mindfully aware of the fact that you're just moving your legs, your limbs, your arms to a rhythm, and then question yourselves, what am I actually doing here? How does this make me happy? I mean, if you're doing it for exercise, I get it. Then exercise is fine. Because, of course, you know, you need to move your arms, your legs, your body, you know, you need a bit of exercise. You need to burn the calories, that's fine. But if you're dancing for dancing's sake, how does that make sense? So, you know, when you get home today, after you watch that video, take yourself in front of a mirror. Ask everyone else to leave, in case you find it too embarrassing. Stand yourself in front of the mirror and just you know, do your best dance move. And then, you know, bring yourself to mindful awareness and ask yourself, what are you really doing? As you swing your arms and you swing your legs, as you swing your neck here and there, your, you know, you you do your head like this, in and out, in and out, up and down, right? Ask yourself, what am I why do I think this is fun? You know, we humans, we need to think more and more than this. We can't just be doing what someone else does. Otherwise, it's a disgrace to humanness. You know, we can't just be following orders. We we have to be thinking about what we do. Don't just follow suit. Take a moment to think about is this what I really want to do with my life? If you see a crazy man, like a crazy man that he's walking on the on the along the road, and you know, he's he's swinging his head like this. And you tell him he's crazy. Yeah? But I play some music now, and you go like this. That's not crazy. So why is that crazy and you not crazy? Because you think you're rocking to the rhythm, but that man, he's crazy. He's just, you know, swinging his head. And you think that's crazy. Likewise, ladies and gentlemen, you know, what I ask you to do is just take a moment to think about the things that you do in your life to make yourselves happy. And really ask yourselves, have they been meaningful? Have they really gotten you what you wanted? If not, change today. That is what being human is all about. Because this is one chance we've got. Once this chance is over, not again for a long time. Take sport, another example. I have people play football. Just break it down piece by piece and then analyze what football is. You you know, it only becomes enjoyable because you think they're playing football. Otherwise, what are they really doing? There's a ball and you kick a ball. Once you break it down into its constituent parts, how is football fun? How is it enjoyable? If you do it as exercise, yes, perfectly fine. Physical activity, yes, perfectly fine. But if you do it for fun, how does that make sense? I'm not asking you to stop playing your sports and games, right? You carry on doing that. But so you gotta be among them. Be among them, but have a different perspective. Libgana is all to do with the way you think. Remember, I always say don't become a monk first, adopt a monk's attitude first. If you become a monk without the monk's attitude, then you don't feel like you fit in this robe. Then you feel out of place, you feel like a fish out of water, and then you want to go back to your lay life because your attitude is a lay attitude. So there's no need to rush into monkhood. But it's important to adopt that attitude. So you see someone, you know, running around kicking a ball, and you call that football. But why does someone kick a ball and how do they get joy out of it? Take a moment to think about this. I throw a ball at you, you have a bat in your hand, you hit it, and you get joy out of that. How so? How is it fun? Physical exercise and activity? Again, I get it. You get to swing your arms and legs, you know, you get to get some motion going in your body, right? Stretch your muscles, yes, I get all that. But how do you get fun out of playing cricket? How is it fun? But we know we've all enjoyed this this game. We've all, you know, from my that's the this is what we all learned playing. We grew up playing cricket. All of us, most of us at least. But how do we get fun out of playing cricket? How do we get fun out of playing football? By kicking a ball, you get fun out of it. So if I gave you a ball right now, just and said just keep kicking it, would that be fun? It wouldn't be. So you see, it only becomes fun when you think you're playing the game. So it's all in the mind, is it not? It's all in the mind. My ask is that you you take an analytical view at everything you do in life. Because after all, ladies and gentlemen, you are the ones who are accountable for what is left at the end of your life. People can come into your life, you know, they can either rejoice in what you have done, they can give you a pat on the back and say, Well done, Machan, or they can go, I'm really sorry to see you in that state. But after all, you know, that is all they can give you: sympathy. If you mess up in life, all you're gonna get from somebody else is what? Sympathy. They can't do much more than that. All they have to give you is a word of sympathy, but you have lost an entire lifetime. For the last 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60, 70, 80, however many years you've been alive on this planet, ask yourself, what have you been doing? Just ask yourself, what are the things you've been you've been doing? If you were to categorize them, what are the different categories you can slot them all in? Basically, you can come up with two categories. All of the things that we've been doing in your life, you can slot into two categories. But for the time being, I want you to leave out your practice of Buddhism and you know looking for something higher, you know, uh grace, you know, something higher in your life, something bigger, something better, you know, something, some spiritual advancement. Put that all to aside for a second and consider all the the rest of it. You can put it into two categories: one, for physical comfort, things that you have been doing for physical comfort. So that includes eating, it includes washing yourself, it includes building a house for yourself, right? It includes going for having some exercise. Things that you do for physical comfort. When you're ill, you go to the doctor. Things you do for physical comfort, and then there's another part. The things that you do for your mental pleasure. Now take eating, for instance. You do eating, or you eat rather, for both these things. One, for physical comfort, and two, to give yourself mental pleasure. Do you not agree with me? What did you have for dinner last night? Then you'll see what I mean. Your dinner last night was not determined purely out of necessity for your body, it was also determined by what you liked to eat. Your liking to eat has nothing to do with what your body needs. That you do to satisfy your tongue. In fact, it's not the tongue you're trying to satisfy the mind. Why is it that today, some people, they are always obese? There are, of course, some cases where people are, it is medically, there are sometimes it's genetic, and there's nothing they can do about that. Sometimes people are born with the genes that determine how their bodies turn out to be. But otherwise, you know, you know, in like in the States, right, fast food, overeating has become such a big problem. It's become almost a pandemic. This is because people have no control over what they eat. And when they have no control over what they eat, like I used to be, as I say, it takes one to hop once. I used to be like that. But uh, you know, I I I got the I got the call and at the right time when went for a checkup and I realized cholesterol levels were shooting off the roof. Right, and soon, if I hadn't followed the doctor's advice, probably I would not be here to case. At least not in this way. But when the mind does not understand the body, although you know we spend a lot of time trying to understand everything else in the world, you know, man knows how to send a rocket to the moon, but man doesn't understand how the body works. He doesn't know what is right or wrong for him. He doesn't know what is right for his body, but he understands the ins and outs of a rocket and how to send it to the moon. You know, somewhere down the line, folks, we've messed up. As human beings, we've messed up. And if we've messed up, then we need to correct ourselves. We need to fix ourselves. We need to fix ourselves by beginning to understand what is the mind, how it works, why the mind vexes, why the mind goes into suffering, and what we can do about it so that we can free ourselves from these vexations. Today you may have little control about the thoughts that you have. When you grieve over something, you can't stop yourself, can you? Who's the next uh funeral in your family? Uh, what a question to be asking on a Sunday morning, Shaminas. How could you? Just think about, you know, naturally, right? We're not talking about like sudden deaths or anything, right? If you just line up the people that you had at home by their age, right? Let's just say this is not a surprise to you that people die, right? We all die, yes. In case you didn't know, well sorry to burst your bubble. We all die. Perhaps I'm the first one to go, out of all of us. But let's just assume a natural death for the time being. If it's a natural death that we are all lined up to, then think about the one who is eldest in your family. You know that funeral is coming soon enough, right? That death is coming. Have you prepared yourself for that? I ask you. Are you ready? It might be your mother, could be your father, could be your brother. Are you ready? Are you so ready that on the day it happens, you don't shed any tears? It's easy to give me a nod. Most people do. And I appreciate if you can. You know, that is what we are here for. But I really want you to be ready on that day. School doesn't prepare us for that. It doesn't. Your bank manager doesn't prepare you for that. Science doesn't prepare you for that. It'll tell you that you'll die, but it doesn't tell you how to be unfazed by death. It doesn't teach you how to remain unbothered by death. It doesn't teach you that. So you know that someone in your family is going to kick their last bucket soon enough, right? Now, you know, in each of your minds, you will have you'll be thinking of someone. Of course. Even in my family, someone will go. Now I have two families, my old family and my new family. So far, in my new family, no one's gone yet, but we are waiting for that day. Oftentimes we talk about it. Who's the first to go? We're right, we know. Uh the average age is around 25-30 at the monastery. The average age. Although we have about 300 residents at the monastery by now. The average age usually is around 25-30, that sort of area. But in an we have some monks who are in their 50s, others in their 60s. One nearly 70. So he asked this monk. So are you gonna go anytime soon? You're probably wondering, how could they? With a smile on his face, he says, Oh yes. With a smile on his face. That's what we need. You know, we need to redefine death. I'm gonna help you do that. Your understanding of death is completely flawed. You only cry in the face of death because you don't understand death. Honestly. I'll help you understand what death really means. Death is merely a fiction. It doesn't really happen. Huh? Yes. Death is not real, it's make-believe. That is why Arahants don't cry. Because they have no notion of death. They are deathless. Now, when I say these words, you're probably thinking, of course, an Arahan dies and then they're not born again, so they're not deathless. That's not what I'm talking about. Death is a figment of your imagination. It only happens when jati happens in the mind. Jati is the end product of Patichasamupada. You heard this, have you not? Avidya patcha sankara, patya vinyana, patchana rupa, patya salayatana, patya pasa, patcha vedana, patchatanha, patcha upadana, yes, patcha bhava, pachya jati, what comes in? Jati Pachya, Chara, Marana, Soka, Parideva, Dukkha, Domanasa, Upayasa, Enumitasakevasa Dukkha Kandasa Samude Oho. Now, hear me out. What if? Just what if? Jati is purely a condition of the mind. It's like you catching a cold. If jati is a creation of the mind, now what is jara and marana? They're also creations of the mind, aren't they? I'm gonna help you understand that all things in this world, ladies and gentlemen, are conditioned manifestations. Nothing was born to die. That's why oftentimes you would have you'd catch me telling you, there is nothing to let go. You just need to realize. You know, when I tell you that you know there's someone in your family who's who's lined up next for this, you're probably thinking, gosh, how am I going to let go of them before the inevitable happens to them? I love my mother, I doubt on my mother. I I love my mother to bits. Now, when my mother goes, I'm going to be in pieces. So how do I let go of my mother before that happens? Is the question that you have to ask. You love your children. So how do I let last week we spoke about this? If you can't, if you don't learn, if you don't realize who your children really are, one of these days something's gonna happen to them and you're gonna go crazy. I meant to bring the video to show you, but I couldn't I couldn't find it. I'll bring it to you next week. The video of the mother and their two children, you're struck by lightning. I'll give you a disclaimer before I show the video because it will not be for the faint-hearted. What do I mean by faint-hearted? People who think that death is real. That is what the faint-hearted is. Once you understand that death is actually just a creation of the mind, it's a story the mind tells itself. There's a birth, there's growing up, there's decay, and there's death. That's a story. And then once you are once you die, you're born again. And the story continues. See, that's a nice story that we like to tell. It's a tale. It's a tall tale. Once you realize that all there are are manifestations, ladies and gentlemen, you will realize that there is nothing born to die. But today, what we've we've done ourselves a huge disservice by interpreting jati, which is the word that the Buddha used to talk about a condition that happens to the mind as birth, as human beings. We've done ourselves a huge disservice by doing that. So today most people believe that jati is what happens at castle hospital. That's what they think what jati is. The child coming out of a mother's womb, that is jati. So, therefore, of course, when a child is born, the child ages and the child decays and the child dies. So now we have a story to tell. None of that is true. It's only a projection of the mind because the mind doesn't understand what manifestations are. So let's try and figure that out. Why am I trying to share this with you? So I never have to see a tear in your eyes again. I tell you, none of this is to offend you. I'll say things from here and here once in a while, none of it is offend you. I know you have all been parents to me, and you have cried enough on my behalf alone, yet and known other children. Enough. Enough. Enough is enough.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Thank you for joining us on the Art of Being Happy from Caitavanarama Buddhist Monastery. May today's wisdom bring you peace and joy in your daily life. We'd love to hear how these talks have touched your life. Share your experiences with us on plus nine one six three six one eight zero three thing one. Until next time, may you find happiness in each present moment. Brought to you by Sanatanavani, the Voice Eternal.