The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives
Buddhist
Hour
Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Broadcast 305 for
Sunday 30 November 2003
This script is entitled:
Is
the door of your heart open to yourself?
That the mental health of Australians is poor, as
measured by suicide rates, is well established. Buddha Dhamma can
improve mental wellness and reduce suicidal tendencies, thus
increasing longevity.
Suicide is an act of self-destruction,
having as causes the following:
-lack of courage to live and
to cope with difficulties
-defeat by life and loss of all hope
-desire for non-existence (abhava)
This self-destruction
is considered in Buddha Dhamma as one of the most serious crimes.
We
must send loving kindness into the world.
Of course, for most
of us this can not be achieved in a day, or even this life but it
will be a fruit in the future when the time is right. The tendency
towards humanistic thought, religious feelings and mind nurturing
among young persons is not as widely spread as you think.
When
the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, began
teaching in the west, students would ask him about self-hatred and
low self-esteem. He was unable to understand what they were talking
about as these concepts are not part of Tibetan culture.
Some
students explained to the Dalai Lama what they were talking about. It
is said that when he finally understood it, he wept in compassion for
the students.
It is said that even the most scurrilous Tibetan
rogue at least likes himself.
Self hate can give rise to:
perfectionism, harshness, judgement, rejection and
exclusion.
'Freedom from Perfection' was the title of a public
talk given by Shar Tse Choe-Je Lobsand Tenzin Rinpoche, Former Abbot
of the Gyuto Tantric University and Vice Chancellor, H.H. Dalai
Lama's Gelug-Pa Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, on Friday 24 October, at
Moorabin Town Hall in Melbourne.
Because the world we live in
is not a perfect world, our desire for our lives to be perfect, for
others to be perfect, leads only to frustration, anger and
unhappiness.
One of our Members recently acknowledged her
strong intolerance for people who are poor spellers. When she
examined this intolerance, and recognized it as hate, she saw the
unreasonableness, the harshness, of turning an intolerance of
imperfection into hate for a person.
She is endeavouring to
become more tolerant, although has retained her preference for
accurate spelling.
In his talk, the Rinpoche talked about the
fact that most of us have negative minds most of the time. He went on
to say that the ultimate reason for those negative minds lies in
self-hate. The Rinpoche explained by saying that if we did not hate
ourselves, we would not subject ourselves endlessly to the
unhappiness of having to experience such minds.
How can we be
free from hating ourselves?
One way is through wisdom.
The
Atthasalini (I, Book I, Part IV, Chapter 1, p.127) defines
non-aversion (adosa), as follows:
... Absence of hate has the
characteristic of freedom from churlishness or resentment, like an
agreeable friend; the function of destroying vexation, or dispelling
distress, like sandalwood: the manifestation of being pleasing, like
the full moon...
The Visuddhi Magga XIV, 143, page 525 reads:
Non-hate has the characteristic of lack of savagery, or the
characteristic of non-opposing, like a gentle friend. Its function is
to remove annoyance, or its function is to remove fever, as
sandalwood does. It is manifested as agreeableness, like the full
moon. (Buddhaghosa, Bhadantacariya, nd)
Whenever there is
non-aversion there has to be non-attachment, alobha, as well as
several other sobhana cetasikas which each perform their own function
while they assist the kusala (wholesome) citta.
There are
many forms and degrees of adosa; when it is directed towards living
beings, adosa takes the form of metta, loving-kindness. Adosa
directed towards objects can be described as patience, for example,
non-aversion or patience with regard to heat, cold, bodily pain or
other unpleasant objects.
Dana is an act of kindness. When we
are giving a gift with kusala citta we show kindness. When there is
non-aversion there must also be non-attachment that performs its
function of detachment from the object.
When we observe sila
there is adosa accompanying the kusala citta. When we abstain from
akusala kamma that harms both ourselves and others, we show an act of
kindness. The Atthasalini I, Book I, Part IV, Chapter I, p129 (cited
in Van Gorkom, 1999) states:
"Goodwill is that which
does not ruin one's own or another's bodily or mental happiness,
worldly or future advantage and good report."
"Adosa
is agreeable both for oneself and for others, it conduces to
harmonious living among people. Through aversion or hate a person
loses his or her friends, and through non-aversion he or she acquires
friends."
"... Absence of hate is the cause of the
production of friends for through love friends are obtained, not
lost..."
When non-aversion arises we endure what is
unpleasant. The Buddha exhorted the monks to endure unpleasant
objects. In the Middle Length Sayings, I, no.2, Discourse on All the
Cankers [cited in Van Gorkom, 1999), the Buddha spoke about different
ways of getting rid of the cankers and explained that one of these
ways is endurance. It is to be understood that the cankers cannot be
eradicated unless right understanding is developed:
And what,
monks, are the cankers to be got rid of by endurance? In this
teaching, monks, a monk wisely reflective is one who bears cold,
heat, hunger, thirst, the touch of gadfly, mosquito, wind and sun,
creeping things, ways of speech that are irksome, unwelcome: he is of
a character to bear bodily feelings which, arising, are painful,
acute, sharp, shooting, disagreeable, miserable, deadly.
Whereas,
monks, if he lacked endurance, the cankers which are destructive and
consuming might arise. But because he endures, therefore these
cankers which are destructive and consuming are not. These, monks,
are called the cankers to be got rid of by endurance.
When we
feel sick or when we experience another unpleasant object through one
of the senses we may feel sorry for ourselves and complain about it.
We give in to aversion and we are apt to put off the development of
kusala until we are in more favourable conditions.
Then we
overlook the opportunities for the development of kusala which are
right at hand: when there are unpleasant objects there is an
opportunity to cultivate patience. We all are bound to suffer from
hunger and thirst, heat and cold; these things occur in our daily
life time and again.
The experience of an unpleasant object
through one of the senses is vipaka, the result of kamma, and we
cannot avoid vipaka. After the moments of vipaka have fallen away,
there are kusala cittas or akusala cittas, depending on whether there
is 'wise attention' or 'unwise attention' to the object. If we see
the benefit of patience in all circumstances there are conditions for
non-aversion instead of aversion.
When there is mindfulness
of aversion it can be known as only a type of nama (mind) that has
arisen because of its appropriate conditions. At the moment of
mindfulness there is non-aversion, adosa, instead of aversion, dosa.
The Dhammapada says:
Hatred is not overcome by hatred
It is overcome by Love
This is the eternal Law.
(Dhammapada
5, cited in Sujiva, 1998)
As the Buddha taught, it is right
now, in this life, that suffering comes to those who are angry:
"These are the seven things -- pleasing to an enemy,
bringing about an enemy's aim -- that come to a man or woman who is
angry.
An angry person is ugly and sleeps poorly.
Gaining
a profit, he turns it into a loss,
having done damage with word
and deed.
A person overwhelmed with anger
destroys his
wealth.
Maddened with anger,
he destroys his status.
Relatives, friends, and colleagues avoid him.
Anger brings
loss.
Anger inflames the mind.
He doesn't realize
that
his danger is born from within.
An angry person doesn't know his
own benefit.
An angry person doesn't see the Dhamma.
A man
conquered by anger is in a mass of darkness.
He takes pleasure in
bad deeds as if they were good,
but later, when his anger is
gone,
he suffers as if burned with fire.
He is spoiled,
blotted out,
like fire enveloped in smoke.
When anger
spreads,
when a man becomes angry,
he has no shame, no fear
of evil,
is not respectful in speech.
For a person overcome
with anger,
nothing gives light.
I'll list the deeds that
bring remorse,
that are far from the teachings.
Listen!
An
angry person kills his father,
kills his mother,
kills
Brahmans
and people run-of-the-mill.
It's because of a
mother's devotion
that one sees the world,
yet an angry
run-of-the-mill person
can kill this giver of life.
Like
oneself, all beings hold themselves most dear,
yet an angry
person, deranged,
can kill himself in many ways:
with a
sword, taking poison,
hanging himself by a rope in a mountain
glen.
Doing these deeds
that kill beings and do violence to
himself,
the angry person doesn't realize that he's ruined.
This
snare of Mara, in the form of anger,
dwelling in the cave of the
heart:
cut it out with self-control,
discernment,
persistence, right view.
The wise man would cut out
each and
every form of unskillfulness.
Train yourselves:
'May we not
be blotted out.'
Free from anger and untroubled,
free from
greed, without longing,
tamed, your anger abandoned,
free
from fermentation,
you will be unbound."
If we are
subject to the actions of a person or persons that intend us harm, if
anger and ill-will arise in us, we should note the words of the
Buddha:
"Hostilities aren't stilled
through
hostility,
regardless.
Hostilities are stilled
through
non-hostility:
this, an unending truth.
Unlike those who
don't realize
that we're here on the verge of perishing,
those
who do:
their quarrels are stilled."
These are the facts
of all life.
We should also note that what comes to us does
so as the inevitable result of past kammas. Realising this, we should
not be attached to feeling anger or revulsion if we are subject to
unpleasantness:
"He insulted me,
hit me,
beat
me,
robbed me'--
for those who brood on this,
hostility
isn't stilled.
'He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed
me' --
for those who don't brood on this,
hostility is
stilled."
Instead, we should cultivate adosa (in English
hatelessness). Adosa "is opposed to dosa and it can overcome
dosa. It is not mere absence of hatred or aversion, but is a positive
virtue When adosa turns its attention to living beings wishing them
to be happy, it is known as metta, i.e., loving-kindness. Adosa is
also one of the three roots of good." Dr Mehm Tin Mon
(1995).
Ajahn Brahm, an English Buddhist monk and former
disciple of the legendary Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah,
graduated with a Masters Degree in Theoretical Physics from Cambridge
and became a monk at the age of 23. He has been a Monk for 29 years,
and is now the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Perth.
In a
talk at the Dallas Brooks Hall in Melbourne on November 2, 2003,
Ajahn Brahm said "We suffer because we do not know human nature.
We expect the world to be something it is not."
Ajahn
Brahm talked about his father, who died when he was 16. When he was
13, his father said to him that whatever he may do in his life, the
door of his house would always be open to him. The family was poor,
and in fact, did not live in a house at all, but a flat. What his
father meant, however, was that the door of his heart would always be
open to him.
Is the door of your heart open to yourself?
To
have no sense of friendship among persons is already very bad, but
sadder still is when one cannot have it with oneself.
Ajahn
Brahm told the story of seven monks meditating in a cave on metta, or
the door of your heart being open to all beings.
One was the
head monk, the second his brother, the third his best friend, the
fourth his enemy, the fifth, a very elderly monk, the sixth an ill
monk, and the seventh a useless, clumsy monk.
Some bandits
came and found the cave, and thought it would be good for their
headquarters, and they wanted to kill all of the monks and take over
their cave.
The Head Monk negotiated with the bandits, but the
best deal he could negotiate was that the bandits would take one monk
to kill, and set the others free.
The question is "Which
monk did the Head Monk choose to sacrifice for the lives of the
remaining monks?"
The correct answer is that the Head
Monk could not choose, as his love of all seven monks, his brother,
his best friend, his enemy, the elderly monk, the ill monk, the
useless, clumsy monk, as well as himself, was the same.
According
to Ajahn Brahm, in western countries, most people will say the Head
Monk, that is, 'self'. The reason that they give this answer is
because they do not love themselves enough.
They need to say,
whatever I have done, the door of my heart is open to me.
At
one time, a wall needed to be built at his monastery in Western
Australia, and so Ajahn Brahm decided to build it himself. He had no
building skills, but he did have patience, and so set about learning
the skills.
When he had finished the wall, and stepped back to
survey his work, he saw that there were two bricks out of one
thousand that were markedly out of alignment. He was so unhappy about
the two bricks, that he wanted to bulldoze the wall and re-build,
however the Temple Abbott at the time wouldn't let him. When visitors
came to the Temple and he was showing them around, he would always
avoid taking them to the wall, as he was so displeased with the two
bricks.
One day a visitor who came to the Temple to visit saw
the wall, and said "What a beautiful wall". Ajahn Brahm
responded, "Can't you see the two crooked bricks? The visitor
replied, "Yes, I can, but I can also see 998 beautifully-laid
bricks."
And that is often what we do with our lives. We
are so strongly drawn to the negative, we have such a propensity to
focus on the far fewer negatives, that we forget to look at the
positives.
We look only at the two bad bricks and make them
characterize the whole wall.
People commit suicide because
they focus on the two bad bricks.
We also need to look at our
positives, to recollect our good actions and our good qualities.
We
need to look at the whole wall.
He also used the wall as an
analogy for relationships, saying that people will complain about
their partners on the basis of the two bad bricks, selectively
ignoring the 998 good bricks.
After one talk at which Ajahn
Brahm told the story of the brick wall, a builder came up to share a
trade secret.
He said "When we make a mistake and lay
'bad bricks', we call them a feature and charge an extra $5,000
dollars for them!"
And so we should also make the 'bad
bricks' the features of our lives.
If someone comes to our
house and drops a truckload of manure in front of it, our first
response might be to complain that it was not ordered, and no one
will take it away. Some people would pick it up and carry it around
with them. Your job is to dig in the dung, to grow flowers, and fruit
that is sweet and delicious, that you can share with your
friends.
So next time you are confronted by something
unpleasant in your life, such as a severe illness, your response
should be "Great! More fertilizer for me to develop my
compassion and wisdom."
The Late Venerable Ashin Thittila
in Buddhist Metta writes:
Metta - Universal Love - is
generally taken to exist in connection with other people, but in
reality love for self comes first. It is not a selfish love, but love
for self- pure love - comes first.
When we meditate on love, we
meditate on love of self first: May I be free from harm).
By
having pure love, Metta, as we defined it, for self; selfish
tendencies, hatred and anger will be diminished.
Therefore,
unless we ourselves possess Metta within, we cannot share, we cannot
radiate, we cannot send this Metta to others.
Supposing you
have no money, how can you send even a few small coins?
So
meditation on love is to be started within ourselves.
You may
say that we love ourselves. If you can say that you love yourselves,
can you harm yourselves by having angry thoughts within yourselves?
If you love a person will you do harm to him? No.
To love the
self means to be free from selfishness, hatred, anger, etc.
Therefore, to clear ourselves from these undesirable feelings we must
love ourselves.
According to Buddha dhamma, self-love comes
first. Buddha dhamma always is a method of dealing with ourselves.
Therefore, it is self-help. By helping ourselves we can help others
effectively. We talk about externals, meaning by this the duty to
help others; but as pointed out by the Buddha, if a person cannot
help himself well, he cannot help others well.
'One should
first establish oneself in what is proper; then only he should advise
another; such a wise man will not be reproached'. (Dhammapada, Verse,
158)
Also in the Dhammapada, (Stanza 42) it is said no enemy
can harm one so much as one's own thoughts of craving - thoughts of
hatred, thoughts of jealousy and so on.
If one cannot find
happiness in himself, he cannot find happiness anywhere else. It is
also said that people who cannot control themselves cannot find
happiness.
In social service, the so-called social workers
are not happy in the performance of their duties unless they are calm
themselves. If they are not calm in themselves, they cannot produce
calm in others. We must, therefore be properly trained not only' in
outside organization but in our inner culture.
In the case of
many so-called social workers, the real thing they are doing is
telling others what to do like dictators. And they say that, 'We do
our best but others are not willing to accept our help'.
Everybody
is in need of help if the help is properly given in the way they like
to be assisted but not in the ways others want to help them. So a
true social worker should be a person who has true love for himself
first filled with a love which is nothing but pure, unselfish love.
Then he can confer a double blessing; that is, he, having pure, true
love, enjoys himself while helping others, at the same time making
others happy.
You remember the Jataka stories where the
Bodhisatta, the Buddha-to-be, is always trying to strengthen himself
by helping others - so that other people will be happy, so that he
will be stronger to give greater help.
Again, if a person
cannot be right with himself, he cannot be right with others. He
should be like an engineer who first perfects himself in his trade
and then only produces perfect work because he has perfected his
training first. A doctor without the required qualifications may try
to help patients but he may do harm instead. Therefore, a leader of
any kind, social, political, religious, if he has no mental culture,
may be leading his followers in a wrong direction.
We are so
used to seeing external training that we forget inner training, the
training of ourselves. We like to train other people and forget to
train ourselves. We tend to take it for granted that we are always
right and others are in the wrong.
It seems to be a
characteristic of people that they blame others; even when they are
late, they blame others - because of wife, because of friends or
somebody else, etc. I do not mean to say that we should blame only
ourselves.
There is a saying of Confucius - a very wise,
useful saying: 'An uncultured person blames others, a semi-cultured
person blames himself, and a fully cultured person blames
neither'.
The problem is, 'What is wrong' and not 'who is
wrong'. According to the Buddhist method, training oneself comes
first. Individual perfection must be first, so that the organic whole
may be perfect. The state of the outer world is a reflection of our
inner selves.
To conclude we would like to ask you to meditate
a few minutes on love, so that our thoughts, actions and words may be
filled with love. From trained minds come right thoughts, right
actions and right words.
In true meditation, first you fill
yourself with love mentally, 'May I be well and happy'. After a while
you extend it to all others, saying mentally, 'May all beings of the
Universe be well and happy'. Mean it and feel it.
Also try to
see that the world is filled with your love, with a great desire that
they may be happy, a desire such as a mother has for her only
child.
If you send out these thoughts of Metta before you go to
sleep you will have extraordinarily peaceful sleep.
If you
can maintain these thoughts of Metta, you will have a serene,
peaceful, successful life and you will be loved because you are
loving.
The world is like a great mirror and if you look at
the mirror with a smiling face you will see your own smiling
beautiful face. If you look at it with a long face, as the English
say, you will invariably see your own ugly face.
There is
also an expression in the form of greeting. 'Well friend, how does
the world treat you?'
The usual answer is, 'Well. I am all
right'. Your answer should be. 'Well, the world treats me as I treat
the world'.
If you treat the world properly, kindly, the world
will treat you kindly. We should not expect other persons to treat us
kindly first, but we should start by ourselves treating them
kindly.
The teachings of the Buddha are the teachings of your
own heart.
May your heart always be open to yourself.
May
you be well and happy.
This script was written and edited by
Leanne Eames and Pennie White.
References
1.McCombs,
Audrey D., Buddha and You, Savannah Morning News, November 6, 1999,
at: http://www.savannahnow.com
stories/110699/
LOCbuddhistmonk.shtml, accessed
11/7/03
2.http://www.thaivic.com/calendar.htm, accessed
11/7/03.
3. http://www.buddhanet.net/whats_d.htm, accessed
11/7/03.
4. Thich Nhat Nanh. "In Search of the Enemy of
Man (addressed to (the Rev.) Martin Luther King)." In Nhat Nanh,
Ho Huu Tuong, Tam Ich, Bui Giang, Pham Cong Thien. Dialogue. Saigon:
La Boi, 1965. P. 11-20., at :
http://www.aavw.org/special_features/
letters_thich_abstract02.html
5.
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio50(49).html, accessed
11/7/03
6. http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio271.html,
accessed 11/7/03
7.
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio105.html, accessed 11/7/03
8.
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio131.html, accessed 11/7/03
9.
Abhidhamma Class No. 34, 11 February 2003 at URL
http://www.bdcu.org.au/BDDR/bddr13no1/abhi034.html
10. The
Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Script 248 for Sunday 27 October 2002,
This script is entitled: "Developing adosa (non-hate)"
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio248.html
11. Buddhist
Metta, Late Venerable Ashin Thittila
www.buddhistinformation.com/buddhist_metta.htm
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