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Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 363 for Sunday 9 January 2005CE
2547 Buddhist Era


This script is titled: "A Dhamma Talk by Venerable Viriyananda, A Discourse on Nama Rupa by John D. Hughes"


The following Buddha Dhamma talk was given by Venerable Viriyananda and John D. Hughes at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. during a five day meditation course held at the Centre in June 1988. It is the fifth tape in this series.

The authors apologise for any errors or misunderstandings that may have occurred in the process of transcribing the talks from the original audio tape recording.

Venerable Viriyananda began in the following way.

Friends of the Dhamma. I'm very happy to see everyone who's sitting here, the friends of the Dhamma. I'm very, very happy with you, all of you, with the teachers.

This is a very hard subject aniccam dukkham anatta. The Lord Buddha said, aniccam; unstable, impermanent. dukkham; suffering and pain, anatta; no soul, soulless, no self. If we say about anatta, anatta we cannot see by our eye, also we cannot have experience. Because anatta is no form, no picture, no anything.

Just compare the Dhamma, the Teachings of the Buddha, like the trees, the rocks around here. If we compare the trees, the rocks, and everything around here; anatta is not like this, we cannot see by our own eyes. Because anatta is no soul, no self, difficult to understand and are very hard. Paranibbana; we can compare paranibbana, means anatta, no soul, no self. Finish suffering and pain. This we call anatta.

If we try to know, we must compare ours, the ultimate reality, the supreme knowledge, abhidhamma or citta, anatta means higher and higher ultimate realities. Abhidhamma, this we compare with anatta. Also still very hard to understand the greatest scholars who learned about the Buddhism, Pali and Sanskrit, so long times. If say anatta, still very confused, if we attained enlightenment, become arahant, that we can understand anatta. Also, clear mind, no confusion anymore.

Guru, our teacher, tried to teach you, tried to bring the Dhamma, tried to teach. Tried to give the special knowledge for everyone, and very hard, not so easy. If no energy to reach, to find out the knowledge, it's very, very hard. Like a monk, if lazy monks never study properly, they will not know anything, only just cover the world with nothing. Must practice, must learn, must do correctly. Then we have some knowledge, but still not the real knowledge.

The real knowledge means attain arahant. The goal of Buddhism is to attain arahant. That the final goal. So, like a learner, all of us still meditators, learners, must learn, must practice all the times until we attain ultimate reality, supreme knowledge. To achieve arahant, that [is] the final goal for us. No suffering, no pain anymore. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone who came along.

John D. Hughes continues.......

So although this is only a few pages, it will take probably five days of commentary to get you to understanding. Because what is understanding is not like a parrot mind which just repeats the words. You've got to get the minds to cognate what we are talking about to understand that. So we got to the point where we found at some level, the arguments, for the fact that this world is like a mental construct. We can't see the Samsara, we can't see the world as it is. Because between there, and what we see, we have got a set of error minds, which they translate here as afflictional, meaning making you unhappy, misknowledge, and the main affliction mind is this ego mind. This I, my, my, me, me, me, me, I, my, ego, me.

But then we found out from the text, that the "me" is not one mind. While you think I'm being "me" and you think it's one mind, you're already in error. The "me" arises out of two minds, hitting together like this. It's like you take a piece of iron and you make a spark. The sparks, the clash of the two minds produces a mental formation. Ah like that. And that object is already untrue in reality. But that is what your ego says "that is me". These minds have to be found.

So there's a lot of preliminary meditation to get your mind off your body into what's called third arupa jhana, which is called Sunyata or Sphere of Nothingness. It's a different type of consciousness. So this teaching has to be taught at a very high level of mind, because low minds can't do the work. So we've got two things. We've got personal self habit[s], now that means we're alive in human birth. Why? Because a whole series of events happened in the past and this is the result.

If a different series of events happened we'd be born in the animal or hell being, or heavenly being or something. So we are driven by our past actions which appear like here. So in the long infinite past, we've been everything, we've been born man, woman, heavenly being, animal, hell being. Everything is uncertain, because everything is driven by a cause, and it's our ego mind, our stupid mind, that made the causes.

So for example, at a worldly level you can say, the action of killing (up there on the board) brings short life. Why do some little babies, say you go to Bangladesh, little baby is born, no food, no medicine, gets sick, dies, one year old? Why is that? Other people, I'm 58 this year, ohh, happy, happy, healthy, healthy, not much trouble, all my life, easy to get. Cause lay back in the past lives. I know my past lives, I know what I did, generous, generous generous. So easy for me to get everything.

Not killing gives long life. Not harming people means healthy. Harming people, killing insects, killing animals, killing anything at all, is harming other beings. You get illnesses, so illness is caused, it doesn't just happen, it just has a cause. So all these conditions, say you get one human life, in one thousand million lifetimes. Very hard to get to human birth, because you have to have a lot of merit to get a human birth. You might have been an animal many, many times. Can't make merit, except you're, say a cow, give milk to a human. But animals are always killing, killing, killing. That's the nature of animals. Kill, kill, kill. So they can never get better.


Hungry ghosts always hungry, always starving. Have no food, couldn't give food, can't get food. Not even for themselves. And then other times we get into heaven worlds, everything is perfect for a while. We are so happy we don't practice generosity. But in human birth, you can actually practice. In human birth it is possible to give other people food, and that will create a cause for your future to get food.

Now if you gave an animal food, the animal is not much merit. If you gave the same food to a very bad human being, ten times more merit. Average human being ten times, above average another ten times. If you could find a very bright being, very intelligent, very bright, very kind, gave food, better. If you could give the food to a monk who keeps a lot of precepts, better. If you could find a monk or a layman enlightened in the first stage of nirvana, better. If you could find someone in the second stage of nirvana, better still. And if you could find an arahant, fully enlightened being, you could give something, much better.

But there is only eighty enlightened arahants in the world at the moment. Some in some countries, some can't meet, because some in China, some in Thailand, very difficult to get near. But if you've got good kamma, good actions in the past, you didn't slander the Buddhists, you can get near the arahant. And because of my good kamma, I can easily meet in many countries, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand. I can meet the arahant, and because of my good kamma I always have something to give them. Rich enough.

So in this life it is easy for me to make big merit for my future. Now to get to that stage you must practice every day for many, many lifetimes. The reason it's easy for me, is in the past lifetimes long time ago, I practiced the Buddha Dhamma. And in this life I can remember, ahhh that's like that. You can do that even with an ego.

Now the ego says like this, it says, I give the offerings so I will be well and happy. Well that's sanity. But then when you get enough, bright enough, and your mind becomes bright enough, you think "I am in suffering, other people are in suffering, how can I help other people?" When you come to happy enough yourself you start to change a bit. And so all the good things you do initially are only for your ego, and all the bad things you do basically are for your ego too. So the ego is the problem. And that is a habit, very bad habit to be selfish and it's very difficult not to be stingy because you are always thinking of yourself.

Now the Buddha instructed the laypeople, he said like this, he said, and this is sound economic sense too, he said, "twenty five percent of your wealth use for yourself". You know buy clothes buy food, buy this, buy that. "Twenty five percent give as dana and fifty percent save for your future prosperity in business".

Now most people in Australia pay about, maybe, twenty five percent of their income in income tax and that helps other people. But they certainly don't save fifty percent of their money. Now that is the perfect formula for wealth, prosperity, health. And you say it's not possible to do that. Well, anything's possible if you know what you want to do. If you know what you want to do.

If you want to get very happy, very bright, then you see other people are mad, some people say; "Oh, I'll be generous, I'll give everything away" and some people actually do this. They are insane. They give everything away, the next day they have no money. Where do they get their money from? Then people have to give them.

Now when you get good things; when something is given to you, you are using up the good merit from the past times. When you give something you are making more. To stay alive you must consume, you must use up things. So if you have got food you must eat or you will starve to death. But until your mind understands correctly what the simple things are, it's no good practicing the complicated things.

So you see Mothers, for their children, some Mothers kill for their children, they break a precept. Other Mothers lie for their children, steal for their children. Some Mothers work as prostitutes sometimes; I know one woman she had two children, she worked as a prostitute, mainly because she was lazy. There was plenty of other work around she could have done but she worked as a prostitute to get easy money for her children. And then the intoxicants; no alcohol, no drugs.

Now until you've got the five precepts correct; for a layperson only five precepts are needed; for monks 227, for Chinese monks 250 and then sometimes they takes eighteen Root Vows of Bodhisattva and then very high people take forty extra vows. But for five precepts for laypeople; if you meditate on the precepts you will understand the Dhamma.

So when you have maintained the five precepts good enough then you find, over many lifetimes, then you find your life gets easier. I have the easiest life probably of anyone in Australia because whatever I want to do I can do, whatever I want comes. Just automatically, no trouble, I don't have any trouble. Food comes, flowers come, everything I want comes.

A monk came today. I gave him offerings; I gave him some tea, I gave him a photograph, I gave him, someone brought me some eucalyptus like medicine lolly, I gave him that. I know he's got a little cough, he didn't cough but I know he has a cough. Someone brought me some butter menthol like medicine. I gave two sorts of medicine to the Monk. The kamma of that; his health improves, my health improves.

Now when you understand that what you do, what you give out will come back to you. I gave the monk one newsletter so things will come back to me. Now that is the most simplest elementary thing. It's by not understanding the law of cause and effect that every trouble you've ever had came.

So the first thing you have got to do is to understand in your mind that nothing can happen to you unless there is a cause. Nothing can happen if you like by luck. Cause effect, cause effect.

Now everyone likes to dream. You know that ladies think some handsome prince will come, millions of dollars come, and castles come. Fairy stories, not true. Other people think I will win Tatts lottery or something. Not true. If you win, because of generosity, money comes and then it's gone. So this, what keeps you alive, why you didn't drop dead today was because of giving food at some past time, keeping other people alive.

There are four nutrients that keep you alive. Three are mental ones, one is food. One is food. Three mental nutrients. If any one of those four nutrients drop you will be dead. Just phew, dead, and then rebirth to wherever. Now we did a meditation the other night where we started to meditate on our body to see what is the difference between this body and a dead body. There's many ways of doing this.

The outside skin on your body, if you meditate, you meditate on the outside skin on your body now. Look at the skin. You meditate, you meditate on the actual skin of your own body, you will realise it is dead. It is living inside, but this is dead. You can rub off dead skin. You meditate on your hair, the tips of your hair, you will realise that hair is dead. That's why you can cut it with scissors without pain. You meditate on your finger nail. This part, you will realise it is dead.

Now you keep meditating like that for long enough and you will realise that this body is partly dead. It is like living on the inside and dead on the outside. And you meditate powerfully enough like that, and then you start to understand something that your ego mind doesn't want to hear about. That this body is going to die. It's going to come to death. Until you know that absolutely with insight knowledge you can't get very far.

Know that this body is on the way to the cemetery. This body is going to die sooner or later. And you meditate because it is showing the marks of the death on it. Even a little baby you meditate; the same. And then if you meditate very powerfully, if you become a good meditator, you will actually see inside your body four great elements; heat element, air element, water element, [earth element]; you resolve the body.

And then you meditate on a body in a cemetery and your own body and you realise there's not much difference. Except under the force of your mind, because remember you're not just a body; you're a mind body; the dead body in the cemetery has no mind, just body only. But you are mind body; nama rupa in Pali. You will realise at that point why the body can still move. It can't move of its own accord because otherwise dead bodies could move around. You will realise if you meditate enough on your body that what moves it is your mind. And that's what the Buddha tells you; that the mind is the boss.

Now Buddhism doesn't cultivate the body. If you want to cultivate the body go down to the gymnasium. The Buddha trains the mind because the mind is chief. What the mind does the body follows. If the mind says move this, moves. If it says stop this, stops.

Now, there are meditators, some who have done very powerful meditation. There are, in Burma, there are five monks who can levitate their body in the air. They don't show ordinary people. But in the forest they can, they've got so much control over their body, such a powerful mind, they can levitate the body. In Thailand there is a couple of monks, there is one monk I know, he has levitated. There is another monk, this man, this monk, a waterfall, he was in the forest in Thailand, a big waterfall. He could get his body to go up the waterfall, get to the top have a look at the top and then shoot down the waterfall without killing himself.

The mind is what is to be cultivated, not the body. The body is on the way to the cemetery. It's only a matter of time and everyone here will be dead. But the mind travels on and then rebirth. The mind travels on and then whatever happens you are in your next birth.

So the first thing to do is to understand, when you understand that very powerfully you will want to get your body to have long life because in a human birth you can practice the Buddha Dhamma. If you're born an animal can't, hell being can't, hungry ghost can't. In most heaven worlds, you can't practice Buddha Dhamma, just one or two of them. As a human being, you can.

So you've got to meditate enough till you know one thing. One; the body is subject to death, sickness, old age and dying; the body. You've got to know that. Now if you know that and your best friend dies, you're not upset. Because what is born must die, you don't get upset. When my Mother died, one tear only. When my Father died, no tears. Because if you go sad when people die, the dying person picks up the negatives on your mind.

You must know, when you've done enough meditation, you'll know this is like a walking corpse and its destination ends in the cemetery. And then you'll realise the reason your body moves around is your mind. Until you get to that point, until you get to that understanding, you've got no basic understanding of anything. Until you know that the mind is the chief and the body is the servant you get nowhere. You're not fit to practice. But because of the ego many people spend hours and hours a day looking after their body. And they don't cultivate their mind. So you see you've got to understand this body, this one is like a walking corpse. Where is it walking to? The cemetery.

Now when you are clear of that in your mind you'll stop being too neurotic about your body. If it aches you'd say "well what do you expect from a corpse?" If it gets sick you'd say "well what do you expect from a corpse?" If you think it's something other than it is, it goes ahh, creak - what do you expect from a corpse? You know. Stomach goes rumble rumble - what do you expect from a corpse? And then you don't waste this valuable human life.

It shows, that is one way of showing the body is like a corpse. The other way of showing is like this. This is in the Buddhist texts. A corpse is decaying and smelling. You get an amen e or putramine. If you've ever smelt it you'll remember it. It is a straight line amen e and it's a characteristic of a dead body smell.

If you don't wash your body for a few days does it smell sweet or does it smell funny? If something was pure, it would smell sweet If you don't wash your body - stinks. Therefore the body is impure. And anything impure must decay. So another text, another way of looking, by examination of the body - it is impure therefore it must end up like smelly corpse. So you've got to wash it to stop the stink.

Also, you say it's my body but if you put under a microscope many little bacteria inside. On this body, billions of little bacteria say "this is my home, this is my body, this is my cemetery". If you analyse, if you've done a lot of biology, and you've looked at a microscope slide, you'll find all little living things in your body. Millions of them. Each little living thing is a sentient being. They say "this is my home, my cemetery, my dunny". Go to toilet in your body.

There's only one of you, millions of them. If they had a vote, you're out. Can't lay claim to this body. So the Buddhist text approach, in many ways to get you to do what's called kayanuppasana, meditation on the body.

Thank you very much.

The MP3 file of the original recorded teachings read on today's program will be available online at www.edharma.org during January 2005.

May you come to see the reality of your body.

May you come to see the reality of your mind.

May you be well and happy.

May all beings be well and happy.


The script was transcribed, prepared and edited by Julian Bamford, Frank Carter, Leanne Eames, Travis Heenan, Anita Hughes, Leila Igracki and Alec Sloman.

References:

John D. Hughes Collection Recorded Dhamma Teachings. Transcription Of Dhamma Teachings

Recording Title: "Venerable Virayananda Talk"
Tape 5, Side 1
Teacher: Venerable Viriyananda, John D. Hughes.
Date of recording: 26/6/88
Transcribed by: Travis Heenan, Frank Carter
Transcriptionchecked by: Frank Carter 2 January, 2005
CD Reference 26_06_88T5S1A
File Name: 26_06_88T5S1A_JDHtranscribe.rtf

Word count: 5082

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