The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives
Buddhist
Hour
Script No. 379
Radio Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0
FM
for Sunday 1 May 2005CE
2547 Buddhist Era
“Meditation
on Hate, Greed and Ignorance”
'The most important thing
for John, fundamentally, is to show teachable beings the way out of
suffering, to help them understand the way out of suffering and
provide the materiality to do it."
This quote was taken
from his biography, The Non-Ending Journey, written by his student
Evelin Halls, and, as it states, fundamentally describes his
motivation for his extraordinary efforts during his life.
Master
John Hughes was in fact very successful in this regard and was once
heralded as 'one of the apostles of our New World Buddhist Order in
the Australia - New Zealand Region' by the Supreme Patriarch of the
Buddhists of Bangaladesh, His Holiness Venerable Shilalankar
Mahathero.
It is true that he benefited many beings during
his lifetime, but we also now have the special opportunity to hear
his teachings after his death. Through the efforts of his students
many of his teachings have been preserved in audio and video
recordings.
His students, who now continue Master John's work,
are digitising these recorded teachings and are making them widely
available by uploading them to our website www.edharma.org. We
encourage our listeners to visit our website for the study, practice
and realisation of these most precious and profound teachings
We
thank every being who has contributed to preservation of the
teachings of Master John D. Hughes and we wish them to all attain the
matchless bliss of enlightenment.
Today's program is one of
these such teachings, and was given by Master John D. Hughes to his
students over 20 years ago at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey)
Ltd.
The authors apologise for any errors or
misunderstandings that may have occurred in the process of
transcribing the talks from the original recordings.
The
teaching is entitled, 'Meditation on Hate, Greed, and
Ignorance.'
Master John D. Hughes began in the following way:
We would always like to be separated from the people we hate
because remember the conditions of rebirth are hate greed and
ignorance but in fact driven by our kamma we run into the people we
hate. Just as driven by our kamma we run into the people we love. So
this is dukkha; meaning unsatisfactory.
Now dukkha has got
finer meanings, for example, say you've gone for a long walk and
you're tired, you sit down in a chair, your aching limbs have a rest.
So you think this is the stopping of unsatisfactoriness but after a
while sitting in a chair you get squirmy you want to get up and have
another walk. So if you're lying down before long you want to get up.
If you're up you want to lie down, if you're sitting you want to
stand. This is dukkha, this is what dukkha means, unsatisfactory. So
the dukkha never stops and this is what the ... the happiest moment
you've ever had has got some little unhappiness or unsatisfactoriness
in it.
That's what the mind doesn't know either. That's the
second thing, the first one is impermanence, the enlightened mind
knows, the second one is dukkha, unsatisfactoriness is suffering, now
the third one is even more subtle. This is what an enlightened mind
knows. That there is no permanent self anywhere in the universe. You
are not a permanent self. We talk about my feelings, my body, my
this, my that. If you were a permanent self you would have made a
body that lasts forever and perfectly healthy and never die. If you
were a permanent self you'd always have pleasant feelings - but no
one ever has this. The reason is there's no permanent self.
The
"I" we think of is due to ignorance. There are feelings
yes, there are thoughts, yes, there is a body, yes, but there's no
permanent self experiencing it. So when we talk about past lives, and
things like this, people think we're talking about reincarnation, the
idea of a permanent self that goes from one body to another. This is
not Buddhist idea, this is Hindu idea. Buddhists idea is rebirth.
Because of a set of conditions you generated in past you come to this
birth. Now if you generated conditions to be born female you'd be
born female, generated conditions to be born male you'd be born male.
If you generated conditions to be born dog you'd be born as a dog. If
you generated conditions to be born as a hell being you'd be born as
a hell being. And if you'd generated conditions to be born in any of
the fifty four different heaven worlds you'd be born in heaven world.
But they're all impermanent they don't last.
Now some of the
heaven worlds .... all the length of time in the heaven worlds are
all documented in the Buddhist texts and commentaries. Now for
example this is what human beings don't understand. Say a human
being, for example, lives we'll say a hundred years for the sake of
argument. An action, say one action of well we'll say one human
killing another with intention, not accidentally killing, could
generate a hundred thousand years in hell. Now a good action could
generate we'll say eighty million years in one heaven world.
Now
why don't, no one wants to go to hell, heaven worlds are much better.
As a meditator, if you develop celestial eye which several have got
here, you can check out for yourself are hells and heavens real.
There's a certain point in meditation develops celestial eye you can
look in hell see if its real, look in heavens. If you develop
telepathy you can chatter away to people. Not hearsay, got to find
out for yourself.
So the enlightened mind knows this for sure;
that the cause of the trouble, the cause of all this living again,
dying again, suffering again, again and again and again. The
enlightened mind knows this; the cause of the trouble is hate, greed
and ignorance. So therefore what Buddhist practice amounts to is to
reduce the hate. Now it would be nice if we could say hate stop and
it would stop, but it doesn't work like that. Or greed stop, doesn't
work like that or ignorance stop, doesn't work like that. You have to
train the mind with skilfull means. Now Buddha taught forty types of
meditation. There's an infinite number of meditations. Those forty
types of meditation will bring you to nirvana and to the finish of
the troubles.
If you get the wrong meditation; well whatever
meditation you do that's where the result will come. You two were
talking about siddha yoga tonight, Ces also was here, he's gone to
siddha yoga. If you practice siddha yoga you will develop siddhis;
you'll be able to levitate. I know people who can levitate. You'll be
able to do transformation bodies; things like this. But if you play
with them it won't help you any because your siddhis you develop are
impermanent, they're also dukkha, they also cause you trouble in the
long run and sooner or later you put all that energy into that sort
of practice, you develop siddhis and given time you'll loose
them.
So Buddha says when you develop siddhis, when you
develop what people call magical powers, there's nothing magical
about them, anyone can develop these sort of things if they practice.
The siddhis are very dangerous because you get sucked in by them;
they're just another ego trip. Right. Now the Buddha says don't play
with your siddhis. The only legitimate use of your siddhis from
Buddhist viewpoint is to teach the Dhamma. And the Buddha in the text
he goes through all the preliminary steps before you use siddhi. Now
in Buddhas day, for example one very powerful yoga and the Buddha had
big magical battle that lasted three days and the Buddha defeated
that yoga. It was the only we he would come to find the Dhamma. But
normally you will never see a Buddhist monk or anyone with siddhis
display them in public. If you see somebody who displays magical
powers in public don't go near them is my advice. Because there is a
component in them to do that of wanting name and fame which is a form
of greed.
So in Burma there's five monks who can levitate.
That monk there, Tan Acharn Moon could levitate. He was sitting in
the forest in Thailand a few years back, or he's passed away now, and
one of the Thai Airforce planes was flying over and here two thousand
feet above the ground sitting happily, happily in meditation was Tan
Acharn Moon. So the Thai airforce guy, you know reconnaissance plane,
took a photograph of him two thousand feet in the air. So then
instantly, he was a forest monk, principally only had a few monks he
was training, then the army came in and they build a big city around
him, and move electrical generating plants and then people came to
visit him and all his peace was destroyed.
Now that monk over
there in that photograph met Tan Acharn Moon and he said to him tell
us about what happened. Tan Acharn Moon explained to Tan Acharn
Boonyarith, this monk here, that in actual fact he wasn't levitating.
But his meditation was so powerful that although this body was
sitting here, there was a, like an energy field forms around a
powerful meditator; that's why if you can get near one and sit with
him it's a good idea if you keep your mind quite because you will
learn a lot, and the energy of that vortex of meditators energy is
such that anyone looking at that energy will see automatically a
projection of his body.
So technically if you want to look at
it from one view although it looks like to clouded mind and to camera
that he was sitting at two thousand feet, if you want to go into
technical details he was sitting on the ground and this vortex was
just a mind wrought projection. Now clouded minds don't see
correctly. If another Arahant, fully enlightened being, was looking
at Tan Acharn Moon under those situations he would have seen body
sitting here, vortex going up well probably more than two thousand
feet, it just happened the plane was at two thousand feet when they
saw him.
Now Buddha's psycho-projection body, last Buddha,
Sakyamuni Buddha, goes eighty miles into the atmosphere. In other
words there is eighty mile psycho-arc when the Buddha is in
meditation. And that is why devas come, thousands, and what they see
is when their minds strike this, they see Buddha. So that for example
a deva in first heaven world would see projection of Buddha in first
heaven world, a deva in second heaven world would see psycho
projection of Buddha, right up through fifty four heaven worlds. The
beings, the devas of those heaven worlds see Buddha and they learn
from Buddha.
Now while Buddha's teaching say humans he is
teaching also in fifty four levels of heaven world, when he is in
bright meditation of course, if he's just sitting in first jhana he's
sitting just like some of you sitting here. Now for this reason the
Buddha Dhamma is called in Pali devamanussanam which means it's for
teaching devas and men. And here we teach devas too. And if you all
become bright meditators and meditation teachers in the future you'll
want to teach devas. They're much easier to teach than human beings
because their minds are not like human beings like this. They've got
bright minds like meditators minds so they're easier to teach. So you
remember that.
Now your practice would be no good unless you
get refuge in Buddha, you don't worship Buddha, Buddha as a teacher.
The Dhamma, his teaching and the Sangha, the group of enlightened
beings who will help you. Now with refuge in Buddha Dhamma Sangha
instantly you get a lot of devas, a lot of gods become your
protectors. So life has a lot less hassles then. So the key to
Buddhist practice is refuge in Buddha Dhamma Sangha. Keeping five
precepts, no killing, lying, stealing, adultery or drugs that cloud
the mind. And on that base your meditation will just look after
itself. Because you'll be taught by telepathy, that's why. So if
you're ready to be taught, you'll be taught. If you're not ready to
be taught you can wander around the world looking for someone to
teach you, if your mind was too jangly you wouldn't know an
enlightened being if you fell over one.
So its a matter of
preparing the mind. Now the secret is mind inside, in the present and
brightening the mind and creating good conditions.
Alright
take rest now.
John asks some students how they went in their
meditation. Then he teaches again
Get into the present
quickly. Hurry, hurry. Hurry hurry. Mind inside in the present.
Knowing the present. Whatever happened in the past in last twenty
minutes drop; can't alter past. What happens next have no concern
that's future. So get mind into the present instant by instant.
Knowing like this. Knowing knowing, like that, hearing only like
that.
Mind inside. Leonard your mind's outside bring in. Whose
out there? Michael, hurry hurry. Is he on the phone? Michael come and
sit hurry, hurry. Well have a pee, hurry, hurry. Now mind inside
quickly. If your mind is inside you will slowly observe the present
without strain. Your mind's outside put in. Mind's outside put in.
I'll put it in for you. Don't try and make the present moment
permanent. Don't try and, don't try to hold on or fix the present
moment, it is impermanent, it will change, change, change. You should
be observing change like this. Hearing come, hearing go, everything
change. Everything change. Instant by instant. One instant come, one
instant go. That is present life gone. Then another one. Gone. Don't
cling onto anything. Stop grabbing. Put mind inside. I help you, like
that.
Michael sit out there quick, you'll disturb the others.
Quickly, hurry.
Now knowing the present instant. Instant by
instant. You cannot change the present. Why? Because if a pleasant
feeling arises it just arises and then it passes away. So it arises,
observing the present instant by instant If a pleasant feeling arises
it arises passes away, fading away, fading away, cessation and then
it stops. Then a new one, a different one, maybe unpleasant or
something. It arises, passing away, fading away, fading away,
cessation, gone. Say feeling in the body; feeling arises, if you look
arising, falling. Arising passing away, fading away, fading away,
cessation. This is direct discovery of impermanence for yourself.
Noting, noting, impermanent. Hearing come, hearing go, seeing come,
seeing go. Fresh instant.
Now sometimes self image of
ourselves which are called sankhara, self image comes, we are this.
Don't grab at image. Then image passes away. Then next one come. We
are this. Don't grab at image, fades away. Next sankhara, we are
this, fades away. Self images. Many, many. We got so many different
self images. If we grab one and play with it we believe that's what
we are. Now unfortunately the ones we grab at generally are trouble.
So better not to grab. Just knowing. Idea comes, I am this sort of
person. Don't touch. Not "I am". Image is this sort of
person arise, fading away, fading away, cessation, gone. Next one.
Like that. Knowing the present.
Now if the mind is not
grabbing, not grasping, if mind is inside, knowing the present, then
you undertake the following. Just in present not for life, that would
be ritual. Your body is sitting now, speech is immobilized, mind
quite enough, you are undertaking the training precept of no killing.
Your mind is not killing at this instant so you are holder of one
precept. You are not lying now. You're not lying with body speech or
mind so holder of two precepts. You're not stealing now. Mind is not
stealing. Sometimes the mind doesn't know. At the present instant by
instant the mind is not stealing. It's not grabbing anything, it's
not stealing. It's not stealing. The mind is not stealing so you are
holder of three precepts. No killing, lying, stealing. You are not
committing adultery at the present instant. Knowing, knowing,
knowing, this instant. Not committing adultery. So holder of four
precepts. You are not taking intoxicants that cloud the mind at the
present instant. Knowing, knowing. So you are holding five precepts.
Now the situation is this; you are holder of five precepts.
This
very pure, very unusual. Because of all the people in Melbourne
you're lucky if you could find one in ten thousand who are holder of
five precepts at this instant. Where are the holders of five
precepts, these one in ten thousand? They are in this room. They are
you. In this room there is strange phenomena. Representatives of a
million people but they are holding five precepts. Because of this
the mind holding five precepts automatically becomes bright, more
peaceful.
It goes into what is called first jhana, first
absorption. And this is pleasant enough, and it quietens down, it
stops its grabbing, like that. Some of you are going up second, third
jhana, I know. Now, sitting in first jhana the mind is come to peace.
Some peace. It is knowing instant by instant impermanence. Hearing
only, seeing only, knowing only, it is peaceful. It can accept
without any trouble this change. Hearing only, hearing only, hearing
only, like that. Knowing only, feeling only. So the mind has come out
of trouble in first jhana.
Vrinda you are trying to get too
high and you are causing waste of energy. Drop down about one jhana,
you got stuck between two there. That's better Vrinda, like that.
Like that Vrinda. Then mind becomes steady. Don't crave to run up
jhanas, just sit the one, the lowest energy without struggling. That
is about second jhana, that's better. Experiencing that peace.
Now
because of the situation where the mind goes, which is inside. The
mind sitting up in first rupa jhana or second rupa jhana in Vrinda's
case is easy to teach. It can hear things which the jangled mind
can't hear. Now that mind in first rupa jhana is one type of
consciousness. There's a hundred and twenty one types. So in first
jhana is one type, second jhana another. Doesn't matter but it's
quite good mind, its not defiled. Now it can hear things like what we
were saying earlier. Only it hears from a better viewpoint. It hears
things like this. It hears; if when eating food you do not let your
mind run to the food but eat the food when its gets on the lips. That
is better for the mind. Then if anything happens between the food
outside and the food coming to the lips, say someone's handing you a
bowl of food and it drops on the floor just as you're going out to
reach it your mind doesn't become upset. If someone is handing you
say coffee or tea or glass of water and it drops before it gets to
your lips the mind does not get upset.
Now the long term
effect of this practice is it overcomes greed. So there is some
transfer. You must eat food, you can't go on diets or fasts, too
extreme otherwise you get too weak. You must eat a reasonable amount
of food. Since you eat food everyday if you develop mindfulness, like
if you could sit in like first or second jhana and eat your food like
that many things happen. First of all the food makes you healthier,
it gives you long life, it also gives you wisdom, it gives you
strength and it gives you beauty. So it is not the type of food
you're eating so much as the condition the mind is when you eat. So
mindful eating of food, because it is something you do everyday, is
an easy meditation. Because you're going to eat food everyday. If you
don't let the mind grab at the food gradually, gradually, gradually
the greed, with which everyone's born, because if you didn't have
hate, greed and ignorance you wouldn't be born, gradually that greed
reduces. When it reduces wisdom comes because no wisdom can come to a
mind thats blinded by greed because greed its insatiable, it'll just,
there's no end to it. Greedy mind grabs one thing, grabs one thing,
grabs, there's no end to it, so it never knows any peace. So sitting
like this if you practice eating food, knowing, knowing, knowing,
like this, automatically you get the greater merit of food.
Now
the facts are that if somebody offered you food while you sit first
or second jhana now they would get a multiplying factor of about at
least a thousand. What does this mean? In your ordinary jangled state
of mind somebody gives you say a meal; their jangled, you're jangled;
like karmically they would get about one meal back. If someone offers
you a meal sitting in this jhana, this absorption they would get a
thousand meals back automatically. Because the law of kamma depends
on the mind of the person giving and the mind of the person
receiving. Like if you could meet a Buddha and offer food to Buddha
you'd only have to give him one meal you'd be born a millionaire
about six or seven times. But Buddha's past away.
Now if you
do anything with your mind in first jhana you start to help other
beings. If someone gives you a glass of water, there's ten merits
come from a glass of water, by you sitting like this you increase the
prosperity of other beings. This is helping other beings. Now the
kamma of that is good things come back to you.
So very very
simple things, such as brightening the mind, keeping the mind inside,
knowing, knowing, knowing like you are now. When these are developed
you create incredible good fortune for many people. Now a lot of
people come here, they haven't got jobs, this is over the last few
years, a lot of things happened and they think somehow I am giving
them job training. Which is true at some lokiya level. But the most
important thing is they are giving me glasses of water or cups of
coffee. I brighten my mind, they learn to brighten theirs and this
creates the base for good fortune.
May all beings be well
and happy.
May the Buddha Dhamma flourish all around the
world.
May many beings come out of suffering.
This script
was prepared and edited by Frank Carter, Lainie Smallwood and Alec
Sloman.
References
Recording Title: Meditation on
Hate, Greed and Ignorance.
Tape 1, Side 1
Teacher: John D.
Hughes
Date of recording: 06/08/1984
Transcribed by Alec
Sloman
Checked by: Frank Carter
CD Reference:
06_08_84T1S1A
FileName I:\06_08_84T1S1A_JDHtranscribe.rtf
The
Non-Ending Journey, By Evelin C. Halls, 2000.
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