Dhamma Talk From
Bhante Kovida
There is a wise, old saying that people seem to have forgotten: "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
Nowadays, people get upset and offended easily, they point fingers and blame others for the way they feel. From a Dhamma practice perspective, this is deluded and immature behaviour. We are conditioned to react. Our brains are programmed/educated to label, judge, criticise, condemn, compare, to like or dislike, to want or not to want, to have aversion and ill will. This is the conditioning of mental defilements.
So, this is the cause of our conflicts, discontentment, disharmony and dis-ease. The idea of a permanent, unchanging ego-center or self is strengthened by this conditioning and it is this deep-rooted illusion of a separate ego-entity which is the source and cause of our problems and conflicts, fears and worries, craving, greed and attachments.
The Buddha had taught, "When you see, just see, when you hear, just hear. When you think, just think, and when you know, just know." This is the practice of mindfulness, calm attention. This teaching sounds simple, but, as you know, it's challenging and difficult to practice because of our conditioned habit to react to situations and experience via the senses. Without mind training and practice we are like foreigners to our senses and thoughts and feelings, and it is difficult to control our reactions. It is our reactions which make us burn out and stressed, which throw us off balance and cause us suffering, dis-ease.
Our very lack of awareness, calm attention, has contributed to our mental suffering. We are deluded by our thoughts, feeling and emotions and we become victims of them and are thrown off balance. We can learn to rely on ourselves by paying attention to our patterns of response and become aware of the motivations that lead us into difficulty. We can learn to watch and let go with mindfulness on breathing, hand movements during chi gong, tai chi, walking, and so on. Just see things as they are - impermanent, uncertain and empty of self. Things get better in our lives when we react less and less. We can remain calm and peaceful, wise and patient, strong and secure. Then we can respond in a beneficial way and be helpful to others.
Our basic problem in life is that we take things too personally, even things that are not directly related to us. This is an aspect of ignorance and delusion. Whether it is in the past, present or future, we tend to relate to them from the context of 'me' and 'mine.' We don't realise that ultimately nothing really belongs to us. If you take a walk in the cemetery and read the grave-stones, and reflect on the truth of impermanence and non-self, you will see this fact clearly. We ourselves are conditioned and impermanent beings, physical - mental processes. We can see that all our personal conflicts and self-created dramas are meaningless in the light of death and this global pandemic. I find cemetery reflections most therapeutic indeed. We can learn to laugh more at ourselves and not to take ourselves so seriously.. See Youtube...laughing yoga.
Bhante Kovida
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