Nothing to Lose

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Welcome everybody. Thank you for coming to this Dharma talk, which is called Nothing to Lose, and the blurb is how letting go of everything is a precursor to receiving the whole world. So I'll start with an anecdote of a question I asked our dharma teacher, Dharma Vijja, who you can see on the shrine here, many years ago when we were practicing in the Wheel of Life. So it must have been 7 years ago, something like that. You might have even been there, Satya Robyn. And I have been learning about Buddhism and the fact that the root of all our discomfort was clinging on to things. And I kind of saw the wisdom of this, but I also wasn't too keen on it. And my question to him was, 'Can I just keep one thing?' And I was thinking about chocolate. 'Can I just keep chocolate?' and enjoy clinging to chocolate and enjoy having a relationship with it, which is, you know, a little bit dysfunctional maybe.

Is that okay?

Please.

I'll give you some money. And I remember his answer.

I don't remember the exact words of his answer, but what he said was, yes, you can keep chocolate if you want. You can keep as much as you like. But what you won't receive is everything. What you won't receive is the field. And I had freedom.

Freedom.

That's the word he used.

Did he use it? Thank you. Kaspar was there at the time. He remembers the word.

I remember.

You remember it better than me. You should be telling this. So what you won't receive is freedom.

And I'm sure I might have made this up, but I'm sure that he gave me the image of kind of going through a gate into a beautiful field full of wildflowers, kind of the spaciousness of that, and that if I kept chocolate in a dysfunctional way, then I didn't get to go through the gate, I didn't get to receive freedom. So I was quite annoyed by that. I wanted to look at a sutta this morning. We, um, the Buddha's teachings were originally recorded, as far as we know, in texts a long, long time ago, and they're really wonderful texts to read. They're quite kind of formulaic and old-fashioned language, quite dense sometimes, but there's actually loads of really great wisdom in there that's really fresh. So I like sometimes to just go back to those original forms of Buddhism. A lot of Buddhism is what other people have said about these writings, or what other people have said about the Buddha's teachings. This is a little bit like kind of hearing it from the Buddha's mouth, or as close as we get to that as possible. And this is a sutra I found called the Nadi Sutta, which is I think it's in the Samyutta Nikaya. Yeah, there's basically lots of big, big books of them. This is from one of the big, big books, and I'll read it to you. So, at Sabbati, there the Blessed One, who's the Buddha, said Monks, suppose there were a river flowing down from the mountains, going far, its current swift, carrying everything with it, and holding onto both banks, kasa grasses, kusa grasses, reeds, birana grasses, and trees were growing. Then a man swept away by the current would grab hold of the kasa grasses but they would tear away, and so from that cause he would come to disaster. He would grab hold of the kusagrases, the reeds, the baranagrases, the trees, but they would tear away, and from that cause he would come to disaster. In the same way, there is the case where an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person who has no regard for noble ones, who is not well-versed or disciplined in their dharma, who has no regard for men of integrity, is not well-versed or disciplined in their dharma, assumes form, the body, to be the self, or the self as possessing form, or form as in the self, or the self as in form, that form tears away from him, and so from that cause he would come to disaster. So the first paragraph's easy to hear, and then the second one goes into Buddha language, Buddhist language. But what he's basically saying is when we try to cling on to something as permanent, it tears away and we come to disaster. So he goes on to say— this is the sort of the explanation of the teaching— He assumes— this is the man that's grasping at the grasses— he assumes feeling to be the self, or the self as possessing feeling, or feeling as in the self, or the self as in the feeling. That feeling tears away from him, and so from that cause he would come to disaster. So the idea is that if we imagine that when we feel happy that we are happiness, or that we can keep happiness, then we come to disaster. If we assume that when we're angry we are anger, then we come to disaster. It goes on: He assumes perception to be the self, or the self as possessing perception, or perception as in the self, or the self as in perception. That perception tears away from him, and so from that cause he would come to disaster. Then he assumes mental confections to be the self. He assumes consciousness to be the self. So all of these things are examples of the ways of being in the world we have that we, we really want to make solid. We really want to feel that we can rely on those things as permanent things. Then he says, what do you think, monks? Is form constant or inconstant? And they say, inconstant, Lord. And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? Stressful, Lord. And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change, as this is mine, this is myself, this is what I am?

No, Lord.

And then he goes on to say, 'Is feeling constant or inconstant?' So there's lots of repetition in these texts, kind of to really— it helped with the memorization, but it also really kind of drives the point home. So then he goes on, 'Thus, monks, any form whatsoever that is past, present, or future, internal or external, blatant or subtle, common or sublime, far or near, Every form is to be seen as it actually is, with right discernment, as: this is not mine, this is not myself, this is not what I am. Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the Noble Ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Dispassionate. Through dispassion he is fully released. With full release there is the knowledge fully released. He discerns that birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world. So in this final paragraph what the Buddha's describing is enlightenment. He's describing what happens when we manage to do what he's suggesting in all his teachings. I've written a little addition to this paragraph because I have my own experience of this process, which the Buddha may disagree with thoroughly. I don't know whether he would or not, but what I would like to add is that what we need to grow disenchanted with is clinging to form. Clinging to feeling and clinging to perception. I don't have a great deal of evidence for this, but my reading of the sutras is that the Buddha continued to enjoy his life. He writes descriptions of the places that he meditates as very sort of lovely dwelling places, cool and calm. He writes descriptions descriptions of the food offerings he receives as being really plentiful and delicious. And so my sense is a man who was completely dispassionate wouldn't bother writing those descriptions.

He'd just say, oh, I've got, I've got a meal, I was a bit dispassionate about it.

So my experience of the teachings is that what we're being warned against isn't any connection to each other or to the planets, but it's, it's holding on too tight to those things. And so this sutta that I've just read you is, is really about attachment. It's about attachment to all of the things that we all get attached to, all all the time. And the trouble with attachment, it says in the sutta, is that things are impermanent. So whenever we become attached, there is— how does he put it— a tearing away. And in that tearing away, that's where the disaster is. So when we come back to my chocolate, Maybe I really set my mind on a particular chocolate that I really love, and I look forward to it all day, and I get to the shop and that chocolate's not there, it's sold out. In that moment, there is a tearing away in me because I experience a kind of a loss. And the sadness, and I've taken refuge in that chocolate. I've clung to the grass, and the grass kind of comes away and I come to disaster. I really like the way that the 12-step programs look at this relationship that we develop with substances or they say in the 12 steps that you shouldn't form addictions to anything that you can't control, which is people, places, and things.

So it's basically everything. I would include ourselves in that. So the idea in the 12 steps is that—

I heard someone talk about alcohol once, an alcoholic talk about alcohol, and two things, I guess. He said that his experience, or what he'd been told, is that whenever he takes a step in life, he's taking a step towards alcohol or towards his higher power— the Buddha for us— wholeness, healthiness. So his experience was that you can't really stand still because because everything you do is taking you towards that, that kind of addiction or away from it. So maybe he might have, I don't know, gone to a bar where there were, there was drink. That would be stepping towards, or he could go and see his friends, or he could go to an AA meeting. But there's always that choice that we're making all the time. The other thing that I've heard, which I really like, I don't know where where it was from, is that when we become attached to objects in this way, the object takes all of our fields of vision. So it's like I've got a bar of chocolate literally just in front of my, my eyes, and all I can see is the chocolate or the absence of that chocolate. So that it's, it's— I either get it or I, or I'm deprived of it. And both of those things keep me from seeing. If I take it away, then suddenly I'm like, "Ooh!" So in the shop where I went for the chocolate that wasn't there, I might suddenly look at the rest of the chocolate.

Or I might even look past the chocolate and see some delicious bananas or something else in the shop.

But suddenly I'm free. I'm free to choose from many different things. And this is how life is. We all have many, many stand-ins for chocolate. That's a small, light example. —what's the word—flippant example. We use objects, but we also use certain beliefs or habits, mental habits. Some of us use work, some of us use avoiding work, some of us use television. There's all sorts of things that we do that we kind of build up into something that we think we can cling on to and hold on to and be safe. And so what do we do about it? So I think that one of the things we do about it, and I think that this is maybe what the sutta is doing, is we see it, we notice it, we notice that we are trying to hold on to things that aren't permanent. And that becoming conscious is really powerful. Often becoming conscious of something leads to a change regardless of whether we try to change or not. It's not about efforting to change, it's not about deciding that we're going to give things up. That may be helpful, it may not, but in the noticing we're coming out of our denial and we're seeing the things that we do that kind of harm us, that lead to harm. Ideally, I think that we can do this noticing with a compassionate gaze. We can acknowledge our props by thinking, 'Oh yes, there I go again doing that. Oh yes, no wonder I do that. Why is hard. I'm gonna cling at something, and now I am clinging at this. So there's a sort of a— there's a gentle quality to it. For me, the best way to imagine that tone is by thinking of Dharma Vijayan. He's very good at that kind of tone. He uses that tone about himself a lot.

He's kind of like, oh yes, there I go again, doing this silly thing, or Aren't we all awful?

And there's a sort of, there's a humor in it, so there's a bit of sadness, but there's a warmth. And the Buddha, we can imagine the Buddha looking at us and having the same, the same sort of attitude. My experience is that if we can aim for that kind of attitude towards ourselves, that we're more likely to be able to change because we don't feel terrible. We already feel terrible. We don't need to judge ourselves. There is enough sadness around how we are without piling judgment on top. So I think that in the sutta, it's what the Buddha is laying out for the monks is this is what we do, this is how we are as people, we cling to things that are impermanent. And he says at the end that, you know, that it makes us miserable.

What does he say?

What do you think, monks, is form constant or inconstant? Inconstant, Lord. And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? Stressful, Lord. So that's how it is, that what we do doesn't work. What we do leads to harm. And that's what Dharma Vidya was saying to me about walking through the gate into the field, into freedom, was that, that of course you can use whatever you want, but just know that it will lead to harm. It will lead to you having something tear away. And alongside noticing, the other thing that I would advise is taking refuge, is trusting that there is something, whatever it is, that will hold us and that will, that will see us with kind eyes and that will love us, and something that we can kind of lean into will rest in. And as we develop that sense of being received in refuge, then we will feel less afraid, we will feel less disturbed by the things that we are trying to run away from, keep ourselves safe from, cling to. And that this, this faith is something that grows very insidiously. You kind of Soak ourselves in something and it gets into us, it seeps into us, and we begin to notice that we, we kind of want some chocolate but we're not desperate for it. Or maybe, you know, every other week. There's little changes that we just notice ourselves becoming a little bit more relaxed around the things that we were so desperate around. And I think these things work in pockets. So we— most of us, I don't know about you, but I have pockets of compulsions that are very deep and strong, and then I have other things that I use that I'm kind of less dependent on. So we might feel that we're getting better, and then we encounter a pocket of desire for something or dysfunction that feels very, very deep. That's how people are. We're always going to have those. We're bomboo, we're foolish friends. We're not going to get rid of our desires ever. And yet there is this effect that over time we just feel a little bit steadier, we feel a little bit less pushed around by greed, hate, and delusion. And when we are pushed around, we're a little bit quicker to find our feet again. So noticing with a warm gaze and taking refuge in whatever it is that you take refuge in, as long as it's a good big thing, that will help us to let go of the grasses. And when we let go of the grasses, what happens? We float down the river. And we float down the river and we can look and enjoy the scenery. And that maybe the river takes us down a way that we weren't sure we wanted to go.

There might be crocodiles, there might be some, I don't know, some scary-looking people on the side of the river.

And we might feel like we want to cling on again or go back to where we were, but we just trust that the river will take us. We trust that the river will continue to carry us, and we enjoy as much as we can.

Now, where we need to be.

So if anyone has any questions, you'd be welcome to ask them. You can either ask them now and go on to the video if anyone has any good questions. No pressure.

If not, we'll turn that off and you can ask any questions. All questions. If you've got more embarrassing questions. Yeah, that's what I was looking for.

As thoughts arise, you let them go. Is that part of what you're saying, that you're clinging to something, you're probably always going to cling to it, but you try to allow the thought of it to go somewhere?

Yeah, yeah, I think that that is one practice which begins to loosen those, those those forces that hold all that tight. So when thoughts come, what we often do is we pick the thought up and then we run with it, or we elaborate on it, we proliferate. The Buddha speaks about kind of confections that we kind of create, which is a really wonderful way of thinking about what happens And the more that we do that, the more we— the more those confections, then we want to hold on to them. And then, you know, there's a whole kind of cycle that we're building ourselves up and trying to make ourselves more solid than we are. So the idea of noticing the thought and then just letting it pass by, I think that that practice can help us to see how impermanent we are. Because we notice that they just come and go and come and go, but also gives us a sense of being in that— I guess it maybe gives us a tiny glimpse of being in emptiness every so often, which is a space where we are absolutely trusting that, that we don't have to hold on to anything. And in that space space, I think that naturally one feels more able to be generous because we don't have to hold on to anything. One feels more able to be compassionate to other people because we don't have to be the good guy and they're the bad guy. All sorts of things become more possible in that, in that space. So, so that isn't the kind of meditation that, that we focus on in this school of Buddhism, but That would be my take of how that's helpful. Caspar really wants to say something.

I wanted to say something, I don't really want to say something.

Okay, Caspar would like to say something.

Just that if your thoughts are arising and you're letting them go and you think, "Oh yeah, now I'm in emptiness," but you know, but you don't actually become more compassionate or kind or joyful then there's something more subtle that you're holding on to.

Yeah, that's always the test for any practice. I think I said this morning in service, the test for any practice for me is do you become more kind? And if you're not becoming gradually more kind, then it's probably not a great practice. Yeah, yeah. Does that help? Or have you got another Further question?

Yeah, for me it's just trying to understand the thinking and the craving because I guess you've said it, we're foolish beings of worldly human, but I know from my thinking and my craving seems to change at each step that I take. I let go of one thing and another one arises I haven't let go at all.

It's just that I'm so proud of what I've achieved.

Even the feel you get, the feel is, "All right, I can't believe where I've got to." Spiritual materialism is the hardest thing to let go of.

Yeah. So even when you do get a glimpse of letting go of something, then you feel really proud about it and you're back to square one.

And I'm sure you noticed from the the laughs in the group, that you're not the only one that has that experience.

That is the human experience, which is why I think the, the bamboo paradigm is so helpful, because it just reminds us that yes, that's how it is and that's how it's going to be. We're never going to, you know, we may become Buddha, but it's unlikely in this lifetime.

So we work with where we are and we work with being foolish beings.

And also hold on to the fact that this is a good thing to do. I think as human beings it's helpful to at least have a sense that there is a little bit of change in us. I think that helps me to carry on doing something. So it's good to acknowledge those things, you know, look back 5 years, 10 years, how are you now compared to how you were? Most of us can say, yeah, actually I am different, there are parts of me that are very different, and there are other parts of me that are the same, or maybe worse, or other parts that you kind of just encounter and you're like, oh my God, I never even knew about that part of me. So it's both an ongoing process, a kind of endless process, but also we need faith to engage in these practices. You've all taken some time out of your Saturday morning to come here to the temple rather than all the things you could have done. There's a vegan prayer one in Hereford.

We could be eating cake right now.

So you're here because you have some faith that there is something that's valuable and that we need that. We need enough faith to keep going and we also need realism. We also need a sort of a realistic kind of idea about what's possible, both in ourselves and in other people. So I think that they're a bit paradoxical, those two things, for me, but I kind of believe in miracles. I've seen miracles happen in people, especially in the 12-step program. There are walking miracles all over the world who have come back from unimaginable places. And sometimes it's just too hard and people don't come back, or they deteriorate. Groups will either flourish or fail. So there's also this kind of ongoing, ongoing impermanent mess.

So just keep just keep doing it. There's something that you said, Anjali, that makes me think of, yeah, how you said how endless it all is, but also that for me there's a value in working with what's endless, but for me there's also something important about the sideways leap out of that, which is into faith, and it's like, oh yeah, It is always going to be endless, and I can stand over here being loved by the Buddha, feeling a bit calm and relaxed and having a sense of humor about it, and all this stuff is still coming up. Not like, "I must get to the end of all this stuff and then I'll be okay." It's like, "Well, I can be okay now while the stuff is coming up because the Buddha's here." Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, we can float in the river and enjoy the scenery knowing that the river kind of goes on forever and the grasses also go on forever that we want to cling on to. Any other questions? It might be something that relates to your own life.

I was thinking about the Buddha's passion, dispassion.

Paradox thing.

And that, you know, just feels really unlikely that he was completely dispassionate. You know, there's some passion comes through his teachings, isn't it? But I was thinking about a teaching that Dharma Vidya gave quite recently about as we work through our psychological stuff, our life stuff, we— one of the rewards of working working through it and staying with it is that we rediscover the beauty of the world. So there's a sort of passion, there's almost like a reward for doing it. Interesting. And I thought about in terms of sort of pure land Buddhism, passion is part of the relationship that we have with the Buddha because our passions bring us to calling the Buddha. And then there's that transaction that happens between us, so it's sort of almost A necessary part of faith. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Again, I think that if me and Caspar weren't passionate about what we've received, you wouldn't be sitting here because we wouldn't have taken this project on.

Yeah, and you have to think that when we say dispassion, we're using a word that's been translated from Sanskrit, and that's been— that most of these nikayas originally were translated you know, quite a while ago by people who were probably, you know, middle-aged white men in the school of Stoicism as much as Buddhism, and kind of that sort of sense of—

1,000 years removed from anything they're about.

Yeah, but also I think really, for a lot— I don't know, this is besmirching those translators, But for some of them you do get a sense of, actually, I don't want to feel anything. It's about just being sort of stoic and a rock.

Yeah, get rid of feelings. Let's get rid of all of that mess.

Which I think says more about the time that the text was translated than it does about the original spirit, because as you say, all the clues are there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels a bit audacious to have an interpretation of the Buddha's teaching because I'm so far away from him. All I have is the translations of his writing, which were done by people I don't know. I'm not a scholar, I don't, you know, I don't know what the words may mean.

But I think even if you are a scholar, you can argue endlessly about the meaning of different words.

I think like you, I, like you say, it's about looking for the clues and what's in the stories. What sort of man was he?

I think he was often quite humorous and the things that he wrote, you know. He was often— Dharma Vijja reads the sutras with a, often with a kind of a, a smile, you know, as the Buddha's like, oh goodness me, what are you doing?

Um, so I, I, I like the idea of a Buddha who was a feeling Buddha, as Dharma Vijja's book speaks of, that he was a human being and he made mistakes. He, he didn't think that women should be admitted to the Sangha, and his his attendant Ananda persuaded him that women should be admitted, and the Buddha said, oh, okay then, yeah, you've got a point. So this, you know, if this is an enlightened being, then an enlightened being is still, is still human somehow. Still, he still got tired.

He'd say to Ananda sometimes, tell them to go away because I need to rest under a tree for a while, you know.

Um, and, and I think he lost his temper, didn't he, when he first came out? He was angry with and there's a story that he was angry at some monks for not doing well enough and they all went and killed themselves. Is that right? No. Oh, what was it?

I've heard something like that. The monks that killed themselves, he sent them all to do meditations on decaying bodies, which was very unskillful, and they became so depressed by doing meditations in the graveyard that a lot of them did commit suicide.

And he became angry another time. Yeah, I've put those two together.

That time he went into the forest or something, disappeared for a month or something.

Yeah, that's right, he got fed up with the fighting groups, which is understandable. And you know, all of these things could be argued differently, but there are these stories that show him in quite a human light. And Jesus as well, you know, also turned people away and went to a to look after himself when there was need sometimes. So I like the idea of my Buddha— my Buddha is a feeling Buddha, and that includes compassion. I agree. I guess that that's something we all have to find our own— we have to settle with our own interpretation of the teachings and test it against our lives. And practice and experiment and see what works.

Yeah. I guess he had to be a feeling person. Even in life, he wanted us to understand how he felt to be in life, to be able to let go of things that would make us feel better, and therefore that passion changed feelings as well.

Absolutely, yeah. The Buddha cared. If nothing else, I don't think many people would deny that the Buddha cared.

And he did have a moment where, after he was enlightened, he did have a moment where he thought the whole business was going to be too much hassle, and he did nearly just go off and meditate on his own. There was an intervention by a Brahma, a god, who came down and said, "No, we really need you to teach these people." He's like, "All right." So even then there was that kind of—

that also shows his humanity, I think. But he did make that decision and he did spend the next 35 years of his life generously offering teachings. And again, if he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be here today. All these images in this room wouldn't be here today. So it's quite incredible, really. Yeah, how lucky We are. So we'll maybe finish there, unless anyone has anything else.

Just, I was thinking about how the addiction— and you said the remedy is to be detached people, places, and objects—

how you can achieve that. Yeah, that is a huge question.

You have to be grounded.

And that's really, I guess, the whole Dharma talk has been about how we are all addicted to many things, and becoming unaddicted is incredibly difficult. It maybe depends on the severity of addiction as well, so I would recommend that if people have an addiction that is quite overwhelming, that they seek specialist help for that.

No, no, I don't take just addiction symbolically. Contradiction. Detached from places and people, objects. How you can be grounded if you are completely detached?

Yeah, I guess that's what we're saying, isn't it? So there's something about being detached in a way that you're connected but you're not clinging. All right, so you have your freedom and your So the language is difficult, I think. Yes. People talk about detachment, but I think what we've just been saying is that we like the idea of a Buddhism that has passion in it. Yeah. Or a life lived that has passion. So for me, there's the difference between, you know, holding something, like you hold somebody's hand maybe, and clinging on. Oh yes, yes. So we want to be connected with each other and with the world, but You know, maybe we could just brush the grasses as we go past in the river, but we don't cling.

Not have addiction of this person or this object.

Yeah, yeah. Does that make sense? Yes, yes, it makes sense.

Good, good. Thank you.

Okay, so thank you all for coming. Thank you for watching, people out there. And we'll finish with 5 minutes of chanting. It might be nice to just leave the thing running. So the practice in this form of Buddhism is chanting the name of Amida Buddha, which is our way of relaxing into the rhythm. So as we chant, we might just want to imagine just, just, just kind of allowing ourselves to let go of the grasses and be carried and just see where the river takes you.

Namoh Amitabhu. Namoh Amitabhu. Namoh Amitabhu. Namoh Amitabh. Namoh Amitabh. Namoh Amitabh. Namoh Ani Dattu. Namoh Ani Dattu. Namoh Ani.