So, welcome everybody. This is the eleventh and last lecture in my course on the Arahant
and the For Truth in Early Buddhist Discourse. I'll start again with the things from the
blog. First of all, we are still with the discourse that we discussed two weeks ago
on the marvels related to the Buddha's birth. There's a comment by Bhikkhuni Suvimali. She
says that there is a psalm among many psalms autocursing the god Indra, or saka he is called
in Buddhist Discourse. He was born in the same way as the bodhisattva was born. From
his mother's side and as soon as he was born he stood up and took seven steps, or notices
I think, and announced that he was the chief. To my mind, these accounts of the bodhisattva's
birth reveal and reflect the Brahmanic influence that infiltrated into the Buddhist canon by
among editors of the canon in the past. Yeah, I thought that was a very interesting observation,
because in a way you see these two discourses on marvels that we have been looking at in more
detail. The one on the marvels related to the Buddha's birth and the other one on the marvels
related to Bhakula, they both can be seen as exemplifying certain Indian tendencies or trends.
The first one, this Brahmanic influence, this devotional attitude, this turning the Buddha
into something more akin to a god than to a human being. And the other discourse showing us the
influence of the Brahmanic element. The Brahmanas or Samanas in Pali, this is the
Indian recluse tradition, the ascetic tradition, and we see there how this has influenced what
I believe we can consider a change in the Arahant ideal from the early, more properly Buddhist
speaking type of conceptualization of the perfected being. So I thought that was a very
helpful comment that made me see more clearly these kind of two, I think in the contemporary
situation in ancient India, probably the two predominant type of influences that would have
exerted themselves on the early Buddhist tradition, the Brahmins and the Sramanas recluses. There was
a reply to this comment by Suvi Mali from John. He says, I see in myself a need or a desire for
there to be a pure original teaching that just happens to be agreeable to me and my own cultural
and individual background. I feel myself latching on to this new information like aha, this story
actually came from over there so I can skip it. I suppose it's inevitable that we all parse the
Dharma based on our own perspectives and histories. So we just need to stay mindful of that and
acknowledge which perspective we are taking up at any moment. I find that very, very useful. I can
very much relate to that and I think there is something to it also to some degree as John
rightly says, as long as we are aware of our preferences, I think it is actually purposeful
also and meaningful to make distinctions and this is what part in part this historical critical
method is about. Perhaps not he is probably meaning this in a little bit humorously like a pure
original teaching but there are earlier layers and there are later layers in the canonical
scriptures and while we do not we are academically speaking not able to go back to the historical
Buddha and say the Buddha said this and that. We are able to say like this material here seems to
be early and this material seems to be later and so the early material stands much greater
charges of being close to or reflecting the original teaching and this is precisely what we
are getting into with these two marvels, the marvels related to the Buddha and perhaps most
strikingly even for most of us this marvelous monk Bhakula whom we find so difficult to see
why he is actually marvelous. So perhaps I reformulating John I would say aha this story
actually came from over there so I can understand it not skip it. Maybe that's my personal feeling
I think I said last time that this this marvel this chapter on marvels when I reside through the
Magimannika is a real challenge for me because you first get this 120 122 this very profound
discourses on emptiness and you get the Buddha's marvels and then you get Bhakula. So I can I can
really see myself wanting one part of the chapter very much and the other part not at all but yeah
the point is as I had to learn myself and John is agreeing with me he's giving us a smile it's not
to skip it but to understand it put it into context and go beyond the emotional response towards an
understanding what it means and signifies and that is actually quite significant then. But before we
come to Bhakula there is a question by sister Akenshana. There's a question maybe I leave a place
for queries and comments regarding to the Buddha's birth marvels. Before I go to the next topic that
was the Magyama Agamadhyas which we took up two weeks ago and then we will shortly look at the
one that has no parallels the story about Anana and then we are all set for Bhakula. Mark says
are we sure the Brahman story is the source how about the other way around or common source for
both stories. Well Mark we can never be a hundred percent sure but the Rig Veda where Suvimali got
that story from is very very old so it seems it is impossible that the Buddhist story could have
influenced the Rig Veda but we cannot be sure that it comes exactly from there it is possible that
Rig Veda took up some kind of archetype type of story that was around about being born from the
mother's side and I have to say I haven't seen that passage because Suvimali is still going to pick
it up for us so I'm talking just based on her information I have not seen the passage myself but
assuming that the passage is the way she describes it it's possible that this story just fluctuated
around in the general Indian context and was then taken up here and there by different traditions so
that need not be a direct influence but the fact that it is found in the Rig Veda which is very very
old ancient Indian scriptures makes it quite positive to decide that it was not it did not
arise or regionally in a Buddhist context. Yeah then coming to the next discourse Madhyama Agama
33. Now Mark says here he agrees the Rig Veda is quite old. She was asking me about the sources
for Madhyama Agama 33. You might remember that was this discourse I didn't really present in
full with all these small bits and pieces about Ananda. Yeah and so this is actually a very very
interesting point because it is particularly in the Madhyama Agama we get these discourses that
collect different pieces of information related to a particular monk and this this actually reflects
the whole theme of the chapter and we are engaging with I mean I think we have to picture ourselves in
that ancient Indian situation the Buddha has passed away and at that time obviously nobody
knows that this is going to be a huge world religion in quotation marks that's going to last
for 2500 years just that you you hear you're told about oh there was this wonderful teacher and he's
passed away and yeah there are some people they still remember what he taught you go there and
listen to them so that's that's that's a situation everything is fluctuating you don't know what's
going to happen there's no scriptures there are no Buddha statues there are no temples so there
is some need for those who are not of the totally rational type they just want to just tell me what
he taught and that's it I don't want to know anything else I'm going to meditate but there's
all this need for some type of personal engagement for something that arouses inspiration that gives
you this this this this this inner feeling of happiness and confidence and so out of this whole
situation I think there are these different things that develop one is this elevation of the Buddha
until he becomes a miraculous being that flies from here to there or earthquakes happening
whenever he does anything and we also get in the lead of the Buddha being elevated then also some
of the monks are being elevated so the beginning is a sense of a sense of history trying to trying
trying to have some idea of some some historical idea like not only the Buddha taught such and such
but at one time he was in such and such a place and then he taught this and then some longer story
the Mahaparinivana sort of the discourse on on the great disease of the Buddha is passing away
where we get all this the beginning of a historical narration and then a more complex
historical narration of how the order came into being in the Vinaya giving a background to why
all these rules were promulgated we get individual stories but at the beginning of the Vinaya we get
this attempt to to give a history of Buddhism in in a certain way and then we get these ideas of
giving a history of individuals and later on we get that in the commentaries the commentaries to
verses Terigata, Terigata to the Iraagavaga the listing of outstanding disciples in Anguttranika
they give some story like look there's this monk named Son so in his past life this and that's
happened and in this life this and that's happened it gives it gives some it flashes out
we are still in India right we have no pictures no books nothing we just get these names Ananda
said so we want something that flashes out who is this Ananda for us we'll never be able to see him
he's passed away already so we want all this information and this the beginning of this
creation of history creation of history of individuals that later on informs the Apadana
genre, Avadana genre in in Buddhist literature where we get these whole stories of the past
begins obviously by collecting the pieces from the present life so this is the my suggestion for the
sources from Madhyama Agama 33 that in this oral tradition we have the discourses spoken by the
Buddha we also get some discourses spoken by disciples and some information about disciples
all this floats around in this this oral transmission like say you come and I tell
you Ananda said this and this and after this course you have me who is this Ananda oh you know
he was the Buddha's foremost attendant and he became a stream mentor in this way he became an
Arahant in this way and there are some stories I can tell you about him look and I give you all
these stories and so this slowly slowly condenses into a discourse it's a it's a very natural
process I think and the interesting thing is that we have this in the Madhyama Agama we have
several of these pieces we have also pieces on Anuruddha
and obviously on Sariputta we had this whole chapter that we read together
so it's this beginning of of collecting information on the disciples to give some
historical background to the situation
and as Venerable Akinshana rightly said some of these pieces from Madhyama Agama 33
are known in the Theravara tradition as well even we find one piece in the Vinaya
about how he became an Arahant
yeah that is just on Madhyama Agama 33 and again if there are questions there is the time for it
and then we go into what has been inspiring a lot of discussion on the blog and perhaps also
now in class our friend Bakula
yeah then I start so first I start with like two warnings given by some of our companions one is
by Sylvester I have a little bit reformulated his presentation but I hope I still catch his
idea so he says in our culture we have certain ethical values they're definitely different from
the ethical values 2500 years ago our culture is different from the culture 2500 years ago
shortly I have no idea about the type of thinking 100 years ago even more so I have no idea about
the type of thinking 2500 years ago so that I thought was a very good warning for us to keep
in mind that obviously we are dealing with a different culture at a very far removed time
so it is it is easy to presuppose that our way of evaluating our ethical values and our ideas
are valid for that situation also and they are not this does not mean that we have to
have to get in this kind of agnostic attitude yeah I can't know anything and I don't think that
was also what Sylvester meant just just for us to keep in mind that if we get too heated up
which sometimes happens to me that slowly slowly you are you're really working from from this
this spectacles of your own looking at the thing but actually at that time they didn't wear this
kind of spectacles and another one a very sweet reminder from way in show she says it appeared to
me that most of us from some kind of view being towards the unskillful towards this person
shouldn't be in step the understanding have equanimity if not compassion appreciative joy
or if that is possible loving kindness yeah in fact I had myself the feeling that I was getting
a little bit heated up last time I think I said that at the end that I apologize if I got too
much it's kind of this Bakula story and this whole topic of the position of women in Buddhism is
something that is very close to my heart and in a way I find it easy to get carried away and I'm
very appreciative if someone tells me listen remember Brahma Viharas yeah okay now I get into
some more detailed comments and you just feel free whenever something comes up to put any question
or query you have this is Venerable Arkinjana she says so this is actually a sutta in Majjhmanikaya
later than the first Buddhist council and it implies that the list of etat agadisabhus in
Anguttranika is also later than the first council I find this interesting in connection with the
account of the foundation of the order of nuns are there any other such late pieces in Majjhmanikaya
when was it finalized yeah so I think first of all we have to we have to distinguish two
perspectives I think one is the text immanent perspective what do the text themselves say
about when they were finalized and the other one is the academic perspective we would have on that
from based on other evidence so if we just talk in terms of from the text immanent perspective
there are here three more discourses which explicitly say that they took place when the
Buddha already passed away that's the Madhura sutta Majjhmanikaya just talking Majjhmanikaya
84 Gautamoka sutta 94 and Gopaka Moggallana sutta 108 this is the the text themselves say
that the Buddha had already passed away however somebody from within the tradition then could
argue that these discourses took place between the time the Buddha passed away and the time the
discourses were recited at the so-called first council so in theory one could still argue that
this must have been already finished by the time the first concert took place this doesn't this
type of argument does not work with the Bhagwala sutta because clearly it implies that a considerable
time has passed since the time Buddha had passed away the conclusion that the etat aga part in
Anguttanikaya needs to be laid I am not sure about that the etat aga section is a part in
Anguttanikaya which lists certain disciples which are outstanding for particular qualities
and so the fact that their bakula is mentioned to be outstanding for his health
he could have been known for that quality already at a time earlier than the bakwala sutta
and I'm just taking the traditional perspective now trying to argue so if I argue like that I
could say well maybe after some 30 years of him being a monk Buddha was still alive and it was
already known wow this this monk is never getting sick he's very very healthy and he already got
this rank and I could even argue the Buddha has the ability to foresee the future he knew that
bakwala would not become sick for the rest of his life so he gave him that rank so I don't think
there is a necessary connection from the bakwala sutta of magimonikaya to the Anguttanikaya this
part and to any other part of the Anguttanikaya being laid but this is just a text immanent
position obviously from a historical academic perspective we we see things different and we
wouldn't generally assume and this is the thing I have argued in a paper that recently came out
that the discourse collections must have been finalized by the time of Ashoka more or less
at least as far as their main content is concerned because King Ashoka was such a
famous symbol for the Buddhist traditions but he's never referred to and also the geographical
awareness that we have in the suttas is much more limited than Ashoka's realm
and there is no real reference that shows us a wider geographical awareness
I have to put a little bracket here there is a reference to to yona which by some scholars has
been taken as a sign that there is awareness of the bhakti and bhakti in greeks and thus of
alexander the great etc this is not entirely correct this reference to yona as I've shown
in detail somewhere else seems to refer to an event that took place before the buddhist lifetime
there was a war the persians attacked greece and the spartans defended greece that the famous
leader leonidas all this happened long before the buddhist time and there was an indian
conjugant in the persian army that attacked greece and so it seems that the reference to yona we get
in one discourse would refer to that so from a historical perspective what we would say is there
is no evidence for major doctrinal geographical political aspects of the time of ashoka and after
ashoka in the discourses there is one poem at the end of the discourses on the buddhist passing
away that apparently was added only in shrillanka at the time when the text came to shrillanka during
the time of ashoka but this poem is also found in Sanskrit fragments of the mula savas divada
savas diva tradition so it is pretty probable that this poem was not created in shrillanka but it
came along with the oral tradition and it is explicitly recorded in the commentaries that
this was added so as far as i can see we can be fairly sure that by the time in the first
century before christ the first century before the present era when the discourses were written down
they were closed and that they pretty much reflect us the development of those about 200 years roughly
from the buddhist time to the time of king ashoka so all the developments that we are discovering
here like the development of the island ideal would have to be placed within this 200 year period
since this is a little important for our general work with this comparative study i just want to
pause and see if there is some principal question on this rough historical sketch that i presented
good then we continue with our friend bakula there was one comment from wayne show i'm giving
it just very shortly she says about his health his being outstanding for health which is also
why he's listed in the in the chapter on the outstanding disciples that perfect perhaps he
is the perfect embodiment of a human being and i thought i was right very interesting idea i mean
she meant it in terms of beauty and alga on the block or he pointed out that doesn't work so much
because he was already too old to be attractive but a perfect embodiment in the sense of the
perfect meritorious being and that is something that i hadn't thought about and lynda has gotten
into this subject a little more in detail and that had really helped me clarifying my understanding
about this particular quality of bakula and she says simply that he had good health it seems to
put the emphasis on the past i assume the idea being that he must have developed such good
kamma in the past that it resulted in perfect health in this life and thus this was such a
marvelous thing before i continue reading i i like to pause for one because i think that is that
is in fact precisely the point that is being highlighted in this quality the idea is that he
is such a perfectly meritorious being he's so full of merits that he won't ever get sick
this is not stated in the discourse but i think wayne show and lynda together have
brought me there to a better understanding of of of this this part and this this fits with this
whole discourse which is in fact not really describing historical person but it's describing
the imagination of the reciters how they feel what is what is superman super monk super monk yeah
he's super monk he is so meritorious that he doesn't get ever sick and he's so ascetic that
he doesn't do this and this and he doesn't need this and that
and this very fact shows us again the lateness and there i continue with the with the with
lynda's quote she says what if anata pinneker for example had been praised simply for the fact that
he was wealthy instead of the fact that he was generous with his wealth seems this would have
been putting the emphasis the wrong way around that is precisely the thing and i think that is
the underlying feeling that many of us get with this discourse that is putting the emphasis the
wrong way around and this is not just that we are projecting our values and ideas on a text 2500
years ago we do to some extent but it's actually because we are comparing it with other discourses
and what they are emphasizing there and we see that there's a difference here
it's a very clear difference and that anata pinneker example was was very useful
to point that out because that's precisely the thing that anata pinneker was rich is
yeah that that's that's not really the issue the issue was he was generous
so this marvelous monk who doesn't do anything for others and it's just being outstanding for
health that for for his accumulation of mass it shows a clear shift i think and it has this this
whole tendency that comes so much in later tradition also to to to increasingly look at the past
what somebody has done in the past and not look at what they're doing right now
now there's a comment by hugo
i have read elsewhere that bakula has an incredibly good reputation as having done
so many good deeds during the time of other buddhas that he only needed to come for one more life
to become an aunt yeah perfect who or that that precisely fits when i snide bakula i had
might have come across this but it's only now that the way in and linda's point out that it
really clicked in my mind because i was i was just seeing that that contrast you see
good health has nothing to do with being a buddhist or being a buddhist monk
anybody can have good health all the other qualities we usually get is they have to do
something with the practice of the dharma or with the with morality some of these buddhist values
can in some way be brought in but the fact that he's just healthy i mean with that explanation
that he did not under the time of other buddhist we get a slightly buddhist flavor to his
accumulation of merits but the very fact of being healthy has nothing to do with buddhism
so that's very useful see i keep learning from all of you
and there's another comment from linda
i have a question about how he goes around to all his fellow monastics to inform them to come
because he will attain finally bhana that day is this kind of behavior announcement commonly
depicted for other arahants yeah i'm not aware of this kind of public display of passing away
in precisely that form asking the others to come however there is this element of display in final
attainments of nirvana we have that with the buddhist passing away and this then successfully
goes also applied to some of his disciples they are like in the in the terawara tradition there
is the belief that only the buddha could manifest certain miracles like manifesting fire and water
but then with other traditions we get other disciples doing that or doing marvels at the
time of passing away that they walk around in the sky and then they do the same thing as the buddha
did go through all the jhanas up and down so there's this this this basic idea of
a display of marvels at the time of the passing away of a fully awakened one seems to be already
there only this this act that hey you all come together i'm going this this kind of announcement
i am not offhand aware of other instances linda had posted that comment just shortly before this
lecture so i didn't have time to further research this but i am offhand i don't remember other
instances in the early discourses where an arahant on passing away calls the others together
this one interesting instance that i recently studied and i've just written a paper on this
in the udana there's a monk who asks permission from the buddha and then he burns himself he goes
up into sky and disappears in a flame but again he doesn't call others to come and witness that
in fact the buddha later on tells the story to the monk someone has the impression at that time it
was just this monk daba he's called and the buddha they were just more or less alone or with just few
spectators anyhow let me see there's some questions here
but we have read in last or before last lecture that health depends on mind
um i'm not quite sure who or what you have in mind health depends on mind i mean uh the fact
that i'm healthy now is an expression of my merits from the past according to buddhist
doctrine and this is i think what linda was trying to point out my present mental condition
does not have so much influence on my health actual health condition whether i never get sick
or not it has a effect on how i deal with pain and how i deal with being sick but that's a different
slightly different question so there are fully awakened ones who can regularly get sick the buddha
himself got sick he had back pain and then other diseases so the fact that bakula in the present
life never got sick which i assume would also refer to the period before he became a monk
uh does not necessarily reflect his present mental condition just as we say somebody who practices a
lot of the brahma viharas loving kindness etc will become beautiful in a future life it doesn't
mean that anybody now who is beautiful must be a very nice meta practitioner and anybody who is
ugly must be a very angry person this is one thing as the imprints from the past that lead to certain
results the other thing is what you do at present about it and so somebody who is not particularly
beautiful and attractive can be full of meta compassion etc i hope i i didn't misunderstand you
yeah then there's another comment on bakula that was made by robert and by orga i'm poisoning
in here the version by orga she says maybe he lived the way he did to encourage other monks
who are still in training to live the same way just to be an example for those who are still
to overcome greed and passion so instead of teaching anyone by means of direct communication
he just lived the way from which those who have not yet reached the final goal would benefit
yeah this i think this basic idea of teaching by way of example is something that is very alive
in early buddhism and also in asia see very interesting much of the monastic training you
get if you if you go and ordain in a monastery in asia and you're a westerner you kind of expect
and now they should tell me what i should do and you expect to get like maybe a listing of what
time you've got to get up and what time you do this and that but unless they are used to having
western students that's not really the way it works the way it works usually is by a non-spoken
communication you suddenly see everybody is sweeping and they're smiling at you and the
next day you see they're sleeping and they're no longer smiling at you you understand hey i'm
meant to be sweeping with the others nobody's gonna tell you look every day after breakfast
we all sweep the place it's just you you're supposed to notice that you see everybody is
sweeping and should be clicking in your mind and when one is not used to that type of communication
then some westerns find it very difficult they they want everything why don't they tell me
they can tell me no then i can't but that that's not how it works and it's a very interesting way
because it's a way of teaching that inculcates a lot of mindfulness and a lot of meta in a way
also because you you have to keep observing the others and have to keep that feeling of
kindness acceptance of how things are different and trying to fit in to to learn the lesson and
when you do that it really strengthens the meditation practice actually but in the case
of bakula i'm not so sure because he was living in the midst of the community but he was not
participating in community activities so say for example if he wants to be an example for others
it would be really nice if if he if he takes up a few novices the novices need training so if he
looks after them then he can be an example for them but he as far as the way he's described to
us he completely cuts himself off from any way of a type of interaction between monastics and monastics
between monastics and lay people that will be of benefit for others except for this merit thing
that is precisely the one theme that i finally understood after they're getting help from way
in show in lynda that this merit theme he is very meritorious he's an other hunt he's an ascetic
so the way you get merits giving him robes giving him food that that that that way still works
well even with the robes it doesn't really work so well because it doesn't accept robes from
lay people so you have to have to be really tricky you have to prepare rag robes and move
anybody has watched and put them there for you but at least you must be getting food somewhere
so there's one way for us to be making merit but the example as an as an example for those still
in training i think and there was a story that juliana shared on the blog that showed how this
example can go off hand i think it would actually be a misleading example i think i would rather
have somebody like veneba sari puta whom we have met or even veneba ananda who is not yet an other
hunt as my example because they show a way of keeping the training keeping morality that is
much more integrative and holistic so i think it's good to keep this idea in mind that he
served in ethics an example and that in the discourse that we are reading he's actually
meant to be an example that is definitely the case but i don't see him as an example in the
historical situation mark bakula seems to serve as an archetypal figure to inspire renunciation
he's not meant to show the whole of the monastic life just this one aspect
yeah i i i understand that uh and i think you're perfectly right that bakula is not meant to be
the only type but at least in this um he is one of the i think only two monks in this chapter
only ananda and bakula no then the rest is lay people i believe and dharma yeah there's only
two monks chosen for being marvelous in this whole chapter and this is the chapter on marvels
so after the buddha we get ananda which i fully understand and then we get bakula these are two
very opposite ideas and i think the fact that he's being put there and that we get this acclamations
it's so wonderful he does that it does mean that he's not just uh uh like one out of 100 different
options and the other 99 are so much more important but he is being highlighted as an
ideal arahant and i do not see myself how he could be inspiring renunciation
because what i see in him is in fact not renunciation it's an exhibition of a flawless
aesthetic conduct in line with the shramanic ideas of the time that misses out on buddhist
qualities and here i have a nice nice comes almost as a reply to what you said from headmich
she says bakula received this wonderful teaching when oil bane became an arahant and the feeling
of gratitude has not arisen in him he received something from the sangha is not giving it back
to the sangha this kind of gratitude naturally arises in my own experience it just developed
naturally that the little you really understood that this much one shares with others this lack
of sharing and bakula's behavior is very strange and it's more likely to me that he was not an
arahant at all well the last conclusion is strong but i think the point that headmich is making is
precisely that you see there there are these other examples like whenever rebata is also an
arahant and he almost never appears because he always off somewhere meditating he just wants
to be alone that's perfectly fine but you get his poem and in the poem he says oh i'm full with
nectar for all beings sababutu yeah beautiful poem and that that is what he feels is outstanding
about him so that that gives me a completely different flavor and that inspires renunciation
at least in me
there's another comment by headmich
another question has a risen mind concerning teaching the dhamma why are there silent buddhas
in case of bakula it would have been better if he had been a silent arahant instead
and there's another comment by adam also he says the representation of bakula reminds me slightly
of the pacheka buddha type which seems also to have been venerated in society i suppose bakula
could have been seen as incorporating a slightly different type of samana practitioner tradition
into the sangha and that's precisely the point yeah so we have this pacheka buddha idea that
in the early suttas makes its manifestation very sporadically and becomes a little stronger
afterwards we find a lot of that in the ekottarika agamma where the collection an agamma collection
a collection an agamma collection that has remained open for a longer time the basic idea is
somebody on his own at the time when there's no buddha around reaches full awakening but he is
his merits his practice is not sufficient to enable him to explain this to others so it
becomes a silent buddha or a solitary buddha pacheka buddha and these pacheka buddhas according
to tradition exist at the time when there's no buddha around and then there's obviously the
samasambuddha like the gautama buddha who similar to the pacheka buddha finds awakening on his own
but is able to teach and then those who are his disciples who learn it from a buddha and become
an arahant so there's no silent arahant like headwig said nice idea he's a little bit of
silent arahant but i think the important and helpful suggestion that we get here from headwig
and adam is that just as the pacheka buddha has a lot of qualities of the ascetic type
bakula is really the representation of the the ascetic ideas of contemporary india
brought back into buddhism there's a there's a constant
conflict is maybe a little bit too strong but the two poles we find in the tradition
and there's that that that that that that that that that where i actually personally see also
much of the way the buddha is shown and particularly his disciple ananda this softness
openness to women no no fear of women integration a more holistic approach and seeing for the essence
of things and being able to accommodate and then there is this other idea which comes very strong
in other ascetic traditions also this this this emphasis on outer strict conduct on maintaining
particular forms of ascetic conduct strictness and there also is often this undercurrent of
wanting to have nothing to do with women women are difficult there's a very nice thing you'll
come to that soon on that topic and again it is perfectly understandable that as soon as the buddha
has passed away and this central authority is no longer there that can guarantee the genuineness
of the approach to the dharma that naturally the traditional latches on to externals
and there's this thing i mean even at the buddha's time according to the way this is depicted in the
discourses there were people who thought themselves to be arahant and they were not and the buddha
would have had the authority to say look at this overestimation no but once he's gone there's
nobody really who who can say ah this is this is this is no this is yes nobody who can confirm
and with that there is a natural tendency to look for outer manifestations of arahantship
and then it is again natural with the pressure of surrounding other groups
all these groups competing for support from the laity that there is a natural tendency towards
those displays those outer displays of ascetic virtue that are being estimated in the general
Indian context and this inevitably is at the loss of those inner buddhist qualities
so i think if we look at it in that way we can see that there's a natural tendency and that
there's justice we we saw with the marvels of the buddha's birth this influence of the brahmin
tradition then here we we see this this ascetic ideal the samana or shramana tradition that that
finds it's that that manifests and that that is i think if we look at it that that there's a
there's a natural process
and uh here's bobbert he says somehow to me the impression of selfishness prevails and the question
remains why the sudah was included in the text and he's right there is a this this this depiction
of the perfect aesthetic misses out on essential aspects of of the inner buddhist training and
this is why we get this impression that he's selfish or we almost wonder is he really an
arahant but why the sudah was included i think maybe this has become clear now precisely because
in that survival condition after the buddhist passing away it was necessary to find some way
of accommodating this ascetic ideal held by other traditions and monks were coming from
other traditions and then ordaining as police monks they were carrying with them these ideals
there's this whole question mark asapah mark asapah is a symbol of these ascetic ideals another
question is the devadatta story the story about somebody who according to what the texts tell us
he created a schism in the early monastic community by proposing a more ascetic conduct
which the buddha was not willing according to what the texts say to accept this binding
for all of his monastics there is this constant need of dialoguing a tradition that has departed
from the ascetic trend but is still seeing itself as a member of the wider samana community
and so it is only natural i think that this story is manifest this tendency is manifest and we get
this devadatta story which as time goes on becomes he becomes the most evil person you could possibly
imagine we get this mark asapah who even now i had that two three years ago i had a meditation
retreat i had a monk from india who was just refusing to talk so he took to to improve his
meditation which is a little difficult when i mean i'm not really a chattery kind of person but
if you teach a course it's nice if you ask the meditator for something in particular if they
reply to you you see and he had this little nonsense just like mark asapah he was trying
to live up to this ideal of mark asapah actually mark asapah talked he didn't keep sorry but that
was just this ideal in his mind that he was trying to live up to and bakula is another such idea
this is linda on the same topic i'm still curious though how such a radically different picture of
the arahant came to be emphasized in a relatively short time after the buddha i can see that certain
ascetic ideals might have been emphasized to give a certain impression in order to counter the
picture of some monastics who may have been lax or to inspire those not practicing properly
but it seems extreme such a different emphasis and without mentioning any of the real essential
qualities yeah yeah i agree i've already replied a little bit to this it's a radically different
picture and it's really surprising that it happened within such a short time but at the same time
i think the very fact that the buddha had just passed away and the community was just struggling
for survival makes it understandable why something happened relatively soon
yeah and linda is right it was not particularly well done they could have put in a few of the
essential qualities i mean could have also said he's marvelous because of his morality concentration
wisdom two three of those qualities would have made it a little bit more tasty for us i think
here's juliana the point problem at stake doesn't seem to me to be necessary the arahant bakula
himself but rather the way he comes to be represented to what extent it is bakula who
is speaking and to what extent has he been made into speaking in a certain way which is ideologically
functional to certain agenda bakula function functioning as a source of legitimation and
example this depiction is aimed at providing illustrious antecedent and role model for
certain types of misbehaviors arrogance misogyny and so forth
yeah i thought that was that that that that that that really brings us back to the point and
now i have a beautiful thing from rudolfo
which touches on the issue of that this whole attitude of hating women being afraid of women
i i i thought that was so nice i
so he says
let's say you see a nice sport car and your mind gets agitated because of the wish to own it
to ride it to drive it craving arises and you blame the car then you burn cars out of the street
because they disturb your practice and you talk all the bad things that cars have noisy
contaminating inside they're full of oil and gas that is dirty the exhaust pipe smells bad etc
at the end you're banned from touching a car or being transported by a ride
one because the car is contaminating and noisy not touching a car now is a virtue
does it make sense i thought that was just such a beautiful example
but the practice is to watch how you relate to things to ask the things to change how to get
away is totally contrary to the practice to be a control freak and letting go are exact opposites
i understand that you need some isolation at the beginning until you can develop some detachment
from sensuality if you're trying to detach from cars don't go to a car exposition but do not blame
it on cars we're all born from a woman we receive love first from a woman so even the most advanced
monks have the first experience of love and compassion in his life from a woman yeah i
thought that was very beautiful and now i have a final quote from rosa to get us back into gear
she just says i think there's always a chance to practice letting go
i'm just writing this new satipatana book and this is precisely what i was writing on on the
bhojangas as the main the awakening factors as the aim of satipatana meditations the awakening
factors then have to be practiced with these four qualities supported by seclusion dispassion and
cessation and the comment in letting go so after all this i think important for us to go through
it and look at it for my part i'm now ready to let it go but you are certainly free to
put up any question or comment that you still have on the baccala issue after that i would
be getting into some more of the discourses on marvels and extraordinary qualities that we get
in this chapter yeah so i assume you are all letting go i hope you're not letting go of me also
so we are moving on with our extraordinary qualities and marvels and now we get some
that i think most of you will like because we get marvels of the dharma yeah they're much more
palatable at least to us so the background situations there is an asura this is a kind of
mythological being that are populating early buddhist thought world and this asura lives in
the ocean and he describes eight qualities that the asuras really like about the ocean asura
sometimes transit as titans or but i think it's best to keep the padi or sanskrit asura asura
and when he has said there are these eight wonderful qualities of the ocean which is why
we asuras love the ocean so much dubula then comes out with eight qualities of the dharma
and he compares them to the qualities of the ocean so i will read these qualities
just as from the bottom to the surface the ocean becomes gradually greater in
circumference evenly and uniformly increasing up to the shore and just as its water is always full
but never overflowing similarly my true teaching and discipline has to be gradually practiced
gradually trained in gradually completed and gradually taught
just as the ocean's tide is never out of time similarly in my true teaching and discipline
the monks nuns layman and layman will never until the end of their lives
break the precepts which i've established for these clansmen
just as the water of the ocean is very deep bottomless and extremely broad boundless
similarly in my true teaching and discipline the teachings are profound
just as the water of the ocean is salty having everywhere the same taste similarly my true
teaching and discipline has the taste of dispassion the taste of awakening the taste
of tranquility as well as the taste of the path just as the ocean abounds with treasures similarly
my true teaching and discipline abounds with treasures such as the four establishments of
mindfulness the four right efforts the four bases of supernormal power the five faculties the five
powers the seven factors of awakening and the eightfold noble path just as in the ocean dwell
most wonderful and most remarkable beings similarly in my true teaching and discipline
there is the community of noble ones of great spiritual beings all dwelling within it in the
other hands those who are on the path to ownership non-returners and those who are on the path to
non-returning once returners and those who are on the path to once returning and stream entries
and those who are on the path to stream entry just as the ocean is pure and does not accept
corpses and if someone dies in the ocean the body is blown by the wind and thrown up on the shore
overnight similarly in my true teaching and discipline the noble assembly is pure it does
not accept corpses if there are those who are without vigor wicked fake celibates though
professing to be celibates fake recluses though professing to be recluses that even though they
may be in the midst of the community of nobles they are far away from the community of nobles
and the community of nobles is far away from them in the last just as there are five large
rivers of jumbo deeper in jumbo deep as india that enter the ocean having ended it forsake the
original names and are all just called great ocean similarly in my true teaching and discipline the
warrior brahmin merchant householders worker clansmen who shave off hair and beard don the
yellow robe leave home out of faith and go forth to practice the power these forsake the original
names and are all called recluses yeah we get a similar description in the angular nikaya
under the eight so the first quality was the gradual the gradual training
the second was not transgressing the rules
the illustration in the parley version is a little different it speaks of the ocean not
transgressing its shore and the magyama agama version was let me just go back
that the tide is never out of time
yeah the problem of transgressing the shore especially in Sri Lanka since tsunami we know
that this is not always the case so i personally i can relate better to the to the to the idea of
the ocean's tide but it might also be sometimes off i don't know so much about the ocean
the third quality is that there's no communion with the wicked that and this is the seventh
quality in the magyama agama and the fourth is that the four cars become one that is the last
one we just read through this image of like the rivers flow into the ocean so from any cast one
just becomes a buddhist monk the fifth quality is that nirvana is not affected by how many realize
it just as the ocean is not affected by the rivers that flow into it and this quality is not found in
the magyama agama version there is a different quality in the magyama agama version
which speaks about the profundity the profundity of the teaching and i find this
this is actually one of the two that really touches me
yes quality number three just as the ocean is very deep so the teachings are very profound
the idea of the i had that before when reading the pie the idea that the nirvana element could
become full because when you realize it it seems a little it's something that i i've never been
really fully understanding so well anyhow i mean these are just side beside then the salty this
is the one that i i particularly take to like the ocean is salty wherever one tastes it so the
teaching has the same taste and in the party it just speaks about the taste of liberation
the vimoti rasa and that is really yeah it really catches me the magyama agama
has four dispassion awakening tranquility and the taste of the path we have an ekottarika
agama parallel that only has the path and it says it's the eightfold normal path
so all of these are fine but yeah if my my personal preference this this
the taste of liberation is really something that really catches me
yeah and then the others are again there's treasures in the ocean or treasures in the dharma
and there are remarkable beings in the ocean and there are remarkable beings and noble beings in
the dharma yeah it for the discussion on the blog um during the next week it would be very
interesting to see which of these qualities participants find speak to them and for what
reason would be a nice way there's a comment here by rosa five sounds rather brahminic upanishadic
that's an interesting idea rosa
yeah i had never i had just not been able to relate to that before because
nirvana as an element that could be affected by those who realize that the idea never occurred
to me in the first place so there was no need to point this out as a marvel kind of
and when i found that this is this is absent from the magyama agama and the magyama agama has one
that i to me reads very simple and clear the ocean is profound and the dharma is profound
i i felt my my own difficulty to understanding this a little bit justified kind of
yeah in fact as rosa said it's the only way that's not in the chinese so
we can we can we can simply put a question mark on it
it's something that that's not really merely evident to me but maybe some of the other
participants in the course will be able to to to help us to see some some meaning in it
there must be eight qualities after all it's it's in the eights of the anguttara nikaya
so the main point is that these similes illustrate qualities of the dharma
and i i think most of us would agree that these are really marvelous and we have no problems with
them i suppose uh if you have problems please feel free to speak up but they are not as
problematic as earthquakes and lights when the buddha gets born and not as problematic as our
friend bakula whom now following rosa's advice i i'm letting go of lizan how often did the buddha
explicitly refer to caste is very explicit and where can one read more about the reaction to
this during the buddha's time the topic of caste comes up relatively regularly in the suttas
and there's the buddha himself and sometimes also his disciples refuting certain claims
particularly the idea that the brahmins are the foremost caste and that they are therefore superior
and are able to practice a form of mental purification or other purification that is
not available to other castes the reaction to this during the buddha's time is a little more
difficult because alongside the buddhist discourse we do not have so much other material to let us
know how other people reacted to this it's a little complex there is quite a lot of literature on this
topic so if you wish i can i can i can look and put a few things together there's a whole
monograph on caste there's also some more simple like i think malala sikara or jaya vikram or jaya
tilaka they have written on caste that should be available from the buddhist publication society
i can look up and and send you some references if you're interested in that topic
but i am i i it it seems to me fairly probable that what the buddhist texts they represent
is the situation more or less in in contemporary india at their time but i'm often not aware of
so much corroborating evidence this is still a very early period and the giant scriptures are being
the giant scriptures are being put into writing only much later
but the topic of caste seems to have been as fast we are able to judge from the discourse
a very prevalent one could uh moving from the dharma to another marvel earthquakes
hmm we get three reasons for an earthquake
this earth rests upon water the water rests upon wind and the wind depends upon space ananda there
comes a time when a great wind begins blowing in the sky when the wind begins blowing the water
becomes disturbed and the water disturbed the earthquakes so this is the first explanation for
an earthquake has just been an earthquake so ananda came to the buddhist and said
how how come this happened and the buddhist gives him these three reasons
first one is obviously based on ancient indian conceptions of cosmology the second one then
a monk who possesses great supernatural supernormal power great and mighty virtue
great merit great and mighty power is able with the supernormal power of mastery over the mind
to develop perception of the earth as minute and perception of water as infinite on account of this
this earth behaves according to his wish according to his will being disturbed again and again
quaking again and again so here we get the idea that somebody who has
supernormal powers is actually able to influence outer events in nature
by having a perception of earth as small and perception of water as infinite and
we have above the explanation that the earth rests on water and so by having
shrunken earth in his perception he is then able to shake it
um i just think it's interesting for us to know that these passages uh i think they are
meant literally i don't think how we could interpret them as symbolically so it's clear
that the early buddhism believes in these supernatural powers and feats of the type
that can affect out there the outer world in a way that goes diametrically opposite
to our understanding of modern sciences
and then the same ability a monk who has such supernormal powers when he gets reborn as a deva
he will be able to do the same thing and the other reason why an earthquake may happen is
that a tatagata is about to pass away if a tatagata will be attaining final nirvana soon
within three months for this reason the earth quakes violently so there we have these three
basic ideas there's first of all the idea how ancient indians thought an earthquake
comes about they have this idea that earth and below there is all water the second that
it is possible to supernatural powers meditative powers that one does that intentionally
and the third this idea that outer world responds to events of a spiritual significance
we had that already with the marvels of the buddha that he's get born and then there's an
earthquake and lights and here again the earth this is such a monumental event that the buddha
is attaining final nirvana soon in three months and somehow this this makes the earthquake
and in the anguttara nikaya power then the three come up to eight and this narration
has then become part of the story of what happened before the buddha's final nirvana we find it also
in the mahaparin nirvana sutta and the other five causes why an earthquake takes places when the
bodhisattva leaves the heaven to enter the womb of his mother when he comes out of the
womb of his mother when he becomes awakened when he sets emulsion the wheel and when he actually
attains final nirvana this earthquake was three months before so here we find an expansion
of this motif of outer nature responding to events of specific spiritual significance
there's a question by hugo my understanding is that renunciants are above the caste despite
where they came from and that was established prior to the buddha
um i think actually that uh they were not they were they were outside of the forecasts
but particularly brahmins were quite definite that renunciants were below them
they were looking down on them and denigrating them and there's one discourse in the
diga nikaya that starts with some brahmin monks in fact complaining to the buddha
after he asked them that look after we became monks these brahmins caught us with all these
bad names because by becoming renunciants they have given up their brahminical status
and are therefore considered as far inferior they are menial shavings they shave their hair like
that was actually a punishment for crimes and the proper brahmin has this beautiful long hair the
males also that he he washes and and so there the renunciant is outside of the caste system but
not above it at least as far as the brahmin are concerned he is he is certainly considered lower
and this was a you are right this was already established at the time of the buddha the
shramana tradition and
yeah i can just let me let me give you that that reference i just forgot which discourse that is
i think it must be the aganya sutta
yeah you can read the aganya sutta that is diga nikaya number 27 and it starts with precisely
this point where the brahmins are saying look you you have gone forth from brahmin families and
now they are reviling me they say the brahmin case is the highest cased and and only brahmins can be
purified and you are shavling petty ascetics dark fellas bone of brahma's foot whereas the brahmins
are born from his mouth so there's this whole denigration of buddhist monks because by becoming
shramanas by becoming renunciants they have lost their brahmin case status diga nikaya 27 aganya sutta
yeah so here we have another marvel the causes of earthquakes i suppose this is maybe
one of those marvels that at least some of us are not so enthusiastic as the marvels of the dharma
yeah yeah then we get another one on the marvels of the dharma and it's the same basic pattern
that we had with the discourse earlier only there's a story that goes before that
there's a story that the buddha was reciting the padimoka the monastic code of rules this every
fortnight monks and nuns separately they meet as a group and you see in that times because they
had nothing to write down then somebody recites the rules this is a way of making everybody remember
let me see did i do something wrong or not and then one has to confess it seems originally the
idea was that one confesses at the actual recitation but soon enough and this is the
practice nowadays we confess before we monks meet and we confess to each other any thoughts we have
made nowadays we have also our little booklets with the padimoka so we can look it up we don't
need to rely on our memory or the next recitation we confess before and then there's this idea that
the padimoka is then recited in a pure assembly and the buddha is supposed to be reciting the code
of rules presumably that is what he did in the initial stages of the development of the monastic
order and the discourse really builds up tension as ananda or somebody else saying one day it's
time to recite and the buddha doesn't reply and some time passes and he asks again and ask again
and finally the night is always over the monks have been sitting there in front of the buddha
the whole time and the buddha says he can't recite because there is an impure monk in the assembly
and then even when he has said that this monk keeps sitting i assume he must have done something
rather grave and then mahamogalana with his psychic power he spots the monks gets him and throws him out
bolts the door and tells the buddha now the assembly is pure you can recite and the buddha
says okay but from now on i'm not going to recite the rules you have to do it yourself
so after this introductory story then we again get this eight qualities of the dharma and they
are the same that we've already been looking at so i'll just quickly touch on them again and
hope that you might be inspired to say something about them on the blog the gradual training
the non-transcressing of the rules the profundity of the dharma the taste of liberation or awakening
like a salty taste of seawater the treasures in the ocean like meditation treasures
and amazing creatures down in the depth of the ocean like these amazing noble beings
and the wicked one if they're not being thrown out by mahamogalana they are washed through the shore
and the forecast is irrelevant in ancient in early buddhism it has become relevant in later forms of
buddhism and they disappear and all become just as rivers join in the ocean so we are back to
the qualities of the dharma now we get marvelous lady sappers don't tell me there are no lady
sappers getting teachings and getting praise there's the householder ugga and
there are some his marvelous qualities again there are eight
some wonder if all these eights have formed in a chapter on eights and later become part of the
malyama agama when there was this idea of forming a topic of marvel chapter and the first marvelous
quality of ugga you will be a little surprised at the mere sight of the buddha he sobered up yeah he
was drunken and he gets remitted doing a gradual talk at that first meeting nota bena and now the
others are more standard since then he kept the five precepts and lived in celibacy and his chief
wife here he marries her to someone else she likes to be married to and he feels no regret
he tells her look i'm i want to be practicing meditation so if you want to marry somebody else
and she says yes yes i want that one and he's like okay you can have him and he does not look
down on any monk even if the monks are not particularly well behaved or attained and he
makes offerings to monks without any discrimination even though he is actually aware whether they are
higher development of practice or not and there are gods who come to inform him the qualities of
the buddha and his disciples and he has eradicated the five lure fetters so by the time of these
marvels he has proceeded from stream entry to non-return yeah so he was actually he had drunken
alcohol he was out somewhere having fun a picnic we would call it today
and then he happened to meet the buddha he sobered up and doing that very first meeting
he became a stream enter the Pali version agrees i'm just giving you the reference here
so at the moment of seeing his mind became full of joy and the surah mother the algoa disappeared
the inebriation disappeared and it's interesting though that we have two discourses with these
qualities of ugan this is angutanaka 822 in 821 the preceding discourse we get the eight qualities
little differently and this one has the same statement without the last part so there we
only have on seeing the bhagavata the blessed one his mind became inspired but the part on the
alcohol has disappeared that's a little difficult thing obviously for tradition to struggle with
it because it's obvious that alcohol is not appropriate and it's a breach of the precepts
and so these these kind of borderline cases are a little challenging i think there's another one i
just give you the reference for anybody who likes to look it up story of sarakani in the samyotanika
this is 5524 volume 5 375 in bhikkhu bodhi's trench creation this is page 1811
yeah he is declared by the bullet to have passed away as a stream enter
and he's a shakyan and the other shakyans complain because they hey he was drinking
how could that fella be a stream enter and the buddha then explains that he completed
sarakani completed the training at death time so there's some different interpretations of this
story my personal take is that there's something that in the early suttas we call that dhamma
no sari or sadhana sari some who has either by dint of understanding the dharma or by dint of his
strong confidence in the dharma has moved up to a level where stream entry is bound to happen
before he or she passes away so it could be assumed that at some point he went up to that level but
because that's not really an attainment level where defilements are being eradicated he's he
fell back and maybe he had bad company we don't know and he got back into this uh taking a drink
from time to time i don't think he would have been boozing every day but just not keeping away from
the stuff and that when old age and death came close he stopped that and definitely at the time
of death he was fully established immorality and because of the practice he had done earlier he was
then getting the he then got the breakthrough to stream entry that's just my way of putting this
story together but yeah we can we can take along from that that the alcohol should definitely be
avoided but it uh in the early distance we get these two borderline cases ugga and sadhakani where
in spite of some drinking uh they have been able to make the breakthrough
yeah then there is uh
uh magma magma 39 which does not have a palli parallel this is again our friend ugga the story
is uh that he is giving so much of offerings and support to the community of monks that the monks
get worried that he becomes poor and they ask ananda to tell him to stop this and so ananda is very
circumspect about it he asked them to give him uh give him an explicit command he feels a little
uncomfortable about it but then he he tells ugga look we we actually think uh be careful don't don't
don't just throw out all your offerings like this you will just become poor and then ugga explains
that he has his aspirations and therefore he wants to continue like that and then he gives
another exposition of his marvelous qualities which are the same as those we had in the in
the discourse before these eight qualities so these are his marvels okay before i go on to
hataka let me see akinshana last year we had a sutta in which it was said that the streamenter is not
established in the five precepts only avoiding the five deeds that led to sugar rebirth in hell
yeah i do not often recall a sutta that precisely says it in this way
but there is definitely uh some more ambiguity in this respect in the early discourses compared
to related tradition let us put it like this and while it is obviously clear that morality has to
be kept this um the the way of insisting that the precept has to be done exactly precisely in this
way and no other way is more a tendency in later tradition yeah i'm akinshana says that maybe the
text was supplied because of the discussion yeah i'm often i i i haven't looked i haven't listened
to the lectures last year so i'm excused i don't remember but thank you for pointing that out
definitely in the case of uga and sarakani show some ambivalence around the area of alcohol
there's also a slight ambivalence around the area of killing living beings if that refers to insects
it's not entirely clear but it could be that at the very early stage insects were not considered
living beings and that uh if you find often like sometimes in the Pali that's just killing living
beings and then the chinese version adds including insects and ants and uh i if i don't recall
wrongly the reference to insects and ants is only found in Pali Vinaya not in the discourses
and the Vinaya has been open for a little longer time this is not a definite thing but uh there
seems to be some ambivalence in that area around these two precepts
so here maya magma 40 the discourse to Hataka and Hataka is another lay person with marvelous
qualities and he comes with a large following and the Buddha asked him how come you have so many
friends and so Hataka says there are four qualities how i have such great assembly
charitable giving speaking friendly providing helpful advice and being impartial
and this is another very beautiful thing and i think that's very practical
that's i think we all can relate to somebody who is willing to share his wealth to help us
somebody who has a friendly way of speaking to earth somebody who gives advice that is really
helpful and somebody who at the same time remains impartial that is really qualities that make for
friendship so if i have say in influencing the blog i would also suggest if you feel like
commenting on this which you find particularly meaningful these qualities that make for
friendship very beautiful there are some comments here juliana keeping the preset and alcula here
friends who feel that if a glass of wine doesn't lead to heedlessness then there's no breach
for meditators one is more sensitive and i think even a very small quantity makes the difference
but at times i don't know what to say in response to this
yeah i i mean i can only say for myself i wouldn't want to take a glass of wine even if that were
allowed for me as a monk precisely because i feel already at that much it does make a change to the
mind and akinshana but the arand who killed ants in walking was blind he did not see them that's a
different story vanuva akinshana that is a story in the commentaries about an arahan who was blind
and killed ants we i was just talking about killing the definition of killing living beings
as one of the precepts which actually is a precept for lay people mostly
the question of unintentional killing is is obviously yeah yeah there's a last one i just
quickly go through this one this is again our hataka and here we get some of his marvelous
qualities he has few desires faith a sense of shame scruple energy mindfulness concentration
wisdom and in the angodana he has only seven qualities which as it comes among the eights
so we think that maybe one quality may have been lost and these are faith virtue a sense of shame
scruple great learning shoutableness and wisdom relatively similar
but there are some question here kinshana i call i remember when i was a student in germany i used
to get slightly drunk not from taking alcohol but just from sitting in a group where others were
drinking yeah it the energy catches over no and lizan juliana if we think of mindful and
unmindful consumption the cultivation of plants for alcohol is actually harmful to the earth yeah
that's also a point yeah please don't get me wrong i'm not telling you to drink and i'm not
telling you to go around and kill insects now i just i just point out that it one has the
impression that at the earliest stage the concern with these two was definitely there you shouldn't
kill living beings you shouldn't drink alcohol but it was not as precisely formulated as we get
it in later tradition not really grapes in the country in italy i okay yeah they are discussing
about whether alcohol is harmful to the earth yeah yeah so actually this is precisely also our
time to finish yeah it has been wonderful to be doing this 11 sessions with you
and i do not recall a single session where i did not learn something from your questions
or from your comments on the blog i really appreciate it and if it should be possible
to do the same thing next year i very much welcome you in case not it will probably be
at least a year after you can look it up on that web page if something is happening i will be
posting a note by the end of the year and then i would be mailing out information to all of you
from this magyama agama email around february before the course starts so you have time to
enroll if you are interested so thank you once again and i wish all of you well