A Paradise Built in Hell: Upekkhā & the Buddhist Response to Political Panic | Ajahn Nisabho

Please
sudden.
So, how is everyone feeling about the
state of politics in the world today?
Let's get a little uh let's get a little
show of hands. Okay.
Okay. Any uh any words to place to your
feelings? Just raise your hand and
speak. No political names, please, but
just adjectives or nouns.
Discouragement. Okay.
>> What?
>> Inhumane.
>> Chaos.
>> What was that?
>> Afraid. Afraid. Okay.
>> Disgusted.
>> Deep sadness.
That's quite a montage. I think we got
the picture.
So, um,
I wanted to speak about
how a a Buddhist approach to political
fear, panic, the world,
and
who watched our interview with uh, Roshi
Joan Halifax last Wednesday? Yeah, it's
quite something.
And does anyone remember her speaking
about Ticknot Han in that
where she spoke about going on a protest
walk with Ticknot Han and
how the crowd was agitated and angry.
And she said, "Ticknot Han maintained a
turtlike momentum
and how his quiet rippled out through
the hundreds of people around him and
downregulated everyone's movements into
a place of more calm.
And when you touch this lineage,
we have to realize that what we're
touching in these teachings is a thread
that has gone back through
monks being beaten by the red guard uh
to try to make them disrobe in Mauist
China and just repeating the word
Amitaba, you know, the bodhic sappa of
compassion.
We have to realize we're touching a
lineage which
has stretched back through times of
famine and war
where a few monastics um managed to keep
the teachings alive deep in the jungle
or alone.
We have to realize we're touching a
lineage which has its wellspring in the
Buddha's time when
kingdoms were waring with each other and
uh there's famine, massacre, child
mortality around 50% probably
when
the
Buddha's one of his most prominent
disciples, King Bimbasara was
uh murdered by his son
and then years later the Buddha's uh his
this son uh this king Bimsar's son King
Ajatasatu
came to the Buddha and the Buddha taught
him
and in the end king Ajitasatu said I've
uh done something wrong I've killed my
father a good man
and the Buddha said one who acknowledges
fault and determines restraint in the
future grows in the dharma.
And in the end, King Ajatasatu was the
sponsor of the first Buddhist council,
which may be the reason we have any of
these teachings now,
that there's no place in Buddhism beyond
redemption.
And there's a great suta called the
anger eating demon suta. Who here has
heard of this discourse? Okay. So
in it we have Saka and this moves into
the realm of the mythological um and
cosmological
but there's deep symbolism here and
wisdom
whether or not you take these things as
literal uh with the mythology it can uh
be on the edge at times of depending on
if it's authentically the Buddha's words
or not.
But in this discourse, Saka, the king of
the gods, who is the equivalent of Zeus
in the Tavatingsa realm,
uh, finds that his throne has been taken
over by a little anger- eating demon,
Yaka,
and all the other gods mumble and
complain. Isn't it, isn't it extremely
marvelous? Isn't it strange? This angry
eatating demon has sat on the throne of
Saka, king of the gods.
And as they complain and criticize, the
anger eating demon becomes more and more
beautiful and strong and large
until finally alarmed that this isn't
going exactly the way they would have
hoped, the gods find Saka and tell him
what's happened.
And he says, "Oh, this is an anger-
eating demon." And
he comes to the throne room and goes
down on a knee, his knee, and makes his
an hands an anuli and says, "I am Saka,
king of the gods. I am Saka, king of the
gods. I am Saka, king of the gods."
Three times.
And this is a gesture of um it's a
respectful greeting.
And the anger- eating demon uh gets
smaller and smaller and eventually
dissolves away. And Saka sits on his
throne and says, "For the sake of my own
well-being, I do not give into anger. I
am one who angers slowly and where anger
is given up quickly."
The Buddha says there's three kinds of
mind. There's a mind like stone where
anger gets etched in and won't leave.
There's a mind like sand where one is
quick to anger, the line is quick to be
drawn in the sand. But just as the wind
dissolves it quickly, even so the anger
disappears.
And there's one like a mind like water
where almost as soon as they become
angry the anger dissolves.
And there's as with all these images
there's such wisdom in
the fact that
what Saka does what Saka does is not
give in but first he touches ground. He
lowers himself, one knee on the earth.
And those of you who know the pose of
Guin, uh, where she has one leg crossed
in meditation and one foot, one toe
touching the ground. This mix between
meditation and action. This is the pose
of one knee lowered to the ground and
one foot uh, raised going to one knee.
And then he says his name.
And this is important because it means
that what we can do is reaffirm where we
stand in regards to this world with its
moving currents and alarms and
uh ups and downs.
Remembering that refuge lies in how we
conduct ourselves in relation to it.
And
there's a term yoniso manosikara which
means appropriate attention. It's a key
term in Buddhism because
in Buddhist thought the act of giving
attention energizes what you give
attention to. Whether it be the anger
eating demon or your own anger, your own
doubt, your own fear.
What we turn the eyes the gaze to
grows stronger from it and that within
ourselves gets fed or starved depending.
Hegel said that evil lies in the gaze
that sees evil all around
and with yon so manicara manicara means
action of the mind attention and yoni is
womb. So this attention is the womb of
good or negative qualities. Where do we
give our gaze? How easily do we forget
the bright garden our hands work in? For
the whispers of a serpent.
And this is not to say that there are
not things deeply wrong with the world
that need addressing. And this is a
caveat to frame this whole discussion
with. There's ways to take action that
are beautiful and right.
But can we keep one knee on the ground
the whole time? Can we keep our hands in
anulie the whole time? Can we not forget
the good that surrounds us as well?
And can we operate not from a place of
anger but from a place of love from the
four Brahma viharas, the boundless
abodess, the mature emotions.
There's a BBC special I reference
sometimes where they asked a bunch of
world leaders if there was any place for
anger. And the Daly Lama was the only
one who said no. There's never a place
to express anger.
And it's not that anger can't be an
important messenger at times. Sometimes
it carries something with it that you
need to hear. Justice, a sense of
something needs to be addressed.
But you don't have to put up the
messenger in your house.
When you think of those figures through
history that have resonated in your
heart and in the hearts of everyone
around you, Nelson Mandela, Ticknot Han,
Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama.
It's not because they carried anger in
them. It's because they acted from love
and had a taproot from the mundane world
of politic and vicissitudes of famine
and war and crisis into the deeper strat
strata of the stratter the deeper strata
of the arctipple
of love and of a resonance which echoes
out.
Many of you have seen the walk for monks
or walk for peace uh from the monks down
south.
And why is it that that image has made
its way throughout the US where whole
communities are gathering in the street
to walk with those monks for peace.
And Ajin Sona was asked about this
yesterday when he was teaching a high
school class of anthropology.
And he said, "As a monk, every step I
take every day is a walk for peace.
There are no small actions. The Buddha
looked out on the world and he saw the
most powerful route we could move
through it and to live a Buddhist life,
developing the noble eight-fold path,
cleansing the mind and heart of
defilement so that one can be selfless
and give and radiate something new into
the world. This is the most powerful way
we can echo
impact
and care
and how we can truly make a difference.
And it comes from love every time.
There's a part of the vineia, the
monastic code that says we cannot
admonish another monk unless
we are doing so from a place of love and
goodwill.
And I know one monk who's had to wait a
whole year before he could fulfill that
one stipulation.
But what would it mean to interact
in the movements and protests things of
this nature in the same manner to move
into the spaces only when you can do it
without a sliver of anger in your heart?
Because it is possible to do that.
There's an interesting resonance or
difference between the word protest and
the word vigil.
Maybe neither of them gets at the full
scope, but what would it mean to move
into these spaces
with the deeper taproot into the nature
of a vigil and to consider your whole
life one of those?
We were having a retreat in Winthrop and
we were all out walking meditation on
the road and a guy pulled up in a truck
and he said, "Are you all protesting
something?" And I thought, you know, we
kind of are. Yeah. Yes.
But love and the Buddha mentioning that
even if bandits were to saw you limb
from limb with a two-handled saw, those
among you who gave rise to a single
thought of ill will not be doing my
bidding. It's quite a bar.
And that means that there's never a
place for anger. Always love is what
resonates out. Ticknot Han walking in
that protest. Do you think he resonated
out because there was contempt or
annoyance or do you think it was because
he was moving from that place of love
compassion
to look the second Brahma vihara after
meta it's a bright mind state
and to use it in two ways one that
sometimes
the difficulties we see with the people
in the world around us. The sufferings
we perceive in the news.
For some of us, it can feel a bit it's
not something you just get to put aside.
It's front and center in your heart.
What happens if you lean into that wind
in a wholesome way and let it be your
doorway to understanding the suffering
of all beings?
The Buddha's wisdom in beginning the
four noble truths, his seinal teaching
with shared dooka, suffering, this human
condition that links us all. In
Thailand, monks will and monastics will
welcome people to the monastery saying,
"Welcome brothers and sisters in birth,
aging, and death."
And what would it mean to allow each
invocation of that to be a way your
heart could open to the greater
need of the world? People suffer so
much. And what would it mean to be able
to move into this world with an inner
resource cultivated through practice,
through the bright chitta, the heart
through morality, where you're able to
give the gift of a heart free of
defilement, of true selflessness, of
liberative love.
Walking towards an ocean as each cup
cracks behind you, spilling its little
bit of water. where each
piece of suffering you see can actually
be an invocation of a deeper route to
compassion.
People called Roomie, the Sufi poet, a
river drawing the ocean behind him. What
would it mean to be a river drawing the
ocean behind you? Where you find your
way to that deeper compassion? It's
there
if held correctly.
And once again, compassion is a
problematic term in the English language
because it can have connotations of
empathetic distress, of darkness. But in
the Buddhist thought, karuna, compassion
is always a bright, luminous mind state.
The word for the dark mind is dominas.
It's always unh wholesome. You want your
nurses and your doctors to be happy,
smiling, laughing with you. This is how
we bring joy to the world.
And what would it also mean to look at
those who are doing harm in the world
with compassion, understanding the
suffering that they are in and are
bringing to themselves into the future.
The Buddha said you should look at a
person
who is unh wholesome in bodily action
and speech and without moments of
clarity as you would look at a wanderer
traveling a traveler lost in the desert
without companion starving thinking may
they not come to harm may they be helped
may they not come to harm may they be
helped
and if you can't quite wish worldly
happiness on such people right know what
would it mean just to wish them may they
have the happiness of non-hatred may
they find the peace of non- greed
and then Ajin Sona says if you can't
spread meta to someone spread it to
their chair so
and finally to not bring them to mind
that's an okay thing to do in the
Buddhist teaching is not bring someone
to mind for a while write their name on
a piece of paper put it in an envelope
tuck it in a drawer and determine that
after 3 months you'll take it out And if
you're able to look at that name and
maintain a wholesome state of mind, then
you can.
But you know, how can we do this with
the news? And what does it mean to stay
informed? How many times a day do we
have to look at the phone? No news
before noon or at least no news before
practice. One day a week without it at
least. And if you want to go even
farther, you can pull back quite a bit
and still know where you can make a
difference.
As practitioners, we have a duty now to
protect our own hearts as well because
this is what the Buddha said is the
greatest gift we can give and to not
forget that.
Muda rejoicing the third Brahma vihara
of the boat of loving kindness and just
the sense that when things get dark this
is how many times in our lives have we
been through crisis which initiated
awakening and who's to say it's
different for the world
to see what
is coalesing in even amidst difficulty
look at around you right now there's a
book by Rebecca Snit called a paradise
belt built in hell. Who's read this?
It's about how during these times of
crisis, the carpet bombings in England,
the seas of Sievo, people found a
nobility of spirit which was truly
precious and rare.
And I have friends now who think, is it
worth bringing a a child into the world
in this day and age? And I'm so not the
person to talk about that as a celibate
monk. But but I think back to my
grandparents generation, the greatest
generation with great uh material
prosperity
and I also understand that for many of
them they did not have the emotional
tools we have. They did not have the
dharma and many of them I knew at least
were emotionally
really unable to grow and fulfill their
heart in the way that I wish they would
have been able to.
And so what a chance for a noble life we
have right now to do something truly
extraordinary in the midst of great
difficulty by holding this thread of
dharma in a time that needs it so
desperately to hold this light aloft
the chance to live a noble life now is
as great or as it's ever been and we
have access to these teachings we have
access to these teachings that is rare
in the mix of samsara
we have the chance to do something
amazing and precious.
And to know that refuge does not think
is not lie in thinking the city will
never burn. It lies in knowing that if
it did, you would never compromise your
virtue and your care,
your love of this path for that that you
would care for those who need be need to
be cared for. There's another
mythological flourish in the
commentaries. This isn't the word of the
Buddha, but it's interesting where they
say the world cycles end often in fire
and violence and then all the people go
to hell after that because they've all
been fighting. But every now and again
it'll end from sickness and everyone
will go to heaven in those ones because
they'll all care for each other till the
end. I'm hoping that's not, you know, a
literal thing here right now. But but
what does that do for the heart to know
something in our hearts knows this is a
precarious situation. Samsara is
samsara.
It's never going to be perfect. It is a
disaster zone from beginning to end. We
can help but it will there will always
be a splinter of entropy embedded in it.
And to know that in the end, and if we
have to wait until the crisis is
resolved and the war is finished to be
happy and loving practitioners, we will
never be happy loving practitioners.
The time is now. The darker it gets, the
happier you can be, the more noble life
you can live. And if happiness seems
like a cheap language for this, think
instead of purpose. What is your purpose
now being put here for this moment in
the crucible that is the four noble
truths? looking at Duca suffering as the
flame which cleanses the gold. When you
smelt gold, you heat it so that the
impurities rise to the surface or the
block of lead falls to the bottom in a
pellet. I looked this up on a YouTube
video yesterday to make sure I was
getting it right.
And only with that heat of difficulty
and suffering does patience grow. Do we
have any impetus to untangle the heart
from the fraught weave of reality in the
mundane conditioned sense and to come
back into a luminous brightness that is
our own and which we can give to others
to find gold to give the world. The
Buddha says in the gold washer that one
who cleans cleanses the fine impurities
from their heart
gives up thoughts of one's homeland.
America is just a concept.
What happens if you expand your view to
all of humanity and all beings? Does
that lighten the heart and broaden it?
One gives up thoughts of one's color
cast.
Think of this as you will.
It can be in the today's age uh blue and
red, whatever you want. And thoughts of
not wanting to be despised.
I just love that one. I'm not sure how
it relates to this talk, but to know
that it's not that we're devaluing the
values of each of those alignments. It's
not that you can't take action on those
parts, but to know you've touched into a
deeper narrative. The Buddha images are
so often made of gold for a reason.
And that deeper narrative is the key.
So upeka the final
in every Buddhist list almost there's a
representative of wisdom and in the four
brahavar's opeka equipoise equinimity is
the representative of wisdom
and it's a crown jewel in Buddhism so
often it's the final member of a list
and it is so hard to justify to a world
that calls for you to be outraged
you know the bumper sticker if you're
not angry you're not paying attention
That is not a Buddhist bumper sticker.
Really, it's not.
Um,
and
the
upka comes etmologically from the word
toa which means to look to approach and
ick, which means to gaze. So to look
closely or to look at or to look over
And it's intimately related to this idea
of yoni sanaikara appropriate attention.
Ayanabodi translates it as a bird's eye
view.
Others translate it as a grandmother's
love.
Joseph Goldstein says it's looking
through the earthbound of ma madness
through the lens of Venus which I very
much like.
And there's no sense of indifference
there. Equipoise
the word poise. It's that moment between
notes that a dancer stops
before it's the right time to move into
another one.
But it does feature this sense of
stepping back and knowing when we can
and can't make a difference. For those
of you who watched that interview with
Roshi Joan Halifax, you'll remember her
talking about being at one of the nomad
clinics in the Himalaya and a father
bringing his two-year-old daughter who
was covered in burns. He'd walked two
days to be there and the burns were
separating and covered in maggots and
they had to clean it without anesthesia.
And as Roshi heard the screams and
almost fainted, she realized that she'd
gone too far in identifying with the
child. That what she was there for
providing support for the nurses and the
doctors, she was no longer able to do.
And so she pulled back and grounded in
her feet.
There's a place to pull back
and hold still. Hold the center.
Much of the path of Buddhism in the
words of Ajin Sona can be characterized
as a warm heart and a cool head.
And in the end, Dupeka is essential.
You can look at it by broadening her
view. It's a tendency, a conceit of
every age to think of theirs as the
worst it's ever been, of the key moment.
But if we'd lived in the 1970s, we would
be looking up for the next bomb to come
from the Soviets. If we'd been living in
the 1940s, we would have been looking at
the rise of the of the Reich, World War
I, not to mention going back farther to
the time of the Buddha, famine was
ravaging the land. There were wars
between kings. The Buddha was accused of
murder before his whole clan, according
to the commentaries, was massacred after
he passed away. These were not easy
times.
In many ways,
the time we live in is very beautiful.
There are many things to look to and
rejoice in. An accurate headline on the
newspaper every day for the last 25
years would say 137,000 people lifted
out of extreme poverty every single day.
That would be the top of the headline.
that's been true.
And it's not to say there aren't things
that are deeply wrong that need to be
addressed, but a balanced view, stepping
back, widening the gaze, upka, looking
over, a bird's eye view,
and understanding how the Buddha
interacted with those times
that he walked with equinimity and love
through them to understand how the
Buddhists of the path past have
navigated falls and rises of empire
of famine and war and held their center
throughout.
This is our lineage and it's a deeper
narrative. It's a narrative that lasts
lifetimes. And this is one other way of
expanding our view. If one believes in
uh rebirth and dava realms, you don't
have to, but if you do to know this is
one moment in the arka, this the Buddha
says next to nothing is the length of
this life. Like a drop of dew on a blade
of grass, like a line drawn in water.
Once you touch this truth like a sage,
do what is good for one born. There's no
escape from death.
We're here for a brief moment to learn
and to give and to expect too much from
samsara in terms of fulfilling our
expectations. Another bumper sticker.
Expectations are pre-planned
resentments. That's an aenf.
What does it mean to see samsar for what
it is? I'm sorry is I'm sorry. It will
never be perfect.
But in the words of Long Poor Liam,
there are no obstacles, only worthy
adversaries.
And Hanson, a famous Zen teacher said,
"After time, the whole path becomes
pleasant because things if things are
pleasant, they're pleasant. And if
they're difficult, it's a chance to use
your dharma strength, which is
pleasant."
Our job is not to expect the world to be
perfect, but to walk towards it with
love and care and understand that if we
embody this practice, I've seen the
power that the pure heart ripples out
and it is unbelievable. It is
immeasurable.
If you can hold that now, be with your
practice. Restrain your view, your
intake of inputs that it doesn't inflame
the heart and take action where
you feel inspired to take action in the
national realm, in the global realm, in
the local realm, but always from a place
of love or at least equinimity. At least
equinimity.
The Buddha said there are five kinds of
loss. Health, wealth, relatives, right
view and morality. He says that the
first three these are trifling. You will
lose your health. You will lose your
wealth. You will lose your relatives.
The last two right view and sila
morality are precious. Never lose them.
And you look back through history. Who
here knows the triumvirant? The most
famous uh conspiracy in history that
brought down the Roman Republic. Okay.
Well, anyways, um there was a conspiracy
of Caesar, Ko, uh sorry, Caesar, Pompei,
and Craas. Pompei was a general
representative here of aversion. Uh
Cassus, the richest man in Rome, uh
greed. Caesar, delusion, the uh and all
three of them were trying to bring Rome
under their control. And there was one
man against them, and that was Ko. And
he had nothing going for him except he
was a really good speaker, and he was
honest, completely honest. People would
say of Ko, he thinks he lives in the uh
the streets of the republic, but he
lives in the gutters of Rome. But he
changed them into the streets of the
republic. And we still remember well
some of us do. Ko
he his image echoed out and you think of
these figures that have continued to
echo into our hearts through the years
and it's those who acted from love.
The Buddha said, "I praise the killing
of one thing, anger."
anger with its honeyed tip and poisoned
root.
We should make sure that man can get in
if someone would help him.
So
to say there's room for action,
but also to understand that where we
direct our attention is essential.
That as we practice,
we gain a imperative to take care of our
hearts. We've been gifted a lineage that
stretches back 2500 years. To not let it
founder, to hold that bright thread
beautifully and carefully in the time
that needs it the most.
To operate always from meta, compassion,
joy, and equipoise at the same time.
And once again,
this is not to say that there's not room
for action and care.
You should act as you feel inspired in
the world. But can you do it from a
place of love, understanding? And can
you understand that through all that the
greatest gift you can give is a pure
heart and to hold that sacred.
So good luck everyone.
Su
I've mentioned this before, but one of
the few institutions in the US left that
has transcended politics is Dolly
Parton. It's one of the few places you
can find truckers and hippies all
together at a concert. And uh they call
her the Dolly Mama. and her politics is
a carefully guarded secret. But just uh
this is also our role, not that exact
role, but something close to it. So, Sim
Junho, would you have anything to say
and add to this at all if you're
interested? No pressure though.
>> I'll let it float.
>> Okay. In that case, um I would like I
introduced you a little bit at the
beginning, but um Seminary Junha, who's
just so wonderful. We're so glad to have
you back. Um I first encountered a new
way of being on the Pacific. I memorized
this from the Pacific Crest Trail years
ago. Only part of it though. Uh and then
in 2023, took seminary ordination at
Aloka Vihara or Aparana Vihara with Ayan
Deod in 2025. Uh and trained there until
2025.
reluctant to return to lay life. Um but
just recently Ayasuk and Aaya Dananda
gave Ajin Kobilo and myself a call and
said actually we really want to support
seminary Junha coming back into robes
because she wants to be in this form so
badly and we think it's the right
decision. So Seminary Junha uh is back
as a seminary as a Buddhist nun. Um
she'll be up in Bellingham going
forward. Uh the website is junhavara.org
or and we'll post that again to the
WhatsApp and Discord. And um I'll let
you say more, but just to really
encourage people, it is it's
unprecedented to have this many
monastics of uh the Pu and Pikuni
terabody lineages in one area. It is
amazing and I really really hope people
can support our sister um and can really
just come up to her afterwards and if
you don't have anything immediately you
know to give um give her your your
number or your email just some way of
you know and and an invitation as
monastics we aren't allowed to ask for
things unless we're sick or it's water
or we've been given an invitation. So
feel free to just say, "I give you my
invitation to ask for anything that's
needed." And that will give her the open
door.
Good morning.
Oh, it's so nice to be here and all with
all of you. I'm sorry to that I snuck in
late and hopefully not terribly
disruptively.
Um
yeah I think Ajan Niso you know covered
the basics after a few years um at Aloca
Vajara in Payanovihara.
I am in a liinal space and really
looking forward to opening the next
chapter in the spring in a few months
time um up in Bellingham.
that I will have much more to say about
that in terms of details um over the
coming months. I don't have much beyond
that to share. Um
but yeah, I am
just immensely grateful um to be
practicing the dharma and living a
monastic life and also to be part of
this
remarkable community constellation of
Dhamma in the Pacific Northwest and the
West Coast generally.
Um,
I guess the one other thing I will add
practically is that I did bring uh um
just a clipboard with a signup sheet and
so if you are interested in connecting
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And we have you got you a birthday bag
and a birthday hat which you can't wear
because you're a monastic but I'm
putting it by you.
Welcome Seminary Junha here.
Three big sados for seminary junha. Sadu
sadu sadu.
It's um so needed to have gymnastics in
the world and lay practitioners as well.
Um we know some people have just uh just
wanted that affirmed and um we know the
monastic is the one sitting up here a
lot but to really acknowledge that
people can live such powerful dharmic
lives in whatever karma you've been
given this lifetime and um I know one
man who went off trying to ordain it
didn't work out and he came back and
determined to live his lay life uh
with the first three paras almost as a
mantra sila, how ethical can I be? How
much can I give up? How much can I give?
Um, and he's more monastic than a lot of
monastics I know. So, I just really want
to affirm and honor that form um of all
of you who've come here and yeah, it's
quite important and I'm really glad you
ordained again went forth. So,
so let's open for questions. We have
some time for comments or otherwise.
people can just raise their hand and
we'll run a mic over to you. And
uh who are they?
>> Sure. Please. One of them.
>> Larry, please.
>> I'm here.
>> Larry, I think you're muted perhaps. Try
again, Larry.
>> Okay.
Uh, Venerable Vonhop,
>> good, good.
>> Looking forward to you coming up here to
Bellingham and um I wish you the best
and finding a place. Hope that goes
smoothly and um yeah, if you ever need
any driving, you've got my email. So,
thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you, Larry.
other person on Zoom.
>> Nathan. Oh, that was my lay name. Gift
of God. Go for it, please.
Good. Uh well, thank you for the
meditation and your uh reflections. Uh
I'm I've been reading quite a bit,
listening to lectures, and doing guided
meditations on fear. But I feel unclear
exactly
the the role of fear and uh aversion.
And for me, I I think I'm I'm seeing a
relationship between my in planning and
worry as being uh aversion, but
more deeply a sense of being out of
control, being fearful of the, you know,
the future. And
is kind of another part of that question
is what role does delusion have in in
expressing our fear?
Fear is not in the not classified as a
universally unh wholesome state in
Buddhism because there are legitimately
things to be afraid of namely losing
your morality, losing right view.
But when it comes to
everything else, it usually is not a
wholesome state. And one of the really
powerful sutas the Buddhist speaks about
is uh one where he was in the forest
walking meditation and fear came upon
him in the middle of the night and he
said I determined not to change my
posture until the fear had subsided. So
as he was walking he just determined to
not stop walking or to change any bodily
action until the fear had subsided on
its own.
And Longasano had that experience as
well. He was walking meditation in
Thailand and a tiger came up to the
walking path. you can smell them.
They're really, really po potent.
Apparently, I've never smelled a tiger.
Um, and he just remembered the Buddha's
instructions and he just kept walking,
meditation, quietly back and forth until
the fear subsided. And then he went up
onto his porch and he thought, "Should I
go in the c in my little mosquito net?"
And he thought, "No, it's far better
equipped than me. If it decides to kill
me, that's not going to stop it." So, he
just meditated on his porch.
And um
so I I think the
sense of
whenever these states come which are
rife with suffering and defilement
you'll know their flavor by their sense
of burning vibrating and the need to
take action change something uh it's one
of the universal four and wholesomes in
abidham is restlessness
um and to know that our duty in the four
noble truths is when that's happening It
means dooka is manifesting and the duty
of the first noble truth is to
understand duca to stand under duca to
not react patient endurance is the
supreme incinerator of defilement. So to
know that what the Buddha is speaking to
with that lack of making any change of
motion based on fear is let it vibrate
itself out and then when it's calm when
you've come to a cool place then you
make a decision about okay like I can
act from this or I can make this change
but it's always from that place of the
third noble truth of the sessation of
dooka reveals the path. Um, so I think
that's important with fear or doubt or
anger or any of these states that come
like as a Buddhist your duty unless like
someone's running into the street right
now, right then and like in which case
help them not get run over. But like in
every other circumstance, it's to hold
still long enough that you can operate
and come from a place that's wholesome
and act from that. Respond, don't react.
And I'd say with aversion, um, that's
always unh wholesome.
And just to know that our thinking of
the future, this is one of the
hindrances is utachukucha which means
restlessness, anxiety and worry, anxiety
and remorse looking to the future and
past. And you know you can use all these
reflections that were given in the talk
to some extent but in the end the
badcarata gatayo suta which was the suta
if people remember venerable um sucha
who came from Korea. This is the suta
that touched her so deeply that she
turned to terra. Um, one should not
revive the past nor speculate on what's
to come. The past is left behind. The
future is unrealized. Here, just here,
one clearly sees in every presently
arisen state. This insight is one's
strength. So, knowing that the Buddha
said the four foundations of mindfulness
are our ancestral ground. We're
invincible there. And so, when fear
comes, just noticing fear, this is how
it feels in the body. This is the pain
it brings. And if you're able to
maintain that sort of mindfulness around
fear or anger or aversion, you are
practicing the four noble truths. You're
practicing the satipana. You're using
difficulty and duca as a crucible to
purify the heart. And that is your duty.
And so you're doing a good good job
then. Um, and as to how delusion plays
into it, you know, we've all had that
experience of,
you know, no, not understanding how
someone can be acting a certain way and
then you understand what happened to
them as a child or what's happening at
home and there's that sense of like, oh,
of course,
and nothing's changed except you
understand why.
And so to see that always anger comes
from delusion. Always every time. If
anger is arising, there's delusion
somewhere in the cause and effect
because you can understand how an unh
wholesome situation has come to be. But
the is without holding it with aversion
and delusion is at the root that of
wanting expecting the world to be a way
it's not. Um,
and then there's other elements of like
not seeing the drawback of anger clearly
and the damage it does. But that's
that's a start. Do you have anything to
add somebody?
Does that uh land okay, Nathan?
>> Yeah. Thank you very much.
>> Yeah.
And and just, you know, if the heart's
really invested in the world being a
certain way, like more and more you want
to understand that where your stability
lies is the internal refuge and the
three refues of the Buddha, Dhama, and
the Sana. And then you can move into the
world but have a safe harbor at the same
time.
Other questions?
Thanks for the talk, Hajjan. Um, I'm
wondering if suppose I'm a person with a
mind like stone and I'm angry about
injustice and I'm working on it and
someday that will be gone, but it seems
like it's going to take quite a while.
It's not going to happen soon. Um,
should I in the meantime say and do
nothing to correct the injustice? Should
I wait until the anger is completely
gone?
I'll offer some thoughts. Um, the first
thing that comes to mind is that we
start where we are.
And
sometimes that can be humbling. And so I
appreciate you you naming that like it
feels like this mind is stone.
Um and that there's some deep grooves of
anger or what might be.
Um
and we start by
understanding
where
what that mind is and then um
I appreciate that you know grief is
often in the Buddhist psychology not a
wholesome state but Um, in Devote talks
about grief as the necessary path from
how we think it should be, how we wish
it was, where we are, any attachment to
how it is and to, you know, that an a
place of openhearted acceptance. Um, and
there's a Buddhist psychologist who I
have found really helpful who talks
about the three components of grief as
sadness, fear, and anger. And that when
we're in a place of being stuck, it's
probably because
it's likely for most of us that one or
two of those channels are more readily
accessible, but it's hard for us to
access all three. And I can speak from
personal experience that um you know I
can sadness can be really accessible and
anger
is much less you know there's a plenty
of cultural conditioning around my
gender my you know that says anger is
not okay to feel. But then we can get
stuck in collapse you know and similarly
if anger is really accessible there
might be fear or sadness that feel
really vulnerable.
Um and so bringing that inquiry in and
then as Ajaniso was describing you know
the crucible of really allowing
ourselves to feel that and I can say for
myself that
allowing myself to feel anger and not
act out of it but to feel it has been a
powerful conduit it to moving me into a
place of understanding my own power and
being able to embody that fierce
compassion and then being able to accept
this is how it is and from there seeing
how to how to respond in the world. And
so, um, I guess the encouragement that I
would offer
is
if you're seeing, good on you for seeing
a mind that might be
overwhelmed with anger or mired in
anger. And, you know, can you turn
towards what else might need to be felt?
And then instead of looking for a state
of I've eradicated anger and I have you
know transcended and moved beyond that
like are there moments when you can say
you know what like this is a mind that
is clear and is ready to respond right
now and then it you know and recognize
actually and in this moment this mind
feels like I just need to be with it and
I need to step back.
So
those are my some thoughts. Thank you.
>> We actually are. Maybe we'll do one
more. Yeah. And please, Jean,
>> what's the name of the
>> um David Racho whose writing is quite
old and that was just a gem that I
picked up from him some time ago. You're
welcome.
That was an easy one. That's good. Um,
and I think that's really good. And just
to affirm like there is a place you
don't want to repress anger, um, if it
comes up often it needs to be
understood, felt um, but not acted on.
That's the difference. There's a
difference between suppression, which we
praise suppressing, acting on anger
versus repression. And also, Milo, like
if if there is something coming up which
the anger is just really raw, you know,
knowing it's okay to there's certain
news items that are just going to invoke
something in the heart more than others
and to pull back from them. And if
you're really concerned about wanting to
take action in those realms, designate
an ambassador friend who can tell you
what to do, you know, can read the news
for you every now and again and tell you
when you can take action or something.
But like, yeah, if something's inflaming
your heart again and again, it's a
problem. And if there's some skillful
means of like steering in from taking
that sort of input in, but still being
able to take action in a way that feels
right for you, then then that's
important to figure out as well.
We should wrap up. I'm sorry it's been
close or kind of quick and we didn't get
more as well. There will be Senator
Junhow is going to be here for hopefully
a long time in the Northwest. So, we'll
get many chances with her.