Dhammapada Verses 264 & 265: The Shaman

0:01Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada. Today we continue with verses 264 and 265, which read as follows. NAMUNDAKENA SAMANO ABBATTO ALIKAMBHANAM Itchalobha samapano samanoking bhavisati. Yocha sameti papani anung thulani sambhaso. Samitathahi papanam samanoti bhavacati. Which means, not by a bald head is one a samana. Samana or shaman in English we would use the word. If one is unethical in telling lies, If one is full of greed and craving, desire and greed, how could one be a samana, a shaman?

1:48But whoever tranquilizes evil, evil states, small and large, anung tulani, even the smallest or biggest, all evil states. It is from that tranquilizing of evil that one is rightfully called a shaman or a samana. So this story was said to have been told in response to a case about a monk who engaged in all sorts of trickery, seemed to be very obsessed with praise and being right. winning arguments, winning debates. It's a sort of pernicious issue with scholar monks who become addicted to winning arguments or addicted to the praise that comes from knowing that they've won an argument or they've impressed others.

3:34People who give talks like it when their audience is impressed with their teachings. That kind of thing. But he engaged in all sorts of trickery in order to win debates. And the text gives an example of when he felt like he was being bested, he would say, look, I don't have time for this. Let's meet at this time in this place. And then he would go early to the place and I guess tell everyone else a different time and go at that time. And when the guy didn't show up, the person he was debating with didn't show up, he would say, see, he's too afraid to debate with me.

4:17The silly things, right? It's almost too hard to believe that any monk would engage in such trickery and such silliness. It's just an example. The commentary says, well, many different things. He engaged in many different kinds of deception. And so the Buddha heard about this and called him and said, this isn't the actions of a samana. Reminding him that he was being... He was clearly oblivious to the nature of his mind and the situation he was putting himself in.

5:21He wasn't of clear mind. So he reminded him this is not the behavior of a samana. You think that just because you're wearing robes and have a shaved head that somehow you are enlightened. And so he taught this verse. Two verses. So that's the first lesson that we should be careful about external attributes, externalities, conceptual reality. We should be careful about concepts, conceivings, conceiving of ourselves as a samanā. And so the first thing we can talk about is what this word samana means.

6:22Samana, as I said, in English, it's been, it's made its way from India to Europe and now here to Canada. Even in Canada, we know this word shaman, a shaman. But of course, as the word evolved, it came to mean something a little bit different. So we don't think of the Buddha as a shaman or something, but that's where the word came from, shramana in Sanskrit. But the word is one of these words that has a sort of a double meaning. It's a word that you use to refer in India to a class of individuals.

7:11Like one class you would refer to as the nobles. It's a translation in English, but we might say in Europe we had the noble class. And we called them the noble class. But the question was, how many of them were noble? Probably very few of them, well, probably not all of them were truly noble. They didn't have the quality of being noble. And samana is a word like that. You can call someone a samana because they've left home, shaved off their hair and put on rags or robes.

7:44You could call someone a monk for that reason. But the word samana has a deeper meaning. And so the Buddha reminded, you know, you're not a samana just because you put on the robes. Yes, people call you that. It's just like calling a person who is born from such and such a parentage a noble. Call someone a noble. Like in India, there were the Brahmins by birth. And the Buddha said, oh, you're not really a Brahmin just because you're born. You're a Brahmin because you expel evil.

8:21And so he said the same for a Samana. He gave these words new meaning, reminding people that they were attributing these qualities, someone who is godlike. A Brahmin comes from the Brahma. Brahma is God. So are you godlike if you are greedy and manipulative And same with the samana. If you have evil greed and desire in your heart causing you to manipulate others and so on. But for us, our lesson here is, in terms of our meditation practice, that we are clear about the reality of practicing mindfulness versus the concept of being a meditator.

9:14You put on white clothes. It's the same as you shave your head or you wear a monk's robe. It can be a reminder to you to keep you mindful, to keep you present, a reminder that you are in uniform and to keep you focused on the practice. But it can also be a source of conceit. You feel reassured, you can feel complacent, thinking, I'm a real meditator. wearing my clothes. And as a result can lead to complacency and can lead to arrogance and conceit and all that.

9:59It can also lead to sometimes a sense of of low self-esteem, where you feel like you're not living up to the expectations. You see other people meditating and you see them with their nice white clothes or their monks' robes and their shaved heads and so on, and you can be discouraged, thinking that you're inferior to others and so on. And all of this is this distraction with conceptual reality. And so the real remarkable thing about this is how we get distracted by such things.

10:45As I said, this monk became obsessed with this external state of what conquering others in argumentation and debate, which certainly didn't do anything for his meditation practice. But why? Why do we get, and what's wrong? What's the problem with getting attached to things like, well, any kind of worldly pleasure when we get attached to wealth? It seems quite substantial. Suppose you had a big pile of gold in front of you. That's very real. This is real wealth.

11:25It's something. Or if you're famous, you can count how many people know your name and esteem you and ask for your autograph or invite you to give lectures or talks or so on. And when people praise you, it's very real. You can say, look, this person said this about me. You can show people articles that were written about you. You can sit and think about all the good things people have said about you. This is very real, very tangible, right? In this monk's case, you can think about all the arguments you've won.

12:07You can think, ha, boy, I must be really smart and maybe enlightened because I could beat these people in argument and debate. Although this guy would just be able to think he's so smart because he lied, basically. He distorted the facts and lied, basically. What's wrong with any of this, even with being manipulative? What's the issue? I mean, given that it is wrong, why do people still engage in it? This is what's really interesting from a meditator's perspective.

12:50And this is why we often try and explain the difference between concepts and reality. Concepts do not describe the reality of the situation. That's the problem with them. And it's why they're not always problematic. Calling someone your father or your mother can be quite accurate. It's not problematic, but it's not describing reality. It's not problematic because it never goes counter to reality. When you talk about Paris as being the capital of France, there's no problem with that.

13:35Now, it doesn't describe ultimate reality, but it's okay. Concepts are not always problematic. They're not an evil thing. but they fail to capture reality. And as a result, a focus on them takes you away from reality and leads to problems, or has the potential to cause problems. It's dangerous. Because if your focus is constantly on things like gold or wealth, things like fame or praise or so on, if it's on... winning arguments, and of course if it's on external qualities like a shaved head or so on, then you lose the capability of seeing the arising of dangerous mind states.

14:40You're not paying attention to reality. And so there's nothing even wrong with the pleasure that comes from having a lot of gold, say. Pleasure is not the problem. But there are potential for the arising of many other things that are problematic. And you just won't see them. Because you're focused on, oh, I won this argument. Or your bank account, oh, I've got so much money. All the people who praise you, all the fame you have. There's nothing wrong with having any of these things, but by focusing on them, you miss reality.

15:20That's the point. And that's what this verse, like verses, stories like this, that even no matter how silly they may seem, the moral that they show us is how blind you become when you focus on concepts, people, places, things, any kind of idea. when it removes you from the experience of reality, There is the danger. There arises the danger. What is the danger? The danger is the arising of greed, the arising of anger, the arising of delusion. These don't arise because of concepts.

16:01They're there already. They have the potential already to arise. But again, you're focusing on conceptual reality, people, places, things, bank accounts, fame, and all the things the Buddha, the four things. wealth, pleasure, fame, and praise. Or the opposite, if you think of how much suffering you have in life, if you're focused on the lack of how poor you are, if you're focused on blame when people say bad things about you and you get angry because of that, Focusing on these things give room for the defilements that have the potential to arise already, give room for them to grow.

16:53Not paying attention. Meditation isn't really about focusing on something else. It's about realigning our perspective on the things we already focus on so when you have a lot of gold in front of you let's say a big pile of gold or if you have a lot of money or something you you in mindfulness you don't try and ignore that you try and see what's actually occurring in ultimate reality, what's happening. There'll be obviously the seeing of the money, but it's only seeing of light.

17:42light touching the eye, the thinking in the mind, and then the planning of what you're going to do with this. And then there might be liking of the money, and then there'll be the fear of losing it, and so on, and so on. There can be conceit, how rich you are, and so on. Fame does this. Winning arguments against others leads to conceit. Again, it doesn't lead to it. It allows for it. If you focus on the winning arguments and so on, if you focus on concepts, you'll miss the arising of those states.

18:21The Buddha basically taught or showed us that there are two levels of reality. There's conceptual reality and ultimate reality. And so we focus on people and places and things. That's ordinary. That's fine. But when we do that, we miss the arising of greed and anger. Because when you like something or when you dislike something or when you're deluded, conceited, arrogant, and so on about these things. You can't see that if you're focused somewhere else.

19:00When all of good things arise and bad things arise, there's a great opportunity for unwholesomeness to arise. And so that's what these verses are talking about. They point out that the externalities are not going to free us from suffering. Nothing in the world can satisfy us. Why mindfulness is so important is because it focuses on the true issue, the true problem, and therefore provides a true solution. We don't have to fix our worldly affairs to become free from suffering.

19:47But if we can change our perspective, if we could just pay attention to what's going on in ultimate reality, very simple, I mean, it sounds like a very lofty term, but it's really only talking about ordinary experiences, experiences of seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and feeling and thinking. And these are going on unbeknownst to us in all of these circumstances, where we get something we want, where we get something we don't want, where we don't get something we want, or we don't get something we don't want, and there'll be liking or disliking.

20:22All of these things are arising constantly. All we have to do is pay attention. All we're lacking is the presence of mind to see these things clearly and to understand them. They only arise because we don't pay attention, because they are unpleasant. They are harmful. They're a sickness. And if you pay attention, it's quite clear. It becomes quite clear and it's not a difficult task if you're paying attention to see the problem with greed, the problem with anger, the problem with delusions.

21:07and to free yourself from them. So it's quite a simple teaching. And in fact, the verses seem to be simply talking about the difference between externalities and actual practice. But on a deeper level, actually what the Buddha is talking about here is this difference between conceptual reality and ultimate reality. And so through the practice of mindfulness, when we focus on the body, Every time we focus on the movements, we're able to see our habits, watch the behaviors of the mind.

21:51Simply by focusing on the body, you would think it's something banal and uninteresting. But as you do that, you can see the habits of the mind arising and ceasing, good habits, bad habits. You're paying attention. You're in a realm, and it may not be readily apparent how important this is, but it's so powerful. because of the reality of it. You've completely discarded all of the cloudiness or all of the distraction of conceptual reality. When you focus on pain or feelings, when you feel pleasure or when you feel calm, you focus on these things.

22:32Why are we doing this? It doesn't seem important, significant. But it is crucial and incredibly significant how real these things are. And by focusing on them, we're actually paying attention. And we're actually able to see the arising of greed and anger and delusion that are all so much a part of things like winning arguments, the silliness of this monk. And they show us how silly we are and how blind we are. Why do we get caught up in pursuits that do not have any hope of ever satisfying us?

23:17The answer is quite simple. Blindness is the only answer. We're not paying close attention. What we're paying attention to doesn't really exist, isn't really a description of reality. That's a concept. When we focus on the mind, the mind is real. We focus on thoughts, the thoughts are real. And so there's a power that, again, it's hard to see how significant this is, but it is crucial. When we focus on thoughts, you have a front row seat to see how problems arise, to see what is a problem.

24:00that we don't realize how important wisdom is simply because we rarely pay such good attention to reality. But in fact, that's the solution, is the seeing. We don't realize that these problems only have the opportunity to arise and to grow and to create problems in our lives because we're not paying attention, because we don't see them clearly. when we pay attention to our experiences and pay attention to our reactions, our good habits, our bad habits, when we pay attention when we're angry, when we're greedy, when we're confused or arrogant or conceited or so on, when we pay attention to all of these things, the solution comes quite readily.

24:55The solution is simply to see clearly. And so this is a reminder, this verse is just a simple reminder of that. That all of the worldly things, the externalities, like being bald, are not an accurate description of reality. And so they distract us from what's really going on in every moment. So I think that's the teaching of this verse or what's useful for us as meditators. So that's the Dhammapada for this week. Thank you for listening.