Dhammapada Verse 286: Here I Will Stay

0:03So today we're looking at Dhammapada verse 286, which reads as follows. Which means, Here I will dwell in the rains, here in the winter and in the summer. Thus a fool plans not being awakened to the danger. This verse the Buddha taught to a merchant. a very wealthy merchant who came from Varanasi. Varanasi at that time was well known for its cloth. Even today, you can get really good cloth in Varanasi, India. And so he picked up a huge load of 500 carts or something, a large number of carts of cloth, probably not 500, but a lot.

1:46And he traveled with his cloth to Sawati. with the plan to sell the cloth in the city. Savatthi was a large city where the Buddha lived for much of his life. The Buddha didn't live in the city. Just outside of the city, there's a forest called Jetavana. And that's where the Buddha spent most of his life after enlightenment. And so when he traveled to Savatthi, he got as far as a river near the city and set up camp and said to himself in the morning, I will cross the river, go into the city and sell my cloth and be able to set on my way before the rains begin.

2:41Unfortunately, that night there was a huge rain. And he was in no danger, but the river flooded. And he was stuck on the wrong side of the river and the flood in the river closed the city somehow. And so there was a vacation for seven days or something where the city, the work shut down. And for seven days, there was no market, no business conducted in the city. I guess he couldn't cross the river as well. So he had to wait seven days. And by that time, the rains had already arrived in full force.

3:29And he realized he wouldn't be able to return back to Varanasi before the rains began. And so he had to change his plans. He said, if I just leave without staying here and selling, I'll have wasted a lot of time. But if I stay, I won't be able to, I'll have to stay for the whole period. And so he had to rearrange his whole plan as a merchant somehow, however the business goes. And he made a determination to himself, as the verse says, that in the rains he would stay here and he had to adjust for the, had to plan ahead for the winter season, what he would do after the rains were over.

4:15And then he had to move everything back and shift and adjust his whole business plan. The ways of the world, you know. On this morning, the Buddha was traveling through Savatthi for alms with Ananda. And on his way back out, after traveling through the city for alms, on his way back to the monastery, at one point he smiled and Ananda saw that he was smiling and asked him, Venerable Sir, why are you smiling? And they had passed by the camp of this wealthy, wealthy merchant.

5:01And the Buddha said, did you see that wealthy merchant back there? And Ānanda said, yes, Venerable Sir, I saw that merchant, certainly. And the Buddha said, Ānanda, that merchant is making plans for the next year. plans well into the future without realizing that his plans are not going to come to fruition. And Ananda said, is there some danger, Venerable Sir, danger to him? And the Buddha said, oh, yes, in seven days he's going to pass away. How remarkable, how unpredictable is samsara.

5:51People can make all these plans for the future and have them be completely meaningless when faced with the reality of the nature of reality Ananda was a compassionate sort of person, and sort of forward thinking. He was wise, he was compassionate, he was kind, and he was proactive in his compassion. And this is probably why the Buddha made a point of remarking upon this. Because Ananda immediately said, Venerable Sir, is it okay if I go and let him know?

6:38And the Buddha said, certainly, you may go. Certainly, go tell him. So Ananda took leave of the Buddha and went to see this merchant and had to find a way to broach this subject with him and said, dear merchant, what are your, how long are you planning on staying here in Sabadhi? Just sort of as a conversation starter. Merchant said, oh, well, I was planning on leaving. I was planning on selling my wares and quickly returning, but now I won't be able to with the rain.

7:16So I've had to rearrange everything. I'm probably going to be here. My plan now is to stay for the rains and then after this and this and this. And he laid out his whole plan and Ananda said, dear sir it's not easy to know when death will come it's good to be what one should be vigilant be heedful cognizant of the danger and the merchant obviously didn't take this as an offhand remark was immediately alerted to the suspicious as to the meaning of this, and said to Ānanda, is there some danger to me?

8:10And Ānanda said, there is, dear merchant. But your life, you have only one week left to live. The Buddha has proclaimed it to be so. And this, of course, completely upended all plans that the merchant may have had. And to his credit, he took it seriously. He perhaps was at least aware of the existence of the Buddha, the Buddha's greatness most likely, and took it at face value. and spent the next seven days preparing for death, doing what he could to make his last days valuable.

9:02It doesn't sound like he did a lot of meditation, but perhaps he did. The story doesn't go into that, but it rarely does. It's most likely that he did end up listening to some of the Buddha's teaching it says that he gave alms and gave gifts and food and that sort of thing but most likely he also listened to the Buddha's teaching and engaged in some reflection and practiced some amount of meditation but he did the best that he could to make his last days wholesome and a cause for cultivation of goodness in his heart doing whatever he could to do good deeds for seven days.

9:45And on the seventh day, the Buddha expressed his appreciation for the greatness of his deeds and said to him, Good sir, the wise do not consider or do not plan for the future in this way. This season I'll be here, this season I'll be there. Instead, they think about the danger to their life. They think about the present moment and how death could come at any moment. And then the Buddha taught this verse. After teaching this verse, the merchant was very much appreciative and is said to have gained some insight into the nature of reality as a result of listening to the Buddha's teaching.

10:36And he left the Buddha citing a headache. and went back to his tent or wherever he was staying, lay down and didn't wake up. Woke up instead in the pusita heaven as an angel. So not a complicated or terribly involved story with a simple lesson of not taking for granted the extent of our lives. And so the first lesson is in regards to this idea of planning for the future. The future is A topic of importance and of much discussion in the Buddhist teaching.

11:29In Buddhism, of course, we acknowledge the three times, the past, the present, and the future. This is nothing remarkable or innovative or unique to Buddhism, of course. But there is a distinction between the three times. Each of them is different. The present moment is real. Of course, it exists. It is here. It is now. It is experienced. The past exists in the sense that it is already fixed. So we can say about the past that, well, every moment in the past is fixed.

12:07You can't change the past. It's not arbitrary. It's not up for debate. The past is the way it is and the way it was. It was that way and it will never ever be anything different than what it was. It's already set in stone. But it doesn't exist, not in the same way as the present does. What we call the past is present moments that have ceased to exist. So every moment that we experience, every moment that you hear my voice, that moment of hearing ceases.

12:37After it ceases, we call it the past and we can say, yes, that's this moment in the past, but really it doesn't exist. It's already ceased. It existed. But that moment is already gone. This is what we can say about the past. The future, on the other hand, has never existed. We can say it will exist, but for us, now in the present, the future in no real way exists. It exists only in imagination. You can plan, you can calculate. We can make great calculations.

13:16They can even calculate the weather for a few days, not terribly accurately, but to some extent. If there's much we can plan into the future, if someone says they're coming to visit us, We can assume that in the future we will meet with that person. We can make these sorts of plans. So it is somehow, to some extent, set. But in no way does it exist. And so there are issues that we have with the future, just as we have issues with the past. And so it takes up some amount of space in the Buddha's teaching and in our practice of meditation to be alerted to and to be aware of and to address our issues that we have with the past and the future.

14:08The future, in some ways, more especially because it doesn't actually exist. It's subject to debate. You can question the future, you can worry about the future, but the past, there's not really any worrying about it, it's already happened, right? You can lament the past, and the past can cause us a great amount of suffering as well, no question. But so much stress comes from the future because it's uncertain. Being uncertain, it leads to worry, it leads to excitement, it leads to anticipation, fear, delusion.

14:45It can be a source of delusion through procrastinating, thinking, I'll do it, as this merchant said, I'll do it this and this and this season, I'll do this and this, I won't, I'll be able to do this in the future and that in the future. having some sort of certainty that that's possible, you can even create a sort of imaginary future. So there's danger. There's danger involved in the future. And the danger sort of exists on, we can say, three levels.

15:16The first level is not where it's not dangerous. The future isn't dangerous in terms of planning per se. simple planning is not dangerous it doesn't mean that you can never say tomorrow i'm going to do this even the buddha had made these plans during his life that he would do this and do that the problem is is of course on a deeper level when there is some kind of expectation when you depend upon it or rely upon it, or when you reify it, like you say, this is going to happen in the future, in the future I'm going to do this.

15:50And it's not just you saying it, knowing in your mind that that's just what you imagine might happen, but when you actually firmly believe that that's going to happen and have some dependency on it. And so the second level of danger is when you depend on it and the danger is that it might not come true. If your happiness depends on the future, you're thinking, I'm working towards my future. Some people work their whole lives, stress and toil for retirement or for some future time where they might be happy.

16:26And the danger is, I mean, it's certainly possible that that time might come and many people do retire or get to a point where they are happy, where they are comfortable. But there certainly is the danger that that might not happen. Like in the case with this merchant, all of his plans for a future, for retirement, for a happy life, just went up in smoke, had to be reconciled with the fact that he was going to die in seven days. This is the sort of danger that the Buddha alerted the merchant to, but it's not the deepest level of danger.

17:00The biggest danger, and this is the sort of danger that we see through the practice of meditation, is the danger that it has to your mind. Living in the future, or the past, is dangerous in that it becomes habitual and it changes the way your mind functions. At the moment that you're living in the past, living in the future, worrying about the future, nostalgic about the past or living in the past in any sort of way, of course your mind is not clear.

17:33You're not experiencing reality, you're not confronting reality with a clear mind, with wisdom. You're not ready for the moments that you experience, because your mind is caught up in conceptualizing. You're not aware of what's going on at the moment of conceptualizing, as you think about the things that you're going to do, or the plans in the future, or you reflect on the past, what you've done, bringing up the past. You're not cognizant of the emotions involved.

18:01You're not cognizant of the reactions, the judgments, the moment-by-moment experiences of the mind, because you're preoccupied. Your mind is not in a state where it can confront and... understand the experiences as they really are. So as you practice meditation, you see the shift that comes from being mindful. And it's a true shift to an entirely different way of looking at reality. From the perspective of people and places and things and ideas and concepts to moments of experience of seeing and hearing and smelling.

18:44None of these exist in the future or the past. They only exist in the present moment. But they're behind every moment. of thinking about the future or the past. So when we make these plans and worry about the future, all it does is create habits of unwholesomeness, habits of worry, habits of anticipation, habits of desire and greed and so on, habits of fear, all sorts of habits, especially of just the distraction from the present moment, the distraction that takes us away from experience.

19:18And that becomes habitual. So what happens is when you live in the future, when that future that you're living in comes the habit continues and you continue to think about the future of that future so the future has become the present but you're no longer in the present you're thinking about what comes next you can't help it because it's a habit it's changed the way your mind works the real danger of living in the future is not so much that things change well if your mind is in a good place any plans that you make that are that are don't come to fruition, don't need to be a source of suffering if your mind is in a good place.

19:57You can plan out your whole life and have it be completely crushed and still be at peace if your mind is clear and if you're living in the present moment. So it's not the plans that are the problem, it's the way you approach it and the perspective of the mind at the moment of experiencing the planning or experiencing your life in general. So this is an important part of the message of mindfulness, of why we talk about being in the present moment.

20:32It's because it's the only thing that really exists. The future never really exists as the future. When it does exist, it exists as the present. And so by learning about the present, You will always be ready for the future. If you want to have a good future, learn to be in the present so that when the future comes, your experience of that future will be the best it possibly can be. If you're constantly trying to manipulate and change and anticipate what the future might be, There may be some good benefit superficially in that you can alter the outcomes and make this happen and make that not happen.

21:13But your state of mind during that activity is not a state of mind of clarity. It's not a state of mind that is ready to deal with anything. When challenges come, when adversity comes, you won't be ready to deal with it. Your mind will not be in a position to have a clear mind and a pure mind and a wholesome mind to experience it well. So this is the first lesson about the future. The second lesson is the lesson about death, particularly. It ties in with the future.

21:43It's a part of our future, but it's a part of our future that we don't like to think about so much. Generally speaking, we avoid it, ignore it, or just plain forget about it. In Buddhism, we teach to pay close attention and make frequent reflection on the inevitability of death. For this reason, really. I mean, if it was something that we were comfortable thinking about, if it was something that was a part of our mental process, something that we brought up often, we wouldn't need to talk about it so much.

22:27But it's because we avoid it, because we're scared of it, because we're not ready for it, that we need to spend as much time as we can focusing on death. Death in Buddhism, there are three kinds. There's momentary death, conceptual death, and the death of defilements. So momentary death, we're born and die every moment. This is the death that we focus on in mindfulness meditation. And really the most important death, because if you are in the present moment, aware of your experiences arising and ceasing, then the next kind of death, the conceptual death, which is the death where this person dies, that person, where you die as an individual, wouldn't be a problem, because it's conceptual.

23:19The reality of the moment of a person's death is simply another moment of experience that arises and ceases. Now, it's an incredibly important moment, and if you're not prepared for it, if your mind is not clear at the moment of death, it can be an incredibly dangerous experience. It is something frightful. But through the practice of mindfulness, you don't have to spend a lot of time planning out what's going to happen when you die, how you're going to interact, how you're going to experience death, because it will just be another moment.

24:00There will be seeing, there will be hearing, there will be smelling, there will be tasting, there will be feeling, there will be thinking. These experiences come throughout your life up until the moment of death. And at the moment of death, they come again. So through the practice of being in the present, again, you prepare yourself for the future and you prepare yourself for any inevitability, including any kind of death, any kind of experience of death, because it is just one more experience, one more present moment.

24:38And this wouldn't be so important. It wouldn't be such a big deal if it weren't for the third type of death or the reality of the third type of death. The third type of death is the death of defilements. And what it says on the opposite side is that without the death of defilements, conceptual death, when a person dies, it's not the end. One big reason why we don't spend a lot of time thinking about death probably is because there's not a lot to say if you don't have an awareness or an understanding of what happens at the moment of death.

25:13So for many people in the world, death is the end. At the moment of death, there's nothing. So there's not a lot to say, there's not a lot to prepare, it doesn't sound even all that scary. For most people it is scary, but it's not as scary perhaps as it should be. Because there's just nothing. It's just the end. So no matter what you did, how you lived, good or bad, right or wrong, people will say that at the moment of death, it's just the end. Not a lot to see.

25:45Not a lot to talk about. Now, if that were the case... well, we wouldn't have a lot to say either. We would not have much of a case to teach people to become better people, to improve their minds, to cultivate mindfulness and goodness and do good deeds of body, speech and mind. Because it wouldn't matter. At the moment of death, in the end, in an ultimate sense, none of it had any meaning whatsoever. But that's not the case. The third type of death says that Until you have the death of defilements, until you come to enlightenment and the understanding of the danger and the downsides of clinging and attachment, until you free yourself from greed and anger and delusion, there will always be more, more of samsara, more of birth, more of old age, more of sickness, more of death.

26:44Because there will always be more bhava, more creating. When you cling to something, when you crave something, you create. You make intentions, and the intentions lead to actions, and the actions lead to consequences. And this happens on a mental level. At the moment of death, there are mental intentions, and there are mental actions, mental decisions. And as a result, there is more becoming and more rebirth. So the death of defilements means that the only way to be free from this, the only way to have death not be a very meaningful or impactful or a very dangerous proposition or event, is to destroy and to eradicate and to let go, to free yourself from the defilements, from greed, from anger, from delusion.

27:40So our discussion of death, our reflection on death can take at least two levels. On the one level we can remind ourselves that this life is is impermanent. This life is not everlasting. Death is a natural part of life. It's something that we should not ignore or forget about. And we should be cognizant of the fact that that moment of death is going to be very significant. If our minds are consumed by greed, anger, delusion, unwholesomeness, then that moment, whenever it might be, and it could be at any moment, today, tomorrow, One year from now, who knows?

28:30That moment is of great consequence and great significance to us, can be a great danger if we're not prepared for it. So reminding ourselves in everything we do is an incredibly important Buddhist practice. As the Buddha says, we should never be like the fool who makes plans without any kind of provision saying that next year I'll do this, next week I'll do this, tomorrow I'll do this, without reminding ourselves, if I'm still alive, I might do that, that we might not be alive to do any of that.

29:13Death is a great reminder of the uncertainty of life. Death isn't the only thing that can prevent our plans from coming to fruition, but it certainly is the most absolute, There are many reasons why the future might not come to pass, but thinking about death is a valuable exercise, because of all the things that might interfere with our plans, none is as absolute or certain as death, which will cut off any sort of potential plans we might have in this life, obviously.

29:49The other way that we can focus on death is, as I said, through the practice of mindfulness, focusing on momentary death. So our practice, we don't have to spend a lot of time, as I said, worrying about the eventuality of death. Because again, death isn't the only experience, but it is just another experience that might come and change the way we think about the world or change the way we experience the world. Regardless of what comes, whether it be death or anything else.

30:20Regardless of the changes that might come, none of those changes change the basic reality of experience, which is that every experience is just seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and thinking. It's just the body and mind and it's just momentary. There's no meaning to any of it except for the meaning that we give it. And there's no suffering inherent in any experience. Death doesn't have to be unpleasant or a cause of stress or sorrow. Nor does any sort of loss or any sort of experience have to be that way.

30:59But rather it is our reliance, our dependence on things being a certain way or not being a certain way. It's because of our greed, because of our anger, because of our delusions. that we experience stress and suffering and that we hurt ourselves and hurt other people and that we are reborn again and again and have to come back and have to experience further and further stress and suffering. So a simple lesson, a simple reminder, two important aspects of the practice to not live in the future because of the danger that it might not come to pass, but more importantly, because of how it affects you, how it's dangerous to your quality of mind.

31:48And death. Death is an inevitability of life, and it's an inherent part of every moment. At every moment, we're born and die, born and die. Until the moment where we free ourselves from our dependency on things being a certain way or our dependency on anything. When we stop clinging, then we free ourselves from this cycle of perpetually being born old, sick and dying. And free ourselves from suffering and free ourselves from samsara. So that's the Dhammapada for today.

32:25Thank you all for listening.