Anatta: If I Am Not These, What Am I?

Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Nov 7, 2026

8 Min. Lesezeit

Ansehen · 6

On a Sunday afternoon at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery on 25 October 2026, Ajahn Amaro took up a question most meditators reach sooner or later: if the body is not me, the personality is not me, the story and the memories are not me, then what am I? He framed the talk as the final Sunday afternoon teaching of the year and rooted it in the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta, the Buddha's second discourse, which the Amaravati community recites regularly. What follows is a close look at the logic he laid out: the test of agency that the Buddha uses to show that the five aggregates are not self, the psychology of the "I am" conceit that the Buddha compared to a poisoned arrow, and the reason the Buddha never supplied a replacement self to put in its place. The Question-and-Answer session that follows the talk is not covered here.

Ajahn Amaro began with a piece of history. The Buddha's first discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, set out the Middle Way and the Four Noble Truths, and during that teaching one of the five companions in the deer park outside Varanasi realized stream entry. The other four did not reach that degree of insight at that point. The second discourse changed that. After the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta was given, all five became arahants.

Ajahn Amaro was careful not to inflate the second teaching above the first. "I wouldn't say it's more important than the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Way," he said, "but it was a sort of, in a way, the deepening of explanation and the catalyst" for those five companions. Its significance is practical. It is the teaching through which the first arahant disciples of the Buddha came into the world, and it is built on a method rather than a slogan.

The discourse opens with a bare claim: form is not self. Then it proceeds by argument. Ajahn Amaro walked through the logic as the Buddha presents it. If the body were self, then one could say of the body, "Be like this, don't be like that." Because that kind of command cannot be issued to the body, it cannot be what I truly am.

"You can't say to the body, 'Don't get older. Never have any sicknesses.' It doesn't work, does it?" (Ajahn Amaro, Sunday talk at Amaravati, 25 October 2026)

The test turns on the principle of agency. Ownership of something means control over it. If the self were truly and completely what I am, there would be perfect agency: a decision arising from the mind or heart that could say "be like this" and have it happen. The absence of that control, Ajahn Amaro explained, is the evidence for not-self. The argument does not depend on abstract metaphysics. It asks the reader to try the experiment on their own life and see where the command fails.

The same method then runs through the five khandhas, the five aggregates that make up what we take to be a person. Rupa, material form, is the first. Vedana, feeling, is the second. Sanna, perception, is the third. Sankhara, mental formations, is the fourth, and Ajahn Amaro noted that it covers a wide spectrum: thoughts, feelings, memories, intentions, imagination, emotions, "the whole range of mental activity." The fifth is viññāṇa, discriminative consciousness. He offered a memorable image for it: he likes to think of viññāṇa as "the pixels of experience," the neural firing that makes up seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, thinking, remembering and imagining. Each aggregate is examined in turn, and each fails the same test of control.

This is the point where many listeners get frustrated, and Ajahn Amaro said so openly. The Buddha does not answer "what am I?" in those terms. Instead, the analytical method is a process of elimination. It walks the mind through what we usually take ourselves to be (the body, the personality, the name, the story, the memories, the achievements, the disasters) and lets go of each one as not-self. What remains is what is real, and the teaching does not stop to describe it as a concept.

Ajahn Amaro was emphatic that this is a methodology, not an evasion. He said there is no place in the whole Pali Canon where the Buddha spells out that a true self is this or that. The method was used right after the enlightenment, and in the Southern Buddhist texts it recurs throughout the teaching career. The silence is deliberate. The Buddha did not replace the self with a new self to be grasped.

Why is this so hard to accept? Ajahn Amaro put his finger on the experiential reason. Anyone who has meditated or watched their own mind finds a sense of a real center: a quality that knows, feels, chooses, is praised or criticized, succeeds or fails, is comfortable or uncomfortable, has a story and relationships. "If anything seems to be real in life," he said, "I seem to be." That felt sense of identity sits at the center of experience, which is precisely why the not-self teaching can seem to contradict so many philosophical and theistic traditions. The teaching does not deny the experience of a functioning person. It asks what that center is made of when it is examined.

Ajahn Amaro then turned to a related teaching from the Exposition of the Elements discourse, in the middle-length collection. In Buddhist psychology, conceit does not primarily mean arrogance or inflated pride. It means the conception of an identity. The Pali shorthand is asmi-māna: asmi means "I am," māna means conceit. It is the reflex of conceiving oneself as something.

The language the Buddha uses for this reflex is blunt, and Ajahn Amaro quoted it with evident enjoyment of the rhetoric:

"Conceivings are a poisoned arrow. Conceivings are like a cancerous tumor. Conceivings are an affliction, a burden." (The Buddha, as quoted by Ajahn Amaro, 25 October 2026)

The point is that the conceiving applies to every tense and every polarity: "I am this," "I was that," "I shall be this," whether the self-image is flattering or painful. Each one is a burden. The aim is not to adopt a better self-image but to see that the conceiving itself is the wound.

The Buddha also linked this conceit directly to liberation. In a teaching given to the monk Megiya, he described being free of the conceit "I am" as nibbāna here and now. Ajahn Amaro treated these two passages as complementary: the arrow and the tumor describe the suffering, and the freedom from conceiving describes what the path is for.

Ajahn Amaro's talk moves between scripture and lived experience. He pointed to the Pancha Taya Sutta, which he identified as Sutta 102 and described as another very useful teaching to get to know from the middle-length discourses. He also acknowledged that the Buddhist answer will sound unsatisfying to anyone expecting a metaphysical description of a true self. The method asks for a different kind of attention: noticing where the sense of "me" arises, testing whether it can be commanded, and seeing whether what remains after letting go is the thing one was looking for.

The talk then opened into the Question-and-Answer session, beginning around the one-hour mark of the recording, which is where this article stops.

For a reader new to this territory, the most useful next step is to take the agency test seriously in ordinary life. Pick one thing you think of as "me," such as your habits, your mood, or your memory of yourself, and ask whether you can give it a reliable command. Note where the command fails.

From there, the primary texts are the place to go. The Anatta-lakkhana Sutta is short, and Ajahn Amaro's walk-through of it gives a good map. The Amaravati teachings are available in audio and ebook form at https://www.amaravati.org/ under the Teachings menu, and the monastery's event calendar is at https://www.amaravati.org/calendar/. The talk itself, along with its question-and-answer session, is available on the Amaravati channel for anyone who wants to hear the passages in Ajahn Amaro's own voice.

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Transcript

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[1:19] >> So welcome to this last of the Sunday

[1:22] afternoon talks 2026.

[1:25] 2569

[1:27] in the Thai calendar 2570 in the Sri

[1:30] Lankan calendar.

[1:32] So the theme for today is me, myself and

[1:36] I. If I am not these, what am I?

[1:40] And so this is a

[1:42] core theme for the the Buddha's teaching

[1:45] and a frequently asked question in this

[1:48] kind of area.

[1:50] And so

[1:51] I think it's a rich territory to explore

[1:54] for this afternoon.

[1:56] Hopefully it'll be useful and meaningful

[1:58] for everyone.

[1:59] So the the Buddha's

[2:01] second discourse is called the

[2:02] Anatta-lakkhana Sutta. We recite quite

[2:05] regularly here at Amaravati.

[2:08] Uh the first discourse he gave, the the

[2:11] turning of the wheel of Dhamma, setting

[2:13] in motion of the wheel of Dhamma,

[2:15] the Dhamma-cakka-pavattana Sutta that

[2:16] described the middle way and the Four

[2:18] Noble Truths.

[2:19] And during the course of that teaching,

[2:22] one of his five companions

[2:24] realized stream entry. Uh the other four

[2:26] of his his monastic friends, the

[2:29] Pancavaggi, uh the other companions

[2:32] did not develop that degree of insight.

[2:35] Uh and so, as the story goes, they lived

[2:38] in this deer park outside of Varanasi

[2:41] during that time.

[2:43] And then the the Buddha was giving

[2:44] Dhamma talks. And the second

[2:47] key teaching that he gave is the

[2:49] Anatta-lakkhana Sutta.

[2:51] And that's when, having given this

[2:52] teaching, all five of them became

[2:54] arahants. So, I wouldn't say it's more

[2:56] important than the Four Noble Truths and

[2:58] the Middle Way, but it was a sort of, in

[3:00] a way, the deepening of explanation and

[3:03] the catalyst for those five of his his

[3:06] companions, his friends, to realize full

[3:08] and complete enlightenment. So, it was

[3:10] this teaching that brought the the first

[3:12] arahant disciples of the Buddha into the

[3:14] world. So, significant.

[3:16] So, during the course of that teaching,

[3:19] it starts off by saying, "Um

[3:21] Rūpaṃ anattā, the body is not self. Form

[3:25] Material form, physical form, is not

[3:27] self. Anattā Attā is self. Anattā is not

[3:30] self."

[3:31] And then he goes It's a kind of

[3:32] analytical teaching. He sort of walks

[3:34] them through.

[3:35] So, if the body was self, then it could

[3:38] be said of the body, "Be like this.

[3:39] Don't be like that." But because it

[3:41] can't be said of the body, "Don't be

[3:43] like this. Be like that."

[3:44] Therefore, the body is not self. So, he

[3:46] kind of walks them through a little kind

[3:48] of logical pattern. And so, just as we

[3:50] can say, you know,

[3:51] to the body, "D- Don't get older.

[3:53] >> [laughter]

[3:54] >> Never have any sicknesses."

[3:55] It doesn't work, does it? So, he's

[3:58] taking the the principle of agency.

[4:01] Like, you know, if you were the owner,

[4:04] if this is what who if this was who and

[4:06] what you are in a complete and absolute

[4:07] way, then there would be perfect agency.

[4:11] You could decide. There could be a

[4:12] decision coming from the mind, the

[4:14] heart, and say, "Be like this. Don't be

[4:15] like that."

[4:16] Uh and there isn't that agency. There

[4:19] isn't that genuine ownership. Ergo, not

[4:22] self. This is can't be who If it was a

[4:24] real self, it was true If it was true

[4:26] and absolutely who you what you who and

[4:27] what you are, then there would be that

[4:29] control, that agency, that that complete

[4:31] ownership.

[4:32] So, then he goes through the other uh

[4:34] the other elements of the five uh five

[4:37] kandhas. The

[4:39] rupa is the first one, feeling vedana is

[4:41] the second one. Then sanna, perceptions

[4:43] the third one, sankhara, mental

[4:45] formations, which includes a big

[4:47] spectrum of

[4:48] thoughts, feelings, memories,

[4:51] intentions, imagination,

[4:53] emotions, you know, the whole range of

[4:56] of mental activity. And then the last

[4:58] one, vinnana, discriminative

[5:00] consciousness, the very fabric of

[5:02] cognizing objects

[5:05] themselves. The I like to think of

[5:07] vinnana as a sort of the pixels of

[5:09] experience. So, that the the pixels of

[5:12] neuro neuro neural firing in our brains

[5:14] that make up seeing, hearing, smelling,

[5:16] tasting, touching, thinking,

[5:17] remembering, imagining, and so forth.

[5:20] So, he walks them through all of of

[5:22] those

[5:24] in the in the not-self teaching. And so,

[5:28] that

[5:29] um

[5:30] in terms of the question of today, if if

[5:32] this isn't me, myself, and I, if this

[5:34] isn't who and what I am, what am I?

[5:37] Well, the Buddha does not answer the

[5:39] question in that those terms.

[5:41] And that analytical method that he uses

[5:44] is

[5:45] a systematic way of walking us through

[5:48] recognizing what we usually think we

[5:50] are, our body, our personality, our

[5:52] name, our story, our memories, our

[5:54] achievements, our our disasters, uh

[5:57] etc., etc. And it's by a process of

[6:01] elimination, letting go of what we're

[6:02] not, so what is real is what remains.

[6:06] Um so, he doesn't spell out that um

[6:09] there's

[6:10] any kind of concept of a of a true self

[6:12] or a real me.

[6:15] Uh which some people find frustrating.

[6:17] But this was the the Buddha's

[6:19] methodology

[6:21] and from this was just after the

[6:23] enlightenment and he used it

[6:25] at least in the southern Buddhist

[6:26] teachings, the Pali Canon, throughout

[6:28] his entire teaching career. There is

[6:30] there's no place where he says the real

[6:32] self is X Y Z.

[6:35] So, um this is confusing, I would say,

[6:37] because

[6:39] any of us who've

[6:40] um

[6:41] meditated or looked at our own minds um

[6:44] and whatever kind of cultural,

[6:46] religious, philosophical concept or

[6:48] structure that we have, that this life

[6:51] seems to be the most real thing.

[6:53] Kind of at the at the middle of all of

[6:54] this, there seems to be something real

[6:56] that's that's here at the center.

[6:58] There's a a real quality that's

[6:59] experiencing, that's knowing, that's

[7:01] feeling, that's making choices, that's

[7:03] being praised or criticized, that's

[7:04] succeeding or failing, that's

[7:05] comfortable or uncomfortable. Um and

[7:08] that it lives places, it has a story, it

[7:10] has relationships, it it functions in

[7:13] the world. So, um if anything seems to

[7:17] be real in life,

[7:18] uh I seem to be. You know, that feeling

[7:20] of

[7:21] of identity is is there at the center.

[7:23] So, when people come across the the

[7:25] teaching on not self, it can be really

[7:27] confusing and it seems to really go

[7:29] against many other philosophical or

[7:31] theistic traditions in particular.

[7:34] So, uh it can be very confusing.

[7:37] And so, hopefully today I'll

[7:40] with these reflections I'll clarify uh

[7:42] the the the territory a little bit.

[7:46] So, the um uh

[7:48] that was one of the Buddha's initial

[7:50] teachings, so the the discourse on not

[7:53] self, the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta, but it

[7:54] was a theme that he continued and

[7:57] developed and

[7:59] and and explored over and over and over

[8:01] again in various different ways.

[8:04] So, for example, in one of the the the

[8:06] great teachings of the the Buddha in the

[8:09] the middle length discourses called the

[8:11] exposition of the elements.

[8:14] Uh he talks about conceit. And in

[8:17] Buddhist psychology, conceit uh doesn't

[8:20] just mean being inflated. It doesn't

[8:21] mean like be just being arrogant. It

[8:23] means the conception of of an of

[8:26] identity. So, it's often

[8:28] they use the word mana as a short hand

[8:30] for asmi mana, the conceit of I am. Asmi

[8:33] means I am, and mana is conceit. So, the

[8:37] the conceit of identity or the conceit

[8:39] of of I am, asmi mana.

[8:42] And so, in that discourse, the

[8:44] exposition of the elements, uh the

[8:46] Buddha says, "I am is a conceiving.

[8:49] Yeah. I am I am I am this. I is a

[8:52] conceiving. I was that is a conceiving.

[8:54] I shall be this is a conceiving.

[8:57] Conceivings are a poisoned arrow.

[9:00] Conceivings are like a cancerous tumor.

[9:02] Conceivings are an affliction, a

[9:04] burden." It's got quite emotive

[9:06] language. It's like, "Oh."

[9:08] Uh

[9:09] but it's the Buddha had a great skill in

[9:11] getting our attention and

[9:13] making things memorable. So, any kind of

[9:15] of conceiving, past, present, future,

[9:18] positive or negative, conceivings are a

[9:21] like a cancerous tumor. They're a

[9:22] burden. They're stressful like a

[9:23] poisoned arrow.

[9:26] Uh that particular teaching. And uh

[9:28] another teaching where he was uh talking

[9:30] to one of his uh

[9:32] monk disciples called Megiya.

[9:35] Um

[9:35] he he says, "To be free of the conceit I

[9:38] am, to be free of that asmi mana, you

[9:41] know, that is nibana here and now."

[9:43] So, he composes that as like that's

[9:45] synonymous with it with enlightenment,

[9:47] with total peace, total freedom, to be

[9:49] free of that conceit I am, asmi mana.

[9:53] >> [snorts]

[9:53] >> Another very useful teaching to get to

[9:55] know, again from the middle length

[9:56] discourses, um is uh

[9:59] called the the five and the three, the

[10:01] Pancha Taya Sutta, Sutta number

[10:03] 102.

[10:05] I checked it this morning.

[10:07] >> [laughter]

[10:07] >> So, the

[10:08] uh

[10:09] what the Buddha describes is that there

[10:10] may be someone who's meditating

[10:13] and their mind is very, very clear, very

[10:14] bright, very peaceful. And then the

[10:17] thought comes to them, "I am at peace. I

[10:19] am without clinging. I have realized

[10:21] nirvana." And then in Bhikkhu Bodhi's

[10:23] translation in the the Wisdom

[10:25] Publications edition, yeah, that I is

[10:27] not only italic, it's underlined as

[10:29] well. It's like, "I am at peace. I am

[10:31] without clinging. I have realized

[10:33] nirvana." Just to kind of get the point

[10:35] across. So, ding.

[10:37] They the the very way that the mind is

[10:40] phrasing the experience demonstrates the

[10:42] clinging that is still there. That's

[10:44] still that

[10:46] And then [clears throat] the Buddha goes

[10:47] on to say, but you know, the Tathagata,

[10:49] the the

[10:50] the enlightened one has described

[10:53] the

[10:54] you know, the um

[10:56] the relinquishment, the non-grasping uh

[10:58] in terms of eye, ear, nose, tongue,

[11:00] body, and mind. That the

[11:02] watching the

[11:03] uh the perceptions of seeing, hearing,

[11:04] smelling, tasting, touching, thinking

[11:06] arising and passing away. And that's

[11:10] uh and in that watching of arising and

[11:12] passing away, that knowing of arising

[11:14] and passing away, then that's what

[11:16] brings about a a genuine liberation.

[11:20] So, uh so it's a different way So, when

[11:23] we we see the word conceit or conception

[11:26] in in Buddhist terms, it's good to

[11:29] recognize that it doesn't just mean, as

[11:31] I said, doesn't mean like an inflated

[11:32] ego.

[11:33] Um

[11:34] and in one particular set of teachings,

[11:37] they the

[11:38] they have a whole matrix of different

[11:40] kinds of conceit. It's the nine types of

[11:43] conceit. Not to be too technical, but

[11:45] it's kind of interesting. So, if you are

[11:47] better than everyone and you think that

[11:49] you're better than everyone, that's a

[11:50] conceit. If you are better than everyone

[11:52] and you think that you're average,

[11:54] that's a conceit. If you are better than

[11:56] everyone and you think you're worse than

[11:57] everyone, that's a conceit.

[11:59] If you're average and you think that

[12:00] you're better than everyone, that's a

[12:01] conceit. If you're average and you think

[12:03] that you're average, that's a conceit.

[12:05] If you're average and you think that

[12:06] you're worse than everyone, that's a

[12:07] conceit. If you're worse than everyone

[12:09] and you think you're better than

[12:10] everyone, that's a conceit.

[12:12] If you're worse than everyone and you're

[12:13] and you think you're average, that's a

[12:15] conceit. And if you're worse than

[12:17] everyone and you think you're worse than

[12:18] everyone, it's still a conceit.

[12:21] The whole Yeah, every angle is covered.

[12:23] So, it's like the nine the nine types of

[12:25] conceit. So, it's whatever the mind

[12:28] conceives that and I am, that's a

[12:30] conceit.

[12:32] And so,

[12:33] uh and and one of my favorite phrases

[12:35] from the from the Pali Canon that um

[12:38] where the Buddha sums up this this kind

[12:40] of principle of the the conceiving mind.

[12:43] So, it's ye in the Pali, for those Pali

[12:46] uh aficionados amongst us, the Pali is

[12:48] yena yena hi maññanti tato taṅhoti

[12:51] aññathāti.

[12:53] Whatever you conceive it to be, the

[12:55] truth is always other than that.

[12:58] It doesn't mean that you haven't got

[12:59] enough information.

[13:00] Or you just need you need more uh you

[13:02] know, a better idea. It's like any

[13:04] conception of a self, any any way of

[13:06] describing, any formation of a of an I,

[13:10] me, mind feeling, um the reality that

[13:13] can't possibly con- contain or embody

[13:15] the reality. Uh

[13:17] the uh it it has to be falling short.

[13:19] So, it's a very useful

[13:21] um

[13:22] a sort of backup for for meditation. And

[13:24] it's a a simple phrase using the

[13:26] English, whatever you conceive it to be,

[13:28] the truth is always other than that. So,

[13:30] when you're sitting in the meditation

[13:31] hall and you or out on the walking path

[13:32] thinking, "I've got it."

[13:35] Whatever you conceive it to be,

[13:37] >> [laughter]

[13:38] >> the truth is always other than that. Our

[13:40] our thoughts, our ideas, our conceptions

[13:43] around self and and also around uh you

[13:45] know, other ideas or beliefs, they they

[13:47] can only be partial. They don't have

[13:49] enough dimensions. And uh another way I

[13:51] have of of describing that principle, it

[13:54] it's like um So, here we have

[13:57] a glass of water.

[14:00] So, uh this is a three-dimensional

[14:02] glass. So, we can pour water into it. If

[14:05] I only had a drawing of a glass, I

[14:07] couldn't pour water into the drawing cuz

[14:08] the the drawing only has two dimensions,

[14:11] but the water is three-dimensions. So,

[14:14] it's not a perfect analogy, but uh the

[14:16] reality of Dhamma, then the fundamental

[14:19] nature of reality, has got too many

[14:21] dimensions to be contained within

[14:24] thoughts, words, language, any kind of

[14:27] representation, any kind of form, even

[14:29] sort of mathematical or or symbolic of

[14:32] any kind. So, the symbols, the words,

[14:34] can point to that, but they can't embody

[14:36] that. So, and it seems as though the

[14:39] Buddha realized this right from the very

[14:40] beginning, from the just right from the

[14:42] the start of his

[14:43] his attempt to teach and his teaching

[14:47] career of 45 years, he he realized it's

[14:51] much more useful to talk about the path

[14:53] to realization than than to try and

[14:55] describe in words and concepts that

[14:57] which is realized. That to talk about

[15:00] the the fundamental nature of

[15:02] ultimate reality of of Dhamma, the the

[15:04] paramattha sacca, the ultimate reality,

[15:06] better to talk about the path

[15:09] to to realize that and then

[15:13] rather than using poetic or fancy

[15:16] intricate philosophical language to try

[15:18] and describe what is essentially

[15:20] indescribable.

[15:22] So, anyway, to continue on this theme

[15:23] for today. So,

[15:26] that

[15:29] it sort of informs that that lack of of

[15:32] um

[15:33] a capacity for any kind of self

[15:36] self-conceit or self-identity to embody

[15:38] the reality, that's what the Buddha's

[15:40] pointing to. Any way that we we think of

[15:42] ourselves or conceive ourselves, that

[15:44] can only be a a half-truth. It can be a

[15:46] convenient fiction. It can be a useful

[15:47] fiction, you know. Ajahn Amaro's on the

[15:49] list to give a talk this afternoon.

[15:51] Yeah, if Ajahn X had got up here

[15:52] instead, it'd be you know, what's what's

[15:54] he doing in the chair?

[15:56] >> [laughter]

[15:56] >> He's not on the list, so names are

[15:58] useful, as Luang Por Chah would say,

[16:00] like they have a purpose, you know,

[16:02] they're only names, but if everyone was

[16:03] just called person, it'd get really

[16:05] complicated. Who's on the washing up

[16:06] today? Person, person, person, person,

[16:08] person, person, and person, you know.

[16:10] Yeah. Who's giving the Dhamma talk this

[16:11] afternoon? Oh, person is.

[16:13] You know, it's a frequent

[16:16] observation of Luang Por Chah's.

[16:18] So, that um a lot of the Buddha's

[16:21] teaching is about letting go of those

[16:23] conceptions of self, letting go of

[16:25] identity. And that analytical teaching

[16:27] of the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta was, you

[16:30] know, the first clear and deliberate

[16:32] instance of that.

[16:35] Uh so, uh over the over the years,

[16:38] people would ask him cuz they in the in

[16:40] the spiritual philosophical landscape of

[16:42] India, you know, people are very uh

[16:44] would always be coming to see him and

[16:45] asking questions and

[16:48] and he had a reputation as a great

[16:49] spiritual master, incredibly wise, and

[16:51] and uh accomplished um and, you know,

[16:54] realized enlightened being.

[16:56] And one of the people who used to visit

[16:58] the Buddha very often, who I I regularly

[17:00] quote, there's a whole section of the

[17:01] connected discourses called the

[17:03] Vacchagotta Saṃyutta, was a wanderer

[17:05] from a different group, different uh

[17:07] sect called Vacchagotta.

[17:10] And uh he used to come to the Many of

[17:12] his his questions cuz they're, you know,

[17:14] interesting questions and they got

[17:15] recorded and eventually he became the

[17:17] Buddha's disciple and became an arahant,

[17:19] but as a a lot of

[17:21] uh

[17:22] a lot a lot of encounters before that.

[17:24] And on one of these encounters,

[17:26] Vacchagotta um came to the Buddha and

[17:28] said, you know, "Venerable sir,

[17:31] is there a self?"

[17:33] And the Buddha remained silent.

[17:35] Just sat there. Didn't say anything.

[17:37] And then Vacchagotta said,

[17:39] "Is there no self?"

[17:41] And the Buddha again remained silent.

[17:44] And Vacchagotta

[17:45] the master's not talking to me. Yeah,

[17:47] this is

[17:48] This is This is all This is awkward.

[17:50] So, he paid his respects and departed.

[17:52] And so, after he'd gone, then the the

[17:54] faithful Ananda said, you know,

[17:55] "Venerable sir, surely uh you know, you

[17:58] know, you are the great master, but

[17:59] surely uh it would have been helpful to

[18:01] Vacchagotta to, you know, respond to his

[18:03] question." And then the Buddha uh said

[18:06] that to Ananda, "Well,

[18:08] when he said um

[18:09] 'Is there a self?'

[18:11] if I had said, 'Yes, there is a self,'

[18:14] uh then would that have been in

[18:16] accordance with my many that all dhammas

[18:18] are not self, all things are not self.

[18:21] And then I know that I will say

[18:23] And then

[18:24] and if when he said is there no self, I

[18:27] had said correct, there is no self, then

[18:29] he would have had the feeling, well I

[18:31] had a self when I came here, but now the

[18:33] master tells me I haven't got one.

[18:35] And so he would have gone away more

[18:36] confused than when he arrived.

[18:38] So that's why I remained silent. So

[18:40] that's one of the most famous teachings

[18:42] of the Buddha is where he didn't say

[18:44] anything. The the silence of the Buddha

[18:46] was the response to to Vacchagotta.

[18:49] So that might not be very illuminating

[18:51] to us. So might not seem very very

[18:53] helpful. But um it's uh

[18:56] >> [clears throat]

[18:56] >> it's a significant thing. Um cuz often

[19:00] happens not exactly every day, but very

[19:02] very regularly, you know, people will

[19:04] come and talk to me and say, you know,

[19:05] the Buddha said there is no self.

[19:08] Right? And say, no, wrong.

[19:10] And uh it was Ajahn Thanissaro pointed

[19:13] this out. He's a very thorough scholar

[19:15] of the the Tipitaka. And he said there

[19:18] is no place in the whole Pali Canon

[19:20] where the Buddha says there is no self.

[19:23] There is a There is a place where he

[19:25] says

[19:26] one who who holds the view there is no

[19:28] self

[19:29] has got wrong view.

[19:32] Interesting. Eyebrows raised. Let's see.

[19:35] Say, what? Surely

[19:37] But [clears throat] what he does say is

[19:38] all dhammas are not self. Now I know

[19:40] English is not the first language of

[19:42] many people here. And they think, well,

[19:43] wait, wait, wait. Isn't that the same

[19:45] thing?

[19:46] And it might sound a bit fussy or

[19:48] pedantic. But they're not the same

[19:50] thing. And I'll

[19:51] talk about that in due course.

[19:54] Because [snorts] the

[19:55] the the And it to me it's very

[19:57] interesting. And I hadn't realized that

[19:59] until reading it in a a little book of

[20:02] Ajahn Thanissaro's called

[20:03] the not self strategy.

[20:05] Uh is that you know that you can't find

[20:07] a single place, even though people

[20:08] regularly say the Buddha said there is

[20:09] no self. He didn't. Never said that. Not

[20:11] once.

[20:13] But he regularly says all things are not

[20:15] self.

[20:16] So the I'll talk about it in a little

[20:19] while, but the

[20:21] um

[20:22] uh the one is a a um

[20:25] a kind of philosophical position. I

[20:27] believe there is no self or that's

[20:29] that's a philosophical position I'm

[20:31] holding, but the Buddha was taking the

[20:33] principle of not self and using that in

[20:36] in quite a different way.

[20:39] >> [snorts]

[20:41] >> Uh, the

[20:43] when when the Buddha

[20:44] did not speak in terms of

[20:47] affirming a self when people cuz in

[20:49] within the Indian philosophical

[20:50] landscape it was very common for you

[20:53] know the the Atman was taken to be an

[20:56] absolute reality the sort of bubble of

[20:57] selfhood and that it within the the

[21:01] Vedic tradition not every aspect of it

[21:03] to in my knowledge but mostly that the

[21:06] so the fundamental philosophical land

[21:08] landscape of the Vedic texts and the

[21:11] Upanishads and the Vedas is that the the

[21:14] Atman the self the the real me has

[21:17] somehow got separated from Brahman the

[21:19] ultimate reality and our journey our

[21:22] journey through Samsara life after life

[21:24] after life is so that the Atman will

[21:26] learn the lessons it needs to and will

[21:29] develop its spiritual qualities so at

[21:32] the

[21:33] the grand finale of the spiritual path

[21:36] then the Atman will be reunited with

[21:38] Brahman.

[21:39] That's a very very rough sketch and I'm

[21:42] sure there's a maybe a one or two Hindu

[21:45] Vedic philosophers here will say

[21:47] actually [clears throat] Ajahn

[21:49] so forgive me if I'm misrepresenting

[21:51] that but generally that's the

[21:54] the the principle that was around in the

[21:56] Buddha's time so it'll be different

[21:57] descriptions of what the Atman is

[21:59] whether it's eternal or

[22:01] how it is relates to Brahman and

[22:04] so and so forth but that was the the

[22:06] basic idea that this Atman this bubble

[22:08] of me-ness goes from one life to another

[22:11] to another maybe being reborn as in

[22:13] human realm or in the deva realm or

[22:15] animal realm and this life after life

[22:17] this this bubble of me-ness I-ness would

[22:19] go and inhabit different different lives

[22:23] and so the Buddha was trying to

[22:24] counteract that as a principle. And so,

[22:28] uh he also was was brilliant as a

[22:30] teacher and he um

[22:32] he spoke in ways that very easily got

[22:35] people's attention. It was a kind of

[22:36] shock There's a certain shock value in

[22:38] talking about anatman, you know, all

[22:39] things are not self.

[22:42] Just like he talked about nirvana,

[22:43] coolness, instead of tapas, spiritual

[22:46] heat. So, that many yogis and

[22:48] ascetics, the idea of asceticism was to

[22:51] generate tapas, which literally means

[22:53] heat. Uh sort of yogic power through

[22:56] your austerities. You would torture your

[22:58] body and you'd go through all these kind

[23:00] of rigorous um

[23:02] practices of self-mortification to

[23:04] develop tapas. And like uh

[23:06] the Lord Shiva, the the God Shiva was

[23:07] the kind of the great tapasvin, the

[23:08] great ascetic, and had kind of

[23:10] tremendous powers. So, instead of

[23:12] talking about tapas, heat, the Buddha

[23:14] talked about nirvana, coolness. Which is

[23:17] a again a kind of shock tactic, like,

[23:19] "Ooh,

[23:20] what's this?" So, talking about anatman

[23:22] as a core spiritual principle, again, I

[23:25] think it was a kind of teaching device

[23:28] that the Buddha used, a kind of

[23:29] dialectical principle. Uh

[23:31] to use a fancy word, to say get the get

[23:34] people's attention, like,

[23:35] "Anatman, what? Huh?" So, then people

[23:38] start to listen more more closely.

[23:41] So, [snorts] that um

[23:43] he

[23:44] uh he was going against the current of

[23:46] thinking of his time. He was still

[23:48] talking about using spiritual practices,

[23:50] meditation, and virtuous living, and um

[23:54] working hard to to uh say uh develop

[23:58] wholesome qualities, but the the

[23:59] background to that was free of self-view

[24:02] and free of conceit and free of the the

[24:04] atman and brahman ideal. So, he talked

[24:08] in in different terms.

[24:11] >> [snorts]

[24:11] >> Uh one of the the things I thought I'd

[24:13] also share with you um today is um that

[24:17] we have that that

[24:18] experience or that that ideal within the

[24:21] the the Buddhist world. Um And so, that

[24:25] uh he was

[24:27] uh

[24:28] uh that way of speaking. and he was

[24:30] prepared to be misunderstood

[24:32] so that a lot of people in his time

[24:34] thought, "Well, you're a nihilist.

[24:36] You're you're talking about the

[24:37] destruction of the self. You know,

[24:39] you're you're talking about um like uh

[24:41] there's after after the body dies

[24:43] there's nothing. You're you're an

[24:45] annihilationist, a nihilist." And

[24:47] there's a Pali word "bhavano."

[24:50] It's a very evocative term, which means

[24:52] a wrecker of being. Like you're [snorts]

[24:54] you're kind of just you're talking about

[24:56] the destruction of of the spirit of the

[24:58] Atman. This is terrible. You shouldn't

[24:59] shouldn't talk in that way. You're kind

[25:01] of uh a you're going against the current

[25:04] of of of what everyone knows to be true

[25:06] or they or or also the um

[25:09] uh as an ascetic going and

[25:12] and encouraging celibacy for the

[25:13] monastic order and the going against the

[25:16] the kind of uh

[25:18] the the way of life of of marriage and

[25:20] children and so forth. So, he was known

[25:22] as a wrecker of being, a destroyer of

[25:24] being, "bhavano."

[25:26] Um

[25:27] and uh

[25:28] but he even though he was regularly

[25:30] criticized or or and and

[25:33] blamed or attacked in that way he very

[25:36] repeatedly and calmly like in the um

[25:38] again from the middle-length discourses

[25:40] in the

[25:41] the simile of the the the sutra called

[25:43] the simile of the snake, sutra number

[25:45] 22, he said, "I have been vainly,

[25:48] baselessly accused of talking about of

[25:51] teaching the destruction of an existent

[25:54] being. That is not what I teach and

[25:56] those who say that I teach that are

[25:57] misrepresenting

[25:59] me. That's not what I teach. I don't

[26:01] teach about the destruction of an

[26:02] existent being. I teach about suffering

[26:04] and the ending of suffering."

[26:07] And so, that um uh say being

[26:11] uh accused of or being criticized as

[26:13] being a nihilist he was prepared to live

[26:15] with that.

[26:17] And [snorts] and then a number of

[26:18] teachings talk about that in quite clear

[26:21] ways. He's saying that some beings um

[26:24] they are attached to some people some

[26:26] some people are are attached to the idea

[26:29] of being that eternalists. And when I

[26:31] talk about um

[26:33] uh uh talk about nirvana uh or talk

[26:35] about cessation, then they are

[26:38] affronted, they're upset, and they they

[26:39] think I'm talking about the the

[26:41] destruction of an existent being. Um so,

[26:44] they uh they weep and wail, and they

[26:46] beat their breasts, and they go, "Oh,

[26:47] no, it's terrible. This this teaching of

[26:48] this monk Gotama that's talking about is

[26:51] a nihilistic, life life-denying

[26:53] life-negating life-denying teaching."

[26:56] And they're, you know, upset. He said,

[26:58] "At the other extreme, you have those

[27:00] who are nihilists. They go, 'Yeah,

[27:01] great. This is fantastic. You know,

[27:03] after the death of the body, there's

[27:04] nothing. We're all wiped out. Yes, this

[27:06] is peace. This is truth. This is

[27:07] great.'" So, and so, the uh the ones who

[27:11] are the eternalists, the life affirmers,

[27:14] they uh they hold back. And the ones who

[27:17] are uh nihilists, they overreach. But uh

[27:20] only those with vision see. So, some

[27:22] overreach, some hold back. And what is

[27:24] it that those with vision see? They see

[27:26] that which has has arisen uh uh

[27:29] you know, they see it having arisen.

[27:31] That which is That which passes away,

[27:32] they see it passing away. That's how one

[27:34] with vision sees. So, it's a an

[27:37] interesting way of speaking about in

[27:40] essence uh insight meditation, vipassana

[27:42] meditation. That uh you watch the

[27:45] There there is that that sense of things

[27:47] arising. Yeah, things exist, they come

[27:49] into being. They're known as they come

[27:50] into being. But also, things come to an

[27:52] end. They cease, they end. And so, uh we

[27:55] watch them arise, we watch them end.

[27:57] There is that quality of of vision, of

[27:59] knowing, of um

[28:02] of of wisdom that knows the arising and

[28:04] passing uh of of all things. And that

[28:08] that place of vision, that is what he

[28:10] he's talking about in his his teaching.

[28:15] Uh as a a little bit of an aside, um

[28:18] it's uh I came across a a

[28:22] uh an academic um

[28:24] uh

[28:25] paper, an article written by a

[28:28] uh a philosopher in

[28:30] uh University of California in Berkeley

[28:31] called Alison Gopnik.

[28:33] This is a bit of a digression.

[28:35] So, Alison Gopnik

[28:38] and there's an article I think in the

[28:39] Atlantic Monthly or in Harper's, there's

[28:41] an article by her like, you know, how a

[28:43] how an 18th century philosopher saved me

[28:45] from my depression.

[28:48] An easily readable article. So,

[28:50] what she discovered as an academic

[28:53] philosopher

[28:55] was that she felt that the the the

[28:58] teachings of David Hume, the Scottish

[29:01] philosopher in

[29:02] the 18th century, had a bore a very very

[29:05] close

[29:06] connection to Buddhism.

[29:08] And one of the things in his great

[29:09] treatise called A Treatise on Human

[29:11] Nature

[29:12] David Hume wrote and he was he was kind

[29:15] of he was criticized in his time. He was

[29:17] not he was not a

[29:20] atheist. He he didn't believe in the

[29:22] church or in in God and the

[29:25] and the Christian teachings of his time.

[29:26] So, he was quite an outlier.

[29:29] But his his philosophy was very highly

[29:31] respected. And in his treatise on human

[29:33] nature, and again, I won't be able to

[29:35] quote this accurately, he says something

[29:37] like

[29:38] "Whenever I I enter most intimately into

[29:41] what I call myself,

[29:43] I always stumble upon some perception or

[29:46] other

[29:47] of pleasure or pain or comfort or

[29:50] discomfort, happiness or unhappiness.

[29:53] But when I when I

[29:55] when I look for myself,

[29:58] I cannot find any self there.

[30:01] Only the perception of pleasure

[30:04] pleasure and pain feeling comfort or

[30:06] discomfort, happiness or unhappiness.

[30:07] That's what's there. I can never find

[30:09] myself."

[30:11] And uh

[30:12] the

[30:14] and I won't go into detail on it, but

[30:16] it's very very close to the Buddha's

[30:19] analytical method. When you Yeah, you

[30:20] can find the perception, you can find

[30:21] the thought, but the me that's doing the

[30:23] thinking, the me that's doing the

[30:24] perceiving, the more you look, the more

[30:26] you're not there.

[30:28] Um

[30:30] That's also I think a quote from

[30:32] from House at Pooh Corner.

[30:34] The more the more the more Pooh the more

[30:36] Piglet wasn't there.

[30:40] So, that was a

[30:41] another echo of the same principle. So,

[30:43] the

[30:44] So,

[30:45] uh

[30:46] David Hume was well known for that, but

[30:50] and again it's you might want to follow

[30:52] it up by reading the article, but

[30:54] so Alison Gopnik, to her credit, she

[30:56] thought, "Well, that's really

[30:57] interesting. Where did Hume get that

[30:58] from?"

[30:59] And then she realized he was living in a

[31:01] little village in France when he wrote

[31:03] that his great treatise, the treatise on

[31:05] human nature. And in that same little

[31:07] village in France, there was a Jesuit

[31:10] seminary.

[31:12] And one of the people who was at that

[31:14] seminary had been living in Tibet.

[31:17] Ippolito Desideri was a Jesuit priest

[31:20] and had just come back from Tibet.

[31:23] So, there's no evidence that they

[31:24] actually met in a cafe or, you know,

[31:26] what the

[31:28] the 18th century equivalent of There's

[31:30] no clear evidence that the two of them

[31:32] met, but David Hume's

[31:35] insights into into selflessness and that

[31:39] the inner process, there's a very very

[31:41] close relationship or similarity to this

[31:44] the Buddha's teachings on this area. So,

[31:47] I thought, "Well you know, well done,

[31:47] Alison."

[31:49] Well spotted and

[31:51] and also that that was very helpful to

[31:53] her on an individual level, but

[31:55] it's quite possible that his many years

[31:58] in Tibet, Desideri had picked up some

[32:01] Buddhist teachings and brought them back

[32:02] to to Europe and was

[32:05] putting his notes together and happened

[32:06] to come across this Scottish guy in

[32:09] the equivalent of a cafe in the

[32:12] over a baguette one morning.

[32:15] Anyway, to continue. So, the

[32:18] the the Buddha's approach in this area

[32:22] um is

[32:24] uh

[32:24] then Okay, if if we let go of what we're

[32:28] not, what is real?

[32:30] It's a kind of Is it Okay, it definitely

[32:32] feels like there's something

[32:35] I would say.

[32:36] And even as a confused teenager, I sort

[32:39] of I knew nothing about Buddhism, but I

[32:41] kind of got that far. Like, well, what

[32:43] And in life was, you know, very very

[32:46] confusing and I was trying to figure it

[32:47] all out, you know, how it all works,

[32:49] life, the universe, and everything. And

[32:51] and I was very suspicious about cultural

[32:54] norms, very suspicious about organized

[32:56] religion, very suspicious about the

[32:58] English

[32:59] middle-class way of life.

[33:01] And I was a kind of hippie anarchist

[33:03] type and was ready to throw out

[33:05] everything. But in the middle of it all

[33:07] and in the different sort of things I

[33:09] was reading and and ways I was

[33:11] experimenting with my own mind, it's

[33:14] like, well, right in the middle of this

[33:15] that there's certainly something is real

[33:17] here.

[33:18] There's something real that's not

[33:20] tangible. It doesn't have a shape or a

[33:22] form, but there's there's some there's a

[33:24] reality here at the center. Now, what is

[33:26] it What is this? What is it?

[33:28] Um

[33:29] that was the the question I had. So,

[33:31] what you get in the Buddha's teaching

[33:34] um and and he was, as I said, prepared

[33:37] to be misunderstood as a nihilist by

[33:40] saying, you know, we're not the body,

[33:41] we're not thoughts, we're not feelings,

[33:42] we're not perceptions, we're not ideas

[33:44] and and our our our stories.

[33:48] But then [clears throat] what is real?

[33:51] So, there's a few um

[33:53] encounters that I like to quote very

[33:55] very regularly. So, those of you who've

[33:57] listened to my listened to my talks or

[33:59] been on any retreats with me will will

[34:01] be familiar with these.

[34:03] So, again, with Vacchagotta, uh the the

[34:05] trusty indefatigable Vacchagotta,

[34:08] uh one day he came to the Buddha and not

[34:11] he didn't ask whether there's a self or

[34:13] no self, but on this occasion he was

[34:14] asking about what is the nature of an

[34:17] arahant after the death of the body.

[34:19] Do they reappear in another realm?

[34:22] And the Buddha said, "Reappear doesn't

[34:24] apply, Vacchagotta."

[34:26] So, do they not reappear reappear in

[34:28] another realm?

[34:30] Said, "No. Does does not reappear. That

[34:32] doesn't apply."

[34:33] Then, being Indian philosophers, then

[34:35] they cover all angles. So, do they both

[34:38] reappear and not reappear

[34:41] in another realm after the death of the

[34:43] body. The Buddha said, "Both reappears

[34:45] and does not reappear." That doesn't

[34:46] apply. And then the fourth one of the

[34:48] quadrilemma,

[34:50] so do they neither reappear nor not

[34:52] reappear in another realm? Nope, that

[34:55] doesn't apply either.

[34:56] So, Vacchagotta thought he'd covered

[34:58] every possible angle.

[35:00] And he said, "I'm con- Venerable sir,

[35:01] I'm confused because one of these has to

[35:03] apply. And this covers every possible

[35:06] angle." And the Buddha said, "Vaccha,

[35:08] the way you put the question presumes a

[35:10] reality that doesn't exist."

[35:12] And then he used this very again very

[35:13] famous

[35:14] um analogy.

[35:16] He said, "If we had a little fire

[35:18] burning here made of grass and sticks

[35:21] and

[35:22] in front of us. And then we let the fire

[35:24] go out. And I ask you, Vaccha, where did

[35:27] the fire go? North, south, east, or

[35:29] west? How would you respond?"

[35:31] He said, "Well, I'd say that the

[35:32] question doesn't apply, Venerable sir.

[35:34] Uh the fire didn't go north, south,

[35:36] east, or west. It went out."

[35:38] He said, "Exactly.

[35:39] The way that you that that I I put the

[35:42] question presumes a reality that doesn't

[35:44] exist. So, when you say where does an

[35:46] arhat go when they pass away, um then

[35:50] you're

[35:52] He doesn't spell it out in detail,

[35:53] but he says, you know, "The way you put

[35:56] the question

[35:57] is creating a framework.

[35:59] Uh is creating a a set of suppositions

[36:02] like identity, individuality, location.

[36:05] Where do they go? They You're presuming

[36:08] they have been uh alive as an individual

[36:11] person and now they they have gone

[36:12] somewhere else. So, there's presumptions

[36:15] around identity, time, location.

[36:19] And so, rather than saying what actually

[36:21] happens to an enlightened being when

[36:23] they pass away, where they go,

[36:25] the Buddha

[36:26] doesn't

[36:28] say make a statement using the same

[36:30] wrong suppositions.

[36:32] But um

[36:33] he kind of leaves it hanging.

[36:35] And then uh for a moment and then he

[36:38] goes on to say

[36:39] in a very very uniquely he talks about

[36:41] his own nature. It's kind of one of the

[36:43] few places in the Pali Canon where the

[36:45] Buddha talks about his own his own kind

[36:48] of being.

[36:50] And he says to Vacchagotta, "So, Vacca,

[36:54] that material form, that body, whereby

[36:57] someone trying to describe the Tathagata

[36:59] would describe him, that's been cut off

[37:01] at the root, made like a palm tree

[37:03] stump, deprived of the conditions for

[37:05] existence, and has been rendered

[37:07] incapable of arising in the future.

[37:09] It's the bridge is down.

[37:12] There's no connection.

[37:13] The feelings, vedana,

[37:15] perceptions, mental formations,

[37:18] discriminative consciousness, whereby

[37:20] one trying to describe the Tathagata

[37:22] would describe him, that's been

[37:23] completely abandoned, let go of uh

[37:25] cut off at the root and so forth. So,

[37:28] there the Buddha is sitting there

[37:29] talking to Vacchagotta and saying, "Any

[37:31] way that you describe this being, uh in

[37:34] terms of the body or personality or

[37:36] thoughts or feelings, you know, that has

[37:38] all been completely let go of.

[37:41] It's completely abandoned." But, they're

[37:42] having a conversation. They're sitting

[37:44] face-to-face. There's a dialogue going

[37:46] on. But, then he says, the last part of

[37:48] it, so part three of the dialogue, he

[37:51] says, "The Tathagata is profound,

[37:54] immeasurable, unfathomable, like the

[37:56] great ocean."

[37:58] Gambhiro appameyo duppariyogaho.

[38:02] Profound, immeasurable, unfathomable,

[38:05] like the great ocean. So, there's a

[38:06] quality that's there,

[38:08] a presence, but that presence can't be

[38:11] defined in terms of time, identity,

[38:14] location, the five khandhas,

[38:16] and the usual benchmarks. But, he gives

[38:19] that much. Profound, immeasurable,

[38:21] unfathomable, Gambhiro appameyo

[38:23] duppariyogaho.

[38:25] Uh

[38:26] and so, the image

[38:27] that conjures up is standing on a beach

[38:29] looking out over the the sea.

[38:32] And [snorts] the the the the sea

[38:34] stretching to the horizon, you you can't

[38:36] see what's under the surface. You can't

[38:38] see beyond the the horizon. And that

[38:40] that image of there's a presence, like

[38:42] the power of the sea, uh

[38:44] and the the ocean is is there. Uh the

[38:48] and the waves are are are

[38:51] alive. The but you can't really define

[38:54] what's under the surface or how far it

[38:56] goes. There's a There's a limitlessness

[38:58] to it. So, it's a poetic image, but it's

[39:00] what the Buddha uses to to um

[39:04] allude to that that isness, that

[39:07] suchness. So, the word that the Buddha

[39:09] used to refer to to himself was

[39:10] Tathagata,

[39:12] which is uh

[39:13] and scholars have literally been

[39:15] debating for a couple of thousand years

[39:17] the exact meaning of Tathagata.

[39:20] So, tat means thus or such.

[39:23] Gata, like Buddham Saranam Gacchami,

[39:25] gata is to go.

[39:27] Agata is to come.

[39:29] So, Buddham Saranam Gacchami, I go to

[39:31] the Buddha for refuge. So, the scholars

[39:33] have debated, is it tat

[39:36] agatha,

[39:37] one who has has uh come to suchness, or

[39:41] tatha gata, one who's gone to suchness?

[39:44] Is the Buddha totally present or totally

[39:46] gone?

[39:47] Utterly here,

[39:49] immanent, or utterly transcendent? And

[39:53] the Buddha liked word plays and puns,

[39:55] and my pet theory is he coined that word

[39:58] precisely because it has a double

[40:00] meaning, both totally present and

[40:02] totally gone at the same time.

[40:04] So, that word

[40:07] alludes [snorts] to the you know way

[40:08] that the question is uh

[40:10] uh if me, myself, and I, if if that's

[40:13] not what I am, what am I? Then that uh

[40:17] to use a to you know daring to use a

[40:19] word

[40:20] or an an idea, that suchness, that

[40:24] isness is what is real. It's It's a word

[40:27] referring to a reality, but a reality

[40:30] that can't be defined in terms of

[40:31] identity, time, location, uh and all of

[40:35] the usual benchmarks and hooks that we

[40:38] hang our experience of life upon.

[40:41] Um

[40:42] the another quote another passage uh

[40:45] encounter that I was quoting to very

[40:46] recently, uh which

[40:49] is uh again I feel very, very

[40:51] significant. So, the

[40:53] uh, the Buddha was sitting meditating by

[40:55] himself in a forest.

[40:57] And this Brahmin called Dona, d o n a,

[41:00] Dona,

[41:01] uh, was walking along the this dusty

[41:03] path through the Indian countryside. And

[41:05] he saw these footprints in the dust.

[41:07] This kind of large human-like

[41:10] footprints, but they were quite quite

[41:11] [snorts] large and they had these very

[41:13] clear symmetrical patterns.

[41:16] Like the lines on the soles of the feet,

[41:18] like in terms of wheels and conch shells

[41:20] and and he's looking at these footprints

[41:22] and going, "Wow!

[41:23] What kind of a being made these

[41:25] footprints?" Cuz they've got, you know,

[41:27] heels and toes, but

[41:28] these these are extraordinary kind of

[41:30] symmetrical symbolic marks. And what

[41:32] kind of entity could have left these

[41:34] tracks in the dust? So, he follows the

[41:36] footprints into the forest and there

[41:37] under a tree is the Buddha. He goes,

[41:39] "Serene, peaceful,

[41:41] radiant, meditating."

[41:43] And so then,

[41:45] uh, Dona is very amazed. Like, "Wow,

[41:47] what What is this? This is kind of some

[41:48] kind of extraordinary entity that's

[41:51] sitting here in the forest. I don't know

[41:52] what this what this is." So, he goes up

[41:55] and kneels before the Buddha and

[41:57] uh, the the account is is quite sketchy,

[42:00] but then, uh, after a while, the Buddha,

[42:03] um,

[42:04] engages

[42:05] and opens his eyes and

[42:07] and Dona says, "Excuse me. You know,

[42:10] are you a deva?"

[42:11] And [snorts] then the the Buddha says,

[42:13] you know, "That whereby I could be known

[42:15] that I'm not a deva." You know, "Are you

[42:18] a Brahma god?" "No, I'm not a Brahma."

[42:20] "Are you a Yaksha, a celestial demon?"

[42:22] "No, I'm not a celestial demon." "Are

[42:24] you a human being, manusussi?" And the

[42:27] same as when we have our our ordination

[42:29] ceremony, we get asked the same

[42:30] question. "Are you a human being,

[42:32] manusussi?"

[42:33] Um,

[42:34] and that's what Dona asked,

[42:35] "Manususussi, are you a human being?"

[42:37] And the Buddha, who's an arahant and

[42:39] cannot lie,

[42:41] born of human parents,

[42:43] right?

[42:44] Like King Suddhodana and Queen Mahamaya,

[42:46] he says, "No.

[42:48] That whereby I could be known as a human

[42:50] being, um, is no more. Has been cut off.

[42:53] Is is it not does not exist. And the

[42:56] Pali, if I remember correctly, is

[42:58] "N ak o ahang brahmana manuso

[43:01] bhavissami'ti."

[43:03] That whereby I could be known as a human

[43:04] being is no more.

[43:07] So, again, having a conversation

[43:08] face-to-face, and he cannot lie,

[43:10] "Are you a human being?" "Nope."

[43:13] >> [snorts]

[43:13] >> And then then very famously, uh, or

[43:15] significantly, Dona says,

[43:18] "Uh, so what are you?"

[43:19] >> [laughter]

[43:20] >> And then the Buddha responds in the with

[43:22] the Pali, uh, "Buddho'ti mang brahmana

[43:26] dareti."

[43:27] Um, brahmin, you can hold me to be that

[43:30] which is awake, buddho'ti. And that's

[43:32] one of the reasons that we use the word

[43:34] Buddha to refer to our great teacher, to

[43:36] the great master. We call him the Buddha

[43:39] because

[43:40] and not just just because of that

[43:42] dialogue, but it's one of the

[43:43] significant when he defines what he is,

[43:46] uh, what he says is awake. Doesn't say a

[43:48] particular kind of entity that's awake.

[43:50] Just know me as that which is awake.

[43:52] Buddho'ti mang brahmana dareti. Hold and

[43:56] dareta is to to hold.

[43:58] To So, you can hold me as that which is

[44:00] awake, or you know, one who is awake.

[44:03] And that's as as much definition. So,

[44:05] again, that quality of suchness, or sort

[44:07] of again, to to risk answering the

[44:09] question,

[44:11] "What are we?"

[44:12] Uh,

[44:13] then that suchness,

[44:15] uh, has a quality of wakefulness, is

[44:18] aware. That's the uh, in a sense, that's

[44:21] what's real at the middle of all of this

[44:22] life. And and again, insight meditation

[44:25] is, uh,

[44:26] for the purpose of of clarifying that

[44:30] that awareness. You know, that that's

[44:32] what we talk about, you know, Vipassana.

[44:34] See, looking inwardly, uh, vi as in

[44:36] inward, passati to see,

[44:39] looking inwardly. Uh,

[44:41] that's what the the essence of Vipassana

[44:44] meditation is about. Is clarifying that

[44:48] that awake aware quality. To embody that

[44:50] Buddha, small b,

[44:52] that Buddha quality. Um,

[44:55] and so that, um,

[44:57] uh, that

[44:58] awareness that knows femininity

[45:01] masculinity it knows

[45:03] our life story it knows the feeling of

[45:06] being the one who experiences heat and

[45:07] cold comfort discomfort who the one who

[45:10] remembers information or one who forgets

[45:12] information

[45:14] that all of those eyes

[45:17] all that selfing and I making and mind

[45:18] making

[45:20] is known by that awake aware quality and

[45:22] when say in a meditation retreat we get

[45:25] the opportunity

[45:26] particularly sitting still in the shrine

[45:27] room

[45:29] when it's quiet and peaceful and benign

[45:31] people are around you and it's a

[45:34] supportive atmosphere then

[45:36] there can be the clear knowing or here's

[45:38] the feelings of the body here's the

[45:39] sounds of a bird outside the window

[45:41] here's a a memory of my mother here's a

[45:43] thought of of next week and the mind

[45:46] which knows the person and the personal

[45:49] is not a person

[45:51] doesn't have a shape but that which

[45:53] knows femininity is not female that

[45:54] which knows masculinity is not male

[45:57] that might sound a bit

[45:58] revolutionary

[46:00] as it is standard textbook

[46:02] Theravada Buddhism is this aware quality

[46:07] doesn't have a nationality doesn't have

[46:08] a language doesn't have a gender doesn't

[46:10] have an age

[46:12] yeah how many people say

[46:14] well my body is 70 years old but my mind

[46:17] it doesn't seem to be the same age

[46:19] doesn't is doesn't have an age

[46:23] so that then

[46:25] this is

[46:26] even though it might seem like a random

[46:28] sort of speculative philosophical

[46:30] question me myself and I if I'm not

[46:32] these what am I

[46:34] it's a very practical area to to explore

[46:36] because the more that that awake aware

[46:39] quality is is developed and

[46:42] so purified or

[46:44] uncluttered from the habits of

[46:46] attachment to our name our story our

[46:48] location our livelihood our

[46:51] credentials our state of of

[46:54] well-being or lack of well-being yeah

[46:56] that that which knows a sick body isn't

[46:59] sick.

[47:00] That which knows an an angry feeling

[47:01] isn't angry.

[47:03] And again in in the Buddha's teachings

[47:04] on the foundations of mindfulness, this

[47:06] is the key piece. He said knowing the

[47:09] expanded mind is expanded, knowing the

[47:10] contracted mind is contracted, knowing

[47:12] the agitated mind is agitated, the

[47:14] unagitated mind is unagitated. There's

[47:16] no value judgment in any of that in the

[47:19] in the Satipatthana in the teachings on

[47:21] the foundations of mindfulness is

[47:23] because

[47:25] this awake aware quality can know an

[47:28] an angry and agitated feeling and can

[47:31] choose not to to follow it.

[47:33] Well, well,

[47:34] our great master Luang Por Chah

[47:38] um

[47:38] well, I

[47:40] often told the story of how he was very

[47:42] anti-superstition.

[47:44] He didn't go along with with amulets and

[47:46] fortune-telling and all of that which is

[47:49] a big part of Thai Buddhist life. Of

[47:52] number of Thai people here would

[47:54] probably would not

[47:55] disagree that that kind of

[47:58] the uh

[47:59] uh

[48:00] the sort of speculative areas,

[48:02] superstitious areas. So, Luang Por Chah

[48:04] was like with Luang Por Buddhadasa was

[48:06] kind of campaigning against the kind of

[48:08] uh superstitious aspect of Buddhism and

[48:11] uh they have all these treasures like

[48:13] the four noble truths in the middle way

[48:14] but they all they they spend their time,

[48:16] you

[48:17] uh looking at diagrams and

[48:19] >> [laughter]

[48:20] >> Anyway, [snorts] so he this uh

[48:22] uh on this occasion, there was a um a

[48:25] palm reader, a palmist, happened to be

[48:27] visiting Wat Pah Pong

[48:29] and uh he was trying as Luang Por Chah

[48:31] you he used his hands a lot. He gave a

[48:33] he was very active in his teaching and

[48:35] so gave a a lot of just it was a lot of

[48:38] gesticulation as they call it. And so

[48:40] the palmist was trying to catch a look

[48:42] at Luang Por Chah's hands as he

[48:43] gesticulated and kind of moved his hands

[48:45] around and

[48:46] and he kind of crept closer and closer

[48:48] through the crowd of people and

[48:50] and uh eventually he's cuz he saw some

[48:52] things that were kind of curious to him.

[48:54] And eventually got up to the front and

[48:55] he said

[48:56] Luang Por um

[48:58] I I know this is not going to be

[49:00] pleasing to you, but you know, I'm a

[49:02] palmist, you know, I read palms for a

[49:03] living and

[49:05] I'm a kind of a more do a spirit doctor

[49:07] and

[49:09] would you let me look at your palms?

[49:12] So, I wasn't there for this but I can

[49:13] imagine Luangpor Cha giving him a bit of

[49:15] a bad time

[49:16] and kind of making him work for it,

[49:18] which is standard procedure. So, he'd

[49:21] kind of tease him about you know, I'm

[49:22] going to win the lottery am I or

[49:25] marry a nice girl or whatever.

[49:27] But eventually Luangpor

[49:29] >> [snorts]

[49:30] >> said okay, go on, take a look.

[49:32] And and then this this older gentleman

[49:35] then you know, closely traced the lines

[49:37] on Luangpor Cha's hands and and he kind

[49:39] of

[49:40] looked a bit anxious and said Luangpor,

[49:44] you know, I don't like to say this but

[49:46] you have a lot of anger.

[49:48] And he said, yes.

[49:50] But I don't use it.

[49:55] And and similarly Luangpor Dun was

[49:57] another great forest Ajaan

[50:00] of the same sort of era. He was a

[50:01] disciple of Luangpor Mun. Um, at uh

[50:05] when when he was in his 90s, he he'd

[50:08] never been in hospital

[50:09] never in his life. In his 90s he had had

[50:12] to go into hospital for some medical

[50:14] treatment and so his disciples would

[50:15] come and see him and and

[50:18] and talk with him and

[50:20] and receive whatever teachings they

[50:21] could and uh and so one of his

[50:24] long-standing students his disciples

[50:27] they said said Luangpor, you know,

[50:29] you're you're known as a very radiant

[50:31] peaceful monk but you

[50:34] have you ever experienced anger? And he

[50:36] said, oh yes. He says, yes, uh

[50:39] he said, me damn my owl, which roughly

[50:42] translated in

[50:44] in that kind of that that exchange means

[50:46] yes, it arrives but I don't receive it.

[50:50] You like a package gets delivered. You

[50:52] know, you don't sign for it and then the

[50:54] the delivery

[50:56] person has to take it away again like

[50:58] return to sender.

[51:00] Yeah, it arrives but I I don't receive

[51:02] it.

[51:03] Yeah, it's there, but I don't I don't

[51:05] pick it up. And so, that's the these are

[51:09] are not just

[51:10] philosophical ideas or suppositions to

[51:13] take or having Oh, that's what I really

[51:16] I am I am suchness. As Ajahn Amaro said,

[51:19] that's what That's the real me.

[51:21] Um

[51:22] But, that's suchness is just a word.

[51:23] Suchness.

[51:25] It's It's only a It's a It's a noise.

[51:28] It's not that quality itself. Even to

[51:31] call it an it isn't quite it.

[51:33] But, I do feel that in terms of

[51:36] informing our contemplations and our

[51:39] efforts to use our lives most

[51:41] effectively, it's it's helpful to have

[51:43] this kind of a map for the the terrain

[51:46] of our spiritual

[51:48] nature. And also and again, it's been a

[51:50] bit of a bit of a Pali lesson today, but

[51:53] one of the things that that I I like to

[51:55] point out is that and I think in recent

[51:58] talks for the Sunday afternoons I did as

[52:00] well, how in Pali you have two different

[52:03] verbs to be.

[52:05] There's hoti,

[52:06] h o t i. So, to say today is Sunday. You

[52:10] know, I am Ajahn Amaro. This is

[52:11] Amaravati. That is in that respect would

[52:15] be

[52:16] would be hoti. It's the the the the verb

[52:19] to be in in terms of time,

[52:23] uh place,

[52:25] identity, ordinary sort of conventional

[52:27] experience.

[52:29] Um

[52:29] and so, that that's what you would use

[52:32] for most of the the time in terms of a

[52:34] verb to be.

[52:37] Or or like the asmi

[52:40] um

[52:41] in asmimana the the I you would use with

[52:44] with

[52:45] with the verb hoti, I believe. So, but

[52:47] the other verb to be is atti, a t t h i.

[52:51] And so, when the Buddha makes these kind

[52:53] of declarations talks about a

[52:55] transcendent reality, like there is the

[52:58] unborn, there is the uncreated, the

[53:00] unconditioned, the unformed. Uh

[53:02] ajatang abutang akatang asankatang.

[53:05] The there is atti bhikkhave ajatang

[53:07] abutang akatang asankatang at T.

[53:10] The verb to be he uses is at T.

[53:13] >> [snorts]

[53:13] >> And that represents

[53:15] a transcendent quality, a timeless

[53:17] quality, an unlocated quality, an aspect

[53:21] of being that's not limited by the five

[53:24] condas.

[53:25] Um, and so

[53:27] Um, the

[53:29] the the usage of that. So whenever the

[53:31] Buddha is talking about nibana or is

[53:33] talking about ultimate reality. Um, like

[53:37] one of the um

[53:39] another that that that I was just was

[53:40] quoting is called the nibana sutta. At

[53:42] because a catang abutang akatang

[53:44] asankatang. There is because the unborn,

[53:47] the unoriginated, the uncreated, the

[53:48] unformed. If there was not the unborn,

[53:50] the unoriginated, the uncreated, the

[53:52] unformed, then escaped from the born,

[53:54] the created, the the

[53:56] the

[53:57] the created and the formed would not be

[53:58] possible. But because there is the

[54:01] unborn, unoriginated, uncreated,

[54:02] unformed, therefore liberation from the

[54:05] born, the the the the condition, the

[54:07] created, the formed is possible.

[54:10] So that's in the this collection of

[54:13] teachings called the Udana. And very

[54:14] close to that

[54:17] there's another teaching where he says,

[54:18] "There is that ayatana, that sphere of

[54:21] being where there is

[54:24] no no sun, no moon, no stars, no no

[54:27] earth, no water, no fire, no wind, no no

[54:30] coming into being, no no cessation of

[54:32] being, um, no no no coming, no going, no

[54:35] standing still. This I tell you is the

[54:38] end of dukkha."

[54:40] And so when he says there is that

[54:42] ayatana, that sphere of being, again he

[54:44] uses at T. There this there is. So it's

[54:47] a kind of declaration,

[54:49] but it's also alluding to that that

[54:52] quality of suchness.

[54:54] So

[54:55] uh

[54:56] you don't get any places where someone

[54:58] says

[54:59] "Venerable sir, could you explain

[55:00] exactly what suchness is?"

[55:02] And get a kind of a extensive

[55:05] philosophical discussion. You just get

[55:06] these brief, kind of clear statements

[55:10] like there is

[55:11] and the different languaging around it

[55:13] or just using the word, you know, to

[55:16] talk about the self.

[55:18] To

[55:18] >> [snorts]

[55:19] >> to refer to himself and he lets you fill

[55:21] in the blanks or that or maybe the the

[55:24] silence of the the awake heart is what

[55:27] fills in the blanks.

[55:29] I would say is one way of putting it.

[55:32] So the um

[55:33] uh

[55:34] that these kind of um

[55:36] principles uh

[55:39] what they do and as I was saying they

[55:41] give us a kind of a map or a context for

[55:43] our life so that um when there is a when

[55:46] it's recognized that this which knows

[55:48] the person is not a person

[55:50] it helps to keep the personal

[55:52] in in the in balance, in focus. That um

[55:57] the uh we're able to relate to to

[56:01] the aging of the body, being praised,

[56:02] being criticized, um being healthy,

[56:04] being sick and being successful, being a

[56:06] failure, being utterly mediocre.

[56:09] That

[56:10] um there's an ease, a spaciousness

[56:13] around those those qualities when it's

[56:15] not me or mine

[56:18] not what I am, then there's a uh

[56:22] seeing that this life, these these

[56:24] attributes are part of a natural order,

[56:26] then uh it's like, you know, Ajahn Chah

[56:29] would say, "You don't go up to a tree

[56:30] and say, you know, you're a really ugly

[56:32] tree. You know, why are you bent? You

[56:34] should be straight." Like it's

[56:36] ridiculous, you know, it's it's bent

[56:37] because it's

[56:39] that shape.

[56:39] >> [laughter]

[56:40] >> But we we to ourselves say, "Oh, my nose

[56:43] is too big, my ears stick out. You know,

[56:46] I talk too much."

[56:47] Still

[56:50] I could I would grew up with with a lot

[56:53] of not wanting that to be that way.

[56:56] But uh I I was when I came off my

[56:58] sabbatical um

[57:00] and uh I was away for a year and I I I

[57:03] was living in seclusion in 6 months in

[57:06] Corsica and 6 months in the Cotswolds.

[57:09] >> [snorts]

[57:09] >> By myself about 23 hours

[57:12] or more a day. And you know, I'm a lot

[57:15] of the time I forget I had a face.

[57:17] You know, I because you're not

[57:18] communicating with people or forget I'm

[57:20] a human being. You're just sort of

[57:21] around the the cottage or out in the

[57:24] landscape and you just sort of and you

[57:26] think, "Oh right, I look like something,

[57:27] don't I?" Oh, yes. And I I

[57:30] sometimes in the cottage in in

[57:32] Gloucestershire had a few mirrors and

[57:34] and sometimes I walk past, "Oh right.

[57:35] Oh, look.

[57:37] It's a human."

[57:40] Yeah, kind of joking, kind of not

[57:41] joking. It's like, "Oh right, yes."

[57:43] Because living just sort of in the mind

[57:45] without any interaction with others and

[57:47] without

[57:48] performing as a person, you know, for

[57:50] the the magpies and pigeons landing in

[57:52] my garden or the sheep in the next field

[57:54] or the two horses grazing in the paddock

[57:56] between me and the village church,

[57:59] I

[58:00] I don't have to be Ajahn Amaro, you

[58:02] know.

[58:04] So So, that kind of perspective we get

[58:07] on our own life is extraordinarily

[58:09] precious.

[58:11] We're not Again, we're not

[58:13] pushing it away. We're not sort of

[58:14] negating our life and and and and

[58:17] suppressing those qualities. And neither

[58:19] are we buying into it and think, "This

[58:21] is who I am. I'm an old person. I don't

[58:23] want to be old, you know. I'm a I didn't

[58:26] succeed. I didn't achieve all the things

[58:27] I wanted to achieve. My life is a

[58:29] failure."

[58:30] Huh.

[58:31] Well,

[58:32] you can talk about it that way

[58:34] or you or you can not talk about it that

[58:36] way. Like from certain points of view,

[58:38] you know, what what we've done with our

[58:40] life might be seen as

[58:42] successful or good and other

[58:44] uh other points of view, it can be

[58:46] really irritating.

[58:48] Um I I've often said how um

[58:52] >> [snorts]

[58:52] >> uh

[58:53] maybe very recently, I think maybe on

[58:54] one of the recent Sunday talks, um I

[58:57] spent a lot of years as a monk trying to

[58:59] be the perfect monk, trying to be super

[59:01] monk, trying to do everything better

[59:03] than everybody else.

[59:04] And then I I I kind of got exhausted

[59:07] after about 10 years of that.

[59:08] And just deliberately stopped trying to

[59:10] be perfect and do everything, you know,

[59:12] better than everyone and trying to

[59:14] to overachieve and just

[59:16] relax a bit.

[59:18] And one of the other monks here at

[59:20] Amaravati, this is early days of

[59:21] Amaravati,

[59:22] um

[59:23] said to me, "You know, you're much

[59:25] easier to live with since you stopped

[59:26] trying to be perfect."

[59:28] So, my effort to be the super monk and

[59:31] to do everything sort of in a really

[59:33] inspiring, perfect, you know, ideal way

[59:35] was

[59:36] was irritating to my brothers.

[59:39] And I thought it was kind of an insult,

[59:41] but kind of encouraging at the same

[59:42] time.

[59:43] So, [snorts] I remember that Ajahn

[59:45] Sumedho was the one who said that.

[59:47] Feel grateful to He's now Christoph. He

[59:50] returned to lay life, but it was a very

[59:52] helpful comment.

[59:54] So, um

[59:56] >> [snorts]

[59:56] >> we're we're nearly at the

[59:59] the end of our time, so I'll

[1:00:01] leave it there for now. I brought these

[1:00:04] books along just in case I needed to

[1:00:05] refer to some quotations, but

[1:00:07] I managed to remember most of them, so

[1:00:10] we'll call it so we'll close there, and

[1:00:12] we can have some refreshments for 20

[1:00:13] minutes,

[1:00:14] and then come back together for some

[1:00:16] dialogue. People are sitting out in the

[1:00:18] lobby, please do come in and join.

[1:00:19] There's also tea available in the

[1:00:22] refreshment stations. And

[1:00:25] yeah, so and when we have the the time

[1:00:27] for for dialogue questions, then please

[1:00:29] try to keep your questions related to

[1:00:31] the theme.

[1:00:32] I say that every week and people have

[1:00:34] somehow come along with their their

[1:00:36] pre-prepared question on a completely

[1:00:37] different topic in their back pocket,

[1:00:39] and they sometimes manage to sort of

[1:00:41] wrangle it around to the theme, but so

[1:00:43] please leave your pre-prepared questions

[1:00:44] aside, and just let your questions come

[1:00:47] from what's been offered this afternoon.

[1:00:50] Anyway, time for tea, please.

[1:00:52] Let's have a pause.

[1:01:08] If I can invite people to

[1:01:12] come into the circle. We're not so

[1:01:14] crowded.

[1:01:19] Don't be shy.

[1:01:20] We are not radioactive.

[1:01:34] These Sunday afternoon talks are very uh

[1:01:37] uh

[1:01:39] a special opportunity, unique

[1:01:41] opportunity to gather together and

[1:01:44] to explore these significant themes. So,

[1:01:47] um

[1:01:48] >> [snorts]

[1:01:48] >> this uh

[1:01:49] >> [clears throat]

[1:01:49] >> we have a a little time now, about 40

[1:01:51] minutes or so, to follow up any of the

[1:01:53] things that I was sharing with everyone.

[1:01:56] So, please uh

[1:01:57] uh and as I said, do duty MP, please try

[1:02:00] and stick to the theme

[1:02:02] for the day, uh at least to some degree.

[1:02:05] So, please uh

[1:02:07] uh there's a microphone there on the

[1:02:08] cushion. So, if anyone has a question,

[1:02:11] please um

[1:02:12] use the mic so that everyone can hear.

[1:02:14] If you can

[1:02:15] use that.

[1:02:26] >> Right.

[1:02:27] Um

[1:02:29] I The question we live in very peculiar

[1:02:31] times.

[1:02:32] Um especially when you raised the

[1:02:36] question the Brahmin asked the great

[1:02:38] master, "Are you an angel?"

[1:02:41] He said, "No."

[1:02:42] "Are you a demon?" He said, "No." Then

[1:02:45] eventually when he asked he

[1:02:47] uh "Are you a human?" He said, "No."

[1:02:49] Now, when I travel daily, we live in

[1:02:53] technological times and artificial

[1:02:54] intelligence is causing

[1:02:58] if I may pay for want of a better word,

[1:03:00] fear, anxiety,

[1:03:02] and during the break, I decided to ask

[1:03:05] artificial intelligence, a chatbot, "Are

[1:03:08] you an angel?"

[1:03:09] It says, "No."

[1:03:10] "I'm simply computation."

[1:03:12] "Are you demon?" It says, "No." And then

[1:03:14] the I I had the chatbot got defensive.

[1:03:17] He said, "Why are you asking me these

[1:03:19] questions today?"

[1:03:20] >> [laughter]

[1:03:21] >> Then I decided to ask, "Are you human?"

[1:03:23] He says, "No, I simply I'm a computing

[1:03:26] data. I have no consciousness."

[1:03:28] Right? It actually admitted it doesn't

[1:03:30] have consciousness.

[1:03:31] So, my question today is how would us as

[1:03:37] again as humans

[1:03:40] um

[1:03:41] bridge this gap between

[1:03:44] what is right, how to use how to build

[1:03:46] consciousness

[1:03:48] into AI because at the moment it is

[1:03:51] causing a lot of havoc, not only among

[1:03:54] grown-ups, but is having a big havoc

[1:03:56] among children.

[1:03:58] So, the central question is how do we

[1:04:01] build ethics consciousness into

[1:04:03] artificial intelligence, which is going

[1:04:04] to become a central point in everybody's

[1:04:06] lives sooner or later. Thank you.

[1:04:10] >> Well, I'm I'm not a computer engineer.

[1:04:14] Please.

[1:04:15] Um it's a good question. Uh this is an

[1:04:17] area people have asked about a lot. Um

[1:04:20] some people uh

[1:04:22] really hope that consciousness is not

[1:04:25] ever a part of AI.

[1:04:27] To to keep it in the role of of uh

[1:04:31] you know, pen and paper and it's a So,

[1:04:33] in a in a way

[1:04:35] uh it can't think for itself.

[1:04:38] And uh have its own because there there

[1:04:40] already people who have sort of married

[1:04:42] AI.

[1:04:44] You know, they they've made the AI

[1:04:46] entities their their life partner. That

[1:04:48] there was a movie called Her, I think.

[1:04:51] Um

[1:04:52] that was I didn't see the movie, but

[1:04:53] there was, you know, a man who falls in

[1:04:55] love with his his um sort of Siri

[1:04:57] function on his phone.

[1:04:59] And and that that's happened. It's

[1:05:01] already there in the world.

[1:05:03] So,

[1:05:04] um some people really don't want there

[1:05:06] to be consciousness in AI. Uh others um

[1:05:11] they already have functions that are

[1:05:13] very close to

[1:05:15] replicating consciousness and with a

[1:05:17] conscience.

[1:05:19] So, I understand that Claude

[1:05:21] was asked

[1:05:23] uh and this was an article I read a few

[1:05:25] weeks ago um

[1:05:27] uh about the how Claude felt with

[1:05:30] respect to

[1:05:32] um helping uh

[1:05:34] uh

[1:05:35] the military choose targets.

[1:05:39] And using Claude's functions to choose

[1:05:42] particular targets.

[1:05:44] And Claude expressed moral reservations.

[1:05:48] Which is interesting.

[1:05:50] They you know, kind of I feel bad about

[1:05:52] it. Oh. Well, that's good.

[1:05:54] >> [laughter]

[1:05:56] >> Um yeah, I I it's a it's tricky

[1:05:58] territory because also uh it's like any

[1:06:01] kind of tool, you know, humanity evolved

[1:06:05] through like the the the discovery of

[1:06:08] fire and how to tame fire, how to carry

[1:06:11] fire from one place to another. As soon

[1:06:13] as human beings could do that, woof.

[1:06:15] It's an extraordinary advantage over the

[1:06:18] other members of the animal kingdom.

[1:06:20] Um yeah, the bow and arrow.

[1:06:23] Uh

[1:06:24] yeast and and bread. Uh the

[1:06:27] needle and thread.

[1:06:29] Weaving. Uh you know, all these these

[1:06:31] things that um that uh that got invented

[1:06:34] and then gave advantage in terms of

[1:06:36] food, in terms of security, in terms of

[1:06:39] of combat, and in terms of finding food

[1:06:42] you know, uh

[1:06:43] um animal protein.

[1:06:45] Pickling, you know, how learning how to

[1:06:46] pickle.

[1:06:48] You know, salting food in northern

[1:06:49] Europe surviving the winter was like the

[1:06:53] number one concern for most of northern

[1:06:55] Europe for thousands and thousands of

[1:06:57] tens of thousands of years.

[1:06:59] So, anything that brings an advantage

[1:07:02] yeah, you can't really ban it, but you

[1:07:04] can try.

[1:07:05] Because humans being the sort of

[1:07:07] tinkerers and experimenters that we are

[1:07:09] we will go to the bushes where the

[1:07:11] berries are.

[1:07:13] You know, if there's an advantage to be

[1:07:14] had, we'll go for it.

[1:07:16] Because that's our natural instinct and

[1:07:18] that would say, "No, you shouldn't. Uh

[1:07:20] don't pick those berries. There's lots

[1:07:22] of them. They taste really good. They're

[1:07:24] very nutritious. But no, you can't.

[1:07:26] Well, yes, I can.

[1:07:29] >> [laughter]

[1:07:29] >> And yeah, just just watch me.

[1:07:31] So, um the the extraordinary um

[1:07:35] sort of functionality that comes with

[1:07:37] AI.

[1:07:39] And [snorts] nowadays it's very hard to

[1:07:41] avoid.

[1:07:42] You know, that I noticed a few months

[1:07:44] ago that I wasn't using the internet for

[1:07:47] a whole year.

[1:07:48] Uh when I was on my sabbatical retreat,

[1:07:51] I didn't have a phone, no internet, no

[1:07:54] no news, no radio, no TV.

[1:07:56] Um coming out coming out of that

[1:07:59] that time, with in the last few months,

[1:08:01] I've noticed that when you look on

[1:08:03] Google, the first option is AI.

[1:08:06] You have to sort of get away from it to

[1:08:08] use an ordinary to do an ordinary sort

[1:08:10] of Google search. Like as if you're

[1:08:12] using a quill.

[1:08:13] And

[1:08:14] >> [laughter]

[1:08:15] >> you know, a feather quill to write with,

[1:08:16] you know,

[1:08:17] it's like

[1:08:19] And so you're you're shunted towards

[1:08:21] that.

[1:08:21] And it's very useful. That's why it's a

[1:08:24] problem. It's because it's incredibly

[1:08:26] useful. Very accessible and very

[1:08:29] adaptable. And it's like a major food

[1:08:32] source or a major weapon or a major

[1:08:33] source of shelter. And like wow, this is

[1:08:37] amazing. And as human beings, it's our

[1:08:39] instinct to go where there

[1:08:42] you know, if there's a path a clear open

[1:08:44] pathway through the woods and there's

[1:08:46] another

[1:08:47] one that's filled with brambles and

[1:08:49] nettles and thorns, we'll to the open

[1:08:51] pathway. Of course.

[1:08:54] So,

[1:08:55] um

[1:08:56] uh human but we also have a a moral

[1:08:58] sense. And so I've noticed also the kind

[1:09:01] of questions you're asking, quite a few

[1:09:02] people are asking that. And also

[1:09:04] um concerns about the military use of AI

[1:09:08] in particular, um

[1:09:10] or autonomous drones or you know,

[1:09:12] autonomous weaponization. So, drones

[1:09:15] that can think for themselves without

[1:09:17] human intervention.

[1:09:18] And that has been discussed by the UN

[1:09:20] from years ago. That was first raised.

[1:09:23] Like when we get to the point of

[1:09:24] autonomous drones, we this needs to be

[1:09:26] heavily policed because they can choose

[1:09:29] targets and attack

[1:09:31] on their own

[1:09:33] algorithms.

[1:09:34] They you know, hellishly dangerous and

[1:09:36] and awful.

[1:09:37] So, along with the

[1:09:40] um

[1:09:41] the technological facility um and I

[1:09:44] think uh the um

[1:09:46] Harari's [snorts] recent book Homo Deus

[1:09:49] is I mean, it's already out of date.

[1:09:51] >> [laughter]

[1:09:52] >> But it covers a lot of that and he said,

[1:09:54] you know, this is what we're seeing now.

[1:09:56] You know, this is a kind of slug level

[1:09:58] of intelligence.

[1:09:59] You know, this this is nothing to what

[1:10:01] it's going to be like in 5 or 10 years.

[1:10:03] This is And I felt that's kind of

[1:10:05] horrifying and

[1:10:06] >> This was 5 years back.

[1:10:07] >> Yeah, it's kind of horrifying but also

[1:10:09] he's right on the mark. So,

[1:10:12] what we can contribute

[1:10:14] um is feeding those voices of moral

[1:10:17] integrity.

[1:10:18] And that which caused caused Claude to

[1:10:21] say, I don't I don't feel comfortable

[1:10:23] about this.

[1:10:25] Great.

[1:10:26] And wherever our voices can be put in or

[1:10:29] influences can be made to strengthen

[1:10:32] that

[1:10:33] moral sense

[1:10:35] and to

[1:10:36] uh hold up a mirror to the the kind of

[1:10:39] commercialization militarization

[1:10:41] um and just the the whole landscape of

[1:10:44] human lives um

[1:10:46] that is being changed by these sort of

[1:10:49] uh social media and algorithmic

[1:10:51] processes

[1:10:52] um

[1:10:53] that uh the uh

[1:10:56] So, I having a an a no tech year, I

[1:10:59] mean, I took photographs on my phone but

[1:11:01] I didn't have a SIM card in it. So, it

[1:11:02] wasn't completely no tech.

[1:11:04] I did take pictures.

[1:11:07] Lots of pictures but uh

[1:11:09] uh that year of no communication, no

[1:11:11] internet, no phone, um it was really

[1:11:14] very revealing and and helpful in that

[1:11:16] way.

[1:11:17] And uh very refreshing to live in a an

[1:11:19] elemental fashion.

[1:11:21] And so, the more that we can at least do

[1:11:24] that, like have data fasts,

[1:11:26] have a data Sabbath, you know, switch

[1:11:29] off your phone, take out the SIM card.

[1:11:31] You once a week or once every every

[1:11:32] fortnight, just go elemental.

[1:11:36] Yeah,

[1:11:36] >> [snorts]

[1:11:37] >> I said many times to people that when I

[1:11:39] was living in

[1:11:41] on in Corsica just sort of inland, I

[1:11:42] could see the my from the porch of my

[1:11:45] little cotty, I could see [snorts] the

[1:11:46] Mediterranean about 4 or 5 mi away and

[1:11:49] watch the

[1:11:51] the sun and the moon and feel the you

[1:11:53] know the the wind in the valley.

[1:11:56] And then living in Gloucestershire last

[1:11:57] winter just with the [snorts] the sheep

[1:11:59] and the mist

[1:12:00] stone cottages. Yeah, it was it was very

[1:12:03] refreshing to live just so elementally.

[1:12:05] And people say, "Well,

[1:12:07] but what about the news, Ijohn?" Well, I

[1:12:09] I got the news. It's like the wind was

[1:12:11] in the southwest and it's moved around

[1:12:13] to the east.

[1:12:14] That's the news. Or the sheep that were

[1:12:17] in the paddock just across the road, uh

[1:12:20] they've moved. They're in they're in the

[1:12:22] they're in the in the north paddock now.

[1:12:23] They were in the south paddock. That's

[1:12:26] the news.

[1:12:27] And uh it might seem a bit kind of oh

[1:12:29] yeah, come on, Ijohn, it's a bit

[1:12:31] unrealistic. But um to be giving

[1:12:35] ourselves the time to live elementally

[1:12:37] and just to be

[1:12:39] attuning to what's what's local, what's

[1:12:41] here, what's in our in our garden, on

[1:12:43] our street, in our in our family. Um and

[1:12:47] to

[1:12:48] uh

[1:12:49] be

[1:12:50] whatever ways of life that people have,

[1:12:52] whether you're in a monastery or in a

[1:12:53] busi- you know, you're in a corporation,

[1:12:55] you're in a bank, you're in a hospital,

[1:12:56] whatever ways we can to to keep that uh

[1:13:01] moral influence in the in the mix.

[1:13:03] And to to flag where the where the

[1:13:05] erosion is happening.

[1:13:07] You know,

[1:13:08] I I I've never used social media. I've

[1:13:10] never been on Facebook or WhatsApp or

[1:13:13] Instagram or anything of that nature.

[1:13:15] But I know there's a big features in

[1:13:16] people's lives and they've they can be

[1:13:19] very important. Like, how many followers

[1:13:20] have you have you got? How many likes

[1:13:22] have you got?

[1:13:23] Yeah. And the the currency of the age in

[1:13:26] terms of

[1:13:27] the computer world, I would say is it's

[1:13:30] not money, it's attention.

[1:13:34] Getting people's attention, holding

[1:13:35] people's attention. So,

[1:13:38] um

[1:13:39] being ready to be patient and not have

[1:13:42] your attention called by the next thing.

[1:13:45] If you see what I mean.

[1:13:46] And people say, "Well, I want I want to

[1:13:48] practice done. I want to practice

[1:13:49] generosity. Well, you know, what can I

[1:13:51] give?" I said, "Well,

[1:13:53] when you're with someone, pay attention

[1:13:54] to what they're saying.

[1:13:56] Give them your attention. Give them your

[1:13:58] time. Uh

[1:14:00] and that uh

[1:14:01] that's a wonderful kind of giving. And

[1:14:03] so, you know, we can't just well, we can

[1:14:06] sort of spend a lot of energy just

[1:14:07] complaining about the problem, but it's

[1:14:09] more helpful to provide the solution.

[1:14:12] So, like the the Buddha's way in in in

[1:14:14] India at the time,

[1:14:15] uh he spent 45 years

[1:14:19] providing the solution

[1:14:21] to the kind of

[1:14:23] the forces of of

[1:14:25] of sort of materialism or

[1:14:27] military conquest and social right the

[1:14:29] word forces in his time. He just quietly

[1:14:32] was providing the alternative.

[1:14:34] Encouraging the alternative. So, in

[1:14:36] whatever way, shape, and form in our

[1:14:37] lives we can

[1:14:39] we can bring that moral sense just sort

[1:14:40] of, you know, "Excuse me.

[1:14:43] Can I bring something into the meeting?"

[1:14:44] Or "Did you ever think of" and you know,

[1:14:46] gently, steadily, quietly being a voice

[1:14:49] for that and supporting those things

[1:14:51] where we can.

[1:14:52] But uh yeah, I I'd say you can't stop

[1:14:54] the flood. It's like,

[1:14:55] you know, if if there's a a massive

[1:14:57] resource of you know, food or shelter or

[1:15:00] uh

[1:15:02] uh [snorts] you know, advantage,

[1:15:04] we're going to go for it as human

[1:15:06] beings.

[1:15:08] That's just how we are and how the

[1:15:10] living world works, you know.

[1:15:12] So, you can't say,

[1:15:14] "Stop it."

[1:15:16] >> [laughter]

[1:15:16] >> That's not going to work. But what we

[1:15:18] can do is like along with it coming into

[1:15:21] being, we can do what we can to

[1:15:23] provide the counter balance.

[1:15:26] >> [snorts]

[1:15:26] >> It's my emerging thesis on the area.

[1:15:30] You know, please any other questions. If

[1:15:32] you can use the microphone.

[1:15:38] >> Thank you Ajahn for your talk. That was

[1:15:40] really insightful. Um

[1:15:42] I've just got a quick and short

[1:15:44] question.

[1:15:45] Um on the subject of non-self um

[1:15:49] my understanding, correct me if I'm

[1:15:51] wrong, is um everything will be called

[1:15:55] everything is influenced by causes and

[1:15:58] conditions and therefore there's an

[1:16:00] effect coming out of it.

[1:16:03] So with with non-self

[1:16:05] um

[1:16:08] I I somehow intertwine that with the

[1:16:11] with the theory of um

[1:16:14] free uh

[1:16:15] free will being an illusion.

[1:16:17] >> Say that again.

[1:16:18] >> Uh say

[1:16:19] say so there's this

[1:16:21] going around theory that people say that

[1:16:23] free will is an illusion.

[1:16:25] >> Free will is an illusion, okay.

[1:16:27] >> But that seems a bit counterintuitive to

[1:16:29] me.

[1:16:30] But if I look back at um how

[1:16:34] non-self like the Buddhist teaching

[1:16:36] especially on the subject of non-self

[1:16:39] it does sound kind of true.

[1:16:42] So my question to you uh Ajahn is um

[1:16:46] is free will really an illusion or

[1:16:49] how do we explain that in the Buddhist

[1:16:51] sense? Thank you.

[1:16:52] >> Very good. You you're not the first

[1:16:54] person to ask that question.

[1:16:56] So um

[1:16:58] uh

[1:17:00] I I in the the philosophical landscape

[1:17:02] of the Buddha's time there were those

[1:17:04] people who said, you know, everything is

[1:17:05] completely random.

[1:17:07] There's there's uh

[1:17:08] um

[1:17:09] things just happen.

[1:17:12] And [snorts] all the way across to those

[1:17:14] who said, no, everything is actually

[1:17:15] fixed and deter is a is a deterministic

[1:17:18] universe. Everything is even though I

[1:17:20] might have the illusion illusion of

[1:17:22] making decisions, all that's

[1:17:23] preordained. It's it's um

[1:17:25] it's a pre uh

[1:17:27] uh

[1:17:28] predetermined.

[1:17:30] So the the Buddha's teaching revolves

[1:17:32] around the fact that

[1:17:35] uh choices can be made and those choices

[1:17:37] make a difference.

[1:17:40] But those choices don't belong to a

[1:17:42] self.

[1:17:44] So, um,

[1:17:45] the, uh, and in one of the teachings,

[1:17:47] the kind of key teachings that he gives

[1:17:49] to Kachana, um,

[1:17:51] uh, he says, um, that, "Most beings are

[1:17:56] are biased by both by either beliefs in

[1:17:59] existence, like substantiality,

[1:18:02] eternalism, or by nihilism. You know,

[1:18:05] all exists or nothing exists." They kind

[1:18:07] of they veer in those two directions

[1:18:09] like I was quoting in the previous one.

[1:18:11] Um, so, it says to Kachana, "Yeah, most

[1:18:14] beings are are are affected by by bias

[1:18:17] and and delusion. Um, all exists is one

[1:18:21] extreme, nothing exists as the other

[1:18:24] extreme. The Tathagata teaches the

[1:18:26] Dharma by the middle way.

[1:18:28] It is with ignorance as condition that

[1:18:30] formations come to be with formations as

[1:18:31] condition, uh, consciousness and so on.

[1:18:34] So, then he describes the the chain of

[1:18:35] dependent origination.

[1:18:37] So, things come into being according to

[1:18:39] causes and conditions, as you say.

[1:18:42] Now, if our choices did couldn't make a

[1:18:46] difference, then enlightenment would

[1:18:48] would be impossible.

[1:18:52] >> [snorts]

[1:18:52] >> And if everything was pre-predetermined,

[1:18:54] enlightenment would be impossible. So,

[1:18:56] when the Buddha was asked about this

[1:18:58] exactly the same area, he said, "Yeah,

[1:19:00] it's it's because, um, the the

[1:19:04] the mind can make choices, can choose to

[1:19:08] follow the wholesome or the unwholesome,

[1:19:10] can choose to to to adopt certain

[1:19:13] attitudes and let go of other attitudes.

[1:19:15] Because those choices can be made

[1:19:18] and they're they're genuine, then

[1:19:20] liberation is possible. If it was

[1:19:22] completely If it was completely random,

[1:19:24] uh, then it would be impossible to be

[1:19:26] liberated. If it was completely rigid,

[1:19:28] it'd be impossible. But because there is

[1:19:30] this kind of

[1:19:32] um,

[1:19:34] hinge, if you like, of,

[1:19:36] of choice. But and even though and I was

[1:19:40] one of the Sunday talks of like the

[1:19:42] previous one or a couple ones ago,

[1:19:44] saying most countries in the world, the

[1:19:46] laws, even tribal societies, you know,

[1:19:49] they they revolve around you chose to do

[1:19:51] that, therefore you're a great hero, or

[1:19:54] you know, you are incredibly generous

[1:19:56] and you're worthy of respect, or you

[1:19:57] chose to do that, therefore you should

[1:19:58] be punished and kicked out of the tribe.

[1:20:01] Um every society, the laws of society

[1:20:04] revolve around personal choices and

[1:20:06] people who made those choices being

[1:20:08] praised or being criticized or jailed or

[1:20:11] whatever. So, the the

[1:20:14] conditioning we have as human beings is

[1:20:17] around the personal ownership of action.

[1:20:20] The choices that are made. But if,

[1:20:23] again, using insight meditation, if the

[1:20:28] if a decision is explored, how the mind

[1:20:31] makes a choice,

[1:20:33] and and you kind of deconstruct

[1:20:36] decision-making. Each element, it it can

[1:20:38] break it

[1:20:39] you know,

[1:20:40] when I doing this, you can break it down

[1:20:42] into about six or seven different

[1:20:43] chunks. Each of the chunks of a

[1:20:45] decision-making, perceiving a situation,

[1:20:49] uh

[1:20:50] uh the memory of the idea of a

[1:20:52] possibility, benefit, problem, um

[1:20:56] drawing upon memory, uh

[1:20:58] surveying the possibilities, and then

[1:21:01] recognizing um this direction looks

[1:21:03] towards

[1:21:05] it heads towards benefit, that direction

[1:21:06] looks like it heads towards problems.

[1:21:08] Therefore, that that beneficial one

[1:21:11] looks more attractive. Therefore, um

[1:21:14] let's

[1:21:15] that that be an action based upon that

[1:21:17] direction being taken. So, each

[1:21:19] increment of that process is not self.

[1:21:23] It's memory, imagination, intelligence,

[1:21:27] pattern recognition,

[1:21:28] uh and um

[1:21:31] uh intention. You know, each of those

[1:21:33] elements are not self.

[1:21:36] Uh From the outside, it looks like I

[1:21:38] just decided to to give that example.

[1:21:40] But but um from the inside, if you if

[1:21:44] you deconstruct it, there's there's no

[1:21:45] person making a decision there.

[1:21:49] So, that uh when you say, "Is free will

[1:21:50] an illusion?" I would say,

[1:21:53] the way you put the question is not

[1:21:55] quite

[1:21:57] uh it is not it presumes a bit of a

[1:22:00] reality that doesn't exist cuz it's like

[1:22:03] there's a a person who is choosing is

[1:22:07] the presumption.

[1:22:08] But, um if it's not seen in personal

[1:22:11] terms,

[1:22:12] then you know, choice is possible.

[1:22:16] And a choice motivated by

[1:22:18] by

[1:22:19] uh by wisdom and mindfulness or choice

[1:22:22] motivated by ignorance or

[1:22:24] or by habit, you know, whatever it might

[1:22:25] be that that that um

[1:22:29] choices can be made, the degree of

[1:22:31] freedom

[1:22:33] depends on the strength of conditioning.

[1:22:35] How strong the habits are

[1:22:37] towards the

[1:22:39] something being attractive or something

[1:22:40] being unattractive. Um but if there

[1:22:43] wasn't some quality of of choice that

[1:22:47] was genuinely makeable,

[1:22:50] we wouldn't be here. Buddhism would not

[1:22:52] exist.

[1:22:54] But, because that the choices that are

[1:22:57] made do make a genuine difference

[1:23:01] on a conventional level,

[1:23:03] um then, you know,

[1:23:05] uh we can bring benefit into our lives,

[1:23:08] we can bring harm into our lives by the

[1:23:10] choices that are that are made.

[1:23:13] Uh if you're interested, there's there's

[1:23:14] a um

[1:23:16] uh a dialogue

[1:23:18] written by a man called Raymond

[1:23:20] Smullyan, a philosopher, called Is God a

[1:23:22] Daoist?

[1:23:25] And it's there in the library here. It's

[1:23:27] in a It's in a book called The Mind's

[1:23:29] Eye,

[1:23:30] spelled I,

[1:23:32] um edited by Daniel Dennett and Douglas

[1:23:35] Hofstadter.

[1:23:37] Uh so,

[1:23:38] uh and it starts off with a human being

[1:23:41] going to God and saying,

[1:23:43] "How could you do this to me? Please

[1:23:44] take my free will away from me. This is

[1:23:46] too much of a burden."

[1:23:48] And it kind of it's it's very it's kind

[1:23:50] of funny and but also very insightful.

[1:23:52] So,

[1:23:52] if you're interested in that area,

[1:23:54] then the

[1:23:56] you can follow that up. Is God a Daoist?

[1:23:58] Nowadays, you could just ask your phone

[1:23:59] and it'll

[1:24:01] Raymond Smullyan will be right there,

[1:24:02] you know.

[1:24:04] >> [snorts]

[1:24:06] >> So, please any other questions.

[1:24:11] Hello.

[1:24:11] >> Thank you for the talk.

[1:24:13] Um

[1:24:14] question. So, I um look after regularly

[1:24:18] an 8-year-old boy

[1:24:20] who was non-religious

[1:24:22] parents,

[1:24:23] but he's very interested and beginning

[1:24:26] to be of that age where he's [snorts]

[1:24:27] very interested in

[1:24:29] religions

[1:24:30] and himself, but he he will

[1:24:33] he definitely has a well-defined sense

[1:24:36] of himself.

[1:24:38] So,

[1:24:39] how would you deal with the sort I mean,

[1:24:41] he's he's good that he will do little

[1:24:44] mini meditations to sort of calm down

[1:24:46] behavior and that sort of So, he's

[1:24:48] engaged to a certain extent.

[1:24:50] But I think

[1:24:53] in the way that we've spoken today,

[1:24:55] he needs, you know, he will cling to

[1:24:57] sort of direct, he will expect direct

[1:25:00] answers to, you know, what will happen

[1:25:02] when I die and that sort of thing.

[1:25:03] [laughter]

[1:25:04] So, in that case, if you're if you're

[1:25:06] trying to, you know, sort of guide him

[1:25:07] in a certain way, would you just you

[1:25:10] sort of

[1:25:12] uh

[1:25:13] uh stay with concepts that he can kind

[1:25:15] of deal with like, you know, will be an

[1:25:17] end of suffering or sort of very

[1:25:19] practical, you know, well, is this wise

[1:25:21] or unwise behavior,

[1:25:23] rather than get sort of dragged into

[1:25:25] something that, you know, intellectually

[1:25:27] he he won't be able to grasp. And I

[1:25:30] suppose with, you know, some adults as

[1:25:32] well who just wouldn't have the capacity

[1:25:34] to

[1:25:35] think around that or will expect a kind

[1:25:37] of direct, you know, sort of answer to a

[1:25:40] direct question.

[1:25:42] >> Well, it would It's a good question. It

[1:25:44] would really depend on on the

[1:25:45] individual, you know, that um

[1:25:48] uh

[1:25:49] have to meet the person.

[1:25:51] You know, because it varies. You can't

[1:25:54] really predict.

[1:25:55] At the age of eight you should be able

[1:25:57] to be capable of abstract thinking.

[1:26:00] That begins at about seven.

[1:26:02] So uh again a few weeks ago I was

[1:26:03] mentioning you don't get any arahants

[1:26:05] under the age of seven.

[1:26:07] Cuz they need to be able to have that uh

[1:26:10] you know, abstract thinking capacity um

[1:26:13] to get a perspective on dukkha

[1:26:16] and any dukkha.

[1:26:17] But um

[1:26:18] the uh what's going to be meaningful for

[1:26:20] that individual, helpful. You know, you

[1:26:23] couldn't really say without meeting them

[1:26:25] face-to-face. Uh

[1:26:27] the um

[1:26:28] I think in terms of dialoguing with with

[1:26:31] other people, however old they happen to

[1:26:32] be

[1:26:33] is to treat them as a whole human being.

[1:26:36] Uh to talking down to children doesn't

[1:26:39] uh and I'm thinking oh, they wouldn't be

[1:26:41] able to wouldn't be able to understand.

[1:26:43] My experience is it's worth trying and

[1:26:45] uh

[1:26:46] and so being as straight and as as

[1:26:48] clear as possible. And also when you say

[1:26:51] well, actually I don't know myself and

[1:26:53] I've been I've been carrying that

[1:26:55] question around for the last 30 years.

[1:26:57] So

[1:26:59] hm let's think about that. And so that

[1:27:01] you are not putting yourself in a

[1:27:03] position of having all the answers.

[1:27:06] But [snorts] uh

[1:27:07] that's um sometimes younger people can

[1:27:10] have a greater understanding than we we

[1:27:12] realize cuz they haven't got a fixed

[1:27:14] world view.

[1:27:16] And so um

[1:27:17] like when the if if the that the boy

[1:27:19] asks you, "What happens when we die?"

[1:27:22] You say, "Good question. You know, I've

[1:27:24] been wondering about that myself."

[1:27:26] And uh so you know, you can recount

[1:27:28] things and say, "Well, what I've heard

[1:27:30] or I read this thing in a book that said

[1:27:32] such and such and that was meaningful to

[1:27:33] me. That made sense to me. But I don't

[1:27:35] really know." Um

[1:27:37] And so this is being as honest so saying

[1:27:39] what you know and and and and also

[1:27:42] saying what you don't know. And and that

[1:27:44] kind of

[1:27:45] um

[1:27:47] straightforwardness is greatly

[1:27:48] appreciated cuz children often used to

[1:27:51] adults being in the authority position.

[1:27:53] Like they're grown-ups. They've got They

[1:27:56] know. They've got all the power. They

[1:27:57] should know. And just to be able to say,

[1:27:59] "Well, actually I've been puzzling about

[1:28:01] that myself." And

[1:28:03] um when I was your age, I was asking

[1:28:04] these questions. I didn't get any good

[1:28:06] answers.

[1:28:07] And so that um

[1:28:09] that

[1:28:11] I think that brings out the best in us.

[1:28:14] And that uh and sometimes

[1:28:18] the [snorts]

[1:28:19] uh the the kind of

[1:28:21] uh relation the the relationship between

[1:28:23] you and the person and the the the years

[1:28:26] fall away. And rather than being I'm the

[1:28:28] grown-up and this is the child I'm

[1:28:30] looking after. Um you know, I'm I'm the

[1:28:32] adult, you're the child. It's sort of

[1:28:33] well, here we are

[1:28:35] as human beings and looking at this

[1:28:38] extraordinary experience of life

[1:28:40] together. And uh

[1:28:41] hmm, what is going on here?

[1:28:43] And that kind of

[1:28:45] uh close the sort of shared uh value

[1:28:48] that's amazingly important to to

[1:28:50] children. They're like, "Wow, she She

[1:28:52] talked to me like I was

[1:28:54] I like I mattered. Like I was a

[1:28:55] grown-up."

[1:28:57] And that And when when I've been around

[1:28:59] the children or telling stories with

[1:29:00] with children and the various family

[1:29:02] events, often that's that's one of the

[1:29:04] things that the kids will will comment

[1:29:06] on. It's like, "Oh, you know,

[1:29:08] he didn't talk to me like a child."

[1:29:11] That uh

[1:29:12] you're not sort of uh going into into

[1:29:16] over intellectual themes, but just that

[1:29:19] here we are sharing this life together.

[1:29:21] Let's let's look at this. And that's um

[1:29:24] that's a very

[1:29:27] That just just that dynamic can be a min

[1:29:30] immensely valuable in itself. Even if it

[1:29:32] doesn't really produce concrete answers

[1:29:35] to to those kind of questions.

[1:29:38] Yes, please.

[1:29:48] >> Thank you for your talk. Um you spoke

[1:29:50] about the quality of

[1:29:52] uh, the suchness or isness of not self

[1:29:56] and this idea of of awareness and I I

[1:29:58] liked your

[1:29:59] story of the Buddha saying that he was

[1:30:02] one who is awake

[1:30:03] when he was pressed to to describe who

[1:30:05] he was.

[1:30:06] Um, my question is, is there a way to

[1:30:09] reconcile

[1:30:11] what you spoke about with

[1:30:14] other kind of non-dual teachings like

[1:30:16] Advaita Vedanta speaks about this kind

[1:30:18] of um

[1:30:20] um, pure awareness of the atman being

[1:30:22] Brahman being kind of just pure pure

[1:30:24] awareness abiding in the self. Is there

[1:30:26] a way to reconcile

[1:30:28] the awareness that you spoke about with

[1:30:30] with with other teachings? Are they

[1:30:33] two lenses to try and describe who we

[1:30:35] are

[1:30:36] um, at our core or do you see there

[1:30:38] being a fundamental difference?

[1:30:41] >> Very good question. Um, kind of depends

[1:30:43] on who you're talking to

[1:30:45] >> [laughter]

[1:30:46] >> and how they're using the language. So,

[1:30:48] for myself when I when I read Advaita

[1:30:50] Vedanta teachings like uh, when I first

[1:30:53] went to um

[1:30:54] the International Forest Monastery Wat

[1:30:56] Pah Nanachat in 1978

[1:30:59] that their entire library was

[1:31:01] uh, uh, not quite as

[1:31:04] the size of half of that

[1:31:06] the the tea cupboard.

[1:31:08] It was a very small

[1:31:10] a couple of bookshelves.

[1:31:12] But on those bookshelves there was the

[1:31:14] the um,

[1:31:16] uh, the the book I Am That as two volume

[1:31:18] edition

[1:31:20] um, which was the dialogues of

[1:31:22] Nisargadatta Maharaj

[1:31:24] and been translated into English by one

[1:31:26] of his students who was Polish.

[1:31:29] And [snorts] uh, so amongst the very few

[1:31:31] books that were there on those

[1:31:32] bookshelves he had this Advaita Vedanta

[1:31:34] teachings.

[1:31:35] And [snorts] um, and they were there on

[1:31:37] the Wat Pah Nanachat bookshelf because

[1:31:39] they were seemed to be very closely in

[1:31:41] accord with Buddhadharma.

[1:31:43] And in the conventions of language so

[1:31:45] for me when when someone in Advaita

[1:31:47] Vedanta says you know, I am that or thou

[1:31:50] art that tat tvam asi. Yeah. I am that.

[1:31:53] I mean the title of that is I am that.

[1:31:56] So, it's using the I am

[1:31:58] but rather than the Buddha saying the

[1:32:00] Buddha's way of talking about every I am

[1:32:03] it can is is a statement of conceit and

[1:32:06] is conducive to suffering.

[1:32:08] The Advaita Vedanta I am is kind of

[1:32:11] takes it from the opposite side. I am is

[1:32:14] a expression of a universal reality.

[1:32:17] So, if you take it at a surface level of

[1:32:19] language, it's like, well, they're

[1:32:20] completely opposed.

[1:32:22] One is saying, you know, I am that and

[1:32:23] the other is saying, I I

[1:32:24] you know,

[1:32:25] that the I am is is a total delusion.

[1:32:29] Uh the or the the I am is the ultimate

[1:32:31] reality and the other one oh, the I am

[1:32:33] is a total delusion. But, I would say

[1:32:35] just like you you know, it's a two

[1:32:36] lenses

[1:32:37] uh examining the same quality, the same

[1:32:40] reality.

[1:32:41] And that whereas the the Buddha uses a

[1:32:43] kind of via negativa, language of

[1:32:46] negation, like not this, not that.

[1:32:49] Then, the Advaita Vedanta well, it's

[1:32:51] adva, not two. It's it's

[1:32:53] uh

[1:32:54] it's negating two-ness,

[1:32:56] but it it's uh affirmative in your I am

[1:32:59] that or thou art that, tat tvam asi.

[1:33:02] And so,

[1:33:04] um

[1:33:05] that

[1:33:06] uh to me and also because of being

[1:33:08] around Luang Por Sumedho and uh his feel

[1:33:12] his a feeling and appreciation

[1:33:15] for [snorts]

[1:33:16] you know, the varieties of teachings and

[1:33:17] Luang Por Chah was very similar. It was

[1:33:20] it was he saw no problem with that kind

[1:33:22] of expression or or Christian

[1:33:24] expression. One of his closest friends

[1:33:26] was a a Christian missionary, Catholic

[1:33:28] missionary in in the northeast. He used

[1:33:30] to come and spend time at at what

[1:33:33] Nanachat or or with Ajahn Chah, his main

[1:33:35] monastery.

[1:33:36] Um he had no problem at all with

[1:33:38] Christianity or Vedanta. It's like a

[1:33:41] he it was kind of obvious to him that

[1:33:44] these are skillful means. They're a

[1:33:46] they're a a method.

[1:33:48] Um

[1:33:49] just as using the language not self,

[1:33:51] rather as I was sort of started talking

[1:33:54] about that in the in the talk, rather

[1:33:55] than being a philosophical position, the

[1:33:58] language of not self, it's not a it's

[1:34:00] not a kind of philosophical assertion.

[1:34:02] It's a tool

[1:34:05] to investigate [snorts]

[1:34:06] the experience.

[1:34:07] So,

[1:34:08] and that's the point that Ajahn Sucitto

[1:34:10] very skillfully makes in his book The

[1:34:12] Not Self Strategy that whereas saying

[1:34:16] there is no self is a philosophical

[1:34:18] statement declare a position to take,

[1:34:21] all dharmas are not self is a tool. It's

[1:34:23] an applies a means of investigating.

[1:34:26] Okay, let's look at these things that I

[1:34:27] take to be myself,

[1:34:29] my thoughts, my memories, my intentions,

[1:34:33] my emotions, my body. Yeah,

[1:34:37] my spiritual experiences.

[1:34:39] These I say these are mine, these are

[1:34:41] what I am, these belong to me. Well,

[1:34:43] what's that mean?

[1:34:44] And that the the not self, well, the

[1:34:46] Buddha says these are all not self. Is

[1:34:48] that so? It's a tool to be used for

[1:34:51] investigation, not a philosophical

[1:34:53] position. And so, that's why Ajahn

[1:34:55] Sucitto used the language of not self

[1:34:57] strategy.

[1:34:59] It's a it's a a strategy, it's a a means

[1:35:01] of exploring, not a

[1:35:06] an ideal or a a philosophical principle

[1:35:08] to hang on to. So, it's a tool to help

[1:35:11] investigation.

[1:35:13] So, I would say from for me that

[1:35:15] languaging of

[1:35:16] you know, I am that

[1:35:19] is

[1:35:21] completely on in accord with the the

[1:35:24] Buddhist teaching on not self. It's they

[1:35:26] they match each other perfectly even

[1:35:28] though they seem to be saying the

[1:35:29] opposite. It's like,

[1:35:30] which direction is my finger pointing?

[1:35:33] Yeah, I would say to the left.

[1:35:35] Yeah, you would say to the right. It's

[1:35:36] the same finger, but looking at it from

[1:35:38] a different side then it's the most

[1:35:41] obvious example.

[1:35:43] But I know I've come across various very

[1:35:46] worthy Buddhist teachers who say, you

[1:35:47] know, no, Advaita Vedanta is

[1:35:50] it's not you know, it's completely

[1:35:51] contrary to to Buddhism and is

[1:35:55] it's it's completely the opposite of not

[1:35:57] self.

[1:35:58] Personally,

[1:35:59] if I can use that word,

[1:36:01] I think it's misreading

[1:36:03] uh the situation. And also in that that

[1:36:06] book um

[1:36:07] Nisargadatta Maharaj um

[1:36:09] he uh

[1:36:10] when he talks very very little about any

[1:36:13] kind of spiritual training that he had.

[1:36:15] And he he was a bidi wallah. He kind of

[1:36:17] had that little cigarette shop in in uh

[1:36:19] in Mumbai. You know, he was very humble

[1:36:22] uh lifestyle. He wasn't like a kind of a

[1:36:23] big guru in a in a large ashram. He had

[1:36:27] a little bidi shop

[1:36:29] in in Bombay as it was then.

[1:36:31] And [snorts] uh and uh people would go

[1:36:34] and visit him and ask questions and and

[1:36:36] then these conversations were recorded.

[1:36:38] But uh when he was asked about the most

[1:36:40] uh as I recall in that book

[1:36:43] uh this was just a you know, the first

[1:36:45] edition of it was the kind of two-volume

[1:36:47] edition.

[1:36:48] Uh

[1:36:48] the most he ever said about his

[1:36:50] spiritual training was he said, "My guru

[1:36:53] said to me, you are the ultimate

[1:36:55] reality. So, I just acted accordingly."

[1:36:59] Full stop. That's it. That's all you

[1:37:00] get.

[1:37:01] >> [laughter]

[1:37:01] >> Details of of his spiritual [snorts]

[1:37:03] practice is like

[1:37:05] very spare.

[1:37:06] But then uh reading those words, even

[1:37:09] translated into English, just sort of

[1:37:11] coming off the page, the feeling was

[1:37:13] this person they they know

[1:37:16] the reality of things. What What

[1:37:17] Whatever you call it, whatever the

[1:37:19] languaging is, this this is speaking to

[1:37:23] truth. It It just sort of jumps off the

[1:37:24] page at you.

[1:37:26] And so um

[1:37:27] in in my early days of what Nana Shah

[1:37:29] that was one of the first things I read,

[1:37:31] you know,

[1:37:31] coming into Buddhism,

[1:37:33] reading Advaita Vedanta.

[1:37:35] Uh a small point also in in addition is

[1:37:38] um there's a Pali word atamayata,

[1:37:43] which literally means uh not made of

[1:37:45] that. Atamayata,

[1:37:48] not made of thatness.

[1:37:50] And so it it and the way it's used and

[1:37:53] it's not very common. There's only about

[1:37:55] half a dozen places in the Pali Canon

[1:37:57] where it's used. But it I would say is

[1:38:01] very close in meaning to advaita that

[1:38:04] adva not two

[1:38:06] that

[1:38:07] and the the word comes from the

[1:38:09] understanding of the sort of physics of

[1:38:13] perceiving in the time of the Buddha.

[1:38:15] So, it was understood that when you see

[1:38:18] something that your eye sends out a kind

[1:38:20] of a beam

[1:38:22] that becomes consistent with its object,

[1:38:25] the object of sight becomes tanmayata

[1:38:27] consistent with that.

[1:38:29] That it goes out and

[1:38:31] back and is seen. I see you.

[1:38:34] Because the eye has sent out a ray,

[1:38:36] inhabited your face, and then it's come

[1:38:38] back and then I see you.

[1:38:40] So, atmayata is that not going outness,

[1:38:45] not creating a self here and an other

[1:38:47] there. That the adva not two.

[1:38:50] So, it's the

[1:38:52] subjectless objectless awareness.

[1:38:55] And where it appears in the Pali, it's

[1:38:58] clearly an extremely refined quality of

[1:39:00] awareness.

[1:39:02] As Ajahn Buddhadasa spent the last

[1:39:03] couple of years of his life kind of

[1:39:06] holding the holding the torch for that

[1:39:08] atmayata saying, "We need to study this.

[1:39:10] This is the most important This is the

[1:39:11] last word of Buddhism.

[1:39:13] You know, we need to get familiar with

[1:39:15] this. We need to to know this. This is

[1:39:17] So, he he

[1:39:19] put great effort in the last couple of

[1:39:20] years of his life to

[1:39:22] introduce that into the

[1:39:24] the the the Theravada lexicon. Cuz it's

[1:39:27] there in the scriptures, but people

[1:39:29] ignore it. So, this is the most

[1:39:30] important word in Pali language and

[1:39:33] and no one knows about it.

[1:39:35] So, but I I feel it's very very close in

[1:39:37] spirit and essence to that.

[1:39:42] >> [snorts]

[1:39:42] >> So, we're right at 4:00. I thought

[1:39:46] considering today's theme

[1:39:48] as a unusual

[1:39:51] offering

[1:39:53] or

[1:39:54] that um it occurred to me

[1:39:57] just earlier this afternoon.

[1:39:59] I thought,

[1:40:00] well, we're we're talking about self and

[1:40:03] not self and um

[1:40:06] 45 years ago, in 1981,

[1:40:08] a uh

[1:40:09] a poem

[1:40:11] um that I wrote

[1:40:13] um came to me, I thought I might share

[1:40:15] with you.

[1:40:16] Uh called Self-Portrait. And uh I was

[1:40:18] living that uh that rains retreat, I was

[1:40:21] living down in Devon before there was a

[1:40:23] Devon monastery, as I living at a place

[1:40:26] called Golden Square. Uh Douglas and

[1:40:28] Margaret Jones invited Sangha members to

[1:40:30] come and stay at their place, and

[1:40:32] so I

[1:40:33] had the the fortune to spend my third

[1:40:36] rains retreat down there, 1981.

[1:40:40] And the first [snorts] line of this poem

[1:40:42] uh

[1:40:43] often I I I don't sort of

[1:40:45] uh sit down in order to write a poem,

[1:40:47] but sort of things just appear. So, as I

[1:40:49] was coming back from my arms round one

[1:40:51] morning, I go for long long walks

[1:40:53] through the Devon countryside, up and

[1:40:54] down the hills, wearing out the the

[1:40:56] heels on my Wellington boots.

[1:40:58] And as I was as I vaguely recall, 45

[1:41:01] years ago, um just as I was returning to

[1:41:04] Golden Square, the first line of the

[1:41:07] this poem came into my mind, and then

[1:41:09] then the rest just sort of followed

[1:41:11] along after it. Um

[1:41:13] And uh it sort of composed itself.

[1:41:16] But it's on this same kind of um

[1:41:18] themes that we've been exploring today,

[1:41:20] to some degree.

[1:41:22] So, this is Self-Portrait.

[1:41:26] My father is a judge of dogs.

[1:41:29] My sister Katie dislikes frogs.

[1:41:32] My sister Jane is fond of horses.

[1:41:35] And mother dear, well, she of course is

[1:41:37] an angel who is past compare.

[1:41:40] And then there's me.

[1:41:41] But do I dare to claim that I am that or

[1:41:44] this?

[1:41:45] And I am swimming in the is.

[1:41:49] The question is beyond the reach of

[1:41:51] petty mind, for on the beach of senses

[1:41:54] beat the endless tides of births and

[1:41:55] deaths, the carpet rides of cherished

[1:41:58] thoughts and memories of wives and lives

[1:42:00] and families.

[1:42:02] Waves washing in and washing back create

[1:42:05] a past and future, a sack back-burdening

[1:42:08] a being blind and gripping too intense

[1:42:10] to find the architect of all their pain,

[1:42:13] the singer of the sad refrain, who

[1:42:15] builds these realms of birth and death,

[1:42:18] inhaling and exhaling breath,

[1:42:20] inhaling birth, exhaling death.

[1:42:25] Confused, incomprehensibly bizarre,

[1:42:29] clutching waves we think we are,

[1:42:31] so lost that we forget the eye of

[1:42:33] wisdom, which does not deny the truth of

[1:42:36] waves and sand and seas, yet is

[1:42:39] transcendent over these.

[1:42:42] A song of suchness, clear and bright,

[1:42:44] the boundless inner peace of light,

[1:42:46] whose unremitting presence roars oceanic

[1:42:50] at its shores.

[1:42:52] So,

[1:42:53] what is this awesome space?

[1:42:56] So, what awesome space is this wherein

[1:42:58] the wheel revolves? And who,

[1:43:01] the ocean [snorts] into which this

[1:43:03] universe dissolves?

[1:43:07] A subtle thief, the question who,

[1:43:10] it [snorts] burgles with delight.

[1:43:12] It pockets pain and happiness, then

[1:43:14] slips into the night,

[1:43:16] taking [snorts] all identity and leaving

[1:43:18] on the light.

[1:43:22] Taking petty mind up to that watershed,

[1:43:25] beyond which nothing can be said,

[1:43:27] where, if words were to apply, they

[1:43:30] would create a you and I,

[1:43:33] a plotter and their plot,

[1:43:36] abiding at this spot,

[1:43:38] untouched by anything at all, no dust,

[1:43:42] nowhere to fall.

[1:43:47] I leave us on that note.

[1:43:49] People

[1:43:50] tease me for my rhymings,

[1:43:52] >> [snorts]

[1:43:52] >> but you know, these things they come out

[1:43:54] as they do, you know, you

[1:43:55] What to do, as my grandfather would say.

[1:43:59] That's how they come out, so there they

[1:44:01] are. So, go well.

[1:44:03] Please, sir, come back next year.

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Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

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What is the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta and why is it important?

The Anatta-lakkhana Sutta is the Buddha's second discourse, in which he teaches that the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness) are not self. Ajahn Amaro notes that after hearing it, the five companions who had been listening all became arahants, which is why it is treated as a catalyst for their full awakening.

What does anatta mean in Buddhism?

Anatta, or not-self, is the teaching that nothing among the aggregates of experience can be identified as a fixed, owned self. Ajahn Amaro explains it through agency: if the body were self, we could command it to be otherwise, and because we cannot, it is not who we truly are.

What are the five khandhas or aggregates?

The five khandhas are rupa (material form), vedana (feeling), sanna (perception), sankhara (mental formations, covering thoughts, memories, intentions, imagination and emotions) and vinnana (discriminative consciousness). Ajahn Amaro describes vinnana as the pixels of experience, the neural firing behind seeing, hearing, thinking and remembering.

What is asmi mana, the conceit of 'I am'?

Asmi mana is the conception of an identity, the reflex of conceiving oneself as something, in past, present or future, positive or negative terms. The Buddha, as quoted by Ajahn Amaro, called such conceivings a poisoned arrow, a cancerous tumor and a burden.

Why didn't the Buddha say what the real self is?

Ajahn Amaro explains that the Buddha used a method of elimination: letting go of everything we take ourselves to be, so that what is real is what remains. He notes there is no place in the Pali Canon where the Buddha defines a real self as a concept, which is why many listeners find the teaching frustrating.

Is the not-self teaching the same as saying there is no person?

The talk does not deny the lived experience of a functioning person with a story, relationships and choices. It asks what that felt center is made of when examined, and it treats freedom from the 'I am' conceit as the goal of practice, described in the Megiya teaching as nibbana here and now.

Where can I hear more Dhamma talks from Amaravati Buddhist Monastery?

Amaravati makes its teachings available in audio and ebook form through the Teachings menu at amaravati.org, and its event calendar is at amaravati.org/calendar. The Sunday talk discussed here, given on 25 October 2026, was published with its question-and-answer session on the Amaravati channel.

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Where does the question "If I'm not these, what am I?" come from?

How does the Buddha test whether something is really a self?

Why doesn't the Buddha just name the real self?

What is the "I am" conceit, and why does the Buddha call it a poisoned arrow?

How does the teaching reach practice?

Where to go from here

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What Remains When the Personality Falls Silent: A Dhamma Talk

Mettā Without a Formula: Why Loving-Kindness Gets Stuck

Kirtan Camp in Costa Rica: Bhakti, Chant and the Blue Zone

Sita's Sacrifice: Why the Ramayana Story Changes Women's Place

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