Samuel asked four questions:
Question 1: Why is there so much emphasis on DUKKHA in Buddhism?
ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာမှာ ဒုက္ခကို ဘာကြောင့် ဒီလောက် အလေးပေးတာလဲ။
A: Why are you asking about dukkha? Why is there so much emphasis on suffering in Buddhism? Those who know, please say.
Yogi: Because of sīla, rupa and kilesas. (?)
Is there anyone here who wants suffering? Raise your hand. (no-one does so) Is there anyone who wants illness? An illness? Raise your hand. (no-one does so). Illness is frightening, and so people talk about how to avoid it. It is the same way with Dukkha. Because it is suffering, the Buddha talked about it often. Just as no one wants disease, no one wants suffering. Because it is not sukha, we talk about it often. Why it is mentioned often is because Dukkha is miserable. The Buddha explained about it so that beings would not suffer, because he was concerned that beings would suffer.
Dukkha is the quality of suffering. The Buddha spoke about it because he was concerned that people would suffer. He was concerned that living beings would come to suffer, so he had to explain about it. Just like placing signs saying “DANGER” where there are dangerous things such as pits, big bumps and potholes, because they could cause danger. All along the road where there are potential dangers, there are signs. But no one asks why those signs are there, all along the road. But even with all those signs, people who do not pay attention to them get into trouble/ have accidents, for example, when they drive too fast. The Buddha spoke about all the forms of Dukkha because he was concerned that they would antayay phyit hma soe lou.
Some people even think that Buddhism is pessimistic, because so much is said about Dukkha. But in fact it’s not like that. Even with all those warnings, there are many who get into trouble dukkha yauk deh. When someone falls into a pit, is it the fault of the person who put up the sign on the road? Or is it because of the lack of intelligence on the part of the person who drove without taking heed of the sign? Do you understand that it happens that people cause trouble for themselves?
Most people, most beings do not realize this. They do not see there is danger. Just as no one, no living being, should want illness, Dukkha is not desirable. “Prevention is better than cure.” Do you want to get cured only after you get sick? Or do you want to prevent the disease? Do you want to shout for help only after falling into the pit or the trench? Do you want to shout for help only after you fall off the mountain (တောင်ပဝလေး)? It would be better for you to take care so that you don’t fall off, for sure.
Why do people go to church on Sundays and pray? People – Catholics and Christians, for example – go to church because they are afraid of Dukkha, of course. They go because they are afraid of suffering and want happiness. Coming here to practice is because you want happiness, isn’t that so? Or did you come because you want suffering?
Yogi: We want happiness, but we ARE suffering.
A: No pain, no gain. Do you want to get paid without going to work? You have to keep the precepts and you have to do this practice. That’s your job. That is “going to work.” The more you fear suffering, the more you should rely on this practice, this dhamma. If you are not afraid, then go home early. Just that. That’s Dukkha. Every living being, not just people. Animals too. They just want to be happy.
To want happiness means that you feel suffering within yourself. For that reason, so that we could become complete, so that we would not encounter suffering, the Buddha said, “That is Dukkha indeed, that is Dukkha indeed,” as if he were pointing a flashlight: “Here, there is danger, there is danger.” When you have seen it because it was illuminated, you avoid it.
The Buddha not only taught Dukkha, he taught the way to avoid Dukkkha. He taught the way to cure that Dukkha. He gave the medicine, and those who took the medicine were cured of their disease. If you want to cure the disease, then take the medicine. Just one week!
Yogi: Every week.
A: Do I need to say more?
Yogi: No, Sayadaw.
Question 1a. Merely looking at a small flower can be a wonderful human experience that is worth having lived for. ပန်းပွင့်လေးတစ်ပွင့်ကို ကြည့်ရုံမျှဖြင့် အသက်ရှင်နေထိုင်ရကျိုးနပ်မည့် အံ့သြဖွယ်ကောင်းသော လူသားအတွေ့အကြုံတစ်ခု ဖြစ်လာနိုင်ပါသည်။ I understand that the flower and the experience [of seeing it] are ‘IMPERMANENT.’ But doesn’t that make it even more unique and blissful? ပန်းပွင့်နှင့် [တွေ့မြင်ရသည့် အတွေ့အကြုံ] သည် ‘မမြဲပါ’ ဟု နားလည်ပါသည်။ သို့သော် ၎င်းသည် ပို၍ပင် ထူးခြားပြီး ပျော်ရွှင်မှုဖြစ်စေမည်မဟုတ်ပေလော။ Without grasping, life can be quite pleasant, can’t it? ဆွဲလန်းမှုမရှိရင် ဘဝက သိပ်သာယာစရာ ဖြစ်နိုင်တယ် မဟုတ်ပါလား။
A: If looked at superficially, this is pleasant for a moment. It is a momentary pleasure. This pleasure is not free of ‘heat.’ It is not a lasting pleasure.
Yogi: I wrote that I understand that the flower and the experience of seeing it are IMPERMANENT.
A: Leave that aside. People are comfortable because they look at something they want to see, they hear something they want to hear, they eat something they want to eat. That is not a lasting happiness.
In this way, you’ve reached this age (in life), looking, eating and enjoying these things. And reaching this age, have your worries been reduced? Suffering is sure to continue. Those things are not true happiness. You do not know, of course. How much money do you need to be happy? How many homes do you need to own to be happy? You have to struggle for your whole life. And that is being familiar with Dukkha.
Question # 2: Contemporary society does not make it easy to enjoy that flower. အခုခေတ် လူအသိုင်အဝိုင်ကြီးမှာ ထိုပန်းပွင့်ကို ခံစားရန် မလွယ်ကူပေ။ There is cause for worry, စိုးရိမ်စရာ ရှိပါတယ် – the rise of extreme parties all over the world ကမ္ဘာတစ်ဝှမ်းလုံးတွင် အစွန်းရောက်ပါတီများ ပေါ်ပေါက်လာခြင်း၊ artificial intelligence ဉာဏ်ရည်တု၊ closed borders and repression နယ်နိမိတ်ပိတ်ပြီး ဖိနှိပ်မှု၊ climate change ရာသီဥတုပြောင်းလဲမှု၊ cancel culture ပယ်ဖျက်ခြင်း ယဉ်ကျေးမှု၊ conservatism ရှေးရိုးစွဲဝါဒ … and worry is negative thought, which IS dukkha စိုးရိမ်မှု (ပူပန်မှု) သည်လည်း အဆိုးမြင်အတွေး ဖြစ်သည့် အတွက် ဒုက္ခပဲ။ How to position oneself, as a meditator, in this society? ဒီလူ့အသိုင်အဝိုင်ကြီးမှာ တရားထိုင်သူအနေနဲ့ မိမိကိုယ်ကို ဘယ်လိုနေရာယူမလဲ။ People such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and John Lennon were killed [while] spreading lovingkindness and trying to create unity [was this karma?] ဂန္ဒီ၊ မာတင်လူသာကင်း ဂျူနီယာနှင့် ဂျွန်လင်နွန်ကဲ့သို့သော လူများသည် ချစ်ခင်ကြင်နာမှု ပြန့်ပွားပြီး စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်မှုကို ဖန်တီးရန် ကြိုးပမ်းနေချိန်တွင် အသတ်ခံခဲ့ရသည် [ဤသို့ဖြစ်ရာက ကံကြောင့်လား။]
Sayadaw asked what to prioritize in answering this question. The translator replied that the main question seems to be the last part: How, as a meditator, to position oneself in present-day society?
A: There are various environments, various kinds of people and various kinds of understanding. There are people on the extreme left and on the extreme right. There are people who take the middle path. If a lot of people can take the middle path, that will be good.
Of those people who take the middle path, the intelligent or good people can do more to benefit others. As was just said, whether it is someone like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr or Mother Theresa, these people were more able to help others. But as Sayadaw said, [that there are various kinds of understanding] people with a warped view might not see that as good. People who are not very intelligent would not like such people.
The nature of human beings is to have likes and dislikes. Not even the Buddha would have been liked by everyone. Not even Christ would have been liked by everyone. But whether others liked them or not was not the main thing. The main thing for people who are good is to do the types of things that good people do. People with a good mental attitude, with intelligence, do not cause trouble for those around them. They will only work for the benefit of those around them.
For example, let us say, these people know about the five precepts. They keep the five precepts. People who keep the five precepts don’t make other people suffer. They don’t torture or kill others. That means they don’t make others suffer. That is a task to be done by intelligent people. No matter who likes it or does not like it, good-hearted people are not going to harm others. They do not kill, steal or lie. They do not make others suffer.
They will do things like dāna, as Sayadaw mentioned last night. They will keep moral precepts without breaking them. Dāna makes other people happy. The training of sīla also makes others happy. Good-hearted people will do these things, for sure. Good people will do the work of good people. And bad people will do the actions of bad people. The killings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr are that sort of thing. So, are you going to do good things or bad things?
If you are going to do bad things, then stay away from me! And think about the people you live with. Will they like it better if you treat them well, or will they like it better if you treat them poorly?
What they encounter in their lives – for everyone – is related to their kamma. To be born a human is due to good kamma. To be born as an animal is not that good. Dogs who are born or live in your house – you are a human being, they are dogs. And there are all kinds of human beings. There are those who are handsome and those who are not, those with a good-looking body and those with a bad-looking body. There are people with material possessions and people without, or with few material possessions. There are healthy people and sickly people. There are smart people and unintelligent people. There are all sorts of differences. This is just kamma.
And just now, Sayadaw mentioned dogs. They are the same in being dogs, but there are differences. Some live a happy life and others suffer a lot. They are also different in physical beauty. They vary in intelligence. They vary in terms of their health. But in Sayadaw’s eyes, all of the yogis are good-looking.
That is the kamma of living beings. What is the cause of kamma? Kamma is just a general name, there are three kinds. Physical kamma is called kāya kamma [actions performed with the body]. When you control your physical actions, so that you do good things, that is kāya kamma. Vāci kamma is connected with speech. When you refrain from lying, that is vāci kamma. It is the same in connection with the mind. Keep a good mental attitude, have a good heart. Mental kamma is called mano kamma. Keep a good mental attitude often. A person whose physical, verbal and mental kamma [actions] are good has good kamma. Basically, that is sīla. Keep the precepts. Keep them and don’t break them. Then you will not experience much Dukkha. Thus, the main thing is that when physical, verbal and mental kamma are good, you will experience good things. When physical, verbal and mental kamma are not good, you will experience bad results. That is kamma. When that kamma is the best, then the best type of happiness can occur. That is becoming free of Dukkha.
Now, the yogis have come here to practice meditation. Their physical kamma has become good, and their verbal kamma has become good. They are keeping sīla. But their mental kamma might not be as good. When a person is here but their mind is outside, thinking of this and that, that is not good mental kamma. So, simply restrain these three kinds of kamma. Stand on your own two feet. You can’t get it [good results, up until freedom from suffering] just by going down on your knees and pray for it. Don’t go down on your knees and pray. They cannot give it to you. You will only continue to be deceived. Do you want to continue to be lied to?
Question 3: Can we invite you to meditate with us? တပြည့်တော်တို့နှင့်အတူ တရားထိုင်ရန် ဆရာတော်အား ဖိတ်ခေါ်နိုင်ပါသလား။
A: Why do you want me to come and sit with you?
Yogi: For his energy.
A: Don’t rely on Sayadaw too much. (pointing to the Buddha) Eh? When I don’t come here in the morning, I have time to read. I am reading. What will you do when I leave? Would you like to ordain as a monk and come with me?
Yogi: Maybe one day.
A: Maybe 2050? I became a monk when I was 12 years old. It has been 60 years now. Just do it for one month.
Yogi: I’m not ready.
A: The main thing is to practice meditation carefully, whether you are a layperson or ordained.
Question 4: What does it truly mean to be compassionate, with those who are sexually abusive, speak harshly, have no empathy, do not respect personal boundaries, people who just want recognition and devotion, murderers and so on (လိင်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ စော်ကားသူတွေ၊ နှုတ်ကြမ်းသူတွေ၊ စာနာမှုကင်းသူတွေ၊ လူ၁-ယောက်ရဲ့ နယ်နမိတ် မလေးစားသူတွေ၊ မျက်နှာကြီးခြင်းနှင့် ကြည်ညိုမှုကို တောင့်တသူတွေ၊ လူသတ်သမား စသောသူတွေ နဲ့ စာနာနားလည်မှုဆိုတာ ဘာကိုဆိုလိုတာလဲ။ In the presence of any of these, how do I not let them ‘invade’ my peace and well-being? (ထိုအရာများထံတွင်၊ ကျွန်ုပ်၏ ချမ်းသာသုခကို မည်သို့ “ကျူးကျော်” ခွင့်မပြုရမည်နည်း။) How to remain patient and understanding? (စိတ်ရှည်သည်းခံပြီး နားလည်မှုရှိအောင် ဘယ်လိုလုပ်မလဲ။)
That is concerned with sīla. All those actions are concerned with the five precepts. Bad people do the things that bad people do. Good people do the work of good people. Are you going to try to compete with them and commit murder? People who are not good, do wrong. Good people will do good. Although they (bad people) break their sīla, you should take care not to break your sīla. No matter who is good and who is bad, you just have to try to be good. Why? Because you are a good person and do not want to become bad.
Question from Laurent Ingber: Good day, Sayadaw. You said that to remain concentrated on the rising and falling movement of the abdomen is a blessing. Can you explain how to do this in society and in our daily lives?
(Bonjour. Sayadaw dit que rester concentré sur le va et vient de l’abdomen est une «bénédiction » comment faire ? cela en société ou dans la vie courante.
မင်္ဂလာနံနက်ခင်းပါဘုရား။ ဝမ်းဗိုက်လှုပ်ရှားမှုကို အာရုံစိုက်နေခြင်းသည် “ကောင်းချီး” ဖြစ်သည်ဟု ဆရာတော်က မိန့်သည်။ လူ့အဖွဲ့အစည်းမှာ ဒါမှမဟုတ် နေ့စဉ်ဘ၀မှာ ဒါကိုဘယ်လိုလုပ်မလဲ။)
A: As I have said, to practice meditation does not mean that you meditate only when you are here. “Mindfulness.” You live at home. But although you are at home, you should try to be aware of what you do as much as you can. In this way, sati arises, concentration arises. That is a blessing. You do not get as much as you do here, but you should practice as much as you can. When you are breathing, you can do it with mindfulness. When you are moving your hands, you can do it with mindfulness. When your mouth is moving, when your mind is moving – everything can be done with mindfulness.
If you come here, you can come for one month, or for two months. If you are here for two months, then you spend ten months at home. At home, you have to apply sati so as to be mindful. You can be aware of your movements in daily activities to a certain extent. And later, as sati increases gradually, concentration can arise more quickly. In that case, when you come here to practice, say for one week, you will get about as much samādhi as someone who practices for two weeks or three weeks but does not practice mindfulness at home.
That’s all. Therefore, just as you do when you practice here, keep the precepts when you are at home and practice meditation as much as you are able to. In that case, Dukkha will become distant. If samādhi arises in full, you will reach the situation of becoming completely free of Dukkha.