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Sangha Panel: Religion, Cults, and Spiritual Communities

Name: Sangha Panel: Religion, Cults, and Spiritual Communities
Uploaded: 2022-10-21T01:07:41+00:00
Duration: 1 h 3 min 3 s
Channel: Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud
Description: „Buddha-Sāsana“ bedeutet die Anweisungen beziehungsweise Lehren des Buddha. Sämtliche buddhistischen Praktiken sollen den Weg des Erwachens unterstützen, …

Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud1:03:03 310 Aufrufe veröffentlicht 21. Okt. 2022 Auf YouTube

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Hello friends welcome to empty Cloud Monastery I'm Aya someone I'm here with uh to my left and uh this morning we'll
have a little Sangha panel on a topic that was requested so the subject is um religion Cults and spiritual
communities so the essentially it starts with the reflection when navigating the religious landscape we can mistake Cults for Spiritual
communities or religion for Cults what are the qualities that distinguish one from the other and so today we will be talking about
differences and similarities on on how to distinguish the Dharma from adamma so maybe we can start by paying knowledge to our original teacher
shakimoni puta number [Music]
foreign [Music]
okay well first off I think it's it's important to begin by talking about
when when we're practicing Buddhism what exactly do we mean by this so normally the word that we use in Pali is Buddha sasana or sattu sasana
sometimes so sasana means the instructions so the Buddha sasana means the instructions of the Buddha or sat to
sasana literally means teacher but normally in this the word satu means specifically the Buddha so the the main teacher the original teacher
and Buddha sasana is the word that gets translated into English as Buddhism so Buddhism is again it means the teachings of the Buddha uh practices and
instructions from the awakened one uh so uh everything that we do then is meant to be a support to practicing the path of Awakening uh it's meant to be
something that we do that helps us to cultivate the qualities of of wisdom and compassion of clearly seeing the the true nature of reality
so and there's a number of things which the Buddha gave us so tools and methods for training the mind for helping us to reduce our defilements and to cultivate
wisdom and some of these tools have to do with community life with how we how we live together in community how we can use
Community Life as a support to training the mind to developing a wholesome heart and some of these these elements of of community life
um when uh taken out of context can resemble to a certain degree some of the
power structures in in practices which are done in in some Cults so it's important then to understand first off what the distinction here is
um so I like to quote bante sujato on this one so I remember a few years ago uh the two of us were talking with bante sugato
about how some people had talked about how Buddhist monasteries are called Tish
answer was like well of course a horse and an alligator look exactly the same they're completely identical
so a horse has a long nose an alligator has a long nose a horse has teeth an alligator has teeth a horse has two eyes an alligator has
two eyes a horse has four legs an alligator has four legs so clearly it's impossible to distinguish between these two things they're clearly identical
so the same thing can happen uh when when looking at genuine spiritual communities so communities
which are devoted towards the helping people to develop their their highest spiritual potential so whereas uh quote communities are tend
to be more around um upholding the power strength wealth of either a particular individual or of
a uh organization which is is not so interested in the well-being of individual people not so interested in cultivating the wisdom or compassion of
individual people um but rather it's its primary purposes on uh again bolstering the the wealth and
power of either one Central individual or a central organization so the teachings of the Buddha are ultimately about a personal development
uh personal development of of the heart uh and the community practices that we do are I meant to support that but also with the the constant self-reflection of
what effect is this actually having um is this actually helping me to develop Buddha like qualities uh and if not then we need to reevaluate our
relationship with these practices um and sometimes that means changing communities but sometimes it means changing our relationship or attitude
towards the practices that are are being presented changing our our attitude towards what's being given to us
so those are just a few opening remarks maybe I some of you like to take it from there thank you Banta um
well you said a lot of things that are that were crossing my mind to say so now I'm left a little bit without much to say except that
um yeah the simile that monkeys would drop or Gabe I think is actually very powerful to us so uh understand how
maybe we can relate to the subject matter but also how sometimes though other people maybe who are practicing or establishing communities of different
sorts can actually um sometimes the story actually the the teachings or distort certain
um um say wholesome structures uh wholesome um ways of developing the mind
um and then turning them into something that it's not so um what was the other animal besides the alligator the horse the horse correct so
then turning a horse into an alligator or an alligator into a horse um so I think that's very important also
in how we distinguish everything and we should always distinguish Things based on dhamma rather than based on ideas or views or what someone tells us
that that is the the right course of things and so forth um so personally actually I gave a while back
um a talk on um um hierarchies in Buddhism because it was something that was actually very very interesting subject for me to to
understand because when we enter um you know the world of monasticism as um
Western folds we can have like so many different ideas based on our expectations based on our culture and you know one of the reflections that
actually we work uh talking about uh just a few days ago and I feel like actually about it will be I think uh giving a talk
um this evening on on The Daily Recollections um that as monastics but also as spiritual practitioners the Buddha
invites us to reflect on um different things and one of them is the recollection that we're no longer part of a social hierarchy so back then
at the time of the Buddha it was the caste system but we see that that's actually the Buddha is pretty much highlighting how any
um sort of societal kind of hierarchy um is is pretty much a caste system so whether it's based on gender whether it's based on race whether it's based on
economical factors whatever it is usually societies are structured in a very hierarchical way so we can take that
reflection and you know understand that we're no longer part of that but then we enter monasticism and actually there's quite a lot of
different hierarchies based on seniority based on different ways through which we're supposed to relate to one another usually we take dependence on a monastic
and there is a clear sense of how to relate with um with someone who is senior or someone who is Junior and sometimes there are also different ways
of relating based on gender or based on sex um so there's lots of different
hierarchies um I would say that at first glance we might be a little bit perplexed or think that they are in contradiction with the
dhamma we might expect the dum-dum uh or the practice or like traditional environments Buddhist environments to be a little bit more similar to maybe a
commune or maybe like a kind of horizontal sort of type of society and there are also teachings that are in fact uh that seem on the surface to
actually point in that direction like their collection that we're no longer part of those structures um so personally I kind of like went
through that journey to try to investigate what why those structures were there where they actually um
early Buddhism or where they things that uh were somewhat later invented um there's lots of different once again Traditions you know and sometimes you
have to wait a couple of buses in order to get one title and then other Traditions actually Mahayana sometimes they have more patches based on how many
vasas you you have um so only people within that tradition actually can understand who is the
senior one I never understand who they all look the same to me but apparently there's a way to to kind of understand who's on top of the ladder
um so yeah without repeating you know all the kind of research that I have done in that
in that in that talk or in that investigation in brief um my understanding is just as what they
was saying is that those infrastructures are there um to support personal development to shape the
defilements but sometimes than these infrastructures can actually be um taken
to actually create a social hierarchy also within monasticism so how do we tell the difference between one and another well I think it is fundamentally
um it goes down to a lot of different different parameters one is how is it affecting our mind
um so how are we actually developing within the path so as Bobby was saying all of these um you know structures once again are
there to reduce suffering to polish the mind to overcome you know our self-centeredness to um yeah just really polish
um polished us from remove all of our sort of defilements so if there's a an increase of wholesome mind States
definitely is something that is supportive if it's something that instead makes us more insecure that makes us more paranoid that makes us
um yeah doubting about the the path the vows that we're taking or the community that we're joining well that's something
to investigate then it becomes a little bit of a question mark which then comes in the in the domain is actually the problem the the community that I've
um joined as a monastic or as a layperson or is it actually maybe my karmic obstructions from the past
that I can't just um seem to be to be managing um this practice so then we can also see the people around us maybe that's
another factor of seeing or actually the people who are practicing uh around me are they actually uh who maybe have physical characteristics similar to mine
are they making progress in the path are they finding support on this um in this structure does this lineage does this community actually
um create the conditions for incredible sentient beings to come into being um or to improve over the years
or or actually people just like me for example becoming more insecure becoming more um skeptical about the path or they
becoming more yeah um are on both some qualities of Mind increasing instead of decreasing and it's not just something that it's based
on an individual but rather on on a group of group of people so in there then we can be a little bit more objective and kind of see okay well it's
not my problem or boundary that's my problem but it's a problem that that seems to affect several people
which is not two or three but rather perhaps maybe even half of the community since it's um uh when we got get to gender and
that's usually um up of the population is females so clearly there are those there those marks
but if it's that it's myself and like two other female practitioners and the rest are actually having
um are are very much supported by the environment then maybe it's something that we need to look on ourselves as individuals
so yeah I would say that that is kind of um there's not like a sort of I mean actually these days it's not true if you
Google it uh usually you can find a lot of information on several different communities and on their reputation so usually it's very
easy to spot a cult um if you're I think if you have like just a basic skill in the internet to put
Buddhist inside sculpt or empathical Monastery cult [Applause] well not many many results but if there
are in fact yeah other sort of monasteries or other um places of practice
that have a bit of a dubious reputation then you can actually find a lot of material and search that material and see how
how problematics or in an environment can be so I think it's actually quite easy from my perspective at least that was the case when I was navigating also
what kind of teachings to follow and so forth to to Define uh what is occult and what is um sort of spiritual Community or
religious community not between religion and um spirituality that can be a little bit a little bit more subtle
um so all of you friends by the way are welcome to um type in any questions and comments at any time so we can also somewhat uh
follow up from from your inputs um but maybe don't if you have any other thoughts to share yeah I mean well one thing that I would
also like to say on the again the question of distinguishing um cult from religion so one thing to watch out for is when
um a person or a group claims to have the unique special secret teaching or unique special secret path which somehow nobody else in the history
of humanity has has ever figured out so one of the the distinguishing characteristics of
religions per se is that they tend to have a broad popular appeal they tend to have a certain capacity for touching the hearts of of
millions or billions of people so in the case of Buddhism for example this is talking about basic Universal truths of The Human Experience
so it's something which is accessible to pretty much anybody anybody who's interested can can look at this and see okay the Buddha is talking
about great hatred and delusion oh yeah I've got some of that the Buddha is talking about dukkha yeah I've got some of that too uh the Buddha is talking
about a simple line training practices we can do that will help to reduce our greed hatred and dilution oh I think I can do that he's talking about practices
we can do which will reduce the causes of our dukkha so that we can be happier people it's like oh that sounds pretty practical I can try some of these
things out so it's things which are uh relevant uh to a large number of people and another distinct characteristic is
the uh the openness and public availability of the dhamma so the Buddha said I teach with an open hand not with a closed Fist and what he meant by this
was that he didn't hold he didn't keep secrets uh he was just like this is the Dumber come have a look see what you think
he said he didn't keep anything secret he just openly shared the teachings and and this is because there's nothing there that needs to be hidden or
concealed uh there's nothing there which the Buddha was ashamed of or nothing which he was worried wouldn't stand up to a
public evaluation um quite the contrary in fact he was confident that um everything in the dhamma was
incontrovertible so that when when looked at then its truth would be self-evident so this is another clear characteristic
to keep in mind when working with the dhamma is that the dhamma is meant to be public so if things are being uh kept in secret
and reserved for only the select inner circled and that's that's how to automatically something to make you a little bit a little bit hesitant
uh so when there's layers and layers and layers of secrecy in an organization then that's that's something to uh raise an eyebrow at and be a little
bit cautious about getting involved um and uh another important element here which was uh alluded to was distinguishing dhamma from Adama so
Adama means non-damma or or the uh either the absence of Dharma or the opposite of dhamma or just wrong dhamma
so in Buddhist terms when we talk about the dhamma we're talking about the teachings and practices which lead to the relinquishment of Desire attachment
aversion irritation you're talking about practices which lead to the cultivation of a Clarity of mind so uh an alert attentive
uh Serene wisdom so one of the simple ways of distinguishing dhamma from Adama is is that what it leads towards
does it lead towards the reduction in one's defilements and the cultivation of this alert Serene wisdom that's one of the ways we distinguished Dharma from
adamma um also actually the Buddha in the sanketa from now go to me about the Buddha gives this this beautiful list of
eight qualities which distinguish the dhamma so does this lead to dispassion not to increasing passion that's one of the
characteristics of the dhamma does it lead to Letting Go rather than to accumulation that's another characteristic of the dumb and so on he
gives eight eight ways of evaluating dhamma from adamma oh I actually had a talk on this a few weeks ago on that particular discourse
um so those are just a few few thoughts I wanted to add to and do you want to add anything or should we start going with questions
um um Jeff says is self-immolation by some leaders members an indication of a cult
status welcome um can you define actually what you mean by self-immolation because actually when
I first read self-immolation right now the picture of the the famous picture of the Vietnamese monastic um in meditation setting themselves on
fire is what came to mind and that was clearly I don't think something that you're referring to
um that was um an act a desperate Act of protest which was because of the persecution
um of Buddhist monastics in in Vietnam back in the day so clearly not related to the the
subject matter um but I can't think of like self-fimulation oh maybe actually in your follow-up there's more is there a
danger point at which more and more stricter asceticism becomes the liberate self-harm
do you want to address that pumpkin yeah I mean I think those are actually two different questions I don't think that's maybe what self-immolation comes
um and self-immolation literally means setting yourself on fire oh okay
um so uh I mean I so the Buddha never encouraged or
recommended suicide uh so as I assume I mentioned the popular case of a Vietnamese monk publicly setting himself on fire that was a case of public
protest of protests to political Injustice so I didn't have anything to do with cold status or not that just had to do
with somebody trying to make a very powerful political statement in public um but I don't know if there's there's
Cults these days where people are encouraged to set themselves on fire if there are I recommend that you not join groups where people set themselves on
fire so just as a general rule to me that's a pretty clear warning sign um yeah the the Buddha never encouraged
um suicide the Buddha also never encouraged uh inflicting injury upon oneself so as for the question about asceticism
well the Buddha also never encouraged asceticism for its own sake oh rather what the Buddha encouraged was practicing renunciation and contentment
as ways of cultivating a happy mind as ways of weakening our desires and attachments so that we can be learn how to be happy all the time
so for example things like not eating afternoon for some people that's actually a form of strict asceticism which is just
mind-boggling for them it's like how can you possibly not eat afternoon but well we do it because it helps us to clearly see our desires and attachments
related to food and to let go of those desires and attachments that's the main reason why um
but then uh on the other hand if somebody just doesn't eat anything at all for a few weeks well that might actually wind up
becoming self-harm again it might get to a point where it's actually damaging the person's body um similarly there's
um certain practices which we do in in sometimes in monasteries which when done in moderation they're
supportive but when done to an extreme they're they're harmful so for example reducing sleep so not sleeping more than than is really
necessary that's perfectly fine but if you try to go entirely without sleep for a few days then you'll become an incoherent lunatic
which doesn't do anybody any good it doesn't lead to Awakening um so the Buddha actually went into great detail about the many kinds of
ascetic practices he did before discovering Buddhism and he also talks about how that wasn't helpful it didn't lead to an increase in wisdom
it didn't lead to uh to anything particularly particularly useful so yeah we need to make a distinction between renunciation for the sake of
contentment versus asceticism for its own sake anyway those are my thoughts
encouragement of also investigating our mind to be quite truthful of when are the filaments coming come in the way and when perhaps we have a certain idea
of certain end practice is being extremely aesthetic based on our culture you know one of my favorite examples is that in the United States usually
whenever we meet the average person who's new to um Buddhism and we say oh we are celibate practitioners are like whoa how
can you be celibate that's crazy that's insane and in Italy you know we're like oh yeah well we're celibate and they're like oh yeah okay cool and then we're
like oh but we don't eat afternoon oh my God okay great afternoon that is insane I could never do that and to a certain
degree that was actually a little bit my stance too when I first went um to a Buddhist Monastery actually the
Monastery Thai Forest tradition of agency in Italy was my first Monastery and also I stayed there actually for a week
um and I remember that the biggest gift was actually really learning experientially how arbitrary what a convention it was to
eat three times a day and how I had never questioned that Convention of eating three times a day and I was like it's just completely arbitrary also at
what time you eat and um yeah and I was like well actually here we have two um two meals it just happened at
different hours and why am I so obsessed with it has to be a at a particular hour or why am I so obsessed that it has to be three rather
than two or one um some other monasteries it's um one so anyway so there's a little bit
that's always like in the I guess contemplation of whether one thing is a horse or it's a crocodile like we really need to look into that
and Scott says I would appreciate mention of religious abuse types um what to be aware of thank you venerables I would say that the first
um thing to look at is when it comes to Buddhist communities how Selah is upheld um and this across
Traditions um I remember actually once that a big Scandal that had happened in um like I'm a hayana monastery I don't remember
which one but anyway we were meeting then we met right after with uh and he said something along the lines well you see how important it is to um
you know to practice uh the 227 precepts and I was like no I mean like five precepts so we're talking about five presets
like really like we don't have to get into multiplying and like extending like so many you know it here we're talking about really some basic precepts that
that are not held um so yeah not even being celibate but sexual misconduct isn't really really important
one not to engage in sexual misconduct and also not to use intoxicants absolutely
so of course the war precepts a monastic has the easier is actually to paradoxically hold the five precepts but
but if someone at least has uh the genuine commitment of practicing the five precepts and we can observe that and you can see that within a community
I think that's already like a good standard um of where to go by and one day I don't know a few room
yeah I think another important thing is uh does a community encourage people to question um or is questioning
um banned or forbidden or actively squelched or discouraged and of course it's also important by the
way to distinguish between different kinds of questioning so there's questioning done for the sake of better understanding and there's
questioning done for the sake of attacking so there's a way of of asking a question like oh why do you do things in this way
that's so interesting I want to understand how this practice is is helpful or what the the benefits of this particular way of doing things is or why
what's this particular teaching mean how does this teaching fit into the overall Spectrum so there's questioning with the wish to understand
and then there's questioning where it's like I hate this stupid thing why do we have to do this stupid thing so questioning us a form of attack
so of course if you come at it as an attack then you're you're not going to get good results anywhere um even in in genuine communities
generally speaking if if you come in and you're just like this is so stupid why do we have to do this then of course there nobody nobody likes that
but if you if you really ask you're like oh whoa oh this is interesting I'm not used to this why do we why do we do this like why do we bow to the senior mock or
or why do we uh put uh offerings by a Buddha statue or why do we do that so why do we do that and then if you do so with a real genuine wish to know to
understand um then that will lead to explanations or like well what is this whole rebirth thing I don't quite get it is this is
this really an important part of the dhamma like how does this fit in so someone with a genuine wish to know when they ask questions uh should be
given answers um and of course if if answers are not forthcoming then that's uh an indication of problems
that bow to most senior in virtue of Time Versus person appointed who is more awakened Etc bowing too little senior to me it seems more healthy there's group
responsibility for training anyone could end up there in Virtual random events like sickness and that also minimizes production
yeah actually I think that's the genius of the Buddha to use um a convention just uh in terms of how many vasas one has been uh ordained and
um that creates really healthy conditions um
for us to investigate the mind but also we can see that when um then it becomes when this um horse turns into a crocodile then actually
that can also be abused too and so we see um how usually then sometimes this kind of pure
um this system that is a conventional system then becomes actually a hierarchical system that is meant to oppress to certain people and then there
are later developing developments we see in Buddhist history where then they're like oh okay well actually um some people you know
um are automatically by birth more senior than some others and so these people should be always at the end of the line and these other people
should always be um at the beginning of the line etc etc and so then it doesn't become any more a convention that is a very healthy
convention but rather it these it's something that is used to diminish or not diminished to make it a little bit demeaning um towards a group of
people and that's not supportive for Spiritual practice um so personally uh when I think about
actually a really healthy way of holding these um the seniority uh two examples come to mind one actually a John pasando uh
month is preceptor and a very remarkable human being and practitioner and I remember you know he's very he's very senior so
um he's like 47 basa or something along those lines anyway post 250 so it's very difficult for him to find anyone who is
like more senior than him so usually he's always the one that is being bound on so when he came to empty Cloud Monastery we went to
visit venerable because Bobby and then our vehicle body is one Vasa more senior to a John pasando and John pasando was so much looking forward to paying
respects to venerable body he was like yes finally great I have the opportunity to pay
respects to someone who is more senior like looking forward to it not going like I'm not you know at the top of the pyramid anymore
now I have to do this diminishing practice but rather actually yeah um it was just so joyful and so beautiful to see that or some mind's sake
um and also also how he was relating actually with other people's assertive vasas around
him never thinking okay this group of people has like this particular number of buses so I'll give them this amount of time and this other group of people
has this other boss actually even if one is a monastic or not a monastic he is just available for every single person um that is interested in in asking
questions that is interested in the Dharma so him as a remarkable practitioner and one can see the wholesomeness of all these forms and how
they are upheld once again to uplift the Heart Another example is actually about this sujatha that we've been um quoting quite a bit when he also
visited here in um in New York um he we want Pina Pata with him one day and it was just the three of us actually
and I was back then still with someone eating but he decided to actually go at the end of the line
because he didn't want um for people to see that like the female monastic was at the end of the line
um because people outside don't know how many passes I have or don't have for um what was my status back then and so
yeah there was no interest for him to on his almost 30 verses or something like that so there was no nothing in his mind I was holding on to
that particular number in terms of like well I'm supposed to be to be there I'm supposed to be yeah having any type of kind of sort of
status but rather it was practic practical he was like all right so you're familiar with the on Sprout so you just go the top of the line and I
assume I'm sorry it'll have to be in the middle because I can't have Bitcoin music at the end I'm like okay so so yeah I would say that one can
really see um so much and you know on the receiving end actually when we are paying respects
we can also see how easy for example it is to pay respects to someone like um or how easy it is to pay respects to someone who is
or senior monastics but also like really great have really great conduct and then also how triggering it is to our ego to actually bow to someone who's
a really unimpressive monastic um but they just happen to be more senior than us and they they you know maybe are very not
knowledgeable about the in either dominant vinaya they're a little bit unimpressive in their conduct maybe they're short tempered they're actually
outright like um you know mean maybe and how many on holds the Mind States we can actually produce in our mind
whatever or pay respects them like they didn't deserve this [Music] why do I have to do this thing Etc and
so let's see once again that then that is an opportunity for training it's an opportunity to see our defilements and an opportunity to
really see what is the purpose of bowing it's not you know to pay respects necessarily to one particular person
um but to pay respects to love that person signifies um so seniority represents a long-term
commitment to practice so as I have someone was saying sometimes they're bound to somebody who as an individual they're not
particularly respectable um but we're not bowing to the individual we're bowing to what an individual represents which is this
long-term dedicated commitment to spiritual practice yeah and then we'll go into more detail on this during the the topic tomorrow
we'll be talking about cultivating reverence I think we can talk in more detail about it then great and Joseph says what can we do to remain
heat full of dangers with those groups or organizations that have a Dunlap wrapper but have secretive even abusive levels and other teachings for an inner
circle well I mean uh as I was mentioning earlier uh if a group does have secret Inner Circle teachings that's usually a
good sign to keep distance um and especially if you start to learn a bit about those secret inner teachings um well compare them to
what the public teachings are compared to the Buddha's open-handed teachings um so I'm not going to name the name of a particular organization but there's
one particular organization I know of which is actually quite popular in Thailand not so much outside Thailand uh and they have their secret teachings
but this is the age of the internet where it's really hard to keep secrets for long so there are secret teachings have all been published on the internet
if you know where to look and I started reading through their secret teachings and I was just like OMG like these people really went like
completely off the rails and it's all out there to see if you want to see their secret teachings and line it up against the sutas and you'll be like wow
this is some serious creative writing here and that creative writing is then used to justify abuse of power in uh money embezzlement and all kinds of
other unwholesome things so again and also as ismo was saying earlier like how does a community hold
virtue and morality one of the distinctive characteristics of an awakened being is that an awakened being naturally has perfect virtue
so if a group is saying like well the more awakened you are the less morality applies to you in a fully awakened being might lie and cheat and steal and do
whatever they want because they're not attached to morality well that's a pretty clear sign that their teachings are not leading to Awakening
so if they're if their teacher is sexually abusing their students and embezzling money from people well that's a pretty good sign that you should stay
far away okay thank you and Jeff is clarifying sorry thought self-immolation had a much
broader meaning of deliberate self-harm for the sake of religion not limited in meeting to setting oneself alike understood yeah immolation literally
means to be consumed with fire uh so self-immolation is specifically it means burning yourself
hardcore and not handling money but I heard you can't take Earth or run haha well technically running is not forbidden
um it's discouraged but it's technically not breaking the vineyard as far as I know but it's discouraged because it looks very undignified
especially with the robes robes like flapping all over the place it's it's not not so great um as for digging Earth I mean that's if
we start getting into discussing like various minor points of monastic discipline we're going to be here all day
uh long story short it doesn't matter like you can follow that rule and your life will be pretty much the same as before
um and as for why we have that ruled again if we start getting into these sorts of refine points it's going to take forever so if you
really want to know these sorts of detailed refinements of veneer practice then you should just come in and become a monastic then you'll learn all about
it um yeah I mean if if you're like I can't possibly
become a monk because I'm too attached to digging then I don't even know what to say to you laughs
and Vero says could you explain the differences between the outcome of requesting forgiveness and Buddhism and Catholicism confession I would say those
are actually too radically different um practices what I would say might be a little bit more similar um would be actually the the act of
confessing offenses that we have in Buddhism of monastics and the confession and Catholicism
but at the very beginning since I was born in a Catholic country I was actually quite triggered by [Applause]
because of the over somewhat overlap um that I was perceiving I also fun fact had a bit of a trigger with Karma because
um you can make Karma through thoughts I was right I was like oh it's just like Catholicism sinning
through body speech and mine and we also have omissions in um in in Catholicism so sometimes when we have these like strong emotions it can also happen that
we want to reject everything all together based on whatever kind of impulse well very important to look at that because that actually has nothing
to do with whether something is calledish or something is you know religious Etc usually that kind of impulse that has more to do with
um our wrong view or our pre-existing you know attachment to a particular way of
of things um so I'll answer the question that I rephrased
it's similar but different um in the way that my understanding uh within Catholicism is that one top like confesses uh their mistakes and
then there is like a sort of procedure that in theory removes that sin and one becomes pure pure of it
so one can actually equate this a little bit um from my misunderstanding if there's a Catholic who knows things better than I
do that's please feel free to correct me but my understanding from studying the teachings is a little bit like Brahmin ID like idea of essentially if you
committed sin or bad day bad day to go and immerse yourself in the water and the act of immersion purifies you from that sin
in Buddhism um we actually don't have that um in the sense that we do confess it but we confess it as an act of okay I
acknowledge that I made this misdeed and I commit not to do it again but I will still reap the consequences of that comma
so if you don't want to reap the consequences of that comma which can be obviously according to the offense according to the thing that one has the
precept that one has broken it can't be trivial so the results all the way to some serious you know uh results
the the act of confession is just there to create the infrastructure for us to acknowledge that something is unwholesome and to commit not to do it
again but also not to like self-flagellate like oh I'm such a bad person like my dog in you know hole in the ground not
terrible I'm going to go to hell no that's not the point but it's rather like okay I had actually taken this commitment not to do this
and um I broke this precept so maybe perhaps my determination
um my commit commitment to to training is weakened as of ipaka as an effect whatever it is um but
David Paka will will come into being no matter what so that's the main difference in terms of the act of requesting forgiveness maybe
Bunty you can talk about that like the well I mean what is commonly done as far as asking forgiveness is when um either when one is about to leave a
monastery or when a visiting senior has been at the monastery and they were about to leave then commonly there's a short ceremony of asking forgiveness
and uh it's not just kind of a blanket statement of um if I've done anything my body speech or mind which was offensive uh please
forgive me um so it's just kind of a blanket statement of just um asking forgiveness for anything we
might have done that was offensive or inappropriate and in that ceremony then also the senior also replies and and please forgive me as well
um so it's a mutual acknowledgment that sometimes we make mistakes when we're around each other sometimes we we do things that are rude or improper uh and
it's a a statement that we actually are trying to be better and in the meantime we're asking each other to be to be patient and tolerant
with each other so I actually find it a very beautiful uh very beautiful ceremony because it is a reminder of these basic principles of
of community life and so it says dear venerables does one truly need a group to practice
don't need anything more than the sudasa seems like there is more danger of falling into calls and wrong views with groups
um I would say that absolutely on the instant group um to practice the Buddha says the entire path not half of
the path but the entire path oh so it's actually yeah our in Enlightenment is dependently a reason uh and one of those elements is having
supportive kalyanamitas they help us going in the you know in Mahayana um
monasteries they say like flowing like a river um so yeah there is quite a bit of momentum you know if you have like a
little like stream of going all together then you know just a little drop by itself like doesn't leave anywhere and doesn't want
anything so there's there's that there's one need anything more than the suttas yes understanding and if we actually fully understood the dhamma then we
would be fully awakened so clearly we don't quite understand them we can't you think we can be actually very arrogant about our intelligence especially these
days that the majority of people are relatively highly educated and so the intellectual understanding of the dhamma leaves nowhere
like it's just a cute little thing to impress your your friends maybe um and become more arrogant possibly but
you want a little bit of that can be a support but usually what I see personally is that most often than not it's actually used quite unskillfully
what we want to do is actually understand experientially the dhamma and you understand experientially the dhamma by
well first of all um having people who are ahead of you in the past
to see that actually it's possible to cultivate wholesome qualities of mind to meet remarkable remarkable beings go like give me some of that yes I want
that too um to see the embodiment of the dhamma in both yeah once again and really developed
practitioners but also in in communities like it's all like it's all entrenched we can't separate one from the other also in terms of wrong view I would
actually say that there's a stronger risk of developing wrong view when you're by yourself so one of the the benefits of dhamma
discussion uh with other people is that it helps to uh clarify one's right views and to remove one's wrong views so through done
a discussion with others you'll start to see where you've misunderstood things or where you've missed out on important details or where you've you've got
something a little bit a little bit off um so it's it's actually really important um so reading the sotos is actually
really important but discussing the suit does discussing the dhamma with other people is what makes sure that your views are are right and that you're
not getting off into your own strange ideas we are also living or being surrounded by other practitioners
um you have much easier time for people to actually point out your defects which is something that actually we really look forward to we're looking
forward to in our dama practice we don't want to be surrounded by people who tell us how great we are night and day because that won't make us
progress but we want people who actually highlight our flaws highlight our response was mentioning are wrong views so then we can become aware of them
you know it's kind of like the the friends that actually tell you if you have like a piece of lettuce like stuck in your teeth
you're like grateful you're like okay thank you very much now I don't have to embarrass myself with like you know all the people that you know I want to
impress them for my work or whatever [Applause] but instead that's exactly what we do like when we think that uh we have it
all we just go around with this like big chunk of like um lettuce and yeah
uh other type of disgusting food stuck in our teeth and we think our teeth are all white and Splendid and um flashy
so yeah so it also says perhaps we're more protected nowadays since you don't
necessarily have to leave your living room to experience a group setting without ever leaving the group setting perhaps it's more productive
I would say as much as possible so try to go to yeah a flesh and Bone environment of course sometimes there are
limitations in uh what we can do so virtual is better than nothing um but let's go through
celestino hello Texas watching from Italy one on organic has become our hands or newly appointed mocks should they bow to other Elder monks yes
oh actually an R Hunt is naturally referential naturally respectful so the and one of the searches the Buddha says one who lives without
reverence uh lives in suffering um and actually the Buddha himself after he attained Awakening he had this little moment of like oh now I don't have
anyone to pay respects to he's like now now that I'm the most Supreme Being in the whole world I don't have anyone to pay respects to how
unfortunate and I was like well I'll just pay respects to the dumb itself uh that's the one thing that I can
always respect so uh those of us who are not the Buddha uh we have the great Fortune of having senior people that we can pay respects
to so even in the extraordinarily unlikely situation of an anagarka of salmon era or newly appointed monk becoming an our hunt again extremely
rare extremely unlikely but even if it happened they would still joyfully without hesitation pay respects to the senior moms
yeah there is always my favorite um example of who got the householder that even though UGA is a non-returner when he's declaring his wonderful
qualities of mine that always brings so much joy to my mind he's like you know uh if I meet a monastic it doesn't matter basically uh if they
oh this I'm adding if they're like inferior to me but it's like whenever I meet a monastic I will wait for them to give me a dhamma talk and then if they
don't give me a Dharma talk I won't give them a talk out of compassion so it doesn't matter if it's like the first guy who just stood in the day before
yesterday and a guy or gal whatever you say in English the first person the other day and that are full of defilements but out of reverence towards
once again what they represent you will never like oh hey I'm not a returner like let me give you the dama thought so
actually that is quite an indication of the arrogance of someone rather than the humbleness that actually comes from this
path from the effacement that comes from from this path um the Buddha is very very clear on how you know all the different states for
example that we can get in meditation they're like comfortable abidings but really what we want to do is shave off all of these
arrogance shave off all that like craving to be at the top of the pyramid you know the majority of things that I see whenever people struggle with the
hierarchy is really because they're not on the top of the hierarchy it's just because they are at the bottom um and they're like
oh my God this hierarchy is so intolerable that's because they don't have the patience to get up on those who have the patients that are still
arrogant then they become the Arrogant uh people that start using these systems in an unskillful way that turn the horse into an alligator by the way seniority
is really easy you don't actually have to do anything at all you just have to wait just wait a few years and suddenly
you'll be senior it's really incredible how this works yeah but you know if you want to be on the top of it then just household life so much more fun to be on
the box ever you know want to pick you know monastic form for that but
so anyway I hope this was beneficial or right the end of it just um one minute late it did quite well
so thank you all for joining in and uh for asking all these very good questions so this evening bante will be um sharing some
studies on 10 daily Recollections that we were mentioning earlier and tomorrow morning we will have another Sangha panel on reverence so it will be
somewhat related to what we spoke this morning and possibly we also have a third monastic who will be joining the the panel
um who will it be you will just only discover [Applause] if you tune in oh and I think there is
uh maybe one last question from them do you think that if one says he's a stream enter once returner they have really achieved it it seems more like they're
still dealing with their own Sakia that's a guy sorry um yeah I mean to be perfectly honest usually if people go around saying that
they're stream answers that's usually a sign that they aren't um but that's and that's a whole other story talking about how to identify
stream mentors um but yeah um arrogantly bragging about one's own attainments is usually a sign that somebody doesn't have attainments
okay and Dan says a John Brown I think quoting one of his teachers anagarika hazana
second monkey household there is householder Etc
great quote all right well um we can end this morning with three sados
foreign