Conversations from the Flames #1
September 11, 2018
A brilliant idea by Damo - to share conversations from our little get-togethers. Our 'winter editions' happened to fall on Fridays mostly, and we would light a fire and sit around talking into the night -- we call them 'Friday Night Fires'.
A little snippet that's been really helping me this week. (Hardcore just paraphrasing from what I can remember)
7 September 2018
Damo, Ash and Khema
"When something arises in the mind, immediately it knows it as 'sakkaya-ditthi'*. That's what all the brain-washing has done."
"All the Sumedho talks."
* personality view / self-view
Edit: should have given more context...
The Buddha teaches us that all conditioned phenomena in the world are anattā, that is they are devoid of an essence or core -- their nature is empty, there is no 'self' or 'identity' or 'personality' at the core of things. This seems so contrary to our whole experience of reality, where everything centers around the 'I'. But the more we investigate the mind, the more we realise the things that arise - bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc. - do not belong to us. They arise and pass away at their own accord; we are not at all in control.
But we don't understand things in this way -- we readily identify with all things that arise, taking them as 'me' or 'mine'. This is what leads to great suffering. For example, when a feeling of annoyance arises, we may want to get rid of it immediately, but we cannot - we are not in control, although we may think we are.
So it helps to recognise that we have this sakkaya-ditthi or personality view built into our psyche - and to undo it with conscious awareness, by simply knowing how it is.
Ajahn Sumedho (I can't remember in which talk now - sorry!) speaks about getting to know ourselves as a personality -- knowing that when this happens, you tend to react in such a way; knowing when that happens, you tend to react in such a way. How I understand it is it is as if getting to know yourself as a separate character, a different person made of just this combination of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, body, etc. It helps to de-personalise the whole process, which is quite liberating.
So it's a bit like playing Sims, right? Your character might have a really angry temperament that gets triggered when, let's say, people on the sidewalk walk super slowly. When the feeling of annoyance arises, you know that this is just how it is when people are in your way. That's just how you are, or rather, that's just how this personality is. No biggie. It's not real, just a result of conditioning. So staying with that awareness as a refuge makes the whole thing very light-hearted, like a game. 'I get extremely frustrated when people in front of me walk very slowly. It's like the worst thing you can do in the history of things.' When we look at it and see it as sakkaya-ditthi, de-personalised, it seems laughable, ridiculous almost. Then, we can learn to laugh at ourselves because we know it's just delusion arising from personality view.
* personality view / self-view
The Buddha teaches us that all conditioned phenomena in the world are anattā, that is they are devoid of an essence or core -- their nature is empty, there is no 'self' or 'identity' or 'personality' at the core of things. This seems so contrary to our whole experience of reality, where everything centers around the 'I'. But the more we investigate the mind, the more we realise the things that arise - bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc. - do not belong to us. They arise and pass away at their own accord; we are not at all in control.
But we don't understand things in this way -- we readily identify with all things that arise, taking them as 'me' or 'mine'. This is what leads to great suffering. For example, when a feeling of annoyance arises, we may want to get rid of it immediately, but we cannot - we are not in control, although we may think we are.
So it helps to recognise that we have this sakkaya-ditthi or personality view built into our psyche - and to undo it with conscious awareness, by simply knowing how it is.
Ajahn Sumedho (I can't remember in which talk now - sorry!) speaks about getting to know ourselves as a personality -- knowing that when this happens, you tend to react in such a way; knowing when that happens, you tend to react in such a way. How I understand it is it is as if getting to know yourself as a separate character, a different person made of just this combination of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, body, etc. It helps to de-personalise the whole process, which is quite liberating.
So it's a bit like playing Sims, right? Your character might have a really angry temperament that gets triggered when, let's say, people on the sidewalk walk super slowly. When the feeling of annoyance arises, you know that this is just how it is when people are in your way. That's just how you are, or rather, that's just how this personality is. No biggie. It's not real, just a result of conditioning. So staying with that awareness as a refuge makes the whole thing very light-hearted, like a game. 'I get extremely frustrated when people in front of me walk very slowly. It's like the worst thing you can do in the history of things.' When we look at it and see it as sakkaya-ditthi, de-personalised, it seems laughable, ridiculous almost. Then, we can learn to laugh at ourselves because we know it's just delusion arising from personality view.
Go well, friends 🌻
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