WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.300 Teachers: So I'll be continuing on this theme of 2 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:09.680 Teachers: the path factor of perspective 3 00:00:10.470 --> 00:00:17.340 Teachers: deceit carry on from Stephen's talk this morning 4 00:00:17.560 --> 00:00:33.649 Teachers: I had an interesting experience of perspective when I was in Europe in February. There's apparently a yeah, a major motorway that runs north-south throughout Europe. 5 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:40.009 Teachers: called the and many, many roads feed into it and out of it. 6 00:00:40.110 --> 00:00:42.889 Teachers: and the E. 6. And the southern end 7 00:00:43.590 --> 00:00:46.650 Teachers: ends in Rome, thus 8 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:51.909 Teachers: reinforcing the wisdom of the Roman Empire, that 9 00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:55.050 Teachers: all roads lead to Rome. 10 00:00:55.080 --> 00:01:08.080 Teachers: and I guess it was a convenient thought for the many popes that all roads lead to Rome, but in February I was in Chicago. 11 00:01:08.380 --> 00:01:14.799 Teachers: which is a battling Arctic town of 5,000 souls. 12 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:24.889 Teachers: On the Norwegian side of the Russian border, and right next door to North Cape, where Europe ends this wonderful. 13 00:01:25.330 --> 00:01:27.600 grandly bleak 14 00:01:27.910 --> 00:01:33.709 Teachers: headland, looking straight across at the at the North Pole. 15 00:01:34.210 --> 00:01:42.450 Teachers: and the people of Shoe Canals assured me that the East, the northern end of the E. 6 16 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:50.049 Teachers: is there in Shoekanes, and that all roads lead to Shokanes. 17 00:01:50.430 --> 00:02:01.410 Teachers: and I thought this was a wonderful conceit. And, after all, why not? You know, if you get on the a 6, and you're going in the wrong direction. That's presumably where you 18 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:10.850 Teachers: in that so it's a question of you know your own situation. Where? How you are 19 00:02:11.330 --> 00:02:14.190 Teachers: perceiving reality. 20 00:02:14.550 --> 00:02:23.960 Teachers: Another somewhat more important example of perspective 21 00:02:24.520 --> 00:02:34.669 Teachers: that I've come across is a little memoir of about 3 or 4 pages, written by Sigmund Freud. 22 00:02:34.790 --> 00:02:50.649 Teachers: and the occasion that he is remembering is in the high summer of 1,914, just a couple of months before the catastrophe. The First World War breaks out. 23 00:02:51.430 --> 00:02:55.430 Teachers: So Freud and 2 companions 24 00:02:55.510 --> 00:03:07.539 Teachers: are hiking in the Italian Alps in the Dolomites, and it's high summer. It's a beautiful day. The flowers are out, the birds are singing, the bees are buzzing, and 25 00:03:07.770 --> 00:03:13.290 Teachers: Freud just gets completely blissed out by the sheer beauty around him. 26 00:03:14.010 --> 00:03:39.809 Teachers: But then he notices that his 2 companions aren't on the same page, and one of them he describes as a young, already established poet of taciturn disposition, and these 2 characters absolutely refuse to engage with the beauty around him. 27 00:03:40.170 --> 00:03:55.190 Teachers: and the the reason they state is. Look! In 3 months time it'll be autumn. The flowers will have shriveled, the leaves would have fallen off the trees, the birds, the migratory birds will have 28 00:03:55.250 --> 00:04:00.539 Teachers: moved south, and it'll be just a nasty, bleak hillside. 29 00:04:00.900 --> 00:04:07.810 Teachers: and Freud says he found this reaction unfathomable. 30 00:04:08.440 --> 00:04:16.170 Teachers: You can imagine him. You read between his lines, and he's rolling his eyes, thinking what the hell is wrong with these people. 31 00:04:16.190 --> 00:04:28.160 Teachers: And he puts on his diagnostic hat as he is want to do, and figures out that their problem was a refusal to mourn 32 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:45.810 Teachers: that they they it was a fear of mourning, and therefore a refusal to engage with anything that would cause them to mourn when it proved to be transient, and is. 33 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:49.749 Teachers: you say it's called on transient on transients 34 00:04:50.080 --> 00:05:04.080 Teachers: which should prick many a Buddhist ear. Given the title. So Freud Freud is sort of saying, if you you, you can't fully be fully alive 35 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:18.530 Teachers: to to life, and particularly the joys of life if you are not prepared to mourn when they come to an end, as of course everything does, so that you find that in 36 00:05:19.580 --> 00:05:38.539 Teachers: Volume 14 of the collected works, and also in that volume you will find what I guess is the carry on of that notion. In his, in his much more famous essay called Mourning and Melancholia. 37 00:05:39.480 --> 00:06:01.239 Teachers: And here again we're right in the heart of the first task, as Stephen has explained it, you can take it as embracing life or embracing suffering. But from the point of view that Freud is opening up, it doesn't matter which one you choose. 38 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:14.259 Teachers: because, if you are fully alive. If you're fully engaged, if you are fully in touch with others, particularly intimate others. 39 00:06:14.330 --> 00:06:17.830 Teachers: then you are going to suffer this 40 00:06:18.260 --> 00:06:36.289 Teachers: intense suffering of mourning, assuming you get to middle aged and middle aged, and your parents die, or your friends die, or even your children die, or you are forced into exile from your beloved home aid. 41 00:06:36.590 --> 00:06:49.880 Teachers: Any form of serious loss will occasion a mourning, but the morning can be can be refused. 42 00:06:50.150 --> 00:06:58.310 Teachers: and people who, like these 2 characters on the Italian mountains. So I say, we're not going there. 43 00:06:58.540 --> 00:07:02.489 Teachers: and there was the effect of that 44 00:07:02.670 --> 00:07:24.599 Teachers: is that if you don't choose mourning, you choose melancholia instead of mourning the dead, you join the dead is essentially what Freud is is saying, and so what does it mean to mourn? It means really to 45 00:07:24.600 --> 00:07:43.900 Teachers: enter into that experience fully to embrace the suffering, and it will be so intense in particular cases, whether you know a beloved spouse or a beloved parent, or someone like that, that you will go crazy. 46 00:07:44.140 --> 00:07:50.720 Teachers: And he makes this quite clear that if you exhibited these symptoms 47 00:07:51.500 --> 00:08:02.009 Teachers: in any other state you would be diagnosed. But this is not a diagnosable problem, this one. It's something that 48 00:08:02.270 --> 00:08:26.669 Teachers: you need to go through in order to make the enormous psychic adjustment, because we are all you know, we live in relation to other people, and when significant others are lost, it means a substantial shift in the whole architecture of of our minds. And so you go through this process 49 00:08:26.670 --> 00:08:33.810 Teachers: process and at the end of it, and it can take 12 months or much longer. He 50 00:08:34.412 --> 00:08:38.030 says you will recover your Eros. 51 00:08:38.220 --> 00:08:46.109 Teachers: and by Eros he meant, I suppose, what we would call Mojo, your Joard Vivre. 52 00:08:46.650 --> 00:08:51.289 Teachers: It's odd that English doesn't have a word for it so the Germanic languages 53 00:08:51.550 --> 00:09:21.349 Teachers: have it, and I think all the Romance languages have one. But we don't. The joy of being alive. You recover that. He's not saying you'll find closure that ghastly cliche these days that you find closure as if it's never happened. You will never do that. The grief will always be there, but it won't be there in a way that will inhibit your full participation 54 00:09:21.350 --> 00:09:25.129 Teachers: in life and your enjoyment of life. 55 00:09:25.640 --> 00:09:27.440 So 56 00:09:27.490 --> 00:09:33.910 Teachers: There's a wonderful dramatization of this process in 57 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:36.410 Teachers: Joan Didion's book. 58 00:09:37.040 --> 00:09:40.269 Teachers: The Year of magical thinking. 59 00:09:40.410 --> 00:09:45.860 Teachers: and she was married for about 40 years from memory. and it was a 60 00:09:45.930 --> 00:09:56.450 Teachers: to a man whom she loved dearly, and who was not only a husband, but her partner in her creative endeavors as a writer, as a screenwriter. 61 00:09:56.510 --> 00:09:57.650 Teachers: and so on. 62 00:09:57.780 --> 00:10:02.519 Teachers: and suddenly he just dropped dead at the dinner table and 63 00:10:02.530 --> 00:10:24.719 Teachers: she went into. Fortunately she'd read Morning melancholy, because you keep one eye on the text, but she goes through the extraordinary, extraordinarily violent convolutions of her emotions during this period. I mean, she knew she was crazy, but she knew she would come out of it. She knew it was 64 00:10:24.730 --> 00:10:27.190 Teachers: a normal craziness. 65 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:33.859 Teachers: And it's she is a brilliant writer, and it's a it's a wonderful example of how 66 00:10:33.920 --> 00:10:55.429 Teachers: a mourning process occurs, and through letting it be as Stephen was talking about in these terms of letting it be in terms of Heidegger's Galassan height that you don't try and stop it. You just let it run its course. 67 00:10:56.090 --> 00:10:59.730 Teachers: I think that that whole idea of going through that 68 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:02.509 Teachers: and returning to life 69 00:11:02.550 --> 00:11:07.790 Teachers: this time as a somewhat deeper kind of person, probably 70 00:11:08.100 --> 00:11:15.569 Teachers: almost inevitably is, is one that we need to keep in mind in thinking about 71 00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:19.239 Teachers: that first task of embracing. 72 00:11:19.790 --> 00:11:28.070 Teachers: of embracing life or embracing suffering whichever way you want to put it. Obviously we don't need to do anything about 73 00:11:28.230 --> 00:11:36.790 Teachers: periods of exceptional happiness. But we do need to do something about periods of significant loss which we are 74 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:45.390 Teachers: all going to experience. If we, you know, live to be a certain age. So 75 00:11:46.270 --> 00:11:52.379 Teachers: hold that sort, and I'll come to another memory. In 2,005 76 00:11:52.610 --> 00:12:03.589 Teachers: I was listening to the encounter program which was celebrating its year on ABC. Radio National. 77 00:12:03.730 --> 00:12:07.349 Teachers: and there was a 78 00:12:07.520 --> 00:12:20.619 Teachers: an American Catholic priest and emeritus professor of divinity from University, the the school of divinity in Chicago, who was 79 00:12:22.340 --> 00:12:43.210 Teachers: doing an interview on the subject of tragic vision, the abandoned vision of the West. Now, what Tracy was criticizing very forcefully was the whole modern Western mindset 80 00:12:44.100 --> 00:12:49.379 Teachers: which sort of starts with a default the default position 81 00:12:49.410 --> 00:12:58.169 Teachers: that life should be, you know, plain sailing that we get what we want and we do what we want, and nothing much 82 00:12:58.670 --> 00:13:00.060 stops us. 83 00:13:00.270 --> 00:13:03.120 Teachers: But then something does stop us. 84 00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:10.169 Teachers: It could be a car. Accident could be losing a job or something like that. 85 00:13:10.220 --> 00:13:34.209 Teachers: All those catastrophes occur in Yuppie catastrophe films like changing lanes. Something happens and that becomes a problem and a problem invites a solution. So we have a problem. We look for the solution, we apply the solution, and that should be the end of the matter. 86 00:13:34.430 --> 00:13:42.680 Teachers: And he's saying that this is an extraordinarily superficial way to live, and also, of course. 87 00:13:42.710 --> 00:13:48.840 Teachers: delusional, because a lot of the problems. I simply do not have solutions. 88 00:13:49.800 --> 00:14:06.040 Teachers: So he strongly argues for the resurrection of tragic vision which he sees as something that the West has had since the Greek tragedians of the 89 00:14:06.300 --> 00:14:10.650 fifth century, Bce. In other words, contemporaries 90 00:14:10.690 --> 00:14:14.240 Teachers: of the Buddha. And 91 00:14:14.730 --> 00:14:21.779 Teachers: you just pointed very crudely. The tragic vision says you simply 92 00:14:22.070 --> 00:14:38.900 Teachers: embrace you. Accept the really bad stuff that is coming your way. Shit happens. Suck it up if you like, in in our terms these days, but 93 00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:59.479 Teachers: not only that, but one should respond to it, that this is what you find in the Greek tragedies, and you find in Shakespeare that that there's there's a requirement to respond. You can't just lie down and take it or pretend it's not happening. And Tracy was very much 94 00:14:59.740 --> 00:15:05.930 Teachers: enamored of the French philosopher, Simon Veil, on this subject. 95 00:15:06.280 --> 00:15:17.099 Teachers: Now, even if you know your response is hopeless, like hers fighting against the Nazi regime. 96 00:15:17.130 --> 00:15:44.809 Teachers: You've got to respond. You've got to say yes to life. And this was, I suppose, his fundamental point. The tragic vision teaches us to say yes, to life, embrace life, no matter what. And he also quotes the great Catholic Meister Eckhart, and saying, Learn to live without the why 97 00:15:44.980 --> 00:15:50.270 Teachers: WHY. Learn to stop arguing with what 98 00:15:50.370 --> 00:16:13.890 Teachers: happened, and respond to it in the best way you possibly can. And this is, of course, where the human dignity of someone who's happened to whom tragedy has occurred is that it's in their response. And they're saying yes to life. In their assertion of their agency. 99 00:16:14.050 --> 00:16:29.599 Teachers: no matter how ineffectual it might be, and certainly none of us have more than partial agency in our life process. A very important lesson in the in the tragic. 100 00:16:29.610 --> 00:16:34.010 Teachers: in in the tragic tradition. 101 00:16:34.540 --> 00:16:50.209 Teachers: I'm just reminded of something that the Norwegian novelist, Karl Ulver Knalskord said, indifference is one of the 7 deadly sins. 102 00:16:50.340 --> 00:16:55.609 Teachers: and then he corrects himself and says, actually, it's the greatest of them. 103 00:16:56.070 --> 00:17:02.380 Teachers: So this is again a message, you know, from the past, I guess, about 104 00:17:02.730 --> 00:17:12.619 Teachers: how to be a human being asserting your dignity, and what agency you have in any situation. 105 00:17:13.339 --> 00:17:14.829 Teachers: So 106 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:20.289 Teachers: I'll probably be saying a bit more about about the 107 00:17:20.450 --> 00:17:38.529 Teachers: the the tragic tradition. And of course it's not just the Greeks. It comes to us as English speakers through Shakespeare. The the 4 or 5 great tragedies that that he deals with. I tend to throw Coriolanus into the 108 00:17:39.040 --> 00:17:46.359 Teachers: into the mix there, too. But what? What? It's 109 00:17:46.620 --> 00:17:48.889 Teachers: the themes that are coming through. 110 00:17:49.190 --> 00:17:57.630 Teachers: and I think there are themes that we can really relate to Dharma. Practice, too, is precisely grappling with our 111 00:17:57.670 --> 00:18:13.640 Teachers: partial agency, that there are things there are causes and conditions that limit what we can, what we can do or how we can respond, and that is something we really have to grapple with 112 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:24.480 Teachers: a second one which is absolutely connected with the themes of this retreat, the ethics of uncertainty 113 00:18:24.710 --> 00:18:51.749 Teachers: that the you know, the protagonists in tragedies don't know what to do. They're in situations that are intractable or uncertain where you know where things are going. And so they're constantly asking a question, and even the chorus is asking a question, what shall I do? 114 00:18:52.150 --> 00:19:01.060 Teachers: What is going to happen to me? So that sort of uncertainty is something we can 115 00:19:01.090 --> 00:19:02.840 revived today. 116 00:19:03.060 --> 00:19:07.180 Teachers: after many, many centuries of 117 00:19:07.910 --> 00:19:31.270 Teachers: people in the West, believing there was a big daddy up there who had a plan, and everything was going according to plan, and everything was under control, even if it was awful, and that what we had to do was follow the rules you know what God wants and what we have in common 118 00:19:31.400 --> 00:19:35.760 Teachers: with the ancient Greeks, and 119 00:19:35.850 --> 00:19:38.999 Teachers: we see with 120 00:19:39.140 --> 00:19:56.980 Teachers: Gotamar Adi's contemporaries is, we have known that we don't have a big daddy. We don't have anyone who's even in our world's imagination in control. And yet we have to respond to what is going on. 121 00:19:57.740 --> 00:20:10.809 Teachers: So this is this, this moral ambiguity runs through the tragic tradition, and it's certainly something we all experience in our complex world today. 122 00:20:12.130 --> 00:20:19.740 Teachers: so I think I'll just mention 123 00:20:20.430 --> 00:20:25.670 Teachers: I, the philosopher's whose book 124 00:20:25.900 --> 00:20:52.390 Teachers: on this subject. Both Steven and I have read by Simon Critchley on Perspective and the tragic tradition, and and he also is raising these these issues out of it about our fragility, our vulnerability, the snags that threaten to derail our lives. 125 00:20:52.420 --> 00:20:55.559 Teachers: our projects. and so forth. 126 00:20:55.950 --> 00:21:09.390 Teachers: and the other thing that is so important to to the Greeks in particular is that the that the the tragedies play out in a civic 127 00:21:09.690 --> 00:21:17.249 Teachers: dimension? What is at stake is that not just the it's not just the 128 00:21:17.490 --> 00:21:21.200 Teachers: well being of the individual, but the wellbeing of the city. 129 00:21:21.250 --> 00:21:27.409 Teachers: and particularly in a story like that of Oedipus wrecks. 130 00:21:27.780 --> 00:21:41.429 Teachers: who is bringing pollution into civic affairs, and that is the great issue that is being staged when when that when that particular play is presented. 131 00:21:42.550 --> 00:21:44.240 Teachers: so 132 00:21:45.580 --> 00:21:57.190 Teachers: What Crichly says is that each generation has the responsibility to reinvent the classics. 133 00:21:57.300 --> 00:22:20.390 Teachers: And I guess that's what we're doing at this retreat. We're reinventing the Apefo path. So this is this is a reason why we should never let go of the past, as he also, as he also says, we might think we're through with the past. 134 00:22:20.430 --> 00:22:23.079 Teachers: But the past is not through with us. 135 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:30.809 Teachers: so maybe I'll leave it at that, and we've got 20 min for 136 00:22:32.360 --> 00:22:37.740 Teachers: Q&A. And discussion. Then we're going to have 137 00:22:37.770 --> 00:22:43.730 Teachers: half an hour for afternoon tea, and then we come back again. 2, 138 00:22:43.850 --> 00:22:48.899 Teachers: yeah. I'll talk about this further. 139 00:22:49.090 --> 00:22:51.640 Teachers: So over to you. 140 00:22:54.210 --> 00:23:03.919 Teachers: Gavin, could you just say a bit more about. Could you just say a bit more about what you mean by moral ambiguity in the way you've been talking about it. 141 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:21.160 Teachers: Well, it's just the problem of what is the right thing to do in any particular situation, because it's it's not clear. I mean, if we were, if we believed in God, and and thought we knew what God wanted, we would do it. 142 00:23:22.140 --> 00:23:26.419 But we're in a situation where we don't know what to do. 143 00:23:26.560 --> 00:23:36.580 Teachers: and that's often because of the way we ourselves are in a gray area between knowing and not knowing. 144 00:23:37.340 --> 00:23:39.520 Teachers: And that's something I think I'll talk about 145 00:23:40.130 --> 00:23:44.630 Teachers: in a later session. But 146 00:23:44.810 --> 00:23:55.270 Teachers: that's part of part of the ambiguity is whether we are prepared to know what we have constructive knowledge of. 147 00:23:55.300 --> 00:24:04.680 Teachers: You know. I mean, you think here, in the case of the ghost, in many stories. what is the function of the ghost it is to 148 00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:08.470 is to remind us of something 149 00:24:08.600 --> 00:24:18.910 Teachers: we oh, we did know and forgotten, or we hope we've forgotten. and to remind us to do something about it. So 150 00:24:20.020 --> 00:24:25.580 Teachers: princes, the ghost tells him what he already knows. 151 00:24:26.020 --> 00:24:34.300 Teachers: that his uncle has murdered his father, and he has to do something about it, but he doesn't know 152 00:24:34.320 --> 00:24:36.640 what it is is to do. 153 00:24:36.790 --> 00:24:38.650 Teachers: and he's in that. 154 00:24:39.560 --> 00:24:44.010 Teachers: In in that situation of moral ambiguity, you know, this is now 155 00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:53.609 Teachers: his mother's husband, and killing is wrong. Killing the king is wrong, and so on. There's a moral ambiguity there. 156 00:24:55.700 --> 00:25:00.929 Teachers: There's another. There's only one up there that 157 00:25:02.940 --> 00:25:04.350 Teachers: no. 158 00:25:05.980 --> 00:25:08.160 Teachers: yes. Andy 159 00:25:16.150 --> 00:25:21.300 Teachers: Andy, thanks, Wenton a lot to digest 160 00:25:21.430 --> 00:25:25.600 and really appreciated the 161 00:25:26.870 --> 00:25:36.320 Teachers: Sigmund Freud story at the beginning, because I'm in my own reverie around the grounds at the moment 162 00:25:37.470 --> 00:25:39.230 Teachers: I guess 163 00:25:39.360 --> 00:25:44.280 I was shaping in my mind this idea of what the moral ambiguity 164 00:25:44.410 --> 00:25:49.810 Teachers: question would be. Actually, last night I was shaping that in my mind. 165 00:25:49.910 --> 00:26:01.210 Teachers: That if the people I had lunch with would permit permit me, was just asked a question about this teaching. Environmental science students 166 00:26:01.300 --> 00:26:04.160 who are between the ages of. 167 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:07.350 Teachers: you know, 18 and mid 20 s. 168 00:26:07.700 --> 00:26:08.840 Hey? 169 00:26:10.420 --> 00:26:15.069 Teachers: Are starting to know as much as I do about 170 00:26:15.980 --> 00:26:17.639 Teachers: how messed up the 171 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:30.159 Teachers: earth is that a lot of people don't see and saying. What do we do? And how do you keep going 172 00:26:30.490 --> 00:26:34.880 Teachers: in the work that I do as an environmental scientist 173 00:26:36.100 --> 00:26:37.440 Teachers: and 174 00:26:37.490 --> 00:26:45.710 Teachers: my early days of teaching. I used to struggle to know what to say, thinking that 175 00:26:45.770 --> 00:26:51.679 Teachers: I had to be the daddy in the sky and give them the answer because I was the teacher. 176 00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:57.010 Teachers: But over the years I've 177 00:26:57.250 --> 00:27:06.409 Teachers: now come to really think about my answer, and it's twofold. One is 178 00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:10.540 Teachers: I don't know. 179 00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:22.420 Teachers: and the second one is. I can't give up. There is no option but to act. 180 00:27:23.450 --> 00:27:26.160 Teachers: And 181 00:27:26.330 --> 00:27:43.189 Teachers: for me, that actually brings me quite a lot of solace. It actually helps me go on as an environmental scientist and not get depressed, and it helps me be. And now you've just completed the puzzle. It helps me be Sigmund Freud. 182 00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:49.929 Teachers: not knowing that you know. 183 00:27:50.310 --> 00:28:02.029 Teachers: whatever it is that I'm looking at, will die, be it by land clearing or oil spill or climate change, or just natural causes. 184 00:28:02.410 --> 00:28:10.090 Teachers: but loving it anyway. And it's that love or that reverie or joy, or 185 00:28:10.950 --> 00:28:14.950 Teachers: I'm going to call it sympathetic joy that 186 00:28:17.120 --> 00:28:25.679 Teachers: spurs me to act. I guess it's not really a question. It's it's an observation with respect to 187 00:28:26.500 --> 00:28:34.159 Teachers: the moral dilemma in one's own brain about the death of something close to them versus 188 00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:40.989 Teachers: the existential crisis of the earth, I suppose, bringing it to a bigger frame. 189 00:28:41.290 --> 00:28:43.269 Teachers: Just an observation. Really. 190 00:28:44.110 --> 00:28:45.590 Teachers: Thank you. 191 00:28:57.430 --> 00:29:00.630 Teachers: Thank you. I'm Tessa. 192 00:29:01.320 --> 00:29:10.199 Teachers: The quote from. I can't remember who it was, but even if you know your response is hopeless, do it, anyway. 193 00:29:10.390 --> 00:29:20.550 Teachers: I'd love to hear from you a little bit around the concept of hope. It's a word that I hear used a lot and 194 00:29:21.210 --> 00:29:35.470 Teachers: given a real pedestal like it's so important to have hope. And it's what drives us on. But in response to your comment and in response to how I often feel is I 195 00:29:36.110 --> 00:29:42.059 Teachers: I don't feel it's useful for me to kind of cling on to a sense of hope. Or I suppose. 196 00:29:42.590 --> 00:30:00.699 Teachers: in some spaces around environmentalism, I don't really have hope, and not in a nihilistic way, but perhaps in a clear, seeing way. Yeah. And I'd love if you could comment a little bit around Hope and its role. 197 00:30:02.040 --> 00:30:15.920 Teachers: Well, I suppose hope is psychologically healthy. It makes you an optimist rather than a pessimist. But other than that, I'm not very fond of 198 00:30:16.060 --> 00:30:20.510 Teachers: of of it as a concept. Associate it with. 199 00:30:20.610 --> 00:30:29.080 Teachers: you know, with established religions, sort of saying, Well, it looks. Everything looks terrible. I just hope 200 00:30:29.350 --> 00:30:33.640 Teachers: it gets better. It seems to be a rather 201 00:30:34.600 --> 00:30:48.689 Teachers: flaccid way of approaching things. I mean one can, I mean, certainly one can hope in certain situations of a high risk. 202 00:30:48.990 --> 00:31:03.530 Teachers: I mean, when I was involved in a bit of amateur theatre, and and the the dress rehearsal went very badly, you'd say, oh, it'll be right on the night 203 00:31:03.660 --> 00:31:08.669 Teachers: that was sort of the hope, and sometimes it was. 204 00:31:08.690 --> 00:31:12.810 Teachers: But essentially, I think hope is 205 00:31:12.980 --> 00:31:26.689 Teachers: associated with other power. It's you know, it's it's not. It's something magical. It's going to make it okay, even though it it looks. You know it looks the the outlook is really bleak. 206 00:31:26.710 --> 00:31:35.020 Teachers: But, as I say, I mean, if if you a hopeful person, you probably you're happier than a hopeless one. So 207 00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:38.939 Teachers: yeah, but it's not part of my working vocabulary, I'm afraid. 208 00:31:38.970 --> 00:31:42.209 Teachers: Thank you. 209 00:31:54.350 --> 00:32:10.770 Meg: Hello! One question that I have is that in Japan the primal role of the Buddhist community is working as to commemorate ancestors. So basically, the grieving process that they are really working in 210 00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:13.540 Meg: in the society. 211 00:32:13.580 --> 00:32:17.690 Meg: And then listening to your story, I started to think that 212 00:32:17.750 --> 00:32:30.040 Meg: we actually really don't give a certain space for grief or loss. For, for example, I have been working in a business environment in the corporate restructuring optimization, whatever they call it. 213 00:32:30.080 --> 00:32:38.610 Meg: We actually do not have the moment to really to grieve well about the loss that we have just had to do. 214 00:32:38.950 --> 00:32:46.999 Meg: And so my question is. could Buddhism or the Buddha Dharma of 215 00:32:47.310 --> 00:33:00.450 Meg: the teachings or transients of the life. Work well for the various types of losses in the war that we have today. It is really the error of uncertainty to them. 216 00:33:01.060 --> 00:33:02.270 Meg: How do you think 217 00:33:02.810 --> 00:33:12.259 Teachers: you just repeat that last thing? I didn't quite catch the last phrase? Ok, the error in the error of uncertainty, not to the level of 218 00:33:12.270 --> 00:33:20.630 Meg: losing someone quite intimate. But we have so many losses like business restructuring, or the 219 00:33:20.850 --> 00:33:23.250 Meg: societal changes. 220 00:33:23.350 --> 00:33:33.590 Meg: There is a roses that we have systematically inside our society. And so what I am thinking is that could the Buddha Dharma 221 00:33:34.530 --> 00:33:38.290 Meg: contribute to those losses or the grieving process. 222 00:33:38.760 --> 00:33:39.770 Teachers: Hmm! 223 00:33:39.930 --> 00:33:42.310 Teachers: Look! I think 224 00:33:42.490 --> 00:33:47.230 Teachers: the dharma, to some extent 225 00:33:47.290 --> 00:33:55.019 Teachers: ameliorates mourning and grief through the fact that it's always 226 00:33:55.050 --> 00:34:05.960 Teachers: in our faces, that that everything is impermanent, everything that that is alive will die, and so on. So I think there's a certain 227 00:34:06.040 --> 00:34:12.120 Teachers: preparedness for that goes on there. 228 00:34:12.159 --> 00:34:20.050 Teachers: The the other thing that I think has happened. But I certainly in the in the Western world. 229 00:34:20.110 --> 00:34:25.779 Teachers: in terms of social history, is that 230 00:34:26.340 --> 00:34:31.200 Teachers: mourning is no longer socially supported. 231 00:34:31.389 --> 00:34:37.429 Teachers: And it may be that in Buddhist societies it is but the usual. 232 00:34:37.630 --> 00:34:51.329 Teachers: The conventional social history is that before the First World war mourning was honored in in Western countries that yeah. Women who'd lost their husband would wear black, and 233 00:34:51.340 --> 00:35:04.810 Teachers: men who'd lost their was or were black armbands. There was a whole etiquette around around caring for and taking 234 00:35:05.820 --> 00:35:13.300 Teachers: taking care around people who were in mourning, I mean, or even in etiquette books. 235 00:35:13.380 --> 00:35:29.089 Teachers: that you could. You could, you know, if you, if you had a friend who was in mourning, you could look at your etiquette book, and you knew what to do, you'd go round and tell the cook to only make light meals. In small meals, because 236 00:35:29.170 --> 00:35:52.960 Teachers: mourning affected your digestion. That the blinds should be pulled down, because harsh light was bad for the person in mourning and all these sorts of things. But with the First World War there's just so much mass death that that this just went out the window along with, you know, proper funerals, I mean people 237 00:35:53.140 --> 00:35:57.180 Teachers: just buried where they fell in the battlefield, and so on. 238 00:35:57.260 --> 00:36:05.539 Teachers: And so a lot depends upon just how a community does 239 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:08.309 Teachers: handle morning. 240 00:36:08.330 --> 00:36:10.560 Teachers: And and I mean and I 241 00:36:11.060 --> 00:36:22.610 Teachers: I've never lived in a in a you know Buddhist society, so I don't know what sort of funeral arrangements they they would have, but it would seem to me that they would be much more geared to 242 00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:29.299 Teachers: the idea of impermanence. So this would actually mean it wasn't quite 243 00:36:29.390 --> 00:36:33.389 Teachers: the blow that that it is in the West. 244 00:36:34.420 --> 00:36:37.850 Teachers: It's about all I can contribute on it. 245 00:36:39.970 --> 00:36:42.739 Meg: Thank you so much. Thank you. 246 00:36:42.900 --> 00:36:44.030 Teachers: Thank you. 247 00:36:44.830 --> 00:37:00.979 Teachers: So I'm Susie, and apologies to people I've already talked to about this, but there's an excellent podcast. By a woman called Rebecca Solnit, which talks about hope. I was just curious about that question before 248 00:37:01.130 --> 00:37:21.000 Teachers: and I guess I'd always had a bit of a concept of that thing. Oh, people hope! Oh, let's hope! Just everything turns out, or whatever, and probably had a slight cynicism about that. But the way she describes it is that hope is. It's almost like fits into that context of intent 249 00:37:21.010 --> 00:37:39.549 Teachers: for action that when you develop a sense of hope. You, then she hasn't put it as an obligation, but you inevitably are on a path to taking action, and she gives a whole lot of examples around things like the holocaust when things were hopeless. 250 00:37:39.570 --> 00:38:04.150 Teachers: But people knew what was worth doing as opposed to doing nothing, or at least good people. People that, you know, tuned into what seemed like the right thing to do. So I think within that around the idea of uncertainty and impermanence, and everything else for me. Hope does actually resonate more clearly now that 251 00:38:04.150 --> 00:38:23.469 Teachers: we don't know how things will turn out, and if we do nothing, then it won't turn out too well, if we do something, there's a possibility that something will turn out better than it is as it stands, so I guess that just reframed my thoughts around Hope, which 252 00:38:23.470 --> 00:38:35.969 Teachers: probably had been somewhat more negative, probably in that sort of more Christian way of just hoping for the best, or someone will save me, or whatever it is. 253 00:38:38.110 --> 00:38:40.130 Teachers: Thank you for that. 254 00:38:40.620 --> 00:38:46.279 Teachers: At the moment, under the sway of Rebecca Solney herself 255 00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:48.000 Teachers: just read. 256 00:38:48.850 --> 00:38:53.899 Teachers: There's a book about the roses. Yeah. 257 00:38:54.680 --> 00:39:08.700 Teachers: but I guess I wouldn't want to leave behind a species of humanity that I really liked called battling pessimists. 258 00:39:08.790 --> 00:39:30.760 Teachers: And are we probably raising the case of a battling pessimist later in the retreat. But I think I guess I would see Simone Veil as a battling pessimist. I mean, where there is absolutely no hope. But you go on, anyway. 259 00:39:30.900 --> 00:39:35.450 Teachers: and I'm also reminded of a case of a of 260 00:39:35.800 --> 00:39:37.759 a rabbi who was 261 00:39:39.120 --> 00:39:40.859 Teachers: in the 262 00:39:41.710 --> 00:39:54.130 Teachers: You know one of the people in prison in a death camp, and he had the pastoral care of people with 100%. Certainty were going to be gassed. 263 00:39:54.440 --> 00:40:01.570 Teachers: And his point was that it is important that you go to your death 264 00:40:01.950 --> 00:40:02.910 Teachers: as 265 00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:30.669 Teachers: a fully integrated personality. It was really important to keep your faith. Stay who you are right until the last moment. There was no hope anywhere in that. But there seems to me a very powerful kind of kind of message that, whatever happens, you don't lose what agency you've got and what you yourself stand for. 266 00:40:34.370 --> 00:40:35.269 Teachers: Yes. 267 00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:42.050 Teachers: okay. 268 00:40:44.100 --> 00:40:49.410 Teachers: Be interested to hear a few more reflections on the notion of taking action. 269 00:40:49.480 --> 00:41:04.739 Teachers: It seems to me one of the things with the dilemmas that we face now is. It's actually often not at all clear what is going to be helpful. Action and action that we think is going to be helpful can turn out to be profoundly unhelpful. 270 00:41:04.770 --> 00:41:09.530 and you see it in tragedies. So, for example, in Ibsen. 271 00:41:10.700 --> 00:41:26.660 Teachers: standard thing that happens in Ibsen, very clear in the Wild Duck, is that a secret is discovered, and there's the kind of impulse to tell the secret within the family, and it ends up really, really badly. It wasn't a good idea to take action. 272 00:41:26.700 --> 00:41:33.359 Teachers: and I wonder how we deal with moral ambiguity when it's not so much. 273 00:41:34.340 --> 00:41:48.079 Teachers: I mean, there's there's different flavors. But sometimes you just don't know if what you're going to do is going to be helpful at all for anything except relieving your own distress at not knowing what to do. 274 00:41:48.590 --> 00:41:54.910 Teachers: and whether that is a useful motive for action I don't know so 275 00:41:55.870 --> 00:42:03.960 Teachers: and so the moral ambiguity is. One version is, I'm not quite sure I know where I want to get. I'm not quite sure how to get there. 276 00:42:04.290 --> 00:42:11.519 Teachers: Another version is, I don't even know what I'm facing here, so I have no idea what I should be trying to get. All I know is this is no good. 277 00:42:11.700 --> 00:42:16.510 and I wonder how you think the tragic view 278 00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:28.630 Teachers: instructs us as to how and when we should act, when so often what we face is situations where we just don't know what to do, and sometimes don't even know what would be a good outcome. 279 00:42:31.020 --> 00:42:44.800 Teachers: I mean, I guess what the protagonists do is do their best, but often what their best is, of course, colored by 280 00:42:45.150 --> 00:42:54.489 Teachers: grief or rage, or something like that. But you know, doing one's best means 281 00:42:54.720 --> 00:43:15.909 Teachers: to the greatest possible extent, getting perspective, which is going to be the best guide for you. In other words, letting go of let letting go of, as far as as possible with one's own psychological conditioning, prejudices and habits of mind that are going to 282 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:17.140 Teachers: prevent 283 00:43:17.710 --> 00:43:19.190 a clear sighted 284 00:43:20.560 --> 00:43:28.340 Teachers: assessment of the various paths one can take, but certainly the one not to take is not to do anything. 285 00:43:28.350 --> 00:43:34.489 Teachers: That's what puzzles me, because it may be that if the odds are that whatever you do is not going to be. 286 00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:42.809 Teachers: if what you're going to do doesn't have a very good percentage chance of being helpful, then it may be the wise thing is to do nothing. 287 00:43:44.010 --> 00:43:48.940 Teachers: And are we not often frequent quite often in that situation nowadays? 288 00:43:50.280 --> 00:44:12.230 Teachers: I guess so. Yeah, that's true, but they're probably fewer than we would like to think. We would like to think that our inaction is the wise thing to do when in fact, it's driven by something else fear or 289 00:44:12.240 --> 00:44:15.570 in in our little group. This morning we were talking about the 290 00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:28.109 Teachers: of the Good Samaritan, and wondering why the people, the people who walked on the other side of the road. What was their problem? 291 00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:30.899 And 292 00:44:31.480 --> 00:44:37.079 Teachers: There they they would presumably have had a moral alibi. 293 00:44:38.450 --> 00:44:40.929 The thing, the thing was that they 294 00:44:41.130 --> 00:44:41.930 Teachers: something. 295 00:44:42.090 --> 00:44:46.440 Teachers: really had to be down. It's like that sign down down the garden. 296 00:44:46.830 --> 00:44:47.730 Teachers: never 297 00:44:48.150 --> 00:44:51.039 or past a need without responding. 298 00:44:52.930 --> 00:44:58.819 Teachers: But you know, apart from that, I think it's it's a case of it would be a matter of making 299 00:44:59.350 --> 00:45:03.039 oral judgment in and in every unique situation. 300 00:45:05.270 --> 00:45:09.889 Teachers: Yep. And then we have T. 301 00:45:11.450 --> 00:45:20.329 James: Hello, Winston. Going back to what you were saying earlier about grief and mourning, and and specifically, when we lose someone close to us. 302 00:45:20.600 --> 00:45:27.600 James: I was wondering if you could speak to. How do we spot in ourselves the difference between 303 00:45:27.870 --> 00:45:37.840 James: what might be a sort of a Dharma informed acceptance that the you know the lives of our loved ones are as transient as anything else. 304 00:45:38.270 --> 00:45:46.079 James: The difference between that and the the less healthy avoidance or denial of grief that you touched on. 305 00:45:48.340 --> 00:46:07.430 Teachers: Look if you can, if you. If if that sense of acceptance, of transience, etc. Goes deep enough, then it's presumably the way to go. But there can be an awful lot of 306 00:46:07.660 --> 00:46:11.580 Teachers: of suppression going on there. 307 00:46:12.020 --> 00:46:27.509 Teachers: you know. It's something that we might rationally like to do. But the thing is that our rational selves are not masters in their own house. They're still this. 308 00:46:27.530 --> 00:46:44.270 Teachers: your unconscious undercurrent, which, of course, was what Freud was on about that you've really got to let that run its course. And and it's easy to rationalize that that's not happening. I mean, in one of his 309 00:46:45.050 --> 00:46:50.309 Teachers: much later followers. Today Darian Leda talks about how 310 00:46:50.380 --> 00:46:55.930 Teachers: A sudden loss can 311 00:46:56.150 --> 00:47:13.529 Teachers: unleash a mourning completely out of proportion to what the loss is, and that's usually because there is a previous loss that you haven't dealt with, and what has happened is being triggered. And his example 312 00:47:13.530 --> 00:47:29.220 Teachers: was Queen Victoria, who mourned the death of Albert lavishly over many, many years, and Darian Leda's explanation was that she was actually mourning her mother, who 313 00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:41.919 Teachers: who died much earlier, with whom she had a terrible relationship, and nothing had been resolved before the mother's death. So you know, there's all these 314 00:47:42.320 --> 00:47:48.930 Teachers: booby traps in the unconscious that can come up, which is 315 00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:56.680 Teachers: why we need to be able to loosen the knots in the mind while you know, in real time. 316 00:47:58.080 --> 00:48:00.219 Teachers: Hmm! 317 00:48:00.890 --> 00:48:10.399 Teachers: I'm sorry. Well, why don't we break for tea? And then we come back in half an hour? 318 00:48:10.980 --> 00:48:19.820 Teachers: Continue this. But there's a question. Do we want to break into small groups. Or do we want to continue 319 00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:22.950 Teachers: as we are? But so I'll put it to the vote. 320 00:48:25.160 --> 00:48:28.460 Teachers: There may be more people coming, but let's start. 321 00:48:29.220 --> 00:48:32.230 Teachers: So 322 00:48:36.100 --> 00:48:37.780 we're gonna 323 00:48:40.420 --> 00:48:41.789 Teachers: look how much you know 324 00:48:46.090 --> 00:48:47.579 this is correct. 325 00:48:52.160 --> 00:48:53.080 Teachers: Is that right? 326 00:48:53.300 --> 00:48:58.070 Teachers: I can say, here's here's cats as an expert. 327 00:48:58.650 --> 00:48:59.540 Teachers: Oh, okay. 328 00:49:01.200 --> 00:49:09.289 Teachers: So while we're waiting for the screen. Comrades. Do we have any questions from the floor? There? They are right. 329 00:49:12.700 --> 00:49:14.000 Teachers: Yes. 330 00:49:14.910 --> 00:49:15.650 it's 331 00:49:15.940 --> 00:49:18.230 Teachers: so. Okay. 332 00:49:18.750 --> 00:49:26.830 Teachers: Who was Judith? And I wanted to? Comment on the 333 00:49:27.030 --> 00:49:34.430 Teachers: Sorry I'm I missed his name. Talked about transients, and 334 00:49:35.320 --> 00:49:40.869 Teachers: you know, with the whether that can help with grieving. So what sort of the 335 00:49:41.110 --> 00:49:54.759 Teachers: the person on screen last? Who was it James James James James James talked about? When you talk about transience as a Buddhist concept? Can that help with grieving and with mourning? 336 00:49:55.620 --> 00:50:04.419 Teachers: And your your response was, well, if it works for you, then that that could that could possibly be okay 337 00:50:06.390 --> 00:50:09.229 Teachers: to me what it triggered was a sort of 338 00:50:09.600 --> 00:50:27.440 Teachers: the whole notion of spiritual bypassing. And you know it's kind of rendering ante Caesar what belongs to him. and effectively. And even Freud, you quoted mourning and melancholia 339 00:50:27.520 --> 00:50:31.370 Teachers: before he wrote that paper he was quite convinced 340 00:50:31.830 --> 00:50:41.979 Teachers: that the attachment pattern that one had with the deceased had to be broken, and that was the only way he had to go cold turkey almost until his daughter died. 341 00:50:42.170 --> 00:50:45.539 Teachers: And that was what instigated writing that paper. 342 00:50:45.670 --> 00:50:47.090 Teachers: So it's 343 00:50:47.360 --> 00:50:53.659 Teachers: it's and as someone who's who's worked with grief and loss for many years. 344 00:50:54.120 --> 00:51:08.280 Teachers: the notion, and in terms of letting be is the only way to go in my experience with hundreds of people that I've worked with, it's 345 00:51:08.910 --> 00:51:13.490 Teachers: because there's no possibility to move on. 346 00:51:13.620 --> 00:51:20.469 Teachers: And you you noted that even though people give you that advice. But it's spurious advice. 347 00:51:20.490 --> 00:51:25.149 Teachers: So the the wisdom is how to move forward 348 00:51:25.370 --> 00:51:28.800 Teachers: and carry your load as best possible. 349 00:51:29.160 --> 00:51:40.829 Teachers: So it depends on the contents of your Ganisak. How quickly you'll move, how heavy it will be! How difficult! But the process of grieving is moving forward 350 00:51:41.020 --> 00:51:58.719 Teachers: unless you get completely stuck into it, then you go in. It becomes like depression, so it becomes like melancholy becomes melancholia, and then you are the whole range of things what they call prolonged grief, disorder, or complicated grief. Where you're stuck, you're still in the acute phase. 351 00:51:59.050 --> 00:52:01.820 Teachers: Some people forever. 352 00:52:02.390 --> 00:52:03.290 Teachers: Yeah. 353 00:52:05.620 --> 00:52:08.740 Teachers: thank you, Dave. Thank you. 354 00:52:09.580 --> 00:52:24.639 Teachers: Hi Winton, Joseph. One thing that came up in our group discussion in between breaking and morning tea was the invisible nature of a lot of perspectives, and we don't really realize we're in water 355 00:52:24.710 --> 00:52:33.130 Teachers: because we're all fish. So I had a question for you kind of the expert panel, so to speak. What are some of the ways that? 356 00:52:33.420 --> 00:52:39.850 Teachers: What are some of the invisible things in your life that have shaped your perspective? And how do you go about making them visible. 357 00:52:41.830 --> 00:53:04.019 Teachers: What do you mean by visible? You mean conscious? Yeah. So the kind of the simple idea is that if there are 2 fish talking, and the third one swims by and says, How's the water? The first 2 are very confused because they don't know anything that isn't water until you meet another culture or another perspective. You don't know that your perspective is one of many perspectives. It just is 358 00:53:04.250 --> 00:53:16.489 Teachers: so reflecting on your life. What are some of the ways that your perspective has been challenged, whether that's through self-power, your own kind of analytical motivations to do so? Or when have you been confronted with some of 359 00:53:16.500 --> 00:53:26.730 Teachers: some other kind of perspective. And what are some skillful ways to kind of bring that about? What are some unskillful ways that has kind of fallen upon you. Yeah, just your kind of 360 00:53:26.760 --> 00:53:28.260 Teachers: some advice on that, please. 361 00:53:28.880 --> 00:53:40.809 Teachers: I guess most most of the changes in my life have been by being intellectually convinced of certain things, but 362 00:53:40.860 --> 00:53:42.670 Teachers: but the things that have 363 00:53:42.730 --> 00:53:50.859 Teachers: and and stuck me, and say to me, first of all. I guess the Vietnam war. 364 00:53:51.300 --> 00:53:54.480 Teachers: for instance. you know, I was 365 00:53:54.810 --> 00:54:00.029 Teachers: on my way to becoming a member of the establishment, and then suddenly well, not so suddenly, there was. 366 00:54:00.200 --> 00:54:04.150 Teachers: We were involved in a war that we shouldn't have been in, and 367 00:54:04.400 --> 00:54:13.520 Teachers: even if we should have been in it, we should have been on the other side. And it was it it just meant. 368 00:54:13.580 --> 00:54:31.539 Teachers: you know, I felt deeply disgraced in terms of you know my national identity by that. In fact, I physically left the country, and I mean that caused Chad chain reaction of 369 00:54:31.720 --> 00:54:36.220 Teachers: went and lived in Sweden for a year, where. 370 00:54:36.520 --> 00:54:50.379 Teachers: you know, life was very different to what I was used to, and and to my mind much more appropriate. And then but it just then it triggered a chain reaction of 371 00:54:50.780 --> 00:54:57.559 Teachers: seeing things working differently, of then understanding why they were working differently. 372 00:54:58.000 --> 00:54:59.240 And 373 00:54:59.630 --> 00:55:06.859 Teachers: what? And I suppose in ways the story of my life is just curiosity. That. 374 00:55:07.320 --> 00:55:16.440 Teachers: for instance, you know, and in when I was in my 40 s. My very stodgy 375 00:55:16.600 --> 00:55:23.700 Teachers: Gp. Said, in a few years you'll need to go on to permanent medication for your blood pressure. 376 00:55:23.850 --> 00:55:25.100 Teachers: and so 377 00:55:25.140 --> 00:55:32.480 Teachers: said, I'll hell with that I'll I'll meditate. I read somewhere that you can meditate and bring your blood pressure down. 378 00:55:32.990 --> 00:55:36.510 Teachers: So II 379 00:55:37.020 --> 00:55:41.500 Teachers: didn't know how you learned to meditate, but there was something called the Meditation 380 00:55:41.750 --> 00:55:54.350 Teachers: Centre. I went along to that, and it turned out to be a a Hindu sect. who said the way to meditate was to recite the names of God. 381 00:55:55.110 --> 00:56:01.110 Teachers: and I said, but you know I don't believe in God, and so this isn't very helpful. 382 00:56:01.150 --> 00:56:04.679 Teachers: And this bloke said. 383 00:56:04.840 --> 00:56:17.549 Teachers: Well, you know, it's much better than what the Buddhists do. They just believe in emptying your mind. And I thought, Oh, that sounds good. So I went to the Sydney Buddhist center. 384 00:56:17.600 --> 00:56:20.249 Teachers: Where? 385 00:56:20.620 --> 00:56:32.079 Teachers: And yeah, I learned to meditate. My blood pressure went down, but being an academic, I wasn't good enough, you know. You have to know why I couldn't live without the why, so 386 00:56:32.330 --> 00:56:37.709 Teachers: I then did. The next course they were offering on on the dharma, and and it was just a 387 00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:42.359 Teachers: conversion process. I mean, it was a it wasn't just an intellectual 388 00:56:43.400 --> 00:56:52.659 Teachers: process, but it it was one of those things that starts as an intellectual process, but feels intuitively 389 00:56:53.000 --> 00:56:59.349 Teachers: right to the point where it becomes quite euphoric, you know. So I guess that's 390 00:57:00.230 --> 00:57:11.279 Teachers: how conversion processes work. But then the curiosity kept going, you know about in terms of questioning the kind, the way that Dharma was being pitched 391 00:57:12.280 --> 00:57:14.100 and practised, and 392 00:57:14.230 --> 00:57:17.420 Teachers: gradually finding my way to here. 393 00:57:17.610 --> 00:57:23.960 Teachers: Yeah, I guess there was nothing more dramatic than that, you know. 394 00:57:24.150 --> 00:57:24.830 Teachers: and 395 00:57:26.620 --> 00:57:33.590 Teachers: never coming close to death or any of those near-death experiences that often turn people around. 396 00:57:35.560 --> 00:57:36.530 Teachers: Thank you. 397 00:57:39.360 --> 00:57:41.670 Teachers: That's fine. Thank you. 398 00:57:43.930 --> 00:57:56.279 Teachers: Climate change and environmental destruction have kind of been part of what's happening for a long time, and on my mind. And this morning I was walking 399 00:57:56.980 --> 00:58:05.220 Teachers: in the gardens. And there's this absolutely magnificent tree, and I was looking at it, and the thought went through my mind. 400 00:58:05.680 --> 00:58:19.819 Teachers: maybe this was all doomed to die, and it was kind of like the feeling that went with that was was not a very nice feeling. And then I thought, but in the present moment 401 00:58:20.380 --> 00:58:28.990 Teachers: there's just this experience of beauty. And with that thought just a lot of gratitude arose. 402 00:58:29.080 --> 00:58:43.430 Teachers: and I'm just wondering what the dharma has to say about the practice of gratitude in as part of our response to the challenges of life. 403 00:58:43.910 --> 00:58:44.650 Teachers: Hmm. 404 00:58:46.950 --> 00:59:00.320 Teachers: I can't see the specific text on gratitude, but it seems to be very, very much implicit in the dharma 405 00:59:00.560 --> 00:59:06.779 Teachers: partly because of the the way that generosity is 406 00:59:07.330 --> 00:59:10.820 Teachers: is encouraged. The sharing 407 00:59:11.050 --> 00:59:13.890 Teachers: and the way in which that 408 00:59:14.250 --> 00:59:19.480 Teachers: that focus makes you very conscious of 409 00:59:20.810 --> 00:59:25.120 Teachers: the flow of goods and energy and time 410 00:59:26.460 --> 00:59:32.770 Teachers: between people, and particularly, you know, when I was first looking at 411 00:59:33.940 --> 00:59:35.630 dharmic ethics. 412 00:59:36.230 --> 00:59:37.840 Teachers: about that the 413 00:59:38.260 --> 00:59:44.090 Teachers: the second precept, not taking the non given. 414 00:59:44.130 --> 00:59:53.800 Teachers: and was, you know, explained that this is not just not stealing. It's a question of being conscious the whole time of what you're receiving 415 00:59:54.070 --> 00:59:56.190 and what you're giving. So 416 00:59:56.530 --> 00:59:58.440 Teachers: you know that 417 00:59:58.740 --> 01:00:00.409 Teachers: if you meet someone who 418 01:00:00.770 --> 01:00:12.770 Teachers: wants to bend your ear the whole time and talk and talk at you. That is really a breach of that preset, because they're presuming on your time and you 419 01:00:12.790 --> 01:00:28.299 Teachers: and your attention. And I guess these days, you know, we've got the attention. Economy where attention is is a scarce resource. This is. This is quite important to know what's going on to know if you're talking to someone. 420 01:00:28.680 --> 01:00:41.480 Teachers: and you get a sense that you're talking a bit more than they are. And maybe there's something there's an ethical issue going on here that they may not want it to hear. You may not want to know 421 01:00:41.800 --> 01:00:53.749 Teachers: and and just being aware of what what we're receiving the whole time from people that we often take for granted. So it's a way. This sort of sensitizing 422 01:00:53.800 --> 01:01:10.950 Teachers: of practicing even, you know, the 5 precepts is a way of sensitizing us to our relationship of giving and taking. And particularly as kids, we grow up just automatically taking and taking from our parents. Never. 423 01:01:11.300 --> 01:01:22.039 Teachers: And it's only sort of looking back with saying. Gee, I got a hell of a lot from my mom, or from my dad, or something like that. It it becomes you become conscious of what? 424 01:01:22.210 --> 01:01:25.969 Teachers: What was actually going on, that flow of 425 01:01:26.090 --> 01:01:35.659 Teachers: time, energy, and goods. And I think that that is where where I mean, there's, and very much. An implicit idea of 426 01:01:35.840 --> 01:01:40.580 Teachers: of gratitude comes about. Thank you. 427 01:01:53.010 --> 01:01:54.360 Teachers: yes, and 428 01:01:57.120 --> 01:02:11.920 Teachers: do. Either you or Father Sigmund have some practical advice. If you're reflecting on your life, and you think shit there's a huge unmawned event that is contributing to my current duka of how to unpack that 429 01:02:12.760 --> 01:02:15.559 Teachers: other than a full blank course of psychotherapy. 430 01:02:16.650 --> 01:02:29.450 Teachers: and no, not really. I mean I think so. So. I mean my probably by morning of both my parents was a bit truncated, and particularly my father, because 431 01:02:29.920 --> 01:02:38.140 Teachers: I was overseas when he died. I knew he was going to die. I knew he was going to die, but nobody knew when 432 01:02:38.520 --> 01:02:51.410 Teachers: and when we said goodbye for the last time, I mean he was still walking and standing and and but we both knew kind of thing. 433 01:02:51.680 --> 01:02:53.259 Teachers: It was a kind of 434 01:02:53.710 --> 01:02:57.099 Teachers: a mourning process there. 435 01:02:57.110 --> 01:03:02.770 Teachers: but I also think when Freud talks about other forms of loss. 436 01:03:02.890 --> 01:03:07.640 Teachers: and I guess right now I'm in 437 01:03:07.660 --> 01:03:09.230 Teachers: deep mourning about 438 01:03:09.860 --> 01:03:14.790 Teachers: the the outcome of the referendum 439 01:03:15.050 --> 01:03:17.859 Teachers: in October, and 440 01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:22.280 Teachers: what it means for this country. You know that we're 441 01:03:23.020 --> 01:03:28.149 Teachers: back in a in a in a sloth of dishonesty and 442 01:03:28.400 --> 01:03:36.409 Teachers: misery that yet we're still pretending the indigenous population wasn't here when 443 01:03:36.600 --> 01:03:42.079 Teachers: all our white fellow heroes arrived here. You know. I mean, I just find that 444 01:03:42.090 --> 01:03:45.939 Teachers: that that is a kind of mourning. I think a lot a shame. 445 01:03:46.670 --> 01:03:58.540 Teachers: I think shame is very much, you know, very, very close to it, and it's a shame that can't be easily overcome. There's nothing that's going to happen. It's going to redeem the situation. 446 01:04:01.510 --> 01:04:02.200 Thanks. 447 01:04:08.000 --> 01:04:08.780 okay. 448 01:04:14.740 --> 01:04:22.700 Teachers: thank you. I don't want to hold the microphone, but no one else had their hands up. I was just wondering when you referred to people bending your ear. 449 01:04:22.790 --> 01:04:32.010 Teachers: thinking of it in an ethical sense. And so how do you work with that? As someone kind of working professionally in this area, I suppose? 450 01:04:33.240 --> 01:04:47.360 Teachers: well, I guess I just try and put out cues. But there are people as we know, who don't pick up cues readily, but 451 01:04:47.540 --> 01:04:50.460 Teachers: that basically is is sort of as 452 01:04:50.870 --> 01:04:53.479 Teachers: quickly as possible to, you know. 453 01:04:53.860 --> 01:04:56.120 Teachers: bring things to an end and then 454 01:04:56.160 --> 01:05:05.470 Teachers: be on guard in case it happens. Yeah, we get back into that into that sort of interaction with a person 455 01:05:06.050 --> 01:05:12.729 Teachers: know. I know there are people who can do who can break things off more brutally. But I'm 456 01:05:13.830 --> 01:05:17.360 Teachers: not into that I try to be nice. 457 01:05:20.980 --> 01:05:22.030 Teachers: Yes. 458 01:05:23.100 --> 01:05:27.960 Teachers: interested in your comment on growth 459 01:05:28.100 --> 01:05:36.660 Teachers: as a contributor to changing perspectives, and you touched on it just a little bit when you talked about the things that had affected you. 460 01:05:36.730 --> 01:05:44.439 Teachers: But it strikes me sometimes thinking about the Buddha having birth, old age, sickness, and death. 461 01:05:44.950 --> 01:05:50.109 Teachers: They're not for him. It doesn't sound like stages in a life cycle. 462 01:05:50.360 --> 01:06:11.799 Teachers: It just sounds like things that happen. And there's some bits about them that aren't so good. So we need to understand that we're going to have to deal with this. Whereas the reality we now understand much more deeply through psychology and very much through Freud, and people like him is that the process from birth 463 01:06:12.200 --> 01:06:25.710 Teachers: is a continual cycle of growth. which is a continual cycle of leaving things behind, which is a continual cycle of reimagining the things that we have and the world becoming bigger or different, and so on. 464 01:06:26.990 --> 01:06:38.540 Teachers: And I don't know if you've got any comment, either about how that fits into, as it were, developing maturing perspectives. or whether we 465 01:06:38.620 --> 01:06:52.920 Teachers: emphasize this notion of personal and secular growth enough when we think about Buddhism and Dharma, a lot of Dharma practice you could do at the age of 15 or 50, 466 01:06:52.970 --> 01:06:58.300 Teachers: and yet the experience is quite different, and the fruits might be quite different. 467 01:06:58.630 --> 01:07:07.689 Teachers: So I don't know if you've got any comments about how just that secular process of moving from birth to death through the cycles of becoming 468 01:07:07.730 --> 01:07:13.420 Teachers: is a vehicle for evolving wiser and better and 469 01:07:13.850 --> 01:07:15.010 Teachers: more 470 01:07:15.150 --> 01:07:17.350 Teachers: constructive perspectives. 471 01:07:17.630 --> 01:07:24.639 Teachers: Well, I think yes, it does. It certainly helps in terms of. 472 01:07:24.680 --> 01:07:25.810 Teachers: for instance. 473 01:07:25.850 --> 01:07:32.850 Teachers: thinking about dying, and I'm 82, and and notice that a lot of 474 01:07:33.090 --> 01:07:46.910 Teachers: my fellow octogenarians think a lot about death, and I do. I think a lot about death, too. So presumably we're doing. You know what's a great 475 01:07:47.220 --> 01:07:49.420 Teachers: sixteenth century 476 01:07:49.750 --> 01:08:07.950 Teachers: skeptic, Montene said about death. We rob it of its strangeness by constantly thinking about it. But but there's another aspect to that that these aren't just things that the the bad stuff that happens to us 477 01:08:08.200 --> 01:08:20.109 Teachers: isn't just. you know. coming at us, we are. And this is this is a great trope in the tragedies. So we are 478 01:08:20.149 --> 01:08:22.370 Teachers: often complicit. 479 01:08:22.500 --> 01:08:32.060 Teachers: We're often contributing to these situations in ways that we're not 480 01:08:32.550 --> 01:08:38.339 Teachers: prepared to acknowledge a lot of the time. I was thinking of edifice edifice 481 01:08:38.460 --> 01:08:48.900 Teachers: kills an older man in a road rage incident at an intersection. But he's on, I mean. Oedipus grew up. 482 01:08:49.140 --> 01:09:04.520 Teachers: He didn't grow up with his biological parents. He was fostered out to some other. But and then he came back into into the world, and and he and he kills this man 483 01:09:05.250 --> 01:09:08.729 Teachers: Where there's a possibility that it's his father. 484 01:09:09.740 --> 01:09:17.699 Teachers: but he is full of rage, as a lot of characters are in the tragedies, and he doesn't. 485 01:09:17.810 --> 01:09:20.770 Teachers: He doesn't ask any questions. Shoot first. 486 01:09:21.020 --> 01:09:33.029 Teachers: ask questions like that sort of thing, and then he marries an older woman. And again, there's the possibility that this woman who's his mother. But he doesn't. 487 01:09:33.649 --> 01:09:41.499 Teachers: Again. He doesn't ask squish. It doesn't. I mean in law. You have this, this concept of constructive. 488 01:09:41.810 --> 01:09:50.859 Teachers: constructive notice that if you, if you you know you do something 489 01:09:51.340 --> 01:09:52.380 Teachers: that 490 01:09:52.450 --> 01:09:59.380 Teachers: in the event is wrong. But there's a vital element that you haven't been told 491 01:09:59.590 --> 01:10:02.449 Teachers: about you. But, on the other hand. 492 01:10:02.460 --> 01:10:16.900 Teachers: everything points to that element being there, and you ignore it, and you then commit the mistake. And this is what you find a lot in the tragedies, and it's a real 493 01:10:16.960 --> 01:10:21.370 Teachers: it's a real prompt for us to 494 01:10:21.550 --> 01:10:24.710 Teachers: to look at what's happening to us. 495 01:10:24.850 --> 01:10:35.540 Teachers: or what what we perceive as happening to us, and and inquire into what part we've actually played in bringing this about. 496 01:10:40.940 --> 01:10:42.839 Teachers: I don't know if that helps. But 497 01:10:43.210 --> 01:10:49.030 Teachers: very interesting. Yes. 498 01:10:49.600 --> 01:10:50.280 Teachers: hmm. 499 01:10:56.590 --> 01:10:57.490 Teachers: yes. 500 01:10:59.470 --> 01:11:12.239 Teachers: my name is, John, can we move from just 1 s from when you talk about us as singular versus plural like in Latin? There's U, and there's you 501 01:11:12.520 --> 01:11:23.019 Teachers: and Stephen introduced the notion of engaged Buddhism last night, and then we had a good exploratory now on perspective. 502 01:11:23.050 --> 01:11:26.210 Teachers: so is is there 503 01:11:26.900 --> 01:11:35.550 Teachers: some innovative emergent way of looking at perspective from a collective stance 504 01:11:36.150 --> 01:11:39.000 Teachers: rather than just an individual stance. 505 01:11:42.740 --> 01:11:44.969 Teachers: Well, certainly 506 01:11:46.010 --> 01:11:51.520 Teachers: mean. I guess this is the role of public history, you know, is 507 01:11:51.580 --> 01:11:59.420 Teachers: whether and this gets back, I guess, to our recent experience in October. 508 01:11:59.430 --> 01:12:04.470 Teachers: Whether we, whether we can shift 509 01:12:04.640 --> 01:12:15.440 Teachers: towards an admission of I'm just taking that example. that the foundations of modern Australia 510 01:12:15.750 --> 01:12:23.200 Teachers: consists of a genocide and genocides not only like I mean this. 511 01:12:23.590 --> 01:12:24.360 Yes. 512 01:12:24.570 --> 01:12:28.489 Teachers: the aboriginal genocide was a real classic of 513 01:12:29.230 --> 01:12:32.829 Teachers: settler colonialism, where there's 514 01:12:33.050 --> 01:12:45.770 Teachers: starts off with large-scale massacres which occurred here, and and then the erratic, the cultural genocide. 515 01:12:45.780 --> 01:12:47.660 Teachers: stealing children. 516 01:12:48.450 --> 01:12:57.030 Teachers: suppressing languages, suppressing culture, destroying sacred society all those elements 517 01:12:57.080 --> 01:12:59.849 Teachers: which 518 01:13:00.100 --> 01:13:04.459 Teachers: which a multifaceted genocide occurs. Now, if we could. 519 01:13:04.920 --> 01:13:15.540 Teachers: if we could understand that, I mean, if we could acknowledge that it doesn't take much to understand it. But you know, if we could overcome what 520 01:13:15.650 --> 01:13:22.960 Teachers: Bill Stana in 1 68, called the Great Australian Silence about all that 521 01:13:23.230 --> 01:13:40.580 Teachers: if we could give up the the strategy that that was quite explicit in the early twentieth century of drawing a bale over our history, so we didn't have to face it. If we could overcome all that. 522 01:13:40.610 --> 01:13:48.280 Teachers: you know, we could collectively, I think, make enormous progress. Not only 523 01:13:49.220 --> 01:13:54.500 Teachers: it's closing the gap of indigenous disadvantage. But in 524 01:13:54.620 --> 01:14:07.720 Teachers: just being honest about about what sort of history we've had, and what sort, and you know where where this might teach us to try and 525 01:14:07.790 --> 01:14:09.899 Teachers: take the country from now on. 526 01:14:10.580 --> 01:14:26.739 Teachers: See? So I think there's there's certainly very much a collective element. And this was again going back to the Greeks. This is, I mean there. When they staged a tragedy, literally staged a tragedy in open air theatre. It was 527 01:14:26.820 --> 01:14:32.890 Teachers: a kind of civic seminar. Every people came. It was a spectacle. It 528 01:14:33.190 --> 01:14:37.200 Teachers: made people think it turned people's heads. 529 01:14:38.600 --> 01:14:39.609 Teachers: Hmm, hmm! 530 01:14:56.180 --> 01:15:01.889 Teachers: If we go back to the as understanding of right view. 531 01:15:03.240 --> 01:15:07.790 Teachers: there's often a focus on recognizing to occur 532 01:15:08.400 --> 01:15:16.639 Teachers: suffering, impermanence, and emptiness as being the characteristics of experience. And the kind of right view is is 533 01:15:17.700 --> 01:15:32.480 Teachers: right view about those things is particularly important, because that cuts very deep. I wonder if you've got any comments about the elements of right view that you think cut particularly deeply. Now. 534 01:15:32.890 --> 01:15:45.209 Teachers: is it the same ones? Are there others that we should have our eyes and ears open for? Well, I think that 535 01:15:45.250 --> 01:15:57.020 Teachers: I mean as, as I remember, the kind of classical view of right view it meant. That you first of all, I mean, acknowledged 536 01:15:57.720 --> 01:16:08.129 Teachers: the 4 noble truths as they are taught in the classical tradition, and in particular dependent, arising. 537 01:16:08.240 --> 01:16:13.379 Teachers: I mean the whole, you know, process of cause and effect. 538 01:16:14.270 --> 01:16:16.200 Teachers: what I guess, where 539 01:16:16.250 --> 01:16:18.209 Teachers: proposing type 540 01:16:18.520 --> 01:16:26.370 Teachers: speak from Stephen, too, is a much richer idea, a richer idea of 541 01:16:26.420 --> 01:16:29.100 Teachers: the kind of perspective 542 01:16:29.210 --> 01:16:37.169 Teachers: we can bring to our practice the sort of things that we've been talking about because we are 543 01:16:37.250 --> 01:16:40.529 Teachers: inheritance of 2 extraordinary 544 01:16:40.570 --> 01:16:46.589 Teachers: cultural movements over the last 2,500 years. 545 01:16:46.620 --> 01:16:52.569 Teachers: And and I think that that can be that that becomes part of our perspective. 546 01:16:53.220 --> 01:16:56.910 you know, and and our understanding of 547 01:16:58.670 --> 01:17:12.350 Teachers: processes like stereotype, you know that we can get. We can free ourselves of hi prejudices that are out there and being supported by social media and the Murdoch press and the rest of it. 548 01:17:12.380 --> 01:17:16.019 Teachers: And we can that that we have 549 01:17:16.250 --> 01:17:18.029 Teachers: antidotes for 550 01:17:18.700 --> 01:17:23.970 Teachers: Michauditty. Wrong view. 551 01:17:24.400 --> 01:17:29.940 Teachers: Yeah. I guess I'm thinking of Goethe's comment that 552 01:17:30.350 --> 01:17:32.959 Teachers: whoever it 553 01:17:33.470 --> 01:17:39.550 Teachers: cannot draw on 3,000 years is living hand-to-mouth. 554 01:17:40.110 --> 01:17:49.620 Teachers: And as long as we have these cultural lineages we're not living hand to mouth because we're. 555 01:17:49.690 --> 01:17:55.400 Teachers: you know, just today, we've been. you know. 556 01:17:56.250 --> 01:18:01.400 Teachers: drawing on cultural 557 01:18:01.450 --> 01:18:10.300 Teachers: cultural developments from the fifth century Bce. In both cases. So. But I think that that feeds into it's not just 558 01:18:11.510 --> 01:18:13.220 abstract. 559 01:18:13.540 --> 01:18:16.650 Teachers: And, you know, abstract, eternal truths, like 560 01:18:16.710 --> 01:18:25.229 Teachers: dependent arising. But it's these kinds of these kinds of insights that we are the heirs of, that we can bring to our practice 561 01:18:25.550 --> 01:18:32.839 Teachers: as the basis upon which we understand it and and make our decisions around it. 562 01:18:44.020 --> 01:18:46.430 Teachers: Jeff. Jeff. Yes. 563 01:18:46.780 --> 01:19:05.959 Teachers: just picking up on that. You know. I'm not a theologian. I've I've read a range of of things in this area. But I wonder, you know, we're we're working from a point of view that Buddhism has been adapted to a range of different cultural contexts. 564 01:19:05.990 --> 01:19:10.940 Teachers: And we're we're now endeavoring to adapt it to 565 01:19:11.340 --> 01:19:19.430 Teachers: a Western cultural context. And, as you pointed out, you're now drawing on 566 01:19:19.470 --> 01:19:22.460 Teachers: the the western 567 01:19:23.030 --> 01:19:26.799 Teachers: lore. And and you know from 568 01:19:27.030 --> 01:19:34.159 Teachers: you're referring to the great Socrates, and so on in blending it with 569 01:19:34.390 --> 01:19:45.860 Teachers: the teachings that have come to us from the Buddha question that comes to me as you saying that though, is whether right view has been framed differently 570 01:19:46.050 --> 01:19:49.050 Teachers: in the different cultural contexts 571 01:19:49.360 --> 01:19:58.590 Teachers: where it has arisen. So far. So the Tibetan versus the Japanese versus 572 01:19:58.730 --> 01:20:04.689 Teachers: the other variations of the of the the theme that we're grappling with here. 573 01:20:05.510 --> 01:20:10.770 Teachers: I don't have enough understanding of those 2 574 01:20:11.580 --> 01:20:13.980 Teachers: really answer mine 575 01:20:14.240 --> 01:20:22.490 Teachers: question as to whether bringing in the Greek heritage, and such is novel or where 576 01:20:22.920 --> 01:20:29.410 Teachers: doing something that has already been done in these different versions that have arisen so far. 577 01:20:29.900 --> 01:20:37.400 Teachers: let me just say, to start off with that I'm not really comfortable with talking about right view. I think it's 578 01:20:38.750 --> 01:20:47.189 Teachers: it's pretty dodgy, anyway, but I think it's much better to be talking about perspective, and which includes 579 01:20:47.280 --> 01:20:50.929 Teachers: the reality construct. You know that we that we, as 580 01:20:51.230 --> 01:20:52.360 Teachers: as 581 01:20:53.760 --> 01:20:58.609 Teachers: modern Westernists, have, like, we believe in evolution. 582 01:20:58.850 --> 01:21:03.189 Teachers: we, we believe in neuroscience. I mean, these are just part of the 583 01:21:03.950 --> 01:21:15.169 Teachers: part of the wallpaper for us was these things were, of course, these ideas, particularly, I think, of evolution, and for matter, all the 584 01:21:15.180 --> 01:21:20.529 Teachers: ecological science that we're now using is is 585 01:21:21.530 --> 01:21:25.809 Teachers: is very recent and also very important. 586 01:21:25.920 --> 01:21:36.940 Teachers: But what I mean in terms of what secular Buddhism means for me, it might be slightly different to what it means, for Stephen is 587 01:21:36.950 --> 01:21:38.560 Teachers: that this is 588 01:21:38.580 --> 01:21:46.330 Teachers: the Dharma putting down roots in the west, and we're almost exactly following the precedent of how it. 589 01:21:46.640 --> 01:21:48.070 Teachers: how the Dharma 590 01:21:48.120 --> 01:21:49.170 went to 591 01:21:49.200 --> 01:22:09.819 Teachers: China and East Asia. I mean it. Just the tone of it changed so much from the you know the rather pessimistic view that was of human life that was built into the ancient Indian culture to something that was much more. 592 01:22:10.070 --> 01:22:22.090 Teachers: if you like. Optimistic. I saw so saw a human life in much more positive terms. So you know, there was a de-emphasis of all the 593 01:22:22.120 --> 01:22:23.949 Teachers: you know 594 01:22:24.370 --> 01:22:29.340 Teachers: the Karma rebirth stuff, and much more emphasis on 595 01:22:29.620 --> 01:22:32.259 Teachers: you know, as a here and now 596 01:22:32.770 --> 01:22:49.400 Teachers: as much. It seemed to me that, and and in doing that they were drawing on their preexisting civilization and Taoism, and even Confucianism to some extent, but particularly Taoism, had a strong influence, and that seems to be 597 01:22:49.670 --> 01:22:58.760 Teachers: absolutely appropriate. I mean that you're bringing the dharma into another culture, and that culture is. It is already quite developed. 598 01:22:59.000 --> 01:23:04.770 Teachers: and you draw on whatever resources are in it to 599 01:23:04.920 --> 01:23:13.259 Teachers: flesh out to sharpen up Dharma Dharma's theory, if you like, and practice 600 01:23:16.450 --> 01:23:18.520 Teachers: video 601 01:23:20.030 --> 01:23:22.040 Teachers: drive. 602 01:23:22.730 --> 01:23:23.510 I'm not 603 01:23:24.070 --> 01:23:26.589 Vivien Langford: meeting. I wanted to ask you 604 01:23:26.710 --> 01:23:29.220 Vivien Langford: about the establishment 605 01:23:29.380 --> 01:23:30.390 Vivien Langford: yesterday 606 01:23:30.430 --> 01:23:37.609 Vivien Langford: Stephen mentioned that he had tried to raise these ideas about the secular dharma with the Buddhist establishment, and 607 01:23:37.810 --> 01:23:40.860 Vivien Langford: eventually found these quietly closing doors. 608 01:23:41.230 --> 01:23:43.340 Vivien Langford: And I think 609 01:23:43.530 --> 01:23:51.050 Vivien Langford: that's what we're up against. If we try to be engaged Buddhists or Quakers, or even people in solidarity with 610 01:23:51.480 --> 01:23:58.649 Vivien Langford: suffering people or species, you're up against a sort of cultural establishment. 611 01:23:58.690 --> 01:24:10.019 Vivien Langford: It's very firm, and it's very bolstered. And yeah. you know, it's not exactly that you want to be a battering RAM and fight it. 612 01:24:10.190 --> 01:24:21.300 Vivien Langford: You don't want to go away and be defeated by it. I want to know how to approach it. That solid wall of the establishment. You could even say it with the Yes 613 01:24:21.560 --> 01:24:34.359 Vivien Langford: or No referendum. You know there was this kind of establishment view that prevailed, but didn't seem that that was very permanent to me. It might might crumble eventually. But 614 01:24:35.260 --> 01:24:40.959 Vivien Langford: what's you know? We only have such a small lifespan in the time we've got. What's the way to 615 01:24:40.970 --> 01:24:52.219 Vivien Langford: think about the the given establishment, who usually to me. being in the media as I am, they seem to have their fingers in their ears. They don't want to hear what we have to say. 616 01:24:52.340 --> 01:24:54.099 Vivien Langford: Various people have to say. 617 01:24:55.070 --> 01:25:02.479 Teachers: Are you talking about religious establishment or not? Really? No. But Stephen mentioned the religious establishment. But 618 01:25:02.900 --> 01:25:08.380 Vivien Langford: I mean the political establishment, the social establishment, the gender establishment. 619 01:25:08.890 --> 01:25:09.710 Vivien Langford: Yeah. 620 01:25:10.180 --> 01:25:18.709 Teachers: Well, I think they're 2. I mean, I would see them as 2 separate establishments, I guess. 621 01:25:18.990 --> 01:25:26.619 Teachers: in terms of religious establishments. I mean, I think that probably 622 01:25:27.250 --> 01:25:34.890 Teachers: secular Buddhism began as a kind of critique of establishment. 623 01:25:34.900 --> 01:25:42.160 Teachers: I've got an idea I might be simply quoting Stephen on this. But more recently 624 01:25:42.700 --> 01:25:47.409 Teachers: secular Buddhism has has developed 625 01:25:47.930 --> 01:25:59.479 Teachers: in a suite generous way, whether we're no longer critiquing the orthodoxy. But we're actually developing along our own lines. And the orthodoxy. Can. 626 01:25:59.870 --> 01:26:05.729 Teachers: you know, look after itself? We're not. We're not engaging with it anymore. 627 01:26:06.200 --> 01:26:12.150 Teachers: might be putting it a bit crudely, but it seems to me, anyway, to be what's happening now? 628 01:26:12.560 --> 01:26:30.689 Teachers: As far as the other establishments are concerned, I will be dealing with them in later days, but it seems to me we have to be much more tactical and strategic about them. But it depends on which. Yeah, which one we're talking about. 629 01:26:30.760 --> 01:26:41.589 Teachers: and what the opportunities are to do that. But I that's I think a conversation a bit further down the track in this retreat. 630 01:26:42.250 --> 01:26:49.979 Vivien Langford: Could I just say, look you also mentioned that word establishment when you said the Vietnam war sort of pushed you out of the country. 631 01:26:50.000 --> 01:26:59.529 Vivien Langford: and you were on a path to the establishment, presumably a certain career or persona that you would have become. And now you've become something different. Yeah. 632 01:26:59.550 --> 01:27:03.510 Vivien Langford: And I think a lot of people have that experience. There's either suffering or 633 01:27:03.610 --> 01:27:15.359 Vivien Langford: some wake up experience where they just can't look away. They just can't. Say, I don't know. There was even a film once, you know French film where he said once, you know. 634 01:27:15.590 --> 01:27:17.610 Vivien Langford: it obligates you and 635 01:27:17.950 --> 01:27:28.889 Vivien Langford: yet there's always this lumpish establishment who says, no? Well, not yet. We'll do it later. We'll delay. or this is not the way we do it. And 636 01:27:30.040 --> 01:27:36.640 Vivien Langford: I want to know how to think about it. I feel very hostile to it, but I don't want to batter my head against her. 637 01:27:37.320 --> 01:27:38.709 Teachers: Yeah. Well. 638 01:27:39.780 --> 01:27:48.040 Teachers: I guess it really is a question of strategy and tactics as opposed to simply. 639 01:27:48.150 --> 01:27:55.269 Teachers: you know, simple critique, are easy. I really think you know, when you, when you're up against 640 01:27:55.840 --> 01:27:57.590 Teachers: and establishment. 641 01:27:57.830 --> 01:28:02.679 Teachers: You've got to understand exactly how it works. 642 01:28:03.030 --> 01:28:04.840 Teachers: I mean, someone said. 643 01:28:06.200 --> 01:28:15.199 Teachers: in order to gain freedom, one has first to understand exactly how one's bondage works. 644 01:28:15.310 --> 01:28:15.980 Vivien Langford: Hmm. 645 01:28:16.320 --> 01:28:23.630 Teachers: okay, so I'll be hopefully getting into that a bit later, because it's a more complicated issue. 646 01:28:24.650 --> 01:28:25.540 Thanks. 647 01:28:33.280 --> 01:28:44.510 Teachers: It's Tessa. Again. I have an experience that differs from the one just described, and some of the other ones as well, which I'd love. Your opinion on. I came into this 648 01:28:44.590 --> 01:28:54.570 Teachers: whole world through a space that was offering secular mindfulness, such as Mbsr courses and 649 01:28:54.860 --> 01:29:06.850 Teachers: things like that sort of scholars and studies through academia. And initially, when when I came to all this no one was mentioning the dharma. No one was mentioning the Buddha, but it was. 650 01:29:07.020 --> 01:29:28.759 Teachers: you know, a variation of the teachings, and I guess I'm sitting here going is that, like the other end of the scale, where the Buddhism is completely gone from the whole picture. And it's a really big scene. Obviously the mindfulness or whatever it's huge. And where does that fit in like? I'm curious about that. 651 01:29:29.110 --> 01:29:39.030 Teachers: Well, I mean, there's a number of different approaches to teaching, developing, and teaching that. 652 01:29:39.590 --> 01:29:45.559 Teachers: I think some of the people who 653 01:29:46.200 --> 01:30:03.780 Teachers: who started it. We actually had training in Buddhist establishments, Buddhist monasteries, etc. But they're selling it on a completely different basis. I mean. 654 01:30:04.040 --> 01:30:17.900 Teachers: it's it's being sold as a fee for service. It's commodified a fee for service. There's no requirement to be in communication, in, in. 655 01:30:17.910 --> 01:30:22.969 Teachers: in a sanger sense. there's no requirement to 656 01:30:23.040 --> 01:30:27.929 Teachers: follow an ethical, an ethical teaching at all. 657 01:30:28.480 --> 01:30:29.350 Teachers: So 658 01:30:29.460 --> 01:30:43.810 Teachers: as far as far as I'm concerned, it works. It's got therapeutic runs on the board. 659 01:30:43.900 --> 01:30:53.629 Teachers: If it works, do it. You know, it's it's it's relieving suffering, particularly when when it's genuine therapeutic uses. 660 01:30:54.060 --> 01:31:05.240 Teachers: It's a different story when it's when we're talking about military mindfulness like it's part of the basic training of us marines. 661 01:31:06.120 --> 01:31:09.859 Teachers: and I think that's quite mischievous. 662 01:31:10.210 --> 01:31:13.600 I know there's a counterargument that it means they 663 01:31:13.900 --> 01:31:39.560 Teachers: commit less domestic violence when they come back from their operations. So that's good. But I still think it's mischievous use, and also use as a way of increasing productivity in corporations by making employees more docile. 664 01:31:39.690 --> 01:31:44.180 Teachers: a theory and practice of management. That's all about 665 01:31:44.270 --> 01:31:46.200 Teachers: hierarchy and 666 01:31:46.580 --> 01:31:59.529 Teachers: and exploitation. Exploitation. Ca, yeah. And I guess the question under my question. Sorry I didn't realize it. Is that what's what's your ethical like. Stance on on that. 667 01:31:59.750 --> 01:32:01.439 Teachers: on that sort of 668 01:32:01.590 --> 01:32:06.309 Teachers: I guess some people would call it an an extractive 669 01:32:06.330 --> 01:32:18.670 Teachers: you know. Take on the teachings to use them, you know, for those means. And then, of course, you said, it's helpful for some people, but it's devoid of an ethical path. 670 01:32:20.010 --> 01:32:25.850 Teachers: Well, look as I say, if it in in therapeutic applications. 671 01:32:26.040 --> 01:32:29.900 Teachers: It does seem to work, and if it it's just like 672 01:32:29.990 --> 01:32:35.979 Teachers: any other therapeutic development, if it will, if it works, go for it. 673 01:32:36.210 --> 01:32:52.049 Teachers: and I don't. I mean, people go into things like Mbsr. Or Mbc. With their eyes open. They pay their money, they do the course. And a lot of those teachers are very skillful, particularly, you know, when I 674 01:32:52.120 --> 01:33:19.689 Teachers: where I'm in Sydney, I think you know she does a terrific job. And and it's relieving suffering. So there's no ethical problem there, because he's not being marketed as a road to Nirvana. It's a question of becoming a more integrated and happy human being. But obviously, I've got concerns about 675 01:33:19.760 --> 01:33:21.550 Teachers: the corporate 676 01:33:21.880 --> 01:33:23.620 applications and 677 01:33:23.760 --> 01:33:30.780 Teachers: and the military applications, and and those other kind of organizational applications. 678 01:33:30.830 --> 01:33:41.269 Teachers: So I mean, in some cases they might be they might be good. And then a lot of people who do these courses in whatever in whatever framework 679 01:33:41.490 --> 01:33:47.940 Teachers: are going to, probably a small minority. But if they're going to become curious and 680 01:33:48.460 --> 01:34:06.100 Teachers: end up here, or some in some similar kind of setting, and that's again a great, I mean a great outcome. But but it's not one that's planned for or happens often. Probably. 681 01:34:08.700 --> 01:34:09.570 Teachers: Yeah. 682 01:34:16.040 --> 01:34:31.030 Teachers: I want to excuse everybody in this room for what I'm going to say. Okay, because I know it does not apply to them. And I'm coming from my American experience. And we were talking before about change 683 01:34:31.050 --> 01:34:32.250 Teachers: and climate. 684 01:34:33.180 --> 01:34:37.050 Teachers: and I have just I've given up on 685 01:34:38.310 --> 01:34:41.030 Teachers: I've become a pessimist about it. 686 01:34:42.990 --> 01:34:56.919 Teachers: and a lot of it has to do with with the inability of people to even make small change. A lot of what's happening in the oil industries and all that in America is financed by the banks. 687 01:34:57.550 --> 01:34:59.799 Teachers: You could stop that overnight 688 01:35:00.000 --> 01:35:12.370 Teachers: if people would withdraw their accounts from it and move to a credit union or some other thing. But the answer is, oh, I've been with that bank for 20 years. Oh, that bank is right around the corner. 689 01:35:13.080 --> 01:35:15.050 and people do not. 690 01:35:16.160 --> 01:35:24.479 Teachers: I guess there's the thing about homo sapiens that they deal well with emergencies, but they don't deal well with slow disasters. 691 01:35:29.620 --> 01:35:33.120 Teachers: I go around with slogans on the back of my car. 692 01:35:33.340 --> 01:35:37.150 Teachers: One of these days I'm gonna get my tires slashed. Okay. 693 01:35:38.540 --> 01:35:41.609 Teachers: During the last election I had 694 01:35:42.040 --> 01:35:55.720 Teachers: put up trump, you know, there's a format for this 3 stars a bar, the President, vice president, a bar, and 3 stars, and I put that on the back of my car and I put on it 695 01:35:56.360 --> 01:36:04.909 trump, Slash Putin. When I was parked outside of a grocery store I came back out, and somebody had erased Putin. 696 01:36:05.090 --> 01:36:15.809 Teachers: but that was the point of it is to get people thinking about it. But I offer these signs to other people. No, I'm not going to put that in my car. 697 01:36:16.270 --> 01:36:20.420 Teachers: And and it's all those little tiny things. 698 01:36:20.540 --> 01:36:24.799 Teachers: and no one's willing to do them except for the people in this room. 699 01:36:27.550 --> 01:36:32.160 Teachers: I know it's very. It's very dispiriting. I'd seen. 700 01:36:32.330 --> 01:36:38.850 Teachers: I mean, just what's happening right now in Dubai. 701 01:36:39.510 --> 01:36:44.399 Teachers: where you know, the a Petro state 702 01:36:44.430 --> 01:37:01.169 Teachers: is hosting a global meeting about how to meet climate change, and the President gets up and says there is no science to indicate. There's something wrong with using coal and gas. 703 01:37:01.240 --> 01:37:06.839 Teachers: I mean, yeah, it's that sort of thing makes you, brother. Take your hair a bit. 704 01:37:06.950 --> 01:37:11.529 Teachers: but I think I think it's part of the tragic vision is to 705 01:37:12.010 --> 01:37:15.320 Teachers: say we're still going to respond. Anyway. 706 01:37:15.490 --> 01:37:31.750 Teachers: we're still going to respond. Anyway, we've still got to do what we have to do. But there's going to be backsliding, and there's a lot of backsliding going on on that issue of climate. Now you know where the emphasis is 707 01:37:31.960 --> 01:37:37.080 Teachers: is going from? How do we stop it to? How do we live with it. 708 01:37:38.250 --> 01:37:42.569 Teachers: and that, you know, seems to me a dreadful kind of. 709 01:37:42.740 --> 01:37:51.849 Teachers: and obviously A shift in emphasis that's been driven by fossil fuel industries and and their political enablers. 710 01:37:53.570 --> 01:37:57.409 Teachers: But we have 2 keep going, anyway. This is why 711 01:37:58.240 --> 01:38:02.770 Teachers: I'm on the battling pessimist team. 712 01:38:04.450 --> 01:38:08.640 Teachers: you know. There is the other side of this is that if you 713 01:38:08.790 --> 01:38:13.789 Teachers: there's a term for it which I can't remember. But if you can see a disaster coming. 714 01:38:13.990 --> 01:38:14.680 Teachers: hmm! 715 01:38:14.860 --> 01:38:20.229 Teachers: And no one's willing to do anything. Then what do you do to take advantage of the disaster coming? 716 01:38:20.350 --> 01:38:24.100 Teachers: Hmm! Don't buy beachfront property. 717 01:38:24.440 --> 01:38:31.689 Teachers: If you have it, sell it. teach your children how to deal with with grandchildren and 718 01:38:31.710 --> 01:38:34.689 Teachers: great grandchildren, how to how to deal with 719 01:38:36.030 --> 01:38:38.180 Teachers: this kind of issue. 720 01:38:39.380 --> 01:38:43.639 Teachers: You know where, what kind of jobs to look for where to live. 721 01:38:43.840 --> 01:38:55.309 Teachers: and and all kinds of other things that you can do that you know that your children don't know. 722 01:38:55.990 --> 01:38:56.740 Teachers: Yeah. 723 01:38:59.640 --> 01:39:01.900 Teachers: course they won't listen but 724 01:39:02.140 --> 01:39:04.180 Teachers: tell it. 725 01:39:04.650 --> 01:39:07.330 Teachers: but they will have their own experiences in time. 726 01:39:09.260 --> 01:39:10.100 Teachers: Yes. 727 01:39:12.170 --> 01:39:19.990 Teachers: sorry for my back with the microphone. I don't have answers to all what you've just put forward there. 728 01:39:20.430 --> 01:39:48.879 Teachers: I've just come from the Newcastle coal ship blockade, and the young people there were incredibly well organized, well informed. 19 year old, was one of the key organizers. I know the odds are enormous, but it was just so heartening to see the level of understanding and appreciation of what they're facing and their determination. 729 01:39:49.230 --> 01:39:57.679 Teachers: I'd strident, quite well informed, well-presented talks and things that went on there. 730 01:39:57.680 --> 01:40:25.990 Teachers: and there was also a lot of joy in what was happening there, too, which I thought was marvelous because it wasn't just. This is all terrible. People were actually bringing music and creativity, and a lot of fun to it as well. So I think we have to see that young people are really leading us now in this area. I'm not saying that what's happening in Dubai, which is where my partner's headed tomorrow is fantastic, but 731 01:40:25.990 --> 01:40:50.120 Teachers: I feel that there is a lot of intelligent campaigning going on. We are going to face a lot of difficulties, but are not going to be comfortable. We may have enormous bushfire season this year. That's the way the Weather Bureau is predicting it. There's a lot of things, a lot of consequences. But I don't think we should just 732 01:40:50.230 --> 01:41:07.500 see that it's only that we live with the consequences, because we won't. If it just stays on the trajectory it is. It means for me, anyway, I just feel that it's this scene of hope and and the inherent action that is required of all of us. 733 01:41:08.120 --> 01:41:10.860 Teachers: whatever the odds, because what else? 734 01:41:10.900 --> 01:41:21.000 Teachers: What else are we going to do? Are we going to just give up and pretend it's not happening or yeah die of sorrow. 735 01:41:21.300 --> 01:41:23.869 Teachers: Anyhow, it's just my take on it. 736 01:41:24.020 --> 01:41:29.689 Teachers: I think that's that'd be a great point. I think it's terrific that we go away and think about that. 737 01:41:30.140 --> 01:41:33.399 Teachers: because it is now time we 738 01:41:33.880 --> 01:41:46.160 Teachers: broke up. I'm sure we're going to come back again and again to these. We're, after all, looking at ethics in a world in crisis, and we'll keep this conversation going. But 739 01:41:46.280 --> 01:41:47.739 Teachers: now we need to 740 01:41:48.910 --> 01:41:55.300 Teachers: have a bit of free time before we sit again. Say. thank you all.