Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu

The people know Dukkha.

Have you heard the Pali word Dukkha? Have you heard translations? Suffering is a common one, but, like, Ajahn Thanissaro says stress.

But the Buddha doesn't mean so much.

Some concept, some ideas, and a notion.

Samvega is a Pali and Sanskrit word for the quaking of shock we feel when confronted with the frailty of our bodies and the grim certainty of impermanence.

As Thanissaro Bhikkhu has described it, Sam Vega encompasses not only such alarm, but a chastening recognition of one's own complacency in an urgent drive to make good use of this present life.

My Sam Vega was And a quick visit to the hospital, I was called on the phone by the doctors.

They said, you must go to the emergency room immediately and check yourself in.

It's in my notes.

Grok is to understand something so completely and intuitively that the observer merges with the observed.

Okay? So, Samvega, the quaking of shock we feel when confronted with the frailty of our bodies and the grim certainty of impermanence, and Thanissaro Bhikkhu describes it as this, Samvega encompasses not only such alarm, but a chastening recognition, of one's own complacency and an urgent drive to make good use of this prison life and that's the oh that's what happened just like that's what happened for me answer it

yeah

We're able to see the truth of freedom, of liberation, of the goodness in life.

In the Sutta where the Buddha describes the vicissitudes, the eight vicissitudes, the title of that Sutta, or at least the title that Thanissaro Bhikkhu gives to it in describing the eight vicissitudes of pleasure and pain and so forth is the failings of the world.

The failings of the world.

I think that really is to the point.

And that's why so many modernist Buddhists will talk about...

There's even one, he's a very good scholar... an American bhikkhu or monk by the name of Thanissaro, who rather than calling the first noble truth the truth of suffering, describes it as the truth of anxiety.

I would dispute that for various reasons, but we don't need to get into that, but just to give you an example of kind of what's going on with that.

You would dispute it in the sense of the translation of the term dukkha?

Um, so this part is bow- bowing to Namu.

Um, Thanissaro Bhikkhu has a wonderful book that really kind of reframes this teaching on not-self in a very pragmatic way.

So I wanna emphasize for all of us, like often our Western minds, we hear this and we think, "We gotta figure this out," and the Buddha's actually teaching an ontology, right? The Buddha's teaching a, a truth, like an overlying truth, a concept, and we have to get that concept.

And so we go all still and rigid when you hear not-self 'cause you're like, "I don't really get it, but I should get it, but it's not really what I'm experiencing, but it's an idea." So Tan Ajaan really helps us.

Another translation of this one, this is, this is, um, Nyanananda's translation, "Does not conceive of a thing worth seeing.

Does not conceive of a thing worth hearing." Thanissaro Bhikkhu translates it more along the lines of what, how I was, um, speaking to it in terms of the, the papancha.

Thanissaro translate this, "Does not construe an object to be seen." A thing seen, the creation of the object itself.

That to me is very resonant with the way we were exploring that first one.

But, you know, it would be very awkward for me, you know, in the service of trying to, you know, maintain myself in the present moment, you know, to be repeating my mantra as I'm trying to give the Dhamma talk here, you know.

So, you know, the breath can always be the object, you know, as Thanissaro Bhikkhu likes to say.

The only thing that changes is the degree of participation with the breath, but it's always there as our anchoring and centering element.

So, you know, you could use a candle to practice focus, but it's going to be pretty hard, you know, to carry a candle around with you, particularly if it's windy, you know, the candle, you know, and on the subway, I don't think they let you bring candles.

So, you know, the breath has many, many benefits as the meditation object, but it's really the object for the mind also, the home for the mind.

So when we have singleness of, you know, and the breath and the body too, right? So, you know, this is something that Thanissaro Bhikkhu talks about a lot.

You know, singleness of mind means that you're able to focus the mind on an object.

So, you know, the primary object is the breath, but it could also be the full body, right? So when you're focusing the mind on the full body, there's focus, there's singleness of mind.