Vassa

And as far as I know, even, let's say, Christian monks and other spiritual traditions.

So being in the middle part of the Vassa, my encouragement to everyone, if you wanna enhance your practice, if you wanna cut through defilements, if you wanna uplift and brighten your mind, if you wanna contemplate, you know, uh, reciting the Dhamma is excellent.

And of course, to really recite it, one first has to learn it.

This is already, you know, the first step.

And that at some later stage, when you come out of that meditation or the mind gets more active again, you may suddenly have an insight or you may see some of that passage you have learned by heart more clearly, although you were not actively thinking about it.

This is particular powerful if you cut out any other distracting input.

In particular, in a retreat period like Vassa, and I can highly recommend that, having that sense restrained in speech and nowadays even much more important, the Internet and social media and messages, trying to cut that out so that we don't have destructive input.

Instead, you do a chanting, reciting Dhamma, learning it by heart, and you combine that with simply sitting quietly, anapanasati, breath meditation, the mettā.

A sufficiently talented fault-finding mind can fight fault and complain about anything.

And for example, in my case, as you know, in my 20th Vassa here, I've been here a long time, and I remember when the the swine on which the Buddha is placed.

Leslie did a lot of work on that, on the Modena, choosing this very beautiful looking, beautiful color timber and the big front piece, just one piece.

And then the half-ton statue was delivered.

And something that came to mind was a comment from Ajahn Suchito recently in an email.

Because I had emailed the sangha in England where I had been spending some time to let the folks know that I wouldn't be coming back there for the Vassa as originally had planned because I needed to get a couple of medical procedures done that would take me into the Vassa commitment.

So I couldn't determine Vassa back there.

I had to determine Vassa here, which is actually not a bad thing at all.

This is always a great place to be.

But it wasn't what I had intended.

As you are aware, we are now in the, uh, rainy season retreat and the, uh, Vassa, the traditional three months where the monks, uh, are not, uh, traveling and, uh, usually focusing on Bhavana.

And we usually try our best to, uh, minimize any external activities, any projects, any work.

And what is the reason for that? Naturally, so that the monks can, uh, focus on Bhavana, on mental cultivation, on meditation.

So? I'm gonna die.

So? [laughs] It's, uh, one of my favorite personal little teachings from Luang Por Liam when I was his upathak, when I was spending the Vassa at Wat Pah Pong was there was a period where I was his attendant, and I would have very little sleep for a few days straight.

And it was like kathina season, so you go to these different kathinas, and there's all-night Dhamma talks and, uh, sometimes all-night work periods followed by all-night Dhamma talks.

And, uh, I was like, I was really afraid that I was gonna maybe have a seizure or something because I was very sleep deprived.

And, uh, the Buddha talked about that.

And once, King Kiki, who was the, the most powerful king in, uh, the time of Buddha Kassapa, king of Vanarsi at that time, wanted to invite Buddha Kassapa for the Vassa.

So he went and extended this invitation.

He came with his whole court and thousands of people.

Most powerful king in India at that time [chuckles] invited the Buddha, and the Buddha said, "No, I'm, I'm sorry, I can't accept the invitation because I already have accepted invitation for this Vassa from the potter." And the king was quite upset and quite despondent that he was outdone by a simple potter.

The big king and this very simple poor potter.

And then the Buddha said that, um, to the king that this wouldn't happen with his disciple, the potter.

What he would do is that he would put his finished clay products, the pots and plates and so on, he would put it in front of his potter's shop, and people could just take it and leave some rice or some other valuable or useful thing behind, and he wouldn't even try to bargain or do anything.

He shared that Tammy ran right back to Highburn, so that double agent is playing double double agent.

Durian also tells them what's the haps with the Firebird and the Sixth Queen Vassa, who's cursed.

Durian is like, TTYL besties, and he lets them know where to position their armies and thanks Feyre for killing the Creep Twins in the Spring Corp.

Really just leaving them wondering what the fuck happened.

But yeah, lightning with Amren and Reese.

Mm-hmm.

So at one point they're talking about the sorcerer lord that owns Vassa.

And there is an onyx box that he possesses.

It's a few old people come to ordain.

At that times, it's every year it's all the kuti is full because many people want to come to learn, to s-s-spend Vassa at Wat Nong Po Pong.

And it's not enough kuti for everyone.

We need to send someone to the branch monastery.

He said, "Oh, I still have so many monkey as well, not only white elephants." It's mean we still have not many good monks, a lot as well.

But after we learn, we train, we will get better.

Yeah, and at the time when I first Vassa, s-s... at the time there are so many senior monk at the times.

Yeah, most, most of them very quiet, but they are very practiced, very good role models.

He shared that Tammy ran right back to Highburn, so that double agent is playing double double agent.

Durian also tells them what's the haps with the Firebird and the Sixth Queen Vassa, who's cursed.

Durian is like, TTYL besties, and he lets them know where to position their armies and thanks Feyre for killing the Creep Twins in the Spring Corp.

Really just leaving them wondering what the fuck happened.

But yeah, lightning with Amren and Reese.

Mm-hmm.

So at one point they're talking about the sorcerer lord that owns Vassa.

And there is an onyx box that he possesses.