Youth Sil Notes - Sakyamuni Sambuddha Vihara (temple in Berwick) and Buddhist Vihara Victoria (Melbourne) Australia

Youth Sil Notes 09/07/06 - Posted by Rasika Wijayaratne on Thursday, 02 Aug 2007

From Sujith De Silva:

Dear all,

Here are some of my notes I used to present the ‘Bhaddekaratta Sutta’ (Ideal Solitude) at the last youth sil. Here the Buddha discusses how not to trace back the past’, how not to ‘yearn for the future’ and how ‘not to be drawn into present things’. For those who are interested in this topic or for those who attended and wanted to refresh their memory, I have attached a summary of my notes.

Regarding the presentation, I just wanted to clarify a few points

• I told a story about how I failed an exam to demonstrate how we cannot predict the future. To those that attended, it may have raised the following thought. ‘Well, he didn’t study and he only failed by 2%. I don’t need to study and I might just pass, I mean WHO KNOWS, THE FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN, RIGHT?

• That was not the point I was trying to make. Please don’t take this view for I’m sure I’ll have complaints from all you parents!!!! :)

• Yes, the FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN, and while not guaranteeing that you will pass, studying for your exams will increase the possibility of you passing.

• The point of the story was to show how by being attached to the future (in this case negative attachment – worry etc) we get lost in thoughts of the future and miss opportunities available to us in the present moment.

And try to keep the possibility in mind that

• WE ARE NOT OUR FORM, WE ARE NOT ARE FEELINGS, YOUR THOUGHTS ARE NOT YOU OR ‘SELF’…..….FOR THERE IS NO SELF

Thank you to all those that attended for your comments, questions and discussion through the presentation. I hope that you all enjoyed it and were able to take something away from it. Any feedback, suggestions and criticisms are most welcome (e.g. too much bad humor, not enough bad humor etc) :)

To all those that missed out, I hope the notes I have attached will provide an insight as to what we did on Sunday. And hopefully you will make it to the next youth sil. Even if you have attended before and think you know what it is all about – the future is ‘yet to come, the future is uncertain.(e.g. WHO KNEW THAT THE FIRST THING I WOULD ASK EVERYONE TO DO ON SUNDAY WAS TO EAT A SULTANA ‘MINDFULLY’)

May all beings be well, happy and peaceful

Sujith

Attachment 1: Bhaddekaratta_Sutta1.doc

Youth Sil Notes 21/08/05 - Posted by Rasika Wijayaratne on Wednesday, 08 Aug 2007

Many thanks to Venerable Wimalananda for teaching us the Dhamma including:

1. How long it takes to achieve Nibbana depends on the individual.

2. Nibbana can be achieved here and now, in this very life-time if a person's conditioning is right and enough effort is exerted. So there is no reason why there would not be any Arahants (ones who have achieved Nibbana) among us today, only they would not publicise the fact themeselves.

3. There are two stages to Nibbana, the first attained while alive and the second after passing away.

4. The 31 planes of existence and the being in those planes can be broadly categorised as brhamas, humans, devas, petas (spirits), animals and hell-dwellers. More information here : http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html

Thanks also to Jeanne Jayasinghe aunty and Sudath Herath ayya for attending.

Youth Sil Notes 17/07/05 - Posted by Rasika Wijayaratne on Monday, 18 Jul 2005

Many thanks to our teachers Ven. Wimalananda & Saman uncle for clarifying the many points of the Dhamma including:

1. Like a raft that gets left behind after the river is crossed, how we would no longer have any need for sîla (virtue) after attaining Nibbâna. However we do very much need it and forms the foundation of our practice along with the other two, dâna (giving) and bhâvana (meditation) before we get there.

2. During Metta bâhvana we don't simply utter the lines, but actually wish them and try to develop the feeling of loving-kindness. All youths are encouraged to set aside 10-15 minutes at the same time each day, in the morning or evening, to practice this valuable bhâvana.

3. When doing the awareness of breath meditation and the body becomes calm to the point that the breath is no longer detectable at the tip of the nose, that you need to be aware that the breathing process is still occurring, albeit very lightly. Breathing only really stops when you are under water and when you die.

4. All desire is not negative. The desire to succeed in life for example (as long as the means for achieving this are good too) and the desire to do good things are positive desires.

5. Dâna is the giving up and letting go of something, whether it is time, money, alms, etc.

6. Sâdu means good or excellent, and is often said as an encouragement to do more of whatever it maybe.

Youth Sil Notes 16/01/05 - Topic 3 - Posted by Rasika Wijayaratne on Wednesday, 19 Jan 2005

From Saman uncle:

Dear All,

Another simple gauge is:

1. the action initiate by greed, lust, selfishness or indulgence? “Raga”

2. the action initiated by anger, envy, ill will, hatred, enmity etc? “Dvesha”

3. the action initiated by lack of knowledge, strong/wrong view or misunderstanding? “Moha”

If so this action may be an unskilful action. The opposite is skilful action.

Another way is reflection on time:

1. I feel good about it before I do the action?

2. I feel good about it when I do the action?

3. Do I feel good about it immediately after I do the action?

4. Do I feel good about it one day, one month, one year, 10 years, after I do the action?

This is difficult but if we really try it can be achieved. Buddha once said “If it is not possible I would not have advised you to do it!!!”.

Best Regards,

Dr Saman Fernando

Youth Sil Notes 16/01/05 - Posted by Rasika Wijayaratne on Monday, 17 Jan 2005

All groups discussed 3 topics on Sunday. I've tried to keep it as basic as possible so even the younger members can undrstand.

Topic 1: The composition of a being:

1. According the the Dhamma a being is composed of i. form or material matter or the body, ii. feelings, iii. perception, iv. mental-formations or thoughts v. consciousness. These are called the 5 aggregates of a being.

2. Each of these 5 things is in a constants state of change. If you take your body (point i. from above) there are millions of changes that happen to it every moment; you breath, blink, move your muscles, bones, tendons and sinews, sweat, and internally you, digest food, blood flows to and from organs, cells multiply & die, tissues are repaired and so on on on, every single moment.

3. That’s in a moment, over a long period of time, your hair, nail & teeth grow, your skin, muscles and bones change, and generally you get older.

4. Its the same with the feelings (point ii) and the other groups of things or aggregates such as perception, mental formations and consciousness. Have you noticed how quickly your moods (feelings) change, sometimes from happy to neutral, other times happy to sad, sad to happy and so on, always between these three general states, happy (pleasant), sad (unpleasant) and neutral.

5. Everything within us (our body & mind) and without (externally like our friends, family, cars and the universe in general) and everywhere is in a constant flux, alway changing, never the same.

6. Being able to see this is fundamental and important, and is one of the 3 signs being or 3 characteristics of our everyday lives a. anicca/anithya (impermanance or change), b. dukkha (suffering or unsatisfactoriness that arises when the things we love and hold dear changes for the worst, car breaks down, when a close friendship breaks, separation from loved ones (them or you going overseas or even worse passing away), our bodies become old, etc), c. anatta/anatma (no-self or nothing is truly mine, if these things that we take as ours (ie. parents, friends, clothes, cars, our own selves) change so much, and we have so little control over these changes can we really say these things are ours? Because if they truly were, they would be as we wanted them to be, and not as they are, in a constant state of change, changing in ways we do not want or expect). To summarise this point the 3 signs of being or life are anicca (impermanace), dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) and anatta (not-self).

Topic 2: Metta - love without attachment

1. Metta is unconditional, unselfish love.

2. The way a mother loves her child, to the point she would give up her life to protect the child. This a great example as parents have a lot of love (metta), compassion (karuna), and joy in their children's success (mudita), which is why parents are a child's best friends. But a mother also has a lot of attachment to her child, so you need to discount that part in this example.

3. Our everyday relationships (with friends, parents, siblings) are based on some form of attachment (which at a basic youth level of understanding is okay/not a bad thing), but the love we try to develop with the metta ideal (and the metta meditation) is that of unconditional love, that is to love everyone (parents, teachers, siblings, friends, family, neutral people, enemies, people we don't like, animals, other beings) without expecting anything in return (such as wanting love, friendship, or something else in return), and to love all of them the same amount, without loving one more than the other. So say you love your mother the most in the world, you aim to love others to the same level (it maybe very hard but we try all the same, and we may only succeed half the time). What is also important to emphasise is that the metta love is unselfish and is based in non-greed (alobha), that is there is no attachment as there would be in romantic love.

Topic 3: How to determine between good/bad:

1. We can use experience as a good teacher. This does not mean that you have to for example experience smoking to know the pitfalls of smoking. (i) Look at other people's experience, people who are in that position (or even ask your elders or do some research), and you may see the cost of smoking and you can know that if it affects them badly, it can affect you in the same way. (ii) Another approach is to see how you feel when something happens to you, and determine from that whether something is good or bad. For example look at the effect of someone telling you off, it makes you feel bad so you know that telling someone off is a bad thing, and you can resolve to not do it to others. (iii) Personal experience can be good teacher too, (hopefully for not really big mistakes) where you look at something you have done & evaluate whether it caused harm or good, and resolve to not do it again if it caused harm & to do more of it if it was good.

2. Look at cost & benefit of your actions. Using pleasure & pain to determine good & bad respectively can be very misleading, because doing bad things can be pleasurable & doing good at times can be painful, or difficult. If you take drinking as an example it can bring pleasure, but what are the costs? Looking at the costs on personal health (the affects alcohol has on the brain & the body over a long period of time), society (people become even more undisciplined when under influence & can get into fights etc which can lead onto things like injury or even jail if thing get out of hand enough), personal wealth (how much money is wasted on drinking), reputation (people don’t look favourably on drinkers, especially if they get into trouble afterwards), your time (how much precious time (can be more precious than money) is wasted the next day after a heavy drinking session, recovering from it?), relationships (your loved ones may be getting hurt by seeing you drink). On the flipside as a youth if you don’t drink (maybe painful or difficult to do) then you benefit from avoiding all the pitfalls of drinking.

There are really no good or bad actions, but skillfull (beneficial) & unskillfull (costly) actions. Avoiding unskillfull actions and doing more skillfull actions generally decreases your suffering and increases your happiness.

Rasika.