Dvedhavitikkasutta

Dvedhavitikkasutta – Twofold Thought #3 – 47 Minutes – April 15, 1991.
[Noble 8-Fold Path Intro.] A Majjhima Nikaya Commentary given by the Venerated Namgyal Rinpoche.
(First Draft Only)

You will remember that the last point we were talking about as you get an involvement, so you get a proclivity, a bias towards, in other words you have to focus on something and then you develop it. And I’d like to point out that most beings don’t make judgments, they just simply react in situations and don’t necessarily develop a theme. Well as far as theme is concerned, or ‘THEMA’ in this Teaching, the Buddha, (again I would like to remind you that he said on one occasion, “I teach but two things: suffering and the cessation of suffering.”) (And uh) Many beings have argued and debated, and speculated and made their conclusions about whether or not this is a religion or whether it’s a philosophy, or whether it’s a psychology, etc., and they have written books to prove this or that point and back and forth they go.

Basically, it’s a, whatever it could be said to be, it is primarily just concerned : it’s a medicine. It’s a medical path. That is to say that he’s pointed out that there is of course, obviously, human suffering and people don’t see the extent to which they’re suffering. Never the less, it is there. Then they get the idea that there is suffering in their life. They perhaps don’t see the full extent of it because they don’t see the full extent of the possibilities of life. So they are content to go along in what Freud called a sort of “common “ suffering, sorrow. He said you have to, (Freud said I think once something like this), that you have to hand in hysterical despair for the acceptance of, sort of, ordinary suffering. (Something like that.)

Well, this Teaching is not content about that. It is, however, pointing out that even if you feel good, you’re still (in a) relative degree of suffering to what you could feel. In other words so much of the potential of life is lost and that too, is a type of suffering. People just are not aware of it. So it does try to address that first. You have to be aware that opportunities, as each day goes by, opportunities are being missed etc., and there are causes for not only having active suffering, but the loss of happiness, (which is another suffering), or causes why you don’t see the opportunities; I suppose if you had to put that in a nutshell, it would be lack of mindfulness, lack of awareness, lack of seeing.

Then, he then spoke about that human suffering, emotional suffering and mental suffering also has in addition to physical, psychosomatic, has causes and so on. There is in the background the thought that life could be lived perfectly except that there are intervening externals that cause, including parents and (you know) society and people you meet and circumstances you meet, economic etc., that thwart the supposed perfect development of a being ( the perfect growth). There are difficulties that not only twist the Tree of Life into very odd shapes, but sometimes prevent it from growing at all.

But it has causes, and those causes are not only in events first, but also, because of the events, repeated patterns, susceptibilities. So there are causes. But he did say whatever has a cause can have an ending. In other words, it had a beginning, there is a way, there it is a possible ending. It can be, in a sense, uncaused, or ’decaused’, or broken up and there can be a restitution of full growth in the being.

But in order to come to the full growth of the being, the full potential that is resident in the human consciousness, and I want to stress human consciousness not “angelic consciousness” or “Superman consciousness” or neither “Miss America” or whatever consciousness there may be, you understand. In the ordinary human consciousness there are incredible potentials that can open up and might go on to the realization of where it should be. So and many beings come nowhere near that but there is a path that can be followed and a way to the cessation of suffering.

Now I will, just for form’s sake, put that in Pali, (there is called) the Teaching is called, in general parlance, The Middle Way. That is between the extremes of over-indulgence in the pleasures of the senses, trapped in material objects and its acquisitions and sensations thereby. I guess you get the material objects in order to have sensations that you like, including people, and then the opposite extreme is the negation of life, the negation of all positive and beautiful moments. So between the two, there is a middle way. Basically it’s enshrined (in) the one word: “mindfulness” of what is occurring… the extremes that you go through, “YES”,… “NO”,…”YES, NO”!

Not to get what you want is suffering, and you spend a lot of life in that for the most ridiculous reasons, wanting this or that or the other. And you don’t get it; you do a “psychic pout”,and … suffering. And the other one is to be conjoined with what you don’t want as many children are. At the beginning of their life there are things that occur, and they don’t want them to occur, and they’re stuck in them. To be conjoined with what you don’t want is suffering.

Now if you could just live being aware of the possible “attraction, repulsion number”, through awareness, you might have a chance. But further than that, further then the full exposition of the path of, or on the way to the full exposition of the path of awareness, and being recollected and mindful, and not being trapped blindly in what is occurring, rather like a sort of “depersonalized ping pong ball” that’s being thrown back and forth across some kind of a net of views. You know, by “for and against” or “pro and con”, (those are the players). And you’re caught somewhere mindlessly going back and forth in events. There is a path of mindfulness, but there is a way to develop that mindfulness even deeper. And the way to the cessation, in brief, the way to the cessation of suffering is something called the Eightfold Noble Path.

And so on another occasion the teaching would be called simply, (not Buddhism which is probably not the correct thing to refer to it as), as simply the practice (practice, you notice, not merely looking at it theoretically. You have to walk the path.) but the practice of the Eightfold Noble Path. And so the practice of the Path that could be called Buddhism, (or vice-versa), Buddhadharma, is about that way to the cessation of suffering.

After the cessation of suffering you could speculate what it would be like and then you might talk in terms of enlightened beings and happiness and permanent happiness and transcendentals and cosmic consciousness and this and that and the other, but the first thing you have to do is to get rid of suffering, and then maybe be able to clearly see the truth as it really is.

Now in the exposition of that thing called “Buddhism”, or better, Buddhadharma, and in a way better still, The Eightfold Noble Path, because that’s the core of the teaching, (that’s why you come to an Academy here is to practice and study and practice, study in other words, turn your mind more and more and more and more and more and more ‘til it actually starts to get activated, and then turn that wheel of dharma to grind out some good grain that you can get the bread of life from). But in different places in the scriptures, in the discourses, The Eightfold Noble Path is laid out in its format in different ways.

Occasionally it is laid out with “Action” part first, (we’ll call it that), the Sila part first and then the Concentration development, (clearing the mind for good focus), and then Wisdom Realisation. And in that case in the Visuttimagga in particular, which is not a particular Sutta, but it is a commentary on Sutta and it is a Path, it goes Sila, Samadhi, Panna. That is the moral practice, the meditation practice and the wisdom attainment. It’s laid out that way.

In this particular discourse, the Buddha says, “The way that is secure, safe- (granting refuge to beings), leading to rapture, Monks, this is a synonym for the Aryan Eightfold Way. That is to say Right View, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Way of Living, Right Endeavour, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration”.

So I think we have to do a bit of work there. That is, the first two are considered the Wisdom section, and then the Sila ethical practice section, (which comprises three), and then the Meditation Path, (we shall refer to it as that), also constituting three. So in that case it goes Panna, Sila, Samadhi. Now, this is not a difficulty, this is just pointing out different aspects.

You know, before someone is motivated to practise morality they have to have, already present, a good aspiration; and it is dependent, (good aspiration, in other words the will to do good is preceding), that is, predicated on the basis that there is some wisdom present in the being already. I mean, you take the people who are war mongers… they have not only wrong aspiration or Wrong View, but they also have a Wrong Understanding. You have only to refer to the last of the wars to think “of course that peace is going to descend” through war, and then they make a war in the Middle East and then everyone’s quite happy for a while and then (not everyone of course!), but then you see in the wake of it even more wars, even more sufferings are still going on after the so called “peace”, a truce has come down. It’s still conducive to more and more and more. Somehow they thought a miraculous peace was going to occur by invoking the war machine. But it’s only a paper ‘number‘. Well anyway there is Wrong View in all of that and in other words, Wrong Understanding, Wrong Aspiration, Wrong Understanding , Wrong Wish and Wrong Understanding. Those two go together by the way.

I think also that we have to do a work on the word ‘Right’, which is being translated from SAMMA in the Pali, SAMMA. In the Sanskrit, Sanya.

Now the word itself, of course you could use it many ways. You could translate it, SAMMA, in it’s meaning as wholesome, good, right, but after all it does mean more, I mean more literally, Total. Total. Totality. In other words, you have to be totally in accord with truth. I mean there is out there somewhere, or inside, either in existence or non-existence, (don’t get petty about such philosophic distinctions), the idea that there is the possibility that you have to be, well rather like Jesus – not my will be done, but Thy Will Be Done. And you understand this, that you have to come into accordance with the laws of the Universe, the Dammas of the Universe. Totally. And only by total union and understanding of the laws of the Universe could there be a cessation of suffering. Because if you don’t understand the laws of the Universe and you have ignorance then you are subject to mistakes and wrong actions. So more than simply Right View, you have to say, eventually I hope to come to total viewing, in other words, total,clear, unobstructed seeing in every moment. And that would give then, the total clarity of seeing would give a total vision, total understanding, total wisdom. So we have, you know, in other occasions when there has been teaching at the Dharma Centre, there has been teaching on the perfection of virtue- the Prajna Paramita, the Perfection of Wisdom. And you notice that there are three words that keep going over and over again in the various talks and discourses and expositions. TOTALITY- are you in total union? or do you feel like separated and split and all the rest of it? This concurs of course with the third aspect of a mystical path which is the unitive. And the other one is SUNYATA, emptying- are you letting go? Is there non-clinging? And then of course you also have the other famous phrase in Wayan is MIND ONLY. It’s all realized mind. This universe is built by mind. And there’s our considerations of wisdom.     But the first thing you must have is a sense of the SAMMA. Right, not merely right, but total. I feel, (and I’ll put that in very ordinary terms), I feel in unitive flow rather than bitty ,scattered separation. I versus it, I versus them etc. Split, split, split, split, split. Heidigger said the dreadful has already happened; that is , people are already living in split and that is the dualistic view. Dualistic view.
So we get an idea that we should have present this feeling of ‘Rightness’ and correction which is based on that you feel unified and (it) is conducing to Totality Realisation. And so on. In SOBITA.
After that, I mean of course, any teacher, any, Buddhist if you wish, teacher trembles before exposition of the Eightfold Noble Path because it is so vast in its realisation aspect. It starts with a very simple thing, and that is ‘what is it you want?’. And beings (have) want apparently different things. And so some want to become a politician. I think that’s conducive to suffering. Some want to pay their mortgage off. That’s, (right?), from the standpoint of the possibilities of human life, surely you can see, (you might say it’s pragmatic, but), it isn’t a great joy, is it? You know, this is why you came into this world, was to pay off a mortgage! And so on. So we can’t think of that as the total, totality number, whatever it is. So on.
So somehow or other we have to ask the question first, ‘what is it you want?’, and then you have to sort that out between what might be called the ‘imperfect wants’ and the ‘perfect want’- (the desire). I mean surely the real desire, which is enshrined in families and in mortgages and in business success and so on , is to grow into happiness. Full and complete unfoldment into happiness and the question rises ‘(do) those other things grant that?’. Hardly. By all empirical (you know) experience, you will see that it’s fraught with dangers, all of them and they are temporary. But, imagine, imagine if you wish, a being who’s fully awake and understanding of even why they’re here or why there is ‘hereness‘, and all that is occurring, and the vast universe is opening before them in a continuum of marvellous discovery. This is another matter entirely. Somehow a little more ‘right’ sounding. And that your really deep aspiration is not merely to be happy but to know because only knowing grants the final happiness.
Whilst you don’t know, you might be excited, but you’re not necessarily (fully) feeling a full completion as a being until you understand and have insights, and incredible insights at that. I mean every (every) plant and all the vegetation and the structure of the earth and the structure of the universe; it’s unsatisfactory if you didn’t know them. (But you know) imagine however, that you awaken to be free, from the heart to be able to have continuous path of discovery. Surely, surely in other words, what are you, what are you above all things, as a human being, is curious. Also by the way, in all young animals, after feeding, what’s the next law? you know after they’re complete and they feel good, they get curious. What’s this? What’s that? Mummy, Daddy, what’s that? Curiosity, curiosity, curiosity. Lot to know.
Alas, because of various sufferings in the family and in the society, that need to know is not met. In fact it’s squelched. And so the whole possibility, what’s the first thing almost that suffers in life, is aspiration. And, and of course, no aspiration- no discovery. If you don’t want to know, you won’t discover. And if you don’t discover, there’s no happiness, really no abiding satisfaction.
Well, having said that, (the) then placing before the beings the idea that perfect, (“perfect”- another translation of SAMMA), perfect knowing is possible, which would then be the cessation of suffering, then it goes on to discuss what do you do now. And, alright, suppose I do want to become a fully awakened, liberated being dwelling in bliss and able to, by the way, to impart bliss to others. The first thing I’ve got to do, (the next section here… By the way the Right Thought means Right understanding , right wisdom or total wisdom. It’s a somewhat poor translation).
Right, next thing is Right Speech. Well, this path could be expounded and expounded and expounded but I’ll try to give you, (I want you to see, you know), give you something that’s very pragmatic. Alright, you might say, “I have, I have this sense of wanting. I know not what and I may agree with you that the picture that you paint is very attractive. But suppose I did want that; where would I begin? I mean, how could I intensify my aspiration, or see the aspiration, the real aspiration of life, fully? What’s life really about?”. It’s about growth. However, suppose I wanted to see that (well I). The first thing you have to do is you have to watch your dialogues. I’m going to change it from Right Speech. You see when we mention,( there’s so many aspects here), because when we mention the word ‘right’ and we talk about ‘totality’, you might see all of the communication of the Universe trying to get at you saying ‘Here I am’, and ‘Wake up’, and ‘Compassion’, and all the communications of the Universe, the ‘speech of the Universe’. It’s not merely your speech that we’re on about. But if you want to hear the speech of the Universe, I think the first thing, what’s it saying, what’s it trying to say to you; you have to watch what you’re saying. Your speech. And not only on the outer plane. You can go around with a clothes peg on your lips for the rest of your life and you wouldn’t make even, maybe half a step on the Path. So you took a vow of silence, meanwhile inside… You never spoke to anybody. I mean all these things are taken for granted that you don’t harm beings by speech and you don’t harm yourself by speech, (‘cause remember that, remember that business). But all those internal dialogues, that’s where we start in. The WITAKA, WICARA, WACA aspect to control that, to see how much the dialogues are harmful to you and of course outer dialogues are also harmful for other beings. But sometimes you can say nice things to others and harm yourself, and sometimes you can say nice things to yourself and be harming others, and the dialogue between the two is not in fact, free. It’s not speaking of the totality of the universe in the dialogue. It’s not a totality dialogue. It’s held back. It’s split. It’s pretense. It’s all sorts of things.
But anyway, pragmatically, we just put it in again in that sort of nutshell. (Most of the nuts have lots of shells around them anyway but I don’t want to talk about it.) …and that is, alright, you want to make an advance you have to see the verbalization that’s going on in your head. We’ll put it that way. Chuntering on, (with) not to the point, at all. And wasted, wasted debris we’ll call it, superficial dialogue, not developing anything. So much of the time wasted in that. If you can cut through that one, you’ve really made a tremendous advance on the Path.
The Buddha said, (not only to groups of people, by the way, and this might apply to the Dharma Centre operation), discuss Dharma or maintain the Aryan silence. I mean some of the conversations that go on are so puerile, at the Centre. They call it relaxation, but as far development is concerned, the best way to relax is discussing something positive and not sort of childish debris stuff. Cut through that. Just cut through it and discuss Dharma or maintain the Aryan silence, the Noble silence. By the way, this Path is also called the Noble Path, the Path to ennobling the human being. And you’ve got to do something for enlightenment. You got to act, speak, act, live as a noble being . You’ve got to start doing that. Rather, you know if you talk in terms of respect, it’s only when you start to live with that motivation that you could, you know, trust in what is called Aryan pride or Aryan respect for your being because you’re doing, involved with concrete noble actions that are worthwhile for a human being to do.
Well after this is, (by the way this uh.. volumes and volumes and volumes could be you know, ramifications of this could be unfolded. It’s not… Ananda said, “Oh this Path is very simple.” and the Buddha said, “Oh say not so. It’s broad and it’s vast and as deep as the ocean.” So behind that phrase just “Right Speech“, there’s a lot to learn.
And then the next one is “Right Actions”. But you see, you don’t get to control your actions until you start controlling the inner dialogues. You know, actions… you perform actions and you do things without consideration because you’ve never mastered the “Right Speech”. So you never get the “Right Action” occurring. And because you don’t have the “Right Action” occurring, in other words, your deeds are not right until you have finished with dialogue; watching what your dialogues are. You don’t clear that one up. If you don’t clear your deeds up, your actual specific acts, you cannot be said to have “Right Livelihood” or “Total Livelihood”, the correct way of living. And that doesn’t mean merely sorting out what job you’ve got and how you’re getting your pay cheque, but it means how you’re spending life energy. So until you have good dialogue occurring, until you have good actions occurring, actions that build, you’re not building up the energy that’s necessary for the Path. You are wasting the life possibilities. So it’s more, it’s more than how you’re employed meaningfully, but whether your whole life is meaningful and whether the Prana, the energy etc. of life is in fact being respected. The opportunities… so that’s, that’s there you see.
So you start from the dialogue and then you deal with your specific acts and then we find that you can raise the Ananda consideration after you’ve cleared up your act…shun. Sometimes by shunning acts first, and then get to the confidence that you know that you are expending energy correctly, then you see that your entire lifestyle and your energies are building the Path, rather than (right?) the wastage.
It was Teilhard de Chardin (looked) thought that the greatest tragedy, the greatest suffering in human life, he pictured it as looking down on perhaps, a mid-English industrial scene, at night, and saw all the smokestacks. You know, every house was smoking away. Fires were on in every house. It was a pretty dismal sort of morder (?) type of scene. And you know he says, “You know, that’s the real human suffering.” The real human suffering is that their whole life, their lifestyle is a wastage of the opportunity. If all that energy is consumed uselessly and the human brain is not being put to good use. .. Life after life after life after life…
The broad mass of the beings… they can be in a nice Canadian phrase ‘nice’, but what a waste. How they’re wasted in so much…. (blank spot) …. and yet in the human brain, they could write all the glorious music, write all the most wonderful poems and novels and make all the scientific discoveries. And any being you could go out an just meet and put your arms around in the street, they could be a Buddha. You know, they could be a genius of discovery and so on. Yet, most the life is wasted . Now that’s a fact! That’s a fact.
Now this teaching is very, very clear about that. That’s suffering. When something doesn’t realize its potential and they have no idea that that potential’s even there. You know, you can be the Beethoven, Einstein, etc. You know, I don’t know about their personal life, but you know what I mean as far as the range of mind is concerned. We should really have an education dedicated to making every being a genius, ‘cause it’s there. Every being the living Buddha, should be a motto.
Now, when we’ve got that, that whole life is then established on the Path, ‘Right Livelihood’, Right living, (living by the way! not dying!) and unfolding, Right Unfoldment… then we turn to ‘well now can we?’ You notice that we’ve got now the right continuum pattern is occurring, we turn to the third section of the Eightfold Path, could be expounded in many ways, but we have translated here Right Endeavour, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. And just for a moment we’re going to… so many people, by the way they count (?) as do meditation and I suppose this threefold section is about meditation, and what is meditation generally speaking in the Teaching. Yes, well I’ve painted a kind of picture; now you have energy. You have to put the energy to use. It’s not enough merely to refrain from evil. You have to learn to do good. You have to now get on with what you should have done years ago, by the way. You know, because times a’wasting, time’s past and alas dukkha and now you’ve got to get down to it. So the next thing you’re going… and you should realize that! That’s a big universe out there. I cant afford to shilly-shally. I’ve got to make an effort. More than just let time go by. I’ve got to very wisely make decisions. Efforts that are in accordance with the Path. I mean that goes from very simple things. I can’t afford to waste my time with that, and that and that and that. You understand? I’m just speaking in a very ordinary human way. Those itty-bitty conversations that ‘pour passer le temps’. All that sort of stuff. Half hearted little efforts about this, that and the other. I have to get some gut! Valour! Determination going. I’ve got to rouse myself to do work for the Path realization. Just as much as someone who wanted to become a concert pianist. I’m not going to just sit there dreaming about it, I’ve got to get down to work. I’ve got make effort. And you have to realize that. Now I’ll garner in my energies and I’ve put it in that direction. (To ah) And what do I want to put it towards? I want to put it towards opening- that’s Right Effort, (right?), the correct effort. Effort which is in accordance with the goal and I want to use it correctly too. I don’t want to waste this, that and the time and energies. So we get more and more pithy about it. Concentrate the energies before you even do concentration on a subject of meditation. Make sure the energies are present. And that’s why more and more I’m going try to stress grounding beings. Grounding. Getting the energies ready for the task before even doing it.
Some people go in and they expect meditation to give them the energies. This text is however saying that you’ve got to have the energy first. Otherwise it’s an exercise in masochism and defeatism. And why haven’t you got the energy. Why haven’t you got the push, the (idetum?), the determination? Why isn’t the determination there? Why is it so half-hearted? (particularly in the Province of Ontario and in Canada in general?). Because they wasted all the energies on the other stuff. On not (right?) completing the Right View and the Right Understanding and the Right Speech, and the Right Action and the Right Livelihood. Because that’s not complete, now they’re in a state where they make, you know, bitty little efforts. Oh yes! It’s called ‘hungry ghostism’. “I want great BIG ENLIGHTENMENT, but I’m, I’m only going to put in little itty-bitty time. Maybe one hour a day, and I, I hope I get it in some kind of lucky draw!” The Dharma, you know the Damma Cakra? is some big lottery wheel that’s spinning around or something or other! And you thought that maybe one day or other, your number’s going to come up! The sign that the being is established on the Path is that they make effort! Excuse me! That’s a sign! That means wisdom is there. To the extent that they do make effort, wholesome effort by the way, concentrated, determined, that’s a sign that the Path is operative.
So what do you, what do you use the effort for? Well, you not only bring your mind, recollect your mind back again and again and again to the subject to the subject of Enlightenment, of Unfoldment, of wisdom realization, traveling the universe etc., understanding the laws of the universe. I want to experience. I want to know. And bringing them the mind back to that and not being satisfied…. and so on. Using the very grasping itself or at least the right object of grasping! That’s why in one part it says Tanha is the Path. Grasping. Trying to reach out. Let’s use that and at least reach out for the right thing, the thing that is capable of giving satisfaction and happiness.
But also you want your mind, you know about the mind full. Mindfulness people don’t look at. Your mind is full of interest, is the number one. Curiosity, you want your mind full of that. Never lose that. NAMA WICAYA(?). You want to explore. I want to expand knowing and experience. Repeat that to yourself over and over again. And then of course, you can then say, concentration. I’m very calmly established in the correct focus.
The proper study, (I’m going to disagree with Marx and Engels etc. ‘The proper study of man is man.’), drop that! The proper study of a human being, men and women and children is what’s occurring, NAMA. The manifestations and the phenomena, is Dharmas of the Universe. That’s your proper work. Not merely studying your navel, but the whole impossible navel of the universe. How was it born? I mean you have big questions ahead of you, and you have to make focus on those questions.
‘The bigger the doubt, the bigger the enlightenment’. I’m going to change that to ‘the bigger the quest, the bigger the enlightenment.’ The bigger the question. But also the sense that questing is going on, effort. Not simply waiting in a kind of pie in sky… ‘Pie in the sky, it’ll be sweet by and by.’ (The) every footstep of the Path must speak awakening. And it must be a very firm tread on that path. Everything you do. Whether it’s cooking, make discovery. Whether it’s reading, make discovery. You know, bring everything into that. Raising of children: that will serve the Path. It’s not, you know, so many beings come and they talk about daily life and then the spiritual life. Look, there’s only one way of living and that is, if you wish the word, with movement. The spirit means that. The Spiritual Life. All the rest is dead. Bring up the children spiritually. Get involved in motherhood spiritually. Make it teach you. Make it declare the marvels of the universe. Everything you’re doing, from the most mundane. You know, someone came to a Zen master and asked them, “What do I do for enlightenment? I want enlightenment!” and he said, “Go wash your bowl.”. That’s all he said. “Go wash your bowl.” Now he not only meant, ‘clean up your act’. You’ve got stuff, grubby stuff in there from the past. You know what I mean. Decaying garbage. Chuck it out. He not only said that, he didn’t mean just that, but he meant the very act itself. You have to turn the most mundane plate washing number. Right? Drying off a fork! I mean everything! Everything must be spiritual! Everything must be a marvel. I mean it’s marvelous that you can do that by the way, that you can move arms and legs and all this type of thing. And where and how that shiny material is crafted. There are marvels behind the most seemingly inane object.
I wanted once, and someone who couldn’t (I didn’t) quite understand what I meant, but I wanted to paint, (a week or two from now I hope to go back into painting, seriously, as you say or happily, which ever way you want to read it) and I wanted once to paint a plant, not a vegetable plant but an electrification or gasification plant, (that’s what they called them in England), with all the beautiful lights shining in the darkness in the order like stars. And someone just looked at me and he’s like, “You’re mad! Do you want to paint that? Well you know, that’s a sordid object, that…I mean…gasification…gas plant…I mean gasification plant…Who would want to do a thing like that?”. Well the interesting thing is that it is a law of the Path, that the purified, the Arahat, they see Nama and beauty in everything. Simply in everything. The decaying corpse of a dog on the road, etc. They’re able to turn it to Damma realization. If the Dharma was not realized, they would realize it by that object. If they, if there is realization, they would use that for blessing. Now most, then they’re living beyond for and against. They’re living in the, if you wish, in the mathematical harmony, you know Pythagorean harmony of the universe in all of its manifestations and they also see, as the text says, beauty in the ugly. That is even the reason for the sins have their purity of reason of being. You may have to ponder that for in other words, they have a reason to be. Raison d’etre. They’re not just willy-nilly. They’re built by law. And even the realization of the ignorance of being is understood. So these are all considerations. You might think, ‘well that’s not terribly glorious. I think that on the Path, you should meditate on obviously beautiful things. Roses and diamonds and pearls….’ {here the tape ends}