Against The Stream

Wise application of effort and energy. The fifth episode in the teachings of the perfections.

I want you to ask you to reflect on your relationship to money.

What happens in your belly? What happens in your jaw? In your armpits? When you think about money, how does your body feel?

The body teaches us so - so much - if we can tune into it.

Reflect on what your relationship to money is like….on what is your attitude about money?

Do you have like a super Wu Tang attitude, “cash rules everything around me! Dollar dollar bill y'all. I like money. I want money. It rules! Money is good! The more money I can get the better!”

Or do you have some other attitudes? You know the other side, “money is the root of all evil”.

Is there some shame around money? Is money not spiritual?

As spiritual Buddhists people are we not supposed to even talk about it?

Have you heard many Dharma talks about money?

I haven't. I've heard a few.

I know for myself, even talking about money there's a little bit of a feeling of…. “oooooh talking about money feels weird”.

But it's such a central aspect of human life that the Buddha was wise enough to address it in his teachings on the path to liberation.

Even though he was encouraging people to renounce money, and he himself renounced wealth and said, “I'm not going to mess with it”, he also understood that most of us weren't going to have that kind of financial renunciation, most of us weren't going to become nuns and monks.

The Buddha realized people were going to stay in their professions, so it’s important to choose a profession that's not going to create negative karma for us.

So…I’m asking you to reflect on this question, “What is my relationship like with money?”

And, I also want to ask you, “Where did you learn about money? Where did your attitudes about money come from?

I have this feeling that for the most part – not totally but for the most part – by the time people like us get desperate enough to start Buddhist meditation practice, by the time we find ourselves in a Buddhist sangha, we've had so we've hit some sort of dead ends. There's not that many people who show up to meditation and think, “everything is great. I'm so happy with my career, and money is good.”

Usually, we've hit some walls in the world, whether it's around the suffering of addiction or the dissatisfaction with money and power. By the time we get here, we've probably been looking at our relationship to money, and power, to societal norms.

How many of you is that's true for?

My sense is that often that's quite true for by the time we find our way into the sangha we’ve been thinking about this stuff.

Understanding how the develop a wise mind.

The five precepts are the five areas of renunciation for householders – for us.

The monks have hundreds of practices of renunciation, but the Buddha said, “for you guys, just five. I'm going to keep it really simple. Not a high level of renunciation. Just five areas of your life to practice some disciplines and abstinence and renunciation.”

The precepts are all framed on abstaining from actions that create negative karma for us.

If you remember, the first factor of the eightfold path the Buddha says, “here's the path to awakening, and the first thing you have to understand is the truth of karma.”

We have to know that ‘cause and effect’ are reality. It's not an idea. It's not a philosophy. It's not a perspective or opinion. It is a truth that we are living and breathing; that we are totally responsible for all of our volitional actions – meaning intentional / on purpose – all of our volitional actions have a consequence, have an outcome, have what we call a, ‘karmic fruit’.

All of the ones that are classified as ‘negative or unwholesome’ create negative karma for us: a momentum towards suffering, towards unhappiness.

And all of the positive, ‘wholesome’, this is simply classified as kindness, generosity, love, compassion, forgiveness and friendliness – All the positive – do more of that; more kindness, more compassion, more generosity, more positive karma in our lives, more service, more patience with annoying people or annoyingly difficult situations. All of that creating karmic momentum in the direction we want to go.

All of the judgments, anger, violence, dishonesty cause negative karma for us.

So the Buddha says, “If you want to get free from the causes of suffering, here's five ways that we cause suffering to ourselves and others;

The first is to abstain from murder.

The second two are about honesty; abstain from lying and abstain from stealing.

The next precept is about sex, and the translation says one avoids unlawful sexual intercourse.

The fifth is abstaining from drugs and alcohol: being sober.”

The five precepts are referred to as ‘Sila’; Buddhist ethics to train ourselves to abstain from killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct and using intoxicants.

Now you don't have to be perfect.

But you can try. It's worth the effort to try to be careful with our speech, with our actions, with our sexuality.

I’m going to talk about Sila. Buddhist ethics; the teachings, the suggestions, the guidance on how to live, how to behave, how to speak, how to act in a way that is supportive of our intentions for happiness and for awakening.

Tonight: Wise communication. Abstaining from lying, tale bearing, harsh language and vain talk is ‘right speech’. The avoidance of wrong speech, the abstaining, the resisting, the refraining. And then developing not just what we don't do, “I don't lie. I don't gossip. I don't try to cause harm with my words”. But actually acknowledging that our human communication is so powerful.

You know this right?

Just from the way that we affect each other, we do have the ability to bring a smile to each other’s face. To make each other feel good. To feel heard. To feel supported. To feel loved, and to actually practice that kind of positivity, that kind of perspective, “I want to speak to you in a way so that you feel good. I want to speak the truth, in the appropriate time, and the appropriate place, but in a way that hopefully supports you, even if it's sometimes uncomfortable.”

“Steadfastness”

I like that. It just sounds cool. "Steadfast."

It means something like committed, “I'm all in.” Like when you have faith – not blind faith but verified faith. When you've tried the practice, and even when you know – inevitably – you're going to hit periods of disillusionment, you're going to hit periods of doubt, you're going to hit periods of boredom.

Steadfast is, “I'm going to continue no matter what. My resolve is strong and I'm going to keep going. When it's boring, I'm going to keep meditating. When it's repetitive, I'm going to keep meditating. I'm going to keep practicing the principles and the precepts. I'm going to keep giving, even when I don't feel like giving and I don't feel like showing up. I'm going to be steadfast in my commitment to truth, to awakening, both internally and externally, to helping be part of the solution, to create a positive change on this planet and be steadfast in my commitment. It's not optional anymore.”

We can learn to cultivate appreciation for pleasure and truly enjoy life.

Rachael Savage gives a talk and guided meditation on appreciative joy for our own experiences.

A Series on the 10 Perfections A Foundation For Enlightenment

When it comes to the freedom – the happiness that we all want – we will never get it from the internet, the bank account or the world.

When we're looking for freedom, the first step is to find a reliable path that leads to a reliable refuge.

And, we have to look at what we are doing with our life’s energy. How much are we expending on dead ends?

You're here. Theravada based Buddhism.

This path is not a quick fix. It’s a slow, gradual path. My father's first book – one of my favorites – is called “Gradual Awakening’.

I encourage you to vow to yourself, to take refuge in making your own internal vow of, “I'm going to continue no matter what. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going for freedom. I'm on this path. It's working – however slowly – however bored I get hearing the same ******* Dharma talks over and over, reading the same books, hanging out with the same people. I'm going to keep going on no matter how difficult it gets, knowing it's going to get difficult and I’m going to get bored. Knowing I’m going to get disillusioned and I’m going to be disappointed. I’m going to know all of this ****.”

You know how in 12 step recovery we say, “Keep coming back”?

Keep meditating. Keep coming back. Persevere. Don't give up even though sometimes we feel so hopeless. Keep trying. Develop the mantra, “I love you, keep going”. Develop that as part of the internal loving-kindness phrases for yourself even when you're feeling like, “I don't love myself. I hate myself. I hate this world. I hate Buddhism.” Keep coming back to, “I love you, keep going.”

Keep persevering on the path. This is not a path that needs to be perfect. It's a middle path.

Stay on the path.

Keep coming back to what our hearts know is right, to this kind internal moral compass of honesty that is the right thing to do even though it's not always the easiest thing to do. It is so much easier to lie or omit or minimize or exaggerate sometimes, but it's the right thing to do to tell the truth.

Karmically we need to keep coming back no matter how many times we fail.

Dealing with Difficulties