Can humanity change?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 1
Are you not saying what the Buddha said?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 1 Brockwood Park
June 22, 1978
Q: Does knowledge condition human beings? Knowledge means accumulation of information, experience, facts, theories and principles, the past and the present. This bundle we call knowledge. Can a mind that is burdened with knowledge see truth? Will we get more knowledge by reading what the Buddha or Christ said? We are full of this accumulative instinct that we think will help us to jump into heaven. Can I look at the fact without the word with all its intimations, content and tradition? Can I look at something without the association of words and past remembrances? Then only I see the fact.
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 2
Is there a state of mind without the self?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 2 Brockwood Park
June 23, 1978
Q: What is the state of the mind that is in the process of dying? What is death? Is there life after death, is there a continuity? If not, what is the point of living at all? Why is there the whole process of identification: my possessions, what I will be, success, power, prestige? The identification process is the essence of the self. Is it possible to live in daily life without this identification process which brings about the structure and the nature of the self, which is the result of thought? Is it possible to be free of the ‘me’ which produces all this chaos, this constant effort? Can thought end? Is it possible to live a daily life with death, which is the ending of the self?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 3
Does free will exist?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 3 Brockwood Park
June 23, 1978
We say free will exists because we can choose between this and that. Apart from material things, why is there choice? Is there an action in which there is no effort of will at all and therefore no choice? Why does thought identify with sensations? Is there duality in identification? How did thought begin in me? Was it handed down by parents, education, environment, the past? Does the word create the thought or thought creates words? Why does thought enter into action? Is there an action which is complete, total, whole, not partial? Can you see someone as a whole being? Then there is love.
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 1
What is truth?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 1 Brockwood Park
June 28, 1979
Q: Is there a difference between reality and truth? All the things that thought has put together – literature, poetry, painting, illusions, gods and symbols – that is reality for us. But nature is not created by thought. Can the mind, the network of all the senses apprehend, see and observe truth? Psychological time is the invention of thought, which we use as a means of achieving enlightenment. Is such time an illusion? Is truth measurable by words? Truth is timeless, thought is of time, and the two cannot run together. Without love, without compassion, truth cannot be. I cannot go to truth, I cannot see truth. Truth can only exist when the self is not.
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 2
Is there life after death?
Buddhist Scholars Discussion 2 Brockwood Park
June 28, 1979
Q: Is there life after death? When the body dies the desires, the anxieties, the tragedies and the misery go on. They go on contributing to the vast common stream in which mankind lives. Each of us is representative of the whole of that stream. By inquiring into the whole nature of suffering can one end it and be out of the stream? The free inquiry into suffering is insight. As long as I accept any authority, Buddhist or otherwise, can there be insight? For the man who is no longer a manifestation of the stream, intelligence, love and compassion are operating. Q: How do you discriminate between mindfulness, awareness and attention?