Category: Thursday class

Outline short notes for Brother Teoh’s Thursday class dated 3^rd January 2019

1. Are you able to develop the meditative mind? Are your spiritual faculties developed? Do you still have mental hindrances? These are important questions for cultivators to contemplate and reflect upon. Brother Teoh reminded yogis to understand that the purpose of them attending meditation classes is to initially train their mind to be more peaceful, calmer, and happier; to develop inner awareness leading to wisdom and joy within. If you are miserable during meditation it means you are not doing it correctly. The key to successful meditation is to relax, maintain awareness   and trust  your nature while doing it; have stable spiritual faculties  as well as being mindful in midst of life. Meditation is basically to develop the training of the mind to be  mindful  and aware all the time.
2. You need to have clear understanding to develop the meditation with ease. You don’t have to always sit to meditate. If you can be mindful in the midst of life and you are always peaceful, aware and calm within, with very little or no thought at all, that is good meditation. When you have done it correctly, your meditation will progress. You don’t have to sit rigidly because meditation can be done in any posture (as long as your mind is serene, peaceful and aware).
3. Buddha taught the 12 links or paticcasamuppada. The first 2 links are: avijja (ignorant) paccaya   sankhara  (mental activities or thinking and emotions). I.e. Ignorant condition mental activities, which cause you to think and become heedless. You do this because of ignorance, ignorant of the truth (dhamma). Wanting to understand, you keep thinking and this leads to heedlessness borne of self-delusion.
4. The first two links can be weakened via Right View. You need to straighten your view to develop vijja (understanding) via meditation (the direct seeing) and contemplative wisdom. With wisdom you will understand that this form and mind is not you (because hey no you and hey no me) and you are not deluded by what you see, feel, taste, smell and think. This form and mind is impermanent, and it can’t be you because it is dependent originating and it goes the way of nature. You don’t have control over your body and mind. Thus the 5 daily contemplations are vital. Body and mind is only a karmically conditioned vehicle and tool for you to come to this world. Thus don’t worry about it getting old, sick and die, but use them with understanding to live life well.You maintain good mind states for a good immune system.
5. When you have understood the essential dhamma, you won’t attach and cling to your body and mind anymore, but you will use it well with right view. Body and mind must harmonize and co-exist harmoniously, to experience the good life. With wisdom to accept the reality of the moment, you don’t suffer. It is a universal reality for your body to grow old, get sick and succumb to death. With this understanding, you won’t be afflicted. Even as you age and get more prone to illness, you are still peaceful. Your mind is not sick nor miserable. You are grateful and contented with life.
6. Sister Pat shared her experience where she was told by her doctor that she might have cancer. She was not worried but approach it wisely. She prayed for guidance from Buddha. She never worried and continued eating healthy and felt healthy and well. After a few months, she went back for checkup and the results came in negative for cancer. As she did not want anyone to worry for her, she made sure she lived her life well and took good care of her diet and lifestyle with good mind states throughout.
7. Brother Teoh shared that we should not believe just based on one test results or one doctor’s assessment. Even if really you do have cancer, so what? Don’t panic because that is a universal reality. If you understand, you can take it positively via having right view. If you need a second opinion, do it. If it is reconfirmed positive, accept it. You should reflect positively via contemplating all happenings with understanding, then it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. With understanding, you are able to cope with this reality. You can then ask for forgiveness and repent via living the proper life, don’t neglect your life anymore, instead cultivate a healthy lifestyle, do more meritorious actions, then invoke power of merits for turn around. If you have fear, worry and anxiety borne of wrong thoughts, it will only cause your immune system to fail. But with positive mind states, it will bring about good immune system for recovery instead.
8. If your diet and lifestyle are not right, your body has its own way of alerting you. You must be more sensitive to feel it. Medical checkup is important. If you don’t feel well, please go for a medical checkup. Don’t believe all the test results just like that. Sometimes it is karma that you meet with doctors who are not ethical and give wrong assessment. Thus it is vital to keep the 5 precepts to enable one to avoid all evil, then cultivate wisdom and wholesomeness. This can help one mitigate one’s karmic negativities. The precepts are for your own good (to protect you from committing evil). To have good life, one must follow the advice of the Buddha to take care of karma.
9. You cannot stop thinking if you have avijja. To weaken avijja, you need wisdom to straighten your views. You need to meditate and be mindfulto do so. Then when you confront the 8 realities of life, you will know how to deal with them calmly. You are not affected by them because you know, thoughts are respond to memories. Fear leads to anxiety, sorrow, and lamentations. Fear exists only because you think you are real, the atta is so real. When you understand anatta, you will ask, who fears? It is the thought that fears. It arises due to wrong view and it is conditions arising hence fear is not you. When you stay with that fear, it ceases because there is no more wrong view and you are simply just aware. When there is no movement of thought, there is peace. Fear, anger, disease all are never a part of you. The body goes the way of nature. Just like the car, if you don’t take care or maintain it well, it will cause you problems.
10. With spiritual faculties of saddha, viriya, sati, samadhi and panna established, your mental hindrances will cease and you will be peaceful with clarity of mind to see things as they are to develop the wisdom needed to free your mind.
11. One who does not suffer have the understanding of the dhamma to accept the reality of the moment; to confront whatever situations with wisdom. You are constantly aware, can perceive things with   wholesomeness only, can see things as they are, no negativity, no fear, nor worry. Thus right reflection is important. Have gratitude that this body has served you well, and it will continue to serve you well if you take care of it well. With clarity of mind, you can act with   wisdom  via following noble eightfold path. If there is a disease, accept it as a reality. Then ask yourself, how can I move on? If it’s karmic, you should ask for forgiveness. You change your diet, seek advice, and do what you need to do. You understand that this form and mind is not you. You understand anatta, sunyata and emptiness. Empty nature of existence. Yes you have gone through life, since birth until now; all your experiences – is there any reality? You can only recall via memory, they’re only your thought and consciousness. Thus how real can it be? The world continues on according to nature’s law, with or without you.
12. To exist is to go through time. Thus existence is time related; and thewhole spectrum of time can be   defined by Past, present and future. Past is already gone (not a reality), future yet to come (also not a reality). The present moment, now is the most important and the only reality. Moment to moment it passes by. How real and stable is the present moment? Split second it arises, next moment it is dead and gone. Thus every arising moment has this empty nature of existence. Contemplate deep and see it (via the direct seeing) clearly to awaken. Then no more self-delusion.
13. There is this nature within us, which never dies (the eternal nature). This is the unborn. You should realize this nature in your meditation and understand that the rest are mind made hence unreal. Then nothing in this world can deceive you into misery or suffering. You can realize this understanding via deep contemplation and meditation.
14. The kalyanamitta’s Consciousness has evolved beautifully, and if you all read our transcript books again (now) you can have penetrative understanding. Our coming March 2019 annual Cameron Highlands Meditation retreat will be very interesting, because of this higher consciousness among kalyanamittas. This time around many of you can awaken to your true nature if you have the faith and strong resolve to cultivate sincerely when there.
15. The Buddha taught the 4 right efforts in his Noble 8-Fold Path teaching and they are:

• 1^st right effort – to abandon the wrong thoughts that has arisen. Thought with the evil roots of greed, hatred, delusion that condition your fear, worry, anxiety, sorrow and lamentation, etc. are all wrong thoughts. Greed is not only greediness, but it includes selfishness, desires, lust, covetousness, possessiveness and cravings. Cunningness is mainly delusion caused by selfishness. Hatred are negative tendencies like envy, dislikes, resentment, unhappiness, other negative emotions, unpleasant reactions to sense experiences, etc. Self-delusion (moha) are your fear, worry, anxiety, phobias, insecurities, sorrow and lamentations, etc.

  To abandon them, there are 5 ways:

1. 1^st way is to think of the direct opposite wholesome thoughts i.e. radiate metta, compassion and contentment. Example, someone asked, what to do when attacked by wild animals or snakes. Take refuge, chant or silent mind. When there is no fear, animals and snakes can sense it then they won’t attack you.
2. 2^nd way is to reflect on the consequence and danger of holding onto the wrong thought. It would make you evil and cause karmic negativity, result in karmic downfall. Determine to abandon these wrong thoughts.
3. 3^rd way is the meditative way whereby you just aware and silent your mind. The evil roots will then cease to be as there is no more mental energy, no thinking and no perception. When there is no thought, there is no duality. The evil roots of greed hatred delusion is no longer there. Thus it is important to stabilize your sati in meditation. Whenever you are feeling emotional  in daily life, you need to silent your mind, just be aware. Meditate and don’t feed it with anymore thought energy. When emotion ceases, you will realize, fear was never you but is dependent originating. When you perceive something with negativity it led to fear. That’s why you must straighten your view and not stir your mind. You then accept things as they are – that is deluded people do deluded things. Sankhara was never you, but dependent on ignorant, it arises.
4. 4^th way is for you to trace the originating factor of fear, then retrospectively reverse it via right view. You trace how fear arise. Fear was never there until you perceive something negatively via one of your sense door experiences. It was mainly via memory, attached to the past, and you stirred your mind because of wrong view. Thus you straighten your view via see things as they are. Then you know, the world is the world, and people are just the way they are. If you can accept things or them as they are, there is no more suffering.
5. 5^th way is – if you can’t do the above 4 ways, then you have to determination strongly to abandon it with your will power so that these wrong thoughts won’t affect you.

• 2^nd right effort is to prevent wrong thoughts from arising. To do this you need to have yonisomanasikara which is the wise attention or wisdom at the moment of sense experience. You need awareness to see it first then to reflect on it to develop the initial wisdom (yonisomanasikara) via the above 3^rd and 4^th ways to enable you to do it.
• 3^rd right effort is to cultivate the right thoughts, speeches and actions that are still not in you. To do it you need to understand what constitutes right thoughts, speeches and actions. Right thoughts are thoughts without the 3 evil roots; all your virtues, honesty, gratitude, kindness, love (metta), compassion, equanimity, other wholesome thoughts are your right thoughts. Including all your kind, pleasant and gentle speeches and actions that bring about understanding, harmony, joy and happiness.

• 4^th right effort is to refine upon and bring to perfection all these right thoughts, speeches and actions. Improve on them until they become a part of your nature. You need understanding to develop these wholesomeness. Only with wisdom and understanding can one develop such wholesomeness and goodness. When you are aware, incapable of evil deeds, you are already good. So don’t try to be good because without wisdom, good according to you may not be the real good.

(Above draft outline short notes was done by Sister Angie, Puan Chee’s daughter.)

Brother Teoh’s Thursday class dated 20^th December 2018 outline short Notes

1. Sister Angie concluded that developing wisdom is most important in cultivation.  Wisdom can enable us to have the right views to cultivate appropriately leading to good decision making to live the noble life.
2. Brother Teoh confirmed that the whole of dhamma cultivation is centered on developing wisdom for nothing frees your mind except wisdom (panna).
3. Sila, Samadhi and Panna is basically the Noble eightfold path. Sila is morality or precepts. Sila/Precept is the source of spiritual joy, spiritual wealth and spiritual peacefulness of mind. Without Sila, Samadhi cannot kick in. Samadhi is the meditative discipline. Panna is wisdom. Without wisdom, you are heedless and end up being entangled in life, leading to suffering. Human beings tend to accumulate more knowledge instead of wisdom, thinking that through cunningness and intellect, you can become successful. It is definitely not the case. In fact Knowledge which is rigid binds and it does not free you. If you cling onto knowledge, it makes you think you are smart and clever. However you are not wise for you do not understand life, end up getting into trouble. A PhD holder or a noble prize winner’s life without dhamma (the spiritual understanding) can still be miserable.
4. With right view born of wisdom, you will be able to live your life well. You know how to navigate around not getting into trouble. Wisdom is about understanding nature’s truth as taught by the Buddha. Nature’s truth are: the 5 universal orders of nature that govern life and existence. If you abide by these nature’s law, you will know how to live life well. Utu niyama and bija niyama are the first 2 scientific laws of nature – scientists know these laws, and thus flourish based on these understanding. The other three are Spiritual laws (karma niyama, citta niyama and dhamma niyama) – the Buddha is an expert in such spiritual laws. Reason why the Buddha has such great wisdom.
5. Buddha saw the law of karma clearly. We are all born and heir of our karma. Thus it is vital for us to take care of our karma for we reap what we sow. Do good begets good. Do evil begets evil. We must live in accordance with this law. Or else we get into trouble. We must always do our duty well. What we do onto others, parents, friends, kids, fellow beings, – we reap what we sow. If we are respectful, grateful and help them, the law of karma will reward us accordingly via its appropriate fruition where we are cared for and respected in return. It is vital to follow advice of the Buddha to avoid all evil and do good. Thus Sila is very important.
6. Dana parami (generosity) is also very important because it creates good condition for us to cultivate dhamma. Without it, you are born poor. You have to work hard for money (food and shelter) hence no time for meditation because the basic need of life which is food and Shelter is more important. But with dana parami, you have the luxury of conditions and time to listen to dhamma and meditate to transform yourself and bring about a good life. If you don’t take care of karma, your life won’t change. All these understandings come from wisdom.
7. Reason why the Buddha later taught Dana, Sila and Bhavana (Samadhi + Panna). When you can see things as they are and see the truth of impermanence, suffering state and non self, you will awaken and develop wisdom. Wisdom is right view in regards to the law of karma, law of mind and law of truth. You need to have sincerity of purpose, so that when you meditate, you don’t deviate but stay on the right path. If you go into psychic field, without wisdom, you will get into trouble. If you use it for own selfish purpose it will lead to karmic consequences. Without a proper teacher, mara will attack you and create more problems for you.
8. Instead, develop virtues, kindness and good karmic nature (with understanding) to support you all the way in your cultivation. Dana parami performed through merits making like materialistic giving, generosity (by offering flowers or incense or fruits, etc. to the altar and during puja), keeping precepts, meditating, listening to dhama, straightening view, rejoicing, sharing and transferring of merits, helping out in community service via contributing towards the growth of the sasana and the gift of truth are all meritorious actions. These 10 meritorious actions you can get to perform them when you attend any of our dhamma classes and activities.
9. Instead of living life heedlessly and being deluded, wasting time in materialistic and sensuality indulgence of life, you should always be heedful and wise to live a balance life. If you have the means via your dana parami, it is alright to ‘pamper’ yourself to some extend but need to be mindful and heedful always. If you have the means and condition, you can make use of your dana parami to have the good life. You can provide for yourself, your loved ones and also donate to help others. It is important to open up your rather loving and compassionate heart and be kind and generous to others.
10. The 10 paramitas (or perfections) to realize Samasambuddhahood: – as you walk the path and develop understanding of the Bodhisattva way, the 10 perfections can be developed naturally via understanding. The first most important step is to plant the seed of bodhi (the Bodhi mind) with great faith and sincerity. Then develop it further through the 5 stages of Bodhi mind development. The 1^st stage is to plant the seed of Bodhi to walk this way via taking the 4 basic vows of a Bodhisattva. Bodhi seed will mature through faith and determination. Vow with love and compassion to liberate all beings from suffering. Vow to endure and sever all sufferings to develop the wisdom to know how to free your mind, only then can you take others across. Vow to penetrate and perfect all wisdom. And finally vow to complete the 10 perfections. (All these are explained in Brother Teoh’s blue transcript book – ‘Cultivating the Bodhisattva way’).
11.  To renounce all things: materialistic wealth, views, opinions etc. meaning no attachments, cravings & delusions. Renounce to enter monk hood to cultivate dhamma is just physical renunciation. As for mental renunciation meaning to be meditative and to realize your true nature. Mind in seclusion. With wisdom, form and mind become beautiful. User of form and mind become a blessing to all, leading to the noble life (wisdom renunciation).
12. As you go through sainthood way, you can become an Arahant then you cease. But with the Bodhisattva way, you can choose to come back through the Bodhisattva vows.
13. When you cultivate continuously with faith sincerely, the Bodhi mind will continues to grow and progress leading to the realization of the 2^nd stage of Bodhi mind development (Bodhi mind that subdue all afflictions). When you enter the 3^rd stage, you are already so beautiful because by then you would have definitely gone beyond the sainthood way (or the Arahant stage) already. You realize your true mind and get to connect to your true nature (Bodhi mind that   illuminates   your   true nature). The 4th stage of Bodhi mind development is even more beautiful (Bodhi mind thatrenounces samsara), you don’t have to worry about how long the journey takes because you know samsara   is not real. You have gone beyond the normal cultivation and reached the stage of cultivation of no thought, no mark and no dwelling as taught by the diamond sutra and the 6^th Patriarch, Master Hui Neng (via his 6^th Patriarch’s Platform sutra teaching).
14. When you cultivate at this 4^th stage, your perfection of the 10 parami will happen by itself naturally and with ease. The 1^st vow to liberate all sentient beings will help you to develop love and compassion and the 2^ndvow will help you develop the perfection of renunciation. The 3rd vow develops wisdom. Precepts (Sila), Patience endurance (Khanti) and generosity (dana) paramis are all part and parcel of the meditative way (Dana, Sila and Bhavana) of cultivation which comes naturally. The balance of paramis of viriya, sacca, Adhiṭṭhāna and Upekkhā are also part and parcel of the meditative way once we have understood the cultivation via right view.
15.  Sister Tammy shared her experience of her chanting Buddham Saranam Gachami…. Etc. while in Burma. She pondered its meaning. When she was young, she felt protected by her parents but later she came to know even they are subject to karma so they can’t really protect her. Instead the real protection is via taking refuge in the Triple Gem (Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha) where the real teaching of the Buddha can be found. With the realization of this teaching one can transcend birth and death.
16. Brother Teoh further explained that only refuge safe is true protection. Taking refuge means seeking protection somewhere like a refugee seeking refuge in a foreign country. Parent’s protection is not real refuge because they themselves are also subject to birth and death, but with refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, the wisdom that you can have will lead to virtue and understanding which truly protects. Thus cultivating goodness(virtues) and avoiding evil gives the highest protection according to Buddha. With virtue and wisdom, you are incapable of harming others, you are kind, considerate and you have metta (love) and compassion. This parami protects you. With wisdom, you will follow advice of the Buddha to avoid all evil (bad karma) which lead to misery and instead cultivate goodness via cultivating Sila, Samadhi and Panna (Noble 8-fold path).
17. All the teachings are inter connected cumulating into wisdom. Wisdom comes from understanding the dhamma. According to the dhammapada, there is no refuge safe, not even in the mountains or temples, the only refuge safe is in the triple gem, where you can find the 4 noble truths(which is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching). Taking refuge is also to cultivate affinity with triple gem, whereby life after life when you come and there are conditions, you will meet up with the Buddha, his enlightened disciples and his teachings. Even without the sasana, you will have the conditions to meet up with them if they are around. You will still connect. When you take the Bodhisattva vows, you will be able to come regardless of the existence has sasana or not. You have nothing to lose but everything to gain when you take the Bodhisattva vows. With faith and sincerity, these vows will take you along the path of dhamma and becomes a true gem to serve you well.
18.  It was in 1971 when Brother Teoh started his probe into the mystery of life. He loved looking at the night sky. His mind was contemplative knowing that he was just like a speck of dust in this planet. The universe is so immense and there is basically no boundary in this universe. Being so insignificant he inquired: who am I? What am I? Why am I here? His inner voice told him to meditate to understand although at that time he did not know what dhamma and meditation is as yet. But because of his past cultivation he knew as a kid, he was not normal as others. Almost everything he did was like opposite of the popular convention of society. He looked at things differently. That was why he could understand truth very fast. When he inherited his past cultivation’s understanding later, his nature came to know that, truth is always the opposite of the world’s popularly accepted convention. All that is enticing in this world do not last. For everything is impermanent, goes the way of nature, ends up in suffering, because without wisdom you will cling. All is merely an illusion (a world of consciousness) which come and go, arise and pass away. Your deluded mind perceives, attach, clings and creates misery. But with dhamma, all these cease to delude and deceive you.
19. Sister Padmasuri talked about her daughter abroad who misses them (parents) and still cry. As an undergraduate who is emotional it is normal to cry. All this is part and parcel of life. How to deal with such life situation? Bro Teoh shared that we need to understand, what is emotion? Emotion pertains to mental feeling which develops into good and bad emotion according to our views. All the good memories with parents are accumulated. When you are alone abroad, when you recall those good memories you will miss them. It is natural for human beings without wisdom to be emotional. But with dhamma, you understand that these are just emotions borne of memory (thoughts) and the Buddha’s advice is not to attach. When there is condition you can be with them, without condition you accept it. When parents are not around, you can develop positive reflection like, I can be independent to survive alone when parents are not around. This is good training. Technology is beautiful and helpful, we can use it (social media) to contact one another even though far away.
20. The wise verses the intellectual with scholarly knowledge. The latter needs to put into practice what they have learned (knowledge). With the right teacher, you can reflect and investigate into truth. When you realize that they stand up to investigation your faith and spiritual zeal will be strengthened. You will be more diligent in your practice to become a better person. This is the real change. The real dhamma will arise when you are mindful. With dhamma, you are different from those with mere knowledge. You will see clearly with awareness, the 3 evil roots as they arise, your own selfishness, greed, delusion etc. and you are determined to change via following the advice of the Buddha to abandon those wrong views and bad habits borne of heedless living. You will develop right speech, actions, and thoughts and cultivate virtues. You are incapable of negativity, you will keep to your precepts via heedful living. You will do your duty well, and you can count your good blessings, as with dhamma, you can love and care not only for yourself, but others as well. If you have the means, you can pamper yourself and your loved ones. But don’t crave to indulge when there are no more conditions to have them. Enjoy and live the good life when you have the means and conditions to have them.

Bye! and with metta always,