The Buddha's Uneasy Truth About Family Life-MN 87 with Delson

Okay, good. Okay, let's start with this. Majjama Nikaya 87, Piyajatika Sutta. Born from those who are dear. Thus have I heard on one occasion, the Blessed One was living at Savati in Jata's Grove, Anathapindika's park. Now on that occasion, a certain householder's dear and beloved And then that householder went to the Blessed One and after paying homage to him, sat down at one side. How could my faculties not be deranged, venerable sir? For my dear and beloved only son has died.

Since he died, I have no more desire to work or to eat. I keep going to the charnel ground and crying, my only son, where are you? My only son, where are you? So it is, householder, so it is. Grief and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. This is a very interesting statement the Buddha says. So just to set the context, basically we have somebody here who's experiencing grief and he's calling out for the person that just passed on in his life and he wants them back.

And so what does the Buddha say? He says that sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. This can be quite a shocking statement for somebody who's going through grief, but it is something very consoling as well, and we'll explore how that is the case as we continue. And this is what he asks. He says, Venerable sir, who would ever think that sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are born from those who are dear, from those who are dear? What's going on here?

Venerable sir, happiness and joy are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. Then displeased with the Blessed One's words, disapproving of them, the householder rose from his seat and left. So here we have somebody who is in the world, of the world, and basically being a householder is pretty much living the standardized life of our dear ones are a source of joy and they can be. Our dear ones are a source of happiness and they can be. But sometimes they can also be sources of pain. They can be sources of grief.

The ones that are closest to us are the ones that can hurt us the most because we have so much attachment to them. The ones who are closest to us can give us so much grief when they're gone because we have so much attachment to them. But somebody down the street, you walk around and there's somebody crying and you ask what's wrong and they say, oh, so-and-so has been killed or so-and-so was found dead or so-and-so died of a disease.

But you're not as necessarily pain-stricken by that. You offer consolation, you offer your condolences to that person. So it is those who are near and dear to us that this happiness arises and joy arises, but also the other side of the coin, which is the despair, the grief, the sorrow, the lamentation. And it is rightly so. Now on that occasion, some gamblers were playing with dice not far from the Blessed One. Then the householder went to those gamblers and said, And he repeats the entire conversation. words, disapproving of them, I rose from my seat and I left.

So it is, householder, so it is. Happiness and joy are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. Then the householder left thinking, I agree with these gamblers. Eventually, this story reached the king's palace. Then King Pasenadi of Kosala told Queen Malika, this is what has been said by the recluse Gautama Malika. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. I find it a little amusing in my mind how word of mouth goes so fast. Of course, because it's the words of the Buddha that it might go so fast. But generally, you say something and it goes so quickly amongst people.

Then it is so. This is what Malika says. No matter what the recluse Gautama says, Malika applauds it thus. If it has been said by the Blessed One, sire, then it is so. Just as a pupil applauds whatever his teacher says to him, saying, so it is, teacher, so it is, so too, Malika. No matter what the recluse Gautama says, she applauded thus.

If that has been said by the Blessed One, sire, then it is so. Be off, Malika, away with you! So he's annoyed with her. Actually, the reason is because Pasenadi, in the very beginning, didn't really approve of the Buddha. As the understanding goes, he was a rival king of a couple of us too, or not of couple of us too, against couple of us too, and he later on started to see the value of the Dhamma and the Buddha's words, but initially he was doubtful and resentful in many different ways. And so here he is admonishing his wife about it. Then Queen Malika addressed the brahmin Nalijangha: Come, brahmin, go to the Blessed One and pay homage in my name with your head at his feet, and ask whether he is free from illness and affliction and is healthy, strong and abiding in comfort, saying, Venerable Sir, Queen Malika pays homage with her head at the Blessed One's feet.

And ask whether the Blessed One is free from illness and abiding in comfort. Then say this, Venerable Sir, have these words been uttered by the Blessed One? Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. Learn well what the Blessed One replies and report it to me. Yes, madam, he replied. Pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. So it is, Brahmin, so it is. Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are near, who are dear, arise from those who are dear. It can be understood from this, Brahmin, how sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear.

Have you seen my husband? Lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. Once in the same Savatthi, there was a certain man whose mother died, whose father died, whose brother died, whose sister died, whose son died, whose daughter died, whose wife died. Owing to her death, he went mad, lost his mind, and wandered from street to street and from crossroad to crossroad, saying, Have you seen my wife? Have you seen my wife? And it can also be understood from this how sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. Once in the same Savatthi, there was a certain woman who went to live with her relatives' family.

Her relatives wanted to divorce her from her husband and give her to another whom she did not want. Then the woman said to her husband, "To divorce me from you and give me to another whom I do not want..." Then the man cut the woman in two and disembowelled himself, thinking, we shall be together in the afterlife. It can also be understood from this how sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear and arise from those who are dear. That's pretty evident of how attachment can drive the mind crazy. When we live our lives, we grow up and we have an attachment to our parents when we're kids.

And then we go about in the world and we start to develop attachments with our friends, family members, with people that we become attracted to, and then we become their partners, or we get married to them, or whatever it is, and we become so enamored, so attached to the idea of them being there forever, that we cannot fathom the loss of them. And this is possible, and this happens in many cases. So for us, because we meditate and we have the ability to distinguish between what is obsession and what is, let's say, a healthy sort of attachment. Because when we talk about healthy attachments, we realize that right now, right here, we have our loved ones, our dear ones, our near ones, and we can be with them.

We can express our love to them. We can enjoy them. We can see them as a source of happiness and joy. But there will come a time when they will leave, or we will leave them, either through separation, by divorce or separation in some way, or through death, or whatever might happen. And it's not just with our partners. One day our parents will be gone, if they haven't gone already. One day our siblings will be gone, if they haven't gone already. One day our friends will be gone, if they haven't gone already, in one way or the other. And so this may make us seem like we need to be detached.

We need to be free of any attachments. But what does that actually mean? How do we be free of attachments? We cannot be so rigid with our minds and say we will not develop any kind of relationships. Leave our parents and our siblings behind. There are cases, especially in India, where you have ascetics and wanderers and people who go and say, I want to just leave this world.

And they seem like they are detached. They seem like they are enamored by the world of monasticism and asceticism. Different kind of attachment. So what we're talking about here is not escaping out of fear. Not escaping because we don't want to hold on to anything, because we know it's going to go away and we're going to experience pain.

But that the realization that all things, all experiences, all relationships are ultimately impermanent. That indeed our own lives are impermanent. That indeed this world is impermanent. Anything can happen to this world without a trace. We may have a meteorite strike the earth, and that can be an extinction level experience. And that's the end of humanity as we know it.

So that can be the end of our world, the end of our species, the end of humanity, the end of all beings on this planet. What I like to do, or I like to suggest to people, is to actually see that. When you sit down in the morning for your practice on retreats, you are given this recollection. The recollection is, I am subject to sickness, old age, and death.

The ones that are near to me are also subject to sickness and death, old age, sickness, and death, and they will separate from me. I'm an inheritor of my karma, and so on. It's a very stoic way of dealing with the day. But indeed, it's a very valid way, in alignment with the Dhamma. Being able to just sit and reflect on the impermanence of the eyes, the impermanence of the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body and the mind, the impermanence of where we are in our world, the impermanence of the fact that we have today,

or we have this hour, or we have this minute, or we have this second, we have this moment. So what we're talking about is that cliché of living in the moment. But what does that actually mean, to live in the moment? It's to live without any expectations, to live without any agendas, to live without any kind of evaluation of the future. Truly seen and understood and realized what impermanence is.

Because there are those who are spiritual wannabes who say, everything is impermanent. So I will go into the forest and I will meditate and go into the cave. And all they do is basically have other kinds of attachments. They have attachments to how meditation should be, that it should be peaceful, that it should be calm, I should go to a place like the Himalayas. I should go to Rishikesh. I should go to Varanasi and explore and be a spiritual tourist. That's what it is basically. And you see that especially in my generation and the generation after that. They get lost in that whole world and they create other kinds of attachments.

They get tied to what's known as the spiritual ego: attachment in terms of the worldly life, for a different kind of attachment to spiritual titles, to spiritual initiations, to spiritual clothing, to all of these things. And they pretend, or at least they hypnotize themselves into thinking, that they are detached from the world, that they don't care about whether their relatives will die. They don't care whether their partners are going to separate from them or not. But in reality, there is a tension in their mind. Things come up, and they say, no, this doesn't affect me. I'm not bothered by it. But in reality, they're just suppressing.

They're just pushing everything down. And one day the casket's going to blow and they're going to explode. So what is the way out? How do we actually deal with it? Be in the world. No one is asking you to go into the mountains. No one's asking you to escape your... But what I would suggest you do is reflect on the impermanence of every moment.

Let go of expectations of yourself, of how you think you should be, how you think your meditation should be, of how you think the Dhamma should be, how you should be in relation to the Dhamma. Let go of expectations of the people in your life, that they will always be caring, be supportive, that they will always be there for you.

Let go of expectations of the world around you. That society is always going to be like this, that things are going to be great. The economy is going to be perfect. The political system is going to be wonderful. Anything can happen. Anything can happen. And the readiness of that, and being steady in the knowledge of impermanence, gives you a lot of peace, because the realization of the impermanence of all conditions, of all relationships, of all attachments, leads to the realization that any intention to control, to have an agenda, to evaluate, to create expectations, leads to disappointment one way or the other, because we never get what we fully expect. Exactly what we expect here is the realization of impermanence. It leads to the understanding of not holding on to anything, not out of fear, but realizing that if I do, and if I have a certain intention, if I have a desire to control the meditation, if I have a desire to do things the way I think things should be done, then it's going to lead to my disappointment, which is suffering.

Therefore, I am in a space of desirelessness, a space of undirectedness. And I realized I am not in control of my life as much as I would like to be. I'm not in control of the people in my life as much as I might like to be. I'm not in control of the situations in my life as much as I would like it to be.

I can't just say, you know, let me be six feet tall, or let me be muscular, or let me be whatever it is with my body, or let me have 20/20 vision. I can't do that. This is the reality of the world. And therefore, we see the emptiness, the voidness of self, the essencelessness of self. We see that there is no core fundamental controller here.

So what we're leading towards is the realization of the signless, the realization of the undirectedness to desirelessness, and the realization of emptiness. All three are doors leading to the same room, in which there is Nibbana, contact with Nibbana. And it is really simple, as reflecting on this, reflecting on the impermanence of all conditions in our life. When we do this at the micro level, at the macro level, micro, as micro as you want to be, to your atoms, to the strings, all the way to the macro, to this realization that one day this universe will have an end point.

One day this earth will be gone. One day humanity will change, or it might be destroyed. Anything can happen. And in between all of that is our so-called lives, that we deem so important, that we deem as: something goes wrong. It's the end of the world for us. We have a breakup. Somebody dies in our family. It's tough. It hurts like hell.

And that is the human experience. Welcome to being a human. Accept it. Go through it. Embrace it. But see through it. Anything we hold on to, whether it's pleasure or pain, ultimately to our suffering. There will be moments when that grief comes and goes, ebbs and flows. There will be moments where that grief comes in little pangs.

But it's okay. It's part of the human condition. Understand that. With a little sweetness, there is a little bitterness. This is what the human existence is. But that in itself shows us the instability. This is what Anicca actually means. Instability of life. And when we can surf the waves of instability, then we have a better way of dealing with it.

Then delighting, rejoicing in the Blessed One's words, the Brahmin Nalijangha rose from his seat, went to Queen Malika, and reported to her his entire conversation with the Blessed One. Then Queen Malika went to Kinga. So when we say change and alteration, maybe she's not behaving the way we expect her to behave. Maybe she dies. Maybe something happens to her, whatever it is.

And he says, change and alteration in her would mean an alteration in my life. At the end of the day, it's not about the other person. It's about me. How does it affect me, me, me? Grief is the realization that the person that's there six feet under, or whose body is now ashes, can no longer provide the pleasure that I would get from them, love that I would get from them, can no longer share in my sorrows, can no longer share in my joys, and so on. It's not about them, it's about how they affect me. How could sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair not arise in me? It was with reference to this, Sire, that the Blessed One, who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened, said: sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear. What do you think, Sire?

Is the noble Queen Vasabha dear to you? Is General Vidudhabha dear to you? Am I dear to you? Are Kasi and Kosala dear to you? Yes, Malika, Kasi and Kosala are dear to me. When they say Kasi and Kosala, these are two places. Kasi is, if I remember, I think it is the one, it's Kashi, which is Varanasi. We owe it to these places that we use. Kashi sandalwood and wear garlands, scents, and onions. What do you think, Sire? If change and alteration took place in Kashi and Kosala, if the place itself changed, would sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair arise in you?

It is wonderful, Malika. It is marvelous how far the Blessed One penetrates with wisdom and sees with wisdom. Come, Malika, give me the ablution water. Then King Pasenadi of Kosala rose from the seat, and arranging his upper robe on one shoulder, he extended his hands in reverential salutation towards the Blessed One and uttered this exclamation three times: May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. Thank you, everyone. I will probably see you next week. Thank you, Delson. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye, everybody. Thank you.