Day 2 Sila - The Foundation of the Meditation -Why do we take refuges/precepts? Excellent Talk

This morning, you took the three refuges and the eight precepts, the five recollections, and you read from the Dhammapada. So, maybe some of you are wondering, why do we do this? What is the purpose of doing this? Morning, seemingly like a morning ritual. It is a habit that we develop in the mind and cultivate for the purpose of the practice of meditation.

So when we talk about taking refuge, what do we mean by refuge? In the Pali and in the Sanskrit, this is known as Sharana, or to take refuge in something. When you take refuge in something, you are seeking its shelter, its protection. So three times in the morning you take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dhamma, and in the Sangha. Why three times? There are many different ideas of why that could be, but the interpretation that I like is that you are purifying what we call sankharas, your formations: your mental formations, your physical formations, and your verbal formations. How you take in reality, how you feel and perceive, how you speak or express, and how you move and act in the world.

So the three are, in my view, related to the three levels, the reason why you're doing it three times. So what is the Buddha, what is the Dhamma, and what is the Sangha? The Buddha was a wise teacher who is purported to have lived 2,600 years ago, thereabouts. And his name is not the Buddha. It is an epitaph. It is a title in that sense, a way of knowing. It is a state that he inculcated and lived in, and he became the Buddha in the sense that to be a Buddha means to be one who is awakened.

Buddhi in Sanskrit is intellect or mind. It is a kind of mind that is above the primal mind of emotions and craving and aversion, the luminous mind that he awoke to. And so Buddha is one who has awakened his mind. He goes by another term which is known as the Tathagata. The Tathagata means one. So Tatha means that. It literally means that. Oftentimes it's translated as suchness.

Suchness in the sense of that space, that field of Nibbana or Nirvana. And gata could either mean one who has gone there or one who has returned from it. Either one is applicable. So here, when we talk about the Buddha, we're not saying that we are accepting him or the persona of Siddhartha Gautama as our personal Lord and Savior.

That's not what we're doing here. We are taking refuge in the possibility of awakening. That if he could do it, so can we. And we take refuge in that possibility. You see, I don't wish for any of you to experience just loving kindness and compassion and joy and equanimity. I don't wish for any of you to just experience what we call the jhanas, awakening, to see and taste and experience that sense of freedom from suffering.

And that's what the Buddha represents, not as the persona, but as what is possible. So when you take refuge, you're taking refuge not in a person, you're taking refuge in the possibility of what's available to you. What do we mean by the Dhamma? Dhamma is the Pali. Dharma is the Sanskrit. Dharma comes from the root dhra. Dhra means to uphold, to stick, to keep in place.

So dharma is essentially that which keeps the universe in existence, our lives in a certain place. And depending upon the context, because in ancient India, every word, especially in Sanskrit and Pali, can have multiple meanings depending on the context. So, dharma here can mean teaching, that it is a kind of view, a kind of teaching, a kind of perspective. It is in that sense our ikigai. For those of you who might know what that word is.

That which you are well attuned to. That which is, let's say, your talent or something that you have developed towards. And that which provides you sustenance. And that which provides contribution to the world around you. That is your dharma. That is your ikigai. The talents that you do as your work or your job or whatever it is that allows and intersects for you to make money so you can have resources to live in this world while at the same time providing some level of contribution to the world around you.

That is another meaning of dharma. What is your dharma? And in this case, when we talk about dharma or Dhamma, we're talking about, in that sense, the eternal principle of dependent origination. Dependent origination is a very subtle, nuanced topic which we will cover in future days. But suffice it to say that when we talk about dependent origination, it is talking about the reality of conditionality and causality.

So in one sense, I take refuge in the teachings of the Buddha. That's the teachings. In another sense, on a deeper level, I take refuge in the knowledge, in the understanding, in the experience that frees me, that liberates me from the bondage of craving and aversion. And that is the knowledge of dependent origination. Not just the intellectual knowledge, but the wisdom that is cultivated through seeing and experiencing it for oneself.

What do we mean by Sangha? A Sangha is a community. I take refuge in the Sangha. This came about later. Initially, if you look at the earliest texts of the Pali Canon, it was only I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge for life in the teacher Gautama, so I become an eternal student of Gautama. But eventually it turned to I take refuge in the Dhamma as well, because that is the teaching. In that sense, the teacher after the Buddha was gone, after the Buddha attained what's known as parinibbana, is the Dhamma itself, the Pali Canon. These books, these big books that you see, are all the different teachings of the Buddha. And the Buddha said there is no lineage of teachers after me.

There's only the teaching. Right? Because he understood anytime you put a person in place, then there is liability for destruction. Because a person can always be liable to experience all kinds of craving and identification and so on. So he said, look to the teachings. Now, the Sangha, in that sense, are those who uphold the teachings, those who practice the teachings.

So here we are in a Sangha. We are part of the Sangha. As long as you are on this retreat and you are practicing and you're listening intently, reflecting, and you do what is for the purpose of liberating the mind from suffering, then you're all part of that Sangha. So I take refuge in the Sangha. I take refuge in the Sangha of teachers and guides and instructors.

I take refuge on a larger scale. I take refuge in the Sangha of monastics who have done their part in upholding the Dhamma by passing it down to future generations. So there is a sense of appreciation for that. So this is not some kind of a ritual that we do. It is to see that there is security in the liberation of the mind, and there's security in the teachings that lead to that, and there's security in those who continue to teach that Dhamma. So what are the precepts? What do we mean by precepts?

I call them habits, habits that we cultivate. And if you look at the first five basic precepts, which I will focus on, the sixth, seventh, and eighth are done for the purpose of retreat. The eighth precept here says, I undertake to be loving and kind to myself and all living beings. Technically that's not a precept, it's just something to remind you that I will continue to be loving and kind. The eighth precept is something else, to deal with high beds and things like that. So let's not talk about six, seven, and eight, because that's all just retreat. Numbers one, two, three, four, and five are an emanation of the golden rule.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That's it. I don't want to be harmed. I don't want to be lied to. I don't want to be cheated on. I don't want people to bear false witness. I don't want people to steal my stuff. Right? I don't want people to get rowdy in a drunken stupor.

Would you? Would you want any of that to happen to you? Because that's the whole point of keeping the precepts. It's not because there is some moral policeman up in the heavens who's going to tell you, you are not doing this and you're not doing this and you're not doing that. Therefore, you go to hell. Or congratulations, you kept the precepts. Now you get to heaven. By their very actions in this very life, in this very moment.

Who is to say that there is a next life? That is just a belief. The reality is you live in this moment, in this life, with the body that you possess, the mental faculties that you possess. And you know for yourself what it feels like when somebody speaks harsh words to you, cheats on you, when somebody steals from you, right? You know what it's like when somebody is being belligerent with you. So knowing that the act of compassion is the recognition of suffering in oneself and in others, knowing this, knowing that I do not want to be harmed and therefore I do not want to cause harm to others, I keep and uphold these precepts.

And each of these precepts, these five precepts, are inversely related to the hindrances. What do I mean by this? So, first of all, what do we mean by hindrances? What do we mean by distractions? There are, in general, five basic hindrances that occupy the mind in meditation. The beautiful part about meditation is that it reveals our innermost thoughts.

We think we can escape our actions. We think no one is looking. We think whatever we do, there's no consequence to it. No one has seen it, right? It's a little white lie, or I took a little bit from the store, but no one really saw it, right? I cheated on this person, but they don't know, and we'll keep it that way.

Guess what? Your mind keeps track of all of this. And when we talk about karma as your intentional action and the consequences of those actions, the immediate consequence of those actions happens right here. So the hindrances that arise in the mind are reflections of moments and times in which we did break a precept. So for example, I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from killing or harming living beings on purpose.

That's to harm another being. Where does that intention come from? That intention is ill will, aversion. This person is in my way, is an obstacle to what it is that I want. So I will push them aside. Or this person is speaking something that I don't like. This person is treating me in a certain way that I don't like. And so I will harm them. I will hurt them.

And that comes from perversion. And it could be a person. It could be a human. It could be an animal. It could be an insect. It could be a bird. It could be any kind of being. When you have the intention to harm, it arises from ill will. And this is the hindrance that you deal with. For example, when you are sitting in meditation and it feels good and you are experiencing loving kindness, and then you hear somebody not so gently opening the door, your thoughts go to those, to that sound. It says, "Can that person not realize that we are meditating here? We're doing serious work. Why are they being so crude?"

That's aversion. It means your mind is overly concentrated, trying too hard. Sometimes when the mind is concentrating too hard, things that arise, suddenly the hum of the air conditioner, maybe the lawnmower, brings us out of the experience. And what happens? We get irritated. That means you are not practicing correctly. When you are practicing in such a way that whatever arises just seeps through you and goes without any disturbance, then you are practicing correctly.

The idea is not to concentrate. The idea is not to focus. The idea is to relax and to bask in the feeling. Oh, somebody mistakenly opened the door in this way. It's okay. It's a sound that just comes into the mind. And the little noticing of ill will, I choose to let it go and send loving kindness. He attended one or two retreats of mine in these last two retreats.

And on the first retreat, he thought he was a good little boy, meditating for hours. He sat outside the library and he said, "Oh, I was planning to sit for three hours" and I had this smile on my face, experiencing a lot of equanimity and all of these things. And a woman opened the door, and she said, "Smile," because my smile had disappeared. And I got so angry at her.

And so I said, you are not practicing correctly. Why would you get angry when you're trying to cultivate love and kindness? Because you want it so bad, because you're trying so hard. Like I said yesterday, trying too hard to hold on to something is a form of craving. And when it slips from your mind, you experience the other end, which is aversion.

I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from taking what is not given. When you do this, what does that mean? Taking what is not given. If you're stealing from someone, that doesn't just mean possessions or things or whatever. It can also mean you're stealing credit from someone. You're stealing attention from someone. You're taking up someone's time too much.

They've offered you only this much and you take more. That was not freely given. How does that translate in the mind? Restlessness, agitation. When I steal something from someone, now I am more protective of my own possessions. Because if I can steal, someone else can also steal. And so I become agitated about the future. I become anxious about the future. What if this happens? What if that happens? I might have remorse, right? I might look back and say, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that." And my mind is being eaten up by guilt.

This is what we call restlessness. The restlessness in meditation that arises comes up in the form of a lot of mental noise that the mind is unable to fully tranquilize. Look, there might be noise in the background, and that's fine so long as your attention remains in the feeling of loving kindness or whatever your object is.

And after a while, that mental noise starts to die down. But if you're trying to hold on too hard to the object, that can also translate to restlessness, to agitation. I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from all sexual activities. So this is for the purpose of the retreat, obviously. But when you get off a retreat, the precept there is I undertake to abstain from sensual misconduct.

What do we mean by sensual misconduct? Sensual misconduct can also include sexual misconduct, but sensual misconduct really means wanting something really bad. I want to possess a certain toy or a certain object or I want to experience something. And that's all because there's an identification with the senses as me, mine, or myself. I have to have it. I have to own it. And in my pursuit of wanting to have it and own it, I break other precepts.

Where does that intention arise from? It arises from what we call sensual desire. When we say sensual desire, it's not about the sensual pleasures. It's not about the pleasantness of the situation. It's not about denying that process. It's about seeing our own intentions, where we become so obsessed with the pursuit of owning and having and experiencing that we are even ready to break the other precepts.

So this sensual desire comes in many different forms. It really just comes in the form of identifying with a sound. Generally, when you're sitting, you have your eyes closed. So the only real sense you have is the sense of smell and the sense of hearing and perhaps the sense of touch. And how does this translate? You may hear something in the distance and that reminds you of something else, and now your mind goes to that memory, and then from that memory it proliferates into all of these different forks in the mental road, and you go down these different pathways, right? So it's like you're taking in the experience of some sensory experience, and now your mind is proliferating in many different ways.

This is the sensual craving that we're talking about. I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from telling lies in harsh speech. Specifically lies here. So when you lie, what is going on? Even if you tell a white lie, what is going on? You are deceiving another person. And in deceiving another person, you have doubts about other people. If I can lie, others can lie to me.

And I have doubt about others. And then I have doubts about my own self. And this doubt translates into the lack of discernment in the mind of what is wholesome and unwholesome, what is kusala and akusala, what is skillful and unskillful. So the lack of discernment. I'm not aware of what's actually even happening in my mind. This is what in Pali is known as vichikicha. That's an interesting word, vichikicha, and I can't tell where I am.

I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from taking drugs and alcohol. So what does this mean? It's very interesting that this is the fifth precept. Initially, this was not a precept, but it became a precept. And the story behind this, or the short story of this, is that there was at a time when one could have up to a certain amount of what they call toddy, which has a certain alcoholic percentage, let's say.

And apparently there was an arahant who got a bit too drunk and made a fool of himself. Maybe he was a bit boisterous. Maybe he wasn't walking in a straight line, whatever the thing is. But the Buddha declared after that that you should abstain. Much of the Vinaya, this comes from the Vinaya. The Vinaya is the law book of the monastics.

Speaking of which, here you are keeping eight precepts and off retreat you keep five. But the monks, they keep 227. And the nuns keep 311. So be happy that we're keeping only eight. But this precept, it comes from the Vinaya, which is the law book. And it's a very interesting thing because the Vinaya is all about optics.

It's all about PR. Because when you are dealing with monastics who are going to propagate the Dhamma, and you have other monastics teaching other Dhammas, other teachings, you need to be held up to a certain standard because so are they. So we can't have boisterous drunk monks running amok. So the Buddha made this rule. And that is translated into I undertake to keep the precept to abstain from alcohol or any intoxicants for that matter.

And the reason is because they are sloth producing. So this is the other hindrance, sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor basically is tiredness and sluggishness of the body and the mind. And when you talk about intoxicants, it's basically also the overindulgence in anything. Senses can become toxic just by overuse of it, overindulging. Think about this way, right? You find out about your favorite show. There's a whole new season of that show available on Netflix or whatever streaming thing is there.

And you decide for the weekend, you're going to binge watch that entire season. And it's exhilarating. Oh my God, I can't believe this happened and that happened and so on. But by the end of watching that season, how do you feel? Exhausted. It's like your mind feels sluggish. What am I doing with my life? But that's with anything.

Right? So it's about moderation in everything that you consume. That's part of it. ago and he talked about how he would love to just sit and watch TV all night long. He had this sort of thing from childhood where he would just watch TV and sometimes he would not even pay attention and the one thing that he had a problem with all the time was sloth and torpor.

I had another person who was training to be a shaman for ayahuasca retreats. And she had done so many ayahuasca rituals or ceremonies, I should say. And she found herself to have a lot of sloth and torpor. It was very difficult. It was like there was a cloud, a heavy cloud, a heavy haze that her mind was unable to penetrate. The other thing is you will experience sloth and torpor for the first couple of days because you are adjusting to the schedule. You're adjusting to the environment. You've traveled from afar to come here so the body will be tired.

Don't worry about it. Take your time with it. You will be fine after a couple of days. Sometimes you just have to go through it. If it makes sense, go for a walk in the sunshine. Take a nap. And when I mean nap, I mean 20 minutes, not three hours. Take a nap or splash cold water on your face or walk backwards. Many different things to help to bring more acuity to the mind and to the attention. You will find that it's much easier for you to deal with sloth and torpor. So this is why we keep the precepts. It's to remind ourselves that we are not upholding our mind to a certain standard for the purpose and practice of samadhi or for the purpose and practice of meditation.

You have people who do these idiotic retreats all over the world, that they're going to promise you jhanas, bliss on demand, all this marketing and fluff. But they never talk about the precepts. They never talk about the hindrances. They never talk about the fact that in order for you to have a good foundation, which is what the word sila means, in order for you to have a good practice, you need a good foundation. That's what sila means. Samadhi is the meditation. Sila literally means bedrock.

So you can't meditate if you don't have a mind that has freedom from the hindrances. This is not about moral policing. It's not about anything to do with that. It's very strange that in our society, when somebody talks about morality, there's a certain kind of pulling back from it. But the reality is that we all want to be treated with love and kindness and respect.

And so the framework that we have here is for that purpose, which leads to a mind that is undisturbed and undistracted. And that is the beginning of meditation. Those people out there, whatever they're doing, they're giving you something that is a construction of an experience. And Nibbana is all about deconstruction. What they're giving you out there is, yeah, let's sit down and let's do a cacao ceremony and we'll do this and we'll do that.

And then we'll do some breath work and you're going to feel very elevated. And now you lock into that experience and you do that. Many people who've done those retreats come to me on an individual basis, and they say, it's difficult for me to come back to that jhana. And that's because you haven't experienced jhana. That's not jhana.

Jhana is born of letting go, learning how to relax, learning how to let go. Once you let go, the mind becomes serene and tranquil. From that serenity and tranquility comes this joy, this relief, and then the rest of the steps that lead to the rest of the jhanas. Born of letting go, not born of constructing an experience.

So sila here is about being practical with how we maintain our mindsets, in our mind, so that we can prepare it for true meditation. Now, in the past, these five recollections were not said, but I wanted them to be there. What are the five recollections? I am subject to old age. I am not exempt from old age. I am subject to illness. from illness.

Why do we give these five recollections? Because to understand the immediacy of what it is that you're doing here. The spiritual urgency. This is what is known as samvega. You're all safe here. There's nothing for you to worry about. But life is such, right? We make all these wonderful plans about what we will achieve and what we will do.

And life gets in the way and scrubs all that away. And says, no, this is what happens. I can testify to that. You know, some of you are aware of what had happened. What has it been now? A couple of months? No. No. I have no recollection of time. Three days. Yeah, so around that time, you know, we went through a flash flood. It's very close to death.

Myself and my friend. So anything can happen. Right? And the idea here is to understand that urgency. I am subject to old age. One day I will be very old. Old enough that I'm not able to meditate. One day I will fall ill to such an extent that I don't have the capacity to even sit up. I have experienced that.

You know, I've experienced being in a hospital in a general ward in India, which is not the best place to be. I saw old age on my right. I saw illness on my left, and I saw death right in front of me. There was an old man who was not willing to be administered to. There was a man who was deathly ill, and there was a man who died right in front of me.

I had my own illness that I had to deal with. So I am subject to illness. I am subject to death. Every day we are reminded of this. For all those newsaholics who love to watch the news, you're reminded of the consequences of what happens in our bodies, in our minds, in the environment, in society, in countries.

Anything can happen. So start now. I am subject to, or I will be separated from everyone and everything dear and agreeable to me. How will I deal with that? How will I deal with that grief? I have the tools. Let me use them now. Grief is not an issue. Grief is a reflection of how much you loved the person that is separated from you.

But there are people who are stuck in their grief for years on end, and that's unhealthy. There's a way to come out of it, and these are the tools that are being provided to you of how to do that. Start now. I will be the heir of whatever karma, good or bad, that I do. What we mean by karma is our intentional actions and the consequences of those actions.

This is how I look at karma, and this is how the Buddha defines it as well. He's not talking about just the idea that a lot of New Agers talk about. Oh, it's just my karma, in a karmic cycle. What does that even mean? The Buddha talked about other things. He said there's the environment. There's unprovoked attacks.

There's disorders of the body that lead to illness. There is all kinds of chaos that has nothing to do with me or you or anyone. Find ourselves in these situations. An accident, by virtue of the fact that I didn't intend to get into that accident, nor did the other person. So when you talk about karma, it's a very specific way of looking at it. It has to do with intention and consequences of those actions or intentions.

So what we're saying is, let me understand what is happening in the present moment. What is happening? Is it a direct result of my action, or is it something that happens because of someone else or whatever it is? We don't need to reflect to that point. We have to reflect on what can I do right here, right now?

I'm not experiencing this because in lifetime 478, I did something and therefore now in this moment, now I have to experience this. The Buddha gives a great analogy of this, of somebody shooting someone with an arrow. The person who has been shot is not going to ask, what wood was the arrow made out of? What stone or metal was the arrowhead carved from? What was the velocity of how far or whatever the distance the arrow went?

He's going to look at his wound and tend to it. It's the same with karma. In this moment, whatever I'm experiencing, can I do something about it or not? Can I choose to let go of it? Or can I make it worse with my personalized reactions? That's why the 6R's, the right effort, is a way leading out of karma.

The further propagation of karma. Because I learn from my reactions. My reactions don't lead to further proliferation. My actions or my reactions become intelligent and wise responses. So I act in such a way that is appropriate for the situation. So by looking at these five recollections, we are bringing that sense of spiritual urgency and realizing I can only do what I can right here, right now. Let me just start now and do the best I can.

Everything else will take care of itself. And then there is the Dhammapada verses. Mind is the forerunner of all evil states. Mind is chief. Mind made are they. If one speaks or acts with an unwholesome mind, because of that suffering follows one. This is one of the most important things to understand. Mind is the forerunner of all states. Mind is chief. Mind made are those states.

Everything that is happening, with the idea that this is happening to me, is the mind that is interpreting it that way. The world that you live in, the matrix that we are plugged into, is due to the interface of the mind. So the practice is to cultivate the mind in such a way that we are free from that matrix.

We are free from samsara. We understand that the mind has its capacity, for the purpose of interfacing with the world. So if we choose to develop unwholesome habits, it will lead to unwholesome thoughts. Those unwholesome thoughts can lead to unwholesome speech. That unwholesome speech can lead to unwholesome behavior and actions. And the consequences thereof will be unwholesome.

Likewise, when we cultivate wholesome states. He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me. In those who harbor such thoughts, hatred is not appeased. He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me. In those who do not harbor such thoughts, hatred is appeased. Hatred is never overcome by hatred in this world.

Hatred is only overcome by love. This is an eternal law. The word abuse here, really what it's talking about, he spoke ill of me, or he spoke harshly to me. So the idea that this person did something to me, what does that create? It creates resentment. How dare they speak to me that way? I can't believe they did that to me.

This is how the world functions, an eye for an eye. But if I'm able to let go of those thoughts through the cultivation of loving kindness, then I conquer hate. The perfection of loving kindness is the complete disappearance of hate. And that's what we're all training for. In the unessential, we imagine the essential. What do we mean by the essential and the unessential? Is what works for me in accordance with the Dhamma. There are a lot of people that I have seen on retreat, especially one person who talked about this, and he said he was so obsessed with the precepts that he was afraid of breaking them.

He was afraid of, I don't know if this thing is morally, this ethical or morally upright or not. And I said, you're thinking too much. You're going into the unessential. The essential is, have I harmed someone or not? What was my intention? What were the consequences of that intention? That's it. The unessential is, I've experienced this channel. What is next? How do I get there? When will I get there? Am I there yet?

The essential is, this is the truth of the moment. Focus on that. Pay attention to that. Here, one develops a mind that rejoices now and in the future one rejoices. In both states, the well-doer rejoices. One who rejoices a lot will be able to see the purity of their own deeds, speech, and thoughts. is happy now, they will be happy in the future. In both states, the well-doer is happy.

Thinking I have done good in the past, one becomes happy and will easily experience a blissful state of mind. In both situations, it's talking about keeping the precepts. Reflecting on the times when I was generous. Reflecting on the times when I shared my food with somebody who was hungry. When I spent time with somebody who was lonely.

When I lent an ear to somebody who wanted to vent. When I think back on my good deeds, I rejoice in them. And it is good to rejoice. I feel happy about them. And that happy naturally spills over into a mind that is free of hindrances. And now my mind is ready for meditation in that blissful state of mind.

I don't have to construct. I don't have to do cacao ceremonies. I just have to reflect on the goodness that I've done. And it will spill over into joy. Though a person recites sacred texts but doesn't act accordingly, the heedless person is like a cowherd who counts others' cows. They have no share in the fruits of the holy life.

Though a person recites the sacred text very little but acts in accordance with the teaching, they give up lust, hatred and delusion, they truly know what is good, and this leads to a mind that is free from suffering. They cling to nothing here and in the future. In this way one shares the fruits of the holy life. So a person can be very astute, they can speak from scripture, even the devil quotes scripture as they say, but that doesn't make one. You don't need to know all the suttas. You don't need to know the different lists that Buddhists love talking about.

The four foundations of mindfulness and the five precepts and the twelve links of dependent origination and the eight factors of the eightfold path and the five this and the six that and so on. You don't need to know all of that. How do I have a share in the holy life? What is the holy life? This comes from the word Brahmacharya. The way leading to Brahma. Here, Brahma is the holy, the ultimate. Acharya means one who follows that, one who lives that.

How do I live that? By following the Eightfold Path. How do I follow the Eightfold Path? By conditioning my mind from the unwholesome to the wholesome. How do I do that? Through right effort. What is right effort? The 6R's. If I do that, then I have a share in the holy life. I don't have to do anything else. It's okay if I haven't watched any Dhamma talks. It's okay if I haven't read the suttas. It's okay if I can't quote you what the Buddha said in this particular sutta. But am I able to let go? Am I able to experience that freedom and peace of mind? Yes? Great.