This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The Naturalistic Teachings of the Buddha: Study, practice, and discussion of the Discourse on the Simile of the Cloth

Introduction

So I'm delighted to be able to share this sutta with you. It's one of my favorites in the Majjhima Nikaya^[1]. The reason it's my favorite is because I interpret it to be a very naturalistic teaching. Even though the goal being described might seem grand, it's all being described in terms that are fairly simple and humanistic—things we can relate to. It puts things together in such a beautiful way.

There's something about the structure of the Buddha's teachings here. The first half of the text is somehow related to the second half, which has to do with a conversation the Buddha has with a Brahman who uses sacred rivers as a way of purifying himself from his bad karma. The purification comes from an external source. The Buddha doesn't necessarily deny this straight out; he just redirects it to a different river—the river that flows within us. It's the inner river that can purify us.

This is not explicit in the first half, but the first half is composed in a way that it flows naturally. It moves from becoming familiar with the sixteen stains, abandoning them, and then moving into developing verified, experiential confidence in the Buddha and the Dharma. That flows into being inspired by the Dharma—an inspiration that leads to gladness and joy, and flows into what one teacher^[2] describes as the "wellness cascade."

It flows into the Brahma-viharas^[3], and from the Brahma-viharas, it flows into a deep insight that's liberating. I see this as a flow that happens in people, and this flow is related to the idea of stream entry. As I said in my article, "stream entry" is an English translation, but the word sota can mean stream or river, and it can also refer to the current of a river. That makes it come alive in a different way, because for many years when I heard about stream entry, I thought it was associated with a different metaphor: someone who crosses the flood to the other shore, and you have to step into the river in order to reach the other side. I thought it was like putting one foot in the water and you still have to make your way across.

But I don't think it's necessary to connect those two metaphors; they have two different purposes. Rather, it's a metaphor built on the idea of a current. At some point in practice, we're not so much the agent of our practice anymore. We're the recipient of our practice. We're being practiced rather than doing the practice. At some point, something shifts inside; there's a momentum that carries us along, and we can feel that onward movement of being carried by something profound within, called the Dharma.

So we have this sutta where the Brahman is talking about an external river, and in my reading of it, the Buddha is talking about an internal river. One of the tasks for the next few minutes is to try to make this whole journey the Buddha describes come alive for you, so you can understand the value and power of it.

I want to ask you a series of questions, and maybe for each question we can have three or so answers from people.

The Importance of Abandoning Stains

It begins with the metaphor of the stained cloth—and we'll get back to that later—but the actual teachings of the Buddha begin with the idea that there are these sixteen stains. I prefer to translate it as "stains." It could be "imperfections of the mind" or "defilements of the mind," but "stains of the mind" works well with the metaphor.

Why is it important that we know we have stains in the mind? Or if you don't like the word "stains," why is it important to know that you have these attitudes, emotions, motivations, and states of mind that are involved with social harm? Why is this important? Because you could just not care about people, and it wouldn't matter if you hurt them.

April: If you don't recognize, through mindfulness, the blocks in yourself that get in the way of liberation, then your struggle to try to do good is going to be continually frustrated because you're not being insightful about your own dynamics.

Gil: Great. Very nice. Emily.

Emily: I think if we don't recognize it, and therefore can't change it or address it, then we have a sense of unhappiness that we can't even identify, because in some sense these stains do go against our fundamental nature. I think we suffer.

Gil: So would it be fair to restate what you said as: if we don't see the source of our suffering, how could we address it? Great. Thank you. And Luke.

Luke: There are also the corresponding duties of the Four Noble Truths. There's a simple logic to this recognition as a prerequisite for abandoning. The recognition of the kilesa^[4] or this certain stain as an unwholesome property and as a form of dukkha^[5] in and of itself, and then the duty of the Second Noble Truth to abandon that cause.

Gil: Good, thank you. These are all great answers. Luke prepares us for the next question. Why in the world is it valuable to abandon these things? Aren't we just abandoning ourselves then? And isn't this kind of inhuman? Why should we be interested in abandoning these things? Barbara.

Barbara: It's for our own happiness. You said, "Why do we have to care about other human beings?" We're miserable. That's why. You become happier the more generous and loving you're able to be. I don't know how; I just know it's true.

Gil: Wow. Imagine that. Okay, let's see what else people have to say. Daniel.

Daniel: I was wondering why we've evolved as a species to have a sense of well-being when we do good, and why that would have been selected for through natural selection. A sense of altruism helped pass on the genes, so it's just part of our brain—the way it evolved and was selected for. They found that when we're kind, especially to people who have genetic similarities to us, it helps preserve the genes. Now we're just hacking into this system to feel a sense of safety, so that the brain doesn't go out into craving or defilement. Abandoning these brings us into a more socially positive way of being, which we're evolutionarily programmed to be able to do.

Gil: Yeah. And why? It's just because that's the way human beings are. If we compared ourselves to other animals that aren't social creatures and live alone, maybe we wouldn't have a sense of well-being when we help others because there's no survival advantage. This is very nice what you're saying. It occurs to me that many people can abandon some of these antisocial emotional states when we're connected to our closest friends and family. But some people can't even let go of them with their family; there's tremendous violence in some families. As people get further and further away from the people we feel close to, there's less and less instinct to have these positive social emotions, and the negative ones can predominate.

Meg: I think we want to abandon these stains because it takes us away from our true nature, and thereby increases our feeling of alienation and unhappiness.

The Experience of Abandoning Stains

Gil: Fantastic. So we're going to move on. Keep your hands up in case you have answers for the next question. What is it like to have thoroughly abandoned—not just let go temporarily, but really feel like you've left behind—even just one of these sixteen stains? What is that experience like? Is that a good thing, or confusing? Maybe some of you have had this experience. Dave?

Dave: A lightness of being. There's less to carry around, lack of the artifice I need to be pompous. It comes naturally, but I find that it's a lighter lifestyle when I let go of it. You're less distracted, and there's more space in there for positive emotions.

Gil: Nice. Very good. Wallace?

Wallace: It's very freeing.

Gil: Freeing. That's a good Buddhist word. Thank you. Sylvia.

Sylvia: It's really letting go of the tail. It's like releasing any sense of contraction towards "me" and "mine," and freeing as well.

Gil: Very nice. Because the contracted self is often the source of some of these negative mind states. Marion?

Marion: When you're loving, you get back all the loving from other people. You get a lot back.

Gil: Nice. Okay. And Luke.

Luke: I remember hearing you speak of some immediate fruits of letting go, and you gave a kind of test: if cognitively you think you've let go, but there's not some joy that accompanies that, then that cognitive belief is suspect. So that joy is an initial kind of positive reinforcement. Also, I've been hesitant to be open to this because I'm so science-minded and empiricist, but you've talked of a notion of the body having natural intelligence. Recently in my own practice, letting go of these unwholesome qualities is better allowing the intelligence of my being to match up with an environment such that there's a wholesome confluence. A kind of harmony, even if it's an argument, there's still maybe some harmony in the dissonance.

Gil: Very nice. Yes, I think at least fifteen of these sixteen stains are not just raw instincts. They usually come with some constructs of the mind, some stories that we're making up, building some sense of self or ideas. It's a more complicated world we live in when we have them. So to have that settle down and disappear can be a great relief.

So I'm going to move on. To abandon these things, and have them disappear for a considerable time, maybe forever—what is it about this abandoning that gives you a glimpse into the mind of the Buddha? What would that glimpse be? Sharon?

Sharon: I would say it's the bliss of blamelessness. [Laughter] And I actually have experienced that. Also, I would say living in a community, all of those sixteen aspects are not good. So you're motivated.

Gil: Great. Thank you. Julie.

Julie: Well, it's hard for me to put this into words, but when I read in your study guide that the Brahma-viharas are not the goal, but function as the purified cloth on which liberating insight can see the tiniest remaining stain in its disappearance... I just had this bursting open. The only word I can use is this unconditional heart. That understanding just kind of shattered me open into a less conditional space, where my mind isn't as conditioned and reactive to conditions.

Gil: I love hearing this. We're trying to get a flavor of the Buddha's mind, and this points definitely to something. Winnie.

Winnie: For me, as you increase your awareness of these sixteen stains, it generates more compassion and caring for the rest of the world. The glimpse I have about the Buddha when he was teaching this was that it wasn't really for himself. It was really for the betterment of everyone around him, and that the reason for learning these things was that we would eventually have a more caring world than what we have now.

Gil: I love that. What a great glimpse into the Buddha, that abandoning these things gives us a sense that the Buddha is compassionate and maybe we can be too. Beth.

Beth: Equanimity. The feeling of being joyful to be with myself, which was absolutely stunning [Laughter] to me to learn. And therefore, a joy to be with others that I might not even like, suddenly seeing them as a person that I had to be kind to.

Gil: Wow. What a rich combination of things. Stunning joy! Good. So it gives you a hint, maybe a small taste of what it was like to be the Buddha.

Confidence, Joy, and the Wellness Cascade

The text goes on. One now has not just faith in the Buddha, but avecca-pasada^[6]—confidence based on knowing, based on experience for oneself. You have confidence in the Buddha, and this word pasada can also mean bright, peaceful, or a tranquil, inspired faith. It's not zealot faith. It's connected to the path itself, connected to the freedom that this practice can give from these intense, difficult states. There can come an inspiration in the Buddha and the Dharma.

Here in the text, it describes the characteristics of the Dharma. As some of you have been listening this week at 7 a.m., the five qualities of Dharma are described right here. When the Buddha defines how you experience the Dharma in these five ways, it's always with something you can see and know directly for yourself. It doesn't require you to go get a PhD in Buddhist studies. He tells you to look inside and see it for yourself. What you can see for yourself are the stains and the abandoning of them. This is how you see the Dharma. You have confidence that there are other people who've done this as well, and they know this possibility for themselves, and that makes a world of difference. This verified confidence brings inspiration and a certain kind of joy.

How would some of you characterize a joy that comes from this kind of experiential confidence in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? Scott.

Scott: Onward leading.

Gil: Perfect. "Onward leading"—that works perfectly because of the flow we're describing. We're on a journey here.

Scott: I noticed that the attributes described, I've seen in other texts described as the spiral path, and I didn't know this sutta had that structure. So it's beautiful to see it in there.

Gil: Thank you. Luke.

Luke: Cool and brilliant.

Gil: Cool and brilliant. That was very nice. Cool like temperature, and brilliant like a shining light. Very nice combination. Thank you. Barbara.

Barbara: Quiet smile.

Gil: Quiet smile. Very nice. And Jerome.

Jerome: It brings up other moments of joy.

Gil: Perfect. The text describes that based on this inspiration and joy around the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—which is based on the experience we've had ourselves—as the practice continues, a momentum gets started. Remember that this description of confirmed confidence is the same as stream entry, or entering the current. A person has this abandoning of these defilements strong enough to make an impression: "Wow, this is possible. This is fantastic. This is good. The Buddha has done this all the way, and there's the Dharma that he teaches. I'm part of this fantastic event." The inspiration is there.

If the inspiration feeds into the quiet, deep sensitivity of practice, then we start flowing along. The momentum catches us or lifts us. The way it's described is: first there's a gladness. Gladness, as I interpret it, is evaluative. It involves the conceptual, cognitive mind understanding: "Wow, this has a lot of implications. This is a really good thing. This is profound." But as we give ourselves over to it and allow this momentum to carry us, it starts to quiet something inside, and the gladness becomes less evaluative and more embodied. And we have joy.

The joy in this tradition is born. From gladness, joy is born. It doesn't say from gladness we then get out our hammer and screwdriver and construct joy like "joy by numbers." It's more like we're getting out of the way and allowing a natural process to go through us. Something is gestating inside of us until it surfaces and is born as joy.

From there, something begins to relax. Some new kind of steadiness occurs, and the body becomes tranquil. As the body becomes tranquil, there arises happiness. As we become happy, then samadhi^[7] arises. Samadhi here I like to translate as unification, a gathering together.

I suspect some of you are like me: there's been a time and place where you tried to develop concentration with a lot of huffing and puffing, bringing out the sledgehammer or jackhammer to really bear down. This is not the way for samadhi. As part of this natural process, when the conditions and the momentum of practice are there, samadhi begins to appear. I like to think of samadhi as a gift whenever I have it.

The Brahma-viharas and Liberating Insight

With samadhi, now the cloth is clean. A stained cloth won't take any more dye, or if you put a little bit of dye in, it's lost in all the stains. But a clean cloth can take a dye. Now the dye is something singular: a dye of loving-kindness, or of compassion, or of sympathetic, appreciative joy, or of equanimity. The mind is clear and clean, and maybe empty in a certain way, so that it can be filled without any blemish. It's phenomenal to sit with a radiance of joyful happiness, joyful love, or metta^[8] that just feels so clean, healthy, and healing. I've had it in such a way that it felt like metta was flowing in my blood, healing my whole body like a nourishment.

Again, it's not described as something you have to do. I don't really know of any place in the suttas where the Buddha gives clear, technical instructions on the Brahma-viharas like you get a thousand years later with Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga. In the suttas, it's understood to be a natural byproduct of this momentum of practice that happens if you can clean your mind well enough and make it clear, clean, and ready to take this in.

From this, I imagine that this is a dye which is beautiful, but only settles into the cloth very lightly. It's a dissolvable dye, so it doesn't take much for it to dissolve or evaporate. You put it out in the sun, and the dye just lifts off the cloth until there's no cloth. Even if you thought there was cloth, when the dye goes, even the cloth has disappeared. What is that?

So then we have this idea that the person moves now into liberating insights. The way it's presented here is: "There is this." This is often presented in the Four Noble Truths. "Here is this suffering; there is what's inferior; there is what's superior; and there's that which is beyond this realm of conceiving." Some people get irritated by Buddhism whenever they see "inferior" and "superior" because it sounds judgmental or hierarchical, and we shouldn't have this kind of idea. Maybe we can come up with more polite words that inspire people in the modern American world. But one sees the "ouch" and one sees the "ah, this is good." We see the downside of something that is painful, and we see this is not the way forward, and then we see something which is better than that, that feels really good. And we're allowed in the Dharma to feel good.

This was a surprise to me, because I never got this message in my first couple of decades of practicing Buddhism. In the suttas, over and over again, there's an emphasis on becoming filled, abundant, complete, and fulfilled in the Dharma—fulfilled with joy, fulfilled with freedom. An arhat is someone who is completely fulfilled, saturated, and permeated with certain qualities.

To be saturated with these Brahma-viharas is pretty good, but they still involve part of the conceptual mind operating. Very subtle, seemingly invisible sometimes. We don't even see what we're doing in the mind to have these conceptions of goodwill, caring for people's suffering, and being concerned with people's well-being. Even equanimity has a field of conception there, and it's pretty wonderful. But imagine that it went on nonstop for twenty years. If you just had compassion for twenty years nonstop and nothing else was going on, you'd probably be begging for it to stop. There's a limitation to these things. So we see the downside of it—not to dismiss it or be against it, but so we're willing to let go of that, too. Let it evaporate. And in the evaporating of these wonderful qualities, these deep states, everything else evaporates too, and we go beyond this realm of conceiving. This is considered to be full liberation: becoming an arhat.

There is this flow that goes on in the text, and the Buddha brings the flow to a completion. Then there happens to be a Brahman sitting nearby who likes to go into the river, and he hears all this. He wonders if he found a brother in the Buddha, since the Buddha also flows in these streams, so surely he must know about going into physical rivers to get purified. He says, "Do you also go into the rivers?" And the Buddha says, "Well, what shall I do that for?" The Buddha offers a brilliant verse rhetorically. But before I go into that, I think it might be a good time to take some questions, concerns, or protests. Make some room for you.

Q&A and Reflections

Mary: I'm just curious if the Brahma-viharas can be used as an antidote to these sixteen unwholesome qualities. I was trying to map them out, and I don't think there's a linear mapping, but I wondered if there was a connection in using them as an antidote to getting a cleaner cloth.

Gil: Yes, there is this idea that they are antidotes and that these two things can't coexist. Cruelty can't coexist with compassion. Ill will can't exist with goodwill. People use them as antidotes, and we should consider that's a very individual situation. Different people can use different antidotes for different negative mind states. But as an antidote, I think for the most part what it does is it settles them, relaxes them, pushes them away, and creates an alternative mind state that is healthier and good. It doesn't do the same thing as abandoning them. It might temporarily still them, but what the Buddha is looking for is much more than just stilling something as an antidote; it's really getting rid of it, being done with it once and for all.

For instance, wouldn't it be nice if you were just done with conceit once and for all? Not just using equanimity all day long to keep your conceit at bay. So we want to be a little bit careful about the antidotes. We want to be able to also really turn towards these difficult mind states and really understand them deeply. That's why the text begins with "one knows the stains are there." This is a powerful thing to do, to really turn towards it and know it.

Michelle: To pick up on what you were just saying about turning towards that which is difficult or turning towards the suffering, that really makes me go back to the parallel simile of gold being refined in a furnace. It's not just the cloth being rinsed in the water like, "Oh, isn't that refreshing?" There's a parallel simile side by side. I guess for storytelling purposes the water theme is maybe more useful, but in my experience, it's very much like being burned in a furnace.

Gil: Well, that explains why you're so golden! [Laughter] Yes. Very nice.

Michelle: It's not easy to turn towards that which is difficult. For me anyway, only focusing on the piece that has to do with the water and the cleansing doesn't really evoke some of these other themes that are suggested.

Gil: This is fantastic. I appreciate you saying this because I knew about that simile there, but I never really paid much attention to it. This makes it much more realistic. To provide this romantic idea of just flowing in the river and everything's going to be good—it can happen that way at some point, but to get to the point where you're in the river, you might be in the furnace for a while, burning in the fire. To get support through that fire, or find a healthy way to go through it, is part of the path.

Marion: I want to talk from my own experience. I'm 79 years old, and I'm working with a trauma therapist on my complex PTSD from childhood, and it's never-ending. It keeps coming. It's very difficult, and it's wonderful. It seems like it will be never-ending, and I wish I could live many more years and keep going through it.

Gil: I love this, and it makes sense that there's always more work to be done. At some point, Marion, when you feel you're ready for this, you might want to do a ritual. Put it down, put it behind you symbolically, and step into a fuller, more embodied presence where you now see yourself without any of this. You're now ready for a new way. This is not magic. This is not going to make it all go away, but it might begin shifting your perception and your identity around it. You won't be so identified with it. It might still be there, but you'll have a whole different way of holding yourself in relationship to it that might help you move on in this practice.

Marion: I should tell you that I have a very serious illness, very painful, and I won't be around very much.

Gil: Oh, so you should do the ritual sooner rather than later then.

Marion: Right. Thank you.

Wallace: Yes, I have a question about the rapture, joy, and bliss that's mentioned in this sutta. Is that directly related to the joy, happiness, and gladdening that we find in the Anapanasati Sutta^[9]?

Gil: The ways that we experience things like joy, happiness, bliss, and rapture can be at so many different levels. We experience them in so many different ways, under so many different conditions, that I think the answer is very personal. If you're doing anapanasati and you feel the joy and the happiness there, can you identify that your way of experiencing it fits what's being described in the Simile of the Cloth sutta? There's no authority that's going to answer this question for you in a clear, definitive way. Understanding the pattern of these teachings, the conditionality of these teachings, and seeing how to understand it for yourself so it supports and guides your practice—that's what's interesting. To make a one-to-one correspondence in an intellectual way is not so interesting. I'm less interested in the nouns, the particular states that people experience. Rather, I'm interested in the pattern of the unfolding, to have a sense of how these things go from one to the other. These patterns can unfold at many different levels of concentration. What I'm interested in is: in the state that you're in, how does the practice allow you to move on to the next step in the pattern? Knowing the pattern can help guide the practice.

Luke: This is commenting on similes and symbols that were coming up earlier about flame or a stream. I was reminded of Ajahn Jayasaro speaking on the topic of patient endurance, or khanti^[10]. Of course, we may like the cool stream, but apparently, the supreme incinerator of the kilesas—or in this case, these sixteen stains—is patient endurance. Not so cool and pleasant, but still the way to go, perhaps.

Gil: Very nice. For some of us, we don't get to choose sometimes.

Karsten: I had some thoughts about something you said a short time ago. You said that the Brahma-viharas wouldn't necessarily be a full antidote to the defilements, because while they create an alternative mind state, some of these things might still hold on in the recesses of the mind. They're quieted for a while. One way to abandon them without the Brahma-viharas is to just see the way that they cause suffering. But at some point, if you just see the way they cause suffering, that's very self-interested. [Laughter] Maybe you need a kind of synergy between the Brahma-viharas and the abandonment. You develop the appreciative joy and the compassion, and you abandon these things. If you just work on the Brahma-viharas, it doesn't fully work either, because these other things are in the recesses of the mind. Two streams that need to intersect. Am I on the right track here?

Gil: Oh, you're definitely on the right track. I'm a little bit reluctant to make any track "the" track. There are so many varied ways in which individuals navigate this Dharma path. There are people who definitely find what you're saying true; maybe they need to work on the Brahma-viharas before they have any hope of being able to let go deeply. I've known people who could only work with some of their deep attachments when they accidentally had something happen in their life where they really let go deeply. Only then did they have the mind state to be able to address some of these deep attachments. Everything is possible. Don't limit the possibilities.

Karsten: There's a sentence in your study guide that I've been puzzling over: "Birth is destroyed. The holy life has been lived. What had to be done has been done. There is nothing beyond this here." Then there's a parenthetical: "(i.e., nothing beyond this life)." Where does this sentence come from, and can you comment more?

Gil: This is a very common sentence in the suttas where someone describes their full awakening. It's their confirmation or recognition. "Nothing more needs to be done" means nothing more needs to be done in terms of becoming free of suffering. The Dharma path has been fulfilled. The traditional Theravadan way of understanding "there's no more birth" is that you won't be reborn, because there is this traditional idea that the whole point of practice is not to be reborn, because birth just means guaranteed suffering. But the word "birth" (jati^[11]) is used in many ways in the suttas, including metaphorically, as we see in this text where it talks about the birth of joy. For my interpretation, this means the birth of becoming, the birth of identification, the birth of our attachments—these things that keep us suffering in this lifetime will no longer arise for us. We're confident in that. There's an amazing degree of self-standing that comes with deep practice.

"Done what had to be done." Bhikkhu Analayo translates it as "There is no more coming into any state of being." So now we're back into this idea that there's no more rebirth anywhere. But the words in the text are very simple words. It's a little bit of a leap to read it the way the tradition reads it. Based on my own experience in deep meditation, this idea that "there's nothing more here to be done" means there's nothing more than this world that we're living in. Let's live in it well. It points to a real feeling of deep satisfaction that you've come to some conclusion, that everything's been consummated, so you don't need to strive anymore.

RK: I have a question about abandoning things like lust, greed, and anger. I see those thoughts arising. I've been doing that for a long, long time. Not even in meditation; I could be doing anything and I see those thoughts arising. Other than following them or not following them, there doesn't seem to be anything I can do. I feel stuck in that state for a long, long time.

Gil: When this happens, the way that Vipassana practice works is you want to be able to step away from the thought part of it. The thoughts and ideas are not so useful. Rather, drop down into the body and become familiar with the deeper sensations and deeper emotions that are connected to these thoughts. Dive in and really feel the suffering. These thoughts bring on the tension, the tightness, the fire. Really go down and start feeling the whole ecology for which the thought is just the tip of the iceberg.

RK: When this happens, I do look at my body and see the tension it's creating. But this is during normal activity, let's say I'm at the gym, and I have a lustful thought. Other than not following the thought, ignoring it, and trying to switch to something else, I just seem to be stuck in that state for a long time. This has been a year or a year and a half.

Gil: Two thoughts for you. One is that to really work well and deeply with these deep attachments, sometimes it's best to do that on retreat where you really give yourself a lot of time to feel and be with these things for an extended period. The second thing is you might want to shift your orientation around these mind states. Rather than thinking of them as something you have to deal with, fix, and figure out, just recognize them as uncomfortable states. Expand your capacity to be quiet and still with discomfort. Make yourself big enough so that your discomfort around all this is held in some kind of soft kindness. Allow yourself to be and feel the discomfort. Allow it to be there, but don't do anything more than feel it in this kind way.

Thank you all for being here and being part of this. I look forward to more of this.