Transcription
Tonight I would like to talk a little bit about home and homelessness. It seems to me that we as human beings have almost an inherent need for home, for a sense of home, a sense of security, and this is what I want to explore a little bit, the different aspects of that and the different levels of that and what we can discover there.
So we have this felt need for security, and the question is, how are we responding in our lives to that need for security? It's there. I think it's actually a given. How are you responding to it? If you read the original texts from the time of the Buddha, a lot of encouragement and emphasis is given to -- at first actually just men; later men and women -- to lead what's called the homeless life, to actually leave their homes, their families, their work, and devote their entire lives to the Dharma -- to be homeless, literally, wandering from one place to another.
There's a sort of well-known [passage], a passage that appears often in the suttas, in the original discourses, describing someone's reflection when they are considering leaving home. Some of you may know it. The person -- in this case, it's a man -- he thinks, "Dusty and confined," or "dusty and crowded is the householder's life. The homeless life is wide open. It is not easy, living the householder's life, to live the fully perfected holy life, pure as a polished shell. Suppose I were to shave off my hair and beard, don yellow robes, and go forth from household life into homelessness." And after some time he "abandons his property, small or great; leaves his circle of relatives, small or great; shaves off his hair and beard, small" -- no, it doesn't say that. [laughter] "Dons yellow robes and goes forth into the homeless life."[1] This is a sort of a passage of triumph, you know, in the original suttas.
Having said that, I just learnt a tiny bit myself about the social structure at that time, 2,500 years ago in India. Just briefly: the predominant religious culture was from the Vedic tradition, from the Vedas and the Brahmanical traditions. It was believed in those traditions that everyone in society had their place -- so the Brahmins, the priests, down to, if you were a householder, it was your duty to keep your place and do your duty in the role of that, of whatever your place was. And if you didn't do that, then the sun would literally not come up tomorrow, the rivers would stop flowing, etc. So it was believed that a person's social role, their role in society, was fixed and predetermined, and actually helped kind of keep the universe together. And so roles were extremely fixed. The role of the householder was very fixed, with a lot of pre-prescribed duties, etc.
So it was very difficult for someone in that situation to devote themselves to Dharma and to have a sense of freedom in all of that. I think it's different now. We're all here as people who are not monks or nuns, and yet very, very devoted to the truth, devoted to the path. Also, it's worth reflecting that now, when we look at monastic life now, that monks and nuns for the most part live in monasteries. So they are actually no longer wandering from place to place as they were primarily at the time of the Buddha. They've sort of made their own homes now and live there. The whole idea of monasteries is relatively new.
The question for us as lay people -- and I actually know there are people in this hall who are seriously considering, or have seriously considered at one time, taking robes, taking up the homeless life, so to speak -- but what does it mean for us, all its different levels? What might that mean? What does 'home' mean? What can it mean? What does 'homelessness' mean? As I said, this is something we're dealing with, anyway. We're responding to these needs, these desires, anyway. How are we responding to it?
Some of you I know and I'm sure will have had, or are having, or will have in the future, periods when you're actually homeless. Right from the start, I should say I'm not talking about the sort of terrible social situation, you know, where people can't afford a place to live and they're on the street. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about deliberately not having a fixed place, being homeless. And for some, some spend months or years in this kind of mode, years in the mode, devoting themselves to Dharma, to truth, to travelling to explore that. And for some, this can be absolutely great. There's a liberation that happens, there's a letting go that happens, and the potential for discovery there and freedom is enormous. So if it's possible, or if it's something one is thinking about, to really consider it.
Having said that, I also know many people who have undertaken such a period of homelessness and have been in India for years, and the truth is -- and probably they would admit it as well, and in some cases they do admit it -- it made actually not much difference. It didn't really make much difference.
Any spiritual path that we're on, or any practice that we're doing, one of the aspects of maturity is being aware of what the particular pitfalls of that path are. So sometimes it's easy to look at other people's practices and see, "Oh, well, they could go wrong there," or "They are going wrong with this and that," and all the problems. We're not actually aware of the path that we're engaged in, what the potential pitfalls are. This takes a lot of maturity, and a lot of openness and clarity, and a lot of honesty.
So we as householders, as lay people, what's the danger in that? What are some of the dangers, potential dangers in that? This is a really important question to ask about any direction we have in life, any choices that we make in life, any practices that we do. So to me, one of the potential risks is that, in having a home and that kind of security in the world, we actually come to protect that, overprotect it, and we lose a certain element of risk-taking in life. I'm not saying this does happen; I'm saying it's a possibility, and we need to be really ruthless and honest about that being a real possibility. We lose our capacity for taking risks, to some degree or other. We can also lose what I was talking about last night and a little bit this morning: our sense of priority, that freedom and truth are the priority. We can actually lose that, or maybe never even get to that place that it becomes a priority.
Quite recently, I was somewhere else, and talking with a group of people about Right Livelihood. Someone said they were an engineer and they worked on different projects. And then they became aware that one project was a munitions project. Whatever they were doing was going to end up in a missile or something. And they really were not okay with that. They really had a problem with that. And so they reflected on it and wrote a letter and kicked up a bit of a fuss. But there was a limit to how far they would go. They weren't prepared to quit the job or whatever. And just asking, and it was just really wanting a sense of honesty there, and the person said, "Well, if I quit, I knew I wouldn't be able to get another job." And I mean, I didn't actually press it, but there was a sense of not being totally honest about what was being sacrificed, what was being given up.
So none of this is easy stuff. What I'm talking about tonight is quite challenging. I'm not saying any 'shoulds.' I'm just perhaps proposing a rather ruthless honesty about it all. Is it possible that being involved with possessions, being involved with things, being invested and wrapped up in roles and identified with roles in life, the different roles we have in life, that we are somehow, to some extent, closing the door on something else? Closing the door to something vast? That we've wrapped our being around something small -- possessions, things, roles? Is that possible that that goes on? Is the opposite possible? That because we don't so much have an abiding sense of something vast, that we then tend to wrap ourselves around what is small? It's easy to get lost in things if we're not keeping that sense of vastness or mystery or whatever you want to call it, if we're not keeping that alive.
So I mean, just briefly, you can see this very easily with money. Money is interesting. We very rarely talk about money. I don't know how many Dharma talks are about money in the library. I think zero. Maybe I'm wrong. And I'm actually not going to talk about it tonight, but just to touch on it very briefly. It seems to me that in our relation with money, it's something we have to be really firm with ourself about. It's so easy to get kind of dragged down and pulled down by the movements in and around us, dragged down into a certain way of viewing life, a certain way of seeing life, in terms of what we're gaining, what we're losing, what we're having that's maybe losing value or gaining value for the future. And it's all very understandable given what's coming to us from society, from the culture. But in a way, there's a kind of madness in it, and sometimes the madness is quite extreme. I can't remember where I was reading, but recently I read that someone got hold of a little plastic travel hair dryer that was used by Jackie Onassis, and it went up for auction, and it went for about £5,000. And similarly -- what did they find? -- a piece of cake (this is even weirder!), a piece of cake from the marriage of the Duke of Windsor -- whoever he is [laughter] -- somehow preserved in a matchbox, I don't know how it got preserved, from 1920. £25,000. [laughter]
It's insane, what we've actually assigned value to and what's happened with money. So there's obviously that level of it. But just in the way we can get pulled into the sort of -- everyone's agreeing about this relationship with money. Can we pierce through that and see that life is not that? Life is not that. Is it possible, if we have that relationship, that there's something in the heart that's actually closing because of that? The heart is closing in fear and future-thinking. This is not easy. None of this is easy. This is not going to be an easy talk tonight. Sorry. [laughs]
I have a good friend, and she said a while ago, she was saving money and the thought was -- very consciously -- "When I have X amount, I will feel safe." And now she has X amount, and she doesn't feel safe. And she also said -- I think it was, I can't remember if it was two separate conversations -- she's beginning to notice a relationship: "When I feel unhappy, I feel actually impoverished, financially, materially impoverished." She's beginning to notice this relationship with how one actually feels, in terms of what one has, the security one has through that.
But we don't have to be passive observers of that relationship. If there's a relationship between happiness and sense of impoverishment, to me it's quite clear what needs to happen. It's actually not "build the money up." It's "build the happiness up." [laughs] So in part of being honest, it's not to underestimate the enormous power and influence of the forces that arrive at our eyes and ears every day around this. The other day, I was just in Newton Abbot buying something or whatever, and assailed by all this, different interest rates, as you walked by the different -- what do you call it? -- building societies, banks, etc. Not easy. It's not easy. It's not easy living this householder life and keeping alive that sense of priority.
So I live upstairs, and have done for almost two years. And it's actually not very easy living here in a lot of respects, for different reasons which I won't go into now. [laughter] But at one point -- I can't remember when it was -- I put a sign up on my cupboard and it says, "I am homeless. I don't live here." And a little while later I added underneath, "Death is all around." When I look at this, I feel very happy! [laughter] Catherine came in, and she looked at it, and she said, "I think you're in denial, Rob." [laughter] There's something -- it's almost a reminder to myself. We need to remind ourselves about where we're making a sense of home and where the real security is.
The Buddha talks a lot about security in practice, making a home in the Dharma. The word 'monk,' I think its root, etymologically, is mono. I think it's mono, meaning 'one.' A monk or nun, a monastic, is a person with a one-track mind: freedom. That's what they're interested in. And one priority, unlike what's usually the case for people in the householder life -- many priorities. And understandable. In a way, that's a choice we've made. In a way, coming on retreat is just being mono for a while. It's just all we need to do here, just focus on that, one-track mind here.
So the Buddha talks about, in our lives, can we build a home, build a mooring, build a root, build our roots in the Dharma, in practices? Can we, do we, have a home and a root in sīla, in ethics, what I was talking about in the opening talk? That we have a sense of rootedness in a relationship of care and respect, and equality even, love even, with others -- with ourselves, with others? That we are rooted in that -- our lives, our choices, our orientation in life is rooted in that.
Sometimes hearing something like that, it sounds flimsy. We want walls. We want things in the bank. We want, you know, a retirement fund. All important, all understandable, but the more we practise, the more we see actually to be rooted in the Dharma is more secure. It's not flimsy. So to be rooted in sīla, in ethics, to be rooted in the practices, in developing what's beautiful, and to be rooted in wisdom. Earlier today, we had the question on the Four Noble Truths. Are we rooted in a view -- the Four Noble Truths are a view -- are we rooted in a view, are we oriented in a view? When something is difficult, where there's suffering, the view is: how can I work with this? How can I see this differently that relieves some of the suffering? That becomes the orientation and actually a kind of a home, that that's how we are relating to life.
Typically -- and again, it's very understandable, it's very human -- something goes wrong and we want to fix it, from the most mundane thing to the most important thing. So whatever it is, our relationship is usually fixing what's wrong, mending what's broken in the world. And of course a lot of that's important. When our shelter does break, we need to fix it. When our relationships are fractured, we need to heal that. When our health is decaying, we need to address that. But still, can there be a different priority? This is what I was talking about last night. Can the priority be shifted? And so to have priority in the Four Noble Truths, in Right View, it's that the priority is freedom. How clear is that for us? How clear is that? So that we're genuinely, really, really genuinely, not expecting this world to be comfortable, to be truly secure, to be kind of just right for us. You know, we can hear that and say, "Yeah, sure, I understand. Everything is impermanent and fragile. Yeah, yeah, sure." But genuinely, deep down, that we understand that we actually can't have a sense of complete fulfilment in the conditions of the world. Just that much, really understanding that, really seeing that, is already very deep wisdom.
What happens -- and it's, in a way, part of the human condition -- is that we actually become blind to this. We become blind to the fact that we cannot find that security in the world ultimately. We cannot get everything just right and just comfortable. I think that's a human condition. It may be the case that our culture is, because of the technological advances and all that, it's actually very possible to get it very comfortable, seemingly very secure, but it's not really. It can't really be. And in a way, we've been numbed by all of that, everything that's out there.
So the Buddha, in the mythological story, his father tried to protect him from seeing this insecurity in life. Many of you know the story. I'm not sure how mythological it is or how real it is. But instead of being numbed by TV and Nintendo and iPod and, you know, whatever, and advertisement, it was actually numbed because his father kept him away from everything. So he went out and he encountered the four heavenly messengers -- actually, I've forgotten what they are; I think a sick person, an old person, a dying person -- and began to reflect, in a way burning inside, reflecting with this question. He saw everything is unstable, everything dies. And he says to himself, "Why should I, I who am subject to ageing, sickness, and death, why should I seek that which is subject to ageing, sickness, and death? Why should I seek refuge in that? It doesn't make any sense." This was a burning question for him. In a way, our culture, too, we hide away dead people for the most part. We cover it over. It's not something we talk about. Even terminal illness is a bit hush-hush. We cover over, we smooth over the fragility, the insecurity of life.
There's a story from the Jewish tradition. Some of you may know it. There was a Jewish man, and he was on a business journey travelling somewhere, probably in eastern Europe, a few hundred years ago. He was travelling to make this business deal or whatever, and he was passing through a town, Lodz or whatever, and he suddenly remembered, "There's a famous rabbi in Lodz. He's supposed to be a great mystic and a very wise man. I'll go see him." And so he found the address and went to see this rabbi, knocked on the door, and was let into this house, up the stairs. The person who let him in said, "That's the rabbi's room." He knocked on the door and the rabbi answered and ushered him in. He said, "Sit down." And he sat down. All there was was a chair in the room, on which he sat, and the rabbi sat on the bed. That's all there was in the room: there was a bed and a chair. The businessman was looking around, and he says, "Well, this is a bit odd, you know. You're this famous, extremely respected rabbi." He said, "Rabbi, where's all your stuff? Where are all of your things?" And the rabbi said, "Well, where are yours?" And he said, "I'm just passing through." The rabbi said, "So am I."
Sometimes we can hear something like that and -- I don't know what the implication of the story was, but sometimes we can hear something like that and maybe have the sense, "Oh, well, there's some place beyond that's our real home -- Heaven or something." I'm not saying that was in the story. But maybe we can hear that. Dharma teaching doesn't really point to that. It's something else. What is it to find a home not in a beyond?
Sometimes we find ourselves in a period of our life, either through deliberate choice or through circumstances, where things are very groundless, where we have no sense of home and we're missing it, and we feel very uncertain in that groundlessness. Sometimes this is there for a person anyway, as part of their karma, if you like. They actually have a very deep sense, almost existential sense of groundlessness, of not belonging in life, and can be very painful. But whatever it is, wherever it's coming from, really crucial that that feeling is difficult to be with -- groundlessness, uncertainty; it's painful. It's not easy. We need to connect with that feeling. We need to actually touch that feeling with kindness and presence, and really connect with it, to connect with what the actual groundlessness feels like, with the fear of it, with the existential uncertainty.
In a way, that connection, that very connection with what is difficult, is a kind of home. That connection is home. Sometimes a person has everything around them, has a home, has a community, has this and that -- there's not that connection, and it's not worth anything. The first port of call is connection with ourselves when things are difficult, because we tend to disconnect. When we're disconnected, nowhere feels like home.
So sometimes, if that's the situation for someone, there is a sense of groundlessness, of uncertainty, we need to connect with that and be in that space in a patient and listening way. We can actually listen deeply. Sometimes a person may be unsure about direction or what should be the direction, what is the direction home, what do I want to build or let happen or move towards, or whatever it is. So we have to be very quiet and non-reactive in that space, connected and listening deeply. And this is not easy.
But even then, are we being in that space of the unknown, waiting for the known? Is my relationship to the unknown just about waiting for the known to appear? "I know what I'm going to do. I know where I'm going to be. I know what's what and in place"? To a certain extent, that's fine, but we have to see as well: life, our experience of life, is always a marriage of the known and the unknown. So what we experience as the known, what we feel as the known, is always moving into the unknown. It's always moving, falling into, decaying into the unknown. And what is unknown is becoming known. This is just the experience of our life. The known is always smaller than the unknown. In a way, the unknown embraces the known.
Sometimes a person with exposure to teachings and practice and spiritual traditions says, "Well, I'm going to make a home in the moment, a home in what is, whatever is in the moment." This is very beautiful. It's a beautiful way to approach certainly the moment or our life, and in a way, in the teachings, especially in this tradition, we tend to give almost an exalted mystical status to 'the moment' as if it's something holy. It's all about the moment, being in the moment, this moment, this moment, this moment. That's a beautiful way to practise. And you might want to experiment at times in your life, or at times in your practice: what is it to make a home in the moment, a home in what is? There can be a lot of freedom, a lot of joy, a lot of beauty in that approach, but there will never will be a sense of complete security there. Because however okay we can feel with the changing of things, 'what is,' 'the moment' is always changing. It is just always changing, and existentially there will be some sense of dissatisfaction with that, just the fact of change, however okay we are with it.
A person thinks, "Ah, let go of the past, let go of the future, be in the present moment." But the Buddha says let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present. A person might think, also exposed to teachings, "Make a home in impermanence, in the fact of change. I'll be alive to that, surfing the change." Again, very beautiful, and really a possibly very fruitful way of approaching practice -- in a sitting, a walking, over a period of three months, over a period of three years, whatever it is, making a home in impermanence.
But it's interesting, impermanence. Impermanence is something teachers go on and on about, impermanence, especially Buddhist teachers in this tradition. Sometimes I have to ask, and I have asked it other times: is it making a difference? We're aware of impermanence. Everyone agrees on impermanence. It's obvious. Is it making a difference to us? Are we actually feeling more secure when we contemplate impermanence? Are we feeling more free?
One of the things, if we're going to open to the change, this incessant change there is, this incessant dying of things there is, one of the things that allows that to make a difference so that we're responding to it in a way that's actually opening the heart and freeing us, is how much sense of well-being there is in life. So I think sometimes we put out this message of just being in the moment, letting go, and noticing impermanence, and letting go, and I think there's too much -- it's a bit of a ridiculous expectation to expect people to be able to let go, give up, when there aren't enough inner resources built up, when there isn't enough inner sense of well-being (whatever you want to call that -- joy, happiness, just well-being, peace, ease, whatever). We're saying, "Look at impermanence, look at impermanence, look at impermanence," and nothing is happening. Either one gets existentially freaked out by the fact, or it's just, "Yeah, so what?"
When there is a sense of well-being, the inner resources have been built up, then there's actually a reverence when we begin contemplating impermanence. There's something beautiful, mystical there. Something wondrous. The heart is in a state of awe with it. This sense that I was talking about, the unknown being larger than the known, embracing the known -- there is something mystical and freeing and beautiful in that.
So the other day someone was saying to me -- was having some difficulty digesting the lentils, basically [laughs], and they were saying there was a lot of joy in the practice. Some lunch arrived, and it was not going to agree with her digestive system, and so she just left it, but it was completely fine, and she realized it was completely fine. There was this ability to let go because there was the joy there. It's too much, I think, to expect us to let go without having deepened, cultivated our inner resources.
So the Buddha is really encouraging us to make a home in those inner resources, in what is beautiful. Some of you have heard the phrase brahmavihāra, which means sublime or divine dwellings. Vihāra is actually meaning 'abode' or 'dwelling.' The practices, there are four practices, four cultivations of mind -- loving-kindness (mettā), of compassion, of joy, and equanimity. And the Buddha says make your home, make your vihāra, let the heart dwell in these. Develop them so that they become the kind of place where the heart spends its time, the resting place of the heart, a beautiful, nourishing, skilful resting place of the heart. Mostly where does our heart and mind dwell? Not too much of the skilful, not too much of the helpful.
[Or] in calmness -- the Buddha gives all of these (what we were talking about, I think earlier this morning), these lists of qualities: this is what to develop, this is where to make your home. And oftentimes people make the objection, "Yeah, but that's impermanent, that's going to change. I shouldn't get attached, because it will change." It will change, but what can happen is that, over the years, really, that becomes the kind of default groove of the mind, the default place where the mind settles, in kindness, in compassion, in the sense of well-being, openness, equanimity, calmness, instead of all the rest of it (agitation, irritability, insecurity, etc.). Not to underestimate the power of that. An enormous power of that to really give a sense of security in one's life. And it doesn't happen suddenly, and it doesn't happen either easily. They're lifelong cultivations.
Buddha talks also about taking refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the Saṅgha. So to take refuge in the Buddha, to take that as our home, what does that mean? And one level of meaning might be to take refuge in, again, this sense of aspiration, of directionality in life -- our potential for awakening. Just holding that for ourselves is a sense of orientation of home. Even though it's something that we're moving towards, it's a sense of home; we know where we're headed, we know what matters. Taking refuge in the Dharma -- we talked about already this cultivation of what's beautiful. Taking refuge in the Saṅgha -- this is extremely important for us, especially as lay people, to find others, to connect with others that really support us and give us a sense of community, of belonging, of looking together, exploring together, supporting each other in the practice.
For some people, when the mindfulness gets really strong and practice sort of really deepens, there can be a sense that everything is changing. Everything is changing, but the awareness is staying steady, and the awareness is just there witnessing everything. It can sometimes feel as if awareness is a vast space in which all this uncertainty, all this change, all this loveliness and difficulty, is arising and passing, and the awareness is effortlessly embracing it, and it's just steady. So it is a possibility; I'm just speaking now about the possibilities of practice. And sometimes a person says, or might hear certainly in the teachings, to make a home in awareness. Again, this is very skilful and a very beautiful way of practising. What would that mean, to actually rest in awareness and take the sense of home and security and rootedness in the space of awareness? So that's a possibility to practise with, to orient your practice towards. It's something that comes as practice deepens; you can't really force it.
But even that has problems, because what's going to happen when we die? It can seem like all our experience is being born out of that awareness and dying back into that awareness. It can seem like that. But to really have a sense of security in that awareness, we actually have to take a leap of faith and assume that that awareness continues after death. Who knows? We kind of need a faith in an eternal awareness. And to me, that's not quite secure, because, as I said, who knows?
So some of these approaches -- impermanence, and being in the moment -- you could say are more about giving up the whole idea of security, and just saying, "Life is not secure. It's not possible. Let me surrender and open to that very sense of insecurity, and somehow in that, there will be a sense of security." The Buddha originally tends to phrase his teaching differently, and actually says, "Try and find, please try and find the highest security, the true security." So he talks about nirvāṇa, nibbāna. At one point, there's a list of kind of synonyms for nirvāṇa, and some of them are: the secure or security, the shelter, the refuge.[2] So he's pointing to something, saying this is available.
Sometimes there's a sense that whatever we experience is somehow not quite it, whatever is in the realm of experience is not quite it, it's what the Buddha calls dukkha. It's not quite completely satisfactory; it's not quite secure completely. And in deep levels of practice -- I just want to, in a way, unfold how the practice unfolds a little bit -- in deep levels of practice, one is actually just looking at all things and feeling this sense of not secure, not secure, not secure. Even lovely, beautiful, mystical states -- oneness, and a sense of deep connection, or infinite love or whatever -- somehow there's still something a bit unsatisfactory there. There can be a sense of something beyond, and yet we can't find that beyond. This is what, in another tradition, is called the 'dark night of the soul.' There's a sense of something -- nothing seems to do it. And there's a great degree of letting go and freedom in that, but there's still this kind of gnawing pain, almost.
Sometimes a person is sitting with these kind of questions in their practice, not as abstract theological ideas or whatever, but real questions in their practice. One begins to look in a different way, and starts to notice: home and security, or even time and the future, they are only, in a way, given meaning, they only mean something in relation to a self that I believe in, to how much I believe in this separate sense of self, of ego. The more the self-sense, the more home and security and future have a meaning. At very deep levels of practice, you can actually see this in the practice: let go of some of the self-sense, and all that stuff begins to dissolve its meaning somewhat. More self-sense, back it comes, back it's built. A person can begin to wonder: everything that I'm trying to shore up as security, as home, or everything that I'm trying to keep at bay and be secure from, be protected from, maybe that's all, in a way, empty; it's all kind of built up.
This is not easy to see. Sometimes we have a division between what we call the real world and Gaia House or something. [laughter] And people say, "I'm going back to the real world," or "I need to be in the real world now." What do we really mean when we say that, when that's said? What does it mean? Oftentimes what's actually meant is, from the vast, infinite scope and complexity of our experience in life, we take five -- maximum seven -- things (money, career, relationship, home, etc.), and we call that 'the real world.' Those things, we give them some extra inherent significance. And sometimes in that kind of mode of thinking, then we come on retreat, and it's sort of getting away from the real word, either fleeing it or wanting to feverishly stock up on our mindfulness and mettā so we can go out and deal with that stuff.
It's very, very difficult to see how we build these things up, how we build up a sense of a world and a real world. It's extremely difficult. It seems so obvious and so taken for granted. We build these things up as significant. It's very difficult to have faith that they may be empty, they may be not as real as they seem. Maybe the whole idea of ownership is a myth; maybe it's not what it seems. Very difficult to see. It's very difficult to even believe in that possibility. Someone says, you know, "Why don't you have a retirement blah blah blah?" Can't understand that maybe there's a way of seeing that it just doesn't have that reality, that this life is actually not what it seems to be. It's very difficult to see that. What happens right now? Moment of complete listening. Just listen. If there's real listening, total presence, what's real? Really listen. [bell sounds]
Sometimes we get a whisper of it, just the faintest whisper, but that's not enough. It's not enough. It's very difficult, it's extremely difficult, to puncture that belief in the reality of all that, all this. Sometimes a person sees that, and they say, if we go right to the end of all this, where it's going, they say, "Okay. It's all empty. I'll make my home in emptiness. I'll make my home in wisdom." And actually, the really deep teachings say wisdom is also empty, and emptiness is also empty. Although, again, very skilful to say I'll make my home in wisdom. What a deep place to have one's home. Or in emptiness.
To quote Jesus, "Foxes have holes and birds have their nests, but the Son of Man," a person dedicated to the truth, "has no place to rest his head."[3] Maybe he was speaking on a practical level. I wonder what the deeper, mystical meaning of that is. The Buddha also says, "One who abides nowhere abides freely. One who dwells nowhere dwells freely."
Like I said at the beginning, actually whether we like it or not, whether we're conscious of it or not, we're dealing with these questions all the time. We have a need for security, we have a movement towards it. We're dealing with it all the time. The question is, can it be really conscious? Can we really go into it deeply? In a way, can we even view our lives as a pilgrimage into a deep sense of home? And that deep sense of home turns out to be the same as a deep sense of homelessness, and a pilgrimage into a deep sense of homelessness turns out to be the same as a deep sense of home.
Shall we just sit for a few minutes together?
