There are some ascetics and brahmins who, while enjoying food given in faith, still engage in low talk.
This includes such topics as talk about kings, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and beds; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries; talk about women and heroes; street talk and well talk; talk about the departed; motley talk; tales of land and sea; and talk about being reborn in this or that place.
They refrain from such low talk. This pertains to their ethics.
Iâm not here to talk about politics, technology, or the current events that Iâm sure is also clouding us all right now.
How much time do we spend on discussing politicians (kings and ministers), about warlords or bandits, about the threat of this technology or that, about wars?
Also interestingly, everything in this list is what Social Media scroll gives me when Iâm unfortunate enough to click on a video: Talk about food & drink (Macroes, calories, fibers, recipes), talk about family (endless videos about traumas and pseudo-psychological click bait), talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities and countries (discussing this countryâs fascism and that countryâs genocide and that countryâs camps), talk about women and heroes (literally endless scroll of Only Fans content and Alpha-Male content)âŚ
Read it again. You can open a random Social Media short-form video and I bet itâll be one of these things:
This includes such topics as talk about kings, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and beds; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries; talk about women and heroes; street talk and well talk; talk about the departed; motley talk; tales of land and sea; and talk about being reborn in this or that place.
By the way, did you skip reading this time around, or did you read it all entirely again?
We so often crave novelty. Maybe you would much rather scroll again to something you know is probably garbage but just might be something interesting, rather than re-read something insightful Buddha has said.
When I was political, I used to binge on News and commentators and articles and all that jazz. It feels good, like a high, reading up on this person and that. There was also amassive ego involved, in my case:
It felt good to be righteous. It felt good to know my enemies and what they were doing. (And no, I donât have any enemies today.) Finding connections no one else was talking about, like this company being funded by that minister, or that war being a proxy for this policy.
It was, make no mistake, pamÄda, in the most obvious sense: It was intoxicating, it was a head rush, I would shake my knees, I was salivating and agitated. It was a feral state. It was like a drug high.
When all those people in the top are playing a sick game, I would feel powerful by at least knowing about it. Thatâs what made me special. I saw through the veil, so I was saved. Or so I thought.
This consumption would never end. There was always a newer company, a newer minister, a newer administration that would pop up, and more data would pile up sooner than later.
I would consume all this information mindlessly, not in the sense of not trying to discern whether what I was reading was right or wrong, but I wasât questioning whether what I was doing was helpful or not.
I thought it was helpful and useful, that it was my duty, to be ever vigilant about threats, that I had to consume more and more.
Sadly, I think I probably helped âenlightenâ so few people with my researches. Even the most innocent, random Dharma poetry Iâve translated has made a much more immediately useful impact on the lives of people around me.
Letâs read this again, along with me:
This includes such topics as talk about kings, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and beds; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries; talk about women and heroes; street talk and well talk; talk about the departed; motley talk; tales of land and sea; and talk about being reborn in this or that place.
The reason Iâm so fixated on this partition is because Iâve had the pleasure of listening to PÄli Audioâs Roland Kitchen read Bhante Sujatoâs translations for DN in entirety for a month or so. Everyday I would open a new DN sutta to listen to it, and all the repetitions would stick to my head.
When we see a sutta or a repetition, we might just skip over. When something is repeatedly told to us, we pay attention to it. It etches on to our memory.
Sadly, these days I read more suttas than I listen them - Iâve listened to far more short-form content that plagued me lately, probably. This is another aspect of Dharma that we overlook - suttas were not intended to be read or glossed over. They were audio documents first and foremost, and their repetition, their deliberations all feel intentional when one dives deep into listening to them.
Do we spend more time listening to Dharma or listening / reading / consuming media that is deliberately pushed to our throats to make us feel in danger all the time?
I donât think Buddha lived in a more peaceful time than us. I will guess that he saw firsthand some of the things we only read about in Social Media today.
It wasnât that he turned a blind spot and ignored the problems of the world.
I think, more powerfully, he side stepped these issues and found a peace that doesnât revolve around these things.
Isnât that most powerful?
What helps us the most - getting deep into every knooks and crooks of every lame politician, technology, threat, sickness, war, famine, genocide, with intellectual data overflow, emotional outrage and sense of despair?
Yes, stuff is bad. Do we need to elaborate more?
Or does it serve us to remember that Buddha also lived through these things, he bid his followers not to talk about these things, and that he found a peace that transcends this all?
How can we deal with our incessant need to be kept informed, updated, kept in the loop, being vigilant and alert and depressed about every new thing and person and event? The irony of consuming this critical media on the same platforms we criticise, maintained by the same people we criticise?
Does our outrage serve us to consume more media about the immediate threats in an obsessive way, or does it propel us to grow up and recognise what serves us truly in the end?
Iâm glad to have found a community where this is possible. And every day we talk about Dharma is another day of victory.
There are some ascetics and brahmins who, while enjoying food given in faith, still engage in low talk.
This includes such topics as talk about kings, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and beds; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries; talk about women and heroes; street talk and well talk; talk about the departed; motley talk; tales of land and sea; and talk about being reborn in this or that place.
They refrain from such low talk. This pertains to their ethics.
It is my experience that Obsessing over dangers have no end in sight; but Dharma offers a permanent solution.
Thank you for your participation. Our efforts here truly matter more.
