WEBVTT - Nirvana: Not The Band 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.399 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.200 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there. So this 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.759 is stuff you should know. Here we are now. Thatcher 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:27.280 did lighten what mode? Yes, don't like that, said Josh. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.120 But I did include a Nirvana reference in there when 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.839 I said here we are now. Oh, I did not 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:38.120 catch that. I noticed very nice, very little. I slid 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.319 that one in there. Yeah. Yeah, how you doing? Are 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:46.279 you feeling centered? Uh? No, I'm all whacka do Your 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.200 shockers are all over the place. My shackras are all 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.479 over the place, so much so that I couldn't think 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.280 of anything. So all I did was repeat you. Well, 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.680 you know, man, I have to say. While we were 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.560 researching this, I was like this some beautiful stuff. It's 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.240 very appealing. Yeah, actually it was. It's neat stuff, like 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:11.119 I I was. I became calm in researching this. Yeah, 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.240 that's a good thing. I think. Um this, you can 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.240 tie this in. We have a couple of related episodes, 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:22.000 and we might as well as call this the uh Enlightenment. Sweet? 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:26.760 How about that? I'd like that Karma from July and 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:34.960 Reincarnation from July and Burning Man, the angriest people in yours. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.600 Uh yeah. And you know our our our buddy in 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:42.280 New York, Rachel Grundy, as a Buddhist. Yeah yeah, and 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:43.760 she's I talked to her about it so because I 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:45.560 was like, you know, GRUNDI I've meditated some and it 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.720 really appeals to me. And like a true Buddhist, She's like, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.360 it's great, man, here, I'll send you some stuff, no press, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.200 you know, let's see you some pamphlets. Yeah, that's basically 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:57.880 what she did. She wasn't like, you know, you should 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.040 look at this. You know, it's a little uh, let's 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.120 overbearing than other religions I found. I got you, you 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.880 know what I mean. Now, Rachel Grundy does the literary 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.240 pub crawl right if she still do that, I don't 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.360 know she still does that. She used to, But we 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.799 can plug her band Coyote Love. How about that? There 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:16.640 you go, And she just adopted the dogs of congratulations, 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:21.360 congratulations to everybody. Um, that's the Buddhist way. That is 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.600 so nirvana. I thought was the perfect way to cap 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.720 off Karma and Reincarnation. Yeah, as the third part, and 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:31.400 maybe we should do meditation. Maybe we should make it 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.400 a four parter. Yeah, that could probably be interesting. I'm 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.400 sure there's a lot of studies about the physiological effects 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.120 of it and all that. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, alright, alright, 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.440 that's an it's agreed upon. Then, and then the what 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:47.040 do you call it? The what suite? Uh? The Enlightenment sweet? 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.560 The Enlightenment sweet, not to be confused with the Transidentalists 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.480 or the Enlightenment episode man, which just doesn't factor into 0:02:54.480 --> 0:03:00.200 this at all. No, Okay, So, Chuck, we're talking Nirvan Anna. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:02.520 You have like a conception of it. I have a 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.560 conception of it. But in researching one of the things, 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.480 and I also knew that Buddhists and Hindus share a 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.400 lot of cosmology. I thought you're gonna say they hate 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:16.880 each other. No, I don't get that impression. No, of 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:21.200 course not, um, but they they are. Buddhism is a 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.160 an offshoot of Hinduism. Yeah, it's a spinoff. It's the aftermatch. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:31.120 It is. It's the JOONI loves Chacci of religions. What else, maud? 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.800 What was that? An offshoot of Mary Tyler more, Mary 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.680 Tyler Moore? Right, it's the Jefferson's Yeah from march Archie 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.680 Bunker or absolutely, I could do this for at least 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.440 thirty straight minutes. Yeah, we should do an episode on 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.560 the spinoffs where we just say spinoff names and just 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.040 hold thumbs up or down, and but we don't say 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.160 people just guess what are we doing right now? It's 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:04.200 the Threes company spinoff of Hogans here us. That's good. Okay, 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.720 we're done, Yeah, we're done. Okay. I did not realize that, 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:09.200 I guess, is what I'm saying. I knew that they 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.040 were related, I didn't realize that it was like a 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:16.720 direct offshoot where basically the Buddha whose name whose original 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:22.880 name was Siddartha gaua Tama. Did you know that actually Saddarta? Okay, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:27.039 so the h is silent gau tama. Nice. Yes, I 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.360 actually looked at pronunciations or listened to them for this 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.719 episode for once. I'm proud of you. I'm also a 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.200 little ashamed because you did that and I didn't. That 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:38.359 was all for Grundy. I was going. I was going 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.359 with the with the original status quo. It's just mangling 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:46.640 words of foreign origin. Well, I'm trying to mix things 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.719 up here, fifteen years in and scientific words to not 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.680 just foreign ones. So, uh, you were talking about Saddharta 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.599 gal Tama, right, he was born into as a Hindu 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.000 a Hindu family and decided like, yeah, I'm not too 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.200 hip on Hindoo. I think there's other ways to go. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:09.520 And there's Buddhism. Uh yeah, that's the quick version. YadA YadA, YadA. 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.200 There's Buddhism. Yeah, this is fifth century b C. In 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.880 the age of course. And uh, like you said, he 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.120 would later become the Buddha, which is not to be 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:25.520 confused with Buddha. A Buddha exactly which you want to 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.720 be a Buddha, Go do it, Chuck, you can do it. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:33.800 You couldn't be the Buddha because that's Saddharta's right, Yeah, 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.520 but you could be a Buddha. I could be a 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:43.279 layman's version, I believe, right, Okay, because like only monks 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.760 generally achieve the state of a Buddha. So in researching this, 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.000 if you wanted to, you could be like Sion or 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.679 a life I'm going to become a Buddhist monk and 0:05:54.760 --> 0:06:00.240 conceivably achieve nirvana in this lifetime. You could be because 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.800 you're a human being. You're incarnated as a human being 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.520 into this moral coil, and if you wanted to, you 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.600 could go do it. But in researching this, yes, apparently 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.919 it's typically left to the Buddhist monks because they're the 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.839 ones who are like, who at the time sign our life? Yeah, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.520 because you gotta drop out in a lot of ways, 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.120 not entirely. I mean, Buddhist monks like still filter amongst 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.600 the masses and all that. But um, for the most part, 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.960 they're focusing a lot more on achieving nirvana than the 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.320 average day to day person does, even like a day 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.240 to day Buddhist or something. Yeah, it's not. It's not 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.000 a part time job. You're not like, uh, sitting around 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:37.880 on Netflix, like should I watch Oranges in New Black? 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:40.960 Or should I meditate for eight hours? You know? Can 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:44.080 I do both? You can? By the way, that's called 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.040 zoning out. So, uh, let's talk a little bit more 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:52.640 about Siddharta's journey. Um, this is a five sixty three 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.839 BC and modern day Nepal or what would be modern 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.000 day Nepal. Does the way back machine go there? Yeah? 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.520 You want to go? All right? It sounds like a 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:10.520 lovely time. All right, here we are it's cold. It's lovely. 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:12.640 You know, it's funny. I didn't take it as cold. 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.640 I thought we would be going back to like maybe spring, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.920 but yeah, it's really cold here right now. It's a 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:22.040 good thing. You're wearing the ox hide, you know, lined 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.600 with serpa. Uh so, see said Arta over there. And 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.160 he is a rich dude, and he is very sheltered dude. 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.560 And despite all these riches and uh, this lifestyle, he's 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.360 very pampered. He's kind of I can see it in 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.200 his eyes. He is dissatisfied. He is dissatisfied. He was 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.200 born into a ruling class, very powerful, like you said, 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.440 rich family, and he's part of the idol rich, but 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:50.080 he's part of the thinking idol rich. So he started 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.840 to question his place in life, which is basically what 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.480 you said. Right. Yeah, he starts to to mold this 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.960 over and like maybe there's more. Uh, it's a very 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.640 long story, and we could spend hours talking about this, 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.200 but I've seen a yeah, because like you can't do 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.480 it part time, like I said, um, but I'm looking 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.280 at him and basically I can tell that his disillusionment 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.360 has has reached its apex, and it is culminated by 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.160 him looking out in the window one day and he 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.480 sees three things from his little palace window. He sees 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.520 a decrepit old man, he sees a disease man, and 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:31.520 then he sees a corpse. And he's done, I guess so. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.880 And he's like, you know what, I'm I'm done with 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.760 this life. Can't take it anymore. Even though I have 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:43.560 my arranged wife, my cousin whom I married, I was 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.400 forced to marry. I have a beautiful son whom I love. 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.400 I'm going to leave them. I'm gonna leave all my possessions, 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.760 and I'm going to go on a quest, a vision quest, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.120 if you will, to understand the true nature of life. 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.960 And here I go right and back we are to 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.120 the present day. So you can hang your ox hide 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.080 And that Sherpa on the coat wreck. Well, well there's 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.360 more to this story. How do we have to go back? Yeah, 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:10.559 we gotta go back. I gotta go on, short pants, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:19.200 put your put your pants back on. Uh so chuck. 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.560 Here we are back again, And um said Arta is 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:28.320 he's gone from a very rich, powerful family. He's decided 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.400 to go on this vision quest. He thinks, well, I mean, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.199 if I was very dissatisfied, and I think it's kind 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.840 of wrong to be as grossly rich as I was 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.679 the family I was born into. I'll just go the 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:46.400 exact opposite route, and I'll become a hermit, a completely 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.719 poverty stricken hermit who has not even a pot to 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.840 pee in. Yeah, not even that, right. And he figures 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.080 out that as he's um starving to death, that it's 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.400 not leading to any kind of enlightenment. He's actually growing 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.280 increasingly uncomfortable. It's getting harder and harder for him to 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.000 pay attention to enlightenment because you say he's hungry and 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:13.560 hungrier um, And he realizes, wait a minute, maybe this 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.120 isn't the right way to go. Maybe polar extremes are 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.959 a little too extreme. Yeah, what if I die without 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.280 achieving my goal? That would just have been a waste 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.120 of life. Yeah, I would have been poverty stricken and great, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.680 But that doesn't lead to enlightenment clearly. So here comes 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.640 a stranger who's offering me a meal. I'm gonna take it. 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.400 I'm gonna I'm gonna be poverty stricken no longer. And 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:36.480 maybe I don't need to be rich, but I also 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.600 don't need to be poverty stricken. I need to take 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:43.040 this middle road to enlightenment. So I'm gonna kill that stranger, 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.640 take all the food with a pigeonhammer. Oh wait, that's 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.839 not the middle road. That's far from the middle road. 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.680 That's kind of extreme as well. So he takes a 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.440 meal from a stranger. He figures out I think finally 0:10:56.480 --> 0:10:58.600 that like, okay, this is the way to do it, 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.360 goes and sits under a tree. Um and achieved nirvana. 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.120 He achieved omniscience. Yeah, there were three stages of that. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.400 He saw his past lives, all of them. He saw 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.360 the past lives of all others, and he's like, I'm 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:18.040 really starting to catch onto things here. Things are revealing themselves. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.480 And finally he identified the fore noble truths, which we'll 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.640 talk about in a bit, but those were the three 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.080 stages under the tree. And in the end of it, 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.160 he said, you know, and I gained a perfect understanding 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.040 of the laws governing the cycle of birth and death. 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:37.719 Like it's it's nirvana. Boom, it's nirvana, and nirvana we 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.200 should probably say um. Once he achieved nirvana, he didn't 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.600 say it's nirvana. No, he couldn't say much. Actually, one 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:47.760 of the things that came across in research time and 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:51.560 time again is that he very famously couldn't put it 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:55.160 into words a description of what he experienced in this 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.600 new state of enlightenment that he was vibing in. It's 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.520 like Catulu kind of. It was the unnameable, you know. Yeah, 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:07.280 but everybody trusted him anyway. They said, this guy knows 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.560 where it's at. We're going to start following his teachings. Yeah. 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.560 In the In Sanskrit, nirvana means to extinguish, though in 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:18.719 this case they're talking about extinguishing suffering and hatred and ignorance. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.240 No good. So we'll talk about the buddhas um Uh 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.000 path to enlightenment and his teachings that came out of 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:51.400 this achievement of nirvana right after this and we're back. 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.600 That's pretty funny put an ad in the middle of 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.320 a Buddhism lesson. Well, we take all comers here with 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.960 my friend. So if you achieve nirvana, what you're doing 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.320 is you are breaking that cycle. Um. If you listen 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.400 to our reincarnation podcast, the sam Sara is that cycle 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.840 of reincarnation that you can be uh caught in or 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.200 stuck in. I guess and this is where karma and 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.040 again we have a great episode on karma. Uh, karma 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.520 comes into play because what you're doing is you're rewarded 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.840 on your past actions um, in your current life and 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:33.440 earlier lives. Right, does that makes sense? No? It makes sense? Yeah? 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.240 Sure so? Uh And I love that this article says 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.160 it's important to note that the law of karma isn't 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.040 due to God's judgment over a person's behavior. Uh. And 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.040 it's closer to Newton's law of motion. That makes more sense. Right, 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.280 For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Yeah. 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.040 So when like you, you know, step on a snail, 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.880 you're just like, man, didn't mean to do that. It's 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.439 gonna come back and bite me later on in another life. 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.320 And you build up this karma or whatever. But when 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:07.079 you uh reach nirvana, you stop accruing bad karma, that's right, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.640 You transcend it. Yeah. And when you transcend it, then 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.240 all of a sudden, you can spend the rest of 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.800 your life working off that karmic debt that you have 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.520 already accrued. Because that doesn't just go away paying down 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.400 a credit card exactly. So. But it's like when you 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:25.560 achieved nirvana, the credit cards cut up, so you're not 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:28.880 adding to your your account any longer. But you still 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.800 have some money that you owe and you're paying that 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:36.400 off in this life or conceivably other lives following. But 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.200 at some point your your golden ticket has been granted. 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.600 You have achieved nirvana. That's right. And when that happens, 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.320 you are are you have escaped that some Sara, and 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:51.320 you have achieved party nirvana. And that is uh the 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.880 final stage that you find in the afterlife. Um. And 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.200 in the case of Suddharta, he was eight years old 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.200 when he passed, and he in a state of meditation, 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:06.160 basically saying to his people around him, it's all good man, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.600 this is like, this is the goal. It was like 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.720 a great way to pass, you know, yeah, like we 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.560 should all pass that way. Sure, tell him everybody it's 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:22.840 all good. Yeah, pretty much like Waterson style. So he's 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.160 going alright, alright, those for his last words, if I'm 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:32.480 not mistaken. UM. So, when when one achieves nirvana, UM, 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.640 and you escape the cycle ofst I'm sara. You Eventually, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.120 when you die and you work off your karmic debt 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.440 and you're no longer reincarnated, you become you basically travel 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:48.360 to another to mention another realm. It's just something different 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.480 that basically exists outside of space time, as modern Buddhists 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:57.840 would say. Um, and you are kind of one with 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.400 the universe. You just become a a selfless part of 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.200 the universe. That sounds beautiful to me. So pot of 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.800 Nirvana Day or just Nirvana Day is celebrated on February 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:15.120 fift in East Asia. Uh, celebrations very evidently. I looked 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:18.400 it up. Apparently some people just meditate, some people are 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.520 just reflective. A lot of times in monasteries of food 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:26.360 is prepared and shared. But that is a February fifty 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:32.560 Nirvana Day. So chuck. If you become a U, a 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:40.480 Buddhist monk, and you achieve nirvana. Um. And let's say 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.680 you're not a Buddhist monk, and you know, let's say 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:46.280 you are. Okay, so you're a Buddhist mon I keep 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.240 putting on these clothes and taking them off. You achieve nirvana. Um. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:53.280 You become a Buddha right, not again, not the Buddha, 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:57.920 but a Buddha like your which means an enlightened one. Right. Um. 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.920 And if you say I have got some time and money, 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.560 and I'm going to hire you a Buddha to lead 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.200 me to nirvana. You're almost like a junior Buddha. Um, 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:14.800 there's a different word form. They're called our hots. Uh yeah, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:19.600 our hit that's what I found. Yeah, okay, that's right. 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.640 That's when you have a Buddha guide to guide you. Uh. 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.440 And you are not You're enlightened. You're just not omniscient. Yeah, 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:31.000 not bad though, Yeah, big difference though not omniscient and omniscient. 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.680 There's a pretty big difference between those two things, you know. So, um, 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:39.520 when uh, the Buddha came back from his um and like, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.919 well what what? Once he achieved his enlightened state, he 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.240 started trying to tell people like, you can be like 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.920 this too, and here's how you do it. He said 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.520 that there are it's very simple. There are just four 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.919 noble truths. It's all you need to know until you 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.880 realize that the fourth noble truth mentions an eight full 0:17:55.960 --> 0:18:01.440 path and suddenly like it's exponentially more involved, but it's 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.679 still fairly simple stuff. Yeah. He taught this for the 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.560 last forty five years of his life. Number one is 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.439 that life is suffering, and I think that was he 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:13.080 was clued into that from his window that day. Yeah, 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.200 it was the suffering that really made him go, like, man, 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.080 this is life, that old guy, that dead body. If 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:24.800 this is life, who needs enemies? Oh? Good point. Uh. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.440 Number two, suffering is caused by ignorance of the true 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.320 nature of the universe. So ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.119 is no good no. And basically the true nature of 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:39.120 the universe is that, um, we are made unhappy by wanting, 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:45.240 by craving things, and that we can free ourselves from 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.480 those things by overcoming them. That's right. That's number three. 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:52.480 You can end that suffering. Uh. And then number four 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:56.760 is if you attach yourselves and follow the four I'm sorry, 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:01.000 the Noble eightfold Path, not the four, then you're all set. 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.080 You can overcome all that junk. It's like, just remember 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.560 these four things and then these extra eight things. So 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.840 the eight full Path and Noble eight full Path are 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.000 the ideals um that guide you along the way, and 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:17.880 they're broken down into three divisions. There's samas. The divisions 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.920 are samas. Oh no, the the the individual paths are 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:28.600 called samas. Well. The first two are under the division 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.600 of wisdom, right views, and right intention, and it's free 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:36.359 samas are are frequently translated into right here in the 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:40.640 Western English. Um, and it doesn't this article I read 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.119 by this one guy said, like, that doesn't mean that 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.520 the opposite of that is wrong. It's more right. It's 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:51.920 more like um, right in this sense means complete perfect hole. Yeah. Yeah, 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.840 so the opposite of that would be incomplete and perfect, 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.040 not whole. That makes sense rather than wrong, right, Yeah, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:04.120 I get it. Yeah. The second division is ethical conduct, 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:08.160 and under there you have uh complete or right speech, 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:13.000 right action, and right livelihood. Right, So, working for Goldman 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.600 Sachs or clubbing baby Seals, you're gonna have trouble achieving 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.800 Nirvana at this in those positions, I would say so 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:25.879 probably not. You're probably not seeking nirvana either, right, you know, yeah, 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.640 uh so you're fine. What about podcasters? Podcasts are totally 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.480 in there. We're somewhere between clubbing baby Seals and Golden Sacks. 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.960 And then finally, concentration is the last division, and that 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.679 is right effort, right mindedness, and right contemplation. Yeah, and 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.919 the right mindedness is you know, being mindful, being aware. 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.640 Right effort is like you're directing your effort towards these 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:51.320 good things. You're not being slack in your path to enlightenment. 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.480 And then the last one, right contemplation, is um kind 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.760 of difficult to understand. It's very least, it's difficult to explain. 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:02.560 I found in rees reaching Um, but it's basically focusing 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.480 your entire self on this, on the Eightfold Path and 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.720 the four Noble Truths, and yeah, like you're you're really 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:14.720 directing all of your thoughts and energy into that. Yeah, 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:16.480 And that's what I got from Grundy when I talked 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.159 to her last time we were up there at the 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.400 Bell House. She was it's just very soothing. She's just like, man, 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.679 it's just it's just practice. You're like, it's a cycle. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.720 You're just continually trying to do the right thing. And 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:33.000 that's like the simplest breakdown. But you know, if something 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.480 bad happens and you don't, you start over and you 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.280 try harder, which is like that sounds like really great 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:45.120 life principles, you know. So that's Buddhist thought. As far 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:50.120 as achieving nirvana, goes Um and Hinduism is actually very 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.320 closely related, but there are some major distinctions and we 0:21:53.359 --> 0:22:13.400 will talk all about that right after this. Okay, Chuckers, 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:19.880 we're back Um. The Buddhists typically talk about nirvana as 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:24.359 nirvana in Hinduism is usually referred to as moksha, but 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.359 they're basically talking about the same thing. It's this the 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:34.000 highest plane of existence wherein you stop being reincarnated um, 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:38.359 you have worked off your karmic debt and you reunite 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:43.920 with the cosmos, with the universe. And in Hindu cosmology 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.439 they're talking about Krishna, which is the godhead, which is 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.879 the source of all things, and Krishna is very frequently 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:59.440 Krishna incarnates in three um major deities in all deities 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:04.480 and all Hindu all Hindu deities are extensions of Krishna. 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:09.000 But the big three are Brahma who's the creator, Vishnu 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:13.080 he's who's the sustainer, and um Shiva, who's the destroyer. 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:17.920 And when you die, when you achieve moksha, you go 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.800 and get absorbed into Krishna again. Yeah. And the big 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:25.560 difference that UM I think we found with between uh 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:29.800 Buddha nirvana and Hindu nirvana or Buddhist nirvana, is that 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:35.040 with Hindu you're working your way up through this cast system. 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:37.920 Eventually you start out by you have to be born 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.200 through every type of organism that exists on the planet. 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:45.160 You actually make it through under Hindu cosmology, eight million, 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.400 four hundred thousand different species of animals before you even 0:23:48.440 --> 0:23:50.920 get to humanity. And then once you become a human, 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:54.960 you can go through countless lives in different casts over 0:23:55.000 --> 0:23:59.560 and over again. But those casts are hierarchical, and you, 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:02.000 like you start, are working your way up. Yeah, that's 0:24:02.040 --> 0:24:05.000 called the varna, and you get that good karma you 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:10.399 perform by performing duties in that cast, and then basically 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.000 once you have it's almost like a graduation in the 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:17.680 next life if you've done well to the next cast up. Yeah. 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:19.400 And there's actually there's a lot of debate right now 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:23.040 because um Gandhi was famously thrown out of his cast 0:24:23.160 --> 0:24:27.720 the by Shaya. I believe it's the merchant class, and 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.480 um he was thrown out of it because he championed 0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:34.919 for the rights of the lowest class, the sudra um, 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:40.400 who basically we're responsible for um handling, picking up dead 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:43.240 animals and taking care of the rest of the community's waste. 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:47.040 And basically we're just generally mistreated by the higher casts. 0:24:47.440 --> 0:24:51.040 And so there's this question now in modern Hinduism like, 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:55.159 does the cast system still fit? Is it's still appropriate? 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:59.960 But the thing is is if it's not a reflect 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:04.840 shouldn't of say God's punishment? But something is physical, is 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:09.560 like the second law of thermodynamics or motion. Sorry, um, 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:13.120 that it's just a reaction to some other action you've 0:25:13.160 --> 0:25:15.840 took in the past life. Who are humans to say 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:18.720 that the cast system is no longer appropriate. It's just 0:25:18.840 --> 0:25:21.760 part of the universe. But then if it turns out 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:24.280 to human construct, well then it gets kind of ticklish, 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:27.520 right because it undermines this Hindu cosmology. So it's a 0:25:27.560 --> 0:25:30.240 weird place that modern Hinduism is in right now talking 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:33.600 about whether or not to do away with the cast system. Interesting, 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:37.080