Natural Truth

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu addresses participants in a ten-day international retreat at the centre, speaking in English he describes as self-taught. He presents the Dhamma as natural truth that anyone can study and practise, whatever their creed, like food that suits everyone. He introduces the five khandhas and argues that the sense of “I” arrives after experience, not before it: the doer comes after the doing, as when a cut finger hurts or a meal is enjoyed. Not-self (anattā) is set as a middle between “everything is self” and “nothing is self”. He then runs through dependent origination from sense contact to suffering, links it to the ānāpānasati taught at the retreat, hopes the visitors leave as pilgrims rather than tourists, and ends on going beyond positive and negative.