I watched 30 minutes of the video.
As one can see, Ven. Abhya’s English is not that good. However, he was an Engineer in Sri Lanka, and was married with a teenage girl, when I met him about 4 years ago in Sri Lanka. He made sure that there was enough money to sustain the family, and became a bhikkhu about 2-3 years ago. I believe he is an Ariya (with magga phala), but do not know which stage.
Did you understand what he was trying to convey in the first 30 minutes? For example, boys like action movies with violence. But girls normally don’t like that type of movies and those movies that girls like are too boring for most boys.
– So, can happiness be in a movie? If so, everyone should be happy to see it.
– It appears that this desana was done in a Western country for the benefit of the children of Sri Lankans there, who did not understand Sinhala. Normally, Ven. Abhaya’s desanas are in Sinhala.
Pleasures are made up by the mind, and are based on two main factors: One’s gati (character/habits) and the sense object.
– I recently explained this in the posts, “Amazingly Fast Time Evolution of a Thought (Citta)” and “Do I Have “A Mind” That Is Fixed and “Mine”?”
– Please read those posts and then watch the video again to see whether you can understand what he was trying to say.
– I do not have time to watch the whole video. If the example about the “mother” is still not clear, please let me know about what time it comes in the video. I can watch that part and see.
I encourage others to watch the above video too.
Different people may explain the same thing in different ways. So, it is good to listen to different people (of course it is a waste of time to listen to those who do not have a good knowledge of Dhamma).
– We also see in this forum cases where some people understand a concept when it was described by another person in the forum, better than the way it was described by me.
– That is part of the benefit of having a discussion forum.
It may also be worthwhile to read the experience of Tien in the following discussion:
How can I achieve Anatta Sanna and get rid of Kama Raga via Metta
– Meditation does not necessarily mean formal meditation with chanting. It is more about contemplating, as clearly seen by the experience of Tien.
– Just learning concepts by reading or listening is not enough, even though it is critically important to understand key concepts.