Surmounting the Impeccability Gauntlet

The April 10, 2024 Insight Timer live event description:

Imagine being impeccable in speech and conduct. Let’s explore such an aspiration via topics like: intent / purpose, honesty, training, authenticity, sincerity, seriousness, humor, ease, intuition, wisdom, discernment, feedback, (self-) kindness, sympathy, mindfulness and the power of self-responsibility

And I read this snippet:

Take another person who’s living with someone else. They come
to know: ‘For a long time this venerable’s deeds have been unbroken,
impeccable, spotless, and unmarred. Their deeds and behavior are
consistent. This venerable is ethical, not unethical.’ That’s why I said
that you can get to know a person’s ethics by living with them. But
only after a long time, not a short time; only when paying attention,
not when inattentive; and only by the wise, not the witless.

via https://heartdhamma.love/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Anguttaranikaya-Sujato-Sutta-Central-A5.pdf

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Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)

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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

paus welcome this is Josh dippold integrating presence and today’s

event is entitled surmounting The impeccability

Gauntlet imagine being impeccable in speech and conduct let’s explore such an

aspiration via topics like intent purpose honesty training authenticity

sincerity seriousness humor ease intuition wisdom discernment feedback

self-kindness sympathy mindfulness and the power of self-responsibility well yeah well that’s a that’s a

mouthful I just tell you about what inspired this um event and this title

here after years of kind of unplugging from entertainment and media I went back

and have been watching kind of more popular shows with fiance lately and I’m

just really resensitized to what’s what I see on the screen or a small screen

and it seems like these kind of Hollywood produced shows that I haven’t

watched in years and years there’s a lot of times especially with the American ones there’s a lie

that goes so somebody’s dishonest or they tell a deliberate falsehood in

order usually it’s in order to just make things easier in order to protect someone themselves or someone they love

or in order to get back at someone revenge and I’m just kind of appalled by

this uh for whatever reason I mean I shouldn’t be because it’s so common right but and it got me to think about

these shows and it seems like they present this behavior of kind of lying

and then bad things usually happen right we see people lie in shows and tell deliberate falsehoods and then all kinds

of drama ensues people get hurt things like this but if we pull back a little bit what is this saying about those uh

creators who create the show it’s almost like yes what they present is is a

fiction and yes it does have consequences on there but it’s almost like they control it you know um as long

as the actors say what they do and they tell a story that stuff doesn’t happen to them they’re just pretending it

happens in their remove from it of course the viewers remove but it kind of depicts some kind of accuracy with cause

and effect but in very uh things that might not happen in

real life just the way they’re presented and so they seem to have like this

control over reality and that they craft it and but aren’t subject to it at the

same time with they’re behind the scenes and what’s what happens to other people

that happens to other people but the people behind the scenes they control it and so they can manipulate and if who’s

ever on board there obeys the director then they’re just going to play a part

and it’s not uh they’ll just pretend things happen the way they are so it’s this really muddled mind mix of okay

what’s real and get lost in the story would that happen if it happened in real life are there people immune to their

certain words and actions and not and I just got I just it’s a fascinating kind of thought experiment but what really F

what really Drew my attention then is this notion of impeccability and you know I’m so far

from this and most of us are but this is an inspiring thing you know I mean we we

look at these shows and not to badmouth all of them because they’re great learning opportunities uh but could you imagine

aspiring to impeccability the Buddha was said to be I look for evidence of where

this was said directly but he said to be impeccable in speech and conduct and the word impeccable here is a defition from

the dictionary in accordance with the highest standards faultless so is free from fault or blame

Flawless this notion of the Bliss of blamelessness but what about if people

aspired instead of to the things we see in media a lot of times where it’s all

doom and gloom or somebody does something ridiculous and it leads to all these horrible things um whether that be

on the news or and madeup TV dramas what if we were shown in um an aspiration to

be inspired by impeccable conduct yes we’re so far from that right and that’s

okay this is an aspiration it’s not something to um realistically attain

quickly you know this has to trained at and so I just want to go into some of these qualities and maybe some of this

will inspire us to um you know about what could be possible with this human

life compared to you know yeah or and

this is not to be goody two shoes you know this is just like wow when we when we experience these qualities in others

there’s like this uh kind of a beauty or a recognition of I don’t know goodness

and what can actually happen with this human life so the first thing uh is

intent or purpose so why would we even want to do this uh have the intent to do

this and I think it’s going to um vary from person to person but I

know skillful actions usually have skillful results right so this is

helpful in um having blamelessness in the Bliss of

blamelessness this leads to all kinds of um beneficial qualities for ourselves

and others and I mean if we’re going to Aspire to something why not aspire to

the highest thing and then have the kind of gradual more realistic steps in

between there um and let me just read this um this portion of auta here that

caught my eye um and it’s it’s kind of out of context but

I’ll read it anyway take another person who’s living with someone else they come to know quote for a long

time this venerable Deeds have been unbroken impeccable spotless and unmarred their

deeds and behaviors are consistent this venerable is ethical not

unethical that’s why I said that you can get to know a person’s ethics by living with them but only after long time not a

short time only when paying attention not when inattentive and only by the

wise not the witless so this is how we kind of come to see people’s conduct and this makes a

lot of sense right it’s pretty obvious you can’t just get to know someone right away you have to actually live with them

for a long time and then you have to pay attention you can’t be inattentive and

you have to be wise about things you can’t be witless in in seeing these these behaviors um or U impeccable

behaviors all right so now this next quality is honesty and I think if we’re

if we’re looking at the Buddha for inspiration here one of the things he said to never have broken throughout all

his past lifetimes is which is pretty mind-blowing if it’s the case is to not

deliberately tell a falsehood you who’s interested in the truth of the way things are because that’s kind of the

ground level if something’s not true if we don’t know what’s going on honestly then we’re going to have a hard time

making decisions that are helpful because if they’re based on things that aren’t uh accurate then it just kind of

completely losts and don’t have a mooring or bearing and so to that to me

that’s the utmost important uh of course being honest and you know pursuing truth

are as truthful as things can get so without that kind of Base

then yeah it’s uh that has to be kind of have a bead in understanding on that

and with that comes discernment to so right knowing when we’re lying to

ourselves or not being honest with ourselves and that when others too when others are not being honest with us

forthright um deliberately telling falsehoods and then what to do about that and of course there’s different you

know what is levels of Truth or relative truth right

um there’s things that are true and maybe more

true now the next thing is training the the um quality of

training and so what do we talk about when we talk about training well we talk about training ethics and um meditation

and then in wisdom so I didn’t really realize how important

this ethical quality is until I started meditating and then can see more than I usually could see about myself and

others and so what do we mean by ethical it’s to me it’s really quite simple uh it’s based on non-harming it really is

that that simple now of course what might be harmful for one person might not be harmful for another or what might

be really harmful for one person might not be harmful for another but it’s

this uh desire and this recognition that harm is not okay right that um harming

in the name of some idea or some cause or something like that of course we have

the you know the the the right to protect ourselves and our family I’m not talking about that in our loved ones but

but we never have the right to aggress on another you know um to to to harm to

initiate harm and we we’ll know what’s harmful for us or not right uh there’s

really not much gray area we know if we’re if there’s something’s harmful whether it comes from ourselves or for

others and there are subtle layers of this too and what’s really important too

with these actions around this is the intent behind them like I say before so if we’re doing an action with an intent

then it means more than kind of an action without intent it has more

consequences than an action without intent and that includes um deliberately

being mindless and and trying to not have intents when acting in order to get out of consequences right it’s kind of

counterintuitive here um now authenticity I’ve talked quite a bit about this I mean what does it mean to

be authentic some people have no clue what it means to be authentic uh you

know even me talking like this I mean I don’t it’s a slight difference from when

I’m talking on a in front of a computer to I’m not exactly sure who’s hearing

this right now and in the future um so this is kind of like you know how can I

be more authentic in this artificial environment so maybe it’s the most authentic for this but you know why is

authenticity important and this kind of goes in with honesty right if we’re pretending to be something we’re not

then we’re not being fully honest and this can be a practice and a training too we can’t just beat ourselves up or

constantly I can guess authenticity right you know some people might be more

authentic in certain situations and not they might not have valued this coming up or they might have valued people kind

of acting something they’re not in certain situations in order to get ahead or for whatever reasons it was Be Clever

in the west there’s a huge importance in the world on being clever and I fell

into that trap for a long time and other say in and of itself is wrong with being clever but that seems to be the end all

Beall for a lot of people in their entire lives that’s just all they really kind of do and value is cleverness uh

whether it being shrewd at business or um in their relationships or being

Innovative in in a certain way which there’s nothing wrong in and of these C but it’s such a small slice of life I

feel as of now so then again sincerity um you know this is another

thing um how sincere are we and we can’t really

force people um to take us as sincere so it’s

not 100% our responsibility my intent for being sincere is mine and it’s

partly mind when I act to be sincere but I can’t reach out and tell my audience

okay you have to interpret me as sincere otherwise um you know you can’t be here

or you can’t listen or whatever I can’t control how other people perceive anything my sincerity or not

but again that I think the sincerity goes hand inand with with

honesty um and authenticity too now we get into this stuff by now

it’s like oh God this guy he’s so serious you know and I would say well yeah and I think this is a notion I took

from another teacher is you know could you ow yourself to both be serious and

not serious when the time is so if you can’t take yourself seriously um when you need to take

yourself seriously then a lot of this stuff is is just completely pointless just you know what’s um nothing this

kind of nothing matters or there’s no truth in anything this

solipsistic nature that you know nothing matters um everything’s random this kind

of thing but we do know when we act with skillfulness then there’s going to be

skillful results Maybe not immediately but that there’s a higher likelihood or tendency of this cause and effect so

this notion of um seriousness you know if we can’t take ourselves seriously

then you know you might as well be living as a fool or in a clown World um

you know but at the other end of the spectrum humor is a really amazing thing

you know it breaks up and some of the best humor is very truthful and real you

know they’re they’re saying the things and putting things in a way that are actually very honest and truthful that

nobody has thought to say out loud or put in a certain way uh humor breaks up

a lot of dense energy it immediately uh is able us to connect with people um as

long as they have kind of the same sense of humor and this can be done you know in good taste too and

um sometimes I have a notion of bizarre humor and not everybody has that as well

but um sometimes it can be helpful but sometimes not so helpful so kind of the right humor at the right

time now this next quality of ease I think is uh particularly important for

our well-being especially in today’s world of high strong uh doing

doing doing all the time and ease is as far as impeccability probably

not the first thing that comes to mind about impeccability but it’s kind of a support So when our actions are more on

the impeccable side of things right then then there tends to be more of an

opportunity for ease instead of worry about what I said what I did

restlessness um restlessness and remorse usually comes from past unskillful

actions and um what meditation does in the training they allow us to see these

and then view them in a different light make aspirations and resolves to not do

it again because we see where those actions and words lead to and being kind

and patient with ourselves as we um work towards our long-term welfare happy

welfare and happiness and that of others and this really this notion of ease that

all um and wish that beings could be at ease too uh for health and happiness

well-being now intuition I think this is um some people teach intuition and I

think it just kind of develops and flourishes and comes to the Forefront uh

more naturally as we do meditation practice we we get interested in these types of things we start trusting

ourselves internally um this is where intuition can be just kind of flow

naturally I know I get in trouble A lot of times when I ignore my intuition and something tells me internally you know

okay don’t do that do this you know um and then the mind will come in and over

out no you can just you know do your habit or do what you want right but uh

usually comes back to bite me so so as long as we um discern that our intuition

is actually helpful and useful um then we can hold it close and pay dear

attention to it and use it as a guiding force like an inner teacher um which is

really helpful because the mind and brain can lie to us too right um so the

body is very important as well feeling and knowing um in the body what’s more

real and what’s not some people do muscle testing and whatnot as well of course wisdom that was the

three-fold training you know this is the way the way I look at wisdom is first it kind of starts out or one of the ways as

starts out as information and then this information can become knowledge excuse

me and then that knowledge can be applied in our everyday life kind of innately and it doesn’t

have to be set and and thought about but it’s almost like this spontaneous knowing and into action of okay I see

this situation and now I just act because I see the wise thing to do I know the wise thing not to do I know the

the wise thing to say or not to say what energy to bring to it what energy not to

bring to it um yeah and and how I view this and this is something that just I

think some of it can be taught but a lot of it to really be wisdom I feel is when

we enact it in our daily lives we know it from experience we can take some

knowledge and we can act upon it and then uh grow wisdom that way you know um

sometimes with um a lot of U I guess knowledge and uh time and

practice we can get wisdom from others and just have this realization right away oh especially when we review oh

that’s that’s what they meant by this you know I can look at review my life certain times in my life and oh yeah I

could totally see how that applies to that situation and then we can take that and go forward into um other parts of

our lives too I’ve already talked about discernment and this is needed kind of

to to know what is what and where to act and how Discerning what’s important to

be discerned distinguishing certain things and also knowing when not to draw

distinctions when to see kind of unity and inclusiveness and inseparability

interdependence um and interconnectedness as well where

discernment doesn’t make as much difference now feedback is h a big one

too um feedback you know it’s said that feed real honest true feedback from

someone you admire is more helpful uh is more valuable than a pile

of gold so money can always be made and discovered CED and got but think of how

many people we really truly value what they say what they have to tell to us and they they don’t pull punches they

will level with this honestly and it’s even more sweet when they do it in a way

that’s um that’s really helpful you know that really puts us on track that um

straightens us out a little bit that points out our blind spots you know how

much could we have gone off doing a certain thing the way we’ve been doing it without those we really respect honor

and love uh giving us honest feedback of how to to to to correct and to make our

lives less painful less miserable and can see things that we can’t and that

are to go out of their way to help us um

with taking some burdens or showing us some burdens that we can put

down so feedback yes it’s it’s totally invaluable um can’t even put a price on

um real helpful feedback from those we we love and admire self-kindness goes right next

with this one and kindness in general what B Kurt bigant say the Only Rule in life is kindness and when we’re we’re

going through things where things are difficult we’re going yeah we’re being too hard on ourselves of course

self-kindness comes in loving kindness wanting us to be safe uh wanting others

to be safe especially our our dear ones wishing this inclining the Mind towards

being um safe to our ourselves and then this is a training too and then once we

train our mind U to to Incline towards safety then our speech and actions will

more more likely um reflect that training and that that wish and that

um practice um also wanting us to be content and

others around us to be content because we can see the betterment in our lives in others um well-wishing about strength

and health you know we want to be strong um others uh want to be strong

too and healthy of course with the safety right all these compliment each other and then another quality I’d like

is we mentioned ease and what about being free uh true truly being free um

and awake you know these things that are beneficial for us and those we

love and potentially all beings everywhere so we’ve got now sympathy so

sympathy is another word I think for compassion so you know I think about

when times get really rough and how much it can really help for someone just to

be there to to listen to lend an ear ear to to recognize our our plights and

our pain and be sympathetic towards them not in a way that’s uh pitying but that

they realize that okay you know uh ignoring ignoring this pain or doing all

kinds of unskillful things in order to deal with pain but if some um including ourselves if we’re really there for

ourselves and just feeling how how real this can get sometimes how how painful

and stressful life can get and that we

really want to be able to do whatever we can in order to address this in the most helpful ways and especially uh in the

long run and we can uh give this to ourselves and others and also give it to ourselves when we can’t give it so being

compassionate and sympathetic when we can’t have compassion and sympathy too and not to use it as another opportunity

to beat our eles up when we we fall short of these standards and mindfulness of course we

can never have too much mindfulness someone interviewed me the other day about practicality how do we bring

mindfulness off the cushion into our daily lives and you know really everything’s an opportunity for

mindfulness you know we’re constantly breathing so right there is an anchor

that’s pretty much continually accessible to bring our awareness to um

the position of our body we’re sitting standing walking laying down the transitions we have as our limbs move

you know uh eat going to the bathroom a little weird but um when we’re going

through doorways I like this one because we can it’s a little bit more noticeable a lot of times when we move from one

environment to another the threshold of that when we hit reach a door knob or touch a door touch

objects um so there so many ways to be mindful and mindfulness is kind of the governing uh version of all this

where um we can tell what other qualities we need and don’t need if if

we’re not mindful if we’re not heedful of what we’re doing then we can’t really make the best choices we need to make we

can’t really have the capacity as much as we could to see things uh have the

right view towards things that will inform how we speak or respond or act

where our energy is spent these type of things so yeah it’s um can’t really sing

the Praises of right mindfulness as as much and then of course this comes to

self-responsibility and how this can actually be very powerful uh and like Spider-Man right

with great uh respon with great power comes great responsibility but it’s the

other way around with with great respons ability is is powerful or something but

so yeah so this is recognizing that you know no one is else is responsible for my words and my actions other than me

and yes we can’t control what comes to us all the time obviously but we what we

do seem to have some say in is how we see that and how we view it and then how

we respond to it or not and this is where where we do feel could feel

helpless a in a lot of our lives especially if things are going really rough you know where we can’t seem to

have any a say or we feel insignificant or belittled but there is um one thing

we can do is how we see things and how I respond to it and you know some of some

people out there who have a huge presence on like social media and all this type of thing you know what they

say seems to carry a lot of weight too but don’t underestimate estimate you know our things what we say and what we

do because every little drop can fill up a bucket and over time this accumulation

does make a difference we know about the butterfly effect too so it’s not to get overwhelmed and start thinking oh God I

can’t even do this or that because it can have a huge impact that’s the Other Extreme where could lead to paranoia and

whatever um but we just know that we’re we’re doing the best we can and what we say and do matters no no matter how

seemingly in significant it may be and um we don’t have to use this to pump up

our spiritual ego um we can just use it

especially I when we get bummed out thinking oh what I say or do doesn’t matter has no consequence or whatever

yes it does you know and we can see this just by reviewing some of our past actions and Things We Said in our lives

and how what we thought was so insignificant it turned out to have a way Huger impact than we thought it did

so so with with that in mind you know what’s the best way to go about it what do I need to train what weaknesses do I

need to strengthen and what uh strengths can I highlight and kind of celebrate and um share uh with myself

and the world and those I love so yeah I think that’s about it

unless anybody has any questions getting close to the half hour mark here I appreciate you all um

hearing this out with this amazing aspiration that we’re we’re all quite a

long way from impeccability but why not why not aim for that in the long run you

know and do it realistically like we we are we start where we’re at and then we

we we aim higher and uh we can do pra practical things on the way you know um

but I mean if you’re going to go for it go for it all the way I mean could you imagine turning on your social media and

just see the most impeccable speech and conduct that’s authentic and helpful you

know it just it can be inspiring and we know we have those people in our lives so we can hopefully we do and we can see

there are a few Role Models out there and um you know that we can see and

aspire to Esme says oh no I missed it all no it’s okay I will put this out um

actually it’s should be streaming on um YouTube now so you can just go to oh

sorry I shouldn’t say that on this platform but uh maybe you can catch it as a podcast on uh insight timer too

maybe I’ll put it there but I appreciate it you all and uh thanks for all the hearts and and may you all aspire to

your your highest U ethical conduct that’s not wishy-washy that’s authentic

and that’s helpful and natural and will be for your long-term benefit and for

the long-term benefit of all beings everywhere may all beings everywhere realize Awakening and be free by

now