Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 46-minute Q&A session — January 2002, closing a retreat — with a vivid account of what realizing emptiness actually does: a complete paradigm shift in which grasping, anger, and jealousy become impossible at their root because the solid independent self they assumed simply isn’t there. She then explains how to structure daily Lamrim practice, alternating analytical and stabilizing meditation one topic at a time. A student’s question about God draws out a comparison of Buddhist and theistic cosmology — omniscience, compassion, and omnipotence as the three qualities of a Buddha — illustrated by stories of the Dalai Lama’s dog and a girl recognized as Tārā. She addresses abortion candidly in a first-person passage, framing it through karma and the four powers of purification. The session closes with extended practical advice on parenting: give children emotional space rather than anxiously managing their reactions, and work on your own mind first.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 Retreat.mp3
UUID: 973239be-a871-4e35-95a3-9f1fd25f8cc1
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Retreat Jan (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~9,169
And when you’ve realized emptiness, and then you have to perfect it, it’s like this truly a paradigm shift. Profound, fundamental, different way of seeing everything is different now. Everything in the universe is different now. There’s no longer grasping, no longer fear, no longer anger, jealousy, attachment, pride, in the gross level we have them now. Nothing, can’t be, not possible.
Because all these delusions we have now are based on the assumption of a self existent, solid, real, independent, permanent me ness, which Buddha says is a complete hallucination. It does not exist like that. Realizing emptiness on the basis of thinking about dependent arising is the conclusion, is the recognition of that. Any questions? Until we finish.
Any questions about that? Because we’re nearly done now. Okay, so where is that? Yes. I understand, yeah.
Well, there’s various ways they recommend, you know. Sometimes you can have the whole, oh yes, how to do, sorry, how to do, how to use this approach of the two kinds of meditation in your daily practice from day to day, so let’s say using the stages of the path. Well you know, one approach is you have, let’s say in the morning meditation for example, you do your Śākyamūni, do some mantra, do some bliss, you do some concentration, and then you take maybe one text, a Lamrim text. Or you, if you’ve really heard the teachings many times, you might take one of the Lamrim prayers that kind of touches briefly on each of these because it’s so you take one verse or you take one section of the page in the teaching and you just read it. You read it and then it’s one particular topic or outline or heading in topic.
And then you read it and then you use that as the basis of your analytical meditation. You try to taste it and go into it very deeply, analyze and taste it and look at it and feel it and you go using your concentration meditation. You do a little bit of this every day, it might take you two years to go through the entire thing. In general what I’m saying is in order to really develop genuine compassion you’ve got to have some wisdom. But you don’t kind of keep doing wisdom, wisdom, wisdom, wisdom and then ten years later do compassion.
Not like that. Yes. Yes, the beginning. Start with the beginning. We’ve been doing through the order.
If you have a book, it depends on the book and depends on how deep you want to go. I mean, people go off to do retreat for seven, ten years on this stuff. So they just keep going through it and then go back again and back again and keep deepening. Or if you’ve got a lot of lot of awareness, and a lot of many many things that you’ve thought about and heard about, know, you’ve got, because you’ve had many teachings on you’ve got a lot of stuff, a lot of notes, a lot of food for thought, then you can spend months on just one topic. If you haven’t heard that many teachings, you can’t spend months because you haven’t got the concept to back it up, you know?
So it depends on your own knowledge and how much you heard it and how many variations in arguments of the ego you can use to refer to it all, so it’s up to you how much you’ve got inside you. In general it’s appropriate to have a teacher, as we’ve discussed, but you know, let’s say you haven’t got a teacher but you’ve got some teachings, you’ve been hearing the teachings and you’ve got the books and you’ve got this ability and you want to do it, you can start. It helps to have a teacher but if you have all the bases, you’ve had the teachings already and it’s all there, you’ve got the basis for it. But if you’re going to do a serious retreat on it, it really is helpful to have definitely need guidance about how to do it and the way to do it because the person near the teacher can see what is the best for us and each person is quite different in how they approach it but you’ve got to start somewhere. Paul, yes Buddhist idea of God.
Buddhism, as I’ve been saying, doesn’t have the term God. So you could say the closest the simplest word to use instead is Buddha the difference so let me just again say the qualities of Buddha a person who is a Buddha it could be any person because there are countless beings who have become Buddha Right? So, okay, so like I said already, the qualities of a Buddha are: one the complete development of the wisdom wing which is virtually omniscience so yes indeed Buddhism does assert an omniscient being but countless ones omniscience and the word as we know the word means literally knowing everything and this is what the development of the wisdom wing is, is what a person who is a Buddhistis attempting to develop is omniscience you’re moving towards it by doing this job we discussed Right? The key to it is emptiness. The complete perfection of the wisdom wing, specifically seeing the minds of all beings perfectly, all their past, all their future, whatever, seeing them perfectly.
The second quality of a Buddha is this wing, the compassion wing, which is a complete development of all these qualities we’ve discussed which basically culminates in having this absolute empathy with every living being as if they were you, no separation any longer, no longer a sense of an individual I whatsoever. Your mind is as big as the universe now, because the fact is too, the quality is of this consciousness, which is now omniscient and infinitely compassionate, this consciousness, which is the potential that you’ve and I’ve got in everybody, when it’s fully developed like this, it isn’t confined by space or time or matter, how can it be? It’s not physical. So it literally pervades the universe, wherever there is existence, there is that consciousness, just naturally. Plus, the other quality which is the one that Tārā represents, what we did this morning is what they call, I keep saying emptiness, what’s the other one?
What’s that one? Not emptiness, the opposite no, no, that word omnipotence, thank you Omnipotence, okay? Omnipotence, okay? Meaning infinite power, the effortless ability to do whatever needs to be done, to benefit any one of those beings in the most perfect way based on the compassion that wants to do that and the wisdom that knows how and especially the ability to manifest that consciousness effortlessly, this is what the Buddha’s capability is, in billions of forms throughout billions of universes for billions of eons as long as billions of beings exist now if that’s not God I don’t know what is but the difference is Buddha doesn’t say it’s God Buddha doesn’t say that being has always been that Buddha says you can become that and Buddha doesn’t also say that the job of that being is to create things. Now the fact is, an omniscient, compassionate being called a Buddha can manifest entire universes, entire peoples, populations of people.
They could create quote unquote, but they would be the Buddha. They wouldn’t be ordinary beings which is the argument Buddhism has that it’s not possible Buddha would say, I’m just saying it simplistically now that for an omniscient being to create a being who is now ordinary if we were the creations of God, Buddha says, of Buddha then we would actually be emanations Buddha which means we actually would be Buddha and we wouldn’t be suffering so that’s a simple way to say what Buddhism would say so Buddhas have the power, I mean there’s all these endless stories of how Buddhas, even the lowest level Bodhisattva, well before they were a Buddha, has the capability of manifesting their own consciousness in a hundred different forms and different places So they’re being fed there, and a dog there, and a worm here, and a human here. They say that, so a Buddha has the capability of doing this effortlessly and infinitely. So there’s this story, just a tiny story, just to tell you, of the Dalai Lama. Lama Zopa told this story a few years ago.
When the Tibetans had been in India a few years already, Dalai Lama was already set up in his government in Dharamsala in North India, was negotiating with the Indian government to get land for their monasteries down south, in the south, right, for the big monastic universities. And so, the Dalai Lama sent his appropriate Tibetan minister down to Delhi, to the Indian minister, but Indian bureaucracy being the way it is, he couldn’t get a meeting, so he got fed up and frustrated and went back to Dharmasala, and he said it was impossible. The Dalai Lama said don’t worry about it, it’ll be okay, go back down. I mean, I’m paraphrasing here, I wasn’t in the meeting, I promise. So then, the Tibetan minister went down to Delhi and for some reason he got into the office that day and for some reason the little boy, the son of the Indian minister was in the office.
And the little boy expressed a wish for a dog. So the Tibetan was delighted to do something, to kind of turn the wheel somehow, you know, so he went outside and he found this Indian sadhu, you know, holy man, people who walk around the streets with a little dog. Please, can I buy your dog? So sure. So, the little dog came in, he ran to the little boy and he was happy, and then he ran to the daddy and daddy was happy, everybody was happy and things worked, you know?
So, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche said, the dog and the sadhu were manifestations of the Dalai Lama’s mind. So, this is the real way that Buddhas work for others. They don’t just walk around being one person like Buddha with a halo and then they die they’re manifesting in countless forms all the time because if they’re a Buddha that’s what they can do right? So that dog and that sadhu aren’t created by Buddha in the sense that Jesus, God created, I’m not being critical, just saying God created those beings as being separate from Himself Buddha would say they were actually, I mean Buddhism would say that sadhu and that dog were illusory in the sense that they flesh and bones, and the dog acted like a dog and peeped and caca, it didn’t act like the Dalai Lama, but it was actually the living energy of the Dalai Lama pretending to be a dog. So in fact, that way, Buddhas of course can create anything, but it’s actually the Buddha so there’d be no reason to have a universe full of pretend Buddhas, you know?
Do you see, that’s the difference in Buddhist view. Does that answer the question? Yeah, that’s right! They say all the time, know, Tibetans have a thing that if they’re you know, they always say you can never tell who anybody is, so you never judge, just be careful! There’s so many stories, you know, of ordinary people who are actually manifestations, I mean all these stories, you read them in the Zen stories too, there’s like one story about this long, long story, but the essence of it was this particular practitioner, this Yogi, this male Yogi, he was walking with his teacher I think, and this is showing how even the student had more realizations than the teacher in this particular case, and they were coming to the edge of a river and there was this of ugly looking old leper lady there who wanted to be carried across and the teacher didn’t want to do it so he showed his magical powers and walked across the water and everything but didn’t bother to carry this smelly old lady but the student had compassion so when he got halfway across the teacher turns around and there’s this old smelly old lady manifesting now as this blissful female Buddha called Vajrayoginī who’s carrying this yogi into the sky, know, to the pure lands of Vajrayoginī so actually the smelly old lady was really the Buddha they have all these stories all the time the story of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, many stories like this Roger he’s an Australian monk who’s his attendant told one story of a few times in India that one story was when they were in this village a whole bunch of cars were driving through this village Lama Osel who was the reincarnation of Lama Yeshe, who is now about seventeen years old, a Spanish boy, he was with them too in another car and all of a sudden they’re all heading towards Bodh Gaya, right?
And then Lama Zopa was in one car and Roger says, Lama Zopa says please turn back to that village we just went to so he did and then basically what Lama Zopa did was, he got an offering and he went over to this crowd of people, with a young girl in the middle, like a fifteen year old girl, and then he started circumambulating, he first circumambulated the group, which is what you do when there’s a holy object there, so everyone was looking kind of curiously, you know, and then he walks up with these offerings to this girl, offers her these things, and then backs out, very respect what they do from a holy being, got back in the car, and they went back to Bodh Gaya, and then Lama Osel said to Roger, where were you, what happened? So Roger explained, and he said, who do you think that was, Lama? He said oh that was Tārā so all the time they have stories, there’s apparently this old bag lady who lives near Swayambhu stupa in Nepal she’s like an old bag lady, you know Rinpoche treats her with this incredible respect, like a holy being, makes special offerings so the logic being that Rinpoche has the clairvoyance to see these are actual Buddhas but not like an ordinary looking fifteen year old girl or an ordinary old bag lady, you know, or an ordinary dog for that matter so this saying in Tibet, you be very careful what you do because you never know who anybody is it could be the Buddha manifesting as a worm, as a dog, as a this or as that.
And also they often talk about how your Guru manifests in this way to benefit you. So be careful, you know. Yeah? Well, it’s not much connected but it’s nothing other than. It’s nothing other than all those things.
You can say it like that, but sort of more than that, it’s more subtle than that, but that’s okay they say that ignorance, this is just the words for it, this is what takes so much time to see ignorance in our mind, this profound primordial kind of grasping that everything is having an inherent clings and grasps to this cup as having, just being in and of itself cup, with no relationship to anything else. But in fact, is all those other things, there’s nothing other than all of that, and you can’t find cup among any of those things. So, the dependent arising when it comes to self is karma. That whole story, for us, is karma. So, now, isn’t it, between you and me and us having a fight, there’s this powerful sense of my ego being separate, cut off, and how dare you, this wicked person, who has nothing to do with me, that terrible action to point you in us at me, who has done nothing to deserve it.
But actually, all I am is a result of countless karmic actions, that is culminated in this moment in time, where I am meeting my own karma back by having you there punch me in the nose everything is completely interdependent, the whole scenario, you can’t isolate anything, it’s just one big interdependent scenario so, it’s sort like we’re just the different bits of atoms in this scenario, we all take it all personally is a way of saying it, you know so when we really have the understanding of karma we don’t have delusions, don’t get angry, we don’t get depressed, we don’t get jealous, we completely blissed out, we completely see everything as interdependent it’s like the best way to realize emptiness it’s by seeing that we’re not this isolated, separate, innocent self that’s how we do it, we concretize and isolate everything. This is the way of saying it, you know. So, the cup is nothing other than all of those things, like you and me and I and all the past karma brought us to this point in time, so there’s a million different causes and conditions for this particular scenario, but we act as if there aren’t any.
Isolated me, how dare you do that to me! But actually the view of karma explains it, you know, so we are nothing other than all those things come together it’s just a way of saying it, you know, once we start to I think we have to meditate on it very much to get it but you’re on the right track here. That again? You mean share it with you for a second? I mean the Buddha, yeah sure can do anything but there’d be not much, I mean how to say that?
Oh yes, he asked can Buddha manifest in like his body just for a moment or something or anybody’s body just for a moment but even without our knowledge of the Buddha could, it’s all a question of the Buddha doing whatever is beneficial that’s all, so it should only be doing it if it was beneficial so there’s gonna be some, you know, I mean, well for example they have, this is not quite what you mean, but they do all the time have, in Tibetan Buddhism, there’s this system of people who are called what’s the word? You know? God, there’s not any Oracles. Oracles. They’re a group of people, often monks, who become, if you like, possessed by a Buddha, who then, you know, there’s an elaborate system, the Dalai Lama’s government still has it there’s a certain oracle and he comes as a monk who becomes, sort of, they conjure up the presence of this very fearful powerful Buddha that he called the Nechung Oracle and so then the government then asked the Dalai Lama or the people ask various questions to this Oracle and then the Buddha speaks through the Oracle and they give the answers and then they do what they have to do, you know, that’s very common, so yes Buddha can act like that, they can do like that, I’ve seen many examples of that, that type of thing.
So manifesting in our bodies, sure, we’ve got some job to do on behalf of the Buddha, they can do that, yes. But so can also negative spirits. Negative spirits can do that too. Yeah. Yes.
The mosquito. Taking one tiny tiny drop of blood. That’s right. Right. Okay, you would say yes if you do definitely know that that mosquito is a malaria carrying mosquito.
So if we don’t, I mean is it common in this country for mosquitoes to give malaria? Is it? I’ve got malaria in India two years in a row, well whatever it is, if we know definitely, mean it’s like, it’s also dependent upon karma, that’s the point that our market, all the insect spray people, marketing people, don’t take all this into consideration, right? They have these big pictures of the big flies, they don’t take karma into consideration. You’ve got to have the karmic imprint to get malaria or Ross River Fever or whatever, but of course you don’t know that either.
But look at the stories we told about the fly, about Harry, about the BMW, about the guy hearing his own, curing his own AIDS, I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if you genuinely give your blood out of compassion to a mozzie that you won’t get the disease, because you know your compassion overrode it. That’s the point comes right there if you really are in an area where you get Ross River fever or you get you really don’t want to risk it because you’re not brave enough to let the mozzie have its blood because you don’t want that’s fine recognize your limitations but with compassion sorry mozzie and go a little blow on it and you know that reminds me of another story about a mozzie actually that when I visited up in Cairns, visited the prison in Lotus Glen and there’s a couple, you know, two or three, four or five blokes in the group and there’s one aboriginal bloke in the group who studies there and he was telling me about this story when he was in the box they call it the hole in America it’s where you’ve been chucked out when you’ve been naughty you know you go sit there in the box for a while so he’s in the box and of course he’s up in Cairns so he’s eaten alive by the mozzies right at night and he’s going crazy, hitting them, he’s covered in blood, he got so exhausted he said, and he realised it’s an insane thing to do, you know, so one night later he was just completely fed up and exhausted, was talking to the mozzies, said, okay you blokes, please I cannot bear this any longer, know, I don’t want to kill you anymore, I can’t bear it, so please just do a deal.
He said he should talk like this to the mozzies, right? He felt really embarrassed telling us. But he said, look, I promise you I won’t kill you, there’s one mozzie there, but please go and tell your mates to leave me alone, okay? But I won’t kill you, I promise, I don’t want to and he said he couldn’t believe that they all stopped coming I’ve no idea where that comes from but who knows, you know? I mean who knows, it could be the Dalai Lama manifesting as a mozzie to help him learn something, I mean who knows anything, just be careful.
So you have to be practical, be where you’re at, you know. Somebody else? Yeah? You were talking about abortions. Uh-huh, was I?
Oh I see, yes, okay. Aborts? Sure. She said that we’re talking about abortion and how we should be grateful that our moms didn’t abort us and all that and so basically what’s abortion? Well you know as we’ve just talked of course, absolutely from the child and the mother’s side, but as we’ve discussed, you know, as we’ve discussed Buddhism would assert that in general, a baby, a person, a person begins when the egg and sperm stay together because the consciousness has gone into it, so Buddhism would say, generally speaking, it’s bizarre and impossible for an egg and sperm to develop into a fetus, unless that fetus already has a consciousness there that determines the shape of the fetus, because the shape of our body, sure it’s due to our Mum and Dad, but it’s our karma that we have a certain body with this, this, and a broken bone there, and a genes here, or whatever it is, it’s our karma so the egg and sperm can only start to become a being when the consciousness is there so obviously it’s a human being from that second so clearly, if you have an abortion you just kill a human being, it’s very clear so I had an abortion when I was twenty three now that means and for me it’s interesting all, you know, this one time ever that I got pregnant and I never had these experiences before but I remember vividly the day, the person, mean I just really sleep around, right?
But I remember this particular bloke, this horrible Australian architect, remember in London, I was really sleeping around in London, right, all these old hippie, having a good time, I remember this bloke I didn’t like and I remember the time, I was in Earl’s Court, this particular day and I remember something went inside me and it was a really clear experience, I was very surprised, but I remember it as vivid as the day, you know but I didn’t put the words to it, because I wasn’t a Buddhist and I wasn’t anything, I was this old hippie, you know I mean, I was something, was a hippie but I had no, I didn’t put the words it was a sentient being, I didn’t have the words but I knew I didn’t want it so it happened to be that you get abortions on the national health, that was in nineteen sixty eight you can have abortions on the national health at that point so I went straight up, marching out to the doctors and gave them some reason, because I talked about my dad or something, and they said, okay, I’m on for an abortion. So I remember they put me in the hospital, and I remember they didn’t cut the poor little thing out properly, and I never get depressed in my whole life, I was deeply depressed for ten days, so they very kindly gave me a room to look after me for ten days, how kind they were, but it was so clear to me, when I looked back, even then it was clear to me what I was doing, but I didn’t say the words, I couldn’t, I didn’t say the words I am killing a human being, but I was depressed, because obviously I was, but I didn’t have the words, I didn’t say, so I had the intention, I knew it was a living thing, I knew it would turn into a baby if I let it grow, so obviously I knew it was a living thing, but it shows how our minds are so dull, you know, but I didn’t actually say the words I will kill a human being, I didn’t say that, but it was clear what I was doing, so I had the intention and I followed through, you know, now, as for the sentient being, that poor person in there, they had the karma to be killed by me, they wouldn’t have been there if they hadn’t, this is the absolute point, and this is where, if we think of, let’s say, we’ve done harm in our lives, we’ve hurt someone or killed somebody, people have done this all the time, I mean, you know, we’ve had accidents, people die, all this, we can have such grief and guilt, but we’ve got to remember, it’s not meant to take off the guilt from ourselves, but remember it’s interdependent, if that child that I happened to conceive didn’t have the karma to die, nothing would have let me have an abortion, I might have gone, they might have done it, they wouldn’t have done it, they wouldn’t have given me permission, something would have shifted, so I had the intention, but the person had the karma, boom, happened, came together nicely.
What do you do like purify? Purify, like we did last night, you do the four opponent powers, the four opponent, this regret, you know, these steps are psychological and there aren’t any other steps if you analyse them, regretting sincerely because you don’t want the future suffering compassion and take, you know, refuge, Buddha, compassion, do the actual practice and determine not to do again, what else can you do? That’s it, that’s purification, there’s no karma we can’t purify. Does that explain the case that the mother’s pregnant and she spontaneously miscarried? Okay, it means she had nothing to do with it, it means she didn’t have the intention to kill, so therefore she created zero karma but the child still had the karma to die young the being had the karma to die young, to die before they got born, the same as the aborted one the extra one was the person I aborted had the karma to be killed by me, but the other one just had the karma to have a life worth a month, you know, in a womb, that’s it but the mother did no karma, there was no karma at all, except the grief they experienced maybe it’s the grief, I mean, you could say that was the result of some karma, the pain of the loss, because they somehow have maybe some past karma between them and that sentient being from who knows what life, when they maybe did some kind of something, a rejection, who knows, you know?
So, they lose the baby now, so their heart breaks. But, they create no negative karma, they just experience negative karma, they experience some pain, you know? Do you see? Because that’s the point, the strong karmic connection. I mean, I’ve heard the one lama say that even just for us to meet in this room, we might never meet again in this life, we must have met hundreds of times before, so can you imagine how many lives you’ve had together to be born to a person’s womb?
Phew, that’s pretty close! You were saying before that the car had something to do with the form of you as well. Yeah, even what the form of you has to do with your karma. Yep. I was just wondering what body of the birthmarks were and the marks that you were born with and whether they had something to with the past marks or what?
I don’t know anything about birthmarks, darling. I don’t know anything about birthmarks. They could have some meaning but I don’t know. I’ve never heard anything. But, you know, even how the body is, it’s like you create first of all, you’ve got a mother, let’s say, this is now another story.
Okay, but I know about birthmarks. But you know how even the time of body we have is due to our karma means the choice, mother is aching sperm, there’s no problem with that, it’s obvious, your mom and dad the DNA, whatever you like let’s say they’ve the DNA to have a certain kind of shaped body cause that’s the family you’re born into, well you create the cause, that’s the point, to have that shaped body let’s say it’s a kind of body that everyone calls beautiful you can see some people are just born with beautiful bodies, a conventionally thing we call them beautiful and the whole family is beautiful. Well, due to your karma, of much patience in the past, you create the cause to go to a mother who’s got, you know, genes to have a beautiful body. But we can also see, the same family might have one unimaginable kid, I’m just talking relatively now, you know what I’m saying, I’m not trying be kind of judgemental cause everything’s relative, know, it’s all karma so it’s still the karma, know, or you can have a person who’s born to a mother who’s got the DNA to get cancer but they don’t get cancer because they haven’t created the cause you know, so all this even, way to say all this is we create the cause to have that body, that sickness, that mind, that evil, that good, you name it but whatever the condition is called the mother or whatever is simply the physical condition that does have those aspects they’re not the main cause of our having that, they’re simply the condition that our consciousness goes into so in that sense we created the cause, you know so for a child who, let’s say, is born with a really mangled suffering body, you know, completely kind of, whatever the words are nervous system, completely wrecked and really mentally suffering as well those genes did come from the parents but really the main energy that caused that is the consciousness that got born into it that’s the direct karmic result of that child not the parents, you know the DNA didn’t cause it, that’s just the condition in other words, the child created the cause to get born to a mangled DNA, you know, whatever the words are that’s the point what oh yes please talk to me conception or okay Right.
I understand. So So talking about subtle perception, is there something to recommend taking drugs, hallucinogenic drugs? At some level, of course, it can alter the senses, isn’t it? Alter the chemistry of the body, and because the body and the mind have an intimate relationship, of course it plays a big role, I mean, oh my goodness, I mean anyways, if you’ve had a few trips on a few things, you can definitely say that, that’s true, but the Buddhist approach would be, that it can help you, so for me it was a catalyst to see that my mind could think different things, that was good but in the end it was very clear, it didn’t go anywhere with me, it just became this kind of distorted experience, it was kind of interesting for while but there’s no control there’s very little you can do with it same with alcohol, you know there’s very little you can do with that experience so, the Buddhist approach because eventually what you have to do is access a subtle level of mind that’s got nothing to do with the senses so finally it’s beyond the senses completely so as learning experience, sure, but in the end to get experiences of emptiness, zero to do with drugs they would just completely destroy, wreck no help, no advantage I remember even one I mean, this is not quite like that, but that’s another point actually.
No, it’s just a funny story again. When I was a nun already, and I was living in England, and I visited my friend Bridget in her house in London. And she was up and having a shower, and I was getting the place ready for dinner, and only because I noticed she had some chocolate cake, and only because I was on a diet, I only had one piece. But of course it was hash cake, right? So I got completely stoned, so you’d have a drug as a nun not to drink or drug, you know, stuff.
What can you do? I couldn’t vomit or anything, well, couldn’t, it wouldn’t have helped, was in my bloodstream already. But what was interesting was a very nice experience, definitely. But the next day, I was like lead. My body was heavy, my mind was heavy, and I thought, that just shows, it’s not worth it, you know, a little bit, for a little kind of, it’s like a little cute experience please excuse me, I mean I don’t meditate and have great experiences, but, you know, what they say you’re gonna achieve in meditation, if you’re thinking of good experiences, is so superior, it’s like a joke, you know?
Anyway, what else people? I understand. Understand. Understand. Say a person is really desperate for you to apologise, are you feeding their attachment by apologising?
You might be, but the real point here is our compassion if you have enough wisdom to know that it’s much better not to because that would genuinely help that person if you really have that wisdom then please you choose that instead it would be for a Bodhisattva you do whichever is the most beneficial do you see? You do whichever is most beneficial when you have that amount of wisdom but if you don’t then, you know, apologize, how amazing. But even that, we can see it might make, you know, we don’t necessarily have to do that, because, I mean, the person with a BMW, it just felt like a good thing for him to do, he wasn’t thinking that the guy would then do nice to him it was the bonus for him it was the bonus that was like the bonus on the top he felt it was good for him to do this somehow he felt that was kind of good for him to finish this thing for him to apologize but it happened to be the bonus that this guy of made it up, you know, stopped. But so you’ve got to have, you know, when you’re talking about the compassion wing, the main emphasis is on you opening up your heart, you forgiving others, you developing compassion, you developing patience.
There’s not really much concern about where the person’s at on the wisdom wing there is now on the wisdom wing you’re not thinking about the person at all, you’re thinking about yourself how to develop yourself the same with compassion one but then the compassion one also is using the skill to know what’s the best thing to do for that person genuinely the best thing that’s what where skill comes. If you really can see that it would actually in the long term benefit this person’s mind to not apologize then of course without any doubt you wouldn’t apologize. I understand. Attachment remember is a neediness for something that if you don’t get it you freak out, you get angry you get depressed you blame people now my feeling is that that’s how you feel about your dharma it won’t last very long you you it wouldn’t be Dharma at first it wouldn’t be Dharma really and it wouldn’t last very long anyway you give up after a while it would too boring you know So, to want to practice Dharma, to want to go to the teachings, to get excited about going somewhere to hear the Dalai Lama and crying if you can’t, I’m not sure if that’s attachment, that’s just kind of you, you really want it, that’s fantastic, you know, nothing wrong with that.
But, if you find you get angry when you don’t go, you blame everybody else because you miss the plane, how they’re there, and you’re to sue somebody because you couldn’t get to see the Dalai Lama, I would say that’s attachment definitely. You know what I mean? So, in a way, you’re kind of messing it up if you do that, you know? But, on the relative level, it seems to me it’s like this: given that we have got attachment, we’re still samsaric, and you’ve got a person who beats you up every day, we’re talking relatively now, a person who’s brutal and mean and nasty, and needs you up garden paths and makes you drugs and be crazy or you have a person who’s a nice person who helps you and loves you and supports you excuse me, be attached to the second person do you see my point? Then eventually if you’re practising properly you’ll get rid of attachment anyway but at least be attached to something that helps you.
Know? Yeah. Or if you think about it even this way sorry, you want say that again? What’s happening? I’m finished.
You’re trying to make me go or something? I’m sorry. Okay, darling, it won’t be long. So, it’s like I think of, you know, I think of say my mom who was very attached to me, excuse me, I’m glad she was attached to me, if she weren’t I’d be dead by now. So difficult to put up with, I mean any child, you think, I look at other people’s children, can’t believe that poor mother bears it.
It’s only because she’s got this unbelievable attachment and adores this little bundle of thing, you know? So, a sense, can almost say what a relief our mothers had attachment. You know, look at the mothers who don’t, who beat their kids to death instead. Excuse me, I’m glad my mom had attachment for me. I mean, given that you’re going to be saṃsāra if you got love there, you know, okay, you know what to do?
Best of a bad world, isn’t it? See what I mean? The aim isn’t to keep the attachment, of course not. Yes, darling? Come on then, just try.
She has all this attachment for her four year old, okay? Yep and they have tantrums, go home when they get what they want, yep sounds like the rest of us? That’s right yep your own stuff, they got this little thing Oh my goodness. I’m glad I’m a nun. What?
Yes. That’s right. I know. Oh, darling, I don’t know. I mean, understand.
It’s like, so what to do in the middle of all the drama, the kids screaming and crying and shouting, one of them, or three or seven or what? Oh my god. You know, I really don’t I mean, it’s a bit like That question is a bit like saying, when I’m in the When I’m about to crash on the freeway, what’ll I do? Darling, the answer is the extent to which you’ve done any driving test or driving training beforehand is the extent to which you can do anything then, it’s a bit late, except to do damage control. So, it’s sort of like that in a way, so this is why, really, back to how much training you’ve done, there’s no other answer.
Because this is what I find interesting about kids, and I even remember myself as a child. It’s like, we were like these barometers of whatever was going on around us. I remember it, you didn’t notice it then, but I remember it. That whatever’s, you know, the energy between my mom and dad was kind of all this fighting and dramas, and there’s all this business with my father, all these other things happening, so there’s so much, many layers all going on, and you see this little bundle of intuitive rage, and this, and wanting to be loved, and attachment, and confusion and seven of you, it’s like chaos, you know? So I mean, most of the time we have this emotional ranting, because no one knew how to control their minds, my mother and father were experiencing all their things, so you’re actually responding much of the time to their dramas.
They’re kind of responding to you and I mean, it’s just chaos because of their stuff. So it seems to me, not a joke to say the best way is for you to continue to work on your mind, to continue to know your mind. And the more clean you are, then even, one, you might you know, the child might not be perfect, but at least you’ll have more clarity to know how to deal with it, then two, they will have a better barometer, they’ll be a better barometer. I think children are bar what is it? Not even barometer, they’re like a mirror of what’s going on around them so, so often what happens I think, isn’t it, that let’s say you’re having some kind of emotional stuff the kid’s like a maniac, because they’re just kind of reflecting what you’re feeling, so you think this damn kid, you’ll be not realizing it’s our own stuff that the little child is picking up on and I really think it’s like that from my own experience, you know, it’s so subtle somehow.
Because they’re not controlled adults, who kind of learn to know that you then give mom space and walk out the door. So, he just screams and shouts, they’re not saying it’s every time like that. So, there’s so many levels of things going on, seems. Back to the same old one. Uh-huh.
For the child’s sake you mean? Well my feeling is you know part of our problem okay she’s asking when there is all this the child is having all this kind of emotional stuff and whatever shouting and yelling having a tantrum what you saying? For you you mean? You go to the market, they want everything, go to the shop, they want everything, it’s just this okay, okay, well it seems me one of the things that I’m seeing, and this is between any of us, adults or children because we have a lot of attachment, and we want the child to be a nice kid, and we want them to behave well, and as soon as, like, we’re all of us, you’re reflection of her as well as soon as she starts showing all this emotion, wish she didn’t, you wanted to be quiet, all your kind of tentacles are out there trying to get her to be the way you want her to be but the fact is maybe, let her be! Excuse me, if you’re clear and strong in yourself, and you’ve got your centre, and you’ve got your stability, and you know that everything’s okay, and you’re doing the shopping this is just the way little girls act.
Now, it’s a you know, sometimes, I know as a child, I knew I wanted some control from my mother and father. So, strong guidelines can be very helpful. So I wanted that, but didn’t get it very often but another time it’s just this emotion, it’s just kind of your bundle of emotion and crying and nothing can stop you, so just let it pass I remember one time at our monastery in Nepal, this really struck me and every time I’d go there, to stay there, it was always great to be there because, they’re saying they’re all perfect, these Tibetans, but they’re monks and they’re Asian, and they’re Tibetan and they’re Buddhist, so there’s this real kind of cultural thing of giving people a lot of emotional space. Physically, they’re like living three, four to a room, they hold hands, they’re really kind of very loving with each other. Physically, we need about a whole entire house for ourselves because we can’t stand not to have space, right?
But, emotionally, they give great space physically, we get a lot of space, but no emotional space, we’re in each other’s heads, that includes us in our kids’ heads so we, everything that happens, we panic about it, we freak out, it pushes us this way, pushes us that way, we have no control, you know so I know in the monastery that this time, it was always a relief to be there because you are who you are, and they kind of mind their own business, they see who you are, they can reassess and check but they’ve got the kind of kindness to allow you just to be yourself. It’s a very real experience. It’s always a great relief, instead of all the time people analyzing you in your head, you this and you that, just the stuff that we are in the West. So, I remember this one time, just two kids, all these kids coming and going from all these different rooms, a big chaos in the yard, all these kids coming, right? And two little boys had a sudden flare up, little fight, one burst into tears, right?
Now, the usual scenario probably in the West would be to run up to them, see what happened, get them to apologize, what did you do, what did you do, who did you say to him, what did he say to you, now you apologise to each other, right? You could see what happened was, everybody sort of almost slightly turned away, kept walking, left this little space there, these two little boys, they did their little thing, and it all passed, and it all finished in about a minute everybody minded their own business so, you know, if we’re the mom and we’re all concerned about the child being this way, being that way, I’m not saying ignore it in general then the kid picks up on that because they’re frustrated and they’re anxious on hearing them it just keeps blowing up into an explosion but if you just let it come and let it go, it’s a little wave, know, it’s a little emotional thing, little bundled little girl can’t put it all together it’s just fine, that’s what little girls do. It’s okay, you know? So you just keep doing your job. Go to the market, be concentrating, get your food.
Come on darling, it’s okay, eventually she’ll calm down. No? But that’s where you gotta have the wisdom, you know, walking away or not walking away from the child. You gotta have the wisdom to know what it’s about. I mean, one of the worst sufferings is children who don’t get listened to.
You know? And then the other one is to when we do I I saw one it was like this nightmare, this tyranny of these children. Mean, in this particular family, it was in TIME magazine some story, I think, about bringing up kids and how kids have so much power over their parents now and they’re so tyrannical and all this, I mean, this business, right? And these two kids, you could tell they were so out of it, but they had complete, what seemed like power over their parents and their parents were going out of their way to try and listen to every word they said, give every word credibility, so they became this dreadful, nightmarish debates, and all the kind of grimaces on the parents’ faces, this, for trying to listen to their children, so it became this nightmare. So, we’re gonna have some wisdom, when to be quiet, when to not be, when to say this, when not.
How do you get that wisdom, darling? Work on your own mind. Mind. Yes, based on your own wisdom. You know, you can have fifty million rule books about how to bring up a child, but if you can’t take care of your own mind, you will never do it, because it’s not an external job, it’s an internal job, you know.
And then the children know what to trust, they’ve got some sanity with their moms, can trust, you know. I’ve seen with two Tibetans, again not trying to make Tibetans so perfect, but just seen this one man who was a Rinpoche, who had been a monk, was now married, he’s a layman now, and his wife. And there’s something about the of there’s a lightness about them both, and their kind of skill, and their quiet energy, and very controlled, but very disciplined, but a kindness and a clarity about them. So the child was like this little kind of quiet little thing, you know, given one chocolate and she thanked politely and ate her chocolate. Now, she wouldn’t be like it with us all being suppressed.
Okay, it was her personality. It was just much more kind of integrated, more open, and more kind, and less neurotic, and I don’t know, I can’t say. Do you understand what I mean? It’s just not an easy job, you know? But you’ve got to know what’s going on in that kid, and sometimes when I was a kid, I knew I just wanted discipline, I wanted them to give me some control please, because I was bursting, demanding kind of a barrier.
Other times, you desperately wanted them to hear you. We have to know how to distinguish, you know? We have to know how If you can’t know, who can know? You know? And how else do you do that?
Look on your own mind. Yes. Go to bed. The four year old, on one hand at night, his grandmother’s Greek Orthodox, and he goes to bed kind of looking at these icons and going, I love those religious guys. But by day, his imagination is full of this most violent, horrific stuff and he really acts it out.
He doesn’t actually physically kill other creatures but do you interfere in that anatomy? I understand. Seems to be a balance there. Kind of give me religious guys. Yeah.
I understand. So, she’s an older kid who wants to go to Tibet and a younger kid who at night looks at his Greek Orthodox grandma’s icons and thinks, isn’t he gorgeous? I love these religious things, but during the days he’s little monster. So, tell me the story. What do you think he’s saying?
Oh, you know, it’s just hell and damnation and the good guys and good and evil and it’s all kind of, you know, it’s a whole paraphernalia, it almost feels past life. Yes. Because, But what’s he doing though? What’s he saying? What’s in his mind do you think?
Is it sort of wanting to harm others? Being killing people? He’s killing people. It’s tactical. It’s all there.
But is he doing it for the sake of others? Are you kind of wanting to benefit the world and kill the baddies to help the goodies? I don’t know. Or is he a bit sadistic and wants to harm people and hope they suffer and laugh when they do and all I’m on the side of good, yeah, you’re sure Okay. Well, know what you’re saying, but my intuitive feeling about this, I mean, his ordinary life, is he brutal and harms people and hurts she says not really well, seems to me he’s got a very vivid imagination, which is, you know, using all the kind of archetypes of goods and bads, it sounds very healthy to me but also, isn’t that though the boy who loved fishing, drawn to the water, wouldn’t you see that as no, but he was killing beings, your son’s not killing beings, it seems like a bit different to me.
No, know what you’re saying, I do know what you’re saying. No, my feeling is not that, it’s not a question No. No. No. I think it’s more than that.
You just kind of No. No. I don’t I’m hearing something different. I don’t even know your son, but I’m hearing something different. My feeling is this is a very vivid imagination.
Yes. He’s got He’s very creative, and he’s really got the He’s on the good He’s on the side of good.