Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The monk who couldn’t die peacefully because he clung to his chipped wooden butter-tea bowl anchors Khensur Rinpoche’s 46-minute session from Buddha House’s 1993 Art of Dying Workshop. That story introduces the five forces for dying well — a framework explicitly offered to anyone regardless of spiritual background: getting affairs in order and giving possessions away; making aspirational prayers to direct the mind; purifying negative karma; dedicating everything at death’s approach; and cultivating love and compassion in one’s final breaths through giving-and-taking meditation (Tonglen). Rinpoche then addresses how to support a dying person, stressing authentic presence over technique and helping them feel their life had meaning. The session closes with the four counteracting agents for purifying past harm — regret, reliance, reversal, antidote — illustrated by a vivid food-poisoning analogy, before moving into a group purification meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 A of D 1993 08 07.mp3
UUID: 72fdde09-96e4-49b0-a046-73bbaa32415f
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Art of Dying Workshop (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-08-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~6,568
Then the appearance of a bluish dark smoke. The water element begins to gain its capacity to support consciousness. And finally, image of a water mirage shimmering on a dry desert as the earth element begins to gain its capacity to support consciousness. Any inhalation and exhalation. Returning to the breath.
And slowly becoming aware of your body, aware of your surroundings. Stop there. A well prepared practitioner to be implemented at the approach of death, at the time of death. But what about us? And what about other people who haven’t spent a great deal of time over the course of their life preparing for their death, their moment of death?
What are some of the things that we can do? There’s one method which is termed the five forces or the five powers which which anybody can use, you know, where whatever Whether their spiritual path they may be on or perhaps even if they aren’t in a spiritual path, can still make use of it and can have a good death. It will facilitate a good death, a more peaceful death and a better rebirth. So these five forces, the first of these five forces is called the force of white seed. And this simply means that when, you know, when one is aware that perhaps death is coming in the sense that it’s not too far away, months, weeks, that one is ill in such a way that there’s a chance that one is not going to get better.
This could be it. Then the force of white seed simply consists of beginning to get your life in order. You know, you you’re you’re in a way you’re you’re you’re going on a journey and begin to pack your bags, get your affairs in order. Beginning to give away whatever it is that you own, to make provisions for your family and those who are in need, and then sort of to begin to let go. So the sooner that one can begin this process, the better.
All your money, your possessions, material things begin to give them away so that at the moment of your death, you’re not going to, think, well, there’s there’s something left undone or is there something still to be held onto. But, you know, there’s an example of, it’s a traditional example of not an example, an antidote. Was a monk who was dying and he was having quite a hard time of it. Tibetans, they drink buttered tea. I don’t know if any of you had it.
It takes a while to acquire the taste. But it’s just made of butter and salt and tea, if you can imagine. And anyway, he quite liked his butter tea and he associated his liking of his butter tea with his they drink they usually drink it out of a wooden bowl. And so he he associated his liking for butter tea to this old chipped, cracked wooden bowl. And he simply, you know, he couldn’t let go of that bowl.
And his mind kept turning to this bowl. I don’t want to leave my bowl. I want to take my bowl with me. And his teacher had some idea of what was what this monk was going through. And he came to the and and he, having understanding the problem that he had and letting go, he said, Oh, by the way, can I have your bowl?
And before the monk would say anything, he said, Oh, you know where you’re going. They have much better tea much better butter tea than they do here. And the the monk the monk could let go and die peacefully. So beginning the process of letting go in terms of of giving away our possessions, giving away to charity, to making provisions for your family, getting your your life in order. Very practical.
The second force is the force of aspiring prayer. You know, this is like giving our mind some kind of direction. Where what we where would we like our mind to go? What qualities would we like to to see it imbued with in the future? You know the the one You know, there there’s a a beautiful prayer, you know, from a Buddhist point of view, but just to give you some indication.
Now and at all times throughout my death and the intermediate state, the next and all subsequent rebirths, blessed me never to be apart from the spiritual practice. May I always be guided by true spiritual teachers who repeatedly lead me to generate the awakening heart. You know, what type of where would you if you could, buy a plane ticket to wherever it is that you want to go, not in terms of of one’s, habitual cravings and desires, but according to some noble thoughts, your your highest aspirations. You know, may I it would be wonderful to be born in such a way that I could be of great benefit to others, that I could really be in a loving situation and develop love and skills myself and be able to to work with others and helping them to care, you know, caring for others. Sort of lifting, aspiring your mind and giving it some kind of direction.
And, this has meaning. This has purpose because it it will give the mind some kind of directionality that the mind, in the midst of this confusion, all of these various happenings and appearances the moment, over the course of our death, our mind will have some directionality to it. It will have some tendency which will move toward. Our mind is dynamic. It’s constantly changing.
If we can begin to give it some kind of channel in which to run its course, there’s a better chance that things will go well for us, not only during the course of death but also in terms of rebirth. So making prayers of aspiration, the type of quality of rebirth, type of service, the type of mind that you would like, the qualities, the characteristics that you would like develop in the future. And it gives you some kind of noble aspiration which extends even beyond this life. Third force is the force of destruction. And as I’ve noted, the subtle consciousness is imprinted with our various encoded with various actions that we’ve created over the course of our lives.
And, this is karma, these latencies. You know, they they’re they’re like, you know, just like one analogy, which is helpful I think. It’s not quite exact. I’m learning that, like DNA molecule can be said in a way to have it has some information encoded in it. You know, like if you if you if you take a seed and you place it in Earth and it it it germinates, then the the information which is contained within the genetic material of that seed begins to react, interact with its environment and begins to to create structures.
There’s a certain information which begins to translate into actual physical structures. It begins to organize its environment along specific lines and something begins to grow. A sprout begins to grow. Likewise, with our karmic latencies within our own minds, they are in a way like like this encoding of information. And when they come into contact with specific types of environment, they begin to translate themselves in ways of thinking, in ways of acting, in emotions, patterns of thought, ways of viewing our reality, different materialities.
So these latencies of karma or the impressions of our past actions, when they come in contact with specific environments, they begin to interact with that environment along specific lines. Out of this we experience specific we we undergo specific experiences, think in certain ways, certain thought processes are triggered off. So amongst so in this sense, you know, the quality of our experience is determined mainly by these karmic seeds within our own mind. The the the people about us, our environment, act as cooperative conditions, which trigger off these various experiences, these latencies within our mind, these potentialities to experience our our reality, our world in different ways. Within these this information, these karmic latencies within our mind are both positive and negative.
I don’t know if you’re like me, I’ve done a few wrong things in my time. Anyway So we have some negativities. So as our death approaches, we can begin to begin we can These latencies are not They’re not lost in the shuffle of taking rebirths. They’re not misplaced somehow. The baggage which kind of goes on a different airplane where the wrong destination, they’re going to accompany us.
This information, this encoding, this, latencies, these tendencies, predispositions are going to accompany us. And some of them are quite negative. And once they meet with proper conditions and they what we mean by negative action is that which the results of which are experienced at some level of dissatisfaction or suffering. That’s all we mean. There’s no moral judgment being made.
What in Buddhism, when when we talk about skillful actions or unskillful actions, we’re simply talking about those types of actions which have as a result happiness and unhappiness. And since we don’t want to be unhappy, we don’t want to suffer, then those types of actions which bring them about we call unskillful or negative. We want to be happy, therefore those types of actions which bring about those types of results we call skillful or positive actions. There’s there’s no sort of absolute judgment being made. This is pragmatic in going about the business of life and what what it is in fact that we want and don’t want.
So we these these negative impressions, actions which are impressed upon our mind aren’t going to go away until until either of two things happen. One is that they interact with a particular type of environment and they find expression. They translate into some type of experience, a negative experience in terms of the feeling of some level of feeling of suffering. Or on the other hand, we can purify them. And so this is what this third force is, the force of destruction.
We can apply an antidote to purify this negativity such that it’s like taking a seed and scorching it. It loses its potency. It’s no longer able to germinate. And you can put that seed in earth and water and it won’t germinate. It’s lost its potency.
Likewise, with these negative karma seeds, through application of what is called the four antidotes, we we use the word purify. But in other words, we are lessening or completely eliminating the capacity of these of these system of these of this information to find as an opt way to find expression. That is to say, these latencies can never can never be activated. Latencies They lost their potency. Can never be germinated.
Therefore we cannot experience the negative results from them. We are going to do this together. We are going to work with a meditation around this, and I’ll explain that further. But that’s the force of destruction, purification of negativities. Most important, and I’ll just mention it for now, is the force of regret.
And there’s regret I mean, there’s no force outside of oneself that can purify purify our own negativities. We created our negativities and it is only ourselves who can purify them. So it’s not a matter of gaining absolution in some way. It’s a way of working with our mind and these potentials which exist within our own mind. The third force, the force of destruction.
The fourth force is the force of dedication. So this is as you’re actually the moment of your death is approaching, it’s very close. Maybe the death process, you you feel it’s a matter of hours perhaps or days. And actually beginning to sincerely dedicate anything that may be left over that you haven’t given away. You know, not only perhaps you gave away things physically before, now even in your own mind giving up, you know, possessions, the people about you, letting go, in other words.
Even all of what we call creative potential or merit. Even your own body, you know, may may this may this body, may all the creative potential, the merit that I create, giving it away to others, to other living beings, may they may be of use to them. May may everything that I have, you know, it’s like letting go of everything that one could cling to at the moment of death, whether it be the body, whether it be, you know, even, you know, like Lama Yeshe used to even your own nose. Anything that that could that could that could cause the mind some sort of disturbance through the death process. Letting go of people, possessions, letting go of your own body, letting go of your own virtue.
Anything that you want to cling to, anything that you find some kind of anchor and security in that you that you want to drag with you, that you that will cause you some kind of, reluctance to to move forward. In your own mind, finding a key, a way of letting letting it go, giving it up, giving it away. May it be for the benefit of others. May they be happy. And then finally, the force of familiarity.
And this is essentially mostly to try to generate a very positive state at the moment of death. The most positive state that we could, as ordinary individuals, develop is love and compassion at the moment of our death. In the Buddhist tradition, it said that if one the founder of our particular teaching, Śākyamūni Buddha, who was born about twenty six hundred years ago, he died in a posture where he was lying on his right side. And, he plugged his right nostril with his, ring finger. And then his left hand was along his left side of his body.
And so this is this for a Buddhist practitioner, is an excellent posture to die in. One dies mindfully. But also, one, more profound explanation, one is, emulating the death of Śākyamūni Buddha, his posture. Another explanation is that I talked about these three channels, psychic channels within the body. And the winds associated with anger mainly flow through the right channel.
And instead of lying on one’s right side, then it has a tendency to constrict this particular channel. And there is less opportunity for the winds to move through that channel and therefore less opportunity for anger to arise. However one wants to, you know, with bodily posture, try to induce a positive state of mind and most positively development of love and compassion. For example, next weekend we’re going to have a workshop on the awakening heart. The awakening heart is this aspiration to achieve, to awaken for the benefit of others, to develop one’s skills and abilities and wisdoms so that one can be of maximum benefit, optimum benefit to others.
And this is the awakening heart. As a means to achieve this, and there’s a practice called giving and taking. And if one can well, this will be explained extensively next weekend. But it’s I just it’s a matter of the way that we can use our final breaths as a way of training our mind. Know, that we can use our birth imaginatively, taking upon all you know, those who are suffering the same type of experience that I’m going through may somehow this experience be a substitute or may it be enough they do not have to experience their suffering?
May I be able to take that suffering upon myself? And imagining, as was mentioned yesterday, with your final breathing process, the final breaths, beginning to this is very so that we don’t become self absorbed. We don’t simply collapse in upon the the displays of our own ego, but that we we try to keep a a wider vision even at the moment of our death, of more noble possibilities and other ways of being, and taking upon the sufferings of others in the form of this black smoke or black light which comes in, and then giving away all our happiness, everything that we own, our virtues, our positive potential, or even our own body, whatever would make others happy in the form of white smoke or white light, which goes out our nostrils. So even as one dies, can be visualizing the sufferings of others coming upon oneself. Therefore one’s death has great meaning and giving away all of one’s happiness in the form of this white light.
One dies in an extremely positive frame of mind. I just thought this practice is called giving and taking, giving and taking. In Tibetan, it’s called Tonglen. Oh, maybe how are you doing to free time? Oh, okay.
I I, let’s see. Yeah. So whatever devices, whatever works for you, that’s the time to use at at this moment, using this force of familiarity. That is to say familiarizing yourself with love and compassion at the moment of your death. You know, it’s it’s it’s something that we you know, we aren’t gonna come up with any new gimmicks at the time of our death.
If we haven’t done these things over the course of our life, can’t expect them somehow miraculously to occur to us at the time of our death. That would be unrealistic, I think. I think so. It’s not to say that unusual and unusually positive things cannot occur. Maybe it’s best not to depend upon them occurring.
Maybe it’s probably best to make some kind of preparations. So working with the mind over the course of one’s life so that one has some plan to implement at the time of death, and especially the plan of being able to let go and to give away and to develop a very positive state so that one can die, and hopefully in the most positive state in the sense of love and that one’s death has some purpose and meaning. I think most of you So there are some suggestions that I think anybody can work with, these five forces, just the way that we can begin to approach our death very rationally and realistically. Learning to accept change and permanence. But, you know, as I mentioned, I think death we die very much as we have lived, and death is like a summation of our life.
Think most of you have sure most of you have had experiences more than myself in working with dying people, so I’m sure during our discussions that you could supplement. I would appreciate that. I’m sure everyone else would from your own experiences. But I think in helping to someone die, in helping to another person to die, we have to I think it’s useful to help them to let go. Help them to to feel that they are not dying empty handed.
That and not to allow allow them to die with with regret about their life. You know, helping them to feel that somehow that their life had meaning, that their life had value, and now it’s okay to move on. It’s okay. You know, rather than arming ourselves with all kinds of knowledges, all things are impermanent, death is definite, the time of death is uncertain, Okay, first you’re going to experience denial, and then you’re going to experience anger, then you’re going to begin to bargain, and Then you’re going to become depressed. Then finally you’re going to experience acceptance rather than arming ourselves with all these techniques that we may have picked up along the way, though I think they’re valuable.
Beginning to just be genuine, if you can. This is why I think it’s important to to deal with your own fears around death, own issues around death, because otherwise you’re going to be restimulated around a dying person and You’re not going to be there for them. You’re going to be in your own material. Beginning to work with one’s own fears and issues around death is quite important if you’re going to work with other people who are dying so that you can be there for them in an open and genuine manner, authentically. And to to to relate to people’s beneath the superficial aspects, that is, you know, this is most important, we have to create some kind of opening.
Then you then whatever knowledge that you may have will naturally come at the right time. You know, you’re going to connect very fundamentally, very skillfully. Know, it’s kind of, I guess, just hanging out with the person, reminiscing with the person about old times, you know, good times and bad times, and trying to create some kind of loving atmosphere, and then to be a good listener, and to allow the person to talk, helping them to express, perhaps unsuppressed emotions, to share in their pain and fear, being aware of the commonality of our suffering. The fear that people experience helps us to develop compassion, helps us to deal with the pain. So comforting them in small ways, whatever it takes, adjusting their pillow or maybe wiping their forehead, holding their hand, but not to impose one’s own agenda or imposing one’s own kindness.
So I think the way you do things is very important. Allowing the person to take care of unfinished business, as I mentioned before, is a training to catch and they have no choice but to get on and to make sure that they feel that their baggage is packed, that nothing has been left undone, nothing has been left unsaid. As was mentioned yesterday, I think dying people have a tendency to isolate themselves. They are no longer beautiful. They are no longer of use according to our usual social standards.
Our society places great value on beauty and usefulness. So the dying person may look upon may look for signs of unloving. They just want to get out of their way because they have no use to anyone anymore. They are neither beautiful nor useful. And so, you know, we may be nervous or not quite knowing what to do or what to say.
And perhaps there’s some kind of embarrassment, feelings of insufficiency in such a situation. But, you know, and we we we’ve we’re not quite sure what to do. Maybe And so maybe we talk about the weather, talk about politics, and a lot goes unsaid. It’s important that that we show our love, you know, whatever ways that you’ve shown your love in the past. If you are familiar with that person, then do that more.
That they’re still lovable. Pardon? I’ll finish. So to help them work through their pains and their fears of separation, you know, fears of an unknown, and knowing all the time that someday that you yourself are going to be lying there in that same place as this person, and that hopefully you will be looking up into someone’s eyes full of love and full of peace and full of caring just as you are. So we’ll stop there.
We’ll have a break. There’s a method of purifying the negativities that we may have created over the course of our life, knowingly or unknowingly, whichever. And the method that’s made use of is called the four counteracting agents or four counter powers. And though these might be explained in a somewhat Buddhist context, I think you can adapt them to whatever system of beliefs that you have. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a religious context.
I don’t think so. The first of these four counteracting agents and I’m just going to go through these extremely briefly because we’re actually going to do a meditation on them, a purification meditation. The first of them is regret. It’s a sincere sense of contrition. And this is to be distinguished from our usual conception around guilt.
And with regret, we acknowledge our mistakes as mistakes. We added one and one to make three. And though that mistake might have had far reaching consequences, it’s in no way an expression of somehow our inner nature, our inherent quality about ourselves. It’s simply we made a mistake. We quit denying that the mistake had ever happened or trying to rationalize it, what we did wasn’t wrong.
We omit our negativities as negativities. We acknowledge them and we develop a sincere sense of regret. And round regret is like some kind of temporary loss of self esteem. One doesn’t quite feel so good about one’s self. But there’s no judgment as to one’s inherent quality.
The sense of regret. And if I can just use an anecdotal example of what I mean by a sense of regret. And specifically applied in the context of purifying these negative imprints in our mind. If many of you have been to India, then you’ll be able to identify much more readily with this example. A few people, yourself and say, two other people, they go into an Indian restaurant in a greasy spoon, as we call in the United States, pretty dirty, cheap restaurant.
And Indian meals quite often they’re shared amongst people, you know, that each person simply takes out of their dishes of various vegetables and rice and chapatis or whatever. And you all share more or less the same meal. So the situation is such that you just share this meal with two other friends and you walk outside and immediately one of them falls over dead. And then next one, the second one begins to roll on the ground, writhing in pain holding her stomach. You begin to have some concern.
You know, it begins to dawn on you. This person’s dead, and this person’s writhing in pain. I bet you it was that food we just ate. And you realize, you go on and you think, well, we just shared the same meal together. And though at that particular point, you’re not feeling in the slightest any discomfort whatsoever, you know your time is coming.
And you develop this huge sense of regret around having eaten that meal. So likewise, we’re very much in the same position. Though we’re not presently experiencing any discomfort around the negativities that we’ve created in the past, It’s simply a matter of time until these latencies meet with the proper conditions, and then they’re going to be translated into some sort of negative experience. And this sense of regret, I wish I hadn’t done that. I wish I hadn’t eaten that meal.
That was a mistake. Know, under the influence of we weren’t thinking clearly, under the influence of jealousy or anger or something. You acted in a way which was not in your best, along those guidelines that you would like to lead your life in an inappropriate manner of some sort. But it’s no judgment upon oneself. You may make mistakes.
So that’s the first of these four powers. Power of regret. These four powers are antidotes, aren’t magical. And there has to be working with the mind. As I mentioned previously, we are it is we ourselves who create our negativity.
And it is only we ourselves who can eliminate those negativities from our own mind. And amongst these four powers, it is this first power which is most important. If we don’t have a sincere sense of regret, then the rest is purely mechanical. It will have no consequence or little consequence. If we have a sincere sense of regret and we apply these four powers in a genuine manner, then there’s no negativity that we cannot completely eliminate such that it will never have any consequences no matter what it might be.
This is one of the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism, That we can eliminate all the negativities from our mind completely by the force of our own mind, by the force of our own intention, power of our own mind. But the most important of these is power of regret. And quickly, because we don’t have so much time, the second counteracting agent or power is reliance. Reliance. And it is said that we can commit two negative actions against two types of objects.
One is what we call Buddhas, but I’ll explain what I mean by that to put it in another context. We can commit negative actions against Buddhas and ordinary beings. By committing actions against Buddhas, that is to say that we we vowed to act in a certain manner, that we took, we took some precepts or made some certain promises. You know, by Buddha, Buddha is in a way It’s It can be explained in many terms. But one useful way of thinking about it is in terms that somehow we are telling ourselves stories about our life.
Our life is very much lived out of the stories that we tell ourselves. And the the outcome of our of a preferred story according to, the Buddhist way of thinking is a Buddha, a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. It’s a metaphor for, for the outcome of our preferred story, a Buddha. I think that’s useful. You know, there’s no there’s no absolutes.
And therefore, the the, you know, we there’s no Buddhism cannot say it has the market cornered on truth. That within all the various system, we all have our particular worldviews and I’m beginning to go off on the tangent side. We all have our particular worldviews and those worldviews are just as valid as any other worldviews. But certain worldviews are functionally, preferable in terms of happiness and suffering. So Buddhism presents a particular worldview.
And the this world The integration of this particular worldview is experienced as predominant predominantly more happiness. Just suffering. It’s pragmatically based worldview. And the optimum the the optimum outcome or the the outcome of this particular worldview is this optimum mode of being we call Buddha. And so some we But the Buddha inside of ourselves, the Buddha to be that we all possess, this optimum motor being.
So, when we take a vow, we usually take it or we precept we usually take it in light of our wisdom. We use it in our finest moments. We we we we have some insight and we we want a type of momentary sanity where that we like to to dominate more and more in our life. So when we break the vow, when we break our promise, it is that we’re turning our back on the Buddha within inside of ourselves and that commitment to actualizing our potential. So the the power of reliance, we we recommit ourselves to the Buddha within inside of ourselves, to the to the outcome of our of an optimum preferred story.
Or on the other hand, we commit a negativity against ordinary beings. You know, the fundamental, you know, ethic that is quite useful to adopt is if we can help others, help them. If you can’t, then at least don’t harm them. You know, if, in in this sense But if we can begin to commit ourselves to caring for others more and more, you know, that to This is, I think, is Compassion is an element of all spiritual journeys. It is an integral part of the path path to growth.
Compassion both for ourselves and others. And by harming, we are as as it were going against, You know, we have to we rather than harming others, we recommit ourselves to helping others. And the power here is is expressed in whomever we may have hurt in the past, developing a sense of compassion and love, recommitting to helping others rather than harming others. That is to say, realigning one’s directionality of one’s mind, one tendencies of thought toward benefiting rather than harming. We’ve sort of gotten off the path that our preferred story and we want to realign ourselves, redirect ourselves, reprioritize ourselves.
So committing ourselves to helping in terms of generating love and compassion for, those we’ve harmed in the past, the power of reliance. The reason it’s called reliance is because just as when you fall down on the ground, you use that very ground to pick yourself back up. Likewise, in falling down on our own Buddha with inside of ourselves and falling down in our commitment to the welfare of others, we use them to pick ourselves back up by generating, recommitting ourselves with a generation of love and compassion for those we’ve harmed. And the third power is the power of reversal. And one of the qualities of karma is that the more we do something, the less the the more that we do an act, the more likely it is that we’ll do it again.
That each act facilitates, makes easier. It’s recommissioned. The more you become angry, the easier it is to become angry again, habituation. So as a way of beginning to interrupt this this this pattern modes of being, we we determine to, you in a realistic and honest fashion, I’m not going to repeat this action again for the next twenty four hours. Something which you can mindfully and sincerely try to do.
If I said I’m not going to speak harshly to anyone for the rest of my life, I think that’s unrealistic. It wouldn’t have any power. Wouldn’t have any meaning. If I said just before I went to bed, I’m not going to speak harshly to anybody for the next eight hours, maybe I can do that. But that’s a joke.
Okay? Bad joke. Something, you know, if you say I’m not going to kill consciously for the next twenty four hours, that has some power in in in interrupting these reoccurring patterns of disrespect and disregard for life that we may be harboring, which is a context for killing. So that’s the third, the power of reversal. And finally, the fourth, the power of antidote.
And this is the commission of some skillful actions, some positive action, as it were, constantly committing the action as a counterbalance to the negative action that we previously created. There’s various standard or traditional categories of these types of positive actions. Traditionally, are such categories as recitation of various scriptures and texts and the paying of homage, prostrations, various prayers which I said, the most development of love and compassion cultivating through meditation. The most powerful is the meditation on emptiness. But I in anything that we can do consciously, any type of skillful action that we go out of our way in a sense to counterbalance the negativity that we’ve created can act as a sense of as an antidote.
So there, I thought we could do a practice together. As a means of Okay. We’re we’re going to do a practice together. It’s a meditation practice, as a means for purification, making use of these four, powers. And it involves a visualization.
And, within the object toward that we visualize, can be of your own choosing. I mean, it’s within the Buddhist context, it could take various forms. And I was I was thinking to make use of it’s quite a Śākyamūni Buddha. I mean, you know, it could imagine, visualize Christ or just simply a white light. That which has meaning for you in your life.
That which is a paradigm of sanity. Has that which is worthy of respect, of reverence. You know, we are we are consciously in in in empowering, imbuing with value things and people around us, either unconsciously or consciously, such that they’re able to influence our mind. That we could affect the things about us. And then they it’s with power that they’re able to influence our own mind in return.
And we imbue this sense And we we don’t and we don’t know what Śākyamūni Buddha looks like. There weren’t you know, there weren’t any Nikons around back then. But it doesn’t matter. This is like the the the the model of sanity. The goal of a particular spiritual path.
And whatever And and it’s it’s looked up to. It’s revered. You know, the mind is dynamic. Whatever it perceives of is valuable, worthy, reverence. It will naturally tend to emulate.
It will move toward that quite naturally, spontaneously. This is our basic sanity operating. You know, if you if you think Rambo is the greatest thing in the world, then you shouldn’t be surprised that you begin to express rainbow like qualities in your everyday life because that’s what you value. That’s what you think is worthwhile in your life, that we some kind of model. We begin to quite naturally, instinctively, unconsciously begin to emulate our models and becoming aware of what models are you operating under.
What models do you respect? Do you hold as valuable? Here we’re using a model of sanity, a completely loving, compassionate, wise human being who solved the fundamentals of problems of life and is helping others to do the same. However, whatever form, whatever personification, image we may want to give that, that’s very unique to ourselves, to each of us. It doesn’t even have to be a distinct form.
It can just be a light. Something where you can to make tangible. Something that you can relate with a potentiality within yourself. Then we’re going to visualize. If it’s useful, you can use the visualization of Śākyamūni Buddha.
We’re imagining causing it to appear in one’s mind’s eye about a meter and a half in front of you, at level of the eye, the size of your the height of your hand. And it’s made of light. It’s not solid, it’s not concrete, it’s not heavy. It’s made of light, brilliant pinpoints of light. But anyway, even if you just see a yellow light or if you want to use a white light, just imagine or if you can’t see anything, it doesn’t matter.
That’s secondary at best. That there is something there that you are appealing to, that you are setting up some kind of relationship to, something that is going to help you to work with your own mind. It’s a tool that we can make use of. Also, in the course of this purification, are going to recite a mantra. Again, you can recite whatever is meaningful for yourself.
That’s the Jesus prayer, Lord have mercy or whatever. Or, hear that I thought we’d use the mantra of Śākyamūni Buddha which is on page six of this prayer book which is at the bottom, which is So I’m just going to, describe rough extremely quickly and briefly what we’re going to do. You know, first, we’ll apply the power of regret, you know, recalling some negativities that you may have created, acknowledging them as quit denying that they weren’t mistakes, quit trying to rationalize them that somehow you were justified, you made a mistake, okay, and developing a sense of regret about having committed that act at some sincere level. And then in the case of having harmed someone else, which will most often be the case, then developing