Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A king who wants to protect his feet commissions an impossible project — carpeting his entire kingdom in leather — until a wiser minister proposes simply covering the soles of the king’s feet instead. This parable anchors Ven Jampa Gendun’s contribution to this three-hour open day at Buddha House in Adelaide, illustrating Buddhism’s core premise: training the mind, not rearranging circumstances, is the only workable path to contentment. He identifies ignorance and self-centeredness as the two root dysfunctions, names wisdom and compassion as their antidotes, and leads a guided mindfulness-of-breath meditation. A second presenter walks first-time visitors through the meditation hall’s images, prostrations, and altar offerings. The session closes with a Dutch-born nun speaking candidly about ordination vows, unexpected cravings, and community life at Chenrezig Institute.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 2007 03 25 Intro to Budhhist Thinking.mp3
UUID: 45bcad76-504d-4e12-8f90-6229cef516e3
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Public talks 1988-2010 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2007-03-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 180.5 minutes
Words: ~19,353
Oh, Can you hear me okay? My name is Jampa. That was a name that was given to me many years ago by my teacher when I became a monk. I was a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition for a number of years. About how long has it been?
About nine years ago, I gave up being a monk, but somehow the name stuck. It’s nice because Jampa means love in Tibetan, so everybody’s calling me love. It’s a nice thing. It makes me feel good. I’m going to talk a little bit about Buddhism and try to give you not so much a lot of information, but an overall feeling about what we’re doing in terms of our practice and where we’re trying to go.
And there’s a text which is a compilation of many of the Buddhist teachings, just short sayings. It’s called the Dhammapada. And one of the sayings which resonates most with me, which gives me great meaning for me, is the Buddha: we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
So if we begin to try to understand what the Buddha’s intent was behind that thought, we get the understanding that central to Buddhism is the mind and working with the mind. And I’d like to tell a little story which will give you some orientation, some feeling of the centrality of Buddhism of the mind within Buddhism and how we’re going to work with the mind. It’s a story that takes place in ancient India. And there was a king who was walking about his kingdom. And he stepped on a thorn, and he hurt his foot.
And he went back to his castle or his palace, and he put the royal foot up on the royal throne. And he said, Look, look, look. My foot hurts. He called together all his ministers and said, we have to find a way that I could be protected from sharp stones and thorns and rough objects, and I can walk about my kingdom safely without the danger of harming myself. So the ministers, they thought and they thought and they thought.
And finally one of the clever ones spoke up and they said, I have an idea. Let’s cover all the robes in your kingdom with leather. That way king will be your majesty will be able to walk safely throughout his kingdom, well, without the danger of stepping on thorns and sharp objects and so forth. And the king thought thought, fantastic idea. Let’s do that.
But if you’ve ever been a member of our organization or on a committee, you know, there’s always one member, the treasurer, who puts a damper on the best of ideas. And the treasurer spoke up and said, no, no, no. It won’t work. First off, we don’t have that many cattle in the kingdom to produce that much leather. And moreover, even if we did, it would bankrupt the treasury.
It’s not practically possible. So again, all the ministers, they thought and they thought and thought. And as often the case in such stories, there was an old wise minister present. And she said, I propose that we take a piece of leather and we shape two pieces of leather just exactly to the size exactly to the size of the soles of the king’s feet. And then we take these two pieces of leather and we bind them to the soles of the king’s feet with leather thongs.
In this way, it would be as if we covered your entire kingdom with leather. Your majesty could walk about your kingdom in complete safety without any danger of stepping on sharp stones or thorns and rough objects and so forth. So this little story, I think, is meant to perhaps it has two morals, two ideas that we can draw from it. One of them is perhaps very obvious to us, but it’s sometimes even the most obvious, is oftentimes overlooked or forgotten. And that is we cannot control the world.
And we can’t order the world to run according to our agenda, demand that it meet our particular needs, that it fulfill our particular wishes. Nonetheless. And when we do try, we experience either a sense of rage, stress, tension in our lives, or we experience a sense of powerlessness or a sense of failure because we can’t do the impossible. But there’s another moral to be drawn from this story, which perhaps isn’t so obvious to most of us. If we can control one thing, our own minds, it is as if we can control the world.
You know, that’s all that we can realistically hope to control in our lives, our own inner kingdom, our own inner world, our minds itself. But that, as it turns out, is enough, more than enough to find contentment, fulfillment, peace in your life, and the beneficial way of being in the world with others. The mind is in its place and its way. It can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven. The mind is the determinant of all things.
So this is the orientation of Buddhism, is working directly with our minds. If we’re ever to hope to have any realistic possibility of finding fulfillment and meaning and all the values that we hold dearest to ourselves in our lives. There’s disharmony in demanding that the world be other than the way it is. We want to learn about the way that world actually operates and the nature of our mind and how it operates in order that we can make informed decisions, that we can begin to live in harmony with the laws of nature, the way things are in their true nature. If we don’t, then whatever else it is we may try to do, all the various methods that we’ve learned over the course of our life, the means and the struggles and all that we go through, we’re never going to experience the contentment, the fulfillment that we’re all looking for in one way or another.
We have to harmonize our way of thinking and behaving with the way things are in their true nature. We actually have no choice in this. You know, in a way, in a very real way, the things about us, the people, the situations, the event we find, experience as we go through life, in a real way, are neutral. Like, very much like a knife in the hand of a surgeon. A knife in the hand of a surgeon is life enhancing.
It’s beneficial. It brings about the welfare of others. But that same knife in the hand of a thief or a murderer can bring destruction, can bring a great deal of harm in the world. According to our understanding of the things and the people and the situations about us in accordance with our skills in dealing with them, or, let us say, our lack of understanding or lack of skill in dealing with them, the things about us can bring us happiness and fulfillment, or they can simply bring destruction and unhappiness. We can lead a life of fulfillment, or we can lead a life of emptiness according to our understanding, according to our skills or lack of skills in working with the people and the things and the situations about us.
So the point is this is the basic orientation of Buddhism. Basically, all of us here, we want to be happy. We don’t want to suffer. And there’s the notion within Buddhism that our lives are based on some misperceptions or mistaken ideas or wrong assumptions. And we have to begin to recognize how are those wrong assumptions as wrong ideas and begin to apply methods to begin to develop an understanding and accord our thinking behavior with the way things are if we’re ever to have any realistic hope of finding fulfillment, contentment in our lives.
So the reorientation, the initial reorientation, the shift in our thinking, which is initial to the study of Buddhism, is to begin to see that the fundamental problems of our life are in terms of our own mind, in terms of our values, our beliefs, attitudes, the mental maps, the worldview that we hold. In other words, we begin more and more to look to our own ways of thinking and behaving for the primary causes of both our happiness and our suffering in our lives. Basically, Buddhism is saying we have to change. But, you know, we’re changing anyway. We’re all growing older, aren’t we?
Maybe not much wiser. Maybe our lives aren’t getting any better, even though they’re changing. In fact, our bodies are deteriorating, aren’t they, as we grow older? I notice that about myself, so I can talk about my own experience. Things are changing, but we have to begin to become the authors of that change, begin to take control of the direction of change.
I was listening to the news the other night. There’s a particular news program that comes from America. I’m American, by the way. And there was an interview with a Canadian philosopher by the name of Charles Taylor. He had just won an award called the Templeton Prize, which is awarded once a year for those authors who make the greatest contribution to the development of spiritual spirituality in the world.
By spirituality, it isn’t necessarily that it be a religious a in nature. There’s the idea of secular spirituality. And his theme was, his contribution was in the area of social science. And he said, If we’re going to understand society as social scientists, as politicians, whoever is in a capacity of working with groups of people, we have to think of them not only in terms of economics, not only in terms of politics and social pressures and so forth, but also in terms of meaning. People, whoever they might be, are looking for meaning in their life.
You know, good food and good clothing, clothing, status, power, and so forth aren’t all that drive people. In fact, for many, these are subordinate to finding meaning and fulfillment in their life. So he went on to talk about the interview, asking, well, how would you apply that to the terrorist situation in the world? And first off, he’s tended to criticize the notion that we are, after nineeleven, that we are fighting a war on terrorism. The idea of war, he thought it was overly materialistic not materialistic, militaristic.
And then even these terrorists are trying to find meaning and purpose in their life. You might say, well, it’s a terribly perverted purpose. It’s a wrong meaning. But that’s beside the point. I’m not condoning what they’re doing, but I can understand what they’re doing in a way.
When you begin to analyze it in terms of they’re searching for a meaning and purpose in their lives, something that they hold their life up and brings a sense of value to that helps them have an understanding that in some way their life is worthwhile. What does it mean to live a successful life? We all have to change in some way. We’re all looking at some level for meaning and purpose, fulfillment, whatever values that we hold dearest to ourselves, whatever makes this journey through life worthwhile. We all have a story that we’re telling ourselves about ourselves.
And Buddhism is saying that we have to become the authors of our story, that perhaps we have to begin to rewrite the story of our lives. We define a way that we can become the best person that we could ever hope to be in terms of the quality of our lives, not in what we own or have, but in terms of who we are and what we could be with our lives. We call that a Buddha, the best possible story that we could ever hope to imagine about ourselves and what we could do with our lives, who we could be. That becomes our orientation. And that Buddha is your mind.
There’s an old friend of mine. He’s an eighteenth century Zen monk by the name of Ryokan. He said, Buddha is your mind, and the way goes nowhere. Don’t look for anything but this. If you point your cart north when you want to go south, how will you ever arrive?
And Buddha is your mind. And we stop acting, stop speeding, and perhaps we pause and begin to ask ourselves, what are my priorities? What is important to me as a self actualizing, unique individual? Now, beneath all of the conditioning, all of our taken for granted psychologies and ideologies, beneath all of our religious indoctrination, beneath all the shoulds and ought tos of our lives, beyond our self deception, our sense of self, our ignorance? What is important to me?
What brings meaning and purpose, makes me feel good about myself, and what am I doing with my life? These are important questions. So we have to change, perhaps, perhaps. What is it that we have to change? Buddha is your mind.
That is to say, we no longer seek the fundamental solutions to the problems of the human condition outside of ourselves, but more and more in terms of the quality of our mind and how we behave in this world. We have to begin to change our minds if we’re ever going to begin to live out that Buddhist story. And we don’t have to say Buddha. Christ story. We don’t even have to say Christ.
No. Your paradigm of sanity. A Buddha is simply someone who experiences unremitting peace within themselves and out of compassion skillfully works with others to help them to experience the same. And there have been many, many, many individuals who have done that. Whether we call them a Buddha or not, it really isn’t that important.
But what is important is that we live out that story and begin to become the authors of our lives, that we begin to rewrite, take control. And this process of taking control occurs by change in our minds. If you want to go north and you’re heading your cart south, how are you ever going to get there? Is what you’re doing in your everyday life supporting the best possible person that you want to become? This is something that you have to ask within your own selves, within your own dimly inner lit world of your own mind.
As far as Buddhism is concerned, this is the Buddhist analysis of where we have to change, basically. We’ve all had our dreams, our aspirations at some time in our life. Maybe we’ve been worn down. Maybe we’ve become tired. Maybe we’ve lost sight.
Maybe we have to begin to resurrect this Buddhist story or this story about this person that we could be, these castles that we’ve all dreamed of at some time in our life, and begin to place some kind of realistic foundation beneath those dreamed of possibilities of our life. We have to actually do something. We have to do some kind of work. Sincerity is not enough to be happy in life, to be fulfilled. It’s sad, but it’s the case.
We actually have to do something. We have to act. In terms of what the prescription of Buddhism, this diagnosis of our problems, we have two basic dysfunctional patterns within our mind. We call these ignorance and self centeredness. These are our basic problems.
These are what we have to address begin to recognize and begin to work with in some realistic fashion using some methods and means. So as long as ignorance and self centeredness remain dominant in our lives, regardless of whatever else it is we may do with our lives, whatever we may achieve in the world, we’re never going to find the happiness that we’re all looking for. They are the real life threatening diseases of our life. Okay, let’s talk about these. And I’m going to talk about them in a very brief manner.
These are difficult subjects. They need to be gone into depth and by someone who knows what they’re talking about, not me. So fortunately, we have a teacher who does know what he’s talking about. So by all means, if you become interested, there’s possibilities for pursuing these ideas in a fruitful manner. But I’m just going to introduce the ideas to you, Okay?
Ignorance. Here, we’re talking about a misperception. There is a sense of a thinker thinking our thoughts, a feeler feeling our feelings, a doer behind our deeds. There’s a sense that we believe in and perceive an unchanging, independently existing, permanent self or I. We have a sense of feeling.
At the core of our being there’s a solid self. Out of this arises a distinction between self and others. Then we go on to develop a sense of attachment to that which enhances the self, the I, and we develop aversion to that which is seen as threatening, which somehow appears to detract from the sense of I. All sense this as being normal. When we reflect upon our desires, our hatreds, we see that they all are generated within a conception of oneself as being very solid.
And due to this comes a strong distinction between self and other. When we look at the way we suffer and the way that we normally think and we react emotionally to life, it is as if we believe the self to be a partless whole, enduring in an unchanging manner, existing independently of body and mind. This is a very difficult idea to come to grips with. We don’t even notice it, and we take it for granted. When you become extremely angry, I can’t stand you.
Will you get away from me? There’s something there, almost something very real and solid inside you which is under threat. And what we want to do is begin to take notice of that and begin to shine the light of our own wisdom and to see if we can, in fact, if that’s able to understand, if that’s able to bear the light of investigation, of wisdom, of truth. There’s a basic notion in Buddhism, which I think gives me a good feeling, a great confidence in Buddhism, is the notion that the truth that is, the way things are in their actual nature the more we investigate it, the closer we come to it, the more obvious and apparent it becomes to us. On the other hand, what is falsity?
What is the basis of mistake? The more we investigate it, the closer we come to it, the less solid it appears, the more transparent, the more vague it appears till finally it disappears. Buddhism is saying we don’t have to accept any dogma. But we have to begin to investigate areas that perhaps have gone unnoticed up to now, many in terms of our ideas, attitudes, some of our wrong conceptions. One of these most basic wrong conceptions we call ignorance, a wrong belief about the nature of the I.
Out of this arises all the various afflictive emotions. By afflictive emotions, I mean emotions such as anger, hatred, spite, jealousy. There’s said to be eighty four thousand of them. I’ve almost gotten to eighty four thousand. I’ve been counting them in my own experience.
These are the causes of all our various sufferings, these various afflictive emotions. So this is one area we have to work with in terms of developing a wisdom, but most specifically, a wisdom which understands the actual nature of the I. The other area of our dysfunctional nature of our thinking patterns and by dysfunctional, I mean ways of thinking that actually don’t work to our own best interests or the interests of others. But nonetheless, they’re a habit. We persist in thinking and behaving according to these ways of thinking.
The other basic dysfunctional pattern of our mind is self centeredness. It’s this tendency of our minds whereby the world is perceived, evaluated, and responded to, not how the people and things and situations exist in and for themselves, but how they exist for me and my purposes. Supported by ignorance, self centeredness involves making the self, the I, absolute to the exclusion and oftentimes at the expense of others. People are viewed as insentient objects in our environment as my own personal collection of resources. Everyone and everything is sacrificed at the altar of a cherished self of self centeredness.
Everyone and everything is seen only in terms of its constant demands for gratification. Self centeredness, selfishness. Me first. I’m the center of the universe. I’m one attitude that we bring to all situations, all our relationships.
This is the way that we view our world. Under the control of self centeredness, we all try to take advantage of others in some way or another, in some means or other, no matter how subtle or obvious it might appear to oneself or others. It’s as if out of all the beings in the uniquely want to be happy, who only want not to suffer. Almost the entire world is built upon self centeredness and a concern only with ourselves. Racism, classism, sexism, big countries overwhelm small countries.
Big children take candy away from small children. I see somebody as benefiting me so I make them my friend. I see somebody else as being threatening me in some way, so I make them my enemy. I see all the risks, the great bulk of humanity, as not having anything to do with my welfare at all. I could care less.
I feel indifferent to all these strangers in the world. But we have to stop and ask ourselves. And does it work? This is me first, number one, center of the universe approach? Does it actually have any payoff?
Does it bring us the happiness that we want in our life? A life founded upon self centeredness is a life essentially dedicated above all else to me. My needs, my wants, my agenda, my everything. However else it might appear to you and to me, it is I who to be happy. It is I who is not to suffer.
And you are going to do this all for me. And in this process, we devalue others. We objectify others. We exploit others. And in the process of objectifying, devaluing, exploiting others, we objectify our self.
We devalue ourselves. We exploit ourselves. We manipulate ourselves. We constantly involve with defending, comparing. You know, we manipulate, competing.
Inevitably, we end up alone, unable to trust, unable to understand another person, unable to love. Basically, we live in fear because of our self centeredness. We don’t have to talk about Buddhism, religion. You just have to check up on your own experience. And this is me first, I’m number one, center of the universe.
Doesn’t actually bring you the happiness that you hope it will. After all the blood, sweat, and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our lives, where are we in our lives? Have we actually advanced that much farther in finding contentment and fulfillment in our lives? Are we pretty much where we started off in spite of all the struggle that we’ve expended over the course of our lives. You know, if you want to look at where your problems are coming from, don’t look at outside of yourself.
Look within your own mind in terms of ignorance, misconceiving the nature of the I, the self, out of which all these negative patterns of thinking come about, hatred, attachment, miserliness, jealousy, so forth, and our own self centeredness. These are the real sources to our problems on a deeper level. And I’m not saying that we are to run away into a cave or that we can’t take advantage of the good life. Nice clothing, relationships with significant others, a nice house, a good job. These all make up a successful life, a happy life, a good life.
Good life. But we can’t neglect our own inner mind. It’s interesting because there’s a movement in our society toward becoming more conscious of, for example, of taking care of your body, of your diet, for example, lowering your cholesterol, for example, watching what you eat, don’t eat so much junk food, doing yoga exercises, jogging. Hopefully, the next movement of our society will be to take care of our mind as well. We can’t neglect our own mind.
This is kind of the centrality of where Buddhism is coming from. What is it that brings about these changes that we’re talking about in terms of these two dysfunctional patterns of our mind, ignorance and self centeredness? What changes these patterns, thereby bringing the pain of our life to an end, thereby bringing the possibility of real fulfillment and happiness in our life, is the compassion wisdom of an awakened mind. In terms of this wisdom of the awakened mind, without the teachings of selflessness, Buddhism could not go beyond psychotherapy. Psychotherapy tries to make adjustments in the nature of the self, the I.
It tries to prune the branches of our misconceptions of what it means to be normal, what it means to be a sane, what it means to be a worthwhile person. But it’s the aim of the practice of selflessness which aims at cutting the root, namely our deeply unexamined, mistaken belief about what it means to be a person at all. So we have this term selflessness in Buddhism. Now, I wouldn’t want you to go away with a mistake. I created more confusion, then I would not be of any benefit to you.
So when we talk, Buddhism talks about selflessness. It’s not as if the self doesn’t exist. I am talking to you. You’re listening to me. I don’t know.
Anyway, that I, that self, the I which is sitting here is not a problem to anybody, more or less. What is the problem is the I which does not exist, but which we, at a deeper level of our being, conceive to exist, believe to exist, an unchanging, permanent, independent self. And why do we fear death so much? When somebody says, Jampa, you’re so stupid. Why do I feel so hurt?
What is actually being threatened by that statement? We have to begin to ask ourselves. So it’s not the I in general. It is there is a self which we believe to exist, which in fact has never existed. So that is the selflessness.
Selflessness means nonexistent, not the self exists in general. So it is the wisdom of the awakening mind. When we begin to examine closely the nature of the self, we can begin to diminish ignorance, just like hot and cold water. As the hot water increases, the wisdom arises, our ignorance begins to decrease until such a time arises that ignorance is completely eliminated from the mind. We have various classes of emotions, don’t we?
We have positive emotions, negative emotions. And these are antithetical to one another, contradictory to one another. In one mind, at the same time, toward the same person, we cannot have both hatred and love. If the moment you are angry at this particular person, at that moment you cannot be loving them. Anger says, I want you to suffer.
I want to hurt you. Love says, I want you to be happy. I want to benefit you. So as one increases, the other necessarily decreases. Now, it’s one of the basic notions of Buddhism is that none of these patterns are intrinsic to the mind itself.
They are what we call adventitious. Just like usually I have a glass of water here. I can take that. This is a glass of water. Visualize a glass of water.
It’s polluted. No matter how much garbage might be in that water, we can find a method to remove those pollutants. And we’re left with crystal clear, pure water. The nature of the water has remained unchanged. It’s just simply due to the pollutants that that clear, pure nature of water was not apparent to ourselves.
But those pollutants never were in the nature of the water, nor did they in some way become damage the integrity of the water. We’re still left with pure H2O, likewise within our mind. The great possibility of change in our mind is that simply if we can begin to develop these antidotes, these positive qualities in the mind to such an extent that we can completely remove from our mind all of the negative states. We can remove all the various problems from our mind. I am not the problem.
The problem are simply various dysfunctional patterns within my mind. The other dysfunctional pattern is self centeredness. The antidote, the way in which we can reduce self centeredness and finally eliminate completely from our minds, is by the development of compassion, the compassion of an awakened heart. So Buddhism is saying, we need to begin to take control of our lives, begin to see where our problems are actually coming from, and begin to actually become the best possible person that we can become. We call that a Buddha.
Now, diagnosis of how we are to bring that about is in terms of the development of wisdom and compassion. And these are likened to two wings of a bird. A bird needs two wings to fly. Likewise, we need loving hearts and wise minds, an integration of both our affective and intellectual capacities in order to bring about the fullest possible potential of who we can be, bringing about the Buddhist story into some kind of reality. So this is kind a rough idea of the orientation of Buddhism, where it’s trying to take us and some of the methods that we’re trying to develop and work with.
Do you have any questions, anything you’d like to share on what I’ve said? Yeah. Where does God fit in? It’s a good question. It it all of all of I all of what I’ve explained thus far, we don’t there’s no we don’t have to take recourse to a divine being.
All of what I described in terms of the nature of our problems, how to eliminate those problems, and the nature of the goal and how to achieve that goal, all of that can be achieved within the capacity of a human being. So we can You know, we could probably argue about, well, what do we mean by God? Does God exist or not? But the fact is we can’t argue about the simple truth that we all want to be happy and we don’t want to suffer. And that’s pretty there’s a lot of unanimity on that.
We all probably agree to that. So Buddhism is a pragmatic approach. The Buddha used the standard of suffering and happiness in setting out his doctrine. We can find complete happiness. We can remove all our suffering by means of the resources of our own mind.
Whether God exists or not, we’ll leave that to the side. Got out of that one, didn’t I? What is the Buddhist philosophy on on pain and misfortune and suffering? Oh, wow. That’s a that’s a good question.
It’s not a good thing. So So I think, basically, if our way of thinking, if our beliefs, our attitudes, our worldview are not in keeping with the way things are in their true nature, that discrepancy directly or indirectly will be experienced as dissatisfaction in all its various forms. You know, Buddha, there’s a word, there’s a Sanskrit word called dukkha. And it’s the very first teaching he gave after his enlightenment at Deer Park. He gave a teaching which he set out the general principles of his doctrine called the Four Noble Truths.
And the very first truth and by truth, I mean simply a fact, the fact of suffering. And he used the word dukkha. But he used the word it’s been translated into English as dissatisfaction or suffering. But actually it meant, at that time, a wheel that rubs on its axle. There’s a misfit.
And that misfit, that is our ideas and our beliefs and therefore how we relate with the world, they’re not in keeping with the world as it actually is. There’s a disharmony, a discrepancy. And there’s kind of a misfit. And life wears us down. It wounds us.
It causes us suffering. So we’re ever to no matter what we may do in this situation, as long as that misfit persists, no matter whether we try to become the master of the world and however successful we might be at that, we still are going to experience some level of dissatisfaction. We have no choice but to begin to align our ways of thinking and our ways of relating with the way things actually are. Then we can begin to experience some kind of harmony. The misfit begins to be removed.
Our life eases up. It’s more fluid. It’s more flexible. It flows easier. The impediment is gone.
So that’s basically what we have to do. Yes? Can you do anything when you see other people thinking that happiness is getting things? You don’t understand. Am I making myself clear?
Yes. So it’s not so much the things and the people and the situations about us which are our problems, but our beliefs and our attitudes towards the things which are problematic. And so so I think you’re right. I think we all want to make a contribution to the world at some level. But unless we begin to put our own house in order, our contribution to the world might be further chaos.
But once we begin to straighten up and it’s not a matter of eitheror. It’s a matter of degree. The more I am, the more I have to give, even if only as a model of another possibility of being a a way of leading a successful life in this world. So it’s a matter of beginning at home with oneself. Then I think the rest will come naturally.
Or not. What do you think? I don’t know. That’s not my question. I know quite a few younger generations now, and as you say.
So Yeah. And and in other words, if you follow the Buddhism, just worry, should you just So there’s a on outside of this door maybe there’s a frame quotation by the Dalai Lama outside in the storage room. Yeah. As you walk in the door, it’s on your left. So I’m I’m going to use this as a reference.
Yeah. It has a Yeah. Should we bring it? You wanna bring it? So this I enjoy reading this quote.
Says this is a quote by the Dalai Lama. He says, I believe the purpose of life is to be happy, and the greatest degree of inner happiness comes from the development of love and compassion. So I think we have a right to be happy. It’s our innate desire to be happy and not to suffer. And to the degree that we develop love and compassion, we will be that much happier.
But we don’t want to simply be the blind leading the blind. Good intentions are really important, but they in themselves are not enough. We also have to develop wisdom. And I think maybe that’s what you’re talking about, how to relate skillfully with others. Want to Yeah.
You want to generally have genuine desire to help others. So there’s no that in itself is worthy of a lifelong struggle to achieve that, even that thought. But over and over that, we have to have have some realistic tools, means to make that desire an actuality, to actually be able to benefit others. We need some kind of wisdom. So there are the various levels of wisdom, and we begin to find skillful means.
So I mean, this is part of the entirety of the Buddhist path. To equip us, to first, to develop ourselves, again, is not an eitheror. It’s simply a matter of progressing through this possibility. A Buddha is somebody who has developed bodhicitta. Or in Sanskrit, it’s bodhicitta.
And bodhicitta has two aspirations. One of them is to benefit others. But that’s not quite enough. The other is to develop the maximum capacity, abilities to be able to benefit others. So want to the more we not only want to help others, but we know that we have to work on ourselves order to be able to effectively help others.
So we call that aspiration bodhicitta, or to achieve awakening or enlightenment for the sake of others. So it’s kind of a dual aspiration, isn’t it? We have to develop. We want to help others, but we have to help ourselves to be able to actually do that, in fact. But as far as materialism is concerned, materialism has been around for three thousand years.
It’s nothing new, particularly to our society. Even in the Buddhist time, materialism was current thinking in those days. Is life a serious business? When people use the word serious, I get a bit afraid. I call it sincere.
Sincere. Carefully and lighthearted people feel happier than people who are serious. I agree. Look at the Dalai Lama up here. He’s very sincere but he’s also happy and joyful.
Yeah, I would agree. Okay. Thank you very much for your patience and kindness. Okay. Can can you guys hear me if I just talk like that?
Just put your hand up. Anyway. So, hi everyone. My name is Shaila and, this session is about just generally welcoming you to the Gompa, which is actually a meditation hall in Tibet. And it’s just my idea for it was just to make you feel a bit more relaxed when you come in here, and I thought to sort of do a bit like question and answer type session so that because I know a lot of people.
I was brought up with Buddhism here in Adelaide and so I was fortunate after sort of this seems pretty normal to me coming into this sort of room with all these strange figures and things. And so my idea was just for you guys to ask any questions that you want and I’ll try and answer them as much as I can. And just also any of the basic things about Buddhism that you want to know like, I suppose, taking off your shoes and things like that. People often wonder why we’re doing that. And sometimes you’ll see people doing prostrations or sort of some strange looking things.
If you’ve got questions about anything, and really I’m open to any questions that you’ve got and I’ll try to answer them as much as I can. Yes, so I don’t know if you’ve got anything particular at the moment or else I can just talk for a little while and then whatever comes up. I do. It’s actually a traditional Asian tradition is to take off your shoes when you come into a room. It’s more a form of respect, basically, in Tibet and places like that it’s very dirty and wet outside and in the snow.
So when you come into a room which they consider sort of sacred or special, they actually take them off inside their houses as well. It’s pretty much the same sort of thing. So that’s the idea. What about these pictures on the walls? Did anyone is it maybe I’ll find out.
Are people pretty new to Boulder House? Who’s the first time coming here? Oh, cool. Well, welcome. It’s good it’s good to see so many people coming.
And is this the first time to, like, a Buddhist center for many people? Yep. So okay. Well, then these are all probably pretty weird. You might have seen them on the TV and stuff occasionally, but I’ll go through basically what the room is.
So the idea of a meditation room is for people to sort of come in and feel very comfortable and settled and relaxed and just want to learn how to be more calm within themselves. So everything that you see in this room, although they look pretty strange, they all represent a different way to like mind training basically. Ways to train your mind in being more calm and compassionate to other people. So it’s not don’t feel too daunted when you see this, especially like this image up here that’s got the knife. You know, I think that’s the one that freaks most people out the most.
And that actually it’s Tibetan Buddhist deity which represents wisdom. And the knife actually just represents cutting away your ignorance. So that’s all what it is. Don’t think of it as too violent or anything like that. They’re just actually representations, like physical representations of aspects of your mind.
So I’ll sort of go through a few of them. And I think am I loud enough? So this one here, I’ve actually made little things all up around them, which actually represent a bit more what they are in the labels. So you can go around and have a look. But the main one, this one, her name’s Tārā.
And so she’s a representation of a mother, like a Buddhist mother type figure. And if you see, she’s got her right leg step out in front. And she’s they call her, like, action mother. So the representation of your mind to feel like a mother, the compassionate one, you do anything for everyone. So the idea of standing out is so that she’d get up in a second to help anyone.
So that’s the idea of her. So basically, all these figures around here are just representations of your mind. And so you look at them not actually praying to them like a god or anything. It’s actually just thinking that that’s what I want to be like. I’d love to get that aspect in my mind.
So hold around. This is Medicine Buddha. So often people think of him when they’re sort of sick or ill or say their mantra and things like that. And a mantra is just actually a way of sort of getting the speech to the Buddha like that. And it just is another mind training aspect as well.
There’s lots of them, but I won’t go through them all. Don’t know. Does anyone know what water bowls are? I would think it’s pretty strange that there’s some water just sitting on these altars. Basically, the idea of water bowls to sort of it’s mind another mind training thing.
So basically, the idea is that you offer water as an aspect of, like, a giving. And you give water because not many people are attached to water. But now I suppose in South Australia, we’re starting to get a bit more attached to water with our water restrictions. But basically, idea is they’re actually you mentally think of something else that you offer when you do it. So it’s a practice of generosity.
And the idea is that they represent different things. So when you’re pouring this one, you figure you think of like water for drinking with some delicious waters. Water for washing your feet. Now this is actually a traditional Tibetan thing, like what I mentioned before. So it’s like, you know, after a long journey, you’re a bit grubby.
So it’s like a shower or a nice bath or something. And I sort of turn around to being a bit like, I don’t know, almost like a date or someone coming over that you know, you really respect that you want to come. And so what would you offer them basically? So you’d offer them like something nice to drink. And then you’d say, oh you’ve been on a long trip.
So you came from Melbourne. Or do want a shower or something like that? Drink. Flowers is the next one. So you put some nice flowers out at your home.
Incense, and that’s just a nice smell. Lights, nice candles or something like that. And then perfume and food is all that they are. So when you’re seeing these sort of things, that’s all it is. It’s nothing bigger than that.
It’s just basically an idea of mind training, ways to train your mind into being more generous and things like that. So just play around. What else have we In here are actually all the sutras, which are the traditional Tibetan texts that the Buddha actually has said back in the Śākyamūni’s era, two thousand five hundred years ago, and they’ve written them into text. So these are some of the texts that there are. Obviously, there are a lot more than that.
But South Australia, actually, we have one of the biggest ranges of the text here. But and they’re all actually in Tibetan scriptures, so we can’t read them. But our Geshe here, who is a Tibetan teacher, and he’s up here, he can read he’s able to read them. And so he when he teaches, he teaches directly from them. I think I just I don’t know.
When you walk into the and see images like this, you often think, wow. It’s pretty full on, I think. So, basically, it’s not like that at all. It’s Buddha, who was here two thousand five hundred years ago, was just like any one of us, although he was a prince other than that. It’s pretty normal.
He the I’ve shortened his life in, two seconds. Basically, was a prince, and he found that he was not happy being a prince. And he thought there was a bit more out there in life. And he saw people saw someone that was old, someone sick, someone dying, and he saw a, like, a teacher, sort of a a spiritual teacher at the same time. And he thought even though I’m a prince, I’ll still get old.
I’ll still get sick. I’ll still die. So he thought there’s gotta be a way to find happiness and get out of that. So basically, he then left the the palace, went out into the real world, and decided to become a spiritual person. And he became an ascetic for, I think, it’s seven years.
I’m just seeing there’s often a picture of him as an aesthetic around, but I’m not sure. But it’s seven. Like, it’s they just don’t eat, basically. They think that maybe because he had everything as a prince, and then after he decided they had nothing, then maybe that’s happiness. So he went to the other extreme.
And often there’s a picture and he’s really skinny, and they call him the skinny Buddha. So that’s how I still find him. But basically and then he did that for seven years and found that didn’t make him happy at all. He was still gonna get sick, get old, and still die. So really what’s the point?
So he went to both extreme. And so then he decided, okay. I’m gonna go sit under a tree. He was in India at the time. I’m gonna go sit under a tree and meditate and control my mind, and then hopefully, I’ll try and find the right way.
So he decided to do the middle way, and that’s what Buddhism is. Basically, it’s it’s free of the two extremes of having nothing and having everything. So it’s sort of angled there. And basically, he sat under the tree and for three days and meditated, controlled his mind, and basically reached enlightenment. And that’s the aim of all Buddhists all Buddhists is to reach enlightenment like he did.
And enlightenment is just the pure mind. It’s basically what he had. He’s still, you know, a human being after that. Like, he didn’t become a god, this crazy amazing figure. Just like the Dalai Lama.
They they say he’s enlightened as well. So it’s just it’s it’s not as big deal as it is, and it’s not like a god figure or anything like that. Suppose that’s what I’m just trying to basically sum up. But so that was who the Buddha is, and that’s who this is. And then the others are just other aspects of his mind that are all all around, and they’re just a different form of mind training.
And that’s really all that is is different forms of mind training. So everything that you see when you sort of walk into this room represent different ways of training your mind. So is there any questions? Keep chatting away. You might see I suppose if people come here on other days before teaching, I can sort of tell you what happens then.
You’ll see that people walk in and they take off their shoes outside, and then they come and sit down. And you might see some people doing prostrations, which I remember when I first saw it. I was a bit like, oh, that’s a bit odd. What are they doing? So basically, all a prostration is is someone going just like this, and they just do that three times.
But obviously, that looks a bit weird. So all of that is is a form of, like, respect or bowing in a traditional form to the Buddha. And everything that they’re doing actually is different symbols of what they’re doing, like holding their hands together, holding them, touching the crown of their head, the forehead, or crown of their head, the forehead, throat, and their heart, and then they just touch the ground and their head to the ground. So it’s a form of respect, and that’s all that it is. Can you repeat that for a slow time?
Sorry. Can you repeat So it’s the the crown of your head and your forehead, then your throat or your mouth around there, and then your heart. And then you touch they call it a five point finger. Get back here. You might be able to see.
So you there’s a lot of different forms of prostrations, but and then you touch five points. So your knees, both your knees, both your hands, and your head to the ground. So that’s all it is. It’s like here, here, and then back up. And that’s all it is.
And there’s longer ones that they do, and, like, it can get quite traumatic. There’s lots of different things that they can do. But that’s all that it basically is. And another form of prostration is just to do that. That’s exactly the same thing.
Some people like to do that, so that’s all the issue. And normally, they do it three times. Today, there’s a lot of numbers. I don’t know. You probably hear more about this.
But, basically, three is Chenrezig or Avalokiteśvara. He actually has a thousand arms which represent being able to help as many beings. So if you think what would you need if you were like the ultimate compassionate being, a thousand arms would make life a lot easier so that you could actually get out there and do much as you can. And then each arm has different things on them, and he also has eleven heads so he can see every all the different things out there and what actually who needs helping and stuff like that. So that’s actually all that it represents.
Because when you come in here, you think, oh, that’s a bit weird. But that’s all that it is. And then there’s representation of the ultimate universe. So it’s it’s a, like, a mind representation. And so you’ll sometimes see before a teaching, they do this physical mandala in their hands, which is sort of the idea is when you offer a mandala, and it’s like an offering to your teacher.
And, basically, you put in everything that you can mentally, anything that you’re attached to. So you offer your friends, your family, you know, all your possessions, everything. And you imagine thinking, I would really like to give this to you because a big aspect of generosity would be to give, like, your ultimate anything And, obviously, everything is very has huge explanations. Like, you could actually go to a teaching on just, like, the Buddha statue for a month in itself. Like, just nonstop.
Every little piece there, there’s, like, different qualities to everything. Like, his big ear lobes represent generosity. The way that Hi. So we’re going to do some meditation together and I’m just going to I I always feel a bit uncomfortable about trying to explain meditation in five minutes. I’m still trying to figure out what it is but maybe we can experiment with it and I can share some some of the essential features of what I see meditation as.
Can you hear me Okay? Lama Zopa, I think his name has been mentioned quite a number of times today, who’s the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahāyāna tradition. He talks about meditation. He says meditation is the way that we take care of our mind. And I mentioned in my talk earlier that we spend a lot of time on our body. You know, these days people are becoming much more aware of their body, at least, and to some degree their mind.
People are concerned with their diet and getting plenty of exercise, going for walks, doing yoga, tai chi, and so forth. So people are becoming aware of how we take care of our body is going to reflect in the quality of our lives. And hopefully we can begin to do the same in terms of our mind. How we take care of our mind is going to also reflect in the quality of our lives. The way that we directly can take care of our minds, you know, there’s various indirect methods.
Taking a walk out in the country, being near nature is a great vehicle to take care of your mind. The type of work we do, various moments of silence, quality relationships with others. But the direct way that we can work with our mind is through meditation. And I think there’s a lot of preconceptions about what meditation is and maybe what it isn’t. And I think if we were going to give an elaborate introduction, I think it would be useful to go through all of those notions and what we bring to the meditation in order to clarify what it is that we’re actually trying to do and what meditation is, in fact, all about.
Meditation is not separate. It’s not an activity which is isolated from all of our views that we bring to the situation, you know, our attitudes and what we’ve learned about it, what we expect. Many of our expectations will probably be unrealistic, which are in keeping with what we can assume to be the case. So I’m just going to talk a few minutes. We’re actually going to do a meditation.
Meditation, I think, foremost of, is a way that we learn about ourselves. You know, we begin to We create the space and the time where we begin to investigate in this dimly lit inner world of ours, this last frontier. People have gone to the moon and now rockets are going to Mars and so forth. We’re exploring the universe. Whereas to a great extent, even in contemporary science today, our inner views, inner universe of our own mind, has been, to a large extent, ignored.
Or it hasn’t been explored to the extent that it can be. And hopefully, the ancient tradition that we’ve been passed down through the wisdom of meditation coming from Śākyamūni Buddha, for example, historical Buddha, we can begin to use these tools of inner exploration to help take care of our minds. The word meditation, it’s a Western word, right? There’s a Sanskrit term and a Pali term, bhavana. Bhavana is related to the syllable bu.
And that has the connotation of bringing or allowing coming into being. It’s like creating the conditions. Just like if you planted a field, you’re creating the conditions, you water it, and you cultivate the soil and everything. And you allow something that wasn’t there to grow. Eventually, you grow a golden harvest.
So it’s allowing something within ourselves, an opportunity to come to fruition, that kind of notion, certain potentialities, potentialities, certain possibilities which exist within our own mind. In the Tibetan, the word for meditation is gom. It has the connotation of familiarization or to accustom. So it’s the idea that we begin to accustom the mind to more productive states, more skillful states of mind. We, again and again, cause these states of mind to arise.
And just like a dry sponge beginning to absorb the moisture about it, our mind becomes more and more habituated, accustomed to these skillful, productive states. And then eventually, it becomes our second nature. It becomes our actual nature. We change. We evolve.
So this is some of the connotations of the actual word of meditation. Now, you all have your expectations, your preconception about what meditation is. And I think we can use meditation at various levels for various purposes. We can use it for both in general the temporary purposes or kind of an ultimate purpose. The state of our mind is reflected in our body, happy, focused, peaceful mind and a contented open heart are conducive to a healthier state of physical well-being.
Happiness. And this, I think, is a useful piece of information, just in general. But also, can see how this is expressed within meditation. Happiness is a natural state of mind. In meditation, we’re not trying to fabricate, trying to construct any type of peace or happiness.
The innate quality of mind is peace. There are presently disturbing factors within the mind. We call them afflictive emotions. They afflict the natural peace of mind. So if we can create the proper conditions whereby these afflictions begin to settle down, begin to calm themselves, then we experience what is in fact the natural state of mind, a state of peace, happiness.
The idea of accustoming. In some sense, we all are meditating most of the time. And by that, I mean we all the use of the Tibetan term, to accustom, to familiarize, we are constantly familiarizing our minds with particular states, with particular objects. It’s no big deal. There’s nothing new to any of us.
The trouble is, most of the states of mind that we’re familiarizing ourselves with, most of the objects that we accustom our mind to, are unproductive, are unskillful, are causing us a lot of problems. So we can begin, in meditation, we can begin to refocus our attention toward states of mind, more healthy states of mind, more skillful objects and so forth. Those are some of the temporal possibilities. Ultimately, if we were to use meditation in order to achieve its most far reaching goal, we can achieve liberation. I mean, I think when you first hear that, oh, what’s he going on about?
These Buddhists, they’re talking a bunch of nonsense. It’s possible. Once we begin to understand the nature of the mind, we can see that, and I mentioned this in my talk just previously that these disturbing factors within the mind and the various afflictive emotions, but most basically the root of all the afflictive emotions, ignorance, can be removed from the mind. These afflictive patterns are not in the very nature of mind. And therefore, if we can develop an antidote through our meditation, by developing that wisdom which counteracts ignorance, ignorance can be moved in such a way that it can never return again.
If you remove ignorance from the mind, you remove all the various states of mind which arise in dependence upon ignorance, all the various afflictive emotions: hatred, jealousy, spite, attachment, and so forth. Therefore, we can remain in the world. We can have significant relationships. We can have all the goodies of the world. At the same time, our mind will remain undisturbed.
We can experience inner contentment, inner peace, but still remain in the world. That’s the possibility of liberation. The ultimate function of meditation and maybe this is beyond my thinking, but at least I should mention it is to attain Buddhahood. The source of our present teachings is the historical Buddha, Śākyamūni Buddha, who lived about two thousand five hundred years ago. It is a fundamental notion or principle within Buddhism that each of us and by I mean every single individual in this room and outside this room has the same potential to achieve that same level of realization, attainment.
That is to say, we all can achieve Buddhahood. And that Buddhahood would be no different than Śākyamūni Buddha’s. There’s no uncrossable gap between ourselves and the enlightened state, the awakened state, the achievement of Śākyamūni Buddha. It’s only a matter of degree. It’s not a matter of quality or kind.
We can close that gap. We can actually achieve that in. Maybe that sounds at present unimaginable, but Buddhism holds that goal as possible. So these are some of the possibilities in terms of meditation, from temporary possibilities of simply beginning to understand our mind, begin to understand how to operate our mind, and thereby begin to experience less stress, less tension in our lives, to find some kind of peace and contentment in your everyday life, all the way up to the achievement, the same achievement, equal achievement of Śākyamūni Buddha, historical Buddha. Now within meditation there are two overall types meditation.
There are analytic meditations and stabilizing meditations. Probably in the Western tradition, analytic meditation is generally would be more thought of as contemplation or reflection. But it is an extremely important area of meditation within the Buddhist system. Analytic meditation, it uses the mind’s capacity for investigation of an object. It actively pursues a line of reasoning or a way of observing, which examines the way that we think and the way that we perceive things.
So learning to see things in other ways, through reflecting on them, through contemplating them, gradually leads us to understand and feel about them differently. We change our views, our ideas, our attitudes. There’s another area of meditation. It’s called stabilizing meditation. It’s a concentrative practice.
Enhances the mind’s ability to remain placed upon a single object, allowing for increased clarity, for intensity, for accuracy of perception. We begin to see, understand things very clearly. All of these are methods that we can work with. In Buddhism, and especially with independent tradition, it’s like a whole supermarket of meditations, innumerable possibilities. We’re all very different.
We all have various tendencies, interests, capacities, predispositions. So in that sense, we’re all very unique. So as we begin to learn about what are on those shelves, when you go in a supermarket, you don’t have to buy everything that’s on the shelves. You take down what is of use for you, useful you for that particular time, for that particular day. If you have some problem that you find acute, you can begin to use a particular meditation which is applicable, which helps you to work with that particular problem the way that we care for our mind.
I want to talk about a very fundamental meditation that we can all make use of. It is a simple minded way to become sane. We can do this in our everyday lives. Anybody can do this. And this is a simple meditation of mindfulness of breath.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about and we’re actually going to do. I would preface what I’m going to say with I think it needs some education around it in terms of various supportive techniques, an explanation of the context in which it’s being done. But I think we can do it itself in a very simple manner. And I think it will be helpful. We’re going to be mindful of the breath.
Okay? That’s our primary object. Now, what by breath? You can’t see the breath. Breath is something that comes in and out of the lungs, in and out of your nostrils, and so forth.
But what we can begin to focus on is the physical sensations associated with the natural breath. Okay. I just want to emphasize one thing in what I just said, natural. We’re not trying to adjust the breath in any way. Whatever breath is there, that’s the one we’re going to work with.
Short breath, long breath, it’s just breath. There are certain physical sensations associated with the natural breathing. For example, there’s the overall physical sensation of perhaps your abdomen rising and falling, your chest lifting and dropping, maybe your clothes rubbing against your skin as you breathe in and out. You can take all of those various tactile physical sensations in general as the focus of your awareness. But I think you look like a very advanced bunch, so I’m going to go a little bit further.
Okay? We can begin to narrow down the area of our focus down to a space on the upper lip, just below the nostrils. There’s a sensation that you can find of the air rushing in and out on your upper lip, the tactile sensation. To help you find it, you can breathe. This is the only time that you would breathe unnaturally.
Just breathe out with a lot of strength, intensity a few times just to help you find this spot. And I’ll pass around Kleenexes. Okay. That will help you locate the spot. If you, you know, having done that, if you can’t, still can’t find it, then just focus upon the general sensation associated with the natural breathing.
Okay? There’s a lot, you know, Okay, there’s a lot we need to talk about. But we’re going to make this sort a taste of meditation. But there is one thing that I’d like to emphasize. Meditation is the way that we care for our mind.
It’s the way that we help ourselves. We can’t allow our meditation to be a means for failure, to set ourselves up for finding ourselves insufficient, another way that we can let ourselves down. We don’t want to replicate a lot of repressive ways of being with ourselves in our meditation. And we’ve done enough harm to ourselves. This is meant to help ourselves.
So there’s no possibility of failure in meditation. It’s just like the analogy that I use is that of training a puppy. The reason you get a puppy is to enjoy, to be happy. And you want to develop a happy, healthy relationship with the puppy. And you’re training your puppy.
Some kind of discipline is necessary if you’re going to have a good relationship, if you’re going to gain enjoyment through having this dog. So the puppy doesn’t you’re going to have to, first off, probably paper train the puppy. Now, as far as I know, they haven’t figured out a way to insert a gene in the the puppy DNA, whereby they’re born and they know exactly they have to scratch at the door to get out when they have to go to the toilet. There’s some training process. Some kind of discipline is necessary.
You get a piece of paper, for example, and you put the puppy on the paper. The puppy doesn’t know what a piece of paper is, let alone what it’s supposed to do on that piece of paper. The puppy has a certain level of intelligence, dog intelligence. And you have to kind of respect that. So there’s going to be a process of learning that takes place.
And you want positive reinforcement. You want to make this a happy experience the dog enjoys you and you enjoy the dog. So you know the puppy has to pee, for example. And you put the puppy on the piece of paper. And the puppy is curious.
It runs around. It’s still excited about life. So it runs off the piece of paper. But you know it has to pee. So you bring it back to the paper with great gentleness and patience again and again and again.
You bring it back to the paper. And one time it pees on the paper. And you scratch it behind the ears. It likes that. It makes it feel good.
So it begins to associate positive feelings with peeing on the paper. And you keep doing this with gentleness and patience. And you keep reinforcing. Reinforcing and it’s a classical conditioning, isn’t it its association with pleasant feelings, peeing on the paper. And then pretty soon it goes to the paper all by itself.
You don’t even have to do it. What happens if you get uptight with a puppy? You get impatient with a puppy. Things don’t go very well, either for you or the puppy. What’s the use of having a puppy?
The relationship isn’t going to work. So likewise with your mind. Our primary focus is upon these natural sensations associated with the breath. We’re going to focus our attention. We’re going to place our mind upon the breath.
These sensations, if you can, narrow it down to the the tactile sensations on the upper lip. Now, as far as I know, if you’re like me, your mind’s going to wander. It’s going to be distracted. It might be distracted to external objects, maybe sounds outside, cars pulling up in the parking lot. It might be distracted to the sound of the air conditioner.
It might somebody’s coughing next to you, somebody smells. We won’t talk about that. Somebody pain, Okay? Your knees are starting to hurt. Or maybe it’s thought.
Fantasies about the future, memories about the past. Lots of possibilities. That’s Okay. The presence or absence of thoughts, sensations, feelings is not the problem. There’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s our response which is going to determine whether we’re going to make meditation work for ourselves or not. So simply, when your mind wanders and this is what you have to do for yourself, and no one else can do this for you you have to set the determination. The moment my mind has wandered from the object, the sensations of the breath, I’m going to bring it back to the breath. If you found you’ve been wandering for the last five minutes, that’s Okay. But that first moment that you realize, that you become aware that your mind has wandered, bring it back to the breath.
Don’t wait to finish the story, the shopping list. Even if God is about to speak to you, I’ll get back to later, God. I’ll get back to the breath. But it has to be done in a skillful manner. Just like with the puppy, keep bringing the mind back to the breath.
Just like you bring the puppy back to the paper again and again with great gentleness and patience. But bring it back immediately. Just keep bringing the mind back to the paper. No, that’s not right. Bring the puppy back to the breath.
Anyway, you the idea. You know what I mean. I’m a bit confused up here. Okay. There’s a lot to be talked about.
But I think this is a good place to can actually something we have something to work with. One thing about posture and we can talk about posture in the future if you’d like to come to learn to meditate and so forth is that if you’re sitting in a chair, placing your feet flat on the ground, your buttocks toward the back of the chair, and whether you’re sitting on a chair or on a cushion, your back’s straight. And by straight back, I don’t mean hyper flexing. Most people don’t know what a straight back feels like. It’s like coins stacked on one type, a column of coins stacked one on top of another in your vertebrae.
Just like that. That’s all. That’s probably the most important. But there is a sense You’re in control. There’s a sense of purposefulness about you.
You’re not a wimp anymore. You’re taking control. You’re not going to be blown over by the next breeze. So it’s reflected in your posture, a sense of stability, a sense of purposefulness. I know what I’m doing.
I’m in charge. That kind of body language, if you know what I mean. So we’re going to meditate for I’m supposed to stop at four We’re going to meditate for about twelve minutes, okay? I’m going to lead you through a relaxation of body, which will take approximately five minutes. And then we’ll meditate on the breath, which will take about another five to six minutes.
Okay? So when I lead you through the relaxation of body, simply be present in those areas that I’m going to point out as we move through the body. Bring your awareness to those areas. And as best you can, in whatever way you can, relax those areas, soften those areas, soothe those areas. Approaching our mind through our body.
And this is the first route that we can begin to access our mind. So take a comfortable, firm posture. Feet, if you’re sitting in a chair, feet flat on the floor, buttocks toward the rear, and back straight. And determine the first moment I become aware that my mind has wandered to bring it back to the breath. So we’re going to start with relaxation of the body at the crown of our heads.
So bringing your awareness to the scalp, your forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The pressure in and around your eyes beginning to diminish. The muscles of the face softening, relaxing. Your jaw is relaxed. And moving toward the muscles in the back of the neck, perhaps gently turning your head to each side.
Just loosening, softening. The muscles in the throat. The upper back and shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times and letting them drop comfortably to the sides. Feeling the tension, the burden that we carry on our shoulders, on our back, to move down and through your body into the ground. And your hands, feeling your hands go soft, relaxed.
Your lower arms. Your upper arms. Your chest is at ease. Releasing the tensions that you hold in your stomach muscles, allow your belly to go soft. And holding your trunk erect, relax your lower back muscles, your buttocks, Upper legs.
Thighs. Lower legs, Your feet are soft. And bring your awareness to your body in general. Notice any tightnesses, any tensions within the body And consciously relax, soften, feeling the tension beginning to diminish, the tightness loosen, your body become comfortable, at ease. Imagine this sense of physical well-being pervading your body.
Your body feels good. It’s nice to be in your body. It’s comfortable. And then bring your mind to the breath. Just the easy, gentle, in and out flow of the natural breath.
Bring your mind back to the breath. Bring your mind back to the breath. And get now get in touch with your body. Notice this notice the sensations and feelings within the body. And then in a gentle, easy, relaxed manner, slowly become aware of what’s going on about you.
But just take your time. There’s no hurry. So what we did was about about six minutes or five minutes to relax the body, and we spent about six minutes on the mind. Just just the focusing upon the natural breath. And if you could set aside the time optimally, the morning is best when your mind is fresh.
It’s just it hasn’t geared up for the day. All these thoughts haven’t excited your mind as yet, and you might set aside fifteen minutes. And I think you’ll notice a quality in your state of your mind, and therefore how you behave and relate. If you have an opportunity and you’d like to investigate meditation further, learn to meditate Monday mornings and Monday evenings and Tuesday evenings. So thank you for your time.
Have a good day. Sundays. Two Sundays. Sundays. Ten days.
Days. It was Thursday. Yeah. Not long. We’re already absolute absolutely delighted with the what we’ve been able to talk about and where things might go.
But we figured that a lot of people wonder about why people take robes and what’s it like and so on. So we want you to have time to hear what Jem Pann has got to say about why she has and what it means to her. But, also, do you have a chance to ask those questions? So I’ll hand over to her, and I’m sure you will find it very easy to ask question Hello everybody. I understand from Lindsay that he expects me to tell a very personal story.
I’m not sure if I really want to go there. I’ll first say a little bit about what it means to take robes or what it means to take ordination, why people generally do it and then I’ll see where we go. If we what we all wanna do is we all wanna try to be happy, to achieve happiness somehow in our life, and we all wanna get rid of the suffering. And we’re trying to find a way how to do that. And I think maybe of you who are now here have tried many different things.
Like, you know, we all know that if I live in a better house, if I have a better car, if I have a nicer wife or husband, happiness will come. And we all know it’s not true. Happiness is not gonna come from that. So then eventually you turn to different philosophies. And in Buddhism, and I think maybe there’s also other philosophies the same, it’s what you’re trying to do is to address our disturbed mind, the mind that is always so busy that we can’t stop, that seems to be bringing us to places where we actually don’t wanna be, or that brings us to places where we think we’re gonna find it, but but where we don’t find it.
And in in Buddhism, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to find a a space in our mind where we can experience perfect happiness, where we can experience peace, where we can experience bliss. Buddhism is about how does the mind work and how can we achieve that peace. How can we go from this disturbed mind that we have in the moment to that place of perfect peace and happiness? And one way to do that is to meditate. Everybody tries to do that.
And when you sit down and you try to meditate, we all observe that disturbed mind that we it’s constantly distracted and constantly off to other places, and we can’t bring that you know, we try to bring it back to the to the present moment, but to stay really for a long period of time in the present moment is very, very difficult. So then what you can do is you can do purification practices where you purify a lot of negative imprints that we have in our mind, negative seeds that can ripen in negativities. And when we purify that, our mind becomes a little bit less disturbed and we might be less easily distracted in our meditations. Another way to address the disturbed mind is to create a lot of virtue, a lot of good deeds. We all know when we do a good deed, we feel good inside.
We feel at peace. We feel a rest in our mind. These are basically two methods that we use in purifying the negativities and at the same time developing a lot of virtuous activities. Then one way of purifying and creating virtue is that we take certain vows. For instance, a very important vow in Buddhism is that we don’t harm.
That’s the basic teaching of the Buddha, not harming sentient beings. So one way of not harming is that you say, I stop killing. Some people say that the basic thing that Buddhists try to do is stop killing. That’s the first vow that you take when you become a Buddhist. If you say, I keep on killing, that would not suit with saying, I’m a Buddhist.
Life is the most precious thing that we have. Our life is the most precious thing. So by saying, I want to take somebody else’s life, it’s taking away the most precious thing that somebody has. And somebody, I mean, sentient being, also little animals, creatures. Taking the vow of not killing can be a way of practicing virtue and at the same time of purifying all these actions that we have done through killing.
Refraining from killing means that we’re practicing a very good deed. We might think, But I’m not doing anything because I stopped doing something. But actually stopping ourselves from killing is doing a very virtuous deed. We we all can take that vow. You know?
You don’t have to be a nun to take that. You can any lay person can take that vow. And in Buddhism, we find that when you take refuge, that the lama can ask you to take at least one of the five lay precepts that you can take, and the main one is not killing. If you want, as a layperson, you can take more of these precepts. You can say, I’m also stopped lying.
I stopped sexual misconduct. I stopped taking intoxicants, like alcohol or drugs. And these vows the more vows you take in your mind, that means that twenty four hours a day, you create a positive state of mind. That means that twenty four hours a day, you’re practicing virtue and you’re purifying your negativities. And the more you do that, the more your mind gets at peace, you know, because even if you don’t in Buddhism, we say if you kill a creature or if you harm a creature, the fear that you bring onto that creature, that arises in the mind of that creature, also will arise in you.
You might not be aware of that, but it will arise in you. And we all know that if you have done something negative, we when we go to bed, our mind keeps on thinking about it, keeps busy. Oh, what have I done? What will happen to me? Oh, maybe somebody will come after me.
Our mind is restless, waiting for a payback. You know? When are they gonna come and get back to me? So by refraining from negativities, we try to stop restlessness that we normally have in the mind. So one thing is that we can become a Buddhist and we can take one or more of these precepts.
Another way that you can take precepts is that you take precepts for twenty four hours. We call them the eight Mahāyāna precepts. And then you say you before sunrise, you take eight precepts and you say, for the sake of all sentient beings, today, I’m not gonna kill, I’m not gonna steal, I’m not gonna lie, I’m not gonna take drugs and intoxicants. Ants. And these twenty four hours, you keep on watching your own mind.
And every time when you see yourself engaging in one of these actions, you stop yourself. And what you do is that everything, every negative feeling that you experience during the day, you’re going to dedicate. You’re to say, I’m going to take on me that suffering. Not only my own suffering but I know that many people and many beings experience the same kind of suffering. I’m going to take that onto myself.
I do that in order so that it can benefit other sentient beings so that they can experience their happiness. That is something else that lay people can do and Sangha can do. And so becoming a member of the Sangha, becoming a nun or becoming a monk is going one step further. It’s saying, I’m gonna take these precepts every day in my life. Because first of all, I wanna achieve happiness.
You know, it’s a very selfish motivation. But then at the same time with the wisdom that if you take all these precepts, you’re gonna be happy, but also you create more happiness for others because you stop harming. You stop your own harmful actions. And at the same time, by taking the precepts, you get how to say? You can develop your own potential much better.
And when you develop your own potential, you can help others much better. So eventually, what you’re doing is for the sake of all sentient beings, but the first instance can be a very selfish motivation. If we talk about in Buddhism, what we wanna do is we wanna develop our own potential. Maybe everybody has heard about that. You know?
We we are very limited in everything. The way we think, the way we act. We don’t feel universal compassion in our heart. We don’t feel love for all sentient beings in our heart. In Buddhism, Buddha told us that we actually all have the potential to experience love for all sentient beings, for all sentient beings equally, not for one person and all the other persons or I don’t care so much about them.
And in order to develop that big heart and in order to develop wisdom that goes with that we have to do a lot of practice. We have to do a lot of study. If we look at our own mind now, the mind is not capable of doing that because it’s constantly distracted, it’s constantly caught up in our worldly life. And in order to develop a huge potential we need concentration. We need to sit down and study.
We need to sit down and practice. So in order to develop concentration we need a basis. The Buddha has told that if we practice ethics, if we practice morality, that is the basis that leads to a better concentration. And a better concentration leads to the development of better wisdom. And the more wisdom that we develop, the bigger mind is gonna be, the more open it’s gonna be for all sentient beings, the more love and compassion we can generate in our heart.
So that’s actually the the basis of why we practice ethics. And being a nun, being a member of the Sangha is just one way of how we can practice ethics. Is that so that’s a very short why you will become ordained. And I think what you’re trying you know, if we look at the mind, what is the main thing that strikes us all the time? That is attachment.
Isn’t it? We always want to have something better. We’re never satisfied with what we have. Contentment is very, very difficult. Isn’t it?
We can be content for five minutes, but then we want to have something else. Wanting something else again and again is actually that in itself already is a big suffering. Restlessness. It’s a dissatisfaction. It’s not a pleasant feeling.
Constantly wanting better. Constantly wanting more. Isn’t it? That’s a suffering in itself. It’s a lack of contentment.
So the the main practice as a song member is to cut through that attachment and and say, don’t wanna follow the mind that is grasping for something. The two main attachments in life is eating and sex sex, isn’t it? So as a sangha member, you abstain from sexual activity, and you try to eat only two meals a day. So by doing doing that, you already cut through a lot of attachment. And by doing that, the mind becomes more subdued and then the mind is more suitable to study and to meditate.
So that’s what we do, what we try to do. How long have you been in there? I became a nun in November two thousand. I became a nun in Nepal in Kopan monastery, which is the the main no. I shouldn’t say main.
It’s the where the whole FPMT, the international organization Buddha House is part of, where that started, where Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa started to teach Westerners. And there was an annual course, a meditation course, which is quite famous, I think, under members of FPMT. And during that course I became ordained. Can I ask why you shape your hair? Oh, yeah.
That’s a so a good question. When you get ordained, what you say is, I wanna stop following the normal way of life. I wanna stop following my attachment. I wanna follow stop following my desire, just, you know, creating or trying to get whatever I like. I wanna turn away from the householder’s life, as they call it.
I wanna renounce that householder’s life. And to show that to the world, you do three things. You shave your head. And some people say, you know, hair takes a lot of time to take care of. So that is a waste of time.
You can use that time to study. So you you shave your head. You take on the robes, which means that you don’t dress up to be beautiful and to show, you know, that and the other thing is that you take another name. Another name. Another name.
Yeah. Yeah. So that these three things show that you have turned away from the normal household’s life and that you wanna renounce the worldly life. That can be very different. It can be very, very different.
Depends what kind of nun you are. You know? There are I think there are nuns that study. There are nuns that meditate. There are nuns that are doing retreat.
There are nuns who do a mixture. I lived for the last five years at Chenrezig Institute, which is in Queensland. There was a community of about twenty nuns. The main things that we were doing there was studying. We have quite an intense study programme which discusses the similar topics that are taught in the big Buddhist monasteries, but we do it a little bit in a short period of time.
So what you do is you get up early morning, five thirty, six o’clock, and you do your practice. You have your breakfast. You go to class. You sit in class till twelve o’clock, have some lunch, go back to class till four o’clock. And then you either have jobs to do or there are more teachings in the evening.
Sometimes they’ll put you out in the evening. You study for the next day and do your evening practice, practice, and that’s it. Go to bed. And we did that four days a week. And then in the weekend, we either had teachings or we had to study for the exam that happened every beginning of the next week.
So that was a very study in life. And if you do a retreat live, that would look very, very different. But I think yes, So everyone can give you a different story of what am I doing in my in my life. For me, I think being an honest being trying to be as disciplined as I can, that I get up at the same kind of time and doing the same kind of practice and try to study as much as I can. And I’m here to be of service and to study.
So I’ll I’ll have to work around, you know, whatever is gonna evolve here. Do you have any regrets or doubts? Regrets or doubts that I’ve become a nun? I never had regret. I never have doubt about the the teachings and about the benefits of being ordained, but I must say delusions are look very real.
And, you know, so sometimes I wonder, is this really what I wanna do? And I never hear a no a no inside, but I do wonder sometimes. Yeah. Do you think that you have taken an extreme step? People say I did.
Yeah. For me, I felt there was no other option. That’s what you wanted to do. It it was beyond wanting. It was not something like, I wanna become a nun because I thought, why do I wanna do this?
But it was much deeper, and it was I think I realized that if I really wanna develop my wisdom, I have to practice ethics. And the best way to do that is to take the robes and the vows. And that was so clear, I could not do anything else than that. You know? Even my mind said, but, but, but.
It was like, that but had no power. Nepal as a tourist. Oh. Just to tour around. Yeah.
Yeah. That didn’t that didn’t it never occurred to me even before I had a thought of becoming a nun. Some people would say, oh, you would be a good nun. I would say, interested. Not not at all.
You know? But the moment the thought appeared in my own mind, it was like there was nothing else to do than that. And did that occur in Nepal? Or, you know Did that occur in Nepal? That occurred in India.
Oh, nice. Yeah. A couple of years, I traveled between India and Nepal and Holland. Ah. And it occurred in a in a in a lamrim meditation course with Yangsi Rinpoche, who was a very young, highly realized lama.
And his teachings were so profound, and so he kept on going on and going on. So then I started dreaming about becoming a nun. Yeah. On a certain day, it was so clear that if I do that, I can do everything I wanna do in my life, and I can stop doing what I actually never ever wanted to do in my life. So yeah.
Yeah. And was that in Kathmandu then or elsewhere in Nepal? Where where where you studied in Nepal? That was in in Dharmasala. Oh, I see.
Yes. Yes. That’s great. So was it that as a I could have done as a layperson the same as what I did as a nun in the sense of studying. You know?
I could have gone to Chenrezig Institute and do the same study as a layperson. But I felt taking the vows is what is actually gonna do it and not study on his own. Making that commitment yourself to living your life in line with the dharma? Yeah. But you can also live your life in line with the dharma as a layperson.
I guess that’s what I’m asking why you chose to do it as as an ordained nun rather than as a layperson. In my life my life is very my mind is very distracted. I I fill my whole life with many, many things that are not really dharma, and I’m postponing to before I you know, sitting on my bum is really hard because I’m a doer. I just wanna do, do, do, but that is actually distraction. So my life was very full with many, many things, but it was very hard for me to sit down and and do meditation and do study.
And at the same time, I knew that if I would do that, I would find the happiness that I was looking for. So I think by taking robes, pushed myself a little bit and go for what really makes you happy instead of the distractions. But that also makes it sometimes hard, you know, because I have the tendency to distract myself and do many things. Are you happier now? I think, you know, the mind you can see the mind changing and you can see the mind shifting but I don’t know how my mind would have shifted if I would have been a layperson.
So I cannot say because I’m a nun I’m happier. I have a very good life changing. And I see myself becoming more happy and less discontent and angry and disturbed and yeah. But you you can never say, you know, if what would have happened if I had lived a different life. Was that enough for you?
Well, I try to make my motivation that I don’t do it just for me, but that I do it for everybody. And as I just said, I I’m a doer, so I like to go out and do things. But I know that that it also can be a distraction of doing things internally. Do you have control now? So now while I’m in Buddha House, I’m gonna try to study and to offer service both.
So I have to find a time that I sit down and do the study from to develop my own wisdom and my own compassion. But at the same time, I’m doing that so that I can help others in a better way. You know? And and there will be times that, I don’t know, offer service, and I hope that whatever I’ve learned can be a benefit to others. I saw a few more, Heather.
What what do you miss most? I’m not going there. The sex. No. I don’t know.
Yes. What do I miss most? Do you miss your home then? You know, when you go to different country, there is missing on many many levels. So I never felt really at home in Holland.
So in that sense, I don’t miss Holland. But on other levels, you know, emotionally, you’re I I do miss it. Like, some foods, the you know, you get craving for the cheese and for the what else? All the good stuff. But after a couple of years, you get used to that.
And and then Family. I think I missed some friends. Yeah. And I, you know, I go for a visit sometimes, so that’s okay. No.
Missing is is not always a good thing. You know? It’s like it’s like even if you go through a lot of suffering, if the suffering goes away, you can still miss the suffering because that was what we’re used to, isn’t it? So it feels more a a little bit like that. And sometimes it’s good what you miss, and sometimes you think, but I was actually not so good.
I was not so happy with that, and still I miss it. And I feel you just get habituated to a completely different life, and you see how the things that you are attached to, they are slowly, slowly letting go. And I’ve observed my mind being attached on many levels for the last five years to to habits, you know, that are connected with my country or culture or and I think it’s very interesting to see the differences and to see how I have to let it go, and it’s it’s observing how the mind lets go. So I’ve learned a lot from being here and not being in my country, you know, about Dutch habits and about Dutch culture and and about the mind and how the mind is programmed and how easy we believe in that that our program is the program, and other people have a program that is different, but it’s not as good as yours. And, you know, and then letting go of your own thing.
So yes or no? What it means to be a nun? Yeah. Well, at the moment, there are preordination courses happening in Dharamsala, and I think everybody who gets ordained by the Dalai Lama or Lama Zopa is I think, it’s more than strongly recommended to do this course. I think you even have to do it if you wanna be ordained by the Dalai Lama because it’s very important that you know what you’re doing, that you know by that you know what you what kind of life you walk into.
Because what happens normally what happens many times, not normally, is that you are looking for peace and happiness. You go to a Buddhist center and you see some monks and nuns and you sit with them and you think, oh, this is fantastic. This is bliss. And you think, so the life of a monk and a nun is bliss. So I want follow that and you take the robes, it might turn out very different because you have not prepared your mind well enough or you’re not aware enough of what it means to take the vows.
I think I wasn’t too well prepared. You know? It’s it’s and that makes it hard, you know, because you have to abstain from many things, and the mind is craving for that. And And I think it’s good to train the mind gradually instead of taking straight away all these vows and then sitting with the mind that wants all these things that you can’t have anymore. Yeah, if I had a second chance, I would do differently and more slowly, slowly and gradually.
Yeah? No. It was not difficult to be a nun, but it was difficult to abstain from and in the beginning, it was not too difficult. But then I know that I think after two or three years, I had suddenly this craving for a glass of red wine. And that was in my mind for half a year or something.
And it was not that I was a big wine drinker, but for whatever reason that came up. And it was so strong. You know? And it’s it’s like, you don’t know that. Nobody tells you that things like this can pop up.
And I’ve seen other cravings that I was never aware of that I had them. I thought it was quite detached when I became a nun. But then when you take the vows, things start to ripen and come up in your mind. And I think when you do it gradually, it doesn’t come up so strongly so you can work easier through it. But if you take a whole set, you know, you cut yourself off in many places and maybe that speeds everything up.
Some things are, some things are not. I think you have different levels, you know. Also it depends on where you are. If you’re in a very inspiring environment then me, it’s not so difficult, and it’s very easy to to to take more on and more on. But if you’re in an environment where it’s quite hard to practice, then it’s hard.
You know? Yeah. Yeah. Is growing in an environment that’s hard to practice? What have you been?
For instance, if you’re in an environment where everybody follows their delusions or their self grasping mind, then it’s very hard to keep on practicing and renouncing your own self grasping mind. You know, the mind comes up like, well, if you can do that, I can do that. Yeah. But if you are with people who support you and who are doing the same kind of thing, you know, then it’s just fantastic and then just an inspiration to be with each other and to practice. Excuse me.
What’s an example before you mentioned service to the community? Yeah. What’s an example of of the service work you do? I just arrived here. I don’t know yet.
But it can be anything, you know, anything that is where there is a need. So it can be picking up the telephone. It can be giving meditations or teachings. It can be cleaning the toilets. It can be I don’t know.
I did it many times in my life, so I hope that is finished. But Yeah. Do adhere a say, go up and down on food? Sorry? Do you adhere to a particular diet, say, I go up and down on food?
Up and down on food means? What does that mean? You know, if I eat the wrong things, I kinda eat or sugar based stuff or Yeah. Or hates of meat, I tend to be more aggressive than if I don’t eat meat and some stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. So I try to eat vegetarian, and I think that is what his holiness asked most of the people, and Lama Zopa asked that to be as much vegetarian as you can. And I’m aware of the the food thing. You know? So so I’m trying to eat, have no sugar, and have a diet that helps me to have yeah.
That doesn’t distract my mind too much. That balances my mind. Can I ask you? Do you you have a particular approach to medic approach to meditations, or are you if you’ve got a medical problem, are you free to explore that a cure for that in any area, or do you In what sense do you mean? Like, Western medicines?
Do you Yeah. Yeah. Pills or anything? I mean, they’re fine if you Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very important to take care of your health. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And to have a healthy body so that you can serve as much as you can. No. No.
No. How does the renunciation of stimulants alcohol and drugs tie in with the of What is psychotropic medications? For the mind, antidepressants. Oh, difficult question. So a medicine a medicine is to heal something, I would say.
And a drugs is to you also try to find happiness with the drugs, isn’t it? Who was I talking to? I think it was George. He said, what is the difference between an antidepressant and And when you buy on the street, make you happy? Yes.
Yes. I don’t know. Okay. I mean, the whole society agrees that if we take antidepressants, that okay? That is okay.
And if we buy drugs on the street, that’s not okay. But both are kind of thing you know, pills that you take to be more happy. Antidepressants don’t always make you happy. Antidepressants But you can stop with that. You know?
I don’t know. I personally try never to take medicine. You know? The only thing I take is sometimes the Panadol and all the rest. I have a huge aversion.
But I also have a healthy body, so I can do that. And I know that if people don’t have a healthy body, they have to take that. Yeah. And if you take the things to heal but if you take drugs because you wanna have an experience of what is possible in the mind so that maybe you are more motivated to meditate, is that then something that you think we can do? We don’t know.
It’s hard, isn’t it? And I know that especially with Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa in the beginning, the westerners met them in Nepal. But the main reason why people went to Nepal is because they were very good drugs and they wanted to explore the mind. And Lama Yeshe says Fantastic! Because if you take LSD, you’re going to experience what is possible in the mind.
You know how limited our mind is. So just having to experiment with LSD, you know there is much more possible. And then it doesn’t encourage you to keep it taking, but use that experience to say, I don’t have to accept these limitations in my mind. I can do I can sit down and meditate and then explore the limitless capacity of the mind. You know?
So he he felt that it was very helpful for Westerners to have that experience with drugs without getting attached to that. We cannot put things in one box and say this is good and this is bad. Did you hear Venerable Robina speak at one stage saying about psychotropic medications, bringing people to a place where they are then able to do the work on their mind that they need to, that they might not otherwise be able to, which made sense to me. But I was just wondering how that ties in with taking the vow of not I think if you take the vow of not using drugs, you don’t use that. That’s what I would think.
But you were happy before you became Me? No. I was so scared to be happy. I never used drugs. I was too scared.
Do you intend to go back to the place? Yeah, it’s very inspiring to go back there because there are so many practitioners there, lay community, the Tibetan lay community, but also the many monks and nuns. There are many teachings available. And it’s just such an inspiration. You know?
It’s like drinking a big bottle of water and then having enough to come back a few more years and work here. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any major differences between the nun’s duties and the monk’s duties? I mean, for example, I was up at Angaston last week, and I watched the monks create a sand mandala.
Is that also a curious part of the nun’s duties? Or It is. It is. But you have seen the Tibetan monks. This was up at Angostan last week.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think there were some Bhutanese monks there as well or a part of that group. Yeah.
However, I was just wondering if there are any major differences between what nuns do and what the monks do or is there any division in I think in in Tibet before fifty nine. No? Fifty nine. No? Fifty nine. Sorry.
The nuns the monks had they could do their studies and they got all these teachings. But for the nuns, it was much more difficult to have access to the teachings. So they had more life of doing pujas and doing prayers and being of service either to the monks or so that’s a little bit of hierarchy in the in the in Tibet. Lama Zopa Rinpoche and also the Dalai Lama too. He’s they are very much encouraging the equal treatment of monks and So Lama Zopa, in Kopan, there was a there a monastery, but there was also a nunnery.
And the nuns are getting the same kind of education as the monks. So they’re also making some mandalas. They’re also doing the same kind of dancing and get the same kind of study. Yes. But that’s not yet an older nuns’ place.
You know? It’s like I think the Western women make the Tibetans aware that there there might be a difference in treatment. And was a comedy, but it’s good It’s good to hear that that’s slowly filtering through, I guess. Yes. Yes.
And it will take time. Yes. You know? Because because the Tibetans, they they they also have their tradition, and that has been in their mind for many, many years, and that takes time. That yeah.
If you change your mind and say you don’t like me, is it very hard to do they work with you for a long time trying to work out if it’s what you really wanna do is to lead this life that you chase? Or do you can you just take off your robes and go? Where you can give back your vows. You can? Yeah.
You know, takes a long time to get used to being a nun. To realize that you’re not a layperson anymore, to realize that you’re not not just as easy you cannot do things as easy as you did when you were a layperson. So when you change, it’s not just say that you say, oh, no. I don’t like it anymore, and I give it back. Because you have to change a lot again to become a layperson.
So it’s not an easy change. It’s a very painful change, I think, too, because even if it’s hard sometimes to be among another, to not be a nun anymore is also very hard. And if you give back your vows and then you look back, then you might you know? I think it can be very painful to experience that. And they also say that if you hand back your vows, you actually commit a negativity because becoming a monk or nun is based on a wisdom that you wanna renounce the world, and then you go back to the world in a way.
You know? So it’s something that you try not to do. But if if you are really, really unhappy as a nun or a monk, then it might be better that you give your vows back and train as a lay person first. Yeah. What what what we try to do is that the first five years, we live in a community so that you have support and that you are with other nuns and that you can you have more reflection that you are a nun, and you can discuss the problems that arise in your mind.
And yeah. That’s so that was what we tried to do that at least five first five years, you live in a community. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Yeah. It’s been a a incredible snapshot for people to see what it’s like to be enough. But, unfortunately, we’re running out of time. So thank you so much. Mean, Jacqueline’s just new to Buddha House, and we’re so delighted to have her here.
I know for myself and some other Buddha House people, we haven’t heard you speak before, and it’s just it’s own joy. So thank you so much. And Mhmm. Just thank you to everybody who’s still here and has been here for the day. And this is the first open day we’ve had.
And we certainly plan to have more because we think there’s great benefit in opening the center up in this sort of way. So please to let your friends know that the house is here and that we do offer meditation classes, and we’re here to serve the community. So if there’s anything at all we can do to help you and to learn learning meditation and Buddhist teachings, that’s that’s our whole reason for existence. So thank you so much. Mhmm.
There’s just one other thing I wanted to mention. You may have seen out there on the wall, but this coming Wednesday, the monks that this lady was talking about that have been in doing doing Sand Mandala are coming here as our guests to a special Buddhist ceremony at five thirty. So anybody’s welcome to come along to that if you’d like to. If you think you’d like to, just talk to one of us before you go to find out a bit more about it. But it’s your traditional offering ceremony goes for about an hour, an hour and a half.
An a half. An hour and a half. And we have it fairly regularly here at Buddha House on auspicious days, and we’ve got lots of here, and so they’re coming as our guest. And our highly revered teacher, Geshe-la, will be here as well. So, you know,