Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of a boat drifting toward an unseen waterfall anchors the meditation in this nearly two-hour session, the third in Ven Jampa Gendun’s series on the Three Principal Aspects of the Path. He works through the nine-point death meditation’s second root — the unpredictability of death’s timing — through three arguments: life expectancy is uncertain at any age, death has countless causes, and the body is extremely fragile. After a guided sitting, Gendun completes the seven cause-and-effect instruction for bodhicitta by focusing on the sixth cause, exceptional resolve: taking responsibility for all beings’ welfare now, not after enlightenment. Lama Yeshe’s teaching that postponing compassion until Buddhahood is itself egotism provides the backbone, illustrated by the Jātaka tale of the Bodhisattva who fed himself to a starving tigress.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 3PA 2008 02 25.mp3
UUID: 645782ef-85c8-4c28-8822-1af118c610cf
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2008-2009 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2008-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 119.3 minutes
Words: ~11,708
How is everybody? So we begin as we usually do in terms of adjusting our motivation. You know, the why behind and the purpose for. It’s a lot of work, isn’t it? I feel like I’m imposing myself on you sometimes.
You’ve had a hard day, unlike myself, and you probably just want to be a passive observer, be entertained or something like that. But I’m afraid we can’t leave it at that, or I wouldn’t be doing my part of the bargain if I left it at that. So we all have to reach down inside of ourselves and find some energy. And it’s not so much what we do but why we do what we do which is very much going to determine the outcome. And this also includes what might appear externally as a very spiritual pursuit, attending or giving talks on dharma and so forth.
But the outward form doesn’t determine the inner quality. It’s not going to necessarily bring about the kind of result we want. We want to help ourselves most basically and perhaps over and above that we want to be able to develop the abilities to help others. And whether, you know, what we do is going to bring about those ends is not so much what we do on the outside but what we do on the inside. The intention behind the kinds of choices that we make for ourselves.
And so here we have a choice to make. To continue with perhaps an indifferent motivation. I doubt if you have a negative motivation. I don’t know. Anybody wanna admit to that?
You came here for fame and glory? I’m in here for the money. Don’t know. The excitement. We have some problems.
You know, it’s not that I don’t sometimes people say, oh, Buddhism. They’re always talking about suffering. You know? Why don’t you be happy sometimes? Well, that’s what we’re trying to be, but sometimes denying or distracting ourselves from our difficulties only serves to prolong it.
We never actually deal with it. We never actually confront it. So it seems as if in changing our motivations, developing some energy to make what we’re doing worthwhile both for ourselves and possibly for others, we have to begin where we’re actually at. Quite often, that’s not something that we’d rather take a look at. It’s kind of embarrassing sometimes.
The feelings of, you know, this dissatisfaction or disappointment, frustrations. Things could be better. Okay. We’re not basket cases. All right.
But if we were honest with ourselves, we haven’t perhaps come to the contentment that we’re all looking for in one way or another that, you know, that we’ve been working for in all our various ways, the methods that we’ve been Can you hear me okay in the back? Yeah. I wouldn’t want you to miss anything. All the blood and sweat and tears that we’ve expended over the course of our life. And here we are.
Where has it gotten us? How far have we gotten in our life or how how far haven’t we gotten in our life in terms of what it is that we really want? So this is So, opportunity to stop acting, stop speeding, stop distracting yourself from yourself and perhaps reflect, you know, pause and come get in contact with some of our our deeper values. You know, what makes me feel good about myself and this thing called life? What resonates with myself at perhaps a deeper level of my being that I’m more or less out of necessity or just out of laziness or whatnot, I get out of touch with in one way or another.
You know, I’m not prescribing that you, what your values are. I’m only suggesting that maybe it’s worth while to check up. We have a value in Buddhism, which would mean it’s like a model we might make use of. It gives us some kind of orientation when we get sidetracked in the course of our life, when we get when we lose sight of what is really going to bring us about the happiness that we want and what is really going to help us to solve our problems. We call it a Buddha.
I don’t know what a Buddha is, to be honest, but, you know, I have my conception there. I’m beginning to more and more more or less more and more hone in on that conception, trying to clarify for myself what is it that I mean by a Buddha. You know, it’s it’s what it’s the the culmination of a successful life, you know, making becoming all that we could be and doing all that we could do in terms of our potential and what our life could be. I would call that a Buddha, happy, healthy, sane, loving human being. I like that phrase.
It it kind of brings it down from abstraction to something I can begin to access and begin to find some kind of can identify with that in a way. Happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. So, you know, that becomes our orientation. But and that becomes our refuge. You know, we are, in terms of our own final transformation, our our final refuge.
You know, the ideal refuge is nothing new for any of us, is it? I mean, maybe you’ve never even used that term, except in maybe refugees. Refugees seeking asylum from the human condition in one way or another and we’re all seeking a safe haven from the vicissitudes of life in one way or another and we all have our particular refuges in one way or another. You know, your family or your job or politics, sports, all your various distractions, entertainments, interests, pursuits, sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever. You know, what is actually going to deliver the goods?
What’s going to help me to solve my problems? Help me to find the happiness I want? And, you know, it’s a matter of checking up. One of one of my most influential teachers, Lama Yeshe, you know, in this to to your right of this bookshelf, what we call bookshelf, there’s a portrait of a rather angelic looking face. That’s Lama Yeshe.
He was a real master of psychology. He, you know, I think he’s, he died about, I guess about, how long has he been, about twenty six, seven years ago now. Long time now. And he’s living proof about, well, maybe not living now, but proof of what a difference an individual can make. The very fact that we’re sitting here this evening is directly because of him and what he created, his vision, the difference that one person can make in the lives of many, many, many others.
And he used to always say, all it was his refrain again and again, check up, dear. Yeah, I think that’s a we could put that on our we could have a bumper sticker, I think, maybe. Check up, dear. What is it you’re doing? Is the overall preoccupations and occupations and the pursuits that we involve ourselves, the energy and the direction that we’re headed, is it it taking us where we want to go?
You know, you keep going in the same direction, you’re likely to end up where you’re headed. And here’s where you’re headed where you really want to go. So, you know, check up. That’s all. Maybe there are there are there are options, alternatives available to us.
But if you’re doing okay, that’s I’m happy. I rejoice. You get your money back. You don’t maybe you don’t need Buddhism. But maybe if things could be better, maybe Buddhism might not necessarily Buddhism.
I don’t think the Buddha was a Buddhist. But, anyway, his some of his methods that he he developed that worked for him, that, you know, that by means of which he became a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. He just simply shared it with others. And maybe we can make use of this in ourselves. So it’s like an opening to other possibilities.
And when we talk about adjusting our motivation, actually we’re just simply trying to create the ecological space of mind where other possibilities can take place. And we are kind of all full of ourselves and our present pre you know, preconceptions about and our our complacency and, you know, I’m okay. I’m not okay. We’re not okay. But that’s okay.
You know, we create an opening where maybe new learning can take place. Who we are now is a learned experience. And whatever has been learned can be unlearned, and new learning can take its place. So we can relearn how to live our lives. And so we’re involved in an education process, aren’t we?
I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if Buddhism is religion at all. And maybe it doesn’t really matter what we call it, just as long as it works. So the inner focus of our life becomes Buddha, this happy, healthy, loving, sane human being by means. But we have to do something.
Wishful thinking is not enough. Sincerity, though important, is not going to get you what it is that you’re looking for. You actually have to do something. You have to it’s one of the basic fundamentals of Buddhism that the idea of dependent arising, and it has various different levels of interpretation. And one level of that interpretation is simply if we if we wanna bring about a particular result, we have to create the causes.
If you don’t want a particular result, then don’t create the causes. I mean, that’s not rocket science, is it? I mean, it’s almost common it’s common sense, but sometimes common sense isn’t all that common, isn’t it? You You know, what kind of person you want to be ten years from now, twenty years from Are you creating the causes to become that person? Simple.
If you’re not, then how are you ever going to arrive? So it’s a matter of checking up. We have to do something. You implement the methods, the techniques. Ultimately, we want to know the truth of things, the way things are beyond the fictions that we’re continually projecting on the world about us.
That’s the truth which will make us free, ultimately. And Buddhism doesn’t have a monopoly on the truth, but it just has some useful methods to help us to find it for ourselves. And this occurs within the context of a spiritual community, the Sangha. It is the social matrix of mental health, where we can begin to experiment with different ways of being. We can get in touch, as we do here in the evenings together in just these ways that we do, with the long neglected spiritual parts of ourselves, or those parts of ourselves which we get out of touch with for one reason or another.
We lose sight of what is important to me, our deepest held values. And so this is an opportunity, you know, creating this kind of mandala, creating that kind of space and, you know, supporting each other in this journey that we’re on, assisting in whatever way we can in terms of, you know, giving advice, teaching, sharing, what, laughing with one another. Buddhists do laugh. Shoulder to cry on, if that’s helpful. You know, whatever will assist another person along their particular journey.
That’s what a that’s what a spiritual community is all about. And we try to raise the love of our motivation such that what we’re doing is not just for our own piece of chocolate cake. That’s been one of our problems all along perhaps. Absorbed in our own problems too. The very means of solving our problems has become part of the problem itself.
Sometimes we become so absorbed in our problem that it becomes at the exclusion and expense of others. And to be a healthy human being is to be a find some way of being in this world with others. You know, we can’t. Mental health, a good life, a successful life, isn’t something which can be lived in isolation from others. We are social beings.
Mental health is a social phenomenon. We can’t help it. Even if you were to run away and live in a cave in the Himalayas, that’s your way of relating with the world. It might be healthy and might not. We can’t say from the outside.
But at least we have to concern ourselves. What is the nature of my inter relationship with the world? Maybe just one other person. Okay? We can access that.
We can all move our minds to that extent. And this one other person, person, maybe a parent or maybe a partner or a child, whoever, someone you naturally feel connected with that you care for, you’d like to see it would make your heart feel warm to see a smile on your face. You’d like to be to be there for in some more significant way for them. You know, maybe a little more patient, little more understanding, a little more caring, but in some way. And so maybe this evening, you know, if Jampa ever gets around to the talk itself, maybe there’s something to be learned this evening in terms of your education, developing some methods whereby to help yourself.
And in helping yourself, you’ll be much more able to help even if there’s only this one other other person. It’s such a motivation we can feel, I think, really assured that our evening’s spent together, this time and energy, this space that you’ve created for yourself, and I respect that, is going going to be worthwhile. Something good will come out of it because you’ve created the causes, and the result will take care of itself. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice generosity and the other perfections may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the other perfections may become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity free from attachment for some and aversion toward others. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind. I present clouds of every type of offering that was actually arranged and imagined. I disclose all my negative actions accumulated during the beginning of this time and rejoice in all the virtues of superiors and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of the Dharma.
I dedicate all virtue, my own and that of others, to the great awakening. So I want to I’ve been admonished to save time for some questions. I’m going to try to be good. We were, you know, we’re going to meditate together. Yes.
Yes. Yes. I know. Buddhism is so heavy. But we don’t meditate on death in order to to depress ourselves or to be morbid or it’s so that we celebrate our life.
It’s rather paradoxical, The more that you’re mindful of death, the greater awareness that you have that you’re still living. And with that, the determination to live it to its fullest extent while you still have it. So it’s not morbid or meant to be depressive in the least. It’s to help us not waste our lives so that we don’t die with regret. We don’t die.
We aren’t one of those cowards who dies many times before their death. You know, a life of banality and emptiness, meaninglessness. So there we’re meditating on what we call the nine-point death meditation. And there’s three roots. That death is inevitable, unpredictable, and at the time of death, it is only the development of our own mind and the predispositions which we have created within our mind which are going to benefit us process, in the course of our death.
And we looked at last week, we looked at we meditated on the first of these, the inevitability and death. So tonight we’re going to look at the the that the time of death is unpredictable. We simply don’t know when. And this is supported by three reasons: that our human life expectancy is uncertain. Know, there’s a purpose behind this.
It’s useful to think and contemplate these ideas as I just mentioned. Sometimes it’s not, you know, sometimes it doesn’t make us feel very good, but it’s it’s it’s useful suffering if it if it, in fact, it is suffering to even consider consider to contemplate these these difficult issues. It it takes us somewhere. You know, most of our suffering is taken unconsciously. It doesn’t have any meaning.
It’s purposeless. It’s just suffering. But there are some types of suffering if we’re willing to involve ourselves in there voluntarily, discomfort, uncomfortable feelings and so forth, which have meaning, which can take us beyond discomfort, you know, help us to find what it is that we’re looking for. So contemplating these issues is not I’m the first one to admit. It’s not a it’d be nice to sit around and tell jokes all night.
You know, that’d be more fun, for sure. I’m not denying that. And sometimes that’s that’s the thing to do. That would be most appropriate. But maybe there are other times when we have to think it’s most useful for ourselves, most expedient in in bringing about a better life for ourselves to confront these kinds of issues, including our own death.
But also, yeah, so it’s not a comfortable feeling. It’s not a nice thing to talk about sometimes, but necessary nonetheless. human life expectancy is uncertain. The reason I say this is because we don’t like to talk about the fact that a person can die at any moment, and especially when we talk about a fetus can die in the womb, babies die at birth. That’s not a very nice thought, is it?
But it’s you know, we said the truth it’s the truth which makes us free, and this this is this is one of those kinds of truths. Babies die in in their infancy when they’re one, even be before they’re able to walk. They die as children, four, seven, nine. It’s not a very nice thought, but nonetheless, it’s true, isn’t it? Adolescents, twelve, fourteen, nineteen young people, twenty, twenty four, twenty eight.
Getting on to middle age, thirty two, four, thirty nine, forty one, forty six. Late middle age, fifty, fifty six, what do we call it? What comes next? Seniors? Sixty?
I won’t go with that. Anyway, maybe anyway, what I’m trying to impress upon you is that there’s all these various ages present amongst us now. And there’s no particular age at which people don’t die. They die at every age. There’s no guarantee.
The fact that you might be presently young and healthy, there’s no guarantee that you won’t die next year, next month, tomorrow. Statistics assure us that we have a good chance to live to an average age, but probability is not certainty. An average is just that. There are people who die before that average and people who die after that average. You don’t know which one, which group you’re in.
We don’t know. It’s not open to our knowledge. Just because we might not think about it or irrationally reject it, you know, the ideal does not mean it’s not going to happen. That’s your fiction. That’s not truth.
The fact is that we can die at any time. That’s reality. Reality has a certain healing quality to it. The second reason, and we’re going to meditate on these, I’m just kind of explaining them in a little more detail, is that there are many causes of death. And we could all sit around.
We could do a workshop, and we could get up the whiteboard, get lots of sheets of paper, and we could all list all the possible ways people die. We could really it’s almost infinite, isn’t it? Sounds there are probably as numb as many ways to die as there are people. You know, each time, you know, like, you walk down the steps or you you go outside or or you visit a sick friend or you cross a road or you go on a journey. Know, when you’re walking down the steps, maybe there’s a toy on those steps.
Or maybe when you step outside, maybe there’s a gunfight going on and you’re shot. Or maybe you step you step off the curb and somebody, some drunk driver comes on and hits you. Or you go on a journey and the bridge and the you you get run off the road or the bridge falls and bridge collapse. No matter how cautious you might be, we cannot see all the possibilities of ways that we might die. Know, we hear about, every day, hear about disasters in the world.
Know, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, wars, famines. But, you know, we probably feel very safe and secure from those kinds of disasters, more or less, more or less. But still, for us, there’s the usual heart attacks and cancers and diseases and all the simple types of accidents, which can take our life. Then inevitably, there’s old age, which is going to get the rest of us one way or another that’s always waiting for us. And we don’t know when.
You know, people die in their sleep. They die going going to school. They die on picnics. They die listening to dharma talks, probably. You know?
Probably happens. Giving dharma talks, probably. Watching television. There’s no there you know, people people die in every manner at every time in every manner of every type of place. You know, it’s like death is going to find you.
You don’t you don’t have to go for looking for go for looking for it per se. The point is that there’s no place, there’s no time, there’s no circumstances where we’re absolutely safe. You know? Nothing is absolutely safe. I don’t mean to make get you paranoid about this.
Maybe a little paranoia could go a long way to maybe be useful. I don’t know. So there are many causes of death. And then finally, the third reason establishing the unpredictably unpredictability of the time of our death is that the human body is extremely fragile. You know, we sometimes we think we’re super person, don’t we?
Superwoman or superman. But this body, yeah, is nice. It’s so soft. And when you when you ever you ever drive by a a car accident? You know?
You see all that glass and the twisted metal? You know? People shouldn’t be riding around in such sharp things. You know? We should have we embed ourselves in foam rubber and bounce bounce along or something something soft.
You know, the You know, within minutes, a little sliver of glass or a tiny metal fragment, you know, or a bubble in your bloodstream, a virus you can’t even see, a few renegade cells, cancer cells in your body. One moment you feel invulnerable, strong, and healthy. Next moment, you’re completely incapacitated, helpless, weak, full of pain from one moment to the next. It doesn’t take all that much. You know, life depends upon sustaining a very it’s like a very delicate balance.
There’s like a dance going on inside of us, all these various systems, you know, from the microscopic parts of single cell up to, you know, the the various systems of the body. All these all these chemicals being released in hormones and interacting with one another. It doesn’t take much for the dance to be disturbed. You know, the the if this is we have a very fragile body, which is immersed in inimical conditions. You know?
This is the nature of physical life. You know? We we don’t know when we’re going to die. You know, it’s like we’re traveling in a boat, you know, we’re looking over the stern, the rear end of the boat, and, you know, looking at what where we’ve been. But we can also see what we’re going by, you know, to the sides.
We can see, what is current and where we’ve been. But we can’t look ahead. We forget that, in fact, there may there is a waterfall somewhere ahead of ourselves. And even if we and so we’re so absorbed in looking at at the scenery behind us and on the sides of us that we forget that about what lies ahead of us. And even if we were to try, even if we were aware and try to turn around, we can’t.
You you know there’s a waterfall there, but you don’t know how close it is. We can’t predict the future. We can’t look into the future. We don’t know whether our boat is one hundred meters from that waterfall or hundreds of miles from that waterfall. We don’t know because we can’t see.
Even now, each of the ships in which our life rides within may be just about to tip over the edge of that waterfall, and it’s over, maybe on the way home. I hope not, but that’s just a hope. That’s not reality. So anyway, we’re trying to energize ourselves, aren’t we? Whether you’re Buddhist or not, that’s all beside the point.
Just to live your life successfully and to really keep your priorities straight so you don’t get distracted into areas of, you know, you could spend weeks, months, a lifetime doing things which you’d rather, in your best finest moments, you’d rather not aren’t worth your life. But we lose sight of that, don’t we, in one way or another? So, you know, I guess all we’re saying is trying to create the energy whereby we keep some perspective on what is important to ourselves. And we’re we’re we’re willing to have the courage to try to live out our deeper values as best we can, to stay in touch with them and find some, you know, practical means of expressing them. Okay.
So if you’d like to stand for a minute, then we’ll meditate together. Just if you want to stretch. So taking a comfortable firm posture. Okay. So a comfortable comfortable posture, but one which you can maintain some stillness of the body for some time.
Begin by relaxing the body, beginning at the crown of the head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles in your brow beginning to smooth out. The tension in and around your eyes, the pressure beginning to diminish. Muscles of your face softening, relaxing. The jaws relaxed. Moving to the muscles at the back of your neck perhaps gently turning your head to each side a few times very gently, loosening, stretching the muscles at the back of the neck.
Moving down to the upper back and shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times and letting them drop comfortably to the sides and feeling some weight, some kind of burden that we normally carry around on our backs beginning to move down through your body into the ground. Bring your awareness all the way down to your hands. Your hands are loose and soft. Relaxing your lower arms and your upper arms. Your chest is at ease.
Relaxing through heart area and the lungs And the central portion of the back. Stomach. And releasing the tension that we hold in our stomach muscles, just allowing your belly to go soft. Relaxing throughout the abdominal cavity. The muscles of the lower back, Buttocks.
Your upper legs. Your lower legs. And finally your feet And bringing your awareness to your body in general and noticing any tightnesses, any tensions that still remain. Any areas discomfort in the body. And focusing upon those areas consciously relaxing, softening, feeling the tension diminish, tightness loosen.
If there’s some discomfort in your body don’t struggle against it, don’t try to resist it. Just surround it with a sense of acceptance and kindness and befriend it. It’s okay if it’s there. Don’t struggle against it. It’s your own body.
Just be with it. It’s okay. Feeling a sense of physical well-being pervading your entire body. It feels good to be in your body. It’s a nice place to be.
Sometimes we forget. Just be your body. If thoughts arise just let them go and come back to your body. Just be your body. And then we’ll practice the six part breath exercise.
It’s simply breathing in comfortably normally. But when you exhale extending the exhalation completely emptying the lungs of air. Again breathing in comfortably normally. Again extending the exhalation and this six times individually. And when you’ve completed the six breath exercise, then bring your mind to the breath.
The physical sensations associated with the natural breathing, wherever this physical sensation is most obvious and clear to you, that’s where you focus your attention. If it’s helpful you can use the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Bring your mind back to the breath Sitting up straight and tall. Bring your mind back to the breath. Now we’re going to meditate on the fact that the time of death is unpredictable and we’re going to go through three reasons.
The first of the reasons that we’re going to work with is human life expectancy is uncertain. So you can just in your own mind working with the idea that we simply don’t know when that people die at any age just as we mentioned. They die at every age. Even the age you are at now. What makes you so certain that you’re going to live to an average age?
The second reason is that there are many cause of death. So taking your own personal circumstance and using your imagination, think of all the varieties that have situations in your own circumstance which might act to bring about your death that even those which are hardly predictable. What could happen for you? And then finally, third reason. The human body is very fragile.
So within minutes we can go from being strong and active to being helpless, weak, incapacitated. It doesn’t take all that much. Try to gain a sense of the fragility of life, your own body. It’s vulnerability. So imagine you’re in this boat progressing down the river, looking out over the stern, what has been and what is going by.
There’s a feeling that we’re progressing towards some destination. There’s a waterfall there for all of us. How do you know where close how how do you know how close you are? Do you have any idea if you’re a hundred hundred meters from the waterfall or a hundred miles? We don’t know, do we?
Do you know? So see if you can come to some kind of conclusion to begin to the practice of developing your own mind right now because the future is uncertain. To begin to live the the life that you want for yourself from right now on. We simply don’t know how much more time we have. What is it that you really want?
You better start finding it. And then bring your mind back to the breath. And get in touch with your body, perhaps the pressure of your buttocks on the seat, on the cushion, feet on the floor, some feeling sensation within the body. In an easy and relaxed manner, slowly become aware of your surroundings. Take your time.
There’s no hurry. So I think we’re going to conclude the first of the, the two traditions, meditative traditions for developing an awakened heart. The second of the three principal aspects of the path. First we have to develop a strong will to awaken, to change, to grow, and to overcome this stuckness that we’re all involved in in one way or another, to develop the energy, to bring about the kinds of changes we want for ourselves in our life, that kind of determination. And then we begin to explore what directions we actually want to go with our lives, how to bring about those kinds of changes that we want.
And within the context of the values of Buddhism, we awaken our hearts to and to to all others and our minds to the nature of reality. So in this awakening of our hearts, essentially, you know, it’s this the term is bodhicitta in Sanskrit, which literally means something like the mind of enlightenment, awakening of our hearts, developing aspiration to achieve highest awakening for the sake of all sentient beings. And it’s a it’s a consummation of of our human potential in ways. It’s in terms of the effective quality of our life, of our heart. There’s no greater aspiration that we could ever hope to imagine for ourselves.
Nothing more than we could hope to achieve. It’s worth our life just doing, trying to achieve this in itself. And there but, you know, we have to actually do something, don’t we? And luckily, we’re you know, through the kindness of our teachers and ultimately the Buddha himself, we’ve been given some methods to work with. And then two meditative traditions that we have.
The first is the seven cause and effect instruction, and the second is equalizing and exchanging self for others. And as I mentioned, I prepped the second of these two methods, which will start next week, hopefully, if we’re all still here, is probably more accessible. But nonetheless, this first method, the cause and effect instruction can, you know, I think it’s worth contemplating making use of. We’ve gone through, so on the basis of equanimity as a foundation, equanimity here means an even minded attitude toward three categories of friend, alien, and stranger. You know, categorize individuals in various ways.
This particular categorization is fundamental in the sense that there are three basic movements of the mind toward, away, and vacillating between the two. So, in categorizing a group of individuals as friend, there’s a movement toward. We will develop attachment. In cat categorizing a group of individuals as enemy, there’s a movement away. We will develop aversion.
And for that great remainder and body of humanity, which we call strangers, they don’t matter to us. We’re not quite sure what to do with them, whether to go toward them or move away from them. So, the equanimity is, you know, we don’t do away with these categorizations. They have some practical purpose in the conventional world. We can make use of these categorizations, but we no longer automatically react in terms of attachment, aversion, and indifference.
We’re creating the psychological space in which we can begin to develop a very extremely powerful means of relating with them, a positive way to relating with them, an unconditional positive regard with respect to all three equally. So that is the foundation. We go on to develop the six causes. We do we and this is the difficult part within this particular meditative tradition because it requires some strong conviction that all sentient beings have a beginless rebirth because we want to develop the notion, the connection with all living beings that they have been our literally our mother in the past. Over the course of infant number of births, all living beings, whatsoever, have literally, in fact, been our mother and have and that’s the basis.
That is the nature of the connection that the Bodhisattva feels toward every living being. And based upon that, we go on to remember their great kindness as our mothers. And we can use as a as a a template, as a model, the kindness of our mother this life. You know, trying to go beyond the intellectual specula you know, the intellect and trying to come to the the primordial bond that we once experienced in terms of our relationship with our mother and what, at some point in our life, she meant to us or that primary caregiver and without whom we wouldn’t be here. We would have died.
We were solely dependent upon her kindness, her protection, her care at some point. And that we can begin to apply to every living being because they have, in fact, been our mothers in the exact same way and been kind to us in the exact same way as our mother of this life. Having developed the appreciation of the great kindness of all sentient beings as our mother, then we go on to the third cause, which is developing gratitude, which wishes to repay that kindness. We want to return the cuddle. And and depends upon that, we develop the fourth cause, which is affectionate love.
Sentient beings look very attractive to us. You know? What and we’re captivated captivated by them. They look they look beautiful in our eyes. They’re our mothers, and they’re so kind.
And then depends upon that, we went on to develop the fifth cause, which is great compassion. Love is concerned with self with happiness, compassion with suffering. So there are the various degrees of love and compassion. In developing these degrees of compassion, we we work from first a simple, caring thought. It would be wonderful if you didn’t have this problem, if you didn’t suffer.
And we try to, you know, we try to work with that with as many, many individuals as possible so it becomes universal. And that’s just simple, kind, caring friendship. People matter to us. It would be nice. And we try so we we you know, growth is an expansion of horizons outwardly in perspective and inwardly in-depth.
First, we begin to expand our horizons outwardly in perspective until we have a sense that this wish not a wish. This this caring thought, it’d be wonderful if all living beings were happy if they didn’t suffer. There’s a sense that we can extend that to every that every living being. Yeah. But we have to do that based upon working with many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many individuals.
Then we then we we intensify that in terms of inwardly in-depth. May you be happy? You know, we come to some kind of conclusion within our mind. Not just it would be nice if you’re happy. I wish you were happy.
There’s an intense there’s intensity intensifying of our love and compassion. And then finally, we go on beyond that that level of wish. Wish. I’m going to make it so. We take responsibility.
You know, some kind we come, you know, we come to some kind of determination in our mind, some kind of resolve. I’m going to make it so. You know, if I don’t help my mother, who is? There isn’t this, and if we’re going to so this becomes the first so when we have when we’re able to develop that that sense, and this is what we mean by great compassion. All suffering, all sentient beings, that’s why it’s great.
When we develop this sense that I am going to take responsibility for working with all others and helping them to move beyond suffering. This equally directed toward all living beings. Then we have fulfilled great compassion, And we’ve we that that represents the first part of the six cause, which we’re going to talk about tonight. There are six causes bringing about a seventh effect. The effect is the awakened heart.
The sixth cause is called exceptional resolve. So this is the exceptional resolve. It’s a surpassing resolve. Sometimes the term is surpassing. Anyway, it’s a technical.
It’s not important. So initially, in developing love and compassion, in developing great compassion, our compassion is directed toward, you know, only those we feel naturally close to. We can use as a template. You know, it just says the friendly thought, it it would be nice if you were happy. But we can intensify that, can’t we?
May you be happy. And especially with those we’re naturally close to. Yeah. We can we can intensify that. I’m going to help you to be happy.
I wish you didn’t suffer. May you not suffer. I’m going to take responsibility for your suffering, you know, within a realistic framework of what we can do for others. Then we begin to extend this toward all living beings. So the awakening of our heart we want to develop love and compassion, but the awakening of our heart is is also constituted by thinking, I can do something.
And moreover, actually taking the responsibility for doing it. You know, go it so it goes beyond merely love and compassion. We resolve to lead others out of their suffering to help them to find happiness. This applies to all sentient beings. It’s universal.
You know, all sentient beings all suffer. I I realize it’s probably unimaginable for ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that we should we shouldn’t aspire to it. This is You know, how many of us have a You know, when we’re driving in a car along and we see maybe somebody’s broken down, there’s a car breakdown along the side or along the road. Maybe you see an animal that’s been hurt that’s lying alongside the road and somewhere in the back of our somewhere there’s a thought, oh there’s lots of people who drive along this road. Somebody will stop and help.
Even though you really have some concern your that this person, you know, with the car breakdown or that animal that’s hurt alongside or that they not have this problem. I mean, there’s some caring, isn’t there? It’s a natural response. But somebody will come along. This is a busy road.
One reason or another, in some way or another, it’s a bit it to we justify it one way or another for it to stop. And I I I have got disappointment or some ways, for some reason or another. And we just and we we quickly go on and distract ourselves, and we we forget what we just saw and how we just felt and how we reacted and how we responded to that situation. But have we we are able to compartmentalize our caring. We don’t we we become rather skilled at that in many ways.
But if we have to ask ourselves, if I don’t help my mother, who else can I expect to do that? How, you know, how are how are we as daughters and sons how can we really realistically expect others? You know, the you know, how can we abdicate our responsibility? It’s up to each of us personally. If if we make if we make if we make it our habitual practice to refuse our own hearts, you know, yeah, to refuse our own hearts, if in failing to respond to what our hearts are asking of us.
You know, at some point in our lives, our hearts grow silent, don’t they? We grow out of touch. We no longer are sensitive to what our hearts are are trying to tell us about ourselves and our life and what we should be doing with our life. And wonder why we feel so dead inside. You know?
So exceptional resolve is a heroic response to the suffering of the world. There is suffering out there in the world, and I can’t deaden my own heart. I can’t compartment my can no longer or I’m not willing to any longer compartmental ize that understanding of the heart. I’m determined, you know, making some we we begin to our lives are are are qualified by hesitation, by fragmentation, by defensiveness, by mistrust. And we choose.
We keep re choosing more of the same in one way or another in our life. Maybe we aren’t aware of it. Most of our choices are unconscious, but nonetheless, we are. You might you might you might say, okay, okay, okay, okay. But what can I do?
I I I can’t even free one sentient being from suffering, let let alone all sentient beings. I can’t even free myself. How can I help others? Wouldn’t it be like the blind leading the blind? Isn’t that, you know, when I feel it, when I finally get myself together, when I get my Bodhisattva certificate, then I’ll really help.
Then I’ll be able to do something. Then I, you know, I won’t respond as I normally do. I’ll make other choices. It is a false view that the will to enlightenment is the awakened heart. The spirit of enlightenment that is love and compassion is not genuine before enlightenment and hence to be postponed until some threshold is achieved.
The correct view is that love is valid and essential at any point along the path. One cannot therefore excuse oneself from the responsibility of a compassion acts on the ground that one had better wait until after enlightenment, and so remains self involved in that ultimate self interest of gaining individual enlightenment. One is enlightenment when one acts enlightened, that is, for the sake of others. Whatever one’s cognitive state may be, Buddha is as Buddha does. We do what we can with what we have.
You know, all the time remembering that the more I am, the more I can do. The more I will you know, the more I have, the more I will be able to give. But you have something now, and you can act upon that. You can take that degree of responsibility. The fact that you aren’t altogether, that you aren’t a Buddha does not somehow disqualify you or absolve you of all of us from doing what we can.
The fact is while we are cultivating love and compassion, wisdom and all the other insights that lead to enlightenment, we can be helping others continuously. First of all, merely by living a simple life with a heart dedicated to overcoming self-cherishing we automatically benefit others. And secondly, each stage of the spiritual development from the first to the last has its own power and ability depending on which level we have reached. We can help others to that extent. To be realistic, we should help others to the limit of our present capacity.
The thought that we cannot do anything until we enlighten is the fact is in fact egotistical and ignorant and reflects the basic misunderstanding of what spiritual training is all about. This misunderstanding is related to an attitude we have throughout our lives. At school, for instance, we thought I must study these boring subjects now so that pass my examinations, receive my degree, get a good job, make lots of money, and then I will be happy. All this emphasis on the future. This is Lama Yeshe.
All this emphasis on the future, when I have enough money, when I have my own home, when I retire, is easily transferred to our spiritual practice, when I have finished practicing, when I am enlightened. But to think in this way is quite deluded. This dream fantasy of an unreal future makes our present actions unrealistic as well. It is important to understand that true practice is something we do from moment to moment, from day to day. We do not we do what whatever we can with whatever wisdom we have and dedicate it all for the benefit of others.
We just live our lives simply to the best of our ability. This in itself will be of enormous benefit to others. We don’t need to wait until we are Buddhist before we begin to act. So, you know, for so if whoever we are and whatever our level or not level, what we have entertained, we can assume some responsibility. It’s just that the level of our responsibility will will accord with our ability to respond, our present ability to respond.
You know? But we can choose to respond to others in some way. You know? Choose to stay connected with others. At least stay connected with others.
This this choosing to respond to others’ needs and to our own is the taking of responsibility. It’s not it’s not like, you know, it’s there’s there’s there’s not some there’s not some huge burden. This awakening of the heart is like is like the Dalai Lama calls it, the ways to be wisely selfish. And we try so hard, don’t we? All our planning, our worrying, all our scheming, manipulating to eke out some happiness out of life in all the various ways that we conceive of it.
And how far has it gotten us in our life? Never understanding that maybe it is in our completely in our complete absorption in our own problems, has become part of the problem itself. That maybe by becoming more and more other centered rather than self centered, we could find more and more of what it is, in fact, fact, we want in our life. And again, this little plaque that’s on the other side of the door that I read every time I come in the room in the evening by the Dalai Lama where he said the purpose of life is to be happy. And the greatest degree of inner happiness comes about through development of love and compassion.
I think he’s an expert on the living of life. Maybe we can, you know, it’s worth stopping and considering that fact. Whenever we think of ourselves as doing something for someone else, we are in some way denying our own responsibility. Whatever we do is done because we choose to do it, and we make the choice because it is one that satisfies us the most. What ever we do for someone else, we do it because it fulfills a need we have.
You know, maybe loving this loving others is not a you know, to choose to love others is the wisest choice that we can begin to make. It’s not a burden. It’s choosing happiness. Ultimately, we always have a choice. What we do or do not do is our choosing.
Responsibility is not a duty imposed upon one from outside, but it is my response to a request which I feel to be my concern. Responsibility and response have the same root, respondere, to answer. To be responsible means to be ready to respond. So you know, due to our love and compassion, we value others. We feel connected with others.
You know, whether they matter to us. Just like your partner, your parents, your children, they matter to you. Maybe they have needs. They have wants. And maybe they can’t even articulate them.
Maybe they aren’t obvious to you, even to them. But nonetheless, there, we concern ourselves with what they need, with what they want. And we search around for how we can make them happy, how we can in some way, soften the blow of life. We seek to respond. So the question guess arises why should we cultivate, you know, you know, with this idea of exception resolve, you know, taking responsibility.
But it’s an understanding that of taking sole responsibility. And why should I take sole responsibility? You know, there there are these infinite numbers of Buddhas in the universe who are all taking responsibility just like myself or at least I’m aspiring to that. Why should I take sole responsibility? And each of us has a unique sphere of influence.
Each of us has a network of karma what we might call karmic affinities, the relationships that we’ve developed with the people who matter to us, who surround us in our everyday life. Someone who’s really who you’ve got a strong connection with, just a simple smile or a simple frown or just a few words can have a major impact on them, can’t they? Other people, you know, you can you can you can expend even when you try to help them. You can put so much energy, so much time. You know, your best thinking, and it almost has no or little effect.
So our our potential to influence others, whether it be positively or negatively, are the outcomes of these past relationships or karmic connections with these people. For example, you know, Śākyamūni Buddha, the historical Buddha, he’s called the fourth universal teacher of this eon. Eon is a huge expanse of time. The fifth universal teacher is Maitreya. Now what do we mean by universal teacher?
That means that while Śākyamūni Buddha was traveling the path, while he was a bodhisattva and undergoing all his various trainings. He made such an innumerable number of connections with so many individuals that upon his Buddhahood, upon his awakening, he was due to the force of these karmic connections that he developed over the course of his training, he was able to influence a world of beings. You know, there are many, many infinite numbers of Buddhas, but they’re very but they have the extent of their influence is relative to the to the current the connections which they’ve developed over the course of their training. Those who have made these vast networks of connections with others, their influence is so extensive, we give them a special name. We call them universal Buddhas.
They actually in in in introduce a whole tradition of teachings, just as Śākyamūni Buddha did. And and the and that, you know, is still exists and is still a force in the world. It’s still active now. Will not last forever. It’s been going about two thousand five hundred years, his tradition of teachings, and it will last another two thousand five hundred years, and then it will finish.
The karmic force is exhausted. This is why it’s emphasized when we’re cultivating love and compassion that we should do it with respect to many, many, many particular individuals. In doing so, we not only grow in love and compassion, cultivating love and compassion, development of our own hearts, but also we are creating affinities with a greater and greater number of people who we will be able to influence in the future. You know, we each have our spheres of influence, don’t we? Just a few words can make a difference in people’s lives.
Other people, we don’t have that connection no matter what we do. No matter how much we try, it doesn’t amount to much. Sometimes it has the opposite effect of what we might like, what we’re trying to achieve. So each of us relate with individuals at various given times, and we can we can significantly influence others. So we, you know, in this way, we can’t abdicate our responsibility because we can, we do affect others, both positively and negatively.
Our potential to work with others does not exist from our own side alone. Not it does not depend exclusively on our own abilities, does it? It arises in dependence upon the quality of our interaction with others. It occurs within a particular context. So the Bodhisattva tries to understand him or herself, tries to understand the nature of reality, opens themselves in in communicating with others.
And within that openness of space, perhaps insight occurs. Some some understanding arises in others. We all have some understandings. We all have some love. We all have some personal power.
All of us. All of us. So and we all and we can we we can help a limited number of people in a limited way. We aren’t Buddhists. No one’s saying you’re a Buddha.
But Buddha is as Buddha does. In some ways in some ways, we can influence others more than even a Buddha can to those who we have a a very strong karmic connection with for the better or, again, for the worse, possibly. And we our ability to help others is not dependent simply upon our own abilities, our own understanding, our own our own wisdom and so forth. It’s also dependent upon the connection, our relationship with others, and their receptivity of what it is that we’re saying and the way it’s communicated, the context in which the communication takes place. You know, the yeah.
The aim of a bodhisattva is to be able to help unlimited people, an unlimited number of people in an unlimited ways as a Buddha. You know, one of the marks of of the dissatisfaction of our dissatisfactory lives is that we never really dedicate ourselves to anything. We we never commit ourselves. Everything we do is, at best, only done partially. You know, it’s it’s we lead fragmented lives.
You know, everything you know, like, we’re we’re very much like dilettantes shopping in in the supermarket of life. And then going here and there, it’s like butterflies flitting from one attractive flower to another. You know, one diversion after another in one way or another. There’s always a holding back. There’s never the experience of giving ourselves over totally to any one thing, really making some kind of commitment, some kind of resolution.
You know, it is and all of you know, it is the development of this it is the dedication of this awakened heart, which has the power to completely transform our minds, which has the power to transform an ordinary being into an extraordinary being. It is that the power of that dedication to the welfare of all sentient beings. You know, that is like is like sometimes it’s it’s likened to an alchemist elixir, which changes base metal into gold. You know, this this awakened heart. You know, there there’s a collection of what are called the birth stories, the Jātaka tales of the Buddha, which, you know, before the Buddha became Buddha, he was a Bodhisattva, someone someone who had awakened their heart.
And, you know, he went through these eons of training lifetime after lifetime. And there’s various stories which are told in connection with this, and these are termed the the birth stories of the Buddha. And it’s said that in one of his previous lives, there was a starving tigress with her cubs. And he was so moved by compassion at the suffering and for the welfare of that starving tigress. And And he actually cut himself, so he began to bleed, he fed himself to the tigress.
To the modern man, such a story may appear unreasonable and exaggerated because he judges from purely intellectual, that is external point of view, according to which the sacrifice appears to be out of proportion to its cause, the preservation or rather prolongation of the life of some wild beast does not seem to be worth the sacrifice of a human life. The Buddhist, however, sees this story in quite a different light. To him, it is not the factual or objective reality that matters, but the motive, the power of compassion, which caused the Bodhisattva to act in this way, irrespective of external consequences. The spiritual and symbolic meaning of this deed goes far beyond the frame of its apparent cause. That the lives of the tigress and her cubs are saved is not of such fundamental importance as that the bodhisattva experiences within himself their suffering and despairs in all its terrible reality.
And he proves by his deed that there is no more difference for him between his own suffering and the suffering of others. In his supreme sacrifice, he overcomes the illusion of his own self, and thus he lays the foundation for his own later Buddhahood. If the modern man fail fails to be moved by the Jātaka tales, the birth stories of the Buddha, it is because he regards their picture of the Bodhisattva’s life as not an ideal to be followed, but a doctrine which one may agree with or disagree on purely theoretic grounds. Seizing the letter, he misses the spirit of the teaching. A Bodhisattva doctrine in the sense of conceptual formulation of the Buddhist of the Buddhist Bodhisattva’s spiritual attitude doesn’t exist as such But this doctrine, like all the doctrines of Buddhism, has a strictly pragmatic value.
It functions to facilitate the realization of the idea. You know, it’s in a way, you know, our lives are marked by conflict, by doubt, by hesitation. We feel like isolated ego is cut off from the rest of life, from the rest of the world, the people about us. We’re quite reasonable, aren’t we, in how we approach our life. We feel that way.
We try to be quite rational and methodical in how we go about our life. But in our reasonableness, we’ve lost our dignity. We’ve grown out of touch with our own dreams, out of, you know, out of the out of the stuff of which life is really made. We become, you know, our deepest values. We’ve in in in trying to protect our territory and find a sense of personal security of ourselves, we’ve become poverty stricken.
We’ve we we more than not, we live in fear. There’s no real dedication. There’s just calculation. Yeah. Transactions, which pass for love, which pass for relationships.
So there’s no wholeness to to ourselves anymore. We we we are as we are in we are in a struggle with inside of ourselves, all the various parts of ourselves vying for dominance. We have grown deaf to our calling, to the inarticulate whisperings of our own heart more than not. You know, where decisions are made, the locus of agency, of choice. So it is the empowering is in the deciding to be to and to make conscious choices.
Maybe that’s why we feel so powerless all the time because most of our choices that we made are unconscious or habitual. You know, the the the we’ve lost our freedom, haven’t we? Freedom is the awareness of options and the ability to choose. There are alternatives. And we have the ability to choose if we exercise that choice, a conscious choice.
We empower ourselves. And in the empowering, we go beyond our present limits. And in that power, there is an increasing of power in making a consistent choice. Consistent choice is dedication, is commitment. It is the bodhisattva’s consistent choice to leave his heart open in all the circumstances that life brings him, in all the dealings of his life which empowers the Bodhisattva to take responsibility for others, to ultimately be able to respond to others.
Know, the psychology, psychotherapy is not just about empowering, but it’s also about competency. It’s about the ability to respond. So we may be empowered, we have to it is in taking that that that responsibility that we will, you know, invention is the mother of necessity is the mother of invention. If you have to respond, way. You will develop the ability to respond.
If you don’t, you probably won’t. The the motive is the will to take personal responsibility, but are we able to take that responsibility in fact? If we’re not able to respond, then how can we realistically take responsibility? We can’t. So it is a dedication dedication which takes that responsibility for all beings in their suffering which naturally leads to the development of that ability.
There’s a deciding, a choice of taking responsibility, and then there’s the evolution of developing the ability to live up to that choice in our own inner development. It is what transmutes an ordinary being into an extraordinary being. We choose to be a Buddha more than that. So to be able to respond to the needs of others is the, you know, to become a Buddha. You know, again, we don’t know what a Buddha is.
But but it is to be able to respond to the needs of others in the most meaningful of ways with the best possible outcomes. So so when when we begin to have a sense of that, to feel that very deeply, and it becomes a necessity for ourselves. And with that, arises from the depth of our heart this this all consuming aspiration that for the sake of all sentient beings, all my mothers, all these living beings, all these people, you know, within this room and outside this room, I must become a Buddha. I have there’s no choice. As Krishnamurti once said, for the intelligent person, there’s very few choices in life, but still there are choices to be made.
You know, I have to become a happy, healthy, loving, supremely sane human being. That becomes our dedication. That becomes our consistent choice. And out of that choice, we will be able to develop the ability to respond to what we aspire to. When this aspiration arises spontaneously, effortlessly, effortlessly, again and again.
When you just see a person and you say, ah, I have to become a Buddha for that person. I have to become a Buddha for that person. I have to all we’re what we’re saying is the is making a commitment to the world about us at some level. And to the degree that we are willing to make a choice in living out that commitment, we will be able to respond accordingly. There is no more virtuous mind than bodhicitta.
bodhicitta is the awakened heart. There is no more powerful mind than bodhicitta. There is no more joyful mind than bodhicitta. To accomplish the purpose of all others living beings, there is nothing superior to bodhicitta. The awakened mind is this unsurpassed way to accumulate merit to purify obstacles bodhicitta is supreme.
For protection from interferences bodhicitta is supreme. It is the unique and all encompassing method. Every ordinary and super mundane power can be attained through bodhicitta. Thus, it is absolutely precious. So there is no more greater aspiration and use meaning that we can make of our life than to awaken our hearts than to develop bodhicitta.
So that’s this this is the result of the six causes. On the foundation of equanimity, this even minded attitude, which no longer automatically reacts with hostility and indifference and attachment, we go on to create to cultivate six causes, seeing all beings as our mother is developing remembering their kindness, developing a gratitude, which wishes to repay their kindness, developing appealing love, great compassion, and the exceptional resolve. Out of that arises the seventh of the cause and effect instruction, the awakened heart. So that’s that’s the the first of these two meditative traditions. Next week, we’ll we’ll begin discussing the second of the two meditative traditions equalizing and exchanging self for others.
Didn’t save time. Anybody have a question? Comment? We’re gonna have discussion, some some people are for one reason or another are unable or choose not to, stay for the discussion. Sure.
I’m hard. Yeah. Yeah. So many people are willing to die for a cause, but very few people are willing to live for a cause. So here, the cause is the welfare of others, and we’re not dying for that cause, but we’re living for that cause.
So I noticed that you Mhmm. That you necessarily died? No. He was he was murdered, I think. Don’t know what I think we’re dying for a cause.
I don’t know. What what do we mean by a marker? What do you suppose that means? They can be living also. I know that.
So you were you saying the What’s the beast? Well, it’s just I mean, in this birth birth’s tale of the Buddha, it was out of the force of his love and compassion that he was willing to sacrifice his his body. Body. I don’t know. So why do you I don’t think why do you think that’s a martyr?
A martyr when somebody gives a life for yeah. But I’m talking about the Buddha. Was he I’m talking about the Buddha, somebody who’s a bodhisattva. Is he being a martyr? I don’t know.
That’s what I Well, am not quite. Anybody else? Anything? So if you’d like to get a cup of tea, we’ll have a discussion. Otherwise, have a good week.
Okay? Thank you. I’m sorry, can I interrupt you one moment? Announcements. The can’t get away from them.
The basic program is going to begin soon, which is approximately a five year program. And there’ll be information even this Thursday night beginning at six o’clock. There’s a free talk by Geshe la about his educational background and his studies in the monastery and so forth, so you’re welcome to come along with that. So the evening begins at six and he’ll Geshe la will talk about he’ll give a talk about seven fifteen. There’s WOMADelaide. Buddhist Bowl.
If you’d like to help, volunteer, we always need volunteers. Buddhist Bowl is a, catering service which helps fund Buddha House, which we do every year at WOMADelaide. So you can contact the office if you’d like to offer your There’s a list around the corner in the hallway. There’s a day of mindfulness on March sixteenth. Is now going to we change venues.
It’s going to be in Stirling. So that’s in the newsletter. You can check on that. There’s the Easter retreat coming up. There’s long life puja for Geshe la which are all welcome.
It’s a very elaborate ceremony, which you you might find quite enjoyable to attend. It’s on April sixth. And then every Monday and Tuesday night, there’s learn to meditate at six o’clock. Thank you.