Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 130-minute retreat session, Venerable Jampa Ignyen opens the Heart Sūtra with recitation and traditional preliminaries, then pivots to teaching how emptiness and compassion work together—not as abstract philosophy, but as direct tools for mind training. He addresses Western practitioners on the specific emotions that block practice: guilt and shame, anger, attachment, and self-blame. He distinguishes the two Buddhist paths (individual liberation versus universal compassion for all beings), covers the four opponent powers and the crucial difference between healthy regret and toxic shame, and repeatedly traces our suffering to self-cherishing—the tacit assumption that we matter more than others. Throughout, he emphasizes that understanding impermanence and the plasticity of mind offers both philosophical depth and practical relief. Intended for Western practitioners with diverse faith backgrounds, including those with Christian formation now exploring Buddhist practice.
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File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 04 23 Heart Sūtra Easter Retreat.mp3
UUID: 12eb227e-4b71-4c5b-8b33-84ea7b11309a
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Heart Sūtra Retreat (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2011-04-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 130.8 minutes
Words: ~13,690
Thank you. So on page four we have the refuge in bodhicitta prayer. So first we’ll recite that three times through, and I think today we’ll go on in with the four immeasurables and the seven-limb prayer and the short mandala offering, we’ll do, from page four to page five. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened, to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened, to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. Then a short mandala offering.
We can do this in English. This ground, anointed with perfume, strewn with flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, four continents, the sun and the moon. I imagine this as a Buddha field and offer it. May all living beings enjoy this pure land. Right, so just before we do some breathing meditation yesterday, but again just to reflect on our current state of mind.
What’s our mind like? What’s it look like at the present? So we just end the meditation there. So next we should just return to the prayer book. I will just read through the Heart Sūtra.
The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom. Thus did I hear at one time. The Bhagavan was dwelling on the mass of vultures mountain in Rajgriha, together with a greater community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. At that time, the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called profound perception. Also at that time, the Bodhisattva, mahasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those five aggregates, also as empty of inherent nature. Then through the power of the Buddha, the Venerable Śāriputra said this to the Bodhisattva mahasattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara, how should any son of the lineage train who wishes to practice in the activity of profound perfection of wisdom.
He said that and the bodhisattva, mahasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, said this to the venerable Śāriputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the profound perfection of wisdom should look upon it like this. Correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form.
Form is also not other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness. Śāriputra, likewise all phenomena are emptiness without characteristic, unproduced, unceased, stainless, not without stain, not depleted, not fulfilled. Śāriputra, therefore in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomenon. There is no eye element and so on up to and including no mind element, and no mental consciousness element.
There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance and so on up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation and path. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment and no non attainment. Therefore, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and dwell on the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of nirvana.
All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly completely awaken to perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering should be known as truth since it is not false. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared. Tadyata om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha. Śāriputra, bodhisattvas, mahasattvas should train in the profound perfection of the wisdom like that.
Then the Bhagavan arose from the concentration and commended the bodhisattva, mahasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, saying, well said, well said, son of the lineage. It is like that. It is like that. One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have indicated. Even the Tathagatas will rejoice.
The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the Venerable Śāriputra, the Bodhisattva, mahasattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, those surrounding in their entirety, along with the world of gods, humans, asuras and Gandharvas, were overjoyed and highly praised what was spoken by the Bhagavan. Right. So that is the Heart Sūtra. Actually, got different versions of it here. So we’ll see how we go.
It’s not too confusing. So yesterday we looked at the title of the Heart Sūtra. The title is a bit more extensive something like the victorious heart of the perfection of wisdom or the victorious essence of the perfection of wisdom. And we went through the meaning of some of these terms in order to get some some idea, some clarity on the words themselves. Again, what we’re doing at present is looking at the words and seeking to sort out any issues with the words of the sūtra so that the meaning behind the sūtra becomes apparent.
Why are we doing this? In order to generate the wisdom of hearing or the wisdom of study and the wisdom of contemplation and ultimately the wisdom derived from meditation itself. The reason why we’re interested in developing wisdom is because we want to generate perfect wisdom. Perfect wisdom exists in the mental continuum of a Buddha. So the idea behind the Heart Sūtra is how we generate perfect wisdom in ourselves.
In fact, how we become a Buddha. Now the direct explicit teachings of the Heart Sūtra are emptiness, and the indirect or the implicit is method of great compassion. So great compassion is implied in these words, but when we look through them there’s no mention of compassion. However, we do have Avalokiteśvara who’s there. Avalokiteśvara is the personification of compassion.
So that also is an indication that it’s a sūtra of the great vehicle and being a sūtra of the great vehicle it implies the necessity to generate great compassion. And as such it’s a great vehicle teaching. It’s what the great vehicle refers to is the vehicle which carries beings to liberation across the ocean of Samsāra. And a great vehicle is a big vehicle, which includes everyone. So because it includes everyone, it’s termed great.
A small vehicle just takes one person across the dangerous waters of Samsāra to the island of liberation on the other side. When we look at the words, we don’t see compassion mentioned, but one cannot practice the Heart Sūtra without contemplating great compassion. So when one contemplates great compassion, one then contemplates, say, the six causes and one result, or the seven points of exchanging self for others, and so on. I think you’ve probably heard of these terms before, but what they refer to is just the practice that we need to undertake to develop and extend our compassion. Because then great compassion becomes the very basis for practicing the Heart Sūtra.
And in fact, compassion is like the entrance to the great vehicle. And for instance, in the six causes and one result, you know, reflecting on all beings of one’s mother, reflecting on their kindness, repaying their kindness, generating great love, generating great compassion, generating universal aspiration, then generating bodhicitta. When one generates bodhicitta, one becomes a bodhisattva. We noticed in the beginning that this sūtra has two It has an audience of the fully ordained, the monk audience, the full fully ordained audience, and then the bodhisattva audience. So primarily, it’s directed towards the bodhisattva audience.
But it really includes everyone because, ultimately, it’s said that there’s just one vehicle. There’s not a small vehicle and a great vehicle. Even if we enter the small vehicle and attain liberation, even those beings eventually have to enter the great vehicle and become Buddhas. It’s those that enter the small vehicle are as if they want to graduate, or they want to get to a point where they’re beyond suffering first before they can actually generate great compassion. But if you can get into that state, it’s quite easy to generate great compassion.
So that’s a method of that some that is suitable for some beings. Other beings, even though they’re not beyond suffering at present, are able to generate great compassion. In fact, it may even be easier that while we contemplate our own suffering that we can understand the suffering of other beings and extend our concern for ourselves to other beings through the understanding of equanimity. And then even bring other beings genuinely into our contemplation of of even freeing ourselves from suffering, freeing others from suffering, and gradually developing deeper and more extensive forms of compassion till we have, like, infinite compassion and so on. Or compassion that’s more or less pervasive and so on.
Gradually, what we have at prison is we have a sense of compassion, but it’s not very strong because it’s generally quite focused, say, our children, our partner, friends, but it’s not even when it’s directed towards those that we love that are near, that are close to us, it it’s probably not faultless. And certainly to strangers, have more difficulty generating compassion. So our present level of compassion is not very strong, not very developed. Again, developing compassion, like in our initial it’s we stop and think of compassion, we get a sort of an idea of your compassion and nice something nice, useful. Oh, yeah, I’ve got a bit of compassion.
It’s there. It’s sort of adequate. We just have this sense, know, I know what compassion is. But when we look, is it affecting my mind at present? Oh, not so much.
You know, our current mind is a bit rigid and unyielding and not very pliable, not very flexible. It’s hard to actually get our mind around having compassion. But it does arise from time to time. A time that’s just effortless. With our children, we look at our children and it’s there.
It doesn’t need to be generated. We have compassion. We don’t want them to suffer. So we have to extend that to other beings and improve it. So this is the basic practice of we who are looking at the Heart Sūtra.
We need to keep in mind that compassion is the basis of the practice of the Heart Sūtra. So what are we looking at the Heart Sūtra? We’re looking at a dialogue. We’re looking at something that happened two and a half thousand years ago. It was a conversation that took place at on Vulture’s Peak.
Vulture’s Peak is a town or not a town, it’s a little peak just outside of the town of Rajgir. And there the Buddha was seated with an assembly of monks and an assembly of bodhisattvas. And Ānanda was there, the attendant, and it was the attendant that took note of what was happening and recorded it, compiled that teaching so that it was written down later. And we have it today. We have a record of that teaching.
Then the Buddha himself was contemplating he was engaged in meditation, in concentration, called profound illumination, profound perception, profound appearance. It can be translated in different ways. What it means is the Buddha was engaged in meditating on emptiness, and while meditating on emptiness, he’s also examining what exists in the universe. That’s a very extensive contemplation. The Buddha is capable of countless types of concentration.
Samādhi. Now these types of Samādhi are generated when we have perfectly trained the mind. At present, haven’t trained our mind to the point where it’s single pointed, so we don’t have direct experience of this. So the Buddha was examining what exists in the universe. And then now what he was examining were these major categories, say, the five aggregates and what are also called the twelve bases, the eighteen elements or the eighteen constituents or the eighteen realms.
So if we what these are are just categories of how we can look at what exists. The first one, the five aggregates, really reflects the nature of the I, who I am, the base of bases of designation of the I. So they’re very important. The next set, the twelve bases and the eighteen realms, really reflect the dualistic nature of existence, subject and object. And in a sense, why they’re looked at is to understand is in order to gradually begin to understand non duality.
So to understand non duality, one looks at what duality is. So we live in a dualistic world. This is what does that mean? We have consciousness, we have awareness and we have objects of awareness. So in understanding what exists from a Buddhist point of view we’re looking at these two categories.
We’re looking at consciousness that which possesses objects, has objects, engages objects and objects themselves. So whatever exists must be the one or the other. True? Yeah. No, I think that we can accept that.
So these are either has to be one or the other. When we look at what we are as a human being, really we can divide what exists which includes ourselves into these twelve categories or these eighteen categories or we just two subject object. Might be easier to think of it in that way. We’re the subject. Really our mind, our awareness is the inner subject.
And what does the mind do? What do minds do? They engage objects. They access objects. They apprehend objects.
So if it exists, it either has to be an object or something that is apprehending an object. So what apprehends objects? Actually, there’s two classes of things that apprehend objects. They’re consciousness and beings like the eye. Right?
So really just those two. But the eye only is able to comprehend other things through consciousness, through awareness. So really, the eye, you know, is something that interacts through consciousness because the eye possesses consciousness. So again, it’s we’re looking at the nature of the eye, nature of the person. The person designated upon the mind body continuum.
The person designated upon the mind body continuum is the mere I. And the basis of that designation is the body and the minds that are associated with the body. So that again reflects the fundamental dualistic nature of existence. Why are we examining these issues? It’s in order to basically understand ourselves, understand how we exist within the world.
In order to understand emptiness, which is extremely subtle, extremely profound, we have to sort out the coarser levels of how things exist. Right? If we don’t clearly understand the nature of ordinary existent objects, if not possible to really penetrate to the deeper subtler levels of existence of an object. If we don’t know what a table is, we can’t understand the impermanence of the table. If we don’t understand what a glass is, it’s hard for us to understand what a glass of water is.
And we can’t understand the impermanence of the glass. Or, for instance, its selflessness, or its non duality, or its emptiness, and so on. So initially, what the Buddha is doing here is contemplating emptiness, but also looking at the divisions of existent entities. Now, we may wonder at this time, what’s this got to do with any spiritual path? You know, it’s a you know, we’ve got all we need is something simple that we can, you know, practice and be happy with in the present, you know, that we need to worry about what exists in the universe.
Right? I mean, this doubt will arise. You know, why should I bother with all of this? Why don’t we get things in a nutshell, you know, like just one thing clear? You know, as a Zen koan, why doesn’t the enlightened being just stand up and explain himself in a few words?
And we want something simple. In fact, the Buddha has stood up and did say the short Prajñāpāramitā, the extremely abbreviated version of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, which is just the short ah, ah. And if it needs to be short and concise, then nothing more concise than that. But of course for us, you know, we think well what what does that mean? Ah!
What does it mean? You know, it’s not not clear. So then, you know, we you know, the Buddha might say, well, look at the mantra, There, that’s it in a nutshell. We will get to that, yes. Probably, yeah, we don’t need to go into it.
But then we think exactly what’s the meaning of that? What what does it mean? And so the then the Buddha would give something a little bit longer like the Heart Sūtra. And, okay, now in the Heart Sūtra, you know, there’s a lot more information. You know, we have, you know, we know who compiled it, we know where it took place, we know who was there, and we have the conversation of what happened.
But we look at the Heart Sūtra and we think, it’s still a bit obscure. And so, the enlightened being, the Buddha, has then made more extensive presentations, like the seven hundred and fifty verse, like the eight thousand verse, Prajñāpāramitā, which has eight two chapters and so on. And then the eighteen thousand verse. So progressively, in order to explain the meaning of what perfect wisdom is, the Buddha has implied or used more and more words in order to do this. Not because the Buddha wants to.
I mean, I’m sure he would prefer just to, you know, take it easy. Why compose something with eight thousand verses in it just to afflict us with, you know, cause make a problem for us. Why should we wanna read something with eight thousand verses or eighteen thousand verses or twenty thousand verses or there’s another twenty five thousand verses. And there’s an eight hundred thousand verse Prajñāpāramitā text. And there’s probably longer ones because from the point of view of the Buddhas, even though Śākyamūni Buddha taught on this particular planet it said that when he manifested as a Buddha, he manifested as a Buddha on one billion planetary systems.
That are somewhat similar to our planet. And in each of those planetary systems, he taught the perfection of wisdom, but he taught it differently in different places. So in other places they might have something longer than a hundred thousand verses, they might have a five hundred thousand verse or maybe a million verse version. So there are very extensive versions. Why are so many words used?
Many, many words are used because the subject matter is very deep. Subject matter emptiness is very profound, very deep. And in order to get to that depth, we have to eliminate we have to progressively eliminate all our doubts and generate understanding of all the stages that are required to reach perfect wisdom. So it’s just for that purpose alone. It’s not to harass us or to, you know, cause us to have to spend weeks and months reading a particular book, like the eight thousand verse, and we get to the end and we think, well, what does it actually mean?
What do all these things mean? So the Buddha here is contemplating the nature of existing objects. He’s the enumeration, the categories, categories, the diversity of existent things. And this is done really to put into context the main issue, which is the person, the five aggregates. And then the main issue in the person, what is the person?
How does a person actually exist? Where does that person come from? Where are they going? Why is it that what happens to them happens to them? Is there anything that can be done to improve the lot of a being?
And if so, you know, how does a being when we look at our current situation, what are we dealing with but our afflictive emotions? If they didn’t exist, we’ll be fine. If our afflictive emotions, if the this sense of things being unsatisfactory disappeared, we’d be fine. Death is a bit of a problem. We’d actually like to get beyond death.
That have to face death is a problem. Sickness is a problem, aging is a problem, we know this. Birth is a problem. Is there a state beyond this? The Buddha, when he left home, he was seeking the deathless state because that’s really the main problem.
The real big problem is death that’s looming in in front of us. All our other problems are a bit minor in comparison. And that’s why death meditation is so useful for us, because we get sidetracked into all of these other issues: financial, emotional, relationship, and so on. We are sort of distracted continuously by these things, and death is right in front of us, and it’s like, know, in the in the face of death, we’re worried about these minor issues in comparison. Still, death is is something that we often put to one side and and our main approach to dealing with that is maybe taking out a funeral plan.
And we got insurance and a funeral plan. Alright. But and it’s it’s as if, well, we’ll approach the whole issue on the fly, you know, we’d get there and then we’ll we’ll work out a strategy, you know, when I’m in hospital and then, you know, and the ECG has finally gone flat and whatever, you know, then at that point, I will I’ll wing it somehow. I could appeal to someone at that point, you know, so forth. Death meditation, very useful for us just to sober us up in the present and try to stop us from from, I don’t know, being too worried about emotional issues, relationship issues, financial issues in the present.
In fact, we never solve them. We’ll never solve them. Soon as we patch up the our issues here, something starts up there. We never expected. Oh, I thought that was that would never happen.
But now we have to, you know, patch that up there and then something over here and, oh, you know, it’s like we’d never run out of issues that we have to deal with. And death approaches. So what we’re looking at here is what the Buddha is talking about here is the really basic issues, the fundamental issues about what a human being is, what I am, what we are. Because they’re the ones we have to resolve, because that is the I that dies. So the Buddha here is reflecting on the categories of existence in terms of the eye, the five aggregates, and then in terms of subject object duality, the twelve bases in the eighteen realms.
Yeah. When you refer to the eighteen realms, is that what you were referring to yesterday? No. They’re a slightly different set of categories. They’re just the division of existent entities into eighteen categories.
The desire realm, the form realm, the formless realm, they’re the really cosmology, Buddhist cosmology, how the universe is structured. Again, those issues may appear some use to us, but they’re not immediate issues for us. So it’s not that important. It’s a bit like, you know, there there’s a story of this person who got wounded in a battle with an arrow and he’s lying on the ground and if we were to approach the person and talk to them, they wouldn’t say, Oh, who fired the arrow? From, you know, what’s the arrow made of?
Or, you know, was it one of us or one of them or so on, get their name and address. It it was to get rid of the arrow, wants to be. So our situation is exactly that. We are afflicted. We we have afflictive emotions.
We have to deal with those in the present. Find methods that are gonna work in the present. Remove the arrow in the present. That’s really what we have to do. But pulling out the arrow in the present requires a certain understanding of what the arrow is, in a sense, of what the actual problem is.
So that’s why, you know, in the Heart Sūtra it raises these issues of existence of what the person is. In a sense, if there’s no person, there’s nothing really to worry about. But understanding what that means takes a long long time. So anyway So, so far we’ve investigated just the setting up of the Heart Sūtra what what is actually happening. So it’s good that we understand that.
Now the Buddha is contemplating profound is in a concentration called profound illumination. It’s like illuminating the universe, examining everything that’s in the universe without exception. Everything in the universe is either subject or an object. And if we look at the subjects, the main subjects are consciousness, so six types of consciousness. The six types of sense base that support those consciousness and the six objects of consciousness.
Right? So looking at the universe from that angle that’s okay, isn’t it? We have six types of consciousness: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Six types of consciousness. We have six sense bases like the eye sense base, ear, nose, tongue, body, mental sense base.
And we have six objects: physical form, sound, smell, taste, tactile, touch, and objects of mental awareness. All profound, non profound entities within the universe, and so on. So, okay, the Buddha is reflecting on that. Avalokiteśvara is examining the perfection of wisdom itself and examining the five aggregates. Actually, the contemplation of Avalokiteśvara and the Buddha are very similar.
Buddha’s reflecting on profound illumination, illumination, and Avalokiteśvara on the perfection of wisdom. Actually, they’re very similar. And the Buddha is reflecting on the categories of existence. Avalokiteśvara is reflecting on the five aggregates. And really Avalokiteśvara is doing that through the really also through the blessing of the Buddha.
Right. So then, Śāriputra is Then through the power of the Buddha, the venerable Śāriputra said to the bodhisattva, the great being noble Avalokiteśvara, how should any son or daughter of good lineage train who desires to engage in the profound practice of the perfection of wisdom? So Śāriputra then asks Avalokiteśvara exactly what should one do. So actually, through the power of the Buddha also goes back to Avalokiteśvara. Avalokiteśvara is reflecting on the nature of existence, on the five aggregates, really through the influence of the Buddha.
Okay. So yesterday, talked a little bit about the how should any son or daughter of good lineage, good family train? So good lineage there partially refers to the fact that there are male or female with complete faculties, complete in their gender and so forth, that are capable of practicing the path. So this is the traditional explanation of these terms. Right.
So actually, we’re as a really we might just stop soon, but are there any issues that come up in that part of the text? He shouldn’t be. He’s a liberated being. Śāriputra. But it’s implied that he means also there.
It’s said in the commentary that actually son or daughter is meant there. But it’s just that, you know, in the language, also in the Tibetan, the term se is used. Se can be the male or female. So in a way it’s implied when Śāriputra speaks. But the fundamental issue is that there is no difference.
Both male female equally have are meant by that statement of Śāriputra. And also in this there’s a commentary here by Candrakīrti and this is what he says in this commentary. But this is an important point because and again it reflects that each of us have been male and female rough, you know, fifty percent of the time. There is no fixed male. There is no fixed female.
It’s just wherever you take rebirth, then you’re that gender. So we’re not fixed male or female. Society is, the way we are present is a result of the past karma of the common karma of many beings over many many lifetimes. So, yeah, we need to reflect on this. Well, actually, it I don’t think it necessarily means that they’re not bodhisattvas, those in the monk community either.
The assembly of monks. It’s just that you are probably, you know, you have an ordained section and maybe a non ordained section is another way that it perhaps can be understood. I don’t think there are strict boundaries there because an ordained being can be a bodhisattva and a bodhisattva could be ordained. There’s no, you know, there’s no hard and fast rule one way or the other. There’s different views about what the small vehicle is and what the great vehicle is.
Basically the small vehicle, the Hīnayāna just refers to the means of oneself attaining enlightenment. Like a a specific individual means of in attaining enlightenment. Whereas the great vehicle is a means of attaining enlightenment that carries other beings along with it, all other beings. So this is the basic division between the two. And what you find is that there are those with a great vehicle aspiration that exists as, you know, they may appear to be Hīnayāna practitioners, but they’re actually of Mahāyāna what motivation.
Those in the Mahāyāna who, you know, peer or they exist in Mahāyāna countries and they practice or they, you know, they are included, you know, as Mahāyāna practitioners, but actually their motivation is Hīnayāna. So there’s no you go to Thailand for instance, in Thailand, would be Mahāyāna practitioners there, of course. The king himself is regarded as a bodhisattva. So they accept the existence of bodhisattvas, but what often is the case is that they think that the great vehicle is so difficult to practice that it’s just beyond the scope of a normal being. And so it’s just easier.
Instead of actually trying to generate become a bodhisattva, it’s easier just to be an become an arhat. You can do that in one lifetime. So there’s no really, there’s no fundamental difference. What the Mahāyāna countries are saying is that, well, actually, it is incredibly difficult to generate great compassion, but there’s no choice. Ultimately, there’s only the great vehicle.
Doesn’t matter even if you use the small vehicle to attain liberation. Ultimately, there’s only one vehicle. So you might as well bite the bullet in the beginning and just go for the great vehicle. But when you ask you know, there are then those that aspire to the great vehicle and there are those that are actually practitioners of the great vehicle. So practitioners of the great vehicle are few, meaning actual bodhisattvas.
So even in, you know, say, Tibet, not that many actual Mahāyāna practitioners. Probably the majority are practicing on the level of small vehicle. But they may have the aspiration to, you know, generate the great vehicle. But it’s it’s difficult to actually generate great compassion is not so easy. There was a meditator called Gendun Rinpoche who went into retreat in Bhutan for many, many years.
And then finally, after thirty five years, came out of retreat. He wanted to attain enlightenment Kālacakra initiation. And prior to that he went to see His Holiness and apparently he mentioned to His Holiness that attaining single pointed concentration, not so difficult. Great compassion very difficult, extremely difficult, took a long time. So, yeah, actual great vehicle practitioners, you know, are are not you know, they’re there, but, you know, not everyone that exists in a Mahāyāna country is practicing on on the level of the great vehicle.
Oh absolutely for us just to yeah put effort into generating compassion and love and compassion. And gradually it will improve, our compassion will improve. And then gradually we can extend it and of these bodhisattvas, you know, the ones that actually have great compassion, they really you know, like with you read the story you heard of the story of a Sangha. Oh, anyway, we without it’s it can take many, many years to really develop a taste of the feeling of compassion for other beings just to be over you know, what you need to to be a bodhisattva, it’s like you’re overcome by compassion being other beings. You just need to look at them and, you know, you’re effortlessly overcome with the understanding of this situation and wanting to help.
It’s an uncontrived effortless, you know, empathy that’s always there. And not to say that body sufferers in the early stages don’t have hate and anger and they do, But they actually do generate this effortless compassion for all sentient beings without exception. Once they’ve generated that, then of course they have, you know, emotional issues can arise, especially on the early stages, path of accumulation and so on. But underneath they have this well, this first is earth like bodhicitta, then this gold like bodhicitta. When they have earth like bodhicitta, Anyway, we can talk a little bit more about this later.
We’ll have a break now and have a cup of tea and relax. So we’ll just start with a short mandala offering on page page number five. We were just previously talking about the great vehicle and the small vehicle, and which comes up here at the very beginning of the sūtra when it talks about the great assembly of monks and a great assembly of bodhisattvas. And yeah. In terms of what the great vehicle is and the small vehicle is, there is a in fact, think I remember debating the issue once in one text it comes up.
And actually you can posit someone who is by view of the small vehicle and by motivation of the small vehicle or by motivation of the small vehicle and by philosophical view of the great vehicle, or someone of the great vehicle whose philosophic view is of the small vehicle, or someone of the great vehicle whose philosophic view is of the great vehicle. So there’s quite a lot of variation there. In fact, the teacher of Atisha who went to Java by ship. His teacher there, Dharmarakshita, was said to have been someone whose motivation was of the great vehicle, but whose philosophic view is of the small vehicle. So, you know, it’s possible that, you know, mix and match at that point.
But most beings are not at the level of generating, fully generating the motivation of the great vehicle. And but to have that aspiration like in the Heart Sūtra, one should at least have the aspiration to become a being of the great vehicle. Realizing at present we don’t have great compassion. So in a sense, we our mind is still like at the level of this small vehicle. But we have this aspiration to extend our aspirations and generate great compassion and therefore become a being of the great vehicle.
Enter the great vehicle. Oh, there is, I think. Yeah. Just having that aspiration. We don’t have great compassion yet.
But each time we dedicate, we reflect on the purpose of other beings. It helps because all of these things are mind based. bodhicitta is mind based, of course. Compassion, philosophic view, all of these things are states of mind. And every time we dedicate, we do something positive, we dedicate it to all sentient beings, then it does make a difference.
Might only be small, but but exactly. We have to start somewhere and, you know, just where our mind is at present is where we start. And although we may not see the difference on a, you know, we dedicate whatever we’ve generated for the sake of all sentient beings, it’s not as if suddenly, you know, we’ve got you know, we’ve mind just improved this much or or whatever. We don’t notice the difference. Although it’s said that a good practitioner, you know, one in the a really excellent practitioner, they do notice the difference.
With it, you know, the strength of one’s practice, one’s effort is really incredibly strong. Like someone like Milarepa, for instance, that, you know, is just able to generate renunciation and bodhicitta and practice very extremely strongly, then yes, you could notice some difference. For us, it’s very, very gradual, almost imperceptible. But if we can notice a difference after ten years looking back then or twenty years. Looking back we might not notice a difference, but that might not reflect that there hasn’t been a difference.
We might we might forget how we were twenty years ago and think, oh, well, it’s not having much use. Well, that’s a start. Yeah. It just reminds me of the Zen koan of this monk that’d been practicing for twenty years. And and after twenty years, he thought, haven’t achieved anything, achieved nothing.
So he was gonna throw himself off this tree, climbed to the top of the tree. And when he got to the end, well, before throwing himself off, he he didn’t realize. It was just in that situation that he realized that he he had actually. Well, he understood emptiness when he was about to throw himself off. And so then he realized.
Suddenly, you know, the realization emerged. But that’s it. It takes a lot of little bits, a little piece here, a little bit there, and gradually it does make a difference. And a lot of it is it’s all for us. It’s conceptual.
You know, it’s just our conceptions, the way we think about things, they’re easily generated. You know, we think about all things, all manner of things, you know, throughout the day. They’re all different types of conception. Our love is a type of conception. Our compassion is a type of conception.
Conceptions are easy to generate. So if we can generate the good ones, we know how easy it is to think about things. So it’s really we can change things quite easily. We just instead of having a negative conception, we generate a positive conception of something. And extending it to all sentient beings is really very, very skillful.
Because then it’s said that that positive potential is not easily exhausted because the object is infinite. Whereas if we had compassion to one person and we dedicated the merit of that, that’s pretty limited. Yeah. But if it’s because the object is so extensive, the mind itself, that conception of wishing all sentient beings to be happy is actually it has no limit. So so it has great benefit.
I was wondering, and we need to do certain things. But is it something that we generate ourselves, or is it partly something that comes from Ah. Yes. A little bit confused about that how that works from a good perspective. Yeah.
No. I think that’s true. There’s a certain element of grace involved. It’s a bit from our side and a bit from the side of others involved. In terms of the grace element, yeah, we’re inspired by other beings who, you know, might suggest something or indicate something, and then that does maybe, you know, opens a new possibility.
And without that, we would never think of it. We would never. And so that’s really that’s really very important. And then from our own side, when we have an idea of a possibility, then we need to put it into practice. Otherwise, it won’t have an effect.
So we it’s a bit of both. Without having the inspiration, without someone, I think it was Rinzai that said, you know, you know, a man or woman that’s born of the womb does not naturally have the idea of liberation, for instance. And it’s true, you know, if we left to our own devices, we would probably not think that liberation was possible. We wouldn’t even know the word. If we heard the word, we wouldn’t understand it.
But when, you know, how we get an idea of it is through other people, the kindness of other beings. Someone mentions it. It’s in a book. This comes from outside of us. But that’s a great kindness because then we start to work with the idea.
Is it what is it? You know, that’s what I need. And that idea then takes it’s a bit like inception planning the idea. But not the one in inception is quite a mundane idea. This is a much better idea.
Yes, so actually I think these words of Rinza, it’s true that from our own side there’s not much. From our own side actually, as it says in the Lama Chopa Puja, you know, all our happiness comes from others through the kindness of others. All our unhappiness comes from ourselves. All our happiness comes from outside of us. It’s due to other beings.
It’s through the kindness of other beings. Oh, that’s an idea we should gradually, yeah, think about, contemplate. It often appears the other way. All our happiness comes from within us and all our unhappiness comes from outside. And so we blame a lot of people for our situation.
The limitations, we don’t get promoted, they don’t like us, they don’t pay us enough, they don’t pay us compliments, they don’t do this, they don’t do that, and it’s all their fault. And I’m unhappy because of that, and it’s all their fault. And what little happiness I have, I work, you know, it’s my from my side that it’s coming. Actually, it’s difficult to see because when we look inside ourselves, it’s not clear. We can’t, you know, look inside and say, oh, this is what’s happening and this is why it’s happened.
You know, the state of mind is so subtle and intricate, arise so rapidly and pass away so rapidly. It’s hard to see the sequence of what’s happening, you know, where the where the thought originated or, you know, the process of our own thinking. If we could, we would understand that the virtue that we do generate is due to the inspiration of other beings. Our happiness comes from virtue, the virtue that we generate, but the idea to generate that virtue is coming from outside. Although we tend to think, no.
No. The virtue is my inherent nature of virtue. It’s just part of the array of good qualities that I’ve possessed from beginning of this time that are just permanently there. And just the work that the rest of the world is to understand that and then I’ll be happy. It’s sort of a it’s a funny but another thing too is that we just don’t have enough clarity on how we think, how we, you know, how our thinking process evolves.
It’s also said that there’s a concept especially in the Prajñāpāramitā of the four Buddha bodies. And also within the explanation of the four Buddha bodies, there is the idea of the enlightened activity of the perfect wisdom, the enlightened activity of perfect wisdom. So what that means is the Buddha has perfect wisdom and that perfect wisdom engages in enlightened activity. And there’s two levels of that enlightened activity. It’s the enlightened activity from the point of view of the agent, the Buddha, and the enlightened activity that’s in the continuum of students or those that follow the Buddha.
And what is that that which exists in the continuum of other beings, non Buddhas who are, say, following the teachings of the Buddha or training in that way, it’s the the virtue in their mental continuum. Now what that means is that that virtue is sourced in the perfect wisdom. That makes sense? That the virtue that we have, if we trace back the original source of that virtue, we would come to perfect wisdom. So the implication here is the enlightened activity of the Buddha, it functions on two levels.
The virtue in the continuum of a Buddha and the virtue in the continuum of ordinary beings. So the enlightened activity expresses itself both in the continuum of a Buddha and in the continuum of a sentient being. And it expresses itself in the continuum of an ordinary being because it’s inspired by perfect wisdom. That’s does that make sense? Oh, we do.
Of course. I guess the implication there is that whatever virtue we generate, the inspiration for us generating that virtue virtue is coming from that side of ourselves. And if we trace it down, and it might be a long and winding path back, it will eventually arrive at perfect wisdom. Yeah. And this if it’s virtue that exists in the universe, it is the enlightened activity of the of sublime wisdom, or perfect wisdom.
Oh, that’s Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. That’s an concept of a a god, a creative being, yeah, is I mean, it’s quite widespread Christianity, of course, in Islam, Judaism, and so on.
Within Buddhism, there there is no concept of a creator being. There is a concept of perfect wisdom of a Buddha that is the being possessing perfect wisdom, but that being is not a creator. They’re not a creator. In fact, what does create the universe is karma and it’s the individual and collective karma of all the beings that inhabit the universe. There is no one being that has the power to create everything from a Buddhist perspective.
Actually, from a Buddhist perspective, if one holds that view, it becomes something of an obstacle to understanding the nature of suffering. That there is a created being. If you think that my suffering comes from an external agent, it’s created, you know, that the Well, in in fact, ultimately, yes. Great. Oh, it’s okay.
No. Bring it up. I’m interested in Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that I mean, there’s no But not no necessary contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity.
I mean, there’s many issues there. There are many, many issues. Now they are one thing about Christianity is that it doesn’t have Jesus himself didn’t give extensive philosophic teachings. They’re the parables, sermon on the mount, a few things, but they’re not very extensive. Buddhism on the other hand is very extensive in terms of philosophy, psychology, and so on.
Now, okay, there’s a difference there in the extent of the philosophic teachings. The ethics also is very similar between Christianity and Buddhism. Where they do differ is in philosophy. And also the within philosophy, probably the essential difference is in the assertion of a creator being, of course. For a Buddhist, there is no creator being, but there are gods.
They’re very powerful gods, but there is no one all powerful god that creates everything. Because then that assertion brings with it more problems than it solves. It makes us, you know, it perhaps would lead us to the conclusion that we can’t do anything about our situation because, you know, we’re like the playthings of a, you know, an omnipotent being and we can only ever hope that maybe, you know, we’ll be taken out of this situation and placed in a better one. You’re right. Yeah.
Okay. But it is I mean, if one were to take God as love, then that’s fine. God is the personification of love. Then, you know, that is in harmony with the Buddhist idea. Because there are beings sorry?
The no. No. No. It’s really just on the issue of of the creative being. Because from a Buddhist perspective, how within Buddhism the universe is explained is in terms of saṃsāra and nirvana.
And saṃsāra is something that we have is not created by an external agent. Samsāra is not, you know, like, there by other beings. It’s there due to us. We create it. And the problem is within us and the solution is also within us.
So this is just one of the implications of Buddhist philosophy. I think this also points out that we do have I mean, we’re westerners and we’ve grown up, you know, in particular civilization, a particular culture, and we take it all on board from when we really, you know, from when you dot. And it’s language. It’s our culture. It’s our civilization.
It’s in the fabric of our thinking. It’s so close. And it’s something that we do need to yeah. Exactly that. We need to balance and because there are excellent elements.
There are wonderful elements in our own Western culture. And also it comes up in our faith, you know, we we’re we’re little kids and we have such faith in Christmas or faith in this and, you know, and that sort of faith is, you know, it’s wonderful and we need to retain it as well. But in a sense, we, you know, if we come to the teachings of Buddhism and we’re coming to it not from within our own faith, so to speak. We’re coming to it as something that we’re later interested in perhaps intellectually. We like the ideas that we see in Buddhism.
They’re they’re talking about issues that we’ve always wondered about and when we try to find answers within in Christianity, we don’t seem to be able to get the answers to the fundamental questions except that maybe, well, it’s it’ll be all okay. Just believe this. And if you have belief, you’ll be saved. Or Yeah. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah. No. These are important issues because we come up against them all the time, and that’s okay. It makes us think, and we need to think.
I used to I remember, you know, being brought up as a Christian, and I used to have this thing with, well, you can’t really ask that question. Question. Or if you it implies that you really, think that you’re capable of working all this out. When how can you be capable? You just don’t have and you should really should, in a sense, step into line and How you do it.
You just How dare you even think that you could, you know, that you may come to an understanding of all of this? Or Even a question that may not be the way I say it. Yes. Yeah. So that used to rankle me a little bit.
I remember in primary school, the we used to have a Sunday not a Sunday school, a religious studies religious instruction. Yeah. That always used to get me. We would go one way and the Jewish kids would go somewhere else, and I was always intrigued. What are they getting that we’re not getting, you know?
What is it there? And, and then this thing about, yeah, just I remember I used to have real problems with the one god, and this religious instruction teacher would keep pushing it. You know, that the great advance advancement made in realizing, oh, the Greeks and the Romans had all these gods everywhere. But then in Christianity, there’s just the one god, and but this was a big improvement. Yeah.
Well, I I used to I think, well, a minute, having many? What’s wrong with having many? I couldn’t. It always rankled me that, but I anyway. These are issues we need to think about and because you know there’s a lot at stake for us of course and what we believe is our responsibility and there’s no we don’t really have recourse to saying, Well, it’s not my fault.
I was told that. And I just assumed it was true. We have to take responsibility for how we think and how we act. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah. Well, there’s many very interesting things in Christianity that I like to talk about with Christian friends as well. And there’s a lot in common, actually. Is it? I mean, we’re just in in the same.
Of course, there are, you know, that that’s the culture from where we emerged. But And Christianity emerged from Jewish. Christianity emerged from who it is. Yes. That’s right.
But that’s the very one. Yeah. That’s right. Well, the old testament and so on. Yeah.
Yeah. All of that is important for us. It’s there in our, in our civilization, in our thinking. And it’s good to, you know, understand it. And I think we do, I mean, it’s a common bond we have with, you know, many other people in our society.
Oh, if you go back over the history of the church or the papacy and so on, of the two fifty popes that have, you know, and of the repression that’s occurred for holding particular specific views and so forth. Of course, it’s a checkered history. But Buddhism is not without its checkereds. Oh, it’s got checkereds. It’s got yep.
It’s just human nature. That’s right. That there’s gonna be disagreement and and so forth, know, the situations arise. Arise with this long term. I just what I was saying originally was that as well as the the perfect inspiration, we have to be willing I completely agree.
We need to affirm what’s good in anything. And it’s very actually and because religion is so close to people’s hearts, one’s gotta be very careful with how we go about that, how we interact with others. And, yeah, at times we bitter we don’t say anything. We just yeah. Sorry.
Yeah. Oh, a lot at stake. Yeah. A lot at stake. Our liberation is at stake.
Within Buddhism, the path to liberation is a philosophic view. It’s the understanding liberation depends on us understanding our situation as it is at present and so basically that means it depends on us understanding our mind. Liberation, enlightenment and so forth are states of mind. So what we’re looking at is how we generate these states internally. It’s not really our liberation is not dependent in a sense on what’s happening outside, but more on what we cultivate, what we generate internally.
So when the thought of there being it’s important and that there’s much at stake in the process, it’s just that eventually we have to know, you know, our own makeup as an individual, what the eye is, how the eye functions, and so on all of these things we must come to an understanding of this. And it’s not really an external agent who is going to liberate us And on the other hand, there’s some teachings that talk about I I can’t really attempt to paraphrase them, but perhaps not seeing yourself as a deficit, not not always as unworthy, sometimes let that go and basically be calm in your own Buddha nature, might be one way of expressing it. So that balance between trying to be more, better person, or I’m not sure if that’s what you were saying John, that’s what your question prompted in Was that balance of striving and not worrying, not being bound up with worrying about whether or not we’re good or making a grade? Well that sounds like the combination required. We strive but we’re relaxed in our striving.
We need a sort of a middle way there. We need to put effort into generating virtue, but we can’t be put too much effort in. We need to be relaxed in it and have because we do have Buddha nature. But understanding our Buddha nature or our Buddha nature emerging depends on effort being applied to purify the mind. So we need to strike a balance.
It’s a bit like the story of Sona at the time of the Buddha. Sona was a meditator and he engaged in walking meditation quite a lot. But he walked and walked and walked until he was in the forest and the leaves would become covered with blood. He would cut his feet but he would keep walking and so, some of the monks were concerned about Sona and they talked to the Buddha and the Buddha came to where Sona was and he said, Well, Sona, it’s good to practice, good to put a lot of effort into your practice, but you have to moderate that as well. And he then talked about the parable of the lute, you know, that if you tighten the strings too much, you don’t get a good sound, you loosen them too much, you don’t get a good sound, you’ve got to have them just right and then you get the optimum result when you find the correct balance.
And for us, yes, striving, we need to put effort in, but not to the point where we really, you know, conked out and we’re on the ground, know, prostrate and we can’t do anymore, that’s not so useful. We need really to just keep a good balance and just judge our own, you know, what’s good for us. But at times we do need to put a lot of effort in. And if we don’t put a lot of effort in, then we don’t actually see an improvement. And we can improve our mind in the present.
But improving our mind in the present, like generating a virtuous mind in the present, really does take a little bit of effort to do. But when we get a little bit of improvement, then we can relax with that. So it depends, you know, we we’re dealing with this issue all the time, of course. But at times, I think we may what? Put too little effort in.
There’s always a danger we put in not enough effort, and then we don’t really see the benefit. So, it’s good, you know, maybe, you know, that’s why people do retreat. Know, so that we focus on one particular practice in order to see some benefit. Yeah, so it depends on effort from our side. But of course, don’t want to do it, we don’t want overdo it.
And that also comes back to John’s question about letting go. Letting go is so important. And that also comes back to the question of attachment that actually often our mind is so tight already and I think that’s one of the issues, the mind is pretty tight already. If we put a lot of effort in it, it’s just gonna come apart at the seams. Like, you know, it’s a bottle full of water or something, and if we, you know, add a bit more of it, it’s just, you know, there won’t be any room left.
The reason the mind our minds tend to be quite tight, I think the main culprit is attachment. We’re just we’re so attached to the external world, to ourselves, the external world. So many things in it that our mind tends to become quite rigid through the attachment and can’t relax. We really have to counter that by relaxing, putting effort into relaxing. And relaxing takes a lot of work because the attachment is tightening.
What is the attachment? It’s really so subtle that we don’t even notice it. But it’s just, you know, what we look around, we hear we hear things and our mind goes to what’s attractive and holds onto it and maintains it and wants it and likes to be with it and it takes effort. And we accumulate this all the time. We’re just attached to things.
Letting go is really just letting go of things, these objects. You know, I don’t need that. I don’t need this. Let that go. I don’t need the money.
I don’t need the house. I don’t need the car. I don’t need this. Don’t need these objects around me. Just let the mind settle.
Just let go. I remember reading this biography of western monk in Thailand and in the first part of the book he just talks about what his practice was. In the first two years in Thailand as a monk his practice was letting go, just reciting let go, let go, let go. Just to counter this attachment. Oh!
Let go of the guilt. Let go of the guilt. Yeah. We don’t want to punish ourselves for not living up to some standard. You know, we shouldn’t have been attached to the first place.
What have I done? Yeah, we shouldn’t we should let that go, the guilt. Because that doesn’t help. The guilt doesn’t help. Regret is useful.
Actually, guilt also. If we feel I mean, people have the idea that guilt is something really negative and regret is something really positive. Right? Don’t myself, I don’t see a distinction between guilt and regret. No, I don’t well, I don’t like to make the distinction.
I think guilt could be quite positive, but if you see guilt as being negative, a negative form of regret, right? That’s also okay. I don’t have a view really one way or the other. Yes. Well, from a here, I’m just looking at a from a Buddhist point of view, you have this word which means regret, and it’s one of the fifty one mental factors.
And of the fifty one mental factors, it’s one of the four variables mental factors, meaning it can either be positive, negative, or neutral. So regret can be positive and regret can be negative. Perhaps that that’s good. Yes. But what an instance of positive regret is if we do something negative and then we regret it.
It’s very positive. If it’s, you know, we went out and robbed the bank. Okay, we can regret it later and good, that’s a positive thing to do. But if we regret doing something positive, then that’s negative regret. That really has to be eliminated.
Regretting me the way that I am feeling ashamed of myself. So it’s being ashamed of the action. It’s healthy, but being ashamed of myself and feeling I’m unworthy. It’s just something I was brought up with and and then to do a lot of work to get away from Mhmm. That I’m no good.
That’s really really toxic and actually Yes. From going spiritually or Oh, yes. Yeah. So it’s healthy to regret the action. I mean, the thing God’s done in the past that I would like not to do again.
Mhmm. I put effort into not doing those Mhmm. Spiritually. But as a person, I’m actually okay. I perform certain actions because I’m spiritually sick.
And other people also, it’s the same thing. If they’re spiritual, they’re an ignorance, for instance, they don’t know any better. They’ve come up through a background of violence and They have pretend yeah, exactly. No, I think that’s such an important point. The action may be, you know, regretted, but the regret can either be positive or negative depending on, you know, what’s being regretted.
And then to, I don’t know, have guilt oneself about committing that action is another level involved, isn’t it? Stepping back and looking at the person. That can be not very useful. It just probably to remove that sort of attitude would be the best, not, you know, as much as possible not to entertain that sort of an attitude because it yeah. I mean, it can cause it causes this other thing, actually, this in Tibetan, it has a particular name.
It’s sort of a type of mental conception that is like a worry or a a false sense of concern about something that doesn’t doesn’t help, just doesn’t not very useful. It’s an indulgence. It’s like a negative type of indulgence. And that one needs to it also is associated with negative mental feeling. And it’s a very interesting area in Buddhist psychology where in general our feelings, especially the physical feelings, are coming from our karma.
Right? And of our mental feelings, there’s a certain number that are coming from karma and there are those also that are coming from just generating, what can we say, unskillful ways of thinking about things such as guilt, you know, just having guilt, I did this and bad me and or woe is me and so on and so forth. All of that, which is associated with negative mental feeling, is just not useful. It just doesn’t one needs to apply the opponents to that. It’s a type of indulgence that and in that regard, actually, probably having love and compassion for oneself is extremely important.
Having love for oneself, compassion for oneself would tend to act as an antidote. But, you know, it’s an antidote that takes time. But, yeah, just having I mean, it comes up in the Pali scriptures, in the Tibetan and so forth. This different ways of unskillful thinking that are not really useful to us and we can indulge ourselves in them, but we need to actually examine them carefully. In fact, in another sense, an antidote is just being aware of the process when it arises and not being this is where meditation on the breath is very important.
When those states come up, just hold our attention on the breath, but just in a way, a corner of our mind on what the process is and not affirm it. Because it’s just a it just experiences arising in our mind that are impermanent. Then the issue is, are they valid? Is that feeling, that negative mental feeling and so forth, is it a valid state? Is it comprehending anything?
Is it something I can rely on? What’s it represent? If it’s generated from karma, then it’s just a negative action that I’ve committed in the past that’s now coming to fruition, which it should. And that should teach me, oh, you know, don’t commit negative actions. If on the other hand, it’s just a it’s a product of habitual thinking that of like indulging myself in thinking in a negative way.
Then also, what the use is that? It’s not, you know, is it benefiting me? Is it is reflecting on anything that’s really useful? Is it an insight into anything? And so on.
And we should examine because one of the issues we have is that we tend to just accept what arises in the mind as as being real for instance. Yeah. And it’s a burden And it’s all impermanent. All these manifestations of thoughts and so forth. I think they’re all impermanent.
But a lot of them are unhelpful. Better to think of love and compassion. They’re really useful. They’re our protection. You know, they’re our guardians.
Love and compassion are like, you know, what protect the mind, especially compassion. So, yeah, so those false sense of guilt and so on. Yeah. We should be aware of them when they arise. And just watch them as they pass.
But understand, gradually the process the path in Buddhism, the path to the perfection of wisdom is gradually coming to an understanding of where the thoughts are arising from. And then whether they’re authentic or not. I say authentic, they’re valid or not. Whether the content of that thought is true. Much of the content of our thoughts is not true.
The hate, the anger, and so on, all of these, they’re not true. They’re not valid. Oh, they appear. Yeah. We’re already carried away by the hatred, and not only that, the hatred is there, it’s manifest, and it’s producing all these other secondary mental states like resentment, spite, and so forth.
That is just there in the wake of that initial generation of anger or hatred. And once it’s arisen, it’s hard to contain it and it proliferates. And we know the process and then we start to justify it. Then as we justify, it often gets heavier And it becomes a real burden. It’s like, you know, we might as well be carrying a hundred and fifty kilos on our our back, you know.
And when it’s manifest, we can’t be happy. We don’t feel happy. We don’t feel at ease. We’re so used to this situation that we’re not in shock. We absolutely should be appalled at the state of our mind.
But we just we’re a bit lazy in in this process as well, and we tend to allow it to arise and allow the aftermath of that thinking process to continue unchallenged. It’s not we should actually be debating our own mind. Why am I hating this person? Why do I have this negative feeling towards that person? Person?
What did they do? What was the big thing they did? Oh, well, they they did that. Oh, well, that’s not very big. It’s only a small thing.
What? They they yelled at me? Gosh. I’m not perfect. You know, they yell at me occasionally.
Why why should I worry about that? But we may, you know, someone may yell at us and we may harbor that like it’s a jewel, a precious jewel for years and years and years as if, you know, I’ve been so fundamentally wrong. You know, it’s as if, you know, they murdered the rest of my family or something. Exactly. Oh, we do.
We see the source of our unhappiness as being external. At best, the external world is a condition, it’s not the cause. That’s right. It’s impermanent. It is impermanent.
It’s not fixed. We have this strong idea that things are absolutely fixed. Fixed enemy, fixed thinking, fixed me. And this again, this idea of things being fixed is a is an ignorance. It’s a type of misconception.
But it does me it does have a profound effect on on us thinking that we have a fixed enemy. And and that we, our own inner nature is fixed. And so how could the person go against me who has, you know, this fixed nature that’s very good. I’m a good person and so on. Thinking about the plasticity of the brain, about the impermanence of the mind, very useful.
We need to, of course, bring this up again and again. This is really the direction of the perfection of wisdom. The perfection of wisdom is seeking to generate in us an understanding that things are not fixed. That the things are on a, you know, are impermanent. They’re changing moment to moment.
What’s the time? I think we’re oh, no. We’re okay. I can’t see the clock. Oh, negative regret is if, for instance, someone rings us up and, they want a donation for, you know, other than Japan and we think, okay, oh, five hundred dollars.
And we say we commit five hundred dollars and we give our credit card details over the phone. And then we sit down and think, oh, I’ve given too much. Now that’s negative. To give is positive, then the attachment sort of begins to emerge. What’s the husband gonna think?
Oh, I’ve done the wrong thing. You know, got carried away then. That’s negative regret. Or if we do a good turn to someone and then they turn around and abused us and then we think, oh, I should never have done that. Why did I do that?
I did a good turn and now that’s negative regret. Yes. Yes. Yes. I had to be honest, I haven’t seen the I have just possibly not, I believe it.
When I showed you the image. Also, yeah, also there’s another text called the Wheel of Sharp Weapons that is very beneficial to read because that it’s another text on mind training, of course. Wheel of Sharp Weapons Wheel of Sharp Weapons is about the return of our actions. And it just gives many illustrations about, you know, how we’re often plagued by financial issues, interpersonal issues, emotional issues, and so on. But when we look at the source, we tend to think the source is outside, but the sources are really inside and it’s coming from our past actions and it’s other people are like the messengers of our past actions.
They’re the messenger, and we tend to blame the messenger. But the message is our past actions. It’s coming back to haunt us. Sorry? Very much about karma.
That’s a wonderful text as well. Like the eight verses Langri Thangpa. They’re excellent. If we can have those words in front of us, we almost need to tattoo them on our forehead and so backwards so we see it in the mirror. On our arms, just one verse on each limb perhaps.
You know, like well, like in I think in the fourth verse where it says, give the victory to others. Giving the victory to others, take on all the defeat myself and give the victory to others, isn’t it absolutely essential piece of advice, you know, because we always want the victory ourselves and we struggle to get that victory for years and years. And often we never get it. And even if we get it, it’s not enough. But to give the victory, especially when we hurt the most, just at that point, give the victory.
They’re right, I’m wrong. It’s very then it begins to liberate because where it’s all coming from, this is where the eight verses is so important. It’s directing our mind to look at self-cherishing, this rang cherishing dzin. This attitude that cherishes oneself or holds oneself as more dear than any other being. More important, sense of importance for oneself.
That’s more oneself is more important than anyone else. It almost sounds innocuous, you know, it’s a small thing, but actually it is huge. But gradually, again, and this is the plasticity of the mind, thinking about the impermanence of the mind, as we think about these things, contemplate them, it does make them an effect. It does have an effect, make a difference. Still, it may be a sign of improvement as well because now, you know, I think there may be a tendency to be more aware that the mind is behaving badly.
And we’ve seen that we’re backsliding and we’re aware of that. That’s actually a very good thing. When we become aware that, oh, look at the state of my mind, look what I’m thinking, and we become embarrassed by that. And again, yeah, that’s if we it’s gonna take many looking backs to to changes, but that’s very positive. When we see the error, do you know the four opponent powers?
Yeah. The first one who’s seeing the error. Now we’re beginning to see the error. So that’s the start. Seeing the error is absolutely priceless.
Because then we see the error. Now we might not be able to do much about it, but we’ve seen the error. We’ve seen it. Or we’ve partially seen the error. We see we we don’t want that.
We still haven’t fully understood why it’s at fault. We’re beginning to see why it’s at fault. But when we see it why why it’s at fault, then we can apply regret. The fault seeing the fault and the regret really are part of the same process. And then the next thing in the four opponent powers is coming to the determination.
I am never gonna do that again. And then back. That’s okay. That’s alright. You make the determination.
I am never gonna do that again. Okay. But you know that you’re gonna do it again. But you have to make it, you know, it needs to be sincere as one can make it and I’m never gonna commit that actually. I’m not gonna think that way again.
And so that we’ll weaken it a little bit. And then of course, we’ve, you know, five minutes later, I’m thinking that way again. Alright. Or the following day or whatever. These two, the two most important elements of the four opponent powers, the regret and making the commitment not to do that action again.
It’s much easier on a verbal and a physical level, on a mental level much more difficult. But yep. Oh, I think I think that’s that is such an important issue. And I think this can I just say that this relates back to the perfection of wisdom and the Buddha reflecting on this nature of on the broader nature of how things are? In fact, if we emotionally also, we need to look more broadly and understand that we are privileged.
We have everything that we need here. Other people in the world don’t have anything like what we have. Why are we complaining about these small things? Really, when we have everything, we have such privilege. And we we do.
We you know, in this excess absolute, you know, like, luxury that we live in in comparison. We complain about minor things, about what other, you know, just ordinary interaction, daily interaction. The more broadly we think, you know, the more broadly we take into account other beings, the better it is for us, the more beneficial. No, I completely agree. It’s we can’t be too narrow.
We need to be, you know, broad in our view and include other beings and as many other beings as we can. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing is that, you know, our life is very short and our karma is boundless in a way. It just at this present moment, we’re well off.
We are in a place where there’s no conflict and so on. But in future, we could be very poor. We, you know, we shouldn’t have pride in our current situation either. That in fact we will die, we will be reborn. We don’t have any control over where we’re going to be reborn.
We do need to generate a certain degree of equanimity about our own status. We just don’t know. We don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow. There’s many issues there. We shouldn’t have too much pride in, and we shouldn’t have too much regret that we haven’t got more.
We should be contented with little because that contentment is a basis for our mind training. In fact, if we don’t have some degree of contentment, we can’t practice. So we should look more broadly, not only in terms of the planet, but in also in terms of this life, next life, the life after that. That, you know, the more broadly we can think, the more stable our practice will become. And that is our situation.
You know, we face death. We and at death, we don’t know what’s gonna happen. You know, we may die tomorrow. We might die next week. And we’re gonna go through the death process.
We’re gonna enter the clear light of death and then take rebirth. We don’t have any control at present over this process. So we’ve yeah. What we will take with us is our habits in the present moment. What is they are our habits as they are.
The strong habits that we have. So the good strong habits, fine. The bad strong habits, you know, we need to deal with them now. Any any improvement that we can make is good. It’s like they as they say, you know, a mother always looks out for any signs of improvement in her children.
In that sort of a way, we should always look, keep an eye out for any small improvements in ourselves and rejoice in them. Oh, excellent. Yeah. Oh, is. Absolutely.
Yeah. To mentally offer what one has and physically offer a little bit. Very, very good. Even a small amount. But mentally offer it is good as a preparation for actually physically giving.
Now, these things are so important. Again, our attachment is so strong that we have to, you know, take the bit between our teeth and deal with our attachment. Generosity is so important. It’s the second of the ten perfections. Practicing generosity, being able to give give of what we have to others.
And then also this thing about just taking for granted what we have as if and then being worried that it’s not enough, you know, we want more. We want to improve here and more there and so on. It’s not skillful, just not skillful. Mean, we’re all caught up in it. But being caught up in it doesn’t help us.
So there, you know, to really reflect on those in poverty and assist as we can, no matter how small, is very good. And then not be guilty about not giving very much. Also, there’s lots of bits and pieces that we have to take into account. So anyway, how does this relate to the topic of the perfection of wisdom? It’s because these are related to the perfection of wisdom because resolving these issues about generosity, about attachment, about our discursive thinking and so forth.
We need to resolve these in order to eventually generate perfect wisdom. So it’s part of the discourse here in the sūtra. Bringing in it takes into account every element of our life. And that there are in our life, are those things that are gonna be conducive to our future happiness and those that are not. So we’re trying to minimize those that are not conducive.
And enhance those that are. Okay. So look, we’ll just leave it there. Now after after the break, we’ll go back to the sūtra itself and look at the, the instruction from Avalokiteśvara. A way, a a particular way of approaching our situation, our emotional situation.
So we’ll investigate it more.