Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jamyang leads an interactive exploration of right speech through an exercise where participants pair up to examine how their tone, pace, and word choice shift across emotional states — soft and honest when feeling love, harsh and loud when angry, whining when jealous, urgent when greedy, dismissive when arrogant. She frames this within the sixteen guidelines for a happy life, opening with a key insight: we depend entirely on others for everything we have, yet habitually speak as though independent. From the pair work, an extended Q&A unfolds where practitioners grapple with real challenges — practicing kindness with difficult family, distinguishing love from attachment, tracing jealousy to neediness, and using speech to build emotional stability. The session closes with a guided meditation on gossip, amends, and commitment to practice. In this 128-minute teaching, for practitioners seeking to understand how delusion shapes language and how right speech becomes a tool for genuine connection.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Jamyang – right speech.mp3
UUID: d0141115-6a98-4f6d-ad28-48e07ee1a37c
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: 16 guidelines for life june (Ven Jamyang)
Date: 2009 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 128.4 minutes
Words: ~14,971
Haven’t met me. My name is Jamyang. I’m a resident nun at Buddha House for only a few more weeks. And we’re talking today about the sixteen guidelines for a happy life. Sixteen guidelines are ways of thinking, ways of acting, ways of relating to each other and ways ways of giving our life meaning that help us to open up our mind and to think and act in a way that is more in accord with reality, that is more valid, that is and therefore will lead to happiness.
If we look at how we think and how we act and how we relate to others, then we have a lot of fantasy involved in what we’re doing. We’re creating so many stories about what reality is and about what it can be if and how it could have been if. And all these stories have nothing to do with reality really. They are all just our own story. Reality is what we can see and hear and feel and what really is, which reality also has to do with if we think about how we think reality has to do with how do I say that realizing that for whatever we experience especially all the good things we completely depend upon others.
If we look at how we think we exist we feel that we are independent we feel that we can do things on our own we feel that we do not need others to achieve certain things and we forget actually where everything come from. And if we look in our life and we look at everything that we have and all the skills that we have, we only have been able to develop that in dependence upon others. You know, from the walking that we’re doing, to the writing, to the reading, to the thinking, to the, way we talk, we that we learn that from others. If we had no parents or no people who raised us to teach us that we would be completely hopeless. If we look at where our clothes are coming from we think I bought them in the shop for my own money, you know, as if I have this existence in and of myself.
But if we really look into it, where does the money really come from? You know, yes, it is in my purse, but does it I look I didn’t create the money. Somebody gave that to me. So that’s the kindness of others. And then you can say, yeah, but I worked for the money.
Yes, you did. But the boss can also say, I don’t want you. I’ll take somebody else. You know? So there is a kindness in the boss that although it might be a very nasty boss, we still receive money and still in order for us to receive the money we depend on his or her kindness.
And then we can say, I determine what clothes I’m wearing, you know, but where are the clothes coming from? How many beings are involved in making clothes? If you think about creating the material, working on the fields, growing the cotton, harvesting the cotton, how many creatures have died in that process? And then making from the cotton the real and then coloring it, dyeing it. Not coloring, dyeing.
You say dyeing? You dye it. Then you have to make clothes from it. Then you have to transform transport it to the to the shops. There is an unbelievable amount of beings involved in the process.
To answer this, I just go to the shop and get what I want. And we forget all these sentient beings who are involved. True? Yeah. So thinking I go to the shop and I can get what I want is a mistaken belief.
But if we would remember that we can only do that due to the kindness of so many others or that so many others are involved in that whole process, we think more in accord with reality and if we can do that we can have more appreciation and if we appreciate more we feel more happy you know if I go to the shop and say I just get what I want do we really get away happy? If you go to the shopping center and you look how people look like who can buy everything they want you never see anybody smile have you ever seen that? Everybody looks like never enough. It’s never good enough. It doesn’t give real happiness, does it?
So although we can buy what we want, although we can have what we want, although we have very good conditions, we know that we’re actually still not happy. So that means we’re doing something wrong, we’re making mistakes and the sixteen guidelines help us to address the mistakes on different levels. So we have mistakes in the way we think, we have mistakes in way we, relate to others, we have mistakes in the way how we act. And so when we do the six talk about the sixteen guidelines, we talk about values, I think you can call them, that naturally open up the mind that naturally leads to a more happy feeling in the moment that we apply them and that naturally leads to more happiness in the future So the sixteen guidelines were written by a Tibetan king fifteen hundred years ago or maybe a thousand years something like that very very long time ago. They’re ancient there’s nothing specially like Buddhist about the sixteen guidelines you find them in many religions, you find them in many cultures, but I think because of the way our society is, we have forgotten that these values have great value.
We somehow see them as weakness or we see them as not important or we simply forget them because we’re too occupied with other things. So this might help you to become a little bit more aware and then you will see that if you put some effort in it to practice it, you very easily will feel that you can make changes in your life. Is that true? Have you seen it? Those have been coming?
Do you practice it? Do you apply it? Does it change your life or does it change your mindset? Any big stories? No?
Can I just ask a question about one of them? Okay. Alright. Contentment. Contentment is the antidote to that greed.
Not the antidote, we’re trying to practice contentment. Contentment is the antidote to greed. But not greed is the antidote to contentment, right? If you’re the type of person that, if you’re something rational about trying to go to these different courses perhaps to keep up, is that a form of greed? Sorry?
If you’re going to different courses or coming to different teachings and you’re trying to sort of keep up, Is that great? Well, you have to check-in your mind. But if if contentment is being able to well, now I’m up. If contentment is being able to just appreciate what you have or or or be able to to be able to just say two instead of having to have four, is that then greed? Depends on your mind with what you do it with.
So I’m not gonna give you the answer. If you’re doing it to be wiser and you’re doing it to learn, then there’s no greed behind it. If you’re doing it to look good or be better to others, then there’s probably greed in it. Sometimes when we feel something good in a course you can be so greedy because you want to know all this and you want to learn and change your mind and want to change your life and that can be so strong that that is actually based on greed although you know you might think I do wanna have more wisdom I do wanna have more compassion but the energy that you use behind that can still be great so you use exactly the same words as somebody who says I like to have more you know but who does it with contentment. You can say exactly the same, but the energy behind it is different.
It’s up to you to check your own mind. And you know when the mind gets greedy. You have too much, you can’t digest what you all hear. Yes. You know, and you can go fast.
That’s not a problem. But you have to somehow keep up with what you’re doing. And if you come home and say, oh, it’s all too much and I just chuck it in the corner and I go tomorrow to the next course and I can also not study that because I don’t have any time, then maybe you only touch it on the surface and it’s better to do less and go a little bit deeper. But you have to check. Contentment is a way of thinking to counteract greed.
So we did that in the third class. Yeah. So today we have the guidelines divided into four groups of four and we are working on the second group at the moment which has to do with how we act. And we talked about kindness, acting with kindness, we talked about generosity, we talked about honesty, and today we’re gonna talk about right speech. I said last week we talked about respect but I was mistaken.
So we talked about right speech. We’re using many, many, many words, isn’t it? If you look at how many books we have in the cupboard and how many chats we have with how many friends and colleagues and and all these words are loaded with something. And they can be loaded with love and they can be loaded Oh, they can be Oh, oh, there it is. They can be loaded with love or they can be loaded with, any delusion that we have, with greed, with jealousy, with hatred or anger, with pride.
And when we especially when we talk and we spit it all out, you know, what do we create? What do we put into into our environment by doing that? Sometimes I think we have kind of Sorry for that. We know that words can be very very powerful. Every word that we use if we use it in the right place at the right time it can be very positive powerful.
It can be powerful in the sense that if I want to harm somebody I can harm them with two words if I really have the intention to harm I know exactly what to say but if I have the intention and I come from a place of real sincere compassion I can also heal with two words if I say it in the right place in the right time to the right person true so words have a lot of power They can uplift our mind and they can completely put us down. You know when you go to somebody with your problem there are people that can lift you out of your problem and there are people that put you into your problem. You walk away and you’re even more miserable than before you started talking. With words we can very easily create friendships and enemies. We can destroy friendships.
We can even destroy long term friendships. We say three words and it’s finished. If we cross a certain boundary we can very easily damage something that took a long time to build up. And even if you say, oh, I’m so sorry and I didn’t wanna say that to you and and I didn’t mean it like that, and you have all these circumstances that make you say these words or you feel that they make you say these words then still the damage is done. Isn’t it?
We can never if we break something with words we can never fix it back to how it was before we said these words. Words can make that we get a lot of wealth and can make that we lose a lot of wealth depending on what we say, we sell things or how we sell ourselves or I don’t know you can meet somebody and you just feel that you want to be very kind to that person and two weeks later the person dies and leaves all their money to you you do not know you know But if you Did it never happen to you? But you can imagine that it happens. Isn’t it? And we never know who that person is and we never know if that person really is going to appear or not.
So as soon as we start to speak, it looks like we get so so many more choices to make. As soon as we have words for something we can point them out. Oh no, I want to have this, mommy I want to have this. Take the child shopping. They don’t even have to speak words.
They just see the things, the different colors and the different packages and they know very well what they want. Isn’t it? And then a new one comes and they want to try the new one and they want to go back to the old one. Words create many many choices. So you know when you when we are little children and we start speaking a lot of how we communicate depends upon our parents and our direct environment how they communicate with each other.
We pick that up and we start communicating in that way. We might have our own flavor, our own taste that we add to that but we take a lot of their habits, we take them with us. And then we might grow up and then our life might change and we come in a different environment and suddenly it turns out that the speech that we are using is actually not so appropriate for the place where we are. People react defensive or angry or and we have to learn to speak in a different way that suits more that place where we are. Or we go to we want to become we want to study for certain profession and we graduate and we go for a job and that the language that is used there is very very different in the way that we grow up so we have to retrain ourselves if we want to be part of that.
And if you see how every job has their own language, you know, if you go to the medical world there is a whole language that nobody else understands except when you are in the medical system and when you go to the engineering world there is a whole arsenal of words that nobody understands except when you have studied for that. So, words can give you also power when you have the words and when you can speak them nicely and, or or in accord with how that group uses the words, it can give you a lot of power. So then it when we’re gonna talk about right speech, we’re gonna talk about, what is right speech? How can we use our speech so that it makes us happy? Right.
That’s that’s the meaning of right speech. And I’m gonna start today with an exercise to do a little bit different than normally. And I would like you to sit in pairs and preferably somebody that you do not know, that you haven’t worked with before. And you start with just introducing yourself that you, learn to know each other. And then you talk about how you use your speech when you like or you love somebody, how you talk to that person, and what kind of words that you use, what kind of tone you use, if you repeat a lot of words, what whatever comes up, whatever characteristic of speech that you can find, you write it down.
And then you so you you tell it to the other person, but it’s shall we write it down or do you wanna just wanna tell it? Maybe just tell it. Maybe you just say it and you become aware of how you do it. And then you talk about how you talk when you’re angry with somebody. What kind of words you use, how it’s dullness of your voice, how quick you speech, if you repeat things, whatever you think is important.
Okay? Then when you have done the anger then you can say what if I’m jealous, do I speak in the same way? And what if I feel a lot of pride and arrogance, do I speak in the same way? And what if I have the greed, do I speak in the same way? Or is there a difference and how does it become different?
So I’ll read the different emotions down and you can check on the board. So you first talk about how you speak when you love and like and then you speak about how you’re speechless when delusions are in your mind. The anger, the pride, the jealousy and the greed. Is that alright? So try to find somebody that you haven’t worked with before and introduce yourself and you decide who’s going to start.
And you start. All right or wrong? There’s just experience and we can learn from experience and we can learn to understand our experience in a certain way that helps us to make sure that we don’t repeat negative experiences. But there is no right and wrong in an abstract way. So how was that exercise?
Good. Good? Was it easy? Was it difficult? Or was it weird?
Or was it Easy. Easy? Was it easy? No. No.
This is It made me think. It made me challenge myself. I had to break it down. Uh-huh. I think some of them you don’t really want to talk about because, you know, you don’t always say, look, I’m a jealous person or I’m a greedy person or an arrogant person.
Uh-huh. You know, there’s a little bit of you have to think a while to actually think of some scenarios when you have been greedy or arrogant or jealous. Yeah. Uh-huh. But you could could come up with them eventually.
If you think if you think hard enough Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something there. When did go?
Three years ago. And I haven’t had it since. All of these, nothing is to any of us, you know? There’s nobody who has no anger, there’s nobody who has no jealousy. The and if you really have don’t have that, please let me know because I want you to be here and I’ll sit there.
We We all have greed, we all have arrogance, you know, that is it’s like, at the moment, that’s just how we function, that’s just how we are. We also have love, but most of the time the love that we feel is mixed with, you know, most of the time greed, sometimes the others in a slight way, I don’t know if that’s what I like, but yes. But sometimes we have an experience of where we feel pure love, you know. But when we feel it it’s normally the people that we are attached to. The background there’s maybe some So hang on, you’ve lost me there already.
Okay. So I’m sitting there and my little boy has just done the cutest whatever and I’m so in love with him. He’s just I adore him. He’s just pure innocence and I have that feeling. Yeah.
That’s Where I’m being arrogant or greed No, That’s love. But if the boy three away from your home does the same thing you do not have that strong feeling. No no no. No. So that so what we do have these feelings of love for those that we are attached to.
So in that sense it’s limited. But you can strive to have that feeling to each and every child that is so cute and so innocent and so lovable. You are. I am. That’s why you’re here.
To discover that. We do have that. We do have that capacity to feel that same love that you feel for your only child for your child. Even when it’s a little Even when it is a little And even when they’re growing up and they are, oh, we have capacity. Really?
I struggle with that. Yes. And we all do because because of the attachment and because of the aversion that we have to those that we do not like, you know? So attachment and the aversion is in the way of feeling that love for everybody. But we do have the potential to feel that.
And that takes a lot of practice in the mind and we’re not going to do that here. But I think when you become aware of the different ways that we communicate and what maybe triggers that communication and maybe then we’re going look into how can we change that, how can we find more a speech that is loving because I think right speech there is a kind of love there, isn’t it? That you want at least not to harm the other person, that always you care for the other person. It has to do a bit with intention too, doesn’t it, behind what This This is all intention. This is this is of I would say, like, here is the intention.
I am more important or my happiness is more important is more important So this is all around me. This is all self centered. This is more that you are focused upon others. Yeah. Yeah.
Unless you’re loving yourself, which is okay to But if you love yourself in a pure way then you still have an open mind and you do not feel the self in the way that you feel yourself when you have these delusions in your mind. So when I feel greed I feel something, or when I feel angry I feel me in a certain way. I have the feeling of me that is strong, is independent, that is like a separate entity sometimes of my body and my mind. But when I feel love that feeling of that sense of I is not there like that. You understand what I’m talking about?
Sort of. Sort of. Does other people know what I’m talking about? Yeah. So you’re really angry you feel me, you feel I, you feel don’t you dare to do that to me or something.
So then you have the strong appearance of yourself, of I, of who you are, or what you are, of me. There is a strong feeling of me. When you feel love you do not have that feeling. You’re just open and you love everybody but there’s not that strong independent feeling of me. So that self centeredness comes when delusions arise and that gives that feeling.
So when you love yourself from the point of greed you still have the feeling of, you know, I love myself so I give myself everything that I want. That’s not necessarily love, that can be greed. But it feels very different. I think one of the things, if you’re looking at the board there, that I can say that when feeling love I feel, not that I feel vulnerable, but I am vulnerable, if that makes sense, because when I feel the others I’ve got like a shell around me, there’s no way you can get to me, I’m armored, I’m so ready to go. Whereas the love thing for me, it’s like I’m open completely and I’m just I’m just just roar if you like.
Yeah. And you might feel vulnerable but if you vulnerable feels like there is a weakness. There is a there is a there is a condition that you easily can get hurt. But when you feel that love and you open up, you actually, that’s your best protection to being hurt. When you have the delusions in your mind and feel closed up and you feel nobody’s ever to touch me, you create such a hard shell that that shell easily can break.
So you’re actually more vulnerable, although it appears like I’m defending myself and I make sure that nobody can hurt me. So there is a difference in how it appears and how it really is. Because with the other emotions any little thing can set you off. Anger, angry or jealous or whatever. You’re defensive because it’s all about it but any little thing will hurt you more.
When you’re already in that state. When you’re already You’re more vulnerable there. You are more vulnerable there. So what you’re saying is that if ‘re already agitated and then some little thing happens you can inflame and get really angry. Right, true?
As when you are in a feeling of love, you know, then things can appear, you don’t even react. Why would I come out of this state, you know, I feel really happy. It doesn’t touch you in the same way. True? So we are more vulnerable when we have these delusions.
We are more vulnerable for anything that disturb our mind. I actually practiced last week the whole love towards another person. I mean I’m married to him so it’s not that hard, but still you’ve got to start somewhere. When they’re angry at you they’re full my first reaction normally would be just to ‘voomp’ bag and I just sat there completely not coming from a place of you know, I’m better than you are, I’ve just been to my Buddha’s class and I know more than you’. It was completely just trying to help diffuse the situation and trying to find out really why he was so angry And in the end he pretty much couldn’t do anything back.
He ran out of things to say because he couldn’t give me an answer because he was faced to look at himself and I didn’t have to yell. Was quite amazing. How wonderful, very powerful. Was quite difficult to continue your anger towards somebody if they don’t react. No, it’s true.
And that makes you more angry? Initially maybe. But when somebody’s really kind back, you you start feeling bad about like, what am I this person is really kind to me, you know. So you had you give it up. And we start with those that we love, you know.
So it’s fantastic that you start with your husband. And then you do it with your kids and then you do it with your mom and with whoever is close to you and then slowly slowly you try to do it with people who are not so close to you. And in the end we try to do it with people that hurt us or I still struggle just a little bit with the me scenario because even though I tried to diffuse and did all of that and was completely loving and open, in the end, even though he had stopped being angry at me and the situation was diffused, I still didn’t get what I wanted. Do you know what I mean? Like I didn’t go to bed feeling warm and fuzzy because he wouldn’t look at me, like he was just turned over, he was still annoyed, but just didn’t turn into a yelling full blown match.
So the reason why you are with him in the relationship which is your attachment that did not meet what it felt it needed. Yes. Yes. That whole attachment thing. So that’s the whole neediness that we bring into the relationship and normally there is this sharing, you know.
And even the the arguing that we’re doing, there is we share the arguing. There is it’s almost that you fight your need in that. But then you change that. So you started giving him what he needed from a point of love. And you took away your own neediness.
You didn’t bring that into the game. But then at the end of game you are left with that. Yes, I was left with that. So you have to start, learn, take care of that yourself. Yes.
And say, okay, I need also something. What do I need and how can I give that to myself? Then you yeah, is. Because I think I’m a very needy person as far as affection. But if it’s hard for you to give you what you need, hard is it for somebody that doesn’t I feel like a white tickle my head, does it?
But that’s alright, know, I think when you start practicing you all recognize and start to realize how needy we all are. And even if we look to be loving and giving and underneath we are all very needy because we can only live with a few that we love. That shows how attached we are. If you have little attachment you can love many, many people. Then there is not much neediness from your side.
But if you only have a little circle there is a lot of attachment, a lot of neediness. And that’s what we all like now. We just have to start somewhere and you did that and that’s fantastic. It’s important to do with depth of feeling. If there’s only a few of you in your immediate circle, in order to expand and develop that relationship after the initial hello then you go deeper even in friendships, deeper and deeper and deeper whereas if you’re saying you’re a friend or whatever with lots of people surely surely you can’t necessarily always go to the same depth.
All of us have friends, so I’m not sure about that. And some we have, there’s more of an inner circle. I think it depends on what you’re doing in your life, you know. Think The deeper you go, the more you’re becoming needy because you’re becoming more involved and attached. I think the more emotionally you get involved, the more your neediness is part of that relationship.
But having a deep relationship doesn’t necessarily mean that you are emotionally involved. Know you can speak about really deep issues with people and then you meet them and you talk about really deep issues and then you separate and then that was it. Know and sometimes ongoing relationship with somebody, say a friend or something, you would eventually sort of I think when somebody is your friend then that shows that there is an emotional involvement. If you have a friend that means that you also have those who are not your friend. There’s acquaintances and then there’s friends and then there’s and within the friendship section you’ve got a deeper circle of friends.
I mean we’re talking about neediness and I’m saying that I was wondering whether the deeper you have a relationship with someone, whoever it may be, does that equate to you being more needy? You’re giving more of yourself to that relationship. You invest more of your time and energy in that particular relationship, therefore perhaps you need more back from that relationship. Or you invest in that relationship because you need something from it? Maybe turn that slightly different.
The more I invest, then I would need more back. No, don’t think so. I think the other way around. I said it on purpose. I think the more you can get benefit from a relationship, the more you need from somebody, the more you invest in it.
Yes, yes, that’s true as well. And that might be unconscious and that you just feel that that person is important for you and but that person is only important for you because there is something in there for you, you know, not because of the other person. So what we normally do is our friends and our enemies, they are based on I like and I do not like. And I like and don’t like there is always attachment involved. So there is always neediness involved.
And as human beings we all have that unless we have a very high level of realisations. When we go in relationships there is always a part of us that is needy. If we have very strong attachment and little love then we are very needy and there is a lot of attachment in a relationship and maybe not so much love. We can also be less attached and then when we have deep relationships there is more love and less attachment. So is that like the interdependence and co dependence?
Yes, yes. So when you have a needy relationship that goes very up and down and as long as there is love you can keep that relationship going. There is the co dependence, you know, when there is a lot of neediness you are very dependent upon that other person, that other person gives you what you need. If you understand reality better, did I say that in the wrong way? If you understand, I don’t, if you understand reality better, that the only reason why I meet you is because at the moment we have this connection with each other but but the fact that we meet means also that we’re going to separate one day.
You know you’re going to think about all these things that come with life. The fact that I like you very much has just to do with the fact that you that I feel that you can benefit me now, but I have been many many lifetimes that you have been very horrible to me so there is no need really to be so attached to you. And somebody else who is harming me that I actually don’t want to see, I can think But now that person harmed me but in many, many lifetimes that person was really good to me. So there’s no reason to have so much aversion to that person. And then I equalize more the benefits and the harm that I receive from people.
You know, benefits that I receive from you, I see that it is relative. That’s just now. But many occasions that wasn’t there. And the harm that I see from this person, that is just now. But it was not always like that.
So my need to be attached is not so big and my need to have aversion is not so big. And when that is not so big there is more space for love. Attach means you give something to me. Love means I want to give something to you. So the less attachment the more the giving becomes free.
You have me, I don’t want to have anything to do with me. Or I say, yeah you have hurt me now but I know that you’re still very kind, you have been kind to me many, many times and I recognize that. And then I can still keep on giving and working for your happiness. For me if I can do that my emotional life becomes much more stable. Because of the giving that I can do to many more people, my heart opened up much more and because of that I feel much more happy.
And when my heart is more open, when I connect with whoever, whoever I like, whoever I even don’t like, I can go deep right away because I have nothing to lose. I’m not investing in that relationship on a personal level. I’m just there to help and to give. Does that turn things around? Yep?
Okay. Good. I find that quite easy to do with my friends. I do volunteer work with sick children as well who are obviously facing death. And some people say to me, I don’t know how you can do that, but it’s weird because if that was one of my children I’d be an absolute mess, but somehow I’ve accepted that it’s a part of life and I’m there to give to them in that moment.
So that’s all cool. I just find it hard to put that to the actual immediate family. That’s the attachment you get. That is the thing again, same issue again. So I think when you start to learn to put that into practice into your own family, free yourself from so much tightness, you know, you will find lots of freedom in that.
And thinking about that that could happen to your children doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, you know. It’s just that you open up for reality. So that when it happens you are ready for that. And when it doesn’t happen you can enjoy much more what you have without being afraid to lose it. It seems compassion is a lot easier too with people who you don’t know in many ways, I’ve found.
Than the people that you do know? Than the people that you love? Yeah, yeah. Like, you you see someone on the street who’s homeless, needs money or whatever, it’s very easy to have this whole compassionate thing out for maybe kids who are sick and dying or people who are sick and dying, but then someone who you know who might not be well. You know, there’s a whole other other things seem to come into it, and it’s not the same sort of just this just compassion.
It’s sort of compassion that you might be a bit irritated because you’re looking after them all the time. Mhmm. Do you know that sort of thing seems to go on? Not in myself, I don’t know about for other people. Yes.
But if you would you agree that if you take care of somebody and they irritate you because you know them so well, you keep on caring for them? Oh, of course. If that homeless person would agitate you, would you give? Or would you say, sorry, not I would always give to them. With the What an example?
They’ve got a whole host of ways of But do you ever get agitated with them? Not so far. No. If you they’re being a bit full on about it. I’ve even found it’s okay.
But if they if you imagine that somebody says something to you that really agitates you? Yeah. Well, I’d probably get agitated. Yeah. Would you still give in the same way?
Yeah. I’d still give them the same But you don’t do that to your dad? Or who are you caring for? Well, I just meant like, you know, I know people who aren’t very well and sometimes I get irritated with them, you know, because they’re making themselves less well than they could be. Mhmm.
See, that’s the attachment thing again because I went through that with my grandma. Yeah? Yep. I was very angry at her because she wouldn’t stop smoking even though she had everything. So there’s a good example, you know?
But see, I have to turn around and I still haven’t but I know I have to turn around and say it was her life, her choices and even though they kind of affected me but I agree with you when you’re in there but that’s different because it’s a personal personal journey then, it’s something that’s hurting here whereas people that are around you that need things that you can give to, there’s no personal involvement. Yeah and it makes it a lot easier to go yeah sure, can you? It’s really hard to help your family, isn’t it, right? Because you come sort of almost like using the same because you’re so close to each other, you have the same almost same personalities. You’re just sort of adding to the situation, right?
Mhmm. Well, think you grow up in a way of dealing with things and as soon as one chain starts to go, you know the whole how do say that one? How do you say that in proper English? If you know you have these wheels? Chain of events you think?
Yeah, the chain of events. It’s like when you start to say one thing to your mother, it triggers something in your mother and she puts you in your old way of behaving and it’s like we all have a way of relating to each other and it’s very difficult to break out of that. So I think in the family we have that strong emotional involvement. So practicing the sixteen guidelines in your family, although when the love is there, you know, you can and you focus on that, it’s easy, but in other ways it can be very challenging and more difficult. But you can start wherever you feel it is easiest for you.
That is your starting point. Don’t start in the places where it’s hard to practice because, you know, you might not succeed and then you it up or you blame it or but when you start somewhere where you can succeed then you feel like oh wow that helped and it made the situation better and I feel better and I’m going to try that again. Know you somehow have to find a way that you feel inspired to keep on doing that. This sounds easy, it’s not easy. Right speech actually is very difficult, I think.
I find right speech very difficult. Right speech, I want to hear a little bit from you. How do we speak when we feel love? I want to have a few characteristics. Softly.
What do you mean with soft? You know, there’s a softness to your voice when you love someone and you talk to them. Yeah, you don’t speak loud? Well, just more like a I just wanna have it. An edge, you know.
There’s a soft edge, like, oh, I I love you. Mhmm. How was your day? Or you know? Not like if you’re angry, it’s like, I don’t like you, or, you know, this is sort of hard and soft.
Uh-huh. So here, and the anger is more hard. The tone. The tone is different. Yeah.
Yeah. Else can we say about why we speak with love? Positive. Positive? So we use positive speech.
Carefully. When we really love someone, we take the time to do that. Just be patient. Words? Not really.
Carefully and you take the time. Use that. The time for that. So that’s like a mindful that you put in. Do we have a good connection with ourselves here?
Yes. Yeah? We’re in the moment. We feel calm. We feel calm.
So when we feel calm, the mind is more clear. We feel safe. We feel we can speak from our heart. You honest? Honest.
How do we feel when we talk in this way? Great. Peaceful. Happy? Sometimes euphoric.
Euphoric can make you happy, content, satisfied. So everything that we need can be in here. When we talk about what we are for? We’re looking for peace, we’re looking for calmness, we’re looking for satisfaction, we’re looking for So when we can somehow bring our speech to a level where we can express our love, then we have everything we need. Balance.
Balance. I think we’re releasing the right biochemicals. Probably. Don’t know what the name for the anger depressed chemical is. Maybe adrenaline or cortisol?
Adrenaline, sorry. So then you speak louder and quicker. Okay, let’s talk about the anger. Louder? Quicker?
What else? More harsh. A lot less mindful. Less mindful. I heard another one.
More primitive? Hurtful you say, yeah. You mean intended on hurting the other person? Intended on yourself. When you’re angry you want to hurt the other person.
You don’t do that because you want to when you’re angry with yourself but You’re hurt so you’re sort of coming back at it. Yeah. But you speak in a hurtful way, you know, with the intention to hurt the other person, Intentionally. I find I can speak in a slightly hurtful way but I’m not intending to hurt these people. Well I think there is, again it’s mixed, know.
So you can be on one level, maybe on a more primitive level, you have this reaction you want to hurt. But then on a more rational level you say but actually I don’t want to hurt you but you don’t know how to do that and you have these mixed feelings. So you try not to do it but then it comes out anyway. That just takes time to clean that what is underlying, to clean that up. So when you hurt then your attention will be like, Right arm.
No, I’m just kidding. So you have a mixed motivation. There’s still some intention to hurt but you actually don’t want that but you can’t stop it or you don’t know how to turn it around or to It’s hard sometimes isn’t it that people sometimes speak angrily because they’re not feeling heard. They’re not feeling like they’re being listened to or heard, you know, like and so they can quickly move from love into anger even just because of a simple word like you said before. One word.
Yeah. It is. Yeah. Sometimes we can try to have right speech but the person can still feel hurt. Well it’s coming through their own delusions and hurtness isn’t it?
And then it’s up to us to see if we can maintain the right speech or that we go to our own delusions because normally when that person gets angry, easily our delusions get triggered and the fight is there. But if we are strong in the right speech then we might be able to keep calm and understand where that person is coming from. When we are jealous and speak with jealousy what are characteristics? Think you’re completely irrational. Irrational?
Completely irrational, more irrational than anger? This has a lot to do with, you know, this is mine, my property. It’s a primitive response when it comes into because I went out with my husband, we’ve been merit for years and I’m general, I’m not a jealous person that can talk to girls, that can dance with them, I don’t care. But this one night this girl leaned over and she wanted a picture with him and you know with Facebook and everything it’s not just a picture anymore is it? It’s everywhere and he leaned in for a kiss.
I lost it. I just went I nearly I’d lost it and I’m not an aggressive person. I just said excuse me he’s f***ing married and pulled him by the arm and he’s like he was embarrassed because of my behaviour but I was just like you know and then he just went what are you doing? I said I am woman, hear me roar! I just thought I could like to do I didn’t understand my behaviour, I had to step back and go oh my god, I can’t believe I just did that.
But it’s very primitive. You know, it’s coming from a place. Didn’t even think, it just happened. Yeah. Were they kissing though?
I mean that could have something to do with it. No. No. It’s just the fact that he She thinks he’s he’s gonna send it all over the world, everybody’s gonna see it and he’s mine. And you can label that in whatever way but that reaction was much deeper coming from a completely different place than you can ever understand with your rational mind, isn’t it?
You can’t catch that straight away. So it takes a lot of time to go that deep into it. But it’s fearful, isn’t it? It’s trust. That we have that.
Well, jealousy really comes from Do you mean like a Yeah, but maybe anger too and greed too and arrogance too? Yeah. They all come, have to do with fear. Fear about me. Yes, insecurity.
But I would say with jealousy sometimes, if I’m jealous, because you know, I am sometimes. My behaviour, try, for example I could still be saying oh that’s really nice’ but inwardly I’m jealous so I might be saying the right things. How would that sound then when you say that’s really nice? Body language is not what it should be. I might be saying that’s really nice but inwardly I’m thinking of.
Well you see you do that because you don’t want to be jealous do you? It’s not what you said, you’re trying to be really nice and then go the opposite. But what you hear in your voice? Come on girls. It goes very shrill.
Shrill? How is that? Screaming on a word. I’m Dutch, I don’t know what that means, shrill. Pitched.
My mother used to tell me I forgot. Uh-huh. Just lower your voice, Kim. High pitched. What did she say?
Just lower your voice. You’re getting shriller and shriller. Shrill. Shrill. Like this?
And you feel like these stupid smiles back here is not really what I think. I know I’m not being honest with myself. I’m just hoping they haven’t picked it up. What do you think? I hope that they haven’t realised.
What do you think? Probably they know. It’s very hard to hide isn’t it? We pick it up. Do we pick up in others?
What do we hear when somebody’s jealous? What do we hear? How do we know that person is actually jealous? Whining? What is that?
You have to explain me all these tones. Whining, oh. A whinging tone. So can you explain, I don’t get what you mean that they’re whining? Whinging, I No, but you’re saying she asked how can you tell?
Well they’re sort of complaining, you know, complaining about something. So you think they’re actually jealous? So how does whining tell you that someone’s jealous of you? Can you just ask for it? No, I was talking about jealousy.
How can you hear? Yeah. How can you tell it in someone’s voice? Well because they’re trying to sort of manipulate you maybe there. How?
Is there sort of making it sound like, well what about me? Uh-huh. The poor me surfaces? Yeah. Yeah.
The sort of victim. The negative. Yeah. Questioning. Questioning like?
When people are jealous, they’re usually quite questioning to try and fill fit what’s going on with their jealousy so then they can be justified for being jealous. Uh-huh. Do you know what I mean? Like, maybe trying to make your answers fit their jealousy. Uh-huh.
So they’re asking for your support in hurt. You can hear that they hurt. Yeah. You hear the hurt. You can try to manipulate it.
So it does is that what you’re saying? So, like, they they do sometimes come together. Yeah. Well, I’ve I’ve found that when I’ve been on the receiving end of jealousy, because I’ve been jealous too. When I’ve been on the receiving end, someone will be asking you things to try and justify their jealousy, I suppose.
Oh, I see. You know, in in a way. I’m not sure. I think everyone might experience it differently. But then you are.
What do you hear in the voice? So you manipulate. Know, like if me and you were together, right, and I was feeling jealous, I might go, and you’d been out with a friend who was a male, I might go, oh, so what did you get up to? And, oh, really? Know, what else you do?
Also, know, I’d have this kind of whole questioning, trying to fit pieces to make my jealousy justified. Justified. But there is a hurt in that, A deep hurt. That’s what that’s what I pick up when you say that. Why do people feel the need to hide their jealousy?
Like, if you’ve got, like, to I just don’t I’m just out there. Who hides it? Well, you could stop yourself anyway. What? I don’t feel proud of myself when I feel jealous.
I can’t help it. But no one can help it. So what’s wrong with saying, I’ve got sex with friends and say, I’m so jealous. I can’t believe you’ve got it, I’m so jealous. Yeah.
But when you say it like that, make almost a joke of it. You are so jealous. I’ve got unenvious. And you you know, you can say, I’m envious, and you you hope that it’s just taken in that tone, but you could also mean it in a very different you are really envious or jealous or something. When you’re really jealous your mind goes crazy, isn’t it?
From jealousy? And you’re out of control, I would the anger can come. I’ll just put anger and then It can actually be the opposite too, so it can be quite passive. Passive aggressive? Passive aggressive.
How do you mean? That could be where the whining comes in. Probably like your example is that it’s perhaps you’re projecting it, but it’s not out there, and you don’t really want to own it and you don’t really want to feel it. So you’re changing your tone and responding differently. Two g’s or one g?
People close to you might pick up on that passive aggressive. Okay. Where someone could say you’re You’re consciously trying to bring This may be the most well, we’ll see which is the this almost sounds like this is very primitive. This is maybe the most primitive that we have. I don’t know.
What about greed? What happens with our voice, with our speech, when we have greed? Excitement. Excitement? Yeah.
How does that sound? Well, you know, like if there’s something you want to own it, you know, but you don’t really need it, so you could be classified as greed, then you tend to be excited about it. When you speak to other people you might be like, you know, I’m going to get this new thing and it’s fantastic. So your breath goes up and you speak about all these qualities? Speak about the qualities?
Yeah. Could you say greedism would be, in a broader sense, like just things not going your way. How do you mean that? Oh, well, you know, if too many things happen on the weekend, like, inevitably, quite a few of my weekends, you know, three different people will ring up and say, this is happening now. Know all of a sudden it’s like, this is not what I planned at all.
Uh-huh. Chill out. And so you’re sort of becoming quite possessive of what you want and, you know, I wanted to just watch TV on a Friday night. Mhmm. You know, didn’t wanna I’m not having this friend ringing me up with all the problems.
Sorry. It’s greed or frustration though. No, it’s definitely frustration. Was just But it’s a greed for your own time, isn’t it? You want something and then you you can’t you can’t get it.
So there is an attachment there. We call it greed, it is is I want something and then somebody disturbs that. Selfishness is always leading to unhappiness. So this is the challenge if somebody does that and we feel like actually I want to be on my own, don’t want to be disturbed, then no matter how you’re going to react there’s always going to be misery. Because if you push that person away you feel bad because you pushed that person away and if you let them come in you feel bad because he comes in.
So having that mind already that thinks this is what I want to do today, that sets you up for misery. Because it only happens sixty percent of the time. I call them curve curveballs, and you can say life has got infinite my brother sent me a text the other day, and I sent him one saying, it’s a brand new day. Isn’t it fantastic? IMAX and surround sound, you know, don’t take it for granted.
And he sent one back saying, have a great no. Then he sent one back saying, what’s happening? I said, I’m stuck in the traffic on the parade, and I’m having to fix so and so up, and this is happening. And and I and then I said, not infinite possibilities, infinite curveballs. Half an hour ago, I was gonna draw and go for a walk.
Mhmm. Can I I’m just compelled to say something, if I may Sure? About right speech because I’ve been, you know, reading books and trying to become mindful. And there’s been a couple of instances where I’ve been negative, and I’ve been sort of blurting this stuff out because I’ve had these negative feelings. And I’ve been mindful of what’s coming out of my mouth.
Mhmm. And so I I was I know it sounds weird, but it was like because I’ve never had weird things, supernatural things, but it was like I was hovering about two feet above myself listening to my voice. Thinking, listen to this stuff coming out. Mhmm. And it was strange because I’ve been reading a lot about, you know, stepping back from your thoughts.
And it’s almost like it happens automatically sometimes. Mhmm. Well, the more you know, the more strange. Yeah it is strange. But that’s at the same time it’s normal.
So the more you know about it’s like we have an inner wisdom. And when we talk about the guidelines or when we talk about mindful ness or when we talk about anything that has to do with how things are, with letting go of our ignorance, seeing better, more clear how things really are, then the wisdom inside us gets re-ignited and it starts to feel acknowledged maybe. I don’t know, I’m just gonna depict it, right? Don’t take my words literally. I was separate from myself.
Yeah, I’m not sure what to say about that but because I can just be stage of all things that resolve in a certain way. But if you wisdom gets triggered more often, then the things that have to do with this automatically surface in your mind. So when you have heard about right speech and you have thought about it and then the next day when you start blurting something out there is this wisdom mind that says oh my god what am I doing I actually do not want to say this and there might be some space to direct it. So that is your own wisdom mind doing that. The more you know about the mind and what is healthy and what makes you happy the more that observer knows what to discern with.
You know it is a discernment that you get and then you can catch yourself and say, but now if you don’t have that wisdom you have only one option, that’s your delusions and you only know one way of behaving. And if you can’t get it like that, then you have to try to manipulate the whole situation to get it in another way. But you have never learned, what if I just let it go and don’t even strive for it? And the moment you hear that, your wisdom knows that is what I need to do in order to find my happiness. Mhmm.
You know? And then your ego might say, but actually we don’t wanna have it. And then your wisdom and the ego gonna struggle a little bit. Hope that wisdom is to take over the ego. What?
Hope the wisdom is going to take over ego. Eventually it will, but it will be a struggle, a period. That your ego is going to convince your wisdom. That’s normal because that ego has been there for such a long time, we’re so habituated and it is our only way to find happiness. That’s what we believe in.
So giving that up because the wisdom says let go of the happiness, the ego says hey hello, I want to have that happiness and I’m not sure if I’m going to get it if I let this one go. So that’s a normal struggle. And that can take time, that can take years. But that’s like a purification, you know, and the wisdom becomes more sharp and the ego becomes less powerful and eventually loses its power and then there’s a point that you just Enlightenment. Oh well I think I think then then you are a little bit on the way.
But enlightenment is far enlightenment is huge, you know? We have no idea about how big that mind is. That I think if I There it is. Greed. So is that alright with you?
Yes. Correct. Yeah. Excitement. We we fluff up the qualities, we see more qualities than that are actually there, isn’t it?
We give all these fantastic attributes. It’s just incredibly self centered, isn’t it, Gurude? It’s just totally about self. I mean they all are. But this one most?
So we said this is most primitive. Now you said this is most self centred. True? Do people agree with this? Yeah, And anger is self centered for you.
But anger you can still feel for somebody because you wanna help somebody else. No. But it’s always about a feeling in here. It’s gotta hit you personally to make your anger. Yeah.
True. That’s true. They’re almost all self They’re all self centred. Yeah. Or even love can be self centred to a point.
Then we don’t call it love. Okay. Love is by nature and not self centred. Yeah. So we call that love in the West.
It’s self centered love we also call love but that’s not what we mean with this one. Greed. Give me one more characteristic of greed. It’s usually trying seek fulfillment, isn’t it? So it’s trying to satisfy Yeah.
A need. So what do we do with the speech when we’re needy? Are we begging? You might talk really nice to get what you want. Okay.
You please others to get what you want. You talk nicely to get what you want. If you’re greedy and you want something, in to get it, you might have to talk nicely. Yeah. But there’s always something that you You’d be ruthless.
Ruthless? You justify that you have a need for it. Uh-huh, how? You want it, so you basically convince yourself you need it. You don’t need it because of So what does the speech do?
It’s urgent isn’t it? You forget your manners. You forget your manners? Not me, but you know other people. Not me.
How? Tell me, what do they do? Give me an example. I was thinking food. You really want that last piece of cake or something.
You might think perhaps you should offer it to someone else’s. When the greed comes in, it doesn’t matter about anyone else’s. You just go front. You forget your menace. The consequences don’t matter.
How do we connect that to the right speech? Because your body language starts to Careless. You might say, you know, I better eat that piece of cake because otherwise you’re already good. You’re not good. Careless?
Seek compliance. Yeah. Like, when you talk to someone about stuff you want or you want the last piece of cake. It’s not really a question, is it? You don’t want that, do you?
Nobody wants this, do you? How do we hear it? We hear the greed when somebody does that, isn’t it? What is it that we hear? Desperation.
People sometimes, like little kids do it, you know. Do you want a chocolate, dad? And it’s roughly translated as I want this. I haven’t got the courage to ask for it. Well, I got told as a kid to say the whole, but I had to say, would anyone like this last piece of cake?
And then the adults normally, oh the one, I hated this one, at birthdays he was like someone bought me a gift unexpectedly, oh that’s wonderful, thank you but you really shouldn’t have. And then they started getting smart and saying things like oh that’s okay, I’ll take it back then. Oh, that’s six year old kid. What? You’re taking that back.
What are you talking about? Great. We need something. You hear the neediness? You hear the emptiness?
The black hole or not? Can you sometimes hear that? Yeah. Neediness. So what about arrogance?
How do we sound when we are arrogant? I’ll bring my brother Tell me what your brother does. How does he sound? He talks down to people. Talking down, yeah.
He talks matter of factly. He doesn’t talk with an open ness. Talks Closed mind? Yeah. With a closed mind.
Yep. He belittles people, which is the same as talking down, I guess. Yeah. And he talks a lot instead of listening. Yeah, talks more than listens.
How are our listening skills with all of these? If somebody’s feeding your But when someone’s angry with you, well it’s not easy to listen to. But if we have these delusions in our mind, are we better at listening or are we better at talking? Better at talking. Better at talking.
Listening becomes more difficult, isn’t it? The more delusions are in our mind, the less we can really hear what the other person has to say. With agreed I justify my greed to my husband. If I’ve gone shopping and I’m not allowed to and I’ve decided I really needed that jumper, I’ve got to justify everything. I can find a reason why I needed that that he can’t whinge about.
Uh-huh. So you manipulate. When we were talking about love, on the flip side, was going to say or I was thinking that we’re talking about characteristics of speech when you love somebody, and I was gonna say, perhaps you listen more Mhmm. Even though you wanna jump in and say something and you don’t. You listen.
You’re giving that person respect. You’re valuing what they’re saying. True. What else? Arrogance.
How do we talk? Really in a way that’s quite authoritative. Authoritative? Can you give me an example? You dictate to someone, tell someone.
Someone said they talk more about authority that can be, well not open to anyone, just thoughts online, but just telling in a way that what they’re thinking and feeling is dictating to another. Yep. So you’re living a little bit on an island? I guess. I’m You’re dictating.
Yeah. Dictating. It’s not open communication. Another thing my brother does is he decides that this is the way it is and you have to accept. There’s no nothing, you accept it, that’s it, move on.
They’re right, you feel right. That’s it, this is the way is, that’s it. Righteous. It’s your problem if you don’t accept it, not right. So what I’ve found is with all these negative things that can come at me throughout life is probably the the strongest thing that threads through all of them from my experience is lack of consideration.
Uh-huh. You get some people that you they’re not people that don’t care that I’m in great pain or they don’t care that I’m having a horrible day or they’re just oblivious. Where does that come from you think? Some people would call it sociopathic or slightly But if we keep it simple and we have two options. Either we are In the sense of one of the features of that being that they’re not considering other people’s feelings.
We care less. When the delusions are in the mind we care less. And if we meet people, they’re after something, we know they’re not going to care about us. They walk straight. If they are jealous they don’t want to hear our story, want to tell their own story, they want to whinge about what they didn’t get.
The more we are obsessed with our delusions, and others do that and we do that in the same way. The more we are chewing on something, you know, we went through something and we’re chewing on it, the more we get obsessed with ourselves the less we actually see who is around us. So the trick is how to let that go, how to let the stories that keep us busy, how to let them go and to free our mind and to be where we are right there with whoever is there and be open to them. See that’s the hardest thing for me. It’s all about attachment again.
Mhmm. The whole because if you’re not attached then they can’t hurt you that way so you’ve got to let go of the situation. Mhmm. Yeah. It’s hard.
It is hard, but it’s doable. Let me see. It’s ten to nine. So we can do you wanna do an exercise or a meditation at the end? Meditation.
Meditation. Alright. Okay. Okay. So we have talked about the opposite of right speech, what are the characteristics of right speech?
That you wrote down in love. Kindness. How do we counteract anger? With kindness. How do we counteract jealousy?
Delight. With delight. So we show delight. You practise, Kim. How are you going with that?
Yes, sometimes it works. Sometimes it yeah, I guess it’s I suppose when you first start it goes it’s going okay then down. Hopefully. Do you mean? Sorry.
I don’t mean to make this personal. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing, that’s fine. Exactly well, give me a scenario on on something that someone gets jealous apart from a partner, is there something else like I’m not Delight, how Where does jealousy come up? You want to share that? Well with the delight thing, if someone tells you they’re going away and you didn’t expect them to, you know,, So I said I’m leaving Buddha House and she feels like Oh no, I want you to stay.
Then she says Oh how happy, how wonderful that you’re going. Try very hard to see it from their point of view. That’s just a wonderful thing for them to do without thinking oh my god what’s going to happen to me, this is it, I thought we were going be together for a long time, we were going to go you know, on and on on, if you don’t have good chance to meet what you’ve done to it!’ Give her a good practice. That’s fantastic. But you are trying.
Give another example of jealousy. One more. Would that be? Because I didn’t really see that as jealousy, I took that more as a greedy self. Well, don’t think you want I don’t think it’s wanting them to share time with doing something else.
You expect them to share your time with you. I don’t know. That’s what it does. So what if somebody somebody gets something wonderful, know? Win the lottery?
Oh, that’s nice, isn’t it? You don’t have jealousy for that? No. So where’s your jealousy? Is that in relationships?
It’s relationships. Uh-huh. And I have to be quick, I have experienced experienced this in the last couple of years so it’s been like I’ve had have I’ve experienced it freshly for a few years I think. And it’s dreadful because it covers everything you do. Everybody has this underlying fear that something is going to be pulled out from underneath you.
Comes back to the attachment. I’m clinging to that, it’s awful. Hate it. Interestingly, you said when someone tells you something that you’re not expecting, therefore, you know, they say we’re going away, you weren’t expecting. Would you react differently if if it wasn’t just out of the blue and they said, oh, I’m going along this lovely holidays?
I suppose at some point, it’s what it’s always gonna be. Now this was a guy in a way that probably won’t come back, but I mean, if it was going on a holiday that’s different. When people come back. It’s easy if it’s because I just think that’s more of a greed thing. There is a possessiveness in that.
And it’s maybe deeper than the greed. It’s like these are on different levels, isn’t It’s more rational, primitive. If anybody else has said that to me I think oh how wonderful!’ But I think if it’s someone you’re close to you don’t expect that. It’s a bit like, it’s hard. I just think, you know, last week when you told us that you’re going then and it’s just like, oh, damn.
You know, we don’t get to finish the course or whatever. And then I thought, Tuscany. Of all places, you’re going to Tuscany. You know? Like, You can come too.
Can all come too. I’m not sure where I’m going to end up there. I’m just a little bit more open I think when it comes to my jealousy. I think I even did say that’s wonderful, I’d love to go there, like I just put it out there.
And then if I really want to go I just invite myself along seriously. You’re awesome, you’re awesome, awesome, I just find, apart from the relationship thing, jealousy when it comes to things doesn’t seem to bother me. Okay, so I can only tell you what happened to my mind when I moved out of relationships and tried to practice more equanimity where you try to feel love for everybody. The levels of jealousy and greed and that suddenly started to surface that I’d never seen when I was just in a relationship was unbelievable. And was like where the hell does it come from?
I have no idea. But things that I’d never seen in my mind suddenly start to come up. With someone you were closer to or not? No, there was one person that I had never seen the jealousy that arose in my mind for weeks about something so stupid. And it is very primitive because it’s completely overpowering and you can’t do anything and you know it’s stupid and you just can’t stop yourself from being obsessed with these thoughts.
It was very very deep and it was completely ridiculous. So maybe relationships give you something to focus on and kind of the underlying stuff that you’ve experienced because you’re so focused on this thing that takes up so much time in your life. Whereas if you take away that relationship then probably But maybe that’s for everybody. I’m just saying that although we can think now, I don’t have that, I only have it there. What I’m saying is if you take that away you might find layers of stuff.
But we all have that I think it’s So when you felt this jealousy how did you overcome it? Was it distancing yourself or trying to tell yourself? Everything. I tried it all. And I had someone somebody next to me who said, don’t be so ridiculous, it has nothing to do with you and all these things why I, you know, there was no reason for me to feel so jealous.
How did it finally finish? I think it was what happened? I think that person left or something. It was just gone. It was very very strange.
And sometimes when you go through that, you know, there is a beginning and there is an end. But it was at least six weeks in a row, it was awful, awful. Does it mean that you never get over it if that person hasn’t left? Well I think for me that felt like karma’s finished, you know. So later I met that person and the situation was different and there was no feeling like that at all.
It was very specific in that situation. Very strange. Did you like yourself better the second time? I mean, were you more comfortable with yourself? Oh, there was no comparison.
You know, second time I was we just met very Not only within yourself, were you feeling happier within yourself in that life? No, wasn’t completely over it, no. Maybe now we could give it a try. So you processed it, yeah. If you analyse it, whether it’s jealousy or anger, if you analyse it, pick it apart, what made that emotion arise, does that help you accept it and then does that help you get over it?
No it didn’t. Because what made it arise, that is the whole jealousy, you know, that I couldn’t change that. Sort of jealousy state. I kept on thinking about what made that arise. Yeah.
Yeah. So how do you let go of it? Well, don’t know. Looking back, I think I couldn’t. And when there’s jealousy, anger can easily come without.
Mhmm. There is jealousy and then and then what you start to do is you wanna it’s awful feeling and I think any of these feelings can really feel awful and you want to get rid of it. So one way of trying to get rid of it is that you start spitting it out basically. So you start to speak really unkind or harsh or whatever to let that emotion out because somehow we believe that I just let it out it gets out of my system. That’s why I’ve always grown up with the thought that anger wasn’t emotion, it was more a reaction to an emotion.
That’s what I was taught. It is a reaction to a feeling. Yeah, to a feeling and emotion. But these reactions, they’re all reactions to unpleasant feelings. But these unpleasant feelings are all on different levels.
Yeah but there’s still to be jealous is to be there is a definition feeling jealousy whereas anger there’s always something underneath it, you get jealous which causes anger. But anger is that you want to harm somebody. That’s the definition of anger. Is anger having a weak mind? I don’t know how to deal with anger.
Anger is, well you have a strong mind when the delusions don’t arise. The less the delusions arise stronger your mind is. But you have to look at the conditions, you know. If the conditions are tough and you can’t stay peaceful and calm your mind must be strong in order to do that. You must have trained your mind.
Strong means trained, right? Just as said, you train your body, you can train your mind. If we are untrained, delusions very easily arise when the conditions are there. That you can call a weak mind. Can I ask you to define, because I’m fairly new to Buddhism, when you use delusions in this philosophy, what does it mean exactly?
Means another word is afflictive emotions. So these four emotions including So it’s basically the negative emotions? The negative emotions. Buddhism calls them afflictive emotions, negative emotions, destructive emotions. Some emotions are seen in the West as being positive but in the for instance, greed, if I have a lesser form of greed, that is I want something and I can achieve it, the desire, you know, can be seen as something positive.
But if the desire is self centered then it is seen as something that actually obstructs our happiness. If I something for the whole group then my desire can lead to happiness for everybody. So desire can be positive or negative emotion. If I want this whole group all to have a bigger house. Yeah, great.
That’s a positive thing. You give them everything you want, they want. And not just this group, you do it to the whole neighborhood and to the whole Adelaide and to the whole world and all those who have nothing. And if you imagine that, just that your mind opens, opens, opens, opens. And that in itself counteracts the arising of love, greed, of anger, of jealousy.
Right speech. So right speech is gentle. Yeah, was. We listen more, it is kind, we speak more soft, more positive. We can show delight.
And then in order to contract the greed, what do we do? Maybe we choose Generosity. Generosity. So How do we do that in speech? Kindness.
With kindness. That’s to contract the anger. Focusing on yourself. No, focusing on yourself and taking care of the other person. And we choose the words carefully for the other person.
And the arrogance. Take the time for this. We take the time, we maybe listen more. We listen. And maybe we recognise that that person who is with us is exactly the same as us instead of we feeling better or more righteous or So if we have that and then we speak from that place, then anything that comes out of our mouth must be almost good, Not?
We’ll We’ll try. So it’s not easy to do that. Surely for all things if we try and enter into their position and see what they’re you know, see it from another side, then that will also help, you know, not be so attached to that emotion. Have we ever received right speech from somebody? Mhmm.
Yep. How is that? Affirmations? Uh-huh. But if we has somebody spoken to us with right speech?
That’s fantastic. Respectfully. You feel respected? You feel happy? Content.
So that’s what we give when we engage in right speech. One thing I notice when people speak with right speech they always bring about resolution with their speech rather than trying to lead on to more speech. So they’re very selective in what some people that I talk to, they use a few words, these words to bring to a point and then that’s it. So there’s no more carrying on, it’s just they give you the answer and then that’s it. So it’s a means to an end rather than So it’s powerful and little words?
It’s pure. There’s no there have to be any something coming back. It’s pure it’s just resolved. That’s something that I noticed as well. I was trying to practise white speech before we had this family meeting with my brothers and my husband was coaching me because he has to do that sort of stuff at work and try to take the emotion out of it.
And one of the things he said that I’m hopeless at and I failed after I tried was to not need to put my point across. It’s really hard, especially with family, when you’re discussing a topic that’s dear to your heart. It was really hard for me. He goes, no one likes to be put in their place. No one needs to know that you’re right.
Is that righteousness? Yeah, but it wasn’t coming from a place of righteousness. It was trying to help them to understand why I felt a certain way. So I wasn’t putting myself up there or anything. But he said no matter how you say it or where you’re coming from, you’re still pointing out that they’re wrong and they’re not going to respond well to that.
So I needed to help them come to the ideas that I wanted them to come to of their own accord, otherwise they wouldn’t accept it. Could you see that? Yeah, I saw his point and it didn’t work. But if you feel right and you feel that others are wrong. It wasn’t, it was right for me.
I’m not saying it was right as being right or wrong. But they can only acknowledge that. But they can only acknowledge that when they acknowledge that they were wrong. So if you feel that that is right for you then for them that feels like, so you’re telling me that I was wrong. That’s how they feel it.
Yes, and that, well So you can say from having a feeling of what is right for yourself but not having to make it everybody else’s feeling. Does that make sense? But the right and wrong is very sensitive. You know? Well, there is no right and wrong, ultimately, is there’s only what we feel that doesn’t mean it’s right for that person.
I came to a point of acceptance and what they did was had to turn around and they are growing up slowly because you remember they haven’t had any parents. And so for me I am a mother figure but I don’t have any of the respect or authority that comes with one. So they use me as one when it suits them and then they walk all over me when they don’t want to. For them it was a realisation that they don’t have any control really of who I am and what I decide in my life and that kind of helped it go a bit, it’s a rough process. But for me it was really hard not to go what did you do wrong and you made me feel like it’ because all these emotions come up and to try and detach myself to keep it simple was really, really hard.
But you make me feel that feels like there a strong emotion from your side in Yes. And a hurt and then not being understood, know, and maybe having had a position that was very very difficult and maybe very lonely and there was nobody to support you so you have to learn to work without hurt, without your brothers. Yes I know. And when you fix that then you can go to your brothers and then you will say it very differently and then they might be able to hear you. But what you actually say is I need your help, need your support, I can’t do this, I’m lonely.
And they are not capable of giving you anything of that. Not. So you have to let that go, they’re just not. Yeah, I’m not as attached to them as I was because of the amount of hurt they’ve given me. They’ve pushed me away.
So I understand that. But if you heal that you might be able to love them very much. I do love them very much, I just don’t always like them. Is that okay? It’s very difficult to change the not liking and the Although I think when you feel more loved, the liking becomes also better and better.
Shall we do the meditation? So sit comfortably. And to help you settle, focus on the awareness focus your awareness on your breathing. And you can do that by observing your abdomen rising and falling every time you breathe in and breathe out. Let go of any thoughts, images or feelings that arise.
Whenever you become distracted, bring your awareness gently back to the sensation of the breath going in and out. And just enjoy the experience of coming to rest. What does right speech mean for you? Think of a time when you watched someone speak with kindness, sensitivity, and wisdom. How did it feel?
What did it sound like? And what effect did it have on the people around them? Reflect on some of conversations that you have had today, their content, their tone, and their purpose. Would you describe as right speech? Then bring to mind a recent occasion when you gossiped about someone else or criticized them behind their back.
And that might be difficult or uncomfortable to think about. But try to recall this conversation without judging yourself or the listener. What were you doing at that time? What motivated you to speak in this way? How did it make you feel?
What effect did it have on other people? Then visualize that you walk into a room where two people are talking about you. They don’t see you, but you overhear their gossiping and criticizing. Imagine that this is really happening and watch how you react. What happens to your body?
What happens in your mind? How do you feel towards them? And what will you do next? If this imaginary gossip and criticism has hurt you, then treat yourself with great kindness and gentleness. Acknowledge that you are experiencing pain without seeking to blame the people concerned.
And then try to extend the same kindness and gentleness to the person whom you have heard with your own criticism and gossip? Is there a way for you to make amends? What is holding you back from doing this? What would it take to use your speech more wisely in the future? And then if you like, you can make a kind of determination that this is what you want to practice.
And maybe you say that every day when you wake up, you try to practice this for one hour. And if you succeed, you do another hour, maybe in the afternoon. Whatever you feel comfortable. And then we can close this meditation with a wish, may all beings be happy. Thank you for coming.
So next week, we’re really gonna talk about respect. Why we should or not should respect others or why we why it is wise or not to respect others. But start to work with try to work with right speech and see what happens if you can manage. It’s not easy. Thank you.
You’re welcome. Thank you for coming.