Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 84-minute session, Ven Jamyang examines three emotions—depression, jealousy, and pride—that generate inner suffering and outer conflict. He explores depression’s nature (loss of hope, self-judgment, environmental factors) and practical antidotes: volunteer work, caring for others, reflecting on relative good fortune, and meditating on the mind’s clear nature beneath dark emotions. He then dissects jealousy (inability to bear others’ success) and pride (the subtlest delusion, underlying both superiority and inferiority), showing how each blocks happiness and relationships, and offering antidotes through rejoicing, recognizing interdependence, and remembering impermanence. The session concludes with a guided meditation on the clarity and spacious nature of mind itself—the ground in which thoughts and emotions arise without defining who we are. Pitched at practitioners with meditation experience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2007 12 04 jamyang – session 2 41207.mp3
UUID: 75ef4951-62fa-4354-8b73-c575aa43e3b7
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Date: 2007-12-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 84.5 minutes
Words: ~9,669
Okay. It’s quarter to twelve, so we should let’s try to be finished by then. I’ll turn it around while I do the meditation. So depression, jealousy, and pride. These are all the emotions behind world wars and conflicts.
Yes. Inner conflicts even. Mhmm. What’s the war in yourself? It is.
You know, that’s that’s our contribution to world peace if we eliminate that in a war. We will benefit so many people around us. Every action that we do around us will benefit and will show people that you don’t need that in order to survive. I think for many, many years, somehow maybe they even have served us these solutions in order to survive. But we’re living now in an age that we don’t need that in order to survive.
So we have two strong reactions, isn’t it? It’s like and and because of these strong reactions, we create the wars. And I think the Dalai Lama talks about that every time when he goes around the world. You know, if he talks about how to create harmony and how to create world peace, it’s about he says we’re living in a new age and we don’t need these disturbing emotions anymore in order to survive. And actually these disturbing emotions are now actually very harmful for us because if I get angry at my neighbour, I need my neighbour.
We are so dependent on each other economically, socially. If we harm each other, we harm much more directly ourselves. So we have to stop and learn to control these emotions if we want to create world peace. Lama Zopa always says: There are certain days that you take precepts in Buddhism and what you say is: Today I’m not going to kill, I’m not going to steal, I’m not going to lie. All the things that harm others, you abstain from that.
And every time he lets us say, this is my contribution to world peace. And if you think about it really deeply, if you allow if you give somebody space to live, if you stop harming others, that person will be more in peace too. You will be more in peace with that person too. So that person, you don’t trigger their delusions so they won’t go around and harm others because of their delusions. They will stay more peaceful.
So you can think about it really, really far. If you abstain from one action that harms others, think about it, how big that effect is in the world. Depression. What is depression? What is it?
Yucky. Dark. Heavy. Absence of hope. It’s always going to be like that.
It’s the opposite maybe of excitement or the anxiety. Oh, my partner always going to be that beautiful. Oh, now he went away and it’s always going to be on my own. It’s the flip side, isn’t it? You suffer from depression too?
No. No? You just go in the highs and you don’t go into the lows? No. I don’t get angry very much either.
No. Too busy being anxious. I ruminate on anything. Maybe when I go into that space, I might have some more Oh, maybe then the anger will come up. Who knows?
Maybe maybe it will be interesting to see what happens, you know. And if there is anger underneath somewhere, you know, it’s good if it comes up because then you can let it go and get rid of it. If you have anxiety about me, me, me, what’s gonna happen to me, depression is just as much about me, me, me. It’s just the other side, isn’t it? It’s the dark side.
Never ever do I gonna be in a better state. Never ever this is gonna go away. This will be here for forever if I isn’t it? Switching off as well. It’s just like you don’t even think that.
You you just don’t move. You know? Yeah. That’s that’s where you go into you go into this blank, deep, dark state where nothing happens and everything becomes very quiet and where you can just wait till it passes, isn’t it? Yeah.
There’s a lot of not action in there too, isn’t it? Depression. Yeah. Yeah. Not thinking.
Or caring. Yeah. Not getting dressed. So you don’t think a lot either. You just You just numb?
You just numb. Oh, okay. Yeah. Empties. Some people say it’s suppressed anger.
Do you agree with that? That’s very possible because I think it’s happened to me at the end of the relationship. And I think I was very angry. But you couldn’t express it? No.
No. I’ve also heard it’s internalized that you’re you’re angry at yourself about something. Yeah. It’s anger towards yourself that you don’t express express or that you don’t Well, you just don’t x, y, and z. You’re not sort of measuring up to whatever benchmarks you have in your mind.
So what if you believe that you’re actually a very good person and then that anger arises? You can’t even afford to feel like that because it would change your way that you have to that you think about yourself? Could that be part of it? Yeah. Maybe.
So then you just become depressed. And when you’re depressed, you become you become more the victim too, isn’t it? You become depressed because other things don’t work the way you want it to work, because other people are not you know, they’re they’re giving that to you or they’re not giving that to you or poor me, poor me, poor me. You’re not sure whether it is, in fact, the clinical, you know, lack of certain chemicals in your brain or it is an emotional state because the emotional state definitely comes Yeah. Regardless of chemical state.
But So what if they go together? Which wait. What if they’re just symptoms of the same thing? Exactly. You don’t sort of know which comes first.
If in fact there is an order to it. What we say is, oh, it’s you know, that’s that’s keep on blaming. It’s the chemicals in my brain. It’s the same as saying, oh, it’s because my dad did that or because my neighbor did that to me. That’s why I feel like that.
Now they say it’s because I don’t have the chemicals in my brain. Same thing. Objective Yeah. And outside of it, so we play a game in the way. Yeah.
But But that that it is. It is the same, isn’t it? So you use that medical stuff to reinforce your own situation. What? To externalize it.
Or to externalize it. At least it’s not my I didn’t bring it on myself. The good thing about it is that you can see it’s not me. It’s my brain. And because it’s your brain, maybe you can practice that having a little bit of distance.
Every time when the depression comes up you can say it’s not really me, it’s just something that’s not working in my brain but I don’t have to be worried about it. One day it will shift or I take this medicine and then it will So that’s the good about saying it’s my brain. Saying it’s my brain is the same as saying it’s whatever coming from outside, isn’t it? But depression is just the state of mind. And the state of mind is not you.
True. Depression is also not you. It’s just the state of mind. So maybe for the cure it is good to say it is my brain. It’s not you, it’s my brain.
Or it’s not you, it’s your brain. I think degrees. Yeah. You have to be careful with it, isn’t it? Because you might think you’ve got a more normal brain.
Yeah. It could be Being just a dimensional. Or you can never fix it. You could think I can never fix It makes it hard to get over it. But also victim.
I think victim’s a huge thing in all of this. Yeah. I know when something and then, yeah, it challenges all your relationships as well. Once said it’s a frozen, poor me state of mind. Frozen’s definitely a a part of it.
Yeah. Poor me? Not not even the poor me. It’s just frozen. You don’t feel at all.
But if you come a little bit out of it, there is a poor me. Yeah. Isn’t it? So self centered. Very, very self centered.
Yeah. Even when you’re actually coming out of it, you have trouble talking about other things. You only can seem to center on how you’re feeling. Yeah. Things are happening to you and, like, other people could be quite ill, but we can’t focus on that.
You can hear that, but you can’t focus on it. So how do we heal that with meditation? You you you give to healing in in in your answer, in what you’re just saying, I think. So it’s very difficult to focus on others. So what you’re gonna do is do focus on others.
Yeah. Do find something. What they give children, isn’t it? You know, if you’re selfishly depressed, do volunteer work. Do volunteer work.
Focus on something else. Yeah. Yeah. And start caring about others and see how bad the situation is about us. And maybe that’s they’re much worse than you are.
You know? And then you can think how lucky I am, How To just be depressed. To just be depressed or to appreciate the things that you do have. You know? And that you do have the choice if to get up or not.
And some people don’t have the choice to get up or not and that you still have your brain is still functioning, and some people don’t have that anymore. And so you can you know, if you take care of others, you can see how lucky you how much you still have even if you feel you you’re missing something. Lucky, especially Australia. Oh, yeah. You know, we turn on the tap and get.
Australia’s a pure land. Mhmm. There is water, period, whether it’s from a tap. Mhmm. Yeah. Because there’s a catchment.
The pollen head thing. No. But when you were born there, you could. But It’s hard. You’re the one who’s being done.
Pardon your kids. To appreciation, that’s a very good thing. But, again, you know and the stepping back thing, you know, it’s it is it is not me who has this and have it you know? I I think you can use your brain, but maybe maybe not too much. Sometimes things look really, really dark really dark, but you can also you know?
I don’t know. I’ve said it a few times to you that if you have to let go of all the things that you could do, first, you had to regain your capacity to move, and now you have to let go then again. Think about that potential that you have in order to bear this. And think about the potential that you have which has nothing to do with your outer circumstances. Because that’s there.
We all have the potential anyway for love and compassion. We all have the potential to be good people. We all have the potential to think about others and to care about others. And we can develop that no matter what kind of circumstances that we are in. Right?
So you can reflect like that even if you are depressed. It’s not easy, but being depressed is a lot about I’m not good enough. You know? You what you do is you beat yourself up because of something that you haven’t done right or you haven’t done enough whatever. Negative, negative, negative.
Think about the positive things. Not just about life but also about yourself. What have you done well? What are you good at? What is it that you have accomplished in the day?
Don’t think about I haven’t done anything. I haven’t done what I had to do. What have you done that day? And be happy about that. Very simple things.
Meditation on the nature of the mind that we’re going to do later. The nature of the mind is clear clear and knowing. The nature of the mind is not dark. So sometimes people compare the nature of the mind with a blue sky and all the thoughts and feelings and emotions are like clouds. They come into the sky but they’re not part of the sky and they can dissolve and then you can see the nature of the sky.
Depression is very dark clouds hanging there for days and days. You know that maybe in Australia not so much but me coming from Holland and Helena too very dark for days. Especially when it goes towards Christmas, dark. Many people kill themselves just because of the darkness and you forget how clear it can be. Being in a country where there’s such a clear sky, it’s amazing what it does in your consciousness.
It can lift whole depressions because of that. In Holland people go to the solarium how you say that? In order to counteract that oppression. You do that. Winter, you just go ten times and that helps you to keep your mood up.
What? Yeah. Well, you can call that by but it’s like it’s like the darkness does something with your mind. And I think when that happens in your mind, then your body starts to stop functioning. It’s I think it’s two ways.
It’s not just the body. It’s not just the mind, but they influence each other with whatever happens here. Yeah. The heat. Oh, really?
humidity is so high. That’s really a dark problem. It is. It’s very difficult for the mind. But it’s different from depression of the darkness.
If I can talk about experience? It’s from experience. Being five years in Queensland, as soon as that depression comes, the mind goes mad. My mind went mad. And I never knew what was going on.
Somebody said, I can feel that the weather is changing. Why can you feel that? Oh, because my mind is doing like this and this and this. And I thought, oh, I experience it all the time. And then you start to recognize the mind goes mad when when when the pressure really gets high, isn’t it?
And here, is too, but here, it’s not that bad as in Queensland, but it does happen a little bit. No. It’s like in tropics. Yeah. Subtropics, yeah.
But the darkness in Holland is different. You have Sweden, you know, where I think in the winter the sun comes up at ten o’clock in the morning and at two, three o’clock in the afternoon, it already is gone. And they left there for twenty hours in darkness. You know? I can’t imagine that.
You can’t imagine that. Can’t imagine it. Like living in Australia. No. No.
And there are people there who love it, but there are people there that can make your mind really, really dark. You know? So you have to go really to a certain space in your mind in order to walk through that. It’s it’s not easy, But we are lucky here. Poor me, poor me, poor me.
We can counteract that with generating love and compassion for others, wanting others to be happy. We feel a big lack of happiness and out of that big lack of happiness we try to pull happiness towards us. Bringing our story out for you. Poor me, poor me. You know what happened to me.
And we want other people to say, oh, yeah. You’re such a good girl. I care about you and I do love you. And, you know, it’s a lack of love almost. I talk about experience.
But generating that love for others, then then, first of all, you get out of that poor me. But also, if you give others what they need, you know, then naturally in yourself, there is a space that you feel more happy, more light, and the love will come naturally to you. You don’t have to ask for it. And if you always say, poor me, poor me, people at a certain point just say, I tried so many times, but it’s never enough, isn’t it? You go, it’s never enough.
Go out and help others. That’s the best way. Yeah. Children, they give many times children something to care about, isn’t it? If the child is not happy, you give them a little pet.
And then when they take care of the pet, they start feeling more happy because of responsibility. Illnesses. You know? Yeah. For an animal.
In prison, I never heard that. Yeah. Prisons, some programs. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Just take that attention off me, isn’t it? Yeah. Jealousy. Is that enough about depression?
Try to get away from me. What? Plenty. Jealousy. Jealousy is all these things that arise in the mind.
In Buddhism they are called mental factors. Everything that can arise in the mind, virtue or non virtue, disturbing emotions, wisdom, concentration, anything, any aspect that arises in the mind is called a mental factor. And all these mental factors have a definition. So jealousy is a mental factor that out of attachment to material gain or respect is unable to bear the good things that others have. So there is a need for respect or there is a need for gain.
And because you have this strong not bear that anybody else has that. So in order to counteract that, first of all you can think about the fault of jealousy. If you know the mind of jealousy it’s a very very unhappy, disturbed mind. Isn’t it? First of all, have the feeling that you don’t get what you want which is already very disturbing and then somebody else has that which exaggerates that feeling.
Very unhappy mind. So see that if you stay in that mind you’re just getting more and more unhappy. You’re never going get what you want and also by you not being happy with that other person having what they have, it’s not going to change your life being unhappy about that. It’s not going to give you what you want if you don’t want other people to have what they have. If your neighbour has a beautiful car and you’re jealous that has that car, that’s not going to bring that car to you.
Isn’t it? Think about how it can destroy your relationship. Jealousy, I don’t know, you have a partner, you don’t allow your partner to talk to anybody else because you’re so scared that you might lose him or her. Right? It’s very disturbing for your own relationship and that will make your partner to run away eventually if you keep on doing that.
Think about, you know, especially if you have this craving for respect and people don’t give it. Every time when you show your craving, actually will get less respect because people think I’m not going to give her what she wants. Isn’t it? Jealousy is a very ugly mind. If you see somebody who has jealousy in their mind, immediately you have: I don’t want to be there.
I don’t want to give that person what they want. Isn’t it? It’s very difficult to give a jealous person what they want. And even if you would give it, you have the feeling they’re just going to throw it at you. True?
So if you have jealousy coming up in your own mind, you can think about if you see that your neighbor has that beautiful car, there are causes and conditions why things come into existence. That person has created the cause and conditions to have that beautiful car. You at this moment you don’t have these causes and conditions. You maybe have the causes in your mind but the conditions are not there for you to have that car. So if you want to have that car, it’s better that you create the causes and conditions to get a car instead of being jealous as your neighbour.
Because you can do the same. You can do exactly the same. You can get anything you want if you create the causes and conditions for it. It might take a long time but the possibility is definitely there. So think about that.
If you see somebody who’s really beautiful, think about what they have done, what they must have done in their previous life to become so beautiful. If you want to be beautiful in your next life, think about what you have to do now to become that beautiful. And it was what? Patience? It was patience.
Yes. They say from a human life or a higher rebirth comes from not harming. Practicing ethics, morality. Becoming beautiful has to do with patience. These are the main ones.
If you want to practice Dharma and you to teach others about the Dharma, first of all you do need wealth. Without wealth you cannot practice. It’s very simple. If I have to go out every day to work, it’s very difficult for me to do this work. So if I want to do this work, I have to make sure I have wealth.
In order to get that, I have to practice generosity. Then, if I want to attract I need a human body in order to be able to talk so in order to do that I need to practice non harming. And then, in order to attract students, I have to have an appearance that people find attractive. Otherwise, in a really ugly way, people don’t want to listen no matter how good my story is. So for that I have to practice patience.
So just in order to practice your Dharma you have to do these things. So that’s why we’re doing that. Then if you feel jealousy arising in your mind, practice rejoicing. How wonderful is it that that person has this opportunity or has received whatever, you know, got this car or has this beautiful partner or has this loving family or has this fantastic job. How wonderful, how hard has that person worked in the past?
He must have worked so hard in order to get that. How wonderful. You really would know the effort that goes into experiencing good things in his life and if you see good things happening in others, you can rejoice in whatever they have done to get that. It’s very important because if somebody has generated again and again and again good qualities, then they will naturally experience the result. If you see the result and you can think about how hard that person worked, you can’t be jealous.
Isn’t it? You can just rejoice. Wow! And you know what a person has abstained from for a long time in order to get that. How wonderful that he could do that or she could do that.
Learn to be content with what you have. Contentment is a state where there is no anxiety, where there is no depression, where it’s just whatever arises is good. How wonderful that I have this, how wonderful that I feel like this. How you know? It’s all good.
It’s all good. Where we are now is all good. If you look what we have just by being in Australia, it’s all good. Some people have a big house. Some people have a small house.
Some people I think everybody has a big house actually in Australia. In Adelaide, it’s unbelievable looking for small houses. It doesn’t exist. Do you? Mhmm.
Looking for when you look especially here in Adelaide, I have the feeling that almost everybody can live without too many problems, but that might be me not seeing the people who have real problems. Is it? You haven’t been to it since. Is it? But Adelaide does really smack of that.
It’s it’s two cars in the driveway. Yeah. You know, it really does have that across the board safe. You know? Yeah.
Couple of cars in the garage. It must be TV. It’s pretty pretty much guaranteed in every house as opposed to those extremes in Melbourne or Sydney where there is mega, mega, mega wealth, but also abject poverty. But if you would compare to the outskirts in India Oh, I mean, for the paranoid. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But because we haven’t got those conditions here, But we have to keep on thinking it is relative. You know?
Yes. It is relative also compared to the good things that we have, but it’s relative also compared to the Yeah. To the very bad things that exist on earth. And even in the outskirts in India, there’s so many people who survive Yeah. And who grow old.
You’ve got the closest you could get there in Australia is going to some of the institutions don’t even have clean drinking water. Yeah. It’s shocking in a country like this, but, yeah, it is that bad. They the average age of most Aboriginal men in Australia is forty. They die at forty.
Really? They’re twenty two years Escape from the suffering. They can’t bear that suffering, isn’t it? Yeah. And they start them.
So being content with what we have is not too difficult when you think about these things, isn’t it? No. Not at all. And I think it’s good to reflect on that again and again, you know, especially if you feel a little bit low or if you feel sad or if you feel just think about these people, it can easily lift you up. It’s like what am I crying about?
Cultivate loving-kindness by thinking that you want us to be happy. Normally we are jealous at somebody who is happy. If you have loving-kindness in your heart, jealousy cannot come up. Isn’t it? If we think I meditate because of loving-kindness and you meditate and you think everybody’s going be happy then you open your eyes and you’re going be jealous because that person has what he wants to have.
It’s not congruent with each other. Yeah. And if you’re really jealous in a relationship, you know, and your partner is spending a lot of time with other people and you feel that you are not getting what you need or, you know, you can also just talk about it, but without your jealousy, without your anger, but just say, this is my need, is what I expect and see what happens. Then the pride I have to be quick. Is a very big one and I think according to Tibetans, pride is our biggest one.
Pride is the most subtle one. Pride is the most you know, attachment is hard to recognize, but pride is even harder to recognize because we identify strong very strong with anything For instance, pride has to do with that you feel superior or inferior compared to others. If you look where we have that, we are constantly comparing. Isn’t it? Our whole society is based on becoming the best.
So you’re either trying to be the best or you realise that you’re not the best. Constantly pride. Either way is triggered. If you are the best you feel fantastic and more superior which is in Tibetan Buddhism they call that a false pride or a deluded pride because you’re not really better. You’re not a better human being than another than Having not such good results also doesn’t make you a bad person or a worse person than the other person.
It has nothing to do with that. All this competition that we have is just generating a lot of disturbing emotions which can lead to a lot of violence. Pride has to do with judgements. Pride has to do you know, if we think I’m better or I’m not so good, it’s our judgment. Isn’t it?
Isn’t that what they said in Christianity that our judgment is not what kicks us out of paradise? If we could see everybody as equal, really equal, you know, we would be much happier. We would have no reason to fight. We would have no you know, we would just take care of each other because we know our needs and we are very happy to give that. But because of our judgments, we don’t do that.
That’s our biggest thing. True? So, you can be critical or judgmental about others or about yourself. You can feel unhappy that you’re not the number one or you can feel unhappy because your child is not the number one. When you feel unhappy that you’re not the number one, you can be jealous of person who is the number one or whoever is above of you.
Pride triggers jealousy. Pride triggers anger. Pride triggers attachment. Pride is a big trigger that we have. Behind all emotions, really.
It’s a lot behind many. But it’s a very subtle one. It’s the most subtle delusion that we have. And because of that, I think it’s even harder to find than the attachment. They say that even the big meditator in the cave who thinks: I wonder what the people in the village say about me that’s pride.
Even if that person doesn’t see anybody his whole life, if the thought is there What would other people think about me? That’s pride. So when we have pride, we feel angry when we get criticized. We get angry when we get don’t get the respect that we deserve or things that we deserve. We feel depressed if we make mistakes or if people, you know, if we don’t live up to our own expectations.
That’s all our own judgment that is doing that. There is a difference between pride and a healthy self esteem. I think pride is very much connected with a low self esteem. Wanting to be the best means that you think you’re not good enough. Isn’t it?
And then when you are the loser you feel, ah, yeah, you see? I’m not good enough. You use it in either way. There is a low self esteem underneath. In Tibet, I said that in Dharmasala, when the Dalai Lama was talking to Westerners, one of the people asked the question, you know, I have this this this feeling of hate towards myself.
What do I do with that? And the Dalai what hate yourself? What what do you mean by that? And, you know, he talked started to talk about low self esteem and how that feels. And the Dalai Lama got very disturbed and said, I I don’t know what that is.
I’ve never heard about that. So and then they said, but but more people of us have it. And he said, oh, who who else has it? And everybody went up with a hand and he started crying. And I said, I have never heard about this.
How can you hate yourself? We all have Buddha nature. We all have the potential to become a Buddha. How can you hate yourself? And in Tibet, it is not part of the culture.
They don’t even have a word for it. And if you look at these people, that even if they live with the Chinese who constantly abuse them, they’re still happy. Somehow it doesn’t affect them. It’s amazing. And of course there are also people who are affected by it.
But the people who I think the younger generations get more and more affected and the Chinese use that by saying only when you speak our language you get a watch and only when you do this you get that. The young people are very open to that because they want to be part of the group and they want to be good enough. But the people in the countryside who have been long time in Tibet, they don’t have that. Just keep on smiling and say, it’s just karma’. Having a healthy self esteem means that you’re proud of what you have done.
If you get that new car, you are pride you can feel pride because you created all these causes and conditions. If you really realize the virtue that is behind that car, you know, you can be proud of that. It has nothing to do with anybody else. Has nothing to do with you comparing yourself to others. Has to do with you recognizing the good things that you have put into something that results in this.
Right? If I get that car because I steal money and I rejoice in the fact that I got that beautiful car because I stole the money, that is not what I’m talking about. That’s not the right pride. That’s a complete delusion. You can steal money, you can buy a car but getting a beautiful car still comes from virtue in previous lives.
That stealing the money will somehow result in next lives into something else. So rejoicing in all the good things that you’re doing. That is a healthy self esteem and it has nothing to do with anybody else, only with you. And we can be proud of that. Any positive action that we are doing, we can be proud of that.
If we know really the nature of reality which is constantly going towards destruction, towards negative delusions. Every time when we can generate a positive mind we can be proud of ourselves. That’s a positive pride. That’s not a disturbing emotion. So we can develop that.
That’s actually very healthy. And that gives us confidence about ourselves, gives us confidence about our own potential, that gives us the confidence like Yes, I can achieve that because every day I can make the choice. Maybe not every day I can make the step but many days I can make the step and the more I practice, the more I’m able to make these steps. That gives a healthy confidence that we are able to develop our potential. Another thing how you apply antidotes to pride that’s very similar to what we talked about by thinking about all the faults of anger.
If we feel superior to some people, that might put us in a position that if they don’t do what we want or if they do something that we don’t like, we abuse them, we criticize them. We create a lot of negative emotions ourselves when we see that. It leads to jealousy. It makes that our mind is not at peace. It’s very difficult to practice contentment.
If we believe we are really special in our spiritual development that can also be an obstacle in your spiritual. Isn’t it? You have maybe an experience and you think wow, I must be really special that I have this experience and you keep on believing that you’re so special in having that experience and what happens is that you actually start to build up your pride instead of generating more of these experiences. So it’s going be an obstacle in your path because the more pride you have, the less these experiences are accessible for you. Many people do this, you know.
I can’t do this. I can do that with everything. I don’t know if you guys have that too. It’s all so clear. So a lot of pride leads to the creation of more negative karma.
If you have pride, you you think Wow, I did that. You can think Okay, who else did I needed in order to accomplish this? Where was I when I was a little baby and I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t do anything? Who did I need? I needed my parents and then I needed my teachers and then I needed this person, this person, this person.
And all these people who helped you during your life actually have made their contribution to what you are achieving now. It’s not just you. You’re just one little chain in the whole how do say that? One little chain in the whole? Link in the whole chain.
Isn’t it? We’re not more than that. But we believe me. I did that. No, you’re just a little part of it.
And everybody has their own contribution in it. And if one link would be missing, the whole chain wouldn’t exist like that. So then you become you can also think about the things that you can’t do and don’t know. We have a lot of pride about knowing, isn’t it? If we know, then everything is alright or then we’re part of it or then we’re good enough.
Think about the things that you don’t know. In Tibet, it’s very if you see the Tibetan texts, how long it takes to study one text and then they have hundreds of these texts. It’s like pride if you see that, pride cannot arise. Because even one text is so hard to learn and to understand. How can you ever have these all in your mind?
No. Older I get, the more I know about them. That’s wisdom, isn’t it? No. But if you can accept that, then the mind opens so much that a lot of knowledge comes automatically with that.
Yeah. And then I was also feeling I don’t have to know everything to be good enough. I’m still good. What? Thank goodness we joined.
No. Remember impermanence. You know? And and yeah. You you must have had a really you know, you you you put all this effort in your body and maybe we have all done that in our lives and you train and you do this and then at a certain point you get sick and you lose your complete ability.
That can happen to any of us. Why are we proud of our good qualities? It’s It’s not something fixed. It can be finished tomorrow. Being proud of your beautiful body.
How long are you gonna have it for? You know? And if you really have a lot of pride, what are you creating for your next life? No beautiful body. If you feel I have a beautiful body, no.
You know, it’s not gonna last. If you feel I have a healthy body, I’m so proud of that, it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna last. You have a healthy body today. How fantastic. But don’t don’t take for granted that it’s gonna be there tomorrow.
And then you can think, well, who who’s that I really who has all this pride? You know? What is that I really? How does that I exist? Can I find that I in my mind or not?
If you really got to look, then there is nothing to find. Which, yeah, I don’t know. That’s all. I think that pride in my lifetime has stopped getting help. Uh-uh.
Do you know what I mean? Like, they always feel like you can never ask. Why is Thinking you can’t ask for help because you need to give yourself a help. Would that is that be more inferior when you ask for help? Yeah.
Yeah. There is a pride in this a pride that we that we you know, I I don’t have to ask for help. I can do this on my own. It is not realizing how interdependent we function, isn’t it? We believe we are independent.
I can do these things on my own which is a complete illusion. We are not. I think in the West we’re taught as children to be independent. Yes, definitely. We also teach children in the West.
I heard once an aboriginal saying that when they see somebody who has a little bit of color, they recognize a person or somebody from them, from their tribe. When we see somebody who has a little bit of colour, we recognise them as somebody from somewhere else. Isn’t it? From the other. We recognise things as from the other.
We don’t recognise this is from us. And because we recognise it as something else we constantly create a separation. Isn’t it? A diversity. We see differences, there is pride involved.
If we see similarities, there is love and compassion involved. That is the big thing that Buddhism can bring to the West. They always focus on what do you share with others? You share that everyone wants to be happy. You share that nobody wants to suffer.
If you focus on that sharing, you can only benefit. But if you focus on the differences, then it’s like you disconnect and you don’t want to help and you don’t want to give. You want to protect yourself and that whole ego comes up very strongly. I want to do a short meditation on the nature of the mind but it’s this late. I don’t know if you have to go or not but I’ll give you uh-huh.
It is five it is it is Okay. Do we do ten We don’t do too long. See you next week. Yeah. So Is that something that you wanna do next week?
I think the things that I’ve got most out of this, particularly with think and so I have to rethink loving a child that’s going to God and separating attachment. Getting that real love for that person who is so I guess they’re the things that I’ve thought most about in the last Mhmm. Fifteen months. Yeah. Mhmm.
Okay. I’ll think about that, how it can and I’ll listen to the others Yeah. See what we’re do next time. Okay. Thanks for coming.
See you. I hope you have a few more people when when you’re there. It’s Don’t do that. Don’t go there. And you take us with you.
And we have to go to funerals. So what we’re gonna going do is think about the clarity of the mind. The clarity of the mind is something that we normally don’t associate with. It’s a very subtle object. It’s something that we normally overlook.
We see two things in the room, some are very small and one is very big, our attention always goes to the big one. First of all is most obvious. When you look at the clarity of mind, you’re going to look at something that is less obvious, least obvious. So you have to look for something that you normally overlook, that you normally don’t recognise as something valuable, that you normally don’t recognise as maybe even being possible to focus upon. You’re going to look for that.
If we look into the room, just check with yourself. Your eye gets stuck with the objects. Your eye is never stuck on space. True? I know that once a meditation guide said, When you you know, when you start meditation, you focus on the floor.
But he said, Focus on the space between the floor and your eyes. And that was so funny to see that space, you know, to focus on the space. But it really helps to see that, actually, there is space. I don’t have to focus. Your eye has a tendency constantly to go to the object, but you don’t have to go there.
Did I do that? Was just trying to focus on particles or something. Air. You try to focus on something, isn’t it? But what if you focus on really on space?
Yeah. How does the space look like and start to get a feel for what is space? Then things can move easier in your mind. Okay. So we’re gonna do that.
So before we start, you would just breathe in a few times very deeply. Breathe in through your nostrils and bring the the breath deep down into your stomach. And then when you breathe out, do that very slowly and gently through your pursed lips. Do that a few times. And every time when you let go of your breath, let go of all your thoughts, let go of all your feelings, just empty yourself completely.
And then breathe normally. And observe your breath, your breathing without thinking, without conceptualizing. And you can focus on your breathing by observing the sensations under your nostrils every time you breathe in and breathe out. There is a very subtle feeling. Make your awareness very sharp.
Just feel the feeling. Be aware of the experience without thinking about it. And then think about your stream of consciousness. Think about your mind. Think about what the mind is.
Everything that we experience is mind. Every thought, experience is mind. Every thought, every feeling, every sensation, every perception. All that is mind, all that what is is what arises in the mind. Then if we look at the nature of all these experiences, the nature of these experiences is clarity.
The nature of the experiences of our body, all the sensations, all the thoughts, all the feelings, all the emotions, they have no form, they have no color. Although they might look very concrete, in actuality, they are all like space. They’re all awareness. So when you observe your thoughts popping up in your mind, of them as space. They are space like.
There’s nothing concrete in any thought. You can’t see it. You can’t grasp it. You can’t hear it. And sometimes we might feel, but I have to take my thoughts very seriously because they are me.
They represent who I am. If I let go of my thoughts and let go of me. And if you have that feeling, then check if that’s true. If you let go of thoughts, would you still sit here, meditating, observing your mind? Would you still be in your body?
Would you still be capable of eating, walking, sleeping, being a good person? And then if you think, but this thought is really me. I have to hold on to that. I’m not gonna let that go. Then wonder, how would I be or what would happen to me if I do let go of that thought?
What am I afraid of? How would my life be when I let go of that? What would change? Thoughts, feelings, emotions are in nature clear, clear and knowing. Their nature is space like.
If you can see that, there is no need to follow your thoughts. No need to follow your feelings. If good feelings arise, their nature is clarity. It’s not saying anything about you. It’s not the nature of your mind.
Bad feelings arise, similar. Good and bad feelings are just as empty as each other. There’s no difference. They’re both clear and knowing in the same way. No difference.
They’re both feelings. Try to focus on that clarity. That clarity is sometimes call the natural state of mind. When you are in the natural state of mind, it’s not important what you think. It’s not important what you feel because you realize realize you’re just that clarity.
The context of things that bubble up in your mind is not important. You are not about that. You are that spacious part, that empty nature that allows things to arise and allows things to dissolve. And the things that arise, your thoughts, your feelings, are just as empty or essenceless as your mind itself. No concrete substance in any thought, in any feeling.
And you can focus on that space like aspect of the mind, that is like light, if you can stay with that, that can illuminate your whole mind. If you stay on that spacious aspect. Aspect, that will enable you to see more and more clearly. The more you focus on the nature of the mind, the less influence your disturbing emotions and your thoughts can have. They’re not that important anymore.
And when you have some connection with that nature of the mind, with that spacious aspect of the mind, simply rest your mind on it. Simply stay with it. You can let it expand, grow bigger. It is as if you stare at a blue sky. And you try to comprehend the vastness of the sky.
Clouds that arise in the sky are not important. They don’t disturb you. And if you manage to focus on that spacious aspect, feel how your mind becomes more light, more clear. Feel that peace is naturally there. Feel that all the ups and downs of our life don’t really matter if you are in that space.
They don’t affect that space. Then bring your mind back to here and now, to your bring your mind back to your body. Feel your body. Move your body. And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes.
Took me a little bit longer. I’m sorry. Was that good? Did you fall asleep, or you were you were really there? Is that a good space to be?
It’s a rest, isn’t it? You get a rest of everything. You do take a break. You know? Literally, you take a break from all the turmoil that normally your mind wants to engage in.
True? Yeah. Could you feel it? Yeah. And I also remember I tend to forget.
And I think when I came back from holidays, you did the the DVDs or CDs for me, and I did, like, mini retreats, like, a Sunday. And that’s I felt really good. So I wasn’t afraid to go the space thing, but you tend to forget. You know? It can be a habit, you know, a habit a previous habit.
And so you have to practice again and again to remember. Meditation is remembering. You know. We forget. So now you have this nice space and you think, Wow, that’s great.
And then you go home and you go back into your old habits and you forget. So you have to remember yourself again and again what we are and what we are not Because we have these mistakes in it and these mistakes are very deep and very habituated. So we have to do it again and again and again. It’s not something that comes natural, you know, because of our long term habits. We have to put effort in it.
I tend to put a load of washing on or wash the dishes instead of doing that. That’s more important than those things. So what would you do, like, next week? What you what would you like to do next week? I’m sort of keen to know all about it from here.
Where to go? Enjoying it coming here. Yep. I wanna keep some sort of Continuity. Yeah.
Keep absorbing. Yeah. Interested to see what you thought would be a good place or course to do after this. Yep. What to keep doing at home.
Yeah. Okay. Maybe just a bit of a summary or something. Yeah. Yeah.
I think I’ve just got to keep on practicing meditation. But would you like do you have you missed something that you feel like, I really wanna know something about that? No. No? No.
Fine. You? Just go on this. I want to know what to do next week. Girls, come on.
I will sit down and meditate on it. Every time I always have the feeling that somebody tells me this is what you’re going to do and I will do that but also when I listen to you, that will help you. What would you like to do again? This one? I thought I have to do this more.
I’ll do one very nice on the I like that one. It’s fantastic as well. Yeah. It’s like if we dissolve, isn’t it? Then everything is so beautiful and so nice and we have some space.
It was the most profound. Like, I just wow. Yeah. I loved it. Alright.
I’ll and maybe we do two meditations. Yeah. I’ll do that. Yeah. The the white light bulb, which is which is the loving-kindness meditation?
That’s not the white light. No. But they’re very similar in a way. To make. Yeah.
Hey, Lena? Just more of what we’ve just had to understand. Okay. A bit of a summary of what we’ve done. Summaries?
Yeah. Just sort of wrap it all up. Yep. I’ll do that. Yeah.
I’ll do that. Definitely. Loving yourself. More about that. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Because we all have that yes. We all have that aggression towards ourselves, isn’t it? Where we are never happy.
Even coming to a course where we want to heal, that in itself shows that we are not happy or that we don’t experience ourselves as whole where we are now. That in itself. I stopped being a physiotherapist because I thought if I’m a physiotherapist, I’m telling people that they’re not good the way they are. It’s like a message that you include in your profession. Even a spiritual teacher are doing the same, you know.
It’s like it’s but having that feeling that where we are is good, we are, you know? Stop stop trying to improve ourselves. On a certain level, yes, you can but on a deep level, we need that attitude of that we are happy with ourselves or we take care of ourselves so that we yeah. Mhmm. Yeah.
It’s a very difficult art. Yes. And I don’t master that a hundred percent at all. Yep. Okay.
Okay. Yep. I’ll focus on that. Janice? I think about something nice for next year.
I’m going to get the job of the program maker so I can do anything I like. But also ask other people to help. Yeah. Which is similar that what Mary says, isn’t it? It’s like there is a part of you that that feels that you’re not good enough if you are just naturally you.
Yeah. Isn’t it almost like you’re not allowed to be you? I never considered obligation as a form of guilt before. You said that. I mean, I don’t know.
Perhaps it’s that’s where it actually comes from. So Mhmm. Okay. I’ll wrap it up, and I’ll talk specific about that acceptance of self and then the natural mind meditation. Good.
Mhmm. How could I get that meditation just done? I’m not I can’t separate that Okay. Because I don’t have that technology. But what I wanna do, and I shouldn’t give myself too much of a workload, but what I wanna do is I wanna put meditations on a CD that that will go into the shop and then you have, like, three or four meditations on one CD that you can do.
Yeah. I like the Om Mani Padme Hum. Yes. You like that very much. Yeah.
Really good to have someone on the CD. Yeah. I will do that. I don’t do the chanting. What?
I can’t understand the. You don’t like it? Never will. I can hear a nagging child every time I hear the child thing. Do you?
Comes off of that repetitive child thing at me. Is that you you yourself as a child, or is that your child with you? Well, it definitely wasn’t me as a child, but, yeah, I would just hear that as my hearing, not you chanting. Wow. What if you chant yourself?
No. I can’t that nagging nagging thing. No. I can’t do it. What if you make just sound, a beautiful sound?
No. I can’t do it. Shut down as soon as I hear it. But what if you do it? No.
I can’t do it. What if you you know, sound is just a vibration. If you if you vibrate what is in here. If you no. But you have to do it.
Yeah. I know. Because if you hear, that’s all yeah. I can see that you shut down. But maybe if you let vibrate what is in here and you let that come up, you practice at home.
You try at home. You just you just feel, hear what is in your stomach and you try to find a sound that expresses what you feel in your stomach. Mhmm. You know? Because I think you have too much.
So if you hear that, it’s like it just goes on top and you can get completely sick of that. But maybe when you find a sound that represents what you feel in there Yeah. And you let that out and give really, you you imagine that you give that space, then maybe you can breathe. You can stop breathing. Try.
Can you give it a try? Try. Okay. Good. Thank you.
I think they did a heart to try something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I just I had to go out to the finish.
Yeah. Wow. You have to look into that. But it is triggering something in you, isn’t it? It brings something up that you don’t find pleasant.
No. But maybe when you first bring up what you feel isn’t there and give that space, you know, then maybe after that you can, you know, after a while, you don’t have to think about it yet but after a while, you can actually listen same as that you are in the queue. Like, what is actually happening? You know? It’s like try to create somehow a space where you I don’t think you can go to straight away.
I would first somehow try to find a space that you give sound of what is in here. Mhmm. And then maybe you create a space where you can listen to sound that comes from someone else. Maybe it’s from Maggi. It’s ten past one.
It’s today. Thank you for coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Then you can express your wishes with the program.