Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 40-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang explores suffering from a Buddhist perspective, moving from the six sufferings of saṃsāra—uncertainty, inherent dissatisfaction, repeated rebirth, isolation, separation from what we like, and meeting what we don’t—through classical Buddhist sufferings to a transformative insight: our aversion to pain creates more suffering than the pain itself. She teaches a meditation practice: sitting calmly with difficulty and investigating how the mind reacts, which develops both wisdom about suffering’s nature and spontaneous compassion for others in similar struggles. The teaching also covers Vajrasattva practice for karma purification and touches on death. Practical and grounded, suited for practitioners ready to work with suffering as a path to wisdom.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2009 03 03 jamyang – mind healing and meditation 030309-1.mp3
UUID: 22fa3ea4-e050-4f6d-8187-9131e5220962
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Date: 2009-03-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 39.9 minutes
Words: ~3,437
Yeah. Yeah. I I sorted that through. Uh-huh. Thank you.
Yeah. Good. I like to watch the video home movies. Where you the Into suffering is already very difficult, isn’t it? It’s really good.
Unbelievable. And it’s so difficult to get out of that. You know? That’s why I use that strong word. In that context, is that I wonder if it’s as bad as it used in in a sort of a sexual Let’s not talk about that.
Towards someone in that context. Let’s not talk about that. It could have been alright. About suffering. Suffering.
You wanna know more about suffering? Let’s go to an other division of suffering. Okay. Because this is very difficult to really get it and that might be me not being able to explain it properly. But Buddhism also explains suffering in the form of what they call the six sufferings of saṃsāra.
First of all, say everything in life is uncertain. You know, we never know what’s going to happen in the next moment. We can go from high to low with whatever happens, you know. Sometimes we have a good experience, sometimes we have a bad experience, but we never know. And some things we might think, oh, this is always going to make me feel good, but we do not really know.
You know, one day we might actually get sick from the same kind of thing. Yes. Then the second reason why we suffer is because saṃsāra is dissatisfactory by nature. That no matter what we get, the satisfaction that we’re looking for is never coming, never ever, never ever. Right?
That is a suffering because every time we expect something else, you know, the chocolate, every time we expect that it was going to be something and it’s never there, you know, dissatisfactory by nature, a suffering again and again and again. But I enjoyed that small bit of chocolate. Yeah, I did it too. Yes. But we didn’t have too much.
And now how do you feel now? Quite comfortable. Good. Good. It’s okay that you enjoy it, but you do you want more?
No. No. You’re not you’re not never gonna want more. I’m not No. I’m not never going to.
No. If I see another big cake like that, come on the table. I’ll be there. Yes. Yes.
Probably won’t believe it will make you happy forever. No. I don’t believe that either. So then another suffering that we say is that we repeatedly have to leave the body. We have to leave the body again and again and again and again.
We die and then we will be born again and we die and we reborn again. And death is suffering. And we go through that again and again and again. And it’s like do we have never enough of this? We keep repeating the same kind of thing.
And the same for birth. We keep on getting born again and again at the beginning of this life and again a new life with many opportunities, but also with many, many causes of suffering. We have to learn the whole thing again. But do we take what we’ve learned in this world with our next You take your wisdom with you. You take your wisdom with you.
Yeah. You can lose your compassion, but you can take your wisdom with you. But you can. Compassion is very vulnerable because if something happens that you do not like or it’s very painful, you get angry, you actually lose your compassion. But you can, your wisdom, your knowing, your clear knowing, you take that with you.
So, then let’s say you are completely on your own. There’s no one to really help you. Although you’re born in a family, you are born on your own. You live your life completely alone. There’s nobody ever who really shares your life.
And then when you die you’re alone again. And in birth and death you might feel how alone you are. But if you really look into a life, people might be able to share some experience, but in actuality, we are completely alone. There’s nobody in there that actually can help us. We have to figure out ourselves.
We have to when I was married, my husband thought that was my first treason. I said But that’s your beginning. Uh-huh. But then could anyone want to be a we all the time? Sorry?
Could anyone want to be a we all the time? Was that a we? He and I. We. Yeah.
Something. Yeah. Oh, no. I I think you need your own space. Well, yeah.
But can we go back? Sorry. We’re running out of Okay. That’s okay. And I We all interrupt.
And then we have the you so these are the six types of suffering and then there are the eight types of suffering, which is the birth, aging, death, and sickness. But also being separated from what we like. You know, many times we have things in life that we like and then something happens and we can’t get it. And especially when it’s a relationship that we would like to have, very, very painful. And it happens again and again and again.
Oh, I can’t see this program tonight because and I can’t do this and I can’t do that. Or meeting with what we do not like, you know, many times during a day we meet with things that we do not like. That’s a suffering that is inherent in life. We cannot change that. That will always be like that.
Right? And we are very good in trying to make everything in a way that we like it. But at the same time, can’t I mean, meeting things that we do not like is a result of karma. So no matter how hard we try, if we have the karma to meet things that we do not like, we’re just gonna meet them. So we have to Mhmm.
Or we can. We can do something positive with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But if you look in how we live our life, we set up ourselves in a way that we prevent. I want to live on my own so that I don’t have to live with these people that I do not like. Right? That’s how we because being with things that we do not like is very, very unpleasant. So, then we try to get away from it.
And then but if you have the karma to meet with conditions that you don’t like, something will come in your life that first look really attractive. And then you decide I want that and then it changes, you know. That’s just karma. And as long as you do not purify that karma that’s just going to happen again and again, you know. So, leaving the situation will never be enough to change that habit in your life.
Yeah. Can you see that? Yep. Okay. So if we have one practice to do each day Yeah.
That is most go to purify our karma. Yeah. Would that be the four The Vajrasattva practice with the four opponent powers. Yeah. The Vajrasattva practice.
The Vajrasattva practice. I need that. You need that. On the third Wednesday of every month, we do that here. You know?
In my diary. Yep. And if you guys want to, I can talk about that one day about the four opponent powers and how that purifies the karma and how you do that. That’s on the third what is that on the third one? I can do that here to talk about purification and how you purify your karma.
Maybe I’ll do that. Tonglen is really good. Tonglen is good too, but Tonglen is mainly to develop compassion. You need that too. So these are two antidotes to your anger, you know, but very different application.
But they’re both good. So the forearm Forearm, thousand arm. Yeah. Mhmm. That and the.
But any practice any practice is good. Okay. I’ll talk next time about Vajrasattva. And about how to purify your karma. Okay.
I’ll talk a little bit more about karma and I bring information about karma. So, what we also have is that we another thing is that we suffer because we’re constantly looking for we want and now we can’t find it. Yeah. I don’t know. I wake up every night and I think I’m too hot.
I’m too cold. I’m too hot. I’m too cold. And it’s like, it’s now and then between I sometimes sleep and then I have another one that I try and it’s that’s suffering of saṃsāra, you know? We we can’t even sleep the whole night.
And we can say, oh, that’s not really suffering, But it is a constant interruption of a comfort, isn’t it? It’s like It suffering, I can tell you. Can’t talk about that at all. I think in Western terminology, we tend to regard suffering as something really, really painful. That.
Yes. It isn’t just purely suffering because you’re really ill. No. It can be a Discontent, dissatisfaction, you know? Yeah.
And that’s constantly there, constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly. It’s constantly underneath everything. And if you have a big discontentment because there is big unhappiness, it’s a huge stress for the mind because you’re constantly in a situation where you don’t wanna be. So your flight and fight is constantly looking where can I go? How can I avoid this?
How can I? It’s huge stress for the mind. Yeah. Body. And the body because of that.
Because the Dalai Lama’s mind is no longer in saṃsāra. Well, he would deny that he’s no longer in saṃsāra. He would deny that he has any realization. He would say, I have no realizations at all. And that’s what we say.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. He’s just saying that. But so he talks about, you know, sometimes I’m angry. Okay.
But I do not necessarily react to that. So he says he still sees that appearing in his mind, but he doesn’t react to that. What he really feels, don’t know, you know, we believe he’s beyond all that. And that when he becomes sick, we believe that he just appears his appearance, he appears in the form of being sick, but he’s not really sick. It’s just a manifestation.
Showing us something. He’s seventy four seventy three. So if we want to if you’re gonna sit with this, you know, you start thinking about what is suffering. Suffering is meeting with something that I do not like. And then you start to feel, how does that feel like?
And you sit with that. And you just investigate your mind. What does the mind do when it happens? Where is it fighting? Where is it running away?
What would happen if I bring the mind back? How does it feel like? And just sit with that and say, Okay, if I can accept this Everybody in the world suffers from the same kind of thing. If I know how this feels and I can completely allow this to be here, I can actually you know, when you can really feel it, then from there the compassion will arise. When you really feel it, from there the wisdom will arise.
So then when you have that capacity that you can feel it, wisdom and compassion actually can arise. It’s actually less painful than punching and pushing. Yes. And the biggest part of our pain is the fact we fight the pain. The aversion to the pain.
Yeah. Yeah. So by thinking about suffering, you also lessen the aversion to the suffering. And the more you familiarize with suffering, the more you feel like, oh, you know, the suffering itself is not that much, but our aversion makes it so big. Right?
And the aversion is what we can change easily. The pain, not necessarily, but the aversion we can change. Yeah? Okay. I wanna see what we gonna talk about because if we’re gonna talk about death and we’re gonna do Vajrasattva purification, I also want you to think about benefits of sickness because the more you do that, the the that’s a way of making friends too, seeing that it’s beneficial.
We might of sick. You look so I must give you such discussing concepts. I’m reading Ultimate Medicine. Have you read that yet? Oh, you should get that from the library.
Okay. We just talked about when there was suffering, we have this huge aversion to suffering because we see it as something harmful. So the moment we can see, oh, there’s actually some benefit in this situation, the moment you can see the benefit, that attitude of saying this is harmful is gone. And if that is what causes the most suffering, actually, the moment we can see the benefits, the most suffering is gone. What else would you like to do?
Death? I just sat for her. I’d like to do death, but I think we should. Yeah. Yes.
You’re also young. You don’t need to do that. Oh, no. Excuse me. I’m I’m I’m the boss here.
Excuse me. Stuck your feet. I’m getting a bit too aggressive today. I’ve been I’ve too about that week. What?
No. You don’t. It just What would you like to hear? I never thought about it when I was young. What would you like to hear?
Yeah. But I’m gonna talk about that anyway. What would you like to hear on top of that? The practices, you different practices Yeah. Yes.
I think that can be done? What we can use what we can take from it to help others who are who are maybe facing that in some respect. Yeah. That is huge topic. Yeah.
That’s huge. That’s really huge. Three. We’ve only got three weeks. It’s a package.
And the way we operate it Yeah. Next time, I’m gonna shut you down from the beginning. I’ll close the door. Well, we can see if we need another week. Can do another week.
Yeah. Yeah. We can we can we can add something. But the Buddhist practice. Yeah.
Okay. Let’s do that. Let’s dedicate quickly before you’re gonna run away. You have to go anyway. Okay.
Run away then, and then we dedicate later. Okay. See you Lily. See you later. I think anybody dying needs tremendous support whoever’s being with them in the sense that they are absolutely positive about the death they’re going to have, about what’s going to be life and how they will be.
Because I looked out to somebody once who had a brain tumor and she was dying. She a young woman. But I remember telling her, I don’t know where it came from, that she would die calmly, that she would die with strength, that she wouldn’t suffer, and that I had no doubt in my mind that it would be a peaceful time for her. I don’t know where the words came from, it just came out. And then I left the care of that person and about a couple of months later was told I don’t know why I started looking at the paper and then I saw her death notice.
And to this day, I’m sure she told me that it was she’d done. But the point is that I remembered she took she hung on every word. I thought what a frightening thing that was gonna happen to this young woman. Straight into your heart. Yeah. And I’m sure she was alright.
What a compassion she has, Who? You. That’s your strength. Yeah. That’s your power.
Yeah. Is it? Yeah. We’re talking about it. Did it?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, isn’t I want more of that. You have it all. You have it all.
It’s, you know, the habit of identifying with that poor me, poor me and, you know, that’s sometimes too big to let another one shine through. But, Judy, we know it’s there all the time. She’s making a note of it. I just write write that poor me. I’m writing it down.
Know. I know. But then even when you go into the therapy, you know, where you’re going to look into this poor me and where you’re going to help the poor me, that is still about the poor me, you know. It is. That’s the danger of the normal therapy, you know.
Because in a way there is healing but in a way you perpetuate that for me for me thing. I went along to a women’s group. It seems like a hundred years ago, but maybe thirty or a bit more. And anyway, they said, you’re not angry. And I said, well, no.
I don’t get angry. Get angry. You’re out of touch with your anger. So we did all these exercises to generate my anger, and then I had to fill in all these books. I’m angry because this and this and this.
Books. I love it. And I really learned to be really angry. Then I that’s awful. It’s awful.
But it was seen as the purification. Yeah. And it actually built my own. It’s incredible things with my anger. We did have the cleanest walls in Canberra because every time I was the angriest.
But, yeah, this is what can happen. Yeah. But when it came out, it’s down. Oh. You cultivate just more anger.
And there was a lot of blame, you know. This is because your mother, this is because your father, this is because your husband, this is because So you’re always looking externally and you never it’s not empowering, really. It’s false power. It’s not empowering. No.
It feels powerful, but it’s not. That’s not painful. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very painful to be empowered, you know, and at the same time, it’s very freeing.
It’s like you have to go straight through your pain, but then then you’re free. Then you have choice. Then And it’s not it’s not a completely done job for me. A lot It’s coming. Huge amounts done.
Yeah. Yeah. Wisdom is looking for something. The truth. Now you’re looking in the right way.
Good. Good. Can we dedicate? I’m very sorry. I feel a little bit, you know, I don’t know why it all went so out of hand.
And of course, I blame myself. But I feel I had no control at all. I couldn’t even try. Got it. Whatever reason this was happening.
Senses of self, and they all wanna know a dozen questions at the same time. It’s coming all over the place. I’m trying to care for everyone. It’s it’s organic. It’s not something you can just control.
It’s It just happens. You let yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. I just I just want you when you when you have done the course that you know, you know, what’s going on. So I’ll I’ll make a paper. If you want about karma and one about I want all your attention. Oh, no.
You can’t because I’m talking about wine. This I’m not writing anything different than than it’s written in, you know, the older books that you can find. Oh. But karma and She’s teasing you. karma and healing, isn’t it?
Mind teachings. Don’t you talk about the six pathways or something? The six whatever they are? What? What are the six things?
Six sufferings or the six consciousnesses or the No. Know. The six. No. No.
No. So when we dedicate, just let your mind calm down for a few minutes. Then out of that calmness, out of that spaciousness of mind, let whatever was most meaningful for you today, let that surface. Try to see why it was meaningful and what you can do with it, how you can use it to improve your life. Let’s see how if you can if you would use that to improve your life, how that’s gonna be of benefit to others, how that is gonna help other sentient beings.
And then think may all the thinking, talking, sharing that we have done today, may that become a cause for us to achieve our ultimate state of happiness in which we have developed wisdom and compassion to its full extent. So that we have the capacity and the capability to know exactly what other beings need in order for to for them to fulfill their full potential. Thank you for coming.