Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 79-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang investigates how labels—particularly medical diagnoses—reshape identity and constrain life. When a doctor says cancer, you receive not just a name for symptoms but an entire framework that becomes who you are. He traces this pattern through Buddhist philosophy: we label all phenomena, then confuse the label with reality itself, losing sight of what actually exists. The antidote is compassion practice. Ven Jamyang teaches Om Mani Padme Hum, the Sanskrit mantra whose vibration works as subtle therapy in the nervous system, and guides a meditation where white light from the Buddhas purifies disease and suffering—first for oneself, then radiated to all beings. For practitioners facing chronic illness or those interested in Buddhist psychology applied to healing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Mind Healing Track 2.mp3
UUID: 260a3f86-eddc-4d81-b371-17db00bc3aab
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 78.8 minutes
Words: ~8,778
We need a gong. We don’t have a gong. You go for Mhmm. I just I know the habits. I know the signals.
I know Is there a meditation? Yeah. What’s like has to do with feeling, isn’t it? It prevents you from really feeling. You know?
It’s not good for me either. That’s what’s so scary. Well, that’s that’s the it’s constantly the consolidated battle, isn’t it? It’s like it’s like we cover up so much with the temporary happiness, the temporary pleasures. The eating is one.
The smoking is one. The drinking is one. The and that also gives us eating? I did. I did.
That’s my problem. But if you give one up, you get the other. Yeah. It’s like Or you do them all. Or you do them all.
Yeah. Your lungs. But the sweetness of life is in your lungs, so you haven’t you can’t experience the sweetness of life because of your anger. Yeah. So when you smoke cigarettes, it suppresses all your feelings of anger and frustration and stuff like that.
So it means that your lungs don’t operate fully, so you can’t breathe in and accept your life. Then life and the sweetness in life. So But sometimes life is not so sweet. Sometimes life is not sweet anymore. And then in order to Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it is. But, normally, people start to do that out of frustration, isn’t it? It’s not it’s not out of Well, yeah. I don’t know. And the people I the people that I know take up cigarettes and smoking as they’re older, not so much replacement.
Mhmm. Conversation. Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Good. I’m totally short. You’re right there? You need a hand?
Meditation on compassion in, say, twenty minutes. And I just want you to know if you’re gonna you guys are gonna be comfortable with that. We talked once about using mantras in meditation. So I put a meditation together which is a little bit similar to the one we did on compassion, also a little bit different. But then with reciting the mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, we can do that, say, seven times singing together and then quietly reciting.
But I want you to feel comfortable with what we do there. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. What does it mean? It means something like the jewel in the lotus heart.
There was a retreat two weeks ago in the hills with Khensur Rinpoche, and there was a translator who knew everything. I felt he knew everything. And he talked about mantras and the effect on the mind that mantras have. And he said, it is a very nurturing mantra that really opens the heart. It’s just, you know, nurturing our own heart when we say that.
And in Tibet, that’s the mantra that women or anybody, you know, they have the malas with them, the rosaries—how do you say that? Rosaries. Rosaries with them. And they recite the whole day. That’s that’s going in their minds again and again and again.
And if you look at how—I just tell you the stories that I’ve heard, and you do whatever you like with that—if you recite mantras, it’s like a micromassage in your nervous system, and that has a result in all your cells. And I think they say it takes—if you want to—is it seven generations or seven years? It takes seven years to change all your cells in your body, I think. I think it was.
I thought it Or maybe it’s the DNA that it also changes. If you look at the Tibetans, they have a kind of appearance where there’s a lot of softness, a lot of nourishment, a lot of patience, a lot of love is naturally there. Yeah. Maybe not in the youngest generation, but in the older generation, it’s naturally there. That Om Mani Padme Hum—reciting that for generations, you know, has added something to that culture, which—I don’t think that makes the culture good or all the aspects of the culture good—but I do see there an energy which is very nurturing, you know, where you feel like you can go to mom and you feel completely protected and nourished, and we don’t necessarily have that when we go to our mom, you know, or to anybody.
It’s very difficult to find that in our society. So nurturing and allowing people to be who they are, that all has to do with compassion. So they say that’s the mantra of compassion. If you recite that mantra, then you you give yourself a vibration that helps to raise the compassion for yourself and for others. Okay.
Well, I learned years ago—I’m not sure if it’s—I’m sorry to talk about it. What I know. Where did that come from? Yeah. I would go back over my old.
You learned that here? No. No. No. Somewhere else?
When I was in Sydney. In the Buddhist center? Yeah. And they chant it quite—it’s almost like a rugby match. It’s really impatient.
Very loud and fierce. And Uh-huh. Yeah. No. We try not to.
Yeah. Let’s yeah. That’s why I didn’t pursue it because it actually freaked me out. It was—it was not—not yeah. Almost Quite curious.
I’ve never heard of that mantra. Most mantras are in Sanskrit. Sanskrit is a very, very old language. Maybe you’ve heard of the Vedas, the books from the Hindus. The Vedas were actually received by the Rishis, the holy men from India, like five thousand years ago.
And they would just meditate. And in the meditation, they would receive sounds. And they would repeat the sounds. And they were able just to to recite these whole books. They would recite them and they would pass them on to the next generation.
They would recite them and pass them on to the next generation. By sound. And then after thousands of years they started to write them down. But because it’s received like that, it’s like the sounds of the Sanskrit sounds are very much connected with that very subtle energy. So when you recite Sanskrit mantras, you trigger a very subtle energy in your body.
It’s a vibration. It’s like a vibration. Yeah. I feel like it’s a micromassage. And even if you don’t feel it, doesn’t mean nothing happens.
You know? It’s like it can be too subtle to feel it. I wonder because I I’m familiar with some mantras as well, but I haven’t been taught how to say them necessarily. Mhmm. So just saying them, like, is there a particular way?
Because I know when I’ve heard, you know, the monks or nuns saying mantras, they they do it quite quick and deep, it seems. Like, it’s they’re quite efficient in saying it, and the sound is very deep. Uh-huh. Does—so it doesn’t matter with the No. No.
You just follow your natural energy. Okay. Yeah. But it will shift in time. You know?
The more you do it, it’s like in the beginning, it can be difficult, difficult, difficult. At a certain point, it’s like you get on a roll. It’s like some obstacles are removed and you just—you know, your body becomes natural to do it. But we can just try it and see how it goes and see. And if you don’t like it, then you just be quiet—but first I wanna talk about that sickness.
I just don’t believe in it and then I don’t suffer that much from it or I don’t experience it or it’s not there? I I don’t suffer from it. I suppose I I do, absolutely, but I don’t count it as very significant. Significant. I I do as much as I can.
I I think that everything really is—well, most people think I’m slightly frivolous, I think. But it’s You’re slightly? Frivolous. Frivolous. But it’s not that at all.
It’s not that at all. Mhmm. So not buying into it. Probably. Yes.
Yeah. Yes. Because then you then you’re playing the game. Yeah. Exactly.
Feeling it, your energy. Yeah. So when I say that I I don’t believe in it, I do on one hand—on a medical—on on the side of medicine, I can see that it’s I know exactly what I’ve got and I know exactly what my prognosis is. But as far as it affecting my daily life, it does absolutely affect it now. Mhmm.
But I’m very fortunate with my children who’ve come up from overseas and and looking after me, which is fabulous. And having the greatest fun. It’s it’s terrific. And so we just do a lot of things and have a giggle and and a nice time. That’s one of the benefits of your sickness.
I suppose. I suppose. Otherwise, you would never have experienced that being together with your children, would you? No. That’s right.
Yes. And I think that—and that—that’s got such a—that’s got such an inestimable value. Yeah. It’s been a wonderful time to spend with them. I I worried about the first couple of months, I worried about wrecking their lives because my daughter’s uprooted herself from London completely.
She’s resigned her job and resigned—sold everything, and she’s moved to Australia after being away for twelve years. And my son who’s just finished at Cambridge, and he he does an international sort of job, and he can work from anywhere—any country—because he does it all on email. And so the very fact that they were here—my son was saying to me last night, it’s been a great privilege. It’s been wonderful. And I said, yes.
It has been wonderful to have my children. So and my ex-husband has come back and has been wonderful. Everybody’s been lovely. I I noticed that people are very—people are very kind and compassionate towards me. I think that’s something I’ve learned is that to accept it.
Mhmm. Whereas before, I could never accept it very well. Mhmm. I was never good at—I was never good at saying sort of thank you. Mhmm.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t good at saying thank you. It was that I I used to think that it wasn’t that much to say thank you about Mhmm. Because I think that it was normal and it and it was expected. It’s how I would behave. Then I realized that it’s not.
Mhmm. And so I now recognize that’s quite special. And people have come out of the woodwork. Mhmm. That it’s it’s just amazing.
Mhmm. It’s just amazing. So it brings people into you. Yeah. That was a surprise the first time it happened, that that all these people that I’ve known for all my life suddenly appeared, you know, bearing gifts, sort of sort of.
And they they were wonderful. And so it’s it’s just renewed friendship. It’s lifted my whole attitude to life up, I think, rather than what it does. Mhmm. Yeah.
So I think that that’s—I mean, I could go on for hours. Yeah. No. I I won’t lie to do that. I wanna go into the impermanence that we are discussing because I’ve talked a few times about, you know, we have this feeling of I and we believe in a certain way that that really exists.
And according to Buddhism, that is not true. Because we believe in that I, we have that that attraction and that aversion to things. The more we believe in that I, the stronger our aversion and attraction will be because we feel—we have to take care of that I. According to Buddhism, that feeling that we have here about me, I, you know, when I get angry, that I really arises and looks very, very big. That what arises there, according to Buddhism, is complete illusion.
It doesn’t exist. There is nothing there that exists in that way. It’s not there. What is it that we’re labeling then? We are labeling something, isn’t it?
What we’re labeling, we have a base. Right? We have a body. So we label on top of the body. We label on top of the mind.
We label the base of I as the collection of body and mind. If you have—I don’t know, I work with little kids and one of the first things that kids—is like when they’re one year old, I think. Ah ah ah! And then mommy says that’s a clock, that’s a clock, that’s a clock. For the baby the clock doesn’t exist.
There is just some kind of shape and color in a certain way and mom says that’s a clock, that’s a clock. At a certain point the child connects them with each other and knows clock. After a while that fresh image of something is there that moves and has a certain shape and color—that starts to fade and you get a general image of clock. Then everything becomes clock. So what a child sees is all the common aspects of clock at a certain point and that is clock.
If you only see the general aspects you forget to see what is actually there. You forget to see the freshness of that clock or the uniqueness of that clock. Isn’t it? So everything starts to look the same. Oh yeah, know that.
Know that. At a certain point we have this Oh know that. True? That’s because we believe that that is the clock. We don’t see that image anymore.
We don’t think clock is a label. We believe clock is that thing that is over there. True? But that is not clock. Clock is something that happens in our mind that we label on top of something to communicate with each other.
The more we believe that is the clock, the more that becomes fixated in that general way. So it’s more than just linguistic? Clock. Well, we believe it’s much more than just linguistic. So we add something which is not really clock.
Clock, you know, clock exists and clock is the label that we use for that that kind of thing. But if you believe that the clock is there and not in your mind and not only that the clock is there but that the clock has something more—is more than the label—we believe that the clock is the base. We confuse these two with each other. True? Can you see that?
Because we—that is our mistaken view. That’s what—the same what we do with the I. You know? The I is just a label that we put onto a collection. Then every feeling that arises in there we believe is the I.
But the feeling itself is not the I. The feeling is something that appears. When we believe I am the feeling then the feeling gets stuck. If I believe I’m an angry person every time an anger comes up I recognize myself. Oh, that’s me.
That’s me. That’s me. And I will feed into it. And it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. And harder to get rid of.
So that’s our belief that something is more than just a label. So the same when we are sick. If somebody comes and says, well you have cancer. Cancer is a label for a collection of symptoms. Yes, something is functioning in a certain way in your body which is not really healthy.
But if you feel, oh, there is cancer in me and you believe it is there, you’re gonna live in accord with that. Right. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? You’re gonna live that you are a cancer patient. So you’re gonna you’re gonna fulfill all the expectations that people have from a cancer patient.
It starts to define. Yeah. And it becomes you. It becomes part of your beliefs. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And you recognize it with the disabled. Yes? Yeah.
It’s the same, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. If a child’s I don’t know. I work with children, and it was always like what is wrong with my child?
What is wrong with my child? And I always felt as soon as you put a diagnosis on it, it’s finished. You’ll lose such an opportunity to give the right treatment. I don’t know what it is but I always had a feeling just don’t label it. There are many symptoms and we can address all these symptoms and the deeper we can go with that addressing of symptoms the more symptoms we can treat at the same time.
As soon as you If it if it’s not labeled, how do you treat something that doesn’t have Unlabeled. Yeah. Well, that yeah. It sounds overly simplistic, but you know what I mean? If if if it’s not Yeah.
Acknowledged as, what are you fixing? I think it’s about money. I think we need—we’re in disability. People need the money, the label to get the money, to get what they think are the resources that will give the child Yeah. Treatment that would—it’s always looking for a cure.
Most of the things that have sprung up around disability are about curing the body instead of going—all bodies are different. Yeah. I think that’s my point. Yeah. How do you fix something that hasn’t got a name?
You’re not labeling it, how do you fix it? I think there are different different things that you can label or not, you know. And maybe maybe say if you would have a disease and there’s only one medicine for that disease then it’s important to know that you have the disease in order to get the medicine. Is that what you mean? I think so.
Yeah. So I agree with that. Any course of action? How do you fix something I’ve never seen with the children, I’ve never seen that the diagnosis added something to the fixing. I only felt it took something away from the It’s more like It actually takes them to a separate world.
It sanitizes the whole thing, doesn’t it? It makes it clinical. No. Well, it just puts them like, world’s here. If you’re born and you get the label able, you get to live this life that’s here.
If you’re born and you get the disabled label, you have to live this completely parallel life. You get very few opportunities to to dip into the mainstream world. It prefixes everything. You know? You don’t go for a picnic.
You have a disabled picnic. Yeah. But but it’s almost that literal, isn’t it? Like, it’s the same. School.
You go to a disabled swimming pool. And I think if you had a feeling, Oh this person has cancer, they’re going to die. When you approach that person you have in your mind the person who’s going to die. That person feels that. It’s very difficult if people approach you as somebody who’s going to die, not to die.
It’s very, very difficult. It’s right. It is. It’s—you know, that is that is how mentally I think we work. If somebody if if if somebody would think about you, you’re a liar, you know, or if everybody would think, she’s a liar.
Whatever Rebecca says is a lie. If we all would look at you like that I’m gonna lie to you. You you wouldn’t know anymore, you know, if you’re lying or not. You would maybe start disbelieving what you’re saying yourself. You know, your whole mind gets mixed up just because people have a projection or thought about you that doesn’t fit you.
No? Yeah. Yes. And they ask how much, you know, about how much longer someone will have. So they want to know.
Yes. But you can’t give them a date. And this is what people want—people want to know, and the the doctor will say, the most sensible way of going about it is anything between—anything between two and six months will be a bonus. Right? And so you’ve got a—you’ve got a fair amount of time to play around with in there.
But if they they say you—well, I’m afraid I give you about a month. A friend of mine died on the twenty-eighth of the month. I mean, she was very obliging. But also you believe that you’re gonna die and you believe you’re gonna die from the disease, you know. Buddhism says you’re not dying from the disease, you’re just dying.
Anybody’s gonna die. If you have a disease or not, you will die anyway, you know. It’s not a surprise that you’re going to die from a disease. But what we’re doing is that with that—you know and it’s not a problem to label the disease. I don’t think that’s the problem but I think that whole package that we put on top of that, that package, that’s the problem.
Just the label can be very helpful because then you know how to cure. But which, you know, big parts of curing—and I’m not talking about a specific disease—but big part of curing is looking at the symptoms and working with that. It’s not about that. For MS we have this medicine. It’s not exactly like that.
It’s like looking what is all going on, what is the problem. Every patient is different than that and then you find solutions how to work with that. And if you stay open in that, you give the person a lot of space to develop in their natural way. We don’t know the causes of the diseases. We do, you know?
Buddhism says we do know the causes of diseases. In the western world, we don’t know the causes of the diseases so we try medicine. We don’t know karma so then sometimes the medicine works, sometimes the medicine doesn’t work. So then you can say it’s just guessing, you know. But there are medicines that work, you know.
When I graduated from physio I had this job of saying if medicine was really a science. And I looked into that, and I thought, oh, science is something—when you say from A comes B that always has to happen. Medicine is not a science like that. So I said, well, actually actually, I would break down the whole thing. And and the teacher said, don’t go in that way.
You know? You won’t graduate. I was studying and I thought, I have to do it. So I had this person, this very high doctor sitting there and I completely was like this is not science. So he was in a shock.
But then he said you can still do good. There are still things that work and you know for some people it works and for some people it doesn’t work and I still think you should try to give whatever you can give but because we’re not clear about the causes of disease we cannot predict what something is going to do. And as long as we don’t address the cause of the disease we will keep on trying you know. We will keep on the trial and error and we will not find a solution that gives one hundred percent coverage. We won’t.
We really have to address the cause. Yeah. Yeah. I was very anti-medicine, but I think I’ve changed a little bit. And I think, you know, medicine can give a big relief from suffering for people.
Yeah. And in that sense, it is compassionate to give that even if it can poison the mind, even if it can poison the body. You know, if there is that temporary relief and people really wanna have that, then that’s where you go with. Yeah. Yeah.
And if you wouldn’t give the treatment then. So what if you wouldn’t give people treatment? What do you think about that? If people say, you want to do a lot with your mind, I’ll fix that with my mind. I always think that I had—I’ve also got it in there because I can’t remember anything anymore.
Sorry. You said what was it? Your question was? I can’t remember my question. What would happen?
If you’d—it’s straight coming into my life. She’s catching. What happens if If you don’t give treatment. If you don’t take the treatment. Yeah.
I was asking you. Have a choice where you can either you you choose—I think you should take the best of both worlds. You take the best of every world you combine. You take the best alternative medicine, the best of holistic medicine, the best of Western medicine, and you try and see what works for you and put them all together. None of them are contraindicated with each other.
Absolutely. The disease is a result of karma. Yeah, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. Ripening of that suffering is due to karma but the ripening of any problem in our life is due to karma.
The ripening of every good experience is due to ripening of karma. So what you’re trying to do is like you acknowledge that there is suffering and you try to alleviate the suffering wherever you can. Yeah. Intervention. They just have it exacerbated by them.
Well, I I can’t answer that question. But I think, you know, fingers got paralyzed by that. Well, you said some can get paralyzed because the tumour’s pressing on the spinal cord. Brain tumour, you know, it just takes over the whole brain. I mean, that that’s—I can’t even imagine what that would—Yeah.
All the functions will go, you know, from your body or your thinking will go or you’ll go mad or you But I think I think with everything that happens in our life there is a choice. There is suffering coming in our life. What we are doing is looking for temporary pleasures so that we don’t have to feel that suffering. But we have the choice just to experience the suffering and then if we have courage to do that, we know that the suffering is not going to come back. That’s what normally happens.
You know? So we have always a choice. Do I go for avoiding my my suffering and and look for a short term pleasure to cover it up? Or do I take on the suffering that is coming to me and sit with that? Either way, we’re gonna suffer.
You know? There is just something ripening, we’re gonna suffer. We can choose how we do that. So you can choose I’m gonna have treatment or I’m gonna not have treatment. Either way, you’re gonna suffer.
So it is finding the attitude of how do I stay into that suffering so that the suffering is not going to become me, so that the suffering is not taking me over, so that I’m not going to be overwhelmed by suffering but that I have somewhere a place in my mind, a space where I can accept whatever happens, take it on me, don’t fight against it, just allow it to happen and then you know see see how I am when it’s gone. I think, yeah, it’s just a package of suffering. You know? I don’t know. We just get it at a certain point in our life.
And Underlying it is your Covering it up. Covering it up or curing it artificially? Well, I think curing it artificially, I don’t think so because I’ll give you the Buddhist view. If the cause—the cause of any disease is our self-cherishing mind, is the mind that has in the past said I want to have happiness, I don’t want to have suffering. Out of our wanting to have happiness we have done something harmful to others.
That’s the cause of the disease. That’s the cause of any suffering that we experience in life. So Buddhism says if we don’t change that self-cherishing mind that was the cause of the suffering in the first place although the disease might go away from our body, we might die and finish this life, if we haven’t addressed this problem we will experience in the next life another problem and another problem and another problem. But if we can address that self-cherishing mind even if we die from the disease then the karma is finished. Then you have used your disease to transform that mind and to create definitely the causes for you to experience more happiness in the future.
That’s a very short Buddhist view. So then you can still choose what you wanna do, you know. But as long as you don’t address the the the the core of that suffering, it’s it’s not gonna give you what you really want. It’s not gonna give you—how to say? If you will really look at your self-cherishing mind and your own attitude and your own reactions to what happens to you and you can make a shift in that, you create more space in your mind.
Some negative karma really has been purified. You get more wisdom. You get more insight. And that is something that you take with you. And if you have that, you will not attract the same kind of thing again.
So are are you saying that or is the Buddhist belief saying that we create that disease through a combination of karma because of our self-cherishing mind? The disease is a result of certain actions that we have done out of our self-cherishing mind. That’s in past lifetimes. Yes, lifetimes. So you might have done something ten lifetimes ago.
Even something tiny and that can start to ripen into something very big in this life. You cannot say if somebody really suffers, oh that person must be a very bad person. Or you cannot say if somebody has no suffering that must be a very good person. It’s not like that. It’s like we have done everything in the past, all the good things, all the bad things, and we will experience them.
You know? And sometimes we have a life without much suffering. Sometimes we have many lives with a lot of suffering. You know it’s like we have the karma for everything to happen—you know basically all good things, all bad things. It’s like a lottery, I think, sometimes.
So what—yes. So as soon as we start giving up that self-cherishing mind and start to transform that into cherishing others, we create—what we talked about a few weeks ago, I think, is like we have a tendency—either we help others then we forget ourselves or we help ourselves and we forget others. But for us, it’s very difficult to find a mindset where we help ourselves and others at the same time. So our compassion is not all-inclusive. Either we exclude everybody else or we exclude ourselves from it.
It’s like there is a split between me and others that we experience. So that has everything to do with the existence of that self-cherishing mind. When we’re going to cherish others we’re going to focus more on others including ourselves. You know, you heal that split. And the mind that is focused on the happiness of others, all actions that you do with that intention will lead to happiness for you in the future.
Is love or not? Yes. And, you know, most of the times, also straight in the moment, but sometimes also you can trigger some big purification when you start helping others, especially in the beginning. But after some time, you get out of that and then, you know, when you do it, you do experience happiness straight away also. It’s like if you give things away really from a good heart, you feel happiness straight away, isn’t it?
As we can let go of that me, me, me and really open up our heart, we experience happiness. But we also know that it will ripen to happiness in the future. Do we go into the Buddhist cycle of rebirth? Do we gradually purify or can we So we can redo the the old lessons and then Yes. And we have been doing that for a long time.
You know? Buddhism calls that the wheel of life. We go from high to low to high to low constantly. There is a wheel there hanging behind you. And as long as we hold on to that view of ‘I’ we will keep on doing that.
Sometimes We can only leave the wheel if we realize that that I that we feel here does not exist the way we think it exists. If we realize that—not just intellectually, if we realize that with a very deep meditative insight, then we’re out of the wheel. Then we’re not—you know, we’re just out of that. We get control. Then we get real control over our life.
Then we can choose where we incarnate. Incarnate. We’re still trying to develop the mind that wants to be incarnated to help others, but then we have the choice where we go. Okay. Good.
Just think about it. Loosen the grip on the I. You know? That’s the main thing. Just just loosen that.
You are not your disease. You are not your feeling. You are not the suffering. You are not—you are not completely good. You’re not completely bad.
These are all just things that come up and they just pass. They just come up and pass. Come up and pass. And the more you can see them coming and going, the less you will be caught up in it and the less it will take over your life. It’s like experiences come and go.
Sometimes life is like that, sometimes life is like that. We don’t have the choice. You know? Somehow we believe we are in power in our life, isn’t it? We—with our western world, we believe we can do anything we like.
Experiencing disease means experiencing we’re not in power. We have no power at all. Isn’t it? We have no control. It just happens, isn’t it?
I think that’s one of your things that you must experience. We all have no control but somehow because we can walk we believe that we have control. But in reality that’s a complete illusion that we have. We have no control. So why don’t we hold on?
Well you still want to have control because we want to have control. So we can develop our mind in a way that we’re going to get control. But first we have to acknowledge, well, we’re not really having control yet. Sorry? Regardless of our control per se over something, there are still good things and bad things to be experienced.
Yeah. So that’s why you bother, I think. Oh, I don’t know. In fact, if I’m not in control, then I might as well just go. Then what?
Oh, that’s it. You’re saying At least now, yeah, at least now—least now you have a human rebirth. At least now you have an opportunity to change your mind to create causes that you can get out of it. You know if you just let it go. You don’t know if you still have that opportunity.
You know because we have no control. Now today, we have the opportunity. That’s all we know. So it’s not control. You have opportunity.
Sorry. It’s not—have opportunity. It’s not control. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I guess we can change our reaction to it. So that is what we can do. What I mean with control is that we have full control that if something happens to us that we have control over how we react to that. We don’t have that, you know? But what we can do is as soon as we see the reaction we can reflect on the reaction and we can try to change the reaction.
But I talk about control, what you need to get out of it, you have full control over that first reaction that comes up like that. And that’s really what you’re talking about is the difference between reaction and response. Yep. But what I’m saying is that we are always, most of the time we are reacting. Every time we are really touched in ourselves, we are reacting.
And then we can reflect on it and we say, oh, I wanna do that different next time. You know? So we can use our reaction to increase our wisdom and then to understand more and more how the mind works and where we can find a space that we don’t have to react like that again. But, yeah, that is the control that we have at the moment. That’s not a hundred percent control, but that is more control than just reacting out whatever we feel we wanna do.
And we don’t have control over the karma that we already created. That’s right. What you just said. We don’t have some control over that, for instance, if something happens to us and we react with a lot of anger, what what happens is that at the same time, we will trigger a lot of seeds in our mind that have been created by anger, which are gonna lead to suffering. So when we react with anger, we actually tap into karmas that can ripen, that have a lot of suffering with them.
So one thing in Buddhism does is stop that reaction. Stop that reaction. Step back. Just let things happen in front of you and don’t react to it. At least you don’t trigger that karma.
And then by abstaining from your reaction, in in time, it’s like you create always, because you don’t react, you create always conditions that are good for practice. Can you imagine that? If you have a lot of suffering it’s very difficult to keep on practicing because you’re constantly reacting. If you can create somehow by abstaining from reacting you create more positive conditions for yourself. It’s easier to keep on developing your mind.
It’s easier to develop your wisdom till at a certain point you realise the nature of reality and that cuts through all the suffering—then it won’t occur again. That’s one way to walk the Buddhist path—stop reacting. A couple of weeks before I came along to this course, and why I was so absolutely distressed was because I had a house full of tradesmen. One of the things that happened was that one of them brought their small child along. And she’s about four years old, and she helped daddy mix a hideous compound.
And this compound was only supposed to be put together using breathing equipment and certain coverage, and there was this beautiful little girl taking it out of the packet with her bare hands and her face this far away and pouring it in and mixing and all this stuff. How do you not react? I mean, I was just You asked that question before. Can you remember? Yeah.
Did I ask the same one? Yeah. But how do you not react to that? Did you say so? I tried to, but I I still can’t get around how you can’t react to that.
I would say if you see the situation there, you do something. Right? It’s like even if you’re—the first thing what you do with meditation is you try and do that on your cushion, not in a real situation. So if in a real situation you still feel ‘hey something should happen’, you go to that person and say ‘listen this is really blah blah blah’. You do your story and try to get the child out of the situation.
There’s nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is you’re being so upset with what is happening. That is an emotional component that doesn’t have to be there. That is still bothering you. You’re still suffering from that—from what you saw with that child.
You’re still suffering from that due to your emotional reaction. So it’s not a problem to react in a situation and help the child but the problem is that you take it on and that you experience your own kind of suffering. So it’s about less emotional engagement? Yeah. Possibly.
Your emotion is not compassion. We call it idiot compassion. This is just bothering you because this is bothering you. Since it happened, it is here in your heart. And it’s upsetting you again and again.
How could he do that? How could he do that? And you have that repeating. You’re not helping the child by thinking that. You’re the only one who’s suffering from it.
Seeing that you can’t help the child by thinking that. Not helping the child by thinking that. Yes, that’s the after. No, no, no. She’s really upset about the child.
I know. I’m just going randomly. You being upset is not about the child because it has passed. It’s not happening anymore. So you’re being upset about something else than that child.
Isn’t it a habit that we teach others? It can be a habit. Is you. What is that? Have you experienced as a child similar situations and you felt that somebody had to take you out?
And what you actually experienced, is this what you experienced when you were a child and you project that on that other child? I just feel things intently for all all creatures. I just feel like it’s every horrific thing that you see happening to people. What did you say to the father? Just explained to him that it wasn’t very good and come and wash your hands, darling, and, you know, you shouldn’t be touching that.
And five seconds later, you look out, and she’s doing it again. They’re morons. Yeah. Absolutely. But it’s just there’s there’s a million things like that that happen.
But this is your heart that gets really, really hurt when you see this kind of injustice, you know, and thinking about that your reaction is not gonna help the situation. The situation has already passed for a long time. You’re still reacting. That is not helping. So seeing that that it’s not useful, it has no benefit that you react like that.
Can you Thinking about that. It’s the the child and the father’s journey. It’s their karmic journey. That is the next thing that you can think. And do you have no income in there?
Well, you you’ve you’ve done what you could do. Yeah. So Yeah. That was not—not a result of the fact that she did that. That was the result of her killing in the past.
The world is suffering, right? The world is suffering. Yeah. I thought today, you know, I’m always trying to perfect the world. The world will never be perfect because the world is in the nature of suffering.
That was just such a small example of constant stupidity that did it. Lama Yeshe would say, what do you expect, darling? This is Samsāra. Who would tell her? Lama Yeshe, who was the founder of this organization.
You know? One of the nuns, she went somewhere in India, and she sort of made a shortcut. I’ll go through the forest. And there was this guy trying to attack her, trying to molest her, I think. So she came to Lama Yeshe.
And he said, what do you expect, darling? This is Samsāra. And she was like, yes. What do I expect? You know?
It’s just—I give up. No. It’s always—This is the nature of life. There is always suffering, and we have to learn to live with that. And not everybody chooses to walk a path of—A long time.
We hope. Okay. I have to go. Okay. Sorry, the meditation.
Shall I give you homework and you can just try to do the meditation at home? Okay. And you can just say the mantra. But if you just do the visualizations and try to do it Yeah. You know, that will be good.
Okay. Yeah? Yeah. Next week, there is no session. Yes.
Just following up. Yep. Yep. Thank you for coming. So you’re happy to do another ten minutes?
Yep. So what I’m going to do, I’m going to do only the top part where we talk about healing ourselves so that you have a feel for what it can do and then at home I want you to apply that also to others. I just wanna give you a taste of singing the mantra, okay, what it can do. What we’re gonna do is—how to do that? Maybe we just start sitting in a meditation and we go through the meditation.
And when when we’re gonna recite the mantra, I’ll start singing and you just can join if you want. It’s very simple. It’s not too difficult if you’ve lost a bit. It’s not too difficult. You’ll hear me.
You just listen and you follow. And then the last time that we sing it, I’ll do it very slow and then you know that this is the last time. Then you can recite it a few times just in your own mind, you know, and then we keep on doing the meditation. Then we do another visualization, then we sing again a few times the mantra, and we keep on doing the visualization while we sing and after we sing. Yep.
Okay. So make sure that you sit comfortably. And try to think that we’re doing this meditation not just for me, not just for our own sake. Realizing that all sentient beings around us have the same kind of me inside them. They experience the same I, the same kind of I.
Just as me, all sentient beings want to nourish that I, want to make that I happy, want to avoid suffering for that I. And we are all the same in that. So this meditation that we’re gonna do, we’re not just doing this for our own I. We’re doing this for the I of all sentient beings. We’re doing this for the benefit of all sentient beings.
And imagine that all the sentient beings in human forms are sitting around you. Imagine that the whole space is filled with beings. Space is filled with beings. At your right side is your father, and at your left is your mother from this life. All your friends and relatives are behind you.
All those who have hurt you in this life are in front of you. And then around that are all sentient beings. Those that we are not familiar with, those that we don’t have a strong connection with in this life. And try to imagine that the whole space is filled with sentient beings. And then visualizing in the space upfront all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have great compassion. Their only purpose in coming to this world is to save other beings from suffering and to bring them only happiness. So just reset your visualization if you need that. And try to imagine that big heart of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who really wanna benefit others. That’s the only purpose of being alive.
And then visualize that the compassion of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas enters your body in the form of white light. They send that light from their hearts. And you can imagine that it either enters your crown, filling your whole body, or that it enters straight into your heart, filling your body. And while you imagine that your body gets filled with white light, you contemplate that now all your negativities and problems get purified. And then we’ll start reciting the mantra.
Now we recite it softly. And while you keep reciting it, you feel that all your negativities and problems have been completely removed out of your body and mind. And then imagine with the following recitation that all your past harmful actions are gonna be purified, and that your potential to give harm in the future will be completely removed from your mindstream. And again, you can visualize that that white light comes into your body, completely transforming that potential for future harm. And while you keep on reciting the mantra, visualize that with this, all your suffering and disease disappear out of your body and mind.
And make it as real as possible. Feel that you’re completely free—free of all suffering and the causes of suffering. Visualize your mind to be completely pure. Your body and mind are filled with limitless love and compassion of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Your body feels light, blissful, and your mind is peaceful and clear.
Feel that your mind is filled with universal compassion, Compassion for every living being. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum.
Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. Om Mani Padme Hum. While you keep reciting, you can imagine that all sentient beings around you get completely liberated from their suffering. Experience perfect peace and happiness.
And you think how wonderful it is to feel compassion for every single living being, wishing them all to be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. Rejoice in the fact that you have tried to open your heart, that you have opened your heart that far. And feel that doing this, feel how it is beneficial for yourself and how it is beneficial for others. And contemplate that this is a way how you can generate a mind that is of benefit to both ourselves and others.
And then you stop the recitation of the mantra, and you try to focus single-pointedly upon the feeling that you have in your heart. And then dedicate the merits by thinking that whatever actions we have done now, that we have done in the past, and that we will do in the future, may they become a cause for compassion to be generated in our minds and in the minds of all living beings, especially those who suffer from disease. May all diseases be immediately cured, be removed from the mindstream of ourselves and others.
And may your compassion and wisdom keep on growing. I forgot. May all be blissful. May all be in pure lands. Everybody alright?
Nice. Not. What happened? Everybody okay? You can extend this at home, you know, after you have done that with yourself.
You can do it with your parents and people that you love, and you can do it with people that you have problems with, and you do it with every sentient being. You can sing as long as you want. You can yeah. And my homework is do this meditation as much as you can. You know?
If we can generate this energy, that’s the healing energy. That’s that’s, you know—I don’t know. You feel the space that opens up and everything can just go to its natural place and you can just do that work? Thank you. Thank you very much.
So next week, we have a little break. I’ll see you somewhere if you want to come and to see Robina. And if not, I’ll see you in the week after that at ten o’clock. Thank you for coming. And then we’ll talk about karma.
Okay, I’ll explain a little bit about karma. No, no, in two weeks time. In two weeks time? I just tell you that that—if you feel like I wanna read about it or wanna know more about it, you can you can do that. You can go to the library and get a book or you know?
But you don’t have to. But just so you know. And we can get this from the meeting? Yeah. Just in the office.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I just get it exactly moving when you can. Yeah.