Jamyang Mind Healing — mind healing

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 161-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang roots healing in the Buddhist understanding of impermanence and the illusory solid self. He opens with body-scanning meditation, then explores how clinging to the false belief in a permanent ‘I’ creates the physical and mental tensions that block healing. Tracing both gross impermanence (aging, death) and subtle impermanence (moment-to-moment cellular change), he shows how seeing through this illusion allows the body and mind to relax and realign naturally. Central to his teaching is Buddha nature: the unchanged awareness beneath all delusion, the source of unlimited potential for transformation. The Q&A covers depression, karma, and the tension between spiritual practice and survival instinct; the session closes with a guided white-light healing meditation. For practitioners with Buddhist background working through structured practice.

File metadata (for organising)

File: mind healing.mp3

UUID: 4e487e1f-ef88-4191-bb3c-5e981a243b7a

Teacher: Ven Jamyang

Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 161.8 minutes

Words: ~16,131

Oh, I just guess, I hope what’s her name? Sandy? Sandy. Yes. She’s here.

Yeah. She just. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So Judy has to leave Yeah. In twenty minutes. So and I thought we’ll start with a meditation just as an exercise, which you can repeat at home and also just to settle the mind and to focus very strongly inwards. I think hello.

The place where we have to make the change is inside. It’s not outside. So the stronger we can focus our attention inside and then stay with that during the teaching the stronger quicker the changes can happen or the deeper, I hope. So we’ll start with a meditation just to settle the mind and the body. And at the end of the teaching, we’ll do another meditation, a white light meditation today.

Is everybody okay? Feeling good? Yeah. In order to meditate, you have to sit comfortable. You have to sit in a relaxed way.

You have to feel that you’re at ease with yourself and at ease with your posture and nice and warm and very important. So give yourself a few minutes to let the mind settle down. Maybe you were in a hurry to come here. Maybe you did a little bit much chatter before the meditation. And it might feel that that might feel as a busy mind or like an agitation that you can feel.

Just give it some space to settle down. And then focus your mind on your stomach where you can feel the rising and falling of your abdomen every time when you breathe in and breathe out. Try to breathe naturally and just observe the rhythm. Try to let go of all the chatter in your mind, and bring your mind here to the present moment, to Buddha house, to the meditation hall, to your body. Meditation is like quality time with yourself.

Only when you’re fully present with yourself, the benefits can come. So if you notice that your mind wanders off during this meditation, just bring it gently back to the present moment, to where we are at with the scanning. We’ll scan with our our mind through the body, focus on the different parts, and then observe the feelings that arise from the parts of the body. Sometimes pleasant feelings, sometimes unpleasant feelings. What we try to do is not to get engaged in them, but just to observe them for what they are.

They’re just feelings. Feelings that arise and dissolve back into the mind. So then from your stomach where you are now at, you go down to your thighs. You observe which feelings arise. What kind of feelings?

From your muscles? From your skin? Maybe from your bones? Maybe you feel emotions? Just be with them.

Allow them to be there completely. Generate a space of loving-kindness as if you have a listening attitude towards your body, towards your feelings. Feelings. You’re not interrupting. You’re not following.

You’re not engaging. You just listen. And then bring your awareness down to your knees. Feel the sensations that arise. And receive them in loving-kindness.

Then go down to your shins. To your ankles. Your feet. To your toes. The tip of your toes.

And try to create a space in your mind where the feelings can arise freely. Then go to to the soles of your feet. You can imagine that you open them up. So that I become very sensitive. Go to your ankles, Your calf muscles.

We can hold a lot of tension in there. And back to your knees and to your hamstrings. Slowly moving upwards to your buttocks. Allow yourself to sit fully, to relax your muscles, and to sink into your body. As if you sink into the chair.

Then go to your tailbone. Sacrum, both hips. Scan the whole providing space for any feeling that arises, any hurt, any sadness, any frustrations, any bliss. Your old feelings, and go to your lower back. Moving upwards to a space in between your shoulder blades and the shoulder blade themselves.

Let go of everything that you hold on to, that you’re carrying with you on your shoulders, things that don’t belong to you, things that do belong to you. Let it slide on your back. Disappear into nothingness. And then go to your shoulders. Your upper arms, Okay.

Elbows. Turn the arms. Your wrists. the palms of your hands. Fingers, all the way up to the tip of your fingers.

And then to the back of your hand. Back to your wrist. Your elbows, your shoulders. And then to your neck, to the back of your head. The crown of your head, to your forehead, moving down your face to your throat, your chest, and your stomach.

Focus again on the breathing, the movements of the abdomen. And then relax your tension. And if you feel ready, you can open your eyes. Trudy has a medical appointment. I think so have Mary and Janice.

Can happen. Helena, welcome today. We did last time a quick round about ourselves. I don’t know if you feel like you are happy to say a little bit about yourself. Oh, wow.

I put you right on the spot. Can you learn again? Just, you know, what what you what you suffer mostly from and what you would like to learn. Maybe that’s all. And then the rest we can do when we have the break and when we have tea and then, you know, we’ll introduce each other or ourselves to you again then.

Is that okay? Yeah. Yeah. What would you like to learn? Yes.

Yes. We find distraction in taking care of others. Is that what you’re saying? Is that true? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We all do that. Yeah. Today, I wanted to talk about how did you go with your homework?

Good? Was it not too much? No. Was it nice to do? I asked you.

Yeah, anyway. I personally, I find it very difficult at times to meditate. Me too. Yeah? Yeah.

Got myself it always felt like a chore some days. I don’t really have to force myself to do it. Uh-huh. Some days I don’t need some days I was it was better to, like, just count it to fifty of the breath thing instead of literally doing ten minutes. Yeah.

That seemed a lot easier. There was a countdown involved. Yeah. And I started writing my life story a couple of times, and, yeah, got it it would be pages and pages, I think, just because I sort of agonize over every detail. So I’m sort of done it, not really done it.

Uh-huh. But You worked on it? Reading the book, You worked on it? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I studied that last story too, and it’s hard to capture yourself, isn’t it? Why is that? Maybe because I’m old. Why is Don’t get it.

Why is that difficult? Things that make you up as you go along. There’s lots of stories, I think. So can you cut that off? Yeah.

Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? We live two lives. We live one life, the physical life and the things that happen to us, and then we have the life of these stories that go on in our minds. Isn’t it? And we complete and what we suffer from is from all these stories.

And and maybe it’s good to cut that out. Forget your own story. It it is your own story. But what is your life? What?

Sometimes when you see the facts, you think, you know, why do I create the whole story around it, for instance? Well, is a little bit. The life story is like that. Because what we do with Buddhism is we don’t talk about the I. I have the feeling that we go too quickly into the no-I.

And I think it’s important to look at that I, know, that wounded I. We have such a suppressed culture that we don’t want to see things. I think things first have to surface. And then when we see what is really there, then we start shifting it. Because otherwise, you build on the suppression and then it’s still not healing.

You know? You still suffer from the same things. So that’s why I want you to do that story at home because that is is helping you to let things surface that you might maybe not like so much or haven’t dealt with or maybe you can see the overview of your life and you think, hey, these things are coming back all the time. And how did you go? Well, I I started on this journey probably in two thousand, and I’ve done so much journaling.

And I think the final essence that it was still to was the fact that I had to to realize that I was always only the daughter. We come from a puritanical puritanical type family, and I’ve beaten myself up my entire life trying to be a perfectionist and never whatever I’ve done has never been good enough for me or anybody else. And in the final wash up, I realized that I had to just really love that inner child and love myself. And so I agree with what you say. We have to real before we can go into tranquility, we have to realize that there is a soul in there that is just wonderful.

And once you recognize that, you can just just be part of the universe and and relax. So we’re Yeah. But that has that work has to be done. I really feel that Yeah. Yeah.

We’re gonna talk today about that that what you feel that we really are. Know? We’re gonna talk about the potential of the mind. I’m keep on going with that story. You know?

Try to make make maybe you limit it to one or two pages only. You know? You have you have only two minutes in the camera. What is the essence of your life story? Try to bring it down to that so that you can look at it from the outside.

You know, if it’s if it’s written down, it’s easier to put it outside yourself and see with your logic what is going on instead of with your emotions. But it does take many years of doing journaling to put sometimes for that light to go Some people go with lights on like that. And some people don’t, you know. But I know that we have three months. We only have twelve twelve weeks.

I want it. I’m going for that one, you know. And yes, we won’t be finished but you can you can make a transition on transformation and then you can use that whole cycle to keep on deepening, deepening, deepening. Yeah. Mind and its potential.

Who are we? How do we exist? What are we? We talk about the mind. What is the mind?

Maybe I’ll give Buddhist concept. Maybe I’ll just go through the concept. Is that okay? Which might not agree with what you think. And if that is true, then I want you to come in, you know, because we have to be very clear what we’re talking about here.

So according to Buddhism, we exist out of a body and a mind. The body is just matter that we can see. It’s made out of matter. And the body comes from a mom and dad, the sperm and ovum of a mom and dad. Dan and mom.

And we exist out of a mind. The mind is the consciousness. The consciousness is that which is clear and knowing, which is not matter, which is made out of consciousness. So we are a collection of the body and consciousness. These come together according to Buddhism on the moment that the sperm and ovum meet, there has to be consciousness that enters that.

Only then the sperm and ovum can start to develop and become human being or another kind of being. Right? As soon as that consciousness leaves, that dies. What stays, that dies. That’s Buddhist theory.

If we talked about the mind, we’re not talking about the brain. We’re not talking about parts of the body. We’re talking about something very, very different. We’re talking about something that is created out of or that is made out of a completely different substance as the body. They’re two completely different things.

The mind we cannot see the mind. The mind has no shape. The mind has no color. So it’s like space. It says like space.

That comes together with the body which looks very concrete, very solid. What we do is we identify with the body and we identify with anything we feel, anything we think, anything or any emotion that arises, we are all that, isn’t it? So at the same time we only have one I. I am this, isn’t it? We experience one I.

But if you even look at how many parts we exist Buddhism says that’s already a little bit weird that we call it only one eye. Something that exists out of so many parts. Because we believe that we have one eye, you know, I’m one person, I make mistakes. Because I exist out of so many parts but somehow in my feeling I have only one thing here, one person. Right?

That is not in accord with each other. Can you see that? Sometimes I’m angry, sometimes I’m depressed, sometimes I’m unhappy, sometimes I feel numb, sometimes my body hurts, sometimes I say I’m walking. I own the body, I control the body. Buddhism says if you really look, that doesn’t exist like that.

There is not one eye that has all these functions. If there would be one I somewhere, that would be different from the body and the mind. Isn’t it? Buddhism says the I. What is the I?

Is the I the body? You’re going to look in the body. Can I find an I in my body? And if you look in all the parts, you you can say, oh, but I feel it here. Okay.

Then what is it? Is it your heart? What part of your heart is it? Is it your vent ventricle? You say it like that?

Your atrium? Your ventricle? Is it your veins? Is it your you can’t find your eye then you say, oh no, it’s not the body. Then maybe it’s the mind.

And you start looking in the mind. What is the I? The I is that which is angry or that which is, you know, feels in whatever way and then you say, no, that can’t be that because you say I am angry. You know, I am. It’s like there are two things.

There is the anger and the I. So then what is the anger? Is the I? Is the I the one who is in charge of the body? Is the I the one who is in charge of the feelings?

If you look at that you say, Oh, not really true because also when I sleep my body does things and the I doesn’t feel it’s present there. Or I can be out of control with my emotions. The I cannot be really the controller because sometimes I’m not in control. So you have different images about the I. How the I exist?

Some people say the I is really my soul. And then Buddhism says, so how is a soul made? What is it made of? Is it something permanent? Is it something that cannot change?

Is it something that is really solid? And according to Buddhism, what we maybe in Christianity call soul or that which we call I doesn’t exist at all like that. It doesn’t exist like a concrete thing. It doesn’t exist like a never changing thing. It doesn’t exist like a unitary thing, you know, that exists out of one particular thing.

It exists as Buddhism says there is many things coming together, the body and mind coming together. And what we do is we put a label on it. We say, That is my I. Right? It’s a label that we put onto a collection of a body and a mind.

As soon as we start doing that, we start to mix the collection of the body and the mind with the I. And we start to believe that the I is the body and the mind, or the collection of the body and the mind. Which means that we identify with the body and the mind. Buddhism says that’s what causes us the most hurt. That identification with body and mind in the way we do that.

We make more out of the eye than it’s just a label. We put things on top of that which are not there. We give the eye functions that it doesn’t have. We give the eye a capacity that it doesn’t have. We give the eye too much credit.

Know? So and Buddhism says that’s the main core of our suffering. So what we’re gonna do today is to look at then how does it all exist? Because in Buddhism, they say the more more you look at things in the way they really exist, the less suffering can appear. Because we have wrong expectations, because we have wrong views, because we have hold on to things that don’t really exist in way we believe they exist, that creates a suffering or a frustration or a you know, if I I drop this cup and it breaks and I get angry, it’s like, but you know that this is fragile.

You know it can break. You know it will break when you drop it down. Why can I should I become angry? That’s just the nature of reality. Right?

So the more you can see the nature of reality according to Buddhism, the less suffering we will experience from reality because we know it’s going to happen. We know it’s going to come. So one nature of reality and with looking at that nature of reality we’re also going to go then what is the Buddha potential? What is our potential? Where because that is included in the nature of reality.

We because we have this feeling of a solid permanent me in here, we create a limit for ourselves. Right? It’s something that is permanent and not changing is limited, very limited. If you believe, well, I was always like that. I was born angry, you know, since I was a little boy, I did this and this and this.

When you believe in that, it’s very hard to change. You cannot get rid of it. Right? So first, you have to look at, is that really true? Is that really that permanent as that you believe it is?

Yeah. So that was what we’re gonna do today. So first of all we’re going to look at the impermanence of things. So we have a body and we have a mind and both are impermanent. And if we look at the body in a way we know the body is impermanent because we all know that one day we will die.

We don’t like that. We don’t like to know that we were gonna die. We postpone that, you know. That’s always far away. We never believe it can happen tomorrow.

Definitely not today. You know, we have this feeling, isn’t it? I’m not gonna die today. No way. I have my whole life still in front of me.

We feel that all the time. No matter how old we’re gonna be, we feel like that. That’s an internal feeling that we have. That is not in accord with how things are. We might die tomorrow actually.

We don’t know. Isn’t it? The chance is there that something happens to us and it’s finished. You know, a stroke, a heart attack, an accident. Life can go like that.

Somehow we have the feeling, no. Not not with me. Yeah. I know it can happen with that person, but not with me. We do do that.

We do have the feeling that it’s not gonna happen to us. The fact that we do going to die, that is called gross impermanence in Buddhism. And that gross impermanence of the body coming into existence and ceasing to exist, we can see that in whole nature. Nature functions with the law of growth and permanence. Isn’t it?

It’s like the tree grows and then dies and the flowers grow and then die. You can see the change in the seasons. It’s all impermanent. If you look at the weather or maybe here not in Holland definitely if you look in the weather, you know impermanence because every day it’s different and every minute it’s changing, isn’t it? Here it’s quite stable.

It might look like it’s more permanent, you know, the weather here. You can see the nature changing here and you can see the winter and you can see the spring coming and the summer being there and you we know. We have that in our body. That’s all changing. That’s gross impermanence.

Then you have subtle impermanence. And that means that it’s not only that things change over the course of a long period of time. You know? Like, I’m I’m I’m born and yes, I’m growing older and then I’m twelve years old and I grow more old and then at a certain point I’m that old that I’m going to die. That’s a gross and permanent.

But in every day, we grow a little bit older. We grow a little bit older. And not only in every day. In Buddhism we say it’s in every moment that we shift. In every moment changes are happening in our body.

And with the microscope and all the knowledge that we have from the medical science we know how all the cells are constantly moving, isn’t it? And how the body is building itself up again and again. And if we get older, the building up becomes more difficult and the breaking down becomes easier. Easier. That makes that we’re going to look old and that makes that we do function less and less and less.

That’s just in the gross impermanence you have the subtle impermanence happening from day to day to day, from moment to moment. In Buddhism they even say that one moment something comes into existence and ceases and then the next moment it comes into existence and ceases. It goes like a wave, you know. So every moment you have different body. Your body from this moment is a different moment body than the body of the previous moment.

We are not aware of that impermanence. It’s too subtle. It’s called subtle impermanence. But because of the science, the the the the knowledge that we have through science, we can think about that. And we know that it is like that, isn’t it?

We can understand it with our rational mind. So although we cannot see it with our eyes because it’s too subtle, we can sit with it and think about it. And the more we think about it and the more we feel that process, you can connect with that process. The meditation that we just did, watching your feelings. If you the more you start doing it, you can start feeling this vibration happening in your body all the time.

That vibration is a subtle impermanence. If you contemplate on that, you you how to say? You it’s like you vibrate more with reality. Right? The more you can do that, the more the more natural your body can start behaving.

Right? Healing is not more than allowing these vibrations to happen and things will vibrate naturally into the right direction. Healing is something how due to all our wrong views, due to all the things that we went through in life, we have all these beliefs, all these assumptions and we hold on to things. That leads to tensions in the body. That leads to tensions in our organs.

These tensions, it’s like you lock it up. You lock something up. Because it’s not in accord with reality, no movement can happen. It’s like we believe that that is really like that. Because no movement can happen, even on a physical level, your your blood circulation is not cannot go there.

Your lymphatic system cannot, know, remove all the all the toxins that are in there. As soon as you start sitting with your body and do that meditation what we did this morning and start to focus on its subtle impermanence, then it’s like you you allow movements to happen. You allow feelings that you maybe have suppressed. You allow them to free themselves. As soon as they’re going to free themselves, they’re going to come up.

And then you’re going to see, oh, there they are. They’re not maybe not so pleasant, but they also can go. As soon as I just let them be and and and be with myself with loving-kindness, these feelings will naturally dissolve. And then the body will naturally shift to a state where it’s healthy, where movement finds place, where, you know, the body knows how to heal, our wisdom knows how to heal. That is already in us.

We just have to fine tune and feel like how do I put that together? Know? It’s about balance but it’s about Sometimes feel like say I have a ball like this and I and I screw it like this. So when I screw it, nothing can happen. And what we have to do is like, how do I bring it back?

And then when it’s here, it can start moving again and communicating with each other again. It’s like we disconnect from ourselves and we have to find how to rotate it back, how to adjust our views so that the vibrations can start happening again and that we reconnect. That happens on the mind level, that happens on the physical level. The process is identical. Right?

As soon as we find with our mind the right place, the body will follow naturally. If we only work on the body, the mind won’t follow, you know. That’s why we have to work on the mind. If the mind has the insight, there I have to be, the body will feel it, relax under it and movement will start happening and the healing finds naturally place. That’s what we’re trying to get a little bit at.

So we have the subtle impermanence that functions in the body. The subtle impermanence also happens in the mind. So according to Buddhism, the mind is like space. You can say consciousness is like all our internal experiences all our thoughts, all our feelings, all our emotions. Everything that happens on the inner level is mind.

All these experiences. Every moment we experience something different, isn’t it? We can be quite aware of that. Buddhism says that every moment of consciousness is preceded by a moment of consciousness. Every moment of consciousness will be followed by a next moment of consciousness, a next moment of consciousness.

In the body, we can trace the beginning of the body back to the sperm and ovum of our father and mother. So that means that the body really has that substantial cause. The sperm and ovum are the cause of the body. If you go back in the mind, the cause of this moment of mind is the previous moment of mind. If we’re going to trace that back, not to find a beginning.

Right? There is not something where the mind came into existence. We cannot find that if we think about it. We cannot find it when we apply logic. That also means that we won’t be able to find an ant.

An end. An end to our consciousness. An end. No, not an ant. We also won’t find an end to our consciousness.

I’m so sorry. It’s not. This is to keep you sharp. Oh, no. That can’t be right.

So we cannot find the end of a consciousness. Sorry. That’s right. We might suffer from that. So Buddhism Buddhism says the consciousness that functions under the law of subtle impermanence, changing moment to moment to moment to moment.

And because consciousness comes from the previous moments of consciousness, we cannot find the beginning of consciousness. We also cannot find the end of consciousness. Right? If you would follow that concept, you can see that the body has a completely different law than the mind. These are two different substances.

You can also conclude then if there is no end to the mind, what happens after this life is finished? What happens if the body stops working? Right? If we really can see that there is no end to the I can’t say it properly. Sorry.

If we can’t find that, that, we there must be something after this life. Our consciousness, our experience will continue after this life. This life, our experiences are connected with this body. As soon as we this the consciousness separates from this body, our experience is still there. But Buddhism says we have to take rebirth.

We have to take a different body. Buddhism says consciousness always goes together with body. Consciousness cannot be without a body. It cannot exist. It’s like the consciousness is a mind.

And the mind rides on the wind. The wind is like element. And in Tibetan medicine, but also in the Indian medicine and the Chinese, they talk about that the elements support our body, isn’t it? Our body comes from the elements: the earth, the water, the fire and the wind element. They all have their own contribution to the functioning of our body.

You know, the earth element is more the solid parts, the bones, the muscles. If you look at the water, that has more to do with the fluids in the body. The fire has more to do with our digestive system. And then the wind element has to do with every movement that happens in our body. So all the movements in our blood, all the movements in our circulation, all the the neurons have all to do with the wind element.

Now you have that wind element and they say the mind rides on top of the wind. They always go together. So everywhere there is movement is mind. We might not be aware of that. But everywhere where there is movement in the body, there is mind.

If we have a disturbance of movement in our body, we can be sure that the mind is also disturbed there. Right? If we have a problem with our circulation in our body, there is a problem with allowing changes to happen in our mind. This is just me interpreting now, you know, but it’s maybe it’s not exactly like that. But you can think about that.

You can make your own theory about that. If you have, for instance, a very agitated nervous system, that happens the same thing that happens in your mind. Your mind will be agitated. You will be in a constant agony of that. And maybe you experience a lot of pain.

Buddhism, the agitation of the mind is first. And that leads to the agitation in the body. That can come out into your nerve system, that can come out into maybe you get high blood pressure. There’s too much movement going on in your bloodstream. That’s your agitation.

Or it can happen maybe your heart goes up, your palpitations go up. That is your agitation. Right? But first there is the mind that creates that more movements happening. Or maybe there is the mind that cannot allow movements to happen happen and things slow down.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to look Because that wind element supports that consciousness, there always has to be a body. Buddhism says that after death we first take a body in an intermediate state. That’s a wind body. That’s a body that you cannot see with your eyes. Right?

But there is a body. That’s a body that only the people who are in that intermediate state can see each other but we cannot see them unless we have special gifts to see them. What I introduced to you is we have a gross impermanent that our body works with. We have a subtle impermanence that we can observe in our body, that we can observe in our mind. And because that subtle impermanence, because our consciousness cause for this moment of consciousness comes from the previous moment of consciousness that means that we cannot trace back where our consciousness comes from and where it’s going to.

We can only say it’s infinite. Can we follow this? Yeah. Because we cannot follow it. No.

I have to say it differently. We have consciousness changing from moment to moment to moment. In Buddhism we say there is nothing in us which is concrete in that consciousness nor there is anything concrete in our body that does never change. Although we have the feeling of I which is very solid, which is very permanent, that does not exist like that. We cannot find that in our body.

We cannot find that in our mind. Can Buddhists believe that each of the carnation we are here to learn something? No. We can learn a lot, but we’re not here to learn. Buddhism talks about karma and it’s like we create negative actions that have a result.

For instance, if I kill, if I have the tendency to kill insects, you know mosquitoes or and this is just an example. Right? I’m not saying that it works exactly like that because karma is very difficult to understand. But if I engage engage in killing, then Buddhism says the harm that you do to others will naturally come back to you. So you so if then somebody hits you again and again in the face, literally or or symbolically, That will keep on going as long as you engage in the act of killing.

As soon as you can realize that harm from others comes only because you keep on engaging harming others and you stop that harming others, then that karma will change. So what is lessons? Well, you can label that lessons but lessons implies that there is somebody who teaches you the lessons and Buddhism doesn’t believe in that. It’s not implying anybody is teaching it to you but if you keep making the same mistake then you Keep on repeating the same things. So Buddhism says realization.

Yes. Buddhism says you can free yourself from these mistakes and you can free yourself from the suffering that comes from these mistakes. But not necessarily everybody will be able to go there now in this life. You know. Some people never get it because their karma is not yet ripe to hear that or to be able to change.

Maybe. I can’t sort of see that there’s any point if we’re not involved in creation. There is no point in this whole in our whole life. There’s no point. We are just we are just powerless under the influence of our own karma, of the own previous actions.

We are experiencing things and we react to that and there is no point in repeating that whole thing. But what we can do is we can make that whole thing meaningful in striving to free ourselves from that whole powerless existence. That can become a meaning in our life. But in itself, making the same mistake over and over again has no meaning. Hey!

I’ll talk about that. Good places to go. Let me see where we are at. Mindfulness consciousness. We have we talked last week about that even if our body doesn’t work, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are unhappy.

Even if, you know, we have sickness, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are unhappy. Why is that? Because in Buddhism we say we have six main consciousnesses. Five are related to the sense organs. It’s like our eye consciousness, our ear consciousness, nose, our tongue and our body consciousness.

And then we have the mental consciousness. The sense consciousnesses, these are the five connected to our sense organs, are very much connected to our body, are very much connected to our existence right now, are not connected to what we’re going to experience in next life. Our sense consciousnesses are very much connected to our karma too that put us in this life. You can see how people see the same things in different ways. Although we all have the same eye, the fact that we see the same thing in a different way depends on our karma, depends on a previous inference that we have, depends on all experiences we have had in relation to that object that we view.

Right? Everybody views the same object in a different way. That is due to karma. karma will be finished as soon as the body ceases because it comes to us through our sense organs. When the body ceases and the mind starts to first the mind starts to dissolve, we know that when we’re gonna die in a natural way, our sense organs start to lose their function.

Right? We can’t see that well anymore, especially when we get older. We can’t see anymore that well. We can’t hear anymore that well. At a certain point, we get problems with speaking.

We might have problems with recognising. First, the people that are far away from us but eventually maybe also our family, maybe even our children, maybe even we cannot recognise them anymore with our sense organs. But on a mental level there is a mental consciousness. The mental consciousness produces thoughts, experiences all the feelings, reacts to that. That mental consciousness is still there when all the sense consciousnesses cease.

Then that mental consciousness becomes more subtle, more subtle, more subtle and ceases further until it becomes what they call the fundamental mind. That fundamental mind will leave the body at the moment that we die. In that fundamental mind we have all the imprints of our previous actions, all the things that we have done and all the feeling of I that goes with that. They are as imprints bundled on that fundamental mind. We are not aware of that fundamental mind.

That fundamental mind is very subtle. It’s very difficult to get connection with that. But in that subtle mind there is complete peace. I think when you hear people talking No, that’s actually not true. I’m going to say, No.

Stop. That very fundamental mind is a complete peaceful mind. We do all have that in here, that is what the Buddhists that is seated in here, but it cannot be active. The wind that normally carries that consciousness is not active as long as we live. Only the moment we die, that that wind becomes active and removes that out of our body or moves away from our body.

So that consciousness sits there but it’s not doing anything. It just sits there and it’s like the basis where all the rest of our consciousness comes from. That basis is in essence pure goodness, pure love, pure compassion, pure wisdom. Pure clean clear mind. As soon as the other minds become manifest like we have, you know, in our with our thinking, with our feelings, with our emotions, with everything that we perceive, there the I starts to become manifest and together with the I we have the feelings of I like that and I don’t like that.

When I like that, I like to have more of that and if I don’t like that, I don’t want to have anything of that. We start to engage in reactions. And then if you bring that further, we start to engage in judgments. And if you go further, we develop our preferences. We develop our natural tendencies.

We have the tendency that everything when it disappears I don’t want to have that. And if that is not enough I’ll start using my speech in a way that I try to push it away. That is not enough I’ll try to use my body to push it away. These are tendencies that we develop. This is our character.

Right? Somehow we believe that we are our character. Somehow we believe that certain parts of our character are not changing. You know, we were born with them, they will always stay with us, I’ll die with them. Some parts of our character we really like.

Maybe the good parts. Some parts of our character we really feel attached to. For instance, that part that protects us in this life. So we hold on to these different paths. Buddhism says all these paths are not really you.

What is really essential in every being is that most fundamental mind which is created out of inner peace, pure love, pure compassion, pure wisdom. That is the essence that we all have. From there, all that other starts to evolve. Where does it reside? In the heart.

It resides in your channels. We have a middle channel. No. It’s not residing there. So the most fundamental mind is residing in here.

We never feel that in our life. We’re not aware of that. That only into that only starts to move the last moment of our life. But then from there, other more subtle consciousnesses, how to say, dissolve. They arise from there.

And then more coarse consciousnesses arise from there. That What was your question? Where does it You said doesn’t it reside here? Because here we think. We always think about here.

I’m here. Buddhism says I’m here. The basis of the mind is in the heart. The basis of the mind is in the experience, not in the thinking as in the soul. The mind does not exist as the soul is many times shown as a permanent thing, something that is never shifting, goes from life to life.

Buddhism says that doesn’t exist. We change every moment. We’re completely changeable. It’s supported by the body but it’s not the body. Our brain, our thinking, our awareness that we have in here, the awareness is consciousness.

But we use our brain in order to how to say there is a constant interaction between the brain and consciousness in order to be aware of these experiences. We need some body in order to become aware of it. We need some movement happening. We need that wind energy in order to become aware. The wind energy in the body has a lot to do with the neurons, lot to do with our nervous system.

Our nervous system is constantly moving. These movements help to bring that awareness. Because we have a lot of nervous system in our head, in our brain, we have the feeling we are residing up here. Because our society does a lot with the brains, we feel we are here. If you go to the East where people are more residing here and more comes from the heart, people feel I’m here.

Heart Although, also with heart transplant I don’t know if you know the stories that people have the thoughts and the feelings of the people that they get the heart from. Really? Yeah. That also applies to other organs. And also to other organs.

Yeah. Yeah. Attachment is like people are attached to that part of their body. They don’t wanna let go. I don’t know where it could I I I don’t really understand how it works.

Mhmm. Yeah. Things, sorts of lungs. Yeah. Funny, isn’t it?

And then that but why is that memory that is actually part of another consciousness? Why is that mixing with our consciousness? That’s that’s the funny thing. And that that is very yeah. If you go into that, it’s very interesting, I think.

So you can’t say it’s only the body because What is only the body? What you get, what you receive. Somehow you receive the memories too which is but I cannot explain that. I’ll leave that to the Dalai Lama. But the fundamental thing that I want to say today is that we have that fundamental mind.

Because we have that fundamental mind, which is the inner essence, that is called the Buddha potential. Right? From there everything comes into existence. It’s like there is this empty space of goodness in us and from there we bring all the furniture in the space. Right.

If we can see the beauty of the space and we learn about the tools how we can make the furniture more appropriate for the space we can create whatever we want in that space. That space has a limitless it is as vast as space. They say the mind is as vast a space. It has limitless capacity. We can create whatever we want.

It’s not a space with walls. It’s a space without walls. It’s like the blue sky. It’s completely open. We have a lot of rubbish put in there but we can purify that and we can change what is happening in that mind.

We can change any aspect in that mind, anything. It’s not easy, it’s not done like that but it’s possible. That is what is called Buddha potential. Because everything is impermanent, because nothing is there which is solid, means that we can become a Buddha. That we have the potential to become a Buddha.

If we would have something solid in us, we would not have the potential to change. That fundamental. Which means that we would not have the potential to grow in that limitless way. Right? Can you see that?

Connect with the heart. True. Yep. So Even the wisdom, the pure wisdom wisdom comes from here. But what we do is because because it’s so different of how we think, because we have so many delusions, what we first have to do is to we have to use that is what is why it is so beautiful to be a human being.

We have this intellectual capacity. So we can use that to think about things and we can use it to shift our thinking in a way that is more harmonious with what is really happening in the heart. And if we that is and if it is more harmonious with what is really in the heart and what in the mind, that is real wisdom than what we’re going to feel or what we’re going to know. Suddenly you have this insight. Insight comes from here.

It does not come from the brain or not even from our thinking. It comes from an experience. We experience down here. Yeah? Yeah.

I find it so interesting with depression because I I feel it’s it’s a And I think it’s a shame that, generally, you know, depression just very excited. It’s often seen as this disease where people associate that with their mind. I think it’s or say that with their mind, But it’s completely separate. It is separate and it’s not separate. I think what you have learned is to separate yourself from that experience of depression.

But the experience of depression is still mind. But you don’t identify anymore with it. Everything is. It’s true. Is.

What you do in order to heal is you have to separate from that. You have to see I am not my depression. But then the depression is still there and you still feel it. So it’s still in the mind but because you separate from it it has an opportunity to arise and to dissolve back so it can dissolve. Because you make that separation there will be an end to your depression.

Yeah, but I think in particular with depression which is so tragic, you can have diabetes or kidney disease or anything like that. Because they’re just an organ the same as the brain. It’s just an organ. You can die from it. It’s just an organ.

Well, yeah. You can die from anything. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway But that makes it harder to work with the mind, you know, because it’s so it’s it’s feels like it’s coming from the mind.

It feels like it’s so me. Yeah. And with an organ, it’s easier to make that separation. With the mind, it’s more difficult. Yeah.

It’s the brain, whatever it sounds. Yeah. You forget the brain’s actually But but that because your mind is your brain. It’s also yourself. So It’s not.

It’s I mean That’s why I was thinking about the the differentiation’s harder because Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard, but it’s I I am not my kidney. I am more my mind than I am my kidney. I’m more my brain, maybe.

Yeah. Brain. Sorry. Not mine. Yeah.

Brain. And because you have a disease of the brain, it is so much of the mind that you feel it is innately you. But if we have the as having, you know, cirrhosis of the liver or something. Know? Yeah.

But if you have a disease from your brain, you you hear then people don’t associate us straight away with their mind, you know, because they say it’s my brain. It doesn’t function anymore. It’s not my mind. They can separate. As soon as something starts going wrong in the brain and people still have that intellectual quality, they separate themselves from that.

Yeah. They would never say, I’m, you know, I’m sick. It’s like my brain is sick. Yeah. People do that.

Yeah, true. I think that is the point of depression because it is also all consuming. You do sort of feel that you are sick because your brain is sick or has something wrong with it. But it’s more pervasive, think. It’s it’s more hard to separate that, to make it depression is everywhere.

Everywhere where you are is depression. Every you can feel it in your whole body. It will it will have its influence on every action that you’re doing as oppression is there. So that makes it very, very big in that sense, isn’t it? And that makes it very difficult.

If you want to have some distance, you have to do that every moment to create that. Isn’t it? And with organs, you just sit with it and you do it. There is an effect somehow and, you know, you have some space to do other things. But with depression, you needed attention.

It affects All the time. Part of your body. Affects it can affect every part of your body. Oh, definitely. I know.

I know. I know. I didn’t tell what I had. Right? You all told last last time, you know, I suffer from this, and I realized, oh, I didn’t do that.

But I suffered for many years from depression, and I suffered a lot of back pain and a lot of pains in my body, incredible pains in my body for many, many, many years, and it almost has gone. But That’s what I wanna get to. Yeah. I forgot to tell her. I’m sorry.

Just a human being. Shall we have a tea first? Yes, that’s true. Yep. And then we’ll have we’re going to do a really nice healing meditation today.

I want to try to do every time a different healing meditation and it’s up to you guys how much you can do at home. Do it as much as you can. We’ll have some time for questions and discussion. Ask you one thing quickly because I know somebody said with depression I mean, it depends on what state you’re at and how bad you are, but it’s not good to meditate. And and, yeah, I know there are some times I just like when I come home from work, my mind’s complete.

It’s scrambled. I just have no space left. That’s that’s why I mean, I can’t believe it. Yeah. But then that’s actually You can do mind training.

Yeah. Know? You know, the problem with depression is that you feel so unhappy with yourself and then you’re going to sit down and the only thing you have is this unhappy space where you go into, where you don’t want to be. You know, and that makes it really, really hard to meditate Because in order to sit with that, you have to find somewhere space in your mind where you do feel happy and where you do feel contentment and where you can create a distance from that that that that negative state of mind. Happy or contented but just blank.

Oh, blank. Neutral. Yeah. And that’s really, really hard if you are depressed. I forced myself for many years to meditate and I’m not sure if that was really good, you know, because I could see that if I would would do practice and I think practice did help me.

Even if I would feel really crap in the morning, I would do practice in the sense of I’ll copy that. Maybe it’s in the book, actually. About that the only how lucky I am that I haven’t died today. What? Think so.

Know, it’s like to you know, it’s like you just don’t wanna do anything. Yeah. And I knew I have I have to go through this. I have to sit through this and put so much effort in just doing that half hour meditation. I would postpone it and walk around and walk around.

I’m not gonna do it. I’m not do it. Have to do it. I have to do it. One of the things that in my journey was to discover that there there are many things, including feng shui, that that affects us and being negative people, being under fluorescent lights, and a million other things things can do some horrific things.

Mobile phones are really horrific. But the one of the things that I suffer from is is something called seasonal affective disorder. Mhmm. And that is if you don’t get into the sunshine, and especially in the northern hemispheres where you have such long nights, just one of just walking into the sun and feeling the natural warmth and rays of the sun and and and the connection with nature. Yeah.

You can do many things like that with the depression. But it’s just the beautiful smell of cooking. And so I thought and we’re so pressured in this in this western civilization to produce, produce, produce. But when you could get time to just sit and be, and sometimes it’s like being in a car with your foot flat to the accelerator, and and and you crash your body that way. And hopping off that treadmill of of life where you’ve got your foot to the the on the accelerator.

Over. I’m so sensitive to the that disorder. Yeah. What we’re actually trying to do is to to make ourselves less sensitive for that. That’s what we’re trying to do.

Yeah. That would be handy. Yeah. ABC Compass. Oh, okay.

And she is she’s a nurse for thirty years, and she started working with prisoners and natural in America. I did hear an interview with And way and we’re doing. Think Let me see if I said everything that I wanted to say. Mind. The only thing that I want to say about mind is mind every mind has an object.

The only they come into existence together. There cannot be a mind without an object that the mind can observe. Nor can there be an object that a mind does not observe. The definition of an object in Tibetan Buddhism is an object is that which is seen by a valid cognition, that which is observed by a mind which is valid. Something that has never ever been observed by a mind can not exist.

So things come into existence together with the mind that observes them. Right? That is what Buddhism mind because mind is so vast as space and because the Buddha mind is as vast as space, they can always say, what oh, what about this? Nobody ever has been there. Then they say, well, the Buddhists can still see that.

Right? That’s how they cover their base. But for us, it’s important to know that every mind has an object, if we like it or not. We if we are aware of not, it doesn’t matter. What you do with meditation is you choose your object and you try to stay with your object.

What we normally do with our mind runs all around following every object that appears. We follow it. We create movies around it. We create whole stories around it. But we follow that object that appears due to karma and illusions in our mind.

What you do wanna do with Buddha with meditation is you cut through that whole habit of following whatever appears in the mind and creating stories around it. That is what you wanna cut. You wanna bring your mind to an object that you choose. You know? And so we can start with the body because the body is always here right now.

It’s always with us. You can do the breath, which is a little bit more subtle, which is also always with you. You can also observe your own thoughts and feelings. You can also observe your own mind. But it’s all about I wanna focus my mind there and I direct my mind there.

That is what we train in. Because the more you can do that, the less you suffer from that mind that goes all around creating all these stories. Although there might be Normally the stories are around what we are really attached to or what we really don’t like. So what we do is we constantly fuel our attachment and our aversion. Our attachment and aversion are the doors to all the other delusions.

They are the doors to all the jealousy, all the anger, all the resentment, all the anything negative comes from there. Right? Our mind is not naturally at peace in the sense of if we let the mind go and we follow our nature as to how we were born as human beings, we are not naturally at peace. human beings create naturally a lot of negative actions, a lot of negative karmas. human beings are normally driven by a lot of delusions.

Although we are quite civilized, we are still driven by lots of delusions. Right? If we want to free ourselves from that, if we know that the delusions and the karma that we create due to the delusions is the root of our suffering, if we want to free ourselves from that, we have to pull the mind up and say don’t go there. You’re creating the causes of suffering. Just stay here.

Just relax. Just be here. Focus on the present moment. And you can focus, you know, on your body, but you can also focus on the dishwashing. You can focus on the, you know, making the table nice.

You can also focus on being really attentive with somebody who is with you. You can also focus but let go of the stories. Let go. Don’t indulge in them. Because the more we do, the harder it is to really feel happy with what we have.

Right? We go there because we’re not happy with what we have. That’s what we have to penetrate. We go there because we’re afraid of what we experience right now. Go there because we think we are afraid of what is happening right now.

Right? Many reasons which are we’re going away from the present moment because somehow we have the conviction that where we are right now, there is not enough, it’s not good enough, we won’t be happy there, how can we be happy there? Reasons why we don’t wanna, you know, convictions. But if we really investigate, these are based on not on reality. These are based on things that we built up through this life, things that have built up through previous lives, all kinds of beliefs which have no validation at all at this moment.

They might have had a function in the past, at this moment they don’t. So we have to stop following these habits that we created. Habits that at one time helped us to survive. Habits that helped us to find more pleasure, to be more happy. But habits that don’t serve us right now.

Right? But because they have served us many times, we know. Last week somebody said, What is that that constantly takes you away? I said, That is somebody who brings you in trouble again and again. She says, but that also helped me many, many times.

That’s the Samsāra. One day it helps, but the next day it brings you in trouble. The next day it helps, the next day it brings you in trouble. But it’s the same kind of system. That is what we want to unwind.

That is what we wanna stop. So we stop following that and we check what is going on right now in my life. Most of our lives, not much happens. Is it? We just live our life.

We live in this body. We have a simple life. We do the cooking. Do the We don’t have a very, very complicated life. But if you look at our minds, man, so complicated.

So many things go on there, isn’t it? And we have to undo all that and make it simple again. Just be here, present. Don’t follow that. Can I just say something?

Yes. That’s all very well when you get your phone at the supermarket, but if you live in a heat, what, you kill world, then somebody’s gotta go through the stresses of going and clubbing the Mastodon or whatever it might have been. And I think that the whole of life, it is about survival. That’s what we have learned and that is what we are used to. That’s true.

This is what physical life is about. That’s true. So what we say, you don’t have to follow that. If you want to survive and survive well, then you have to get out there and play the game. Well, I’ve decided I don’t want to do that anymore.

But lots of people survive well without playing the game. No. I don’t think they do. I think it’s very hard not to play the game because we believe if I don’t play the game, I won’t survive. Yeah.

If I don’t play the game, I will die. But it’s it’s hard. The middle way and finding a balance between The most subtle thing is eating. And, I mean, yes, I’m get little of bit of and chicken eggs and husband and chickens. That’s what life is.

Yes. But I’m sorry. You can’t sit and meditate. There is another reality where you have to partake of. That reality is a complete illusion according to Buddhism.

But as long as we live it, we live it. And as long as we live it, it is true. Right? So what you try to do is can you see that in one way? In a one way you’re right, that is alive.

It’s completely focused on surviving. And that’s why we keep on circling. We keep on repeating the same thing. Because our whole instinct is focused on surviving. Might as well just Well, are different ways.

The surviving is one way of being in the physical. But you can also live in the physical. It’s not just about surviving. You can also really live and enjoy without surviving. What we’re talking about is that our mind has the habit to survive.

Our mind has certain habits that it’s repeating constantly in order to survive. These These habits sometimes help us. These habits sometimes damage us. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to look very critical at these habits and say is that really useful in this moment? Or shall I abstain from that?

If I can abstain from that, I’ll abstain from that. And every time you can step back from that, when you don’t use it, every time when you apply logic to that, you disempower that urge, that instinct that wants to keep on going and wants to survive. But if you’ve been frightened by the wolfie that’s hanging around outside the cave door, then you tend to get a bit paranoid? Yeah, we all have that feeling. That’s still is no wolf.

There is no Or there is a wolf and it’s okay if the wolf eats me. I’ll get that. Yeah. You can let yourself, your body be eaten by the wolf with a calm mind, you will die, but you will go to you know? Where were you wanted to know where we’re going to, didn’t you?

If you can die with a calm mind, you go straight to the pure lands. If I have a baby in the cave with me and I just say, here you go, we have the baby. Well, are stories from the Buddha, how he gave his life for sentient beings as his practice. Those chapters, don’t you worry and somebody’s licking That’s about giving your life to sentient beings. That’s about generating motivation that you’re not living just for yourself, you’re not just living to survive.

That is recognizing that whole idea about I myself, I have to take care of myself, nobody else is going to do that, I’m more important than anybody else. That is what creates our suffering. If we want to shift our suffering, I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just saying that is what creates our suffering. If you want to be free of your suffering, you will have to shift that if you like it or not.

That’s the only way you can shift your suffering. You can try to shift your suffering by creating better external conditions but that’s never going to save you in mind. That’s never going to change your mind. Wolf does get you or not, you’re going to leave. If you can be at peace.

Yes. Exactly. That’s what happens. Your stress is removed. If you genuinely don’t care about the wolf getting you and if it does.

As I’ve just said, I’m throwing the children out too. Heard a story a few days ago from somebody who had talked about that same fear. You know? What if a tiger comes and there was was it a monk somewhere and there was a tiger. The monk thought, Okay, this is Dharma practice.

He sat down and the tiger was a hungry tiger. He sat down on the middle of the road and went into meditation and said, Okay, you know, if you want to eat me, you eat me. The tiger came and he licked on his face and he walked away. You know? That’s what the that’s what the lama say is the power of the mind.

If your mind is completely at peace, there is no enemy that can harm you. Although somebody might eat your body, they cannot harm you. The harm that happens is when we react with anger, if we react with defense. Because that agitated mind, if we would die without, that is what takes us to the next life. Right?

But if we can keep that mind peaceful, you know, one day we have to leave anyway. So better with a peaceful mind. That’s the whole thing about Buddhism. Try to generate all the cause and conditions that you need so that when death comes, you die with a peaceful mind. Death is the transformation of this whole life.

In in death, we make the huge transformation. But in death also has determined our whole future. If we can make sure we have a good future rebirth, we set out for a long, long time. Even if we might lose this life, we create a safe situation for many lifetimes. If we get very disturbed the moment we die because we are afraid or whatever that fear will drop us into a very bad next existence and that will keep on going for a long, long time.

So it’s very important to train the mind to let go of that need I have to survive. And it’s hard, I can tell you. Know from getting donations and so forth. If you’re a family man and you’ve got ten children running around and you’ve got to make sure that they survive and survive well. Is that we believe It we believe that there is only one way of making money.

That we believe there is only one way of surviving. That’s our belief. But if we would know karma, we would create completely different actions which lead to the same kind of results as that we actually want and we don’t engage in that whole surviving thing. And that is what it’s all about. And he’s not thinking about surviving probably?

No. Not not worried about that? He’s just doing what he has to do every day. And if you have a really a pure calm mind, things will come to you to help you Yeah. In your way.

You know? That’s act and you must know that. I’m sure you know that. I do. I’m just I’m just playing with James.

I I advocate a little bit. I I do think that it goes to extremes because we have to be responsible for a certain amount of our We have to be responsible of every action they are doing. Very clear. But the tiger is not just like that happening that a tiger licks us. It’s like it’s a long long long practice giving up again and again and again that urge, that feeling of ‘I have to survive’.

That’s hard work. That’s damn hard work. That’s not easy. It’s constantly facing death. You know?

It’s constantly being prepared to let go of your own life. But if the Vikings are at the gate? I know. I know. At the end of the month I have to pay my rent.

Don’t know how to do it. It’s like, okay, I’m going to shopping. I can see the demons every day in my mind. I’m not knowing that. So what I try to practice every day is give it up.

Give it up. Give up your life. I can feel the holding on: oh but what if I can’t do this and what if I can’t? Give it up! It is the way of doing it to to final finally getting clear forward, the panic and terror because most of the demons never happen.

And so when you get used to, I don’t care. I’ll just do my best. Yeah. Don’t care and have faith and have absolute faith, you all will be well. And it is the way.

Yeah. We’ll talk one day about karma and we’ll talk about how you create the causes for yourself to find that what you need, you know, which is different than just Because that is what you need to know. You cannot just have faith in the blind. It’s like you have to know if I do this, this is going to be a result and that. If I do that, the result will be that.

And then you can set out. This is what I want to achieve. What do I have to do in order to get there? This and this and this and this and this. Start doing it and I guarantee you that a result will come.

Right? But we need the wisdom how to do that. It’s not just I give it all up and I have nothing in place for that. We have to know how to do it so that we apply our wisdom instead of our instinct. I think that’s the whole thing, you know.

How do we become wise and let go of that instinctive nature? That’s the transformation that we can do as a human being. More than listen to the master, will he? Follow him. Yep.

That’s good enough. More than good enough. Are there any questions about mind, close and permanence, subtle and permanence, beginningless mind? Are there any doubts? Come on, doubt.

Buddha says, doubt everything I say. Ask questions. I understand that I I like the concept. And the main thing, the mind is like space. Anything can happen in space.

If we can go back to the space, anything can evolve. What first will happen is if you We have a lot of suppression. Isn’t it? And and what first happens if you’re gonna give it space, that will start come loose. You know?

So maybe you get sick. That is as soon as you start to relax, sickness can surface. Right? Just stay with it. Just let it happen.

Just let it happen. And try to see that image of I’m creating space for myself. I’m just allowing my whole system to relax. That’s okay. You know?

Try to apply the logic because in sight, you might feel like, I don’t wanna be there and I don’t wanna feel like this. Try to apply an antidote and think, this is good. What is happening? This is fantastic. I support myself in this.

But also use your wisdom and try your logic, you know, that you because it’s hard if you really get sick. I always doubt. You know? Is this am I doing the wrong thing? Why do I get sick?

You know? Maybe I should have done this. Maybe I should have done that. And then trusting that you’re doing the right thing and that sometimes that comes with sickness. It’s it’s I find it hard.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s the surrender, letting go. Yeah. But once you let go, it’s you let go of that instinctive surviving where you that’s so hard, you know, because it feels like if we do that, it feels like we’re gonna approach death.

It feels like we’re not gonna survive. It feels like so our feelings give us a very strong idea of don’t do that. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. So we have to struggle with that.

And sometimes you see people struggling, struggling, and eventually, they have to let it go. Isn’t it? Yeah. It’s it’s it’s like you hold on, you hold on, you hold on. And the more the fighter you are, the stronger you hold on before you can let it go.

But I think it’s an art. You know? The more we can surrender or or master that flexible we become, the more we can really follow the rhythm of our life and the more we can find peace with whatever happens is okay. Flexibility is a very big thing. Cyclone comes through, you can sort of I can’t just go and build it up again.

What the heck? Yes. Yes. Milarepa built nine houses, I think, for his guru. And every time the guru said, ah, not not actually, not what I thought.

Just break it down and start to get it over there, and he had to do it again and again and completely surrender, you know, completely feeling useless in what he was doing. Doing that with kids every day. But he purified so much karma that after that, his development went very quickly. Think I’m purifying. I’m purifying.

Letting go is purifying. You know? Keep on following and holding on to, then you follow the the the wheel of Samsāra. You follow the wheel of existence. Letting go is you undo it.

And you you sometime yeah. We’ll talk about this with karma. Shut up, Jamyang. Start doing your meditation. Anything.

There’s nobody to ask for. So, like, if it’s in the disease, the disease comes to No, disease is karma, you say. Is that karma? karma means karma is in our mind. karma are imprints in our mind.

And as the right conditions appear, that can become manifest. So some people are born with diseases, some people get diseases. The imprint of why we get a disease, the cause of that disease is in our mind. Then we need many conditions in our circumstances that are like the soil and like the sun and the water for a tree. In order for that seed to grow, we need certain conditions.

So if these conditions arise then sickness becomes manifest. But the potency for the sickness is in our mind. That is why we can purify that. That’s why we can change it. If that seed was really coming from outside, we are powerless.

We can’t do anything. If that malaria mosquito just happens to bite me If you don’t have the karma to get malaria, as many mosquitoes can bite you if you like, you won’t get malaria. Okay. That’s why that’s why somebody to get through another stone. Know, they Got another one.

Fire. Fire. I I went on trying to take HRT a couple of months ago. K. What is that?

Allergic reaction. Head to foot. All my replacement. Yeah. Alright.

Yeah. Weeping, weeping, weeping. Yeah. Is that So what I what what comes to my mind, but I’m not karma is the most difficult thing to explain in Buddhism. Right?

So my mind is very deluded, and I might say the completely wrong thing. But if you find if you cannot find a medicine that heal you, that has to do with a karma of harming others, with killing others. So this described if you have a karma of killing others that might result in being killed yourself, in having to see people being killed in front of you or having a very short life or not being able to sustain your life by finding vegetables that are not really you the nutrition that you have. Or having a sickness and you cannot absorb the nutrition even if you have very good food. Or not finding the right medicine or not finding the right doctor.

That’s all a result of killing. That’s what it says in Buddhism. So if you would say, okay. Now you cannot find a medicine for your for your problem. But if you start looking at your own behavior and and actions of killing and you’re going to say ‘Okay, I must have done that.

I can see the tendency in myself. I’m going to purify that. I recognise that these sentient beings have their own life. They have a right for their life. Their life is the most precious thing to have.

I’m going to protect that life. I’m not going to protect my life, I’m going to protect the life of this insect, that insect, that insect. If there is an ant in my kitchen, I’m putting it on a paper, I put it outside. If there is a cockroach, I do the same. If you do that, you’re going to find the right medicine.

If you do it, create that motivation and really see them as precious sentient beings who might one day have a similar life as you have. They’re equal in you that they want to have happiness, and you help them to take care of their life. Things will shift. When do I talk about merit in the book? Yeah.

Is there a school board somewhere? School board? Only in your own mind. Merit has a lot to do with purity of mind. The more pure we can generate the motivation really to act for somebody else, the more merit we create with one action.

So it’s not about doing many many good actions. It’s about really if you have one ant and you can really realize that that ant has its own life, looking for happiness just as much as you. You can be reborn next life as an ant. Ant can be reborn in the next life as a human being. Maybe you have a connection with an ant in previous lives.

Maybe that ant with your mother. Maybe and you can really start seeing things like that. And you really feel a feeling of caring and then you think not only this ant, I wanna help all the ants that are gonna pass my me in this life that I’m gonna see that I can help. I’m gonna help them all. That is gonna that is the strongest thing that is gonna purify your karma.

Because almost looking for a scoreboard would be self damaging in a way, wouldn’t it? Because you’re supposed to do the the kind act purely for the act of kindness, not for a kickback. You’re not Well, you can apply the the wisdom. You can apply the wisdom. If the wisdom is there, I know that if if I just save the ant, but I’m not involved with my heart, it’s not gonna give me so much merit.

I said I really try save the ant as a sentient being. But if saving the ant to accrue points, isn’t that just as negative? Well, if I just no. If I just do it to accrue if I really generate that motivation of really care Yeah. That’s the only thing.

Then knowing that I’m gonna get some credits on my bank account, that is that is just the wisdom that goes with that. Is that being overly cynical? No. Oh, okay. But if no.

That’s just being clever. Okay. Yeah. If you know how it works, you know, it’s like knowing how the machine works. That’s just the way it is.

Yeah. But you have to find that sincerity in your heart. Yeah. You know? If you just have it well, if I save the end and get credits, that doesn’t work.

You really have to connect from your heart. Yeah. I get your point. Yeah. Right?

And that wisdom is just is just clever. Yeah. If you wanna be happy we all wanna be happy. We’re all stupid in how we try to find that. If you have if you have the wisdom how to do it, why not use it?

Yeah. Of course. Why would you keep on doing it? Because you don’t know. You know?

Because, really, since you develop a passion for everything, isn’t it? If I do something, don’t have the right motivation. Taking care of others. And our mind, you know, people say but you would just wait till that that you have that kindness in your mind and then you do these actions. But our mind is not naturally in that kindness.

You know, we have many, many moments in our mind that our mind is not so nice. So if you just let that all happen and wait for the next moment of kindness before you do that, we actually lose many opportunities. So in the beginning it might feel like not a natural thing, know, because you have to put in so much effort. But we wanna change habits. We’re so used to getting angry.

Angry is so being angry is so easy. We also you know, we know the faults of anger. We don’t wanna engage in that. So we we don’t what we say we’re not saying I’ll just follow naturally what comes because we know that if I do that I create more and more negativities, I feel more and more unhappy. So what we do is put effort in making a change.

And in the beginning, yes, it might feel not so natural but it can become natural. Just as that anger is now natural for us, loving-kindness and compassion can become natural for us. But it takes effort. Definitely. Yes.

That’s where we start. Oh, I think that that’s the first thing I’ll do. That’s where we start. I wanna do a white light healing meditation today. If everybody’s ready with their questions.

I might actually I’ll I’ll give you the exercise two later. So what I ask you is to write down. You finish your story or keep on working on it. Maybe I should say that. Keep on working on it.

No. But it’s like till now, you know? Yeah. Find find the threat. Find the things that keep on happening to you.

Find how you react to that. That’s the main thing that we want to know. Write down how it would be if you could live in accord with your potential. I’m going to ask you to open that mind completely. Your potential is that you have full knowledge of everything that happens and that you have full compassion for every sentient being.

You could start with the potential that you’re already feeling yourself and is blocked but then how would it be if you could even open wider than that? If you could embrace all sentient beings, how would your life look like? Then the act of kindness. How did I go? I ask everybody to do an act of kindness every day.

Was it nice? Was nice. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, some days I’ve bought down some chocolates.

Uh-huh. I just smile at people or did a few rounds for a neighbor and just simple little things. Oh. You feel good for it. That is great.

Yeah. You’re the same? Yeah. I I tend to do that. I’ve done that for a long time in my life.

Uh-huh. So yeah. Yeah. Good. Very comfortable.

I’m gonna ask you next week to do one act of kindness every day again, but one day you do it for yourself. Very consciously, what would make me happy today? You know, just to set you wonder for other people and give it to yourself. And then the next day, you do it for others. Right?

And be aware of the difference, if there is a difference. And the white light healing meditation, I have made a copy for everybody, so you can take that home and do this as many times as you want. Part of it is coming sorry? Was there a mantra? No.

No. I don’t do mantras yet. Part is coming from the book, but I mix it with another meditation so you will maybe recognize. And then if you can, you know, if your meditation is uncomfortable, don’t meditate too long. Right?

It’s like even if you sit one minute. Even but I think just sitting down and just being with yourself and maybe just feel love and compassion for yourself, just something like that, you know, then that will be good. And maybe you’d only do the white light meditation. You know? Maybe you too.

Just see how you go. If you feel you can do it and you can’t sit down and you do the scanning what we did this morning, then I’m gonna ask you to do that too because that gives such a connection with your body. And you it’s like you get a communication with your body, and that communication is like that helps the chakras to open. It helps the energy to flow. That connection also makes that you can easier see how your mind influences your body and how to counteract things that you don’t want.

So only when you feel comfortable with that, right? Otherwise leave it. Okay. I’ll hand that out after. Big homework, Helena.

You okay with that? Yes. Yes? Okay. So then we’ll do the meditation.

Is everybody alright with that? And next time, I think we’ll start talking about the delusions that or the things that arise in our mind. Today, we talked about the spaciousness of mind and then what arises in the mind and then so we said a little bit about how important the motivation is for your meditation. According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche and I think many great teachers, the motivation is the most important thing of every action. Motivation is intention, and intent your intention determines the result of your action.

If your intention is to benefit others, the result will be happiness for yourself and others. If your intention is to harm, the result will be suffering for yourself yourself and others. So just watching your your intention and thinking about that a little bit, even if it is artificial, that sets your whole mind out in a certain way. That makes your actions very, very powerful. So I’ve written a line.

You just have to read it in when you’re home. Make sure that you sit comfortable, and then start to generate a positive motivation. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of my life? And then think that the purpose of my life is not just to solve my own problems and find happiness for myself alone. The purpose of my life is to free everyone who is suffering from all problems and the causes and to bring them happiness, especially the ultimate everlasting happiness of full enlightenment.

This is the purpose of my life. This is the meaning of me being alive. It is my responsibility to free everyone from all problems and their causes, and to bring them temporary and especially ultimate happiness. The purpose of my life is as vast as infinite space. And you can think about that again and again until some feeling starts to arise in your heart.

In order to be able to offer this extensive service I need to develop wisdom and compassion for all beings. Therefore, I need to be healthy, and I need to have a long life. And it is for this reason that I’m going to do the white light healing meditation. Breathe naturally until you feel that your mind is calm and clear. And then slow down your breathing.

Breathe in slowly. Breathe out slowly. And then every time when you breathe out, visualize that all your present and future diseases and all the cause of problems. Your negative actions and thoughts and the imprints on your mind come out through your nostrils in the form of black smoke, just like from a factory chimney. Every time you breathe out, breathe out your present and future diseases.

Breathe out all the causes of your the causes of your problems. With this, all your disease, spirit harm, negative thoughts and actions, and their imprints come also out in the form of black smoke. Visualize that the smoke completely disappears far beyond this earth. And you can again look into your body and see where it’s dark. See where you feel there is disease, causes of disease, and visualize that you blow it out through your nostrils in the form of black smoke.

It completely disappears out of your sight, far away from you. I feel that with every breath, you become more healthy, both physically and mentally. Your body becomes clean, clear, and so does your mind. All the negativities, all the spirit harm, all the diseases have gone. Now visualize in the space above your head, the sphere of white light, a little smaller than the size of your head and pure, transparent, and formless.

That white light symbolizes the pure holy mind of a Buddha, or to say differently, the omniscient mind of a fully enlightened being. It also represents all universal goodness, love and wisdom. It represents the fulfillment of your own highest potential. Try to concentrate on the presence of this light. It doesn’t have to appear sharply, but if you can get a feel for it that it is there.

The universal goodness, the love, the wisdom, your own highest potential. And then as you breathe in, visualize strong white light coming from that sphere and that goes straight into your heart like sunbeams entering your heart. It slowly spreads to fill your entire body until it completely illuminates your body. And take time for that. Visualize the white light going into your heart.

And with that light, the feeling of love, of universal goodness comes into your heart. And as it fills up your body, all the solid parts of your body dissolve and become light. You can visualize that your skin dissolves, your tissue, your organs, your muscles, your bones. Everything becomes pure, formless, white light. And you can focus on the parts of your body or mind that need healing.

Connect with this sphere of white light. And when you breathe it in, you let it hit that part of you that you feel is carrying sickness with it. It dissolves completely into transparent white light. Your whole solid form disappears. Your body becomes light.

And keep And concentrating on that experience of having a body of light. Think that all your disease, spirit harm, negative thoughts and actions, and the imprints are completely gone and purified. Any disease you have is gone. Your whole body becomes the nature of white light. You have reached the state of wholeness and perfection.

You have no suffering at all. You feel serene and joyful. From the top of your head down to your toes, your whole body is filled with bliss. And then think your life has been prolonged. And the positive energy that you carry with you, which is the cause of happiness and success has been increased.

Your wisdom and compassion are fully developed with you. And if any thought or distraction appears in your mind, just let it dissolve into the white light. And then just as the motivation is very important in Buddhism, the dedication is also very important. So then sincerely dedicate to the happiness of all living beings, the positive energy you just created by doing this meditation. And you can do that by thinking that due to the positive actions and imprints I have created now, those I have created in the past, and also those I will create in the future, may I develop the ultimate good heart and achieve the blissful happiness of full enlightenment.

And may I then lead every living being to the complete peace of mind of enlightenment. Due to all the merit created by generating a positive motivation, and by doing this positive action of meditating, may any living being just by seeing, hearing, touching, remembering, or talking about me, immediately be freed from all obstacles to happiness, from disease, spirit harm, negative actions, and obscurations, and quickly achieve the highest happiness of full enlightenment. And then connect with your body again. Become aware of your body. When you feel ready, slowly open your eyes.

Is that different from sitting with yourself? Better? Yeah. Maybe I’ll I’ll think about it. Because there are meditations where you can mix techniques as relaxation with meditation, and maybe that’s good to start doing that instead of sitting straight with yourself and just observing, especially if there are many unpleasant feelings.

You know, with finding a way how to loosen up all the body so that pleasant feelings can start to arise. Maybe that makes it easier. I’ll enjoy that. Good. So it’s all written down.

You can just follow it. If you need anything, you know, if you feel like, oh, but I actually would like to know this and I would like to have some more information about this, then please ask. Yeah? Because this when this is too much, I also wanna know it. You know, it’s like you can only follow what you can follow.

Don’t push yourself into what you feel is actually too much. Thank you. But you said that you would like to I’ll give you a free book from Lama Yeshe who is it’s not me. Thank you. There’s some other people who make this available.

I just pass it on. But Lama Yeshe has a very good book for you.