Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 67-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang guides practitioners to recognize the survival mechanisms and emotional masks keeping them stuck. Through direct dialogue, he helps each person identify their pattern: one holds suppressed sadness in a “bubble” after a long relationship; another wears a persona of care; others channel rage into building or withdraw entirely. Drawing on Buddhist psychology, he explains how attachment and aversion rooted in our sense of “I” create suffering. The protective walls we build, though once protective, now prevent authentic living and manifest as physical illness. We can’t drop these patterns because we fear we’ll cease to exist without them. Ven Jamyang offers Buddhist practice as a gradual path to redirect the emotional energy trapped within these defenses toward genuine healing rather than mere survival.
File metadata (for organising)
File: part 1.mp3
UUID: 6d0afbfe-5827-4fcc-abb8-f6e404e8f2e5
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Jamyang Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 67.2 minutes
Words: ~8,187
Judy is Judy is on holiday for two weeks. Nick is Judy is the one with the blonde hair. She’s very quiet about your age, I think. Twenty four. So something like that.
A little bit older, I think. I think it’s always a little bit late. Sandy? Sandy, she’s a little bit younger. She’s twenty one.
She has a son who was sick, who’s gonna die. Remember her? And then Janice and Mary, they’re waiting for a taxi. I’m gonna put a little bit more up. Yeah.
They rang at quarter to ten and said, oh, yeah. The taxi think the taxi’s forgotten. And then they have to wait again and and then they have to come from quite far. So they might be half an hour late. But we can start and maybe I’m trying to have some change in time.
That’s That’s fantastic. Work. Maybe if you feel you could put some cushions under your feet if that would be more comfortable. You can you just think about it. I’ll probably I thought you had shorter legs, but as you sit actually quite well like that.
Yeah. How’s everything going? Very, very slow. Very slowly? Something happening.
I’m still waiting. Waiting for? For the bubble to burst inside. Mean, I’ve I’ve hooked up so much stuff. Yeah.
You feel you have a lot of what is there. Yeah. To yeah. To out I’ll let Catherine do it. She knows where it is.
I think I’m still not done it. Grieving. Is it just grief or is it also anger? No anger. No anger?
You’re comfortable. It’s cooked today. Yeah. And there’s something happening. But I don’t Are you saying I’m waiting for the bubble to burst?
Yeah. Because it feels like a bubble. Where is it? Here. There.
And you feel that that wants to Wants to is it preventing you from? Because I’ve swallowed it back so swallowed so often. Yeah. It’s still sitting there. Yeah.
Hello? Oh, that’s quick. Yeah. I said that might take half an hour, but you’re already here. Fantastic.
Well, you just started, so you didn’t miss a thing. So we’re just doing a quick round or maybe it’s a slower round today. I’m not sure. Buddhists are challenging me today. So you have a bubble in here.
That one’s the worst. And you said because I swallowed so much. I swallowed him back so much. Yeah. What did you keep in?
Sadness. And also at times, But then it was not so bad. It’s the sadness of feelings. Why could you not express it? Because for twenty five years, I was in a relationship with her.
Why not? Because it has no use. What would happen if you would express yourself? Not getting heard. So you gave up?
Yeah. What would happen if the bubble bursts? That’s why I’m not piercing the inflatable because it’s so big that I don’t know whether I’m still going to be there when it Right. So it’s scary if it should It is a bit scary. Uh-huh.
But it has to happen. And I’m starting to sort of smile now when I think of it. But So if the bubble burst, how does it look? Tell me what’s gonna happen. It’s probably coming out in in in gallons of tears.
Uh-huh. And and then I’ll feel better, I’m sure. Uh-huh. But I can’t allow it yet for some reason. And I’ve tried.
I’ve tried for two minutes and then I switch it off again. Yeah. Why is you can’t just turn it off on and off the way you like it? If if I try a little bit, I can You hold back straight away. Is that a habit?
Or is that a fear of if I allow that to come out, I will No. It’s it’s a habit of going on coping. Coping. Coping. You’re still coping?
Coping with myself now. Yeah. You’re still coping. You’re still in that mode of coping, just surviving? Yes.
Yes. So if we would see surviving, are we all surviving? Yes? Can we recognize that where we survive? Do we more than survive?
She says I’m coping. But you have the feeling that if that has to burst in order for you to get space from that way of living, to go into another mode of living. How would that other mode look like? Think you gave the answer just. You said, I’m still investing.
This is how you know to survive. You know how to live your life if you do it like this. You know how to get what you want if you live like this. If you stop living like this, you might not get what you want anymore. You might not get what you need anymore.
I don’t know about it at all but the instinct is stronger than my reasoning. Yes. But your instincts has the feeling that if it would give up, you would not get anymore what you want. Well, it’s almost from my instinct, it’s almost a survival thing. Your instinct is a survival thing.
But our survival is based on that. We wanna get what we want. We think I can’t anymore. I can’t anymore get what I want, so I might not forget about it. Why not?
But the only thing beyond what I’ve wanted in the past is still available. But you could think I wanted to have this person, a relationship with this person, and it’s not available. So there’s nothing else. But I think the person is just something that you use, that habit. The force of habit.
The force of habit. And in other words, the dependency of being very young and I’m still hanging on to. Although the person and relationship is not there anymore, you still use the same mechanisms to do anything in your life. Just in that relationship it was very, very big and it was very obvious. But anything you’re doing in your life comes from there.
Good. We’re coping? Just coping? Or while coping? Just Just hanging into it?
What is our way of coping? How do we cope? What happens when we’re coping? We all have the feeling we’re not really living if you cope. You bump along the We’re bumping along the bottom.
Uh-huh. Never going up. A little Is that coping preventing us from living? Living in freedom. Know?
Living. Because it’s very easy to have aversion, isn’t it? Aversion. When does aversion come? You do something that you don’t want to do. Yes, when you have to do something that you don’t want to do, aversion comes.
When you say don’t want, aversion comes. When does aversion come? When we are in a position that we don’t want to be in, then aversion comes. Or? What if we don’t get what we want?
Can develop aversion for lots of people who don’t satisfy our needs. Who don’t give us what we want or who don’t benefit us. So if we don’t get what we want or if we get something that we don’t want, then aversion comes. And that aversion is a coping mechanism, isn’t it? It’s a surviving mechanism.
Somehow that constantly arising in our mind prevents us from really living in freedom. Isn’t it? Before you know it, you’re again in the aversion. You have to fight that and that problem arises and you have to cope with that. It’s all Such a negative energy.
It? The aversion or the Yeah. Aversion. And and any coping mechanism really is is very negative. Mhmm.
Why? Because it’s not really who we are or what we want to be. So Mhmm. It prevents us from from really enjoying Mhmm. Positive positive everything positive in our lives.
Mhmm. The coping is based on fear. Is that right? Fear for? A block?
What are you afraid of? What is it, the fear? So from one side there is the knowledge that oh this coping mechanism is actually negative. You say that’s really negative because it prevents us from who we are but at the same time it’s there. If that really goes then we fear for what is going to happen.
Which keeps you a little bit stuck, isn’t it? Protection. But you get a little bit stuck there, isn’t it? Yeah. But if we don’t have anything to replace that with, that’s when it becomes scary.
And that’s why I think that’s when the fear comes in. The fear comes in. So if if you have something as a to to protect or to replace that with So what do you need to replace? Guess learning to love yourself to start with. But a coping shield helps to protect something.
Yeah. And you say if that shield goes, then you need something to replace that. Is it the shield that needs to be replaced or is it the thing that you want to protect that needs to be replaced? The shield. What do you you still look for protection or?
Not so much for protection but for something that I don’t know how to say it, but I know that, you know, if if you really had a really, really like, a certain coping mechanism that you developed for years and years and years throughout your life, and you can’t just take that away or something, you know, unless you have a lot of awareness and wisdom. It’s really hard to take that away because that’s when people really fall apart. I guess that’s So there’s a fear of falling apart? Yes. I guess that’s what I’m saying.
That’s why I know. It’s very important to find this out because if you see it, can actually use your meditation teachings to work through that. I’m going to spend a little bit of time on that today that we really see that’s what is holding me back and that’s where what I can do in order for that to go. Or maybe you see, oh, it’s maybe not so valid that I’m holding on to that. Oh, but I only have to do this in order to get there where I want to go.
Right? Looking at our own mind can be very scary. So if you say fear of falling apart means you fear that the protection will fall apart or you fear that you the one you are protecting will fall apart? The one that you are protecting. Yeah.
Protecting is falling apart. Yeah. So we call that the ego, you feel your eye is going to fall apart if that protection wall goes. The protection wall is only there to protect the eye. So you’re right, when the protection wall is gone, what is left over there?
I think I’ve had a very interesting experience as being born in nineteen fifty, And coming from that era where women were treated as something that you had in the house to do the jobs, but you didn’t take them very seriously at all. And and you they were just servants fundamentally. And being an only child, I had to get out in the world and fight for existence. And being an only child, when all my family died, I inherited a lot of money in property. And when you go out into the world and you can stand up and be an equal to strong men who have always had their power.
And you haven’t had to be subservient you don’t have to be subservient anymore because the game of life is that if you’re a good little girl, you’ll get really nice presents. And it’s even better if you’re attractive because then you you can work on that. So once you grow up and gain your wisdom and your independence and your power, and you can walk out in the world as an individual and look at any man in the eye or strong woman, which there aren’t too many of these days, but I consider myself one of them there. And men get very, very frightened of women with power. And once you have that power, it is such a wonderful thing that we as women do not or very rarely get that privilege to have their power and be treated as equals and and know within themselves that they are good enough.
And so you don’t need to have any self doubt. And it’s a very nice club to belong to. And I’ll shut up now. Thank you. But it it is just terrific.
That’s one way of getting freedom is breaking out of the role model that is given by society. I think what we’re trying to do here is breaking out of any role model. Breaking out of the role model of the good girl, breaking out of the role model of the I can cope in this world model, breaking out of any role model. So just be free. But any role model.
You know? It’s like it’s it’s we also try to break out of the role model, I’m a strong woman. Even that. Strong person. Just a person.
A person with your We don’t want to be strong. We let go of being strong. We don’t have to be strong. But sometimes the word power can trigger a kind of feeling. What I’m trying to go to is our most soft spot.
The most soft and vulnerable spot that we have in here. That’s what I’m gonna try everybody to connect with today. So in order to get to the soft spot being completely in the soft spot is a strength. But all our role models, they don’t allow us to work with a soft spot. You know?
Some role models, you know, some people as a Dalai Lama can show how to do it. But at the same time, not many role models in normal society how to work with that soft spot. I think he’s a very powerful person. He is a very powerful person. But to really learn to connect with that soft spot inside can be very scary because you can have the feeling I won’t be protected anymore or you can have the feeling I won’t exist anymore, I will fall apart, whoever I am.
Because we’re holding on to something. Most of us are still surviving. Right? Maybe you have gone beyond that but most of us are still surviving. I think most of the people here are still surviving so I want them to give opportunity to to to see that surviving mechanism and to see what to do, how to let go of that, which is not an easy thing because a whole instinct says, I have to do that.
This is the way I cope. This is the way I live. This is the way I This is the way I know myself. If I don’t do this anymore, who am I? Everything falls apart.
Everything that we build up our whole life, we might have the feeling that that will go. True. You recognize that, Mary? Very much. What is your coping?
I sometimes don’t. You sometimes don’t. That’s also a way of coping, isn’t it? So what happens to you if you help others, if you focus on others? What do you do for yourself in that?
But if you look at you coping, what is what is your you say, what is your way of coping? Coping sometimes, I think, it’s like I hear people saying it’s like something that you build up as a protection, like a protection shield. Some it’s like a a way how we believe we exist. We know that it’s not our real self, but somehow we have the feeling that is who I exist. You could even think maybe it’s like a mask that we put on, that we know that if we are like that, then we are accepted, we know how to survive, we know how to be friendly, we know how to get what we want, get what we need, not get what we don’t want.
How does that mask look like? Very habituated. Longer in this life, I can promise you. She hasn’t soaked yet but she says I have had it for a long, long time. And does that mean that your mask means I’m not showing my true feelings?
No. Not really. I think the the mask used to do that. That used to be I’m not trying — I’m showing my true feelings and, used to wear makeup. But Mhmm.
Don’t wear makeup. Mhmm. It all helps, isn’t it? Then you shave your head and then you The mask if if I listen to you, I hear that you have quite a beautiful mask. A mask that, you know, like a person that you really wanna be with, who is caring, who is loving.
And then you say, but what is underneath is that there is also a lot of turmoil, a lot of anger, a lot of hurt. If that, you know, if you’re going to think about I want to drop my mask, that must be very scary too. Because other people say, Oh, if I would drop my mask, I’m going to get freedom. You overcome the fear like you don’t have anything like that. Yeah.
But that’s what we’re trying to develop, to see what is really there. Also, first you have to recognize I have a mask and the mask is coming as a surviving mechanism and that looks in a certain way. Certain people survive. They become very angry. They become, you know, they show with a whole attitude: Stay away from me.
Don’t touch me. Don’t do this. Other people become very loving and caring and that’s the way of surviving. It’s still all a mask, you know. And person who is pushing people away or the person who is loving and caring can actually experience the same kind of turmoil deep inside, can experience the same kind of hurt, can experience the same kind of sadness.
Maybe have gone through a similar trauma but their coping mechanism was just different. Then you appear as a different person. But either way, if we first of all, you know, you have this mask in order to protect you from your hurt. But then I think that hurt is still not our true self. That hurt is still an ego that is hurt.
That’s not who we are in essence. In essence, there is inner goodness underneath everything. Yeah? I think having a mask and not showing what you feel and having a lot of feelings going behind that mask, that that is something that is actually very unhealthy for the mind and for the body. That’s like, you know, it’s like constant destruction that can go on.
Can you can you you do you know that? Your tummy is reacting to it. Are you aware of that? And that if you would find a way that you can allow these feelings to arise and to somehow dissolve out of your system, you know, and that that is the first start of healing. No.
So you need other tools to do it. I’m so sorry. That’s my phone. I actually don’t want to go there. What I want to know is, you know, because that’s very personal and I think what is important is that we respond to something.
We respond with anger. We respond with aversion or that’s when we don’t get what we want or if we get something that we don’t want. Then anger comes up. That’s for everybody similar. True?
For everybody similar. Us wanting something very strongly, that’s what we call attachment in Buddhism. You can can say, Oh, I don’t have any needs. I don’t want anything. I’m very content.
But you can see how content we are if we don’t get what we actually want. Because then if anger arises, or if we have anger arising many times in our mind, we can assume that we actually have a lot of attachment. But maybe we’re very good in getting what we want and then we can say, I actually don’t have much attachment because you just get every time what you want. Then you can really see your attachment, isn’t it? Well, what’s that?
We all have that. That’s how we live. That’s because we have first of all, we have the feeling of I. We have the feeling I exist. I am.
I am this person. I am a person. I am a human being. I am something different from other beings. So the feeling of I gives us the feeling of others.
And on the basis of that feeling, of the feeling of I, we have feelings arising in our mind. Because there is an I, there are things that the I likes and the I doesn’t like. So when things arise that we like, naturally we want to have something from that. Naturally we want to have more of that. So that means that every time when I get what I want or I feel benefited, I’m happy.
Right? So then what we do is not just we have that experience: if I get what I want, I’m happy. So then what we do is say I want to get what I want. Because then I feel happy. We want to have happy feelings so I have to get what I want.
And that is what we chase. Then we also have to experience if something comes that harms the I, we don’t feel happy. Our whole instinct of surviving can be triggered. I don’t want that. This has to stop.
That’s based on the feeling of an I. If that happens one time imagine in one lifetime we were almost, I don’t know, killed because of something. We get this huge aversion because we want to be alive. On the basis of that we might create a habit of every time when something comes that threatens the I, even if it’s on a it can be on a physical level but it can be on an emotional level, it can be on a mental level something that criticizes the I, that says something painful, something rude, something aversion is there. That person is harming me.
I don’t want that. That whole attachment and that whole aversion, that’s how we cope. That’s how we deal with everything in life. Because we have the I there that we have to take care of. We have the feeling there is this person, me, here and here.
I have to take care of that person. I have to protect the person. I have to make that person happy. I have to make sure that that person gets what it needs. If I have this and this and this, I can function like this.
We want the person to function properly. The better we get what we want, the better we function. So we have learned that if all these things are coming together, then I can function. If I don’t have that, I can’t function. So we depend on all these things coming together.
So we’re very good in finding our way through that. Buddhism says this is all coping. This is all surviving. If that is the only thing we do with our life, that’s the only thing Buddhism says don’t do it, but Buddhism says it’s the only thing that we are doing with our life. Our life is empty.
Our life feels meaningless. Our life feels like, why am I doing all this for? Right? Even wanting to be healthy. If the only thing you’re doing is getting more what you want or trying to resist what you don’t want, you know, it’s not gonna give you the happiness or the peace what you’re looking for.
It leaves you behind empty. Is that true? So as soon as our health doesn’t function anymore, we’ve that shows us very strongly, I cannot get anymore what I want. Or I cannot do anymore what makes me feel good. Right?
And you must feel that very, very bad. Which means that that surviving mechanism that doesn’t cope anymore, that doesn’t give you that doesn’t serve you as it served you before. Right? Before it had a function. Before it did give you what you wanted.
Before and now it doesn’t function anymore. So you’re looking for other ways to cope. Right? Buddhism actually says try to stop coping. Stop coping in a way you always cope.
Coping, you know, it’s like for instance, you learned can I use you as an example? You had a body that functioned very well. And I think you are a very good manager somehow. I can see how you can direct everybody in the right direction. That also gives you control.
You know? And then if things bubble up and you you you know, I think that you learn from very early on how to be assertive, how to be good to people, how to be loving to people, how to be and with all the turmoil inside, you cope with that yourself by going to the beach and by screaming and by running hard. I don’t know what you all did but you did something to get to unload that energy. Then the body starts to function less and less because I think that turmoil maybe maybe is part of why why you know, I feel maybe your neurons even get destroyed by that turmoil. Can you understand that?
Yeah. So then you look for other ways how to deal with that turmoil. Right? So how so you you you find other ways how to deal with that. But this turmoil is still there.
Right? And turmoil is that what is the destructive thing. That is what destroys your health. That is what keeps you suffering. That is what keeps you continuing this circle.
You know, it’s like you keep on engaging in activities in the same way again and again and again. And even your body tells you you’re getting sick, you still keep on doing it because you don’t have any other way how to do it. True? So so you keep on looking like, but how can I do it? No.
This doesn’t work anymore. No. I can’t scream. Oh, maybe you can still scream a little bit, but you can’t throw with the sand anymore. You can’t do this anymore.
So how do I do it? So you still find a way how to unload that energy somehow. But that way is still the same way you’re using. Right? Can you see that?
No. I want you to no. Not no. Later. Is that okay?
What Buddhism says is that way, that is the actual thing that makes us sick or that is the actual thing that makes us suffer. You know? And this kind maybe we might all suffer from something or feel sick or feel you know, our body doesn’t function well. But it doesn’t matter if if you know, other people I don’t know. I suffered for many, many years of pain.
Just pain in my body. Pain everywhere. My whole system was full of pain and I had the same kind of tendency I think, you know, this turmoil and just keep on reacting in the same way, on coping in the same way. Not stopping doing that because somehow there is the urge or that’s the only thing you know you know to do it like that. Right?
But that is what makes us sick. That is what makes us suffer. That whole mechanism. Right? So Buddhism is about how can we change that mechanism so that we still have that energy.
Right? We’re not going to say I don’t have anger, don’t have pain, I don’t have jealousy. We all have that. That’s okay. We’re not going to change that.
Say these feelings arise due to previous actions. So we can cannot stop that. There’s also no intention to stop that. We just let it arise. But what we can do is we can direct that energy, redirect that energy in a different way.
So when it comes up that we not use it in the same way as we used to do it, because somehow we know. We all know, oh, I just have to let it bubble burst or I just have to drop this wall, then I’ll be free. But at the same time, we have never ever gone there. And we feel that the reason why we build it up was to to to make ourselves exist. So if you’re gonna drop it, we don’t exist anymore.
Isn’t it? So dropping it is very scary. So you cannot just do that like that. Your whole body will resist it. Your whole system will resist it because that’s your surviving.
Right? This is how you have learned to feel good. This is how you have learned to protect yourself from not feeling good or from being harmed. So we cannot just drop it. Not possible.
But maybe we can shift the energy inside so that it naturally comes down slowly, slowly. Right? In a safe way. So we don’t have to rip it open. Right?
You don’t have to drown in your tears. One body one you one little boy once said to me, he had this huge sadness over him. And I said, why don’t you cry? And he said, if and we I had a big, big room where I always played with the kids. And he said, oh, if I start crying, we will both drown.
I have so many tears, he said. We will drown. You’re a little boy. So we’re not gonna drown. We’re not gonna let the tears out all straight away, but we might be able to find a way how we how we use our energy in a different way so energy is not about protecting.
What it is, is I want to protect myself. I want to take care of myself. So if we’re going to use more wisdom in how to protect ourselves and how to care for ourselves, then that whole system that we build up can slowly break down. It’s like we rewind that. The way how we have protected ourselves now is actually harmful for us.
That’s what I’m saying. You see that? Can you see that, Janice? I haven’t spoken to you yet. I can see you thinking jump for me.
No. You’re thinking that. No. First, we have to recognize that the way how we cope, the way how we protect ourselves, the way how we get things, that that actually leads to our suffering. So that we are at least prepared to find another method of how to protect ourselves and how to care for ourselves.
True? We first have to see, oh, you know, it’s actually creating a mask. It’s actually creating a wall. It’s actually creating a situation that I’m in a big bubble or, you know, that that I store things in my body or in my mind and I can’t get rid of it. There is a way of coping that is not helpful for myself which makes it hard for myself to live.
Can you see that? And we need a strong clarity about that. Can you see that alone? You recognize all that? How is that in your culture?
Same. Same? Same as what we all do? Mhmm. That becomes a personality, isn’t it?
It becomes a personality. Mhmm. A character. Oh, that person has a strong character, we say. Yeah.
So somehow we do it first in order to get what we want and then at a certain point we cannot get out of it anymore, isn’t it? We get trapped. We get yeah. We’re all prostitutes. Anyway, it’s true.
It is. It’s true. But sometimes it’s shocking to talk that strain. Not for me. In order to get what we want, do anything, isn’t it?
That’s that’s that’s what you mean. Yeah. But then at a certain point, you you you do build up that expectation. This is who I am. And then people want you to be like that.
And then at a certain point, you feel like, oh, but actually, I I don’t wanna be like that anymore, isn’t it? Then you wanna get out of that. And then people don’t accept that or people get upset or people try to stop you from changing. That is what makes changing so difficult. You’re not the same person anymore.
Why is that? That’s what people say. Yes. You have changed. You Yes.
You have changed and not for the good. I tell you. Not for the good. And why do people say that about us? Because it’s hurting.
They don’t know who you are anymore. Yes, but why? Harmful. They experience us harm. Why is that?
Because they think you’re hurting them. You’re hurting them because you take maybe the old person away? Yes. You don’t benefit them anymore in the way you did before? Your benefit to them becomes different.
Well, I times that the moment I was honest with my partners, there was always this feeling of being threatened. But people so People like us because we benefit them. As soon as we don’t benefit people anymore, they don’t like us anymore. That’s just how it is. If someone does something with us that we don’t like, well, it’s finished.
Somebody really needs to diss. It’s amazing how cruel that is. It’s not that you’ve been so subservient for so many years, and then you when you finally back up, you find that we really didn’t like you anyway. And anyway, we’ve changed. And you’re being used.
So what we’re trying to do is I think this is what many times happens with therapy. You start to look into all these things that you build up in your life and the things that don’t serve you anymore. You try to get rid of that. So then when you try to get rid of that, you decide to be more honest in who you are and you’re just going to express that. So then you hurt people in doing that and people walk away from you and you lose all your friends and you build up new friends and then you come in a new layer and you realize, oh, but I’m not really myself.
You know, I’m still hiding for something or I still haven’t digested something. So you go through that new layer and you go through the whole thing again. You know, you hurt people around you. Buddhism does that different. That’s the worst thing.
It’s changing all your friends. We’re not going to change our friends. We’re not going to change I think what Buddhism tries to do is you try to change yourself but you also try to benefit others. Both not with lying, not not being honest but what you still try to do is not to harm them in the process. Us going through a change means they’re going to lose us maybe.
They’re going to lose somebody that benefited them. That’s already harmful enough. That’s already painful enough. So maybe we can help them through that pain. Maybe we’re not only just saying Oh, you know, you’re not benefiting me.
I’m going be straight with you now. But maybe somehow we can if we see that that relationship is not going to remain maybe we can somehow do that so that other person receives as less harm as possible in our change. Right? So we, what we want to do with Buddhism is start to take care more or different care about ourselves so that all these emotions that are in us are not going to destroy us but actually somehow can benefit us, that we use that energy to benefit us, to grow, to Buddhism says, anything that arises in the mind, we can use on a path to enlightenment if we use if we redirect it. So we can use it to grow spiritually.
Growing spiritually also means that it’s healthy for the mind, that it’s healthy for the body. Growing spiritually and destroying the body is not possible in Buddhism. You know? It’s just everything has to go into the same direction. It can be that on your path you get really sick and you go through a lot of what we call purification but eventually you come out better.
That’s where you want to go. I don’t have a clock. I do have a clock. Eleven o’clock. I just want to know where you are before we have a break.
That’s okay. Where am I at? Yeah. If you if you look at creating, you know Catherine, she’s she felt like somehow there is a wall, a protection wall, and she feels I have a bubble inside that wants to burst. Mary told a little bit about how she feels that she has learned to Right.
How did you learn to cope? I build things. Mhmm. Fix things. You are like that?
Or you build do you build walls or you you rip No. No. I build things. You know? Build?
Yep. Uh-uh. That’s my way of coping Uh-huh. With confrontation I don’t feel good today or something. I paint or I build or I fix something or Uh-huh.
I sew something or And then your energy shifts and you feel good again. Uh-huh. But I still have lots of mass. I do the mass. Uh-huh.
So this is a release for your energy. That’s quite a constructive way of or do you do it destructive? Constructive. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I don’t like aggression Mhmm. Or that confront basic confrontation. I prefer someone to sit and talk to me. Mhmm.
But over the last six months, I’ve had a lot oh, no. A couple of years. Definitely over the last six months, I’ve had a lot of in your face, aggressive, nasty conversation, and I don’t deal with that at all. What do you do if you don’t deal? Run away.
Run away. You run away? Yeah. What happens inside? Oh, I feel sick.
Uh-huh. Does it come all in? You know, it just caves in. I just lose it completely. I’ve gotta get out.
Uh-huh. I don’t like aggression, but I’ve but I’ve been put in position where I just just really just like to hit them. Uh-huh. So I run away. I get away.
I don’t want that. I don’t wanna think that I will ever do that. So Yeah. Gotta get out of there. I go in my shed, and I build something.
Yeah. Yeah. I’m just trying to think about the energy, what happens in in your body. Because there’s a lot of energy happening, isn’t it, in confrontations. And there’s a lot of exchange and sometimes a lot of absorbing which might not be yours.
Adopting energy of others when you can’t cope. So what I what I notice a little bit is that your first reaction is to collapse and allow that to come in. Yeah. Of course. And then that sits in your stomach and then you get really sick.
And then part of you wants actually to get angry, but you don’t allow that anger to arise. So then you run away. You That’s my question. What’s that anger? Sorry?
I wanted to ask that question before, and you stopped me. But it was, what do you do with the anger? What she’s doing with the anger? Yeah. You were just generally.
Generally. Generally. Yeah. What what should you do with the anger? Is that your question?
What should you do with the anger? I think it was when Mary was down at the beach and one with the shaved head and screamed. That was my question then, was what should she have done with her anger when you’ve come the full circle, and now you’re asking her. No, I’m not talking about what we’re going to do with anger. What I’m trying to pinpoint is where is the energy going.
Was very clear where Mary’s energy was going. Are you concerned about anything in general? Is that right? We’re going to talk about that after the break. What you do with that energy.
We’ll talk about that after the break. Okay? First we have to see where we are at now. First we have to know what is my tendency to do because that energy we have to use somehow. We have to utilize that energy but then in a different way so that it benefits you and it benefits others.
That’s what we’re trying to do. So I have a feeling that you first that you don’t feel strong to stand there and protect yourself somehow. There is no protection. So things come straight in and then you absorb it and then you have to do things to get rid of it again. And sometimes you’re angry but you don’t allow yourself to be angry.
Isn’t it? Anger can sometimes be if you have if you’re not a a Buddhist path, anger can help to to drop that energy that the other people drop into you. You know? If you scream back, it actually can help you to get rid of that energy, to clean your system out. But I’m not saying that we’re to cultivate that because that’s not part of Buddhism.
Buddhism actually says that everything that you adopt is yours. The moment you adopt angry at me and I get overwhelmed, you know. It comes out of the blue and it’s like I feel the anger in my body and I get really sick of that. Buddhism says the moment that happens, it’s yours. You deal with that.
You cope with that. You have taken it on. That takes a lot of wisdom, isn’t it? How not to take it on. Sorry?
So maybe that’s where you find each other because you know how to do that. Don’t yell at one another. Yes, you could learn that from Mary. But if you see what you need to learn is how to use that energy in a constructive way somehow. And Janice is quite good in that.
Love making things. But it’s a constructive way of doing it, isn’t it? So I think your energy might have to find a way to first construct something from it instead of going into destruction. And then slowly you can, go in another direction. That’s nice to see that you both have a quite symbiotic relationship.
Eventually we go there that we are independent in that, isn’t it? That we both have all the strength. Good. Your way of coping. I’m just on another tangent at the moment.
I get a lot of passive aggressive from particularly bullies because I have got my confidence now, and I am not, you know, a little woman. I do get these and the reason I’m here is that I’ve had a house full of tradesmen for the last three months. And because I’m you know, the the brute is they would the I selected selected incorrectly, and you would say that’s my karma. But I’m not saying that. Well, that’s what the theory is.
But having these sorts of people doing work, And I I get this passive aggressiveness from them because I’m not I’m no longer subservient and playing the game, and I’m I’m me. I’m I’m just a and I don’t know how to do deal with it. And I’ve had this reaction from these types of men, and I’ve taken on that energy. And I’ve ended up here in this healing course to try and learn how to cope, bringing on these energies into myself. And I don’t know how to the only way I know how to escape from that sort of thing now is to keep those sort of energies out of my home, which is my sacred space.
Mhmm. And that’s what I need to learn. And and anger, I am angry that there are such brutes out in the world. And one little example was one of these sods brought this little four year old daughter along, and she was mixing a compound with her hands, and it was all going up into her face. And she was a darling little girl, and I was so cross that they would bring this child to my home.
And I and I said, you’re supposed to wear breathing equipment to you to to mix this compound, and there’s this little mixing with her bare hands. I I washed her hands. The next minute, she’s back trying to impress daddy doing it again. And and I just found that absolutely horrible. How did you cope as a child?
Was No. You. Did I? Cope as a child. Well, I didn’t.
How did you survive? What role did you play? What mask did you put on? Always both my parents were professional, and I was just dumped. Dumped.
How did you feel about that? Well, you don’t really know any different until you get later in life and you see what happy family is really all about. Mhmm. And you suddenly realize how much you didn’t have. Uh-huh.
Yeah. But then you see that other people are adopted or orphaned or so then you Also have problems? Realized that, yes, I did have some loving people in my family, so I better learn to You felt that you that there was not much love? I was terrorized on one side and overly indulged on another. So there was a Mhmm.
But how did you, as a girl right? How do you how do you survive? Is it did you become in a go into a space of not even reacting anymore, or did you I became an artist. I went into my room, and I drew pictures and ran away. You ran away?
Well, that was my way of running inside. Was just drawing. I became a really good artist. Yeah. But running away, is that something that you did inside?
I never thought about it. Is that emotionally running away? What? I was a tomboy. I don’t know.
I’ve never thought about it. I’ll have to think about it. It’s like, you know, we all have circumstances in our life which are not easy. I think we all had a portion in that. And we we we react to whatever has happened to us in a certain way.
Right? Some people become angry inside and look very good outside. Some people suppress everything inside and look angry outside. Some people, we all have a different way. We all have a different character in how to cope.
Right? After the break. Think about it in the break. How did I cope? What is my specific way of coping?
Because that makes us to break out with dermatitis and allergies and itching, and that I think that’s how I cope was tear herself to pieces with that. Tear yourself to pieces. Very sick. So I beat myself up really well. Right. That’s what you did.
Mhmm. And then we compensated for it by covering up, as you said, with makeup and nice clothes and But inside, there was a lot of anger towards yourself. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Turmoil.
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So we have to learn how to redirect that energy, isn’t it? That’s where your question came from.
Yes. Okay. We’ll do that after the break. Oh, we make a start with that. That’s a big, big project.
It’s not easy to really get it, you know, but because I still don’t really get it, I think. So I’ll try to give you what I did get or what I heard here, how to do it, and maybe haven’t, you know. But it’s not easy for the mind to let go, that habit that we have had for such a long time. We are so used to it. It has served us for so many years.
It has helped us to survive for such a long time. It had also brought us into problems many, many times. But somehow we feel it still serves us more than that it gives us suffering. So it’s not easy to try maybe we just try another method, you know, and don’t give too much attention to how we survive. Just maybe when it arises that we see it.
Oh, there it is, my surviving. Okay? You’re looking forward to the next session? Yes. Okay.
Let’s have a cup of tea first. Okay.