Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this session, Ven Jamyang guides students to identify one benefit from their current sickness or difficulty. He frames the teaching: our habitual reaction “I don’t like this, I don’t want this” is based on wrong perception and creates 90 percent of suffering, not the circumstance itself. He distinguishes unavoidable physical pain from the mental elaboration — screaming, blaming, resistance — which is where we actually suffer. Then students share struggles: chronic illness, aging parents, disability, grief, single parenthood. Each time someone names a benefit discovered — coming to practice, learning compassion, developing patience — the teaching deepens. A picture emerges: suffering, when met with curiosity rather than flight, becomes a teacher. It purifies karma, dissolves pride, reveals what matters in being human. Pitched at practitioners familiar with Buddhist concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2007 10 30 jamyang – 301007 session 1.mp3
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Mind Healing (Ven Jamyang)
Date: 2007-10-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~8,626
No sheet. You’re gonna get a sheet today with the meditation. Welcome. We have had six six classes so far, so we’re halfway after twelve. Normally, I review a little bit every time, but, of course, I cannot say everything that we have been been doing for the last six weeks.
So we’re just going ahead. And if there are really big things that you feel you wanna be filled in, then we can maybe do that in the break or afterwards. Is that okay? So what we have been talking about last time was about and the time before there too is that when something unpleasant happens to us, we have the normal response of I don’t like this, I don’t want this. We’re trying to avoid it.
We’re trying to push it away. We’re trying to get around it. We’re trying not to feel it. We’re trying not to know. We have many many mechanisms mechanisms so that we don’t have to experience what we know we actually are going to experience.
And we’re doing that because we want to be happy and we share the wish to be happy with all sentient beings. Every being who has feelings which is human beings, which is animals and according to Buddhism there are many many more beings all over in space that we can’t see. All these beings have in common that we are constantly looking for happiness and that we’re trying to avoid suffering. But, so in our attempt to look for happiness we are pushing away any experience that comes to us that we don’t like and that we experience as something harmful and what we’re doing is we really like things that are pleasant so we’re constantly looking for the things that give us pleasant feelings. According to Buddhism that habit that we all have which is based on I want to be happy is actually unskillful and is actually creating a lot of suffering for us.
Can you remember that? So what we’re trying to do, what we’re saying I want to be happy. I’m in the circle of that universe that wants to be happy and from that perspective I try to get what I think I need to be happy and I try to avoid what I think is going to harm me. So according to Buddhism we are living in a kind of how to say it? Are somehow blinded by that view of ‘I’.
That we have this very strong feeling that we have this being or this person inside us that we have to nourish, that we have to take care of, that view according to Buddhism is not realistic. Way we perceive it is not the way it really exists. So on the basis of a wrong perception we are constantly creating actions in order to feel good. And in order not to feel suffering. Because it’s based on a wrong view it’s never going to give us what we really want.
Does that make sense? If that feeling of I was the right view then we would really succeed in what we’re trying to do. But because we’re not succeeding we are doing something somewhere wrong. Isn’t it? And Buddhism says because on the basis of everything is a view that doesn’t really exist.
That means that we’re never going to get what we want if we keep on doing it in the same way as we always have been trying to do it. And we know from experience, know, if we were having the right way of finding happiness we would have found it already and we haven’t. So there must be something wrong. So Buddhism says the main reason why we feel the biggest part of the suffering is you know we cannot avoid if we’re going to be cut we cannot avoid that the skin goes open, the blood comes out, we are in that aspect born you know we cannot avoid that. But what we can avoid is what comes afterwards.
Us screaming, Maa! Look what happened to me! It’s this person’s fault! And then all the reactions that come afterwards. Right?
We cannot control that body. We cannot stop the body from bleeding if somebody would cut us but we can look at our reaction to what happens to us. The harder we scream, the more unhappy we are. And if we check that we would all know that. It’s just so hard not to scream, isn’t it?
It’s just so hard to stop doing that. So what we did last time is that because we have a strong reaction, if something comes to us that we don’t like, if I don’t like it and because we recognize that that reaction is actually because of our suffering, a big part of our suffering, if we could stop reacting in that way we think ninety percent of our suffering would be gone if we could really stop that. A little part, we cannot stop that but that’s something you know. We only have the ten percent left we say pfft, it really doesn’t matter. But what really hurts is that ninety percent that we’re creating ourselves.
What Buddhism does, if we get sick for whatever reason, we don’t like that. We have the feeling something is wrong with us. We feel that we are not in control. We feel that we are suffering. We feel that our body is doing something that we don’t like.
We feel limited in what we can do. All things I don’t like, I don’t like, I don’t like. So you create this that gives internally the reaction I don’t want this. A very strong aversion. You try to find ways around it so that you don’t have to feel it.
You try, maybe you pretend you’re not sick maybe you don’t want to think about it. Maybe you find other ways that you can be strong because you’re weak there and you can be strong there. All kinds of psychological ways to get around it. But essence is still we want to get around it. We don’t want to feel it.
We don’t want to have a sickness. We don’t want to feel that we are not in control. We don’t want to feel that things happen to us and we don’t know why they happen and we don’t know how to respond to them. We don’t want to feel like that. Because we don’t want to feel we suffer more.
So what we tried to do last week is to say, Okay, if we could change that attitude in maybe there’s something really good in being sick. If we could see that the sickness is benefiting us we say ‘I want it’, you know. We wouldn’t have a bad idea. But you can imagine that if you feel that there is a benefit coming from the sickness your attitude of ‘I don’t want it’ will shift. Part of you will say, Ah, there is something good in that.
If we meet a person who is harming us, we say, I don’t want to be with that person. That’s a nasty person. That person is not good for me. I don’t want to be there. But if that person, if we would see that person is benefiting us then suddenly it becomes a person that is attractive.
Oh, that person is benefiting me in some way. I want to be with that person. Or I want to make a connection with that person or suddenly we are more able to open our heart and even if we don’t want to be close to the person we allow the person to come closer to us. True? Or not?
I can see the logic in that. I live with a really abusive stepsons. Uh-huh. Violent. I pushed him away.
Of course. So I’m not saying, if somebody is violent to you you should stop reacting that way. Right? We’ll go into that later how you do that exactly. You’re a little bit distracted?
Yeah and then you see what she does. She goes completely there. That’s what we’re doing. This is attractive. Oh, go there.
Oh, I don’t like this. I go the other way. We all have this. You know? This is so deep in us.
We can’t stop doing it. If we could see the benefit of something, then we can say then we can somehow invite it more into our life which means that our resistance to us will lessen which means that we suffer less from our own resistance which means that we can bear whatever has happened to us much easier. Do I agree with that intellectually? What about It’s hard work, isn’t it? You can see.
So this goes against our feelings, our instinct. I want to be happy. And then when we really apply logic, then that is not so beneficial for us, that reaction. And then we get into in Buddhism, that is the transformation of the mind. We’re saying there is a reaction in my mind that is not helping me.
So I have to find a way how I can shift that reaction so that it’s gonna benefit me more. Because if I can see that things benefit me Hello, come in. This is Suzanne. You thought about it. Could you get her chair Nick?
This is Suzanne. Oh, Susan. Susan. I’m sorry. Susan has been coming to many meditations and Thank you.
Introduction to Buddhism, isn’t it? No. No. No. Need to see it on Monday night.
Yeah. And a Saturday. You came a few times on a Saturday. In the early days before you changed the Yeah. Posture.
Yes. And I’ve had terrible trouble fitting in my posture ever since. We’re thinking about the benefits of being sick. Something light. If we can make this shift, you know, it will become light.
The more we can see the benefits, the more we can laugh with it, the more we can just let it be, the less we will suffer from it. Know, but in the beginning, it’s like your ego says like, what? I don’t wanna accept that. I don’t wanna have that. I don’t wanna do this.
I don’t wanna you know? That’s the normal reaction of the ego. No way I’m gonna go there. But your mind, your logic can see, oh, if I could go there, it will be there. And it’s like when they cannot do this overnight.
Some people can but I’m already working for years and I still can’t. You know it’s hard work. It’s hard work to really see as soon as somebody starts harming you to see, Oh that’s beneficial or how can it be of benefit. I have a friend who says, Everything that happens to me I say welcome. I invited him on life and I think how can you do that?
But that’s actually the practice, you know, and she somehow can apply that. I’m not ready yet to do that but I’m trying. You might be ready to do that. So the homework that I gave you is thinking about the benefits of your situation now. You have trouble with that one, isn’t it?
I do, yeah. You have trouble thinking about the benefits? Coming up with any of them. Yeah. How many have you found?
A couple. That’s good. Shall we go around and see what benefits are there for being sick? Is that an idea or not? Or having problems?
Not really. But even if you have one, even if you have one benefit and you keep on thinking about but that has a benefit, that can help you to get a little bit of space from your mind that is suffering, you know. But it has a benefit. So even one, I think, is very precious. Because nature is to say No, I don’t want this.
This is harmful, you know. So if you see one little good thing that shifts a little bit that very strong attitude that is there naturally. You want to start? Give me one. I’m going to ask everybody one.
You have the most difficult one. Of having or having problems or So you made a very good friend? And the thing that you had to stop fighting and accepting, is that a positive thing or a negative thing? Well, it’s the old I’m sick of going fight with Yeah. So is that good that you can let that go?
Why? So you have to give up what you feel is your nature and that feels like painful. Remodel it. Letting go of that instinctive reaction, you know, and we feel we are our reaction, you know. So what you’re saying, for me, that makes a lot of sense.
You know? We feel I am the fighter. Then if your your life situation shows you, you can’t be that anymore because it makes you actually more sick. That’s like an identity crisis that you can go through, but that’s me. You Then who am I when I let it go?
Right? But what happens if you let it go? What do you find? So you’re still looking into how your new you looks like? Yes.
Yeah. Awful lot of trouble saying the need it is now. And doing that for me, it was. Mhmm. Physically, your image is just.
Yeah. Your mental image? What you thought you were and what you really liked about yourself is all going. That’s the battle. And we do have that identification with who we are, how we look like, with our body very strongly, how we function in society, how we all feel that’s me, me, that’s me.
According to Buddhism we’re all not that. Our essence is not that. Our essence is something else. In Buddhism we say that’s the ego, that’s what helps us to survive. And some people have very good fortune, they are good looking, they have many good qualities.
Some people have not such a good fortune. Beautiful or we think their body is not so beautiful or they think their body is not so beautiful. It’s like it’s all relative. Or they don’t have so much capacity to learn or they don’t have you know and we have a thought about that. We somehow value certain qualities better than other qualities.
According to Buddhism that is all not us. All these qualities are not what we really are. We are what is beyond that. And one life we can have very good fortune, another life we can have very bad fortune. That doesn’t make us a lesser being, that doesn’t make us a better being, that doesn’t make us something else you know.
And that can be hard to let if you have a very good fortune. It’s letting go of good fortune, isn’t it? You can’t access that anymore. You’re quite amazing because you must have seen that you still have the potential for all these qualities that you embodied. That potential hasn’t gone.
That’s still in your mind. They will still be there in your next life but they’re not gone. And it’s maybe good to recognize that. Although your body doesn’t function that way but the qualities are not really gone. And you have been able to overcome that first disability in your life which is already quite amazing.
Right? I think many people who would have had the same as you would not have been capable of doing that. But you have the quality that you can do that. So you can also think that if you would not have had the qualities you might have been much worse off than you are now. Now.
Because these qualities make that you can bear it the way you can bear it. A training exercise. Definitely. And if you can appreciate, you know, and and I I mean, I I always have two things. One part of me hates it and the other part thinks, wow, if I could do this.
You know? Two thoughts. I always experience two sides. I’m not ready to only experience that good side. So this is maybe what we all go through.
Do we recognise that? That we have this identity that we build up and that by the things that happen to us we cannot hold on to that identity? We have to let it go. We are somebody different than we thought we were. You know, especially when you’re sick you have to give something up.
Isn’t it? Or when you grow older you have to give something up. Something that was function good. You have to let it go. Per se that there’s more to it than just those values, I think.
Yeah. A lot more. Which for some reason, we tend not to dwell. Yeah. Even though yeah.
They’re they’re actually a lot more important than the sensibly surface ones. Sensibly The surface ones seem to bring more comfort on a day to day basis. They definitely do bring that. They give us short term happiness. That’s the one who gives us the short term happiness.
Straight Straight away. That’s why we have to use our intellect and say but that’s only very short term and that happiness that we get is So we’re never going to be satisfied. So we never get what we really want. So we, you know, it’s like it is important because if you would constantly have misery in our life we would not be able to sit here and think about life. In order to do this we need a kind of comfort, a certain level of comfort.
Feeling happy is important because when we’re happy we’re much more capable to bear whatever comes to us. So I’m not saying that short term happiness is not important, right? But it is a very short term happiness. It serves us on a day to day basis but somehow What we do with Buddhism is we try to make sure that we have that short term happiness until we reach the final goal. Know, it’s not that we want to give that up.
But that’s not the main thing that we’re living for. That’s not the main thing that we’re grasping at because if we do that we realize that we only create more suffering, more suffering, more suffering eventually. Right? But of course what we’re doing is we reinforce mechanism that we have that I don’t want to have the suffering, I only want to have the happiness. We reinforce that again and again and again if we are looking for that short term happiness.
Right? If we can step away a little bit from that, still enjoy any short term happiness that is there, still create causes that we have that but then at the same time connect with that what is going to give us deeper happiness or more lasting happiness or more stable happiness. We’re trying to do both at the same time. One benefit of having a problem. Well, it wasn’t very easy.
I liked Anna’s comment, which I that it brought me to brought to Buddha House. Was a benefit. Yeah. Yep. That’s good.
I can’t understand because she said it. No. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay.
Another one. You said I can’t hear her. Oh. Forgot. And I don’t feel a little benefit of being sick, but I do find a benefit of being diagnosed Right.
That’s huge. So that means that every day that you have now, you know, is of benefit. That’s huge. That’s a big one, actually, if you could remember that every morning. I only have this because of that.
I get goose pimples. But are you also lacking gratitude for every day in your life? Mhmm. Yeah. Kind of.
You would prefer to be alive than to have died. At the time, no. Yeah. But now? Yeah.
No. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a benefit. No. Otherwise, you would still feel like, I wish I had died. But because you see there’s a benefit, you you feel that you there is an appreciation.
Although, you know, your days might not be perfect and not really how you would like them to be, still there is a value to it that you appreciate Yeah. You know, which is fantastic. That’s appreciating your human life. Thank you. Helena?
Well, I’m I’m still in MS, and I have an. Haven’t developed a constant Oh, wait. Don’t expect that. I wanna have one benefit of your situation. I can finally work on myself.
I have time. I have oh, I’m alone now, and there’s nobody trying to run me like a like a dummy. Good. Finally all the craze is out of your life. You have your own space and you can look at your own mind.
To work on your mind we need many conditions. Know, it’s not It’s quite precious to find that in your life that you have all the conditions that you can do that work. If you look around you there are not many people who have that and you feel like you’ve found that. I have it. So that’s great.
I still have to prove to myself that I’m actually actually to be more work task, whatever I hate, and that’s sometimes No. But that’s also, I think, why you kept yourself distracting that long in your life. Yes. You know? Because there is a resistance to do that work.
We all have resistance to do this work. Right? Dharma practice is not something that you if you see the benefits, you want to do it. But our ego is resisting it.
Just put your mind in a different direction. That’s why if we keep on thinking about the benefits, that brings our mind a little bit away from that self-cherishing mind that says and I don’t like it and I don’t want it. That’s a stuck mind, you know, that’s repeating the same story again and again and again. If we are stuck in that, the change cannot happen, the healing cannot happen. Healing happens if we step a little bit back and we observe that mind.
We can see that mind spinning around, same story again and again and again, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But if we can see it and not identify with it, that can have a different turn. And that is what healing is. Then it can naturally dissolve again. It’s like a creation of the mind that gets tighter and tighter and tighter.
The more we identify the tighter it gets. As soon as we step back, that can untighten again and slowly dissolve back into the mind. That’s why we want to focus on the benefit. If you only have one benefit, you give that part of your mind that only feels the harm, you give that some space. And because of it can unwind.
And because of that, you know, that’s the healing. It neutralizes everything. Yeah. Good. Yep.
That’s your reward. Good. Catherine? . That will never change.
We will always be sentient beings who want to have happiness. We will never be in the position that we say I like to have suffering. That’s not where we want to go. But if we see the suffering, suffering is suffering because there is a reaction I don’t like it. So if we can see what is coming to us and we can somehow see the benefit then we’re not saying I like suffering but then it doesn’t become the suffering anymore.
Can you see that? Wonderful, understanding where they’re coming from. Yeah. Great.
So that’s already four, five. All good. Officially. Yeah. Mine’s also coming to Buddha House, but it’s a little bit different because my husband and I, Peter, we came about three years ago.
So it’s really put our relationship on a different level where you’re doing this path together, and we had really interesting conversations. And instead of going out to a, you know, expensive restaurant, we’ll go down the beach and and have a walk and sit down and sit on the bench seat and have a really interesting it’s sort of just a bit different, and we’re doing it together, which is it’s really nice. And, also, Well, I’m not flute. No. I’m still working on it to be kind to myself.
Uh-huh. Because I’ve always always I’ve always done the right thing, can never say no to people. And and I’ve had a really good, fortunate life. I’ve not had any awful things happen. I’ve still got my parents, really lovely childhood.
I think that I feel as though always sort of had to be had to do the right thing for my parents all the time. I don’t want to disappoint them. And now they’re getting older, like, they’re ninety and ninety two. I try to solve their problems, and I can’t. So I’ve learned that I just have to listen and be there.
And and if I look after myself, like, for example, last weekend, I had a sort of a mini retreat and listen to the recordings that you did. I was still involved with them at the beginning and the end of the day, but I was I was different. I could I just listened to them instead of getting really tense inside and getting chest pains and just thought, well, I can’t solve it. And I’m just listening. And I, you know, I am compassionate.
I feel their pain, but I’m they’re at the the end of their life. I I can’t change that. You know? That’s what they have to do themselves. Uh-huh.
So I’ve just gotta make sure that I do be a bit kind to myself as well. Yeah. So you did it in the weekend? Yeah. Yeah.
And it Did it affect them? I think so. Because they must be able to feel when I get tense, and then they feel guilty that they don’t take my time and I don’t want them to feel guilty. You get this whole reaction happening, isn’t it? Yeah.
Yeah. It is. And I know you didn’t go there. No. Didn’t go there.
It was good. So then you give them also freedom from, you know, that they feel guilty. Isn’t it? Yeah. That’s right.
So if if you are able to have that compassion and kindness for yourself Yeah. You you cut all these strange habits that we have with others. You cut them all, isn’t it? And also sometimes I’m trying to help them as Peter says to me, and and I want your help today. They’re not asking for it.
Just back off. Uh-huh. But I’m still trying to help. Yeah. Strange.
But . But these are tendencies that we have and these are, you know, these are these are what you were I think you’re purifying the view of what is really giving you happiness and what is not really giving you happiness. But we just believe, you know, somehow Yes. That if we By being kind to myself and giving myself a little bit more time to be alone to read or to meditate, then I’m not taking the instant reward of, you know, food. Yeah.
Oh. Which, you know, has got that adverse effect. You eat too much. I think, oh, why did I do that? That was nice, but, you know, it’s not good for my body to carry this away.
So yeah. So then you break your own cycle still. Yeah. I gotta break that cycle of being kind to myself in a different way. Coming.
It’s coming. Is it? Sandy? One benefit. One benefit of life.
Of your problems that have come to your life. Mhmm. You think that that if you would have let your mind just go without doing anything, that you become a very desperate person, that very unhappy person. And that what happens is that forced you you can only get away from that when you’re in the present moment, when you bring your mind back and back again to the present moment. I went to a consultation a few weeks ago where there were lots of parents of children with disabilities who brought the confused mind home.
Yeah. And I when I’m in those situations, I always reflect on how different I am Mhmm. Because I’ve chosen to always reflect on how different I am Mhmm. Because I’ve chosen to walk with Cameron on his journey and not fight against it. Uh-huh.
Yeah. And Cameron’s taught me a lot about that being human is not about the physical body that you come with. It’s your soul. Uh-huh. And it’s great, literally.
Yeah. And so while his body is very different to other people, he teaches me people. So I think we’re blessed all the time. It’s a precious gift. Yeah.
And he’s not he he’s not so not hung up about who he is. He just gets up every day. Somehow, he doesn’t have that strong identification with his body then. No. What we have so strong.
I think he’s a master teacher that came into that. Uh-huh. Mhmm. So So you feel that that is something that we can learn to let go of that identification with the body and Yeah. Appreciate the other human values that we Mhmm.
Yeah. I think the Dalai Lama constantly talks about that that human value is to be kind, to be compassionate with each other. Being human is about that. Being human is not about surviving. Being you know, because animals can survive.
Yeah. If we are only doing that, we will be the same as animals. Being human is not about, you know yeah. Whatever. Having wealth, having what did he say last time that that that he was talking in Melbourne?
He said, and then there are these peoples, they have all this jewelry. Not sure why they’re wearing that. Maybe something to do with pride, but I’m not sure. No idea. Yeah.
Millions, you know, for diamonds? Yeah. Not sure. Who people die for us to win? Lots of diamonds coming.
Yeah, also that. But also why do you spend that much, you know? It’s like if that’s the only thing you’re doing in life, he feels like you’re not really taking the essence of human life. human the essence of human life is to learn to take care of each other, to be compassionate, to be loving. That’s what we can learn from being human beings.
Thank you. There’s nothing quite like sparkling. Yeah. Saw you looking at that ring. And one benefit?
I’m just a fantastic person. You have discovered that. Enough. Mm-mm. You know?
I couldn’t I couldn’t possibly. And I just felt so and I’ve just constantly been a giver. You know? Can can I help? Can I help?
And I’ve looked after so many people and being all things to everybody. And the greatest gift that this has given me when I finally hit the brick wall of grief and loss and chaos was to look to have that time and space to look after myself. And that that is what you said earlier, that to have that precious gift of introspection and to find out who we really are. And I found out what a really good person I am instead of beating myself up all the time. That’s good.
So you’re stop beating yourself up. Fantastic. Thank you. Rebecca. Benefit from a problem?
I don’t know. My current life situation, I’m a single mom to a beautiful eleven month old girl. And being entering into this phase of my life or being in this phase of my life, which is gonna be for the rest of my life. Okay? But and I find it really challenging to my my patience and my tolerance and just sometimes I feel like I can cope.
You know? Big sleep this night. So which I’m sure is. Can understand. Yeah.
So if you can keep on seeing her as that biggest teacher Yeah. Then whatever happens and whatever happens in your mind, you can do something with it, isn’t it? You can if you would see her as a burden, you’re gonna be overwhelmed with suffering. But if you have that positive perspective, then no matter what is gonna happen, you can shift that into something you can transform that into something positive. Yeah.
Because I’ve been running away from, I think, from that perception. Mhmm. You know? Just been just not wanting to cope and, you know, doing things perhaps I shouldn’t do, like smoking marijuana. Uh-huh.
Yeah. Taking that responsibility is a big thing. You know? Saying, I’ll take that is big. Yeah.
And so I suppose that has brought me back to Buddha House. Mhmm. I’ve been to Buddha House in my heart before being a parent, and it’s brought me back and, you know, yeah, started meditating. Yeah. And I think a child is the perfect teacher for this to arise, isn’t it?
They can trigger all your buttons and they you have to stretch with your sleep and with your patience and with your So you’re the morning. So you have a few benefits in it? But you’re going into a path now and saying, wanna do something with that and I wanna use it in a positive way, isn’t it? It’s great. Thank you.
I think it’s opened me up to change and pretty much an amalgam of what we’ve all said, you know, respect for myself and others. You know, I feel like I’ve become more compassionate, grown up a bit. Sort of shaking me around a bit. Also made me incredibly grateful for what I do have. Mhmm.
Like, the absolute luxury that I am able to go through these things I’m going to in the comfort of a safe home and security and, even with the grief and everything. Like, you know, it almost sounds flippant to say, but all of us going through what we are, imagine if it wasn’t anywhere else in the world. Mhmm. If we were going through this in Afghanistan for, I didn’t say We would could not afford it, isn’t it? It’s we don’t really know how lucky we have gotten within degrees of ability, obviously.
I mean, you know, being suicidal with everything dollars in the bank doesn’t stop you being suicidal. No. You know what I mean? But, yeah, it it’s made me grow up a bit a a lot, it sort of kicked off all these things that I know I should have been doing for ages and I’m actually doing them now and then I’m just so lucky to be able to do it to actually not wallow in it but revel in it. Uh-huh.
Yeah. That’s great. Revel. So postponing has stopped. You’re taking you’re taking on the things that you felt that you had to do.
I am. Yeah. Which is taking responsibility for your life, isn’t it? Yeah. Absolutely.
But the the the sort of overflow of that is sort of being a lot more compassionate for others too. Like, it was always the caring there, but at night, it would sort of switch off. Uh-huh. You know, I don’t think you know, since we’ve been talking, there’s probably been a hundred or so kids molested in Bangkok for I can sake. I think about that differently now, whereas before we just think, yeah.
What are you going to do? And there still is a sense of what are we going to do, but I’m talking about it. And I’m trying to sort of understand it, and maybe there are things we can do. I’m not trying to cure the world by any means, but yeah. Maybe you should.
They just Maybe it’s not a problem to think about that. Maybe that’s your big bodhicitta mind that it’s gonna open up and maybe know? Greater, I don’t know, things that I had ideas or vague feelings for, I’m actually thinking, well, no. They’re they’re really good ideas. Go with it.
You know? So Fantastic. But it could also be a huge reaction to where I’ve come from work wise when it was so surface, surface, surface. So Well, but not that part of you has has space to surface, isn’t it? Yeah.
And you’re gonna nurture that. And I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s great.
Yeah. It is. You know, you don’t have to judge whatever idea comes up. I think they’re all coming from something deep inside you and all have a value and Yeah. Maybe more than what you have been doing so far.
Possibly. Yeah. Oh, definitely. From what I’ve been doing so far. Yeah.
Pretty pretty pictures of dresses on anorexic models don’t really cut it. And what in the process of it’s it hasn’t all happened yet. But but there’s still a lot of fear, like, you guys are saying. It’s that sense of, you know, there are some heavy things I’m dealing with, but there’s a sense of but we all deal with them. I’m I’m not feeling as alone about it.
Not daunted by it. Uh-huh. More connected with others? Yeah. There’s a universality to it.
You know? We all die and deal with it. You know? Which is a pretty brutal way of putting it. You know?
Step out of it but it’s kinda But I also think, you know, some people say if you think about I’m dying or I’m suffering or I’m then it’s gonna be all about me and then we have that self centered mind and then we get a strong reaction if we wanna get away from it. But if you would think I experienced the suffering I experienced suffering. Suffering is just everywhere and I experienced part of that. You know, dying is everywhere and I experienced part of that. It’s not me.
It’s not me who’s dying. It’s not me who’s suffering. It’s just suffering. It’s just dying. You know?
Then that that fixated feeling gets a little bit away. I think so. And then it’s not that bad. You know? Then it’s like we can bear it easier.
Watched my mom who had the six years of breast cancer, and it was horrific what it did to her. But she handled it with such good humor. Yeah. She used to make it you know? She was incredibly thin towards the end of one of her and it was revolting what she said, but it was hilarious as well.
She said, I’d always die said I’d die for cheekbones. And she was. And she was. I was I will die for cheekbones.
You know? She was so bored and things like that. She used to make fun of it because, otherwise, you’re just gonna sit sit in the pile and pull your eyes out. Yeah. So why not be flippant about it?
Why not be, you know, absolutely offensive about it? Why not? You know? So that that was quite enriching. Yeah.
Thank you. Well, this is my first day. Yes. I haven’t had a class in the last half an hour. I’ve put you on the most difficult spot.
So we have been talking about benefits of sickness. Yes. Yeah. I have, since I was about twenty, with one drama or another, managed to be ill more or less constantly, but nobody really knows about it because it’s not something I flaunt, and it’s not something that I use. In fact, quite to the contrary.
But I I keep thinking, oh, now now that I there can’t be anything else. Can’t be anything else. Now I can sit down and have a cup of tea and play bridge. However, it doesn’t work like that. The more you get, the more you get.
Uh-huh. You get constantly something else on top of it? And till finally you get the to the final stage where there isn’t anything else you can get. And so, yeah, I think I’ve always had a very balanced view. People would say, how do you cope?
And I said, well, what does it say to cope about? It’s just life. Know, today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow. You just cope. You just you just do whatever.
Yeah. You do whatever you you think you can or you feel like doing it. If you don’t feel like doing it, you don’t do it. But, basically, I think I’ve always had a very, very balanced view of of of my not my role in life, but my of my life. I’m just starting to get an idea of my role in life Mhmm.
And they’re gonna take it away. So I thought, well, I’m gonna hang around a bit longer and just finish this off to make sure it’s okay. I’ve gone the right path. So, yeah, I just try try to look for different and it gives me great peace. Coming here is is a lovely somebody suggested it, and I thought it’s a good idea.
It’s around the corner. And because I can’t meditate at home very well. It’s not that it’s that particularly noisy. It just is. Even if the phone rings and the doorbell goes, you know, it’s and then you just can’t find some sacred space over the shoe rack because I moved into a little house, and there just is room for me and and some sacred space.
My children have both come out looking to come after me, so I’m terribly lucky. Yeah. It won’t How how did you if you if you hear that you have an illness that you know that you can’t recover from, you know, the the mind has a reaction to that. What was your reaction? Can I ask that, or is that Yes?
Yes. I think initially well, I don’t ever ever believe these things. You see? I always think I can recover from it. You don’t believe it.
Illness doesn’t exist. And that’s why you’re still alive. Yes. So that I I feel that I can always recover from everything. But this one, I look at all the results, and I think and I know enough about it that I think, well, this is a bit of a.
I’ll do my best, but I I’m not sure about this one. So but I think that the coming up here is wonderful because it does give me peace. It gives me time out, and, I’m enjoying it very much. After the break, wanna talk about that what you say, I just never believe in that illness. Mhmm.
You know? Because that’s that’s one of the the things I think why you can stay relaxed in experiencing what you you experience. That’s one of the things in Buddhism we call that emptiness. You know, everything is empty. As soon as we label something, it becomes real.
As soon as we say, I have depression, you you it becomes more real. Isn’t it? Especially if you say I have. It’s like you attach it to the I. It’s gonna be part of the I, and it becomes like a reality.
The I is already so real. And then you get on top of that the depression. And then that looks like it is really there, like there is a depression there from its own side and you can’t do anything about it. It just came to you and you have to bear it and you have to live with them. And you suffer just by thinking that you have it.
Yes. Yes. When somebody said to me, I think you have depression, I got angry and I thought, I don’t want to have depression. Now I think maybe, you know, I was depressed but just even attaching to that idea was like, now what can I do with the rest of my life if I’m depressed? You know?
Yeah. I don’t wanna know it. I don’t wanna have it. Maybe it’s more of a you. Because then you have something that you can’t do anything about.
And then yeah. Anyway, Anyway, but it’s it’s Always just starting think about it. But I feel as to yeah. Okay. We’ll talk about that after the break because that this is an important point in in Buddhism, and I think it’s just and I want I want you to talk about it because I think you know a lot about it.
What? So what we have heard is that what benefits of suffering benefits of suffering, benefits of sickness, benefits of problems is that you learn to understand others better, that you learn to develop compassion better, that you learn to become more kind to yourself, that you purify your karma, that while you do that, you can develop more wisdom, you get more insight into yourself, you get more appreciation for all the good things that you have, you get more appreciation for your life, for every day. You grow more up, become more responsible. You are able to take more responsibility if you see the benefits. I heard you say the same a little bit.
You learn to appreciate yourself better. What else? Let me let me have a look at So you exhaust your negative karma. Next week, I’m gonna talk about karma, about how what how Buddhism believes karma works, what karma exactly is. Karma means action, actions have results.
If what Catherine says, you purify your negative karma, we all have lots of imprints on our mind. Positive imprints, negative imprints. If something happens we suffer from, a negative imprint ripens. That negative imprint has a potential. It has a potential to ripen to a certain intensity and to a certain amount of time.
So if we go through a big suffering, a seed ripens. That seed will last a period of time but after that suffering has finished the seed has disappeared. So you purify your karma. What many times happens, what we feel is like I have more clarity in my mind. I have more understanding in my mind.
It’s like karma obscures us. And if karma ripens and we go through that and we purify it, after that we have much more clarity about ourselves, about the mind, about life. Right? You can say I’ve learned my lesson, you know. Buddhism says you have purified, so you have more clarity.
So next time, we’ll go more into that. Oh, sorry. The next time. Next week, we don’t have a class because Robina is here. You have seen the posters out there.
Just I’ve been walking around with them for two months. Yeah. So so next week, we will skip so that that I have time to help Robina, and you have time to come and see her if you would like to. Another thing with sickness is that it eliminates pride. Pride means feeling better or feeling worse than anybody else.
You know, if I hear you talking, you were very hard to yourself which is a negative image of yourself but that’s a kind of pride. That’s Buddhism and Buddhism is called a kind of pride. And anything where you see yourself as not being equal with anybody else, that’s pride. Pride is a delusion just like anger, just like jealousy. It’s like a veil that comes into our mind why we see things not so clear.
Now you are much more clear and you see yourself in the same kind of value as that you can see others and you can have the same kindness towards yourself as to others. So that has been purified. That pride has been eliminated from your mind. Still a little bit left. That’s good.
No, that’s alright. I shouldn’t say it’s completely eliminated from your mind. We cannot eliminate that until we are very realized on the path. But we can purify it. We can make the stains less intense.
It becomes more and more subtle. So it doesn’t hinder us so much in what we wanna achieve. It doesn’t we don’t suffer from it so much. Right? If the suffering disappears, that means the delusions are disappeared.
And it can help to practice virtue, Buddhism says. If we would understand karma really, then if we experience suffering and we could say, oh, I must have done something in the past that creates this, then maybe we look at our actions. And then maybe we think, oh, if this action is really causing me this kind of suffering, I might like to change that. I might like to change that into another kind of action that I know is gonna bring me happiness. So sickness can be a huge opportunity to transform your mind in many, many ways.
If you only see it a little bit, if you remind yourself every day, you know, yes, you will still experience suffering. Yes, we cannot stop that suffering but remind yourself. But I do learn this, you know. We do learn patience. Do learn tolerance.
We do learn acceptance. We do learn compassion. We do learn, you know, all kind of very good human qualities that we can develop. And we take these qualities with us, you know. Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation, I tell you anyway.
These are things that are not disappearing out of your out of your mind according to Buddhism. You take them with you. And the next time, they will be naturally there. That will be part of you. You know?
So you will be naturally more kind to yourself in next life than you were in the beginning of this life. And others. And others including. You know? But that’s not something that you that that changes when you die.
It’s not that you get reborn with a completely different package in your mind stream. It’s not like that. What happens in the opposite? Say, if there’s a person who’s particularly hostile and aggressive and violent in their life Yeah. And they don’t They will re experience that again and again again and again.
Until they adjust it. Yeah. Or completely purify that. Yeah. Because if you’re violent and have a lot of your will, then you also suffer a lot.
And many times out of that suffering, create more violence and more yeah. We we call that’s like a hell karma. It’s like you go that’s very, very heavy negative karma that you experience. It’s huge suffering that you experience. And people And that will keep on going until you see, oh, I I’m part of this, and I can change this.
Mhmm. So taking control of it and acting differently? Yeah. Purifying your thoughts? Yeah.
To not follow interaction? Yeah. Because you work with people in in freedom, don’t you? No. No.
Not me. No. That’s somebody else. Yeah. Oh, Rubina.
Robina works with yep. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Time for coffee?
Tea? Thank you for that sharing. Appreciate it very much. It’s about ten past eleven. So we have twenty minute break, and then we come back.
Okay? I’m gonna copy that. I’m gonna copy that. You have a good