Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 124-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang shows how unexamined suffering drives three habitual escape patterns—numbness, craving, and rage—each mirroring a Buddhist realm. He then introduces bodhicitta, the heart of the Mahāyāna path: the commitment to achieve enlightenment not for oneself but for all sentient beings. Using Tonglen (taking on others’ suffering) and concrete examples—difficult parents, ants in the kitchen, Lama Zopa’s work in Bodh Gaya—he explores how genuine compassion requires both psychological skill and firm boundaries. The core teaching traces the six perfections and how they interconnect, before extensive Q&A on guilt, martyrdom, and giving without enabling. For practitioners grounded in the Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2009 07 22DB Presenting the Path 6.mp3
UUID: cacf32a1-1aac-48ba-a33c-6e73708f08be
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Presenting the Path (Ven Jamyang)
Date: 2009-07-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 124.5 minutes
Words: ~16,513
Last week we talked about looking for liberation, looking for freedom from saṃsāra, looking for freedom from cyclic existence. Did you give me prayers? You did give me prayers, ain’t you? Thank you. And we saw that we are in cyclic existence.
We are going around and around and around because we make certain mistakes. We look in a way for happiness that is only creating suffering. We look in a way to be free of suffering that only gives us more suffering. And the reason why we make that mistake is because we are ignorant. We are ignorant about reality.
And that ignorance is like a veil. It’s like a mistake that is in every action that we do. And that mistake, because we make a mistake, we cannot get what we are looking for. We cannot get what we want. If we want to achieve what we want we have to do something unmistakenly.
Right? If I want to make a chair and I make a mistake, I cannot make a chair. Know, so if I want to be happy but I have a mistake in a way how I see reality then I cannot get happiness. If I want to be free of suffering but I can actually I don’t even know exactly what suffering is how can I think that my actions are going to free me from that? Alright and if I do not know where happiness and suffering comes from how can I think that what I’m doing is going to free me from the suffering and is going to bring me happiness?
So we have this mistake there and the only thing that we are looking for is we want to be happy and when are we happy? When we laugh or when we feel loved. When there is love, when there is an open heart everything is alright. Then we’re happy. So this meditation I did it for Sunday morning where we talked about suffering and we thought let’s not just talk about suffering let’s give it a little twist so that hello you’re from next door.
Hello. You’re from next door. All right come in You can sit in for the meditation if you like. What are you looking for? Pain.
So he’s Buddhist and he’s from the Masons. That’s nice, isn’t it? Yeah. So he’s making the connection between yeah. It’s nice.
On Next week, we’ll pop in on one of these. Can’t go. I can’t even enter the door then. No. No, I know, I know.
How can they say it’s like Buddhism. Don’t they see? Sorry? What does that mean? He said they’re doing a lot with death, you know, and so he felt like that’s the same as impermanence and death in Buddhism.
He talked about the sword of Mithras that they cut through the ego attachment. But usually they’re killing Catholics. Is that right? Oh, that’s historic. My dad was a freemason, and it was horrible.
Was so embarrassing. Uh-huh. It’s true, I grew up hating them. Uh-huh. Really?
I grew up hating them. They were Yeah but the women do have a place in the kitchen there. You know they make all the nice stuff and then they have to leave and then the guys put it the oven at night. The women? That’s all that old thing of you keep a woman in the kitchen but keep her barefoot and pregnant.
Oh is that what they say? She stopped after a while. She used to do it again. Actually, my nana leaned over at Mass one day and said, when they do it, meaning the priest, it’s called a sacrament. When we do it, it’s called housework.
Did that to me, Jolene, but four grandchildren tell me. No idea why. You know, I think all religions actually want to do the same. They’re all searching for God. And they all want to somehow help us to realise that when we follow our disturbing emotions we create more suffering and what we have to do is we find way that we can think so that we do not follow our disturbing emotions and they all say differently but I think in essence they all mean the same you know but then they get caught up rituals and in the explanations and and I know that the more I know Buddhism, the more I understand what Catholics mean and what, you know, other religions mean.
I think, oh, he’s actually talking about that and that’s how they phrase it. But if I hear them without Buddhism, I have no idea what they’re talking about, you know, so But they might have that with their own religion when we talk they think what are they talking about? But when they hear their own religion they understand it, you know, and if I think when we keep that in mind that we we are all they’re all trying to show the same way. Of course, we as Buddhists we think, we go a little bit further because we talk about enlightenment for all sentient beings and that is specific to Buddhism. But about learning about the heart and learning about giving up the self-cherishing mind, you know.
We understood that wrong, I think. We thought, you know, we have to give up ourselves, we’re not allowed to work for our own happiness or we’re not allowed to be happy. Only other people can be happy. And think Buddhism can help us to straighten that and so that we get more balanced and being more balanced means that we have more strength to really apply it when the delusions come up. Know when we are happy it’s not so difficult for the delusions to stay away and to stay low but when we are unhappy then easily you know anger get inflamed on.
The other thing with Buddhism that I really appreciate is not you don’t have heaps of energy being siphoned off into guilt. Yeah. That’s not a good thing. No. That’s seen as a virtue in some circles.
Oh, really? Is to be or to feel guilty and bad is seen as that’s what you ought to be. Right. Because you you are bad. Yes.
Yes. From the beginning. So that is what they say is we are ignorant since the beginning. And the ignorance is is what they call bad. And they say you are bad.
No. But we identify with the illusions, delusions. That’s right. But that’s not us. But I remember as a time girl being told that I was so bad that I had caused Jesus to be suffering on the cross.
Oh, Christ. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I I must be totally bad.
Mhmm. Caused this agony. Mhmm. I didn’t even know what I had done to do So that’s very disempowering isn’t it? Everyone else.
Everyone yeah. So then you get disempowered straight away. That’s right. And you try harder and harder and harder not to make it worse for the poor. Very kind.
Yeah, that’s right. Very kind. I suppose. Yes. I suppose.
I can think of that. Just the method was not so skillful, but it’s a very kind heart. I can’t remember what I was reading but it ties into suffering. It was one of the Dalai Lama’s speeches I think and it’s called, it’s a specific meditation called Tonglen or something where you put yourself in the place of someone else. So I didn’t read all of his thoughts about it until afterwards and they made sense.
As soon as I was trying to do felt that what happens if you wish for something, sometimes you get it. Now I also think that if I’m happy and not suffering it’s one less person that’s suffering, so I can use that to feel empathy, but I don’t want to visualise it enough to bring it on me. But then later in his talk he said if you do this meditation properly you should start feeling uncomfortable, but where I’m having difficulty with the theory is should I be, when I’m thinking about putting myself in the place of someone, it’s not that I want to bring the suffering on myself, It is feeling empathy or would we want to wish for that suffering? Do you know why I Yes and if I explain you the psychology, there is a psychology behind that. Right?
It’s You happy if I talk about this? Yeah, we’re talking about bodhicitta anyway today we talk about the great vehicle and this is the practice of the great vehicle In general we have, in general, we all have an aversion for suffering. As soon as suffering arises we have aversion arising in the mind. That reaction to suffering causes us more suffering than if we would just experience the pain, right? So say that we experience pain and we react with aversion and that aversion causes a lot of suffering.
If we stop reacting we still have the pain but we cut out the suffering. The suffering is normally like ninety percent of what we experience. It’s us saying: Oh I don’t want this, poor me, poor me, poor me saying I actually don’t want to feel it. I can’t bear it it’s too much. So in order to counteract that reaction which is very deep right we say I’m going to take on the suffering first for myself.
Just to counteract that from the aversion I try to think how can this be of benefit to me? How can I somehow make it worthwhile that I can take this on knowing that when I can transform my attitude in taking it on most of my suffering is gone? In order for that to happen I need to be completely prepared to feel that suffering but I do that with the wisdom that if I can do that the suffering will be gone. So there is like a tension between these two. Your rational mind can say, Oh if I do that our suffering is gone.
But your whole system tells you, I cannot bear that. So somehow in your attitude you have to find a space that you say, I am prepared to feel that. Right? So the wisdom that it will go away helps there. You cannot do it but it will help so that you can turn it around.
So that’s one thing. So that is how you meditate meditate on suffering. No, I don’t think you do that when you have intermediate capacity. That’s only the bodhisattva who does that. So then are all sentient beings around you and who are experiencing exactly the same.
If I can think, for instance I have cancer and there is a lot of suffering involved in that, physical suffering and then the mental, I’m very anxious of what’s going to happen and then I’m scared of death. So first I’m going to work with myself and I’m going to think about what kind of suffering I will still have to go through before I will die. And I visualize myself in front seeing myself tomorrow and the suffering that I have to work through in a week time, in two months time and every time when I see myself in front I imagine that I take on that suffering already now. And that I free myself in the future from completely all suffering and I take that on. And then I can visualize that from my heart I give myself all the happiness that I need.
And I can even visualize that there’s white light going to my body and it’s healing my body and it’s healing the cancer and it’s healing my mind and it’s healing the causes of the cancer and until I become very very happy. And I do that until I die and then I can even think about what happens after death. That’s how you start a meditation for yourself in the future and then if you feel I want to do more with myself you can even go back to the past you know this is actually not described by the Buddhist teachers this is me as therapists. You can also take on what you already have experienced in the past and do exactly the same with that. So your inner child you put there and whatever that inner child has experienced you take on and you send only love and happiness back.
Then if you start to realize that all sentient beings have been your mother experiencing exactly the same you can imagine that when you can experience their suffering completely and when you take that on that they are just as free from that suffering as you were when you visualized yourself having the cancer how you were in two months time. There is no difference between you in two months time, that person or your mother or your neighbor or anybody else they are just as different from you. If you feel that you can learn something from visualizing yourself and taking on that suffering you can also learn something from anybody else who’s in front of you and you take on their suffering. And by doing that you can deepen your compassion. You can let go of any aversion for suffering that you have because we not only have the aversion to the suffering that we experience today but we have already reactions ready for the suffering that might come in the future.
And if we want to get enlightened quickly I need to somehow I have to counteract these reactions. So I use for that all sentient beings because they have all sufferings already there. I don’t have to wait till it’s coming to me. So can then the suffering come to you really? Can the suffering then really come to you?
That’s my if this is the psychology behind it. Yeah I understand. Not really. Not really It can only free you from suffering. Yes.
Yeah. But the ego, the self-cherishing mind says I’m going to get that, you know. So but if you start feeling that fear that means that you are hitting the right target because you’re hitting your self-cherishing mind. So that is what the Dalai Lama says. It’s good when you start to feel uncomfortable because that means that you’re working on the right place.
And then, this is not to give you any confusion but give you, then Lama Zopa says, And then when you visualize yourself having the cancer and it comes to you and then all sentient beings with cancer you all take it on and then imagine that you do get cancer. Says how fantastic your prayers worked!’ But that’s what I’m worried about! I know! I understand the psychology behind it. So you can only get cancer because you’re afraid for that suffering.
If you can work through that cancer cannot be there. Right? Cancer is related to fear. So when you go through that whole fear before you have the cancer, cancer cannot come. And even if it comes it doesn’t really, it cannot affect your mind in that way.
That’s hard, isn’t it, for us? We don’t want to have that. I don’t want to have that, you know, I’m exactly the same but Well I don’t get the fantastic your prayers have been answered by Lama Zopa there. I was with you right up until you said that. I know, I know and I knew this wasn’t going to blow everything.
And that’s why I said it. Isn’t it because you are taking on the cancer of everybody else so they don’t get it? So therefore you’ve done a wonderful thing. I’m not convinced that they wouldn’t get it. Maybe we’re just all getting it.
No, no. But it’s like, so even when you get it then normally what you say is Oh but I don’t want that, you know? So then when you get it, if you can say then the psychology can be fantastic that I have it because whatever I have practiced of taking on I have really taken it on. So I must have done a really good job. This is again to stop your aversion from having it.
You say wow that’s fantastic that I did that and if you can do that then even if you have cancer that’s the best way to heal the cancer. Okay I suppose the cancer couldn’t be there unless there was something for cause and condition. Cause and the conditions for whatever arises in the mind is always in our mind. It cannot be that we get something that was not our karma. It’s not possible with karma.
It’s not possible. Can karmically it’s not possible that I take on Divas karma. I can think that I do that knowing that in my mind I have the potential to experience whatever she experiences. It just hasn’t ripened yet. Know?
So by me already taking it on I might actually exhaust or purify all these seeds in my own mind stream but I can never take really her karma. When you’re taking it on and developing it, will that help her? If we have a strong karmic connection it might help her. If I have a very pure mind it might help her. If we are two very deluded human beings, no it doesn’t.
It mainly helps the personal practices. But actually I think you know don’t know when I was at the Chenrezig Institute we did prayers for many people and we got so many positive reactions how it helped and how people within no time got over things or things obstacles were moved very quickly or and we didn’t really have this common connection with these people you know so but Lama say this like the way I said it but that is also my experience so you have to try yourself how strong it works. And I think if you think about it logically as well, when somebody is, say when you’re ill and you’re feeling really bad and somebody that you really care for comes to see you and you talk and you laugh and that person goes and you feel better anyway. And it’s such the positiveness as well, I think, in your mind that can counteract some of those illnesses. Just to be, you know, and having, I think close connections and taking on somebody else’s suffering and showing them that you care, it sort of fills them with shining light as well.
They get better. And it does. Is that what heals, you know. So when we listen to somebody with compassion and compassion is a wish for that other person to be free of suffering but then instead of sending it through the universe you just take it on yourself, you know. And that is what a mother does when the child is sick.
The mother wants to have the suffering so that the child can be better. That’s what a mother wishes. That’s the kind of compassion that we’re trying to develop. The mother doesn’t get sick, does she? She has even more energy to help the child.
But just having that feeling you know it’s like when you go to a doctor and a doctor really listens to you with his heart you feel already half cured when you leave the place. If you have a doctor who is just thinking about the medicine you think you have no feeling. That’s right. So it’s the compassion that heals and the more I think that research to doctors how they listened and then when they gave the medicine that they really wished that this medicine was going to take away the suffering and the people who really generated that mind that medicine worked better than those who just described whatever. So yes it helps but you know then you also know that when you have a real connection you know then there is more exchange of that love and compassion.
People think it takes longer. What? Well, when we’re in an emergency this nurse said kindness takes one second in an emergency ward. People think being kind and compassionate means you have to spend hours when you haven’t got hours, you know. Instant compassion.
If you’ve got three seconds in that bay with them, that’s all it takes Mhmm. For you to give whatever you can give. Mhmm. Because she did it. We just she just went we just went, thank you.
And she said, it takes one second. And she left. She was going. I saw her again. She was in the room.
Shall we do it on suffering? Mhmm. You alright? That. Yeah.
That was a good question for today. And so this is looking a little bit at the mistakes that we make and give you another way of dealing with it. So make sure that you sit comfortable. Let your mind calm down. Be aware of your breath.
And you can do that by observing the rising and falling of your abdomen every time you breathe in and breathe out. And then try to think about what we normally do when we experience suffering and we don’t like that. Think about the different actions that you tend to engage in. For instance, it can be that you want to make yourself numb so that you don’t have to feel the suffering. You can do that by taking painkillers or food or sleep or watching TV without really seeing what is on it, or hiding behind a computer.
So when we do any of these, the overall feeling is that we withdraw, that we do not want to know or feel what our life is about. Our mind is not fresh or awake. And we do not use our intelligence. If somebody tries to pull us out of the situation, we might get scared or feel threatened because we feel that we have no tools to deal with the situation. So imagine how this feels like.
And actually when we go through that suffering and we withdraw from it, what we are actually looking for is love. And when somebody appears from whom we can receive love, we do not know how to open up because it might hurt too much. And we have no tools to receive that love. And if this happens often in a relationship, the relationship slowly might lose its color. Imagine how it feels like.
An other way of dealing with our aversion for suffering is to indulge in things that stimulate us, from which we get excitement and pleasure. So we can turn to alcohol, drugs, sex, dancing, speeding, constantly looking for heights. Imagine how that feel like, how it feels like. And then look at flip side of this behavior and imagine the lows that naturally will follow the heights. Feel the emptiness, the hollowness, the darkness and the dissatisfaction.
Imagine how it feels like. When we have this behavior, when we recognize that and try to see that we are actually looking for love, And when we would find someone we receive love from, we are so hungry that we cling until the person runs away, leaving us behind in another black hole. And when that happens, you have no other options than to engage again in the same kind of activities. Need, or if we find it, not being able to swallow or digest it. Another way of dealing with our pain is that we react with defense, anger, jealousy, violence.
And if that doesn’t give us the result that we want, we can make it even bigger and turn it into resentment and hate. And think about the activities that we engage in in order to express these kind of feelings. Imagine how we talk, what kind of language we use, how truthful we speak. Imagine how it feels like. We are actually looking for love and when we find someone we receive love from, our habit of reacting with anger to our pain is still there.
And we will have the same reaction to those we love when hurt arises or when we think that hurt might arise. Our reaction will scare them away, hurt them, until we end up alone, nobody around us, nobody to share with, and still no tools to deal with our hurt. Imagine how that feels like. We can be in the burning fires of our anger, of in the cold of our isolation. And the only way to get out of these places in our mind is to when we deal with our hurt, to find a method to sit with it, to allow it to be there and to experience it.
And if we can do this, we feel naturally we will find naturally the tools how to deal with the painful situations at the bottom of the pain. It’s like our wisdom is there. When we can see and experience the bottom of our pain, our compassion and wisdom will naturally arise from this, providing us with everything that we need. And then we can dedicate the merits that we and all sentient beings may be free of all suffering and achieve only peace and happiness. Do you recognize these reactions to hurt?
Do we have one, or do we have them all? All in different situations. So last week, we talked about the six different realms and the animal realm and the hungry ghost and the hell realms. Can you recognize in your reaction what kind of realm it is related to? Mhmm.
Sure? So when we withdraw, you know, and we go blank and we just watch telly or the computer or we get numb, what realm is that? No? No? The realm.
Yeah. It’s like an ignorance. You create this dullness of I do not wanna know, you know? So you create an ignorance. You you withdraw in the ignorance.
And that’s, I don’t know, when you see people who do not know they look sometimes so happy. How do you call that? The happiness of not knowing? Ignorance is bliss. And it’s like hurt comes that’s like one way how to deal with that.
We just try to push it all away, pretend it’s not there. Actually we take off to another place, we dream. And then we start to engage in all kinds of stimulating activities in order to get away from it. That’s like the attachment. You use your attachment to get away from your aversion for hurt and that’s more related to the hungry ghost.
Know? So then you can never fight what you really want because what you actually want is you want to get rid of the pain. So trying to get anything that makes you happy is not going to make you free of the pain. And the last one where you react with anger to the pain that has to do with the hell realms. Probably we all have been there.
That’s not a real hell realm, right? But it’s like an experience like. And it can be when you have that habit. You know imagine, I don’t know, can I say this? Imagine when you’re going to die and you have never practiced.
The only thing that you practice is one of these habits. So your habit is to get really upset and angry when you feel suffering and whoever is around you, you scream at them and you want them to go away then the suffering of death is going to come. How are you going to react? Probably, most likely, like that. So then what’s going to happen at the time of death?
What we believe is that at the moment of death the consciousness that is there is going to trigger the consciousness for your next rebirth. So when you are in big anger in these last moments you actually create some very negative karma to ripen for your next rebirth. So by dealing with your aversion for suffering in this life what you actually do is you prepare that you can make a very good transition to your next life. And whatever good that you have done in this life has a chance to ripen in goodness in your next life you know it’s like it’s like a pension that goes with you. I think there is a firm there is a company that they say that if you can prove that you were somebody in somebody else who had a pension with them in your previous life you actually have the right to get that money right?
So but in Buddhism it’s like on a mental level you there’s definitely you take with you whatever you created. Yeah. So they always pay you out. So I put outside some handouts. Did you see that or not?
No? They’re on the table. Maybe you pick them up when you go out. So there’s one handout that talks about how the teachings went from Buddha Śākyamūni to the two lineages. One was the compassion lineage and one was the wisdom lineage.
Remember? So one was Maitreya and Mañjuśrī and then two teachers Nāgārjuna and Asaṇga and then to Lama Atisha who Lama Tsongkhapa wrote a commentary on the Stages of the Path. So that is a little bit written on this page how the lineage comes down. And then there is a page, a little article on the benefits of bodhicitta from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Just to read because that is the theme today of the great scope generating bodhicitta.
And then the last one is the foundation of all good qualities and you might have that. You have that? Somebody said to me, Oh no, I can’t remember this. So I copied them but if you all have it. That was you.
So you were the only one who didn’t have it. Okay. So if you have it, just leave it there. We’ll use that another time. That’s that’s okay.
So we are almost through the path although we still have to do the biggest part, you know. So what we have done so far is actually the foundation of to become a great scope being. You know and in order to become a great scope being we need to generate bodhicitta. Without bodhicitta we won’t be able to enter the path at all. It’s not possible So from the intermediate scope being, does everybody still have fresh in mind what have been doing?
They want, what do they want? Liberation from Samsāra. What do they have to realize? Wisdom Realizing Realizing Emptiness. And and what happens when you when you develop the Wisdom Realizing Emptiness?
What kind of delusion gets eliminated from your mind? The Which ignorance? Which ignorance is the root of saṃsāra? You eliminate the root. What is that?
The self. Holding on to a self. A self existing self. Or you know that you’re holding on to a self that exists in a way it appears to exist. Realizing that the self doesn’t exist in a way it appears to exist.
That’s what you realize when you realize emptiness. What you realize is that the Self is empty of existing in the way it appears. You say it does not exist in the way it appears. That’s what you realize which means that you can see, you see very clearly. Oh it doesn’t exist like that.
So you see, you don’t see how it exists but you see that it doesn’t exist like that. Right? So it is an emptiness. It’s not it’s like a it’s like an emptiness. If I see a flower, I see something.
And if I see this, I see the emptiness of the flower. But you took it away. I’m still stuck where they don’t write that. I don’t know how many times I repeat that phrase to my head. So that is with emptiness, right?
You look at it and you realise that doesn’t actually exist. What I always see that is real doesn’t actually, it’s not there. That’s what you realise. So there is, you see a lack, like a space, like a and because you see that it’s such a powerful mind that everything that normally all my beliefs in this flower is immediately gone. I cannot hold on to that.
As soon as I see that it’s actually not there. I remember you saying that But if this doesn’t exist then how can I create any actions with this because it’s not there? You can just take it away. So as an intermediate scope being you try to find the root of saṃsāra. In order to find that root you have to understand all the different levels of suffering that we go through.
And the more you understand the suffering the more you can also understand the cause of that suffering and how in every suffering that I, that believe in that I, to exist in a certain way that is involved, that is at the root of all our suffering. So yes, then how do they engage? They go through the three trainings, the higher training of ethics, concentration and wisdom and you need all three of them in order to realize the emptiness of that self existing self. So you need ethics. You need ethics.
What would ethics do with the mind? What do you think? If I stop harming others what would happen in my mind? What would disappear? Anger.
Anger, yeah. And hatred? So that’s a very strong delusion. What else would disappear? Jealousy.
Jealousy? Can we hurt with our attachment? Can we hurt with our attachment? Can we hurt others with our attachment? Yeah, so attachment and aversion undermined.
Uh-huh. Or eradicated? Undermined. Sorry? Are attachment and aversion eradicated or undermined?
Well you need a wisdom realising emptiness to really get rid of But when you practice ethics you do not really eradicate the illusions, right? But you do not feed them anymore. So Yeah. Right? So because you don’t feed them they can’t arise.
There is no reason for them to arise. Does the potential remain though? The potential remains you know so when causes and conditions arise that you for instance the war breaks out and you see your most loved ones getting tortured or whatever and then then then it can be that and you haven’t trained your mind well enough the anger arises and the resentment arises because the seeds are still there and the power is still there somehow. But normally when you start to train in ethics what happens is that you’re doing good. You’re doing all the time good, you stop harming others which means that your environment starts to change.
Instead of meeting people who want to harm you you meet people who are friendly to you. You know and I think we talked about the little insects like if you want to harm an insect that is in your house the insect can become very busy and very agitating. But if you make the commitment, I’m not going to harm you, don’t worry’, you notice a change. Did somebody try? It took me all day, emptied the whole pantry, got rid of the ants, took them all outside.
So now they’re in the bathroom. So they’re out of the pantry. Fantastic. But I mean I totally emptied the pantry and cleaned it all and Yeah. But now they’re in the bathroom instead.
Right. So they’re thirsty, you think? But it’s raining. I know it’s raining. Why do they need to go inside?
Yeah, have many in my house. Comfortable in your house. Yeah. Like the vibes. Tell them you can go anywhere where you want.
But the pantry is fixed, that’s good. Mind you, I mean I put everything in Tupperware and everything got cleaned There’s nothing there to appeal to them anymore. Were you specific with the ants when you said leave kitchen or leave the house? Took them outside and put him on the wall and told him to leave. Thank you very much but please don’t come back.
My family thought it was hysterical. That’s good. How did you feel about it? Stupid. But I felt, I felt better that I didn’t just spray them with Mortein and yeah I did feel better about it.
I felt it was more not positive the word but you know I just felt it was a better solution. Yeah, just keep on practicing, see what happens. We want to hear your aunt’s story next week. When we stop harming also what will happen is that the fear dissolves, the fear disappears out of our mind. We feel safe because somehow if we know that we’re not going to engage in any negative action somehow we do not see it coming from anybody else.
And because we don’t see it coming nothing will come. So our mind, when happens our mind becomes calmer, calmer, calmer, calmer, calmer, more spacious, more and then when we have a mind that is more calm, you make the mind ready to go into meditation, to start developing concentrations. And when you start developing concentrations you make the mind even more still because concentration completely counteracts delusions. You’re not only any wavering in the mind you stop that, you know. If you do not harm, the delusions are still there and you know there might be like little waves and a set of big waves and little waves but they are still there somehow.
When you concentrate, you make it completely still. They have no chance. And then you need that kind of stillness in the mind to go to the subtle levels where you can see the nature of reality and where you can realise the wisdom of emptiness. So they are preliminaries from each other, they are prerequisites from each other. You can not just develop the wisdom without doing anything else, not possible.
Just not possible. If you are walking around the whole day harming others and you come here and you want to understand the teachings you can’t forget it because your mind is so obscured you will not be able to listen. Know? And you might even feel like, no way, you know? I’m not gonna go to this Buddhist.
You will have maybe an aversion to even hear it. You know? That’s what what what delusions do with us. We do not want to hear it. So when you start practicing ethics and concentration you make this mind soft, make the mind flexible, you make the mind more open and you have to go to very subtle levels.
At the moment we’re just on the very coarse functioning on the sensory level and then on the gross mental level. But to meditate you have to go to more subtle states where it is very very very quiet. And in that quietness you still have to be able to think so you think in a very subtle way. You still have to be able to focus, still have to be be able to be very alert, you still have to be able to to you know to really direct your mind wherever you want it to go. And the more subtle you go the more precision you need or the more skill you need in order to do that.
I don’t know if you can understand that. Sometimes you can go in a deep meditation and you think oh that’s fantastic but then you lose it somehow and you fade. And I said oh I didn’t know where I was but I was really fantastic. Can’t do anything when you go to meditation like that. What you want to do is you want to go to the deep state but then you want to have the alertness that says and now I know what I can do here in this level of meditation.
Right. So that is why we do the ethics and the concentration. So that’s good. And then we have realized how to say this so when we are beings of intermediate capacity we have the motivation that we want to free ourselves from suffering and free ourselves from saṃsāra and because of that we go through the three higher trainings. So the being of great capacity has a different motivation to free themselves from suffering.
Right, so it is not that when you are a being of great capacity you first go through the three higher trainings and then you start to generate the motivation of the great capacity being. But you start to generate that on the same time as an intermediate being generates their motivation for their path. Does that make sense? No. No.
So what did we have to practice before thinking about suffering isn’t it? So if I’m a being for say for the intermediate being this is the great capacity. I need to go and get some new markers. So here I realise I do not want to suffer. To suffer And you generate the determination by reflecting on suffering and where the suffering is coming from.
I want to be liberated from Samsāra. Be liberated. And then in order to do that you practice ethics, concentration and wisdom. And when you have done that you achieve liberation If you follow this path we say you do this for your own benefit So we call them also sometimes the Hīnayāna practitioner Have you heard of that? Which is good, yeah I think they call it lesser vehicle.
Lesser vehicle being. So we travel the path with the vehicle, right? This is the lesser vehicle, the lesser motivation. So when we want to enter the Mahāyāna path we contemplate on suffering exactly the same but then we think I’m not the only person who’s suffering like me everybody else is suffering and we start to recognize that we have a connection with everybody else. It’s not that it was me and everybody else actually you have been my mother and you have been my mother and you know just as I have a mother in this life I had a mother in my previous lives and I had a mother in the life before that and if I have had countless lifetimes that must mean I have had countless mothers that must mean you know most likely everybody has been my mother maybe many people have been my mother many times and definitely you do not only have you have been my mother as a human being many times.
Some lamas say because we have had so many lifetimes I cannot say you have never been my mother. The chance that you have been my mother is very realistic. Or are you yours? Or are you your mother or everyone’s mother? Like for me that was really useful to know that I’ve probably been everybody else’s mother too because that touches that mother love that you were saying before where you want to take the pain of water help, that mother stuff.
You can say, well he might seem like a but maybe I was his mother you know and you can somehow find a bit of compassion in there for him. Yeah, for you it’s easier to feel than to think about the compassion that you once received from that same person. Both I think are useful. Yeah we use them in different places by generating the compassion. We start to generate the compassion by thinking that everybody has been our mother and then we in order, so you can do that with logic by thinking about we have been existing for such a long time but then in order to really generate it you need to feel some affection for others and that affection you have to Is it the affection?
No, I think the compassion that comes after the loving-kindness. You generate affection by thinking that they have been your mother and then how you want them to be free of suffering is like the mother wants her only child to be free of suffering. So I want to be liberated So when you realize that all sentient beings you have a connection with them and if you would only free yourself from suffering but not your mother you know what if you do not free your mother from suffering who’s going to do it? And so you somehow take suffering of all sentient beings in that way. It’s like if I don’t do it as their child who’s going to do it?
I will have to do it and I do it with pleasure because they did it many many many times for me. So here you say: I want all sentient beings to be free from suffering. Can you see this Paul? In a minute anyway on that side. Oh do you?
You have to work? You have to go to work here. Ah. I hope I tell you enough. You want us to burn your city for next time?
Well You’re alright? It’ll be alright. You heard enough. I hope I want all sentient beings to be free of suffering and then you have to think so how can I do that? I can only do that when I achieve my full potential of wisdom and compassion.
So that is which is called enlightenment. In order to do this, in order to free all sentient beings from their suffering I must achieve enlightenment. But what did you say before when I achieved my full potential in wisdom and compassion? That is how you enter the path. So before you can then really go in here you need that motivation and in order to generate that motivation you need compassion You need not just compassion, you need compassion for all sentient beings and compassion is the wish to free all sentient beings from suffering but you need even more.
You need the determination that says and I will do it Which is called the superior intention. So if you are prepared to engage in actions to help others from to free others from suffering we call that great compassion Yeah, so that is what you need in order to get here. And then you start the path. So the path here was ethics, concentration and wisdom. The path of the great capacity being is the six perfections.
And the first of the six perfections is generosity. Colour. Generosity. Then the next one is ethics. So then you can see that’s the same, right?
And then the next one is patience perseverance and then from there we go to concentration and wisdom. So there are similarities but you cannot do first this one and then say and now I’m going to enter this or you don’t have to do that. You can enter this path right from the beginning. So this is called the Mahāyāna path. If I first go this path and I achieve the state where I’m liberated from all suffering What I experience is perfect bliss.
No not perfect bliss, it’s just bliss. Very very happy. How do you think it is that I have to get out of that bliss to start helping others? Very difficult, very very difficult. So what normally happens with these practitioners they go in meditation in very very high meditation, levels of meditation blissful, very blissful, very blissful and they say for eons and eons and eons you do not want to get out of it It’s so nice, you know, but then they say but they do not have fulfilled their full potential and they still have although they don’t suffer they still have obscurations which makes that they have not yet fully developed their whole potential.
So they say one day the Buddha knock on their door and say hello you’re not finished yet. Come out your meditation. And then even if you come out of your meditation then what you have to do is you have to develop compassion and you have to go more into the suffering and you have to go in the suffering of others. How easy is it to flip back? Know, Oh no that’s too difficult.
Then you have to try again. Oh no it’s too difficult. So they say yes you can do this but then this is going to be very very difficult to walk this path. As soon as you have generated the bodhicitta mind where you can enter the path then it’s not too difficult anymore. Know but to make the step from this end result to starting this path very very difficult.
So in this tradition they say best is that you generate this mind from the beginning. Don’t realize emptiness first. Realize bodhicitta first and then use that bodhicitta for your realization of emptiness. Realizing Realizing emptiness is easier than realizing bodhicitta. Oh I thought was the opposite.
No no. No no. Here you have the welfare of all sentient beings in your heart and you’re prepared to take that on for that for all sentient beings and you have this aspiration in your mind twenty four hours a day spontaneously. That is what you need to do in order to start the path. It seems easy than not seeing those flowers.
Sorry? Well it sort of seems easy than all that emptiness business. Well isn’t it, it’s easy to think, you might not do it spontaneously obviously, probably you wouldn’t, but I think that’s easier to understand generating compassion. This is easier to understand but it’s much harder to do. But you think so?
How? What was that? Can you remember? These delusions that arise? Oh yeah.
In order to generate this you have to have to What you have to do is you have to say: My self cherishes my mind I change that in a mind that cherishes others more than myself That is what the mind says always put the happiness of others first. The happiness of others includes yourself. So we think we have this dualistic thinking, right? I’m working for my happiness or I’m working for happiness of others. And these are two different things.
But in Buddhism they’re the same thing. If I work for others I’m included in others. But what we say if I work for me I’m more important than all of you. What you’re going to do is that everybody’s same importance. So I know that when I work for the benefit of you I’m also working for the benefit of me.
That’s no contradiction. When I do something for you which is harming me I’m developing stupid compassion. Compassion is not like that. It’s very logical to know that sentient beings, that includes you, because you’re a sentient being. But to implement that is very difficult.
Logically it’s easy to see that being in a single being and part of the all infinite single being. It’s the twenty fourseven business, right? Yes, it is. That it is there all the time. But we start with one moment and then maybe we have another moment and then we try to get more and more moments and then these moments they come closer and closer and one day we wake up and it’s there You know but before we’re there it’s hard work but you know when you start developing this and you’re on a roll then at a certain point it’s not that difficult anymore.
I think for me the Like I get so stuck on it and it’s the thing about in this life grappling with the practical day to day thing of mother migration beings, all beings having been my mother, given my own obscurations around my relationship with this life mother. It really is developing compassion. And I know that’s my work to do. It really is my work to do that. Yeah, we always ask this question to the Geshe, you know, because many of us have issues with their mother and say how can I, you know, I don’t even feel the kindness of my own mother, how can I develop this for all her actually, but similarly my sense of my own kindness towards my mother?
Boy do I have to work at that. That is what I mean. Yeah, already have problems with feeling that. We experience that our mother has been kind, we naturally want to be kind back. If we do not want to be kind to our mother, we have the experience that our mother has not been kind to us.
Would it be on with everyone’s sister, brother, friend? Yes. So you don’t have to narrow it to mother? No, you can extend that to any relationship. And at the same time they do come back with the mother because the mother is the one who carries you and gives birth to you and because of doing that just carrying the child and giving birth means that the mother had to give up her own happiness in order for you to be born and even doing that you know Robina said your mother at least did not abort you You know at least that is what she did for you.
And then what a mother does even if she doesn’t have the skills, what she wants, that is what I guess she said actually a few weeks ago. Even if she doesn’t know how to do it but the mother wants her child to be happy. Even if she doesn’t do everything wrong she does it because she wants the child to be happy. So you have to forgive that your mom doesn’t have the skills and you have to think your mom was so ignorant that she had no idea how to do that but her wish was definitely there. How can you when there was a little baby?
Said, said even when your mom rejects you straight after birth she does that because she thinks she can’t take care of you. She wants somebody else to take care. That’s still coming from love for you. Oh yeah. Yeah.
So if you can see that like it doesn’t matter what she has done everything she’s doing is because she wants you to be happy and that love is I think from a mother is stronger than from other parents just because of that natural connection of mother child. Yeah, that rejection stuff I understand. So we talked about the mother who uses drugs and the mother who drinks and the mother who you know and said these people just have such strong delusions they cannot stop that but it doesn’t change their wish. So you have to look at the wish and not what they gave you. Mothers that cigarette burns and rape and what about those mothers?
Yeah they do that out of delusion. That’s right. But it’s hard for me to see is wanting happiness for their child. So why does somebody do that? They can’t handle their own pain so they can’t handle their pain so they get completely overwhelmed by their own suffering and the only reason why they do is to get away from their suffering so what they’re not doing there is putting the child in front of their happiness.
They are suffering so badly that they get self absorbed in that point. That is why they do that. Not because they want to hurt the child. Because they want to get rid of their hurt. And even if they say that.
That’s an attempt to get away from their own pain. So why do they inflict it on the child? Why don’t they inflict it on someone else? Closest. They love that most, yeah.
And the other thing I realised Maybe most from the, you know, the toughness of the world by toughening them up, you know, in a bizarre way, you know, that that might hit them or they might, you know, it’s gonna be tough when you’re older. It’s a bit it’s it’s very sad. But I do that because I want the child to be happy. So when we try to develop this mind we’re not even going to look at what is happening in a practical level. Oh but here the child is not happy and here the child is not happy.
We only look at the attention of mother. The way the mother wants the child to be happy. That’s all. Not more than that. So we as Westerners we have to strip that down and start to see that our mother really tried everything to make us happy but she was very deluded and she was very limited in her capacity.
Yeah and what did I read the other day? If I had those same delusions and I think I do, I I share a lot of them with my That’s the first big wake up call and the second one is if had the delusions that I think she has, I’d be doing the same thing. Yeah. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t.
Yeah. You can see that starts with the existence and a small level then The mom passes it on to the child and the yeah. That’s really good. What if you make them really conscious of it not to be? Yes.
Yes. How many have done that and then when they’re older they say, I’ve actually done exactly the same. I made a conscious verbal decision when I said to my husband that we would not bring our children away we were brought up And it was almost like a pact. Had no understanding of Buddhism at the time because we were very young, but we both had pretty horrible experiences. And I have gone to say something that I know my mother would have said and I was like, ‘Gorgeous, I’m just like your mother!’ And I’ve not actually said it, I’ve managed to stop and think, no, I’m not going to use those words’ because of all her And that’s really hard work and it still is now, my kids have grown up.
And you still see that tendency or is it gone? I don’t think it’s a tendency. I think there is just minute times when I’m aware that that is just about to happen and I stop it. I am aware that I make a lot of effort to be the complete opposite to the way my parents Yeah, but what would you be when you stopped making the effort? I think it’s become, it’s not, maybe making the effort is too strong a term, it’s almost become ingrained now me to be different.
I am very different to my parents I’m sure you are, I’m sure you are. I don’t know, I didn’t learn any or very many lessons from them to carry forward. So I’ve kind of developed my own way of parenting I suppose. But for that you needed that experience. So that is your lesson, it’s just packed in a different I can feel very grateful to my parents because of the way I was treated.
It taught me that was the way not to be. Yeah, I learnt that violence was not the answer. That’s what I learnt. You can be grateful for that as well because you can think that’s really taught me don’t go on that route. Because you have experienced the suffering that comes from that.
And also keep on looking at the needs of the child you know. And not looking at your because you have a frustration and you say oh I’m not going to do that or I never got that so I want my child to have that but maybe your child doesn’t want that. Yeah. So here is the big difference in how we generate a motivation before we enter the path and then the way we practice. Why do we practice?
We have these six practices that we constantly try to engage in. They are related to each other and they are related to the purpose that we have. I want to free all sentient beings from their suffering so I must achieve enlightenment. Where do we achieve enlightenment? In order to do that we have to develop the wisdom again.
We do not only realize the emptiness but we realize the emptiness in a way how to say so we have two kinds of obscurations that prevent us from seeing reality. One is called afflictive obscurations and one is called Obscurations to Knowledge So the afflictive obscurations are these obscurations related to disturbing emotions and related to all coming from holding the eye to exist in a way that it appears to us. Right, so when we realize the emptiness of the eye then all the afflictive obstructions they get removed from our mind stream. But what we still have left is like what I say if you have put garlic in a pot even if you take the garlic out there’s still a smell you know. So you still have the smell and the smell means that when you are in the world you still have dualistic appearance.
It still appears like there is me and you and me and you are two different things and what we’re trying to see is that we are all the same in a certain way. We’re all the same in a way we suffer. So that dualistic appearance is called the obscurations to knowledge. When you want to become enlightened you have to remove that. This is very subtle obscurations.
That is more coarse obscurations. So the wisdom here is much stronger, needs to be much stronger in order also to remove this from the mind stream. This comes like a package, know, they’re together and I can remove only this or when I focus on this I remove that at the same time. So in order for me to become enlightened I want to become enlightened. That’s my goal.
That’s the goal for me, right? For me I need to remove this. So I need a concentration and a wisdom to fulfill my aim. Right? I have two aspirations one is for all sentient beings one is for myself.
In order to fulfill my own aim I need to develop the concentration and wisdom the two these last two of the six perfections. These other four are for the benefit of all sentient beings. So when I practice generosity I practice that in relationship to others. I help others who do not have enough or you know I can give money, can give wealth but I can also give Dharma, can also give protection, I can give shelter you know this is all giving so this is to benefit all sentient beings When I practice ethics I protect others from harm So that’s another kind of giving When I practice patience what I do not do is my wish to harm back. I hold that.
I do not engage in that. If somebody’s angry at me and hurts me I practice patience by not harming back. So that’s also ethics, but I need patience to do that. And perseverance means that I can finish the job that I started. So whatever I set out for other sentient beings I finished up.
I need all these in order to get enlightened. Getting enlightened is a long term job. We need many lifetimes to do that. What we want to make sure is that we have lifetimes that are suitable to practice. If I’m gonna be reborn many many lifetimes as an animal or whatever being where I cannot practice Dharma that’s a little bit of a waste isn’t it?
So what I try to do is I try to create a causes that I have lifetime after lifetime the opportunity to practice the Dharma because that makes me achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. So what is the best rebirth to get enlightened? It’s a human rebirth. I need some money. I need some resources you know in order to be able to study and to practice and to if I use all my time just to work hear me if I use all my time just to work for the money in order just to survive then I cannot develop myself really to get enlightened.
So in order when I practice generosity I create the karma that I receive resources so that I can engage in more study and practice. I practice ethics because the result of ethics is that I can have a human rebirth. If I do not practice ethics the chance of having a lower rebirth is very very high. So here I have the resources, here I have the human body. Patience.
Some say when you have patience you have a beautiful body. Some say it’s not just beautiful it’s actually attractive which means that it is not beautiful in the sense that or that is a beautiful person but you actually feel attracted to the person. So you don’t have to be necessarily beautiful but you are perceived as being beautiful which means that you attract many people who help you. You attract companions, attract many friends and you need that on your path. Perseverance you know we set out I want to achieve enlightenment In order to make sure that we’re really going to get there and not give up somewhere on the way we have to make sure that any job we start that we’re going to finish that.
Because by doing that we train our mind that whatever I start I will finish, you know. And we need that habit to be trained in order to make it till the end. So then when we practice them what we eventually want to do is we want to in every act of generosity we want all these perfections to be included in generosity. When I practice wisdom I want to have everything included in my wisdom. So I can practice generosity with ethics.
Right? You know before I was here I was at Chenrezig Institute and somebody, they have a very nice Gompa there. And then suddenly somebody came and said Yeah but you know actually that is made with drugs money. People made their money with drugs and then build a gompa. That’s not practicing ethics in the generosity.
So it’s like where does the money come from? That is pure livelihood or good livelihood that you make sure that you do not harm sentient beings to create money. Patience and generosity is how can we get upset when we try to be generous? I don’t know. I offer my house to some, oh tell me.
Oh man, it’s a delusion of mine I tell you. Just really recently I thought oh God I was being so generous and the other person refused my generosity and I got so angry. And then I realised was A) I’m assuming that I’m actually being generous here. Why am I getting so angry about this? So that was like realisation number one.
It’s clearly not generosity if I’m getting this angry about it. And two) Well the anger was not generosity. You could still be generous. Yeah. But then have a, you know, you miss some patience.
Yeah, but also I started to look at motivation. Also what’s the hidden agenda here or not so hidden. Was it just giving with one hand and wanting to take with the other? A whole range of other things. But also it assumes that people are really I just remember thinking, let’s assume that I was generous.
For a minute, even though it assumes that people are comfortable with generosity. Part of wisdom is going is this person comfortable with it this way? You know like my nanny used to say not even one likes sitting at the head of the table darling. You think about what people are comfortable with when you offer them generosity. Just be magnanimous.
Some people aren’t comfortable with that and you haven’t seen them. So what I hear is there is a lack of wisdom, you know, because generosity is the wish to give. If you wish to give then that’s the generosity. Then in order to do the real giving you need a lot of wisdom and you need patience and you need you know the other things in it. So sometimes giving means that you can’t go further than a wish.
I would like you to have that but I can see that if I would offer it now to you you’re going to start screaming. So then I stop there. In order to know how to do that I need to I also concentration because I need to be mindful of what’s going on. I need to be all the time there checking. And I need perseverance.
Because if people start screaming I might say I’m not going to give you anything anymore! But we want to practice generosity all the time to all sentient beings. So even if people don’t want it that we should not stop wishing to give. So the six perfections that you know I looked into the great Lamrim book and the Lamrim that is three volumes. And the first volume is the being of small capacity.
It’s a whole introduction, then the being of small capacity and being of intermediate capacity. Then the second one, there it starts with the mind of enlightenment and the bodhicitta mind. And then the last volume which is the biggest one is only on the concentration and wisdom of the Mahāyāna path. So that is the most information is on that level. So it’s like building up to something really big.
So when you start training in the mind of enlightenment you need a great compassion and so there are two ways to do that. One is that you have the seven cause and effect instruction and I think Geshe la taught about that last month? You weren’t there? But if you hear that and sometimes it’s on the calendar you know what we’re talking about. Seven cause and effect instruction.
Seven course. Yeah. Course. There’s six causes one effect. Sorry, what was it called?
Seven causes and effect. Cause and effect. Cause and effect. This is hard call but it is actually there are six causes and then one effect. So you have seeing all sentient beings as your mother, remembering their kindness, wanting to repay their kindness, you know, these are all causes for the one effect of the bodhicitta to arise in the mind.
And the other method. So in order to train the seven cause and effect method you need to believe in past and future lives. Without that you cannot train that. And then there was another method which is called exchanging self for others. And that method you do not have to believe in past and future lives in order to do that.
What was that? Exchanging self for others. Is that Tonglen or no? The last stage of that is the Tonglen. Yeah.
But you can do Tonglen also with seven cause and effect and you can also mix them. Exchanging self for others means that you make the happiness of others more important than your own happiness. It’s not that you’re really going to stand on other people’s life or you just put their happiness above your happiness by remembering their kindness. Know and that is a little bit similar than seeing all beings as your mother and remembering their kindness, but seeing the kindness of all sentient beings there are many ways again how you can do that. For instance by thinking anything that we have in life, anything that we have pleasure from, and if you think about how many sentient beings are involved before that can come to us, you know.
Even if we just go to the shop and buy one product, the rice. Where does it come from? How many sentient beings have been died in the process of, from the rice when it was, before it was planted until it is in the shop. Many, many, many beings had to give their life for that rice to be there. Know voluntarily or not, probably not, but they did give their life.
And many many beings have actually put in a lot of work, worked many many many hours, worked really really hard for hardly any money for you to eat that rice. And then if you think what you need with the rice, you know how it gets to the shop and then how it gets into your home and what you need in order to get it into your home and what you need in order to cook it and what you need in order to serve it and it’s like it’s like when you stop thinking about it it’s almost like the whole universe is in that package of rice. Many died on the way. And if you start to realize then it’s like wow, you know, this is only the pleasure of having some rice. What about the pleasure of this and the pleasure of that and the pleasure of that?
And then you can see how many beings you see people, I don’t know, I always see people hard working, you know, and I think: Oh this rice is not just coming from the shop. It’s like actually people have been working really hard to make this and they have done that for me. Not that they know that they did it for me personally but they have done that for somebody else. They could only grow their own rice and that’s it. No, they decided to grow more rice.
And yes there was also personal interest in it but they did do that so that other people could also have rice. And then when you start to generate some gratefulness in that way and acknowledgement that your happiness completely depends somewhat on us so then the happiness of others is going to become very important because as long as you are happy, I know I’m going to be happy. If I recognize that my happiness completely depends on your effort, I only want you to be happy. True? I totally agree with you.
But it’s really hard to get your head around when you know that people, a great percentage of the population, do their job out of dislike. They don’t like their job, they do it so they can get money. But But they still do it. They still do it, but they don’t want to do it. They’d rather not do it.
They wanted to get the law to it, they wouldn’t do it. They still do it. I know, but it’s hard to They do it, otherwise they would die because they wouldn’t have anything to eat. It’s just hard to So we’re all connected in that same way, isn’t it? If you would not die without eating, you would not even buy the products and they wouldn’t have to work.
You know, it’s the same as your mother. You know, your mother, you must say, oh, but my mom didn’t like me and my mom didn’t, but still she did it. Still your mom couldn’t help herself. She did what? Give birth you mean?
Give birth or put some food on the plate on the table. You know even if she did it like here you eat, she still did it. She still gave it to you. And what her motivation is, is her business. You know?
But because she did it for whatever reason you experienced the pleasure of that. And you are still alive and you own your life. If you start thinking like that you own your life completely to others. There’s nothing in our life that is mine. Nothing comes really for me, know, just my misery.
Isn’t it? That’s where you come up to, you know. So that’s what the Lamas do. The more you realise that everything comes from others, you know. Even my body, even my body they say it’s actually not my body.
The body comes from the sperm and egg from my mom and dad or dad and mom. It’s their body. It’s not mine. There is no me that owns the body. It’s their material.
And I say but I own that. So you can even say even my body I don’t really own that. It’s coming from them. So then what I’m here I borrow you know everybody gives me things so that I’m alive. So how can I keep everything anything for me?
So then I want to give and then I want to repay that kindness. And then I want to make sure that I do everything for everybody to be happy. And I think the more it allows, the more you think about it the easier that is to really help others without holding back. Know to give up that idea that no no I need some time for myself and need But sometimes it’s good to have some time for ourselves because it makes us a better person to go back into So that’s alright. Yeah.
And especially we are on the path, we’re not even on the path. So we have to, because we are deluded beings and because we do hold onto the ego and to the self in a way that doesn’t really exist but because we hold onto it we do have to take care of it. We cannot say I’m going to ignore it because I’ve heard it doesn’t really exist so I’m not going to care about it. As long as we believe in it we have to care about it. But the more you think think about where things come from and the more you realize the kindness of others that in itself helps to dissolve the feeling of I and the feeling of the importance of I.
Say that. So Buddhism is so genius. It’s like every time it’s like how they cover every angle, you know, to transform the mind, to get us out of the afflictions and to get us in a place where we actually can achieve happiness. It’s so genius. So if we want to realise the emptiness what we realise is two things that have to do with self.
One is a self grasping, which is the concept that holds onto the eye existing in a certain way. And the other one is a self-cherishing. And the self-cherishing mind says: My happiness is more important than your happiness. My I is more important than your I. This self grasping that’s like a that’s a concept of I.
That’s very very subtle. It’s not just a thought that I can find in my mind and remove it. It’s a very very subtle thought. Because we have self grasping self-cherishing is naturally there. Because I feel I have a self I recognize there are others and because I’m at this side of river I think this part is more important than that side of the river.
Right? Where you are with your eye. I do not recognize that my eye is exactly the same as your eye or your feeling is exactly the same as my feeling. Mine seems to be more obvious. It’s all the time there telling me stories.
Your eye is not telling me stories. So the self-cherishing comes from the self grasping. This I am more important. This is just holding on to the I to exist in a certain way. This is and that I is more important.
Very difficult to separate them. We can’t, you know, but this is the basis. If we remove this one this one will We still have the smell of the garlic here from the self-cherishing. So the person on the Hīnayāna path or intermediate state being, intermediate being, they remove the self grasping but they say there’s still a little bit of self-cherishing there because they still do that for their own bliss. So the person on the Mahāyāna path what you’re doing is you have not realized this yet.
You do not have the wisdom realizing emptiness yet. But you’re going to change this self-cherishing mind into the mind that cherishes others. So if my mind cherishes others more than myself twenty four hours a day spontaneously then my mind enters the Mahāyāna path. Another word again? When I can transform my mind in a mind that cherishes others into the mind that cherishes others more than oneself twenty four hours a day spontaneously.
That is the measure that I enter the Mahāyāna path. So when I do this, change this, then the power of the self grasping mind reduces very strongly, isn’t it? Because the attachment and the anger on the basis of me is just not arising because I’m just concerned about you. I want you to be happy, I want you to be happy. So my attention is completely away from this.
So I get a lot of space from this. And if I do that my mind becomes very big. This makes my mind very small, self grasping. Right? self-cherishing makes it even more small.
It’s only me. Nobody else in the world. So when I can change this my mind can become very very big and the influence of this it is still there but it doesn’t really The self grasping is only focused upon the happiness of others. So what you want, want the delusions to go right? The delusions is what is giving us a lot of suffering.
Delusions are coming up because I believe in the I and because I believe my I is more important than yours. As soon as I make your eye more important than mine there is no space for my delusions. If I do that with wisdom and generally there is no space for delusions. The moment I say but hey I also want something of the cake, you know, then my self-cherishing mind comes up If we work too hard, if we give too much I see you’re looking like at this. Oh I’m just thinking why can’t we make the, so instead of saying my eye is more important than your eye, we want to change it around to say your eye is more important than my eye.
Why can’t we just make it us? Do you know what I mean? I would say your eye is at least as important as my eye. So then it’s we are important. Yeah.
We equally are But when I say we are equally important the way we behave is I’m still a little bit more important than you. I was raised in this whole martyrdom thing you see so to me then that just becomes you just being a martyr. Yes. So for that you need the wisdom to see, yeah tell me what you’re doing because many of us have the same experience. Well it’s just I get it from currently my daughter’s not well and so every Thursday morning I go to her house and I do all her work for her so she doesn’t get sick and she keeps saying thank you mum, thank you thank you mum.
I could say no I really get great satisfaction doing it and my whole family chorus with oh that’s right yes you know you’ve to wear the mantle of the martyr. It’s as if they’re seeing it as jokingly but they’re seeing it as I mustn’t really like doing all the washing and making her bed and that sort of stuff. I’m just doing it as a chore because I feel I should because she’s sick. And I said to her, I genuinely it gives me pleasure when I leave to see everything’s done and clean. Think I know she’ll get joy with not having to do that.
So you don’t have any problem there? No, no, I think it’s our but what I find is when I try to do something like that you’ll get that you’re trying you know, you’re a bit of a martyr. People cannot believe that you’re genuinely doing that. That’s what you’re saying. People cannot believe that you genuinely are so kind.
Right. That’s what I hear. Wednesday morning is good for me. Exactly and that’s when it comes in. So let’s see if you can still do it when it goes in my house.
And if you can’t, you’re not really doing it from your heart. So that’s very beautiful. I think what a fantastic mom. Yeah but I think us as a society though we do see that as of Yeah we don’t value that. Don’t value that.
She told her friends that because she mentioned it to one and they all sort of said oh. And they saw it as negative like oh gee you’re spoilt or a joke. But your daughter thanks you. Daughter thanks you. Oh she does, she totally gives you And what do you say when she thanks you?
I say, I would have normally said oh it’s fine, doesn’t matter and flipped it. Now I say it gives me genuine pleasure to know that it’s helping you. Yes, and can you receive her thank you? Yeah, thank you. Can you say, appreciate that you thank me or that you really receive that?
Yes and that’s where I’ve had an issue too though actually because yes I appreciate it when she rings up and says oh mum the house looked lovely or blah blah blah blah but then I’m thinking with what we learnt back in the previous modules was that then a pride or am I doing it so that I get thanked or I get a pat on my back and told you that? Well you have to check that yourself. I don’t hear that but you have to check that for yourself. But you know you begin to doubt yourself. Well it can be that your pride starts doing that but you can also just rejoice you know, oh fantastic she’s so happy, you know, that was actually my purpose.
Now she’s happy, fantastic. So what I hear is a lack of valuing these qualities in the society. We cannot even recognize that that is a very that it can be a purity. That’s what I mean. Yeah.
So you are the one who can recognize that as a purity. Right. As a very beautiful mind. As a mind that is worth generating for you, for others. And having others looking negative at that is like you need more wisdom to really be able to keep on doing that.
So that’s good that it helps you to make that mind really strong and to choose for that. You’re not a martyr, I don’t see that. But now if you go to her house because you feel guilty. Good. Is there a point of too much compassion though?
There is a point of stupid compassion. Someone, you know, you freely give your money or your time or your help to someone and they just continue to say, can please lend me money? Please get me out of this When you stop being compassionate about it? So what does that person need you think? Everything!
But if you would give them everything, would they have enough? No. No, it’s not. So do they really need that, what they ask for? Or do you think they need something else?
So what if you give them only the love? They ask for more. You know the moment that you feel like then you say I’m really sorry but I can’t give that. I try to give you everything that I can give but I can only give this much. Because?
Because I can’t give you any more. Because I would hurt myself when I do that. So that’s when you’re looking after self, not the other. Yeah, so this is the guilt that’s going to come in and says, Oh, know, it’s still not enough. I have to keep on giving.
I have to keep on giving. No, you don’t. As long as we’re not enlightened we cannot give like that. And even if we were enlightened and have to think what an animal hypothesis. Lama Zopa tried this.
So in Bodh Gaya, Bodh Gaya is very, very poor, very, very poor. People are like hungry ghosts, how they want your things. They come even and attack you to get your things even if it’s nothing. Even if they can’t use it they just want to get things you know. So Lama Zopa wanted to build a statue.
He sees the suffering and he wants to help and in Bodh Gaya the Buddha achieved enlightenment so he wanted to build a statue there and the statue was going to be very very big and it was not just a statue but it was going to become a source for wealth for the whole environment and there were going to be schools and hospitals and everything so that all the money could be generated that his people needed in order to be happy and get out of that poverty consciousness like we have nothing, have nothing. So that’s what he tried to do and in order to do that he did many many things. So close by there was a site where the Buddha did six year meditation and every time a Lama Zopa there he goes and visits that and he does like a pilgrimage. And on the way that there was nothing, was just an open field. And then suddenly there was this little village.
And these people in this village they look alright in the sense of what they wear and what they but they’re always asking for money. One time I was there, they had in the middle of the field there was a lot, I don’t know how they did that, but somehow they marked a place and then there were children sitting and they said, This is our school. So it was just a field and they marked the place and the children were sitting there and you could enter and you could leave. And they put it exactly there where we were walking towards that side, you know. So they said you have to walk through our school, have to pay for that.
And also when we walked through the village we had to pay for that. So that is like, you know, how do I generate money? And then we could sign up and make bigger donations. They also gave us the opportunity to do that. So they went to Lama Zopa and said we want to have money and he said how much do you want?
And they said we want to have, I don’t know, how many hundreds of dollars. And he gave them that. You know they said we’re gonna do this and this and this and he said here is the money. And then the year after he came nothing had happened and they came back and said we want to have money. Know?
So he said last year I gave you money, what did you do with that? And then they had all these kinds of excuses. And I don’t know if he gave another time money, I don’t think he did you know, but he tried. He said you want to have money I’ll give you the money. But then if you keep throwing it away then he knows that no matter how much I give you you just throw it away.
You cannot hold it. Your consciousness is a poverty consciousness which means that no matter how much money I give you you are not capable of holding the money. That is what poverty is. You cannot as soon as money comes in it goes out even faster. That’s poverty.
You have to decide. You do not help somebody by you know what they suffer from is from their poverty consciousness. So you want to do something that can change their consciousness. Is that something that become Well sometimes it can then become tough love and say listen I’ve given you so much. I really love you.
If you want to spend time with me that’s fine. I have this much time that I can give you but I can not give you this and I cannot give you that. But we also fear sometimes then that we’ll be rejected. I’ll just say oh well fine, fine. If you’re not going to help me, fine.
You can go somewhere else. Okay and then we sit with that pain. We sit with the pain and then we want to have love, right? And then we give ourselves that love and you say, It is okay for me to set my boundaries. I cannot give this.
I’m wearing myself out when I do that. So I can set my boundaries. That’s actually very healthy. And if then people want to walk away when I want to be healthy that’s okay. These people want me to be sick.
I do not want to be with these people. Yes it hurts. Yes now I feel alone. Yes now I feel rejected. That all hurts.
The hurt is not only coming from that person. Right? The hurt is deeper. So you go into that deeper hurt. Hurt makes us vulnerable, right?
You can hear it, even going through the hurt, that empowers us. The more we can deal with our own hurt, the less we are vulnerable for this kind of power games. My big thing was realising that it’s not kind to somebody else to participate in their delusion. Because I thought that was generosity for so long and having to go, this is not kindness or compassion. This is me.
This is my fear of being abandoned by this person. That was my thing. Having to go. But it made me feel so I’m risking this person. Oh, they want so much, and it’s so hard for me.
It’s not And we all have mixed motivations to do things. You It’s a really hard situation to be in, especially when it’s your child, that you’re trying to For your mother? Yeah, get out of a mess. But it seems to be every five months there’s her mom, And you find your mortgage instead of getting less, it’s getting bigger. And your retirement age is getting closer, and you’ve got less money, and they want more.
And it’s the guilt thing that you put on yourself if you don’t help them. It’s very hard. Very, very difficult. So then you have become tough, And the longer you postpone it, the more you’re gonna be damaged, you And then when you have done it, you say, wish I had done it ten years ago, then at least It’s funny though because it’s also their perception. For example, I come from a family of three now.
My parents are Beatitudes, so they’re the elders, and they weren’t on my brother. But I’m in a much better place because in some way they’ve trained me well, although in the past I’ve gone bloody hell he got everything. He is now in a cycle of poverty because he hasn’t let no life Yeah, that’s interesting. And by just giving you know it’s not really helping. Excuse me.
Thank you. I have a long drive too so I’m going to dedicate the merits if that’s alright. Yeah, everybody alright? Burning questions? So next week is the video week, video night.
I’ve never done a video night with you guys have I? I wasn’t here for any of them. Video night and then the weekend on the first and the second of August is the weekend, Lamrim weekend, meditation weekend. Yeah, from ten till five. Yes, please bring food for that.
She had lunch, vegetarian food. Starting ten o’clock finish at five special price for you guys so that you do not have big cost. If you have any problem with that let me know. I find more important that you’re coming than not. And then maybe next time we make a time for the exam somewhere.
Mhmm. Alright? Good. Best would have been if we have exam this Saturday, but it’s maybe too much. I have three in a row.
No. We won’t do that. Some nauseous so we can plan around Yes. Yes. We will do that.
We put it next week. We can, yeah. Do you have to memorize lots of things for this exam? Yeah, you have to memorize the whole text, the qualities of So you have the Lamrim, I’ll tell you next week. Yeah.
I know. Okay? I think it says somewhere. You have to memorize. Yeah.
We’re only doing fun. Fantastic. Did you have to memorize them? Yeah. I’ll no.
We talk next week. We talk next week. Next week we’re going to have a video of Lama Yeshe you know so you can hear him. So that’s going to be really nice. Yes.
Anybody. Anybody can come. Yeah. Think they pay five dollars or something, but anybody can come. So just give yourself a minute to let everything settle down.
And if you feel some inspiration by having listened to the motivation of beings of great capacity and how they practice and how everything they are doing is focused upon developing their own full potential so that they can be of most benefit to others. Then nourish that inspiration because that can become the beginning of you developing that mind. And although that mind might seem to be very big and is very big, we all have the potential to develop that completely. So whatever inspiration that you have felt, we can wish that it grows bigger and bigger. So that we eventually can develop the mind of enlightenment.
As that is the only way that we can achieve enlightenment. Thank you very much for coming. Have a safe drive. Where do have to go? Two.
Where? MN two. Where is that?