Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Lobsang Namgyel introduces the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, a classic Mahāyāna text for redirecting the mind from self-cherishing to compassion. After opening prayers and preliminary practices, he explains that this 106-minute session serves two purposes: a meditation invoking Chenrezig to remove obstacles to mind-transformation, and practical guidance on applying the verses to daily life. He walks through each verse—from valuing all beings above material gain, to accepting defeat from others, to regarding difficult people as spiritual teachers, to secret bodhisattva practices like Tonglen. Central to the teaching is his core argument: suffering stems not from external circumstances but from the grasping mind that reifies the “self” and enemies. By seeing phenomena as illusory, practitioners shift from blaming others to transforming obstacles into opportunities for love and wisdom. Pitched at serious practitioners ready to examine their habitual patterns.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011 09 30 Ven Namgyel – 01 – Fri 30thSept.mp3
UUID: 435f07d5-f990-4d6c-b489-6906630b86a7
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: 8 Verses Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-09-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 106.8 minutes
Words: ~12,305
Down, down, down, down, down. Alright. So we have to do some prayers. We’ll find something auspicious. So maybe if you turn to page thirty four.
So we’re going to do taking refuge, four immeasurables, seven-limb prayer, short mandala. So these are the auspicious prayers to start these teachings. I’m just trying to mark a page. Okay. So during this time, then we’re thinking about, what we’re taking refuge in.
And usually, we’re taking refuge in external things. We take refuge in chocolate, hot coffee, hot tea, hot or nothing, umbrellas. So we take refuge. But in this case, we’re talking about spiritual refuge. So what spiritual refuge are we taking?
Then, in this verse, we’ll talk about, the Buddha, the Dharma, supreme assembly is the Sangha. So the people around us taking refuge in the people who are here, but also there’s a higher Sangha, Sangha who have realizations of emptiness. And then, it mentions by my practice of giving another perfections. So we have six perfections. We have a method to develop single point of concentration and, wisdom.
So when it’s mentioning the practice of giving another perfections, then it talks about generosity, morality, patience, joy, and then concentration, and then wisdom. So, these are perfections. It’s putting something into practice so that you will develop Bodhicitta so that you will be a benefit to others. So the whole purpose of all of these prayers is to subdue the ego, to subdue the self-cherishing mind, and to improve our qualities towards others. So the reason to read these prayers is not just to talk and talk and talk and say words, but to actually think about the meaning.
So when we’re talking about Buddha, what do we think? When we’re talking about Dharma, what do we feel? When we’re talking about Sangha, do we have a Sangha, and do we have a relationship with them? So this is very important when we’re when we’re reciting. And then we have the four immeasurables, so I’ll talk about that in a minute.
Seven limb prayer is very meaningful. There’s a a lot of things within the seven-limb prayer, and then the short mandala. So we’ll start with taking refuge and generating Bodhicitta just to, to say something and to think something and to feel something, and then I’ll tell you something about the four immeasurables. So we can read in English. We’re going to read three times.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly.
By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. The four immeasurables, what I want you to consider is the very first verse, which is may all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. The second verse is, may all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. But the very first line, maybe this is your homework. So I like giving homework, don’t I?
So homework is, if you can remember, from the time that you wake up tomorrow thinking, may you be happy. Doesn’t matter who you see, what sort of being that you see, whether it’s an animal, a bird, a human being, somebody walking on the street, somebody driving a car, the person trying to get in front of you, the car trying to push in front, the car that’s in front of you going really slowly. You know? This is the most irritating thing, isn’t it? When you’re really busy and you want to go fast, so you have this car in front of you going slowly, and you can’t get past.
So instead of becoming irritable, thinking, may you be happy. That person’s happiness depends on them going slowly. Your happiness depends on you going fast. So we’re always thinking, why doesn’t everybody else do what I want? Why doesn’t everybody else go my speed?
So if I’m the slow one, the people behind me are upset. If I’m the fast one, I’m upset with the people who are in front of me and blocking me. So with these four immeasurables, what we’re considering is others’ happiness and others’ suffering. Wanting them to be happy, wanting them to remove their suffering. So while we’re reciting, particularly if you have a difficult person in your life, then you consider that person as your object.
Not necessarily an enemy, but somebody difficult. You know, the boss could be your mother, couldn’t it? Sometimes your mother can really get on your case. She can be the one saying, why are you wearing those clothes? Why are you doing this?
Why are you doing this? So sometimes your mother can be really irritating, but she’s doing it because she loves you. But you may not feel she’s doing it because she loves you. So sometimes it can be your mother, sometimes it can be the boss, the boyfriend, the girlfriend. But often there’s somebody in our lives that just gets to us.
So instead of them harming our Bodhicitta, our compassion, instead of that happening, we need a method to change the situation. So these beginning prayers, they’re sort of, you know, just providing the foundation for change. It’s again, it’s not just a recitation. It’s reminding ourselves that we all have difficult situations. And in the difficult situation, how do we change it?
What do we do? So we’re going to recite the four immeasurables, and after each line, we’ll just pause for a few seconds and just think with the first line, may you be happy. May you be happy. Whoever you think about, may you be happy. With the second line, may you be free from suffering or may you not have suffering.
So we’re shortening it to make it easier to work with. Okay? So we’ll read what exactly what’s there, but in your mind, the way you can use it is by thinking, may you be happy. May you not suffer. That’s the first two lines.
Okay? May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. And then you think in your mind, may you be happy. May you be happy. So if there is a difficult person in your life, think about them and think, may you be happy.
And then the second line, may all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. And then you think, may you not suffer. And the third line, may all sentient beings be inseparable from the happiness that is free from suffering. So think of a happiness that is free from suffering. That’s not what we’re experiencing.
In saṃsāra, there’s always happiness with suffering underlying the happiness. So our happiness and suffering is connected. But imagine having a happiness that does not have any suffering. How incredible. How amazing that would be.
And the last one, may all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. And then thinking, well, this is the answer. If I have enemies, my mind is disturbed. When I have friends, if I have attachment, my mind is disturbed. So if I had the mind of equanimity, my mind would be balanced.
So imagine if all living beings had the mind of equanimity without attachment, without aversion. How amazing that would be. How incredible. And then the seven prayer. the seven-limb prayer has a lot of qualities in it.
So, it says in the first line, to prostrate. To prostrate means not necessarily physically, but mentally we prostrate. That means we look at an object that we, have respect for. And then we think, I’m lower. You’re higher.
So we’re considering the qualities of the Buddha, and we’re thinking the Buddha’s qualities are so amazing, so incredible. I want to be like that. But if I’m egotistical, I’m never going to be like that. So how do I become like that? How do I have those qualities?
So if I prostrate, if I put myself lower, then I develop those qualities. If I put myself higher, if I become more and more egotistical, then these qualities go further and further away. And then the second line is I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. So then having reduced the ego, we have a more open mind, and then we connect with the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, all sentient beings, and we think, I just want to offer. I just want to be a benefit to others.
So, here, we’re imagining lots of offerings, and then we’re actually, thinking we’re giving those offerings. So we have actual offerings on the altar, and then we have imagined offerings, visualized offerings. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time, but particularly thinking about the negative actions we’ve done today. We need to consider if we’ve harmed anybody today, if we’ve done something negative today, and then regretting those negative actions and wanting to purify it, wanting to remove those negative seeds. Then considering, the merit of all holy and ordinary beings, So this is all the good actions that the holy beings are doing.
You can think of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa and Pabongkha. There’s many holy beings, not just Buddhist, but in other religions. And then ordinary beings, we can think about teachers, doctors, nurses, so many beings benefiting others, and then we rejoice, and we think how incredible, how amazing that there’s so many kind beings. Then please remain until the end of cyclic existence. So cyclic existence is, saṃsāra, the suffering that all ordinary beings are experiencing.
So then the, extraordinary beings were asking to stay and to guide us until we get out of this suffering. So turning the wheel of Dharma, teaching us a method to get out of our suffering and to have, Bodhicitta, compassion, love. And then before you lose all of this goodness, you dedicate it. You offer it, and then you say, what I’m offering it to is great enlightenment. I don’t want to lose even one drop, even one, seed of this positive energy because it’s useful.
It’s going to benefit others, and, by the way, it’s going to benefit us. So the purpose of doing the seven-limb prayer, again, is a lot of activity of confessing, purifying, rejoicing. We’re doing many activities in a very simple way. So we read through that. Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, and mind.
I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the merit of all holy and ordinary beings. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence and turn the wheel of dharma for living beings. I dedicate my own merits and those of all others to the great enlightenment. And then the short mandala offering, and this is basically visualizing that this place where we are is transformed into a perfect place.
Something that’s very beautiful. It’s not difficult. It’s many holy objects, so you can think this is an incredibly beautiful place. There’s many flowers. There’s very nice perfume.
You can imagine, petals strewn all around. It mentions Mount Meru, four continents, the sun, and the moon. So, basically, it’s mentioning all of the wonderful things that there are, we offer them. So in a modern way, we can think of whatever we like, whatever we enjoy, and then we should offer it. So if we like cappuccino, we should offer cappuccino.
And if we like, chocolate cake, we should offer chocolate cake. So not to offer in necessarily a traditional way, but we can make it more modern. We can think of the things that we enjoy, and then we offer all of those things. By doing that, again, you open your heart and you create merit, you create positive energy by connecting with others who need and others who need particularly, good karma. So you’re working on their behalf.
So you’re using your mind to accumulate something very positive. So we can read it in English. This ground anointed with perfume, strewn with flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, four continents, the sun and the moon. I imagine this as a Buddha field and offer it. May all living beings enjoy this pure land.
Idham guru ratnamandala kam niryatayami. So they’re preparatory prayers. It’s something good to do in order to prepare the mind and make the mind more pliable, more more easy to work with. And then we’re going to turn to page a hundred and fifty seven. So this is the thought transformation meditation.
So we’ve already done it some of those prayers, and I thought just to show you this practice, which is connected to the eight verses of thought transformation and then the Chenrezig practice. So on the weekend, I’m going to be explaining the eight verses and how we use the eight verses to transform everything negative into something positive. So it’s not saying, oh, there’s a problem, and, then I don’t believe there’s a problem. It’s it’s not sort of ridiculous. You know, that you you see a problem in your life, and then you think, no.
The problem just doesn’t exist. And so, we wipe it out. It’s actually taking the energy of the negative and transforming it into something positive. Then this particular practice is something that Lama Zopa translated, about nineteen seventy five. So thirty five over thirty five years ago, Lama Zopa put this practice together, and he said, this practice helps you to remove the obstacles to doing thought transformation.
So thought transformation is incredibly useful in our present lifestyle with the lives that we lead. It’s very busy. However, people often find it’s difficult to put it into practice. So why is it difficult? Because we have these, delusions, karmic obscurations.
We have these obstacles to the mind changing. And so when we do this type of med meditation, we’re asking Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion, to help us to actually remove the obstacles. So we read the thought transformation verses, and then we’re saying, okay. Here’s the thought transformation verse. This is what I want to do with my mind, but if there’s any obstacles to this happening, to me being able to transform my mind, please, Chenrezig, help to remove those obstacles.
So we’re going to do thought transformation in two ways. One way is by being aware of the thought transformation verses and asking Chenrezig to help us to remove the obstacles. The other is to understand the purpose of the verses, and then how do we change our minds? How do we put these verses into practice? So we have these, two jobs, if you like.
One is, working with Chenrezig. This is a meditation. And the other is, practically, in everyday life, when you have a problem, are you aware of these eight verses, and how would you put these eight verses into practice? You understand? Hope I’m not speaking Spanish.
It could be happening. Okay. So I thought just to show you this practice and how it’s going to work. So if you look at page a hundred and sixty, after we do the preliminary prayers, then it says the actual practice together with the root text. So it says in in small italics, with each verse, visualize from the seed syllable, hri.
So if you know the Tibetan hri, you can visualize hri or you can visualize h r I h. It’s up to you which one you do. As Avalokiteśvara’s heart, much blissful white nectar streaming down through the crown of your head. It fills your whole body, purifying all obscurations, bringing all realizations of the entire path to enlightenment from guru devotion through Buddhahood, and purifying and granting the specific obscurations and realizations relating to the particular verse you’re contemplating. So we’re visualizing the thousand arm Chenrezig above the crown, And then from Chenrezig comes this compassionate energy which wants to help us to actualize enlightenment.
In order to actualize enlightenment, we need Bodhicitta. In order to have Bodhicitta, we need compassion, we need love, and we need wisdom. So we need a lot of qualities in order to reach enlightenment. So we’re basically relying on Chenrezig, and we’re saying, please remove all these obscurations physically, mentally so that I can achieve enlightenment. So then that’s the visualization.
It’s going to be the same visualization for each verse. Then we have verses one to eight of the thought transformation. So you have determined to obtain the greatest possible benefit from all sentient beings who are more precious than a wish fulfilling jewel, I shall hold them most dear at all times. And then, the second verse, when in the company of others, I shall always consider myself the lowest of all. From the depths of my heart, hold others dear and supreme.
Maybe a dangerous verse. If you have low self esteem, this is a dangerous verse. We have to talk about that. The third one, vigilant the moment a delusion appears in my mind, endangering myself and others, I should confront and avert it without delay. The fourth one, whenever I see beings who are wicked in nature and overwhelmed by violent negative actions and suffering, I shall hold such rare ones dear as if I’d found a precious treasure.
Not the usual thing to do. Usually, when we find somebody negative, wicked, horrible, we want to do the opposite. We want to get them away. We want to remove them. We don’t want them closer.
So that’s why we need to discuss these verses. The fifth one, when out of envy, others mistreat me with abuse, insults, or the like, I shall accept defeat and offer the victory to others. Again, incredibly difficult because as soon as somebody abuses you, you know, I don’t like you. I hate you. You’re the worst.
Immediately, we want to run-in the opposite direction. So we don’t want to stay where we are and deal with it. We’d rather go. So here, the abuse, the insults, or the like, it’s actually a bit tricky. We it’s something that we really need to discuss because there’s two ways that we need to think, and so I have to explain that to you.
When someone whom I benefited and whom I have great hopes gives me terrible harm, I shall regard that person as my holy guru. So in this case, this is somebody that we really liked. We really gave them a lot. We put a lot of hopes in them. We groomed them or we gave them a lot of benefits, and we were hoping that something good was coming back.
And what came back was harm. And so now we can be incredibly depressed. We can be angry. We can want to attack back. But in this case, we’re not going to do that at all.
We’re going to use this person as our object of patience. Then the next page, short, directly and indirectly, do I offer every happiness and benefit to all my mothers? I should secretly take upon myself all their harmful actions and suffering. So this is mentioning two practices, and one is thinking all beings are your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, and the other is Tonglen. So we need to talk about those practices, whether you’re considering everybody as a relative or whether you’re considering everybody as wanting happiness and not deserving suffering.
But find a way of transforming your mind into more compassion and less self-cherishing. And then undefiled by the stains of the superstitions of the eight worldly concerns, may I, by perceiving all phenomena as illusory, be released from the bondage of attachment. So this last one is actually probably the most applicable to our lifestyles because it talks about eight worldly concerns. It talks about eight thoughts that hold us in our suffering. And then it says, may I, by perceiving all phenomena as illusory, be released from the bondage of attachment?
So we’re attached to what? You know? Is, being attached to this cup or this watch or this book or this table, is this going to stop me from getting out of saṃsāra? If I’m really attached to this clock, is it an obstacle to getting out of saṃsāra? So we have to start considering attachment and whether attachment is causing us happiness or causing us suffering.
If it’s causing us suffering, then can we have objects and people around us without the suffering? Could we have people and objects around us without the attachment? Can we have a relationship without an attachment? Can you have children without attachment? So these are many questions that we need to consider when we’re talking about transforming our mind into cherishing others and not cherishing ourselves.
So, perceiving all phenomena as illusory, seeing everything like a dream, like an illusion, like, a rainbow in the sky? So can we see all phenomena as something not very solid, not as solid as we thought, not as real as we thought, but can we see phenomena in a different way? Not the ordinary way, not the samsaric way, but can we see everything in a different way? So the eight verses are bringing your mind slowly, slowly to the point where you become more aware of wisdom. So we don’t just need compassion.
We need the emptiness of compassion, which is ultimate compassion. So when we’re considering Bodhicitta, I want to liberate all sentient beings, there’s something conventional. We need compassion. But if we believe in that compassion and we believe in the suffering of others, we think others are real, the suffering is real, the compassion is real, then this is not thinking all phenomena is illusory, we’re thinking all phenomena is real, not like a dream at all. So then I believe in everything is real.
I believe your suffering, and I need to remove your suffering. And in this verse, it’s saying, that’s not true. I don’t exist the way I think I exist. And if I can discover that, that I don’t exist the way I think, and therefore you don’t exist the way you think, and then phenomena doesn’t exist the way we think at all, then saṃsāra starts to crumble. Things start to fall apart.
Samsāra still exists in the way of, if we consider the paintings on the wall, the benches. Everything around us still exists, but it wouldn’t exist in the same way if we have realization of wisdom. So when we talk about saṃsāra nirvana, you know, it sounds like, Samsāra is not in here because this is a good place, but Samsāra would be the nightclub called heaven down the road. So if we’re going to Samsāra, we’re going to go to the nightclub, and that’s Samsāra. And when we come back here, we’re coming back to nirvana.
It sounds a bit like Samsāra nirvana places to go. But in actual fact, saṃsāra nirvana are states of mind. And so these verses are gradually bringing your mind around to an understanding of nirvana as opposed to saṃsāra. So then you can say, so what is Samsāra? What do you believe Samsāra to be?
And then, join to Samsāra if you like. In relation to Samsāra, we have nirvana. So then what do you believe nirvana to be? Do you have to go somewhere to experience nirvana? Do you have to be somewhere to experience saṃsāra?
So what is it? Right? So in this eighth verse, that’s what we’re investigating. What do we think all of this is about? And then what holds us here in this suffering existence?
Because it’s not total happiness, it keeps changing. You start eating chocolate and you think, oh, this is really delicious. And then after a while of eating too much, then you think, oh, this is too much. You know? I really shouldn’t have eaten four bars of chocolate.
Or coffee. You drink coffee after coffee after coffee. The first one, the second one happy, the by the third one or fourth one or fifth one, not happy. So when we’re looking at objects, when we’re looking at, things that we use in order to give us happiness, does it have the capability, the ability to give us real happiness, or is it a conditioned happiness? Is it real or not?
Is the happiness real or not? If it was real happiness, true happiness, it wouldn’t go away. It would always be here. So then, what sort of happiness are we experiencing? Are we experiencing something with conditions?
But because of conditions, we have happiness, and if we have a temporary happiness, then what’s the underlying emotion or the underlying feeling that we’re experiencing. So that’s all in in this conversation, the eighth verse. It’s a I think it’s a very interesting verse because it’s telling us how we’re projecting suffering out into our world, and then how to stop projecting suffering into our world and start projecting happiness without conditions. First conditioned happiness, then unconditioned happiness. So does anybody have the answer?
What’s saṃsāra? Come on, Magda. You can tell them. You’re an intelligent woman. Melbourne.
Melbourne. Oh, Samsāra is Melbourne. Samsāra is Melbourne. Day after day after day. Yeah.
And is there any end to it? So say this day after day after day. Right? Then say you were enlightened. You know, today, you’re not.
Tomorrow, you are. Would you still have your day after day after day? Would it still would that still be the same, or would that change? What do you think? I also know you’re an intelligent woman.
Right? Are there any intelligent men? It would be it would be nice. Come on, stick up for the men. Right.
Right. Right. In a different way. Right. Right.
What do you think of a man? It’s a reasonable proposition. You agree? Nobody disagrees? You’re all you’re all hedging your bets on him.
You’re front runner. But shall we bet, each way? Or what’s the other one? To win or each way? Right?
So to win, we can go for one, two, or three. I’d I’d I think I’d bet on to win. Because I think what you’re saying is true, in that if today you have delusions, and delusions are these disturbing emotions that we experience. Right? Anger, jealousy, pride, hatred.
So think of the disturbing emotions that we experience. So today, we have disturbing emotions. Today, we have karma. Whenever there’s a disturbing emotion, we’re always creating karma. So we have disturbing emotions and karma.
Say tomorrow, we wrote we woke up, and we have realization of emptiness. We have compassion. We have love. Therefore, we have Bodhicitta. Therefore, we’ve achieved enlightenment.
Would we still go to work? If you had compassion, you’d go to work. What would they do if you didn’t go to work? What would you do? You know?
I think people often think you’d sort of float up on a lotus and, you know, you disappear into the sky because something’s happened mentally. But I don’t think it happens like that. The change of mind happens, but everything that was there before still continues. So your work is still there, the nasty boss is still there. Like you’re saying, everything you were experiencing before is still there, but would your experience of them be the same or different?
That that’s the interesting question, isn’t it? And that’s what we need to think about to consider. Because if we don’t, what’s the point? Why would we bother even wanting to become enlightened if after becoming enlightened, all the problems are still the same? You still got the drudge.
You still got the day to day, and it’s still a problem. Right? So if Samsāra nirvana is a place, you’re going to get the wrong idea about Samsāra nirvana, if it’s a place. If Samsāra is here, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, whatever, nirvana must be somewhere else. So you go to the travel agent, you say, I must get to nirvana, you know.
I’ve heard in this Buddhist place, I’ve heard so much about nirvana. I want a ticket to nirvana, and just give me one way because I’m not coming back. Once I get to nirvana, that’s it. So if it was like that, you’d confuse yourself because it sounds like it’s a physical place to go. But actually, saṃsāra is the mind, nirvana or enlightenment, the mind.
All that changes is the mind. So if you change from today to tomorrow, today Samsāra, tomorrow tomorrow in nirvana, enlightened, you’d have your job, you’d have your family, perhaps all the things around you, still there, whatever they would be, but would your reaction be the same? It couldn’t be. Right? Everything would need to look totally different to you because of your realizations, because of your change.
So then what’s forcing us into seeing things the way we see them now? Why do we see them the way we see them now? The irritating driver, the person who crosses just in front of you and freaks you out, or the difficult boss, or hundred and one things that we experience every day. Why do we experience them in a negative way? When we get irritable and angry, why does that happen?
And then what does that produce in the future? What does it give you in the future as a reward, as something back? What does it give you? You get angry? What do you get back?
You get irritable? What do you get back? You have jealousy? What do you get back? So is it something good or something harmful?
Right? So this is what we need to consider. When you start to consider all these questions, you start to think, well, what am I experiencing? How am I filtering the world through my senses? And is the world that I’m perceiving real or not?
If it’s real, like, you know, solid, real, the way I think it is, then what can change? The only thing that can change is my mind. I can’t change the whole world around me, but what I can do is I can change my mind. And so in the change of mind comes the change of behavior towards the world that stops me creating suffering causes and helps me to create happiness and compassion and love and the ability to become enlightened. All this is coming from mind.
In the western world, don’t we think that everything’s coming from the outside? Don’t we think all the suffering, all the problems come from the outside? All the pain and the suffering, all the difficulties, it’s all coming from there. It’s not coming from in here. It’s coming from out there.
Where is it coming from? In or out? Go on then. Just help me. Different people.
So do you think suffering’s coming from inside or outside? Outside. Come on now. You can’t have two answers. You can’t say inside, outside.
Okay. But generally, in the world that we live in, we know that it’s the mind responding, but in our interaction with others, it’s actually easier in some way to put the blame outside and to say it’s them. They’re the problem. If they would stop doing that, I’d be happy. Or if they started doing that, I’d be happy.
So, actually, it’s their problem. It’s not my problem. Isn’t it like that? So this is why it’s really important to consider. Why should we know about these eight verses?
Because if you don’t have a strong reason for knowing about it, you don’t have a strong reason for changing your mind. You think it’s better off to have the mind I have and put the blame outside. Say, they’re to blame. You know? Often it’s the government to blame, or the neighbors to blame, or my family to blame.
There’s always somebody to blame, but it’s not me to blame. So then the first question, I guess, to consider is, is it me or is it them? Which is it? What do I really believe? And I know we say, oh, it’s me.
Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m sure it’s me. I’m creating the problem. I’m creating the suffering.
But in actual fact, the way we behave is the opposite. Collectively, we whinge and moan about the government or the newspapers or the TV or channel seven or, you know, we put the blame out there. So there’s a resistance to putting the blame inside. Right? Because our society says, don’t do that.
Don’t put the blame here because if you do, you develop low self esteem, low self confidence. You’re gonna have problems. And so you need to be the winner. You need to be on top of the heap. You need to win, not to lose.
So if you put the blame in here, you’re the loser. You’re not the winner. And spiritually, we’re saying the opposite. Society is saying you must win. Spiritually, it says you must lose.
So these are very interesting, questions and and thoughts to ponder upon. Because if you don’t really go into it, you keep going along with the crowd. You keep sort of agreeing. Yeah. It is them.
Oh, that football team, you know, they lost. That’s why I’m unhappy. Or, or or or, you know, there’s always reasons why we’re unhappy, and we’re usually putting the reason outside. And Śāntideva said, we can’t control the outside. We don’t have the ability to change all of that externally.
We only have the ability to change inside. So if you want to go out into the world and the world is full of thorns and glass, you have two choices, put shoes on or cover the world in leather. So Śāntideva said, if the world is full of thorns, and he wasn’t talking about literally thorns, he was talking about thorny people. Right? Difficult people.
So if you’re gonna go out into the world and there’s thorny people, thorns, glass, what should you do? Cover the world in leather or put shoes on? And we say, oh, it’s very logical. Put shoes on. But in actual fact, how we behave is we want to cover the world in leather.
And this is the most difficult thing to do, to keep telling others how to change, how to behave in order to make us happy, in order to give us something that we want. So these eight verses keep pointing out The problem is not outside. The problem is inside. It’s me. I’m creating the problem, and the problem doesn’t really exist.
So first, we have to establish problem, and then we understand problem doesn’t exist. Yeah? So we need to go in steps, in stages. So to go back, we go back to I think this is Lama Zopa that wrote this in the introduction. He said what follows is an eight verse teaching that contains the entire teaching for transforming the mind into relative and absolute Bodhicitta.
So relative and absolute Bodhicitta is, relative Bodhicitta is wisdom, compassion, is all the qualities in a in a conventional way. I think maybe conventional is an easier word rather than relative. So conventional means we see people suffering, we want to do something about it. We see them in pain, we see them, having difficulties, we want to do something about it. So there’s relative or conventional Bodhicitta.
I don’t want you to suffer anymore. I want you to be happy. I take responsibility. I want to do something about it. An absolute Bodhicitta is, but does it really exist?
And I think the best example of this is the rainbow. We really think the rainbow exists. You know, I often say, my mother, when I was a child, wanted to get me out the house because I was always reading books. So she used to say, you see that rainbow? At the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold.
She was Irish. So she always said there was a pot of gold, and if I found the rainbow, I’d get the pot of gold. So I’d spent hours going down streets and always looking for this rainbow. Never found the rainbow. Never found the pot of gold.
So in the same way, there’s an illusion of suffering, an illusion of human beings, an illusion of saṃsāra. Does it really exist? Solid, real, the way we think? It doesn’t exist that way, but we think it does. And because we think it does, we’re grasping onto it.
We’re attaching to it. We’re holding onto it. We’re saying, it is real. And because it’s real, we react to it. Enemy.
I don’t like. I want to do something to remove the enemy. Friend. I really like. I’m attached.
I want the friend closer. Because we think it’s real. We think the enemy is real, not as something produced from my own mind, but as something that existing outside. Solid, real, like the table. So when we’re talking about this ultimate Bodhicitta, we’re talking about the emptiness of Bodhicitta.
And when we talk about emptiness, I think it’s very open to a lot of confusion. Because as soon as you say the word emptiness or voidness, then most people think, yeah, emptiness. I get the word emptiness. Emptiness means when there’s nobody in this room, the room’s empty. Right?
This is the conventional meaning of the word. When we talk about the emptiness of the room, the emptiness of the board, there’s nothing written on there, so therefore it’s empty. We think we know what this word means. If it’s that simple, I don’t know why they study in the monastery for five years from six in the morning until nine o’clock at night, and then they debate until midnight. I don’t know why they’re doing all of that.
All they need to do is think, emptiness means there’s nothing written on the board. There’s no people in the room. Therefore, the room’s empty, and that’s it. We can have a realization of emptiness. Our mind can completely change.
But that’s not the meaning of emptiness. That’s a deception. It’s something that, people think they understand, but they really don’t understand. So then when we’re considering voidness or emptiness, what are we really thinking about? Why are we thinking about voidness or emptiness?
Why is it important? How will the realization of emptiness combined with compassion produce the mind of enlightenment? How is all this going to happen? So compassion, we can understand. Love, we can understand.
These are emotions that move you to do something to help others. Right? It gets you off the cushion, and it moves you to help others. So love is, I want you to be happy. Compassion is, I don’t want you to suffer.
So this is a very good movement. But what if you have love and compassion without wisdom? What would that do to you? What would that produce? So on one side, you have the emotion, love and compassion.
You want to move to do something. But on the other hand, if you have wisdom, it’s a cooling quality. It’s something that says, hold on. So one wisdom is knowing the right time, the right action, the right place, all the right things to do. We often don’t have that.
We’d like to have that, but we often don’t have that, and that we can often try to help and make things more problematic, more difficult. I don’t know what went wrong. You know? I had incredible incredible thoughts to make things right and to help you, and somehow it all went wrong. You know?
So when we just have the emotion, the feeling, I want to do something about you, about your situation, without the wisdom, you can make more trouble. So if you have the wisdom, how does it change the feeling? What does it do with the feeling? So remember the example of the rainbow. So if we take that as the example of I, I’m sitting, I’m walking, I’m talking.
This ordinary I, not complicated I, not not I’m angry, I’m egotistical, I’m proud, I’m jealous, I’m arrogant, whatever. Nothing like that, but just an ordinary I, I’m sitting. I’m walking. I’m talking. Okay?
Think about that I. Is it a problem? Does it make a problem for you or for others if you just sit there and you think, I’m listening? Does anybody think it’s a problem? It’s not a problem?
You think it’s a problem? Do you think it’s a problem? You’re wise women. It’s simple. Right?
Buddhism is not saying that I does not exist. Buddhism says that I exists. So we have an I sitting, an I walking, an I talking. Just think of those very simple I, I things that we do. I’m listening.
It’s not a problem. But then think of an emotional I. What would make you emotional? Say you really love trees, and, in your street, there’s a lot of really beautiful trees. You live in the city.
There’s a nice street where you would live. Nice trees. And the council has decided they’re going to cut down all those trees. So you ask why? You know?
Why are gonna cut down all these beautiful trees? We need a green environment. We need a better environment. And the council says, no particular reason. We just decided we don’t like those trees.
So we’re good we’re just gonna cut them all down. And you really love those trees. So now what sort of emotion would arise? Would it be with an ego? Would there be any ego involved?
Right? I really want to save those trees. Or could you keep it simple? Would it be a self righteous feeling? Would it be an angry feeling?
Could you have hatred? So can you see the difference between where it’s a simple I, I’m sitting, I’m walking, I’m talking, and then when the I becomes emotional. How now a negative feeling is coming into the mind, and that negative feeling is going to dictate the way that you behave in the situation. Can you see the difference between the two, or is it difficult? You’ll get used to me asking questions.
You can see the difference? So then the first one, not a problem, is it? That I’m sitting. We established that’s not a problem. So that’s what we call the conventional eye, the ordinary eye that we experience.
But when that I starts to change, starts to become more emotional, but in a negative way, not with love and compassion, Think in a negative way. You can feel it. Then you start to use your fist. You know? You can sit in the kitchen, you say, it’s just not right.
They can’t be allowed to do this, to cut down all these trees. It’s not right. I’m going to do something about it. You know? I’m going to tie myself to a tree, then they can’t cut down the trees, Or I’m going to lie across the road and stop them from coming, or I’m going to call the TV and the journalists.
But we can have a really strong feeling reacting to this situation. Now it’s uncomfortable. Right? This feeling is very uncomfortable. And because it’s uncomfortable, the mind becomes confused.
Now the mind is not clear, it’s not peaceful, the mind has changed. It’s not the actual quality of the mind has changed, but the, overlaying emotions, the delusions, the negative karma from the past, this is starting to be more present. So now instead of seeing clearly, you’re seeing through delusions, you’re seeing through negative emotions. So now it’s really difficult to know what to do and how to do it because you’ve got all this going on. Now it’s become a big story.
Now we’re launching straight into Samsāra. We’re gonna really enjoy it, you know, because this is the drama. So we have these incredible emotions and this disturbance of the mind. And in that disturbance, we can’t see clearly what to do. So what created the disturbance?
How did we go from a simple, I’m sitting, to now this disturbed mind? What produced the change? So in Buddhism, we say, we have this very simple conventional situation. And then when it changes, it changes because of attachment. I believe I exist, that there is an I.
Right? Because we said, I’m sitting. So we assented that. We agreed with it, and we said, that one’s okay. So already we’re saying, there is an I.
But now this I is growing in strength. You know, it’s like the hurricane or the typhoon. It’s starting to grow in strength, it’s going from a number one to a number two to number three, and ten is the maximum. So it’s going up and up and up. It’s getting worse and worse and worse.
So what’s growing in strength? This fearless, like the Loch Ness. You know, there’s a monster in Loch Ness, so there’s an iness. Now the monster is growing. You know?
This monster eye, and it’s getting bigger and bigger. So what happens is there’s a feeling of an eye that gets bigger. There’s no eye actually there. There’s the imprints. There’s the habit.
So from beginningless time, we’ve had that a habit of believing I exist. So because we think there is an I because there’s an appearance of an I, Like the rainbow appeared, the feeling of I appears, and then because there’s a feeling of I, we grasp onto it. We attach onto it, and we say, this is who I am. I exist. And because I exist, you must exist.
Right? Because once we’ve established one exists, everything else exists. So I exist, therefore you exist. Therefore, exist. So nothing is like a dream, nothing is like an illusion, everything exists now the way I think, truly.
Without causes and conditions, it just exists. And this is what makes these delusions so dangerous. Because when the delusions appear, we don’t see them like a dream, like an illusion, like a a rainbow, like a magic trick. We don’t say it like that. We think it’s true.
We think it’s real. I I really do exist. And because I exist, you exist. And I need to do something about this situation because you’re the enemy, and I’m the good person. So I exist in relation to you.
So now I need to do something against you because you’re the enemy. You’re going to cut down my tree. So now it’s my tree. Before it was the council’s tree, but now it’s my tree or my trees, my road, my feelings, my attachment, my grasping. So when we’re working with these, verses, Lama Zopa made a a sort of sideline.
He calls it the annihilating the demon of the self-cherishing mind. So the demon is not the devil out there, you know, the demon out there. It’s the demon that we create in here of this self-cherishing mind, like having a baby inside and then grasping onto it and saying, don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you. We’ll be fine. You know?
You exist. I need to take care of you. And so that’s the self-cherishing mind. So when we have the self-cherishing mind, we can do harmful actions because I’m more important than you. I need to take care of myself to protect myself.
And in that process, I’m harming others. And in that process of harming others, what comes back to me is harm. And so I put out harm, and what I get back is harm. And in putting out harm, I usually think that what I’m doing is going to be the cause of happiness. By getting angry, by banging the table, by calling the the channels, and by screaming and shouting at the council people, I’m sure that this is going to be the cause of something positive to happen.
The result is going to be something positive. But in actual fact, I call them boomerangs. You throw out all these negative boomerangs, these negative actions, and they go around and they go around. And when they eventually come back, you’ve forgotten what you did, but the result is now you’re being harmed. And that’s what we call saṃsāra.
There’s day after day after day creating some good causes, some but some bad causes, and the bad causes are causing the suffering, and the positive causes are causing temporary happiness. But it just seems like like a grind. It just goes on day after day after day. So then how to get out of that? Because it it’s like a mud that keeps pulling us down all the time back into our usual habits, pulling us back into the way we’ve always done things, the way we’ve always thought about things.
How do we change? How do we do things in a different way? We need some sort of method. Because if we don’t have a method, the habit continues. We’ve done it this way before, we do it this way now, we’re gonna do it this way in the future.
And it gets more difficult over time, more problematic. So that’s why Rinpoche said, the problem here is the self-cherishing mind. And that self-cherishing mind is the demon. If you want to do puja because you’re having many problems, you should offer, puja, you should offer the torma, the cakes, to the demon. And, usually, we’re thinking of the demon outside.
Oh, maybe it’s a ghost, you know, or a poltergeist or something like that causing all my problems. But actually, the cause of the problem is the self-cherishing mind. So you should actually throw the cake at yourself. Right? If you’re realistic, if you really understand Dharma, then you should buy a cake and you throw it this way.
Say, yeah, have the cake. Not to offer it outside, not to offer it on the altar and say, oh, demons, please don’t harm my practice. Please help me. We should actually be looking inside and saying, this is the cause of all the problems. This is the cause of all the difficulties, the self-cherishing mind.
So these eight verses keep chipping away at the self-cherishing mind. They won’t let you get away. Because in each way we keep saying, it’s not my fault. I’m a good person. It’s his fault.
It’s their fault. It’s their fault. You know? The global way, the country way, the city way, the community way, the family way, we can narrow it down to a small situation up to a big situation, but basically, it’s them. But in India, they say, one finger pointing forward and three fingers pointing back.
Right? When you do this, there’s more this way, less this way. But we forget. We’re so popular, you know, like the finger is so popular. I really want to use the finger.
You know? Who’s to blame? Out there. So what we need is this new programming, new way of thinking. Because if we don’t have this type of retreat, we don’t put deep enough habits into our minds so the change doesn’t really happen.
Now I see many people around the world, they really want to change. But year after year, they keep saying, it’s not really happening, you know. I go to the Dharma class once a week. I do my ten minute meditation. I’m a good person.
Right? I do yoga. I do tai chi. I try to help people. But I’m not enlightened.
You know? What happened? What went wrong? Why aren’t I enlightened now? We have twenty four hours in the day.
Six days a week, we don’t go to a Dharma class. Well, maybe one day a week, we might go to a Dharma class, but six days, we’re not. We might do a short meditation in the day, but twenty three hours and forty minutes, we’re not. So what’s more important, the day or the meditation in the morning? Both if you can do it.
But if you can’t do both, at least try to bring your Dharma into the day. And this is where the eight verses are so incredible because whatever happens to you, whenever somebody’s attacking you, something difficult’s happening, something that you don’t like as appearing in your life, The eight verses are saying, this is not their fault. Stop pointing the finger at them. Point the finger at the self-cherishing mind. Because when you look at the difference between ordinary people and Buddhas, what’s the difference?
Ordinary people cherish themselves. Buddhas cherish others. This is the difference. Right? We can make Buddhism so complicated.
We can make it so philosophical and talk about it in such a difficult way. But if it comes down to very basics, what’s the difference between us and them? Why are they out of saṃsāra? Why are we still in saṃsāra? What’s the difference?
The difference is we are cherishing ourselves. Are you alright? Would you like another cup of coffee? You know? We don’t ask out there and say, you okay?
You know? More chocolate? Oh, okay. Just have a little bit more. You know?
Now the coffee. Oh, yes. That’d be nice. You know? So this is the self-cherishing, and we don’t even notice the self-cherishing mind.
It just goes on and on and on. Right? I want, I want, I want. So from the minute we wake up, there’s an incredible mantra running through our heads all day. So I say, we start out with om.
You know, every mantra has om. Most mantras have at the end. So we have om, and then me, me, me, me, hum. Right? So you you get up in the morning, and you get out your mala.
You’re lying in bed. The mala’s hanging off the bed, one eye open, contemplating the day, and you think, Om, me, me, me, me, me. Oh, I need a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. And then Om, me, me, me, me, me. I wish I didn’t have to go to work.
Om, me, me, me, me, wish and already, we’re fabricating the day. We’re making all these concepts about how the day should be in order to make me happy. Everybody else is doing the same thing too. So no wonder there’s all these clashes because they have their concepts, I have my concepts, and the concepts don’t meet, don’t match because we’re not experiencing what is. We’re conceptualizing what it should be.
So from the very time that we wake up, we have a concept, we have an idea, a projection onto the world of how today should be. And if it doesn’t work out that way, we get angry, we get upset, we can suffer. And if it works out really well, we say, wow, what a day. I’m so lucky. You know?
So even we can become Buddhist and we still talk about luck. How lucky we are. You know? We win the lottery. We’re really lucky.
We don’t win. We’ve got bad luck. There’s no bad luck, good luck. It’s created through causes and conditions. There’s got to be a system.
Because if there isn’t a system for happiness and suffering, we can’t change anything. We’re stuck. We’re praying for good luck, and we’re praying for no bad luck. I mean, I grew up with a mother who was full of superstition and used to talk about black cats. You know, if you saw a black cat, this was absolutely terrible.
And, the umbrella. If you open the umbrella in the house, this was awful. Terrible bad luck. Doom was going to happen. And, what else did we have?
Shoes on the table. I don’t know why anybody would put the shoes on the table, but you couldn’t put your shoes on the table. And, all stuff you know, salt, you had to throw it over the left shoulder, wasn’t it? So if you spill salt, you have to throw it over the left. Now why the left, not the right?
If you ask all these sort of things, just do it. Throw the salt like this. This is good luck, not bad luck. And, the famous one, always tell people, blue and green. So blue and green should never be seen except with a color in between.
Right? Because this is a terrible thing to put blue and green together. I could never I still can’t figure this out at all. I’ve told it to so many people around the world. Nobody’s ever given me a reason why it’s so awful to have blue and green together.
But blue and green should never be seen except with a color in between. So for years, I used to look at people walking down the street with blue and green and think, not a good person. You know? Immediately, your mind says, no. No.
No. How awful, you know, that we’re brought up with these concepts, with this way of projecting onto the world, so that automatically, the mind is saying no. And I never realized until I came into Buddhism, I was doing retreat, and one day this I remember this thought came up, blue and green should never be seen. And I thought, but what on earth is this about? You know?
Why was she giving me all this stuff? She never said to me don’t kill. You know? I could have been going around murdering people. That would have been okay, as long as they didn’t wear blue and green.
Or maybe you should murder them if there is blue and green, you know? So, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t light, never mentioned it. But put the umbrella up inside the house, I mean, you go into into horror. So you can see how we can often live our lives on these false concepts, on very strange concepts. And unless we have a method, we’re not going to achieve Bodhicitta.
We’re not going to get out of this daily drudge of the same thing over and over and over, wanting happiness and yet still experiencing suffering. So what’s the method? What’s the change that we need to bring about? We’ve tried changing everybody else. We’ve told them how to behave in order to make us happy.
We’ve told them what to do in order to not make us suffer. And yet still, we suffer. Still, we don’t have permanent lasting happiness. So like Lama Zopa says, you know, you can say keep saying, I want Bodhicitta. I want Bodhicitta.
I want or I want compassion. I want compassion. But it’s not gonna happen. It’s not gonna drop from the sky. It’s something that you develop in your own mind.
You have the potential of this within yourself. The potential of your mind is pure. Because of emptiness. The mind is not inherently bad. The mind is not inherently negative or inherently jealous or inherently any negativity, it is not inherently bad.
So what is the mind? It’s empty because it’s empty, not empty cup, but empty of being bad, being inherently bad. So what we have is amazing potential. This is what Buddha said. You have amazing potential.
But if you don’t encourage the potential, nothing happens. Because we have these habits from the past of negative actions, delusions, the negative emotions. We have these habits, and those habits keep promoting negative actions, which comes back as suffering, as others doing to us what we don’t want to have happen. And so we experience suffering, And then out of that suffering, we do more negative actions, then we experience more suffering, and that’s what we call Samsāra. It’s uncontrolled.
So month after month, year after year, uncontrolled reaction to what’s what we’re experiencing. So how to develop some sense of control? If we start at the wisdom level, it’s too much, Isn’t it? If we start thinking about emptiness, maybe we get really confused. We start saying, you know, doesn’t exist.
All these problems you have don’t exist. Problems with your boss doesn’t exist. People say you’re totally crazy. You know? It does exist.
For me, I am suffering. It does exist. So you can’t go around telling everybody it just doesn’t exist. The rainbow exists. We see the rainbow.
It exists, but it doesn’t exist the way we think. It’s not permanent. It’s not without causes and conditions. There are causes and conditions producing that rainbow, and so we have a reaction to the rainbow. We think, wow.
What a beautiful rainbow. Sometimes it’s a double rainbow. Then you think, how beautiful. Look at that rainbow, all those colors. So we have a reaction, and collectively, we can have a reaction.
We all see a similar shape, similar color. We can have a really nice reaction to it. So in the same way, when the eye appears, we can have a reaction. We like it. If they’re pleasant feelings, we attach.
We want to keep them. Or if we don’t like it, we want to remove them. We want to get get them out, remove the cause of it. So there’s an appearance of something within our minds, and then we think that’s I, That’s me. And then we attach to it.
And then we cherish it. Another cup of coffee, more chocolate, a biscuit. You like these biscuits, don’t you? You know? So then we keep giving it what it wants, but it doesn’t stop there.
We can do negative actions in order to cherish the I, And it’s the negative actions that keep producing the suffering that we don’t want to experience. And so how do we break out of this habit of reacting to our life? What’s going on in our life? We need a system. And the eight verses provides us with a system, provides us with a method.
So you can’t just keep saying, you know, compassion, compassion, compassion. I really want compassion. Buddha, give me compassion. There’s got to be a means. There’s got to be a way of doing it.
And so when you’re working with the eight verses, you start becoming aware that there’s another way of thinking. The it sets up a challenge within your mind. You know, as His Holiness said in Mexico recently, when His Holiness is sitting in the airport waiting for a plane, he reads the eight verses. So he said every single day, he reads the eight verses. He said he thinks this is the most important text for transforming your mind.
Then he said, I’m really happy when the plane’s delayed. So if you’re flying Qantas and your plane’s twelve hours late, you think, wow, thank you so much. Gives me more time for the eight verses. So that’s his way of thinking. You know, we’d be thinking, you know, look at the time.
These Qantas people on strike, it’s not right. You know, there’s the self-cherishing. Your self-cherishing is building your resentment and your anger. And then you go up to the counter. You start thumping on the counter.
You say, change me to another airline. You know? I’m important. I want to go. There’s the negative action starting, producing more negative karma, producing more suffering.
So his holiness said, whenever the plane’s delayed, I rejoice. I think, oh, so incredible. More time to read the eight verses. More time to meditate on the eight verses. So this is the way to think, you know, to think in a different way, a more positive way.
So in our lives, we’re experiencing more causes of happiness, Well, less causes of suffering. Right? Because every one of us wants to experience happiness. This is common. Right?
Wherever you go, whether you go to India, Nepal, Helsinki, America, wherever you go, wherever I go, I always say, who wants suffering? Volunteers for suffering. Haven’t had one person say, yes. I want it. Who wants happiness?
Everybody says, I want happiness. Right? This is universal. It’s universally true that no matter which country we’re in, no matter male, female, dog, bird, every being wants happiness. Every being wants to avoid suffering.
This is true of all of us. So we’re all equal. Some more money, some less, some two cars, some no car, some have this, some don’t have this. Doesn’t matter Universally, no matter what situation we’re in, we want happiness, we don’t want suffering. But how are we going to bring about that happiness?
What’s the method that we’re going to use to make sure that we get to the destination? Happiness. Not to produce more and more suffering. How are we going to do that? This is when Langri Thangpa was asking himself, what am I gonna do with these problems?
You know, problems don’t just exist now. They’ve always existed because we have the mind that produces problems. So Langri Thangpa, this Geshe, he was thinking about thought transformation. He was thinking, you know, I need something really simple. Short, simple, very concise, so that I can memorize it, and I’m going to keep reminding myself how to change my mind.
And this is how this text came about. It was his reminder of how to transform the mind from negative into positive. The Mahāyāna thought training, because we’re not putting the blame outside. We’re putting the blame inside in a very positive way. Not in a, you know, you’re guilty, you’re bad, you’re a really bad person, I’m gonna beat you, I’m gonna make you feel awful.
Not not in that way. But in a very positive, let’s take the ego out. When you remove the ego, the self-cherishing mind, what you end up with is space, and what you put into that space is love and compassion, is the ability to connect with others, to care for others. But if you have a mind which is very egotistical, always me, me, me, me, there is no space for others. And then we’re lonely, we’re paranoid, we think the world is against us, or the world’s not helping us, or the world is harming us.
We have a very negative view of the world, and this is caused by the self-cherishing mind. So in order to have a much healthier life, a much better life, we need to drop me and be more aware of you. We need to switch that around. Let go of me, be more aware of you, and then more aware of more beings. How can I help you?
What can I do for you rather than what can I do for myself? So that’s just a a rough introduction. Any questions? Come on, intelligent people. You can ask about anything.
Don’t be shy. Yes, Magda? Magda? Well, yeah, that was a little bit of a disappointment, I must say, on your past behavior. You always have a question.
This is sad. Cogitating. Definitely some resistance is gonna come up for sure. Sure. I remember when I first heard this, it was from Geshe Lama Konchog Rinpoche.
So I was in Kopan on my first course, and there was a nun teaching hell. So we had two weeks of hell every single day. Every meditation, hell. And she was, talking about the eighteen hells and skewers going up this way and skewers going this way and crushing this way. And I think, oh my goodness.
These Buddhists are worse than the Christians. You know, the Christians have hell. These people have multiple hells. So all different types of sufferings, all different types of hells. Then in the afternoon, Geshe Lama Konchog Rinpoche would come and teach this text.
It’s not their fault. It’s your self-cherishing mind. So I thought, oh, this is dreadful. There must be something you can blame on others, you know? Makes it so much easier.
It’s their problem. It’s his problem. It’s her problem. So I remember the struggle with this text of wanting to blame somebody else, and it doesn’t allow you. It just keeps coming back to, no, It’s not there.
It’s here. And this is Dharma practice, but really, really difficult. And you need support, and you need to be able to talk about it. You need to be able to question it. You need to work with it.
You need many different causes. Gosh. You have sinus. Oh, is it? Nobody has any questions?
It’s very un Australian, isn’t it? Usually Australians have questions. Maybe it was really yeah. But maybe it was really clear, I’m thinking, for a change. You have any question?
Are you from India? How long have you been here? How many? Where are you where are you from? Ah, Pondicherry is very nice.
French restaurants. No? Auroville. Yeah. I visited a nun, a Tibet a Tibetan Buddhist nun.
She was American living in, Pondicherry. And I really liked the way Pondicherry was set out. But she said that it was becoming busier and busier and busier. It’s changing very rapidly, isn’t it? Not like Adelaide at all.
I mean, I’m sure Adelaide is changing, but it’s not busy like Pondicherry. So Adelaide must be a really pleasant place to live. You’re not going to go back? Do you think Adelaide’s home? Yeah.
Yeah. It seems like a very nice city. Have you been here before? Yeah. The hills are very nice, aren’t they?
So you have the the beach flat and then the hills. It’s a very, very nice situation, except for the weather. I’m hoping it’s not like this forever. The what? The driving.
Oh, do they? Oh. Oh, I see. I haven’t noticed bad driving. Are you supposed to be bad drivers?
Really? Oh, I’ll have to watch Lindy more carefully. But I haven’t seen anything bad in Adelaide. Wheel back from things, but I’ve got passengers. And so I’ve noticed that it’s not as frantic as when I’m driving.
Oh, I see. By Monday it’s supposed to be twenty five degrees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It’s interesting how when you’re experiencing the rain, you start to forget the sun. Right? As if the sun never existed. And when the sun comes, you experience the sun, and then you forget about the rain. It’s as if permanence creeps back into the mind, and you see things in a certain way.
Okay. So maybe let’s finish with a few minutes of meditation. It’s always good to do some meditation. Does it has anybody not never meditated before? You all meditate.
That’s good. So let’s do a simple breathing meditation. We can just concentrate on the sensation of the breath To start, you can take three deep breaths. Breathing deeply into the abdomen. Breathing in peace.
Breathing out thoughts. Becoming aware of the sensation of the breath as you breathe in and out through the nostrils. When your mind is distracted, gently, patiently coming back to the sensation of the breath. Three minutes more. And slowly becoming aware of the room we’re sitting in, the cushion, and the meditation.
Then we have more one more job, one more thing to do. Now we have some positive energy. So instead of encouraging the self-cherishing thought, we offer all the benefit to others. So we’re going to use Śāntideva. So if you can turn to page thirty two.
So it’s the, the verse under the the italics onto page thirty three. May all beings everywhere plagued by sufferings of body and mind, obtain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creature suffer, commit evil, or ever fall ill. May no one be afraid or belittled with a mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms and the deaf hear sounds.
May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose. May the naked find clothing, the hungry find food, may the thirsty find water and delicious drinks. May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy, may the forlorn find hope, constant happiness, and prosperity. May there be timely rains and bountiful harvests. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit.
May all who are sick and ill quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid, and those bound be freed. May the powerless find power, and may people think of benefiting each other for as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then, may I too remain to dispel the miseries of the world. So thank you all very much for coming.
I’m very happy to see you, and I hope I see you tomorrow. And drive safely. Be careful. Be happy. Okay.
Thank you. Good night.