Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 105-minute session, Ven Lobsang Namgyel teaches practical methods for recognizing and transforming disturbing emotions—anger, jealousy, hatred, anxiety—that cloud the mind’s innate compassion and clarity. He opens by distinguishing meditation from mere thinking: rather than adding layers of conceptual busyness, meditation turns awareness inward to observe moment-to-moment thoughts and emotional reactions without judgment. The core teaching walks through a five-step framework adapted from the Dalai Lama: learning (deeply investigate how a negative emotion harms you physically, mentally, and relationally), conviction (you must change), determination (unwavering commitment), action (cultivate its direct opposite—love for anger, rejoicing for jealousy), and effort (never giving up). He then unpacks the eight worldly concerns—gain and loss, pleasure and pain, fame and obscurity, praise and blame—showing how the mind oscillates between extremes driven by attachment. Throughout, he emphasizes practical tools: fifteen-minute daily meditation starting with breath awareness, a two-hourly diary tracking positive and negative patterns to build accurate self-knowledge without harsh judgment, and mindfulness of speech as a first step in transformation. The teaching is concrete and pitched at newcomers and busy urban practitioners, grounded in story and lived example rather than philosophy.
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File: 2011 11 16 Ven Namgyel Healing Disturbing Emotions. Week 2 16 Nov 2011.mp3
UUID: 6bf1e890-10d1-4524-8429-a33c2e788fcc
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: Healing Disturbing Emotions (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Date: 2011-11-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 104.9 minutes
Words: ~12,489
We start off by taking refuge and generating bodhicitta. 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. May all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all sentient beings be inseparable from the happiness that is free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for actual and imagined. I confess 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 mandala, visualizing countless offerings, especially everything that you’re attached to or your sensory pleasure. Jangchub metog, tram ye, This ground, anointed with perfume, strewn with flowers, adorned with Mount Meru, four continents, the sun and the moon, I imagine this is a Buddha field and offer it. May all living beings enjoy this pure land. Om idam guru ratna mandala kam nir yatayami. So I don’t think this is actually working, is it?
I feel like I’m talking to myself. Testing one two Testing one two Testing. Testing. Testing. It’s in these situations you never know what to say.
Right? My two non-meditators. Is that it? Everybody else meditates. Good on you.
Three. And the rest just won’t say so. Right? So when we talk about meditation, there’s various forms of meditation. But I thought what we should do, because we’re in cities, you’re very busy, I’m sure.
Is there anybody not busy? Everybody’s busy. It is in my mouth. Look. But it’s not very it’s not very strong.
I mean, you know, I could talk without it, and you could hear me just as well. Because of the monastery, they hear me, like, in this village. There you go. I think just my feeling about being in Adelaide. Everybody drives fast, everybody walks fast, everybody’s got somewhere to go, everybody’s busy.
And so when you come to this class, bring the busyness to this class. And then you’ve got to sort of drop all of that and then listen to all of this. And this is based on everything else that you brought with you. So if there’s no space between one activity and the other, then this activity is added to whatever else you’ve done. And so it makes it too much.
It’s like you’re bringing concepts with you and then you’re adding more concepts to concepts. Do you understand what I’m saying? So what you’re doing is you’ve got one film going on, one movie, you know, your romantic comedy or your drama or whatever it is that you want to be in or your Wild West movie. You’ve got that one movie and then here you hear about another movie. And then instead of having just a new movie, you’ve got the old one and the new one and you’re trying to superimpose one on top of the other.
And what results is more confusion. We don’t need more confusion. We already have confusion. So what we need is more clarity. So when you’re doing meditation, the purpose is to have more clarity, to understand your own nature.
And this is very important when we’re talking about the delusions. Know, healing disturbing emotions. Those emotions are delusions. And delusions means something like sunglasses, you know, but angry sunglasses. Angry, yeah, angry lenses.
Can you give me a… persuade me to you? The largest brand. Yeah. I’m I’m beyond technology now. So it’s as if throughout your day you’re putting on these glasses that affect the way you are — the emotions?
What are you experiencing? And your emotions are not the same as my emotions. So each one of you has your own movie, your own situation going on. And that’s valid for you. And you want to change some of it and you want to leave some of it alone.
That’s got to be your decision. So from a Buddhist perspective, we have the mind which is a continuity that goes on from life to life. So that continuity of awareness, of mindfulness, then perceives everything that you’re doing, everything that you’re thinking, all the actions that you’ve done, are doing now, will do in the future. So this awareness or this continuity is aware moment by moment of everything that’s happening. So, you are a product of everything you’ve done from the past into the present, and all those positive imprints are there as a potential, and all the negative imprints are there as a potential.
You’ve got all these seeds that are there as a potential. And if we don’t have mindfulness, we have habit. We have reaction. So you see something you don’t like, and if you don’t have mindfulness, then there’s an automatic reaction to the person that you don’t like. So what does meditation do for you?
It takes you inside instead of outside, and it makes you aware of your nature. So what Buddhism says is, your mind is pure by nature. It has all the potential to be loving, be kind, compassionate, to be wise. It has all that potential, but these disturbing emotions that we have the habit of producing from before surround this potential. Surround this potential.
So don’t you get the moments where you have the light bulb, you know, where the ray of light shines through and you think, Wise! You know, compassion, kindness or whatever. So you get these rays of light shining through and then it vanishes. And you think, well, why isn’t it there all the time? So this is how Buddhism answers you, you know, because you’re asking valid questions and you want to know valid answers, reasonable answers.
So what the meditators tell us from two thousand five hundred years of meditation is: there is the purity of mind, there is the positive potential of mind, but it’s obscured by these negative emotions. The positive emotions, you can say bolster, I’m trying to think of another word for bolster, provide an encouragement for your own potential. The positive emotions, the positive actions are not a problem from a Buddhist point of view. That’s why we don’t spend a lot of time in the beginning on the positive. We say, well, when you’re doing something positive, that’s great, leave it alone, rejoice in it, be happy.
But we have to get to know about the negative quickly in order that the negative doesn’t become the habit, that the negative doesn’t become too powerful or pervasive. So how do you change the balance in your life? How do you take control of your mind? When you meditate you go inside and then you’re aware of moment to moment thoughts, moment to moment emotions, moment to moment reactions. You become aware.
If you don’t meditate, you’re not so aware. Time passes by, you know. You can just sort of be daydreaming and half an hour can go by, but you don’t quite know what happened in that half an hour. Whereas when you’re meditating, the point is to have a sharp awareness, a clarity of thought. It’s not dozy, it’s not falling asleep, but it’s to be very clear.
And then with that clarity, which is the beginning of wisdom, and that perception of yourself and the suffering that you cause for yourself, the problems that you cause for yourself, you start to understand who and what you are, and then you start to understand who and what they are. Because we need to be kind and loving and compassionate towards ourselves first. But that’s not the end of the story. If we only do that, just me, me, me, me, me, and when I’m feeling better, I’ll think about you. So, it never happens.
If I just had an iPad, I’d be happy. Then you get the iPad and then you think, well, now I need to buy some apps, if I buy one hundred apps, it’s only going to cost five hundred dollars then I’ll be happy. And then you get all the apps and then you’re still not happy. Oh, know, I should have bought the thirty two gigabyte instead of the sixteen gigabyte. That was a mistake.
Now I know why I’m not happy. Or I should have bought the white one instead of the black one, you know. So we very much externalize our happiness. But you know, really deep down inside, that’s not true happiness, right? We know that.
We’re not stupid. We can’t be sold this bill of goods that if we buy a new fridge we’re going to be unbelievably happy because it’s stainless steel. But that’s what you’re being told: buy a fridge which is stainless steel, get rid of the old white one. Now you need to have a stainless steel one. Then you’ll be in fashion and then you’ll be happy.
And each time, you know, if you’re feeling emotional, you may think, Oh, yeah, I need to buy something. But then you buy something and the happiness is short term, it’s not lasting. And so how do we develop that lasting happiness? First, we need to start looking inside at the mind and what quality of mind are we working with. If you’re a gardener and you have a new garden, if you move into a new house with a new garden, the first thing you do is check the soil.
The position of the sun, which direction are you facing, which plants are going to grow well in that particular position, what’s that soil missing. Right? So when you look at your mind with understanding and love and compassion, you see the garbage thoughts that arise. You think, Oh, what a load of rubbish! You know, this pops up and this pops up.
You can look at somebody and think, Oh, look at them, sitting so well! You know, I don’t think they’re a very nice person, you know, because I talked to her the other day, she wasn’t such a nice person. But look at the way she’s sitting and these sort of jealous thoughts can arise and these hatred thoughts can arise and these desire thoughts arise. We have people incredibly in love on retreats, never said a word to each other, not one word. But you know, somebody looks at somebody and they’re, ding, you know, wow.
And you know they’re on the same thing as me, so they must be a good person. And the right height, the right shape, it’s all about shape and color, right? But on that shape and color object, you impute desire object on a retreat where you’re not speaking for ten days. And so people have told me during the retreat, Oh, I’m so in love with that girl or that guy. It happens both ways, you know.
So in love. And I say, really? And they say, oh yeah, yeah. Because they come and tell me, you know, so in love. I say, how do you know they’re not married?
Oh, don’t think so. You know, how do you know they don’t have children? No, no, no, I don’t think so. But their big torment is which country are they from? They’re dying to know where is that person from because then we have to organize the wedding, the parents, you know, we’re going to have to live together in which country, you know?
So all these thoughts are going on and this is a retreat. You’re sitting there doing meditation round after and they’re thinking, two children or three, and then which country will we live in, will we still practice Buddhism, or maybe we’ll go on to the Kabbalah or something like that. You know, this is honestly how people can go. Or some people get really into food, you know, if only I could have a pizza I’d be happy. And they’re really making up the pizza in their minds, and I could do this and this and this, and they’re tasting the pizza, and this is their meditation.
So you really mustn’t think it’s only you, It’s everybody, everybody who starts meditation. And even after six months, a year, these thoughts can still arise, but they’re less. Things get better, it gets a bit more peaceful. In the beginning they say it’s like a waterfall, these thoughts are like a waterfall, and then it becomes like a strong river, and then it becomes like a smaller stream, and then gradually the stream slows down. So there’s a progress through your states of mind from this torrential waterfall into something better, something better, something better.
But you have to keep going. You can’t give up. If you give up, you’re giving up on yourself. If you were out of condition physically, then you’d say, I really must exercise. But we’re out of condition mentally.
We don’t do anything for our minds. And the one thing you can do for your mind is you can meditate. So, I have a homework for you today. I’ll tell you a bit later, if I have time. We’re going to do fifteen minutes of meditation.
It’s going to seem like a nightmare, like this is the worst thing you’ve ever done in your life and you want to run. But you can’t run, you just have to sit. And as much as possible, don’t move. This is also going to drive you crazy. So if you think there’s a fly crawling on your skin, don’t scratch it.
If you get suddenly uncomfortable in your back, don’t move it. Because your mind will throw up, Stop, stop, stop. This is what your mind does. It’s so used to the negative habits that it throws up negative habits in the way of obstacles. Why are you improving yourself?
We’re okay as we are. You know, leave it alone. Okay, I’m angry, jealous and hatred, but isn’t everybody? You know, it’s sort of a bit like that. You justify it, just leave it alone.
But we’re here because we want something better. We want to improve. We want to be better people. So, try as much as possible not to move, because then you’ll become very aware of the mind that’s saying, Move, move, go on, scratch, you know, do this. And once you start, you won’t stop.
You know, I mean really, you start. So, as much as possible, still the body so that you can still the mind. Alright? And then what we’re doing is, we’re not judging and criticizing the thoughts, we’re just being aware of the thoughts. What I’m trying to do is give you information for you to take away with you, whatever that information is.
I don’t care whether it’s angry thoughts, hatred thoughts, it doesn’t matter. There’s always thoughts. Even Buddhas think. Right? So it’s not that we’re trying to stop thoughts, because Buddhas think.
Buddhas are thinking about you. What can I do for you? How can I help you? So do you think Buddhas are like zombies? What can I do for sentient beings?
Buddhas are not like that. Buddhas think. So we’re not stopping thoughts, that’s not meditation. We’re aware of the train of thoughts, of one thought leading to another, leading to another. And you want to watch it just like a TV.
You know how on TV you are not the TV. You are separate from the TV. But if it’s a very dramatic program and and you empathize, you get drawn into the program, like you’re one with the program. Okay? So now what you want to do is if you get involved in the thoughts, remember, I am not my thoughts, and again, you draw back.
You separate. There’s my thoughts. I’m watching the thoughts. Okay? Sounds simple.
Wait. This is the best movie you’ve seen since Twilight. The most horrific. I hope not, but you never know. So make yourself comfortable, that’s a bit of a Buddhist joke.
Full lotus, legs up like this, you know. If you’re in a chair, I think the main thing is to have your feet flat. Watch your spine, be careful of your spine, because if you slouch, then what happens is the subtle energies don’t move very easily and you’ll find it creates obstacles to the meditation. We tend to put the left hand under, the right hand on top and the thumbs touching and then to rest these hands in the lap so that it’s just below the navel. And what that does is it focuses the positive energy below the navel.
So there’s good reasons for that. But often what I say is, I don’t know if Buddha said this, but I say it, if you put your thumbs together gently like that and you start to fall asleep, your thumbs will drop. So it’s a very good way of reminding yourself to stay awake, you know, because you just go like that. You can’t keep them like this if you’re asleep. Put the tongue at the top of the mouth.
Stops the mouth from getting too much saliva. And close your your lips. Breathe through your nostrils. Now the first thing I want you to do is check your breath. Are you breathing all the way down into the abdomen or not?
Most of us are not breathing properly. We breathe up here, you know, in the chest area. And what you need to do is get past the chest and down into the abdomen so that the abdomen moves in and out. This is deep breathing and what it does is it calms you down very quickly and it energizes you. It gives you a lot of air, a lot of oxygen.
Your eyes, depending on what’s comfortable for you, but half open or closed. Breathing through the nose, through the nostrils, all the way down into the abdomen. Check your posture, your shoulders, your neck. Just check to see if you’re holding any tension. If your shoulders are tense, you can lift them up and then drop them down.
With the meditation, you’re aware of the mind. You want the body to be comfortable so that you can forget about the body. Then you want to have a positive motivation for meditation. You can think I’m meditating in order to have more control over my mind, more awareness, so that I can be more aware of others and their needs, what I can do for them with skill and compassion. So I’m benefiting myself in order to benefit others.
And then as an observer, watching the thoughts or the emotions, the sensations in the body, just watch whatever appears. Not to get caught up in the story, but just to be an observer. Remember you’re the observer. You’re watching your thoughts, being very aware. Just five more minutes.
Just two more minutes. And slowly bring your awareness back to the room we’re sitting in, the cushion you’re sitting on, and the meditation we’ve just been doing. So you did very well. You were very still. Either you were asleep or you were very still.
So, new people, what did you learn from meditation? Can’t meditate. That’s the first realization. Gosh! Is it busy in there?
Yeah. You busy? Yeah. Just to keep distancing yourself from these emotions or the thoughts as they arise. You know, we are so interested in the delusions that we grasp onto them.
You know, this is our habit From beginningless time what we’ve done is the thought comes, I’m upset, I’m angry. It’s not an emotion arising, it’s my thinking. I don’t like you, I don’t like that, I don’t want that, that’s not fair, whatever it is. The thought arises, it produces an emotion, and then it’s my emotion. It’s me, this is who I am.
And then we grasp onto it, you know, as if it’s life threatening if we don’t have it. And then we defend it, you know, this is my emotion, you can’t take this away from me. So as we evolve, as we become more evolved people, then we start to understand that the emotions are highly destructive. Emotions that cause the trouble in the relationships and with the children and at work and all this sort of thing. So the first thing is start to meditate and each time you become one with the emotion, you say, Oh, I see what you’re doing, you go back to separating.
I’m just watching you. I’m just being aware of you. So that’s one type of meditation. Another is concentrating on the breath, just the sensation of the breath. But I think, you know, when you’re concentrating on the breath, often you go to the thoughts and you’re not realizing you’re on the thoughts.
I think it’s very good to watch the thoughts thoughts and to understand that it’s this continuity of thoughts, one thought leading to another leading to another, which is going on constantly. It just doesn’t stop. And that’s what we call mind. And that’s our potential. There is that positive potential in there.
But it’s not enough to have knowledge, you can have more and more knowledge, but that doesn’t mean you become a better person. You have to put that knowledge into practice. So we’ve got two things, right? One is knowledge and the other is how do I put it into practice? So it’s like, I don’t know, some of you have tried Tibetan medicine.
Tibetan medicine is like goat droppings dried in the sun, and then you have to eat it before breakfast and after lunch and after dinner, so it sort of taints everything. But it does you good. But really it looks like goat droppings. And we used to laugh in India that that’s all they do, they go behind the goats and they dry it and then they sell it, you know. Because it’s never very tasty in the sense of something you want to taste first thing in the morning.
So, you know when you’ve tasted this medicine for a while, think, Oh, I really don’t want that medicine anymore. So, if you understand the destructiveness of your negative emotions, you get that feeling of, It’s like goat droppings, you know, you distance from it, you think oof, I don’t want to do that anymore, that’s not who I am because I’m making a decision, this is not who I am. Now you’ve got the problem, of you’ve made a decision, you don’t want this emotion in your life anymore. Whatever it is that you’re finding in your meditation, whether it’s irritability, anger, jealousy, hatred, find the main emotion. Not the secondary one, but you’ve got to find the main emotion that you’re experiencing pretty much on a regular basis.
That’s the one that you’ve got to start changing. Because you’re changing that main emotion, every other emotion will be weakened. So rather than going for the minor emotion, and then another one, and another one, and building up to the main one, Actually in Buddhism we do it the other way around. We go first for the major emotion, and that erodes the value of all the other emotions. Do you understand what I’m saying?
So, what I wanted to give you is the five point plan. Buy the five point plan, you know, then everything will be good. So this is from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and it works for Buddhists and non Buddhists. So I talk about it a lot to non-Buddhist groups, because it really helps them to understand how to change the process. Step one, step two: we need steps, right?
If you don’t have steps, you think I must change thirty first of December. I must change, you know, I’m tired of my shape and color, so I’m going to lose weight. This is inevitable, isn’t it? As we get older, I’m going to lose five or ten kilos. In order to do that, I’m going to give up smoking, drinking chocolate, every pleasure that I ever had.
It’s guaranteed this plan is going last very long. So we have to have a workable plan that is going to last a long time, because these disturbing emotions are not going to just disappear tomorrow. You’ve got to have a long term plan. Alright? So, the first step, His Holiness says, is learning.
So study, understand the enemy, is another way to say it. You have to know your enemy. So learn about your negative emotion. Not just, Yeah, I’m an angry person, I don’t like it, I should do something about it. Not like that.
You’ve actually got to go into it more deeply. When I’m angry, what does it do to me physically? What does it do to me mentally? How do I feel afterwards? What does it do to my connection with others?
How do others feel when I’m angry? Become aware that when you’re angry, what do they do? They run. If they can, they get away from you. Children are very good at this.
If you start to get angry, they’re out the back door and they’re gone. They don’t hang around, they can feel it coming. So children are a bit like a barometer, they feel it. Adults sort of grin and bear it, but you can watch the effect on them when you’re starting to get irritable and then you’re working towards anger. So this is all part of the learning process.
What would be the upside and the downside to anger? Without me telling you anger is a problem, or jealousy or hatred or anything like that, without anybody telling you, you investigate it for yourself. Because then you’ll come to a conclusion that carries you through the other steps. If you don’t investigate like a scientist, then you have to have faith in the person who is telling you this is destructive. Okay?
So I can say to you, anger is destructive. And then you say, like a good disciple, Okay, it’s destructive. But you don’t really believe me because you like your anger. It’s worked for you. Right?
So what I’m saying to you is, don’t believe anybody about the destructiveness of any emotion, research it for yourself. Go into it. Part of that is watching the thoughts as they’re arising. Watch the irritable thoughts, the angry thoughts, and how you change physiologically. You know, your body tenses, your hatred increases, you start sweating more when you’re angry.
So physiologically you change. Watch all of that and be very aware of the stress on the body and the stress on the environment, the people around you, and the stress on the poor dog who goes sailing out the room. Can boom. We take it out on our environment. When we’re angry, everybody else suffers.
And up until now we said, No, no, it’s not that bad. You know? But don’t defend it, just be a good doctor, a good scientist, investigate. Okay? This is step one.
Now you can’t go to step two until you’ve done step one properly. Step two is conviction. I must change. Right? So you can understand if you don’t do step one well enough, you’re not going to get to step two and say: Wow, this is heavy stuff, I must change.
I’ve been carrying around nuclear waste that I really must remove as quickly as possible because it’s destructive. This is horrible stuff, you know. So step one has told you this is dangerous stuff. Step two is now conviction: I must change. I must do something about this as quickly as possible.
Okay? So you’ve got your conviction: I must change. Then step three: you’re going to need determination. Determination means day after day, not just for a week, a month, but you’re determined until you’ve changed. No matter how long that takes, we don’t put a time limit on it, we don’t say in the new year or one year, two years, three years, it doesn’t matter, but just I’m going to change and I’m determined to change.
Now, step four is the action. What are you going to do to change? It’s not enough that you’ve made a decision to change, You’re going to have to do an equal and opposite action to the negative one. If you’ve got strong anger, you’re going to now have to research patience, tolerance and love. These are the antidotes for anger: patience, tolerance and particularly love.
When you love somebody, you can’t simultaneously be angry with them. And this is very important to know, because we all want to love somebody, want to be close to somebody. Right? So, when you’re holding anger as your object, as your emotion, the love disappears. When you have love, the anger disappears.
You can’t have those two opposing thoughts at the same time. This is how the Buddhist meditation teachings work: You build your experience of the positive emotions, which means the negative emotions become less of a habit. You want to increase the positive and start letting go of the negative, decreasing the negative. So, what I’m suggesting to you is: Number four: Action. Research the opposite of number one.
In number one, you found your strongest delusion. Number four, you are going to find the opposite of that delusion. So, for jealousy, what do you think the antidote to jealousy is? And? Trust.
Maybe. Maybe. Not quite. You’re not quite there. No?
They’re in there. You’re right. They’re all in there, but it’s not the direct one. Because you think of when you’re jealous, what’s the feeling? This is why you stay on number one.
What’s the feeling? Right? I want what you’ve got, isn’t it? You’ve got something and I want it. So generosity is part of the antidote, but also rejoicing.
To rejoice in what they have, rather than wanting to take it away from them, you rejoice in the fact that they’ve got it. It’s so difficult to do, you know, you’re alone, at home, you don’t even have a dog or a cat. Your landlord won’t allow it, you know. So you bought a cyber dog, a Nintendo dog, you know, and you say, Hello, how are you? And it goes, Woof.
You think, I’m all alone, you know. And there’s a neighbor that you really don’t don’t like, and you look out the curtains and you see the neighbor with their partner, and the car that you’d like, and the house that they have is the one you’d like. You know, you don’t go, Oh isn’t it lovely? I’m so happy for them. Mentally, you sharpen your knife, right?
Or the nails. So, when somebody’s got what we want, we don’t go, Oh isn’t that really nice? The mind does something weird. It sort of switches and it goes, I want that. Why don’t I have that?
It’s not fair, you know? And then we add those negative thoughts to the jealousy and we’re increasing the jealousy. And that jealousy can become rage, can become anger, can become hatred. Right? So you can see how if jealousy is your problem, your strongest emotion, that jealousy can cause these other emotions.
From the jealousy you can have hatred, anger, or other things. But you found that your root cause is jealousy. Now for other people it’s irritability, you know driving along they get irritable with this one, irritable with this one. I know one lady in Mexico told me she was constantly bumping people, know, because they weren’t driving fast enough. This is pre Buddhist days, you know.
But she said she was living in America and she said she used to get so irritated, you know, like really angry when people were driving too slowly. So she’d come up and bump them, and bump them again. And then she’d damage the car, and they’d stop and they’d say, what are you doing? And she’d say, I’m bumping you. You know, then call the insurance company and she’d tell the insurance company they were driving too slowly, so I bumped them.
I don’t know what her premiums were like in the end. But she was very honest, you know, and she told. But she said, I realized it was getting out of control. Right? If this is the cause of your happiness bumping, you have to bump even more, and even faster and even harder.
It gets worse and worse and worse. Right? And if the cause of your happiness is anger being powerful and strong, you need more and more anger to attain the same degree of happiness. That’s why the negative emotions don’t work for you. You’re not going to get real happiness, it’s an idea of happiness.
It’s like a dream. It’s not real. Right? So when we’re jealous, you know what it does to your heart, you know? It squeezes your heart.
You don’t feel open and expansive, loving and compassionate, you close down. You feel angry, jealous, hatred, whatever. So, number one and number four are very connected. You have to do the research at number one to know all the problems with that. Now you’re looking for the opposite positive that’s going to be the counteraction for number one, the negative.
Then number five, the last step, is effort. This is His Holiness’s teacher, if you’ve seen it, never give up. Right? He has a teacher that says never give up. And I always think about His Holiness when I think, you know, it’s so easy for us to give up.
But who are we giving up on? Ourselves. If we give up on ourselves, we’re giving up on others. And can you do that? You know?
I think it’s fairly easy for us to give up on ourselves, because we often do. You know, I’ll do the diet for myself, and then we give up. Or I’ll do this for myself, and then we give up. But if we’re doing it for others, it’s more difficult to give up. So do it for two.
I’m doing it for myself in order to benefit others. And in that way, it’s very difficult to give up, because then you feel you’re giving up on others as well as giving up on yourself. So effort is I’m not going to give up. I don’t care how long it takes because of the determination. I started, and now day after day after day, I’ve got to do it.
So this means we need a sense of urgency. We don’t need procrastination. We don’t need, oh, tomorrow. Tomorrow. You know, lying in bed, now you could very much do this in Adelaide where the weather is so fickle, you could be lying in bed thinking, oh it’s too cold today, I can’t meditate.
I’ll meditate when it’s warmer. And then the next day you get so hot, you know, you’re sweating in bed and you’re oh it’s too hot. You know? If you’re waiting for the right weather to meditate, well, I’m not sure it’s going to happen. So don’t wait for the right weather, don’t wait for the right day, the wind blowing in the right direction, your mind thinking this is a good thing to do, you just say, I’m going to do it.
And try to do your meditation first thing in the morning. Try to do fifteen minutes. He’s got a voice as loud as mine. If fifteen minutes seems like an awful long time, start with five or six or seven. However long is good for you, you got a phone, set the time.
Stop the meditation when it’s good, not when it’s bad. Okay? In a group, we have to do it the same time for everybody. But the important thing for you, the beginners or the other people who are starting meditation, stop your meditation when you’re really enjoying it. You think, Oh, I can do this.
Stop! Because tomorrow you’ll think, That was good, I enjoyed it, right? Rather than thinking, Oh, meditation, you know, that sort of, Oh, it’s so dreadful. A lot of books say an hour or two hours, how can you meditate for so long? So set the alarm and do it for a short time.
So, it’s urgent, you need enthusiasm, and to get that enthusiasm there’s two One is precious human rebirth and the other is death. We’re a cheerful lot. Precious human rebirth is basically investigating what you have, all the benefits you have as a human. Don’t you? You do.
Right? And you should think about that, as opposed to a dog, a cat, a bird. If you don’t think your life is more beneficial, not more superior, because more superior depends on what you do with it in the sense of evolving. Some people are no better than dogs, and dogs are much better than people. Right?
So we’re not saying we are superior to dogs, we’re saying what we’ve been given is an incredible opportunity, because we have a human brain, we can virtually achieve anything we want. So, are you using it in that way, or are you just whittling away time, just wasting time? Okay? So, precious human rebirth, if you are wasting time, you would meditate on that instead of the breath, instead of watching the thoughts. You would do an analytical meditation, Is my life precious?
Compared to, and in India we often use the example of a snake, you know, a cobra, something like that. Me as a human, all my benefits, all the good things in my life, all the things I can achieve, Now, immediately put your consciousness into a snake’s body. Who did that? Jane. Interesting.
So that’s what you were in your last life. Well, you’re a very nice woman in this life, so you’ve moved on. Right? So, there you are in your snake’s body, and color, and puts the label danger. Snake, right?
So we see, and we go, you know, like this. So the snake who’s just out shopping, looking for food, sort of panics, you know, stands up like this, gets completely shocked, doesn’t know what’s going on. All it wants is to be happy. So, if you put yourself into that snake’s position, the snake doesn’t have many choices. It’s just looking for food, it’s just looking for happiness.
But it can’t change its habits, can’t sort of start walking up straight with shopping bags going to Foodland or whatever, you know, to change all its habits, but we can change our habits. When you come back to my present form, gosh, I have so many more benefits than that snake, if you go between the two, or that bird. You know, look at birds and people often say to me, Oh, I’d love to be a bird in the next life. So incredible. You don’t have to buy tickets to go on airplanes.
I’d say, Yeah, but there’s a lot of flapping. You want to go to Bermuda for a holiday, you know, you sort of flap, flap, flap, flap, know, it’s a long way. And then, you know, as a bird, you’re not going to get there and lie on the beach and think, Ah, Bermuda. Isn’t it? But this is without analyzing, you don’t think like this.
You think, Oh, look at the birds, they have a great life. You just think it’s better. Or to be a dog, oh, it must be so nice to be a dog. But I say to people, you can’t always choose where you are or how you are as a dog. It could be a terrible existence.
So, we look at other beings or other people, and we think, Oh, look at them, they’re rich, they must be happy. Rich doesn’t mean you’re happy. Often poor people are happier than the rich people. So, when we have this sort of tight mind, you know, poor me, we need to do the meditation on precious human rebirth. Why is it precious?
Because of what we can do with it. We can benefit and help others with it, isn’t it? This is the true meaning of precious, to help others, to benefit others. So, if you have any jealousy or any hatred, very good to put yourself in the other person or other being’s shoes. If you’re not rejoicing in your life, do that type of meditation.
And then, the other one is death. In the sense of sooner or later all our life will finish. Every one of us in this room, our life will finish. So, we can’t say we’ll wait until later, which we often do. Oh, I can’t do this now, I’ll do it later, When I retire, you know.
So you often hear people say, When I retire, then I’ll start meditating. And the day they retire they drop dead, or a week later they drop dead, or a month later, but they don’t have that time that they thought they were going to have. So don’t procrastinate and think later, think there is no later, there is only today. No guarantees tomorrow, but today we’re sure, because we’re living today. So this also means you’re taking some sense of essence, the essence out of the day.
The other thing that’s important is, do I want to be angry today if today is my last day? It’s also a very good antidote for the negative emotions. If today is my last day, would I use my last day for this negative emotion? Would I be bothered? Or would I use it for more love, more compassion, more kindness?
So this can be a really good antidote as soon as the negative emotions are rising, especially anger, irritability, you think, what if I drop dead now? You know, the irritability came up because the children didn’t put the garden hose back. And you go, whoosh, wait until I get hold of those children. And then you think, now I could drop dead, would it be worth it over a garden hose? Then it puts it in perspective.
If we don’t have a perspective, we add to the negative thoughts, because it’s all relative. The garden hose is not important, but you know, often we impute, somebody could have tripped on it, then they could have broken their leg, and then we add to all these negative thoughts, so we build the garden hose into the most negative thing that the children have ever done in their lives, and it’s just a garden hose. So you think when you’re getting this rage, now I could drop dead, and would it be worth it over this small situation? Often, it’s something small. Okay?
So you’ve got step one, learning, and don’t go on to the next step until you’ve fulfilled that step. You really do know about your destructive emotion. Step two, conviction. Now I understand, I must change it, I must do something about it. Then step three, and I’m determined.
Right? This is my direction, I’m determined. Then step four, what action am I going to put into effect? So it’s a bit more investigation in opposition to step one. Step five, effort.
I’m not giving up day after day after day, not giving up on myself, and I’m not giving up on others. And then, but this must be urgent, there must be a sense of enthusiasm about it. Otherwise, we think, Oh, tomorrow, tomorrow, you know, in Mexico, Spain, it’s manana. Manana, manana, you know, and years go by. So then, how do you get the enthusiasm?
Precious human rebirth, I’ve got something very important, very special, and it’s not infinite, it’s going to finish. How do I know there’s tomorrow? In the good old days, we had George Bush. So, you know, I could use George Bush. Any minute, he’s gonna press that button.
Any minute, we’re all gone. You know? Now we’ve got Obama, it’s a bit too peaceful. But you know, with George Bush around, you really got the feeling any minute. You know, on the courses when I say ten o’clock tonight, we’ll all be dead.
People went like this, now they don’t believe it. They think, oh there’s Obama, you know, Julie, what’s her name, Gillard, she wouldn’t make a war, would she? You know, So actually when you have these heavy presidents of going, war, war, it’s quite good for your meditation in that you feel, gosh, maybe there is only today, you know, I need to get on with this. So, get your mind into that state of I must do something. Why?
Because we can’t guarantee this next week, next month. You know, was looking at a photograph today, it came on my screensaver, and it was a photograph in Mexico about three years ago. About twenty two, twenty three people in this photograph. One died of cancer, another one died of an aneurysm in her brain and she’s left behind a son who’s ten years of age. Another one had cancer on her face and a big lump and it had to be removed.
She also had a back problem. And I went through this picture and more than half of the people had very serious or fatal things happening in this last three years. This is just a small group of over twenty people. You think, you look at that picture and you think, oh what a nice looking group. But if you know all the stories, you understand some of those people are not around anymore.
There’s one lady in that picture, Alejandra, her son is Osel. I gave him his refuge when he was small. She wanted her son to be brought up as a Buddhist. So she had somehow an aneurysm in her brain, she died, we were doing prayers November course, last November, we were doing many, many prayers for her, the doctors wouldn’t touch her, they wouldn’t help her for many days, and then she died. Her son has been taken away by the uncle, doesn’t want anything to do with Buddhism.
You see how things can change so quickly. We always think we’re always going to have the opportunity later, you know, more time, more space. But this is the opportunity. And that’s what Buddha taught, that we should have this feeling of I really must get on with this, rather than, Oh la la la, you know, it’s all going to be great, fine, no problem. Okay?
So maybe we’ll have a quick break there, and then I want to talk briefly about the eight worldly dharmas. So this is eight things that take you from one extreme to another. So take five minutes, go and have a quick break if you need to go to the bathroom or have something to drink, and in the meantime I can write something on the board. And if you’re incredibly bored, it’s a good opportunity to slip away. If you can, but doors are locked.
Go on now. No, you didn’t use the word beneficial. You said it’s a great what was the word? Sorry. No.
I don’t know you used the word benefit. Anyway, so something very unusual that you don’t usually get a break in this place. You just get to sit here listening hour after hour. And then twelve o’clock, one o’clock in the morning we finish. You didn’t realize that, did you?
But I think it’s really good. If you need to go to the bathroom, you go, but all you know, simultaneously. And just have a mental break for a few minutes, and then you relax. Otherwise, you know, you get tight. So, I’ve put some information on the board for you, the eight worldly dharmas, and a diary.
So, of all, are pairs of conflicting minds, how the mind goes from one extreme to another. So, when we’re going towards gain, I want something, it’s desire, you’re thinking, I really want to get this, whatever it is. And then simultaneously the other starts appearing. I don’t want to lose it. Right?
If you have something, you don’t want to lose it. So once your mind starts moving towards gaining something, automatically you trigger the other I don’t want to lose it. And automatically because you have something, you have something to lose. When you get something, then you have something that can be broken, something that can be stolen, something that you can lose, you can leave it on the bus, on the train. So if we don’t have anything, there’s nothing to lose.
But the more we have, the more we want to protect. And so this is when we trigger the attachment which wants us to not lose things. So your mind moves I want to gain things and I don’t want to lose them. Then the next pair is pleasure and pain. So, when we’re experiencing happiness, pleasure.
We don’t usually use the word happiness in relation to pleasure. Pleasure is short term. It’s alleviation of suffering. This is what you need to be very clear about from a Buddhist perspective. Pleasure is not happiness.
Pleasure is alleviation of suffering. So you’re hungry, you eat. The suffering you experience from hunger is alleviated by the food. Alright? So then that gives you a sensation of being happy because you’ve got a full stomach.
But what happens if you overeat? You know, Christmas Day. Oh god, I don’t know if I can watch the Queen on TV this year, you know, I feel awful. And your mother says, Alka Seltzer. You know, I just need to lie down, you know, and your stomach is sort of out like this.
Right? So, we’re hungry and if we overeat, you understand how the food takes you past that pleasure into also another pain, into another suffering. So the food itself is not the cause of ultimate happiness, ultimate pleasure. It’s the cause of temporary pleasure. And if you overdo it, you’re going to have too much.
And that’s when again it’s the cause of something. You’ve lost your pleasure and now you’re into pain. So, pleasure and pain are very much connected. Once you have pleasure, you want to attach to it. I don’t want to lose this happiness, this pleasure.
And by attaching to it, often we create then the problem of the pain. You know, you eat one bar of chocolate and then you eat delicious, two, you know, and you eat another and you eat another. You should actually be happier and happier and happier, but you’re getting actually more and more suffering, more and more problem because you’re eating more and more chocolate. The happiness is not in the chocolate, it’s in the imputation, the thought imputing onto the chocolate. So you think, if I eat chocolate, I’ll be happy.
I agree, there’s a temporary chemical reaction. Right? There is that. But it also has a limit, you know? We can’t go past that limit.
So pleasure and pain are connected in that when we have pain, what we’re thinking about all the time is pleasure. And when we have pleasure, what we’re doing is we’re trying to hold on to it in order to not have the pain. We don’t want to go from pleasure to pain. And when we have pain, we want to move from pain to pleasure. And this is all about attachment.
So the first pair, gain and loss, is about attachment. The second pair, it’s about attachment. You hold on to something, and by holding on, you don’t want to experience the opposite, what we would label something bad. Okay? So the left side, gain, pleasure, we see as good.
We don’t want to lose it. Alright? Then fame. You may think, ah, but we’re not gonna be famous. But what about just good reputation?
That’s one we like, isn’t it? In our neighborhood, so we put the garbage bin out in exactly the right way, so the neighbors will see. We paint We do things so that people will think we’re good people. So, necessarily famous, but in our job, in our family, we have a good reputation. And we want to maintain that reputation.
We want to hold on to it. Then what would be the opposite? When you lose that reputation and people are saying, You’re a bad person. And often think of Jeffrey Archer, that Jeffrey Archer became very famous being a book writer, a member of parliament, and then he slept with a prostitute, right? That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was he said he didn’t. They asked him, did you sleep with a prostitute? He said, believe me, I didn’t. I think it’s always when these politicians say, believe me, you know, trust me, I’m innocent, you know. That’s what did it for him, and then he went to prison.
So he was on high and then he went down. So this is always the possibility with a good reputation you can lose it and you can have a bad reputation. And if you’re attached to your good reputation, you’re going to suffer when people say things against you. And is the good reputation true? In Buddhism we’d say no.
It’s just like wind blowing past your ear, but you like it and so you grasp onto it. You attach to it. Oh, I like those words. And then you attach, right? And when people are saying you’re a bad person, they don’t like you, etcetera, etcetera, you want to reject those words.
Again, because of attachment to the positive, what we see as positive. Do you understand? So, this is all about attachment. Then the last two, praise and blame. We love praise, we hate blame.
Right? So praise, we try to encourage. How do you think I look today? You know? I think this is why monks and nuns have to wear the same thing day after day after day.
You can’t say, How do I look today? You know, it’s always the same. But for lay people, you’re always changing your clothes. The color, the style, the hair, the color, the style, the shape and color is constantly changing. Right?
Why? Because we want praise from others. So we want them to say, You look great, you look good, that suits you. We get attached to these, what we see as positive words. And then, what happens when there’s praise?
There’s always the potential blame. With one, you’ve always got the other lurking in the background. So, you did a great job, blah blah blah blah. And then another time, you made terrible mistakes, you know, this is wrong, this is wrong. At work, they say, this is wrong, this is wrong.
Oh, this is terrible, you know, now I’m going to lose my reputation. I had a good reputation at work. And, now I’m not happy, I’m in pain. And, I might lose my job. So now, you’ve brought into play all of the others because of one thing.
You see how you can gather them together because of the way the mind works, it says, and because of this, then this, and then this, and this, it’s a major disaster. And all the boss said was, you made a mistake on this line, but now you’re exaggerating it into this and this and this and this. Because of attachment to your gaining something, your wages, your salary, because of your pleasure, being in that situation, that position, because of your good reputation at work, because of wanting praise. So you can see how these things gather together. It’s not just necessarily about one.
You often bring them together into the four or the three, and then you produce an exaggerated situation. So from the praise, we sort of get this feeling of I want to hold on to this. Right? I like this. And also that praise can inflate the ego.
You know, I’m better than you, I’m bigger than you, higher than you, more intelligent than you, whatever. But our mind exaggerates the qualities that we have. Now this, you need to be very careful. There’s a difference between exaggeration and good self esteem. What I want you to have is good self esteem.
What I don’t want you to have is a big ego. You know, look at me people, you know, I’m so incredible. So there’s a fine line between good self esteem and ego. Ego tends to be associated with exaggeration. Good self esteem is knowing who and what you are.
And in that case, number one, you need to research yourself. Which qualities do I have and which negativities do I have? Just like a doctor looking for a sickness. Okay? You research.
Now the good qualities acknowledge. You say, Yes, I am patient or I am tolerant, I have this. But it could be better, you know, I’m working on it, but yes I do have that. In the Lamrim text, Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, it says, if you have a quality, for instance you can lead meditation teachings, and somebody says to you, Can you lead a meditation? And you say, Oh, no, no, no, I couldn’t do that.
Impossible, you know, that’s not me. That’s actually laziness. So this is interesting. We’re not allowed to be lazy in the sense of withdrawing and saying, Oh, no, no, I couldn’t do that. That’s false humility.
Okay? So, this one I think we need to think about more carefully, because we could easily go into low self esteem, low self confidence. And this is very pervasive now in the Western world, actually all around the world. Wherever I go, people are very interested in what do I do about low self esteem. So I say to them, Keep a diary.
This is the right hand part. Keep a diary. I know diaries are not very popular. I guess you could even do it in your phone. Right?
Set your phone to go off every two hours. Some of you have heard this before. So, from the time that you get up, let’s say a reasonable time to start would be ten o’clock in the morning. Most of you have had your breakfast, done everything you need, you got to work. So it’s a ten o’clock, then two hours.
Twelve, two, four, six. You can finish about six. So this is one, two, three, four, five, five check-in times. You should have your first thing in the morning meditation, watching the mind. And if you do it first thing in the morning, it’s the easiest time.
There’s less thoughts, there’s less things going on in your life. When you first wake up, you sit on the cushion or on your chair. I must say, I really prefer to sit on the floor. I know you people who like to sit on chairs, you love your chairs, but there’s a different quality when you sit on the floor. You really do feel connected to the earth, you feel more stable.
And that’s why Buddha sat down and he said, I’m not moving until I’ve achieved something. It gives you this sense of being supported by the earth, you know? So you can do meditation in a chair, but I tend to find the quality is better when you sit on the floor. And we’re not used to sitting on the floor, so it gives you a sense of being humble, of down, you know, instead of up. So that’s psychologically also good for us.
We need these little helpers along the way. Then, do your fifteen minute meditation. If fifteen minutes is too long, ten or five, but do something to connect with your nature, your positive nature. You’re watching all these thoughts, but you know these thoughts are taking advantage of your positive mind. You are not the negative thoughts.
The negative emotions, they’re separable. If they weren’t separable, then they’d be there all the time. You wake up angry, you go to sleep angry. We’ve also done that. Or jealous, or hatred, or afraid, or anxious.
Eighty four thousand delusions, if the mind is one with the emotion, it would never go away. So, we know emotions go away. That means you can separate the mind from the emotion. Okay? What you’re looking for in your meditation is the separation between your pure mind and the emotion.
The emotion that’s taking advantage of the mind. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s like the water and the waves, or it’s like the sky and the clouds. The sky is not the clouds. The clouds will go away.
Okay? So, then, you’ve had your morning meditation, then ten, twelve, two, stop for one or two minutes, that’s all you need. If necessary, go to the bathroom. And you know, there are some place where they’re really tight about time. So if you have to multitask, multitask.
I won’t go into details. But you have your little diary, so while you’re sitting down multitasking, you have your little book, think back over the last two hours what happened. All you need is two or three words or one word, it could be patient, it could be irritable, it could be hatred, anger, whatever it is, you’ve got the plus side and the negative side. So on the left side, write down the positive that happened in the last two hours. Also write down the negative that happened in the last two hours.
Then twelve o’clock, same thing. What happened in the last two hours? You’re not going to do this forever, but you can do it for a week or two. It gives you a lot of information about yourself. You may realize that you’re a much better person than you thought you were.
It’s amazing. You know, we don’t go around saying, Well done. That was good. We look to others to say we’re good. But this way we know that we’re doing good things because we’re tracking our behavior.
I helped that person and I did this. You know the things that you naturally do, this is who I am. I help people, I do kind things to people. You listen on the phone to somebody when you’re very busy. You help somebody at work.
So you might think, well that’s who I am. Yes, but this is something to write down. You did something in that two hours that was of benefit to others. So when you look back in the evening, so say you stop at six, you have your dinner whenever it is in the evening that you have a little free time for yourself, fifteen-twenty minutes. Get your book out and look back over the day.
What happened in the day? So from this time backwards, going back over the day, happened? What was the flavor of the day? So you say, Oh, I did this, I did this, I did this. You know, that wasn’t so good, that’s what needs to be changed.
So I find jealousy or I find anger or hatred or whatever, the myriad of emotions, but I find this emotion and then you’ll find this as a recurring theme day after day or every two days, but it’s there as a recurring theme. So this, if you don’t know yourself, this idea of a tracking system for a week or two really helps to give you the positive information, the good self esteem. It’s not exaggerated, it’s who you are. This is what you do. And then the negative, don’t judge yourself, don’t criticize yourself in the sense of, oh, you know, you’re terrible.
Don’t be guilty. Have regret and think, now how am I going to change it? Then we go back to one, two, three, four, five. You’ve got the information for number one to counteract the negativity. So this is, my suggestion.
You need to have some sort of tracking system. If you don’t really know what your situation is, and most of us don’t, if we were going to a gym, you know, you get to the gym, you haven’t exercised in twenty years, and the gym person says, So what do you want to do? Well, I’m going to do a fifty kilometer marathon. You know, the eyes go, Really? How long since you exercised?
Oh, twenty years, you know? Well, you’ll have to start here, we’ll have to test you. So they put you on a treadmill and they put all these wires to your heart, to your breath, they want to know what’s your situation. We don’t know our mental situation, we just know our reactions. Bless you my child.
We know our reactions, don’t we? Oh, you know like this: Oh, I’m an angry person. I’m not good. And so we beat ourselves about it. But it’s not like that at all.
This is learned behavior and it’s become a habit and it’s something that we want to change that we transform into something much more positive. But first of all, we need to know that we’ve got it in order to want to change it. And a lot of us don’t know that we do have irritability, or anxiety, or fear, any of the others. So, I have resources to give you from now on. So tonight the resource I’m giving you is right speech.
I thought where we should really start is right speech, because we can do a lot of destruction with our speech. We can encourage and we can help others. We can also destroy others with our speech. So, when you’re leaving tonight, you have this handout and it says, Put a Post it note beside your bed to remind yourself, Tomorrow is a day of impeccable speech. Try and make tomorrow impeccable in the sense of, I will use all my words to benefit others.
Imagine that for one day. Okay? So you have to remind yourself, if the post it isn’t there, it doesn’t happen. And that also means towards yourself, not beating yourself. You know, that’s not impeccable speech.
So as much as you’re helping others with speech, help yourself with your speech. Alright? And when you don’t, you’ve got your diary to write it down, to be aware of what you’re doing to yourself as much as to others. Start the day with a prayer that reaffirms your intention to always speak with compassion and love. So, prayer is direction.
You know, you want to make a direction. Today I’m going to speak with compassion and love. Even if, you know, it’s coming up and you’re you know, there’s a struggle going on because you’ve made a decision, I’m not going to be irritable and angry today, this is impeccable speech. So therefore, I’m going to use my principles rather than my habit. Of course it’s going to be difficult, but if we don’t do this, we don’t change.
Center and collect yourself each time you speak. Be mindful of your words. So even if you’re saying something like, Pass the tomato sauce, how do you say it? Pass the sauce? Or would you pass the sauce?
We can say things in very many different ways. And often in families we get into a way of speaking that isn’t so kind, you know? So think about, for this one day, what’s my tone? How am I doing this? There’s many other things, but don’t lie, don’t use words to manipulate others, so this is important.
Gossip is an exaggerated subject that is not important. It’s something you’re really exaggerating. So, what is there in your life that is not important, but you exaggerate it and make it into something important. That’s gossip. It could be somebody at work, you know, somebody who’s not very good at doing something, but then you go around telling everybody, Oh, that person’s not you know, and then you exaggerate and you gossip about it, and it makes it into something real.
And just imagine if it was happening to you, if you were on the receiving end of that, which is what’s going to happen, because it will come back. Use your words to encourage those around you. Express your positive thoughts and feelings rather than the negative. You know, sometimes we drag ourselves into work and say, Oh God, it was awful, you know. So try to feel more positive.
This is an interesting one: Don’t chatter. We often feel we need to put something in the space. So when there’s space in the conversation, don’t feel you have to put something in there. Leave the space. And then you find the quality of the conversation is much better than if you’re always there ready, you know.
You’re writing something, your script, and you’re waiting for a gap, and then you say something and people look at you because you didn’t relate to the conversation at all. You weren’t listening to the conversation, you want to say something clever, you know, something witty or something profound, something, but you’re just waiting for the gap and then you go whoosh, you know, like this. But you’re not really being present in the conversation. Conversation. Don’t interrupt others, let them finish the sentences, especially difficult when somebody stutters, you know.
If somebody has a stutter and they find it difficult to finish the sentences, are you in there? You know, if you’ve got a quick mind, you tend to finish the sentences. Use your words to help your loved ones feel nourished and supported. Use your words to express gentleness. Write a note to someone you care about expressing your positive feelings.
This might be something we don’t do anymore. We used to write lots of notes, cards. You know? Now it’s all email or an SMS. You okay?
You know, then okay. Our conversations are down to monosyllabic, you know. And we think we’re having a conversation, but we’re not really expressing our feelings, our thoughts. So, to share something about how you feel towards others is to give some quality. Things like that, that we just may not think about unless we think, Now, I must do that to buy a card in the shop, you know, to say thank you, or to make your own card if you have the time, but I think at least to try and express some sense of you’re valuable to me.
You know? You’re something that I really want in my life. Okay. So that should give you enough to keep you busy until next Wednesday. Any questions?
Excellent. It’s all very clear. So, when you’re leaving, we’re going to dedicate all this positive energy. And then when you’re leaving, the handouts are ready for you. And then next week we’re going to start talking about anxiety and fear.
So basically what we’re doing is we’re watching these emotions and we’re talking about these emotions and providing a framework so that you understand the emotions and you’re able to define them and then you’ll be able to do something in order to change them. Okay. Śāntideva, which is on page something — thirty two. Thank you. Oh, before I forget, for those of you who haven’t received the e news, there’s a special day tomorrow, so be really careful.
Everything’s multiplied tomorrow. It’s the day that Buddha descended from Tuśita Heaven when he went to see his mother and brought teachings to her in Tuśita Heaven. So it’s what they call a wheel turning day. It’s a special power day. And so it wasn’t on the schedule, but I said to them, you know, we should do something tomorrow because it’s a special day.
And so we’re going to read the Golden Light Sūtra, so between seven and eight thirty if you have time and if you want come. This is very good for you and very good for the center to remove obstacles, to create all the positive potential, for the center to be able to benefit more people, but also for you to be successful and for you to be able to benefit more. So this is a very nice sūtra to read, and we’re going to do it from seven o’clock. Okay? Okay.
And there’ll be tea afterwards. And Lindy’s bringing cake. She’s baking tomorrow. What? Oh, no.
No. No. When Lindy bakes, Lindy bakes. You know? And she’s got one of those industrial ovens, isn’t it?
You know? She likes to make sentient beings happy. Okay, so then we’ve got some positive energy, and then what we’re doing with this dedication is we’re saying, I’m not holding onto this for myself, I want to offer it to all other beings. And then we’re acknowledging the sufferings of other beings and then saying, May that not exist anymore, finish. May all beings everywhere, free from 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 free 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.
Thank you all very much.