Healing Disturbing Emotions — 2011-11-30

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 134-minute teaching on healing disturbing emotions, Venerable Lobsang Namgyel grounds Buddhist practice in modern psychology, walking students through the anatomy of negative emotions—fear, anxiety, sadness, depression, anger, jealousy—and practical tools to transform them. He emphasizes that refuge means trusting enlightened beings who teach from wisdom, not karma and delusion like ordinary people; that Buddha liberates no one but himself. The core practice is twofold: recognize and let go of negative emotions through mindfulness and breathing, or oppose them with their antidotes (love counters anger, rejoicing counters jealousy). Namgyel then offers six concrete strategies to reduce emotional vulnerability—treat physical illness, eat moderately, avoid mood-altering drugs, sleep well, exercise, and build mastery at something daily. For increasing positive emotions, he urges students to catch and correct self-critical thoughts, visualize themselves as capable and kind (the mind treats visualization as real), and practice opposite actions: give when jealous, serve others when depressed, face what you fear to build courage. Throughout, he stresses that change is a gradual diary-based practice, not an overnight shift, and that self-compassion must precede compassion for others. The tone is direct and irreverent—he uses colloquial language, self-deprecating humour about his own fear of public speaking, and concrete examples (planes, credit cards, buses, cake) to make Buddhist doctrine visceral and immediately applicable to daily life. Suited to practitioners new to Buddhist psychology or looking for bridges between Dharma and Western emotional work.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 2011 11 30 – 30 Nov 2011 Ven Namgyel.mp3

UUID: 3823dfc5-727d-412a-b725-c9d8f5d33db8

Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel

Collection: Healing Disturbing Emotions (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)

Date: 2011-11-30

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 133.8 minutes

Words: ~16,573

Which page, Lendy? The boss. Thirty four. So I have to announce before we start, we now have three new refugees who’ve joined our little group, our little Sangha. Isn’t that nice?

How brave they are. Yeah? Good luck. But they took refuge today in vows so it’s good to rejoice and think how nice that is. Sökhyi chönam la, jangchub du, dagni kyab su chi, daggi jinsek sökhyi pei sönam kyi, 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 friends and hatred for enemies.

Reverently, I prostrate with my body, speech, mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined. I take out 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 for the mandala offering, visualizing that you’re making countless offerings to countless Buddhas. 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. Idam guru ratna mandalakam niryatayami.

So then if we give the example of the mind being like hard rock, then on the basis of that hard rock, How do you produce some sort of change? How do you bring about some change? So the reason that we do the prayers is not just to go blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then he’ll be happy, meaning me or Buddha. It’s not the purpose. The purpose is to soften and change the mind even before you receive teachings.

So I think it’s important to remember that the prayers are for a particular purpose. It’s not just to recite the prayers, but to actually produce a change of mind, a change of heart. And so when you’re saying, I take refuge in the Buddha, then actually, I’m not really sure we know what taking refuge means. Taking refuge for me means that when you’re in a life threatening situation, you’re being kidnapped. Right?

You’re locked in the boot of the car. Who are you praying to? Your mother or Buddha? So when you’re in a difficult situation, refuge is who you’re placing your trust in, who you’re believing in. We believe in ordinary sentient beings.

We take refuge in ordinary sentient beings. We vote for them. Don’t we? We vote for them. We put them into power.

You know, we say, you can run South Australia or you can run the country. And then we expect them to be perfect. But, actually, they’re born from karma and delusion. Their nature is imperfect. They’re going to make mistakes, and then we’re shocked when they make mistakes.

But their nature is to make mistakes, same as us. So maybe they know a bit more politics, they know a bit more about what they’re doing, but still we should remember when we take refuge in ordinary people, then often the result is we’re disappointed and it doesn’t work out the way we think. When we take refuge in enlightened beings, enlightened means no karma and delusion. So that means when they taught, when Buddha taught or Tārā, any of the Buddhas taught, they’re not teaching from karma and delusion like me, they’re teaching from enlightenment. So if I’m teaching what I think, I don’t know where you’re going, you know?

You can be completely lost. I can’t even find the airport. I’ve been trying for weeks, I tell you. Just can’t get out of this city. But, you know, you asked me something simple like how to get the bus from here to here.

I don’t know. So when I’m giving teachings, I have to be careful that those teachings are based on what Buddha said. And so this is the lineage of what Buddha said. And then from your side, what do you do? If you’re sitting there thinking I’m going to take these teachings to make me more important or, so I can be one up one up on somebody, get another certificate or something like that, it’s not a good motivation.

Or for me to get over my present suffering, it’s not a good motivation. It’s okay, but it’s not great. Because as soon as you get over your present suffering, then what? There’s another suffering, another problem, and then another, and then another. And so each time, you’re sort of just firefighting and dealing with these present sufferings.

Then we think about future lives. Oh, I really don’t want suffering in future lives, if they exist. And if you don’t believe in future lives, I think you have to think of it like, maybe something like retirement. We all believe, well, we used to believe that we were going to retire. Well, I’ve got news for you.

Now they’re shifting the age. You might never retire. It’ll become sixty seven, seventy five, eighty five. It’ll keep moving and moving. But say for instance there is a fixed age that you’re going to retire at, then you think I need to put money in the bank.

I need to do something for my retirement. Isn’t it? That’s how we think. But there’s no guarantee that we’re going to be alive at the time when we’re retiring. You got it?

So we’re planning for retirement, but there’s no security, no surety. You will absolutely be alive by that age, but you’re putting money in superannuation, you’re putting money in a pension plan, you’re thinking, you know, future, some of you long time future, some not so long, but you’re thinking future. And when that happens, I want a certain happiness and I don’t want suffering. Well, in the same way with future lives, we want happiness and we don’t want suffering. But if you’re only thinking like that, then when the karma is finished, that’s all you’ve got, a bit of happiness and not so much suffering.

But what about thinking beyond that, thinking about enlightenment? So what’s the big deal about enlightenment? Why should I think about enlightenment? Because that fulfills your wishes, and it fulfills everybody else’s wishes. You can be of complete benefit to anybody who wants you to be a benefit to them.

It’s a it’s a two way deal. It’s not just Buddhas are going to save you. If you think that, you’re wrong. But if you think Buddhas are going to purify you, Buddhas are going to save you, You’re completely wrong because if they could do that, they would have done it. You wouldn’t be here.

Right? You think about that because if you have the wrong idea of refuge, then you think: refuge is Buddha’s going to save me. And Buddha’s not going to save you. There’s no hope. Buddha said: if you can go to the Ganges and wash off your sins, that would be great.

But it doesn’t work. He said, you have to wash off your own sins, your own negativities inside your own mind. And so Buddha is the example, is the inspiration for us to change. He gives us the inspiration, or Tārā gives us the inspiration, and then gives teachings to help us to liberate ourselves. So he’s not liberating us, we’re liberating ourselves from our negative actions from and from our negative emotions.

So why we teach is to give you the power to change your life. Not for me to change your life and not for Buddha to change your life, but you to change your own life. And so if you don’t do it, that’s your problem. If you keep coming and saying, oh, my life’s a mess. Well, I’m not responsible.

You’re responsible. It’s like going to the doctor and he gives you the medicine and you don’t take the medicine because you just don’t like the taste. And I can tell you, Buddha did not give tasty teachings in the sense of there’s lots of sugar in it, there’s lots of honey in it, you know? Buddha wasn’t political. Buddha told you straight, you’re making a mess.

And he didn’t say things to increase your ego, he said things to decrease your ego and that means you’re being attacked. When you hear Buddha’s teachings often you’ll feel attacked because what Buddha was doing was reducing the ego. He wasn’t saying: Oh, you’re all lovely people. I like you so much. You know, like that and sort of smoothing the ego.

But he was actually saying: This is how it is. And I think if you like that type of person, you know, somebody who doesn’t have an agenda, then Buddhism is incredible. Because there’s no agenda there. There’s no sense of control over you, that we can do it for you, so come to me and I’ll do it for you. It’s nothing like that.

It’s that you take responsibility to liberate yourself from your mess. Who created your mess? You. So who has to solve it? You.

But we’re there with you. You know? The Buddha will give you teachings, and it’s passed on now through other teachers. And then the Dharma is the actual teachings. And then the Sangha, the people around you, the friends, the Dharma friends who say you can do it.

Don’t give up. You can do it. And so you need all of those conditions in order to help you to liberate yourself from your own negative karma and your own delusions. And you need guidance on the way and you need support on the way, but it’s not others responsibility, it’s your own responsibility. And if things are not going the way you want, this is an indication of what you’ve done in the past.

If you’re suffering, you’ve done this in the past. You created that situation. So if you don’t like it, then don’t do it. Right? It becomes very clear.

If you don’t like it, if you see something that you don’t like, then you’ve done it, and don’t do it again. Otherwise, we keep repeating things over and over. Isn’t it? We keep digging that hole, merrily throwing ourselves down the hole, and then saying, goodness gracious, here I am down this hole again. And why am I down this hole?

Who can I blame for this hole? And having to climb out of the hole, and we’re messy and we’re dirty, and then the next day, we’re down the hole again. And we think, how’s it possible? I’m a good person. But what we have to recognize is the self, the ego that keeps digging that hole.

And in the process, not only harming oneself, but harming others. This is the worst part about the ego, is that we’re not just harming ourselves, we’re harming others. And so in these teachings, what we’ve been trying to define is the negativity. What I’d like to give up? So, fear, anxiety, sadness, depression.

These are things that, you know, are quite possible in our society now. You hear about so many people experiencing these things. And then, from those can easily come other negativities, other negative emotions like anger, hatred, even irritability. If you’re practicing irritability, if you put your your mind into practice on irritability, you can do this on a daily basis. You know?

It’s like the focus of your attention is to be irritable in your life. So others are experiencing you as an irritable person, and what you’re doing is creating the habit of being irritable. And so then irritability becomes your habit, becomes the hole that you’re throwing yourself down. And then on top of that, you can then have anger, and then you can have rage. And you think how destructive anger and rage are.

But even irritability. You know when somebody’s irritable? You feel it. You go into work and you say, hello, everybody. You know, and there’s that person who goes, oh, hello.

You know? Like, so what have I done? Nothing. You haven’t done anything. But that person is not determined to overcome their delusions.

They’re living in their delusion. They’re holding on to it. And it’s the attachment to that negativity that makes them suffer over and over. So we need to abandon something. We need to give up something.

And what we need to abandon is this attachment to my happiness. Right? If we’re constantly searching for my happiness, then even when we’ve got it, it’s not enough. We want more of it. So if we’ve got a car, we want a better car.

Or if we’ve got a TV, we want a bigger TV. And a bigger TV and a bigger TV. Where does it stop? You know? Then we want a TV that comes down from the ceiling, and then we project onto the TV.

You know? The human mind, when it’s involved in desire and attachment, can see no end to it. Really, there’s no end. And so it’s like drinking salt water. When you’re thirsty, you just keep drinking and drinking.

You will keep looking for more objects of desire and attachment. And through that desire and attachment, credit cards people max out their credit cards, and then they’re using credit cards to pay credit cards, and they can borrow eighty thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars on credit cards just from desire and attachment. It’s not because they had to eat, it’s because they wanted something. Something to make me happy. Right?

But what would happen if we gave up that attachment to the self? That attachment for me to be happy? And what about if I wanted others to be happy? What about if you could shift your mind into that way of thinking, let me make you happy? Then, could you be angry if you wanted others to be happy?

You think about it, that conflict between I want you to be happy and I’m angry. Could you have both? And Buddha says no. Right? You cannot hold two opposing minds simultaneously.

So this is how the analytical meditations work that when you know that you have an irritable angry mind, you meditate a lot on loving-kindness. Because when you think a lot about loving-kindness, that becomes your habit rather than anger and irritability. And so this positive mind is reducing the potential of the negative mind. It makes more positive possible. Does that make sense?

You understand what I’m saying? So the Buddhist way is there’s two ways. One way is you can recognize the negativity, the negative mind as it’s arising. We can put it in colloquial terms, the shitty mind. If you don’t know what a negative mind is, the shitty mind.

When you’re getting shitty or pissy, isn’t it? What do you say in Australia, Jan? My colloquial expert? Oh, Jan would never swear in a million years. I asked the wrong woman.

Lindy? Lindy? I think Lindy would know. Yeah? Pissed off.

Pissed off. That’s right. You’re totally pissed off, isn’t it? He said, I’m totally pissed off. You know, like that.

Or PO’d, Isn’t it? If you go into short forms, I’m PO’d. And then no the the jams of the world don’t know what PO’d means. She’d be thinking that’s a shipping company or something. You know?

What’s that got to do with anything? You know? Jan would be confused for a week. You know? Googling it.

You know? I wonder what Lindy was feeling. You know? Like a ship leaving the port. So if we’re very clear about it, you know, we’re pissed off.

We’ve had enough. Then you think how that feels. You know, if you just go into the feeling of it in your heart, we know how that feels, isn’t it? Instead of putting a nice gloss on it and making it sound nice, we should be very basic about it, you know, and say, how does that feel? And immediately you get that feeling, oh, it doesn’t feel very nice at all.

And now you’re about to project that onto others in the, you know, you walk into work or they walk into work and you’re, I’m not happy. Right? And now you’re telling everybody, I’m really upset, you know, I’m really pissed off today. Oh, why? What happened to you?

Somebody nearly hit me in the car blah blah blah blah. Whatever it is. So now you’re transferring it. You know? You’re passing on the lineage to all the other people, and they become disturbed.

They become upset. So one way of dealing with it is to be aware of the negative emotion as it’s arising. If you have some mindfulness and awareness and you breathe it out, you let it go. And this very much works with the attachment and detachment of the emotions. So if you don’t know a lot about the analytical practice and the Lamrim, if you’re fairly new, this would be the thing to do.

Train your mind in breathing meditation. Do some breathing meditation every single day. And when you become aware of the change of mind that’s becoming negative, The change of mind that’s becoming positive is not a problem. You know? We need to say, oh, well done.

You know? Keep going. But the other mind, the negative mind that’s arising, you need to become aware of it. And as it’s arising, if we allow it, it sort of comes up and up, and you know it gets stronger and stronger. We don’t just leave it as it is.

We add negative thoughts to it. So we have that first thought, I’m not happy about something, and then we keep adding to it. Because, because, this, this, this, and we’re building the story. And so that becomes a potential of something that we say, something that we do. Kick the car, you know?

Slam, you know, I don’t know. Break something. So you think the potential is building and developing and growing of negativity, not just hurting yourself, but hurting others, potentially hurting others, then what could you do? One of the things that you can do is by being mindful about this emotion appearing, you decide to let it go instead of attaching to it. You decide, I don’t want this.

This is not beneficial for me and not beneficial for others. So you breathe it out. Breathing in peace, you breathe out thoughts or you breathe out pissy emotions, whatever it is, but you let go. Don’t put a nice gloss on it, you know, oh, it’s alright because whatever. But you see it for what it is, and you let it go, and you let it go, and you let it go.

So it’s not just one breath and it’s gone, but you’re going to have to keep practicing the letting go of it because we have an attachment for our negative emotions. It’s not so easy to let go of these negative emotions. We’ve trained in holding on. So what we do is negative emotion arises and we add to it and then and then and then and it’s growing and growing and growing. We’re doing the opposite.

Reducing, reducing, reducing, letting go, letting go, letting go. So that gives you the potential of controlling it and letting it go completely. It’s a practice. Then the other thing to do so that’s one one way. The other thing to do is to have a counteraction, an opposite, an opposing force.

So you’ve got your negative emotion. You need to find something equally as strong and opposite in order to oppose this negative emotion. So like I said, if you’re jealous, you can practice rejoicing. I’m so happy that you have something, that you’re happy, that you’ve got good things happening in your life. That’s really good to do.

Anger, the opposite is love. Why love? Because with love, I want you to be happy. With anger, I don’t want you to be happy. Right?

You can see how they are opposite to each other because when I really love you, the definition of love is I want you to be happy. When I’m angry, I’m not interested in you and your happiness. I’m interested in me and my happiness. And the anger comes from me cherishing and taking care of myself, and I’m using it to attack you. And then when it’s over, I think, oh, dear, you know, said some terrible things.

You’re the ugliest in the world. I really hate you. I don’t know why I’m in a relationship with you, or I wish you weren’t my mother or father or whatever it is. And then you have to fix it. And so you buy the flowers, you know.

You go and buy these beautiful plastic flowers just so you know they’re plastic. And you give them. You know what I said? I really didn’t mean it. They go, oh, yeah.

Whatever. But in actual fact, that does not heal what’s in here. And this is the problem that we keep hurting what’s in the person’s heart, and as you keep hurting it over and over, then it’s actually creating a scar in their mind. Right? And who did that?

Oneself. I did that, so therefore I’m responsible for hurting somebody else. So what’s going to come back is hurt. Difficult to be close to people, difficult to have loving relationships. So it’s not that people can’t, it’s that they don’t have the karma to experience loving relationships.

Why? Because they don’t develop the karma. They don’t create the karma. I’ll give you an example. If you don’t have something in your life and you’d like to have it, you have to have the karma to experience it.

So it’s like you’re on your way home, and you’re thinking, I’m going to cook a cake when I get home. I’m going to bake a cake. Chocolate. Right? So you’re thinking chocolate chip cake, And you’ve got it all created in your mind.

Right? You need this, and you need this, and you need this. You get home. You’ve got it all created in your mind. You open the cupboards, and what’s in there?

Bit of sugar, bit of caramel maybe, I don’t know. But there’s no flour, there’s no chocolate chip, there’s no no ingredients. You go, oh. With karma, it’s the same. We need to create the karma to experience the result, what we want to experience.

So we have to put it out in order to receive it back. You can’t just sit back there and think, you know, why isn’t anybody being kind to me? Why isn’t anybody taking care of me, loving me? If you’re not putting it out, how are you going to experience it? And it’s not necessarily right now that you haven’t done it.

Maybe you just started doing it in this life, but you might not have done it in past lives, and that’s why you’re not experiencing it in this life. This might be just something that you start doing in this life, but we need to have a deep experience of it. So don’t give up when there’s no reaction. You know, you start being kind, you suddenly want people to be kind to you. It does doesn’t suddenly happen.

You have to keep doing it and doing it. Not looking for the reward, but doing it because it’s the right thing to do. Because this is who you are. You’ve decided. I’m a loving, patient, kind, compassionate person.

And so no matter which situation I’m coming into, it doesn’t matter. They can do what they like, but this is who I am. This is how I respond. And so then this is putting a very deep imprint into your mind. It’s planting very positive seeds that will ripen into a stronger result, a better result than what you’re putting out.

Even better will come back to you. So when you’re doing the negative actions, what comes back is boomerangs with razor blades, and they hurt you just when you don’t want to be hurt. And the positive ones, it comes back in the form of flowers. They say it’s like flowers coming down from up above. You know, you experience this beautiful heavenly sort of quality.

You hear angels singing and all the rest of it. You experience something amazing, but you can’t experience it if you’re not going to create it, if you don’t have the ingredients in your cupboard. So you might have the stove and you might have the bowl and you might have the the mixer, you might have bits and pieces, but you need everything in order to bring about the right result, the life that you really want to lead. The type of environment, the type of people, everything will be the best because you gave the best to others. But you think about my example last week of the cake.

You know the big slice of cake and the small slice of cake and you’re watching the big one or the small one. Are you thinking give me the small one, give me the small one. Go on, give me, give me. You know, you’re chanting your little mantra there. Give me that small piece of cake, give me that small piece of cake.

Don’t give me the big one. Don’t give me the big one. It’s the opposite, isn’t it? If we’re really honest about this, we’re thinking big one, big one, big one. Give me the big piece.

Give me the big piece. But when it comes in front, we say, oh, you you take the big one. You know? Suddenly, we switch. We’re hypocritical.

So we’re saying big, big, big, and now suddenly, oh, no. No. No. No. I I I’ve eaten.

You know? No. No. I I could hardly have any more. But inside we’re really thinking, give me the big one.

Give me the big one. You know? And it’s sort of like like this. Right? That’s how we are.

And that’s what Buddha knew. Buddha said don’t tell me lies, don’t say we’re nearly enlightened, we’re on the edge. Buddha said we’re ordinary people. He knew because he was also an ordinary person. He had the same problems.

Right? But he said: I’m sick of it. I’ve had enough of it. I don’t want to experience this anymore. After waking up the night after partying, you know, and people there’s many many women there and some of them are snoring.

Although I don’t know if women snore these days. Some of them had their tongues hanging out and drooling, you know, like this. Their hair is like, you know, in a mess. So he looked at all this and they said, well, what’s all this about? You know?

It looks good at the time when the party’s going on, but afterwards you see Samsāra. You see the suffering. And so he said, well, yeah, it looks good, but it’s not good all the time. There’s some happiness, but it’s not happiness all the time. So I need to change.

Not I need to change the world, but I need to change me so that I can help the world. If we go out to change the world before we’ve changed ourselves, it’s messy. We mess it up. Right? So first, we need to change ourselves in order to be a benefit to others.

So be careful when you’re thinking about your motivation because you have to think this is about me in order to benefit others. Not this is just about others because then it’s not realistic. You need to give yourself love in order to give others love, to give yourself compassion in order to offer others compassion, to be patient with yourself in order to offer others patience. If we don’t give it to ourselves, we’re living with ourselves. If we don’t give it to ourselves, how are we going to offer it to others?

Isn’t that also hypocritical? You know, I’ll give it to you, but I’m not giving it to me. And so also, in a way, it’s like we’re beating ourselves. We’re putting ourselves down. You know?

I’m low. You’re high. But not from a point of power, not from strength, but from weakness, from low self esteem. So we need to have a good self esteem so that we can be others’ servant. We can want to benefit others, but because we’re strong, not because we’re weak.

So these are all the the teachings that Buddha gave and what I’m trying to do in my deluded way is, using modern ways of talking about Buddhism. I’m trying to keep the purity of Buddhism, but giving it it to you in a modern way and hoping I don’t make more confusion. But if I do, it’s completely my fault and I’m going to hell. And you’ll all be somewhere nice. Good on you.

Somebody didn’t like something on the bottom. So I’ve given some handouts. Some of you were here on the weekend and some not. So for those who’ve not got all of this, the ones who are here on the weekend I gave the steps for increasing positive emotions, that sort of stuff wasn’t it? Okay.

Does anybody not have the notes on sadness and depression? Goodness gracious. Can you keep your hands up and Simon will count? Got it? So we need the notes on here.

I’ll give it to you in case he hasn’t got it. Sadness and depression, anxiety and fear. I I should imagine you’re the same people. Okay. So you need those.

Now I’m going to give handouts on steps for increasing positive emotions. We should have that light, you know, like in the car park, where there’s a space and where there’s not. So a red light over Jan. Or we could have little halos that you can switch on and switch off. You can buy them, little halos.

They they have them around Christmas, isn’t it? Popular with children. No. They have this. It’s a circle above your head.

You switch it on. Upper back. So I have a quick read. Who still needs, anxiety and fear and sadness and depression? Can you I have a couple here.

Can you give them? Thanks. There’s there’s two anxiety and fear, and there’s one depression. So So basically they’re defining using different words. It’s defining fear, anxiety, sadness, depression because people feel things and they don’t necessarily know what they’re feeling.

So in order to help you to establish what this is, that’s why we’re giving these definitions. And then it gives prompting events, for instance, for feeling sadness. Why would you feel sad? So getting what you don’t want Buddha said, getting what you don’t want and not getting what you want. Right?

Getting what you not getting what you want and getting what you don’t want. The middle seat on the plane between two people, you know? And you say to them, please don’t give me the middle seat. And they say, oh, no. No.

Of course not. You’re on the aisle. And you say, oh, that’s okay then. But you look at, you know, it’s three b, and you think, well, that’s strange. And you you sure?

It’s three b. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t worry.

You’ll be fine. You know? And you get on the plane, you’re in the middle seat. And then the person next to you wants to tell you their life story, and you don’t want to speak because you’re in the middle seat. Right?

You decided what you wanted. I’m going to get on. I’m going to go to sleep, etcetera. So not getting what you want and getting what you don’t want. So this is very interesting, very easy to find in our life that we have a concept of what we want and then we don’t get it.

And then we have a concept of what we don’t want and then we get it. So we sort things out in our minds, don’t we? We have an attachment to the vision, the story that we’re writing, and then our karma is writing another story. You forgot to tell your karma of what you wanted. You forgot to create the actions that would produce the result.

Right? So can you just sit in the middle seat and be happy? That’s what Buddha is asking you to do. He’s saying, you’ve got an eleven hour flight, You’re jammed into the seat. I’ve been jammed into seats, you know, on some of the airlines.

You sort of literally jammed in. There’s a tiny person in front. I’ve been on Indian buses. Well, even worse, there was a little monk sitting in front of me. I mean little.

We’re talking like this tall. I have never seen such a small monk in all my life. And he got on and he sat in front and I thought, lucky. Could have been a tall person, you know, because tall, they really want the seat to go back. And he put the seat back in before the bus started.

Like this. And so, you know, the seat’s like this, and I’m sort of jammed in, and I can’t move. And and it’s twelve hours, and then I’m trying to to adjust, and I’ve got one of those seats that doesn’t move. So I’m jammed like this, and he’s like this, and he goes to sleep, like, you know. And so I’m sort of looking at him.

You know? I’m like the mother bird, you know, looking over him, taking care of him. It’s really hard to rejoice in these situations. You know? And you think, I’m so happy.

Such a small being, but so so much room. You know? At least you’ve got somewhere to put your legs and your knees. You know? Like that.

And this is when it becomes very apparent. This is the time you’ve got to put the Dharma into practice. Because when we’re talking about it, it’s easy. If I say to you, take the middle seat, you go, oh, oh, but yeah, I can do that. And you sort of gloss it over.

Right? The seat where somebody jams you in and you just can’t move except or do you go bing bing bing bing, you know, as soon as you get on the plane and you’re in the middle seat, you go bing bing bing bing bing, you know, and the male or female comes up and says, yes, you want something? I asked for whatever seat, and they gave me this I’m sorry, the plane’s full. Well, put me in business class, you know, put me into first class then. They promised.

Oh, I’m sorry, we can’t do that. How does the ego feel, the self feel? It’s being attacked. Right? And in that point, at that point, if you can lean into it, not lean away from it, your Dharma practice happens.

It’s like a sharp knife that’s attacking the ego. And what we want to do is we want to move away from it. But actually we have to lean into it. We have to say, give me a bit more. Come on.

I can do it. Because it’s spiritual practice. We’re not talking about beating, you know? Don’t lean into the beating. But this spiritual beating, beating down the ego, this is very good for us.

Because usually in our life we’re encouraging the ego. We’ve got the dial on the wall, we’re making ourselves comfortable, you’ve got the chair where you pull the lever, you know, and it’s got these massaging fingers when you get home and but imagine if you switched on the chair and it goes berserk and it’s going clomp clomp clomp. You know, you’d be on to that manufacturer within two minutes. Right? So think about the reaction that we get when we go into this sadness and depression.

It can be because we’re not getting what we want out of life. And what we need to think about is others and how so many more others are suffering much more than we are. This is the lucky country, you know, really. You think about Nepal, India, Africa, you know, these other countries, they experience great suffering. If you were born in Mangalore in India, you would oh, I meant Bangalore.

He’s I know he’s from Mangalore. You see a lot of suffering in India, but then you can go to cities now and you can see, you know, very glitzy buildings, beautiful hotels. You mightn’t see any suffering at all. Because if you’re with a tour guide, they don’t want to show it to you. They want to hide it from you.

Right? So if you open your eyes, you see the suffering and then you see that those people don’t have even a tenth of what you have and yet they can be happier than you. This is what opens your eyes. Why are they happy and I’m not? I’ve got I’ve got enough money.

I’m not saying you have to be rich. We may not be rich in in the sense of millions, but we have enough. You have a job. It’s good enough. Relationship, house.

It’s all good enough, but we make ourselves upset by thinking it’s not good enough. I want better. You know? Better house, better car, bigger, better, bigger, better. Like I said, when you start on that line, there’s no end.

The TV just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. The car, bigger and bigger, or more of the cars. You know, sometimes you pass houses, and they got so many cars. And you think, in this country, people can afford to buy one car for each person. And in other countries, they’re walking or they’re on bicycles.

A car is a dream. You know? So when you start to compare to others who are suffering, you feel better. But when you compare to others who are better off, you feel worse. And that’s how you need to counteract these negative thoughts.

Think of others worse off than you, and then the mind of compassion arises. You rejoice in what you have, and you think of with compassion about others. But if you’re always thinking about those who are better off, you’ll be sad, you’ll be depressed, and you’ll think, why me? It’s just not fair. I want the bigger cake, not the smaller cake.

Right? You’re not leaning into the practice, you’re leaning away from the practice. So all this is to give you some feeling for when it’s getting difficult. Why is it getting difficult? Is it because it’s out there or in here?

Buddha’s answer is it’s in here. It’s in your own heart, and you’re making it difficult for yourself. You’re taking it in the wrong way. Life is hurting you in the wrong way. You’re not using it for spiritual practice, for Dharma practice.

Okay? This is when you have to decide. Am I a Dharma practitioner or not? It’s either just in the throat, in the mouth, or it’s in the heart. Cause it’s very easy to go, you know, oh blah blah blah, you know, I’m at yeah yeah, give me the middle seat and do anything to me.

I wouldn’t be bothered. My experience is, go on a retreat with Lama Zopa and, two or three nights of no sleep, and let’s see how pleasant you are. Right? When you don’t get sleep, you get maybe one hour, and then the next day you gotta be up after one hour sleep, and you start doing practices, and then see how pleasant you are. So no sleep, no proper food, plenty of things to do so you can’t concentrate, your mind’s going all over the place.

Let’s see how pleasant you are. So in our bubble of comfort, we can be pleasant. It’s okay, you know, we can cope. But what happens when we take ourselves out of that? That’s why I think travel is very good.

Go to uncomfortable countries, you know, where you won’t be so nurtured, not so taken care of. It’s easy if you go to Finland. I tell you, Finland, I sat in a car and I thought my bum was on fire. I thought there was something seriously wrong with me or something seriously wrong with the car that we were about to blow up because I was getting hotter and hotter, you know? And this heat was coming from down below and coming up.

I’ve never felt anything like it. I thought if this is Kundalini, you know, then maybe I need to get into this practice because it was something really amazing going on. And then I thought, but I better tell the the woman who’s driving the car because it’s her car. Maybe we’re about to blow up. It was a a new Volvo.

They don’t like look like the old Volvos. They look very different now. So I said to her, I’m sorry, but I have to tell you, I’m feeling very hot in the seat. And she said, oh, yeah. Heated seat.

You know? This is the innovation. Heated seat. And then I was in her kitchen and my feet were on fire. And then I thought, here we go again, you know?

There’s something about Finland about getting hot. And then I said, you know, is it me or is this floor very hot? She said, heated floor. This is incredible. You know, they have dials for this heat and it’s just non confrontational.

Right? So if you’re always in non confrontational, how do you know that you can cope with these difficulties without becoming depressed and anxious and fearful? We need some sort of spiritual exercise. You know? Group retreats, difficult retreats are one way of testing.

Because in that testing time, you know whether you can do it or not. And if you can’t, you don’t give up, but it’s your starting point. It’s where you begin. So all these papers I gave on sadness and depression, prompting events, interpretations, experiencing the emotion, expressing and acting on sadness, it gives you a description of what you can then say, Oh, so this is sadness. This is what I’m feeling.

Anxiety and fear, nervousness, feeling overwhelmed, panicked, etc. And again, prompting events. And you may find other things that are useful for you. Somebody said, through anxiety and fear, they gave me as an example chemical imbalance. So a chemical imbalance in the body can create anxiety and fear.

So you might want to write that down. Expressing and acting on fear, something we didn’t have that somebody mentioned to me, laughing. So sometimes when people are anxious or they’re fearful, they laugh. And that can be a sign of being afraid for you. So this is a way of establishing, oh, this is what it is.

And so how do I counteract it? How do I do something about it? Any questions? I’m really rushing because it’s the last night and the football’s on. No no lateness tonight.

Okay. Clear? Alright. Then we go on. We did the emotional regulation checklist.

Correct? Well, you didn’t. Yeah. So we did this emotional regulation checklist. Some of you don’t have that, I presume.

Out they go again. So this is taking a current emotion and then what’s the prompting event for it, what’s the interpretation of it. So again, this seems like, oh gosh, you know, he’s really stretching me to the breaking point. But, again, what it’s to make you aware of is you, your mind, and and how you’re behaving. So I think once you’ve got this, then you’ve got, all of the handouts that I’ve given, I hope.

Maybe there’s one more that they might have. Some of you might not have myths about emotions. Is there somebody who hasn’t been here at all? These three. Yeah.

No. I’ve got them, but that’s that’s coming. So there’s another one called myths myths about emotions. It’s this one. Don’t give it away.

See if they’ve got any spare ones. Oh, and write speech. You’re getting a lot of stuff. Does anybody need right speech? Do you have your speech?

Okay. Okay. So everybody’s got myths about emotions, right speech. Raj, what do you want? Myths.

Myths. Raj. Raj. He’s got more. Done?

Okay. How do they know what they don’t have? Everybody get the mix. Who’s who’s clairvoyant? Who’s clairvoyant?

Who who doesn’t have what they should have? Right? Coming through. Coming through. So you have to have okay.

Right speech, myths about emotions, sadness and depression, fear and anxiety, and emotional regulation checklist. Isn’t it? Has everybody got that? Nobody missing anything? Alright.

Then I’ll just talk, about steps for increasing and decreasing emotions, and then I’ll give you the handouts. So if you’re making notes, first of all for those of you who weren’t here, we’re doing three things: understanding emotions you experience, reducing emotional vulnerability, and decreasing emotional suffering. Okay? So understanding emotions you experience, they’re basically the handouts I’ve given you. To identify, to observe and describe the emotion, to understand what emotions do for you.

Doesn’t mean do for you in a good way, but just in a non judgmental way what are emotions doing for you? So all those papers are basically to give you that information. Then the second point to reduce emotional vulnerability to negative emotions and then to increase positive emotions. This is our second job. Then the third one is to decrease emotional suffering.

So now decreasing vulnerability to negative emotions. Number one, if you have a physical illness treat it. Okay, you’re reducing your vulnerability to emotions. So if you have a physical illness treat it, take care of your body, see a doctor if necessary and take prescribed medication. So you shouldn’t use this as the reason to give up doctors and medication.

If you are seeing a doctor you should continue. If you do start meditation you should not give up medication. That’s a bit tricky to say. But often what happens is people start meditation and they think, oh I’m doing quite well, I feel better, and then they stop the medication and then they go off. I’ve seen many people who take lithium, who stop lithium with meditation, and then they really go off.

We’ve chased them around the monastery many times. They don’t sleep. They go really high. You know? So if you are taking meditation meditations, don’t stop.

Those words are really difficult. medications and meditation. So if you start meditation, it does have a profound effect on the mind. Check with your doctor or psychiatrist before you change anything in the form of medications. It could even be a blood pressure medication.

But if you have blood pressure, your blood pressure starts to come down, don’t you change your medication. You should check with somebody. You know, is it okay to change? So, first of all, take care of your physical body. Second, balanced eating.

Don’t eat too much or don’t eat too little. Again, people, when they start meditating, sometimes they go to the extreme, they start starving themselves. Not my problem, but, you know, some people will, and they get really skinny. And then in that skinniness, you know, in your sort of, I’m hardly eating anything, Buddha said when you go to the extremes, it’s not beneficial. Remember, he did six years of ascetic practices.

He tried it. And he got very skinny, and he said, it didn’t do my mind one bit of good. He also lived in a palace and ate lots of food and had parties and all the rest of it. So he said, not that extreme and not the other extreme, not starving, not too much, the middle way, take care of your body. So eat food as fuel for the body rather than, you know, I must have this type of food.

So think about the attachment that you have to certain foods and work on the attachment, not the food. Is that clear? You don’t want to remove the food. You want to remove the attachment to the food. Okay?

What I found is if it’s not in the cupboard, you can’t eat it. If it’s in the house, you can eat it. You know? So one thing is that if you really do want to give something up, why are you buying it? You know?

The most delicious thing I found, I must tell you, the most delicious thing is gluten free shortbread. It is absolutely amazing. This is food of the gods. Absolutely incredible. Well, if I had ten packets in the house, I might eat ten packets.

Although I really do watch it. You know, I eat like one stick in a day. Because it’s so delicious, you can get this feeling. I want more. I want more.

You know? So then you can watch the mind that says eat more. Right? So if it’s in the house, your mind will be thinking it’s there, eat more. So then you have to have a rule, you know, I just say one piece a day or two pieces a day, no more than that.

So watch it because, you know, often food is associated with emotions. And when you’re feeling a bit down, bit depressed or anxious, you may go to the fridge as the answer for the emotion. So number three, avoid mood altering drugs. There are mood altering drugs. They are out there.

And stay off non prescribed drugs, and this includes alcohol. So alcohol can be dangerous when you’re emotional. If you’re using alcohol, again, as the solution for the negative emotion. So be careful of mood altering drugs. A friend of mine recently had an operation, hysterectomy.

And you know after a hysterectomy, there’s pain. And I told her, be very careful. Don’t do too much work. And she’s the sort of woman that won’t stop working, won’t won’t stop doing things. And it’s about six weeks now, and she must have been doing too much and her body started shaking.

So she went to the doctor, it’s a female doctor, and she said my body was shaking. And the doctor said, you have too much anxiety and stress. I’ll give you something for that and she wrote the prescription. The husband went to the chemist and the chemist said to him, oh your wife’s not sleeping. He said my wife sleeps very well.

He said, well this drug is for not sleeping. And he said, well why would the doctor give that drug? So then, when I called they said to me, this is the name of the drug. Can you check what it’s for? And it’s been linked to suicides in India.

In India, they’re giving out this drug. Anybody with a bit of stress and tension, they get this drug. And it’s now they call it some name, but it’s like the the middle and upper classes, you know, when they’re not not very happy, a little bit unhappy, they give this drug. And once it gets into the bloodstream, you get addicted to it and very difficult to stop it. So this is becoming common in Indian society anyway.

Western society, I don’t know. But you must be careful of what you’re putting in. You are responsible for your body. In India, very difficult to ask the doctor what are you giving me and why are you giving it? They say I’m the doctor, you know.

But here you can ask questions. Right? So if you’re taking any medication you ask what is it for and what does it do for me? Okay? Because if it’s mood altering, then it has consequences.

Sometimes you need something to support you, but then be aware of the side effects and the consequences. Four is balanced sleep. So get an amount of sleep that suits you. Don’t go on the rumors that you can survive on three hours. I often give the example of Margaret Thatcher.

She slept three hours a night and she went to war. So if you think, you know, only three hours a night, now people surf the net until twelve o’clock, one at o’clock, two o’clock. They sleep for two or three hours, and then they think, oh, it should be okay. Well, it’s not. If your body needs more, if your mind needs more, you should get more.

And if you’re not sleeping properly, then it’s good to get into a routine. They found scientists have found one of the problems with not sleeping is because there’s too much light. Darkness is a signal that we should be going to sleep. And when you have the TV on and you have lights on, it’s a signal that you should stay awake. So we actually have to go through a routine.

You know, you brush your teeth. Well, maybe first, you drink a glass of milk, you brush your teeth, you know, you go through that sort of you brush your hair like I do one hundred times every night, you know, so it’s long and glossy. But go through some sort of routine that suits you, that tells you we’re going to sleep. And then once you get into that routine, you have to keep it. And that helps you to remind, this is the time I go to sleep.

So eight hours is average, but some people need nine, ten, eleven, twelve. You take how much you need. Some people are fine on six. Lama Zopa used to be the famous one that didn’t sleep at all, you know, twenty four hours a day awake, but then he was doing lots of meditation and lots of prayers, which replaced the sleep. So, you know, you don’t look at Lama’s open and think if he can do it, I can do it.

This is arrogance. You have to discover for yourself what’s good for you. Get exercise. Do some sort of exercise every day, and try to build up to about twenty minutes of vigorous exercise. So we actually need a period of time when the heart is beating more and the blood circulation is going around faster.

So if you’re not used to exercising, maybe go to the doctor first and check, and then start to build up to at least twenty minutes of vigorous exercise. But going up and down the stairs is good. You know what we tend to think oh I’m exercising because you go to the garden you walk to the garden and back and then sit down. But you know we may not walk for very long so we may not actually be increasing the heart rate. So that’s what you want to do.

You want to exercise all the organs. And the last one, number six, is to build mastery. Not mystery, like Mata Hari or something. Build mastery. You want to master something.

So try to do one thing a day that makes you feel competent and in control. Remember, what we’re antidoting is sadness, depression, fear, anxiety. So you want to do one thing a day that makes you feel in control. And it really doesn’t matter what it is, but you choose what it is. If you can’t cook, start cooking instead of always relying on restaurants and takeaway and things like that.

It could be learning to drive a car. It could be learning a language. Something that you’ve always thought you’d like to do but you’re always putting it off. So find something that you would like to master and then do it every single day. And then one day you’ll be able to look back and you’ll be able to think now I can do that.

Right? It has to start with that thought. I want to do this. Any questions? Is it clear?

So there’s six things which help you to reduce your vulnerability to emotions which means you’re physically stronger mentally more able to withstand these negative emotions. Okay these are some suggestions for you maybe you can find some others. And now by reducing the vulnerability we want to start working on increasing positive emotions. So I’ll give you some pointers for that. Does anybody want to go to the bathroom?

Feeling a little bit desperate on the edge? I see you sitting there like this. Sure. Okay. So increasing positive emotions, then examine what your mind is saying.

Because often what our mind is saying is not realistic. So you have to correct it when it’s not realistic. You know when your mind is saying I’m the worst of all, I can’t do that, You’re much better at it than me. I’m so ugly. I’m so short or I’m so tall or Who says?

You know, in comparison to what? Right? So we’re always comparing, but we compare in a negative way. If we’re in the land of giants, we’re all short. You know?

So you can say, I’m so short, but in comparison to who? There’s people who are shorter than you. So I’m stupid in comparison to what? So be very careful what you’re putting into your mind, you know, the the imprints that you’re putting there. Because if you keep saying these negative things over and over, then you’re digging the hole.

You’re making it possible and you start to believe it. Remember what happens what you do and what you imagine that you do for the mind is the same. This is pretty incredible isn’t it? What you do and what you imagine you do is the same for the mind. The imprint is the same.

So that’s why in Tibetan Buddhism we emphasize visualization so much Because when you visualize for the mind, it’s the same as if it’s true. You behave in a patient way or a kind way. If you find this difficult, when you visualize that you’re doing it, for the mind you’re really doing it. You imagine somebody there, instead of being jealous towards them, you rejoice in what they have. Your mind thinks that person is real, and what you’re doing is real.

It’s true. But there’s nobody there. It’s just a visualization. So that’s how powerful the mind is. You can visualize yourself to be much better, or you can use your mind to damage yourself and keep beating yourself and putting yourself down and down.

And this low self esteem is really a problem now in our society because we know too much. Thanks to Google, you know, thanks to the Internet we now know. Oh, there’s these brilliant people in the world and you think, I’m not brilliant. These people can do incredible things. Oh, I can’t do incredible things.

You know, we sort of compare ourselves with the absolute best, the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most anything, and we compare ourselves and say, oh, I’m not as good as that. Therefore, and then you put yourself down. Be careful. So watch repetitive, self critical thoughts. Repetitive, self critical thoughts.

The more that you think it, I’m ugly, I’m ugly, I’m ugly, the more you start to believe it. I am ugly. You might have started to say it as a joke in the beginning. Oh, look at you, you’re so ugly today. But you keep saying it, you start to believe it.

I am ugly. And then somebody says, you’re looking so good today. It’s like you’ve got Teflon. Isn’t it? Teflon.

You’re covered in Teflon. You’re so beautiful today. You’re looking so good today. Boing. You know, it’s like it bounces straight off you.

Couldn’t possibly be true. That’s not me. I’m ugly. Right? I’m the ugliest in the world.

If you think back to last week. Oh, well. Another joke went straight over the head. I’m the worst joke teller in the world. So depression often involves repetitive self critical thoughts.

You keep saying it over and over and it leads to depression. I’m I’m alone. You know? Nobody loves me. Nobody cares about me.

Nobody wants me. This is a particular problem when you’re single. You know? Nobody wants me. And if you’re in a group of single friends and they start getting married off, and you’re the last one, and you’re forty, forty five, and they’re all looking at you like, what’s wrong with you?

You know? Why aren’t you married? And you think, well, because I’m ugly? Because I’m stupid? Maybe I got BO and I don’t realize, maybe I got bad breath and I don’t realize, maybe I’m a horrible person and I don’t realize.

You start to think these repetitive negative thoughts and it’s none of that. Maybe you don’t want to be married. There’s people who don’t. Right? And you’re quite happy in that state but if you start to become negative and thinking these thoughts then you push yourself down and down into depression, into anxiety and worry.

Why me? Why am I the only one left over? You know? Like like the the old canopies on the shelf that’s gone past its date. You know?

The date when it should have been eaten by. You know, you do all these things to yourself. And you think it’s reasonable when you’re thinking it. But if you said it to somebody else, they’d say, oh, no. No.

It’s not like that. But when it’s just in your own mind, you keep exaggerating. And this is using the power of the mind to depress yourself, to push yourself down. You’re not using it to make yourself happy. So think about when you say, I’m worthless.

Nobody cares about me. Saddam Hussein had a mother. His mother loved him. Right? So you can think even Saddam Hussein had somebody who loved him.

But in that time when you’re feeling a bit depressed, you think nobody loves me. You know? And it sort of wipes out all your friends and your family. That sort of unreasonable way of thinking. So don’t do that.

I never do anything right. Is it true? You do do things right, but at that time, you say, I never do anything right. So if we’re truthful with ourselves, then we realize that these thoughts are mistaken. They’re not correct.

But we take them on, and then we use them against ourselves. So change the tape. Replace the negative thoughts with the positive thoughts. I do have good qualities. There are people who care about me.

There are things I do well. Don’t exaggerate. It’s not everybody in the world loves me. I’m the most beautiful in the world. You know?

Then that’s the other exaggeration, but somewhere in between. I can do things well. I can master something. You know, that’s that’s sort of thing. Okay?

Decreasing emotional suffering. So letting go of painful emotions through mindfulness, as I mentioned before. So you observe the emotion and you notice the presence of the emotion. Just note it without judgment, without criticizing, you just say, jealousy arising. Like that.

You notice it. Then you need mindfulness or self awareness. You need to go in, not go out. Because often when we notice there’s an emotion, what we do is we start to focus on the outside. I need chocolate.

I’m getting upset. I need chocolate. Right? I’m getting upset. Turn on the TV or put the music on.

I’m getting upset. I need, jazz. And who is it? Billy Holiday. You know?

And that sort of broken voice or, what’s the Irish one? There’s the Irish woman who sings modern. What’s her name? Exactly. I’m all alone.

I’m feeling depressed. You know? And you keep singing these sort of really depressing songs over and over. But it feels somehow fulfilling, doesn’t it? When you’re really depressed, the relationship’s just broken up, then you sing these really depressing songs.

You know? Thinking the depressing song is gonna make you feel better, but it makes you feel worse because the words are going in over and over and over. I’m alone. I’ll always be alone. I’ll never meet anybody again.

You know, I have another drink. Another cigarette. You know? Like that. It really doesn’t work.

It may seem like it’s doing something at the time, but it doesn’t work. And we have to know it doesn’t work because then when we get to anxiety, fear, depression, anxiety, worry, whatever it is, we have to know don’t do that. You know? Don’t keep putting these negatives into the mind. Put something positive in there, something that’s going to lift you off.

Enough is enough. You know? I can go on. I can go on. Rather than something very negative pushing you down.

Where was I? So mindfulness, awareness. If we can be aware of the emotion in the beginning, it’s easier to counteract, it’s easier to do something about it than when you leave it for a while. So don’t think leaving it for a while is going to be the answer. If you can be aware of your body and how, say for instance, the irritability and the anger is down here in the abdomen and how it starts coming up.

If you’re aware of it at the beginning, it’s easier to circumvent it, to do something about it. You can breathe it out. You cannot add more negative thoughts to it that are going to upset you, irritate you, because that’s what we tend to do. We’ve got the fire going, and we’re throwing wood on the fire, and then it’s not burning enough. We throw some petrol on it and then whoosh and then we think oh now it’s burning, you know, and you are the one who’s adding to the power of the fire, the anger.

So you need to have a counteraction, something pacifying. And this is thoughts of love and compassion, thoughts of patience and tolerance, counteracts anger, irritability. So one thing is to be aware of the beginning of the emotion and through your practice of meditation, then your mind anyway tends to be calmer because you’ve got this practice of meditation. So it gives you that basis of calmness. You know what calm means.

And then you can go back to that memory of calm. Okay? So that’s one thing. Using the memory of peace and calmness to get back to it. If I describe to you a destination I’m just thinking, the Himalayas, you know, say Kathmandu.

If you’re saying, I’m going to Kathmandu and I describe it to you, you have no experience. You have no idea what it’s like. So it’s like if I’m trying to describe to you calmness, peace and you don’t experience it, you can’t get back to it. You can’t go to it. So you need to do some meditation in order to give yourself that experience.

And then you’ll be able to recreate it within your daily life. Alright? Does that make sense? You understand? Then the other thing you can do is being aware that the nature of your mind IS perfect.

We have this perfection inside us, this this seed of wisdom and compassion and love and kindness. We have this perfection inside us. So why are we identifying with the negative? Why not disidentify? Why not let go of the emotion and step back from it?

Why not do that and go for what we already have inside the potential? The Buddha potential or the perfect potential, whatever you want to call it. But remember the nature of the mind and you could step back into the nature of the mind. Go to that Rather than going to the disturbing emotion, the negative thought, the habit that you’ve done before, don’t go back to the habit, but go back to your mind. This is who I am rather than that.

So this is the difference between the sky and the clouds. Are you focusing on the sky or the clouds? The negative emotions are like the clouds. Right? So why are you focusing on the storm and the clouds rather than the sky?

So that’s also a good meditation where you can visualize the sky and then each thought is like a cloud, and you just let it go. Let it go. Let it go. You really need to train in letting go rather than holding on. This is the key.

Alright? We have a very strong habit of holding on. Attachment. Attachment to negative thoughts, attachment to negative emotions. You know, we have attachment for the negative, but this is burning us.

It’s like holding on to a burning piece of wood and we’re saying I’m burning, I’m burning! And somebody says, well all you need to do is let go and you say, oh well, you know, that could be a problem. From beginningless time I’ve been burned and this is my habit and you’re sort of talking yourself into holding on and it’s burning, it’s burning and you say it’s burning, it’s burning let go, let go. Well that could be a problem you know. We sort of talk ourselves out of what’s good for ourselves.

So when we’re in a good time, talk to yourself. You know bad times are coming, right? We all have them. So prepare for the bad time by knowing what to do when the bad time comes. I’m going to do this meditation because this one I like.

Or I’m going to follow the breath. I’m going to be aware of the potential of my mind, this positive potential like the sky. If you like to go to the ocean, you watch the waves. You know? Just watch the waves.

And the waves are coming and going, coming and going. There’s nobody there sort of, you know, moving the the water, making them come and go. And this is like the negative emotions that come, and it can go. So that can also be a good one. Be aware of the impermanence of the water as it’s coming and going.

If you become aware of impermanence, then also your emotion is impermanent. Also, emotion will go away. Don’t grab onto it and hold onto it. It will go away. So the ocean or watching the sky and becoming aware of the clouds in the sky.

Important thing that I said before is don’t block or suppress the emotion because then it becomes something that’s going to be expressed sooner or later. Push it down, push it down, push it down. And my mother used to say, the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You know? Then a small thing and you go go doolally.

You’re locked up with the strapped up thing. How did it get like this? So if we’re always suppressing then that’s not healthy and if we’re always expressing that’s not healthy. We need to find a third way. In our society, I think we only know two ways: expressing, suppressing.

There’s another way, which is being aware of it and breathing it out, being aware of it using antidotes, being aware of the nature of your mind. This way, your mind changes. Remember, you are not your emotion. Your your emotions are adventitious. There’s a word.

Your emotions are adventitious. They are taking over, they’re taking away, they’re taking me away. They are taking control or they’re taking over, but your mind is not the emotion. So it’s like the the cloud in the sky. Alright?

The sky is not the cloud and the cloud is not the sky. They’re separate, but the cloud is obscuring the sky. In the same way when the emotions appear, they’re obscuring the nature of your mind, but your mind is still there. The purity of your mind is still there. Hasn’t gone away.

But when you attach the emotion, then it appears as though you are the emotion. But you’re not, because you know the clear mind is still there. But you have to remember this before the emotion appears. You have the habit of going back to: I am positive. My mind is clear.

The nature of my mind is clear. But this emotion is taking advantage. I am not the emotion. The emotion is appearing, it will disappear. If I wait, it will go away.

Also remember times that you felt different. So you know when you’re emotional? It’s hard to remember a time when you haven’t felt emotional. But remember a time when you felt different from now. So now you feel bad.

But remember a time when you didn’t feel bad. This will also help to remind you of impermanence and to get you out of the emotion. And another one is to practice accepting your emotion. Often we have this sort of panicky feeling, you know, I need to get rid of it or do something with it, like if I’m angry, you know, I need to punch or kick or something like that. But what about if without judging the emotion you’re just aware of the emotion?

So don’t be judgmental. I shouldn’t be angry. That’s not right. You know, don’t don’t judge the emotion and say, I’m a bad person because I’m experiencing this emotion, but just be aware of the emotion and don’t judge it. Just it’s an appearance of an emotion.

What would that feel like instead of getting into the story? You know, instead of stepping into the emotion. What about if you stayed back from the emotion, just you’re aware of the emotion, but you’re not getting involved in it? It’s not drawing you in. So we like certain thoughts.

We dislike other thoughts. And because we like certain thoughts, it leads to attachment and grasping. And the dislike thoughts, it leads to anger, hatred. So just watch the thoughts as they’re appearing. Be careful that your mind doesn’t get get caught up in aversion.

I really don’t like Isn’t it, Roman who said, we’re very black and white. Right? I hate. I love. So be careful of these extreme ways of viewing things.

You know, I really hate that and I really love that, then that can translate into aversion, hatred, anger, attachment, grasping. Just try and watch what appears without judging it. It’s just an appearance. An appearance of emotion, and then let it disappear. But when it appears and you say that’s my emotion, I’m angry.

I’m jealous. Then the I attaches to it and then we have to defend. We have to take care of it. We have to look after it and we add more fuel to it and we make it worse and worse. Then, another thing that you can do is taking the emotion and using an opposite action.

So like I said before about if you have anger, the opposite would be love. If you have jealousy, the opposite would be rejoicing. So if that makes sense to you, then use the opposite emotion to create a better mind, a better state of mind. It’s opposite thinking and opposite action. So put it into effect.

Don’t just think, oh, I’m really happy that, you have things, but also practice generosity. Don’t just keep it on a mental level. If you’re jealous of what others have you don’t have what you don’t have because you didn’t practice generosity. Excuse me. The cause of having things, having material, objects, money, whatever it is, the cause of that is you’ve been generous in the past.

When we look at Bill Gates, do we think, gosh, he must have been really generous in the past. And that’s the result, his success. Right? Do we think that or we think, well, why him? Why has he got so much?

Or somebody who wins the lottery, dollars two hundred and ninety three million. Do we think, oh, you know, why not me? If we don’t create the cause, we don’t experience the result. So if you don’t have enough, the answer is to give. That’s why we have mandala offerings.

But then you might think just mandala offering’s enough. It’s not. Give your time, give protection, Oh, give protection from fear. Give a meal to somebody. You can give your time for volunteering.

Whatever you can do, give. Because that will make you feel much happier. When you give, you automatically feel happier. Instead of sitting there thinking, I I want, I want. Do the opposite and give something.

You have something to give, so give it. With sadness or depression, you need to get active. So know you’re sitting around all day at home watching TV getting more and more depressed. You know you’re depressed, so you need to do something. Okay?

So get active. Zumba. I want to see you next door. Zumba. Right?

But do something. Approach. Don’t avoid. Okay? Approach don’t avoid.

So this is very important when you’re feeling a bit sad or depressed. We tend to avoid things, avoid people, avoid places. So you need to practice of going forward rather than pulling back. Do things that make you feel competent and self confident. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter whatever it is, but something that makes you feel competent and self confident.

And I think the most important one is do something to serve others. If you’re feeling sad or depressed, go down to the homeless shelter, you know, and then see if you’re still sad and depressed. You’ll see people much worse off than you. And that’s the point. There’s always people much worse off than you.

So if you serve them, particularly something like giving food, you know, when they’re in a queue and you’re giving out food, this can make you feel incredibly happy that you have the ability to serve others. Think of others who have the same problem and then try to do something to help them. So there are groups, you know, with sadness or depression or somebody a grief group or something like that. So try and go along them and be of help to them. Then fear or anxiety.

Do what you’re afraid of doing and do it over and over. This sounds horrendous, you know, but you’ve got to do it. The only way to get out of fear is to do what you don’t want to do. That’s the way you develop courage. Right?

So if you don’t want to do it, you have to lean into the point. If the knife point is in front of you, you have to lean into it. Because the fear is saying: this is going to hurt. I don’t want to do it. I tell you what I don’t like to do, I’ll tell you my secret and don’t tell anybody.

This is just between you and me. What I don’t like to do is give big public talks in big halls. I really don’t like it because I I like to connect with people and I feel in big public talks it’s like a lecture where you just talk at them. And so in Mexico, the first time I went they said to me no, second time. They said to me, do you mind giving a big public talk?

And I said, oh no, thank you. No, thank you very much. And they completely ignored it and organized it, you know. Maybe it was the communication broke down or something, but they just decided I was going to give this talk. And then they wrote to me after a while and said, Oh by the way, about that public talk that you’re going to give and my mind’s thinking, no, I’m not.

It could be dangerous because in our city, in their city at that time, there were kidnappings. So they said, you know, of course it’s dangerous when you give a public talk because you could be kidnapped. So I wrote back to them and I said, so then why would you organize a public talk? You know, I thought this is the best way to get out of it, you know, by saying, well, of course, you know, there are kidnappings. Therefore, I shouldn’t give a public talk.

And then they wrote and said, but you shouldn’t worry. We just thought we’d let you know. So now I have two things. I don’t want to give the public talk, and I could be kidnapped. And they’re never gonna give me back because I got no money.

And they won’t pay any money. So I gave this talk in a university, a small hall, and maybe a hundred people could fit in. So there were so many people they had to sit on the stairs and sit down the front, and I gave this talk, and then afterwards, you know, people were asking questions and blah blah blah blah, and they seem to like. So then the next time I said, oh, and by the way, there won’t be any public talks, will there? And they said, oh, yes.

Well, the last one was so good. Now we want to have another one so then the next time the room was much bigger then the TV cameras were there and they said we’re going to record the whole thing now my other thing is I don’t like TV cameras So then now I have this TV camera all the time. I have to speak for two hours and not one night but two nights and so it’s sort of gone on from there. So then the last time I was just in Mexico somebody I know in the government decides that if I’m coming it’s not going to be a small talk it’s going to be a big one. The biggest possible.

So this time it was three thousand. So they said to me you’re going to talk to quite a big number of people and I’m thinking two hundred, two fifty, you know now my mind thinks two hundred, two fifty, not so bad, you know whereas before horrified And they said, oh, no, no, maybe two thousand, three thousand. Two or three thousand, you know. Then I had to do that. Then I had to fly to another city in this pokey little plane that was going up and down, up and down.

But don’t worry, it should be fine. So I flew to this other city to give a teaching and I said, how many people are going to be there? And they said, four or five hundred. I said, oh, that’s nothing. You see how your mind changes?

In the beginning, I was thinking a hundred? That’s a lot, you know. Now I’m up to oh, five hundred. Oh, it’s nothing. You know?

So each time you do something that you don’t want to do, your mind changes. It becomes easier. You become more competent at doing it, I hope, but you’ll find that, the things that you’re afraid of don’t create so much anxiety, don’t create as much fear as they used to. So you have to do it rather than avoiding it. Again, do things that give you a sense of control and mastery.

And the one I really like is when you feel overwhelmed, make a list of small steps, small tasks that you can do. Right? Make a list. Step one, I can do this, then this, then this, and this. And then go to number one and start.

So make a list of small steps, small tasks, go to the top of the list and start doing it and cross it off as you do it. I think having a list is very helpful. I know some people don’t like lists, but I find it very useful. Because otherwise, if you’ve got something big to do and it just stays in the realm of the mind, you think, gosh, this is too big. But if you break it down into small tasks, it’s doable.

You can do it. Alright? Now, homework. Make a list of five positive statements about yourself. Five statements of positive self talk.

Okay? Five. You need this for when you become negative. So you need to practice saying these to yourself before you get negative. And then when you are getting negative or you are negative, you are depressed, you’re putting yourself down, remember these five positive affirmations.

If you don’t know what to write, a very good book, I don’t know what it’s called, but if you read Louise Hay, there’s Louise Hay affirmations, isn’t it? Yeah? She’s very good. I met her years ago in Sydney University. I think I met her in nineteen eighty two, something like that, eighty two or eighty three before she became famous and she was helping people with Kaposi’s sarcoma, HIV, AIDS and had massive meetings in Los Angeles and San Francisco and really successful, cured herself of cancer and, she wrote books on affirmations.

So this is positive self talk. We’re very good at the negative self talk, not so good at the positive. So you need that waiting for you. Set up a buddy system. You know buddy?

A friend. But it’s particularly for somebody that you can speak to without fear of judgment. You don’t want to be able to call somebody and say, oh, you know, I’m the worst in the world. And they say, oh, not you talking like this again. You know?

You don’t want them criticizing you and judging you because you’re doing that to yourself anyway. So somebody who’s not judgmental, somebody who would just listen to you and you listen to them. That’s the bargain, the buddy system. Alright? Think of something that you can do for somebody else when you start to feel depressed or anxious.

So start to reach out rather than imploding, you know you’re going in, reach out And make a commitment for one thing per week you will do to help others. You may not be able to do it every day, but make a promise to yourself: Once a week, I will do something for others and find something to do. You can be a volunteer in Buddha House, you can go to the homeless shelter, hospices. You know, there’s so much actually that needs help. So many people need help.

And you might think, oh, nobody needs my help, but there’s always something you can do. And this makes you feel much, much better. Now I think we need to give out the other things. And where is he? Where’s my little servant?

My Malaysian servant imported for service. It’s Lurch. Oh, hello. Steps for increasing positive emotions and emotional regulation checklist steps for reducing painful emotions. So it’s, one, two, three pages.

It looks like that, that. So it looks like two calendars, one steps for increasing positive emotions, and then those two. Thank you. Oh, every it’s everybody now? Everybody.

No. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Some people do have them. Just bring everything that you have, and then we’ll see.

If anybody wants to go to the bathroom, now’s a good time. And then I’m going to be very quick so we can finish slightly late. Kathy, why are you the only one that wears a badge? But nobody else ever wears them. You should encourage them.

Yes. Can I help you? Oh. Oh, it could well be. Oh, yeah.

Sorry. My bad. So there’s there’s there’s this one. Okay. There’s that one, and then maybe somebody else can do the other one.

This is just one because it’s photocopied on both sides. So it’s just one piece. You see, Lindy, SPC. You know? The badge, Lindy.

Lindy, SPC. And then Bill, receptionist. And then Simon. Simon. Well, now you’re the director.

Get on. Get into it. Oh, no. Start off the way you mean to go on. Label them.

Label them. Be strong. Be strong. I think it’s good for people to know who’s working, who’s not. For new people, it’s very good.

Yeah. Exactly. Or they might know you, but they might not know your name. You know? So it’s good for them.

Are you doing it for others or for yourself? Thank you. It’s three pages, but it’s double copied on two. It’s The next page, mindfulness of positive experiences that occurred. Have you focused your attention on positive experiences?

So did you remember them? This is also important. Have you avoided worry about positive experiences? So that when we get that positive experience we may then worry about it. Like for instance somebody invites you out, you go to a bar and you know you’re talking and then afterwards you worry about it.

Did I say the right thing? Did I do the right thing? Or you go to a dinner where there’s so many knives and forks and spoons and you don’t know what on earth to do and you feel really embarrassed. And so you had a positive experience but afterwards you worry about it so much that then you’re not happy. Okay?

So don’t worry about positive experiences. And then mindfulness of the current emotion. Did you observe the emotion? Did you experience the emotion? In the sense of feeling it.

How does this feel? If you feel the anger, not you are the anger, but you feel the anger, not so pleasant. And then it’s easier to give it up or jealousy or hatred, whatever it is. Did you remember not to act on the emotion? Did you remember times that you felt different?

So have you applied the counteraction to the emotion? Did you remember to do that? So again, you’ve got the checking system because you’re not going to remember all of this, so this diary helps you to put it into practice. And then the opposite action, the skill, is how did I act opposite to the current emotion? So when the anger arose, did I do the opposite?

Which is to remember the love and the kindness that I have and that I feel for that person. Did I remember to act on that? Or did I completely forget about it? You know? Swept away by the emotion and then a day or two later you remember.

Or you’re doing your checking system and then you remember oh that’s right that’s what I was supposed to do. So be honest and you say no I completely forgot. The next day no I forgot. Oh yeah, I nearly remembered. Yes, I did remember.

It was too difficult to put it into practice. And it may go on like that for a while, but it’s reminding you this is what you need to do. This is the aim is to change and change is not easy to do. So we do it on a daily basis knowing what we want to do. We want to change these negative emotions.

We want to subdue them and then eventually we won’t experience them. We won’t have them. But right now we do have them. So it’s like we’ve got the Hiroshima bomb and it’s gone off and we’ve got to clean up after. Right?

Then eventually there won’t be any cleaning up. There won’t be any bomb. But right now our situation is we’ve got the BAM. Right? And each time we’re cleaning up after the BAM, we have to clean up the mess after we’re very angry or we have hatred.

So gradually the change will happen over time. So what you need is lots of photocopies of these sheets. Right? Photocopy fifty two. There’s a year, you know?

And don’t think I’m going to change in one week, one month, just think I’m going to change. And it’s going to be over time. Doesn’t matter how long, but over time I am going to change. Alright? That’s all that matters isn’t it?

And I’m going to change in the positive direction not the negative. So you know where you want to go and you know where you want to go away from. You know what you’re leaving and what you’re going towards. So mentally you’re moving away from the attachment to the negative emotions and what it’s giving you. And you’re moving towards the positive emotions and what it will give you.

You’re moving from one to the other. Okay? Any questions? Excellent. Oh.

I was just rejoicing for one second. Yes. Training that you did. Was this training that you did You have done or currently do? Or Yeah.

I mean, this this is our job until enlightenment. But you we usually in Buddhism, we don’t usually get all this help. They just say change emotions. You know. Give up your anger, give up your attachment, and you think, how am I going to do that?

So this is a lot of material for you to work on over time to give you an indication of how to move in that positive direction. And I find that the idea of a diary really helps because the diary is the monitoring system. And when you’re doing well, it’s good to be able to look back and see when you weren’t doing so well. That’s why I say photocopy it. Don’t keep using the same page with pencil.

You need the diary over time. And then you look back, date the diary, you know, November, December, January, February, and you’ll look back and you’ll think, gosh, I’ve really come a long way. And you’d be surprised how quickly you can change. So, you know, this is a modern system based on ancient wisdom. And in the old times, it was, stones, white stones and black stones.

And so you’d monitor your monitor your system that way with the stone in the pocket. But this is a a modern way of doing it. And without the mindfulness and the introspection, of course, nothing changes. So I really recommend meditation. And if you don’t know how to do meditation, come to a beginner’s class which isn’t teaching Buddhism, but just teaching you the skill of meditation, how to control your own mind and be mindfulness, mindful of what’s arising within your mind.

I think that’s really valuable. But, yeah, we have to do this until we become high level Bodhisattva and even until we become Buddha. We always have to be monitoring our behavior. That’s the way you become enlightened. I mean, can you become enlightened by saying, oh, who cares?

Whatever. You know? You just killed some ants. Oh, whatever. You know?

Like that? Can you become enlightened? You become enlightened by caring. So you start caring in your own environment, and then it starts to ripple out into others, your family, your friends. It starts to go out and out.

But you have to start with yourself. If you don’t care about yourself, how are you going to care about others? So start there, but with the motivation to help and care for others. Yeah? Okay?

Okay people, Time to dedicate. Time to give it all away. You’ve accumulated it. Now you’re giving it away. So I think it’s page something or other.

Page. Linda’s already packing up. Goodness gracious. We’ve got the example of Linda already packing up and leaving. Just joking.

Page thirty two, Śāntideva. So, if you can, you think your mother sitting on your left, your mother sitting just like you, your mother sitting, father sitting just like you, behind family and friends, in front people you don’t like, you find disturbing or animals that you find disturbing facing towards you. And so when you’re offering, you think you’re offering to all. Right? Those you like, those you don’t like, and if you have problems with your mother and father, you’ve got to start dealing with this.

Mother and father are often the ones that we have a lot of problems with. So start to give them something positive in order to change your mind. 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 the 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. It’s a very beautiful dedication, and I think anybody can use it, isn’t it? So thank you all very much for your time and for your dedication hanging in there. This is a very difficult course in my experience because we’re talking about emotions and people tend to feel emotional. And so the easy thing is to run away, But the hard thing is to stay and to listen and to think about it and talk about it.

And we’ve spent a few weeks on this. So thank you all very much. I think I hope it was worthwhile and that Adelaide is a safer place because of us. That’s worthwhile, right? If I’d known we were going to do this, I would have finished at eight o’clock.

There will be an