Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 66-minute teaching, Ven Lobsang Namgyel guides practitioners through verse six of the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, focusing on how to transform harm and betrayal into spiritual opportunity. Using a workplace scenario—benefiting someone who later backstabs you for their own gain—he shows how self-righteous expectations poison kindness and how to reframe such a person as a guru teaching patience and non-reaction. He emphasizes pure motivation in giving: help without expecting return, and warns that attachment to outcomes sets you up for anger and negative karma. Moving into verse seven, Tonglen practice, he teaches a radical purification method where you visualize breathing in another’s suffering as black smoke, exploding all negativity in your heart, then breathing out light and compassion. Through detailed examples—a scientist healed of a headache during retreat, Lama Zopa’s radical generosity—he illustrates how exchanging self-cherishing for other-cherishing destroys the root of suffering. Suited for practitioners studying the Eight Verses or exploring practical methods to transform everyday conflicts into genuine spiritual growth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 36 Teaching 12.mp3
UUID: f6d407ef-e690-42c9-9d0b-226f1729d51f
Teacher: Ven Lobsang Namgyel
Collection: VenNamgyel Thought Transformation (Ven Lobsang Namgyel)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 66.2 minutes
Words: ~8,146
So thinking with the mind of bodhicitta, wanting to be a benefit to all sentient beings, wanting to remove their suffering and give them only happiness. I’m thinking that right at this moment, it’s difficult for me even to help myself never mind all sentient beings. So in order to help others, first I need to help myself. I need to change my mind. I need to improve my qualities.
Be less reactive. So that I’m in control of the situation. I’m able to decide in any given situation how I’m going to behave. What I’m going to bring to the situation. And so it’s not enough to just study.
It’s not enough to just think about these subjects. We actually need to prepare the ground of the mind in order to actualize everything that we’re studying in order to change our mind. So in order to prepare the ground then we do these preparatory practices and that helps to soften and make the mind more flexible. So we start with refuge and we’re going to do twice in Tibetan and once in English. And then the prayer of the seven limbs in English.
Then the mandala in Tibetan, and then the inner mandala in English. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme community from the collection of merits I create by the practice of generosity and so forth. May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. Respectfully, I prostrate with my body, speech, mind. I present clouds of every type of offering, actual and imagined.
I confess all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time and rejoice in the virtuous actions of all ordinary and noble beings. Please, Buddha, remain as our guide and turn the wheel of Dharma until Samsāra ends. Through the merit created by myself and others, may the two bodhicittas ripen, and may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. And for the mandala offering, remember that you offer not just a small amount, but as much as you can possibly offer. And you’re doing this in order to accumulate merit on behalf of all sentient beings.
The objects of my attachment, aversion, and ignorance, friends, enemies, and strangers, and my body wealth and enjoyments without any sense of loss, I offer this collection. Please accept it with pleasure and bless me with freedom from the three poisons. Put this money away because it’s blowing all over the place. So we’re up to verse six, I think. Sue, you want this?
And who were the two people who asked me for Here you go. Who wanted this? Thanks. Here you go. Alright.
So verse six. When someone whom I have benefited and in whom I have great hopes gives me terrible harm, I shall regard that person as my holy guru. So you’ve sort of set yourself up, haven’t you? You’ve benefited them. I think, look at that bit, and in whom I have great hopes.
So you benefited them, there was a hook, and you expected something back. And what did you get back? They criticized you, they backstab you. You know, I think particularly this happens in office work situations. You know, you might try and benefit somebody, help them along, know.
You poor thing, I’ll help you to get a better job and then they’re after your job. You think, but it’s not fair, you know? Why are they doing this to me? I helped them. I I benefited.
I helped. I had great hopes in this person and now they’re trying to get my job. They’re doing something against me. They’re judging me, criticizing me, saying things to others in the office, giving me a bad reputation. And now what to do?
Attack back. Right? So you go around telling everybody that’s a really bad person. They’re horrible, blah blah blah. Then everybody thinks you’re really horrible because you’re jealous of that person.
The whole situation can get worse and worse. So we we’ve tried that and we know it doesn’t work. So here it’s suggesting try something different. So one thing I think before we even start with visualizing them as a guru. When you’re benefiting anybody, do so without thinking you’re going to get something back.
So therefore have a pure motivation. I think this is key, isn’t it? Start out with a pure motivation. If you’re expecting something back, it usually goes wrong. Things fall apart.
Yeah? So there’s there’s the first mistake that you made. You were thinking something good was going to come from it. So it’s like an investment. You know?
You put some time and energy into somebody and you thought you were going to get something good out of it. Ten percent interest. Preferably fifty percent interest or a hundred percent interest. That doesn’t work with money, but somehow we think it might work with people. So in order to not have those hopes and those false projections, better that you don’t have any hook, any emotional hook at all.
I’m just going to benefit and I’m not looking for any return. What’s going on? So that’s one thing. You want some water? Then you don’t have these great hopes.
I really thought this person was going to be a good friend or was going to help me. You know, and like I said, we’re we’re often talking about work situations. So you don’t have any of those great hopes. Then that person gives me terrible harm. So what’s your reaction now?
So you’ve done something good for them. And in this verse, you had great hopes, so you’re projecting that they’re going to be a really good friend, that they’re really going to help you in the office. But now, they’re doing you terrible harm. In that situation, we’d probably have a very strong reaction because of the projection and because of having helped them. So it’s like you’re setting yourself up to get angry.
To want to attack back. So what’s that going to do to you? You’re creating negative karma. You’re going to get very upset, very angry. You’re going to create negative karma.
Then in the future, again this is going to come back on you, but also just temporarily, how is it making you feel? We have to keep checking in on how do these emotions make us feel. When we have this sort of rage or strong anger, and you know in the office or at work, you can’t show rage or strong anger, can you? So when you find out that your friend, that you’ve benefited, have great hopes about, and you’re called into the boss’s office and the boss says, you know, I was thinking of promoting you, but now I’m thinking of promoting so and so because it looks like they’re better at the job than you because of what you’ve done for them. How does it make you feel?
Yeah? And then other people are are sort of realigning, isn’t it? You know, you can feel the sort of energy realignment where it seems everything was going for you, but now everything’s going for the other person. If you start saying nasty things, if you start judging, criticizing, is that going to get you what you want? So there you have to have a strong belief that if you put negative energy out, you’re only going to get negative energy back.
Short term, it may seem to work, but long term, putting these negative energies out doesn’t work. So let them judge, let them criticize, let them be angry, but you’re going to take the higher road, the more difficult road. You’ve decided that you want to go with qualities. So even in the office, even when people are doing the worst possible thing to you, you want to do the best possible thing. So here it’s suggesting that you can regard that person as your holy guru.
So thank you very much. My guru has appeared. And please whatever you do, don’t start doing prostrations in the office and saying, you know, I went on this Buddhist course and this is incredible. You know, I’ve been praying for a guru and here you are. Leave it out, but just think of the situation as a guru situation.
What is that situation trying to teach you? So in order to have patience, love, compassion, One way of learning it is through books. Another way of learning it is through teachers. So here are the teachers. You know, teacher, teachers.
We we now have this teacher. This teacher is in the office in front of you and you’re being taught qualities. Right? So you don’t have to respond negatively. You can choose to respond with good qualities.
But this has to be a choice that you’re making before the situation happens. You know when the situation is happening. If you haven’t trained, it’s extremely difficult to suddenly bring out good qualities. Right? So you have to keep meditating on how how you would behave if this happens to you.
So each day maybe take a verse, meditate on it in the morning. If this is happening to me, what would I do? How would I behave? Would I be able to take this person who’s harming me as a guru? A teacher.
Would I be able to think of them that way? So if you keep meditating on it, you imagine that person saying something very negative to you and you’ve done something really good for that person. Now they’re judging, criticizing. Now they’re trying to get your job. How would you react?
And you see yourself in the meditation as reacting in a way that might be different from before. I mean if you have lots of love and compassion, no problem already. Right? But often we would react in a very negative way. Yeah?
Yeah. So just to give. Only to give. Yeah. It’s hard.
It’s definitely hard. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that’s what you have to work on is this sense of you’ve decided it’s your quality, your giving. Right?
This is what I believe in. I’m a generous person. I’ve decided to give. Whether it’s giving patience, whether it’s giving freedom from fear, whether it’s giving help in the way of listening to somebody, whether it’s giving your time, whatever it is, but you’ve decided you give. And then in this situation, what are you giving?
Because you’ve set yourself up. You’ve said, when someone I have benefited. So there’s a self righteous attitude already, isn’t it? I benefited you. How can you do this to me?
You know, I mean can’t you hear yourself? In the office, you know, and you get them into the staff room and you lock the door and you say, I benefited you. I helped you. I trained you. I gave you all the information and everything.
And now you’re using it against me? And they say, yeah, why not? Business is business. Isn’t it? Parents towards children.
Quite quite likely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah because parents, I know when you know you have a small child. You think, oh they’re going to be an engineer, they’re going to be a doctor, or they’re going to follow in my profession.
You know, if you’re a scientist, my kid’s gonna be a scientist. And as they’re growing up, my cap My father was a captain in the merchant navy. And so it was assumed I was going to be a captain in the merchant navy. And at some point I said to my father, I am never going to do what you do. I’m never going to be a captain.
Actually, I really love ships and I love the water, but there’s some age you get to with your parents, isn’t it? Where you want to assert your you know individuality, your independence. You want to do what you want to do. And then many years later maybe you look back on it and you think, if I’d gone in that direction I probably would have been really happy if I’d done what my parents had wanted. But because of this you know I’m going to go in my own direction.
So it’s true you know that your parents could give you great benefit. They educate you. They try everything And all you get back is harm. You know? And they could become very depressed, negative, sad.
Do they have the ability to see you as their guru? If they’ve studied Dharma maybe, but otherwise they might just think, yeah, you know, let go. So you could also meditate on this from the other point of view. What if you’ve been the person that somebody’s benefited? What about if somebody was benefiting you and had great hopes in you, and you’re the one that’s gone against it.
Now what should you do? Can you try and fix it in some way? So that’s a good way to think. Maybe you’re the one in the office who took somebody else’s job. You trashed somebody else.
You got the the the higher job because of manipulating and you know doing something negative. If you find yourself in there, it’s really good because one thing, you need to purify. You really don’t want this to come back on you. This is a very heavy boomerang. Right?
But also if it’s your parents who benefited you or some sort of mentor over the years helped you and then you turned against them. Now what can you do in order to try and heal the situation? I mean sometimes we have to go back to our parents and say, listen, I know I wasn’t the easiest child and la la la la, but now I’ve realized. And just I recognize how kind you were to me and yet I wasn’t very kind back. It’s hard to have that conversation, but maybe it’s a good conversation to have.
Yeah. So that’s a good realization from that verse. Is that people are often trying to help us and we’re not very kind back. So from both ways, meditate on it and try and find the meaning in the verse. You don’t have expectations and hopes in people who are helping.
Just help. And then if that person harms you, don’t attack back. If you’re the one who’s been helped and you’re the one that’s done something negative, you fix it. Do something about it. My dear scientist.
Thank you very much. Yes. Yes. No. No.
No. You you completely understand. If you’re doing analytical meditation, excuse me, what you’re doing is you’re using that verse as a means to think about your situation. So you’re actually analyzing your belief system, your thoughts, and a a particular situation. So if this has happened to you, you would take this verse.
You would be thinking about how the situation came about, what your reaction to the situation would be, has been. Now what would you like that reaction to be? So I think to use an analogy maybe, you’re you’re taking a present program in the computer, which is Windows ninety seven. Do you remember Windows ninety seven? I I I remember Windows ninety five, but Windows ninety seven, you know, these old programs, right?
It was so slow. Right? Used to write a letter, press send, and used to sort of go and make a cup of tea, cook lunch, visit some friends, come back, and the short letter is just about gone. It was really, really slow. Right?
So I often say, well, we have the most incredible computer. And you probably know better than I do. But I think this brain is the most incredible computer, but underutilized. And I think that the operating system often doesn’t suit what’s going on up here. The potential that we have.
So when we’re doing these meditations, we’re actually reprogramming. We’re upgrading the computer. The point of analytical meditation is to come to a conclusion. No? So that strong feeling.
Oh yes, I get it. And when you get it emotionally, then you stop and you hold your mind single pointedly on the conclusion that you came to by analyzing the situation. So the point, the purpose of analytical meditation is to bring you to single pointed concentration. So you’ve got two types of meditation, but they both come to one point. So analytical to one point, and then single pointed meditation already is one point.
But in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, we particularly use the power of thinking. Hearing, thinking, contemplating, going a bit more deeply, and then meditating. Staying within the parameters of the meditation. Because you know, I’ll tell you a funny story. We were doing the Medicine Buddha retreat last year, and the Medicine Buddha has a begging bowl.
So similar to Śākyamūni Buddha, except the Medicine Buddha is blue. So I’m saying, you know, the the Medicine Buddha and there’s a bowl. So one girl told me, so when you said the bowl, I started to think about this bowl, this med you know, the begging bowl. And I wonder what’s inside the begging bowl. So I’m carrying on in the meditation, but she’s now looking inside the begging bowl.
Right? So she looks over into the begging bowl, and what does she see? A pizza. So she thinks, well, is incredible. You know, the medicine Buddha likes pizza just like I do.
Right? So then she starts to look at the pizza. Oh, it’s just the sort of pizza I would order with this and this. And so she has all the toppings, you know, on the pizza. And then she suddenly realized, she’s in a she’s completely lost in the pizza, and the taste of the pizza, and where she’d be eating the pizza.
She’s in the restaurant with her friends eating the pizza, and then she realizes we’re in Medicine Buddha in Nepal, and no pizza at all. So that, of course, that’s what can happen in analytical meditations and single pointed meditations. You can get lost. And it really helps to have somebody who says, come back to the point or remember the meditation. When you’re alone, you have to keep doing that for yourself.
Remember your motivation. Remember the action, the analytical meditation. What’s the purpose? What’s the point of the meditation? And then at the end of the meditation, to come to a strong conclusion.
Right? And then hold your mind for a few minutes on that conclusion. It’s true. And then that’s had a profound effect on the way that you see the world. So that type of meditation.
Okay? Yeah. Okay. I have a question about the idea of reciprocity. Of what?
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I because in in western society and many other societies It’s there. It’s a value.
Yeah. And I personally think, well, that’s really useful because that way you don’t have free riders in society. Like me and him. Free riders. People who don’t work for a living.
No. No. You and me. I was more thinking this idea of, oh, that’s really cool. This is a helper.
I was a helper. Yeah. I’m just gonna take all the benefit I can because that’s a helper. Yeah. He or she indicates himself in herself involving Yeah.
Yeah. So I I was just curious. Well I think if In the text it says that if you have the karma to be used, used and abused. If you have that karma because you’ve done it before, no matter what you do, people are gonna do that to you.
So you know, it depends on our karmic imprints as to actually which sort of behavior people have towards us. So you could be giving out, sort of wanting people to be reciprocal, to give back, but they may never give back. Right? And then others hardly give anything, but seem to get a lot back in return. And then you think, well why is that?
I’m a kind generous person. I give lots of things to lots of people, and I don’t get so much back. So is that a is that a comfortable, healthy, happy state of mind? Or if you just give out and you’re not thinking what you’re going to get back, but somebody gives back, then how do you feel? Don’t you feel surprised and happy and how nice, you know?
I never expected anybody to give me something. So I think that idea of not expecting then is a much nicer way of living. But I know this is problematic because our society is built on giving and taking. Isn’t it? Christmas, birthdays, you know.
And often talk particularly in Reiki, we In Reiki we have this unconditional giving. And often talk about Christmas when you go out on a limb, know, you spend more than you thought you should spend because you really wanted to get this nice present for a friend that you knew they would really like it and they’d really appreciate it. So you spend five hundred dollars where your budget was actually three hundred. And so you put the extra two hundred on a credit card, but you can see their face. You can imagine their delight.
You’re already in trouble, you know. You’ve put all that into the present, and then you give it to them and they just sort of put the present to one side. You say, but wouldn’t you like to open it now while I’m here? They said, no. It’s okay.
I’ll open it later. No. No. Open it now. I mean now, you know, because there’s something caught up in the present, know, and then you’re watching their face and as they’re unwrapping it, you’re looking for delight and happiness.
And they open it and they say, oh. Oh, that’s not what I expected at all. What would you feel? Yeah. So that can be setting yourself up for real unhappiness and setting the other person up for unhappiness.
So I always say, if you’re giving, try to give without any attachment, without any strings. So this is about attachment. You’re getting at attachment. So you have to think about whether you find attachment makes you happy or unhappy. And whether detachment is a better value.
Because if you’re just giving out freely, there’s no expectation to get anything back. And that’s what all these eight verses have been saying really. Just when you can, give it out. If you can’t afford to give it out, don’t give it. Yeah?
If you if you’re not free internally to give it, don’t give it. Because you’re going to regret it. So give what you can give and start with what you can give very openly, very freely without any expectations. Yeah. Now this is the other side of the relationship.
Aren’t you? Aren’t you together? Yes. Okay. Now, now we’re going to hear from the other side.
How small can I give? Without her getting upset? Yeah. It’s it’s both ways, isn’t it? In a relationship, it’s it’s about having that sense of balance.
And people often say to me, I’m in a relationship where I’m just the giver and the other side never gives. Then what? I said, well, incredible. So so good. You you can create all this merit by giving.
But then like we’re saying, how, well, he says, how easy would it be if you’re just the giver? Giving, giving, giving, giving, and the other person never says thank you, never gives you anything back. How long would you be able to keep going for before you decide I’m stopping this? Right? That’s our conditioning, isn’t it?
It’s very, very hard. I know. I know. Never calls back. Would you think they were a friend?
Yeah. Yeah. Well it’s like I said about Lama Zopa. Know twenty three years I’ve had one nice sentence. You know?
And it’s like do you keep going because you know it’s the right thing to do or do you keep going because somebody’s praising you? You know like that. This is for me, from my background, I found this very hard to cope with. Another thing I found very hard to cope with was I’d give something to Lama Zopa in his room, I go and see, and give him something. And he’d look at it and say, oh wow, where did you get this?
Oh yes, very nice. And I think, I found something that he really likes, you know. And then I’d go outside in the anteroom, you know. The next person would go in and I’d be chatting to somebody. The next person would come out and there’s my present going out the door.
It’s like, it went in, it went straight out. I think, well, but I thought he really liked it. You know, then you try even harder to find something that he really likes. And then you give that. It goes in, it goes out the door.
He doesn’t keep hold of anything, you know. So once I I was a little bit tricky. I had a little statue of Tārā and I put it on his table when I went to see him. You know, so I went in, put this little Tārā statue. He didn’t notice.
We talked and I left the room. The next time I went to see him, he said to me, do you know where this little Tārā statue came from? And I said, well, yes, it’s from me Rinpoche. Oh, I see. As soon as he knew it was his, I think then he knew he could give it away.
So years ago when we were in Sera Monastery, this would be nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one, Lama Zopa Rinpoche had no money. I know, he had no money. And he had this organization growing and he’s giving it all away, giving it all. Whatever he gets gives it away. So we’re in Sera Monastery and he said to the Abbot, what would really help you in this monastery?
What can we do to help you? And the Abbot said, many of the monks are getting very poor food. They really need to eat properly. So Lama Zopa Rinpoche said, okay, I will do that. And Roger who’s still the attendant now whips out the calculator.
He’s the practical one, right? Out comes the calculator. How many people in this monastery? Four thousand. How much is each meal?
So much money. He said to Rinpoche, Rinpoche, you’re going to need a million dollars because they were going to feed off the interest of the money. Right? You’re going to need a million dollars. Rinpoche said, oh, okay.
I’ll get it. And he got it. Right? And now we feed even more. Now we have an even bigger projects and it’s just like Rinpoche’s on a roll.
He gives, more comes back. He gives, more comes back. Not he gives expecting more to come back, but he’s just got this incredible energy of generosity. And so I watched this over the years and I saw how if you can be very selfless and just offer, it has a much more powerful effect than if you’re offering with a motivation to get something back. And I think we’re at the level where we’re offering to get something back.
We’re at that level. And let’s just try a little bit, sometimes give without any wish to get anything back. Just try. Look yesterday, you know, somebody put a DVD here. We didn’t know who put the DVD there and those people were so happy because somebody was really kind.
That person is never going to be told thank you. Right? Some anonymous kind person, but we’ll never know who it was. But for those people who received that DVD, they were really overwhelmed because they felt somebody was very kind. So do you need to know that or do you feel from your own side that you’re doing something good?
I think we need to go to our qualities and believe that we’re doing something good without the thank you, without the gift back. But that’s training. It’s going to take us a lot of training. And start small. Just start with small things.
Okay. Where are we at with time? Alright. So I have to move on to the seventh verse because this is the most interesting difficult. So this is, in short, both directly and indirectly, do I offer every happiness and benefit to all my mothers.
I shall secretly take upon myself all their harmful actions and suffering. In short, both directly and indirectly. What directly and indirectly means is that now in the office and at home, if you see somebody making a mistake, you try to protect them from that mistake. You try to fix it without saying you’re fixing it, without claiming you fixed it. You are going to be miss or miss or mister, fix it.
Not gleefully going around pointing out everybody’s mistakes. Did you see what you know, what she did in the office or what he did? You’re not doing that anymore. You’re just going to very quietly, very secretly go around fixing other people’s mistakes. This is directly.
Then indirectly, do I offer every happiness and benefit to all my mothers? We’ve already talked about how all sentient beings have been my mother, so I want to be a benefit to them. I shall now secretly take upon myself all their harmful actions and suffering. So this is a meditation. And it’s a meditation called Tonglen.
Tonglen. T o n g L E N. I spell it because on one course I had somebody who came up to me and said, I really like that Tom and Len meditation. They westernized it. Tom and Len.
And I said it’s not Tom and Len, it’s Tonglen. So it’s Tibetan. It actually means giving and taking. Giving and taking. Taking.
Giving and taking. But it’s a trick. First you need to take and then you need to give. Okay? As in all of these things, it’s an oral lineage and they say it in a way that you wouldn’t know what was going on unless you’ve been taught.
So Tonglen, giving and taking, but actually first you have to take. So this goes back to emptiness, remembering the emptiness of the mind, remember the emptiness of the Buddha potential, remember the emptiness of all negative actions. They’re not inherently existent, therefore they can be removed, Therefore, they can be purified. Now this method, Tonglen, is a radical purification method. It’s extremely radical.
You are about to do something you will not want to do. Worse than giving away gifts, this is even worse. And you’re gonna do it. So, what are you doing? Maybe I don’t need to draw it.
The visualization is this. In the middle of your heart is, I like to describe it as a marshmallow. So that soft, squishy marshmallow, you know, that all that niceness and goodness. Or inside the chocolate, know, that soft that soft stuff. So inside our heart naturally is compassion, love, kindness, that nice soft stuff.
Okay? But what prevents us from experiencing it, from being it every day, is the negative behavior that we’ve done from beginningless time. So the visualization is in the middle, this soft center, and around it all these negativities that we’ve accumulated from beginningless time. In the form of black smoke, a black cloud. I always think of it a little bit of Darth Vader.
I don’t know why, but sort of this blackness around. Maybe, you know where there’s a planet and he says, I’m now going to destroy this planet. You’re going to destroy all this negativity in a very radical way. You’re going to do the opposite of what you have done up until now. So remember how we talked about self-cherishing, how from self grasping comes self-cherishing, and from self-cherishing comes harming others.
The assumption is that we’ve been self grasping, we’ve been self-cherishing, we have harmed others, so now we need to do the opposite. Now we need to cherish others. So we exchange our self for others. So instead of relating everything to ourselves and what can we get for our self, we’re now thinking what can I do for you? We’re switching it around.
We’re using the experience of cherishing ourselves and now we’re going to do the cherishing others bit. So we’re completely switching it around. So we need to do this mentally in a meditation. You know we can’t just go out and you know like I said go down to Boudha Stūpa in Kathmandu and you know, what can I do for you? Give me your suffering.
Take my happiness. Give me your suffering. Take my happiness. It won’t last very long because we haven’t trained. So you need to train mentally to become stronger, spiritually tougher.
The spiritual warrior in order to be a benefit to all sentient beings. So we start with one sentient being, and probably it’s best to start with yourself. So there’s a meditation that goes along with this. You’re gonna do it this afternoon. So you visualize yourself sitting in front of you.
Alright? It’s a mirror image. And in the heart of the person in front of you is all that positive potential. But it’s obscured by all the negativities. And you want to help them to remove their negativities.
So you have that willingness, that compassion that wants to take away their suffering. And remember this is yourself that you’re seeing in front. And in your own heart, you have potential and you also have it surrounded by negativities. So it’s like a mirror image. With each breath, as you breathe in, you breathe in their suffering, their negativities.
Okay? So with your breath, you keep breathing in black smoke and you’re taking it, you’re taking it, and you’re taking it, until you see or you visualize or you feel all the negativities have been taken from the person in front of you. And you’re breathing it into all your negativities. So your black smoke, as you’re breathing it in, is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And if you’re good at visualizing, you might visualize a storm.
So thunder, lightning. Every time you breathe in, there’s more negative energy, more thunder, more lightning. Until the point where you can’t breathe in anymore or you have taken all the negativities. And then there’s a big explosion. Billions of atoms go out.
So there’s nothing negative in front of you anymore. Because of taking all those negativities, compassion, all this has been destroyed and all you’re left with is your Buddha nature, your Buddha potential. And then from your heart, light goes to the person in front of you and fulfills all their wishes. So fills them with light, love, compassion, patience, kindness. Whatever good qualities you feel, you offer it from your heart and the person in front of you fills up with that light.
When they’re full of light, that light comes back again to you. So you fulfilling their wishes helps you to fulfill your wishes. So there there is a giving and taking. You being willing to take on the suffering helps to destroy your self grasping, your self-cherishing, and leaves you with qualities. Okay?
But this is radical. You’re doing something in a completely different way. So now ask your questions. Here we go. Purified?
Yeah. I didn’t there’s some word I’m not hearing. To purify after? After. Oh, no.
It’s it has purified you. I mean this it’s very radical because our normal attitude is this self grasping, self-cherishing, what about me? Now you’re completely switching it around and saying, what about you? That purifies the negative actions that you have done to sentient beings. The actions that you’ve done from selfishness, you’ve harmed sentient beings, is what creates our suffering.
The negative karma and the suffering. So what surrounds your Buddha potential is negative karma, delusion, the potential of suffering. So by taking on the sufferings and absorbing it into your sufferings, then that creates that explosion, and then there’s nothing negative left. You let go of it all. Yeah.
Do you understand? And then you’ve only got qualities and then you offer the qualities. So the first part is compassion, taking. The second part is love, giving. Yeah?
Yeah. Yeah. So just as a mirror image, you know, so you’re sitting here, to say it’s me doing it, I would visualize a mirror image of myself like that, and then in front, as a mirror image of my Buddha potential suffering around, I would see that in me in front. And then I just keep breathing it in, breathing it in, explode it, means there’s nothing there, but also nothing here now. Only potential, kindness, compassion, love, that goes to me in front fulfilling all my wishes and then that comes back to me.
If you’re doing it for somebody else, particularly somebody you know who’s sick, Then you can visualize you know somebody who’s got all these problems or sickness and you take it on and then you explode it and then you give back healing, compassion, whatever. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it has a radical effect on people. And I can tell you about one particular instance that I experienced in here a couple of years ago I think on Medicine Buddha. There was a lady sitting in the front.
I had, or maybe it wasn’t Medicine Buddha, maybe it was a course. Anyway I had some students and she was a scientist. And I knew that that no, no, must have been Medicine Buddha because we were reciting mantras and phrases over and over and over and over. And I could see at some point that she had this terrible headache. It looked like she was really in excruciating pain.
And it was about eleven o’clock in the morning and I’m looking at her and I’m seeing that she’s really experiencing suffering, but I can’t do anything. I can’t stop what we’re doing and saying don’t worry about it too much. It’ll you know it’ll get better. So I thought the only thing I can do is Tonglen. So I breathed in all her suffering, exploded it, gave her happiness, and then she sort of, her face changed and she looked relieved and happier.
So afterwards, after lunch she came to me and she said, so what did you do? And I said, what do you mean what did I do? She said, in that meditation I was in terrible pain because she’s a scientist. She was fighting against why are we doing all this mantra? What’s the point of this mantra?
And having some feeling maybe it’s beneficial. But she was in this terrible headache. And she said, I could feel you sucking this pain out of me. She said it was like a vacuum cleaner, taking it out and suddenly I felt incredibly happy. So I said well it’s called Tonglen.
So she studied it, she came back and she said okay, now I’m becoming Buddhist because of this experience. She was living in Kathmandu then she decided she didn’t want to be in her job anymore because she was harming animals. She’s now in Singapore and she lives in Singapore and she’s doing research on cancer using computer models instead of using animals. So this is a time when you know I thought well what can I do? Sometimes you’re with somebody who’s in terrible suffering and words often don’t seem to help.
You can’t seem to find the right words, but you can breathe in the suffering and give back the happiness. Then I give people homework. When you’re walking around Kathmandu or you’re in the shopping center, do it in one second. Instead of doing a long visualization like this, do it in one second. You’ve got that visualization in your heart.
You see the suffering. You breathe it in. You know like those old tripods that they used to have for a camera and the magnesium would be on here and they used to light it and go, you know, whoosh. Like that. Like a big flash, gone, breathe out happiness, walk on.
So just do it in a second. Two seconds. Breathe in the happiness. Sorry, breathe in the suffering, explode it, give out the happiness. And you can either breathe out the happiness, which is the traditional way, or you can offer it from your heart.
The meditation I’ve just described of taking, taking, taking, taking, exploding, and then giving light from your heart is not traditional. It’s the traditional meditation is from one nostril you breathe in the black, it goes into your heart, and white comes out, and then you breathe in black, and white comes out, and it gradually purifies it until it all becomes white. I find with myself, I’m breathing in black, I’m breathing out white, I get so confused it becomes grey. I don’t know what I’m doing and I get, you know, I get into a mess. So I find it’s easier to just keep breathing in one thing and then explode it and then give one thing out, rather than this trying to do two things at once.
Because we’re not very good meditators. We’re not used to doing this sort of practice. And so if you just do it in this way, it helps you to stay on track and to know what you’re doing. Yeah. Is it good to really try to experience their suffering?
Really feel it? I guess it depends on the level of your mind. I mean if you’re a Bodhisattva, this can be more motivation to work for more beings who are suffering. But for some people, it could just be too much. Know, in the beginning it would be too much.
Just to think I’ve got all these suffering causes and I don’t want to experience it in the same way they don’t. And so this is a method to to remove all the suffering. They remove it. I remove it. And also I’m destroying all this selfishness that has caused all my problems from beginningless time.
But of course, you know, the more suffering you can experience, the more you feel Samsāra sucks. You know? Why are you trying to make happiness in Samsāra? Because Samsāra is the problem. And then you develop renunciation for Samsāra, and then you really try to get out.
Not in the way of buying a bus ticket. You know, Kathmandu is Samsāra. If I go to Pokhara, that’s nirvana. It’s not like that, but destroying the causes of Samsāra. And it’s because of our attachment that we stay in Samsāra.
So when you’re meditating on suffering, it actually helps to cut the attachment we have and then you can develop renunciation and then you can have compassion. Because with renunciation there’s not no what about me, there’s only what about you. You’ve got so much time for others. But in the beginning, it’s me, me, me, me. Then it’s me, me, me, you.
Me, me, me, you. Then me, me, me, you, you. You know? Gradually it changes over. That’s practical.
Impractical is, okay, I’m a bodhisattva, it’s all about you. And within two or three days you give it up. So find which level suits your mind. Who else was it? Yeah.
I think because perhaps we are visual. You know, we experience the world as a vision. But when you’re visualizing for the mind, it is as true as if it’s really happening. So when you’re doing a visualization, it’s as if you’re really doing it. The the mind, the brain, the brain believes it to be true.
So when it’s just words, you know I don’t think words have the same effect. Is it? Now I go over to my brain expert. Has there been any studies as to whether there’s a difference between just words and the effect on say the emotions on changing behavior or a visualization, you know, seeing a picture in the mind? Are there any studies?
May be more affected by words. Yeah. So I guess, you know, you have to find something that works just for the individual, something that works. But I think usually we’re experiencing the world in a visual way. And if you go beyond the labels, then it’s easier to change the way you’re viewing the world.
But if you’re living with the labels, then first you’ve got to scrape the label off and then you’ve got to relabel. So visualizations are trying to work beyond the labels, the emptiness of of the object. Yeah. Who? The joy of living.
From Joy of Living. Mingyur Rinpoche. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That have been done? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh.
And the conclusion is? So it’s more powerful than just words. Yeah. I I would think. It makes sense.
Yeah. It makes sense to us. Doesn’t it? I, he’s the scientist. I’m the assistant.
Assist, the assistant scientist. But it makes sense because then it’s a total experience. When it’s just words, it’s a partial experience, isn’t it? And in the visualization, you try to get the taste of it, the sound of it, the feeling of it. You know, you try to make a total experience so that in the visualization it’s as if you’re really there, really experiencing it.
And so then that experience becomes believable. And so then in real life it becomes an experience that you can duplicate, that you can actually do. If you imagine yourself giving, giving, it’s so difficult. Giving, giving, giving. And then one day you find you can actually do it in the same way.
So this is what the analytical meditations and the visualizations are used for in order to make it possible. Because right now sometimes it’s just not possible for us to be loving and kind and compassionate and not angry, impatient, irritable. You know we have this what we want to change and what we want to do. How can we change the situation? Yeah.
They don’t count in the way of, usually it’s a manifestation of what’s happened during the day. Yeah. But you can do lucid dreaming where you can be in control and then it would count. But that’s way beyond most ordinary people. You know, there there is is a book I think it’s called Dream Yoga which talks about this.
But they say first you need to be able to control your mind in the day so that you can control your mind at night. But then if you could control your mind at night, sleep would become a virtue. Even just going to bed thinking, I’m going to sleep in order to rest my body, order to be a benefit to others means sleep becomes compassion. So sleep becomes a virtue. Sleep is just a neutral activity.
You can turn it into a virtue just by motivation. Yeah? Oh, go on then. Yes. And the benefit of that is?
Which would mean? So there’s an advantage. Right. Mister scientist. I thought I was putting you up.
I called you mister. Reaction. So maybe we’re talking about the subconscious as opposed to the conscious. Well, together. Yeah.
Yeah. Because in Buddhism we talk about the consciousness. The conscious mind using here. And in meditation, we go into the subconscious. We go below that level into deeper levels.
Only you only know about them when you get come out. Right. Right. You are feeling more relaxed. So the the sort of meditation where you’re so totally in the meditation, you’re not even aware of the the environment, what’s going on around you?
No. This is You mean actually a blackout? A blackout. Yeah. Gosh.
You don’t know about it. That is short. You don’t know about it until it’s over. Right. Because if you know about the blackout, so it’s a blackout.
Right. Okay. So it’s time for a break. Maybe we have a break and then we come back at five past eleven. And then if you have any more questions and we go through this method again if you need to talk about it more.
So, yeah, five past eleven.