Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 20.5-minute Q&A, Ven Robina Courtin brings Buddhist practice to the everyday challenge of parenting. She argues that children’s emotional outbursts are only problematic because of parental attachment and anxiety. Drawing on her time in a Tibetan monastery, Robina contrasts Western culture’s need for physical space with Tibetan monks’ generosity of emotional space: they let emotions arise and pass naturally. She illustrates with a story of two boys fighting, resolved by community members simply stepping back. She tackles a parent’s concern about their son’s violent imaginative play, urging discernment between creative imagination and genuine cruelty by examining the child’s actual behavior and motivation. A memorable anecdote about an old Tibetan lama watching Rambo crystallizes her point: understand the mind, not just actions. Brief guidance on daily practice closes the session. For parents new to Buddhist thinking about child-rearing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 24 2002 01 20 BYT.mp3
UUID: 868258ca-6b8a-4ac7-9360-b1d19af99ee7
Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin
Collection: y Be Your Own Therapist (Ven Robina Courtin)
Date: 2002-01-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 20.5 minutes
Words: ~4,196
Just For the child’s sake, you mean? Yeah. Just to see it pays to manage your Well, feeling is, you know, part of our problem okay. She’s asking when there is all this the child is having all this kind of emotional stuff and whatever, shouting and yelling, having a tantrum. What are you saying?
Well, I think I’m just you know, some days it’s just difficult. For you, you mean? Yeah. You know, like, they can’t go to the shop without wanting everything. And then you go to the market.
You go to the market, they want everything. Go to the shop, want everything. It’s just this okay. Okay. Well, it seems to me one of the things that I’m just saying and this is between any of us, adults or children.
Because we have a lot of attachment, and we and we want the child to be a nice kid, and we want them to behave well, and we and and and as soon as, like we’re all of us. We’re all you know, you’re a reflection of her as well. As soon as she starts showing all this emotion, you wish she didn’t, you wanted to be quiet, all your kind of tentacles are out there trying to get her to be the way you want her to be. But the fact is maybe, let her be. Excuse me.
You once if you’re clear and strong in yourself, you’ve got your center and you’ve got your stability and you know that everything’s okay and you’re doing the shopping, this is just the way little girls act. Now if it’s a you know, if sometimes I know as a child, I I was like I I knew I wanted some control from my mother and father. So strong guidelines can be very helpful. So I wanted that, but didn’t get it very often. But another time, it’s just this emotion, it’s just kind of your your bundle of emotion and crying, and and nothing can stop you, so just let it pass.
I remember one time at our monastery in Nepal, this really struck me. And every time I’d go there, to stay there, it was always great to be there because because I’m not saying, oh, they’re all perfect, these Tibetans, but they’re they’re monks and they’re Asian, and they’re Tibetan, and they’re Buddhist. So there’s this real kind of cultural thing of giving people a lot of emotional space. Physically, they’re like living three, four to a room. They hold hands.
They’re really kind of very loving with each other. Physically, we need about a whole entire house for ourselves because we can’t stand not to have space. Right? But, emotionally, they give great space. Physically, we get a lot of space, but no emotional space.
We’re in each other’s heads that includes us in our kids’ heads. So we everything that happens, we panic about it. We freak out. It pushes us this way. Pushes us that way.
We have no control, you know. So I know in the monastery that for this time, was always a relief to be there Because you just you are who you are, and they kinda mind their own business. They see who you are. They can really assessing and checking. But they’ve got the the the kind of kindness to allow you just to be yourself.
It’s kind of very it’s direct a very real experience. It’s always a great relief, you know, instead of all the time people analyze you in your head and you this and you that, just this stuff, how we are in the West. So I remember this one time. There’s two kids, all these kids coming and going from all these different rooms and a big chaos in the yard. All these kids coming.
Right? And two little boys had a sudden flare up, little fight. One burst into tears. Right? Now the usual scenario probably in the West would be to run up to them, see what happened, get them to apologize.
What did you do? What did you do? Who’d you say to him? What did he say to you? Now you apologize to each other.
Right? You could see what happened was everybody sort of almost slightly turned away, kept walking, left this little space there. These two little boys, they did their little thing, and it all passed, and it all finished in about a minute. Everybody minded their own business. So, you know, if we’re the mom and we’re all concerned about the child kind of being this way, being that way, I’m not saying you this in general, then the kid kind of picks up on that because they’re frustrated and they’re angry, you’re not hearing them.
It just keeps blowing up into an explosion. But if just let it come and let it go, it’s a little wave, know, because it’s little emotional thing that’ll bundle a little girl, can’t put it all together. That’s just fine. That’s what little girls do. It’s okay.
You know? So you just keep doing your job. Go to the market. Be concentrating. Get your food.
Come on, darling. It’s okay. Eventually, she’ll calm down. No? Yeah.
Well, definitely say, never walk away. Never walk away from the. Well, that’s where you gotta have the wisdom, you know, walking away and not walking away from the child. Gotta have the wisdom to know what it’s about. I mean, one of the worst sufferings is the children who don’t get listened to.
You know? And then the other one is to when we do I mean, I saw one it was like this nightmare, this tyranny of these children. I mean, because in this particular family, it was in Time magazine, some story, I think, about bringing up kids and how kids have so power over their parents now, they’re so tyrannical and all this, I mean, this business. Right? And these two kids, you could tell they were so out of it, that they had complete, like, what seemed like power over their parents.
And their parents were going out of their way to try and listen to every word they said, give every word that credibility, so they became this this this dreadful, nightmarish debates and all the kind of grimaces on the parents’ faces like this for trying to listen to their children. So it became this nightmare. So we’re gonna have some wisdom when to be quiet, when to not be, when to say this, when not. How do you get that wisdom, darling? Work on your own mind.
And that seems to be that you may Yes. Based on your own wisdom. You know, there’s you have fifty million rule books about how to bring up a child, but if you can’t take care of your own mind, you’ll never do it because it’s not an external job, it’s an internal job. You know? And then the then the children know what to trust.
They’ve got some sanity with their moms. They can trust. You know? I’ve seen with two Tibetans again, not trying to make Tibetans so perfect. But just having seeing this one man, who was a Rinpoche, who had been a monk, who was now married, he’s he’s a layman now, and his wife.
And there’s something about their kind of there’s a lightness about them both, and their their kind of skill, and their quiet energy, and very controlled, but very disciplined, but a a kindness and a clarity about them. So the child was like this little kind of quiet little thing that, you know, was given one chocolate, and she thanked politely and ate her chocolate. Now she wouldn’t be like it if that’s all being suppressed. Okay. It was her personality.
It was just much more kind of integrated and more open and more kind and less neurotic and I I don’t know. I can’t say. Do you understand what I mean? It’s just not an easy job, you know? But you wanna know what’s going on in that kid.
Sometimes when I was a kid, I knew I just wanted discipline. I wanted them to give me some control, please, because I was bursting, demanding kind of kind of a barrier. Other times, you desperately wanted them to hear you. We have to know how to distinguish. You know?
You have to know how if you can’t know, who can know? You know? And how else do you do that? Look on your own mind. Look on your own mind.
Yes. I I also have a four year old who, unlike my eldest boy, who has and this relates to the fish the fish boy. The old boy wants to go to bed. The four year old, on one hand at night, his grandmother’s Greek Orthodox, and he goes to bed kind of looking at these icons and going, I love those religious guys. But by day, his imagination is full of this most violent, horrific stuff, and he really acts it out.
He doesn’t actually physically kill other creatures, but do you interfere in that harmony? I understand. Or do you I understand. Seems to be a good balance there. So what kind give me religious guys.
Yeah. Understand. So she got an older kid who wants to go to Tibet and a younger kid who at night looks at his, you know, Greek Orthodox grandma’s icons and thinks, isn’t he gorgeous and all these religious things? But during the day, he’s a little monster. So tell me what is he tell me the story.
What is what do you think he’s saying? Oh, you know, it’s just hell and damnation and the good guys and good and evil, and it’s all kind of and it you know, it’s a whole paraphernalia. It’s almost it feels past life. Yes. Because But is he a good no gun.
But what’s he doing, though? What’s he saying? What kind of what’s in his mind, you think? Is it sort of wanting to harm others, being killing people? Killing people.
There’s it’s tactical. It’s it’s all there. It’s But is he doing it for the sake of others? Are you kinda wanting to benefit the world and kill the baddies to help the goodies? I don’t know.
Or is he bit sadistic and wants to harm people and hope they suffer and laugh when they do and all that? Side of good, yeah, you’ll kill him. Okay. Well, I see. I know what you’re saying.
But my intuitive feeling about this I mean, in his ordinary life, is he brutal and angry and harms people and hurts and No. Bakes up the kids? Well, it seems to me he’s got a very vivid imagination, which is, you know, using all the kind of archetypes of goods and bads. It sounds very healthy to me. But also, isn’t that the the boy who loved fishing, drawn to the water?
Wouldn’t we see that as No. But he he was killing beings. Your your son’s not killing beings. It seems not a bit different to me. Imagining of being drawn to water and wanting to fish or I don’t know.
No. I know what you’re saying. Fine. I do know what you’re saying. Whether you how much you impose a moral thing No.
My feeling is not that. It’s not a question of this killing your No. No. No. I think it’s more than that.
You just kind of No. No. I don’t I’m hearing something different. I don’t even know your son, but I’m hearing something different. My feeling is this is a very vivid imagination.
Yes. He’s got he’s very creative, and he’s really got this he’s on the good he’s on the side of good, and he probably has compassion and kindness. And he’s got this kind of and his his archetypes of, you know, the bad. He’s trying to conquer the bad to help the good. That’s very different than going off and killing fish, please.
Oh, I hear that as different, quite frankly. But then so listen to me. But still power. But listen. That’s okay.
Excuse me. That’s okay. You know? Listen. I think the real point is this.
You’ve gotta learn to know what’s in his mind, not just look at his actions. You’ve gotta know to look into his mind, what’s there. You’ve gotta see whether he’s really being sadistic and wants to harm people for its own sake. In which case, yes, definitely intervene. He’s creating very negative karma.
But if he’s just kind of acting out, kind of using archetypes and war, that’s okay in a way. I don’t think that’s bad, frankly, in my feeling. It’s actually coming you you say maybe talk to him a bit about it. Ask him. Try to find what’s in his mind, what motivates him.
What are you trying to do? Do you like harming people? Do you wanna kill people? Ask him what he thinks. You’ll soon find out.
He’ll tell you. Because they’re bad guys. Yeah. But but even that is okay. I mean, the Romans liking bad guys.
It was a good all the I mean, all the stories are about the goods and the bad. I mean, one old it’s funny, funny. This is very this is interesting story. To oh, no. We gotta go home soon.
Then she’s still squatting, is she? Where is she? She’s gone to sleep, probably. Yeah. I’m I’m here.
This is interesting. It’s like this one old lama, this amazing old lama, know, extraordinary high being, the guru of many of the old gurus. When I was taking care of cooking his dinner every day in Germany, he just come to Europe for the very first time ever. It was actually to Greece. I was very interested in trying to him a visa.
I tell you. Wow. To get him a visa to come to Greece. We got all this work to get him a visa, and we finally one of the people got to this to the Greek office, to the right appropriate office to get visas. Right?
And he said, this is the kind of person we’re trying to protect our Christian country from. Anyway, he got a visa. Never mind. I look I I was living something happened. No.
It’s really okay. I lived in I lived in Athens for a year, and I love Greece anyway. So, anyway, it was very interesting. But we got him a visa eventually. But, anyway, in Germany, after Greece, he had just come to the west.
Greece was his first stop, and then he went to Germany. And he and then he they all he’s never watched television much in his whole life. He’d had he’d been in a retreat for years. But he like a lot of Tibetans, they love to watch action movies. They love to watch action movies.
So when someone brought him this movie about Tibetan movie, he put the video, as he thanked very politely, and then they brought Rambo. He he had heard about he was so excited. He leapt up from his bed like a little kid dying to watch Rambo, you know, and the whole and he kept saying, he is a this is a very interesting point. He kept all through the movie, he kept saying, he is a good man. He is fighting to save his country.
Now, without all our bourgeois, intellectual, middle class views of right and wrong, okay, he was absolutely right. This is a classic little kind of archetypal thing of the baddies and the goodies, and this man was full of the goodness to benefit the world by killing the baddies. It’s construed as like symbols, you know. So that’s what I’m hearing with your boy. Yeah.
I’m just telling you, my gut feeling. Say bad videos are, you know, don’t don’t let your kids watch those videos. I wouldn’t necessarily, but that’s the point about looking at his mind, darling. That’s the point. Know, don’t act out of I’m not saying you are.
If you have got, like, a little kid who has got the karma like the Columbine kids with brutality and delusion and twisted imprints in their mind, yes, you’d really have to protect that child very carefully. But if another child has got goodness in their mind and they like all these vivid archetypes and things, my feeling is you’ve got a really good kid there. That’s just my gut feeling. You know? But that’s why you’ve got to know the person’s mind.
The physical actions aren’t the real thing. Look at his mind. You’ve got to know his mind. So if you don’t know his mind yet, well, they could keep looking at your own mind, and then talk to him and ask him what he really feels. Well, he tell get him to tell you the story.
You know? He might even articulate it in that way. But even if he says, I wanna kill, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s really in a harmful negative way. I’m really mean that. You know?
That’s not my feeling. Does that make sense? Yeah. Does make sense, people, what I’m saying? Yes.
There you go. Well, that’s why I’ve been hanging back, not I understand. Kind of going in ripping those things off him and that it’s But then maybe to analyze it or have a conversation one day about it and what do you think and sort of be brave to see, but then you gotta learn this is where the skill the same is here. Learn to know what your kids and your is in your mind. That’s why being a mother for me is like being the best therapist in the world.
I don’t know how you can do it, frankly. You gotta be so together to be a mother, you know? It’s unbelievable. I don’t count you out. It’s not too late. Well, I see you don’t.
Luck to you. Maybe we better stop. You must have had an amazing mother because I know your sister, sister, Judith. Oh, how come you know Judith? Conflict resolution.
Oh, it’s my Judy. Yeah. That’s right. And and a bunch of other. Oh, good.
Why do you think we had an amazing mother based on knowing Judith? Because and and how Judith is. Oh, okay. Yeah. human being.
Right. Okay. So No. She’s a good example. I agree.
She’s a very nice person. Thank you very much. Yeah. Anyway. Okay.
Very good. Thank you. So let’s so we have to finish. Or didn’t we? Alright.
So we didn’t do we didn’t do everything, but never mind. That means I’ve gotta come back. Okay. I’m sorry. I finished now.
So, Robina, on behalf of everybody, I’d like to thank you very much for your inspiring and educational Tell them much. Energetic, enlightened, authentic. Well, you really could run out of adjectives with Rubina, couldn’t you? So all I can say is here’s a small offering, and please come back. Thank you very much.
I’d love to. Okay? My goodness. A butter. How amazing.
You really want it back? Well, Chenrezig Institute asked me to come back, I said I would. So if I’m gonna go there, might as well come here, isn’t it? Yeah. This time next year, probably.
It won’t be sooner. But thank you very much. I’m always very glad, I tell you. Not, again, not being mean about America. I lived there for seven years.
I’m very happy to be there. They even give me a green card to stay there. But I’m always so delighted to get back to Australia. Really, it gives me great pleasure. It does.
Because it’s like just, yeah, happy to be here. First, let’s do some prayers. I meant to bring my long prayers. What can I do? We’ll set some short prayers.
Okay. Has anybody got a copy of the little book called Daily Meditation Practice by Lama Zopa Rinpoche by any chance? No. Got got the FPMT prayer book? What have you got, darling?
Good. Oh. Show me what’s in there. Let’s have a look. That’s good.
It’s good. We’ll find something. Thank you very much. No. It’s it’s okay.
Not something not what I wanted in there. Turning Your Mind to the Dharma. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. We can just do it’s okay.
It doesn’t matter. Really doesn’t matter, darling. Well, there’s one here. This is a nice prayer. This is very good.
I guess this is one. I’ll just recite it, and you just it’s called like a prayer that you do at the end of this kind of thing. It’s a very nice prayer. Where is it? Where’s it end?
One, two, three, four. Okay. I think this is all there is. So I’ll read these verses. Just make these your thoughts, if they make sense to you.
So from my two collections I’ve gotta keep giving commentary. Collections means your wisdom wing completely developed and your compassion wing. Okay? From my two collections vast as space that I have amassed from working with effort at this practice for a great length of time, may I become the chief leading Buddha for all those whose mind’s wisdom eye is blinded by ignorance. Even if I do not reach this state, may I be held in your loving compassion for all my lives, Mañjuśrī.
That’s gentle voice, the Buddha of wisdom. May I find the best of complete graded paths of the teachings, and may I please all the Buddhas by practicing using skillful means drawn by the strong force of compassion. May I clear the darkness from the minds of all beings with the points of the path as I have discerned them. May I uphold Buddha’s teachings for a very long time. With my heart going out with great compassion in whatever direction the most precious have not yet spread or once spread have declined, may I reveal this treasure of happiness and aid.
May the minds of those who wish for liberation be granted bounteous peace and the Buddha’s deeds be nourished for a long time by even this graded course to enlighten ment completed due to the wondrous virtuous conduct of the Buddhas and their and their and their heirs. May all human and nonhuman beings who eliminate adversity and make things conducive for practicing the excellent paths never be parted in any of their lives from the purest path praised by the Buddhas. Whenever someone makes an effort to act in accordance with the tenfold Mahāyāna virtuous practices, may they always be assisted by the mighty ones, and may oceans of prosperity spread everywhere. So now I’ll just sing two other little prayers, the ones we’ve been doing here and there. And oh, yeah.
We should have that one more often. I’m so sorry. So many prayers we should have done. So I’ll just sing these two little prayers, and they’re basically just dedicating again, thinking the first prayer is thinking that from the from the energy, from the karmic imprints that we have put into our minds, the so called meritorious energy we have planted in our minds from listening to these teachings, thinking about meditating. May they ripen into the fruits of our own Buddhahood, and may all beings be benefited by that.
And the second little prayer, it just says, may compassion grow and grow. That’s all. Okay. I really should have said something about how to set up a daily practice. So basically, just quickly, I’ll give you a minute of advice.
There’s a book called How to Meditate, which is a good start, so you can learn to do some the essential thing about practice is to do something in the morning, like we did here, and something at night. The ideal is the four opponent powers at night, like we did, and that’s in How to Meditate. And something like Chenrezig or Tārā or Buddha in the morning, like we did. And if you just, you know, and then have some kind of maybe altar with something on it, if you feel like that, with a picture or an image, kind of fairly high, not near your don’t point where you point feet, where you put where you point your feet. And then maybe have some kind of offering on it, like fruit or a bowl of water or something.
Then you do your practice, then at night, you do your, you know, your four opponent powers. If you do this, this is a really amazing start, just like a whole day, the infrastructure of a really good practice. And then if you have interest, you go further. You go to Buddha house. You check you read books.
You check things out. You know? That’s all. Thank you very much. Everybody, thanks a lot, really, very much.
Okay.