Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute talk, Ven Robina Courtin locates loneliness not in lack of relationships but in a fundamental misconception: seeking fulfillment outward when only inward work yields real contentment. She traces how attachment to people and external solutions offers only temporary relief, deepening fragmentation and lack. The Buddhist answer reverses this direction: through mindfulness and meditation, you learn to recognize your mind, understand grasping and blame, and discover that wholeness is already present. She explains three practical Buddhist teachings—impermanence, karma, emptiness—as tools that dismantle the false permanence and victimhood fueling suffering. The talk closes with why a teacher matters: not as authority but as living proof that your potential is real. Suited for anyone exploring Buddhist approaches to emotional wellbeing.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 FL 1988 09 16.mp3
UUID: 66d4a1ea-e99f-43bc-8841-71b252d73392
Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin
Collection: y Freedom from Loneliness (Ven Robina Courtin)
Date: 1988-09-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.8 minutes
Words: ~8,543
So we’re gonna be talking about what is it? Freedom from loneliness? Is that what it said? Okay. Is this one working?
I need more. Alright. Well, that probably conjures up something different for each person here, you know, but somehow, in a Buddhist context, what that conjures up for me is the strong feeling that we seem to have. One way of of describing the feeling of unhappiness and dissatisfaction we all have is that we’re somehow half a person or that we’re lonely, you know. Somehow, this this feeling, sometimes very extreme, sometimes very mild or somehow missing something, not having something, being unfulfilled, some feeling sometimes of utter desperation, the feeling that basically, we’re lonely.
That’s one way of putting it, I think, isn’t it, somehow? You know? And that almost you can say the only times that we’re not I mean, almost by definition, that word seems to imply other people. So the idea of loneliness is to somehow have other people to in order to fill us up and make us not lonely. So quite I mean, from the very start, in relation to that, according to Buddhism somehow, that’s that’s a fundamental mistake.
Because the point is something outside us, a person, a thing, an idea, can’t make us not lonely. It’s just a temporary respite. But, basically, according to Buddhism, we have the potential within us right now to feel fulfilled, to feel completely, blissfully content, to feel not lonely within ourself, not dependent upon other things and other people. That’s our kind of that’s ultimately our it’s one way of describing our potential, our very sublime potential according to Buddhism. So I suppose it’s to talk about that feeling of loneliness.
I mean, we could talk about it in so many ways, you know. It’s a feeling of being very fragmented. But, basically, most of the time, depending on how extreme, whatever it is, you know, somehow it’s a feeling of something’s missing, isn’t it? Somehow, something is missing. Something sometimes very extreme, very, very depressing, that something is missing.
And the more, say, say, if we’re learning to practice meditation and or whatever, learning to become familiar with what’s happening inside, which is the way to being not lonely according to Buddhism, because the answer is inside, not on the outside, That one starts to feel that that this sense of loneliness goes to a very deep level, you know, that it’s almost like each moment that that makes us turn to something new, turn to look at even looking at something different, having another cup of tea, and changing this, and having that meal. Even the littlest things that we do is almost out of this sense of not feeling fulfilled and wanting to feel fulfilled. Wanting to feel full, not lonely somehow. This to to fill up this feeling of dissatisfaction. And, I mean, this word dissatisfaction is one way of describing the very essence of the problem that we have in the first place, in in, say, Buddhist terms, you know.
That somehow, there’s this fundamental dissatisfaction that we have because of a of a very of a very basic and deeply instinctive and very ancient, according to Buddhism, sense of self, which is which somehow is a is a misconception, is kind of a is a mistake, is wrong. This deeply mistaken deep deeply instinctive mistake of what we are, is this fragmented heart of person. Somehow, that’s one way of talking about it, you know? That we feel not whole, we feel negative, we feel there’s something wrong, we feel things are wrong. And the more we feel that, the more our mind brings and attracts that kind of activity.
That’s very much, again, the kind of process that happens. And the more negate the more caught up we are in this sense of self that’s very kind of fragmented and unhappy and unfulfilled and lonely, the mind itself, our own mind, our own sense of our self perpetuates that view, and so we continue to become that way. As I said, we get temporary respite when there’s a person comes along who thinks we’re nice, or loves us deeply, even for quite a long time, or for a short time, whatever it is. Or we meet up with certain circumstances that are quite nice, or we see things that we like, or hear things that we enjoy. So there’s a temporary respite.
But we all know that that doesn’t last somehow. And again, in Buddhist terms, it’s illogical for us to expect an external thing. And external in this context means everything that isn’t our own mind, our own experience. The word mind in Buddhism refers to everything that is our experience, our thoughts, our feelings, our ideas, our emotions, every level of whatever our experience is, that all is encompassed by the word mind. So everything that is outside the mind is external.
And because of this fragmented sense of self, we naturally go to the outside world to try and fill it, because that’s the only world we know. We don’t know any other world. We only know the outside world, the world of things, and people, and ideas, and shapes, and objects, and work, and this, and that, and things. That’s the world, you know. That’s the one we crave after.
That’s the one we’re completely seduced by, addicted to, and the one we totally, firmly believe if we had this amount, and that person, and this thing, and that circumstance, and that job, and this amount of money, and that particular experience, then we would feel satisfied. Then we would not feel lonely. And this is the mistake, according to Buddhism, there’s a fundamental mistake there, that we’re projecting onto the outside world, including people, the ability to make us satisfied, to fill us up, to fulfill us, to make us not lonely. And even though we know from our experience, no matter how profound the relationship is with another person, we absolutely know, every one of us, without exception, from the time we were born up until now, we know that they’re temporary, they don’t last, they’re not forever fulfilling. They’re up and down and changing.
So somehow, though, we know that, and yet we don’t seem to be able to find another way to find fulfillment. We don’t know where else, literally, don’t know where else to look. The instinct, the driving force in us is to look outwards, and that’s the nature of this attachment energy that we have, that’s the product of this intense sense of ego, this kind of unhappy, fragmented sense of me. The attachment that’s the product of that, automatically by its nature wants something on the outside. Attachment wants something, so it looks to the outside.
And that’s why, almost it’s like schizophrenic, dualistic, this experience we have. And according to Buddhism, if we project onto other people, things, and ideas, and objects, and experiences that ability, because things on the outside are incapable of giving us that, therefore we continue to be dissatisfied. So according to Buddhism, the only answer is inside. But even to start to I mean, It can sound logical, know, we can say yes, but still to even start to even say what it means to start to find inside, to start to even understand, what am I, what is my mind, you know? What does it mean to find inside?
And we kind of look and we stumble and we don’t seem to touch anything. And it’s almost like it’s so difficult because we’re so totally addicted to looking on the outside, to seeing on outside, to depending upon the outside, to believing in the outside. And so to that extent, we’re not familiar with the inside. We don’t know our own mind. We know in some way, but it’s kind of a dark and negative depressed picture.
It’s very blocked, very concrete, and very stubborn, and very stuck inside that picture. We all desperately want to find something better inside, but we all know so well the negativity in us, but it’s painful and torturous for us. It hurts us too much to see all the difficulty in us. On one hand, we beat ourselves with it, but on the other hand, we’re struggling to kind of deny it all the time. So we never really look at it.
We never grow out of it. We never move on from this negative sense of me that we all have so deeply. So somehow it’s a slow process. I mean, Buddhist approach is a slow process of learning to understand one’s own mind, slowly, slowly looking at it. And that means learning to actually see what’s there, call it by the right name, start to take responsibility for it, to feel less guilty about it, to feel less And feeling less guilty implies blaming others less as well, you know?
The more we blame, the more guilt, and it’s kind of They’re kind of very much connected. Blame and guilt are very much connected. So it’s learning to let go of the blame of the outside, learning to therefore let go of the guilt and the beating of ourselves, I am so terrible, I am so negative, I have got this fault, I have got that fault, but it’s like stuck, like a broken record. And that’s part of the function of this kind of this frozen ego that we have, and a very negative, very kind of fixed, very concrete, very solid. So somehow the way out, or the way to find fulfillment, to decrease loneliness, to find fulfillment within ourself, which sounds very scary, know.
It sounds kind of very depressing and boring to think that to be satisfied means I don’t need to depend on others. We tend to think, my god, I’ll have nothing, you know. But the fact is, the fact is, when we can find something in ourself, we enjoy others all the more. There’s all the more pleasure, because there’s no grasping, there’s no dependence on other people. And because the more we find inside ourself, the more we actually, in fact, attract people, attract good things to happen to us.
The more we have grasping, the more we push away from us, the more lonely we become. And we all know this one too, we’ve known this, we’ve tasted this. It’s when we don’t care so much, and this correct sense of not caring is when things come to us. When we’re grasping desperately for it, like with our heart in our mouth, you know. So all the time, the answer is to come back to our self, struggle and struggle away, don’t keep looking, keep looking.
And many ways to do this one, many, many ways, you know. But it has to be something that is relentless. To use every experience that we have, that by definition involves the external world, because that’s the nature of what an experience is almost, is always a subject and an object, is to, instead of obsessively being familiar with the object, and therefore trying to find blame, and therefore trying to push away the things that threaten, or trying to desperately bring towards ourselves the objects, the external objects, that includes people or whatever, the things that uphold this sense of me, somehow the job is, instead of obsessively looking at the object, in terms of attachment and aversion, is to look at the subject. So every experience we have, which includes another person, for example, an object in other words, object subject, is to constantly bring the mind back to the subject. In other words, whatever the subject feels.
If a person makes us angry, we get obsessed with the person, but come back to the anger. Look at the anger, because that’s my mind. It’s my experience. If a person is profoundly attractive to me, instead of being obsessed with the object, look at the profound sense of desire inside me. Not critical, just looking, observing, knowing my In other words, knowing my own mind, getting to know my responses, because in this responses, because in this sense, the only mind that we know, the only experiences that we have are all responsive ones in that sense.
Do understand what I mean? There’s always an object to which we respond. We either like it, or don’t like it, or don’t care about it. Everything without exception in the entirety of our world, of our own universe, is in terms of attachment, aversion, or indifference. And what we do is, the more fragmented we feel here, the more lonely, the more depressed, the more desperate, whatever word you want to, the more we attach importance to the outside, the stronger we desire a person, the stronger we have aversion for the person who threatens us, and the more indifferent, the less we care about everything else.
I mean, somehow, it’s just a process, you know? The Buddha’s process is one of through meditation, which is an intensive way of looking at the mind. And through each moment of experience in our life, which is where the real stuff happens. So it’s not just a question of sitting in meditation for a small period of day with your eyes closed, feeling good, or struggling to feel good, But it’s learning all the time to be with what’s happening, every time, to bring the experience back to the subject, back to what am I feeling, what’s happening, you know, what’s going on in my mind. I mean, it sounds like a very self conscious procedure, but the more awareness we develop, the more that becomes a natural thing.
Instead of falling like a, just like, instead of just being magnetised, and completely going towards every object and every situation, and falling into it, and making the same old mistakes, and getting hurt and hurting, we learn to have more space to observe what’s happening inside ourself, while at the same time observing and relating in that particular relationship. There’s more awareness. And there’s also then, with that awareness, and with letting go of the guilt, letting go of the blame, therefore comes more self respect. And with self respect comes more satisfaction, and with satisfaction comes less loneliness, more reliance in the correct way upon what one is. Because according to Buddhism, the reason we don’t have, was reading Lama Yeshe’s book before, this book here, just one thing he said, you know?
That the only reason we have this profound depression and sense of loneliness is because we’re absolutely not in touch with the profound, pure nature that we have already, that’s there, completely latent. So the more we can get in touch with what we are, starting to eliminate the stuff that makes us miserable and causes other misery, the more we get in touch with the positive potential that we have, the more self confidence, the more satisfaction, the less loneliness, the more space in the mind, more contentment. Really that’s the process, you know, and it is a very slow, very painful process. It needs honesty, it needs integrity, it needs learning to take responsibility for what we are, not blaming others. And that’s a painful process, know, because we spend our life blaming and being blamed.
So we’re all very fragile. And it’s not easy just to sort of turn that around, you know. Seems to me we just have to I don’t know. Mean, unless we can even begin to believe that there’s even a millimetre of potential in us to be anything other than what we are now, then it seems to me there’s no point in doing anything in a way, you know? We’ve got to have a sense of what our potential is.
We’ve to have a sense, in other words, of where we’re heading. And therefore, that has to function, and if we can understand that that potential is incredibly profound, and our nature is in itself completely pure, which is how, say, the Buddhist teachings talk about what we are, then the more energy we can get to keep struggling with the misery, with the unhappiness, with the loneliness, with the kind of this dualistic sense of me very split from everything. Unless we have a sense of the potential, what’s the point of struggling? There’s almost no reason to struggle, you know? So we’ve got to know what we can do.
We’ve got to know where we’re heading. I mean, it’s like learning anything, you know? If you have no sense of what the end result is, what’s the point of doing it? Struggling along and making a big mess? It’s illogical to keep doing it.
So the only reason to keep struggling is because we know where we’re going. We know that this isn’t permanent, but it’s impermanent, and we’re heading somewhere. We’re going towards developing our inside, finding something inside that our real potential. We’re training ourselves to sort of training ourselves to find our profound inner nature, our true nature. So the more we can get in touch with that, the more we can learn, painfully let go of this very heavy negative self view that we have, Which although we don’t want, in fact we fiercely hold onto.
For some reason, that’s the logic of this ego that we have. I mean, we know ourselves, you know. We can be We have many people who really love us and like us and support us, but we somehow can’t take any nourishment from that, and we keep beating ourselves with all the negativity in us. We’re just almost as like we’re separate from that. We can’t hear it properly that things are going well.
In fact, we’ve got good qualities. But the moment, and so we almost, we don’t believe it, you know? The person says you’re really okay. One person says you’re not okay, we’re completely like a magnet, go towards it. Somehow that’s what we believe already.
And then we blame the other person for saying it, but in fact, it’s just gelling with our own view, which is very negative. We have this very gripping kind of sense of negativity about ourself in general, you know? I mean we also have good qualities, we know that. We’re talking about this aspect of ourselves that keeps us stuck, that doesn’t have confidence. And one way of just talking about, I mean, talking about your Buddha nature, all these sort of, can be very kind of up there sometimes, this terminology, you know, but really just referring to some kind of profound sense of self confidence.
Believing in oneself, believing. And to do that, we need to understand that things aren’t permanent, you know? This is where all these kind of, the various points of the Buddha’s teachings come in, the idea about impermanence, the idea about karma, the idea about emptiness, all these various things. They all a very practical application. That’s the whole point.
So the more we can get to understand that things in their nature are not solid, concrete, permanent, that in their very nature, the mind and all the objects of the mind in this way, are not permanent. So that means not lasting. We tend to think that somehow it’s forever, I’m so terrible, forever. Somehow it overwhelms us, this sense of depression. We can’t seem to escape from that kind of darkness, you know.
But if we more and more familiarise ourselves, first intellectually and then intuitively, and That’s how it happens, it filters through from here down to there. It can’t just go there automatically. We’ve got to train and train and train and train our thoughts to think these things. And then slowly, it becomes automatic. It’s like learning the recipe for anything.
You’ve first got to do it up here, know it intellectually, and struggle through it. And then eventually, with habit, with habit, with habit, with habit, it becomes natural to us. So the idea about impermanence, by understanding that things are not permanent, it helps us to let go, literally, which is what’s happening anyway. Things are continually moving along, but we grip onto things. We’re terrified of letting go, because we have this sense of permanence, this fear of losing.
So the more we understand impermanence, the more we’re able to let go of stuff when it happens, the more we have a sense of karma, and that is somehow accepting that whatever we do and are and feel and think and experience now is the result, the direct result of my own actions from the past. And in that sense, we learn to take responsibility for what we feel and what we think and what we do, and even for what happens to us. Because somehow it tends to be part of this negative ego that we have, and this sense of permanence is that we sort of feel like a victim. In the middle of this world where things kind of come at us and happen to us arbitrarily, with no choice and no warning, and it’s kind of like, why me? This terrible feeling of no purpose, no understanding of why things happen to us, you know?
Okay, when we talk about karma, in this sense, we’re sort of assuming the idea of other lives, and I mean, either that makes sense to us or doesn’t, but I’m just talking, you know, the kind of classic Buddha’s view is this one, that what we are now, what we think and feel now, what appears to us now, and what appears to us means what happens to us, in the very sense that even though we use the word what happens to us, as if it was something outside, arbitrarily happening to me, like I accidentally got in the way of somebody being awful, or some storm happening, or some thief taking my things, or some person leaving me, or whatever the experience is. Sort of see it as unfairly happening to me. But the more we can have a sense of karma, which literally means that what I am is a result of what I’ve done, cause and effect, that what I am now is the effect of causes that I have planted in my mind stream, past, past, past, and that now it’s ripening, then we learn to accept not only the things that I think and feel, which we can sort of own as being mine, But somehow, actually, what happens to us, other people being unkind, or whatever it is, good or bad.
So in one sense, this sort of integrating of the teachings of karma deeply into one’s intuitive mind, in the same way the teachings on impermanence, We learn to let go of things more, we learn then to accept things more, instead of railing against them, and furious, and depressed, and angry, and therefore blaming, you know? When we really get a feeling of karma, there is no logic to blaming. No logic at all. It’s just like an inebriated person crying out to sort of smash at something. It’s just wasting energy, essenceless.
I mean naturally we all do because we have the schizophrenic ego. But to constantly train ourselves to go against that deeply, deeply ingrained energy, to find the blame out there. The fact is there is fault out there. When a person punches you in the nose, they are punching you in the nose, there’s no denying. Accepting karma doesn’t mean you don’t see the external action.
It just means you don’t get caught up in that one. You look at your own response and accept the reality that it happened to you because you must have created the cause, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. That’s the logic of it. So more and more one can then accept what happens in one’s life, and feel more integrated in it. And therefore welcome it more, as one trains oneself in this way, and you become stronger, you have a deeper sense of your own potential, therefore more self confidence, we can accept what happens to us more, and actually welcome it, as kind of like grist for the mill.
Because then we can use every experience that we have to continually to grow internally, and that’s the point. To become whole, which is the opposite to being lonely in this sense. And it’s a slow process, that’s all. I mean, because of it, I mean, the very fact that we have this very strong attachment, this strong desire, this wanting, and it can be a very fine quality, this aspiring to something higher and more profound, to touch in ourselves, we do have it. Most of us wouldn’t be sitting here, I mean, but for that, you know?
This is, we’re trying to get in touch with that something inside us that wants to feel fulfilled. So in a way, kind of the, there’s nothing, it’s the very attachment in us that wants that, but somehow, wanting something that is more real and more profound, we can use that more skillfully. So not to throw it out, but it’s that very attachment itself, but the negative side is we want it now. We can’t bear the pain any longer, we can’t bear the suffering, but it can’t happen now, because it’s a process. Everything is a process.
An apple tree does not grow overnight. Nothing we do can suddenly just take fruit now. And something as deeply ingrained as the seeds that we’ve planted in our minds, in Buddhist terms, over eons, that makes the ego such a strong thing that there’s no way we can even separate the so called ego from the so called real good me, profound me, pure me. We can’t even begin to even Just intellectual words. There’s no sense of that at all, you know.
It’s so deeply ingrained. We can’t separate. When we love a person, it’s almost in the beginning, we can’t even try to find where’s the attached part, where’s the good part. It’s almost impossible for us to separate, because we’re so deeply imbued with this ego. So naturally, it’s this painful, slow process.
But the more we can believe in, have confidence in our profound potential, to be satisfied, the more hard we can work at it, the more patient we can become, the less we beat ourselves, the more kind in a sense we are to ourselves, but the harder we work at it. Somehow that goes together. The more we beat ourselves, we don’t get anywhere. We just get exhausted. It doesn’t need to help at all, you know.
It just creates negativity in our own mind and creates havoc around us, and doesn’t get what we want. So the process in Buddhism is not to sort of see all our faults for their own sake and keep beating and beating and beating, and constantly homing in on the faults. That is just kind of like impotent negativity, you know? It’s fine, we know our faults very well, but it’s completely impotent. There’s no power there.
There’s no potential for change in that view. It’s very grasping. So this is another thing I was gonna talk about tonight, this kind of brings it in very comfortably in a way. Well, there’s various aspects of it. One aspect of the path.
One aspect of the path, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, the emphasis on finding an inspiration, a person can inspire us to do this. I mean you can call him lama, guru, whatever, master. But at a very practical level, it’s to see that it’s practical, it’s immensely practical, actually. Naturally in the West we tend to have quite a few mystified ideas about what this is, but actually if we look at it for what it is, it’s a very practical thing. We know the quickest way to learn anything properly is to go to a person who’s already done it.
It makes total sense, you know. It prevents us from flailing around and making lots of ridiculous mistakes. It doesn’t deny that we have to do the work. I mean, absolutely, I have to do the work. I even have to ask someone how to make a cake.
I have to make the cake in the end, but the quickest way to do it is get someone who’s shown me, who can show me how, actually show me what you put in, and show the logic of what that is, the function of the eggs, function of the flour, the function of the sugar, and then put it in the oven, and you watch them mixing it, you just watch it. The whole of your person is involved in that experience. They put it in the oven, and it comes as cake, you know. Somehow, even if you look in a book, it’s much slower. You can’t tell where the mistakes are, you can’t tell what’s wrong, you can’t see the actual person doing it.
So in a way, the logic of having a person who is already on the path, whatever the path is of what you’re trying to learn, and however far they are, but even if they’re ahead of you a little bit, the logic is very obvious, it seems to me. It’s the quickest way to learn something. And very much when, again I was just reading Lama Yeshe’s book, this introduction to tantra before, just looking at it. And very much the talk in the teachings of tantra, which are the esoteric teachings, if you like, of Tibetan Buddhism, that imply, I mean, one way of talking about what tantra really is, is in a very down to earth, ordinary way. It’s, first of all, we go through this sort of struggling process of acknowledging the ego, understanding what it is, getting very aware of all the negativity, and then seeing, let’s say, we’ve all these addictions.
Basically, our mind is just one big mass of addictions, you know, to this and that, and being angry, being jealous, and seeing things in certain ways, and falling into the same old mistakes. Just one big mass of habits. So the initial kind of work we need to do, is to start to be aware first of what our mind is, then be able to call things by their right name, slowly start to discriminate between the things that bring us misery and the things that bring us happiness, and therefore cause misery and happiness to others, and slowly eliminate painfully, slowly those things by understanding understanding karma, understanding emptiness, understanding all these various things. So working your way at the past, struggling along, getting some kind of firm basis of awareness, of discipline, of acting correctly and appropriately, and disciplining one’s mind to not fall into the same old mistakes every time, and getting caught up in the cycle of misery that we do. So slowly, this is a so called Sūtra path, if you like, you know?
By training in this way, practising what they call morality, and morality in Buddhist terms is necessarily not harming others. In a way that’s kind of a brief definition. I think that’s a definition of morality, is not harming others. So to practice morality. And they say that the only way to develop wisdom, which is the essence of what we need to do, which is the opposite to ego, and wisdom, the ultimate wisdom is the wisdom of being a Buddha, which is a completely awakened mind, okay?
That’s just the word, awakened mind. And that’s the opposite to the state that we’re in now, basically. That’s the direct antidote. So wisdom that understands clearly the nature of the mind, of the eye, and all phenomena, is the wisdom that is Buddhahood. It’s an actual state of mind.
So one has to develop that. In order to develop that, we need to concentrate To even get to the subtlest level of our mind where we have to do that work, we need to have a very profound concentration. In order to have very profound concentration, we need to practice morality. Because if the mind And immorality, in this sense, is the mind being caught up with jealousy, and misery, depression, anxiety, all the things that usually overwhelm. So we know for sure when we’re caught up with that kind of stuff, there’s no way in the world we can concentrate for more than a split second or anything that’s gonna go deeper into the more subtle level of our mind.
And so in order to subdue the mind in terms of morality, we need that’s like a first step almost, to even begin to start concentrating, to even begin to start to develop wisdom, which is what wisdom is, Buddhahood is. Because somehow all these things kind of fit neatly, you know? So when we’ve trained properly in this path, trained ourselves in morality and not harming, and looking and seeing what’s negative and what’s positive, learning to develop the sense of what my potential is, having more self confidence, letting go of the addiction to the outside world, learning to be more in tune and aware of my own mind, learning to let go of the kind of misery and unhappiness, learning to develop more concentration, learning to develop all these other qualities that help us gain the wisdom. Then almost, they say, you’re then kind of ready. And then you’re ready to say, practice tantra, which are the esoteric teachings.
And I mean, and one thing that Lama says in here, he says that, I can’t remember the exact words, but something like, a person who’s ready to practice Tantra is a person who can have a happy mind. That sounds so simple, in fact what that means, if you think about it, what it means is a person, that every time something miserable happens, what we normally do, we completely launch into it. We just go headlong into it, and we think it through till the bitter end. And we absorb ourselves in it, we get depressed, we talk about it, we think about it, and we suffer intensely, you know? With all this grasping and sense of permanence that we have that’s completely mistaken.
So in that way, to train oneself strongly in that path, and what Lama says sounds so simple, actually what it implies is that a person who is able to stay steady enough, regardless of what comes, they actually experience it, they take it on, they accept it as their experience, they feel the pain, but they keep moving. And they keep their mind steady. They keep their mind blissful and happy, in other words, regardless of the pain. They can still feel the pain, but there’s no grasping there. There’s no self centered beating, which is what we tend to do with ourselves now.
So when you’re able to actually just keep your mind happy, above all the garbage that goes on, then you’re kind of ready, what they say, for tantra. I mean, whatever that means. And in the simplest level, what that means, that kind of grassroot level, that means being in tune with this kind of the most positive aspect of yourself. You’ve worked and trained yourself to a point where you’re ready to tune in and be automatically aware of, instead of obsessively aware of the negative you’re aware, you’re tuned into, you’re in touch with the positive. To the point where your mind becomes You’re learning to get in touch with the joy and the bliss in the mind.
And the purpose of that is because there’s something in the blissful mind itself, in a happy mind itself, that sees things more clearly. We’ve all had experiences we know when we’re very blissful, say we’re very much in love, especially at the first moments of it. Everything somehow seems super clear, isn’t it? Super clear and blissful and everything’s kinda sharp. Everything looks good.
People seem good. Everything but when you’re profoundly depressed, the mind is dark and like tunnel vision and black miserable, and everything looks awful. So even in that way, we know when touch a very blissful mind in ourselves, and according to Tantra, that’s the mind. That’s the level of mind that we have to continue to touch and be with all the time, because then we can start to penetrate and develop very deep wisdom, which achieves Buddhahood. So in that sense, it’s a quick path, and that’s the logic of getting in touch with the bliss.
That’s the purpose. That’s the means to the end. And so where this one of the inspiration of a teacher comes in, most profoundly, according to how the lamas teach, most profoundly is it needed to have the relationship with a teacher as an example, as an inspiration to one, when one is practicing tantra. And in that sense, if you’re in touch, say, and it’s just and it’s like using that person as being one with the blissful mind of the Buddha, which is perfect, which is one, and using that person as the inspiration for what I can become. In other words, it’s like by being aware of and being in touch with the the mind of one’s guru as being one with the mind of the deity, it’s like using that as a mirror image for what my mind can become.
And being constantly with that, and aware of that, in tune with that, it makes it very quick. It makes the path very quick. Because the human inspiration in front of us makes everything very real, like the person making a cake, like the person who’s teaching us music, like the person who teaches us how to paint. If that person has already achieved that, you know, the music within themselves, the art within themselves, the cake making within themselves, that person is the very real inspiration to show me that it’s possible. They’ve done it, so can I?
And if I have faith in them, in whatever they’re teaching me, I have that much faith, then I’ll get there all the more quickly myself, it’s obvious. So it’s a way of touching something very profound in oneself, that’s the mean, that’s the point. That’s the point of having a teacher. Nothing to do with a teacher from their side, that’s something else, that’s their life. But their function for me is to help me get in touch with my infinite potential, or to let go of another world.
In that sense too, somehow, in that sense, there’s less loneliness. There’s more feeling of feeling full and content. Because we have a human heart. We are human. So it’s not a question of going beyond our humanity, it’s a question Tantra is a question of using our humanity, using everything we are.
So if we have a heart that yearns to love, that yearns to feel fulfilled, then using the idea of tuning into, say, a teacher who is one with the perfect qualities of a Buddha, somehow fills the heart, makes us fulfilled. So it’s a means to an end, know? Very practical. So the other thing I thought I’d talk about was this holy Lama we’ve just received here. He’s next door in his room, praying away.
How are we going for time? Plenty. Tenzin, his attendant, was just telling me some facts. I think I’ve got more in my head, I’ll try and just say a few things about this lama. I’ve forgotten his name.
That’s his title. What’s his name? That’s his title. That’s his title. It means precious former abbot.
It’s Lozang Thubten, isn’t it? Lozang Thubten. That’s his name. No, really, I know. Khensur means former abbot, and Rinpoche is precious one.
It’s okay, I’m right, he’s wrong, definitely. Truth later. His name is Khensur Rinpoche Lozang Thubten. Lozang Thubten is his name, and Khensur Rinpoche is just a title given. Khensur means former abbot, and that’s a title given to abbots of these main Gelugpa monasteries, there were three main ones in Lhasa, there were, that are now being re established in South India.
He is so Khensur Rinpoche has well, I think he went to Sera Je Monastery, the monastery that he was abbot of for a certain period. That’s part of his little history. I’ll tell you about that later. I think when he was nineteen. He’s from the east of Tibet.
He escaped from Tibet, like many of the Lamas, in fifty nine, and went, like many of the Lamas, to Buxa, which is in North India. They had refugee camps there. And as Tenzin was just saying, we’ve all heard before that it was intense suffering for them. Many of them died because the conditions were so appalling. It was like concentration camp.
But he survived. And I think in nineteen sixty five, six years he escaped, he passed his Geshe degree, is usually So he was nineteen when he started, that would have been Well, mean, it’s probably twenty, twenty five years he studied the Geshe degree in these particular monastic universities. They studied the philosophy for that period, and then he passed this They have oral examinations for several days, debating in front thousands of monks and lamas and the abbots from the other monasteries, and then they passed. I think he passed in the top they have very levels of Geshe, and he was the Lharampa, which is the top level of Geshe. He passed in the top level of his class.
He that was sixty five. I can remember now. Sixty seven, he was requested by his holiness at Dalai Lama to come to Dharmasala to which I think this particular job is quite a rare privilege, to give the lung, in other words, to read every day for six months in the Dalai Lama’s temple the entire sūtra, the teachings of the Buddha, what they call the Kangyur. It’s a series of texts. I think it took six months of him reading the texts every day in the temple all day, passing on.
And so many thousands of people would come. This is something that’s a tradition in Tibet. And to receive, in other words, to receive on the mind the imprint of all the Buddha’s teachings. He was asked to give this, I think that was in ‘sixty seven, took six months to recite the entirety of the sutras. I think in ‘sixty nine he taught for two years, something like that.
He taught for two years the monks and lamas who had come from Tibet in North India. He taught for a couple of years grammar, which is part of the study that they do in this philosophical study. Then, I think, nineteen seventy, the monasteries started to be reestablished. Ten years after they came to India, the Dalai Lama established, reestablished the three major monasteries that were in Lhasa that probably had, the three major Gelug monasteries. As you know, there are four main traditions in Tibet.
One of them is a Gelugpa. And these three main monasteries that were monastic universities, where there were probably twenty thousand monks in Tibet, they were reestablished in South India. And the monastery that Khensur Rinpoche had come from is Sera Monastery. And the college of that, there were two, Sera Jey and Sera Mey, and he had come from Sera Jey. So that was established, started to be built out of the desert basically, the deserted grounds in South India, some parts of South India.
So he was there, I think, then went there. Something happened in seventy two. I can’t remember. It’ll it’ll all come out anyway. We’ll all hear about it.
Think the next news that he’s planning to do include the story of his autobiography. For a period then, later on, in the late later seventies, he did a three year retreat of Vajrayoginī, one of the highest tantric deity retreat. He did for three years, a solitary retreat in South India. Then for a period, for five years, he was oh no, for a three year period, that’s right. He was what they call Geko, which is like the person who is beneath the abbot in the monasteries and who looks after the general discipline of the whole group of monks.
He was gegu, I think, for three years, one period. And then he was, at some point, he went to Tuśita Centre in Dharamsala, which is a center that we’re connected to. He taught there for six months. He was a resident teacher there. And then he was elected by his peers to be abbot.
And there were probably, I mean, I think usually seven years, but because he was healthy, he did it for five years. So that means in the last nineteen years since the monastery’s been in India, there have been three abbots. And so he is one of the three abbots of the last this last period in India. He was abbot for five years, of Sera Je. And so abbot is Khensur, and former abbot is Khensur, and Rinpoche is the title.
And so when they’re former abbot, they’re referred to as Khensur Rinpoche, precious former abbot. And usually, that’s how one would refer to him. I think you can call him Rinpoche too, but usually speaking, it’s Khensur Rinpoche. Listen to what you pick up from other lamas. I mean, he’s got vast knowledge.
He’s a extraordinary teacher. He has many hundreds of students, kind of already very highly highly very what do you call? Yeah, many lamas and geshis are his students in India. So somehow, for him to have accepted to come here is fantastic. So in that sense, somehow, I don’t know, he’s happy to come here, he’s chosen to come here, so he’s completely happy.
His whole job, mean, he does in his room, since he’s been here, okay, can’t converse, but what he does, his life, he’s spent in his room studying and meditating, every minute of the day and night. So somehow his only reason to be here is to give us whatever it is that we need in terms of the Dharma. So it’s just to know that. They talk often, we say, what’s the best way to sort of treat him or what’s the best thing to do for him, how’s the best way to look after him? I mean, apart from his physical needs, the very best way to treat him is, if we do want what he has to give, is to absolutely want it as much as we can and take as much as we can, and put it into practice.
I mean, that’s how they talk. And I think even that experience we know ourselves. If we have something that we really know, and someone comes to us and asks us, we know it makes us very happy, don’t we? That they ask us to show them. And when we see them actually doing it, actually, even ordinarily, that makes us very happy.
The simplest thing that we know, if someone requests our help and wants us to show them how to do it, we really, it makes us very happy. So somehow, it’s his job, he’s kind of bodhisattva. I mean, we don’t know what level of realizations he has, but obviously he’s got great bodhicitta. That is, from his own side, intuitively wanting only to benefit others. His very nature is to only benefit others.
All the purpose of his twenty five, thirty, forty years of study is to be so completely full of the teachings that all he wants to do is give it, from the most simple to the most profound. And so if we want, that’s all. I mean, there’s no there’s no we don’t have to. There’s no there’s no reason to do it out of guilt or out of shame. The fact is, if we want, then it’s as much as possible to know what we want and to be brave enough to say I want it and to have it.
So in that sense, to really want the teachings from him, and then to put them into practice. Another aspect, often, because he doesn’t speak English, and because he needs to be to teach through translators, we often tend to think something gets missed. But actually, I think we’ve all touched this too with people, that when there are people who have already put into practice the teachings, that somehow there’s something way beyond the words, there’s something about them that’s very profound and very touching, there’s just like a blessing to be around them, blessing to have their presence. And even if we don’t understand the teachings intellectually, just to have the blessing of having the teachings from him, because he’s come from a very profound lineage. He’s received the teachings that he is giving from a very profound, proven lineages of very high lamas.
This is how they talk, you know? So in other words, he’s coming from a direct, very profound, pure lineage of teachings. And when you already really experience those and internalise those teachings, the person who’s giving them, then they have all that much more power. It’s not just a question of intellectual, external knowledge, intellectual knowledge that he’s giving, but it’s coming from deep inside him, from his own experience, therefore it’s got that kind of conviction. And therefore it gives us all the more kind of energy.
So there’s something very precious, you know. I mean, there’s just, we all know this, but I’m just talking a bit from my experience and also what the lama is saying. And it doesn’t mean we have to make him our root guru, doesn’t even matter in that sense. So I’m not saying there has to be, it’s just respecting what he is, and if he’s here, and to use his energy as much as possible, and that will make him completely happy. And somehow, if we already have a guru saying, often for Western people this gets a bit confusing.
We tend to sort of, because we start to like other people, tend to think almost like we’re being disloyal, know, we’ve got have one only or something. It’s just a question of kind of being practical in our own minds. If you relate to one person already who’s your guru, then they say one approach is any other masters, any other teachers that come along, you sort of see them as like an emanation of your own guru, so there’s no problem in your mind. There’s different approaches to it, but that’s the question of where we’re at and what we need ourselves.