Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Ven Robina Courtin traces how our deepest suffering stems from a fundamental misconception of self—a false sense of “I” that drives compulsive craving. She shows how this grasping operates in everyday life: we pursue people and experiences seeking satisfaction like an addiction, yet nothing external can truly fulfill us. The antidote lies in understanding the interdependent nature of all things and transforming our rigid views. Courtin walks through practical methods: acknowledging our delusions while maintaining faith in our potential; working with anger and attachment moment by moment in daily life, not only in formal meditation; understanding how intention determines karma. She addresses how to give others genuine space rather than over-expecting perfection, and how to work skillfully with pleasure without grasping or guilt.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 1988 09 09 HEL.mp3
UUID: 43d5c72d-25a7-4c7a-9b93-7a47ac9887e2
Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin
Collection: y Happiness in Everyday Life (Ven Robina Courtin)
Date: 1988-09-09
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.2 minutes
Words: ~8,953
There are many ways we can talk about, well, in general spiritual path, let’s say, in particular, the Buddhist path. But whatever way you talk about it, however we discuss it, whether it’s philosophical or psychological or according to sūtra or according to tantra or according to meditation or according to theory, in the end, it’s all essence-less unless it’s put into practice, because that’s the point, you know? It’s like the point of all of all the point of any of the ideas, any of the teachings, any of the methods, any of the methods, any of the teachings, is that we must actually do them, practice them, make them happen. And the place where that happens is in our mind. Of course, to according to Buddhism well, first, I mean, according to Buddhism, the place to look for our problems, and the place to look for the answer to those problems, is in our own mind.
And so what is our mind, you know? I mean, you probably won’t get two Western people, Western you won’t get two two people, not not even to mention two philosophies or two systems of psychology in the West, to even agree what the word mind means, you know? And somehow that’s a starting point. So according to Buddhism, just generally, we can just talk about it bit experientially, you know, to get a feeling for what our mind is, because that’s where we should be looking. That’s where we make our mistakes, and that’s where we can find the answers to those mistakes.
That’s where we can liberate ourselves from our mistakes and therefore our problems. So mind is, if you like, it’s not the brain according to Buddhism, you know. It’s not physical at all. Mind depends upon the brain, it depends upon the nervous system, depends upon our body, but it’s not the body, it’s not the brain. In one sense, to do with it.
Yes, it’s interdependent, but in a sense, to do with it. Mind is, if you like, the name that’s given to all the spectrum of all our experiences that aren’t, if you like, almost anything you can’t call your body. So our feelings, hate, anger, love, desire, depression, anxiety, jealousy, bliss, wanting something, not wanting something, not caring about something, seeing something, feeling pain, thinking about things, or mind. All of that comes under the heading mind. It’s a very much broader word than we’re used to in the West.
And according to Buddhism, the essential problem is within our mind, within our own self, in other words, whatever we mean by that. And the root problem of why we all have problems, of why the world is the way it is, of why there is suffering in the world is because of suffering in each person, which is the mind. And the root problem is somehow, if you like, a miss we have this fundamental and deeply instinctive misconception about oneself, and therefore, everything else. Somehow that’s the key, that’s the heart problem. That’s the location of the problem, is in this misconception, a deeply ingrained misconception of oneself.
A misconception of me, a misconception of I. Deeply ingrained. And in fact, according to Buddhism, it’s so deep, so instinctive, and it’s almost itself the motor that propels us from life to life. From not just from moment to moment to moment, but from life to life, which is just an extension of moments. It’s so instinctive that we actually, even when we start to think about what do we mean, we can’t even separate the sense of, the so called real me from the sense of the wrong me.
It’s like impossible to find, you know, if you look at a piece of cloth. Somehow, in the same way that it’s impossible to find the cloth without finding the color of the cloth. You couldn’t possibly separate the cloth without the color. And so it’s that difficult to start to find, especially when we first start to look. According to Buddhism, it’s there, this deep instinctive sense of me.
It’s a sense, and to talk about it, I mean, can have all the nice theoretical words about this, this ignorance. Talk the kind of theory the words are that we all, in our own mind, any being that lives, by definition, has mind, and a living being that has mind has this instinct that grasps at a sense of me that’s mistaken. We grasp at a sense of self as if it was somehow frozen, independent, separate, not dependent upon causes, conditions, the mind, or anything else. So that’s the words for it, you know, whether we can get hold of that even initially is But that’s the words for it. And the experience somehow of that is that we have this, we have a very, that we have a sort of a limited, if you wish, a limited closed view, a kind of concrete view of me.
I am this, I am that. And the more we think I am this and I am that, the more confined is our view, and therefore the more we suffer. I mean, we taste this every day, we can see, you know, the stronger we have a sense of I am this way or this is this way, and as soon as someone comes along who faintly threatens that, smash into it. That’s kind of the experience of this grasping sense of me, this false sense of me, this ego, this I, that doesn’t in fact exist. According to Buddhism, complete hallucination.
And this is the root of our problem, and we’ve had it for eons, according to Buddhism. And it keeps us going for eons, until somehow that is uprooted. This ignorance is transformed by its antidote, which is the wisdom that sees clearly that things are not independent, things are not frozen in space, concrete, permanent, definite, existing from their own side. When we achieve the wisdom that sees the opposite of that, which is that things are, in their nature, not inherently existing, interdependent. And the clear, intuitive realization is the complete opposite of the ignorance, which is the cause of the suffering.
And the complete, intuitive realization of that wisdom is, in fact, that’s the liberated mind. It’s a state of mind where one no longer sees things in a misconceived way, and therefore when one no longer suffers. One is no longer propelled compulsively to keep going. But one keeps going from choice out of one’s compassion, which is the other side of this wisdom. In order for this wisdom to achieve its real goal of what is called Buddhahood, and Buddhahood just refers to the complete, ultimate state of mind that has completely liberated, achieved this, rooted out this ignorance, and rooted out all subtle stains of this ignorance.
That’s known as Buddhahood, fully awakened mind, is all it really means, you know. And the energy that we need, the other side of a coin to this wisdom, the kind of the energy that we need, the kind of the driving force for us to achieve that goal is the compassion, is the altruistic motivation, is compassion, is the desire to do it in order to completely liberate others as well, somehow, you know. The Dalai Lama often, he says, if you want to benefit others, you practice kind of bodhicitta, compassion, altruistic compassion. If you want to benefit yourself, you practice compassion. Same.
It’s a way to get In other words, the practice of compassion, which is for others, is the way to achieve it oneself. So these are sort of the two sides of the coin of what is known as the fully awakened mind, Buddhahood, which each of us possesses by definition. Being a human being, having a mind, being a sentient being, living, existing, having a mind, I’m capable of this final goal. I had this potential. Another way of talking about the kind of path to this goal is to learn to, in one’s mind, to first acknowledge the problems, as it were, to acknowledge the things that are wrong, First acknowledge, then find the ways to eliminate them, and then by eliminating, by applying the antidote, and at the same time as eliminating them, create sort of like awakening all the positive qualities within our own mind.
So it’s a process of really, I mean, it’s a practical process of gradually finding the problems, finding what causes the suffering to oneself and others, and then slowly, painfully, by acknowledging, by working on them, by applying the antidote, by slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly giving up the habit. Because in one sense, all our mind is, is one big mass of habits, you know? The only reason I have anger now is because I’ve had anger before. The only reason I have kindness now is because I’ve had kindness before. The only reason, so in that sense there’s no sort of capital R reason for anything.
It’s just simply because I’ve done it before, this big mass of habits, you know? So the aim is to slowly, slowly, slowly chip away at the negative habits and develop, develop, develop the positive habits. And somehow, we see it in this practical way. We kind of take away much of the mystification of what we think a spiritual path is, you know. Kind of what do I do next, we think.
Then, when I know my problem, then what do I do, we think. Somehow the fact that even knowing them is one profound step in that direction, because it’s a major step, you know, it’s a major, like, first step. And having the belief in the final, having the belief in one’s potential is sort of the energy that we need to keep chipping away and finding the problems. I mean, we only find the problems, if we find the problems in our own mind, which is what we do now, we all know our problems, but it’s too profoundly depressing, so that’s why we suffocate it. We can’t better look at them, you know?
And the reason we can’t better look at our problems is because we don’t have a feeling, have a sense, have a confidence in our potential. So every time we find a problem, we get more depressed, instead of being more happy. In fact, if we could see, every time we see a problem, be happy, because it’s one more thing we found that is preventing us from finding our real nature. So we should be so eager to see them, actually, if we had this real confidence in the possibility of limitless kind of good side, if you are to, as opposed to the bad side, you know. So somehow, it’s really important to have a sense, in other words, of one’s goal, you know.
To know where you’re heading. To know what your potential is. It’s like anything we learn, you know. Somehow we mystify learning in the mind as something kind of so difficult and spiritual path up in the sky somewhere. But it’s like learning anything else.
It’s like learning how to make a cake. It’s like learning how to ride a bike. It’s like learning how to walk. It’s something really simple. You start at the beginning, and because you can see other people walking, you have the inspiration to keep trying, you know?
And you know you can do it. Because people encourage you and push you along. You fall over, you get up, you fall over, you get up, and eventually you keep walking, because you can see it’s possible. So somehow it’s a process of learning. Achieving kind of awakened mind is just a process of learning, you know?
We mystify it so strongly that we just, the moment we even begin to try, the moment we even look for one instant in our mind when we start to meditate, completely give up already. We think, oh, we’re so pathetic, we’re so hopeless, I can’t do anything, we say, you know? Because it’s like after your first step of walking, just falling on the ground saying, I can’t possibly walk, it’s impossible. Or like doing anything, starting to write. Like learning anything, we all know, you know?
Somehow externally, we know how to learn things. We’re used to learning things in that way, you know, and we’re encouraged, because that’s the way the world is, totally externally oriented, you know? The way the world is right now, the way the world that we live in is completely externally oriented. And so we know we can achieve externally the most profound knowledge using our mind, but the external knowledge somehow. Becoming a scientist, becoming an athlete, becoming a great cook, whatever it is, you know, but somehow when it comes to something internal, understanding the process within our own mind.
I mean, who told us when we were very little that we could not be angry, that we don’t need to be angry? People sit us down and explain methods to us how to get rid of anger, or how to be more peaceful, or how to be more generous. It’s kind of like a potluck thing, you know. Somehow, if you’re born angry, kind of give up, you know, frozen in space, permanent angry, too late, you know. So we learn other things.
We put incredible knowledge in every other kind of field, but when we’re forty five and fifty, or thirty or twenty, we’re kind of intellectually very mature, but we’re emotionally still five years old because we haven’t learned how to Most of us haven’t learned. We don’t know how to, you know? We haven’t learned how to really grow spiritually. And growing spiritually, it seems to me, is putting our own mind, our own emotions, our own garbage inside in order. The spiritual is another thing besides that, you know.
Spiritual isn’t up in the sky somewhere. It’s very down to earth. Even if you pray, it’s still that’s kind of part of a deal. It’s not as if that’s what spiritual is, being all holy and closing our eyes and meditating and feeling peaceful. That’s what we tend to think spiritual means, you know.
And part of that is because we so deeply ingrained in us don’t want to look at the turmoil inside us, don’t want to confront the misery because we so desperately want to get rid of the misery. So we think somehow if we suffocate the misery, we become peaceful, we sit there and we meditate and be all holy and say prayers and walk around quietly and smile sweetly at each other, that that’s being spiritual. That’s just another way of grasping and having things being nice, you know, like we instinctively crave, we want things to be nice, want the weather to be nice, we want situations to be nice, want our furniture to be nice, we want people to smile at us, want things to be nice, and that’s part of the, in fact, part of the ego in us, you know. The ego in us, being so fragile, having such a concrete sense of what it is, and being so insecure, desperately needs things outside to appear nice and feel nice and be nice in order to make me feel nice, cause I don’t have any real sense of myself. I’m completely split from everything, you know.
So as long as the world out there is comfortable, people smile at me and things sound nice, I feel I’m okay. The moment someone looks crooked at me, even the shopkeeper, my sense of self catapults down, you know, because it’s so utterly fragile. No sense of who I am at all. And so often getting into a so called spiritual path, thinking I ought to become peaceful, is in a way just the same old kind of thing, you know. It’s kind of something’s wrong.
Because if we assume we’ve got such profound problems, which all of us have, in one way or another, that’s not being negative, it’s just a fact. Somehow all of us can experience, you know, that we have problems, we have jealousy, we have anger. Some of us in our lives have had profound emotional, mental unhappiness. There’s just no doubt about it. It’s the nature of being a human being.
We know that, you know. So in a way, we can’t avoid in that sense. We can’t avoid the knowledge that we have it. And we start to understand the nature of the ego, of how deeply ingrained it is and how ancient it is, I mean, this is according to Buddhism, you know, in terms of just endless, beginningless, life to life to life, this deeply ingrained instinct to grasp at a sense of self that is artificial, that is a fantasy, that is not real. And the stronger we grasp, it feels very strong, you know?
But in fact, it’s incredibly fragile, incredibly sensitive. The littlest thinker completely throws us, because we have no sense, in the right sense, of who we really are. We have the completely overdeveloped wrong sense of who we are. And that wrong sense of me, somehow the way it functions in the world is that it’s addicted to this outside. Because it’s completely bereft of any feeling of who it is itself in the right way, you’re completely addicted to the outside world.
It’s seduced by the outside world, you know. I mean, you think of what the world is for us. The world, basically, is objects of the senses. The world that we know is the world we see, the world we hear, the world we taste, the world we touch, and the world we smell, and then the world that we think about in a dualistic kind of schizophrenic way about those things. That’s it.
That’s our world, you know? According to Buddhism, we had this kind of, it was very purifying, very auspicious. Is it water or tea? Okay. Very purifying.
Okay. What was I saying? Okay. According to Buddhism, we have this incredible spectrum of experience, potential experience, you know. And the grossest level of it, the grossest level of our mind, in other words, of our consciousness, is the senses and is the intellectual mind that goes think, think, think, blah, blah, blah, this, that, this, that, you know, in a dualistic sort of way.
But that’s like the very, very tip of the iceberg. And that by definition, by its nature, that level of mind can only know things in a split way, cannot know things in the sense of the right, deeply, instinctively real way, the right way according to Buddhism, okay? In this correct way of seeing things. That level of mind is incapable, because that level of mind is schizophrenic, is dualistic in its nature, because the eyes need an object to see, the subject and object. The mind, this intellectual mind, needs things to think about, you know.
And so that level of our mind, is the grossest level, which is the only level we mostly function at, that level of mind is incapable of knowing reality in the sense of having the wisdom that sees things directly and clearly without mistake. But this level of mind is in its nature dualistic, cannot do any other way. And that’s the level of mind that we operate at, except when we’re unconscious, when we’re asleep. And then our mind is not conscious anyway, you know. At that level, in fact, we are capable of the mind is operating at a more subtle level, but we’re not we’re unable to tune into that level of mind.
So we don’t use it, we become unconscious quite literally when we go to sleep. We’re not able to use, you know? So we stay at this dualistic level all our life, and struggle at that level all the time. But the nature of that level of mind is that it stays dualistic. One can start to purify that level and go to a more subtle level.
But we must get caught up at that level. And the level of that mind is that it gets caught up and addicted to and seduced completely by the outside world. So we believe in the objects of the senses. I mean, they’re there, it’s true. That’s not the problem.
They’re not there. Not as if nihilistically there is no outside world. In one sense it’s a complete hallucination, it’s a complete illusion. In the sense that the way we see the outside world, for example, is that we believe somehow there’s something in the outside world, because that’s what we know, we see it, and we want it. This craving in us, which is the function of this ego to have, is the craving for something, because we want satisfaction, because we feel so bereft.
The sense of me, is this dualistic sense of me, is bereft, in fact. And so in its nature, it’s completely dissatisfied. And so then we live at this gross level, and so this dissatisfied mind wants, desperately is wanting all the time, fulfilment. So we think, oh, we see something, we think, that’ll do it. So we try to have the object and put it side, you know?
The instinct is that somehow that can give us the satisfaction we want. And it’s almost as that’s how we approach every new experience, every instant, every moment of our mind, all the senses, and then the intellectual mind. Completely seduced by the outside world, and the outside world means the world that is not our mind, not our own mind. That’s the outside world. Even the body is the outside world in this sense, you know.
So there’s this ego desperately wanting satisfaction, but literally looking in the wrong place. That’s what they say. We’re looking in the wrong place. The eyes, we only know this level of mind, so that’s all we know. So we see outside things, so we want them, because we want to be satisfied.
But we know up until now, whether we’re twenty, thirty, forty, or sixty, or ninety, we know that somehow that doesn’t work. We keep trying, unbelievably addicted. We keep trying. It’s like being completely addicted to cigarettes, even to cigarettes, not to mention anything else, you know. We know it doesn’t satisfy us.
It even makes us miserable, makes us sick, you know. But the addiction is so strong, the instinct is, if I have the next one, I’ll feel better. That’s the instinct of desire, you know. That craving something, believing Intellectually, we know it will not give satisfaction. We know that the very next cigarette will, in fact, create the cause for even another cigarette even more strongly entrenched in our mind.
And according to Buddhism, that’s how we approach absolutely everything. It’s just an addiction habit. So although we know it’s a mistake, we know that by having that person whom I desperately love, I know from my experience that eventually I’ll be dissatisfied. I’ll still want, I’ll still crave, I’ll still need, I’ll still be dissatisfied, I’ll start to find fault in that person. According to Buddhism, we can find satisfaction.
It is possible. So it’s not as if we have to just give up and commit suicide because it’s too late. There is, in fact, we are capable of finding satisfaction. The place to find satisfaction is in our mind. The way to find satisfaction is to somehow transform that wanting.
So first of all, to notice, to acknowledge that we are addicted, you know? Then maybe temporarily we need to give up the object, because it’s too intense. Every time we see the object, want to fill ourselves with it. Impossible, there’s no space. But actually the way eventually to achieve satisfaction is somehow to acknowledge that the satisfaction we are capable of is within our own mind.
So it’s a way of using the person. So instead of the instinct which is, I feel like half a person, mostly like a tenth of a person, not even half, bereft, you know? We’re attracted to one person and it’s mostly powerful when it comes to people, isn’t it? And somehow the instinct is, I’ve got to have, you know, completely, I’ve to have. The intensity of that desire is so overwhelming that it’s almost as if we think we’ll die unless we have.
I mean, we all know that one. So strongly, you know. So overwhelming, the desire. And nature of desire is it wants satisfaction, because it feels empty. When we’re wanting something so strongly, the feeling is I’m empty, so I want to feel full.
So somehow they say, according to Buddhism, by acknowledging that as the essential problem, and then by learning some kind of discipline and control over kind of wanting and craving, by learning to see, to even know, first of all, intellectually, that the object won’t fill me. The object won’t fill me. So then we start to sort of loosen our grip on this seductive object, and loosen our grip on the belief that that object can satisfy me. So then slowly, slowly, we start to let go, we start to sort of shake. Our view of the definite object out there that will definitely satisfy me starts to shake.
And this is actually experientially putting into practice the view of emptiness, in one way. We’re going to let go of this overwhelming belief in what I think will happen when I have the object, somehow to loosen that view slightly. And as we learn to shape that view, even though we then are able to take the object, there’s not the same intensity of kind of it will satisfy me. We know it. We know that it’s an object, an external, impermanent, changing from moment to moment, non inherently existing external object, in its nature, is incapable of satisfying anything.
The satisfaction is within my own mind. And so it’s a question of learning how to use the object, rather than trying to think I’ve got to swallow the object and put it inside me as if it can give me satisfaction. Because an external object cannot give me satisfaction. It’s a mistake, you know, that’s the mistake. But it’s not a mistake to be able to use the external object and somehow derive satisfaction.
And in a way, it sounds almost like the same thing, but that’s where the change is. Somehow there’s some incredible power, very subtle and yet very profound transformation in the way we perceive phenomena, in the way we perceive our own grasping, our own desire, our own wanting, our own yearning, our own needing. And according to Buddhism, we’re all capable of it. And it’s a slow, painful process. Because in order to get in touch with this essential one, which is the key to the problem, which is this grasping, the way we have to, it’s like that’s the heart of it, but it’s completely even covered by all the gross levels of mind, which are like the anger and the jealousy and the confusion and the wanting and anxiety and the up and down and neurotic minds that we all have every day, you know?
So we’ve got to sort of chip away at all that stuff first, you know? Chip away at the heart job, which is learning to let go of the grasping, and then slowly start learning to subdue all offshoots of this grasping. Because grasping gives rise to all the other emotional confusion, the emotional stuff, the delusions that we have, you know. So it’s a process of learning to acknowledge all the delusions we have, knowing clearly what our delusions are, at the same time as knowing clearly what our potential is, you know, and having a balance of knowing where we’re at and knowing where we’re heading. And knowing where we’re heading gives us the energy to know where we’re at.
If we didn’t know where we were going, it’s too depressing to look at everything we are now, because if you don’t want to see it’s too depressing. So in that sense, the work on the spiritual path, especially in the initial stages, is a process of being courageous to somehow look and see the junk, and being happy to see the junk, welcoming the junk, which is something we don’t want to do. It is deeply instinctive in us that we don’t want to do, because it’s too painful for us. We want to think it’s not there. We would rather think it’s not there.
But when we do see it, we’re so hooked into our sense of ego, that actually, we just like to kind of chew at it like a bone, know, like a dog, you know. We don’t want to get rid of it. That’s kind of really ironic. We want desperately not to be unhappy, and yet, we’re kind of, we get often, what happens is we get suffocated in this kind of sense of me which is no good. And it’s almost we’re terrified of letting go of it.
We believe in the ego so strongly. We believe in this negative me so strongly. I mean, we know this one. We say we want to get rid of it. We say that I want to be better and I try and And we talk about all these other people out there who see us as so bad, it’s not fair, then we blame everybody else for it, you know?
But actually ten people can tell us how kind we are. One person can say how miserable and I’m completely depressed. I completely believe that one person, the other ten I completely doubt. I mean, we know that, you know? It’s incredible.
So we do it to ourselves. Unbelievable. We keep ourselves in the garbage, you know. Because somehow, to get yourself out of it, it means you’ve to put your money where your mouth is. You’ve to act.
You’ve got to change this broken record that thinks I am so awful, I am this, I am that. They think this about me, they think that, he did this, she did that. Because we’re addicted actually to think everybody else is causing it, everyone else is doing it. But all it is out there is, that it’s these people are like a mirror reflection of my own view of myself. Because if I were clear about myself, it wouldn’t matter if seventy nine people said I was junk.
It wouldn’t matter. I would know it’s just their problem, but I don’t know that, because I’m so addicted to having out there determine who I am. I have no sense of determining myself from my own side. So that’s where it’s kind of a fundamental change. In that sense too, it’s the same that’s kind of the addiction we have to the outside world, because that’s the world we believe in.
When we see someone look awful at us, we believe it means I’m awful. Totally hundred percent believe, you know. But it’s that person’s problem. Actually, it’s that person’s problem, but we can’t separate because we’re so kind of hooked into everybody else. Some person smiles, we feel better, you know.
Some person looks ugly, we collapse completely. It’s just true, we know that. And so we begin to start to even able to separate ourselves from other people’s opinions about it, other people’s view of us, to realize that that is their problem, you know. That’s their problem, that’s where they’re coming from, that’s their view. Necessarily, it has nothing to do with me.
To begin even to begin to do that is like, that’s liberating already. That’s like bliss already, you know. That’s when you even start to have a happy mind, because you know you’re starting to know who you are yourself, including all your junk, it doesn’t matter, because you’re strong enough to be able to accept what you are. And even if someone doesn’t like it, that’s nothing to do with me, that’s just their problem. And so when we’re able to do that, even though someone loves us, we’re able to use that love, but not because we’re not relying on it one hundred percent, which is what we normally are, we’re not going to completely collapse when they give take it away, or they become ordinary human beings and they might not like us sometimes, or they might criticise us because we’re all like that, we’re all imperfect.
So I start here, to know what our own mind is, to know who we are, to know what we are, all the garbage and all the good qualities, and to have faith right now, in now, the good qualities now. And it’s dependent upon me doing it. No one else, you know. Okay, it’s really important to have, say, teachers who can reflect the good qualities within us, to guide us on the way, there’s doubt about that. And it’s really important to have friends, peers, who support each other in that way.
That’s incredibly vital. Know, we’re not existing as an island. There’s no way we are. But somehow we have to learn to find that in ourselves and learn to be content with that in ourselves. And in that sense, to see the outside world as an hallucination, as an illusion, the fact that that person is ugly at me, the fact that that person doesn’t like me, the fact that that person blames me, or that person criticizes me, or that person doesn’t smile at me, that in a sense is an illusion, because it’s got nothing to do with me, it’s just where they’re at.
Okay, it’s real. If they criticise me, then I have to look, have I done something wrong or I haven’t? I check up, and if I have, then I rectify it. If I haven’t, then it’s definitely just their problem. Even if I have done something wrong and they don’t like it, it’s still just their problem.
It’s also my problem, they’re two separate problems. They’ve got a problem because they don’t like what I do, and I’ve got a problem so I have to fix my problem. Not their problem, which is that they don’t like me. That’s their problem, not mine. That’s why relationships become a disaster, because we’re so completely wanting, craving the other person to be a perfect mirror so I can feel better.
But as soon as they look miserable, as soon as they have a problem of their own, I become distraught, you know. So I play all the ego games to stroke them and make them feel better, so they’ll smile at me again, then I feel better. And then no wonder we don’t even know what’s real anymore because we play all this junk, you know, with each other. Impossible. No wonder we have suffering, we have problems and fights and confusion, because all we’re doing is wanting the other person, trying to find out what’s happened, what’s wrong, what have they done, what have I done, what have I done, you know, looking and looking at the other person as if it’s a mirror, you know, in that sense, when the wrong way a mirror somehow, and you just go mad, you destroy each other.
It’s impossible. So called correct way, you know, is to have enough strength, enough kind of confidence in what one is, good and bad, and give the person space, each of us to have that sense, each of us able to give each other space. So when another person is miserable, not paranoidly, self centeredly, immediately assumes it’s to do with me, Right? Which is what we always think. So we completely panic because all we want is crave desperately to be loved and needed.
So the moment the person we love most is looking like they’re having anything less than perfect kind of time, we completely panic because we think, my god, what have I done? And so it becomes so self centered. And that’s when we play all the games to try and get them to smile at us again. It’s impossible, it’s impossible, you know. So to give each other enough space by having confidence in what we are, and so that if I’m miserable, I’ve got the space to be miserable, and that person, because they respect and love me, they give me the space to be miserable.
And also, they don’t hook into all my garbage games, so I am left with my own rubbish games. So I can’t blame them then. But as soon as start fighting with each other and going on, each blaming the other, each one and the other to stop, you know? Not possible. Go mad.
Completely go mad. It’s got to start here every time. That’s the only thing we can be sure of, is we’re here in this one. What I feel, what I think, and slowly, slowly chipping away at the bad and developing the good. Slowly, slowly giving space to other people, allowing them the freedom and the choice and the space to know who they are and what they want themselves to.
Not over expecting. No, no, no, because we had this massive over expectation when we’re kind of craving and grasping for a person. We had this total fantasy picture of what that person is, you know, and it’s an outrageous kind of expectation to put on anybody, but we do it to each other. Then, when we start to have fault, we start to see fault, even when they’re not being faulty. When we start to see fault because we’re so dissatisfied, then we start kind of this incredible kind of then we become unbelievably depressed because our expectation has kind of collapsed, you know.
That person is an ordinary human being just like me, with wants and desires and needs, exactly the same as me, full of problems and good things and bad things. It’s just my over projecting fantasy, my big fantasy, because I need that. So the extent to which I grasp that out for that person is the extent to which I think that person is so perfect, you know. That’s a fantasy picture. Inappropriate.
Somehow, it starts from here. To start to know what I am. It sounds so simple, and yet we know it’s the most profoundly difficult job because we are so addicted to this outside world. We don’t even know where to begin to find me, you know, because we’re so connected like a puppet strings to everything around there. Whatever happens, we’re pulled here and there, you know.
We have no idea who we are even. To somehow just cut those strings and learn to find out who we are is our starting point and is the key to our own happiness, which is all we want. And the more clear, therefore too, the more clear I can become about me, the more clear I can be about the outside world. I can see then the outside world for what it is, therefore less expectations, therefore less misery, therefore more kindness, therefore more compassion, you know. Because I’m not seeing everything in relation to this ego.
That’s how we see the world now. We see the world in terms of the things we want, which kind of we need to uphold our ego, from the most intense experience of desire to the simple just liking peanuts, you know? All the spectrum of all the experiences under the thing of wanting or attachment or wanting, you know. To the opposite experience of aversion, hatred. For the most intense desire, I want to murder a person, to simply not liking peanuts.
So all the ones under the first heading is all to do with upholding the sense of me. So anything that I’ve anything, or anyone, or any idea, or any color, or any shape, or any continent, or any environment, or any job that kind of feels good, that upholds this sense of ego, we call that nice. And all the things that threaten this sense of me, we call not nice. And all the rest, the rest of the universe don’t care about. It’s under the heading indifference.
And it’s ego centered, quite literally. Those three headings are quite literally self centered. I mean, no kind of moralistic view there. It’s literally, it’s view based on the view from here, my view, subjective view, self centered, quite literally. And it’s totally a fantasy picture.
Because we know the person we’re completely craving and love and think is so perfect, we know there’s a person who can’t bear them, who’s convinced that person’s called enemy. We are convinced they’re called friend. Inside them somewhere there’s a little label, a heart, a soul called friend that makes them friend, perfect, beautiful. But they can’t be if the person next to me thinks they’re horrible. So where’s the beautiful person?
Where’s the horrible person? Not possible, in that sense that way we over project. We know it’s not possible because very often, friend becomes enemy or enemy becomes friend. So our view, it’s just our view that’s changing. Person hasn’t changed, maybe a little bit here and there, but that’s an interdependent phenomenon, dependent upon me.
In the right sense. It’s an interdependent phenomenon, you know? That’s all it is. There’s nothing out of that. It’s not frozen in the person.
It’s an interdependent phenomenon. Based on my view and their view of me, we had this view we had this kind of so called relationship, you know? It’s an interdependent phenomenon. It’s not frozen in space, which is how we see it out there, inherent, solidly existing concrete. It’s interdependent phenomena based on karma, causes, conditions, view, millions of things.
It’s an interdependent phenomenon. Starts to change that view, you know, to start to realise, even to, at that level, to shake our view a little bit. Even though we desperately love a person, that’s fine, nothing wrong. Don’t have to chuck out the baby with the bathwater. Don’t have have no friends, you know?
That’s not the point. It’s to use the friend in a more skillful way by shaking this rigid view I have of definite friend. Loving the person, giving the person space, developing, nourishing my heart, because that’s how my heart can grow. Love is love comes under the attachment, under the this is labeled here. So you’ve got to have it.
You’ve got to have attachment to have it even, you know. But one can learn slowly to purify that love by letting go of this grasping view. So one gets literally more purified love. In other words, caring for the other person, as well as receiving the nourishment happily into one’s heart and growing from that nourishment. Growing your heart, is Lama Yeshe would say.
That’s the way, you know. So we need sentient beings. Don’t chuck them out. Just learning how to love in the correct way, less ego centered way, quite literally less ego centered. Acknowledging our needs, we’ve all got needs, we’ve got bottomless needs, we know that.
We’re bottomless pits of needs, we know that. Nothing wrong, that’s how we are, sentient beings, not to criticise it, you know. So it’s learning to somehow see that I can satisfy those needs, it’s a question of my own changing my view towards the objects that I think satisfy, that it’s me who satisfies, by using skilfully the objects of the senses. So it’s sort of like I mean, we all know somebody who’s anorexic, what the other one, bulimic, you know? And I’ve got a friend, a sister who’s bulimic.
And that’s this unbelievable empty pit of craving that just wolfs food down with unbelievable grasping, grasping, but still, even though full belly at the end, feeling completely empty, totally bereft. Totally empty. More empty than before she started. That’s how we are with most things. So it’s a question, it’s learning to have the meal, but enjoying it, and then getting nourishment, emotional nourishment as well as the physical.
In other words, enjoying the pleasure. When you wolf it down like that, there’s no pleasure. There’s just misery, distress, guilt, craving, grasping, intense misery. So it’s learning to have the object, but to have the space, not the grasping, to have space where we can actually enjoy the pleasure. And that, I mean, is talking now, we’re now talking sūtra and tantra together.
This is the tantric view, know, in ordinary day to day life, how to use tantra in one’s transformation of one’s mind. The irony is too, we feel guilty about pleasure, that’s part of this negative side of ourselves. We want to get rid of it, this negative side, but somehow as soon as we say, I’m pleasure, something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. They don’t feel guilty about it, you know.
So there’s an incredible kind of battle in between between us, you know. Kind of whatever we do, we kind of we can’t get it right. It’s a slow job at all. I mean, the fact that it’s a slow job, and like I was saying before, have confidence and we have dedications and we have perseverance and we have patience when it comes to learning other things, it comes to learning to become this or to become that or become something else, you know? We study and we work harder, we know it’s a process, that we can’t suddenly overnight become a doctor.
We can’t overnight become a great athlete. You’ve to train the body, train the mind over and over again. For some reason, have confidence in that process, but when it comes to subduing anger and jealousy and confusion and anxiety and grasping and all the neurotic minds, we don’t have confidence. We somehow, we know we hear it way over there somewhere. It’s kind of we’re so addicted to doing it that something in us almost, and that’s the thing to look at in our own minds, almost doesn’t want to change.
We’d rather go blah blah blah about it. We’re almost as if we don’t know how to change. We sort of think, now then what do I do? And then sort of what do we do? The fact is, when the fact is, the work to be done, it has to be done every minute of the day.
There’s no moment when you sort of sit down with your eyes closed and you feel nice, that’s spiritual practice, then you get up and you do the same old garbage. Because the work to be done is in the mind, and the mind is functioning every instant of our life. So there’s no escape in that sense, you know. Every minute is when we’re doing something. Every minute is when we can be transforming our mind, spiritually practising, whatever words you want, you know.
I mean, the word, the Tibetan word for meditation means to become familiar with the mind. And to sit, alright, sit formally is obviously very beneficial. Even at the grossest level of how we all are now, just doing stuff to subdue the mind a little bit, it’s really obviously beneficial. The fact that we’re closing our eyes and subduing our other senses and preventing ourselves from being bombarded by all the usual input, Just that alone is profound. The fact that all we’re left with is the stuff going blah blah blah inside, which we never look at from the moment we get up, from moment we go to sleep, because we’re too busy with the outside world, kind of being seduced by all the objects of the senses, caught up in it, you know.
So even just to sit for five minutes a day, and to kind of lock off the senses temporarily, and just sit with the inside, me, my mind, the stuff that’s all there, all the emotion, all the feeling is coming randomly, like a big soup, you know, just to sit with it. Even that is profound, because we’re at least seeing it, looking at it, noticing it, feeling it. To be able to do that is incredible already. Not to mention, I mean, you know, all the kind of profound meditations where you really learn to tone your mind, develop it and control it and go way down into this depth of the mind that we have the potential to experience, which we never touch most our living life, you know. The mind is profound.
We’re only at the grossest level of it. So to actually go deeper in and to touch the very profound levels, which are the levels of mind that are able to cut through the dualistic garbage, that thinks things exist from their own side, which is the key and the heart of the problem. That’s incredible. Okay, so I’m talking about what we do, know, all these methods, and there are, but the main work, if you like, once one does all those and is familiar with how the methods work, the real work is a day to day grind of transforming each moment. I mean, when do you have anger?
Generally speaking, unless it’s a series that would just happen to you, you don’t normally have sitting in meditation, it comes up a bit, you know. But anger comes when you confront a person. Where confronting a person is? In one’s life, day to day. So that’s where the work is to be done, each moment of one’s life, transforming each moment.
And by sitting quietly every day, that trains us to not have, not immediately like a magnet launch into every single thing that happens in life, you know. One trains oneself, one does a little bit, and slowly, slowly, eventually, it actually starts to change, you know? We don’t suppress it. Anger, not expressing anger doesn’t mean suppressing it and keeping it like some boiling thing with a lid on, you know? It’s actually, when anger is subdued by repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly looking and seeing it, and learning to not respond so violently, and then slowly, slowly, slowly.
Actually, the same situation that maybe made one angry one year ago, the same thing can occur, but because one trained one’s mind, literally, one doesn’t respond in the same way. One has actually changed one’s mind. One is not subduing or suppressing the anger, we’ve literally changed it. We’ve actually the anger has dissolved, and we’ve changed our view. We’ve changed our response to that same kind of thing.
We have have patience and perseverance and confidence that that is the way the mind works. It’s a slow process of developing new habits and subduing old ones. There is no other secret to it, that’s it. There is nothing hidden. There’s no what do I do now?
That’s it. There is nothing else to do, except go moment by moment, acknowledging what we are and working at that moment as much we can on it, and then indeed doing strong things like certain purification methods and all that kind of thing, right? But the nitty gritty, the hard work is moment to moment to moment, watching what we say, watching what we think, knowing that each instant that our mind is existing is on the one hand the result, the fruit of a previous seed that we have sown on that mental continuity, and at the same time, is a seed we’re planting on the mind that will grow in the future. So each instant we have is the most precious opportunity to purify past garbage, and to transform and grow good seeds for future. That’s purification.
That’s the method of purification. And we start to have the feeling, the confidence that that’s what the mind is, this moment by moment continuity of experiences. And new little ones pop up. Each instant, we have an experience of a new karma, a new fruit, if you like, ripening from previous seeds that we have sown, and in that sense, each moment is an opportunity to, instead of when anger comes, instead of planting another seed of anger, then we’ll keep going, but transforming it, and sowing a seed for the opposite of that. And that doesn’t mean suddenly we have to magically not show anger, that means having the intention.
We can still get angry, you know, because we haven’t purified ourselves yet, but if we have the intention to change, then that’s the most important thing, and regret when we do it in the harming of a person, yet again. It’s the intention behind the action, behind the action, that actually determines the quality of the seed that we sow on the mind that will grow in the future. It’s the intention of the action, not the action itself. And that’s so important to know, you know, because then we can have patience. Then we can have patience with ourselves and know it’s a slow process and know the fact that we’re trying is incredibly important.