Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 28-minute talk, Ven Robina Courtin explores the crucial Buddhist distinction between compassion—the wish to help—and wisdom, which knows when action is appropriate. She illustrates with concrete examples why good intentions alone cannot always change a situation, and discusses how karma ripens across lifetimes. She then offers a personal reflection on authenticity in spiritual practice, describing how she shed an artificial spiritual persona to access genuine transformation. Her central point is subtle: anger carries real energy and dynamism, qualities worth preserving; the work is not to become passive, but to remove the neurotic quality while keeping the active, generous energy. She concludes by mentioning the Liberation Prison Project, through which she brings Buddhist teachings to incarcerated individuals.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 2002 01 17 PT.mp3
UUID: fba6e5f2-98d2-4da2-8a76-c8da73defba4
Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin
Collection: y Public Talks (Ven Robina Courtin)
Date: 2002-01-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 28.0 minutes
Words: ~1,660
I mean, that’s just, you know, that’s in the Buddhist view is it’s because the karma of the people is so strong. So for ongoing wars. It’s the same. You can say if there were enough numbers, we could have, you know, changed the situation into that. But the the point is that the karma of the people is so strong, kinda haven’t worn it out yet.
You can go there as much as you’d like, and nothing will change. You get two people, just two people, who are fighting. And you you think, well, if I come in, we try and break it up and help them stop fighting. The energy in their minds is so strong that they’re gonna they’re gonna they’re gonna, you know, abuse you for interfering. Please go away.
Mind your own business. We wanna fight. Because it’s so strong between them. They gotta they gotta do it. You know?
We all know a story like that. So this is what wisdom is. Compassion is the wish to do what you can to benefit the entire world. Wisdom is to know what to do when. And sometimes there is nothing because the timing isn’t right.
Everything’s timing. You know? And that’s the the idea of That’s what Dalai Lama, the whole of it is about this piece of the view. You know? But because he’s one was even trying.
Suddenly, these things came together. Boom. Boom. Boom. So the skill is to have the wish to benefit, but then the real one is the wisdom to know what to do when.
And that’s something that’s really a great skill. Regina? Yes. You know, if everything is suffering itself, what you’ve done before, then how on earth always to point to your — you know, for this is fourteenth century, or early eighth century, practicing, seemingly practicing being with human beings. It’s absolutely true.
The point is that we’ve had countless lives, Buddha says. Countless, countless, countless lives. And as a group, you could say that the people that’s the point. The people who lived even a hundred years ago are the same consciousnesses, or many of them aren’t, who are now existing in Tibet. And so it’s not as if they created the cause for this suffering and a group of Tibetans.
This is be a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago, a group of people representing a group of beings with the Chinese that’s now ripening for these people. The cause of this, the cause of this is from who knows how many lives have passed, you know, and it wasn’t necessarily created as the group of Tibetans. So powerful and so painful. So it’s a quick part to enlightenment. You know?
And this is also the this is the approach. This is the attitude to have too when we do have suffering. Because Buddha is saying we’ve had countless lives in the past. Planting a tree, planting a tree. You have to sow the seed, and you then have to nurture it and nourish it, and eventually you will reap it.
So it’s like the nourishing of it. And then it’s giving good example to other people. There’s many, many benefits to it. But it’s not having it? It’s this I mean, it’s what is it?
It’s interesting. If you look at a person who’s you’ve got all these different kind of shapes of people, haven’t you? You’ve people who are kind of quiet and peaceful. There are people who are kind of angry and dynamic. There are people who sort of all sorts of kinds of qualities, aren’t there?
So this is what I’m trying to say. What I okay. What I learned when I began to want to become spiritual again. I’m being a Catholic. I’m really devoted to everything.
And I gave that when I nineteen. I was moving in that direction very strongly. So then I started to have this kind of, you know, in the beginning, I was also excited about finding a spiritual path, and I realized I was carrying a limp. Because I realized I had a a kind of this inauthentic sort of artificial, which is fine in the beginning, attitude. Authentic, my personality, my shape, talking fast, walking fast.
I mean, I’m just being kind of cliche. But be essentially me, but change my mind, change my thoughts and my my neurotic emotions, and changed my fundamental assumptions, which is why the wisdom talks, changed my the anger in that part. So you you chuck out the bad stuff, and you stay with the other one, this energy and this wish to do something to better than others. So, basically, it’s compassion. I was motivated by good good good by my compassion.
I was. But it was polluted by the anger for the opposite group. So they kind of cancelled it — they kind of one destroyed the other. So what I’m seeing now is less anger, but continue to be more energy to do, to want to be better, to be active. It’s like an active energy, isn’t it?
So that’s the one, the active energy, to be to be useful, to be active. That’s what it is. So when you see an angry person, that’s what you’re seeing, a very active person. Isn’t it? A proactive person.
It must be involved in doing. There’s a great quality. It’s fantastic. Don’t think I’m saying anything about other people. I’m saying that myself.
I’m talking about being angry. So what what are you just saying? What did I say? You say I mean, when you see an angry person I’m not criticizing. Please.
I’m praising them. You don’t understand me. I said what you’re seeing when you see a person shouting and yelling and being very volatile. Have you ever seen people like that before? Oh, it’s fine.
Okay. Then you’re projecting. Aren’t you? You can see them very being very volatile and rude words coming out of their mouth. Come on.
I’m gonna be interesting for you. Okay. Then then, therefore, you can also see it in other people. Not a problem. So what I’m saying is what you’re seeing when you see that is a dynamic active person.
The real Come and talk to me later about it. Shall I say it again? Does it make does it make sense? Well, it worries me. I can tell you.
My point is more like I the It’s like it’s like a crystal with many facets. Uh-huh. That’s right. So what I’m saying is keep the good qualities and chuck out the bad. So we tend to think in the west that if you stop being angry, you chuck out everything.
Rubbish. What? That’s what I’m saying. So it is possible to be an active, energetic, doing person who isn’t angry. That’s what I’m saying.
What’s the alchemical process? I just said it. That’s the answer. I just said it, darling. I’m not being rude.
I’m really not being rude. No. No. No. No.
No. Is what you’re saying. Well, then that’s the process that we’re discussing tonight. Learn to know your own mind, know that you can lessen the anger, and and and keep the good qualities. That’s the point.
It’s a very it’s a very, very subtle point. Okay. Cut to the weekend course. That’s what we’re gonna be discussing. I’m not joking again, but we’re gonna go we’ll have time, two full days, go into it in more detail, the process and how you do it and the methods and everything.
That’s what being a Buddhist means. The first step is to have the recognition that it is possible to get rid of the the neurotic part of us and keep the good On the contrary, because we all know the the point is that if this is the attitude of we suffer because of our past negative actions, doesn’t this kind of create a climate where it’s hard to have compassion? The point is the assumption of the compassion we have now is that we only feel compassion for innocent victims. So, you know, and that’s that’s that’s that’s the faulty assumption. Buddhism says we’re all in the same boat.
That the example of these lines I’ve talked about have been tortured. You know? It doesn’t mean it happens immediately. You have to work through it. Depends on where you’re at.
Psychologically, it’s your life. You know? Does that sound uncomfortable to you? People in prison, giving courses, teaching, visiting individuals, and sending people books and helping them with their Yeah. With their lives, with their minds.
And that’s that’s that’s the sort of hard job that we do in this thing called Liberation Prison Project. So it’s all we’re trying to get funding here as well because and the main way we get money is by people giving money. So just let you know what we’re doing. If you feel like getting any money, that’s very fine. If that’s okay.
Also, I think I don’t know how many tapes and things out there that the copies I’ll sing a little prayer if you want. Okay? And this little prayer really is, again, is like a aspiration, and it’s so basically saying that here we’ve been sitting for a couple of hours. And Buddhism would say, as many moments as there have been in these two hours is as many karmic seed. Each thought is a karmic seed.
And so on the basis of each of us listening, this includes me, like, listening, thinking, checking up the stuff, the merit and the seed that See you at the weekend if you’re coming. Yes. Them. Tell people. Here.
Gloria. The mic. Gloria. Gloria. The mic.
The mic. Speak in the mic. Oh, god. Take it away. Thank you so much.
Hello there.