Steadying the Boat — 1998-10-31

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. Ven Robina Courtin’s 90-minute teaching refuses to simplify Buddhist ethics into rules, arguing that intention and compassion matter more than external compliance. She opens by mapping meditation types—concentration, analytical, visualization, tantric—then works through karma using frank examples: eating a dead chicken, killing an ant, frozen embryos. A vegetarian who kills ants without care creates heavier karma than a compassionate person who accepts meat offered. She leads a full Vajrasattva purification visualization, answers questions on prostrations as a psychological practice and conception in Buddhist terms, then moves to death: the intermediate state, how accomplished practitioners control the dying process, and how to help the dying achieve peace. Personal stories (her aunt Nini, imprisoned friends, Lama Yeshe) ground each teaching. For practitioners integrating meditation, ethics, and mortality without idealization.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 03 1998 10 31 StB.mp3

UUID: 49669a8f-a969-4279-b24c-8dd64534333c

Teacher: Ven Robina Courtin

Collection: y Steadying the Boat (Ven Robina Courtin)

Date: 1998-10-31

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 90.7 minutes

Words: ~17,385

Tool, which is necessary. If you have to look deeply into your mind and know your mind and turn your mind around, there’s gotta be a very clear, clear mind, you know? So then the first mode of meditation is simply to develop concentration. So we use one example, just simply watching your breath. Now the results that come from that in the long term, in the real long term in Buddhist terms, is you develop a very subtle level of consciousness and you can really get in touch, very deep levels of yourself, which doesn’t have much to do with what we’re talking about right now in our daily lives.

But in the long term, that is the goal. Long term, to get very deep concentration. So then, at that subtler level, you can do much, much deep work at a deeper level. Okay, meanwhile, at our level now, the benefit of doing some kind of concentration, many side effects, you know, one is, first of all, is it simply you see, you listen, you hear your thoughts more clearly. You see them more starkly because you’re learning with concentration and meditation, of using your mind, which is what we use our mind from the second we wake up until we go to sleep, we’re using our mind at every level to know about the outside world.

Like we’re focusing on the outside things through our senses, and we’re focusing all the work we have to do, and he this and she this and all this stuff, it’s all external. So what you’re trying to do when you’re doing stabilization meditation, for example, is you’re simply concentrating on the boring old breath. So naturally, thoughts are kinda come rushing to the surface because that’s where they all are, they’re all there, but because you’re not diverting them by looking at the weather and looking at somebody else and going, he’s this and he’s this, you’re sitting in your own rubbish, isn’t it? You’re sitting right in the middle of your own stuff, you can’t help but see it. So one of the commonest responses that people who start meditating have is that their mind’s getting more berserk.

It’s not getting more berserk, it’s just that you’re noticing it for the first time, you know, that’s all, really. And that already is this much alone is already so fantastic, but this is just the beginning. So having developed some concentration, having and as an ongoing continuous process, you see yourself more and more clearly. Then at the same time you listen to Buddha’s teachings about impermanence and karma, and it’s not someone else doing it to you, and you start to then start to bring that interpretation into what you’re seeing. And that’s where you begin your practice, in your day to day life throughout your day, you’re working with yourself as things are happening.

But there are practices like doing your concentration meditation is one type, where already the benefit is enormous, like I’m saying, because not only when you’re sitting there with your mind watching your breath all very boring, you’re seeing your mind more clearly, but when you open your eyes and you go into your daily life, when you and I have that argument, instead of me just being magnetized by what you’re saying, and you this and you this, and I go and gossip to Helen later, God, she this and she this, which is the usual mode, I’m even as we’re discussing, I’m noticing my own mind more clearly because I’ve already practised doing that, and I’m going, Wow, Robina, be careful, just watch your speech, shut up, you know, So you avert it, you learn slowly to even avert it almost before it comes eventually, which is the skill of seeing your own mind. So there’s an immense benefit in this kind of meditation. This is that alone. But then you’ve got other kinds of meditation. Like I said, we had the analytical meditations, sit down and meditate on impermanence and death, and you have a structure there from the teachings, where you’d meditate first of all, the time of death is definite, the death is definite, and all these are in the teachings, right?

So you’d use that as the bare bones, and then you’d then you’d pad it out, and you do it like a little contemplation about how death is definite. Then the time of death is uncertain, and that developed that’s a skill that one develops. It’s like self analysis, really. You’re doing it with a concentrated mind, you’re focusing on certain points, and you and those points you have to have gotten because you’ve studied the teachings. You’re bringing Buddha’s way of interpreting into it, and you’re doing it in a meditative way.

You meditate on compassion. There’s many, many meditations, so many meditations. They’re using visualization, using very creative means, you know. You visualize, for example, there’s a meditation, for example, on developing some kind of equanimity in relation to friends, enemies and strangers. Right now, we tend to believe, you know, that ugly, awful person who harms me, a gorgeous, lovely person who adores me, and the other person who’s a a stranger who just doesn’t affect me, and we kind of stay stuck in that mode.

There’s many things to say about that, but I’m just touching on it here. So you contemplate, you contemplate this freshly, you’d visualise an enemy, a friend, and a stranger, and the conclusion you’re trying to come to after this meditation on equanimity, as we call it, is the conclusion that just maybe, you know, the enemy isn’t enemy really and truly from their own side, that in fact they wanna be happy just like you, and there’s, I mean, many much thinking you do to get to this conclusion, right, I’m trying to say, you’re breaking down the usual views that ego has of real enemy, real friend, real stranger. So there’s so many contemplations, we call these analytical. Mean, are huge numbers. They’re, like, really vast in the Tibetan tradition.

There are these creative meditations, ways of thinking freshly, visualising enemies, visualising friends. Then there’s other kinds where you use your breath, you know, there’s a particular meditation we call it giving and taking, Tonglen in Tibetan, where you visualise a person, any person, your best friend even, and you try to practise really developing compassion, so what you do is, for example, you visualize when you breathe out, you breathe out this blissful white light, all your happiness, all your good qualities, and you give it to them and you take it, and all their suffering goes. And then when you breathe in, you breathe in black, heavy garbage, which is their suffering, and you take it onto yourself. So that’s a very powerful meditation to develop some kind of empathy with others, you know. Many, many techniques like this that there are existing in the tradition.

We have audio tapes here that you can buy by an Australian Buddhist man called Pende Hawter, whose voice is meditative anyway. So I think there are about three double sided. Tonglen is one of them. And I mean, mindfulness of breathing, he starts with and then the light and then the death death and dying and Tonglen and they’re very, I think they’re about twelve bucks. Terrific.

That kind of thing they do, you know, so there’s many, and they’re really just creative meditations and this is just in the Tibetan tradition and once you get the hang of this, you can invent your own in a sense, understand what you’re trying to do. It’s just a way of contemplating something, more strongly to get the experience of it. You’re using light, you use many, and then the whole other area of meditation, from the more esoteric teachings known as Buddha’s Tantra, where you use visualization of these Buddhas, very stylized visualization of these Buddha images, they have certain meaning, and you use mantra, and again, it’s visualizing light and all this very creative visualization stuff, maybe we’ll do one before we finish, and I think Westerners especially like these, or if you’ve a connection with this path, let’s say you like these, one likes these quite a lot. They’re very psychologically quite tasty, you know, you really can feel something. I mean, a lot of the stuff is just sort of really like, I said, being your own therapist, and she says, being your own therapist, really nutting it out in yourself, you know, working through things in your own mind, in your contemplation as well as in your daily life.

Then there’s the stuff where you’re just concentrating, training the mind to become more strong and clear. Then there’s the more creative stuff of visualising enemies and friends and all this kind of thing. Then you’ve got the, you know, the tantric meditations with the deities and the and the light and the mantras and all that stuff. So there’s masses of different types of meditations, you know. And they just come, if a person has connection with this path, you listen to the teachings, you get the hang of it, you start learning some techniques, there’s a book published, for example, called How to Meditate, and it’s got about thirty techniques in there just touching on some of these different kinds, you know and then that’s up to oneself, you just go into it and you start working with them, you know?

That make sense? That’s it, In other words, all the methods are there, all the tools are there and it’s to the extent, and this is where it’s kind of crazy, I mean, you know, these friends of mine in prison, one of them Arturo, he’s in his cell twenty three hours a day, young guy, twenty two, ex gangster, very powerful mind, very good heart but like this berserk life, you know. Now he’s since eighteen years old in his cells, he’s now twenty two, and because he started reading, he’s now got this ironically, this astonishing perfect situation to practice day and night. So he’s remarkable. I mean, it’s outrageous, you know, and Islam is open when he wrote to him, he said, your prison is nothing in comparison with a prison of ordinary people, you know, prison of attachment, pride, jealousy, prison of being caught up with I’m so busy, I must do this and must do that, you know.

He sits there, actually, and he’s okay, he’d love to get out of prison one day, there’s no doubt but given that he’s now in his cell, he can’t open the door, why be crazy as well? And he’s got this very powerful minder, very good heart and he’s very focused, very intelligent, so he’s studying correspondence course, he’s doing many meditations, he’s doing his prostrations, he memorises everything, you know, he’s practising day and night, and as he said, the day just goes like boom, you know, and he’s happy, I visit him, you know, you can see a happy, you can’t pretend to be happy, and you see a happy person there, you know, it’s kind of ironic so he’s using his time so powerfully and it’s up to us this is where it is really up to us anything if you want to be a musician isn’t it? Opportunities are all there if you’ve got the means and the piano but the real one is making the time the real one is seeing that you really want to do it knowing you have the potential and then making in a sense it’s like sacrificing but in the end you get the benefit when you really put effort this is when you get the benefit if we just do it half pie you just get half pie result isn’t it?

So that’s the one know. And this is where the Buddhist approach, from the very beginning, I mean, they talk a lot of, there’s two wings of the bird, like I’m saying, there’s all the practice of wisdom, and then there’s the practice of compassion. And the wisdom one is what we’re mostly talking about, and you can sort of say here that all this stuff, to really force to see the benefit to ourself, then you’ve some energy, then you can afford to do it for the sake of others because you’ve got a basis, you know. But most of us just float along, we don’t really see the benefit of not being angry, we don’t really see the benefit of not being attached, sort of sounds like a holy thing to do, and I’d, oh, I wouldn’t mind doing it, but we haven’t got any real conviction, because we haven’t really deeply looked at it, we haven’t really deeply thought about how anger brings me suffering, jealousy brings me suffering, because if we had, then we would really be making the effort to lessen our delusions, not just pretending, you know. So it takes a lot of mental energy, a lot of effort, a lot of effort, a lot of will, a lot of clarity, a lot of sincerity, you know.

And again and again to hear it in this way, not to hear it in a moralistic way, because Buddha says you better do it like this, which is how we bring ourselves to religion, which is so inappropriate in the Buddhist understanding, you know. You do it with a real lot of self motivation because you know the benefit will come to you. That’s not selfish, it’s intelligent. Then you have a basis for having any compassion for others and wanting to benefit them because you know they’re in the same boat, you You know that they’re suffering because of their delusions. We’ve to know our own suffering first which is so often again why these guys in prison, because they’ve had so much suffering, they can see it far more clearly than we can when we haven’t maybe had so much suffering.

This is why we often need a wake up call, you know, as Paul, one of my friends in prison said. So you’re be very self motivated. And this is the point. You see that with these Tibetan lamas, they do not push you, you know? No way.

They’re very spacious, they’re very compassionate, they seem so soft, they’re not your view of some kind of, you know, heavy heavy sort of mother always pushing you and beating you. No way, you know. They, they really they just they just present the information to you, and they leave it up to you. They’re there, you know, they’re there to help you day and night, they’re very compassionate. But it’s up to you, you know.

They don’t sort of judge you. Could I Wes, I used to sort of get I mean, I feel in my life always, I would do naughty things until someone told me to stop. That was always my my that was the that was the criterion for when I’d I didn’t just do it because I had a sense of morale, I just wanted, you know, I did it as long as when someone told me to stop, then I’d stop doing it. So you gotta stop you gotta stop being your own policeman basically. This is the difference here.

I think we bring that view into religion. We kind of live in fear of God punishing us, so then we we we don’t wanna do it because we don’t wanna get punished. But the karmic one is that you don’t wanna bring suffering to yourself, so you’re your own policeman. You take responsibility, you know. You gotta be the person who pulls yourself up by your own bootstraps, not waiting for someone else to tell you when to do it.

So these Lamas, they give you the stuff. They give you all the methods. They give you the teachings. And then it’s up to us to do something with it, you know. Like a very skillful parent, they’ll stand back.

Know, their hearts will break when you hurt yourself. They’ve given you the methods, they can’t we all say, you can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. That’s very much the approach in Buddhism. It’s inappropriate to force someone. It’s inappropriate to manipulate someone, or to threaten or to use that kind of thing.

You just give them the information and we all have to learn to use it ourselves. So we need to be highly motivated. I think this is our difficulty. But it’s only unfortunate when we do have a lot of suffering that we do sort of get a wake up call. You know, when life is very painful, then we’re forced to really question.

When life’s going on all nice, we don’t question. Which is why Lama Zopa says that our prison is much worse than our prison. The prison of attachment, the prison of anger, the prison of jealousy, the ordinary daily prison of delusions. Because it looks so nice, but in fact it’s insidious, you know. So why don’t we do a little meditation?

I’ll give you an example of something. Just, I’ll give you a visualization. We’ll use a let’s do a purification practice. I wanna talk a bit about karma and purification again. So this one is using the Buddha called Vajrasattva, a particular Buddha who’s associated especially with and all a Buddha is, okay, is an enlightened think of it as an enlightened mind, enlightened energy.

And there’s different visualizations, if you like, just like a visual language that’s developed coming out of India that’s come through Tibet, you know. So it is a cultural it exists in a cultural space and time, but it’s like a language. And as we know with any language, it’s not it doesn’t have an ultimate kind of value. It’s just a convention, isn’t it? So this visual stuff is just convention as well, you know?

So the this visualization is is a particular one that represents when you know the language, then you know it has meaning, you know? It represents the the the you know, it’s it’s especially for purification. So even just to visualize above your crown, imagine just the presence. If you’ve never heard of this stuff before, don’t worry. Just imagine the presence of this enlightened energy, enlightened consciousness manifesting in this particular aspect called the Buddha Vajrasattva.

So he’s kind of He’s got white. There are some male, some female, but this one’s male. White, light body. Very radiant, white, light body. He’s sitting in full lotus position on a lotus, and it’s sort of in the Indian style.

They call it the Indian bodhisattva style where there’s sort of very beautiful looking, very handsome, gorgeous, almost androgynous, you know? His face, very blissful, wearing kind of anklets and necklets and jewelry, that kind of stuff, sort of silken clothes. Everything’s radiant light. In his left hand, he’s holding a bell which represents the wisdom that realizes the ultimate nature of reality. In his right hand, what’s called a vajra.

And it’s like symbolizes, often they interpret as like diamond heart or sort of like that. So it’s meant it symbolizes compassion. That’s in the right hand. And the left and right hand are crossed. The left hand underneath and the right hand over the left.

That is heart across to his heart. This represents the union of wisdom and compassion. These two wings that we talked about. Which is the qualities of an enlightened being, fully enlightened being. His face is very radiant, very blissful.

If you have a spiritual teacher, you imagine that this person, this Buddha is your is oneness with the mind, with the consciousness your teacher, manifesting in this aspect for your benefit. And he’s sitting on a white lotus which is symbolic, which is like, you know, it’s born out of mud but untainted by it. Just like our enlightenment, born out of our delusions, but untainted by them. Our pure nature. Everything’s radiant, very blissful.

So imagine from his heart chakra, from the center of his chest, he sends First of all, he sends light beams out to the whole universe. Up, down, above, below, all all the directions. This light energy, what it does is sort of hook the energy of all enlightened beings in the universe. Hooks this energy and brings it back with the light and it enters back into his heart, making him even more radiant, more blissful, more powerful, representing now the energy of all enlightened beings of the universe, which is our own potential. This is the potential that we are trying to develop also.

So now, when we do purification practice, and we’ll talk more about it after we’ve done this, just touch on it now. There are four main steps that we take. The first one, and they’re just psychological steps basically. Because it’s our own mind. As Lama Yeshe says, it’s our mind that created negativity, so by turning it around, it’s our mind that creates the opposite, you know.

So it’s we ourselves who purify ourselves. Buddha doesn’t purify us, we’re just using this method, that’s all. But it’s we who do it. It’s our mind that does it. So the first step is to regret sincerely any harm we’ve ever done to any living being from this moment up to since beginningless time with any of our bodies.

Yeah. Without, you know, strongly regretting any harm ever done to any living being. Really owning that. Regretting it for two reasons. One, because you don’t want the suffering results to come to yourself in the future, and two, because of compassion.

Just contemplate things in this life, and then all the things we have we don’t even remember from past lives. Just have a strong sense of regret. Then the second step, it’s kind of like, you know, in the analogy, let’s say where you’ve taken poison, of course you’d have huge regret, wouldn’t you? You’d regret because of the suffering that will come to you in the future. So the second step, which comes naturally from regretting, is it my goodness, who can I turn to?

Who can give me methods that can help me, you know, give me the antidote to this poison? So like this, in this context, we’re turning for refuge, for refuge to the Buddha, to Vajrasattva, whose methods we’re using, whose medicine we’re using to remove the suffering. So have a sense of taking refuge. If you’re a Buddhist already, then have that feeling of going for refuge, of turning to someone who has methods that can help you. So that sense of huge relief that you’d have.

And secondly, have a sense of this is called these are called the four opponent powers. So the first is the, you know, the power of regret. The second is this one is the power of reliance. So we rely upon the Buddha, but secondly we also rely upon the very sentient beings whom we have harmed. So we have it, generate again here a sense of compassion, a wish to benefit them in response to having harmed them.

The power of reliance. Not listening, a prayer of refuge, and the generation of bodhicitta, compassion. Just expressing it in a prayer, this thought. If you know it, you can sing to her. And now the third step, is called the power of the antidote, is where you actually take the medicine.

You do a practice that is the antidote to the negative energy created in the mind, which is the one that purifies it, you know. So in this case, we’re going to visualize certain things and we’ll recite a mantra. So what we visualize first, we do three stages of visualization. We’re first going to purify, visualize purifying all the harm we’ve ever done with our bodies to any living being. So you visualize from Vajrasattva’s heart, he sends very powerful nectar energy like a strong hose.

This energy, quite like nectar, enters your crown and fills you completely with this powerful blissful nectar. What it does is drive out through your lower orifices all the harm you’ve ever done with any of your bodies since beginningless time, from this and this life, all the creatures we’ve harmed by accident, if we’ve had abortions, the people we’ve harmed with our bodies, all of this. Any harm we’ve ever done to any living being since beginningless time with our bodies. You imagine it all being purified and all this, you know, leaves our body like inky liquid to absolutely not one atom left, completely purified. And I’ll just strongly visualize this, want this, you know.

And we can recite the mantra of VadiVajrasattva three times as we do it. If you know then join in. If not, just even contemplate also blessings raining down from the mantra purifying us. So imagine all this harm we’ve done with our bodies, absolutely purified. And also all the illness, our own bodies completely purified, full of this blissful white nectar.

I’m thinking that only now can your body benefit others. It’s not possible to do anything else but benefit sentient beings. So now again from Lama Vajrasattva’s heart, this time he sends this nectar and it enters our crown very forcefully and fills us right up. But this time, what it does is drive out all the negativity created by our speech in the form of inky liquid, but from the top part of our body, just like if you fill up a glass in a sink with water, all the junk in the glass comes to the surface, doesn’t it, and leaves through the top, like that. All the negativity our speech, all the harm, the gossip, the uncontrolled speech, the the lying, the negative speech, the criticism, and all the rubbish that comes pouring out our mouths that harms so many beings.

This is beginningless time, absolutely purified by this powerful filling us, leaving us in this like inky liquid through the top part, all the orifices. Not one atom left. Imagine that. Full of this blissful nectar. Now, only possible to benefit others with our speech.

Whatever comes out of our mouths, only beneficial, useful, appropriate, wise, compassionate, all of which is our potential. So now from Lama Vajrasattva’s heart, sends this time light energy, much more subtle. It enters our crown, and when it comes into us and hits our heart chakra, imagine instantly it dispels all the negativity of of mind. Just like when you turn on a light, it instantly dispels the darkness. All the negativity of our mind, the source of our body and speech, the delusions, the misconception of the I in the first place that causes to have attachment, anger, the rest, jealousy, all the other stuff that causes us so much pain, causes us to harm others.

All of this absolutely gone, eradicated by this this blissful white light filling us. Full of this blissful nectar now, this blissful light, radiant light. Delusion’s gone. Full of our natural potential for wisdom and clarity and joy and contentment and fulfillment and bliss, kindness, all the rest. So now the fourth step in this process of purification, the fourth of the four opponent powers is called the power of the promise.

It’s like a determination you make to yourself. I will not, you know, if there’s some actions, like, you know, one of my friends in prison vowed he would never harm another living being, at the cost of his life, which for him is real. Now, if we can say this, unbelievable. If we can vow not to harm another living being for five minutes, fantastic. But generally, make the effort, to make the vow, to make the effort to avoid the things that cause harm to ourselves and others.

And this is the power of this determination is the one that, you know, the strength of it is what causes us to change our habits. This is the major one, not just in this life, but in future lives as well. Power of the promise, the power of the determination for our sake and the sake of others. So now you visualize that Lama Vajrasattva melts into white light, dissolves into white light, enters throughout this white light enters through our crown, comes to our heart chakra where our very subtle pure consciousness is residing and there merges with our mind, becomes oneness with who we are. This is our true nature, Buddha nature, enlightened energy.

That’s all. Just relax now. So many, many meditations like that, visualizing different energies, like I said, Buddhas and female Buddhas and they all represent different energies there’s one for compassion there’s one female one called Tārā, she represents kind of like wisdom action the capacity to cut through the obstacles and be successful, you know, at whatever level there’s different ones, they each have a mantra associated with them. And they’re quite sort of, you know, tasty meditations. There’s different ways, you know, one way of developing more kindness in yourself is by analyzing the disadvantages of your anger, by looking at it, being your own therapist.

In other ways, by visualizing light coming from blessing you, you know, the Buddha of compassion. It’s just different ways of doing it. Different approaches, you know. So any question about that from anybody? This sort of seemed understandable, this type of meditation.

Yeah. K. Do you need a tea break? Half past three. Have a tea break.

K. Just afterwards, would you mind going through just to kind of some of the forms of bullying? Some people don’t know about about frustration or, you know, maybe discuss some of the. Comments here. Okay, if people want.

If people want. Yeah, if they ask. You know about them. I’m not sure. I know.

I mean, I’m not sure either. We’ll see. Okay, let’s do. Let’s try. Have a break.

That person is a person is fanatic about being vegetarian, happily kills ants cockroaches. That’s just really limited and partially, so the broader views. Last week on retreat, Geshe-la was telling us about and I picked up a little bit pineapple and there’s some ants. Oh, that’s right. And he told us about taking animals around the stupa as well.

So I picked up a little ant and went to take it around the stupa, and it fell off the pineapple pineapple and broke its legs. Right. And I thought, oh, you know That’s what you get for helping. You make a mess. Honestly, stay away.

Just be mindful where you fall. I know. We mean well, but yeah. That’s what happens even when you mean well. I know.

That’s what happens anybody got any questions? Anything you’d like to talk to, go into more depth about that we’ve discussed so far or concept of karma or Yes. Anything you want. Mhmm. Present meat.

What do you mean? That’s something different. There’s something seen as very symbolic then. Something quite different. Not appropriate to discuss here.

It’s not a question of, I think, okay, let’s look at okay. That’s something else. That’s meat and alcohol use, in the context you’re talking, in a particular, they represent symbolic of certain things, you know? So I think, I don’t know, think, well, we have to be very clear about what we’re doing and why you’re doing it. In the West, we have this sort of absolutist view that if you say you’re vegetarian, then you think you can’t even look at meat and touch meat.

It’s like sinful to even see meat, you kind of go panic. I’m not saying you’re saying this. So let’s look at what we’re saying. So even for a person, like I said, who’s a Buddhist, not discussing myself here or anybody, just talking theory, okay? It’s important, we all do this, we have to do this.

We’ve got to look, first of all, at the action you’re doing. Okay, to even be more specific, let’s look at it, how you create karma. Let’s go into detail how you create karma. First of all, for an action of what’s called killing to be actually an action of killing, to accumulate the negative result that comes from an action of killing, they have to be for a complete action, which brings a negative result called a suffering life. They have to be for conditions in place in that action that you do, and this is the same for a virtuous action, non virtuous, any kind, for it to be a complete karma, as they call it, or a throwing karma that brings the fullness of the result of a certain type of rebirth.

So there have to be four conditions in place. One, there has to be most crucially, there has to be the intention to do the action. The intention. And this, in a sense, is almost the meaning of karma. The most important part of any karmic action we do is the intention to do it.

That’s what makes the action, the result, come very strongly. So, let’s just discuss killing that ant. Killing the ant, the sad ant. Clearly, for it to be a complete action of killing, to bring suffering to you in the future in a lower realm rebirth, there has to be the intention to kill an ant. Second, there has to be a living, kicking ant there, obviously.

Third, you have to do the action or you get someone else to do it. Fourth, it dies before you. If those four are there, then you’ve created a strong action of killing that if you leave that seed in your mind stream will eventually ripen as many fruits of rebirth in suffering realms. Now, let me just Don’t panic, and let me just go through this thing slowly. Let me ask you a question.

You go to the supermarket, and there’s a chicken in the fridge, and you take the chicken, and you take it home, and you eat it. Now, me ask you a question. Did you have an intention to kill a creature? Don’t get caught up in it, just answer me a clean, clear question. Did you intend, did you have the thought, I want to kill this chicken?

Did you or didn’t you? I think I did. No, you’re not answering the question right. You’re getting around and you’re being politically correct. You have to answer my question.

You actually went to the fridge and you saw a dead chicken body and you said, I want to kill this chicken. That’s your intention, it? When you picked up the chicken body, your intention was to kill a chicken. Come on, you can’t fool any of us, you didn’t. It’s a fact.

We haven’t completed the story yet, let’s just go one step at a time, like I’m saying, don’t panic. Can we go one step at a time, please? So did you intend to kill a chicken or didn’t you? Because you refused to answer the question. You don’t wanna follow through the whole story.

I’m gonna go to other aspects of it. You didn’t kill you you intended to kill it no I didn’t ask you that question I said did you intend to kill a chicken was it a thought I want to kill a chicken did you think that thought? I’m glad you said that the second question was there a living chicken there? Was there a living no, at that time? Okay, there wasn’t did you do an action of killing a chicken?

Okay, what did the chicken die before you? Yes, that’s about there, it did. It was dead before you. Yeah, okay. Not in front of you.

So then the three conditions that aren’t there. Now, strictly speaking, that action but don’t get all caught up, don’t get political yet, I’m going one step at a time, I’m gonna cover all ankles, I promise. I really promise. That action, if you then went out the backyard next day, and there was a chicken, and you thought, I wanna kill a chicken, and you did the action, and it died, the comparison of those actions in terms of your karma and the result that you personally will get is just no comparison at all. That second action of you killing the chicken is so much heavier.

Now, obviously, obviously, because there is an industry in this culture called chicken killing, and there are many millions of chickens bred and killed for this purpose, there’s a very heavy burden there, and we could probably maybe even say, if we really understood how heavy the karma was and the collective responsibility, that it actually is almost like. Maybe. But even but then so in theory, you can say that. Because, you know, there’s something in the West that we tend to think, Well, I kill it myself, it’s much better, because we just have this kind of we don’t have a comprehension of the energy, even the meaning of killing, you know? We just don’t even see killing as bad.

We see a big chicken house full of chickens all dying bad, but we don’t see the action of killing bad somehow, I don’t know what it is. So we’ve got to look at those two we look at those different things. In general, the concept of karma is there have to be these four things in place for it to be a really strong action, positive or negative. Now, obviously, it’s not all there is, because let’s say, you know, it depends on the situation, the other things too, the other factors involved in the creation of karma. There’s the, you know, there’s the fact that there is this huge chicken industry, industry, right?

Which is really very appalling, the way they suffer, and it is appalling. And because it’s just so much there, that you can see that it’s obviously virtuous to not eat meat. It’s really obvious to not participate in this awful slaughter. It’s really clear. But still, it’s important to know what actually constitutes the creation of karma, you know?

So for example, let’s say a person one of the factors that makes karma much more heavy for one person to eat meat than another person, because again, it’s very personal in the end. There was a friend, always used as an example, there was a friend of ours, an Australian monk from Melbourne, whose family, the Redlich family, owned, I think, or did once, maybe they don’t anymore, owned like, they’re big butchers in Australia. So Max, who became a monk, you could say that all his life was the result, all benefits and all his riches was the result of killing animals okay, so for him there was no question and he recommended, and he wanted anyway no way to eat meat, no way to touch the killing of any kind of preacher, never eat him, go anywhere near eating meat because for him, the karma was so heavy because of his own relationship to it, do understand what I’m saying? The action for him to eat meat would have been much heavier. But someone else who’s got no karma with killing, do you understand what I mean?

And not much attachment, let’s say, meat, for them to have meat, not nearly as heavy a karmic action for that person, because it’s all very individual. For example, a person, you could say, Drink one glass of alcohol, that’s not a problem. But if you’re an alcoholic, drink one glass of alcohol, look at consequences. A disaster, you know? But someone else is not an alcoholic, not a problem.

So you can have theories about things, and then you’ve got to look at the individual story on it. And that’s why you’ve got to have the theories to know what you’re doing, and then you have to be very personal, and it’s your own individual thing that you have to look at, you know? So again, the point I’m making here, you know, that if there’s a person who has an intention genuinely in their life to never harm any living being, who really tries to protect the ants, and not harm creatures, and does many things to really consciously not harm any living being at all, and has great compassion for all the beings who die when you eat your carrots, and all the beings who, you know, all this, and that person to have meat every now and again, my feeling is, just personally, my feeling is that’s not nearly as heavy an action as a person, like I said, who is a fanatic vegetarian, with all, you know, that’s great, but who couldn’t care about the cockroaches, and couldn’t care about the worms, and couldn’t care about everybody else. Do you see? In other words, it’s what you’re doing in your mind every second that really makes the cumulative difference, you know?

So it is so it’s emotive more than anything. But some actions like with the meat one, because the industry is so heavy, I agree completely, you know, it really is. And so the Dalai Tibetans, for example, in Tibet always ate meat. Their food was very limited, and meat was one of their staples, you know? But they didn’t have any industry.

And even if a yak was killed, you know, they would kind of do many prayers for the yak, and they, you know, all different things. It doesn’t mean you’re not it doesn’t lessen, it does a little bit lessen, but there’s no industry, there’s no monstrous industry. Whereas in India, he insists all the time that Tibetans don’t eat meat because there’s an industry of killing, especially for them now, you know, because they eat meat. So it makes so that their conditions are important, you know, so many other factors involved in it, right? And there are not just it’s not just the meat that you eat, know, it’s just the flesh that you eat.

So if someone offers you If you’re a vegetarian, and someone offers If you have a wish not to harm sentient beings, and someone offers you a meal of meat, my opinion is it’s far more appropriate just to eat it, you know? You’re not creating any sin, the meat’s just meat. This was an animal once, it’s not any longer, and then you can make be very grateful to that creature that its flesh is now benefiting you, and may it benefit from the result, you know, as a result of feeding you, who I’m trying to, you know, I mean, there’s just different ways of looking at things, you know, you have be very clear, and emotional about it. And then take personal responsibility, you know, and really do your best. And as for the example you used, that’s a difficult one to talk about here, because it’s a more esoteric practice, and simply meat is meant to represent certain mundane things, that’s all.

And alcohol as well, you know. So it just has a different a whole different story there. I can’t really describe it. Know? So I don’t know if all that helps you or anything.

Well, think until you get teased and all that. I mean, I’m trying to sound strange about it. Meat meant to represent the certain mundane aspects of ordinary reality. That’s all it means. That’s all it means.

Actually, there is even a way of seeing it. You’re not doing it out of attachment. You’re not doing it out of a wish to harm that animal. It represents something, and if you think about it, if it’s kind of something that’s becoming blessed, maybe even there’s some benefit to the animal who gave that flesh, you know, six months ago, five years ago, whatever it is, you know. There’s a different way of seeing things, you know.

Wear the pants? Where you stick with it goes on and on. Yeah. That particular one. Yeah.

I know. Yeah. I understand. I understand. Wouldn’t mind having some of the some of that prostrations talked about and explained?

Okay. Alright. Well, okay. Like I’m saying before, there’s different types of practices. You know?

There’s the very basic, in your face, on the ground, being your own therapist level of practice, which is really very necessary. If you’re not doing that one, and you’re doing all the rituals, then I’m sorry, forget it, you know? Do you understand? Sort of being all holy, prostrating, and doing this, and smiling, and being look like a holy person. Don’t worry about it.

Or as Lama Zopa says, if you’re sitting there being mindful, he says, thieves need mindfulness, excuse me, you know? He says, you wanna be mindful, watch your shoes, and then you get peaceful, no difference. Don’t be holy, being a meditator. Mindfulness is no big deal. It’s why you’re doing it.

It’s okay. You’ve got the most basic level of being your own therapist. Knowing your mind. You have the level of practice in Buddhism of actually listening to the teachings. You you gotta listen to the views in Buddha, because you’re trying to be a Buddhist, you gotta know what Buddhism says.

Otherwise, you just, you know, don’t call yourself a Buddhist. Then you got the, you know, the practices of meditation, where you do the concentration meditation, where you’re honing your mind. You’re trying to concentrate your mind. You’re trying to kind of harness the energy of your mind, which is just technical practices, really. And then you have, like I said, the other kinds of practices that have two different functions.

We can talk about it in two ways. One function, we talk about it, is in terms of accumulating positive energy, which is sort of like growing the flowers. And the other one is in terms of purification, which is sort of like doing the weeding. So you’ve got growing the flowers and doing the weeding. And lots of practices are for growing.

So the one we just did then was sort of doing the weeding it was a weeding practice. By doing purification, you’re doing weeding, okay? It’s a simple way of saying And so there’s other practices that are like that in this tradition. One is called A certain practice we do called prostrations. And these are all, you know, if you look at everything, nothing has some absolute meaning.

You don’t have to sort of concretize it. Things are just conventional, the way they develop culture, and they develop certain meaning. In the West, we have a ritual of, you know, my putting my right hand out and you putting your right hand out, and we hold each other, and we know that means hello and it’s a warm thing, isn’t it? Isn’t it? This is convention, isn’t it?

So it looks weird. So Tibetan, they bump heads. That’s what they do. They go boink, know, like that. That’s weird.

I mean, that’s a convention. So prostrations are a convention. And what they mean is that we know this means hello. Aren’t you a nice person? It doesn’t mean I’m gonna kill you.

It could easily mean that, but it hasn’t meant that. So prostrations mean they’re a way of using your mind by visualizing certain things, saying certain prayers, relating things to certain Buddhas, and having the four opponent powers of regretting your negativity. There are certain practice developed conventionally that is for purification of body, speech and mind. But it’s dependent not on the physical action. It’s dependent on what’s in your mind and your intention and your purification, all this stuff, you know?

So, it’s said to be a very powerful And one does You know, the practice we do, for example, prostration to the thirty five Buddhas, a particular collection of Buddhas that are specifically related to purification. But it’s in I think it’s in all the Mahāyāna traditions. I mean, I can see the Vietnamese have this one, the Chinese have this one, but it’s in very in different ways. We do it in a certain way as it’s developed in the Tibetan tradition, you know. And it’s it’s said to be very powerful purification.

The recitation of these certain names, the visualization of these certain Buddhas, imagining light coming, and doing this physical action of prostrating. It’s said to be a very powerful purification practice. Is that what you meant or you want know more? Don’t know what. What’s the meaning behind it, you mean?

Yes, about the actual action of prostration Right. Prostration. Yeah. How it can benefit, you mean? Yeah.

What it’s about. Because I know how many was in a Okay. And you saw? I was very confronted by it. Saw a number of That’s right.

Monks there. That’s right. Doing this Laying themselves on the ground. And going, oh my god. I know.

Exactly. Exactly. Where’s your dignity? That’s exactly right. Exactly.

I understand exactly. No. It’s really it looks very embarrassing, doesn’t it? Kind of lying your entire body on the floor. I know, it’s quite shocking, isn’t it?

I agree. I agree. I agree. What can I say? All I know is that myself, having done it for twenty years, is one of the best practices that I can ever do.

Oh, it’s a good exercise. When Lama Yeshe, when I first met Lama Yeshe, my first Lama in Chenrezig Institute in nineteen seventy six, I asked him for a practice. And he said he told me to do prostrations. And he said he’d try to make it better for me. I was into karate at the time.

He said, it’s good physical yoga, dear, you know. So actually, it is. But I know for myself, okay, you know. I’m very proud. I still am very proud.

I’ve been a radical feminist, actually, so it was quite shocking to me to even like a person in a male body, but I couldn’t help but like this person. What could I do, you know? I what could I do? You know? Really, I mean it.

It was quite shocking to me. I mean, really shocking. No. I was a well, I mean, anyway. I’m always a bit of a anyway, don’t wanna be too personal here.

That’s how it was. I didn’t treat to men for several years. And then I couldn’t help but like Buddhism, and then there’s this person called Lama Yeshe in a male body. So, anyway, prostrations is what he gave me to do. And somehow, I liked this person called Lama Yeshe, I somehow liked what I heard in Buddhism.

And I went away and started doing it. And I think in spite of myself, I could feel something shifting. I mean, I was quite it is a very confronting thing. You’re lying completely on the ground, you know. It takes a lot of will and a lot of effort to do it well, to do it properly.

And I think I did it and I felt, even from the first time, I remember something sort of cracking inside me, something sort of, I don’t know, something shifting inside me. Really, I felt that from the very beginning. So it’s really hard to give a logical explanation about how it can work. But in the end, you know, it’s just like how does a hand if you’re trying to analyze, how does it work? That when I put my right hand out and you put your right hand out, we get a good feeling.

How does that work? It’s a really valid question, and it means the same thing. Well, you look behind that, it’s what’s in the mind, isn’t it? It’s the mind that counts. The action of putting your hand out and holding it, his essence was actually.

If you did it to Arturo, he’d probably, you know, you’d consider it a threat and he’d wanna stab you. I mean, it’s like, you know, disrespecting. I mean, I was joking now. So, if you really analyze a handshake, that’s what I’m saying, there’s nothing in a handshake inherently that’s innately virtuous, innately good feeling. So, obviously, it’s what you’ve invested in the handshake, in the culture, that gives it a good feeling, which is the mind behind it.

So that’s all that’s really, I think, how you understand anything. A prostration, how it can have value, is because it’s been invested over the centuries in these various cultures called Buddhism with a certain power, connected to certain visualization, connected to certain intention. And because it seems to be we can also see when you put your hand like this and I go like this, it’s obviously it’s got some language as opposed to the soft one. That’s got a language. And again, all it does show is what’s in the mind.

Only shows what’s in the mind, isn’t it? Because that’s, I think, the real way to try and break down how does a prostration work. It’s by analyzing it like this, then it’s finally what you’ve put into it and what you’ve invested in it that makes it what it is, you know, makes it the beneficial thing, makes it purification. It’s the mind behind it. Doesn’t it make sense?

I understand. Yeah. What you’re doing when you do these prostrations, yes, you’re visualizing this particular group of Buddhas. A Buddha is an enlightened being whom you’re trying to become like. Right?

This is the idea of what a Buddha is. And you’re visualizing light coming, just like we did with Vajrasattva. So, when you’re prostrating, yes, you say, I prostrate. To him who is the Bhagawan, the Tatagara, the other hand, the fully enlightened being, I prostrate. You prostrate to each one of these.

Yes, you’re paying respect. It’s a very humbling, respectful It’s a recognition of the qualities of another being, but the reason you want to recognize those qualities and bow to them is because you’re trying to develop those qualities in yourself. So it’s like if I really praise you for your extraordinary command, of that marvelous music, and I honor you for that, I mightn’t prostrate you because that’s not our culture, but it’s honoring you and respecting you. And if you’re a musician that I want to become like, I’m gonna kinda like, please show me how to do it too. So in a way, is, yes, absolutely, you’re prostrating to a Buddha, but the purpose behind it is to become like that yourself.

It’s not meant to be sort of saying, I’m such a creep and you’re so perfect. It’s just another method for lessening the obstacles in your mind that prevent you from being like that. It’s just another way. And, yes, it is a humbling thing to do. But the more I understand practice, the more I’m seeing that humbling myself is actually coming from a very confident place.

When you loathe yourself, you’re already a worm. You don’t wanna do anything to make yourself even lower. So itis only really when youive got confidence in yourself that you actually can humble yourself. Actually, all it is is learning to respect and wanting the qualities in someone else, and respecting those qualities that comes from a very healthy place. Thatis my own experience, actually.

So for us in the West, it is shocking. We have this culture of democracy and equality, and no one’s gonna be higher than me, and how dare anybody be higher than me, and we’re all equal. It’s in a sense it’s kind of an arrogance, really. And it’s coming from a fear place, you know. This is my way of saying it now, my understanding, you know?

Does that make sense? Yeah, because Mhmm. Those pilgrims see it. That’s right. Frustrating, on the ground.

That’s it, they do. From one I mean, it’s very interesting story. One of these lamas, I don’t know if he’s been to Adelaide, Kelsang Rinpoche, he’s attendant from He’s also a Rinpoche, a lama, and he didn’t escape from Tibet. So he was kept there for like twenty five, thirty years and was finally did many he had to do many terrible things and fight, kill animals and things and in prison and all the rest. So after this twenty five years or thirty years of suffering, it’s kind of interesting, what he did was, and before he went, he was let out of prison, so he then wanted to escape to India to go to see his lama.

Instead of first just going to India, what he did was decide to prostrate from eastern Tibet to Lhasa, and it took him two years to purify his negativity. I mean, he’d been in prison for thirty years, that wasn’t enough. So he prostrated the length of his body. Unless he picked himself up and didn’t have anything and nothing and just prostrated. Stopped where he stopped.

Whoever fed him fed him, and he got all the way to Lhasa. And then he took off and escaped to India. That’s it. Yes. That’s it.

Glove. Wooden things. That’s right. They’re really And you had a house on his Yeah. That’d be right.

Yeah. That’s it. It’s a very big practice, actually. A lot of these I mean, I think there’s so many similarities in looking at different cultures. Arturo was telling me that in Mexico, they do the same, you know?

But it looks they they kneel. I mean, they they they walk on their kneels. You know, they walk on their kneels to holy places and to LA. You So I think in all religious countries, there’s been a culture of things, especially Catholic countries. But I think in the West now, because we’re so cynical about these things and we don’t under you know, religion is just this, you know, an action of a weird person.

There’s no volition there’s no logic to it, and it’s just all kind of it’s all and we see it all wrong. It’s all got to do with guilt, and it’s all this we kind of just it really degenerate, it seems to me, a lot of this stuff. But all I know is that myself as a Catholic, since a little girl, I was strongly attracted to all this stuff. I had an incredible feeling for all these things. I mean, I didn’t ever see it as demeaning.

I didn’t ever feel guilty. I mean, I gave up to church just because I wanted to have sex with boys, you know? I didn’t feel guilty. I just said, goodbye, God, hello, sex. I mean, I didn’t have a problem, you know?

Whereas, my sisters had all this agony and suffering and complaints and dramas and guilt about it. And I just I didn’t ever feel guilty. I loved being a Catholic. I went to Mass seven mornings a week. I was a fanatic Catholic.

I loved God. I loved Alani. I loved the saints. I do all the the holy things, and I wanted all this. It made it it moved me deeply, you know.

So when it doesn’t come from guilt, I really understand religious practice. It makes sense to me. Okay. I happen to be a really wicked kid as well. Was all for me internal.

It wasn’t like a holy thing, and it wasn’t coming from guilt. I know a lot of people talk about it like that way, but I didn’t experience that way. I can tell you very sincerely. And I loved all those things. I’d go to mass every morning on my bicycle, you know.

I do conf I go to confession every day. I do the stations of the cross. I did all these things. I wanted more. I yearned to be oneness with God.

You know? It’s a similar event when I went back to today. Mhmm. Like, I’ve Right. Still Yes.

Very similar in the mentality, the temple, etcetera, the temple, etcetera. That’s right. But it’s in my Latin. Exactly. Same thing.

Very similar. I just saw the other day with the. That’s right. So similar. Rosary.

The Catholic and Tibetan are for me are so similar. So, so similar, know. If you look at That’s right. Ankara. Yes.

It’s almost unifying if they are married. That’s exactly right. So many things very similar. So I think there’s something in all that. And so it’s it’s interesting.

I mean, some of us in the west don’t have a comfort with all that. And this is why for me it’s so important to really try to break it all down and demystify it and find a way to comprehend it. And that means, I mean, even for me, example of talking about a handshake, it’s a very valid thing. It’s exactly the same. It’s just a language, just a way of doing something.

But in the end, everything is in the mind. It comes to what the mind is, you know? It comes to what’s in mind. Because that’s the point. Shaking hand with the thoughts, I wanna really kill you, shows that the handshake is a lie.

Doing a prostration with a thought, and I wanna get a healthy body, I look really holy, look at me, is a lie. You’re purifying anything. You’re going the opposite. You’re just creating more pride and more nonsense, you know? So in the end, the external way you do something is like a language.

There’s no meaning in I love you. It’s just a bunch of sounds coming out of a mouth that happened to be called English language. The point of it is what’s behind it, isn’t it? It’s obvious. So visual these Buddhas have no essential meaning.

It’s just there’s a form and a shape. A prostration has no essential meaning. I love you has no essential meaning. Everything is just convention. It’s what’s in the mind that gives it the power, isn’t it?

So then, obviously, what a prostration is, is it yes. It is prostrating yourself, putting yourself down with the wish to purify, to remove, to transform your own mind, to give yourself the strength, to be able to see your own qualities, to become this amazing being. Know? So I mean, somehow, if that well, if if we can understand that, then it has great meaning. Then, experientially, finally, it’s the proof of the pudding.

I can only tell you that I find the practice very powerful, you know? That’s all I can say, really. I can’t really give any more reason to why it works. I just know very powerful. Yes.

That’s right. Yes. That’s right. Who are you praying to? Yes.

It’s a reminder for ourselves. It is. No. It’s It’s like you’re praying Exactly. You’re praying to the Buddha’s, to the Buddha, which is the same as when I pray to God.

There’s no difference. For me, in my Tibetan practice, and my Catholic practice, there is no difference in that sense. But I can see, for me Okay. Maybe even then for me as a Catholic, was the same. I didn’t think the words, I wanna become God.

But in Buddhism, the reason I pray to the Buddhists is because it’s like, the reason I wanna pray to the Buddhas is because I’m trying to become like a Buddha. That’s all. So it’s like and many of the prayers are aspirational prayers. They’re like, may this and may that happen, and what are we doing? Spring cleaning or something.

What’s going on? Getting all these dudes for you so you can talk about that. Well, I mean, you’re talking about prayers and Okay. I helped you. Thank you very much.

So you’re praying to the Buddhas. And I mean, I pray to the Buddhas, let’s say I do a meditation on Tārā. Where’s Tārā? Come on, you failed your job. Where’s Tārā?

I’m at the sun. Okay, she’s somewhere. One of these Buddhas, okay? A swai Tārā. Okay, thank you very much.

So then, what it is? How am thinking when I pray? Okay. She is this particular female shape who represents a certain energy, and I see her as oneness with the mind of my own lama, whom I am seeing as the example of all these Buddhas, whom I’m using as my example and my inspiration every day. So there’s this very strong personal experience of praying to the the Buddhatara.

And the wish in my mind is so that I can develop those qualities in me. That’s the strongest wish I think. If I look at praying, that’s the wish behind it. This wish that that will get me one step closer. And so, in the same way, like I used the example, if she’s a piano player and I wanna play I wanna learn to be like her, I might prostrate to or do what’s called praying to her, but, effectively, that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?

I’m coming saying, please show me. I have a humility. I have an openness to you, I recognize your qualities, I wanna become like you, I say, please show me how to become a pianist, you know? So, a sense, for me, it’s really, and I’m not trying to make it silly, I really think that is the meaning behind prayer. And if not that, if it’s just please entertain me, then I think that doesn’t work.

It’s not actually asking for intervention in a voice in a sense. It’s asking no, even we have that whole thing of blessings, it’s like it is asking. In the simple sense, it is that. No, also, you think about it. I’m asking her to be the catalyst to help me get my music inside me.

I’m not asking her to put music into me, I’m not asking her to do all the work, I’m saying, I wanna become like you, I wanna become a musician, please show me how. So, in a way, she’s intervening, because she is the one who’s gonna show me the methods, but I have to do the work. So, I think that’s the relationship one has with the Buddhas or with your own guru. They are the teacher who has done the job, and you wanna be like them, so please show me. So they can give you blessings, if you wish.

She can bless me. Just by going to one of her concerts, it can move me profoundly. I can get a real inspiration. You can call that like a blessing, you know? Just to see it and the cold music might be nearly the same as having her play for me.

So I think that’s also the presence of the Buddhists. I mean, in that sense, I think blessings, all these things, absolutely. But the Buddhist approach is always seen as interdependent. The extent to which I’m able to get the blessings is the extent to which No. The extent to which you are able to bless me is the extent to which I have created the cause to be blessed.

This is, you know, this is the one of I mean, there’s an example, all the time examples of magic things in Tibet. The llamas can do this and so amazing. So there’s one story. For example, my friend Harry, who was a monk, was going up the mountains to Nepal, up to where Lama Zopa came from. Did I give the story about Lama Zopa today?

Was that yesterday? Yesterday. Thank you. Okay. Anyway, here’s this Lama, Lama Zopa.

He had a mother who died, that one, up in the mountains. So Harry was going to go up there with my friend Sarah, who’s a nun. And the night before that, Lama Zopa, our mutual lama, he had a dream that Harry died. So he wanted to get a message to Harry not to go, but he couldn’t. So, Harry went anyway.

So, what was interesting, what happened was Harry went up going up this narrow, little, you know, whatever you call it, path, thank you, path. And was moving he moved out and had a big pack on his back, and he and Sarah moved to the side to let some sherpas come down, and then Harry was on the edge, and he began to fall. And he was gonna die, definite. He was falling back into this ravine, or whatever it is. And he said his whole life passed away, all these things had happened.

And then suddenly, and everybody saw it, the Sherpas and Sarah, open mouthed, they didn’t see the hands, but he said he felt two hands push him back up, so he had them in a reverse direction. So, okay, that’s called a miracle. That means, let’s assume, that Lama Zopa, who seems to have He’s said to be a highly realized being who has the power to do these things. He was able to do that. But what Buddhism would say would be that a person who has this capability has it to do it for anybody, but his capacity to do it for anybody depends upon whether the person, from their own practice, has created the cause to be helped.

It’s interdependent. This is what they say, isn’t it? It’s interesting. So, again, I think it’s a simple example. If you were a doctor, perfectly qualified to heal every person because you’re so qualified.

But if I look at you and see that you’re some dummy, you can never cure me because you can’t even get near me, you know? So, your effectiveness as a doctor, which is perfect, is dependent completely on my wish to be healed and my willingness to allow you. So that’s the way they say how everything is interdependent, you know. Okay, Christians would say it’s free will. That’s a different way of saying maybe.

God is everything but it’s your free will, you know. Buddhists would say it’s interdependent, it’s up to your karma that you created, the merit you’ve created, to be able to be helped. So asking, you can ask till doomsday, but if I’m tone deaf, my asking will not help. Or if I don’t do the work, my asking will not help. She can only show me the methods, I have to do the work.

And that’s the approach, definitely, I think, a Buddha, seeing your prayers and everything. But prayer is just one of the many means, and it’s, in fact, seen as a vital one. The Buddhism would say, the Tibetans would say that, you know, aspirational prayers, linking with the holy beings, linking with the Buddhas, connecting with them, getting their blessings, and making many aspirations for many, many future lives is one of the major causes for much of the good stuff that happens to us, which is interesting, actually. Because, again, it’s the mind thinking really huge and big and positive, you know? Are you a Christian?

Did you say we Christians? No. No. No. No.

I’m not in the Christian world. I understand you. So I don’t know what to talk about. I can talk about anything you wish. Do you want me to I think it’s a good idea because people often walk in.

My sister walked in, she said, oh my god. You know? This is like something from another world. And I often think that it’s it’s a little off point because I don’t know if you feel a bit like that too. You know, why would I come to a place where there’s this under your grumpy Well, okay.

Well, I mean, we’re just so superstitious, that’s why. Because I mean, no, what I’m meaning is we have these superstitious minds that doesn’t like foreign things. Yeah. So as soon as you come see a person with square eyes or black skin, you get nervous. Yeah.

Well, just shows that dumb mind. So, you know, you just ask. It’s it’s walking into a place where they all speak French. Yes. Well, you’ve gotta learn French.

That’s okay. You just have to learn French. Don’t panic. Yeah. If people want to know.

Because they can’t see it and they can’t tell. I’ll hold now. Do you me to show and tell? Come on. Don’t worry, Danish.

People wanna know. What do people wanna know? Well, it’s tooth taking. I’m I’m sorry. Yes.

Quick. Come on. Quick. Love Crystal. Quick.

Pop it up. I’m interested in the Which way? Oh, that’s oh, that’s okay. Here’s the he’s called the Pänchen Rinpoche. I don’t know if you’re reading in the papers, but he’s the one that the Chinese kind of captured recently and got him kidnapped him.

He is that one there. Oh, there’s two kids. He’s the He’s the one who’s called the Pänchen Rinpoche, he’s the reincarnation of the past one who was this one of these high lamas after the Dalai Lama who was very politically kind of quite high in Tibet. Right? And then I think when he was very little, they apparently kidnapped him or something.

And then the other little boy show them the other one. Let me tell you about him. Is I’ll take the white stars. As you wish. Is twenty five, not much.

I’m going to tell a little story, it might take a long time. That’s Lama Osel. His name is Osel, which means clear light, and he’s Spanish. And here’s the reincarnation said to be of Lama Yeshe, who was the founder That’s Lama’s over. There’s Lama Yeshe.

This is the first Lama I met, the one I liked, didn’t know he was in a male body, in nineteen seventy six. Lama Yeshe, who’s the founder of this organization, of which this center is a part, and then he died in nineteen eighty four, and then he got born eleven months later born eleven months later out of the womb of Maria, the Spanish mother, one of his Lama Yeshe’s students. So he now has been recognized by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of Lama Yeshe, and he’s now thirteen, and he’s in a monastery in India, which is one of the monasteries that was in Tibet, and he’s sort of being retrained as a lama to carry on the job. So he’s going to be the first Westerner? Not the first.

There’s quite a few. There’s quite a few. Quite a lot now. He was one of the first, but there are quite a few. And there’s a woman there’s not many females, but there are some that’ll come more habitual, I think, the West.

There’s this woman in America. Actually, she’s forty something now. She’s been recognized as yeah. She has a monastery in Maryland, forty, fifty monks. She’s not a nun.

And she’s been recognized in No. She’s a lay woman. She’s been recognized as the in communication with a very high lama from Tibet. So, yeah, this whole one of reincarnation, I wanna talk about death maybe. There’s only ten minutes to go, so I have to talk awfully quickly.

I’ll try and sum it up. Okay. So one of the things in Buddhism, this is, again, answering more of your questions, another level of the death thing now. Like I mentioned briefly, I think, you’ve got these different levels of practice in Buddhism. You’ve got the different levels of practice.

And generally speaking, you can say you’ve got the more down to earth, if there’s such a word as exoteric teachings, most of the stuff all the stuff we’ve been talking about here, the day to day stuff about emptiness and day to day, karma, this stuff, Buddha’s kind of take on reality. Then you’ve the more esoteric teachings, which I mentioned briefly, which are known as tantra. And it’s come out of the culture of Hindu, but it’s very different. It’s got its own sort of style in particular philosophy. And there’s another take.

It’s a more sophisticated, if you like, approach to reality, and there are all sorts of practices related to it. And all these practices of these Buddhas and mantra and much other stuff as well is related to tantra. Now one of the approaches of tantra Okay, how to say all this quickly. You could basically say one of the differences in tantra in terms of the practices and the philosophy is that in ordinary teachings, as we’ve been discussing, the cause of suffering are said to be things like attachment and blah blah blah, which we didn’t talk too much about, but a little bit. Then in Highest Tantra, when you harness this energy, there’s actually something about it that you can use if you’re skillful enough.

There’s something about the very capacity of the human body, the human mind, to experience pleasure and bliss that is an energy that can be used. But the in meditation, and I’ll explain why, and The only person who can use this energy is a person who’s harnessed it, a person who’s controlled it, who can then sort of like the analogy of using poison for medicine. It’ll kill you if you just kind of shove it in, but if you’re skillful, you can transform poison into medicine. That’s the analogy to use here. So one of the principles in tantric approach to reality And there’s a very good book published by Wisdom by Lama Yehi called Introduction to Tantra, which is very helpful in explaining, demystifying it, because it’s quite mystified in the West, I think.

There’s this concept that you can by utilizing this capacity of the human being to experience bliss, it is a very powerful like energy, a powerful energy that can allow can help you in meditation, get your mind to the very subtle level, which is what is needed in order to really get all the realizations, to really cut through the nonsense. So, this is I’m trying to link this to death now. So, one of the times when this very subtle or clear light or indestructible consciousness is activated is at the time of death. Seeing as most of us don’t have any memory of a past death and have no way of controlling death, then we miss this opportunity every time we die. So, what many of the practices in tantra are about, by utilizing the energy of bliss, by meditations that generate bliss in the mind, this bliss is like a rocket that gets the mind very quickly to the very subtle level of consciousness, which normally we’re never able to access.

And these yogis or yoginis, these male and female practitioners, are very accomplished in these different types of practices, where they use or harness the energy of bliss, but with complete control in their very deep meditation. And it’s like this rocket that gets the mind to a very subtle state. And the very subtle state, or clear light consciousness, is the point. In other words, this is the subtlest level of our conscious being. It happens naturally every time we die.

But because we’re not accomplished, like I said, we miss the opportunity. But if you’re able to die with complete control, and these yogis and yoginis who practice in their waking life various methods that allow them to get to this very subtle level, are able to die with complete control, and they mean complete control. You go through the death process. You get to the stage where you stop breathing, which is normally what we consider you’re ready for the fridge, right? And you’re not ready for the fridge in this term.

Your mind or your consciousness is still in your body. You look like you’re dead, but you’re actually awake. You’re conscious at a subtle level. And you’re able to go all the way through this process to the very subtle level, the clear light consciousness, and you’re actually able to remain there for hours or even sometimes weeks to meditate, looking like you’re dead, basically. It sounds weird in Western terms, but in Tibetan and Buddhist terms, it’s normal.

So Lama Yeshe, for example, was said to be one of these practitioners who was capable of, for example, using the sleep process, which is analogous Physiologically, it’s very similar to the death process, the way all the Buddhist tantric teachings teach, right? There’s much detailed description of what happens. So, physiologically, it’s very similar. So yogis and yoginis are able to go through the sleep process and into the dream mind with complete control. They don’t actually ever become unconscious.

So that’s developed by harnessing the energy of the human mind, especially this bliss energy, which is very potent. Okay? This is where where this kind of symbolism of sexuality and things come in. It’s just a symbolic kind of representation of this energy, right? So Lama Yeshe was capable.

Basically, as Lama Zopa said, he never actually slept, but every day, because he had a bad heart, he would sleep every day looking like he slept. But in fact, he was in very subtle meditation, using his mind in a powerful way. So such that when he died, when he was just forty nine, he had a heart disease. He had a missing valve when he died at the age of forty nine in a hospital in America. Even though when he ceased breathing, and Lama was with him and many of his students, they took him to another room, and then he was allowed to lie there and just be there for like ten, twelve hours, looking like he was dead in Western terms.

But as far as the Buddhist terms are concerned, as Lama Zopa was concerned, he was actually in meditation, as he put it. Basically, he was able to access that very subtle, clear light mind and stay there and meditate and remove all the obstacles, see reality as it is, become a Buddha, all these different things. That’s how they talk, just sort of roughly speaking. So then, when the time was ready, his consciousness then would leave his body. Now, in detail, in tantra, they go through the process of death.

And another way we would meditate on death is in these terms. In your meditation, you would go through, you’d imagine the various stages of death, you know. So, roughly speaking, and I’ll try and do it very quickly, they talk about death being this gradual process of throwing off, first, the grosser levels of one’s being, the conceptual, the sensory, all of this, which is fairly evident. You know, as I said, by the time you get to the point where you’re no longer breathing, the breath has gone out and no longer comes in, the four senses have all ceased, the sense gradually each at their own stage, the capacity to remember many things, to see past, to have pleasure and pain, to recognize your friends, your enemies, who you are, what they do, all this stuff. It’s not like your memory is gradually going, becoming smaller and smaller.

In other words, you throw off all the gross levels of the conceptual world and the sensory. By the time you get to the stage of no longer breathing, your subtle consciousness is now awake, the one that we tend to experience in dreams. And then various things then continue to happen, where you get eventually to the very subtle level. And then, even ordinary people, they say, even if you’re not a meditator, you’re actually unconscious at this point, but you’re still not dead. And usually, mostly for Buddhists, you leave the body for a couple of days undisturbed, before you And then there are certain signs that indicate that the consciousness has left the body.

And then what the consciousness does is go into what they call an intermediate state, which is very similar, they say, to the dream state. So they say that going to sleep is similar, physiologically, the way they describe it in terms of all the airs, the prana, subtle channels and all this, is very similar to the process of death, just death’s more dramatic. But the dream state is very similar to this intermediate state between lives. And then the waking up state is very similar to the being reborn, you know. So they use these as analogies.

So after death, when the consciousness has And by the time you stop breathing too, already the karmic seed that will determine your future life, either one of positive or negative energy, will have ripened. So, which is why they often say when a person dies with great peace, it’s because they’re actually going to have a good future rebirth, and you already see kind of signs and visions of it. Or a person who dies with a very unhappy mind, freaking out, imagining they’re seeing things, hallucinating with great fear and panic, is because they’re seeing signs of a future, very suffering life. Because already the karmic seed has ripened by the time you stop breathing. And then the intermediate state is this dream state, like a dream, very similar, much more dramatic, though, because, basically, there’s this huge sense of grasping that ripens at the time of death, because the I, this fantasy I, doesn’t want to die, as we know it very well.

And so there’s this enormous sense of grasping, this fear of loss, you know? So, even if the mind is going to take a good rebirth, there’s still this huge grasping, and when you’re in this intermediate state, it’s just like a dream state, in the way that you go from here and there, and it’s all kind of weird and everything, there’s no real shape and form, and there’s no usual sense of space and time, But it’s very fearful, generally speaking, because there’s this huge grasping after another basis for another eye. This is the thing that propels us from life to life, this powerful grasping energy, just kind of instinctive, you know? And so in these dreams, this so called intermediate state can last, let’s say, up to forty nine human days, you know? It can feel a lot more.

It could last just a second too. If you’re gonna be born as a scorpion, there’s likely more scorpion eggs available, so you don’t have to wait so long. Go zap straight in, you know? Sometimes you have to wait a bit if you want a human womb. No, really.

I mean, look at the numbers. It’s just numbers here, you know? It’s not moral. So anyway, if you’re gonna be born another human, they say, roughly speaking, you have because you’re in a dream, a like a dream state, you’re in a body less. Because you’re body less, then you have kind of power if the mind can see past and future, you see different things.

Like in dreams, you do amazing things. You can fly in the sky and do remarkable things in dreams, can’t you? And that’s your dream mind actually functioning, you know? People even leave their bodies into all sorts of things, and there’s a lot of stuff in the West talking about that now. So anyway, in this dream state, you’re not in this intermediate state, you’re desperately looking for this next life, not quite know where and what.

And then eventually, they say you’ve got the calm and you’ve mourned as a human again. They say it’s interesting, Freud would love this, I tell you. They say there’s this powerful attraction. If you’re gonna be born a female, I think this is just talking ordinary heterosexual people, really, I think truly, it is this. If you’re gonna be born a female, you’re hugely attracted to the father, huge desire and energy for the father.

That’s what they say in the text, it’s all written. And then, if you’re be born a male, it’s the opposite. You’re truly attracted to your mother. So your mind, by being attracted to this, because you have the clairvoyance to see it, know, you could have died in America and they’re in Ethiopia and boom, the next instant, you zap there, you have this sort of like mini death in this intermediate state, and your mind kind of wakes up at the egg and sperm, and then you get really furious, because they’re in sexual union they say this in the text you get furiously angry, and that causes your little mind to die again and zap into the egg and the sperm, and off you go you start a new life. So, already, starting off with huge desire and huge anger, know, it’s kind of interesting.

Interesting, isn’t it? That’s what they say in the text. I’m telling you, this is Buddhist. Isn’t it interesting? Does that have some light levels of cartoon books too?

And all this is said to be the experience of yogis who remembered it. It’s like Einstein’s discoveries. I’m giving you Buddhist yogis experiences. You have to believe him. She doesn’t look.

I have no idea, they don’t talk to that Buddha didn’t obviously deal with those but I’m only assuming here that it sounds like, if you’re hugely attracted to the mother, then you’re be born a female, a father well, obviously, maybe homosexuals are I’m just speculating. It doesn’t mention it in the text. Doesn’t it make sense? But God knows what they do now with all these other types of rebirths, in bottles and freezers and everything. That’s a weird one.

I don’t know. Is there any explanation of this? No, I haven’t heard, but I can only speculate knowing Buddha’s teachings. There’s just, again, the karma. You know, the way Buddhism would say about that is that, like I said, maybe I didn’t say it today, but when you start, basically when you start, is when the egg and sperm come together, and then what makes them stay together is the entry of your consciousness from intermediate state and due to past karma with these two new parents so the moment that egg and sperm what makes them stay together is the entry of your consciousness into it So, obviously, if, you know, so what are some of these frozen things?

Are they eggs and sperms together in frozen things? Or is it just the egg or just the sperm? What is it? How do they do all these artificial births now? Just separate.

Separate together. When? At what stage? When I was pregnant. What?

I thought they froze embryos. I thought they also froze embryos. So then, okay, if it’s an embryo, in Buddhist terms, my feeling is that there must have been a consciousness gone into that. So, in a sense, it’s like freezing a tiny human being, which is pretty heavy duty, actually. Now, if it’s just an egg, there’s no human consciousness there.

But, obviously, the consciousness of the being, because, you know, Buddhism we’re in the West, we think we are making a human being. But, in Buddhist terms, there has to be a consciousness who has karma with that egg and that sperm to even go into it, to make it a living thing, which is a very interesting story, an extra dimension to it. So, yes, all you’re doing is creating the conditions, is what Westerners of an egg and a sperm and this is where, in Buddhist terms, it’s kind of ridiculous, because you think it’s my egg and my sperm, but actually it’s a consciousness that could have come from a bloody cow in the past life! You understand what I’m trying to say? It’s a new human being there, but we think it’s ours, it’s my sperm, my eggs.

This is this very ownership thing, which is, in Buddhist terms, kind of absurd, really. You have to do all this external engineering. You just create the karma. This is the Buddhist approach. Same one with trying to bother putting your head in the fridge for forty years in case they invent new things.

You just get them decent rebirth. It’s just so silly. Anyway, so any questions so a person like Lama Yeshe, because he was said to be a highly realized being, he had control over this process. He’d done the work he was technically capable and highly realised, and realised emptiness, all this stuff, blah blah. So, he was able to go through the death process with complete control, leave the body when he felt like it, stay in some kind of suspended state of utter bliss in what they call pure land, like a state of non birth, and then when the time was right, zap into the new womb of the chosen mother, you know, which whom he chose completely was volition.

So, chose to be reborn, they say, to the mother called Maria, who was one of Lama Yeshe’s students, you know. So then he got born, and Pako, the father, saw him with a big beam on his face, so called him let’s call him clear light, he said. Osel. So that’s what his name is. So then, fourteen months oh, exactly.

Well, how they look for him then, I think there’s all these different methods in Tibet, where the lama, the disciple of previous lama so in this case, lama Zopa Rinpoche, who’s the lama of the center now. He also himself said to be clairvoyant, all his qualities, blah blah blah. He’s the one whose mother died with the life in the mountains. He he would then do, like, searching, checking out in his own with his own clairvoyance. They would say to check where Lama’s mind was, blah blah blah.

At a certain point, then would when knowing maybe he’d already become conceived, well, then they’d do this checking. They kind of meet different children. They call them candidates. It’s already professional, you know? So they meet different kids, and then they check them out.

They have a short list, and they send that. In this case, they sent the short list to the Dalai Lama, and he checked the names and got his other Lamas to do checking out, and they’re blah blah blah, like this, and all holy things and rubbish, Not rubbish. And then they came to the conclusion that it was Lama Osel, this little Spanish boy. And it actually was an interesting experience I had. When he was six months old, when Lama Zopa met him for the first time, Lama Zopa was in London, and I was London working for Wisdom Publications at the time.

And Lama Zopa happened to have a photo of himself on a throne, like up here, with this little boy, this six month old boy next to him. I remember, and he just sort of showed me this photo like that. He didn’t say anything. He just showed me the photo. And I was thinking, oh, do you think this is Lama Yeshe?

I looked at it, I didn’t see anything, so I just gave it back. I remember it’s very clearly that thought, you know? So, obviously, he was doing that. He was checking out if other people recognized. Well, I didn’t recognize anything.

So, anyway, when he was by even that point, he talked to the mother, asked Maria various questions, what he was like, how was the birth, how does he behave, you know. So then, when he was fourteen months old, which is quite young, he got Maria to bring the boy to India to meet Lama, for Dalai Lama, to have it finally kind of approved, you know? So the Dalai Lama said when he met him, he said, yes, it would seem that this is the right one, but as always, he will show who he really is as he gets older, you know? So then he was formally recognized, then became known as Tenzin Ösel Rinpoche, which is the title they give, and being trained in an appropriate way. So people say, I mean, as he gets older, people he will show his own qualities, show his from his own side, show who he really is.

So that’s the story. They all say that, as children, they do have, you know, very vivid. And they all then say they tend to lose it. But I think it’s hard to know with all these Tibetans because one of the main practices is to have great humility and to not admit to any powers at all. So the Dalai Lama is said to be a completely enlightened being, which means he’s omniscient, he’s omnipotent, and he has infinite compassion for every living being.

But he insists he’s an ordinary Buddhist monk. And I think for him to say any less would outrageous, because as soon as he agreed he’s omniscient, he’s going have to prove it, otherwise it’s to burn him at a stake. Can you imagine the West was so cynical? So it’s best for him to say he’s an ordinary monk, I think. But he says he’s everybody else says he’s a Buddha, so it’s hard to know who’s who.

So Lama Osel, I think with all these Lamas, they’ve got clairvoyance, they can see people’s minds, and this is what they say. Bye bye. Yeah. So you’re saying if there’s an emboli, so the consciousness has already come in and then it’s frozen. If it has.

If it has. Yes. Then it’s frozen. And that’s that person’s That’s a being. It’s a karma.

Yeah. For sure. It’s like being in a hell realm. Not like being in a tell me it’s going to. Bye bye.

Thank you very much. Precisely, no, of course not. You help a person according to their capability. I mean, way, the most skillful way, the most basic and skillful way to help any person at the time of death is to help them alleviate the panic and the pain and the fear. So, however you can be around them, even when she’s just old, is to sort of allow her to be comfortable about dying.

I mean, sometimes, I know it was my old aunt in wherever she lives now, Echuca. She doesn’t really I mean, no one talks about death with her. But it’s obvious she’s eighty, losing her mind, you know, she’s forgetful and kind of completely talking about being sick and everything, so I was very open with her because she’s open with me, so I talk about reincarnation. And she enjoys to talk about it, and sort of it’s appropriate to talk about it to her. She chatters on for a while and forgets about it and talks about something else, but it is helpful.

So I try to say practical things, well, Minnie, you’ve got to die. We’re all dying, darling. What’s to do? This is life. Oh, God, what a drag.

Is it a pain in the bum, isn’t it? Know Bob’s, isn’t it? And then you go, wow, I can reincarnation. That’s a good idea. Yeah, that’s interesting.

What do you think? So it’s just like an ordinary friendly conversation. But you’ve got to get a sense of what the space is. If she doesn’t like it, of course I wouldn’t talk about it. Freak out, you know?

So I just try to get her to recognize, remind her that she’s impermanent, death is definite, for God’s sake, she’s gonna be, for any minute, gonna be dying, at least have a happy mind, try and relax, try and forgive, try and let go of all the rubbish. What’s the point of holding on to it? You can’t make it set in a joking way, but I mean, you know, every one of us is dying to know what’s happening. And as you get older, we can’t help. Even if we’re pretending we’re not dying, we can’t help but notice, you know?

So I think if we can be brave enough to say some things about impermanence, accepting, not being holy about it, being normal about then it kind of cuts through the rubbish, you know? I mean, it all depends on you and your relationship with your mother, but you know what I’m saying? Not to be afraid of it, you know? And that’s why anybody who has got an illness, it forces to confront. So there’s some level of reality there, you know?

Even when you’re eighty something, you still don’t think you’re gonna die because you’re not called sick. It’s kinda crazy, you know? So I think anything you can do, but the one is just to sort of help a person let go and relax and just know it’s okay, you know? And whatever views they’ve got. So if they’re an agnostic, what can you do?

If they’re a Christian, you know, speak Christian things and remind them to think about it, you know? Isn’t it? The main thing is to help a person die with a happy mind because that will write them positive energy at the time of death. This is what’s important. Absolutely.

Yes. That’s why one of the main reasons to meditate on impermanence, this is what I was talking to my aunt about, because recently she’s very old, had this big old house and saving everything for the last ninety years, and my sister spent, you know, fourteen trucks of stuff chucking them all out. Of course, she’s having a mental breakdown now when she came out of the hospital to go into a new little tiny apartment in the city of Echuca as opposed to on the river. She’s freaking out, you know, because her husband died. Suddenly, she’s panicking, where’s that sink brush that I had fourteen years ago?

And making lists of things that people have thrown out and getting all paranoid. And I keep saying, Nini, darling. I mean, her name’s Robina, actually, too, but we call her Nini. Come on, say, Nini, darling, you’re gonna die anyway, and you might as get up attaching to it now, which is the point. You know?

I said, when you die, Nini, you’re gonna have to not worry about your little sink brush. So, I mean, it’s blunt, but she can get it. She can hear it, you know? So why be worried now? Why not?

And this is a practical approach. If you really know you’re gonna die, you start letting go of attachment now. It’s good practice. Why wait till you’re gonna die when it’s gonna be panic stations? I mean, how ridiculous, you know?

Just common sense. So, yes. When you and Lama Zopa says, we should act as if we’re gonna die today. Do you think about that? You’d be so alert.

You’d have such an amazing life. I remember reading even a couple of years ago, one of these American magazines, I get all these magazines, People magazine, about what’s his name? Kirk Douglas. He had a stroke. He’s eighty something too, practically dead for God’s sake, you know?

But here he is, this handsome man, he does all these push ups, he’s these big muscles, and he’s also this famous person, but suddenly he had a stroke. He said it was the best thing that ever happened. He said it’s made life that much sweeter for him. He’s now more religious. He thinks