Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Sangye Khadro opens this 104-minute retreat session with participant questions about recognizing real progress in meditation. Her answer: look at how you treat others—more patience and kindness, less anger. She addresses a common paradox: why do beginners feel they have more negative thoughts? Because they are becoming aware of what was always there. The session spends considerable time on working with anger and compassion, anchored by a striking account of a Tibetan lama at Auschwitz who felt compassion for both victim and torturer. She then guides an extended analytical meditation on impermanence—contemplating how the body, mind, and all things around us constantly change at the atomic level—and explores how accepting this truth deepens rather than diminishes our ability to love and appreciate beauty. Practical instruction for early practitioners navigating common obstacles to meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 2005 02 12 MW.mp3
UUID: da645699-b51a-4696-b86d-d0d706740a0f
Teacher: Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald
Collection: How to Meditate Weekend (Ven Sanghy Khandro aka Kathleen McDonald)
Date: 2005-02-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 104.6 minutes
Words: ~11,733
So we can start with any questions that may have come up during your discussion groups that you didn’t get answered. Any leftover questions? Yeah. We have one: “In a way, how do you know if it’s working when you meditate as well?” You mean, like, within the session, within a session, or just in general if your practice of meditation is going well?
Well, I think probably it was part of it. Talked about it a bit. Yeah. But Because one time, was asked the question by a student, you know, how do you know if your meditation practice is going in the right direction, you’re doing it right? And he answered by saying that if if your meditation is going well, then you should see some changes in your way of dealing with people, interacting with people.
You should see that you’re becoming more kind, more patient, more compassionate, more helpful, less angry, less selfish, and so forth in your way of dealing with other people. So I said if you can see that there’s improvement there, then that shows your meditation is progressing and you’re doing it right. On the other hand, if you’re getting worse, if you’re becoming more impatient, more angry, more selfish and so on, then there’s something wrong. And if there’s no change at all, again, you know. But then again, we it does take time to change so we we have to have sort of realistic expectations, although it’s better not to have any expectations at all.
But we have to be realistic in in our ideas about meditation. It so so again, you know, the real idea of meditation, the point of meditation is self improvement, like, you know, becoming a nicer person, a more positive person, and and becoming less, you know, greedy and selfish and angry and so forth. But we can’t expect that that’s gonna happen just in a couple of days or weeks or months or even years. You know? It takes time to bring bring about those kind of changes in ourself.
So I once heard the Dalai Lama say that in his experience, it takes about five years to see the results of meditation. I’m not sure exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant some kind of realization, but, you know, we may not need to wait that long. But still, we shouldn’t have very high expectations that, you know, within a short period of time, you know, we should become a very different person and stop having, you know, anger and attachment and all these other things. So it definitely takes time to bring about that kind transformation of the mind.
So so we need to be patient, to not have high expectations, to just keep practicing without sort of, you know, greedily grasping at the signs of progress. They definitely will come. You know, definitely changes will take place, but they may not happen within, you know, a desired period of time. So it’s better not to have any ideas about, you know, some kind of time frame. Within a year, you know, I’m definitely gonna be a different person.
Or, you know, if if we have those kind of ideas, then that’s actually a hindrance that will hinder our progress. So it’s there’s a nice analogy in the teachings about like, if you have a buck a big bucket of a big bucket and you put it under a a faucet and the faucet is dripping, like, just one drop at a time is falling from the faucet into the bucket, Eventually, the bucket will get filled up, you know, if you leave it there long enough. And if you’re patient enough, the bucket will get filled up, but it’s slow. And it’s similar to our the the transformation of our mind that we’re trying to work on. What we’re trying to do is, you know, bring in more positive thoughts, positive experiences.
And if we do that little by little, day by day, month by month, year by year, slowly, you know, our mind will get filled up with more positive kinds of thoughts and feelings, and there’ll be less space in our mind for the negative ones. The negative ones will not be as prevalent. So it, you know so so it’s important to just keep practicing, just keep working at it. And if we do that without grasping for experiences or changes or some kind of results, then they will happen, definitely. But then specifically, with regard to, like, how to know if your meditation if you’re doing your meditation properly and getting the right results.
In the text, there are explanations on what ideally should happen if your meditation is going well depending on what kind of meditation you’re doing. So, like, so far, the meditation that that we’ve been doing is the meditation on the breath, and that’s one of the most common, well known meditations. And that’s well, there’s different reasons, different purposes for doing that kind of meditation. One is just becoming more aware, knowing yourself better, knowing what’s going on in our minds so that we can know what we have to work with. But another purpose of that kind of meditation is to learn concentration, to learn how to keep our mind focused so that it’s not wandering here and there.
And so there are teachings on how to develop single pointed concentration. In the Tibetan tradition, probably most traditions as well, they have a term in English, we we translate it as calm abiding. In Sanskrit, I think it’s Samatha in Tibetan, it’s Shine. So that’s a specific kind of practice for cultivating single pointedness of mind, the the ability to keep our mind focused without wandering here and there, without being dull and sleepy and so forth. And and there’s a whole body of teachings on how to do that.
May maybe some of you’ve heard teachings on that or read books on it or whatever. There’s an explanation on, you know, what what sort of obstacles you might encounter as you’re trying to do that, how to deal with those obstacles, how to overcome them. Different stages you’ll pass through. Like, there’s nine stages that you pass through on your way to attaining this ability we call calm abiding. When you actually attain it, you have the ability to keep your mind focused on whatever object you choose for as long as you want, even hours, even days without getting tired or hungry or bored or or your mind being distracted.
Just just an incredible bliss, you know, this incredible physical and mental bliss. And so so if you study those teachings, then you can gauge where you’re at in your meditation. If you’re if if that’s what you’re aiming for, you’re trying to achieve that calm abiding. Then there’s another main form of meditation in the Tibetan tradition which we call analytical meditation. Sometimes it’s called yeah.
I think analytical is the usual name for it. And that kind of meditation is somewhat different than the single pointed meditation. In analytical meditation, you use thought. You you use thinking, analysis. And you don’t just think about anything, but you think about specific topics, specific subjects.
And these are topics that are, you know, from the Buddhist teachings, and they are for the purpose of transforming our mind along the path. We have wrong ideas, wrong conceptions about things that need to be recognized and corrected, and then we need to develop correct, realistic ideas and conceptions about the way things are. And so for that for for for doing that, for for making that kind of mental transformation, use analytical meditation. So in in in this tradition, the Tibetan tradition, especially the Gelugpa tradition that we’re part of here, there’s a body of teachings called the the Lamrim or path to enlightenment. And this is something that evolved through Indian teachers and Tibetan teachers over the centuries, where they took the main points that the Buddha taught and arranged them in a step by step form, showing us what we need to do to get from where we are now, which is unenlightened, to where we can get to, which is enlightenment.
So it’s the path to enlightenment, the stages of the path to enlightenment. So it consists of a number of different topics or subjects that are to be meditated upon. We first learn them by listening to teachers, studying, getting a, you know, correct understanding of them, and and then meditating on them using analytical meditation, mainly thinking, analyzing meditation. And so so there’s also in the teachings explanations on how to know if and when you’ve actually attained a realization of any of these topics, what sort of signs should take place. So so that’s also available.
Yeah. So if you’re doing one of those kind of meditations, then there’s an explanation on how to know if if it’s going correctly or not. But in general, I think we can say that go back to what Lama Yeshe said, and that that, you know, the purpose of meditation is to make our minds more positive, less negative. And so if if we can see that happening, if we can see that we have fewer negative thoughts, anger, and so forth, and more positive thoughts in our mind and feelings, then that shows our meditation is we’re we’re meditating well and proper and it’s going in the right direction. But again, you know, that’s something that takes time.
And initially, like I was saying this morning, when we first start practicing meditation, we may have the impression that there are more thoughts than before. And we also may have the impression there are more negative thoughts than before. But, you know, again, if that happens, it’s probably just because we we’re we’re noticing what was always there, but we just didn’t notice it before. You know what I mean? Like like one lady went said that, you know, after she started coming to Buddhist talks, she started to notice how much anger she had.
She always had it, you know, she was getting angry all the time, but she just didn’t have that awareness of the anger, you know, she would just get angry and then, you know, carry on with her with whatever she was doing. So so learning about Buddhism and learning about meditation and starting to practice meditation made her become aware of her anger. And so once we start becoming aware of our negative thoughts and negative emotions, we may be surprised at how frequent they are. We may think that they’re on the increase rather than on the decrease, but that probably isn’t the case. It probably is that we are just becoming aware of them.
And yeah. And that’s an important thing. Yeah. Like if we if if they’re happening but we’re not aware of them, then, you know, we can’t really do anything about them. So we need to become aware of them first so that we can work on them.
But that that that process can be quite painful, quite distressing. We start noticing our anger and our greed and our selfishness and our jealousy and our pride and our all these things. So people often feel quite unhappy and depressed and, you know, like, oh, yeah. I’m not sure I wanna look at all this stuff. So so that’s a a common reaction.
But if you notice that happening, try not to feel that way and instead try to think, you know, that that this is a necessary part of the process of self growth and transformation. We have to see what’s going on in order to heal ourselves. Just like a person who is sick, for example, like there’s cancer growing in the body. Right? There’s cancer cells spreading in the body and and that can be happening without our knowing it.
So if we’re feeling a bit unwell, we go to the doctor, doctor does some tests and then gives us the results of the test and the results are, you know, there’s cancer. So we feel pretty unhappy to hear that news. But, you know, it’s important for us to know that so that we can do something about it. We can make changes in our lifestyle or, you know, do whatever operations or treatments are are needed in order to stop the growth of the cancer cells. So if we don’t if we don’t know about it, then we’ll just carry on living as we did before and letting the cancer cells just, you know, take over our body.
So so even though it’s it’s not very pleasant, you know, to know about that, but it’s it’s important to know it so that we can take the steps that need to be taken in order to become well again. So if we think of it in that way, if we think, well, it’s good that I’m becoming aware of these things in myself that need to be worked on because now I can work on them. Whereas before, they were just, you know, there and happening in my mind, happening in my life, creating lots of problems, I and I didn’t know about it, so I couldn’t do anything about it. So we should try to feel positive about recognizing these negative, disturbing thoughts and feelings in our mind rather than feeling depressed. Does that make sense what I’m saying?
Because there are definitely things we can do. If there’s nothing we can do, then it would be depressing. Right? If it wasn’t possible to change our mind, then it would be better not to know, to just, you know, be oblivious, to what’s going on. But but there are things we can do.
There are ways we can work on our mind and decrease them, heal them, change them, and make our mind more positive. So there’s really no reason, no good reason for us to feel depressed or upset if we notice these things in our mind. Is it? Why why do you think that happens? Why do you think we feel sort of depressed and upset when we notice unpleasant, disturbing, Fear.
Fear of what? Just all of a sudden, have these overwhelming angry feelings and all of and you don’t know how to deal with it. You don’t know how to squash them. It’s the unknown. Yeah.
Maybe maybe you the realization you’re further back than what you thought. You have a further to go than you thought. You have a further more yeah. More work to do than you thought you had. You wanted it to be easy.
Easy and quick, and it’s gonna be long and hard. Think sometimes do. So I think sometimes you can identify with a thought, like, you believe that if you’re angry, then you if you feel angry, then you’re an angry bad person rather than just acknowledging that it’s just a thought that’s flashing past and dissociate yourself from that. Yeah. I I think that’s one of the big problems we have is this tendency or habit to identify with what we in our mind, identify with our anger or our fear or our depression as if that is me, that’s who I am.
And I think that’s something that just happens in a very subtle sort of subconscious way, not that we do it deliberately, but it’s just an automatic response. As soon as, you know, one of these disturbing or negative emotions come up in our mind, there’s just automatic identification with it. That’s me. And so I think one of the I was talking about this last night, for those who came to that talk. One of the most helpful things we can do when we do notice these things in our mind is to to realize that they are not me, that they are just things happening in my mind like clouds floating through the sky rather than me, who I am.
And one sort of practical way we can do that is is just to say to ourselves, like if there’s anger, anger coming up, say to ourselves, anger is in my mind. Anger is in my mind, rather than our usual mantra, which is I am angry. I am angry. One lady I knew in Singapore told me she she she tried that once when her fourteen-year-old daughter was misbehaving, which she did quite frequently. And the mother would always, you know, lose her temper, get really angry at her daughter, which she didn’t like.
So she wanted to find a way not to lose her temper with her daughter. So so she heard about this idea and she tried it out. So the next time her daughter was misbehaving and the mother could see the anger coming up in her mind, and she just started saying to herself, anger is in my mind, anger is in my mind, anger is in my mind. And she was able to just let go of it without losing her temper. So that’s really, really helpful if we can realize that.
Yeah? Same with depression. If you find yourself feeling depressed or dark, heavy, those kind of feelings, again, know, there’s often this tendency to feel, oh, that’s me. You know, I’m always like this. This gonna last forever.
It’s never gonna go away. So to just say, oh, there’s depression in my mind. So it’s getting some distance from that experience rather than buying into it, rather than feeling oneness with it, that is who I am, identification with it. So actually, if we can do that, then that disturbing thought or emotion emotion will not be as strong, will not be as powerful. Because, you know, if we buy and if we identify with it or buy into it, it actually kind of feeds it, gives it more power, like putting kerosene on the fire.
So it really does become much stronger, more powerful, and more scary, and potentially harmful. Whereas just seeing it as just an impermanent, momentary, passing phenomena in my mind, a mental state that just happens to be coming and going in my mind. So if we can see it like that, we’re not giving it so much power and it won’t have so much power. We’ll be able to just notice it and let it go. So it’ll probably go away more quickly.
It doesn’t mean it will go away instantly but it may take some time to go away. But it will probably go away more quickly than if we identify with it and sort of buy into it. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think that kind of anger is is connected with compassion because there’s a person or people or beings that are being treated unjustly unfairly and are probably suffering as a result of that.
So you’re aware of that and and you feel this is wrong. This should be happening. You know, one person or one group is mistreating another. So there’s probably some compassion there for the victims, the ones who are being mistreated, which is a positive thing. But then so it’s completely understandable.
I mean, we we all get angry about things like that. But then when we get angry, the anger well, there’s different things we can look at. One one is does it really help? Does it do any good to get angry? Express it in particular ways.
Do they? Or Yeah. Or even to feel it. You know? Because if it’s something happening on the other side of the world and you don’t have any power to change it, Yeah?
And if you’re just sitting in your living room reading your newspaper, you know, and feeling angry, what good does it do? Does it do any good? Does it help at all? Is it gonna bring about any kind of change? So, I mean, it can it can motivate people to do things.
Yeah? People can be motivated by anger to well, sometimes people are motivated by anger to do violent things, which from the Buddhist point of view would not be helpful. That’s just making things worse. But but anger can sometimes motivate people to do positive, productive things like, you know, go over and do something to help those people that are being mistreated. Yeah?
Try to help them out or do do work on the political level, you know, right to Amnesty International or join amnesty. You know, do do there are things that you can do to at least try to stop the injustice or alleviate the suffering of the people that are being mistreated. As so from the Buddhist point of view, as long as what you’re doing in response to your anger is something ethical and nonviolent, then that would be fine. That would be great, you know, if it actually motivates you to do something positive. But if it motivates you to to be violent, you know, that that would not be considered proper from a Buddhist point of view, which is sometimes what happens, you know, because anger has a tendency to kind of cloud our mind, our reasoning, our judgment, our ability to judge, you know.
So so we people under the influence of anger, you know, get kind of wild and out of control, and then they end up doing negative things themselves. They’re angry because some negative things are being done and then they end up doing negative things themselves. So so that’s one problem with anger. And also another thing about anger is, like in this situation, we’re feeling compassion for the people who are being mistreated, which is a positive thing, but then we’re feeling anger at the people who are mistreating them. And anger isn’t compassion.
When there’s anger, there isn’t compassion. And in fact there can be the opposite to compassion, the wish to harm. Anger often motivates us to want to harm, so we want to do something to hurt those people because they’re hurting those people. So in a way, you know, we’re doing the same thing. We’re we’re we’re guilty of the same thing that we’re angry and upset about.
We wanna give harm. And and so ideally, from the Buddhist point of view, we we we try to feel compassion for both sides because both sides do deserve compassion, both the victims and the perpetrators. Perpetrators deserve compassion too because they are suffering too. That’s that’s what we don’t normally see, but they are also suffering. They wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing if they weren’t suffering.
When people are happy and peaceful and satisfied, then they behave themselves usually, I think. I may be wrong there, but but I mean, least they don’t, you know, do violent, hurtful things to other people. So when people who are doing violent, harmful, unjust things to others, it’s most most probably because they’re hurting inside. Their minds are not calm and peaceful and clear and happy, but they’re tormented, tortured by delusions. From the Buddhist point of view, we would say that what’s happening in their mind is that there’s a lot of negative thoughts, ignorance, mistaken ideas, and hatred, and greed, and a lot of distorted negative stuff in their minds.
And that’s why they’re behaving the way they are. And so they’re suffering. And also because of what they’re doing, if what they’re doing is negative, then they’re creating negative karma, bad karma. And that and because of that, they’re gonna suffer even more in the future. So in some ways, the perpetrators deserve more compassion.
That that may sound strange, but I heard the story. There was one Tibetan Lama visiting, I think it was Ausch Auschwitz, which had been turned into a kind of museum. And I was looking at a photograph of a Nazi soldier who was torturing one of the prisoners. And he said, I feel compassion for the victim, but I feel even more compassion for the torture. And the people with him were kind of surprised to hear him say that, and they asked him why.
And he said, because the suffering of the victim is gonna be over fairly quickly, but the suffering of the torture is gonna go on for a really, really long time. So if we understand the mind and understand what goes on in the mind of a person who does something like torture or abuse or murder violence or, you know, any of those things, harming others. If you understand that, you know, what’s going on in their mind is a lot of negative thoughts, a lot of negative emotions, so their mind is is is in a very tortured state. And then what they’re creating for themselves, what they’re setting up for themselves is more suffering. And that’s gonna go on, you know, for a long time.
So they deserve compassion as well. That take that may take some time, you know, to think about, to contemplate, to to really understand that, really be able to feel that way. But but this is how we can change our anger over injustice into compassion for both sides. Compassion is a more is a positive state of mind, also a more clear state of mind that enables us to to see things more clearly and be able to make decisions that are more rational, more more constructive. So there’s a greater chance that we would act in a way that’s constructive and productive, helpful, rather than just reacting in a impulsive way, which which could actually make things worse rather than better.
But it’s it’s a hard one. When you’re just feeling really, really strong anger and it and not able to just take a step back from it and say, oh, it’s just something in my mind. Is there something else? You know, that’s that’s what I mean. Yeah.
If you’re really conscious of being very angry, Yeah. Well, there’s lots of other methods, lots of other methods or tools for working with anger. But the most most effective thing is to meditate on, get familiar with these methods when we’re not angry rather than waiting until we’re angry. Because once the anger is already there, it’s very hard to get any space in the mind to be able to think of anything else. Our mind just becomes totally, you know, full of anger.
So so the way to work on anger is is is to is to become familiar with these ideas, like feeling compassion for the perpetrator and meditating on how anger is just something that comes and goes in our mind. So we if we get familiar with those ideas, you know, during meditation when we’re not all full of of anger, then there’s a greater chance that when we find ourselves in a situation where our anger is coming up like a volcanic explosion, there’s a greater chance we’ll be able to remember those things and, you know, bring them into our mind to diffuse the anger. But that takes some time, so it takes time to work on that to to get to where we’re very, very familiar with those methods. So in the meantime, then when, you know, when we’re in a situation where our anger is coming up very strongly, we should at least try not to act it out. Yeah.
I mean, from the Buddhist point of view, if we we we can’t really stop anger coming up our mind. It’ll it’ll be a long time before we get to the point where it’s just not coming up anymore. So in the meantime, it’s gonna be coming up. We can’t help that. We can’t stop that.
But we we can learn to not act on it. So because if we if we act on our anger, then the it becomes worse. You know, the karma we create becomes worse and the destructiveness, the destructive power of the anger becomes worse if we start expressing it in our words and our actions. So so if we can at least try to avoid acting it out and doing something else instead, like just removing yourself if you can, if you have the ability to just, you know, go away from the situation, the person, go someplace where you can, you know, breathe and do something physical physical to, you know, there’s that very, very strong energy. So, like, in the old days, they used to say go and chop wood or beat up a pillow.
It’s a more more modern equivalent of that. Doing something physical to let that energy out in a non harmful way, in a way that isn’t going to harm another person or a living being. And and then, you know, give yourself some time to cool down, calm down. And then when you have the chance to sit down and and do some meditation, like go back over what happened and try understand, how to analyze what was that all about, what was going on in my mind, what what led me to get so angry. And actually, this is really interesting because you learn so much about yourself.
You know, often we don’t know ourselves very well and we may think, oh, I’m an easygoing person, I’m a patient person, I don’t get angry very much, you know. But when, you know, we’re fooling ourselves, there’s still the potential to get angry and it’s good to try to analyze that and figure out why do I get angry, what was it that provoked my anger. So you can get to know a lot about yourself by doing that. And then you can think, okay, now if I find myself in this situation again, if a similar kind of situation comes up again, then how could I do it differently? How could I think or feel or look at things in a way that would enable me not to get so angry and instead, you know, handle it better?
Because often these situations take us by surprise. Something happens, and it’s like out of the blue, totally unexpected and but often situations repeat themselves or, you know, something similar could happen again. So when you consider do a dress rehearsal, if this happens again, what would I like to do? How would I like to do it differently? So if we can at least try to not act out the anger in violent ways, doing violent things with our body or with our speech, and try to just keep it within yourself.
And then when you have the ability to sit down and look at it and work on it, to do that. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think by doing more meditation, more practice, more awareness, and so on, then you it won’t come up as often and probably won’t come up as strong as well. Thich Nhat Hanh had something to say about, you know, beating up pillows.
And he said I can’t remember exactly what he said. It’s something I you know, you you’re not really dealing with the cause of the anger by doing that, if that’s all you do. If all you do is go and beat up a pillow and then think, That’s it. That’s enough. That’s not really looking at the cause of the anger.
What’s the cause, the reason for the anger and trying to understand that. I mean, think it’s better to beat up a pillow than to beat up a person or take it out on the dog or, you know, something or take it under yourself. So It’s still just a certain impulsive reaction. And and if you make a habit of that, yeah, beating up pillows, it’s possible that one day it won’t be a pillow, it’ll be a real person. So thinking that kind of aggressive behaviour is okay could be risky, could be dangerous.
So but but then, you know, sometimes anger is just so strong, and the physical energy is just so strong. We can’t just sit down and meditate at that point in time. So if if, you know, doing something physical like that can help to release that very overpowering energy so that we can be more calm and sit down and, you know, do some contemplation to figure out what happened and work on it. So it can be a helpful step, but I think it it is good eventually to get to the point where we don’t really need to do that anymore. I don’t see lamas going around beating up pillows.
But, yeah, whatever works. Like, everyone’s different. So, you know, what works for one person may not work for somebody else. So, you know, as long as we try not to create any negative karma and hurt anybody in in our way of of working with anger, just working with different methods till we find something that helps and works. It’s harder to deal with the anger and your personally, that victim.
And, you know, it. It’s hard to let go when you’re when you’re angry because someone’s hurt you so deeply. Yeah. But is that anger because of ego? I mean, is it the you’re is it attachment to yourself?
Is it is it my sentiments? I mean, are you are you angry because you’ve been hurt? You Yeah. That’s a good question. I think one thing to look at is the motivation.
What is your motivation for wanting to say something or do something? I mean, I’ve heard his Holiness Dalai Lama talk about this and he used an expression, I forget what it was, maybe it’ll come later, but anyway, a kind of misguided patience where you think that practicing patience means letting everybody do anything, letting people mistreat you, walk all over you, do anything and you just sit there and take it. But that is not correct patience. That is not the meaning of being patient. So being patient doesn’t mean letting anybody do anything.
If someone is doing something that is wrong, that is hurtful, you actually should try to stop them if you can. But in trying to stop them, you try to do that not with anger and hatred and revenge, but with compassion. Because if you let somebody carry on doing something negative, then they’re creating negative karma for themselves. And also, they’ll probably hurt other people as well. You know, if they hurt you and get away with it, they may go on and hurt other people as well.
And that’s not good for them. Yeah? That’s not being compassionate. So so it’s good to try to find a way of stopping someone who’s doing something negative, something harmful, but doing it with a motivation of compassion and not a motivation of hatred and revenge. Yeah?
And as far as hurting the other person, well, I think it’s also better not to hurt them if you can, like, you know, in the justice system. Yeah. But if you’re telling the truth, like, you’re just saying to the other person that, you know, you hurt me, something you did, something you said hurt me, and and I’m very unhappy. I’m hurt. I’m I’m upset.
I’m angry about that. So if you’re just saying that to the other person, and if the other person is unhappy about that, well, I think that’s you know, I think it’s important for people to acknowledge that, you know, certain things they do, certain things they say are hurtful to others. And and if they’re not willing to acknowledge that, I think that’s something distorted in their thinking. As long as your your your words, what you’re saying to the other person, if you’re not trying to hurt them, but you’re just speaking the truth, you are just telling the other person what is true for you. And if the other person doesn’t want to hear that or is unhappy or angry about that, then I think that is some distortion in their thinking.
So I think it’s important for everyone to realize if they are hurting other people, they have to realize that, isn’t it? Yeah. And if they don’t wanna realize that, it’s probably some delusion in their mind. Is that also the case in a work situation? Say, if your boss is causing harm to other people and maybe he or she’s unaware of it.
And, I mean, other people are taking their complaints to the boss, but I mean, should you if your boss is taking on a certain other staff member and that staff member is very upset and they’re never gonna go to the boss, I mean, should you get involved in that sort of situation do you just lose it? Do you wanna lose your job? I I don’t know. I don’t have a whole lot of experience in work situations with bosses. I’ve been a nun for so long.
But I wonder if there’s another another option, like, there’s a person who who has that kind of role or responsibility of, like, conflict resolution or you you know what I mean? Personnel manager. I I don’t know. Does that does something like that exist? Because if if you do it yourself, it it may be seen as you’re stepping out of line.
There may be some resentment like, you know, that’s not really your responsibility. But if there is someone else that you can speak to who does have that responsibility, that that might be the better approach. Yeah. You sort of went all over the place there. Any other questions that came up from the discussion group or also from this morning?
Anything I talked about this morning or anything we did this morning that was not clear you wanna ask about? So, yeah, closing your eyes when you mid or just slightly open, is it a defocus sort of gaze or should I try and focus on a on a point? Is it do you is it kind of like a fuzzy you’re just letting a little bit of light in or you’re actually trying to store your hands in? When I do it I mean, it’s not that clearly explained in the teachings, but when I do it, my experience is, yeah, it’s it’s just kinda fuzzy. You’re not really looking at anything because ideally when we’re meditating, we’re using our mind.
We’re we’re using this internal part of us, not not our eyes. So our eyes should be just relaxed and not really active in looking at things. But the idea of keeping them open a little bit, allowing some light in helps our mind to be more awake and alert. Because another thing that can happen sometimes if we close our eyes, the mind can start having sort of dream like images, appearances, which is a distraction in meditation. And so keeping the eyes open a little bit helps to prevent that from happening.
So, yeah, I don’t think you should be really focusing on anything. Just letting your eyes relax, just just keeping them in that partially open position. And and, I mean, if you did try to look, if you did try to see what’s happening, it would be just very fuzzy and unclear. That that’s how I experience it anyway. I don’t know about other people.
Yeah. So what what of blinking? Because I someone said you shouldn’t be blinking. I’m aware sometimes I do. Is this is this a bother?
I I never heard that you you shouldn’t blink. Did who who’d you hear that from? I had a lot of Tarthang Tulku and doing Kum Nye. He said keep your eyes open and don’t blink. Yeah.
I don’t know. I never heard that. But there’s all different ways of teaching meditation. And I I haven’t I can’t say I notice if I blink or not. I guess we we blink because our eyes get dry, isn’t it?
And blinking is to moisten them. So maybe the eyes, if you’re if you have them just partially open like that, they won’t get dry, and you won’t really need to blink. I’ll ask you. Yeah. That would be the better way.
I’ll let you know what he’s saying. Anyone else? I did have one other question. I’ve gone from being very rigid with my meditation and then stopped doing meditation, started going just started studying Buddhism and doing sadhana and things like that. Now I’m sort of coming back into meditation, but I’m not rigid anymore.
I’m really slick and just go to sleep all the time. So when you say you’re not rigid with it, you mean Well, I did a lot of the Vipassana courses, so I was very sort of and I didn’t have any problem with sleeping at all. I was very good. It’s a good You’re able to stay awake. thinking about it.
And then I got into Buddhism where I’ve been doing a lot of practices mainly. Mhmm. So I haven’t really done just the meditation, I’m not starting to come back into that. But I realized that as I’m doing it now, I’m just I sit down and think, oh, that’s good. I’m just gonna sleep.
Or I drift off. I’m finding it hard to find some balance with it. So it doesn’t matter what time of day you meditate? You you you always feel sleepy? I’m either really sleepy or my mind just wanders everywhere.
And a part of me I think a part of me is still rejecting, I think part of me is rejecting Vipassana a bit. So and I haven’t quite got a a balance. So it’s part of me can’t bother focusing on the group. Mm-mm. Do you think that maybe because I’m the same.
I always drift off. And do you think that maybe, you know, it’s underlying kind of not wanting to see what might I think, yeah, sometimes sleepiness, feeling falling asleep in meditation could be a kind of resistance to looking at something. Yeah. Something that may be there in the mind, some delusion or some hang up or some problem that we feel like I don’t really wanna look at that. I don’t really wanna deal with that.
And so falling asleep could be a sort of escape route. So it could be. It could be like that. So you might just explore that and see if that could be the cause. When Kinda like energizing yourself.
Sitting down all day. In the Vipassana tradition, they have the the practice of alternating sitting meditation and walking meditation. Meditation. So you sit for a while and pay attention to the breath and then you take a break and do walking meditation. You’re continuing to be mindful, continuing to have awareness of what’s going on, but while standing up or walking rather than sitting.
So that also helps to prevent sleepiness because, you know, just sitting all the time makes it hard to stay awake. When you say you were doing Vipassana, was it Goenka style Vipassana? Because there are different styles, different ways of doing Vipassana. Yeah. Well, I I was thinking to lead an analytical kind of meditation, which is that other kind mentioned.
But maybe do you wanna just take a short break? Five, ten minute break, first stretch? Wake up. Yeah. So earlier I talked about this other kind of meditation, what we call analytical meditation.
And I thought that we could do a session of that now to get a taste of how to do it. And so traditionally, this kind of meditation is done as part of what we call the lam rim, or the stages of the path to enlightenment, which consists of various subjects that were taught by the Buddha, explained by the Buddha. And there are things we need to know, to understand, and not just on an intellectual level. It’s not enough just to have an intellectual understanding of these things, but they’re really meant to to transform our our mind, our way of thinking, our way of of seeing things, and way of living our life and so on. So the thing is we have within our mind a lot of deluded or distorted or incorrect attitudes, assumptions, and and and so on that influence us, the way we see things, the way we think, the way we behave, the decisions we make, and so on.
These are out of accordance with the reality of things, the way things really are. If we keep on behaving under the influence of these distorted attitudes, then we’re going to perpetuate our unenlightened existence and not be able to attain the enlightenment which we have the potential to attain. So these need to be recognized and corrected. And so there’s a whole bunch of these different meditations. And I thought what we could do here is one that’s I think fairly easy and it doesn’t require faith.
Like some of the meditations, for example, about karma or about reincarnation could be a bit tricky because not everyone is able to just believe in such things, so they require a leap of faith. But this one is something we can’t really deny. It’s not a question of believing or not believing, it’s the reality of things, but it’s something other than how we normally see things. So we’ll do a meditation on impermanence. So impermanence means change.
It means that things change. And not all things are impermanent. There are some things which are which are permanent, but we’re we’re gonna leave those aside for now. Those are kind of abstract things. But the things that we normally deal with in our life, our own body, this physical body we have, and our mind, this stream of ever changing thoughts, emotions, memories, perceptions, and so forth.
And then the people around us, their bodies and their minds, and the world around us, the earth itself, the trees, the mountains, bodies of water, and all the things that people have made like houses and buildings and roads and cars and so on and so on and so on. So all of these things that we normally deal with in our life are impermanent. Their their nature is that they they change. They don’t stay the same, even from one moment to the next. So that’s the meaning of well, that’s one meaning of impermanence.
One meaning of impermanence is that things don’t stay the same, but are constantly changing every single moment. And we can know that through science. We know that things, like material things, are made up of particles, molecules, atoms, what do they call those? Smaller particles, quarks or whatever. I haven’t studied science, but anyway, these tiny little particles.
And those are not things that are like stationary, frozen, fixed, you know, and always the same, but they’re moving and changing. And so on the very subtlest level, the subatomic level of of all of these material things or physical things, there’s constant change taking place. So that means the things themselves are changing. So this is something, like I say, we can’t deny it. It’s not a question of having faith in it or not.
It’s it’s the way things are. But it’s not how we normally think. It’s not how how we normally see things. So we have the tendency to see things as if they didn’t change and as if instead they they stayed the same. Because we we don’t actually see the changes that take place moment by moment.
It’s not apparent to our eyes or to our senses. So it looks as though things pretty much stay the same. And so we tend to, you know, have this attitude like, you know, things are permanent. They are unchanging. And if you don’t believe that, if you if you think, oh, no.
No. No. I I I see things as impermanent, then just think about your reaction when, let’s say, there’s a person that you knew years ago and you haven’t seen that person for quite a few years, and then you meet that person again, and and you see that that person has changed. They’re fatter. They’re skinnier.
They have more gray hair or less hair, more wrinkles. They’re wearing glasses. Or, you know, there’s there’s things about the person that are different than how you remember them, and you may feel a a kind of surprise or even shock. Yeah? Have you ever had that experience?
Like, hey. Yeah. You know, you’ve changed. Like, you weren’t supposed to do that. You’re supposed to look the way you did ten years ago.
Right? And the same with places. Like, if you go to a place that you where you used to live or maybe you went there for a holiday at one time and you remember it being a certain way, and you go there again and you kinda shock like, hey, that restaurant isn’t there anymore. And it’s it used to be a two way street, now it’s a one way street, and, you know, there’s a new building that wasn’t there before. So we have this feeling of sort of surprise, like, you know, how come it’s not the same as it was before?
So that shows that we don’t really see things in terms of change and impermanence, but we we tend to expect, or there’s this kind of underlying expectation, that things are gonna stay the same. Yeah? And so so it’s very important for us to to change that, to correct that and come to see the impermanent nature of things. And this is a very helpful remedy for attachment. Attachment is one of the big delusions, one of the big negative attitudes that we have.
When we have attachment, then we we we can have this wish for the thing that we’re attached to to not change and to stay the same. Yeah. We want it to be just like that forever and ever because that’s how I like it. That’s that’s how it’s pleasing to me, and I I wanna make sure that it continues to please me and not not ever change and become unpleasant or whatever. So so this and that’s probably why we we we don’t really like to think about impermanence.
There there’s some resistance to impermanence because, you know, sort of we feel kind of comfortable with things staying the same even though they don’t, but we hope they do. We wish they they will. It gives some sense of security to our ego. And so we hope for and wish for things to change, but that is not the reality of things. Things don’t stay the same.
Things change. And and then also another aspect of impermanence is that things aren’t gonna be forever, that everything will go out of existence at some point, including people, human beings, other kinds of beings, and all other things that are impermanent, trees, houses, buildings, this planet itself. It’s one day, all these things are going to not exist anymore. And so that’s also another meaning of it, of impermanence. So we might feel a bit an uncomfortable about the idea of impermanence.
But if we can understand that this is reality and it’s much better for us to see things in a realistic way rather than seeing things in an illusory, fantasized sort of way. So if we wanna really get in touch with reality, then it’s important for us to contemplate impermanence. But there’s also a positive side of impermanence because if things were not impermanent, if things were permanent, then we we wouldn’t be able to change ourselves. We wouldn’t we wouldn’t have the ability to change our mind and to free our mind from the painful, negative, disturbing thoughts and emotions that we have in our mind. So so that’s a positive thing.
And we can transform ourselves. We can become a very different kind of person. We can we can become a Buddha, an enlightened being. Yeah. So so that’s made possible by the impermanent nature of things.
So things were not impermanent, then that wouldn’t be possible. Also, if things were not impermanent, then, you know, a baby wouldn’t be able to grow. A baby would always be a baby. In fact, we wouldn’t even have babies because, you know, they grow. They grow from a tiny little seed into a fetus into a baby, and then they grow.
So a baby would always stay a baby. He’d always have to change his diapers and feed it milk and carry it around. And also, yeah, we wouldn’t have plants and flowers because they grow. Right? They come into existence and they grow and transform and change.
So we shouldn’t think of impermanence as something unpleasant or something, you know, threatening. It has its good side, its positive side. And also, our problems are impermanent. Whatever kind of problem we may have, pain, sickness, unhappiness, depression, loneliness, or problem with a boss, problem in a relationship, so problems are also impermanent. They’re not gonna last forever.
They come and go. Okay. So so there’s there are positive sides of impermanence. It doesn’t have to be something unpleasant or depressing. So anyway, let’s do a meditation on this.
So we’ll be thinking about or contemplating impermanence, looking at different things and trying to recognize their impermanent nature. So I’ll be talking during this meditation, guiding you along, giving you time to contemplate each point, as I mentioned. So when we do analytical meditation, we still need to try our best to have concentration, to keep our mind focused on this particular topic. And so you have to look out for distractions. If your mind gets distracted thinking about something else other than this, you know, thinking about what you’re gonna do when we finish here, or what you’re do tomorrow, or thinking about something that happened yesterday.
So anytime your mind gets distracted away from this meditation, you need to recognize that and then bring your mind back. Bring it back to the meditation. Okay. So make yourself comfortable, but keeping your back straight as much as possible. Leaving your eyes open a little bit to prevent sleepiness.
Now you don’t really have to do that if it’s uncomfortable or distracting, trying to keep your eyes open a little bit, then it’s okay to close them as long as you can stay awake, as long as you can avoid falling asleep. So if you do close your eyes and then you start noticing that you’re feeling sleepy and starting to nod off, then open your eyes again just that little bit. Generate a positive motivation for doing the meditation. At least think that you’re doing this in order to work on your own mind, make your mind more positive, more realistic, and less confused, deluded, and negative. And if on top of that, you can also feel the wish to help others and that your reason for doing meditation is not just to help yourself but to help others as well, then think of that.
So then be aware of your breath coming in and going out. Now be aware of the impermanence of your breathing. Each breath that we take in is new and different than the one before and the one after. We’re breathing in different air. There are different movements and sensations as we breathe in and as we breathe out.
And just be aware of the impermanence of your breathing. Now, be aware of your body. So even though we’re sitting still or trying to sit still, not moving, but there is movement taking place in our body even as we sit here. So think about how your body isn’t just one whole solid thing but is made up of many parts. So one way we can think about the parts of our body is to think about the big parts that we can see.
They’re visible to our eyes. So there’s skin and underneath the skin is flesh. And deeper inside, there’s bones, muscles, organs, blood. Just think of how your body is made up of all these different parts. And then think about how those parts are in turn made up of parts, smaller, invisible to our eyes.
We need a microscope to see them, but we still know they’re there. So think about cells. Our skin and blood and so on are made up of tiny cells. And those tiny cells are not frozen, fixed, solid, unmoving things, but they’re moving, changing. Some are coming into existence.
Some are reproducing. Some are dying, going out of existence. So even now, as we’re sitting here still, quietly, there are those changes taking place in our body each moment. And then even the cells are made up of even smaller particles such as molecules, atoms, subatomic particles. We we can break them down further and further into smaller and smaller parts.
And those two are not frozen, fixed, unmoving, unchanging. But each moment, they’re going through changes, movements as well. So when we go down to the tiniest parts or particles that make up our body, what we find is constant change each moment. And now turn your attention to your mind, which is a stream of experiences like thoughts, memories, perceptions, hearing sounds, feeling sensations with our body, also emotions. So all of our conscious experiences, all our awarenesses, that’s what our mind is, that stream or body or collection.
But better to say stream because it’s constantly changing. So try to be aware of your mind and of the impermanence of your mind, how it’s changing each moment. Like, you might become aware of a certain kind of thought or a certain emotion that arises. So just look at that and ask yourself if it’s something permanent, something frozen, something always there in your mind, unchanging, or if it’s something that comes and goes, passes, something transitory. So now ask yourself if there is any part of you that is permanent, that stays the same, and doesn’t change.
So now expand your awareness of impermanence outside of yourself. So think about what’s around you in this room. There are other people, and they also are made up of a body and a mind. So their bodies are also impermanent, moment by moment. Their minds are also impermanent, changing moment by moment.
So just contemplate that. See if you can get an awareness and understanding of that. And then think about the material things around us. This building itself is made up of materials, steel and bricks, concrete, glass, wood. And those things in turn are made up of parts, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles.
And again, they are not frozen, fixed, but are moving and changing each moment. So again, think of other things outside of this building, other buildings and trees, the earth, plants, grass, roads, cars. So whatever comes to your mind, whatever you think of as existing out there in the world around us, understand that it too is made up of parts, It can be broken down into smaller, smaller, more subtle parts, molecules, atoms. And these things are changing each moment. They’re not so solid, frozen, fixed as as they appear to us.
They’re constantly undergoing change every moment. So now come to a conclusion based on what you thought about, what you came to understand from doing this meditation. So what did you learn from this, or what conclusions you come to from having meditated on this? So with analytical meditations, it’s not enough just to do it once, and then that’s it. You got it.
But they need to be done again and again and again. The the actual meaning of meditation the word for meditation in the Tibetan language, it literally means familiar, becoming familiar, making ourselves familiar. So the idea of meditation is familiarizing ourselves with positive states of mind, like love, compassion, and or more realistic, correct ways of thinking and seeing things. Yeah. So we are accustomed to seeing things as if they were permanent, unchanging, as if they were gonna be there forever.
And that’s not correct. Yeah? Does that does anyone agree with that? Anyone have trouble with that? Anyone disagree?
So I think it’s pretty undeniable that that, you know, things are not permanent, but they’re actually impermanent. And and so we need to familiarize ourselves with how things are actually impermanent. So we need to contemplate that again and again and again, and not just when we’re meditating, but at other times as well, whenever we have the opportunity to, you know, expand our awareness and see things as impermanent rather than as permanent. So practice mindfulness of that. When we see flowers, for example, remind ourselves, yeah, now they’re looking really, really beautiful, but that’s not gonna last.
They’re not gonna last. They’re gonna change. In a day or two or three, they’re gonna be all brown and it’ll be time to throw them in the garbage. And we may experience some resistance to the idea of thinking that way because we may think, well, if I really understand impermanence and accept impermanence, won’t be able to enjoy them any anymore. I won’t be able to enjoy beauty.
I won’t be able to enjoy people. In fact, that question was asked to Ajahn Chah, a great meditation master in Thailand. He was asked, if I really accept impermanence, then, how will I be able to enjoy life anymore? So Ajahn Chah said he had a glass of water on the table next to him. And he said, I see this glass as already broken, but I can still enjoy it.
It’s very beautiful, and it holds water so I can drink from it. But I I see it is already broken. So he’s saying that or my interpretation, anyway. He’s saying that he he he has accepted the impermanent nature of the glass. He knows it’s not gonna be there forever.
He knows it’s gonna break one day, go out of existence. But that doesn’t stop him from enjoying it today, right now. Right? Because it’s it’s there, and it’s beautiful, and it’s, functional. You can use it.
So it is possible to accept the impermanent nature of things and and still enjoy things. Like, can accept that these flowers aren’t gonna can still enjoy their beauty right now. And in fact, if we do accept the impermanence of things, it might enable us to enjoy things even more because we realize how fragile they are. Yeah? Like, they’re really beautiful right now, and I I wanna make sure I enjoy their beauty now because it’s not gonna last.
So it stops us from taking things for granted. Yeah. Otherwise, we take a lot of things for granted and don’t fully enjoy things as we could, including people. Yeah? And that’s the big one.
That’s the hard one. Accepting the impermanent nature of people, we really don’t wanna think about that. We don’t wanna think about how people are gonna die one day, and in the words of Ajahn Chah, already dead. Oh, I don’t wanna think about that. No.
No. That’s horrible. But if we did if we did really accept the impermanent nature of people, then don’t you think it would enable us to appreciate them even more and make and really make sure we don’t take them for granted? Really value them, really cherish them. Because, you know, each day we have, each moment we have with them is is quite precious.
Yeah. If we know they’re not gonna be there forever, we know they’re you know, one day they’re gonna disappear, then we’ll really value them. Don’t you think? Mhmm. You could go the other way and think, oh, what’s the point?
But don’t you think that’s kind of cynical? I mean, love is also a really important quality in the spiritual path. We don’t wanna throw out love and compassion and cherishing and valuing other people. I mean, are very precious qualities. Those are essential qualities for progressing on the path.
So we do need to love and cherish and appreciate and have compassion for people, not just people, but all living beings. Yeah. So I I think it’s going too far to say, oh, well, you know, what’s the point of caring about people because they’re gonna disappear. But it’s another aspect of it. No.
But maybe that that that may come check that out where that comes from, but it it may come from a kind of fear, a kind of wanting to protect ourselves from the pain of losing them. Yeah. So we think, oh, it would just be too painful, you know, to lose people, so I’ll just keep my existence from them. I won’t get too close. Yeah.
So that may not be coming from wisdom, but it may be coming from our ego, fear, wanting to protect ourselves. So just check that out. So I think if we really accept impermanence and we also are looking at impermanence in a balanced way, you know, like all the different meditations on the path to enlightenment are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If we just take one piece of a jigsaw puzzle and isolate it from all the others, it doesn’t really do much. Right?
It doesn’t give us the whole picture. So we need to have all the pieces and put them together in the right way. So if we just take one meditation alone, like in permanence, and and separate it from all the other meditations, then it it can be sort of imbalanced and lopsided and doesn’t give us the full picture. So we don’t have the time in this weekend to go through all the different meditations. But if you do have a chance to learn the Lamrim and or read it on your own, then then you can see that there’s lots of different pieces to the puzzle.
And if we put all the pieces together, it makes a very, very beautiful picture. So part of the jigsaw puzzle for becoming enlightened is to cultivate love and compassion and appreciation and patience and all these wonderful positive qualities in relation to others. So so those are part of the puzzle. If we only meditate on impermanence, then we may end up like that, you know, a bit sort of cynical, dry, and that we won’t get enlightened that way. So we need to we need to meditate on this in combination with with other things to to, you know, to to make ourselves a whole being.
An enlightened being, a Buddha, is a whole being. It’s not just a partly developed being, but a fully developed, fully complete being. And so so part of that involves really, really beautiful feelings for others. Yeah. Anyway, we we we can end at this point.
Going a little bit over time. Tomorrow, we’ll have the same schedule as today, but we’ll end earlier. I was a bit concerned about people who work all week, and this is your weekend to do other things. So we thought we’d end about three or three thirty, so you have some time in the afternoon to do other things if you want. But we’ll still start at nine and have similar schedule.
And we’ll do some some of the same meditations, meditation on the breath, but we’ll also look at some other meditations as well. And I’ll talk more about other other things that can come up come up in our mind and make make it difficult for us to meditate and progress in our meditation, things to look out for and how to deal with them. Okay. So let’s end by making a dedication of our positive energy from this time we spent together today. So coming together, making the effort to meditate and listen and learn and think about and talk about these teachings given by the Buddha, which are for transforming our mind, making our mind more positive, clear, peaceful, joyful, and and so on, increasing the positive qualities of our mind and decreasing the negative ones that are so painful for ourselves and others.
And so so just having done all of this, we’ve been able to create a lot of very good energy, positive energy, or merit, which is the cause of happiness, the cause of spiritual growth, the cause of getting closer to enlightenment. So the best thing we can do with this positive energy is to share it with others, And that actually makes it grow, increases it rather than decreasing it. So we actually increase our positive energy by sharing it with others. So make the mental dedication that through this positive energy we’ve created, may it benefit not just ourselves but others, as many other people as you can think of and feel comfortable sharing it with. So if you can think of all living beings, then that’s wonderful.
So may it help bring about a positive transformation in everyone’s minds, helping our minds be free of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, like ignorance and greed and hatred, jealousy, pride, and so on. So may these decrease and eventually disappear, and instead, may our minds be filled with only positive, loving, peaceful thoughts and attitudes, love, compassion, wisdom, courage, patience, generosity, and so on. So that in our interactions with others, there will be love and kindness and helpfulness rather than harmfulness. And we’ll all be able to grow spiritually on the path to enlightenment. So may this help us get closer to enlightenment and eventually attain that state, which is the fulfillment of our highest potential.
Okay. So thank you, and have a nice evening. See you tomorrow.