Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 109-minute final session of the series, Ven Thubten Dondrub explores the profound implications of understanding mind as presented in Buddhist philosophy—that it is formless, indestructible, and the actual source of all experience. He systematically unfolds what follows from this view: the existence of rebirth and multiple realms of cyclic existence, the beginningless and endless nature of consciousness, and why this radically reframes how we should live. The core teaching is direct and uncompromising—happiness and suffering arise from the mind alone, never from external circumstances, which means taking care of one’s mind must be life’s priority. He then turns practical: how to begin changing the mind through meditation (especially simple breath-focused practice), how contentment and a sense of meaningful purpose naturally weaken disturbing thoughts, and how understanding impermanence and death serves as a universal antidote to delusion. Throughout he emphasizes that intellectual agreement with Buddhist teachings differs entirely from the inner transformation that comes through sustained reflection and meditation. The session includes extended Q&A in which Dondrub addresses rebirth, the relationship between mind and body, karma, and the role of meditation in controlling mental distractions. Pitched at practitioners seeking to understand both Buddhist philosophy and its practical application to everyday mental discipline.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 02 19 DBMind&itsPotential Dondrub week6 19022013 MP3.mp3
UUID: a685004a-35a5-4015-8829-63c31193f8e0
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Mind and its Potential (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-02-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.7 minutes
Words: ~12,389
So welcome everyone to our last class on mind and its potential. So to make this time as effective as possible, it it it really depends on, from our own side, listening with the right kind of mind, the right kind of attitude or motivation. And especially, we can try to have the the the attitude, the motivation, wishing to understand our mind in order to be able to awaken the or to overcome the negative aspects of our mind. Not only by understanding that these these negative aspects bring suffering to oneself in this life and and in the future. But under the control of those disturbing thoughts, we we cause suffering and confusion to others.
So we can have that motivation, but but also we can have the wish to become totally free of all causes of suffering, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of others. But more than that, we can have that wish to cultivate in addition all the positive potentials of our mind, awaken our our Buddha potential so that we put ourselves in a position where we only benefit living beings all the time in the most perfect way possible. And in this way, as Buddha, realizing our full potential, we’re able to repay the kindness that we have received or and are receiving from all sentient beings that we totally depend on day by day, year by year, life after life. So please try to to think right now, have that awareness that I constantly do depend and receive the kindness of sentient beings directly and indirectly. And unfortunately, these beings whom I depend on are suffering in cyclic existence.
And in their confusion, much of the time, although they’re unaware of it, creating the cause to remain in saṃsāra and to experience all sorts of horrible sufferings over and over again. So thinking like that, we can generate this wish to realize our Buddha potential for the sake of others. So please try and generate that thought or something along those lines as much as possible. And as you do so, if you find it comfortable to help do that, we can think of the Buddha in front of us as a as the being who realized their their full potential, achieved the awakened state, and so it can become a source of inspiration, guidance, and refuge for ourselves. And as we think of the Buddha in front of us as a way to inspire us, we can be motivated to achieve what the Buddha achieved by thinking of all sentient beings surrounding us, starting with our mother on our left, father on our right, and then behind us, the rest of our family, friends, and helpers, and then in front, those who we may not get on with so well, the so called enemy of various kinds.
And then as much as possible, we can open our hearts and minds to an awareness and concern for all the other beings of cyclic existence as much as you believe in those samsaric realms. So if you’d like to join in the prayer, the traditional prayer, this is on page seven. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we can imagine the Buddha now happily coming to the crown of our head, then dissolving into blissful golden light so that that light can pour down into us, blessing our mind.
And then briefly, we can do the nine round breathing exercise. We can to make it more effective, we can combine it with the visualization of breathing in white light, expelling all our disturbing thoughts and agitation, negative imprints in the form of black smoke with each out breath. And we do this to help establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddhist teachings tonight. Okay. Thank you.
So so far I’ve talked a little bit about the Buddhist view of what the mind is, how it’s something separate from the body, and I’ve tried to talk about the the the positive potential of our mind that we have this indestructible, underlying, undeclining Buddha nature ever present. And but because our that that Buddha quality is obscured by ignorance, we have these various kinds of disturbing thoughts. And under their control, the mind has a tremendous power potential for great suffering to ourselves and to act as a or it leads us to act to to harm and bring great suffering to others. And, of course, from the Buddha’s perspective, this is something that not only affects this life, but countless future lives as well. So now, although I’ve only just touched on these topics and there’s so many things that could be discussed about them, I’d like to leave that and talk a little bit tonight because it was this is the last chance about some of the some of the implications of of the Buddhist view of the mind and then a little bit about how we can work with our mind.
Again, I can only mention these things because really all of these things, you know, each aspect of them requires a lot of explanation and and all the other modules of the discovering Buddhism are about that to some extent. So one obvious implication consequence of the Buddhist view of mind, if the Buddhist view of mind is correct, which I believe it is, and I think there’s many valid reasons to think it is the case. If what the Buddha presents about mind is true, then one very obvious implication, consequence of it is that there is rebirth. This is just so obvious. The easiest way to understand, you know, to to get a feeling for rebirth is to understand the mind from a Buddhist perspective that it’s not the brain.
It’s something formless. It’s always giving rise to experience. And being formless, it’s indestructible. It just can’t come to an end. And although it’s connected with the brain, it’s it’s dependent on the the gross level of our mind is dependent on the brain now.
When the brain ceases, when this body decays, it that doesn’t prove in any way that the mind ceases. In other words, it goes on because there’s nothing that can stop it. The the gross mind of any particular life ceases, but the basis of that is not the body, not the brain. It is a much more subtle level of mind, is always present. And that just keeps going on, giving rise moment by moment to experience.
And so there is rebirth, just like the mind is is associated with this physical form, it’s always been associated and always will be with some kind of physical form. Either the gross physical form of the of the desire realm we’re in, a more subtle physical form associated with the beings of the form realm, a very, very subtle form that the beings of the formless realm exist in, And then there are the pure forms of Buddhas. The very pure physical body of a Buddha, which is technically called the Rūpakāya of, you know, of which there are two kinds. I won’t go into that. Anyway, there is the Rūpakāya, the pure physical form of a Buddha. Unfortunately, we can’t see that. Only only highly realized bodhisattvas can see the pure form of a Buddha. I I no.
I have to say that there are two kinds of bodies of Buddhas. There’s what is called the Rūpakāya has two aspects. One is called the Sambhogakāya. So this is can only be seen by Ārya bodhisattvas, bodhisattvas who have directly perceived emptiness. And then the other kind of physical form that a Buddha has is called the Nirmānakāya, of which there are many forms.
And one of one type there there are what is called what is it called? The Anyway, something like the you know, meaning the implying the perfect Nirmānakāya is what Śākyamūni Buddha manifested with a body with the the eight what is it? The thirty two major and eighty minor signs of an enlightened being. So certain people with a with good karma, with very pure karma, were able to see the Buddha in that form two and a half thousand years ago. Anyway, that that got carried away.
I didn’t mean to get into that bit as usual. So so one implication of the existence of mind is that there is rebirth. The the mind goes on and there is rebirth. And yeah. And and following from that, there is saṃsāra because rebirth doesn’t occur just simply as human beings because as I tried to show last week, I don’t know how convincing I was that if you look at animals, you can see you can start to understand that they do have minds.
Their mind isn’t, of course, operating at our level, but many human beings’ minds don’t even operate at human levels. Sometimes we could say even our minds don’t work. Sometimes when we wake up or something, our minds aren’t operating at a very human level. But we’re still human beings. We still have minds.
So animals have minds, and there are other set kinds of sentient beings. So these are all potentials of our mind relating to, as I I tried to indicate last week, one way of looking at the different realms of cyclic existence or realms of the mind is that they represent different degrees of obscuration of mind. So that the most obscured mind is leads us to rebirth in in what what are called the hell realms. And then there is the less obscured rebirths as animals and hungry ghosts. There are when the mind is less obscured than the human realm, we experience the different kinds of worldly god realms, the deva realms of the of the desire form and formless realms.
And when the mind is totally unobscured, you know, when all the the main obscurations of the mind are removed, we have the nirvana. We we we go beyond samsaric mind. We have the state of nirvana. And when even the very subtle obscurations are removed, we have the enlightened state. So anyway, if we start to understand what mind means in the Buddhist context, it means there is rebirth.
There is all these samsaric realms. We’re not just the only kinds of sentient beings. There are many kinds of sentient beings. Or another way of putting it, we have the potential to be to have many kinds of take many kinds of rebirths. Right?
There’s not these separate realms where beings get reborn as animals over animals get reborn as animals, humans get reborn as humans, gods get reborn as gods. It’s just any particular sentient being has the potential to take rebirth in any of those realms. Just as every sentient being has the potential to achieve nirvana, every sentient being has the potential to achieve enlightenment. Right? So another very important thing to think about is consequence implication of Buddhist view of mind and relating to what I’ve just said is that this if if if if there if mind exists, it’s beginningless, endless, and and we are and it’s that our mind right now is obscured.
So because yeah. So obscured mind means saṃsāra and and all the different kinds of rebirth states. And so what this further implies is that this life that we are experiencing right now is just so incredibly short, and all our future existence is inconceivably long. Right? So what this implies, of course, is that right now, because either we don’t know about, you know, future existences or we don’t believe in them or we forget about them, our mind is totally focused just on this life, trying to deal with the problems only what what appear to be only the problems of this life and trying to extract as much pleasure and happiness from the things of this life.
Whereas what we should be doing if we understood that there is mind, which is endless, is we have to work for our future lives so that we have less suffering in our future lives and more happiness, at least. While we remain in saṃsāra, at least we need to use this life to ensure that there’ll be less suffering and more happiness. Alright? So in other words, we need this much bigger perspective about our existence Because, of course, there are all sorts of problems and worries and fears and difficulties we can experience as a human being. But and all the suffering associated with that.
But the Buddha was trying to tell us that there’s a lot more suffering that we could experience than what we are dealing with now. And if we’re not careful, if we live this very ordinary life, we almost inevitably create the causes for this greater suffering. Because if you think about it, if we see, the mind one of the implications of all this and one of the fundamental messages of the Buddha is that I mean, of course, the the Buddha is telling us that the cause of suffering is our ignorance and all our delusions. Right? But another way of putting that in in a practical way, why why do we suffer?
Why are we suffering? And why do we lack real happiness? It the the immediate reason for it is because we only think about this life. And because we only think about this life, then the mindset that is caught up in that state that loses any awareness or understanding of future consequences, it that becomes the precondition. Yeah, it becomes the precondition to be to engage in negative actions.
Because if there’s only this life and there’s no real consequences of our actions, then to avoid suffering, we will do anything to avoid it. And we may think, you may, you know, you you may feel quite insulted by that saying, oh, I wouldn’t do these naughty bad things if I was suffering. But this is because we don’t have that suffering now. We our life isn’t threatened or we don’t think it’s threatened or, you know, just terrible things aren’t happening and monster nasty people aren’t surrounding us. We don’t know what we would do when all these new things happened, but it’s quite likely because we have self-cherishing that we would do all sorts of negative things.
We would like to think we wouldn’t, and we would hopefully try not to, but the more we only think of this life, that becomes a precondition to do negative things. Right? Because, of course, we understand if we do not bad things in this life, there could be some consequences in this life, but we also think we can deal with those. We’ll escape the law. They won’t catch me.
Yeah. But, I I mean, this goes into the the other topic, which is our next DB module if you could ever come back here again after this one. But I would highly recommend doing the next one because mind and karma go together. You can’t really understand mind without understanding karma. If we don’t believe there’s there’s kind of, like, really major consequences from what we do that aren’t are gonna go way beyond, far beyond this life, then it’s very easy to engage in negative actions, to stop suffering, and also to, you know, to to get happiness, to do anything to be happy, to get what I want.
Right? And especially if you think about it, the more we we are locked into a mindset that only only thinks of this life, there’s only the suffering of this life, and there’s only the pleasures of this life, that again becomes a precondition where the things of this life take on a meaning and value, good or bad, that they simply do not have. And they they you know, so they become so much more important, you know, from a good or bad perspective than they are. In our culture more and more maybe I’m just giving a negative view, but it seems more and more in our culture, what is really admired most is looking beautiful. Yeah.
Looking beautiful, sexy, having a, like, an impressive body, a a beautiful face. That is the most impractically not everyone, of course. But if if you read the magazines and everything and these people dominate, you know, sports people, actresses and actors and and singers, these are the people who are the main dominators of people’s ordinary consciousness, not people with, excuse the corny expression, a beautiful mind. The main thing is to look beautiful, not not to be beautiful. And then then, of course, you know, you have to have the beautiful clothes.
So then owning a famous piece of clothing, you like from a famous designer, then this is incredibly important. And it makes you special because you have this expensive designer thing on you. And then you’ll kill to get one. It becomes so incredibly important. Yeah.
So the need for money, to have lots of money, to have prestige and all this stuff, And life gets lost in all this. And then what you do to get money, what we do to get money, yeah, is a disaster. So it just agitates all the disturbing thoughts, and we’re creating the cause for lots of misery in the future. But we we don’t care. We don’t know.
We don’t believe that because we don’t think about our mind. But the the consequence of understanding that we have a mind and it keeps going on is that we really have to use this mind and this life not just for what happens in this life because everything good and bad that happens in this life is gone in a second compared to billions and billions and billions and billions of future lives. I mean, it’s really, really important to think about the consequences whether you’ve got a mind or you’ve got a brain. Oh, you haven’t got a brain. That’s for sure.
You do have a brain, but it’s really important to consider whether you also have a mind. That’s really significant. Yeah. Because all of these things and the mind as not understood as by scientists or some other theory, the Buddhist view, if you if you understand that, then there are these very significant consequences, really. And to question, how am I leading my life?
I think another significant consequence of the Buddhist view of mind and that is that some that life has meaning. Actually, technically speaking, I would say the Buddhist view of of existence is that existence doesn’t have a meaning. It just exists. Samsāra exists. Sentient beings exist.
Mind exists. To say the life has a meaning or a purpose means implies someone’s giving it a purpose. Who? From a Buddhist view, there isn’t anyone giving it a purpose. It’s not controlled by anyone.
It hasn’t because life hasn’t been created by anyone, but it does exist. But I think the Buddhist view that says life goes on and on and on means you can give your life a purpose, a meaning, and it can you can give it an amazing meaning that makes every moment worth living, which is the meaning to help to to to become free of suffering, not just temporarily, superficially, but totally free of suffering and achieve genuine lasting peace and happiness. But even more meaningful is that one can lead a life whereby you can help others achieve real inner satisfaction beyond suffering. There is nothing more meaningful than that. But just to think that there we we just are born to die one life.
There’s nothing before it and nothing after. We just come into existence, bump around and connect with each other for a while, and that’s it. It’s pretty meaningless. And, you know, Buddhism talks a lot about suffering, and, you know, it’s classified as, for some of you who may know, there’s there’s the suffering of suffering, there’s the suffering of change, and there’s compounded pervasive suffering. I won’t go into all those things.
But of all of those kinds of suffering, it seems to me one of the worst kinds of suffering just from a, you know, yeah, is the lack of meaning in life, to think one’s life has no meaning. And more and more people are experiencing that in our especially in our culture, but maybe more and more around the world as various cultures and religions break down because of this very overpowering economic system that is taking over the world and way of thinking. And life without meaning, to wake up to feel that there’s not much point to wake up and do anything, it is really one of the most debilitating, horrible kinds of suffering imaginable. Whereas to feel that life has some meaning is the most wonderful thing. Yeah?
That your your existence is meaningful and what you do is meaningful. That is incredible. In that context, all suffering can be dealt with if you feel life has meaning and even your suffering has meaning. But if you think life has no meaning or you feel it doesn’t have any meaning, and then there’s in addition, there’s all this suffering, it’s unbearable. So also another consequence of the Buddhist view of mind is that, of course, everything that we experience comes from our mind.
It all depends on our mind. Everything we come in contact, everything we experience and feel is dependent on our mind. Yeah. So that means and so especially all our experiences of happiness and suffering, these are experiences of our mind. Suffering isn’t something out there that comes from out there that is somehow stuck in us from from out there.
Happiness isn’t something out there that is injected into us. It may look like that. It may sometimes feel like often feel like it, but happiness is a state of our mind. Suffering is a state of our mind. Nothing more, nothing less.
And what is more interesting and very difficult to explain, but there is a DB module related to it, but it’s the last one about the nature of reality, is that, you know, you you can look we can look at a flower and get some pleasure from looking at a flower. Right? Some limited kind of happiness, and we can get some pleasure from the smell of flower some of them, less and less these days because they’re commercially bright, and they don’t have any smell anymore. And you can even get pleasure from thinking about them or drawing them. Oh, no.
Let me leave that one aside. So so it’s easy to to some extent to understand that that pleasure that comes from looking at it, smelling a flower is a state of our mind, depends on our mind. But what the Buddha is also telling us is to have the pleasure of smelling a flower, seeing a flower Somehow, just for us to come in contact with with this object, me and flowers don’t go or spill the water. Somehow, to be able to meet this object depends on our mind. To have the pleasure of a flower, of smelling a flower, seeing a flower, you have to be able to contact the flower, and that also depends on your mind.
Yes. Well, it has to be there in your world. You have to have meet to have the pleasure of beautiful flowers, one has to be in a world where there is beautiful flowers, and you meet them. And nice people, friendly people, pleasant food, all sorts of things. Yeah.
And to to have unpleasant experiences, to have suffering, there is the suffering which is a state of our mind, but that suffering depends on conditions. To meet those conditions, also the Buddha is telling us, and this is a very profound difficult thing to understand, that also is coming from our mind. It depends on our mind. If it’s not a pleasant flower well, that depends on your mind if it’s a pleasant flower or not. This is what the Buddha is telling us.
There there is no such thing as an inherently existing pleasant or unpleasant, beautiful or ugly flower. It depends on your mind. And just just to go to illustrate this in a simple way about how everything depends on our mind, including the external world we are living in. We live in the world where it doesn’t seem as though this external world, this room, this Masonic hall now labeled Buddha House, it this doesn’t seem to depend on our mind. And it was built, you know, I don’t know how long ago.
What’s that got to do with my mind? Yeah. But also the Buddha is saying the whole world that we are living in depends on our mind. This is very difficult to understand because it’s related to emptiness, the nature of reality. But one simple way to look at it is, for example, if we take this analogy or whatever it is, maybe tonight, sometime tonight, I will die.
So if I die, then this world will cease to exist for me. But it won’t cease for you. It won’t cease altogether. The world will still exist. You will start you won’t die.
I will die, but you will exist, and you can reverse that. You die and everyone yeah? But for me, this world, although it’s existing for other people and will continue it exists for a long time for many different sentient beings, for me, there’s no way once death comes, this apparently totally solid concrete world out there is totally irreversibly gone, never to be experienced again because it depends on my mind. The only way this exists for me, and that means for every me, for every person, from human beings to gods to animals, for each sentient being, only way their world exists is depending on their mind. And when that mind ceases, you know, the gross mind of this life ceases, this ceases.
Even if the next life I get reborn as a human being and come back to this so called this world. It won’t be this world. It’ll be a world experienced by another, you know, person who actually is a continuum of me, but I that person will experience this world differently. Right? It’ll be a different world in a sense.
Do you understand what I’m I’m as Lama Yeshe used to say, communicating? Are we communicating? Are we communicating? Yeah. So everything depends on our mind.
It doesn’t seem to, but if you start to look, it it can’t exist things can’t exist any other way. As I try to say, think at the very beginning when you try and do this meditation, you you know, there’s this body. It’s so solid and real, apparently. But how does it exist? The only way we experience it is there is a mind experiencing it.
And then we have a sense of me, of I, this me. How does that sense of I exist? It can only exist depending on mind. So we think, you know, people are beautiful and good, ugly and bad, this and that, right and wrong, but it’s all depending on our mind. It’s all coming from our mind.
As my teacher once said so simply and beautifully, one way of thinking brings every kind of happiness, and one way of thinking brings every kind of suffering. It all depends on our mind. This is the Buddha’s message. So if we start to realize that everything is coming from our mind, our happiness and suffering are coming from our mind, then the consequence of that is that if we want less suffering and more happiness, even in this life, the only way it will actually come about is if we take care of our mind. The only way. I’d be quite one hundred percent dogmatic about this. I know many people are drawn to Buddhism because it’s not dogmatic, but I’m very dogmatic. This is what the Buddha there’s no and if you check, you check.
If this if there is mind and it’s your mind, there’s the happiness and suffering are states of mind. They’re not this isn’t happiness. If you look at this, you can get some happiness, but that isn’t the happiness. The happiness isn’t there. You can’t find any happiness there.
Not at all. Nothing. Oh, suffering coming now. Yeah. It’s all in the mind.
So if we start to see that then we have to take care of our mind. That there is no other way. No matter how rich, famous, beautiful we become, how many friends, power, nothing of that, none of it will make us happy, and none of it will protect us from suffering. It will give us some illusion of happiness, some pleasure, but it won’t bring us happiness or even much happiness. It all depends on the mind.
I mean, we all know this, you know, if if if money and possessions and being beautiful and powerful made you happy, then all these very rich, powerful people would be immensely happy. But you read their lives. How many of these people are really happy? You know, without without mentioning name. But we have the example of one of the richest women in the world living in this country.
She’s she’s got how many billion? That changes quite a bit. Anyways, at least twenty billion dollars. Does she show signs of being an immensely happy person? Unfortunately, not.
Was Hitler or Stalin or Mao Zedong, these immensely powerful people, incredibly happy because they were immensely powerful? You read about these beautiful, sexy movie stars. They get married to some other incredibly beautiful, sexy movie star. Three weeks later, But they should be perfectly happy. But they’re not because we don’t look after the mind.
It all depends on the mind. Yeah. So yeah. So conclusion is we need to take care of our mind. We have to protect our mind from the disturbing thoughts because they bring suffering.
This is what the Buddha is showing about the nature of the mind. And one has we need it’s it’s absolutely vital that we have to cultivate the positive qualities of our mind because these are the actual source of every kind of happiness. That is the message of Buddha. That is the consequence of the Buddhist view of mind. I don’t know if you could put it exactly that way, Rudy, because the mind by itself won’t look after itself.
That’s the trouble. We have to look after it. Oh, you do exist. You don’t inherently exist, but you exist. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got an individual mind. You have a mind. Your mind isn’t my mind.
Okay. This this question comes a lot. Just to confuse everything or maybe clarify it. The Buddha well, we have separate discrete mental continuum. Your mental continuum is not my mental continuum.
Right? It’s not part of one big mental continuum that we’re confused about thinking you’re you and I’m me. We are separate mental continuums. And because of that, there is a particular personality that has the label rude Rudy at the moment, right, arising. And that’s always been you’re beginninglessly separate from my my mental continuum and everyone else’s mental continuum.
At some point, especially if you continue to do the Discovering Buddhism courses at Buddha House, you will become enlightened. That’s not guaranteed, but anyway, at some point, you will achieve enlightenment. And at that point, your mind will become part of what is called the Dharmakāya, which is the enlightened minds of all Buddhas, and that is just one mind. Yeah. The mind is looking after the mind.
Yes. Yes. No. No. The way he said it, it sounded like it gave the impression that the mind would just naturally look after itself, but it doesn’t.
That’s why the Buddha appeared to tell you, tell us we’ve got minds and we have to take care of them because the mind by itself doesn’t take care of itself because it’s obscured. Yes. Yeah. The person the wise part. Sorry.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Right. That’s one way of thinking, isn’t it? Most people, when we experience suffering, we just think it’s bad, and we make it worse. There’s another way of thinking about suffering where you can see that there is good side to suffering and then the suffering isn’t as bad. It becomes bearable.
It can even become joyful. It all depends on the mind. We’re rapidly running out of time. I’m sure I’ve left out some major consequences of the the mind because I left all my notes behind. Yes.
No. It’s not. It’s gone. That’s the trouble. Yeah.
Okay. I think I’ve covered most of the topics that I wanted to the consequences. Yes. They’re all interrelated, of course. And, of course, one one of the other, which I haven’t mentioned, but just briefly, consequences of the Buddhist view of mind is that there is the law of cause and effect.
Because if we start to see that what we experience and how we how we experience it can can only come from our mind. You know, there is an object. Right? Here is an object. So to be able to know that object depends on our mind.
Our mind is what is knowing that object. But mixed with a very pure like, there is a possibility to to know this object exactly as it is without any, you know, projections and mistakes and so on. So our mind has that ability. But because it’s obscured, that doesn’t happen. And so our mind experiences this object, but also it interprets this object in various ways, good, bad, beautiful, ugly, this, that, and the other.
So then we have to ask ourselves, why do does my mind experience things in a particular way? Or why does my mind give rise to certain experiences at all? And this is where the law of cause and effect comes in. That why we experience things why we experience things at all. Well, okay.
Leave that bit for a topic. Why we experience things in a particular way, the Buddha is saying, is because we have our mind is forced to see things in a particular way. Some people will see this object as beautiful. Some people will see it as ugly. Some people will will see it as, you know, indifferent.
And this isn’t like a conscious decision, we don’t consciously decide, I’m going to decide I’d like this. I I I decide I don’t like this. We just look at something, taste something, you know, experience something, and there is this kind of instinctive, I like this. I don’t like you. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Right? And to some extent, after that, we can say, I like you because of this and that, or I don’t like this because of this. But, basically, we just are drawn to this and that and experience things practically straight away in particular ways. Our mind is forced to do that. What is forcing it are the karmic imprints due to our past actions.
Our positive actions lead to positive imprints. Those positive potentials or those positive potentials force the mind to experience things in a good way. Our negative actions generate negative imprints. Those imprints, those negative imprints, when they ripen, that negative energy forces the mind to experience things in a suffering way. And even more difficult to understand and more profound is that those imprints actually force the mind to come in contact with positive and negative things and therefore experience happiness and suffering.
To repeat. Well, the the easier way to understand it is that there is an object and I mean, you could do party tricks with it or, you know, at your have a party and have some object and get people to, you know, write down their their their view of this thing or a person. You take some person and ask, you know, what are they like? And you’ll get all these different impressions or indefinite opinions. Right?
And and and we we have this instinctive oh, you you can taste something new. Yeah. A piece of food and, like, I I you don’t I I don’t myself. You don’t decide. You consciously decide, I’m going to like this taste.
I’m I’m not going to like this taste. You just either do or you don’t. Yeah? I remember when I was younger, I just I I was I tried to be sophisticated and, you know, develop a taste for sophisticated things like wines and whatever. It never worked.
I tried to force myself in thinking these things tasted really nice, and it was very sophisticated to drink. They never I couldn’t. You know? It just tasted lousy. Didn’t like it at all.
No matter how expensive it was, it just tasted, like, horrible. No choice. Yeah. And you look at people. Oh, nice person.
Don’t like that one. No real reason. You just do or you don’t. And you look at, like like, racial bigotries and prejudices. There’s no logic behind it at all.
No logic. People can give all sorts of reasons. It’s it’s just rubbish. It’s pure rubbish. There’s some kind of, you know, instinct forcing us to see things in a particular way.
And that those so there’s some energy in our mind that does that, and that that the Buddha found were these karmic energies, these karmic imprints, potencies. And the positive ones come from our positive actions, which are a reflection of our Buddha nature. And the the negative potencies come from our negative actions, which come from ignorance and delusion. So the consequence is that we really do have to take care of our mind and avoid negative actions and engage in virtuous ones. If we want happiness and we don’t want if and if we want to avoid suffering, there’s no other way.
So I’ll try and explain that in the karma course, which I would encourage people to try and do. Karma is a very complicated, profound subject. See, there are three subjects that all go everything in the Buddhadharma goes together. But to really understand the mind, one has to have some understanding of emptiness and karma. These three things are all inextricably interconnected.
To understand the mind, one has to have some understanding of the way things exist. If we start to understand the way things exist, we can start to understand how karma comes into play, the law of cause and effect. So there’s still so much more I have to say tonight. But, yes, one yeah. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. No.
Sorry. That’s yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Yes. I the fact that you can change things, your mind, is because your mind is empty, and it doesn’t inherently exist. That’s why you can change your mind. But that you can’t say the changing of your mind is emptiness or the fact that you have a different view of someone is is emptiness. But because things are empty, all of those things are possible.
Everything is possible because of emptiness. But for example, if you have an aversion to someone and then you think, oh, I should you know, that’s not good to have this aversion, and you work on it and the and the next time you see them, you have this, you know, maybe indifferent feeling, then this this is kind of where you’re developing some kind of equanimity. So it’s not emptiness. It’s not an experience of emptiness, and it’s it’s it’s some degree of developing some some type of equanimity in your mind. If there’s some questions, please.
Yes. Well, generally, it’s no. It’s not a virtuous action. No. Generally, no.
Not a good thing to try. Suicide of any kind is considered not a virtuous action. Yeah. It’s always very hard to say what is the actual motivation of people doing that. And in some cases, it it may be virtuous.
It may be purely virtuous. But, yep, you know, most people do things with a whole mixture of motivations, many of which they they’re not aware of themselves why they’re doing things. But, I mean, his holiness is also said it’s really very unfortunate that people are doing this. Yeah. Sorry?
Yeah. No. No. It’s okay. Okay.
Maybe we should take a a ten minute break, and I’ll I’ll keep talking afterwards if you don’t mind to finish the course, if you can cope with it. Okay. Are we all here? So what what I’d like to talk about a little bit now, just very briefly, because all the topics that are set for any one course, you know, there’s no way to cover them in one course. Each each topic is a is a course in itself.
Thank you. But one of the topics within this course is to consider how we can begin to change our mind and and and how to deal with the disturbing thoughts. So this of course is really all all the teachings of the Buddha, the whole fifty years of the Buddha’s teachings are about how to work with one’s mind, take care of it properly, and begin to change it, and how to work with the delusions. So of course one way to well one thing is firstly is to develop some understanding that we can although we have many we all have these negative instincts and habits and that which have not just developed in this life but have a karmic history They have a lot of energy from past lives. But what we need to understand is that they so they they can feel as though, oh, there’s nothing I can do about this.
This is this is me. There’s no such thing as a fixed personality, a truly inherently permanently existing person or permanently existing delusions or negative habits. We we need to develop some understanding that we can change. Everything can change. Everything is impermanent.
We can change. And of course, the main way or one of the most important ways to change our mind is by working with the mind through meditation. Meditation is the the most powerful tool that is directly working with our mind. We can work with our mind in every situation when we’re walking, talking, eating, sitting, every every every situation is an opportunity to work with the mind, but when we sit down and meditate, that that is the most direct way because meditation involves trying to let go of all other distractions and all the, you know, focusing on the objects of the senses. They calm down as much as possible and we’re just left with the mental consciousness and becoming more and more aware of what state it’s in.
So the way to begin to work with one’s mind is to try to develop a regular meditation practice. This is if one really starts to see what the mind is, what an incredible potential for happiness and suffering that, you know, then radiates out to others. Our potential for suffering is not just to bring suffering to ourselves, but we can bring immense suffering to others. But and we not only have this potential to bring great happiness to ourselves, but to, countless beings. So in order to accomplish those things, we need to try and really gain control of our mind and the way to start doing that is to start developing a meditation practice.
And of course there are many many kinds of meditations to do, but one basic one is just to learn to do some simple focusing concentration meditation such as on the breath. This is probably the easiest kind of meditation to do. It’s not emphasized a great deal in the Tibetan tradition especially in the Gelugpa tradition. Analytical meditation is much more emphasized in the long run is much more powerful and effective. But in starting out to take care of the mind, learning to just focus the mind a little bit more through breathing meditation is incredibly helpful and just calming the mind because as I tried to say, you know, when the mind is like suffering and it is confused.
It’s not understanding and experiencing things correctly. And by just doing some basic breathing meditation, your mind is becoming calmer and clearer. And when it’s calmer and clearer, what that means is the the agitation and negativity in the mind has reduced and that natural those natural qualities of clarity and insight and wisdom and and so on are are able to start functioning a bit more effectively. So I would really encourage that that to to start taking care of the mind by just doing some daily meditation and starting with some simple breathing meditation, focusing the mind on the breath. And yes.
But also as part in in taking care of the mind, So meditation is very important, very like, is the direct medicine for taking care of the mind. But any kind of meditation we do is also connected with how we live our life in general. Because if you no matter how much time and energy we put into meditating, but then we live a life which is very, hectic and unmindful. We’re just undoing what we’re learning in our meditation sessions. So the more hectic a lot a busy one’s life is, the more agitated the mind is going to be.
The more agitated and stressed the mind is, the more likely disturbing thoughts arise, which leads to more confusion, more suffering, more agitation. And in in the thirty odd years that I’ve been a monk and and connected to the Buddha Dharma. So I’ve had the good fortune to become a monk very soon after I met the Dharma and and so I haven’t been involved in ordinary well, I mean, my life is very ordinary in many ways, but, I haven’t I’ve been out of the, you know, family life work life, ordinary work life and all those sort of things and what seems to me as an outside observer is that people’s lives are just getting more and more frenetic and busy. It’s really just unbelievable how much people’s lives how complicated people’s lives have become in the last thirty years. Really.
The rat race is getting racier and rattier all the time. And it’s very hard to, of course, avoid all of this, but it it’s not impossible. And, you know, I if if you feel anything I’ve I’ve said, which I I’m trying to say what teach what the Buddha taught in my own strange style, has made any sense and or has got you thinking that maybe there’s some truth in it, then really taking care of one’s mind is the priority. Yeah. Is that should be the top priority in your in your life, in our lives.
And not just for our own sake. Of course, if we want less suffering and more contentment, we have to take care of our mind. But the point is our mind affects other people. If we are disturbed, we will tend to upset other people. If our mind is calm and clear and kind and generous and friendly and so on.
That goes out to other people, has a tremendous effect on other people. So for our own sake, for the sake of others, taking care of our own mind should be our priority. This is not self-cherishing. This is not care of one’s mind is not self-cherishing. It’s not egotistical.
It’s not selfish. It’s vital for our self, for our family, friends, society, and the world. As his holiness says, you know, world peace starts with your own inner peace. And so we really need to think about all the things we’re doing, and do we really need to do them? How satisfying and meaningful and beneficial for ourselves are these things, especially in the context of more than just this this life.
There’s more than just this life. And what we’re doing in this life is going to affect us far, far beyond this life in so many, many, many, many, many ways. So we all need to live a simpler life as much as we can. Which doesn’t mean a more boring life. So only you can judge these things.
Right? But, you know, I would really suggest thinking about it more and more. What is really meaningful and worthwhile to do in the context that we’re going to die, our mind is going to go on and on forever. And if we don’t do anything about with our mind, Samsāra is a self perpetuating mechanism. It won’t stop.
But we can stop it completely if we start taking care of our mind. And through the power of one of the beautiful features, wonderful, amazing, miraculous features of any mind, even the most confused mind, is that the mind operates on the power of familiarity. If we familiarize ourselves with negative thinking and behavior, we just become more negative. It’s very simple, through the power of familiarity. And if we if we allow our mind to acquaint itself more and more with what is virtuous and positive and meaningful, such as the Buddha Dharma, meditation, those things become as our mind becomes more familiar with them, they they how they become easier to experience in every way and the experience becomes something deeper and deeper.
What starts out as something unfamiliar, unknown, maybe even unnatural and we may feel as completely artificial and hypocritical. You know, I’m meditating on loving kindness, but I don’t feel the slightest bit of loving kindness to anyone. I just hate everyone. But through the power through the power of familiarity, you know, that that the mind can start to experience affection and friendliness and kindness to others. And more and more and more until because of the power of familiarity in the nature of the mind, though that that quality of kindness becomes an instinctive natural aspect of the mind.
Well, it actually is, but I mean in the sense that that potential is there, but it it’s hidden or obscured by our delusions. And so, in any life, that natural kindness doesn’t seem natural. It doesn’t seem very present. And so we it seems like we’re cultivating it. We’re adding it to ourselves through meditating on it.
But it’s really there all the time. But by meditating on it, you know, through that power of familiarity, what started off as feeling something, you know, distant and unnatural to me becomes it becomes us. It becomes instinctive. It becomes spontaneous. And that that’s through the power of familiarity.
So that work works both ways, and it’s our choice. This is what we should understand that, you know, by choosing the wrong things, by choosing following the self-cherishing thought and choosing the easy way out and what is negative, then we become familiar with all that negativity. But we can choose to be wise and compassionate and become familiar with these things and make our life more and more meaningful. So it’s a matter of just starting and not giving up. Somewhere in Śāntideva’s wonderful book, the Bodhicaryāvatāra, he says something like, before you start doing something, you should check up.
Can I can I do this or not? Do I have any ability to do this or not? And if you decide that you have some ability to do something, then you should start. And once you’ve started, never give up. Because through the power of familiarity, you will achieve it.
So we may decide I’m not ready to do this thing right now. That’s okay. But once you once once we start to develop some confidence, I can do this. Maybe I can’t do it perfectly, but, yes, I I’m no different than anyone else. You know, something you know, Freddie down the road is doing this.
I should be able to do it. So once we start, we should just continue no matter how, what happens. You don’t give up. You don’t turn back. You we just keep doing it.
And through the power of familiarity, the mind will become a Buddha. Mind will become enlightened and then we’ll be a Buddha. Guaranteed. I don’t guarantee that. Buddha guarantees that.
Yes. Yes. More or less. Yes. Yes.
Another term. Okay. So then that was then specifically about how to deal with the delusions themselves. Every delusion has its own antidote, its own particular antidote. But learning these antidotes takes a lot of time and effort.
One antidote for all delusions is and it works best for us as beginners, but again you have to cultivate it is the under some real understanding insight into everything is impermanent and we’re going to die. If we really meditate on that get some insight how everything is impermanent everything in this world in this phenomenal world is impermanent and that oneself is going to die, then if we have really reflected on that, built some energy around that in our mind, that becomes an antidote to every delusion because if we get angry and then we can remember what I’m angry about, the person I’m angry with, situation that is causing me to be angry, is a condition for my anger. None of this is going to last. It may go on a long time, but it won’t last forever and it will change. It doesn’t remain the same.
So why be angry? What is the point of being angry? Especially if we understand I could die in my anger. If we understand how the mind and karma works, we do not want to die in anger. We don’t want to die with any of the disturbing thoughts active.
Because if we die with a mind like that there is no way to have a good rebirth. An angry mind a disturbed mind doesn’t become the cause to go into a good rebirth. So we don’t want to die angry no matter what is making us angry. And similarly, if we’re experiencing a lot of desire and attachment, whatever we’re attached to, whatever we’re craving, if we could really understand, not just say the words, you know, which, you know, on the tips of our lips, but we we have some experience of the meaning of the words that whatever is we’re obsessed with, attracted to, craving for, attached to, it’s impermanent. It’s not going to last.
It’s never going to stay the way it appears. And there’s no way I can make it. So why be attached? Why why crave so much? And again, I could die in this state.
And it’s true for every delusion, you know, whether we’re proud of something, whatever we’re proud of isn’t going to last. If we’re proud of our looks, our intelligence, our wealth, our power, our knowledge, none of it is going to last. None of it. So why be proud? And whatever we’re jealous of, jealous of other people’s appearance, wealth, success, it isn’t going to last.
That’s not going to last either, so why be jealous? It works for every delusion. But the key thing with all of these things is not just knowing these things, but having meditated on them to get a deeper insight, a deeper experience of the meaning of the words. Right? So much of the Buddhadharma, if one is open to it, is is very easy to understand and believe and accept and agree with.
But that doesn’t mean we’ve got the realization, the inner experience. The inner experience comes from meditating on these things. Right. I can’t emphasize this enough because I have been involved in pretending to teach the Buddha Dharma for many years and I’ve met many people and many people think because they’ve heard the Buddha’s teachings even one time they know it. I’ve been teaching the Dharma for thirty years and I still don’t know what I’m talking about.
So we need to hear the teachings many, many, many, many times and especially reflect on them through and through the power of familiarity, something builds up in our mind, something that is that is very, powerful, that really opposes the delusions. Because Lama Yeshe used to say something like, you know, our wisdom light at the moment is, you know, the darkness of our delusions is very strong because it’s been, you know, it’s been there for beginningless time and our our wisdom energy is so small. So it doesn’t have the power to get rid of that darkness, but through through cultivating meditation again and again, that wisdom energy builds up and it develops that power that can counteract. But just be okay. Just just to go back a bit.
Before we learn all the the the antidotes to the delusions, One helpful way to one meditation that’s useful in in pacifying or working with our delusions apart from the one on impermanence and death is just the meditation, meditation which I think I said for some homework. I I only talked about very briefly, unfortunately. But it’s just it’s the meditation of just simply watching one’s thoughts, developing this a mindfulness that is just simply aware of what thoughts are arising in the mind and having the awareness that they are actually just thoughts. That they’re not me, that they’re not the totality of my mind, that there is just this thought, which is like a bubble. It’s like a cloud in the sky.
It’s like a wave on the ocean. It’s just there momentarily. And and it’s impermanent. It arises. It comes into being.
It has a period where it has it it it it is existing, abiding, and then a period of disintegration, and then it’s gone. So it’s it’s it’s extremely helpful to train the mind in that meditate, that type of meditation. Of of seek thoughts simply as thoughts and and sort of trying to object just objectively observe them so that one doesn’t get caught up in them and feeding them. And once we get caught up in them, we’re lost. They they take over our mind.
We become those negative thoughts. And also if we can observe as those thoughts arise, the nature of them, the feeling tone that they have, how they actually have this function of disturbing the mind. So that’s really helpful. Another thing which was connected with what I was saying earlier about leading a simple life is that a very general antidote to and very very effective antidote to any disturbing thought is developing some basic inner contentment. And that comes from basically leading a knowing that one is leading a meaningful life or trying to lead a meaningful life, which comes from taking care of the mind for one’s own sake, for the sake of others.
Because if you think about it, if checked up yourself, the the what’s the word? The what’s the the basis of I’m trying to think of the word. I’m trying to be technical here. Like the default I think it’s the default position that that leads to disturbing thoughts arise is disturbing thoughts of any kind, whether it’s anger, pride, jealousy, fear, craving, attachment. Those thoughts arise and they arise strongly and continuously in the field of a discontented mind.
The more discontented we are, the more we the disturb I mean, the discontentment of the mind is a result of disturbing thoughts anyway, but the more discontented we are, the more we create the the opportunity for all the different kinds of disturbing thoughts to become really active and take over the mind. If if we’re unhappy for some reason and then someone comes along, then it’s so easy to get angry with them, to take out our frustration on that person. Yeah. They haven’t said anything, done anything. They just walked in the room.
The one’s unhappy and miserable, and so just walking in the room is good enough to scream and yell at them. Yeah. Or to fall madly in love with them. The more discontent we are, the more the self-cherishing finds something to latch onto. And to be proud of something jealous, this or that, to be really irritated and so on.
Whereas if we’ve if we’ve got some basic contentment in our mind, the disturbing thoughts don’t go away But they become far far easier to manage they become more detectable because right? Know You know when your mind is something like that and it gets disturbed that is noticeable. But when your mind is like that and it goes like that, you can’t detect it. As I have often said, and I’ll say it one more time, if you have the custom of smoking fifty cigarettes a day, which I used to before I met the Dharma, when you smoke the fifty first, you don’t notice it, or in fact, it appears like pleasure when the mind is so obscured and, yeah, confused. But when you stop, when you give up smoking cigarettes and, you know, you just get a whiff of the smoke, you can’t stand it because your mind becomes sensitive.
It detects things as they are. Whereas when your mind is like that, you can think that smoking a cigarette is actually pleasant. But once the mind is like that, you don’t have to have some kind of hoity toity moral view that smoking is bad. You just feel it’s lousy for yourself. You just feel it.
You experience it. But when your mind is like that, you can’t tell. This relates to the whole of the Buddhadharma. The Buddhadharma exists at a conceptual level of our ideas which I’m trying to express. But as a Buddhist, one believes that these are not just concepts, these are concepts about reality so that you can actually experience the truth of these concepts.
Yeah. There is the concept of the ten non virtuous actions of body, speech and mind, the killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and etcetera etcetera are negative. And some people with a mind like that can say, oh, sexual misconduct is terrific. Get very very happy. More sexual misconduct the happier like what is it as they say?
Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. Yes, right. But when you’re mind well I don’t know what the is there a male version of that? I don’t know. There is a male version but a saying, don’t give me a hard time.
Now I’ve lost my point. Where am I? Oh yeah, but when your mind is clear, you can experience the truth of what the Buddha taught. This is the Buddha’s message. He said, you know, don’t believe what I say because I said it, which doesn’t mean which many modern people interpret that what Buddha wasn’t sure whether he was saying things was true or not.
What he was saying is if you check up self and discover the truth yourself, it becomes so much more powerful than just blindly believing it. And the thing is, like, Buddha with confidence can say, if you check up what I say, you will find out that it is true. But when you when you find it out yourself from your own experience, it’s so much more powerful. That when you feel that anger is painful rather than being told it’s, you know, it’s bad, don’t get angry because it’s naughty. But when you because some Buddhist monk told you it’s naughty to get angry or want us to get angry, that’s bad.
But once feel that your your own anger, our own anger, sorry, not your anger is actually painful, then that that that is a great motivating force not to be angry. I think I strayed from my no. That was all somehow started to be connected with having a contented mind. And how do we get a contented mind? A contented mind comes from taking care of the mind because the because yeah.
Practicing sorry. Buddhist advertisement, practicing the Dharma. If if if we start to take care of the mind, put some effort, rather than doing all this external stuff, really working on the inner source of our happiness and suffering, then some basic contentment will come. And especially I think one of the greatest kind great I don’t know if it’s the greatest kind of contentment, but a very significant kind of contentment, I think, comes comes simply by knowing that what you’re doing or what you’re trying to do is meaningful. Yeah?
Many people are doing jobs where they’re earning enormous amounts of money, but they know that what they’re doing is just really just garbage. There’s no, you know, there’s no benefit, no meaning. So it’s not satisfying. Whereas someone could be doing a very, very simple job, not not not much money, no prestige, or anything like that, but they feel that what they’re doing has meaning, has value. So that person can experience real satisfaction.
And there is nothing more beneficial than that. Nothing more wonderful than feeling satisfied. Through knowing that one is doing something meaningful. And I would argue that practicing Dharma, even trying to practice the Dharma, is the most thing thing you can do. Especially if we try and do it with some form of bodhicitta motivation.
That we are really trying to take care of our mind, work with our mind, not just for our own sake, in this life or future lives, but with some thought to be able to really help others. All others repay their kindness. There’s nothing more satisfying. You know what? Maybe that’s all I need I can say tonight.
If you if, you know, in the in the in the teachings called the Lamrim, the graduated path teachings, the graduated path to enlightenment teachings, in there is set out all the different ways to change the mind and and overcome the different disturbing thoughts. So many of these things will be covered in the modules that of this Discovering Buddhism program. And of course, the next module is the Law of Cause and Effect which is really a vital subject to study for one who wants to know anything about the Buddhadharma or practice it. And of course by knowing the law of cause and effect, developing some faith in it, this also is a very powerful way to work with the delusions because it’s the first way to start reducing the delusions because by avoiding negative actions understanding that certain actions are naturally negative and therefore can only bring real suffering to our self now and in the future then by knowing that having some faith in that, we will have some energy, wisdom energy to avoid negative actions, which means that even though the disturbing thought is there saying do this action do it, is pushing us by not engaging in the negative action then that is weakening that disturbing thought at least temporarily.
So the more we engage live a life which is putting energy into avoiding negative actions and putting more of the energy of our life into engaging in virtuous actions of body speech and mind this just naturally is leading to the the pacification of the mind. Just to making it easier to identify the disturbing thoughts and easier to pacify them. And every good thing starts to happen when when we start to pacify our disturbing thoughts. As I said earlier in the Course, the uncontrolled mind is our greatest enemy. The pacified mind, the controlled mind is our best friend.
So there’s a whole lot of other stuff I meant to say, but in six weeks and two hours a night, with lots of interruptions and keep being given a hard time, it’s difficult. No. Sorry. That’s not true. Anyway, maybe one or two final questions?
Yes. Well these still are disturbing thoughts. They are disturbing your mind. Of course they’re not disturbing thoughts in the sense of particularly negative ones but they are disturbing your mind they’re moving your mind away from the yeah so we do have to learn to not pay attention to those two. Mean one of the main things in doing meditation is you know meditation always you have to have an object of meditation it can be something very simple like the breath or it can be meditating you know reflecting on on the meaning of emptiness so that’s a very complicated object but there always has to be an object and meditation involves at the beginning, you you need your motivation and you need to make this determination that anything, absolutely anything that occurs in the meditation which is not the the chosen object, you has to be avoided.
No matter how small or big that that distraction is, it has to be avoided. And even there is I I unfortunately have never had this experience, but some people when they’re meditating on something like have visions of the Buddha or have some wonderful insight into some other aspect of the Buddha Dharma. These are also distractions and to be avoided totally. People have visions, you know, ecstatic experiences these are the work of Mara. Yeah, these all of that because the mind one will never learn to control the mind if we if we follow whatever pops up in the mind.
Well you have to notice it, you know, that you’re thinking about feeding the dog and realize this is not meditating on the breath or what I chose and you just you know you just label it at what one thing you can do is just just like because you know what it can appear can appear you know in this wonderful disguise of some fascinating insight into the Buddhadharma or you know whatever but all it is is a distraction That’s all it is. You suddenly remember where you left your something that you’ve been looking for for the past twenty five years. Wow. But so that looks terrific. But all it is is a distraction.
And of course, for the ordinary mind, one can think, well, who cares if it’s a distraction or not? But if we have some belief that we have this amazing Buddha mind and and what is hiding it is all these disturbing thoughts from the most negative to the thought gotta feed the dog, we will never experience this. We will never have peace, real peace, happiness, contentment. We’ll never be able to spread it to others while we have this uncontrolled mind. Getting a controlled mind is vital.
It’s vital. Yeah. Sure. Sure. We better finish soon, but, yeah.
How does what? Hypnother how does it? I don’t know. I I don’t know. But To?
Well I don’t know if you can say hypnotherapy is a meditative state, I wouldn’t say that. It’s a different kind of state. Don’t honestly know. I don’t know how hypnotherapy works exactly, what it’s actually doing. And I think it would only work with some kinds of people who are suggestive to that.
But what what are you asking? Is it good, bad, or what? I I really don’t know. I I don’t have any experience of it. I’ve only seen, like, kind of entertainment versions of it.
I know it is used in some kind of therapeutic ways and and I I I believe that’s possible. It could could be helpful in that way. Really not in a position to comment on it, sorry. I think you always have to be careful who you let mess around with your mind. Sort of what kind of suggestions people are putting into your mind.
Anyway, that’s it for the course as far as the classes go. There is the retreat on Sunday, so as I said, I’d encourage people to do it, but please you need to register and make sure to let us know that you will be coming. Also if you’re planning to do the next course, it’s important to register like today, tomorrow as soon as possible because the books have to be printed and this is an awful lot of work. Yeah. And we can’t print a whole, you know, a lot too many because this becomes a waste of money and, you know, not ecologically good.
So this is a consideration, but it’s also just a huge amount of work. If more people come than books printed, then this becomes quite a difficult stressful thing and this center doesn’t have lots of volunteers. If anyone would like to help Bill and Kathy print books, this would be, you know, highly appreciated. Right? Especially if they have some ability to do photocopying and collating and so on.
But it’s a lot of work to put these things together. So please, if you or other people you might know are planning to do the course, please book now. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious Bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.