Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Over 110 minutes, Venerable Tony Beaumont uses the theme of stress-reduction to explore how Buddhist refuge practice protects the mind and transforms difficult relationships. He begins with breath meditation as a foundational tool, then unpacks refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—both external and internal dimensions—showing how understanding karma, cultivating compassion, and developing wisdom naturally reduce reactivity to life’s problems. He illustrates the long-term nature of Buddhist practice through personal anecdotes and teachings by the Dalai Lama, emphasizing that sustainable wellbeing requires intelligence, determination, realistic perspective, and never losing hope in one’s Buddha-nature. The second half pivots to domestic violence, arguing that Buddhism offers a preventative solution by teaching people not to take ultimate refuge in partners or external circumstances, and by using difficult relationships as opportunities for mind-transformation through lojong practice—reframing harm-doers as intoxicated by afflictions rather than fundamentally bad. He addresses audience questions about mother-daughter conflict and relationship repair with practical Buddhist methods. Pitched at general practitioners and those exploring Buddhism’s relevance to contemporary social problems.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2015 08 11 Ven Tony Beaumont Reducing Stress 18-08-15.mp3
UUID: a43a8b34-919f-412f-b5d5-a726b5c154c3
Teacher: Ven Tony Beaumont
Collection: Reducing Stress Week (Ven Tony Beaumont)
Date: 2015-08-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 110.8 minutes
Words: ~12,797
Okay. So then we can first half meditation, we’ll spend some minutes observing the breath, using the breath as a way of focusing the mind and by letting go of the mental activity of bringing memories from the past, as they arrive and not being caught up in the doors of plans for the future, any other types of distracting thoughts or emotions. Not be caught up in these and distracting sounds, sensations in the body. Our business is here to try diligently but also in a relaxed way to keep our focus on the breath as it passes in, passing out. Just to try to keep that mind keep the mind settled on this experience of the the breath coming in, coming out through the nostrils.
Okay. It’s then motivated now for session two. It’s always said that actually what determines whether a practice is Buddhist or not is whether it’s generated on the basis of taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. It’s really the determinant about whether some practice, whether it be meditation, whether it be study. Also whether it be, you know, whether a person takes vows or not as a layperson or an ordained person. Whether they’re Buddhist or not, it’s really depending upon the basis of this refuge of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
Buddha is we talk about Buddha as being any completely enlightened being. Dharma, in general, the teachings of the Buddha, I’d also refer to it’s often said to be that which or the true cessation and the true paths or that which eliminates suffering. And then Sangha refers to the highly realized practitioners on the path, those who directly realize nature of phenomena. But then also there’s an internal level of this refuge, and you take refuge in that context every day with the Buddhist understanding that we can become a completely enlightened Buddha. So we take refuge in our future.
It’s a really significant aspect of Buddhism is taking refuge in our future Buddhahood, the fact that we can become Buddha. And then we take refuge in our internal Dharma and that is that as the aspiration to obtain true cessation of suffering such that they never arise again and cessation of afflictions or disturbing states of mind such that they never ever arise again and the paths, wisdom paths, that lead to those cessations. And then the internal refuge in the Sangha is our capacity to be of guidance and assistance to others. So then we condition, so here from this point of view, we dedicate this session we have together. That kind of view.
And sometimes it said the real of those refugees, the real refuge is the Dharma refuge, because this refers to the real transformation of our mind. And that’s what happens in Buddhism. It’s the internal. We are responsible for the transformation. It’s not like God or water is going to come down and remove our suffering.
That’s us. We are responsible for being the transformation. And so different levels of what we said about being of dharma, but one way we can look at it is that which holds us back from suffering. And you you can see then from a point of view that dharma can be seen as understanding and implementing in our life the law of cause and effect, karma. Because as we do that, we introduce the understanding of karma in our life.
Then what happens? We protect ourselves, which holds us back from suffering because on the basis of that, we stop creating the negative actions which bring us suffering. So. So taking refuge in that aspect of Dharma, which says this is karma or cause and effect, protects us in that way. Protects us from suffering. Holds us back from suffering.
Then also, when we take when we cultivate the altruistic mind and bodhicitta, the aspiration to enlightenment mind, that wants to remove others from suffering. But even if not that, when we generate mindful compassion, that protects us from our own self centeredness, of that mind. Then when we take refuge in the aspect of the wisdom, there’s Dharma from the point of view of wisdom, wisdom of the ultimate. The more we develop wisdom and integrate it into our life, we are protected from our own foolishness, our own foolish actions of others, speech, and mind. So it has a very practical and logical explanation.
And also, we can take refuge like this, but we also have to apply it earnestly. The basis of taking refuge is the recognition of the various difficulties that arise in this life. So we need to have support in terms of Buddhism and so into the future we can’t be sure how life will unfold. What health issues may occur, what relationships may occur, what relationship issues may occur, what social problems may occur in this country or warfare or whatever. Can’t be certain to the future.
So best form of refuge and protection is this process of inner development that can protect us regardless. Continue on with this subject of relating to stress, to stress. So otherwise, I might get stressed out. So he told us when he was talking about stress. And here again, when we talk about stress, what we’re really referring to is, from this Buddhist point of view, is various factors may be stressful externally to us And we may, you know, depending on our circumstance, we may have the capacity to take on more and more problems like this and we have that internal strength to be able to do it.
Other people are less inclined to do this. Some people, it’s a situation that is even the most minor upheaval in their life that really get stressed out. Other people can endure many different things. What we say really here in Buddhism is that what we’re concerned with here is to try to work with our mind to cultivate more and more conducive states of mind which allow us to deal with the various problems as they arise so that we it’s implementing methods for each individual person according to their, you know, inclinations and neurosis and capacity and so on like that, like kind of form of medicine that we’re trying to do. So there are different things, all the different factors involved in Buddhism that can help to lessen stressful reactions.
Of course, each person again will find certain methods more effective than others. But at the same time, we’re not talking here about the overnight solutions to our problems. Remember It was just after an ordination there and there was a discussion group. This is in India in Dharamsala. And it wasn’t it was just shortly after the ordination, someone asked me there to retreat center, to a retreat center in Dharmasala, this discussion group that people, the travelers around traveling through India, staying in Dharamsala, and they’ll read the notices on the board and see what’s happening.
So rather than so I don’t this week, I think I’ll go to the meditation place. So they come up and and then, you know, whatever is put on, might come for a week for ten day course if that’s going. So sometimes they just come to this short period of time for hour of discussion. And I remember there someone saying, and I said something like, I can’t remember exactly what the subject was. But, you know, I acknowledged something.
I said something like, oh, yeah, such and such, and it’s still I still behave and see it quite. And then now ask how long you’ve been involved in Buddhism is fifteen years. I said, why fifteen years? Are you still doing that? It’s not the McDonald’s.
It’s the spiritual part. It’s not the fast food thing. It’s not the instant result because it’s really looking in a long term of transforming our mind and just because certain things, you know because I was just talking about this. Talked to he said, you know, because people are wanting instant results, he often emphasizes it. He says, no, no, no, this is something you have to be engaging over many, many lives. So Buddhism had that longer term perspective. We’re saying that these problems have been persisting since beginningless time.
Very positive influence and reminding for those things that we may not eradicate. The deep problem, I haven’t got rid of all of the poisons. It’s still there. It’s the point. Well, at least, you know, I I find myself the best of the in the context So still saying being involved.
So just say, I would’ve been just to say some things also his holiness when he spoke a little bit on dealing with stress. It’s the first time he’s talked to go into those and probably and one of these is people who’ve been around for a while until they’ve heard this quote and it’s probably not given the exact quote but it’s along the lines of the message. It’s from Śāntideva. And he’s one of the last great Indian saints and it’s always often quotes the scholar. If there’s, you know, if there’s a problem and you can do something about it, then don’t worry.
Do something about it. And if there’s a problem and you can’t do anything about it, Don’t worry about it. Neither one, don’t worry about it. But he goes on to say a little bit more to explain because it can be said that we may hear that many, many different times and does tend to make sense, but it may just make sense only in terms of intellect and not introducing to the life. But when he discusses it more, he’s saying, especially the first part there is being said with an assumption that you’re going to examine, to check, to see if you can do something about the problem.
You have to really look within it to apply your intelligence. Not If you if you leave it at a superficial level then you really never know what you could have done something about it anyway. You just try to find a convenient way to not be worried about it Then also he said, when he’s talking about the human condition, he says, it’s important to remember we as human beings can bring that change in our life. Also, associated with that observation is determination. Sorry.
With that, we recognize the intelligence is also driven, but we also have the capacity to develop determination. So having intelligence and determination, two very important things to remember, to apply those. That’s why it’s a pretty good in terms of our difficulties, reduces Oh, yes. The the importance also, when you’re engaging in activity, you know, it’s something that’s very challenging, is to constantly bring back to maybe your motivation. What is your motivation for doing this?
This mind becomes, you know, a certain thing you’ve got to do and you may become lose perspective on it and try to make a decision on it, but to bring the mind back to the importance of the altruistic motivation. Why do we engage in this action or for doing it in order to develop compassion, in order to be of benefit to others. Somehow understand, introduce that idea of altruism, bring it back. What is my purpose? My purpose, anybody in general, is to benefit others.
So what am I engaging in? Or to benefit us. So important to bring back to mind that because we get involved in the thing and then completely lose perspective of it and forget why are we doing getting angry or upset or whatever sort of loss that perspective. And then together with that, he says the other thing to go with that motivation is the realistic view of the situation. To have a realistic view, I guess, also refers to our own capacities, individuals basically do that, and also realistic in terms of what is the most likely outcome.
Look at the circumstances of who people were dealing with and so on, and then have a realistic view about that. And this is if you’re engaging that actions really with these two factors of motivation and realistic view, you can say, you know, it’s all about wisdom and compassion to bring back like this. Then even if the thing doesn’t work out, it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t come together, we can be, you know, saying to ourselves, well, tried the best and I was very realistic. And I guess this is reflected in his own Dalai Lama’s whole life because from one person, from an outsider’s point of view, so an outsider’s just observing the Dalai Lama and they know and know about his activities, but they would also be aware that he was, you know, leader of the people that he was and that for these since that time, he left in nineteen fifty nine, He’s been working to support the Tibetans and, you know, earlier on it was like independence of Tibet more recently than he said I’m not very independent of Tibet but my responsibility is to try to create circumstance so that there are freedoms, people have religious freedoms and so on, that the rights are respected.
On one level, I don’t know if it’s got any influence going on. Right? So some people may think, well, but no, still positive. He knows that he’s like, tried the best I possibly can, put the conditions together that may turn out or may not turn out. So you see this is expressed in his life, That strong determination, the motivation is there, and he’s got some degree, he’s got a brilliant realistic view.
Not this hard. Which is also a couple of other things he says in there as well to bring him to there is to to never lose hope. So again, we can see in his behavior, never lose hope. And to never forget your Buddha-nature.
You never forget the fact that we have this potential to become enlightened. So it doesn’t matter what happens. Misfortune, discouragement, all these different things can occur, but still to never lose hope and never lose hope. And never lose hope, never despair of those things and to always remember that it doesn’t matter what happens or what people do to us, they can’t take away our capacity to become enlightened. It’s always there.
And whatever the circumstances, the most challenging circumstances can be the very ones that awaken the utmost potential. It’s not dependent on how much money you want from. So that remains with us. It’s interesting, but rather interesting is very Darwin is very optimistic, right? I think so.
He emphasized the importance of optimism. There’s a book by atheist philosopher who’s the author’s name is Alain de Botton, perhaps it can be corrected, called Religion for Atheists. It’s a very good book. I think it’s a very good book to read. He’s written that because he’s saying he’s saying, I’m an atheist.
I don’t believe in god. There’s no way I’m gonna dismiss everything that the religious people and put together over the years. There’s a lot of wisdom in system in that. You’re atheists. It’s crazy.
You toss it all out because it’s a lot to say. So in that part in the book there is a difference of different terminologies. People can use different words mean different things. And he says actually one. Well, that’s a contradiction of what the Dalai Lama says, but it’s not, actually.
Just put in different perspectives. He he says that there’s more problems arising is the idea in his philosophy. He said more problems and suffering arise in people’s lives on the basis of their optimism rather than the present. Always that view that there’s this eternal optimism that you’ll find something in those things that will bring happiness. But from a religious point of view, of course in Buddhism, the first level truth is the truth of suffering.
Is that there’s nothing wrong with those things, but if you hitch your wagon to those things and you rely upon them as a source to get you through, that’s gonna create problems. You’re gonna experience disappointment because by nature, they can experience periods of bliss and so on that they’re not satisfactory. Whereas from the religious person’s point of view, they’re pessimists because why? Because they are more realistic and that they understand that these things are not real sources of happiness that they hold out a great hope in the material world and so on. He would label them pessimists.
We wouldn’t use that word, but he’s using that word with the same Buddhism and saying it’s a protection from the suffering of saṃsāra. So we’d agree with him there, but at the same time we’d say actually in Buddhism we are optimistic because there is a view that we have Buddha-nature and if we imply various factors, if we abandon non virtue, cultivate virtue, pacify the mind, we can transform our life into something extraordinary. Okay. So we certainly one of the factors here of going into a bit more about stress and how do we lessen it? Is that that idea, if we implement more and more in our life, this idea of taking refuge in Buddhism and Buddhism, it becomes a means for reducing stress.
Refuge has different meanings but one way to describe what is refuge really means, or Buddhist, by what it means is entrusting oneself to the positive potentials existing in oneself and to those factors which are conducive for awakening those positive potentials. So it’s placing great emphasis here on its internal development, so the refuge, ritual, growing within, awakening this positive sense. But of course as well, the Buddha manifested in the world twenty five hundred years ago, presented it, established the doctrine like this, and then along the way we say that holy beings are constantly manifesting in the world by lamas, we say Dalai Lama is important, constantly manifesting to give inspiration. We also take refuge in this external. We take refuge in that in order to awaken positive potentials within ourselves.
So if we really understand refuge in a given quite a to me, it’s a very profound thing, trying to really get a sense of what the real meaning of refuge is. But even if we’re able to do that, the more we can do that is it said that if you what constitutes what it’s practice is the refuge. So in other words, practice is really modest, even very modest, not doing very much, but if it’s based on a really powerful refuge, that is very positive and it means whatever you do is going to be of great benefit. Whereas on the other hand, someone might be a brilliant scholar and be able to, you know, get all sorts of certificates and so on and then ordain, you know, taking monastic ordination and full ordination and ordained forty or fifty years, so So it’s a senior, ordained person. Still, if that person has done that and also taken many initiations from so many holy lamas, but if they’ve done all those things and it looks very impressive, then they’re making a mark on the wall.
But if there is not a genuine refuge taking place, then we have to question how much stability is there in their practice. And often, it’s said, it’s like if you lose your refuge, it really moves everything a bit like how it is with a tree. If this if this soil is eroded or the sand is eroded by the by water, and it’s just a matter of time before that will fall down. So similarly, the person who’s you know, they feel like all these things have a good reputation. But So refuge needs to be a sound basis.
And if we do have that strong refuge, wake up in the morning, So refuge really is a many benefits session, but that puts this along the line the benefit of taking refuge from the point of view of giving protection. And that is what Christ already mentioned, the meditation of this protection by following the law of cause and effect, of karma. And then also mind of wisdom and that protects us from our own unwise actions, which unwise actions can potentially lead to become anxious. So taking taking refuge is I’m a source of protection, we can think that also in different ways that comes to source of protection from a point of view that when you generate strong internal refuge and hold it in your own heart that protects you from your own disturbing states of mind, anger, hatred, and so on, which of course leads you to do many things. But what it also does when that occurs is that it protects you from other people causing you harm because if you’ve got your mind pacified and it’s peaceful when you go to work, like when someone calls you a name, right, and that is true, if you’ve got your mind to peace on that day, you’re not going to retaliate and say the words which in turn lead them to say something back to you and then in turn force your day to be a problem.
So it protects us internally, but it also protects us externally. And when each time that takes place, that means there’s far less tension in the system, far more peace and far more confidence as well with the working methods of working in the mind. So although the problems may arise and we get, you know, we’ve got to have time, but it’s less likely to overwhelm. Then refugee and we, of course, we condition our life in this way. In general, it’s gonna make, you know, less anxiety, but also particularly the time of death as well.
A couple of years ago, I was working at the hospice project in Brisbane. There was a woman. There was a woman there who had She was in the process of dying from cancer. She she but she decided, you know, we don’t force them. She decided from her own side and circumstances come together.
That was very close and she wanted to send her through. Traditionally they have just a lama who does it. Someone who’s been around a while, little dangerous, a period of time. But in this situation, there was no lama from Chenrezig Institute or Tārā Institute and there was anyone around, and she was wanting it because her death was very imminent. So I was asked to do it.
I’ve never done it before, but I’ve I’ve given the refuge ceremony that I’ve been given permission. So this is gonna be a learning thing for me and as well, I guess, because of that circumstance, you know, and her address she was going through the first the ceremony as well. So I went to the hospital. I never met him before. And the other thing with it is that when the ceremony takes place, it’s not a heavy service.
It’s said to be something to be taken seriously, not just being somehow part of it. So we connected the ceremony. And then part of it as well is to give someone a person a name. They don’t have to, but very often people do want to have names.
It’s a very important thing. She was particularly wanting her name. And generally speaking, they’re the family only with her. Very often when they give a name, it’s part of the name comes from persons ordaining. It doesn’t have to be that way.
And I thought about it, and and it was her that she had this connection with Dalai Lama. Dalai Lama’s name is Tenzin. Tenzin means Dharma protector, meaning protective of teaching. And then Pema Pema means lotus. And I think all I’m not too sure.
Pema is always seem to be women. Usually, I don’t know. Because some names in Tibet can be male female. I think Pema is usually for women but anyway, it was like that. So somehow it just seemed appropriate to give her the name You know, it’s like they’ve done another thing that Dalai Lama says quite often the quote that he makes.
Śāntideva’s quote also is, As long as space endures, as long as sentient beings endure may I too endure or remain to relieve the suffering of the world. So not simply remove my suffering but to the motivation, but not just simply remove, I want to be reborn why so I can benefit others. I want to use my life. What’s most important is to use my life to benefit others. So I guess in terms of imparting that knowledge, it sends to her: she’s dying.
It’s not the end. It sends us the start. Remind that this vow is a commitment. So Lotus, Lotus comes out of the filthy pond that remains pure like this and protect her with the Dharma. It’s her responsibility.
She dies, she protects her with the Dharma. So we did that and performed the ceremony and she was in and out, you know, the meditations of this, but most of the time, she certainly could be, but she was definite. You’re a hundred percent right there. This is a significant, very important thing. Sensing that she’s, you know, this is her connection And this also becomes a protection and support for the people around.
They’re not they’re not becoming good. But they’re observing and sensing and seeing that that their friend has proceeded, you know, is engaging in the ceremony and making this decision to take refuge and that her mind is being protected. The friend was so happy that that should be the process. It was taking place just before her dying. And then she died, you know, seven, eight days later.
But I could see from firsthand how this is taking it hard to really, you know, be a source of great stress that people have in a family situation, people die in a stressful time. There’s also the conflicts arise as well. But it can also be the very opposite thing. It’s also the inspiration. So you see this breakage.
It’s a white. See, it’s a constructive white. Passive on it. Mind. Aspart.
Mind. The breathing. The same side. Stress. So I think there’s a very big thing happening across the moment that one of the royal commissions, you know, not just the local ones, but the big one, of course, in Victoria.
It’s a big issue, certainly worldwide. And as previous governor general said Quentin Bryce said this domestic violence is the greatest threat to human rights in the world today. And Australian of the year, Rosie Batty, And then we heard what I saw on television on the seven thirty report last year. David Morrison, who was the then head of the Australian Army, speaking there, expressing outrage about domestic violence in the society as the head of the army. The army is an institution that’s like settled with violence.
But he’s there expressing this outrage in relation to this. So it’s very clear, you know, and also as they say, there’s one or two, one or two women a week on average get killed usually by a partner, usually by a male, not necessarily. So it’s a huge thing from the Royal Commission going as well, showing how significant it is. And as some of the reports come out of the Royal Commission, you said, you know, talk about the complexity of the issue that can place. Of course, I’m not an expert in the field but I have had relationships before and some of them are pretty heavy.
Person might you know, I don’t know. But Buddhism if Buddhism Buddhism can help with these things, such thing like that is significant as that you’re talking about in terms of such a threat to society, then I think that Buddhism is a relevant force. That’s what I think. It’s like we’re taking medicine. There’s plague all around us, but we’re taking medicine but it doesn’t affect that plague.
Right? That is a vital feeling. And Buddhism, but I think Buddhism is really, I mean, dealing with it, but where it has a dealing with it is earlier on, not once the might have a help but it’s happening, but well before that. And it’s got to do with a view and understanding about relationships. And as I sat with my mom, but I personally, what brought me into Buddhism was relationships and it wasn’t in a negative way.
In one way it was negative, but in another way it wasn’t negative because relationships really look at your own emotions. So my emotions were really very, very negative. And it was those experiences that led me to put this in a sense of salvation to me. And it needed to happen whether I became a mother or whether I remained a layperson because of bee. The very beginning of the year when I became ordained became very clear to me on my fortieth birthday, I had to make a commitment either one way or the other, either become a family person or become a monk.
You can’t do two. And there was no conflict in my mind, it was clarity in my mind. I had to commit myself one way. One way is to become a family person, it’s very good because as a family person, if you do it well, that would be the theory, is that you engage in that relationship on the basis of respect for your partner. You raise your children on the basis of influencing them on positive ways through Buddhist principles like this.
And to make it work, have to be willing to hand over the victory to your partner. That’s many times, I would like that’s the best way for it to work and that will bring peace to your mind and your children. That was one option. The other option is to become a monk. At the beginning of the year I didn’t know which way it was going to go but it did unfold and so it should be obvious and see it.
The choice of becoming a was that you’re involved in an institution based on non harm that existed for two thousand five hundred years. Once you make a decision to become a monk then you’re not going to be going a different way you know, when you don’t have the complications that occur in family. Just different perspectives, different approaches. And in the end of the year, I’m not but but the lead up anyway, it so in my relationship, so it was just all a learning experience. And it was when I got to Buddhism that explained to me just why the root of problems exist.
So many, so so so. Problem is personal view is that people take refuge in the other person. That’s where the fault is. If you take refuge in the other person. When we become Buddhist, in relation to each of the Three Jewels, you’ve got a commitment or two commitments to each of those jewels.
The first, in relation to the Buddha jewel, your commitment is to not take ultimate refuge in something other than the Buddha. That doesn’t mean to say you don’t take refuge, take refuge in the doctor, you may take refuge in your partner. They’re not ultimate refuge. One should be from Buddha. One of the problems is people take ultimate refuge.
They hope, they expect, and partner in particular And that’s probably politically incorrect, but there is definitely that element. So and then in terms of the Dharma refuge, that connection in relation to the Dharma commitment is not to harm another being. Relationship to Sangha is to who are the people you’re connecting with, to ask yourself. And if the person you’re connecting with leads to a degeneration in your wisdom and compassion and leads to a deterioration into your listening, protection in your relationships. Of course, you know, we have the fantasy, we’ve built it up more and more in our culture and then other cultures, of course, but to me it seems in our culture anyway that when the violence is performed by the guide, say in general, they know that that was the wrong thing.
That’s not the case. Some cultures they do it but it’s, have a right to do it. But think in most cases, it’s the case you know it’s not the right thing if you do it anyway. And so the the mind has created this idea and developed it probably in childhood like this, that other person should be the source of my happiness. Could have completely injurious person fantasize about how they should do it.
And when they don’t give us what we want, then the anger arises. On the other hand as well, and I’m saying all the cases but you see many cases, there was a program on TV several months so I didn’t see it on TV, someone gave me this CD of it and it was something to do with happiness and it was about apparently Marrickville, Sydney, it’s the most unhappy suburb in Australia. That’s true. So they took a group of people from that suburb, I think about half a dozen, and they did various things with them over this period of time to do with happiness. One of the people on the group was this woman.
She was in her 30s, she wasn’t super young, but her thing was she was unhappy because she hadn’t found a boyfriend. And there was no change throughout the whole of that crony, you see, and her mind hadn’t shifted. She was sad, you can see how sad she was because she hadn’t found a boyfriend like this, as she said. They interviewed a friend of hers, a girlfriend of hers, and it was a girlfriend. She said, how how how nice her friend is.
And if only she could find a boyfriend, it presents you with her happy. This is so sad. I mean, is incredibly sad because if you’re gonna talk about domestic violence, I’m not saying it’ll happen to her. Right? But if she’s got that state of mind and she finds a guy, she’s not going to be able to see the warning signs.
And as I say, three characteristics of the guys, and not all guys, but the majority of the killing of these women involves insecurity, jealousy, and sense of entitlement. But if you’re so desperate, you won’t even see that in that person. And if they are like that, right, and they start to act, are you gonna be able to get out of that situation? Because your mind will be thinking what it’s like to be without my soul mate. And I often say in that one of the things that came out of the Royal Commission so far is a lot of people have relationship to the violence.
They don’t want the relationship to them, they just want the violence. They keep standing in there. So in her case, I’m not saying it will happen to her, but you could see how it could happen. And yet this royal commission, I don’t know what they’re doing, but this is where the solution lies really seriously. I mean, until people need to develop an internal resources, internal stability.
We say, you know, all those different activities of Buddhism are based on refuge. Even if you don’t have to be Buddhist, but common sense seems to tell me, it’s unwise to depend upon the other person as a source of your happiness because you’re gonna go up and down at the very least. And if they don’t meet your expectations, you may even hate their guts, right? But you stay with them. There was a program another program on TV.
It was a movie I saw called The White Ribbon. Was a German movie that’s made recently but it made black and white and it was depicting Germany at the time nineteen thirteen, nineteen fourteen before the first war. It was a German director and he was indicating from this film he was making some points there that would lead to, the fact that would lead to, people are coming to power anyway. I wasn’t watching from that point of view. But what I was watching from was the point of view of other things that were taking place and comparing the way that people saw things and lived their lives opposed to Buddhist understanding in terms of the religious person whose view was, minister’s view was how important it was, ethical conduct and so on, but there was no compassion there.
Then it came to the doctor. These people in authority, like priests had authority, then the doctor had authority and the doctor’s effect was he had two children and he was respected by the community, of course, under that role. His wife had died during childbirth during his second child’s birth. In the meantime, he’d gotten this clandestine relationship with a midwife which had been going on for years, right? But he had no love in his heart for at all.
You know, like this was on in scene there, the sexual relationships, totally without any affection or care for her at all. She was in that relationship. And then one day, he said to her, he told her, we hear of actions of violence. These weren’t physical actions, but they were verbal actions. And he said to her, he told her, he said, how much he really hated her.
He said, you’re ugly. You’re repulsive. I detest everything I see about you. Just like everything I see about you reminds me how much I’m missing in my life and how much I should have and what I’m missing out. Terrible words, I read.
Strong like this. But it struck me that understanding that whole that level of feeling based on this whole thing, the expectation of what I should have externally. So if you don’t have that, then what you have makes you detest more than what you have. Right? But you’re still taking refuge in this external idea.
So you don’t take refuge in your heart but you’ve got this external. I’m just comparing what I’m missing out. So I don’t know if I’m digressed but to me, we’re involved in Buddhism and it’s not, it hasn’t got a method to address this problem. Wonder why we’re involved. Think Buddhism really does have an explanation of it, of course, people.
The big light coming home one night in the dark and there’s a street light there and there’s a guy standing on the street light looking for something. You’re asking, what are you looking for? You’re asking, know, I’ll drop my front door, Kenny. So you start looking help him look for it. Oh, where do you think he dropped it?
He said, oh, five kilometers down the road, there’s no street light and there’s a lot of spooky things in the dark. So I think I’ll look for it here. So I personally think there’s a lot there. I mean, you know, gender equality, fantastic to do this, right? Know, more police intervention, okay, all the other things if you’re going to implement all this, that’s not going to solve the problem.
But people are pretty too interested in because and probably the people involved in that inquiry also are too interested in checking this idea out either because it might have implications for their own lives. I don’t know. Okay. Alright. It’s a smoker.
So any questions? And then you ask the question, where is that taking frame or something. Yeah. Can you suggest, look, ways of disconnecting, but ways of dealing with it? Given where you’re in a situation that it’s not so wholesome, but circumstances are that obliged you to stay there.
Yeah. Well, one of the things there, because I’m not too sure exactly the circumstance, but and where it is that you can see, if it is that you see that person’s life behavior is not good like that, harmful or whatever it is, is to try to get a sense that rather than associate the person with their behavior as though that person is that behavior, but rather than the conditions that come together, this is manifesting with this person. You don’t know where that’s come from or likely that person’s past lives. It obliges this person to be this way. Know, such things as the word that may influence it, genetics, these types of things.
First use this life, that’s how I find the heart helpful, you know, in terms of this, at least stops the knee, reduces that tendency to if the person is you see the person is really negative, to understand that point of view. And then also other things as well, such things as being able to try to picture the person more from the point of view of the total of this life. Imagine them when they’re a child, when they’re a kid in the primary school, in the school grounds and fears that they may have had just as a schoolboy like this, and then picture at the end of their life as an old person, a frail old man or old woman or whatever like this. So to introduce that understanding into this person’s, that person’s. Then also, Well, guess it’s the same sort of thing if you think about the upbringing that may have influenced this person, all these different factors that in a sense have come together to oblige this person to behave this way, that we would say that if that person is being motivated by strong anger, resentment, jealousy or whatever tendency pattern they have, it’s like we say in Buddhism that these are like these afflictions or mental states that drive the person to do this are like intoxicants.
So it’s like or like poison. So like your mother attacked you in the mind, so intoxicated by the experience of dementia or if she’d taken you poisoned accidentally, she was assaulting you. Certainly you could protect yourself because you wouldn’t have the mind of wanting to harm the person. Like you’d have that perspective that their mind is infused by that poison which is obliging them to do this thing. And that with another analogy in relation to that, it’s like, just like if it is an anger thing the person’s doing to you and it’s harming you in some way, then just like if someone was to attack you with a stick, you wouldn’t get angry with a stick.
In a similar way, when someone is seized hold of by their anger, because anger, you know, seizes hold of a person, and then that person becomes like a stick under the control of the anger and that person’s like a stick that hits you, right? That’s the anger which is controlling that person at that point, right? So these are all ways, why thinking this way is we because we don’t want to respond in a way that creates more problems for yourself and causes more unhappiness to your mind. But rather than reverse that and actually use the difficult circumstance to change your view and therefore change your whole life response to certain typical circumstances. The whole We call it Lojong in Tibetan Buddhism.
Lojong is mind transformation as a whole tradition of methods. Precisely for the real reason you say is that circumstances find that sort of people. It’s like the world is covered with thorns. We can either cover the world with leather or else put on a pair of shoes. So I think in some ways it’s similar, you know.
It’s like being in that relationship or whatever, it’s a thorny thing and one way is to try to change the other person or another way is to change your view of the circumstance. And if you’re able to do that, that person’s gonna change their response to how you because that’s been going on for years. There’s a certain habit that goes on and then they respond and turn it to you. But if you break the chain, then their response again changes and so on. This is not an easy thing to do but this is said to be the most these sorts of practices are very powerful.
You know, one way Buddhism is, you know, if you become a monastery or and isolate yourself. That’s one way that Christ has for your mind. But another way is that you decide you can actually put yourself into difficult circumstances and use those difficult circumstances as powerful methods to transform the mind. Just like ordinary birds die, they eat poisonous plants. The peacocks need poisonous plants.
Their friends get the beautiful feathers. The poisonous plants will be the source of producing beautiful feathers. We don’t wanna produce beautiful feathers but we wanna develop good qualities, beautiful qualities within ourselves. And, you know, we haven’t been able to do that for sixty three years or twenty years. And and a lot of it looks so now, we will all begin to walk away and leave it.
Is there not some wisdom in walking away until you know that you have enough peace in you? Yeah. Are you talking about your partner? No. Talking about my mother who’s ninety.
It doesn’t look good. And I’m, you know, I’m doing codependency stuff here. It doesn’t look good. You know? But do you live with that?
Oh, no. No. No. I’m not. But I’m, you know, I’m in mean, you know, I’m supposed to do the daughter thing, and I just just can’t take another second.
I’ll I’ll do something that I’m for. And and I’m just have to walk away. I mean, I’ve just made a decision to not see her again. Are there other other siblings? Yes.
There are. Yeah. Can you share it around? Does it all fall to the daughter? No.
It doesn’t all fall to the daughter, but they can’t be there all the time, and she does need rides. I didn’t want She does need what? Rides and On the car. Cars. I didn’t have a car as everyone know he knows.
And I said to her conversation, I’m going to take the loan against my home to buy a car. She said, don’t you do that. Don’t you do that. I’ve got the money. Now this has never been offered before.
And coincidentally, I come to get the car, and she loses her license. Right? And and and her viciousness of tongue and consistency is just I’m just not up for it anyway. Right. Because I’ll do something harmful.
What about the brother? They how do the others relate to them? Well, on the top surface, they seem to relate really well. But my brother grudging me was grunting and groaning one day, I heard him saying some things and I thought, oh my god. He’s no better than me.
Yeah. But then that I mean, I because I don’t know. Obviously, that’s a the well, the daughter relationship can be really difficult because I’ve just been around to see my mother and she’s in the hospital so I just flew for a couple of days. And the nurse who was in who was a specialist nurse and looking after the lady next door, the bed next door to my mother in the hospital, I was talking to her. And I was asked, I was talking to her about daughters and they told her in general they did better job than sons looking after her.
And she said, oh, well, maybe so if they’re talking. If the it doesn’t provide that the daughter and the mother are talking. You say, if they’re not talking, then that can’t really be much help. Right? So anyway, just mentioning that, so I know it happens.
But the thing is, if it’s not I mean, if you’re not having to live with her all the time, right, and there are other siblings, it’s not as impossible a situation if you’re living with someone all the time. It. But how long have you seen it? As little as I can. Like, for how long?
You only have to see it for an hour. The tongue. Oh, the tongue. The tongue’s are so sharp. Yeah.
Okay. I have said to her once, look, if you don’t watch it, you’ll turn on it. Okay. But what she says is beyond vicious. I’m sure, and I don’t wanna hear it anymore.
Okay. I think it’s risking risking I’m being abused. Do you know what I mean? I’m being abused. So why am I going back to being abused?
Alright. Yeah. Well, I I can’t so I mean, I I can only say particularly because if it’s a mother, then of course, this whole thing of Buddhism, you’ve heard it, haven’t you? Times of the mother. Oh, Right?
So long as you’ve heard it, right? So that still applies even though because some people well, someone I know who’s a nun, right? But she says when teachings are called the mother, the mother did this, mother did this and so on the lama’s teacher, she says this. She actually says and this is she’s older than me. She said, the lama’s got it wrong.
They don’t know my mama. She’s deadly serious. She’s deadly serious about it. So what she does, you know when it comes to meditation and kindness of mother? The psychology behind this, in case you don’t find someone I’m talking about, is that you have to have the idea of understanding the kindness of someone, right?
Go through all the various things so that you get to the point where you want to repay the kindness. You have to see the person as kind in order to repay the kindness. Then you apply it to the idea that everyone has been mother because of past life. What she misunderstood unfortunately was that she couldn’t shift her mind. Her mother was clearly, her mother was alcoholic and all the other things.
So I don’t know if it’s beating up, it might have been. But all these terrible things. But she switched it to think instead of thinking of kindness with my mother, she took it with kindness because she had children before she came to them. My kindness is a mother to my children, and that’s a total mistake to do that. You’re only feeling full of resentment.
Do you follow me? If you’re thinking about the kindness that you showed to your children, right, what’s gonna be thinking? You think all these different kindness and then you’re gonna have to think, well, what have they done to repay that? Totally misunderstand it, right? Really, I mean, if you can’t remember the kindness of your mother, at least get back to the idea because remember she’s given the working base of this life, this human life.
She’s given that she could have died giving birth to us. Then most likely for the first three years it’s been her that’s held us into her body and all the rest. She’s provided us with that. Everything else is I’m not asking judge on what you’re saying, right? But I’m just saying then because we don’t want to go down the pathway the moment and then everything else is superficial to that, any other kindness and so on, she’s just done that.
And that’s the Tibetan Lama’s point of view when people sort of so that’s at least important to do that. But of course, if it gets to the point, if the mother’s tongue is really acid and it really does disturb the mind, I can understand how that is. Because even a little bit like my mom and her resentment and stuff when it comes up because they can definitely say stuff, can’t they? Anyone can. Also as well if they use the method, some mothers or fathers will do, probably maybe more mothers than dads, but what they can do is to praise one against you.
That’s another one thing that they unfortunately can’t do, you know, reward and punish one. So bad things they hear in front of you like this. So, you know, I don’t know. I can only say that in any cases to at least in the heart not to abandon that recognition, thinking about the positive aspects of the mother, more like that, remember all the positive things and if she’s getting older and even more difficult, you know, trying to keep some perspective on it. And hopefully then you could still be able to still see it every so often.
And even if they’re less periods of time, but make sure those periods of time are positive and you do it. If it’s positive motivation, then maybe, you know, that time, you also taken something nice. Yeah. I don’t know. Thank you.
I appreciate it. Yeah. I know that in some cases, it’s too difficult. But you’re still talking. No.
I I I don’t I will I will not see her again while she leaves. I’ve waited. She’s too dangerous. No. She’s very what she said to me was beyond the the pale.
Mhmm. And I forgive her. I love her. There’s no nothing to forgive. Mhmm.
But I don’t it would be dangerous to want to listen to that sort of talk. And she’s still living by herself? I don’t know. In some cases, it does look like whatever you say or do is gonna be whichever direction you take, it’s gonna be the fault found. Whichever direction you take, this why it’s gonna be.
Sort of unfortunate when it’s a mother, isn’t it? As a mother is always your mother. So my girlfriend my mother. Yeah. I love my mother and she’s entertaining and I enjoy my mother.
Yeah. But the vicious side of her is beyond evil. What she said is it was what is your problem? What that hell is your problem? She said when you were living, she said, you said to me, can I have this room?
I only want shaming. Now if I had said shaming, because I was very advanced as a little child. And so if I had said Shani, I was probably well under two years of And I I couldn’t believe it. She’s been holding a death wish for me, a death wish. Mhmm.
Because I actually told her I love my brother, is actually the truth, and I never see anything wrong with telling the truth. But, yeah, but that’s not what she said. I mean, that was just justifying what she was saying. Just couldn’t remember. But, anyway yeah.
So, yeah, I I It’s not good. Yeah. It’s just that some people do have these, you know, whatever these issues Yeah. Wherever they come from and they’re carrying it now. But it’s unfortunate.
I sometimes think that there’s Now if anyone is involved, anyone is interested in the old movies, right, back then. Two of the their sisters, are actresses from the movies in the thirties. Joan Fontaine Olivia de Havilland. Really? Yeah.
The two sisters. And Joan Fontane is the only woman to win an Academy Award for a female to win an Academy Award for Alfred Hitchcock. She was in that movie Rebecca, but she didn’t win an Academy Award for that. Olivia de Havilland was in the movie Gone with the Wind amongst other things. One had two category awards, one one had one category award.
Olivia de Havilland is still alive at ninety eight The other one died in last June, she’s ninety four. But they weren’t supposed to speak for years. All sorts stuff. I mean, think Joan Fontaine distanced herself from her two daughters because her two daughters actually kept communication with her aunts. Communication with their arms.
So that, you know, these terrible things happen. And now I don’t know. It can be worthwhile. I I find that worthwhile thinking about those to think, well, how do I want my life to be? Do I want to be like that?
Do I want to be embedded? And then it comes to use it from a point of view of motivation. Thank you. To use it as an opportunity to to say, I don’t want to go down that way. But But when people do this thing, it may even be a case that to to look at some of these things.
In that case, it goes really difficult, but my my relationship with my father was very bad before. He didn’t give me anything for my twenty first birthday. I certainly didn’t deserve it either, right? But it was like that, you know. And he was certainly not vindictive.
But in that raising and the period of time, I only saw negative things about him when I was younger. He was a real estate agent. All I saw, real estate agent freak people off, you know. And then you talk about the Second World War and the only good job is to dead Jack. I should drop a bomb on Canberra.
Every weekend he’d drink a dozen bottles of beer, right, over Friday, Saturday, Sunday breakfast, all the same stuff would come out. And so in my mind over and over and over and over again, I couldn’t see anything redeeming features. Then when I got involved in Buddhism doing this meditation retreat for purification for three months, I’d rather suffer. Amazing that came around. I started to see things from a different point of view.
Was like previously I was looking through one window into my house. That was true what I was seeing, but I was only looking through one window. I was looking through all the other windows and seeing all the other aspects. I wasn’t seeing it from an aerial point of view when this happened totally, sort of completely different. He had five sons.
He raised five sons. He never he drank beer but he never got wild. He got he was never a nasty drunk, you know? He if real estate age, he lives off his wits. There was no there was no, you know, wage, you know?
He never took a day off work apart from his father died and his mother died the day of her funeral. You know, I started to see things totally differently like this. So that in the end I wrote a letter to apologize after it’s rejected quickly. If I leave it awake, I won’t apologize. Might you want to let her out?
He’d have it, you know. Then you could show it to my mother, you know, and say, Oh. So because that heals the relationship between me and him, but because of that, because moms and sons can work things against fathers, right, this game play goes on, that healed a lot of the relationships and then I became his friend because my younger brothers were coming along and causing trouble. So it changed the whole dynamics of the relationship, but it still plays. So I was amazed how things changed.
But then also the other thing happened, what also took place was that those things that I was true, you know, that stuff that he said when he was drunk and it was driving crazy and various other things he did and his racism and all the rest was really negative. But what happened in my mind, how I changed my view about it, was that I started to see this being actually is remarkable in terms of all the things he’s done and kind. And then why did he do this? And I thought, actually, he did that deliberately because by the time I was in primary school, I already knew that I learned early on that racism is not right. And I also knew very clearly when he told me the only good chap is a dead chap, totally mistaken because I went to see this animated movie at that time.
Saw it three times and the quality of it, you know, in terms of it was an ethical thing. I knew. So I knew my dad was mistaken. So I knew before I left primary school because of him, right, because of his kindness in a way, that this is not the way to go. I think he was a bodhisattva, manifesting and took birth through the power of compassion and prayer, raised these three sons, awakened by awareness to seeing his good qualities and also did that deliberately to do those negative things in order to show me that that’s not the way to go.
So I might see my father as kind in both ways. See what I mean? Kind from the positive things but also kind because I saw that firsthand and knew that that’s not the way to go. Other people didn’t have that experience. And also the drinking stuff as well.
Some people maybe their father would drink some of them come and alcoholic. I saw him drink and I heard what he said, thought, I’m not going down that way. Was my protection. My mother says, you your father’s a bad example for you when he was drinking. He said, no.
He was a very good example. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, a refuge. You mentioned earlier one should take refuge in passing, you mentioned, morning and evening. Can you just enlarge on that a little bit when you say morning and evening, take refuge? Well, it’s those two times, particularly, you know, morning is generally set anyway when you’ve woken up.
The mind hasn’t you haven’t been engaging with the sense of seeing and hearing and so on, right, that would normally affect the mind. So that the mind is a little bit even if it feels groggy, somehow there isn’t that type of distraction taking place. And because it’s the beginning of the day anyway, then if you can generate the positive frame of mind from the very beginning, right, that can influence day well. I think we can even find that sometimes if something happens before you go to work for instance or whatever, there’s something upsetting for the mind, that can influence the whole of the day and you’re fine. And not only because what you because it’s a subset of your mind and when someone else says something to you, you react or we can react and that causes further problems.
Whereas if you take refuge from the very beginning, right, you’re taking refuge to receiving the support, however you do it, there are different ways to do it. You can invoke, you you’ve got very heartfelt trust, I think Christians would do it in terms of their invoke the presence of Jesus Christ or God. Buddhism, we may do it in terms of the Guru, we may do it in terms of the Buddha Śākyamūni, we might do it in terms of the Dalai Lama or whatever like this as support. It may be that you just go within and think about those, you know, the central refuges of the Dharma. But you’re taking refuge in, say, instance, your future state of capacity to be able to cease suffering and disturbing states of mind and the capacity to develop the mind, the attitude of mind that attains that state.
So each person is different than what they would use as a support. But whatever it is, it’s giving you, it’s nourishing you, it’s nourishing your heart and mind and giving you protection for the day. It can even be done. I found it before when I sometimes I found it was that when I was working as a psychiatric nurse and I’d take about half an hour to drive to work, going to work and on the one hand was to visualize everyone else around me, all the people going to work and all the people in the house, that would be probably the compassion aspect. And then at the same time, to invoke the presence of this energy of Tārā, for instance.
Tārā is very much seemed to be a protectorous, like this energy of active compassion of all Buddhists, like this, so to prepare the mind for the day. Enforce the day. And then at the end of the day, reflect over what’s been done during the day. And where you’ve done things that weren’t so skillful, can invoke the refuge objects and you can face and reveal to them, you know, like, people conceal, and then to rejoice in the positive things done, to recommit, you know, and then say then also make commitment, okay, tomorrow where I wasn’t so skillful today, I won’t do those things or try to do less often according to what I had seen. And then, you know, then further commit, okay, whatever I can do to do things more constructive in the mind.
Yeah. Not about well, not take ultimate refuge in another person. Ultimate because we could take refuge in, say, a doctor. Yeah. Yeah.
Or it may even be, you know, emotionally, we share, you know, in terms of, you know, sharing your life together. Okay. You know? Okay. Yes.
Because people, you know, towards the relationship to work together, you have to have trust and sharing and some degree of refuge. Yes. Yes. Yes. It is, I think.
Yeah. Okay. In relation to the Dharma, right, commitment in relation to Dharma is that one to do with, I would say, is to not take or the companions we take Yeah. We’re talking about Sandra. Yeah.
Yeah. To avoid taking refuge in people, say people who lead to the degeneration in your love and compassion. And lead to a degeneration in your listening, thinking, and meditating on your Dharma. That one there is interesting because when you say, another way is to avoid bad friends, right? When you say bad friends, it’s not saying that the issue isn’t so much that the person is bad, right?
It’s bad, you’re labeling them bad because it leads to a degeneration in the listening. So it might be an extremely beautiful person, right? And they might be very regarding that actually if they lead to that right result, they would be labeled bad friends. Causing degeneration works. And it’s the two things, compassion and wisdom, and then also your listening, thinking and meditating on the Dharma.
Generation of those. So this is an interesting thing when you think about, for instance, prisoners. You go to see prisoners in prison and they many of them, obviously many of them, sometimes they get involved in Buddhism and they’ve got plenty of time in prison to do this. When you go ask the prisoner, if you’ve got time to do this, I’ve got plenty of time. So they say that, right, and then they even get involved in the study and interested and so on, they’ll really be able to understand.
But when they come out of prison, you always get you don’t have to be a prisoner if that’s problem but I certainly have seen problems with the many people involved in Buddhism first off. But for them, a particular problem because we’re a believer, is that they may intend to do well, they may even go to the dharma center, but they may feel different, you know? They live the life of crime. And then after a while, they feel uncomfortable and you’ll always gravitate, tend to gravitate back to where you feel most comfortable. Right?
And you go back to your old mates and then four months later, you’re back in prison again. And perhaps it just doesn’t prisoners of the you can say that, for example, you can see more clearly, but perhaps it’s the same in people in the relationships, you know, the part of people who could end up in relationships with similar partners. My sister-in-law works at the Family Law Court in Dandenong in Melbourne. I know that’s a very hard area that has problems. Like, I think she’s lived there twenty years, and she says the numbers of people have been involved in relationships that’s the same as the previous relationship, and it’s problems.
Is the problem external or is it internal? So to me, that’s quite a lot of wisdom in that direct in the guidelines. What’d you think about my rant about domestic violence? Excellent. Excellent.
Excellent. Was it not wasn’t chauvinist in any way? No. No. Not anything.
No. Not anything. No? I I will have one question, though. Is there gender inequality in same sex relationships?
What do mean gender? Well, I’ll ask the question. What does gender inequality mean? Okay, why I’m asking this question. Whole male or female.
Okay. Well, why I’m asking this question, right, is because Quentin Bryce, his previous governor general, is saying that the source of domestic violence is gender inequality. What she’s saying, because it’s mainly male beating out women, and she’s saying to rectify the problem is to bring out gender equality. I don’t know exactly how you do that, but my understanding of what she’s saying about gender equality means that, you know, I don’t know, the roles are equal. You know, that one’s not dominant over the other, because the problem is, of course, in relationships with the guys, there are many cases of relationships with guys that are and controlling and they have the expectation for women to serve and do other things, right?
So it’s definitely happening. So is that what we’re talking about? Is that the meaning of gender inequality? Because they’re talking about it, you know that. They’re saying this is a solution, right?
So if that’s the and they’re saying that there’s gender inequality because, for instance, there’s more men in but we have an example, would be more men in parliament than women, right? Is that gender inequality? That’s what it refers to. So in same sex relationships, it’s the same gender, so there can’t be gender inequality. But there can be inequality.
Mean, it’s It’s just inequality. Inequality is one dollar over the other. Yes. But it can’t be gender anymore. No.
Okay. So how come and they’re talking about in these groups, both same sex marriage and straight marriage, I don’t know what the right term is, right? How come it’s said that there’s the same level of domestic violence and perhaps higher in same sex marriages because of the stresses. Have got specific stresses on them, right? Generally, they’re saying definitely there’s not less than the other.
So how can it be the case that the source of domestic violence is gender inequality? I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be, that should be rectified. I hundred percent agree. You’re talking about the source and I think the source is different to what you can do about it. For example, the research, I believe, shows that if a person has some, you know, abusiveness towards you, And the very first time when they do it, you they say, in this case, the norm is the man, but you say to the man, do it again and I will report you to the police.
They say, well, it actually stops. I don’t know how the hell they know that, but, you know, it makes sense. Yes. So but the source is a different thing. What do mean the source?
Well, your your question is what is the source? And and you you keep repeating the source. And I’m saying to you that the source is different because the source is, you know, more in line with attachment. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Sure. Sure. So one is rectifying and dealing with it, which we could well do. I mean, I stormed down to the local police station that day, demanded a speaking sergeant, and told him exactly what these two policemen have done for myself and my family in the circumstance.
Mhmm. He said, go and put in a complaint. I said, I’m not doing that. I said, why? Because he said, you said. I want transparency.
I want these guys to know that I will pursue this and so there’s attachment, the exaggerated expectation. Mhmm. I think other person should be. Did say that the the causes were was insecurity. Mhmm.
And so the insecurity And if you’re looking at the root cause, the perpetrator yeah. But if if you’re looking at that root cause, the perpetrator in this case is the victim as well. If you’re looking at root causes Yeah. That, you know, as opposed to this the circumstances. So Yeah.
Because that That’s politically incorrect, doctor. It’s politically incorrect. Yeah. They are the victim of their own Yeah. Attachment just as the person who stays and gets murdered.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s also the victim of their attachment to a fantasy. Yeah. Sometimes they’re just too scared to go.
Yeah. This is That’s right. And that’s where it’s, think, so we’ve got to be careful because once it’s a whole complicated area like that, right? So Buddhism is coming back to the initial thing. But once things come together and exactly what you said in terms of and with children and so on, a whole lot of complicated things involved that make it very difficult to remove it once a person’s lost his self esteem because it’s another thing they mentioned.
So I don’t want to be a part of thinking, you know, that going down that line aisle because in that inquiry, another thing that’s come out is that people in the community in general don’t understand why they don’t leave. And I feel that part of the inquiry is to communicate to the public in general the complexity of the thing and try to put themselves in that position. So I I certainly don’t wanna go down that line of just simply, you know, but yeah. A girlfriend of mine is a Catholic nun, said to me over twenty years ago. She said, look.
People say that when a group of men go into Afghanistan and fight, one is left behind and becomes a prisoner. We do not say that man is participating in this violence. We’re gonna leave them to work their way out. And this woman, the the the team goes back to get their man because they realize you need an army to do something like that. We need a community.
We need structures. Dalai Lama talks about the fact that when you’re into bed, well, when they they were into bed, they would say, may you be well, may you be happy. But when he’s in the west, he says to us, may you be well, may you be happy, may you be well, may you be happy, and go and get that man. A woman and her children is told to do something. Do do you know what I mean?
Mhmm. And so it’s a cultural thing. Mhmm. And so they can’t understand why she does it Yeah. Because it’s the emperor’s new clothes.
It’s our cultural constructs. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s been brought out that important to rescue the people. Yeah.
In every culture. The what’s in every culture? It has to be violent. Yeah. Yeah.
So that gets that confused. Seems like it’s everywhere, doesn’t it? So let’s just dedicate the merit from our being put together here, and dedicate that to, you wherever their problems, particularly this problem of domestic violence, Maybe somehow a life, somehow a wisdom that we can influence the society in a positive way to bring so that we can bring some sort of peace to those relationships and and pray that people gain some wisdom so that they have stability in their life, and so when they enter into a relationship, it is based on more wisdom, compassion and security, for their own wellbeing and that of their partners and children. Okay.
Thank you.