← Robina Courtin

Buddhism For Busy People By Ven Robina 2013

Robina Courtin · 2013 · 1 h 36 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 2:09

    you get the essence, I'd say the essence of Buddhist practice, the point, the very point is to change our minds. And what that means is changing your thoughts. Changing your thoughts, which is surprising because we think the things we need to change are all the emotions. We feel feelings, emotions, anger, jealousy, fear, depression, anxiety.

  • 5:18

    But there's fundamental, so there's two main components. One is the actual confidence to know that you can start to become familiar with your own mind. Guess what? Surprise, surprise, you know. That it's not set in stone. That it didn't come from your mummy and daddy. That it isn't everybody else's fault, including whether it's the red light or whatever. And I'm including here all the good things. It's sort of like we blame Fred for making us happy because he smiled at us.

  • 17:26

    And you'll see what I'm saying here. So even in the Buddha's teachings, at the first level, they tell you about attachment and you try to control yourself by behaving nicely. Don't stuff the cake in. Don't stuff the people in. Don't booze people. You know, you control your body and your speech. Already incredible. But then more advanced levels, when you start to really look at your own mind, you're doing other levels of practices, then they talk about attachment at a subtler level. And this is kind of scary.

  • 27:03

    Because there's this junky mind propelling us millisecond by millisecond, this craving to get what I want every second. It's like a desperate neediness to get what I want every second. Nice smells, nice tastes, nice feelings. Nice praise, nice reputation, all these things. Desperate, you know, all the time. It's what governs our life and we assume it's normal.

0:12 We should have elevated rooms, you know, like going slightly up. Or I should elevate, I'm sorry, but I can't levitate yet, have I? Report an error

0:25 Pray not. Okay, Report an error

0:34 so I'll sing a little prayer to start and it's expressing two ideas. The first one is for those of us who figure we're Buddhists already, busy or lazy or otherwise. And the second two lines are expressing... Report an error

0:50 An altruistic reason for sitting here listening to these ideas, Buddha's ideas, and that is to say we're going to listen to this to see if there are some tools we can take into our life to help lessen our neuroses, grow our qualities and be of benefit to others. Report an error

1:04 Thinking something like this. I'll sing a little prayer that says that. Report an error

1:14 Sange Chadang Sokhe Chognam La Jancho Baru Dagni Khyab Sochi Dagi Chonyengi Petsa Nam Ki Drolaphenchir Sange Drobpa Sog Sange Chadang Sokhe Chognam La Jancho Baru Dagni Khyab Sochi Dagi Chonyengi Petsa Nam Ki Drolaphenchir Sange Drobpa Drupha Shok-shog, Sangye-chadang, Soke-chog-nam-la, Jang-chob-baru-dag-ni-khyab-suchi, Dagi-chadang, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Shantideva, Report an error

1:56 If Report an error

2:09 you get the essence, I'd say the essence of Buddhist practice, the point, the very point is to change our minds. And what that means is changing your thoughts. Report an error

2:23 Changing your thoughts, which is surprising because we think the things we need to change are all the emotions. We feel feelings, emotions, anger, jealousy, fear, depression, anxiety. They don't feel like thoughts. It sounds like a cruel joke to say that they're thoughts. But what's interesting, the Buddhist psychological model describes very clearly, you know, in the Buddhist literature it goes into great depth, that all these emotions that we feel are so painful, which we would desperately prefer to be rid of, you know, Report an error

2:54 Come down to being rooted in thoughts. But it's really hard to see this. And so you'd say the essence of being a Buddhist is a person who begins to pay attention to what goes on inside their own head and then learn to have the courage to know that you can change them. So it's a simple job. Technically it's simple. But the most difficult job we'll ever do because of the status quo. And the status quo is we don't think our mind's the problem. Report an error

3:18 We think Fred's the problem and the red light's the problem and the mean boss is the problem and the ex-wife is the problem. Isn't it? Truly, genuinely, we think that. Everything appears to us to be this way. And if you think about it, from the second you wake up in the morning until the second you go to sleep, what is your mind totally involved in? The outside world. You know, navigating all the dramas in front of us. Report an error

3:37 This is inevitable. So naturally, you know, when the light turns red and you feel the irritation, the logic in the head says the red light caused it. Well, Buddha says, sorry, you're mistaken. And it's a tricky point, but a technical point, a tricky one, hard to believe. But if we can begin to get our head around this, I tell you, we can really make changes in ourselves. Report an error

3:56 But it's the hardest thing we'll ever do because everything in us doesn't see that it's this. I mean, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, you know, our teacher, he says, the normal way to live our lives, we don't even realize that our mind plays any role at all, you know. We really think you're sitting there and this mean ugly person comes along and comes in front of you on the road. You're sitting there being an innocent victim and this person comes along and they're the cause of your anger. Report an error

4:21 They're the cause of your everything else. We assume this is true. We assume that our mind isn't playing a role. We think what goes on in our mind is a response to that ugly person, to the red light, to the mean husband, whatever it might be. This seems to us, this appears to be the way and we never question it. Report an error

4:39 And this is what's so shocking, you know. So to have the courage to question this, to question this, and then begin to start to try and observe, pay attention to what goes on between our ears, basically. And these days it's good, this mindfulness, this term mindfulness, which is really defined in a very loosey-goosey kind of way, the way it's used in the West, but I don't care, good enough. Report an error

5:05 What it refers to is a really crucial type of practice that Buddha has been using since, I mean the Hindus came up with it, you know. And then the Buddha kind of ran with this and of course there are other techniques that are there. But there's fundamental, so there's two main components. One is the actual confidence to know that you can start to become familiar with your own mind. Guess what? Report an error

5:27 Surprise, surprise, you know. That it's not set in stone. That it didn't come from your mummy and daddy. That it isn't everybody else's fault, including whether it's the red light or whatever. And I'm including here all the good things. It's sort of like we blame Fred for making us happy because he smiled at us. Report an error

5:41 Just like we blame Mary for making us angry because she looked daggers at us. We assume it's the outside thing. So they play a role. Buddha doesn't argue there. But the crucial point here, the first component is to have this willingness to see that our mind plays a role. It sounds weird to say this. Eventually the Buddha says it plays the main role altogether. But never mind, even begin to take this idea on board that when that anger rises, when that depression is there, when that panic is there, that's my mind. Report an error

6:17 It's a response that I've cultivated that is now coming strongly because I'm habitually responding in certain ways. They're habits basically. So that's the first point. The other one is we need the techniques and tools to help us do this job of paying attention to here, not to there. And that is this little kind of so-called, they call it in these days and is used a lot in psychology now, which is marvellous, they call it broadly mindfulness. Well technically all that means is, you know, strictly speaking it's actually a concentration technique. Report an error

6:49 It's a concentration technique. Concentration. Simple word, we all know it. And we all know perfectly well the extent to which we can do anything reasonably well, whether it's kill somebody or drive a car, is the extent to which your concentration is reasonable. It's kind of obvious. If you lose the plot, you're in big trouble. So mindfulness is the ability not to lose the plot moment to moment. And then the part of your mind that's paying attention, because there's many parts of your mind, we can call that concentration. Report an error

7:17 It's not complicated. It's not esoteric, I tell you. And a simple, simple way to start this, it's so boring, you know, you start something in the morning, five minutes a day, don't get all dramatic and try to do 20 minutes, forget it, five is great. If you did five quality minutes a day, you'd be really going nicely, I tell you. Often people sit down for 20 minutes, half an hour, 40 minutes sometimes to do these concentration techniques, but 99 % of the time they're spacing out, so it's totally useless. Report an error

7:43 So to do five minutes of rigorous discipline, paying attention to something, and a really good thing to pay attention to is something that happens all the time. It's your breath. Your breath. The movement of the air as it hits your nostrils as you breathe in and out. So it's extremely simple. It's not complicated. It's not esoteric. Report an error

8:00 It's not religious. A communist could do it. Literally. But we kind of make it so romantic and mystical. It is not, believe me. And don't mystify mindfulness. A better translation, Lama Yeshi translates it as short-term memory. Well, how disappointing. Oh, I'm going to a short-term memory course, you know. Report an error

8:20 But literally, that's what mindfulness is, quite literally. It's the ability to not forget what you're doing moment to moment. But it's got this big dramatic meaning to it. And as Lama Zopa likes to point out, excuse me, thieves need mindfulness. So don't get all holy when you say it. Call it that if you like, but it's really the ability to not lose the plot, whether it's walking from here to there, driving a car, making a cake or learning to observe your own crazy thoughts. Report an error

8:45 It's the same. It's a great technique. It's marvellous. And these Hindus, they really developed it to an astonishing degree. I remember recently reading His Holiness the Dalai Lama saying it was these Hindus, the Indians, 3,000 years ago, who started this whole conversation about... The nature of self and the beginning to investigate it which is where Buddhism came out of and which is where these meditation techniques came out of. They created them. Buddha just ran with this particular concentration technique. Report an error

9:10 It's extraordinary. It's stunning. And it's stunning because it's a simple technique. It's a simple technique but immensely difficult to accomplish because it's the exact opposite of our habit now. We're all over the place, completely berserk from the second we wake up, isn't it? And this is a tragedy in our culture, in our materialist model of the mind, models of the mind. We assume it's normal to have a berserk mind. Report an error

9:35 We assume it's normal to have thoughts racing non-stop. We assume it's normal to have some kind of this unconscious, you know, these random strange things going on in our head. We assume it's normal. Buddha calls it mental illness, basically, and that we can learn to control it. It's a practical point, you know. To learn to develop single point of concentration, to learn to develop to pay attention, to learn to develop, you know, to go to subtler, more refined levels of your own mind, which demands much rigor and discipline, has nothing to do with believing in anything. Report an error

10:05 Please believe me, it has not. Nothing to do with religion. It's an incredible, simple, practical psychological technique. Anyone can do it, but it's kind of boring to do it because you know what we're like. The moment we wake up, we're completely energised to go off and do all the jobs, you know, or either lie in bed profoundly depressed or either inert, isn't it, or just going like a maniac. Report an error

10:27 And these are our two extremes. I mean, basically they're two extremes, isn't it? So, you know, to want to sit for three or four or five quality minutes. And refuse, basically it's what you're trying to do, refuse to follow all the raging thoughts, which is in Neem's enormous discipline. But to simply pay attention to the boring old breath going in and out, which actually, you know, to do two or three minutes even is fantastic if you can really accomplish it. Report an error

10:52 It just seems so boring to do this. But this is the technique. You've got to start real simple, you know. And it's long term. You've got to be in for the long haul. The aim of this, you see, part of our problem too, in our culture... As soon as we say meditation, we get all strange. We really do mystify it. We think it's some mysterious thing when you close your eyes and sit quietly. Report an error

11:15 No, it's not. And this technique, you see, the trouble is we confuse it with the need to relax. So in yoga and things, we know there are marvellous techniques that help you relax and my goodness, we need them. But they're not the same as this one. This technique called mindfulness or called concentration, you need, like I'm saying, discipline and rigor to keep your attention focused on the breath. Report an error

11:41 Inexorably, it'll go off after one second. Or you'll sink into sort of spacey feeling, which is very pleasant. But that's not the goal. The goal actually is to have the mind super sharp. Super sharp and focused, but kind of still. And we don't have those two together. It's either still and spaced out. Report an error

11:59 Or it's sharp and berserk, you know. So it's a tricky kind of invisible space we have to cultivate. Long term, way to go, you know. Way to go to get it. But every day we make effort at this. Almost immediately one of the benefits is that because what you're doing is you're sitting down with determination for five minutes to pay attention to the breath. Report an error

12:22 That's it. It's like you're going to watch the breath go out, watch the breath come in. That's it. That's it. That's it. There are various ways to do it, but that's essentially the job. And you're going to do that with determination. So that means you're refusing to follow the thoughts which are flooding into us, flooding, overwhelming us every second. Report an error

12:40 And that's our habit, just to float off. So the trouble is with this, unfortunately the trouble is we, okay, the key good thing is this. The moment you start to do this, don't think you're going to get concentration. Way to go, I tell you. But the immediate benefit will be that you're stepping out of the chaos. Report an error

12:59 Normally we're like this, you know, with all the stuff. Chatting away while we're on autopilot driving, on autopilot doing the lunch, on autopilot doing our job. But there's chatting away non-stop in the behind. We don't pay attention. Then only wonder why we come home depressed. Because thoughts came up and we're all dealing internally but not really consciously. This is our tragedy, you know. Report an error

13:20 We're asleep to most of what goes on inside our own head. So almost immediate benefit of making a decision before you start launching into your day to sit down. I don't care. Sit on the toilet and do it. It doesn't matter. I'll be holy about it. Close the door. You'll be in private for five minutes, you know. I mean it sincerely. Don't get holy. Think you ought to sit cross-legged. No, don't worry about that. Report an error

13:40 Sit quietly if you can in a spot. Close your eyes. Sit up straight and make a determination. You're going to pay attention to the breath. So immediate benefit of this is you're stepping back. You know, and you're going to watch just the breath. You hear all the raging going on as usual, you catch yourself, you watch the breath. You wander off, bring yourself back to the breath. You wander off, bring yourself back to the breath. Report an error

14:00 You're anchoring your mind to the breath. The breath is nothing special, it's just because it's there. So you're anchoring your mind to something. So inevitably what's going to happen, you're going to notice the thoughts more. You're going to notice them because before you don't pay attention until they're shouting loud, you know. Report an error

14:16 But you're going to start noticing all the stuff that's never-endingly chatting away, that's been left uncontrolled since the day we're born. Well, since we're conceived, Buddha says, well, countless past lives and the rest as well, but forget that. So this is almost the immediate benefit. Now, part of the problem here is we think, they say one of the signs of success is you think you're getting worse because you're hearing your thoughts more. Report an error

14:37 You're not getting worse. It's like going to the gym for the first time. Oh, good, I'll go to the gym and look like Aunty Schwarzenegger, you know. You think I'm going to get all fat, I mean all healthy and muscular. Well you go to the gym and you come home and you can't believe you have, you've got muscles you didn't know you had. Because you're exhausted and pain everywhere. Report an error

14:52 But you know it's a good pain. Same here. Same here. So our biggest problem is though, as soon as we hear meditation and you close your eyes, we think it's all the thoughts have. We think the goal is to make the thoughts go away, which is what we desperately want. And I'm going to feel good. Well I'm sorry, don't expect that because it's not true. Report an error

15:12 You've got to work hard at it. Just sitting quietly can help us calm down. There's no doubt about that, but not necessarily, because the stuff will come raging to the surface. So the practice is to simply just keep watching, watching the breath. And what you're doing there is you're consciously not following every thought. Report an error

15:34 That's what you're doing. And that's what gives the focus, gives the edge to your mind. And then at least you can hear the thoughts. And one of the immediate benefits is that. And then, of course, in the day-to-day life, When you're driving, when you're walking, when you're talking, you're going to notice, you're going to begin to notice the thoughts that's all rattling on underneath before they come vomiting out your mouth. Report an error

15:56 Because by then it's too late. And our trouble is now, because we're not paying attention and we're not educated in this way to knowing what's going on inside here, we don't notice it until it's out the mouth or until we can't get out of bed one morning, inert. So we have two modes in our life, don't we? Vomit it all out. Report an error

16:15 Or live in denial. And one causes depression and one causes violence, you know. Well, this third mode is you process it. As somebody else said something today, you process it, but you are your own therapist. You don't need to go to somebody. Well, it's helpful if we need to. But in the end, you've got to be your own therapist. You are the boss. You can change your mind. But we have to have great courage to do this because we can't bear the rubbish, can we? Report an error

16:38 We can't bear the depression, the anger, the despair, the grief, the hurt, the jealousy. Look at it. This is not rocket science, you know. This is the stuff that's the source of our pain. And so part of our, you know, one way in Buddhism of describing this process is most interesting, right, is that the Buddha says our main problem, and this sounds so hilarious when we say the word, he calls it attachment. Report an error

17:02 And I mean, but the thing is, you know, as Lama Yeshi says, I can tell you about attachment for one whole year. You'll never begin to really understand it until you go deep inside. And I think he's true, you know. Not that I know much, but I think he's right. At the grosser level, we understand it as, ooh, I like chocolate cake, I must be attached. That is what we think of attachment, you know. But it goes to much subtler degrees. Report an error

17:26 And you'll see what I'm saying here. So even in the Buddha's teachings, at the first level, they tell you about attachment and you try to control yourself by behaving nicely. Don't stuff the cake in. Don't stuff the people in. Don't booze people. You know, you control your body and your speech. Already incredible. Report an error

17:41 But then more advanced levels, when you start to really look at your own mind, you're doing other levels of practices, then they talk about attachment at a subtler level. And this is kind of scary. Because basically they're saying at this subtler level, the deepest attachment is like a motor that propels us from second to second. Report an error

18:00 It's at the level of assumption. We don't even give it a name. It's like a feeling. And this feeling is one of constant dissatisfaction. This constant aching feeling that I'm never enough, I haven't got enough, no matter what, and what I do and what I get is never enough. It's just this terrible feeling of dissatisfaction. Report an error

18:20 So, of course, at the gross level, what do we do? We hanker after the outside objects, the gross ones, the obvious ones, you know, the people, the things, the money, the cake, the power, the obvious ones, the sex, the gross ones, the objects of the senses. But the deeper level, when we start to see it, the deepest attachment we have is related to this sense of self. And it's the one of deeply yearning every second to get nice feedback from people, to get people to say nice things, to have people like me, to have people approve of me. Report an error

18:57 In other words, the main attachment we have, the main worry we have is always in reference to what people think of us. And it sounds almost comical to say this one because we think we're not like this. But every second. Check. Why do you think you get lonely? Think of this one. What's loneliness? Think about it. Loneliness is you having no one to talk to. So what do you want to talk to them about? Report an error

19:22 What you feel. Why do you want to talk to them about what you feel? Because you don't think you're worthy until someone hears what you feel. This is the proof and the sign of this depth of dissatisfaction which is the disease of attachment. Buddha says we get born with it. There's this assumption that I'm nobody. Report an error

19:40 There's this assumption that I'm not enough on my own. There's this assumption very deep in our bones. And so all these thoughts arise in us and we're chatting away and we look around and there's no one to talk to. So that's what we mean by loneliness. Well, this is the irony of this attachment is that it's like... Report an error

19:58 You know, and why we're desperate to have a person smile at me. Hello, Robina, you're lovely. I mean, we're like vampires for that. And please, I'm not trying to be mean to us. We're so hungry for other people to like us. Not just that, you're driving in the car and the guy behind you gets too close. Report an error

20:18 Why do you think you get nervous? Because you're worried about what he's thinking about you. I'm really serious here. A person talks too loud in the cafe. You look around, you're worried what people are thinking about you. This is constant in our mind. It never ceases. You're living with other people. Everything we do is always in reference to what other people think of us, what they're going to think if we don't do this and we do the dishes. Report an error

20:38 And we call it often worried about hurting people. It's so complex in our mind, so ingrained, so deep. It's really hard to unpack this one. And all of this, putting it in sort of our way of talking. Talking Buddhist psychology though, is it's the symptom of this terrible, fractured, lonely, bereft, broken, sad little sense of self. Report an error

21:00 That basically on my own I'm nothing. You know what we mean by success in our culture? Other people thinking I'm good. And guess who these other people are? Just as needy as you. So another needy, self-piteous person praising you, you are feeling so valuable. And they're desperately for wanting you to do the same to them. Report an error

21:21 I mean, I'm sorry, it's a bit embarrassing, but we're all the same. Can't point fingers. This is the depth of our attachment, the terrible neediness. We see it grossly in each other. You know, if you're in love with somebody and they're not in love with you, that's when you really can see it. You're kind of clinging and desperate and they can't stand the sight of you. Then you really can see this neediness so nakedly, you know. Report an error

21:44 But the trouble is when we're each feeding each other's neediness, we call it happiness. Report an error

21:52 That's a nice term in the West, they call it codependence, don't they? But this is quite ingrained in us and quite instinctive. It's very, and it's very sort of painful to see it. But this is the worst attachment. So it's like they have these sort of little pairings of four things, you know, and two of them. So there's attachment to get, like attachment to have people think I'm nice and then desperate attachment to have people stop thinking I'm horrible. Report an error

22:20 So it's attachment to both, you know. So every millisecond when hubby comes home late and I'm in love with hubby and I'm worried where he is or, you know, wife, whoever it is, coming in the partner and I'm worried where they've been and what are they doing, oh my God, they're freaking out. And they come and you watch their face like a hawk to see what they're feeling like and look a bit miserable. You're panic-stricken. You go up and you stroke them, oh darling, how are you? Desperate for them to smile at you. Oh, Robina, I adore you because you're so panic-stricken because you think they don't. Report an error

22:43 I know I'm being silly but please hear my point. And it's so nerve-wracking. Even a stranger in a shop doesn't look nice at us. Look how distressing it is. This is attachment to what people think of us. So that has to prove we have a very, very fragile, low sense of ourself. It's obvious. It's clear. This is the deepest one. Report an error

23:08 Hard to get to. Got to unpack it. Unpack. Unpack. And there's no shortcut. This is this job of being our own therapist. We've got to start paying attention. To all the non-stop stories in our head. Non-stop. Highly complex. Highly complicated. All entangled. These stories. These viewpoints. And the central player, of course, in there is I, isn't it? This is the one. So it's really quite intense to do this job. Report an error

23:36 Certainly the level to which Buddha says we can, being our own therapist. But there's no shortcut. There's no other way. So if you want to be a multi-millionaire, go for it. But you've got to do this job as well. You want to sacrifice your life for others? Go for it. You've got to do this job as well. You can't avoid this job. Doing this job of being your own therapist and giving up your own misery internally and knowing that that's the main source of your pain, not the other person, this is whether you want to become a multimillionaire or a monk in the mountains. Report an error

24:03 There's no difference. It's the job we all have to do. We have to do it. It's just practical. It's not religion. It's practical because I have to live my life. So if I don't know who I am and know what I feel and what I think and what the source of my pain and happiness is, then I'm lost. Report an error

24:18 So we've got to do this job, you know, being our own therapist. But it takes time, takes time. There's just no question. Got to be in for the long haul, you know. But having practical techniques like knowing it's possible to change your mind and knowing that what goes on in your mind plays a pretty big role in your life. Report an error

24:35 Not just, you know, forget that it plays the total role for the Buddha all the way. Forget that. Even just begin to acknowledge that, you know, it mightn't be every time that it's the red lights and the mean people who are the cause of your anger. The Buddha says, you see, this is what's interesting, I think. If we look at the models of mind we have, which are based on the assumption that your mummy made you, daddy made you, that it's your brain and all that, then of course when you go to your therapist, you have to unpack all the stuff. Report an error

25:00 Where do you go? You go back into the past, don't we? We look into the events and the past. We look into the genes and the DNA and the chemicals. Fine, go for it, Buddha says, but you're not looking in the right place. You ask some meditator in Tibet who's doing this job we're talking about, Where his brain is, I'm sorry he wouldn't know, he's never heard of a brain. And I'm serious here. Buddha would say you don't need to study your brain to study your mind. Report an error

25:26 It can help us, no problem. Look at these marvellous discussions that Dalai Lama and his lot are all having with these materialist scientists. Marvellous discussions, bringing these two models of the world together, the internal and external. But the Buddhist approach is, you know, it's introspective. Listening to the thoughts. Report an error

25:46 And all these thoughts that are beneath the emotional component. And this really just takes time. It just takes time. And of course we're basing this here on the Buddha's model of the mind, which is quite distinct, quite clear, quite unique. Unique and not in a special way, but unique because it's different from the way we would think. So the key components here, knowing it's possible to know your own mind and that this is the source of your pain and your happiness. Report an error

26:13 Just to have that. Doesn't mean the outside doesn't play a role. Doesn't mean that. But even just think it plays a big role, what goes on in here. First that point, and then the confidence that you can do it. And then some practical techniques. Start with five minutes of watching your breath every day. Not expecting any fancy results, but just beginning to step out of the nonsense for a few minutes, which you bring to bear in your daily life. Report an error

26:37 Because as you're driving, you also happen to be noticing your thoughts. So when the stuff does happen, you're in control not just of the car, but of your thoughts. Report an error

26:48 This is really what it is, essentially this, and learning to get better at this. And then the other component, which is massive for us, massive, is having courage in the face of when attachment doesn't get what it wants. Because there's this junky mind propelling us millisecond by millisecond, this craving to get what I want every second. It's like a desperate neediness to get what I want every second. Report an error

27:13 Nice smells, nice tastes, nice feelings. Nice praise, nice reputation, all these things. Desperate, you know, all the time. It's what governs our life and we assume it's normal. Report an error

27:29 So inevitably we all know, everyone with their experiences can all prove that we won't get what we want every second. I'm not being silly when I say this because this attachment, that's its job, to want desperately to get the nice things. So this attachment is like this panic-stricken child. Report an error

27:50 And how does it respond? The millisecond it doesn't get what it wants. Look at a child. Panic attack. Scream, shout, yell, kick. Anger. It's called the bare bones state of mind beneath what we can call that volatile anger is aversion. And we run between attachment and aversion a million times a day. These are the two fundamental states of mind. Kondibuddha psychology. Report an error

28:19 And they're both these elaborate instinctive stories in the mind and assumptions. The attachment, it's an assumption that I must get what I want every second. And then the aversion is this panic when it doesn't get it. So what's our response to that is push it away, either live in denial and repress, which becomes depression and despair, or smash out, which is what we call anger. Report an error

28:47 We spend our lives doing this and all the other variations that come from that, jealousy, arrogance and all the other stuff. There's nothing esoteric about these terms. This is the stuff of Buddhist psychology. Report an error

28:59 And the only way to know it, you can learn first theoretically, you must learn the theory first, it's a Buddhist model, then you've got to apply it inside your own self. Start to observe, slowly, slowly, beginning to unpack and unravel the contents of your own head. Report an error

29:15 This is a hard job, the simple job technically. But immensely difficult because it's the exact opposite of what we tend to do. This is essentially what being a Buddhist is. And all the other stuff that you do helps you, supposedly should help you do that. All the other practices one does, all the visualising and all the mantras and all this stuff are sort of techniques that support the doing of that job, being your own therapist. Report an error

29:44 Until you start working on your own mind and seeing that it's the source of your stuff, you can actually say you're not really being a Buddhist. That's the unique thing that means being a Buddhist. The thing that's unique to the Buddha. Being your own therapist. I mean it's not as if Buddha owns this. But this is his stuff. Report an error

29:58 He runs with this approach. And of course it goes to very subtle levels. The level to which he says the mind plays a role. All the teachings and Buddhism in the literature. The level to which one can go in radically changing this mind. This is Buddha's stuff. This is his expertise. Report an error

30:18 So what would you like to say to me? Questions? Ask me questions? About all that? Oh no, it's only half an hour, isn't it? Okay. I've talked for 30 minutes. Okay, now your turn to ask me questions. Report an error

30:36 Anybody? If you'd like a question. Any old question. Start the ball rolling. Report an error

30:48 Yes. I Report an error

30:52 think Report an error

31:03 it's too advanced. I'm a very doubtful person with a lot of disappointment in my Yes. Well, you experiment. Experiment. Experiment. Report an error

31:26 Experiment. Experiment. Try it out. But what do you mean by... Report an error

31:33 Well, then start with five and you grow it. I understand. But sit in a chair. Don't be sort of fundamentalist about it. Be relaxed. I understand. I understand. sure start with three minutes i'm really serious but you've got to know what the goal of the meditation is so what kind of meditation did you did you think you're supposed to be doing in this 20 minutes Report an error

31:57 okay and how do you do that what do you do what's the instruction when you did get the instruction give us the instruction tell me Report an error

32:15 but when you were told to do this 17 years ago, or the monk, oh, sorry, the monk was 17, oh, okay. When did you hear this? When did you hear this information? How long ago? A year ago? Six months ago? A day ago? Who was the monk? Report an error

32:32 Who was this monk? Let's point him out. Huh? Oh, used to be a monk. Oh, Dwight Chong. The Chinese boy. Very white. Report an error

32:48 Oh, Jumper. Jumper. Oh, Jumper. So what did Jumper tell you? His name is Jumper. What did he tell you? And what kind of meditation did he tell you to do? Report an error

33:13 Okay. Okay, all I know is, listen to me, what's your name? Karman. Karman. Karman. Karman. Listen, Karman, when I first heard Buddhism and they talked about meditation, I thought, what a stupid idea. The thought of closing my eyes and sitting still was not appealing to me. So everyone's different, okay? Everyone is different. So for me... Report an error

33:39 I'm talking from my experience, my perspective in my wish to bring all this stuff right on the earth as practical and simple and technological and psychological, not airy-fairy rubbish, you know. So my feeling is be humble, start with five minutes and if you can do five minutes well, excuse me, pretty good. But that means focusing, not just sitting and spacing out, that's easy. Report an error

34:00 But to focus the mind with great rigour and discipline, that's immensely difficult and five minutes is incredible. Start small. Nothing wrong. And this is the biggest problem we have with meditation. We think when you close my eyes, something special is supposed to happen. It's called training. It's training. And when you're training, nothing special happens. You're training how to do it. Like when you first learned piano. Report an error

34:26 There's no pleasure whatsoever from it. You're just struggling the whole time, getting your fingers on the piano. After a lot of practice, you can eventually play that piece. Same here. It's training. Long term perspective, you know. And the purpose of it is to develop this skill to focus. Why even that? So you can begin to listen to the chaos in Kalman's head. Report an error

34:47 If your head's like everybody else's, it's chaos. And if there isn't chaos, don't meditate. You don't need to, Petal. You understand my point? You understand? Okay. Good. Anybody else? Go on. Hello, darling. I'm good. Yes. Report an error

35:12 Yeah. Yeah. Report an error

35:20 Uh-huh. Sure. Report an error

35:25 Yes. I understand. Exactly. Uh Report an error

35:33 -huh. Uh-huh. Yep. Yep. Yep. Report an error

35:43 Yep. Report an error

35:52 I understand. Sure, sure, sure. I understand, darling. Uh-huh. Report an error

36:03 In fact, that's right. So you've been doing it already. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Report an error

36:14 Yes. That's right. There you go. There you go. That's it, darling. So you're doing the job. There you go. That's right. That's right. Exactly. Report an error

36:31 That's the job. This is the essence of it. Listen, no, you haven't at all, darling. So that's why we've got to be so clear about what you mean. To come to a place like this where you get the full package, you get the Geshe doing this complicated intellectual stuff which all leads to a long-term understanding of the deeper picture. Report an error

36:48 You get the bigger view, you get your whole other stuff. All of these are the tools you get that you do need but that's individually our choice, the degree to which we engage and the degree to which we use these tools. We're so full of this guilt and shame and shoulds and woulds and we bring that from our own religious views. I'm not criticising any religion but we tend to bring, we think it's... Report an error

37:10 It's from up there and we think it's something we're supposed to do. And again, this is worrying about what other people think. We're so obsessed with what other people think, oh I should go to the centre or I should go to class or I should go to puja. Excuse me, no. You do what you think is right for you at your pace. Report an error

37:25 You are the boss. We've got to have this one and this is not what we're used to thinking. Not in an arrogant sense but in a genuine courageous sense. I go at my pace but the job is, as long as we've got the job of changing my mind. If you think the job is to look holy for five minutes, you've got the wrong job. If you think it is to space out and relax, that's not the job we're talking. If you think it is to say mantras all day, That's not the job we're talking. It's to know your mind and change it. So if you're doing that, honey, you're spot on. Of course it is. I understand. Report an error

37:56 Yep. Yep. That's right. You haven't. Good. Report an error

38:10 Precisely. That's right, darling. So rejoice. And that actually points me. That points to actually, this sounds so goody-goody, so corny, but please hear me. It points to the other thing that we have to do, which we forget. Which is being very realistic about our progress in anything we do and really delighting in our progress. But this is the interesting point about attachment. Report an error

38:31 Like I said before, the disease of attachment, the Buddha would say, is coming into this life with this profound sense of dissatisfaction. Which means we're always finding fault. And guess in whom? Other people, sure, but ourselves, we are addicted to finding fault and this is the irony of ego. So even if we are making progress, all we tend to see is the progress we haven't made yet, which is the terrible dissatisfaction. Report an error

38:55 So the other practice we absolutely have to do is to be able to tick the boxes and go, I've done a really good job here, I am working on my mind, I am doing a good job, I have gone. And it's often when you hear something like this, it gives you some perspective and you realise you have made some progress. It's so important, precisely, because that's our addiction, to always find fault. Report an error

39:12 So it's extremely important. Well done to you. Yes. Report an error

39:26 Okay. Sounds good. Buddha would agree with you. No, but I think by the fact that you called attachments plural, you're referring to objects. So what do you really mean that? Report an error

39:46 It could be. It could be. It could be. Yes, it could be. Report an error

39:59 So what's your point? Report an error

40:12 Okay. I understand. I understand. I understand. Report an error

40:20 or attachments obstacles. I understand. Report an error

40:31 That's right. Never begin to get to the end until you go deep inside. Okay, let me answer the question. I'll tell you. So the way Buddha's talking, attachment is a state of mind. It's at the deepest, most energetic level. It's this terrible feeling of dissatisfaction, which is a story that I'm not enough. Report an error

40:52 No, let me just take, I'll give you the whole story. I'll give it briefly. How you'd be, how we are with it and how you'd be without it. I'll describe. So at the moment Buddha says attachment runs a show and he's talking levels that we don't even posit as possible. Really subtle levels. But broadly speaking this bottomless pit of dissatisfaction which causes hankering after something. Report an error

41:11 An assumption that when I get this or that or this or that or this or this and this then I'll be happy. It'll fill the gaping hole. So it's this terrible sense of disconnect. So the symptom of a person with lots of attachment is this. They'd be like this. With lots of attachment you'd be low self-esteem, dissatisfied. Report an error

41:28 You'd get angry easily when you didn't get what you wanted or you'd get depressed easily. You'd always have guilt or you'd always point fingers to other people. You'd feel hopeless. You'd feel miserable. You'd get jealous. You'd get depressed. You'd get annoyed. You'd get arrogant or you'd got low self-esteem. Do we recognise any of these? Report an error

41:45 Okay, join the club everybody. We've all got attachment. These are all the symptoms. So that means we're miserable, we're fractured, the mind's always chatting away, we're always unhappy, things worry us easily, we get anxious, we get panic attacks. All of this is because we have this deep-seated ingrained thing called attachment. So how would you be without it? Oh no, even worse suffering. With it, then because it also has a function, attachment has a function. Report an error

42:07 Of over exaggerating the deliciousness of that thing out there. So you're hankering after something and you see the cake and the more neediness you have for the cake, the more divine the cake looks. The more you believe that when you get the cake you'll get happy. The more you expect it when you put it in the mouth and wait for the happiness to come. And then you keep putting in the mouth to keep waiting for the happiness to come. All you get is a stuffed stomach and then you get all depressed. Report an error

42:27 But the tragedy is you get more hungry for it tomorrow. So we keep trying to get happy by eating the cake or having Fred or the new job or the new handbag or the new position or the new something, whatever. We're never endingly searching and it's a bottomless pit, Buddha says. It's a bottomless pit because you're looking in the wrong direction. So that's suffering. That's what he means by quote unquote being in saṃsāra, caught up in these neuroses, which in our models of the mind we consider normal behaviour. Report an error

42:52 Buddha's in tears and saying it's their deep mental illness. So that's ordinary attached life. We're not talking about the psychos or the terrorists here. Ordinary people like you and me. Okay, how would you be if you didn't have attachment? I'll tell you. You'd be blissfully content. You'd be incredibly self-contained. You'd be very courageous. You'd be the person you really want to be. Report an error

43:12 You'd be brave in the face of garbage. You wouldn't freak out when bad things happen. You'd be able to confront it. You'd be brave with other people because you've got attachment which blinds you from seeing things. You'd see people more clearly. You'd have a closer connection with others. You'd forgive others easily. You'd love them more. You'd have compassion for more and you'd have enormous energy and I said you'd be blissful. Report an error

43:33 Now doesn't that sound nice? But you'd be courageous. You wouldn't be a wishy-washy, boring, cute person. If the problems are there and you can see the problem, you can fix it, you'll stand up for it because you have no, not in the self-centred neurotic, kind of autistic sense of not caring what people think, but in a genuine sense of coming from real confidence and real fulfilment which would make you also very humble and very respectful of other people. Report an error

43:55 You'd be a blissful, wonderful human being. This is the way Buddha would talk. This is a small, short-term result. Wouldn't that be nice? Courageous, fulfilled, blissful. A bit of a way to go. Don't hold your breath though. So just the engaging in this process, knowing it's a possibility and the Buddhist literature lays it out as all very logical possibility. Report an error

44:17 No time for all that now. Maybe we'll go into it in the weekend. Then you're happy to plot along doing it, seeing your mind every day, doing a bit of practice and then when you're ready for it, when the red light comes, when the mean old Fred comes, when the dramas come, you learn to be brave in the face of these things and you reinterpret things and you get less up and down, less neurotic, more blissful, more content, more loving, more wise. Report an error

44:40 This is the result. This is how Buddha talks. Report an error

44:47 So the result of giving up attachment, we misunderstand it, you're not saying this, is you become this kind of boring person who's given up everything. Oh, would you like some tea, Robina? Oh, I don't care. Would you like coffee? I don't care. That's called indifference and that's horrible. You'd be much more joyful and funny and wonderful and light and you'd be a delight to be around. Report an error

45:06 People just can't never get enough of you when you've given up attachment because you've given up anger as well and jealousy and depression and low self-esteem. But we don't think we can in our culture. We assume they're bred into us and that we'd be weird if we didn't have them. So it's quite a shocking, radical point Buddha's making. Report an error

45:25 Do you understand? It's interesting. Report an error

45:34 You're never stopping working on it, darling. I mean, there's some progress, hopefully, after all these years. If there isn't, then I should be giving up the job, isn't it, really? You've got to see some progress. I've got confidence in this process and I work on it every day, the best of my ability, but I've got confidence in it and that's any tools you get. If you've got confidence, you just keep on plotting, don't you? Report an error

45:53 And you learn to get contentment in the doing of the job. Oh, God, dear sweetheart, this is the one thing I tell you, I feel, for me, the thing I wish to convey to people. I'm a maniac, okay? And I still am. But what I'm meaning is it is possible to know our minds and I am talking about your thoughts and it is possible to change them. That I am certain about. That I am very confident. Report an error

46:19 Maybe I can't talk about emptiness and the fancy stuff the Buddha talks about, which is more advanced. But this one I can tell you, truth. It took years. I remember the day. I remember the moment. It was a good ten years after being a Buddhist when I really knew for the first time that anger wasn't my middle name. Report an error

46:45 That's right. That's right. No, darling, and this is where we have this ridiculous view and this is why it's nice to hear that Lama Zopa says, excuse me, dear, thieves need mindfulness. Just reminding us that's not a holy quality. Report an error

47:01 Yeah, that's right, precisely. So it just means, you know, it's very interesting, in Tibetan, the verb for us to meditate is the verb gom and it means... To familiarise. So it's the job of familiarising your mind with clarity, with wisdom, with all the rest. It's a familiarisation process. It's not some mystical process. And that's our big mistake when we think of it, you know. Report an error

47:32 Precisely. But you don't, I mean, I'll still remain, even when I die, I'll be a short, fat, noisy nun, okay? I won't sort of turn into a little skinny, quiet person. Report an error

47:44 I'm not joking but I'm serious here. We retain our shape and size and structure and sort of energy level. You understand what I'm saying? But you sort of get better at it. You become a nicer version of it. We've all got our own essence but you make it a better one. If you're a loud, noisy person, you become a nice, loud, noisy person. Report an error

47:55 If you're the essence Report an error

48:05 If you're a quiet, sweet person, you become a nice, not a passive-aggressive nice person. You understand what I'm saying? So we've got our style, our shapes. We just become better at it. We hone our tools, which are our own qualities. And you lessen the neurotic qualities. This is a shocking thing, you know. Report an error

48:25 They're not set in stone. You don't have to take pills to do it. If you take your pills, please, I'm not being fundamentalist, go take your pills. But now you've got space to work on your mind. Report an error

48:35 Do you understand my point? Good. Yes. Report an error

48:44 Yeah, watch your breath. You just train. You just got to train, darling. You can't make the thoughts go away. So you got to, it's like you just got to train to stay on the breath. That's the job. It's like if you're trying to work on a tightrope. What's the trick of trying to learn to walk on a tightrope? Well, you got to learn the right techniques. But basically, you get on the tightrope with even the first second up, you're down again. Report an error

49:03 You're falling off, isn't it? Well, you just keep doing it, honey, until you're able to stay on the tightrope. Same here. You just learn the techniques, right? Get good advice, how to sit, what you're trying to do, be clear of the practical advice, and then you just do it like we learn anything. There's no trick. There's no secret. It just means hard work. Report an error

49:23 And confidence. We learn everything like this. We familiarise ourselves with music when we're becoming a musician. You familiarise yourselves with cooking. You familiarise yourselves with everything. That's called learning. All you're doing here is the same. And the consequence of familiarising yourself with the breath in this case is that you're stepping out of the mess and not following everyone mindlessly and you begin to slowly hear it. Report an error

49:45 And this really does take time. And then slowly you can start to get in the daily life you're then noticing, not just the outside. But what's happening inside as well and you can learn to have control over it because it's your thoughts. Whereas right now with our dumb minds, I truly believe I'm sitting there as an innocent victim and you dare to be rude to me and you cause me to be angry. Report an error

50:07 That's what we believe now. So when someone says, what's your name? Rachel. So someone says, what's wrong Robina? Well Rachel, tell me about your anger Robina. Well Rachel did this and Rachel did that and Rachel did this. No, no, you're telling me about Rachel. Tell me about yourself, your anger and I'll repeat it because I don't know what it means. Report an error

50:23 Talk about my anger. You see what I'm saying? Because my anger is what Rachel did. My attachment is what Fred did. We're obsessed with the object and all our words describe the object and this is where it's tricky to start to look into the thought process of those feelings themselves is very tricky and getting you out of the way. Report an error

50:41 The thoughts themselves, it's so tasty, you know. This just takes time. But it's our job. It's my mind. If I can't know my mind, who the hell can? Report an error

50:53 Isn't it? We've got to have patience and humility and courage and confidence. I promise. Yeah. Report an error

51:05 What do you mean? Report an error

51:09 Sitting, doing what? Report an error

51:27 Strong emotional energy. Or it'll just pop up, will it? You'll notice. No, don't worry, but it'll pop up. Meaning you're talking a story to yourself or you're feeling a heartbeat or something. What's happening? Really? Report an error

51:47 Yeah, there's just all the thoughts. See, this is the thing that's so hysterical, isn't it? They're all raging on underneath. This is what's so scary. I mean, we're living with these mad roommates. Report an error

51:57 They're just our own thoughts, but we don't even know. So, okay, no, that's fine. If you get relaxed, well, my gosh, this is interesting. I've got all this anger inside me. Hi, anger. Then you calm down again and you start doing it. Of course, it's the same thing. Our head is full of these roommates. There's about 47 variations of every one. Anger, all kinds of attachment, all kinds of jealousy and they're all raging on there quietly. But it's sort of like they're all in the SCG when Sydney Swans are winning and Report an error

52:24 there's all these voices screaming, 30,000, whatever the maximum there, 60,000, whatever it is. All you hear from the distance is a big noise, just roaring noise, isn't it? But you can't hear those 60,000 individual voices, can you? That's us most of the time. There's just this noise there. But then one will come louder than the other and you'll go, oh, I'm going to get up, you know. There it is. Anger got so loud, finally you can hear it. Report an error

52:45 Good. Don't think it's bad. It's good. Because if you're living with all these roommates, your crazy thoughts, you better learn to hear them. This is what unconscious is. They all start coming up. We think we're going crazy. You're not. They're all there anyway. We've got to let them come. This is what's scary, but it's so excellent. Report an error

53:05 There's many methods what you do with it after that. There's a multitude of things. This is bare bones learning to focus. Then letting, you know, and then sometimes the mind will go quiet. You'll sit in, as they call, the natural state of your mind. How marvelous. What a gift. But meanwhile, don't think it's a bad meditation also. You're not saying it is, but do not think that's a bad meditation. Report an error

53:23 That is a good meditation. You saw it and delight that you've seen it. Do not resist it. And this is what we all tend to say. Oh, I shouldn't be angry. I'm a good Buddhist, you know. Rubbish. Be delighted you've seen it. Because now you can learn to deal with it. At least arising to the surface is not going to suppress you and come out as a cancer. Do you understand? Report an error

53:45 Someone else? Anybody? Yes. Yes. Yes. Report an error

54:03 Right. Sure. Yes. Okay. I'm just talking about starting. Everyone's got a different level of practice. Some people, I mean the great yogis can sit for months on end. So it's not as if it's set in stone. -hmm. Mm. Report an error

54:16 But I'm just trying to get us to be humble and ordinary and start with five minutes and be delighted with good quality five minutes. Because we tend to sort of think there's something good about an hour or even two or six or not, whatever. And all sorts of marvellous things can come up if we're doing a retreat like this. Fantastic. Get into the mess of your own mind. But to start the process, do you understand? Report an error

54:38 Each person is so different. And anyway, what is the criterion of success for you? Report an error

54:49 Okay. So what you're saying is it is actually focusing, it is proper concentration. And you can be confident about that. But you know it is. You've got good instructions, you've had good teachers and you know that you can judge that it actually is concentration, not just spacing out. Report an error

55:08 Okay, well as long as you know it is concentration. I'm not trying to doubt. I do know your point but I'm still trying to get my point about whether you're really confident that it is because some people can sit down and feel very, very nice. That is not what we're talking about. Maybe you're not talking about that. That's fine. So if it is focus, I'm very happy for you. Each person's different, sweetheart. But we start with five and then you go from there, don't you? Report an error

55:34 You find your own way once you've got proper techniques and proper teachings on it and you've got the technique right. So you know what you're doing and know what you're looking for. Isn't it? So marvellous. Well done. What else, folks? Anybody? Yes. Report an error

55:53 Yes. Report an error

55:56 I've got to get higher. I can't see anybody. Yeah. An elevated sense of your own craziness. Report an error

56:08 Oh, okay. No, no, that's okay. No, you're not going back there again. No, you're uncovering more. You're not going back there again. You're just going deeper in. Report an error

56:31 Okay, what I'm talking here is based upon understanding Buddha's model of the mind. It's a very distinct one. It's not the same as Jung or Freud or how your therapist will tell you to look at your feelings. It's got nothing to do with that. It's quite different, quite precise. So I can only tell you from that point of view. Report an error

56:50 So have you studied Buddhist psychology? I'm not being rude, I'm just asking. I'm not saying you should, I'm just asking first. Okay. Report an error

57:02 Okay, well even most Buddhists don't study Buddhist psychology, even people in this room don't, who come here to the centre every day wouldn't have a clue how to define attachment and know how to distinguish it between love and compassion. It's quite subtle and quite precise, the Buddhist view, so I'll tell you briefly. So okay, Buddha's view of the mind, and this is what he's been teaching for two and a half thousand years and they haven't changed it yet, so we can only assume it's either stupid or it works, one or the other, because they haven't changed it, is that your mental consciousness is made up of three categories of contents. Report an error

57:33 You've got qualities, states of mind that are called negative, those that are called positive and those that are called neutral, meaning they're crucial states of mind but they're like the mechanics of your mind. Mindfulness, concentration, attention, there's lots and lots of bits of our mind that all play a crucial role in our ordinary functioning as a human being every day. Report an error

57:53 And these are all not your brain. We're not talking about your brain. We're talking about all kinds of states of mind. There's many, many, many of them. The crucial ones in the beginning are the ones we need to understand are called the negative and positive. And this is not a moralistic statement. These are technical terms. And they've got very specific characteristics. And this is fundamental to understanding the entire Buddhist path from A to Z. Report an error

58:17 This is the basis. So the negative ones, he says, are the source of all problems. And we all know the words. I just said them. Attachment, anger, all the blah, blah, blah. We know them instantly. We know they're panic-stricken, they're fearful, they're horrible, they cause pain and they cause us to make a mess of our relationships. Then we've got the other stuff. Report an error

58:36 Love, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, patience, blah, blah, blah, all the goody-goody stuff. But the Buddha, basically his view, and this is quite an interesting point. I'm going to get to your answer. I'm just getting there. I'm giving you context. So the Buddha's view is that these virtuous or positive or useful or productive states of mind are at the core of our being. Report an error

58:59 This is very much the teaching about Buddha's view of mind. He says it's not physical, doesn't come from a creator, doesn't come from parents, is beginningless. We've had countless lives, we'll go on countless. This is his view, very different view of the mind. And also this mind of ours we can go to much more subtle. Report an error

59:15 Refined levels and we will even posit as existing in our culture. And that's where all these techniques come in, these concentration techniques. If you were to see a person who'd gone into samādhi, as they call it, at a subtler level of their own mind, they would look like they were dead, basically. And they could stay there for months. So we're dealing with much more, a radically different view of what the mind is in its very character. You understand? So at the gross emotional level, we've got the negative and positive. Report an error

59:40 And they're all the roommates, all warring with each other. And most of the time, the negative ones are running the show. Attachment, anger, jealousy, all these dramas. I mean, looking at us in this room, you could have to deduce that we are able to access our virtues. Why we're not in the gun club right now, why we're not out there on the street drunk, killing each other, is because luckily we've got a few of the virtuous states of mind. Report an error

1:00:00 We've got a few decent roommates as well. Patience, kindness, the wish to understand the universe, the wish to make ourselves a better human being. Pretty amazing. So these virtuous positive ones. The Buddha says they're the actual substance of our mind. And this is his radical point, that these negative ones, these neuroses, actually they have a term in Buddhist psychology, they call it, they are adventitious. Report an error

1:00:21 You look up a dictionary and you're going to see it means essentially they're not integral to who we really are. They are not at the core of our being. And this is the Buddha's point, it's quite shocking. And that eventually we can rid them, rid our mind of them utterly. And that's what he means by Nirvāṇa. It's not some place like heaven. It's the state of mind of a person who's done this job using these techniques. And we're talking at a much subtler level here. Report an error

1:00:47 So the fundamental starting point for the Buddhist, which is how I'm talking here, is this assumption that the goodness can be grown to immense degrees, which is the source of our happiness and our ability to make others happy. And we can rid the mind utterly of the rubbish. And so we're just starting here. We're talking the starting point. Report an error

1:01:02 Even beginning to own that my neuroses are the cause of my pain. Already stupendous. So now, when we understand these negative states, and this is now getting to your question, getting to your point, what do you do then? When we begin to understand, according to Buddhist psychology, that the key characteristic, besides the characteristic of neurotic emotion, panic and drama and misery and disturbingness, that we can attest to every day, check the last time you were jealous or depressed. Report an error

1:01:29 You understand? They have this, and this is the conceptual side, they have this characteristic of being elaborate, like I said, elaborate conceptual stories. But we can't hear those stories until it gets to full-fledged emotion and it either explodes out our mouth or we feel it in the body. That's why we call them emotions. But way deep down, so that's why you've got to have focus. Report an error

1:01:55 So you can begin to, because there's different kinds of meditation. One kind is you just focus and don't get involved in conversations. But in a day-to-day practical application of these tools, when you get more and more skillful at hearing all these emotional components, hearing them, then you can begin to hear how they are misconceptions. Report an error

1:02:15 So in other words, a real simple example. When I've got strong attachment for the cake. We know very well it looks delicious. It looks divine, doesn't it? And you believe totally that that's the cause of your happiness and you can't wait to shove it in the mouth. Right? You agree? Roughly speaking, isn't it? It looks divine and that I believe instinctively that when I get it, I'll get happy. That is an absolute assumption in our minds. Report an error

1:02:37 That's why we overeat. It's so ingrained and so instinctive, it's like a joke. But when we hear this, see it more and more clearly, we will realise that this attachment is this rotten, stinking liar that causes the cake to make look delicious, causes my hand to rush out, causes it to shove in here and hoping and praying, I'll calm down and feel better. Report an error

1:03:02 Are we kind of communicating a bit? Whatever your obsession is, obsessive-compulsive is a great term for attachment. Buddha says we're all obsessive compulsives, we're all junkies, it's just a question of degree. And the main component of this one and all the other ones is they're rotten, stinking, delusional liars that we've been believing for eons and we're totally caught up in them. Report an error

1:03:22 So this beginning process of even first recognising my thoughts play a role, my feelings play a role, then starting to get some focus, then stepping back, then hearing, feeling the emotional component, but deeper than that, beginning to analyse how that anger's a liar. How the attachment's a lie. That cake will not make me happy. We've proven it a million times. It just makes me fat. I'm being corny but true. Report an error

1:03:48 But it's difficult because when I love Fred, not the cake, I do love Fred. You see, this is where the trouble is now too. Love is an altruistic state of mind. It's under the heading... Positive. That is a connectedness with Fred. A wish that Fred be happy. A delight to make Fred happy. It gives me joy when I see him happy. We all recognise that. Report an error

1:04:09 That's amazing. But now it's dragged down and polluted by my neediness for Fred. My manipulating of Fred. My grasping at Fred. My believing that when I get him he'll make me happy. And all my manipulating to get him to do nice things so he'll keep making me happy. It's this tricky other bit of us that is poison. Report an error

1:04:26 But we can't hear it and it's only when it doesn't get what it wants, when Fred doesn't come home on time and he doesn't love me anymore, that's when this anger rages and the pain and the hurt comes because attachment got thwarted. So the thing is all these are lying, elaborate conceptual stories, layers and layers and layers and it's really quite subtle to get into them. But this is the job of being a Buddhist, to unpack the stories and stop believing in them and eventually you remove them all together. Report an error

1:04:54 Does it make sense? Way to go, don't hold your breath, okay? Buddhists have countless lives, we have to do this job. But good enough we do it at all. At least to see how, even when we do this, when I'm mad at Fred and then I try to calm myself down before he comes home and I'm about to kill him because he's late and he's looking at the girls again or whatever, you know, the dramas we get into. Report an error

1:05:13 All because of attachment, all because of low self-esteem and I'm a creep because, you know, how dare Fred. All these dramas in my mind, the extrapolation, the stories my mind is going through. Do you understand? So then if I'm working on my mind... Before he comes in the door, shut up Robina, be your own therapist. Calm your mind down dear, you don't know the facts yet, you don't know what's happened, don't exaggerate, it's just your pathetic self-pity and your attachment and neediness of Fred and the jealousy and the hurt. Report an error

1:05:37 Calm down dear, let's just see what's going to happen, just see what the facts are first. Hello Fred, how are you sweetheart? Oh I'm so sorry I'm late Robina, I had a car accident. Oh darling, are you okay? Then all the problem solved. Because you didn't follow your drama until you've got, you see the delusions are not, they're not dealing with facts, they're dealing with fictions that our mind makes up and then believes. Report an error

1:05:59 We all know this, when someone accuses you of doing something wrong, when you've got a friend who's really jealous, you know they're making up stories, but they believe what they're seeing is true and this is the tragedy. So to even this degree, just to argue with ourselves and to be brave and courageous and calm down, don't come to conclusions until we've got the facts. It's a really practical way to put it. Report an error

1:06:19 And then ever deeper, this job. The less attachment we have, the more contentment we have in ourself. The less I demand Fred to come home on time. It's okay. It's cool. Hi, Fred. Do you have a good time, darling? Oh, I'm so content sitting here. But if you're needy and a fragile and broken little person, you want Fred in your face every minute. Report an error

1:06:36 Do you understand? And then you complain. I mean, you get my point. I know I'm exaggerating. I scream. But do you sort of hear my point? These are the ones that cause the nightmares. And finally, they're all elaborate conceptual stories. We only notice them when they come to feelings, when they come to your body. Report an error

1:06:54 You want to leap up, like you said. A friend of mine who was meditating for like 15, 20 years, a friend of ours is a monk, Roger. Meditating serious long-term three, four-year meditation retreats. Okay, not just 20 minutes or 40 minutes, years on end, on his own, isolated, meditating all day. So you'd sort of think, oh, he must have made some progress, you know. You'd think after that, right? You'd think, oh, I must have made some progress. And he told me that he was, at some point after all this, he was out of his brain with a whole new level of rage and anger and arrogance. Report an error

1:07:26 He was scared. Talk about depressed. He went to Lama Zopa really unhappy and Lama Zopa laughed and laughed and said, fantastic, the dirt has to come out. So it's not going back to there. You're going to deeper levels. A friend of mine went on one intensive year retreat from New York. She went to France, one of these centres. She said, Robina, I had to go back and start another year. Report an error

1:07:49 I just began to see my mind. She did another year and then another year. So way to go, seeing our minds. The level to which we can see it is way more than we'd think here. So be humble and patient. Are you with me, people? Okay. Report an error

1:08:08 Twenty past eight. What time am I supposed to finish? 8.30, 10 more minutes. Oh, 9 o 'clock. Oh, my God. I talk three times the pace of everybody else, so it's really like 11.30 already. Are Report an error

1:08:31 there any other questions? Yes. come on. Report an error

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1:08:48 it would be like, oh, but, you know, this person know, I'm trying to be compassionate. and I don't know what to do and it was really interesting the advice that I was given was just walk away What's the question then? So is there a question or are you just making a statement? So what's your observation? Turn it into a question please, it's good for everybody. What's the question? Report an error

1:09:28 What are different tools and ways of dealing with it is what you're asking? There are many tools, darling. Any tool that you can use in a certain situation, wouldn't you agree that the first point is to know how professional you are at those tools, how long you've used them, right? You with me? So let's say you're driving along the freeway and you're about to crash. What can I do? Well, obviously it depends on how long you've been driving. Report an error

1:09:59 If you've never driven on the freeway before, well, it's just, excuse me, darling, it's damage control. But if you're a professional racing driver, you've got a lot of tools under your belt, haven't you? So that's the first main point. You've got to know how many, what you're capable of doing. So some person, let's say they're extremely angry and they're going to have a fight and they have some creep come in front of them. If the best you can do is shut your mouth and walk away, but that's already pretty good because usually an angry person doesn't want to walk away, they want to walk into the person. Report an error

1:10:26 So if you have to do that, do that. Another person can be kind and loving and say, sweetheart, I understand, you're absolutely right, I am a creep. It depends on your own skills, sweetheart, what you can do. The bottom line is junior school grade one application of the Buddha's tools is to at least control your body and your speech. Report an error

1:10:45 In other words, do what your grandma says, behave nicely. That's your first level of practice. And then you don't feed all the garbage in your own mind, at least that, and you don't harm others. That's already fantastic. And then as you get more advanced and know your own mind, you can deal with more dramatic situations without going nuts. Report an error

1:10:59 And eventually you get to the compassion wing, the most advanced level, you can even take the blame with a happy mind if you did nothing wrong. So it's all a question of what skills you've got. You've got to know your own mind, your own capability. Do you understand? Okay. What else, folks? Yes, yes. Report an error

1:11:23 Uh-huh. Report an error

1:11:28 Meditation means familiarizing your mind. So it's all a question of what you want to familiarize your mind with. So if you want to say mantra, how marvelous. But if you're trying to focus your breath with no thoughts, mantra is an interruption. It's all a question of what type of meditation you're doing. Do you see? It's all a question of what you're trying to do. Report an error

1:11:45 If you're trying to focus your mind, you do not do mantra. On your breath, let's say. But you can decide to focus on the mantra. Nothing wrong with that. You're the boss. It's all a question of what you're trying to achieve in the meditation because there's many, many methods, many goals. You understand my point? And that can be even in the middle of some being angry. Report an error

1:12:04 I mean, mantras are a great tool. Some people really like these, all kinds. You know, there's Sanskrit sounds. The Tibetans have never translated them. They keep them in Sanskrit. And they're all related to different psychological qualities, love, compassion, all these kinds of things. So sometimes it's very nice when you're driving and your mind's having a blah, blah, blah. You just say mantra. It's very... Report an error

1:12:23 Powerful for your mind. It can be very tasty. There's lots of millions of little tools there. It's up to each person which tools they want to use in their own life. Report an error

1:12:37 It's a question of defining our terms here. Do you understand my point? Okay. First, to answer that question, we have to have the definition of what attachment is. Would you agree with that? So in other words, I say a knife can stab somebody. We have to know what a knife is and you say, are there any good knives? Well yes, a scalpel is a good knife but you've got to know what the definition of a knife is first. Report an error

1:13:05 So what is attachment? What you've heard here, what is attachment? Tell me what you've learned from this. What is attachment? Report an error

1:13:27 No. That's nothing to do with attachment, no. That's called concentration. That's learning to concentrate, to focus on the breath. That's a technique coming from the Hindus, which the Buddha uses. It's a concentration meditation technique. The reason to stay focused is so you can step back and begin to listen to all the thoughts and stories in our head. Report an error

1:13:49 That's the first thing. The next thing is the Buddha would say in his model of the mind, there are two main, like I said, two main categories of states of mind. There's some called negative and there are some called positive. That's the next step. So the positive ones we all know, love, compassion, goodness, kindness. Report an error

1:14:08 So let's say I say I love my daughter. Now that's altruistic, that's wanting my daughter to be happy. Do you understand? Loving her, having compassion for her, perfect state of mind. But the Buddha would say we also have attachment for our daughter, which he calls a negative state of mind. It's not the way we define it in our world. We use attachment in a good way, which is why you're asking. Report an error

1:14:33 But he would use it in a way that refers to a neurotic state of mind that possesses my daughter, that manipulates her to do what I want, that gets angry when she doesn't do what I want, that frets about her when she's not there. That's that neurotic part of us. No, that's what Buddha means by attachment. And he says, no, that can never be good. Report an error

1:14:57 No, what I'm saying is... So you have got a different definition of the word attachment. And I don't think you're hearing me properly here. That's okay. You can say that if you like. What I'm trying to say is the way you use the word attachment, you're using it to refer to love for your daughter or love for your husband, isn't it? Report an error

1:15:17 You're using it, a close feeling and loving your husband or loving a close friend. That's what you're using it as. What are you using attachment as then? What do you mean by attachment? You. Report an error

1:15:29 What is attachment for you though darling? You can't ask me what it means until you've given me the definition. I know darling, so explain the way you're using the word attachment. It's different from the way I'm using it. Okay, that's not the way Buddha uses it. I'm trying to say that Buddha uses the word attachment to refer, no, a neurotic, needy, clinging, manipulative possessiveness. Report an error

1:15:54 Do you hear those words? That's what he means by attachment. But to have a close connection with somebody, that's perfect. To love somebody, perfect. To want them to be happy, perfect. To love to look at them and be with them, perfect. It's a question of defining the words and being very clear what we mean by these words. Report an error

1:16:13 It's a crucial point. Are we communicating? What's the problem, darling? Where's the problem? What is not clear for you? Report an error

1:16:25 What, darling? I didn't say it's broad. I said it's neurotic and needy and miserable. You're using another word for it. You're not talking about Buddha's attachment. You're talking your word of connection and love and closeness. Report an error

1:16:58 Buddha would say it's a mental illness. So he would suggest, that's up to you. You can decide what you like. It's okay. You disagree with Buddha. That's cool. I understand because this is the point that you're making and I would use... Okay. So the Buddha's saying, this is an interesting point, that what you're saying... Report an error

1:17:15 Attachment is what we all think. We all think it's normal. But he would say because of attachment is why you get jealous. It's why you get angry. It's why you get depressed. Not you, all of us. So he says if we didn't have attachment, we would be close to people. We would love people. We would be happy with people. Report an error

1:17:34 We would like to make them happy. All the good things would be there without the misery. So this attachment is quite subtle. And the very fact that you say it that way, the world agrees with you. Our materialist, ordinary, worldly view would agree with you. So we've got to really think about what he means because initially it sounds quite shocking. I agree. It's a very good point you're making. So we've got to look at it carefully. I agree with you, sweetheart. Report an error

1:18:01 It's quite subtle, this attachment. Report an error

1:18:10 Yes. Sure, of course. What book would you recommend? Turkey for... Good one. Turkey for... Talking about the mind and attachment. Which is good for them? Who? Which one? Are there some out there? Report an error

1:18:26 Okay. There's some little free books out there. Little free books by Lama Yeshe. You would have liked Lama Yeshe. Very simple, down to earth. She'll point out. They're a good start. All right, darling. What else, folks? Time to go home. I'm not driving you out. Report an error

1:18:44 Did you do a little? Report an error

1:18:53 Okay. I'll sing a prayer. All right? I'm really happy to rave on until midnight, but I think there's been more than enough food for thought here. Don't you think? Thank you. So this little prayer, it's like sort of a bookend. It was an hour and a half ago. It's all shock and horror to think. It's an hour and 20 minutes we've been sitting here, as amazing as that is. And as many thoughts as each of us has had, Buddha would sort of say, is as many seeds we have planted in our mind this last hour and 20 minutes. Report an error

1:19:23 So we think, how amazing. An hour and 20 minutes well spent thinking, analysing, checking up because we've got to think about this stuff and remember we're the boss, Buddha's not. I'm just giving you advice from Buddha's little workbook. It's up to whether we take those tools on board or not. So we think how marvellous we've done all this hard thinking and working and analysing. So we think may we nourish these seeds from this moment forward by our effort to be good people, to be not so neurotic, not so miserable, more kind, more wise, more content so that we really can develop... Report an error

1:19:52 This marvelous potential. The Buddha says we have bucket loads of potential for ourself and potential to help others because we all live in this world together. So I'll sing a little prayer that sort of expresses that. Report an error

1:20:10 Kewa-di-du-dag Lama-sang-ge Dro-b-gyur-ne-wa Report an error

1:20:45 CHOBSEM CHOGRIN PO CHE MA KYE PANAM KYE GYO CHE KYE PANYAM PAM E PAYANG GONG NE GONG DU PAPA All Report an error

1:21:06 right. Thank you, everybody. Very, very, very much. Report an error

1:21:16 Thank you so much. Oh, okay. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. I think we're going to be starting five-minute meditation sessions here. Now that we can do five minutes instead of 20, that sounds good to me. Report an error

1:21:36 It's been a wonderful evening, lots of thoughts to go on with. Just a reminder, if anybody wishes to sign up for some or all of the weekend, you can go to reception on the way out. Also, Chasing Buddha. DVD is also on the way out and you'll get to hear more of Venerable Robina and see the work that she's done over many, many years. Report an error

1:22:03 That's it, I think. Any other announcements? Nope. Okay, so that's it for tonight. Thank you so much for coming along and hope to see you again here soon. Report an error

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Talk by Robina Courtin. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/BuddhismForBusyPeopleByVenRobina2013. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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