Buddhism from A-Z, 3rd Semester - Bodhisattva Conduct (15 June 2010)

0:00 Yeah, I'm picking some notes, but at like 10 o 'clock, you know, tons of time. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:09 I'm actually a... Thank Report an error in the passage at 0:09 Highlight the passage at 0:09

0:18 you. I live in Amherst. You know how it is. Yes. Right. Right. But you're up here, so could you be my friend? Well, yeah. I've taken the Thursday nights. And I'm going to have a class for about a I'm just going to live properly in here on Tuesday, so for about a month, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 0:18 Highlight the passage at 0:18

0:41 kind of like this? Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 0:41 Highlight the passage at 0:41

1:05 Oh, but it's a USB thing, so I can just plug it in there. Yep, okay. Report an error in the passage at 1:05 Highlight the passage at 1:05

1:15 Your computer can't be less sensitive than mine. You'd be surprised. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:15 Highlight the passage at 1:15

1:36 a girlfriend. Report an error in the passage at 1:36 Highlight the passage at 1:36

1:39 part-time math class partner. Report an error in the passage at 1:39 Highlight the passage at 1:39

1:44 this was only like, all the bells and whistles was only like 900 bucks. Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

1:52 You can get toe shoes for like,500. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:52 Highlight the passage at 1:52

2:10 Thank you. So when he's ready, they'll send him a letter. OK. OK. All right. It comes to be some orientation. The routine point of some. Family time. Yeah. All right. So I'd like to be at the hour. They always break for lunch. And then services tables. Oh, yeah. And I'm just kind of learning. Do you want the book? No, I don't think so. Students love the day. I had one part-time job. Report an error in the passage at 2:10 Highlight the passage at 2:10

2:39 Thank you. what this was. This will be interesting. Does it work with the projector? He's got a couple more classes in the fall. . . Report an error in the passage at 2:39 Highlight the passage at 2:39

2:53 Not yet. . . . . I don't know what's going to happen at the end. Thank Report an error in the passage at 2:53 Highlight the passage at 2:53

3:19 you. Oh, that was yours? Yeah. Oh, Chad, yours were great. I knew she knew. It was perfect. It was absolutely perfect. Exactly. Because you don't like being near the computer and it was just Report an error in the passage at 3:19 Highlight the passage at 3:19

3:50 at that. Look at how easy that was. Report an error in the passage at 3:50 Highlight the passage at 3:50

3:54 Oh, there it is. Oh, there How about that? All right. Report an error in the passage at 3:54 Highlight the passage at 3:54

4:05 All right, John. this in anybody's way? Report an error in the passage at 4:05 Highlight the passage at 4:05

4:15 did you do? Made technology happen. Let me plug it in or else it will hold up. Why is it purple? like purple. Is that yours? Yes. Purple, too. It's a beautiful shade of purple. is. What color is that? Report an error in the passage at 4:15 Highlight the passage at 4:15

4:44 What did you do? That's really great. That's great, people. Great. Report an error in the passage at 4:44 Highlight the passage at 4:44

4:55 right. It's the new guy. Report an error in the passage at 4:55 Highlight the passage at 4:55

4:59 So let's start. Report an error in the passage at 4:59 Highlight the passage at 4:59

5:14 any technical difficulties this evening. All right. Report an error in the passage at 5:14 Highlight the passage at 5:14

5:19 John. so if you want to pause for a bit, we can do it together. Report an error in the passage at 5:19 Highlight the passage at 5:19

· · · silence, 1 minute

6:39 By meditating on our breath and settling our minds. So Report an error in the passage at 6:39 Highlight the passage at 6:39

6:51 it might be nice to start by grounding our body, so Report an error in the passage at 6:51 Highlight the passage at 6:51

7:01 putting our attention in the bottom half of our body and Report an error in the passage at 7:01 Highlight the passage at 7:01

· · · silence, 1 minute

8:21 feeling really rooted to the earth, very stable. And Report an error in the passage at 8:21 Highlight the passage at 8:21

· · · silence, 2 minutes

10:33 then trying to develop a bodhicitta motivation, imagining Report an error in the passage at 10:33 Highlight the passage at 10:33

10:44 countless beings around us, feeling Report an error in the passage at 10:44 Highlight the passage at 10:44

10:59 a sense of commonality with them all. They all just want to be happy. Like ourselves, we Report an error in the passage at 10:59 Highlight the passage at 10:59

11:16 don't want to experience pain and suffering. And Report an error in the passage at 11:16 Highlight the passage at 11:16

· · · silence, 1 minute

12:10 remembering that they've all been close to us at one time or another in our beginningless lives. They Report an error in the passage at 12:10 Highlight the passage at 12:10

12:22 have all been kind and Report an error in the passage at 12:22 Highlight the passage at 12:22

12:41 trying to hold each of them as dear to us. Yet Report an error in the passage at 12:41 Highlight the passage at 12:41

· · · silence, 1 minute

14:08 they're all stuck in this conditioned existence. Report an error in the passage at 14:08 Highlight the passage at 14:08

14:29 Satisfaction, sense Report an error in the passage at 14:29 Highlight the passage at 14:29

14:38 of contentment and success is fleeting because Report an error in the passage at 14:38 Highlight the passage at 14:38

· · · silence, 1 minute

15:23 we're... Under the control of karma and mental afflictions, pain Report an error in the passage at 15:23 Highlight the passage at 15:23

15:34 and suffering can happen at any time. Report an error in the passage at 15:34 Highlight the passage at 15:34

· · · silence, 1 minute

16:10 Developing compassion for all these trapped beings, wanting Report an error in the passage at 16:10 Highlight the passage at 16:10

· · · silence, 1 minute

17:11 to free them all from this prison of cyclic existence, striving Report an error in the passage at 17:11 Highlight the passage at 17:11

17:24 for complete enlightenment in order to do so. Okay, Report an error in the passage at 17:24 Highlight the passage at 17:24

· · · silence, 1 minute

18:29 we'll start with the praise to Shakyamuni Buddha on page 73. Come Report an error in the passage at 18:29 Highlight the passage at 18:29

18:58 late, you have to sit in the front row. Report an error in the passage at 18:58 Highlight the passage at 18:58

19:14 To the founder, the endowed transcendent destroyer, the one gone beyond, the foe destroyer, the completely perfected, fully awakened being, perfect in knowledge and in good conduct, Sugata, knower of the world, supreme god of human beings to be attained, teacher of gods and human beings, to you, the completely and fully awakened one. Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:38 glorious conqueror, the subduer from the Shakya clan. I prostrate, make offerings, and go for refuge. To the founder, the endowed, transcendent destroyer, the one gone beyond, the foe destroyer, the completely perfected, fully awakened being, perfect in knowledge and in good conduct, Sugata, knower of the world, supreme god of human beings to be tamed, teacher of gods and human beings, to you, the completely and fully awakened one. Report an error in the passage at 19:38 Highlight the passage at 19:38

20:05 one. The endowed transcendent destroyer, the glorious conqueror, the subduer from the Shaki clan, I prostrate, make offerings and go for refuge. To the founder, the endowed transcendent destroyer, the one gone beyond, the foe destroyer, the completely perfected, fully awakened being, perfect in knowledge and in good conduct, Sugata, knower of the world, supreme guide of human beings to be tamed. Report an error in the passage at 20:05 Highlight the passage at 20:05

20:30 Teacher of gods and human beings, to you, the completely and fully awakened one, the endowed transcended destroyer, the glorious conqueror, the subduer from the Shakya clan, I prostrate, make offerings and go for refuge. When, oh supreme amongst humans, you were born on this earth, you paced out seven strides, then said, I am supreme in this world. Report an error in the passage at 20:30 Highlight the passage at 20:30

20:53 To you who are wise and I prostrate. With pure bodies, form supremely pure, wisdom ocean like a golden mountain, fame that blazes in the three worlds, winner of the best, Lord, to you I prostrate. With the supreme signs, face like spotless moon, color like gold, to you I prostrate. Dust free like you, the three worlds are not, incomparably wise one, to you I prostrate. Report an error in the passage at 20:53 Highlight the passage at 20:53

21:20 The Savior having great compassion. Report an error in the passage at 21:20 Highlight the passage at 21:20

21:25 field of merit with qualities like a vast ocean. To you, the one gone to thusness, I prostrate. purity that frees one from attachment. The virtue that frees one from the lower realms. The one path, the sublime pure reality. To the dharma that pacifies, I prostrate. Those who are liberated and who also show the path to liberation. The holy field qualified with realizations. Who are devoted to the moral precepts. Report an error in the passage at 21:25 Highlight the passage at 21:25

21:52 To you, the sublime community intending virtue, I prostrate. Homage to the Supreme Buddha. Homage to the Dharma refuge. Homage to the great Saṅgha. To all three, ever devout homage. To all worthy of respect, bowing with bodies as many as all realms atoms in all aspects. With supreme faith, I pay homage. Do not commit any non-virtuous actions. Perform only perfect virtuous actions. Subdue your mind thoroughly. Report an error in the passage at 21:52 Highlight the passage at 21:52

22:20 This is the teaching of the Buddha. A star, a visual aberration, a flame of a lamp, an illusion, a drop of dew or a bubble, a dream, a flash of lightning, a cloud. See conditioned things as such. Through these merits may sentient beings attain the rank of all seeing, subdue the foe of faults and be delivered from saṃsāra's ocean, perturbed by the waves of aging, sickness and death. Report an error in the passage at 22:20 Highlight the passage at 22:20

22:46 And then on page 98, refuge Report an error in the passage at 22:46 Highlight the passage at 22:46

22:53 in bodhicitta. Report an error in the passage at 22:53 Highlight the passage at 22:53

23:00 I go for refuge until I am enlightened, to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. go for refuge until I'm enlightened. To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly, by the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 23:00 Highlight the passage at 23:00

23:25 I go for refuge until I'm enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. Report an error in the passage at 23:25 Highlight the passage at 23:25

23:50 So we're covering the practice, the perfection of patience. So patience, once again, is this undisturbed state of mind, the mind that's at ease, even while experiencing pain. Even while experiencing hardships from others, hardships, hardships, harm from others, sickness, physical, mental pain, practicing the Dharma, the mind that remains undisturbed, at ease, calm, peaceful, undistressed, even Report an error in the passage at 23:50 Highlight the passage at 23:50

24:34 when people insult us or criticize us. Don't give us what we want, right? The mind that stays peaceful. Report an error in the passage at 24:34 Highlight the passage at 24:34

24:47 So we've Report an error in the passage at 24:47 Highlight the passage at 24:47

24:51 been talking about that. There are the three types of patience, right? First of all, disregarding harm done to you. So this is when somebody else is doing something generally considered the enemy or some annoying person is doing something that we perceive is harming us. The second one is accepting the suffering that arises in your mind stream. So this is accepting the illness, accepting the hardships, accepting the inconveniences in the pursuit of a virtuous goal. Report an error in the passage at 24:51 Highlight the passage at 24:51

25:27 And thirdly, being certain about the Dharma teachings and firmly maintaining belief in them, which we'll talk about later on in this class. Report an error in the passage at 25:27 Highlight the passage at 25:27

25:36 last time we So in order to practice patience, in order to inspire us to practice patience, we need to reflect on the advantages, the benefits of practicing patience and the disadvantages or the drawbacks of not being patient, of being in particular angry. And we need to do this when we're calm, not in the midst of our anger. Report an error in the passage at 25:36 Highlight the passage at 25:36

26:02 Because when we're in the midst of anger, our mind isn't reasonable and we don't really care. If somebody says, you're going to suffer later, you're going to create negative karma, when we're in the middle of anger, we say, oh, shut up. I don't want to hear it. We're not really concerned about the karma that we're creating in the midst of anger. So we need to reflect on these things when we're... Report an error in the passage at 26:02 Highlight the passage at 26:02

26:31 In a calm, reasonable state of mind. Because in the midst of anger, there's no reasonableness happening. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

26:42 So we need to meditate on the benefits and the faults of being impatient. So what are some of the faults? First of all, the visible faults. We just can't be happy. When we're angry, that ruins our happiness. Even if we were happy before, when we get angry... There's no happiness. It damages our happiness and our joy, our peace of mind. We can't have peace of mind in the midst of anger. Report an error in the passage at 26:42 Highlight the passage at 26:42

27:18 The mind won't be stable. And then even at nighttime, sleep will be elusive. It's difficult to sleep when we're in the midst of anger. Report an error in the passage at 27:18 Highlight the passage at 27:18

27:37 And then the big faults of anger is you're destroying your roots of virtue and then you're creating lots of suffering for yourself in the future. Report an error in the passage at 27:37 Highlight the passage at 27:37

27:51 So the benefits are the opposite. If we let go of our anger and we practice patience, then we'll have more and more happiness, more and more peace of mind, joy, better relationships with others, better health, etc. Report an error in the passage at 27:51 Highlight the passage at 27:51

28:09 So Report an error in the passage at 28:09 Highlight the passage at 28:09

28:13 then I'm going to skip through all of these. Report an error in the passage at 28:13 Highlight the passage at 28:13

28:24 Okay, so John, a couple of classes ago, asked about if we dedicate the merit, is that protected from being destroyed by anger? So I found this quote by His Holiness. So the person asked, when we dedicate the merit from past practices, is it destroyed by present anger or hatred? He says, if your dedication is complemented by factors of very strong aspiration to attain liberation or contemplated by the factor of bodhicitta or a realization of the nature of phenomena, then of course the merit will remain beyond the scope of destruction and will be protected. Report an error in the passage at 28:24 Highlight the passage at 28:24

29:09 So this isn't just mumbling some prayers at the end of the teaching. May I attain enlightenment for the welfare of all sentient beings by being distracted and not really meaning it. If it's a genuine, sincere dedication of the merit, then it seems to be protected. Report an error in the passage at 29:09 Highlight the passage at 29:09

29:36 And once again, anger only destroys the roots of virtue on the merit side, not the wisdom side. Any virtue that we've created on the wisdom side, particularly wisdom realizing emptiness, won't be destroyed by anger. Once Report an error in the passage at 29:36 Highlight the passage at 29:36

29:58 again, Shantideva says there's no negativity equal to hatred. There's no austerity equal to patience. Therefore, patience should be practiced earnestly in various ways. Report an error in the passage at 29:58 Highlight the passage at 29:58

30:13 So then last time we talked about the actual way of cultivating patience, at least this first type of patience, how to cultivate the patience that is unconcerned with respect to harm. Report an error in the passage at 30:13 Highlight the passage at 30:13

30:24 So unconcerned when somebody yells at us or insults us or treats us unfairly or cheats on us or violates our trust. How to be unconcerned, undistressed with respect to these types of things. So we talked about some of the methods, the inappropriateness of anger given that the offender has a lack of self-control. Report an error in the passage at 30:24 Highlight the passage at 30:24

30:52 So usually when somebody harms us, when we get angry, we think they purposely did that. They did that with volition. And this particular antidote is saying, no, they're under the control of mental afflictions. They're not purposely being angry. They don't have the freedom of doing whatever. Report an error in the passage at 30:52 Highlight the passage at 30:52

31:24 Come under the influence of their mental afflictions, so that's driving them to do whatever type of harm it is, right? It's not that they had the freedom of choice. They became overcome by their mental affliction. So we did a meditation on that last week. Did people try that meditation this week? Does it work? What was people's experience? Report an error in the passage at 31:24 Highlight the passage at 31:24

31:55 Of course, with the great sufferings, it'll take some time to develop patience. But at least with the smaller sufferings, this should help. Report an error in the passage at 31:55 Highlight the passage at 31:55

32:14 How was your patience this week? Did you notice anything? Effie? You were worse? Okay. It was Report an error in the passage at 32:14 Highlight the passage at 32:14

32:32 our very effective class last week. week Report an error in the passage at 32:32 Highlight the passage at 32:32

32:38 It's just funny because I tend to think I'm somewhat patient and that I didn't really probably need to take your class on anger because the scheduling doesn't work for me anyway. And then this week maybe because I'm more aware of it or we're focusing on it or anything and it's just kind of shocking in a way because it just wasn't as good as I thought it was. Report an error in the passage at 32:38 Highlight the passage at 32:38

33:01 I notice that too when I'm getting Report an error in the passage at 33:01 Highlight the passage at 33:01

33:08 worse because I'm noticing all of these little irritations that are happening. Maybe I'm not blowing up, but this person really irritated me and then that person. I felt like more was happening, but I think that is just me paying more attention. Probably. Report an error in the passage at 33:08 Highlight the passage at 33:08

33:38 I've been working on this for a while and by my nature I seldom really get angry or blow up so much, but I find that the more I work on this in situations where I might have gotten angry. Report an error in the passage at 33:38 Highlight the passage at 33:38

33:52 Before, I'm sort of more objective about it, you know, and I sort of think it through. But I feel like it calls for an emotional response and anger is no longer an option because you've sort of thought it through. And then I feel like I feel other things, like I feel regret or I feel deep sadness or I feel, I feel like I'm progressing towards a different kind of response to these things instead of anger. Report an error in the passage at 33:52 Highlight the passage at 33:52

34:19 Because when you have anger, you feel like you've accomplished something. Do you know what I mean? Like if I get angry at BP, I'm really mad. I get to yell at BP and I feel like I have taken this energy and expressed it. But it doesn't do any good. Do you know what I mean? So now, like when I think about BP, I just feel deeply, deeply sad. I'm not angry at anybody. Report an error in the passage at 34:19 Highlight the passage at 34:19

34:41 I'm just, it's tragic. Do you know what I mean? But then I'm kind of called upon to do something else, right? To change my life or to change, you know what I mean? So like I'm... Report an error in the passage at 34:41 Highlight the passage at 34:41

34:51 I find myself sort of empty-handed. I'm like, well, what do I do? I can't get angry now, but I have to do something that's efficacious. But anger is not it. I feel like I'm in this transition of I'm sort of giving that up, but I need something else. Report an error in the passage at 34:51 Highlight the passage at 34:51

35:10 Yeah, because anger gives you that feeling of power, right? It gives you, you know, it's like oftentimes anger is, you know Report an error in the passage at 35:10 Highlight the passage at 35:10

35:22 Over, hmm, what we're compensating with anger, we're compensating for a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness or sadness or fear or hurt, right? And so in order to avoid feeling that sadness or vulnerability or helplessness, you know, we cover it up with anger and anger feels a lot more powerful, you know, and where these other emotions aren't so comfortable. Report an error in the passage at 35:22 Highlight the passage at 35:22

35:50 So when we stop reacting with anger, then we start noticing the feeling underneath, like the sadness and things that you were saying. So that's really useful, right? So that's really progress. And then we have to figure out what to do with it, right? I mean, some of that is just inevitable, part of saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 35:50 Highlight the passage at 35:50

36:09 There are a lot of things that are just sad about saṃsāra, you know, this oil spill. I mean, it's just sad. But then, yeah, then we have to figure out what we can do that's constructive. Report an error in the passage at 36:09 Highlight the passage at 36:09

36:23 Yeah, I mean, with anger, we probably wouldn't have acted constructively, more aggressively, right? But with sadness, then, you know, we have a little bit more of our rational capacity, right? And then we can think about, okay, well, what would actually help in this situation? And sometimes not much, but that's, and then just being okay with our feeling of powerlessness, which isn't easy. Report an error in the passage at 36:23 Highlight the passage at 36:23

36:56 easy, right? It's not easy. But sometimes we are, right? Sometimes there's not much we can do. And then we get to practice the second kind of patience, the patience that okay with suffering, the patience that's undisturbed. Shantideva, His Holiness the Dalai Lama nature of saṃsāra right we're going to experience pain again and again we need to learn how to deal with it Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:41 getting angry Report an error in the passage at 37:41 Highlight the passage at 37:41

37:45 it can help us renunciation, it can help us with our compassion, it can help us something positive. Anybody Report an error in the passage at 37:45 Highlight the passage at 37:45

38:00 else? Did anybody practice patience this week? Report an error in the passage at 38:00 Highlight the passage at 38:00

38:10 Okay. Report an error in the passage at 38:10 Highlight the passage at 38:10

38:16 I have an extremely difficult relationship with my father and I haven't talked to him in some time and he actually called out of the blue on Sunday and it was an amazing transformation. Instead of getting upset with him, I actually had this upwelling of compassion. For how deluded he is. And I didn't get upset or react to him, which was usually when I'm done talking to him, I'm shaking afterwards for a day. Report an error in the passage at 38:16 Highlight the passage at 38:16

38:40 And it was a completely different feeling. And it was because I just was applying it moment by moment throughout talking to him. And we actually ended up having a decent conversation. So that was a sea change for me. That's fantastic. Yeah. So this was actually a successful week as far as being able to apply it, which was good. Report an error in the passage at 38:40 Highlight the passage at 38:40

39:02 So which method did you apply? Which one did you think worked? Usually it was probably my own method. I was just trying not to react to all of his triggers. He says a lot of kind of things to try to instigate a fight or an argument. And then just having immense compassion for him because he's an extremely intelligent, well-educated person who's just completely under the grip of his own karma. Report an error in the passage at 39:02 Highlight the passage at 39:02

39:49 And realizing that there's nothing that I can do to really help him except to just try to be a compassionate listener, which I was, and didn't react to some of the things he said that were annoying. And it was a totally different feeling. It was one of the first times I've actually gotten off of the phone with him without being shaking afterwards. So that was really, really good, actually. Report an error in the passage at 39:49 Highlight the passage at 39:49

40:11 I have to thank you and Geshe-la for that. And yourself. Well. Report an error in the passage at 40:11 Highlight the passage at 40:11

40:18 You gave me something to apply so that was really good. Thank you. we just really need the mindfulness, right, and the determination to do it. Report an error in the passage at 40:18 Highlight the passage at 40:18

40:32 we're just lacking the mindfulness right we we think oh that was an opportunity to practice patience I won't missed that but we have lots of opportunities yeah Report an error in the passage at 40:32 Highlight the passage at 40:32

40:50 So we had quite some discussion last week about the offender being under control of mental afflictions and how effective people thought that was and what people's obstacles were to that. So this is the one Lama Tsongkhapa says is the big one, right? The big method for developing patience. And that's really how... Report an error in the passage at 40:50 Highlight the passage at 40:50

41:18 We develop compassion for others, understanding that they're under the grip of mental afflictions. They can't help it. They're suffering. They are suffering. They don't have control. And I was thinking about this, and I think this understanding is so key in the entire Dharma, this understanding that it's mental afflictions that's causing our suffering. Report an error in the passage at 41:18 Highlight the passage at 41:18

41:47 It's mental afflictions. is why we create negative karma, mental afflictions, mental afflictions, mental afflictions, mental afflictions. As long as we're in saṃsāra, we have mental afflictions. And as long as we have mental afflictions, then we create causes for suffering. Report an error in the passage at 41:47 Highlight the passage at 41:47

42:10 So the key to ending our suffering is to get rid of our mental afflictions. The Report an error in the passage at 42:10 Highlight the passage at 42:10

42:21 key to why people do funny things. Harmful things is mental afflictions. So the more we really get that, I think the more we can have compassion for others as well as ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 42:21 Highlight the passage at 42:21

42:38 And just review the mental afflictions or ignorance, aversion, and attachment. Are those the three key that you're talking about? Yeah, so mental afflictions, I mean there's a lot of different lists. So ignorance, attachment, aversion, anger, and then there's... Pride and jealousy and miserliness and belligerence and spite and laziness. Report an error in the passage at 42:38 Highlight the passage at 42:38

43:08 Many. Report an error in the passage at 43:08 Highlight the passage at 43:08

43:12 Like view, wrong views, all sorts of different wrong views, view of the transitory collection. Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question because I just assumed. Report an error in the passage at 43:12 Highlight the passage at 43:12

43:26 Yeah. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 43:26 Highlight the passage at 43:26

43:29 What are some other mental afflictions? Belligerence, spite, resentment. Report an error in the passage at 43:29 Highlight the passage at 43:29

43:37 In Minds and Mental Factors, there's six main root afflictions and then 20 secondary afflictions, which are all kind of branches or derivatives of the root afflictions. So the main root ones are ignorance, attachment, and then pride and afflicted doubt, and then the wrong views. Report an error in the passage at 43:37 Highlight the passage at 43:37

44:10 So grasping onto our opinions about things even is a mental affliction. That's a hard one for someone to get rid of. So the second method was analyzing for either being adventitious or in their nature. So if somebody is in their nature harmful to others, then there's no reason to get angry because it's just in their nature. Report an error in the passage at 44:10 Highlight the passage at 44:10

44:40 It's like getting angry at fire for being hot. It's just in their nature. It's just in their nature to be rude. So why get angry at them? Or alternatively, if it's not in their nature, if it's just like clouds in the sky that arise due to causes and conditions, then why get angry at the person? It's like getting angry at the sky for having clouds. Why get angry at the person for having temporary emotions? Report an error in the passage at 44:40 Highlight the passage at 44:40

45:11 emotions, right? So if it's in their nature or not, why get angry? Okay, so my question is, if it's in their nature, then they have no chance to change because it's in their nature. It's just as it is. So actually it's not in their nature. It's not in their nature. It's not in their nature. No, anger is not in their nature. In fact, none of the mental afflictions are in their nature. Report an error in the passage at 45:11 Highlight the passage at 45:11

45:42 Yeah. Yeah. So... But if in the midst of our anger we aren't convinced of that, if we just think they're an angry person, then we can think, okay, well, if it is in their nature, there's no reason for me to get angry either, even though it's not. Report an error in the passage at 45:42 Highlight the passage at 45:42

46:02 I don't know if I just made it. Yeah, it's just a technique. Yeah. I was just thinking, you know, in meetings, when you share with other people, then... If you get angry, so people listen much more to you, to those people who Report an error in the passage at 46:02 Highlight the passage at 46:02

46:28 show their anger and so, and if you are more calm and more patient, then usually you are not so seen or, you know. You're more invisible if you're calm. Yeah, it's more interesting to be around sometimes in meetings with people who... Who can't just express their anger because something happened then. It was my experience last week when we had our meetings and I could see that actually in meeting people one action, they wanted that something happened. Report an error in the passage at 46:28 Highlight the passage at 46:28

47:08 Yeah, sometimes people do. So we can distinguish between anger and wrath because there are certain situations it's appropriate to have a strong response. Report an error in the passage at 47:08 Highlight the passage at 47:08

47:23 Like if a child runs out in the street, if you say, oh please don't run out in the street, they might not listen to you. So it might be more appropriate to say, don't run out in the street and be more strong and wrathful. But that's not contradictory to being patient because the motivation there is compassion and it's not anger. Report an error in the passage at 47:23 Highlight the passage at 47:23

47:50 So the outward display sometimes looks like anger, but technically speaking it's not anger in the Dharma. So in the meeting, if you need to be heard, sometimes you may need to be more vocal and not just sit there quietly. Make people. Report an error in the passage at 47:50 Highlight the passage at 47:50

48:16 And then the third we covered last time was on the analysis of whether the harm is direct or indirect, anger is unjustified. So this was the... The example of the person wielding a stick who hits you, if you're going to be angry at the thing that directly hurt you, then you should be angry at the stick. Report an error in the passage at 48:16 Highlight the passage at 48:16

48:39 But we tend to be angry at the person who's controlling the stick, so the indirect cause. So if we're going to be angry at the person who's wielding the stick, the indirect cause. Then similarly, we should be angry at actually the mental affliction because it's the mental affliction that's controlling the person. Report an error in the passage at 48:39 Highlight the passage at 48:39

49:06 So that's how that antidote works. So it comes back once again to mental afflictions. And then lastly, how anger is inappropriate if you think of your own karma. So everything that happens to us, we've created the cause for it. Report an error in the passage at 49:06 Highlight the passage at 49:06

49:26 We can't have the victim mentality of, well, they did that to me, you know, I didn't do anything. We created the causes for everything that happened to us. We've created the causes. We Report an error in the passage at 49:26 Highlight the passage at 49:26

49:44 can't, right, when we really get this one, we can't feel like a victim. Well, we can feel like a victim, but we can't believe, right, that we're a victim. Report an error in the passage at 49:44 Highlight the passage at 49:44

49:55 So any questions on these four methods? Okay, we've got them all. Okay, then I just want to go through briefly. Report an error in the passage at 49:55 Highlight the passage at 49:55

50:11 I'll just briefly this one. On analysis of the subject, anger is unjustified. So if you get angry at a harm doer through an inability to bear suffering, it is contradictory. Because even as you are failing to bear slight suffering in the present, you are aggressively creating the cause of measureless suffering in the miserable realms. Report an error in the passage at 50:11 Highlight the passage at 50:11

50:34 So if I'm unable to bear this person yelling at me, you know, this is pretty minor suffering compared to... Report an error in the passage at 50:34 Highlight the passage at 50:34