Introduction to Tantra - Day Course (28 June 2008, 8)

0:00 Okie doke, so Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:11 we just put a little motivation into our minds, put some positive thoughts, just think, think, ok, sitting here, maybe all sorts of reasons why each of us came here, you know, but just think, alright, now that we're sitting in this room together, let's make the most of it, so let's think, let's... Listen to what has to be said here, listen to Buddha's teachings, basically Buddha's psychology, Buddha's approach to life, that's all this stuff is, how to live your life, how to see things, how to perceive things, how to develop our qualities. Report an error in the passage at 0:11 Highlight the passage at 0:11

0:49 So thinking, definitely I want to become more happy, more wise, less neurotic, less miserable, that's a certainty. And if I look around me, I can see that other people want the same. So think, okay, I'm sitting here to listen to these teachings, think about their meaning, to see if there's some tools that I can take away, even one. Report an error in the passage at 0:49 Highlight the passage at 0:49

1:05 You can be a 1 % Buddhist, it's really okay. Even if there's 1 % of something I hear here that I can take away and use as a tool or move forward with, so that I can develop my qualities, so I can be of benefit to others, help them do the same thing for themselves. Report an error in the passage at 1:05 Highlight the passage at 1:05

1:22 Think, this is why I'm here. Make this our reason. And I'm going to sing a little prayer. The first two lines in which express one's reliance upon the Buddha, so anybody here who thinks already they are Buddhist, you have that in your mind. But the second two lines really are expressing this motivation we just stated, this reason for being here, this reason for listening. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

1:45 You know, may I develop my qualities so I can be a benefit to others, thinking like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:45 Highlight the passage at 1:45

1:54 Sangye Chodang Soke Choknam La Jan Chobadu Dagni Khyab Suchi Tagi Chenyen Gipes Sonam Khi Drolapen Chir Sangye Drupashok Sangye Chodang Soke Choknam La Jan Chobadu Dagni Khyab Suchi Tagi Chenyen Gipes Sonam Khi Drolapen Chir Sangye Drupashok Report an error in the passage at 1:54 Highlight the passage at 1:54

2:40 Okay, so Report an error in the passage at 2:40 Highlight the passage at 2:40

2:50 first of all just to remind us, you know, we might have heard this a thousand times or maybe it's the first time we've heard these words, you know, remind ourselves how to listen, how to listen to these So-called Buddhist teachings. And I can't stress this point enough, you know. I think in the West, you know, if this were a science class or a cooking class, we would all know that it's something practical, you know. Report an error in the passage at 2:50 Highlight the passage at 2:50

3:18 You would all know it would have to make sense and then you'd take the methods away and you'd try them out. And if they didn't work, you'd think, what an idiot. You'd demand your money back, you know. In other words, we would see it as something practical. But when it comes to being spiritual or religion, we lose our common sense. Report an error in the passage at 3:18 Highlight the passage at 3:18

3:33 We don't think that it needs to be practical. We just think, oh, you get all a bit excited when you hear it and it sounds a bit nice and interesting. Oh, I can believe in this and I'll believe in that. No, I don't want to believe that. And we sort of put these little things in our kit bag and then we walk away and we think, oh, well, now I'm a Buddhist because I believe certain things. Well, you know, the Buddhist approach is that's completely superstitious. Report an error in the passage at 3:33 Highlight the passage at 3:33

3:51 The bottom line is for the Buddha, you know, as much as it is religion, yes, you can say that. You ask any Tibetan, are you religious? They'll say yes. But for the Buddhists, and particularly you could say this is strongly stressed among the Tibetans, there's no contradiction between religion and being practical. Religion and its being a practical thing. Report an error in the passage at 3:51 Highlight the passage at 3:51

4:11 So for the Buddha, first of all, first point, he's not a creator. This is probably the major difference between what's called, it doesn't sound very strong this thing. Are you meant to hear me from this? Can you hear me? Okay. You know, the Buddhist, okay, let's just have it sort of. like that. That's okay. Yeah. Good. That's it. Thanks, Mondia. Thank Report an error in the passage at 4:11 Highlight the passage at 4:11

4:38 Buddha is not a creator. And like I'm saying, probably the major difference, one of the major differences between Buddhist religion and any other religion is this point. It's a bit of a shock to us, in fact. And we would assume, oh, well, therefore Buddhism isn't religion. I think we have an assumption that religion means... Report an error in the passage at 4:38 Highlight the passage at 4:38

4:56 Believing in a creator. This seems to be the defining characteristic. But that's not the Buddhist approach. They're happy to own the word religion. And if you look at the trappings, I mean, you can't get more religious. Look at it, you know. Buddhist nuns and prostrations. I mean, I do more prayers now as a Tibetan Buddhist than I ever did as a Catholic. So, you know, I've got all the trappings of religion. Report an error in the passage at 4:56 Highlight the passage at 4:56

5:14 And so we've really got to check carefully in our mind what that means. What's the implication of this? Because I think if you look at our history over the centuries now, anyway, at least in our European culture, Report an error in the passage at 5:14 Highlight the passage at 5:14

5:26 Religion was all there was. Any of the science, any art, any music was in the context of the Catholic Church, wasn't it? You know, medieval. Well, the Tibetan culture is pretty similar. Report an error in the passage at 5:26 Highlight the passage at 5:26

5:38 And this is the Buddhist approach. So what we can see in the West, in the Western culture, the European culture, over the centuries, along with the development of people like Galileo looking into the truth, finding and having microscopes and going from those X numbers to the Arabic numbers, suddenly things opened up and we began to develop what we call science. Report an error in the passage at 5:38 Highlight the passage at 5:38

5:57 And so we can see we've got this complete split now, isn't it? More and more think what we mean by science is what you can verify. verify. what we mean by religion is, by definition, usually what you can't verify, what you have to believe in. Well, for the Buddhist, there's never a contradiction between these two things, and there's no such thing as merely believing in I think it's so important. Report an error in the passage at 5:57 Highlight the passage at 5:57

6:23 To remember that because we can easily fall into the trap, you know, when we hear about Buddhism. We bring our theistic religious views into the Buddhist one and so we believe in the Buddha, we believe in karma, we don't believe in this one. That's not the point. It really isn't the point and I cannot stress this enough. It's extremely important. Anyone who listens to the Dalai Lama teach can hear this. Report an error in the passage at 6:23 Highlight the passage at 6:23

6:44 As he says, he points out, if you can prove from your own experience, you know, That Buddha is actually wrong in what he is asserting as the truth, then you must reject the Buddha. And that's shocking in religious terms. That's like heresy. But that is the Buddhist approach because Buddha is not a creator. And so once we've got that clear, then everything we hear, we hear it in a different way. Report an error in the passage at 6:44 Highlight the passage at 6:44

7:08 But we've got to train ourselves to think this way because we're so used to thinking in the usual religious way, you know, believing and not believing, whether we like it or not. I don't care whether you like the fact that one and one is two. It either is or it isn't. So I don't care whether you like the idea of karma. Report an error in the passage at 7:08 Highlight the passage at 7:08

7:25 Buddha's either right or he's wrong. And the onus is on you to find out. This is the approach, you know. Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

7:35 It's really important to remember this because suddenly then it puts us in the seat. It puts us in the driving seat. It's up to me, in other words, to listen, to see what Buddha says, to give it a go, to take it as a hypothesis. To act as if and then to work with it, you know. So it takes time. You can't prove it overnight, just like E equals MC squared. You can't prove that Einstein's wrong overnight or right. Report an error in the passage at 7:35 Highlight the passage at 7:35

7:58 It takes a while, but that's the approach. But my feeling is when it comes to religion, there's something in us that for those of us who find religion appealing, I think we get very intellectually lazy, you know. We'd rather merely just believe a bunch of things and leave it all comfortable. But it's just wasting your time. And you really can see the point of this, you know. Report an error in the passage at 7:58 Highlight the passage at 7:58

8:18 If you go to school and your teacher tells you that one and one is two and you memorize it, which we do, but you never verify it, you never experience it, then you can even teach someone else that one and one is two, but explain it, you can't. Prove it to yourself, you're not sure. Are you seeing my point here? So all the learning we do in our life is this type of experiential learning. Report an error in the passage at 8:18 Highlight the passage at 8:18

8:38 We understand it very well. We live our life in this way. Music, botany, carpentry, music, I mean, all these things, you name it. We just don't memorize it and then just spout it. But religion, that's what we do. And it's very kind. And no wonder we get fundamentalist. I'm right because I believe it. Report an error in the passage at 8:38 Highlight the passage at 8:38

8:56 No, no, no, I'm right because I believe it. Well, that's why we all have wars and fights, you know. There's no basis. Therefore, there's no reasonableness about it. And it's kind of scary. That is the scary thing about how we've misused religion. Religion's fine. But we misuse it. The fundamentalism is just, you know, and the intellectual laziness in us misuses it terribly. So all the more so when we have something foreign to our culture like Buddhism and these weirdo pictures, you know, what the hell does these mean? Report an error in the passage at 8:56 Highlight the passage at 8:56

9:23 They're so strange to us. I mean, we can't even begin to find a way to interpret these weird pictures. They're like some kind of strange dream, you know. So don't just dismiss it or don't just think, oh, isn't that cute art? I mean, you can think that. It's quite interesting, this painting. If you look at it, it's totally unusual. Report an error in the passage at 9:23 Highlight the passage at 9:23

9:40 But it's got some meaning, you know. So you either investigate the meaning of it, and this is what we're going to be talking here now, this so-called tantra. We have to investigate the meaning. We have to unpack it. We have to deconstruct it. We have to get to see what is it and how do you apply it. What's its purpose? What does it mean? And if it doesn't mean anything, well, excuse me, chuck it in the bin. Report an error in the passage at 9:40 Highlight the passage at 9:40

10:02 Don't waste your time, you know. If something is merely symbolic, which is how we think of religion again, symbolic, who cares, you know? I mean, if one and one and two is only symbolic, but you can never actually get one and one is two, you can't actually have one thing, then don't waste your head. Get it out of your head, you know. Report an error in the passage at 10:02 Highlight the passage at 10:02

10:19 Things have to be practical. This is extremely important. All the more so with something as seemingly esoteric as this, you know. Report an error in the passage at 10:19 Highlight the passage at 10:19

10:31 Mystical. So let's see if we can unpack it all. Get some meaning out of it. Which means, what are the experiential implications of it for me and my life? Because if there aren't, like I said, then you can go there, get your money back and walk out the door and go home. Don't waste your time. And I'm really serious. Buddhism Report an error in the passage at 10:31 Highlight the passage at 10:31

10:57 talks about faith, but if you analyse the Latin root of our word confidence, with faith, confide, it means faith, fide, whatever the original one is, I don't know. With faith, confidence. But we say the word confident, it gives a sense that you've checked something and you're confident you're right. But faith... Report an error in the passage at 10:57 Highlight the passage at 10:57

11:18 I believe in something, that doesn't sound like confidence, but actually the meaning of it is that, you know, confidence. Report an error in the passage at 11:18 Highlight the passage at 11:18

11:28 Okay, so what is this tantra? Where does it fit? Well, the best way to really present it is from the, you know, the Tibetans have been very good over the centuries at packaging Buddha's teachings in a very practical, coherent way. You know, this person called Atisha, this great Indian scholar, master, you know. Report an error in the passage at 11:28 Highlight the passage at 11:28

11:50 This practitioner in the 11th century was invited to Tibet to teach there. And when he came, he kind of saw they'd lost the plot a bit, you know. Buddhism had been there since the 8th century maybe, and Buddhism was flourishing by then. My goodness, it was. But he could see because the Buddhist teachings would have been in India for a good thousand years before that, 1500 years, you know, and by now were degenerating in India. Report an error in the passage at 11:50 Highlight the passage at 11:50

12:15 The Buddhist teachings, Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist psychology, Buddhist metaphysics, all these things had grown in many directions in many places, vast, I mean vast and deep, you know. So easily you could see, unless you're a pretty developed person, it was very easy to lose the way, to find out where everything fit. It's a bit like if someone said go learn some music and they just threw you all these kinds of music, all the trumpet music and all the classical and all the jazz, but no order, no structure. Report an error in the passage at 12:15 Highlight the passage at 12:15

12:44 You understand, you'd be very confused. You wouldn't know where to begin. So look at our culture. We're so good at this. So these kind musicians, these kind carpenters, these kind cooks have organised the material in a nice, orderly, structured way. You start at grade 1 and you finish at grade 12. We learn everything like this and we understand it well and it makes it coherent for us, it makes it comfortable, even if it's a 20 year course. Report an error in the passage at 12:44 Highlight the passage at 12:44

13:10 We know where we are, we know where we're heading and we know where we'll end up and it's very kind of consoling. You know where you're going, you're not confused, you've got a map, you know. But we don't think of spiritual practice like this, which is why we're always confused about it. We think it hit and miss. We think it's cross your fingers. And then if we take from our own religious background, you know, our own religious culture, and I'm not being rude about it here. Report an error in the passage at 13:10 Highlight the passage at 13:10

13:32 I mean, I'm a Catholic. I'm very happy with my Catholic upbringing. But if we take the Catholic approach, for example, it necessarily mystifies it. It is considered arrogant to want to investigate the teachings. I remember talking to some wonderful nuns in Berkeley and I was asking questions. What about this and what about that? Oh, we don't know. I don't know. It's a mystery. I said, but don't you want to know? Report an error in the passage at 13:32 Highlight the passage at 13:32

13:52 They said, oh, no, no, no. We don't want to know. We will know when we go to heaven. Now, I'm not being rude. I really am not. That's fine if that's your approach. But that surely is not the Buddha's approach. And the reason is reasonable. The reason I have that approach... in, say, Christianity, is because God is the boss. Because God did create everything. And as the Pope said to Stephen Hawking, apparently, you know, that guy who covered all the Big Bang business, this amazing English scientist. Report an error in the passage at 13:52 Highlight the passage at 13:52

14:23 He thanked him, basically, for his hard work on discovering all the information up to the Big Bang. And he said, but don't go beyond that. He said, that's God's job, not yours. And that is reasonable if you posit a creator. But that is not. The Buddhist view. And this point is not just some intellectual point. This whole business of believing, not believing. It's fundamental to the whole approach you will take to being a Buddhist or looking at Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 14:23 Highlight the passage at 14:23

14:47 You know, in this sense, you really can say, even though the matter we're dealing with seems like esoteric and religious, that the approach is far more similar to the approach of listening to Einstein or a mathematician than it is to the religious approach, the theistic one. In other words, Buddha being not a creator, basically what Buddhism is, is Buddha's presentation and then the presentation of the great practitioners over the centuries of what he has found from his own experience to be the truth. Report an error in the passage at 14:47 Highlight the passage at 14:47

15:25 So if I were Einstein... And I've done some research and then I decide to call a meeting and I'm now going to present to you my findings. And then if I start to say, well, I'm not really sure if this is right and I think this is this and I'm speculating this and I had a dream last night and somebody appeared to me and gave me this, you know, and gave me this information, you'd call me a wacko and throw me out the door, you know. Report an error in the passage at 15:25 Highlight the passage at 15:25

15:45 So if you want me, you know, you've got to come to a lecture about what Einstein thinks. You've got to be sure that he knows what he's talking about. You don't have to believe him, but you want him to be confident. And then you want him to show you his findings so that you can take these yourself and go through the same process that he went through and come to the same conclusion or not, as the case may be. Report an error in the passage at 15:45 Highlight the passage at 15:45

16:05 And if you do find a mistake in Einstein's thinking, he's the first person who'll be happy to see it. This is the approach in Buddhism. This is the approach. So, this Atisha in the 11th century, you know. Coming from the great Mahāyāna traditions which incorporated all the esoteric teachings known as Tantra in Tibet, he then decided he'd package the teachings for the Tibetans in a very practical way, in an orderly way, such as if it were a course. Report an error in the passage at 16:05 Highlight the passage at 16:05

16:35 Grade 1, grade 2, junior school, high school, university, postgraduate, as we call. But of course he didn't call it that because that's our culture. They have this cute name in Tibetan for course. But they call it graded path. It's kind of sweet, isn't it? Lamrim. It means gradual path. Well, if you analyze the meaning of those words, that's the meaning of a course, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 16:35 Highlight the passage at 16:35

16:58 You start at the beginning and you gradually go through these steps and you conclude. Well, they call it lamrim. We would say it's a course. Good enough. So this course to enlightenment, basically, this lamrim which he put together, what he essentially did was take the main points of all of Buddha's teachings. Report an error in the passage at 16:58 Highlight the passage at 16:58

17:16 And present them in this orderly, orderly, experientially orderly, progressive kind of step-by-step way, taking the essential points of Buddha's philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, the whole deal, you know. And so a person, so where Tantra fits is it's postgraduate. It's postgraduate, basically. Report an error in the passage at 17:16 Highlight the passage at 17:16

17:40 So let's look at the bigger package and see how it fits. Because you know very well if you're going to do postgraduate studies in math, it implies you've done junior school, high school and university, doesn't it? And even if you're only 12 years old and you're going to postgraduate, it still implies you've been through those initial steps, even if it's very quick. Report an error in the passage at 17:40 Highlight the passage at 17:40

17:59 You get my point? Even if you've sped through them, you can't not go through those steps. You have to internally go through those steps, even if it's super quick. So it's a natural and logical thing that you're doing. And so the whole idea of Tantra is it's the most advanced approach. So also, given that you're going to be doing postgraduate in math, you know very well the point of all the math, whether it's grade one or postgraduate level, the principles are the same. Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:25 It's just more advanced. Well, the same in Buddhism. So what's the essential point then? What are you trying to accomplish being a Buddhist? What is the point of all this stuff? Well, it's quite simple actually. We don't think it's esoteric, but it's simple. Everything's esoteric until you know it. French is esoteric until you learn it. You get my point? Report an error in the passage at 18:25 Highlight the passage at 18:25

18:48 It's not inherently esoteric. Once you've learned French, it ain't esoteric. It's real simple. Well, everything, once you understand it, is simple. It goes without saying. But again, with religion, because we think we're not supposed to understand it, we make it esoteric and mystical in the sky as an absolute, that in its nature it's esoteric. Report an error in the passage at 18:48 Highlight the passage at 18:48

19:07 That's superstition. Excuse me, you know. Report an error in the passage at 19:07 Highlight the passage at 19:07

19:16 So the point as far as Buddhism is concerned is to, it's where you apply, okay, if you're learning math, then you know you're using your mind and you've got to use a pencil and your finger, no doubt, and your fingers to write it down to help you, but basically using your mind. If you're going to be a musician, you've got to use your hands as well on that piano, right? But it still comes from your mind, doesn't it? And if you're going to be an athlete, you use your body. You have to, you know, smarten up your body. Report an error in the passage at 19:16 Highlight the passage at 19:16

19:43 But you're still using your mind too. Your mind is the real boss. So this is the point in Buddhism. Buddha deals with the mind. Buddha's expertise is the mind. He doesn't discuss a thing. He doesn't posit a thing called a spirit or a soul, which in its nature for us is something esoteric, mysterious, hard to understand, created by God, beyond ordinary. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

20:08 Buddha doesn't talk like that. He says we have body. And we have mind. That's it. So, if this is true, let's get very clear about what Buddha means by the mind. And we've talked all about this before. If you've been here before, you've heard this before. But in order to understand the purpose of tantra or the purpose of junior school, you have to understand this point. Report an error in the passage at 20:08 Highlight the passage at 20:08

20:31 Because all of this stuff, all of this stuff, all of these teachings, all of these practices we know as tantra, visualization and mantras and all this stuff, you know. Report an error in the passage at 20:31 Highlight the passage at 20:31

20:42 All of it is simply a bunch of methods to help us develop our mind. That's it. Basically, Buddha is a psychologist. And I'm not trying to kid you here. He didn't use that word, did he? It's Greek. We coined it fairly recently. He spoke Hindi or something. He didn't speak Greek. Okay? He used the word mind. Report an error in the passage at 20:42 Highlight the passage at 20:42

21:16 Okay, so in Tibetan, the word for mind is the word sem. So even the term in Tibetan is interesting for a living being, a sentient being, this quaint phrase that we translate into English. The term for a living being is very tasty. It is sem chen, mind having, a mind possessor. We are all mind possessors. Report an error in the passage at 21:16 Highlight the passage at 21:16

21:42 So what defines us as far as Buddha is concerned is our possession of mind. In other words, in Buddha's terms, the difference between a live body and a dead body is the presence of mind or not. So let's get clear about what the mind is and then if we've not heard this idea before, we take it as a hypothesis because Buddhism will collapse in a heap of stupidity if you don't take this as your hypothesis. Report an error in the passage at 21:42 Highlight the passage at 21:42

22:04 That mind is not physical. So we know the word mind very well. We use it in our contemporary culture. But when we say it, we mean the brain. We mean the intellectual process. Report an error in the passage at 22:04 Highlight the passage at 22:04

22:18 For the Buddha, he's very clear. There is mind, which is not physical. So in that sense, you could say he agrees with all the other religions that they posit something not physical, but he doesn't call it a soul. And he doesn't say it's mysterious. He calls it the mind. Second, you know, this mind of ours too, another major, major difference, quite a radical idea actually, quite different, fundamentally different from all the religious views and the materialist psychological views, and again to take this as a hypothesis is crucial, is that your mind is not made by anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 22:18 Highlight the passage at 22:18

22:53 This is quite a shock actually. If we're religious, we assume we're created by God. If we're materialist, we assume we're created by mummy and daddy, who, you know, did a bit of work, put the egg and sperm together and made Robina. I mean, we don't say they're our creator, but we're virtually saying they created us. And this is a very fascinating point, actually, my sense is. Report an error in the passage at 22:53 Highlight the passage at 22:53

23:15 You know, we just assume this as an absolute truth. We never question this. It doesn't even arise. We never question this point, but this is a fundamental point in Buddha's teachings. Fundamental, you know. So of course we can go into this, but, you know, take this as a hypothesis for the moment and as any decent scientist would. Report an error in the passage at 23:15 Highlight the passage at 23:15

23:39 So your consciousness then, this word is used synonymously, mind or consciousness, they're used synonymously for the Buddha. They refer to that part of you. That essentially isn't your body. And what is that? That's your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, your unconscious, your subconscious, instinct, intuition, the entire spectrum of your inner experiences, consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 23:39 Highlight the passage at 23:39

24:01 More and more these days actually in the western scientific and psychological research that they're doing, there's sort of this vague idea of consciousness that might not be directly the brain but is affected by it. There's more and more talk about how we can change our mind. This is his expertise. He's been on about this for 2,500 years and nothing much has changed. And all his great practitioners over the centuries, all the lineage masters over the centuries. Report an error in the passage at 24:01 Highlight the passage at 24:01

24:29 Mind is absolutely fundamental. And when you study, say, in the Tibetan monastic tradition, where these guys study for 20, 30 years... One of your main topics is the nature of mind. There's huge teachings in Buddhism about the nature of mind, what it is, what it isn't, how it functions, and then the psychological components of it. Report an error in the passage at 24:29 Highlight the passage at 24:29

24:45 Buddhist psychology, in other words. Very clear, in-depth model of how mind functions. And it's absolutely central to all of Buddhism. Not kidding to say, as Lama Yeshe, one of my teachers, as he would say, we need to learn to be our own psychologists, to be our own therapists. Not kidding. That's what a Buddhist really is. A person who, through using Buddha's techniques, his very skillful, sophisticated psychological techniques called meditation, which we ridiculously mystify, you know, by using these, you become profoundly, marvelously familiar with your own mind. Report an error in the passage at 24:45 Highlight the passage at 24:45

25:31 In other words, Buddha's really good at learning introspection. That's his thing. You know, that's his expertise. Only even maybe the last hundred years since Mr. Freud, we even contemplate the idea that by unraveling feelings and talking and psychotherapy and so on, we can learn about ourselves. In other words, it's only in the last hundred years that we've discovered that the only way to learn about your mind isn't looking at a rabbit's brain, you know. And we think we invented this idea of introspection. Report an error in the passage at 25:31 Highlight the passage at 25:31

26:02 Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It's two and a half thousand years at least old. The Hindus before that were pretty good at it. So it's a few thousand years old. And we even hear, you know, you read the great literature of the Catholic saints. They're amazing at introspection. But because it's religion, we don't kind of respect it, you know. It's just kind of wacko stuff. So that's Buddha's expertise, is the mind, his talk about it, the model of it, how it functions. Report an error in the passage at 26:02 Highlight the passage at 26:02

26:31 And crucially, of course, this is the point here, this is the context, the potential of our mind. The potential. So a person who's a Buddhist is doing the job of familiarizing themselves with their own mind so that they can change it, so that they can develop its potential. This is the point. So if you ask a Christian, what's your goal? It's to be in heaven with God. If you ask a materialist, not sure, you know, we're still trying to work it out. Report an error in the passage at 26:31 Highlight the passage at 26:31

27:03 But if you ask a Buddhist, it's very simple, you know, different strands of Buddhism, but in this context here, it would be the words are, the Asian words are, to become enlightened. Oh, that sounds cute, you know. What's that? Well, it's a psychological state, okay, because you're only talking about your mind. You're not talking about your nose, your eyelashes. It's your mind, okay. Report an error in the passage at 27:03 Highlight the passage at 27:03

27:22 Or the word is to become a Buddha. Well, the word Buddha is very simple. You know, the term in Sanskrit word Buddha and the term in Tibetan for it, Sangye. Two syllables. And the epistemological, no, yes, of it is, you know, you've got the first syllable implies the complete removing of all the garbage, all the neuroses, all the pollution, all the misery, all the suffering. Report an error in the passage at 27:22 Highlight the passage at 27:22

27:48 The second syllable implies the complete development of all the good qualities. So very simply, the goal of being a Buddhist, and the Buddha would say that this potential is innate within all of us, is at the core of our being. This is how Buddhas talk. Now this is already a fascinating point because you check again our assumptions that we do not even question. Report an error in the passage at 27:48 Highlight the passage at 27:48

28:35 For example, okay, if we hear words like anger, depression, jealous, low self-esteem, anxious, right, we all know they're miserable. We don't go, oh, I was anxious yesterday, it was just wonderful. We do not. You understand my point? We know whether it's inside you or whether you're on the receiving end of it, thanks a lot, horrible. Report an error in the passage at 28:35 Highlight the passage at 28:35

28:56 We just know it. That's the badness stuff. Buddha would say our suffering, that suffering comes from this stuff in our minds. So there's no guilt or shame there. It's like a practical psychological point he's making. And if you check it up for more than a second, I think we'll agree, it's not pleasant. It's called suffering. Report an error in the passage at 28:56 Highlight the passage at 28:56

29:12 Then we check the words love, kindness, compassion, generosity, patience, joy. And you all know when you hear them, they're nice ones. And if you're on the receiving end of them, they're nice too. So this stuff is kind of so simple it's almost embarrassing. There's goodness and there's badness in a very, very simple way of talking. Report an error in the passage at 29:12 Highlight the passage at 29:12

29:32 So all Buddha is asserting is that the badness within us, the unhappy stuff, the fearful stuff, the ego stuff, and we're going to go into this and this is all very much to do with Tantra. We're heading directly in this direction. You know, the postgraduate approach to this. Report an error in the passage at 29:32 Highlight the passage at 29:32

29:50 Buddha would say, there's a term they use in Buddhist psychology, we never use it in daily English life, is adventitious. It's adventitious. It doesn't belong. You can remove it. And the goodness within us, love and compassion and wisdom, are at the core of our being. Now these are simple words, but the implication on them is kind of tasty. Report an error in the passage at 29:50 Highlight the passage at 29:50

30:11 But it takes a while for us to get our heads around this because, like I was beginning to talk before, the deep assumption we have is... That anger, love, depression, anxiety, jealousy, compassion, goodness, in other words all the goodness and all the badness, they are all at the core of our being, we're all born this way and anyway we didn't ask to get born did we and it's not my fault and what can I do about it? Report an error in the passage at 30:11 Highlight the passage at 30:11

30:32 You're stuck with it you know. So a deep assumption in all our psychological models in our contemporary culture is that all of this stuff is necessary components to qualify as a person. So if you analyse what a microphone is and you assert it, you'd know if it had all these funny bells and whistles and handles, you'd know that you could get rid of those and you wouldn't get rid of the microphone nature, would you? Report an error in the passage at 30:32 Highlight the passage at 30:32

30:57 Your microphone is still there. So Buddha would say basically that anger and jealousy and depression and anxiety and all this stuff that we think are normal, he would say they're like bells and whistles that just don't belong and you don't need them honey, get rid of them. But we think if you get rid of them you're an unnatural person. Are you hearing my point? Report an error in the passage at 30:57 Highlight the passage at 30:57

31:16 We deeply assume they are normal. So of course the implication of assuming they're normal is that you can't change them in any way. Why would you want to? You'd be abnormal. So we walk around with this terrible conflict, you check it, in our heads. On the one hand we know depression and anxiety and anger are unbearable. Report an error in the passage at 31:16 Highlight the passage at 31:16

31:36 We just absolutely desperately do not want to have them. But at the same time we fiercely defend our right to have them. You check this out. Report an error in the passage at 31:36 Highlight the passage at 31:36

31:47 If anger is so natural and we defend our right to have it, then you check this. The next time Joe punches you in the nose and is angry with you, you should say, well done, Joe. Excellent. Good on you. Anger's natural. I'm very pleased for you. But you do not, you know. You know it's unbearable. So immediate evidence. Report an error in the passage at 31:47 Highlight the passage at 31:47

32:10 Is it anger, jealousy, depression? These simple, simple words. I'm not talking complicated like bipolar this, that, ID, AD, all these things we invent every day. I'm talking ordinary, simple words. Report an error in the passage at 32:10 Highlight the passage at 32:10

32:22 You know, we know they are unbearable. We know they cause our pain. We frantically, desperately will do anything to get rid of them. But at the same time, we truly do not believe we can. I mean, that's a terrible conflict to live with every day, isn't it? And we never seem to, you know, reconcile it. Report an error in the passage at 32:22 Highlight the passage at 32:22

32:41 So for me it's kind of a delight to hear that a person pops up, called Buddha, and says, you know what guys, you can get rid of them, you don't need them sweetheart, because they are painful, check it out, and you can get rid of them. How about that? We should be paying millions of dollars to hear Buddha's advice. It's like miraculous, you know. It's like radical, it's like outrageous. But you know what? Report an error in the passage at 32:41 Highlight the passage at 32:41

33:01 Because we call it religion, we kind of don't hear it as serious. You get my point? We don't really hear it as real. Is this something you believe in, you know? It's very depressing, actually, how we think of it that way. We're so removed from this stuff, just a bunch of airy-fairy stuff in the sky, and anybody's allowed to create their own religion every day, we think, because who's supposed to prove it? Report an error in the passage at 33:01 Highlight the passage at 33:01

33:23 When George Bush tells you that he talks to God, how can you argue with him, you know? You don't want to ask him for his proof. You kind of feel like you're spoiling the party, because that's what we think about religion. Anything goes. Anyone's allowed to say what they like. And you look at the garbage, with respect, from dear human beings, that we publish in books. You had a vision yesterday and you write it out in a book and call it a new religion. Report an error in the passage at 33:23 Highlight the passage at 33:23

33:45 No one's allowed to argue with you. Well, it's a bit rude. You know, in science if you did that, they'd throw you out. Well, that's a very healthy approach. That's the approach that Buddha takes. Report an error in the passage at 33:45 Highlight the passage at 33:45

33:56 So you better shut your mouth until you've proven it. But we don't, you know. So Buddha's saying, okay, we all are mind possessors. We have consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 33:56 Highlight the passage at 33:56

34:08 Right now, indeed, anger, jealousy, depression, anxiety, fears and all the badness are very real for us. So real and this is why we think they're immovable because they've been there for so long. But Buddha would say they're not at the core of our being and thus can be removed. So don't just believe that. We need to investigate that and this all just takes time. Report an error in the passage at 34:08 Highlight the passage at 34:08

34:28 But it's an interesting thing to want to investigate, isn't it? You know, great. It's the basis of the goal. So essentially the goal, Buddha says, the long-term goal, you know, don't hold your breath, it won't happen overnight, is that each one of us possesses innately this potential to develop fully the positive qualities and, in other words, to be perfect and to rid ourselves of the negative. Report an error in the passage at 34:28 Highlight the passage at 34:28

34:50 Well, you know, the perfect idea is a bit shocking. My Catholic mum was shocked by that, you know. Only God is perfect. Well, Buddha says no, everybody can become that. That's the major difference in Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 34:50 Highlight the passage at 34:50

35:01 And so all tantra is, is, you know, postgraduate methods for accomplishing. This goal. That's all. That's it. I mean in one way of putting it. We're going to go into it. So if we are dealing only with the mind and if the goal is to perfect your mind, to develop the qualities that are called positive, which are at the core of your being, which are the source of your happiness and joy and the source of your capacity to be of benefit to others. Report an error in the passage at 35:01 Highlight the passage at 35:01

35:30 And that your mind can be removed of the garbage, the anger, jealousy, fears, depression and anxiety and the low self-esteem and the misery that Buddha would call ego, which is not at the core of our being and can be removed. If all of this is psychological, the process is psychological, the job is to work on your mind, the job is to know your mind, if that's true, and then this stuff is the postgraduate level of that, what's this stuff, what have these weirdo people got to do with mind, you know? Report an error in the passage at 35:30 Highlight the passage at 35:30

35:59 How come, you know, this green lady over there has to do with my mind? What's that got to do with anything? Well, again, it's not complicated. So, for example, you know, this word Buddha, okay, let me first describe a bit more what a Buddha is, you know, Buddha. Or the Americans say Buddha. Don't you say Buddha or something? Buddhist. I'm an American now, I should speak like an American, shouldn't I? I say Buddha, Australian, you know. Report an error in the passage at 35:59 Highlight the passage at 35:59

36:29 Buddha. All the Buddhists. You say Buddhists. Okay. So what is a Buddha? Okay. As I said, it's a Sanskrit word. It implies, the first syllable implies the removal of all the junk and the second syllable implies the development of all the good, you know. So, a person who has accomplished that, their mind, which is not physical, has fully developed in that stuff, you know. Report an error in the passage at 36:29 Highlight the passage at 36:29

36:56 Okay, before we even go to tantra, let's look a little bit more at the mind, okay. So one little approach actually that's from Tantra that's a very helpful little model of the mind is really necessary to keep in mind when we discuss this stuff. So if we think of, you know, in this little model they talk about we've got gross consciousness or mind, the gross level at which our mind functions and that includes the sensory through this big bag of bones here and the conceptual. Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:26 Which includes thoughts and feelings. In other words, the day-to-day level at which we function from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep, that's your gross consciousness functioning. Then you've got what they call in this little model subtle consciousness. And we virtually never access that except when we dream. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

37:46 And then we can see it's kind of wacko time. Dreams are weirdo, aren't they? You can't really go there at will. You know, you don't know what they're all about, you don't have any usual sense of space and time, it seems kind of random, but that's your subtle consciousness functioning. Then you've got even what they call very subtle consciousness and we never access that. But, and this is definitely Buddha's context, you do go there every time you sleep and every time you die, which of course implies Buddha's view of mind being a continuity. Report an error in the passage at 37:46 Highlight the passage at 37:46

38:21 That doesn't begin at conception and won't end at death. So we're going to look at two things here. Well, it's really one. We're going to look at a little bit more of this idea that Buddha has of how the mind exists, how it is a non-physical thing and how it is not something given to you by someone else. Report an error in the passage at 38:21 Highlight the passage at 38:21

38:43 And thus looking at the question, well, where do I come from? Where does it come from then? Because we only have the view either mummy and daddy make you, you know, or God makes you. So these are kind of crucial points to get your head around in order to really kind of work with the Buddhist approach from the big picture point of view. Report an error in the passage at 38:43 Highlight the passage at 38:43

39:05 So far so good, folks? Do you have any questions? A little breather? I'm trying to talk slowly. I don't know if I'm succeeding or not. I'm talking half the speed as normal. So On what we've just said so far, because we're now going to start expanding on this, do you have any little points to bring up? Any questions? At 11.22. Report an error in the passage at 39:05 Highlight the passage at 39:05

39:26 Disgustingly lunchtime. Anything? Well, I'll just keep moving, yeah? Happy? Okay, good. Report an error in the passage at 39:26 Highlight the passage at 39:26

39:38 Okay, so this gross level is actually, when you think about it, all we think of as our mind in our materialist world. You know? And we think it's the brain. The Buddhist way of saying it is this. That part of your mind, the concepts, the feelings, your eye consciousness, your ear consciousness, they are not physical. But of course they exist in dependence upon a decent working body and brain. Report an error in the passage at 39:38 Highlight the passage at 39:38

40:05 This goes without saying, you know. If your hand is cut off, you can't have, you know, with these fingers, you can't have tactile consciousness. If your ear drum doesn't work, that part of your mind that functions normally through the medium of the ear can't function. So indeed, your gross consciousness is non-physical, but it needs the body to be working properly for it to function. You get that idea? It's not too complicated, you know. Report an error in the passage at 40:05 Highlight the passage at 40:05

40:29 You've just got to get used to thinking the mind as being separate from your body, absolutely interdependently connected. You cannot argue with that. You can see. And they're more and more now looking at these ideas in the materialist models, especially since the last 20, 25 years of these marvellous... Report an error in the passage at 40:29 Highlight the passage at 40:29

41:09 this thinking, you know, and now the findings in this sense, you know, One of the most radical findings in the West, which has been an assumption all the time along with Buddha, that your mind is plastic, meaning the brain is plastic. There was this view that the brain was a fixed thing. Now they're finding on experiments, not too difficult to prove, of say for example these Tibetan meditators, that by thinking about compassion, by working on your inner self, having positive thoughts and just doing meditations on positive things, that your brain can radically change. Report an error in the passage at 41:09 Highlight the passage at 41:09

41:40 And there's so many projects now. At Stanford University there's this marvellous project called Project Compassion. There's many, many projects everywhere working on the benefits of positive thoughts, the development of them and how they can impact upon and actually change the structure of your brain. Report an error in the passage at 41:40 Highlight the passage at 41:40

41:58 They're proving this now. So we can see that thoughts and feelings and brain are intimately connected but the crucial point that Buddha's making is that they are not their brain themselves which is the big shift from the materialist approach you know and this is a problem for materialist approach because the materialist approach our scientific approach has to have something it can see and if something's not physical clearly you can't see it know so this is you know So the Buddha's saying this. Report an error in the passage at 41:58 Highlight the passage at 41:58

42:35 He's saying that this mind of ours has astonishing potential. Report an error in the passage at 42:35 Highlight the passage at 42:35

42:43 And even, forget about the level of potential for good qualities, potential for love and compassion, but potential for memory, potential for intelligence, potential for seeing past and future. We have astonishing levels of potential in our mind, but at the gross level, we just don't, we can't exercise that capacity. So you look at it, we say, oh, don't be ridiculous, a past life, who remembers a past life? Report an error in the passage at 42:43 Highlight the passage at 42:43

43:08 Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's now 11.26. And if we had to sit down now and write and account for every second of what we have done and thought since we woke up, we would all fail miserably. We probably can remember maybe a few minutes accurately of actually what we've been thinking and doing since we woke up. We don't remember most of today, in other words. Report an error in the passage at 43:08 Highlight the passage at 43:08

43:31 Certainly we don't remember most of this life. So it's not too surprising. That we don't remember a past life. But we don't think like this. We think we're so intelligent, we're so capable. But it's a joke. And of course we don't even think it's necessary to remember everything. Why on earth should we? What a funny looking thing. But the Buddha would say mind has that capacity. In fact, let's look back a bit here. Let's define what the mind is. Report an error in the passage at 43:31 Highlight the passage at 43:31

43:58 This is a kind of important point. If I say to my mother when I'm a little girl, Mummy, what's a knife? I've heard the word. She has to explain very clearly. She's got to define it for me. you know Report an error in the passage at 43:58 Highlight the passage at 43:58

44:07 Exactly. Well, darling, it's this long metal thing with a serrated edge on it. And that tells you its character. But if she doesn't tell me the second piece, which is its job, oh, it cuts things. I won't understand what a knife is. I have to have a definition, don't I? So what's the definition of mind for the Buddha? It's got two parts, like I said. The first part of the definition tells you it's not physical. Report an error in the passage at 44:07 Highlight the passage at 44:07

44:27 And they use the term, they simply say it is clear or it's luminous, meaning not physical. But the second part of the definition tells you it's job. And it's real simple. The function of mind is to cognize. To cognize. To be aware. To merely know. Well, to cognize what? To know what? To be aware of what? Well, that which exists. That which exists. Report an error in the passage at 44:27 Highlight the passage at 44:27

44:55 So we're going to go into this after lunch. How the mind... mistakenly cognizes things and how this characteristic of mistakenly cognizing things is the main characteristic of our unhappy neuroses anger jealousy and attachment which is how come we suffer we'll go into this But the point I'm trying to get at here, and I've lost my point, I'm going on so long, I need a little editor in my head. Report an error in the passage at 44:55 Highlight the passage at 44:55

45:23 yeah yeah Okay, I'll go back to that one. At the gross level, which is where we do function, it's just the tip of the iceberg. It's the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg of our mental capability. And I don't just mean being like an autistic person who can add up 47 kind of digit numbers in their head. Report an error in the passage at 45:23 Highlight the passage at 45:23

45:45 But an enormous level, we have this remarkable capacity, Buddha says, for this mind to cognize that which exists at whatever level, emotional, intellectual, whatever, a phenomenal potential. And that we can begin to access when we've accessed the subtle level of mind, which, for the Buddha, does not need this body for its existence. Report an error in the passage at 45:45 Highlight the passage at 45:45

46:06 The gross level does. And now, lots of people, some here no doubt, have very vivid dreams. Lots of people have leaving their body experiences. Lots of people have... Clairvoyance, can see something in the past, can see something coming. So many people in every culture reports this kind of thing. But we don't take it as serious in science because it doesn't fit with our model of a brain. Report an error in the passage at 46:06 Highlight the passage at 46:06

46:29 We can't find the clairvoyant bit in the brain. But this fits perfectly with the Buddha's assertion about the capability of mind, based upon this view of the Buddha that consciousness itself isn't physical. At the gross level, It can't experience things like that because this body and the nervous system and the brain are kind of so gross they get in the way of the mind's capability. Report an error in the passage at 46:29 Highlight the passage at 46:29

46:57 So using these marvelous psychological techniques, as I'm discussing, called meditation, which Buddha took from the Hindus, you know, it's pre-Buddha. They're happy to share, as I point out. They've been around for thousands of years, these marvelous techniques for what they simply call concentration. We all need that. Oh my gosh. Report an error in the passage at 46:57 Highlight the passage at 46:57

47:15 And they're not religious in their nature. I mean, I always point out communists could do them. They're not religious in their nature. There's very marvelous, skillful techniques to enable you to completely, and I mean completely, harness the crazy energy of this mind of ours. And this is something interesting too. If we look in our contemporary world and our view of what the mind can do, there's no talk about trying to control it. Report an error in the passage at 47:15 Highlight the passage at 47:15

47:38 You know, your mother tells you control yourself. It doesn't tell you how. Just says shut your mouth, you know, your little mind's going crazy, you're exploding in there. And we don't learn as we get older. We all have to be on drugs now to keep all our ADD or whatever it is down, controlled, isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 47:38 Highlight the passage at 47:38

47:55 We haven't got a clue really in the West, with respect to us. But these marvellous techniques have been around for centuries of how to control your little mind. I mean, my God, again, we should be paying millions of dollars instead of to the drug companies, but to little Buddhist teachers to show you how to control your own little mind for no dollars. Report an error in the passage at 47:55 Highlight the passage at 47:55

48:11 That's it. I'm not kidding here. I'm really not kidding, you know. Astonishing capacity, Buddha says, for clear, conscious, and don't make it sound religious, please. I don't mean airy-fairy rubbish. I mean clear, precise, focused, unberserk, harnessed, disciplined, light, spacious, focused levels of mind. Report an error in the passage at 48:11 Highlight the passage at 48:11

48:35 So simple. Hard work, but possible. It's the natural potential of all of us, Buddha says. And to the point where when we really accomplish these marvelous methods, we can access this subtle level, which for us just seems so abstract right now. Astonishing capacity. And at that level of mind, quite literally, you have the capacity to cognize phenomena that the gross level can't. Report an error in the passage at 48:35 Highlight the passage at 48:35

49:02 That is to say, the past. That is to say, the future. That is to say, someone else's thoughts. I'm not kidding here. This is called simply clairvoyance, clear seeing. For the Buddhist approach, no big deal. But for us in our culture, with the brain being the only thing, it sounds wacko and mysterious and superstitious. Report an error in the passage at 49:02 Highlight the passage at 49:02

49:25 But for the Buddha, it fits. It just fits. So all I'm pointing out here really is this amazing potential, just potential for the capacity of cognition of this mind of ours. Report an error in the passage at 49:25 Highlight the passage at 49:25

49:37 And then not to mention even more subtle levels. Gross, subtle, very subtle. So at this gross level then, the Report an error in the passage at 49:37 Highlight the passage at 49:37

49:49 level we function at day to day, is conceptual. And that surprisingly, for the Buddhist psychological model, includes emotional. And I was going to say that after lunch, but it's only 11.33, I've got time, I'm going to do it now. And this is getting to understanding our neuroses, which are the obstacles. Report an error in the passage at 49:49 Highlight the passage at 49:49

50:11 For our becoming who we really are, are the obstacles for our getting a focused mind and the obstacles to our achieving our goodness. These are the ones. And this is sort of like talking high school here. But let's go to junior school first. Given that the job of a Buddhist is to work with their mind and transform it, to become who you naturally are, this marvelous, compassionate, wise, clear, astonishingly developed person, given that that's your job in the long term, you know, Then the very first thing, which is, this is junior school now, the very first level of practice is real simple. Zip your lip and keep your hands to yourself. Report an error in the passage at 50:11 Highlight the passage at 50:11

50:49 Don't harm others. It sounds a bit sort of ridiculous even, but it's sort of obvious. Look at the world. Just check the world. I'm dealing with people in prison, okay? Our Liberation Prison Project, you know, we work with people in prison, have now for 14 years. We get something like a thousand letters a month from people in prison. And I believe you me, they're not in prison because they had an angry thought. Report an error in the passage at 50:49 Highlight the passage at 50:49

51:11 The ones who did do something naughty, you know, take away the ones who didn't do it and got wrongly accused, but the ones who did do something naughty, they did it with their hand, most likely. You hear my point here? The hand and their feet. They took something that didn't belong. Even for saying words, you don't get imprisoned. Report an error in the passage at 51:11 Highlight the passage at 51:11

51:29 It's harming others that you get imprisoned, taking things that don't belong to you. You with me? Well, that's behaviour, isn't it? That's your body and speech. So as your grandmas would tell you, behave nicely. Well, that's the first level of practice, Buddha says. Behave nicely. Don't harm others. And you can see the world. It is impossible. I can see for myself as a kid, you know, who expressed every angry thought she had through her mouth and used her fist. Report an error in the passage at 51:29 Highlight the passage at 51:29

51:56 She wasn't a passive-aggressive, believe me. You know, so I got into trouble because of my behaviour. I could see all the nice little good girls who were the passive-aggressives and I knew they were. I didn't have a word for it, but I knew they were as angry as I was, but they didn't express it, you know. So they didn't get into trouble. Report an error in the passage at 51:56 Highlight the passage at 51:56

52:14 They were the goody goodies. You get my point? So behaviour is a major thing. And it's the tip of the iceberg, isn't it? So if we can't behave, if I, you know, until I began to control my mouth, that didn't start until I was probably in my 30s after being a Buddhist a few years, and even now it's a struggle, how could I control what was behind it? Report an error in the passage at 52:14 Highlight the passage at 52:14

52:36 Which is the anger. It's sort of obvious, isn't it? So it's not rocket science really. It sounds very simple and down to earth. The first level of practice is begin to harness your behavior. Don't lie. You know, Buddha's got a little checklist. This is where Buddha's morality comes in. You know, your little checklist of don'ts. Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't badmouth. Report an error in the passage at 52:36 Highlight the passage at 52:36

52:56 Don't this. Don't that. And it's not because Buddha wants you to, which is the usual religious view we have. Buddha's reason is very practical. Buddha says, sure. Okay, this is interesting too about what morality is and this is a fundamental point in what we call religion. So the Christian view of morality is very clear. Report an error in the passage at 52:56 Highlight the passage at 52:56

53:16 It's what God says you should do because he is the creator. Well, let him have it. It's his job. So what morale, I asked a Catholic friend of mine in Australia, what is a sin? He said it's that which goes against the will of God. That's very reasonable if you have a creator. But the Buddha being not a creator, that's not his view. Report an error in the passage at 53:16 Highlight the passage at 53:16

53:35 But if you even think of the materialist view of morality, it's the same as the Christian one. What is wrong is what mummy says not to do. So when you're a naughty girl is when you went against mummy's will, isn't it? That's why we think we can get away. It's a bit like, you know, when I was a little girl, My mummy probably said to me, don't go near the fire. And I probably, being a smarty pants, would have said, why not? And she probably answered, because I say so. Report an error in the passage at 53:35 Highlight the passage at 53:35

54:14 Well, guess what? As a little girl, that was very helpful, wasn't it? That protected me. I didn't have enough common sense to realise the real reason not to go near the fire is it would burn me. You with me, people? But my mother, you know, that was reasonable. So we tend to think that's what morality means. So that's why we have all this rubbish guilt, you know. Report an error in the passage at 54:14 Highlight the passage at 54:14

54:35 So sort of like here I am getting on for 64. I'm Sagittarius. Six months' time I'll be 64. So let's just say, and I'm still saying, oh, I mustn't go near the fire because mummy said so. Are you with me, people? You'd feel a bit sorry for me, wouldn't you? Because that's what we think of as morality. That's why we have all this pathetic guilt. Report an error in the passage at 54:35 Highlight the passage at 54:35

54:59 Because we're really just blaming your mother because you're not brave enough to take responsibility. Well, the Buddha's view is he's not a creator. He's like my mother warning me, Robina, don't kill. First of all, honey, they don't like it. Just check it out. Do your market research. No one likes to get killed. You check the ants and the dogs. You watch their body behavior. They don't like it. So that's a good enough reason not to do it. Report an error in the passage at 54:59 Highlight the passage at 54:59

55:23 So first of all, in Buddha's view, what's called a bad action is what harms others. It's not because Buddha made it up. It's very reasonable. You just check out the world. It's easy to establish what is immorality. Immorality is doing things to others that they don't like, like taking their money and punching them in the nose and sleeping with their wife. Report an error in the passage at 55:23 Highlight the passage at 55:23

55:43 It's very simple. This is the logic of morality in Buddhism. It's not a thing made up by the Buddha. It's not coming from on high. It's a thing you can establish quite quickly using your intelligence. Are you hearing my point here? So, you know, you'd be reasonable. So the very first level of practice is, Buddha says, Robina, sweetheart, I would suggest you don't kill. He's like a doctor warning me. Report an error in the passage at 55:43 Highlight the passage at 55:43

56:07 Robina, he says, don't smoke. Not because I say so, because if you look at the consequences, you will suffer. This is, again, a very interesting point and fundamental to Buddha's view of the universe, and it's called karma. He calls it karma, you know. It means action. It implies the law of cause and effect, action, reaction. Report an error in the passage at 56:07 Highlight the passage at 56:07

56:29 Cause, result, seed, fruit. He didn't invent it. Karma doesn't just apply to religious things. Karma is the term that Buddha uses to refer to this natural law that we all live according to. We call it botany when it's your garden. We call it cooking when it's cooking. But it's the natural law of cause and effect. You learn the laws of that thing. Report an error in the passage at 56:29 Highlight the passage at 56:29

56:50 You know that if you do this and this and this, you'll get that. Well, that's called cause and effect. We all know it. It's called science. Buddha happens to refer it. To also morality. And his key application of this law of cause and effect is in this point. So his advice is at the very first level of practice, Robina, he's got his checklist, don't kill. Report an error in the passage at 56:50 Highlight the passage at 56:50

57:09 First you establish killing is not good because it harms others. But then he says, because you see we're not created. Buddha says we're not created by anybody. Your mind is its own thing. Your mind is its own thing, it's its own entity and it belongs to you and its contents are yours. So the quality of your mind is determined by the contents, the anger in it, the love, the kindness, the jealousy and that stuff is yours. Report an error in the passage at 57:09 Highlight the passage at 57:09

57:35 Yes, your brain plays a role and yes indeed your mummy hitting you plays a role but they're only cooperative causes. The main point of your mind is your own stuff. So the law of cause and effect applies here. In a very simple kind of organic way, real, real simple. Report an error in the passage at 57:35 Highlight the passage at 57:35

57:57 So right now, let's say I'm angry or let's say I'm unhappy. Robina, what's wrong? Why are you unhappy? Why are you angry? And I'll say, what's your name again? Joe, that's right, there's Joe. That's right, there's Joe. I forgot. I thought there was something. There's Joe, okay? And I'll say, Joe hit me. Report an error in the passage at 57:57 Highlight the passage at 57:57

58:18 That's the logic we use now, isn't it, for why I'm suffering. As far as we're concerned, there's one reason for my suffering, there's one cause of my suffering and it's called Joe. That's the logic we all use now. So now let's say I'm good at piano and I'm playing the piano and you say, why are you good at piano, Robina? And let's say Joe's my music teacher. Report an error in the passage at 58:18 Highlight the passage at 58:18

58:38 I would not answer, it's all Joe's fault, he taught me. We wouldn't answer that, would we? What we would say is, Well, what do you think? I'm good at it because I practiced hard, because music is my potential, because I've got this tendency to play music and I've practiced and practiced and practiced to perfection. Report an error in the passage at 58:38 Highlight the passage at 58:38

58:57 Yes, I thank Joe because without him being a good teacher, a cooperative cause, I wouldn't be good music. I thank Mr. Steinway for making such a nice piano. I thank Mr. Mozart for writing such good music. So in other words, there are various cooperative causes, aren't there? The pianist, I mean the teacher, the piano and Mr. Report an error in the passage at 58:57 Highlight the passage at 58:57

59:14 Mozart. Without which I couldn't be a good pianist, but we know very well that I am the main cause. Wouldn't you agree with that? My own potential and then I've exercised it. Well, that's a very reasonable presentation of cause and effect. But look how irrational we are when it comes to emotions. And so, you know, all Buddha's saying is, Joe's punch is a cooperative cause, you know. Report an error in the passage at 59:14 Highlight the passage at 59:14

59:36 The various other factors of what happened today are cooperative causes, but the main cause of my anger is, guess what? My own potential to be angry. Very simple. But everything in us doesn't want to know about that because we are in the blame mode and it's our philosophy. It's deep in the bones of our being. So this view of karma, which we understand in our ordinary world when it comes to music and cooking, we lose the plot completely when it comes to happiness and suffering or as we call it, morality. Report an error in the passage at 59:36 Highlight the passage at 59:36

1:00:04 Do you get my point here? So this stuff is really like the nuts and bolts of Buddha's philosophy. And if you've got your nuts and bolts clear, you all know you can do very well then. So what we tend to do, like I was saying before, we bring all our theistic religious views, and I'm not criticising them, but then it's very different. We plonk them into our Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:22 So we carry in the guilt and the shame and think we've got to do it because Buddha said. All this is so fundamentally mistaken in Buddha's view. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:22 Highlight the passage at 1:00:22

1:00:31 So the view of karma is this in relation to the mind, in the very practical sense of what your mind is. You think of your mind as this... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:31 Highlight the passage at 1:00:31

1:00:42 These series of thoughts and feelings I'm having right now. So it's like a river of mental moments. Well, where did this moment of, you know, where's all this moment of all my thoughts and feelings come from? Well, the previous moment of them. You can track it back, and if you had perfect memory, you could track it back to yesterday morning. And if you had perfect memory, you could track it back to when you were a little girl. And you know, there's this unbroken chain of mental moments, aren't there? Report an error in the passage at 1:00:42 Highlight the passage at 1:00:42

1:01:04 Unbroken. Each of the moments in your mind comes to the previous moment, comes back to the previous, comes back to the previous. Now you get back to conception. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:04 Highlight the passage at 1:01:04

1:01:10 If you're Christian, you didn't exist the moment before conception. You were a twinkle in God's eye. And if you're a materialist, you didn't exist before the moment of conception because then you were only a twinkle in your mummy's eye. You with me, people? So we both, therefore, say they created Robina. The Buddha would say, no, they didn't. God's not a cooperative cause at all. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:10 Highlight the passage at 1:01:10

1:01:32 Buddha thinks that's a mistake. Just take it as a hypothesis. Cool. Buddha has nothing to do with it. But your parents, no doubt. Definitely had something to do with it. They worked very hard to get that egg and sperm together. Isn't it? So then, you know, but the egg and sperm are just cooperative causes. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:32 Highlight the passage at 1:01:32

1:01:49 They're just your body. But Buddha would say if you track your own consciousness back as an entity, not the body, your consciousness, your series of thoughts and feelings, you keep tracking it back, you're going to get back inexorably to the first moment of conception. Well, obviously the question is what was the cause of that moment of my consciousness? Well, it's real simple. The previous moment. So this consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:49 Highlight the passage at 1:01:49

1:02:11 So it went into that body. Okay, all sorts of explanations from the Buddha. Explanations of how come my mind went into my mummy and daddy's womb as opposed to Joe's mummy and daddy's womb, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:11 Highlight the passage at 1:02:11

1:02:23 But the Buddhist emphasis is that my mind is mine. I don't need creating. So then say, well, when did I begin? Because we assume there has to be a beginning. Well, Buddha says this is a dumb question. What on earth do you want a beginning for? And he says it's not logical, it's irrational anyway. Why? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:23 Highlight the passage at 1:02:23

1:02:43 Real simple. If you posit cause and effect, the law, doesn't that imply there is a fruit? And if there is a fruit, we know there was a seed. No question about that. And if we posit a seed, we know it came from a fruit. So you can't find a first seed, can you? Because if there is a first seed, where did it come from? Very simple. It's the question we ask as kids, if we dare, where does God come from? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:43 Highlight the passage at 1:02:43

1:03:09 Buddha's very simple in this. It's an organic law that he says is really natural. It's like gravity. It just occurs. He didn't invent it. He's not speculating. It is his observation. He says it just happens naturally. It doesn't need running by anybody in the sky. It's just a natural law. So mind, the continuity of mind exists according to that law, Buddha says. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:09 Highlight the passage at 1:03:09

1:03:33 So with this in mind, you cannot find a first moment of your mind. Not because Buddha can't see it. because it doesn't exist. So this is a nutty idea. It's an insane idea to us. Buddha basically is asserting that minds are beginningless. But for that matter, so is matter. As the Dalai Lama said, Big Bang? No problem. Just not the first Big Bang, that's all. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:33 Highlight the passage at 1:03:33

1:03:59 Because of course things have a relative beginning. If we had perfect, you know, knowledge of this microphone, we could deconstruct it, we could deconstruct all the parts, we would know exactly the moment it switched on and became a microphone. You know, three and a half minutes past seven on January the 7th, 2008 when the final screw was put in. It began then. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:59 Highlight the passage at 1:03:59

1:04:43 the moment this universe began. But, you know, all the Buddha's saying is that matter and the way they use in this esoteric model from Tantra, that matter is simply made up of the four elements, like the, you know, the Mr. Galileos and those folk back in those days used to think of it. It's still the model they use in the Buddhist one. Matter is made up of the four elements. Well... Report an error in the passage at 1:04:43 Highlight the passage at 1:04:43

1:05:04 These four elements subsume down to a subtle wind energy and the beginning of this universe was this wind energy that had imploded from previous universes and then the coming together of the karma of all the billions and billions and trillions of sentient beings who have... Our collective karma, literally our actions have been the energy that have created the cause for this universe to come together as these elements with the trees looking like this and the universe looking like that and the mountains and the seas and all the rest. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:04 Highlight the passage at 1:05:04

1:05:35 There's no time to go on about the whole history of the universe here before lunch. But I can try. So basically, you know, Buddha is saying matter... does not get created, it has always existed, and the form it takes is the karma of being. This is why Buddha is not just being argumentative when he says there's no creator. He just says there doesn't need to be one. His philosophy is quite different, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:35 Highlight the passage at 1:05:35

1:06:01 All of this is absolutely crucial to understand the big picture. We're getting to the tantric one, you know. This is the background to give some kind of philosophical, practical context to understanding how come you can become Tara, become... These vajrasattva, these beings, these words, I'm going to go into it and the meaning of it psychologically. So, okay, to summarise before lunch. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:01 Highlight the passage at 1:06:01

1:06:27 Using the tantric model actually, there is matter made up of the four elements that have no power from their own side. This is an interesting point. The physical world talks about only matter and has all this, it's got its own power, you know. The Christian world talks about God and how God controls everything. The Buddhist view would be there is matter. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:27 Highlight the passage at 1:06:27

1:06:48 But it's inert. What causes it to manifest in the way that it does is the karma of all the trillions of sentient beings. Because karma, finally, as far as Buddha's concerned, which means mental actions carried out by bodies and speech. Mental action. Intention, the word intention and the word karma are synonymous in Buddhist psychology. Action, mind, intention. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:48 Highlight the passage at 1:06:48

1:07:17 Everything comes down to mind for the Buddha. Everything comes from the mind. Everything is created by mind. It sounds cosmic. We can't get our head around that. But the more we look into the Buddhist approach, the more this is a reasonable proposition. So all the more reason why we need to know our minds and why we need to develop this potential. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:17 Highlight the passage at 1:07:17

1:07:42 Because it comes down to our own selves being the creators of our own selves. And I'm not kidding. It's a simple way to put it. Whereas you check the materialist world. I didn't ask to get born. It's not my fault. My mother and father decided to create me. You know, if I'm a Christian, it's not my fault. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:42 Highlight the passage at 1:07:42

1:08:03 God created me. Well, both these ideas, the more you internalize the Buddhist approach. For the Buddhist approach, these are very strange ideas. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:03 Highlight the passage at 1:08:03

1:08:13 It's a bit like Frankenstein creating his monster, you know. It's just the wackiest idea for the Buddha. Each being is the fruit of their past thoughts, feelings and emotions. Each person now, by thinking and feeling and acting and doing what we do, we leave seeds in our mind, impressions, reverberations, seeds, you know, that will then produce in this mind tomorrow, next day or next life, past this body, whatever, because mind is also endless, its experiences. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:13 Highlight the passage at 1:08:13

1:08:43 So we are the creators of our own experiences, Buddha says. And this is absolutely central to Buddha's philosophy and eventually as we internalize that to psychologically. It's an outrageous concept. We are the creators of ourself, so that means I can change and turn myself into whatever I want to turn myself into. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:43 Highlight the passage at 1:08:43

1:09:03 Not just like that overnight. It takes a while to counteract the deeply held mistaken conceptions of ego that think I'm hopeless, that think it's not fair, that think I'm a victim, that think people do it to me, that think I didn't ask to get born and it's not my fault and how dare they. That's deep in our bones right now. Victim is our natural state right now. It's the meaning of ego in Buddhism. Poor me. Self-pity me, as Lama Yeshe calls it. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:03 Highlight the passage at 1:09:03

1:09:27 It's the meaning of ego. It's kind of ironic. The term in French, I remember I was there last year, I'm going again in the summer, July. But the term in French, the translation of that one, they say, pauvre petit moi, poor little me. But you check, and this is fascinating, we'll go into more of the psychology of this after lunch, but you look into how it feels behind your anger, your pride, your jealousy, your low self-esteem. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:27 Highlight the passage at 1:09:27

1:09:54 It's poor little me. And I'm not being cruel to us. It's the nature of ego. Even a person who's a bully and violent, it's their poor little baby me freaking out, you know. I mean the harm we do from the poor little me is terrible, look at the world, but it comes down to poor little me. And the very philosophy we live according to is embedded in this, you know, the philosophy of someone else did it to me. And our whole view of the universe is this one, mummy and daddy make you. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:54 Highlight the passage at 1:09:54

1:10:27 I mean, I know this sounds hilarious, but if you follow that through, that philosophy, you are right to blame your parents. But we're so conflicted, we think on the one side, my mother and father literally created me. But somehow, I have to forgive them. Excuse me, why should you? If they really did give you anger and jealousy and depression, and if they made you, they did, then you have a right to blame them. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:27 Highlight the passage at 1:10:27

1:10:55 I'm not kidding now, you know. You do. But we kind of conflict it again. We think, oh, I shouldn't blame my parents. I should take responsibility. What for? They made you. Let them take responsibility. And in fact, how dare they make me and give me anger and jealousy and then plonk me out on this earth and tell me to take responsibility. I mean, it's completely outrageous. You get my point? Report an error in the passage at 1:10:55 Highlight the passage at 1:10:55

1:11:16 But again, we have this big conflict in our heads. Whereas Buddha says to Robina, honey, you made yourself, babe. Don't worry about it. Oh, what a relief, you know. No one to blame now. It's such a relief because it tells me I can change. How fantastic. I think Buddhism's great for control freaks. I love it. You made yourself. Oh, I love it. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:16 Highlight the passage at 1:11:16

1:11:48 Okay. Five minutes of questions before lunch, okay? Five minutes of any question whatsoever up until this point. A bit of a summary of Buddha's sort of the background, the nuts and bolts of Buddha so we can give Tantra some context. Yes, darling. How are you? Good to see you. I'm going to tackle this question about this changing the mind. Okay, darling. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:48 Highlight the passage at 1:11:48

1:12:10 In terms of in the United States this concept that we have, that it seems to be bad to change one's mind. And this is particularly in reference to the political situation that we're now in where – Report an error in the passage at 1:12:10 Highlight the passage at 1:12:10

1:12:35 John McCain says, oh, he's flip-flopped. He's flip-flopped. He's changed his mind. I see. That level of change. You mean Donald Obama changing his mind about the financing. Right. I see. And so you're so good at this. What's a great way to... Report an error in the passage at 1:12:35 Highlight the passage at 1:12:35

1:12:55 You know, try to change people's mind, that it's fine to change your mind. I understand. You know, what's the combat? What's the combat that you're good at? I think we have to define our terms a bit more here, isn't it? I think the way we use the word change your mind in the West is what you just said. Oh, he's always changing his mind. Like, you know, you're not living according to your principles. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:55 Highlight the passage at 1:12:55

1:13:14 But wait. The one I'm talking about here has got a slightly different meaning, hasn't it? It's got a different meaning, darling. There are two different discussions here. Oh, yeah, yeah. But you're just interested in this one. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:14 Highlight the passage at 1:13:14

1:13:25 You were so good at coming up, I mean, you know, explaining things that I would love to be able to, you know, with it. I understand. I understand. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:25 Highlight the passage at 1:13:25

1:13:36 Okay, let's look at that one then. I think, yeah, okay, what we tend to do in our culture. We're very fixed and we call it sticking to your principles, don't we? But that really is nonsense, you know. So then what we call non-partisan, we then think, you know, is a bit sort of sneaky. You've got no principles. You'll disagree with anybody. But the reality is this, it seems to me. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:36 Highlight the passage at 1:13:36

1:14:21 If you have a principle called not killing, let's say, well, it has to be based in reality. In other words, the Buddhist view, it has to be based in morality. It has to be a principle that... You live according to it because if you didn't you'd harm others and it would be not a good thing to do. Not just because you think it's a good thing, I don't believe in killing, but it's a practical thing. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:21 Highlight the passage at 1:14:21

1:14:45 So if you do have a principle called not killing, then it would be something you would never go back on because it's going to be harmful to sentient beings. But if there's another principle that said I support public financing for whatever it is, then if you see there's a practical benefit. benefit changing your mind about that that isn't going to harm sentient beings, then of course you can do it. It's very reasonable. It's perfectly reasonable. But we get fanatic about a principle. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:45 Highlight the passage at 1:14:45

1:15:13 It's just a bit ridiculous, you know. So that's the point. But that maybe is not the answer you want. You want something more simple than that. But it's got to be realistic whether it's going to harm others or not. I like carrot cake doesn't mean tomorrow you can't say I like Chocolate cake. So what will happen is with our fundamentalist... Oh, but you said yesterday you like carrot cake. You're always changing your mind. Well, excuse me, it's cool. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:13 Highlight the passage at 1:15:13

1:15:37 You can be non-partisan about it. So the point is, it has to be something practical. You know, if one minute he says, I don't believe in killing fetuses, and then he realises you'll get a lot of votes because if he says he does believe in killing fetuses, well, then you can say he's flip-flopping. That's sort of, it's using a wrong motivation for changing his mind. So again, another one is the motivation. Right. I agree with everything you've said. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:37 Highlight the passage at 1:15:37

1:16:07 And it's fine with me that Obama changes his mind. What I would love with your wisdom for a saying that you can say to those, to the fundamentalists who are saying that that's wrong, you know, to be flip-flop or whatever. Something that comes up and says... You want me to say more? I've said enough. I can't say more. I can't say more. I'm not going to say more. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:07 Highlight the passage at 1:16:07

1:16:33 You're going to have to come up with it yourself. You've got wisdom. Thank you. That's cool. Yeah, of course it does, yeah. That's exactly what I mean. It's sort of really so clear, you know. But I think the thing is, it's a fanaticism about a position. You've got to stick to your position. You know, you keep changing your mind. People tell me that all the time. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:33 Highlight the passage at 1:16:33

1:16:50 I probably do. Change your mind all the time. Yeah, anyway. I know. Yes, go. Yes, take the mic. I like to think a lot. Well, that's good. Go on. And I've come up with a way of describing the basic, what I think is a basic dichotomy between two cultures. I call one the culture of reasonableness, and I'm very happy to hear you using that word so much. Yes. The other is what I call the culture of confusion. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:50 Highlight the passage at 1:16:50

1:17:24 Yes. And I think they're profound. Profoundly different, but in order to really appreciate the culture of reasonableness and enter it, you first have to go through the culture of confusion within yourself. Well, I think that's our starting point, isn't it? Yes. It's like you don't know math, you're confused, and you've got to go towards knowing it, which is reasonableness. Yes, exactly. Absolutely. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:24 Highlight the passage at 1:17:24

1:17:47 That's our starting point now. Buddha would agree. He calls it ignorance. Yes, confusion. You haven't got a clue what's going on. That's right. Absolutely. Good on you. Thank you. The gentleman behind back there. Did you have your hand up? Thank you. Go. Yes. Yeah, it was very interesting what you were saying about victimization being this sort of state of mind and being in the modern era and, you know, that leads us to blame our parents or society or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:47 Highlight the passage at 1:17:47

1:18:16 And I'm just curious if there's a risk because of karma, if there's a risk of blaming karma. Blaming yourself, you mean. Oh, yeah, I mean, that's very much. I see, I think, yeah, of course there is. Because as long as we have the, you know, not trying to sound fancy, the dualistic view that there is punishment and reward and blame and victim, then of course if you have the very strong blame mentality, let's say, and you, like lots of Catholics give it up and all they do is talk about all the guilt and they blame God and blame the nuns and everything, they give it up. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:16 Highlight the passage at 1:18:16

1:18:51 And now we go into Buddhism and you carry the same thing through. And so instead of that you've now got to blame yourself because I must have done it now. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:51 Highlight the passage at 1:18:51

1:19:09 the problem, or even God isn't the problem, it's that we think you're a victim is the problem. And so if the idea of karma, and it takes time to move from the victim view, is opposite to that. It's sort of like the idea we all know that if you made your bed, you've got to sleep on it. If I grew those crummy seeds in my garden, I can't blame anybody else. If I smoked all those cigarettes every day, I can't blame the Marlboro company for my cancer. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:09 Highlight the passage at 1:19:09

1:19:34 That's what taking responsibility means. It's not like a heavy burden. It's a growing up thing. If I know I did that, I have to own that. So what's interesting in the Buddhist approach to what we call purification, which is this psychological process of changing, Report an error in the passage at 1:19:34 Highlight the passage at 1:19:34

1:19:52 We have this thing called guilt and we often use the term in Buddhism, your first step is you have to regret that you did something. So okay, the Dalai Lama was asked one time, what's the difference between guilt and regret? It was very simple. He said, guilt is looking into the past, saying I did this, I did that, I did this. And then you say, and I'm a bad person. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:52 Highlight the passage at 1:19:52

1:20:17 Right? Now you look at blame. You did this, you did this and you did this and you're a bad person. That's called blame to other people. That's the problem. But he says regret is I did this, I did that and I did do this. But then you say what can I do to change? That's the taking responsibility. I remember Martin Luther King, I love it. He said it's okay to blame, to be angry. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:17 Highlight the passage at 1:20:17

1:20:42 You did this and this. But instead of just you're an evil person and kick and scream, you then say. What can I do to change it? That's the key. So the taking responsibility, the karmic one is, if you have a garden that's full of weeds and you're the gardener, I'm sorry, you have to own the fact the presence of those weeds proves you didn't do your job properly. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:42 Highlight the passage at 1:20:42

1:21:05 And if you scream and shout and blame the plant makers and blame God and blame the sun not coming out and blame everything else, which is what we do, that means not taking responsibility. It's scary to take responsibility. And that's what blame is, and it's called guilt or it's called anger. But this one is more dynamic. It does own the fact, there's the proof, look, there are the weeds, I mustn't have done my gardening, drat. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:05 Highlight the passage at 1:21:05

1:21:27 But then you say, okay, what can I do to change? And that's the key to success. So it's a very courageous attitude. Yeah? There you go, okay, so it's all right. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:27 Highlight the passage at 1:21:27

1:21:41 Go. question about reconciling different religious practices. Yep. I was baptized Catholic, and my grandmother on my mother's side is Catholic, and my grandmother on my father's side is Buddhist, and both very devoted women, very calm, never raised a temper, perfect grandmothers. And I've been trying to reconcile with two different religious practices. and and um um Like a couple of months ago, I started reading about the Medicine Buddha. I'm really drawn to Medicine Buddha and meditating and visualizing him. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:41 Highlight the passage at 1:21:41

1:22:23 And one of the things I do is like visualizing washing his feet with, you know, rose water and then drying his feet. but then i started thinking well but jesus has also been very good to me so it's not fair i just washed medicine Buddha's feet i should also wash jesus feet Report an error in the passage at 1:22:23 Highlight the passage at 1:22:23

1:22:43 Shantideva, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. You can love Jesus and you can love Our Lady. I mean, I love Jesus. I love Our Lady. I love the Catholic saints. I read all about the Catholic. I mean, I'm always reading all the news about the Catholic Church. It's my history. It's my background. I haven't rejected it in one sense. Although when I did say to a Catholic priest I met in Los Angeles, I said, I still feel like a Catholic. He looked gobsmacked at me and he said, well, you could come back, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:43 Highlight the passage at 1:22:43

1:23:24 LAUGHTER He didn't know what else to say. But it's this non-partisan thing. It's okay that if you like carrot cake, it doesn't mean you have to hate chocolate cake. If you like a democrat, it doesn't mean you don't like something the republicans do. We get very fundamentalist. So because you like Buddha, doesn't mean you dislike Jesus. And if you really have a pure view, Buddha represents Jesus and Mary as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:24 Highlight the passage at 1:23:24

1:23:49 They're all the same. At a big level, there's different manifestations of the same pure energy. And in that way, you can relax. And you just think of having Mary and Jesus there too in your mind. It's cool. It's not like this either or. And that's the very dualistic view we have. And that's the fundamentalism, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:49 Highlight the passage at 1:23:49

1:24:05 And we do it in our own lives. I'm right. No, you're wrong. Oh, but you said that before. It's sort of like fixed mind. It's a fixed mind. It's just very silly. There's no reason to see contradiction in other words. Medicine Buddha incorporates Jesus and Mary. But you've got to decide eventually. It's a bit like you've got to choose one boyfriend. You can't have six husbands. It's just not like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:05 Highlight the passage at 1:24:05

1:24:25 So maybe you've got to decide you love them all, but you've got to choose one when you're eventually ready. So the Buddhist one, when you're ready to take refuge, as they call it, it just means, you know, if you really love Jesus, then that's cool. But if you think Jesus' teachings are the best, then you've got to take refuge in Jesus. Because Jesus says you can kill things, but Buddha says you can't. That would be a conflict. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:25 Highlight the passage at 1:24:25

1:24:46 Choose Buddha, but also like Jesus. But you've got to decide finally, but there's no hurry. But they all mean the same. You just be skillful in how you see them. It's okay, you know. You understand? But you've got to follow what works for you. And clearly if you have this wish to wash their feet, you sound like a little Buddhist to me, like a little Buddhist lineage in there. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:46 Highlight the passage at 1:24:46

1:25:03 So you just follow it and see where it takes you, you know, with a very open mind. Really, it's not a dualistic thing. And a related question is that if I want to go deeper into meditating on the medicine Buddha, Is there a certain empowerment that I need to take? Absolutely. We'll talk all about this after lunch, sweetheart. I'll go to this after lunch. Thank you. I'll pass. Okay, good. On the question of morality, it's very interesting because living in this country, any country, you see day to day, you can watch Fox TV anytime, you have two people of the same religion reading exactly the same book and one says we should go to another country. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:03 Highlight the passage at 1:25:03

1:25:41 and bomb them that's right according to the book yes that's right the other says I read the same book you do and I got the exact opposite point it's not like they have the different ten commandments so how do we go wrong I mean you couldn't cite a different it's not like he was reading verse This is why the Buddhist view would say that you have to come down to be able to proving it experientially. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:41 Highlight the passage at 1:25:41

1:26:06 It doesn't matter what the books say. and if you find the buddhas wrong because you've proved it So the Buddha's view of morality is not a thing that a person said was right or wrong. The Buddha says how you see Report an error in the passage at 1:26:06 Highlight the passage at 1:26:06

1:26:24 negative an action is simply an action that harms another so if we go more deeply into that look into the minds of a person who punches or shoots or steals and that is the source of it which is the wish to harm Report an error in the passage at 1:26:24 Highlight the passage at 1:26:24

1:26:41 what harming is so but even just the action itself even harms another that's what is meant by immorality and that's not too difficult to prove just go ask people Ask people, do do they like being stolen from, killed, lied or... Yes, Report an error in the passage at 1:26:41 Highlight the passage at 1:26:41

1:27:14 over here. Yes darling, come on. No, for the taping. Yes, I had a question about... punched in the nose it's not too difficult to prove in an interdependent sense it's really uncomplicated that's how Buddha turns up morality it's not a fixed thing in the sky that comes down from god you know so books can say what they like Report an error in the passage at 1:27:14 Highlight the passage at 1:27:14

1:27:25 You were saying that our mind is our own and that we own our minds. I'm curious what happens then on the subtle level and then the idea of emptiness, where there is no I, there is no creator of negative karma, no action. Well, we can talk about that after lunch, but that's there. Okay, basically, just as a little thing to think about while you're eating your lunch, we'll go into this. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:25 Highlight the passage at 1:27:25

1:27:49 That's a misconception. Buddha would say that things exist in a conventional sense. So what's your name? Lourdes. Lourdes. Okay. So there is Lourdes and we define her as this and that and we can discover that she isn't Joe. So we can see right now there are a conventional reality of there's a Joe and there's a Lourdes. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:49 Highlight the passage at 1:27:49

1:28:08 Okay. We have to first establish that there is something that exists in a conventional sense by agreement, you know. There are these. Then we look into how Lourdes exists and that's when we come to the emptiness thing. So saying that there is no Lourdes from her own side intrinsically. Here's what Buddha's saying. Not that there is no Lordess, because what you just said then was there is no I that creates karma. There's no I intrinsically, but that doesn't contradict there's an I. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:08 Highlight the passage at 1:28:08

1:28:36 I guess I was more curious about going from gross levels of mind to subtle. I'm not discussing that. That's another discussion, though. That doesn't come in there. That's another discussion. So that's just enough for lunch. You can think about that over lunch. So listen to me. Over lunch, you're going to get your lunch out there. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:36 Highlight the passage at 1:28:36

1:28:56 So kind of make it like a seamless part of the day. So if you want to be silent and just go and think about these things and you be silent, don't have this compulsion to feel you've got to talk, you know, just because you're in a group of people, which we tend to do. But on the other hand, if you want to talk, then don't just talk about George Bush and these kind of things. You can do that afterwards. So try and carry on the conversation. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:56 Highlight the passage at 1:28:56

1:29:17 If you can, without looking all serious about it, but have fun. You're allowed to talk to each other and say what your name is and everything. But if you can, carry on the conversation and make it after, even after your lunch, maybe sit down, a group of three or four of you, and just nut out a couple of things we've discussed and then have some questions later. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:17 Highlight the passage at 1:29:17

1:29:32 And we'll get to the tantric bit then. Is that okay? While you're enjoying your lunch? But now, given the Buddha's wanting us to think differently about everything, because he says we've got all these misconceptions, let's think differently about our lunch. Let's think. all that stuff out there called carrots and lettuce and no doubt and bread and butter and soup and who knows and it's all in a certain shape and form but then think you know it's um Report an error in the passage at 1:29:32 Highlight the passage at 1:29:32

1:29:57 Shantideva, His Holiness the Dalai Lama Full of beings, all the suffering ones, all the creatures, all the starving ones, all the human ones, all the holy ones, all the beings, all the Buddhas, pervading space. And you imagine all of them delightedly experiencing the pleasure of this food, which you happily offer them. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:57 Highlight the passage at 1:29:57

1:30:30 Thinking just like that. And then you eat your lunch, happily eat and discuss, and I'll see you in an hour and a half or something. Yep, about that. Something like 130, 145. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:30 Highlight the passage at 1:30:30