← Robina Courtin

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

Robina Courtin · 28 June 2008 · 2 h 9 min · Tse Chen Ling via Internet Archive

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  • 4:26

    But let's look at this one. And this is a huge one. This is at the very heart of Buddha's entire approach. And I've been implying it all the way. But now I'll spell it out, okay? This is the meaning of karma. So if I didn't get created by somebody else, right? And my mind goes back and back and back, right? It means, already we can see the implication of that is that there's something in my mind, there's something in my mind that means I have some responsibility in what happens to me.

  • 17:16

    And that's the disconnect. So what he would say, one approach to this is a person who's really accomplished this goal of perfection, of purifying your mind to the point where only the goodness is left and you are in the nature of bliss and joy and happiness and wisdom and compassion and blah, blah, blah, which is your natural state, then two things. One, you're blissful and two, you are in sync with reality. Do you see my point? You've merged with truth now. Do you get my point? It's an interesting way to see it, you know.

  • 34:21

    You realize if you eat that, it'll cause you suffering. So you don't eat it. So you have to know nutrition. Well, here we're talking mental nutrition. So Buddha, being very simple, he says, what causes us pain and suffering right now, forget about acting it out and what leaves imprints for future suffering, is the stuff that we all know. Anger, jealousy, low self-esteem, guilt, depression. Self-loathing, all this junky, junky stuff we are knee deep in, you know. So we have to become familiar.

  • 56:03

    Lama Yeshi's book, by the way, it's out there. We've only got about six or eight copies. We're going to give you a 20 % discount on it. It's called Introduction to Tantra. And Lama Yeshi, my teacher, he was marvellous at explaining this stuff in a very down-to-earth psychological way for us Western minds. And I highly recommend it. And if there aren't enough and you want to buy a copy, please, if Karina's there or somebody in the shop, just make a note and we'll get copies for you. It's a brilliant book. Or you get it on Amazon or something. It's called Introduction to Tantra.

  • 1:05:48

    Do you understand the point? In other words, if you think every day, you know, positive things, forgive your enemies and love your old husband and let go of meanness about your father and really work on your own mind, don't be surprised you become a nice, happy person. I mean, it really is not rocket science, you know. But we are so schizophrenic, we don't understand that. We know that if you play tennis every day, you're going to be good at tennis. But we don't understand that if you're angry every day, you're going to get angry. We just think to blame everybody else for it. It's just nuts, you know.

0:00 What you think is in sync with reality. If it's not, you're in trouble. And that's what Buddha says. Buddha says we think one thing and then we do another. But things are something else and that's where the disconnect is. He says that's our big problem. We're going to go into that now Buddhist psychological approach. How all these unhappy emotions we have have various factors about them. Report an error

0:19 One of them is that they're... they have no meaning. They are not accurate assessments of reality. There's a disconnect between how things are and how we perceive things. So that's the meaning of meaning. What we think in here has to be in sync with what exists. Report an error

0:36 meaning what is it about what exists that to meaning about reality Reality is what it is. Reality is what it is. No one makes it up. Report an error

0:50 what is there about reality that's particularly meaningful? Reality is what it is. It's how we see it that's not meaningful. How we see it. And we confuse what is with how we see it. Report an error

1:07 All right. Go on. Report an error

1:14 Yep. I had a question a little bit on the same vein. Yes. With so much going on externally in the world right now that can be so many things, what is the recommendation for stabilizing the mind in that and actually getting to a place of... Report an error

1:32 That's right. That's the same point. What's your name? Julian. There's this nice analogy in Buddhism that a bird needs two wings, wisdom and compassion. And that actually encompasses everything. So finally, of course, the compassion wing is the point. It means you can get out there and whoever comes up in front of you, an ant, a rat or an entire country or whatever, you have the compassion, the wish to benefit. Report an error

1:56 But you have the real missing component normally which is the skill to know what to do and that's the wisdom wing. So that's where you work on yourself. The Buddhist, what we're talking so far here is the wisdom wing. Knowing your own mind well, distinguishing between the positive and the negative stuff, removing the negative and then manifesting through the positive. And that's what gives you happiness and helps you help others. Report an error

2:17 It's a very practical thing, you know. So let's go on. We'll talk more about the wisdom wing, about the mind. Any more points, questions, people? Yeah. I'm working with the community in the Excelsior District, and they just had this tragedy where a father and his two sons were killed in their car. Killed, you mean murdered? Murdered. It was a bit of a traffic piece, and the father just backed up, and the man who turned left just pulled out the gun and shot all three of them. Report an error

2:46 So the community's in mourning, and I guess I would say if... The family were here, the wife and mother and the two surviving siblings, and they have an accused. They don't know if it was actually the young man or not. What would you say to them and what would be an approach from the community to respond to this from the Buddhist perspective? Okay, you know, this is where it depends on who's in front of you. Report an error

3:15 If a person's two years old... And they come in front of you. You'd have to be appropriate to help that person at the level of two, wouldn't you? So these people, I wouldn't have a clue how to respond until I hear where they're coming from. So my friend Andre in North Carolina, who teaches people in prison, his son was murdered in January. So then the local press interviewed him and said, how do you feel about the murderer? Report an error

3:35 And he just spontaneously said, I only have compassion for him. He was really in tears and we have to help these young people. He meant the murderer. He said his suffering is only just beginning. So when you hear that... Then you know how to respond to Andre. But if he said, I want him to burn in hell and I hate him and I want to kill him, then that will give you another response. So it all will question where the person is coming from. Report an error

3:54 And that's where the mourning wife and mother is now. She wants the death penalty for this young man. There you go. That's very typical, isn't it? Yeah. Not complaining about it. Okay, so what we're really getting on to here is Buddha's view of why things happen. Because one of the biggest questions we all ask on this earth is why. Why do things happen? But we particularly ask, why me? Report an error

4:15 Don't we? And this, I mean, there's no time to go into all this because the topic was meant to be tantra. We haven't even got there yet. And maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe you've got to come back next week or something. Report an error

4:26 But let's look at this one. And this is a huge one. This is at the very heart of Buddha's entire approach. And I've been implying it all the way. But now I'll spell it out, okay? This is the meaning of karma. So if I didn't get created by somebody else, right? And my mind goes back and back and back, right? Report an error

4:47 It means, already we can see the implication of that is that there's something in my mind, there's something in my mind that means I have some responsibility in what happens to me. It sort of means that, don't you think? And so the Buddha would say in a sense there's nothing random right now. So if you do have the view that your mother made you... Report an error

5:06 That does mean you began in your mother's womb, doesn't it? So then if you meet a random driver who shoots you in the head, you have to deduce, and you've never met him before, you would have to deduce logically that you have no relationship with that person. Therefore, from your own side, there's nothing you did to deserve it. You'd have to deduce that, wouldn't you? Now, that's the view of this world, isn't it? But what's interesting about this, first of all, is this. Report an error

5:27 If you win the lottery, do you feel, I don't deserve this? I didn't do anything to deserve this. Oh my God, why am I winning the lottery? This is just too much. I don't know why I'm getting the lottery. I didn't do anything to deserve this. Now, we don't say that, do we? But the logic's the same, isn't it? So in other words, this points in the Buddhist view to attachment. So if it's nice, I don't care if I'm responsible. Give me more. You understand? Report an error

5:51 But if it's ugly, I want nothing to do with it and I think I'm allowed to feel a victim. This again, I'm repeating in another way, this is the schizophrenic... Politely speaking, dualistic view that Buddha says actually is a product of believing that someone else made you. It comes from this. I mean, it all sounds a bit sort of easy to say these words. One needs to indeed think and meditate on this to really kind of get your head around Buddha's approach. So he is saying, basically, every single mind, and that means all the sem chens, all the mind possessors, that includes ants and dogs and giraffes and humans and all the others we can't even see. Report an error

6:27 And Buddha would assert a whole lot of them. Every single one necessarily has a consciousness that goes back since beginningless time. Second, every single one of them by definition, every fraction of every single experience that each of us has now, because now is the moment, is simply a fruit of a seed I planted in my mind. Report an error

6:47 So winning the lottery, you can see it, is something we all like. It's abundance, it's kind of getting lovely things. You have to deduce it was the fruit of something similar, of doing for others and giving to others. If someone punches me in the nose or shoots me in the head, I have to deduce it was something similar to that. So it's kind of too outrageous for us to think this if we have the blame mode. Report an error

7:09 Because then we say, oh, you mean I'm to blame. So I'm going to have to have all that hate and anger for myself now. But that's... Still assuming this subject-object dualistic idea. But if you have the idea that you are your own mind, there are many factors that do come into play, like... He is my music teacher. Mr. Steinway did make a good piano. Mozart wrote very nice music, without which I would not be a musician. But hey, my hard work is the main one. Report an error

7:37 I'm honoured to own that bit. So I am the main cause of my music. Well, my anger, my killing, my lying, my harming, my being harmed, the Buddha would say, or my winning the lottery, Buddha would say. I, my actions are the main cause. Then he's the cooperative cause with his punch. The shooter's the cooperative cause with his shot. Mr. Lottery is the cooperative cause with his winning. Report an error

7:56 You understand, there's a cooperative causes for happiness and then I'm the main cause and there's cooperative causes for suffering and I'm the main cause. That's the basic Buddhist idea. So for a Buddhist, Andre happens to be a Buddhist, this guy in North Carolina, but it came spontaneously for him because it doesn't follow everyone who's a Buddhist immediately loves their oppressors, you know, you've got to work on it. Report an error

8:16 But he just had this in his heart and he was surprised himself, it just popped out of his mouth. So the logic here, the Buddha would say, is he must have the imprints of... Report an error

8:26 I mean when Mozart's mother gave him a piano at the age of six off he went writing music it came easy to him. Just like some kid it comes easy to that kid to shoot and kill and stomp on the snail and want things to be harmed. So we've got imprints in our mind from habits. This is the real way karma works. So karma ripens in terms of the habit to be a certain way but also in terms of that thing happening to you. Report an error

8:51 And this is just... It's not punishment, it's not reward, it's just Buddha's explanation of how come the universe is what it is. And if you think of it intellectually and rather objectively, based upon the assumption of non-physical mind and no creator, it's at least it's a conceptual answer. I mean, it's best we can come up with as a conceptual answer. This is Buddha's deal. And as a Buddhist, one runs with this and takes this as your basis. And I can only say to you this. Report an error

9:16 You know, we all can see, I think, generally, we look at the Tibetans as a people. You see the Dalai Lama as a person. You can kind of see they're happy people, you know. They're kind of renowned for being fairly happy guys in the face of oppression and murder and all that stuff. You understand my point? This is the basis of why. This is the basis. Report an error

9:32 They have a philosophical view of why things happen, good or bad, which indicates that they can own responsibility for their part in it. Like my lousy garden because I didn't do the weeding or my really good piano because I did do the practice. You get my point? So when you have that view, it doesn't come overnight like anything. Report an error

9:52 It takes time. And I can see in my own life. Living according to this view, attempting to, I can see fundamental changes in my mind. I can have compassion for murderers quite easily. I can have compassion for people who harm me quite easily because I have this explanation or an answer to the question, why me? Report an error

10:09 The best we can come up with, isn't it, in our psychological models in our culture. For why me? You know, if he punches me in the nose, then the psychologist will tell me, oh, Robina, well, of course he punched you in the nose because he was harmed as a child and his parents beat him and the Catholic priest did that. Report an error

10:23 And I'll say, well, excuse me, that's why he punches. It doesn't explain why he punches me. You get my point here? And mostly, then we go, oh, well, no one knows. You've got to put up with it, you know, which is not a very satisfactory or scientific answer. You get what I'm saying, my point? But this is the Buddhist explanation. At least it factors you into it and gives you an answer. Then it's up to you to think about it. So, okay, in answer to your question, if they came to me now and she's full of rage, believe me, I'm not going to give her a lecture about karma. Report an error

10:51 I'm going to give her a hug and tell her, yes, that person is terrible to have killed your child or whatever, or your husband. I will agree with her because she doesn't need lectures right now. She needs love and support and a hug. My God, to start giving her a long lecture, that's so dreadful, you know. That's what we do with religion. You're fundamentalists. Oh, well, is God punishing you or whatever it is? That is not helpful. Report an error

11:12 She needs support and love and kindness, you know. I can see that with different people who write to us from the prisons. Some are really clear and together and can take these types of things. Other people, you just give them support. Don't give them long lectures about karma or anything. You give them love and support, you know. Depends where the person's at, what they need to hear. I mean, there's a guy, I... Report an error

11:30 My friends on death row in Kentucky told me about this old Catholic man who 40 years ago, I think, his daughter was murdered. And like so many people, he was full of rage. And he said it took him 30 years to slowly realise the reason he was out of his brain with rage, out of his brain with suffering, was because of his rage. Report an error

11:52 It took him 30 years to realise that. The daughter was dead. The guy was executed. He was still raging. He realised the rage was his enemy. So he went back to Mass and he started doing all his Catholic things again and now he visits the people on death row and shares his daughter's rosary with him. His heart softened. So this is the Buddhist approach. You don't have to have a view of karma to forgive people. It's very obvious. We're having this conference in November, actually, down at the Western, a big one, a thousand people hopefully, called Happiness and His Causes. Report an error

12:23 And we've got like 40 speakers, psychologists and all these different kinds of people. And one lot of it is one called The Art of Forgiveness. I've invited Andre to come and talk about just his forgiving the murderer of his son, you know, which is very moving for people. But in that same group, we've got two women from Texas. They were both on opera, I think. And they have worked through this system of restorative justice where people bring together the so-called criminal, so-called victim and get them together. Report an error

12:49 Where's Sujatha? There she is. So she does this in Oakland. She's been funded by George Soros to work with people in the youth in Oakland on this very kind of thing. Because they're based on these systems used in New Zealand by the New Zealand Maoris. They've got no youth in prison in New Zealand. I mean, half the Maoris in prison, they're like a warrior race. They leave all the Mexican gangsters here for dead, you know. They're like fierce warriors, the Maoris. Report an error

13:10 But they had this wonderful method of what we call restorative justice, such that now there are no youth in prison. Is that right? In New Zealand. It's outrageous. Unbelievable. Because they solve it. They bring people together. And it's so touching. This woman, Linda, who was on opera, who went through this whole restorative justice process, the mother of the child who was raped and murdered. Report an error

13:30 And then there's the daughter of the mother. This is mind-blowing. Listen to this. The murderer, who when they finally... They're all hugging their friends now, right? Can you imagine the catharsis for the guy who did it? I mean, my friends in prison on death row, they just yearn. To want to meet the people and go through the whole thing, you know, because it's so healing. Well, this murderer guy, he told, I think Amy told me this, somebody told me this, I read it somewhere. Report an error

13:57 Amy, the mother, I mean Linda, the rapist and the murderer told the mother that before he killed his daughter, she looked him in the eye and she said, I forgive you, and God does too, before he killed her. But he told that, isn't that powerful? It must be very nice for a mother to hear that. But this is intense, you know. So my feeling is here, most of us don't have our daughter murdered, right? Report an error

14:25 But look who you love to hate. Look how many people in your life you haven't forgiven. You're bitter, you're angry, you're resentful. It's not fair, poor me. How dare they do that to me? You get my point? It's so common on this earth. So Buddha's view is really quite outrageous. It's quite radical and outrageous. But Buddha's saying... Report an error

14:41 Hey guys, we are all the creators of our own lives. It's a really quite intense idea. And it's quite cosmic, but it's very, I mean, I don't mean it in a silly sense. I think the words are quite powerful. We can hear the words, but we can see the, talk about gap between thoughts and reality. If that is the reality, Justin, Justin, Julian, if that is the reality, let's say Buddha's correct and that is the truth, that we are each the creator of our own reality, we can see in our head right now is the exact opposite. Report an error

15:10 In my head right now is, excuse me, who do you think you are? How dare you? I don't deserve this. I did not do anything. Blah, blah, blah. So there's this gap between how things are and my view of how things are. And actually that approach is the essence of Buddha's approach. He is saying, the way things are is the way things are. We are the creators of our own reality. Report an error

15:31 Mind is not physical. There's no creative love of this. Mind is beginningless, blah, blah, blah. But how we see things is completely different. I mean, one of his Buddha's first deals in junior school is everything's impermanent. I mean, like, duh, we know that. But hey, look how we cling to everything as if it's not. And the proof of that is this. Even just your lovely little cup that you're so attached to when it breaks, you curse and swear. Report an error

15:55 Why are you unhappy, Robina? Oh, my cup broke. Well, we think we're unhappy because our cup broke. No, no, no, Buddha says. You're unhappy because you thought it shouldn't. So the reality is things are impermanent, but we think they aren't. So there's this disconnect with reality. That's why we suffer, Buddha says. Report an error

16:13 It's quite an interesting concept. In other words, if you think I took your money, you believe in your mind I took your money, but in reality I didn't. The truth is I didn't take it, but you think I did. That's why you suffer. There's the disconnect. Reality is I didn't take it, but you believe I did. And this is what Buddha is saying, that in our minds we've got all these layers of these neurotic emotions, like attachment, anger, pride, jealousy, that have an emotional component, but in their bare bones they are actually misconceptions. Report an error

16:45 Because how does anger sound? How dare you do that to me? It is not fair. I am an innocent victim. I do not deserve this. Therefore you should burn in hell forever. Well, Buddha says that's not reality. I created the cause. I am a part of this. You aren't the sole cause of all my suffering. You did indeed punch me. That's true. But you're not the main cause of my suffering. Report an error

17:05 So these delusions exaggerate everything. So this is Buddha's main deal across the board. Things are a certain way. And then we have a view about how things are. And that's the disconnect. So what he would say, one approach to this is a person who's really accomplished this goal of perfection, of purifying your mind to the point where only the goodness is left and you are in the nature of bliss and joy and happiness and wisdom and compassion and blah, blah, blah, which is your natural state, then two things. Report an error

17:34 One, you're blissful and two, you are in sync with reality. Do you see my point? You've merged with truth now. Do you get my point? It's an interesting way to see it, you know. So the job of being a Buddhist is working on your own mind, deepening and deepening and deepening your own awareness of yourself, removing the misconceptions, removing the garbage, which is what causes you pain, and that's the first point we have to get to. Report an error

18:00 We've got to have some compassion for ourselves. We don't. We love to beat ourselves up. So one of the consequences of working on your own mind is you really have to start understanding. This is the very first point about karma. Report an error

18:13 That my anger and my jealousy and my anxiety break my heart. Not just I've got to stop being angry because God says so, which is just the guilty one. No, no, no. The reason I've got to stop being angry because it's breaking my heart. The reason I've got to not kill people is because that harms me and God knows what will happen in the future. So when we can start to get in touch with ourself and our own mind and our own heart and our own pain, then I can change myself. Report an error

18:37 Then I can help others easily, falling off a log, you know. This is sort of the approach. Does that make sense? Report an error

18:46 You've been here before. You should be telling them all the answers. You apply what I'm saying. Report an error

18:59 You apply what I'm speaking. Because, you know, like I've had people recently, somebody stole some money from me and I thought, well, this is good. You know, this is helping get rid of something bad. I should be happy about this. And I keep thinking. That's why I'm back. Report an error

19:18 Damn it, why did you steal the money from me? That's right. And so in the blame that I tell myself, and I say, no, this isn't helpful. You need to let go of this and be loving towards yourself. So then? But I was just wondering if you had any other strategies than just telling myself that. Report an error

19:40 Okay, it's like this. It's like I've just described to you Arnie Schwarzenegger. Perfect. Body, blah, blah, blah. That's the goal, right? And then I tell you the method is go to the gym. And what you've just said to me is this. Oh, Robina, I went to the gym yesterday and it didn't work. Report an error

20:00 So what's the answer? I need to keep going. I think you need to do it one, two more million, two million, 20 million times. Because we all know practice makes perfect. But you see, what's kind of ironic and interesting here is because... The grasping, this is the way Buddha talks, at these misconceptions that are deep in the bones of our beings, these voices of ego that feel like absolute truth to us have been there for so long that we can hear that there might be misconceptions but it doesn't change overnight. Report an error

20:32 They're deeply ingrained and so we understand when it comes to being like Mozart or looking like Arnie, it's going to take time and we're prepared to wait because we can see the goal in front of us but when it comes to emotional stuff, We are like children. We don't want to wait. We're like a baby. I want it now. You understand? You've got to have the courage to, I'm going to swear here, if you don't like rude words out of nuns' mouths, block your ears. Report an error

20:57 As one of my therapist friends said, practicing is having your hands in your own shit. You've got to learn to like that. Don't force yourself. But you know, the Buddhist approach, if you're taking Buddha's view as the view you want to use to interpret your world, then it's not just hearing it once. You know, you've got to learn it and hear it and think about it and process it and use it every time something happens to reinterpret. It's a bit like we've got one view of the world right now. Report an error

21:24 A Buddha happens to be arguing that it's a dumb view and it isn't an accurate one. Don't believe him. Then he's got another completely different view and there's a big difference between those. And you're not going to get this view in your head overnight. It just takes time. So you can't kid yourself. Oh, I look like Arnie, really. Report an error

21:41 You've got to know where you're at. You've got to just keep applying the methods. And then, you know, you're going to see some progress in yourself. And that means you've got to start enjoying being where you are, tasting your own shit. I mean, not tasting. The way I say it to myself is that practice is tasting your own vomit. Report an error

22:03 So it's not a dirty word, but it's a dirty concept. It's revolting, but it's like that. Part of the idea we have of spiritual practice is you're out there being all mindful and holding a stupid grin on your face, loving everybody. It's just so cliched, it's embarrassing. Just like going to the gym, it's extremely painful. You're going to feel every muscle that you didn't know you had, but you know it's a good pain. And that's the trick. Report an error

22:26 So practicing in this way, working on your own mind is learning to know yourself very deeply. And that means seeing all your tricky dicks in there, you know, seeing all your ego and your nonsense and your manipulations. Because that's the nature of ego, it's real tricky rubbish. And it's scary to own all that without being guilty, to see it for what it is. So you've got to learn to be brave in the face of all that, you know. Report an error

22:47 Slowly, slowly. Yeah. Give me the mic please. Report an error

22:56 I have a question on compassion and... Having the skillful means. What, darling? Having the skillful means. Yeah. Let's suppose that when I was little, my father used to beat me and my brother. He was very violent. And over the years, I've learned, you know, to forgive him. But in the way, after studying Buddhism, I think beyond just like having chit-chat. Report an error

23:27 Type of conversations with him every time we pick up the phone, it's just like, hi, how are you? Instead of just doing that, that perhaps as a daughter, I have the responsibility to also save him from suffering because if he keeps on being the angry man he is, then in his next lifetime, he'll be causing other people harm as well, himself harm. Report an error

23:52 So I just want to know, you know, Even though I have that intention, but I don't know how to bring it about. Because you're still mad at him a bit, you mean? You feel like a barrier there. A little bit, but still when I see him, it's just like, well, what do I say to him? Okay, okay, so this is interesting. No, I understand very well. So let's just sort of step back for a moment and pretend you're not his daughter, okay? Pretend you're not his daughter and pretend you haven't seen that part of him too much, okay? Report an error

24:20 Does he have a life? Does he have work? Does he have friends? Does he have other things in his life besides his family? You want to meet this man? He divorced twice. He divorced my mom and then he divorced his second wife and he just has my brother who's the closest to him. So, okay, put it like this then. Step back a bit. Does he have some good qualities? Tell me some of his good qualities. Okay, now even closer. Don't step back. Report an error

24:44 Step close. He's your father. So tell me some of the good things he has done for you since you were born. Some of the good things. Things you can't argue with that you just know are true. Report an error

25:01 He, when he wasn't mad, he could be very loving. Okay, he was very loving sometimes. Did he work? Yes. Did he earn money? Yes. And the money kept the house? Yes. And educated you? Yes. And bought your clothes? Yes. And bought the food? Yes. And kept the roof over your head? Yes. That's pretty outrageous, isn't it? Mm-hmm. You look at the people living on the street, they don't have that. Right. You weren't living on the street? Right. Report an error

25:26 So your father did do that? Right. You can't argue with that, can you? Right. It's a powerful thing to be grateful for, for his kindness, going to work every day. All the more reason to be grateful because because of his own anger, he has tortured himself. He feels so guilty. He feels paralyzed by it. He knows it's wrong, right? But he still kept going to work every day. He didn't leave you. That's a pretty tasty thing. Report an error

25:51 Wouldn't you think so? Wouldn't you think so? Something we take for granted. Right. Don't you? Just take it for granted. You didn't say it. You said he's loving. But you didn't think to mention, oh my God, my father actually kept me every day and didn't throw us out on the street and he didn't leave us and leave my mother in the... Report an error

26:05 I mean, you understand my point? You can't say he didn't do that. Right. You see, now this is the point I'm getting to here and this is the fundamentalist point. If we're fundamentalist, which is the partisan mind, and I'm a Democrat, I only like everything that's democratic and I've got to stick to the party line and I hate everything that's Republican, even if it's good. Report an error

26:22 So, the delusions, anger for example in your mind, and this doesn't mean your father's right to have harmed you, it's a fact, it's wrong, but anger in your mind let's say, over exaggerates the whole of your father and paints the whole of your father with that brush. Whereas there are many things about it where he pointed out one thing right now, which is a fact. Report an error

26:45 But we don't see the good things when we only see the bad. And then equally, when we're in love with somebody and attached to them, we only see the nice things and we don't see the bad things. So this is one of the ways that all of our ordinary day-to-day states of mind called attachment and anger lie to us. They don't see the truth. Report an error

27:04 So one excellent way for your own mind and your own meditation, don't exaggerate your father's goodness, make a little checklist of good things that he has done. That you just can't argue with. That they're facts. This will soften your heart. You understand my point? And then you thank him for his kindness eventually. Report an error

27:22 You thank your father for his kindness, for keeping you alive, for educating you, clothing you, feeding you. Thank him for being a good father. Right. It's pretty intense. Right. Working it slowly in your mind. Then you'll see a real human being there. Not this cliched view you have of mean, ugly daddy whom you were scared of as a little girl. Report an error

27:47 Now that's helping him already. That's incredibly powerful. He probably hasn't heard those words. He is full of guilt himself and hates himself. He's not stupid. He knows he's angry and he curses himself daily because he's a good man. So you thank him for his goodness. No one ever says that to him. And also does it... Report an error

28:04 I can't complicate things a little bit because I feel a little bit, I feel I've betrayed him a little bit because my mom actually kind of kidnapped me and took me away from him. Well, that's what happens in families. We become part of that, don't we? That's what happens, exactly. I understand that. I can see it in my family too. My father was, you know, violent, did other things to us. Report an error

28:26 You know, he took the blame. He accepted. He never criticized my mother ever once. I remember that. We didn't see that then. We just thought, mean, ugly daddy. He became the dumping ground of all our anger, you know, because he did this and this and this to us. We never saw the good things about him. It's just we're very cruel to each other, you know. This is what happens. It's politics. It's terrible. Yes. Report an error

28:47 Yes, Julia. Oh, sorry. My question is, aren't we in danger of making her feel guilty about her anger? No, that's up to her to be intelligent, not to feel guilty. Okay. That's her choice. I'm just remarking on it because it's very confusing sometimes when we are angry because we do feel guilty. That's right. We have to sort all that out. We have to sort all that out. Yes, we do. Each person is different. Report an error

29:20 I never had guilt. I just had anger. I was very uncomplicated with mine. Mine was just angry. It was never my fault. It was always yours. Report an error

29:28 But yeah, of course, they're all the things, you know. But she's intelligent enough to know the difference. You can see, look at her. So, that'll do. Yes, go on down, go. Thanks, Robina. You mentioned, back to Arnie. Oh, okay. And not tricking ourselves to think Arnie. Yes, that we're Arnie yet. And to link that with Tantra. Report an error

29:35 So, um... Report an error

29:53 Okay, good. Aren't we... Okay, let's go into that. Aren't we getting into that? I mean, isn't that the purpose of deity? Sure, sure, sure. Let's go into that. Okay. Good, good, good. Thank you. Okay, so now... I understand exactly what he means. It's okay. Report an error

30:10 Okay, now let's look at the... Okay, now let's look at where Tantra, what it means and where it fits with all this, what it means psychologically, okay? Because it's all down to being psychological. Report an error

30:24 Like I said, there's junior school, high school, university, postgraduate, whatever. And tantra is this postgraduate level of psychology, basically. So at the first level, like I said, not even looking at your mind yet. Don't worry about it. Just control your behaviour, please, and be a nice person and don't harm others. Because at least then you protect yourself from doing crazy things which leave imprints in your mind, which will ripen in the future as suffering for yourself. Report an error

30:48 So it's self-protection. You understand my point? That's the first level. Then you begin to start having harness to some extent your crazy physical energy, control your mouth. You begin to have the space to notice what on earth is going on in your own mind. And this is where you really kind of become your own therapist. This is like high school. This is where you really become a Buddhist. The unique approach of the Buddha's entire deal, you know, is based here on the idea of mind. Report an error

31:21 Being personal, being yours and your familiarity with it, your ability to deconstruct it, to distinguish between the lies and the truths, the facts and the fictions, the neuroses and the goodness. This is the key to success. This is the method for then developing your mind to become this marvellous person that you innately have the potential to become. Report an error

31:42 To fully develop the two wings of the bird in other words. So, at the very first level, of this practice of working on your mind. Again, it's still like a level of playing safe. The mind, as far as Buddha is concerned, like I said, one is not physical, two is like a river of mental moments, such that everything you think and say and do leaves like an impression or an imprint in your mind, which we understand well. Report an error

32:13 It's a quaint way of talking about how you practice becoming a musician. If you practice it every day, you're leaving that imprint or that reverberation. All that tendency in your mind, aren't you? We all understand this. That's what he means by karma. It's very simple. We understand it. So the mind, as far as Buddha's concerned, psychologically speaking, really just has three components. Report an error

32:34 Now, first of all, the mind functions two ways, sensory and mental. Sensory and mental. The key is mental. The senses are like dumb animals, you know, leading up garden paths, but very limited power in reality. The mental consciousness, as Lama Zopa puts it, is where the workshop is and that's what we have to become familiar with. This is what we have to deeply, deeply understand. Report an error

32:59 So the components of our mental consciousness are simply three. Positive states of mind, negative states of mind and neutral states of mind. Well let's forget the neutral. Let's look at the positive and the negative. So at this stage of practice, our main concern is the negative. Not to make you feel guilty, because no, on the contrary, it's to help you see what it is that's breaking your heart. Report an error

33:28 You know, it's like if you, we know that the word water refers to that pure, clear stuff, but we all know it can be polluted. So when someone tells you, you know, wow, you know, Robina, the water can be depolluted, it's naturally pure, you get very excited. So you want to get your hands in your own shit. You want to go knee deep in that garbage, don't you? To identify the pollution so you can remove it. So that's the attitude we need to have towards our mind. Report an error

33:55 It's a self-preservation thing. It's a self-respectful thing, not a guilty thing. You've got to want to know the stuff that's hurting you. You know, it's like we understand this when it comes to eating food. We're all geniuses. We're all great nutritionists when it comes to food. We know exactly what food we shouldn't eat and should eat. Report an error

34:12 Why? Because we know what will cause suffering or happiness. So we're very selective. You're not feeling guilty about, you know, that. You're very sensible. You realize if you eat that, it'll cause you suffering. So you don't eat it. So you have to know nutrition. Well, here we're talking mental nutrition. So Buddha, being very simple, he says, what causes us pain and suffering right now, forget about acting it out and what leaves imprints for future suffering, is the stuff that we all know. Report an error

34:38 Anger, jealousy, low self-esteem, guilt, depression. Self-loathing, all this junky, junky stuff we are knee deep in, you know. So we have to become familiar. So this sounds peculiar to us because we think of it as emotional. So how can I become familiar with an emotion, we think. Because I think, you know, so the Buddha's view about mind is really very simple and it sounds a bit deceptively simple but like in all of this stuff it needs thinking about. Report an error

35:08 You know. Like I said as a kid, I knew I was angry because I expressed it out in my mouth and with my body, you know. The words came out loud, my eyes were big, the tears were coming, the spit was coming out and the fists were kicking and punching, you know. Oh, Robina's angry, you would have said. You would see this little thing. But the person next door, my sister Polly, she didn't express anger. Report an error

35:32 She was like internal. So she would have, she would have, she'd become quiet, you know. So you'd say, oh Polly's not angry, Robina's angry, but in Polly's mind, raging angry, but it didn't come out her mouth. Now some of you people know exactly what I'm talking about. And it takes longer for you people to notice you're angry, doesn't it? Until you can't get out of bed one day because you're so depressed. Do you understand my point? Because, and often because we're so ignorant about what goes on in our own minds, unless it comes out the mouth, we don't think we think it. Report an error

36:02 So which is why we need to become familiar. And then we start to uncover. So my point is this. If you wrote down all those raging thoughts you were having, because you could have begun to hear them, even though you weren't expressing them, and you then, in one little book, and then you transcribe my raging and shouting in another little book, and then you mix them all up, you couldn't tell whose was what, would you? Report an error

36:27 Because they both sound like angry thoughts, don't they? The words are angry, aren't they? You get my point here. But I shouted mine, but you didn't. So the shouting is not the point. Okay, the shouting is the point because it harms others. At least you didn't harm others. You just had it to yourself. You get my point. Report an error

36:41 But if it comes down to the mind, we both have angry thoughts. And that's where the anger exists. My anger harms you as well. Yours didn't. That's a bonus. But we both have got angry thoughts. So the emotion comes down to thoughts, doesn't it? It's all in there racing on in our heads. And that's thoughts. You have to agree it's thoughts, don't you? It's simply thoughts, which are concepts. So anger is conceptual. Report an error

37:06 It's just that in some cases it's dressed up in a big fat loud package. You understand my point? And so the Buddhist approach of being your own therapist, based upon single-pointed concentration meditation techniques, you know, is the skill we need to develop to begin to see and hear what the hell is going on in our own heads. Report an error

37:26 A thousand miles a minute. You get my point here, people. It's not rocket science, but it kind of is for us, you know. But this is what the job is. So you're going to soon discover that the mind is racing a million miles an hour. It's like, it's just like kind of just one constant noise. And we can't distinguish one bit from another most of the time until it's very loud. But that's too late. We have to be able to hear it before it gets to the mouth. Report an error

37:54 And that's where this simple, practical, watching your breath meditation comes in. It's just the skill you learn. It helps you focus your mind enough to begin to give you the space to hear the crazy chaos in there. So it's very often, as the Lamas would say, we think we're getting worse when we start to meditate, quote unquote. You're not getting worse. You're just beginning to notice your own crazy mind, that's all. Report an error

38:18 So that's where you start to have to have the courage, you know. of tasting your own garbage and not being guilty about it. No way, Julian. You learn to be happy to see it. You're so grateful because The same with our mind. And that's why I think for us in our culture, it's incredibly important to hear again and again. Report an error

38:51 Buddha's approach, that we've all got this marvellous potential. Because the context for your wanting to see your garbage is your marvellous potential. If you just think it's to make yourself feel guilty, well don't bother. You get my point, leave yourself alone. But if you know you can turn into some amazing person. Report an error

39:08 With love and compassion and wisdom, no matter how long it takes, you want to discover the pieces of you that are causing you not to be this way. So it's for your own sake. And we have to cultivate that because our knee-jerk reaction now, as Julian is pointing out, is to feel guilty. But we have to conquer that. Do you get my point, people? Report an error

39:26 And we have to investigate. It's all very fine to say we've all got Buddha nature. Oh, la-di-da, we can all be great. But you've got to find out what it is that's stopping you from being great because that's the stuff you change. So in other words, it's this. Buddha's saying we have the potential to be happy, and I don't mean like hyperventilating happy, to degrees that we can't even conceive of as natural in our culture. Report an error

39:49 We have such a limited view of what we think happiness means. Buddha just says we can be astonishing people. So, okay, we hear that, we go, oh great. So then what we start doing spontaneously is start searching for happiness like you look for a needle in a haystack. Where is it? You know, is it the handsome new boyfriend? Is it another hundred dollars? Is it this job? We always look out there because that's our method. Buddha says, but that's nuts. Report an error

40:14 So we think happiness is what you get when you get what you want. You understand? But no, Buddha says it's much simpler than that. Happiness is what you get when you get rid of the neuroses. Do you see my point? That's simple. It's outrageously simple, but it's hard to hear it because we're so addicted to believing it's out there. So we think the problems are out there. We think the causes of a suffering are out there. Report an error

40:43 So we spend all our energy trying to manipulate out there. But actually, Buddha says, just change your own mind, Robina. You will then find it. This doesn't mean the person still doesn't punch me in the nose. But, you know, I always think bad enough that you're being punched in the nose, why be miserable as well? You know? Report an error

41:00 So at least you can learn to change the way you see things. Report an error

41:05 So where does this fit with Tandra still? We're getting there, I promise. All of this is context. We're still in high school. Report an error

41:15 So we're learning to look at our mind. we're in high school Report an error

41:17 We're learning to investigate the causes of our own suffering, which implies a lot of self-respect. Like, wow, I've got potential. This is incredible. And it doesn't mean sort of lovey-dovey, you're hugging and feeling yourself like a silly kind of idea. It's a genuine self-respect. It comes with a dignity and a natural sense of your own worth as you're a human being. Report an error

41:38 Because the irony of ego is we hate ourselves. That's it. This is kind of bizarre, you know. So ironic. So crazy. So this is real self-respect, but which implies responsibility. It implies I can do it, which brings courage. That's high school, already pretty incredible. So when you really accomplish that, that's what wisdom is. Because this is the interesting point here too. This is really a very unique approach of Buddhist psychology and you'll see it. Report an error

42:08 There are two consequences of having the neuroses for yourself. One is you're plain old miserable. But two is, you are out of sync with reality. So the more I have anger towards Julian, you know, for being the cause of all my suffering, the more I'm miserable, but the more ugly and revolting and evil he appears to me. Report an error

42:31 And I'm just made up a story. Julian isn't that, you know. Anger makes up a big, fat, ugly story. If I'm in love with Julian and I'm attached to him, I think he's the ant's pants. He disappears like this hunky-dory, perfect person. Who is the complete cause of all my happiness. It's a complete exaggeration. So when two consequences of the delusions is one, they make you miserable, but two, they are liars. Report an error

42:57 You have no wisdom at all. And therefore, of course, the consequences for others are that you harm them. Look at the world. So, the consequences of getting rid of the garbage is one, you get more happy, but two, you get more wise. That's how you get wisdom. How you get wisdom in Buddhism is removing the delusions. You might think you want wisdom. We all know we want happiness, but they come together. Report an error

43:22 So it's a really interesting approach, actually. And you can see it in your own mind. You can see in your own mind how it works. So when you've got wisdom, hey, guess what? The world isn't just now full of mean, ugly people out there who are the cause of all your suffering. All these gorgeous divine ones you've got to grasp at who are the cause of all your happiness. You've got more equanimity now. Report an error

43:42 You're stepping back a bit. You see people as they are. They're not just seen through the filter of your own neuroses, which they are now for us with ego. You're actually your own person. You're fulfilled. You're blissful. You're clear. You're wise. You can see others for what they are. And guess what? You can see why they're suffering too. The same reason as you. Your own neuroses. Report an error

44:00 Their own rubbish actions. So now you can help them. That's the compassion wing. That's university. Now you're qualified. You're qualified to see others more objectively. You see that they're in the same boat as you. You see that they're angry, they're jealous, they're attached, they're depressed. You know all about that because you just spent all your wisdom wing working on it. You know exactly where they're at because you've been there yourself. Report an error

44:22 Now your heart reaches out to them. You know how to fix yourself because you've done it. Now you can help them do the same. That's the compassion wing. So as His Holiness often says at Dalai Lama, compassion is not enough. We all have gooey hearts now for people, but it's not based on wisdom. He says, compassion is not enough, you need wisdom. Report an error

44:40 And wisdom is what you get by working on your own mind, getting rid of the garbage, okay? That's high school. Now we've got university. Now you help others. Now you're ready for postgraduate. By now you've got this phenomenal wisdom. You've gone beyond all the delusions. You've gone beyond ego. You're this huge, vast, marvellous, content, wise being. You're totally empathetic with others. Report an error

44:59 You see why they're suffering. You have compassion for this reason. You're not into the victim and oppressor mode. So let's talk a bit more about compassion before we go to postgraduate. So let's look at, okay, what is compassion then? It's a very helpful thing. Well, right now we have compassion. For others, it's like empathy with their suffering. But we only have compassion for victims and even more narrow, the people who are victims of, you know, who people we like, our friends and victims. Report an error

45:31 Why? What's the logic of that? The logic of that is a person who is a victim is a person who's been harmed by some mean, ugly person. So when you have compassion for a victim, you automatically are angry at the mean, ugly person who did it. Well, that's the compassion of the world, isn't it? George Bush has compassion for his people, but he has to drop bombs on the people who do it to his people. Osama bin Laden, there's no doubt he has immense compassion for his people. Report an error

45:55 He sacrificed his life, you know, that guy. He's given all his money. He walks around with a breathing tank because he's ill. But look at the anger and rage he has at the people who harm his people, you know. May they all burn in hell forever. Well, that's the compassion of everybody. It's kind of hard, you know, I mean, you know, when you watch that silly old Sopranos thing or those Mafia things, they have incredible compassion for their people, but they torture the ones who do it to them. Report an error

46:19 I mean, where's compassion, you know? We're completely ridiculous. It's so ego-based. It's completely enemy, friend and stranger, you know. So once you've got these two down, you've got the wisdom wing down, which is based on the simple logic of karma, that I am responsible for my own suffering and my own happiness, and that therefore I'm suffering because of my own past negative actions. Report an error

46:41 So then you have compassion for yourself, right? Because this is called renunciation, but it's really like compassion for yourself. One, I'm fed to the teeth with suffering. But two, I finally know why. My own ridiculous past actions and my stupid old delusions, so I'm now going to get rid of them. That's what really renunciation is, which is compassion for yourself. Once you've got that for yourself, it's easy to have it for other people. Report an error

47:05 So then you see a person suffering, or crucially, you see a person harming another. Your heart breaks for them. Why? One, you know why they're being harmed, or you know why they're harming, because of past actions, and two, because of their delusions. So it's like the compassion that a mother has for her junkie kid. Everybody else hates the junkie kid. He's a troublemaker. He steals things. He's horrible to be around. Report an error

47:30 Her heart breaks for him. Why? Because he is harming himself. That's the basis of compassion. The basis of compassion for a Buddhist is that others are harming themselves. And you have to have that for yourself first. Then compassion is stable. Once you've got it for yourself, it's not hard to have compassion for the murderer of your child. And I'm really not kidding here. Report an error

47:52 But you've got to do the wisdom work first on yourself. You've got to have renunciation. You've got to recognize karma, recognize cause and effect, take responsibility, have a big heart, be brave, not be a victim. When you know you are responsible for your own garbage and your own good, it's easy to have compassion for others. Because you can see the harm they're doing to themselves. Report an error

48:13 And your heart breaks for them because of their incredible ignorance. It's true, honest. So you've got to work on yourself. You can't force yourself to have compassion when you're too unstable in yourself. Don't go there. Leave them alone. Work on yourself first. It's so important. Report an error

48:31 So the university one is really the practice of compassion, this unbelievable continuing of expanding of your heart to encompass others. All the wisdom wing is you working on your own mind. You're continuing to do this, but now you're encompassing others. You're working on your own self, step by step. All the practices are laid out, you know. So now what you do is you can enter postgraduate and take real quick methods, practice speedy methods for quickly transforming yourself, becoming who you really are. Report an error

48:59 So what's the logic here? So it's okay. If we look right back at junior school, the cause of all our suffering is our neuroses, our anger, attachment, jealousy, pride and all the rest and the stupid actions we do with our body and speech on the basis of them to harm others. So first level, zip your lip and keep your hands to yourself. Second level, begin to know your mind and start to change this junky stuff. At least don't follow it for your own sake. Report an error

49:30 So at this level you're recognizing one of the main causes of suffering is what Buddha refers to as attachment. So this word is bandied about, you know. But let's get clear what the Buddha means by it. Otherwise it's a lot of misconceptions. And this is the key to understanding Tantra. Attachment, effectively, when it comes to the Four Noble Truths, which is one of the many packagings of Buddha's teachings, is the main cause of suffering in day-to-day life. Report an error

49:59 Now, with our view of the word attachment, that sounds quite shocking. We think of it in a very cliched way. Oh, I love chocolate cake, I must be attached, you know. It's a very cliched view. So let's look at what attachment is. But we've done a little bit of work already, so we can understand it, when we see how all these emotions we have are just the packaging on top of the bare bones of these concepts. Report an error

50:24 So one of the key functions of all the neurotic states of mind. is, very simply, that they embellish certain characteristics of the object or the thing or the event or whatever it is that we're angry with or attached to. And effectively, attachment and anger are the two main ones that our mind goes like crazy people between, a thousand million times a day. It's like the bipolar mode, and I swear I'm not kidding. Report an error

50:53 When you're full of attachment, your mind is completely overexcited. Everything looks so divine. You think everything is perfect. Finally, I found my soulmate. Now I've found happiness. Now everything's fantastic. You're all overexcited. We all know that state of mind. Well, you're up in the up mode of the bipolar, aren't you? Everything's perfect, you know? Except that when you've really got what's called bipolar, when you go, it's just a degree, that's all. Report an error

51:15 Buddha says we're all bipolar. It's just a question of degree. So when you're called bipolar in our culture, it's because you think you're Mozart or you can fly in the sky or something. You've really lost the plot, you know? You're really embellishing something. You get my point? But most of us are in this mode every day. So when the bubble bursts, which is bound to be, because it's not true, but now I've found happiness, everything is perfect, you've made it up. Report an error

51:37 When the bubble bursts, where do you go? Well, the higher the bubble is, the more you crash down. That's the down mode of bipolar, which is called aversion or depression. Depression is just internalised aversion, let's face it. And aversion is the state of mind beneath what we call anger or depression. Report an error

51:54 So when you have attachment, everything that you see looks gorgeous, doesn't it? All kind of buzzy and lovely and bright. You wake up every morning, everything's so exciting. Oh, wow, fantastic. The world's a great place. Wow, far out. Then, when the bubble bursts and you wake up in the morning, you want to kill yourself because everything looks revolting. Report an error

52:13 It looks so revolting, doesn't it? Now, we know we go between these two a thousand times a day. The key to understanding it is the state of mind called attachment and the state of mind called aversion. Report an error

52:24 Attachment is this overexcited embellishing of the chocolate cake, the person, the body, the thing, the next job, the next second, whatever it might be, that we grasp at like a vampire, believing when I get that, then I'll get happy. So it brings expectations, it brings manipulation, controlling, it brings possessiveness. All of these are functions of this attachment. Report an error

52:47 And its raw energy is simply called in Buddhist psychology dissatisfaction. But a lovely term for us in our culture for this is neediness. We are like these bottomless pits of neediness. Now you ask the question, why am I needy? This gets you to the root of the root delusions that is the very nature of ego. And that's this deep primordial assumption of this big fat concrete I. Report an error

53:19 So the irony of this one, the ego grasping they call it, is that It's kind of the ironic thing of it is it's actually pinhead big. And the more strong the grasping, the more rigid the mind, the more needy, the more hungry, the more you manipulate, the more you jump your neediness onto the cake, the person, the thing, the event, the next week, next month, next day, next something, frantically looking out there for this thing that you are convinced that when you get it you'll get happy. Report an error

53:45 That's how we live our lives. That's what we mean by happiness. Well Buddha calls it a mental illness. It's attachment. So aversion or anger or depression, as one Lama put it, they are the response when attachment doesn't get what it wants. Real simple. And that's a million times a day. The red light. The irritating sound. The person not giving you what you want when you want it. Report an error

54:13 Because the voice of attachment is frantic. Desperate. I've got to get it now. You know? Believing when I get it, I'll get happy. But it's all a lie, Buddha says. So attachment is effectively the main cause of our suffering. So the very first level of practice is at least don't go to the ninth piece of chocolate cake. Report an error

54:34 Keep your hands controlled. Then you begin to really be your own therapist in high school. You start to understand and deconstruct this attachment. Begin to harness it this way. Then on the compassion wing, you're so together now, you've so controlled this, you've so harnessed it, you deeply understand it, you've purified so much of it, you're so open to others now, your compassion is so huge and grown, you know. Report an error

54:59 So there's no danger of grasping anymore. You sort of mightn't have got all the way yet, but you're pretty together. And you, sort of like at the very first level, leave the cake on the plate. The second level, you begin to harness your attachment, you might even be able to have the cake and even know what's going on without your mind going berserk, a little bit. Report an error

55:17 But the third level, compassion, you're able to happily eat that cake because your compassion is, for the sake of another, because your compassion is so more powerful than your silly old attachment by now. And then finally, you get to the top level, the highest level, you know, postgraduate, you are able to actually have the cake. Report an error

55:37 And not only is it no danger, it actually activates your attachment, but your mind is so profound now, so skillful, you can learn to utilize that attachment, like a person who's a very skillful doctor or medicine can utilize poison as medicine on the path. Report an error

55:56 Does that make sense? It's just a philosophical concept. So Tantra is about that. Report an error

56:03 Lama Yeshi's book, by the way, it's out there. We've only got about six or eight copies. We're going to give you a 20 % discount on it. It's called Introduction to Tantra. And Lama Yeshi, my teacher, he was marvellous at explaining this stuff in a very down-to-earth psychological way for us Western minds. Report an error

56:18 And I highly recommend it. And if there aren't enough and you want to buy a copy, please, if Karina's there or somebody in the shop, just make a note and we'll get copies for you. It's a brilliant book. Or you get it on Amazon or something. It's called Introduction to Tantra. By Lama Yeshi. And it's describing what I'm talking here, the psychology, you know. So is it making sense here? Okay. Report an error

56:40 So the highest level practitioners, those who've gone beyond attachment, completely control their body and speech, gone beyond attachment, enormous compassion, realizing emptiness just about, they're really highly advanced. They can engage in the object, as Lama Yeshi puts it, without the mind going berserk at all. And they can activate the attachment, this simple capacity to embellish something. Report an error

56:58 But because they're so under control of the whole deal, they're no longer in the thrall of it. We're like little babies now, like junkies. We're sucked in, you know, like a little kid putting in the M &Ms. No control at all. But they're able to have the M &Ms, can see exactly what's going on, understand the nature of their mind, have compassion, have wisdom and can utilize the energy that is generated in their meditation. Report an error

57:20 I mean, that's a broad idea about it. Very broad, psychologically speaking. Report an error

57:26 The thing that he's pointing to, there's a whole approach in Tantra of what they call having divine pride. It's such a sweet phrase. The very beginning path, remember, you're looking at your own shit. You're seeing the garbage in you. You're not identifying with it. You know you've got potential. You're never being miserable about it. Report an error

57:46 You're delighted to find it. But you're not painting yourself with that brush. You've got the courage to see the garbage in you. You have to focus on that. But by this point, you're so harnessed that stuff, you're now actively enhancing the goodness within you. That's what you're doing in Tantra. So you're learning in these meditations to actually imagine yourself as a divine being, completely perfect, body made of light, totally blissful, embodying completely all the perfect qualities of a Buddha. Report an error

58:13 So it's a bit like what we call positive thinking. It's a bit like... I remember watching the tennis one time when Serena was playing in Melbourne and the camera got her writing in her little journal during the break and she was writing all these positive things, I can win, I will win thee something. Report an error

58:27 You understand, it's like this, imagining yourself winning the gold medal. That's the meaning of Tantra. When you're at the beginning of the training, you're seeing how you did everything wrong, your elbows in the wrong place, you did the hit the wrong thing, but now at this level you're going, you're visualising yourself winning the thing, you're imagining yourself perfect. Report an error

58:45 That's what tantra is. It's a very powerful positive psychology. And it's been around for several thousand years. Mr. Martin Seligman thinks he invented it. 20 years ago or something. It's okay. I'm happy he found out that Buddha's right. Report an error

59:02 It's positive psychology basically. So here what he's talking about here is, right now you live in the fantasy world of thinking after one day at the gym, oh I'm really Arnie already. That's delusional. But Tantra would say you visualise yourself as Arnie and that imagining that you are Arnie is a cause of becoming it. Report an error

59:20 Like visualising yourself winning the medal is a cause of becoming it because you've got positive thinking. You get my point? So it's a real distinctive difference. It's positive psychology basically. Very, very powerful. And it's necessary as an antidote to this ridiculous ego, because ego is addicted to misery. That's the irony of ego. Report an error

59:38 You listen to your heads all day, all it's doing is finding fault. With whom? You. And then other people, if they dare to say something about you. But what's interesting, you'll say, oh, he hates me, it's not fair, he said I'm doing this. You know the only reason you care about why he hates you? It's because he's agreeing with you. Report an error

59:58 27 people can tell you you're beautiful. You go, yeah. Begging to hear it still, but you do not believe one word. One person says you're a creep. Which one do you believe 100 %? You understand my point? This is the proof. That's why we think other people are all the cause of our suffering. It's just that we agree with them. Report an error

1:00:17 That's why we focus on them. Because that's what we think. But when we know we are a good person and somebody else criticizes, it's water off a duck's back. So that's how we can learn about daily life. When people are mean to us and unkind to us, if it burns us up and we go on about it, it's because that's what we think anyway. Report an error

1:00:33 You get my point? It's scary, but our own view of ourself is what runs the show, not anybody else's view. But when your mind is fragile, which we all are, this is what ego is, look at the crazies around the streets. Believing they're evil and demons because they have lost the plot, you know? Join the club, we're all pretty close to it. Report an error

1:00:52 It doesn't take too much for your mind to tip over. And it's the negative mind. It's the negativity. Always criticizing. Always finding fault. Being paranoid. Thinking people are being mean to you. Being paranoid about what people think. Look at our crazy minds. Now, the tragedy is we in our culture think this is normal. But Buddha says we're all mentally ill. Report an error

1:01:09 Because he is saying we have potential to be so much more powerful than this. But we just assume this is normal. And we don't even mostly try to be different. We just try to keep a smile on our face and hope we can hold it together. Report an error

1:01:20 You understand? Report an error

1:01:24 So does that all make sense, people? All right. Three o 'clock. So Tantra basically is a very advanced level of psychological approach to... I'm not even going to begin to go into the way the practices work. It's kind of like quite technical. As Lama Yeshi says, Tantra is highly technical. But it's to understand the psychology of it. And that's why Lama Yeshi's book is just great. I really, really recommend it. Introduction to Tantra. It's wonderful. Report an error

1:01:56 It really helps demystify this stuff, you know. But it's basically, you know, utilizing all the stuff of yourself as a method for quickly becoming this marvelous person that you have the potential innately to be. This is really the way Buddha is saying, you know. It's the best way to say it, actually. So all these pictures, you know, these seemingly esoteric Indian, Tibetan, ancient, you know, thousands of year old art. Report an error

1:02:26 Art. Art represents just, you know, different aspects, if you like. They're like archetypes. So here we've got, you know, Manjushri. See this one all covered in gold? He's got a sword. The sword's got fire on the tip. Manjushri. Shri is like Lord. Manjhu, gentle voice. He represents... Wisdom. The sword represents cutting through ignorance. I mean, it's sort of like obvious really, but it's just cute and sweet because it's visual, you know. So this kind of art is actually highly meaningful. Report an error

1:03:01 It's like an elaborate visual language. If you had the word wisdom written out, well that's a visual way of representing exactly that. And like any language, if you don't speak it... If you speak Greek and you see the Arabic letters wisdom, it will mean nothing to you. So once you've learned that language, then it begins to have meaning for you. Report an error

1:03:25 So Manjushri is this cultural thing since India for thousands of years as a way of representing the meaning of wisdom. His sword is here and this text is there and that represents this and holding his feet this way and something over that way. Then this one over here, this green lady. See the green lady behind you? Report an error

1:03:44 Again with all these other ladies around, 21 of them. They're all different manifestations of this female idea of a Buddha. Tara means liberator. And she's often called the liberator from the fears of saṃsāra. Saṃsāra is Buddha's word for being caught up in these crazy neuroses that we're all caught up in. Report an error

1:04:04 So she represents, female form often represents power. She represents power. So three essential qualities, psychologically speaking, of Buddha, full development of your mind. Three essential qualities, like I said before, wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is being in sync with how things are and compassion is empathy with others and they come together. The third quality you need is power. Report an error

1:04:30 So you've got the wisdom to know how things are, you've got compassion to want to help others, but power is the capacity to do so. So that's often represented as a female one and green. So Tara represents power, you know, power to act, cut through the obstacles, make things happen. That's what she represents, power. He represents wisdom. Report an error

1:04:52 This one back here, the white one with four arms, that's Chen Rezig, compassionate eyed one and he represents the compassion wing. So there's, I mean, you know, it's Tibetan art based on the Indian art and it's a visual language. They represent psychological qualities. So broadly speaking, when you're doing these kinds of practices, you're imagining this form in front of you made of light, you know, and you're giving it that meaning. Report an error

1:05:19 You know the meaning of it. You're practicing seeing it as that meaning. You're visualizing it and then you're visualizing light coming and purifying you. Then you visualize it absorbing into you and you become Tara. You have this divine pride of, say, I am Tara. I'm fully developed, wisdom, blah, blah, blah. You say the mantras of these different ones. Report an error

1:05:37 These are just verbal expressions of these psychological states. So they're ways of just developing your body and your speech and your mind in these qualities. Report an error

1:05:48 Do you understand the point? In other words, if you think every day, you know, positive things, forgive your enemies and love your old husband and let go of meanness about your father and really work on your own mind, don't be surprised you become a nice, happy person. I mean, it really is not rocket science, you know. But we are so schizophrenic, we don't understand that. We know that if you play tennis every day, you're going to be good at tennis. But we don't understand that if you're angry every day, you're going to get angry. Report an error

1:06:14 We just think to blame everybody else for it. It's just nuts, you know. You get my point? It's so kind of obvious that we really have lost the plot of it. So by all the Buddhist view is saying is what you think, what you feel is what you become. I mean, excuse me, you know, what's the main cause of my walking out that door? It is not my legs. If I'm sitting here saying I want to sit in my chair and suddenly my legs pick me up and throw me towards the door, I'd get a big surprise, wouldn't I? Report an error

1:06:44 The main cause of my walking out that door is my thought. I will walk out the door. So it's sort of obvious. If my fist goes into Julian's nose, you're not going to see me smiling with full of love and saying, oh Julian, I love you. You get my point here. That you know, you can deduce there's something going on in my mind here that forced my fist out there. So it's not rocket science to see that the mind is the source of what we do say and think. Report an error

1:07:12 That's all. Buddha takes this one and he runs with this. This is his method. His expertise is this one. We understand it when it comes to being tennis players and psychiatrists. We're geniuses there, but we just don't get it when it comes to emotional stuff. We kind of haven't put two and two together, you know, because we're so obsessed with it being the brain. You understand my point? Report an error

1:07:33 It's fascinating. So it's not something we don't understand. I'm just trying to put it into our own context so we see it as not something esoteric. Report an error

1:07:44 So Tantra is like positive thinking. It's like supreme, amazing, positive thinking based upon all the other work you've done in junior school, high school and all the rest. So you know your mind's world. You know the delusions. You've harnessed them to a huge degree. You've purified your mind. You've really developed some wisdom. You've got amazing compassion. Report an error

1:08:04 The more you keep progressing in that way, the more you can just naturally have a happy mind. So naturally you can become more positive, more blissful, more clear. So then naturally you can even imagine yourself as being a fully developed being, as a major cause for becoming just that. Because finally, everything is made by the mind, including enlightenment. It doesn't come from out there. It's our mind that does it. Report an error

1:08:31 Which is really pointing all the time through to Buddha's view, Buddha's teachings on emptiness. These amazing wisdom teachings of the Buddha. All of the stuff we've said today. Implies this. There's nothing from its own side. Our mind gives it what it is. Our mind progressively and even in the way we see things makes things what they are. Report an error

1:08:57 There's no thing from its own side that has this or that inherent quality. Finally, we make it that. We give it that power. We cause it to become that. Report an error

1:09:13 This is the real meaning of Buddhism teachings. It's outrageous. So delicious. Report an error

1:09:22 I remember one time talking about Manjushri actually and a person was saying, don't be ridiculous Lama, how can I think of myself as an orange light body holding a sword? It just doesn't seem real to me, you know. And Lama said, what makes you think you're real? So it's only because of so many lives, Buddha says, we've grasped ourselves as I'm human, I'm this, I'm female, I'm that. Report an error

1:09:44 We make it concrete, you know. And the more concrete your mind, the less you think you can change. The more flexible your mind, the more you know you can change. And if we look at the way we see ourselves and how we define ourselves every day, it's most fascinating. I remember talking in prisons quite a lot. I asked this question. It struck me first a few years ago, 10 years ago on the East Coast, I was in this prison in DC. Report an error

1:10:08 And all these guys came to the gym for this public talk on Buddhism, you know. And many of the guys happened to be black because that's... D.C. and all these guys were in prison and half of them had their ex as their second name and they were all being, you can tell, all being very serious about studying and looking at the meaning of life and who they are and of course being a male American, a male black in this country, given the history of this country, it's obvious, you're redefining who you are, you know, it's obvious, it makes sense. Report an error

1:10:34 So I remember all these guys asking questions and things about karma, you know, and then one of them, kind of they stopped and he said, you mean I could be born a white man? Because you've got the idea, which is the Buddha's view, that you're not stuck in being male or female or black or white, but look how we define ourselves according to this life. And sometimes it can be so narrow you define yourself in terms of I'm a democrat and you kill yourself if you change, you know. Report an error

1:10:58 So I am male, I am this. So clearly you could see it was a shock to his mind to think that being a black person wasn't what defined at the core of his being. But look how we define all ourselves. But I didn't tell him he'd be born a white woman. Report an error

1:11:14 And I thought, because all of us would be shocked by that. And then I often checked, then I checked up with these guys and other guys. I said, how do you define yourselves? Every one of them, even though race is huge in this country, everyone said finally the male or the female was the main one. Not even the race. Isn't that interesting? Report an error

1:11:33 Being a black, a white man was less shocking than being a white woman. The white was bad enough. But to change the female to male, because you look at how we define ourselves. We have these very powerful labels. So the point is, you might be a white man, black woman, Australian nun. These are relative labels and you can't argue with these and they're very reasonable. This is the thing about what exists and what doesn't. You've got to say that's a microphone. If you think that's a knife, you're going to be in trouble, folks. Report an error

1:12:01 It won't cut your toast. It's a microphone, please. This is Robina. This is not Julian. Don't get confused here. But the point that Buddha is saying what we do is we then try to set that in stone and say that is who I am in my very being which means I'm stuck with it. And all the Buddha is saying is honey it ain't. You are a male, you are Julian but it's not finally what defines you. And a simple way to put what Buddha is saying what defines us is goodness. Report an error

1:12:35 Goodness defines us, our Buddha nature, that's all. You know, what defines us is that. Not your maleness, not your femaleness, because in Buddhism there's very detailed descriptions of the death process, right? You know, deconstructing, deconstructing, deconst... Oh, gentlemen, am I late? I'm sorry, I'm holding you up. Goodbye. Okay. No, you, no. Keep rolling. Okay. Report an error

1:12:56 Okay. So, you know, it's like at the time of death, the way Buddha's saying... OK. Report an error

1:13:01 Is that we, kind of this package, that is a real package, Robina, female, this, that, whatever, it deconstructs, deconstructs, deconstructs, to the point where only your very subtle mind is left, very subtle consciousness. And a simple way to talk about that is, it's as if that's the repository of all the karmic imprints, that's the programming, that's the computer chip, right? Report an error

1:13:22 There's no male there, no female, no Robina, no this, no that. There's just the potentials, that consciousness, and it's propelled on autopilot. And a highly complex process of what ripens and what seeds and so on that will propel itself forward and then desperate because it's still the ego grasping there to find a new basis of another eye depending on the karmic imprints that have been most prevalent. Report an error

1:13:46 This is roughly speaking how Buddha would say. So what defines us finally is the potential, our potential for goodness. A really simple analogy I like to use is if you look at an acorn, you could call it a jewel. You could call it a weapon. You could even use it as a weapon. You could call it dinner, you know, like a little something or other and eat it. But what is it really? What is it that defines an acorn? Report an error

1:14:10 What is it fundamentally, at the core of its being, what is an acorn? It's not a tricky question. It's a seed for what? Okay, so a cute way to put it, using Buddhist terminology, is it possesses oak tree nature. You hear my point? So Buddhism says, oh, we all have Buddha nature. We all make these ridiculous ideas of what we think that means. Report an error

1:14:29 You don't talk like this. Oh, there, you know, we don't say, oh, it possesses oak tree nature. But we get the meaning. You get my point. We understand the meaning. But all Buddha's saying about mind, yours and mine, everyone else's, is what defines it finally is its potential to be perfect, fully developed. Report an error

1:14:47 So if you look at an acorn, unless you've been taught, you can never see the relationship between that little funny thing and an oak tree, can you? It's not evident, is it? You have to learn it. But once you know that is what it actually is, aren't you very silly not to give it the conditions it needs to help it become what it really is, an oak tree? Report an error

1:15:03 So the Buddha is saying that. So here we are born as humans with our very powerful egos grasping. I am this Australian, this blah, black, white, none, this Democrat, footballer. We kind of try to polish up our little acorn every day thinking I'm just an acorn. Oh yeah, I'm a little acorn polishing, put new hats on every day. Forgetting that you can go beyond being an acorn to be fully developed in all the goodness in you. Report an error

1:15:25 And the potential is there. No one puts it inside you. It's not hit and miss. It's not as if only Mother Teresa's have it. If you've got a mind, if you're a sentient being, this is who you really are. And there's something very logical about this if we look into our own minds and we have to do that thinking, not just believe it, you know. Report an error

1:15:43 So then if we can identify with that part of ourselves and you're practicing Tantra, you become it very, very quickly. You enhance that part of you. But right now with ego, what we're doing every day is reinforcing ego, reinforcing the anger, reinforcing I'm miserable, reinforcing I'm hopeless, reinforcing I'm no good, I can't do it, it's not fair, poor me. Report an error

1:16:02 You get my point here? We stay stuck in our little baby box, you know. So Tantra is like where you blow your brains out of your little baby box and you identify with your potential of goodness, of compassion, wisdom and you enhance that every day. And given the Buddhist view that every microsecond of every thought you ever have counts, it is a seed necessarily that will bring a fruit, then wow, you know, you just sit back and relax and just keep putting the right seeds in and the results will come, honey. Report an error

1:16:35 It's not hit and miss. We think happiness is hit and miss. We think, you know, religion is hit and miss, spiritual is hit and miss. It's so superstitious. Buddha says it's logical, progressive, logical, step by step, cause and effect. That's it. No reason to panic. No reason to worry. Just sit back and sow the right seeds and relax and have a happy mind. That's it. Report an error

1:16:59 It's only 3.20. It can't be it yet. But let's have some questions now, okay? Any questions? Go on. Report an error

1:17:13 Do you want a break? Do you want a pee-pee break? Maybe it's a pee-pee break. Is it? Do you want to have a pee-pee break then? Oh, okay. Never mind. Just keep talking. Okay. I really appreciate your... It really describes the stages that I experienced, especially the part about how because I've been miserable for so long, I'm very good at it. Report an error

1:17:37 For instance, during practice, I really feel for what she was saying. So you've been meditating for one year, two years, three years. And then you say, oh, you know, I've been meditating for a while, but you know, I'm still not happy yet. That's right. And so it means I'm really not good at it. Now I really feel bad about it, and now I feel really bad about feeling bad. And it goes on and on. Report an error

1:18:05 And then you try again, and the next day you say, well, I even feel worse for today. So then is it tantra? Is it a way to sort of try to somehow... Loosen up that kind of a self-feedback loop. Definitely loosening that really consciously based upon the work you've done, based upon for you this confidence in the logic that your potential is massive. Report an error

1:18:32 Based upon that, some confidence in that, you're actually courageous enough. To imagine your own qualities, really, it's like you've got to be brave to praise yourself even. We usually do it in a defensive, miserable way because we prefer to think the miserable things. But you've got to be very courageous to identify with your goodness, with your perfection, with imagining, having confidence, I am Manjushi. You're not lying to yourself, but you really have some sense that your own mind has the power to think that and that it is a cause for becoming it. Report an error

1:19:01 You don't sort of... You don't think suddenly I'll become it overnight. You know it's gradual. But you understand that logic, that thinking it is a cause for it. So you're happy to think it. And the more you think it, the more you're causing it. Because you understand the power of thoughts. That's right. And just to follow up on that is that before we practice it, do we have to go through, in other words, you could imagine, we do visualization sometimes here, right? Report an error

1:19:29 That's right. Do you have to go through that particular initiation that people are talking about before you do that? There are different levels of tantric practice. And of the four levels, as you know very well, the highest one, they call it highest yoga tantra, those various practices, in order to practice those, you need the permission to practice, which means you need to feel in your mind you're ready, you've taken refuge, you've taken your layperson's vows, you've got your bodhisattva vows, you feel ready to commit yourself to that, and then you go to a particular initiation, as they call it, empowerment, and then you get permission. Report an error

1:20:02 But there are some, like bodhisattva and... Medicine Buddha and others, Tara, Chenrezig, that of course you can get the empowerment to do it, which gives it nice power, but you can certainly do it without the empowerment. There's no doubt. Yes. And when you talk about empowerment to do it, the permission power, I understand. How is the empowerment, what distinguishes that? Report an error

1:20:24 You know, I think there's nothing really rocket science about it. You know, do you have any particular area of your world that you have any expertise in? Report an error

1:20:35 Accounting, music. Computer. Okay, computer. So when you're in the presence of a really incredible computer genius, you can recognize it. Yeah. You really appreciate. Yeah. And just they speak and you kind of get something from them. Yeah. That's an empowerment. So inspired. Inspired, energized. Energized. And you go, wow, I can know that. Report an error

1:20:54 I can learn that. Thank you. And you kind of get more than, if I was listening there and I had no basis, I'd go, what a boring person. But you go, you're blown out because you can see their qualities and you want their knowledge and it gives you the power to help that knowledge and you grow. That's the function of an initiation. Report an error

1:21:08 It's nothing esoteric. I see. It's not like some magical. No, it really, it is not a magical. I swear to you, we're so superstitious. It's the same as if you're a great musician and you go to a master class of some amazing musician. It's very, you just have to sit in the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the same thing. There's something more than just mere words there. Your mind is open. Report an error

1:21:26 Your mind is getting something more than just the mere words. There's no doubt about that. That's empowerment. Listen to me. I always use this example. But my mother taught me how to make a cake when I was 26. I didn't want to learn until then, right? And I asked her to teach me. I remember the day, the kitchen, the cake. Report an error

1:21:46 I remember it because it was the first time cakes became real for me. My heart was open. She was valid. She taught me how to do it. I heard it and I made a great cake. Do you get my point? That's initiation, darling. There's all this interdependent coming together of the Lama, you, your mind ready, you receive more than just the instructions. Report an error

1:22:05 I got the meaning of cakes for the first time in my life. That's empowerment. Just one last very minor question. At the end of usually the Rinpoche talk and people give them a scarf. That's right. What does that process symbolize? Report an error

1:22:23 What? The scarf? The scarf. It's a Tibetan culture. It's a scarf. Is there some special magic power? It's a Tibetan meaning. It's like, you know, if I shake your hand and he's from another culture, I think, what are these wacky people touching each other's hands? I see. We know what it means. It means that we're greeting each other and it's polite, you know, and it's friendly. So a scarf is like... Report an error

1:22:48 The Tibetans really kind of have a deep appreciation of the meaning, not just intellectual but experiential, of offering something. You never go empty-handed. You never leave empty-handed. And so there's this tradition that has developed of this long white scarf. Probably was one that you put around your neck when you went away on your horse once. Report an error

1:23:05 But now it's become this thing that has these different symbols on it. So it's just become an offering scarf. That's all it's called. It's just offering something to the Lama. But it's just a Tibetan tradition. It could just be the offering an orange. And He gives it back to you. He's blessed. That's all. Make sense? Okay. Go. Just sort of a related question on this thing. It came up at lunch. Report an error

1:23:26 You know what we were saying this morning about how it was fine to look into different things, Jesus' teachings, Buddhist teachings, whatever. Great. All the manifestations. Same thing. Got it. And how you'd have to eventually pick one. Makes sense. Eventually you've got to study Kung Fu or Karate or Judo. Pick one to be a black building. You've got to go more deep. Report an error

1:23:44 What we were wondering is, is there something beyond that? If you take refuge in Jesus or refuge in Buddha linked into lineages that's more mystical, if you know what I mean, or was it just that simple that you need to pick one thing and focus on it? Sorry, I missed that last bit. Okay, so imagine, so you said eventually you need to pick one and go for it, which makes complete sense practically. Practically, because you've got to learn, you've got to learn detail. Report an error

1:24:06 Absolutely. And everything comes down to detail. Absolutely. But was there something more to it than that, that if you take refuge? In Jesus' refuge in the Buddha, you're actually taking refuge in a lineage and there's more to it. Well, of course it's part of that, isn't it? I mean, you could say that, I mean, I'm not kidding now, but if I think of my mum, she was my cake guru. Report an error

1:24:24 Where did she get her cakes from? The living lineage of her mother. And you can track right back this living oral lineage. And I'm not kidding here now, because we take this for granted, we don't think about it, and then we put all this esoteric meaning onto the spiritual one. But, you know... We can see, we can deduce logically that cake making was kept alive and you can probably track it back for hundreds of years. If for a hundred year period they all lost the plot on cakes, you could say that cakes are now myth. Report an error

1:24:49 But it was kept alive by living mothers, you know. So I was hooking into that hole in the edge of all those cakes. I mean it's not kidding to say that. We just don't say it that way. That's what oral lineage is. So clearly, when I'm taking refuge in, you know, the Buddha, through the presence of my own Lama, he got it from his, he got it from his, he got it from his. Report an error

1:25:06 You're plugging into this whole system, you know, this whole deal. It's got a very real meaning, actually. But I think the trouble is all the time, when we hear it in religious terms, we make it self-existent, special, wow, something kind of concrete, you know. But it's really just psychological logic that we do understand in all our daily life activities. We just don't connect them like that. Report an error

1:25:26 I mean, when I think all the thinking through about the spiritual one, there's no ordinary experience in daily life that I can't find that's similar. Do you get my point? It has a meaning, but it's not more than just that. But the more could be in terms of the content. So obviously cakes aren't as powerful as getting enlightened, but the principles are the same is what I'm trying to get at. Report an error

1:25:47 Do you get my point here? So to the point, you know, that you hear about people who have dreams, their lamas teach them something, they receive initiation in their dream. You know, when you're really practicing harder, but you dream about Mozart too, and you get some kind of wow, special thing of knowing how to play it, you know, going beyond the normal, all this stuff. Because the more familiar you become with something, the more you plug into all that, you know. Report an error

1:26:08 And that can include the negative stuff. Okay. Do you understand my point? John. Ben and Robina, I had a question about, well, I understand in terms of visualization, it's about training the mind. Yeah. And yet we're using our body in Tantra also to... To manifest that, I was curious to know what your thoughts were on the difference between, or the similarities between, physical bliss and mental bliss. Report an error

1:26:38 Okay, at this gross level, we have got this gross body, this bag of bones, this nervous system and the, you know, and the different, whatever we call it in the West. How we call this physical stuff, you know. So we can see when our mind, you know, if we have certain contact with certain physical objects, it can cause some experiences in your mind, can't it? Report an error

1:27:02 And your body, because they work together, you know. The body and mind work together, it's very clear. So, you know, if somebody stabs you, it's physical and there's mental pain, and you almost can't distinguish, isn't it? They just seem so utterly oneness. Well, it's the same with pleasure. If you're in love with that guy, even just look at him. Report an error

1:27:18 You're blissed out, not to mention the physical one that comes. So it's sort of obvious that we've got the physical and the mental and they really do go completely together. There's no doubt about that. But finally, the Buddha's point is an interesting point. It's only because of practice for life after life after life after life after life after life, in other words, primordial habituation with... Report an error

1:27:40 That kind of object that is why you get pleasure, because your attachment has been trained over countless lives to interpret it as good. So now, if you're a wild pig under the open toilet, you're like this, waiting for the hot shit. Report an error

1:28:00 And for you, it is really blissful. Now, if you're just... Sitting under there, honey child, it ain't so blissful. So the karmic imprint in the wild pig's mind, because of familiarity with dirty things, is it generates bliss in their body and it's a real bliss. But it's familiarity, it's nothing innately blissful about it, it's because for countless lives as that type of being, it is interpreted that way. Report an error

1:28:25 So it finally comes down to the mind. When I did Kung Fu and you kicked me, I didn't want to kill you. I didn't get upset. I didn't get angry. In fact, I was taught to apologize to you for getting in your way. So it was a very different experience of that pain when I did Kung Fu. I didn't get angry and upset. It wasn't bad. I kept on focusing and doing my sparring, you know. So even there's a mild example of it. It is physical. It's real. Report an error

1:28:50 But it's my mind that calls it something that finally determines even what the physical is. It's how finally the mind makes it up. I mean, that's maybe not the point of your question, but it's an interesting point, isn't it? That helps a lot. But in terms of the practice, in terms of the visual, when you're doing the visualizations, and you beautifully say that it's embellishing, using attachment to embellish. Report an error

1:29:14 Yeah. When do you know if you're generating physical bliss or if you're generating mental bliss? I don't know why it matters. What's the point of the question? I'm missing something. Why does it matter? Is it... Report an error

1:29:34 Actually, because I talk to a lot of people who do Hindu Tantra and are very much busy and Western or more what's brought to the West of using erotic energy and sex. And my sense is it's hard to talk with them because they're very, I'll try not to be judgmental, but they stay in that realm. Oh, I see. Report an error

1:29:53 You mean so the point of people who think that by having sexual union you call that Tantric. Bliss. That's Tantra. Yeah, it's called bliss and it's generated by attachment, whether it's the hot sheet or a nice, I'm going to be crude here, the male thing, whatever it is that turns you on, then of course it is that, but that's not the point here. Report an error

1:30:12 That's not the point at all. Finally, the point of Tantra, and this is, okay, this is a very simple technical point. Thank you for bringing it up. Okay, the point is this, folks. The point is to get our minds... Forcefully, and that's the skill of tantra, to this very subtle level, which you only get to when you die. Because why? It's a very simple technical reason. Report an error

1:30:39 Because this very subtle level of consciousness is the most unencumbered levels of our consciousness that has the capacity to completely see reality as it is and cut all the garbage. So the aim of Tantra finally is this skillful method of using bliss as a tool, as a rocket to get your mind to the very subtle level. Report an error

1:31:01 So that then you can meditate on emptiness and cut the garbage. That's the point. So people's mistaken idea that Tantra is to have the bliss and have to be out bliss, bliss, bliss. I mean nothing wrong with bliss. Please go for it. But it's not the point. The bliss is used as a tool to get the mind to the very subtle level where because there's no longer attachment, you've used it without the mind going berserk, you're at the subtle level and now you can do the work of getting enlightened. Report an error

1:31:28 That's the point. Does that answer the question? I think so. Okay. Yep. Yep. Report an error

1:31:48 Along those lines, aversion, you talked about aversion being rooted in anger. Tiny bit louder, darling. You talked about aversion being rooted in anger. Aversion, no. More strictly speaking, aversion is the state of mind, the bare-bones state of mind that we could say when we express it in a volatile way, we call it anger. Report an error

1:32:08 But it's the bare-bones state of mind that when it's present, the thing that you've got aversion for looks ugly. And then you exaggerate the ugliness and you say it's the cause of your suffering, etc., etc. Can you talk a little bit about using that? How to use the energy of anger. Okay. Yeah, that's a very interesting point because if you look at angry people, and I'm one of them, I can see it, we have a tendency to have a very sharp mind. Report an error

1:32:34 There's a sharpness. If you look at people who are very angry, what it is, if you take away all the emotional garbage, it's a very critical mind in the best sense as well. It can be. If it's impotent anger and blame and frustration is just, that's bad, that's wrong, how dare, kill, kill, kill. But if you harness that and you say, that's bad, that's bad, then you say, how can I make it better? Report an error

1:32:56 That's how you harness it. You say, like Martin Luther King said, nothing wrong with finding fault. But then you say, how can I make it better? Anger is when it's stuck in impotence and just screams and shouts and yells. That's just like guilt. Finding the fault. But then screaming and shouting, I'm bad. That's the impotence. We've got to move it to the next step. What can I do to change it? Then your criticism is fantastic. Report an error

1:33:19 I can see the shift in myself over the years. I'm just as critical as I ever was. But now I find I'm trying to say, OK, what can I do to make it better? And if I can't, you're cool with it. You don't have a mental breakdown. Do you see my point? It's a great state of mind. It's a wonderful necessary. You can see with people who are very patient. Report an error

1:33:39 They're kind of boring because they put up with things and they can't really see how you can make things better. You need the critical statement, you need the critical state of mind, which is usually expressed as anger, but you've got to harness it and use it in that way. You can really see the difference. Do you see? Patient people can be impotent. When it's a bad quality of patience, it's like laziness. When the anger is bad, it's destructive. Report an error

1:34:01 When the anger is good, you don't call it anger then, of course. It's just called criticism. Positive criticism. But you say, how can I make it better? So then you don't feel separate from it. How dare they do this? You go, oh, that's terrible. Look at that. How can I fix it? So it's really connected, you know, and it's empowering. Do you see? Report an error

1:34:23 Someone else? Yep. Is it on? Yes. First, thank you for the teachings. There are always so much... So much fun and so helpful. Okay, cool. I hope so. I was wondering if you might give us some practical advice on how to balance out practice of sūtra and tantra. Yes, absolutely. No, of course. A friend of mine called Paula, who's done years and years and years of retreats, tantric retreats. You there? Report an error

1:34:53 A friend of mine, Paula, has done years of retreats, okay? And she did her very first retreat years ago, her four-year retreat, tantric retreat. And she said... I'm really looking forward to practicing lamrim during my retreat. It'll help me get tantric realizations. After her four years, she said, I was so glad to be able to practice tantra, it helped me get lamrim realizations. Report an error

1:35:16 So the point is this. When we understand that the job we're trying to do is get rid of the delusions, get rid of your misery and develop compassion and wisdom, which benefits you and others, that's the job. From A to Z, that is the job. These are just different methods of doing it. Then you got it in the context. So the most ridiculous, you can see it among so many Buddhists, completely thinking tantra in itself is some special realisation. Report an error

1:35:45 It's completely not. It really and truly is not. It's just a very marvellous, sophisticated way of quickly changing your mind. That's it. Once you know what you're trying to do, then it's always the lamrim, it's always the sūtra. You're using tantra as a method to get you quickly to get the results, to quickly get your wisdom, to quickly get your compassion. Report an error

1:36:03 Because when you're doing tantra properly, they say, it's like you're developing wisdom and compassion together, the two wings together, you know. And when your mind can be blissful, your mind is very compassionate. Because when your mind is open, your mind's compassionate. When your mind's closed, it's poor self-pity me and you can't see anybody past your own nose. So when your mind is happy, I mean you know yourself when you're in love, well if you remember, we were once, we used to be. Report an error

1:36:29 When you're in love, you may be the focus is that person, but you've got a sense of well-being about everybody, don't you? So the difference is when you've got these realisations without the attachment, your mind is blissful, but it's also completely not attached to one or the other. It's totally equanimity. You love everybody. Report an error

1:36:46 Everybody makes you pleased. Everybody makes you delighted. Anyone who sees a Dalai Lama knows he must be like this because he just likes everybody, you know. And he makes everyone feel happy. Well, the real result of tantric realizations is you're very compassionate and you're very wise. That's it. And you never lose the plot then. You understand? Yes. I had a question. Yes. Report an error

1:37:09 So that kind of may have answered some of my questions that I have. It's about, is it required to take tantric initiation or have a great understanding of the lamrim and more graduated path to practice things like the inner fire breathing and different yogas like that? I understand. Well, I know Lama Yeshi, my teacher, he was quite unusual in his day in the early 70s. He wasn't fully developed, didn't have his full degree in the Geshe thing. Report an error

1:37:42 Tibetan when he was 25, but he was considered by everybody in retrospect as a very amazing great yogi and teacher. But in the beginning he had all these Western hippies as his teachers and he was really looked down upon by all the Tibetans. But he had a way, since he's known now as that, he had this ability to kind of connect with us in our crazy deluded, very desire realm based lives, you know. Report an error

1:38:02 And so he could see very quickly that we were very ripe and ready for the philosophy of Tantra. That we understand, as he said, the whole idea of transforming one thing into another, transforming things, which is Tantra, right? So he taught it from day one. I know the very first time I went to Copan Monastery, you know, the year I became a nun, I was in the printing room and typing up all the prayers. And in this little group of prayers, there was a thing called Inner Fire. Report an error

1:38:26 And I read it and I thought, well, this is weirdo stuff, visualising this and fire coming up and getting bliss. I don't know what the hell he was talking about. And it's actually, since I've discovered, it's from the highest teachings of Tantra. But he could see that it was a practical technique for Westerners, you know. Okay, most people don't practice it because you've got to work hard and be disciplined. Report an error

1:38:45 We just want a quick fix. But it is a very marvellous little technique when you understand the logic of it. And he could see with Tantra, like in his book, Introduction to Tantra, that this whole approach of Tantra, which normally speaking in the Tibetan context, you would not hear about. you might take initiations as you're a little monk but you wouldn't get the teaching until you're much older but he could see that he could bring it into our into our culture as something very positive for us as a practical method to helping us enhance our self-respect because he could see we all had this self-loathing you know so it's up to each person very individuals are very different some people you know are very different can't hear you So Report an error

1:39:27 it's not dangerous to practice. The inner fire of bliss without having initiation. Based on what I've just said, what do you think? I'd say no. Based on the person, isn't it? Right, based on the person. I mean, I know some people, I've heard of some people, there's a friend of mine I knew years ago in Australia, who, like a lot of people, was able to activate bliss, astonishing levels of real pleasure when she meditated. Report an error

1:39:51 But she was like a vampire. She had no wisdom. She had no understanding of the teaching. She thought the whole point of all this was to get some bliss. So she was like a vampire and would do this meditation just to get bliss. Well, that's not Dharma practice. It's a joke. It's a complete farce, you know. That's why this misunderstanding about Tantra, it's just, it's really quite, it's like gross, actually. It's really misunderstanding the point. Report an error

1:40:12 But if you can't, if your mind understands and you know what you're doing and you have some capacity to meditate, then you try it out and you use, you know. It's up to each person to have some wisdom. Report an error

1:40:22 Compassion would be the basis, of course, of... No, wisdom. Common sense. Compassion too, but common sense. Wisdom. Yep. Report an error

1:40:35 This isn't my question, but just a response to what he was just saying. If it's not your question, why are you asking it? No, just a response that... Are you going to give him a teaching? No. What do you mean it's not your question? No, no, no, before my question. Oh, I beg your pardon. Yeah, yeah, sorry. Did you have a question? Yeah, I had a question as well. Report an error

1:40:53 Before your question? Yeah. Okay, what's your question that isn't your question? Okay. No, that personally I've always been taught that if you want to do a practice like that... I'm not doing anything like that, but it's always good to get a lineage. So like I'm telling you, you're giving a teaching. She wants to give you a teaching, Saki. She would like to give you a teaching. Report an error

1:41:12 Please talk to Saki, not me. Sorry. I take it back, sorry. No, I'm not saying Saki. I see if you want to give me some advice. No, I really don't. Okay, then good. I wanted to ask about retreat. Yes. Just the Buddhist... perspective on retreat Why is it important? Report an error

1:41:38 I'm not being sarcastic but I'm putting it back to you. You really can't see why or you're just wanting me to talk about it. I'd really like your view on it. I've got my view on it but why Buddhism focuses on retreat. Why it's important. Yeah, like why is it? Retreat meaning? Okay, tell me what you mean by retreat. You know, like a month to three months a year. Like Geshe Tashi in London says it would be great if we could all do one to three months a year and, you know. Report an error

1:42:06 Not to mention the people who go on retreat for life. So the question is why do you do that? Yeah, why do you do that and why does Buddhism kind of focus on that so much? You know, that need to do it. Okay, so let's work through it then. What's the purpose of this entire path? To wake up. Say more. Down to earth, answer. What are you trying to achieve? Well, really to just, I mean, I'm so brainwashed by Buddhism, is to remove all obscurations and really just become what you really are. Report an error

1:42:38 To develop your mind. Yeah, yeah. So as we just said before, so, so okay, your aim is to know your mind well, isn't it? You have to know your mind well, don't you? Be very, very, very skillful. Wouldn't you agree? Would you agree with that? You've got to know your own mind well, don't you? Yeah. Okay, now that's in its nature is an introspective practice, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't you agree? So okay, so daily life, you get up in the morning, most of us, don't we? Report an error

1:43:03 And then we go to bed at night and all day we've been fully involved in non-introspection. We've been fully involved in the outside world, accomplishing this and doing the job and getting that and criticising people and hating this and loving that. Wouldn't you agree? Report an error

1:43:17 So if the aim is to develop your mind to an incredible degree and you need to develop introspective tools, well, there's the answer. It goes without saying. That's why Buddhism stresses it, because it's what you're trying to achieve. I mean, if you're a great pianist and you know very well you'd probably practice eight hours a day. And the best would be to not do anything else. If you had to play cricket and football every day, you'd have to be distracted all the time. Report an error

1:43:38 But if you had to get all your time devoted to the music, guess what the result would be? You'd become a very good musician very quickly, wouldn't you? So it's sort of logical. It's just logical. Report an error

1:43:48 Would you not agree with that? Yeah, completely. Does that answer the question? Yeah, completely. In a practical way? Yeah. That's right. There you go. Thank you. Thank you, darling. Yes. Report an error

1:43:59 Hi, Venerable Robina. Yeah, my name is Cliff. Yes, I know. I've known him for centuries. Yeah, when will you come back to Gawagato? Darling, when I'm invited. I'm not rude. I don't just butt in. I have to be invited. Then I come. Report an error

1:44:14 Okay, we will. I'll call them. Okay, now is my question. There are several questions. So is that correct that tantra is said to be the only way to allow a practitioner to obtain enlightenment in one lifetime? And if that's so, where does that come from? And also another question is that, so what's the relationship between? Report an error

1:44:44 The preliminary practice with tantra. I understand. And then another one is, you know, there are so many deity practices. That's right. And based on what does a practitioner choose what's the suitable deity practice to do? All very logical, Cliff. Well, the third one is, you know, the deity practices, so-called, are just different representations of different psychological states. Report an error

1:45:08 You would agree? So if you look at your mind, you can see you have anger. Jealousy and love and kindness and compassion and wisdom and you would agree you have all these different ones, don't you? Well you'll probably find in Tantra there is a deity that represents every one of these. So given that you want to one, purify the rubbish bits and two, develop the good bits, then strictly speaking you need all the practices. But first point. Report an error

1:45:34 Second point, we can see in this life... That we've each got sort of a style, a personality. Some of us are light and sweet. Some are big and loud and noisy. Some are patient. You understand, we've all got different qualities, haven't we? Well, each of these deities represent those. And so some of us, we can see our own nature in this life has got a particular style. So then finally you need to find the practice that best suits you in this life, that is your nature sort of thing, you know? Report an error

1:45:59 Do you understand? And that becomes your main practice. It's a psychological thing. Now I've forgotten your other two questions. Or where did it come from, you said. Yeah, well, it's all a question of being practical, you know. It's a bit like Tantra is said to be super, super powerful, harnessing of our mental energy that enables our mind to get to the very subtle level very, very quickly. Report an error

1:46:26 That's it. That's all. That's all. It's like flying in a rocket somewhere as opposed to walking to the moon. But if one chooses to do that just based on that kind of desire, is there some sort of attachment that I want to do it in one lifetime? Cliff, precious thing, listen to me. The person who at this moment, let's say, sitting in this room is capable of achieving it in this lifetime, we have to deduce they've done an awful lot of work in an awful lot of other lives, they'd be qualified. Report an error

1:47:02 Doesn't mean you can't aim to do this, but to be actually qualified to actually accomplish the goal in one life. You're a pretty intensely developed being. Report an error

1:47:14 It's sort of like saying we can all make $100 million. It's not a wrong theory. But if you don't even have one penny and no business skills and can't add up, you're an awful long way from the person who's got $99 million and is about there. So it's all a question of where you are on the path. Are you seeing my point? It's a very practical thing. Are you hearing me? Yeah. Okay. That probably means they have done many like kinds of practices. Report an error

1:47:40 Precisely, darling. It's like Mozart. He was writing sonatas when he was six. He brought a lot of music with him, babe. You get my point? So what was your second question? And the preliminary practice is... Oh, sure, darling. It's just... You know, it's sort of like, it's just a cute phrase, but all it means is certain practices that prime your mind to be ready to do this next stage. Like if, you know, you had to go and be like Michael Jordan to put the ball in the hoop every time, regardless, you've got an awful lot of preliminary practices to do called jogging and push-ups and bouncing balls. Report an error

1:48:13 So it's just the stuff that you do that gets you ready to accomplish the goal. It's practical. It's all practical, Cliff. So what would you say to people who haven't? Fulfill their preliminary practice. Sweetheart, in different traditions, Cliff, in some traditions in Tibetan Buddhism, it is a prerequisite that you have done four lots of those hundred thousand things before you take an initiation. Report an error

1:48:36 In other traditions, it's not like that. It depends on the tradition and your teacher. So as long as you get your teacher's approval. As long as you're part of a decent lineage, you've got a decent teacher and you trust that teacher and you're doing a good job. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay. And are there other common misunderstandings about tantra? Are there? Yeah. What a funny question. I would say that 99.99 % of what's existing is a misconception about tantra. Report an error

1:49:05 Yes, I would think so. Okay, thank you very much. Yes. Go, sweetheart. Oh, down the end. Oh, up here this way. Okay. Report an error

1:49:21 So I had a question about... Doing visualizations in Tantra and then just my attachment as a mother, always feeling this propensity that I bring my child into the visualization with me. What do you mean, darling? I got an initiation for Vajradara and so I would sit and visualize and chant and I felt always that I should bring my child into that visualization. Report an error

1:49:47 You mean visualize your child next to Vajradara? Yes, with me and then... Why would you do that? I'm wondering about the attachment there, just as a mother. Tell me what you think. The point of visualizing, it's like this. The point of visualizing is a fancy word for vividly thinking about something. Report an error

1:50:07 That's all it means. Right. So if you want to vividly think about your child being there next to bodhicitta, I suppose it depends on your motivation. Benefit. Benefit. Care for my child. But it's not to do with your child. It's to do with you. Okay. Your child's in your bed snoring, you know. True. That's right, actually, yes. So the reason you're imagining the Buddha there is to help you get closer to those qualities in yourself. Report an error

1:50:31 So if it helps you to think that you're doing it for your child as well, then that's compassion. That's fine. That's up to you to decide what the motivation is, you know. Okay, good, good. That's cool. All right. And I just had, in general, a question about, I'm not this, I'm right here. Yes. Attachment with... Report an error

1:50:47 Being a mother and being attached. That's right. You know, I've heard some talks about this is the greatest attachment. That's right. And I would like to hear you speak about that for a moment if you would. Report an error

1:51:00 Well, attachment, as I said, is a state of mind in the bones of our being. It runs the show. It's primordial. It's vast. But this is like the bare bones of it. That is a conceptual state of mind that exaggerates the nice things about something. So clearly mothers have attachment for their babies. I look at all those babies that you mothers have and believe me, I don't think they're that fancy. And I'm happy to walk away from them and I never think of them again. One of the signs of attachment, I'm not criticising, it's okay, really it's not. Report an error

1:51:30 But it's the way attachment works. So also one of the signs of attachment is that if you're thinking about an object that isn't there, it can also be compassion. Bodhisattvas never stop thinking about sentient beings but it's kind of compassion that's coming. So clearly you can say with a mother, Attachment is this primordial one and it's the one that causes that mind to even come into your womb. That mind from a past life due to karmic history with you, it ran like a magnet with attachment, ran like a magnet to your womb. Report an error

1:52:01 So attachment even gets it to your womb, right? But if it's going to be a reasonable thing you're going to do with that life because attachment is not the only thing. Then you've got this karmic history with that being. You owe a debt to that being. So you just get born as your child. You've got to take care of it. And then, of course, depending on how you feel about it, because some mothers have an aversion for their children. Report an error

1:52:20 That's why they beat them up and kill them. You know? This is how it is. So if you have attachment, but you've got the practice of attachment. I mean, OK, I'm glad my mother had attachment for me. She would have killed me otherwise. I'll put it that way. I don't know how mothers put up with their wretched children sometimes. It's only because you've got attachment for them. You keep... Report an error

1:52:38 Thinking it's gorgeous no matter what it does, you know. So just as well. So the point is in terms of practice, there you have this history with that being. Have to learn to see that your job is to help this little thing grow. Go beyond your attachment. Because attachment blinds you from seeing that person's mind. Report an error

1:52:58 Attachment just sees the nice things. Which is why parents can make a mess sometimes. I remember my brother recently, you know, one of his boys was selling drugs and stuff at home, you know. And I said, why don't you throw him out, Tony? It just seems so crazy. He looked at me really pained and he said, Robina, it's so hard when you're a parent. Because you just have this attachment, you don't want to lose them, you're so fearful. Report an error

1:53:19 And so attachment blinds you from seeing. I know as a child, my mother, because of her attachment, I had around my little finger. I knew I ran her. My father, I didn't get away with stuff with him. Because he could see more clearly. So attachment, when you think of it, first of all, as this bond, it's okay. And your baby looks gorgeous. That's fantastic. Report an error

1:53:39 But when you see also it blinds you from seeing the person, then you're really hindering yourself from being a good mother if you have too much attachment. You've got to have wisdom and kindness and be able to say no and have compassion for that child. And that's the practice. You've got to learn those. And they're opposite to attachment. So it's a great opportunity to practice, isn't it? Thank you very much. That's the point. Jane. Report an error

1:54:00 That's Jane, she's just moved in. She's going to be the receptionist here. Go darling. Report an error

1:54:13 I just had a question about Tantra, the definition of it and the living experience of it and whether or not there's a sense of a creator or a purpose because a purpose being based on the wisdom that you... You know, the compassion, the wisdom that you... Where did this creator word pop in? I couldn't get the connection. Where did that come from? Yeah, that's what my question is. I don't understand the point at all about the creator business. Report an error

1:54:45 You're going to say more clearly, please, what you mean. Well, it's just I don't know whether or not in the tantric, the experience of living a tantric being... A tantric being? Yeah. You mean these deities? In the practice of tantra. What do you mean darling? I don't know where she's coming from. I guess I'm just trying to understand more about what tantra actually is. Report an error

1:55:16 What's the creator thing? You've got to articulate what you mean by that. Creator being a purposefulness. So purpose in relation to, you talked about goodness and compassion being the basis. Of your mind, of your potential. The aim of a Buddhist is to develop their potential for goodness to the point where you've developed it to perfection, to the point where you've removed all the garbage from your mind. Report an error

1:55:48 That's a Buddha. So then, question? The question is whether or not there's a sense of some level of creating in that. Creating what, darling? When you talked about creating goodness, compassion. Yes, you are creating goodness every day by doing it. You're creating suffering and misery when you do the negative stuff. Report an error

1:56:14 So in that sense, simple word of creating meaning, making it happen, we're doing that every day. That's the meaning of karma. But that's not your question. What's your question? Is that your question? Yeah, I think it is, yeah. So you could say that what karma means is this unfolding every day of... Report an error

1:56:35 Whatever it is that you're doing. So learning math every day is the meaning of karma. If you do it every day, you keep getting better at it. If you do anger every day, you keep getting better at it. Would you agree? Well, all the Buddha is saying is a simple method of karma, which he says is the creation principle, and using that word loosely, is that by doing, you know, practicing goodness and love and compassion and wisdom, life after life after life, you perfect your mind. Report an error

1:56:59 Practice makes perfect. So that's a creation principle. Creative principle, absolutely, of course it is. But it's not an outside creator who does things like with a magic wand. There's no concept like that whatsoever. No, no, but a creative principle within the source of... Source. Source, I'm not sure. What's this source? I don't know. Okay, then we'll leave it there. Okay, yes. Report an error

1:57:25 Thank you very much for your teaching as always. I would like to ask you to elaborate. Let's say if we approach Tantra, as you said, as a postgraduate step, so by the time you get there, I'm assuming that you already got the wisdom and the compassion, the two wings. So where does attachment come in? Okay, I hear you. Good point. Okay, first of all, It's sort of like, it's true if you're practicing mathematics. It's pretty certain that when you're in grade 2 you can't possibly tackle grade 12. Report an error

1:58:03 You wouldn't even be able to go there. But the difference here is this. There is this entire path. You can be practicing all of them simultaneously. You can. It doesn't mean that you have to have absolutely accomplished wisdom before you enter the compassion wing. You'll be waiting many, many lives before you do. Report an error

1:58:23 The fact is, but the difference is this, first point, that if you say you've accomplished one level, it implies you've definitely accomplished the previous ones. So you have to see they're presented in the order insofar as if you have accomplished this, it implies you've accomplished that. But you can practice all of them together. Report an error

1:58:43 That's one point. The second point is this, and it's a good question. Once you have gone beyond attachment, meaning... This is the real point. Meaning being in the thrall of attachment. Believing what attachment tells you. That that cake will make me happy. That's the suffering of attachment. And that's the one we have to give up. So when you've given that up, you still have a tongue. And when it tastes cake, it generates a really blissful feeling. Report an error

1:59:12 Wouldn't you agree? Wouldn't you agree with that? Yeah? So you could say that by just simply having a human body, Report an error

1:59:22 Because of the habit of eating chocolate cake, when you see it, even when you've given up attachment, it still looks delicious to you. It energises you. It energises your senses. And you get real, real pleasure. Okay? So in the technical sense, attachment is the one that is exaggerating the deliciousness. That still occurs, but you're no longer in the thrall of it. Report an error

1:59:47 You're not conned by it. You're not grasping at it any longer. That's the difference. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then how do you use that attachment at that level into the tantric? Because when... When the senses meet an object, it triggers a good feeling. And that good feeling slash bliss, sounds like a holy word, has a particular function when it's very powerful combined with concentration to make the mind very, very subtle. Report an error

2:00:22 And when the mind is very, very subtle, it can realise emptiness very, very quickly. It's a rocket. It's simply a technique to make the mind very subtle. Very quickly. That's a technical function. So the only person who can actually use that is the person who's given up the garbage. You understand? So essentially the word attachment at that level is not the same. Report an error

2:00:53 Strictly speaking, actually you don't use attachment on the path. You use the bliss that is energized by contact with objects on the path. Strictly speaking, that's the right thing. You use the bliss. Thank you. Time to go soon. In a couple of traditions, other traditions, I'm sure in this tradition too, they talk about being attached to Dharma. Report an error

2:01:27 May not be related to previously. Can you talk a little bit about that? Listen to me, listen. If you have got the option of having a nice girlfriend who is good to you, who is loving and generous and moral and can teach you and help you become a really good person and you have the opportunity to be attached to some creepy girl who is going to lead you down garden paths, which one should you choose? Report an error

2:01:46 Given that you have attachment and it's a way to go before you're beyond it, be practical. Be attached to things that are good for you. Same with the Dharma. God help me, I'm happy you're attached to your Dharma. But if it's only attachment, you'll give it up within a minute because attachment exaggerates and then you'll get all over excited and you're just attached to your view of yourself. Report an error

2:02:07 So it won't last long. Do you see? So be practical. Yeah. Cliff? Report an error

2:02:16 So from what you said so far, it seems to me that the bliss energy is a technical. technicality kind of thing. That's right, precisely, based upon having this kind of body. It's made of how you can direct that bliss into your subtle consciousness to form that sharp knife or sword to cut through the appearance. Report an error

2:02:42 But when a practitioner does it and run into the obstacle, and when a practitioner is able to get that blissful energy, But still, you know, the person hits the obstacle. And during the retreat, you don't have any teacher to guide you. And I know in certain practices, you actually need your own personal teacher to guide you so you can jump through that obstacle in, I think, Tibetan tradition. Report an error

2:03:17 So... So to me, is that generally true, right? And that's how the master and the disciple relationship is based on? Yeah, but if you're really a decent practitioner, Cliff, and you're in your retreat and you've got an obstacle, you know, the Buddha is already there. Your guru is already there because mind is not physical. Then just by praying, you'll get the answer. Report an error

2:03:38 It's cool. Is it by praying? Yeah, darling. The Buddha's already there. Mind is not physical, do you agree? Kunda Buddha. Mind is not physical. And when the minds are very developed... They are not existing in form. A Buddha's minds pervade space. They are already present. But we're as thick as posts. We can't see them. So we need the person with the ears and a nose and a voice, you know, which is the relative Buddha. But if you're a highly evolved being, let's assume you are, let's say you are, and you've got an obstacle in your practice, well then just, you know, you can get advice in your dreams, your Lama will be, you'll just pray, you'll get the right, you'll make the, you know, you can get advice at a subtle level, is what I'm saying. Report an error

2:04:19 Yeah, that hurts a story like that. There you go. That's right. Thank you. Yep. Just following on from that, so I take it that's a concept of an inner guru. Report an error

2:04:30 So would that same energy be able to guide me as far as exactly the kind of practices and what I should be doing next, whether I should be going on a retreat? We're all pretty gross liable. We have bodies, we have mouths, we have ears. I think we need a form, a person looking like us, which is the whole point of the way the Buddhas talk, you know, that we can see anything we've learned in this life is from somebody right in front of us showing us how to do it. Report an error

2:04:58 Then very quickly, if you're really skillful, you can get rid of that person, you don't need them and then you can just have them in your mind and you can call upon them and you know what they've taught you and you can put it into practice. That's the inner guru, of course it is. So it depends on how advanced we are and whatever it is we're learning, you know. But the more we have the person there who is the teacher, you know, and the more we can take from that person, the more we can internalise that ourselves. Report an error

2:05:20 It depends on the person, you know. Some people are very advanced, some people are less so. But I think it helps us, especially with spiritual stuff, to have a very down-to-earth approach to it. Otherwise it's all good airy-fairy, you know. I mean, again, when George Bush said he prays that God talks to him, I mean, we can all talk about that. We're all nuts, you know. But, I mean, you can't argue with it. How can you prove it? So it's better to keep it very grounded, you know. Report an error

2:05:40 And if you do have your Lama coming to you in your dreams, keep quiet about it. Report an error

2:05:48 Some people do, definitely. But we can be pretty wacky pretty easy, so we should be very ground, I mean very down to earth about it. Yeah. Report an error

2:05:58 So people, do you think it's the end? What do you think? Have you learned enough today? Food for thought? So I'd say, you know, first of all, that book's out there if you want to buy it. There's a few copies, Introduction to Tantra. I think you get 20 % off, I'm not sure. But I recommend you get it, it's very helpful. Report an error

2:06:13 And then second, if you've got a practice already, may I recommend you continue your practice. Keep it solid and real and keep your relationship with your teachers very pure because that enables you to be very open to receive the teachings that you need when you need them. And if you've not done before, then, you know, think about it. This makes sense. Maybe you start to progress. Find a practice, you know, find your home, find a lineage, find masters, all this stuff. Report an error

2:06:35 One step at a time. One step at a time. But the essential thing, I think, is to go away with a positive idea that I have got astonishing qualities and may I find the methods to never stop developing them. And to have this as a guide in our lives, as an antidote to our miserable self-pity me, you know, when we get dragged down and hurt and miserable and defensive and depressed. Report an error

2:06:59 Just remember, our potential is amazing. We have got amazing, amazing potential. It's waiting to be developed. So never, never, never, never give up. Never give up. Have this confidence in your own marvellous potential. No doubt about it. Report an error

2:07:21 And may compassion grow and grow in the hearts of all. And may all these seeds that we've planted, just by listening, all of us today, as many thoughts as each one of us has had, is a seed, each of them, a seed. Each of us has planted on our minds, so may we nourish those seeds with our virtue, with our efforts, with our positive thinking from this second forward, so that we do manifest in our marvellous potential as quickly as possible for our sake and the sake of others. Report an error

2:07:54 CHUR PSEM CHO GRIN PO CHE MA KYE PA NAM KYE GYO CHEK KYE PA NYAM PA ME PA YANG GONG NE GONG DU PEL BA SHO Report an error

2:08:12 Okie doke. Thanks everybody. Thank you very much. What? Oh, I should have done a commercial. Yes. Oh yeah, we do this pilgrimage every year. Oh, darling. We do this pilgrimage every year. that goes between India and Nepal in October and I'm leading it. We've got about 15 people already I think and all the money raised goes through our prison project and it's really amazing fun I have to say anybody who's been on it. Report an error

2:08:43 We started in Kathmandu, we stayed in lovely hotels, the Hyatt and we've got a Kopar Monastery, we have teachings If you've ever been to India or want to go, it's a great way to go, okay? Report an error

2:08:58 And if you can bear me for a month. So there must be information out there about the booders. Chasing booders. In the hallway. hallway, in the hallway, in the racks. Oh, I got Gabriel. Report an error

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Talk by Robina Courtin, recorded 28 June 2008. Original at Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/RC_Tantra_20080628. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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