Cracking the Painted Easter Egg of Our Wrong Conceptions

0:22 Can people hear with the mic like this? It's good? Okay. People sitting over there, if you want to come sit in the middle here, please do. Report an error in the passage at 0:22 Highlight the passage at 0:22

0:46 So it's very good to be here with all of you. I was supposed to be here a few weeks ago and then I got sick and couldn't. And so I happened to be in the Bay Area again this weekend, so I thought I should do something virtuous. Report an error in the passage at 0:46 Highlight the passage at 0:46

1:08 And, you They happen to have a free afternoon so I'm here to make up for the teaching that I couldn't give a few weeks ago. So we'll start with some meditation and then we'll have the Dharma talk and then some Q &A after that. Report an error in the passage at 1:08 Highlight the passage at 1:08

1:27 I think we're talking about our painted Easter eggs, cracking the painted Easter eggs of our preconceptions. I think we'll have a good time with that. Report an error in the passage at 1:27 Highlight the passage at 1:27

1:44 When we do the meditation, we'll be meditating on our breath and the purpose is in order to still our mind and calm our mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:44 Highlight the passage at 1:44

1:56 I'll lead you through a little body relaxation and then we'll do the meditation and the breath in silence and then we'll take it from there. so, um... Report an error in the passage at 1:56 Highlight the passage at 1:56

2:08 When you're meditating on the breath, just breathe normally and naturally. Don't deep breathe. Don't do anything weird with your breath. Just keep breathing, please. That's all you need to do. And then you can put your attention either at the upper lip and the nostrils and watch the sensation of the air as it goes in and out here. Report an error in the passage at 2:08 Highlight the passage at 2:08

2:36 Or you can put it at your abdomen and watch the rise and fall of your belly. So put your attention at one of those two places, but don't move it around. But wherever you put it, just be aware of what's happening as you breathe. Because we've been breathing our whole lives, but we've hardly ever stopped to experience it. Report an error in the passage at 2:36 Highlight the passage at 2:36

3:05 So when we're watching our breath, it's bringing us back to the present moment and our direct experience. And so often our mind is lost in la-la land. We're in the past, we're in the future, we're creating fantasies and daydreams and painting more easter eggs of preconceptions. Report an error in the passage at 3:05 Highlight the passage at 3:05

3:32 Meditation is bringing us back to what's happening right now, which is we're sitting in a safe place breathing. What more could you ask for? And when we get distracted, we usually see how our mind is going into the past, thinking maybe about something that happened that we didn't like and how we want to get even. Report an error in the passage at 3:32 Highlight the passage at 3:32

4:01 But that's not happening now. It's just our thoughts that are going around that. Or maybe we're going back in the past to some nice thing, hoping that we can recreate it in the future, but that's also not what's happening there. Report an error in the passage at 4:01 Highlight the passage at 4:01

4:18 Or maybe we're going into the future and envisioning what's going to happen in the future. Sometimes we're always doing some creative writing. Report an error in the passage at 4:18 Highlight the passage at 4:18

4:31 And we create... This drama for the future, filled with stress and tension. What's going to happen to me? Or sometimes we just get lost in our future daydreams. Lying on the beach with Buddha Boy and the perfect whatever. But when we're doing the breathing meditation, the thing is to really stay with the present. Report an error in the passage at 4:31 Highlight the passage at 4:31

5:03 And we begin to see how difficult that is and how much what we experience is created by our thought process, not by what's actually happening now, but by all these thoughts and interpretations about it. Report an error in the passage at 5:03 Highlight the passage at 5:03

5:26 So you begin to see this as you... You're trying to focus on the breath and just watch what's happening as you inhale, what's happening as you exhale. And then before you know it, your mind's somewhere else. And then you notice that. Sometimes it takes you longer and sometimes shorter. You notice that and then you bring yourself back home to the breath. Report an error in the passage at 5:26 Highlight the passage at 5:26

5:52 And then again, maybe your mind gets distracted by something. So it's like... You know sometimes when you go to airports or shopping malls you see little kids on what looks like doggy leashes? Because the kid runs away and then the parent can say, come back, come back. So this is what we have to do with our attention when our attention goes in the past or the future. Report an error in the passage at 5:52 Highlight the passage at 5:52

6:22 You know, some kind of daydreaming or some kind of horror story. Then we pull the doggy leash and the baby of our mind, we say, come back, sweetie, come back here. And we bring it back to our breath. Okay? So we'll start with some body relaxation. And then I'll lead you through that. In terms of your posture, if you can sit cross-legged, good. Having something under your rear is very good. Report an error in the passage at 6:22 Highlight the passage at 6:22

6:54 And then your right hand on your left, the thumbs are touching. It's in your lap. And sit up straight and lower your eyes. Report an error in the passage at 6:54 Highlight the passage at 6:54

7:10 And begin by just being aware of being here. Be aware of the sensation of your body on the cushion, your legs on the floor. And Report an error in the passage at 7:10 Highlight the passage at 7:10

7:43 be aware of sensations in your feet and your legs. Report an error in the passage at 7:43 Highlight the passage at 7:43

7:51 And if there's any tension, then let that go. Report an error in the passage at 7:51 Highlight the passage at 7:51

8:15 Be aware of sensations in your belly, your lower abdomen. Some Report an error in the passage at 8:15 Highlight the passage at 8:15

8:29 people store their tension in their belly and their belly's tight. If you're one of them, try and relax your belly. Let your belly move as you inhale and exhale. Report an error in the passage at 8:29 Highlight the passage at 8:29

9:08 And be aware of sensations in your back, shoulders. Arms and chest. Report an error in the passage at 9:08 Highlight the passage at 9:08

9:27 Some people store their attention in their shoulders so your shoulders become tight. Especially if you work on the computer a lot, your shoulders are tight. It's helpful to lift your shoulders up towards your ears as high as you can get. Report an error in the passage at 9:27 Highlight the passage at 9:27

9:50 Tuck your chin in a little bit. Hold it for a moment. Let your shoulders drop kind of swiftly. Report an error in the passage at 9:50 Highlight the passage at 9:50

10:15 Then be aware of sensations in your neck, head, face and jaw. If Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

10:35 there's any tension there, let it relax. So make sure your jaw's not clenched. Let your facial muscles relax. Report an error in the passage at 10:35 Highlight the passage at 10:35

11:08 And be aware of your physical posture as being firm but also free of tension. Report an error in the passage at 11:08 Highlight the passage at 11:08

11:40 Focusing either at... The upper lip and your nostrils, watching the breath there, or focusing at your belly, watching the rise and fall of your belly as you inhale and exhale. Report an error in the passage at 11:40 Highlight the passage at 11:40

12:02 So just be aware of what's happening as you're inhaling and exhaling. And if you get lost in a thought or a sensation or something else, notice that, but don't follow it. Bring your attention back home to the breath. Report an error in the passage at 12:02 Highlight the passage at 12:02

12:24 We'll do this silently for a few minutes. Let's Report an error in the passage at 12:24 Highlight the passage at 12:24

· · · silence, 5 minutes

17:17 take a moment and generate our motivation, Report an error in the passage at 17:17 Highlight the passage at 17:17

17:23 why we're here. Report an error in the passage at 17:23 Highlight the passage at 17:23

17:29 So I think we all came because we wanted to learn something to improve our lives, to improve ourselves. That's Report an error in the passage at 17:29 Highlight the passage at 17:29

17:44 good. And then let's also expand our motivation so it goes beyond ourselves, beyond our own lives. Can Report an error in the passage at 17:44 Highlight the passage at 17:44

17:59 I learn tools here so that I can transform my mind and develop compassion and wisdom so that I can be of greater service to other living beings, Report an error in the passage at 17:59 Highlight the passage at 17:59

18:18 even so that I can become a fully enlightened one, a fully awakened one, a Buddha, for the benefit of each and every living being? Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:36 Let's take that as our long-term motivation for being together this afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 18:36 Highlight the passage at 18:36

· · · silence, 1 minute

19:14 Did anybody not get distracted at all during the meditation? Report an error in the passage at 19:14 Highlight the passage at 19:14

19:24 So we can see so easily how our mind gets distracted, doesn't it? And what are our distractions usually about? Report an error in the passage at 19:24 Highlight the passage at 19:24

19:37 What's the center point of our distractions? Report an error in the passage at 19:37 Highlight the passage at 19:37

19:43 Ourselves, isn't it? What happened to me, what's going to happen to me, who am I, what I like, what I don't like, what I want, what I don't want, how people treat me, how I want them to treat me. It's all about me. Isn't that interesting? Yeah? I'm really the center of the universe. Report an error in the passage at 19:43 Highlight the passage at 19:43

20:14 But one of the problems, you know... As we're the center of the universe but the rest of the world doesn't realize it. They think they're the center of the universe. Report an error in the passage at 20:14 Highlight the passage at 20:14

20:29 And we're trying to convince them that they really should do things our way because we have all the right answers. Right? Whatever I think is right. Whatever I want to do is good. Whatever I believe is true. Report an error in the passage at 20:29 Highlight the passage at 20:29

20:51 Whatever I think other people should do, they should definitely do. Report an error in the passage at 20:51 Highlight the passage at 20:51

20:59 And we tell them, sometimes we say it nicely, please dear, could you pick up your dirty underwear? Sometimes we don't say it so nicely, you jerk! And then tell them how they should act. And how do people respond to our very sages advice about who they should be and how they should live? Report an error in the passage at 20:59 Highlight the passage at 20:59

21:31 When they're polite, they say, mind your own business. And then we feel so offended and so shocked because we have all these wonderful ideas and really if people only did what we thought they should do, the world would be a completely different place and I would be perfectly happy. Report an error in the passage at 21:31 Highlight the passage at 21:31

21:59 Because we always look at it as... You know, my happiness, my suffering comes from outside. Report an error in the passage at 21:59 Highlight the passage at 21:59

22:10 Why am I unhappy? My parents did or didn't do this. My teachers did or didn't do that. My best friend, the government, the neighbor, my pet pig. It's always somebody else's responsibility why I'm happy, why I'm miserable. And so... We engage with the rest of the world through the eyes of trying to get everybody to be what we want them to be and do what we want them to do. Report an error in the passage at 22:10 Highlight the passage at 22:10

22:46 And we tell them so, like I was saying, sometimes more politely than other times. And the rest of the world is so stupid that they just don't get it. Report an error in the passage at 22:46 Highlight the passage at 22:46

23:01 They just don't get that... We're the center of the universe and they should follow everything we think. Strange how I'm so smart and the rest of the world so stupid. Report an error in the passage at 23:01 Highlight the passage at 23:01

23:18 This is the way we think, isn't it? But we keep trying to get other people to change and be different. And they keep doing the same old things. And we keep doing the same old things, but that's not a problem. Report an error in the passage at 23:18 Highlight the passage at 23:18

23:44 And I think this is one of the biggest... One of the revelations I had when I encountered the Buddhist teachings is that the source of my happiness and my misery is not other people, it's not the outside world, it's what's going on inside of me. Report an error in the passage at 23:44 Highlight the passage at 23:44

24:04 Yeah, really what's going on inside of me. And at first I wasn't so sure that was true, but I watched, you know. And I started to observe. And it was very clear that the days that I woke up in a bad mood, I met so many obnoxious people. Report an error in the passage at 24:04 Highlight the passage at 24:04

24:28 Yeah, just on the day when I really wished the world would leave me alone, they all showed up. Report an error in the passage at 24:28 Highlight the passage at 24:28

24:39 And yet, when I was in a good mood, even somebody came and gave me some feedback about how to improve. I could listen to it. I could take it in. I didn't get upset. But on the days when I was in a bad mood, if somebody didn't say hello to me, this was a real big deal. Report an error in the passage at 24:39 Highlight the passage at 24:39

25:03 It meant that the friendship was over. It meant that they didn't respect me. It meant X, Y and Z. And I had every right to get angry. Report an error in the passage at 25:03 Highlight the passage at 25:03

25:13 So I got angry. And I let them know. And, you know, what happens when we let people know we're angry? Well, when we own our anger, maybe they can listen, but usually we don't own our anger, usually we look at our anger as something that we got from somebody else. You made me angry. So my anger is your responsibility, it's not my responsibility, because you made me angry. Report an error in the passage at 25:13 Highlight the passage at 25:13

25:45 It's as if, you know, when the person says, you idiot, like, you know, I mean, look at it, what's happening? There's sound. Sound waves coming out of somebody's mouth. You know, something's going on here, and there's sound waves coming out of their mouth, and we're getting the sound waves, and then what happens? Report an error in the passage at 25:45 Highlight the passage at 25:45

26:06 Our hammer and stirrup, whatever it is inside here, vibrates, and the neurons start doing their thing, and it goes to the brain, and the brain does some things. Report an error in the passage at 26:06 Highlight the passage at 26:06

26:16 And then we get angry, as if the anger came from that person. It was in that person, transmitted to us like a virus, by medium of the sound waves. And we got it. You made me angry. Report an error in the passage at 26:16 Highlight the passage at 26:16

26:36 Did the other person make us angry? They just said something. They just said something. It was just sound waves. Where did the meaning of the sound waves come from? Report an error in the passage at 26:36 Highlight the passage at 26:36

26:49 Wasn't that something going on inside us? That our mind interpreted the sound waves? To mean a certain thing, you know, just the meaning of the words. Then when we, you know, we impute the meaning of the words, then we start imputing people's intentions. They said that because they want to hurt me or they said that because they're trying to fool me or they said that because they love me or whatever it is. Report an error in the passage at 26:49 Highlight the passage at 26:49

27:24 We start imputing motivations. Report an error in the passage at 27:24 Highlight the passage at 27:24

27:28 Explaining what the situation means and then reacting emotionally to whatever story we're telling ourselves and then acting verbally and physically. Report an error in the passage at 27:28 Highlight the passage at 27:28

27:45 And we get angry and we say, you made me angry. But the other person didn't make us angry. They just said some words, created some sound waves. Report an error in the passage at 27:45 Highlight the passage at 27:45

27:59 Do you see what I mean? Do you see what I'm getting at? Report an error in the passage at 27:59 Highlight the passage at 27:59

28:08 So our anger is coming from in here. Our anger is our responsibility. It's not the other person's. Because as long as we have the seed of anger inside us, we're going to meet somebody who we get mad at. It's as simple as that. As long as we have the seed of anger, we're going to meet somebody and get mad. As long as we have the seed of jealousy, we're going to find somebody to get jealous of. Report an error in the passage at 28:08 Highlight the passage at 28:08

28:36 As long as we have the seed of arrogance, we're going to meet somebody that we're going to feel proud of over, that we're better than. As long as we have the seed of attachment, we're going to find somebody to cling to. Report an error in the passage at 28:36 Highlight the passage at 28:36

28:56 So if we really want to change, we have to look at what's going on inside here and change what's going on inside of here. Report an error in the passage at 28:56 Highlight the passage at 28:56

29:07 Which means we have to recognize it's going on inside of here and that's my job. It's not other people's job. Yeah, it's my job. But that's actually good, because if it were other people's job to change so that I could be happy, then we'd really be in bad straits. Report an error in the passage at 29:07 Highlight the passage at 29:07

29:26 But if it's my job to change so that I can be happy, well, you know, I can work with my own mind, can't I? I can do something. I have that ability, I have that power. So that's something good. What gets in our way sometimes in working with our mind... Is the Easter egg of our preconceptions. I made it as the image of the Easter egg because today is Easter. Report an error in the passage at 29:26 Highlight the passage at 29:26

29:58 But I often describe it as digging ourselves into a hole and then decorating it. Report an error in the passage at 29:58 Highlight the passage at 29:58

30:09 But it's the same meaning as going into the middle of the egg and then painting the egg. It's the same kind of metaphor. Report an error in the passage at 30:09 Highlight the passage at 30:09

30:20 But we dig ourselves into holes. And then we decorate our holes with all of our preconceptions that we think is external reality. And then we react to the hole that we've dug ourselves into. And we all have, you know, in one way all of our holes are very similar. In another way, you know, we're creative and unique. Report an error in the passage at 30:20 Highlight the passage at 30:20

30:56 So there's the same theme of ignorance, anger, attachment, pride and jealousy in our holes. But we all have our own particular ways of showing these. And they're all fortified. The backdrop that we paint, you know, because before we paint our holes we have to plaster them, you know, something to paint on, are our preconceptions of who we are. Report an error in the passage at 30:56 Highlight the passage at 30:56

31:26 And so some of the seeds of these preconceptions came with us from previous lives. Some of the seeds got watered in this particular life and they grew and they became the preconceptions of who we think we are. Report an error in the passage at 31:26 Highlight the passage at 31:26

31:47 Some of our preconceptions are full of confidence, some of our preconceptions are rubbish, but we believe them. Indiscriminately. And what we actually have to do is stop and look at them and see which of my preconceptions are true and which aren't. Report an error in the passage at 31:47 Highlight the passage at 31:47

32:11 Because otherwise we're going to mistake the paintings on the wall for external reality. For example, something that became so clear to me, before I became a nun I was a teacher in the LA City School District and I thought I taught third grade one year. There was a little boy named Tyrone in my third grade class. And Tyrone was bright. But somewhere along the line, somebody, his parents, his teachers, I don't know who, told him he was stupid. Report an error in the passage at 32:11 Highlight the passage at 32:11

32:47 And he was a little kid. And his little kids, you know, little kids don't have the ability to evaluate what adults say. They usually just believe it. So Tyrone thought he was stupid. Report an error in the passage at 32:47 Highlight the passage at 32:47

33:02 He dug himself into that hole. He painted the walls that said, I'm stupid. I can't learn to read. And as a result, he couldn't learn to read. Not because he was stupid. He was not stupid. He was smart. But it was because he thought he was stupid. Report an error in the passage at 33:02 Highlight the passage at 33:02

33:30 So what he thought was actually much more important than what he was in his mind. And so... In this way, too, we have many ideas of who we are that may have been things we brought from previous lives or may have been things that people told us when we were little or may have been things we dreamt up ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 33:30 Highlight the passage at 33:30

34:02 But we believe these without questioning them. And as a result, we limit ourselves and we get ourselves into a lot of trouble. Report an error in the passage at 34:02 Highlight the passage at 34:02

34:16 So let's look at some of the varieties of the holes we dig ourselves into and how we decorate them with some of these very false preconceptions. So the one of I'm stupid is one of them. And how much have we limited ourselves by telling ourselves that I'm stupid. I Report an error in the passage at 34:16 Highlight the passage at 34:16

34:45 can't learn that. That's too hard. I remember when I went to Dharamsala and I was trying to learn Tibetan. Tibetan's really hard. And one of my teachers, Geshe Nao Adarge, would say, if you have the potential to become a Buddha, you have the potential to learn Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 34:45 Highlight the passage at 34:45

35:10 And I would say, Geshe, look, I have the potential to become a Buddha but not learn Tibetan. He said, but a Buddha knows everything. Report an error in the passage at 35:10 Highlight the passage at 35:10

35:21 I still haven't learned Tibetan. Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:28 But, you know, I've been working with that kind of self-confidence, thinking, okay, if I have the right conditions and really put my mind to it, maybe I could, instead of just flat out, no, I can't. Report an error in the passage at 35:28 Highlight the passage at 35:28

35:45 Some people have the cave. Their cave is, nobody loves me. I think this is a very popular cave, actually. I think they make them, you know, like ticky-tack houses in Dalek City. We have ticky-tack caves. So I'm Unlovable is one of our ticky-tack caves. Anybody live in that cave? I'm Unlovable. Report an error in the passage at 35:45 Highlight the passage at 35:45

36:15 Yeah. Something's, something. Yeah. You moved out? I moved out for a while. Oh, okay. You missed it. I did. Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes with our caves, we decorate them and we're so comfortable in them that when we come out we feel really uncomfortable. Report an error in the passage at 36:15 Highlight the passage at 36:15

36:41 Because we're like with this one of I'm unlovable. I am so, you know, I am inherently unlovable. And that's why nobody loves me. Because something's wrong with me. I'm defective goods in some way. I don't know how I became that way, but something's wrong. And then we believe it. And then when we meet people who are kind to us, we can't take it in. When we meet people who care about us, we can't accept it. Report an error in the passage at 36:41 Highlight the passage at 36:41

37:21 That person must be really stupid because I'm unlovable. Report an error in the passage at 37:21 Highlight the passage at 37:21

37:33 And so we reject. We push it away. We can't let it in. We can't believe it. Because it doesn't meet our self-concept. Or even if we do for a while believe, oh maybe I am lovable, then after a while it feels so uncomfortable I don't know who I am anymore. If I'm not an unlovable person, who am I? I better go back to being unlovable. Then at least I know who I am. Report an error in the passage at 37:33 Highlight the passage at 37:33

38:07 So this way of thinking severely limits what we experience. Because if we ask ourselves, Is it true I'm unlovable? What evidence do I have for being unlovable? Report an error in the passage at 38:07 Highlight the passage at 38:07

38:33 Think about it. What does your mind put forth? I'm unlovable because... What's the reason? Give me some reasons. Can't keep a commitment. Can't keep a commitment. Okay. I'm unlovable because I can't keep a commitment. Okay. Now... In Tibetan Buddhism, we do a lot of debating. We make syllogisms. A subject, a predicate and a reason. Report an error in the passage at 38:33 Highlight the passage at 38:33

39:07 So that's a syllogism. I is the subject. Am unlovable is predicate. Because I can't keep a commitment is the reason. When you look at a syllogism, I'm teaching you debating skills now. You have to check. Does the reason apply to the subject? So, am I, do I not keep commitments? Is that true or not true? Report an error in the passage at 39:07 Highlight the passage at 39:07

39:39 Well, sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not true. So that part of the argument isn't completely watertight, because sometimes I do keep commitments. Not always, but sometimes I do. But then the real big thing of the thing... Is that the reason has to apply to the predicate, which means if somebody doesn't keep commitments, they are unlovable. Report an error in the passage at 39:39 Highlight the passage at 39:39

40:09 All the time. It pervades that if somebody doesn't keep commitments, they are unlovable. Is that true? That's not true, is it? Not true. That's part of the rubbish that we believe. We made this syllogism, I am unlovable because I can't keep commitments. It's not a valid syllogism. It's rubbish. Report an error in the passage at 40:09 Highlight the passage at 40:09

40:44 So I think it's very, very helpful, at least I find it helpful, when I get tangled up in my emotions, to really ask myself, you know, what reason am I giving for whatever I'm feeling? And then to see if that reason holds water or not. Because so often the reason I give for what I'm feeling is complete stupidity. That doesn't mean I'm stupid. Report an error in the passage at 40:44 Highlight the passage at 40:44

41:14 It means the reason's stupid, which means I shouldn't believe it. Report an error in the passage at 41:14 Highlight the passage at 41:14

41:24 Here's another syllogism. I'm mad because you insulted me. Report an error in the passage at 41:24 Highlight the passage at 41:24

41:37 So did somebody insult me? Does the reason apply to the subject? Did somebody insult me? That already is a very interesting one. Yeah? Did somebody insult me? Report an error in the passage at 41:37 Highlight the passage at 41:37

41:57 Hmm, we believe they insulted us. But did they? Report an error in the passage at 41:57 Highlight the passage at 41:57

42:05 Well, they told me I'm stupid. Well, that's okay. They told me I made a mistake. Well, I did. Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:21 They said I'm completely... Well, is that insulting? I don't know. If what they say is true, then it's not an insult. It's the truth. Report an error in the passage at 42:21 Highlight the passage at 42:21

42:44 If somebody comes and says, you know, you were supposed to be here at 5 o 'clock and you weren't, that's true. Report an error in the passage at 42:44 Highlight the passage at 42:44

42:55 If somebody, it's like somebody saying the truth. If somebody tells me you have a big nose, what am I going to do? Say, no, I don't. It's true. Report an error in the passage at 42:55 Highlight the passage at 42:55

43:09 Somebody tells me I have horns on my head, I check. No, I don't. That's not true. So it doesn't have to be an insult. It can be either a statement of fact or not a statement of fact. Report an error in the passage at 43:09 Highlight the passage at 43:09

43:29 Let's go back to the syllabus. I am mad because you insulted me. Does somebody insulting us, is that a reason, a good reason to be mad? Report an error in the passage at 43:29 Highlight the passage at 43:29

43:41 If somebody insults me, does that mean I have to be mad? Are Report an error in the passage at 43:41 Highlight the passage at 43:41

43:51 you sure? The rest of the world thinks that if somebody insults us, we have to be mad. Yeah? If somebody, I mean, isn't that true? Most of the people you know, and yourself, if somebody insults you, aren't you supposed to be mad? Report an error in the passage at 43:51 Highlight the passage at 43:51

44:12 Or at least we think we have the right to be mad. Yeah. We have the right to be mad. We think we should. We also say, well, I should be mad because otherwise they're going to take advantage of me. Report an error in the passage at 44:12 Highlight the passage at 44:12

44:27 So not only do I have the right to be mad, but any, you know, red-blooded American should be mad. Report an error in the passage at 44:27 Highlight the passage at 44:27

44:43 I mean, that's what the government told us to be after 9-1-1. First go shopping, then get mad. Report an error in the passage at 44:43 Highlight the passage at 44:43

44:52 Wasn't it? So the way to be a patriotic American? Go shopping, it's good for the economy, then get mad at who bombed us. Okay? Report an error in the passage at 44:52 Highlight the passage at 44:52

45:03 But we think, okay, somebody insulted me. I should get mad. I must get mad. Something's wrong if I don't get mad. But I have a little discussion, you know, with myself when I do this. Report an error in the passage at 45:03 Highlight the passage at 45:03

45:17 Because my mind says, I get mad because this person said... And I say to myself, well, that's nice. Yes, they did say that. But why do I need to get mad at it? Well, because they said... Yeah, but why do I need to get mad? Because they don't respect you. Well... They may or they may not, but why do I need to get mad at whether they respect me? Because if they don't respect you, they're going to take advantage of you. Report an error in the passage at 45:17 Highlight the passage at 45:17

45:51 Well, they may take advantage of me or they may not take advantage of me, but I always have control over whether I say yes or no. Report an error in the passage at 45:51 Highlight the passage at 45:51

46:04 So I keep on asking myself, why am I mad? The mind keeps coming up with one reason after another after another. And then finally, you know, I get to what's really going on. Which is, I'm mad because I don't believe in myself. Report an error in the passage at 46:04 Highlight the passage at 46:04

46:32 I'm mad because I don't believe in myself. Because I'm judging myself. Because this person on the outside is mirroring what I say to myself about myself on the inside. Report an error in the passage at 46:32 Highlight the passage at 46:32

46:48 Are you getting what I'm saying? Yeah? Because sometimes we say, you know, all these negative self-concepts we have that we believe. When somebody mirrors them on the outside, we go, oh no, this is what I think about myself and somebody else agrees. They must be right. I must really be like this. And so then we believe in our garbage self-concept even more. Report an error in the passage at 46:48 Highlight the passage at 46:48

47:19 Are you getting what I'm saying? I relate it sometimes to having your covers pulled. The idea that... Sometimes the reaction I have is that, you know, maybe, you know, the other, whatever's being said is pricking a little hole in the curtain that I've painted to put up of like, oh no, this is Craig. This is what Craig's like. He's really understanding and, you know, and generous and kind and, you know, and so when that counter comes, that's not reflecting back. Report an error in the passage at 47:19 Highlight the passage at 47:19

47:57 Yeah. And that's when... If the hook is fast enough and the awareness is not there, we're off and running. Yep. And the Easter egg's getting cracked. Absolutely. Yeah. So what I've found is, you know, the Easter egg, you know, and the whole, it's just so interesting because in the whole we'll make all of our negative self-concepts. Report an error in the passage at 47:57 Highlight the passage at 47:57

48:27 You know, I'm unlovable, I'm stupid. I'm unreliable, I'm, you know, I can't learn, I'm, yeah, this, that, I'm ugly, whatever it is. And then to counter them, we'll paint the Easter egg on the outside of I'm generous, I'm kind, you know, I'm this, I'm that. And so, but we're not sure which one we believe because... Report an error in the passage at 48:27 Highlight the passage at 48:27

49:02 And I think they go very much together because the more we actually don't believe in ourself and have all these wrong self-concepts, the more we paint an artificial shell to convince ourselves that we're the opposite. Report an error in the passage at 49:02 Highlight the passage at 49:02

49:23 I realized this once. I was once working with one person who was extremely arrogant. It wasn't just my projection. Report an error in the passage at 49:23 Highlight the passage at 49:23

49:39 From his own side. Because everybody else agreed with me that he was a real arrogant jerk. Report an error in the passage at 49:39 Highlight the passage at 49:39

49:51 Okay, so I was working with this arrogant guy. Actually, Lama Yenshi sent me to work with him. Report an error in the passage at 49:51 Highlight the passage at 49:51

50:03 So, you know, I'm working with this guy, so arrogant. And at a certain point I realized, why is he so arrogant? Jerk. Report an error in the passage at 50:03 Highlight the passage at 50:03

50:16 Well, it's because he doesn't like himself very much. Report an error in the passage at 50:16 Highlight the passage at 50:16

50:23 And so rather than react to his arrogance and get so, because I got really prickly about him, instead of seeing him as an arrogant person, I need to see him as a suffering sentient being. Report an error in the passage at 50:23 Highlight the passage at 50:23

50:40 Because that's what he was. He was a suffering sentient being who didn't believe in his own Buddha nature and so put on this whole air. Report an error in the passage at 50:40 Highlight the passage at 50:40

50:51 It was extremely controlling. But once I realized that, I could start to have some compassion for him. Of course, I also had to look at why am I so reactive to his arrogance? He's pushing a button in me. Report an error in the passage at 50:51 Highlight the passage at 50:51

51:15 What's my button? Report an error in the passage at 51:15 Highlight the passage at 51:15

51:20 I don't like being around arrogant people because I don't believe in myself either. Yeah? Because when I'm around arrogant people, I think they're putting me down and they don't respect me. And that means something's wrong with me. Report an error in the passage at 51:20 Highlight the passage at 51:20

51:41 So that's my own, you know, there's so many questions that came from this experience of working with this guy. You know, why am I noticing so much arrogance in him? Because I have it. I know arrogance very well. So I can detect it in lots of people. Report an error in the passage at 51:41 Highlight the passage at 51:41

52:02 Yeah. But once I began to see him as a suffering sentient being, and to extend some compassion to him for that, I began to be able to see, oh, I'm suffering in the same way. Report an error in the passage at 52:02 Highlight the passage at 52:02

52:20 I also have the Buddha nature, but I don't believe in it. So I put on this shell of, you know, here I am. That's completely false. So why not just drop the whole thing? Report an error in the passage at 52:20 Highlight the passage at 52:20

52:39 I really don't need to compete with this guy. I really don't need to compete with him. And I don't need to react to him. And I don't need any of the stuff I've been doing. I just need to have compassion. That's all. For him and for me. Report an error in the passage at 52:39 Highlight the passage at 52:39

53:04 So it's an interesting thing, you know, the holes we dig, the Easter eggs we paint. Report an error in the passage at 53:04 Highlight the passage at 53:04

53:14 You know, the Buddha tells us we have the potential to become fully enlightened Buddhists. And we don't believe him. Report an error in the passage at 53:14 Highlight the passage at 53:14

53:25 When we get stuck in this thing of, you know, something's wrong with me, you know, when we have shame or self-criticism or any of this stuff, we get stuck in that. Report an error in the passage at 53:25 Highlight the passage at 53:25

53:39 We think everybody else has the potential to become fully awakened but me. You see, because I'm special. I really am the center of the universe. I'm unique. Everybody else has the Buddha nature but me. Is that true? Not Report an error in the passage at 53:39 Highlight the passage at 53:39

54:05 true. But when we get stuck in our depression, when we get stuck in our self-deprecation, it's as if we're saying to the Buddha, Buddha, you're lying. Everybody else has the Buddha potential but not me. Report an error in the passage at 54:05 Highlight the passage at 54:05

54:27 Think about that for a minute. Do you want to tell the Buddha he's lying? Report an error in the passage at 54:27 Highlight the passage at 54:27

54:35 Yeah? Is that something you really want to do? You really want to tell the Buddha that he's wrong? That everybody else has the potential to overcome their limitations and develop full wisdom and compassion? But me? You really want to say that to the Buddha? That he got it all wrong? Report an error in the passage at 54:35 Highlight the passage at 54:35

55:02 Think about that. Report an error in the passage at 55:02 Highlight the passage at 55:02

55:07 So my experience in working with people in the West is that this low self-esteem and this self-criticism is one of our biggest hindrances on the path. Report an error in the passage at 55:07 Highlight the passage at 55:07

55:22 Biggest hindrances. Because we just think, I can't do it. I'm this way. I have a bad temper and that's all there is to it. I can't get along with people and nothing about me is going to change. That's it. I'm going to live my whole life not getting along with people because I have a bad temper. I can't change. I'm a solid, concrete, inherently existent personality that can't change. Report an error in the passage at 55:22 Highlight the passage at 55:22

55:55 It's the way we feel about ourselves. Is that true? Are you really an inherently existent, disagreeable person? Report an error in the passage at 55:55 Highlight the passage at 55:55

56:09 What evidence do you have for that? Report an error in the passage at 56:09 Highlight the passage at 56:09

56:16 And are you going to, when you pull out that evidence, why you're an inherently existent? You know, stupid, ridiculous, evil, incompetent person. Are you going to look the Buddha in the eye and tell him he's lying? That he said all sentient beings have the Buddha potential, but he's wrong, because you don't. Report an error in the passage at 56:16 Highlight the passage at 56:16

56:42 So what I'm getting at is when we get locked in these spiral thoughts of putting ourselves down, we have to stop it. Stop and just look and say, this... I am digging myself into a hole by my thoughts, by my preconceptions. This has nothing to do with an external reality. I am digging a hole and decorating it. And Report an error in the passage at 56:42 Highlight the passage at 56:42

57:18 I can move out of this hole. And I can fill the hole in so that I can't crawl back into it later on. Report an error in the passage at 57:18 Highlight the passage at 57:18

57:34 And I don't have to paint an Easter egg to convince everybody of how wonderful I am either. I can just be me. I have good qualities. I have faults. What else is new? Report an error in the passage at 57:34 Highlight the passage at 57:34

57:52 Oh, I'm just like everybody else. Imagine that. Everybody else has good qualities. Everybody else, except the holy beings, have faults. Report an error in the passage at 57:52 Highlight the passage at 57:52

58:05 I don't need to judge myself. I don't need to judge others. Report an error in the passage at 58:05 Highlight the passage at 58:05

58:13 We all have the potential to overcome our limitations, so let's get busy doing that instead of sitting there feeling sorry for ourselves and everything else. Report an error in the passage at 58:13 Highlight the passage at 58:13

58:31 That's another hole we dig ourselves into, the self-pity hole. We start off in the I'm unlovable, I'm incompetent, I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm thin, I'm whatever else it is, hole. Report an error in the passage at 58:31 Highlight the passage at 58:31

58:51 We go to that, we stay in that one. And then when we really feel bad, we go in the self, we dig ourselves a little bit deeper. And that's called the self-pity hole. Report an error in the passage at 58:51 Highlight the passage at 58:51

59:06 And one of the inmates I correspond with quoted the phrase, a pity party. He said, we have a pity party. He wrote me, I had a pity party in my cell today. And so we too have pity parties in our hole. Report an error in the passage at 59:06 Highlight the passage at 59:06

59:26 Poor me. Report an error in the passage at 59:26 Highlight the passage at 59:26

59:34 Somebody blamed me. Somebody told me I was stupid. Somebody told me that I can't be relied on. Somebody told me that I'm unlovable. Somebody told me that I'm ugly. Report an error in the passage at 59:34 Highlight the passage at 59:34

59:54 So we throw our pity party all alone in our hole. Report an error in the passage at 59:54 Highlight the passage at 59:54

1:00:03 Nobody loves me. I'm so sad. I'm so depressed. And they don't even realize it. And of course a friend comes. I don't know if any of you do this. This is what I do. I'm sitting there feeling sorry for myself and a friend comes and says, is anything wrong? No. Just leave me alone. And then I go back to, nobody loves me. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:03 Highlight the passage at 1:00:03

1:00:30 Nobody cares about me. Nobody even talks to me. Can't they see I'm so unhappy and miserable? Report an error in the passage at 1:00:30 Highlight the passage at 1:00:30

1:00:44 Anybody else throw pity parties? Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:44 Highlight the passage at 1:00:44

1:00:55 I used to throw these really great pity parties. I'm so unhappy, I'm so depressed, and nobody loves me. And then when anybody came and said, oh, you look unhappy, there's nothing Report an error in the passage at 1:00:55 Highlight the passage at 1:00:55

1:01:15 wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:15 Highlight the passage at 1:01:15

1:01:20 Either that or I would turn to them and I'd go, rescue me! And I'd throw my arms around them with Velcro and stick to them, rescue me, rescue me! Report an error in the passage at 1:01:20 Highlight the passage at 1:01:20

1:01:36 What do you do when somebody throws their Velcro arms around you? Ah, get me away! Yeah. And then they go, yeah, see, nobody loves me. Further evidence. They were going to rescue me, but they left me too. Nobody loves me. I Report an error in the passage at 1:01:36 Highlight the passage at 1:01:36

1:02:03 kept the Kleenex company in good business for a number of years. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:03 Highlight the passage at 1:02:03

1:02:11 So this is all just stuff made up by our mind. It's just all conceptual, conceptual fabrications that our mind makes up. And that if we stop and look at and ask ourselves, is this true? Report an error in the passage at 1:02:11 Highlight the passage at 1:02:11

1:02:33 We begin to see, no, it's not true. It's not true at all. And then it actually takes some courage to put it down and to develop the image of I'm somebody who can become a Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:33 Highlight the passage at 1:02:33

1:02:52 I'm somebody who has the seeds of love and compassion and goodwill and benevolence and non-harmfulness and wisdom. I have all these seeds inside of me. That doesn't mean that's a reason to get arrogant. It's not. Not better than anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:52 Highlight the passage at 1:02:52

1:03:12 But I have those qualities inside me right now. I need to water those seeds. I need to develop those qualities to nurture. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:12 Highlight the passage at 1:03:12

1:03:23 Nurture those aspects of myself. And that's something I can do. And if I do it slowly and gradually, I'll actually get somewhere. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:23 Highlight the passage at 1:03:23

1:03:35 So we have to develop a whole new way of looking at ourselves and treating ourselves and developing some kindness towards ourselves instead of all this dreadful self-criticism, which is baloney. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:35 Highlight the passage at 1:03:35

1:04:02 So, maybe now we can have some... Comments, questions, little discussion about this? Report an error in the passage at 1:04:02 Highlight the passage at 1:04:02

1:04:15 I think the thing I appreciate the most over time and just trying to keep the commitment of practicing, no matter how imperfectly, is that the teaching on impermanence, especially around this, happens slowly, slowly, slowly. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:15 Highlight the passage at 1:04:15

1:04:34 I guess everybody gets it their own way, but being able to... You know, go through that pity party or I like resentment parties myself. Ah, okay. Resentment parties are far more superior than pity parties. So, you know, and because that is the model, that is the hook or the shimpa that arises for me, I, you know, when I started trying to practice and would listen to you and listen to teachings, I'd kind of go, yeah, okay, that's fine. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:34 Highlight the passage at 1:04:34

1:05:03 It's not going to happen for me. The teaching on impermanence, you know, finally, well what if impermanence does exist? Which at least brought a crack in that egg and said, okay, well, maybe this does, this is an impermanent phenomena. And then being able to sit at least enough with the breath to be able to come back, come back, come back, and then get some sense of like, oh yeah, this is, what are the scripts I write? Report an error in the passage at 1:05:03 Highlight the passage at 1:05:03

1:05:35 Where am I in this movie now? So as time has gone on, I've really grown. That's the blessing. Yeah. So beginning to see that your distressed states of mind are not solid and concrete, that they're transient. They change. Yeah. Right between there. Yeah. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:35 Highlight the passage at 1:05:35

1:06:07 Yeah. All created right there. And it isn't even solid. It's, you know, it changes. The situation changes. Yeah. So I have a big question, which is how do we put together, we're social animals. We know we're like primates. And in infancy, mothers, it turns out that throughout life we're regulating physiology. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:07 Highlight the passage at 1:06:07

1:06:39 So if you see people, strangers on the street, if they don't look at you, Your mood goes down. Good experiments. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:39 Highlight the passage at 1:06:39

1:06:53 Give you eye contact. Your mood goes up. It's pretty amazing. So you followed this. Okay, so how do we put that together, knowing that there's so much research evidence, with the idea that if someone insults us, well, we may not get angry, but we have to notice it and think about it and figure out what we're going to do about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:53 Highlight the passage at 1:06:53

1:07:24 Because we're social animals. So the question is, how do we put this together with evolutionary biology, really? Yeah, okay. How do we put it together with evolutionary biology? What you're saying is going back to that thing of any normal person who is treated this way responds in this way and has no choice in the matter. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:24 Highlight the passage at 1:07:24

1:07:50 I don't agree with that. It might be that... There's, you know, physiology for this or that that shows different things. But I think we have a choice in how we respond to things. Yeah? And, you know, somebody can look, like you said, somebody doesn't look at us and our mood goes down and research has shown that. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:50 Highlight the passage at 1:07:50

1:08:18 They've shown that for people who are not aware of what they're feeling and thinking. But if you become a person who is aware of what you're feeling and thinking, if you walk down the street and a person doesn't look at you, you react with a totally different thought towards it. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:18 Highlight the passage at 1:08:18

1:08:39 If His Holiness walks down the street and somebody doesn't look at him, His Holiness is looking at, well, who is that person? How are they feeling? Are they happy? Are they miserable? What can I do for them? His Holiness isn't looking at it through the perspective of, do they notice me? Because I'm so important. And if they don't notice me, then something's wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:39 Highlight the passage at 1:08:39

1:09:04 No, His Holiness completely transformed His mind. So He's looking at the situation in a different way. So I think we always have a choice when we're mindful, when we're aware, when we consciously train our mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:04 Highlight the passage at 1:09:04

1:09:23 Then we can choose how we respond. When we don't train our mind, when we aren't aware, then there's so many patterns we have that we just follow those patterns. We live on automatic. But I think this is one of the beauties of the Buddha's teaching, is that it's teaching us how not to live on automatic. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:23 Highlight the passage at 1:09:23

1:09:52 An example, I do work in prisons and... Many of you know anything about prison, respect is a really big issue. It's a big issue on the outside, but it's a really big issue on the inside of prisons. Why? Because most of the people who are imprisoned are people who weren't respected, you know, in one way or another. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:52 Highlight the passage at 1:09:52

1:10:21 So they build up this kind of rough, tough... You've got to respect me, buddy. And if you don't, I'm going to punch you. And then become super sensitive to any sign of what they consider respectful or disrespectful. So when you're standing in chow line, if somebody comes and stands in front of you, Whoa! Who do you think you are cutting in front of me? You're being disrespectful to me. And everybody else saw that. And if I don't punch you or retaliate or do something, everybody else is going to think I'm weak. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:21 Highlight the passage at 1:10:21

1:11:03 And they're not going to respect me. And they build themselves into this conceptual framework and say that's absolutely positively the way everybody in prison thinks and I have to react and stick up for myself because they're not respecting me. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:03 Highlight the passage at 1:11:03

1:11:19 And I say, I don't believe that. They say, well, that's because you've never been in prison. Well, that's true. I have the prison of saṃsāra. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:19 Highlight the passage at 1:11:19

1:11:32 But I say, you know, you have a choice. What happens if somebody cuts in front of you and you say, please, come, stand here, come in front of me? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:32 Highlight the passage at 1:11:32

1:11:44 Because I said, when you react in fear, you've bitten the hook that they've thrown. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:44 Highlight the passage at 1:11:44

1:11:55 When you don't react in fear and you have a sense of your own well-being and say, sure, please come stand here, then what are they going to do? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:55 Highlight the passage at 1:11:55

1:12:11 So I don't think we automatically have to react in certain ways. I think we have some choice. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:11 Highlight the passage at 1:12:11

1:12:23 But we have to be aware. And we have to want to have that choice and take advantage of it. And then we have to really train our mind. Because we have so much habit going in one way that it really takes a lot of effort and a lot of training to steer our mental habits in another direction. But if we practice, then we can do it. It's like learning to ride a bike. You can't ride a bike the first time you get on it. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:23 Highlight the passage at 1:12:23

1:12:55 You have to practice. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:55 Highlight the passage at 1:12:55

1:12:59 We can't do complicated calculus when we're in kindergarten. We have to learn how to add. But if we practice adding and subtracting and step by step, you know, and train ourselves, eventually we get there. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:59 Highlight the passage at 1:12:59

1:13:25 Yeah, exactly. That compassion that says, I don't need to be perfect by next week. Yeah. The compassion that says, I can train my mind slowly, gradually. Bite off how much ever I can chew, pat myself on the back for chewing whatever I'm capable of, and then taking another bite after that. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:25 Highlight the passage at 1:13:25

1:13:55 Thank you so much for your teaching. Your joy and playfulness as you talk about these topics I'm so afraid of is just beautiful. My question was, what Report an error in the passage at 1:13:55 Highlight the passage at 1:13:55

1:14:19 Is there any one thing that unlocked that joy and that playfulness in regard to these topics? Or was it many different little things? Report an error in the passage at 1:14:19 Highlight the passage at 1:14:19

1:14:35 The first thing that comes to mind is Lama Yeshe was one of my first teachers. And Lama had a way of speaking in which he made us laugh at ourselves. Yeah? He would, you know, kind of make fun of us, how we acted, and would really make us laugh at ourselves. And I think for me that was so therapeutic, because I took myself so seriously, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:35 Highlight the passage at 1:14:35

1:15:09 It's like, oh, everything I think is true, everything I do is like, oh. And, you know. And then Lama is just like... You know, he would tease us and he would make fun of us and he had a way of making us laugh at ourselves. And I think that that was really good because, you know, sometimes what we think is hilarious. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:09 Highlight the passage at 1:15:09

1:15:39 It is and we have to learn. I remember one time I was doing retreat. Yeah, so I'm sitting there doing retreat, it was a three month retreat, a solo retreat, you know, and I'm really meditating really well and trying to do this. And then I'm thinking, I'm such a good meditator, you know, Lama Zopa, I'm sure he has clairvoyance. He knows how hard I'm trying in my practice and what a good little practitioner I am. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:39 Highlight the passage at 1:15:39

1:16:13 And as soon as I realized I was thinking that, I just cracked up. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:13 Highlight the passage at 1:16:13

1:16:21 It's like, what? I mean, I'm saying things. The Report an error in the passage at 1:16:21 Highlight the passage at 1:16:21

1:16:33 Lama's over. So, kind of like that. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:33 Highlight the passage at 1:16:33

1:16:50 Hi, Venerable. So, when you talk about preconception earlier in your talk, right? So, what came to my mind is, you know, the most rooted preconception should be the belief system. That is, you know. in doubt I'm a person, let's say, when he or she is a child, so... When we talk about things in general, our thoughts, and maybe we can try to peel the onion layer by layer to get to what it is in reality. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:50 Highlight the passage at 1:16:50

1:17:23 But when we talk about your belief system as your preconception, and that's very profound, the impact it can have. And so that leads me to think, you know, what if it's a religion that makes up your belief system and creates in the process of all those thoughts. And I also know that you have some interreligion dialogue, this type of work. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:23 Highlight the passage at 1:17:23

1:18:01 And I also know that's one of the two things that His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I've been working on you know vigorously so you talk a little bit about that you know if what if it's you know somebody's trapped in that kind of Okay, so you're talking about when we're children and we're educated in a certain religion or even a certain political view or a certain, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:01 Highlight the passage at 1:18:01

1:18:30 But especially religion, certain views that we have, and you're taught certain things when you're young. And because you're young and you don't have the ability to discriminate, those things really go in and you kind of believe them and they influence you for a long time. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:30 Highlight the passage at 1:18:30

1:18:48 And that's really true. And I find that one of the things, especially with people who grew up in a Judeo-Christian culture, With the idea of heaven and hell or original sin, some of these kinds of things, or that Jesus died for you. Yeah, so that you kind of, you owe, I mean, little children, how they take things in and how they think about things, it doesn't always make sense, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:48 Highlight the passage at 1:18:48

1:19:30 I heard a story of one little boy and one of his schoolmates got in a bicycle accident or some kind of accident and died. And his parents said, oh, God took him away. And the little boy said, I don't like God. Yeah. Is God going to take you away from me? So while the parent was using that to console the child, the child. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:30 Highlight the passage at 1:19:30

1:20:01 Interpreted it as one more thing to fear. Okay. And so similarly, you know, I think when we're little, you know, we get six-year-old versions of religion. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:01 Highlight the passage at 1:20:01

1:20:19 Yeah. So there's, you know, original sin. You're born evil. There's nothing, you know, you're born sinful. There's nothing you can do. Or Jesus died for you. Okay? Report an error in the passage at 1:20:19 Highlight the passage at 1:20:19

1:20:32 Like, oh my God, you know, I didn't even ask this person to do something and he went ahead and died for me and I, you know, I really owe him a lot, you know. And so either this feeling of obligation to pay it back or this feeling of resentment, like I didn't ask you to do that, why are you telling me I owe you something now? Report an error in the passage at 1:20:32 Highlight the passage at 1:20:32

1:20:53 You know, because we're kids taking these things in and also we're getting theologies that, you know, may have different degrees of, Reasonableness to them also. Or, you know, God's looking at me all the time. Oh my God. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:53 Highlight the passage at 1:20:53

1:21:15 Yeah. Or I get in trouble and, you know, God's going to save me. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, we have... don't know. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:15 Highlight the passage at 1:21:15

1:21:29 We find people who grew up in that kind of thought frame, when we come to Buddhism, very often we have remnants of that way of thinking that we bring into Buddhism. And then we get really, really tangled up. And so I think it's quite important, you know, whether you were brought up like that or not. To see what kind of conditioning we received as children, what were those preconceptions that we were taught when we were children regarding religion that went into us at some level just out of conditioning, but maybe we weren't really conscious of it. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:29 Highlight the passage at 1:21:29

1:22:10 And now it's time for us to make those beliefs, make those preconceptions conscious and then really Go about discriminating which ones are true and which ones aren't and which ones we're going to believe and which ones we're not going to believe. Because when we were little we got all sorts of conditioning and we couldn't control it. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:10 Highlight the passage at 1:22:10

1:22:33 And our little kid's mind, you know, interpreted it in who knows what kind of way. But I think this is the nice thing about being adults is we can, we don't need to be afraid of that stuff. We can make it conscious and then say, Is it true or not? Am I going to continue to believe this and live my life based on this kind of belief or not? Report an error in the passage at 1:22:33 Highlight the passage at 1:22:33

1:22:57 And if it's not true, then just let it go. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:57 Highlight the passage at 1:22:57

1:23:05 I have a question based on that. I have noticed, my observations, and they may be wrong, is that it is much easier for people who grew up in the Catholic Church. Really believing in God, believing in Jesus, to shift into believing in deities and Buddha as godlike, Buddha who could perform miracles. And how do you think about that? And I think people who are raised basically atheistic, it's very strange to see Report an error in the passage at 1:23:05 Highlight the passage at 1:23:05

1:23:53 Mystical thing. You know, the reincarnation, if you grew up with no heaven and hell. Could you speak to that? Yeah, okay. So you're saying that the Catholics who grew up with, you know, there's God that you worship can believe in deities and, you know, the incense is familiar and things like that. But some people who grew up maybe from a scientific... Report an error in the passage at 1:23:53 Highlight the passage at 1:23:53

1:24:19 As a viewpoint or as atheist have a harder time wrapping their minds around these kinds of concepts such as rebirth. I grew up pretty atheist and I remember going to my first Dharma course and they were teaching about rebirth and I had all the time when I was growing up I had thought why am I here? What's the meaning of my life? Why in the world am I here? Report an error in the passage at 1:24:19 Highlight the passage at 1:24:19

1:24:51 The idea of a creator god and that whole thing didn't make any sense to me. And one of the things that I really liked when I went to my first Buddhist course was the teacher, the Lama and Rinpoche said, don't believe everything we say. Take it, think about it, listen, listen to it, you know, apply reason and logic, experiment with it, try it out, see if it works, see if it makes sense, and then you decide. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:51 Highlight the passage at 1:24:51

1:25:22 And I really liked that viewpoint. That kind of went along with the scientific way that I was raised. And the thing was that when I heard about rebirth and when I heard the reasoning put forth, you know, to illustrate rebirth, and when I thought about it, it was like, oh, this makes sense. You know, it never made sense to me that I was created by an external creator. I could not. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:22 Highlight the passage at 1:25:22

1:25:51 Understand that. But oh, one moment of mine came from a previous moment of mine that was a cause for it, which came from a previous moment of mine, which came from a previous moment of mine. And I had already learned from math class that there's infinity and there's no beginning. So for me, the whole idea of rebirth was like, oh, that makes sense. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:51 Highlight the passage at 1:25:51

1:26:18 So it's interesting, isn't it? The thing about deities, I think if I had been introduced to deities in my first Dharma course, I probably would have gone bye-bye. Yeah? Because I thought that was all pretty weird. But the thing is that once I learned the meaning of deities and what the proper way to relate to them was, you know. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:18 Highlight the passage at 1:26:18

1:26:46 And that I don't need to see them as external beings and that they're representations of the Buddha's enlightened mind. And I learned how to relate to them properly. Then I could really use that method to help me. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:46 Highlight the passage at 1:26:46

1:27:09 I feel we should let you go, but I can't resist this topic. I actually was brought up Catholic and then learned a lot of other things. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:09 Highlight the passage at 1:27:09

1:27:22 But. This is interesting to me in terms of the tantric practice and keeping clear that we're not talking about an external god in that sense. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:22 Highlight the passage at 1:27:22

1:27:38 Sometimes I have to really be very conscious of that and I wonder if it's possible to never slip into that confusion at a certain point. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:38 Highlight the passage at 1:27:38

1:27:57 Okay, so you're saying that you were brought up Catholic with the belief in God, and you find yourself projecting that onto the deities and relating... Or internalizing, like, I fear my own grandiosity, some sense of taking that on. What do you mean? Well, that the idea is not really to identify, but to find that inside of oneself, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:27:57 Highlight the passage at 1:27:57

1:28:27 Are you talking about the tantra practice of generating yourself as the deity? Yes. Yeah. Well, that's why it's extremely important that you do the meditation on emptiness before you self-generate. Yeah? Because when you do the meditation on emptiness, you realize there's no inherently existent me. So if there's no inherently existent me, you don't have to fear self-aggrandizement. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:27 Highlight the passage at 1:28:27

1:28:56 And you don't have to crawl back into that hole at some point. Right. Okay. I don't know how much emptiness one has to get, but thank you. Yeah, but you see, this is why it's so important to have a very strong background in the stages of the path, the lamrim teachings, before entering Tantra. Because nowadays people go into Tantra very quickly and then have this... Report an error in the passage at 1:28:56 Highlight the passage at 1:28:56

1:29:21 That's the exact kind of question that you're talking about. And that's why I think it's so important to really learn about the three principal aspects of the path, the determination to be free, bodhicitta, wisdom. Get a firm foundation and then Tantra makes sense. But without going into Tantra too soon, then it doesn't make much sense. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:21 Highlight the passage at 1:29:21

1:29:52 I found myself backing up in my practice because I got this misconception of that. Well, this is the progression. That's what we're supposed to do. And so, yeah, we're just going to get an empowerment. We're going to start this. And so I relate to her question quite a lot and found myself, you know, I need to back up. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:52 Highlight the passage at 1:29:52

1:30:10 I need to slow down and, you know, practice the preliminaries. That's a good spot to start. That's good. Yeah. If you've made commitments, keep up your commitments. But really put your energy in the preliminaries that are going to change your mind right now and really get you very soundly established in the Buddhist worldview. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:10 Highlight the passage at 1:30:10

1:30:36 Enable you to stop the resentment parties. What you saw was that you were building the roof before you had built the foundation and the walls. So that's good. Build your foundation in your walls. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:36 Highlight the passage at 1:30:36

1:31:01 Let's sit quietly for a few minutes. This is what I call digestion meditation. So it'll just be a few minutes of silence and think about what you heard, okay, so that you can bring it with you, take it with you when you leave. And Report an error in the passage at 1:31:01 Highlight the passage at 1:31:01

· · · silence, 4 minutes

1:35:41 let's rejoice that we were able to spend the afternoon together in this way and rejoice at all the positive energy, the merit. created individuals and as a group. Report an error in the passage at 1:35:41 Highlight the passage at 1:35:41

1:36:00 let's dedicate that merit, it out into the universe. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:00 Highlight the passage at 1:36:00

1:36:07 our prayers and our aspirations. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:07 Highlight the passage at 1:36:07

1:36:12 that through this energy that we've created... May all beings be well and happy. May all beings encounter the Dharma teachings. May all beings... Report an error in the passage at 1:36:12 Highlight the passage at 1:36:12

1:36:28 Develop their love and compassion and wisdom and have the confidence in their own Buddha nature and become fully enlightened Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 1:36:28 Highlight the passage at 1:36:28

1:37:05 Thank you all very much. There's a few postcard deity cards from Srivasti Abbey and also some Dharma talks on CDs that are out there. You're welcome to take them. You're welcome to come visit us at the Abbey too. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:05 Highlight the passage at 1:37:05

1:37:33 to say to Ling in this auspicious occasion. Thank you so much for coming Report an error in the passage at 1:37:33 Highlight the passage at 1:37:33

1:37:43 with us. pray fervently for your swift return to our center. Report an error in the passage at 1:37:43 Highlight the passage at 1:37:43

1:38:01 you, of course, of the gifts that she bought. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:01 Highlight the passage at 1:38:01

1:38:07 offering to Shabbat Shalom. because this is an auspicious occasion, very wonderful to make offerings to such a moon as well, and you can do that with us, have a boat as well. Thank you. It was really very nice to be here. Thank you all. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:07 Highlight the passage at 1:38:07

1:38:46 Maybe you can turn the mic off. and please come back soon. Yeah, thank you. Everyone. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:46 Highlight the passage at 1:38:46

1:38:34 you all. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:34 Highlight the passage at 1:38:34

1:38:40 I'll bring you closer. Sure. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:40 Highlight the passage at 1:38:40

1:38:48 Maybe I can turn the mic off. Report an error in the passage at 1:38:48 Highlight the passage at 1:38:48