Winter Retreat 2007 Sravasti Abbey Teaching / Q &A session #7 Venerable Thubten Chodron February 8, 2007 Chenrezig is the

essence of compassion, the nature of compassion, the full expression of compassion. And understanding how that is such a noble and remarkable quality then we want to develop compassion in our own hearts and minds, similar to the kind of compassion Chenrezig has. One of the things that is unique about Chenrezig compassion is how its extended towards everybody. Its not limited to just friends, relatives or people who were nice to him, but its extended towards everybody. In our education were trained to always see the differences in things. From the time were little. Whats the differences between this block and that block? The difference between this and that. But when we train to develop compassion we want to focus on what is the same. So, what is the same about all living beings? How can we see them as similar and as similar to ourselves and therefore open our hearts to them? We tend to see ourselves as so unique so special. Were brought up to be individuals. So we see ourselves as different from other people. But I think this, again, is a problem for us for developing compassion, because were focusing too much on differences instead of how we and other sentient beings are alike in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering. How we are alike in being overwhelmed by afflictions and karma. How were alike in cycling through samsara not of our own free will but propelled by afflictions and karma. So the more we see how we and others are similar, then these very crucial aspectsespecially how we all want happiness and to be free of sufferingthe more we can do this the more we can open our hearts to feel compassion for others in the same way that we want ourselves to be happy and free of suffering. And when we stop focusing so much on differences instead on similarities then helping others becomes as easy as helping ourselves. And we lose that feeling of, If I give them this then I wont have it, because we wont be making such marked distinctions that are actually quite unrealistic between self and others. Try and let your mind open to that and open to seeing sentient beings in that way, with feelings of love and compassion for them. Ok! So whats been happening in peoples meditation? What have you been thinking about? Retreatant 1: I have a question. I have been thinking about when you talk about Buddha Nature in, Open Heart Clear Mind. You talk basic goodness. What is the basic goodness? Because all the things its coming from are neutral. Is it just like a potential? Well yes, what do we mean by basic goodness when we talk about Buddha Potential? Because actually so many of the things that are Buddha Nature are neutral: The empty nature of the mindthat is not good or bador the clear light nature of the mindthat is not virtuous or non-virtuous. Part of Buddha Nature includes the seeds of compassion that we have, the seeds of love. We have all these virtuous mental factors in our mind stream already and so those things by their nature are virtuous and we want to develop them more and more. So you could call them, a kind of born goodness too. But I think

just the fact that the mind is free of inherent existence and free of any inborn taints, that is also is pretty good news. Even though that makes it neutral, just the fact of making it neutral gives us a whole new perspective because so often we have this, I am inherently bad and shameful and inadequate and bale, bale, bale. Retreatant 1: What I came up with was if youre going to make cookies and you go into the kitchen if the ingredients arent there, youre never going to get the result. So we have these ingredients. Yeah, thats exactly it! We have the ingredients to make the cookies, we have the mental factors of faith and integrity. Retreatant 1: But then theres this second question. They make this reasoning that were not angry all the time, and we all know that were not angry all the time and so we use that as a way to explain to ourself that its not our basic nature. But were also not compassionate all the time either. Ok. So we use as reason to show that the negative mental factors are not our basic nature by saying, Were not angry all the time. If anger were my basic nature, Id be angry all the time. But also, compassion, were not compassionate all the time, so that reason doesnt seam to work. But the thing is that when you realize emptiness and see that things are empty of inherent existence then that realization can take the rug out from underneath the anger and the anger can no longer stand because there is no place for it to stand on because anger is based on grasping at inherent existence. Where something like compassion you can have even if you dont have grasping at inherent existence. While there is a way to eradicate anger from the mind-stream completely, there is no way to eradicate compassion from the mind-stream completely. Retreatant 1: Because theyre not standing on a misperception. Right. Because anger is based completely on misperception and compassion isnt. Retreatant 1: But then there is two wisdoms. One is realizing emptiness and the other is about karma. So then it has to be your karma, your wisdom relating to karma that takes you along for eons or until you realize emptiness. OK, so there is two wisdoms: the wisdom realizing emptiness and the wisdom understanding how karma functions. If we look at it in the opposite way, two types of ignorance: the ignorance that grasps at true existence and the ignorance that has wrong ideas about karma. If you have the ignorance that grasps at true existence, you dont necessarily create non-virtuous actions out of that, because when youre making offerings at the altar or being kind to somebody there still could be grasping at true existence, but youre mind also has a positive mental factor at that time, OK? Where as if you have the ignorance that doesnt understand how karma functions, whenever that is manifest in the mind, then youre definitely going to create negative karma, because that is the ignorance that comes up when we say, Well, this isnt really a lie. It's not going to have a bad

effect. It is that ignorance that supports a lot of the negative karma that we create. So that is why you look in the Lam Rim, what comes first is to understand karma and its results because we have to get some basic grounding on that so that we can get our ethical conduct together then on the basis of the ethical conduct, when we start learning about emptiness, learning about it becomes easier and it also makes more sense. Retreatant 1: That is a pretty powerful wisdom. Which wisdom? Retreatant 1: The one relating to karma. Yeah, well both wisdoms are really powerful. Whether you perceive non-true existence or you understand karma. Actually, the full understanding of karma only the Buddha has. But just gaining some understanding of karma completely turns our life around. If we really understand that we are creating our future right now, you know, how we always dream about the future and fantasize about the future and what we want to become, but we never think about how I get from here to the future. Well, if you think about what kind of person you want to be- and Im not talking about you know, I want to be president or this career or that career, but what kind of human being do you want to be in the future or in a future life what kind of sentient being do you want to be? Do you want to be an angry one, a cooperative one, do you want to be one who adds good will to the people who you are around, one who creates problems for the people around you. What kind of living being do you want to be? And then to realize we are creating the cause for what kind of living being that we are going to be in the future. So when we understand karma that kind of wakes us up. It is like, Ok, Im creating the cause for that I need to start doing that. Or even if on a mundane level you say I want to be wealthy in the future. So you have to learn a skill and all that, but you also have to be generous. Because many people have skills and wind up poor because they didnt create the karma of being generous in previous lives. Ok, so you say, I want to have some wealth to practice Dharma then I have to practice generosity. And if I want to be able to meet teachers that I can get along with that arent going to find me just horrible and disgusting, then I better practice patience right now. And if I want to be able to accomplish the Dharma in future lives, or accomplish anything, then I need joyous effort. Because without joyous effort I look at everything and throw my hands up because the world looks so crummy and so awful and Im full of despair and Im one being what can I do about it? We just get locked into that way of thinking then nothing is going to change now and for sure were not going to be an optimistic, joyful kind of person in the future, yeah? So I think if we understand that we are creating what we want to be in the future, then instead of in our meditation sessions daydreaming about the future, instead of wasting time with daydreams of attachment start creating the causes, the karma, to become that kind of person we want to be or to live in the kind of situation we want to live in. And then make strong dedication prayers for that. Because otherwise its kind of like we talk about karma but when the rubber hits the road we dont really live like we believe in it, yeah?

Retreatant 2: But that can be hard to determine sometimes too because one person can look as something one way and another can look at it in a totally different way. For example, you two, youre excellent taking care of the bugs in the meditation hall and sometimes for me my tendencies for compassion go in a different way. You guys are really good with the bugs, my focus is different. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that is ok. Retreatant 2: So it is difficult to say, To create the cause, because sometimes we might be thinking of the cause and were not creating the cause. So I mean there is even more subtle interpersonal or social factors that dictate that as well. Ok. You are saying a couple things here. One is that different people have different ways of showing for example, compassion, patience, or whatever. And a second thing is that sometimes we think we are acting kindly but in fact, were not. I think whichever way we have of expressing our good will, express it like that, and then, if somebody else is very good at doing something in another waythat isnt our way or our talentwe can still look and admire their way of doing it and rejoice in what they are doing. It is like everybody has their own talents so we should really use it to the way we can and show our kindness in the way that comes easy to us but also build up the ways that arent so easy. And the other thing you said about sometimes we think were being kind but were not, yeah that is very true. There is no way around it you just have to act in the moment and then as we progress, then sometimes we look back at our motivation at a previous time and it becomes clear to us, but you cant just stand there in the middle of the road and say, Well, I dont know if Im acting kind or not. I dont know what my motivation is. Well, I know it is not 100% clean, clear so does that mean Im not going to do anything? So you just stand there and waste a lot of time. Where as with as much kindness as we have, Yeah ok, were not Buddhas, its not perfect kindness, but with as much kindness as is there, we do something. So instead of always beating ourselves up because we think we should be perfect, whatever we have, than we use it. Wheres Miles? Retreatant: Yeah, Tsundru could use this. He needs to transcribe this. (transcribers note: he is!) But it is true isnt it? We do what we can and instead of always getting caught up in this thing of, Oh, maybe Im not doing it one-hundred percent right and my motivation is a little bit tainted and I dont know what my real motivation is. Ohhh And so you just stand there and drive everybody nuts. You know? I think there is something to the expression live and learn. You just have live and you just have to do it. Then you learn as you are doing it. How about other people? Whats happening for other people? Retreatant 2: Speaking of bugs, has anyone else found bugs buried underneath your clothing? Because we are sitting still for so long they crawl underneath our clothing.

Oh, you are having the stink bugs crawl Retreatant 2: Their harmless it is just that sometimes I feel a tickling. (laughter). Then sometimes I think Im being tickled but it isnt and I get a little paranoid. But usually often when I dress it, I find one. Have other people had them too? Retreatant 3: I had one of those little yellow jackets under my sleeve in one of the sessions. All of our mothers. Retreatant 2: Im glad theres benign. Retreatant 3: Well Ive beentheres a question in hereI have been really distracted this week. The senses are just on overload- particularly the visual and auditory. I remember when you teach about emptiness, in the direct perception of emptiness the sense consciousnesses are totally disengaged, not activated. I watch myself and the sense consciousnesses are they, with the mental factor of ignorance, when we see or hear whatever is coming at us from the world thats a non-conceptual experience until the feeling aggregate jumps on there and makes it pleasant or unpleasant? Im trying to understand what my experiences as far as the sense consciousnesses when Im doing this. OK, so we have six consciousnesses. The five sense consciousnesses: eye, ear, nose, tongue and body. Then we have the mental consciousness. The sense consciousnesses are all direct perceivers. They directly perceive their object. Theres also a mental factor there together with that sense consciousness. When you look at something and you see yellow, theres also the mental factor of feeling that maybe is experiencing pleasure, displeasure or neutral at the same time that your sense consciousnesses are operating. Ok? What happens is based on that feeling that we get sometimes with our sense consciousnesses, then our mind says, I like, or, I dont like, and, Oh, yellow! Oh, banana! Ohyum. I like. I want this banana definitely. Its definitely going to make me happy. I can cut it and put it over my cereal in the morning. I better get it before somebody else takes it and I want the one that doesnt have any brown spots. And our mind gets really into this conceptualization about the banana. So, that conceptualization Khensur Rinpoche was talking about that we grasp at something as inherently existent that is with the mental consciousnessthen we have the inappropriate attention that starts developing the story and then we get some emotionattachment, resentmentsome emotional reaction. And then from that kind of emotional reaction thats when the karma is created. But one practice that is very important in the path is restraining our senses. So there is a few different ways to practice it. One way, and this is something we get in our monastic training, is that we dont just let our eyes go all over the place, yeah? When you are walking your eyes are looking at where you are going and youre not kind of looking around. I mean you can see this sometimes. I remember once we were going somewhere in the car and the person driving was looking, taking it all in. So, one thing to practice is not just to look around so much. Because if you dont see so much then youre not going to be distracted with your mind reacting with all the things you see and so that is one of

the reasons why we dont do email and all this stuff. Some things have been happening this week but to try not to get involved in all that stuff because then it just has this carryover effect. Similarly for keeping silence, when we dont hear so much then we arent redoing the conversations in the meditation hall. Why didnt they say this? Oh and I should have said that. Oh and I misunderstood them. They probably think Im an idiot. I need to go back and explain that I didnt understand what they said. You know, a lot of conceptualization stems from that. But if we really try, it doesnt mean you sit there like a monkey with your eyes on your hands, your ears, up your nose (laughter), over your mouth. But this is where the practice of mindfulness is so important because you become aware of, What am I looking at? and, Am I aware of what Im looking at or do I just look, look, look all around all the time? and, What am I allowing my mind to listen to? I mean every time somebody comes in the room am I already listening to see if they are saying something to somebody else? Am I always ease-dropping on other conversations? All this kind of stuff. So to really pay attention to what you let your sense consciousnesses go to, yeah? When youre sitting somewhere are you always touching it. You want to feel this, Whats the temperature like? Is it smooth, rough? You know. So then your sense consciousnesses are out of control and so you get more stimuli and your mind just makes more stories about it. A lot of our monastic training is involved with that. Like one of the reasons we have the red seat covers that we put on our seat? So when you go in the hall, you sit on top of your seat covers. It is called a ding-wa (sp?). And you say to yourself, My attention does not go beyond this. I dont have to look at what everybody else is doing in the meditation hall. I dont have to see who is in pain, whos crying, whos smiling, whos twitching, or who is singing loud, whos mumbling. My job in this meditation hall is to keep my mind on this meditation, it doesnt go beyond this seating cloth. It is in my meditation. Yeah? So it is a very powerful way to train the mind. And when you are walking. My eyes are in front of me. Or, if you see out of the corner of your eye somebody is coming depending on the situation- you may smile or whatever, but basically you keep your eyes on where you are going instead of, Oh, whats over here? Whats over there?, you know, all around like that. The same thing with food. Because we can watch and it is very interesting. Have you ever watched why you take a bite of this and why you take a bite of that and how many bites before you take a bite of that and why you switch foods? Its fascinating isnt it? Because whats the mind doing? Whats the reason for why we take a bite of that and why we take a bite of that? Retreatant: Happiness Retreatant: Variety. Yeah! Happiness. How can I get the absolute most kind of happiness out of every bite? And if I take too many bites of the same food in a row, the happiness has gone down. So I need variety to bring me more happiness. Retreatant: I have to save this bite for the last because its the best one!

Right...yeah! Or some people eat the best stuff first. But just watch how the mind is looking at, How can I get the most happiness? So sometimes it can be a very good training. You take one dish. You eat all of it. Then you take another dish and you eat all of it. And you just eat to sustain your body, yeah? Instead of letting your mind go to, Well what if I look like taking a bite out of now. Do I want something with a nut in it or with a raisin or salty or sweet? That creates so much distraction in the mind. Retreatant: Especially since its going on so unconsciously. I mean this discrimination isnt going on for a second ___. And I think the retreat also brings the sense up more acutely. I have been absolutely amazed at how distracted I been. The senses are just pulling out all the most wonderful distracting thing for me to pay attention to. Yeah. And like how much can you get distracted you know? Theres white snow and (laughter). Retreatant: Rain Retreatant 3: So by doing these kind of practices and by doing years of practicing, when you realize emptiness directly, the mind actually is so restrained at that point that it can actually Its not just that. What gives you that kind of attention is the practice of concentration, the samadhi practice or shamata practice. Because its through the practice of serenity that you develop that deep concentration. Ok? So one of the reasons why you pay attention to where your senses are going in your daily life is because if you dont, there is no way to develop concentration. When you train in the different states of meditative absorption, your mind gets more and more single-pointed. The single-pointedness of the mind is what allows it to stay focused. And that single-pointedness, they say brings an incredible amount of joy and peace in the mind as well. Ok? So you know how we have three higher trainings? We have: ethical conduct, concentration, and wisdom. So with the ethical conduct you start restraining the senses and you stop doing things that are going to cause you so much regret in your meditation and creates so many obstacles. So by keeping good ethical conduct you have far less distractions when youre meditating. Then when meditating and trying to develop some single-pointedness, then the mind slows down and what happens is the manifest afflictions, when you can go into a state of- there are four states of jhyana (sp?), of concentration-when you go into the first one, even there then the hindrances, these mental afflictions are suppressed. Theyre not eradicated because you need the wisdom to eradicate them from the root, but just from developing the jhyanas you can suppress the manifest afflictions. Retreatant 3: And also the hindrances to concentration: the excitement, the laxity. Yeah, and actually there are two different ways of describing them according to kind of Maitreya/Asanga method, you have: laziness, forgetting the instructions, agitation, laxity, not applying the antidote and applying the antidote when you dont need it. Thats one

version. Theres another list of five hindrances and thats: sensual desire, ill will, dullness and drowsiness, restlessness, and regret and doubt. Retreatant 3: Those are the ones you taught at MIC? Yeah. Right. So the thing is when you are able you have to practice the antidotes to all those different hindrances and as you practice them, then they subside and that enables your mind to go into deep samadhi and when your mind is in that deep samadhi then those hindrancesthe manifest hindrancesare suppressed. Retreatant 3: So the sense pleasures is where the sense consciousness is distracted outwardly Right and you can see how attachment to sense pleasure is directly related to what the sense consciousness are doing. Because the more contact we have with sense objects, the more things our mind just makes up stories about and has attachment and aversion to. Yeah? Now, the object, the purpose isnt that you shut yourself off from all contact and be blind. Otherwise the best way to restrain the sense consciousness is to be blind and deaf. Were not talking about that. Were talking about becoming aware of what were letting our mind do. Of when were letting our attention go. Ok, so by moment by moment thing, as Im walking, wheres my attention? Am I lost in thoughts, daydreaming about something or am I looking all around or am I humming a song? So being aware of our senses. And when I say our senses I mean not only: eye, ear, nose, and tongue and body sense. But our mind is a sense as well. So what is our mind doing at any particular time? When youre walking to go into the session, what are you thinking about? What are you thinking about when you walk in the front door to get to the meditation hall? What is your mental sense doing? So being aware of all these things. Whats going on? Then you can begin to use some wisdom about where am I letting my mind go to and what are my habits? Whatever it is, you start working with restraining some of those things. Retreatant 3: Ive been really frustrated with this week. Really, really frustrated. Particularly with the auditory. You know? And the less sound, the more acute I am of the things Im looking for. Im looking out. Im scoping out with my ears to experience things outside the meditation hall, whats going on over here, whats going over there? Yes. So what is very good to do is when you notice that come back to what your anchor is, yourself as Chenrezig or the mantra. So you keep that as your main meditation object. Either the mantra or yourself as Chenrezig. So you notice, Oh, Im listening to whats going on outside the meditation hall- whoop! Lets come back to being Chenrezig and saying the mantra! Whoop! Im aware of this bug flying around in the meditation hall, lets come back to Chenrezig and the mantra. Ok? So you have something that is your anchor and you bring your mind back to it. Retreatant 4: And that is having mindfulness? Yeah, that is part of the practice of mindfulness.

Retreatant 4: It is really amazing how many similarities there are between military training and monastic training. (laughter) It is sort of scary. You know once, because Venerable Tenzin Kacho use to be a chaplin at the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs and so I went with her once and it was fascinating listening to the guys. Asking them, Well, why did you enlist? And many of them had these kinds of ideas. You know. I want to do something compassionate. Something good for the world, I want to spread good values, and if I enlist I dont have to think about my food and my lodging and these things. I can just focus on doing the work that I think is the most beneficial thing to do. I mean many similarities. But, the big difference was, the thing that our motivation was about. There wasnt the equanimity that spread to all living beings. It was always, I want to do good for my country and its people. Instead I want to do good for all living beings. So that was one big difference that I noticed and of course the way of doing good, there is some difference in there. But I was really surprised because some people in the military really expressed values that we find also in our training. Some of the inmates they can really resonate with the monastics too because there is a daily schedule, there is certain food you eat, your celibate, you cant just go running around here and there whatever you want to. So yeah, that kind of training can be quite good for us. But you see here is where the motivation is so important. Because it is not that training in of itself that becomes virtue, its what your motivation for doing it. Retreatant: I have had this thought that has come up a few times. I spent this little bit of time paying attention to this feeling tone and a couple of times I have had this thought that maybe it suppresses feeling and I wonder if you have any thoughts on that? And also I wonder about suppression, what Buddhist- we just used that word here- but in the Buddhist sense, does that more mean that in that moment theyre not manifest anymore? Because there is no inherent anger down there. You know what I mean? The word suppress is kind of a loaded word because we think of it as psychological suppression, (in deep voice) And that is bad because youre not suppose to suppress anything because if it is suppressed then its bad, so you should just (in high pitched voice) let it all out and let it everywhere! (laughter.) Because any kind of suppression is baaaad. Yeah? So that whole view that we have, weve gotta throw that out. We shouldnt listen to psychologists all the time. Excuse me all the psychologists who are going to listen to this. Sometimes you are suppressing something because you cant deal with it, like youre trying to run away, thats not so good. You got to recognize it and then apply the antidotes to it. But a lot of the- like when were talking about having single-pointed concentration, youre suppressing the hindrances. The single-pointedness is suppressing the hindrances. Meaning that those hindrances are not manifest, so they are not going to cause you any difficulties at the moment. They are not eradicated, but they are not around to cause you difficulties. Now, a psychologist would go, Oh, youre suppressing your sensual desire. You are suppressing your anger. You know, if you have any respect for karma, well that is good. I dont want my sensual desires spilling out all over because otherwise Ill act like a pig. Because, you watch how an animal acts, you

know, watch how a pig acts, or a dog acts. All they are doing is following their sensual desire or ill will and, I dont want to act like that. So, suppression, in a Buddhist sense isnt this psychological suppression that is bad, it is something thats born from this understanding that if you just let yourself be uncontrolled, that is not the path to happiness. Suppressing my ill will towards others, not in this psychological way of, Underneath I have all this fermenting ill-will. But it is just you know, Im sitting there and my mind is going on and on, I dont like this person they did this. And Im complaining about that, etc. Boy, shut that mind up. Retreatant: It is funny because, I dont know, but it is just so new to do it and also to be doing it in retreat, but there I part of it that I find quite foreign actually. And I think part of it is actually stopping whats going on. Yep, yep! And I find too that there is a certain part of my mind that is quite addicted to thinking and quite addicted to the richness of my emotions. And as you start practicing the Dharma then you realize- because after the beginning of retreat you have all these emotions and thoughts and then you can apply the antidotes and its really good because you work all these out and then you get to a point where you kind have worked out a lot of stuff and your mind is like your ready to take the next step to go a little bit deeper but it is like, I dont know if I want to. What else can I think about here? What other problem can I find to analyze? What other emotion can I call up and delve into and apply the antidote for. It is like there is this anxiety about letting our mind be peaceful. It is like, Oh, Im going to miss out on something. Yeah we are! Were going to miss out on our own neurosis. (laughter) Retreatant: Yeah! We miss our disturbing attitudes. Im missing out on all my disturbing attitudes and how much bale! they make in my life. You know it is like, I dont wanna do that (in macho tone)! Retreatant: But you remember last time we talked about this you said look how easy it goes to the story, which I found to be really true. It is like youre distracted right way and youre in some story and then actually Ive tried when Im in different states, you know? And it is funny because if I know Im in a bad mood so Ive done it. It is so weird. I guess the other thing that leads me to this is that it seams like it gets you focused a lot on bodily sensations. What gets you focused on? Paying attention to the feeling tone seams like it really makes me much more focused on body sensations than mental. And so then when I did it when I was in a pretty bad mood and it is like you cant even identify the bad mood all you had were these sensations that in of themselves were like no big deal. It is like, bizarre.

Yeah, isnt it. And that is very good when you begin to see that. So you are talking about being mindful of the feelings and when youre mindful of the feelings- I mean in one way does bring you into your body because you feel the different pleasant or unpleasant feelings in your body, but you can also feel the mental feelings: pleasure, unpleasant or neutral mental feelings, but it brings you right, if you pay attention to the feelings either physical or mental ones- then you cant be making a story at the same time. Retreatant: Yeah, that really is true. Or what happens, if you watch the mind that is making the story and then what is the feeling that is associated with that mind thats making a story? Yeah? Is that feeling pleasant? Is that feeling unpleasant? When were making a story our mind is complaining about somebody or something. Naah, naar, naa, naa. Then, whats the feeling? Is that a pleasant feeling in them mind? No. it is not a very pleasant feeling. Retreatant: Well, I mean it is there, just kind of paying attention to what is there. Do the physical ones that is fine. Yep! But I think it is harder for me to see. Yeah. Be aware of whatever feelings whether it is physical or mental. Retreatant 5: I just wanted to say I was transcribing the teachings of the last few months and you said something that I found really helpful was that, you were talking about how we obviously make up a story on the basis of various sensations and feelings and things like that. Then you mentioned something about how, On what bases do we say, Im tired, for example. And often times is it little sensations or very, very small sensation, not yet on that bases. We justify ourselves being mean to people and not talking to them and having all these bad thoughts because theyre not leaving me alone. I dont know, that is what came up. Such a small feeling could justify such a big story. Ahhuh. Im very tired therefore, dont bug me! (laughter) But what is being tired? Retreatant 5: I have sort of a technical question. I was just wondering about the sadhana- the Chenrezi sadhana that you guys are practicing. Where do those come from? Ah, ok. So where did the sadhana that were practicing come from? It began with a sadhana that Zopa Rinpoche put together and then the sixthe meditation on the six deitiesthat comes out of the Nyungna sadhana. Nyungna is a long Chenrezig practice. But Zopa Rinpoche wrote that one and he used the standard prayers because everything starts out with Refuge and Bodhichitta, especially Bodhichitta and seven-limbs, mandala offering and request. That is kind of standard puja format. And then he put the EightVerses of Thought Training in there which I think was very very skillful because a lot of the inmates are writing me that they just love the Eight Verses and they spend a lot of

time meditating on them. So I think Rinpoche sometimes, because people like to do these devotional things and if he just said, Meditate on the Eight Verses. Maybe they wouldnt do it. And if he puts the eight-versus in a devotional practice (laughter) then they will. Retreatant 5: Also, I was wondering, for example you said this one came from the Nyungna practice. Do those originally come from a sutra or tantra? Yeah. Sometimes the original, like the Nyungna practice. There were certain masters who wrote them. Sometimes they maybe extracted from a tantra because the tantra may set out the stages in that meditation and then a master will take out those stages and write the descriptions to them, put the prayers to them. Some of the sadhanas were written, some of them were done several centuries ago or sometimes people put them together now too. But it is always good to use something that has come from somebody who is reliable. Did anyone have anything else that they want to check in about? Ok. Mandala offering Essence of Refined Gold cont. So last time we were talking about the qualities of a disciple. We talked about three qualities and then the third Dalai Lama mentioned six qualities. He says, Sometimes six qualities are mentioned. A disciple fit to be led along the sublime path of Lam Rim practice must, 1. Have great interest in the Dharma. That is kind of obvious isnt it? If you dont have great interest in the Dharma, youre not going to want to be led along the path. Because you much rather be in town in the shopping mall or doing something else. So if we want to be a good disciple, or qualified disciple, and if we expect to be able to have enough good karma to call forth good spiritual teachers, then we have to develop a true deep interest in the Dharma ourselves. And that comes from of course- from hearing, thinking and meditating on the Dharma. But really thinking about it, because we think about he Dharma and we see how true it is, we automatically get interest in it because we see it is something that is really important to our lives. Then, 2. During the actual teaching being able to keep his or her mind alert and well focused. So well go onto number 3 because you didnt hear that one. (much laughter). You can see again to really get the most out of the teachings we have to be able to keep our mind alert and focused on the teachings and not just spaced out, you know? Like our teacher gives us some example about something and we hear one word in the example and you know, Oh yes I remember ddaaa diddaadiddaaa. Oh yes, my psychology professor talked about this and this You know and were not paying attention to the Dharma teaching. Ok, so the third quality,

3. Have confidence and respect in the teacher and the teaching. So I talked about that a little bit last week how important that is because if you dont have confidence and respect, then youre not going to take the Dharma to heart. Youre going to say, Who is this person? They dont know much. They just know the same as I do so, I dont need to listen to them teach the Dharma. They got it all wrong. And this teachingI dont know- it doesnt seam so good. That kind of attitude. How are you going to benefit from the teaching? Where as if you really trust the teacher and trust the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and see how the Dharma is so important to you in your life, then it becomes much easier to stay awake and pay attention during teachings. Ok, then, 4. Abandon wrong attitudes towards the teaching and maintain receptive ones. Ok, so good student, if you find that if youre having wrong attitude towards the teaching. Like, Oh, Buddha just talked about the lower realms to scare us. You know? Because there arent really these lower realms. He was just talking to a bunch of farmers so he made up this thing about the lower realms to scare them into practicing but there arent really these things. So if you catch yourself kind of, doing that, Oh, that is a wrong kind of attitude toward the teaching. Buddha didnt make up something to just scare us. He wouldnt lie and makes something up. And try and maintain receptive ones. So, again, an attitude that really appreciates the opportunity to encounter the Dharma and hear teachings and practice. Just really, really appreciating that. And I think sometimes when you do some meditation on precious human life. The meditation where you are thinking about the rarity and difficulty of getting a precious human life. How difficult it is to create the ethical conduct. How difficult it is to practice generosity and patience. Look around and how many people are creating the causes for precious human life? And then even if they create the causes, how many people dedicate it for a precious human life or, I just want to be happy in my next human rebirth. So if you, really think about the preciousness of having not only your human body and mind and a healthy one, but also having a mind that is interested in the Dharma. Really appreciating that and respect that within yourself. Because if we dont have a mind that is interested in the Dharma, then there is no way were going to make any effort to listen to teachings, to practice. If we dont make an effort to listen and practice then we dont create any good karma, our next rebirth is a mess, then forget liberation and enlightenment. So if we really kind of value the opportunity and keep reminding ourselves of that, then we take advantage of it. Ok. Another condition of a qualified student is to maintain conditions conducive to learning. So this is not only your mental state. You want to create a mental state conducive to learning, but also what we were talking about before about some kind of sensory restraint. Because that is a good condition for learning the Dharma. Because if you dont have a lot of sense restraint then your mind is wondering off to all sorts of things and teachings. Or youre not even going to get to the teachings because youre going to go bowling, or golfing or doing something else and shopping instead. And so I think if youre really serious about Dharma practice youre going to want to make your life as simple as possible. And not get involved in a huge social life where youre going and seeing and keeping all these friendships and talking to all these people making sure

everything is ok, going to the movies, watching the latest TV programs so that you have something to talk to your friends about, keeping track of sports heroes and movie stars. Because all of that stuff, maybe good for keeping worldly friends, but that stuff isnt going to give you any mental space for your Dharma practice. It is just filling your mind with a lot of useless stuff, basically. So if youre serious about the dharma, then you want to simplify your life, your lifestyle and you make wise decisions about what youre going to spend your time doing. And that is why we have the environment that we do at the Abbey. Because if youre living in the city it is like, Oh, I feel like eating peanut brittle. Ok lets go get in the car and get peanut brittle. You know. Or, I feel like eating cupcakes! Ok, lets go to the store and buy cupcakes. One of the things about living here is you dont follow all those things out, yeah. So you watch the thought come and go and then you realize you live very well without peanut brittle and cupcakes and you save all that money from gas, you dont pollute the atmosphere on driving off unnecessarily and you save so much time. Yeah? So just the structure on how you live your daily life and the parameters you set for yourself. What you put your attention on can either be very conducive for your practice or it can become a big hindrance. Yeah? And so when youre in the city, because we always here before the week long retreats or the three-month retreats we always hear, Oh, I dont have time. Oh I would like to come to that retreat- it sounds SO good, but, I dont have time. Well, why dont you have time? What are you doing? Oh, Im just so busy! Well, what are you doing? Make a little chart of how youre spending each ten minute block of your time. And write it all down every ten minutes what youre spending your time doing in those ten minutes. Then youll see what youre doing that makes you too busy to make you do retreat, or your practice, too busy to go to teachings or whatever. Then see whats important to you. So I think, creating those conducive circumstances, for ourselves, is quite important. And I think this is a real plus in monastic life is that you have the support of a community that is set up for the purpose of Dharma practice. So it becomes so much easier to practice because that is the purpose for where you are living and what you are doing. When youre living the city what is the purpose, whats the city life set out for? Distraction isnt it? Were all suppose to be big consumers and were all suppose to have a life and incredibly busy running around doing nothing. Yeah? But if youre not incredibly busy and you have five minutes, then something is wrong with you nowadays, yeah? So maintaining conditions conducive to learning is quite important for us. And then 6. is eliminating any unconducive conditions. Again this is the nice thing about living in a community. The community is set up to do that. It becomes much easier because you just do what everybody else does. Instead, if youre living on your own and the alarm rings and it is like, Oooohummmlets go back to sleep. And, nobody knows and nobody cares. If youre living in a community and the alarm rings and it is like, Well, everybody else is getting up for practice, so, Ill get up and practice. Everybody else is going in the meditation hall, so I go in the meditation hall. Everybody is prostrating, so Ill prostrate. So it becomes very easy because the whole thing is set up that way. Ok, then the third Dalai Lama continues, If you give a discourse on the Lam Rim, try to maintain the qualities of the teacher described above. And, if you listen to a discourse, cultivate the above qualities of an ideal disciple within yourself.

So, were not ideal disciples, we are in the process of training and cultivating ourselves and trying to become more and more qualified disciples and qualified teachers. While training in the Lam Rim, while under the guidance of a fully qualified spiritual master, try to live in a quiet place, pleasing to the mind. Obvious reasons. Arrange an altar having the images of your teachers, the Buddha, a stupa, and a scripture as well as fresh pure offerings. In front of your altar, prepare a comfortable mediation seat either four or six times a day, sit there in the seven-point meditation posture. Perform the Lam Rim preliminary right and meditate as instructed. So this is actually, quite a big chunk of things here and our life at the Abbey is very much based on doing exactly this. Because if you look we have the meditation hall. Quiet place, pleasing to the mind. There is an altar, images of our teachers, then theres an image of the Buddha, the statue represents the Buddhas body, the scriptures represent the Buddhas speech, and we have a stupa representing the Buddhas mind. And then we have comfortable meditation cushions, and just be aware that you are never going to find 100% comfortable meditation cushions. (laughter) because you dont have a body that is going to be 100% comfortable, ok. And then you have fresh pure offerings. When it talks about pure and fresh offerings- there is something to say here. Like, when we get flowers, we should offer the flowers right away. We dont keep the flowers somewhere around and then offer them later and then they are already half-wilted. So we get flowers, we offer them right away. Pure offerings. We want to make sure we get our offerings from right livelihood. As a lay person that means not doing a job that involves harming other living beings, or cheating, or deceiving them or lying or something. And when you are living the kind of lifestyle we live at the Abbey, then to be able to prepare requisites without hinting at other people. Gee, what you gave me last time was SO nice, hint, hint, give me another one. Without flattering people. Oh. You are so nice! You are one of our best volunteers. You know kind of buttering them up so they give you something. Without giving a small gift in order to get a big one. Oh, heres this nice thing, now you owe me something. Yeah? Without coercing people- putting people in a situation where they cant say no, and without being a hypocrite. Like, when youre sponsors come around you act like such a good Dharma practitioner and when your sponsor is not there you are sleeping, lying around and stuff like that. To be really worthy of the offerings to procure them in a proper manner. OK? And then it says either six or four times a day and so when youre doing retreat you can do four sessions a day or six sessions a day. We are doing six and making one of those s study period. In your regular daily practice you try and do morning and evening, or morning and afternoon. Some people are not evening meditators, so do your second session sometime in the afternoon. And then sitting in the seven-point meditation poster. So thats the posture Vairochana. So if you can put your legs in the full vajra position great, than half vajra, than if you can, than Taras position, and if you cant do that, than sit in a chair, with your feet flat on the floor. Than your back is straight, hands in your lap, right over the left, the thumbs are touching forming a

triangle, your head upright or tuck your chin a tinge. You want to make sure your head doesnt start to droop and your back doesnt slump because then youre going to get a lot of drossiness in your meditation. So makes sure you head is erect. Leave your eyes a little bit open, but they are downwards, so youre not really looking at something and that will also keep you from falling asleep in your meditation. Keep your mouth closed unless you have bad allergies or a bad cold and then your tongue is on the upper pallet- I dont know about anybody else but theres no place else for my tongue to go. (laughter). Maybe some people have different mouths or something and their tongue can wander around in it, but my when I keep my mouth closed, my tongue is there on the pallet. And your shoulders are level, so that you are sitting in a proper position and that helps the circulation of the winds in the body. And it can help your meditation a lot. The position you sit in will influence the quality of your meditation. Perform the Lam Rim preliminaries rights. So there are shorter versions and longer versionslike the Lama Chopa puja we do twice a monththat is a longer version of it, of the Lam Rim preliminary rights. There is another puja called Door-chu (sp?), which means preliminary rights. But the basic format is what I was describing when you visualize the objects of refuge, you take refuge, develop bodhichitta, meditate on the four-immeasurables, that the refuge objects dissolve into you and then you visualize whatever your merit field is at that time, if youre using the big one of Lama Tsongkapa- like the thangka in the meditation hall, or now during Chenrezig retreat, the merit field is Chenrezig. You can think Chenrezig surrounded by all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and than you do the seven-limb prayer. You can either do a short version or a long version. I wont go into all the details, but that is the prayer where you are prostrating, offering, confessing our negativities, rejoicing in the virtues of others, requesting our teacher to teach, requesting the Buddha and our teacher to stay until the end of samsara and then dedication. Then do a mandala offering. Either a long one or a short one. Make some kind of request prayer, so we request the blessings and inspiration from the merit field. And than after that, do the Lam Rim meditation. So in the Lam Rim cds that I made there is the guided meditation on the Buddha. It has all these different practices in it. If you want to do a glance meditation, right before you do your Lam Rim analytical meditation on your subject that is really good using one of the prayers, like The Foundation of All Good Qualities, or The Three Principals of the Path, one of those kinds of prayers. So that makes the mind quite right for meditating. Now some people like to do these preliminary rights and take a long time doing them and other people like doing the prayers very quickly; it is completely up to you. And one thing that I think that is quite nice in the Tibetan system is when you are doing the chanting in Tibetan is there are fast and slow ways of doing every prayer. You know. And so even though in English we may not have so many different versions right now, you can if you tie your mind to the meaning to the prayers then you can read them more quickly and call up the feeling very quickly or you can read a little bit and stop and meditate on that section of the prayer and generate that feeling and then go on to the next part. So there are different ways of doing that. Were moving along here. So now the first meditation subject is how to rely on a spiritual mentor. Now, here is where you see that the Lam Rim was written for people who are already Buddhist. Ok? Because, people who like most of us who werent born Buddhist and so going out and trying to do this meditation and find a spiritual teacher is

not what we need to do at the very beginning and can actually lead to a lot of complications because we dont understand the Dharma well enough. so when I made the Lam Rim cds I put this meditation at the end because if you have a good knowledge of the general Lam Rim and the importance of the Dharma than automatically you understand the importance of having a teacher and the importance of cultivating a good relationship with your teacher. Ok. But if you dont have any understanding of the Dharma, then this whole meditation doesnt make any sense at all. And it sounds like a lot of idle worship and can really get people, make them kind of, they dont think properly after that. So it is really important to understand this meditation well. The purpose of it, how to rely on a spiritual mentor, is that we need teachers for the most mundane activities in our life. Somebody taught us how to tie how our shoes, someone teaches us how to drive, to type. We need teachers for everything, and these are just mundane things that arent that difficult. So if we need teachers for that, than for spiritual practice, which is so much more complex, and working with our mind which is so much more complicated, than clearly we need a teacher who knows what they are talking about to lead us along the stages of the spiritual path. And I say this because a lot of people have the idea, Well, Ill just invent my own path. It is like, Well I like this side of this religion and that out of that religion and you put it all together and it may be a system of rituals that make you feel good, but that is not necessarily a path to practice where by youre going to gain spiritual realizations. Ok? Are you getting what Im saying? I mean you might love going to Church and singing on Sunday and the feeling of how good it feels to be with other people and singing those prayers that you chanted when you were a kid and then you like the ritual in somewhere else and the philosophy of this other religion and that you like this other philosophical point of this other religion and so you kind of mix them all together. Lama Yeshe use to call that making soup. A little bit of this, a little bit of that and you wind up with nothing that is a systematic approach to practice. How did I get on that? Were talking about a teacher. But a teacher keeps you anchored and teaches you one path. So you dont kind of go all over making up your own path and putting it all together, because, if you think about it, weve been in cyclic existence since beginningless time. Weve been trying to guide our self to ultimate bliss since beginningless time. Where have we gotten ourselves? Were still in samsara. So maybe it is a good idea to try and do something new. So instead of trying to guide ourselves to ultimate bliss, which weve been doing since beginningless time, lets find a qualified teacher and see if that teacher can teach us something that is useful that our ego cant teach us. And so we are beginning to challenge egos hegemony here, because ego says, I know what is best for me! (scruff) Dont tell me what to do! Im a grown up and Im going to make my own decisions. Thank you very much and stop pushing me and stop pressuring me! And, I dont like doing this! And, see if you can make me! (laughter). That is what is called resistance. (laughter). And we all have it dont we. We all want to be our own guru. My inner guru tells me to sleep in until 8 oclock in the morning. My inner guru tells me that I need to relax by watching television. My inner guru- you know what kind of inner guru are we having here? (laughter). So we have to look for somebody who is qualified, and then when we find a qualified teacher it is to our benefit to keep a good relationship with that teacher. And I think this is important in life in general, any relationship we have if it is a valuable relationship it is our responsibility to put the energy to keeping it up. And if it is not a valuable, there is nothing wrong with,

you know, people grow apart. But, especially with our spiritual teacher it is our responsibility to make that a close relationship, as close as we want it to be. So it is notwhen I was in Singapore somebody was telling me that they started going to this new Dharma center and the teacher would call him up and would say, I havent seen you in a while come, lets practice together. And, I dont know, my teachers never did that. My teacher said, Heres the Dharma. It is up to you if it is something that is meaningful to you, you put out energy and if it is not something meaningful to you, thats ok. Thats completely up to you. But if the Dharma is important to us and having a guide is important to us, than having a good relationship with the guide is important. Because if our mind starts going on a lot of trips about the person who guiding us to enlightenment, then were going to get all tangled up in those trips, then start doubting the practices weve been doing, and it gets very, very confusing. So that is why we want to try and keep a good relationship with that person. Ill get into it later, because sometimes it happens that we follow somebody for a while and then some qualities become apparent that we didnt know about before, and we feel like it is not so good for me to study with this person right now. But, if you ever decide to do that, still in your mind you maintain an attitude of thankfulness and gratitude for how they did help you and then you seek out new teachers that can help you more. But the thing is to try not to let your mind get in this really horrible negative state of just, Why are they telling me to do this. Theyre teaching about this because they are trying to control me. They are making me work to hard and they are doing this and doing that, naaar, naaa, naah. And what we are doing there is, when our mind gets in that state, can we practice any Dharma? No. it is just our usual mind isnt it? And what is usually happening is just our usual old stuff that we project on other people or just on our teacher. Yeah? so this whole psychological about transference, yeah, we just project it all on our teacher. My teacher is going to be the mom and dad I never had, but they are ignoring me, like my mother and father use to do to me. (laughter). We start imputing all these things and then we just get so tangled up where if from the beginning we say, I really want to keep a good relationship with my teacher. So that means I have to learn how to see my teachers good qualities and appreciate what they are doing for me and keep my mind focused on that. And then you might say, Well, butdont they have negative qualities? And shouldnt I see there negative qualities? Well, before you select them as your teacher, that is the time to see it. But it is kind of like when you fall in love with somebody that person has lots of negative qualities. Do you see them? No. Do you force yourself to see them? No, because you want to remain in ever lasting bliss with this person. They are so wonderful they dont have any faults, and we really believe that and thats all just make believe and than of course, we start picking faults and than we start so many faults that later on we go back and go, How did I ever fall in love with them to start with? There is nothing there to love. And that is just ALL projection, just our whole mind; too many opinions. So here what were trying to do with a spiritual teacher is trying to create a really healthy relationship by understanding what the relationship is about, understanding what our responsibility is, not projecting a lot of emotional, psychological expectations on that person and than not, you know, when we respond in our own personal, stereo-typical ways when our buttons get pushed, is to take that as an opportunity to learn instead of criticizing our teacher about it. And the thing is, if we can keep a good relationship with our teacher who is somebody with a lot of compassion, trying to guide us to

enlightenment, if we can see the person who actually has good will toward us, if we can at least overcome all these negative projections on them, than that is a very good beginning point for working with other sentient beings, Because it is going to be real hard to develop love and compassion for other sentient beings if all we do is complain about our spiritual mentor. Do you see what Im getting at. So this whole thing about keeping a good relationship is not for the benefit of our teacher, it is for our benefit. It is because it becomes easier for us to practice if we maintain a positive attitude in our mind and it becomes more difficult for us to practice if we let our mind go crazy with all of its usual stories and stuff. So, how do we do this? How do we create a good attitude towards our teachers? So the third Dalai Lama says, The best way to rely on a spiritual mentor is to practice analytical meditation upon his or her excellent qualities and his or her beneficial function in your spiritual life. So you want to see their qualities. The knowledge your teacher has, what an excellent example they are, how they keep ethical discipline, how well they know the teachings and how patient they are, and things like that. And see their qualities, and see how they function in your life in a very special way that no other person on this planet functions in that way. It is like your mother and father. You get one of them. It is because they have special functions and a spiritual teacher we can have more than one, but they play a very, very special function in our life. They arent our friends, they arent our tax advisors, they arent our fashion advisers, our financial advisors. Their purpose is to lead us to enlightenment. I mean what kind of incredible beneficial purpose is that? Who else can you find who fulfills that function in your life? Where are you going to turn to be lead to enlightenment? Are you going to turn to the US Senate to lead you to enlightenment? (laughter). Are you going to turn to the state department to lead you to enlightenment? Are you going to turn to your mother and father? Can they lead you to enlightenment? Can your best friend lead you to enlightenment? Can your business colleagues lead you to enlightenment? Yeah? So we start thinking like this. Who in the world can lead me to enlightenment? Well most of the people Im so attached to: children, parents, siblings, whoever. Sometimes they are worse of than we are, arent they? So they cant lead me to enlightenment? Who can lead me to enlightenment? Even I cant get to enlightenment, who is going to teach me something about wisdom, about concentration, about bodhichitta, about ethical conduct? And so when we think about that we see this incredible function that our teachers play in our life and we really appreciate them for it. So when we do this kind of analytical meditation on the qualities and on the function they play on our life it is really very, very powerful. And especially when you train your mind to see things as part of your training. So when you teacher asks you to do something instead of going, Oh, why did they pick me and I dont want to do this. Im not talented, ha-ha, naaa, naa. Instead, Ok my teacher saw some potential here and they thought it might be good for me to develop some ability in this area and my training is to do this? I remember this do you remember when Reverend Haryo was here and he gave quite a nice talk. Do you remember when we were sitting around at the table. And he was saying how he practiced with his teacher, because she would ask them to do all sorts of

incredible things. He would take it part of his own training for developing his own qualities and he realized to do the job was to just do it quickly and get it done, but what was more important was how he was doing it. How do you do everything you do in your life? To do it quickly and mindlessly. Get it done and move onto the next thing? Or, Is my job to try and be aware and this whole thing of sense restraining, cultivating the bodhicitta attitude while Im doing it and being aware of my mind. And so when your teacher gives you a job that becomes like your practice because there is so much to practice within doing that. Ok? Do you remember that when he came and talked about that? So when you do that, when you have that kind of attitude, then it changes your take in how you relate to different things, yeah? So instead of going like Geshe Tekchog wants me to work on this book on emptiness that hes doing. I could go, Im totally unqualified and how can I do this? This is too difficult and eeehaaauuh. Im going to make so many mistakes and hes going to be mad, because Im putting mistakes in his pure teaching and people will know what an idiot I am because Im suppose to edit a good book and it is a horrible book and, That kind of thing, that kind of way of reacting. That is just our normal usual junk isnt it.? But if you say, What an incredible opportunity. Ok. Im totally unqualified to do this, but what an opportunity! How much will I learn by doing this and I might even develop some skills and well as learning the Dharma. And well this whole thing of, here is somebody whos trying to benefit all sentient beings and you say, I dont know what my motivation sometimes. I have good motivation, bad motivation. Well, here is somebody who is trying to benefit sentient beings and they need help with something. Maybe if I helped them do it, Im doing something beneficial? So it gives you kind of inspiration to try and do that. Of course if your teacher gives you something to do that youre like, really totally going to make a total mess out of. Or you really cant do it or you feel unsuitable then explain, I feel really, I dont think Im the best person to do this and this is why. I remember one time I had just been in Italy for 20 months and I had been just completely frazzled and then Lama asked me to stay in France and be the program director, the spiritual coordinator there, and I did just knew my mental state wouldnt allow it because I was just like, Eaaaeeaaah eeeaah. You know? And so I had to tell Lama, I really wish I could, but I cant. And he said, OK dear. So, you communicate with your teacher, it is fine, its not a dictatorial relationship. But you know, to try, or if your teacher suggests you to do a certain practice, instead of like, I dont have time to do that practice. I dont like that practice, naaahrr naar. Instead it is like, Oh. Maybe they see something why this practice would be good for me to do. Ok, I think we will stop here this week. I have been just talking extemporaneously now. Any questions about it? Retreatant 6: I have some questions. So me and Nance were talking about something earlier this week that. She said something that sort of sticks out in my mind. She said, I dont have a choice. And as soon as she said that the first thing I said, I do have a choice! and as soon as she said that, because just in the way you say you dont have a choice because youre the student, in my mind I have to be very clear what my motivation is and constantly watching it and you always have a choice in everything you do. And if you choose to do something then you choose to do it. But for me if Im so, what do you say, digging in your heals, then Im not going to do it because Im going to harm

everybody and Im going to be miserable. So, in those instances, from my side, it seams like you want to say, No, I cant do it. You are choosing something. Like if I dont understand the motivation by doing it and that happens a lot. Like sometimes I think, Well, why is she doing that? I cant ever think why she would ever want to do that. (laughter). What a stupid thing to do. Dont they know the right way to do things? Retreatant 6: But it seams like my reason for not wanting to it is not the thing youre looking at. Youre doing something and I think, Well, Im not going to be apart of doing that. But my reason for doing that is based on some rational basis, but I dont think its the side youre coming from. Maybe I should or maybe not. I dont know. Yeah, in those kinds of things it is very good to just ask your teacher. Because that way, youll learn. Because everybody sees things from a different perspective, yeah? And so, with anybody, whether it is your teacher or not, may say something to you and may not understand where they are coming from. Why do they think that is important? Why would in the world would they do it that way. And then you can ask and then they can explain and then you might go, Oh, I never thought of that. And then, you might say, Well that makes perfect sense why you do it. Or you might say, Well, they are concerned about one thing here and that is why they are doing it. To me that is not a big concern. Im more concerned about this thing over here. So Id do it differently because I think that thing is more urgent than this thing. And so you can talk and discuss, but I think just that process can open your mind up to there are more ways to do things than my way. Yeah? and that people have different reasons for doing things in different ways. If you ask them, you might learn something about how they are thinking and that can be quite valuable to you. Retreatant 6: Yeah I think that is the main thing. Trying to figure our where you are coming from because we can see things differently. Yeah. So I think it is good to ask people, explain to me why? And then when people ask us why, we shouldnt get defensive. I dont have to explain to you every little thing. But it is like, when you explain, it is a time to teach. And it is also a time to check up, Why do I do things this way? And maybe somebody else has a better way to do it and maybe I need to listen to them. In the Catholic Orders they have this thing. The decisions are made by the seniors but in the discussion time everybody talks about it and then I think Saint Benedict or somebody said kind of, Some times the best solutions come from the people who are new. Yeah? And so that is why when it is discussion everybody puts their ideas in, but people who have more experience are the ones who value the different weights of the different ideas. And so sometimes you maybe doing something and somebody may say, Why are you doing that? And then it is a chance for you to explain to somebody else your way of thinking and then they can broaden their mind to realize too that their way of doing it isnt the only way of doing it. That making some sense?

Retreatant 6: It makes sense theoretically, but in the moment I have the experience where it feels like there isnt the choice. Or it feels like its not a dialogue, Well, youre looking at it from this point of view and Im looking at it from this point of view. How can we can we come together on this? It is more like, No, Im going to do it this way. You dont have any choice. So I have a hard time and maybe Im putting that on it. But I dont know. Yeah. and sometimes we have to look inside because we tend to be very independent minded and it is like, I want my choice on everything! And so sometimes we feel like were giving up our freedom. Or sometimes if we give up understanding things we feel like were giving up our freedom. I remember when I took, the first time I took highest class Tantra initiation. It was all in Tibetan. They gave us the Sadhanas in Tibetan. My Tibetan was really lousy. I recited hardly understood anything for I dont know however long it was until they finally translated it into English, then I didnt have teachings on how to do the practice for a year and a half or two years. So Im sitting here reading this Tibetan that I didnt understand, than English and still didnt understand it until I got teachings on it, but I did it because I had made a promise to do it and it was very good for my mind to do something that it didnt completely understand. Because sometimes it is like, I want to understand everything! And it is like, Well, no. Sometimes I cant understand everything. And when I did my training in Taiwan. You know, I couldnt, there were some things I couldnt understand for the life of my why they did things that way. But it was very good training for me just to be quiet and observe and watch. Ok, this is an interesting way to do it, umm, but lets see what I can learn from it. So it is a thing to like look also inside and I think this is for all of us because we all like to feel like we are in charge. Dont we? We all like to feel, I understand this. Im making a choice. I know what is going on here! You know, do we? Do we have any clue about what is going on here? Yeah? But it is a good opportunity to dialogue. Dont sit there and push yourself down about the whole thing. But, bring it up and talk about it. I remember when Tsepel was staying here. Sometimes we would have some left over soup and she would heat up this big pot of soup and of course we would only have a little bit and then it would cool again and then heat it up again the next day. And I said, Please dont do that, heat things over and over again. And she didnt like me saying that and I said it a few times. And than she said, Why are you telling me that? And I said, Because, whenever you heat it more bacteria grow in it so it is more unhealthy and every time you heat it more of the vitamins get decimated, so the food becomes more and more unhealthy every time you heat it up. She said, Oh, thats a good reason. And so because she asked then she understood why I said that and then, you know, it stopped being a problem for her because she never thought about that before. OK