Podcast

The True Nature of Mind (part 3) -
by Lama Tsering Everest

So, Lord Buddha saying that the problem is not in the experiences of your life -although they are difficult and he basically said you should probably get used to that-, don't think that it is going to be easy. That will really make you weak. It's not easy, it's quite difficult, not by anyone else's hand, it's difficult because we are quite entrenched in this system of serving self.

We have already created a lot of momentum in this interaction between self and other which isn't really true, and this interaction between self and other has reverberation, action, reaction, action, reaction, and we get beat up by it.

As we do, happens to us, that's why it doesn't work; as we do, happens to us; every thought, every word, every action is like a boomerang. I used to try to explain to my son when he was little. I said: “Joe, it's like being a metal man, a magnet man and everything metal sticks on you, every thought, every word and every action is metal and it sticks on you, what you do comes back to you.”

Now, good too, what you do comes back to you, this is why it is so important that we learn from the lama what to adhere to and what to reject, because you want to bring what will make happiness for you, even if it is impermanent, it's better to have happiness impermanent than misery.

So at least you would cultivate the causes. But, even though you can learn to create causes that produce you happiness, it is not a solution. It will be impermanent, whatever “I” creates can only be impermanent. It can be wonderful and it can be good, but it will be impermanent.

What is absolutely essential is to realize the nature of your mind beyond “I”. You have to know that wellness that is what you are, not what you think you are. Your body is impermanent, but your mind is not, that essence of intrinsic awareness, is not made, it's not changed. If you have a good day, it's not made better; if you have a bad day, it is not made worse; and when you die, actually that is all that will be there, is that naked awareness.

When I asked my teacher, Rinpoche, what was the purpose of life, Rinpoche said: “The purpose of life is to prepare to die”. Because this thing that we hold on to is going to die, you have to be aware. The example he used was that of the ocean and waves, that the intellect of our mind, the perceiver of our mind, the subject-object function of our mind is like waves on the ocean.

“I am”, says the wave and he sees the other wave next door and he thinks: “I am little compared to him, I have to get faster, I need to grow.” Or he is big and he says: “Look , I am better than this little launch, and we have wave to wave, some waves go along well, some waves are cross purposed to each other, some big, some small, some nothing but swells -how sad, only swells-, but one moment comes when the wave realizes where he is going and he is going to the shore. He can see his end, he is not going to make it past the shore; he can see the cliff face, he is a memory waiting to happen. Can you imagine that wave backpedaling? And he dies there, it doesn't matter if he is big, it doesn't matter if he is small, it doesn't matter if he is nothing but a swell, he dies there.

But the ocean doesn't die, the ocean didn't move. You have to know this nature of your mind because everything else will die. We are so afraid and it's natural that our instinct would self-preserve. It's just that it won't work.

So, when you approach a spiritual path it's a little bit counter-intuitive, it's tricky because for self-preservation we can search for the ocean and it won't work. “I think it's a good idea to be Buddha, I think it's a really good plan, let's do that”, and they think “I am going to be a lovely blue Buddha, no a lovely red Buddha, I am going to be male, female”, “I”, “I”, “I”, “I am going to be great as an enlightened being”, but it's more “I” and its intellect becoming.

This is how you can know it's “I” you are dealing with, because it is always becoming something; but what is natural is, it's not becoming. It's very important for us to have a mentor , a teacher, someone who can point this out to us and help us understand how to do better with “I”, but mostly how to let “I” go.

It's not easy to let “I” go, the only way we can really do it is through love. We do it with our children, maybe not on bad days, but on good days we really care more about them than ourselves. It's a little tricky with children because we do this kind of Austin Powers, you know, the Mini-me -did any of you see that silly, silly movie? Mini-me? Well we do that with our children, my Mini-me, and that doesn't quite work for this particular approach. But you really understand that you would rather be sick than have your children be sick, and it's not even like martyring, it's not big, it's just completely natural, it's such love and such compassion.

In the Buddhist tradition, what Lord Buddha offered was that in order to make this movement from this problematic standard of “I” and self-importance on the subjectivity of our mind and its limitations and its helplessness, is to realize that you are not the only one. This is what is happening to every unenlightened being. Their nature is Buddha, they are the ocean, but their habit, their assumption, their identification is with something impermanent. And it's tragic because they have such a crisis on that sea: gain and loss, hope and fear, such environment of tragedy based on their own poisons of mind.

So what Buddha suggested is that, as you are not the only one, you understand what is happening to them and that's the ground of compassion -knowing that there is a terrible tragedy and not knowing the absolute nature of mind. Compassion in a Buddhist sense has nothing really to do with sympathy, although, of course, one can feel for the suffering of others. Really, compassion is a very clear understanding of a problem that doesn't even have to happen, but is happening.

People don't have to earn compassion. There is no unenlightened being that is undeserving of compassion -they are all Buddhas who don't know their nature, they are all making their story worse and worse by attacking, by trying to fulfill themselves, hurting and harming others. We don't have to take it personally when they hurt or harm us, its really not about us, its really about them.

It takes courage to understand that you have been mistaken about “I”. It takes courage to understand that you are quite helpless about it really. It takes more courage to understand that you are not the only one with this problem and that at least you have a little bit of a sense about the problem -others don't have any sense at all about the problem. And what it means is that, with courage, you could relax your own importance and instead care for the welfare of others, serve the Buddha, the Buddha as your mother-in-law, the Buddha as your enemy, the Buddha as that inconsiderate driver, the Buddha that is your children, the Buddha that is your mother. All of these people just want to be happy and they don't know how, they don't want to be unhappy and they keep perpetuating the causes of their own misery.

The courage of cultivating a courageous pure heart is to realize you have to have the courage to do your own work, to realize the nature of your mind -but not for yourself, for them. To realize the nature of your mind, that you could ceaselessly, endlessly, no matter how bad the story, that you would never abandon the care of others; that whoever they are, wherever they are, that your love and your compassion is to eliminate the confusion that perpetuates their experience of misery. And the only way that you can do that authentically is by realizing the nature of your own mind and from there you can serve them, from there you can help them.

It's not about your peace, it's not about your health or your cure, this is ego `s domain. Of course he wants peace, of course he wants health, of course he wants wellbeing, he wants to be happy, but you can't possibly produce it using him. So this is what Buddha presented -it's really quite magnificent.

And the reason that I began with the prayer was to remember this kindness that I have received, kindness to give me understanding of the way my mind works, but also the immeasurable kindness of presence, the goodness that's present. One of the names of Buddha is “The All Goodness” -it can't be absent and it is in every moment, it's not somewhere else, Buddha over the rainbow or Buddha at the end of a long path of difficulties, it's Buddha that's present, awareness present. We call that refuge -that's the ocean.

Then we come with this aspiration that all beings could attain realization of their buddha nature, that they could be free and full, free of suffering and full of their totality, that the conditions of birth, sickness, aging and death, not being able to get what they want, not being able to prevent what they don't want, could just finally be finished, that beings could really be free.

But we have our story, we are in our mind's experience, so it's not going to be easy. I think in terms of courage, really you have to understand that it is difficult the way we see things, not that it is actually difficult in truth, it's difficult the way we see things; same for the others, very difficult for them.

So you need to be patient with your difficulties and most of the time we aren't. We really, really, really, really reject difficulties. "No, no, no! Not this, no", and we try, we do everything. But actually there is something very powerful if you could just be completely present, even with a bad situation, perfection is inherent in that moment. But our idea of that moment, our acceptance and rejection of that moment, our hopes and our fears of that moment, we just “Gotta get out of it”. And Buddha said: “No, you can't really get out of it that way. You have to allow and recognize the presence in it”. This is called acceptance and it requires patience and it also produces tremendous joy, right here, present, perfect in this moment.

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