SESSION 12.
Conclusion and the way this course can be utilized
in one’s life through meditation and
through dealing with situation.
CONCLUSION AND THE WAY THIS COURSE CAN BE UTILIZED
Hello and tashi delek to all.
It is towards session of Lorig and [I’m] really happy. Usually to start something is lot easier than to conclude. And also it’s always pleasure and nice feeling to be able to conclude things that we have started and I’m really very happy to see all of you. I would like to start with my sincere thanks for Chessy for organizing the class, and also before every class, Tata is taking care of poster and things, and right after finishing the class, Dr. Trinh is working on writing down the notes so that it is available for more people. And then I am really sorry that sometimes I receive the mails asking me to share the classes. Sometimes I’m able to share one time, but sometimes it takes me days to get back with the link of the class, but eventually I’m really happy that there are many good responses and by understanding and by seeing some of the questions that I receive, I get to understand the interest that you all are showing at the same time. Thank you very much for giving a time and trying to understand about mind. It really is a nice to see all of you not only learning but understanding about the mind.
So without all of you, especially without Chessy, it’s difficulty and these classes are something that has to be managed and thank you very much Chessy for managing all the time. And to listen to this class again and again and to write down is a huge task I would like to thank Dr. Trinh for always being there, whether it’s to write down something or to plan or to make a chart, thank you very much for all your time, for all who are learning through this class.
From one angle, I planned and I leave this specific time to draw a conclusion at the same time to come up with few things or few ways that these classes can be benefited, not just to learn Buddhist psychology and for the sake of something really high, but even in day-to-day life, there are a lot of things to carry out there, lot of things which we can implant in our daily life which can help us to live a life a bit more meaningfully, to live a life with more awareness, to activate some levels of understanding, at the same time, some levels of mindfulness, these classes that we have been through would be really very helpful. And I won’t touch on much because it’s kind of obvious for all of you, and I’m sure that with the understanding, gradually this understanding will definitely affect our mind and hopefully this can be really fruitful in our life.
So I’ll just go through some points, I really would love to go through the quiz, the remaining of the quiz that we have last class, in the class number 11, but then, of course, the time is one factor. In future, if any of you wish to go through some of those quiz to remind, I would really be happy to go through. But today, I thought to go to some of the factors that come in my mind as a conclusion.
Mind is where all the past knowledge has been stored.
For some people, when you learn something it’s more like you have all the tools right now, but for some people it’s difficult to know how, with every tool there is an instruction how to use. So similarly with the understanding of lorig you should also have that instruction how to amplify or how to implant, how to use in day-to-day life, which is why we have this class. First I just want to start with, of course, we all know what
is mind, we all know the mental factors, at the same time, we know the function of mind and the nature of mind. But one thing that we all have to reflect or contemplate, one Japanese researcher, hydro researcher told that water is something that carries the messages, all the messages from the beginningless time that really makes me think. A lot of people ask me a lot of questions related to dreams is more like “Master, I had bad dream, what does that mean? I have this dream, what does that mean? I never met that person in my life, so why I’m having such a dream?”
So I’m having this thought, that thought, I can’t help but thinking about this or thinking about that, sometimes it is positive, sometimes it is negative. For example, having a thought as an anxiety is something unpleasant, but then a lot of people they can’t help because it’s not something that they activate intentionally, based something that just arise within our mind.
The mind that we have been learning, that’s store where all the past knowledge has been stored. So whatever we experience in our life, whatever we go through in our life, all the thoughts that arise in our mind is because of some of the past experiences. Whatever we have learned is stored in our mind, whatever we have learned in our past life has stored in our mind. Yes, it is true that to activate that requires certain conditions. If your mother tongue is English, then when you passed away, when you born again, it is very much likely that you will be able to learn English much easier than some other language. The simple reason is that’s what you are habituated with, when you know something, when your mind knows something, when that mind dissolves or that mind remains in a dormant manner, it leaves an imprint in your mind, so when the condition arises, that seed activates. So this is why many people in some of the Buddhist teachings, even if you are dying tomorrow, you still have to learn today because we think that we are learning to achieve something or some you know and then when people get older and older, when a person is like 80-90, then just think that “OK, my learning time is over”, but in fact it is not over. Even if we are dying tomorrow, we still have to improve ourself which still must learn more and more things. And thus, even if when we’re born again we will be able to learn those things much easier.
It’s more like you have learn driving, you have learn swimming when you are 20 and now you are 60. Suppose you haven’t been swimming all these 40 years, but now it would be much easier compared to a person who had never learn swimming in the past, it would be much more easier compared to that, obviously it won’t be like you can just jump in and swim, I don’t think that’s gonna happen, but you might need some practices, so that practice is a condition to activate that seed, the seed of the mind that have that confidence, that have that knowledge. So exactly the same way.
Sometimes people ask me like “Oh master, I have these dreams and in my dream I was flying and I was seeing that totally alright and fine, I was able to fly this and that”. From my opinion, I think that in some of our past life flying was not in big issue, we all have taken such rebirth where we had that capability, our ability to even fly, so that could be one of the reason why it feels normal to fly in dream because during the dream, we are on a different level of consciousness. At that time, this life or a past life everything is, this life is just a continuum. And it is very much likely that you see that you are speaking in totally different language in your dreams, then you wake up, you have no idea which language you were talking. Dream again is one of the mind and whatever comes in mind is something that you have within your mind, it’s just activating some of the past experiences or something similar, or something new that is in your mind. When you’re experiencing something, at the same time, you feel it very normal, it means that it has to do something with the past. The reason why I’m saying this is to appreciate that storage which hold all the treasure of the past knowledge.
Problems are not outside but within ourselves.
Another factor that I thought to raise is be aware that problems are not outside but within ourselves. When we have studied about mental factors, among the 51 mental factors, just think about those which are 6 root afflictions and 20 secondary afflictive emotions, those are the problems. When we have some issues in life and we have some problems, when we don’t feel comfortable, when we are not happy with something, when we feel anxiety, when we feel depression, we usually blame external things, we usually blame, maybe it can be a friend it can be somebody you know, it can be your house, it can be your career, it can be your boss, it can be this, it can be that. That’s how we are used to blame on external things.
Sometimes people just blame something that they haven’t seen, that they haven’t, that they don’t know. But if you want to blame something, then here you should be able to understand that it is all within us, all those afflictive emotions where there is 6 root afflictive emotions or 20 secondary afflictive emotions. Those are the things that we should blame, if you want to get rid of the situation, those are the things that you should get rid of. If you’re having an issue, more or less there’s a target, especially you’re Buddhist and that is why we take refuge in Buddha and the teachings of Buddha and those who are following the teachings of Buddha or those who really understand the teachings of Buddha, we called Sangha, that’s what it means.
‘In life, we come across a lot of situation and circumstances which can be really difficult, many of these can be out of our control. But to suffer or not, it’s totally in our hands, especially by understanding about the mind, we should know that there are different minds, it’s not just one mind, but there are different minds. Whether we suffer or not absolutely rely on what kind of mind we should let it activate. If we let those minds to activate which makes us feel more miserable, which let us suffer then we do suffer. If we activate those mindsets or mind which are positive, then we can avoid suffering when there are lots situations and circumstances which can be unavoidable. In such situation, by understanding this mind, we should be able to avoid suffering.
When we learn about wisdom, especially the five mental factors, five determining mental factors, that is this wisdom, that’s something that we have to activate whenever we have situation, that’s something that we have to rely on, analyze, check before taking any decision, don’t go through the feelings because feelings are blind. I’m repeating feelings are absolutely blind, specially to take a decision, one should base on the wisdom, not on the feelings to minimize the problems. When you put a water in a cup, the water takes a shape of the cup, exactly the same thing, when we have situation in our mind, the situation takes the shape of the mind.
What I’m trying to say here is that if you are content, doesn’t matter whatever the situation is. When the situation encounters with the contentment, then everything is nice, everything is enough. When the situation encounters with a greed, nothing is enough. When the situation encounters with the anger everything is irritating. When the situation encounters with compassion, everything is loving and nice. To our mind, you can think of a sort of a vessel or a glass or a cup, the situation is the thing that you can put into the cup. So external situation takes the color and shape of the mind when that comes into your mind. So to shape the mind is very important, by this time, one important factor is to keep in our mind that our body and our mind are totally different, body is something very temporary, mind is something that is with us all the time.
If you borrow a car from your friend and you have to give it back tomorrow, you won’t have that much of attachment towards the car, because you know that tomorrow you gonna give it back, and usually, a person won’t spend that much of time cleaning or making up that car. Exactly the same way, our body is exactly the same thing, it’s just a car which belongs to someone else or which doesn’t belongs to you or it’s just like a guest house that we are in for a short period of time, sort of a vacation, let’s say. So it’s very important to focus more on shaping the mind. If you want to look nice, if you wanna look white or if you want to look beautiful, it is a mind. If you create that thing beautiful or a nice, lovable kind, friendly, that’s gonna be with you all the time, literally all the time and I would say that is a very good investment, because that’s gonna be with you all the time.
The only one knows you is yourself.
And also one another factor, I like this one, you might have seen a lot, I also have recently got somewhere that one can judge other by the mind. It is true, a person can be judged by the mind, but to be more precise, it is only you who knows your mind. So basically it is only you who can judge yourself because you are the only one who knows your mind. But if you judge yourself with one mind, one mental factor or if we judge other, the reason why we cannot judge other is because we don’t know their mind, it is almost impossible for an ordinary person to know other’s mind.
You might know or see through the physical or verbal gestures, you might be able to understand one or two emotions and to judge based on one or three emotions, it’s pretty much judging a book by one page, so the only person that knows you is yourself. So that’s what many people have this issue with low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and blah blah blah. Everyone has their own ability, everyone has all the potential to become Buddha, to get rid of all these emotions, and the mind that we all have is exactly the same potential. So don’t judge oneself because you cannot judge others, don’t just draw a line by seeing a part of or one single mental factor of someone else.
Learning about mind to understand.
One another thing that can be very helpful in our life is to understand, specially by learning about the mind is to understand that. Among Buddhist, many people think that if you just do this thing, you will achieve Buddhahood, for example, if you do the prostration, you achieve Buddhahood, if you chant the mantras you will achieve Buddhahood, if you do this you will achieve Buddhahood. Exactly like a body needs different vitamins and minerals to be healthy and fit, the state of enlightenment also requires all the different kinds of merits.
In simple way or from the Buddhist psychological approach, I would say that all these negative emotions has to be eliminated and for that, each and every afflictive emotion or negative emotion has its own antidote, and you have to walk on individual antidote of respective negative emotions, for example, to get rid of anger, you have to practice love and compassion. You practice generosity all the time and you hold that as your one and only practice, there is no way that you can achieve Buddhahood just by practicing generosity. It’s more like different sickness needs different types of medicine to cure, exactly the same way each and every negative emotion has to be eliminated by its own antidote. Like if you want to get rid of anger, you have to practice love and compassion because that’s the antidotes, opposite side.
So by understanding the mental minds and mental factors, you have to understand the different mental factors, for example, six root afflictive emotions and the 20 secondary afflictive emotions. You have to practice the antidote of each particular antidote or opposite side of the counterpart of each and every negative emotions. Some people may think that “I’m chanting the mantra and this is all I need to achieve Buddhahood” is to be precise. It is not right, chanting mantra – is very helpful and brings any good thing – is very good, but at the same time doing one thing is not enough.
Again, by understanding the mind and mental factors, one thing that I would like to share is that in the 51 mental factors there are many of them are positive, many of them are negative. Positive or negative means, what I’m trying to say here, many of those mental factors give happiness as a result, many of those mental factors give pain and problems as a result. At the same time, each and every individual have some of those positives, some of many people have many of those negatives, so by understanding it will help us to reduce the exaggeration when we don’t like something, when we don’t like someone. When we think that someone is doing something wrong, generally we exaggerate and make that person totally negative, but by understanding the mental factors, it’s more like we have broadened our mind, we see the world and we see the people from larger perspective, from a bigger perspective. Sometimes when you are in a forest, you don’t see forest, you see trees, to see the forest you gotta get out of the forest, when you’re inside the forest, all you see is some trees, but not a forest.
Exactly the same way, sometimes we have a broader perspective, we are able to see things more clearer. When somebody has the anger issue, when somebody so angry, when somebody is hurting others it doesn’t mean that the person is totally negative from all the aspects. It is true that there could be some greed or anger that is controlling that person at the time he or she is angry, But we have to understand that it is not only anger that exists in that person, the same person you might see being very nice and good one day, the next day you can see the same person being very selfish that could be you name it. There could be a lot of people that you might think that all he’s really bad or she’s really bad, but if you see that person on a giving day, you might have thought, what you might think in a future that “Oh, this person looks really nice or good”. There is again a very good example of the existence of different mental factors in that person, there are many positive emotions in the same person, within whom there are lots of negative emotions as well. When the condition arises, some of those negative action activates, when condition arise, some of those positive emotion arrives. So it’s very difficult to judge a person based on the certain emotions that activate at a certain time, certain period of time.
This is the reason why the person you like the most yesterday, could be the person you hate the most tomorrow or the person who you hate the most yesterday, could be the person you like the most tomorrow, with this broader perspective, nobody is totally negative. According to Buddhism, no one who is totally negative, but there are lot of beings who are totally positive. Many people say that “Oh the world nowadays, the time change, the people are getting more worse, people are more selfish, dah, dah and dah…”. In the past there used to be a lot of wars, then to killing a lot of people in a war, we say that “Oh it’s a warrior” and then people usually appreciate that, people usually admire those people who killed thousands of people in the war, that’s how it used to be in past, but now killing is not good in any form, in any sense, even if your own President killed someone, you will see that negatively. So from that perspective, the world is getting better in all the sense.
So to see, even if the same situation, there could be lots of ways where you see things negatively, but the same situation can be seen positively in many sense. Nowadays we have these nuclear things with which one can literally destroy the whole world, it is possible. At the same time, nowadays, It’s not like this country is literally having a war, and literally killing everyone in the next country, very less, could be one or two, but compared to the past, better.
Again the seeds in the mind can be activated through the prayers as well, as I said that in all our mind there are different kind of seeds, so many of these seeds can be activated through some prayers and it is very important. I’m not talking about Buddhist prayer, it can be anything, it can be very circular, you just pray and wish that may the peace prevail on this world, may everybody free from sickness, may all be happy, may the world free from, now for example like COVID. Those prayers and wishes not only help oneself, by doing such prayer, it activates certain positive seeds within oneself, it activates some positive energy within oneself, it gives you some strength to be more positive and also it influences others.
You might have heard of Solomon Islands where they want to get rid of some big trees in the whole villages in Solomon Islands, that’s what I’ve heard. The whole villagers gather and curse, say all the bad things in front of the trees. According to some sources, some people said that within a month or around a month, the trees literally die, all they have done is all the villagers gather together and curse, say all the bad things in front of the trees. It might sound a bit strange, but then the research that has been done by Masaru Emoto, the Japanese hydro researcher, which I was mentioning before. He pretty much has proving, shown how some prayers can affect the molecule of a water. In Buddhism we call interdependence, everything is interdependent, so if you are producing some nice energy, if you’re doing something positive it influences not only person, it influences even the molecule of water and the Solomon Islands, it literally influences even the trees outside.
If you ever visit to Tibet or Ladakh, you wanna find lots of mountains where you can see, for example, like mantra ‘OM MANI PADME HUM’, it’s not like somebody wrote on the mountain, it is naturally formed, it is literally. For example now we’re using the Zoom or like aeroplane, what would you think on some mountain, if the word ‘aeroplane’, it appears as if somebody carved on the mountain? But it appears naturally, what would you think? How would you explain that? When I saw ‘OM MANI PADME HUM’ naturally appeared on the piece of mountain, actually people break the mountain to make the road, when they break the mountain, it was like few floors high, they break it like this, so over here in between they saw this mantra ‘OM MANI PADME HUM’ very clear. From a glance, you might feel like, “Oh, if somebody had painted that”, but when you look closely, it looks like it has been naturally like the patterns of the… Oh, it’s a lot easier to understand this manner in this way, if you cut the tree, there are different layers and lines and patterns in the tree. So exactly the same way, there are different patterns on the mountain, I totally agree, but if there is only ‘OM’, the patterns are ‘OM’ then understandable, but if you see like ‘OM MANI PADME HUM’, when I saw that I was literally taking back, I was literally surprised.
Good thing is that in Buddhism there is a scope, there is a space for analysis. I’m not saying that Buddha has done that, I’m not saying that some God did that, I’m not talking about some magics, I’m talking about interdependence, the effect and energy can bring. Some prayers can change the patterns in the molecule of water, that is been proven scientifically, Masaru Emoto did that and then in Solomon Islands, they literally curse in front of the tree and then tree is dying. So with certain prayers, it not only changes the physical but it also brings some changes within our mind. The way it bring changes is that those prayers act as a condition or watering and then our mind that is pretty much like a store holds lots of different types of different seeds of different karmas of previous actions or habituation or experiences, so such prayers can help many of those seeds to ripen. So these are the things that I thought to share and of course, to be positive because it is within us, don’t judge yourself because you will get something, don’t look down to yourself because you have done something wrong.
If you think you have done something wrong is because of some negative emotions that you had within you, the regretting is something nice if you are taking steps to improve yourself. But if you’re taking no step to improve yourself, regretting is just a waste of energy that literally makes you weaker. I’m telling you to have regrets, but the same time use that energy, use that stain into improving oneself. Externally there is none, there is nothing that you can improve limitlessly, everything has limit in external world and there is no guarantee that any changes that you make externally can last, take some steps to make some changes within yourself. I’m not telling you that you will be alone when you get older or 80 or 90, you’re gonna be alone by yourself, I’m not telling you that, because nobody will agree, even if it’s true, I can at least tell that you when you die, you die alone.
When we leave this world, we wana leave ourselves all alone. So even from that perspective, if you have
trained your mind, if you make your mind enough strong, if you make your mind more positive, if you train yourself to see things positively, it not only help you to remain peace and calm in a difficult situation, it will also help you to recover from many issues and problems and sickness by just being positive. To be positive, you might have heard of being positive, but when it comes to understanding this clearly, being positive just means the reducing those afflictive emotions or mental factors affect you in negative sense. Just control those negative emotions, control those mental factors which bring negative results and work on improving and enhancing those positive emotions, those constructive emotions. That’s what it means by being positive. If you’re having jealous, envy, ego, pride, greed, attachment… those are the things that you have to change and try to work on, so we can be more positive, content, loving, compassionate, kind not just for others, but for oneself as well.
About the mind, even if we go like 50-60 years is still not enough time, and especially when it comes to this world. Everything is about mind, say, even if you study for 10, 20, 50 years, still something new to learn. But for a start, I think that’s 12 classes, something that they come up with and I’m really happy that you all have traveled together.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
- Lama, the feeling is always blind, so how about the sixth sense? It belongs to which kind of mind?
I’ve seen many people talking about sixth sense, I don’t know what is sixth sense. All I know is there is five senses. Many people think that sixth sense like the feeling which is not the five senses, but the feeling that just instant feeling that comes within your mind, actually that is a mental consciousness mind. In the six consciousness, the five sense consciousness and the mental consciousness, so the sixth sense, it’s not a sense, but it’s a mental factor and that’s the feeling, the instinct feelings, so those feelings are based on past experiences. We certainly have feelings, sometimes we have feeling on this person might be wrong, or this person might be right, or this person might be really bad or good. We have all these feelings based on our past experiences. When we are meeting a new person, we have the feelings or we sense something. So that person being around you act as a condition to activate some past experiences within your mind, and you draw conclusion based on that past experiences, so now you really don’t know what kind of past experiences is because you don’t know. You can have some good feelings or bad feelings and people say like “My sixth sense talking that or saying this and that, oh, I’m going to make some decisions”. Now, I would say that is totally stupid to pay, to rely on that sixth sense. It could be true many times, but it could be wrong as well, it’s more like you are in a blind room, like you are in the darkness and then you’re just picking up something on the plate and you are eating, it could be anything, it’s not a wise to eat something in the darkness when you don’t know what you are eating.
So exactly the same thing, when you see someone, when you encounter with such a situation and then you have sixth sense or maybe a mental consciousness are feelings, say, ‘seem something’, you should not rely on those, hold on. And when I say you should not rely on those, I’m not talking about just avoid yourself from seeing negatively, but you can avoid yourself from seeing positively as well, have mutual feelings. I mean when we talk about not to have a bad, negative emotion, you should not trust immediately as well. Hold on, if you see a reason, then based on that you can trust or you can just withdraw.
So the question is, how about the sixth sense, it belongs to which kind of mind? Yes it is, it is just the mental consciousness. The mind: the sense consciousness and the mental consciousness, so your question is basically whether is the sense consciousness or whether is a mental consciousness. This is the sixth one, there is only six types of mind: five sense consciousness and one mental consciousness.
- Lama, if we have many kinds of minds, how they are not destroyed with death? All of those mind goes on during the intermediate state and in next lives?
You see, the thing is that when we die, the body can be destroyed, the body can be burned or different people do different things with the body, the remaining body. But the reason why these mind are not destroyed is because these are not form, these are formless, so no fire or nothing can do any harm to the mind. It is true that the mind dissolve in the subtle, subtle and subtle, then go out of the body. So the imprint of the mind leaves in the mind, and when the condition arises, that mind activates.
All of those mind goes on during the intermediate state and in next lives. Absolutely, each and every mind converts into a seed, and goes into a subtler and subtler and very subtle mind, so that subtle mind goes out of our body, and then enters into the worm and born again. That subtle mind during the intermediate state of 49 days has a body and then some of the gross mind activates at a time.
- Lama, when we reborn, why don’t we acquire those thoughts with us that we had in the previous life?
There are many cases of people remembering their past life, there are many kids even nowadays at Ladakh who take their parents to show the house of their previous life in some different villages. In the village where I was born, there at least five or six kids like that, three or four kids at the monastery where I belong to in Ladakh. When we die, all the gross mind dissolve in the subtle mind, so the gross mind need time to activate with the condition. This is the only reason otherwise, of course, we can remember things and of course, when it comes to get easier it is very obvious that people who used to learn Buddhism in the past life, this life it is much more easier. There are many monks who are able to learn Buddhism much more easier if their previous life is a monk.
- Can I filter those thoughts if I want to?
So try to analyze which are positive and which are negative and then positive you can train yourself more and negative you can work on reducing those or eliminating those, so this is how you can filter those which are helpful.
CLOSING
So with this I would like to conclude today’s class, for the next class we will talk and we’ll decide and then we’ll keep post in the group. So by that time, thank you very much, I congratulate all of you for successfully going through the course. Really I’m happy and soon our team will send the certificate of that I think. So I really am happy, so looking forward to see all the 12 classes take altogether. I’ll find a way to check if there is anything that is needed to be edited, so that maybe in the future, if there is anyone who wish to go through the classes, they can go through, the audio, video or the writing.
So thank you very much and see you all soon.
Source.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iL4lYG2Pj9vtHs1xsPQ-xDcHOTUALCuF