Easter Retreat 2015 - Talk 4 Part C

So, as I said, you should go home rejoicing that you are actually taking something home very, very, profound with you.  New wisdom.  So far, because of your culture and civilisation most of you have been chasing a rainbow, hallucination.  That is why life hasn’t been so meaningful.  But now, you can go home and say actually, it is like diamond, most precious right now.  You didn’t know that diamond was here. 

But if you have been looking for diamond somewhere else, then how can you find it right here?  It is mind.  We call Buddha field.  Mind is like a field.  You can all go home and have a little patch of garden.  Now what you are going to do is you are going to be is very, very good, attentive gardener.  What you need to do is every moment that you find spare time, try to plant love and compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, no judgement, those are the right crops. 

There are Japanese weeds, that won’t go away so easily, even if you keep on pulling it out, it keeps on coming up.  That is called anger.  That’s called jealousy.  That’s called attachment.  That’s called desire.  And some people don’t know the worst poison of all is arrogance.  People don’t know arrogance is the poison.  A lot of pride, a lot of arrogance.  People don’t notice, you think that it is some good quality, but it is very harmful.  People with a lot of pride and arrogance, don’t feel that they need to consult anybody.  Don’t feel they need to learn from anybody.  They just do the worst things that they can do. 

These poisons don’t need light.  They dwell in darkness.  All these poisons, the five poisons come up all the time, so you have to keep on weeding, keep on weeding.  And instead of them you have to plant the seeds of compassion.  Loving kindness, forgiveness seeds.  If you can keep on doing this, there will absolutely be a benefit.  But then many people make a big mistake and think they have finished weeding, but it will take over completely again.  Because it kills everything, whatever you are trying to achieve.  Compassion goes out of the window.  Tolerance goes out the window.  Forgiveness goes out the window, because you feel that you do it once then everything is ok.  But they keep on coming. 

A negative means negative.  You never need to do anything, they are like midges, they land on you every time.  Here we have midges, in a more polluted country, there is dust instead.  That’s called negative, no effort is necessary.  Positive means to keep this clean and very messy city is very difficult, isn’t it?  In a very polluted country like Beijing, now some people can’t breathe the air.  But what choice do you have?  Millions of cars coming in the street.  And then it is so polluted they never even see the blue sky.  So, you can see how greediness can destroy our own life, where we can’t even breathe.  So, who will be able to breathe?  Wealthy people can buy good air to breathe.  The poor unfortunate people can’t even breathe the air there. 

We must not allow our state of mind to be in such a bad shape.  Please remember, you have a choice.  Don’t make your mirage so solid.  But follow the Buddha mind.  Give plenty of time.  20 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there.  You can never be a failure.  We have many, many people who have a high-profile job like in the European Market or something, people who practice, they even practice during lunch time. 

You can find time to practice.  Practice means you want to find your own inner peace.  You want to create, you have to think if I am not successful in creating my own inner peace, how can I help create a better world?  You have no chance. 

First you have to experiment telling yourself if you want to succeed you need a stable foundation.  Then the wisdom, compassion and forgiveness, everything that you ever want comes to you without you having to chase around.  But unstable mind, and also having no appreciation, gratitude will not give a stable foundation. 

Even being able to sit in a beautiful, calm dining room, to have a cup of tea, there should be rejoicing, see?  Have mindfulness saying, how fortunate we are being in a beautiful place, we can have a nice cup of tea.  Look at this.  Billions of population have none of this, most places don’t even have pure water to drink.  Very soon, more than a quarter of the world’s population will have no proper drinking water.  It is all polluted.  No wonder our mind is so sick. 

If you think you have a very good physical healthy body, look after the mind.  When your mind is positive, your mind is good I assure you, your body will be as good as you wish to be.  Like me at my age, I know it’s like the body is an old car, so I can’t have a proper shiny car body, but I have a good engine.  It runs very well.  I rejoice every morning when I wake, even if I have a pain, I rejoice with the pain.  Pain doesn’t put me off.  It gives me a challenge.  Yes. 

Pain is something that always reminds me of the nature of impermanence.  Pain is something that everybody wants to run away from.  But nobody has ever succeeded in running away from the pain.  Because we are the creator of our own pain and suffering.  Nobody else is, we are.  So, if you think you have a problem, stop blaming others, look at yourself.  Who causes you this pain?  Who causes you this suffering?  Me.  I.  “I’m not getting what I want, I lost my preciousness”.  Some of you are suffering because you thought you lost your preciousness, so you have to remember, when you came to this world you only came with your naked body, you didn’t come with your precious body.  Or friends.  You just have a wrong view. 

We should never be thinking we lost something, we haven’t lost anything.  Always remember to come back to the wisdom path.  The wisdom path says we don’t have to suffer anymore.  We can be joyful.  And there is nothing wrong with being joyful.  I assure you.  It is very wonderful to have someone who is a stable and very, very kind and forgiving person.  To have a proper friendship. 

Someone who is so picky and so sensitive or so difficult to even talk to, it’s like you are walking on sharp knife edges thinking can I say this without hurting this person?  Can I think this without hurting some person?  Can I look at this person without hurting some person?  It is so difficult to even have a relationship like this. 

So, that is why we have a choice, see?

Suffering is self-created.  It is nothing to do with the government.  Nothing to do with civilisation.  If we stop wanting, needing, and thinking that we’ve lost something, then there is no more suffering, see?  Ageing is beautiful.  Sickness is very beautiful.  Sickness tells us how fragile our life is.  It is always hanging there. 

So, I said I would talk about a programme: meditate 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, many times a day.  Remember that now we have a picture of a little gardening to do and we will never allow the five poisons to grow.  Some of you come from a Christian background, and if you have this guilt, it is the sixth poison, so you better get rid of your guilt.  I’m adding the sixth poison, guilt.  Guilt does not do you any good.

In Buddhism we say we take responsibility.  That means if I do something wrong, I must acknowledge it and see that I have done something wrong.  Then you are determined, never, never to do that wrong again.  Then you can change.  But if you do nothing to change, you make one mistake, you feel so guilty, then you feel bad, then you make two mistakes, three mistakes, then you are completely gone under.  Pick up the guilt also.  Throw it away, toss it away.  What you need to do is change for better.  Yeah, you should change, say to yourself I have a choice. 

If you have made a mistake, you have to think, I am a human being.  Nobody can ever say they have never made a mistake.  We all make mistakes.  But because we are all supposed to be intelligent human beings, we do not need to keep on making the same mistake, again and again.  So, I suggest, we should never keep on making the same mistake, again, and again. 

Remember you have a choice.  Remembering - foundation must be strong.  Even if we build a shed, nowadays, without a good foundation, they don’t allow us to build a shed, because it could be a risk.  So, if our whole life is without a foundation, how can we survive?  How can we move forward?  If we are always like this? 

Good foundation: unconditional compassion.  Universal, universal, universal.  Forgiveness must be done to free you.  Liberation, liberation.  Your parents can’t liberate you.  Your government can’t liberate you.  Only yourself - that means forgiveness. 

And then super-glue.  Super-glue, you keep on working so hard, so that one day there will not need to be super-glue.  It means if we know we are going to fall from the cliff, but still trying to hold onto it.  So, we just prolonging our suffering.  Number one, you don’t need to be hanging on the cliff.  So, number two, there is no hope, so you better jump as soon as you can.  It is no use to hang there, you know no help is available there.  In a matter of time you know you are going to fall down there. 

So, why do we prolong our suffering?  So, my advice to all of you when you have suffering, sit down and say, who gave me this suffering?  Who creates this suffering?  You will come to the conclusion, this ‘I’ is responsible.  Then you should go and look and investigate, where is this famous ‘I’ who has been enslaving me for all this time?  If you can’t find this famous ‘I’, then you are liberated.  That is when you meditate, you investigate who is this you who have been serving all the time.  In whose name have you had to go through this difficulty? 

So, remembering a few words can change your life.  Remember your Buddha field, that means mind, and plant compassion, compassion.  Tolerance, tolerance.  Loving, loving, forgiveness.  Never force other people to do what you are doing.  Never try to be a teacher to them, because nobody will benefit.  Never need to tell that you are Buddhist.  Because if you say you are Buddhist, if it hurts other people, then you are not doing any good, because you are upsetting other people.  If you want to be a good Buddhist, show your change.  Be a better person, a different person, that will be the change you want. 

So, remainder of the time is finished, you are lucky in many ways because normally it will be meditation but I thought at every centre I go to the say, ‘Lama, stop giving them meditation, because they suffer,’ and ‘keep on talking, they enjoy,’ so, I am trying to make your life much happier because I don’t want to send all of you home with miserable joint pain, and say ‘ Lama Yeshe has tortured us in his shrine room.’  So, I want all of you to go home saying, ‘he did his best not to give us suffering!’  So, I wish that you cannot say that Lama Yeshe caused us pain. 

I want you to go home saying Lama Yeshe has taught us how to free us, how to liberate us, how not to follow the mirage, and make it so real and so solid.  Maintain your garden regularly.  Let the sunshine in.  Let the light come in.  Let the rain come in.  Light, joy, joy, joy.  Yes. 

Mushroom grows very well in the dark.  It is called negative poisons, see?  Poison doesn’t need any light or water or anything to grow.  So, you should do a really, good gardening every time you meditate.  You go to your job, you go to your office.  Some of you have an office to go to and you are frightened of confronting your most difficult boss or person.  You have to think I am going to go home there, and I am going to bring this person sun, joy.  ‘Have you had a good Easter Holiday?’  ‘Can I serve you a cup of tea?’  There is nothing wrong.  This person might be thinking, has this person been taking something wrong, but then if you open up this way, then you get rid of all the difficult things happening in the office, see?  You warm them up.  This is one way of liberating, that means, make other people feel that they are in charge.  But you are in charge because you know what method to use to free yourself from the fear, ok?  That’s called wisdom. 

So, thank you very much for coming here to spend your Easter holiday and if you are driving home, be careful, use mantra, not a daydreaming driver.  Drive mindfully, joyfully, even if you have a horrible thing waiting down there, it has changed now, so you think something wonderful is waiting for me.  Because it is the mind that makes it happen. 

If you are fearful that something is going to go wrong, more and more, it will go wrong.  If you say, that everything is going to change because I now managed to change my own way of thinking, I assure you that you will change it for better.  So, think we will be able to change.  We have a choice. 

Then, safe journey home until we meet again who knows how fast we will be here again.  Some of us will be going to the other side, but who cares?  I wish you all to be happy, yes, that’s what matters.  We work, we survive, everything we do in the name of happiness, in the name of joy, in the name of success.  And now you know what will bring you that everlasting happiness, joy, everything is in you.