(upbeat music) This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. - Good evening and thank you very much for coming out and such a bleak evening. So I'm currently in case there's any of you who think there's maybe one or two people that haven't met before. So I don't know whether that means you're new-ish to the center or you just, I just haven't met you, which can be the case. So I was asked if I would, I was gonna be in Glasgow 'cause I'm in my way to Dharmakotya, tomorrow to do a treat. So I can't remember whether I offered it or I was asked. But anyway, here I am. And I believe this is a winter gathering. So I'm going to start by singing a Christmas card. I thought I would do it. So I'm gonna stand up actually 'cause it's a bit easier to sing. You don't think I'm joking? (audience laughing) - We do all the way up to bed. - Okay, so this could be terribly embarrassing. Sorry? - Have you joined me? - If you like. I'm not sure if today join me in any carol, but anyway, I haven't sung this for about 30 years and I've got a slightly croaky voice tonight. (audience laughing) - No, I'm gonna do this. I'll at least start singing it if I give up or just read it 'cause it's actually a poem by Christina Rosetta. So it's a Rosetta poem put to music. I think my horse, I think that's gonna put it to music. Yeah, okay. It's could be embarrassing, but anyway. Good kids, I'm-- - I'm impressed. Yeah, it's all right. - I mean, I ask 'em in the store. I'm at home. It's what you do at Christmas, isn't it? ♪ In the bleak midwinter ♪ ♪ Grows feeling it more ♪ ♪ It's as hard as iron ♪ ♪ Water like a stone ♪ ♪ Snow had fallen, snow on snow ♪ ♪ Snow on snow ♪ ♪ In the bleak midwinter ♪ ♪ Long ago ♪ ♪ Angels and dark angels ♪ ♪ May have got nothing ♪ ♪ Cherubin and serubin ♪ ♪ No beer ♪ ♪ But his mother ♪ ♪ only in her meetings ♪ ♪ Or should there be love ♪ ♪ With her tender gifts ♪ ♪ Oh, what can I give him ♪ ♪ Poor as iron ♪ ♪ If I were a shepherd ♪ ♪ I would bring him along ♪ ♪ If I were a wise man ♪ ♪ I would play my part ♪ ♪ Yet what a time I'll give him ♪ ♪ I'll give him my part ♪ (audience applauding) (audience cheering) That's the Christian bit, actually. I really love that song, I think it's absolutely beautiful. And what I was just, I've been singing it loads, actually, partly because Annie Lenox has just brought it, probably I shouldn't have it enough here to a few times. And of course, I don't aspire to Annie Lenox from, but I've been singing it in my head. And as I've been singing it actually, the second thing, the symbolism in it is actually very beautiful. And the kind of image is quite beautiful. So I just thought, oh, just sing it to you. And then all I'm gonna do is talk about it with some of the images in it. And then I'm gonna finish off by singing a song in the middle of it. Just to kind of, just note the rhythm that you expect. Just to, just so that you don't go away with the idea that I'm not a Buddhist, I am, I promise. So in the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made more. It's just the very idea of the bleak midwinter. It's just in itself quite a strong image. It's quite a strong imagery. That idea that this time in the year, we go into bleakness in a certain way. I mean, actually, we also went to all sorts of other things, like hysteria and shopping and chocolate binge and all those kind of things. But if we just leave that aside and do it, think about that aspect of it. This time of the year, not even think necessarily of Christmas, but just this time of the year, in the northern hemisphere, things leave falling, things go a bit underground, things actually kind of get a bit into the darkness. And the idea of this sort of frosty wind. And I think for all of us, I don't know, if I look back in the last year, I'm personally very satisfied with my last year, I practice I think it's gonna be a good year. In a personal sense, terms of personal practice, but I can certainly think of moments that felt kind of bleak. And I can think of moments where frosty winds were important. And I know that for other people as well, that's been the case. Most of us have periods where the sun shines and periods where, you know, we're definitely much more in the bleak in a winter. The idea that the earth is as hard as iron strikes me is quite a strong image. So we think of that, it's so hard, it's like iron, but actually it's no, it's still earth and it's still alive. And I think this has been the things that we can easily make the mistake of thinking in our own practice, for example, when we're in those periods that can feel a bit bleak, terms might be our meditation practice, it's feeling a bit of a struggle a bit bleak, might be a kind of sense of faith, a sense of inspiration has disappeared a bit. It can really feel like it is as hard as iron, but actually even when the earth is as hard as iron, at this time of the year, new growth is already starting to happen under me. And you need both of those things, because without the fallow periods, without the periods where we can go into the darkness, where the seed can germinate, actually new growth can't happen. So I think it's really important to be aware that sometimes in a practice, as Buddhist, as Dharma practitioners, even just a practice as being human beings and trying to be better human beings as a wearer, practice of just trying to be kinder, be cleaner, be more generous, be more content-worthy. And all of those practices will come up against moments where we feel that no growth has happened. And it's really important just to be with that. And note to panic, you know, as they said in their, the hitchhikers go to the galaxy, don't panic. Just, you know, new things will actually come forth. And then this line that says water like a stone, it's quite strong as well, it's not just like ice, but like a stone, it's really, when I hear that, I have a sense of I can almost like a bit of stone in my guts, you know. When sometimes we feel, for whatever reason, we get into more negative mental states, I think sometimes it can feel it. Like, if you think of water as something that flows, so you think of life as something that flows, let alone a practice of something that flows. Just an energy flow, and then those moments in life where we actually find that our energy's not flow, it's not moving, and it feels like there's a stone. And that stone can happen in different parts of the body. It can happen, you know, sometimes we feel that there's a stone, that there's a throat, perhaps. And maybe that's because we're not actually speaking out when we need to seek out. Maybe it's because we're not actually saying the things that we need to see. Sometimes we feel a bit more of a stone in our heart, so to censor that kind of feeling of your heart really being a bit heavy. And it's good to notice these things. It's good to kind of just be aware of them and just be curious. I think if there's one quality that I would suggest is a really useful quality for a Buddhist practitioner, I'd say curiosity. I mean, that might seem a bit strange, because you might think mindfulness would be a much better quality of awareness and all those things. But personally, I think if we can approach life for curiosity, even with awe, you know, even with a sense of wonder, kind of innocence almost, then in a way awareness will come because then we embrace life, we look at life, we go towards life, and we'll find ourselves being aware. Not only of ourselves and their responses to things, but also responses to other people and we'll be aware of other people. I'm rambling, by the way, I've got no set, you know, whatever. I'm just talking about what these images say to me and speak to me as somebody with a bit of practice, under the belt and a kind of interesting thing. So also thinking about water like a stone, I thought, well, there's also ice. And sometimes ice and snow can get a bit kind of caught up in each other. And we've had some lovely samples of that recently where, you know, the ice and snow and actually you realise the snow is probably as well. We've had the experience of getting hit by a snowball. We've had a stone in it. Then we have a habitat experience. It's not very nice, you sort of think it's going to be a bit horrible and wet, and then it actually kind of thomps a bit so hard for them. So maybe that's something to think about as well in terms of throwing snowballs, just make sure that there aren't any stones in them. (laughing) Supposedly to the way in Mexico would've put these people. And thinking about ice, thinking about this image of ice around the heart, actually, which was an image that was very strong for me in the early days of the practice. When I started to practice and way back in the day, over 30 years ago, when I came into Buddhism, I came from, it was a period in my life where, I think in retrospect, I was probably having any of us break them. I really examined in this room that actually knew me at that time. Some of you knew me quite soon afterwards, but I think nobody here actually knew me at that precise moment. And I really was not in great net. And I'd had one of the strands that had brought me to that point was that I'd had a major number, a number of major bereavement in a very short space of time. And, you know, my grandparents that I'd grown up living with, my cousin that I'd grown up living with in both my parents, I don't die within like an 18-month period, as well as some close friends. So I think for that and for other reasons, probably back in my childhood in the past, I had what you might call a heart that was encased in ice. And when I started to meditate, particularly I started doing a metabolic practice, which I just thought was so totally amazingly wonderful. Has everybody here done the metabolic practice yet? I mean, how radical is that? How radical is it to actually feel concerned and solidarity and care towards people that you can't stand? How radical is that? And don't be fooled by thinking that you have to like these people. The metabolic is not to do the likes. The metabolic is not a practice about the emotions. The metabolic is a volitioning practice. It's an orientation practice. It's a practice in which we try to really change our entire orientation of being away from the self-centered to the other regarden. It's beautiful, it's a totally amazing practice. And that, I mean, the whole state of the metabolic, how good is that? When I first came up to the glasses, I just sent a note here, it was in the west end, where this is a community now, okay? I came to a class there and Danadirah, who's some of you and will talk to the metabolic. And it was very strange. He talked about big gold men walking up by their shirt, which actually, frankly, didn't do it for me, immediately. But nevertheless, he really can bake something. There was something in the passion in which he described this practice. And I was trying very hard to get a sense of what beneath these gold men were to do. But it was something to do with just being like really open to experience and kind of seeing the world through a different kind of lens. It was something to do with seeing people knowing the read back, or the person that you just had to be fighting with a number nine boss or something. But to actually see people as gold and radiant beings. So if you kind of get the radiant beings, it was the gold men, particularly that I think just didn't do it. And it might have been my misjustice, 'cause that's my memory now, it was a long time ago. But nevertheless, it really did. It said something to me. I really got a taste of flavor of it. And I remember getting to the fourth stage and thinking, "Hey, they're deep." Should I put something that I don't like and am a practice and like them? And so I feel, why should they be all right? I don't want them to be all right. They're horrible. I want them to have a really horrible, nasty, twisted work time. And I felt quite justified in feeling that, you know? 'Cause it's just some pretty juicy people that had really not been good and nice. And I really wasn't, you know, I was quite proud of myself. (laughing) But of course, I'm pretending you start to realize how much you miss in the point when you see it like that. And I would just share a wee dream with you, family, since I'm on the topic of the metrogravia. I'd be meditating for a while, I don't know how long. It would have been in the early 80s, so I was probably a baby. It was probably about, I'd be probably meditating about three years or four years ago. And I was doing this all through the tree. And I did this meditation. And I was totally in love with the university, yeah. I was like, absolutely in love. I was a walking cook like that. (laughing) You know. (singing in foreign language) (laughing) You know the dream as well. Yeah, anyway, so then I was in this retreat and it was in Scotland and it was gorgeous and it was wonderful and I loved everybody. And then I did this mess about when, I can't remember why this was a dream or something that happened in the meditation. I think it was a dream. But anyway, in this dream, I was singing songs to help the songs of the dying. So, I know songs that are slightly, you know, difficult ones, but then I've just been singing just 'cause I was so good. And the kind of spirit, the, anyway, in my dream, they were so good. And I was singing this. This was apparently my task. I was a singer of songs to help the dying. And then I was singing whatever it was. And in this dream, I'd go to different places to do this. In this particular occasion, I was over Nicaragua. So some of you might recall that in the early '80s, there was troubles in Nicaragua. Some of you are too young to recall that, but some of you will. And anyway, there I was singing my song and there was a battle happening and people were dying and these kind of spirits, entities were arising in the battlefield and I was saying, Sandinistas were the left wing, for me, et cetera, et cetera. So we can see some of these accomplishments and we're back doing that to me. And the punches were the CIA funded. - Mm-hmm. - I think I've got it myself. And so I was struck, these people were saying, well, if you know, if you're funded by the CIA, I'm sorry I kind of hear from you. (audience laughing) And if you're Sandinista, I'll sing a thing. And I woke up and I was completely horrified. And I thought, my goodness, I have missed the point of the mess above and the threat to the victim, you know? And I mean, it's kind of joking, a bit funny, but actually I really felt deeply, deeply upset. And it wasn't that in a way I could still have an opinion and think it would be better to see how you didn't find coups and Latin America. I could still hold that as a thought, but it was something about hatred. And when we're looking at it now, maybe using slightly different terminology, it was to do with separation of connectedness. So I was only willing to connect where my prejudices were met, you know? So it wasn't even like, I had a well-developed analytical sense of what was right and wrong in this particular battlefield. I mean, I might have had that, but that wasn't the issue at that moment. At that moment, I was not connected with souls and need, so to speak, you know? Forget the terminology, but I was not willing to connect. And a very deep level were those who did not share my own particular prejudices, views, opinions, political kind of, you know? So it had a really big effect. I mean, actually it was quite an age of trouble and quite many terms of understanding what met above in the world. 'Cause I realised you could actually love and know, you could love and judge at the same time. It wasn't that you were having to give up the critical faculty and just go into some marshmallow wasteland in which you kind of just loved it. But so, you know, the Coca-Cola ad, I realised there was no of the model that I went to follow. So maybe there wasn't even that Coca-Cola ad then, but there was definitely something like that, and you know what I mean. So when I started really practicing the meta, I think what happened was that this ice started to crack. And if you've ever seen ice cracking or even more spectacularly haveda ice cracking, when it's really, really deep ice, it's quite a groaning sound that emits from it. So I feel I went through a period in my Adelaide practice as a Buddhist, in which I've grown a lot, you know? I metaphorically grown. And sometimes I even literally grown quite a lot. But it was as though new life was actually coming to be. It was as though my heart was actually opening, and I was realising that although I'd had these experiences, I'd have the difficult dark experiences. And you know, I was a girl who'd lived in the dark side of the road in different sort of ways, that actually, really in all in that, and facing that and sitting with in these practices that I was discovering, I was able to kind of let the ice creep and crawl, grow and kind of go. So that all comes from this image of water like a stone. And I think, you know, one of the things about both air, semen, heart, desire and water is hard as a stone, is that the substances are still the same substances, but they have to undergo a transformation to really come into their own. So water can only flow when the ice melts. It can only be the flow when the stone kind of breaks up, when the stone actually, you realise that even stone is not something that will last forever. You know, but that actually also has a rhythm and independence conditions. Emolissivation of those conditions, that particular phenomenon will change. Everything changes. So, that's two lines. (audience laughs) Snow had fallen, snow on, snow on, snow on, snow in the midwinter long ago. So there's this kind of image of bleakness, darkness, midwinter, going underground in a way, going into almost hibernation, and that needs to draw in woods, but then the snow and snow and snow, which is beautiful. It's an image of great beauty and it's an image of light because it is nothing quite like the light that you get when sun shines on the snow, when freshly falling, crisp, beige and snow. Not a slosh that it turns into after a day or two, but you know that, and it's just glorious. There was a few moments ago where there was a really red sky. I don't know if you saw the sun runs, was really red and it was just shining on the snow. And it was absolutely spectacular. And a week or so ago when it had been still really heavy, I was still blooming. And I looked out at the back window and their garden must have had a bit, I don't know how much so, but it was a really thick snowfall. And it was the night of the filming, but it was just coming up for the filming. And it was clear, it was the night there was gonna be any clips, although actually I didn't manage to make the senior clips 'cause it clouded by them. But there was just this amazing white silver and yet, and then there was a kind of slightly ready tinge to as well, it was really, it went a bit burnt amber-ish. So women are absolutely fine. So there's, again, I quite like with all these images together. And in a way that's the kaleidoscope that is a practice. That's the kaleidoscope colors that is actually a life, isn't it? So we can have bleakness and beauty kind of held in the same space. And snow also makes me think, as it were, of Vajrasapha, makes me think of, I did have some notes, but I haven't looked at them. There you go. Oh, I've said quite a bit, that's good. And a lot of other things, isn't it? So there's something about the magical aspect of that. So I'm gonna talk to the new year of treatment allocation, starting tomorrow. And I've led this new year, I don't know how many times, actually, there's certainly more than 10 years that I've done it, I don't know how many times I've done it. And there's been a couple of them where it's been absolutely spectacular at New Year's Eve, with snow and moon and crispness and stars. And there's nothing quite like that. And some of you here have been in those treats and you know what that's like, and I'm sure there's other treats in the year, where you come up to that point where the old year is just about to pass into a memory and a new, a door is opening into the new year. And we always chant, or we often chant, mantra of a particular figure called Badger-Sarfa. And Badger-Sarfa represents a kind of purification. He represents the purity that's there within us that gets a bit grubby sometimes. So he represents that still sparkling, sunlight, or moonlight, or in freshly fallen snow. He's got that quality of newness, and yet it's almost a crayne-y, the old scents at the same time, another paradox of the kind of... And it almost feels blessed in a certain way, and I'm definitely in religious imagery tonight. But it can feel that you just sort of look at the stars. And I remember when it really, really good wins was the millennium, which is just baptism. Amongst others, he enjoyed practicing it, a ride down a crochet with a huge amount of fireworks. And we had the fireworks this week, then by the law for new year. And it was great, and we just finished theirs, and we started whenever at Balquadero, at the other side of the law, and they were all just reflected at this chest. The law means, wasn't it? And there was... Can I just add a bit of that? But what was even more, though, is what? It was smell on the ground. And I just lay on the ground, and looked up at the stars, as it had been clouded all over India, and suddenly just before a big line of the record, unless it is a new star, it starts with a pummel, one of all more flowers. Yeah, yeah, it's true. But it felt a bit like there were fireworks in the air, but then there was sort of an incredible display in the sky. So it was really quite spectacular, wasn't it? That was one we wanted to try, and then we thought, and came out, and it was quite out. That's right, about 10 to 12, the four were clear. So, you know, those magical experiences that we kind of all have them, do you really cherish them, really hold them in your heart and in your memory? Because those are the sort of memories as well that help is when we're in those other, perhaps slightly bleak kind of places to remember that. And the fact that they can come together almost is just really magical. And the magic of that, but it's also a bit like the freshly fallen snow, and it's a new star. And of course at the new year, we have that sense, you know, as a good glossary to the Scottish girl, I can remember her first footing, and taking the lump of corn and the bottle of whiskey, and a bit of short bread or black bun, then the cake or something like that. I was in Mexico a couple of years ago, and I went to this tea house, sort of like a bit chile, chile, chile, what's it called called? Chile on the tape, sort of thing, but in Mexico. And they had on their menu done the cake, and it said, "An English Delic of the Tea." (audience laughs) Well, you can imagine. (audience laughs) The first that I forced in that place. (audience laughs) And when I went back the next time, (audience laughs) they had taken it off the menu. (audience laughs) And all it said in the menu was cake. (audience laughs) So it's a try not to be too nationalistic, but as I've got abroad, it's hard sometimes. (audience laughs) So how do we get to them, do you cake? Yes, a new year, so first, and that whole idea that there's something new might happen. And I remember as a kid being really excited, and wondering, well, you didn't really wonder who was gonna be the first to the door, 'cause my granny is the same, my dad is the same, 'cause he was dark. He was a tall, but he was dark, and I think hands. So he was all right. Come on the door. Just that sense that you open the door in a new start, and you take within that, the necessity. You take nourishment. You take warmth for the hair. You take something to drink. (audience laughs) And sort of, I don't know, you kind of enter the new, you bring in the new, you bring in the new. And of course, as a sculpt, that was always much more exciting and interesting to me than Christmas. Christmas was never a take, would they do? It's not a little in England. I have to tear up your time at New Year. In fact, I think I've only spent two New Year's land. Well, un-retreat was all right, but New Year's land, and every day I live we went to bed at technical. It was a tear up at New Year's land. And that's what I would never do again, and I never have. So, you know, these things have deepened the collective archetypal unconscious. They need for something new. So, that idea of purification of the autumn to something new is at this time of the year very important. And if we ever reached the Shrain Room, (audience laughs) after talking and trying for us to go into the Shrain Room, what I would like to suggest is that we just pause and be aware of the fact that we are coming to the end. You know, we've been through full season, so I'm weird about to start another kind of cycle. I mean, it depends where you put the cycle. Some of us might think we've done that already because the solstice has passed. We've already passed the longest night in the shortest day, and we're heading toward the lake again. But nevertheless, New Year's attend. This whole period is a time to reflect. It's a time to just look back and see what are we satisfied with? What do you think could have been better? What would we like to move into this new moment? You know, if we feel that by just that, because I've said in most of some importance to it as well, what would we like, purification? What areas would we like to feel that sense of purification and new life? And even, you know, if we think of this kind of, the water starting to flow again, perhaps where there's been stolen, right? We think about, you know, the air starting to kind of just the seats underneath the air for germinating. What do we hope for the most seats? What are the seats that we hope to be nourishing through into the next year? So moving on to the next verse. I like this verse. The angels and the archangents may have gathered there. Cherubim and Serifim. I liked cherubim and Serifim when I was reading. I was a Catholic. But yeah, in some ways, just even that whole world, that there's something beyond what we see in touch and taste and smell and all that. I'm not going to go into, you know, our angels just really don't do it for some people. I get that. And I've had my own trouble with angels, you know, over the years. I think because I was a Catholic, I had quite a strong kind of pushing away of some of that sort of symbolism, particularly early on in my practice. And I think I had to do that to kind of always stream myself up from things that I hadn't really taken on consciously, that I had just, you know, grown up with as it were. And to kind of move away from some of the aspects of my own particular Christian Catholic background, that weren't helpful for me in terms of my liberation. But I think I've been able to reclaim some of that. And one of the things I feel I've reclaimed is the whole imagery of angels. Actually, I've got Serifim, I've seen a notice through my Facebook photos recently. A wee, it's a wee photograph of in the cathedral in Tarragona in Spain that's fantastically gothic. Michael, Slain, and Demons. And it's great, he's got a really new kind of face of a wee, you know. And he's really given it love and everything. And actually, I always visit that in my way up to ordination retreats. [LAUGHTER] I quite like, because we have a retreat centre in Spain that to get to do the retreats where women are ordained, where some people year were ordained. Some people weren't ordained there, but a visitor there. And in my way, I'm polite to go to Tarragona and have a look at the cathedral. And I quite find that image that's out particularly when you picked up on actually Serifim. It's quite a lot of them. But there's something about him that just really cheers me up. [LAUGHTER] And I kind of feel it because actually in the spiritual life, we meet Demons. You know, and there's Padma Sam. But well, there's a figure of Padma Sam about who slays Demons or who actually meets the Demons and dances with the Demons. He doesn't slay them. He was the Demons. He embraced the Demons. And that's such a lovely symbol for her practice and for transformation. You know, and I think there's something about that that I really like. So I'm happy we're angels and archangels and cherubim and serifim. And I always think the cherubim and serifim are kind of naughty. You know, they're the naughty bit of angels that are getting up to no good read about them. [LAUGHTER] There has to be a place for them is where they're going to live in a spirit, you know? But the point I really meant to make about this is, you know, find your own way of feeling in touch with something that is not just what can be seen by the AI and what can be touched by the human, you know, tactile sense. But really within our practice-- and I know there's been quite a bit of talk about this recently, actually, about finding where the imagination lives within our practice and really kind of making sure that that's a line. And I think that's really important, just finding the ways that an imaginative kind of faculty can be engaged in within our practice. And yet it says, even though there's all these archangels and angels and cherubim and serifim floating about and worshipping and all that, actually, it's his mother's tender kiss that's the important thing in this. And I kind of like that. And it makes me think of meta again. The fact that the meta-sitter talks about meta being like the love that a mother would have for her only child. And yet that love is not reduced to any particular love. It incorporates it in the braces, all of those loves, as it were. And yet it's so big that it can hold the love that a mother would have for her child, but actually feel that out into the world. Feel that eventually for all sentient beings. Imagine what that would be like. I mean, I'm not a biological mother. I don't-- you know, I've never given birth. But I can get a sense of it, nevertheless, of the room I've been to our parents. And that sense that, well, you would just do anything that would seem for your children. But that is what-- you know, it's primal, isn't it? It's quite primal. And if you can imagine that sort of primal sense, I actually kind of oughtn't hurt so that you would do anything for any living being. Rather than see a living being suffer, you would just do whatever needs to be done till we view that suffering. You know, taking to its kind of most open, taking to its most sublime, we have the whole idea of the body sapper. The body sapper able to love every single being where passionate love. It's not a cold love. You know, the Buddhist ideal of dispassion, the Buddhist ideal of nonattachment, does not mean you don't love with the deepest passion possible. What it means is that you bring that passion to all beings. You love all beings when you call passion. And yet, at the same time, you love them with open arms so that they can move, they can carry on, they can be who they are. So it's not the stone. It's the water flowing. My love is like that water flowing. So often what we call love, ties and binds. But the love of the body sapper allows all beings to grow and to develop into. And another water image comes to mind. The Buddha is a rain cloud. The rain of the Dharma fallen and all beings and they grow according to their nature. In the same way that the rain coming from the rain cloud. The snow when it melts, the water that actually gushes into the river, that actually waters all the vegetation that's unfollowed through the winter months. That allows each and every plant, each and every tree, each and every bush, each and every flower to grow completely according to its nature. It doesn't expect the oak tree to pretend to be a pansy. It doesn't expect the little midnight jasmine flower to suddenly grow like a kind of willow tree. It allows every single being, every single plant, every single entity, a life form to be true to its own form. And in the same way the Dharma allows each and every one of us to grow according to their nature and yet to grow in accordance with the nature of the Buddha. So all grow equally and all grow indefinitely. That's such a lovely image. And to worship the beloveds, I really like that. I like the idea of the beloved. I'm open in my, where I look for inspiration. So I'm quite open to the sifties as well. And I love all the kind of imagery that you get in siftie poetry, where you get this idea of the beloved and to actually open ourselves up to the beloved. And within Buddhism there's different levels of faith. And one of the types of faith is a longing faith. And it's the faith that longs for unity. It's the faith that longs to be as the Buddha holds. The faith that longs to be compassion, to be wisdom, to embody and embrace all those qualities of the Buddha's mind. So longing faith, seeing those qualities, seeing the Buddha as the beloved. And going in pilgrimage, which I believe some of you are doing, again, and some of you have done, going in pilgrimage to the places where the Buddha walked, where the Buddha taught, or the Buddha died. It does actually open something up, I think, to actually allow us to have a sense of that, the humanness of the Buddha, and yet the beyond the human. So we can love the Buddha as the child is loved by the mother, but also as the angels are adored by the faithful. So the Buddha can actually encompass all those levels of love and faith, and the tenderness of the kiss. So I tend to have. By this time, the ice has melted, the water is fully free, and we can love in a tenderness and a passion. So moving swiftly, segueing swiftly to the last verse, or what can I give him, who does I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would play my part, yet what I can give him, I give him my heart. In a way, what else can you do, at the end of the day? You just give what you can do, and what you can give is everything. That is what it's asked for in a way. And I don't know, today, you see Matelli. Matelli, if you know me, were the only thanks who banned from Rotumbia, and we did a version of this in a program in the BBC about carols for the years. And it was such a fantastic version. It was a really weird version, actually, but I really liked it. And when it got to that bit, they have lots of harmonies and things. And then that last line, yet what I can give him, I give him my heart, reach them, like just saying about ourselves. So you do all these melodies and kind of harmonies, and then suddenly just this voice, pure, beautiful, perfect voice, just saying, "Yes, I give what I can, I give him my heart." It is just lovely. So if we were shepherds, we would get cheap and loud, and if we were whatever we are, we just give what's appropriate. We give what we can, but then at the end, if we give our heart, then in a way, it doesn't matter. We will give appropriately. We will give that we can. And really in terms of our practice, the more we give of our heart, then the more we get back from our practice as it were. It's a law of-- what's the one that's not diminishing with tongues? It's the opposite, isn't it? It's the law we're never much given. We get back in the speech. And I'm sure we all know that since when we feel generous and we act on it. And it just keeps something moving. When we sometimes have an impulse of generous, then we don't act on it. You can feel it, the block. Not when you can feel it sort of holding back. So I would just say, you know, whatever-- whenever you get the opportunity within your practice together, whatever that means, your time to somebody, your energy, your money, whatever it is, you know, just keep it flowing, keep it going, keep it moving. And if you, like, meet, feel that within Buddhism, you have actually found a path that you would like to follow. Because I've no idea. I know those people here with different relationships to the path of Buddhism. But if you feel you have found a path that is walking through, give it all, give it your heart. Because it's only in doing that that you really will get the benefit support that path can give. And of course, you give-- you know, we give at different levels. We give at the kind of point that we're at, you know, I'm not asking what you're going to-- we can give all your money to you. I mean, I really do want to do that. I'll have your own story if you feel like it's-- guess you don't want to blog generous impulses. You know, I'm not talking about-- I'm not talking about a kind of, like, conversion in a, you know, kind of brain motion sort of a way. But just to the extent that you feel you've found something, give yourself to it, you know, find ways of doing that. So there you go. I think that's probably enough only the song, as it were, in the Carol. Main thing, really, just the whole idea that transformation is possible, that even in those moments that seem to follow, even perhaps in endings, beginnings can be found, you know, sorry to run into cliche, but as doors close, other doors open. And it's true, actually, isn't it? And sometimes it doesn't feel like that. Sometimes it would just seem like a closed door. But actually, you know, if we can just stay with that, we can sort of keep breathing. Even in those, it's getting squashed by the door that's closed. Then, in a way, light comes up. So I think, sort of, this time in the year, it's really important to kind of trust and believe in transformation. And as a Buddhist, and as Buddhist, see transformation everywhere, seize the opportunities for transformation. And they're given to us, day in and day out. You know, the Buddha taught in pyramids. The Buddha taught that, you know, you come across this idea, the noble truths, that the Buddha taught, the best noble truths of suffering that you're doing. You know, good old suffering, you don't think so. But actually, what the Buddha, the Buddha isn't saying, go find some suffering. The Buddha's saying, suffering is everywhere. Suffering is all around you, open your eyes to that. But it doesn't stop at night. It's not just a wind noble truth. It's for noble truths. It's the truth that light causes us suffering. Or rather, we cause ourselves suffering by our relationship to life. You know, the Buddha taught that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent. They don't have substance and they cause us pain. And what's meant by that, really, the pain comes, because we don't accept factorial permanence. Because we fight it, you know, we constantly clutch and grab it. What we think will give us something, happiness, permanence, status, I don't know, whatever, anything that shows up at identity and we push away anything that we feel might threaten that. The Buddha says, you know, all things arise in dependence on conditions, all phenomena arise in dependence on conditions. So that means that not only is every single phenomena in a conditioned world impermanent, but it also lacks intrinsic, separate identity. So sometimes you come across the teaching and Buddhism that says everything's empty. I think, does it feel very empty to me? Or you read somewhere, the Buddha said, nothing exists. Okay. So here I'm no existent, thinking about no existent. So what is it that's thinking? If I don't need existence, how can I pose it non-existent? You should kind of say to me, how do you serve as you look up some non-stricken? It makes no sense, really. But I think, as I understand it, the Buddha never said we don't exist. He said, we make a mistake in how we think we exist. So we think we exist separately from all other phenomena, from all other beings. We think that we have this separate, intrinsic, independent existence. And the Buddha said, no. Existence is not like that. I've lived in Spain for too long. I'll do that a lot. So of course you've said, too. But we exist in a different way. We don't exist in the absolute way that we believe we exist. And our mind plays out, we trickens. Our mind believes that we have separate, independent existence. The Buddha said, if all phenomena arise in dependence for condition, then with a cessation of those conditions, phenomenon ceases. If I get time to do the leaf, just because it's so helpful. And apologies to those of you that have failed this 100,000 times before. So if you take the idea of the image of a leaf, a leaf from a tree, not a leaf of a book, but a leaf from a tree. And I say, you can all have an image of a leaf, or a memory of a leaf. We've all seen and touched and smelled and played with leaves. Well, in that leaf, if we think of its life, Spain, at one point, you know, the sap rose, the leaf came into being. It comes into being in a particular form and shape and colour. It's a butt, it's tight, it's small. Maybe it's white, but it's looking white. Sorry, even. And then time passes and the conditions change. And the leaf changes. So it opens out, it becomes green. It's weight changes, it's shape changes, it's texture. Instead of being wee and furry, it becomes smooth. Time passes. Conditions change, the leaf change is proper. So the green colour changes to gold. The smoothness changes to crinklyness. The smell might change. Everything, the weight changes. It doesn't weigh so much when it gets crinkly. So everything about the leaf has changed. And we can see the impermanence of that leaf quite easily. It came into being, it passed through different phases. At some point, it goes through the tree. It becomes part of the mush of the future leaf. The future tree, the future leaves. But also, if we penetrate that a bit more deeply, what the Buddha taught was that within that leaf, there was no intrinsic leaf around which these attributes as it were hung. There's no leaf that's become preemptive green. There's green leaf becoming gold leaf. There's white but becoming green leaf becoming gold leaf. There's very light leaf becoming heavier leaf becoming lighter leaf. So there's all of those conditions, all of those attributes, all of those different parts of the leaf coming together that create a leaf. All the leaf exists. We can see the leaf, we can rejoice and we can see it's beauty. We can watch it and it's transitoryness. But the Buddha says within that leaf, there is nothing which is the intrinsic leaf that is only coming together. There's the process of becoming, the leaf becoming a leaf and ceasing to be early. And in the same way we two come into being, there's the becomingness, there's the paraminess, there's the beingness that comes into being. But with the changes of conditions, everything within that phenomenon changes, everything, even the DNA, moves, it changes and dependence, the DNA arises in the DNA. There's continuity, but there's change and that's the wonder of the process. So yes, we exist within continuity, but within that continuity, there's constant impairment change. The only permanence is in the impairments of that, the insubstantiality of that. But because we still fight that, we do not, we can't, we just, in a way it's not surprising. You can't ask your mind to kind of make itself think about no existing. You can't do it actually, you can penetrate it and analyse it and read about it and get an understanding on an intellectual level. But at the end of the day, this is a process that we feel our way into. It's a process that through meditation, through opening up to something bigger than ourselves, those glimpses that you sometimes get in a mantra, or something shifts, but the edge is on as heavily focused anymore and then they come back in the place. But we have those moments, or when we really manage to act in a selfless way, and it feels that the barriers come down for a bit, they come up again. But in those moments, we can really have a sense of the process and that's how it needs to be. The Buddha didn't sit under the body tree and think, hmm, I think I'll be in a way to know. It didn't have a, it wasn't a kind of, it was seems at least, that it was like, it seems it was an experience. It was an actual experience, a realisation and the deepest level of his being and every molecule and every cell of his being had this change. It became Buddha, it became awakened. Every cell was awakened, it wasn't just his brain that woke up, it was everything within him that woke up and it became enlightened. And in the same way we exist, but we can exist without holding on so harshly. We can exist without defending ourselves so harshly. We don't need preemptive strengths. We can actually, the more we can practice, the more we can actually relax into that way of being, of realising that existence isn't as hard and fast as we think. So, where did I get, how did I get there then? Transformation! [laughter] Thank you. So there's the transformation, existence we do exist, that we exist in a different way than the way that we think. So suffering, that was where this all came from. The suffering is not because of impermanence or because of the fact that we don't have intrinsic separate identity. The suffering comes because we wish to have separate identity, because we wouldn't ever be able to feel the best. We went to, you know, some level, we went to impose that in the law, because we were to be able, we would like it if somebody else would like it. So transformation is possible. Endings, beginnings, the end of a year. The transitory nature of everything becomes obvious. It awakens, we can awaken to that transitory nature. We can let the sun shine on the snow. We can let the snow start to melt. We can let the iron-hard air start to come alive again. And again, and start to allow new life to come through. And in every moment, this is a fulcrum moment in a way the end of a year, isn't it? Everything has brought us to this moment, and then everybody knows the way from it. Actually, every moment will be a fulcrum moment. Every breath that we take, and I can hear a lot of something coming in. I shall resist. But every breath that we take is a fulcrum breath. It's a breathing in, and a letting go in every single moment. So I'm going to end by singing a song in a milliwecker, which talks of the transitory nature of all phenomena. And it's actually a song in an epochal that ate wondrous things, but I can only remember seven of them. I know that one of them is about the moon, but I can't remember exactly what it is about the moon. So rather than make it up, I'll just sing the seven that I can remember. And I don't know how this will sound, because I've only ever sung this in a choir before. So I've sung the alto part, but there's been, you know, somebody singing a soprano part, a tenor and a bass. So it might sound a little bit strange, but I think it might be all right. So you can just imagine the cherubim, the cherubim, the cherubim, the heavenly choir at all around. Or you can imagine milliwecker. So milliwecker, what century is milliwecker again? It's no later than March, 11th or 12th century. These are a teacher, a yogi, what is it going to get? These are yogi, the talk, by singing her coos, a lot of that. They're always kind of quite fancy. They're sort of, that is a tradition. I wouldn't say the talk in a new year retreat. I think we're going to say there's another trick where I sang songs. Or when I sang I gave the whole talk on impairments and they were singing sing songs. Anyway, I wouldn't do that to me because it changed a little bit. So just milliwecker, he was a yogi who taught, and his main teaching away was impairments, but he teaches it in such a joyful way. So some of the songs are really joyful, this one is really difficult. So again, I don't know quite how. If it sends you gas, they'll stop singing it as you get to. You can't ignore it yet. The halo pulled the plain varnish is up to the heavens. This is an example of change. This is an example of change. It is after the manner of transitory is ponder. Upon this truth, ponder. Upon this truth, and practice the noble teaching. Then it took twice what is killed by flaws. This is an example of change. This is an example of change. It is after the manner of transitory is ponder. Upon this truth, ponder. Upon this truth, and practice the noble teaching. The mountain's face is swallowed by the valley below. This is an example of change. This is an example of change. It is after the manner of transitory is ponder. Upon this truth, ponder. Upon this truth, and practice the noble teaching. The waiting corn harvest is free. This is an example of change. This is an example of change. It is after the manner of transitory is ponder. Upon this truth, ponder. Upon this truth, and practice the noble teaching. The profusion of rich silk is pierced by the old. This is an example of change. This is an example of change. It is after the manner of transitory is ponder. Upon this truth, ponder. Upon this truth, and practice the noble teaching. The precious jewel having been found is more. This is an example of change. This is an example of change. It is after the manner of transitory is ponder. Upon this truth, ponder. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]
