So Chetal Sangeidorje was Sangerita's first Tibetan teacher, and a very great Yingapar lama, and a very, very great character in his own right, and also he's the only one of Sangerita's teachers who is alive, apparently, somewhere, as far as we know, Chetal Sangeidorje is still alive. So the story goes that Sangerita was looking, he kind of comes to the conclusion that he'd like to take a tantric initiation, he'd like to be initiated into an archetypal board of a Bodhisattva figure, and he heard about this great Yingmar lama, Chetal Sangeidorje, was in the vicinity, and he was very much recommended to go and see him, so he went to see him, and he was immediately struck by Chetal Sangeidorje, Sangerita's no fool, and he was immediately struck by Chetal Sangeidorje, this is the real deal, he's a very, very authentic teacher, and Sangerita immediately recognised his authenticity, and he said to Chetal Sangeidorje, well which practice should I take up, and Chetal Sangeidorje thought about it for a while, and then said you should take up the Green Tara initiation, and he said, well, a lot of great teachers of India and Tibet have taken up the Green Tara practice, so there's quite a famous teacher who took up the Green Tara practice, does anyone know who that is, and I remember, this is a teacher, so if you're a big fan of a teacher, a teacher was very much a Green Tara devotee, so I'll say a bit more about why he might have given Sangerita this practice, but I'm going to just say a bit about Chetal Sangeidorje, he's a very, very, from all accounts of him, I've read quite a few accounts of him, both from Sangerita, from other Buddhist teachers, and also people from our Buddhist order who have gone to meet him, he's a very, very impressive person, but it's a bit funny because it's a bit like, well, why is he impressive person? And one thing is, it's definitely not because of his appearance, they all say the same thing about him, he looks very unrefined, he's not one of these kind of beautiful fine bones sculptured, you know, noble aristocratic Tibetans, he very much looks like a peasant, and I'm going to pass this round, you can take a look at this, one about passing these things around is no one then listens to you, but there we go. And you can see that he's quite an unusual looking man, Sangerita just says of him, "What I expected the famous Nungma llama to look like, I cannot say, but I'm meeting him I received a shock, he was of indeterminate age, perhaps somewhere between 30 and 40, his coarse black hair was cut short like a monk's, and he was clad in a nondescript maroon garment lined with what appeared to be grubby sheepskin. What I was most struck by, however, was his face, which was coarse and unrefined almost to the point of brutality, and could easily have passed for that of a horny handed peasant, with no thought beyond his pigs and poultry. At the same time his whole being communicated such an impression of strength and reliability that one could not but feel reassured, and it was not long before the two of us were deep in conversation. So he's not a typical llama, the other thing is that it's not his impressiveness doesn't come from his looks, but it also doesn't come from his position. So Chetul Sangeydorje, as far as I know, has not been ordained into any school. He's not a monk, he's never been ordained, he's never taken a position as an abbot or anything else, he's not an incarnate llama, he's not a turku, he's not a reborn anyone famous. He was born in tribal community in Easton Tibet and at the age of 15, abandoned all his ties with his family and sought out spiritual teachers and he did it big style. He didn't just seek out spiritual teachers in his home time, he left his family, he wandered off and he refused point blank to stay with any householders. He would only stay with spiritual practitioners or in his own tent. So when he did it, he did it with style, I reckon. He lived in caves, he lived in his tent, he lived with great spiritual teachers and he refused to stay with any householders. And there is a story about, well you know, you almost got there, you almost had a bit of a position. At the age of 35, the Regent of Tibet invited him to Lhasa, so you know, it was a big deal. And the Regent of Tibet asked him to give teachings and a great many of the nobility in Lhasa, a great many Tibetans flocked to see him, flocked to gain teachings from him. And he had a big reputation as a really authentic spiritual teacher. And there's a story that they had this one particularly long initiation ceremony and the Regent came as the last person. So in Tibet, when you get taken initiation of Lhasa, you give the most that you can afford. It's not like, you know, I do this as well, you know, Tiquid in the Darnabol. Now you go through your house and you find the most expensive things that you possibly have and you can give absolutely what you can afford without starving. You know, you really give all you can to show the value of the spiritual life, to show how much you value the spiritual life. So the Regent of Tibet, you know, got all these offerings and then the Regent of Tibet came to him to give his offerings. So you can imagine like how much wealth Chetal Sanghay Jorji was being given at that point, the Regent of Tibet giving your offerings for tantric teachings. So what was Chetal Sanghay Jorji do? He had a big cloth. The Regent gave him his teachings. He went sweet into the big cloth, tied the big cloth into a bundle and said, you can look after that for me. Got up, went, never came back again. He stayed for the rest of his life in caves, wandering, intimately coming to give the teachings. And he spent a lot of the rest of his life actually building up stupas, building up retreat centers, building up temples and monasteries for other people to practise. But you could never tie him down. They've never managed to get him to be tied to any kind of monastic or bureaucratic institutions. You don't even know where he is. So if you go to find Chetal Sanghay Jorji, you have a clue where he's going to be. You have to kind of wander around and hopefully, you know, someone will tell you, well, he was seen here, and then off you go and hope you don't miss him. And he's still like that to this day and God knows how old he is. He must be pretty old by now. So yes, Chetal means one without concerns. Sanghay means Buddha and Jorji means Badra, so it's the Badra Buddha. So it's not his appearance, it's not his position that's impressive, but who he is and what he communicates that is impressive. It's who he is that really makes an impression on people. And I think what communicates to people is that actually he's someone who's the real deal. He's someone who's really practising. He's someone who's really trying to see into the depth of the teaching and someone who's really trying to experience it for themselves. So Thomas Martin, quite a famous Christian monk who went to Asia in the 60s to get more experience of Buddhism to meet some Buddhist teachers. And Thomas Martin says this of him. He says Chetal, it's just spelled differently because this is a better word. Looked like a vigorous old peasant in a Bhutanese jacket tied at the neck with thongs and a red woolen cap on his head. He had a week's growth of beard, bright eyes and a strong voice and was very articulate, much more communicative than I expected. We had a fine talk and all through it the interpreter laughed and said several times these are hermit questions. This is another hermit question. We started talking about meditation and direct realisation and soon saw that we agreed very well. We must have talked for two hours or more covering all sorts of grounds, mostly around the idea of Zogchen, which is the form of Buddhism that he practises, but also taking in some points of Christian doctrine compared with Buddhists, the risen Christ, suffering, compassion for all creatures, motives for helping others, but all leading back to ultimate emptiness, the unity of Chetal and compassion. He said he had meditated in solitude for 30 years or more and had not attained to perfect emptiness and I said I hadn't either. The unspoken or half-spoken message of the talk was our complete understanding of each other as people who were somehow on the edge of great realisation and knew it and were trying somehow or other to get out and get lost in it and that it was a grace for us to meet one another. He told me seriously that perhaps he and I would attain to complete Buddhahood in our next lives, perhaps even in this life and that parting note was a kind of compact that we will both do our best to make it in this life. I was profoundly moved because he is so obviously a great man, a true practitioner, marked by complete simplicity and freedom. He was surprised at getting on so well with a Christian and at one point laughed and said there must be something wrong here. If I were going to settle down with a Tibetan guru I think Chetal will be the one I'd choose. And then he talks a bit more about it. I mean the unfortunate thing about Thomas Merton is he died soon after that that's another story. The immediate thing with people in their relationship with Chetal Sanger-Dorger is they recognise, they recognise he's the real deal, that he's really trying to see into the truth of the teachings. So what I'm just going to talk about this evening is a little story that I know which has been passed along through the generations of order members and it might be a little bit might have changed slightly in the telling but I will ask the person concerned and see if it's true soon. It's posed pretty much like this and this teaching that he gave to one of the order members was so important to me that I've carried it around with me for the rest of my life. I heard this quite a number of years ago and it's informed my practice since I constantly reflect on this teaching. It's a very very important teaching. In fact it might be the most important teaching that you ever hear in your whole life. And I think for me it's certainly been one of the most important teachings I've heard. Make it so it goes like this, Para Martha went to go and see Chetal Sanger-Dorger and he was waiting to see him in the waiting room, right? There was him and then there was this other guy who was one of Chetal Sanger-Dorger's American disciples and like this disciple was like a proper disciple of Chetal Sanger-Dorger, Para Martha had never met him before. So this American disciple was sitting there and he was really excited, come all the way from America, he'd saved up and everything, he was really excited, he was going to get to see his guru. And then what happened was that finally it was this American's turn to go and see Chetal Sanger-Dorger. So I'm beaming you know, off he went two and a half minutes later he came out looking completely gutted, completely white and Para Martha thought oh my god if he's his proper disciple and he only saw him for two and a half minutes how long is he going to see me for? So Para Martha, I mean I would have been so nervous at this point but Para Martha's pretty cool actually, he's much cooler than I am. So he probably did it, had a little right, I would have just run away crying. So Para Martha we saw went in and he stayed with Chetal Sanger-Dorger for over two hours apparently, which is quite interesting. But one of the things they talked about was they talked about, Para Martha said to Chetal Sanger-Dorger he said how do I know? How do I know if I'm really practicing? I don't know if you've ever had that question but I have, how do I know that I'm really a Buddhist, how do I know that I'm really doing it? I don't know that I'm not just kind of coming here and it's all a bit loose and friendly but how do I know if I'm really really doing it? And Chetal Sanger-Dorger thought for a moment and then he said you know if you're really practicing because you practice for others, you know if you're really practicing when you practice for others. That's what real practice is, practicing for others. So what does that mean? What does that what's that trying to point out? And I know I've had a lot of reflections about this and I'm kind of going to put it into two mind training slogans. So these are slogans from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. And one of them is all dharma has one purpose and the other one is don't revert to magic, bit cryptic. So all dharma has one purpose and the purpose in case you don't realise this is to go beyond your limited sense of a self as separate, go beyond your limited sense of a self as separate and go out towards others. The purpose of the dharma is to broaden your perspective to include others more and more. So I was having a chat with I don't know I must have been a bit goby or something and Sagramati said to me once, he looked at me and when I'm always really suspicious to people who really want to be bodhisattvas, which is a bit. Oh yeah. But actually I was thinking about this and I'm thinking well I'm always really really suspicious of people who want to just get attainment for themselves. Because what is the point of that? You know so you might become a better person, you might become happier, you might become healthier to a certain extent you liberate yourself from suffering. But in a way so what? I mean for the world okay it might be a bit better that there's one more person who sorted out in the world that the world doesn't have to worry about. But actually if that was the point of the spiritual life was just to become better in yourself. Just become a kind of bit of a groovy person. Well I'm not really up for it actually. It just doesn't seem much point to me. What's the point in just like you know individuals attaining liberation for themselves? Actually true liberation, true spiritual practice cannot be about you. You can never ever get enlightened. You can never have any attainment. You can never gain any insight. It doesn't work like that because the whole point of those things, the whole point of spiritual practice is that you cease to see yourself as a separate isolated self. And you see yourself more and more and more as part of the universe, as part of something much bigger. That's what it's all about. You go beyond the distinction between self and other. And if you go beyond the distinction between self and other, it makes no sense for an individual to be liberated. It makes no sense for you to get an attainment because the whole point is you stop thinking in terms of you and you start thinking in terms of other beings. Sangarachdi says, this is a good quote I think with my favourite Sangarachdi, he says, "He who conceives the spiritual life as a means of attaining eternal bliss has not understood. The whole conception of attainment is fundamentally wrong. One has to simply break down the barriers of his separate individuality and allow himself to be penetrated by everything that exists. Then he himself will penetrate everything. This mutual penetration is liberation, is happiness. That's what the spiritual life is about. It's about breaking down those boundaries between self and other. So the spiritual life is about transcending the belief in ourselves as separate from others and entering deeply into relation with everything that is. And if you do that, the only expression of that kind of wisdom, the only expression of that realisation of going beyond the self is love. That's the only expression of the spiritual life. That's all that can happen. And in a way, this is what the starma practice is all about. It's about loving others more and more. It's about matter. So if we keep breaking down in the spiritual life, if we keep breaking down the barriers between self and others, the only thing that can happen, the only expression of that will be a desire to contribute to the well-being of others and to contribute to the well-being of the world. If you aren't getting that, you're not practising. If you're not becoming kinder, you're not doing it. It's not working. You need to do something else. Something needs to change. And it's funny because I do really, really care about people in the sangha, and I do really care about people practising. And what I look for in our sangha, what really fills me with joy is not actually that people come and talk about Buddhist philosophy or some really abstract part of what book they've read. Which is great. I love philosophy. I love Buddhist philosophy and whatever. It's really great that they do those things. But actually, that doesn't move me. What moves me about Sheffield's sangha is when someone picks up someone else's mat at the end of a Tuesday night and puts it away for them. What really moves me is when people come along and they leave those bunches and mad-looking vegetables that no one knows what they are and says, "Please help yourself." That's Dharma practice. That's the real deal. It's not all this "I've got this in this time" and "I've read this in this book" is actually completely mad vegetables. That's the sum. That's the culmination of spiritual life. That's the path and that's the goal. So if you really want to know if you're practising, you can ask yourself, "Every day, every minute of every day, am I becoming kinder? Am I being kinder? Am I contributing to the well-being of others, to the well-being of the world?" In the mind training, their little explanation by Jambhgan Control about all Dharma practice has one purpose. A very terse to put in style is, since the purpose of all Dharma is simply to tame ego clinging, as you practise, Dharma ego clinging should decrease. If your efforts in Dharma do not counteract ego clinging, your practice is meaningless. Since this is the one criterion that determines whether Dharma practice is effective or not, it is said to be the yardstick by which a Dharma person is measured. Kindness and going beyond yourself to include others. That's what it's all about. The problem is, the problem is about this is, well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not enlightened and I haven't really gone beyond my limited self-view. You've heard this before, I'm going to say again. If you listen really, really closely in the universe, there's one mantra that sounds. You listen really closely, you can hear what it is. It's always sounding again and again through everything, through the wind, through the buildings, through the sunlight, and that mantra goes something like this. It goes, me, me, me, me, me. That's what that mantra does. If we're not careful, we're going to bring that straight wholesale into the spiritual life. The spiritual life will become another version of the big mantra of me. When I was little, if you went on and on about yourself, my family would go, "Oh, it seems like you've got a little bit of meitis today, a little bit of case of meitis." If we're not careful, we'll just bring that meitis into the spiritual life. The spiritual life has a near enemy. A near enemy is something that looks like the spiritual life, but actually isn't it. The near enemy of the spiritual life is self-indulgent individualism. This is the magical practice. The magical practice refers to, it's a bit like you use the Dharma as some kind of formula, some kind of magical formula by which you will benefit yourself. So it's a bit like, if I do the metabavana, then I'll become a happy, healthy human being, and people will like me, and they might fancy me. It's probably good. I'll just be pretty groovy. I'll just have a really nice life, and it's all about me. That's where it begins now. It's a magical practice. I sometimes think it's a bit like an advert. Hey, if you want to be happier, if you want to have more friends and be more integrated, then practice the Dharma. You know, it's all about me, it's all about what I'm going to get out of it. And you know, God, I've got it just as much as everyone else. That's what people get. That's the pity of the spiritual life. But what we end up doing is we kind of justify our own likes and dislikes, our own desires, our own ego clinging, as it were, in terms of the spiritual life. So it's like, you know, all sorts of rationalisation. I can't help you. I don't want to come to the centre because I need to balance my energies. You know, it's all those kind of things where it's actually just about, you know, it's not because you're just tired, or you're ill, or you don't feel like it, or you don't want to come. But we use all these kind of justifications for not really engaging, because you know, well, I want to sit in my room and meditate. You know, the Dharma has to contain an element of going beyond yourself. It has to. And I sometimes think about this in terms of the centre. You know, there's times when I just think, oh my god, I just can't be bothered. And I feel really tired. I feel really low. All I want to do is hide under my duvet. And I think, right, okay, well, I'm going to come to the centre anyway. So I come to the centre. And actually, I always leave inspired. I always leave inspired and energised and happy. And it's not necessarily the content, but it's actually the mere fact that I have to go beyond myself. I have to go beyond my likes and dislikes and actually enter into something that's bigger. And that's what's a really important practice for me. So okay, real practice is practising for others. All Dharma has one purpose and don't refer it to magic. The question is, you know, it's all very well to think about practising for others, but how? How does one practice for others? I've taken up the white tower practice, Mowglanks as a green tower, ma'am. That makes any sense. But I'm a white tower woman, I'm a chance to start your mother. And in a way, for me, she's white a woman. So should I turn this off? Can we edit this later? So yeah, so I think the whole idea of how to practice for others is sum up in the figure of Tara. And I'm going to talk about green Tara mainly. It's a bit like, if you take up the green Tara practice or white Tara practice, I don't know if Mowglanks has found this, but it's really hard to have a selfish motivation for practice. And I found this this morning, because at the moment, I'm a bit kind of thinking about my living situation and twin things up and feeling a bit poor and all of a sudden. So what I do with my metabarvernos, I often first of all bring Tara to mind and do my metabarverner in that context. So I thought this morning, in my first stage, I thought, you know, you don't spend a huge amount of time on the first stage for yourself. Why don't you think, well, may I, you know, may I be sorted in terms of my living situation? May I be sorted financially? May I always have security so that I can practice, you know, so that I can be a benefit to others and body centre as a sort of sub cause. So I can be a benefit to others. But you know, I thought, well, why didn't you, why didn't you give it a go and just say, you know, may I have security? So I started, may I, then it just ended up as may I truly understand the dharma enabling me to benefit other beings? No, no, no, it's backtracking a bit. May I truly understand the dharma enabling me to guide and benefit others? It just wouldn't come out, which was a bit odd. So I had a bit of a laugh about that. It's like Tara, it doesn't mix the whole kind of security thing and Tara doing comics. So anyway, so I'm going to give you the pit wisdom associated with the figure of Tara. So the first thing you'll notice about Tara is that she's got this kind of weird feet position where her right leg is stepping off the lotus leaf. So yeah, there's one there and there's one on the shoulder. Her right leg is stepping off the lotus throne and her left leg is up in meditation. Okay? And in a way, what that represents is the unity with looking after your own practice and taking every opportunity for your own practice and for your own spiritual development as represented by the leg up in meditation posture, but also always being willing to help others. So Tara is also called the quick one. She's quick to respond to the need to be. She's quick to respond to the call of the sangha. So that's why her leg is stepping down. She's got one leg up looking after her own spiritual practice, one leg down, immediately ready to respond to the call of others. And in a way, this is the big question in the spiritual life. The big question in the spiritual life is how to look after your own practice, to look after the needs of the self, the spiritual life for the self, but also how to respond to others. And in a way, you're never really going to get that balance right until you just transcend the distinction. That's one thing to know. You're always going to veer one way and then the other way. But I think that what we can take from this is that we need both. If you have too much emphasis on your own practice, you won't get it. It won't work. This is what you find with spiritual practice, that if you just concentrate on yourself and your own spiritual practice, you'll just hit a wall. It doesn't work. It doesn't work practicing for yourself and not for others. It can't work because that's not what the spiritual life is about. You'll just meet resistance. You'll just meet a big wall. You have to have a context in which you can transcend yourself and which you can meet challenges. But if you go too much out to others all the time, then you'll, in a way, you'll have a well-intentioned blundering a lot of the time. You'll have good intentions, but you'll be flailing around in the dark a bit. So in a way, you need both. But I think you can take from it, general rule of thumb is to take your opportunities when they come to you. And particularly if there's an opportunity to help others be really glad about that and use it. Always use an opportunity for helping others. Like Tara, the quick one, her leg is always stepping out. She's always happy to take an opportunity for helping others. She's always willing. It's a bit like Anagavodhi said about Dada Rinpoche. His rule of thumb was when in doubt, practice for others. Do something for others. So I think we can take with it. Well, you know, life is about choices, facing choices, facing decisions. If you're faced with a choice, always do something for others. Always be quick to respond for others. And that will be your damn practice. And it works. It works big style. It works in many different ways that you couldn't even think of at the moment. And it's also a relief. I often think that the stress and modern living is not actually what we do, but all the choices that we're faced with. It's about all the conflicts that we have. So, you know, it comes out on every level. You can't just buy a loaf of bread. You know, you've got to think about whether to have a little soy or an linseed, whole meal, whole grain, slice, non-slice. You know, do you go for the Morrison's posh range or for the Morrison's 50p range? Everything is about more and more and more choice and decisions to be made. And in a way, within that, there's a lot of conflict. Shall I do this or shall I do that? Well, if you just take the path of doing something for others, that conflict just disappears. And it might be that that's a really difficult thing to do. It might be that's a really difficult choice to make. But in some way, it's a relief because you no longer have to be faced with this dilemma. You just act for others. And okay, it'll be difficult. Sometimes it might get you into a bit of a mess. But actually, human beings can cope with the hell of a lot of difficulty. We're pretty robust, actually, when it comes down to it. What we can't cope with is conflict. Shall I do this? Shall I do that? So yeah, when faced with a choice, act for others. The second thing is, be friendly even when you can't be happy. So you said with the Tara practice that the thing about Tara is she's always pleased to see you. That's very nice, isn't it? She's always pleased to see you. No matter what you've done, you know, even no matter what you've done, no matter how you're feeling, she's always pleased to see you. Whatever state you're arriving, which is good, you know, because sometimes I'm just in a really bad mood and I just take it out and Tara, I just think, you know, you Bodhisattva, it's a work for you sitting in the blue sky. But she doesn't mind. She's just always pleased to see you. And this reminds me of a thing that Sangerajta said. You went to this Buddhist conference and there was a quite famous, a very, very famous Buddhist teacher saying about how, you know, Buddhist should always be happy. And Sangerajta stood up and he said, well, you can't always be happy, but you can always be friendly. So I think this relates to the color green with Tara. I think green is a bit like nature. And the thing about nature is that it always grows up through the cracks. It always grows up through the concrete, through the tarmac. It always finds a way, you know, you just leave it for a bit and it'll always find a way. And I think what this reminds me of, this is quite a personal reflection, but what it reminds me of is this. So quite often we put these big concrete walls around ourselves. We've got a bit of a fortress, actually. And other people build their own concrete walls, you know, they get to a certain point and then they just shut off. And the thing about Tara and the thing about acting for others is that being friendly means always keeping the lines of communication open. No matter what someone does to you, never shut off from them entirely. Always be open. Even if they cut off all communication with you, you never cut off communication with them. You're always open to them. You're always open to being friendly. You know, there are times when that's really difficult. I have this thing where every time, I mean, it's happened to me for what 11 years, every time I go on a treat, the first evening, I absolutely hate it. I'm in a foul mood. I think everyone hates me. They've all got their own little friends. They all just think I'm a complete plonker. And they're just looking at me, thinking, go away, you're annoying girl. And that's the kind of thing that goes on in my head. So I think, well, I'll just hate you back. So I get in these big, stroking, and then I want to run away. And then I want to smoke flash, even though I don't smoke. And I have to say, ordination doesn't make a blind bit of difference to that. The only thing that makes a difference to me now is I think, don't take it out on others. This is just some mad thing that's going on in your head. Never take it out on others. Always be open to people. Always be friendly to people. Even if you're not happy, even if you're in a foul mood. It's not about you. It's not about your mood. It's about being open to others. It's about that force of nature that just overcomes that separation, those walls that we put up against each other. And there's a kind of life. There's a kind of life force in time. There's that kind of green energy of nature that will just knock through that. That will just sit down next to people and just say, hello. My name is Vajatara. How are you? You know, I'm from Sheffield. What's your name? Come from sort of thing. And I think that's really important. I think it's important just to maintain friendliness, no matter what we're feeling. It's very, very important. So yeah, so be friendly even when you can't be happy. And the next thing is practice together. If you want to practice for others, practice with others. That's quite neat. Yeah, I know. I didn't know that, that, that. They're pretty on the board. What was it again? You practice for others. You've got to practice with others. So there's a bit of a vision. This isn't apparently, it's not in the green Tara practice, going off a bit on one. But it is in the white Tara practice, visualization practice. And one bit of it, what happens is you send out the light of Tara to all beings in the universe. And that light goes out to all beings in the universe and it transforms them into Tara, which is their deepest nature. So at some point in my practice, I visualize as many people that I can remember has come to mind as white Tara, because that is your nature. That's who you really are. And so you visualize everyone as Tara's, you know, there you are. It's a bit odd if I visualize, you know, Omega Banks, because he's a man and that's weird him becoming Tara, but whatever. So you visualize all beings as Tara, because that's who they are in their innermost nature. That's their potential. That's all of your potential. It's my potential as well. So I visualize everyone on white Tara. And then because I visualize them as white Tara, they're also Tara. And they send out blessings in light to me. And that fills me with wisdom and joy and all the Buddhist virtues. So it's a kind of two way thing because everyone is Tara, they can also feed back to me. So I think this is really important. And I do reflect on this a lot. And I think part of that is about trying to relate to people in terms of their potential, in terms of the best of their being and seeing them actually this person, it has the potential for Buddhahood and it's my job to reveal that from them. It's my job to enable them to open that potential out, to express it in all their life. And how does one do that? How does one help people to express that innermost Buddha nature? And I think the main thing actually for all of us is to practice together. Because the whole point of the Sanga is to have collective practice, I could have the best talk in the whole world that's like guaranteed enlightenment when you listen to it. I could have the best pooja ever. I could decorate the shrine in the best shrine ever, ever, ever, ever. But if no one turned up, what would be the point of that? We could have the best pooja ever. But if there were three people, it would be a bit of a dump squid. It would be all right. But actually, what you need for the Sanga to work is people to practice together. And I think one way we can especially do this is on festival days. So I've noticed that people often think of their quite dharma practice with solitary meditation. So I don't go out very often in a social sense. But when I do, what usually happens is I usually meet probably about five people that I've met at the Buddhist center who don't come anymore. And the first thing that they say to me is, "I'm really sorry about your time. I haven't meditated for ages." Well, you know, I'm really sorry about that. That's obviously completely up to you. But that's not what it's about. That's not what Buddhism is about. It's not about solitary meditation. That's one expression of it. But it's about much more than that. It's about collective practice, apart from anything else. It's about getting yourself in the building, reminding yourself of your spiritual goals, and communicating with one another. It's about collective practice. For that to work, for that practice to work, we all need to do it together. There's no point in one or two people doing it. And in a way, we should think about collective practice less and less in terms of what I'm going to get out of it. You know, well, I'm going to come to this evening because I'm going to get a load out of it, or I'm going to come to the festival because it's going to be really good for me. But more and more and more about, well, I'm going to come to this festival because it's about contributing to the sanger. It's about contributing to a collective practice. And if I don't come, it won't work because the whole point of it is to have each individual practicing together. And I think this is the main way we can practice for others is to think less and less about the centre in terms of me and what I can get out of it. And more and more and more about the centre as a way we can contribute to other people's collective practice. It's a bit like the difference between you and you've got four people at the Buddhist centre, you know, they're slightly shaky, warbly mantras. You know, there's that kind of mantra, and there's the kind of mantra that happens when there's over 70 people in this hall, and there's a big, you know, let's have more, and less, that's why I want in this centre, I want a whole full of people chanting and getting into it and getting into their own practice. And then it doesn't matter what I do if I'm standing up here, it's about what we're all doing together. And in order for that to work, we have to all come, you know, whatever mood you're in, whatever it's going to do for me, you might be able to practice. Yeah, I'll get to another round in a minute, I'm sure. And the thing about that is, okay, you practice for others and then that feeds your practice as well, the kind of unexpected benefit of that attitude is that we all spark each other off, for our practice to work, we need each other to inspire us. You know, it's one thing trying to do it on your own in your bedroom, but when you come here, I really hope you feel inspired and galvanised, and we do that for each other. We bless other people by presence, we allow other people to spiritually grow, and then their spiritual growth helps us to spiritually grow, you know, their light reflects back on you. I just think that's really beautiful. You know, if I want to spiritually develop, I just have to give to others, and then their spiritual development will spark me off and galvanise me. And that is definitely my experience, definitely my experiences. Every time someone does something, they're enthused about the Dharma, you know, they give each other gifts, they do little acts of kindness. It just makes me so happy, it's just like the best thing in the world. It just makes everything all right, and then I go home and I ring in the rardrop, and I go, "Well, you'll never guess what the so-and-so did today." And it was so sweet, and I watched blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and that's what really galvanises me, that's what moves me, that's what really sparks my practice off and gives me my energy. Okay, so the last thing is, don't settle for a comfortable life. And this is, I think, a bit of a chest or sange-de-dawder teaching as well. Chest or sange-de-dawdery definitely never settled for a comfortable life. And part of it is Tara as well, she's visualised as a combination between a princess, a mother, and a young girl. And I really like this young girl aspect of her, because what the young girl aspect of her is about spontaneity and joy. It's about being able to just respond, just be there, just be joyful to act for others. There's that kind of lightness about, well, archetyping, anyway, young people, always ready to respond, always taking it with an attitude of joy and an attitude of play. Never content to just kind of like make themselves a little mess, do you know? Oh, right, well, you know, my practice is getting all right and I've got a nice library of Buddhist books here, so I think I'll just settle in, you know. You don't see Tara's lotus sort of growing big puffy arms in the nice backrest here. No, no, always ready to jump off. The classic thing with Buddhists is that they become happy, healthy human beings, because the Dharma works. It's brilliant, the Dharma, it really, really works, guaranteed. You put the effort in, you do the metabarva and the marvellous breathing, you come here, you talk to people, you learn how to communicate, and what will happen is you'll become an integrated, happy, healthy human being. So that's what happens. People come happy, healthy human beings, they become more mindful, more integrated, kinder to others, able to communicate about their experience, a better friend, a better girlfriend, a boyfriend, whatever. And that's the point they just disappear. So usually actually happens when they then find a partner, they find a boyfriend, a girlfriend, and you just don't see them for another 10 years. And in a way, I think that's such a shame because at that point when you become a happy, healthy human being is the point that you can really practice, because at the point you become more integrated, you're in a better position to help others. And that's what it's about. So don't leave when you become a happy, healthy human being, and people find you more attractive, and you're just nicer. In a way, that's great. You've got in a position now where you can really get going. You can really start to practice when you become a happy, healthy human being. You sort of yourself out a bit. In a way, don't settle for a comfortable life. Don't settle kind of for mediocre, kind of nice, Buddhist life. But I actually think about, okay, I'm doing all right, so I can really be of benefit to others. And that's very important. There is a bit of a story about this kind of related, which is the last story I've heard about Jettlesanger Dorje. This is quite recent, apparently. The last person who went to see him, this is a story that there's a Tibetan lama who went to see him recently. And the Tibetan lama was a disciple of another Tibetan teacher. So when this Tibetan lama came to see Chittlesanger Dorje, he brought with him a picture of his teacher and put it on the shrine. Put it on Chittlesanger Dorje shrine. And Chittlesanger Dorje says, "Can you take that picture off my shrine, please?" And then he said, "That man eats meat. I do not want his picture on my shrine." I just think that's brilliant. That just made I just think, "Gah, I just really want to be Chittlesanger Dorje and I grow up." You know, he's never content to settle. He's never content to say, "Well, you know, this is a really important spiritual." This Tibetan teacher was a really important spiritual teacher. All the rest of it, but he ate meat. So Chittlesanger Dorje said, "Uh-uh, you're not having his picture on my shrine." Okay, so just to sort of sum it all up, I don't think it's an accident that Chittlesanger Dorje gave a sangerage to Green Tara as his first archetypal bodhisattva figure. He thought about it very, very deeply. I think it's because Tara is all about making your practice for others. That's what she embodies on an archetypal level. And I think this is incredibly important, particularly for us in the West. I think we have a lot of work to do because there's always a pull to make our practice about self-indulgent individualism. There's always a pull to settle down. There's always a pull to make it about me and myself being a better person. Well, that stuff's great, but you need to go beyond it. And I think there's also a pull in the world where the power of greed, hate, and delusion is very, very strong. And maybe it's always been very strong. But at the moment, things seem to happen on a much more global level. They happen a much quicker. We need more and more and more people to be about others. It's essential for the world. It's absolutely essential that our practice is about others because if it isn't, who is going to do it? Who is going to practice for others if not us? Who is going to benefit others if not us? And I don't care how big your sphere of influence is. I don't care if you can just practice for others in the confines of your own home or your own working situation. That's all right. But we must practice for others. We can't let Buddhism become another self-indulgent practice about me, another way of contributing to the West's me-itis. We can't let that happen. We can't let the Buddhism degenerate into self-indulgence. It's really important that we practice for others because if we don't practice for others, who will? Who will benefit the others if not us? We've got a brilliant opportunity. We have it all laid out. We have as many teachings as we want. We have a beautiful center. We have people who are here who are really willing to go out to others who are really willing to be friendly to help you with your practice. We have enough money. We have enough leisure time to do something really important. We've come here and that's a really amazing thing to do. It shows a lot about us that we've even managed to start thinking about and others enough that we've got a spiritual life. It's really important we don't waste that opportunity. We must, must practice for others because if we don't, who will? That's what Green Tara is about. That's what I think Chethosangadorje saw in Sanga Ratcheter. They all knew his teachers. They all knew he was going to come back in a funny kind of way and really teach others. The main thing is the main thing that Chethosangadorje was giving him this practice about come and do it for others. Don't let the Dharma be wasted. It's like a precious, precious jewel. Don't let it slip through your fingers. Don't let it slip in the gutter because you try and make it all about me. It must, must be about others and that's what choose spiritual practices and that's our task in this lifetime.
