I'm getting into it and an enjoyable habit. I was happy to be ill-conventable recently. I was there in '85 and we had a reunion and I ended up leading that Padmasan of a pooja. Then I didn't say it out to do that. Visantra, I think, sort of wanted a kind of night off and so I ended up doing it and it was an ordeal because it was two and a half hours and I said, look, we'll chant the Padmasan of other mantra a thousand times. See, I didn't know what I was talking about really and off we went and my goodness, tell you what, when you're at 400 then it's a labor of love. It's a labor of love. However, one of the enjoyable things I like doing and we're going to do it now is a bit of audience participation in this talk and what it means is now I know if it's a difficult day. You've been here since years so it's very tough and you're tired. I know that but I'd let you all stand up please. And you've got to look at Padmasan of a... Now I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. It's quite simple. We're going to put a right hand under the ear. We're going to look at the body sappas and the Buddhas and we're going to show and we're going to show Hall to the Buddhas, the body sappas and the body cheddar. Okay? No, we're not. Yes, we are. We're going to do three times for, of course, body, speech and mind or is it from a wife, my two sons. I don't know. Are you ready then? You'll kiss a wink when I hold to the Buddhas, the body sappas and the body cheddar. Are you ready? Hall to the Buddhas, the body sappas and the body cheddar. Hall to the Buddhas, the body sappas and the body cheddar. Hall to the Buddhas, the body sappas and the body cheddar. Great, see. So that's them taking a bit of cognizance over, see? And we're all a bit warmed up. I had my Samba vibe, so I was 24, I think it was 24, it was 1974, it was July, my yoga class had failed, it was run by a ballet dancer crew from Edinburgh and they were always, well they were quite emotional and eventually it collapsed when the older man's younger boyfriend ran off with a middle-aged woman who had money off. Life delivers these shattering blows to our illusions, that even our delusions, pure man actually, pure man. Anyway, so I had to go looking for another yoga class and I heard there was one at the Glasgow Buddhist Center, a flat in Bath Street, so I went there and the door opened and there was a guy there, he wasn't an older man but then he became one and he looked like a whirling devilish, you may, if you know your late imperial history, if you see a whirling devilish old curly, he looked crazy actually and so I knew I was going to be at home and I went in and on the wall was a poster and that poster was called "Pagna Samba" on the copper coloured mountain and for years in the F.T.O.B. and for years all over the western and British Buddhist movement and federal travellers, you would see Tantra posters, that was the name of the company and one of the posters that they had, a famous one, was "Pagna Samba" in the copper coloured mountain. They also had the Wheel of Life, that's another one you can still see around and a really nice one, a shakimuni, a defeat and mara, I remember that. So when I went in, when I went in to the Glasgow Buddhist centre and there it was, I walked in a ton to the left and there on the wall above the fireplace is a Tantra poster, "Pagna Samba" on the copper coloured mountain. Now these posters were not pristine, they were not shall we say, spiritually pure, they'd been adulterated for western consumption but it was still a very attractive image to me and I I failed an attraction to "Pagma Samba" and "Pagma Samba" was the first figure, a robotic sapper figure, even Buddha figure, that I was attracted to, even in the sense before I became attracted to, to be in a Buddhist state. And when I was thinking about this talk, I just wanted to sort of in a way change history a little perhaps, at least interpret history a little bit more deeply because I'd like to say that when I walked in that door, that first time I walked into the Glasgow Buddhist centre, when I walked in and I saw "Pagna Samba" then of course I never realised this but he saw me. Now what is interesting about that is we we spend an awful lot of time looking at Buddha Ebidies, don't we, in pictures of Buddhas and all of that, it's worthwhile thinking sometimes, I can see "Pagna Samba" and he can see me, okay, it's worthwhile having that in your perception when you look at a Buddha figure, the Buddha can see me, so when I saw "Pagna Samba" he saw me, and for the purposes of this talk I just want to communicate to you, it was as if I had been reacquainted myself, reacquainted with "Pagna Samba" and it's as if when I looked at "Pagma Samba" "Pagma Samba" spoke to my heart and my future as it comes out and he said "Hello nephew" it's me, your uncle "Pagma" and I think I might have said, I think I might have said "Do we know each other?" and perhaps he said "Well, I knew your face" before you were born, sorry speaking, so "Pagma Samba" and I were reacquainted that day in the Glasgow Buddhist Centre and I was reacquainted and this is the truth for me and for all of us, I was reacquainted with a friend and I was reacquainted with a relative and I was reacquainted with my uncle "Pagma" and what he also said "No listen to my song" and this was the song he sang And we did all this, we'll do that later, we did all that and I must say I really enjoyed chanting that mantra, we don't do it so much these days but I really enjoyed chanting that mantra and the man who was running the centre then was called Vajradaka and Vajradaka was, well he was as crazy as a rest of his, I'm sure he wouldn't mind me saying that really, because it was a long time ago we're talking 27 years ago so and it was lucky for us he was crazy actually because there were so many of us were crazy and we all sort of got along quite nicely on that basis, in Dyratna, Dyratna was there and he is crazy, he was crazy enough to think he wasn't crazy but I remember sitting down and this guy walked in dressed in a woman's, a woman's unduscant and I thought oh he must be really advanced, he wasn't actually, he was bonkers, as a matter of fact, I didn't know that until later but he was actually, you know I like this song and I remember walking along Sakihal Street, I walked along with Sakihal Street, Vajradaka and I was moving towards cracking up shall we say and Vajradaka was walking along and we were walking like oh my oh dear, it's night time, along Sakihal Street, oh my oh and I don't know why I tell us but when I do this talk I always point this out and we got to near a place called the lawn who tell with Sakihal Street, takes out a dog leg and becomes a slightly less nice street and as we got near there a car went by it slowed down, the windows get rolled down and these young guys about who are age leaned out and they all went and you know I don't know why they did that and maybe they didn't even know why they did that but they did do it and for some reason I suppose I've always linked the two up and I don't know why but um they rolled the windows up and we had chatting this mantra walking along and and they sort of in a sort of stylish way gee that is but I don't think it's anything perhaps of real significance but they rolled the windows up and they they drove off into the night and they disappeared around the corner I think one of the things is that's what perhaps is significant for me is that they disappeared that they appeared in our lives and for a moment they communicated with us and then they were gone and who knows who they were who knows who they were and who knows where they are now and whenever I talk about them whenever I talk about them I like to think that whatever one says communicates with the the person that one is communicating about and so I don't know who these people were but my mind knows who they were and their minds know who they are and our minds when I bring them up hey they think and he's reaching for a pain as a Saturday night his life's a total disappointment and failure and they say and it just gets to there and he thinks do you mind a night when we were driving along and why did we do that and I don't know but it's um I'm with you brother and with you it's okay we're all together in this universe the universe after all is our home a universe after all is our home it's our only home it is always been our home it always will be our home I'm so happy to be here in the universe which is my home so years went by and years went by and I always kept contact with Padma Sarma but one night I dreamed and what I dreamed was a tower a tower stolen Scottish Irish tower with was a rough stone steps and walls and and me going up those steps and up that little narrow We are up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. A wall, boom. It's blocked. I can't go down. I've come up this far. It's blocked. I'm standing there looking at the wall, which is, you know, barring, barring my, for the progress. And then I hear, I hear, um... [Singing] And at that point, the wall fell down. And I fell with it. So, I'm lying in the dark landscape with the dawn just visible in the far horizon. And I'm lying there in this street. And I'm lying there. I hear coming towards me. And I know that they're coming to me. I hear... [Singing] I can't move. I think I shouted. "Fantie!" [Laughter] Which, you know, is a kind of wake-up call, really, for their dream land. And I came out of the dream. It's a pretty... I wish I hadn't, actually. Because what was coming towards me, cutless, yeah, pad my sand, were the hounds of my own heart, you might say. And it wouldn't have been... They probably... My impression is often that in dream land, the hounds of your own heart turn up. And they just give you great big licks across the face. And then that's perhaps the worst thing that they do. So, that was a dream I had. And I dream... Years later, I went on solitary, 1982. A bit of speed up, actually, because we haven't even got into the talk, even. [Laughter] I went on solitary, and I used fantasy. So, I look out my bike window, and this isn't Scotland in my cottage. And Cauve, and the hill, sloped up the way. And I think I was, you know, doing my best to be seen. And I looked out there. And I saw... I visualized. I saw... I wasn't a vision. I saw walking down towards me, pad my sand, and he was big, right? And his robes and his hat. And it is... tried. And his vaijra. And the one to describe it is he was gallus, if you can ask, a northern one. He had... He had... [Clap] What's the what? Chuspa. You know what I mean? Gallus. Brass neck. Yeah. Brass neck. No, but not cheap. And he sort of just saw a wall walking down the hill, like the. And he was just doing this. And then over the hill came over the hill. And all the other brothers and Bodhisattvas behind them. And they're all enjoying life. And that was what was important. They're all full of life. They're all enjoying life, life, life, life. And they don't say, "And you can't enjoy life." And they should be the spiritual life. So dear. [Laughter] I'm enjoying life because I left my wife and I've never been happier. [Laughter] No. So they've only seen stuff like that. They were alive. This is what I want to say about them. They were alive to life. Life is what they're alive to. Not any lifestyle. But life is what they're alive to. And so, here's another thing, right? Another. All of these things I'm telling you are ingredients that come to mind 20 years later as I put together a talk on Padmas and Humberba. So somewhere around that time I read Malcolm Lowrie's Ultra Marine. And Ultra Marine is a book about Malcolm Lowrie's travels as a sailor on a tramp steamer during the 1930s. Now, Lowrie is an interesting character. He's very interesting to people who maybe are considered, "Should I really live a Buddhist life? What does it mean?" Because Lowrie had gone to Oxford. And those in the know in Oxford, though, those in the know had very high hopes for Malcolm Lowrie. They thought he is going to be great. He's going to be great. He's going to be a writer. He's going to be a giant in the literary world. Malcolm Lowrie. It didn't happen. It didn't happen, right? It didn't happen. And he became known instead as the Great What Might Have Been. The Great What Might Have Been How Malcolm. Anyway, his most famous book is Under the Volcano. And it's a read and a half and it is like being under a volcano. It took me nine months to read it. It's not exactly a very pleasant book, shall we say. It's about the death of a man through alcoholism. So it's really a biography of him. But Lowrie was going to be one of those great might have beens. And here he took his own way. He went his own path and he didn't do what they wanted. And so they thought, "Well, let's write him off." And he went away to die, which is a mistake, really, I think. And perhaps if more people like him had found something to teach him like the Dharma, they wouldn't have went away to die. Because they would have followed their heart to its fullness, which is they would have followed their heart to the truth instead of so often say at the bottle. Now, well, Ultramarine, one of his books about his time as a merchant sailor, Ultramarine brought to my mind, what it brought to my mind and what it brought to this talk was strange cities. Strange cities, eh? Because Lowrie, in his tramp steamers, went to Far East in the Far East in the 30s with a very strange place. Places like Marco, Shanghai, Yokohama, where else in Singapore and places like that. He went to all these places, eh? So Ultramarine brought to my mind strange cities, cities which are not like Glasgow. Cities which are not like Seven Oaks. Seven Oaks, eh? Anyway, what these strange cities are places of the other, the unfamiliar, the great fragment of yet unifying force of nor me, nor mine. Look at that, I'm finished a page. Now, these strange cities married up for the properties of this talk was my image of Padma Samba, and they made a context where I walked alone, a setting where I could see my mind revolve. Now, what does that lead me? Well, it led me to what is the Dharma, page 4041, bounty's rendition of the Diddanas, and here we go, the human mind, eh? I know so little but want so much. Sometimes it seems the world is my prey. Blindly I move in it, seeking, searching for the satisfaction of my desires. In the drunkenness of a partial mind set up by the previous beat of my desiring heart. Thus I link my future with my past upon the bridge of my appetites, but who am I that treads this path of questions? The same yet different from one moment to the next, astrayed my actions. So in my bewilderment, I light the fires of my flesh and feel, perceive and will, and know that I am, formed, named, mind and body, come to its senses. All that I understand strikes sparks on this base in bright contact. Thus I feel my way against the darkness and thirst for more, going on my feelings, hence wanting everything, never satisfied, grasping and attached. I cling then to what I know, becoming born in heights and depths, settled on the shivering mud of my consequences, where I rise and fall incessantly between the bus of joy, the bus of tragedy. These realms of my possession, forcing ground of strange cities, both of the world to end of the mind, haunt of eternity and annihilation, whose crowded streets teem with a taught life, torn between their passion and the dust of moments make up the will of life. Here, here the gods fall to the earth from their bed of stars, titans wade through blind will to ought nothing. The animals run with twilight as the whirl tones, beings from hell, stand, brandishing and blazing enraged, hungry ghosts eat at the wind. Only the human beings dance poised on the point of choice in the place of opposites in the realm of harmony. See how we turn in our multitudes, tuned to the beat and the music of our hearts. Thus no one walks alone, but always with others in matching step, each gesture was separated. Into your eyes, into your strange cities I look, and there am I, and there the flower of enlightenment. Many songs are sung, somewhere at this very moment some sing the lotus songs, their minds shape their voices, their voices shake the air, which shakes the world, has the world shakes, so I shake myself as we all do in time, in tune with those lotus songs. Participation moment no comes. I'm going to do the mantra, you'll join in for a minute, and I'll redo the eight names Padmasandova. Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang. Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang. Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang. Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong Vajraguru Padmasadihang, Om Mahong! When I clap my hand you've got to stop instantly, yes sir. Okay, at the end of the chanting which we've just done, imagine a hand reaches out from the shadows and touches us. We understand that our meeting has been arranged. Our meeting has been arranged, eh? But to fulfil our meeting we must wander in a strange city. Hamburg, Marco, Shanghai, San Francisco, wherever, eh? And then that strange city is a huge saloon, a huge saloon. We feel like a drink, okay? So we go in and we walk in and we go into the bar, in the barmen, who has eternal barmen. You must be drawing a glass, this is all they do. In fact, if there was no, they speak like that at night. And you think, I'll have something and you lean on the bar and you sort of look and you see in an alcove and you see there at the back, on a floor, three steps up from the rest of us, at a chair beside a table, Padmasadihang, he sits in all his robes, a trident leans against the wall, a vajra on the table. He always reminds me of Clark Gable in his prime. I don't know why. I think it's the moustache. And the strangest thing is, nobody else in the saloon seems to notice. So you go over. Uncle, what are you doing here? Where else would I be nephew? I sit down, we talk, my uncle suggests, we go for a walk. Outside, imagine for yourself the city. And I've noticed that when a low level of integration at me meets up with a profound estate, for example, Padmasadihang, then I feel dumb, stale, old, without the saving grace of being ancient, like a cold dinner from the night before. But everything feels new, walking along with Padmasadihang. Everything is fresh, like being in a clear light. All the buying, sailing, walking, talking that goes on is done with a significant intensity, as if everyone knew they wear both a portion of the universe and it's all. Standing with him, it seems as if the secret is revealed. Why we do the things we do, the purpose of our lives, their consequences both for ourselves and beyond ourselves. And each of us stands out alone, a singular greatness that only comes about because we are connected in our life with everything. So we stand there watching the city in a calm breath. Now at this point, me and Padmasadihang, my uncle and my cell have a dialogue, me engaged in a dialogue, okay. And how, because it's just me and Padmasadihang and Padmasadihang, but just me doing it, what I do is when I say nephew, that's Padmasadih speaking, when I say uncle, that's me. You know, who am I? I'm every man. All right. So that's who I'm meaning to be here. Every man. I thought it was women here to be every person, if you see what I mean. But I'm every man. That's who is here. So uncle, I say, I've been having a few thoughts since I last met you. And Padmasadihang says, well nephew, I'm always interested in your latest thinking. So well uncle, I've been thinking that I would like to spend some time in a nudist colony. A nudist colony nephew. Yes sir. I feel contained uncle, held in constrained and present even in my clothes. They weigh on me like lead. People look at me and see my clothes. They don't see me, not the real me. So I thought, why not? Throw off my clothes and be naked. Naked is the day I was born, exposed. The nitty gritty me revealed. And I thought, it was obvious. A nudist camp. That's an interesting thought nephew. I like that thought. I like the way you're going. You know one of the things that it brings to my mind? No uncle. The Etruscans nephew. As a matter of fact. The Etruscans uncle. That's right. They had a tradition in their culture. They termed heroic nakedness. I can see them clearly. Figures naked, doing acrobatics and fighting bulls and other wild beasts. Men and women and nothing. But the skin and bravery. I don't want to fight wild beasts uncle. I was thinking more of beach balls and the bit of tennis. And catch a bit of sun. I know you are. But what was being shown here was more than what was physically apparent. It was symbolic it seemed to me of a free inner life untrammeled, grounded, witnessing a naked joy in being. Not just physical then but emotional, psychological and even what we might call spiritual. That's it uncle. I want to be free, untrammeled, unbounded. I think of the images I've seen on TV. Free like the women in the shampoo adverts. When they swing their hair. It swings about their head like a colored liquid fire. And they smile with release and express positive statements like. Because I'm worth it. Because I'm worth it. That's not low self esteem uncle. You must have tried the shampoo. Yes. It did work. Of course it was always the first time. I'd like to feel like the guy where he climbs in his new car and that smooth machine is an extension of himself not to sixty and three seconds and she. That's the computer talks to him. Understands him and they zoom off together down the open road. What a couple. Free him on his mobile phone and she the car patrolling her systems, watching for issues that might come up like that. All of it anyway seems to come down to my clothes. I felt trapped in the man. I suppose most of what I ever see is images of having freedom or not. So I thought throw off my clothes down to being necessities. So you don't feel free nephew. No one told just the opposite. Does anybody feel free nephew? Well, I ask people uncle most of anything. So so as if the weight and on the lines to fire up and begin and have grown accustomed to the cold. I want more than this but I don't know which way to go. Well nakedness is a good way to go nephew. Wearing no clothes has its uses. Look at me. I myself have often worn different robes, gold and precious stones, plain home spun and other times I've worn nothing at all. Nothing between me and all the weather of the world and all the beings and all their closing of shadows. Finally I understood. Nakedness is within for our purposes nephew, though the without can lead you to the within with practice. I say within but what I mean to indicate to you nephew is that the nakedness and the freedom and the sense you seek is the nakedness of your own mind. This nakedness uncle. How can I come to understand it? In brief. Live without the trappings of discursive thought. Train yourself to understand the unified nature of your mind. Come to know how it encompasses all this mundane world and the life of enlightenment. Complete. It is the intrinsic awareness of your own mind that yields nakedness. It is knowing it that brings freedom. It is all we are and yet many do not recognize it. It is present everywhere, illumined, lucid, clear yet many never see its face. Thus their own mind and its depth is lost to them. This intrinsic inherent awareness is like the sunlight falling through a cloudless sky, unobstructed yet many pass it by without comprehension. Should you wish to know yourself? You must understand it. In fact, not understanding means you know nothing. All the downing teachings point to this intrinsic awareness and our need to understand it, to be our mind of unity. When we understand nothing then our actions draw down upon our lives all the sufferings possible in this world. Through our ignorance we yield ourselves up to the scramble after bright and shining pain, drugged by delusion lost in the vast wheel of the centuries. It is grievous not to know our self. It is a hopeful nephew. You must ask yourself, have I ever been satisfied? And if so, for how long you may remove your clothes far better to remove your delusions? How does this awareness feel, uncle? When I look into myself with naked awareness all that has gone before I have let go. All that would come comes unencumbered by any divisive views of mine. I look and know that my mind just is nephew, unified and clear and yet quite ordinary, settled, stable, completely pure. It is rested in its own true nature. Hence I am very happy in which others to have the same understanding out of compassion. I want things to uncle. Me, I can't imagine life without desires. It would seem without purpose, a wretched emptiness, a suffocating experience of nothing. It is as if what I want causes me to live, links me in with life. I get what I want sometimes and sometimes I do not. All in all, it is bearable. Believe me, it is worth it to know your own mind more deeply nephew. Believe me, you can understand what I am saying. I know all of a person's life, it is the momentums of wishes and desires can flow morning, noon and night like a great tide so that everywhere people swim for the lives. In the terror of its rush, in the grip of its spray and foam from one moment to the next they go. And fear, drowning, but stop a while, see yourself, trust the image of the waters. Breathe into your depths and ask. Who am I? Who flees from one moment to the next? Who fears the death yet sits? Be mused by them life, be welded, puzzled, grave. Think of how behind your dance, behind your song, behind the meeting of bright eyes. Do you not stand alone, alone in the sense of lonely, not in the sense of strong. Stop and realize, grant your own wish to rest, draw comfort from your own mind, trust the waters, have some trust in your life. All liberties have compassion for living beings and why they understand what it's like to feel that you have to swim for your life. They have known that state themselves. I don't say it's easy, nephew, but don't be like the fool who loses his sense of identity in a crowd and on this basis begins a search amongst them for himself. Not knowing his own mind everywhere he finds his absence in the face of others and their embrace, he remains empty without fulfillment. We make fools of ourselves settling our lives anywhere but on the knowledge of our own mind. Each wish, desire, makes of itself a cliff from which we hang thinking in our terror. I am. I am that fool, uncle. You talked of liberation and I was thinking of winning the lottery, thinking I could buy my way out of this trouble as if the rich carried happiness in the wallet or the pots and didn't purchase each and every one a grave for themselves. I saw a jumbo jet take off into a dawn or sunset. All my troubles were left behind. I recognize the fountain of your desires nephew. It sparkles in a winter sun. It rises and it falls a place of gravity and shadows. Truly, I sympathize with all appearances come from your own mind. The fountain of your own desires casts this lasting tragedy. There could be joy instead. You could love, not cling, not making creatures of other people for your wishes. You could know them in the depths instead. Why not direct your mind towards unity? See that the dure and the done are not two different things. Trying to separate them up to find the one who does, who acts or who does not and make a separation of the life debris that will leave us shattered, beset, instead, or blessed by our mind. Observed and observer meditation and meditate a viewer and the view. All separations will never sustain themselves against the mind's unity. To let them go is to have a birth into truth. This birth is precious. It is like being in the gaze of our own mind, in the smile of our unity. With the completeness of its touch, we make a true homecoming. I can't do it. Uncle, the life I lead, the life of the times, eradicate my hopes. I am too flawed. It is too difficult, too vast, too different, strange, too much, a reappraisal of my mind. No, it is like the honey on the razor's edge. You speak about the edge. I will speak about the sweetness. It tires my mind, Uncle. I want to sleep. I want to cuddle up in fresh, new, realizable hopes and with some prospect of their release. It is too much, Uncle. It is all too much. You ask me to carry a mountain. You ask me to put down my history, relinquish the thought of a tomorrow, but in the squeeze between my past and my future, I am comforted. Let me be blind then. In all my senses numb, I will withdraw. I will make a fortress of my life and care nothing for any space beyond the reach of my breast. Nothing for time beyond the moment of my desires. Leave me alone, Uncle. I am sorry to have trouble. Now, listen, everything is bright, my son. Now, if you, the mind is brightness itself and all our consequences is dark or light, sharing the brightness of the mind. Lift yourself up. Consider, you say that your mind boils, smokes and simmars and you can't remain in a calm state. Relax, nephew. Try letting yourself just be. Your thoughts just be, just as they are. Not separate from your intrinsic awareness. Perhaps they will settle into calmness then. So you say, you're helpless, unable to contain your thoughts so that your spiritual practice is a failure. Yeah, remember what I said. Our intrinsic mind is in a state of unity, perfected of itself, always beyond success of failure, since intrinsic awareness just is without cause or conditioning. Can we really claim our efforts are worthless? Each wandering mind in its liberation simultaneously occurred. Bondage and release remain merely a matter of right effort. To understand this, we must practice, just as milk must be chondered the butter, so all sentient beings, though they possess the actual essence of Buddhahood, will not realize it without engaging in practice. Practice nephew, practice and realize your own liberation. To support ourselves, think how can we claim ignorance of our mind? When all that we do think are is just that, our own mind. When we look there it stands, unsupported in its towing, profound emptiness, formless like the clear sky. It is free of substance and yet encompasses all. Look at your own mind, nephew. Does it conform? Unceasing in its flow, endless like a river, so goes our intrinsic mind. Look at your own mind, nephew. Does it conform? Do not be dogged or chained by memories? They are like mere breezes blowing through the sky and cannot know the workings of our own mind that just is. Look at your own mind, nephew. Does it conform? All appearances are like images in a mirror or clouds in the sky. They appear and disappear. Come from themselves, self-originated. Look at your own mind, nephew. Does it conform? There exist no phenomena other than what rises from the mind, meditation, our behaviour, our vows of commitment, the experience of the consequences of our skillful actions all rise up from our mind. No metaphor can fully describe our intrinsic awareness yet. Metaphors abound, as flowers abound out of a holy earth, testament to its richness. Let me read you something. This is the book I've worked from. What you're seeing here, what I've been reading out, is what's in this book more or less. In other words, it's not been my invention, eh? I've reworked it. Because you grasp that these various appearances that arise, nephew, become an attached to them, errors have come into existence. Yet with respect to all of these appearances of which you are aware in your mind, even though these appearances that you perceive do arise, if you do not grasp at them, then that is Buddhahood. Appiancies are not erroneous in themselves, but because of your grasping at them, errors come into existence. But if you know that these thoughts only grasp at things which are mind, then they will be liberated by themselves. Everything that appears is but a manifestation of mind. Even though the entire external inanimate universe appears to you, it is but a manifestation of mind. Even though all of the sentient beings of the six realms appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though the happiness of humans and the delights of the divers in heaven appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though the sorrows of the three evil destinies appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though the five poisons representing ignorance and the passions appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though intrinsic awareness which itself originated primal awareness appears to you, it is but a manifestation of mind. Even though good thoughts along the way to nirvana appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though obstacles due to demons and evil spirits appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though the gods and other excellent attainments appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though various kinds of purity appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though the experience of remaining in a state of one pointed concentration without any discursive thoughts appears to you, it is but a manifestation of mind. Even though the colors that are the characteristics of things appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. Even though a state without characteristics and without conceptual elaborations appears to you, it is but a manifestation of mind. Even though the non-duality of the one and the many appears to you, it is but a manifestation of mind. Even though existence and non-existence which are not created anywhere appear to you, they are but manifestations of mind. There exist no appearances whatsoever that can be understood as not coming from mind. Self-liberation through seeing with naked awareness available from Western books. So I must take my leave of you nephew for a while. Think about what I said. I shall uncle. Strange to say nephew, it may take time. Though our mind is everywhere immediate and complete, it may take time. Bad habits, vagueness, staying on the surface of things, oh listen more add up to earn needing to learn an unencumbered state. As if we had sunk a clear mind into the terms of a ditch, self-made and there, we lie weeping or precious tears which fall either in freedom or delusion. The choice is ours. Now I must go reflect on what I've said nephew. Call upon me anytime you will. It is always good to speak to you uncle. I know. Look after yourself now nephew. Precious is a life, precious knowledge and understanding of our intrinsic mind. Go naked in the world nephew, stripped of delusions for the benefit of all. May all the Buddhas put more numerous than the stars be in your company and in the company of all. I watched him pad my Samba walk away down the street of that strange city. He tonned and waved and then he disappeared and I was left reflecting. We who live in time and space in the past present and future in all the 10 directions of this vast universe are born, exist and die face to face with the Buddhas. Thus pad my Samba you are always with us. Your friendship calls from us the thought of enlightenment or possibility of Buddhahood. Your company sets our mind straight upon the past and your example shows us how to practice hard intent in all our spiritual deeds which rise then like flowers from the depths of time to lift our minds. Padma Samba you have given all that you have and are an infinitude of heads, hands and feet and acts delivered to the world in fulfillment of the altruism of a Bodhisattva. Padma Samba all the perfection's are matured in you. Your footsteps make great acts of merit. I am encouraged by you, supported, befriended to emulate them and I rejoice. Padma Samba great are the merits of all Bodhisattvas, their self-sacrifice and courage in carrying through the most difficult acts of body, their determination and perseverance in pursuing supreme enlightenment. In all these immense merits I will rejoice and take the hand of friendship offered face to face by the Buddhas, their Bodhisattvas and their Buddhist jitter. I wanted so little but have found so much this world is in my care. In tenderness I move in it sympathetic, sensitive, searching with a whole heart for the truth. Thus I link my future and my past, all the blessings of those lives and strivings upon the bridge of my aspirations. Who am I that treads this path of question and response, the same yet different from one moment to the next I go astrive my actions. So in my knowledge I will light the fires of my flesh and feel, perceive and will and know that I am, formed, named mind and body come to its senses, everything and nothing striking sparks upon this space in bright contact. Thus I will make my way against the darkness and thirst for more going on my feelings hence wanting everything never satisfied grasping and attached to enlightenment. I cling then to what I now know, becoming born in heights and depths settled on the shivening mud of my consequences, incessant beyond rise and fall beyond joy and tragedy. These realms of my possession, forcing ground of strange cities, both of the world-hand of the mind, haunt of eternity, annihilation and the middle way, whose crowded streets teem with a taught life, torn between reaction and response, such passion from the dust of moments which makes or breaks the wheel of life. Great humanity, in their potential, cause for the gods to fall to earth and leave the bed of stars, from tight and sea and way to all that sight, cause of the animals to stop and realize standing shadowless beneath the full light of the sun, whom beings from hell stand gazing at, with busting hearts, brandishing, blazing, inspired, enraged against their previous foolishness, cause of the hungry ghosts to give, resflowers of release from beds of anxiety, rays of gentleness and love and ease, bringer of smiles. Great humankind and our imagination, who dance poised on the point of choice in the place of opposites in the realm of harmony, see how we tonne, pouring intolerance in multitudes, turn to the beat and music of our hearts, we walk alone, yet always with others in matching step, each gesture reciprocated, into your eyes I look and there I am and there the flower of enlightenment, let us mature ourselves. Patna Samba Vah, all across this world, all across the universe, your great heart goes. One thing, many songs are sung, somewhere at this very moment, some sing the lotus songs, their minds shape their voices, their voices shake the air, which shakes the world, and as the world shakes, so I shake myself as we all do in time, in tune with those lotus songs. Oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, the Almighty Guru from the land of again, home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, the Guru who has issued from lotus, Hong, oh Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, is the lion of the Shakya clan, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, the sun ray Guru who embraces all doctrines, oh my home, the amutable Guru with hanging stomach, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, the Guru who teaches with the voice of a lion, Hong, oh Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, the lotus king Guru who is untouched by false, Hong, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, the Guru possessing wisdom and best desires, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, Vajra Guru Padma City, Hong, oh my home, so I know you're desperate to participate and you're all going to stand up again, come on, are you going to stand up? Okay, now we know, we know the routine, eh? We know the routine and it's whole to the Buddha, it's the bodhisattvas and the bodhicitta, but imagine this, no, this is the truth, your very shout is heard face to face, we stand with the Buddhas at all times, they are here, they are with you, they're inside you, they're outside you, they're everywhere, are you ready? So it's whole to the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas and the bodhicitta, three times and we should raise the roof, what do you think? Okay, oh to the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas and the bodhicitta, oh to the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas and the bodhicitta, oh to the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas and the bodhicitta, thank you.
