Brothers in the Dharma. I often think when I get time to reflect that I had quite a fortunate childhood. You know, people often talk about the childhood and how tough it all was and that kind of thing. Well, it wasn't like that for me. It wasn't like that for me. I had a great childhood and very fortunate youth, I think. And one of the reasons for that was that I was born and brought up in mountainous areas of the UK. So hills, mountains, caves, rocks, crevices, gullies, gills, pillars, mountain torrents, cliffs and crags. I've known them all from an early age. I was actually born in North Wales, quite near Fajaloka in 1959. And well, father was a forester. And well, we lived on a mountain, on top of a mountain in North Wales, in the middle of a pine forest. And that's where I was born. And well, I lived there with my mother and my older brother. And well, we walked all over that mountain and the mountainous area of North Wales. We climbed it, we scrambled on it, we stood around looking at the landscape. And we did that right from the moment I could crawl. That's what we were doing all the time. And then I was lucky enough at the age of seven, we moved to the English Lake District, dad got a job near Windermere in Cambria. So that's where we went. Well, of course, more mountains, more beautiful mountains, and deep, silent lakes, thousands of feet deep. So with my family and my friends, we regularly walked the mountains and fells of Lakeland. We rode boats over the deep, silent lakes, and we climbed, abseiled and camped on the grassy moors of Lakeland. We potholed in caves and swam and canoeed in surging Cambrian rivers. It was all very vigorous and elemental. Yeah, we stood on Cairns photographing mountain towns. And with my paintbrush and my watercolor paints, I began to sketch and paint the rugged landscape. I particularly enjoyed screen running. I don't know if you've ever done this sort of thing. You go to the top of a very large mountain, and you get to the edge where it's very steep, and then you just jump off, and you just sort of run down as fast as you can without falling over and dying. I did it at Gekheloka with Padma Vadra in 1990. We ran the screen down this mountain, Pusch Kapanya, which was very, very exciting. So you managed to descend thousands of feet in a matter of minutes, if you're lucky. I've got Rheumatoid arthritis now. I can't do that anymore, unfortunately, but the memory is still very, very strong for me. So all this activity that I was brought up, all this nature, all these elements, all these mountains, all this solid stuff that was around me, all around me, was very impressive. It moved me. It arrested me. It impressed me. Later on, I discovered the Great Poise, Lakeland Poise, William Wordsworth, and his nature poems. I discovered that Wordsworth knew all these centuries before I'd come along. So here's a poem from Wordsworth, which I like, called, it's a little section of the poem called The Prelude, which will just sort of get you in the mood, really. I read this when I was about 12, I think, and I thought, yes, you know, he knows what I'm talking about. Okay, here we go, William Wordsworth, yeah. "Lustily, I dipped my oars into the silent lake, and as I rose upon the stroke, my boat went heaving through the water like a swan. When, from behind that craggy steep till then, the horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, as if with voluntary power instinct, up reared its head. I struck and struck again, and growing still in stature, the grim shape towered up between me and the stars, and still, for so it seemed, with purpose of its own, and measured motion like a living thing strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, and through the silent water stole my way back to the covert of the willow tree. There in her mooring place I left my bark, and through the meadows homeward went in grave and serious mood. But after I had seen that spectacle, for many days my brain worked with a dim and undetermined sense of unknown modes of being, or my thoughts there hung a darkness, call it solitude, or blank desertion. No familiar shapes remained, no pleasant images of trees, of sea or sky, no colours of green fields, but huge and mighty forms that do not live like living men, move slowly through the mind by day, and wear a trouble to my dreams. Okay, so this is William Wordsworth, yeah, and oh yeah, that kind of evoked the kind of feeling that I had for the mountains of Cambria. So yeah, as a kid I kind of liked all this rugged stuff that was around me. It seemed very permanent, very immovable, very changeless, old, and well, very definitely, very solidly there. I could feel it, I could touch it, I could smell it, I could feel it, I knew where I stood. So as a child and as a young man I felt very, very alive, very privileged. When I was 17 I went to work for the Lakeland Green Slate Company in Coniston in Cambria, and I worked in two quarries, and one of them had a marvelous name, it was called Bursting Stone Quarry, Bursting Stone Quarry, and I had this job, I had to sort of hang off the edge of a cliff and bore holes into the cliffside and pack it full of gunpowder, and then we used to stand back about half a mile from this enormous quarry, which was founded by the Romans, it was that old, and then we used to push this thing down, down like that, just all this rock would fly up like tons and tons of rock would fly up into their in enormous violent explosions. So all this made me feel very alive. And my most alive moment that I remember during all of this was the famous water pump story, and some of you know me, you will have heard this one. I worked in one slate quarry called Moss Rig, and it was actually a big slate cutting plant, so all the slate used to come into this plant, and in inside sheds they used to cut it up, it would eventually become little roofing slates, that sort of size. And this plant was fed by an underground river inside a mountain, about a quarter of a mile inside a mountain, and the whole plant was fed by a pump, and probably every week, at least every week this pump used to break down, and nobody ever wanted to go in there and fix it, so I used to have to go and do this, at least every week. And this involved travelling in into the mountain through a mine shaft on a truck, a railway truck, and it had a rail on the front, I used to push this rail, and I used to go inside this mine shaft for a very, very long way, and it was incredibly dark. I had a minus helmet on with a lamp, and I had these tools, and I'd just wind my way into this mine shaft into the mountain for what seemed like miles and miles, and I'd look back and this little sort of white dot of light would be receding, and I used to get right into quarter of a mile inside this mountain, and eventually I discover it would be this big lake, there was a big cavern with a lake just completely still, completely still, and there was the pump, and I'd fix it, and I'd make sure it worked, and then what I always used to do was I would turn the pump off, I would turn the lamp off, and I would just stand there, and it was a total solid blackness, no light whatsoever, just velvet blackness, and not a single sound, nothing. I used to just stand there and experience this silence with millions and billions of tons of rock all around me above below to the side, and I just used to stand there and drink it all in. Very, very good. I remember one day I was doing this, and I could hear this breathing, and so I stopped breathing, but I could still hear this breathing. I thought, oh no, what's this? And then I heard this, and I got my goodness, so I ran out of the, and down the mine shaft, and there were all these guys outside all laughing, and, well, it was my boss who was playing a trick on me. Well, I was 17, I was 17, so this was a very strong experience for me of permanence, immovability, and solidity. Now, I'm telling you the story because, well, I don't really have a lot of experience of elephants. Elephants are normally associated with, well, the Buddha, Akshobia. They're very solid, they're not easily movable, you can't push them around, and, well, they're normally, they are, this is what people usually talk about with Akshobia Buddha immovability, so I've talked a bit more about something else. So, who is Akshobia? Who is Akshobia Buddha? What are his features? We've entered the mandala, it seems, Garava helped us through that last night, and now we're at the entrance to the mandala, the entrance to the south of the mandala, Akshobia. So, what are his features? What are his associations? What are his qualities and characteristics? We need to explore him. But before I launch into a description of Akshobia, before we encounter the Buddha, I thought I would just sort of make a point about how we do this. When we encounter a Buddha, it's potentially a very deep experience. These days, in modern Buddhism, we have access to all sorts of pictures and rupas of Buddhism. It hasn't always been like this. We're quite familiar with Buddhas, but in a way, I think we don't always see them, fully see Buddhas in the way that we could do. It's a good thing to prepare yourself for seeing a Buddha. It's a good thing to get yourself in exactly the right frame of mind. After all, they're archetypal spiritual figures. They represent the enlightened mind. They can affect us. They can move us. They can stir us up. They can alarm us even. They can well resonate with us, and at best, they can inspire us, to change our lives, change for the better. So if you're new to Akshobia, well, prepare yourself. If you're of long and familiar acquaintance, well, prepare yourself. Listen to the description of Akshobia with an open and imaginative ear. You might feel connections. You might feel resonances with the figure. You might be interested. You might have a versions even to elements of the figure to the description, but open yourself. It could be a color. It could be a gesture, a symbol, a feature that impresses itself upon you, just like those Lakeland mountains impressed themselves upon me all those years ago. And I think it's a bit like that with ordinary human beings as well. We've been doing communication exercises here. When we meet another human being, it's quite a remarkable thing. There's a little piece in Pieces of Fire by Sangerachte, where he talks about meeting human beings. Here we go. Getting truly to know another human being is like exploring a new continent or another world. One plunges into abysses, wonders among lofty mountains, is lost in the depths of mysterious forests, rests in bowers of roses with the brooks sparkling beside one and the birds singing the branches overhead, and stands on lonely shores, gazing out over the illimitable expanse of sunlit waters. So that's just human beings, yeah? That's just ordinary human beings. How much more so with a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, an archetypal being? So we need to prepare ourselves. Okay, so akshovia. Akshovia, the name means immovable, unshakable, imperturbable. In the mandala of the five Buddhas, he's positioned in the eastern quarter. That's at the bottom, what seems like the south to us, but it's actually the east. And the east, of course, is the direction of the rising sun. He's the first Buddha that you meet in the mandala, as you enter the mandala, and his realm is called abirati, abirati, which means the realm of complete joy. It's a very beautiful place. He's seated on a vast blue lotus throne, which is supported by far enormous elephants. Akshovia's body is made of deep blue light, the color of the night sky in the tropics. I've never been to the tropics, but I hear that the night sky is deep and mysterious, and yet somehow quite kind of luminous. It's luminous, and that's what akshovia's body is like. He sits in full lotus posture and is adorned with silk robes, and the silk robes are of the same mysterious blue as his body. But the difference is that they're covered in gold embroidery. This blue is covered in gold embroidery. He's got dark hair. It's actually blue, black hair, really jet black, and it's in a top knot. It's tied in a top knot. And his smile is said to be incredibly beautiful. He has an incredibly beautiful smile, and it's said that once you see his smile and really see it, you completely understand. You understand everything. Nothing can ever be the same again once you've seen his smile. It's the smile of wisdom. He's got various forms of jewelry. He sometimes is seen with a golden crown with five crests, as we've got on the mangalor over there. He has a gold necklace and gold ornaments on his hands and also on his feet. His right hand reaches down, power manwards, and gently touches the earth. He's seated on a white moon mat, and his right hand rests, sorry, his left hand rests in the left lap in the diana mudra. An upright on the palm is a golden vadra standing upright on his palm. So that's the golden vadra, the thunderbolt. There's a halo around his head, the out which is green, a luminous green emitting from around his head, and another one around his body, which is a beautiful soft red emitting from his body. The syllable hung is seen at his heart, and this is emitting blue light, a pale blue light, soft pale blue light from his heart. And this is said to represent the integration of the individual and the universal. His mantra, he emanates a mantra on vadra aksovia hum, on vadra aksovia hum, hum, hum, vadra aksovia hum, just like a drum beating throughout the realm throughout adiatic. Yeah? And it's said that when the mantra is emanated, it's like an elephant. Each symbol is like the elephant stepping on. Yeah? And the elephant steps on vadra aksovia hum. You really know what's happening. It's really there. So this mantra carries into all parts of his realm, the vabirati, in this slow and steady rhythm, yeah, like the beating of the drum. So it has this unshakable quality, like the elephant. So this is the basic appearance of aksovia in the mandala. He's big and blue, he's on a lotus throne, and he's supported by huge elephants, yeah, who are solid and immovable. Now I remember a few years ago at Pamela, we had a men's event, and it must be in the 80s actually, and Vazu Bandu, an old member, gave a talk on aksovia. And well, he used to work in a zoo, and I remember transferring the course, he was talking about elephants and solidity. And during the course of the talk, he just said to us, he said, "Elifunt, like this." And I remember something really came across because he'd worked with elephants so much. When he said, "Elifunt," you know, really, something really happened. I remember all the people saying that afterwards. Whereas when I say it, it doesn't really have the same effect. But I remember thinking at the time, "Oh, you know, I must go and see an elephant," because I don't really know what they look like. I can't have got this idea of what they look like. They're so big and gray, aren't they? You know, I got this idea of an elephant. So I went to Colchester Zoo, and I remember at the time, I remember it really, really looking at one. It came out of this elephant house. There were several of them, actually, you know, and a very, very kind of regal. Slow. I've got a movie out of this elephant house from Big Trump. I remember it came right over to me, and it sort of had this trunk, and it was really looking down at me with its tusks, and it was incredible, actually. It was a remarkable animal, but I really looked at it inside. It was awesome. I really saw an elephant, and it looked at me as well, and it really seemed to look at me, too. I think before that, I didn't really know what an elephant looked like. And then I remember taking my son when he was a little boy to Ipswich Museum. They have a full-size replica of a mammoth in Ipswich Museum, a big, woolly mammoth. And once again, you know, just sort of looking up at this extraordinary beast that roamed the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. They're quite a thing. You can't push them around. You can see why they've got associations with royalty. They're said to be the wisest of all animals. So you might have an idea about an elephant, but when you actually see one, you do get something, some unshakeable, immovable quality of actualia comes through with the elephant. There's a whole chapter devoted to the elephant in the dharma pada, so I'll just read you some verses of that. This particular chapter is really talking about mindfulness and awareness and the value of it. So I get the impression that the elephant is actually quite a mindful, mindful animal, though I don't know. That might be just me romanticizing animals, as a lot of people do. Anyway, here we go. Formerly, this mind of mine went wondering about where it wished, as it liked and according to its pleasure. Today, I will control it radically, as the wielder of the elephant driver's hook restrains the rutting elephant. Be delightous in non-headlessness. Keep watch over your mind. Lift yourself clear of the difficult road of the mental defilements, as an elephant, sunk in a bog, holes himself out. Should you get a sensible companion, one who is fit company for you, and who behaves well, and is wise, they can go about with him joyous and mindful, overcoming all external and internal dangers? Should you not get a sensible companion, one who is fit company for you, who behaves well, and is wise, then go about alone like a king, forsaking a conquered country, or like an elephant, living solitary in the Matanga forest. It is better to go about alone. There is no companionship with the spiritually immature. Going about alone one commits no sins, like an elephant, living unconcerned in the Matanga forest. Okay, so this is the elephant, gives you a bit of an idea of what sort of creature he is, so four of these great creatures are bearing aloft the figure of Akshobia. So let's have a bit more info about Akshobia, and once again we'll just see what effect this information, these symbols have on you. Akshobia is the head of the Vajra, or thunderbolt, family, which contains a number of particular Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, who are associated with active, compassionate force. So we've got Vajrapani, Vajrasattva, Samvara, Haruka, a Vajra, and Bhairava. A lot of these are wrathful protectors. The element of Akshobia is not earth, as you would think, but water. And the reason it's water is, of course, water reflects images, like a mirror, particularly when it's very still. Yeah, the water reflects, just like those Lakeland lakes reflect of the reflection of the mountains. So this is said to represent Akshobia's mirror like wisdom, which is, well, an enlightened way of seeing. Mirrors reflect purely what is there. There's nothing added to it. If you hold up a red rose to a mirror, you have reflected a red rose. If you hold up a sword, you see a sword. If you hold up your face, you see your face reflected in the mirror. And this represents emotional clarity, clear thinking, and freedom from the grosser forms of wrong view. And of course, all this leads to great confidence. If you can see very clearly, well, it's easier to become more confident to have faith. So that's his element. His poison, he's associated with a particular poison, and that, of course, is aggression and hatred. Yeah, and he transforms aggression and hatred into destructiveness, that is destructiveness of obstacles and barriers to enlightenment. So aggression and hatred have got kind of energy in them, haven't they? Yeah, they're not skillful, but they've got energy. Well, he transforms that into destroying the obstacles, smashing the obstacles, which get in your way, which prevents you from gaining enlightenment. So he transforms those mental states. The scanner that he's associated with, the scanners, of course, which are the basic heaps, which our will consists of, form, feeling, perception, volition, and discriminating consciousness, will his scanner is Ruka? Yeah, which means form, not surprisingly. Also, in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Akshovia is said to be the Buddha that you meet on the second day of experiencing reality, when you're in the Bardo, when you've died, before you've moved on to your next life, you meet him, he's there. Yeah. And then, of course, there's Abi Ratty, which is Akshovia's realm. This is said to be an unthinkable vast distance away to the east. I was listening on the radio recently, they were talking about a planet, which they've discovered, which they think has got an atmosphere like the Earth's. It's been on the news, you've probably heard it. They said it's a mere 150 million light years away. So I sat down and I tried to just sort of try think about 150 million light years, and well, it was very challenging. 150 million light years. Well, Abi Ratty's further away than that. But when you get there, it is said to be an incredibly beautiful place. In the early centuries of the common era, a cult built up in Buddhism of Akshovia, and the cult of Akshovia said that Abi Ratty was actually really our own world. It was our own world as it ought to be, as it ought to be, not how it is, but as it ought to be. So I've got a little description here of Abi Ratty. It's from the Akshovia viewer Sutra. So here we go. This is what it's like. So around the Bodhi tree are rows of palm trees and jasmine trees, which in the gentle breeze give forth a harmonious and elegant sound surpassing all worldly music. Furthermore, that Buddha land does not have the three miserable plains of existence. All the sentient beings in that Buddha land have accomplished the ten good deeds. The ground is flat as a palm on the colour of gold, with no gullies, brambles, or gravel. It is as soft as cotton, sinking as soon as one's foot steps on it, and returning to its original state as soon as the foot is lifted. In Abi Ratty, there are no illnesses, no lying, no ugliness, or smelly things. There are no jails and no non-buddists. Trees are laden with flowers and fruit, and there are also trees which produce fragrant and beautiful garments. Food and drink appear as wished. There are also many gardens and pavilions, all pure and clean. The sentient beings there all live with joy in the Dharma. There is no jealousy, and women there are wonderfully beautiful. Furthermore, in that land, mother and child are safe and unsullied from conception to birth. How can this be? All this is due to the power of Tathagata Akshobia's original vows. In that Buddha land, there is such peace and bliss. There is neither trade nor trader, neither farms nor farming. There is happiness at all times, in that Buddha land. Singing and playing do not involve sexual desire. The sentient beings there derive their joy exclusively from the Dharma. Abi Ratty is a wonderful world of happiness, free from all danger, a world which is the exact opposite of our dirty polluted world, where people toil with little reward, but starvation and poverty, followed by a mean death. All these splendid things are the results of Akshobia's great vows and compassion. There is sun and moon in Abi Ratty, but they have no function, for they are completely eclipsed by the light of Akshobia. So this is this is Abi Ratty. This is what we can look forward to, and it's said that, well, one enters into Abi Ratty through following the Bodhisattva ideal, by dedicating oneself to making merit, but being unselfish with that merit, giving it away, like transferring the merit. Also, by visualising Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, that's a very good thing, that helps. And finally, by wishing to gain enlightenment in order to illumine the whole world. So if you do these four things, then there's a good chance that they're going to get to see Abi Ratty. So these descriptions and images of Abi Ratty are very beautiful, very mysterious, very rich, but what can we make of it all? What does it all mean? What relevance has Akshobia, what relevance has this Buddha and his Buddha field got for us? How can we practically relate to that in our own lives? Well, one answer, of course, is that we don't have to do anything at all. We just open ourselves to Akshobia's influence. We meditate on him, we look at pictures, we hear descriptions, we contemplate the symbols, we chant the mantras, we look at the gestures, the tankos, and we let them do their work. We just let Akshobia positively affect us, and there's nothing wrong with this. We can do this. We can come on a retreat dedicated to the mandala of the five Buddhas. That's a very good thing we can do. But we also be a bit more active than that. We can reflect on or explore aspects of Akshobia for ourselves and make them more relevant to our own lives. So I'm going to do that now. So I'm going to reflect on just one main feature of Akshobia, and that'll be the rest of the talk. There are so many dimensions to Akshobia, and as there is with all the Buddhas, that well, actually I haven't got time to go into the more. In fact, I think you'd need a whole two-week retreat on Akshobia alone. So I'm going to limit myself to an incident called the calling the earth goddess to witness. This relates to Akshobia's mudra of touching the earth. Yeah, if you look at the depictions of Akshobia, it's very lightly touching the earth in front of him. And other Buddhas do this as well. This is called the Bhumi spasa mudra, the earth touching mudra. What does it mean? What's it all about? Well, to understand this, we have to go back to an incident in the life of the Buddha of this dispensation, Shakimuni, and the incident called calling the earth goddess to witness. Now, this might have been a literal story. We don't know. It's probably metaphoric. We don't really know. You can take it how you like. But there he is. There's the Buddha to be. Siddhartha sat under the Bodhi tree, making tremendous efforts. He sat in the Vajrasana, the diamond seat. Yeah, we're all past Buddhas have gained enlightenment, and he's meditating there. He wants to gain enlightenment. An op-ops-mara, the evil one. Yeah, up he pops, and he approaches the Buddha, and he sees he's making tremendous effort, so he tries to challenge him and put him off. So he throws his hordes at Shakimuni. Yeah, as Siddhartha, I should say, his powerful hordes that try and destroy him with weapons, try and kill him, demonic beings, to terrify him, and his sensuous daughters to seduce him, but it all fails. As all these things enter the aura of the Buddha, they become flower petals. Yeah, they turn into flower petals in his aura. So Mara's not put off by this. He tries something a bit sneakier. He then tries to question the Buddha, and he's questioning his right to sit in the Vajrasana. You know, what right of you to sit there in the Vajrasana, where the Buddhas of old have gained enlightenment? Who are you to sit there like that? What right have you got? This is what he's asking, which I think if it happened to us, we're definitely putting us off. Well, Siddhartha replies, well, I've practiced generosity, ethical discipline, and other spiritual practices for aeons, and I've earned my light to sit here. Mara says, well, you say that, but who saw you? Who saw you do that? Yeah, where's your witness? I want to know. You know, he's not satisfied. So the Buddha doesn't say anything. He just touches the earth very lightly and gently, but firmly with his right hand and up pops the beautiful earth goddess, earth brown in color. She rises up and then states to Mara, well, I will be his witness. I've seen him purifying himself aeons through his spiritual practice. So that sees off Mara. Yeah, Mara can't deal with that, and the Buddha is able to go on and gain enlightenment. The Buddha's laid out his spiritual credentials. He's revealing his spiritual efforts, and he asserts his right to be sat at the Vajrasana. And these efforts are witnessed and backed up by the earth goddess who saw him do it all. So this is the Buddha revealing his complete spiritual confidence in himself and his practice, and this, of course, is embodied also in the figure of Akshoga. And I think this has got very direct relevance to us here now. So in what way does it relate to us? Well, I think it's the whole area of having confidence in our own spiritual practice for us, for ourselves, basing our own confidence in the efficacy of the spiritual practices that we're engaging with. So what am I talking about? I'm talking about meditation. I'm talking about spiritual friendship. I'm talking about Dharma study. I'm talking about the practice of the precepts. Basic Buddhism, you could say. I'm also talking about the law of karma, the law of karma. So this is quite basic stuff, but I think it's worth looking at basic practices again and again. So the law of karma quite simply states, well, that actions have consequences and skillful actions based on mental states such as love, wisdom, tranquility, compassion result in pleasant, happy, future experiences. Unskillful actions based on mental states such as craving, hatred, ignorance, will they tend to lead to unhappiness, unsatisfactoriness, and suffering. The five ethical precepts that all Buddhists take are based on this law. Buddhists are encouraged to act skillfully in body, speech, and mind and to move away from unskillful actions. So if you want to have a happy life, then act skillfully, the ethical and upright in your conduct, and eventually it will happen. So verse one of the Dharma power that tells us, if one speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows even as the cartwheel follows the hoof of the ox drawing the cart. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never departs. So if you meditate, you practice the five precepts, you study the generous and patient and practice spiritual friendship, then there will be benefits for you and for others. So how is that then? How does that happen? Why does that happen? We accept this, we take this, this might be our own experience, but how does it actually work? How is it that a cause such as a skillful volition based on, say, generosity can bring about a pleasant effect in the future? What links them over time? Well, it's a very good question. And it was a question that was asked by a particular school of Buddhism hundreds of years ago of the Yoga Charian school. They asked this question, how does this happen? And the answer they came up with after a lot of meditation and reflection was the teaching of the eight vignanas. They loved exploring the mind in meditation and the yoga charons concluded that all actions and mental states leave a trace at a very deep level of the mind, just like seeds, just like seeds. And these seeds will come to fruition when conditions are right. So none of our thoughts or actions are ever lost. They're all preserved at a deep level of consciousness called the relative alia. Alia, by the way, means storehouse or granary. So it's worth thinking about this. Everything we ever do or ever say is stored up in a storehouse somewhere in our consciousness. And when conditions are right, that's going to bear fruit at some point, positive fruit or negative fruit. And we can really rely on this. This is really how things are. So if we act skillfully, then it's going to have a skillful fruit. It's going to bear a skillful fruit for ourselves and for others. Personally, I didn't used to think like this back in the old days of the sleep quarries. I used to tell fibs and untruths. I used to become intoxicated with alcohol. I steal tools and materials from my workplace. Everybody seemed to do it. It seemed to be all right. It didn't seem to be any problem as long as no one ever caught you. And I didn't think that any harm would ever come with those things as long as nobody caught me. But when I first came along to Padma Loca in 1983 or my first retreat 18 years ago, I noticed quite quickly on a learned meditation that I had actually quite a low self-esteem. My sense of myself was quite poor. And I'm now convinced this was as a result of some of my unethical actions in the past. I don't feel like this now about myself. But back then, it was different. But I have come across the Dharma. We've come across the Dharma. So presumably, we must have acted skillfully at some point in the past. So there's a strong connection here between ethics and confidence. Akshovia is unshakably confident. The Buddha was unshakably confident in his spiritual attainments based on his skillful actions. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind. So the Buddha wasn't shaken by Mara's questioning and challenging. He didn't doubt himself. He was able to point to his practice, his aeons of skillful ethical action. He'd earned his right to the seat of enlightenment. So he really knew. Akshovia really knows. And as a result, he's able to be unshakable, imperturbable, and immovable in that knowing. And I think this is very relevant to us because confidence, you could say, is such an issue for so many of us today. Confidence is such an issue. Perhaps it always has been. You could say that to live is to doubt. There are so many issues, so many issues today, things that we don't trust. We have doubts about all sorts of things. We have doubts about our society and its progress. We doubt our leaders and politicians. We don't trust them. We have doubts about our culture and its value. We have doubts about the economy and its long-term stability. We may have doubts about technology. Is it really the answer? We have doubts about other religions and what they believe in. We have doubts about our work and its value, our family. Do they really care about us? Our health. Is it going to hold up? And we have doubts about medicine, particularly alternative medicine. We might have doubts about ourselves and our own abilities and our own integrity. The world is a crazy, deceptive and dangerous place. We could be robbed or killed, we could be exploited, deceived or taken for a ride. We may fail to find the truth and gain the taste of freedom. Also, we might have big doubts about ourselves, about our own integrity, even our own sanity and those around us. You might be having doubts about me. You might think I'm a nutter. So, what can we trust? Who can we trust? It's a very uncertain world. Mankind, traditionally, mankind has tended to rely on three things. He's relied on God the Father, the group and material possessions and status. These are three things that he's traditionally relied on. More recently, he's relied on gurus and science and technology. Well, let's have a look at God. Well, ever since Friedrich Neutscher pronounced that God was dead, we've been living in a more secular world increasingly. People tend to see the idea these days of a creator God looking after us and controlling things as being simply ridiculous. Yet we don't trust it. Most people don't go to church anymore. We find it increasingly difficult to believe in him. And then, of course, there's the group, the institutions of our culture, which we're obliged to conform to. There's the company and firm. There's the society or trade union. There might even be the football team. There's love and romance, marriage and family, happy ever after, if you're lucky. Many people just don't buy that anymore. It may bring us security and happiness if we're lucky. It may go horribly wrong. And then, of course, there's material wealth, money and status. And it seems that, well, consumerism these days is the dominant religion. It's what most people seem to be interested in these days. They want to win the national lottery. They want to win 12 million. They want to buy the house of their fantasies and then they'll really be all right. So this is the view. Either that or we work hard, we build up money in possessions and then we'll be all right. But once again, a lot of people, a lot of people don't have confidence in this anymore. We feel that, well, we don't have confidence that we will actually make any money in the first place. And if we do make money, well, perhaps it won't make us happy. So what are we to do? What are we to do with these things? If we can't really trust these things, can't have confidence in them? What are we to do? Well, it seems to me that we need a mountain. We need some bedrock, something on which to really build, something that is unshakable, true, and very definitely there. We need the truth. We need the three jewels. We need ethics and the law of karma. We need confidence in our own spiritual practice, something that we can really rely on. And this mountain of confidence is symbolized, embodied in the figure of act Shoggia and this particular gesture. So this is what we have to do. We have to touch the earth ourselves of our own confidence. We have to become confident in the fact that spiritual practice does work. If we practice the precepts, if we study the Dharma, we go on retreat, we act generously, we act patiently, we develop friendship, then, well, we can become confident ourselves. We can build a bedrock in our own spiritual lives, something that we can really have faith in. So this unshakable confidence is represented in the figure of act Shoggia Buddha. It represents the strength and stability, the security that is offered by the Dharma and by spiritual practice. There's much more to act Shoggia than that. There's his mirror-like wisdom, there's his badra, there's his mysterious color, etc, etc. But there's no time. Yeah, you'll have to explore these symbols and qualities for yourself. So I'd like to end the talk with a description of act Shoggia's appearance in the Bardo. So you're in the Bardo, yeah? You've died. It's going to happen. You've died. And there are a number of choices presenting themselves to you. Some of these are wise choices and some are unwise. So when you see act Shoggia, then go for him. That's definitely a wise choice. That's one in which you can be confident. So here we go. At that moment, do not be afraid of the sharp, brilliant luminous and clear white light, but recognize it as wisdom. Be drawn to it with faith and longing and supplicate it thinking, it is the light ray of blessed act Shoggia's compassion. I take refuge in it. It is blessed act Shoggia coming to invite you in the terrors of the Bardo. It is the light ray hook of act Shoggia's compassion, so feel longing for it. Do not take pleasure in the soft, smoky light of the Hellbeens. This is the inviting path of your neurotic fails, accumulated by violent aggression. If you are attracted to it, you will fall down into Hell and sink into the muddy swamp of unbearable suffering from which there's never any escape. It is an obstacle blocking the path of liberation, so do not look at it, but give up aggression. Do not be attracted to it. Do not yearn for it. Feel longing for the luminous, brilliant white light, and say this inspiration prayer with intense concentration on blessed act Shoggia. When through intense aggression, I wander in Sengsara, on the luminous light path of the mirror like wisdom, may blessed act Shoggia go before me. His consort buddha loachina behind me help me to cross the Bardo's dangerous pathway and bring me to the perfect buddha state. By saying this inspiration prayer with deep devotion, you will dissolve into rainbow light in the heart of blessed Vadra, Satva, Akshoggia, and become a sambho kakaya buddha in the eastern realm of complete joy.
