Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;Living The Buddhist Life: Upping the Ante,and#8221; is an excerpt from a conversation between Maitreyabandhu and Subhadramati as part of an evening entitled and#8216;The Dakini of Friendshipand#8217; which took place during the LBCand#8217;s Urban Retreat in 2010.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
Living The Buddhist Life: Upping the Ante
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. So what do you mean by up in the ante? Has that been anything like that for you? Because you're more optimistic than I am, Jenny. [laughter] So if I was actually a pebble octopus, then I'd have a pebble to keep. [laughter] We should have dressed in the other covers, shouldn't we? We're dressing against height. Oh, well, I was just thinking about... I was just thinking about valuable, that is, I guess. I was thinking that that's another way I could describe my own spiritual life as continually trying to look for situations that up the ante. Because I suppose because actions always have consequences, don't they? That is, if we do act in a way that comes from Gritator and delusion, that will cause harm to all the people and ourselves. If we act from love and generosity and wisdom, that will be hurt for ourselves and other people. That's always true. But we don't always notice it. And I think if we deliberately put ourselves in situations where that will become more magnified, then... To me, I find that really helpful, although absolutely excruciating. But I do find it helpful in trying to get that message drawn into my being. I remember one of the previous chairs of the centre here, he's named around Negosa. One thing I've struggled a lot with is anger and irritation, which seems to have got worse since I stopped looking a bit. [laughter] I was so blind, you should have had such a nice pocket look for us. [laughter] And ever since I started meditating and so on, you know, your day has seemed to open the floodgates to all the positive things as well. But certainly, a lot of anger and irritation. I became quite just Spain and all of its times. And I remember talking to this previous chairman, Ratmogotian, I said, "Well, do you ever get angry?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Gosh." And he said, "I can't get angry." He said, "I'm the chair of the centre." He said, "If I lost my temper with somebody, that wouldn't be just a sort of ordinary person." No, he wasn't setting himself up as special. He was more than, "That would have a big effect." Because then the chair of the centre was, you know, that would really be very harmful to someone. Yeah. And I thought, I remember things about, "Ah, that's spiritual maturity." Well, even human maturity, to realise the effects of one's actions. And I think that's, well, that's a quest for me to, if only I could realise the effect of my actions more. I was listening to a talk the other day when the speaker was saying that we need to realise the effects of our actions, believe in them as much as we believe in the law of gravity. So he would say, "Well, just as, you know, we don't even need to think about it. If we push some tea, the tea will go down the way, all and fly off the way." We just know that in our bones, you know, if we, you know, if I sort of stared off here, you know, I'd fall over, you know, you'd go down, you wouldn't fly up. But, you know, you don't even need to think about that. Similarly, that sort of law, the actions, well, of consequences, and actions based on positive intentions, well, of positive consequences, and those based on negative intentions, well, negative consequences, that needs to be as deeply embedded in us as a thought. You know, I'd love that, you know, because then, well, you know, it's a horrible feeling that, isn't it? When you know you've caused somebody harm and so on. So, and I think that it's helped me to up the ante, you know, maybe to take possessions and more responses. You know, to be sitting up here, you know, when I said to take it more seriously, like you said, to take my own actions more seriously. So, I guess that's what, that's what I've, I would say that has been the way I've kind of worked on myself quite a lot. You've worked in teams, like I was thinking, you spent years at the charity. So, one of the things you've done is not just meditate and study and so on, when you've actually worked very hard in a cafe, in a vegetarian cafe next door, for years and years, we know what, why? Well, I think the same thing. For no money, you know. For no money, yeah. Well, again, that was something that, um, unfolded. So, I first went to work on this cafe kind of over saying, sort of, just wanted to help out. But when I first started to fall into it, I thought, well, I've gained a lot from the centre. I want to give a hand on this coffee. That was an initial thing. And then I realised quite quickly. I remember this really lovely feeling of it. And I did manage to articulate this from myself even at the time. I thought, ah, the people, it was a team of women, all, all practice, like Buddhas. And I thought, oh, do you believe in me more than I believe in myself? And just this lovely feeling of support on people seeing that there's more to you. So that was the beginning and that was why I was still nice and quiet and special. Then as I graduated, I got more involved and began to be more responsible in the rest. Um, then other things came to me for, like, for example, I realised that I was much more irritable. I used to get so annoyed, I'd have some to cut the cake and all the amount of pieces. Or I don't think they were serving the customers properly. I'd get so agitated and annoyed. And then, you know, you'd, I suppose, whenever in life you do that, you see the consequences. But I think the thing about working in a team of people who are also sharing those values and trying to work explicitly, trying to work on their minds and their states and minds with you, it's just really, really supportive. You know, not always easy. Like, sometimes people used to think, oh, Buddhas are working together. But, you know, we'd have quite fiery times. But at the same time, it would be, it would be supportive in the sense that people were, well, that is better, genuinely trying to help. We were all genuinely trying to help each other transcend ourselves, actually. And go be under a sort of limited, limited and limiting habits. Um, and I feel like I learned, I definitely developed. I'd say definitely far more through that practice of working in a team. I did that for 10 years. And then, I moved to Ireland and I worked in a shop which was run again by a team of Buddhas women for another six or seven years. So, quite a long time of working and quite intensely with other people. Also working intensive. And I definitely think that that had more of an impact on me. Even the meditation, although I was meditating all that time. And at the same time, I was also living with other Buddhas as well. And for quite a bit of the time, I was living and working with the same people. So, the team that ran the restaurant, we all lived in a Buddhist community together. So, that was very intense. And, but also very joyful, actually. We really built up a lot of trust and solidarity with us. And it's interesting because even though we also, you know, we fought like cat and dog, you know, I remember having some real run-ins with those people. Because we care so much about the project and it was, it sort of drew out, you know, all these passions. But even though I had real kind of head-on collisions with those people some of the time. When I think of them now, they're the first people I would choose, you know, if I had to work on a project again or so on. I chose them straight away. Like, I feel like the bones were very strong, you know, which again, I imagine other people might experience in other intensive working situations. But I think I have looked for intense situations as the ones that are the most growthful, intense. They connect with other people. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donnie. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]