Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte and#8220;I Bow Down To Compassionand#8221; is a preview to next Saturdayand#8217;s FBA Podcast and#8220;Compassionate Koans and#8211; The Heart of the Matter,and#8221; containing an excellent, personal set of reflections by Vijayamala on the relationship between our longing and our pain.
Talk given at the Western Buddhist Order Womenand#8217;s Convention, 2005
[music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. [music] First conceiving of an eye, we cling to an ego. Then conceiving of a mind, we cling to the material world. Like water in a water wheel, helplessly we circle. I bow down to the compassion that arises for all beings. [music] So here we have a description of the human condition in all its glory. Here we have laid bare the conceit of self and world, the bringing into being of ourselves, and the whole wondrous complex world that that creates. And we have the entrapment of that creativity, the endless circling. But just as all of this seemingly arises, out of a seeming nowhere, so does the compassionate urge, the sensitive resonance. It is also part of our humanity and the very essence of reality. So we have two wondrous, amazing, deeply mysterious phenomena. Firstly, there's the constant creativity, constant appearance of phenomena, coming into being, constant, interpenetrative flow. Then secondly, there's the sensitivity, the feeling response. And these are both present in every moment of existence. They characterize the whole of humanity, Sanghsara and Nirvana. You can't really separate them. But just as we don't normally recognize our everyday lives, the environment and interactions that we are engaged in as conceit, and dependently arisen mere appearance, we don't also normally recognize our feeling responses as compassion. In fact, our world view, even our normal, so-called Buddhist world view, is that many of our feelings and desires are almost the complete opposite of compassion. But this is not the only way to look at it. Recently I've been exposed to quite a different approach, that of the Mahamudra. This approach asserts that compassion is inherent in the nature of mind. But all our feelings and desires are expressions of that. Now I've found trying to put this approach into practice, encouraging and exciting, but also quite a challenge. So I have to say that when Dainandi asked me to talk about my responses to the second two lines, my heart sank a bit with the impossibility of doing justice to the task. Although I don't begin to understand the profound mystery of our conceits and fabrications, as described in the first two lines of the verse, I'm at least used to the idea that there's a mystery there to be penetrated. But the mystery of compassion, its power, its omnipresence, how it can be present in every moment, even those of boredom, fear or blankness, completely flaws me. And yet we are told that this is the nature of reality. And somehow that resonates too. So I feel like I'm standing on the threshold of something of deep significance, but it's so profound and revolutionary that I just want to get right out of here. So that's why I've crawled this compassionate co-ends. I suppose it's my way of reverenting or even bowing down to the mystery of it all. And the second part of the title, the heart of the matter. Well, quite simply it's just because on some level I know that's what it is, the heart of the matter. So thank you very much. Where are you, Dainandi, in advance for giving me a reason to stay with this, to stay in here, through all the discomfort and struggle. And we'll just see what happens. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]
