Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte is lovely excerpt from the talk titled and#8220;Contemplating the Suffering of Beingsand#8221; by Kulaprabha, titled and#8220;Robins, Despair, Earthquakes andamp; Other People.and#8221;
This is the third of four talks exploring Vasubandhuand#8217;s Four Factors given on a meditation retreat for women who have asked for ordination. In his treatise Generating Bodhi Resolve, Vasubandhu describes them as able to generate the resolve to cultivate and accumulate the bases for the Arising of the Bodhicitta. You can find out more about them in Sangharakshitaand#8217;s books The Meaning of Conversion in Buddhism and The Bodhisattva Ideal .
Taraloka, February, 2010.
[music] Dharma Bites 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] So this morning, we come to the factor of Azerbaijan's, which tentacles are contemplating the suffering of beings. In the text that translation that we're using, it's just referred to as "kindness and pity" or "kindness and compassion" for beings. On the basis of which the bodhires of mate might perhaps be generated. I've got some Buddhist leaders, quite a lot of Buddhist leaders outside my room, and sit with a cup of tea and look at them. I noticed there's one little robin comes, because a few robins come, but there's one, and he tries to grasp onto the perches where the sunflower seeds are. But he mostly falls off, and he kind of flutters away before he's managed to get one of the seeds. But he's okay on the tree where I put out other things, like fat balls and stuff. When I look at him more closely, I see that one of his feet is misshapen. It's turned backwards, actually, as an accident. And he can sort of lean on it, but he can't hold on with it. So he comes and he flutters around where the other birds just land there. They do a kind of jet-propelled landing, come in, go off again with umpteen bits of this. And he can't do it. He seems to do all key, actually, he looks fine. But he can't do that, and it's just quite poignant when you just see the way that he tries, but he just can't, and he just flutters. So, you know, of course, his wings rescue him, but he flutters around, and he can't quite get access to it. And so that was one thing that was being in my mind thinking about what might see for this factor of kindness and compassion. I was out about in the car, in the court, the other day, and there's headlines in a local, um, newspaper about where the police got caught, a telephone call saying that two people had been shot and were in such and such a bungalow, and they went, and it was a mother and an 18-year-old daughter. A nice-looking bungalow garden, cars in the drive from good neighbours. It was actually the husband who had shot them, left the message for the police, and then gone off elsewhere and shot himself. And as yet, well, last time I saw a paper, no one knew why, that the neighbours were just shocked and mystified, and they said, well, by everything, it just seemed like normal. Everything clearly wasn't normal. It was hidden. Um, and, you know, with what was going on in Haiti, just now, you know, Port-au-Prince, and a few minutes, devastation, and 150,000 people killed. Survivors left with almost nothing materially, and maybe even worse than that, just coping with, you know, family and friends who were killed, and they're left without them. So there's sorts of things that were coming to mind as I was thinking about. So although actually also some sort of more at home or closer in sort of other kinds of suffering, like, you know, two people, two people, I know two people who can make, they like each other, and last week they just upset each other badly. Words were spoken with one intent, but how does something quite hurtful? And vice versa. So I think it's that you can think of examples of that sort of thing, but it's such a pity when it happens. Or, you know, someone you appreciate, and you think, and you've, well, not just you think you've developed a bond, but you have developed a bond with, and a friendship, and, I don't know, something goes wrong, they let you down. And maybe sometimes people turn against you, or they seem to withdraw their regard, or their love, or respect, and that's really painful. So there's all sorts of ways in which being suffering, physically, injury, hunger. Sometimes it's sort of a long drawn out, sometimes sudden and overwhelming. Sometimes, you know, it's an act of nature, I'd say. Sometimes it's deliberately inflicted. Then there's emotional, mental suffering, where they just seem no way out, you know. In the Schruzburg case, no way out, except to die, and to take people that you love with you. Or mental, emotional suffering, well, we fall into despondency, or we just rage against things, or we lay blame, we want retaliation, or scores settled. I'm sure we've all done it, and I'm sure we see it happening around us. Yeah, more individually based situations, and we bump into other personalities of doing, or ways of doing things. Misunderstandings arise, our own patterns, our own views are asked for flexibility, but that feels threatening. We're just downright wrong and unjustified. So, those are sort of things that maybe, you know, could come to mind when we start thinking about contemplating the suffering of beings, including ourselves. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community, and thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]
