Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte,, and#8220;A Creative Responseand#8221; comes to us from the comprehensive and thought-provoking series of talks on the Tibetan text: and#8216;Eight Verses for Training the Mindand#8217; by Kadampa Geshe Langri Tangpa.
This excerpt is from fourth and final talk in the series.
and#8220;In brief, directly or indirectly, May I give all help and joy to my mothers, And may I take all their harm and pain Secretly upon myself.and#8221; and#8220;May none of this ever be sullied By thoughts of the eight worldly concerns. May I see all things as illusions And, without attachment, gain freedom from bondage.and#8221;
Talk given as part of a series, and#8216;Eight Verses for Training the Mindand#8217;, at Madhyamaloka, Birmingham, 2004
[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] So you need to find some sort of creative response. And what the text or what the practice talks of is allowing that suffering in, so to speak. And allowing it, almost you might say, to ignite your heart so that you feel very deeply that the only resolution, the only final resolution to this suffering is transcendence. Is, well, not to put too fine a point upon it, enlightenment itself. That the only resolution to suffering is in the transcendence of the dichotomy within our consciousness, which leads us to suffer. Now, you know, I've said the words, so it's in a way a bit theoretical. But what you're trying to do in the practice is make that a real experience. You see that the only solution to the sufferings that the world is heir to is a realization of the non-dual reality. Transcending the ego identity, which creates the conditions within which suffering takes place. So you see the only real resolution is in going beyond yourself. And, well, that's the resolution for you. It's the resolution for others. So if you really allow the suffering into your heart, and as I've put it, it ignites your heart, it stirs you to more vigorous efforts at self-transcendence, at going beyond yourself, and more vigorous efforts to help others to do so too. Doesn't exclude, of course, actually helping in a material sense. But the material help in itself is not an answer. That's part of one of the problems, I think, of opening yourself up to the sufferings of the world. They're infinite, and however much you help, you can't solve everything. And one needs to recognize that the resolution is on a higher level. There are two dimensions to that. It's on a higher level in the sense that you need to go onto a higher level, and you need to help others to go onto a higher level. But you also need to recognize that in so far as you have to go onto a higher level, what answers the problem is something that's beyond yourself. So you open yourself to an influence, to a force, if you like, that is more than just yourself. Because it's only that that can really resolve things. So you align yourself with the momentum in reality that is working for the benefit of all. You can't, as an individual human being, help all the suffering that there is. So when the texts say, "Well, may I give all help to all my mothers, well, you can't." But if you align yourself with a force that transcends you, you can. So this igniting of your heart is both igniting of your heart in the sense of a determination to practice the dharma more fully and deeply, and a resolution to communicate it more effectively. It's also a recognition that something else needs to come into play, something that's more than you as an individual. Not that it's, as it were, as I put it, a mundane other. It's a transcendental other that needs to come into play that's beyond the subject, object distinction, that's beyond your ordinary conception of yourself, beyond your ordinary conception of something other, but that you open yourself up to that higher influence. So this is what the practice consists in. It consists in opening yourself up to the real state of things, which is that along with all the happiness and joy, there's a great deal of suffering, which is inherent in the whole business of duality. Duality is inherently unsatisfactory. And you open yourself up to that and thereby spur yourself to greater spiritual efforts and to greater efforts to assist others. And, which opens you up to the transcendental force that is the only real answer. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
