(upbeat music) - This podcast 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. - It's a big pleasure for me to be here. I've got a connection with the Birmingham Buddhist Centre and quite a small connection, but significant for me. I used to live in Milton Keynes many years ago, and there's no centre there. So I used to travel down to the North London Centre mostly, but I also used to travel to Cambridge and to Birmingham, because those were my three nearest centres. So I do remember coming to the centre in Salisbury Road all those years ago. So who'd have thought to be up here now? - So I believe you're spending the year on this particular theme of ceasing to do evil, learning to do good and purifying the heart, which is a pretty good way to spend the year really. And you've finished a block on the precepts, and this is the first evening, looking at transforming the poisons into the wisdoms. And we're using a particular representation, a particular symbol to, as a framework for this, which is the symbol of the mandala of the five butters. Now that's a big, juicy symbol, and I can't possibly hope to do anything by way of introducing it very effectively, as well as talking about at Shobia. But I'll just say a few little pithy things I hope. So the mandala of the five butters is a way of conceiving of the awakened mind. It's a symbol that tries to visualize the many different facets of the awakened mind through five butters figures arranged in a kind of Maltese cross, if you like. If we could hang ourselves up there and look down, you'd see it a bit more clearly. But what we have on the corner here is at Shobia, who I'll be talking about tonight, the blue Buddha. And then in that corner, we have Ratna Samba-va. And then behind me or behind the Buddha over there, well, in fact, this Buddha as well, is Anita-ba. And then here we have Ratna Samba-va. And kind of in the center of the mandala, who could be sitting up there, is Varachana. And each of these figures embodies, amongst many other things, a particular wisdom. So it's a way of conceiving the wisdom mind of the Buddha through five different facets. And curiously, each of these figures also is associated with a particular poison. To use a language of poison or affliction, is the language I prefer. So you're probably all familiar with the three poisons, the three afflictions of greed, hatred and delusion. So this just throws in an extra couple for good measure. We've got pride associated with Ratna Samba-va and envy associated with the Mogher City. So we still have greed, hatred and delusion, plus pride and envy. So there's something interesting about this relationship between the wisdoms and the poisons. So we're talking about transforming the poisons into the wisdoms. There's different ways of conceiving of this. The way I'll talk about it is from the Tantric tradition, which is where we see, we conceive of the human being as in a way already having a kind of Buddha nature. It already has a kind of awakened nature, which has gotten distorted through the process of delusion, through the process of ego clinging, of believing in ourselves as a separate entity. And when that happens, what happens to the wisdom is it gets distorted into a poison. So I won't talk about all the other five, but I'll mention how this happens with Xhobia. So first of all, I'll talk about Xhobia, this is how you talk about it, how you talk about it. I'll mention how Xhobia embodies a particular wisdom and then try and connect that to the poison. So the particular wisdom of Xhobia, he is associated with water. And if you imagine a perfectly still day and a perfectly still lake, for some reason, the image of the lake outside of Dharmakosha comes to my mind, for those of you who've been there, beautiful long loch in Scotland with mountains on the other side. If you can imagine a still lake surface surrounded by mountains and trees, then you go to perfect reflection. And the wisdom of Xhobia is called the mirror-like wisdom. And this mirror-like in a few different ways, I'll just mention a couple of different ways in which it's like a mirror. So a mirror, or at least a plain, perfectly flat mirror, it reflects whatever falls without any kind of distortion. It just reflects it as it is. It's just a completely objective image that's formed from the mirror. And that's what the mirror-like wisdom of Xhobia is like. It's just things as they are. It's just the situation in front of Xhobia, in front of the Xhobia mind. It's just exactly how things are. It's not distorted. Which links in with the other quality of the mirror-like wisdom, mirrors when they reflect an image. They don't pick and choose. They don't like this bit of the image and dislike that bit of the image. They're just completely impartial. So the mirror-like wisdom of Xhobia is impartial. It's equanimous. It's objective. And you'll notice that his color is this dark, blue color, it's if you like the color of the sky at the very beginning of dawn, just as it goes from black through to the first hints of blue. Well, even I think it's that color that you sometimes see taken from high-altitude aircraft, the color of the sky when it's sort of almost, but not quite out of the atmosphere. So it's quite a cool color. So Xhobia is in a way, feels like quite a cool image. His quality feels quite cool because it's very equanimous. It's not sort of biased. But we mustn't let that make us think that this quality of wisdom is cool or disengaged. I think that's the danger of this, of looking to in terms of this color. And that's why all the other images, all the other symbols of the five bridges are important because there's lots of warmer colors there too. And they all together form the wisdom of the Buddha mind. So, okay, we've got Xhobia with his mirror-like wisdom, which is objective and impartial. There's an old Chan text, Chinese Buddhist text, that begins, "The great way is not hard if only you don't pick and choose." And the whole is quite a long text. The great way is not hard if you don't pick and choose. So that's talking something about this mirror-like wisdom, I think. If only we could give up the whole fight with life in terms of picking and choosing, wanting this, not wanting that. It suddenly becomes a lot easier. But the thing is, we can't short-circuit to that. We can't just, well, it's not a good idea just to block our emotions and their wishes and wants. We have to find a deeper way towards that kind of place. So, I'll now mention his poison. So it might seem strange that Buddha figures are associated with poisons, but as I say, what happens when the wisdom becomes distorted through ego clinging through selfish grasping? It gets distorted into a certain flavor, a certain kind of poison, a certain kind of affliction. And in the case of extrovia, that is hatred or anger or aversion. And I think there's a few different ways we can understand this process. So one thing to know about extrovia is, and I'm just looking for, I don't have one, is he holds, so his right hand is touching the earth and his left hand holds a Vajra. So the Vajra is a symbol of great energy, of great power. It's equivalent to Thors thunderbolt, Thors hammer, sorry, Thors hammer. It's called the diamond thunderbolt. And so it embodies all the energy of a thunderbolt and all the clarity and cutting power of a diamond. And this clarity and cutting power is used to cut through delusion. It's used to cut through obstacles. It's used to cut through suffering, the suffering of beings. So it's a potent symbol. But if it's said that people who are given more to this quality of wisdom, so it's as if individuals kind of manifest more of, or associated, or affiliated more with one of these Buddha figures than another. We're said to sort of belong to one of these families. So my name is Vajra Priya, and as soon as Singamati gave me this list of Buddha figures that we could talk about, I said, I'll go for extrovia, because I kind of associate myself. I feel myself to be associated with the Vajra family that Shobha is the head of, is the head of the Vajra family. So if one is a Vajra kind of person and has a greater affinity with the Muralak wisdom with the Vajra, then with the inevitable distortions of ego clinging, what tends to happen is that Vajra tends to get used in the wrong way. That energy gets directed in the wrong way. It gets directed not to obstacles and to delusion. It gets directed to people, more often than not. When people seem to obstruct, then the energy comes out towards them. Another way of looking at it is that when we take ownership of this Muralak wisdom, we believe this Muralak wisdom is our own. We take ownership of it, we identify with it, we think that we are really objective. We really think we know what's right and what's best and what's, you know, what they're doing, we know what they're doing wrong. And as soon as one takes possession of the Muralak wisdom, you have already cracked the mirror, you've distorted the mirror. You're no longer objective. We're distorting the situation and we've got a partial view of the situation. The mirror is broken into pieces. So this, again, comes out as anger, comes out as hatred. And in particular, any sort of flavour of a dukkha, which comes up in one's experience, tends to immediately trigger a version of hatred and anger. So this is what tends to happen to us poor, vadra people. So the question is, what do we do about that? So I was asked to talk quite personally about how I work in my own practice on this one. So this may not work for everyone. But anyway, I'll say what I tend to do and see if it works for you. So one thing which I find important to recognise is that every moment of a version, every moment of hatred, every moment of anger is conditioned by suffering, is conditioned by dukkha. And it's easy for me to miss that. It's easy for me just to go straight to a version, something unpleasant is happening and to go straight to a version. I don't like this, it shouldn't be happening, I've got it wrong, whatever it is. So the first thing for me to do, when I notice myself in a version of hatred and anger, is to try to reconnect to this very basic experience of dukkha, of suffering. However it's happening. So if you have come across the wheel of life, the links on the outside, the wheel of life, this is trying to find that gap between vadra, between feeling and craving, or in this case it's opposite of a version, which trying to recognise the raw existential level of unpleasantness that's happening. And one thing that I find very helpful for this, quite apart from remembering, which is the hardest but remembering to look, if I can actually remember to do that, then I breathe it in, a nerve come across a practice called tonglen, where you breathe in the difficulty, you breathe in the pain. And this is simply trying to go in the completely opposite direction to the usual direction of pushing it away. The usual response to dukkha, to suffering, push it away, blame someone else, blame myself for you, it's still pushing it away. It's not recognising the simple existential reality. This moment is unpleasant or painful or whatever. So I breathe it in. And yeah, just to have that perspective, that this is conditioned by dukkha, this experience is conditioned by suffering. So a little example here. So I'm quite familiar with techie stuff. I'm quite patient with techie stuff in a funny kind of way. I've got a general kind of belief that one way or another, if I persist long enough, I'll make it work somehow or other. And I quite often help a friend who's not very good with techie stuff. And they get very impatient. And when I'm with them, I get very impatient with them. It's funny really because, you know, here I am, I'm patient with a machine, but I'm not patient with a computer. It's not funny, it's tragic, there we go. So my practice there is rather than getting aversive to their aversion and their impatience. It's just to breathe in my own tension. And their frustration, it's recollecting that this anger of theirs is their frustration. And their suffering, and they find this really difficult. And if I can just connect to that, then suddenly the whole situation becomes easier. Emotionally easier, if not technically easier, it becomes emotionally easier for both of us, rather than me getting impatient with them and then getting impatient with a computer. Breathe in. So that's the first thing, recognize all suffering is conditioned by, sorry, recognize all aversion is conditioned by suffering. And I'm just saying that, I suggest you go and see is that true. The second thing comes back to what I'm saying about the broken mirror, the distorting mirror. So certainly when I fall into the kind of hatred of anger which is conditioned by a judgment of someone, it's to recognize that judgment. What is the story in my head that I'm believing? So this is what I was trying to do in the fourth stage of the metaphor earlier. Recognize those labels that I'm sticking on this person. They're lazy. They're bossy. Whatever it is, recognize those labels. Recognize the value that I've got in this particular instance. I want people to be efficient and well-organized and whatever it is. They should be, you know, look out friendly, they should be efficient and well-organized. They should be able to understand this simple computer problem. Just look out for those truths. So recognize the labels, recognize the stories. Recognize that I do not have the whole picture. I do not have the whole picture about the situation. I definitely don't have the whole picture about them. And if there's any kind of aversion in my experience, that is distorting my understandings, distorting my vision. I cannot be objective when I'm experiencing aversion. It just doesn't work because the mirror is already bent out of shape. So this, I think this connects with humility actually. I need the humility to recognize that my perspective on this situation isn't complete. It may be pretty good and the Vedra people often do have quite a good perspective on things. I don't want to take that away. I'm told I'm quite clear in situations. But as soon as there's any kind of ill will, hatred, anger, that's distorted as a shame. If only because I'm sort of narrowing down onto this one feature of this person in front of me. That's not complete. So that's the second thing is to try to clock the stories, the labels, the views as I've got operating in that moment. And that then gives me the freedom to do the third thing, which is move out of the head and into the heart. Drop down into the heart. So there's a text that was written by an order member called Akapa. And he called it something like the Shambhala warrior mind training verses. So that's a whole load of pithy little verses which are designed to help those people who are engaging in the world, in transforming the world. And one of those verses, I recommend that you can look it up online I think. One of those verses goes sit with hatred until you feel the fear beneath it. Sit with fear until you feel the compassion beneath that. Sit with hatred until you feel the fear beneath it. Sit with compassion until you feel the fear beneath that. So this is a way of chunking down into the heart. And what this says to me is that fear very often underlies our hatred. I can certainly feel that for myself. It comes out in my experience as hatred because I think I'm completely right about this objective situation. I missed the fear. So I'll give you a little example. I was talking to a friend of mine. I was asking him some feedback because he expressed some reservations about me. And he reminded me of an occasion when Van T. Sankrajita brought out a paper called "What is a Western Buddhist Order?" And he was reminding me that I was having a bit of a rant to him about this. I don't remember the rant, I certainly remember feeling upset about certain elements of this paper. And he said, "You send it very opinionated. You just kept going on and on about this one little thing." And I said, "Yeah, I can kind of believe that because what that paper did for me was it felt like I was undermining a particular way that I was practicing." And that was scary. It felt like Van T. my teacher was undermining a particular mode of my practice. And his friend of mine said, "I completely get that. I completely get that. If you just said that, I'd have really understood." But you just sort of going on and on about this particular doctrine that I was disagreeing with. And this was a real lesson for me. It's so easy for me to come from the head and miss what's happening down here. And if I could have come from down here and said, "Ooh, this thing that Van T is just said, this is upsetting me because it seems that he's undermining me." And that would have been a big help party could have done that at the time. So sitting with the hatred, with the anger and feeling the fear beneath that. This also works if you've got self-critical nature. It's really important, I think, if you find you've got one of these little voices having a go at you all the time. That little voice I guarantee is afraid of something. In my case, it's, you know, if it's having a go at me for not practicing hard enough. It's afraid. It's afraid for me that I'm not going to make more progress. That's the best it can do. All it can do is nag, it seems. So I have to hear the fear in that little voice. And then, having felt the fear, I can feel compassion for that place in me that's worried. And if we can do that for other people, and if other people are angry, then they're probably afraid. And if we can connect to their fear, then we can connect to compassion. But all too often, other people's anger, conditions are in defense, ignorance or whatever, and it just doesn't go very far. So if you can hear fear in anger, that's a great help, I think. So this is all about dropping out of the head into the heart. So there's just a couple of other little things I wanted to say about this. One is that I think there's a site geist around, there's a kind of mood in our culture at the time, which really endorses outrage and righteousness. It's almost kind of the good liberal thing to do, to be outraged and righteous about all these terrible people like Donald Trump and misogynists and racists and all the rest of it. There's very good reasons why there's this kind of tide that's happening. And as I say, there's good reasons why there's concern. But the emotions of outrage and righteousness are unhelpful, I would say. And what we need to be doing is finding much more creative ways of engaging with the world than being triggered off into outrage and righteousness. That's my own little sort of political rant over. And ultimately, and this is true of all the different poisons, ultimately any negative mental state, any affliction, any poison, is a failure of perspective. This was a little saying from Alica, one of our order members, any negative mental state is a failure of perspective. What's the perspective? Ultimately, we're all human, we're all trying, we're all failing, we're all suffering, we're all going to die. And if we can connect to that kind of perspective, then the irritations that crop up in life can find a bit more kind of... They can take that rightful place in our picture of life. Maybe it needs to be dealt with, but it doesn't have to be dealt with through anger, or not through hatred anyway. Because hatred is trying to destroy, ultimately. And maybe I'll just say one more thing, I'll say one more thing, which is about my name. So, should I go to mention my name? Badra Priya. Priya means lover. And the Badra is this symbol of ultimate reality, the cutting nature of truth. And when I was given this name, I was given a nice, favorable interpretation in public. And my private preceptor, my private preceptor called Kula Nanda, he gave me a little private teaching. He said, "If you want to know your friends, you have to love your friends. If you want to know reality, you have to love reality." So, he was bringing out the Priya aspect, in order to have any kind of objective connection with reality, we need to love. It's not cool, it's not aloof, it's not separate, it's not clinical, there's this involvement of love that's necessary. So, I think this is what brings us back to the mirror-like wisdom. If we can do that little journey from hatred, from anger, through to feeling, the suffering, through to recognizing the distortions of our own mirror, through so dropping down into the heart, into the emotions, through fear, into compassion, into love, then we can come up with a much more objective mirror-like appraisal of the situation, which isn't cool, it's not aloof, it's engaged and it's loving. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhustaudio.com/donate. And thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
