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The World and Usby Ven. Thubten Gyatso |
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Buddha taught that all unhappiness stems from four mistaken ways of seeing ourselves and the world: seeing the impure as pure, the unsatisfactory as giving satisfaction, the transitory as everlasting, and the empty of inherent self-existence as inherently self-existent. To recognise these incorrect views, Buddha advised that we closely examine our bodies, our feelings, our minds, and all things. If we remove our bodily camouflage - clothing, make-up, and perfume - and do not wash for a few days, the natural impurity of our bodies will become obvious. So what? The problem is, we imagine to the point of belief that our bodies are pure. I once worked with a doctor who broke his leg while sky-diving. Despite having seen innumerable x-rays of broken bones, he was unable to bring himself to look at the x-ray of his own leg. This is a good illustration that, despite all evidence to the contrary, we cling to the illusion that our bodies are pure. Every woman is an Eliza Doolittle waiting for the inner princess to be revealed; every man is a toad waiting for a kiss to release the inner prince. When smitten by physical desire, the body and person of the one to whom we are attached appear perfect, and we are blinded to their faults. Why does familiarity breed contempt? Because we see through the veils of desire and cruelly blame the other for not living up to our projections. Why does absence make the heart grow fonder? Because the veils are once again drawn across reality. Our bodies are imperfect instruments designed by our imperfect minds for indulging in pleasure. They are magnets for the sufferings of sickness, old age, and death. Sex can kill us, food can kill us, even our breathing, especially here in Ulaan Baatar, can kill us. "The unsatisfactory" refers to all objects we desire for mundane pleasure, and the feeling of pleasure itself. Sensory pleasure, and even abstract mental pleasure, depend upon assembling the conditions where we can eat a good meal, listen to music, enjoy sexual activity, and so on. Yet, no matter how often we experience these things, we are never satisfied. The pleasure itself is unsatisfying, we want more, we want variety. We will continue to desire pleasure until the day we die. Our insatiable appetite for pleasure, and our deep aversion to discomfort, make it impossible for us to experience peace and contentment in this life. And, through desire and aversion, we ruin our future lives by foolishly creating negative karma. Our minds are streams of awareness that flow through time unceasingly, yet they are never the same for more than a split second. Burning love that we declare eternal never lasts; it cools and may be replaced by frigid hatred within a few short years. Inconsolable grief at the loss of someone close will one day be forgotten; we will learn to laugh again. In a forever changing world, our clinging to the illusion of constancy fills our mind with ghosts from the past; there is no freedom to enjoy the present. As we grow older, our life becomes one long melancholic feeling that the party is over. We must understand that our minds, our very selves, are constantly changing in dependence upon a constantly changing world. The person we were during that emotional event in the past no longer exists. The emotion itself, like a beautiful rainbow or a terrible storm, has come and gone; it no longer exists. Our inability to let go of the past is a torment that can only end when we abandon the mistaken belief that our minds, and our selves, are forever the same. The fourth examination, of whatever exists, is to look at the relationship between our mind and the world. Through observing our emotions and our daily experiences, we will see the truth of karmic cause and effect - that the world of each individual is a reflection of his or her state of mind. A mind agitated by anger experiences an ugly and painful world of its own creation. A mind suffused by the bliss of love - not attachment but unconditional delight in another's happiness - experiences a beautiful and pleasant world of its own creation. There is no concrete reality anywhere; life is a dance between the mind and the world, where the mind is the leader. When our mind clings to a concrete self, the dance is a shambles. When we realise that nobody is an entity unto themselves, the dance becomes sublime. In short, our bodies, our
feelings, our minds, all things in this world created by karma and
mental afflictions are impure, unsatisfactory, transient, and empty
of inherent self-existence. The wisdom understanding this reality
is the door to liberation from suffering. It is an excellent foundation
for universal compassion because understanding our own suffering and
its causes generates empathy for the suffering of others. We see that
they are an essential part of our dance. Gyatso
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This teaching is by the Venerable Thubten Gyatso (previously Dr Adrian Feldmann), an Australian monk and old friend now working in Mongolia. One of the senior students of Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (and also Geshe Roach) he is currently teaching at the FPMT centre in Ulaan Baatar. These teachings originally appeared in his local English language newspaper in Ulaan Baatar and arereproduced with his permission. Thanks
to Diane Olander (pelmo@got.net),
these teachings first
appeared on the Internet on the website (www.gepeling.org)
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