Opposing the self-centered thought

• Oppose the self-centered thought
• Stories of hardships experienced throughout training
• Impact our environment has on us
• How to avoid extremes
• What it means when we talk about the energy of something

Let’s take a moment to think of all the misery that the self-centered attitude causes us. Consider how it makes us extremely sensitive, easily offended. It makes us create so much negative karma through speaking harshly to others, taking their things, being deceptive, etc. Think of how our self-centered thought is so involved with our misery. Why do we have health problems or mental unhappiness? Why do unpleasant things happen? It’s because of karma that we created. What motivated us to create that harmful karma? It certainly wasn’t a virtuous attitude; it was the self-centered thought. 

Whenever we’re unhappy about something, we should see the self-centered thought as the cause of it. And make a strong determination to oppose that self-centered thought. We do this for our own happiness as well as for the happiness of everybody else because self-centeredness destroys our own happiness, prevents us from gaining realizations, and makes the people around us miserable. So, with a strong determination to resist the self-centeredness let’s generate bodhicitta – that wonderful, beautiful heart that genuinely cares for others and wants to attain enlightenment for their benefit. And let’s have that be our motivation for listening to teachings.

Conducting an honest review

We hear many teachings about the faults of self-centeredness, and we say, “Oh, that makes so much sense. My self-centered thought really makes me so miserable.” Then in our daily lives, do we oppose our self-centered thought when it comes up? Do we say, “This is my self-centered thought, I’m not going to follow it.” Or when our self-centered thought comes up, do we put our hands together and say, “Whatever you do, lama, you’re my lama, you’re my master, whatever you do, whatever you say, I will follow.” We bow down to our self-centered thought; whatever it says, we do. The Buddha may tell us to do something else, our Dharma teacher may tell us to do something else, and we get mad at them because we think they don’t know what in the world they’re talking about. Our self-centeredness is the omniscient one who is going to lead us to everlasting bliss. 

At the end of every day, we should be able to look back and notice at least one time that day when we very consciously opposed the self-centered thought. And that’s what the bodhisattva precepts are about, especially the auxiliary ones, which have so much to do with our daily life. To at least one time, if not more, every day, be able to look and say, “My self-centered thought wanted me to do this, and I was able to say no to it. I was able to direct my mind back to what I know is going to be the cause of happiness instead of just letting my mind be run by the dictator of the self-centered thought.” We should be able to look back at the end of the day and say that we did this at least one time. 

That means at least one time every day we’ll need to do something we don’t want to do. Who wants to do that? No one. Because, “I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it! And I don’t want to do what I don’t want to do when I don’t want to do it. And I’m going to get my way. I came to Sravasti Abbey to train my mind.” That’s what I’m saying, but actually it’s the self-centered thought that’s training my mind. And if one of my Dharma friends tries to say something to me about it or my teacher says something to me about it, I get mad. Because they’re butting their nose in something that’s not their business, or they’re pushing me, they’re pushing me, “Don’t push me!” Or “They’re out to get me, they’re deliberately making me unhappy.”

That’s what we think, isn’t it? “My Dharma friends, my teacher, they’re all making me so miserable. They don’t care about me, they don’t care about my happiness, they’re just pushing me too hard, they’re demanding, they don’t understand me, they’re asking me to do things I can’t possibly do.” We’re so nasty and disagreeable sometimes. Then our Dharma friends and our teacher don’t say anything to us because they’re afraid. They know as soon as they try to approach us about something we’re sensitive to, we’re going to be like a porcupine and shoot out quills. We’re going to be like the guy in Arizona, shoot-shoot-shoot, in the shopping center. Remember? That’s what we’re going to be like towards the people around us when they say things that we don’t like, it doesn’t matter who they are. 

Then we’re very successful; they stop saying things to us, and we feel, “Oh, I’m so happy at Sravasti Abbey, I’m so happy here.” But what we’ve really done is we’ve made our friends afraid of us. Do we want to have friends who can’t speak honestly and truly to us because they’re afraid of our temper and how defensive we get? Is that the kind of friendships we want to have? That’s not a Dharma friendship, is it? 

Prioritizing the Dharma

Now I’m going to say something you will not like hearing and will get mad at me about. You might remember a few weeks ago I made the comment about people’s judgments around when to miss session. And during this retreat there’s been a lot of missing of sessions, more than any of our other winter retreats. Part of it was because of renovating the hall, and all the residents agreed to that beforehand, we all knew that was going to happen. I’m not talking about missing sessions for offering service, taking care of the hall, and those kinds of things. 

What I’m talking about is when I reminded you to consider, “If I had a job, would I miss work because of how I feel right now?” My observation is that a lot of you would be unemployed. Your boss would fire you because of the amount of time you’re taking off because you’re too exhausted and didn’t sleep last night. I’m wondering, is it too noisy here? Are you hungry at night like a lot of people in the world? Are you living in a war zone where there’s rockets going off, you can’t sleep, and you’re terrified? And what’s the big thing about not being able to sleep at night? Sometimes I don’t sleep well at night. You get up the next morning and you do what you do. 

Right now our US Congress is very influenced by the NRA, the National Rifle Association. We have our own NRA here called the Nuns and Residents Rest Association. And, just as the NRA in Washington is demanding their right to own guns, we are demanding our right to sleep. “I want to sleep when I want to sleep, and I want to sleep as much as I want to sleep. And if I don’t feel well, I’m going to sleep, because sleep makes me feel well and Dharma makes me feel sick.” And when I die, when the Lord of Death comes and says, “Ho, ho, I’m coming for you now,” we’re going to say, “Sorry, I’m not ready to die, I didn’t sleep enough last night. Sorry, Lord of Death, I have a headache, I want to die in peace, come back later when I feel better, then I can meditate while I’m dying.” 

If we can’t at least try and meditate and practice when we have some small thing that we don’t feel well about, what in the world are we going to do when we’re dying? Tell me. If the moment we don’t feel well we just give up and don’t try to work with our mind, what are we going to do when we’re dying? When I say things like this, I’m trying to speak out of compassion, because the Lord of Death is not going to be so nice to you. Mara, the personification of evil, is [delighted], “Oh, people sleeping through meditation session, people not feeling good, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum.” Mara is simply our self-centered thought. 

While we have this opportunity to practice, we should use it. I’m not saying this because I’m trying to control people. If you don’t try and work with your mind, I don’t experience the result of that. I experience the result of not working with my own mind. But if you don’t work with your mind, then you might be very happy and comfortable now, but what happens later? Therefore, in Dharma we’re always thinking about death. We’re always thinking about the meaning, value, and purpose of our life, why we are here, and what really is meaningful in our life. If we tell people, “I want this and don’t want that, I’m going to do this and I’m not going to do that,” at our death bed are we going to say, “I did a good job with that. I had such a nice life because I was assertive; I told people what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do.” 

We must think about what kind of seeds we are putting in our own mind through the way we’re thinking and through the way we’re acting. Because we’re the ones who are going to experience the long-term result of these things. So, we should really try and see the harm that the self-centered thought does and then try to oppose it. Unless you really think your self-centered thought is your savior. If you do, and you think your self-centered thought is going to be the thing that’s going to make you everlastingly happy, then walk down the hill and see if it makes you everlastingly happy. Try it out. 

But if we’ve experienced enough misery in our life to know that our self-centered thought is not acting in our benefit, then for our own sake and the sake of people around us, we should try and do something about it.

Okay, any questions, comments?

Audience: Thank you for saying what you’re saying. When somebody isn’t in the hall, it very much affects the environment in the hall, and it’s harder for me to go when others don’t show up.

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): You’re affected when people miss session; it makes you not want to go.

Audience: Very much so. It’s just harder, and my self-centered thought starts going. 

VTC: If they can sleep, so can I.

Audience: Yes, or “I too have . . .[inaudible]. This hurts.”

VTC: Yes, “This hurts, that hurts. I should take some time out.” 

I’m not talking about doing things that you can’t do. I’m talking about opposing the self-centered thought that’s telling you that you can’t do things that you can do.

Any other comments, questions?

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You’re saying how infectious it is, when one person gets looser with their discipline, everybody starts to follow suit in one way or another.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: But for the people who find it harder and who are more easily influenced by what other people do, when other people miss or they’re late, it makes it harder for them to get here.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You’re saying that you came last night even though you felt wobbly, you weren’t sure if you were going to stay, but you wound up having a good session.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: What you’re saying is it’s sometimes hard to tell when you’re genuinely sick versus when the self-centered mind is saying, “Nyah, nyah.” This is my experience with that: I have often been put in the position of being a teacher, and if I am scheduled to give a talk, it doesn’t matter whether my self-centered mind is throwing a fit or whether I’m sick, I go. I don’t have that thing of trying to decide which it is. Because you don’t have that choice when you’re in that position. If you feel sick, it doesn’t matter; you’ve got to show up and be there. I had that experience many times of not feeling well, and I go. Sitting for meditation when you don’t feel well, that’s easy. But [not so easy] giving a Dharma talk when you don’t feel well or when your mind’s unhappy because somebody said who knows what to you five minutes before. I’ve found it’s so remarkable that when I go and do it, I feel better afterward. There’s the power of the Dharma, of being there at a puja or at a teaching or whatever it is. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, it’s the commitment that you have to the group, knowing that what you do influences people. Good, I’m glad you had that victory.

Anything else?

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, right. Sometimes it may happen that you go and feel worse. So then you must know your body – know when you need to rest and not push yourself, know when you really need to rest. And the times that you do feel worse afterward, to say, “So what?” Say, “So what?” instead of saying, “Oh, I went to the Dharma teaching, now I feel worse. I made such a horrible mistake.” To say, “Okay, I went to the Dharma teaching. I’m so glad I got the Dharma. I feel worse, but so what? I’ll feel better later.”

Our teachers as role models

Lama Zopa was giving a teaching while he was having a stroke. I talked to Venerable Dhammaratana in Singapore, a wonderful Sri Lankan monk that I’ve known for years. Lama Zopa had a heart attack and wasn’t feeling well, but there was a family who came to him because somebody died. And he was talking to them for half an hour while he was having the heart attack. After they left he said, “I don’t feel well, could somebody call the doctor?” I’m not asking you to do that. But I’m telling you what some people with very strong compassion can do. I’m not asking you to do that. If we don’t feel well, what else is new? We have a body, and of course we’re not going to feel well sometimes. I’m not saying push and do things you can’t do – that’s not what I’m saying. But consider the attachment you have to thinking, “Oh, I don’t feel well, I must be dying.” That way of relating to our body can really make us very uncomfortable.

Audience: I always think about Lama Yeshe and what he was experiencing physically. He should not have even been alive with that kind of heart, yet he was teaching for at least fifteen years or so, all over the globe.

VTC: Yes, Lama had a hole in his heart, and he took time out to rest every day. But he also taught and traveled; he did incredible things. He dealt with all of us, my goodness! I was in Lama’s room one day, watching people come in, one person after another whining about something, and Lama just dealt with it all then continued on. We can look at the example of these people and say, “Let me try to get myself from where I am to where they are, slowly, slowly. Let me do something with this self-centered thought every day. Then after some time I’ll be able to do like they do.” We can’t do that immediately, but let’s inch our way in that direction.

Investigating when we feel resistance

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: I think that is something that can happen after being in a place for some time—we take it for granted that we have this opportunity. Like you said, “I missed that, oh well. Another one will come along, it doesn’t matter.” Sometimes I think, “Did I really do right to start this place and make it so easy for everybody?” Because the way I trained was in a totally different kind of environment. And it’s so cushy here. And sometimes I think, “Maybe the cushiness makes it too easy for people, and then they don’t train and they take it for granted.”

Audience: I do feel that plateau feeling being here. When I first came, I felt very challenged and wrestled with self-centeredness. Now I’m watching a sort of plateau. It’s not like nothing’s happening—I’m working on things—but there’s a different quality. I try to make myself comfortable wherever I am. This happens at home and at every job. And I’m sitting here feeling resistance to what you’re saying. I’m looking at it. I don’t have this well thought out. Let me lay it out, and maybe you can help. 

When I was a lawyer-mother-activist, I pushed and pushed and pushed. I got sick and never rested. I went to work sick, I got up sick, I went to bed sick. Finally, I said, “This is crazy, this is dysfunctional, I won’t do this. I will start taking care of myself.” That meant, “Oh, I won’t make myself go to work when I’m sick.” Thoughts of my experience get mixed into what I’m hearing here. I understand that Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa are doing it for Dharma, which is a different thing, but I’m confused somehow. I feel resistance.

VTC: You’re saying that when you were a mom and working as a lawyer and activist, you pushed and pushed. You pushed through everything, even when you were sick. Then finally you realized that was crazy and you need to take care of yourself. That’s wisdom. So you started taking care of yourself. Then when I say something like I just said, the mind gets confused.

Audience: [Inaudible].

VTC: Yes, it’s like, “You’re asking me to go back to the way I was.” Am I asking you to go back to the way you were?

Audience: I’m sure you’re not. From the neck up I know that my teacher would not want that. But inside there’s a feeling, like, “Ugh, I won’t do it.” It’s physical. So I´m just being brave and laying it out.

VTC: Yes, you know intellectually that I’m not trying to harm you, but inside there’s a gut reaction of, “No, I’m not going to do it.” Look at that reaction. Don’t make conclusions yet about what you’re going to do. Just leave the conclusion aside. Because that’s not the important thing. Look at that mind that’s saying, “No!” Or look at that mind that’s saying, “You’re asking me to go back to how crazy I used to be and suffer like I used to suffer.” Look at that mind and do some research about that mind. 

Audience: That mind is so strange. When you presented those models, that mind is even saying, “Well, those guys shouldn’t have done that. Lama Yeshe shouldn’t have done that, and the guy with the heart attack shouldn’t have done that.” Then I’m like, “Woah!”  This is what my mind is doing.

VTC: Right. But isn’t it interesting how the mind can do that? You observe, “Okay, here’s an example of somebody who didn’t mind what was happening to their body if they had the opportunity to help somebody,” and our mind is going, “Well, they shouldn’t have done that, that was stupid.”

Audience: That’s dysfunctional, I know. Really, I’m just laying it all out…

VTC: I know! I know, and that’s why I’m saying it’s so good to research that mind. Look at that mind and get to know it, instead of saluting that mind and saying, “Yes, you’re completely right, doing that is totally crazy,” or instead of guilt-tripping your mind and saying, “If I only had more compassion then I would be like Lama. If I only had more compassion. If I only…” I did that to myself for a long time, “If I only had more compassion, I would do all these things.” Do you see how extreme both of those responses are? And both of those responses are self-centered responses, because self-centeredness always makes a crisis out of everything. 

Look at that mind, research that mind. There it is, that mind that says, “No!” Look at it, and you’re going to have to be careful and sneaky, because if you come on too direct it hides. Look at it – how does it think, what are its arguments, and what’s the evidence it uses to back up its arguments? And what are the results of it? Just really research that mind and attitude fearlessly. Like I said, you’re not looking to conclude about what you should do, that’s not the issue. But look at that mind. It’s such an interesting mind. There’s resistance, there’s anger, there’s guilt, there’s so much stuff in there. It’s the perfect opportunity to see exactly the dysfunctional ways of thinking that our self-centered mind hangs onto, believes, bows down to, and lets control us.

Audience: For me, there’s real fear in there. I feel it, a fear that I don’t even know of what.

VTC: Yes. I know that very well, a fear of, “If I look at this, then I may have to go to all these things, and I’ll be exhausted, and I’ll get sick and I’ll die…” there’s so much fear. Or, “If I hang on to the resistance, people aren’t going to like me, they’re going to criticize me, I’m not going to fit in, and I’m going to criticize myself.” Just look at the whole variety of thoughts that you have. Don’t judge any of these thoughts, just do research. Let it all percolate up, all these ugly, nasty thoughts. You can write them down if you want and just look at them. Write them down and look. 

You don’t have to react to any of these thoughts. You don’t have to let them control your life, and you don’t have to clobber them over the head. You just look at what they’re saying. Then we see, “Oh my goodness, that’s been what’s been making me tick all these years. That’s what’s been making me tick. That! No wonder. A-ha!” And then you get to a point where you go, “Yep, I really don’t need to do that anymore. I don’t need to judge myself, I don’t need to feel guilty, I don’t need to push, I don’t need to resist, I don’t need to do any of that. I can just sit here and smile. I can say mantra. I can say, ‘Om Vajrasattva hum.’” 

Audience: I’m sitting here feeling quite peaceful. I’ve had a lot of struggles with this over the years here. I just think that I would not do what Lama Zopa did.

VTC: That’s fine.

Working with our mind

Audience: I think I would have gotten treatment earlier and had a better result, knowing what I know. And now I’m actually sitting here thinking, “I’m too peaceful.”  

VTC: Don’t worry about it. If you’re peaceful, let yourself be peaceful.

Audience: Watching what I’m doing with this injury, I see the laziness that I have. But I’m working on it, and I feel good about what I’m doing, actually.

VTC: Good. Good. Don’t criticize yourself if you feel good about what you’re doing.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: If you feel like you’re working with something and you’re working with it successfully, then continue on, don’t doubt yourself.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: We’re not going to be able to deal with everything all at once. We’re not going to conquer all our bad habits by tomorrow. But look at what is really impeding you, the biggest things that are impeding you, and work with those. And as you work with those, then you become more skilled. You become able to work with other things that are more subtle. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, to the thing of thinking that you must work with your self-centeredness the same way other people are working with theirs. And also, this is what you said before, that when other people’s discipline gets lax, then you go with the flow and yours gets lax, too. And if other people start to question their things, then you start to get squirmy and nervous and think, “Oh, I better figure out what they’re doing so I can do exactly like them.” But we’re all going to come up with different things, because balance is something that is unique for everyone. The balance point for each individual changes every day. 

What you can do one day and what you can do the next are two completely different things. It’s not like you get balanced and then just stay right there. Everyone has different things that they must work with. Some people have more physical things, some people have more mental things. People have all sorts of different ways with things. I said explore the mind that says “Nyaah,” and people are going to come up with different things, because we’re different individuals. The thing is to let other people have what’s true for them. Focus on yourself and what you need to work on. Because it’s not so much what everybody else is doing. It’s what we’re doing, isn’t it? It’s what we’re doing.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Good question, excellent question. His question is when we’re doing non-violent communication, the first step is to give an objective evaluation with no emotional words in it, only data type of words. But everybody’s talking about being easily influenced by the energy around them, so does that fall into the objective side? Or does that fall into the emotional layered side where we’re adding on and projecting? What do you think?

Audience: Yes.

VTC: Yes, why? When I talk about the energy of the people around me and that kind of stuff, why does it belong to the projecting side?

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: To watch it and say, “Okay, there’s nobody in the front row,” that’s fair enough. But then watch how you interpret it. We’re not saying that there’s no truth in interpretations.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You’re saying that people communicate a lot of things through their eyes, their body posture, and through being present or not being present. Those are all modes of communication. The thing is, are we getting the correct message that is being communicated to us, or are we inventing a message that isn’t there? I often call that “mind-reading” – I know what somebody else is thinking without asking them. This is something I think we must always be aware of when we’re having a judgment, an evaluation, or when we think something is being communicated nonverbally. Even with something being communicated verbally, we think we understand the words that the person is saying. Actually, the words are just sounds. If you really want to get into the data, it’s just sounds. Are we even correctly understanding the words? 

Yes, in one way these are modes of communication, and it’s suitable to see what’s being communicated. But also ask yourself, “Is what I’m thinking actually being communicated by the other person? Or am I mind-reading, projecting it, or reading into things that are not there at all?” Because we’ve all had the experience of somebody getting upset with us about something we said, and we’re totally puzzled about what’s going on. We’ve all had that experience, haven’t we? We did something that in our mind meant this, and somebody comes to us furious because we were doing “blah blah blah,” and we’re like, “Wait a minute. No, that’s not what my action was communicating. I was thinking this, and I was doing it for this reason.” But the other person has completely misinterpreted the whole thing. 

Whether it’s communication by the eyes, body language, or words, we must stop and ask ourselves, have some measure of open space in our mind to question what we think the meaning is of the data we’re perceiving. 

Audience: [Inaudible].

VTC: We react. We think we know immediately what that person is doing and what it means. But we’re often just reacting and so defensive, aren’t we? It’s usually defensive mode and aggression. One thing I’ve noticed is when I have an instantaneous reaction like that, that’s a warning sign to me that I need to slow down and question if I’m really interpreting the situation correctly. If I’m getting defensive, if I’m getting aggressive, and I can feel it in my body, that’s the warning sign of, “Uh-oh, affliction is present.” Affliction is present. 

Whether I’m reading the situation correctly or incorrectly, the presence of affliction is damaging. It could be true that the person did intend to insult me. Maybe I am reading it correctly that they did intend to insult me. But the affliction is still present, so there’s some exaggeration going on. If I’m getting defensive, I must stop and say, “First of all, am I interpreting that communication correctly?” and checking with the other person about what they meant. And even if they say “Yes, I really meant to hurt your feelings,” to look at it and say, “Well, then, why did I let my feelings get hurt?” I can’t say somebody else hurt my feelings. Somebody else said some words. Who hurt my feelings? I’m the one doing the interpretation, and I’m the one doing the over-reaction. Even if somebody insults me, so what? Why is it such a bad thing that somebody insults me? “Well, the world’s going to end!” 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: But it worked, and that’s Dharma practice when you do that. That’s facing the self-centered thought and not letting it control you. That’s the exact meaning of facing the self-centered thought. Your old habit is to burst out and have a knock-down, drag-out. But instead you now say, “I’ve got to keep my mouth closed for the benefit of everybody.” Then you come back and talk about it later with the person.

How hardships benefit our practice

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Thank you. So you’re saying that you felt sad when you heard me say that I wonder if I did right by starting the Abbey because it makes things too easy for you. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, I hope so. Because I look back now at the hardships I went through, and they were precious. And I really see the difference. Sometimes I sit here and scratch my head because the way people think now is so different than the way that the first generation thinks. Sitting in Nepal, no flush toilets and no running water, yet we all wanted to do retreat. It was like, “Oh, all I want to do is retreat. Retreat is so special.” And we were so eager to do retreat. We didn’t miss sessions because we really wanted to do retreat. And then our teacher would send us out to do different work and assignments. And we did what our teacher said. But it was like, “Oh, I get to do retreat! Oh, this is so fantastic.” And here at the abbey, it’s like, “Oh, god, my little toe hurts, I really can’t go to this session. It’s too cold, it’s too hot, I didn’t sleep, this, this, this, this,” etc. 

And I did Vajrasattva in the old Tushita Gompa, with a concrete floor, in the monsoon. When we picked up our cushions at the end of the retreat, the bottom of the cushion was all rotted out because everything was mildewy and moldy in monsoon. The whole thing was damp, and there were mice running around the outside of the room while we were meditating. Sometimes we were served suji for breakfast, and much of it was water. So then in the middle of your next session you would need to pee. But if you walk out of a session, you can’t count any of your mantra, and we were all supposed to do 100,000 mantra recitations. And sometimes the guy who was the retreat leader talked with the director of the retreat center saying that instead of making suji to make something else. Sometimes they would get into incredible fights, and we would hear them screaming at each other. 

We had rice almost every day for lunch, and in monsoon there’s hardly any vegetables, so you would get a little bit of lady fingers, little bitty carrots, or some potatoes, but hardly any vegetables. And then sometimes there wasn’t any water in the toilet. It was a squat toilet and sometimes no water. They didn’t even have a kerosene stove then. The people who were cooking for us cooked over cow dung patties, and it was an earthen stove in the kitchen. It was quite an experience! That was the retreat I told you about when I was sitting on my bed and a scorpion fell down next to me.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: During Vajrasattva retreat you visualize all the scorpions. During one break time I was in my room and a scorpion fell from the ceiling and plopped next to me. Sometimes we would find little scorpions around and had to take them outside. But everything was damp, mildewy, and moldy. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Right. When you’re comfortable, samsara doesn’t seem so real. Whereas when you live in India, and it’s so challenging there…

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Yes, here you’re warm. And if it isn’t warm enough, then you complain and somebody makes it warmer. Whereas when you live there, there’s nobody to complain to because they can’t do anything. You have a cold shower and there’s no hot water, so you live with it.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: When I said the hardship I went through is very precious it was because, this kind of relates to what John was saying, it makes samsara very real and everything was very real. You get up in the morning and it’s freezing cold out. You get up and go sit in the hall that’s freezing cold because it has straw walls, and there’s no choice. So, you must work with your mind. It forces you to work with your mind, because either you work with your mind, or you go running home.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: Oh yes, the mosquitoes sometimes are incredible, and the fleas and the music. They play Hindi music at all hours of day and night when you’re trying to meditate. It’s loud and the same song repeatedly. You’ve been in India, so you know it. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing. They’re having a wedding so they’re beating drums and playing music until who knows what time, you can’t sleep, and what are you going to do about it? Go down to the village and say, “Shut up?” No, you can’t do that. 

You learn to sleep, or you learn to do whatever, and you get up the next morning and go to Dharma class because you have this feeling, “I’m not always going to have this opportunity because my visa is running out.” You have all these visa problems. You have to go talk to the visa officials and they give you this big run-around, so every day is precious and you don’t want to miss any teachings. You don’t want to miss any sessions. You take notes and then go back to your room and there’s no computer to sit in front of, so you read your notes, rewrite your notes, you study them, and you talk about them with other people to see if you got all the points right. 

Then there are other hardships, sometimes mental hardships. I got shipped all around the world with no say whatsoever. Nobody came and said, “Oh, please, we think you’re so experienced, so wonderful, and so talented, please go to this Dharma center.” Nobody said that. I went to Italy because one nun who was helping Lama walked past me one day and said, “Oh, Lama thinks it would be very good for you to go to Italy.” That was it. I got sent to Italy. I arrived in Rome in the middle of winter in my plastic Indian sandals. I wound up going to this Dharma center and then the whole nine yards. I was miserable, and I was freaking out. I look back at it now and go, “My mind was so stupid, I got so upset about things that I didn’t need to get upset about.” 

I remember when I finally left Italy, I came back, and one of my teachers, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, was teaching about anger. It was like, “Oh, my goodness, I know what he’s talking about now. I really know what he’s talking about when he talks about anger.” Whereas before I was a little bit out to lunch about the depth of my anger. So, all these things were quite good, they were good. Because you just have to deal with it, that’s the thing; you just have to deal with it. My teacher sent me here and there. I could go complain and say, “I don’t want to do this, I won’t go here,” but we didn’t do that. We were taught you don’t go and whine to your teacher; you do it, and then you live through it somehow. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: What’s quite interesting is when we have physical difficulties, we don’t complain so much about our mental difficulties. When we live in a cushy environment our mind creates all sorts of problems that we didn’t necessarily have before. Sometimes we had them before and they come out in the difficult physical environment, too. But lots of times, and this is what you see with the advent of technology, people have fewer physical problems but more mental problems because we have more time and space to feel sorry for ourselves, to moan and groan and everything. If you think about what our great-grandparents went through or something like that, they didn’t have time to moan and groan. But we have a lot of time to be unhappy mentally, and we take full advantage of it. But yes, you’re right, there’s different kinds of suffering, and we have to work with whatever suffering we’re dealing with at the moment, whether it’s mental or physical. 

A lot of times what you think is such a big mental thing, you go to a different environment and because of the physical challenges there, that mental thing isn’t such a big thing anymore. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: It’s not necessarily finished, because if you change circumstances and get a comfortable physical circumstance again, the mental one revs up. But what it illustrates is the whole thing of, “We don’t need to believe everything we think at a particular time.” Because everything we think, everything we feel, is something that arises due to causes and conditions. It doesn’t have its own nature, its own essence, it’s not solid and concrete. It just happens to be a feeling, a thought, an emotion, or whatever it is that’s arising at that moment due to causes and conditions. And it’s not necessary to react so strongly to everything.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: When we’re reacting very strongly to every external thing, no wonder we’re exhausted at the end of the day. “Oh, this person said this, and I didn’t like it; oh, and that person said that…” the vibes!

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: So tired, right. It is because the mind is just . . . and the emotions, churning and churning.

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: The way I was relating to my teachers was if they said “this,” I just did it. I didn’t go and negotiate, ask questions, or anything like that. You’re saying that as a Westerner you’ve been taught that you can go in and negotiate with an authority figure in a respectful way. The way I was trained was, “You follow your teacher’s instructions.” I see that over the years that doing that without asking questions, I got to a certain point in my practice where that didn’t work for me anymore, and I had to go and start asking questions. But asking questions with respect. I think there’s a difference between asking questions with respect and going in and saying, “I want, and I don’t want.” If your teacher gives you some instruction and you don’t understand it, you’re confused, or you think your energy might be used better in another way, go in and say, “Could you explain to me, help me understand why this instruction,” instead of going in and saying, “I don’t want to do this.” 

I think the way we do it in the West of being open, straightforward, and talking about what’s going on inside of us, I think that’s very helpful. But we must do it in a respectful way. It’s best to ask questions instead of making assumptions that we understand what they’re doing and why and we just don’t want to do it. Go in and say, “Well actually, I don’t understand.” 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: In one way it is different. Because you’re negotiating in the sense that you’re expressing how you’re thinking and how you’re feeling, but you’re being wide open in it. Whereas usually in negotiation we have our position, which is what we want, how much we are going to negotiate, how much are they going to get their way, and how much am I going to get my way. In that kind of negotiation, we’re already going into the conversation with a position. That’s going to limit our ability to learn if we go in with a position. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: I think that’s a very good point. I too have seen this thing of, “I have faith in whatever the teacher says.” Then at a certain point they go criticize the teacher, they do this and that, they explode or whatever because they’re not engaged in a dialogue process. They’re not able to see that, “What is coming up in my mind is from my own training.” When something comes up in their mind, they’re seeing it as, “They’re causing me suffering,” instead of, “Oh, this is coming up in my mind, and this is exactly what I’m supposed to be applying my Dharma antidotes to.” They stuff it in and do this whole surrender trip, which I find really “blahh.” I can’t stand it, because you know they don’t really have respect and feel it, you know that they’re just doing some weird trip that I don’t think people grow at all from doing. 

There’s a difference between, “I don’t want to and we’re going to negotiate how much you’re going to make me do,” and, “I’m just this worm and I’ll do whatever you say.” They’re both extreme, aren’t they? They are both the self-centered thought.

In all those situations with my teacher when things would come up and I was sitting there going “Ahhhh,” the one thing that was constant during it was, “This is the situation I’m supposed to practice Dharma in.” It’s like when you’ve heard enough teachings, you know instantly when you get angry that this is a situation for practicing Dharma. As soon as we get uncomfortable and get angry because we’re uncomfortable, thinking, “I’ve got to change the external thing,” or, “I’ve got to tell somebody I don’t like this,” or whatever, we’re missing the chance to practice. 

Some situations yes, it’s a bad situation, we need to intervene, we need to change things. But we need to work with our anger before we do it. And other situations are just our own personal preference. “Can I let go and do something somebody else’s way? No! Because my way is right!” I told you that was one of the big things I learned going to Taiwan for full ordination. I had this great idea about how to move people that was much more efficient than what they were doing, and nobody wanted to hear it. It was such a good teaching for me to sit there and watch myself being so frustrated, like, “We could be having so much more teaching if….” But no, this is the situation I practice the Dharma in.

And this all relates to the bodhisattva vows.