The Way of the Bodhisattva with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

so good morning good afternoon good evening for everyone and welcome so today my the talk title is about the text we have one ancient text called the way of bodhisattva and this is the one of the most important texts for for my life i received these teachings when i was um i think 10 10 11 years old and and actually later after one year later i went to traditional three year retreat like retreat although i was 13 and i haven't gone through the buddhist philosophy studies all these things but what i learned is only this text and that really helps for my retreat so what this text discuss is discuss about love compassion and buddhism so bodhichitta meaning the mind of the enlightened enlightenment meaning the motivation so first we develop love and compassion then we expand that love and compassion and mix with the wisdom special the wisdom of the absolute truth absolute reality why because normally when we have compassion loving kindness compassion sometimes we get the pain from other people and then we cannot really practice loving kindness compassion because we got others a pain and it become burden and then our love and compassion become very limited but then when we combine this compassion with the wisdom special wisdom of absolute then the love becomes really genuine the compassion becomes very genuine and we can expand to all beings sometimes what we call non-conceptual love and compassion so this text discuss about all these things so let's um maybe we at the beginning we'll try to do now little bit meditation together so this meditation is coming home to bring our mind to the body and relax the muscles in the body relaxed meaning you give the permission to be yourself you don't have to be a control you don't you don't have to imitate somebody or copy someone just be yourself be with your body okay so first please raise your hand like this so when we raise hand like this there is some kind of like weight right gravity now relax so you feel relaxed at the same time feeling of gravity but at the same time there is strength strength and relax and that is the balance so we will do like that so please keep your spine loosely straight it doesn't matter wherever you are on the chair on the cushion on your bed outside it doesn't matter and now please if you want you can close your eyes and now relax muscles in the body meaning let your body as it is now focus on the top of the head and just let it be all the tensions tightness just relax drop all the control tight stress and now move back of the head face and you don't need to be particular smile or you don't need to be particular expression expression just be yourself smile is okay crying is okay doesn't matter neck shoulders back chest stomach arms and legs and if you cannot relax it's okay allow that you cannot relax when you are allowed that you cannot relax that means you're relaxing and now please appreciate that you have this body wonderful you have senses organs and you have this wonderful breath and appreciate that still alive we are still alive wonderful now please if you close your eyes now you can open your eyes and rest your mind as it is for few seconds okay so basically what we believe is we all have this wonderful nature sometimes what we call the our basic innate goodness the original purity in tibetan what we call gada gada meaning the original purity and sometimes what we call buddha nature nature of enlightenment dharmakaya so this wonderful nature is our true nature is wonderful like sometimes some scientists said if we have 10 qualities one is negative nine a po nine is positive but normally what we look what we see is only one negative and then we exaggerate that one you can try this you know put your thumb like that and now close your one eyes close one eyes like this and now slowly slow bring your thumb close to your eyes okay slowly slowly slowly what happened now now you see everything is some some become very big look up also thumb look right side also you see some down also some right okay now bring your thumb slowly slow away from your eyes slowly slowly okay now what you see the normal thumb right so that's the how our mind what we call grasping so normally we don't see all these good qualities within ourselves what we see is we are looking for some problem and then what happened first problems like this maybe we have 10 problem everybody has problem of course everybody does mistakes everybody uh have problems that's normal it's okay we have to accept the problem except that we are human being that's totally okay but then for the main problem is we don't want to have problem and then we create a small problem become bigger and bigger bigger then in the end some become bigger than a mountain so so therefore how to balance how to free our self from the the grasping so grasping is like putting ourselves into our own gel in our own box so for that in the way of buddhism first important is intention what we call the motivation the intention is really important so here intention is love and compassion and this love and compassion is actually with us all the time you all have love and compassion 24 7. do you believe or not how many of you believe that you have love and compassion 24 7. excuse me if you believe raise your hand um i hope you're raising hand what i see is only camera anyway and how many of you don't believe that raise your hand and if you don't believe i hope you're raising hand too so i think some of you raise your hand that right i don't believe me either when when i was young i received this teaching i don't believe that i have this wonderful nature the basic enig goodness i received these teachings from my father and dice many other great teachers and at the beginning i thought um they tried to you know please me i thought especially my father i thought my father is doing his job father's job try to you know please me but now i believe so what is the essence of love and compassion so love is looking for something nice meaningful looking for happiness looking for a virtue maybe that wonderful thing come to you or happen to others or friends or family so they are wonderful or wish they are to have more and more wonderful things or you are wonderful or you want to have more wonderful things with you so these are the love actually so how many of you want to be happy so if you want to be happy raise your hand i think you all raise your hand right so that is coming from love why you come here in front of this screen now while you're watching my video because looking for happiness you might thought oh this guy you know if i join this teaching from this guy maybe i will be more peaceful more happy something and i know while you're watching now maybe you watch like this way maybe you watch like this way maybe like this way maybe like that way while looking for happiness this way too long become cause of suffering uneasy ah little heaviness oh like this it's good or some of you are might be very serious okay where up with this other one today but then it was too long you have back pain more happy maybe like this so every movement of our body is looking for happiness every eyes building is looking for happiness not only with the body actually every thought is looking for happiness every emotion when i was young i had panic attacks i really don't like this panic for me the problem is panic of panic is worse than panic so i don't like this panic it's actually compassion the panic is a problem for me so i want to get rid of that and i'm looking for such peace come that is the love so therefore actually you all have this feeling this motivation this sense 24 7. so therefore you all have love and compassion 24 7 but what is the problem now the problem is remember this we are not recognized we are not recognized we don't know how to connect with our deeper level so what is our deeper level love compassion awareness wisdom these are our true nature and we don't know how to connect to that so what happened our mind face out and looking for problem and make small problem as huge problem we make more we make mountain we make more out of mountain so so therefore it is very important that to recognize these good qualities within ourselves so i at the beginning we did the appreciation meditation right just appreciate that you are alive just appreciate that you have whatever senses now maybe you hear my voice you see this video and you have this body you have this brain you have this organs wonderful and you have some friends and family wonderful you have place to sit wonderful you have a shelter wonderful you can eat wonderful so these are really important so now the how we connect the motivation is love and compassion but then what happened we stuck on the service level the service level is the grasping like this small problem become a huge problem but then when we go deeper level deeper level triple level behind of each emotion there's a love and compassion even hatred so but it is not so easy so therefore in the way of buddhist the first important is to develop this love and compassion then expand this love and compassion become first to understand love and compassion within yourself and your friends and family then expand to the world in the end expand to all beings and not only that you really want to help all beings fully recognize true nature free from all the suffering all the problems therefore i'm going to do all the virtue i'm going to do all the meditation so that is called the bodhichitta so buddhism meaning all of us want to be happy don't want to suffer right every movement every breath every icebring so what is the final destination to fully back to our home free from suffering our real home our true nature and that is the fully recognize our true nature so that is the enlightenment so i want to help this for all beings but can you do that or no can you help all beings help them to fully recognize their true nature can can you or no yes or no yes if you think yes raise your hand i think impossible forget about helping all beings now i cannot help myself also so therefore for the realistic way i i don't have that capacity now therefore i'm going to meditate now i'm going to study the way of buddhism now i'm going to do generosity i'm going to have ethical conduct then i want to develop patience then i want to be persistent effort then i want to meditate then the most important is the wisdom i want to understand my true nature so these are what we call six parameters all this text the ancient takes the way of buddhist war at the beginning love and compassion and buddhist then after that discuss about these six pradas so first is generosity second is the ethical conduct and the third is the patience and the third is the effort and the fifth is the meditation and last is the wisdom the most important they recognize our true nature so these six are the the practice of the way of disadvantage then so now in delgado we have this plan special plan that to teach all these ancient texts these ancient teachings maybe cycle of three years the sutra tantra and the nature of mind the mahamudra and mahadi so like that every three years we teach different taxes so for the long run everybody get this lineage transmission so normally to study all this it will take 9 to 18 years of course now we don't have that much time and then to do retreat we have three years fully time dedicated for that we don't have much time so now we are thinking about essence of these teachings and put it into small short video and kind of like small retreat here and there and next uh next week i will do the aware of buddhist war four day retreat this is the to abstract the essence of this we have buddhist word text then the following whole year we will study about the way about sadhua i have short videos webinars and great teachers come from the various traditions so we really want to have this lineage pass on to the many people so now let's say how can we apply this the intention and this six practice in everyday life so for example whatever you do the first important is motivation so if we have meaningful motivation inspired motivation the virtue related motivation related with the virtue motivation connected with love and compassion then whatever you do become meaningful you're so happy and you will not feel your job as job you will feel your job as holiday it's creativity a sense of joy every day very happy so then whatever your job it will benefit others many other people and of course benefit for others benefit for you also because you and other are independent the other is half of you right so therefore it's really benefit so intention is really important so you can try next time when you go to workplace develop intention anyway unless if you are doing like drugs and guns making guns those things we cannot change the motivation that was normal job cells or manager or the architect general or whatever you do if you do nicely with intention want to help the customer want to help other people then your job become much better you are become more happy and then your work is good your business is good whatever you do the spiritual life mundane life comes together win-win situation so motivation is very important then when you go to the actual work the first is what we call generosity within sixth path within the six parameters generosity you start you have to give your time you have to give your whatever energy whatever so normally could be material generosity could be what we call protection could be spiritual so whatever you need to sacrifice something right whatever you do your job if you open all the opportunities and waiting and waiting waiting what happened and nothing happened you will get moved much but in order to do something you have to sacrifice you have to give this time effort whatever to yourself to the job or to other others so generosity is very important to start so what happened now i have this uh research data that nowadays we focus more than 60 or 70 percent of our time to the meaningless things we don't really focus on our job or our practice or whatever the meaningful we don't do that we focus something else so then in the end we will be not happy everybody will not be happy so generosity and next is the ethical conduct so whatever we do there is a government law there is the good citizenship there is the the basically what we call non-violence don't harm to others whatever we do try our best and help which way according to your capacity according to your um what we call things that you can do you have results you have knowledge you have skill whatever so according to that try to try your best to help so non-violence and try your best to help these uh essence of ethical conduct the next important is patience whatever you do the result will not come like that up and down life is up and down work also up and down study also up and down meditation also up and down spiritual life also up and down so you have to be patient this is really important then next is effort persistent patient and persistent are really important key point for the life nowadays we don't have we don't have patience we want to have result tomorrow so that's the problem and then it doesn't have that then our mind become very narrow and upset and then make a lot of problems and now some getting close close close to your eyes without patience so passion is very important but patient is not give up what we call letting go but letting go is letting go is not the giving up don't give up try your best use your effort energy time resource whatever you have so persistent persistent persistent that's the effort joyful effort then number five is the concentration so whatever we do we need to have mind and body together with that so sometimes what i have some discussion with scientists what they to flow so when you are in the floor moment and that time you feel the most happy and you get a lot of job also all this flaw the samantha concentration comes when you have generosity ethic and the patience and persistence all this together then you have flow you have the that concentration level samadhi and lars has a wisdom wisdom is a key point without wisdom you don't know how to do your job without wisdom for the spiritual life we will not recognize our true nature so wisdom is very important so these are the really beneficial key points of the way of buddhist war and i hope you will learn in the future more and more about whereabouts thank you so now i will open some q a thank you very much uh we have quite a few questions already so the first one dear rinpoche how is it that loving kindness and compassion are contained within negative emotions like anger so anger is comes from somebody is harmed to me not doing good job they hum to the world they hum to the my friend so that's we think the problem so we want to remove that so actually it's coming out of kind care concern so actually hatred because of grasping and ignorant sometimes what i call if there's a light in the middle then there's glass so glass has scary image maybe snakes crocodiles a ghost or whatever tigers and then if we cover the light with the scary image with the glass then what happen we will see our room is full of scary image but that image comes from the light without light there will be no scary image but the problem is the cover the glass so glass is what we call ignorance not recognizing our true nature not recognizing love and compassion with us all the time and not just intellectually recognize is not benefit just intellectually recognized we have to really bring into the experience so therefore actually a sense of all the negative thought and emotion is love and compassion thank you ricochet you mentioned that motivation is important what about guilt-related motivation i'm lazy and ashamed of things i've done and i cannot see my own innate kindness and compassion so when we feel killed that is also coming from love and compassion so kill and we don't like have guilt and we don't want to have the whatever situation of the guild we don't want to have that object of that girl so we want we don't want so that is actually compassion we want to have perfect we want we don't want to be lazy we don't want to feel this guilty so that is love actually so is there essence of the guilt but normally we don't see that essence we stop on the service level that needs to become guild thank you uh any suggestions about how to approach our own physical pains and physical limitations with love and compassion so pains normally we don't like pain right body don't like pain actually that protects the body fear to pain is healthy normally fear of the dangers is quite healthy so there's a sense of protecting sense of kind sense of concern and so we can see the essence of the pain there is love and compassion there but if when we think about the helping others and if you become too much burden too much painful than normal what vehicle we have to be very we have to have the balance if you cannot help then let go also for a while and you can help but you don't want to help also might be extreme and you do over your limit also extreme so what buddha said we have to find the balance thank you ricochet you have said that we do not have the ability to help all beings right now however if we have the aspiration to help all beings doesn't this really benefit all beings normally what we call when we recognize our true nature then we are more capable to help others just having connections um special in the way of buddhist world when we fully recognize our true nature we become a buddha so when you're fully recognized when we achieve enlightenment then the enlightened activity comes spontaneous present so it will help boundless beings countless beings but now no only a few people do you think it is possible for a person to live in the mundane world and become a bodhisattva is enlightenment available outside monastic life of course of course normally the what buddha teach the bodhisattva is made mostly for the laypeople the first teaching of buddha buddha taught at the what we call saranath and that teaching men focus for the um in that time like monastic sanghas and the second big teaching and that is the way of buddhist war the essence of is of course everybody doesn't matter for monastic or lay people or male or female everybody so normally when we look at these suitors the noble [Music] son and noble daughters many male and female the householders with the address like that thank you what is the difference between greed and love when i love intensely that's that's all i want for instance i want to earn a lot of money so i can buy a big house for my family is that greed or is that love so once it's become kind of selfish harm to others then it's become greed but once you want to help you and family of course you you have to survive and for for everybody become love so it depends on the the limit is up to you you cannot i cannot really tell this love and this greet thank you winter how does one fight anxiety i feel this is standing in my way of being of benefit how can i just let go of negative thoughts a sense of negative thought is also love and compassion when we more recognize that love and compassion that sense of warmth even that thought is coming from love and then you see this feeling this intention behind the thought behind emotion more and more than the thought emotions dissolve into love and compassion but it doesn't happen like that then maybe normally i teach these three important practice awareness love and compassion and wisdom so now i'm talking about the love and compassion but there's another practice is awareness so awareness is we need to change our attention on something maybe first on our breath breathing in breathing out just be with the breath and once we develop some experience how to be with the breath and slowly slowly be with the body so we did this together relax the body and slowly you can watch the anxiety and sometimes anxiety becomes stronger don't watch anxiety back to the breath or listen to sound so do these things and if there's too much of overwhelm you should check with the psychology it really helps and then physical exercise aerobic exercise so three things really helps meditation check with the doctor medication or therapy or whatever and aerobic exercise three combined together really beneficial thank you rebeche this is a similar question from a different angle how do you remain happy even if there is a problem how to stay relaxed during problems so normally suffering happiness is just a mental state there's no such thing happiness suffering on the object for example we think heat is not good too hot and the outside but the people go to sauna the heat is very strong in the sauna but if you feel happy i pay money for this heat make special time for this heat so heat outside the sauna suffering heat inside the sauna happiness but the heat is same even though it's quite intensive to the body so therefore we can always transform the mental state but the outside circumstances sometimes can sometimes cannot and special the way of buddhism we can transform those in to love and compassion into awareness into wisdom so therefore maybe you cannot change our circumstances sometimes we have to accept that but inside you're happy deeper level and when you're happy and that helps to solve the problem outside outside circumstances also because inside outside independent thank you i don't know how to practice loving kindness for myself because i doubt myself how do i know that i'm doing it right i cannot practice love and compassion to myself you like that or no if you don't like that that is compassion do you want to have more love and compassion to yourself if yes that is love it's just right there deeper level so we always try to connect to the deeper level of ourselves the true nature of ourselves awareness love and compassion wisdom is with us all the time so what we call our true nature is like sky and then hatred the guilt the panic um stress depression pride jealousy all these are cloud cloud in the sky no matter how much storm cloud strong storm pollution it doesn't change the nature of sky without sky you cannot have clout isn't it so actually without love compassion and wisdom awareness you cannot have kill doubt hatred all these things so when we recognize as i mentioned at the beginning to recognize our trueness when we recognize that then everything becomes wisdom everything becomes love and compassion everything becomes awareness thank you rinpoche how does one see all thoughts as mantra coming from my loving compassionate true nature when thoughts like you are stupid or you are bad come to mind so look at love and compassion is motivation it's feeling it's intention so you are bad you are bad we don't like that so that is the compassion compassion don't want a problem and we want to have good thought that is love so focus on that focus on that so now the last question uh last question how can i help someone who is trapped in the prison of negative beliefs yeah so normally we need to focus three things first intellectually from so ten good things we focus on the one negative and we deny nine good things so we have to shift our focus and try to look for the good things so from the intellectual level second we have to meditate be with that love compassion third we have to repeat repeat action do something maybe try to do something uh social work maybe try to help others try to do something uh meaningful things action and this three can help change to transform ourselves step by step thank you thank you rinpoche thank you any closing comments or should i just finish today thank you very much for all of you and hopefully get some happiness from here and definitely i'm very happy to share this so happiness for both of us we will dedicate this for the world peace and special nowadays we're having the pandemic around the world and we all dedicate this uh virtue and happiness to end this pandemicism thank you thank you so if you found this session helpful you are welcome to join minga rinpoche for the heart of the way of the bodhisattva retreat in a couple of weeks that's from the 13th to the 15th of august this retreat is open to everyone and the slide i'm about to put up has the uh the link for that to get in for more information about that so thank you all very much for joining us and enjoy your day you

Channel: Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Views: 64,438

Rating: 4.9558764 out of 5

Keywords: meditation, mindfulness, Tergar, Joy of Living, Mingyur Rinpoche, bodhisattva, shatideva, loving kindness, compassion

Id: GjOvoq-8xl0

Length: 45min 12sec (2712 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2021