Perhaps we should start this talk with the subject of self-dwelling. One of the differences between modern Western society and the traditional societies which still exist to a certain extent in parts of Europe and in Asia, is the modern Western glorification of the individual. It’s a very interesting phenomenon. I don’t think it has ever happened before in our history — it’s hard to know yet whether it’s an evolution or devolution. But it is certainly a departure, and one we may not be completely conscious of since we were born into this culture.
When someone is born into a traditional society, they are automatically part of a very large network right from the start. That network is usually not national. A person’s first thought is not, “I’m an Australian” or “I’m an Indian”. Their first thought is directed towards their locality, their particular social setting in that locality and towards the family. That is what they identify with. They are very much a network of a family. Now, being a part of a network of a family does not just include our parents, sisters or brothers, but also our cousins, aunts, second cousins and third cousins as well. If we are from India, for example, and we go to a new place, we still have family in India somewhere — this person may have married that one seven generations back, but we are still family. We have always got this underpinning, this network of people with whom we are somehow connected, however many generations back. The sense of belonging to this big network is very important and very sustaining. It is very hard to fall through the holes; there are so many people upholding us who will take care of us.
One side of this situation is that because we belong to this network, this infrastructure of family — in India, of caste or in other places, of clan — we are safe. However, we have duties and obligations to that family, to that caste, to that clan; we have a sense of honour towards those to whom we belong. Even if it’s a very low caste, there are rules and regulations and ways of conduct which are natural to that caste and which we respect. And within the familial structure, we know where we belong. When we were very small, we had to respect, honour and serve our elders whether we personally liked them or not. We belonged to them, they belonged to us; we had your duties. We served and took care of them and they looked after us. Then, if we were a girl, we married out of the family or if we are a boy we brought someone into the family. The sense of knowing what to do, what is appropriate behaviour for our age group and social standing towards everybody around us remains the same. It’s all very set and very clear. This gives a sense of security, a sense of belonging.
The negative side, of course, is that we have to do more or less what we are told. There are certain obligations which have to be fulfilled. We are not a free agent, especially where marriage is concerned. In India, marriages are usually arranged for us and we don’t have any choice. It is considered that the age when we are about to get married is just the time when we least have any sense of real discretion about whom we should be marrying – we are more likely to be swept away by our hormones than by common sense! Therefore, it makes more sense for our family to choose someone they feel would be more suitable for us both socially and astrologically, as one’s parents have more experience and are not so emotionally involved.
Thus, there are both good and bad sides to belonging to this extended familial network. This is not just an Asian pattern, it also happened in Europe until a hundred years ago. There is a sense of security because we know how to behave to those who are older than us, those who are our equals and those who are our inferiors. We know what is appropriate, whether or not we like our status or the person our parents have chosen for us.
In the West during recent generations, this whole traditional structure has almost completely broken down. In the old style, one was a part of a group and one’s own wishes and desires were subjugated to the wishes and desires of that group. To rebel against that and to push for one’s own individual wishes when they were not in the interests of the group was the greatest crime. And thus, to be thrown out of that familial structure, to be expelled and rejected, was also considered to be the greatest horror. Because then one had no support system; one didn’t belong anywhere. We were in the void – alone without protection.
Today we have the cult of the individual. It’s the individual who counts; it’s the individual who has the right to control his whole life even at an early age — and have you noticed this age is getting earlier and earlier? Control is given to people so young and inexperienced that they could not possibly have the wisdom to actually safeguard their own lives. What is happening is that each person now, beginning at a very young age, has a strong sense of themselves, but not that sense of their interconnection with all the others.
Traditionally, children were brought up to naturally respect their parents and their teachers, and they didn’t question it. I know Tibetans who have extremely difficult and often very selfish parents, but their children love them anyway. They respecttheir parents and are understanding and sympathetic towards their problems. They know their parents have their faults, but never mind, , they are still their parents. They are still their mother and their father who gave them life and brought them up. Without these parents, they would not exist in this world. So they have gratitude. This quality of gratitude, this quality of appreciating people, is missing from our modern society. People are rarely grateful anymore — we think we can all do it ourselves. But in fact nobody can do everything themselves; we are all dependent on others.
Now we have this society where it’s every man for himself. What I want is what counts. There is little sympathy, empathy or consideration for the wants of others, or the thought that perhaps what we want might hurt someone else. By rights, we would think that as it’s “Everything for me and too bad about the others — let them take care of their own problems!”, we should therefore feel very fulfilled. Now we have the freedom to do whatever we want. Think about it – we have enough food, we have somewhere to stay, we have lots of clothes and freedom. We can do whatever we want, so why aren’t we perfectly happy? Why is there such a high suicide rate among the young who have fought so long to get this freedom which was going to make them so everlastingly happy?
What’s gone wrong? Our consumer society worships the individual –especially the successful individual. To be a successful individual, we have to do what our consumer society tells us. We have to look a certain way, eat the same kind of junk food, we have to drink, smoke, and look cool. Then we’ll be successful and have lots of friends and be happy ever after. But this isn’t working. Why?
Somehow, this over-emphasis on ‘me, me, me’, ‘my wants, my desires, everything for me’ doesn’t work. People who are really mentally sick are usually obsessed with themselves — it’s one of the ways you can tell they are unwell. They can’t talk about anything but themselves. They can be very fascinating about themselves but nonetheless, all they are interested in is their problems, their mental hang-ups, the terrible things which happened to them in their childhood or their horrible relationships. They are so completely obsessed with themselves that they can’t think of anything else. If you try to change the subject to something more general, they get bored instantly and will quickly get back to ‘me, me, me’. This is a sign of some kind of neurosis.
Think about the society which is encouraging this, which is encouraging us to think only, “Me, me, me — my wants, my desires, my ambitions, my dreams … go out and get them if that’s what we want. Don’t think about anyone else, they are unimportant”. If this worked, if this made us happy, peaceful and fulfilled, then maybe okay. But it doesn’t work, even if it looks like we are succeeding. I meet many people who outwardly look very successful—they have beautiful houses, big Mercedes cars, they are very beautiful and fashionable. They have everything they could possibly want, but they are not happy. Talk with them for five minutes and it all comes out. All their anguish, their dissatisfaction, their pain, the façade they are trying so hard to maintain which has nothing to do with who they really are inside. But they can’t talk about that with other people because no one wants to hear about that — everybody only wants to talk about their own problems.
This whole question of what we call self-dwelling, occurs when we become obsessed with the ‘me, me, me’, thinking that if we could only satisfy our insatiable desires, then somehow, at some point, we will get it right and be happy ever after, like in the story books. Even when I was a small child and read fairy tales where the prince finally met up with the princess and they lived happily ever after, I always wondered what happened after that? After the honeymoon, then what? Then the trouble would start because so often they were incompatible types! You could see that right from the start!
It could be that we are looking in the completely wrong direction for happiness. Society is telling us that selfishness will bring us eternal fulfillment, joy and bliss, but this is the biggest lie ever told. Of course society is lying to us — it wants us to buy things, to be like hamsters in a wheel, running until we are exhausted even though we never get anywhere.
The Buddha said that desires are like salty water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become. We never quench our thirst, we just become thirstier. So maybe the way to happiness is not always to be thinking about “What I want, my happiness, my fulfillment, realizing my inner potential”. Perhaps realizing our inner potential is not through absorbing ourselves in gratifying our own desires. Maybe our genuine satisfaction lies in a different direction altogether. Maybe it lies in dropping our obsession with the ‘me’ and ‘mine’. Perhaps true happiness lies in thinking about others.
Our society with its cult of the individual creates this terrible problem of alienation. Somebody I know wrote a book called Alone with Others. The title sums it up. We are always having get-togethers, we go to the pub, we’re with our mates, or we go to parties and hang out with our friends, but there’s still this sense of non-real connection, of being alone even with others around. That’s mostly why people get together to drink — to try to drown out the sound of their own aloneness because they are afraid, because they feel so cut off. Young people get especially caught up in this because they are so lonely being alone. It can be very painful to think that we not the same as everybody else, that we do not conform to that standard generated by society. Every year we are expected to look a certain way and people do what they can to conform. Then the next year, we all have to look differently and purchase a new wardrobe. Even the counter-culture people all look the same—to find someone who is really original is very hard.
Anyway, the fact is that we get caught up in this cycle and we are engrossed in trying to make ourselves happy. We try to get everything we want in order to become a successful person in this world. Yet the more we become alienated from ourselves. It’s a paradox. The reason why people are so miserable and feel so estranged is not just that they are alienated from society, but because they are alienated from their true selves. They are acting out the distorted wants of the ego. This ego that dominates us is like a big spider weaving a web around us, so we become further and further separated from our true being. And the more we become separated from our true being, the more we also feel separated from all those around us. So we have to come home — come home in a very real sense, because we are all living in the streets as far as our psyche is concerned.
Meditation is one of the ways to learn to come home — to discover our true being. When we begin to contact with our inner being, we find that that being is not ‘me’ or ‘mine’. It is what connects us with all beings. Actually, we are not separate; we are all very deeply interconnected. The more we go inside, the more we find ourselves radiating outside. There are varying approaches to this so I would suggest two which we could all successfully incorporate in our daily lives. There is the breathing-in, the meditation where we begin stripping off the layers of our false identifications. But there’s also the breathing-out, which means becoming more connected with others in a meaningful and compassionate way. We have to realize that we are each only one among billions of others, and that others are of equal importance to ourselves.
How do we interconnect with others? Perhaps, the first thing is to stop worrying about what other people think about us. Once again, this is just a disease of the ego. Who cares what other people think about us? They are not really concerned about us — they are just worrying what we think about them!
There is a lovely Indian Swami of whom I’m very fond. He read the book Cave in the Snow by Vicki Mackenzie and was very impressed by her writing. He thinks she is wonderful. So he wrote her a flowery letter praising all her spiritual qualities. She was rather intimidated, but she wrote an equally flowery letter back to him. Recently, she came to Tashi Jong to visit us. We went to see the Swami – who was so excited to finally meet her. Anyway, they had a very nice day together and Swami was at his best – singing beautiful spiritual songs and showing her around the ashram. When she left, her first question was, “Do you think he liked me? What do you think he thought of me?” I learned later that after our departure the Swami had asked, “Do you think she liked me? What do you think she thought of me?”
The point is, we don’t have to worry about what others think of us because they are more worried about what we think of them. From our side, what we have to do is to be fully aware that there are other people out there and to realize that they are just like us. Everybody we meet is fundamentally like ourselves: they want to be happy, they don’t want to be miserable. Everybody wants to be happy, however they designate what happiness means to them. But we are so confused that often, in trying to gain happiness, we create more pain for ourselves and for those around us. But that’s our confusion, it’s not the intention. The intention is to create some kind of happiness. Therefore, whenever we meet anyone, we should be conscious of this.
We share this in common — we all want to be happy. Not just human beings, but animals, insects, birds, any being. Any being wants happiness. Therefore, when we meet anyone, we should have this thought in our minds, “May you be well and happy”. We don’t have to say it verbally, but just have that feeling of good-will in our hearts. Whether we like that person or not is irrelevant.
To have a heart which is open to others however they treat us is a happy heart. If we begin from our heart to relate to people, wanting their happiness and not caring whether they make us happy or not, just from our side wishing good will to others, then slowly our heart begins to open up. And an open heart is a happy one even while it absorbs the sufferings of others.
Take His Holiness, the Dalai Lama for example. The Dalai Lama meets people every day — new arrivals from Tibet with ghastly stories of their suffering and the suffering of their families and communities. He has to hear these every day. He’s the Leader of Tibet yet he’s powerless, so imagine the pain he feels. Then, since he is regarded as such a figure of peace he is connected with other agencies and communities in many countries. Everyday he hears ghastly things from all over the world. He’s constantly being besieged by people coming not only from Tibet but also from India and abroad. Many of them dumping their sorrows in his lap. He’s constantly thinking of others. But is he miserable? If we tell him something sad he will weep because he really cares. But the next minute, he’s laughing again! Look into his eyes — they are sparkling. In most of the photos of the Dalai Lama, he is smiling.
A mind which is very obsessed with itself, which is very much in the control of its relative ego—its likes, dislikes, opinions, biases and ideas of how things or people should or should not be– is a mind which is very rigid, judgmental and prejudiced. We all have it. We absorb prejudices with our mother’s milk. Even people who have dropped out from society have their prejudices. In fact, they are often the most rigid of all. People in alternative societies also have their own opinions, ideas, judgments and standards! They are not free.
Our mind is very conditioned. To a certain extent until we are totally enlightened, it is impossible not to have a conditioned mind because that is the way we think. But we should be conscious of the fact that we are very prejudiced and judgmental about everything. Everyone has their opinions. We think, “This is my opinion”, but usually it isn’t. It’s either the general opinion of the media or what program we have watched on television last night which was crafted very carefully to get us to agree with its opinion, or else it is the opinion of the particular group we hang out with. However, we take it as our own opinion. We stick by it and think this is truth and any other view is erroneous. Then a few years down the line, general opinions change and everybody goes the other way. It’s quite interesting. If we are old enough we can observe this happening.
When we are young, we imagine that what we think is the only way there is and anyone who thinks differently is crazy. The current trend is the ultimate truth, the final statement, and everything that went before it is old-fashioned and stupid. Then a short time later, everything’s changed again and our current style has become outmoded. All you young ones — you just wait! The way you are dressing now will make you laugh ten years down the line. When you look at photos of yourselves later, you’ll think, “Did I really look like that when I was that age — goodness!” But at that time, it was the height of cool.
We are all prejudiced, biased, and full of opinions and judgments, most of which are untested, most of which we have inherited either from our families and our social contacts, or from the books we read, or from the programs we watch. Very few of them have been genuinely examined in the light of reason and understanding. But when we hold an opinion, we will die for it. People die for their ideas all the time, not that they are brilliant ideas. Instead, very often, they are stupid ideas. These beliefs, these opinions and judgments colour everything we see. They are not innocuous or harmless.
Some opinions are pretty harmless — whether we take sugar in our tea or not, whether we think we should be eating only grain or fruit. These might affect our body but basically, they are harmless. However, there are some prejudices which are very harmful for one’s own mind and for society. Obvious ones are religious and racial prejudices. They have caused so much harm in our world. Millions of people are killed because they don’t believe what we believe or because they belong to a different race, and for no other reason. They are not bad people, but “If you don’t believe what I believe, you deserve to die”.
So, this question of our opinions and our beliefs is not a small question. Most of our own beliefs and prejudices are, as I said, totally unexamined. Where do they come from? Have we really thought them through? Have we talked intelligently to people with different views? Have we read books about other ways of thinking? Usually, when we believe in something, we will only read books which enhance our beliefs. We don’t read books or watch programs which give a different point of view. If we watch something or someone saying something we don’t agree with, we watch it with a prejudiced mind. It’s very interesting to watch that mind, because we are filtering experience all the time, and this also alienates us from what is happening around us.
So, what do we need to do? We cannot live without opinions and ideas while we are in an unenlightened state. The very fact that I’m a Buddhist nun shows that I have opinions and beliefs! But we have to understand that these are just beliefs — they are just opinions. In themselves, they have no external verity. They are just judgments and ideas, which can change. There are certain ideas which have been going on for millennia and which definitely need to be examined anew. Certain qualities which we have always admired (which may or may not be admirable) should be examined with fresh eyes even though they have lasted all this while.
The important thing is not to identify ourselves with our thoughts and feelings, but to see that thoughts and opinions are just mental factors. Even a belief system in itself is a mental artifact. The Buddha, when talking about the doctrine of the Dharma, said, “This is a raft, it’s a boat. It can take you from this shore of relative reality to the other shore of absolute reality”. Now, while we are mid-stream, we would be foolish to discard our raft, but when we get to the other shore, we would be equally foolish to then place the raft on our shoulders and carry it around out of respect. When we reach the other shore we no longer have need of the raft. The Dharma is just a device; it is the path, but it isn’t the goal.
All belief systems and religions are just relative. In themselves, they are not the truth but they can help us to realize the truth. Without them, it would be hard to gain spiritual realization. We may be able to get a glimpse, but to stabilize that experience is quite difficult without some kind of spiritual discipline. Even the highest and noblest of opinions, ideas and judgments have to go in the end. Meantime, we should understand that all our prejudices, all our conceptions and biases should be understood as being just a passing phenomena. They do not possess ultimate validity from their own side they are just mental states and not ‘me’ or ‘mine’.
We all know that a truly enlightened mind, a mind which is filled with wisdom and compassion, would not discriminate. We know that a master who embodied genuine wisdom and compassion would be totally open and accepting of everyone. How could an enlightened master say, “Yes, I accept this person but I don’t accept that person”? It’s not possible to even imagine that. And therefore, the more we are closed to certain sections of society or religion or race, the more we close our heart and the less we are embodying of our genuine enlightened nature. The more judgmental, the more rigid, the more we are caught up in our likes and dislikes, the further we are away from an enlightened state, because an enlightened state is non-discriminating.
We come back to this question of the ego again. The ego leads us very much astray. In a society like ours which is so based on ego gratification, we are far away from the true path. That’s why people are so empty inside and feel so lost. We have to embody a way of life which shows us the way back home, back to our true selves, so that we are living from the point of view of our true nature and not from this false ego.
In the Dharma there are two ways to do this. First is the way of inner introspection, of learning how to calm the mind, of making it one-pointed. Then looking into its own nature so that we can distinguish between that which is false and that which is true. This way we can begin to let go of all our false identifications, especially our very strong identification with the ego. At the same time, we can begin to open out towards others through generosity. Not just generosity in the giving of material things but also giving time, giving understanding, giving space for people, being there when people need us. Not judging, being open and being patient, understanding, tolerant, and not reacting angrily when things don’t go our way and when people don’t do what we want them to do. Accepting things and really taking these difficulties of life into the path, using them skillfully instead of reacting adversely and becoming angry. And having kindness — what the Dalai Lama calls the good heart, a heart that cares about others, not just about ourselves.
There are people who desperately care about wild animals, trees, our environment. That’s wonderful. But sometimes these same people are rude to their parents and cause them much pain and worry. We have to start from where we are, and with whom we are. That starts with our parents, our partners, our children. Make them happy. Practice kindness, generosity, love, tolerance with those who are around us, towards those with whom we work, towards people we meet. Just be there for them, be kind to them, think that they also want to be happy. Try not to cause unhappiness to anyone. Try to make people a little happier; a smile or a kind word goes a long way. Stop being so self-absorbed. Think about others. What we want doesn’t really matter so much.
The irony is that if we genuinely think more about others than about ourselves, we become happy. We’ve been trying so hard to find our happiness by getting what we want for ourselves, that we stop thinking about what others want and how to make others happy. Then we find without even looking for it that one day, we wake up and realize that we feel good. It’s one of the paradoxes: the less we think about ourselves and the more we think about others, on the whole, the happier we will be. The more we are obsessed with our own happiness and couldn’t care less about others, the more miserable we will make ourselves and all those around us.
There are so many things we can do. First of all, we start with trying to make those people around us happy. That’s our challenge. It’s much easier to sit and think, “May all beings be well and happy”, and when we think of those kangaroos, the possums and wallabies jumping around, tears come to our eyes. Then, if we want to go out just as our mother wants us to do the washing up, we’re so angry. But our mother is a sentient being, our partner is a sentient being, our children are sentient beings and they are the sentient beings in front of us. They are the ones we have to wish to be well and happy.
In the Tibetan tradition, when we are meditating on all sentient beings, we have our father on the right and our mother on the left and then our enemies in front of us. We put all those people we don’t like right in front of us, followed by our family and friends. This is skillful because it reminds us that it’s not just sentient beings in general out there — those little specks on the horizon — who are important, it’s the people we have to deal with right now. That’s who we are taking about — people we are associated with and with whom we have a karmic connection. Whether we like these people or not, they are sentient beings wanting to be happy and it’s our responsibility to make them happy.
We come back again to the first thing we started with which was the sense of inner connection with the family and with the tribe, and then with one’s culture. This is very important. We have to strike a balance between being totally subjected to parental and tribal restrictions and being so free that we don’t connect anymore with anything. One way to do this is to develop a sense of inner centeredness. From this we can begin to radiate out towards all the beings around us. We don’t feel lonely any more because we know that at a profound level, we are connected with those beings. We are no longer concerned with what other people think about us; we are only concerned with how we can benefit other beings.
Society has become so distorted. It doesn’t give us what it promised it was going to give us. It doesn’t give everlasting happiness or peaceful joy. It just gives us a sense of despair, separation, frustration and this insatiable longing which can never be filled, a great hollowness within. People feel that everything is meaningless and they despair totally. There is so much depression — look at how many people are on medication like Prozac. Tibetans have never even heard of things like Prozac.
So, it’s up to us. No one can do it for us. We each have the responsibility for our own lives, to really get our lives centered and well-oriented. The methods are there, but we alone can implement them. When it’s clear in our mind, when we really see things with some clarity, then everything falls into place. Then it is very obvious what we need to do. But nobody can do it for us. It’s like swimming upstream. Society is flowing downstream; it’s flowing down to the swamps, flowing down to the wastelands of despair. If we go in that direction, that’s where we are going to be shipwrecked. So we have to swim upstream and that takes a lot of effort. Society is going down stream and we’re going in a different direction but strangely enough, that doesn’t alienate. Strangely enough, once we really connect with our inner centeredness, far from feeling disconnected from all the beings around us, we feel intimately related in a deep sense. We really want to be able to understand what is the right direction so that we also can guide others to find it. Because as we begin to do this, we will begin to attract like-minded people. More and more people who have also began to question modern ethos will be drawn to us. Soon we will have a community and friendships with like-minded people.
The Buddha praised friendship very much. There’s a curious dialogue in the Sutras where Ananda, the Buddha’s companion, says to the Buddha, “I think that good companionship is half of the spiritual path”. And the Buddha said, “Don’t say so, Ananda. Good companionship is the whole of the spiritual path”. Companionship with minds which are supportive, helpful and understanding is very important. And as we go in this new spiritual direction in our lives, these people come to us. They are drawn like magnets.
The word ‘spiritual’ may sound very vague but it just means getting our life together and orientating it in a different direction. I hope you can get together and meet and sit together to discuss meaningful things and give each other support and clarity.
Questions
Q: I have a question about the use of the word ‘media’. You used the device of generalization with regard to the media as a fairly negative force. I’m just wondering however, if the term ‘advertising media’ might be a good addition to that because the media per se is not fully intent on drawing people away from ‘swimming upstream’: there are many instances of media experiences which give you a realization.
A: That’s true, of course. For example, in journalism and on television, I have seen many very beautiful, inspiring and helpful things. But the general trend — a good 90% to 95% of the media — is based on propagating this consumer consciousness. Of course there are good, responsible and dedicated people out there who are making and writing wonderful things, but they tend to be submerged in the avalanche of all the other stuff which is what most people are watching. This is the problem. You turn on the television and most of it is mind-boggling junk! I think one realizes it more if one is from outside. We don’t have television at our nunnery in India and I don’t go to the cinema. I don’t listen to the radio, we don’t usually see any newspapers, so when I come to a place like this I see it with very clear eyes because I’m not being inundated by it day by day. Then we realize how appalling the standard is, and the lies which are being propagated to the public in general.
Q: You spoke a bit about the media, its responsibility, the whole consumer society and the ego co-operating with these. My question is whether the structure of these is a manifestation of ourselves or is someone else doing it to us? Are we victims?
A: I think it’s a bit of both. A lot of it is the thinking of ‘mine’ which is manipulating society. But from its side, society is of course jumping right aboard. If we said, “No, I’m not interested, I don’t want to go around advertising Gucci on a T-shirt. Gucci should pay me for advertising”, then there would be no Gucci T-shirts. It’s because we’re so stupid that we say, “Oh yes, I have to flaunt Gucci on my T-shirt” and Gucci gets so rich. It’s both sides—we go along with it and we are fed by such images; we are so caught up by this pleasure that we don’t even realize what is happening, how enslaved we are.
In the mean time, all these big fish get bigger and bigger but they couldn’t do that without our ego co-operating. So we are brain-washed by our own incessant desires. As I said, salt water makes us more and more thirsty and then, the media, through advertising and the kind of magazines they put out, feeds into that. And we go along with it. If we didn’t go along with it, the whole thing would collapse, wouldn’t it? So, it comes from both sides. But certainly the rich get richer and richer, and the poor get poorer and poorer. In the end, who is benefiting?
Q: You talked about the in-breath and its importance. But you also talked about connecting with others in the out-breath. I’m not quite sure what that means or how it works.
A: I was using that in the sense of breathing in as a way of going inside. I was just using it as a metaphor and not literally. The metaphor of breathing in is when you are going inwards and doing the inner introspections and the breathing out is the sense of radiating outwards and connecting with others. We need both: we need to go in and we need to go out.
Q: I was wondering about the connection between withdrawing, going inside yourself, becoming introspective, and at the same time, becoming more other-focused and other-centred, because on the surface, it seems a bit of a paradox.
A: There are two things. One is to gain inner clarity, to clear away the clouds of our delusion and wake up. At the same time, we have to open up the heart and embrace all others. These two can be separated; in my case, for example, I spent many years in isolation. During those times of isolation on the whole, the emphasis was on trying to discard the various layers of false identities within. Since then, whether I wanted to or not, I’ve been thrust out to interconnect with others! Because most people don’t have the opportunities to do extended retreats, one can do practice in one’s everyday life by having set periods where one just sits and quietly goes within. The rest of the time, one concentrates on being present — on still maintaining that awareness of being here in the moment, but at the same time one relates openly with others.
I think of the example of Mother Theresa’s nuns. Most people, when they think of the Sisters of Charity, visualize them running around the streets of Calcutta picking up the dead and the dying. But in fact, the sisters spend half their day in prayer or contemplation. They only go out at certain times. They spend a lot of time just praying and doing silent contemplation because like a vessel, if we are always pouring out and out, we become empty. Many people who serve society, such as social workers, find this to be the case. They are giving out and giving out and in the end, suddenly, they are all burnt out. The vessel’s empty. So we also have to find the time to take in, to replenish, to be filling up again while you are also pouring out .
These two should really be balanced, that inner journey along with the outer exploration of our empathy with all beings. Because if we only do the inner journey, if we don’t open up the heart, then we become cold and remote. Genuine enlightenment is the perfect integration of wisdom and compassion — the two have to go together. When there is genuine understanding, compassion naturally will arise. It is helpful to combine our growing understanding of others with empathy and compassion towards everyone we meet. These two together result in a very quick journey along the path.
Q: You talked about delusion and the mind. How do you know when you are deluded?
A: We are all deluded. As long as we’re not in the state of unconditional, non-dual awareness, we’re under delusion. Some delusions are different from others. Some delusions are helpful and some are not helpful. But basically, we’re all asleep. Our task is to wake up. This is a dream from which we must awaken. Some dreams may be nice ones and others are nightmares, but they are all dreams.
Q: One of the most difficult things involved in my work is to try to unhook all the thinking that goes towards how people behave towards the rest of the world and tracing it back. But the process seems never-ending. And suddenly, you come to some root and incredible anger is aroused: people really resist. They feel their problems, their ideas are so true and so real.
A: I’m sure that there are many people like that out there. We just have to connect. Because we cling to our prejudices, our ideas and opinions, we think they are ‘me’ and ‘mine’, they uphold the ego. Therefore if we take the ego’s opinions and judgments away, where is the ‘I’? Because that’s who I am — I’m a person who believes in this and that, and when we demolish this, we haven’t got anywhere to stand. So of course, people will defend it to the death. Therefore, it’s very important, as I was saying, to trace back and then start from the beginning point and try to help people go in a different direction.