Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / An image of enlightenment: entering the centre of the mandala

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An image of enlightenment: entering the centre of the mandala · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

• 0:09
  So I'm RTK 2, I know some of you were, we were meditating
• 0:14
  together and some of you were in other rooms.
• 0:17
  So, so we have a WhatsApp group for this particular class.
• 0:24
  So someone probably salve will say something about that at the
• 0:27
  end. And in that WhatsApp group I
• 0:30
  talked about, I said that round about a year ago, I gave a talk
• 0:34
  and it was called An Image of Enlightenment entering the
• 0:39
  Mandala of the Five Buddhas. So that was about a year ago.
• 0:44
  And at the time I thought it would be good to go into these
• 0:49
  Buddhas kind of one by one or two by two, as you'll see today,
• 0:56
  and kind of go into a bit more of their specific kind of
• 1:01
  symbolism. So in the talk that I gave, it
• 1:04
  was a little bit more. We looked at the colours in
• 1:08
  particular, and we looked at the what are called the five
• 1:12
  poisons. I'll be mentioning them later
• 1:13
  on, and the five wisdoms. And I also talked about that in
• 1:20
  a way our life is an is is an act of the imagination.
• 1:26
  So we're always imagining ourselves into existence, our
• 1:30
  kind of thoughts and the images that we have, the kind of the
• 1:34
  hopes, the fears, they all kind of image and our life, we kind
• 1:41
  of become that image that we become the images kind of like
• 1:48
  ourselves. It's our how our self is built
• 1:50
  up really. Obviously that's very dynamic.
• 1:53
  It's not static. So this is part of the part of
• 1:59
  the reason why in Buddhism we do things like visualise butter
• 2:05
  figures, because when you visualise a butter figure, you
• 2:10
  start to imagine the qualities of the butter.
• 2:16
  And as it's arising in your imagination, it's actually
• 2:19
  changing your consciousness. You're kind of in a way you'll
• 2:21
  be, you're becoming closer and closer to that image.
• 2:31
  Yeah, maybe to give it a little bit of historical context.
• 2:36
  So I'm going to be talking about the well, actually the title of
• 2:42
  this talk is An image of enlightenment because this is
• 2:46
  the second talk in the series entering the centre of the
• 2:50
  mandala. So I'll be saying what a mandala
• 2:53
  is in the in a minute. So if you go back in in time,
• 2:59
  back to the point at which the Buddha gained enlightenment, he
• 3:04
  woke up after, so he lived as a human being awake and at a
• 3:11
  certain point he passed into para Nirvana.
• 3:14
  That's how it's called Nirvana without remainder.
• 3:18
  We could say to simplify it a little bit, that was the end of
• 3:21
  the Buddha's life, his death. So obviously people really
• 3:28
  venerated, respected, loved, remembered all of the various
• 3:32
  qualities of the Buddha. So the Buddha was very alive in
• 3:36
  their imagination. And there is actually a practice
• 3:39
  where you imagine the Buddha. But as time went on and as
• 3:44
  Buddhism changed, it went through three phases.
• 3:47
  Early Buddhism, then what's called the Mahayana, then what's
• 3:50
  called the Vadriana. When we get to the Vadriana,
• 3:53
  which was roughly 1500 years after the Buddha's death, a sort
• 4:01
  of new way of practising emerged.
• 4:05
  It was starting to emerge already in the previous phase
• 4:09
  because the what? Instead of just the sense of the
• 4:12
  historical Buddha, what started to happen was that things got a
• 4:17
  lot more visionary and there wasn't just one Buddha, there
• 4:19
  were many Buddha's and the, the universe was not very, it was a
• 4:25
  lot less material in, in their imaginations and it was a lot
• 4:28
  more cosmic. So the next phase of, of
• 4:33
  Buddhism then, well, I suppose what I wanted to say is that
• 4:39
  what we're going to be looking at today comes from that third
• 4:42
  phase, the vadriana. So there they talk about the
• 4:45
  mandala and they talk about the Buddha or the five Buddhas or
• 4:49
  even more Buddhas. So that's what we're going to be
• 4:52
  looking at. So that's a mandala.
• 5:04
  Probably quite a few of you are familiar with that image and
• 5:10
  it's an image of enlightenment and it's an image of kind of how
• 5:19
  well it's the an image of the enlightened mind and how the
• 5:21
  world is perceived through it. It tells you something about the
• 5:28
  journey to enlightenment and it's a kind of like it's quite a
• 5:31
  complex image. It's got lots of parts to it and
• 5:36
  you could say each of the parts in and of itself is a doorway,
• 5:40
  is a doorway towards enlightenment.
• 5:43
  So as you contemplate the various images or symbols within
• 5:47
  the mandala, you start to move more in the direction of
• 5:51
  enlightenment. That's the kind of the aim of
• 5:53
  it. So I'm going to describe it a
• 5:56
  little bit in quite a, to start with, in quite a gross kind of
• 6:01
  way, and then we're going to get more subtle.
• 6:04
  So I think The thing is when we come into relationship with
• 6:07
  images, it's good just to look and see like really basically
• 6:14
  what is going on. So what you see when you look at
• 6:17
  this image is you see, well, actually you could say you see a
• 6:21
  sense of blue, which represents the blue sky.
• 6:25
  And then there's a, there's a circle.
• 6:28
  And then within the circle there's a square.
• 6:31
  And within the square, the, the square has kind of got a centre.
• 6:35
  And within the square there's another circle.
• 6:38
  And it looks as if, as you look at this image, it seems as if
• 6:42
  there are four ways in to the square.
• 6:47
  So that's very basic and what I said last time when when I gave
• 6:53
  this talk, I said that as you look at this image, you were
• 6:56
  looking at it from two different perspectives.
• 7:00
  So one perspective is as you look at the centre, you see,
• 7:04
  well, in this particular image you see two Buddha figures, a
• 7:09
  Buddha called Amitabha and a Buddha called Pandora Varceny.
• 7:15
  They're both red and they're in in this image, they're in sexual
• 7:19
  union. So they say it's not that in a
• 7:23
  sense. The figures are not 2, they're
• 7:26
  one. That's all it's talked about.
• 7:35
  And what, what you. Oh yeah.
• 7:38
  So so it's saying about the perspectives.
• 7:40
  Wasn't that. So the first perspective is as
• 7:42
  you look into the centre, you're seeing the image like you're
• 7:45
  looking at the Buddha in that kind of way.
• 7:47
  You're looking sort of head on, but then the rest of the image
• 7:52
  you're actually looking from above and you're looking down
• 7:57
  and it's like a an architectural drawing really.
• 8:05
  So what we see as we start to get a bit more clearer about
• 8:09
  what's going on, we see that this circular part has actually
• 8:14
  got 3 sections to it. And actually what it is, is 3
• 8:18
  walls or three boundaries. And then you've got this central
• 8:25
  part, which is the square part and what that is, well, it could
• 8:31
  be a number of things. It could be a palace or it could
• 8:36
  be a a temple or a gompa. Gompa is the Tibetan for temple
• 8:44
  and right in the very heart of it are these two figures kind of
• 8:48
  right at the very centre. And what you've also got is, is
• 8:54
  that generally when we enter the mandala, we enter it from the
• 8:59
  east. So sort of like the direction
• 9:02
  that we come into the the mandala normally is like in
• 9:06
  terms of the imagery we come in up through this entrance and
• 9:12
  that entrance is in the east. So that means that as as you go
• 9:16
  around the this kind of palace, this is the South, this is the
• 9:23
  West, and this is the north. So I put this out one time, the
• 9:28
  last time I did it, and someone was sort of like, it's wrong
• 9:32
  because we're so used to this sense of the north being up.
• 9:35
  Yeah, But in this image, it's different.
• 9:38
  That's how we move around the mandala.
• 9:41
  So I said that in in this particular image, we see Amy
• 9:46
  Tarba and Pandora Varsani and the other 4 Buddhas, or you
• 9:54
  could even say 8 actually, they're not shown.
• 9:58
  It's like what you've got is you've got this sense of this
• 10:01
  central room and then you can see that these two Buddhas
• 10:05
  within it. And then the rest of the image
• 10:07
  is more, it represents the Buddhas only by colour.
• 10:12
  So there's a blue in the east, there's yellow in the South.
• 10:20
  Now we'll see in a minute that white is usually in the centre.
• 10:23
  But because the in this image, the red Buddha has come into the
• 10:27
  centre, the white has changed positions and then the green is
• 10:32
  in the north. So there's this sense of the
• 10:36
  directions of space colour. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 10:44
  talk a little bit about the, the kind of to start with, they're
• 10:50
  sort of outer free rings. Oh, no, actually I'm not.
• 10:57
  I'm going to say something else before that.
• 10:59
  So this is this another way of talking about mandalas, So this
• 11:06
  brings it a lot more down to earth, is that you can actually
• 11:09
  draw your own personal mandala. So what you do when you draw
• 11:14
  your personal mandala is you put something in the centre and that
• 11:20
  is the thing that is most important in your life.
• 11:24
  And then as you start to arrange other aspects of your life kind
• 11:29
  of according to importance and sometimes according to how much
• 11:32
  time you give them, those things go kind of further out, further
• 11:37
  out, further out, further out. So I'll give you an example.
• 11:42
  Yeah, so it's hypothetical. Well, maybe not for everybody
• 11:48
  actually. So in your life, your centre,
• 11:55
  your where you where you're putting your energy is, is
• 11:57
  money. That's what you're interested
• 11:59
  in. So that goes right in the centre
• 12:02
  of your mandala and well, because that's your focus, then
• 12:10
  probably what also comes into the centre is work.
• 12:14
  So either work is a little bit further out or it's right in the
• 12:17
  centre because as you work, you gain money.
• 12:19
  This is what's most important. But also there are other things
• 12:23
  that are important to you, aren't there?
• 12:26
  So maybe your friends and your family are important to you and
• 12:32
  maybe exercise is important to you.
• 12:37
  But because you're working so hard, when you come home, you're
• 12:41
  too tired, you're not that available.
• 12:45
  And also actually, so again, this is a hypothetical for you.
• 12:52
  The what is actually more important than family and
• 12:57
  friends is exercise. Yeah.
• 13:00
  So, so these like work, money in the middle, exercise is a little
• 13:04
  bit further out and then family and friends are further out
• 13:08
  still. And then you've also maybe got
• 13:11
  other things that you like. So maybe you like to paint or
• 13:15
  you like to draw or you like to ride horses, whatever it might
• 13:19
  be, I don't know. But because you've got no time
• 13:22
  and hardly any energy, you hardly ever do it.
• 13:26
  So that then goes further out in the mandala.
• 13:31
  So it's very good actually to kind of to think of your life in
• 13:34
  this kind of way. It gives you a real sense of
• 13:37
  what happens when you put something at the centre of your
• 13:40
  life. The whole other aspects of your
• 13:44
  life reorganise themselves around that point.
• 13:49
  And because it's dynamic, you can put anything in the centre
• 13:52
  really. So that's a personal mandala,
• 13:56
  but this is more like an idealised mandala.
• 13:59
  So to be a Buddhist, if you're interested in becoming a
• 14:04
  Buddhist, ideally what you would want to do is you put the Buddha
• 14:09
  in the centre of your mandala or even you put what are called the
• 14:14
  free jewels in the centre of your mandala.
• 14:17
  So the Buddha, this ideal of enlightenment which we can
• 14:22
  attain, the Dharma, the teachings that lead in that
• 14:25
  direction, and the Sangha, the the community of people that
• 14:29
  have also realised, realise, realise that, realise the truth.
• 14:37
  Yeah. That's one level of the sango.
• 14:39
  So there you go in the centre and everything else rearranges
• 14:43
  around that. Your whole life looks quite
• 14:45
  different now because you've put these three jewels in the
• 14:49
  centre. Yeah.
• 14:51
  So that's what a Buddhist is kind of aiming at, really.
• 15:00
  So in terms of these, so I'm going back to the image now.
• 15:04
  So in terms of these free walls, the first outer ring, some of
• 15:13
  you might be able to see it, some of you not is a ring of or
• 15:18
  a wall of flames. It's kind of all around this
• 15:22
  kind of palace. So either you're inside the
• 15:27
  mandala and this wall of flames is kind of protecting you or if
• 15:31
  you are going into it, you've got to pass through the wall of
• 15:38
  flames. So what are they?
• 15:42
  So there's a, there's a, there's a ritual kind of ceremony thing
• 15:46
  that we do sometimes at the beginning of of retreats.
• 15:49
  It's called the dedication ceremony.
• 15:51
  And in that it talks a little bit about these walls.
• 15:56
  So it says around this mandala, the sacred spot, may the flames
• 16:03
  that transmute Sansara into Nirvana arise.
• 16:10
  Oh my God. Sorry, just I found out what
• 16:12
  time it was. So now I might have to
• 16:18
  completely rethink things. So the flames that transmute
• 16:24
  Sansara into Nirvana. So Sangsara is basically when we
• 16:37
  it's conditioned existence and it's kind of arises because
• 16:42
  we're seeing the world in a particular way.
• 16:44
  We're seeing the world through what are called the five
• 16:47
  poisons. So the five poisons are
• 16:50
  ignorance, hatred, pride, craving and jealousy.
• 17:05
  So when we're seen through those poisons, we experience Sangsara.
• 17:11
  We're in sangsara. Well, to be honest with you, we
• 17:15
  are definitely in it. We've probably got not not much
• 17:20
  of A of an idea of. So I've said that Sangsara is
• 17:25
  the conditioned. We've got no idea really of the
• 17:29
  unconditioned. This is why we need things like
• 17:30
  this. And we come to a buddy centre to
• 17:32
  try to give us give us a sense of what that might be and how I
• 17:37
  might kind of get there, something like that.
• 17:47
  So it's a matter of seeing. It's like kind of like you, if
• 17:49
  you look through the poisons, you've experienced the world as
• 17:53
  samsara. If you look through what are
• 17:55
  called the wisdoms. So I'll say something about the
• 17:57
  wisdoms in a while. Nirvana.
• 18:03
  So there's a correspondence in between these five poisons and
• 18:09
  these five wisdoms. There's a kind of connection.
• 18:12
  You could even say that the five poisons are a distortion of the
• 18:16
  five wisdoms, But it's usually how well, not all of the time,
• 18:21
  because we're not all just creating delusion and the rest,
• 18:24
  how we've also love and generosity and all the rest of
• 18:28
  that. Sorry, I'm just as I, as I'm sat
• 18:36
  here, I'm sort of thinking, do I need, do I need to miss some
• 18:40
  stuff out? That's what's going through my
• 18:42
  mind. Maybe I do so also just within,
• 18:51
  within this, within this circle, the flames, if you look at the
• 18:57
  image, you see that the flames are 5 coloured in this
• 19:00
  particular image. So the flames are also the same
• 19:05
  colours as what's in the centre of the mandala.
• 19:09
  They're white, they're red, they're blue, they're green and
• 19:14
  they're yellow. So there's a correspondence with
• 19:17
  the kind of with the wisdoms. So the next wall that we we kind
• 19:30
  of pass through is a wall of Vadras.
• 19:34
  This is the next wall. So this, this probably quite a
• 19:40
  lot of you are familiar with that.
• 19:43
  That's a Vadra, some of you maybe not.
• 19:46
  So it's, it's a stylised Thunderbolt.
• 19:50
  It's a stylised lightning whatever Thunderbolt and it it,
• 20:00
  it translates as diamond Thunderbolt.
• 20:03
  So diamond the it's said that the diamond can cut but cannot
• 20:10
  be cut. So it's supposed to be the
• 20:13
  hardest stone and it can cut, but it can't be cut itself.
• 20:20
  Obviously this is a bit more. It's not completely literal,
• 20:23
  it's a bit more symbolic. But it's sort of saying that
• 20:26
  there is an indestructible quality to reality, to truth, to
• 20:32
  wisdom. So what?
• 20:49
  What does the Vadra cut through? So it's also, I've heard some
• 20:53
  teachers say that the Vadra is sharp and the Vadra cuts through
• 21:00
  our attachment to things, it cuts through ignorance.
• 21:06
  And also in, in the words of the dedication ceremony, it says
• 21:10
  around this mandala, this sacred spot, may the Vadra wall of
• 21:14
  determination extend. So there's a quality to the
• 21:18
  Vadra which is like it's unstoppable.
• 21:21
  It's an unstoppable force in our lives that's heading towards the
• 21:26
  truth. Whatever it comes across, it
• 21:30
  kind of transforms. Well, it, it, it, it transforms
• 21:37
  or, or transmutes kind of whatever it comes across,
• 21:40
  there's nothing that can kind of stop its momentum.
• 21:44
  That's the sense of the Vadra. Yeah.
• 21:46
  So that's the second wall. And then the last wall is a wall
• 21:54
  of lotuses. So that's quite beautiful, isn't
• 21:58
  it? A wall of lotuses.
• 22:00
  This is the last wall. And I was thinking that the wall
• 22:05
  of Lotus can represent two things.
• 22:06
  It can represent something which is relative and something which
• 22:09
  is absolute. So on the relative level, the
• 22:13
  wall of lotuses embodies ethical purity.
• 22:20
  So in some of you were probably here last week for Tarapalta's
• 22:24
  talk and he spoke about, I think for the for speech precepts.
• 22:31
  So and as we, as we chant these precepts, so this is our kind of
• 22:37
  ethical framework within Buddhism.
• 22:39
  We say, what do we say? It's just going to happen
• 22:43
  online. We say somewhere with deeds of
• 22:50
  loving kindness. I purify my body.
• 22:54
  With open handed generosity. I purify my body with stillness,
• 22:59
  simplicity and contentment. I purify my body with truthful
• 23:04
  communication. I purify my speech with
• 23:07
  mindfulness, clear and radiant. I purify my mind.
• 23:12
  So they're the positive precepts.
• 23:18
  So we're purifying ourselves of harming ourselves and other
• 23:22
  beings, and we're cultivating loving kindness.
• 23:25
  We're purifying ourselves of taking the not given, and we're
• 23:30
  cultivating generosity. We're purifying ourselves of
• 23:35
  sexual misconduct, and we're cultivating stillness,
• 23:39
  simplicity, and contentment. We're purifying ourselves of
• 23:44
  false speech, and we're cultivating truthful
• 23:47
  communication. We're purifying ourselves of
• 23:51
  intoxicants that cloud the mind, and we cultivate mindfulness,
• 23:56
  clear and radiant. So this is one of the ways of
• 24:00
  looking at this, this sense of the lotuses, the Lotus petals of
• 24:04
  Purita that are part of the mandala.
• 24:08
  So all of these things you could say, because the whole image is
• 24:11
  the enlightened mind, it's kind of saying that all of these
• 24:14
  things belong to the enlightened mind.
• 24:16
  Ethical Purita, transformation with the flames, a sense of
• 24:21
  momentum, sense of movement, a sense of indestructible truth.
• 24:26
  But then on. But to come back to the Lotuses,
• 24:28
  on an absolute level, it's said that the enlightened mind has
• 24:37
  been pure from the very beginning.
• 24:42
  So I, I find this very, something very beautiful about
• 24:51
  that actually. And what it, what it says to me
• 24:53
  is that this is one of the things that it says to me is
• 24:57
  that no matter what has happened in our lives, whatever's
• 25:00
  occurred might have been really bad things have kind of happened
• 25:04
  in our life, difficult things, painful things.
• 25:09
  There is something, so to speak, within us like kind of within,
• 25:16
  in a little bit of inverted commas that remains untouched.
• 25:21
  That's pure, that does not get affected by that.
• 25:27
  That is what's at the base of kind of of the of the
• 25:31
  enlightened mind. And also it's kind of saying
• 25:35
  that that is there within everybody.
• 25:39
  So usually we act from the surface and, and we act
• 25:45
  sometimes if we're acting more unskillfully, sort of we act
• 25:54
  from the, from the poisons. Yeah, we kind of we, we it's
• 26:01
  kind of like this is the the problem, the danger of the
• 26:05
  poisons. It's like as the poisons get a
• 26:10
  hold of us, as the poisons poison our way of seeing and way
• 26:15
  of being in the world. When we're in relationship to
• 26:19
  other people, if we're really in the grip, we're not seeing them
• 26:24
  as human beings. We see them as objects that can
• 26:29
  satisfy our desires or we see them as something to be got rid
• 26:34
  of. So in terms of desire and in
• 26:36
  terms of hatred. So, so in that sense, when we're
• 26:45
  conditioned by the, the well, we are poisoned.
• 26:48
  The emotions are are are a poison and we're also blind to
• 26:54
  to the consequences kind of of actions.
• 27:02
  So that gives you that gives you a
• 27:23
  sense of in a way the mandala or the this sense of the, it's very
• 27:28
  simplified version of this sense of the mandala and how we're
• 27:32
  going to be looking at in terms of how it's arranged and how
• 27:35
  it's normally arranged. Yeah.
• 27:37
  So the white is in the centre and that's what what we're
• 27:41
  looking at today. So the other thing that's that's
• 27:53
  really interesting about this mandala of the five Buddhas is
• 27:58
  that and also the the, the Tantra, the Buddhist Tantra, the
• 28:05
  kind of the vadriana as a whole. What is so fascinating about it
• 28:09
  is it's saying that the Buddha's not here.
• 28:13
  So we can't have contact with the Buddha.
• 28:15
  We can't have direct contact with an enlightened being.
• 28:20
  So how do we get into relationship with it?
• 28:23
  And what the Buddhist Tantra is saying is, well, actually you
• 28:27
  can get into relationship with it kind of through everything.
• 28:33
  So there are these associations that are within each of these
• 28:38
  spheres of, of the Buddhas, which I'll show you a few, a few
• 28:41
  of them now. So, so there's an element which
• 28:53
  is at the centre of the mandala, and that element is space.
• 29:05
  There's a colour that's at the centre of the mandala and that
• 29:09
  colour is white. There are two Buddhas at the
• 29:19
  centre of the mandala and one of them is male and one of them is
• 29:24
  female. The male Buddha is called
• 29:27
  Verrocchina and his name means the Illuminator, and the female
• 29:33
  Buddha, it's quite a long word, is Akasha Diteshvari, and the
• 29:40
  translation of her name Akasha means space, so she is the
• 29:44
  sovereign lady of the infinite sphere of space.
• 29:55
  The poison that's transformed at the centre of the mandala is
• 29:59
  ignorance. I must admit I'm quite pleased
• 30:06
  with these flip charts and the, the So the, the poison is
• 30:16
  ignorance and what it is transformed into is the Dharma
• 30:22
  Datu, which translates either as the sphere of truth or the
• 30:27
  wisdom of the absolute expanse. So,
• 30:54
  so I will say to you, unfortunately there's something
• 30:57
  that I was going to do that won't get done on this talk.
• 31:00
  It will have to wait. So what I want to look at now
• 31:08
  is, is so I've said that the there are these two names of
• 31:13
  these two Buddhas for Rochina and Akasha Tessari.
• 31:17
  I've said that the element is space and the colour is white.
• 31:32
  So how how I kind of see this, this centre of the mandala.
• 31:39
  So if you look at it quite simply, what you've got is
• 31:44
  space, Akasha de Tesri and light for Rochina, space and light
• 31:54
  space in Buddhism is also it's got got a it links or it
• 32:03
  corresponds with emptiness or openness.
• 32:09
  So these three things go together, emptiness, openness,
• 32:12
  spaciousness, they're kind of the same thing.
• 32:21
  And within that space there is light.
• 32:26
  So the way that I tend tend to see this is that.
• 32:34
  We tend to see the phenomenal world.
• 32:36
  So as I'm looking out kind of at you, I kind of I've got this
• 32:40
  sense of or a sense of self, a sense of other and this sense of
• 32:48
  solidification. I kind of think I know who you
• 32:52
  are and what you are. And some of you I know a little
• 32:55
  bit more because you're my friends.
• 32:58
  So I've got a kind of bit of a story about about you and it's
• 33:02
  like that is all a bit overlaid on top of what I'm seeing
• 33:07
  phenomena. So if we start to see a little
• 33:15
  bit more from this perspective of the centre of the mandala,
• 33:18
  there is space and there is light.
• 33:24
  So it's kind of like as what we're trying to do is sort of
• 33:29
  like start to see or start to re see in a sense or discover that
• 33:35
  actually everything, all the phenomena is like that.
• 33:39
  It's like light. It's not substantial.
• 33:43
  You can't grasp it. In a certain sense.
• 33:49
  The the space and the light are not also not two things.
• 33:53
  We can use those two words, but they're kind of not two things.
• 34:06
  So it's important because when we, when we, well, maybe you can
• 34:15
  do this actually. So if if you just kind of just
• 34:21
  take your attention to something in the room, yeah, just like
• 34:23
  focus on something at the moment, find something in the
• 34:26
  room and just focus on it. So you're really looking at that
• 34:30
  object and then sort of broaden your attention out so that
• 34:37
  actually you're not just looking at the objects, you're looking
• 34:40
  at kind of the whole environment in a sense like kind of, so it's
• 34:46
  not just a thing, it's the whole sort of environment.
• 34:54
  So you're getting more of a sense by that sense of opening
• 34:57
  your awareness out, you're getting more of a sense of the
• 34:59
  space and you're less focused on the object.
• 35:08
  So this is very important actually, and it's very
• 35:11
  important when we meditate. I know some of you have just
• 35:14
  started to meditate today and you're doing the mindfulness of
• 35:17
  breathing the metabarbna. So maybe this comes a bit later,
• 35:22
  but actually what I'm talking about is very important.
• 35:27
  It's kind of saying that that awareness is in a particular
• 35:33
  relationship to phenomena. Awareness is not.
• 35:42
  Well, OK, so here, here is a space.
• 35:50
  So can you? Can you?
• 35:53
  Can you see it? Can you?
• 36:04
  So that is kind of like what the mind is like.
• 36:12
  The mind is like that space. It's kind of, it's contentless.
• 36:18
  It's it's also not bound, bounded, bounded boundary.
• 36:23
  There's no boundary. It's infinite.
• 36:28
  The space does not end at the walls.
• 36:31
  It kind of keeps on going. It doesn't end at the ceiling,
• 36:33
  it keeps on going. There's no sense of edge to it.
• 36:41
  And this this kind of movement is really important to kind of
• 36:45
  to see when we when we're medicine, it's like we start to
• 36:49
  think about something, we start to obsess about something, we
• 36:53
  start to fantasise about something and our awareness just
• 36:56
  goes focused, solid, fixed this maybe person can give me what I
• 37:06
  want, what I need, what might fulfil me in my life or this
• 37:12
  person. I don't want them in my life.
• 37:14
  They're a real pain in the arse. They're irritating.
• 37:19
  So it's like from this sense of kind of like the, the awareness
• 37:24
  being very open. It's just suddenly contracted
• 37:29
  and condensed. So what I'm saying is, is that
• 37:34
  just that just these two things to kind of to bring to mind can
• 37:39
  remind you of that. So if you bring to mind a sense
• 37:42
  of space and a sense of light every, every phenomena is like
• 37:47
  light, then what you start to experience is that nothing is
• 37:53
  graspable, nothing is fixed, everything is changing and also
• 38:03
  the the awareness itself, the space itself.
• 38:10
  So again, this kind of space here or here, is it judging any
• 38:21
  of us? Again, that is what the the mind
• 38:28
  is like. The four judges 4 kind of
• 38:33
  solidifies, but the mind itself doesn't.
• 38:37
  It doesn't judge. That's quite radical, isn't it?
• 39:06
  I'm just trying to work out whether to finish at this point.
• 39:10
  So I'm just going to finish by
• 39:43
  reading something actually. Well, actually I'm going to read
• 39:48
  two things. So one of them is a prayer.
• 39:52
  It's a prayer to Tara. So this particular female kind
• 39:58
  of bodhisattva Buddha figure, Tara.
• 40:03
  And in this sense Tara is the is the figure at the centre of the
• 40:09
  mandala. So there are lots of taras and
• 40:11
  in this prayer this particular form is at the centre of the
• 40:15
  mandala. And then I'll also read another.
• 40:21
  Another text called the Heart Treasure of the Enlightened
• 40:25
  Ones, and it's a it's a section related to the five poisons and
• 40:29
  the five wisdoms. And then we'll finish could have
• 40:36
  gone on for a lot longer today. So that's the first, the first
• 40:41
  prayer. Homage to you, Suga Tatara, body
• 40:48
  of all the Buddhas, Gnosis, dispeller of the darkness of
• 40:52
  ignorance from sentient beings, delusion has blinded.
• 40:58
  So I'll just read that again. Homage to you, Suga Tatara, body
• 41:04
  of all the Buddhas, Gnosis, dispeller of the darkness of
• 41:08
  ignorance from sentient beings, delusion has blinded.
• 41:15
  And then the next one. Don't just take for granted
• 41:21
  ideas forged by ignorance. Look at the nature of ignorance
• 41:26
  itself. The hosts of thoughts liberated
• 41:29
  by themselves as they arise are awareness void.
• 41:35
  This awareness void is none other than the wisdom of the
• 41:39
  absolute expanse in the self. Liberation of ignorance recites
• 41:44
  the six syllable mantra. One more time.
• 41:49
  Don't just take for granted ideas forged by ignorance.
• 41:53
  Look at the nature of ignorance itself.
• 41:56
  The hosts of thoughts liberated by themselves as they arise are
• 42:01
  awareness void. This awareness void is none
• 42:05
  other than the wisdom of the absolute expanse in the self.
• 42:09
  Liberation of ignorance recites the six syllable mantra.
• 42:18
  So I'm not expecting you to kind of understand that.
• 42:22
  And in a way, I also don't fully understand it.
• 42:26
  It's kind of like it's something that I read, I read reasonably
• 42:30
  regularly. And in a way, it's like trying
• 42:33
  to get a sense more, more over time with these Buddhist
• 42:36
  teachings, what they might be pointing to.
• 42:42
  The more we practice, the more experience we have, the more we
• 42:45
  go on retreat, the more we meditate, the more the teachings
• 42:50
  become alive and the more we get a sense of of what they are.
• 42:56
  That takes a long time actually. But if there's one thing that I
• 43:02
  want you to take away from today, I would say it's just
• 43:05
  that image to be explored of space and light, space of
• 43:12
  awareness and light in the sense of seeing everything that arises
• 43:19
  as not substantial. If that interests you, it might
• 43:25
  not and you just go away, you forget about it.
• 43:29
  But yeah, that's, that's to me, for me, the kind of the take
• 43:32
  away, that's it.