Changing Direction in Your Life - The Eleven Reversals
Session 1
Geshe-la is indicating 11 milestones and if we have accomplished them, we’re enlightened.
Some people think that being goal orientated is contrary to spiritual life. In truth, that’s the only way we can make spiritual progress.
The real meaning of a human life is so we use it to practice the spiritual path. Our mind is the path. If the mind is a worldly mind, the path will be a worldly path. This is a gradual process.
Ask ourself if our faults are arising as often, or as strongly as it used to? Is it subsiding faster that it used to? Look for patterns over time. Only we know this through honest self-examination.
Eventually we will reach these reversals.
1. Relying upon our spiritual guide
1st we need a spiritual guide. Then we need unchangeable faith in our SG. This means, we have to develop faith in our heart, and hold it there until it’s unchangeable. Not just from our heart, but from the bottom of our heart. This means it’s the most fundamental thing. It’s a wishing faith / determination. Has to pass by all out worldly concerns and be the fundamental feeling / object of our heart.
If you don’t get the object of meditation, it is of no use. Have to memorise the instructions and then do all your contemplation in your heart. “From your heart, think.” Then when you rise from mediation, it will govern your life.
The purpose of meditation is to change our mind. All our experiences are governed by our actions. And all our actions are governed by our mind. There is no other way to change our experiences apart from changing our mind. We solve all our problems by deeply working with our mind.
All of the forces that govern our lives are mental habits. Take responsibility for your own mind and train it.
A lot of the time we believe what is convenient. Please ask yourself why do you believe what you believe? And why do you disbelieve what you disbelieve? If you’re honest, you will admit that you don’t know much. If our mind is worldly, we will never find happiness. We may find pleasure, but not pure happiness. We have such a shallow experience of life.
It is possible to stop all forms of suffering, mental and physical, by working on the mind How do we get there? We need a spiritual guide.
Worldly pleasure is fake happiness. It’s just delayed dissatisfaction. There’s no real contentment. It’s like trying to quench thirst by drinking salt water.
Your spiritual guide can teach you to stop the craving, stop the hunger, stop the thirst.
The function of faith is to eliminate non-faith (the default).
3 types of faith (see UTM) - these are the source of all spiritual realisations.
Believing faith - believing your spiritual guide is right here all the time.
Our object of meditation is always wishing faith: “I must cherish all living beings” is wishing faith. If theres no wishing faith, there’s no object of meditation. Our wish to engage in worldly activities is stronger than our wish to engage in Dharma. What are your wishes? What do you really want? If you have a SG, you have a role model. You wanna be like that. That’s wishing faith. There are people in this world that have developed great spiritual results.
Admiring faith is the most beautiful mind. We see faults / limitations in Dharma. Through contemplating someone’s good qualities, we develop an admiration and faith in that person, which then develops into believing faith. Then we learn to rely on them.
Session 2
9. Emptiness
Being spiritual is about being wise.
Emptiness is the easiest thing in the world. You just negate everything you normally see.
The target of emptiness is the reversal of our self-grasping. It pervades and contaminates all our thinking. All our problems arise because of our self-grasping. When the grasping stops, we experience peace.
What is self? Self-grasping is grasping anything that exists in and of itself. Self doesn’t necessarily mean a person. We grasp at the self-nature of inanimate objects, of people, of ourself.
1st meditate on the emptiness of self, then of others, then of all other things.
Whenever things go wrong in our life, what’s at the centre of it? Me me me, my my my, I I I.
Need to lose ourself. Take a holiday from self. Try to have an experience of no self. It’s so therapeutic and peaceful. Then realise you don’t need this thing. Don’t need I. It’s fake. It’s exaggerated. It’s an elaboration, a false projection of our mind.
The I that I normally see doesn’t exist at all. Yet we do so much to protect it.
“I have a body. I have a mind. I’m not my body. I’m not my mind. Then who am I?”
Look for yourself and fail to find it.
Only emptiness is true. Whatever exists must be true. Therefore only emptiness exists.
The I that exists must be part of emptiness. This is the union of emptiness and appearance. This is the Kadampa quick path.
Other than the projection there’s nothing to see.
2 things going on - there is a projection coming from in here that makes it look like it’s out there. Then there’s exaggeration. We see a fault, and then it’s “bad”.
Session 3
There’s no way we can accomplish these goals without a spiritual guide.
Develop the 3 kinds of faith. Everything will come with faith.
Always feel you are in the presence of your spiritual guide. His nature is omniscient wisdom.To find someone in this world who has no self-interest is so precious and rare.
Ordinary worldly life does not yield time for meaningful activities. If we don’t create that space it won’t happen.
If you know how to do the guru yoga of Guru Sumati Buddha Heruka, do it. That’s the magic bullet.
When we align our thoughts with our guru’s way of thinking, we will go far fast.
8. Bodhichitta
If we combine this with the practice of emptiness, this is the essence. Need the 2 wings of compassion and emptiness.
Without others we are nothing.
Our problem is that we think we’re important and we don’t think about others. Cherish others as much as we cherish ourself - this is the starting point. The way to find the truth is to contemplate dependent relationship. Everything is dependent on something that is not itself. Everyone is dependent on others. All living beings are joined together in a web of kindness. This meditation gives rise to gratitude, to appreciation, to good sentiments. Everywhere we look we see the kindness of others. We live in a manifestation of others’ kindness. What’s stopping us from feeling humbled by that? The self-cherishing mind. Gratitude is a very big part of a Buddhist’s mind. With gratitude, we want to pay it back, we naturally cherish others. What did you bring into this life? Nothing. So where did it all come from?
Anything can become natural. At first it starts as artificial. Then you train until it becomes instinctive. This is what training the mind is all about.
The health of the entire living body is dependent on the health of every individual cell. Based on these reasonings, everyone is at least as important as me.Need to contemplate and come to the decision:
“I must cherish all living beings”.
Develop a feeling of cherishing, a sense that all living beings are important, and a sense that their happiness and freedom are important. We try to mix our mind single pointedly with this feeling and maintain it for as long as we can without forgetting. Don’t have a mind other than that thought.
When we rise from meditation whenever we meet someone we naturally think, “this person is important. This person’s happiness and freedom are important.”