Kalu Rinpoche Podcast – Episode 5 – January 27, 2021 (11 min) – On the path to finding the peace of mind
Hello everyone, this is Kalu Rinpoche’s podcast and thank you for being here with me again.
I’m back in my room, creating this podcast for you, with some text on the table and reading some of my predecessor’s teachings and some other great masters’ teachings. So I put some few volumes of different kind of chapters and I try to mix it together, and then try to read together in one session. Makes my mind quite refreshing.
So today I’m going to speak with you about, just basically an open conversation with you. And that open conversation is: Ourself as a human being, I’m not an expert in many things, but I am a Buddhist practitioner, so I can speak little bit about the mind and it’s something that we need to understand. Because when we talk about the mind, we simply look towards the suffering and how to distance from the suffering. We simply look at the desire and we simply say “how to distance from the desire”. And we look at the attachment and the suffering from that and we simply grasp onto the idea, “how to dissolve the attachment, right away, right now” and that is something that we need to overcome. That sense of impatience needs to overcome.
It is a common understanding that all of us, we are sentient beings, we don’t want to suffer, we want to be in peace. That is a common desire, common fear, common hope. But to have a fruitful result, we need to have a patience, and we need to find a right method. Right now our mind is polluted with so many things. Starting from the political agendas, scientific agendas, religious agendas, social ideas, our mind is extremely polluted, even though each and every section of that has its own right, has its own meaning, has its own purpose, but none of these great purpose can bring a peace of mind to you, right now, in this moment. All these are great, all these are positive, or tragic or meaningful, or meaningless. But can you bring all these great purpose and great actions all together, in this very moment, and bring a peace in your mind? It is very obvious answer, that you know, I know, that it cannot bring a peace of mind.
In order to bring a peace of mind, we need to understand the pollution of our own mind. But if you see your own state of mind, little bit like “my mind is polluted, my mind is polluted, my mind is polluted” if you see it in a very tragic perspective, and that belief, that also doesn’t solve any matter. And I think it’s very important for all of us, to define the pollution of our mind, and to minimize that pollution from our habit, from our daily action. Any of our positive or negative that we may be accumulating until now. Let it be as a part of the past.
But from this moment on, I think it’s a very important matter that we have to keep in mind. That how to decrease the pollution in our mind. How to decrease the influence from the external activity. How to decrease the influence from the external activities towards our own mind, towards our own decision, towards our own peace of mind. I think it’s very important.
There’s a religious agenda, political agenda, social agenda, patriot, globalization, there’s so many agendas, so many great ideas, appears to be great in its own way, but it doesn’t seem great to bring peace of mind to you in this very moment. So in order to bring the peace of mind, in order to bring a peacefulness in your mind, we need to recognize the meaning of impermanence, and we need to see the meaning of impermanence in a right way. If we see the meaning of impermanence in a very religious attitude, you will never overcome. Because if you bring the idea of religious attitude, mixing together with the realistic understanding of the impermanence, everything will become superstitious, and that will become habit, and that will become your reality, and we must avoid that from the beginning. I think it’s very important key point that we have to keep in mind. That’s number one.
Number two – we need to minimize the idea of hierarchy within the Lord Buddha’s teaching, or in spiritual journey. Hierarchy is something that we must minimize. But saying that “we must minimize and minimize and minimize” and yet mixing together with our own ego, with our arrogance, with our righteousness, that is also not the solution. So before we make a judgement, always analyze your own state of mind. I think it’s also a very important matter that we have to keep in mind.
In order to decrease the pollution in our mind, like I have said, we have to recognize the meaning of impermanence. In order to recognize the true meaning of impermanence, we must not see it through the tragic perspective. We must not see it as “young and old”, “beautiful or ugly”, “rich or poor”, “stable or unstable”, “here or there”, “having it or not having it”, “seeing it or not seeing it”. We must not see the meaning of impermanence in a tragic perspective.
Because the result of seeing the reality with a tragic attitude, the conclusion of that is that you will not embrace the reality as it is. You will always exaggerate, and there’s a possibility to exaggerate from what it is. And that is the cause of suffering anyway. We always exaggerate from what it is. And that’s the reality of the suffering. So therefore, without any exaggeration, the most important is that you see, that every millions, and billions, and moments in this universe, everything is past. The every moment, that we’ve been talking about since I started this conversation with you, all that moment is already past.
Present, that we tend to believe that “I am here, I’m right now, here, here, here, here”, that is also past. Future, future, future, future, future, future, future, future, future, that we tend to believe, believe, believe, believe, believe that is also simultaneously passing, right through your fingertips. So therefore, seeing the reality is itself impermanence. The reality itself is impermanence. And embracing that and having a positive attitude, not a wild mindset, but a calm mindset, and gentle mindset. A gentle attitude, and content mindset, can be the result, if you have the right perception, and the right perspective, and the right attitude, and now you are in, how you understand the meaning of impermanence.
So that’s that. That’s just an open conversation with you. And if it doesn’t make any sense, I apologise for it. And if it does make sense with a mixture of confusion, maybe we are going somewhere. Maybe we are reaching somewhere.
And the next one, I will talk about different topic. See you soon.
Thank you for listening, bye for now.
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