L.A. Lecture by Master JinBodhi (May 18, 2008)—PART I

It’s wonderful to be here with you. I can’t say that I was very happy earlier though. I was actually quite upset… reflecting on all the people that suffered in the Sichuan earthquake. Many people were taken from this world in the blink of an eye. Others survived the actual quake only to be crushed by the rubble.
So many children were lost.

Imagine the feeling of losing the child you’ve raised and cared for like that… Many of them died in their schools—whole classes. I’d really appreciate it if we started out today by sending our support to those affected. What do you think?

[AUDIENCE SOUNDS AGREEMENT]

Do it in whatever way is most comfortable for you. If you are religious, you can do it in accordance with those beliefs. I’d like to propose that we all take a moment to visualise those who have been taken—to envision them in an afterlife of eternal joy. Those that are still with us, many of whom have nothing to eat, or to clothe themselves with, no access to medical care, and no hope, we need to send them what wishes we can, and hope somehow that they can find the courage to go on.

So long as your wishes are offered sincerely, they will produce positive energy—no matter which way you do it. Buddhists, or those of you with no specific religious context, can use the “Namo Amituofo” (Namo Amitabha) chant… but really it’s just about making it work for you.

[THE GROUP DEDICATES A MOMENT TO THE SICHUAN VICTIMS]

Thank you everyone. I’m sure that our energy will help somehow.

Generally, people don’t really “get” the extent of a tragedy like that unless their own family or friends are involved. We’re disconnected from it. But connecting is actually very simple—just imagine that it was your own child. They didn’t emerge after the earthquake. Imagine the frantic worry… the agony of it. What if they survived, but had been mangled… a crushed leg.

“What will his life be like now?” you’d ask yourself.

It’s worse if it’s a child, rather than an adult. They are likely to miss out on so much.

When something of that sort happens to a family member, we feel all the deep repercussions. Looking around this room though, I get the feeling that everyone here grasps it all quite fully. There’s a lot of obvious compassion here. You are rich with it.

Developing our humanity requires developing three different “xin” (pronounced “shin”), an amalgamation of heart and mind. The three are sympathy, compassion, and unselfish love. These qualities refine our humanity, removing flaws and any lingering guilt. They lead us towards the perfection of our development. I asked myself, as have the philosophers of the past, what sort of person can attain their perfection. To my mind, the three qualities of xin are requirements for that process. We can encourage them to surface in us naturally by bearing up when faced with the hardships of life; applying them to our dealings with others—the beneficial, the challenging, the business related, and even the romantic. I hope that every individual on the planet will reach their point of highest development, and make the most of the unique preciousness of their lives.

Everyone here is very lucky. We’re spending the day learning, talking, and sitting around together. It’s very peaceful. If we consider those in the disaster zones, the fear and uncertainty of each day: Fearful of our ability to provide for our children and families… It’s worth being aware that at this very moment in other places, people are living a much harder reality than we are.
 
That’s one reason why developing our sense of contentment and gratitude is so fundamental to our advancement as human beings. Those words aren’t likely new to any of you—contentment and gratitude. But unless their meanings become key components within the heart, they have little effect… “In one ear, and out the other,” essentially.

But without those qualities as major players in the heart-mind, we easily see ourselves as unlucky and unhappy, feelings that bring about illness. Especially when they are felt over an extended period of time—life becomes much more painful then. Suffering through life makes it harder to intuit the course of our developing humanity, but makes further suffering easier.

I’ve asked many people the same question, “Do you feel fortunate?” I’d say that about 80% of the time, the answer is in the negative: life is hard and difficult. Very few feel fortunate. Normally, people who feel really happy don’t attribute their happiness to money, possessions, fame, or other material perks… but rather from an ability to feel contented and grateful. The two go together: it’s hard to be grateful if you’re filled with discontent towards your life, and ancient wisdom states, “The contented are ever joyful.”    

People who are stuck in discontent have their reasons all lined up: “My legs are bad. They hurt every day, so how could I be content? And don’t even mention gratitude given how my life is going!”

There’s another perspective on that… At least you still have legs to feel and complain about. Honestly, after a disaster, a lot of people don’t have that concern anymore. So there’s actually an aspect of feeling pain to appreciate: be grateful for what you have. You could just as easily say, “I’m so content to still have my legs… to still be able to feel them: even their pain.”

Pain is also a great form of communication. Imagine having a crippling disease in your legs, but not feeling it. That would be worse! How do you treat what can’t be felt? There are opportunities for contentment in all this! People frequently bemoan their finances: “I have very little money, and live pay check to pay check. Plus, I have a family to support—it’s horrible.” This attitude prevents us from recognising the joy that is being produced in the body. We take that joy, even while it is unfolding, and we make it “horrible.” We are all like this to some extent, yet if we can be thankful, thankfulness becomes contentment: suddenly we feel happy. That’s when we really get in touch with even more profound gratitude.

So happiness doesn’t bring about contentment and gratitude. It’s the other way around: contentment and gratitude produce joy. That isn’t to say that we should languish in those two qualities and drop our studies, stop working diligently, or generally striving for good things. However, the presence of contentment and gratitude can actually improve the quality of our work, because they make it easier to bear up and face whatever life throws our way. As we do, the sensation of being blessed by good fortune arises spontaneously. It begins to meld into our sense of being alive. We feel like that… suffering, happiness, wealth, and poverty all lose their preconceived value: they’re all equal.

What is poverty? Real poverty?

[AUDIENCE MEMBER ANSWERS]

You say it’s an unenlightened selfishness? Normally, I ask this question less directly. People are always talking about how their lives would be better if they won the lottery. They could lie in bed all day, every day. Honestly, have you ever considered the physical effects of doing nothing all day? They’d be crippling.
 
You were right to say that real poverty came from selfishness. You know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge? Well this story is a bit similar: There was once an extremely rich man in Belgium. When crops failed, his countrymen suffered, and had nothing to eat. They resorted to begging, but this man would share nothing. He didn’t feel that he had “enough money,” or was well-stocked with enough food, certainly not enough to give anything away. He always felt stressed about his own situation in those respects. Eventually, the steward of his household couldn’t take it anymore: “My lord, we have so much to eat, and employ hundreds of laborers to farm our fields. This household consists of only about 20 people. In a hundred years, we would never be able to eat all the grain that we have stored.” He then explained to his master how little the household consumed each day, compared to what they had in the storerooms. The landholder was shocked when he considered the amount he’d hoarded relative to the practical needs of his holdings. He’d never seen it clearly on his own before… he’d always been blinded by his anxious fear of being without. This powerful, moneyed lord had been living in utter poverty while surrounded by wealth. He was an example of true poverty.

Obviously, wealthy people aren’t just in stories about the past. There’s a lot of wealth being made in the USA by High-tech companies right now, tycoons rising out of nowhere. Ten years ago, the USA had the fastest growing class of nouveau riche. But how many of them used that money for anything other than selfish ends? Not many… and so there were very few who were rich in the real sense of the word.

My grandfather is among the wealthiest and most powerful men I know—despite the fact that his house has only three rooms, two of which leak when it rains. So why do I label him as “wealthy and powerful?” Because in times of hunger, he still asks that his wife prepares food for anyone who comes hungry to their door. Sometimes they leave right after they’ve eaten. Most of the time, he gets them to stay and chat. He lives in poverty, but his inner world is rich. He feels wealthy, and never gripes about how much the hungry may need, or what is left for him. It is possible that his generosity may cause incidental death of the beggars, because they are so hungry and they tend to overfeed themselves… but that’s another topic. The point is clear: the important definitions of poverty and wealth lie in the mind, the heart-mind. I’m not saying that you should “pretend suffering is joy, and act wealthy beyond your means.” I’m talking about a real state of being—a feeling that is utterly sincere. It’s the mental wealth, the joy of seeing what you have, and knowing how to share it freely. Having this attitude has probably helped me progress relatively quickly in my practice. It may be something I got from my grandfather. 

His heart is so big, so full, that he has very few concerns. Nothing gets to him… money, purchases, food… he has never adopted a poverty mentality. He even gives alms, and loves to share with others. If I compare him, his life, his generosity to a millionaire’s, one who clings to everything like a miser… well, I think that my grandfather is the wealthiest man I’ve ever met—he has the better quality of life.

I once had dealings with an exceptionally money-rich gentleman from mainland China. He believed that meditation masters like me could read physiognomy… like palm-reading for the face and body. He wanted me to tell him his fortune. I already knew that he was pretty well-to-do, and told him so. Then I looked at his palms, and told him that he was a “wealthy beggar.” “What kind of a fortune reading is that?” I told him that I had “read” his body as he walked in… starting with his clothes, especially the old, holey leather shoes he was wearing.  They were signs of neglect. His teeth showed evidence of gross neglect too. “How could you be truly wealthy if you ignore your feet and oral hygiene like that?”
His wife jumped in with “He certainly lives like a pauper. He won’t even buy toothpaste. And the shoes are from our wedding day 20 years ago.” The man was defensive, saying he still wore them for their “sentimental value.” I told him I was certain we were all glad his wife hadn’t taken the same approach with her wedding dress. Imagine how crazy she would seem, running around in the same, mangled wedding dress day after day for 20 years. Someone would have called 911, and carted her off to a psychiatric ward ages ago.

I asked him then, what charitable deeds he had accomplished in his life. His response was that he had built a large number of homes for people. He felt that that was the “good deed” he’d accomplished… even though he admitted he’d built them for sale and personal profit. There was no charity involved at all. “Have you ever done anything for the less fortunate?”“I have! I’m a Buddhist, and I chant to Buddha and visualise liberation from suffering for all beings.” Then he added something odd, given that he had never taken any real action to help another. He said, “I hope that in my next life, I can be your disciple, so we can work to liberate the suffering together.” My reaction was simple: if he wanted to be my disciple in his next life, then great… but he should start by helping people right now, in this life, maybe by applying some of that wealth, and dedicating it to one of the orphanages, or senior-care funds that are always so in need. “Just apply yourself now to helping an under-privileged group.” Suddenly, he was all excuses: “Master JinBodhi, don’t you think that we all have an individual fate to live out? That we reap what we sow. Isn’t that karma, after all? If I suddenly barge in and start influencing other people’s lives like that, it would be like meddling with fate. That seems like the wrong path.” I’ll be honest here—I got a bit hot under the collar at that point. “If you’ve already figured it all out… If you are already so enlightened, there’s no reason for this conversation to continue.” He was dismissed, but instead of leaving, he actually dropped to his knees. “Please, Master… won’t you help me first? I’ve been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Please, offer me your healing blessings!” I was blunt: “Didn’t you just finish explaining to me what a crime it was to interfere in the fate of another by offering help? If you’re suffering, apparently you’re just reaping what you’ve sown—according to you, you must deserve. It’s your karma, and it would be wrong for me to get in the way.” That was the end of our interaction.

The path toward developed humanity requires stepping back when we encounter good fortune, and understanding how to share it with others. It is a matter of understanding a certain kind of happiness. Start with something small, and then move onto bigger things. Of course, that doesn’t mean giving everything away, or trying to share literally EVERYTHING. And there is the attitude to consider: give within reason, and enjoy the giving. Make it a healthy act of the heart. That allows for cumulative results. Imagine if you weren’t a particularly kind person, but took opportunities to tell tales of goodness to others. Gradually, the act would bring more of that goodness into your heart. Before you knew it, you’d be helping people instinctively, especially when fortune would suddenly favour you. As you help others more, the logic and goodness of your behaviour will benefit you more.

 “Enlighten yourself; then pass the light on to others.” This quote is grounded in Buddhism, which envisions the potential to awakening of every single human being—to move beyond the chaos of primitive, unconscious living. That’s one of the reasons to not fear suffering… it can help you grow towards that aspiration. That’s the inevitable path for a large number of people.

As for the Buddha, he didn’t propose a religion. He believed in no deity, but in the value and benefit of compassion—universal, enlightened love. It’s giving; it’s gratitude; and it’s contentment. So two thousand years ago, he took action. He left home to seek out a place for meditation. In general, people thought of meditation as a speciality, or perhaps even a hobby.” But people didn’t say that about what the Buddha was doing. I agree… He saw the pain of human life, starting with birth, progressing through aging, illness and ending death. These are the constants for us all. Then there is everything that goes with them. The wounds we carry in our hearts… like knots in a muscle that can’t be worked out. So the Buddha looked at his situation and came to a conclusion: no matter how glorious our palace, or how wonderful my wife may be, I must seek awakening: otherwise my life experience will amount to the same suffering as every other being. In the middle of the night, he left. It wasn’t for pleasure; it was for a very real purpose. There were many practitioners of meditation in India at that time, and I’m not referring simply to Buddha’s followers. Many were like the first meditators of ancient China…People seeking the development of supernatural abilities or knowledge. These were the initial objectives of many.

There are very few people, old or young, who feel that they live blessed lives… and that makes it harder to fulfill our human potential.

Often, people look to their material possessions to bring them contentment. Unfortunately, rather than fulfillment, that behaviour brings a growing emptiness… which causes pain. Materialism can even bring negative changes in family relations. Though your economic health may be flush, your physical health erodes.

The poor often work ten hour days in physically demanding jobs, and become habituated so that they can keep going, but the “wealthy” are exhausted after an hour-long walk. Poor people don’t have a choice. If they’re tired, they still have things to do… but the rich are provided with whatever they need when they are too tired to do things for themselves. So then they find other things to turn into problems: “My car is too old. And it’s the wrong style.” And on it goes. A mind unversed in contentment will find reasons to be discontent no matter what.

Joy and misery aren’t set states with rules governing when they appear. If you feel happy-go-lucky, then you are.

There is a movie that came out over a decade ago called Forrest Gump, and I really recommend it.
The moral is basically this: If you enjoy doing something, and it has meaning for you, then it’s worth doing… and worth doing well.  The character becomes wealthy and famous, and then returns home. What’s his great reward? He cuts other people’s grass. Free of charge. His attitude is actually very free and easy. It shows that joy and pain are related to our values, and that those are internally decided. If I returned home, and donated lots of money to fixing roads, repairing bridges, fixing up the old folks home and renovating the church… how could the elderly of the community possibly allow me to then cut their grass for free? How is it that Forrest didn’t feel belittled? He didn’t, because he was happy doing what he was doing, and so did it every day.

We can all live the same way: it’s up to us to decide what makes us happy and what harms us. Those are choices made in the xin, between heart and mind.

I’m here today to discuss this issue because I hope you’ll all live the best lives possible, and make the decisions that bring you more joy. It is our senses of contentment and gratitude—our ability to cherish what’s around us—that we need to develop. And the fundamental components required for the development of contentment and gratitude are our sympathy, love, and compassion. Don’t we feel blessed when those qualities are abundant in our lives?

If we are happy and feel blessed, then we are more resilient, and suffer less from illness. There are two situations in which illness has arisen among my students. Firstly, the most obvious, like when someone eats something bad, and has stomach problems. The second situation doesn’t seem as obvious: it’s when illness is caused by a blockage in the heart-mind, and it hasn’t yet released.

I know a Ph.D. holder who lives in the USA. She had issues with her childhood, and felt that her mother had mistreated her. Actually, her mother probably wasn’t to blame—to get work, they’d had to move from a relatively safe and clean city in the interior to a pretty unpleasant one. Their quality of life dropped dramatically. Money was really tight, and she worried enormously about the effects on her daughter. She decided to send her daughter to live with her mother while she worked. Unfortunately, the girl grew up feeling that she had no father or mother. The feeling was most strong when parents were discussed or seen around school. At a very young age, she told herself that “mommy didn’t love me, and that’s why she sent me away.”

That thought… that feeling stayed with her whole life. At 40, it finally manifested as an illness, and an unsurprising one at that. Euphemistically, let’s say she was “clinically depressed,” and she did something pretty sever. Her husband suffered through his wife’s illness, watching her fall apart. She is Chinese; he’s a Westerner—a very gentle and cultured man. He was near a breaking point too. Sometimes she’d get angry, and not matter how kind he was, she was completely unreasonable. Finally, family life improved. How? The woman decided to come here and study with me. Her own daughter was delighted that her mother was coming. Her husband promised her a first-class ticket to Vancouver and a room in the city’s best hotel. She was so difficult to manage, that they couldn’t wait for her to leave, I think. All of this stemmed from an emotional blockage dating from childhood.

 Can you imagine? She told me, “Whenever I have a relapse, suddenly the whole world becomes nothing but darkness and confusion.” The things she told me were heart-breaking. She even said that she could see ghosts. This prompted a fellow student to wonder if she hadn’t succeeded in opening up her spiritual eye… the metaphorical “third eye” which in Chinese is called the “Heavenly Eye.” But it wasn’t the “Heavenly Eye” she was accessing; rather a “Ghost Eye”… she was in touch with lost souls, not with higher states. It’s a sign of grave psychological illness in meditation practitioners. Individuals who are in touch with higher states don’t attempt suicide or feel that they are connecting to tormented spirits.

This poor woman… her own daughter, at the age of five, had already been heard praying, “God, why did you make my mom like this?” Why? Because this woman was too sick to be a proper mother, or wife.
She came to study in Vancouver a few times, and brought her daughter on occasion too. One day, she said to me, “Master JinBodhi, even though meditating here brings me a lot of happiness, I still can’t forgive my mother for what she did. It’s no use.” On that trip, she’d brought her daughter and husband with her, so I said, “If that’s true, then it is time for you to go, but I think that you should leave your daughter here for about 6 months.” Her answer: “That’s impossible—I can’t leave her behind!” “How about a month. Just a month. Leave her in the care of someone you trust.” “I could only do that if her life were at stake!”
“Well then, you do understand what your own mother was going through when she sent you away. She loved you so much, that she couldn’t keep you with her—no matter how much it hurt her to be apart.”
Suddenly, the woman started to cry. After 30 years of pain, she was finally free. Growing ill can be easy; healing from it can be a long road.

So, be good to yourself.

That’s one of the reasons that developing our xin, that heart-mind awareness, is so important. We need to understand it, and to comprehend the xin of others. Understanding opens the way for acceptance, which leads to a broad openness of spirit.

That woman had come to Vancouver four times… and it was worth it. She grew enormously. She had experienced great suffering, melded it into her being till it was part of her. That made her sick.

You see how our thoughts can affect our health? And how these affects accumulate over time? So much so, that the same pain was being passed on to her children through her.

Clearly, the way we understand, or analyse events in our lives is exceptionally important. A lot of people presume that if they cover the basics—eat reasonably, get appropriate exercise, sleep enough, and are on decent financial footing—that they’ll be healthy and happy. That’s not guaranteed at all though, because happiness is decided in the xin heart-mind, not by those external markers.

The Buddha was often quoted as saying, “Humanity lives on its perceptions.” We live on our feelings: as long as I feel, I am still alive. And suffering and joy are all determined by perception, on which our lives are hinged. Many of those feelings can be controlled by one’s own spirit. It’s like the first time that you drink coffee. It tastes bitter and awful. Same with alcohol—beer or wine, they are both undrinkable initially. So many things are hard to accept upon first encounter. As familiarity grows, appreciation does too, and the initial unpleasantness becomes delightful. So if someone decides that alcohol isn’t bad, but good, they can drink it until they are drunk, and the world is spinning… and yet they’ll still feel happy. They’ll enjoy it so long as they’ve decided that those feelings are good.

There is something called “chou doufu,” or “stinky tofu.” It’s very popular in Taiwan, and I decided to give it a try. Now, I’m a relatively open-minded guy, but after the first bite, I couldn’t swallow anymore. No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t. It was torture to eat! It seemed that enjoying chou doufu had to be a kind of masochism. The vendor rushed me away pretty quickly when he saw me gagging on his food. I must have been bad for business. “But I haven’t paid yet!” “It’s on the house. Just go.” Nonetheless, I’ll bet that a lot of the Taiwanese here today found their mouths watering as soon as I said the word “chou doufu”… Am I wrong? I can see I’m not. Again, clearly, “good” and “bad” are decided within ourselves. They are purely subjective.

“Good” and “bad?” “Suffering” and “joy?” Those are labels that our xin (heart-mind) has applied to specific things. Clearly, we’d best learn to govern our own xin, our own subconscious, so that we can literally make joy out of misery. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be discerning in life—I’m simply referring to the labels of “good” and “bad.” We have power over them.

I think that it is very important to teach this power of choice to people as young as possible. The sooner people are aware of that, the sooner they will Awaken, and the sooner they’ll be able to resolve life issues. Also, those things that are generally considered “hard,” will be more bearable. People, who figure all this out, won’t be as prone to addiction when they encounter something that makes them “happy.” They will have a better ability to maintain the balance. The so called “good” may have “bad” hidden in, like little children eat candy. It’s good… so they’ll eat as much as they can, till it rots their teeth, and their appetites. Eating lots of sweets spikes sugar levels, and is bad for the brain, the heart, and the kidneys. So, even things that we label as “good,” aren’t necessarily good. We could label it as “bad,” but then how much harm would a little bit of candy do?

The point of this talk has been to recognise what the labels “good” and “bad,” “suffering” and “joy” really are, and how we have the power to master them. The wisdom of Buddhism is in the guidance it offers regarding how to perceive the pleasures and pains of life. For that reason, it doesn’t qualify as a “religion.” I tend to be rather scrutinizing, and I wouldn’t listen to something blindly, just because it carries a label or a name that I am supposed to submit to. If you told me that you were a god, I wouldn’t believe it for nothing. If you said that you were Enlightened, I wouldn’t believe it just because it was said. We have powers of discernment for a reason.

I’ve been through a lot in my time as a meditation practitioner… and learned a lot about the mind. I wasn’t born wise, but my practice broadened me, gave me a larger, more holistic perspective. This is sometimes referred to as a “spiritual perspective.” Perspective—view—is normally a faculty of the eyes, but the spiritual perspective is elevated beyond those confines… just as developing our human potential elevates us beyond the basest confines of simply being human.
 
With respect to our powers of recognition, mastery, and discernment, you may wonder how much benefit meditation can be, especially if the theory of it all doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to us. Will sitting meditation, chanting, or all those other obvious forms of mental training do any good?

They will. You could even learn from me by choosing to tune into my energy. You could alter your own energy, so that our frequencies were resonating sympathetically. It’s done by relaxing the body… and listening. Sometimes people experience miraculous-seeming things when their energy frequency has changed. Lots of people have felt healed, especially of bodily pain, after slipping into another energy state.