LTF 21: Patience – Giving Up Anger & Resentment

Within the discussion of patience, by the way, the outline gives a comment for each verse. It says for this verse, that giving up anger is the cause by which we would develop patience. So, giving up anger will allow us to develop patience. Verse 15:

[15] Thus, since there’s no trial equal to patience, you must never open a chance for anger (to arise). Buddha has declared that having rid yourself of anger brings attainment of a state of non-returning.

In other words, there is no difficult practice or challenge that is as good a challenge, as strong a challenge, as patience. So, this is like a trial because it allows us to see how well we have developed on the path. When things go wrong, or we lose something, or somebody says something that we don’t like, the real trial, the real challenge, is to see, “Now, can I be patient and not get angry? 

Nagarjuna says that we “must never open a chance for anger (to arise).” We should never let there be an opportunity for anger to come up because Buddha has said that if we can get rid of anger, we can achieve a very, very high state – in other words, we can achieve a state of non-returning. 

Non-Returning — The Four Stages of the Shravaka Path

“Non-returning” is on the Hinayana path, the path of shravakas. Obviously, although this is a Mahayana teaching, Nagarjuna is quoting some sutra in which it is stated like this. We can understand this if we look at what the state of non-returning means. 

The four stages that are discussed in Hinayana for the shravaka path are: (1) stream-enterer, (2) once-returner, (3) non-returner, and (4) arhat. This is in order. Actually, these four stages begin when a shravaka becomes an arya – in other words, when the person has non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths – and they end when the person becomes an arhat. 

Actually, you have to say that, also in terms of the Mahayana path, an arya has non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths; however, that cognition includes understanding the voidness of the four noble truths. So, you understand the voidness of everything. However, if you want to have a path that is common to both Hinayana and Mahayana, it’s always simply formulated as the four noble truths.  You could say, though, that even on the Hinayana path, aryas understand the lack of an impossible self of a person who understands the four noble truths – that a person who understands the four noble truths doesn’t exist as some impossible soul. 

Actually, that’s why we have the term “arya.” An arya is a noble one (‘phags-pa, noble one), a highly realized being. This is somebody who has understood the arya truths, the noble truths – it’s the same word. They are called noble truths because they are what an arya would see as true when they get the correct, non-conceptual cognition of everything. Ordinary people would not see these as true. Only an arya would see these as true. That’s why they are called the noble truths. 

OK. So, we have these four stages of shravakas from when they become aryas up to when they become arhats. You become a stream-enterer with seeing these four noble truths, which is when you start getting rid of the doctrinally based disturbing emotions, the ones that come from having gotten the wrong teachings from one of the non-Buddhist schools about a soul. Then you start to work on the automatically arising disturbing emotions in order to get rid of them. So, the once-returner gets rid of… Well, first, you work on the disturbing emotions that are associated with the desire realm. These have nine grades, or nine levels. A once-returner gets rid of the first three grades. When you become a non-returner, you have gotten rid of the rest of these grades, so you are then free from all nine of these grades. It’s only then that you start to work on getting rid of the automatically arising disturbing emotions associated with the form and formless realms. When you get rid of all of that, you become an arhat. So, what’s the significance here in the verse? You become a non-returner. A non-returner has gotten rid of all the disturbing emotions associated with the desire realm, even the automatically arising ones. 

Now, in the two higher realms, the form and formless realms, there is no anger. Anger is only present in the desire realm. There are only certain disturbing emotions that are present in these two higher realms; not all the ones that are present in the desire realm are there. So, if you have gotten rid of anger, then even if you are on a Mahayana path, you have attained what a non-returner attains because a non-returner is free of all anger. 

Participant: So, that would be analogous to being a non-returner?

Dr. Berzin: Yes, it would be analogous to being a non-returner.   

The Mahayana path doesn’t have these divisions of stream-enterer, etc. The Mahayana path, from when you become an arya until you become a Buddha, is divided into the ten bhumis, these levels of mind. So, Hinayana and Mahayana divide the paths of an arya with different schemes.

Now, as I mentioned last week, many of the verses we’ll see now are going to sound very familiar to us because they are verses from Shantideva’s Bodhicaryaavatara, which pick up on Nagarjuna’s verses and say very similar things, sometimes even with the same words. This verse, for instance, starts by saying, “Since there’s no trial equal to patience.” Shantideva, in his patience chapter says, “As no negative force resembles anger, and no trial resembles patience” – same words – “I shall therefore meditate on patience with effort and in various ways.” 

Why don’t we think about that for a moment? I’ll read the verse again.

[15] Thus, since there’s no trial equal to patience, you must never open a chance for anger (to arise). Buddha has declared that having rid yourself of anger brings attainment of a state of non-returning.

Let’s think for a moment about how we meet the challenge of difficult situations with patience. Are we able, when difficult things happen, when people are not very nice to us, when things go badly, to meet that challenge and to be patient? How well do we do? Also, I think that the big clue, the big key, for how to deal with difficult situations is to see them as challenges – that here’s an opportunity to practice patience. It says that in all of the lojong texts. There are many verses that say the same thing. 

Another thing that we need patience for is not only situations in which we might get angry but also situations in which we could get very depressed – for instance, when we get sick or as we grow old and have all the sufferings and difficulties associated with old age. We need great patience with that in order not to get depressed. We wouldn’t necessarily get angry, but we could very easily get very depressed. Patience is the antidote for that as well. 

Verse 16 deals with giving up resentment. If we’ve developed patience, then as a result, we won’t have resentment, right? Resentment – “I resent that you did that,” so then I hold a grudge. “I resent that you got the job and I didn’t.” So, I hold a grudge against you, and when I can hurt you and make you look bad, I will do that. That’s resentment. You hold it inside, and you are going to get back at the person later on. 

Dr. Berzin: Do you have a word for that in German? It’s called “resentment” in English. 

Participant: Ein Groll.

Dr. Berzin: What is the meaning of grollen? 

Participant: To bear a grudge.

Dr. Berzin: Let’s read the verse. Then, maybe you’ll get a better idea.

[16] By holding a grudge, thinking, “I’ve been insulted by this one; stymied and defeated by this one; my wealth’s been plundered by this one,” conflicts arise ever more. Whoever rids himself of grudges goes to sleep at ease.

So, to be “stymied” means to be blocked. When somebody insults you, or somebody blocks you from doing what you want to do, or if somebody defeats you, or somebody steals from you – all of these things cause conflict. Why? Because you hold it inside, thinking, “That one hurt me. That one stole something.” Then you get into big fights. If you don’t hold a grudge inside, you can go to sleep at ease. If you hold a grudge inside – “How can I get back at them? That person did this; this person did that” – your mind is never at ease. So, without this, you can sleep well. People who have grudges can’t sleep; they’re always thinking. Their minds are always working, thinking about how they’ve been hurt, how they can get back at that person, how they can hurt them, etc. It’s true – you really can’t sleep if your mind is like that. Those thoughts come up very strongly when you are lying in bed, when you have nothing else to do. 

Shantideva says something very similar: “When the thorn of anger lodges in my heart, my mind doesn’t feel any peace, doesn’t gain any joy or pleasure, doesn’t fall asleep and becomes unstable.” It stays in your heart So, your mind doesn’t feel any peace, doesn’t gain any joy or pleasure. You can’t fall asleep, and your mind becomes unstable.

So, we have to let go when somebody has insulted us, hurt us or done any of these various things. There are, of course, many, many ways to help us to do that. Shantideva has given so many ways. I don’t think Shantideva said this – I forget who did, actually – but it’s very helpful, when somebody says something stupid and insults us, to think, “What makes them correct? Why do I believe them? If they say something stupid, they’re saying something stupid.” Then Shantideva goes into a big, long discussion, saying that if we’re angry because our fame will go down and so on – that is really ridiculous. If you recall, Shantideva had many, many verses on this.

Participant: When my fame…?

Dr. Berzin: When my fame goes down and people don’t like me. So what? Also, if somebody steals something of ours, we can think, “May they enjoy it; may it give them happiness.” After all, if we think in terms of giving enlightenment to everybody, surely, we can give them… like my computer was just stolen last week. I can give them my computer. “May they enjoy my beautiful, new laptop.” I never had anything stolen on an Indian train. I had it stolen on a German train. How’s that?! 

Participant: Maybe you left it.

Dr. Berzin: Maybe. But even if I left it, it was stolen because it certainly was not returned to the lost and found. In either case, it was stolen. I mean, how else to deal with it? Otherwise, you would never go to sleep. Impermanence and so on, the Wheel of Sharp Weapons… there are so many ways of dealing with it. Lojong is filled with methods to turn negative circumstances into positive ones. You have to use those methods in such situations. Otherwise, you just torture yourself because you are not going to get back what was stolen. Shantideva said something like that when he said, “When somebody else gets something that you wanted, why get angry and upset about it?” You are not going to get it anyway; it’s theirs now. So, forget about it. Rejoice. They have it; you’re not going to get it back. It’s never going to be given it to you.

So, the question is what happens when in a war like the Israeli attack on Lebanon, our children get killed or maimed or something like that? Isn’t that time to get angry? Well, if we were real bodhisattvas and really highly advanced – no. Anger doesn’t help. His Holiness has said that repeatedly. Look at all the killing and murder that’s gone on in Tibet. He always says that in such situations, if you have to do something strong back to defend yourself, don’t do it on the basis of anger. If you do it on the basis of anger, then, as Shantideva says, your mind isn’t clear; your mind isn’t stable, and you’re going make mistakes. The thing is to accept, “This is the situation. This is what’s happened.” It might be unbelievably sad, but you have to accept reality and then act on the basis of a cool mind. If you have to take strong steps, you have to take strong steps. That’s beside the point. You have to see what will be most effective. Getting angry will just make your judgment clouded and cause you more suffering. It doesn’t mean that this is easy. By no means is it easy. 

I think the first, real point for working on this is to train yourself to accept reality. No matter what happens, “This is reality. This is what has happened.” It’s like the eight worldly dharmas, the eight transitory things. Things go well; things go badly. It’s the ups and downs of samsara. You just accept it; you don’t get excited one way or the other. And you deal with it in whatever way is appropriate. I think that’s the only way. 

Participant: But it’s not so easy.

Dr. Berzin: I said that. It’s not easy. Not the slightest bit easy. That’s very advanced. Very advanced.

But you look at somebody like His Holiness the Dalai Lama – there’s a very good example. One day the Chinese are calling him their worst enemy in the universe, the evilest person in the universe. Then, the same day, he might get an unbelievable offering to help the Tibetan people, or there are so many other people who come to his teaching – things like that. Good and bad happens to him constantly, but he stays the same. 

Participant: Has His Holiness the Dalai Lama ever lost his equanimity? 

Dr. Berzin: His Holiness has said (he said it in Brussels, didn’t he?) that he sometimes still gets a little bit angry. However, “a little bit angry” means that he might get a little bit angry for a few seconds, and then it goes away. 

What you have to do in the beginning with every disturbing emotion, is, first of all, to be aware that it is a disturbing emotion. And as Shantideva says, you have to care about it. “I care about the consequences of letting my mind go on and on with this. I don’t want that” – so, mindfulness to hold onto discipline. Then you apply the method. 

In the beginning, you have to apply a great deal of effort and do it very consciously. Eventually, that builds up a habit (this is what “meditation” means: to build up a habit) so that it just happens automatically. Automatically, you just don’t get upset. Then, immediately, when something terrible happens, the first thought is, “Now, how do I rearrange my life? What do I do now?” You just immediately accept it. “I missed the train, but it’s not going to help at all to get angry. I missed the train, so when is the next train? Can I call…?” You just deal with it. 

Now, you have to be careful. This doesn’t mean that you become totally without any feelings. For instance, if you are in a war situation, people are dying all around you; your friends and your loved ones are dying. Now, one way in which people react to that is to go into shock and not feel anything. I think many soldiers are like that. It doesn’t mean that you don’t feel something. You feel sad, but you have to deal with it. Like, if you are under attack and the person next to you gets shot, you don’t all of a sudden stop fighting and start crying and become upset. You have to continue, don’t you? I mean, it’s horrible, absolutely horrible. But the big enemy is anger. Doesn’t help. 

There are so many texts. And there are so many disadvantages to anger. Shantideva says it very well – that your mind is completely unstable and that you do things that are quite crazy, whereas if you are cooler, you can react in a much stronger, wiser way. 

Shantideva also said, “Whoever clamps down and destroys his rage, his anger, will be happy in this life and others.” This is similar. Whoever clamps down – in other words, gets anger under control – and destroys their rage will be happy in this life and in future lives. It’s very, very important not to hold grudges. If we develop patience, we won’t hold grudges any more. 

Let’s think about this for a moment. I’ll read the verse again.

[16] By holding a grudge, thinking, “I’ve been insulted by this one; stymied and defeated by this one; my wealth’s been plundered by this one,” conflicts arise ever more. Whoever rids himself of grudges goes to sleep at ease.

Just think of the Middle Eastern conflict. If both sides continue to want revenge every time the other side does something, it will never, ever end. 

I am reminded of something that happened to me many years ago when I was living in Dharamsala, which reconfirms something that Shantideva said. Shantideva said, “If somebody hurts me, if I develop patience and don’t get angry, as a result of that, I’ll go to a higher rebirth. The other person, though, as a result of hurting me or stealing something from me, will go to a lower rebirth.” So, because of that, the other person is an object of compassion, not an object of anger. 

Once in Dharamsala, a thief broke into my house and stole some things. Most of what he stole was not very important. However, he stole the only sweater that I had that my mother knitted for me, so it had a lot of sentimental value. He stole some clothes and some other things. I lived with a group of Indian friends, and I told them about it, and they found the person who stole my stuff because this person was so foolish. This person had actually started to wear my clothes! So, it was very easy to find them. It was a very poor person who, actually, only had one set of clothes. Then the thief was so frightened that my Indian friends would beat him up or something like that (I had no control, of course, over what my Indian friends might do) that he and his parents fled Dharamsala. I have no idea what happened to them, but they ran away because they were so frightened. 

So, for something small like that, which… OK, I was sad that I’d lost my mother’s sweater, but I wasn’t really angry. However, it was a disaster for the thief and his family. It’s a very good example of what Shantideva is talking about. It was much more appropriate to have compassion for this poor thief  – “You don’t have any clothes, so please enjoy my clothes” – than to be angry. This is a very good example. I always remember that. 

Anyway, the next verse, Verse 17, speaks about the type of mind that is the basis for patience. The verse reads:

[17] Know that thoughts may be like figures drawn on water, on earth, or on stone. Among them, it’s best for those with disturbing emotions to be like the first; while those with wishes for the Dharma to be (like) the last.

“To be like the first” means to be like things drawn on water. “To be like the last” means to be like things drawn on stone.

This is an interesting verse because it seems to indicate the method that is used very much in Dzogchen, which is to see thoughts like figures written in water. However, there, it refers to all thoughts, both negative and positive. The point is that when you write on water, the writing arises and disappears simultaneously. If you can recognize that this is the process that’s happening with each thought, that each syllable of each verbal thought arises and is gone at the same time – that it doesn’t stand; it doesn’t stay in your mind – that’s a very wonderful way to stop this type of thinking. But to do that, you have to slow down your verbal thinking process. You have to slow it down to be very, very slow and think each syllable of each word, one at a time. When you see that as soon as you think one syllable of a word, it’s gone – that it’s no longer there – all of a sudden, there is no energy at all left in the thought. Then, it’s actually very difficult for the thought to continue. 

So, Nagarjuna is already indicating this method. The more that you study Dharma and learn many, many different methods and read many texts, it’s amazing to see, when you go back to these early works, how much comes out of a text like this. And one of the main things that His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been emphasizing in his teachings over the last number of years is to go back to the great masters of Nalanda and study their works. They are the source of almost all of the teachings that are found in Tibet. This really is the way to get all the different traditions within Tibet to work harmoniously together – bringing them all back to the Indian sources.  

His Holiness had suggested (I don’t know how much they actually follow this) that when all the traditions meet together, they have a set of common prayers that everyone can feel comfortable doing together. For instance, the dedication chapter from Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara – everybody accepts that. It is a basic type of liturgy that everybody can feel comfortable doing. You don’t have to do Tibetan prayers; you can do the Indian ones. I think that’s a wonderful suggestion for Westerners as well, at least within the Tibetan traditions. There are so many centers and so on that, on occasions like the Buddha’s enlightenment day, they could do these Indian prayers together when they get together. I think that would be wonderful. 

Here, Nagarjuna is saying, especially regarding the disturbing emotions, to let those kinds of thoughts be like writing on water. Witness how they arise and disappear, and let them lose their energy (if, indeed, you see it like that). But if it’s a Dharma thought, have it be like writing on stone, which doesn’t mean to be attached to the thought but to have it be stable. It doesn’t mean to make the words of Dharma into something solid and truly existent – obviously not – but to make them stable in the mind. 

Taking the Energy Out of the Disturbing Emotion/Thought

Actually, this method of writing on water is really the best, I must say. The reason for that is that it takes the energy out of the disturbing emotion and the disturbing thought. Sometimes what happens is that by using other methods, you can bring the disturbing emotion to an end – that’s not a problem; you can do that with many different methods – but often, the energy is still there, and you feel it in your body. You get terrible lung and so on. So, with other methods, you are stuck with the energy. Then your body gets all messed up.

Slowing Down the Thoughts (Dzogchen Method)

Let’s use an example. You start to practice with simple examples, not ones that are strongly emotionally loaded. Think of a sentence in German that has words that have several syllables. Can you give me a sentence? Any sentence. “Wieviel Uhr ist es?” (“What time is it?”). Now, what you do, first of all, is to slow down. And then, you just think… Well, first, when you think in terms of writing on water, don’t think in terms of a picture. It’s not an exercise in actually writing it in your mind or visualizing water, unless that helps of course. It’s more a feeling, what we would call in the West a “feeling,” of what that is that, when you write on water, it’s just… there’s nothing. It disappears, and it doesn’t stay. I’m not talking about sticking your finger in the water and disturbing the water. I’m talking about just writing.  

So, you get this feeling of wie. When you say wie in your mind, as soon as you’ve said it, it’s gone, isn’t it? It’s like writing on water. Wie… viel… Uhr… All of a sudden, there is no meaning any more to any of these words, to any of these syllables. The energy is just not there anymore. That’s the way you do it. 

Participant: But how do you do that when, for instance, you are insulted?

Dr. Berzin: “You bastard! You just said that…” blah, blah, blah. You have to slow down. 

Participant: And then you say, “Yooouuu…”

Dr. Berzin: “Yooouuu baaasss staaarrd.” What is it, really? It’s just writing on water. It’s just thoughts. One has to recognize the nature of thought. The nature of thought is that it’s like writing on water. This is Dzogchen methodology. No one said it was an easy method. It’s not an easy method because it’s difficult to slow down, to apply it. However, if you can apply it, it’s very, very effective. It requires a great deal of practice. 

Participant: If you hear it, then you have the feeling inside. But if you repeat it all slowly, I don’t seem to get the feeling back.

Dr. Berzin: Try it. You can do it with the feeling as well. The feeling is like writing on water as well. It’s just a feeling. 

Participant: That’s easy when you are insulted, like if someone says, “You bastard,” or something. But sometimes you get angry about a whole story. It is not just one sentence you get angry about it; it's a long story.

Dr. Berzin: It’s a long story. So, when you start to tell the story in your head and you start using this method, you lose all interest in it. 

Participant: So, when one starts thinking about it, then one…

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s when you have the disturbing emotion. Hardly ever do we have a disturbing emotion when our minds are quiet and have no verbal thoughts. 

Participant: I know, but one starts…

Dr. Berzin: One starts to complain. 

Participant: Yeah, get angry. 

Dr. Berzin: Or swearing. But basically, you have to just stop. 

Participant: Man muß es alles stoppen.

Dr. Berzin: Well, you were saying it was a long story. You have to ask yourself, “Do I want,” to use colloquial American English, “to go on this trip? Do I want to go down the road of this type of thinking?” 

I’ll give you an example. I didn’t rget angry at all with my computer being lost or stolen. I was quite amazed that I had quite a lot of equanimity concerning that. But a few days later, I couldn’t find my diary book, and that really annoyed me. And I know why it annoyed me. It’s because, when I start looking for something that I know is in my house – “I just had it in my hand an hour ago, so it has to be in the house” – and I spend an hour looking for it and still can’t find it, I get really annoyed. Why? Because it reminds me of my mother with Alzheimer’s disease – being in the hell of not being able to find anything. It reminds me of that. So, how do you deal with that? Do I want to go down the road of thinking about my mother and remembering her constantly looking for things in the house? I just say, “No, I don’t want to go down that road. I don’t want to start thinking like that.” You just stop it and give up. A few days later, actually, I found it. I just stopped looking for it, and a few days later I found it – obviously, in a place that I hadn’t looked before. 

I think that here this whole caring attitude comes in. Am I going to make myself miserable and stay in that hell, searching the house again and again and in the same places that I looked already two or three times? Or do I just give up? You just give up. You don’t go down that road. Now, I didn’t specifically apply this method, but the energy wasn’t there anymore. It just became boring.

Participant: But I find that even if you tell yourself to stop that, to stop running around in the house, looking for it or whatever, and even if you realize what you’re doing and say, “Oh, stop it!” still, sometimes, it just automatically comes up again and again.

Using Mantra

Dr. Berzin: You know what I did? I remember how I dealt with this. I got out of the house and for a walk, and I repeated mantra. Mantra is the best thing to apply when your mind is racing like that and is on a loop, going over and over it. Use that energy to go on a loop of a mantra. That’s the best method. It works. 

Participant: That’s the thing – you always go on a loop. You’re on a loop, and you want to get out, but it’s not possible. 

Dr. Berzin: Mantra is the best. 

Participant: [Inaudible] 

Dr. Berzin: What is this?

Participant: He says that when he’s half asleep, the thoughts always go round and round. It would be very important to stop it then, to be aware that you are dreaming and that you are going around and round and that you can’t stop. This is important too.

Dr. Berzin: Well, if you are talking about when you have this in your dream – that requires another skill, which, if you have that skill automatically, is very good. But that’s not so easy to develop. The skill is to recognize that you are dreaming when you are dreaming and either change the dream, which is not so easy, or wake yourself up, which is easier.  

Participant: Aber man muß zuerst wissen, ja?

Dr. Berzin: First, you have to recognize that it’s a dream. That’s the only way to deal with a nightmare, of course. It’s to recognize, “This is a nightmare. I don’t want to do this,” and to wake yourself up if you can. If you can. But that’s not so easy. You have to practice that while you are awake. The method is to try to recognize everything as being like a dream. That’s the method. 

Participant: Weil Sie erwacht zustand hat sich das vorzustellen, und… 

Dr. Berzin: Right. “This is like a dream. I lose my computer – this is like a dream.” I don’t give it such heavy reality. 

Look at this (this is very easy). My university days – that’s like a dream now, isn’t it? Shantideva said that whether we’ve dreamt for one minute or a hundred years, once we wake up, it’s the same: it’s finished. So anything, whether it’s the holiday that I took or whatever – that’s like a dream now. If I realize that, after this class is over, what I am doing now will be like a dream, then I can recognize that now it’s like a dream as well. That’s the way to do it because it is true that, afterwards, when you think back, it’s like a dream. Isn’t it?

Participant: It has no more substance.

Dr. Berzin: It has no more substance.

Participant: It’s gone.

Dr. Berzin: It’s gone.

Participant: Nothing anymore. 

Dr. Berzin: Nothing to hold onto.

Participant: The university years – nothing to hold onto.

Dr. Berzin: Nothing to hold onto. What’s the difference between that and a dream? It’s like a dream. My life in India – I was there for twenty-nine years! It’s gone. It’s like a dream. 

Participant: It’s nothing then. 

Dr. Berzin: It’s nothing. So, you look at now the same way – that this will definitely be like a dream tomorrow.

Participant: Then the whole life.

Dr. Berzin: Then the whole life. Then you don’t…

Participant: When you die.

Dr. Berzin: When you die – it’s exactly the same thing: it was all like a dream. 

Participant: The point about patience was not to be indifferent to everything – you know, “life’s just a dream” –  but to be less destructive.

Dr. Berzin: Right. The point of patience is not to get angry and not to get depressed.

Participant: Sometimes people use this idea of everything being like a dream in a way that makes you feel that they’re indifferent to everything because they really don’t engage with what’s going on around them. They use it as if to say, “I don’t care because everything is not real.”

Dr. Berzin: Well, I think that’s a misunderstanding – to think that everything is like a dream just makes you indifferent, makes you into a zombie. Surely, in your dreams you have emotions. I have emotions in my dreams. I imagine most people do. In dreams, you feel happy or unhappy, excited or afraid. Emotions are there. It’s still like a dream. “Like a dream” just means that it is not solid. You still feel. 

Participant: But it’s not worth it to have attachment, then.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not worth the attachment. 

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: Yes. You experience it – it’s like writing on water. I experience being happy; it’s like writing on water, and it’s gone. I enjoy it while it’s there, but it was… it’s nothing. This, of course, gets into the understanding of voidness. Voidness is not nihilism. It doesn’t mean that nothing exists. You have to see the void nature together with conventional reality. That gets into a very deep discussion. 

His Holiness explained this with dependent arising. It’s the king of reasonings. “Dependent” because things are dependent; they are not solid by themselves. So, the term gets rid of the extreme of eternalism, of things being solid. Because things “arise,” they are not nothing. So, the term gets rid of the extreme of nihilism. So, with dependent arising, with this one term, the Buddha got rid of both extremes. In Tsongkhapa’s Praise to Dependent Arising, he makes a big point of this. 

Participant: Can you repeat?

Dr. Berzin: Because things are dependent, they are not solid, not independent. That gets rid of eternalism. Then, because things arise, they are not nothing: they happen. This gets rid of nihilism. “With the one word,” Tsongkhapa says, “you got rid of both extremes. For this, who can praise you more?” What is there to praise Buddha for more than for his teaching on dependent arising? For teaching dependent arising, Tsongkhapa says, there is nothing higher to praise Buddha for. I think it was when Tsongkhapa achieved the non-conceptual cognition of voidness that he wrote these praises to dependent arising. He praised Buddha for teaching dependent arising because he had understood voidness in terms of dependent arising. 

Why don’t we try this for a moment with thoughts being like writing on water. Any type of thought that you may have, you just slow it down. The thing is to get this feeling of what writing on water is like so that you can apply it. As Nagarjuna says, use that especially for thoughts with disturbing emotions. However, to train, you start with something a little bit easier, with less energy. Then, as you get more and more familiar, you can apply it to things that have more energy. 

I think the key to this meditation is that when you are able to stop the energy and stop the…  It’s not that you consciously stop the energy; it just ends automatically. That’s the way it’s always described, and I think that’s the way that it happens as well – that there is no more energy. Then, you have to stay focused in that space (Dzogchen calls it the space between thoughts and underlying thoughts) and stay with that with the mind being alert, not dull. That takes care of the energy. 

Participant: Is it also this Chod practice – this cutting off?

Dr. Berzin: I must say, I have had hardly any teachings on Chod, so, I’m really not familiar with it. I only know Chod in terms of having incredible visualizations where you have various figures in front of you, and you chop your body into pieces and feed it to them in order to overcome your attachment to your body. You specifically cut it in all different… It’s really quite heavy. That’s the only Chod practice that I know, and I’ve had very little teaching on it. 

Participant: I just remember something about cutting off the thought so that you get access to this.

Dr. Berzin: There may certainly be another level of it. I have only received teachings on this level, which is intended to help you to overcome grasping to a “me” and a grasping to your body and, then, to make an offering of your body. That comes in certain tantric practices, usually, done with the visualization. 

Participant: The point is, when you have this gap, really to expand…

Dr. Berzin: When you have that gap, to expand it, yes, to stay there.

Participant: To stay in the gap.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Because the energy of the compulsive thought is not there when you stay in the gap, it’s hard for it to start again. You’ve broken the energy; you’ve broken the momentum. So, even if it comes again, it will start with much less energy because you have broken the momentum. It’s like a car that has stopped at a red light. When it starts again, it’s going to be much slower and weaker. This is far more effective than just sitting there and focusing on your breath or on a visualization because those don’t deal with the energy so well. Breath maybe does to a certain extent, primarily because it reconnects your thoughts to your body. You’re out of the thought and more with your body, so it grounds you. That’s why focusing on the breath is helpful. 

Participant: And mantra? 

Dr. Berzin: Mantra is when you are walking around and your mind is racing, or when you are doing things in the house. It’s then to have a mantra go on all the time. 

Participant: And the energy?

Dr. Berzin: The energy gets taken up by the mantra. And, obviously, any mantra that suits you is fine; it doesn’t really make any difference. Maybe it does on a subtle level, I don’t know. I am not aware. 

Participant: So, one method is to redirect the energy; the other one is to get the energy…

Dr. Berzin: To break the energy, to break the momentum of the energy. With mantras, I must say, I find that I just start to recite whatever mantra comes to my head. On different occasions, it’s a different mantra – whatever feels right in that situation (because I am familiar with a lot of mantras), for that particular purpose. However, often what’s helpful is a guru’s name mantra – for example, His Holiness’s name mantra. That’s very good because then you think of His Holiness as well. 

If you do a mantra that just comes to your head, it’s easier to maintain it. If you have to artificially start something, you lose interest in it, whereas if you use whatever comes up automatically, it can take this horrible energy, which also comes up automatically, away. That’s why you want to use what comes up automatically. If you have to force it, it’s not going to take over that energy that comes up automatically from the disturbing emotion, the disturbing thoughts. That’s the reason. Then, of course, there are all the various methods, the million methods, that are taught in the text – like, for attachment, to meditate on the ugliness of the body. 

Participant: For anger…

Dr. Berzin: Well, Shantideva has a whole chapter on patience and all the methods for dealing with anger. There must be at least ten or twelve methods that he explains – like, if you don’t set up a target, nobody will shoot at it. If I hadn’t been such an idiot and attached to my computer and taken it with me, it wouldn’t have been stolen. So, it’s my fault that it was stolen, for example. 

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr. Berzin: It depends on how much you believe in the method; how much you believe that that’s true. Why should I be angry with the thief? I should be angry with myself; I’m such an idiot. It helps. Maybe not so much with the energy, but it helps. 

Participant: Because, still, your thoughts are around this stolen computer. Do you know what I mean? 

Dr. Berzin: Yes. It’s a different approach. It doesn’t work specifically on the energy, but it is definitely helpful. It deals with the problem – so, definitely helpful. That’s why I always say it is very good to have a large, what we call in colloquial English, “bag of tricks,” a big bag like the one you have for playing golf that has all the different golf clubs, so you can choose. If this one doesn’t work, then you choose another one. If that one doesn’t work, you choose another one. Then you are well prepared, like when carrying a Swiss army knife, which has a blade for every function. 

Participant: But I think this is really convincing with the energy.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, the energy ones are very helpful. Very, very helpful.

Participant: I notice that even when I apply all these methods, the thought still goes on and on. Then you start arguing with yourself.

Dr. Berzin: Well, try these methods that are in my book, Developing Balanced Sensitivity… 

Participant: Den Alltag meistern wie ein Buddha.

Dr. Berzin: That’s it; that’s the title of the German translation of the book. It’s in the second chapter that I talk about methods for quieting the mind.