Recap
We are going through this text, Wheel of Sharp Weapons by Dharmarakshita. This is a text in the attitude training genre – lojong in Tibetan – and it uses the method primarily of tonglen, giving and taking, in order to help us to overcome self-cherishing attitude and the grasping for what we consider to be the “true me,” the “true self.” We’ve gone through a considerable part of the text already and we saw that when we have self-cherishing attitude, it brings all various problems onto ourselves because we act in negative ways. It also builds up negative karma – negative force from that – and that negative force ripens into various problems. So, on one level, we need to change our behavioral patterns, when we’re able to identify what the causes are for the various problems we experience.
We also need to, through the development of great compassion, think that we’re not alone – remember we’re not alone in experiencing this type of problem. Everybody else experiences these problems as well. Therefore, instead of just feeling sorry for ourselves and getting really depressed at the various problems we have, we are inspired by compassion – we’re thinking of others – that we’re going to change our behavior. We’re going to not just change our behavior but think in terms of giving that solution to everybody, because compassion is the wish for others to be free of their suffering just as much as we would want to be free of our sufferings. We’re all the same. Everybody wants to be happy; nobody wants to be unhappy. We do the tonglen practice in terms of these karmic problems and taking that on and giving to others the solution to that – a change in their behavior. In opening up our hearts to dealing with everybody’s problems – not just our own – it helps us to overcome the self-cherishing with which we’re only concerned about ourselves and getting our own way and thinking “poor me,” and getting sympathy for myself and all of that. The first part of the text deals with that.
The second part deals with what underlies this self-cherishing attitude, which is a concept of a solid, “true me,” independent of everything else and somehow sitting inside my head as the controller, as the one that has to have its way all the time. When we hold that concept and believe that concept is referring to reality – that that’s how we really exist – then no matter what type of positive plans we might have, it sabotages them and we experience something quite different – usually the opposite of what we intended. So, the second part of the text is dealing with how we have various good plans, but they never work out well and the reason for that is grasping for this solid “me.” Likewise, we can think in terms of how we’re not the only ones that have that problem, but everybody has that problem and so again we can deal with this in a tonglen type of manner. In the process of doing that, we invoke the strong power of Yamantaka. That is the forceful form of discriminating awareness or wisdom that we all have within us to be able to have that strength to be able to cut through these false beliefs and to cut through all the confusion that they bring.
We’re in the part of the text that is summarizing these two aspects of overcoming self-cherishing and overcoming the grasping for the solid “me,” by emphasizing again this tonglen practice, this giving and taking. We have discussed this practice quite extensively in the last two classes and we saw that we can imagine just on the simplest level, the beginning level, problems of others coming in in the form of black light and the happiness that we want to give them going out with white light. We do this in conjunction with our breathing. But we also saw that we can use a more forceful type of visualizations, which are going to invoke a lot of resistance from this feeling that we have of a solid “me” – “I don’t want to get my hands dirty;” “I don’t want to get myself involved in your mess.” The type of images that we use are the things that we put up the most resistance against, starting off with dirty substances like oil and grease and ink and these types of things that we don’t want to get on us. Smoke makes us cough and irritates us – this sort of things – and that’s the first level.
The second level would be various types of bodily waste, like urine and diarrhea and vomit and snot – these types of things. We imagine taking on the problems of others in this form. On the strongest level, we imagine whatever it is that we’re most afraid of coming into us into us in the form of whatever that might be – cockroaches, or snakes, or spiders, or fire, or terrorists, or whatever it might be.
Then we saw that we don’t want to just keep these things inside us. We need to be able to feel the suffering of others with compassion. But we have to be able to dissolve this suffering and the feelings that it arouses by an understanding of voidness – that these things arise dependently on karma and people’s actions and on their disturbing emotions that motivate these destructive actions and so many things like that. It’s not something which is solid and, in this way, it settles down. We can also think in terms the mind being like an ocean and these waves of suffering and so on settle down. In this way we’re able to access feeling of happiness that is a natural – an innate part of the mind – and then give that to others. The texts don’t speak in terms of the actual images and visualizations of what we give to others any more than just saying that if they’re hungry, you give them food; if they’re thirsty, water; and houses if they need a place to stay; and clothing and teachers and circumstances to be able to study and practice; and a long life and good health and these types of things – and you give them liberation and enlightenment.
The text speaks in those terms. But someone suggested to me, and I think that’s a good idea, that we can use again strong visualizations here to help us to overcome any remnant that we might have of self-cherishing, that we don’t want to give to others. What we need to then imagine that we’re giving to others to use would be the things that we’re the most attached to. That could be our money. It could be our computer. It could be donating our kidney or giving blood. Or giving our time – for a lot of people that’s a big problem, giving other people our time, giving them our attention, giving them our care. These types of things can be very helpful for overcoming these remnants that might still be there – that probably will still be there of not wanting to share, not wanting to give to others. This, I think, is a very good suggestion that one of my students and friends gave and I don’t see any contradiction of using these type of visualizations in this practice. It’s important, in terms of our feeling that we have when we give this to others, that we give this with a sense of happiness. Not only may they enjoy these things and experience happiness and not only the happiness of love that we have in terms of the wish for them to be happy, but also the happiness of rejoicing that we can give and that we can help them. These are things to work on. They’re not that easy.
There are two situations in which we can use this practice. One is when we encounter others who are experiencing a problem that we ourselves are not experiencing; we can do this practice of imagining taking that problem away from them and giving them the solution. This could be, for example, when we encounter homeless people and beggars – these sorts of situations in the streets or the subways. We ourselves might not be homeless and might not be hungry, but these people are. So, we imagine taking on their suffering, trying to feel what they feel, empathize and imagine giving them what we can. Of course, if we have some loose change, we should also give them our loose change – not just imagine giving them nice things. So, that’s one situation in which we’re not experiencing the problem of the other.
But another situation is when we are experiencing a certain problem. Then, at that time, we might not know a specific other person that’s experiencing that problem, but we think in terms of everybody who has that same problem, or sickness or whatever it might be, and we take it on from everybody. This helps us to overcome feeling sorry for ourselves: “Poor me, I’m the only one who has this problem”– this type of attitude. So, there’re these two situations. Also, obviously, in terms of giving to others, the other person might not need our computer, but we can use this type of practice – particularly if we are attached to things like our computer – for thinking in terms of taking on everybody’s attachment to their computers or to their possessions that they don’t want to share. When we give to others, we can imagine actually giving these things that we are most attached to.
Practicing Tonglen
Why don’t we try that particular one in terms of attachment to possessions – whatever it might be that we are attached to: computer, money, whatever. This can also extend not only to material possessions but, I think, also to people, because sometimes we are very possessive of our friends or our partner we live with and we don’t want to share our time with other people. In other words, “I want this special person just for myself and I don’t want this person to spend time with anybody else,” whether it’s with other people, their friends; or whether it’s going to classes that we’re not interested in – whatever it might be. That’s another aspect of giving that we can give to this person – to give them more space, more room.
Let’s try this process with the various visualizations that we have learned. I think one of the aspects that helps in this process is the aspect of renunciation. Renunciation is the strong determination to be free. Let’s say we’re very attached to somebody and we always want to be with them and we’re jealous of any time that they spend with anybody else and we don’t want to give them time. So, you think of the suffering that you have because of that – I mean, if you’re so attached and you’re so insecure and so jealous, that really is a lot of suffering. That’s a lot of pain and the more you voice it to the other person, the more you drive them away. It’s a completely losing situation that you’re in and so when you think of others, everybody else who has this same problem and let’s say you take it in in the form of diarrhea, or vomit, or something like that, it helps to strengthen your renunciation. “This is just crap, this type of problem” – this type of attitude. “It really is like diarrhea and excrement, and I really want to stop this.” So, these strong visualizations can help as well in developing the renunciation of the type of problem that you have and so that gives a little bit more strength and motivation to be able to come up with the attitude of mind that actually solves the problem and changes the problem. It’s not just thinking intellectually, “Yes, I know what’s going to be the solution,” but we have to try to actually be convinced and to try to feel that attitude.
Somebody had mentioned to me that in trying to do these visualizations of scary insects and snakes and things like this coming into them, it didn’t evoke any feeling. I think that this can sometimes happen if we have watched too much television and played too many computer games – with all these monsters and dealing with monsters and so on – that it doesn’t have any reality to us. It doesn’t have any emotional content to it. If that’s the case, we really need to work on it. I don’t know what really a solution would be of how to work on it. But I think that if we are aware that this is not just a computer game or a television show, but to try to actually imagine these things for real and to take it seriously, then it could evoke a little bit more of an emotional feeling to it. So, if we recognize in ourselves that the visualizations don’t have any emotional content to it, that’s something that you really have to work on, otherwise the meditation process of tonglen is not going to have much of an effect on the self-cherishing attitude.
Transforming Disturbing Emotions into Aids for Enlightenment
Let’s go on with the next verse. This is verse 97 in the old poetical translation:
Thus, accepting ourselves all deluded non-virtuous actions that others have done in the past, in the present and future with mind, speech and body, may delusions of others as well as our own be the favored conditions to gain our enlightenment, just as the peacocks eat poison and thrive.
In the new translation, the more literal one, verse 96:
By having taken on ourselves, like that, (the negative consequences) of what others have done over the three times through their three gateways (of action), may the disturbing emotions be transformed into aids for enlightenment, like peacocks having radiant color through (feeding on) poisonous plants.
This is referring to taking on from others, in this tonglen practice, all the negative force and negative consequences. This is both the negative force as well as what ripens from that negative force, the suffering situations from everything that people have done in the past and are doing now and might do in the future through body, speech and mind – so negative actions of body and speech and mind and so on. You can act through doing something physical. You can act through saying something. You can act through thinking something. By doing that, “May the disturbing emotions be transformed into aids for enlightenment.” In other words, now we think not just of the suffering of others, not just of the negative actions that they did that will ripen into the suffering that is the cause for it, but we think more deeply in terms of the disturbing emotions that motivated those negative, destructive actions and we want to transform these into aids for enlightenment. Remember, we had in the beginning of the text the image of the peacocks – that they live on poisonous plants. Poisonous plants represent the disturbing emotions. This is attachment or greed, desire, anger and repulsion, naivety, jealousy or envy and pride or arrogance. What’s also associated with pride or arrogance is being miserly or stingy, not wanting to share. We spoke in terms of when we are experiencing a disturbing emotion – like what we just spoke of now, attachment to somebody, not wanting to share the time with that person with anybody else and so on – we need to imagine everybody else that has this problem. We give the solution to that, which is to not be so attached, to realize that being attached just produces horrible suffering – and you get disgusted with that and renounce it.
The Five Types of Deep Awareness
That’s one level of transforming this. But another level of transforming is working with the five types of deep awareness. We had this in our sensitivity training course. There we saw that underlying each of the five major poisonous disturbing emotions – what we just listed: attachment, anger, naivety, jealousy and arrogance or pride – is one of the five types of deep awareness. There’re several ways of putting this together, but we’ll just speak in terms of one. We have naivety, in which we just don’t understand. We’re confused. We close ourselves off about how we exist, how other people exist, about cause and effect. For instance, we don’t realize that by complaining all the time and nagging the other person – “Stay with me, don’t forget me,” and like that – this just causes more and more problems. We’re naive about the effect of this. We’re naive about the need for the other person to be with other people – that this person has a life; we’re not the only one in their life etc. So, there is that naivety, but underlying that closed naivety, if we relax the tight hold on the solid “me” – “Poor me, you’re neglecting me;” “Poor me, you have to do this, you have to do that” – what we find is the mirror-like deep awareness which is just taking in the information. That’s the way that the mind works for everybody. There is this deep awareness – part of Buddha-nature – that just takes in information like a mirror.
We’re not using the image of a mirror in the sense of reflecting but, like a camera or a microphone, just taking in the information. The information is the reality of the other person, the reality of their situation, the reality of the effect of our behavior. We are transforming in this way the disturbing emotion into an aid for enlightenment, which is to then develop further and further – this mirror-like deep awareness – with respect to naivety. When we take in the naivety of everybody, it’s not that we become more naive, more stupid, more closed. But because we feel great compassion for everybody who has that – we feel the suffering that everybody creates for themselves and experiences because of that – then with an understanding of voidness – there is no solid “me” and so on – we loosen the grasp of that grasping for a solid “me” that is driving that naivety and then we can give that mirror-like deep awareness to others. This is how we deal with naivety. This is transforming the poison into something that will help us to reach enlightenment, because eventually we want to be able to mirror or take in all the information about everything concerning cause and effect and about everything concerning reality. So, that’s the first transformation, the first type of disturbing emotion. Is that clear?
Then the second is dealing with arrogance and also miserliness or stinginess. Both of them are involved here. Arrogance is the feeling that I am better than everybody else in one way or another. It could also be reverse arrogance, which is that I’m worse than everybody else. Now, when we think that I am better than everybody else and so on, that, obviously, has behind it a grasping for a solid “me” – “Me, me, me, I’m so much better,” or “Me, me, me, I’m so much worse” – and when we loosen that up with the understanding that this concept is completely false, then what we’re left with is equalizing deep awareness. In other words, the type of awareness that we have here is just of us and others at the same time – regarding them equally. When we grasp for the solid “me,” then when we look at the two of us, we think, “Me, I’m so much better than you” or “I’m so much worse than you.” Underlying it is just looking at the two of us equally – bringing it together. This type of deep awareness we all have. It allows us to put two objects together into the same category. I can look at the two people who are sitting in front of me and see equally that both of you are women. Even a worm can see two different pieces of food and know that they’re both food. Putting things together – equalizing awareness – allows us to deal with information.
The same type of deep awareness is underlying stinginess or miserliness with which I don’t want to share with you. If I don’t want to share with you, what’s underlying that is the awareness that’s looking at me and you equally, but then with this tightness – “I don’t want to share with you, I want to hold on for myself.” If we relax the hold of that grasping and realize that there’s nothing real behind it, then you have this equalizing deep awareness, which also is something that we can develop further and further as an aid to enlightenment. We use this equalizing awareness to, for instance, have equal love for everybody, equal concern for everybody and understand that everything equally is devoid of existing in impossible ways. That’s the second transformation. Is that clear?
Let me try to repeat and summarize. A lot of this seems very theoretical and it’s very difficult to actually put it into practice or see how to put it into practice. Because when we are doing this practice of tonglen – dealing with the problems of others, as we explained before – it’s very rare that we’re going to have the ability to actually take on some sort of problem of others to affect their experience of the results of their actions. It’s very rare that that will happen. So, in a sense, it’s almost using other people’s suffering in order to help us to overcome our self-cherishing attitude.
The point here, of course, is that what is going to be the most effective is overcoming our self-cherishing. But in overcoming our self-cherishing and imagining that we give to others what they need, then that would lead to actually doing something to help them – whatever we can do. You can’t remove somebody’s problems completely, especially if they have anger and so on, but when we encounter somebody with anger then, sometimes, we get frightened. Sometimes we get angry back. Sometimes we just want to leave and not deal with this person. By doing this practice in our minds with the person – even just briefly, if we’re a little bit skilled in it – then we realize the suffering that’s involved with that and realize that we have anger as well. We use it to destroy the self-cherishing which is that “I don’t want to deal with this person,” and we give them in our imagination calmness. In the process of doing that, of course, we have to feel calm and in feeling calm then sometimes, not always, you are able to calm the other person down or at least deal with them in a calm way, rather than getting all angry and excited. That would lead to being able to actually help the person. I mean, we’re not going to be able to cure them of anger. Eventually, we might be able to teach them various methods, but they have to basically apply them themselves. But doing this practice helps us to overcome the hesitation and reticence that we have of actually getting involved and dealing with other people’s problems and so it is quite practical in that sense. We develop sympathy.
The thing with all these practices is that you practice it in meditation by yourself, just sitting in your room, but when you gain enough familiarity with it then you can apply it in daily life. You remember to apply it. The point is to remember, in a difficult situation, to actually apply these methods. If you have become very familiar with them, you don’t have to do a long process to apply it. What you do is remember it and in remembering it, just doing it for a few seconds can change your attitude. That’s what you’re aiming for.
Helping Others
Then the question is, when we think in terms of helping everybody, we have many people that we’re close to – many friends, many relatives. They have problems. It’s not just dealing with a one-time situation but it’s a long-term involvement with these people and we don’t have the capacity yet to be able to help all of them. Time is limited. Our abilities are limited. But in doing this practice, it seems as though we are lowering our borders, our boundaries, which would open us to deal with everybody equally. Well and how do we deal with that? Obviously, we’re aiming for becoming a bodhisattva – somebody that can help all others. I mean, a Buddha is the one that is really able to help all others; a bodhisattva is nearly there. But how do we deal with that on a practical level? There’re various guidelines that one can use. First of all, you have to see that when our times and resources are limited, there’s just so much that we can do. Then first you look to see, is the other person receptive to my help? If they’re not receptive, then even a Buddha couldn’t help them. So, that’s the first criterion: are they receptive?
Secondly, am I capable of helping them and if I’m not capable of helping them, then can I suggest somebody who is capable of helping them? Maybe not helping them ultimately but with a particular type of problem and then you could advise who they can go to. Then also, even if I am capable of helping them, are there others that also are capable of helping them? But if we have a particular skill that we can use with another person, that we can give and share with the other person, then we think in terms of that. I asked Ringu Tulku this question; I as well have an awful lot of demands on my time and there’s an awful lot of things that I could do and there’s one criterion that he said you could also use – although it’s a little bit in the area of selfish, but it is a legitimate thing. There’re some people that you help and it’s a complete drain of your energy and at the end you feel totally exhausted and horrible. There’re others that, when you help them and are with them, you gain energy – it’s inspiring. He said that if you’re not a bodhisattva, that is one criteria that you can also use. If you’re dealing with too many people that drain you, then you can’t help others because you’re completely drained; whereas if you help somebody where, in helping them, it energizes you, then you can use that energy to help more others. So, one needs to look at these criteria.
Of course, there can be an awful lot of people that still, within these criteria, we could help. Then you also need to take into consideration your own needs. Even if we’re not able to give 100 percent to others at our own level now, it’s always good to give somebody a little bit of something. Do a little bit. You don’t have to spend days and days with the person and explain that, “Well, there’re many other people that need my help” and so on. What you don’t want to do is to reject the person or ignore the person. But again, this is not very easy on a practical level. If everybody is all around you and they all want you to visit, that’s difficult. If everybody is sending you emails, well, you can answer emails rather briefly. Are your boundaries down in this? Well, the walls are down. There’s a difference between walls which you’re hiding behind and certain boundaries which are just conventional boundaries: “I need to sleep;” “I need to go to school;” “I need to do my school assignments.” There’re certain boundaries there. If you have children, “I have to take care of my children.” These are conventional boundaries.
You develop the wish to be able to help everybody – so love and compassion – and then what comes after that is bodhichitta. In order to be able to really help them, I have to become enlightened. I have to overcome these limitations. I have to get myself more organized. I have to get myself more focused so that I can help and then, without attachment, go to something else completely. That bodhichitta motivation – that “I have to do this in order to be able to help others more” – gives us the force to be able to actually apply methods for doing that, for getting more organized, for getting more focused.
You can see that there are people like that. I travelled a lot with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I see what he does. I was the personal translator for one of his teachers for many years and they go from one event to another event, one person to another person and just instantly make changes. If there are two-minute intervals in between, they immediately go back to doing one of their recitation and meditation practices – they do them out loud, so you know what they’re doing – and then immediately go to the next person and to the next press conference, or the next lecture that they’re doing, or whatever. That’s what we’re aiming for – to be able to be like that and anybody who is in a helping situation has to be like that. If you are a therapist, your mind still can’t be with the previous client when the next one comes in. So, the stronger you wish to help others, hopefully the stronger would be that wish to get yourself more organized, get yourself more collected so you can help others better. That’s bodhichitta.
The Five Types of Deep Awareness (Continued)
The next one of the disturbing emotions and the underlying deep awareness is attachment or longing desire and what is underlying that is the individualizing deep awareness. In other words, when we have longing desire, it’s aimed at one thing, making it special – it could be a person or it could be an object that I don’t have and want to get it. So, we’re individualizing that one thing, making it into something really special. Attachment is when we possess the thing already and we don’t want to let go, but it’s the same thing. We are focusing on one object, making it special, exaggerating its qualities and we have to have it, or I don’t want to let go of it, I don’t want to lose it. If we can relax that hold on this one object, what’s there is just individualizing deep awareness. We’re just individualizing this one object, or one person, or one animal. We could be very attached to our pet, a dog, or cat, or whatever and we’re left with this individualizing deep awareness. That individualizing deep awareness is something that, again, we need as a Buddha. We can develop it more and more. We all have it because we’re able to see that this is this person, this is that person; this individualizing awareness allows us to treat each person as an individual.
When we’re trying to help others, we need to treat each person as an individual – not just think that there’s a standard solution, that one solution fits everybody. Everybody is an individual and when we focus on that individual – and naturally we need to focus on individuals – if the self-grasping is there, then “I have to have this one, I have to not let go of this one.” Then you hold on too tightly and that’s attachment or longing desire. So, we want to relax that. We take on the attachment or desire of everybody when we have that, when we’re experiencing it and with the compassion that we have for everybody – thinking that so much suffering is involved with that type of attitude – that helps us to develop the disgust that leads us to saying, “Enough of this already.” It helps us develop bodhichitta – “I have got to overcome this to help them” – and the disgust with it, the determination to be free of it and so on. It helps us to apply that understanding of voidness so that we loosen the grip of this grasping for true existence. It’s not just a matter of loosening it but not understanding why we want to loosen it. We loosen it because you’re holding on to a false “me” that doesn’t even exist. So, we relax that and then we’re able to give this deep awareness – the individualizing one – happily to others. Is that clear?
Also, all of this it does help the other person as well. If we’re able to mirror their situation, take in the information, then we respect that information – that you’re busy, I’m not the only one in your life, etc. I see the negative consequences of what I’m doing, how it affects you, how it affects me and so then we stop. If there is the equalizing awareness there, then we see that there is no reason for me to feel arrogant toward you and act in an arrogant way, which is makes you feel terrible. So, we stop. Or we realize that everybody would like to have whatever it is that we don’t want to share and if we’re able in this situation to share, we share. With this individualizing awareness, when we drop that attachment and the clinging desire, then when you see the person as an individual, that helps you to respect the individuality of that person and treat them as an individual. (All these different types of deep awareness reinforce each other, like a network. It’s not that you just have one.) “I respect your individuality. I want to know you as an individual, not just as yet another friend, or yet another German, or another American, or another woman, or another man, or something like that, but I respect you as an individual and treat you like an individual.” But without this clinging – thinking that “you’re so special.”
Then the fourth disturbing emotion and underlying deep awareness is dealing with jealousy and envy. Somebody else is doing something or has something and we’re envious: “They shouldn’t have it; I should have it.” “They shouldn’t be able to accomplish getting a better job, or getting a boyfriend, or girlfriend, or whatever it might be; I should.” There’s a strong grasping for a “me” that’s behind that. When you relax that, all that you are aware of then is what’s called accomplishing deep awareness – deep awareness to accomplish something. They accomplish getting ahead. They accomplish doing this, they accomplish doing that. It’s just awareness of accomplishment of something which is something that then we could use to accomplish it ourselves rather than feeling jealous of somebody else. It’s just, okay, when you accomplish that, you accomplish that. Even if you don’t want to accomplish it, you’re just aware that they have accomplished something. Maybe I can accomplish it, maybe not. Maybe it’s appropriate, maybe it’s not appropriate. Again, this accomplishing awareness is very important for helping others because then it teaches us how to deal with others in order to accomplish whatever goal we want to have – how to help this person, for instance; how you have to deal with them. That’s dealing with jealousy or envy. It’s not at all easy, but these are methods that are taught.
Let me do the last of these five disturbing emotions and this is anger and repulsion. When we loosen that, what we’re left with is what’s called the sphere of reality awareness – the awareness of reality. Reality is this and not that. You’re acting like this; you’re not acting like that. Why do we get angry? “You are not doing what I want you to do, you’re doing something else” – then you get angry. What’s underlying that is just this discrimination you’re doing this and not that. That’s all. The anger then is “me” – “You are defying me;” “You’re not doing it for me.” When we can relax this grasping for a solid “me” that’s underlying the anger, then this awareness of reality is there. We can develop this toward enlightenment – to be able to distinguish, differentiate between what’s helpful and what’s harmful. What’s reality, what isn’t reality?
So, these are five types of deep awareness, and this is what we can understand from this verse: “may the disturbing emotions be transformed into aids for enlightenment.”
So, this is the verse:
By having taken on ourselves, like that, (the negative consequences) of what others have done over the three times through their three gateways (of action), may the disturbing emotions be transformed into aids for enlightenment, like peacocks having radiant color through (feeding on) poisonous plants.
Dedication
Let’s end here for today. The dedication. We think whatever positive force has come about from this, whatever understanding, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.