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A happy day – June 26 1992
Donations to Emptiness Mind – Support this Buddhist Teacher
Please help support this Mahayana Buddhist Blog.
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A happy day – June 26 1992
Donations to Emptiness Mind can be made to the following Commonwealth Bank Account
Account Name: VANESSA ANNE WALSH
BSB: 062948, Account Number: 27641400
What’s my secret?
A diet of Tibetan tea and Tsampa.
So nourishing and delicious. A superfood as well.
Three weeks of this and then what? More meditation on Chenrezig.
How to make Tibetan Tea and Tsampa? Stay tuned.
Vanessa Anne Walsh married Christian Michael Walsh June 26, 1992. Really? Neither person was that full of the notion that a marriage would be easy, because both people had seen failures in their parents marriages, watching affairs, arguments, anger and other delusions wreck havoc upon their lives. Sad huh?
One of the key things Vanessa and Christian wanted to do was to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha and generate the bodhicitta motivation, aspiring to and engaging in the deeds of bodhisattvas; causes for Buddhahood. Well, at least Vanessa did.
Samsara is a painful mess and the false view of a transitory collection and ignorance of a self are the cause of suffering and other delusions. Anyway, that was yucky. Vanessa and Christian both wanted to seriously address the deeper and root causes of suffering, and motivate and commit to dedicating their lives to practicing the causes of the great vehicle in Buddhism. Difficult or not? Sometimes.
Money was hard to come by, huh? Well, you see, neither Verna Guest, Ben Guest, nor David and Margaret Walsh understood Buddhism. Gosh! Vanessa and Christian decided not to have children, because how could they find the money? Well paying jobs were hard to get and practicing ethics, concentration and wisdom and six perfections is the foremost thing on both of their minds. Huh? Mary and Claudia became Vanessa’s focus as Vanessa tried to help these two beings, which was something Vanessa committed to financially, that was achievable.
Once Vanessa and Christian began their Buddhist studies with His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, it became clear to others that they were not having sex or planning children. Diana Sher, a Jewish lady who David, Margaret, Verna and Ben were acquainted with became furious, and decided to oppose Vanessa’s wish to become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. So Diana Sher caused an insane attitude towards Vanessa to be ignited in David Walsh and Margaret Walsh, Amanda Richards, Paul Richards and Jeremy Walsh.
The relationship between Christian and Vanessa soon showed signs of real stress as Kathy Melnic, a whore at Tara Institute, prayed on Christian, engaging in sexual misconduct to bring undone the marriage. The rest of the Buddhist community at Tara displayed deep resentment and jealousy towards Vanessa, as she managed Tara Institute for very little income and practiced lots of generosity, morality, patience, enthusiastic perseverance, concentration and wisdom towards the Buddhists, her family and her teachers, and the rest of her work collegues. Gosh!
Simanada
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There are many, many pleasant and wonderful things about the country. One of them is that if you find yourself waking up very early in the morning, like at 2am, it is not a disturbing thing. What instantly strikes your awareness, warming your heart and calming your mind, is the blissful, peaceful serenity that pervades the air, fragrant with the sweet smell of eucalypt gums, the rich earth and the luminous, crystal clear, star studded sky all around you. Out here, there is no relentless drone of traffic humming endlessly through the night. No pollution to clog up your lungs and poison your airways, no trams, trains, buses or trucks to remind you of the frenetic pace of city life. As modern cities, lost in their directionless pursuit to become 24/7, sleepless buzz points on the globe, the country wisely says, no thanks, and continues on with its timeless embrace of the way mother earth has functioned for millions and millions of years. There is no rushing around to be found out here, just an empty, quiet road, and a people that know when the sun sets and the day is over, it is time to rest one’s weary bones and just be still.
As I sit here, sipping my soothing cup of tea, sitting in the dark next to gently crackling, golden, radiating fire, I listen to the gentle tumbling of water sliding and bubbling over river rocks, meandering it’s way slowly, gently, sometimes rapidly away from its pristine, mountain source, down through the valley, on its way through lush, green, and bountiful farmland pastures and beyond. And one can hear the blessed croaking of frogs, reminding you that out here things are still clean. When you find yourself short on sleep on a night out in the country, you are greeted instead with a harmonious and meditative zone of peace. This country is a tranquil haven that allows one to relax, reflect and to just stop thinking altogether. One is free to enjoy the expansiveness of one’s own consciousness, silent, without tension or stress, open, clear and free.
Copyright © Vanessa Anne Walsh 2020
How Vanessa Anne Walsh went from this
to this
The tears and the heart ache.
No hair. No makeup.
Renunciation, bodhicitta and correct view helps.
Even the Prime Minister wants to speak to me.
Copyright © Vanessa Anne Walsh 2020
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The language of love does not, in any way, correspond with the language of desire[1].
When one person, or even one being, loves another, their primary concern always lies with how to remove the suffering and pain of another. It begins, continues and ends with thinking about ways to bring pleasure and happiness to another, and will even focus upon the needs and wishes of all beings. This is not because it is trying in any way to deceive another simply to fulfill its own selfish gratifications.
Love aims to avoid creating losses for another person or being. Simply, it aims to protect the integrity, morality and self-respect of another person. Desire attempts to do the opposite. Desire does not care if damage is created in the experience of another person. It cares nothing for the self-respect, morality or aims of another.
Love aims to protect and nurture the happiness, contentment and health of people and all beings. It has no interest in trampling on the needs of others in order to bring about some superficial, short-lived and impermanent experience of satisfaction.
In my experience, the Buddha will think, devise and perform limitless actions aimed at protecting, nurturing and sustaining the happiness and fulfillment of another person. He has no commonality whatsoever in the mundane, selfish and destructive motivations of ordinary, self-possessed beings. An ordinary being, on the other hand, has no thought or care about the consequences of his self-centred actions. An ordinary being with no insight or love will, without hesitation, create suffering and misery in the mind and
experience of another. True, deep, endless love, aims to transcend the boundaries of space, thought and time. It can move beyond the limitations of the human form and reach far into the realms of space to bring peace, contentment and joy.
May all beings identify, recognize and be conjoined with the supramundane love of a Buddha. May they transcend their sufferings and recognize without any shadow of a doubt, that a Buddha can and will free all beings from their limited, miserable lives and transport them to a state of never-ending happiness, peace and everlasting joy.
[1] Desire means thirst. Like drinking salt water. A taste that cannot be satisfied.
Copyright © Geshe Vanessa Pollock Rinpoche 2015.
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Just taking some notes, really. Do you remember The Dead Pool, starring Clint Eastwood, Jim Carrey and Liam Neeson? Funny stuff really. First of all, did you root for Clint’s character or the Mafia?
In this society, who in reality is really innocent? This is a funny turn of phrase. If we were all Buddhas, there would be no negative karmas to extinguish. But clearly, from my point of view, I don’t believe humans are that well developed. Now that is actually a good point for debate. Did we actually advance from the time of Guru Buddha Shakyamuni, or just go backwards, into a state of degradation and decline? This is what The Lord Buddha Shakyamuni referred to as the age of degeneration.
Let’s just discuss the first scene. The poor cop, just driving either to or from or where to, get’s shot at by a bunch of narcissists. Why? Does anyone ever bother to question. Doesn’t he too, in reality have a negative mind, poisoned by attachment, hatred and ignorance, jealousy, pride and wrong view? Death and impermanence is in fact, just a day to day reality for the majority of ordinary humans. Or not? Is he really a Bodhisattva (a Buddha to be) or a pure reality? Judging from the amount of shots fired towards the cop, one could refreshingly state that this is really just a load of bullshit. No-one could ever really survive such an attack. So the movie has no value, even from this early opening position. Hollywood, why are you so stupid?
But it, (the movie) was so popular in its time. Why so? Are the people, its audience really that stupid? One would have to conclude, yes. Do you have any questions? A valid cognition knows and understands of no such reality. A valid mind, a valid cognition and a valid speech, goes beyond such a degraded cycle of misery and suffering. That society, the one where outcasts live in tall buildings, that they are wildly told is some sort of icon proclaiming development, is really just a terror to the mind and body. A no mans land, devoid of spiritual freedom and validity, an encasement or shell, actually in reality just a symbol of a lack of love, happiness, inner peace and true understanding of compassion, patience, wisdom and joy.
The average person, in reality, is not smart enough to support such a structure, without having to violently resort to a great deal of negative action, of body, speech and mind. So, on this level, The Dead Pool speaks to this utterly false assumption. That such a society is a necessity to mankind. These days, false, abortive governments only seem to speak of the need for continuous growth. This places the people of such conditions under the most absurd and negative pressure.
Copyright © Bodhi Gyatso 2015
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So, what’s it like being on anti-psychotic? Gorgeous darling, it’s so relaxing!
Well anyway sweets, I’m a mover and a shaker and I love it.
Apparently, the mental health tribunal and the mental health service have no sense of humour boys, so watch it.
From one professional to the other, what did I have to say about going from a health loving tea-toteling maniac to a swish-buckling whiskey loving honey!
Pity about the flab but hey! no but, no but no but, yeah!
Who needs to walk off the flab? Not me. I might be dead soon.
Let’s just right some wrongs concerning the way to drink whiskey.
If you have a hot clairvoyance, and don’t like sinning or non-virtuous black actions, you concentrate well on wisdom, with mindfulness, alertness and introspection, with conscientiousness, you’re in the clear. Do I keep my vows? Ya, but then lot’s of people don’t like to venture into that area.
Hmmm, so don’t be a dick and lie about things, come clear and learn the clear light mind. It’s heaps better and it overcomes suffering as well.
Copyright © Vanessa Anne Walsh 2020
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Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXVI
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Yesterday I was blessed along with more than one hundred other kindred spirits, dharma brothers and sisters, to be invited to the Afternoon Tea of all Afternoon Tea’s, at Tara Institute, in East Brighton. There, we were blessed and lucky enough to listen to the remarkable words of the great master, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, whose profound insight and compassion transported each and every one of us into a sphere of peace and happiness that can only be described as truly inspiring.
Although ordinarily, when one thinks of afternoon tea, biscuits and cake come to mind, at this afternoon tea, such delicacies, although offered, one could almost say, were not required. When you attend an afternoon tea hosted by such remarkable beings as Geshe Doga and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, food and drink become virtually irrelevant, because due to the great skill of the Buddha, ordinary life just fades into insignificance as one is treated to a genuine Dharma teaching that enables one to contemplate the great truths, which although simple in both practice and theory, are taught in the most exciting and uplifting of ways by a great mind that is really like no other.
Lama Zopa reminded us all that all the teachings of the Buddha fall into two basic instructions:
Do Not Harm Other Beings, Benefit Other Beings.
Within those two pieces of advice lie a vast spectrum of understandings, interpretations, rules and possibilities, however for me, Lama Zopa’s key advice was crystallized when he said that the moment one gives up desire, is the moment one begins to experience real contentment.
He also joked about how it was really Mick Jagger who gave the best teaching in his song, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, through his ability to enumerate upon the downfalls of the desirous and attached state of mind.
It is funny how in life, teachers can appear to us in both virtuous and non-virtuous aspects. Lama Zopa is a true example of someone, who having overcome desire and all faults of the mind, shows others how achieving a state of liberation, peace and perfection is really possible. Not so long ago, I had an encounter of an entirely different kind, with a man full of desire, who in full flight, was able to make me realize just how damaging and disastrous the states of desire, dishonesty, manipulation and attachment can really be. Even those who appear to harm us, also have a teaching of their own to impart.
Although I appreciated the timeless and insightful truths written about love, by the western literary genius, Shakespeare, in his Sonnet CXVI, when they were read at my wedding, nearly twenty years ago, it was the great masters from Tibet who really were able to impart to me, the deeper meaning behind what it means to love another being and how important it is to ensure all our actions are imbued with a positive and virtuous state of mind.
To all my precious and dear teachers who have forever changed our world, our destiny, our karma and our minds, I offer to you my deepest gratitude and pray that one day I am able to repay your limitless kindness, which like time and space, has no beginning and no end.
Copyright © Vanessa Anne Walsh 2020
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Once upon a time there was a girl more intelligent than anyone else. Really; gosh, that’s unusual! Her name was Oceané, and she was born under a sal tree in Fawkner. Really, what, like the Buddha? Well, if the truth be told, she arrived a teeny weeny babe, that her mother gasped at, and said, “All that effort for that.” This was actually at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, in Parkville Victoria, under the watchful eye of Lord Buddha, otherwise known as Glynn White, friend of Weary Dunlop and Frank Forster.
Her mother Grace, was a nurse, who happily, naturally enjoyed looking after the welfare of others. This is somewhat debatable, however.
After growing up a bit, from the age of about five years, there was Leeda, a guide friend, born to take care of the blind. We used to share cups of tea together, specially arranged with Oceane’s own formal tea ceremony. Much later a Buddhist temple was constructed nearby.
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Enjoyment arises from practicing ethical conduct correctly and rejoicing in virtuous deeds.
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Copyright © Vanessa Anne Walsh 2020
https://www.dalailama.com/news/2020/leaving-bodhgaya-and-paying-a-short-visit-to-patna