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What should sentient beings and Buddhas and bodhisattvas do to the ignorant beings who constantly engage in actions motivated by the three poisonous delusions? One very simple way of saying it is that you should name names. For example Ness, who do you know that behaves in such a shocking way?
Now, to avoid engaging in negative actions of body, speech and mind myself, I am writing this post to inform the public of where danger lies. I am also going to say that unless we ourselves protect our body, speech and mind by engaging in virtue and always practicing dharma correctly, we are really ourselves no different from these guilty offenders.
So without beating around the bush I am going to say the Gelugpa school of Buddhism is well known for its ability to emphasise the need and importance of engaging in proper dharma study, and also discusses pathways or methodology for constantly accumulating merit and wisdom.
The reason we practice compassion is to wish for, cut and even cessate from the mind the actual delusions that cause suffering and the cycle of suffering. When you learn with renunciation and the aspirational wish and engaging deed to accumulate the causes for higher rebirth, liberation from throwing karma and even the greatest of goals and meaning, the exalted state of Buddhahood, you realise the need to practice the wisdom realising emptiness. To meditate on the emptiness of a self of persons and of phenomena is the key to overcoming the causes of samsara, however you won’t get very far without a thorough understanding of the small, medium and even great scope stages of the path to Buddhahood.
In my experience, as a Buddhist who at a young age took on the role of managing a popular Mahayana Buddhist Centre I have learnt that many people do not focus upon keeping their commitments and protecting their Buddhist vows. Without pure moral conduct, you cannot build a proper foundation for training the mind. To cut the causes of suffering from the mind and from your internal experience, you need to engage in and understand the small scope practices and pathways. Following that, the medium scope stages of the path, which endeavours to understand the law of cause and effect and the three higher trainings of pure moral discipline, mental quiescence, calm abiding and then special insight.
Vanessa Anne Walsh reciting Lama Tsong Khapa Mantra March 1, 2023
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The Elephant in the Room
This is why I am bankrupt.
A while ago I listened to an advertisement 60 Minutes was running for one of their shows. In this advertisement, the journalist from 60 Minutes discussed the issue surrounding Australia, as a nation, being at war with China. You would have to be more than half asleep if you didn’t realize China is already at war with us. Just look at the way the Chinese Government encourages it’s people to bribe immigration officials and flood brainwashed and poorly educated Chinese citizens into the most prosperous and democratic nations around the world. When China invaded Tibet and massacred its people, destroying and bombing its educational institutions and oppressing the freedoms of this peace loving, gentle nation, the Communist Governments view at the time was that once they gained control over the Roof of the World (Tibet), power around the rest of the world would rapidly fall into their hands.
I guess if doing business with a regime of dull-minded, uncreative people who were happy to force young Tibetan children to shoot their parents and thought nothing of burying Tibetan people alive in coffins doesn’t faze you (as reported by Amnesty International in the early 1990’s), then perhaps you might conclude I am over-reacting, but I hold onto the virtuous and freedom loving idea we do in fact have a responsibility to respect human rights, especially when a greedy power like China marches into a foreign country and invades for the purposes of stealing another nations precious natural resources in order to strengthen it’s own power and oppress the freedoms and liberties of others.
Make no mistake; it is the deep intention of China to dominate the world’s economic and political sphere, whilst using their brutal military might to create a stranglehold on the freedom of all sentient beings. As a brilliant Buddhist master once told me, “China first takes control by getting people addicted to its money.” It is very clear now to see how we as a nation have become hopelessly addicted to the short term economic benefits we derive from giving away too easily, our precious and limited resources to China. This master then went on to say that “once China knows a nation has become addicted to the income they earn from doing business with China, China then seizes the opportunity at hand to take control over every other aspect of the lives of citizens living in such a nation.”
Do we as a country even recognize anymore what it means to be Australian? As you walk down any suburban or city street, it is clear to see we are effectively already living in China. The Chinese have long had the habit of buying up the most highly sought after and valuable properties and moving into the most prosperous regions of any country, once they develop pockets deep enough to steal away our freedom. It is a well known fact that businessmen working in real estate actively seek to sell off the best houses and properties we have in our country to the Chinese. Just look at who owns most of the Golden Mile now down in Brighton. Go and visit Box Hill, Doncaster, Toorak or watch more carefully who is filling the streets of Melbourne or any other major Australian city, and see if you can figure out where we are really living.
We should all know by now, China has an absolutely horrific human rights record. As a nation, and oppressive communist power, they simply cannot be trusted to act in a way that protects the integrity and freedom of any living being. Despite this catastrophic flaw in the Chinese character, we must rely upon diplomacy and a peace strategy that focuses first upon saving rather than needlessly and heartlessly destroying precious lives.
I would be remiss for not mentioning a story recently televised by Four Corners on the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) network, which exposed China’s attempts to hack into a number of major western corporations’ computer systems. On this program, Four Corners revealed not only had China been caught hacking into His Holiness The Dalai Lama’s website and other Tibetan Government in Exile computer systems, but China has also hacked into the computer systems of companies such as BHP, Fortescue Metals, Rio Tinto, just to name a few. One can see from the ruthless way China conducts its affairs that they already assume they are at war with everyone. Just remember, the Chinese Government pride themselves on educating their people into the Art of War. The Tibetan Nation, on the other hand, excelled in it’s ability to prosper a country based on a philosophy of peace, love, liberation and freedom from suffering. Which cause would any rationally minded being choose to support, listen to and follow?
Following is just a brief profile of the methods used by China to destabilize already prosperous nations, which they view as an ideological threat to their own oppressive and freedom hating regime.
The whole global financial downturn can be attributed to the fact that Australia, Europe and other once well developed nations like America can no longer manufacture their own goods, due to the incredible difficulty that has arisen and stems from the Chinese government’s refusal to stop artificially lowering the levels of its currency. Countries like Australia have become virtually incapable of competing with China, due to the fact that the Chinese rely upon slave labor to manufacture all their goods. This has created such a huge economic and moral imbalance, that the entire world is now paying an enormous price for the fact that our politicians refuse address the critical causes for the downfalls in our economies and ability to produce quality goods which will allow us to trade on a more even playing field.
In western countries, we do our best to maintain relatively good working conditions for our citizens, but China has no such concern or philosophy. As a young country, we take too much for granted our liberties and current level of freedom, to the point that we have become blinded by the huge changes and shifts in global power that are rapidly taking place around us. Our major media stations and publications refuse to address these issues, creating a false illusion in the minds of all our people that our freedom and health is not degenerating to the degree and levels to which they currently are.
Look at how when the Burmese Government attacked its own people in order to suppress their rights of free speech and democracy, China funded and supported the ruthless dictatorial Burmese regime while this was going on.
Look at how the problem with plagiarism and pirating have enabled China to steal original designs, intellectual property and products from all other nations around the globe, so that they are then able to infiltrate business and political systems around the world, mass producing cheap fakes, which further impedes our ability to trade and work fairly on a world scale.
As long as the Communist Chinese Government continues to peg it’s currency against the US dollar at a level that is artificially low, Chinese goods and services appear cheaper than they really are when compared to products and services produced in Western nations.
One could go on forever about all the evil that resides in China, taking the form of the Chinese Government’s abuse of the rights and conditions of humans and animals, and the wanton and blatant corruption of its officials.
One could argue the reason the talks in Copenhagen failed was because of Chinese Diplomats blocking and strategically planning for methods and means to cause the whole process to fail.
We all need to become more aware of how the actions of a corrupt, ruthless and oppressive Chinese regime is causing degradation and decline on a world scale, and understand more clearly how we are all now paying a massive price for the corruption and degradation to the planet that is stemming from the actions of the Chinese Government and it’s brainwashed citizens.
China educates its own people into a philosophy and way of thinking and acting that has no respect for the law, for human rights, for freedom, for freedom of speech or for the truth and justice.
I urge everyone to take a deeper look into what is going on in the rapidly changing world around us and look for ways to think about how to protect ourselves and the freedoms and way of life we currently enjoy. Many sacrifices have been made by others in the past to protect the democratic rights of a people. We must never lose sight of this fact or think that just because our economy is currently quite strong, that our way of life and ability to achieve lasting happiness is not at stake. Never think ignorance is bliss and that not knowing the truth somehow makes life a little easier to bear. Lacking awareness of the true causes of suffering is always a recipe for disaster.
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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.
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It is very good that Australians and people overseas are spending up big to support the Australian bushfire appeal. I love to rejoice when beings practice virtue. Virtue is the cause of happiness, good health, but let’s just break down a few things here.
The media have obviously seen the disaster, but is anyone watching what is going on with the flow of funding here? Firstly, poor Scott Morrison is currently facing a beating from the public. Why? His government generously offered $2 billion in aid for the bushfire crisis. The media have no mentioned the actual cost of the crisis to the country just this year have they? Australian’s are so ungratefully hurling abuse at Scott and even if he did make a mistake going to Hawaii, the hatred is negative and unnecessary. If we look a little deeper at the ignorance that is actually causing the suffering, why don’t the media state that it is beings negative karma and delusions that are actually responsible for all this loss and environmental fury.
The ignorance of a self of persons and phenomena is the cause of suffering. It is the cause of cyclic existence. It is not the government of Australia that is necessarily doing the wrong thing here, but the fault of the electorate. Why aren’t the media praising the government for it’s interest and support? $2 billion in aid is significant. Secondly, people have their own insurance policies, and $1 billion in claims have already been lodged, so that is helping to cover the costs. The finance and environment ministers are obviously watching the cost to the community, but how much aid is actually required on top of the fact that insurance would be already paying for some of this problem. Did the bushfire crisis cost $2 billion to the country or more. What is the need for extra money in aid?
Australians aren’t yet free of samsara, and they need to take responsibility for their own mind and actions. Buddhists know that ultimately we are to blame for the suffering we experience. It is caused by sinful behaviour and delusions, and a lack of ethics, concentration and wisdom. Beings in all six realms of samsara need to recognise the need to understand and realise the emptiness of the self of persons and of phenomena. All phenomena lack inherent existence, whilst cause and effect and dependent arising are unfailing.
So there’s been well over $100 million raised in bushfire appeal fundraising efforts. Andrew Forrest kindly donated $70 million, another person donated something like $30 million. And there have been significant efforts from others too. Are people hurling too much money to this one crisis, after the government definitely got behind the Australian’s and offered generous support?
Are Australian’s going to resettle in bushfire prone regions or are they going to seriously question the value of accepting these donations, whilst not attending to the likelihood that this weather problem is not going away unless proper conduct and virtue are adopted and negativity in the heart is abandoned. Don’t people need to move out of bushfire prone areas and settle elsewhere? If the people of the world cover the cost of this crisis, how are Australians’ acting to avoid the same problem next summer or sometime again in the future?
My name is Vanessa Anne Pollock. I have been working full time as a Mahayana Buddhist for 27 years. I met His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet in Melbourne, in 1992. It’s a nice story. I told this story in Nights in the Moon Lily Garden.
Vanessa, a young arts and business student from Monash University, aged twenty three, went out to dinner with Christian Walsh to a Chinese restaurant in the city of Melbourne, one Tuesday night. From memory we ate around 9pm. We both enjoyed a decent meal, I think you could say. After eating and paying for the meal, we slowly left the restaurant and made our way towards the car. On the way, we walked past the Theosophical Bookstore and stopped to have a look in the window. I glanced at a copy of Freedom in Exile by His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso, that was displayed in the window. Christian, who was a young and fit landscape designer, aged about twenty seven, quietly spoke to Vanessa, “I’ve just finished reading this book, Freedom in Exile. It’s excellent. You should read it. His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso is really a man that harmonizes the word. He doesn’t falter. His Holiness is a wonderful leader. I like to be lead by such a holy man.”
“Yes, I quite agree. That’s wonderful. I will read that now,” Vanessa said without hesitation.
Then Vanessa looked with interest at a flyer stuck on the window of the Theosophical bookstore. It had an image of His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso, looking wise and compassionate, advertising the 1992 tour to Australia of His Holiness. Christian said, “Oh great what is this?” The flyer announced that there were tickets on already on sale, and the public could, at their discretion, join as a benefactor to the tour, for $1000.00. Vanessa didn’t have much money at the time, but carefully and joyfully spoke up, “Christian, would you like to go halves with me and get two benefactor tickets to support the tour of His Holiness to Australia?”
Christian considered. “Alright then. Do you feel OK about that? We don’t have that much cash at the moment.”
Vanessa didn’t feel too concerned, rather inspired and uplifted. “Christian, I think it’s a good idea.” Vanessa started to memorize the phone number which indicated where to purchase the tickets for the tour. The flyer stated the contact details of Tara Institute, a Melbourne Buddhist Centre, and then after reading, Vanessa said to Christian, “I will go to this Buddhist Centre tomorrow and pick up the tickets. I can get to the bank in the morning.”
So, apart from having the good karma of supporting the cost of the Buddhist teaching tour of His Holiness to Australia, benefactors received two tickets to a number of events in their home city to learn about the Buddhist path.
Vanessa and Christian both consider this to be a wonderful way to learn from experts how to practice virtue the white actions of body, speech and mind, and how to abandon the cause of suffering, the black actions and the delusions which propel negative acts. These are the delusions of ignorance, hatred and attachment, which must be cessated to enjoy the fruits of higher rebirth, liberation and enlightenment.
A lot of people I know tried it. From my perspective of compassion and wisdom, I can quite clearly say, it does you no good. Firstly, everyone should know by now that smoking does cause cancer, and doesn’t do you any good. Marijuana also has nasty toxins. Have you ever tried walking after smoking? It’s very difficult. One’s lungs feel as though they have just suffered a horrible beating.
My father used to smoke cigarettes, but when I was young I managed to convince him to try the mediholder cigarette filter. Every day he would clean out the black tar that got trapped in the filter. That black tar ordinarily gets inhaled into the lungs causing disease and sickness. No one likes getting sick, so stop doing things like smoking that ruin one’s health.
In my experience, smoking causes increased anxiety, depression, hallucination or paranoia, suicidal thoughts and selfishness. It’s a selfish act. I think you can find Gurus and their disciples who care whether or not you engage in harmful acts. In Buddhism, it is considered to be very negative or harmful to engage in acts that harm the five aggregates. A person is the emptiness of form, feeling, recognition, karmic formations and consciousness. These are the five aggregates that are empty of inherent existence. Cause and effect and dependent arising however, are unfailing. This means unless you purify negative karma, you will experience the suffering result of behaving badly or negatively. On the positive side, if you are always virtuous, you will experience a happy set of results.
Do yourself and the community a favour and live well. Live healthily with compassion and the bodhicitta mind motivating your every action of body, speech and mind. Learn to aspire to and engage in the path to Buddhahood. That is a goal that is beyond the cycle of suffering. It is beyond samsara and cyclic existence. It, Buddhahood, transcends and cuts off or cessates the causes of suffering. Buddhahood has cessated the three types of suffering; the suffering of suffering (i.e. a headache or flu), the suffering of change; watching the elements age a home, and pervasive suffering, where life can always be found to contain some type of mental or physical suffering. Life is pervaded by suffering and it’s causes.
Learn how to go beyond the ordinary sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. Learn how to accomplish one’s own purpose and the purpose of others as well. Accomplishing the two purposes is a win win situation and good for everyone.
I am going to write about the subject of negative karma, and how to avoid engaging in the ten black actions of body, speech and mind. If you engage in negative acts of body, speech and mind, you accumulate negative energy or black karma. Karma means action. Actions can be either black which are negative, and create the causes of suffering and misery, or white actions of body, speech and mind, which accumulate merit and act as a cause of good health, happiness, and wealth or prosperity.
Divisive speech is very negative. My mother unfortunately doesn’t understand how negative her speech is. Sometimes I even feel like she is illiterate, except to say she is pushed along by a very negative mind and motivation. When I was in my early twenties and practicing Buddhism, I was hoping to lead as many beings as possible along the Buddhist path, which I think gives people the opportunity to create much virtue and live a wholesome and meaningful life. I spoke to my old school friends and university friends about the virtues of being a Buddhist, but I didn’t get very far, because my mother chimed in and claimed, like the Chinese communists, that the tradition of Buddhism is garbage. Like a real sloth, atheist and negative being, she slammed my decision to be Buddhist.
The basis was my university and school friends, where we all used to get along, and I encouraged them to follow a healthy pathway to get out of the drug scene and give up smoking and to meditate on virtue instead. However, as soon as these people heard my mother bagging Buddhism, they soon disappeared from my life, falling for the lies and gossip and division that mother actually caused. So the recognition was unmistaken, Out of jealousy and ignorance, my mother severed the connection I had with these people.
The motive was wanting to cause such a division and to reduce the influence I had over these people. The delusion, as I have said, was jealousy, hatred and ignorance. The deed was as follows. Anne wished to divide the people who once got along and to not affect a reconciliation between those who did not. The final step is when the people understand the meaning of those words. So the karma of divisive speech was complete, because I have not seen these people who I was once friends with at school and university ever since. Anne wished to discourage me and my friends from following Buddhism or for engaging in the practice of meditation.
The consequence for Anne, twenty seven years on, is that she no longer seems to have the karma to see even her own daughter. In this blog, I have spoken about another set of lies and divisive speech that my mother engaged in to decimate peoples confidence and trust in me. I agree it’s all very sad to see the negative effect of engaging in black actions motivated by anger/hatred, attachment/desire and ignorance/wrong view. I have in my motivation, only been trying to educate and help. However, due to the delusions in others minds, still to date there has been little improvement in the situation.
Lots of people try to follow discipline. Personally, I recommend following the vinaya. The only thing is however, you need to overcome neurosis and delusion.
You can wake up early, go to work all day, or maybe you just need to meditate and learn wisdom and compassion. I opt for the latter. The day can be long however, and by the late afternoon, most people, if not all, tire and wonder how to cope with the evening. I’m not a sloth. I practice good mindfulness, alertness and introspection, and I keep all my vows of moral discipline, but having some alcohol has proven to sooth the heart and keep my enthusiasm alive.
Why don’t you enjoy a glass of red wine or a gin and tonic or whiskey and diet coke. There is no harm there, as long as you don’t binge drink and over do it. One drink, two drinks, or even three drinks. What people need to learn is to relax and take life with a good healthy dose of renunciation, bodhicitta and correct view. How do you do that? Well you need to follow the wisdom of the wise, people like His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso and motivate yourself with bodhicitta, the wish to be a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
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I often say, staying present, fully present is important. Stop the worried thoughts of the past and future, what’s happened already or what might happen. Fear should never control one. Buddha’s are fearless. How did they attain the state of fearlessness? Firstly, if you accomplish the skill and wisdom to achieve your own means and then that of others as well, that will reduce or wipeout fearfulness. When you stop harming yourself and others, when you develop compassion and the wisdom realising emptiness, you become a more useful member of the family, the community, the society and the world.
How do you stay fully present? If you focus or concentrate with single pointed concentration, a mental quiescence, and a serenity of mind on the present moment, just concentrating with conscientiousness on the actions of your body, speech and mind, you can attain a mental stability. Without serenity of mind, you can’t attain mental and physical pliancy. You need mental and physical pliancy to evolve in a more virtuous direction, cutting off negative states of mind or instinct for negativity and moving in a more virtuous way.
Meditation means to become familiar with virtue. We need to tie our mind with the rope of mindfulness to the object of meditation, which is the Buddha, to learn how to be virtuous in every moment, how to cut off and to abandon all negativity and non-virtue and ride with a positive mind, a mind motivated to be beneficial to oneself and others at all times.
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Malcolm Turnbull got things a bit wrong, What? Trade with China is what he thought. What? Sell our precious spring water to those fuckwits, who abuse every living being because they never worked out love and compassion, wisdom and so forth?
Darling Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop discussed it. So did John Howard, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and so forth. We couldn’t forget gorgeous George Bush. Has anyone here got an idea of what extremism is? It’s wrong view. It’s seeing phenomena as inherently existent. The wrong view of a self of persons and of phenomena is the root cause of all suffering. A being with correct view understands the selflessness of persons and of phenomena. The I and mine are empty of true existence, whilst cause and effect and dependent arising are unfailing.
There goes your future China, Russia, Neo Nazi Germany and so forth. Oh gosh, and how could I forget the Middle East? You fascists, you communists, you fail to understand the middle way school of thought, of Prasangika Madhyamika, which discerns phenomena correctly. So ram that up your ugly, smelly arse.
Today, sweet children, we are discussing water. We all need water, or haven’t your parents told you that already? Some countries think they have a good water supply. Tibet used to be an efficient, environmentally friendly nation. That was until the barbaric Chinese communists took over and toxified every living being in that region. What shit heads they are. Don’t you agree? Why don’t you pay for a proper education, and pay here?
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What haven’t they, (the extremists) done wrong? First they murdered a lot of the sweet people. They tortured monks, who were motivated and dedicated to the path of full awakening. Not in any way an intelligent thing to do. So you dickheads, all go to hell. Mao Tse Tung became a crab, then after a while of suffering chronically, he went to hell. Perfect.
Do you feel in the mood for me to continue? What happened to the four main rivers that flowed from the Tibetan Plateau into Asia. Well China fucked everything up of course, what with nuclear testing, environmental pollution and so forth. And what, you idiots are still interested in dealing in business with these insane murderous lunatics. Xi Jinping, (who pongs), shut up and stop taking my money. No? Then die better.
