But of course they are hugely powerful. Which is why the basis of practice is the vows of morality, which are mainly to subdue the senses. Because the senses are so powerful, because we have given them so much power. We are victims of our senses.
Look at the sexual one. It is the most common thing in the universe that we absolutely accept as a given that is hard to control, the sexual energy. What Buddha is saying is that it is nothing to do with the senses-it is the mental consciousness- it is the highly developed conceptual story about I and what I need and so desperate and all this stuff. That is where attachment exists, in the mental consciousness, it is the thought about cake, about the person, about "I", about what I think "I" need, and the habit, the ancient habit of that. That's where attachment is, in the mental consciousness. So even though it feels a total oneness with the body, the neurotic attachment is in the mind.
But pleasure is not deluded. If pleasure were deluded, we might as well give up now, it's totally depressing. Like I said before, the aim is to be happy. Pleasure is totally appropriate. There's nothing wrong with having pleasure. And indeed it is at the moment through the senses. So that is not in its nature deluded-the senses in their nature are not deluded.
So where's the problem? Why do you suffer? Why is there frantic and anxious and worried and desperate and grasping at and eating two pieces in and then being depressed that you ate too much and thinking you're so hungry etc, why all this rubbish? Because that is in the mental consciousness. That doesn't come from pleasure, it doesn't come from the senses, it doesn't come from those; they're fine. It comes from neuroses in the mind -that's what attachment is.
So let's look at the person we are attached to, the person we are in love with-even more dramatic. Again, this soup of emotions, which we never analyze the different bits, we really need to. If Buddha is saying that you need to get rid of attachment, then don't chuck the baby out with the bath water, and give up love as well, you're being stupid. Don't give up pleasure, you're being stupid, you know. You're not looking enough that's all.
So what is there with a person? I can say 1: I love that person. That means I wish them to be happy. Totally appropriate. Unbelievable, virtuous. The more of this the better. You will only get happiness if you keep having that. "I want you not to suffer", that's called compassion. Generosity, maybe you'd like to give the person something. Generosity, in its nature-precisely what generosity is is a virtue, necessarily the cause of happiness. There is even the experience of pleasure with that person on the basis of the body, if they're your lover. That actual experience of joy is totally appropriate. There is nothing inappropriate about that. The experience itself of happiness cannot cause suffering-so why do we suffer?
Not because of love, not because of attachment, not because of your senses, not because of happiness and joy and laughter and all the other things that you have with that person. The causes of suffering are the attachments, first of all, the neurotic sense of an "I", a hungry "I", that sees this person, grossly exaggerates their value to you, gives too much power, puts the power 'out there' in that person, just like the cake, which implies that you are devaluing the power of this one. You're giving all the power to this person, like it's all out there, this person, vibrating, so delicious, so gorgeous, this is exactly how it feels. So attachment is hungry and empty and bereft and lonely. And is completely convinced that having that person is going to make me happy. So what attachment does is exaggerate the beautiful qualities of the person, it is exaggerating the sense of an "I" that needs that person, because attachment thinks that if I don't get that person then I am not happy; because we don't believe we can be happy inside, we have to have an object. So attachment then starts to manipulate this person, expects massively that this person has to give you happiness, because that's what attachment thinks, so with all this stuff, that's why we suffer. The second they don't do what we want, we get angry, as one lama said: "anger is the response when attachment doesn't get what it wants". So is jealousy, etc, all the junk. All this stuff emanating from ignorance, the ego grasping, then attachment, then all the others, they, are why we suffer. Not the other stuff, but we have to distinguish them, but it is impossibly difficult. Because, for eons, we have seen them all as one big fat package.
We just assume that when you love someone you're going to suffer-it's insane, demented, you know; it's just not true. It is foolish, ignorant, and superstitious. We've never had enough precision. We need to learn to look into our mind. It is impossibly difficult to be able to distinguish, as that cake is there, to really distinguish between the pleasure and the attachment. It is very very hard. Because right now, it is inconceivable for us to have any pleasure unless it's based on sensory experience, right? It is an absolute given for us , which is Samsara, that pleasure comes from that wanting, that delicious delightful wanting. This is what is a lie.
This is really hard to think: 'this is a lie'. Actually, what Buddha is saying is, that happiness is actually a state of consciousness, it is therefore impossible to come from a cake or a person. It is simply not logical. It is just not logical, it is insane, it is not real, it can't happen. But right now, the only happiness we know is through our senses, right? And it is inconceivable for us to think of being happy without having sensory experiences. It is inconceivable for us to think about being happy and joyful and blissful and content without having something or some taste or some person-that's the big suffering. That we are locked into. Totally a victim of the senses, which is why we are living in a desire realm. And this is why it is suffering, but it is so hard to see it as suffering, because the evidence appears to us that when you get that object, you get happiness. So of course for eons we have made the mistaken assumption that the senses satisfying the senses is the way to get happiness. So right now, we are totally dependent on sensory objects. It is literally that we are junkies. Buddha is saying, that we are in effect, junkies. That even at the subtlest level of attachment we are basically junkies. Meaning that we can't imagine having pleasure unless you get that fix. That fix is any one of the objects of the five senses. Which makes it sound quite brutal. But unless we can start to look into this and cut through this whole way of working, we will never break free of Samsara. Ever. Which is why, the basis of practice, the foundation of all Realizations, is morality. The vows of morality. Discipline. Control It means literally practicing control over the senses. And it is not a moralistic issue. Do not think of it like that. It is a practical one. The aim is to get as happy as possible. This is the aim.
Buddha is saying, we're going in the wrong direction. We've been heading South for eons. We should be going north. So it is hard to see. It is really subtle, so subtle. We can see the difficulty in the example of people too. The only person we wish to be happy is necessarily the person we are attached to. And the only person we are necessarily attached to is the person we love. So we assume they come together. Of course they come together. It is just not accurate. So which is why, when you start practicing the Bodhisattva path, you've got to start going beyond those limits, which is so scary. When you start practicing to develop equanimity. You analyze: enemy, friend, and stranger-you try to cut through this narrow self-centered view of attachment, ignorance and hatred.
Right now we assume it is normal that when a person is mean to me, I don't like them. So we call them enemies. And we assume it is normal that when a person is nice to me, we call them friend. And when a person is doing neither, they are called stranger. That's the reality of the entire universe, isn't it? And if you are really trying if you're trying to develop real, stable love, and then great compassion and Bodhicitta and all the rest on the Mayahana path, we have to go beyond this one. That's why real practice is painful-real practice. Until it is painful, it is not practice, we're just playing safe. We're just keeping our nice" comfort zone", you know? Practice has to threaten something-it has to feel painful. Just like when you are overweight, you decide you are going to get thin and beautiful, and you start doing push-ups. It has to be painful at first, right? You know that if you think that you will stop the second you start feeling pain from doing pushups you stop, you will never benefit from doing them. You can always pretend "Oh I did my pushups this morning", but if the second they started being painful, you stopped, you know that if your muscles don't hurt, they will never get strong-it is logic, isn't it? Giving up attachment is like that-it has to be painful.
Which doesn't mean you have to be a masochist, it just means you have to be in the midst-you have to have your hands in your own excrement, so to speak. Until we have that, we are just being in our comfort zone-we're playing safe, thinking that being spiritual means smiling and being holy and having a pleasant manner. It is just not so. Until you stretch, until you go beyond your barriers, beyond your limits, you won't get better at doing anything. You really get your body strong when you go beyond your limits every day. How do you become an accomplished pianist or anything? You have to go beyond your limits. That's what spiritual practice is- you have to stretch your limits.
This means you have to be facing your attachment every day, feeling the pain of it, seeing it. But the second you start to do that, then somehow, you become happy. That is what is interesting. When we start to give up being 'a junkie', we start to become happy. We begin to taste our own potential. As long as we continue to follow attachment, which is so subtle, we will never be happy.
So how to begin? It all comes from motivation. You can start the day by deciding you will begin, be very courageous. It starts from the thought. We tend in the West to dismiss thoughts. We say-"it's only in the mind, you know," we give no value to the mind, even though we are caught in it. We give no value to just thought. We begin a meditation by "may we attain enlightenment for all living beings" and we think-give me a break, who are we kidding-how boring, what has this got to do with reality, etc. Why am I saying this prayer, how can it affect even one being, where the hell is that coming from?
The point is, that if we really understand karmically, what Buddha is saying, is that every thought is a seed that brings a fruit similar to the seed. If we really got that, we would be so happy to have blissful thoughts, and be content with them. Because of two things; first, every thing that you do comes from the thought that you think. If I am going to get up and walk out the door, what is the first thing that has to happen? My legs don't just jump up and walk out, my mind has to say "I want to walk out that door". So what does that mean? How do you walk out a door? The first thing is to think "I want to walk out that door". How does one become a Buddha? You have to think "I want to become a Buddha". Just the thought of benefiting others. Rinpoche says we can't even conceive of the power of a thought in our own mind. The huge well of positive energy we have just put into our own mind. That's why the thought of some negative thought, is the source of huge suffering in the future, because a thought is a karmic seed, and a seed is energy. And a seed even within 5 minutes will have grown. It's expanded. So we can really appreciate that about our mind-we will be content with watching television, and we see people suffering, and we have the strong wish "if I could, may I change that", we think 'nah, that's useless'-we either get all fretting and miserable and depressed because we can't do anything, or else we want to go out and bash everybody. If we can go to Bosnia and change things, then please go, but if you can't, then don't think "I'm hopeless", which is how we tend to think. We don't give any value to thought. But the thing about karma is: every thought counts. And the two things: it is the actual thought, you motivate, and motivate- but that will bring the result-every day that you say that prayer-you can't imagine the power you are developing in your mind. That will bring the result. Meaning that this body and mind do not exist from their own side-they do not act out of nothing. A fist just doesn't come and punch. Where does it come from? It comes from mind-the negativity of the mind, from the past. The hand then just does what the mind wants. So every day, you're saying " I want to be compassionate, I want to be beneficial…" you're aspiring-what do you think you will become? You'll become that, compassionate, etc. It is no mystery-and eventually you will become Buddha. By those very causes. These are powerful causes. So we just start our practice with powerful sincere motivations. We are sincere, after all; we do want to be these things, loving, compassionate, etc. Genuinely wanting, seeing the reasonableness of having a compassionate thought, seeing the reasonableness of turning around a negative thought. Not thinking that thought doesn't matter. What we are is the product of our thoughts. It is simply a fact. This is what karma is saying. No one else made you into anything, you made yourself. As Lama Zopa says, you can mold your mind into any shape you wish. Practice is, in the beginning, every day, is motivation, motivation, motivation. I want to do this, I am aspiring to that. When you start every day, you wish "may I be useful, may I not shoot my mouth off to too many people, etc." Even this is so profound, you know. We have to value the thought, value the mind, it is so powerful. Like the Dalai Lama says, you are then on the right track for the rest of the day. Don't underestimate that. If we really got that, we would be so content, knowing we were sowing the seeds for future crops of happiness. It is like we had a big open field, and we are sowing seeds for the future. That's practice. That's how you start.
If you do this, then one day, after you've been practicing generosity, someone comes along, and offers you something. That's how you learn. You shouldn't fret. "I'm hopeless, I'm useless, etc". We are too concrete in our thinking because we don't understand the organic causes and effects of karma. So you start with the motivation, start with the thoughts, and you go into the day, and bring that awareness with you. You watch your mind, be careful of the rubbish, try not to shoot your mouth off too much, try to be a bit useful, rejoice in the good stuff. At the end of the day, you look back, you purify, and you go to bed happy. That's one day of practice. One day at a time. It is organic, and it's humble. You start one day at a time, and slowly, something develops. Makes sense, doesn't it?
