Hello.
The topic is "Finding wisdom within defilements."
The idea is that we all are good.
You are good.
You are watching this video, right now.
No matter who you are,
no matter what kind of person you are,
what kind of social category you belong to,
geographical place in the world,
gender or race, it doesn’t matter.
Whatever your background,
whatever your past history is,
whatever you are,
right now, right here, you are good.
Your nature is good, I mean.
Your nature is wonderful, pure, and it is perfect also.
This is very important.
You should consider this wisdom,
and try to feel good about yourself.
Try to build confidence.
That’s very important.
I told you that you are good, right?
But the second important thing is;
just because I’m telling you you’re good,
and you’re thinking, “I’m good,”
that idea alone is not enough.
You need to know why you are good,
and what are the good qualities within you.
There are so many good qualities within us.
We all have wisdom, love, compassion,
skills, capabilities, powers, and knowledge.
There are so many things within us.
All the good things are within us.
Some of them you have already discovered,
and many of them not.
Probably, many of them you don’t know.
You don’t know how capable you are.
Today I would like to address
the Buddhist way to see our true nature.
In particular, this is what we call,
“the view of Vajrayana.”
Seeing wisdom within the defilements.
What are the defilements?
Normally, we call them, “the five poisons,”
or “five defilements."
Hatred or anger.
Desire, attachment, or craving.
Ignorance - not knowing.
Pride, like arrogance.
And jealousy. So, five defilements.
And from those many things may appear.
Suffering. A lot of problems.
Depression. Panic.
They will influence your behavior,
like violence and disharmony,
problems with relationships,
problems with your social connections.
Not only that,
they create problems within your body also,
and create problems for the environment.
They may cause many, many, many problems.
But all these come from mainly the defilements.
Sometimes we call these,
"man-made problems," or "human-made problems."
There are so many problems in the world which is created by people.
Who drives the people?
The defilements. These kleshas drive the person.
As I mentioned to you about these defilements,
these kleshas, they seem bad, right?
You have these kleshas, so that means you are bad.
It sounds like that. But actually, No.
Our true nature, our fundamental nature is good,
but we don’t know this. We only know defilements.
Our minds grab these kleshas and stick with them.
We don’t know how to go to the deeper levels of our consciousness,
the deeper levels of our mind.
Normally, for example,
our mind is like a lake with pristine water.
Even though the lake is pristine, having pure mineral water,
still you have waves, the surface has waves.
But if you go deep down,
there is calm, pure and pristine water.
So, it’s similar to that. Our mind is like water.
The real quality of our mind is like water.
It is pure and pristine. It has awareness.
It has genuine love and compassion.
It has so many things. But on the surface level, there are waves.
Defilements and all these negative emotions,
exist only on the surface.
Now, I would like to teach you one simple meditation technique,
which is how to go deeply into these defilements.
First I would like to ask you a question
that you can ask of yourself.
“What do I really want?
"What do I really want?”
Just try to ask this from deep within your heart.
“What do I really want?”
Normally, all defilements come from “I want this,”
like the "three posions,"
hatred, craving or attachment, and ignorance.
“I don’t like” is hatred or anger.
“I like” is craving or desire.
“I don’t know” is ignorance. “I’m the best” is pride.
“My friend and I were the same,
"but now he or she became better than me” is jealousy.
All this is connected with “I want,” and “I don’t want.”
It’s related with “I, I, I.”
“I want. I don’t want. I don’t know. I’m the best.
"I’m better than him or her or he’s better than him or her.
"He or she will be better than me — not good.” Something like that.
All of these defilements are like that.
Try to really ask this question: “What do I really want?”
The answer you get first maybe is from the surface-level,
from desire. “I want a car, I want a billion dollars,
"I want a nice partner, a beautiful girl, a handsome man,
"or a pizza, or a hamburger!”
All this is surface-level. But then you can go deeper.
“OK, let’s see. If I get all these things...”
Just assume, “OK, if I have all these things,
then what do I really want?”
Again: “What do I really want?”
There are so many layers. If you go down, down, down,
then, after some time, you will really connect
with your basic wisdom which is always within you.
But you may interpret it the wrong way.
You may misunderstand your basic wisdom.
This basic wisdom is the real cause of happiness.
The real cause of freedom.
The real cause of all the good qualities.
If you really, really connect with your basic wisdom...
Many people have said that if you really know who you are,
that is really good for you, for your work,
for your job, for your life, for whatever.
Why? Because it’s connecting a little bit with your basic wisdom.
Likewise, if you really connect with your basic wisdom,
you will be happy, you will be free,
you will really develop love and compassion and wisdom,
and you will be successful also.
So, for spiritual success,
if you want to practice meditation, or whatever,
it’s good for that, and also for material success,
it’s good for your job,
good for your relationships, good for your business, for whatever.
It will be good and help yourself and others too.
The basic wisdom is not related with anger.
It’s not related with craving or strong attachment.
It is really genuine.
And if you relate to your basic wisdom more,
then you will be happy.
What is basic wisdom?
There’s a sense of love and a sense of compassion.
Wisdom means that deep down
you understand the impermanence of life.
That’s wisdom - basic wisdom.
The mind up there is saying “Permanence!”
but if you really go deep down you kind of sense impermanence.
Sometimes, we translate this into “loneliness.”
Sometimes, we translate this into “fear.”
Because deep down, we sometimes feel uncertain.
Because you know the nature of reality is uncertain.
The wisdom is there, but then the surface mind thinks,
“That’s not good! It’s permanent!” and you’re fighting yourself.
So let the surface mind go.
Try to get connected with basic wisdom.
Your deeper mind understands the non-conceptual state.
In your life, there is sometimes people with so much anger,
and suddenly, “boom!” Your mind goes, “Ha!”
It feels very nice! You don’t feel anger.
You don’t feel bad and sad.
Sometimes there’s a gap.
Some people, when they are unhappy, they do like this.
So, when you breathe deeply, your mind relaxes,
and then you connect sometimes with your basic wisdom,
so there’s openness.
Another example is that we all want to be happy, so there’s love.
And you don’t want to suffer, so there’s compassion there also.
There are so many things like that.
So, maybe first you just ask the question,
“What do I really want?”
Then, let go of the surface answer and go deeper, deeper, and deeper
and you can find something meaningful. But for this question,
each person will have a little bit different finding.
Some of you can find wisdom of impermanence,
or non-conceptual wisdom, or the wisdom of love,
or the wisdom of compassion, or something different.
Maybe some of you cannot even put a name on it.
You know that it’s your true feeling,
but you maybe cannot put it into words.
Whatever you find after asking this question
and trying to connect with your deep wisdom,
let it be.
Again, don’t fix your mind on that.
You can appreciate it,
and you can rest your mind in that state of awareness.
Thank you.