Notes From Liz’s Talk
Six Realms comes from the Abhidharma teaching
God Realm is Ratna? Pride?
Animal - Buddha
Our mind creates our reality
Buddha Amitabha
Very intense. Seeking heightened experiences. Psychedelics!
Precious human birth
Heart Chakra
Bewitched song by Laufe
Talking about teachers: Three kinds
Ah Padma. This is familiar ground for all of us. Padma is associated with the human realm - the realm of desire. We want.
We want. We yearn. The grass is always greener. The second noble truth - the cause of suffering is craving.
We are too hot. We are too cold. We are bored so we want to eat, or get up and walk around. But then we do that and we don’t feel any relief. We want a new class, a new job, a new apartment, new clothes. We want more money so we can buy those things. We want to be famous, or at least recognized. We want to be invited to all the parties. We want likes and follows. We want retweets. We want people to keep their streaks with us.
We want to be cool. We want to like the bands that other cool people like and not the ones that the NPCs like. We want to find the new brands first. We want to look good. We want six pack abs and chiseled jaws.
We want important things too.
We want some time away from the grind so we can actually look for meaning in our lives.
We want to be happy. We want our family and friends to be happy. We want people to have houses and food - to not have to sleep on the streets. We want healthcare for everyone. We want the strong to stop picking on the weak.
We want art and music everywhere. We want to be able to express ourselves, create crazy wonderful provocative things.
This yearning creates suffering, but it’s also created our world. People wanted to stop walking to the outhouse once, so we made toilets. People wanted to bathe indoors, so we made hot water tanks and showers. People wanted to land on the moon, so we did. People wanted to look at cat videos all day, so we made the internet.
Padma is red like a slinky silk dress or a stock broker’s tie. In its neurotic aspect, it’s selling us all the stuff we think we want. It’s a hustler or an advertising executive: smooth talking, convincing, a seducer, but just a transactional one. It doesn’t care for true, deep connection. It wants another notch on the belt, another body for the count.
In its confused state, it doesn’t care who it relates with, sells to, seduces or scams. Padma is associated with fire - it burns everything it touches.
We do this with meditation too - grasping on to the good feelings, pushing away the uncomfortable ones. We grasp onto meaning, definitions, understanding, recognition as a defense against the smallness of our existence compared to the sky and the sun.
When all this becomes too exhausting, when we realize the futility of one more sale, one more purchase. When we look around the room at all the stuff we’ve bought and realize yet again that it hasn’t actually made us happy, it’s embarrassing, but it’s also a relief.
The passion for getting, attracting, kind of melts into compassion for the heart behind the wanting.
All of the activity aimed at papering over the hole in our hearts can rest for a minute. We can turn our attention towards the heart and the hole itself.
We feel lonely. We feel unworthy. And we feel tender towards that, like we’ve looked under a wet cardboard box and found a little grey kitten. We want to pick it up and warm it with our body heat.
Suddenly, the burning fire of seducing the world turns into curiousity and interest for this simple, tender heart.
Is this making sense? This is about shining a light on your actual lived experience. I bet each of you can remember some time when you were crushing on someone, wanting them so badly, and then you realized that your grasping was more about your loneliness.
That flip - from externalizing our desires to feeling compassion for ourselves - is one of the most human moments in our lives.
A person who has connected with that compassion, who feels compassion for herself, her struggles, and therefore feels compassion for others too, blossoms like a lotus flower.
She is willing to demonstrate who she is and what she brings to the world. She is full of potential and full of promise. She draws people to her naturally, with no effort at all, because she is authentic.
She sees pleasure without grasping for it, so it’s not addictive anymore - it doesn’t draw her automatically. There’s a choice. And same with pain… it’s not immediately, instinctively repulsive. She sees them for what they really are.
“Pain and pleasure alike have become ornaments which it is pleasant to wear.”
So instead of blindly burning everything in her path, she sees everything in its own distinct way. Everything is unique, with its own particular qualities and characteristics. Because of this, the official name for the wisdom aspect of Padma is discriminating awareness.