Mathieu RicardThe talk last night was really great, on many levels. More people than I could have expected to attend, for such a small city as this, attended and showed great enthusiasm for Mathieu Ricard's treatment of many aspects of Buddhist philosophy and practice. I was very impressed with the public turnout, which I would guess numbered around 1,000, but I didn't come across any practice group I could join.
He talked beautifully about many things, including impermanence, compassion, no-self-ness, and a whirlwind tour of the results of several scientific studies showing the enormous cognitive benefits of meditation. Marie was particularly impressed with these studies, and although I won't go into why, they come to her in a very timely manner.
There wasn't a huge amount of talk about the environment, but as Ricard pointed out many times, we need to be the change we want to see in the world. If we want our planet to thrive, we have to start with ourselves. He also mentioned the importance of bearing in mind every living being's right to exist and be happy, which is very relevant to resolving environmental issues.
There were a few things that struck a chord with me. I really liked Ricard's description of the luminous nature of mind, which is a concept you hear a lot about in Tibetan Buddhism, at least. He said that it's not as if we could see the mind glowing when we put it in a dark room, but that the mind is what illuminates the world for us. The mind sheds light, so to speak, on the objects of our perception, and like light, the mind is not necessarily changed by what it illuminates. Light can illuminate mud puddles and garbage heaps, and it does not become dirty. The mind can show us our emotional defilements, and it does not become defiled.
Ricard said the same thing, stated somewhat differently, in an example in which one gets carried away by a state of (insert negative emotion here). In this case, one (possibly barring one with a disorder of some kind) can always find the awareness that one is experiencing the emotion. And that fact alone proves that we are not equivalent to our emotions, since we can observe them. The part of us that can watch an emotion (or any type of event) come over us, and then fade away, is the true, luminous nature of mind.
While these snippets of dharma/truth are not new to me, it's always so very good to be reminded. In fact, my whole path at the moment is remembering these things all day, every day.
He talked beautifully about many things, including impermanence, compassion, no-self-ness, and a whirlwind tour of the results of several scientific studies showing the enormous cognitive benefits of meditation. Marie was particularly impressed with these studies, and although I won't go into why, they come to her in a very timely manner.
There wasn't a huge amount of talk about the environment, but as Ricard pointed out many times, we need to be the change we want to see in the world. If we want our planet to thrive, we have to start with ourselves. He also mentioned the importance of bearing in mind every living being's right to exist and be happy, which is very relevant to resolving environmental issues.
There were a few things that struck a chord with me. I really liked Ricard's description of the luminous nature of mind, which is a concept you hear a lot about in Tibetan Buddhism, at least. He said that it's not as if we could see the mind glowing when we put it in a dark room, but that the mind is what illuminates the world for us. The mind sheds light, so to speak, on the objects of our perception, and like light, the mind is not necessarily changed by what it illuminates. Light can illuminate mud puddles and garbage heaps, and it does not become dirty. The mind can show us our emotional defilements, and it does not become defiled.
Ricard said the same thing, stated somewhat differently, in an example in which one gets carried away by a state of (insert negative emotion here). In this case, one (possibly barring one with a disorder of some kind) can always find the awareness that one is experiencing the emotion. And that fact alone proves that we are not equivalent to our emotions, since we can observe them. The part of us that can watch an emotion (or any type of event) come over us, and then fade away, is the true, luminous nature of mind.
While these snippets of dharma/truth are not new to me, it's always so very good to be reminded. In fact, my whole path at the moment is remembering these things all day, every day.
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