Become Your Own Therapist

Something To Think About Series #244 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

I think the typical way we live our lives, and the thing we think about most, from the moment we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep, is the outside world, what's out there, the people, the things. I think we pay very little attention to what goes on in the mind. We pay a lot of attention to our mind when we study something, it's all about the mind learning all these new thoughts, new concepts. So there we really do concentrate on the contents of the mind. But when it comes to our emotions, maybe we don't have many methods. We don't even notice our emotions until they are exploding out of the mouth, or until you can't get out of bed one morning because you're so depressed. The Buddhist approach is quite practical, contrary to our usual views, actually what goes on in our mind is the main player in our life, not the external events. So with that in mind, it's necessary to pay attention and to work with what's in our mind, to be able to become familiar with our emotions and feelings. So the Buddhist approach has this very practical little technique that everybody hears about these days, people are using it, it's called mindfulness meditation. A very practical technique, and it's based on this technique that the Indians invented. The Dalai Lama said, it was these amazing Indians, more than 3000 years ago, who were the ones who began this incredible investigation into the nature of self. They cultivated this technique that mindfulness meditation is based on, it's actually called concentration meditation. It's a really sophisticated psychological skill that enables a person to access these much more subtle levels of our own mind. Levels of mind that we don't even posit as existing in our modern psychological models. The trouble is as soon as we say the word meditation, we get all kind of mystical. This technique enables you to develop this really subtle powerful concentration. What these Indians did was basically unpack, unravel, and deeply understand the contents of the human mind. They mapped the mind. When we talk like that these days in the modern world, we're imagining a person with a microscope mapping the brain. But that's not what we're discussing here, it's an internal process. This technique that these people invented is one of the central techniques still in Buddhism today. This psychological skill that enables us to get this really refined concentration to subdue the grosser, more berserk levels of our thoughts in our mind, to make it more subdued. This technique, it's not religious in it's nature, it's the mind. Buddha doesn't have a word like soul or spirit. Why would you want to learn to concentrate, what's the benefit? This is Buddha's expertise, on the basis of getting this subtle focus, you become super familiar with the contents of your own thoughts, feelings, emotions, unconscious, subconscious. Buddha is not a creator, he doesn't assert a creator, he is talking about his own experience. His methodology, he says anyone can do it. So what he's found is that we've all got this extraordinary potential in our own mind, based upon the familiarity with it's contents, this introspective technique, not looking at the brain, but listening to your own elaborate thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Every being has this marvellous potential to radically change the contents of our mind. To become familiar with your own mind, learning to recognise and distinguish all the neurotic, unhappy emotions we have, and be able to distinguish them from the positive ones. It's not a moralistic issue at all, it's practical. Buddha's main point, we can prove it, it's not complicated, is that anger, depression, stress, etcetera - first of all they are miserable for us! The very having of them is not comfortable, it's disturbing. Look at how we feel when we're more kind, more confident, more generous, more patient - it's not surprising, we are feeling more happy. It's really down to earth you know. In our culture, we take for granted all these unhappy emotions, we just think it's normal. To be a normal human being you've got have stress, you've got to get angry, you've got to get depressed, what to do! It's normal. We think like this. But the Buddhist approach is that they are not at the core of our being. They're the cause of our own suffering, and therefore the cause of why things go wrong in our life. The positive qualities are at the core of our being, actually define who we really are, and these we can develop hugely. Speaking really simply, what stress is, in our busy busy days, all our jobs to do, things to get, to buy, do this, go here, get that, fix this, we're not going to get everything we want all day, it's not going to work all the time. It's the coming together of the wanting of something and then not getting it, that's the moment the stress hits. Longku Zentrum, Bern, Switzerland, May 2017.

Something To Think About Series #243 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #242 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #241 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Ven. Robina leads the purification practice of the Four Opponent Powers. Lawudo Trek | March 30, 2019 | Lawudo Main Gompa, Solu Khumbu

Something To Think About Series #240 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #239 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

All sentient beings are caught in the trap of suffering in the realms of existence. Bodhicitta is a mind that wishes to free beings from suffering and bring them to the state of enlightenment. A bodhisattva is a person who has that bodhicitta mind, is a practitioner of the enlightenment thought which is the aspiration to achieve complete enlightenment as a perfect Buddha for the benefit of oneself and all other sentient beings. Love and compassion are the forces that motivated all activities of Bodhisattvas. Love is a strong wish that aspires to attain happiness for all sentient beings and compassion is the state of mind that wishes each being to be freed from all sufferings or sorrows, great compassion is the root wisdom. We're talking about the compassion wing, how to cultivate Bodhichitta. This outrageous attitude really, that's based upon incredible compassion and love, that is the thought never to give up, being of benefit to sentient beings, whoever is in front of you, it's your job to help them. Never to give up long term, on working life after life perfecting all these qualities, and the final piece, the six perfections, the final stages of the Bodhisattva path. To never give up on sentient beings. What I keep emphasising is the necessity to have done some work on yourself first. Before you can really establish and develop this outrageous levels of compassion that the Mahayana teachings of the Buddha tell us that we're capable of. It's not possible if you still are caught up in your own misery, it's literally impossible to have compassion for anybody because you can't see past your own nose. It's fairly logical. Forget yourself, think of people you know who are really suffering mentally, they're absolutely absorbed in themself. Suffering could be in front of them, they can't even see it. This is the whole point about the wisdom wing work. All the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, about karma and the mind, he's addressing that to us, that's the work we have to do to see our own suffering, to work on our own self, to see our own amazing potential. Then the consequence of that is two things, one - you become more content, fulfilled, and self respectful; but two - inevitably because you're removing your own neuroses, you're removing the barriers that ego has constructed between self and other. So the more you work on your own mind, the more content you become and the more connected to others. It's just a logical process psychologically but we need to understand it, we need to see it.  So the starting point in these outrageous levels of love and compassion that culminate in Bodhichitta, is the cultivation of equanimity. This heartfelt recognition that the friend, enemy, and stranger are equal to each other from one point of view; they each want to be happy and each don't want to suffer. Why do we want that? Well because love is an expression of - may you be happy. That's the definition, the thought may you be happy. Compassion - may you not suffer. Right now we only have love and compassion for our beloveds. But if we step aside, get ourselves out of the equation, and we see these three people separately from us, we're going to see that friend, enemy, and stranger are just projections of our own delusions. We see the universe in terms of how they fulfil our needs. We should be embarrassed how self centred it is! We're trying to step out of that and get to see people from their own point of view. Like your mother would say - put yourself in their shoes. It's a very powerful statement. The brave attitude of the Bodhisattva is the sense of responsibility, what can I do to help? It's like a mother, the mother's sitting on the beach and her child is drowning, of course she's going to have compassion, instantaneously there's going to be compassion. Oh my god look at that suffering, but she's not looking around behind her to see who's going to save her baby, even if she can't swim, this is the point - she knows it's her job. That's a Bodhisattva, they know it's their job. That's what we're trying to cultivate. So it's a very brave attitude, a very courageous attitude, a very big attitude, to think that you want to feel this sense of responsibility as if everybody in the universe is your child. That's pretty profound! Centrul Budist White Mahakala, Romania, 15th September 2021. YouTube

Something To Think About Series #238 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #237 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #236 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Getting what we want, like delicious chocolate, a great job or a new partner, is our main method for achieving happiness, and we certainly work hard at it! But what if we lose it? Or what if we can't find it? What then? International Convention Centre, Sydney 2015

Something To Think About Series #235 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #234 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

All sentient beings are caught in the trap of suffering in the realms of existence. Bodhichitta is a mind that wishes to free beings from suffering and bring them to the state of enlightenment. A bodhisattva is a person who has that bodhichitta mind, is a practitioner of the enlightenment thought which is the aspiration to achieve complete enlightenment as a perfect Buddha for the benefit of oneself and all other sentient beings. Love and compassion are the forces that motivated all activities of Bodhisattvas. Love is a strong wish that aspires to attain happiness for all sentient beings and compassion is the state of mind that wishes each being to be freed from all sufferings or sorrows, great compassion is the root wisdom. In all the Buddhist teachings, there's so many of them, it seems such a vast number of teachings, the key thing I think we find difficult is to put them in some kind of framework, to understand how all the teachings relate to each other. When we study any body of knowledge, we know that's what we do, when you're studying anything, you know where it fits, if it's a more advanced teaching you have to understand the relationship to the earlier teaching, this makes sense, it's really logical. But we don't think of spiritual teachings like that. I can't stress it enough, what work we need to have done on ourselves in order to have compassion for others. We can discuss the qualities of compassion, what they are and how you get them. But if we haven't done enough work in the earlier part of the practice, it's impossible, it's like a joke, we don't understand it. Especially the teachings here, on how to be a Bodhisattva. It's a Sanskrit word, the loose equivalent you could say - a saint. If you sit there as a Catholic and listen to the teachings on how to become a saint, it sounds ridiculous doesn't it. It sounds too high! It seems impossible. Buddha's view is, we've all got this extraordinary potential, the wisdom wing is all the work you do to develop your qualities, it's about you, you are the beneficiary of those practices. The very first level of practice, you abide by the laws of karma, you have discipline, you live in vows, you stop harming others. Why? Because you don't want future suffering, because everything you think and do and say, produces the person you become. Then you go to the next level of practice and you start to unpack and unravel your mind, this is the key job. You really begin to have a deep understanding of Buddhist psychology, you know what the delusions are, you know what the positive qualities are, and you know how to distinguish between them. You are the beneficiary of this! You're turning yourself into a less neurotic, less angry, less attached, less harmful person. You're becoming a wiser, more relaxed, more fulfilled person. The practices are all related to how to turn you into a marvellous person. Now what this qualifies you to do, is enter into the compassion work. Now you keep working on yourself, that never stops, but now the reference point is how to help others. How to break down the barriers between the neurotic self and others. How to develop these profound levels of love, compassion, great compassion, that culminate in this outrageous approach called Bodhichitta. Centrul Budist White Mahakala, Romania, 8th September 2021 YouTube

Something To Think About Series #233 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #232 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #231 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Start the day with your mind pointed in a positive direction. No bells or whistles, just bliss.

Something To Think About Series #230 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #229 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

All sentient beings are caught in the trap of suffering in the realms of existence. Bodhichitta is a mind that wishes to free beings from suffering and bring them to the state of enlightenment. A bodhisattva is a person who has that bodhichitta mind, is a practitioner of the enlightenment thought which is the aspiration to achieve complete enlightenment as a perfect Buddha for the benefit of oneself and all other sentient beings. Love and compassion are the forces that motivate all activities of Bodhisattvas. Love is a strong wish that aspires to attain happiness for all sentient beings and compassion is the state of mind that wishes each being to be freed from all sufferings or sorrows, great compassion is the root wisdom. These next three weeks we're going to be talking about compassion. We've got the wisdom wing and the compassion wing. It's a wonderful analogy, it works brilliantly, it covers all the Buddha's teachings, and it's also very personal. The point of the entire path is to become this Buddha. So what is a Buddha? Buddha is a person who has completely rid their mind of all the rubbish, all the fears, all the dramas, all the suffering, which we all have got so much of. And they've only got what's left, which is this incredible wisdom, clarity, power, confidence, compassion and empathy. The Buddha's whole point, from the big picture point of view, is that's the nature, the potential of every one of us. It's quite an outrageous idea really! It sounds mystical. But this is one of the things that can really help us when we're having problems and dramas, when we're overwhelmed by the negativity, just to try and remember that we've got this marvellous potential. This negativity is true, it's right now, but it's not intrinsic to us. This is something that can be very powerful for our mind. The compassion wing, of this bird that needs two wings, is this enormous empathy with others, this connection with others, the seeing of others suffering, and this wish that they be happy which is love, and the wish they don't suffer and that's compassion. But that's contingent upon the wisdom wing. If you're overwhelmed by your own pain and suffering, you can't think of anybody else. It's not possible, your own suffering is so enormous. This is why we should have compassion for ourselves for a start. But certainly have compassion for others. It's obvious that to prepare yourself to be able to benefit others, you've got to know how to benefit yourself. It's really logical. We have enormously big hearts, we think what can I do to help, but we don't actually have methods to know that first I've got to put myself together. If you want to help other people with their problems, you can have incredible compassion for them, but what good is that compassion if you don't know how to help them. That's the wisdom wing. If you want to help other people with their problems, you've got to know your own. You've got to help yourself first, and that qualifies you to then help others. That's the logic of the whole path. So what's this wisdom? Learning about your own mind, and the way your mind works, the way the delusions work, the way we create karma. This qualifies us to help put ourselves together, then it qualifies us to go - oh my god, look at all this, everybody is in the same boat. We're all suffering. Questions include - how can we know that everybody wants to be happy, understanding that others want to be happy but some people don't deserve to be happy, is pity a low form of compassion or is it a sophisticated way of self cherishing, how to deal with bullying, how to transform aggression towards ourself and others into compassion, how can we overcome feeling overwhelmed by seeing all the suffering around, and only with shamatha and vipasana meditation can we find answers to all the questions? Centrul Budist White Mahakala, Romania, 1st September 2021. YouTube

Something To Think About Series #228 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #227 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #226 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Start the day with your mind pointed in positive direction.

Something To Think About Series #224 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Venerable Robina gives a teaching on Attachment & Emptiness during the Lawudo Trek in Nepal. One way of presenting these levels of practice which are expressed in this packaging of Tsongkhapa's called the Lamrim, this gradual path, this course, that you graduate from as a Buddha, is in terms of understanding attachment. This is massive for the Buddha, way bigger than we can think because it's assuming even the way the world is, how we're born, the kind of bodies we have, it's got a much bigger framework than we can think of. So effectively the actual delusion that's the source of all suffering is this thing called ego grasping that the realisation of emptiness cuts, and all the teachings lead to that. But effectively in daily life we can say attachment is the main problem. This bottomless pit of dissatisfaction, the neediness, that causes the anger and aversion then causes all the other things, which cause us to harm others, which causes suffering rebirths, and so on. When we understand attachment is the main problem, then junior school is learning to control the servants of the attachment, which is the body and speech obviously. We're so caught up in our own world, in the modern world I'm this body, we so utterly identify with the body, “we make the body the boss” as Lama Yeshe says, totally completely absorbed in the body. This is me! If we do say words about my mind, we point to the brain. We learned that, we haven't experienced the truth of it, we've never studied the brain, most of us, we just believe what we're told. We think we're so intelligent, that we're scientific, it's just nonsense. Most of us haven't really studied math, science, botany, all the things some people have, we just say it's true because we believe it. We think we're scientific, no we haven't studied it. We totally identify with this body, the body is massive, the senses run the show and they're the servants of attachment, that's it. So obviously the first job, because attachment is so primordial, you've got to start controlling the servants of the attachment, which is the body and speech, which is our behaviour. Do what your grandma says - behave nicely, don't harm others. This is fundamental. By controlling the body and speech, the servants of attachment, you're naturally subduing attachment, it's very evident. Now you're really qualified to go to high school and get to the root of the problem, and begin to understand and unpack all the delusions, in particular attachment. You become your own therapist, this genius person, who can unpack and unravel the mind to this unbelievable degree, including getting this incredible concentration, inconceivable, unheard of in our modern psychology. It's just seen as religion, we throw it away as some kind of rubbish. We have no idea how astonishing it is, how sophisticated, how brilliant, and anyone if they worked hard could do it. It's all there, coming from these amazing Hindus thousands of years ago before the Buddha, these geniuses who mapped the mind internally. It's so mind-blowing. By this point you've got renunciation, you're incredible, which means two parts - one you know what suffering is and you're sick of it, and two bullseye you know the causes, karma and delusions, as Lama Zopa says “you've got renunciation when just the thought of another moment of attachment is so disgusting, it's like being in a septic tank”. That's way to go, that's pretty profound. How would you be so far - radiant, joyful, content, fulfilled, happy, you'd be an incredible human being by now. Lawudo Trek, Nepal, 31st March 2019. YouTube

Something To Think About Series #223 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #222 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #221 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

If we realised impermanence, realised the reality and integrated it into our mind, that impermanence is just the way things are, and we will die, your life is transformed, because you don't waste your life when you realise it's impermanent. Death is definite but the time of death is not certain. Venerable Robina discusses Lama Zopa Rinpoche's book - ‘How To Face Death Without Fear' and explains the steps of the death process. Questions about - the concept that there's no time to waste and the Pali term Saṃvega, the stages of death, what stage does chanting mantras matters, should the three days after death be at home, what happens when you die suddenly with cardiac arrest, pulling the hair at the crown when someone dies, is there a test to perform after death to know if the consciousness has left the body, when someone is dying but is on a lot of pain medication, and voluntary assisted dying? Vajrayana Institute, Sydney, 25th May 2025. https://youtu.be/IsHYAlGmsxg

Something To Think About Series #220 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #219 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Most people don't like to think about death. Death is a really crucial thing to understand, because according to the Buddha our mind will continue to another life and we've got a long term goal of Buddhahood, which indeed could take us countless lifetimes, so you've got to have a very serious long term plan. Death is an extremely important stage in this development. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says - actually if you want to help anybody in this life, the time they need you most, is at the time of death. There are two approaches to preparing for death. One is to live your life well, so that when death comes you are ready for it and relaxed. The second one is what to do during the months, weeks, days, and hours before death; at the time the breath stops, and three days after that. Why is it so important to help a person die well? Because at the time of death, the karmic seed planted in the mind of that person, that will determine their next life, is triggered as the death process starts. The crucial piece, and without this we won't be able to be ready for death, no matter how many people are helping us, the crucial one is how to live our lives. To see death in the framework of how to live your life, and that means we have to understand Buddha's views about karma, ethics, and the mind. Buddha's first teaching is about impermanence, that everything changes. We are impermanent. We have this very powerful deep view that clings to ourselves and things as unchanging. Intellectually we know it's not true, but if we look into our incredible fear of change, it's pretty evident. Atisha in his Lamrim text tells us that we need to realise impermanence, particularly the impermanence of death, his agenda is to give us a wake up call to not want to waste our lives, Death is definite, the time of death is uncertain, and at the time of death what is important - virtuous karmic seeds in our mind being triggered. That's the basis for good ethics in Buddhism.   The point of ethics is because that's what produces you. You are the beneficiary of your good ethics. You receive the results of your negative and positive actions. It's a natural law. It's best to think - I will die today, because we live in fear of death, we live in denial of it. You want to think about how death will come, so you don't waste this life. What does it mean not to waste this life - it's completely rooted in the view of karma and ethics, that you want to put as many positive seeds into your mind, because you're going to be living another life and you better prepare for it baby! Venerable Robina mentions Lama Zopa Rinpoche's book - ‘How to Face Death without Fear'. Questions about - what is nirvana, what is the fear of death, what hope do we have to realise emptiness, what is defined as the time of death, control over when you die, what determines when death comes, and prayers and practices? Tibet House US, New York, 30th April 2025. https://youtu.be/Rg1TYQIpIpM  

Something To Think About Series #218 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #217 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #216 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Purification Practice The Four Rs: Regret, Reliance, Remedy, Resolve Image: Buddha Vajrasattva in the aspect of Lama Yeshe from the Vajrasattva Gompa at Tushita Meditation Centre in Dharamsala.

Something To Think About Series #215 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #214 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Venerable Robina will unpack what it means to “stay steady.” We are usually worried about what will happen or what won't happen. A thousand times a day tiny things happen to bother us. Attachment energy is unleashed, anxiety arises, and we usually go to someone else to help us feel better. Ven. Robina will discuss methods, simple and profound, to become our own mother, friend, and therapist. A Q&A session is promised.  The main source of suffering in this life is attachment. The vast majority of all humans on the planet have absolutely no idea that what goes on in their mind plays any role at all in their lives - when it comes to happiness and suffering. Buddha has found from his own experience that we can our mind utterly of the neuroses. If you can change the outside, please change it, but what if you can't then what? Change your mind! When there is no fear, there is no suffering. We can mould our mind into any shape we like. We have to notice the thoughts before they become emotional, then we can argue with them, then we can stay steady in the face of problems. Questions about - being influenced by others views, the recipe for enlightenment, how to identify a delusion, what does 'servants of the mind' mean, and what is the antidote for angry thoughts? Tse Chen Ling, San Francisco, 15th April 2025. YouTube

Something To Think About Series #213 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #212 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #211 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Start the day with your mind pointed in positive direction.

Something To Think About Series #210 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Something To Think About Series #209 Thought of the day from Venerable Robina Courtin

Women of Wisdom series. According to Buddha, attachment – clinging, grasping, craving – is effectively the main source of our suffering in day-to-day life. Big surprise! We usually confuse it with love, which is necessarily altruistic, and is the source of our own happiness and the capacity to help others. Buddha's view of the mind describes two distinct categories of states of mind: the deluded, disturbing ones – such as attachment, anger, low self-esteem and the rest – and the virtuous, spacious ones – such as love, compassion, patience, and so on. ​ A key function of attachment and the other delusions, and the main reason they cause suffering, is that not only do they cause us pain but they actually cause the things, the events, the people out there to appear back to us, as Lama Zopa puts it, in a distorted way. Attachment causes things to look more delicious than they really are, anger causes things to appear more ugly than they really are. And the problem is we totally believe these appearances. This is what keeps us stuck in our misery. As we learn to doubt the way things appear to us, we are beginning to loosen the grip of ego-grasping, the root delusion, which misrepresents the very nature of self and everything else.  Tse Chen Ling, San Francisco, Thursday 27th March 2025. YouTube