If dharma is the medicine, what is the disease? Zoom Talk, Dec 2024
If dharma is the medicine, what is the disease?
These are two Zoom Talks given by James Low on 9th November and 7th December 2024
The transcript was prepared by Sanatan Swinni and edited by Michael Cosgrove with Barbara Terris
Read and download the transcript here.
Do we actually want to know we are sick?
Are we offering a medicine for a disease that nobody believes they have, or wants to know that they have.
As dharma teachers we have to begin by telling people that they are really quite sick even though they may feel perfectly well and happy. We need to overcome people’s resistance to knowing that they are going to die. In the past people had the sense that after death they would go to heaven or somewhere else but nowadays most people believe death is the end. No matter how happy or sad someone’s life is, most people now believe that when they die, that is life finished forever for them. Making preparations to ensure future rebirth in a better situation seems irrelevant.
In these two talks James discusses the different Buddhist approaches to this.
Contents
Do we actually want to know we are sick? 3
Suffering and its four features 4
Theravada practice of examining the Five Skandhas 13
Easing ourselves out of our delusions 16
The disease of deluded assumptions 17
Does everything arise from causes? 18
How do we have confidence in it? 20
Distinguishing between that is intrinsic and what is contrived_ 20
Pure from the very beginning. Vajrasattva 22
Madhyamika teachings of Nagarjuna: Mulamadhyamakakarika_ 24
Story of King Melinda’s chariot 24
The Dzogchen approach (or view) 31
Samantabhadra’s Five Aspects 32
Samantabhadra’s Five Basic Qualities of the Ground_ 35
The Four Stages of Unawareness of the Open Ground_ 44
Three Ways of Transmission of Awareness of the Open Ground_ 50
Garab Dorje’s Three Statements 51