These monthly Buddhist teachings with Ven Robina Courtin include a 90-minute dharma talk on a variety of subjects, including a question and answer period at the end of the lecture. This month, the lecture featured is:
BE YOUR OWN THERAPIST
We spend our lives being seduced by the outside world, believing completely that happiness and suffering come from “out there.” But if we look into our hearts we can see that this is not true, that the more we hold on to people and things and experiences, the more dissatisfied and lonely we become.
Happiness and suffering come from the way we perceive and interpret things, not the things themselves. At the heart of it, according to Buddhism, is the instinctive clinging to a limited sense of self, which causes us to respond with attachment, anger and the rest.
By becoming deeply familiar with the workings of our own minds and hearts through meditation and purification practices – truly, being our own therapist – we can slowly loosen the grip of ego-grasping and begin to open up our marvellous potential for clarity, contentment, love and the other qualities that Buddha says are innate within us.
PRESENTER BIO
