THE FIRE ENGINES OF WHALLEY AVENUE

I have returned to the example of the Fire Engines because there is much to learn from sound.  There are many ways to approach the Dharma.  Using the example of sound is very useful because if one goes deeper into the different kinds of sound we can find that there are some sounds that make us comfortable which we appreciate and would like more of and some that make us uncomfortable which we would like to have removed immediately.  But the question is, what is the difference between pleasing sounds and those that disturb us?  When sound arises in our consciousness, it is very difficult to know how it arose, where it came from or why it makes us comfortable, uncomfortable or neutral.

What kind of reaction did you have to my last article regarding sound?  Did it stimulate your interest in the subject?  Did you try to investigate your responses to sound?  In the previous article I mentioned that whatever sound we encounter we must try to transmute it into the sound of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which is pure change less emptiness without birth or death.  Likewise, today I ask you to ponder your relationship to objects of desire, do you grasp at them hoping they will never go away?  When you see something you dislike do you try to push it away forever?  What you will discover is, we respond the same way with our sense of sight as we do with sound and we use all our other senses in exactly the same way.

Though what I’m saying may seem to be very obvious, simple or even irrelevant, if you were to go through each sense and investigate step by step you would find that it takes lots of time and it is very difficult to transmute these senses into the pure senses of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.  As practitioners of the Buddha, we must always be seeking ways to develop pure vision regarding all five senses.  For example, if we witness someone doing something that we think is negative, immediately our mind creates all sorts of negative feelings and ideas about this person, when in fact, we really don’t know what motivates them nor do we really understand why those circumstances arose for them.  So all of us should try daily to have pure vision.  This does not mean that we should stand idly by when we witness someone abusing a child or an animal, but we must realize that as soon as we engage thoughts of responding, our ability to maintain pure vision is diminished or lost based on how much we have practiced.  Only Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are capable of maintaining pure vision regarding their thoughts, speech and action.  This is much more difficult to accomplish.

So what do I really gain from writing such a simple article?  My hope is that those of you who read this and really ponder the deeper implications will find this to be of some small use.

Lama Tsondru Sangpo