Desire and ill-will
When I thought about the 4th and 5th fetters, desire and ill-will, the image of Padmasambhava above came to mind.
When I thought about the 4th and 5th fetters, desire and ill-will, the image of Padmasambhava above came to mind. Here’s what Sangharakshita had to say about him in a talk given in 1979, simply called ‘Padmasambhava Talk’.
So this is what Padmasambhava does...He tackles the gods and the demons... It's not enough to scratch the rational surface of our minds. We have to penetrate to the depths, we have to drop as it were a sort of depth charge and blow up all those primordial forces which are sort of holding us down and holding us back.
He goes on to read a description of some of them...
“There to be seen countless dakinis. Some of them have eyes that dart out sun rays, others give rise to thunderclaps and ride water buffaloes. Others wear corpses and ride lions. Others eat entrails and ride garudas (great winged birds)...Others carry in their hands, their own heads, which they have severed. Others carry in their hands their own hearts which they have torn out.”
These are forces, these are primordial forces so to speak, within ourselves which have to be subdued…Which doesn’t mean just crushed, held down by force, but integrated into our conscious attitude so that our conscious attitude, our conscious being, our conscious personality if you like can be enriched so that our spiritual life isn’t just some pale anaemic thing, so that it is glowing as it were and throbbing with the energy of the dakinis, with the energy of the gods and the demons that have been tamed and transformed.
Sangharakshita
Much of our energy goes into reacting to the way things are. We don’t want what we have and we want what we don’t have. These reactions can seem inevitable.
Someone is rude to us, and immediately anger and aversion arise. It feels as if there is no choice, no gap, no other option but to react.
It’s as if the trigger is connected to the response. An undeniable chain reaction that we can do nothing about. But is that true?
An introduction to desire and ill-will, the 4th and 5th fetters
(Audio 16 mins)
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, and experiences. You can add a comment below or hit reply to the email and contact me directly.
I’ve attached my notes, they are written in code (my handwriting) but perhaps you can decipher them!
