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Here's a previously unreleased talk by Parami on 'virya' - 'energy in pursuit of the good'. It was given as part of a three talk series at Windhorse:Evolution, a large and successful Buddhist team-based right livelihood business. But its concerns are certainly not parochial - a good, strong (sometimes even idealistic!) evocation of the co-operative spirit of Buddhist work and of spiritual practice in general, with particular reference to Shantideva's 'Bodhicharyavatara'. The Bodhisattvas descend, the Bodhichitta is called down, and Parami is off and rolling on her favourite subject... With a thoughtful look at Padmasambhava too, and an affectionate tribute to her own teacher, Urgyen Sangaharakshita, whose poem 'The Song of the Windhorse' forms the root text for this talk.
Talk gIven in Cambridge, 2002
| 1. | Old and new Order members; not liking Sangharakshita's (Bhante's) poetry; reading poems in the USA (4:37) | |
| 2. | 'The Song of the Windhorse' - a poem by Sangharakshita (3:09) | |
| 3. | Three necessary faculties; virya - energy in pursuit of the good; Dhantideva's Bodhicharyavatara - the six perfections; patience (2:17) | |
| 4. | Quote from Shantideva on virya; kinds of energy; vigour; sloth; being disillusioned with cyclic existence; forgetting about conditions; remembering; death (8:33) | |
| 5. | Virya as antidote to forgetting; three forms of laziness - indolence (sloth), apathy and despair (despondency); objectifying our experience - the need for friends; towards a better world - 'the new society' (6:48) | |
| 6. | Sangharakshita on co-ops and right livelihood; the history of these in the FWBO; keeping that energy alive (3:48) | |
| 7. | Energy and ways to lose it; grumbling; criticism and cynicism; negativity; gossip; nagging (6:12) | |
| 8. | Padmasambhava at work; ordaining someone - a channel to the transcendental; Parami's personal link with Sangharakshita; birth story of Padmasambhava; taking Buddhism to Tibet - the marriage of cognition, feeling and emotion; finding magic and ritual (7:40) | |
| 9. | Ratnsambhava - abundance; the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara - will at its highest; Bodhisattva work; founding the Order - reading from Sangharakshita (7:00) | |
| 10. | The Bodhichitta - personal and cosmic will; creating the conditions - the gift of the windhorse (4:57) |
Total running time: 55:01
