Red Bull: This philosophy comes from the teachings of Pure Name Buddha. “What is worry?”

Sean Rat: Worry is when your care for something becomes a negative feeling, causing suffering.

Tim: A persistent thought preparing you for something in the future.

Red Bull: Worry is defined as the habit that develops as a result of over-care.

When you care for something, but cross the line and care too much, then worry will appear.

Shona: An example would be a mother having over-care for her child. In time, that creates a habit of constant worry. So the next question is where does that over-care feeling come from?

Andrew: It could come from greed. Say you’re greedy for a really nice car; you worry that you won’t be able to afford it. Or if you’re possessive about a person you’re in a relationship with, you worry that they’re going to leave you.

Sifu: Does everyone agree?

Sean Pig: Greed has to come from somewhere first, but it doesn’t cover every source for worry. It comes from blindness towards the complete truth of life. If you see the truth, you understand that there’s no need for worry. But human-level awareness doesn’t even understand it mentally most of the time, and even if you do, you still have habits that are ingrained. When you know everything is changing and that you can hold nothing, you know there’s no reason to worry.

Shona: I thought the same thing – that worry comes from blindness – but the Pure Name Buddha philosophy goes even deeper. Over-care comes from being careless many times. Each mistake causes suffering. Eventually you get scared of the suffering and the next time you’re in that situation – maybe even in your next lifetime – you have a constant fear that you will experience that suffering again. Instead of finding the Middle Way, you are over-caring.

Red Bull: So how do we get rid of worry?

Sean Pig: Be more careful in your life and then you won’t cause over-care.

JC: Learn the truth of life so you gain wisdom to see through the blindness that makes you over-care.

Simon: Once you’ve developed your wisdom, you direct your care power in a more valuable direction, which will make you less careless, so the worry doesn’t appear any more.

Andrew: Show more care to yourself so you develop more security on the inside rather than looking for it from the outside.

Sean Rat: As soon as you worry then you start causing suffering, so if you care with logic you won’t cross the line into suffering.

Shona: How will you know when you’ve crossed the line?

Sean Rat: Worry is a blind habit. If you accept that you’re going to make mistakes and learn from them, you can use your logic to avoid them in the future. Then you won’t have the habit of worry.

Red Bull: The first step of Pure Name Buddha’s system is to observe the result. Does your care release suffering or does it cause suffering?

Shona: When you feel suffering, ask yourself if it’s coming from your care and worry. Sometimes I’ve thought, “I care about my mum. I have to care about her 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Realistically, it’s not really care because it’s not releasing her suffering and it’s certainly not releasing mine. After I observed that worry-suffering, I realised that it was silly to think that way.

Sean Pig: So, the result of true care is less suffering and the result of worry is more suffering?

Shona: Yes.

Sean Rat: Would the result of true care actually be no suffering?

Red Bull: Not if it’s without wisdom, which is the second step. The first step is to observe whether the source of your suffering is over-care. Through experience and development, you create wisdom. Once you have the ability to live in that wisdom, worry can no longer create suffering.

Shona: So wisdom has the power to clean out the roots of worry. If you’re eating something and you realise that it’s poisoned, then you will stop eating it so you don’t experience the suffering of being poisoned. Wisdom means not having to wait for the result; it cleans out the cause right away.

Red Bull: What are the three powers that humans use the most?

Sean Pig: Desire, emotion, and thinking?

Red Bull: There’s one right in there.

Michelle: Thinking, speaking, and action?

Red Bull: You, too, have one right.

Sean Rat: Eyes for seeing?

Red Bull: Yes.

Simon: Hearing?

Shona: Yes.

Red Bull: So, the three main powers that we use are thinking, seeing, and hearing. What is the main one that we use?

Monkey: Seeing.

Red Bull: Correct. So, how does seeing create worry?

Giant Dog: Because we get confused by the information we see. We don’t understand the essence; we just look at its appearing form.

Red Bull: That’s correct. We don’t see the truth of life. We don’t see the true function. This influences the worry through our thinking process. We look at this appearing form (our body) and take it as our True I. We don’t see it as a collection of the four elements, or as a temple to help us develop, which is its function.

Shona: We also look at other people’s appearing form and take it as their True I. A lot of the time we are influenced by our personal preference regarding their form and that can misdirect our understanding of their true intention (e.g. desire, emotion, direction). It doesn’t even have to be a person; it can be a material object. If I see a red sports car, I might convince myself that I need it, but does that appearing form take me in a spiritual direction or will it make me more possessive towards material things?

Sean Rat: If someone has a material form which looks a certain way, doesn’t that represent their intention? For instance, someone who is overweight might have a greedy intention… where is the line between judging the appearing form and judging the consciousness behind it?

Red Bull: That’s a good question. The subject is how seeing power creates worry, so yes, the person’s intention is represented in that body, but it relates more to your relationship with that human body. You use your personal desire and emotion to judge that consciousness. If you see a beautiful girl and think “She must surely be ready to learn Spirits or she wouldn’t look so attractive”, that’s putting your desire and emotion into the judgement. It’s not letting you see clearly.

Sean Rat: I see, when you do that you’re not purely observing.

Simon: Sifu has the ability to read your subconscious based on your appearance. He said that if he has a feeling about why someone acts a certain way, he goes up to them and chats with them, asks them questions, to find out which of his feelings are correct and make that ability sharper.

Red Bull: Sifu is already living in that wisdom; being able to see someone’s intention based on their appearance is a function of that wisdom.

Simon: Knowing which questions to ask to find out what type of person they are makes the judgement more accurate.

Sean Rat: How do you judge someone before you spend time with them? Can you be a pure observer of the intention without watching their decision-making?

Sifu: I don’t judge you simply on your appearing form, I judge you by your actions. You should always give people a chance: communicate with them, check their Will, and test their emotions.

Red Bull: In summary, the way to release worry from the roots is to see all the appearing form for its function and direction.

Giant Dog: How do we define the function of someone’s appearing form?

Sifu: Shall I clarify your question? We are all here in the dojo to learn Spirits and associate with other people who want to learn Spirits. When we look at other people, how do we judge the function of their appearing form and not create worry?

Shona: Ask yourself if they value their body in a spiritual way. If someone is learning Spirits, do they care about their body? Do they treat it as a spiritual temple?

Giant Dog: But there are many consciousness with the potential to develop Spirits who don’t take care of their body.

Shona: That’s why you should always look deeper. Even though they might be overeating because of their greed, is there a side of them that is observing the Six Bodhisattva Characters, such as generosity? Don’t get lost in your own emotions, like “He’s fat, so he’ll have no chance to learn Spirits” or “She’s sexy, I hope she can learn Spirits.”

Sifu: To stop worry, you have to understand life and Spirits. That is your goal and direction. When you look at your body form, you have to remember that it’s just the four elements. If you can realise that this is a temple to help your Spirits develop and understand the truth of life, then your Spirits will increase and bring you eternal joy. When joy appears through wisdom, worry will not be created.

When you look at other life forms, try to see if they have a chance to learn that. But you cannot judge only on their appearing form, you have to judge by their character. That’s why Buddhism teaches the Six Bodhisattva Characters.

You cannot judge their appearing form based on your likes and dislikes; you have to judge by observing their intention. Do they have a good intention to develop themselves? Do they want to share with others? If so, you can use that to let them know that self-development is the most important goal. “You want to share with others but you don’t even care about yourself? What are you going to share, all your garbage? That doesn’t make sense.”

So through that intention you can make them aware that they have to take care of themselves. Then you can say “You don’t know how to make yourself healthy, why don’t I help you? That is sharing.” Eventually they get better. “Are you healthy? Are you happy? Why don’t you find others and share what you have learned with them?” You can use one good quality to develop the others.

Some people only have ego to develop themselves, but sometimes I can use that to help develop their sharing, compassion, and generosity. Some people have these characters, but don’t care to develop themselves; so I do the opposite. I share with them, show them care, and then tell them that they have to develop themselves otherwise they just bring negativity. Sharing their bad habits doesn’t make sense.

So you judge from their character, not from their appearing form, and not from your personal habit of greed or blind attachment. If you are able to understand this wisdom, the roots of worry will not even create worry any more. It’s not about cleaning out the worry for a short time; it’s about digging out the roots so it never reappears.

Worry doesn’t just come from you’re seeing power, that’s just the strongest one. If you can clean the main power, the others are easier. If you listen to music that is full of ego – shouting, talking about greed and violence – then stop listening to it. Check why you developed the habit of listening to that kind of music and clean it out. If you feel joy while listening to that kind of music, you connect to bad karma. That’s why all the music I have is spiritual. Whatever karma you connect to will return to you, even if you aren’t aware of it. A baby doesn’t know that touching fire will cause them suffering, but the suffering will surely come.

So you do have to very carefully calculate whether following your senses will bring you a bad result. When bad results come, then worry appears. Worry is all the bad experiences you have had. When you worry, they come back again. Then you over-care, and worry will be your habit. Finally you are so deep into worry that it becomes a devil power. You are responsible for allowing that devil power to grow, but it doesn’t mean that the power has to remain.

When you know how to clean out you’re seeing, hearing, and thinking powers, then your smelling, tasting, and touching powers will follow.

This post is taken from a talk by Forever Wisdom Forest on 3 September 2011 at the Sydney dojo.