9 Poisons 9 Medicines 9 Fruits

In 2016, Shambhavi gave a teaching cycle called 9 Poisons 9 Medicines 9 Fruits.

The poisons are habits of body, energy and mind that create obstacles in our spiritual practice and life in general. The medicines are circumstances that wisdom serves up to help us to clear out the poisons. The fruits are how life feels from a less karmically-conditioned perspective.

These teachings were recorded and later published as a book, Nine Poisons, Nine Medicines, Nine Fruits, by Shambhavi Sarasvati.

9 POISONS

1. self-concern at the expense of others

2. self-neglect at the expense of one’s capacity to realize

3. over-reliance on individualistic will

4. mistaking thinking about life for direct exploration and discovery

5. feeling there is a fundamental difference between success and failure

6. running after pleasure

7. avoiding pain and fear

8. mistaking good and bad and right and wrong for absolutes

9. mistaking temporary appeasements for the goal

9 MEDICINES

1. being forced to recognize the intrinsic value of others

2. feeling horror at the arising and slipping away of opportunity

3. feeling overwhelmed by circumstances and being forced to ask for help

4. feeling the loneliness that comes from maintaining a conceptual relationship to life

5. feeling exhausted by one’s own striving

6. finding one’s usual pleasures to be hollow and boring

7. recognizing the wisdom in pain and fear

8. realizing that waking life is like a painting, a drama or a dream

9. recognizing one is always dissatisfied in the end

9 FRUITS

1. delighting in caring for other beings and the world

2. attending courageously and devotedly to the conditions that make it possible to realize

3. delighting in the play of alliance

4. delighting in the creative play of communication and continuity

5. delighting in skillfully adapting to the play of circumstance

6. tasting the sweetness of everything

7. recognizing the equality of all circumstances

8. discovering ānanda – aesthetic delight in the creation

9. taking refuge only in the eternal, the natural state

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Copyright 2016 Shambhavi Sarasvati