Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 110-minute teaching, the Dalai Lama continues his series on patience by drawing a crucial distinction between outer and inner enemies. He begins with Śāntideva’s famous example of an attacker with a stick, arguing that we should not direct our anger at the wielder but rather at the anger that has overwhelmed them—a philosophical move rooted in verse 41 of the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. He then develops the framework that outer enemies (those seeking to harm us) are the proper objects of patience practice, as we are entirely dependent on other sentient beings to generate bodhicitta and progress toward enlightenment. Inner enemies—anger, hatred, jealousy—must instead be crushed without sympathy. The latter half shifts to practical application: beginning each morning with reflection on patience’s virtues and anger’s faults, then carrying that contemplative mindset through the day so patience becomes habitual. He closes with Q&A exploring subtle cases—anger toward loved ones versus true enemies, and whether enlightened beings still practice patience. Suited for practitioners already familiar with Lamrim and bodhicitta.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2012-08-08 – KR.mp3
UUID: a919d144-d5a0-4863-8798-11c9bc825b85
Teacher: HH Dalai Lama
Collection: Awakening Heart
Date: 2012-08-08
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~4,901
Yeah. Thank you. So we’re continuing tonight with our exercise in the study and practice of patience. And why is it that we are so interested in the topic of patience? That is because we’ve come to realise how dangerous anger is to ourselves and how dangerous anger is within our lives and that we need to eliminate it in order to live much better.
Now when it comes to practising patience first it is necessary to engage in correct study and research into the meaning of patience. Now usually when we engage in study or research it involves taking writing very carefully, paying attention to grammar and to specific detail in the way we write. And as we understand in the normal way of going about study and research. But when it comes to the study and research into the topic of patience it is quite different. And we begin by understanding first and foremost that in order to minimise, to lessen the impact of anger within our lives, we first must direct our attention towards patience and its study and practice.
So when it comes to thinking about the nature of the study and practice of patience, it’s something that we need to do very well. It’s something that we need to do with with an understanding of the method of trying to draw an enemy or what we might call an adversary or someone that we feel opposed to. So in using the word enemy to express not using the word enemy to express someone who is an adversary to us. So we are trying to bring the enemy closer towards our circle of nearest and dearest. And if we’re able to draw the enemy into our circle of nearest and dearest, it is a way that we’re able to minimize the way that anger arises in our lives.
And this is an important the first important point of our study and practice of patience. And it is something that requires a great deal of thinking about and thinking about in a way in which we feel well and fit and able to think clearly so that our mind works at its best. So if we were to take an example of a person that we consider to be an enemy or an adversary, so an enemy who out of anger approaches us and strikes us with a weapon or we say strikes us with a stick. Now at first when we respond to that the object of our anger in response to that action is not directed towards the stick itself. We understand it’s quite easy to understand that the stick itself is made up of matter.
It has no intention. It has no agency. It is merely an object under the control of an agent. And the agent being the person who in this instance acts as our enemy and uses the stick to strike us. Now we all know that we don’t get angry at the stick in that situation.
We know that from experience. But if we use that very same logic and analyse the situation further, we begin to see that just as the stick is without agency in many ways so too is the enemy without any real agency either. Because the enemy is under the control of anger. And it is once anger has overwhelmed them, once they have become powerless in the face of anger, then they have behaved in such a way as to strike us with a stick. Now, if we were to analyse the nature of their anger, we would see that their inherent nature is not to exist in a permanent state of anger because we know that anger is a mental state that comes and goes within the course of people’s lives.
Now if that person had an inherent nature of anger then we could say that that person exists within the nature of anger. But we know that they don’t. We know that anger is transitory and therefore they have momentarily come under the sway of anger. So if we think about this because of anger, because of jealousy, because of hatred, the agent has become overwhelmed and they have become disempowered and they are acting without control. Much like the example when we were thinking of the stick itself.
So knowing that the agent, the person who is wielding the stick has little power to act in that situation because of being under the power of anger, hatred, and jealousy, then we we it is easier for us to feel some compassion towards them. We see them in some ways as victim of that anger rather than a representation of a permanently existing state of anger. Now this is where we have the verse from verse 41 from Śāntideva’s text. Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, Bodhicaryāvatāra. We remember that in verse 41 Śāntideva wrote, if I become angry with the wielder, although I am actually harmed by the his stick, then since he too is secondary, being in turn incited by hatred, I should be angry with this hatred instead.
Now this is one of the very profound insight that Śāntideva makes in order to enable us to direct our investigative intent attention towards who is really to be pitied in this situation. Who is it that we should feel hatred for? If we should not feel hatred towards the perpetrators, we should feel hatred towards hatred itself. Because it is what is overpowering the agent who used the stick to strike us in the first place. And it’s a very important, way of analyzing the situation that Śāntideva alerts us to.
So thinking like that, using that method of analysis into that scenario is of great benefit to our minds and to our investigation into the nature of patience. And Geshe-la remarks on the fact that all of us here have much experience in study and we’ve all received schooling and we are familiar with the methods and techniques that are important to apply to study in order to get the best possible results from our endeavor. Now there are of course people who aren’t very experienced in study and struggle with it, but Geshe-la thinks that everyone here probably has had positive experiences of study and knows how to use their mind to extract the best out of the efforts they apply to studying. And if you are able to apply that to this study, this chapter on patience, it will be of great benefit and you have a great head start by already being familiar with the methods and the practice of study. So when it comes to understanding and identifying what we mean by enemy in Buddhism we refer to two kinds of enemies that there would be two kinds of enemies.
The first we identify, we point to the enemy of anger, hatred and jealousy. Okay. These are the enemies within Buddhism that are first and foremost when we seek to define what is an enemy. Now earlier in verse 20, Śāntideva said, the victorious warriors are those who having disregarded all suffering vanquished the foes of hatred and so forth. Common warriors slay only corpses.
So you remember back to that verse it was talking about normal worldly warfare where people were considered brave going out into the conventional warfare. And Śāntideva was referring us to the fact that when it comes to identifying enemies, the external enemy, the enemies we have in the course of our worldly life, that’s easy to see and identify and understand who they are. But in terms of the inner enemies, the inner enemies are the more dangerous and the ones that we must clearly identify. They are enemies such as anger, hatred and jealousy. So that was verse 20.
So when we identify enemy, we identify in our practice that there are two kinds of enemy, the outer enemy and the inner enemies. So when we refer to the outer enemy, this is where we need to apply our practice of patience. We understand within the Buddhist tradition that we are motivated to actually be of benefit to this outer enemy. That we hope that we are able to practice patience and that we are able to rise above the situation and not only practice the patience, but in some way be of benefit to the person, to the aggressor. And this is how we regard external outer enemies.
However, the second kind of enemy, the inner enemy, When it comes to dealing with this inner enemy, the techniques of applying patience and bringing benefit does not apply. That applies only to the outer enemies, to the outer adversaries that we face. When it comes to the enemies that we experience within our own mind, it is important for us not to have any sympathy for these enemies. These are the enemies that will trick and fool us into behaving in all kinds of ways that could lead us to psychological ruin. Now this enemy, this internal enemy needs to be crushed and it needs to be eliminated.
There is no sense as there is with the outer enemy that you’re going to placate it, that you’ll somehow help it, that in some way there’ll be benefit arising from being nice to it. That does not apply. That merely applies for the outer enemy. So when we make this analysis of inner enemy and outer enemy, patience is applied to the outer enemies. But when it comes to these inner enemies, patient it is inappropriate to use patience.
It is inappropriate to use patience and sympathy and to in any way allow it to abide. It is a vital importance that we crush this inner enemy without sympathy and with the determination to eliminate it entirely. And looking at outer and inner enemies in such a way is very beneficial to our mind and to our practice. So when we get angry, we all have the experience of getting angry. When we are angry there are lots of things about which we can get angry.
Okay? So there are a lot of things about we can get angry. There are thoughts and there are objects which can be the object of our anger. Now this kind of practice when we talk about practising patients, this is not what we really are talking about when it comes to the practice of patients. When it comes to the practice of patience, it refers more specifically to when we are confronted by an enemy or an adversary who is causing us harm.
So in the first instance we’re talking about things that frustrate and annoy us and mental states that aggravate us. And now when we don’t necessarily call the practice of patience in those situations. The practice of patience refers to when we are confronted by an adversary who is intending to harm us. Now we will do a couple of minutes of setting our thinking in terms of this understanding of patience. And we’ll just take a couple of minutes to sit in meditation on this.
So now understanding in terms of the practice of patience with the practice of patience requires this enemy or adversary. We’re talking about the outer enemy of course. So if we return to the root text of Śāntideva now, we understand that we’re trying to engage in practices that enable us to cultivate the status of a bodhisattva. That we’re engaging in the trainings of a bodhisattva. Now in order to engage in such trainings we are totally dependent upon other living beings.
So just as we, if we want to be able to practice patience, we are dependent upon outer adversaries, outer enemies. So if we want to attain the state of Buddhahood, if we wish to progress through the stages of spiritual development to the point of attaining the state of Buddhahood, we are entirely dependent upon other living beings. Now on the one hand we can say that from the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas and the teachers that we are given a vast array of methods that we’re able to use in order to progress upon our spiritual path. But in order to put any of these methods into practice, we rely entirely upon other living beings. So therefore it can be said that we are just as dependent upon the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as we are on other living beings for us progressing along the spiritual path towards attaining the ultimate state of enlightenment.
So if we read verse 112 from Śāntideva’s chapter on patience. It says, therefore the mighty one has said that the field of sentient beings is similar to a Buddha field for many who have pleased them have thereby reached perfection. So on the basis of sentient beings, the basis of other living beings, we’re able to cultivate the practices that enable bodhicitta to arise within our minds to develop loving compassion and kindness and such qualities. They all depend upon sentient beings. Now we might think that we only need to reserve our reverence for the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas because they are after all worthy of great respect and worthy of being revered.
Why on earth should we imagine that we need to revere other living beings? Now maybe we have people who are nearest and dearest to us. Maybe that makes sense that they’re the ones that we should have some reverence for. How is it that we should have reverence for all living beings? Well it is because of the fact that it is dependent upon this whole spectrum of other living beings that we are able to engage in the practices that have been set forth for us by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
So in verse 113 Śāntideva writes, A Buddha’s qualities are gained from sentient beings and the conquerors alike. So why do I not respect them in the same way as I respect the conquerors? So we might come to doubt that there should be such equal, that our reverence should be spread between the Buddha’s Bodhisattvas and all other living beings saying that the Buddha’s and the Bodhisattvas Vajrasattvas have very special qualities. They’ve practiced and they’ve been able to generate the mind of bodhicitta. And on the basis of these great qualities and their spiritual endeavor, they are worthy of great respect.
How could we dare classify normal other run of the mill living beings as being worthy of reverence as well? And again, it is stressed that we can’t practise these in order to attain these qualities. The other living beings are needed for us to use within our practice. So it is upon absolute dependence on other living beings that we can engage in these practices that generate the qualities that eventually culminate in the state of Buddhahood. So in verse 114, Śāntideva says, of course they are not similar in the quality of their intentions, but only in the fruits that they produce.
So it is in this respect that they have excellent qualities and are therefore said to be equal. So therefore we come to the understanding that based on our reliance upon other living beings, are able to generate loving kindness and compassion and thereby accumulate great virtue. And by accumulating great virtue, we are then enabled to attain the state of the Buddhas. So we therefore must understand that the Buddhas and other living beings are equal in that regard in the fact that they give us the opportunity to engage in practice and attain the state of Buddhahood. Whatever merit comes from venerating one with a loving mind is due to the eminence of sentient beings.
So that is where we refer to being able to practise compassion and thereby practise compassion to the point of generating complete bodhicitta. And in the same way, the merit of having faith in a Buddha is due to the eminence of the Buddha. So in the same way that this is verse 115. So in the same way we can say that we are attaining these qualities and the accumulating these virtues in equal dependence upon the Buddhas and other living beings. So the qualities of when we are talking about internal qualities, the qualities of the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, the qualities that they possess are truly vast.
And it really is incomparable to the qualities that normal living beings possess. So we really can’t say there’s any similarity between the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and normal living beings in terms of the nature of the qualities they possess in terms of internal mental qualities. So we rely on other sentient beings in order to engage in our practice. But this is not to be confused with the idea that other living beings in any way possess the qualities of a Buddha because the qualities of the Buddha are vast. So verse 116 says, therefore they are asserted to be equal in the share they have in establishing Buddha qualities.
But none of them are equal in good qualities with the Buddhas who are boundless oceans of excellence. So even if the three realms are offered, it would be insufficient in paying veneration to those few beings in whom a mere share of the good qualities of the unique assemblage of excellence appears. Onto verse 118. Thus since sentient beings have a share in giving rise to the supreme Buddha qualities, surely it is correct to venerate them as they are similar in merely this respect. So we make the distinction between the veneration we have for the Buddhas and bodhisattvas on the basis of the qualities they possess and veneration we have other living beings on the basis of the potential they represent for us in order to engage in the practices that give rise to the qualities that are essential for us progressing on the spiritual path and ultimately attaining the state of Buddhahood.
Did you find? Good. So when we consider the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas and His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, a great practitioner of such levels, we understand that they have a vast and a profound love for all living beings, equally for all living beings. And they have that vast love and compassion for them on the basis of having generated the mind of enlightenment, the mind of bodhicitta. Okay?
Now if the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and the great practitioners such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama have such a deep love for all living beings, it is extremely inappropriate that we should not have the same kind of love for other living beings as well. How could it be that we should think ill towards the very beings that the Dalai Lama and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have such great love towards? Okay, so this is the question. How could we make such a distinction as that? Verse 119 says, furthermore, what way is there to repay the Buddhas who grant immeasurable benefit and who befriend world without pretension other than by pleasing sentient beings?
So remembering that today is the second last night of the teachings on patience and that we will finish next week. We can reflect on the fact that we have done a great deal of investigation into the nature of patients. And we understand very clearly that merely studying patience is not enough and that it is something that must be put into practise and it is something that must be put into practise regularly and consistently throughout our lives. So we’ve talked about every morning thinking about patience, thinking about patience and the virtues of patience, the benefits of patience and thinking deeply upon the vast array of faults of anger and the dangers of anger. And this thinking deeply in such a way is what leads us towards an understanding of patience and the ability to engage in the practice of patience.
So that when we are confronted by an adversary in our daily lives that we will not be so prone to anger in a way that we were previously. But we will carry within our minds an understanding of the virtues of patience, the faults of anger and the need of engaging in the practice of patience. So when we wake in the morning, if we are able to devote a small time to thinking about patience and reflecting on patience, the value of patience and hold some semblance of that thought throughout within our mind throughout the course of our waking day, throughout the twelve hour course of our waking day. Then we will be able to feel a great benefit because we will slowly begin to habituate ourselves to the practice of patience and it will become instinctive within us to practice patience in situations where previously we may have once become angry. So when we think about love and compassion and trying to generate bodhicitta is of great benefit to our mind and it’s something that we can hold within our minds and that we can most clearly benefit from.
And when it comes now there are times where we wake in the morning and we read through the various sadhanas of our practices, whether it be Yamāntaka or Vajrayoginī or some tantric sādhana that we think that we have commitment to recite. And it’s easy to recite this and then roll it up at the end of the session and put it away and then not carry much into the course of the day. In terms of practicing properly these tantric practices, it is quite difficult to carry this through our everyday living. However, when it comes to patience and cultivating the mind of loving kindness and compassion and generating an understanding of and therefore a practice of patience, It is of great benefit. It is something that is attainable.
And it will be attained if we engage in a consistent practice of both the reflection upon the meanings of patience and engaging in the practice of it through the course of the days is something that we will most definitely be able to experience the results from if we go about it consistently and meaningfully? Now there has few minutes left. So have you a question? Do you know everybody? Oh, good.
Yeah. Yeah. And so when you say people, are these adversaries or someone you consider an enemy? Or just people that we are neutral towards? So in the situation where you get your annoyance with people and your guarding against become that annoyance turning into anger is something Śāntideva refers to where we require vigilance to attend to those mental states, but it’s not necessarily what we would call patients in this context, but it is similar to patience, but it’s not necessarily what we would define as patience in this context.
Yeah. And clean. So you’re saying who accumulates the? Do they accumulate virtue or do we? So that in a way references what we were just talking about from the verse where it was said that even though an enemy has no intention for us to accumulate virtue when an enemy makes us angry.
And on the basis of that we practise patience. We accumulate virtue by practising patience. By practising patience the enemy does not have the intention to do that. So that was in one of the verses we’ve covered. So in that sense, that’s a similar scenario.
But there is that person to practise patience and therefore they’ll be happier and better off for doing it. But in terms of us, because we’re acting without intention, there’s nothing we gain within our mind from that behaviour at all. So we go back to the definition of something that Geshe-la has said on I think it was last week or the week before. When we get angry at the people who are nearest and dearest to us, the people who are nearest and dearest to us, the context is a loving scenario. This is the context in which something has happened that has caused us to get angry.
So this kind of anger and that kind of the stimulant of what stimulant, what provokes that anger because the scenario or the context is within one’s loved ones then it’s not considered to be an enemy in the sense of what we have been talking about the kind of enemy who seriously wishes to inflict harm upon us. And Geshe-la gave the example of, if you have a child and you’re looking after a child and sometimes, the anger arises in that relationship. It is always happening within a context that love precedes and will come subsequent to that moment of anger. So the context is defined by the overall lovingness of the scenario. Rather, but when we have been talking about enemies, the enemy is really someone who is outside our circle of love and who has, for whom we have no loving affection and thereby completely external and distant to us.
Geshe-la in Tibetan when he talks about that he refers to distance, an enemy that’s a long way out and the loved ones being nearby. So the enemies are the ones that are outside our circle of love and the ones who are inside our circle of love it doesn’t get called enemy. So in that scenario where you’re trying to navigate through feelings of anger It’s similar to patience but it doesn’t quite fulfil the criteria of what the patience we’re talking about which is the hardcore patience of serious enemies. Good word for? So Geshe-la says it’s similar, but just doesn’t fulfill.
But it’s similar, similar to patience. I can invent a word. But maybe just what Geshe-la was saying is that it’s similar to patience. But it’s not patience, but what we’ve been talking about. Don’t close it.
Good, good. Very good. I’m joking. Finish. So to attain that state, they have practiced it.
So they wouldn’t attain that state without practising it. So once they have attained that state, no, they’re not practising patients. They have no adversary. So they would never practice patience. But that’s only a mental state that’s been reached on the basis of accumulating virtue.
So their continual practice of patience prior to attaining the state of the bodhisattva, they have become so habituated to it. It is so instinctively part of their mind. There’s no longer a sense of is this a moment to practice patience because they have become so habituated to it we can say it is similar to them having that within the nature of their mind. Similar to patience in the sense that it’s not an extreme situation. However, it’s undeniable that working scenarios can become a heavy atmosphere where people are prone to being unfriendly to each other.
And what all we can do in such a situation is to take ownership of our own thinking, our own motivations, and the way we represent ourselves to other people. And that’s by presenting with gestures, with our body language, and with the way we talk, and most importantly the intention that we have to coexist happily with them. With the idea being that that will in some ways contribute to in your immediate personal relations, lessening the possibilities of anger impacting upon you. But it is definitely a scenario where you have to be careful and it’s very similar to practising patience as we’ve been talking about it. But in the context of our definitions of patience it’s only similar to what patience is defined as what we’ve done in the text.
So that’s a valid way of saying the difference. So there’s a way that we could say that in terms of the nature of patience as it is directed towards this external enemy seeking to harm us and that, when we talk about the patience we apply to situations that aren’t as grievous as that. Geshe-la has always said it’s like patience. So, we can say that it is similar in nature to patience but the intensity is what is less. It is similar to the nature of patients and we would say the patients of this external enemy certainly harm us.
This is, one hundred percent patience. But the patience that we apply in a situation of either the office or the home, this is low intensity patience. So if that’s okay. Yes? Yeah.
Is there any concept like that? So that’s the same within any culture and any tradition wherever you go in the four directions on the planet, whether the people with blonde hair or black hair or whatever colors of their faces, there is always desirous attachment. There is always love that turns into hatred. It exists throughout every culture. And yes, it comes from desirous attachment.
And because desirous attachment is everywhere, then this scenario is everywhere, exists everywhere. So yes, there are places that exist. For example, it’s easy to see the harm that hungry ghosts cause and hell, these are places that definitely exist. There’s also metaphorical expressions of states of mind, but they are also places that exist.
Key terms in this teaching
- bodhicitta jang chub sem (Tib)
- A principal consciousness that combines the two factors of wishing to free all beings from suffering and of wishing to attain enlightenment in order to achieve that; the spontaneous altruistic mind of enlightenment can be either aspirational or engaging. LYWA
- bodhisattva jang chub sem pa (Tib)
- One who possesses bodhicitta. LYWA
- buddha field buddhakshetra (Skt); sang gye kyi zhing (Tib)
- In some ways synonymous with pure land, although it can also mean any pure environment, seen as a manifestation of wisdom. LYWA
- lamrim
- The graduated path. A presentation of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teachings in a form suitable for the step-by-step training of a disciple. LYWA
- loving kindness maitri (Skt); yi ong jam pa (Tib)
- In the context of the seven points of cause and effect, the wish for all beings to have happiness, with the added dimension of yi ong (beautiful or affectionate)... LYWA
- three realms traidhatu (Skt); kham sum (Tib)
- The desire, form and formless realms. LYWA
Definitions adapted from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive glossary, as taught in the Gelug tradition.