Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche explores Śāntideva’s meditation on patience, opening with a striking image: a single pollutant taints clean water just as anger corrupts the mind’s purity. He positions our real battle not against external enemies but against afflictive emotions themselves. The talk’s core—why suffering is beneficial—unfolds carefully: it cuts through pride, stirs determination to escape cyclic existence, awakens compassion for all beings in the same cycle, and reveals the karmic roots of pain. This understanding redirects us from anger toward skillful action. Rinpoche closes with student questions on practical application: whether expressing anger releases it, how to work with difficult people, and when right action differs from passive acceptance. For practitioners already engaged in Dharma study.
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File: 1988-11-14 – 2B – Patience – KR.mp3
UUID: 71b2a74f-6c64-4439-a68e-eedabd45ed83
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Date: 1988-11-14
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,423
This is, you know, even if, you know, if we add just a small amount of pollutants to clean water, it pollutes the entire body of water. And likewise, if we allow our mind to become angry, then purity of our mind is lost and thereby the happiness and the peace of our mind is lost. Therefore, it’s said that the Bodhisattvas and those who are wise in the ways of the mind always guard their mind and do not allow it to become angry and always remain patient. So, you know, in the world when is when soldiers are engaging in battle, have to endure a great deal of suffering and difficulty in fighting. And then finally overcoming all their difficulties overcoming and going through all their suffering, overcome their enemy and become the victors in the battle.
Likewise, you know, as far as the Dharma is concerned, we’re engaged in a battle with the enemy of the afflictive emotions. And in battling the afflictive emotions, we’re going to have to experience some difficulties and have to go through some types of suffering in this process. But the end result is that by overcoming our enemy then to the degree that we overcome the afflictive emotions, then to that same degree we’re going to become happier and happier. Yes. Yes, Yeah.
So, you know, the real brave person is one who overcomes the enemy. If someone were, you know, once the enemy died and we just go up and cut up the corpse, chop up the corpse, we wouldn’t call such a person brave. He wouldn’t be much of a hero. But the, so in this sense the common soldiers, the common warriors are merely slayers of corpses. They don’t have the bravery of really overcoming the real enemy, the afflictive emotions.
So the enemy of a Dharma practitioner and enemy of a worldly person are quite different. For a Dharma practitioner, enemy that is the source of our suffering are the afflictive emotions, and this is the enemy which is to be overcome. The Śāntideva has the idea that at times suffering can be a good thing. It has many good qualities. So suffering has many good qualities.
So, you know, when we experience some kind of mental or physical pain, suffering, we’re, you know, we’re not happy. We don’t like that. So, you know, we begin to reflect. We begin to ask ourselves, you know, where is this pain coming from? Where are my difficulties?
Where is my suffering coming from? What is the source? It’s just like, you know, a prisoner. When he’s in prison he is unhappy. He doesn’t want to be in prison.
And because he begins to reflect on his position due to his unhappiness, he begins to say, I want to get out. You know, I want be free from this prison. And begins to think, How can I get out of this prison? What are the methods? This is all his determination and thinking about how to get out of his prison.
It all comes about because he’s not happy in the prison. It causes him suffering. So if he did not become aware if, you know, if he did not experience suffering within his prison, if he didn’t become aware of his own unhappiness, then he would not develop the determination to be free to get out of prison, and therefore he would never get out. Likewise, we’re within the prison of cyclic existence. And so if we reflect upon the various types of suffering within cyclic existence, we’ll develop the determination to be liberated, to be free from our suffering.
And in developing this determination to be free from our suffering of cyclic existence, we’re going to begin to look around and search for a method, the actual means to get ourselves out of this prison of cyclic existence. And so this all becomes the source finding, becomes the source of eliminating our suffering and becomes the source of our happiness, that is our awareness or reflecting upon the fact of our suffering. So, you know, suffering also has the excellent quality of being able to eliminate the afflictive emotions of such states as pride and arrogance, you know, when everything is going well and we think we’re on top of the world. And we develop a lot of pride, a lot of arrogance about how wonderful we might be. And then, but the moment we begin that we experience suffering, then this moment of suffering brings us back down to earth.
It completely eliminates all our arrogance and pride that we had. And therefore, the awareness can that suffering can actually begin to help us to eliminate our afflictive emotions. And likewise, in dependence upon developing an understanding of our own situation, own, you know, becoming beginning to recognize our own suffering, becoming aware of its extent, and we can direct this same understanding to others that all sentient beings in cyclic existence are in the same position that we’re in. And therefore, in this way, we begin to develop compassion for all sentient beings in cyclic existence. Therefore, suffering has the ability or the potential to help us develop compassion.
And finally, considering our suffering that we’re experiencing, go on to question, you know, well, how does this suffering come about? What is, you know, what is it a result of? And we can come to understand that our suffering is a result of the various negative actions of wrong types of conduct. And therefore, we begin to abandon, to cease engaging in these wrong types of conduct and turn toward more skillful and more productive types of ways of acting, and thereby find happiness. That this is all dependent upon suffering.
So, you know, thinking in this way that the source of all my problems, my difficulties, you know, are my unskillful actions, my negative actions that I’m constantly creating and therefore turning your mind away from these negative actions and beginning to engage in more positive, productive types of actions. This transformation of the nature of your actions from unskillful to skillful is all brought about through awareness of suffering. So it said that, you know, we shouldn’t think that suffering is completely bad You know, there’s nothing to be gained from suffering, or in fact that’s not the case. You know, suffering and developing awareness of suffering, beginning to identify suffering, then we’re going to begin to transform our actions, the way we act from those types of actions which produce suffering to those which produce the predominance of happiness and become more skillful in the types of conduct and the ways that we think. And that we will develop in dependence upon seeing our own, recognizing our own suffering, and extending this to other sentient beings.
We develop compassion towards them. So in this way we develop another excellent quality of compassion. And finally, in dependence upon our awareness, recognizing our suffering, we develop the thought to finally be free from our suffering altogether and develop the determination to be liberated, to be free from suffering and to gain complete happiness. So, know, Śāntideva presents a little debate, you know, if we if we think that it’s suitable to become angry at whatever that causes us suffering, then why is it that when we get certain types of diseases which cause us suffering? For example, he mentions jaundice.
When we get jaundice, it causes suffering, but we don’t get angry at that suffering. Then it’s not just because something causes us suffering, it’s not a sign that it’s suitable that we should always become angry at it. So just as we don’t get angry at inanimate objects such as sickness that causes suffering, it’s also not just as it’s not suitable to get angry at inanimate objects which bring us suffering, such as jaundice, likewise it’s not suitable to develop anger at animate objects that is to say, sentient beings or people who cause us suffering when we consider the great benefit that sentient beings actually bring us. So it’s said that, you know, with if we develop anger, then we can’t develop love, we can’t develop compassion, because anger and love and compassion are mutually exclusive. They’re opposites.
And therefore, not being able to develop any degree of love and compassion, we won’t be able to involve ourselves in any skillful and productive types of actions or karmas. And therefore, this is where our happiness actually comes from. It’s said that the heart or the root of Dharma is love and compassion. By, you know, if we allow ourselves to become angry, then our, we completely lose our practice of Dharma. And not only that, in doing that, then we lose all the possibilities of productive and skillful ways of acting, which will ultimately bring us happiness.
So maybe we’ll have some questions now. We’ll have some questions. Question? If I’m angry with a friend of mine for something that might have happened, if I don’t express that, the problem can continue. So I So, expressing your anger might help you to get rid of your that present moment’s anger, But the seed of anger is still there and when the seed, when the conditions meet the seed, then anger will rise again.
It’s just like in a tree we can keep picking the branches off and the leaves off and keep cutting off the branches, but it keeps growing and growing and growing continually. If we really want to get rid of the tree, we have to cut it off at its roots and then finally we can be finished with it. And likewise with our anger, we should rather than just try to alleviate, you know, moments every moment of anger just by expressing it, try to work in a more profound way and actually get at the root of our anger and get rid of that all at once and then we’re finished with it once and for all. Just expressing it each time, then we’re never actually removing the seed. Potential for becoming angry is always present.
When you become angry? In general? So, you know, when you become angry, you should think, Oh, this is no good. This isn’t going to help. This isn’t going to work.
This isn’t going to help the situation. It’s making me it’s going to make me unhappy. It’s going to make the other person unhappy. It’s a very unskillful type of action. That is to say, we have to reflect upon all the disadvantages, all the drawbacks of anger.
And this is the best method for beginning to reduce anger, just considering all the drawbacks, all the disadvantages of anger. Should you say a particular person, you react with anger with a particular person a lot. Is it better to avoid that person So, yeah, so this, you know, this person acts as the condition giving rise to your anger. And so, you know, when you come in contact with this particular condition, anger rises. So it’s better not to come in contact with that person.
So you have to prepare yourself. You know, before you meet this person, you know you’re going to meet this person, so you have to strengthen your motivation, your intention, thinking that, you know, no matter what this person says, no matter what this person does does, I’m not going I’m going to be careful. I’m going to be aware. I’m not going to allow myself to become angry. So it’s like preparing yourself just before you make this strengthen your intention, your determination.
So the first day it’s difficult. But then you begin to acquaint yourself with being aware and this determination and the strength in your mind not to allow yourself to become angry. And then one day passing and you meet this person and it’s difficult, and the next day it’s not quite so difficult. And in a month’s time maybe you can meet this person and it’s not as difficult as it was on the first day, just through the power of acquainting yourself. So it becomes easier.
And then also meditate on love and compassion, and this will help improve the conditions that reduce the anger. And recognizing that the anger is not a positive way of dealing with the situation, but focusing back on the situation and trying to let me sit on the side or perhaps So, let’s try that again. Run that by one more time. So, there’s a, there’s a, what, how you say it? Well, I guess just on a very superficial level, but I think I’m searching for something that’s not on a superficial level, to passively accept something.
A wrong As an alternative to anger wouldn’t be useful either, would it? So it’s a it’s some kind of bad situation? It would be a situation, any situation, that would cause a first reaction of anger. And that’s not a skillful reaction. But it’s not skillful just to be passive accepting of of something.
So, first, there would be two types of situations that could exist. One would be, it doesn’t, the situation, I mean, doesn’t matter. There’s not, you can’t benefit the situation. There’s no purpose in considering the situation. It would only become a source of irritation.
So, in that case, it’s better just to forget it. But then there’s types of situations which need to be acted upon in some way. So you have to think, you know, how can I benefit this situation? How can I improve this situation? Maybe I have to talk to this person.
Maybe I have to change things. And thinking this way, How can I improve the situation, benefit the situation? You won’t become angry. As a matter of fact, you’ll be beginning to change the conditions which would act as change the situation which would act as a condition for you to become angry and to alleviate that condition. So, you can think of what you can do to benefit the situation to improve it, and thinking in this way, this won’t allow you to become angry.
But if there’s no benefit to be derived in thinking about the situation, it’s better just to forget about it. If you can’t do anything about it, can’t if develop a beneficial intention to change it for the better, then maybe it’s better just to forget about it.