Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 98-minute teaching on patience, Kyabje Rinpoche draws on Śāntideva’s Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra to trace anger’s nine roots and show why it’s futile. Anger arises from three sources—harm to oneself, loved ones, enemies—and only multiplies suffering without benefit. The remedy is patience developed through deliberate habituation: each time you meet an insult with tolerance rather than reaction, your capacity to bear difficulty grows. Śāntideva shows that suffering itself has gifts: it cuts through pride, awakens the urge to escape saṃsāra, and opens compassion for all beings. The teaching includes practical Q&A on expressing anger, handling relationships that trigger it, and how to act skillfully—neither angrily nor passively—when change is needed. For practitioners familiar with the bodhisattva path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1988-11-14 – Patience – KR.mp3
UUID: 4710c51f-cf6e-4837-b267-57e8e01880a5
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Date: 1988-11-14
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~5,328
So we should develop the intention, the thought that we’re going to listen to this, to the teaching in order to help others, to help them, to bring them complete peace and happiness. So the great master Śāntideva has said that there there are many disadvantages to anger. For example, that we ourselves and those around us become unhappy when someone is angry. So how is anger generated and what is the way it develops? What is its object and what does its cause?
They like goo goo. Gu. So there’s said to be nine causes for the development of anger. So there are three, to these nine causes there are three roots. And the first is oneself, the individual person.
Then there’s one’s loved ones, and then there’s one’s enemies. So those are the three roots. So with respect to the self, we can begin with looking at the fact that one possible cause with respect to the self for generating anger is the thought thinking that this person has before caused me some trouble, has caused me some suffering in the past. And not only that, but in this present situation, they’re causing me difficulties and problems. And in the future, they’re going to cause me problems.
So it’s dependent upon these three possible types of causes in respect to one’s individual self, and the fact that someone may have caused you difficulties in the past, they’re causing you difficulties now, or there’s a thought that they’re going to cause you difficulties in the future. And dependence upon these three causes with respect to the self, then we develop anger. Then with respect to the second route, that is one’s loved ones, those who one holds dear. This can be relatives, it can be husband or wife, it can be children, mother or father or good friends, anyone that you hold dear. Taking these as objects of observation, we think that a third party has brought them harm in the past, has caused them troubles in the past, or is that present causing them trouble and difficulties, or will in the future cause our loved ones difficulties and problems, and therefore there is these three causes with respect to those we hold dear.
Then with the third root, that is our enemies. Enemies are people that we don’t like. We don’t like to see our enemies get ahead. We don’t like to see them develop any good qualities or any good things happen to them. So when somebody helps them and helps them develop their good qualities or helps them to get ahead or helps them to become rich for example, then we resent that and we resent the person that’s helping them.
We don’t like that. So with respect to those who help develop our enemies, in any way help our enemies, in the past, we develop anger. Those who are helping our enemies in the present we develop anger. And with respect to those who will help our enemies in the future we develop anger. There’s three causes with respect to our enemies.
So, we can develop all these three objects that are suitable for us to develop anger with respect to, you know, in dependence upon the root of the individual, in dependence upon that the three causes with respect to those who we hold dear and with respect to our enemy. in dependence upon each of those, there are three causes which if we think about, we can develop. If we were to mull this over in our mind, we could develop anger. But with respect to the enemy, if someone were to ask you, what has this enemy done to you? Are all the things that is, in what ways have they harmed you?
In what ways have they caused you to hold this person as an enemy? And some of the possible answers that you might give are the facts that, well this person, they spoke very harsh words at me and they called me bad things, for example. Or that because of them I wasn’t able to get what I wanted, for example, you know, money or some type of position, that they kept me from getting what I wanted. Or that perhaps they talked about you behind your back to other people and they kept putting you down and because of that other people don’t like you. So these are some of the possible reasons that we might give for saying why we hold this person as our enemy.
And likewise, we could use the same types of reasons for if we were asked why we hold this person our enemy, why we are getting angry at them, that they did the same things to those who we hold dear. They talked about the people we love, our wife or our husband or something like that. They spoke to them with harsh words, they hurt their feelings, that they kept them from getting what they wanted, whether it’s money or position, and that they talk behind their backs and because of that people don’t like them. So all these reasons we can apply equally to getting angry because our enemy did this to the people we hold dear, the people we love. And then for the person who is helping our enemy, who perhaps gives him all kinds of gifts, gives him money or whatever, some kinds of various types of possessions or praises that person, goes around telling what a great person our enemy is, and dependence upon that we generate anger.
We have to begin to understand that such a mind of anger is in no way of any benefit. It’s completely negative in all ways. That when one is experiencing anger, one’s own mind is unhappy. And those around you, your husband or your wife are made unhappy. Your home is made in there becomes lots of conflicts in the home, and your environment becomes unharmonious due to anger.
So, additionally, we create a great many negative actions or negative karma to the force of our anger. But, you know, if we look at the situation that we exist within, there are many sources of suffering and there are very few sources of real happiness. And so by becoming angry, we are simply adding more sources of suffering to ourselves and to others. And in fact, we are unable to Due to the force of our anger, sources which could be a source of happiness are temporarily unable to bring us any happiness. So we are adding unhappiness to what is predominantly unhappy situation perhaps and we’re actually preventing those possibilities of happiness from arising for us during the time that we’re angry.
So there are an infinite number of possible sources of suffering. And if we were to get angry at every source that brought us suffering, you know, we would be constantly angry people. You know, we go outside and the sun burns, get sunburned and we suffer. So we get angry at the sun. You know we go outside and it’s windy and we get windburn.
You know we get harsh dried up skin and we suffer. So we get angry at the wind. We’re walking along, step on a thorn, and suffer and we get angry at the thorn. If we went on like this, then there would never be a time when we weren’t angry. So some people, if they were to like knock over the flower vase with their hand, they would see their hand as a source of suffering and they would get angry at their hand or they would get angry at the vase and they would slam their hand down in anger and then break their hand and they’d get angry even more at the suffering that arose.
So with such a type of mind that’s constantly involved in anger, constantly unsettled, then you know we can’t, when we try to sleep we can’t sleep, when we eat we can’t really enjoy our food, it doesn’t have a pleasant taste. When other people try to speak kindly to us, you know, speak with pleasant words, We aren’t able to feel their kindness. We aren’t able to feel the force of their pleasant words. In fact, everything just becomes a source of negativity. We can’t enjoy anything.
In all these various ways, it isn’t of any use. And in fact, so we have to begin to try to stabilize our mind to develop a firm mind which doesn’t allow itself to become angry. So within the great vehicle of the Mahāyāna, all the various difficulties, suffering that we experience are to be seen as a means to benefit oneself. That the suffering that we incur is for we can transform it into a means for benefiting others and benefiting ultimately our own liberation. So there’s a verse from the text which reads, If some ascetics and the people of Karnata endure the pain of cuts and burns for no reason, and for the sake of liberation why have I no courage?
And so the Karnapakas are devotees of Īśvara and they endure a great many ascetic practices such as making offerings, burning their finger as a type of offering, remaining in the sun for long, burning themselves in the sun, cutting themselves and things of this. If these people are able to perform such actions, ascetic actions, bringing harm to themselves, which in fact are meaningless, then why can’t we, for something which has great meaning, have such courage? So these various devotees of Īśvara, for example, in South India, in Karnataka, They perform various types of animal sacrifices. ascetic practices where they bring cutting their fingers and burning their fingers. They bring a great deal of suffering to themselves.
Now if these people can bring such types of suffering to themselves which in fact have no benefit, have no productive result, are that meaningless, then why can’t we, for the sake of all sentient beings, endure a little bit of suffering? So the text goes on by explaining that there is nothing whatsoever that is not made easier through acquaintance. So through becoming acquainted with small harms we become we should learn how to be patient and then with greater harm. And this is simply that if we experience some little suffering and in response to that we’re able to control our anger, Then through habituation, becoming acquainted with this process of developing our tolerance, then we can the next time we’ll be able to endure a little more suffering and not become angry, a little more difficult situation and not become angry, and eventually we can increase our ability, our tolerance level will increase higher and higher to the point where nothing, no types of suffering or harm can bring us anger or cause us anger. Initially, there was a time when we couldn’t even write the alphabet.
You know, A, B, C. We had it was extremely difficult. We had to apply a great deal of effort just to shape each of the A, B, C, each of the letters. But now when we write it becomes very natural. We don’t even have to think about it.
And this is a process, it simply comes about through a process of acquaintance, through habituation, and likewise this can be applied to anything. And likewise, if someone were to say some little, a small word to us, with some type of putting this down or some type of harsh word. And if we don’t answer, we don’t react, we just, know, thinking, oh, it doesn’t matter. That is practicing some patience and tolerance. Then the next day we’ll be able to, due to acquainting ourselves with that state of tolerance, the next day we’ll be able to, he can say something a little more harsh, a little harsher, a more harsher word.
And we also can be able to not react. We can maintain our tolerance due to our tolerance. We become angry. We can maintain our patience. And then this can keep increasing, increasing, increasing.
So the mind is a very wonderful thing from this point of view. Its ability to increase whatever quality that we choose. And whatever work we might engage in, whether it’s the Dharma, or whatever type of action, whether it’s Dharma or just worldly actions. At first, everything that we do, the first time that we do it is difficult. But through acquaintance, it becomes easier and easier.
And we can develop this ability of ease with any type of action without limit. This is the wonderful quality of the mind that it can become so acquainted with some type of action that it becomes our second nature. It becomes perfectly easy. We don’t even have to think about it, and this can be developed without limit. So, you know, it’s our experience of suffering is very much dependent upon what we recognize as suffering.
You know, in the case of minor sufferings which used to be, we used to conceive of as suffering, for example, insect bites and things like this. That perhaps there was a time when insect bite brought us a lot of discomfort, but then we become through tolerance, the same action takes place, but we no longer recognize it or conceive of it as suffering. We develop a tolerance and now it doesn’t bother us in the least. What was suffering before is no longer suffering for us. So if we take the attitude that you shouldn’t be impatient with, In this way, understanding that through tolerance our suffering actually decreases.
On the other hand, through intolerance, then our suffering will increase. You know, there’s many possible causes for our suffering, and if we don’t build up some tolerance, then we can be in constant, constantly experiencing suffering. Know, whether it’s the simple everyday sufferings of sometimes we’re hot, sometimes we’re cold, sometimes the wind’s blowing, and sometimes it’s raining. All these possible everyday occurrences. Sometimes we get sick.
If we don’t start to build up a tolerance to these, then we can be in constant suffering. So, if we don’t start, we should start to build up a tolerance to small sufferings in order that eventually that we won’t even conceive them of sufferings. If we don’t, then the reverse is going to begin to happen. If you know, we get, if we, every little pain that we get, if we immediately react, oh I can’t stand this, you know, then the ability for these, what were previously small sufferings, to harm us is going to increase. Our sensitivity to the pain is going to increase because of our intolerance.
For some people who have a great deal of courage, like very brave, maybe some soldier when they go into battle and they’re fighting the enemy, the very sight of their own blood actually can bring them courageous in battle, give them more courage to fight their enemy. Don’t even feel the pain in the course of the battle, and the sight of their own blood can actually spur them on to fight even better. But then on the other hand, someone who’s very much a coward and they’re fighting in battle, if just seeing somebody else’s blood and they pass out, they can’t even tolerate to see anybody else’s blood, let alone their own blood. So, we can see by this example that these two soldiers who go into battle, one by seeing their own blood are spurred on to fight even with more strength, more courage. And the other, the other, what does he see, seeing their own blood, seeing just the blood of others, somebody else and they pass out, they faint.
This reaction, the harm which is coming to them is not dependent upon the harm which is coming to them externally. It’s dependent upon the power of their own mind. You know, how strong their minds are, how courageous they are, and the development of how acquainted they are, and the development of tolerance. Through these factors, there’s various reactions to different harms or different types of suffering. So it’s dependent upon the type of suffering or the degree of suffering, but due to these mental inner factors of our own courage, own power, our own mind, the acquaintance, the tolerance that we’ve built up.
So we have to reflect upon this. It doesn’t happen naturally that we have to you know, develop a strong mind, a powerful mind, you know, develop some a brave mind, a courageous mind. So, you know we have to, when we have some small hurt, have to react with intolerance but try to develop some patience and tolerance toward some small hurt or some small difficulty arises, again, not to react with intolerance but to confront it with patience and not allow our mind to become depressed. If we can begin to develop such a type of mind which begins to strengthen itself, to strengthen its patience, then we’re going to develop a happy mind. Fewer things will be able to get us down.
Our mind will be able to remain in a happy state for longer periods of time, and in turn this is going to affect our physical well-being. We’re going to be healthier people physically. And all the various activities that we engage in will go much better. So in response to small harms that we shouldn’t become depressed when somebody uses some bad words, directs some bad words towards us. Shouldn’t, you know, mind, not allow our minds to become black, negative.
When somebody else speaks behind our back, speaks about another person who we hold dear, not to allow our minds to get upset and suffer through that, but thinking there’s nothing surprising about all this. There’s nothing really which I should get upset about it. And to really make effort and try to develop some courage in the face of these difficulties and hurts that we can always be experiencing and in this way develop a strong mind, a powerful mind. This is even 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 the 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 do not allow their always guard their mind and do not allow it to become angry and always remain patient. You know, in the world when soldiers are engaging in battle, they 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, they overcome their enemy and become the victors in the battle. Likewise, 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 to experience difficulties and have to go through some types of suffering in this process.
But the end result is that by overcoming our enemy which are the afflictive emotions then as to the degree that we overcome the afflictive emotions, then to that same degree we’re going to become happier and happier. So the real brave person is one who overcomes the enemy. If someone were, 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. 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 what the enemy which is to be overcome. 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, when you we experience some kind of mental or physical pain, suffering, we’re not happy. We don’t like that. So, 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 a prisoner. When he’s in prison, he isn’t happy. He doesn’t want to be in prison.
And because he begins to reflect on his position due to his unhappiness, begins to say, I want to get out. I want to be free from this prison. And begins to think, How can I get out of this prison? What are the methods? And 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 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 suffering.
In developing this determination to be free from our suffering, 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. Suffering also has the excellent quality of being able to eliminate the afflictive emotions of such states as pride and arrogance. When everything is going well and we think we’re on top of the world, 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, the suffering can actually begin to help us to eliminate our afflicted emotions. And likewise, in dependence upon developing an understanding of our own situation, our 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 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. This is all dependent upon suffering.
So, you know, thinking in this way that the source of all my problems, 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. And This transformation of the nature of your actions from unskillful to skillful is all brought about through awareness of suffering. So it’s said that we shouldn’t think that suffering is completely bad, that there’s nothing to be gained from suffering, where in fact that’s not the case.
Through 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 have 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, anyway, Śāntideva presents a little debate, know, 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, you mentioned jaundice. When we get jaundice, it causes suffering but we don’t get angry at that suffering. It’s not just because something causes us anger, 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 sentient beings, That is to say, sentient beings or people who cause us suffering we consider the great benefit that sentient beings actually bring us.
So it’s said that 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. If we allow ourselves to become angry then we completely lose our practice of Dharma.
And not only that, 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 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, problem can continue.
So I find it constructive or it can be helpful to express anger because then the anger is gone. That’s a 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 conditions meet the seed, then anger will rise again. This is 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 trying to alleviate 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, we’re never actually removing the seed, the potential for becoming angry is always present. What do we do when I’m angry? 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.
You know, it’s making me unhappy. It’s going 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, like a particular person, you react with anger with a particular person a lot. Is it better to avoid that person? So this person acts as the condition giving rise to your anger. And so when you come in contact with this particular condition, anger rises, 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 you have to strengthen your motivation, your intention, thinking that no matter what this person says, no matter what this person does, 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 meet 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 strength in your mind not to allow yourself to become angry.
And then one day passing and you meet this person, it’s difficult. The next day it’s not quite so difficult. And in a month’s time maybe, you you can meet this person, 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 situation.
Looking at not the anger, So there’s a what? How used to that? Well I guess it’s on a very superficial level but I think I’m searching for something that’s not superficial level, to passively accept something as an alternative to anger wouldn’t be useful either. So 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. So, first, there’d be two types of situations that could exist. One would be, the situation, I mean, it doesn’t matter. 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, 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 if 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 develop a beneficial intention to change it for the better, then maybe it’s better just to forget about it.