Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 89-minute teaching on Togme Sangpo’s 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva, Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen focuses on the practice of equalizing and interchanging self and others—an advanced method for generating bodhicitta (enlightened intention) that was transmitted secretly from Atisha through a lineage of Tibetan masters. He outlines five key stages: equalizing self and others through recognizing how friendship, indifference, and enmity arise from our own mental reactions; reflecting on the destructive faults of self-cherishing (pride, envy, arrogance); understanding the qualities and benefits of cherishing others; the actual interchange of perspective; and tonglen (taking and giving), visualized as breathing in others’ suffering as black smoke and exhaling one’s own virtue and happiness. Geshe-la illustrates each practice with concrete examples from daily life and from the 37 Practices themselves—responding to insults with praise, viewing betrayers as spiritual friends, showing greater kindness to those who harm us. He emphasizes that this path is more powerful than the conventional sevenfold cause-and-effect method and requires gradual training beginning with family members before extending to all beings. For serious practitioners already familiar with foundational Buddhist ethics and meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 37 BP 110821 000 – KR.mp3
UUID: ff832c4c-6836-43d5-8e29-3f7e50806772
Teacher: Geshe Jampa Gyaltsen
Collection: Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~4,090
So please meditate on generating during two minutes the motivation to lead all sentient beings without one single exception to the state of full and unalloyed enlightenment. So as the glorious Śāntideva said in his Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra, when one engages in that practice of exchanging oneself and others, one is engaging in the secret oral transmission. We have finished, Geshe-la has finished the presentation of the paths of the being of small and middling scope within the context of his teaching on Togme Sangpo’s, both 37 practices of the Bodhisattvas. And last time started teaching on the practice of the being of great scope. Generally, the essence of the practice of the being of great scope is equalizing and interchanging self and others.
There are two ways to do this. The first is the cause and effect oral instruction, the sevenfold cause and effect oral instruction, which Geshe-la explained last time. And the second, which will be covered today, is actually interchanging and exchanging self and others. So within these two traditions for the generation of bodhicitta, the seven fold cause and effect tradition and the tradition of equalizing and interchanging self and others. Both are identical in that they lead to the same result, the generation of bodhicitta.
However, the causes which are used to generate bodhicitta are different within the two traditions. The specific cause for the generation of bodhicitta within the seven fold cause and effect instruction is the great thought. This great thought is generated on the basis of love and compassion, and those in turn are generated through incrementally progressing through the various stages of recognizing all beings as one’s mothers of yore, recollecting their kindness, wishing to repay their kindness, generating great compassion and great love. On the other hand, the practice of equalizing and exchanging others arises through an uncommon level of love and compassion. This is a love and compassion which is not merely generated through recollecting the fact that all sentient beings have at some point in the past been our mothers of yore, but it is generated through realizing the immeasurable benefits which sentient beings impart on us at present in this life.
Therefore, the bodhicitta which is generated on the basis of this second oral instruction, equalizing and interchanging self and others, is more powerful than that generated by the first. This instruction regarding the interchange of self and others, which is alluded to in Śāntideva’s Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra by the statement exchanging self and others is the secret oral instruction, was secret dharma. It was transmitted esoterically or secretly in Tibet from Atisha onwards. The lineage of transmission was from Atisha to his disciple, Dromtonpa, from Dromtonpa to Geshe Potowa, from Geshe Potowa to Geshe Sharawa, and from Geshe Sharawa to Geshe Chekawa. During this five fold lineage transmission, or this lineage of transmission of five masters, the instructions were transmitted under the Tibetan term of means they are instructions for disciples, not general instructions.
And what is meant here is that they were only imparted privately to disciples of exceptional faculties who put great effort and had very sharp minds. This was the case all the way down to Geshe Chekhawa. Then Geshe Chekhawa’s successor, Geshe Langri Thangpa, who was also a direct direct disciple of Geshe Potowa, decided to make these instructions publicly available. He was the author of the famous Eight Verses of Thought Transformation. And specifically in these Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, he alludes to the practice of equalizing and interchanging self and others.
This oral instruction, which was a secret Dharma after Geshe Langri Tangpa, came to be known also as the Dharma of leprosy because Geshe Langri Tangpa and some of his disciples were afflicted with leprosy. And after giving and receiving these oral instructions, they were cured from leprosy. Geshe Langri Tangpa taught these instructions because they were extremely rare. And as a preliminary to training in the equalizing and the interchange of self in others, it is necessary first to train in the shared aspect of the path of the being of middling scope in an unmistaken fashion. In other words, in the cycle of dharmas related to the practice of the being of middling scope.
However, as a preliminary to this, it is necessary to train in the shared aspect of the practice of the being of small scope. In other words, in the unmistaken dharmas of the being of small scope and the cycle of dharmas related to this. So this refers for these practices of these beings of two scopes to training in karma and causality and so forth. Now as for the equalizing interchange of self and others, it is subdivided into five outlines. The first is equalizing self and others.
In other words, a practice or a training of equanimity. The second is reflecting on the faults of self-cherishing. The third is reflecting on the qualities of cherishing others. The fourth is the actual practice of the interchange of self and others. While the fifth is the core of the practice, which is the practice of Tonglen or giving and taking.
Regarding the first outline, which is self and others, we should reflect as follows. We have been reincarnating in the flow of cyclic existence since beginningless time under the power of self-cherishing and under the power of a mind that is indifferent to the welfare of others. Then meditating as follows, one should subdivide beings into three categories. Those who are friends, those who are indifferent to us, and those who are our foes, or with whom we are at odds. Our friends, in other words, those whom we like or whom we love, are those towards whom we have affectionate feelings.
If we analyze carefully, we will find that these affectionate feelings arise exclusively because they give rise occasionally at times to pleasant feelings within us. And therefore, one can say that this love and this affection are actually the product of desire. Then if we contemplate the next category of beings, those which are indifferent to us, we can see that they are indifferent to us because they have never neither given rise to affectionate feelings of the nature of desire, nor to unpleasant feelings of the nature of suffering within our minds. Finally, if we look at the third category of beings, our so called enemies or foes, in other words, those with whom we are in discord or in disharmony, if we ask ourselves why we are in discord with them, we can see it is because they gave rise in our minds to feelings of suffering. Now, these feelings of suffering are occasional.
They are not stable, and therefore the cause of this enmity is not stable. Therefore, if we analyze our relationship to friends, those who are indifferent to us and those who are enemies, we can say, putting it in a syllogism, we differentiate between beings because we perceive different feelings of happiness and suffering from them within our minds. The second outline are the thoughts of self-cherishing in keeping with the stanza from Lama Chöpa which says, bless me to dispel this epidemic or this contagious disease of self-cherishing, we should try to understand the faults of self-cherishing. All of the sufferings we experience, specifically the sufferings of the lower rebirths, but also sufferings within this life are the result of self-cherishing. And we can understand this better if we see that in our own experience, the greater self-cherishing within ourselves or in others, the greater in turn pride, arrogance, the greater envy for the happiness of others.
Someone for instance who has great wealth and who in dependence on this becomes very full with himself, filled with self-cherishing, in turn has great pride and great envy. We can see also if we examine different categories of beings, those who have no self-cherishing, those who have a little and those who have a lot, that typically we will be most hostile to those who have a lot of self-cherishing from their own side. So it is very very clear that self-cherishing creates many faults and specifically the greater the self-cherishing, the greater faults such as envy and arrogance. Irrespective of the qualities we ourselves may have from our own side, it is to our benefit to reduce self-cherishing, because the more we reduce self-cherishing, the more we can reduce pride, arrogance, and envy. And as to the third outline, which is understanding the qualities of other cherishing or cherishing others, this must be done through numerous doors, literally numerous gateways, numerous means, in other words, through scriptural quotations and through various lines of reasoning.
In keeping with the quote in the Lama Chöpa, which says, in as much as self-cherishing is the door of all faults and cherishing cherishing mother sentient beings, the above all qualities, bless me to practice the interchange of self and others as the essence of my practice. In keeping therefore with this quote, we must try to understand qualities of other cherishing both from a mundane standpoint and from the standpoint of Dharma. So from a mundane standpoint, if we take a small child age nine, such a child needs to rely on his teacher to train. Otherwise, at that age, it is impossible for him to do anything and to train himself alone. Then as he progresses upwards from class to class, he has to rely on his classmates as well to help him.
So Geshe-la says, he has direct experience of this with his studies at and in the great seats, One can only progress upwards from class to class through sitting the exams at the end of each year. And to sit these examinations, one needs to help each other. Classmates have to help each other. So in the self same way as in worldly matters, classmates must help each others, they can be said to rely in this context on cherishing others. And the second category of qualities, or the second standpoint from which one can understand the qualities of cherishing others is the standpoint of dharma.
So here from the standpoint of dharma at present, we have a high rebirth, a rebirth of high status, specifically a human rebirth, and this human rebirth has specific causes. Its specific causes are the unmistaken ethics of the abandonment of the 10 non virtues. 10 non the 10 non virtues include killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and so forth. And if we take the case of killing, the abandonment of the act of killing means abandon abandoning taking the life of another person, whereas the abandonment of the deed of stealing entails to abandon taking the wealth of another person. In every single case, this practice of ethics relies on others for it to arise.
It is the abandonment of harm to others which gives rise to virtuous deeds. It is in dependence on the teachings of our spiritual teachers in past lives that we were able to abandon these faults and give rise to virtue. It is important for you to understand the difference between religious ethics and secular ethics. In Australia, for instance, if you murder someone, you will be sent to jail. And from a secular standpoint, out of fear of going to jail, out of fear of the law, one does not kill others.
This is not ethical behavior from a Buddhist standpoint. This is merely conforming with the social standards of the society one lives in. And through not killing someone out of the fear of the law, no virtue whatsoever is accumulated. Virtue is only accumulated when the root of the deed is spiritual. In other words, one abstains from murdering others on the basis of the instruction from one’s spiritual teachers, and on that basis, one engages in the practice of abstention.
Therefore, as far as results are concerned, secular and religious ethics are identical. There is a restraint. But the thought, the motivation is different. And moving onwards with our presentation of the third outline, the qualities of cherishing others within the second subdivision from the standpoint of dharma. Here, if we reflect on the sevenfold cause and effect generation of bodhicitta, ranging from recognizing all sentient beings as one’s mothers of yore, all the way up to generating the great thought.
Every single one of these causal steps necessarily relies on other sentient beings. It actually exclusively relies on other sentient beings for their for its arising. Without sentient beings, there is no attainment of the state of full enlightenment endowed with the four bodies. So understanding this, we understand in turn the importance of mind training. The Buddha, Buddha Śākyamūni, our teacher, was originally a sentient being just like us, suffering from afflictions just like us.
And yet, he attained eventually the state of full enlightenment endowed with the four bodies, and his representation is in front of us. He attained this through eliminating self-cherishing within his mind stream, and through enhancing, developing, and enhancing cherishing others. If you remember from the Jatakas, there is an account of a rebirth of the Buddha in which seeing a tigress famished and ready to eat her own tiger cub, the Buddha, instead of allowing this terrible event to happen, cut from his own flesh and fed the tigress until she was strong enough to in turn eat him alive. It is based on deeds such as these that the Buddha attained enlightenment. In our case, if we examine our minds, we can see that most probably unless we are careful, for us the prospect of lower rebirths are very high.
Now the importance of this powerful motivation to benefit others can be seen with recent events in Tibet. You may have heard of the Tibetan Buddhist monk from Tashi monastery, as well as another Buddhist monk from Kirti monastery, who immolated themselves by fire to underline the plight of the Tibetan people. Now these deeds were performed to point out the tragedy of Tibet. And as Śāntideva says, reflecting carefully, we can see that the Buddha and sentient beings are identical in their kindness to us. This is the case because all of the qualities which we generate we generate in dependence on both the Buddha and on sentient beings.
Likewise, unfortunately, all the thoughts we generate, we also generate likewise in dependence upon both. So as Geshe-la explained at the beginning of this teaching, all there are two lineages of instruction for the generation of bodhicitta. The sevenfold cause and effect, a lineage of instruction, and the lineage of equalizing and interchanging self and others. And they are identical in terms of the effect bodhicitta produced. They are not identical in terms of the power or strength of the effect.
And at present, passing on it to the fourth outline, the actual equalizing and interchange of self and others. One, first, as Geshe-la explained, proceeds to the equalization of self and others, and then again and again reflecting on the faults of self-cherishing and the qualities of cherishing others, one generates a strong wish to interchange self and others. And when one interchanges self and others, one basically puts oneself in the place of another, and puts others in one’s own place. So to give an example of this, one would take upon oneself the suffering of others. If we take a very concrete example of this, Geshe-la seated here and Aaron, our vice director, seated in front of him, then if we would we spoke concretely of Geshe-la and Aaron swapping places, we would see that Geshe-la goes to where Eren is, and Eren comes to where Geshe-la is sitting.
And then the fifth outline is a practice of Tonglen or giving and taking. This is referred to by two stanzas in the Lama Chöpa. The first we have quoted already, in as much as self-cherishing is a source of all thoughts, and cherishing sentient beings is a source of all qualities. Bless me to practice the interchange of self and others as the essence or the heart of my practice. The specific stanza referring to the practice of Tonglen, or giving and taking, is the following stanzas.
Therefore, noble compassionate guru, bless me to take upon myself all of the sufferings as well as the sins and obstructions of mother sentient migrators, and to give, as well as leading them all to mature upon myself, and to give all of my own bliss and virtues to others without exception. So these these two verses refer to first taking upon oneself the suffering of others, which is a practice designed to foster compassion, and then giving to others one’s own virtue and happiness. And there is a distinction in how this is practiced for beings of sharp and dull faculties. The beings of sharp faculties must visualize the totality of the suffering of all sentient beings without exception in front of them. And the most horrific of these sufferings, the suffering of suffering in its coarsest form, and then with a powerful and stable mind, take all of these sufferings upon themselves.
On the other hand, beings of dull faculty who might be afraid of such a practice should start by imagining that they take upon themselves the suffering which they will experience in the morning. And then they take upon themselves the suffering which they themselves will experience the next day, the next month, the next year, and so forth. So in terms of the visualization to be performed, one should imagine that the suffering of beings enters within one’s heart in the shape of black smoke. And there are certain signs which will occur when one has realization of this. And the second limb of the practice of giving and taking, after taking upon oneself the suffering of others, is to give others one’s roots of virtue and all one’s happiness.
And for this one visualizes all sentient beings in front oneself as clearly as one can, and one trains by starting to give them whatever is needed at the moment. If the weather is cold, then one imagine that one gives them warm clothes. If the weather is hot, one gives them refreshments. If they need food, one gives them food, and one gives more and more moving upwards to the great activities of practicing the perfection of giving and giving specifically love and giving teachings. So for a teacher, this would entail giving to his students precisely those teachings which they need.
Familiarity with the basic practice of Tonglen, of giving and taking, one progresses to the next stage, and that is to practice giving and taking riding on the breath. And here, visualizing all sentient beings in front of oneself, first one practices taking, and one reflects that the mass of their suffering is actually a feeling. As a feeling, it is a mind. As a mind, it is said to ride or to be connected to a wind, to a prana. Therefore, it is something which one could inhale, and therefore one imagines that one inhales all of the suffering of sentient beings with its associated wind, and that this enters within us.
In turn, we ourselves have happiness within our mind, forms of happiness. This happiness is a mind. It rides on a wind, on a prana. Therefore, we imagine that we exhale all our happiness riding on its wind and that we give it all away to mother sentient beings. And perhaps this is the secret etymology of the term kadampa.
Ka in Tibetan means speech or utterance. And Geshe-la feels it is connected to the practice of Tonglen, which was the very essence of the Kadampa tradition referred to in the verse of the Lama Chöpa, which was quoted previously. Therefore, noble guru, bless me to be able to give all of of my virtues and happiness to others and to take upon myself all of their sins, non virtues, sufferings, and obscurations. However, this is difficult practice and therefore at present we may not have the strength to do this. It is something we should train in over months and years.
And therefore train gradually in this practice and now we will cover some stanzas from these 37 practices of a bodhisattva. On page six, fourteen, even if someone were to shout different types of insults throughout the billion worlds at them, it is the practice of Bodhisattva still to speak of that person’s good qualities with a loving mind. Here we should visualize that the billion worlds are filled with people who loathe us and who are constantly criticizing and insulting us. And when they do this, we from our side only praise them and utter their qualities. In the following stanza, stanza 15, even if someone were to uncover their most intimate thoughts and say harmful words in the center of a crowd of many people, it is a practice of Bodhisattvas to bow humbly to that person with a thought that he’s a spiritual friend.
So even we should imagine that we’re in a large crowd and someone who knows our innermost faults and whom we have trusted betrays us in public and reveals all our thoughts to jeering and laughing onlookers. The practice of Bodhisattva is to bow to such a person and to thank him for helping us to eliminate our faults. In the third stanza, stanza 16, even if a person whom they have lovingly taken care of like their own son were to regard them as an enemy, it is the practice of Bodhisattvas to show greater kindness, kindness like a mother to her son who is stricken by an illness. So here, if someone who has been like our child and whom we have protected and nurtured, turns savagely against us and assaults us and criticizes us, the practice of the Bodhisattva is to view such a poor person as sick and to be even kinder to them. And the final stanza, stanza 17 on page seven.
Even if a person of the same or lower status, so here Geshe-la says it’s not status but qualities which I refer to, then they were to attempt to insult them due to the power of pride. It is a practice of Bodhisattvas respectfully to take that like a teacher on the top of their head. So here whether it is someone who has equal qualities to ourselves or someone who has slightly lesser qualities, should this person insult us and deride us? It is the practice of bodhisattvas to view them as a spiritual teacher and to visualize them on the crown of their head. So it is Geshe-la’s hope that after this presentation of the practice of interchanging self and others today in its five fold outline, you will be able to practice this first and foremost in your families.
This is one starts with one’s practice, and one moves outwards from one’s families and the people one is close to as one becomes more experienced and more powerful outwards towards other beings. There is time for one question. One question. So here, the question was what is referred to or what is the meaning of having sharp faculties as opposed to having dull faculties? Does it refer to intelligence, to renunciation, or something else?
Geshe-la says it does not refer to having renunciation, nor does it necessarily refer to intelligence per se. What it refers to is that capacity when one studies a topic of dharma, to understand it very quickly without a lot of effort and hardship. Then, when on top of that, one has the capacities of perseverance and of making effort, progress is very swift. To be more precise in this matter, the actual distinction between one of sharp and one of dull faculties occurs when teachings regarding, for instance, emptiness of generation of compassion or of love arises. Someone who is of sharp faculties, when he or she hears teachings on emptiness, on love, or on compassion, starts analyzing them mentally using the power of logic and reasoning.
Based purely on the power of logic and reasoning, reaches definite ascertainment regarding them. Someone of dull faculties on the other hand, when hearing these teachings has a general feeling of faith and conviction, but is unable to analyze. And we have exactly reached 12:00. 12:00.