Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche develops the exchange-of-self-and-other practice for cultivating bodhicitta. The core principle: suffering comes from self-cherishing; happiness comes from prioritizing others’ wellbeing. He teaches the giving-and-taking meditation—breathing in others’ suffering, breathing out your own comfort and merit—then applies it through escalating scenarios: theft, false accusation, gossip, and betrayal. In each case, he teaches you to view the person who harms you as a spiritual teacher, someone who exposes your own mental delusions. Rather than retaliate, you deepen compassion. He then reframes what the real enemy is: not the person, but the ignorance driving them. The session closes with a subtle logical question about where anger should rightfully be directed. For serious practitioners with foundational Buddhist training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-07-13 – 3A – Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: 7bd76158-4490-4470-a004-38e4f475b7da
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Chenrezig
Date: 1994-07-13
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,544
We’ll start proceeding with by meditating about ten minutes on the awakening mind of bodhicitta. Think think for the sake of all the mother sentient beings, all other beings who’ve been kind to us who are suffering, for their sake, I will diligently try to achieve this state of all-knowingness very quickly, very swiftly. In order to in order to make that spiritual aim possible, I will engage in all aspects of all aspects of going about in order to learn about bodhicitta. Now the the point where we stopped yesterday discussing is the the how to go about our task through the approach of our great persons, great persons in terms of awakening the the awakening mind. And normally, there are two ways to to generate that awakening mind.
One is the seven cause and effect. And and the point the subject we discussed yesterday seem to have cover from that point of view. Another way is to develop that mind is exchanging oneself to other. So now the we’re gonna be discussing the second approach, which is exchanging exchanging oneself with the others. Rinpoche quoted one from the work.
What the essence or the gist of the what the quotations from that is that whatever whatever the undesirable experience of suffering that we experience in this perishable nature of this saṃsāra thing is due to the grasping or cherishing oneself at the expense of others. And all those qualities, all the qualities, all the wonderful realizations of this of the temporary and that of the ultimates are due to the result or the fruit of practicing the practice of of exchanging oneself with other or swapping or exchange of self-cherishing with others. So the the the particular the text which is a used and the the line where he’s explaining the same meaning what I have described before. That all the good all the all the suffering result, all the unpleasant unpleasant thing that one experience is due to the due to the cherishing oneself at the expense of other or cherishing oneself more important or holding oneself very dear. And all the qualities that are for that matters with this life and to upwards thinking that of achieving at the complete all knowingness is happens purely due to the due to due to cherishing others instead of cherishing oneself.
Now the there is there is no two ways or there’s no question about the fact that everybody, including you and me, aspires or yearns for happiness. And if possible, like to avoid the experience of suffering at any cost, any wise. However, we’re unable to do so because of the forces because of the because we are influenced by the forces of our karmic potent potencies. So now and potency in the sense of cherishing ourself dearly and and not cherishing or not looking after or or having an idea of sharing for others or caring for others. So so all the the source of the happiness now, the source of happiness or source of happiness or source of pleasant experience purely due to comes from cherishing others more importantly than cherishing and worrying about self.
All our problem began, as we said, because we cared too much for oneself and never care enough for others. Because of that, we find ourselves in this problematic situation. So now here, this is the practice of the bodhisattvas who said that one must train in the thought of caring for others, cherishing other more important at the expense of worrying about one’s own pleasure and comfort. By establish by establishing by diagnosing the proper proper proper system of of the symptom of the why we experience happy unhappiness is because we cherish care for ourselves, not not for others. Having known that, now we have to engage in the spiritual remedial training practice, which is to exchange oneself with others.
So in order to bring about that kind of spiritual spiritual softening, lucid nature of mind within ourself, we have to engage in the practice of giving and taking. So this practice of giving and taking or the training of giving and taking is designed specifically in order for that sort of mind to develop, to become alive within ourself. So when you do know how to go about that is, see, in conjunction with your breathing, you’re breathing inhaling and exhaling. So you actually, when you’re inhaling, you think that you are taking all the miseries, all the suffering, unpleasant unpleasant experience of all other sentient beings taking onto yourself and on taking onto yourself. And when you breathe out or exhaling, you think that you are giving away all your own comfort, your all your all of your comfort, your pleasure transferring onto the other sentient beings which you imagine make them incredibly happy.
Imagine you make them so beautiful. You make them so luxuriously sit and make them so wonderful. And also, when you breathe out, you give your all the root merits and virtues that you accumulated. That also onto all other sentient beings and imagine that that causes them to achieve the the highest form of all-knowingness, that is enlightenment. Yes.
See, while we are, you know, while we are training our mind in the in the technique of our our technique of exchanging oneself with other and establishing the why cherishing other is important and why it is unwise to cherish oneself. So when this sort of with this practice, when we are doing, what we are doing is ignoring ourself completely, one’s own concern completely, and we are worried, we care for others. So when this during the part of such a spiritual training, should we happen or should we happen to face the situation where if all of our hard work, hard earned properties, wealth, comforts happen to be robbed robbed by other people who with with their great desire, ignorant desire or greed, or if all our properties, all our wealth are about to be robbed by some some people people or some thieves through their greed directly or they get someone someone else to take your investment or take away your your profit or take away your or your your wealth, then instead of getting angry to them, you must feel you must feel out of your great compassion and kindness the fact that that person is so ignorant doing the wrong thing the wrong thing with the great compassion, you exonerate that person.
You take the blame onto yourself, and you instead of punishing, instead of taking a punitive action, you dedicate entirety of your merit, your your your merit, and your love and so forth for that person to be freed of the the consequence of such a rotten actions. So doing so, engaging such a thinking is the practice of the the the the the the conduct of a bodhisattvas. When when when you is when you’re being robbed robbed or looted your goods or your properties, see, you not only you you not not only you dedicate all your root root merits and your wealth to that persons, if should you happen to be faced in a circumstance where a circumstance where you are found found guilty guilty by someone, some authoritarians or somebody without without there’s a shred of evidence that you have committed the crime or committed the crime, yet they happen to punish you, yet they happen to punish wrongly punish you by making out a very severe penalty that of, say, beheading beheading or capital punishment meant even if you face that that type of falsely accused or accused situation. Instead of getting angry to those people responsible for injustifiably prosecuting you, you should have a love and compassion and understanding understanding and empathy that that that that that person responsible is doing out of all these unjust, unjustifiable injustice things to me because because that person or because he is completely dominated by the force of his ignorant ignorant delusions.
So you feel so sorry for him, fact that he he is committing further crime. So you have you develop this incredible unbearable sense of forgiving him, and you’re worried of his well-being, worried about his karmic consequences that you wish that whatever the bad karmas that the person is about to create by falsely doing the wrong thing to me, may all that bad karma, karmic consequences be ripened onto me. Let me take the blame. You exonerate that person completely. You you will that person’s exoneration on that person and take all the karmic consequence onto yourself.
Be glad about it and thinking that why is the the spiritual training or the method of the conduct of the great beings. So now we we would after that, we we would if we let’s make a scenario that where should this to happen to you. Say somebody who are out of his or her dislike, utter dislike to you, and talks really bad about you, say really a lot of rotten things about you, and gossiping badly about you. If the sound of gossip, the sound of talks talking bad about you, if it were to fill the entire space of the world or entire space of universe or to be correctly with the technical terms, to fill out the three big trichiliocosms still, instead of feeling bad about it, instead of making big song and dance about it, sing a praise to that person. You you talk nice about that person out of your love and compassion to that persons.
And, yes, you you you you sing this song of very good praise that person out of your love, out of your compassion to to that person saying that he or she is a great person and feel kind of a instead of feeling vindictive, you feel good about that person. You develop kindness, compassion for that Should you happen to, while you’re engaging this spiritual training, the extent of how your mind should be or the capacity of your forgiving nature should be like this. If in a big gathering somebody falsely accuses you of doing something, committing a crime that you never committed, saying such as, oh, you murdered, you pillaged, you raped, all sorts of untrue things. If were to be told about you in term in in terms of big gatherings of people or crowd, instead of defending yourself defending yourself profusely, what you should be doing is or what one should be thinking is develop an attitude of a great forgiveness to that person’s thinking. That person is only doing because of his or her lack of understanding about the truth.
So and instead of accusing back instead of accusing him or her back or defending about yourself, what you should do is you consider or you feel so grateful and see that person is given an opportunity to develop, test or bring about the good good quality of your minds onto the surface and feel and respect that person and evoke great sense of love for that person in the manner of of your teacher or guru or your spiritual guide guidance in the classroom. Okay. So so we sort of the person who accuses you of doing such things, you we said that we need to construe that person like a like your guru or your teacher. See, why the the comparison is given to that person as a guru is, guru normally what he does is he outlines you are outlines a method or system or design through which which you can accumulate the good things and, you know, get shown the right path, how to go about it, saying what is what is to be done, what is not to be done. That the guru shows you the path through which you should be following, through which you shouldn’t be follow following.
And thereby, you’re engaging in that, then you accomplish the good things. Now, the comparison given to here is the reason that that we gave the comparison of that person as to that of your guru is because that person is accusing you doing so many rotten things and things such. So that person is acting as for you to for you to be aware what possibly you could be doing bad things. And also that person is stirring up some negativity in within yourself. Right?
Stirring some negative within your yourself or which you you have. So that person is be like a catalyst for your to get your all your rubbish, so to speak, come out and then you be be recognizing that, yes, this is the mental problems that I have got because so so that person is helping you to in a sense, without that person being aware of himself or herself, helping you to be yourself exposed exposed to the what possible negativity that you have. So from that point of view, using that as a reason why you should feel, you know, grateful to that person in the almost like a guru or teacher has made you aware aware of your the the the the the how to say it, your mental mental delusions. See, from that point of view, you should have a kindness like a a love in the sense of respect or devotion as almost like you have to to your teacher. Now let’s let’s point another scenario should we happen to face while we’re engaging this practice, this training.
Now if you happen to care for somebody, you care for somebody, really sincerely care from your bottom of your heart, genuinely to the well of the care for the well beings of others, if despite your apparent love and kindness and care to that person, if that person retaliates you in the manner like a like a sworn enemy, say all the bad things to you instead of be grateful to you, instead of thanking you, if that person starts saying bad things to you and doing wrong things to you and talking bad about you and scheming all sorts of bad things to you. So instead of giving up, saying, you know, despite my love, I get this is what reward I get. Instead of doing that, what you should be doing or what you should be trying to develop is love and compassion for that understand for that that person, say that person’s ill guided through his own ignorance in the manner that that a mother or the parent will care care about their children despite whatever the temper tantrums that the children come come up with, whatever the wrong things the children say to their parent, you should be reasonably able to relate to the idea how a parent will react to to the the misbehavior of the children.
Say example example here he given given is is that that if mother sees her son is ill, how to say, if if a mother sees her son is afflicted or under the demonic possession of some evil spirit and so forth, and then acting badly towards the mother, mother will instead of thinking that all these children these children are so ungrateful to me, this is what I’ve done to her and thinking about and to think of banning. Instead of doing what she was doing is poor children, you know, has been under the demonic, possession, under the demonic spell. He doesn’t know or they don’t know what they’re doing. So the parent will develop a love and a compassion and desperately looking for means or ways of making the children free of that spell or or or trying to get find some sort of a solution, get some some counseling or some sort of counseling or help or what sort of whatever the means there is to be in order to cure the children’s apparent difficult behavior towards her rather than developing anger or retaliatory feeling back to their children. In a similar way, you should feel or you should develop that sort of attitudes when you’re faced with that sort of a dire strait situation.
Instead of despairing, you should even more strong to be helpful and kind and kind and helpful to that person. Rinpoche quoted one quoted one’s stanza from the works of great Acharya Āryadeva. Okay? Now the gist of it all, Rinpoche says, is that. Okay?
Acharya that the Acharya has said that if in a situation, if you happen to find yourself that people backbite you, people say wrong things to you, people beat you up, people say a lot of things, and people disclose a lot of your past secrets and all that kind of things happen to find that sort of a circumstance, then you should not be retaliating to that person in the most aggressive way. Instead, you should be should there’s you should not you should be feeling, you know, love and compassion for that. And if the question raises that why the hell I have to be nice and be good to that person while the person is saying all the bad things under the calling me names under the sun, then the the the Acharya has said, the Buddha has said that those person who bring harmful activities and doing harmful things to our to us is is the person is not the guilty one. The person is not the the the the the, how to say, actual culprit. The real culprit here is that that person is completely dominated, completely overtaken, completely misguided, misguided, swayed under by the karmic delusions, the karmic potentials.
He or she is acting under the influence of that influence of the power of inebriation power of of delusions or not knowing and not knowing. Person himself or herself, as a matter of fact, are completely not guilty. They are our friends. They have acted our father, mother, brother, sister, and so forth in numerous occasion and numerous time in our previous lifetime. So from the person’s point of view, he or she is completely completely free of free of all the the faults.
So now if one wants to really want to get angry, if you really want to get even or even retaliate back, then one should be getting retaliatory or want to get angry or get even with the actual ignorance that is the driving force behind that person’s that or or the actual compelling force which is driving that person’s that person’s to do bad things without his or her choice. It is also emphasized on this aspect of issue, importance of why one must not retaliate. Acharya Candrakīrti has said that if one find oneself in a situation or circumstance where one is falsely accused, one is beaten up without any reasons, apparent reasons by somebody, then one must not be feeling retaliatory. One must not be getting angry to that person because that person acting simply out of his or her ignorance. That person in real term, no choice, no power because is completely driven to do so by his or her ignorant, delusions.
If one were to really get angry, then one should be getting angry through his or her ignorance which is the common enemy for all of us. That is the enemy for the the the the the is the also the enemy, the perpetrator as well. So in the real sense, you should be taking that person as one’s help in combating the real perpetrator, the real enemy, which is the ignorance, karmic, potential delusions. So that person is never ever under no circumstances becomes the justifiable object to get really angry or the to be to be how to say, aggressively taking revenge, so to speak. That person is absolutely helpless.
You should understand that person’s absolutely helpless through his the power or the the the gravity under which that person finds himself or herself. So you should be considering that person as your friend in fighting the actual or combating the actual common enemy that is ignorance, that is the delusion, which is driving all of us around the bend. And then, apparently, he got a question that if if one were to be nice to the the perpetrator or apparently the person who is causing trouble to us, say by beating up us or hitting us with sticks and things like that, then one if if you really be logical about it, and if you really work out the the actual sequence of chronological sequence how the hurt, the grievance that is that is experienced by us in the case of somebody beating up with stick, then in actual fact, stick is the one who’s really doing the damage to you. But we don’t get angry with the stick. Instead, we get angry with the person.
So if you really, really want to be angry in a proper way on the basis of who is committing the actual crime or actual bringing the actual pernicious effect on you, then it is a stick. And here he said, then why aren’t you getting angry with a stick?