Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche establishes bodhicitta—the awakening mind that holds all beings’ happiness equal to our own—as the foundation for Chenrezig retreat. He then offers detailed analysis of three emotional afflictions that bind us. Anger is singled out as most destructive: a moment of rage toward a teacher can erase years of accumulated merit. The core teaching is that we must combat our inner enemy, not external ones—Rinpoche cites Śāntideva’s analogy of covering our feet with leather rather than trying to cover the entire earth. He explores attachment through yaks insatiably drinking salt, and ignorance as the noose that prevents us from walking the enlightenment path. The talk concludes with an introduction to emptiness. Pitched at practitioners already initiated into Chenrezig practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-07-14 – 5A – Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: 8121388b-8e85-413b-9a64-59917e16a06d
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Chenrezig
Date: 1994-07-14
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,392
Dwell on on the thought of or rising thought of bodhicitta or awakening mind for, say, about roughly ten minutes. As we should know, our own situation that our deepest mental impulse is longing for happiness. So therefore, there is no difference whatsoever in terms of other all other being equal, pervading all the space is in a similar way, longs for the or long for the experience of happiness. That being realized that being realized now, we we are in a situation of having obtained these precious human incarnations that is incarnation that is very conducive conducive for the to conducive to undertake the practice or work of freeing all the all the sentient beings of their misery and our own. And, also, we are we are privileged and we are lucky, fortunate that we have a path or or we have have a a very strong instructions explaining explaining how we can travel through a path through which we will achieve that goal.
And not only that, we are also we we also have met the condition of full leisure and endowment. And, also, we met also met with the teacher or the circumstance in through which you get a constant flow of guidance in order to which in order to train ourself to be in an in an old, we are in a complete condition situations. Reason why we are lucky, we are fortunate, and we will met the right path, and it’s important to cultivate an attitude or or mind or or or wish that you will will care or cherish other people far more important than and at the expense of yourself or or for more important than yourself and invoke or or or arouse a strong, intense, very fluid state of mind wanting to to to be to become of great help, a source of help for others and develop that or cultivate that precious thought. So as we all know, we are beginner. We are starting our embarking on the our journey.
Therefore, despite the despite the sketch of the grandeur of the whole plan or our whole aim and importance of what we’re doing, due to our initial contact, due to the lack of cultivation of that sort such a mind, we we will we face difficult task of actual actualizing that sort of target yet or reaching that such a goal yet. However, not forgetting that not forgetting that you’re on the right path you are on the right path and and aiming at the aiming at the what sort of result, what sort of aim, what sort of benefit you’re gonna get. Eventually, that is of a greater benefit to all other sentient beings, and for that, by achieving the complete state where all the negativity, all the impurities are completely gotten rid of with their propensity, and you have a complete knowledge state or experience of all knowingness, keeping your sight set on that, and you think think that I will achieve that in order to in order to help all other people and developing that sort of developing or cultivating or making your mind more suitable, more conducive, more flexible in that towards that direction is what we call the precious mind or precious thought of bodhicitta or or or or precious awakening mind.
And with knowing that sort of importance, now you develop a strong sort of sense of commitment that I will I will engage myself or train myself or apply myself through the through the pithy instructions of the great Mahāyāna training systems, and I will engage in that very strongly, very diligently, and feel and evoke your thought in that why. Point where we reach in our continuity of these particular teachings is now where we’ll be roughly discussing or spending some time on discuss discussing the the delusory aspects or the different variety of a delusory nature of our mind, which is kind of pent up or constrict within our mind. Now there’s a different version of or not different version, but there’s a there’s a different way you describe or analyze them, such as saying, you know, 48,000 heaps or or different variety. However, if you make it a synthesizing main thing, then the delusive nature of a mind is categorized in three ways. First is anger.
Okay. I’ll leave the two a little bit lighter. First, anger. Now here, Rinpoche quotes Śāntideva saying that there is no greater sin than anger, and there’s no more stronger no much stronger ascetic practice than feeling patient or patience. So now, this anger, while it is because it is a very non virtuous form of mental emotion, afflictions, therefore, obviously, it yields it yields or it introduces us to the kind of more bad result.
And also the fact of the the anger also is another another side effect of having or getting letting loose of this aspect of mind, anger, is that it not only produced, say, far bigger non virtuous result, it also wipes off whatever the good good virtues that we may have accumulated before. Therefore, it is strongly emphasized here that we must or one must be applying all sorts of application or antidotes which will destroy or which will cut through that aspect of our emotional affliction, which is anger. As we said, there’s a lot of different types of delusionary delusionary aspect of emotional affliction that we have of which this particular anger is considered to be extraordinarily bad and extraordinarily powerful, powerfully negative in terms of in terms of yielding a big on a big scale, a bad result, and also it wipes off lot of good, deeds that we have done prior prior to that. And the rest of all others, nature of aspects of delusionary mind or deluded delusions are all they can do the most is because they’re negative things, they will do certain sort of a yield of negative result, but it’s it’s not as powerful as that of anger.
See, normally, we have anger related due to the different sort of circumstances. See, we we we have anger towards somebody who is far more superior to us, somebody like your teacher, or somebody who has got a lot of good qualities, somebody who is much more precious than yourself, and also you develop or you get angry with the somebody that of equal status quo of yourself, and also the you get angry to somebody who is bit inferior to yourself. Say in this first instance, should it happen to to get angry with somebody who is superior to yourself, like a teacher or bodhisattvas somebody like that, then the karmic consequence of getting angry with to those object is so strong and so powerful that it can it has the propensity or capability of wiping off everything that you have accumulated good karmas or good deeds in many for many years of lifetime within a space of one moment of feeling very anger, very angry. And we discussed the the repercussion of getting anger in a bit more subtle or a bit more a bit more, how to say it, difficult to sort of relate, so to speak, by past love and so forth.
If we can’t delve into that further, that further or that deeper, we just look at ourself and our daily experience in this worldly life. A lot of our problems, a lot of problems and troubles and pains that we go through, such as, you know, having fight with somebody or we sometimes place of murders and scheming bad things. All this kind of thing that it’s a lot to do with our anger, a lot to do because we generate anger or we get angry with people. So in this lifetime, we can say how much anger has got the capability of making ourselves unhappy and miserable. So looking just on a smaller scale of this current experience, we can relate through our relationship that how anger can destroy everything and make ourselves very miserable.
So so when we are when we are targeting or when we are analyzing the enemies, who is real enemies, so we have to we by realizing the enemy, and then if you go about a kill or or or go about, how to say, the our enemies, if we concentrate on the external causes that makes us angry, and we went about if we went about trying to eliminate the external causes of anger, then we will never be able to get rid of or kill or murder or get rid of all the external causes by saying that I’m going to combat my inner anger, and you went out to look for the external cause and trying to get rid of that, then what will happen is it will keep multiplying. The more that we kill, the more that we are trying to get rid of external causes, more the problem we will be creating for self. So therefore, if we really were to get get if we really we get even with the enemy, then we must try to get even with the inner enemy, which is anger. So here it is said that that all the externals external causes with that we assume to be the assume to be the thing that cause us to react angrily angrily is an actual fact due to the inner due to our inner anger due to our inner anger.
So it is said very kindly in the teaching that if one were to combat the enemy, then we must we must kill the inner enemy, which is anger, so to speak, not the outer outer one. If outer one is a result, one way or other, due to having the inner enemy. So, if we went about getting rid of or warring with the external enemies, then one will never be able to get rid of, one will never be able to tame the enemies. Alright. After correctly after correctly diagnosing the symptom of having anger and what it does what it does is negative and positive effect and so forth.
Now, we we we we realize that the inner enemy, which is anger, is the cause of all the evils all the evils. Now, what sort of what sort of method, what sort of armory, what sort of artillery, what sort of weapons do we need to combat to really get even with our root, to really declare war on that inner enemy, then here comes the the the sorry, the is the is the cultivation of our inner intrinsic quality of our mind, which is completely capable of developing love, compassions, sense of renunciations, and developing the developing a state of wisdom within ourself, self, which will cut through that root problems. And not only that, by getting rid of by developing those aspect, those aspect of the goodness of our mind will get rid of or cut through all the delusionary mind or delusion mind or delusion aspect or emotion affliction such as desire, attachment, anger, and so forth, and whereby we will completely free of that enemy. Once we tame the inner anger enemy, which is anger, then the taming taming of the pacification of the external enemies comes as an automatic result result of getting control or get hold of or or or killing the inner inner enemy, which is anger.
Here, Rinpoche has quote quote the one of the one of the verses from the the writings by Śāntideva regarding how to behave in a a right conduct of altruistic mind. He Acharya Śāntideva has given an analogy or given a kind of analogy that but if if one were to if one were to satisfy our anger by killing or by getting rid of the direct cause to death, say your enemy. Right? If you if you go about and start killing or murdering those enemies of yours, then it’s it’s bound to be the case that that enemy have friends or relatives or who or whatever. They will be starting to angry and start thinking of taking revenge on you.
And if you and then if you go and if you murder them as well, it’s bound to be the case that they will have a relatives or somebody who will be swearing to take your life on. So if you if you were to spend your entire of your life keep murdering in order to in order to get rid of all the external causes of people that makes you angry, then you you still be you still be you still will not be able to finish killing all those people, all those people external causes. It’s like the analogy given is is that of if you were to walk or to get a journey to somewhere, and entire place is filled with the prickly bushes or prickles or thorns or whatever, and then if you were to if you if you were to cover that with the leather by saying by saying that easier to for more to walk, then the entire leather that is available on this earth will not be enough to cover all of this ground so that you can walk easy. But instead, if you were to get a piece of leather that is the size of your your feet and put underneath your shoes or cover your your feet with that, then with a small amount of leather is as good as having lots of leathers to cover or to make things easy for you to walk on it.
In a similar way, yes. To give you in the in the context of this teaching by using the the Buddha’s historical account itself. When Buddha, before he prior to he reaching the enlightenment, he went he went to Bodh Gaya and sit under the bodhi tree, and and where he made a vows, a commitment that I will not arise from this seat unless I achieve achieve the complete perfect enlightenment right now, here and now. When he made that commitment, the maras or the evil evil spirits evil spirit made an attempt to disrupt and distract him from his path or his his his journey towards to the path to reach enlightenment, and the Mara’s use all sort of weaponry, all sort of utility trying to pierce through him, trying to penetrate him, trying to distract him, trying to cause bodily harm. However, through Buddha’s complete strong, genuine love and compassion cultivations, all those external otherwise harmful weapons turn into rather help for him instead of hurting him, and that happened because he got ahold of his inner problems rather than external one.
So now so okay. So the next line is I think we’re talking about attachment. Right? Attachment. Since we live in the desire realm, obviously, there are there are pleasure that we derive through different our different sensory or sensual objects such as touch touch, feeling, feeling, and so forth.
Right? All those pleasurable things that we experience through our five sensory objects are the nature of the nature of the beast is as such that no matter how much we enjoy that, no matter how much we partake the enjoyment from through those five sensory faculty, instead of getting satisfied with that, we become more more dissatisfied. We we develop more and more insatiable desire and and wish for those those pleasure. It’s like in the way that here, they give an example that in the the people in Tibet, they drive the yaks and the the sheeps to bring the salt from the northern part of Tibet. It’s a long terrain like in Middle Australia where they take their yaks and their sheeps.
So here, the teacher has given the analogy that those yaks will be licking the the salt or or they’re drinking the salt water, because they like the salt, no matter how much they drink the salty water, how much they lick the salty thing, their desire for that becomes insatiable and they find it very hard to take from them away. So perhaps Rinpoche says, we will give you here example in Australia as maybe the the people’s insatiable desire for the drinking beer. No matter how much you can rely to. Perhaps. Maybe not.
So knowing that what sort of distraction, the pleasurable objects that can cause us or what sort of a craving they could cause within ourself, which will further drive us or make us more, how to say, suffer more. So, obviously, we cannot get rid of all the all the basic sort of source of craving and so forth, but the point he emphasized is try as best you could distance as much as possible from those pleasurable objects if you can. So, and therefore, there will less chance of arising craving and attachment by keeping distance. However, because of that, obviously, you can’t straight away get rid of all the cravings, root of the cravings or craving or attachment. Cravings less negative, I suppose, compared to the anger as we discussed before.
However, it can cause a great deal of impediment of struggles, obstacles to actually get get in touch with the real enlightenment within which is which is within our own nature. Here, Rinpoche gave the example of the great pandita or sage, Nāgārjuna, he had a he had a very nice begging bowl, which without him realizing, obviously, he was attached to it or, you know, he enjoyed or liked that. So and he was having trouble getting some realization, and he was not quite sure why he’s having trouble realizing certain aspect of teaching. So one day accidentally that accidentally the begging bowl fell off his hand and it broke into pieces. When that happened, realized or he he come to understand some of things that he was having trouble understanding before.
When when he analyzed it properly, then he realized his craving or his attachment to relationship with the the bowl was somehow hindering him. Therefore, his attachment, the craving are a great obstacle in our finally getting touch with ourself. Now the third, I think, is that the deluded ignorance. Here, that deluded ignorance is that aspect of our mind, it’s it plays an important role in stopping us from actually embarking on our path, stopping us from traveling on the path which ultimately introduces ourself to the complete enlightenment, complete knowingness within ourself. It’s like here, the the that delusory delusory desire is likened to that of a noose hanging tied around the animal’s neck that after a certain distance, the animal can’t go, if somebody’s holding back.
In a similar way, the the key instrumental role that this deluded ignorance plays is actually stops us or or prevent us from actually embarking or traveling through the path that is ultimately leading towards the enlightenment. The next stage with the the point we’ll be discussing is now we’re entering into the about delve into the into the the the the view aspect of the teachings. Alright? So here now it is dealing with the the emptiness nature of all phenomena. Okay?
So whatever the external internal external objects that we or that we have a relationship with are all due to come into come into existence or come to come to be purely as a result of our of our grasping at the true existence, existence and its latent potency, potency. So so so whatever external and internal phenomena is out there a result come result as evolution or as a karmic evolution karmic evolutions through the force of through the negative force of negative force of the delusions and and the karma. Right? It’s karma. So this is how they all appear to us or to our mind as that of an inherently, purely, strongly existence on their own accord.
However however, it is not the case. The entire externally and external phenomena, like one’s body, one’s body, one’s house, the environment, the universe, all these things come to born, come to existence as a as a result of as a result of or as a result or through the activities of our deluded mind.