Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 29-minute talk from a Chenrezig retreat, Kyabje Rinpoche gives detailed instruction on the eight-fold offering practice within the sādhana. He walks through each offering one by one—water, foot-washing, flowers, incense, perfumed water, food, music, and the five sensory objects (form, sound, scent, taste, touch)—showing the hand gestures, visualisation of offering goddesses, and the dissolution of each offering back to the meditator’s heart. In the second half, Rinpoche addresses a key doctrinal question: why are both the view of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion (bodhicitta) essential for enlightenment? He uses the analogy of two legs to show their inseparability, explains how to integrate them in practice by alternating between the two—generating bodhicitta as motivation, then meditating on emptiness—and describes how merit from compassion practice acts as fertiliser for wisdom to deepen and ripen. Addressed to those already practising the Chenrezig sādhana.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-07-14 – 6A – Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: 7234850f-c75c-48b4-8186-ba85ff6bb2e2
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Chenrezig
Date: 1994-07-14
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,135
So it’s like a offering. The first thing you do is offer them a water. Okay. When you do that action, right, when that mood rest, what do you do? I’ve no.
By all you you made the offering offering goddess goddesses goddess goddess. Right? With that previous hand gesture, you offer the water. In this case, in this instance, the goddess. Now goddess, but after having consumed the water, you imagine the goddess is now filled with joy or filled with bliss with in conjunction with empty, sense of empty, bliss and empty.
Okay? And with that, the current mood is now you absorb back the offering offering person, should I say, offering personal offering goddesses goddess back to you. Back to let’s absorb back. Okay. The second bit of offering, now you eman another wisdom sorry.
Another offering goddess, and with that sort of actions, imagine that she’s holding she’s holding a water big water ball with that action pouring the water to wash the feet. Okay? Alright. And after having that done, you after washing having washed the feet, you you dissolve that the offering goddess back to your heart with that actions or that, gesture. Okay?
When you said the third word of the offering, that’s a flower. Right? You emanate with the previous similar action with the circling of a lotus. Right? In the lotus sort of shape.
Okay. You emanate the the offering date offering goddess offering goddess. Right? And offering goddess offering flower goddess in the sense of emanate that from your heart. And this is the this action is done in the conjunction with the action tantra, a bit lower.
Right? In the in the highest Highest Yoga Tantra is the way Rupeshit did. It’s like almost like a blossoming of, you know, blooming of a flower that that they were do. Okay? So in that way, you offer the flower.
In a similar sort of sequence, you now follow because of the offering of flower, the Chenrezig in this case, completely blissed, you know, completely blissed, completely empty, enjoy it, and very be happy. Imagine that. And then with the same action, you dissolve that back into your absorb or whatever. What’s that? Similar.
So what A little bit. I saw. The in the plow, we went sort of up like this. Right? But with the incense, the smoke comes supposedly.
So it was going like this downward a bit. Yeah. A bit downward. Oh, yeah. Again, same with snap of the fingers.
You dissolve back with yourself, to your heart. Now we’re the. Right? Same actions. For the same lotus circle, you emanate or you you emanate the the the offering goddess with that sort of action.
I think the sort of gestures symbolizes the like a like a weakest in the butter lamp or the the lamp burning upward. You go across your two hands and snap the finger. You dissolve that back to you. Same sequence. I’m in the rear.
You I’m in the no. You same gesture. So now that sort of action is against that that particular action is now the scented water. Right? The perfumed water.
Right? With with sandalwoods and things like that. The same thing you emanate emanate the offering they offering goddess. Right? With that action, now what she does is pour take the water and apply it to the heart, to the to the the guest or the Chenrezig in this case.
Right? Hard because it was so hot in India, so it makes gives them a very cooling comfort. No. No. No.
No. It’s not hot. Not hot. What was that’s With the same cross of your hands, snapping the finger, dissolve back to you again. Okay.
You emanate with previous circling lotus. You emanate the radius, like, offering this again. And with action of that, now you’re offering the food. Maybe slightly with two fingers, you know, the the index drawn in the mid bit with the thumb facing towards each other. Yes.
In the highest form, it is like straight like this. Don’t do. Okay. Now you’re the same. You everything else, then you do the second the the muse offering with that hand and with the bell, I think.
Make a sound of bell. It’s a musical offering. It is it’s just sort of symbolized like playing a conchal or trumpet or blunt trumpet or something. In highest form, tantra goes straight like this. All of your fingers, four fingers, you know, all your digits in the action like this.
Same gesture. You dissolve with snap of the finger. Absorb dissolve back to yourself, the the the deity. The, you know, offering goddess. So if you make an offering, if you prefer to make an offering of the five sensory objects like a form this is a form offering.
It’s the mirror. The reason do the the the holding the mirror long is like a mirror, the closest you can get in translations mirror because all sorts of form appears in the mirror. And the same action, you dissolve back. Sound is the same. Incense.
Incense. Literal translates smell in the case. Incense. Sorry. No.
Like this. It’s supposed to take the water. I like this. K. Like this.
Taking it in the water like this. Raw. It’s a like a taste. Taste is the same like that, but the one we did before. No difference.
That’s the touch. Offering of touch or tangibility or sensibility. I don’t know. Uh-huh. It’s like you’re offering they’re holding a cloth, a dress, or gown, or something like in that gesture and you’re offering.
It’s like a touch, offering of a touch. The five sensory objects we’re talking here. Right? Same gesture. You take everything apart.
There is no as by practicing compassions, in this case, right, practicing there’s no such as a great deal danger as you probably say danger of or you’re getting in trouble, so to speak. It’s not just meditating on the compassion alone. It’s not as such as a danger they’re waiting till you get in trouble. It does not exist that way. However, it’s like this.
Alright? The both emptiness, view emptiness, and the practice of compassion has both has the merit. So by meditating on one or or not meditating other is not as such a danger. However, the importance of combining those two is a must, indispensable. Without both of them reaching enlightenment is out of the question, while you may have a great deal of benefit doing one thing or or at the expense of other.
Right? It’s like a person with the with the one leg, he or she can’t walk. Right? So that person needs need two strong leg to move his body, to travel, or to walk, whatever. In a similar way, you see, you do need the combination of the conjunct practice of these two aspect in in in in a combined sort of way.
That is the benefit. To reach enlightenment, you must need the combination of both without without with the absence of one, you can’t reach while, I mean, you know, you do get a benefit of doing one thing. Importance emphasizing the the combination of both in order to reach the liberated state. Alright? Liberated state.
Here, for instance, if we meditate on compassion of bodhicitta alone, while we cannot say that the meditating on the bodhicitta is a cause of of you still being chained or stuck in the automatic karmic chain, cyclic existence experience. Right? However, you still remain in the in the saṃsāra. You still experience the samsaric things. Right?
So the practicing here, the compassion love, it’s like a it’s it’s it’s like a it’s like a plowing the field. It’s a it’s a method. It is making your mind mind or or your your mind which is constricted with a lot of other negativity and making your mind more more malleable or suitable. And when you practice the view to a view that understands, a view that recognizes the emptiness of it all, then you you easily wipe out all the all the now softened raw negativity in which, wiping out that raw negativity is what you call the, reaching the enlightenment or getting freedom from the, samsaric samsaric, how to say, chain reactions. Alright?
So you need both combined. The both, the cultivation of a both state of mind is very important for each other’s development. You see each other’s development. When you combine those two forces together, you see the impetus impetus or the strength of one another is increased by assisting each other. So you combine the both forces which makes in one one mighty powerful force or energy that cuts through everything and propels oneself into the actual we want in the actual nature of one’s own mind that is complete, the perfect enlightenment.
Dynamics of the combination of both is a must in in in this indispensable factor to reach complete perfect enlightenment. However, it does not mean to say that while we’re on on a spiritual training, training, that every time we engage in a spiritual practice, we have to have both both aspect of mind being cultivated at the same time. It’s almost impossible. So what you do is you alternate it. While you are directly engaging the meditation or meditative equipoise on the emptiness view, right, the the the cultivation of or the project of cultivating the bodhicitta, it sits on the back burner, so to speak.
Okay? So you alternate that. So only when you’re once fully fully enlightened, then it’s a possible possible not it’s not impossible. It it can be done. That can be have both can happen at one simultaneous time without excluding each other.
Alright. So if that’s the case, then if we emphasize importance integration of these two factors of practice in order to achieve enlightenment, then in our initial stage, how should we integrate them? The integration, how we should do the integration of both? Both, and obviously it is impossible almost to combine both in our initial stage. So what we should do is, first of all, the bodhicitta is a motivational factor.
That motivational factor that drives us, that propels us enthusiastically towards achieving our goal. So first of all, you you can engage your mind or put your mind in a state where you you generate this motivation of wanting to wanting to make all wanting to make all other sentient beings free of their misery and your urge to put them into the state where they can experience the most unsurpassable pleasure or bliss. After having stayed, keeping your mind on that factor, cultivating your mind on that factor for a a while, then you let go of it a little bit while not go of it a little bit, and then you meditate onto the the view that understands or the the knowledge or the state of mind that understand or relates to the the true nature of things, the emptiness. Right? So what happens is you started off, initiated through this motivational factor of bodhicitta, even though it’s not that apparent at the time of your analytically looking at how things are, still somehow there is a connection.
There’s energy flowing from the previous motivation factor that assist that assist and that makes this the the view of emptiness far more richer and far more tastier and far more workable and powerful and far more pure rather than a dried dried understanding. So therefore, how this is how you sort of lead or train your mind in that directions. So so as you said, you gotta alternate. Reason of alternating these two during our period of gaining the momentum, so to speak, towards the enlightenment, what you do is by the fact that you meditate on bodhicitta or awakening mind, its consequence. The the profit of doing that is you accumulate lot of merit.
Okay? A lot of merit that in turns acts as a fertilizer too. Okay? As a assisting condition or a fertilizer to the view that understand emptiness to grow more powerfully, more more purely, more strongly, more sharply, so to speak, to cut through the things. Okay.
So you alternate like that. And then you come back to the bodhicitta meditation, then you create more you collect more merit, more fertilizers, which you which you transfer onto the the the the view of understanding of emptiness that grows even bigger, even stronger, even sharper. So this is how you coordinate cross fertilization of each other’s energy, so to speak, wherever you increase the momentum of gaining speed towards enlightenment. So you Yes. I think we should end here.