Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Lama Choedak explores the foundation of Buddhist practice, distinguishing it from other traditions by its emphasis on voluntary, reasoned adoption rather than imposed belief. He begins by showing how the Buddha encourages personal investigation and understanding as the ground for genuine discipline, then moves through the karmic basis of moral conduct—examining how actions rooted in greed, hatred, and ignorance inevitably produce suffering, while compassionate conduct produces wellbeing. Choedak illustrates these principles with concrete examples: the shepherd who cried wolf and lost credibility through repeated lies; the varied karmic consequences of killing versus respecting life; the way speech either builds or destroys community trust. He emphasizes that discipline is not rigidity but a cooling balm—a practical method for reducing suffering. The talk concludes with meditation as the method for reversing habitual patterns and cultivating awareness, stressing that understanding the luminous, empty nature of mind allows practitioners to work skillfully with their consciousness. Throughout, he argues that adoption of precepts becomes genuine only when rooted in personal understanding of cause and effect, not cultural obligation or fear of punishment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Buddhist Attitude to Life2.mp3
UUID: 4c35b10c-167f-4d32-b965-d136ae9937b9
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Buddhist Attitude to Life (Choedak)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~10,785
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome this evening to this talk tonight by Lama Choedak. Lama Choedak has been a member of the Sakya Buddhist order for many, many years. He’s had twelve years training and teaching for a number of years after that. And I’m sure all of those who attended the talk on Thursday evening are looking forward to this evening’s talk. I certainly am.
The founders and students of Buddhism in the early days, and since then, there has been that maintained connection with Buddhism. Buddha holds a high place amongst theosophists. I’m very proud tonight to have Lama Choedak with us. Thank you, Lama. Good evening, everybody, and thank you for coming here.
We have gathered here to look deeply into the practice that has been developed in various religious teachings and how that has been influencing practitioners throughout history, how among all those religious teachings, Buddhist teaching and its method of disciplining the practitioner has its own dynamic method of showing the path in a very open sense, how practitioners themselves reach to know how voluntarily the practice becomes very much self-choice, not so much because you’re philosophically attached to one particular religious background, so therefore you ought to do this. It’s your belief. Your ancestor has been doing this. So this you have to do. As various religions and cultures impose certain things upon people, what as a Muslim or as Buddhist or as a Christian, you must do this.
That’s it. There’s not much reason for oneself to understand convincingly so that you become a practitioner out of your own choice, out of your own investigation, that you have developed a clear understanding what you are doing. So teachings of Buddha very clearly at the very beginning show the practice that one wishes to practice should be something one must know clearly. And providing that you know what you’re trying to do, then it would be totally voluntary.
There wouldn’t be much of a purpose of engaging in the first place, let alone continuing it, if one lacks the understanding of the practice. So therefore, in Buddhist teachings, it strongly emphasizes at the very beginning how you see the teachings. How you see the teachings, and teachings are there merely to be examined. And we ourselves, as an individual, have that ability to examine, providing that we actually utilize our own sense of intelligence through training, discipline, through practice, we will be able to understand. How we can understand it is on the base of our own experiences.
We have experienced what is happiness and how we like to be, how we like to be treated by others, how we like to treat ourselves, and therefore, either physically or mentally or verbally, how people treat us. And we have our own choices how we want to be treated. So that of course, everyone wants to be treated the best way and nicely, pleasantly, kindly, caring. And that is the real reason why the discipline really comes in, not because you have to be pious and religious to practice. Because we have this common interest that everyone wants to experience care and pleasant approach and nicely, therefore, our own experience tells us that our own mode of approaching others, helping others, caring for others, communicating with others becomes something where we convincingly understand that this through one’s own experience, becomes beneficial to others.
So to be able to do so, one needs to develop what are the hindering factors in oneself that one becomes incapable of approaching others in the most best method to give them pleasant feelings, pleasant communication. So therefore, the question of the delusions and defilements, or more correctly, the obscuring factors of our mind that wish to help and care for others, but yet being handicapped by circumstances, therefore the discipline in Buddhist teachings, as with most religious teachings, very much becomes a technique of overcoming these limitations in us. Why can we not give to others? Why can’t we receive what people have to give? What is this barrier between us and others?
Or between us and the god or us with the Buddha, whatever you call it. Whether you’re talking about union with god or realizing enlightenment to reach the state of Buddhahood or whether you’re talking about developing perfect harmony with others by developing understanding. We’re talking about breaking these barriers. The differences between us and others is very much our way, how we have developed our habits, habitual tendencies. So the habits that we have developed in Buddhist terms and most religious terms who believe in law of cause and effect is known as karma.
Cause and effect. Very logically, whatever we do brings its result, sooner or later. Depending on the intensity of your motivation and your application as well as the completion, the level of the completion of any particular action that we engage in can vary depending on the volume of the motivation, the application, and the completion. But however, no matter how tiny and minor an action we might commit, they necessarily produce a result. So therefore, discipline therefore means when a person understands the law of cause and effect that everything brings its result inevitably, therefore how we organize ourselves in terms of implementing our body, speech, and mind in relation to developing a healthy relationship with others, and that kind of awareness to introspect ourselves to be able to become more aware of the self and its modes of masterminding the body, speech, mind.
In the meantime, when we do not have that awareness, as long as we are not aware of that state, no matter what we do, we seem to be very much colored by projection of mind. Therefore, everything around us seems to be very negative no matter how much we try to do. So the barrier seems to be very much the projection of one’s own mind. When we do not see the projection of our own mind as being the cause of problems, therefore, one doesn’t become aware enough to discipline oneself voluntarily. Therefore, one becomes quite comfortable and compulsive to find something externally to blame on and not being able to practice oneself no matter how much that discipline might appeal to us, still, one’s incapability becomes very much a weakness that totally overlooks the discipline as well as the practice itself.
So how we can really develop an awareness of the discipline being genuine and helpful is developing the awareness and the meditative qualities that can only penetratively perceive these spiritual qualities. So in Buddhist terms and practice of meditation, the main target of meditation is being mindful of inward nature of the mind. So as we meditate on the inward nature of the mind, first thing we will really come to as we try to concentrate is the distraction. These distractions are nothing but imprints of our mind. There’s no need for any external stimulus, the mental distraction can occur.
So we don’t need great, loud music around us or any, you know, gigantic colorful things in front of us to produce this distraction. Even if we close our eyes or even if we try not to listen to anything, still distraction in the mind can occur. So from these, it tells that distraction as a first hindering factor in the meditation comes very much from the habit of our mind, habitual tendency, imprints on our mind. So therefore, when we try to concentrate our mind, first thing in encountering the distractions tells us that there are inevitable causes that we have accumulated that have left these imprints upon mind. Whether we can remember it or not, whether we cannot figure out when we did this action to produce this imprint or not.
We have one saying in Tibetan, even if you eat garlic in absence, the smell comes in presence. So from this, we understand inferentially that the weakness of our mind comes very much from its own ill doings, its own unskillful doings. So providing that we realize this, we will be very conscious about how we can remediate these habits because mind is not always full of negative imprints. It’s also got a lot of positive imprints. We’ve got a lot of positive imprints.
Only thing we’ve got to know is we’ve got to discover them. We’ve got to create situations where we can give rise to these positive habitual imprints too. So therefore, the question of moral discipline, the word discipline very much comes from the word discipleship. You become disciple of something. You learn it wholeheartedly with full aspiration.
You are studying chemistry. You are studying engineering. You study by giving your full time, energy, everything for years just for one’s living. Whereas we are talking here about disciplining oneself on a spiritual path, which is not only satisfying for this life, but also for future lives that one believes in. Even if one finds it difficult in terms of relating to many past rebirths, still, any discipline what one wanted to adopt doesn’t become necessarily some nice word said by somebody you have trust and faith in, and you just accept it.
That kind of discipline doesn’t really last long. It becomes, that discipline very much becomes a superficial method of disciplining oneself, and there’s no long lasting effect on the mind, then you can always find a remedial process within yourself when one actually experiences problems. The discipline is not so much to make ourselves a rigid life. Discipline is such to ease ourselves. Most people, when they have discipline, they seem to become more rigid.
Rigid becomes very difficult. They can’t do that. They can’t do that, and there’s only very limited conditions. Of course, one has to respect certain vows that one has taken, certain vows one has taken, but the vow has its own functions. If there’s no function of anything, there’s no use of any object.
If the chair is no longer good enough to sit upon, it’s no longer a chair. If the vow is not functioning to minimize one’s sufferings and rigidity and grasping, then it doesn’t help oneself. This I can, you know, illustrate you from the very original Sanskrit word of shila. Śīla means moral discipline. But if we break up the combination of two Sanskrit words, it is a combination of two words, shi and la.
Word shi also means dew, dew drops. La actually means obtaining, cooling effect. So what we’re saying is moral discipline has the function of causing cooling effect. If it was implemented, if one is suffering from the heat of suffering, heat of problems, heat of ego, heat of, you know, all these negativities that we have, taking that as analogous to heat and using the disciplines as a cooling effect.
If there is no function of cooling effect as a result of adopting a discipline, then it becomes only cause of developing subtle ego. So therefore, when we talk about discipline, in this case, say, okay. Now just having given you the definition of word moral discipline in Buddhist, shila. And so I can refer you a few Buddhist major Buddhist vows on moral teaching, moral precepts, whether they can become voluntarily acceptable in us as an individual, or they become something culturally unacceptable. So if we are not prepared already enough convincingly to accept them, something logically you can accept with no doubt.
And then if that kind of adoption of principle in your life necessarily has functioning effect of bringing cooling effect, just minimizing the heat of our own grasping, hatred, ego, and all these negativities. If you do not develop any discipline without this understanding, you might adopt it a few times. You might adopt it, but then there is a negative subtle effect that develops on one’s ego. Because when we talk about cooling effect, we’re not only talking about the particular opposite factors of the moral discipline, but it’s mainly talking about subtly affecting the development of ego and self-cherishing.
If anything that really feeds the ego, it’s not a spiritual practice. If anything that seems to become more, I would say, giving and being able to let go, even the practice itself, as the time arrives, that kind of sense of being able to let go. Because moral discipline, if as we see in all religious teachings, I believe, is only a raft. It would be stupid to carry the bridge or the raft after crossing. It’s only for the purpose of crossing.
So but as long as we are not able to cross it properly, we have to adopt it because if you’re middle of the water on the boat, that’s the only thing you have. So you have to voluntarily accept it. You have to voluntarily sustain it. You have no other choice unless you can swim, but then you could have done it much earlier. So if we find ourselves along a path having adopted a discipline, then that has to be accepted.
That has to be adopted until one really reaches the aim of adopting it. Otherwise, there’s no point of vow. There’s no sense of pledging. There’s no sense of discipline. Discipline means making oneself strict enough to develop and face the difficulties.
Difficulties, I would say, as a real substance or raw material for achievement. If we don’t discipline ourselves, we only seek easy happiness, easy comfort and pleasantness, we never would be able to achieve anything. If we determine ourselves and then engage with great anticipation in spiritual path or anything which requires discipline, which always faces difficulties. If you fail to complete it and then leave halfway through, it is said it’s a great showing. It is said that if you find yourself in the middle of a practice and then if you have to withdraw from it, the effort that it requires to give up the practice and withdrawing from it, if that effort was furthered in terms of continuing the practice, you would make much further progress.
So withdrawing from the practice actually requires a lot of effort, and all the practice effort that you have previously implemented for developing that far become totally wasted because it has a tremendous psychological impact on one’s mind of guilt, of regret, and not feeling good about what you have done. So getting confused. What have I done? So if a practitioner with this sense of clarity of what one is trying to do, with this sense of practice, no matter how much one has to maneuver carefully along the path, if one is facing these difficulties, still the whole practice should be a cause of having the room to accommodate oneself, plus being able to use the technique, discipline.
The discipline as a method of easing the problems, just experiencing the cooling effect of the technique and thus being able to minimize the heat of problems. So karmically speaking, all things that we experience in life, let’s say habitually, have various karmic causes in us. Experientially, we experience a lot of karmic causes, and environmentally, we have karmic causes. And personally, we have various ingrained karmic factors in us. So bearing this in mind, Buddha had carefully enumerated certain activities, certain disciplines, such as the act of non-killing.
So this is one of the first disciplines that is, you know, shown in the teaching. Non-killing. Any action when Buddha says it’s non-virtuous or virtuous. Any action that is motivated by hatred, delusion, or greed, any action that you do out of these three motivations are necessarily non-virtuous action, unskillful action. So therefore, the action that we engage in ourselves in harming others’ lives, destroying either with a great sense of greed, attachment, or with a great hatred or with a great ignorance, thinking that killing is an enjoyment, a form of a method of enjoying oneself at a leisurely time.
And that’s killing out of ignorance, taking it as a sense of enjoyment. And if this kind of activities, whether we have done in this life or not, actually, inferentially, can understand through our own what type of activities have we committed in the past experientially, habitually. If there is, you know, if we have been engaged in action of killing in the past, there’s a lot of factors in us that can really inferentially tell. You don’t even remember particularly what you killed, when, whether you were aware and so forth, but there’s very indicative factors in us that killing was involved. So habitually speaking, when we are young, sometimes some young people are very, very habitually inclined to play with insects and harm them, whereas others are even terrified to touch them, let alone harming them.
You know? And these are just habitual things. And then some are fond of things. Some wanted to buy weapons, play with weapons, from their own childhood. All this habitual things.
This can be integrated with all other common conditions. Experientially speaking, some people experience tremendous unhealthy conditions right from their childhood, always sick. One sickness comes, treatment is undertaken. Another sickness comes. Always some kind of unhealthy conditions can reoccur again and again.
Sometimes very long time not being able to recover experientially in this life. And, also, personally, one becomes always influenced and easily misguided and associating with people who don’t care about killing. Karmically speaking, personally, one becomes very much surrounded by such conditions. If the person had not been involved in killing, the experiences, experientially and habitually, would be totally opposite. One will enjoy great health in this life.
Although the body is subject to sickness and death, still some people are really healthy and never get sick. Twenty years, they never get sick. Not even a cold. There are some people, you know. This doesn’t just come from climate and food and everything.
You know? We just seem to blame. And some doctors say that there are four causes of sickness, that is food, behavior, and climate. How simple. It would be better not to eat at all.
You see? So this sickness doesn’t come. It’s karmically, there is a lot of, you know, factors in us that are imprinted, and they give rise. Have we been very respecting of others’ lives? We will not suffer a lot of physical unhealthy conditions.
More correctly, one will have a lot of spiritual aspirations. As a result of that healthy attitude towards others’ lives in the past, we experience healthy body and healthy spiritual motive. So if we do understand these karmic consequences and law of cause and effect in this given situation, then the adoption of the vow or discipline of not killing becomes quite voluntary. It doesn’t have to be given reason that it might be someone else you knew in the past or something. This doesn’t become a big important reason.
One can understand very clearly that how each and every life is very important just as I myself wanted to experience health and not having the slightest pain in any part of my body, similarly, you know, one becomes creatively mindful when one’s mind is engaging to harm or hurt others. And as soon as the motivation develops, the awareness of how one should adopt this discipline to stop this becomes very, very voluntary. You don’t need a great reminder or sign saying don’t kill or, you know, all these things. You don’t need these things. It becomes a great realization.
So the law of cause and effect, the better person, the better you understand the law of cause and effect, easier it becomes to adopt the disciplines. This we are talking mainly about are strictly disciplines prescribed in certain teachings like Buddhism. But then we have many other disciplines that are equally viable and relevant to the laws and rules and regulations of the country where we live. And nobody is encouraged to kill. If somebody really chooses to do so, there are cases that you are not punished, but you are not really considered to be good, even in the modern materialistic society.
So if we look at it like this, these ancient various religious disciplines that we refer to, although were prescribed many thousands of years ago, they’re only based upon what is necessary for the happiness of us and others who share this planet together. So that was always equal position, equal principle since beginning of time up to now. It hasn’t changed. Everyone still wants to be happy no matter there’s a nuclear weapon or not. Whether there was nuclear weapon or not twenty thousand years ago, people still want happiness.
They wanted to solve the problem. This was always the case. Therefore, any rules and regulation in the country or a society or a family or any condition, they’re all for the benefit of many. Whatever is giving benefit to many, that is something to be considered. Therefore, especially when we live in a democratic society, talking about how everybody should have the right, everybody has the right to live happy, live healthy.
So these conditions really make ourselves, make the understanding of law of cause and effect much more applicable. So therefore, if one is becoming a particular follower of religious teachings or not, these things become very important factor for one’s development as a human being, how you want to contribute to humankind, as well as as a spiritual practitioner, how you wanted to uplift yourself spiritually. These things become very key important things to consider. Otherwise, a man without discipline will not develop in anything in anything, in the study of making a living, earning, traveling. Whatever you want to learn, without discipline we never make it.
If we really look at the qualities of discipline, we don’t have to necessarily refer to the spiritual qualities of discipline. We can refer to those people who become most famous athletes. They only achieve those stages through discipline, through hard working, and mainly through voluntary. Maybe have some pushy teachers or parents, but, you know, that mainly is out of their own strong will and determination. So that comes from that sense of motivation.
And that is one, okay. I can refer to another action of speech, you know, one of the actions of speech. Speech is very important. Speech is a vehicle through which we communicate with others, through which we can solve problems, through which we create problems. So who is going to be, you know, watching this speech to make sure that our method of communicating with others is suitable enough to communicate with others, to develop understanding.
So therefore, in Sanskrit, it says, tell the truth, practice the truth. If one is not capable of expressing the truth, one will never be able to practice the truth. So means that to be able to express the truth or what is righteous thing to do, our mind has to be very strongly implemented. You can see even in the most powerful people in the world, in history, modern history, like Churchill. Probably, you know better than me, whatever what he was and how he became, mainly because of his ability to communicate and because of his power that manifests through his speech.
Not so much of the other techniques. I don’t know how many he had. You know, through one of his talents, through speech. If we develop our own speech, that we if we have this awareness to guard our speech and use it with a pure sense of motivation, speech is the most important vehicle through which we develop good ways. But at the same time, if the speech was not guarded, it is the most dangerous thing.
His precious mouth gives the suffering to the body. The mouth, and then, you know, if you don’t look after that small little red tongue, you will have trouble on your head. So the tongue, you know, where we actually use our speech, how we talk mindfully or telling the truth or casually or not really thinking with pure motivation, it creates misunderstanding, and it causes idle talks about something. We talk casually, but then it develops into argument all of a sudden. You know, didn’t mean it.
It didn’t start with that much. It just becomes cause of argument. Your views come very strong, and therefore, the views that we try to speak through, you know, which really come out of carelessness, nothing more than carelessness, you know, create a lot of suffering. And therefore, the best friend you really love so much, you would find yourself with no bet and no reason, you would be arguing with him for several hours or even longer. You know, I’ve seen that many times in my case too.
You know? Because it’s, and as we learn that through our life, you see, we have only few methods of communicating with others, either through speech or body or mind behaviors. So in Buddhist terms, as far as guarding the speech is concerned, not telling lies. If a person has told lies many times or telling lies in the past life, it has this equal habitual, experiential, personal, and environmental effects to suffer or enjoy. There are some people who really everybody listens to and takes it.
His word is true. Some people, no matter how much they try to tell, nobody would listen, interestingly. Some people very influential, while others not. Some people even like to tell with no great reason, always want to make jokes and not being able to say I’m joking. You know?
Develop casually that I’m joking. I’m joking. And then that joke really makes a big lie eventually. There’s a story of a shepherd in Tibet, and he was feeling quite lonely. That was his first time he went to look after cattle.
You know? He’d never herded them. So he was feeling a bit lonely, and knew some of his other friends were also looking after their cattle in shepherds’ towns. So he felt very lonely, and they had made agreement that if you really have trouble with jackals or wild animals attacking your cattle, we yell at each other and then come and help. So he was becoming very lonely, and that was only his reason.
There was no jackals attacking his cattle and no problem. So he yelled. He yelled, asking his friend that there’s a jackal coming attacking my animals. Could you come? So his friend, you know, jumped, you know, ran and ran.
And after he came there, and he said, I’m sorry. You know? That’s not true. I just want you to come here. His friend was so disappointed.
Even though he said he was joking, his friend was so disappointed because he was doing something special, but he was quite busy. And he came all the way to save his friend, and he knew that his friend has, you know, told a lie. So and then he used to go with other friends at other times too to look after, and he did the same thing. One day, actually, there was a jackal and then he called for friends. No one came because no one would listen to him.
No one would listen to him because he has a habit of telling lies. So means, karma instantly ripens around you. It doesn’t have to wait until next rebirth and so forth. So if we do understand the law of cause and effect in these conditions, really, experientially, what kind of person we have been in the past, what kind of person we’re going to be in the future, very much could be indicated through our own experiences that tell the past, our motives that will tell the future. So therefore, this becomes a tremendous cause of developing awareness of your doings, your activities.
So things that you think you should develop as a positive action become very necessarily voluntary. It doesn’t become something that your teacher would scold you or look at you or your parents or elder would see you that you’re doing this. Those things don’t become much of a reason. Your sense of understanding and feeling of faith and understanding of realization of law of cause and effect makes oneself capable of adopting these practices. You know?
And most negative effect of telling lies is not being able to have any faith and follow any spirituality. One becomes lost. Seems to have interest there. Seems to have interest there. Nothing seems to convince you of spiritual path, and sometimes even develop wrong views about the teachings and thereby never being able to develop.
That’s the worst effect of misuse of speech. One has no ability to understand the teachings, whichever way it’s explained or written in books, whichever way one cannot understand because the effect of misguiding other people by jokes and telling lies and so forth, left such a negative impact that one’s mind simply cannot become matured enough to understand and appreciate the teachings. So if we are reaching to the level of appreciating one another’s spiritual path and finding ourselves something very satisfactory with the spiritual path that cannot be found in any material way, that is mainly because we have been following one or another kind of spiritual path, the path of truth in the past, and are enjoying its result.
And therefore, the discipline we’re talking about has to be very much upon this examination. What we are experiencing, what our motivation is now in relation to other people, in relation to our work, in relation to your own plans and future and dreams that you have, the motivation and how you want to do, whether that is predominantly caused by greed, hatred, and ignorance, or compassion, caring, love, that you wanted to care and give to others.
By examining our motives through these lines, we will be able to understand what kind of life can we expect. And through our own experiences tells, but that experience is only exhaustion of certain karma. So it’s only just completion of certain karma. So even if we are to have a terrible experience in life, that shouldn’t weaken us at all. Many people think that if they have a terrible life, they think, I must have been terrible person, and that really weakens oneself feeling that I cannot do, as if everything is going to be non-progressive because my experience tells.
Undergoing hardship should be found as an indication of exhaustion of negative karma rather than a bursting of negative karma. Our attitude to the ripening of negative karma is going to produce karma for sure. So therefore, if one is negative about that, it automatically will produce negative karma. If one has the positive attitude to such exhaustion of negative karma, your view changes of yourself. We have to be able to like ourselves, what we do.
I think sometimes it’s very important that when we go to job, when we go to work, okay, nine to five job and five days a week type of thing in work. And most people have a tendency of trying to find more leisure and waiting for the leisure to come, not liking what you’re really doing. And it is really psychologically very harmful because the maximum time of the week you spend working and disliking it, and how can you possibly expect a leisurely weekend to be happy? Because the influence of whole week attitude has enhanced the mind to a level even though the leisurely condition that you’ve been expecting sensually doesn’t bring happiness. It aggregates suffering because of the attitude that you develop throughout the whole week.
So when I say voluntary discipline, it means that we have to, if you are going for a job, you must like it. It’s really nice to like what you do. If we don’t like ourselves, we cannot make any progress. Everything becomes waste of time. We suddenly feel guilty and self-pity, and anything around you is not quite right.
Nothing seems to appeal to our mind. Thereby, we become totally negative. And therefore, all the conditions around them become very hostile because of these conditions. If we are able to like what we do, if we are able to like what we do most of the time because we have chosen ourselves to be a chef. We have chosen ourselves to be a teacher or to be a carpenter or to be a builder.
You know? We must like it. If we don’t want to work it anymore, okay. I also like it. You don’t have to think, oh, I’ve been a good carpenter.
I don’t want to do it anymore. I feel guilty, not continuing what I used to do. You see? The attitude behind the work is very, very important. So therefore, any conditions around us have no potential whatsoever to provide us discipline or happiness as a result if our mind and attitude to implement these things are not in the right context.
So to be able to do so, the practice of meditation churns the mind and recycles the mind to be able to clearly see because usually we are so pressurized by work and responsibility and tensions, mind becomes very much over-carried by these responsibilities. So therefore, the sense of mental clarity with caring for others cannot develop because every business is checking, making profit and, you know, not so much thinking to give everything to others. You rather want to make profit and, you know, so forth. When spiritual practice, therefore, is rather making spiritual practice profitable, that is to care for others. So our ordinary activities usually have that negative effect of making us less sensitive of others’ welfare.
So therefore, the discipline to make this discipline happen, in Buddhist, in most religious teachings, you know, talks about discipline, particularly in Buddhist teachings, meditation, meditation practice. And meditation is not to be regarded as something necessary you have to sit down. Meditation means awareness, being aware of what you do. And whatever you’re doing, being able to implement best of your motivation. Never do unless one is clearly able to proceed that it is positive.
So make more thinking before doing, but once one is doing, being able to still guard the mind, that kind of sense of, you know, awareness is real aim of formal meditation practices. Because most people are raised in a life that is very hectic, very pressurized, one is not capable of developing that awareness, being able to know that you are chopping something or you’re cutting something or you’re sawing something, that awareness is not something what we’re talking about. It’s talking about how you are able to tune your mind to see the best possible thing that you can do right now, right now. Not talking about anytime tomorrow. We’re not worried about tomorrow.
We’re talking about how I’m going to do this right. How I’m going to like today so that whether there is a weekend to come or not, how I’m going to like now? Because you cannot make anything possible without, you know, without liking right now. Even if you do come to, I would say, even if you do notice that you have made a mistake somewhere along with this development of awareness, the discovery of a mistake itself is the beauty. Discovery of the mistake itself is the beauty of further progress.
Why is that? Most of us have a tendency that when we find ourselves, you know, when we find ourselves making a mistake, not making progress properly, we seem to feel sorry for ourselves. We seem to feel all my time has been wasted. You see, if you really look at, if you really look at the whole, say that you’re weaving a carpet, you know, weaving carpet, good example. Weaving a carpet, and the carpets are all made out of different knots.
And you realize that there have been few knots that have really ruined the carpet. And usually, we have a tendency that it is these three knots that have ruined my carpet. You see? That’s the very weakness of human mind. One doesn’t know that these three knots could themselves become very beautiful by themselves.
Had we not made all the previous knots. See? So there is no blaming object for you whatsoever to these three particular knots or one knot. You see? So if we do notice any mistakes or failings, they should be taken as a stepping stone.
That’s why Buddha must have taught the noble truth of suffering at the beginning. The more we are able to know our limitations, more we’ll be able to solve the problem. We have a saying in Vajrayāna teaching that if you have water in your ear, if you notice there’s water in your ear, and if you think it’s a bother, put more water. Put more water. You wouldn’t notice much of a difference.
Either it will bring out all or it will be full. You don’t experience that. Practical, you know. And this is to suggest that if you think it’s a problem, if you think it is a problem, you’ve got to know how it has become a problem. How it became a problem.
Rather than saying this is a problem, I have a problem. Because if one notices a problem or weaknesses or downfall in certain practices, that itself, means that weakness itself can be a quality, can itself be a quality. So the idea of discipline, discipline always makes mistakes. People who do not try to make anything hardly make any mistake because they don’t have any right or wrong. Hardly do anything, so no one would point you are doing wrong.
So that means the very fact that we are making mistake is obvious reason that you’re trying. Isn’t it a good indication? So in this way, our view of ourselves is more important than what is around us, what we are surrounded by. When we have a healthy view of ourselves, whatever we do will be very much transformed by our view. Therefore, whatever is around ourselves becomes very, very benefiting factors.
They don’t become any opposing and hostile factor for us to experience these sufferings as a consequence because our view seems to be the most important thing. Therefore, the indwelling nature of us, which in Buddhist terms fundamentally would call Buddha nature, is all the same. Same. The nature of the mind, the mind is not in the mind, but the nature of the mind is luminous and empty. The clarity of our mind, that very ability that we can hear each other and see each other and experience sitting on a chair and so forth and becoming evening in Adelaide, all this, I would say, phenomenon of clarity, we are quite clear that this is a room in the Theosophical Society, aren’t we?
Okay? But these various circumstances that which are perceived by our mind are a reflection of our mind. Whether it has been labeled by ten years ago when they started the society or ten years, whatever it is, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Okay. When this name was labeled, it’s very much a reflection of our mind that sees clearly this is a room in Adelaide in Theosophical Society.
Okay. You have that ability to reflect phenomena around you. Similarly, you go to a place, you go in Japan all of a sudden, you will see a dish that you have never seen on the table. Okay? People will tell you this is so and so.
This is so. Explain you. It’s really difficult to make it real food. You know, make it something, it doesn’t make it quite real as this room could be now. See, the mind sometimes when it is not maneuvered carefully or habituated carefully, nothing seems to be a concept now.
Nothing seems to become concrete enough to be a concept. When we have developed this concept clearly, okay, when we have developed these concepts clearly, the clear appearance of this room as a Theosophical room is concrete to our mind. It’s not empty. It’s true. It seems solid to us.
It seems very real. And this impression of us, around us, is because we haven’t realized the true nature of our mind. Therefore, we see, we would all be quite prepared to ascertain even in court that this is the Theosophical Society room. You know? We reach to that level about making it concrete as a reality.
But if we really philosophically argued, which is Theosophical Society, pointing out, you would have to break all these into parts. This is a window. That is a corner. That is a roof. So how is there any particular place you can really call Theosophical Society?
You break into particles. So many particles. So whole collection that we piled together and just made it up, and then we label, merely. This therefore is a merely labeling basis, merely labelable base. We call it lecture room, meditation room, or you can call it theater, people dance here.
You can call it anything. Because this is not concretely meditation room, it can be used as a lecture room. It can be used as a dancing room. Nothing is true. Everything is really labeled.
So if our impression of anything around us, anything around us seems to be very concrete. That’s because of habit, accumulated habits upon us. So it becomes very real. Let us talk about the concreteness of ourselves with this particular name, and my name is Choedak. I feel quite concrete about this, quite real about this, because my habit is long enough to feel Choedak than John.
You see? I can’t feel John. I can’t feel Peter. I can’t feel, you know, Rita or anything. I cannot feel.
Tell you the truth. You know? Yes. That could be your experience if you are thinking being Phil. You see?
This concrete feeling of ours is nothing but accumulated habit. Nothing other than that. I was merely labeled by my parents or my teacher. Let’s call him Choedak. How comfortable.
Oh, you know, just was called by them whatever they liked and I think it’s me, you know. That’s very cheap Choedak. Very cheap Choedak. Oh, we are all cheap. Okay?
We’re very cheap. So there’s nothing concrete about us. There’s nothing concrete about us. This is how when I say the nature of the mind is not in the mind, but it is clear and empty. It’s clear because you can call me Choedak.
I can feel Choedak, but if I examine carefully, investigate, is this is Choedak, this is Choedak, there’s nothing in me that really is logically acceptable as Choedak. Sometimes some people even have difficulty pronouncing the word. Let alone accepting my total reality as, you know. You see? So all around us is nothing but our habits, our karma, our impression.
So therefore, whatever we do, leave that kind of habit, day after day, moment after moment, year after year, and this kind of repeated cycle of action in Buddhist terms is called saṃsāra, wheel, the wheel of existence. This kind of, as long as this cycle of existence, wheel of activities are not reversed or cause not stopped, it will continuously cycle. It will continuously cycle. Therefore, what we do through meditation practice is through meditation, you give a stop to your bodily actions as you normally engage in. You give a stop to your mental actions that you normally do as well as your speech.
So you substitute these normal habits by spiritual techniques. Everything, the way you sit has a symbolic meaning where has a symbolic meaning that really means so much. It’s not just trying to sit that way so that you can have a better back or better hip. It has much more spiritual meaning. Everything what we do with this particular sense of understanding will, you know, at least break the habit.
This habit of patterns continues as I was saying, weaving carpet. If you stop weaving carpet, it will stop. If you continue weaving the carpet, it will weave. Our consciousness is nothing but a stream, like a river, like a river, you know, river from New South Wales comes as this, is it same water or different water? You know?
So when I say I’m very cheap, I’m saying, you see, I’m not the two year old baby anymore. So still I’m thinking, yeah, to the name which was given at that time, I’m still thinking it’s me. So it’s a big illusion for me to accept that I am Choedak. Similarly, any concepts around us, anything around us that comfortably some people labeled it, and we got confused, and we said that’s it. Okay.
Let’s call this glass. In a very conventional sense, only conventional feasibility of communicating these things that is enabled. For ultimate reality, they are nothing but the part of our consciousness. When we don’t realize the luminous universality of our mind through meditation, we always have this, has different objects. So many concepts.
So many concepts. Through this, you will be able to understand the nature of mind, although it’s clear, it’s clearly manifestable. Clearly, we can communicate through. It’s empty of existence. So through that, if a person meditates with this understanding, physically, the use of physical activity that we engage, positive or negative action, is stopped.
So the habitual tendency of physical action is stopped. In fact, by adopting the discipline of sitting posture, such as meditative sitting posture, it leaves that kind of similar disciplined impact on the mind. And by stopping dangerous speech and using spiritual formulas to develop that kind of such as compassion, developing compassion practice, when you encounter it, it leaves that kind of impression or impact on the mind. If I say, come, please, it has that vibration. If I say, come, it has that vibration.
It is not the word come. It is the motivation through which the energy is vibrating. So when a person is sitting and meditating, trying to pacify his emotions and calm the mind, develop spiritual aspiration, whenever she or he develop this spiritual aspiration in kind of chanting or prayer or invocation, whatever they do, that itself has that equal ability to imprint that impact. So it stops the usual habitual tendency and develops totally a new pattern of habitual tendency. Similarly, with the mind that is free of emotions, trying to develop the meditation techniques of developing one’s practice for the sake of others and with the great motivation of caring for others with this motivation, instead of ignorance, hatred, and greed, and developing the mind in a state of mental stability and calm state of mind, developing this, that effect also leaves that kind of similar effect on the mind.
So you can therefore expect that anything you do always leaves an impression, always leaves an imprint. You know? And in any place, now I don’t know here, but in remote places, in our place, especially in remote part of Tibet, we just go and look for the traces of horses. We just chase the horse with horse tracks. And then we finally are able to catch.
Really, even though you’re not able to catch, you will always be able to get information, how many intruders, what kind of weapon they have, what kind of, you know, people, you will always find these things. So the imprint is talking about how where we view ourselves, mastermind ourselves, where we act. So when we are quite clear and positive and able to like what we do, the disciplines that you find very applicable in any religious teaching you try to follow become very, very important and voluntary. Someone doesn’t have to fire you, you know, show a fire or punish you to behave it and do it properly.
And that kind of discipline is very mature discipline, and spiritual discipline has to come from this kind of realization of law of cause and effect. Other than that, there’s nobody to be feared who will punish you. Nobody will give you reward waiting after our death or elsewhere for ourselves being a good boy or a good girl. We reap what we do. By that stream of consciousness, whatever kind of form we are likely to take.
So the method of adopting discipline is multidimensional, depending on who you are, where you’re at, what you’re capable of doing, what you’re not capable of doing. There’s no one method because all of us fall in different categories. And within one religious teaching, there are many different methods. We can adopt our vows for two days, few hours, twenty-four hours, three months, you know, lifetime, for certain length of time. All these things have been thereby very broadly available, not just in one narrow view.
So that is because when we adopt these particular practices, they have a common affinity and suitability. The variability of vows indicates that there’s no one vow that is necessarily the only way. Necessarily because we all fall in different categories. We go to school and adopt the school discipline to leave school, not to be in school. So when if we adopt certain rules and regulations, we have to adopt it until we realize, but then that necessarily doesn’t need to become everyone’s discipline or the only discipline you think should be the way.
So therefore the variability of the vow also indicates that it has to be voluntary. It has to have democratic tendency. There should be a democratic tendency in what you do. And therefore, you know, the increasing number of people showing interest in Eastern religions in general as well as in Hinduism or Buddhism is because the law of cause and effect is very logical and something that you must decide for yourself voluntarily. And that is of course, you have to develop understanding of the whole meaning of cause and effect and look at them through experience and so forth.
But once you develop a fair bit of understanding of how everything is and especially with the help of modern study of physics and so forth, everything is relative and therefore when a person really understands these, it not only makes ourselves scientifically more energetic to discover more but spiritually we become more convinced and committed to our practice. So therefore, such adoption of practice, therefore, comes only through one’s view of the self. The view of the self, being able to like what we do. I like what I do. I’m sure you like what you do.
I’m sure you all can be voluntary, and therefore, this is the idea that if we cannot like what we do, we will never be able to do anything, let alone following any strict disciplines. I wouldn’t go any further. Sure. Oh, that’s a very good question. I don’t know whether I can answer that or not.
It’s too good question. You know? Too good. I’ll try, anyway. Yeah.
It’s really, I would like to illustrate here with this point as I was saying that every action that we do comes with a motivation, base motivation, application and completion. When all of these become complementary and effective in a perfected kind, then the action of telling lie or telling truth becomes very, very powerful. So if you, as long as you have, if you have directly thought that I’m going to tell lie to this person, and you have a solid base, solid object to whom you want to tell a lie. Okay? And then motivation mainly developed by hatred, attachment, or ignorance, whatever this might develop for you to tell a lie.
And when you do this you have already, mind has reached to this level of reaching to the level of needing to tell a lie, and the object to whom you are telling a lie wasn’t really, really, you know, noticed, you know, understood necessarily. The reason why you’re telling a lie becomes very much a self-problem, problem of the self. But your concern over act of telling lies is not so much to tell and misguide other people. The motivation, the immensity of your motivation will be counted how terrible that negative action can be. And application, either we try to tell through other people or whichever way we try to tell, and then afterwards, if you have a tremendous sense of happiness of having done so, then that’s a complete act of telling lies.
Have you got that? I don’t think so. You see? So it leaves the negative karmic imprints for sure by telling lies and, you know, misleading people, but you still don’t feel quite right about it. So therefore, you become, that regret in Buddhist sense is either positive or negative.
It can transform. It depends how you go after that. It depends how you go. All those minor injury of telling lie has occurred, but still because you don’t necessarily celebrate what you have done, the complete action, the maturity of total maturity of karmic cause hasn’t been completed. So therefore whether it ripens in this very life or whether you’ll be able to ripen in the future rebirth in a very negative sense or what that depends on the sense of incomplete karma because there’s a sense of disapproving what you have done.
That regret is called, it is said in Buddhism, Buddhist teaching that if there is any benefit or quality that can be spoken about negativity, it is confessability. So if you don’t regret, you cannot confess or purify. So it wouldn’t be negative at all. Sometimes we always go through this process. This is the life of saṃsāra.
If you have reached to a certain level, but still this reminder of having made mistake should make you, as I was referring before, as a stepping stone and not feeling really totally negative and guilty about it. But still you see, well, a mistake has been done, but let me develop a further awareness of not repeating these on the basis of this own experience that I’m undergoing and whether it’s beneficial for myself having done so or not. You have to be, I would say, you have to be able to mind yourself. Being able to mind yourself and not drive to the extreme of feeling totally guilty. The law of cause and effect is not at all pressurizing you as a law so that you really tremble what it has said, but still you should feel as stable as you are.
Sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes you do good things. But don’t fall in the extremes of becoming too puffed up when you do good things and not becoming too, you know, unhappy about making mistakes. We are human beings. Everybody makes mistakes and then trying to, I would say, mind oneself in that way and then on the basis of discovery of that and needing to know how one can possibly make further progress of not repeating it anymore. So such development as I said, what your motivation after having committed would indicate what it’s going to likely bring as an effect.
So your intention, what you find yourself has to be examined. Examined. You probably have to do a meditation session on that. I think that’s all I can say. Depends on motivation.
Intention. In the literature, it’s motivation too. Yeah. Way of saying, I’m sure, yeah, you know, you can phrase it in a way that doesn’t really sound as intended to be a lie, but it could be a very tricky way of saying, you could say very carefully that it doesn’t really sound as a lie, but in the mind you really are. So it’s a lot to do with the cultural differences, as you have said, and as much as with the motivation.
Yeah. Yeah. I think what I really meant was that whatever you’re doing, we don’t mean that you have to stop on to one occupation and then have to like it. But whatever we do, we have to have the right to like what we do. If you want to change your occupation, still you have to like it.
If you cannot, you know, if you don’t have the ability to choose the right thing, then again, it’s better liking what one cannot than wishing something that one hasn’t got. So therefore, what I’m suggesting is that if we are capable or incapable, we still have to have acceptance. So not so much of a particular, you know, occupation, but the attitude of the person saying that if one has to be plumber and one is not very happy, one should be happy enough to leave plumber and then do whatever is available. Otherwise, to be not liking what one has already had and then because if that is one’s choice, one has to be happy to adopt the new choice because we’re not suggesting the person to remain in the limbo of acceptance and be miserable about what everyone is able to do. So that very much developed to being able to accept whatever is available because what is not there is what is not meant to be.
And what we cannot provide ourselves, we shouldn’t pressurize because there’s always a limit. Anyone, anybody can do, whoever they are. Nobody is contented with anything. This is nature of saṃsāra. So being able to accept whatever they possibly are able to obtain or available and then I would say it’s interesting.
Look at the Dalai Lama as leader of Tibetans who are terribly, you know, most Tibetan people, although Buddhists are very unhappy when the communists took over. You know, when he sits up there and gives a talk, he gives amazing talk, you know, as if he was not, you know. You know? Because he teaches religions, he talks about acceptance. But riches have to be destitute.
You know, great rulers have to go on a road within months, and many of them lost their family and that kind of tragic, you know, change in their life, he’s saying this is our own karmic consequences. You must accept it. There’s only way if you accept it, you’re going to have a better situation because you’re being positive about the situation. So I think what I really was saying is all acceptance. Yeah.
Sure you can do a lot better or if I’m, but I’m not quite today. Thank you. Could you just say a little bit more? Sure. If you do a virtuous action, if you do a nice action and some people have helped some religious organization or somewhere they have helped for benefit of others and then karmically as a consequence of certain situations they find that what they have been doing wasn’t worthwhile.
I’ve wasted my time, energy, I’ve given so much time, it’s not giving me satisfaction. So when a person regrets that kind of action, it’s very negative. They’re spoiling everything that they have worked so far. In fact, if a person has been instead engaged in negative actions, you know, and harmful things, like in the case of Angulimala, one who really killed nine hundred ninety-nine people with their fingers as a garland, later became one of the remarkable students of Buddha. You know?
He, after having met Buddha, who prevented him from slaughtering his mother and taught him that, you know, how he should abandon killing. And on the basis of that regret of having done so, but yet finding a way that the mistake that he has done is a very stepping stone. Because he has done these mistakes, he can make progress. So that kind of regret of having done wrong action, then try to remedy it as soon as possible, is positive, something like that. Thank you very much, Lama Choedak.
Okay. You’re welcome. We applaud.