Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute teaching, Choedak explores compassion as the foundation of all spiritual development in Tibetan Buddhism. He begins by establishing three essential conditions—faith, devotion, and dedication—without which compassion cannot take root, then shows how genuine compassion naturally purifies selfish ego-patterns and opens the door to all virtues and wisdom. The teaching emphasizes the inseparable partnership of method and wisdom: compassion must be supported by understanding emptiness, so that acts of compassion are neither grasping nor self-congratulatory. Choedak illustrates these principles through classical stories—the prince who fed his body to a starving tigress, and a contemporary lama who absorbed a beaten dog’s suffering—and concludes with a guided meditation on impermanence and a formal prayer-practice for generating bodhicitta, the mind aspiring to enlightenment for the sake of all beings. Pitched at practitioners developing a serious meditation practice and philosophical foundation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 CiA.mp3
UUID: c0f51bd1-08c0-4afa-bba0-a5c41d200fe3
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Compassion in Action (Choedak)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~5,159
Who don’t have faith of these three kinds, there’s no way the spiritual plantation can be grown, can be cultivated, just like a burnt seed can never grow. So providing that these three phases are there, then we can develop compassion. So developing faith, devotion, all this dedication comes generally because the faith is, you practice loving kindness and compassion, you really develop what really Buddha is, what really Bodhisattvas are, what are all the lineage gurus that has passed on to these teachings and our fellow practitioners how important we are to each other and therefore the practice method techniques is something a source of your own inspiration devotion and thereby you become committed and dedicated. It doesn’t become something that you wish something from the practice if you don’t get you lose interest and you become depressed and stop, lose the interest and have nothing to do with it. This all comes because of lack of faith, devotion and dedication.
When compassion is given birth and we cherish all these other topics very well, all the possibility of possible spiritual qualities are given rise when we develop compassion. It opens the door of all virtues and wisdom. Then all virtues including wisdom will develop out of it because when we usually try to do virtuous action, it is always a subtle danger of developing subtle ego as a result of that. When you have started right from the beginning to give yourself up for sake of others, it is already purifying the imprints of negativities of self-cherishing. And thereby the culture of raising yourself with selfish motive and grasping to it is very weak and therefore it can easily be transformed with understanding of wisdom.
Wisdom we were referring to as best compassion is which is helped, supported by wisdom just like as I was saying both hands represent method and wisdom. Method is compassion and wisdom is understanding of the emptiness of the act of compassion. When you realize so much of the compassion, then you shouldn’t again, this sense of whenever you do a compassion act, you must dedicate it with understanding wisdom. This is to say that yourself, compassion as anything else is interdependently originated.
You yourself as a person who trying to be compassionate cannot be compassionate if there were no sentient beings. Even there are sentient beings in you, you still cannot be compassion had you not understood the meaning of compassion. So they are all interdependent. With this in mind, when you dedicate the merit, you neither get attached to the act you have done nor get attached to the sentient, nor get to yourself as because it’s an act of courageousness, and there’s a lot of dangerous things that attack our mind and sometimes weak aspect of mind develop hostility and thereby the whole aim of the compassion is so that you realize wisdom. Acting compassionately but then not being able to integrate it or apply it with wisdom wouldn’t be very beneficial.
So the wisdom aspect that you might be able to discuss and learn in great length in the future is something very necessary if you have realized some understanding and realization based upon compassion and for this we are discussing. And one great teacher namely Candrakīrti, the great teacher who wrote one treatise on Madhyamaka, the middle way philosophy based upon Nāgārjuna’s work. Usually every writer in Buddhist teachings write few verses of supplication at the beginning, mainly call upon Buddha or Bodhisattvas or their teachers. This writer Candrakīrti, strangely enough, he calls upon Bodhicitta.
He called upon the enlightenment thought. He said, I go for refuge and I praise, I write this in praise of Bodhicitta, the enlightened attitude for sake of other beings because this is a mother that gives rise to all the Buddhas. Just as a person who is praising the New Moon’s Day is indirectly praising the Full Moon’s Day. Similarly, when I praise to Bodhicitta I’m praising and supplicating to all Buddhas. So it is seed of enlightenment.
We don’t know if we don’t have seed, we can grow anything. So cherishing the seed by knowing all these important factors for us to understand about it, not so much of any other thing, it can become very helpful and effective enough. As much as that does, this can be done by Bodhicitta understanding loving kindness, compassion. And if there are any recountable stories of the great master of the past or present and future, it is because they all practice this. It is because that they practice this and they left it out. Have there been no practitioners, then this teaching wouldn’t be here.
This kind of teaching because there were not many practitioners, this is not taught in everyday school or everyday education systems. So because this is real education, the real education is nourishing our spirituality rather than and brain with all these concepts and getting really heavily burdened with it and have no sense of clarity. And this understanding of the real essence of the teachings left behind, and no doubt these great practitioners have prayed and have done a lot of works on it, have meditated upon it, have themselves prayed to check manifestation so that they can expound to actually cherish and practice these teachings. So if we do realize something out of this, it is very important in Tibetan Buddhist teachings that we must be thankful to all those great masters. Tibet was a barbaric country to start with.
And Buddhist teaching was established in Tibet with much more great difficulty than we are undergoing these days. It’s very easy these days. If a lama flies around and book a flight, come here and give you the teachings, very easy. In the past, if many monks and lamas go to India, half of them die of fever. Half of them get tired and difficult to learn these languages. And only a few of them return back home. Still, they think they cannot teach.
And the Tibet, the Tibetan themselves has already this Bon religion and the Bon religious teachers teachings and people were really, really, you know, animals. They were really angry with this foreign Indian teachings coming Tibet, they don’t want this and when you build a monastery in the evening, at daytime, at the nighttime, they will break everything and all these hardships, a lot has gone and so many great teachers hardships and their dedication has made it so, you know, consistently for about four solid centuries has it taken long enough to fully establish Buddhism in Tibet.
Since then, a lot of reform, a lot of challenge in between practitioners and therefore most of the essential teaching has been preserved and thereby these situations where we are able to extract real flavor of the teachings at times also comes through your own karmic maturity as well as mainly because of the kindness of this. So the link and connection and dedication we are referring, it comes here. It comes here. It’s we thought that the dedication of the master that is teaching. Like, have material destruction in Tibet occurred from the communist takeover. Tibet that occurred because the communist takeover is not so much a distraction because we have learned the masters. Learning masters, and they almost came hand empty handed in India. They have done as well as they have done in Tibet and therefore because of the dedication and power of their blessings and practices for many centuries up to the present day, teachings despite the difference of people’s language and culture, when the essence of teaching has been, I would say passed through unbroken transmission, people whoever touches it, there is some sense of closeness and reality in them because of the seed being true, seed being fully cultivated.
So if we find some good examples in this great masters, then we tread on that as well. It is the quintessence of all religious teaching. That’s the whole idea. By practicing this, we will be able to develop unity and peace with other religions as well. So our view of other religions that we normally do develop after grabbing Buddhism, that great disliking or not really being satisfied with other religious system, that sense of bit of unkind feeling that we normally have shouldn’t develop if we develop really true sense of compassion. So it really cuts off one’s internal delusions, habits, dedication in the practices and the lineage and practices, and better understanding and pleasantness of others, even those of Buddhist religious and that you can thereby see how it is the most essential topic to be discussed and I hope we have not wasted our weekend.
So in this way topics like these, you know, I would say topics like that, this makes our mind to when you go to see particular movie, you see the movie and you get something out of it. When you go to milk a cow, you milk a cow. When you go to learn some particular topic, meditation, you learn how to meditate but when you try to develop compassion you would learn something out of it but this compassion is not as easy as usual thing and therefore it is something that we discuss during the weekend, but something that we have to think how important it is for me to go from here with this understanding how I’m going to implement it in my practice. Even if you don’t have developed a formal daily practice such, as long as we can integrate the messages of these teachings in the heart, and then try to develop the mindfulness at a stage, it will make your mind gradually conducive and tamable and thereby becoming more suitable to do some systematic disciplined practices. It will naturally do it. That’s the special message of compassion. It makes you more dedicated, devoted, faithful and all these conditions develop and this particular text is very much based upon all the teachings that I myself have encountered and various books that are written, books of great masters of Tibet and great masters of India, man named Śāntideva. I think for me as an individual, Śāntideva’s work, Bodhicaryāvatāra, was the most touching text to develop some understanding of this topic so if you wanted to further your study on this topic I suggest you study that text. There are a few nice text translations I don’t know these are available there’s one commentary called Meaningful to Behold if you can find it otherwise if not you can order. Whatever. I’m sure you know these things because you are.
And what else to talk? Nothing. Talk about the Buddha and the tiger. Buddha? Yeah. Buddha and tiger. Yeah. There was a king who had three or four princes. All the four prince go to the bushes together for fun and go together like Australians these days do. And one of the youngest one was actually Bodhisattva. It was the emanation of Buddha, Buddha’s previous one of the previous rings. This is actually in Nepal. There’s a particular historical site where the giving of his body actually occurred. These days, you can go. But the tigers left anymore. They’re all well fed and have gone somewhere. All died, of course. And these four princes, when they were going in the bush, and the young one happened to hear a very kind of very strange noise. So he went back a few, and then he looked, and he saw a hungry tigress with four or five cubs, all very hungry. Nothing found. And all the cubs looked very hungry, and the mother looked more hungry than anyone else. And she was looking for food, she couldn’t find anything. And she was actually licking these cubs, but she was also biting them. And slowly, she was really going to eat them because of hunger. So this prince, having known that, told his brothers that you all can go ahead. I’ll just catch you later. So his brothers all went off, and he just stayed back. And he thought how he’s going to save the four cubs and the hungry tigress. So only way he can think is he can feed his body. Only otherwise, there’s no other alternatives. He couldn’t find any way otherwise. And so he went to cut his body, and he looked around. There were very sharp kind of trees, which has very thorny trees, so he used he put all these sharp thorns on his body bleeding, let all the tigers lick all the blood and finally he cut off all this flesh from his right leg and left leg. By the time he fed all his body and the hungry tigress was really well fed and all as well as the old cubs who licked all the blood.
But strangely, because of the power of the great compassion he had, while he finished chopping this side of the body, he’s chopping this, there’s more meat is growing on this side. So there was really no problem. There was really no problem at all because of compassion, there was continuous growth of flesh. There was no slimming necessary there. So he was able to feed them, feed all of them and save them from the hunger, temporarily speaking, and long term, the mother didn’t have to eat her cubs and save their life, and that is one of those many one hundred and four Jātaka stories, birth stories of Buddha as a bodhisattva in previous life.
And when one has developed this sense of compassion, one actually do become able to actualize act of compassion at times. Relating to this, there was one lama who really practiced always cherishing others. Although at times he do a lot of things, one time he was giving teaching on his throne and with many people listening to his teachings, and a lot of people were listening to his teachings. Everybody’s faith was just as good as anything that he didn’t really need to teach much because faith was there. And but outside there was one dog and one dog were fighting. Dogs were fighting, biting each other. So one man stood up and picked up a stone and hit this stone on other people’s dog and really hit here, hit on the rib and dog fell down. And the lama was really doing this meditation teaching and at the same time, he couldn’t bear the suffering of the dog being beaten like that by a man, and he took all the suffering of the dog. And as soon as the stone fell on the rib of the dog, the lama fell from the throne. Lama fell from the throne. And people thought, what happened? Maybe they thought lama has got a heart attack or his flesh fainting, and they couldn’t know that that’s because of that. And later on, when they looked at it, and the dog that has been really beaten, maybe had been stoned has nothing wrong with it, and the stone was just near the lama’s throne. The stone was just near lama’s throne, and there was a big, you know, big bruise on his ribs, and the lama has taken all the suffering of the dog.
This can be done. Taking and giving. You can take other people’s suffering and give you happiness. When some practitioner reach to that high level of realization, these things can always happen. That’s why I said there are cases that there are lot of different cases how Bodhisattvas actualize their compassion, which we cannot even imagine. They don’t suffer, do they, when they take? When they take oh, well, they don’t suffer. That’s for sure. But he was actually making a point of, you know, his whole teaching was there, but they don’t suffer. Buddhas never suffer. They take suffering. But those are only teachings. Such stories are only teachings. They’re not because others karma, Buddhas cannot take. Had this been the case, we wouldn’t be left here. So these teachings are only techniques. These teachings sometimes some sentient beings become very suitable, karmically mature that they can be helpful to teach, give us such teachings through the through association with Buddhas. There must be somebody who had prayed a lot.
So this is what we what we try to see and at this stage what I want to do, what we are going to do. Before we finish this, we will say these prayers at the end of page eight and page nine and ten. You can do these prayers if you like in your practices. They’re all prayers from the sutras and great teachers, they’re not my writing although my translations. The last paragraph of page eight onwards and page nine and ten.
May the blind see forms. May the deaf hear sounds. And just as it was with Mayadevi, may those heavy with child give birth without pain. May the forlorn find new hope, constant happiness, and prosperity. May all who are sick and ill quickly be free from their illnesses, and may every disease in the world never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid. Those bound be freed. May the powerless find power. May people befriend one another.
May all travelers find happiness wherever they go. May beings be free from all states of no leisure and be endowed with faith, wisdom, and kindness. With food and excellent conduct, may they be mindful throughout their lives. May those who have little splendor come to be endowed with majesty, and may those whose bodies are worn with toil find magnificent and noble forms. May all lower forms in the universe take rebirth in higher forms. May the lowly obtain honor. May the proud be humbled.
May sentient beings have lives inconceivably long when in fortunate forms. May I always live in contentment, unfamiliar with even the word sickness. May I be the doctor, the medicine, and also the nurse who restores them to health. May I fall as rain to increase the harvest that must feed the living beings. In the ages marked by famine, may I myself serve as food and drink. May I be an unending treasury for those desperate and poor. May I manifest as they wish and all they need near to them.
Should anyone wish to ridicule me and make me an object of jest and scorn, why should I possibly care if I have dedicated myself to others? Let them do as they wish with me so long as it does not harm them. May no one who encounters me ever have an insignificant contact regardless of whether those who encounter me react toward me with anger. May the mere fact of meeting contribute to the fulfillment of their wishes. May the slander, harm, and all forms of abuse of me be a cause of their enlightenment.
May I be a protector of the helpless, a guide to those traveling the path, a boat to those wishing to cross or a bridge or a raft. May I act as a mighty island, a sun and moon that both shine. May I be a wishing tree, like a tree that gives both shelter and fruit.
We’ll have a short meditation afterwards, after the break, and we nearly finish. Break. Read these extracts from sutras on impermanence. These are all translated from the sutras, selected ones. A lot of them, but few of them.
The three worlds are impermanent like autumn clouds. The birth and death of living beings are similar to watching a dance. Life is gone like a flash of lightning in the sky, quickly passing like a mountain waterfall.
As a budding mushroom shoots upwards carrying soil on its top head, so I, from my birth onwards, carry decay and death along with me. Therefore, I, from the time of my birth onwards, move in the direction of death without turning back even for a moment. Just as the sun, once it has risen, goes forward in the direction of its setting and does not turn back for a moment on the path it traverses in that direction. Or as a mountain stream rapidly tears down on its way, flows and rushes along without turning back even for a moment. To me, who’s going along like that, death is always nearer than ever before.
All collection in the end disperse. Whatever rises must all fall. All meetings end in separation. The final end of life is death. From that same moment at night humans first enter the womb, the journey of their life to death begins. Once gone, there’s no turning back.
Just as brooks get extinguished when dried up by the summer’s heat, as fruits are bound to fall from the tree early one day when their stalks have been rotted away by the early morning mists, and as dewdrops are dispersed when touched by the rays of the sun. So this feeble body of mine will definitely fall apart when its turn comes.
Just as a flood passing through a town, soon death rises and goes off with all the family, goods, and wealth of people whose minds still desire such things. Wherever you go, there’s no place that death cannot find an entry. No earth, no sky, no ocean deep, no far within the mountainside.
As all ripe fruit always falls and rots, so all who are born are always by their deaths destroyed. Like every potter’s vessel molded from clay, which finally is broken and destroyed, so too is every person’s life.
When I have done this, then I’ll do that. And after that is finished, then I’ll do this. Old age, sickness, and death consume those people who make such preparations. Whether one sits or moves, this life is irreversible, just like a mighty river’s course going on and on both day and night, just like the herder with a stick who drives the flocks into the fold. So old age and sickness drive all humans on to the place where they will die.
Like every step of one condemned brings nearer to the gallows where that one will hang and die, so too is every person’s life. All health ends in sickness, all youth in old age, all life in death, all constructions in destruction.
Wherever one may dwell in the world, one is struck down by the inevitable death. Even if the diamond body of the Buddha’s adorned with major and minor marks of enlightenment is impermanent, then our body, which is like a bubble, is by all means impermanent.
Life is fleeting and passes away quickly, like dewdrops on the tips of blades of grass, which soon dry up when the sun rises, or like a bubble which rain causes in water and which bursts soon or like a cow about to be slaughtered. Each time she raises her foot, she comes nearer to death.
At daybreak, many people can be seen. That evening, one is gone from the sight. That evening, many people can be seen. Next morning, one is gone from the sight. Some die when they’re in the womb, some on the ground when they are born, some just as they are about to learn to crawl, and some just as they learn to walk. Some die old, some die young, some in the very prime of life.
Old people pass away in their turn just like the fall of a ripened fruit. Since many boys and girls have died while young in their prime life, how can I feel secure and think? I’m young, so I have long to live. Even though they had everything in life, many hundred thousand men and women from all walks of life must go beneath the earth of death. Your children cannot protect you when the time has come for you to die.
Page ten and eleven again. This is our last session now.
Just as all previous Buddhas first gave rise to the precious bodhi mind and just as they then carefully followed the stages of bodhisattva practice. Likewise, for the sake of living beings, do I now myself generate the bodhi mind. And likewise will I train in the Bodhisattva practices.
Just as all previous Buddhas prescribed the precious bodhi mind, just as they then carefully followed the stages of bodhisattva practice. Likewise, for the sake of living beings, do I now myself generate the bodhi mind, and likewise will I train.
Those who out of wisdom have seen the supreme bodhi mind, praise, glorify, and rejoice in it. Let me grow to fulfillment. From today, I’ll reap the fruit. Having been well born on this day as a human being, today, I’m born in the Buddha family, and I’m now a child of the Buddha.
Thus, in future, I should make every effort to live in accord with the bodhisattva way, and never should I act as would bring shame to this noble, faultless family. Like a blind man fumbling in garbage happens to find a rare and precious gem. Likewise, have I discovered the jewel, precious bodhi mind.
This wondrous spring of virtue to dispel the world of misery, to destroy all life, an inexhaustible treasure able to cure the poverty of all. It is the highest of medicines to cure the ills of the world. It is the tree giving shade to those wandering the path. It is a strong and mighty bridge by which can cross saṃsāra. It is a moon to shine in the mind to clear away the pain of delusion.
The bodhi mind is a great radiant sun to disperse the darkness of unknowing and is the very essence of butter gained from churning the milk of Dharma. For all guests on the roads of life who would taste the very substance of joy, here is actual seed of joy, a veritable feast to satiate the world.
Today in the presence of all awakening beings, inviting both gods and all, let me proclaim to the world the offering bringing both immediate and lasting joy.
Let me sit in mindfulness, allowing my body to be relaxed and serviceable and alert so that the mind can peacefully meditate on compassion towards all. As a follower of the sublime Buddhas, I sit with mindfulness to train my body, discipline my body, to imprint on my mind. I sit with awareness and mindfulness. Letting go of all external thoughts and wandering thoughts and tendency. Let me concentrate on the breath coming in and going out as gentle and normal, letting myself to be aware of the connection between the body and mind through watching the breath.
With this awareness, let me now focus my concentration to develop compassion for sake of all the beings. Since beginningless time, all living beings, though wanting happiness, has been experiencing sufferings continuously. What if they knew the causes of suffering? I must now develop this sense of compassion to remove the suffering and its causes in all living beings.
Why are living beings suffering continuously when they never wanted to? Because of their three delusions, the ignorance, hatred, and greed, they have prevented themselves from obtaining happiness. What if they knew this, the causes of suffering? How nice would it be if I could help them to uproot their sufferings just as the previous bodhisattvas? May I solemnly, from now onwards, pledge myself to uproot the suffering of sentient beings. May I be able to show them the causes of their sufferings and problems with skillfulness. May I provide everything to free them from the suffering and causes, for it was the pledge of the bodhisattvas too.
What if all human beings are free from the causes of dissatisfaction, sickness, old age, and death? No matter how rich, powerful one might be, no human beings are completely satisfied with happiness. The powerful ones with great anxieties cannot enjoy the power, the rich ones with great anxieties of decreasing their wealth, they suffer continuously. The poor ones with the fear of not having enough to live on, they suffer. Those single ones with the hope of finding someone that they can share their life. Those who are married with families, not contented with each other. All human beings, rich or poor, powerful or ordinary, old or young, male or female, all suffer from dissatisfaction. What if I were to uproot their suffering and have the ability?
All humans, rich or poor, powerful or weak, young or old, they all suffer from diseases, sicknesses. Their all ability becomes totally deteriorated by the sickness. Their beautiful complexion yet faded. Their ability becomes useless when they are invaded by the diseases. All humans whose body is compounded together with so many pieces of flesh and bones and tendons, their body is subject to impermanent elemental imbalances and does experience sickness. All humans suffer from sickness. What if I were to uproot their suffering of sickness and its causes of all human beings?
All humans inevitably, with great uncertainty, die at any time.