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 self-cherishing as the fundamental obstacle to genuine compassion and loving-kindness. The core theme unfolds through detailed reflection on equanimity — the realization that all beings equally want happiness and wish to avoid suffering — and how this understanding shifts our perception from self-centred concern to genuine care for others. Choedak traces the mechanics of self-cherishing: how it colours our perception of reality, creates suffering both in ourselves and others, and blocks the wisdom needed to help effectively. He distinguishes between eliminating the self (impossible and undesirable) and transforming self-understanding through mindfulness and analytical meditation. The teaching emphasizes that recognising self-cherishing in difficult relationships becomes the raw material for developing courageous, clear-eyed compassion — one that sees others’ struggles not as personal rejection but as manifestations of their own self-cherishing patterns. Practical and philosophical, it is pitched at earnest practitioners willing to examine their own minds.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 CiA.mp3
UUID: 25590ccc-274f-49d9-8da7-ffd8c3b09019
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Compassion in Action (Choedak)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~5,186
May I never run short of situations to provide happiness to others. May I always be fully equipped with the possibilities of caring others one or another way. In short and in conclusion, may I never forget the wealth of others even in my dreams. May this be my practice. May this be the purpose of my life.
May the blessings of the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas and the gracious spiritual masters. And all the beauties of the world, may they all shower to inspire me, to develop loving kindness, to dedicate my life, to bring happiness to all. Bring happiness to all. May I never forget, welfare of others, even in my dreams, for it only brings happiness, for it always overcomes suffering, for it is the provision of the Buddhas, for it is the instruction of the Buddhas, for it is that cares everybody. May this realization of the world.
May this be my solemn pledge to fulfil all kind beings’ wishes. With these in focus I now sit and maintain, mindfully, well of others. Welfare of others. With this in mind, I visualize the loving kindness which is the essence of all the teachings, shines from my heart like a thousand suns. Rays of light piercing through my heart reaches all over the universe.
Issuing from my heart, reaching to people in this room, in this street, in this town, in this country, in this continent, further and further, in this world, in other universes, and entire universes, wherever there are space reaches everywhere and gives the light of happiness to all living beings. May all be peaceful and happy. And this issuing light of happiness going from my heart, after pleasing and establishing all happiness, brings back all the sufferings of living beings, being hooked by the rays of light. Imagining at my heart is a dot of a dark light which represents my self-cherishing, demon of self-cherishing, imagining at all the rays of light for all ten directions returning to, bringing all the dark defilements of sentient beings, comes closer towards from all directions to this black dot at my heart. It is as all the lights touch, at my heart.
It explodes. The dot of self-cherishing and dissolves into the state of nothingness. Through these, may I always be able to love others without any selfish motives. May I repeatedly do this practice to develop a healthy and positive habit of the bodhisattvas? How nice it would be if all sentient beings receive happiness happiness in its causes.
May all living beings be able to love and care for each other with their hatred and fighting. May they able to see the causes of happiness as only loving and caring for others whole heartedly. May the pure lotus flower like love blossom, heart of every breathing being and all invisible beings. May all beings find each other lovable. May all heartfelt prayers bring about the effect due to the merits of doing this session.
May all beings be Okay. We conclude the day here by doing these final prayers. Not to conclude, really, to continue the rest of the day and come up with stronger determination tomorrow and sleep with motivation, dedicating even the night when you go to sleep. Let us begin today by briefly reflecting on the topics that we have discussed yesterday and how we can connect with the new topics that we are going to discuss today. We looked at the importance of realizing equality between self and others in order to be able to love others and develop compassionate mind toward others.
If one is not able to realize the sameness of oneself and others wanting happiness and wanting to avoid suffering and its causes, our whole engagement in terms of searching for happiness seem to becomes very self-centered. So when we direct this various anticipation with the pure motivation by understanding the position of others who are equally as similarly aiming for happiness and avoiding wanting to avoid the sufferings, we come to know that if it is happiness, it is to be cherished whoever’s happiness it might be. If it is suffering, then even if it is not one’s own suffering that needs to be avoided. So there is this universal understanding In other words, our whole view of other people becomes very much a part of yourself. Like say, if you if you if if we have only one acre land then it’s ours and we protect that land.
But if you if you see the the land outside of your boundary, this is equally as important that of your property. And also consider it as one’s property and protect it. And we will be able to, you know, we will be able to develop some kind of sameness, how the land needs to be protected. But so when we look from our own property to other’s property, its view is totally different. But at the same time, if you fly over and look down, there wouldn’t be much of a difference.
You wouldn’t you would hardly distinguish whose properties which. So this is to say, to heighten our understanding, to be able to understand the equality of all that of us and others. So meditation on equanimity is to heighten our state of observation. How do we change our perception by heightening our own principle of looking at things? Without that, the the the caring of loving kindness and compassion cannot simply, you know, penetrate to reach others the type of happiness and help we wanted to give because we don’t know the sameness of others just as a mother does feel for her child.
We cannot quite feel. So that’s that that was what we discussed in the morning. And through that we came to understand that therefore therefore, the wanting to give happiness to others and its causes makes ourselves to be able to see others as lovable. Thus making no dis thus indiscriminately being able to reach others and remove the problems that has developed from one’s strong relationship with others, and in fact, in situation where our mind has been entangled by attachment and greed can gradually be gradually be, you know, develop non attachment and letting it go without particularly hurting pains and problems. So this is rather, you know, after heightening our consciousness by seeing everything as equal and therefore we now have a not only it’s equal but others seems to be more important than you, more important than you.
So you know you have this view of the importance of loving kindness, something that you wanted to cherish and importance of others, and that previously being able to forgive someone to to whom one has developed hatred does not only become someone who who you can forgive, but who you who becomes most important person you can cherish when you develop loving kindness. But that lovable appearance comes from developing loving kindness and equanimity, but still beings to have happiness in its causes is quite difficult without without realizing what really is the cause of suffering. It’s merely wishing people to be happy and happiness. Could be a prayer, could be a very, I would say, wholehearted wish, but still, if one really doesn’t know which is the target to be, you know, shot by the practice of compassion and wisdom, we really cannot give. We can our wanting to press express may all beings be happy and have its causes.
Just being able to say this doesn’t simply uproot the causes of suffering. So therefore, we will be looking what really is the cause of suffering that of that that within ourselves as well as those of within others, which cannot make others or oneself to be happy. So so we will be looking rather today at dark side of what is the real, you know, underlying causes for these sufferings to, you know, develop. When everyone wants when understand loving kindness, wanting to give others to be happy and have its causes, what is it that prevents prevents others to receive this or oneself to give it properly? So we’ll be looking at the demon of self-cherishing today and how we can actually overcome it by antidotes.
Start on page five. It’s very difficult to develop compassion develop compassion or pure loving kindness to others unless we really know what really has been the most obstructing hindering factor in our mind to develop these qualities. I believe that everybody has this initial loving kindness, initial wanting to love and care others. But there are so many obscuration that has been piled and accumulated since many lifetimes up to the present day, and therefore the circumstances become so, you know, obstructive to give this loving kindness. And there’s a very subtle problem in ourselves.
So therefore, the very crux of the matter is how much is this mind that wants to love and care others, really. What’s its its principle? What’s the principle of the mind wanting to give love and being compassionate to others? What’s the aim of this? So usually when whatever we do, there’s always a selfish concern.
There’s always a selfish concern. If we really look at anything, in general Buddhist terms it says all if any negativities is to be blamed on as a cause of suffering, it is ignorance. But if from the bodhisattvic and my point of view, it is, you know, it’s ignorance of something, but not necessarily ignorance of of knowledge, ignorance of of the reality, but rather rather ignorance of the self. So the ignorance of self. When we are ignorant of the self, self gives wrong impression of others.
Therefore, even though we wanted to love others and give others, our impression of others becomes very much a projection of that very ignorant self. So therefore, being compassionate and loving others is not very easy task unless we can love and care ourself in a compassionate way. That is by understanding what is this hindering factor of our mind that has, you know, prevented ourself to know the know the actual reality of the self. The self, if we really look if we really look at the self, ourselves, we wouldn’t be able to locate anywhere the nature of self as as a material entity nor would be able to give its definition that people can understand. But apart from these labels and concepts to which we are habituated and then we we develop grasping to this, there’s no, you know, particular gross self.
But however, there is a strong spontaneous feeling of I. This very hot feeling of I. This I, if we do understand and with the wisdom is actually the actually the Buddha nature. But because we don’t understand it, because we are ignorant of this universal awakened mind, the Buddha nature, we have a very colored and dyed nature of the Buddha nature according to our own personality. So everything that really projects or appears around us becomes very much reflection of the of the colored mind of ourselves rather than the limonest or clear nature of our mind.
So therefore so therefore, if any experiences of our life that has been cause of suffering and suffering are very much production of that, production of self-cherishing. It is said that if there is any chronic disease to be, you know, really to be cured, it is the self-cherishing. Even if we do wanted to love care others, say you feel a very strong motivation of wanting to help others. And as a trainee, we try our best. But there are certain times that that our loving kindness has only limited ability.
So when we give instead of love, the nature of love is to give others become making more happy and yourself becoming more satisfactory. Whereas when we give love, even though we’re really pure with the pure initial motivation and giving as best as you can. Karmically immature beings, karmically who are not matured enough to receive our love properly gives us this in return the hostility and problems and negativities in return. So that actually challenges whether we have overcome self-cherishing or not. Usually we get hurt in return because of that our pure loving kindness reached to that level and thereby it gets bent and it hurts back.
And that’s because we haven’t really realized self-cherishing. These pains and problems — no matter how much you try to love and care others because of the the subtle self-cherishing that it that is the cause of suffering. So if we have any problems, be it in a personal level or community level or group level, any kind of problems, or you may have whether you have mental problems, some unhappiness for a little while, not very happy with situations, it’s because of only from the the wanting to fulfill the desire or want of the self. So we really cannot talk about, you know, fulfilling the meditation on equanimity or loving kindness unless we know the the dangerousness of self-cherishing. If any suffering has a cause, it is self-cherishing.
Can be said ignorance, but more correctly better to say self self-cherishing. But you can we can argue and debate that isn’t this very very approach of wanting to solve the problem of self as self-cherishing? Yes. Yes. Very much so, but a little bit wiser.
A little bit wiser. So, you know, Bodhisattvas are not just dumb person giving everything other people and and forgetting themself. It say that it is say that when you produce rice, it automatically produce husk. If husk is your aim, that’s okay. But rice is produced more and more, you know, abundantly to benefit more others.
So we are our own sake, say the cherishing the self, cherishing the self and wanting to create merit by giving cherishing love and compassion to others, it doesn’t become your concern while as a practitioner. That’s the whole idea. So but when you when you are really aiming for the result, like, you know, giving happiness to other, like the rice or crop that you want to cultivate, automatically they they will come like husk like husk and, you know, other parts of the production will come. So if you’re surprised, you know, it’s just a law of law of interdependence. There’s nothing you can do about it.
As long as there is necessity of engaging in anything, there’s of course the engagement of the self self. Because that’s all we got. So we’re not talking about totally eliminating or uprooting the self, then we we we’re going to missing the whole point. We have no raw material. But we’re talking about how we can really maneuver the self and understand its position and its capabilities and knowing, estimate ourselves, what are our abilities, how we can peace ourselves accordingly.
Before you really target or approach the enemy, you really need to know your own position, your own tactics, what are your devices of defense. So when we look about the weakness of the self, problems of the self, we’re really very much talking about if you wanted to help other people, you really have to be strong. You have to be strong enough. The strength that you have will give strength to others. You know, when a teacher who is teaching boxing or any other kinds of thing, the better opponent you have, the better practitioner or boxer you will become.
So the better we know the limitation of self-cherishing, the better we will understand that these are the immense suffering that actually causes suffering to all other beings. So therefore the more we understand the problems of the self, more we become courageous enough to help others because others are therefore suffering from this subtle problem rather than their projection of us. So others hostility to us is therefore not so much of their hostility to us, but their deep rooted problem of self-cherishing. Giving them no ability to be in control of themselves. Thus, the vibration between us and others become rather difficult to to to understand.
But as long as we understand ourselves cherishing, we can we can we can transmute it. There’s a very good transformative element in you when your view has been changed. When our view hasn’t been changed, no matter how good other things are appearing to us, we cannot quite appreciate. It’s really interesting to to to see the role of mind in any Buddhist teachings, the role of mind. Whether happiness or suffering.
When our role when we when our when our mind is very well well activated, say if you are a sportman playing football in Australian cases, football is like anything, like bull, you know, you really seem to the whole body is very so strong. And if you can just just win, beat the opponent, no matter what injuries, it doesn’t seem to even feel, you know. It doesn’t even seem to feel the pains and difficulties that you undergo while you’re really having the match. So when your mind is so strong, can control your matter, body like matter, and thereby the injuries and those pains you cannot really feel as long as you can beat the opponent. So when when our mind becomes fully mobilized with such a strength, the body bodily pains and difficulties doesn’t become a cause of suffering necessarily.
But when we have developed a mind that is only conscious about the bodily comfort and its conveniences. We walk down the street or someone gives us a push or something, it activates sudden sudden anger or how unfair this person is. Someone overtakes your car or something. You know? All of a sudden, this mind which is only seeking particular comfort and way the mind wanted to be, very slight causes can activate our our anger.
So if if if the body or any circumstances is really, you know, is the cause of problem or perception is the cause of problem, such major reactions or problems to our body such as being injured in football game or whatever could be, you know, a great cause of your heart break. But it doesn’t when the mind is very strong enough. So what I’m trying to say is when we can know and actualize the nature of our mind in given situation to be strong enough to be strong enough to face the people’s problem that that you are you are perceiving, you’re perceiving, and then have the ability to approach it in knowing that it is the it is the, what do you call, display of self-cherishing. Display of their self-cherishing facing yourself cherishing. So these two lights are lightning to each other, you know, couldn’t quite face each other.
When your light is very strong and you know it’s your self-cherishing, your view of other people’s self-cherishing becomes a deserving object of compassion. So therefore your compassion becomes right to there where it is necessary. It doesn’t become you can’t develop a such a feeling of compassion to someone with whom you’re not having any trouble or problem. Because act of compassion is wherever there is suffering to be implemented. So the most most important thing is that when we if we do know the limitation of shortcomings of self-cherishing, we would be able to become that as a reminder that whenever we encounter someone difficult to face with it, and they’re they’re they’re not they’re trying their best to communicate you.
They’re trying to help you from their point of view. If you really I really ask them, they really are trying to help you. It’s really strange. Russians would say that they are trying to help Americans. American would say they are trying to help the Russians, you know, all these kind of things, know, they all this problem when you say.
But there is no aerial view of both the Russian and Americans, you know, if the if if we do not let go of our own strict policies. So when we talk about understanding the self-cherishing as the cause of suffering, we are turning to talking about heightening our mind, thereby being able to see both points of view and thereby being totally familiarized and aware of one’s own problems such self-cherishing, and the the the continuous problem that is that is create that seems to be created by from other person becomes amazing object of compassion. This is the compassionate mind. We will discuss this afternoon. Means you you want to you want to uproot the suffering and causes of suffering of others, and being able to see the people suffering. So that’s why suffering is the raw material developing compassion, loving kindness, renunciation, emptiness, impermanence, everything.
Oh. So if so if any any kind of problems that that we seem to develop even by being ourselves or being with other people, it’s also self-cherishing, all with the community, all with the group, all with the family. But we shouldn’t be really be over concerned that, oh, this self-cherishing has been with me so long and maybe I’m weak, can never face this anymore, because that is the whole. This is the very obvious reason why we want to know about loving kindness and compassion in action. Before, have because of our karmic condition is we are not able to look deep enough, thereby our knowledge of self-cherishing was nothing there, we even never bothered to look at it.
And the first time when you look, everything looks very difficult. We have a saying, you when other people eat, it seems you can when other people are eating popcorn, you can hear them proom proom proom. When you’re eating a popcorn, says nya, nya, nya. So when you try to when you try to see your problem, it seems really horrible. But but if you really if you really look at some people who really realize the dangerousness and disadvantage of self-cherishing, and who really seem to making effort to overcome it, you really seem to see them making tremendous progresses.
If you look at the life of many people, many great people in the past. Yeah. Milarepa is very famous, but he wasn’t a good boy at all to start with. He killed about eighteen people of horses, you know, to start with, you know. So when you really, first of all, discover the dangerousness and evils of things that we within ourself, that is the really discovery of your own treasures, whether to keep or get get rid of.
So the discovering of self-cherishing as a real cause of suffering other than anything from the bodhisattva path is the is not to be frighten us, but but to be to be more aware, to be to become more aware of the because then you become extra mindful of sufferings. Whenever there’s a suffering, something bothering your mind, you you you know, you wouldn’t be you wouldn’t be wasting your time anymore thinking that someone is doing this to you. You already know it’s it’s your thief like self-cherishing that’s causing this problem. So you become a very good spy. I mean, a spy you become, you know.
The policeman is a good thief themselves, so they catch thief. So you will spy your mind. You you are able to spy your self-cherishing mind, that’s watching the watch, which very creative and analytical meditation, you become you become sensitive enough to discover your own limitations before wasting any time in to be judgment of other people. So when you are able already being able to clearly when you have clearly ascertained what the problem comes in you, then when when people are people are, you know, encountering you and having sufferings and problems with you, you would really see the overall picture of them, and therefore your total feeling of them will be something you need to embrace and help rather than yourself becoming be weakened by these circumstances. I say you tell you one example.
Like, if we seem to feel we are right when facing a problem with other people, we have the right to correct others, but only rightly, only righteously. But normal approach that we use in terms of helping others because we don’t know, because we think we are right but not not not really knowing we are equally wrong, if not more than others, this feeling of righteousness, we can’t remain right. If we are right, our because it’s talking about being right, we shouldn’t go wrong. But our approach, even though we are right, our approach of solving the problem makes ourself, you know, makes ourself in a totally defiled, the approach we utilize. So therefore, if you do develop that what makes problem ensure in the first place either individually or with other people is both self-cherishing of oneself and others, then we have a control over our mind.
We gain very very self strength and thereby the view of other where we perceive other people’s doesn’t become as if you are higher and who have overcome the problems and therefore you’re there to help other people. You don’t quite see that. Rather you become a very you see that other person who is not able to see that causes of suffering as self-cherishing needs to be cherished more than you do to yourself. So therefore you don’t have a sense of differences. And these practices do not easily develop until we until we really come to examine the nature of self-cherishing.
Any discomfort in our body or mind or you know, whatever we we encounter in in situations. We overemphasize the need of the self. And therefore the wisdom element of a mind cannot find thereby, even though there are circumstances that there are good things in other people’s condition, we are not able to imbibe it. We are our negativities throw out pollution and thereby that darkens the whole quality of other people. So we got a totally wrong impression of other people.
So therefore self-cherishing is something that one needs to be aware and looked at if the concept of loving kindness and compassion is to be cherished. If really self cherish if really self is to be cherished, one needs to one needs to one needs to know what really is the self-cherishing that which prevent ourself from developing pure loving kindness and compassion. People some people mainly suffer mainly. It is said that all diseases what disease? It’s really interesting.
This is you’re not you’re not at ease. You’re not easy. You’re difficult. It means when our mind is not at ease, bodily tensions and all this, and then there are a lot of elemental imbalances, and therefore that causes a lot of physical sicknesses and all these diseases comes. The people can say it’s karmic disease or various diseases to be blamed upon certain cells and so forth, but they are very much psychosomatic as a problem of the mental perturbations, imbalances due to self.
So the person who meditate, meditate, therefore making to the meditation as an active thing is the target of meditation is Buddha said, He said, whatever might be the case as essence of my teaching, to be able to avoid unskillful actions and to be able to accumulate virtuous actions, thus making your mind subdued is the essence of my teachings. So we cannot really subdue the mind unless we subdue this demon of self-cherishing. So there’s no way of cherish you know, subduing our mind by, you know, by by various other means. So the various techniques of disciplines that are implemented in various levels of novice, monk, nun, you know, bodhisattva, vajrayana path, various rules and regulation that are that are taught is mainly techniques of of subduing or taming the self-cherishing, wild ego, wild ego. And when the wild ego has been tamed, wild ego has been very tamed properly, the nature of the tamed mind is total compassion, is total total awakened.
Therefore, when we say God or Buddha, they are love because they have overcome self-cherishing. So this is very important thing, know. If any problem if you if you you sometimes when we are, you know, having big problem and really if you really want to find out where did this problem come from, it’s quite easy to say it’s self-cherishing. Quite quite quite convincing to say it’s self-cherishing, and then you become very very, you know, creative in a sense in solving the problem because you know it’s self-cherishing. That’s the root cause.
Of course, there are many contributing factors, but you’re not interested in wasting too much time in in who are involved in this and that. Rather, therefore, it becomes very meditative factor for you. You. Looking at a problem doesn’t make you to, you know, engage in the problem and says wasting a lot of time in terms of solving practical problems, but mentally, the mental anguish that you are experiencing seems to be the most necessary thing that needs to be healed and cured, you know, as soon as possible. And through this realization of the disadvantage of self-cherishing, you will be able to realize.
Because therefore when we have self-cherishing, we always ignore others. We our our sense of respecting and priority of looking for the welfare of others cannot develop because of because of the because of the self-cherishing. There’s nothing as such self to be protected if we really say other than our concepts of self. We just have to let go of the concept of self and have to know that we are one. If you know we are one, you know, I mean, many people, you know, try to ask His Holiness Dalai Lama teaches on compassion saying that, you know, isn’t this a big ego?
Isn’t this a big ego? Isn’t this, you know he he slowly says, yes, it’s a very wise ego, wise ego or wise wisely cherishing self. As long as you’re alert and aware of the nature of the self, there’s nothing wrong with the self. It’s Buddha nature. But when it is not aware of its own capacities and thereby all the doings are very much ruling us rather than we doing what we’re doing.
So we really don’t know what we’re doing. We’re just doing for the sake of doing only. So therefore the we we don’t have the awareness that the the luminous nature of mind to see the way the self is actually functioning. And the various condition that makes us confused and blinded and not being able to see situations very clearly is because because of self-cherishing. It really makes us to to develop very many wrong impressions, any wrong impression.
All projections comes from self-cherishing. And and because of this, all the other defilements, greed, you know, jealous, short-temperedness, all this come.