Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Choedak explores the hidden costs of self-cherishing in this 44-minute oral instruction from 1987, arguing that self-focused attachment — not external circumstances — is the root of suffering and the barrier to genuine compassion. He traces how self-cherishing obscures our perception, drives away friends, breeds paranoia, and makes even comfort feel hollow, using two vivid folk stories: a starving dog that loses his meat by lunging at his own reflection, and a hermit so lost in fantasies of future wealth that he smashes his only provisions. Choedak then pivots to the antidote: cultivating gratitude for the kindness of others, especially one’s mother, as the gateway to lasting happiness and authentic loving-kindness. He argues that remembering how much we depend on others transforms our relationships, dissolves petty grievances, and naturally gives rise to compassion in action — not as obligation, but as the only reasonable response to the boundless benefit we have received.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 CiA.mp3
UUID: 4766ea58-6d33-497a-adee-c924a1d50e3d
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Compassion in Action (Choedak)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~7,312
They talk too. So if we do if we do develop a habit of turning our mind to be able to express in a way, to able to understand in a way, communicate in a way, it also subtly it also subtly, you know, imprint leaves imprints on our mind, so therefore, you know, when I’m seeing this, say, when I’m when I’m talking this, I don’t particularly I’m speaking very much on the basis of self-cherishing. Very much on the because that’s only I got and so as you. So the mind that we have with the you know, especially if you look at this in the in the vajrayana terms. What we got, what we have got either as a delusion or as we label it self-cherishing, that’s all what we got.
It’s only our view to these things has to be changed rather than thinking that rather than being over negative about about by discovering these limitations in ourselves. So so therefore, these conditions that makes ourself non impressive to other people, non impressive to other people, is very much, I would say, the the very decay, the smell of this, you know, how self is really rotten, doesn’t impress anybody. When there’s aromatic quality, when there’s when there’s unselfish quality, it draws anybody, everybody as we were talking yesterday. So the non impressive element of personality in us is very much an indication of the of the disease of self-cherishing, know, know, causing these discomforting qualities within ourselves. So if when we if we are giving and being being very cherishing the self and starts having encounter with problem with other people, it not only gives suffering to oneself tremendously, of course the second person, even who is the third person or fourth person who’s witnessing it, you know, start experiencing this this discomforting quality.
But if there is a very heart to heart level kind of giving to each other, there’s everybody seems to can enjoy and celebrate that heart to heart kind of expression, you know, expression. The thing is, when we human beings, after many years many years of hard work and training and education, develop various talents and abilities. But when if the self-cherishing is really, you know, becoming, you know, very uncontrollable, these talents and ourselves become totally useless. Totally useless. When if we appear to be very self-cherishing, all these qualities that people might usually rarely see in you just exterminate, it just get get extinguished by the by the by because of the fire of the self-cherishing.
And at the same time, various kind things that people have done to us, various people who we see in various qualities in them that we cherish, that that also becomes darkened. We have totally all these qualities within oneself and others and everything become totally consumed. A person suffering from hatred and self-cherishing, no matter physically he’s living in a comfort or every necessary thing that’s so comfort, everything, cannot experience happiness. There are many people who can’t go to sleep because of the mental tensions. So if the mental tension has a cause, it’s it’s because the self demands of the self are so great and not looking at the nature of the self-cherishing at all, and simply advocating oneself to fulfill the desires of self reaches to this high high inner volume of anger and tension, and thereby all the suffering in the body and the mind ensures, and therefore every surrounding that we have that are facilities for bringing us at least physical comfort cannot be experienced.
It’s really interesting how external objects have no value in themselves when our mind is not tuned properly. It’s like television. The transmissions are all there, it can it can bring all the various stations, but it is not tuned properly. It no matter how the the actual from the station is bringing, giving all this transmitting, all these elements, we cannot receive. So so this is very similar.
Our mind our mental power when when the mind hasn’t been understood very very easily, we we will not be able to utilize any necessary qualities, talents, and abilities that people can offer to us that we can be good at ourselves. All these become totally useless. External stimulus stimulus doesn’t exist. Doesn’t exist whether it doesn’t become helpful at all. Instead, they become cause of problems, develops further problems on on basis of that.
So the from this, we can understand philosophically speaking how things doesn’t exist in themselves at all. They’re very much the interpretation of the individual mental perception. Okay. And it so all the problems vary, you know, as as you can see here, that that exterminates all qualities and talents, drives away all friends and relatives, cultivates mistrust, suspicion and fear, all these kind of problems very much very much comes from self-cherishing, so if we whether we look at deeply at ignorance or not, it very much comes from self-cherishing, And as I said, it intoxicate oneself into madness, know. It it really drives yourself from ordinary reality into a totally in a mad reality, and thereby every perception around you shakes and becomes very, very against you.
Everything is hostile to you. The environment, the people, the food, the things, the things, nothing seems to be very, very conducive at all for these beings. There’s burning agony of self-cherishing. And therefore, the body the body which which is nothing more than an object to us, where our consciousness is sheltering, itself shakes and all this kind of elemental reaction, because the mind is not at peace, all these bodily elements in the body elements in the body start start to having elemental you call, conflicts. Fire element grows, and therefore, element doesn’t become, therefore, receptive enough to harmonize within.
Thereby, the fiery element dissolve in our body. So this reddish element reddish bodily appearance in our face develops. It’s all these elements and our personalities, more of more so the emotions, are all very, very, very related. And as long as our consciousness sheltered or sheltered in this physical body, the consciousness where the consciousness perceives and behaves changes, has the ability to change change all these elements in the body, thus causes sudden reaction of unhappiness, mistrust, unhappiness, all these things comes as a result of of bodily reactions. The body itself has nothing by itself to experience happiness, experience happiness.
Say even say we could say through our through our eyes, through our nose, through our ears, through our tongue, through our body, we experience happiness. But not only using these very sense sense organs, we can experience happiness. In dream, we don’t see them, we don’t hear them, we’re just sleeping, but we can during the dream, the experience of happiness or sorrow are equally as real as we do in during the daytime. So the body body themselves has no potential. No potential whatsoever.
Even though we can give the definition of eye sense organ, that which a sense organ which is able to see a form element and thereby being able to contact by contacting the form element and perceive the visible object is the function of the eye sense organ. But there is no such eye sense organ that is that can perceive it that can perceive it when when there is no consciousness. So therefore the so therefore with even without eye sense organs, blind people doesn’t mean they don’t see. They don’t. They have their own seeing.
A lot of things they see. They actually see a lot of a different reality that with the two eyed people can’t even see. So what we can really see and not see seems to be very much very much a projection of the mind. So that madness or the sense of insecurity that we undergo through is very much therefore in a projection of our own our own mind. So and if we do realize if we do realize the dangerousness and disadvantage of self-cherishing, you know, then it comes that after having valued the benefit and qualities of loving kindness, yet how dangerous, you know, so deeply, you know, been, you know, fermenting so long, and is there any kind of room for us to, you know, develop this sense of loving kindness if we maintain or keep or, you know, keep subscribing to this self-cherishing all the time, then there is hardly any seems to be room for for to for developing loving kindness and compassion.
So that is this is how Buddha always gives you something, he markets you something very nice, and then at the same time he shows you, look at, you know, you got something there you got rid of before you really, you know, cherish this matter. So this is how, you know, the the concept of skillfulness or non unskillfulness is there very very interdependent interdependent. So have if we realize the dangerousness of self-cherishing, that shouldn’t weaken us because we got something valuable that we already know, that can be that can substitute self-cherishing. At the same time, we cannot easily get puffed up thinking, wow, loving kindness is great, then, you know, that can develop so much expectation, so much expectation, then giving you the idea of, know, dangerousness, self-cherishing makes you a bit of, you know, slow down. So the whole method of the teaching is always pacing you to the middle way, middle way follower, not falling in the extremes of being too wanting to develop loving kindness by developing the qualities necessarily, and without realizing the shortcomings within their self, the loving kindness simply can’t reach others.
So so in other words, realizing the realizing the nature of self-cherishing, nature of self-cherishing, if any practice we are doing, therefore as a beginner, should not be so much that to put my compassion and action, I should be helpful to other people. As we as I was saying yesterday that if if our kitchen kitchen cloth cannot wipe your face, so if our mind is already deluded by self-cherishing, the the the the sense of desire to help others, we want to help but we can our help cannot actually be very helpful. So therefore one element of developing the wisdom to help the compassion is knowing the dangerousness of self-cherishing. That will give us a foundational basis to realize the the wisdom element in developing compassion. So, you know, and this I think you know this very I I don’t know whether you know this story of a greedy greedy dog.
This is told in Tibetan schools. I don’t know whether you have this greedy dog? Yeah? You haven’t heard? Okay.
There was a dog who was really hungry, of course. Very hungry dogs in India and the pups are not well fed. So he was going through and they you know, he’s really wanted to find food, and finally, we were looking every single places around, finally, he was able to find a piece of of meat, you know. And he was quite happy, you know. But because of his greed, you know, he really didn’t want to eat it in us.
He couldn’t just sit down and eat it and enjoy it. He thought he can take somewhere, and when no one can see him eating, and, you know, maybe he can find more on the way. So he walked through, and he was passing through a bridge bridge, on toward the bridge, and he was looking around for more meats. You know? Even even on the bridge, he was looking around.
And, eventually, he saw the reflection of his, which he thought was another dog in the water carrying piece of meat. So he was really really thinking, how can I possibly get that? So he stopped himself and looked carefully. The dog, as he didn’t know it was his reflection, when he looked to that, the dog also looking back to him, you he thought, you know, maybe he will attack me if I don’t attack him first. It’s really strange.
So he was so they really agitated him, developed so much anger and self-cherishing, creates another image totally, you know. So he was so angry. The more he looked, the more the dog seemed to look, you know, and since even the piece of the other dog seems to be bigger, you know. Bigger and fresher and, you know, all the things. You know?
So he he was so angry, he jumped by sparking in the water. You know? He didn’t know it was. And when he jumped in the water, of course, there was no other dog, let alone being finding a piece of meat. You know?
So he lost on his own piece of meat. He was almost drowned to death. You know? Drowned to death. That that’s this is quite a good good story about self-cherishing.
Then there’s another story called Dawa Shukpa’s father. This is very popular story, very always the poets, you know, Sanskrit poets in India and Tibet used to write a story about this. When your greed is there, when your self-cherishing is there, not being able to appreciate what is available, it really darkens your mind whole thing. You make your whole fantasy in that very short moment. This was a hermit actually, it was strangely a hermit became very greedy, and he was begging every day every day his food, and he he sits and practice under a tree.
But strangely, he was get his the things that he begged increased, you know, the rice and maize and all the edible food that he he, you know, put them in his robe and then hang it onto branches as he slips like this. So he he realized that he’s you know, all the sex in which he has gathered all this food is really becoming bigger, rather bigger. So one day he thought usually, he we were taught to not own anything apart from his robes and the food. But the he was becoming he said, oh, this is silly that I have to go every day and back when I can spend that time practicing. So if I get more food, I should save them so that I can, you know, sit down and practice.
But actually, he well, he was right in a sense, but what he was really doing, what he was thinking, how what I’m gonna do with this all the time. So the more his food increased, he went and bought, you know, earthen pot. Earthen pot, big one, big one. And he put all his food and hanged it in a cloth up there. So one day, he very fantasized it.
Whole afternoon, spent fantasizing himself. He said, what I’m you know, he said, look. My wealth is growing really like anything. Look at it, I didn’t have anything, now I’ve got this. And he said, if I go and sell this, I’ll get I’ll get this much money, and this with this much money, I don’t have to always eat this rice and thing, I can buy buy a goat and milk the goat, and goat will give, you know, a small baby goat, and then he’ll sell that, and then buy a cow, and then after that he’ll buy a horse, and then he will he will be quite rich.
And he was really, really carried away by just closing his eyes and thinking on you know, lying back like this. And then he said he said, after that, I will be very, very rich because I will have goats, horses, and cows, and I will have a house. And he said, then one rich Brahmin family will come and ask to ask to marry their daughter. I said, this will be very embarrassing, but I have to because I’m already wealthy. You know?
Who will look after my old possessions? You know? It’s though I have to have a lot of things, you know, it just becomes unmanageable if I don’t have a life partner. So he said, after many years of refusing and checking around, I’ll finally marry somebody I like. He’s really going through all the time, you know.
Then he said, after that, I’ll go every day riding my horse for business and go around, come back home, and scold my wife, you know, do this and that. He was really fancy. And he said, after that, I will give I give my wife will give birth to a son and will be born on Monday, and I’ll give it I’ll give him some sharma. Some some some is some is something to do with moon. You know?
Sharma is his family name. So I’ll give him some sharma. Dawa krakpa. Dawa in Tibetan means moon. Som kiphi.
And see, he said, so my son will grow, you know, slowly and slowly. I’ll be very proud of him, you know, you know, he’d be my son would like to do and go wherever I go and ride a horse, and he would say, daddy, take me home, but he said, stay at home. It’s not yet ready for you to come. He was standing like, you know, under the tree, and he said, okay. One time, you know, his son would grow up around the age of eight, and my wife would be very busy milking and doing these things, and she wouldn’t really care what the son is doing and, you know, then he said, if my wife doesn’t listen to me, I will beat her like this, you know.
His leg went like this, and he hit on his hit on his earthen pot that was hanging in the fall all over his head, all over and when he realized it was all his imagination, it wasn’t really so we when we when we don’t look in ourself, you know, just just at all, when we are not aware of what we’re doing, we we we can get carried away our whole life. Whole life is actually is nothing more than where the mind pulls us to be, and therefore, not getting anything done, but everything what one has done was totally meaningless and useless, was was a cause of one’s own downfall. And that’s what we’re talking about. The when we are not aware of the nature of the self and its mode of doing things, then even act of loving kindness and compassion could could not thus necessarily become beneficial. So that’s the point we are trying to make here.
Okay. This this point of self-cherishing is not a nice one because because we we don’t wanna hear about these things. But when when when you really look at it when you really look at it, it really is very important. It seems that we all love, we all want to give love, we really want it. You know, who would there be to, you know, there be to say I don’t wanna care for others?
Ali would be anybody. But the problem that that most beings don’t understand is what makes them incapable of loving and caring others. And this is a subtle one, talking about self-cherishing cherishing and then always bringing about the limitation. Sometimes it makes oneself, you know, makes oneself bit sort of discouraged to to discover so many negativities and limitation within oneself. But just just as the, you know, Buddha says, if you notice too much of suffering and problems of you, just look at the space, how clear the sky can be, but yet suddenly how many clouds, you know, you know, clouds can be, how suddenly the the change of weather can, you know, dissipate all the all the all the clouds.
So since nothing is permanent, our very existence of defilements and these things are all temporary or adventitious obscuration. That’s what Buddha says. Adventure. They’re all adventitious. There’s nothing permanent about it.
Because there are times that when we are happy and when we really care others, we really can do so much for others. We experience so much happiness what we do for others. But when our mind is not in that kind of mood, that kind of mood, that kind of behavior, then no matter how much people do to us, we cannot see how kind that you can be. So it’s whether we how much aware we are we you know, how much awareness do we develop that enables us to realize the sense of self perception, the self perception through compassion of mind. There are various types of compassion.
Know, means compassion directed to sentient beings. Compassion means compassion directed to phenomena, in a nature phenomena. This is what we need. Even though emphasizes there to be compassionate to others, the wisdom aspect of compassion is we have to have a compassion that is directed to all phenomena. That includes that phenomena means what you perceive.
You have to have compassion what you perceive and what it makes you to perceive that way. So therefore, that draws you to see that what is the perceiver perceiver perceiving these things. Despite the changes and mode of appearance of phenomena, the the mode of perception seems to be most important whether we can give compassion or not. So therefore, having compassion to the the the person who perceives this phenomena, and that is being, you know, we have a saying, you know, kind mothers or kind teachers scold their students and children. Kind teach, you know, unkind, don’t they let them do what they like, and and we we say my teacher said, really, was a great teacher, great, you know, great Rinpoche, know, high truku.
My teacher says, if he do any mischievous things, his old teacher was just an ordinary old monk, he’s he he goes few he steps few feet and gives him a long gaze and bows him down three times and then beats him and beats him. And he said if if he has his teaching not been like that, he wouldn’t be like the where he is. You know? So if the so if we we if if we are harsh to ourself if we are harsh to our self, in other words, if we treat our self with compassion, noticing or discovering our own limitation and then, you know, taking care of it, sometimes we we could find it’s a bit harsh on myself. But that’s that’s the whole idea of training.
Training and practice is not easy because if if it is easy, it’s not practice. So especially talking about self-cherishing, it’s real practice. It’s there’s a lot of, you know, work. There’s in Tibetan tradition, if you really look the overall history of great teachers, and there’s a lot of magical and, you know, lot of mysterious tantric practices preserved in different editions. But when it comes to the cracks or the essence of the teachings, the Kadampa, the the the teachers from India starting with Atisha and his followers, Dromtonpa, and all these Kadampa Geshes, whoever followed, whichever tradition followed their instruction, they are talking about the real pith instruction attacking the self-cherishing.
They wouldn’t be talking about deities and, you know, deities and so forth. They wouldn’t. So that therefore, the real essence of the teachings is that that which is hard, that which hurts, that which really engages us into a totally new dimension of ourselves. Not something inspiring, encouraging, not something colorful and exotic necessarily. Something that is painful.
Something that is painful. I mean, this is very have undergone by all the great teachers. We say greatest practice is penance. But when you practice hard and give yourself a hard time through which you realize. When we when we are giving our self comfort, it is said wasting time in dynamic terms.
The more good time we give to our self, more we are wasting our time. So more we because this body this body we in which we are consciousness is sheltering is really a host. We pay the rent, so we might as well use but if we if because our consciousness is just like a guest traveling around around around so many. This is just a momentary host. That’s all.
So if you don’t realize the the nature of the fleeting nature of consciousness and how it transform from life to life until reaching enlightenment, we get very attached to this body, and therefore our happiness of sensory body, and therefore, these these conditions these conditions totally overshadows the nature of the mind and its real aim, thereby it get it works for the body. And body cannot experience happiness. Body is just like body itself gets worn out because so the more we are able to see the the combination between body and spirit, and thereby, what we are really using this body for and and making the best use of it is therefore temporary way of keeping ourself good time or happiness or enjoyment not necessarily becomes helpful. All the great teachers seem to have gone through a lot of hardships. As I said, you have yesterday how Milarepa show his bum.
Show show his bum, you know. There’s, you know, marks of marks of hardworking, marks of hard practice. And so therefore, the hardships that we we need to encounter need to encounter is not necessarily we have to go through the physical. As long as we we can get some, you know, look at some teachings like self-cherishing and then do it. Look at ourself.
More becoming more aware. It’s really and most creative meditation is more we are able to guard the self-cherishing mind, better meditator we become. Otherwise, what is the what is the point of being mindful? You walk, you walk, who cares? You eat, you eat, you cares?
But how the mind behind the walker and doer and talker and all these things, how he or she actually perceives themself and thereby, I would say, interpret others, and that is to be mindful of. As I said by Śāntideva that there’s nothing to guard yourself, body or speech or whatever, if you don’t guard the mind. So all these techniques that are implemented in all different Buddhist traditions, Hīnayāna techniques, Mahāyāna technique, vajrayana technique, is to guard the mind. But if we don’t know what why we have to guard the mind, from what, we wouldn’t be able to guard we wouldn’t be harboring ourself in guarding the mind. So therefore, meditation shouldn’t be implored by a motivation of merely wanting to be peaceful and relaxed.
It’s it’s it’s totally looking after the body rather than the mind. So if a formal meditation session does, I would say, strengthen us or recharge us to be mindful of the nature of the self, the formal meditations are a very rare refueling stations. If not, if we do not become if we do not become able to integrate the the formal meditation session and formal practices and their practicality, and how one can apply in everyday by recognizing the nature of the self and its activities in the before and present, and how its mode of function has been functioning so far, and how your view of the self develops, how your change of the view of the self after developing the changes, how this self has been presenting itself. When there’s that that constant watchfulness of the self, everything around us everything around us, our view of the reality doesn’t have to change. Doesn’t really have to change.
Phenomena are just there as we call them, as we make them. But the maker, the real maker of this when the real maker hasn’t been understood carefully through meditation or through this, the love, the respecting others, or cherishing the beauty of a phenomenon, whatever, we cannot cherish because the beauty of the of the self hasn’t been manifest. Only the limiteachings limiteachings has totally covered our self. Therefore, these temporary beauty and temporary condition that attract our mind, attract our sensitive perceptions are nothing but but the reaction of our own sensory mind. So practitioners are to go beyond senses, senses, and thereby such meditation meditative conditions allow themselves to look at themselves.
You know, are condition there are stories of Bodhidharma or some great Zen master, you know, gained enlightenment by twelve years of gazing at a wall. You know? And you see everything on the wall, you know, if you as long as he at least sees his mind, you know? And if if you if you travel all over the world trying to see everything, there’s nothing to see. There’s nothing that we see that we become really aware of the self.
I mean, at times, the teachers some teachers do do recommend that to students who are really depressed and unhappy, they say, go and travel around the world. Go and travel around and go to different places. It gives some some kind of idea. But actually, practice through the this regarding of the self and the nature of the self enables ourself to see everything outside, nothing but impression of the self. This is what what all these colorful and exotic appearance of vajrayana deities and so forth can be explained as as a totally, you know, in a reflection or projection of the of the confused or awakened mental state rather than the external static deities or gods who will be, you know, looking for the wealth of beings.
Okay. So now we will be looking okay. If it is self-cherishing that really bothers us, but isn’t there still something that we can really sort of wake ourself up? Get you know, wake ourself up to be to still be enact ourself to to still implement the idea of loving kindness for sake of others. So therefore, remembering of remembering the kindness of others, remembering the kindness of others, therefore, in other words, it values the benefit the benefit of cherishing others.
So in other words, if he realizes the disadvantage of self-cherishing, then at the same time, there are value of cherishing others. So we would know by realizing nature of ourselves, we would able to know totally to change the different perception of others. So therefore, cherishing others as long as we implore ourselves is the most the gateway to all happiness. Why? We receive so much from other beings.
You know, people talk about wanting to be independent, wanting to be independent, and it’s really totally a contradiction. The word I’m wanting to be independent. And you don’t have to say you were if you want independent, if you can be independent. So the the idea of world in that we live, an idea of Buddha’s law of cause and effect, is talking about the dependence, how everything is dependent, including our own happiness, including our own being able to understand the Dharma and having a life, to being able to do anything that really gives us at least momentary satisfaction, all comes from other people. But when we do not cherish the qualities of other beings in general in this sense, we wouldn’t be able to appreciate.
We wouldn’t be able to what we’re receiving from others. And therefore, we have no way other than cherish the self. So being able to cherish that things that people give and to us, when we know this, then we can appreciate what you because people who don’t appreciate doesn’t really know what they are receiving. And therefore, being able to look to the kindness of others and cherishing others paves the way for us to cherish and appreciate everything. There’s hardly anything we can’t cherish if we really look what is what are we receiving?
We receive everything from others. Everything, including this body. Our consciousness had nothing. It was it took almost forty nine days with exhaustive energy to found a new rebirth with that which came from parents and everything around us. We came naked, we die naked.
We don’t we hardly got anything. But the so think everything that we have received in life that we can cherish spiritually or what materially or emotionally, whatever we we can think that we value in life comes from other beings. Being able to admire other beings is is in other words, you know, in other words, making other sell other people more lovable because you have received so much. Usually we we give something we give something because others have done so many nice things to us, and that’s logical too, very logical. It’s a law of cause and effect too.
When you when you when you realize that someone has been kind to you, it’s quite natural that everyone wants to do something nice back. Although it’s not a perfect way of doing it, perfect loving kindness, but as as a trainee or even normal people or even animals, when the other has been kind to them, they they they react in that way. Being able to admire other and their qualities, so we don’t become totally unhappy and distressed by discovering the distressed by discovering the disadvantages of self-cherishing, but we at the same time can see a lot of qualities by cherishing others. Recall and why we we then therefore, remembering the kindness of others recognizes in or the kindness of others. Like like, we all have a mother in our life.
Buddhist Buddhist teaching term use the mother sentient being. Let us look briefly the the the kindness that we really have received. Probably we have forgotten, probably we have overlooked, but they are really, really, you know, kind hearted, you know, you know, way of approaching, benefiting us. If you don’t analyze these things very clearly into our mind, therefore, the mind develops its own negativities, and thereby we have no way of knowing the knowing the benefit of cherishing others. So the qualities of others, kindness of others, had we not had we not been, you know, conceived in a mother’s womb, had we not got any parents, you know, we would hardly be able to be born in the human realm, let alone following any spiritual or Dharma path.
So have we got anything to cherish and want and we really we really value in our life, they all come from starting from the conception, we all have depend on other living beings. Mother who cared, you know, I don’t know, nine to ten months, you know, who who who avoid things that she like to eat, who who avoid things that she do, you know, maybe she don’t she stopped going to job or work or whatever because because she it’s it’s in Buddhist teaching, especially in Tibetan teaching, the kindness of mother is sometimes very is overexplained, you know. It’s explained so thoroughly that people get bored enough, you know, people get bored. But it’s really true. It’s really, really true.
The feeling of mother is the best simple, best example that we can use we can use to develop loving kindness. If we don’t really realize we are very human, so we have to realize why we have to be kind to others. If we haven’t received if we can’t be because we are emotionally disturbed and we got lot of samsaric problem, we have to have reasons to be able to love others. We cannot just love everybody like that. So the nearest ones from whom we have received so much has to be understood, therefore we can appreciate them.
So kindness that that mothers actually give to the child, both in the womb and after being delivered, is almost inexpressible. Really, if you really kindness a mother, when it is said, even in ordinary Tibetan folk saying that even if you carry your mother on your shoulder, carry all over the world and show the world, that wouldn’t suffice the kindness of your mother. I mean, that’s an very ordinary saying. If someone is being very rude and to their kind mothers and so forth, we really say that, you know, old people or even young people say that, you know, not nothing to do with dharma. They don’t understand any dharma necessarily.
They just say it. It’s got that. That. The thing is everyone has got a mother, you know? Everyone has got a mother, that’s that’s the most important thing, that everyone can relate to it.
But there are some conditions where people cannot quite recollect nice nice kind of relationship with mothers, but that doesn’t mean that the the kindness mother didn’t give us the kindness when we were in womb or when we were young. It doesn’t really mean. The the circumstantial changes of our relationship with parents or others doesn’t become a good result, a good reason that you should dislike or forget the kindness. The only wise person is who can remember everything, everything. But, you know, if you have received kindness, you should never forget.
Never forget the kindness. Being able to, you know, repair the kindness, you know, cherish and admire what people have done is is is accordingly you’re repaying the kindness kindness back. At the same time, you’re thereby not karmically obligated in the future to repair them back because you didn’t acknowledge in this particular lifetime. While some has to be born enemy has to be born as your own kid, you have to eat your father’s flesh or whatever, these conditions we discussed that first day, because of because of non non acknowledgement of the kindness of others in this life becomes a karmic burden in the future, and thus causing more excessive negative karma. So therefore, Bodhisattva’s part in which emphasizes there to remember the kindness of mother is very, skillful in a long term and short term.
If individuals have problems to say, can remember and cherish the kindness of mothers necessarily, this doesn’t mean that you have to be a physical mother. There’s always somebody who really gives you that love, that that kind of love. That is a mother. Mother means who really gives you who gives you as much as they would do to you. So everyone at least has one a mother figure — teacher, friend, husband, wife, friend, neighbor, or whatever.
Doesn’t have to be physical mother to relate to, you know, if you have difficulty, I hope not because it’s not not very sensible to to forget the kindness of mother and yet become Buddhist. So even if you do have, you know, there’s a compromise. You can you can always think of someone who’ve been very kind to you, who can who’s giving you as much as they do to you. So this is talking about remembering the kindness of others. And when we when we really relate to people, we really close who have who have love to do in our life, then our understanding with them our understanding with them, perception with them totally change.
So minor problems minor problems that ensues into relations should become something bearable, something endurable. We have a saying that best way of human relationship is that you never change your good quality that you have maintained before. Even there’s a certain problems, you should still not forget the kindness and good things that has ensured from the relationship. We say we say we say sudden, you know, friend, immediate friends, you know, we say that trust more to your old enemies than to your sudden friends because you have so many memorable events with the with the past, with the person, that even though there are times that you dislike and there’s been so many nice things that has really come out of that, so you remember. So why is that is that has more powerful impact on our mind in a long term rather than the image of friend.
So one of the qualities that is expressed in in, you know, his soul is that the lama says about the Tibetans is that when you get to know somebody very well, you know, very well for years and years, they they always seem to hang on to them as somebody very special, somebody very special, and try to do try to do something very special. And this is mainly to do with the with the emphasis in the remembering the kindness of others that has so strongly been taught taught for years and years and years up to the present day. And therefore, everybody that we have long known, old friends, you know, old friends, the the more we be able to cherish them, more we will able to know as a as a as a really inevitable consequence that you will know that you have taken so much uncountable rebirth through which in each particular rebirth you have developed such kind of familiarity with so many beings. So therefore, there is no distinction to be made, those you know and you don’t know as as you start developing developing the admiration and acknowledgement of kindness of other beings.
If we know there’s something or somebody has been kind to us, then it’s very natural that we wanna do something in return. So therefore the compassion and action, being able to give what we have becomes very, very sensible, and you don’t have it doesn’t become judgment. You don’t have to judge. It becomes very it becomes just like giving to yourself. There’s no difference.
You you feel easily and satisfactory. Being able to share. In Tibetan saying, means gift of a food is better than gift of a gift of a horse. If you share something no matter how tiny it is to other people, it becomes very, very most most suitable gift than any other gift. Even if a small gift, if you share with others, by this this sense of, you know, the the looking for the wealth of others and then giving them, It’s very, very, very, very influential to receive to develop the sense of recept receptivity in other people’s mind.
The when we are able to re when we are able to remember and acknowledge the kindness of others, then our own our own needs become doesn’t become very, very important. Doesn’t really become important. The most important thing to become for oneself is to give others. Therefore, the satisfaction by giving others becomes even more productive than that of looking for our own benefit. It reveals the insignificance of personal problems when you develop these feelings.
It provides substantial and logical reason to help others. So you’re you’re not only helping you’re not you’re not help helping others without any reasons or without any any satisfactory spiritual element in you. There is all these encouraging qualities in you as you help by remembering their kindness as a trainee, you know. Bodhisattvas don’t help because they think they have to help you because you done you have done so many things to others. There’s nothing.
It is said in some scriptures that, you know, Bodhisattvas or Buddhas, we go for refuge, but actually, we really go for refuge sentient beings. You can’t gain enlightenment without sentient beings. You can’t gain enlightenment without sentient beings. Buddhas, we cannot develop compassion to Buddhas. It would be ridiculous.
You know? Buddhas are developing compassion to us. So only way that we can awaken ourself is developing compassion. If there is no sin to be, we can’t develop compassion.