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 Buddhist practice and spiritual transformation. He begins by outlining the three conditions necessary for developing genuine compassion: understanding suffering, recognizing our common humanity, and cultivating the wish to help. He emphasizes that compassion, when rooted in wisdom and a dedication to others rather than self-interest, naturally undermines ego and opens the door to all spiritual qualities. The heart of the talk weaves together philosophical reflection with vivid examples: the Jātaka story of a bodhisattva prince who fed his own body to a starving tigress and her cubs, and a contemporary example of a lama who absorbed a beaten dog’s suffering during his teaching. Throughout, Choedak stresses the inseparability of compassion and wisdom, drawing on texts such as Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra. The session concludes with guided meditation and prayers drawn from Buddhist sutras, inviting practitioners to generate the bodhisattva intention. Suitable for both newcomers and those with prior meditation experience.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 CiA.mp3
UUID: d80177fe-32c5-4b63-b8e6-ee6c167bee92
Teacher: Choedak
Collection: Compassion in Action (Choedak)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~4,660
Cultivated just like a burnt seed can never grow. So providing that these three phases are there, then we can develop compassion. Develop 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 interest and have nothing to do with it. This all comes because of lack of faith, devotion and dedication. When the 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 develop out of it.
Because 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, so forth, it is already, already predefined the imprint of negativity of cherishing the self. Thereby the culture, the culture of rising yourself with selfish motive and grasping to it is very, very, very weak and therefore it can easily be transmitted with the understanding of wisdom. Wisdom we were referring to as best compassion is which is helped, supported by wisdom, just like as I was saying, you know both hands represent method and wisdom. Method is compassion and wisdom is understanding of emptiness of the act of compassion.
When you realize so much of the compassion, then you shouldn’t again, you know, this sense of whenever you do a compassion act, you must dedicate it with understanding wisdom. We must dedicate it with understanding wisdom. This is to say that yourself, compassion is as anything else, is interdependently originated. You yourself as a person and sometimes weak aspect of mind develops hostility and thereby, you know, we have a whole aim, the whole aim of the compassion is so that you realize wisdom. So that you realize wisdom.
Be able to integrate it or apply it with wisdom, wisdom wouldn’t be very beneficial. So the wisdom aspect that you might be able discuss and learn in the future is something very necessary if you have realized some understanding and realization based upon compassion and for this for a measure of sphere of discussion. And one great teacher, namely Candrakīrti, the great teacher who wrote the one treatise on Mādhyamika, the middle way philosophy based upon Nāgārjuna’s work. Usually every writer in Buddhist teachings writes few verses of supplication at the beginning. Mainly they call upon Buddha or bodhisattvas or their teachers.
This writer Candrakīrti, strangely enough, he called upon Bodhicitta, he called upon the enlightenment thought. He said, I go for refuge in life, I write this in praise of Bodhicitta, the enlightened attitude for the 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 or is indirectly praising the Full Moon’s Day, similarly when I praise when I praise to the Bodhicitta, I’m praising and facilitating all this. So cherishing the seed by knowing all these important factors for us to understand about it. Not so much of any other thing is it can become very helpful and effective enough as much as that does, it can be done by what is cherished: understanding, loving kindness and compassion.
And if there are any recountable stories of the great master of the past or present and future, it is because they all practiced this. It is because that they practice this and they lived it out. Had there been no practitioners, then this wouldn’t be teaching wouldn’t be there. This this 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, real education is nourishing our spirituality, conditioned enough to to to actually cherish and, you know, cherish and practice these teachings.
So it’s if if we do if we if we do realize something out of this, it is is very very important in Tibetan Buddhist teachings that you we must be thankful to all those great masters. Tibet was a barbaric country to start with. You know, Buddhist teaching was much was established in Tibet, much more great difficulty than we are undergoing these days. It’s very easy these days. If lama flies around and the book published, come here and give you the teachings, you know, and they try to tell me, go, oh, very easy, you know.
In the past, if there’s many monks and lamas go to India, half of them die of fever, you know. Half of them get, you know, tired and difficult to learn these languages. And only few of them return back home. Still they think they they cannot teach, you know. So and the Tibetan themself has already this Bon religion and the Bon religious teachers’ teachings and people were really really, you know, animals, you know, they were really angry with this, you know, foreign Indian teachings come to Tibet, they don’t want this, and when you build the monastery in the evening, and daytime, and the nighttime they will break everything, and all these hardships, lot has gone, and so many great teachers’ hardships and their dedication has made it so, you know, consistently for about four solid centuries, it has taken long enough to fully establish Buddhism in Tibet.
Since then a lot of reform, lot of, you know, 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 Because of the dedication and power of their blessings and practices for many 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, you know, cultivated. Okay. So if we find some good examples in these great masters, then we will trod on that as well. It is the quintessence of religious teaching.
Okay? 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 at a great disliking or not really being satisfied with other religious system, that sense of bit of unkind feeling that we normally have and know as 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, enemies, non-Buddhist religious, and that you can thereby see, and thereby see how it is the most essential topic to be discussed and I hope we have not wasted our weekend.
And that’s okay. So in this way, topics like these, topics like these, you know, I would say topics like that, this, you know, 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, you would learn something out of it, but this compassion is not as easy as usual, and therefore it is something that we discuss during the weekend, but something that we have to think how important it is for me be, you know, 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 as such, informal daily practice as such, as long as we can integrate the messages of these teachings in the heart, in the heart, and then try to develop the mindfulness at a stage, it will make your mind gradually conducive and tamable to, and thereby becoming more suitable to do some systematic, you know, practices. It will naturally do, that’s the special message of conversion. It makes you more dedicated, devoted, faithful, and all these conditions develop. And this particular text is very much, you based upon all the teachings that I myself encountered and various books that are written books of great masters of Tibet and great masters of India, mainly Śāntideva. I think for me as an individual Śāntideva’s work, Bodhicaryāvatāra, was the most touching text to develop in 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 if 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. Buddha and Yeah. Buddha and tiger. Buddha and tiger, yeah.
There was a king who had who had three or four prince, you know. All the four prince go to the bushes together, you know, for fun and go to together like Australians these days do. And one of the youngest youngest one was actually bodhisattva, was the emanation of Maitreya Buddha’s, one of the previous being. 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 there are not the tigers left anymore. They all got fed and have gone somewhere. All died of course. And these four prints when they were going in the bush, the young one happened to hear a very kind of, I don’t know, very strange noise. So he went back and then he looked and he saw a hungry tigress with four or five cubs, all very very hungry, nothing fun, and all the cubs looked very very hungry and mother looked more hungry than anyone else, and she was looking for food and she couldn’t find anything, and she was actually licking the cubs, but she was also biting them, and slowly she was really going to eat them because of hunger.
So this prince 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 the hungry tigers. So the only way he can think is he can feed his body, otherwise there’s no other alternative, he couldn’t find any way otherwise. So he went to cut his body and he looked around, they were very sharp kind of trees, which has very pony trees, so he used them. He put all these sharp thorns on his body and that 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, you know, he fed all his body, entire hungry tigress was really well fed and all, as well as the other 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 so there was really there was really no problem. There was really no problem at all, you know, because of compassion there was continuous growth of flesh, there was no slimming necessary there. So, you know, so he was able to feed all of them and save them from the hunger, temporarily speaking, and long and long term the mother didn’t have to eat her cubs and save them life, and that is one of those many hundred and four Jātaka stories, birth stories of Buddha as 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, always cherishing others. Although at times he did a lot of things, one time he was giving teaching on his throne and met many people listening to his teachings. A lot of people were listening to his teachings, everybody’s faith was just as good as anything, and he didn’t really need to teach much because faith was there. But outside there there was one dog, and one dogs 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 hard, hit hard, 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 ribs 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 patch fainting, they couldn’t know that that’s because of that. And later on when they looked at it, the dog that has been really beaten, you know stone has nothing wrong with it, and stone was just near the lama’s throne.
The stone was just lama’s throne and there was a big, you know, what do you call, big bruise on his ribs, and the lama has taken all the suffering suffering of the dog. This can be done, giving and taking, 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 there are cases that There are a lot of different cases how bodhisattvas actualize their compassion which we cannot even imagine. When they take, oh well, they don’t suffer, that’s for sure, yeah.
They don’t suffer. But he was actually making a point of, you know, he was all teaching there, but they don’t suffer. Buddhists never suffer. Those are only teachings, such stories are only teachings, they are not because Buddhas take. Had this been the case, we wouldn’t be left here.
So these teachings are only techniques, these teachings sometimes sometimes some sentient beings become very suitable, karmic and mature, that they can be helpful to teach give us such teachings through association with Buddhas, there must be somebody who had prayed a lot. So this is what we try to see. And at this stage, what I want to do, what we are going to do. Before we finish this vowel, we will say these prayers at end of page eight and page nine and ten. You can do these prayers if you like in your practices.
They’re they’re all prayers from the sutras and great teachers. They’re not my writing, although my translations. And then 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 for the blind before, may all of those born who have any pain. May the naked fine clothing, may the humry fine food.
May the thirsty find drinks. May the poor find wealth. Those weak with sorrow find joy. May the forlorn find new hope cause happiness and prosperity. 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 and toil find magnificent and noble forms. May all lower form forms and universe take rebirth in higher forms. May the lowly of ten groundser, may the proud be humble. May sentient beings have lives inconceivably long when in fortunate forms. May they live in contentment, unfamiliar with even the word weary, for as long as to cease it effectively.
May I be the doctor, the medicine, and also the nurse who restores him to health. May I fall as a rain for to increase, the harvest that must free the living being. In the ages of die of famine, may I myself serve as food and drink. May I be an ending treasury for those desperate and fallen. May I manifest as they wish and have need.
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 that they wish 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 I respond toward me with anger. May the mere effect of me meeting contribute to the fulfillment of their wishes. May the slander, harm, and act as 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 route. May I act as a lamp, like a tree, just for those We’ll have a short meditation afterwards, after the break, and we nearly finish. Okay. Break. These extracts from sutras on impermanence.
These are all The three worlds are impermanent like autumn clouds. The birth and death of living beings are similar to watch a dance. Life is gone like a flash of lightning in the sky, quickly passing like a mountain waterfall. Waterfall. As a budding mushroom shoots upwards, carrying soil on its 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 crossed the horizon, goes forward in the direction of its setting and does not turn back for a moment on the path, it traverses in that direction. Oders a mountain stream rapidly tears down on its way, flows and rushes along with without turning back even for a moment. To me, who is going to go 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 of night humans first enter the womb, the journey of their life to death begins.
Once gone there is no turning back. Just as fires get extinguished when dried up by the summer’s heat, as leaves 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 mind will definitely fall apart when a 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 is no place that death can 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 a skilled potter molds from clay, which finally is broken and destroyed, so too is every person’s life. When I have done this then I will do that, and after that is finished then I will 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 corals going on and on both day and night, just like herders with a stick who drives the flocks into the fold. Old age and sickness drive all humans onto 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, the Rūpakāya 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 a blade 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 are in the womb, some on the ground when they are born, some just 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 the turn, just like the fall of a ripened root. Since many boys and girls have died while young in their prime of life, how can I feel secure and think?
I am 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 power of death. Your children cannot protect you when the time has come for you to die, nor for your parents, nor your parents. Page ten and left 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 trained in the stages of the bodhisattva trainings. Likewise, for the sake of living beings, do I now myself generate the bodhimind. Just as all previous buddhas has characterized the precious bodhisattva bodhisattva bodhisattva. Likewise, for the sake of living beings, do I now myself generally, and likewise will I myself. They who, out of wisdom, have seen the supreme body mind, praise, glorify, and rejoice in it.
Let me grow to fulfilment from today I’ll reap the fruits. Having well on this day to human being, today, I’m born in the Buddha family, and I’m now a child of the Buddhist. 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 family. Like a blind man fumbling in garbage happens to find a rare and precious here, likewise have I discovered the jewel, precious bodhimind. This is the finest essence to dispel the lord of the destroyer, an inexhaustible treasure able to cure the poverty of all sin.
It is the highest medicines to cure the ills of beings, and is the tree giving shade to those wandering on the path of life. It is a strong and mighty breeze by which can cross the misery, and is a moon to shine in their mind to clear away the pains of delusion. Their body mind is a great radiant sun to disperse the darkness of ignorance and is the very essence of butter gained from churning the milk of Dharma. For all guests on the road of life who would taste the very substance of joy, the actual taste of joy, a veritable feast to satiate the world today in the presence of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, giving both immediate and lasting joy, and the gods and all hosts of joy. Let me sit through with mindfulness, allowing my body to be relaxed and serviceable and alert so that the mind can peacefully penetrate on compassion towards all sentient beings.
As a follower of the sublime Buddhas, I sit with mindfulness to train my body, discipline my body, to imprint on my mind. A seat with awareness mindfulness. Letting go of all external thoughts and wandering thoughts and tendencies. Let me concentrate on the breath coming in and going out as gentle and naturally, 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.
Forsake of all living things. Forsake of all living things. Since beginningless time all living beings, though wanting happens, has been experiencing sufferings continuously. What if they could know the causes of suffering? I must now develop this sense of compassion to uproot 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 onward 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 its 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 can 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, older young, male or female, all suffer from dissatisfaction.
What if I were to uproot their suffering and have the ability? Old humans, rich or poor, powerful young, old, they all suffer from the disease, sicknesses. Their total ability becomes totally deterred by the sickness. Their beautiful complexion gets faded. Their ability becomes useless when they are invaded by the diseases.
All humans whose bodies compounded together with so many pieces of flesh and bones and tendons, Their body is subject to an imbalance, two elemental imbalances, thus experience sicknesses. All humans suffer from sickness. What if I were to uproot the suffering of sickness and its causes for all human beings. All humans inevitably, with great uncertainty, die at any time.