Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche uses a striking metaphor to frame his core message: a wild elephant can only end the body’s life, but an undisciplined mind—through negative karma—can send us into unrelenting suffering. Drawing from Dharmakīrti’s Compendium of Valid Cognition, he explores mind discipline through analysis of the five mental factors that accompany consciousness. He shows how afflictive emotions—anger, attachment—disrupt mental peace and why mindfulness and introspection are essential for recognizing them as they arise. All harm originates within the mind itself; external problems have no power without inner negativity. Rinpoche concludes with practical purification methods: regret as the primary factor, supplemented by the four powers, confession, Vajrasattva practice, and meditation on emptiness. The session includes questions clarifying mindfulness and awareness. Suitable for practitioners with some foundation in Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-08-27 – 14B – KR.mp3
UUID: 056c4133-3cd4-4066-9fea-8d611c895ee2
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Compendium of Valid Cognition
Date: 1993-08-27
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,836
And if the flower that we see is very good, then it brings us, produces a feeling of happiness. That which is feeling the happiness is the mental factor of feeling which is accompanying this eye consciousness. Then there is the mental factor of intention, or sometimes translated as attention. This is the mental factor which engages the eye consciousness in its object. In this case, the eye consciousness.
It engages the eye consciousness into its object. So all of these eye consciousness, all of the consciousness are accompanied with these with these same five mental factors that is these five factors which we’ve listed which accompany the eye consciousness also accompany the ear, nose, tongue, body and mental consciousnesses. If they did not accompany these consciousness, the mind would not be able to perform its activity. So we’re going to discuss how the afflictive emotions are generated. And if we were to examine examine our mind when an afflictive emotion is, in fact, being generated, we would see that at that moment our mind is experiencing a state of unpeace, of unruly state, of unrest.
So if we were to examine our mind, we would become aware immediately of an afflictive emotion. But because we do not examine the state of our mind, we are not able to recognize when an afflictive emotion is being generated. So if that is in fact the case, then what do we need to do? We necessarily must develop the factors of mindfulness awareness. If we’ve developed these factors, then we’ll be able to these factors are extremely beneficial in recognizing the arising of afflictive emotions.
If we do not have these factors developed, then we will not be able to identify the arising of the afflictive emotions. Introspection is like the police. So just as in the case of a new person came to town and no one was quite sure what he was up to, what what work he was involved in, and the it would be the job of the police to keep their eye out on him to see what he was up to. So likewise with respect to the mind, it is this factor of awareness or introspection which keeps an eye out on the quality of the mind, whether it’s in a positive state or a negative state. It watches how the mind is the state of the mind.
We don’t watch out over our we don’t watch over our mind. When the mind is in a non afflicted state, when there are no afflicted emotions within the mind, the mind is is tranquil, is at peace, is a very smooth level mind. But if someone were to say something harsh, some were to address some harsh words at us saying, you you’re really a terrible person, we would generate anger. And our peace of mind would be lost and we would be unhappy. And we will have lost the tranquility of mind.
Our mind would be unhappy. We would develop a distressed mind. And in such a state, whatever we look at, it doesn’t look very pleasant. Whatever we hear, it doesn’t hear very it’s not very pleasing to hear. When try to sleep, we can’t sleep.
The food that we eat doesn’t taste good. Red in the face. We start breathing hard, and all kinds of uncontrollable thoughts start to flow out, come forth. And the same is true when the afflictive emotion of attachment is generated. We we might be in a very very relaxed state, but once attachment arises, we lose that peaceful state.
We begin to think a great deal. All this process of yearning for something begins to churn in our mind. And if we find that we are not we’re we’re no longer able to stay still, we have to go out and get something, we have to do something, and our our peaceful state is lost. Speak in negative ways and create a negative act involve ourselves in negative activities. On the other hand, when we generate skillful states of mind, our mind remains in a relaxed state, in such skillful states as development generating some faith toward the Buddha for development of love or compassion in the course of our meditation.
Our mind remains in a relaxed state. Our state of peace is not in remains uninterrupted, is not interrupted in any way. That the mind does not become unrestful or unruly. And then any actions which are generated out of this, these states, if we go on to practice generosity or ethics, these are also done in a very relaxed state of mind. Śāntideva says that it is necessary to discipline the three minds.
Other than that discipline, there is no there is no other need. There is no other need other than that. There is no other need than to discipline the three There is no other need for discipline than to discipline the three minds. So the three minds are the states of skillful actions, unskillful states and unspecified states. And we should watch over our mind.
And if a skillful state has arisen, then to hold on to it with your mindfulness and cause it to continue on. If it’s unskillful, then we should quickly bring it to an end that we should turn it away and stop it. This was also said by where he said, whatever one may be doing, whether going, staying, sleeping, eating, one is always to inspect the state of one’s mind. Immediately upon the rising of an afflictive emotion, bring it to an end. If one allows it to continue, it can only bring harm to both oneself and others.
Quoting from a verse by Śāntideva. He says that a wild elephant can only kill our body. It cannot in fact harm our mind. But if we allow the elephant of our own mind to travel wherever it wishes uncontrollably, then that elephant of the mind can send us into unrelenting suffering of hell. Good.
So, you know, if we were we would be quite we would be very afraid of a wild of a crazy elephant. But we aren’t we aren’t afraid of our own minds. But a crazy elephant at at worst could only bring our bring our could only bring our life to could only bring an end to the life of our body. But the the but our own mind has the power to to not only to bring our life to an end, but to, to, in the future, to send us into hell. Why?
Because through the negative karma that we create, through that power of that negative karma, we will experience those sufferings. If we can discipline the mind through mindfulness, then we have disciplined we are disciplined. If we can tie the mind through mindfulness, then we have tied everything. Generally, we see all harm coming from outside of ourselves, external external things things such such as as people, people, diseases, diseases, lack of food, etcetera. But in fact, all of these things come from the inner factor of our own mind.
If If it wasn’t for the negativity of our own mind, then none of these things would have the power to harm us. All harms are within the mind itself, reside within the mind. If the negativity resides within our mind, though we might try to stop external harms, the harm will never cease. So it’s extremely important to eliminate the harms from within our own mind that if by bringing to an end the harming for harmful the destructive factors within our own mind and promoting healthy factors with our own mind that of itself will bring about freedom from harm from external sources. And these healthy constructive states of mind are such states as love and compassion, the awakened heart.
Therefore, we should meditate on these. Facilitate the development of these healthy states of love and compassion, we should try to eliminate the previously negative unskillful actions, the previously created unskillful actions through the application of the four powers and seek to not repeat these actions, negative actions again in the future. And those skillful actions which have been previously generated, not allowing those to degenerate or deteriorate by being watchful over the mind and not allowing such states as anger to arise and newly developing skillful actions through body, speech and mind. If we proceed in this manner of practice, then we can develop love and compassion. But if we only try to meditate on love and compassion without creating these necessary causes and conditions for the facilities of development, we won’t develop them.
Without eliminating these negative factors of the mind, we will not generate love and compassion. Therefore, it’s necessary to eliminate these negativities through their declaration. So we’re going to stop there, it is extremely important that we cultivate the healthy states of mind and abandon harmful states. So if you have some questions, we’ll take a few minutes for those. Yes.
So that that which watches over mindfulness is awareness. In in general, mindfulness is that which holds the mind to objects. For example, in our meditation, whatever object that we are seeking to bring the mind to, it is mindfulness which holds the mind to that object.
And then the factor of awareness tells us whether or not our mind is holding to that object or not. So it’s watching whether the mind is actually holding, being held to that object or not. It is mindfulness which holds the mind, and awareness which watches whether it’s being held or not. Okay. So if if if you use a analogy to help understand these, If someone if there was an official and there was this, you know, the secretary, someone came to meet the official.
So the tech secretary said, there’s a there’s a man waiting for you. And that is attention. This saying that there’s somebody there. There’s somebody there. And then the the secretary leads him into the room to meet the official.
That which brings about that appointment is contact. So there’s somebody waiting is attention or sometimes intention. Then intention, there’s somebody waiting, and then leading the person in the room, and bringing about this coming together is contact. If If generate regret soon after, immediately. So the main factor which brings about purification is regret.
Milarepa said that regret purifies negativities. But the main way I mean, the power of regret will significantly decrease the potency of the negativity created. But Rinpoche says that it won’t eliminate from its very root. It’s necessary to apply the four powers additional to the power of regret, the power of remedy and reliance, and the antidote, whether we can do Confessions to the 35 Buddhas, Vajrasattva practice, or meditation on emptiness, that these will completely purify from its very root. But the main purifying factor is regret.
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.