Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche guides listeners through Dharmakīrti’s perspective on how minds and mental factors work together in spiritual transformation. He opens with ten minutes of cultivating loving-kindness, then argues that wisdom realizing emptiness must partner with compassion to free oneself and all beings. Using the analogy of sweetener gradually dissolving in water until the water becomes sweetness, he shows how repeated meditation on compassion transforms the mind’s very nature. A key point: sporadic practice fails, but steady daily effort gradually requires less effort until compassion arises spontaneously. He concludes by outlining the bodhisattva path, where mastery of mind enables progression through ten grounds and the ability to emanate numberless forms to benefit countless beings. Suited for practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-09-10 – 17A – KR.mp3
UUID: 16e96b48-34eb-45d7-b44f-da31bea3f969
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Compendium of Valid Cognition
Date: 1993-09-10
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,750
Cultivate the kind hearted attitude of the awakening heart for ten minutes. Cultivating love and compassion which is expressed in the words, I must free myself and all living beings equal to space from all suffering and lead them to complete happiness. But in order to lead all living beings to a state of complete happiness and freedom from their suffering, if I myself have not attained such a state, then there’s no way that I can lead others to a similar state. Therefore, I myself must first eliminate all my various faults and bring the consummation of my excellent qualities. In order to bring about that in, what am I to do?
We must first understand what our various faults and various excellent qualities are. And then we must listen to ways of practice in order to by means of which we remove our various faults, by means of which we bring to consummation our excellent qualities. Having listened to them, we try to understand what we have heard, reflecting upon it, examining it, coming to some ascertainment. And then having gained some realization, we again and again meditate until we bring our meditation to these qualities to consummation. In order to do that, I must begin by listening to what these various practices and faults and qualities are.
Therefore, with such a motivation I am going to listen to this present teaching on the commentary to valid cognition. According to a verse by Dharmakīrti, where he is speaking of the two categories of mind. Those being negative and positive. And with respect to these negative states, one should seek to bring them to an end through the elimination through the application of antidotes. On the other hand, those positive states, we should reflect upon the excellent qualities of these positive states and not only not allow them to be diminished, but on the contrary to increase them to again and again, cultivating these states limitlessly.
So the the root of of all these various negative states is ignorance. And ignorance is is an obscuration with respect to the nature of reality. We due to ignorance we are not able to to see that the nature of things that we are obscured or obstructed from seeing. And due to this, the obscuring quality of nature, it not allow us to understand the nature of reality, we go on to generate various afflictive emotions such as attachment and hatred. On the other hand, the healthy states of mind are those states which are in accordance with the nature of the way things are.
And this is promoted by the development of wisdom wisdom which is able to understand the nature of phenomena. And in reliance upon that healthy state of wisdom, we are able to abandon harm harming of others the contrary, we were able to practice benefiting them. In developing the attitude which wishes which is abandons the harming of others, we develop compassion. In seeking and developing the attitude which wishes to which practices benefiting others, we develop love. In general there are many types of wisdoms, wisdoms which understand the nature of things and they understand the nature of situations.
But here we are speaking specifically about an ultimate wisdom. That is to say, the wisdom which realizes emptiness. It is by this wisdom that we are able to overcome our unknowing, the obscuration. This is what acts as an antidote to ignorance. And through abandoning the attitude wishing to harm others, we are with Through developing the attitude which abandons the harming of others, we develop compassion.
And through compassion we develop the determination to awaken. And out of that we are able to abandon attachment. Through developing the attitude which wishes to benefit others, we develop love and the awakening heart. So it is through these various healthy states and practicing the and through practicing them that we are able to achieve the happiness that we want, that we are able to eliminate our faults. So it is through healthy states of mind that we can eliminate our suffering, that we can find happiness.
And moreover, these these states are extremely healthy. They’re extremely positive and stable. They’re extremely beneficial. They’re the bringers of happiness. By having through meditation upon such states, positive states, and increasing them higher and higher, we are able to rid the mind of various negative states.
We can be rid of the various states such as ignorance, attachment, and anger. All the various afflictive emotions are gradually eliminated from the mind. Having eliminated the afflictive emotions from the mind, we cease creating karma or actions. Having done that, then we eliminate suffering because if there is no cause, there will be no result. So these various states that we describe love and compassion and wisdom realizing emptiness are mental factors.
In general, there are are two categories of mental states. There are minds and mental factors. So mainly there are minds, our primary consciousnesses, and then there are these mental factors which accompany simultaneously these minds. So if we give an analogy, if there is a tree, the trunk of the tree is analogous to these main minds. And but from the trunk of the tree, there are branches that come off along with leaves.
And these branches and leaves are mental factors. So these these branches are mainly the tree is mainly centered upon the trunk itself. This is the main factor, the main constituent of the tree, the trunk. So the limbs of the tree and the trunk of the tree have the relationship of dependent which upon. The limbs are the mental factors and they depend upon the trunk.
And the trunk is the main mind that which is dependent upon. So these various mental factors which we have described, the love, compassion, the wisdom, realizing emptiness, are mental factors. They are that which depends and they are dependent upon something else and that which they are dependent upon is the mind, are these various main minds and that which is dependent upon. And this main mind is extremely stable. So if we cultivate these states, love, compassion, wisdom, realizing emptiness, let us say through our meditation, again and again cultivating them, then as much as we cultivate them or meditate upon them, they will increase.
And they, being dependent upon these main minds, will simultaneously cause the development of the main mind. So these two, the mental fact main minds and mental factors will increase together. And because the stable nature of that which is being dependent upon, then as much as it has increased there will not be a deterioration but that increase can be stabilized. If, on the contrary, if if we cultivated wisdom and that which is dependent upon, the basis upon which is being dependent upon, the mind were to due to simultaneously deteriorate as our wisdom increased, then this would not be a stable basis upon which to develop the wisdom. But on the contrary, as we as our wisdom develops, likewise the basis upon which it’s being developed the mind also develops.
So initially, we do not possess compassion. We don’t have the mind of compassion and the mental factor of compassion. Therefore, there there is it’s not accompanied with by a main mind of compassion. But we go on to meditate and we actually generate a state of compassion. That is to say we generate a state where it wishes all beings to be free of suffering.
So you know, merely we actually have to generate a state of compassion in we have to actually generate that state. You know, saying from our mouth compassion compassion is not meditation on compassion. In order to meditate on compassion we actually have to generate a state of compassion. So through meditation we generate an actual mind of compassion. And we don’t allow that mind of compassion to degenerate, but we increase increase it higher and we we make effort to increase it higher and higher and the the compassion grows and grows until it becomes great compassion.
If today we were to meditate on compassion and generate it, but if tomorrow and the next day we cannot cultivate compassion, then that compassion would be lost. So it’s quite, in training of the mind it’s quite necessary that we be consistent in our practice. It must be a continuous practice. We were to cultivate compassion one day and then leave it aside for the next two or three days, then we aren’t going to develop great compassion. That in order we have to prevent anger from arising since anger is a is a contrary to the development of compassion.
But additionally, there must be a consistent cultivation of compassion. Just like in when we when we we light a fire, first it’s just a very small flame. But if it continues in a steady fashion, it becomes a great conflagration. Today we begin with our meditation on development of compassion. And it requires a great deal of effort.
It’s quite difficult. Know, we go through various using techniques such as recognizing all living beings as one’s mother, remembering their great kindness, etcetera. And we have to make great effort in cultivating that compassion. But tomorrow, we don’t have it will not be as difficult as it was today. It will be that slightly less difficult and will need slightly less effort.
And then the day after tomorrow is going to be even less difficult and it will require less effort. In order to develop this similar type of compassion as we’ve done previously, it it will require less and less effort. It will be less and less difficult. This is this is an ability of the mind. So there it gradually takes less and less effort to generate the same level of compassion as it did previously over time.
Requires The less effort than the subsequent requires less effort than the previous until we reach a state where no effort is needed, that compassion can arise spontaneously. Having gen having developed the ability to spontaneously generate compassion, there reaches a point where up to this point, there has been the mental factor of compassion, which accompanies the main mind. But as we increase from this point point onward, the mind itself is transformed into the entity of compassion. That the nature of mind becomes becomes compassion. It’s no longer a a mind accompanying the factor of compassion, but it itself is compassion.
So if we give an analogy, if we had a cup with water in it, we and then we began to add drops of of a sweetener. And just adding one drop of sweetener to the water doesn’t it’s not very sweet. But but we keep slowly adding drop by drop sweetness to the water. Then eventually, the water is going to become the nature of sweetness. And likewise, likewise, the the the the water is like the mind, and the drops of sweetness are like compassion.
And one drop of water is like meditating once on compassion, then two drops of water is like having meditated twice. And eventually, adding drop by drop, the very nature of the mind becomes the entity of compassion. That that the compassion is becomes the same entity as the mind itself. So the same would hold true for love and it would hold the same would hold true for the wisdom realizing selflessness. Taking that as as an example, if we were to cultivate our understanding of the of selflessness through, for example, saying that things do not truly exist because they are dependently arisen.
And again, cultivating that understanding in our meditation until finally we generated the wisdom realizing selflessness. And this wisdom realizing selflessness is like a drop of sweetener, a mental factor of wisdom being added to the mind, the water. And likewise, drop by drop, we we are we don’t allow our wisdom to deteriorate, but keep developing it and increasing it until there reaches a point where the mind itself becomes the same entity as the wisdom realizing selflessness. As when the this wisdom realizing emptiness becomes of the same nature as the mind, that is say the wisdom the mind becomes one single entity with the wisdom realizing emptiness. And then we we gain direct realization, direct realization of emptiness.
Through that, we’re we are able to overcome the factors causing us to be reborn within cyclic existence. The karma which propels us in cyclic existence because we are able to overcome ignorance. The ignorance here is the ignorance within the 12 links of dependent origination, which is the ignorance ignorance of self grasping and which motivates the creation of karma and both types of whether whether it be unskillful karma or skillful karma, which causes to be reborn in cyclic existence. So it is a generation of this mind of which is the direct realization of emptiness whereby we are free of cyclic existence. Having eliminated the motivating factor for where that is the ignorance which causes us to accumulate karma to be reborn in cyclic existence, there is no longer any new karma being developed or accumulated causing us to be born in cyclic existence.
And coupling this wisdom with compassion and the awakening heart, these two conjoin together, through the power of that we can eliminate the previously created karma. So through this process we can we can eliminate all possible states of future negative or unfortunate rebirths. We no longer have to experience suffering. And we are no we are no longer creating the causes for any future sufferings. But on the contrary, we are increasing all the positive factors of the mind through the development of our awakening heart.
We are accumulating a vast collection of creative potential. Under the influence of one’s powerful compassion as a motivating force, one goes on to, in order to, for the sake of the suffering of, you know, for the suffering of living beings goes on to take rebirth in order to bring about their welfare. So we continue to take rebirth for the sake of living beings. Our power to be able to bring about the welfare of sentient beings increases as we move through the various grounds. For example, on the first ground, one is able to take 100 simultaneous rebirths.
On the second ground, one is able to take a thousand simultaneous rebirths. And this these abilities and powers increase as one progresses. In the snap of in the time of a snap of one’s finger, one can bring about the welfare of of many many living beings through teaching them the Dharma. So this is what the bodhisattva is able to bring about as he she progresses through the 10 grounds. At the first ground, able to emanate to radiate a 100 emanations.
At the second ground, a thousand. At the third ground, 10,000. Increasing in this way until one is able to emanate numberless emanations. And each of these is able to bring about the welfare and through the teachings of Dharma to numberless living beings. Able to abide in Buddha fields.
Able, you know, the power of the mind, the ability of the mind is increasing, in terms of its wisdom, in terms of its, of its creative potential, and this in order to bring about, in order to be able to engage in activities for the sake of living beings. So we continue in this fashion for the sake of living beings in order to bring about their welfare, that we we we intermittently meditate on emptiness, and then go about, rising from the meditation on emptiness, go about bringing accumulating creative potential, bringing about the welfare of others as as a means to, that is to say, we try to couple, to unite both wisdom and method as a means whereby to eliminate all our various faults, bring to consummation all our excellent qualities, and thereby be be empowered to bring about the welfare of both oneself and others. Dependence upon what does all of this arise, what is the basis that it is Buddha nature, that is like the seed. And in dependence upon this, we develop our positive states of mind. And then we increase these positive states cultivating through our meditation in terms of their ability and power.