Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute commentary, Kyabje Rinpoche addresses a core question: how do we know Śākyamūni Buddha is a reliable, unerring guide to liberation? He works through a verse by the logician Dharmakīrti, establishing four reasonings—two causes (the Buddha’s cultivation of great compassion and wisdom realizing selflessness) and two results (elimination of his own faults and his capacity to teach others infallibly). Using an analogy of seeds, crops, ripening, and harvest, Rinpoche shows how causes necessarily produce results. He also contrasts the Buddhist position—that the Buddha became valid through practice—with non-Buddhist traditions claiming eternal, self-arisen teachers. Best suited for practitioners with grounding in Buddhist philosophy and logic.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-10-22 – 21A – KR.mp3
UUID: 3b2a0311-261e-4a28-ac3c-d347a0009969
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Compendium of Valid Cognition
Date: 1993-10-22
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,579
In development of exceptional resolve, expressing the attitude that I myself will free all living beings from suffering and the causes of suffering. And I myself will bring happiness and the causes of happiness to all living beings. In the development of the awakening heart, which is expressed in the attitude, in order to achieve that end, I must attain a state where I have rid myself of all my various faults, where I have brought to consummation all of my excellent qualities. Motivated by that kind hearted attitude. I am going to listen to, reflect upon, and meditate on the Dharma.
Quoting from a verse by which is I pay homage to the teacher, the one gone to bliss who became a reliable or a valid person for the sake of benefiting migrators. And in the course of commentating on this verse, Dharmakīrti has proceeded in a word commentary moving through each of the words of this two line verse and and then moving backwards again through these each of the words of these two these two line verses, this two line verse. So the fundamentally, what is being spoken of is that Śākyamūni Buddha who taught what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided to those who are striving for liberation in order to become a valid person. That is to say someone who was unerring and unmistaken in his presentation. For someone who sees the false cyclic existence there develops a longing to achieve liberation.
So what for such a person, what is it that they want? They want to abandon they want to abandon cyclic existence on the one hand and attain liberation on the other. How do we go about abandoning the suffering existence and achieving the happiness of liberation? What is the method? The means is the practice of the four noble truths.
Dignāgā went on to say that, well, who is it that understands the practice of the four noble truths? Who is it that can teach the practice of the four noble truths in an unerring and unmistaken fashion. So if if we were to posit the the such a person as the Śākyamūni Buddha who’s able to teach in an unerring, unmistaken fashion the practice of the four noble truths, do we rely upon in order to establish that fact, we rely upon we rely upon four reasonings. So these four reasoning’s which we’re using to establish the reliability of Śākyamūni Buddha are are categorized in terms of two causes and two results. So the first of these reasons is the first of the the two causes.
And this is the the statement of his great compassion. In not in in through his inability to to tolerate these the continued torture of living beings and their suffering. Unable to bear the suffering of living the the torture of the sufferings of living beings. He sought to become a reliable person through great effort over many rebirths and many years. So the first of these reasons was that his cultivation of great compassion over cultivation of great compassion over a long period of time.
Then the second reason which is also a cause is that motivated by this great compassion, simply that would not be enough. Great compassion. But motivated by this compassion in order to bring about the welfare of others, the cultivation of the wisdom realizing selflessness. So these are the the two main causes to bring about this in whereby the Buddha became a valid person. Mainly these two.
Of course, are others. There are the practice of the six perfections such as generosity, ethics, tolerance, etcetera. Then the third reason, by by the cult of bringing this cultivation to a final end of these two, compassion and the wisdom realizing selflessness, by the power of that, he was able to to abandon from its root the self grasping along with the self grasping, which is the root of suffering and afflictive emotions along with their seeds. So this in this way, he was able to abandon all types of suffering. By means of these three reasons, Śākyamūni Buddha was able to eliminate all his various faults and bring to consummation all his excellent qualities and thereby was able to realize all phenomena in an unerring, unmistaken fashion.
It is because of certain faults of the mind, certain defects that we are unable to see things in an unerring, unmistakable fashion. The Śākyamūni Buddha having abandoned these faults of mind had no error in his understanding, no mistake in his realization and came to know all phenomena the nature of all phenomena. Came to realize directly the nature of all phenomena. So he so this brings us to the fourth reason was that having abandoned all his faults and brought to consummation his excellent qualities, he was able to show those disciples who strove for liberation what is to be adopted, what is to be avoided. That is to say, was able to show them, to teach them in an unerring, unmistaken fashion the path to liberation.
So it is by means of these four reasons that we were able to establish that the Śākyamūni Buddha was a valid or a reliable person. That he was able to to teach in an ultimate fashion, those disciples who were longing to be liberated from a cycle of existence, the means whereby they could eliminate all that was undesirable and achieve all that they desire. So through the two causes of great compassion and the wisdom realizing selflessness, the the Śākyamūni Buddha was able to achieve his own welfare through the abandonment of all faults. So the this is the first of the two results. Through having eliminated having eliminated his his various faults, he came to realize the nature of all phenomena that brought about his own welfare.
Then through additionally, the second of the two results was that he was able to to show and to show in an un to teach in an unerring unmistaken fashion what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided to those who were striving for liberation. That is to say he was able to bring about the welfare of others that is help assisting them in generating their own Buddhahood. So that that represents his ability to teach others in an unmistakable, unerring fashion was the the second result, the ability to bring about the welfare of others. So the two results are the having the two results are having achieved the the ultimate interest of both self and others. So it was dependent upon the two causes of compassion and wisdom that the two results came about.
That without without the causes, there is no result for no result will arise. So when it is necessary to, in order to, independence, order to bring about this result, one must practice the causes. And by practicing these two causes, these two results arose. And through practicing these two causes, he was transformed into a reliable person. Previously, he was not, and through the practice of these causes, he achieved the result, two results whereby he became a reliable person or a valid person.
On the other hand, the non-Buddhist traditions assert a reliable individual. Here here we are saying that Śākyamūni Buddha became a reliable person or a valid person through through the practice and through training of of the mind, for the sake of all living beings. That he became a valid person. non-Buddhist traditions hold that also assert that within their traditions there are valid individuals. But they say that they were from the very beginning valid individuals.
That they say eternally that they were self arisen without having to go through the process of practice or mind training. Having to it was never necessary for them to have to rid their minds of faults. So they are they are trying to assert some excellent result with no cause. So a master who has never had to train their mind. So within within Buddhism, we it is posited without the necessary causes, the result will never arise.
That there is no result which does not rely upon necessary causes. That there is no individual who has eternally been a reliable person or has been self arisen, that is to say did not depend upon something other than themselves, a cause. And this is what this is what was established in through the reasons of Dharmakīrti and Dignāgā. So this is what is being set out in in this verse that we’ve been discussing. Firstly, the causes that is in terms of the the cultivation of compassion, the development of of wisdom, have and then it depends upon those two causes, the arising of the result which is the elimination of of faults, that is to say, which brings about one gone to bliss, the Sugata, Buddha, and then the turn the teaching.
And so we’ve, so there’s this order of setting up in the verse, these qualities, and now the the reverse method of commentating on these words is is used that we we commentate on the words in reverse order, these qualities. So an analogy of what is being presented is if if we plant a seed, then a sprout grows. From the sprouts, then crops grow, whatever type of crop it might be. It might be rice, it might be barley, might be wheat, whatever type of grain. Then then the then the so the the crop matures, and then the farmer is able to harvest and brings about his own welfare through eating, but also in selling, and then that passes on to us, the grains, it’s made into various types of food, and we are able to derive the happiness of eating that food.
You can make beer? So this order of, in terms of the analogy, this is this is the order that we’ve been progressing it and in what we’ve just presented in terms of this analogy. First, there is compassion, then there is the development of wisdom, etcetera. So we can also look at the same sequence of events in a reverse order, progressing through these events backwards.
That first, we are able to experience the happiness of eating. And where did that happiness of eating come about? Well, it came from having gotten the grain which was sold by the farmer who the farmer who who who grew the crop or in the ripening of the crop, ripened from the having planted seeds in the field. So Śākyamūni Buddha practiced the Dharma. Having practiced that, he then went on to teach what he had learned.
He taught it through various disciples, in various lineages of disciples coming down through many different great masters, coming down through such beings as Mañjuśrī and Maitreya, down to various Indian Tibetan masters, Chinese masters. They in turn practiced these teachings. They practiced such practicing through, for example, practicing ethics. They achieved high migrations, a fortunate migration such as human life or a celestial being. They went on to generate all the various paths and grounds.
Some attained liberation, some attained the awakened heart. They were able to eliminate all their various faults and bring the consummation of their excellent qualities. Some achieved achieved high status. So the Buddha first taught the Dharma at Varanasi where he taught the four noble truths to his five ascetic companions and so many of them and through his teachings, of them attained the path many of them attained the path of seeing, some many attained liberation, many attained Buddhahood. They they achieved a human life.
Many of them became went on to live the life of renunciate. And and but in general, we can say that all that is all the happiness and well-being of the world arises out of skillful actions. And these skillful actions were the teachings of Śākyamūni Buddha. Śākyamūni Buddha descended into our world and taught the Dharma and to to various students. And these students, through their practices attained fortunate migrations, liberation, Buddhahood, that, the skillful actions created were immeasurable, and the number of individuals benefited is immeasurable.
Therefore, the point is if if we trace back, where did all these great benefits come about? Where all this happiness and well-being that we’ve been listing? Where where what was its origin? It was in the to it was in the teachings of the Dharma by Śākyamūni Buddha. So in this verse that was first, this two line verse which was first being spoken about after the Gone to Bliss, there should have been additionally the term established, term established.
So established is the we’re looking at this verse in a reverse order and we come across this first result which is the word established. And what is established was that all of these far reaching attainments, you know what was established that individuals were established in liberation, they were established in Buddhahood, were established in high status, they were able to they were established in a state where they eliminate all their various faults and brought to consummation all their excellent qualities. And if we from what was the source of this establishment? It was in terms of the teaching of the four noble truths. Teaching in an unmistaken, unerring manner what is to be adopted and what is to be rejected.
Final result of establishment. That is to say that through the teachings on the four noble truths as to what was what is to be adopted, what is to be avoided, what is to be abandoned, what is to be practiced. Taught to those who disciples who were striving for liberation by means of this as a means of practice, they were able to achieve the states of they were they were established in states of liberation and Buddhahood. And how from where did this establishment arise? That the it it it came about by means of this the second of these two results that through having realized the Four Noble Truths himself that he he had attained an ultimate exalted knower, a knower which realized in unmistaken, unerring fashion all knowable, all knowables.
It was dependent upon that attainment, that result, that this second attainment of establishment could could come about. So there are there are many people these days who teach the Dharma. There are many books which explain the Dharma. But if unless the these explanations, these teachings on the Dharma are are an unerring, unmistaken teachings, then unless individuals who are explaining the Dharma are have an unerring, unmistaken understanding of what they are explaining, then their explanation will be erroneous. There will be mistakes their explanation.
In order to explain in an unerring, unmistaken fashion, one must the explainer must themselves understand it in an unerring, unmistaken fashion. The Śākyamūni Buddha was having having developed a wisdom, a a non erring, unmistaken wisdom, was able to teach in such a way to his disciples, in an un erring unmistaken way to his disciples, and thereby bring about a an excellent result. Without this unerring, unmistaken understanding for themselves then the explanation will be will be will not be will not be unerring and therefore they will not bring about this excellent result. So this