Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 39-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche examines why Śākyamūni Buddha is a reliable refuge—a commentary on Dharmakīrti’s verse on valid cognition. He traces how Buddha’s trustworthiness arises from his elimination of all faults through realizing selflessness, rooted in boundless compassion. Using vivid analogies—a ripening crop, a doctor’s office, two hands clapping—Rinpoche shows how the four noble truths constitute Buddha’s unmistaken guidance on what to adopt and what to avoid. He emphasizes that Buddha’s offer of liberation is complete and waiting; our responsibility is to practice sincerely. The pivotal insight is that we can verify the teachings’ truth through their results, and genuine faith emerges from understanding that Buddha’s instruction is unerring.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-10-22 – 21B – KR.mp3
UUID: 6afc36b6-5097-4c72-872d-1f5f4cf8a943
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Compendium of Valid Cognition
Date: 1993-10-22
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,014
Exalted wisdom that the Buddha possessed, you know, by means of which he was able to teach in non-erroneous fashion what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided. From where did that arise? Because he himself had eliminated all his faults, then he was able to teach in a non erroneous fashion. It’s that the errors come in explanation from one’s own faults. So having abandoned one’s faults then there is one is able to teach in a non erroneous fashion.
So how was he able to abandon his faults? It was through having developed the wisdom realizing selflessness. The wisdom realizing selflessness is the antidote to self grasping. By cultivating again and again the this wisdom wisdom for the sake of living beings, he was able to remove from his own. Fundamental fault.
Having having abandoned the through through the antidote of the wisdom realizing selflessness, the root, the self grasping along with his seed, he was able to abandon, eliminate all thoughts. And what was the force which led him to cultivate the again and again till he finally had brought about the ultimate wisdom realizing selflessness. This was his great compassion for living beings. Not able to endure their suffering, he cultivated over innumerable rebirths this consummate wisdom of selflessness. So the all of the the paths and grounds of the universal vehicle, all of the its excellent qualities, all of the elimination of faults and the bringing to consummation of excellent qualities comes comes down to great compassion.
So we’ve been working through this this sequence of events in a in a reverse fashion. And and if we think of it in terms of the analogy that we have just that we presented, you know, we said that the we are able to have happiness, that we through having grown a crop, we were able to experience some kind of happiness. And this happiness is analogous to the of liberation by Śākyamūni Buddhist disciples through their practices of abandoning, adopting and avoiding. But this this We we Where did We we got this happiness from the crop itself. That is to say the fully ripened crop which was harvested and that’s where the grain came from.
And this is the ultimate wisdom realizing selflessness. It’s the final wisdom realizing selflessness which has been brought to consummation. And this but it was necessary for this crop to mature, to grow, to to ripen. It was necessary for the seeds to to mature. So this is the wisdom of selflessness during the learner stages.
It’s not the consummate wisdom, it’s it’s the growing of the wisdom. That’s where the that’s the ripening of the crop. And but the seed of the crop itself is analogous to great compassion. So we’ve been using a worldly example in terms of the happiness that we can ultimately bring it come about through the growing of a crop. And this comes, if we trace it back to its origin, it comes down to the seed from which the crop rose, from which was planted.
And likewise, in in in this context, that the the happiness that these disciples were able to experience, the happiness of liberation, of having abandoned cyclic existence, the happiness of omniscience came about through the teachings of Śākyamūni Buddha. And but this this ultimately comes down to the the source of great compassion. So we said that Śākyamūni Buddha is is a refuge in the sense that he is able to teach in unerring, unmistaken fashion what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided. And what what does this mean? Because what we want is happiness.
What we don’t want is suffering. So in terms of when we say adopt and avoid, we are to practice those causes which bring happiness and we are to abandon those causes which bring suffering. And Śākyamūni Buddha was such that he was able to teach this procedure in an unerring, unmistaken fashion because he had achieved the very results of this practice himself. Śākyamūni Buddha, having achieved this state himself, could then teach it in an unmistakable, unerring fashion to others. So what is the method whereby we can eliminate our suffering, we can find happiness?
It is in terms of the four noble truths, the four noble truths as taught by the Buddha. These four these four noble truths constitute the Dharma which in an unerring, unmistaken fashion set out what is to be adopted and what is to avoided. So we we Buddha him Śākyamūni Buddha himself removed removed all his various faults. And he and though we say that he has these qualities, he he achieved these through through his great compassion and his wisdom realizing selflessness. Mainly his his practice practice consisted consisted of of what is to be avoided and what is to be adopted.
It is in terms of practice in this fashion that himself achieved Buddhahood. How did he go about doing that? Well, he himself was taught by his lama, his spiritual master, the Dharma, and this was presented in terms of what was to be adopted, what was to be avoided in an unmistaken, unerring fashion. And he put this into practice in an unmistaken, unerring fashion and brought his practice to consummation. And just as he put into practice the teachings of his lama, we can proceed likewise.
We we too can put into practice what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided and bring our practice to consummation. And what was the motivating force behind his practice? It was in order to be able to lead all living beings to a state free of their suffering and to a state where they had complete happiness. It was out of this great compassion that he implemented this practice. It was not for his own happiness and not to eliminate his own suffering.
So the Buddhas from their side, they’ve done everything that they can in order that to to lead us to a state of Buddhahood, to lead us to the development of the wisdom realizing selflessness and all that is necessary to achieve liberation. They’re just waiting for us. It’s like they’ve like someone who’s prepared a great banquet and everything’s really set and there’s waiting for us to come to partake. So it’s like, you know, someone owns a restaurant and they wake up early morning and then they go through all the preparations waiting for the lunchtime crowd to come in. So it’s like a doctor who goes to his surgery early and sets out all his instruments, sets out all his necessary manuals and everything that he’s going to need over the course of the day.
It’s all there waiting and ready for the patient to arrive. So we’re very much like a patient. So but you know, we’re very much like a sick person who, you know, who it would be very quite advisable for us to go to the doctor. Many people, though they’re sick, they simply don’t go to the doctor. And even when some people when they are sick and go to the doctor and they receive medicine, they still don’t take it.
So the the doctor is waiting in their surgery. Some people simply, though they’re ill, they don’t go to the doctor’s office and they don’t improve. They develop a chronic illness just like we ourselves will have chronic suffering. In in in our particular case, though we’ve come to the doctor’s office, the doctor’s out. Śākyamūni Buddha isn’t here and and I I’m going I’m acting as his nurse.
And I’m going to give you the medicine. So and now the nurse has has given out medicine. And if it if you don’t take the medicine, it’s your own fault. It’s you’re not going to improve. So you should you should take the treatment as prescribed by the nurse.
The full knowledge that the doctor does, still the nurse has a little bit of knowledge. So from his own side, Śākyamūni Buddha is an unerring refuge but that in itself is not sufficient. It is as if the Śākyamūni Buddha is reaching out and it’s necessary that we from our side do something that we have to grab hold of his hand. Otherwise there’s no we have to connect up with the teachings and we have to put them into practice. It’s like a snapping of your fingers.
You know, it takes the two fingers working together and the noise is produced. If you only have one finger, there’s no noise produced. So it’s necessary for us, you know, if to from the Buddha from his side has taught the Dharma and it’s necessary for us to put what has been taught into practice as it has been taught. If we do that, then it’s quite easy to attain Buddhahood. We can do it very very quickly.
We can do it in as little as three years and one and a half months. We can achieve Buddhahood. It’s it’s like, you know, it’s like the working together. We can shape, you know, like out of clay Buddhahood. That, you know, that one hand is the Buddha and the other is our own.
And those hands, two hands working together can shape, one’s own Buddhahood. So we’ll take a few minutes if you have some questions. So it’d be good if you held this in mind, what we’ve talked about in this presentation this verse by Dharmakīrti commentating on Dignāgā’s forward and reverse interpretation in his word commentary on this verse. If if you, you know, consider well what we’ve been discussing, then you can begin to understand that Śākyamūni Buddha was an unerring, taught in an unerring, unmistaken fashion. That he taught what was to be adopted and what was to be avoided and is really a a real refuge.
And one would it would be wonderful because out of that comes a real powerful faith and trust. Such you know, the there’s not enough money or riches in the world to buy such faith and and trust and respect. And such faith and reverence is tremendously beneficial as a refuge from our fears and suffering. You know, we want some kind of refuge from our suffering. We want to have happiness.
We these these qualities respect are real causes of bringing that in about. Okay. No questions? So it is through one’s own practice and the development of one’s own understandings in terms of development of compassion and wisdom, understanding selflessness that one can come to understand that the explanation upon which your practice is based upon is, since you are achieving an unerring unmistaken result, that the explanation upon which your practice is based upon is in turn unerring and unmistaken. That the quality of the cause can be known from the quality of the result.
And therefore in order to achieve the result, that is to say we want to achieve true cessation and true paths, the causes of those are the realization of the true sources and true sufferings. But unless one, if simply because we don’t know these causes, we are confused about them that we aren’t able to achieve these results. Therefore in order to come to know what these causes are, we must rely upon someone who has an unmistaken understanding of these causes. And in order that their understanding is unmistaken, they must have realized the results. Otherwise, having not realized the results, they cannot, in an unmistaken fashion, they cannot teach them in terms of what is to be avoided, what is to be adopted, the four noble truths in an unmistaken, un erring fashion.
This is like in a school. A teacher must know the subject in unmistaken fashion if he is or she is to teach it in unmistaken fashion to the students. And if one doesn’t know it for oneself in an unmistaken fashion, one can’t teach it in an unmistaken fashion.