Emptiness — 2012-07-11

Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 116-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches that patience—not compassion—is the primary antidote to anger, following Śāntideva’s distinctive approach in the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Chapter 6. He guides practitioners to measure progress through introspection: can you prevent anger from arising when previously triggered? This emphasis on internal transformation precedes extended Q&A on compassion’s role in enlightenment, the intention to benefit all beings and the sameness of self and others, the history of compassion practice during ancient India’s leprosy crisis, and how this intention eliminates subtle self-centeredness. Rinpoche concludes with detailed commentary on verses emphasizing causes and conditions underlying all phenomena. For practitioners already engaged with Śāntideva’s text and patience study.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 2012-07-11 – KR.mp3

UUID: 6156aeb5-400f-4b56-9e12-15d4fc4d8b53

Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche

Collection: Emptiness

Date: 2012-07-11

Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide

Words: ~8,247

So when we come to the study and the practice of Buddhism, we can understand that within Buddhism itself, there is an enormous amount of potential study that we can engage in. And the study the amount of study we do, of course, depends on the amount of time that we have in to put into study and the amount of top and the number of topics in which we would like to direct our studies. Now we have lives that are very busy, and we need to be able to allocate our time carefully and be time efficient when it comes to cultivating skill in the various topics of Buddhism. Now there is because there is such a vast array of topics that we could devote our lives to studying within Buddhism. It’s become important especially promoted since the time of Nāgārjuna at Nālānda Monastery and reiterated by His Holiness as well.

That it’s important that we are able to select certain topics from within the broad scope of Buddhist subjects. That we pick out certain topics and we cultivate some expertise. We specialize in certain topics that we choose in order to develop really deep skills in these topics. So it’s because there is such a vast array of topics. It’s important given that our time restraints that we are selective in what it is that we decide to direct our energy into.

And we should decide on certain topics and become as expert as possible within these topics. So when it comes to deciding what are the topics that are best suited for us to direct our attention towards, where there are topics such as four noble truths and calm abiding and the cultivation of compassion and of course patience which is the topic of our program. When it comes to, having decided that patience is what we are going to focus our attention upon. It’s important that we remember that we must as much as possible limit the amount of energy we put into other questions and other issues and other meaning of life adventures in terms of our study and practice. So that we’re able to direct the bulk of our available time towards specializing and achieving results within the study of patience.

Now if we were to say we were able to set aside an hour for study and practice, well there’s it’s always good that you allow some time for other topics that you wish to keep fresh in your mind that you want to, that are topics that are important to you that you believe are important as part of your Buddhist practice. But the bulk of your practice, the majority of the time that you’re able to use for study and practice, if you can devote it to this one topic, then you’re likely to attain results and cultivate skills and expertise in this topic that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to achieve if you were dividing your time up in tiny increments to a multitude of topics and there is no shortage of topics that you could spend your time studying. So if we direct our attention to patience and we learn and we understand that we need to have equal measure of study and practice. And this is what, these teachings that we are doing at the moment, encourage us to take as a topic that we wish to specialize in and cultivate skills in as the as the practice of patience.

So when it comes to the study and practice of patience, as is the tradition within the Buddhist training, we take our topic and we study it and then we put it into meditative practice. As we are taking patience as the topic in which we were trying to cultivate some skill and some expertise. Normally what we do is try and locate a root text, a text that refers specifically to our topic. And in this case we have Śāntideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva Guide to Bodhisattva’s Life. The text of Śāntideva Guide to Bodhisattva’s Way of Life chapter six is what we’re using as our root text.

This is the text that has condensed all the meanings down into a very, has condensed the meanings down in a way that it is easy to read and, contains a great deal of information in a very short amount of text. Now when it comes to understanding the root text, we need to read it. We need to then think about all the subject, all the topics, all the ideas that are raised within the root text. And we need then to enhance our understanding, cast our eye towards the various commentaries that have been written on this text. For example, there’s the book in the foyer, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s book on Śāntideva’s chapter six.

And there’s many other commentaries that have been written. And because it is such a famous text, there are a great deal of commentaries that have been written. And there are a great number of teachings that have been given over the over time on this root text. Now once you’re able to read the root text and then read the commentaries and engage in a thoughtful reflection upon all the meanings, then you’re able to return to the root text and be able to at a future time return to that root text, which as we said is a very condensed form of a very broad subject. And we’re able to by reading the root text bring to mind all the other, all the elaborations we’ve read in the commentaries will come to our mind on the basis of just reading the root text.

If our research into the root text has been done well enough. And once we are able to cultivate this insight into the text, we’ve fulfilled the study component of what we call in Buddhist training that the various aspects that we need to engage in to cultivate a realization within the topic. So we do our study, the root text, the commentaries, reread commentaries and listen to the various teachings. We reflect on the root text and then we put the we put patients into practice. Now putting patience into practice doesn’t mean carrying around the root text with us and forever looking at the root text and imagining that’s going to, get us through all life situations.

It is being able to in every situation that we’re confronted with within our life, be able to gradually increase our ability to rely on patience in order to be able to prevent negative states of mind. And this is what’s important. This practice component is vitally important and the quality of our practice is very dependent upon the quality of the study and research we have done on the topic initially. Now when it comes to engaging in study, all of us have an experience of the education process and have attended school in one form or the other. And we’ve learned how to navigate our way through progression of classes classes in order to be able to have success in one class that enables us to progress to the next class.

And in general the education that we get through schools and universities. We listen to what’s being taught. We try to remember it as much as we can. And then we may, demonstrate a knowledge of it through a test of some kind. And after being able to do that successfully, we’ve progressed to the next class.

Now when it comes to engaging in Buddhist practice, of course it’s a very different kind of study that we’re talking about. Because we don’t simply say that we are able to progress from one level of study to a higher level of study simply by hearing and remembering what the teachings have said. Now where that might get us the skills that will allow us to progress from through high school from year one to year 12 and from university from undergraduate to postgraduate. We don’t progress in such a way in Buddhist training. When it comes to listening to teachings, of course it’s very important that we try and access the best quality teachings we’re able to find.

But it would be a mistake for us to think when we engage in the study and practice of patience that hearing teachings from very high lamas, for example, hearing teachings from the spiritual director of our center Khensur Rinpoche or from his holiness, the Dalai Lama, that we think somehow because we’ve heard the teachings from these highly realised beings that somehow we have a greater insight into patience. Now whether that might work in a conventional education setting that most definitely doesn’t work in Buddhism when it comes to cultivating our practice. So the study of patience, we can’t ever say that I’ve reached a high level of my study and practice of patience because I’ve heard teachings from very highly realised teachings. It doesn’t work like that. The way that we practice and study is internal by nature.

It’s internal by nature. So it is not simply an accumulation of facts that we are able to relay at some later time. It is a way that we are able to transform our mind in a way that may not even be recognisable from people who are external to us. If we take for example someone going through medical school, they will go through a great deal of study. And the lecturer will be able to assess a student’s conviction to listening to the teachings and to put in time into research.

They can be assessed in their practicals and how that they’re able to perform. And a person will gain their qualification based on this external observation of their skills. Whereas in the practice of Buddhism, the way we only progress from one level to the next level when we have made an internal transformation that may well not be visible or knowable by anyone else outside of our own mind other than ourselves. And so this is where it’s important to remember in Buddhism that simply hearing lots of teachings on patience and saying, I’ve heard the teachings from great teachers. And I’ve read the books over and over.

So I’ve nailed patients. I know all there is to know about patience. And now I’ll go on to the next topic. It doesn’t work like that unless you are able to test yourself in the way that you respond to a variety of life situations. If you even once are unable to have patience arise in your mind at the appropriate time, then it’s a good reminder that there is still a long way to go in terms of study and practice.

So we know that we know from what we’ve covered so far that being able to cultivate patients and being able to evoke patience in our lives is able to minimize the occurrence of anger. We are less likely to get angry while we’re able to practice patience. And this is what we’ve understood. We’ve also understood so far from what we’ve covered that there are a great many faults to anger. And this answers the question of why should we put so much time and effort into learning and practicing patience?

Well, we’ve seen that patience has a benefit to us in that it’s able to stop anger. And why is that such a beneficial thing? Well, we’ve had a look at anger and we’ve seen the many faults of anger. And we’ve been asked through the last couple of weeks in this class that each of us look back through our own lives through the past week, past month, the past few months, the past year, two years to look back and carefully analyse within your own mind from within your own experience the times in which you have found yourself being affected by anger. Of course this again relates back to the practice Buddhist training being an internal process.

So we’ve heard the teachings about the benefits of patience and the faults of anger. We’ve been asked to go through our mind and see where it was that we got angry in the past. And to assess what exactly happened when anger arose. To assess what happened to our state of mind. What happened to our perspective.

What happened to our ability to make good decisions? What happened to the nature of our relationships with people around us? And all the consequences that came about as a result of us having uncontrollable anger in the past. In brief it’s easy to look at it like this. That if we’re ever able to find ourselves in a situation whereby we know that in the past situations that similar situations have really been a big trigger for us to fly off the handle and get angry.

And if we’re able, if we suddenly find ourselves in these situations again and we realise that we’re able to just put the brakes slightly on the anger that before it arises within our mind. This is how we’re able to assess how we are progressing in our study and practice. This is the only kind of review or examination that can go on in terms of Buddhist training study and practice. It’s our own introspection to see whether we are behaving differently with the same external triggers on the basis of having cultivated patience. And we’re able to the great benefit of being able to do this introspection is that it greatly enhances a very honest appraisal of our skills.

And it gives us the motivation and the realisation, so to speak, of how much work needs to be done in order to fully realize the potential we have to practice patience all the time. So if we truly engage in this process of introspection, analyzing the moments in which we get where we’re getting angry and be very strict with our observations in terms of not allowing ourselves leniency in terms of assessing when anger has actually arisen. And there’s a great benefit to being able to do this. There’s a great benefit in being able to understand what goes on once anger arises and the effects it has on everyone around you. Not only within your own mind, but within the minds of other people and in your social relations.

Now Geshe-la says as an example, he lives here and he spends a lot of time here and with Carol. And there’ll be situations when it comes to the running of a Buddhist center where there are triggers to get a little bit angry about things. But the situation is very conducive to being able to make a reflection on whether anger is going to be beneficial in any such situation. So there’s an advantage to being able to have something around that is reinforcing your want, your desire to be really honest about whether anger is arising or not and not have a tolerance for anger and not think that unless it’s really raging serious that it’s not anger. It’s got to be really extreme before you call it anger within yourself.

Even though you might see far less intensity of anger in another person and say, that’s anger. But within yourself imagine it has to be really raging before you call it anger. So it’s a good opportunity for us to always analyse and see that anger even in here with Geshe-la and Carol working in the center, there is always an opportunity for anger to arise. So when we engage in this introspection to see whether we’re able or how we are going in terms of identifying the various stages of anger and being able to implement a mind that is accomplished in patients. And this is the expression that Geshe-la uses in Tibetan is a mind accomplished in patients.

So you’re able to analyse how accomplished in patience you are by the way in which you are responding not only to the anger that arises in yourself, but in the anger that you experiencing from another person that is inflicting anger upon you. So if we’re able to do that regularly, if we cultivate ongoing practise in doing this based on our study then we most definitely will slowly, slowly begin to improve. We will slowly become more accomplished in patience And over time it will slowly evolve and evolve and evolve and our skill will become greater and greater and we will become more accomplished. Now it’s often said within Buddhist teachings that the antidote to anger is compassion and that is something that you might have read in other texts and heard in other teachings that the best antidote to anger is compassion. And yet within the text that we are studying in this course of teachings, Śāntideva’s chapter six from the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, Śāntideva says something quite different and this is unique to Śāntideva’s approach to the question of anger.

Śāntideva is saying in fact patience is the very best antidote to anger. Now what Geshe-la is asking of us is that we make some reflection on why it is that we think that Śāntideva is making such an assertion. And so pondering this question and reflecting on what we’ve covered so far. If we can use that as part of the way that we cultivate our motivation for tonight and reflect upon what we’ve heard and our intention to what we hope to achieve through our listening and therefore our practice. Then we now will spend a couple of minutes in meditation.

And so now we’ll just go on to covering a couple of questions that arise from the discussion groups on Sundays. So people who are going on Sundays and participating in the discussion groups for forwarding your questions on to Geshe through me, through the centre through me. It’s Geshe-la. Then through the week Geshe-la was able to think on these questions and there have been a couple of questions that we did this week. So like I said I went through this with Geshe-la during the week And what we thrashed out what I hope will be clear.

The first question that we had was what is the function of compassion in achieving enlightenment? And so Geshe-la said that the state of Buddhahood or enlightenment is a state where an enlightened being is both motivated to and able to benefit every single living being. So firstly, be motivated to benefit every living being is exempt of Okay, we want to take an example of what it means to be motivated to want to benefit every living being. And a very easy example that we’re able to make of from within conventional daily life. An example we were able to take to illustrate this is the way that a parent of young child or a newborn child, whether it be the parent or even aunts and uncles or friends.

But for people who like have the love similar to a parent for their child. And they have an overwhelming desire whereby many other considerations within their own life are put to one side for a period of time. So that they are able to devote themselves entirely cultivating a happy and safe environment for their child. And we know that parents there are good parents will be would do anything to be able to spare their child any kind of suffering, any kind of sadness. Every parent would have experienced the heartbreak of seeing their child be hurt or to be saddened by an experience socially that’s happened outside of the home.

So we know that happens within normal life that there is this extreme love that we can have for another living being where we simply ache every time we see that they are suffering. And we drive ourselves to do everything within our power to make sure we do whatever we can to provide the environment in which they are able to flourish. Now it’s this kind of it’s the motivate when we talk about the function of compassion and achieving enlightenment. This kind of compassion that we’re talking about in the love that a parent has for a child is similar to the love that a Buddha has for every single living being. Every single living being without exception.

No matter how vile or repulsive, no matter how unpleasant that living being may be. Someone who is able to close to attaining or able to attain the state of Buddhahood is able to evoke this exact same loving compassion that we might know only that our closest approximation to it is the way that we see a devoted parent love a child. Secondly, we know that to be of any kind of benefit, to be able to provide any kind of scenario whereby another being will flourish depends on us being able to have skills that make our help worthwhile and meaningful. So this is another essential quality of a Buddha that the Buddha has not only the desire to want to bring benefit to other living beings that which we call compassion. But the Buddha also has cultivated the skills that enable a Buddha to be able to actually bring meaningful benefit.

So compassion therefore can start as loving kindness and flourishes into what we call the great compassion of a Buddha. And it plays this function in terms of achieving enlightenment. So the second question was, is the purpose of generating bodhicitta so is the purpose of generating this mind of enlightenment, this altruistic mind that wishes to benefit all living beings. Is the purpose of generating bodhicitta in the Mahāyāna path to realize that we and others are the same. So when it comes to saying recognize that we and other beings are the same, There is a very specific Buddhist meaning that that expression conveys that may be different to other the way other, eastern philosophies or eastern religions that what they might imply by the same expression.

When we say we realise that we and other living beings are the same, we’re saying we realise that just as I want to be happy and I don’t want to suffer, neither does any other living being. And in that way, we are the same. But it doesn’t mean that we are at the same in the sense that whatever karma I accumulate will somehow ripen upon you. In that sense, we are very different. Within the Buddhist tradition, we talk about every individual belonging to a mental continuum.

And within that mental continuum various lives are born, born, old age, sickness and death, die, accumulate karma through the whole process, be reborn again. And the karma that one person accumulates will always be experienced within that mental continuum. The karma created in one mental continuum will never be the direct cause for an experience someone else’s mental continuum. So no matter what virtue I accumulate, I can’t make that virtue ripen in your continuum. So in that sense, in that sense where we say that we can only experience our own karma, we are most definitely not the same.

But when it comes to the fundamental desire to want to be happy and to be free of suffering, then in that sense we are exactly the same. And therefore that is of some aid to us in our study and practice of selflessness. What was the cause for the practice of exchanging self and others to be made public? We understand it was a powerful practice for healing the leprosy outbreak in Geshe Chekawa’s province. But there were other causes that made it safe or appropriate to be taught in public.

And Geshe said, it’s true that up until the time of Geshe Chekawa that it was this practise of exchanging self and others. That is trying to imagine oneself in terms of prioritising others over one’s own interests as a way to cultivate practice. This was something that generally was a private teaching passed from teachers to students. But at the time of Geshe Chekawa, who was the, in terms of the text that was done last term on mind training like Rays of the Sun. Geshe Chekawa did make these teachings public.

And it is true that we understand it was a powerful practice for healing the leprosy outbreak in Geshe Chekawa’s province. But were there other causes that made it safer or appropriate to be taught or made public? And Geshe-la says that from his understanding, at the time that Geshe Chekawa was living, leprosy was rife and a great many people were experiencing extraordinary hardships because of it. At the time there was no meaningful treatment and there was no cure. And because the nature of the disease was being very contagious, It meant that once someone once someone had leprosy, everyone became very fearful of that person.

They were ostracized. So not only did they have to experience the mental suffering of illness, their body being ill, which is a mental suffering we can all have some understanding of. But they also had to deal with the social being socially isolated and cast out not just from their community, but from their own family and their own family home. Now, is from Geshe-la’s understanding of the history of this time, it’s not necessarily true to say that Geshe Chekawa taught these, exchanging self and others as a practice that would cure leprosy. What it was more likely that it was that Geshe Chekawa was able to use the teachings of exchanging self and others as a way of introducing to people the concepts that hardships they were experiencing create work come about because causes were put in place in previous lives.

And certain kinds of causes had been created that resulted in this experience of leprosy and the great personal and social hardship that entailed because of it. So by giving people teaching on exchanging self and others understanding of cause and effect. It gave people suffering leprosy the opportunity to have despite their circumstances cultivate a great deal of fortitude and optimism. Because they would cultivate fortitude and optimism because they were reminded that even within that state they were still accumulating karma. And that if they were able to have a mind that was directed towards virtuous thoughts and behaviours, despite their horrible situation, they could in fact at that moment be creating the causes for experiencing happiness in the future.

And that was very empowering and was a source of great optimism to those people. And another way that he did it was to teach in teaching them about cause and effect was to explain that every time we are inflicted with an illness it is a result of a cause that has been put in place at an earlier time. And that when we experience the result from that cause, Yes, we experience a great deal of hardship, but if we are able to maintain our mental state during this moment of great physical hardship, we in fact will be exhausting karma. That negative karma will no longer exist as a potential that could hurt us sometime in the future by ripening now and by us experiencing the negative state. The negative results of that karma right now through the illness we’re experiencing, we are actually exhausting that negative karma.

So these were the ways in which Geshe Chekawa was able to be able to bring to these people who were enduring this horrible illness of leprosy, a sense of purpose of optimism and was able to alleviate not only the hardships they experienced in terms of the way the rest of society treated them, but in terms of the pain and anguish of the disease itself. People as a result of receiving these teachings we cannot say as an historical fact it cured them of leprosy. But we can from reading historical texts about these events we’re able to see that Geshe Chekawa was able to bring enormous benefit to these people by the way he taught about exchanging self and others. And so that’s why it became appropriate for it to be taught in public because of the immense social benefit. This question says, if enlightenment or Buddhahood is the perception of emptiness that being the lack of an independent self, then what role does the cultivation of bodhicitta play in achieving Buddhahood?

My hypothesis is that bodhicitta plays two roles. The first is mind training to condition the aggregate of volition towards persistently adopting a virtuous state thereby making all actions virtuous and accumulating merit and reducing obstacles to Buddhahood. And the second part of the question is it forms a critical form of mind training which helps sever the concept of self facilitating the perception of emptiness. So the first part of this question we can see is covered by the other question in terms of the role that compassion can play us in terms of achieving Buddhahood. And that it is true to say that this motivation to continually cultivate compassion does direct our mind towards engaging in more virtuous behaviours.

Now the other part of this, the question is that does the perception of emptiness. Now for people who might be new to Buddhism, we need to know that this term emptiness refers to the Buddhist belief whereby all phenomena, all things and all events, and even our own mental states are empty or without any independence. That everything comes into existence in a state of interdependency. So everything relies on something else in some way in order to come into effect. Now the first part of the question says is the perception of emptiness in terms of enlightenment and the perception of emptiness.

The first part of that refer, if we take the expression to perceive emptiness, we refer to the study. And again, if we remember how we engage in study and then practice the first part of the tip, the first part of when it comes to emptiness. The first part where we engage in study is where we engage in the learning of how it is that all phenomena would be empty of inherent existence. And in terms of phenomena and internal mental states. And this is our perception of emptiness.

This is very different to the realisation of emptiness that a Buddha or enlightened person would have because where we’ve been talking about previously in terms of patience, we study patience and then we internalise it. We habituate ourselves to it and we say we have accomplished the mind of patience when no situation causes us to lose, to become angry or to lose our mental peace. The same, if we use the same logic with the study of emptiness. At first we study emptiness and no matter what event we see in the world or mental state we experience, we can say this has come about not from one singular cause but from a whole multitude of causes and conditions. Therefore we have an intellectual or generic image of emptiness.

For an enlightened being that viewpoint is internalized to the point that it is simply part of the way they view the world and there is no superimposing a philosophical position onto their experience. This is the difference between a Buddha perceiving emptiness, which a Buddha doesn’t do. A Buddha has realised emptiness. And we as practitioners, we perceive emptiness in terms of our study and practise of it. Now in terms of the second part, in terms of being able to realise emptiness.

Now realizing emptiness can be achieved where there is still self grasping exists. Now we know that within the Mahāyāna tradition of Buddhism, our aim is to achieve a state of Buddhahood whereby we exist for the sole purpose to bring benefit to other living beings. Now as part of our training and practice to achieve that state, we train and practice and realise emptiness. Emptiness of self and emptiness of other phenomena. Now it is possible for people to realise emptiness without being driven by the motivation to bring benefit to other living beings.

So this is a difference where we might have some experience with reading teachings from the Theravāda School of Buddhism which is in some ways distinct from the Mahāyāna tradition of Buddhism which we are learning here. When one is motivated by individual liberation, it is possible in the pursuit of nothing other than individual liberation from suffering to achieve, to realize emptiness. But that individual liberation striving for such an individual form of liberation implies a sense of self grasping. So self grasping can in a very subtle way can still exist even in these highly developed practitioners who are able to realise emptiness in pursuit of their own individual liberation. So self-cherishing has a subtle form and a gross form.

The gross form of self-cherishing is where we get angry, we get offended, we get annoyed. We think we’re better than others. We think we’re more important than others. This is a very gross form of self-cherishing. If we’re able to study and meditate on emptiness this diminishes.

But there is a very far more subtle form of self-cherishing whereby we still believe at the end of the day the only thing worth striving for and worth trying to attain is our own personal liberation. Well whatever realisation such a practitioner achieves there will always be self grasping. And therefore they will never attain the state of Buddhahood as we describe Buddhahood in the Mahāyāna school. And that came from the end where it says if possible find a benefit if Geshe-la could focus on the changes that are undergone in the state of gross mind intention volition as bodhicitta develops. So that’s what that point is trying to explain in terms of how bodhicitta is trying to direct us to achieve the enlightenment whereby there is absolutely no self grasping able to continue despite whatever realisations we might experience.

So I hope that answers the questions. And if it doesn’t, you can send more questions. Or if that creates more questions, you can send more questions. And if you have a question about anything else, you can send those questions. So tonight we have more time.

So can you questions everybody, but just short questions. So if you have short questions about patients, now is the time to direct those questions about patience. But of course on the Sunday discussion groups, just to remind you, you go to those discussion groups and any questions you feel the group wants Geshe-la reflect on and comment on, then you just send those teachings. But any quick fire patience questions? Geshe-la’s ready.

So that’s something Geshe-la will be answering as we go through more verses of the text. So in the first verse, Geshe la says in the first verse where refers to this extreme dissolution of virtue happening because of a moment of anger. The most extreme way this happens is when it depends on the object of our anger. So whatever wholesome deeds such as venerating Buddhism and practicing generosity that have been amassed for over a thousand of eons will be destroyed in one moment of anger. Now I also think that if you read enough different translations of this text some texts will not actually say it so specifically that that entire bankruptcy happens just from anger.

Whereas generally in the Tibetan it’s saying if you get angry at the Dalai Lama, if you got angry at the Buddha, if you got angry at this, then that’s where the whole Do you understand? No, that’s wrong. But I know in some texts, some verses you read, it doesn’t really quite say that some translations. It’s possible. Little bit.

And forbearance relate to one another? No. I know. And someone say, I just joking. So when it comes to, using the word, patients, strictly speaking, the word patience in the context of the text that we read and study on this topic.

Patience refers to, the mind which is able to prevent anger from arising. Okay? This is the strict definition of the word patience. The mind which is able to prevent anger from arising. Now when it comes to in the vernacular talking about words like forbearance and tolerance.

If we take for example really liking sugar in our tea and getting diabetes and being told we’re not to have sugar in our tea and being heroic at being able to drink tea without sugar in it. That’s not really what we’re saying when we talk about patients in the context of mind training. In the context of mind training, We want patience to be the force that prevents anger. Now the next question might be well define anger and see that anger might have broader definition than what we might think anger has. But specifically to that question, those other things are the vernacular use of the word patience.

But if you want to talk about patience in the context of what we’re trying to extract from a Buddhist text, we’re trying to extract a skill where we’re able to prevent anger from arising. That is what patience is. Yeah. Yeah. Now one of them is bachelor.

One of them is bachelor. I’m not saying anything. You’re not saying anything. Okay. Which I’m looking at verse 26.

Yeah. Actually, 25. Sorry. Yeah. So I’ll pick out key words that they’re translating.

25, all mistakes that are, and all the virtuous countries arise through the force of conditions they do not govern themselves. That was the first one. That was a bachelor. A bachelor. That’s lobster and jimpas as well.

It’s what? That’s lobster and jimpas. Took them jimpas. So No. The word govern is in there?

The word govern is not there. It means that on the basis of it literally it says. Yeah, I mean this one, when I read from the English back into the Tibetan, this one’s really good. But when I try to get the meaning, this one’s really good. So this one kind of conveys the meaning better.

But this one I could translate that into if I read that and translated in Tibetan, it would sound like that. If I translated that into Tibetan, it would be a bit different. And what was the verb that used? Top, top, so it’s where you it comes about because of causes and conditions. It’s like it relies on.

Govern themselves, yeah. Wait a minute. 25. All problems come about because of a variety of reasons. There’s no independent cause.

Did I say what I was meant to say? All problems come about because of a variety of reasons. There is no independent cause of all the non virtuous mental states. So when Geshe-la said last week about 25, that’s what he would have said to me when we prepared for it on Sunday. It would have been more to say that the way Geshe-la has presented it was to say there’s no single cause for anything to happen.

It’s causes and conditions being causes that we can never say. The context I think wasn’t it the context a bit like this got me angry because this happened in saying this caused that to happen. And this is saying this is a 100 causes all just in shorthand written as one cause. It’s just shorthand that makes us think it’s one cause. If we were to Which cause does not help me, so it is Causes and and conditions.

Yeah, so it’s not independent and it’s not singular. Which are the two normal mistakes we make in normal thinking? That there’s one single cause or that there’s one. If we perceive something to have a single cause, if we put that single cause under the microscope we see lots of causes and conditions contained within it. That is how I think.

Is that right? It’s just one of many causes. It’s not a single it’s not a single thing. So Your mental state in terms of Why privilege do that? I suppose that’s because we want to be free.

Never mind. No, no, wait a minute. No, no. You can translate that. Never mind.

Geshe-la is just reinforcing that causes and conditions are always behind everything. It’s erroneous to say that anything ever can exist without causes and conditions. Nothing can happen. So to say why bother is very nihilist. That’s the definition of nihilism.

Say because then there’s if I can never point to one thing, why should I point to anything? Oh, I’ve got to translate something. Yeah. You say that again? Yeah.

I’ve got to think in Tibetan now. Was thinking in English when you said it the first time. So Geshe-la is the same. It’s the same but that is that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to No, no, that’s right.

But I said it to what you said, I just said it to Geshe-la. And he said, yeah. So I’m thinking in Tibetan again. Okay. Yeah.

So a long time ago when it first came into English Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life was translated by Stephen Batchelor and that’s that book. And that’s the book all the old diehards grew up on. And then of course Alan Wallace who was a little bit more experienced at the time that he translated this one. So and this one has he’s good at Sanskrit and Tibetan. So he will have in footnotes.

Like he’ll he’ll translate one verse and then as a footnote, he’ll say literally what it’s saying in Tibetan. Yeah. And when it doesn’t say that really, but it literally he’ll give what the Tibetan is saying and then he’ll tell you what what he’s turned out. So he’s translating for both Sanskrit and Tibetan. But he’s making his footnotes from the Tibetan because there’s more people likely to be reading it knowing Tibetan and Sanskrit.

But then so that’s that one. Alan Wallace. And then this one is Thupten Jinpa. Thupten Jinpa is Geshe Thupten Jinpa is the translator, the normal number one translator for the Dalai Lama. And so he’s been through Cambridge and didn’t he do a psychology degree or something?

We kind of believe. I say, there are times when I can’t identify the Tibetan from what he says, but when Geshe-la explains it, it’s definitely that which he’s saying. So it’s not much help if you’re studying Tibetan, that one is. But it’s good. This one’s probably the best for understanding it.

What’s that one? Yeah. I haven’t seen that one. So Padmakara. Padmakara, is that Nepal or America?

Well, I can’t say without reading it. So that’s the difference. If you want to buy the whole text, see that’s not the whole text, that’s just this chapter. So if you want to source the whole text I think you don’t understand these problems with translation. Yeah.

Well, yes. That’s why before this class, I spent a few hours going through it beforehand because I have that dilemma. That’s the same. That’s always So Geshe-la saying that when we come to wanting to study the text, it’s good to try and read as much as we can, as diverse as we can. And then you can extract some, you navigate your own way through the various renderings of the text by different translators.

And in the Lojong, this is beneficial to your own study because you yourself will have to seek out where you think meanings are divergent and where they are the same. And in terms of knowing about translators, Geshe-la says that everyone from the Tibetan side has great reverence for Geshe Thupten Jinpa because he is highly studied in Tibetan. And then he was highly studied in he got a lot of study in English. And then he spends a lot of time at the Dalai Lama. So he’s going to ask that when he wants clarification or something, he’s going to the Dalai Lama who has English as well.

So that’s how Thupten Jinpa is able to produce English that we kind of trust even if it’s not, like I say, traceable exactly back to the Tibetan. And Geshe-la was saying, it’s not just pumping up Geshe Thupten Jinpa. It’s actually it’s it’s well accepted in Buddhist circles that he’s the one because of his Tibetan training, his English, and then his relationship with Dalai Lama that he gives very trustworthy translations. Last week I used Thupten Jinpa because I only came across it last week. Before that I was using this one.

And tend to use that one to say as a root text and then when Geshe-la gives the commentary to bend it then because this is the one that I know I can see it in Tibetan. Do you see what I mean? So if I’ve got to say one’s better than the other if you’re doing the job, even if you don’t read it yourself at home, you rely on it so that when someone, as a Dharma police, see you later on, you’ve got the original source. And so in relation to the idea that was asked before about compassion and patience. So Geshe-la said before that that’s what we’d be coming on to.

But for the purposes of giving something tonight to think about, then we can say that when we think of what is the opposite to anger, we think that the opposite to anger generally is a mind that is driven by compassion. And compassion being this a feeling, a sense of loving kindness for other living beings, expressing this loving kindness for other living beings. Now that state of mind is a very pleasurable state of mind. It’s a state of mind that we know that anyone who has able to experience any level of loving kindness towards another whether it be to family or a lover or whoever. When that loving kindness you know it’s a good, it feels good within your own mind.

It affects you physically. It’s beneficial. You know that it’s a good feeling. And we can see therefore that it is an appropriate opposite to what anger is and what anger does to our mind and our body. And so we can talk about in terms of the future when we are hoping to cultivate a disposition whereby anger is less likely to arise.

We can try to make compassion, these feelings of loving kindness stronger and stronger in our mind that makes us less prone to wanting to have anger to arise in the future. Patience however we can understand in the context of an immediate experience when we’re in the throes of anger. There’s no point philosophizing on what anger means. At the time when you feel anger starting to pervert your state of well-being and to pervert and corrupt your social relations. That is when you want a skill that enables you to cut it down, to disempower it, to lessen the possibility that it is going to manifest within your mind.

And this is where we talk about the power of patience. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. If I could just have your attention for one moment.

As Tenzin left for India this morning with Jamyang for a few weeks, he happened to remind us of a very auspicious, event in the calendar which we haven’t had on the website or in the newsletter. Chokhor Duchen, July 23. It’s the first turning of the wheel so throughout the Buddhist calendar there are very auspicious days. That’s not this Monday but the following Monday. At 07:00 there will be a special puja here.

There will be a slight change to our normal program. So I thank you very much for your patience. And don’t forget in August the symposium Buddhist Ethics in the twenty first Century with a wonderful lineup of local and interstate speakers. That’s the August and Ilya will be returning just a few days before that. So he’ll be with us.

And his mother is apparently making a very good recovery from her stroke. So that’s very good news. And Geshe-la referred to the study groups. So Sunday morning, we’re having a great time. The lam room with Jampa Tenzin at half past twelve and 10:30 here with little groups, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to pull the teachings apart and then field Sam and Geshe-la with our questions.

Have some chai and anything else Carol? I just got one thing. Could you please not put any oh I don’t think I need this. Oh goodness. Anything in the the the covers of the chair, they’re for prayer books and Puja books only.

Especially please don’t jam anything in because it’ll actually break them sooner or later and we want them to last forever. This Friday. Oh, and there’s a pooja at five here On Friday. On Friday. This Friday.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chris.

Key terms in this teaching

bodhisattva jang chub sem pa (Tib)

One who possesses bodhicitta. LYWA

individual liberation

The liberation from cyclic existence achieved by a hearer (shravaka) or solitary realizer (pratyekabuddha), as compared with the full enlightenment of a buddha sought in the Mahayana. LYWA

loving kindness maitri (Skt); yi ong jam pa (Tib)

In the context of the seven points of cause and effect, the wish for all beings to have happiness, with the added dimension of yi ong (beautiful or affectionate)... LYWA

puja chö pa (Tib)

Literally, offering; a religious ceremony, usually used to describe an offering ceremony such as the Offering to the Spiritual Master (Guru Puja). LYWA

self-cherishing dag che par dzin pa (Tib)

The self-centered attitude of considering one’s own happiness to be more important than that of others. LYWA

self-grasping dag dzin (Tib)

The mind that apprehends the self as inherently existent. This refers to both the self of persons and the self of phenomena. LYWA

Theravada Sthaviravada (Skt); nätenpa (Tib)

A tradition of Buddhism that upholds the Pali Canon and the noble eightfold path, which leads practitioners to liberation (nirvana), a state free from the suffering of conditioned existence. LYWA

thought transformation lojong (Tib)

Also known as “mind training” or “mind transformation”. A powerful approach to the development of bodhicitta, in which the mind is trained to use all situations, both happy and unhappy, as a means to destroy self-cherishing and self-grasping. LYWA

Definitions adapted from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive glossary, as taught in the Gelug tradition.

Questions answered in this teaching

If Buddhahood is the realisation of emptiness, what role does cultivating bodhicitta play in achieving it?

Emptiness can be realised without the motivation to benefit others, for example by someone seeking only individual liberation. But striving for personal liberation alone implies self-grasping, which can persist in a very subtle form even in highly developed practitioners. Self-cherishing has a gross form (anger, feeling offended, thinking we are better or more important than others), which diminishes with study and meditation on emptiness. The subtle form is believing that the only thing worth striving for is our own liberation. Whatever realisations such a practitioner has, self-grasping remains, so they will never attain Mahāyāna Buddhahood.