Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute commentary on Entering the Middle Way, Kyabje Rinpoche frames his teaching through a vivid farmer’s analogy: one farmer replants his harvest to ensure future crops, while another exhausts his harvest and faces future hardship. Ethics and generosity must go together because those who observe ethics secure continued resources in future rebirths, while those who ignore ethics risk terrible suffering in lower realms where practice becomes impossible. He walks through the mechanics of karma and human freedom—how present conduct directly determines future rebirths—and explains the practical core of ethical discipline: committing to abandon the ten unskillful actions and cultivate the ten skillful ones. He distinguishes mundane from supramundane ethics, emphasizes ethics as the foundation for all spiritual attainment, and closes with a Q&A addressing whether understanding emptiness conflicts with practicing ethics. For serious practitioners working through the graduated path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1991-03-21 – 6B – KR.mp3
UUID: ce24ade5-bba8-4f62-9649-51de6d8f137e
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Entering the Middle Way
Date: 1991-03-21
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,608
An analogy would be a farmer who plants seeds in his field in order to bring forth a crop, and out of that planting arises a bountiful harvest. And is able to supply himself with all his various needs through having this harvest, but he simply doesn’t stop there. He replants part of that harvest in order to ensure that he will again be able to reap another harvest the next season. He does this each season in this way ensuring that he will always have a harvest without end. But on the other hand, there’s another farmer who plants a field and there rises a poor crop.
And he foolishly makes use of the entire harvest of that year into supplying his needs. And he doesn’t replant the field. So eventually, proceeds from that harvest will be exhausted. And since he has not planted a new field, in the future he’s going to experience great difficulty because there’s no crop there’s no new crop forthcoming. We can all easily understand that.
You know, applying that the analogy to the context that one who someone who both observes ethics and practices generosity will have resources within the context of a happy migration. And within a happy migration they understand the benefit of further practice of generosity. And practicing further generosity, then they are going to ensure that in the future they again will have resources. And by again observing ethics that will be in the context of a happy migration, and again they will be able to understand the benefits of generosity since they have been living in a happy migration, and they will again practice generosity. In this way, the resources that is the objects of enjoyment will never end.
And, to extend that analogy, that those who do not observe their ethics, though practicing generosity, and being born in a bad migration, though enjoying the harvest of their past generosity, do not plant new fields of ethics, of generosity. Are just like the farmer who, having planted a field once, simply unintelligently makes use of his entire crop without replanting the field, and it will have no future crop. So this is the the reason that it’s necessary to observe ethics in conjunction with generosity. But even with the observance of ethics in itself, if we do not observe ethics, then we will be reborn in a bad migration. This is why does that happen?
Through the non observance of ethics taking bad migrations. And this is spoken of in the twenty second verse where it says, If when acting freely and living agreeably, he does not act to hold himself back from falling down, he will fall into an abyss and lose control. How will he raise himself from there in the future? That presently, you know, we have freedom that we have over our actions, that we can direct ourselves to create skillful actions or unskillful actions, positive or negative, that we have the control over the quality of our future rebirths, that we can, through our actions, which can be freely entered into, we can determine whether we have a good or a bad future rebirth. What befalls us whether good or bad is within our control control.
It is in that our fate is within our hand, our own hands. That while we have this opportunity of control, we should reflect well upon this fact that if we want the future to be of good, then we must practice the causes which create that good. Is such a type of future will not come about haphazardly. We must create these causes. And then, too, while we have the freedom to create the causes, if we do not make create those causes, to exercise our control to create those causes, then since we are habituated from beginningless time to the creation of negative causes, there is a great danger not directing oneself to not make controlling, taking the opportunity where one has control.
If one does not take advantage of that, one will there’s a great danger that one will simply create the causes for only a bad future. Causes whereby to achieve a happy state in the future? This is ethics. If we observe our ethics well, without doubt that we will achieve a happy state in the future. And that is with the observance or non observance of ethics is within our hand, within our control.
If we create the cause the result will arrive. Conclusive. This There’s no problem with this. If we do not exercise our freedom in in the in implementing practices to create these positive causes for future types of desirable states, then because we have from beginningless time been habituated to creation of unskillful actions, then it’s almost definite that we will fall to a bad migration. Those of a hell being hungry ghost or animal.
So what’s the problem with falling there? So, there’s a great problem involved in such a state. But not just of the great suffering which one experiences in such a state, the quality of the deprivations of the body, the misery of the places, the cold, the heat, etcetera. But the very fact of being in such a place, that one is offered no protection. Who can protect you in such a situation?
Who can lead you out of such a situation? In those types of realms, one is not, there is no one who can show you the way to liberation. There’s no Buddha. There’s no Dharma. There’s no spiritual community to draw you out and protect you in such a miserable place.
Why is there no protection from the Buddha Dharma and the spiritual community in such a in these types of realms? That the in which the Buddha and the Dharma and the spiritual community are able to protect us is by means of our practicing. If we don’t practice, then they can offer us no protection. And that in such a situation we cannot practice. We cannot practice, for example, ethics.
The ethics of the 10 skillful actions, the abandonment of the 10 unskillful actions. You know, we all can see this quite readily. If we look at a dog, a dog can’t practice. It’s completely involving itself in negativity. The beings in these realms are continually creating the negativities of, for example, the physical unskillful actions of killing, sexual impropriety, the verbal of lying, etcetera.
In this way, they not only have no protection, they continually are creating further unskillful actions. And out of these unskillful actions, again, this perpetuates the cycle of taking rebirth in bad migrations, of taking rebirth in hell, of hungry ghosts, of animals, continually creating negative actions again, taking rebirth again and again in this perpetual cycle of negative migrations. So, it’s really very difficult if one does not observe ethics. So the Buddha out of his great compassion for us and wishing us happiness initially taught generosity because knowing we want happiness and what is it, what are the ways in which happiness can be brought to sentient beings through such material means as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, companions. And these are all brought about through the practice of generosity.
So first the Buddha taught generosity. But, so, by means of generosity, we are able to achieve this temporal type of happiness. But, but, so that we are never apart from this happiness, that this happiness is able to come to us continually, that it is not temporary, but it is eternal type of happiness, he taught ethics to ensure that we always have continual resources, objects, enjoyment. What are the benefits of observing ethics? And this is mentioned in the latter two lines of verse 23: When virtues are nurtured on the field of ethics, the enjoyment of effects is unceasing.
So, ethics is being likened to a field, an expanse of land, which upon which it can be grows flowers and trees which can be planted and which can bring forth all the various types of crops and places to live, shelter, quarters where one lives are all supported by this field, this area, this land. Likewise, that ethics is seen as the foundation of all of the excellent qualities both of the great vehicle and lesser vehicle. So, you know, we we place buildings are built on land on land that the place that we live in, the places that that we are homes are are supported on the land. If there wasn’t the land, then it just fall through. Likewise, ethics is the foundation of all excellent qualities.
Without the foundation of ethics, one cannot achieve ultimate qualities. So, for ordinary people like ourselves that have not realized emptiness, in order to achieve human life by means of which we can achieve qualities depends upon ethics. So as it says in the twenty fourth verse, For common beings, those born from the word, those set toward solitary enlightenment and conquerors children, that cause a definite goodness and high status is none other than proper ethics. So, for common beings, ordinary people, for hearers, solitary realizers and bodhisattvas to attain their embodiment is it is necessary that they rely upon ethics and in dependence upon their particular embodiments they can achieve all the excellent qualities that they can gain the realizations of the various and paths and grounds. And this has its foundation the observance of ethics.
So ethics is extremely beneficial. It’s a very powerful and necessary practice. So here it is taught the benefits of practice of ethics. In the twenty fifth verse, Just as an ocean is incompatible with a corpse, and just as prosperity is incompatible with calamity, so being subdued by ethics does not wish to live with faulty ethics. So a corpse is that the ocean throws up the corpse upon shore.
It does not mix with the ocean. Cannot stay within the ocean. It is thrown up out of the ocean. And likewise prosperity and calamity are mutually incompatible. And likewise, just as these, that those who practice ethics are incompatible with those who do not practice ethics.
So, with respect to ethics, there are two types. There is mundane ethics and supra mundane ethics. And this was previously explained in terms of generosity that supra mundane ethics is the ethics of those who have direct realization of emptiness. When they realize that the non-inherent existence of the agent, the action, and the object towards which the action is committed, this is referred to as Supra ethics. And for those ordinary beings who do not have direct realization of emptiness, their ethics is termed mundane ethics.
So, you know, we’ve emphasized the importance of ethics, but what would be the main point of the practice of ethics? And this is whether one is a lay person or living in the vows of renunciate, then it is the abandonment of the 10 unskillful actions. Those three physical, four verbal, and three mental unskillful actions. But in the case of those living vows of renunciation, they have many special types of vows. So, you know, we’ve emphasized the importance of ethics and its practice.
That, you know, there is no reason that we cannot practice ethics, that we can all do this. And that, therefore, as, you know, if we think about it, it’s for sure that we can do it. And however much we can, we should try to practice ethics and thereby ensure a happy migration in the future. And this will be extremely beneficial. Simply from simply from not committing unskillful actions is not the practice of ethics.
There must be a refrain from the commission of unskillful actions. That is to say, one must commit oneself to refrain from various types of unskillful actions. Simply not committing a negative action is not the practice of ethics. One must commit oneself to refrain from that negative action and then it becomes a practice of ethics. So, there is the committing oneself to the abandonment of the 10 unskillful actions and the practice of the 10 skillful actions.
That one commits oneself to refrain from understanding the negativities involved in unskillful actions and as much as one is able to act in accordance with one’s commitment. So the Dharma is something which is practiced within one’s mind. And in this practice of ethics, if we think intelligently, then we can see that it involves there’s no great expense to us to practice ethics. It’s not really that difficult. So stop there, but we’ll take five minutes for questions.
Yeah. Naturally so sustained? You only get what you deserve. So the Buddha said that from a cause that will arise a result which is similar in type. And therefore, in order to ensure that you are able to meet with the Dharma in the future, then you must create a cause which is similar in type.
And this would be that you must practice the Dharma in this life. If you practice the Dharma in this life, and couple that with prayers that you will be able to meet the Dharma in the future, then you will have results similar to that in the future. Of the of last two sentences. The motive the motivation method or the motivation of cultivating ethics which are towards objects of enjoyment or eternal happiness. So you’re saying that’s that’s kind of wisdom?
No, I’m saying that they seem not to marry. The method of the wisdom You mean the understanding of emptiness and wishing for happiness in the future? Wishing for resources in the future seem to be contradictory. I see. So though one had in this life had realization of emptiness but did not observe ethics nor practice generosity, then though one had an understanding of emptiness one would still take rebirth in a bad migration.
Understanding of emptiness cannot in itself protect you from a bad migration. Again, just the realization of emptiness by itself will not bring about liberation. If one has an understanding of emptiness, if one did not practice ethics and generosity, in the future one was reborn without resources, that is as a beggar, then one would not have the supportive conditions whereby to carry on a practice and one’s realization of emptiness would degenerate. And therefore, it would have been of no benefit to you. It’s not the question that ethics generosity ought not to be practiced.
It’s the motivation for the practice that doesn’t strike me as being is going with the realization of Because surely the realization of emptiness is would lead to lack of striving for things in the future that would be just the hearer and now, for me. Tony Tony Tony Merely the understanding of emptiness does not eliminate desire or attachment. One has to be cultivated over the five paths, path of accumulation and upward. And then it’s only at the finish of the five paths that desire is eliminated. So, as it says in Entering the Middle Way that the bodhisattva, upon realizing emptiness, makes even greater effort in his practices of generosity ethics.
He makes even more effort in cultivating the awakened heart and compassion because not wanting to allow these to degenerate. This will be explained later on. So, we cannot just the realization of emptiness does not abandon desire. That even having direct realization is not enough. That one must cultivate it until it becomes extremely powerful and then one is able to abandon from the very root desire.
There are five paths of the Hīnayāna.