Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen explores why seeking external escape from suffering—moving to a new place, changing circumstances—cannot work unless your mind itself is transformed. In this 48-minute teaching, he develops the concept of renunciation by showing that all saṃsāra is permeated by suffering, with no location offering true refuge. He illustrates this with a personal story: when asked to leave a restricted area in India, a high Lama told him the problem wasn’t external but his own unresolved karma and delusions. From this recognition of universal suffering, he turns to the solution: how the mind creates suffering through ignorance and self-grasping. He explains why genuine compassion requires first knowing your own pain deeply, then introduces bodhicitta—the resolve to achieve enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 LtK no date.mp3
UUID: c4094e9d-e744-491f-ba13-3a1d09a7b9e7
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Letter to a King (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1984 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.3 minutes
Words: ~5,727
There’s no ultimate peace or happiness that we can possibly experience. So Geshe-la said — I mean, this is actually important too — awareness, or important to develop a bit of awareness of the suffering, of the general suffering of saṃsāra. I’m guessing — I think it says, and this is enough about the suffering and all the meaninglessness of the wealth and so forth. Otherwise, you might end up throwing away all your possessions and money, or whatever.
Throw them away. Said in the beginning that it’s important to develop a strong awareness or wish to release oneself from saṃsāra or from the suffering of saṃsāra. Now it means that we have so far discussed about the general suffering of saṃsāra. So now we come to realise that the suffering of saṃsāra is so profound and so almost sort of an everlasting sort of thing.
So then you become a bit disillusioned with the saṃsāra. So next step — what do you have to do? So now you think that saṃsāra is really no good place to stay. Samsāra is not the right sort of place that we should be looking forward to living. So then when you have that sort of awareness, and that is what we call in Buddhist terms a sense of renunciation.
So you have renunciation. So it means you just want to now get out of this saṃsāra. You don’t want to live there. You become quite disillusioned with that. When you develop or when you think that saṃsāra is really a disgusting place, then I want to get out of that.
And that is the calling of — that’s very important. It’s called the sense of renunciation. So when you have such a sort of — not artificial, or real — how to say it? Real, not superficial. The real sense of wanting to release oneself from that sort of saṃsāra — that is the extent to which you can develop the sense of realisation. Yeah.
Unless one makes a big alteration in one’s realisations, there’s no way that one can possibly escape from the pervasiveness of the suffering of saṃsāra. You see. So the daily sort of problems — if you have a bit of a problem in this country, maybe you can make a bit of changes. But it’s also hard to get oneself free from that sort of problem, because if you go to another country, since you haven’t made the alteration on your psychological level, still there would be some problems. How to say?
Some problems, because the reason why you are facing problems after making a change in the place where you live is because this is the nature of saṃsāra. So unless you make the right sort of alteration in your mind, there’s no sort of place that we can possibly point out — here you go — then you never become depressed or sad or whatever. As we said, if you don’t make the right alterations in your mind in terms of giving up those delusions and the karmic instincts, there’s no way that we can possibly make ourselves feel cheerful by going on — by making the changes in the way we live. So if you come to Australia as, you know, thinking it’s an escape — but in actual fact, it is not. How to say it?
It is not. When you’re faced with the general problem of saṃsāra, you also become miserable. No? Or you wanted to go to India. You live there — when you’re faced with the problems there, you still have the similar problem. There’s no escape.
You know? There’s no escape. So I would like to tell you a sort of story from my own experience in this regard. So when we were studying, once we went for a holiday to another part of India, which is a sort of restricted area, so due to some kind of legal problems, we were asked to leave the place. So we thought there was a oneness — of a Lama, a high Lama.
So we went for — you know — seeking some spiritual influence towards those officials. So we went for that — and before that, all the people we met so far said: oh, it’s terrible that you have to leave this place. It’s really a wonderful place to spend your holiday. Everybody said that sort of thing. And I also became somewhat miserable in that way.
So then we eventually went to see the Lama, to see whether he might use his spiritual influence with those officials. And we told him, and he said: well, I heard that you guys are having a bit of a legal problem. And he said: well, this is the general thing. You know? It doesn’t matter.
Wherever you go, there is a problem. You see? Unless you get rid of your own karmas and everything — or your karmic bonds or your delusions and so forth — then you don’t have your problems. You see? Wherever you go, you will face the problem of whatever particular problem exists in that particular country, and it will affect you.
So here, I’m supposed to be leaving, but I have a headache and I went to hospital, and still it doesn’t work. I have a problem also. And that I find really — how to say — helpful. So if we don’t make the alteration from within our mind, there’s no such place which is suffering-proof. So the reason for talking about the general suffering problem is to develop some kind of awareness through which we improve the quality of our life.
So talking about this suffering of saṃsāra does not mean that we have to be so depressed, or that there’s nothing that we could do something about. Or you shouldn’t sort of — how to say — be changing. You should not sort of go to your bank, get all of your money, and decide to go to some other place to live. That’s wrong in terms of seeking some kind of escape, you see. As long as you don’t make the alteration within your mind, then — how to say it? — all places are the same. You know, this Acharya was telling the king that it’s important to think internally, not from the external point of view. So we approach towards achievement of one’s goal with that sort of motivation of renunciation. Renunciation.
And generally, it’s like that. When we are stuck with some kind of problem, and when we realise that is the problem, then what we do is try to avoid that problem or try to get off that problem. So in a similar way, by realising the general problem of suffering of saṃsāra, what we do is now that we want to get out of that, or we want to release ourselves from that suffering. So doing so is the sense of renunciation, and that is also important to keep in our mind with regards to practising Dharma. Okay.
Okay. Isn’t that handy? So after realising the whole things, then what we do — the next step — is try to get out of the room. So now, just being thoughtful or having the wish of releasing oneself from saṃsāra is not good enough. It is enough, but it’s not good enough.
So now the next thing — what we do is we will make the right attempt or we will engage in the business through which we will be able to make our wish, or the sense of renunciation, come true. You see, come true. Just because we have got the pure sense of — or pure wish of — wanting something, it does not make the things come true. What we have to do is: when we have the wish, then we will work — we will try everything. Even if we will try every means — maybe very humble means, whatever. We try to make whatever we want come true.
We have to do it. We have to actually work, you see. However, having a wish is also important. First, have the wish to do something; then that causes you to work hard. You know?
That’s all we have to do. So now, to do the business of making oneself released from the suffering of saṃsāra is to find out what is the cause — what is the main thing, what is the secret that causes oneself to constantly experience suffering. We have to find out what is the cause of that suffering. What causes me to experience suffering despite my utter dislike of it? So then when you find out the cause — the entire things in the world are dependent upon the cause and the condition. Without the cause and the condition, nothing would happen.
You see, nothing would happen. So then you find out what is the cause of the suffering. So when you find out: yes, this is the cause of suffering — then you use your entire energy, as much as you can, to sort of counteract or track that down. See, tracking that down is exactly the same as when a person or patient is sick. First, what the doctor does is find out what sort of symptom or what sort of disease his patient is suffering from.
When he finds out — through various methods, he finds out: this is the main wrong, or this is the main disease that my patient is suffering from — then what he would do is apply such drugs or treatments which will actually counteract that cause or that disease. So whereby his patient is freed from the suffering or the pain or the sickness, whatever. In a similar way, we find out what is the cause of suffering. So upon recognising the cause of suffering, then you apply whatever you have — just to cut that cause. When the cause is finished, obviously the cessation of the resulting suffering is a natural thing to happen.
Ask him. So now as you find out the cause of suffering — as we were discussing last time about the twelve links of dependent origination — so this is basically the deluded or the poisonous three types of mind — or the three types of delusion. So out of those three, the ignorance is the most — I’m sorry — the most serious or the most dangerous thing. The principal or main cause of suffering is the ignorance. So that is being substantiated through attachment and hatred.
So now this ignorance, which is the root of suffering, is of two types. The ignorance regarding the knowledge of the cause-and-effect relationship, and the ignorance regarding the understanding of the suchness of the phenomena — or the true existence of entire phenomena.
So of those, the ignorance regarding the understanding of the suchness of entire phenomena is the real cause of suffering. Now that ignorance is — and that ignorance is — the sense of self-grasping, the inborn sense of grasping oneself. So the inborn self-grasping of oneself causes the self-cherishing attitude. You see? self-cherishing attitude.
So the way the inborn self-grasping mind functions is incredibly subtle. So since its function is so incredibly subtle, the antidote also should be incredibly powerful or subtle. Yeah. The inborn sense of grasping at oneself is the cause of all other conceptual elaborations — thinking different things or fantasies and so forth. So when your inborn sense of grasping at yourself functions, it makes you cherish yourself.
It gives you an idea of who you are. Then, as you have that idea, you start to cherish yourself, or cherish all self-cherishing. The inborn sense of grasping at oneself causes cherishing oneself. As the intensity of cherishing oneself grows, then what happens next is the person — friends, for instance — towards them, you develop attachment. The person or the people who are against your attitude of self-cherishing — then you develop hatred towards them.
So once the attachment and the hatred come into existence or come into action, then all other different types of karma also follow them. Through the activations of the attachment and the hatred, one creates different types of actions. So after having done the actions, now the impressions of whatever actions you have done are being implanted into the consciousness, into the consciousness basket. So when the different types of impressions of the karmas are being implanted into the consciousness, then at the time of death, depending on what sort of feeling arises at that time, we take the different types of rebirth — as we talked last time in terms of the twelve links of dependent arising. You see, in that way, due to the good and the bad karma, we sometimes go a little higher and sometimes lower.
And that way, we keep circling. That’s all. Yeah. Unless the continuity of the action coming through a combination of delusion and contaminated action is put out of action, there’s no end for us to keep circling or going around and around.
Yeah. Perhaps you might have seen the painting of the twelve-linked dependent arising — how to say — the wheel of life. So in that picture — those who have seen that picture — you might have noticed that the picture is in a circle and is being sort of tucked in the mouth of some kind of horrible devil-type-looking person, you see. So in between this circle, there are three animals. The first is the pig.
Pig and snake and bird. So that is not the actual or real birds or pigs or animals. This is just the symbolic meaning, just the symbolic meaning. The pig represents ignorance, the snake represents hatred, and the bird represents attachment. You see, attachment.
So then after that, out of that, you might have noticed there are some kind of pictures — people doing different acts — that symbolise or represent the two links of dependent arising, you know, you see. So after that, you might have seen the pictures of the six realms, different — so now it says that the whole thing is being activated by those three root poisonous minds, you see. And as a result of that, what happens is going through different stages — which is the middle circle. And who are doing those sorts of things? It means the people in the outer circle — the six realms. Six realms.
So therefore, all the people, all sentient beings, through the three poisonous minds, create different karmas and go through the different links of dependent arising, whereby they get reborn in whatever is depicted at the outer circles. So after that, you might have seen that this whole thing is being held by — or tucked in the mouth of — some kind of devil-type-looking person.
In actual fact, that is not a monster. That is not a devil or anything like that. It’s just a reminder of death. So what happens at the end? All these people, all these things — how to say — die at the end.
They die. Say that they eventually end up in the mouth of death. That’s just to give you an awareness of death. So this picture was actually designed by Lord Buddha himself — just the sort of symbols of how things happen. At the time of the Buddha, Buddha had a king’s student.
One of his students was a king. And he received from another king a present. So then he asked the Buddha what sort of present he should send back. So the Buddha thought he could help the other king and turn him into a sort of Buddhist. He would especially design these wheel of life paintings, and ask him to send this one.
So through that, he was able to understand the reality of life, whereby he was able to practise Dharma immediately. Geshe-la says at the time he has finished. For the last session, we discussed how to develop the sense of renunciation through considering the suffering of saṃsāra in general, and the suffering of the three lower realms or three lower unfortunate destinies in particular. That’s how we develop a sense — that sense of not wanting that sort of suffering to come about. So that is the renunciation, or tiyak.
So the way of considering — as a technique to develop the sense of renunciation — is, as we talked this morning, we have to think from the point of view of how much or how far we are well protected or well looked after in terms of not experiencing the suffering of saṃsāra in a general sense. So thinking from that point of view, there’s not one suffering that we can say: yes, I’m well protected or I’m well guarded against this particular suffering. So thinking from all these ankles, then we come to realise: that’s right. There’s no way that I’m well protected against any one of the sufferings. So I must.
I am in actual fact in a very pitiable condition, so I don’t wish that suffering at all. I don’t like that suffering absolutely. So coming to that sort of strong mental conclusion, then one sincerely wants to release oneself from that sort of suffering or experience of suffering. So that is called the renunciation. So when you develop the renunciation, thinking about how pitiable you are in terms of not being well protected against any suffering — that is the renunciation for yourself.
But when you transfer this similar sort of question, or way of looking at things, to other sentient beings — to other sentient beings — then that becomes kindness or compassion, I should say. Compassion. So when you think — the way you look at yourself in terms of not being well looked after or not well protected against any type of samsaric suffering — that is renunciation. And when you turn this way of thinking to other sentient beings — how they are not well protected against any type of suffering — that becomes compassion. Once such a sort of idea has taken a deep root within yourself, it’s very easy.
It’s sort of much more helpful in terms of turning it into a sense of compassion. It means that when you have a slight — for instance, when you have a slight physical pain or sickness and you don’t like that sort of sickness — it keeps attacking yourself, so you want to get out of that, or you want to be freed from that sort of sickness. So that’s some kind of resistance against that particular sickness. So when you see other people being faced with a similar bodily or physical sickness or pain, then you think — you become quite reflective of yourself, of what sort of experience you have gone through yourself. Then you realise: oh, yes, I know that that sort of suffering is really painful.
It’s quite — it’s terrible. So then you wish — in a sense of: oh, the person — I must get that person out of that suffering. So when turning this — or thinking it in terms of other sentient beings — and that way, it becomes compassion. The sense of renunciation with oneself is a little bit easier, because nobody wants trouble for oneself. However, transferring it in terms of other sentient beings would be quite difficult.
However, having such a thought is very, very helpful in terms of cultivating the basic sense of compassion towards other sentient beings. And having your mind well trained in the technique of developing a sense of renunciation will play a fundamental role in terms of the cultivation of the sense of compassion towards other people, you see. So when you develop compassion upon the basis of your own suffering, your own experience — and you train your mind in compassion towards other people — that sort of compassion becomes very much practical, very much down to earth, not in some kind of intellectual sort of thinking. Because when you are certain, when you are positive about yourself experiencing some particular suffering or general suffering, so when you see other people or other sentient beings being stricken or being faced with a similar sort of problem and suffering, then you can have a very practical or very well-experienced sympathy towards other people — because you know, you can estimate, you can guess how much other people suffer, because you know yourself how much that similar problem caused you trouble. This is trouble.
So when you don’t wish for some particular suffering, that time you can know: oh, exactly. I know that. I don’t wish that sort of disaster to happen. So similarly, other people also don’t wish that sort of disaster to fall upon their head. So in a similar way, that’s how it’s easier to develop the sense of compassion.
That’s right. Mhmm. Yeah. And then as to the practising of compassion to other sentient beings, it is essential to know one’s own suffering, because compassion is sympathy developed by considering the suffering of other people. And that sense of compassion is based upon your own estimation of how much you suffer yourself when you meet the problem and so forth.
So when you have a good idea of how much the negative things cause problems for you — or when somebody says bad things to you, or somebody is being so abusive — how much it hurts yourself — or when somebody punches you in the face, how much it causes pain. When you can well estimate what sort of suffering you can feel when somebody causes you a similar action — you may do to other people — see, when you have that sort of estimation of how much that sufferable experience is for you, then you can know: yes, I shouldn’t be doing this very practically, not intellectually — that I shouldn’t be doing such sort of action to other people. Because when I receive such action from other people, I suffer. I don’t like it. And I don’t like the unhappiness being created by other people, so I must not create a similar thing to other people.
And that way, you see, you develop compassion, and in that way you try to abide in those sorts of actions which do not create problem or suffering or unhappiness for other people — and that’s how you can join the practice of compassion with your own experience of the whole thing.
Okay. So generally, when we talk about the exercise of the mind through practising compassion, we said that the object of that compassion should be the living beings — the suffering sentient beings, the suffering sentient beings. So therefore, all sentient beings become the object of one’s compassion. However, speaking from a very worldly point of view, it’s very hard to develop a sense of compassion for all sentient beings. Normally, we find it much easier to develop compassion, or it’s easier to relate in terms of practising compassion, to those people who have some very obvious disease or who are suffering very apparently.
Let’s say some kind of sickness, or people who are in a hospital. However, thinking from the point of view of the suffering that we talked about this morning — the general suffering of saṃsāra — then in that respect, nobody is free. So you can develop compassion for all other sentient beings from the point of view that none of them are free from that sort of suffering. So in that way, when you become more aware of the suffering of saṃsāra with regards to your own experience, then your exercise of compassion becomes incredibly or extremely intensified.
So the more you think about the suffering, then the better your compassion of your meditation becomes. Yeah. Since we talked or discussed about how we get reborn through the twelve links of dependent arising — we see dependent arising, and we do have a sense of how the life after life, or the incarnation-reincarnation idea, exists. So from that point of view, when we think that we must — we are responsible for developing compassion and helping other sentient beings in terms of repaying the kindness that we are indebted to repay — the kindness that we have received through other sentient beings as, you know, them becoming our parents through our many lifetimes, many lifetimes. So morally, in terms of feeling gratitude for what other people have done, or in terms of feeling yourself grateful to those people who have done good or who have helped you — we feel so grateful. So we feel that it is someone’s responsibility to repay whatever the gratefulness we have received from other people.
And in a similar way, all sentient beings were so kind, or we should be very grateful to all other sentient beings, because during the many lifetimes they might have become our parents, and we have received lots of parental love and kindness, love and kindness and so forth. It’s just the difference is that because of this somehow our misunderstanding — or our inability to understand, or inability to penetrate through the gap of this lifetime and the last lifetime — otherwise, we must morally have to feel, or have to look after, or help other sentient beings in terms of practising compassion.
Like that. It’s a well-known fact that the entire existence of ourself at this lifetime — or in terms of this lifetime — is also very much dependent upon the big cooperation or collaboration of other sentient beings. Without the help such as our parents during this lifetime, the existence of ourself is out of the question. Since ever we are born — we are born like a little infant who knows nothing. From then, up to now, up to the present stage, whatever we are — the whole process of becoming to that point of whatever we are now — is, in actual fact, due to the kindness or help, whatever, of other people, other people. When you’re born, somebody fed you, somebody looked after you, somebody made sure that you are not hungry and so forth.
And when you grew up, you went to school and you studied, you got an education. Also, this was being taught by other people and so forth. Of course, you do say — or you would say — that nobody helped me. Actually, I did it all on my own. You see?
All on my own. Therefore, in actual fact, it is not like that. Everything what we are doing is dependent upon other people. So just from the sense of morality, we must do something to help other people from that point of view. In that respect — from the broader and lesser or narrower view — however we claim ourselves to be completely independent — in actual fact, we are not.
We are very much dependent upon other people, very much dependent on other people, and we have been using, in actual fact, the cooperation of other people to improve or grow ourselves. So since — so Acharya Śāntideva has said in his Bodhicaryāvatāra — the Way of the Bodhisattva’s Life — that despite knowing that we have taken lots of help from other people, just not thinking for a short while to help others is really shameful or is really incredible. When you meet or when you become aware of the suffering of other people, the problems of other people, then you can develop the sense of your intention of helping or actually benefiting other people. So when you sincerely develop the intention of helping other people, then the birth of bodhicitta becomes — or happens or occurs. Altruism.
The complete bodhicitta mind of altruism is that in order to help other sentient beings, wishing sincerely to achieve the enlightenment, or to become enlightened, or to achieve Buddhahood, or to become fully awakened — that is the bodhicitta meaning. Meaning of the bodhicitta. Yeah. That is good.
Really? That is good. I’ll make this meaning of the bodhicitta as a final, because we talk about bodhicitta a lot. So whatever the case may be, generally, as the first step towards achieving bodhicitta is — by realising that when something is done wrong to you, you don’t like it. Using that as an example, at least not harming other people. If you can help, that’s fine. So doing such things is the beginning of achieving bodhicitta.
Path of — now the whole process of making our two sincere wishes come true. The first wish is not wishing suffering for yourself, and the second wish is not wishing suffering for other people. That’s compassion.
Two is through practising the path. The practice of the path is actually making the alteration in our usual way of thinking, or in the mind. So first we have to find out how the mind works, or how the delusion works, how the ignorance works. Then what is the technique or what is the method or means — through applying it — which contradicts our usual mistaken way of thinking. And doing such a thing is the totality of fighting against the cause of things which we don’t wish for, or we don’t like.
As the object of an experiment with regards to finding out what is the real cause of the problems — that object would be the mind, would be the mind. So in terms of doing something to get rid of the suffering, what we have to do? We have to do some exploration within the mind. You see? For instance, when we harm other people or when we do something terrible to other people — so checking like that — what kind of frame of mind causes me to do such things? You see? Such a thing.
Or when you feel very depressed or when you are not happy — what are the main conditions, or what is the frame or state of the mind which is causing me to feel so desperate or feel so depressed or feel so sad? He said, and basically, whatever we do is the outcome of the mind. You see?
Basically, whatever the activity or whatever the behaviours that we can possibly do — verbally, mentally, physically — are being activated by the mind, either by the mind. So the breather is the mind. So to give you a little more example, you can understand for yourself when you are mentally very happy, or when your mind is very happy, or when your mind is not mixed up or messed up — at that time, your whole activity of body and speech are so polite, so nice, so harmonious. So once your mind is upset or not quite clear, then it certainly brings out its effect on our verbal and physical actions. Of course, generally speaking very specifically, there is some kind of positive action that we can do through body, positive action we can do verbally, and negative action we can do from both body and speech.
You see, body and speech. But when we think very carefully, the main cause of these both actions is the mind. You see, it is the mind. And if you ask what causes the mind itself to act in a different way? It’s because the mind itself is somewhat dependent upon what kind of coexisting mental factors it has.
So when you have mental factors such as anger or hatred or greed — that sort of thing — then it causes the mind to act somewhat in that sort of way. So your mind becomes quite negative, and as a consequence of that, you tend to act very negatively. So when you have — or when the mind is coexisting with — positive mental factors such as the sense of compassion or wanting to help other people — you know? — so that’s when the mind is being — how to say — being or working with that sort of coexisting positive mental factors, then the mind becomes calm, and very positive, and very clear. And as a consequence of that, we begin to, or we tend to, act rather positively.
So why this negative sort of aspect of the mind such as anger, hatred, greed, and so forth? These are caused by the ignorance — the root ignorance. So root ignorance. So as to — now, what we have to do is track down that root ignorance. You see, root ignorance.
So now the main sort of power or force to counteract or to fight against, and finally or eventually get rid of, that ignorance is developing a special wisdom of understanding the emptiness — which is the true mode or true way of existence of entire phenomena. Experimental study has to find out how that root ignorance — in another word, the inborn sense of grasping at oneself — works or functions. It is very subtle. It’s very unlike those of the hatreds and anger and so forth. So as a method to counteract that — as we said — the wisdom of understanding emptiness. True wisdom, understanding emptiness.
So speaking about this wisdom of emptiness is also somewhat very subtle. So the root cause, or the root ignorance, also works so subtly. So as a method or means to counteract that is also very subtle. The two subtle things fight. So the root cause is ignorance, and ignorance means not understanding how things exist as they truly exist.
So now to counteract that — or to find out the fallacious nature of that ignorance’s way of grasping or way of thinking — what we have to do is we have to study the subject of — or we have to study the emptiness, or the not-true-existence — or we have to study that things do not exist truly in the way they appear. You see, as they appear. So to get the right understanding of how things do not truly exist, we have to do analytical meditation.