Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute session, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen investigates the Letter to a King’s central question: does “I” exist at all, separate from body, mind, and speech? Through logical analysis—the body-swap thought experiment, the dollar analogy—he shows that the self is entirely interdependent, imputed rather than solid. Grasping it as solid is the root of suffering; realizing its emptiness naturally generates compassion for all beings trapped in the same delusion. The teaching moves from philosophy to practice: three metaphors for disciplining the mind, guidance on speech, and a direct address to the king—the path is hard even for monastics, so accomplish what you can with your precious human rebirth rather than waste it.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 LtK no date.mp3
UUID: 85a61085-34eb-467d-b0e1-05cd0a2541e4
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Letter to a King (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1984 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.7 minutes
Words: ~6,354
I is the owner of the whole thing. You say, my hair, or I have got a, you know, very nice blonde hair, or I say, I haven’t got that good hair, or my leg, or my body. When you say that, normally, you know, almost unthinkingly, you say, my body and so forth. At that time, now you tend to think that I exist somewhere else and I is the, you know, the owner or the possessor of all these things. You know?
And your head, your leg, your body is kind of, you know, things to be, or as property. And we said, you know, I have a really strong body, then you have a pride. You know? I’m very strong, you know, I can punch you or something like that. Or when you are not — when you are sort of very thin or you’re not very physically well built up, you know, I’m so weak, you know, you feel so low, you know, or you have to be scared all the time that somebody might come along and punch you in the face or something like that.
So when you think from that point of view, you get the idea that the rest of the thing is kind of, you know, property. That there is, you know, someone else, you know, who possesses the whole thing. The rest of the thing is just counter-property. So don’t you feel in that way? Geshe-la is asking.
You do. Or in this sort of similar fashion, we relate with the entire other things such as, you know, let’s say, the speech or the voice. You know, somebody comes and says: I can sing really wonderfully, or I can sing, or my sound or my voice is so melodious that I can enthrall or enchant hundreds of people — those sort of people who have a pride. In that way, whatever the rest of the thing, we relate in that way. It’s kind of property.
When you go through your mind — see, I mean, we think that, oh, I have got a very intelligent mind, or I have got a really smart mind, or I have a, you know, quick-thinking mind. Or some people say, my mind is too dull, and I can’t do anything. I’m hopeless. People think in that way. So this mind is also kind of, you know, a property, and there’s something else, you know, who is, you know, the — how to say — owner of the whole things.
The basic sort of sense of, you know, the inborn sense of grasping at oneself, you know, considers that the I exists all by itself. So and we say, you know, my head, or my mind, or my voice, or my speech and so forth. So through investigating that, we sort of find out that, you know, generally, we believe that whatever we have — the body, mind, speech — is the main thing that we have. We almost go with this twenty-four hours. But now that also seems to be kind of property.
It’s not the I. It’s not the sense of I. It’s rather the property of the sense of I. You see, so I. So now the question arises: whether something exists called I, or a sense of I, separate or separated, or different to whatever we have — body, mind, speech.
If there is something called I, or if you can point out: this is the sense of I which exists separately from the mind and the speech. So this is the, you know, or how to say it, the owner of whatever you said. Then there would be a totally different way of thinking. This is the question to be asked with oneself. Mhmm.
Yeah. Brilliant. And is it — so our, you know, basic sort of unthinking way of thinking, you see. Mhmm. Supposing, you know, supposing there’s a person who is — she, whatever — really stunningly looking, extremely beautiful, you know, extremely physically very beautiful, mentally very beautiful, and, how to say, verbally very good.
In other words, one is physically very good looking, who can sing very nicely, and who has got an extremely intelligent mind that everybody is aspiring — everybody is saying, oh, I wish I have that sort of thing for myself too. So at that sort of time, when you see someone like that, and if that person says, would you like to swap bodies, or would you like whatever I have? — then we tend to think, oh, yes. I love it, and I want to change with that. You see? We tend to think in that way.
So now the question arises: okay. Now when you make the change, what do you do? You give your body to that person, you change it. You get that person’s good body for yourself. And you give the speech and you give the mind.
Alright? So now the question to be considered is: is there a third person left to take all those things when you make the change? This I, you know — does there remain that sort of I that takes the good mind and body and speech of the other person to oneself? But that doesn’t sort of, you know, remain as that sort of thing. Is that clear? Yeah.
She’s not. So in that way, you experiment. You see? In that way, you experiment. So when you experiment with the way of thinking, by you know, the inborn sense of grasping at oneself, or our usual unthinking way of thinking, you see, then — how to say — we don’t find the things, or we don’t find such a thing that exists in the way that we look at through our unthinking way of thinking.
You see? Mhmm. Mhmm. So if we find something that exists in the way it has been looked upon through our usual unthinking way of thinking or inborn sense of grasping at oneself, then that’s it. We cannot possibly use the idea of emptiness to counteract our basic ignorance which holds in that way, because it has the right object of thinking in that way.
So we will never find it that way, you see. And in that way, you sort of experiment and find out, you know, how it exists. So when you check with the idea or the logical way of emptiness, then sometimes you find that that sort of way of thinking of I does not exist. You cannot find it within your body. It becomes completely unfindable.
Must be — mhmm. Yeah. Reasoning — as we talked before — you try to find out whether such I, or such sense of I, exists in the way it has been, you know, projected or built up through our inborn sense of grasping at oneself, or our usual unthinking way of thinking. You see? So with that sort of reasoning, then you find out, or you establish, that the way the inborn sense of grasping looks at the thing does not exist in that way.
When you — and the reasoning we used to experiment the idea of emptiness is something that we can talk about. But when you, you know, get into the more and more subtle stage of meditating on it, then you have other ways to establish your subtle concept of emptiness. You see? So whatever conclusion you find in that way, then you meditate on that so strongly, you know, meditate on that so strongly. Thus, that becomes your way of looking at the thing.
Your way of looking at the things — and you become completely touched with the reality — whereby the ignorance, or the ignorance of looking at things wrongly, ceases or falls apart naturally or automatically. Oh, what do you call that? Mhmm. So this emptiness — the idea of emptiness — is making you aware of the reality, of the reality. So by becoming aware of the reality, then we can understand or we can change our way of thinking.
So Buddha, or Acharya Nāgārjuna, had done so many writings in terms of, you know, telling the meaning of the emptiness, and so is the Buddha. Buddha gave, you know, many teachings just to tell the meaning of emptiness and how, you know, we sort of have to become aware — aware in the sense of emptiness, you see, in the sense of emptiness. So that’s why the Buddha and all the great teachers tried to just tell this one simple word: the emptiness. That’s very important.
Ask him. Lama, he was, you know, all the time emphasising his students, you know, to know more and more about the teaching or the meaning of emptiness. Because the understanding of the emptiness is somewhat very important as to become, you know, basically aware of the whole reality and become completely in touch with reality. So when we sort of, you know, experiment with the idea of emptiness — about, or with regards to, that sort of I that does not exist, which has been checked upon or looked upon or built up through our unthinking way of thinking, or the inborn sense of grasping at oneself — so when you think, or when you experiment the whole thing with very intensive reasoning and thinking and contemplation, then sometimes you might wonder that maybe the whole idea of the I does not exist. It’s just completely empty.
It’s just a full stop, boom, finished. But it is not. This is not the case. This is not the case. Then what we have to do is think from the dependent arising.
Of course, the I exists. You see? I exist through the point of the dependent arising. You see? The whole thing — the I, everything — exists dependent upon each other.
Then what you do is you think from the formula of the dependent arising, you see, or dependent origination. I exist in the way that it has been made up through depending upon each other, not in a solid way or substantial way or a solitary way. So in the general sense, everything exists. You know? There is a function of doing, a function of actions, and the, you know, action to be done and who does the action.
All this, you know, the universal truth, exists. But the way it exists is through the dependent originations and imputeachings, you know, through — it may be the body, mind, speech, whatever — things exist in the way of dependent origination. They come or depend upon lots of other, you know, parts and particles — in their parts and divisions, whatever. So those sorts of divisions come together. And on top of that, we impute something.
This is it, that. And that’s how the whole thing exists. It does not exist in the way our inborn sense of grasping at oneself is looking. No. A thing doesn’t exist.
Things exist very truly and completely and independently and substantially all by their own — that that is the reality — you see, that thing does not exist in that way. Rather, it exists in terms of depending upon each other, and we impute: this is deep and this is that. So through the sense of dependent origination, then there is a function of doing and the function being done, or the function of the subject.
All these, you know, all these cases, all these nominal cases and so forth, exist in the very much sense of, you know, depending upon each other, not solidly and truly, you know, substantially, the way we look at in our unthinking way of thinking. That’s good. Yeah. Mhmm. Many philosophers, or many people, you know, have great difficulty in terms of relating to that.
The existence of a doing, the existence of the subject, the existence of everything cannot be, you know, possible in the sense of just the dependent origination, where the parts, divisions, everything, cause and condition come together, and you impute. They say if the existence of, you know, the self-existence of the person who does and the existence of the action being done — you know, that sort of whole existence — should be in the sense of truly and substantially, you know, independently existing other things. They believe that if those sorts of actions exist, they must exist in the sense of independent, truly, and substantial way of existing, not in the sense of dependent origination. They say that just in the sense of dependent origination, things cannot perform such as going or sitting, or that sort of action. And when people, you know, think in that way, it means what is holding the grasping at the true existence — you know, the solid existence of our entire things.
Mhmm. So when people believe that, you know, in the sense of dependent origination or dependent arisings, the action or existence of, you know, doing something — or the doer, or the action — cannot exist, but it’s not true. You see? So when you have, you know, the right basis of labeling — you know, the right basis of the labeling, or the basis of designation you have — then you impute on that: oh, this is this and this is that.
And since then, it does the function of that. Right? So, of course, the basis of the designation should be, you know, well originated — coming from many parts and divisions. And on top of that, then you label on that: this is this. Since then, it does that sort of function, whatever you label on top of it.
For instance, we can think from the dollars or the currency, the notes, you see. What we do first — I mean, the dollar can almost do the best action, or the best action-performing thing so far as people are concerned. You see, what do you do? At first, you have, you know, some kind of hard sort of paper or notes. Right?
Some kind of committee or whatever the government will come and say, yes. This side should be with this color, with this government’s sign, and this and this — putting so many things together. Right? Together, then they sort of impute: this will be the hundred dollars, and this will be the fifty dollars, and this will be the one dollar, and this will be the coins.
So in that way, you impute on top of that. And since then, it does the function of the dollar. If you have a one dollar, you automatically will think, yes. I have got one dollar. And when I give you one dollar, you for granted think, yes.
He gives me one dollar. When you have millions of dollars, you think I’m a millionaire. You see? Since then, it does the function. Otherwise, if you try to find that the dollar has to exist from all by itself solidly, then if you check the color, the color is not dollar. The line is not dollar.
The governor’s signature is not dollar. It cannot do the function of the dollar by itself. So the whole thing, you know, put together. And, you know, it just becomes imputed: this is the dollar.
And since then, it does the action of the dollar. Yeah. I mean, this is the reality. This is how things exist. You know?
But due to our mistaken view, we don’t see things in that way. We rather, you know, tend to think that, you know, it has to be all by itself. You see? So then, you know, when we intellectually think in that way, we do have a bit of understanding — slight, yes, things do exist in that way — but we cannot make it a practical way of thinking. It’s because we lack the strong thinking of this.
So then what we do is: right, when we become absolutely convinced of all things, then what we do is now use the purpose or the use of doing the meditation of the concentration, and so forth, conjoined with that sort of understanding. With your sort of intellectual understanding as we started, you see, what you do is you join that with your concentration — this power of your concentration, you see. So then you’re strongly able to think in that way, you see. Then what becomes is then you’re actually, you know, able to take the advantage — or the help or the benefit — of having that sort of understanding. Since we lack the strong concentration, what we — even though we have a slight, or a glimpse of, you know, seeing, or a glimpse of touching with the reality — but since it is so short-existing, you know, it’s so short-existing, we cannot, you know, fully take advantage of, or fully use, that sort of understanding.
And we just let go, and we just tend to, you know, come back to our old way of thinking. That’s the trouble. You see? So that’s the purpose of doing, you know, concentration and meditation and special insight and so forth. With that sort of understanding developed, and we join that, and we make that powerful.
And then that becomes your way of relating towards the whole thing. And that is, you know — and there happens the click of, you know, enlightenment or whatever. What’s that? That is it. Yeah.
So upon making this true practice as one, and making it your way of thinking, then it actually counteracts that sort of ignorance, which is the cause of our trouble. So, therefore, as I said in the beginning, it’s a really good idea, you know, in terms of study — you study something really in a bit of a sort of a higher text, or which deals with, you know, sort of profound concept of the whole thing. You should not just merely think it is just sort of philosophy, you know, a philosophy which has nothing to do with reality. Not that sort of philosophy. So in Tibet, you know, the whole — the monks spend the rest of their life studying this sort of philosophy. It’s not that they have a better chance of getting a job somewhere else.
Not. They haven’t got that sort of mundane way of thinking about their studies. All they do is study. They study, and with that study — the study which makes them, you know, touch with the reality — whereby they don’t make the unnecessary mistake, which is the cause of suffering for themselves. That is their whole idea of studying, you know, or spending the rest of their life in studying and so forth.
It’s not as their thesis for becoming professor and so forth. Nothing. Yeah. Mhmm. But even if somebody wishes, making it as the thesis for a doctoral degree — there’s no university or anything like that to work in.
Or the teacher, you know, who studies, who studies that sort of thing, and they become realised. And what they do is they just help their students, and they guide them. They help them. You know? They help them.
And to those students who are poor, whatever the teacher has, he will give the things to the student and let them study. So whatever they’re spending the rest of their life studying and meditating on — it’s not that they have a big future, or they can become some kind of — get a good job. Or in actual fact, in Tibet, the market for that sort of thing does not exist. You know what I mean? The market — yeah.
He will tell you — there is a Tibetan meditator. So he understood the meaning of emptiness. He realised it for himself, and he became so ecstatic about the whole realisation that he sang a song called a spiritual song. And he is the author of the practice of the dakini of, you know, practising of Mahāmudrā, the great seal. This lineage of the techniques became the similar lineage of the dakini of Mahāmudrā practice that Lama Tsongkhapa took. Geshe-la asked me to translate it like that.
So these teachers say that the main — how to say it? — the hideout of the main enemy who has been harming us from beginningless time is within one’s heart. Is it clear? Yes. Mhmm.
Mhmm. You know, that enemy — that enemy which is, you know, grasping at oneself — is holding at the object or holding the things which are not truly existent as truly existent, and whereby, you know, produces the self-cherishing for oneself, and fools us through making temporary happiness for oneself as a result of self-cherishing, whereby, you know, we have been taking rebirth in different sorts of miserable places for many times or countless times. Mhmm. With the great kindness of my teacher, I have been able to find out the hideout — the real hideout of my real enemy — which is the inborn sense of grasping at oneself. After having kicked out, you know, the real enemy — the grasping, sense of grasping at oneself — I am able to become completely touched with, or I have seen the real, the primordially freed mind, which is the basic sense of intelligence, or the basic nature of the mind, which is clear light.
So I have found out the real nature of the mind, which is clear light, or which is the cognitive luminosity. So as we have been saying: the real nature of the mind is free of all those, you know, temporary clouding defilements. The basic nature of the mind is clear light, or the clear cognitive luminosity. Mhmm. So after having practised, this great scholar — or this great saint or practitioner — was able to find out, or able to get to know, his real nature of his mind.
You see? Mind. Mind. So that mind, you know, that mind recognises the real nature of the entire phenomenon, including himself, as emptiness — as devoid of the superficial way of designations, you see, designations. So that sort of practice — when you open your mind, when you open your mind and make the basic spark of intelligence become in touch with the real nature of the entire phenomena through emptiness.
And this emptiness and this cognising mind becomes one. You know? They become one. They become oneness with each other, as in the manner of water pouring into water. So this has been, you know, explained as the mother meeting — the mother-like clear light meeting with the son-like clear light.
You see, when the mother hasn’t met her son for a long time and when she meets with her son, it’s really a great pleasure. In a similar way, the nature of the phenomena and one’s real nature of the mind becomes oneness with each other — in other words, maybe the cosmic consciousness, something like that. And at the end, he said he made this sort of declaration: now I have found out, or I have met, my real friend — which is the oneness of the understanding of emptiness with objective emptiness. And that’s — he said this understanding, or this combined understanding, is my real friend, or my real guidance. So I’m very happy.
And this understanding helped him to develop a tremendous amount of compassion for other sentient beings. So it means that when you find out what is the real cause for you to experience saṃsāra and so forth — when you realise the emptiness, then you know: yes, the opposite of that idea of emptiness is the real cause of suffering. So then you realise that’s right. All sentient beings’ suffering is due to their own self-grasping or ignorance. So they are suffering.
So this is the cause of their suffering. Then you understand the real disease — their real chronic disease. You know, you realise the chronic cause, or the chronic disease of suffering, of other people through your own understanding, then you develop a sort of extraordinary sort of, you know, compassion for other people. That’s why this is the main thing which has been bothering all other sentient beings. So in actual fact, when you get more idea of the emptiness, you have a better chance of developing more compassion towards other people — provided I mean, you — yeah.
I’m just very sort of ignorant about the whole things, so she used to say as her part of very kind and affectionate advice to me: that you have to look after this. You have to say that I am the best. You know, I can do everything. Nobody could challenge me. This is your, you know, protection — kind of independence or whatever.
My mother thought that, you know, having — in other words — self-grasping, is your real cause of, you know, source of help, or source of protection, source of inspiration, source of spirituality. So when you begin the meditations on emptiness, it should be through your understanding the meaning of emptiness, logically or analytically — investigating the object of negation. You see? And when you investigate the whole thing through the idea or the sense of emptiness — then, how to say, logically, you come to the end that the thing does not exist, or that sort of idea does not exist, in terms of the existence of the entire thing. So that very sense is called negation, or it is just the elimination of that sort of, you know, idea.
You see? And so you try to, you know, meditate, or try to keep that, you see, and try to fix your mind in that sense of non-objectifying elimination — or negation. Yeah. So the way you meditate upon the emptiness should be in this way. Normally, we talk about: I have seen the sky, or I have seen the space.
You just look at the space and see, oh, I can see the space. So the space means just a mere absence of obscurations or obstructions. It’s the space. Right?
So you see the space. You can say, yes, I can see the space. What do you see? Means the mere absence of the obstructions, or absence of blocking.
You see? So that is the space. You see the space, but there seems to be nothing. But you see the space — in a similar way. You see?
In a similar way — I mean, in a similar way, you see — when you logically investigate that logically, you become convinced that there’s no such I, no sense of I existing in the way it has been, you know, designed by the inborn sense of grasping at oneself. So try to get that sense of elimination of that sort of existing I, which has been designed by the, you know, self-grasping mind. You see? You must try to meditate on that in the sense of kind of elimination or emptiness, as much as or as long as you can. Oscar.
Yeah. Definitely. And this is the very much what we talked — which is somewhat a very gross level of relating towards the meditation of emptiness through the logical reasoning. So there are many subtle reasonings or subtle ways of looking at the emptiness, and that will come as you progress through the path of meditation on emptiness. Mhmm.
So the meditation upon the emptiness has to be in that way — that, you know, everything exists in the way of dependent origination, but does not exist in the way it has been designed by the self-grasping mind. Just the mere elimination or nonexistence of the way things have been sort of designed by the unthinking way of thinking is called emptiness. It does not mean the nothingness, you see. So this is how you sort of progress in the meditation of emptiness. For if you don’t do it that way, then it will happen like the story which I will tell you.
And there was a Tibetan meditator called Chopran Rupacci, and he got a student. He was meditating on emptiness. And after quite a while, he came and complained to his teacher: oh, I’m meditating on emptiness, and I can’t seem to find myself, so I don’t exist. And he became so miserably sad — oh, I don’t exist. He started to cry.
So then his teacher said: if bloody you don’t exist, then who is that person who is crying? As to sort of summarise whatever we’ve talked so far — using the bodhicitta or altruism as a method, and understanding of emptiness as a wisdom. So through the combination of these two aspects of approaching towards one’s spiritual goal or spirituality — that is called Mahāyāna, or the higher vehicles. Mhmm. And the sense of renunciation we talked.
Mhmm. So you developed a sense of renunciation, particularly working with yourself in terms of experiencing the suffering of saṃsāra through the twelve links of dependent origination or dependent arising, you see. And you develop a sincere wish to, you know, free yourself — basically free yourself — from the experience of those sufferings, and that is as a method. And as a wisdom you use the understanding of emptiness. And a person, whoever is, you know, approaching towards one’s goal or spirituality through that sort of combination, is called the approach of the lesser vehicle, or Hīnayāna. Again, developing the sense of fear in terms of the suffering of, particularly you know, the three lower realms, or three lower unfortunate destinies.
And as a method to get out of that, or as a method to release oneself from that sort of fear, one engages in the minor practice such as morality of abandoning the ten non-virtues and so forth, and aiming towards achieving just a good human rebirth. And whoever is approaching towards one’s goal of spirituality in that way is called — how do you say — not lesser, not weaker, I should say: the person of small capacity. Yeah. The main practice of the person of small capacity involves disciplining oneself in day-to-day activities of, you know, the body, mind, and speech. So with regards to disciplining the mind during day-to-day life in terms of the small person’s vehicle — it is explained through three examples in this Letter to a King.
So the first is drawing like drawing on the water. On the water. And the second is drawing on the ground. And third is drawing on the — or carving, you know, sort of carving. Yeah.
Carving. Carving. Yeah. Carving. That’s right.
I should say carving. So the first thing — drawing on the water, or drawing on the surface of the water — is that if one is having problems with one’s emotional afflictions such as anger, attachment, and so forth, at that time it’s hard to get rid of them straightaway from their root. But what we should do is try to make them disappear for at least quite a long time — as, yeah, when you try to draw something on the water, it doesn’t sort of stay. It just goes away.
It disappears straight away. In a similar way, when you have problems with the emotional afflictions — you know, such as attachment, anger, and so forth — at that time, you know, let it sort of disappear quickly, as you know, as the drawing on the surface of water disappears quickly. And where is the positive mind? You try to make the positive state of mind, you see, as if it has been carved on the rock. The carved on the rock doesn’t disappear.
Yeah. With regards to speech, we can do three things in terms of speaking. The first thing, we can speak very nicely, and we can speak such things — such sweet things — that we can fill somebody’s heart with the sweetness of honey. That’s good. Can we change it?
Is we can speak the truth. Truth. The beauty of the truth, which is like a flower — speaking the truth. Yeah. The next thing that one can speak is speaking such things which cause which tears somebody’s heart, or in extreme dislike.
Mhmm. Is it clear? You can speak something that people don’t like, in other words. Don’t know what — that was telling to a king that, you know, if possible, you should try to use the two things, you know — speaking sweetly and speaking the truth. Basically, what we should try to do is: we try to do such things, you know.
We try to do such things which sort of, you know, cause us to get reborn from this, you know, better life to another better life, you see. So there are usually three ways that can happen. First is, as the book says, going from light to light — it means at the moment you have a better rebirth, so next time you also get a better rebirth. That’s explained as the going, or the transition, from light to light. Mhmm.
And the second is light to darkness. Light to darkness means back — so, you know, as having a good rebirth, you know, and by doing some mistake, you know, next time we went back to, you know, sort of a lower realm or something like that. And the third is darkness to darkness. Means, you know, you are already miserable and going from miserable to miserable.
You see? That sort of thing. Three. Mhmm. So now it says that normally we can find, you know, four ways of behaving — four ways of doing the whole thing.
The first — so the four specific ways of human behaviour have been exemplified through the example of mangoes. You know, it’s particular mango — you know, there are some mangoes which have ripened from the outside, but inside it hasn’t ripened. And some: inside ripened, outside not ripened. Some: both outside and inside both ripened. And sometimes none. So there are four types. Yeah?
Got that. Four sorts of types of mango things. So therefore, some persons — you know, some persons whose outer behaviour seems to be really good, seems to be very helpful — inside, they are dishonest. They want to cheat. Alright?
And some people — from the inside, they’re so good, they’re so sweet, but the outside is not that sweet, very rough. Okay? And some people — both outside and inside — both the activity of their mind and their bodily activity, are really good, very sweet. You know?
And some people — both are not good, internally and physically — trying to, you know, sort of cheat other people or be dishonest. You see? Out of that, what one should be doing is trying to be both mentally and physically sweet. After having good intentions, you know, good intentions with a little bit of rough physical manner is better than the other. Completely cheating, physically and mentally, is the worst. So you guys want, you know? Number one is, you know, mentally and physically being good. Very sweet. Alright?
And after that, you know, with the good motivations, you know, the rough physical action comes next. It’s it’s good. You know? It’s okay. So it means that some people — as you know, some people who have really good motivation — for some reason, the way they speak, you feel like he is or she is yelling at you, or saying bad things, you know?
But in actual fact, he is not, or she is not. So in some of the teachings — Ratnaveli — it’s said that people with good motivations, with, you know, rough physical action, are alright. Their roughness of physical action can be overcome with their pure intentions. The pure intention can overcome the — how do you say — can you sort of rectify his or her rough physical action? Because after a while, when you get to know someone, then you know: he or she says rough things, but actually I know he or she loves me.
You know, that sort of thing. You know, get to know in the end. Yeah. So as the introductory part of this Letter to the King, he said that he has put everything what Buddha said — beginning from the beginning of how to practise the path, towards the end of achievement of the Buddhahood. You know?
Yeah. That’s fine. That’s good. As the conclusion of this letter, the teacher is, you know, telling the king that whatever I said in this — which is beginning from the hard practice to achieving Buddhahood — is hard to put into implementation. Why?
And it is even hard to do such things fully, to be done by those people who become ordained, who become like a monk, or who give up the family sort of life, who become a monk, who is especially, you know, trying to specialise in doing such things. You see? And choose the place to live in a very solitary place, or live in the middle of nowhere, and trying to specialise in that. You see? For them — even for them — it is hard to put everything into implementation with a hundred percent success.
So, however, he said to a king: whatever you find from what I have said, helpful for your mind, and whatever you think you can do, please do that. If you can do the whole thing, do whatever you like, whatever you think. On top of that, the present thing that what you have got is: you have got a precious human rebirth, so please don’t misuse that. Rather, make it useful, you know, worthwhile. Don’t, you know, waste that sort of good opportunity of