Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen teaches tolerance from the Training of the Mind commentary. He contrasts the worldly view—that not retaliating makes you weak—with the Dharma perspective that anger destroys accumulated virtue. The core teaching is counterintuitive: view someone who has harmed you as your supreme spiritual friend. He illustrates this through practical examples (family conflict, political leadership, workplace harm) and the story of Sharawa, imprisoned by a close friend. Geshe Dhawa explains how to reframe harm as your own karma ripening and respond with compassion toward the person who caused it. He emphasizes that each instance of repeated harm is an opportunity to deepen your tolerance practice and train the mind. Pitched at practitioners with some Dharma study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 ToM.mp3
UUID: 4dde3c30-d8ec-4ab6-a306-77d67b209ca1
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Training of the Mind (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1996 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.1 minutes
Words: ~2,192
Like, the practice of tolerance is the most difficult one. So in the worldly way of looking at it — that if someone comes and punches you on your head and if you don’t do something back to the person, the other might think you are not great and not strong enough and are very weak. But if you look at it from the point of Dharma, or from the point of this teaching of mind training, non-virtue through hatred or anger is the heaviest. And it’s because if you generate a moment of hatred or anger, then that destroys or weakens years and years of — I would say — accumulation of your virtue. Virtuous karma, which has been dedicated — all those are weakened by that anger or that moment of hatred.
So as an example: attachment can’t get rid of anger. So he said anger or hatred, to become calmer about it — it is because that is the one which destroys the root of virtue. So the hatred or anger is something which is very bad and brings about a lot of problems. If you see this among families, anger brings problems among parents within. And then outside, if you go outside and if you get angry at someone, then that again brings about more problems — which is fights and so on. And that also can cause one to go to prison and so on. So anger is what we don’t need, or what we shouldn’t have.
So among here, maybe there is no one going for the election — no one is standing for the post of prime minister. But even if someone from here happens to be going for the election as a prime minister, if that person is short-tempered, then even though the person has qualities, if the person is short-tempered, he or she won’t be able to get it — let’s say, get elected. So even if you are known as a very skilled person, a very well-known and skilled person, but if you are a very short-tempered, angry-natured person, then people won’t vote for you. Because they might think that you are a short-tempered, angry-natured person and might do something very bad. So in that respect, they won’t vote for you.
So like that, even if one doesn’t have any faults, if others out of jealousy abuse and insult — what one should do there is that one should practise tolerance — the patience of not retaliating — tolerance of not harming others. So then the sixth verse, which again shows tolerance, the practice of tolerance, which is born through accepting. So for example, as it says in the line: if there is someone whom I have assisted, and in whom I have placed great hope — so you place great hope in that person, but instead of doing something good, if the person has brought great harm to you — like bringing great suffering, or putting you in prison, or doing something bad — at this stage, you should voluntarily accept the suffering. So that is the part which shows what type of tolerance it is — the tolerance of voluntarily accepting. So we go with the lines here. The first line: “When someone whom I have assisted and in whom I have placed great hope inflicts me with extremely bad harm, I shall view him as my supreme spiritual friend.”
So normally when you do this as a daily practice, you do the prayer in the form of: may I view the person as a supreme spiritual friend.
So as a story: there was a person called Sharawa. So that person called Sharawa had a very close friend, a very, very close friend, and that other person lived quite a distant place away. And Sharawa thought that because they were very good friends, he would go and make a visit. So when he reached his friend’s house, that friend, instead of inviting him, kicked him out — and let other persons steal his belongings and put him in prison. So in this situation, if we were to face this situation, or someone who is doing mind training practice were to face this situation, then as it is advised in the Bodhicaryāvatāra teachings — which says that accepting all the sufferings of others, taking all the sufferings of others to yourself, upon yourself, and giving all the happiness of yours and joy to others.
So that is how the person should train. So in this situation, how one should think is: instead of — even if one has benefited the person and one has placed great hope in that person, if one is being harmed — then at that stage, how one should think is that the suffering that one is going through is created by oneself. It’s one’s own karma — pointing towards one’s own karma, that one is responsible for. So if you don’t point to your karma as being responsible for that, and instead point towards others for that situation — then if you are a practitioner of this mind training, you are practising giving all your happiness towards others and taking others’ suffering to yourself. If you are doing that practice, then that practice is a lie. It’s not a real practice if you do that. One should think: in one’s past life, one has done harm to other sentient beings, like how that harm has come to one this time. And now the karma is ripening on me. So you point towards your karma. You shouldn’t point towards others for that.
So as an example: if a guest comes in and you treat the person very well — like offering tea, food, and a place to live — after a few days, the person goes back to his country or his place. And then it happens that next year you visit that person, and you go to that person’s place, but then that person ignores you. Even if you go close, if he is pretending that he even didn’t see you — at that stage, you might think that person is — I would say, in a worldly way of thinking — very bad. Which means we might say to others: “That person didn’t speak to me.” So and if one were to face that situation, then instead of saying that that person is very bad, you should now point yourself and say: I have collected — I have accumulated — that karma to experience it.
So then: not pointing towards others for that — but also meditating compassion towards the other person who has done that to you — thinking that he or she has done this to me, and now he or she has accumulated very heavy negative karma, and that he or she has to go through suffering. So thinking on that and meditating compassion towards them. That is what we should do — meditate compassion towards that person — because he or she collected this negative karma in dependence upon us. And the reason how he or she did this is that if the person is living in the city, we happened to go to the city and meet that person, and that caused that person to create these negative actions. And as a result, that person goes to suffer.
So similarly again, quoting a line from the Bodhicaryāvatāra: that if you have benefited others and if the others give you harm instead of benefit — the answer to that, what you should do towards that harm given by others towards you — is that you should meditate on compassion. So as the holy beings — they reciprocate those harms given by others with positive actions. That is like meditating bodhicitta, or practising bodhicitta, or doing other positive practices. And that is how they gradually achieve the enlightenment stage.
He’s still listening. There are still a few lines that he didn’t finish explaining. So it’s hot today, so he said he will stop here. And maybe we’ll only have one more class to go. That’s next week. And we’ll still have some more to go. And it might take a little more than two hours. So if it happens, don’t — what is it? So don’t get angry.
So all these explanations — if one is to summarise — what they are saying is: if, even though one doesn’t have fault or mistake, others come and abuse or criticise one, then one should not go and say “I want to reciprocate right back.” So at that stage, one should accept the loss and give the victory to others. And then the second line says: even if you have benefited the other person, if instead of help you receive harm from that person, you shouldn’t blame that person. You should blame yourself — your karma. Because of my karma, I caused him to get angry. And out of that, he might have to suffer or go through suffering. And thinking about the other person’s suffering, one meditates compassion towards that person. So giving the victory to others — by doing that, you are doing two practices: the practice of tolerance and the practice of compassion. And these two practices you do in dependence upon that person.
So we start here. Any questions? Do you understand? He said if you have anger or hatred, that destroys the accumulation of virtue that you have accumulated. Similarly, if you want to meditate on compassion or tolerance, that too is the same way.
So as it is said in the teachings: the two duties — that is, at the very beginning, a very good motivation, and at the very end, a very good dedication. And if you have done a good dedication of your virtue, then as I said, I don’t think the anger will destroy that. So as a result of virtuous actions and the result of non-virtuous actions — for example, the result of non-virtuous actions: we would be reborn in a lower realm, and even if it happens that we could take a human rebirth, we would go through great suffering, or sickness, or have great attachment — these are the results. So those are known as the ripening results of negative actions. And similarly with the ripening results of positive or virtuous actions — for example, if you practise giving or generosity, then as a result it brings wealth. You receive wealth. And similarly, if you do the virtuous action of practising tolerance, then it counteracts the ripening result of anger or hatred.
So if there are many ripening results of virtuous action, at that stage, if you do get angry or if you have hatred, then that hatred decreases those numbers of virtuous actions, or delays the ripening result of virtuous action. So even like, for example, if you are going to experience the result of karma, if you do have hatred or anger, then that hatred makes — or puts it in this way — you won’t be able to experience at that moment the result of virtuous action. So one should think or meditate, contemplating over the faults of anger or hatred — like, if one has anger or hatred, what are the faults that you experience immediately right after? Or also, you contemplate the future results of that anger.
So if you contemplate over the faults of anger, and if your partner, or children, gets angry towards you, if you are able to tolerate — if you are patient — then instead of getting angry, you can laugh at them. So if a person happens to continuously bring harm or do something bad, then that is something which we always have the chance to practise tolerance. One should always practise tolerance — it’s a chance for you to increase your practice of tolerance. So if there’s no one around who makes you angry, then there’s no chance for your tolerance. So if it happens that someone around you is always making you angry, then if you do practise tolerance, then — let’s say — you are receiving a profit all the time.
So the Dharma teachings or the instructions — they are what fixes the mind. So when we practise Dharma, then if while one is practising Dharma your mind stays or remains the same as before, then your Dharma practice has not been effective — the result of your Dharma practice has not been good. So in this situation: someone harms you, and instead of giving harm to others, if you point towards yourself and contemplate that I have caused this myself — pointing to yourself — then that is one way of fixing the mind, or training the mind. Training the mind.
So if you tolerate one time to the same person, a second time, a third time — if you again tolerate — then there will come a time when the person won’t do anything. He or she might think: he never gets angry, and I don’t want to do anything — he will leave. Yeah.