Training of the Mind — 09 ToM

Training of the Mind (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)

Training of the Mind — 09 ToM

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Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 19-minute session, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen addresses the fear that arises in tonglen practice — the meditation on taking and sending. He clarifies a crucial point: while you visualize taking on others’ suffering, you do not actually absorb their karma. When physical pain or sickness emerges during practice, it should be met with rejoicing, a sign the practice is ripening. He broadens to the Training of the Mind: establishing all sentient beings as your mother through understanding past kindnesses, accepting harm by recognizing your own karma as its cause, and contemplating karmic consequences for those who harm you. He closes with dedication prayers to achieve enlightenment and lead all beings there, emphasizing the importance of understanding meaning.

So the fear that one experiences — it is not the actual result of meditating on tonglen. So it is not the result of the tonglen practice. But then at that stage, while one is doing the tonglen practice, if one goes through these problems like physical pain or some sicknesses, and also feels, like, overwhelmed, then at that stage, one should rejoice.

So if one is to experience this situation at that time, one should be feeling joy — one should rejoice — because one is taking the other’s suffering, the suffering of others, into oneself, and now it is ripening. So because of that, one should feel joy.

So when you say, like, doing meditation on tonglen — for example, what type of fear? So when the fear arises at that stage — for example, when one is taking the suffering of the lower realms upon oneself — actually, in actuality, one is not really taking the suffering. In reality, one is not taking it. So the fear here might be: because of taking other’s suffering into oneself, one has to go through this suffering. So the fear might be that one has to go through the other’s suffering.

So then, like, having the fear — having the fear — it is not a good reason to hold back, because one is doing that practice, and if possible, one should, from the depth of one’s mind and heart, be able to accept all the sufferings of others upon oneself. Then, taking all sufferings in the form of black light or any other shape, take them upon yourself.

And then there are more other practices, like follow-up practices that you can do — then you again take all those sufferings of oneself and others from out of oneself and do, what is it, a fire puja practice, where you burn all those. But here, Geshe-la said we won’t be explaining all this, all this explanation on that, because we won’t have time. So on that part, one can only say so much.

So this mother here refers to all sentient beings. So because all other sentient beings have been our own mother — and there is none who had never been our mother — because of that, the term mother is used for all.

So in this line — the harms that you see from other sentient beings, and the sufferings that other beings suffer — all these harms and sufferings, one should, like, take upon oneself. So how one accepts the harm that one receives from others is: thinking that oneself has been the cause for this harm. And in that way, we accept the harms that we receive from others.

So for example, because of one’s own karma — because one has created karma — the others have harmed one. And then, on the other hand similarly, the other person bringing harm to one collects negative karma, to be reborn into the lower realms and go through sufferings. And thinking on this point, one meditates compassion towards them.

So the circle of cause and effect: others bring harm to one because one has created the karma to receive harm in the past. And similarly, those who bring harm will have to experience the result of that in the future. So that is how it circles — cause and effect. How one should train: if others bring harm to one, then accepting the harm, plus meditating compassion towards them.

So we do the dedication. So this dedication is here. As according to the translation, through this skillful action that goes very deep — this is all the virtuous action that we have collected during this period of time. So through these skillful actions — like those of the present, and those of past and future — all those skillful actions, or the virtuous actions: through these virtuous actions, may I quickly become an awakening spiritual teacher. Which means may I quickly achieve that state which is the state of the spiritual teacher.

So then the next two lines: and lead each and every sentient being to the enlightened state — that state which one has achieved — making prayers that I lead all those sentient beings to that state which I have achieved. That is the enlightened state.

So with understanding these meanings, if one needs to chant this prayer, then it becomes very good. One thing: if you don’t understand the meaning, and secondly if you chant it in Tibetan, then it becomes, I would say, very hard — which becomes double the difficulty. So it will be good if we do it in English. But anyway, however — so we do the chanting in English. We do the long life prayer for His Holiness. That is on page number ten.