Bodhisattva’s way of life C5 Patience — 07 BWL

Bodhisattva's way of life C5 Patience (Geshe Doga)

Bodhisattva's way of life C5 Patience — 07 BWL

Play EpisodePause Episode

Mute/Unmute EpisodeRewind 10 Seconds1xFast Forward 30 seconds

00:00/

RSS Feed

Share

Link

Embed

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

About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Geshe Doga explores the third type of patience from Śāntideva’s Bodhisattva’s Way of Life — the patience of refraining from retaliation when harmed. He begins by establishing the foundation: generating pure motivation, disciplining one’s own mind as prerequisite to helping others, and understanding that only Dharma can tame the mind. He then focuses on anger as the central obstacle, explaining that patience is the exclusive antidote and contrasting the swift self-destruction anger causes with the foolishness of not deploying the remedy already within us. Moving to the practical application, Geshe Doga teaches how to transform a harmful situation into compassion by recognising the attacker’s delusion and powerlessness, or at minimum, by refusing to retaliate — comparing retaliation to touching fire. Throughout, he emphasises moment-to-moment awareness and the choice to practice patience the instant anger arises. Suited for practitioners familiar with Buddhist ethics and the Lamrim framework.

So today, we are not going to do the meditation before teaching. Before starting the teachings, one must generate a good motivation. So you must all, first of all, watch your mind and see if it is in which form, good or bad. And then try to eliminate that bad thought or the uncontrolled mind. And then try to generate a good type of motivations.

So that your listening of Dharma I mean, the listening of Dharma and this short practice will benefit the other sentient beings. So, in fact, your motivation should be directed to all sentient beings without any discrimination. Yeah? Then so the but to benefit the other sentient being the in the actual sense, one must know the way to benefit. So, first, one must know that matter or way, and then one must put that into practice so that it would really help other sentient beings.

So The method of benefiting others is to help others in disciplining their mind. But before you could do that, first, you must discipline your mind. You must prepare yourself before you help others. So the training or disciplining one’s own mind is the most important in terms of benefiting others and also to to yourself. So, to discipline one’s own mind, one must know the Dharma clearly and then practice Dharma.

There is no other means than Dharma to discipline the mind. One can’t discipline the mind by using sticks or such external weapons. So, the Dharma is the only means to train one’s own mind. So, to calm your own mind or to discipline your mind, you must know the two kinds of mind. The first mind that acts to discipline the other mind.

So the the first kind of mind is something like subject which acts to to train some other kind of your mind. So the bodhicitta should be understood separately. So in our daily life, There are many things to see in our own mind. Rather than going to see pictures or such external amusements. So, if we watch the picture of our mind regularly, you can see many wonderful things.

You can see the two pictures, the good one and bad. So and we must know which is good and which is bad. So only then we could refrain from those those bad picture to arise in our mind. So, in this way, we can change our mind. Suppose if I say how to change the anger, you are the subject who has the anger within yourself.

The instrument to counter that anger is also within yourself. Patience. And the object is the anger. So, by using that instrument of patience, only then one can control the anger. So, when that anger arises, one must use one’s own instruments to practice patience.

Because no other instrument, no other means can destroy your anger. Because that is only the the antidote for your anger. There’s no other antidote. So, in the same way, to eliminate all such deluded mind, one must use one’s own instrument of that thought antidote, the mind. So the so the antidote or the instruments to destroy our anger is in our hands is within ourselves.

So so it is very pitiful if we don’t use that antidote when anger arises and it causes us lots of pain and suffering to us. Anger which is the the when that anger arises, it influences us to do many such negative actions. It even changes our normal physical forms. During that, even the color of our face would change. Become so fearful.

And if we say something, then our words would also become very harsh and so harmful to others. So, there are only shortcoming sides of that anger. It has no advantage. So, when that arises, you must use that instrument that is within yourself. Patience.

So for instance, if a person doesn’t use the cooler when the weather is so hot, then sure, he is stupid, I would say. So the people use cool whenever the hot weather arises. People use a cooler whenever the hot weather rises. They won’t stay. If they stay, they are stupid.

So, in the same way, we become stupid if we don’t use that instrument, that patience, when anger arises. So so it is very good. If you don’t allow that anger to arise from very beginning, If that anger arises or develops within ourselves, then at that very moment, what one must do is to think about that anger, think of it as the source of all your suffering and fully aware that I won’t become that I won’t go under your influence. So just to encourage encourage yourself and make firm determinations to not go under that dominance. So that your physical look also can change and also you can’t say harsh words or any such negative actions.

Because whether you are you believe in dharma or not. But if we watch upon that, if we examine all that aspect of anger, we know that there is no it has not any single, tiny advantage. So, while that arises, one must try to fully aware of those disadvantaged sides So as I mentioned before, one must be fully aware of not producing that type of anger in our daily life. So once that arises, practice patience so that it won’t develop. One must practice patience only when the anger arises.

If you don’t practice it, then the anger will become more and more strong and you will say many unacceptable things and do many such abnormal things. And the result is many disagreements with other people and such many pain to yourself. So, I mean, when everything is finished, then you have lost the chance of practicing patience. So, in fact, patience should be practiced when the anger arises. So, when the anger arises, if possible, try to remind yourself yourself of these disadvantages of anger which are said in this Śāntideva text.

If that is not possible, then at least think that the the, I mean, that the anger is not good. It’s the most, I mean, worst. And then, try to make yourself stronger than that anger. So that you can dominate your action. So in the last sessions we talked about the we divided the patience into three different kinds, you know?

And we finished the first two. And now the third one is the patience of refraining from retaliation. Retaliation. It means, when someone harms you, that if possible, before that anger arises one must try to practice patience. And if that anger happens to arise, try to not respond to other people that are harmful actions.

Not to retaliate his actions by doing this practice of patience. So when someone harms you, instead of giving response to him, harm for harm, then try to do the patience, try to generate compassion to him or on her. So how to develop compassion when other people harm you? The other people harm you sometimes due to their desire, due to their own anger, or due to such a deluded mind. And and if you watch his actions, his his body, his speech, his mind, then you will know that the that he is very pitiful.

You can be mercy upon him for such I mean, I would say, such it’s such bad action. Yeah? So every persons, you and other, has a strong feeling of ego, and grasping to one’s own self and always wish happiness to that self. But still, sometimes due to such deluded minds, such anger, or any such, they harm themselves, drink poison, do many such, I mean, action, although they have ego. So all such I mean, kind of suffering inflicted upon themselves by their own deluded mind, becoming uncontrollable to that mind.

So, in the same way, when other people have such deluded mind, they become powerless. So, by this way, one can also practice patience while others harm you. So when other harms you, it is appropriate to generate compassion. But if you can’t do this compassion, at least one should not produce anger towards that person. One can also avoid the cause of anger by thinking that that it is nature of all the ordinary beings to produce such anger and becoming controlled by that anger.

Because many such ordinary beings don’t know what is good and bad. Even if they know this, they are still prone to doing some bad actions. So, this is something like the nature of all the ordinary beings. So when someone hurts you, one must think that person has such a nature. And also, one must not respond his anger, his tough bad actions.

If one responds, then it’s like touching your hand to fire. But one may think that that example is not completely similar. Because we feel the heat only by touching that fire. Yeah? The fire doesn’t come to doesn’t chase us.

Yeah? So then we may think that it is justifiable to, I mean, to respond to other people because he harms me. Because he he’s If you are reason to respond to other people that that that he harms me, then then why don’t you respond to the stick? If that stick, I mean, how do say? Yeah.

Hit. Yeah.

Translation / བསྒྱུར།

This translation was generated using Gemini Pro 2.5 with a curated Buddhist terminology glossary and verified for register, glossary use, and absence of English leakage. The English transcript above remains the authoritative source.