Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 30-minute session, Geshe Nawang Dhargyey teaches the foundational steps for developing bodhicitta, the altruistic wish to attain enlightenment for all beings. He begins with conviction in past and future lives, illustrated through the famous story of Chandragomin convincing the hedonist Charvaka by demonstrating his own rebirth. He then walks through six successive meditations: recognising all sentient beings as our mothers, remembering their kindness, repaying it through spiritual teaching, developing affectionate love, cultivating great compassion as the root of all spiritual training, and taking personal responsibility to free all beings from suffering. This seventh thought naturally gives rise to bodhicitta, the precious mind of enlightenment. Geshe Nawang illustrates the value of these teachings through the example of the master Atisha, who travelled thirteen months from India to Indonesia to receive these instructions and thereafter held his teacher in such high regard that the mere mention of his name moved him to tears. Addressed to serious practitioners ready to engage with Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 SF 1985 05 03.mp3
UUID: fbd6d3e6-354c-46d9-8278-175403ca391f
Teacher: Geshe Nawang Dhargyey
Collection: Advice from a Spiritual Friend (Geshe Nawang Dhargyey)
Date: 1985-05-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.4 minutes
Words: ~3,078
And then she when when she attained the age when she could speak well then she described her parents, their names and where they lived, the description of the house of her last life’s parents and so on. And then the parents of the present life had to take her to the parents of her last life and everything she said, tell it. And it was amazing, vivid correct remembrance of her last life and she had a good fortune. This girl as well as the two sets of parents, one from the last life and the other from this life had good fortune of seeing his Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Until we develop the extra sensory perception of the five types of extra sensory perceptions, one of them is called the clairvoyance or the extra sensory perception of seeing our lives.
Until we develop develop that extra sensory perception, then we have to rely on the power of valid inferential cognition to establish the existence of former and future lives. The personal life is the future life of the last life and if a person could understand when a person understands that the present life and the true logical reason and if he comes to conclude and is convinced that the present life is the future life of the of past of the last life. And then if he goes to believe that there is no future life then he’s reasoning. The line of his logic is called the blinded logic or one eyed logic. And now in the past in India there was a famous Indian Buddhist master called Chandragomin who was a great practitioner of the God of Compassion, Lokeshvara.
This Buddhist master went into into a debate with a hedonist called Charvaka, and then this Buddhist master Chandragomin asked the Charvaka or the hedonist whether he believed in the power of inferential or inferential cognition. And then the hedonist said, so to me, only seeing is believing. And if I do not see, I do not believe it exists in something. And the Buddhist master couldn’t succeed in convincing of anything. Because to the hedonist, for him only seeing is believing.
Then in order to convince through seeing is believing principle that he that there is future life. The king of the country was called as a witness and told the hedonist in the presence of the king that you keep you keep watching. I will be reborn in the in the as a child in in that family with these physical signs. Then what happened was as this Buddhist master said he would be reborn as a child in certain family with his physical signs, and then the king the country was there to witness to such a thing. Exactly as the Buddhist master said, he was reborn as a child with all the descriptions.
And then because Charvaka saw for himself such a thing as the existence of future life, he had abandoned his disbelief in the existence of future life and this helped many Cārvākas or other hedonists appreciate Buddhism and became Buddhists. The importance of gaining conviction in the former future and lives is that we may be able to develop the second point, the second thought of understanding that all sentient beings are mothers. If you could understand the existence of former and future lives, it will facilitate the development of the second thought that all sentient beings are our mothers. Now, it will be a great achievement if we could develop these and if we develop these in such a person if we could, whenever we see any being, we will always see them in the light of one’s own mothers and even go to the extremes of calling them by the name of one’s mothers. And this was literally done by the great Indian Buddhist master Atisha.
Whenever he saw any sentient being, he would call them my mother. And the third thought is to remember the kindness of sentient beings as our mothers when they happen in our mothers. And now that is we have to train ourselves in the third series, a serial order of thought, that is the thought of remembering the kindness of sentient beings. And we remember the kindness of sentient beings when they happen to our mind by remembering the kindness of our present mother. And our present mothers, our present mother is extremely kind to us at three different times, at the beginning when she held us in our womb, in the stage when she actually gave birth to us and then bringing us up also then towards the end and looking after us in every way as she could manage.
So in fact, long explanations can be given about these. If one comes to really appreciate the fact that our mother is extremely kind, whose kindness cannot be described in words, then we can we have to reflect relate the same kindness towards sentient beings when they have an too so they were equally kind. It says two people who gave you monetary and financial assistance of giving you one thousand dollars this year and last year, both equally kind because both have done kindness to one. Similarly, just as the mother of this lifetime is kind to you, similarly, sentient beings, when they have been our mothers in our many past lives throughout beginning of time, So they too are extremely kind to us like our own mother is kind to us now. Now the fourth thought is repayment of kindness of sentient beings.
And when you have remembered understood how kind sentient beings were when they happened to our mothers, and then naturally, if one is a person of integrity, one would think of repaying their kindness and how should one repay their kindnesses of sentient beings, mother sentient beings. Now what they would benefit, what would make them happy is peace and joy. What they need is happiness and joy, yet they do not know how to accomplish, how to be happy and what afflicts them is sufferings and miseries, yet they do not know the causes of their own suffering and their own miseries. Now, although you may try to repair their kindness and to give material sort of things, but the best best repayment of kindness would be to remove their sufferings totally and to to give them the everlasting peace of happiness, peace or happiness. And if by showing them in order to do that by showing them the spiritual path so that would be the best kind of repayment of kindness of sentient beings or mother sentient beings.
Fifth one is, the fifth thought is development of affectionate love for sentient beings. It is said this thought will naturally arise if you have been successful in the development of the first thought from the fourth thought of repaying their kindnesses. There is slight difference between affectionate love and love wishing to give sentient beings happiness. And now, with regard to the second type of love, we have to make effort in being able to generate the wish how nice it would be if all sentient beings are happy and have the causes causes of happiness. Thus being able to see all sentient beings as one’s mother and also thinking of repaying their kindnesses, then naturally whenever we see sentient beings, an affectionate love we would develop for them.
Thus, if we could develop affectionate love for them, it is said that one would enjoy eight types of benefit. I mentioned a few of them like one would be always liked whether others know one or not, and one would develop resistance to weapons, and second, now the third one is one would also develop resistance to poisonous affect, poisonous matters and then one would also develop, one would remain unaffected by humans and non humans and so on. Love or the great love means wishing sentient beings throughout space, wishing motherly sentient beings throughout space, wishing motherly sentient beings throughout space, every happiness. That is called the great love. The sixth thought we have to develop is great compassion.
Compassion is the root of major trainings and minor teachings and it’s the root faculty of major practice and it’s like the root of major practice and it’s the seed of highest enlightenment. Great compassion, the thought of great compassion is praised by the victorious ones in all sutras and tantras. That’s compassion being indispensable for developing or for leading us to develop altruistic mind of enlightenment or the highest form of altruism. Thus, we have to develop or practice developing compassion. And compassion can be developed most quickly by observing suffering beings or suffering sentient beings like some animals which are about to be killed or butchered.
Compassion or the great compassion means a strong wish or keen wish to free all motherly sentient beings throughout space from their suffering. Just as to harvest a crop, first we need the seed and then intermediately we need cooperative factors like heat, manure and water. And then at the end, the ripening factor of a crop is important for the crop to be reaped. Similarly, in order to reap the qualities of the spiritual qualities of Buddha, compassion in the beginning, like the seed is important in the beginning, and compassion is absolutely necessary intermediately like the cooperative factors, water, heat, fertilizers are indispensable intermediately. And compassion is also important to realize the qualities of Buddha in the same way as the ripening factor of crop is important.
That when one has developed a real compassion, the real great compassion, then the person is only too willing to undergo any suffering, any face, any difficulties for the sake of working and elevating others’ suffering or relieving others of their suffering. Like, even if one has to remain in the hell realm for the sake of removing one particular sentient being from the hell realm, but if by remaining in the hell realm, if he is able to remove or liberate one from the hell realm, that person who has strong compassion will be only too willing to be there. Paying salutations or prostrations to great compassion by understanding its importance, then it also means paying salutations or respects to all the Buddhas. It is said that Buddhas don’t rest even for a second and don’t enjoy themselves and they always insist on the work for sentient beings. Even a second rest is because of the power of compassion.
The seventh thought is the development of special thought. The seventh thought is the development of special willpower or special thought. And special thought is, just as it says, to great compassion and great love. And this special thought is a strong resolution that I will myself make all sentient beings to enjoy eternal peace.
And I will myself remove all sentient beings from remove or free them from their sufferings. So one takes upon oneself the entire responsibility or the task of fulfilling this great aim. So that such a thought is more extraordinary than otherwise the great altruistic thought of the great love and the great compassion. And then after one has made this strong pledge or the strong this pledge, this strong resolution that our mind itself cause all sentient beings to be eternally happy and free from sufferings eternally, and then one examines one’s own capabilities, whether one is in a position to do this or not. As one examines one’s own capabilities, one sees that one suffers from various limitations.
Even let alone worldly gods, even highly evolved practitioners aren’t able to fulfill this task. However high evolved they may be, still they cannot perform or fulfill this task in the same way as the Buddha does. Therefore understanding that it’s only the Buddha, the person of Buddha who is able to remove all suffering of sentient beings and give them eternal peace. Therefore, feels the necessity, the utter necessity of developing the state of Buddhahood or attaining the state of Buddhahood because when one attains that, one will have acquired all the skill and one will have all the means that the Buddha has in freeing all sentient beings from their suffering and giving them eternal peace. And that development of that feeling of necessity of wanting to achieve the state of enlightenment for the sake of sentient beings to remove their suffering and give them eternal peace of Buddhahood or enlightenment.
So that such a development of a feeling or development of such a feeling is called the altruistic mind of highest enlightenment. Developing the altruistic mind of enlightenment or bodhicitta. And this method is called the seven cause and one result method. Equanimity is excluded and it’s only regarded as the foundation for the six causes to be developed and the the result of enlightenment. So this method is called the seven cause one result instruction or method to develop the precious mind of enlightenment.
Tomorrow I’m going to talk about the second method of developing the precious mind of enlightenment. It’s called it’s called through equalizing and exchanging self for others instruction to develop the precious mind of enlightenment. In fact, the center has asked me only to deal with the second method. I thought it would be nice to deal with the first method too because then you would have gained some familiarity because even in order to explain second method, we have to start off with the development of equanimity, recognition of all sentient beings as mothers, and repaying their kindness and so on. Now, if you could try to understand and after understanding, if not all, some in your mind.
And these are in fact very precious teachings. And it is for these teachings that the famous Indian Buddhist master, I think of the ninth or tenth century, who braved thirteen months long voyage from India to Indonesia to receive these instructions from his master. If you could reflect and practice these teachings, nothing so so I think there will be nothing more wholesome than these two practices. This famous master called Atisha, when he had to say the name of his master called Lama Serlingpa. Serlingpa actually means island of gold, and it’s called Suvarnadwipa.
And when he had to say the name of this master, at once he would fold, join his hands together, thumbs tucked in, and place such joined hands on the crown of his head, and then his eyes filled with tears, and his body shaking, quivering, or tumbling, then he would, with great difficulty, say the name of this master. And then his students wanted and asked why Atisha did all these. And when of his one hundred and fifty seven masters, when he had to say the name of this particular master, he did all these. And he said, the reason why these things involuntarily happen with me when I have to say the name of this master is because it’s not because I have a greater respect and less respect for others. It’s just because I have a small degree of loving-kindness and I developed this small degree of loving-kindness by relying on instruction by teaching of this precious master Acharya Suvarnadwipa.
And the later masters interpreted this as meaning the preciousness, as implicating or implying the preciousness of the mind of enlightenment meaning that when the master who taught him instructions to develop this kindheartedness is so held in high esteem by the master it goes to prove that it goes to prove that precious mind is root of all Mahāyāna or the foundation of all Mahāyāna practices. Thus, we have now some materials to meditate on and practice and it will be very nice indeed and you will make your life extremely fruitful and meaningful by practicing these or by meditating on instructions as to how to develop equanimity and how to meditate on the thoughts leading up development of the precious mind of enlightenment of bodhicitta and by these we would have made our lives or you would have made your life extremely meaningful. And otherwise, just as a great Tibetan master called Gungtang Rinpoche has said, even if one were to own the whole country, like he he has literally said, even if you own the whole valley filled with gold and precious things, you wouldn’t have any right to take as part of that when you would go to the next life.
Instead, if you say the six-syllable mantra of the God of Compassion, Avalokiteśvara, Om Mani Padme Hum, the mantra of Chenrezig, Om Mani Padme Hum, once. So that single recitation of Om Mani Padme Hum would be your lasting provision for long future journey. Therefore, your meditation on this would be much more worthwhile and more precious than if you were to possess this entire country filled with precious stones and gold. In the past in India one of the Buddha’s prominent disciple was Śāriputra and Śāriputra had his own disciple, and usually his disciple and he always went together for begging alms. And one day, the disciple said, today, would you please go for alms, yourself as master, and I would like to step back and meditate.
And when the Śāriputra went, when the master Śāriputra went for alms, by the time he he came back, his his disciple was now totally transformed, and he had attained the state of arhathood in the absence of his master. Similarly, if you by meditating on these instructions, when we meet by tomorrow, please make yourself put aside time to do some meditation. No. Whether you realize it or not, and I really regard you as a very fortunate a matter of lucky people to be able to listen understand and appreciate these teachings that’s because you have been able to listen to Mahāyāna teachings and by listening to the Mahāyāna teachings whether you practice it or not is a different thing but By merely listening to the teachings, you have enriched your life so much that you have received strong imprints of the Mahāyāna teachings. And the strong or the latencies of the Mahāyāna teachings will be your exclusive that nobody can snatch and rob and steal away from you.
Yeah. Do not. And maybe you you you maybe you are feeling a bit tired now. No. I bother you.