Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 22-minute teaching, Geshe Nawang Dhargyey guides students through the foundational practice of exchanging self with others, a core Mahāyāna meditation on compassion. He begins by establishing equanimity — recognizing that all beings equally want happiness and wish to avoid suffering — then moves into the second major section: a detailed reflection on the disadvantages of self-cherishing thought. Using vivid metaphors and concrete examples drawn from Śāntideva, he shows how self-interest is the root cause of suffering: poverty results from past miserliness, illness from cutting short others’ lives, even political ruin stems from selfish leadership. He portrays self-cherishing as a chronic disease, a butcher, a thief, and an empty-handed ape — obstacles to enlightenment that a Mahāyāna practitioner must ruthlessly oppose while cultivating boundless kindness toward all beings. The teaching closes with practical notes on meditation posture and equipment for advanced wind practices.
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File: 04 SF 1985 05 04.mp3
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Teacher: Geshe Nawang Dhargyey
Collection: Advice from a Spiritual Friend (Geshe Nawang Dhargyey)
Date: 1985-05-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 22.3 minutes
Words: ~1,961
The second one is reflecting from various angles on the disadvantages of selfish concern or self-cherishing thought or selfishness. Then the third one is reflecting again from the various angles on the advantages advantages and the goodness of cherishing others, the thought of cherishing others. The fourth is the actual thought of exchanging self for others. The fifth section is how to engage in the practice of giving and taking in dependence on the formal sections. These are the five outlines or five sections and because they are just five, it will be quite easy to memorize also to keep in mind.
Equalizing self with others means to bring others on the same footing as self. Just as self or one doesn’t want to experience even a slight misery and painful sensation or just as one doesn’t want to experience even smallest degree of suffering or misery, and yet one is ever insatiable in terms of experience of happiness, peace. In the same way, others also do not want to experience even slightest degree of suffering and pain, and others also remain insatiable in terms of experience of joy and happiness. And although others and one are same, in that all of us do not want to experience misery and yet want happiness. Still, or yet, we think that yet the selfish concern, self-cherishing thought makes one think that it’s only one who must have happiness and who mustn’t undergo suffering.
And it’s selfish concern that makes one indifferent to others’ happiness and to the removal of others’ suffering. Now, we have to overcome this selfish concern which makes us want happiness only for oneself and not for others, and come to treat all other sentient beings on the same footing as one, in that all of us want happiness. All are same in that all want happiness and do not want suffering. Even if one were to care so much about oneself, self is just an individual, just one’s individual, whereas others are innumerable infinite. And therefore, it would be much more worthwhile and reasonable to care more about the welfare of the multitude of innumerable others than to care selfishly about one’s own interests.
And coming to understand these facts, one should now come to abandon selfish concern and now begin to work as much as one can for the others’ welfare. Last night we were talking about equanimity and equanimity helped us on how to iron out rough attitudes of attachment and hatred. Now this equanimity or this equating procedure helps us to treat all on the same footing and to come to see that all are same in that all want happiness and do not want suffering. Let this be a small explanation as to how to equalize self with others and by a way of bringing all on the same footing. And now the second is reflection from various angles on the disadvantages of thoughts of self-cherishing thought.
Now it’s very important to pay serious attention to the disadvantages of self-cherishing thought and come to realize how these are extremely disadvantageous. Otherwise, it is said until we realize disadvantages or faults of self-cherishing thought, even if one may receive teachings after teachings of a Mahāyāna, it would be like a building or erecting a house on the ice surface and it will suffer collapse at any moment. Therefore, if one comes to realize the faults of self-cherishing thought, then if one were to receive teachings of Mahāyāna teachings, one will think, one will come to realize that misfortunes or one is responsible, one has only one to blame for all misfortunes that befall one and one then begins to think that all goodness that they are in the world are due to others, due to the thought of cherishing others. Just as what checks the physical growth of a person like a young person would be his chronic illness or chronic disease. So like if he were to suffer from tuberculosis or other chronic sickness then it would check his physical growth.
Similarly, self-cherishing thought is a chronic disease that we have at our heart and we have to rid of it. Until we rid of it, it will check the growth of benevolent attitude towards others, benevolent attitude that we must develop if we want to achieve the state of enlightenment. And this will not happen so long as this chronic disease of self-cherishing thought is at our heart. Śāntideva says, In short, all misfortunes that person experiences or all misfortunes that befall one is entirely due to one’s own self-cherishing thought. All various forms of afflictions caused by a weapon, poison, humans, gods, non humans, and so on, all different forms of or suffering inflicted on one is also directly due to one’s own self-cherishing thought.
And also the reason why a person always suffers from the various physical illness and thus lives a very short life. Even these kind of unhappy experiences are said to be the results of self-cherishing thought. Like having suffer many physical sicknesses and also tending to live a very short life is because of self-cherishing thought. That is wanting benefit and gain for one and not worrying about caring for others’ and others’ well-being in one’s past life. One cut short of others’ love and like one butchered animals for the attachment to their meat and to their skin and so on.
And because one has cut short others’ lives due to this attachment due to this, so as a result, that action which was prompted by selfish concern, selfish interest, then recoils on one in the person’s life in the form of having to experience short, sickly life. When somebody becomes very poor or remains poor, it’s again due to selfish concern. The reason why a person, despite his her best attempt to be well off naturally, yet remains a poor person is because due to attachment to one’s own wealth in the past, one suffered from great miserliness and out of attachment to others’ wealth in the past. In order to get them, one stole and one robbed others of their possession and one indulged in unfair means to obtain others’ wealth as a result of this unhealthy attitude of miserliness and unhealthy action of robbing and stealing others’ wealth. One has to The reason why one indulge in this is because of selfish concern, attachment to self selfish welfare.
Thus one indulge in this action. And as a result of these, one has to live a very poor life or a poverty-stricken life. Like dying or death due to overeating is also said is a result of selfish concern. Being attached to self and glory, physical glory, and one thinking that one must look very fat, very glossy, and very strong. And thinking that eating much food would go to accomplish this.
So one ate this or one overeat and as a result one’s system could not cope with a heavy load of food. Food. As a result, there are cases of people dying of meeting death due to overeating, and this directly is due to selfish concern or self-cherishing thought. Even in the political arena or affairs, a leader who is very selfish and who only cares about people related to him and ignores others interests and others welfare. So he gradually becomes very unpopular and then when the worst comes to the worst, he loses his power and then he is thrown into prison and so on.
So this again, such a misfortune befallen him is said to be due to selfish concern. With regard to neighbors, a neighbor who is extremely shut within himself is quite selfish and doesn’t care about his next door neighbor. So he then gets automatically slowly ostracized because it’s his own bad behavior and selfish behavior and other neighbors wouldn’t come to like him and to make friends with him. In the case of a political leader who does not work for the welfare of, great, vast majority of people but only works for the selfish interests of a small party and a small group of people and the rich and so on. Then who misuses his power abuses his power.
Even while he’s alive, he’s criticized and he’s disliked. And after his death, so many unkind things are said about him and written about him. Now, in short, it is self selfish concern or self-cherishing thought who, like a butcher, destroys our prospects of attaining temporarily the happy state of humans and gods and attaining state of liberation and enlightenment. So it’s our selfish concern which is at the root of our misfortunes and it is this which destroys all the bright chances. It is this self-cherishing thought who is a thief who carries a big bag of three poisonous delusions and then steals away all our virtues.
It is this self-cherishing thought who is the farmer who sows the seed of suffering on the field of ignorance. And if need be, then the self-cherishing thought would go to the extent of finding a scape scapegoat for one’s own fault and failure in one’s gurus and in one’s teachers. It is self-cherishing thought which has no quality at all in its in its account since throughout beginningless time. So it’s the empty handed empty-handed ape, which doesn’t have a single, which doesn’t have a single quality of virtue. In order to help us develop contempt for self-cherishing thought and in fact dislike for self-cherishing thought, so it has been nicknamed as the ruinous owl and in the ruinous owl, the ruinous factory with the owl’s hat and so on.
Many bad names have been called. It is said that a Mahāyāna practitioner should be extremely strong and should give no chance to a self-cherishing thought and destroy it and suppress it there and then. But with regard to sentient beings, such a person must be extremely compassionate and kind. It’s said that a Mahāyāna practitioner must be extremely cruel to self-cherishing thought and extremely kind to sentient beings. So the real enemy is in fact lying within us and that is in fact lying not only within us but deep in the core of our heart deep seated in us.
So it’s self-cherishing thought. And it has been harming us, you know, throughout beginningless time in all different manners. Again, the same master, Śāntideva, said, All misfortunes and suffering that a person experiences stems from the thought of happiness only for himself, only for the self. It’s a deadly twelve o’clock and I will stop here and to recollect things so far discussed or explained. You you have many things now to continue and to meditate during these three days, like equanimity and so on yesterday.
And now of the vase-shaped wind meditation and the nine rounds of breath meditation. So you have plenty as of materials to meditate on or to handle with. Then just as you know, Milarepa has what are called meditation belt. It is said that while practicing the vase-shaped wind, it’s important to have that meditation belt around us going across one’s shoulder and then you know part of one’s knee. And then also wear the shorts and singlet and in fact the shorts mustn’t be tight shorts but in fact the pattern of the shorts is quite different from our own usual shorts.
And thus fully equipped with all the prerequisites like the meditation and the shorts and the singlet. And if you then perform the six yogas of Naropa and so on, and then doing breath meditation, you will be able to jump in the sky and so on. And now I will stop here for this session.