Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Geshe Nawang Dhargyey offers practical spiritual guidance rooted in the tradition of Atisha. He opens with the resolve to practice seriously given the preciousness of a human rebirth with access to teachings—setting clear aims to avoid lower realms or, better, to attain liberation within this lifetime. He then explores the connection between virtuous conduct and spiritual progress, explaining how the minds of anger and attachment flow respectively through the right and left channels, and illustrating this principle through the posture of great masters like Atisha and Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, who bent toward the right to suppress hatred. The core of the talk covers the practice of giving and taking (tonglen), beginning with visualization of transforming one’s body and possessions into whatever each sentient being needs—cooling for hell beings, warmth for those in cold hells, food for hungry ghosts, wisdom for animals, protection for demigods. He connects this to the six perfections and the five paths and ten stages leading to Buddhahood, emphasizing that bodhisattvas must combine post-meditation ethical practice with meditative realization of emptiness. Intended for practitioners with foundational Buddhist knowledge.
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File: 07 SF 1985 05 05.mp3
UUID: cb43aba6-2cab-4f6b-8644-3a76aedb0a1f
Teacher: Geshe Nawang Dhargyey
Collection: Advice from a Spiritual Friend (Geshe Nawang Dhargyey)
Date: 1985-05-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~4,671
At the time when we have met with the precious doctrine and when we have been reborn as humans whose lives are so rich and invaluable because of those hidden qualities, we should make our minds or pass a strong resolution that if I do not die in a matter of a year or two, if I do not die in a matter of a month or two, I will do my best in some practice so that I will not fall to the two lower realms to the power of that practice. And if I’m fortunate not to die in a matter of a year or two, then I will spend the time for my practice so that I will so that I will be able to attain the I will be able to achieve the state of liberation or this enlightenment. Such a strong resolution must be passed or we should make a very strong mind. In order to do that, what we should do is we should say that all our actions of body, speech and mind conform to the civilized cultured actions of body, speech and mind of other sublime beings. And if our actions are cultured, civilized and beneficial actions and correspondingly this is going to have a strong impact on one’s progression along the path and the better the actions of body, speech, the better the quicker progress on the paths and stages it is said.
Yesterday, a question was put to me regarding what winds of the two side channels, right and left channels. What concept of attachment and hatred are present in the two side channels. Normally the concepts or the minds of anger, so for simplicity sake, is in the right channel and the minds of anger flow in the right channel and the minds of desire and passion and attachment flow in the left channel and what happens is when the wind is exhaled then we have to visualize that the minds of attachment passion go out from the left channel and the minds of attachment go out from the left channel and minds of hatred and anger from the right channel. Therefore, when we exhaled the winds, then the minds of attachment or attachment, desire, passion go out through the left nostril and minds of anger and hatred from the right nostril. And if you look at Atisha’s painting, so he’s always seen bending towards the right.
And some thought that he didn’t know how to sit up correctly and some developed bad feelings for his way of sitting, but it was quite indicative of the fact that he was a great practitioner of the mind the teachings and as a practitioner a person has to by all means overcome hatred and the mind of hatred flow because it flows in the right channel then you know he’s the reason why when he bends on the right channel, it’s like suppressing minds of anger and hatred. Serkong Rinpoche as junior tutor, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, in many occasions, he always, while giving teachings, would be seen bent towards the right. And therefore, some students of his tried to emulate his way of sitting on the side bent to the right, but then merely sitting merely bending on the right would wouldn’t help much. One has to correct one’s attitude and, you know, subject to anger. In fact, it is said that a learner, a student must look up to his masters and observe and emulate his manners of speech and physicals of a behaviour like performing various hand gestures or perform various ceremonies or rituals.
Because if one emulates the physical behavior and the gestures of then one will receive the blessings. And if you get to see his holiness, the Dalai Lama sometime later, do look to observe him carefully. So the tone of his speech or the pitch of his voice and the way he speaks is exactly the same as his junior his senior tutor, Kyabje Ling Rinpoche, whereas his way of sitting and looking his right and left and looking at at the audience is exactly the same as that of the junior tutors. So he’s the junior tutor, when he after he sits on the after he sat on the throne, before speaking a word, he would have a thorough look at the audience in the front, on the right, and then on the left. And now if you observe His Holiness the Dalai Lama after he sits on the throne, you will find so on and playing some religious instruments.
And his way of doing this, performing or holding these things and playing these religious instruments is exactly the same as that of the junior tutor. I have good fortune of seeing or meeting Jampal Gyatso, the tutor of the previous tutors to His Holiness the Dalai Lama but the senior geshes say that the senior lamas and senior geshes tell us that His Holiness’s tutor’s pitch of voice and his actions are just the same as his tutor and seeing him would suffice seeing the unseen master. Master. Yesterday we left off discussing giving and while giving, we give by bringing manifest our strong sense of love and wanting to give happiness and causes of happiness to sentient beings. Giving, although our bodies go out towards the hells and the moment our bodies go out towards the hell beings in the form as explained yesterday.
Then to the hell beings of a hot hell, they transform into objects of coolings of a soothing feeling and to the refreshing cool cool feelings whereas to the hell beings of the cold hells and they transform into objects which give warmth. And to the hungry ghosts, and then our bodies transform into food and drink and to clothes. And our bodies, when they go to the animals, our bodies transform into our bodies transform into the wisdom, analytical wisdom, understanding various aspects of the teachings. And then imagine that animals have been removed, have been freed from their stupidity and dullness. The demigods, our bodies, in fact, what ever we give then transforms into armor and shield because they need protection from gods.
Thus what they are badly in need of is some protective coverings and naturally our objects that we give to them transform into these protective things. When our bodies go to the realm of the desirous or worldly gods, highly agitated, distracted worldly gods, our bodies transform into the thought of consciousness thoughtfulness and then the distracted gods, agitated gods become more thoughtful and they are able to rid themselves of their distractedness. And now when our bodies go to our human fellows or when we give them to our human fellows then because humans have unlimited wants and then our bodies transform into anything that humans desire, for example, those who want cars and those who want various things and so on. In fact, bodies transform into any things that our human fellows are in need of. humans in the Southern continent have many desires and many wants and at the same time they are very possessive about what they possess, what they own.
Whereas in people in the Northern continent, the continent called the Unpleasant Sound continent, There people are so mellow, so subdued and they don’t have sense of possessiveness and that is the ‘mine’. The sense of ‘mine’ is not known in that continent. And therefore, there’s no possessiveness in the minds of people in the northern continent, so whatever is there, people use on it. It’s a common property and anyone can use that. Once Nāgārjuna went to Northern Continent, the great master Nāgārjuna went to Northern Continent.
And then he was having a bath, and he he had taken off his dress and hung on the tree or placed on the ground. And a person from northern continent saw that wonderful dress and just took that dress and he wore the dress. And then Nāgārjuna said, oh, don’t don’t take them over. These these are mine. The man was quite stunned to see to hear the word man, and he Nāgārjuna was nicknamed ‘the man of mine’.
And people in the northern continent lived their entire lifespan without meeting with untimely death. So they live one thousand years and they live their life fully. And at the end of when the love is coming towards end or when death is at hand, a week before their death is due to come, then they hear a warning that you will die within a matter of seven days. And that that sound, that warning is so unpleasant sound, therefore the continent has been called the unpleasant sound continent. And thus they live their life quite fully without experiencing unintended whereas people in the southern continent, so if their life span is sixty years, without living sixty years, they might experience untimely death.
Then while when we practice when we practice taking, so we exclude Buddhas and gurus because they are they don’t have anything that need to be taken and not like any misfortune or any shortcomings whereas now when we begin to give that they are included and when we can give our bodies and possessions and these transform into roots of merit or virtues, transform into offerings and offerings are made to them. As a result, when offerings are made to the Buddha, so his lifelong activities increase and his virtuous assistance to his glorious deeds increase or his virtuous assistance to certain things also increased by many folds. When these when our bodies and possessions and so on go when we offer them to the Buddha, so these transform into wholesome offerings and generating uncontaminated bliss in their mental continuum. While offering or while sending forth bodies and possessions, we can offer bodies and possessions of the present and the future times and not of the past because they are not there to be seen but with regard future we can have and now with regards to offering of virtues or roots of merit then we can imagine giving roots of virtue of all the three terms and although past virtues are not there but their imprints or latencies are still in our mental continuum thus we can offer imagine offering them the sublime objects and giving them to the miserable sentient beings.
It is this way, you have to practice giving, taking by visualizing your stronger sense of compassion and giving by recalling or by bringing to manifest form your stronger sense of love and thus doing this kind of visualization, when you think that you have gained certain competence in your practice of taking and giving, then it is said that you have to mechanize. You have to mechanize your giving and taking on breath, which means transform your breath in inhaling and exhaling. Inhaling and exhaling as taking and giving. As a result, every breath would be fruitful for practice. Inhale when inhaling, imagine that you are engaging in the practice of taking off suffering of all sentient beings on you.
And while inhaling so exhaling, then imagine that you are giving all that you possess, possessions and roots of virtue to sentient beings and also to transforming them as offerings. And thus every exhale and inhale and exhale would be most fruitful ones. Now with this, I have given you teachings. The two teachings or two methods of generating altruistic The first method was seven causes, one result method. Such a transmission or such instruction coming from Buddha to Maitreya, to Maitreya to Asaṇga and down to our root gurus.
And then the second method was equalizing and exchanging self with others, self for others. So this teaching also comes from Buddha to Mañjuśrī to Nāgārjuna and then to Acharya Śāntideva and down to our present Lord Gurus. And that’s how I have given you the two methods of developing the highest form of altruistic attitude of the mind of enlightenment. And I have presented these two methods in the most simple form so that they are quite easy to reflect on or meditate on. If you remember if you have remembered them and, you know, if then if you remember or meditate on what you remember of the teachings, meditation on the teachings will be very effective Just as Buddha said, after he had finished giving one set of teachings to the to his audience or to its followers, I have given you the excellent teachings, and I’ve shown you the path to liberation.
And now whether it’s up to you whether you are going to achieve the state of liberation by following that path or not. And he then said for he said that would they would be responsible for their attainment of liberation. Similarly, I feel that I have given all the teachings I have received from my masters to you and whether you are going to achieve or develop that altruistic mind of enlightenment will depend on your practice. So these teachings concerning the two methods of developing altruistic mind of enlightenment enlightenment was the teachings to make you generate a strong feeling that I must achieve the state of enlightenment. And by merely wishing or by merely thinking that I must achieve the state of enlightenment, you will not achieve the state of enlightenment.
It’s just that you have a good thought, an altruistic thought. However, generally it may be, still one is not able to achieve the state of enlightenment in the same way as if a person keeps on thinking that I must go to India, but they are not doing something practically, then he will never reach India. Whereas if just as he makes up his mind that he must go to India, if you board a plane, in a matter of twelve hours, so he would be in Delhi. Similarly, on top of generating a strong wish that I must achieve the state of highest enlightenment for the sake of all suffering beings. If one now engages in the practical deeds of bodhisattvas, then it would be like following the actual path leading to the state of enlightenment.
Therefore, the second thing is, the next step is to practice the deeds of bodhisattvas. Thus, the deeds of bodhisattvas or practices of bodhisattvas are like the only highway to the state of enlightenment followed by all the Buddha’s of three times to the state of enlightenment. And these deeds, although there are many, are subsumed under the practice of six perfections in order to bring about a spiritual maturity in one’s own mental continuum, and then to the fourfold means of helping others in order to bring about maturity, spiritual maturity in others continuum. I will explain the six perfections and the fourfold means to help others. If and if the Buddha were alive today, the only what will happen is you will get to see him, his close physical form.
Otherwise, the teachings that he would give would be just the same that you must practice. He would give the six teachings concerning the six perfections and the fourfold means and then he would say you must practice them. The first perfection is perfection of generosity. Training in the perfection of generosity or the practice of perfection generosity. And the second one is training or the practice of perfection of generosity, also the morality.
And the third one is in the perfection of patience or tolerance. And the fourth one is training in the perfection of enthusiastic perseverance. And the fourth, the fifth one is training in the perfection of contemplation or samadhi or single-pointed concentration. And training in the last one is training in the perfection of wisdom and these are called six perfections and there’s another class of perfections and under this classification, there are ten perfections. And when we speak of the ten perfections on top of the remaining above mentioned six perfections, we add four more.
The first which is the four more perfections and these four perfections are in a way parts or subsumed under wisdom, perfection of wisdom. The first one is perfection of method, which would be the seventh one. And the eighth one is the perfection of aspiration prayers. And the ninth one is the perfection of spiritual strength or the perfection of power. It literally says the perfection of power or strength.
And the tenth is the perfection of exalted wisdom. And then in order to go to the state of nirvana, you have to follow the path, and there are five paths and ten stages along the along those five paths. And there are many who are very eager to practice Dharma and without knowing the path leading to enlightenment. Therefore it’s important that we know the five paths and the ten stages which are on these five paths. The first path is called the Mahāyāna path of accumulation of merits.
The Mahāyāna path of accumulation has specific reference to the initial generation of genuine sense of mind development in the continuum of a person. The moment such a genuine or fully fleshed real bodhimind is generated in the person’s mind that he has developed or he or she has developed the Mahāyāna path of accumulation. So that is the criterion for something being the Mahāyāna path of accumulation. For the Mahāyāna path of accumulation, that is the initial stage where the person accumulates merit. The second path is the path of preparation and the moment a person develops, the moment a mind a person develops, special insight into into emptiness then that is the degree of having developed the Mahāyāna path of preparation.
All the Mahāyāna path of preparation because it lays out the ground or it prepares the ground for attaining the path of transcendental Mahāyāna or the path of the aryas. The third path is the path of seeing and unlike the path of preparation where a person gains special insight into emptiness, not direct insight into emptiness, just special insight into emptiness. Now on the path of seeing, it’s a direct seeing of emptiness, therefore it’s called the Mahāyāna path of seeing and the person then becomes a transcendental practitioner or an ārya. Above the path of seeing, the fourth path is the path of meditation. It’s called part Mahāyāna path of meditation because even after seeing emptiness directly, seeing emptiness directly is not enough.
Therefore the person has to meditate on and on and familiarize himself so deeply, so directly realize emptiness and he has meditate for over a long period of time therefore the minor part of meditation. Then the fifth path is called the path of no more learning and after having meditated on and on to realize directly on the path of seeing then you know of course such a meditation accompanied by other practices then a person the Mahāyānist or the Mahāyāna practitioner achieves total perfection in his practices or in his training and as a result he gets promoted to the path of no more learning which is the state of enlightenment. And the same way as a person who has worked so hard in his early days when is about sixty or so, then he retires into easy life like that. So after having turned and worked so hard on the path, then he retires into the state of enlightenment. These are the five paths, the paths which we haven’t traversed for many lifetimes in the past.
Then for ārya for Ārya Bodhisattva stages, there are ten Ārya Bodhisattva stages or ten stages for the transcendental Mahāyāna practitioner starting from the third path of seeing. So these ten stages start from the third path of seeing. The first stage is called the joyous ground or the joyous stage. And the second stage is called the stainless stage. And then on the first Bodhisattva stage or the joy stage, now the Bodhisattva gains special competence in the practice, extraordinary competence in the practice of generosity.
And on the second stage, the bodhisattva then gain special competence, extraordinary practice of the perfection of morality. Now Now bodhisattvas, the one on the first stage and the second stage and all up to the tenth stage, their practices are of two types. Practice in the post meditation and in meditation or in meditative equipoise and practices concerning post meditation are practices concerning the seven limb practices through which they try to achieve perfection in the collection of merits. And in the meditative equipoise practice, they single pointedly, without any dualistic appearance, dualism would single pointed and they meditate on emptiness and in their meditation equipoise on emptiness, all that they see is overwhelming emptiness, nothing else. And through such overwhelming emptiness or meditation or emptiness in meditative equipoise, they are trying to achieve perfection in the collection of wisdom.
Thus, bodhisattvas tried to gather the two collections of merit and wisdom in post meditation period and in meditative equipoise. That’s how then they slowly or steadily ahead advance to the state of enlightenment. Similarly, we also need to engage in the gathering of the two accumulations of merit and insight. Now of the ten stages, I’ve spelt out the names of the first two. The first is the joyous one.
The second one is the stainless one. The third stage is the illuminating ground or illuminating stage. The fourth one is the radiant stage. Now the fifth stage is called Drangka, the difficult training, the difficult purification or difficult training stage. And the sixth one is literally says the one which has become manifest stage.
So for simplicity, it would say the manifest stage. And the seventh one is the far-gone stage. The eighth stage is called the unshakable stage or immutable stage. On that eighth stage of the immutable stage or the unshakable stage, the bodhisattva, you know, he is so thoroughly trained by this stage that he even wonders if he has already achieved the state of enlightenment because all the gross dualistic thoughts come to an end and at the same time, he has totally abandoned the obscurations or obstructions of the afflictive type, which means the afflictive obstructions. The ninth the ninth stage is called the excellent wisdom, the excellent intellect stage or excellent wisdom stage.
Excellent intelligence stage. And the tenth one is the cloud of Dharma stage. The tenth stage is the cloud of Dharma stage. And in the first moment he would be a Bodhisattva on the tenth stage and the second moment in the second moment he would be a Buddha. So that’s on the tenth stage the bodhisattva is then standing on the threshold of enlightenment and these are these are the five paths and the five paths and the ten stages along those part five paths.
After passing through the five paths and the ten stages which are spread over from the first to the fifth path then after passing through these five paths and ten stages, a person achieves the state of enlightenment and the four kayas, four kayas or the four bodies of Buddha, perfect bodies of Buddha. The four perfect kayas or four perfect bodies which are the results and that practitioner achieves after passing through those stages and paths. The first kaya or the body is called the natural truth body. And the natural truth body of a Buddha has reference to emptiness of inherent existence of Buddha’s omniscient mind and as well as the state of total cessation from all sufferings and shortcomings of samsaric existence. So these two, of inherent existence of the omniscient mind itself and the permanent state of total cessation of attained by the Buddha.
So these two are called the natural truth body of a Buddha. Buddha. Now the second kaya or the body is wisdom body and there’s jnana kaya in Sanskrit and now jnana kaya has a reference to the omniscient mind itself like a mind which has only good qualities and which was free from all faults, unlike our minds which are full of delusions, attachment, desire, hate and anger. So the omniscient mind has only good qualities and doesn’t have a single negative quality. And then the third body would be Sambhogakāya or enjoyment body.
This is how it has been translated and it’s a physical form of the Buddha like the physical form assumed by victorious Vajradhāra and so on. And it’s only accessible to Ārya bodhisattvas or transcendental bodhisattvas. And we cannot see or we don’t have access to such glorious physical form. Then emanation body or the Nirmānakāya is that physical form of a Buddha which fortunate ordinary beings have access to like Buddha Śākyamūni for instance. Emanation body or emanate physical form.
There are three types of emanation physical form. Supreme emanation physical form like Buddha’s own Buddha Śākyamūni for instance, and then emanated physical form as great artists and emanated physical form as various objects like Maitreya in the Tuśita Pure Land. Thus, these are the six perfections when we talk only of six perfections, in fact all the ten perfections are there in that the last four perfections would be included in the wisdom and perfection of wisdom and thus just as there are ten perfections, just as there are ten stages and then a trainee, a bodhisattva, gains special competence of these ten perfections on the ten grounds, on ten stages, like gaining special competence in generosity on the first stage to special competence in exalted wisdom on the tenth stage. That’s how the turning goes on. With this, I’ll stop here.
Now questions please having more merit than offering food to one poor person. Does he mean that literally? I didn’t quite understand that example. It seemed to contradict what I read before elsewhere. Than offering food to a miserable being, you meant that one?
It seemed to conflict. It’s about throwing a flower at Buddha. Throwing a flower at Buddha without good motivation has more merit than offering food to one sentient being. To all sentient beings. All sentient beings.
So Different examples of the there was It’s a literal statement, and it it can be understood how people’s lives lifespan is decreasing. Some time ago, it was hundred years, and now it’s around sixty or eighty or sixty. People are becoming more and more non virtuous. These non virtuous have repercussion or impact on their lifespan. And when people are virtuous, external virtues, it has a positive impact and as a result their lifespan increases It is mentioned in the scriptures that are a thousand Buddhas who are going to manifest this during the fortunate aeon.
The first Buddha, called Krakucchanda, manifested in the world when the average lifespan of humans was forty thousand years. Then, Kanakamuni, the second Buddha, manifested when the average lifespan of forty of humans was twenty thousand years, then the third Buddha, Kāśyapa, manifested in the world, and when the average lifespan humans got reduced to hundred years, and then the fourth Buddha, so called Śākyamūni manifested. And then from then on, the lifespan has always been decreasing. Everything is as of a the world’s getting worse and worse in that in terms of lives and and it was quality of life and in terms of process of things, things becoming dearer and dearer and costlier and costlier. So these all are in a way results as indications of degeneration.
The Abhidharmakośa is a commentary on those sutras. In fact, everything is discussed so elaborately in those. Do try later if you can to study those things. As said earlier, people’s lifespan would keep on decreasing until it would touch ten years average lifespan. People at that time would be so cruel and passionate, deluded, so much so that we would then mistake each other for enemies, and we would be like savage demons.