Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A practical difficulty triggers the most instructive stretch of this 69-minute session: what do you do when Tonglen — the giving-and-taking meditation — starts to feel overwhelming or confusing? Geshe Pema Tsering works through several remedies in sequence: remembering that Tonglen is the heart practice of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; using the breath as a steady anchor so the mind stops wandering; and, when the three poisons of attachment, aversion, or ignorance arise as distractions, turning them directly into Tonglen objects rather than fighting them. He then explains the slogan practice — memorizing short verses to keep the mind oriented between sessions. A substantial Q&A closes the talk, covering the difference between prayer, dedication, and Tonglen; why Tonglen feels hardest of the three (genuine psychological resistance to giving away happiness); and why self-mortification misses the point entirely — mind training works on the mind, not the body.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 2005 08 14 MT.mp3
UUID: 957fb94f-ceae-4558-864e-299368b39a50
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Mind Training (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-08-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 69.3 minutes
Words: ~6,544
Is there are many. There’s so many other beings that we can’t count them, and there’s only one of us. So if we’re going to consider who’s who it’s best to to work for the relief whose suffering it is best to work for the relief of, then it makes more sense that we’re working for the relief of other beings suffering because it is so much greater than just one person. So in order to do that, that’s why we’re looking at this mind training text because what we’re learning to train our minds in is looking at others, working for the benefit of others, and not being so selfish. So the motivation, if we can if we can develop the motivation that we are listening to this text in order to learn how to train our minds and having learned how to do it, that we train our minds, we develop then we go on to become a Buddha and so that we can truly help all beings.
Oh, really? Yeah. Is. Oh. So did everyone not hear that?
We did hear it. Okay. I was thinking. I had to think to say that. So Yeah.
Mhmm. Alright. So we’ve been going through the meditation of or giving and taking. And we’ve gone through the process of how you give and how how you give in the meditation and how you take on based on the breath. And we’re actually up to the part where it talks about what to do when doing this meditation becomes difficult.
So when you’re struggling with this meditation, struggling with the meditation where you imagine yourself giving to beings, all that creates happiness and taking on all that creates suffering, if this becomes difficult then, the instruction is to remind ourselves that the first of all, that the work that Buddhas do, the things that Buddhas do is to solely work for the benefit of other beings. They work to help other beings. That’s the the the things the only thing that Buddhas do. So this means that the heart practice or the main practice of all of the Buddhas of the ten directions and all of the Bodhisattvas, that is the beings who are going to become Buddhas, is this practice of bodhicitta, is this idea of working to benefit others, of being selfless and working to benefit others. If we remind ourselves of that, if we remind ourselves that we’re doing the heart practice of all the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, then that can give us a cause to rejoice or be happy about what we’re doing.
So another thing that can can lift our mind or can, make us happier when we’re doing this doing this meditation is if we, think that, in doing this meditation, we can even imagine visualize ourselves removing the things that act as obscurations to very realized beings, who aren’t quite Buddhas. So, there’s said to be three three different types of Buddhist practices that you can do or three different types of vehicles that you can engage in in order to become a realized being in Buddhism. So the one that says said to be the most expansive and the most that takes you the furthest is the the vehicle of the Bodhisattva that leads you to being a a Buddha. But there’s also you can also practice as what’s called a solitary realizer or what’s also called a hearer. Now solitary realizers and hearers are beings that practice Buddhism, but don’t take the hardest path that leads to Buddhahood.
Instead, they take a less arduous path that is still quite arduous that leads to personal liberation from Samsāra. So they’re not working for the benefit of all sentient beings necessarily. They’re working for their own benefit to get themselves out of Samsāra and what they attain when they get out of that is nirvana. So when we’re doing this meditation, we can even imagine that we’re taking away their obscurations. So they they may have completely gotten rid of all of their causes for suffering and all of the experiences suffering from their their mind stream, but they were not wise enough to see that they need to work for the benefit of all other beings to help all other beings get out of Samsāra.
So when we’re doing this meditation, we can see ourselves taking these veils of ignorance away from them. We can see ourselves or visualize ourselves taking away the obscurations that stop them seeing other beings suffering just as much as they are. Then this will enable them to start working for the benefit of all beings as well, to start helping all So if we’re doing something where we’re even able to take obscurations from people who if we’re visualizing this and we think, Oh, I’m even taking obscurations from people who have many more understandings than me or they understand things more deeply than me. And this can be another reason for us to to feel really happy about what we’re doing about this meditation. And then so the other thing was that So the way we do this then is that we we think about all the good things that we’ve done in the past, all of the good things we’re doing now, and all of the good things that we could be capable of doing in the future.
And then we imagine that the positive potential that comes from those positive karmic actions, is a force, that we can give to these other beings and then that that enables them to get rid of their obscurations. So we visualize ourselves giving them all our positive so that they can get rid of these slight obstructions they have and then start focusing on others and the relief of others suffering. Mhmm. Mhmm.
But the other thing is to remember is that if this all starts getting too complicated for us and we’re thinking, okay, there’s these beings and they need to get rid of their obscurations and there’s these other beings and I need to think about what I’m, like, breathing out of them. And if it gets all too complicated and we’re losing sight of what we’re doing, then we can have a general general idea that in that we are taking in that we are taking in others suffering, all others suffering, all beings who aren’t Buddha’s sufferings. Because Buddhas don’t suffer and they don’t have obscurations to their knowledge. So they know they know everything and they don’t suffer. So we don’t have to worry about them.
But all other beings have some kind of veil to their knowledge or misunderstanding. They’ve misunderstood something and that means that they experience suffering. So we can see see that we are visualized that we are taking in all that suffering. All that suffering is coming into us and we’re giving away all of our happiness. So as long as we have the general idea that the people we’re sending this out to, we’re sending all this positivity out to, are sentient beings.
And the beings that we are taking suffering away from is sentient beings, and that’s the most important thing. So it’s a it’s easier sometimes to focus on that than to focus on detail because the detail can get us confused. Mhmm. Okay. So the next line from the root text of the seven points of mind training then says, put them on the breath or these two should ride the breath.
Now, what that’s talking about is this meditation that we’re doing of giving and taking. So the idea is that when your breath comes in, you see or you visualize yourself taking, breathing in all of the suffering of other beings, all of the suffering and all of the causes of suffering and all of the obscurations to knowledge of other beings. You see yourself breathing that in. And when you are breathing out, you see yourself breathing out all of the positive things, the positive potential from all the good things that you have done, are doing and could do. And then through that you’re giving beings happiness.
So you’re taking away their suffering and giving them happiness in this meditation. And the reason that these two are said to be a good idea to focus on doing those through the breath is first of all, it’s something that’s an easy hook for us to focus on. It’s an easy thing for us to focus on breathing in and out because it’s something that we do all the time. So if we’re focusing on something going in and out, that we’re giving something and we’re taking something, we do that all the time with our breath. So it’s a good idea for us to use something that naturally happens as a focus for this giving and taking meditation.
And another reason it’s said to be very good for us to focus on giving and taking based on the breath is that, focusing on the breath enables us to stop our mind running after all sorts of things. If we’re just sitting there thinking, oh, I’m gonna give away all my good things and I’m gonna take a look take in all my take in everyone else’s negative things. Our thoughts can actually go off on one. They can just leave, and start thinking all sorts of things. But if we’re concentrating on breathing in and out, and breathing in other people’s suffering and breathing out all our positive qualities, then there there is much less chance that we’re going to get distracted and end up spending our time instead of meditating going off on tangents.
So the idea then is that we focus on the breaths, but we’re not just doing an ordinary breathing meditation. So usually, breathing are used as preliminary or settling practices for meditation. Here, we’re not just focusing on the breath. We’re actually combining a breathing meditation with this idea of a mind training practice where we’re training ourselves to focus on others. We’re training ourselves to give to others and to stop worrying about ourselves so much by taking on other suffering.
So it’s not just a breathing meditation. It’s a breathing meditation combined with a mind training exercise in which we’re developing the ability to, think of others, focus on others, and spend less time focusing on our own happiness or our own desires. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Oh, Yeah. Yeah. Right. So there’s another the next instruction for doing this bodhicitta practice of giving and taking says three objects, three poisons, three seeds of virtue.
Now what this is referring to is that, while we’re doing the Tonglen practice or, after we’ve done the Tonglen, practice, we may find ourselves interrupted by what are called the three poisons. Now the three poisons refer to the three base emotions or afflicted states of mind which can cause us suffering. And they are said to be attachment, aversion, and ignorance. So the three objects refer to the three types of things that may cause us to experience this. So some things or some objects are going to cause us to experience aversion.
Some objects are going to cause us to experience attraction or desire or attachment as being kind of synonymous. Some objects we’re gonna feel ignorant towards or not have a clue about. We’re gonna experience neither attachment or aversion, but just a fogginess or a not knowing towards, an ignorance towards. So the three seeds of virtue are said to be the things, again, the positive things that we can do in the past, in present, and the future whereby we transform our negative states, these three poisons, into something that can actually help. So the instruction is this when you are when you are practicing Tonglen and you find yourself distracted by one of these three types of thoughts or these three different experiences that that you can then use this practice that we’re about to talk about to bring yourself back to the Tonglen Meditation.
So if you’re doing Tonglen and it’s going well and you’re not distracted, it’s not as if you should go, Oh, now I should skip to the other thing and start thinking about the things that I’m I’m attached to or the things that other people are attached to. Yeah. You just keep doing it on them when you’re doing it. Alright? But if you find yourself, being distracted by something, then you can use this practice transforming your negative experiences to bring yourself back to the Tonglen practice.
Alright. So what happens then is that if you experience, for example, attachment, then you can think that I’m not the only person in the world who or in the different worlds or in in existence who experiences attachment. All other beings experience all other ordinary beings experience attachment. And through experiencing attachment, they also experience suffering when they can’t get what they want, when what they when they get what they want and it doesn’t make them happy, they’ll experience this type of attachment. So, we can then think, may my experience of attachment, subsume all of their experiences of attachment.
May my experience of attachment become, it take on their experiences and may they be free from attachment. So in this way, you’re turning your, distraction into a Tonglen practice. And then or you could think, if you experience hatred, may my experience of hatred or or my experience of aversion, be the the, all other beings experience of aversion. May I take it on to myself? And in that way, they be free from aversion and anger and hatred and the things and the suffering that that causes.
So you imagine that all of the aversion, all of the attachment, and all of the or all of the ignorance depending on what you’re you’re There is so much of it out there that it’s almost difficult to visualize or imagine. But you imagine that all coming into your heart center, all dissolving into your experience of anger attachment. So in doing that, it’s in in taking on other beings experience of attachment, anger and ignorance, yours dissolves and then you give all your positive qualities out to them. So this is a practice that you do when you get distracted in Tonglen meditation and also after you’ve done Tonglen meditation when you experience these strong feelings in other situations. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Okay. Alright. So, we can do this with attachment. So if we find ourselves when we’re doing meditation or in other circumstances experiencing strong attachment or desire, we can think about us that desire that that we can imagine all other beings desire and attachment dissolving into our desire.
And then also if we if we experience anger, we can see this happen. We can do this as well. So if we’re we get angry or, frustrated or, there’s just something that we don’t like, then we can think, well, how many other beings are experiencing this? How many other beings have beings have to go through this this uncomfortable experience or this destructive experience? And so we can think about all the beings on Earth.
We can think about all the beings who exist in different realms. And then we can imagine all of that anger and all of that aversion and all of the suffering that that brings dissolving into our our our experience of suffering. And then, we can imagine ourselves giving out to all of those beings all the positive qualities that we have, all of the positive potential that we have in our mind stream, all of the good qualities that we possess. We imagine ourselves, we visualize ourselves sending all that out to all sentient beings instead of the anger that we’ve taken from them. And also the same with ignorance.
When we find ourselves, experiencing ignorance or we just, don’t know what’s happening in the situation, then we can think about how that causes suffering, how not knowing things causes suffering. But we’re not the only beings who experience that. And then we develop this idea or visualise what it’s like for all other beings to experience suffering through not knowing things. And we imagine that that ignorance dissolves into our ignorance that we see as being at our heart center. And in doing this, we view or we visualize all sentient beings becoming free of ignorance.
And in return, we send them all of our understanding, all of our potential understanding, and we imagine them developing understanding and knowledge or wisdom through this process, this visualization this meditation process that we’re doing. This this is what we’re visualizing anyway. So this process then is a form of Tonglen. But when we’re doing normal Tonglen practice or normal giving and taking practice, then we’re doing it generally. We’re thinking, all sentient beings experience all kinds of different types of suffering, and all sentient beings want to experience all kinds of different types of happiness.
And we’re doing it in a much more general way. We’re thinking I’m taking their suffering, I’m giving them happiness. But when we actually experience one of these destructive emotions, we have a much more specific thing that we can focus on. We have a much more specific experience that we can imagine other beings having that we take into ourselves. So the process is the same but the object that we’re focusing on or the experience that we’re focusing on isn’t the same because it’s much more specific in these instances.
Behind you? No. It doesn’t matter. Yeah. Not a Guess they just rattled off a verse from something and said, you know, you can tell them that one.
I’m like, because I’ve memorized that. Not. Mhmm. Okay. Okay.
So the next thing then is it says to in in this practice is it says to train in sayings. So or slogans. To train in slogans. Now what this means is that it means that to to remind ourselves of this idea of working for others and taking on their suffering while we give all our happiness and try and work for their benefit. We can remember to do this by remembering quotes and remembering slogans or remembering verses from things.
That if we can say to ourselves then that can keep us on the right track. Right? So there’s one that it says in here which is may all sentient beings suffering ripen on me and may all my may they achieve all the happiness I am capable of. And but Angesa said there’s one in the Guru Puja, which he said, you know, this one, and then I didn’t. So anyway, which says, and thus, oh venerable, compassionate Gurus, we seek your blessings, that all karmic debts, obstacles, and sufferings of mother beings may without exception ripen upon us right now, and that we may give our happiness and virtue to others, and therefore invest all beings in bliss.
So there are many other sayings that we can come up with or that we’ve heard or that we know of that have that general idea. You know, that we’re thinking, Am I thinking of others? Am I working or am I being selfish? What do I do in order to benefit other beings? There’s there’s many sayings that we’ve heard or that we can use.
And if we keep telling ourselves these sayings again, then this is a good way to keep us on track, to remind ourselves of what it is that we’re actually doing. Okay. Of course, there’s another one that says, may all the suffering of other beings and the causes of suffering that other beings have ripen upon me now as great waves of or something. Oh, Sorry. Sorry.
And so it may ripen on me quickly. Yeah. I may ripen on me in the form of great ways quickly. And may all sentient beings may all my happiness ripen on other sentient beings quickly. Yes.
And this one. And likewise, may they be free of all the causes of sufferings in the three times. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. I said, time’s up, Geshe-la. Can we should we stop there?
And he goes, yeah. But after you’ve said what I just said. Okay. So the first thing it says is is I have an expression in Tibetan, which is from my heart bone. And I know we know we don’t have a heart bone, but anyway, it means from the bottom of your heart, right?
From the bottom of your heart or from the bottom of they say from the bottom of your mind, that you should be saying this. It’s not something that we should just mouth. It’s not something that we should say, okay, that’s what I should say, so that’s what I’m saying. It’s something we really need to feel in order for it to be effective. So we need to think about what we’re actually saying.
What we’re saying is that even though we have a natural tendency to focus on ourselves, the people that actually make us happy or the things that actually make us happy are other beings. So it’s all other beings that we owe any sort of happiness to. So it’s all other beings that have been our mothers in some life or another that we owe so much to that we’re working for. So we should think, not just say, but think from the bottom of our hearts, for all our precious, loved mothers or our love to all the people that have shown us kindness in all different lifetimes, we will do whatever it takes to make you happy. Okay.
So we can stop there. And if you have questions if you have questions, get because Geshe-la’s got tea. So so so what this idea of mind training well, this text is said to be a mind training mind training text. Now the word that we’re translating as as training also has this idea of purifying or getting rid of. So the the word that says train in Tibetan, also has this part of this secondary meaning that means to get rid of.
So what we’re training our mind to do is to think of others because what our mind naturally does is think of ourselves. What our mind naturally does if we’re not working at it is follow our desire our own desires, our own hatreds, own ignorance, and just perpetuates those patterns. So what we’re trying to do is train our mind to think of others. And in training our mind to think of others, we’re trying to get rid of our self-cherishing attitude. Our our attitudes that, we’re the most important person in the world and we do everything to make ourselves happy, which is what I mean if we watch our mind, it’s what it naturally does.
If we don’t train it, that’s what it that’s the way it tends to go. So we’re training our mind to think of others and in doing so, to get rid of our selfishness. That’s what mind training is. But it’s not easy. So it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.
What happens is the more we do it, easier it gets. The more that we start training our mind in this way, the more we start focusing on others, the easier it becomes to focus on others and the happier happier we are about focusing on others. So it’s something that we can’t be dismissive of. It’s something that we can’t think, oh, I’ve done that part. Something that we need to keep working on again and again and again and for, for perhaps lifetimes order to develop this attitude.
But it’s something that we are capable of doing. It’s something that we have the ability to develop is this, selfless, thought for others. So since we know we have the ability to develop it, it makes it easier for us to focus on it. And if we know that it gets easier as we do it, then that also makes it easier to keep at it. Uh-uh.
Uh-uh. And the other thing that we need to remember is that when we when we get to that stage where we have an uncontrived mind that we don’t have to work at it, that we spontaneously want to work for the benefit of others, we’ve actually done the best we can for ourselves as well. So it’s not as if by working for others that we don’t get something for that. Because when we develop the ability to focus on others spontaneously without needing to work at it and that’s our natural way of being, then, we’ve actually done everything we can for ourselves as well because that’s what’s going to make us happy is working for others, is focusing on others. So we’re helping ourselves out.
It’s not as if we’re forgetting it’s not as if we’re going to create intense suffering for ourselves by doing this. We actually make ourselves happy by working for others. Alright. So so I guess I said the thing is that we make this mistake. Right?
We make this mistake in thinking that, in order to make ourselves happy, we have to focus on ourselves and that making ourselves, happy comes from us. You know, that we say, oh, if I just look after myself, I’m gonna make myself happy. Don’t have to worry about anyone else. I just look after myself, and then that’s it. And Geshe-la said, you know, it’s very difficult for us to it’s very difficult for us to actually think about how making others happy actually makes us happy, but, it’s very difficult for us to but there is, like, an example that we can work with.
And he said, especially considering we’re all laypeople. I still can’t believe he said this. We’re all laypeople that he can give you an example with when you’re like, I have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a partner. Right? He said, you don’t get things back unless you give.
Right? And he said that you you don’t actually get someone making you happy unless you make them happy. So if you’re trying to if you’re trying to if you’re trying to basically, you’re trying to seduce someone, you don’t get there by being mean to them. And he said that that if you if you wanna get something back from someone, then you have to you’re nice to them. And we know this from our own experience.
If you’re if you’re trying to if if you’re trying to get something from someone and you’re mean to them, you don’t get anything back. Yeah. So, we know this from our own even our experiences like that. Right? So we can see it working.
We we know that it works that way. It’s just that we don’t usually, look at it that way. Alright. And then he started how I know this from my personal life, but I’m not going there. That if you’re nice to someone, then you get nice back.
If you’re mean to someone, then you’re not getting anything from them. What the need is that? Oh, yeah. Okay. We can stop there.
Yes. Oh, no. No. No. No.
Now you said you can ask questions. Sorry. Mhmm. So the the idea of prayer is that you’re wishing that something good happens to someone else. So that you’re wishing that that you’re hoping that or you’re praying that they happiness comes to them and they’re relieved of suffering.
So you’re making a wish or you’re aspiring an aspiration that something happens. So that’s what prayer is supposed to be focused on, that you’re thinking, May this happen. May this happen. And the idea there’s another thing that usually comes along with that, which is dedication. That you make this again, it’s like a prayer, you think, the positive things I do be a cause for someone else or other beings to experience happiness.
You know? So we’re we’re trying to direct the positive potential that we’ve created in a certain way. But Tonglen, or giving and taking meditation, is is not so much wishing or praying or trying to direct, the positive things that we’ve done. It’s it’s actually focusing on the idea of giving, away happiness, and taking on suffering. So on the other ones, you’re you’re not taking on suffering.
You’re wishing that other people are happy. And in this one, you’re taking you’re developing your ability to work for others by meditating on the idea of taking on suffering. And you’re developing your idea of generosity and of giving by giving away all your happiness. So there’s there’s there isn’t a there isn’t the dynamic of giving and taking in the other one, and there isn’t this developing of the ability to take on suffering in the other meditations . So therefore, is harder.
Anything dedicating things is easier. So think So Geshe-la said that in fact, all three of these different ideas are ways to make ourselves happier, to make merit for ourselves, to to give us a more positive mind. But the thing is that he thinks that Tonglen or giving and taking meditation would be the most difficult one for us to do because we may develop some sort of resistance to it. You may be sinking, why am I giving my happiness away? I don’t like that.
He said it’s not actually possible to give your happiness away, but you may develop a resistance to that in the meditation. And the same a little bit less so, but the same with dedication. If we’re thinking I’m doing all the things that are positive things I’ve done, may that benefit other beings, then that can also create a little bit of tension within us where we think, what am I doing? I’m giving away all the good things I’ve done. Now, it’s not actually possible to give away all the good things you’ve done.
If you dedicate everything you’ve done to other beings, it’s actually a way of expanding the positive things that you’ve done. But because we may not understand this, it can create a little bit of tension in our mind where we think, have to hold on to this for us for myself. So so he thinks that Tonglen is most difficult because you’re also taking on suffering. Dedication can be difficult, but praying that everyone’s fine is easiest because if that’s the easy thing to do. Look.
Meditating on that equanimity before doing the Tonglen. Help. Help. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Definitely. He’s he he said that he would consider equanimity meditation to be something of a preliminary practice for. If you have good if you have a, yeah, good equanimity I don’t know if you can actually say that in English. Sounds dodgy. If you have a completely equanimous attitude, then it’s much easier to do.
Yeah? But he he thinks that you still develop some kind of tension there when you’re doing it. Okay. So is an antidote to this because what we’re developing an understanding of is that we think that we make ourselves happy by holding onto things for ourselves and not giving to others. Right?
But actually taking on other’s suffering and giving away happiness makes us happy. Right? So the problem isn’t so much that we are taking on suffering, it’s that we think that holding on to our happiness and trying to push away suffering makes us happy when it doesn’t. If it if that made us happy, we’d be happy already. Yeah.
We would have we’ve already been doing that forever and it hasn’t worked. And so the trick is to remember that taking on suffering actually makes you happier. Alright? And giving away, happiness actually makes you happier. So the problem isn’t that we the problem isn’t necessarily that we’re making ourselves miserable by doing this, it’s that we think we are.
Because by taking on other people’s suffering, giving away happiness, you make yourself happy. By holding on to happiness for yourself and trying to push away suffering, you actually make yourself unhappy. So it’s to remind ourselves, the antidote is to remind ourselves that this is actually making us happier. So all of the suffering that we experience comes from trying to make ourselves happy. Alright?
All of the suffering that we experience comes about through this idea of I’m gonna do something to make us to make myself happy. And, in developing that idea or holding on to that idea, then we go and do things because we want one thing or we don’t want another thing or we don’t care about something else. So when we do want something, we become very attached to it and we work really hard to get it, and that sets up that means that we do things or we create karma, that’s based on a negative attitude of grasping. And when we don’t want something, when we’re, angry or, we have aversion or we are annoyed by something, then we do a lot of things to get away from that. That’s also based on a negative way of thinking.
Right? And also when we’re ignorant towards things, then we are dismissive or we are we we don’t notice things and that actually creates suffering as well. So all the things that we do based on this idea of making ourselves happy actually make us unhappy. Create they create negative karma or we we create negative karma based on those emotions that we then experience the results of as suffering. Suffering.
So this idea of taking on suffering, of giving away happiness is actually a way to make ourselves happy. And likewise, all of the experiences that we have of happiness that we have come about based on others. Every time that we experience happiness, it’s because we’ve, in a temporary way because someone else has done something that makes us happy or, because we’ve created ourselves. We’ve created the causes to experience happiness through showing compassion, through doing something that wasn’t selfish. Yeah.
So, in this way, if we want to experience happiness, we become happy by focusing on others, by creating positive karma, by reflecting on how all of the things that we get that make us happy somehow or other come from other beings. So in this way, if we remind ourselves that what we have been doing is thinking I’ll make myself happy. I’ll do I’ll I’ll forget about other beings and I’ll work for myself and that’ll make myself happy and which has been creating suffering for ourselves. And, we swapped that idea idea for this for this idea of I work for the benefit of others and that’ll make me happy. So that’s what Tonglen is.
It’s swapping the idea of working for ourselves for working for for others. Swapping the idea of trying to, do things that will make ourselves happy and thinking, well, I work for the benefit of others. And it’s actually working for the benefit of others, working to help others that actually does make us happy. And it’s working for ourselves, being selfish that makes us miserable. So in Tonglen, we’re swapping those two.
When it says exchange self and others, what it means is exchange working for self for working for others. And it’s actually changing that attitude that makes us happy. Like martyrs? Like what? Sorry?
Miners. Oh, come on. Do you think Gashila learned Greek mythology in the in the Tibetan monastery? Yeah. Guess they said if you don’t have others, it’s very, very difficult to be happy.
By hurting myself? Okay. So Geshe-la said they may well do that, but he doesn’t think it will help them out very much because he said the idea of what we’re doing here is working with the mind. It’s not the body that actually is the problem. It’s the mind.
Yeah. So what we’re trying to do is change our attitude, not our body. Yeah. So if we change our attitude so we’re focusing on, others and we change our attitude so we’re, not being selfish, then that’s the key. It’s not whether we change our body.
Or whether if we change our mind, then our body will do what our mind says. Alright. So Geshe-la said, making yourself suffer doesn’t alleviate the suffering of others. It just makes you suffer. Alright?
So you’re creating the causes for suffering, experiencing the causes of suffering and doing that in hurting yourself. So that doesn’t he doesn’t understand how that would alleviate the suffering of others. That’s just creating more suffering. Alright? So if you and he said the other thing is you don’t need to create suffering.
You’re in saṃsāra. You’ll experience suffering. So he said that if you experience suffering, you can think I’m taking on the suffering of others, but it seems a bit pointless to create more suffering when there’s already enough it. Yeah. And and so he said that if you can think of yourself as taking on the suffering when you experience it, that’s a great thing.
But to create more suffering doesn’t make any sense. Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I guess I said it was I’m gonna say the thing you said at the end first.
Right? Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. He said that what attachment is, what Buddhist definition of attachment is, is superimposing qualities on something that it doesn’t have. Right? So if we superimpose qualities on something and say, okay, that can make me happy.
Yeah? Then, that’s attachment. It’s it’s it’s dealing in illusions, making something that’s not there there. Pretending something that’s not there is there. So if you’ve developed the ability where you’re happy or you’ve developed the ability to be happy about experiencing suffering for the benefit of others, then that’s what’s called great compassion.
And if you really have that, that’s not attachment because having this ability to happily experience suffering for the benefit of others is a mind that leads you to enlightenment. So that’s not something that you’re putting superimposing qualities on. That’s something that leads to extreme happiness. Because happiness if you can be happiness if you can be happy experiencing suffering for others, then there’s not many situations you’re not gonna be happy in. So you’re not going to experience suffering.
Yeah. So it’s it’s not a matter of becoming attached to it. It’s a matter of developing something that gets you free of suffering. Where if you’re attached to something, it’s holding on to something thinking it’s gonna make you happy when it’s not. Yeah?
Yep. Mhmm. Now time’s up. There we go.
Oh, you gotta give you the mic. Oh, yeah. You’ve got K. So turn to page twenty four, of the morning prayers. I think that you’re visualizing a