Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche frames this 45-minute preliminary session around a single sustained metaphor: the mind is a patient, the Buddha its physician, the Dharma its medicine, and the Sangha its nurse. He identifies 84,000 varieties of mental illness — grouped under attachment, hatred, and ignorance — and argues that recognising oneself as ill is the indispensable first step toward seeking a cure, just as no one visits a doctor without knowing they are sick. A Q&A follows, taking up “living in the moment,” the body-mind relationship (physical illness arising from mental afflictions), ego transformation, and a brief instruction on mindfulness of breathing to quieten an overcrowded mind. Rinpoche closes by announcing that the main teaching — the Lamrim’s three fundamentals of renunciation, bodhichitta, and the wisdom realising emptiness — begins the following week. Accessible to newcomers; this session is a conceptual on-ramp to the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 3PA 1993 05 18.mp3
UUID: e0e3e3cd-95f5-4b62-99c7-788b8a3d8b07
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principal Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-05-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~1,978
There are two types of illnesses. There are illnesses of the body and illnesses of the mind. Though we may not be bodily ill, physically ill, we have ills of the mind. The ills of the mind are the various afflictive emotions, such types of emotions such as attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, afflictive doubt, distorted views. These are the illnesses of the mind, these various afflictive emotions.
These are the worst types of illnesses. These are the worst types of ailments. So we’ve had this illness of the afflictive emotions in our past rebirths. We have this illness in our present rebirth and if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to have them in our future rebirths. We found no cure up to now.
We need two types of medicines. We need medicines for the illnesses of the body and medicine for the illnesses of the mind. In the world, there are many varieties of medicines. If we were to question, well, how did these medicines come about? If I were to ask you that question, what would you say? How do these medicines originate? So this great variety of medicines which now exist were developed in order to cure the great varieties of sicknesses that people had for each of the various illnesses that they researched and found a medicine which was of use to each variety of illness. So the many varieties of medicine developed in accordance with the many varieties of illnesses.
So these days there the types of illnesses such as cancer and AIDS which they have no medicine for. Previously, TB was a great plague affecting many, many people. It was one of the worst diseases. But now they have found medicines whereby it’s no longer a great problem. The great varieties of medicines which presently exist were developed in accordance with the great variety of illnesses that living beings had.
For each of them types of medicine were developed for each of the illnesses. So of the three factors of ourselves, of being, in terms of body, speech and mind, then there were developed these various medicines in order to cure the various verbal and physical illnesses. So we likewise have to we need to develop a medicine for the illnesses of the mind and this medicine is the Dharma. There are eighty four thousand varieties of illnesses of the mind and the Buddha taught an appropriate cure for each of these eighty four thousand. So of these eighty four thousand varieties of illnesses of the mind, mainly there are three: attachment, hatred, and ignorance.
But within the categorization of attachment, there is attachment and varieties of illness similar to attachment, of which there are twenty one thousand. There are twenty one thousand which are hatred and similar to hatred. There are twenty one thousand which are ignorance and similar to ignorance. And then there are the attachment hatred and ignorance, these three combined and a variety of twenty one thousand illnesses which are similar to these combined. With respect to physical illnesses, the main cause is karma, action.
But there are conditions for these illnesses to express themselves, and these are in terms of wind energies, bile and phlegm. So there are the wind disorders, bile disorders and phlegm disorders, and then disorders which combine these three. So there are also the various four elements within the body: earth, water, fire, and wind energy. And these medicines react in terms of these four elements, bringing about — if the fire element is increased then we experience fevers. As these four elements fluctuate we experience many different types of illness.
For example, not being able to rise up. We can experience disturbances of the wind energies in our bodies, experience different imbalances of these various elements. At best these days, a doctor can bring about a temporary cure to our physical illness, but they cannot cure our illnesses completely. In order to bring about a complete cure of all our physical illness, it’s necessary that we preliminarily, before we proceed with curing our mental illnesses. In order to cure the illnesses of the mind, we need a doctor of the mind.
And the doctor of the mind is Śākyamūni Buddha. And the medicine of the mind which is prescribed is the Dharma. Such attitudes of mind as love and compassion, the awakening heart, the wisdom realizing emptiness. These are the medicines of the mind. Additionally we need a nurse to implement the treatment of the mind, and this is the Sangha or the spiritual community.
So the Dharma is extremely precious. It’s tremendously beneficial. By means of it, we can eliminate all our undesired suffering, that we can find all the happiness that we want. But, moreover, it is only a human life and human embodiment which is able to implement the practices to bring this about. So our human life affords us with a tremendously wonderful opportunity.
And we should reflect deeply on this fact so that we make use of these methods to find happiness to solve our problems. So we should think how precious and how beneficial the Dharma actually is. So maybe we can have a discussion if you have some questions.
So in order to cure the illness of the mind, you have to know that you’re sick. So by recognizing that one is ill, one will be — the inclination will be that much greater to seek a cure for one’s illness. One will listen that much more to the teachings which are the actual medicine and one will be that much more inclined to implement what one has heard. So one increases the potency of everything that one does to the degree that one recognizes oneself as a sick person. If we had some kind of physical illness that we were not aware of, then we would obviously not make any effort to cure ourselves.
We would not seek out a doctor simply not knowing that we were in fact ill. But once we are aware that we are sick and we say, I am sick, I am not well, then the thought would arise, I want to be happy, I want to cure myself, I want to eliminate this illness, and therefore we would seek out a doctor and the necessary medicine to cure ourselves. Therefore, because of the benefit, it’s important to appreciate our condition. Okay.
What was the question? Can you do that again? If you live in the moment, can you eliminate that suffering? So maybe we could expand upon what you mean by living in the moment.
So by living in the moment, will you get better? Will your illnesses be cured? So in order to get better, it’s necessary that we take medicine. Without taking the medicine, we’re not going to be cured.
So you know, some people when they think in these terms, they don’t like it, to think, Oh, I’m a sick person. There is a certain displeasure that that’s the way of thinking brings to their mind. But we have to look at what is the greater benefit which we are going to derive out of what we do and what we think. Even when we do some type of work we’re thinking in terms of what benefit, what kind of results am I going to get out of that difficult work. You know, work is hard, we oftentimes don’t want to do it, but we’d rather sit down and have a good meal and just enjoy ourselves.
But unless we work in order to gain the necessary money, then things are going to be even more difficult for us than the work might itself be. So we have to think, we cannot only think in terms of the moment’s pleasure or the present moment’s happiness. We have to think in terms of ultimate goals, ultimate benefits, and we have to be willing to tolerate certain displeasures in the present, temporal displeasures — we are going to bring about ultimate welfare, ultimate ends — and we have to be willing to tolerate those present difficulties. So it’s necessary that we consider the beneficial result, which we are going to experience in the future, and develop a sense of patience or tolerance with respect to the temporary difficulty which this may entail. The physical illnesses are a result of mental illnesses.
Just as a child is born from its parent, likewise the illnesses of the body — therefore there is a relationship between the child and the parent — likewise the physical illnesses are born from illnesses of the mind. Therefore, there is this type of relationship that exists between the two, physical illnesses and mental illnesses. What’s the Tibetan word for ego? Can we rephrase that in some way?
Alright. Well, it seems to be that to transform your ego through insight, you really have to come to a stability, a healthiness within yourself. If you are truly, really sick, you don’t seem to motivate yourself to do anything. This needs to be a process of building yourself up to a healthy state, to a state where it is possible. I think coming here is a state that’s acknowledging that we are becoming healthier.
So just as in the case of in order to find health, we have to remove — in order to find physical health, we have to remove our various physical illnesses. And though we may be healthy potentially within the mind, in terms of having Buddha nature, this is temporarily suppressed by the illnesses of the mind.
Just as if somebody were to hold you down, suppress you or hold you down, and you were to throw them off, then you could get up. And likewise, our Buddha nature is not able to find expression due to being suppressed by these various illnesses of the mind. But slowly as these illnesses begin to be cured, to dissolve, then our potential begins to express itself more and more until it expresses itself as a Buddha. So a room — our mind is very much like a room.
You know, if you have a lot of people in a small room shouting at one another, it’s not a very pleasant situation. It’s very painful in fact. Likewise within our mind, if our minds are continually full of preconceptions, ideas, that we’re continually thinking, then this can lead to a lot of troubles, a lot of worries. So one way that we can begin to lessen our difficulties is by beginning to think less. So what can be of use in this respect is mindfulness of breathing.
If, you know, by practicing this close placement of mindfulness, or just watching the exhalation, imagine that the white light moving out, and on the inhalation — black light going out, white light coming in — watching the inhalation and exhalation. It’s like our mind becomes single. There’s only one single thought process operating. It’s like one person sitting in the room by themselves.
It’s a very relaxed situation. If you were to reflect on what we’ve been talking about this evening in terms of that you have a human life, by which you can practice the Dharma, and what a wonderful opportunity this affords oneself, and that you have the absence of inhibitory conditions and the presence of all the conducive conditions, reflecting upon this and bringing to appreciate this well will make your mind very happy. So today we’ve covered some preliminary ideas with respect to the teaching, which is going to actually begin next week. We present the essence of the graduated path, the Lam Rim — the three fundamentals of the path: the determination to be free, the awakening heart, and the awakening mind. So we will begin from next week onward.