Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the striking image of Tibetan political prisoners longing for freedom, Khensur Rinpoche opens this 49-minute commentary on Je Tsongkhapa’s Three Principal Aspects of the Path by making renunciation concrete and immediate. He first addresses the text’s preliminaries — how students should listen with the qualities of renunciation, compassion, and openness to the view of emptiness — then enters the body of the text. The entire session focuses on the first principal aspect: the determination to leave cyclic existence. Rinpoche explains why it is foundational (without it, no method for liberation is ever applied), defines renunciation precisely as seeing cyclic existence’s faults and longing for stable happiness, and concludes by tracing cyclic existence to its mechanism — karma and afflictive emotions endlessly driving the assumption of contaminated aggregates. Suited to practitioners beginning Lamrim study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 3PA 1993 06 08.mp3
UUID: cbbe014d-4331-4573-95e1-e19b74368f49
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principal Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-06-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.2 minutes
Words: ~2,185
So we’ll begin by adjusting our motivation, meditating for ten minutes. In order to lead all living beings to a state of complete happiness where they experience freedom from suffering, I must abandon the causes of suffering of both myself and others. I must complete the practice, bringing to consummation the causes of happiness for both myself and others. And in that way, I can bring about the ultimate welfare of both myself and others.
Having brought about the welfare of both myself and others, I will have led all living beings into a state of complete happiness where they experience no suffering. In order to bring about that end, I will listen to, reflect upon, and meditate well on the essence of the universal vehicle Dharma — those fundamentals of the determination to awaken, the awakening heart, and the awakening mind. So, according to a verse by Je Tsongkhapa, where he sets out the way in which one is to listen to the Dharma — the Dharma being a very profound subject, it is necessary that it be listened to well. So as far as the listener — that is to say the student — they should listen to the teachings with an attitude where there is no or little attachment to the pleasures of cyclic existence or conditioned existence.
So those who listen to the Dharma should have a sense of renunciation, or the determination to awaken. And that this human life being extremely precious — it has great power and potentiality, that we as humans have tremendous intelligence, and that we should try to make our life meaningful, that we should make it a beneficial life, and in order to make it meaningful and useful, that we should seek to generate the awakening heart. Very, very happy. And that we should take great joy, or be very happy, in listening to the teachings of the path of Śākyamūni Buddha, that is to say, the Conqueror.
And the path which is being spoken of here is the awakening mind, or the gaining of the view of emptiness. And so this is all contained in the verse in our text where it says: Whoever are not attached to pleasures of mundane existence, whoever strive in order to make leisure and fortune worthwhile, whoever are inclined to the path pleasing to the Conqueror Buddha — those fortunate ones should listen with a clear mind. So those — that is referring to those students who are fortunate — and in what way are they fortunate? Possessing these qualities of the determination to awaken, the awakening heart, and the awakening mind, they should listen respectfully and with faith. Such a one who possesses these qualities of determination to awaken, the awakened heart, and the awakened mind is extremely precious. And they — to listen — they are the fortunate ones to listen to this present teaching.
Even for us, though we may not possess these qualities, still we should have a sense of what is being spoken of in terms of these — that we can have the determination to awaken — and having a liking for them, that we understand what the determination to awaken is and thinking, Oh, this is really wonderful. Understanding, having a sense of what the awakening heart is and thinking, this is very wonderful. And having a sense of what the awakening mind is and thinking, Oh, this is very wonderful. Having this liking and having a sense of what these are about, then this teaching also will be beneficial for them. So what we’ve spoken up to the present has been the preliminaries — we talked about first in terms of the offering of praise and discussing the way in which we are to listen.
Now we’re going to begin the actual body of the text itself. So the body of the text sets out these three fundamentals: the determination to awaken, the awakened heart, and the awakening mind. First, we should get an explanation of the determination to awaken. After that, the awakened heart, and then the awakening mind, presenting them in this order.
And then once we have gained an understanding of the subjects, then we are to put them into — we are to cultivate them, putting them into practice, cultivating them through our meditation and bringing our practice to consummation. So there is this order of presentation. With regard to the determination to awaken, there is a three-part presentation. First it explains why we are to cultivate the determination to awaken, the actual way in which it is to be cultivated, and the measure of having actually generated the determination to awaken. So we first stated the reasons for the three fundamentals, beginning with the fundamental of the determination to awaken.
And this is outlined in the third verse where it says: Without the complete thought definitely to leave cyclic existence, there is no way to stop seeking pleasurable effects in the ocean of existence. Also, craving cyclic existence thoroughly binds the embodied. Therefore, in the beginning, determination to leave cyclic existence should be sought. The determination that we are continually undergoing the experiences of suffering — whether these be mental or physical sufferings — and these are the sufferings of cyclic existence.
And we are to develop a longing to be liberated from these sufferings — that is to say, to develop a wish to abandon, to eliminate these sufferings. Without this, we’re never going to long to be — without this wish, we’re never going to long to be liberated from cyclic existence. So by initially developing a longing to attain liberation, we will then go on to apply the methods. We will implement the methods for gaining liberation.
And thereby we can gain liberation in this life itself. Without the intention to abandon the sufferings of cyclic existence — without the intention to attain the happiness of liberation as a preliminary — that is to say, without a longing to be liberated as a preliminary — we will never implement the methods for the attainment of liberation. And therefore there will never come a time that we will be liberated. So, presenting an analogy: there are presently many Tibetans who are imprisoned by the Chinese. And being imprisoned, it is necessary that one have a longing for freedom — to be free from the prison.
And out of that longing, one applies themselves to the means to free themselves from the prison. If one doesn’t try to get out, one will never get out. So likewise, we are imprisoned in the prison of cyclic existence. Unless we understand that, then we will never long for freedom. And never longing for freedom from cyclic existence, we will never implement the means to be free, and therefore we will never be free.
So it’s necessary to understand the nature of our situation — that we are abiding within the prison of cyclic existence — and generate a longing to be free from it. Another analogy would be: if there was a sick person who, out of their sickness, was experiencing a great deal of suffering, and experiencing this suffering they would seek to be free from their suffering by gaining a cure. And they would apply themselves to the means of finding a cure. So they would go to a doctor and implement the treatment which the doctor prescribed. They would take the medicine.
Out of implementing the means, they would cure themselves from the suffering of their illness and find happiness, well-being. So in order to ultimately achieve the happiness of health, one must implement the means to achieve that — in going to a doctor and taking the course of treatment, the medicine. Preliminary to that is understanding that one is in fact in — understanding the nature of one’s situation — that one is suffering. And understanding the detriments, the faults of one’s present state, and thinking, I’m sick, and understanding the nature of one’s state and its detriments, one will develop a longing to be free from it and to be cured. Without that understanding of one’s situation and a longing to be free from it, one will never seek and implement the means to be cured, and one will ultimately never experience health and well-being.
So this is an analogy. If we put it in context, then we must develop a longing to attain liberation from cyclic existence. In order to do that, we must understand the detriments, the faults of cyclic existence, in order that we will be willing to implement the means to find this freedom from cyclic existence. Therefore, without ever seeing the faults of our present situation, its detriments, its disadvantages, there’s no way that we’re going to ever be free. So when we say renunciation — or in my terms, the determination to awaken — what we mean is: having seen the faults of cyclic existence, through seeing the faults of cyclic existence, striving to be liberated from cyclic existence.
Seeing the faults of cyclic existence, striving to be free from cyclic existence — this is the determination to awaken. So the nature of the determination to awaken, or renunciation, is: having seen the faults of cyclic existence — that is to say, its suffering nature — developing a longing which seeks to find a stable happiness, a liberation from suffering. Having seen the faults of cyclic existence, that is to say its suffering, a longing to be free of cyclic existence, to be liberated from cyclic existence, a longing to be free and to find a stable happiness, an unchanging happiness.
So we should reflect upon this meaning of the determination to awaken in order to identify — to be able to recognize — what it is. So this intention, this longing which longs to be free from the sufferings of cyclic existence, is extremely important. This is tremendously beneficial and we should strive to generate it within our mind. So we have to see — well, what are the faults of cyclic existence? In order to be able to understand what are the faults of cyclic existence, it’s necessary for us to understand, well, what is cyclic existence?
It’s just like if we were to talk about a person and we say, this person is not a very good person, and we explain why that is. Well, he or she has this quality and this characteristic and this characteristic, and we identify what those characteristics are — then we can recognize that this person is not such a good person after all. Therefore we have to recognize what are the characteristics, what are the faults of cyclic existence, in order to see it — in order to be able to see the faults of cyclic existence, we have to begin to enumerate in order to identify its detriments. So we have to understand, well, what is cyclic existence? According to a line by Dharmakīrti, where he says that cyclic existence is to be identified as the suffering aggregates.
Now the suffering aggregates — these are the contaminated aggregates. And by contaminated aggregates we mean the aggregates which are generated out of afflictive emotions. The aggregates which are generated out of the afflictive emotions. So we are continuously taking rebirth again and again due to the force of these afflictive emotions, appropriating these contaminated aggregates. And then these aggregates are exhausted, and again we take contaminated aggregates.
And again these aggregates are exhausted, and again we take these contaminated aggregates. So this process is cyclic existence. An analogy would be if someone were to come newly to Australia and they didn’t know their way around, and they go from one place to another, wandering in circles, from one house to another. And in this way they just keep circling around, not knowing — just wandering, not knowing where they’re going. In terms of cyclic existence, we assume contaminated aggregates and then we give them up, and then we assume them again and we give them up.
We’re continually going through these cycles of assuming, giving up, assuming, giving up. And this is cyclic existence. So this repeated, continuous taking again and again of contaminated aggregates is cyclic existence. The aggregates themselves — these contaminated aggregates — are cyclic existence. So if cyclic existence is the contaminated aggregates which are assumed again and again in a cyclic fashion, continually being assumed and given up cyclically — what is the power behind it? What propels these cycles of assumption and letting go again and again?
What is the cause? The power behind cyclic existence is karma and afflictive emotions. This is like, in the case of a piece of machinery, that which turns the gears. The power behind that is electricity. So it is — the person is bound to these contaminated aggregates by karma and afflictive emotions, actions and afflictive emotions.
There’s no — in such a way there’s no way out. The person is bound to the contaminated aggregates by karma and afflictive emotions.