Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche opens with a vivid illustration: the brief relief of standing after long sitting is not real pleasure but simply the diminishment of one suffering and the quiet start of the next. This analysis of contaminated samsaric pleasure anchors his case for why Dharma alone — unlike secular pursuits — can bring lasting happiness. He then turns to impermanence, explaining why meditating on death matters at every stage of practice: it motivates beginners, sustains practitioners midway, and brings practice to completion. He closes with Tsongkhapa’s verse on the rarity of precious human life, and distinguishes practitioner from non-practitioner by a single criterion: whether attachment to this life alone drives one’s motivation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 22 3PA 1993 08 24.mp3
UUID: 17f6b6ff-e521-4326-9dc0-f9f09380fa60
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principal Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-08-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.0 minutes
Words: ~2,538
Nature of mind is such that that we we can become tremendously accustomed to particular things, and they they come quite readily. Or on the other hand, the first time we do something, you know, something that we aren’t accustomed to, it’s extremely difficult. But if once upon accustomed accustomed to it, it becomes extremely easy. We can understand it easily. We can involve it in ourselves quite readily.
And this is the nature of the mind. So if were for considering well, what is the benefit to ourselves? That which is a benefit not only in this life but in future lives is the dharma. All other things aside from the dharma, to a large extent have no essence and they’re unstable. But it is a dharma brings about a result of great happiness and in no way can bring about suffering to ourselves.
The dharma only brings happiness. No suffering whatsoever on on one hand. On the other, most other things may bring some small happiness, but additionally, there is great suffering. If we we can take an example of when we eat food, when we’re hungry.
We do when we eat food, when we’re hungry, we do experience some minor happiness. But if we examine that, what we’re experiencing, what we experience as happiness is actually a diminishment of our suffering, of hunger. That eating of that food is not in nature of happiness. If the food were in the nature of happiness, then as much as we ate, it should always bring us that much pleasure if it was in the nature of happiness. But we all know that the more we eat, there will reach a point when it starts to cause us suffering and we finally get sick.
Another example is that, you know, we’re all sitting here. And as we continue to sit here, soon we will all become discomfort. We will experience discomfort, some degree of suffering. And so we get up, we stand up, and we all that feels good to stand up. And there’s the appearance of having eliminated our suffering.
But what actually has occurred is our great suffering has diminished into a minor suffering. And it is the beginning of But it appears to us, because it’s diminishment of a greater suffering, we experience that as as a pleasure. But it is in fact only a diminishment of previously greater type of suffering. And in fact having stood up we are it is the initial moment of the suffering of standing up. Because after a while that suffering will gradually increase and then finally we think, well, this is this hurts to stand up.
I’ve I’ve got to sit down. So we sit down and immediately we we experience what appears to as pleasure but which is in fact just simply a diminishment of the previous great suffering of standing. But it is now the minor suffering of having just begun to to sit down. So we are fluctuating back and forth through these different types of sufferings. So that’s the nature of the contaminated pleasure of cyclic existence.
It’s such that when the contaminated pleasure of cyclic existence is such that it is simply the diminishment of previous sufferings is conceived of as pleasure, and the beginning of a new type of suffering has begun. There is no end to the suffering, in fact. If standing up were real happiness, then however long we stood up we should always be experiencing pleasure. It should always remain that way, but it doesn’t. Understanding the nature of the Understanding the nature of the pleasures of cyclic existence and the pleasures of this life, we should seek not to become attached to them.
And what are we to do in such a case? If meditate well, cultivate our minds, we can attain an unchanging happiness. That is, let’s say, the happiness of liberation. Liberation is constituted is such that there is only happiness. There is not the slightest of suffering.
If we were to, for example, attain a Pure Land, such as Amitābha’s Pure Land, There are in general three types of feelings. There is feelings of pleasure, equanimity, or feelings of pleasure, indifference, and suffering. There there is not even the feeling of equanimity, let alone to say the feeling of suffering. There is only the feeling of happiness. Not only is there not only there only the feeling of happiness, but there is no experience of suffering to the extent that one doesn’t even hear the sound suffering or see suffering.
There is only happiness. So such a situation, why is there no suffering? Simply because there is no cause of suffering. Without the cause of suffering then resultant suffering cannot arise. There is no cause of suffering therefore there is no suffering.
So the reason that we’ve gone into this this discussion is that is trying to come to a determination that of what is going to be a benefit to ourselves at the time of death. We are going to have some difficulties at the moment of our death and what can help us. It is the dharma, you know, these healthy states of healthy attitudes of mind. That if we can eliminate any types of negative states, then we can those negative states are those which are going to give us difficulties, which are going to present us problems. If we can eliminate them, then we eliminate all difficulties.
So it is the understanding that it the determination to develop healthy states of mind to practice in this way. So it’s necessary that we cultivate, that we meditate on these skillful states of mind trying to generate these healthy states, kind hearted attitudes, and to try to cease negative, harmful states of mind. And moreover, it’s necessary that we make effort today, to this end. If we make effort today, then we are going to be benefited in the future. If we think, well, I’ll put it off till tomorrow, we can’t be sure that we won’t be dead before we institute our practice tomorrow.
If we’re planning to go to India and we think we’re going to have a good time there, it’s necessary that we make some kinds of preparations. What are we to do? Making all the necessary plans that when we do go our trip will go well. On the other hand, though we might, if we were to put off making these preparations and then suddenly we had to leave and go, then we are going to experience a great deal of difficulties not having made preparation. So this is the benefit of preparing ourselves in terms of why we meditate on impermanence in terms of death, because we will make preparations for ourselves in the future, that we will implement methods whereby to ensure that we will not experience difficulties in the future.
On the other hand, if we aren’t mindful of death, if we don’t cultivate and meditate on death, then we’re simply not going to involve ourselves in preparation. We’re not going to ensure that we involve ourselves in the means of eliminating our difficulties in the future. The meditation on the impermanence of death is extremely important. It is extremely important over all three times of our practice. In terms of our Dharma practice, in the beginning it is the means by which we actually enter into our practice, that we are motivated to do something in terms of our spiritual practice.
In the middle of our practice, medium term, intermediate, by again and again taking to mind the impermanence in terms of death, we will sustain our practice. We will carry it through. And then finally, in the end, it will, by being mindful of the impermanence in terms of death, will bring our practice to a conclusion. We will complete our practice. So it is important in all of the three times in the beginning, the intermediate, and finally at the end.
Initially it is the way that we will be motivated to begin a practice. In intermediate, the way that which will serve to sustain our practice. In the end, that will help us to bring our practice to some kind of conclusion. If we aren’t mindful of death, then we won’t involve ourselves in this way and our life will be exhausted without having practiced. And meditating on impermanence in terms of death is extremely useful in diminishing our attachment and anger and hatred.
It is we it will help us to be less attached to things such as food and clothing, to riches, to our friends, to negative types of activities which we involve ourselves in to get all of these things, and additionally to the attitudes of hatred and anger. So the source of our present discussion in terms of the text are the lines by Tsongkhapa where he says, Leisure and fortune are difficult to find, and life has no duration. So here we, by reflecting upon the fact that we possess life of leisures and fortune, which it has great meaning. And that we, through reflecting, it’s difficult to find and has great meaning. And understanding this, we will begin to understand the necessity to practice the Dharma, that we are able to practice the Dharma, and that we should begin our practice now.
Respect to the necessity for our practice of Dharma, this arises out of the fact that we all want happiness. We don’t want to suffer. And leading from this, it is only the Dharma which is able to eliminate all our suffering, is able to bring us an ultimate happiness. It is simply based on the fact that this is what we want. We don’t want to suffer.
We want happiness. And that which can only the only thing which can bring about this end this ultimate end of what we want is our practice of Dharma. Therefore we need to practice. Understanding the need to practice the Dharma then we may question, well, am I able to practice? But in fact we are.
We have individuals who are able to teach us what is to be adopted, what is to be avoided, and that we can understand what is being taught. And moreover, we have all of the internal and external conditions whereby to practice what is being taught. So therefore we are able to practice. And in terms of the fact that we are able to practice, well, is it necessary to practice presently? And in fact it is.
That it is dependent upon this human life that we can carry on as successful practice. And moreover, this human life that we possess is extremely rare. Its causes and conditions which brought it about are extremely difficult to create and therefore a human life is extremely difficult to find. And we cannot be assured that we will find it again. So we have to begin at present.
And so we may come to the conclusion, I have to sometime over the course of my life, maybe next year I’ll practice Dharma. Gradually I’ll get around to it. But in fact, that’s not the situation in which we can allow ourselves to remain in because of the impermanence in terms of death. We don’t know when we’re going to die, which day we’re going to die, which month, which year. If when our time of death comes, we might not have even five minutes to practice.
If if we reflect in this manner, then we will we will not become overly involved in the various activities of this life. They will not have great power over ourselves to draw us into them. We will begin to see that they have various activities, secular activities, cannot bring about any really great results. They are really not of that much benefit or use to ourselves. Because at the time of our death then no matter what activities in terms of secular activities they will be of no use to myself.
And we we don’t know when we are going to die. That these all these secular activities which are devoted to this life are in a sense essenceless and meaningless in terms of when thinking of death, in terms of death. It is said that that one who clings only to this life is is not a practitioner of dharma. What do we mean by dharma? Of what use is it to ourselves?
It is that which at the initial level is able to ensure that we attain an excellent human life in the future. in dependence upon that, then we can attain liberation from cyclic existence altogether. But we can go even further in that in terms of the use of dharma. That is, we can bring about the ultimate interests of oneself and others. This is the real use of dharma.
So it is only the dharma which can bring us happiness in future lives, can bring about liberation, which can bring about omniscience. There is no other thing which can bring about this end. There is nothing within the secular world which can bring us this happiness. There nothing within the secular world which can bring us which can eliminate all our various faults and bring to consummation all acts and qualities. It is only the Dharma which has this ability, therefore, it’s extremely precious.
The distinction, the motivation for those who practice Dharma and do not practice Dharma are extremely distinct. They’re extremely differentiated. So you who have listened to the teachings of Dharma again and again, who carry on a practice, are very much different than those who have not engaged in such types of activities. Your attitudes are very different. So those who practice Dharma and those who are not are very different in their attitudes and their motivations.
Do you understand the difference in motivations of these two types of individuals. Usually you ask me questions. Today I’m going to ask you a question. Do you understand the difference between the attitude and the motivations of these two individuals? Would you repeat that?
Everybody? Wrong and get you more. Yeah. Good here. Yeah.
Yeah. Good. So you you all answered well. And another Mañjuśrī said in determining the distinction between a practitioner and a non practitioner is differentiated in terms of whether there’s attachment to this life. To our involvement in the dharma?
We were we only made effort for the pleasures of this life alone. Our entire motivation was bound to finding happiness and eliminating our sufferings in terms of only this life. We, you know, were very trying to find food, clothing, all the good things of our life. We would we would involve ourselves in great difficulties in all our various activities. We’re all motivated only for the welfare of this life.
Whereas as a practitioner of dharma seeks to decrease attachment to only the welfare of this life. That begins to, the practitioner begins to concern themselves with the happiness of future lives. But even further, themselves with liberation and finally omniscience. Their motivation is more and more directed