Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche traces the sequence of attitudes that lead toward bodhicitta, opening with a precise distinction between ordinary love and what he calls appealing love — seeing beings as radiant and dear, yet bereft of happiness, as a mother sees her child. Before that vision can arise, he argues, the ground must be leveled through equanimity, illustrated by the image of plowing a field smooth before planting. He guides a structured contemplation: placing a dear person, a stranger, and an enemy side by side, examining why attachment, indifference, or aversion arise, then showing that each response rests on this-life impressions that dissolve under analysis of past lives. The session then moves to recognizing all beings as former mothers, grounded in the logic of numberless rebirths and the equal kindness each has shown. Suited to practitioners working through the Lamrim stages of mind training.
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File: 35 3PA 1993 11 02.mp3
UUID: b7135ff8-4a3b-43e2-a083-4dfb2ddc76b3
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principal Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-11-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.6 minutes
Words: ~2,771
The awakening heart is an extremely precious quality, and it arises as a preliminary to its development. It’s necessary that we generate exceptional resolve. As a preliminary to exceptional resolve, we must develop compassion. And preliminary to compassion, we must develop love. So these three awarenesses, the exceptional resolve, compassion, and love are our attitudes of altruism.
That is to say they are attitudes wishing to bring about the benefit of others. So, it’s necessary that preliminary to the development of love to generate appealing love or attractive love and there’s a difference between love and appealing love. Love is simply the wish that others have happiness and the causes of happiness. Appealing love is that others look others have an appearance to us of being very pleasing, very appealing, attractive, and we see them as being without happiness and tortured by suffering and wishing them to wishing to alleviate that situation. So they appear in a very pleasing aspect to ourselves and in a way which additionally that they are without happiness and tortured by suffering and wishing to alleviate that situation.
So, just like a caring mother when her child appears to her, the child appears to be wonderful in all ways, and terribly appealing to the mother. And seeing that the child has been without happiness, and thinking very forcefully forcefully that may they have happiness. So the child appears extremely appealing, wonderful in all the various ways, but also and has the quality of seeing that the child is without happiness and having a tremendous wish in their own mind that and a longing that made the child be happy. So, just as his mother and seeing her child having the the aspect or the appearance of being wonderful and having a very appealing appearance. And that the child is not happy, is bereft of happiness, and long that the child have happiness.
Just like this relationship between this mother and child, we are to look upon all living beings in the same way with this appealing love as preliminary to the development of love. So as a as a means for for the as the means for development of appealing love, it’s necessary that we have developed a an attitude toward toward living beings as a child would toward their mother. It’s it’s it’s like in the reverse of the relationship, you know. Previously, the the appealing appearance appearance came from the mother looking at their child. Here, the appeal is from the child looking to the mother.
And, you know, that there of all the different people and that whether it be those who hold very dear or strangers or enemies, whosoever, it is the mother which the child feels most closest to, who sees, looks upon with the most cherishing attitudes, who looks the most appealing, who has the greatest they have the greatest liking for or caring toward. Unlike any other relationship, the child is looking toward the mother mother in this and she appears the most appealing of all other possible peoples. So amongst the you know, it is the mother is the most favorite of the child, the greatest of caring. You know, the the the child pulls the mother in in most in a dearest way like no other. So just as the mother appears to the child to them up be most dear, to them be the most appealing, and to be their favorite.
Likewise, we we we are to meditate that same attitude toward all all living beings. To cultivate that same attitude toward all living beings. We can develop the attitudes that all living beings appear extremely dear, extremely appealing, extremely likable. But it’s necessary as a preliminary to develop a sense of equanimity toward living beings. That is to say we it’s necessary to develop to eliminate our attitudes eliminate our attitudes of aversion and attachment to them.
Having a sense an equanimous attitude toward all living beings. If we don’t develop this attitude, then if those who look appealing to us, we would develop attachment, and those who did not, we would develop aversion. So, in order to see all living beings as appealing, it’s necessary and thereby develop the altruistic attitudes of love and compassion and exceptional resolve. It’s necessary to develop, you know, in order to develop appealing love, it’s necessary to develop equanimity. So it’s necessary initially to begin to cultivate equanimity.
And Without equanimity, we are going to hold some near and others at a distant. To those who we hold dear, we’re going to develop attachments. To those enemies, we develop aversion. So, we want to develop an attitude of equanimity. We hold all three, those dear ones, strangers, and enemies without any distinction, equally holding them, having an equal, equanimous attitude without difference to these three.
So an analogy would be in the cultivating of a crop. We have to, it’s necessary to prepare the field. If the field field is rough and uneven, then we won’t be able to plant the field well. We won’t be able to harvest a good crop. So, we have to plow the field to to make it even and smooth.
And there in that field, planting the seeds, we can ensure a with that preparation, we can ensure a good harvest of the crop. So, if we without a sense of equanimity equanimity toward all living beings an attitude which is which is divorced of attachment and aversion then we will not be able to cultivate a wishing happiness to all living beings. That we will not be able to cultivate a sense of wishing that others be all living beings be free of suffering. Now that we we won’t be able to for toward those we have aversion for to develop an attitude wishing that they were happy. And, therefore, we will not be able to develop love with respect to them.
So, we have to develop an equanimous attitude holding all living beings the same as I see. Whether with respect to enemy or a stranger or a dear one. Begin with three categories of living beings. Those and develop a sense of equanimity toward them. These are the three categories of those we hold dear, strangers, and enemies.
So, first we, we present them to ourselves simultaneously, that we look upon all three together. And to, to this, to the stranger, we, we will have an attitude attitude of neither liking nor disliking, and neither aversion nor attachment to to the enemy. We will have we will not we will not like them. We will have aversion toward them and toward the person we hold dear, a liking, we will have attachment. So when we look at these three individuals and we see what determine the attitude that we have for them and try to understand the reason that we have that attitude.
Toward the person who we toward the stranger, we see them as temporally not having harmed us or benefited us. Therefore, we have we take a neutral position with respect to them, which, that is to say, we neither have aversion nor attachment to them. Toward the enemy, we, in terms of our, when we look at the reasons for our aversion to them, we see that they have brought us some temporal harm. Toward the deer, those we hold dear, when we analyze the reason for our attachment toward them, we see that they have brought us some kind of temporal benefit. Reason when we analyze is that they have benefited us in some way.
But this is, you know, this benefit they have shown us is very slight and only temporal. In fact, this same individual in previous lives has harmed us many, many times, has killed us many, many times, has brought us great troubles many, many times in the past. Then when we look to the enemy, we have a sense of anger, aversion toward this prison. And the reason, upon analysis, is that we see that they brought us some kind of temporal harm. But, or they have ourselves or someone our friend or someone that is close to us.
But, you know, that’s really, really insignificant when we look at the fact of in previous lives how much benefit they have brought us. They have been our mothers and our fathers, and been tremendously kind to us in these ways. And now they and compared to this small incident, it doesn’t even it’s hardly significant, this small harm that they brought to us in this instance. And when we look at the stranger, we have a sense of indifference toward this individual. And upon analysis we see that our reason is that at least temporarily they have neither benefited us nor harmed ourselves.
But in fact, in fact, this same individual in previous lives has benefited us many, many times, just like this person we hold so dear. And in fact, this same person has harmed us many, many times, just like this person that we have aversion for. So, when we look at these three people, we can see that, in fact, they the same they have been of equal benefit to ourselves. They have been of equal harm to ourselves. And therefore, our attitudes of aversion and attachment for one and the other and indifference toward the third is really inappropriate.
In fact, we should have an equanimous attitude then since they have been exactly the same with respect to ourselves. This again, and many times, then we will begin to see all of these three as having been the same benefit to ourselves, of being equal harm to ourselves, as being equal in terms of the neutral relations that we’ve had with them. And, we will begin to eliminate this sense of attachment and aversion of holding one close and the other at a distance, and this represents the development of equanimity. So, through the development of equanimity, not holding some close and others at a distance, it is likened to to the preparation of the field, in which we are removing all the rough spots, all the stones, all the stumps, to where the field is flat and smooth. Once having prepared the field well in this way, then we can, if we go ahead, proceed and plant the seeds and water it, then we can be assured of a good crop.
So, having cultivated the attitude of equanimity, the attitude which is divorce of attachment and aversion toward all living beings, we then go on to secondly recognize all living beings as our mothers. And when we look at the that individual with whom we have the closest who the closest relationship, it is the mother. The mother in the course of this life has been of the greatest benefit. You know, the ultimate that individual we hold ultimately closest, both in terms of in terms of the world, secular, but also in terms of dharma, is is the mother. I mean, have shown us the great kindness.
Between our two parents, mother and father, it is the mother who is to be held with greatest to be seen as to be held with the greatest sense of endearment in terms of the universal vehicle. So, if we’re, okay, well, why, why, why do we, why does the universal vehicle hold this position with respect to the mother? First, it is on the basis of our human embodiment that we can achieve a state whereby eliminate the suffering of all living beings, and we can lead them to happiness. That is to say, that we can achieve Buddhahood. The state where we have removed all our various faults, and brought to consummation our excellent qualities.
So, this is the object of attainment of the universal vehicle, and this is accomplished in terms on the basis of a human embodiment, human body. So, prizing this, our human body, we then going to look, we we can understand, well, this human embodiment arose in dependence on both our mother and father. But, but, in terms of our development, it is mainly the mother who brings us the most welfare, is of the greatest benefit, who is the most caring, who shows us the greatest kindness. So, is a, it is our mother who, whose milk that we drink, who soothes, who comforts, who comforts us, who cleans and washes our body, who feeds us our food. In all of this, there’s no one like our mother.
There’s no one who has been kinder than our own mother. So this, all of the difficulties that our mother went through caring for us, ensuring that we had a healthy body, and that in dependence upon this human embodiment, we can then go on to bring about the welfare of both ourselves and others through the attainment of Buddhahood. And this is the great kindness that our mother has shown us. There is no one in the world who is of greater kindness to ourselves. So, our mother is that individual whom we hold most dear and who has been of the greatest benefit to ourselves.
And we have, she, we have a real compassion and caring and an appealing love toward her. And, we are trying to develop those same attitudes likewise toward all living beings who have also been our mother. The same qualities qualities of appealing love, love and compassion. Some might think that, well, you know, I can’t meditate on others as my, with the same attitude that I have for the mother of this life. But, in fact, if we try to, if we cultivate it, then we definitely can develop a similar attitude that we have for our mother toward others.
So within within Buddhism, there is the the acceptance of the existence of past and future lives. Without this, without asserting the existence of past and future lives, then it would be difficult to proceed in this fashion. If we only had this one life, then this one mother of this life would be our only mother. But in fact, we’ve had numberless lives that we’ve had lives previous to this life and rebirth previous to that life and a birth previous to this and life previous to that. Numberless.
So, you know, this, the mother of this life has given birth to our embodiment, and it’s been a great benefit to ourselves. And likewise, all living beings have given birth to our bodies and have gone through great difficulty in benefiting ourselves. Likewise, just like our mother of this life has benefited us. Previous mothers have treated us in the same way that our mother of this life has treated us. That, that we have had numberless rebirths, numberless previous rebirths and therefore we have had numberless mothers.
We know it was all of over the course of all of these rebirths, we haven’t had just one mother, but we’ve had different mothers over the course of these rebirths. In fact, we can’t point to any living being who has not been our mother in a previous rebirth. So there is not one living being, the variety of which we have not taken a rebirth as. Whether over the course of rebirth, we have taken rebirth as a dog, as a cat, as a horse, as a fish. We have taken in this embodiment rebirth as a human.
But in these, all of these previous numberless past embodiments, there is not one type of embodiment which we have not taken the form of rebirth as. So, in the taking of these rebirths, most of these rebirths, in most of these rebirths, we had a mother. And so, mother in this life, our mother of this life could not have been our mother in the taking of all of those varieties of rebirths. So, all living beings have been been our mothers and have benefited us in the same way as a mother of this life. All of these beings who have been a benefit to ourselves in previous lives, they were our mothers.
Individual individual has benefited the most in this life is our mother. They are they are all living beings are all our mothers. If someone benefited you last year, and another benefited you this year, then their benefiting you would be the same. They both benefited you. Or on the other hand, if someone harmed you last year, and another harmed you this year, then they both harmed you.