Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A question about compassion for those born with disabilities opens this 49-minute Q&A with Khensur Rinpoche, part of his Lamrim series on the three principal aspects of the path. Rinpoche reframes the challenge: genuine compassion is not a response to visible wounds but arises from understanding that a person is suffering under accumulated negative karma — a basis that naturally extends to those who appear outwardly prosperous. A question about a Black South African enduring poverty and apartheid prompts a distinction between dharma motivation (compassion and altruism) and unskillful motivation (anger): outward action can be Dharma if the inner attitude is right. He then explains how present illness links to past-life karma rather than present afflictions, and how the four opponent powers purify that karma. A final exchange confirms that no one — not even Buddhas — can purify another’s karma.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 41 3PA 1993 11 29.mp3
UUID: 20738f00-c743-4f03-8e2e-34f229e7f078
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principal Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-11-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.6 minutes
Words: ~2,119
And subsequent to that, we won’t have the usual recitation of prayers, but we’ll have beginning the question and answer session. I must lead all living beings — all living beings equal to space — to a state where they are free from all suffering, they have complete happiness. If I myself have not attained such a state, let us say if I have not freed myself from all suffering and attained complete happiness, then there’s no way that I can lead others to that state where they are free from suffering and have complete happiness. With the aim of leading others to a state where they are free of suffering and can have great happiness, and then determining to attain a state for oneself where one has removed all of one’s various faults and has brought to consummation all excellent quality. In order to remove one’s various faults, to bring to consummation one’s excellent qualities, one must practice the path.
And as a means of practicing the path, one involves ones itself in meditation. But preceding meditation, one must necessarily reflect upon, contemplate, come to understand what what what is to be meditated. And prior to that, one must listen to what is to be meditated upon. So determining to listen to, reflect upon, and meditate well, the the universal vehicle in general, but moreover the essence of the universal vehicle, that is to say the graduated path, the lam rim, and within this, the three fundamentals of that path. Yeah.
As was previously mentioned, today we’re going to devote to a question and answer session, and we we can you can ask questions on whatever we have discussed previously. We’ve discussed, in terms of determination to awaken or the renunciation such topics as leisures and fortunes, karma and the results, impermanence in terms of death. We’ve discussed the awakening heart. So, you can ask questions on any of those subjects, but make them good questions. Make them clear and brief.
And when when a question is being asked, you know, ask yourself, well, what question what answer would you give to such a question? And then to try to and then when the answer is given, do you do you agree with that question, or does that bring up other questions for you? So there there are many one can see many cases of people in India without arms and legs that they were born in that way and many types of handicaps. I’m sorry. You didn’t hear the question?
Oh, no. I said it. Listen better. Rinpoche said last week that all disease of the body stem from diseases of the mind. What about conditions we are born with such as physical disabilities?
That’s the question. So remember, you can see in India many cases where individuals are born in handicapped without legs or without arms. And these are results of actions created in previous lives due to the afflictive emotions. Out of afflictive emotions, these people in their past lives have engaged in cutting other people’s limbs and cutting the limbs off animals. Having created such karma, they now have these handicaps as a result.
So the results are motivated by afflictive emotions, come about through a motivation of the afflictive emotions, which is the sickness of the mind. How would one overcome a sense of apathy perhaps towards such someone who’s born in such a way because it’s a product of their karma, therefore it might be difficult thinking in that way, it might seem difficult to generate compassion for them, seeing that it’s simply a product of their karma. Yeah, something like that. So so an individual who was born with such a decrepit body, a handicapped body, is going through a great deal of suffering, both physically and mentally. They’re very troubled by this.
And though the way that this was brought about was the accumulation of karma previously, especially negative karma. And and as a as a product of that negative karma previously accumulated, this individual is experiencing suffering and is deserving of our compassion, just as a hell being is deserving of our compassion, or animals. And looking at animals, the type of rebirth which they’ve taken in terms of that they’re dumb, they have a poor embodiment, poor bodies, they don’t they aren’t under they are not able to understand things well, that this is all product of negative karma accumulated previously. And out of this negative karma, they’ve taken such a type of rebirth, and therefore, it is deserving of our compassion. Merely observing someone’s wounds or disease.
Merely that is not the way to generate compassion which we are trying to develop here. But the compassion that we’re seeking to generate here is very much developed upon the understanding that such a situation was accumulated through past negative karmas. Understanding that such a situation was accumulated through past negative karmas. Such a situation arose in dependence upon accumulating past negative karmas. That in dependence upon this living being accumulated negative karmas previously, and therefore they’re now suffering.
Under the force of that karma, were forced under the control of that karma, they were forced to take rebirth. This is the way that we’re seeking to generate compassion, not merely in dependence upon seeing the present disease or present wounds, the present handicap of the person, initially, there’s a grasping for I. Then having grasped generated the grasping for an I, one goes on to accumulate karma. Out of the out of the force of that karma, one takes rebirth and experiences suffering. So the compassion is a situation where these living beings are accumulating negative karma, which is going to bring them suffering.
That’s the object of our compassion. That object, in dependence upon generate compassion. If you relied simply on as a means for generating compassion on observing someone who is diseased or handicapped, who’s hurt in some way, then for those who are experiencing great health, strong bodies, who are in high positions, you wouldn’t be able to generate compassion for them. There’s no way that you could develop compassion for all living beings. So, Kimbo’s should I do do you want the question repeated?
In the back? No? It’s okay? Kimmel’s question is that an intelligent black living in South Africa who is living in poverty and feels a sense of injustice, with regard, to his situation. So so should this individual simply change his feelings about his situation, or should he act in some more external manner?
Africa. Africa. So by feeling, do you mean the anger? So the the from there are two points of view, one from the spiritual or dharma point of view, one from the secular point of view. From the attitude which is taken from dharma point of view is that this result, that one is a this situation is brought about to one’s previous negative karma, which one that has been accumulated in the past, and that one is responsible for that. And that now in this situation is such that I I didn’t apply the the four opponent powers previously.
I didn’t declare those actions. I didn’t turn away from those actions. I didn’t apply the four opponent powers. And that and, therefore, this having not done that in the then I’m experiencing this negative result. And but by this by experiencing this negative result, I can purify that past negative karma.
So this is part of my practice, what I’m experiencing now, what I’m going through now. So that a secular viewpoint would be one would make effort to gain freedom, to gain prosperity, that one apply oneself to that. One would implement the methods to attain those ends. This would be from a secular point of view. So dharma is mainly dependent upon the motivation.
So in this case, if this individual saw that his people didn’t have happiness or they didn’t have freedom, he developed out of this, he developed a compassion and a sense of altruism, wishing to benefit them, then if he went on to implement the means to to give them happiness and well-being, freedom, then this could be a Dharma practice. On the other hand, if if if the motivation were an afflictive emotion for involving oneself in in terms of anger or hatred, then this would be unskillful. It wouldn’t be a Dharma practice. Yes. Did you hear the question?
I’m sorry, I didn’t repeat it. So so when one’s present illness, bodily illness, is a product of the ills of the mind, let us say, afflictive emotions, but not of the present afflictive emotions. So one’s present bodily illness is not a product of one’s present afflictive emotions in one’s mind. It is a product of the afflictive emotions of a previous life. To under the influence of these afflictive emotions, one engages in actions creating karma and creating negative karma, and as a result, in this present life, one is experiencing the negative results of that karma, suffering of a physical illness.
So in order to alleviate the present bodily illness, one has to purify the previously created negative actions accumulated through application of the four opponent powers. By purifying the negative previously accumulated karma, one can bring about a cure of the present bodily illness, not through alleviating the present, not through lessening the present afflictive emotions, but through lessening one’s present afflictive emotions, then one is going to create less and less negative karma, whereby in the future one will not have to experience the resultant illnesses, physical illnesses in the future. So one lessens one’s afflictive emotions, present afflictive emotions, in order to bring about physical well-being in the future, but in order to bring about well-being physically now in the present when one is ill, one has to purify the previously negative karma created in the past due to the afflictive emotions in the past. Is purify the karma Yes. Of someone who has taken their own life?
Yes. Somebody else to do that. The karma you mean the karma of having taken their life? Yes. Of killing?
So that would be extremely difficult. You know, when the there there is a verse where it says that, you know, the karma which is accumulated does not ripen upon stones or the ground, but ripens only upon one’s own consciousness and matures in terms of one’s own consciousness. You know, if it were the case that others could somehow purify another’s karma, then the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas would have done that by now. They would have eliminated all our negative or destructive actions within our minds through their declaring, through methods on their side. But, in fact, it is only one oneself creates the action, and it is only one oneself which experiences the result and can purify that action.
The skillful actions that one creates will bring about happiness for oneself. The unskillful actions that one creates will bring about unhappiness for oneself. One creates one’s experience, and one has to purify oneself. Yes. Then we experience a variety of pains.
So, we experience a variety of pains, variety of illnesses, sufferings, and we can really understand from where these arise, that they arise from a negative cause. They are results, and they are undesirable results, and therefore, can really understand that they come from an undesirable cause, a negative cause, that this suffering is a result. It and its cause are unskillful actions. You know, this is we can come to that determination. We accumulate unskillful actions, negative karma, and experience the result.
So we can understand that. And but we don’t know so we understand in general that all of our undesirable experiences come from unskillful actions. So we don’t know from what particular unskillful action a particular result arises, this undesirable result arises from. We only know in general that that this undesirable result arises from unskillful actions. So we we we develop we apply the four opponent powers to unskillful actions in general, having a sense of regret of having created unskillful actions and determining not to repeat them again in the future, and declaring those negative actions, declaring our negative actions.
So just as in the case when in order to cure illness, people take medicine. But here, in order to cure the illness, we apply, we try to remove the common causes for the illness by means of applying the four opponent powers. We know of someone in prison, we might not know, what crime they, in particular, they committed, but we know it was illegal, that was, some kind of negative act that landed them.