Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A mother and daughter in a sinking leather boat — Khensur Rinpoche uses this vivid image in this 48-minute commentary to show how genuine other-cherishing benefits both giver and receiver. Part of an Easter retreat series on the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, the session opens by restricting the teaching to practitioners of the highest intelligence and intention, then revisits verse one’s core argument that exchanging self-cherishing for other-cherishing eliminates all faults and perfects all qualities. A second story — two people sharing a glass of water — maps three degrees of compassion to three degrees of benefit. Rinpoche closes by introducing verse two’s demand to hold oneself as the lowest of all, exploring why this reversal of our normal hierarchy is both essential and deeply uncomfortable.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 8VTT 1992-Easter Retreat.mp3
UUID: 007e59d6-7856-40a3-b96d-e5d004e1c384
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 8 Verses Thought Transformation (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.5 minutes
Words: ~2,514
Now according to a verse by the great master of the thought transformation of the awakening heart, the Indian master, Acharya Śāntideva, in which he said, those, myself and others, who wish to quickly free themselves from suffering. What are they to do? Are to practice the secret method of exchanging and equalizing self for others. Thought transformation is in the genre of equalizing and exchanging self for others. And therefore, it is said that it is not to be explained to everyone, but it’s only to be explained in secret.
And why is that? Because it is so very vast and profound. Why is it not to be explained to everyone but simply to a few and in secret? There are varieties of dispositions among human beings. There are those who have limited intelligence, and there are those with vast intelligence.
And likewise, there are those who are able to make limited effort. Those who are able to engage in many types of effort and those who engage in great effort. And there are those who have limited intention, middling intention, and very vast intentions. So there are these different dispositions of human beings. And this teaching is specifically meant for those best minded individuals, those of highest intelligence, those willing to make the greatest effort, and those with the highest intention.
And for them, this teaching is a great benefit. It fits their particular mentality. For others who are not disposed in such a way, it doesn’t fit. They’re not able to absorb these teachings. It simply leaves them bewildered, and it’s of no benefit.
The same would be we can easily understand this since the same would be analogously analogously to the case where if someone who was in the first or second grade class in school was taught the subjects of the tenth grade, the tenth of year, they wouldn’t be able to absorb it. It would be of no benefit to them. They would be these higher subjects which are taught in high school, being presented to it wouldn’t fit with the mentality of the student. But I think I am hopeful that all the students present today are the highest intelligence, willing to make the greatest effort, and have the most profound of intentions, and therefore, it will fit. Yesterday, we explained the first verse in the thought transformation in eight stanzas where it said, being determined to accomplish the highest welfare for all beings, who excel the wish fulfilling gem, I shall constantly hold them dear.
And if we were simply to explain the essence of what is intended in the meaning presented here, it would be simply that the inappropriateness of self-cherishing and the advantages and the benefits of other-cherishing. It is through other-cherishing that we are able to eliminate all our various faults and bring to consummation all our excellent qualities. So this is the reason why we are to exchange self-cherishing for other-cherishing. So we take those individuals who have actually attained the level of having eliminated their various faults and brought to the consummation of excellent qualities as an example. And they have attained that by means of having taken this path of exchanging self-cherishing for other-cherishing.
So amongst us, there are probably those who accept the notion of future rebirths and those who do not. First, those who do. Then in the future, it is by means of observing ethics and not bringing harm to others that we will again attain a human rebirth. But going beyond that, in order to ensure that we have a beautiful healthy body, then we have to cultivate patience in the face of others’ harm. And then to ensure that we have all the very necessary material possessions to carry on a productive life.
We need food, clothing, etcetera. We practice generosity. To ensure that in our future that we have harmonious relationships with our friends, our family, our parents, between husbands and wives, then we it’s necessary to cultivate power of patient. But for the teachings on thought transformation to be a benefit, it’s not necessary that one act one necessarily accept the notion of future life. One can simply direct the one’s attention to this life and still the the it is sufficient to to for the that even that is sufficient for the teachings of thought transformation to be a benefit to one.
So even one who is directing all of their attention to happiness of this life and doesn’t consider the I thing do I do it. Can how how can we bring about such happiness through love and compassion? As, you know, in the story that we was related yesterday where a mother and daughter were traveling actually, I mean, it’s a a leather-covered wrap, a leather boat. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it before. And the mother and the daughter were traveling down the river in this boat, and the boat began to sink.
And the daughter thought that if there was only one person in the boat, then that person would be safe. And out of loving concern for her mother’s welfare, the daughter jumped over into the water. And she was carried to safety, and her mother was also carried to safety. And so in dependence upon her loving concern, in fact, she achieved her happiness even in this life.
Also, in the case of, you know, there are two people and they’re both greatly thirsty. And those with a great deal of sympathy, or compassion, would say, no. I don’t need it. I would give it all to the other person. Having given away this glass of water to the other person completely, then we have bestowed happiness upon them. And out of this comes an extremely skillful action.
And immediately out of this skillful action, oneself will get the water that one needs for oneself. But those who do not have a extremely powerful altruism or compassion but have a mediocre altruism or compassion, they would say, let’s split it. You get half and I get half. Let’s share it. This is this is, in fact, this is a good quality of love.
But with those with no compassion and those who are completely influenced come under influence that they self centeredness. It’s all I don’t care about you. I don’t care if you die, and would simply grab the water for themselves and drink it. It wouldn’t matter having no concern for the other. So the degree of the degree of benefit which is derived would be proportionate to the degree of power of one’s compassion.
So it is through the power of compassion that harmony exists, whether this peaceful coexistence is between a husband and a wife, between a parent and a child, between friends or countries or nation, that it is in dependence upon this quality of caring and sympathy that peace can be brought to the world. For example, the relations between the countries of Australia, England, and America are extremely harmonious. There’s there’s very few conflicts between them. There’s no dispute. Why is this?
Because there is a mutual sympathy amongst them. There is a liking for one another amongst amongst Yes. [inaudible]
And therefore, out of this this mutual sympathy And we’re not only amongst the nations, but within nations. The internal situation within a single country, for example, Australia. And within Australia, there’s very little civil strike. This is because there is a mutual caring about one another that people generally like one another as compared to other nations where there’s a great deal of both external and internal conflicts such as India, where there’s great fears, great suffering, great strife, many conflicts internally and externally. And this comes about through not caring for one another and not liking one another.
Peace and happiness within the world come about through the qualities of compassion, love, and beneficial intention. Without the qualities of compassion, love, and caring for one another, without a beneficial intention, then there cannot be peace and love amongst people. We can see for ourselves that within a family, if the husband and wife mutually have a sense of caring and love for one another, the husband cares and loves the wife, the wife cares in turn and loves the husband, then there is going to be happiness between them. There are two, there is self and other. And if we begin to mainly concern ourselves about others, that is to say we do not cherish ourselves in the main, but we cherish others, then we can replace our self-cherishing for other-cherishing.
But generally, of our self-cherishing, we simply are not concerned with others. We simply leave them aside. We consider ourselves the most important. We don’t consider the other person most important. And out of this, when someone is treated in that way, they have a sense of threat and a sense of not liking when meeting with someone who’s very much concerned with only themselves.
But on the other hand, when when one is concerned about others and places main emphasis on other and holds them in great value, then this person is aware of that. They they they understand that this person is placing great value on them, that they are being held in high importance by them, and they naturally return this sense of value in the other and likely for the other and return this this importance to the other. And then out of this comes a sense of harmony between them. For example, between a husband and wife. There there are cases of of this of the placing of importance to on the other to such a degree that one says, you know, if if my spouse died, then I would want to die.
And there there have been cases recently where, in fact, when the spouse died, the other took a a drug in order to to kill oneself and and was taken to the hospital. This was a sign of the great caring that was just between them. You know, we can really understand from thinking in this way of the happiness which comes about even in the course of this life by seeking to benefit others, caring for others, loving others, having other cherishing. And in caring for others and and loving others, then others are in turn naturally inclined to care for you. But such a person has many friends.
Many people are benefiting them and helping them. So, you know, we could talk on and on about the the benefits of caring and love, but, you know, we without ever exhausting the subject. But if we just do encapsulate the essential points is that through caring for others, loving others, and exchanging self centeredness for other cherishing, we will eliminate all our various faults. We will bring to confirmation all our excellent qualities that we will in the future, we will have happiness. And in this life, we will have happiness.
This is sort of the encapsulation of the advantage of this exchange. In the in the a line in the in the first verse with the intention of bringing about the highest welfare for all sentient beings. I shall constantly hold them dear. So how it says, I I shall constantly hold them dear. How I how how am I to hold them?
What is the way of holding others dear? And this is explained in the next stanza. When accompanying anyone, I shall view myself as the lowest of all and in the depths of my heart shall hold dearly others as supreme. So what is the way in which we are to hold others? In general, there is the way of spiritual practice and the way of the secular world.
With regard to spiritual practice here, this specific teaching on thought transformation is included in the universal vehicle. So the way in which the world operates and the way in which we are to operate in terms of practicing the universal vehicle are not quite the same. So I think there’s going to be a discrepancy between the way of the world and the spiritual practice. In order to develop actual love and compassion, we have to cherish others. Normally, we have compassion.
We have caring. But when we see another person suffering, we think, oh, isn’t that too bad? Isn’t that too bad? The attitude that we’re taking is as if we hold ourselves in a higher position looking down and as if pitying this person who is suffering. So there’s a hierarchy of position which distorts our compassion.
Did you do this? What do you think? Is that the case? Poor thing. Poor thing.
One is great. One holds oneself higher. So what is being referred to here in with respect to real compassion is that this hierarchy this usual hierarchy must be reversed rather than looking down upon this poor suffering individual and developing a sense of pity, we in real caring, there is a reversal of the hierarchy. One holds oneself as lower and holds the the suffering individual as higher than oneself. I I think you might be some you might find this uncomfortable to think in this way, you know, because out of out of generally, out of a sense of pride, we we try to hold ourselves above others.
And reversing this is it doesn’t sit well with our minds. You know, there’s a this is in a in a secular, there is a sense that we have to hold ourselves high. That is important that we we always be thinking how intelligent we are, how capable we are, and how wonderful we are. But this seems to be something which is very important to us and useful to us. So it’s difficult to think in another way.
So in this way, we can begin to see that there’s some discrepancy between the way of practicing the Dharma and a secular way of operating in the world. With respect to this, in terms of Tibetan lamas, Tibetan spiritual teachers, there are two very different traditions. There are those who say that there is no relationship between the secular world and the world of Dharma. And there are those who say that the two are completely related. Others say they’re completely separate.
Some say that there is a relationship between the two. For example, in the way of the world, one of the imperatives is that we should try to make as great a profit as possible. As much as we can get, we should try to get it. But in terms of our Dharma practice, and especially of the universal vehicle, we are not concerned with the individual self. The emphasis is not placed upon the individual self, but the emphasis is placed upon others: how much profit can we bring to others? How much happiness can we bring to others?