Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A darkened room lit by a single lamp opens this 51-minute session: Khensur Rinpoche uses that image to explain non-ignorance, the sixth positive mental factor — the wisdom that removes obscuration and allows direct knowledge of reality. He first defines non-hatred, the fifth factor, as sympathy or empathy toward sentient beings, suffering, and its sources. Turning to Buddhahood, he cites Milarepa — no crown-knot, no auspicious marks, just an ordinary body — to show that enlightenment is purely an inner quality, the full elimination of unknowing. He then addresses attachment: even toward something as wholesome as world peace, practitioners must contemplate impermanence and emptiness. The session closes by framing hearing, contemplation, and meditation as the three sequential steps that drive this entire transformation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 27 AK 1989-02-16.mp3
UUID: 708c5150-fb9e-4151-836e-4abd354e2dfb
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Awareness and Knowledge 1988-1989 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1989-02-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 51.1 minutes
Words: ~1,615
So, fifth positive mental factor is non hatred. Non hatred is the opposite of hatred. In hatred, there is an attempt to bring harm to either sentient beings, suffering, or sources of suffering. And with non hatred, there is the non intention. There’s the lack of intention to bring harm with respect to these three objects: sentient beings, suffering, and sources of suffering.
We can say that anger and hatred are are the same. You know, therefore, hatred or non anger are the same. When we talk about non hatred, we mean, quality, sometimes it’s translated as mercy or, I think, maybe sympathy. Empathy. Mercy.
I think sympathy is. This is a sentiment for non hatred. The sixth positive mental factor is non ignorance. I think it could be translated as non delusion, but also perhaps non confusion, but the standard translation is non ignorant. And with the with respect to ignorance it is an obscuration with respect to the actual nature of an object.
This is what we mean by ignorance. Then therefore, not ignorance would be the lack of obscuration with respect to the nature of the object. That is to say, the wisdom which understands the object is non ignorance. Just as in the case of if we were in this room, but it was it was dark in this room, we would not be able to, due to the obscuring quality of the darkness, we would not be able to come to know what objects were in the room. Likewise, with respect to the obscuring qualities of delusion or ignorance, we’re unable to actually know the reality or the nature of the objects which we are trying to observe.
Whereas if we were to bring a light in the room, we could easily come identify the actual objects in the room. Likewise, with the wisdom or non ignorance, we come to actually know the actual. We come to know the actual nature of the objects before us that we’re observing. Turning on the light in a room as a means of coming to understand the object is analogous to development of wisdom. Just as when we are obscured due to darkness, by turning on the light we come to know objects.
Likewise, through So it is through engaging in the activity of hearing that we come to know what is to be practiced, cultivated, what is to be rejected, what are the categories of positive phenomena, what are the categories of negative phenomena. We come to notice through hearing so therefore it’s that hearing is is is like the light illuminating the darkness of of ignorance. So initially, we didn’t know anything about the dharma. Slowly upon listening to it, we’ve come to develop some wisdom with respect to the dharma. We’ve come to some understandings about what the dharma is about.
This is a sign that been a process of eliminating the obscuration of ignorance from our minds. It’s coming through some intermediate understanding of the of the nature of Dharma. So, you know, this process that we’ve been going through of eliminating various ob the obstructions, we’ve reached some kind of intermediate stage. And when we talk about a Buddha, we’re simply talking about someone who has brought this to its culmination. That they have this quality of unknowing has been completely eliminated and there has come about a state of knowing all objects whatsoever.
We talked about the Buddha from many points of view. Talked about his various qualities of having head protrusion, a crown knot on his head or all the various symbols and signs and marks and signs on his body. But essentially, you know, these are all secondary to the simple fact that when talk about a Buddha, what we mean when we say a Buddha is someone who has completely eliminated all the unknowing and has come to know all So in the case of, for example, Milarepa. And then Milarepa, he didn’t have a a crown top-knot. He didn’t have the Dharma wheels on his hand.
He just had what appeared to be an ordinary body. So when we talked about Buddha, we’re talking about some inner quality, not something that can necessarily be seen externally. We’re talking about someone who has completely developed themselves internally and that is the way they go about this and what they have actually done is eliminating all the factor of unknowing from their mind and develop the factor of being able to know all phenomena. Heart, the mind of enlightenment, is an internal quality that we ourselves can through training practice can develop this and though we have developed this internal quality, internal quality of the awakening mind. Developed such an internal quality for those who understand that we have developed that quality such as the awakening heart, for example the Buddhists who are able to understand that someone has developed an awakening So in in in our progression toward Buddhahood, what we’re seeking to do is to eliminate the factor of unknowing within our mind, and we can begin to do this through the process of the activity of hearing.
And we develop we’re trying to generate wisdom is, with, by which unknowing is eliminated. This is our work. This is what we are to be involved in. There is no other way to do it than this. We can’t simply develop the quality of the Buddha by walking around.
The grounds of Buddhahood, there’s no way we can walk there or we can drive our car or any of these means. Through the two. You know, it’s we it’s through walking within our own mind that that with the legs of wisdom and method that we progress to Buddhahood. Yeah. Non hatred, I think, it’s usually translated So in general, the the means for combating attachment is the meditation on repulsiveness.
For example, if you have attachment to a person, So the the the the the. So we’re talking about attachment So, yeah, this is danger that upon as you as you mentioned, developing a non hatred toward an object. Very something very positive like that. He said, you know, that there we might want to establish world establishing world peace, which would be a very desirable thing, but we shouldn’t become attached to that to that to that that type of piece even though it’s a good thing because and as a means to overcome that attachment to even to such a positive thing, objects as that, then we’d have to think of of it as it’s under that such a type of piece is impermanent, that it’s empty, because it doesn’t have any essence. It’s not inherently existing.
It’s under the control of of karma and afflictive emotion, It’s in the same cases, you know, it’s quite, you know, we all like to be happy, but, it would be, it would be unskillful to become attached So when we, if we, for example, if we were to develop attachment toward pleasurable feeling, then within the middle way tradition, one would, when this attachment to pleasurable feelings arose, one would meditate that the feeling, the feeler, and the experience of the feeling are all empty or lack inherent existence as a means for overcoming attachment to pleasurable feeling. The this love or sympathy or benevolence toward the children. Still, the child acts in a manner, for example, well, possessive attitude towards them. Maybe when they’re somebody may act in such a way, for example, practicing Dharma, engaging in positive types of actions, they would they can understand objects are in a dark room, it’s definitely necessary that we have to have light. Likewise, in coming to an understanding of the nature of all the varieties of objects, we have to have the initial activity of hearing.
Hearing is like the light turning on the light. Having engaged in the activity of hearing, then we actually come to know the object. We ascertain the object. This ascertainment is is analogous to the second activity which we have to engage in. That is contemplation.
So it’s hearing and contemplation. So we turn the light, then we come to know what the objects are, and then we come we familiarize ourselves, accustom ourselves to these various objects. And this is the third activity of meditations. So there’s this hearing, contemplating meditations, but it must first off, we have to turn on the light, and this is again, this process has begun with the activity of hearing. So just as in the world, in order to come to come to know what what’s going on in the world around us, we can read the newspaper.
Without reading the newspaper, then we’re completely in the dark Then we we think upon actually ascertaining what those phenomena are, this is the quality of activity of of contemplation. Contemplation we actually have are eliminating the obscurations and then we go on to accustom ourselves to familiarize ourselves with these various objects. And this is the process, this is the activity of meditation. Meditation involves the development of positive qualities. So the contemplation is elimination of the obscurations, coming to ascertain what the illuminating obscurations as to the unknowing So just as when we watch the news on television, if if we had the sound turned off, you just see lots of cars and houses on the screen.
You don’t know what this is objects. You don’t know what what they’re about. You don’t know what’s happening. But as soon as we turn the sound up and we can listen to it, then we can understand