Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche closes a weekend Insight Retreat with a compact 30-minute session that moves from purification practice to an arresting image: we have flown through the sky in past lives and burrowed underground like insects, yet those powers brought no lasting benefit — while the Dharma latencies planted in the mind this weekend carry far greater promise. He first walks through the four opponent powers for purifying negative karma — refuge and bodhicitta, genuine regret, resolve to stop, and antidotes such as the Vajrasattva mantra and prostrations — then stresses protecting hard-won merit from anger. A personal anecdote about reporting to the Dalai Lama on Buddha House practitioners leads into a direct plea: “Don’t make me a liar — please practice well.” Suitable for practitioners completing a retreat who need motivation to carry their understanding into daily life.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 11 IR 1990-10-07.mp3
UUID: b8c8b9ca-f9f6-49f3-a858-eab10248a78c
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Insight Retreat (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1990-10-07
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.8 minutes
Words: ~1,697
The very next moment. So applying the four opponent powers, the first of which is one goes for refuge to the Three Jewels and cultivates an awakening heart. The second is that one considers how negative the action was and develops a sense of regret with respect to it. The third is the turning away from repeating that action again in the future. And the fourth is antidote.
That is, the various types of antidotes, we can recite the hundred syllable mantra of Vajrasattva, we can recite the of Sūtra, can recite the do prostrations, etcetera. And in this way, we can completely eliminate any past negative unskillful karma that we’ve created. Acknowledging previously created negativities and purifying them and ceasing to create future negativities, then we have no unskillful karma and therefore we’re not have to experience the suffering result of them. And then on the other hand, happiness arises out of skillful karma. And the so we have to not allow our previous the skillful karma that we have created to be destroyed by anger.
And additionally, that calling to mind the skillful actions that we have created in the past, we can increase them by rejoicing in this skillful action. So we have to make effort in bringing about a cessation of our anger. Anger is one of the worst obstructions to finding happiness, since it is by the force of anger that even our skillful karma that we’ve created loses its result. Therefore, we have to cultivate the practice of patience. And we should try to to create as much skillful karma as possible through our body, speech, and mind each day.
Whatever skillful actions, however we can accumulate them, can through meditation, through recitation of our our recitation, our each day, meditating on emptiness, making offerings, prostrations, everything. All of these various possible ways of creating as much possible scope of karma through our body, speech, mind as we’re able. So it’s definite that if conduct ourselves in this way, progressively increasing the skillful karma that we create each day, creating more each day, then the next month creating more than the previous month, and we begin to lessen the unskillful karma that we create, lessening each day month by month, then it’s definite that we will arrive there there will arise states where we will experience only happiness, and we will have no suffering. So why is that? Because without the cause, no result will arise.
And if we eliminating the causes of suffering, that is unskillful actions, then we will not experience the suffering results of causes which are not created. And on the other hand, if we are bringing about, we are cultivating skillful causes, then we are going to experience the results of this. If we were to conduct ourselves in this way each day practicing as much as we’re able eliminating the various negativities and cultivating various positive actions, our life will be a progression from happiness to more and more happiness. Our life will move from one level of happiness to a higher level. So if we understand but don’t practice, then our understanding is of no benefit.
The Buddha spoke many times about individuals who had a great understanding of Dharma but ended up suffering in hell. It’s it’s said that it is better to to to it’s better to practice it’s it is better to carry out a single practice than to know about a thousand of them. Why is it that we’re trying to understand the Dharma so much? It is in order to put it into practice. So these two, understanding and practice, are mutually beneficial, mutually enhancing to one another.
That if we understand, then this will help us in our practice. If we practice well, then our wisdom will increase, and that is to say, our ability to understand will be enhanced. And since our understanding is enhanced, our practice will be enhanced in turn. So they’re mutually enhancing. So, you know, we’ve all gone through some trouble this weekend.
You on your part that you’ve gone through the difficulties of listening to my explanation, and I’ve gone through my difficulties in trying to explain these teachings to you. I have great hope that these two difficulties together will bring about some real practice. So if we really practice what we have understood, then it’s going to begin to benefit yourself even in this lifetime. And in turn, benefit your parents. It’s going to be a benefit to those around you, your companions.
It’s going to benefit, it’s going to spread because it’s going to spread to benefiting to Australia and eventually it’s going to benefit the entire world. If through our practice we are able to understand what is being taught, then we can begin to express that in ways which will benefit others. And in this way the Buddhist teachings begin to spread until finally it’s able to benefit the all sentient being. Today, the Dharma in Tibet is merely a word. It’s not really there.
And the Dalai Lama has great hopes for Dharma in the West, in Europe, and the various other countries, because there they have freedom and they have the conducive conditions to carry out the practice. Has great hopes that the Dharma teachings will flourish in the West. So previously when I had an audience with the Dalai Lama, he asked me what was the situation at Buddha House. Were there many students? Were there many who are really practicing the Dharma?
And I said that there were really some very good students. There were twenty or thirty that were really trying to practice, and this made the Dalai Lama very happy. So during this interview, which I explained that he had taught very extensively in Australia at the various centers at Buddha House, Chenrezig, Atisha, Tārā House, Tashi Chöling in Tasmania, and that people enjoyed the Dharma very much and His Holiness was very happy to hear this. So I said that my students were practicing were practicing very well. And so don’t make me out to be a liar.
Please practice well. So I appreciate all the difficulty that you’ve gone through this weekend. So you know that most of you have to work, you have your jobs that you must regularly go to, and that when you take this occasion when you don’t have to work and you spend it meditating and striving in the Dharma, I think this is really wonderful and I appreciate your efforts. So, through my explanation of this great vehicle teaching and you’re listening to it, Many latencies, predispositions have been implanted in your mind and out of this will arise wisdom. Many many celestial beings who have inclination for the Dharma have been here?
Many so many are there are many who are So we created a great deal of a great a vast collection of skillful actions in this way and we should make various prayers of dedication of these skillful actions that we develop awakening heart and quickly attain Buddhahood. But even apart from ourselves that dedicating this merit that all sentient beings develop the awakening heart and that they quickly attain Buddhahood and that in the future that the Dharma teachings, the teachings of Buddha will remain in Australia stably and will begin to flourish and that there will be no calamities in the world, that there will be peace. Some of us might think it would be really wonderful if we could, for example, have the miraculous power to fly in the air or to go underground. But this is not latencies of dharma that we have implanted in our mind are much more wonderful than these. In the past we’ve flown in the sky many times and we’ve been able to go under the ground many times, but now it hasn’t benefited us any.
But we’ve attained the cities made powerful attainment to be able to fly like a bird in the sky previously, but now it’s of no benefit to us. Birds fly in the sky, but it’s of no benefit to them. And insects crawl under the ground, but it’s of no benefit to them either. So You know, we’ve attained a human life in the and we use that human life to attain various proper attainments such as flying in the sky, but that was of no benefit to us. So, you know, in the past, we’ve we’ve developed calm abiding and dependence upon that.
We developed meditative concentrations and we develop clairvoyances and powerful attainments whereby we could fly in the sky but it’s of no consequence now. But these dharmas that we have present dharmas that we have come to listen to and the latencies we have not experienced having these latencies implanted in our mind previously. And if as a consequence of these through our prayers and our practices in the future when the Buddha Maitreya appears that that some of us will be in that situation we will be able to attain liberation some will become Bodhisattvas and those who make a great effort will become Buddha. So, you know, in in dependence upon these teachings of Śākyamūni Buddha listening to them, reflecting upon them and meditating on them, even if we were not to gain the realizations of the teachings that the Buddha Maitreya says that he has made a promise that in the future that in dependence upon in practicing in this way that we will definitely gain realizations liberation or Buddhahood. So it’s in the nature of reality that if we create the causes we will experience the effect and so we we have we have created a great deal of collection of skillful actions through our prayers and our listening and reflecting in this way.
And it’s definite that if we were to pray to be reborn amongst the retinue of Maitreya Buddha that we will definitely will be because we are creating the causes to achieve that effect. So we’ll stop there. We we won’t we won’t have any questions. The bell’s just about to ring.