Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of compound bank interest — each unconfessed negativity multiplying day by day like money left in the bank — Khensur Rinpoche focuses this 42-minute session on the third of the seven limbs: disclosure of negativities. He traces why practitioners struggle to concentrate or gain realizations to lifetimes of accumulated karma through body, speech, and mind, then walks through the four opponent powers — reliance on refuge and bodhicitta, regret, resolve not to repeat, and remedy — surveying specific antidotes: Vajrasattva recitation, confession before the 35 Buddhas, Om Mani Padme Hum, and meditation on emptiness. Milarepa’s transformation from mass harm to Buddhahood anchors the point that no negativity is beyond purification. A short Q&A closes with questions on rebirth in the formless realm and the correct visualization object for confession.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 KoP 1997 12 02.mp3
UUID: 7c6d852b-0bc8-4680-b7c4-0f8448cfd251
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: King of Prayers (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-12-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 42.3 minutes
Words: ~2,691
To my lama, my my my practice, and it is in that that the lama is most pleased with. So your your your meditation is is your offering to your lama? So the lama is pleased with their disciples when they practice in accordance with his or her teachings. If this is the type of offering that pleases the Lama, you know, the if we act in the opposite way, if we act in contradiction to what he or she has taught, then no matter what other types of offering that we might make, whether it’s flowers or food, the Lama will not be pleased. But if in fact we practice in accordance with the teaching of the lama, then there’s no need really for other types of offering.
This is the offering which most pleases the lama. Then the third limb is the limb of disclosure of negativities, and it reads as follows. All the negativities I’ve committed with body, speech, and mind accumulated from beginningless time, and especially all transgressions of the three sets of vows, confess each one with strong regret from the depths of my heart. So we had a rebirth previous to our present rebirth, and we were reborn previous to that previous rebirth. And before that previous rebirth, we were also were born.
And back and back until there it is numberless in terms of the rebirths that we have taken. And each of these over the course of these numberless rebirths we have accumulated negativities through our mental, verbal, and physical activities, and that these constitute, as it were, a mass or a mountain of negativities. We have over the course of these beginningless rebirths accumulated a massive amount of negativity. And in terms of the three types of physical unskillful actions of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and the four types of verbal unskillful actions of lying, divisive speech, abusive speech, and idle gossip, and through the three types of mental unskillful actions, those of covetousness, ill will, and wrong views. Through our body, speech, and mind, we have, over the beginningless time, accumulated almost an unimaginable mass of negative actions.
Now how, you know, come to understand that, in fact, we have these latencies of these negative actions within our minds? Now, what is the sign of that, in fact? If we were to think about this, when we try to meditate, for example, generally our mind is completely distracted. It goes here, it’s running here and there, or we simply fall asleep in our meditation. We don’t gain any real realizations in the course of our meditation.
Why is that? This is due to these latencies of negative unskillful actions that we’ve created in the past. This is a sign, this fact of not being able to concentrate, not being able to develop the realizations of the practice is a sign of the presence of these latencies of unskillful actions that we’ve accumulated in the past. But not we don’t even have to look to our our past lives in terms of the the accumulated negativities. But we can we can look to this this life itself, and moreover in terms of the various vows that we have broken over the course of our lives.
You know, if we’re a lay person, we we have acted in contradiction to the lay vows of the male and female lay vows. Or if we’re in terms of renunciant, those of a novice or a fully ordained monk or a nun, but also having acted in contradiction of the bodhisattva vows and the vows of secret mantra. It is due to our continued accumulation of negativities that we aren’t able to gain realizations in the course of meditations, that even when we are able to develop in some skillful way it quickly degenerates, that we’re not able to generate any new skills in terms of our understanding, in terms of our practice. But even when we do, that they quickly degenerate. If we don’t practice a means of disclosing our negativities that we’ve accumulated, that we will in the future undergo the suffering consequences, whether it be the enormity of the suffering of the unfortunate realms, but even the sufferings of a human realm.
So we there are there is this twofold fault in terms of of negativities that we’ve accumulated in the past. One is that we that they prevent they’re an obstacle to the development of realizations and and skillful ways of acting. And secondly, that they will bring about suffering in the future. So realizing the extent, the real, the faulty nature of these negativities, we should make a great effort in eliminating from our mind through the disclosure, the practice of disclosing these negativities. If we were to question, well, can I actually purify these negativities that that I have accumulated?
It it is a a it is fundamental to the to the Buddhist doctrine that any negativity whatsoever can be completely eliminated from its very root, such that we will not have to experience its suffering result, and it will no longer act act as an obstacle to our happiness and the creation of skillful ways of acting. This is a fundamental property of Buddhist doctrine, that any negativity whatsoever can be completely from the root eliminated. So out of these the past holy beings, the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the arhats, the foe destroyers, that they were all of them were like ourselves at present, that they too had accumulation of negativities within their minds. But but through the methods of disclosure, they were went on to purify all of the accumulation of negativities within their minds, and they achieved the levels of their attainment. Some of them went on to achieve the level of a foe destroyer, the awakened heart, and many attained Buddhahood.
So the negativities within our mind are adventitious. That is, they are they are incidental to the mind. They are temp they are temporary with regard to the mind. They are not in the nature of the mind. They are likened to clouds in the sky.
When from time to time clouds gather within the sky, but when the wind blows the sky is cleared of clouds. Likewise, these negativities within our mind are not in the nature of mind. They are temporary obscurations of the mind, and they can be removed through the practice of disclosing. So the great wind is the great wind of practice of disclosing the negativities. And the the way in which the method of disclosure is applying the four opponent powers.
The the first power is the power the power of reliance, and this is a combination of going for refuge and the development of the awakened heart. And the second power is that of repudiation and developing a sense of regret with regard to past created negative action. The third is the power of reversal, turning away from repeating negative action again in the future. And then, fourthly, the power of remedy and the actual means of purifying the negativity. We can apply such types of remedies as the antidotes such as the practice of Vajrasattva recitation of the mantra, the practice of the disclosure to the thirty-five Buddhas, the recitation of the mantra Om Mani Padme hum, meditating on the awakened heart, on emptiness, all of these can act as a remedy.
So when we we talked about the the power of reliance, and this involves the the first either the the the in terms of having created a negativity in terms with regard to Buddhadharma and Sangha, we develop a we go for refuge to the Buddhadharma and Sangha. You know, we develop a sense of anxiety around these negativities that we’ve created, are latencies within our mind, and that these will in the future bring us suffering. And through that anxiety, we go for refuge to the Buddha Dharma and Sangha to help protect us from that anxiety, that fear around future sufferings. In regards to having committed negativities towards sentient beings in general, we develop compassion for them. We cultivate a compassionate mind.
We should with regard to the power of remedy, the power of reversal, it is as if we have taken some poison and it’s in our stomach, but it hasn’t affected our system quite yet, and not wanting to allow that to go on in that way. So we commit ourselves not to repeat the action again in the future. And then if we apply these four powers well, there’s no negativity that we cannot purify completely from its very root. There have been people who have killed their mothers, their fathers, who have killed an arhat, a foe destroyer, but through their proper disclosure of those negativities, they went on to achieve liberation. Even by way of example, the great Milarepa who killed many, many people, who did a great deal of harm in the former part of his life.
Through his practice of disclosing those negativities, he went on to achieve Buddhahood. If if we apply these four powers extremely forcibly, then we can eliminate the negativity from its very root. If we apply it in a middling fashion, then that which would have brought about a powerful suffering result will be mitigated. It will be a lessening of the power of that suffering. Or if it would have been suffering which would extended over a long period of time, that period of time, the experience will be shortened.
And minimally, into if we if we apply these opponent powers in a less forceful manner, we will minimally be able to eliminate the increasing or the multiplying effect of the action, of the negative action. It will not increase in its potency. So actions have an increasing nature. And here, by way just by way of example, if today you were to kill one insect, if that if that fault were not disclosed, then tomorrow it would be as if you killed two. The next day it would be as if you killed four.
The next day eight, sixteen, and on and on like that. And then after even only fifteen days, it would have been multiplied thousands of times. So it’s very much like the compounding interest that they give at a bank. You know, it’s if you leave your money there, it just keeps multiplying greater and greater. And likewise, with these negativities, if they’re just simply left there, they multiply greater and greater likewise.
So in the if if our disclosure is of a minimal variety, we will we will at least in terms of its power, we will at least have avoided accruing interest on the negativity that we’ve accumulated. So applying these four powers is extremely beneficial. So this is the most important point of practice, that is to say, on the one hand, disclosure of negativities, on the other, the cultivation of skillful actions. If we disclose our negativities, we are accumulating skillful actions, and by accumulating skillful actions we eliminate our negativities. So our practice, the essence of practice, the most important point of practice is the elimination of negativities and the cultivation of skillful actions.
By disclosing our negativities, we will eliminate our suffering and we will experience happiness. So this should be our main fundamental practice. So if we disclose the previously created negativities and in addition we put a stop to committing that negativity again, then that whole pattern of negativity has come to an end. And on the other hand, if we should rejoice in our previously created skillful actions, we should avoid destroying our previously accumulated skillful actions through anger, but on the contrary take joy in what we’ve done in the past and moreover to repeat that same action again and again. And this is the means at which we will by this, we will have stopped the suffering consequences of our previous action and we will only accumulate future happiness.
So all the all the the undesired suffering that we experience, all the fears and anxieties that we have come about through these negativities. So it is our our fundamental practice to eliminate these from our mind. Okay. We’ll stop there for today. So we’ll spend five minutes on questions.
Yes. So the being the being in the form realm would have strong attachment to forms such as as a body, but also a their environment, to companions, to food and drink. So and this in combination with ignorance would would would be the afflictive emotions which would which would dominate the the being of the form realm. So the by the afflictive emotion, it was attachment to forms such as body and environment, companions, food and drink. Did it desire around beings?
So the the so both the desire realm beings and the form realm beings would have attachment to forms, but the form realm being doesn’t have anger. So they they would have because the the do a combination of of a lack of anger but an an attachment an attachment to for for example to to a they would take rebirth in the form realm. So he’s teaching the he’s teaching the desire realm god’s Dharma. Maybe maybe we’ll give some if if there’s somebody else, give them a chance. Yeah.
So the object in front of whom we can disclose our negativity is as we’re describing in the visualization. In this case, it would be Je Tsongkhapa along with his two spiritual sons and very surrounding them are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So that would be the object to whom we are disclosing our negativities. Also, could imagine that from the heart of Je Tsongkhapa emanates the thirty-five Buddhas of confession, and you could disclose your negativities before them, before these thirty five Buddhas of confession. The positive actions.
So, yeah, it’s this is increasing characteristic applies both to skillful actions and unskillful actions. So, but even though our skillful actions increase, quite often, we simply destroy our skillful actions through anger. Yeah. What kind of being? They have the okay.
So there’s the beings in this formless realms, they have attachment. They don’t have anger, but they have attachment. They have wrong view. They have ignorance. And when there’s no formless realm is not we can’t say it’s a place because it’s formless.
It has no place. So immediately upon death, the being is in the formless realm, can take rebirth in the formless realm. Whereas if they were going to be reborn in a formless realm, then there would be some migration to a realm. But there’s no place since it’s not formed. And the cause of taking would be the a special type of karma that they’ve accumulated.
There’s no intermediate state that the being goes through in taking rebirth in a formless realm. That it’s like a stick which is balanced. When it’s tipped up one way it falls to the other side. The being immediately takes rebirth within a formless realm. Whereas the being is going to be reborn in a form realm or a desire realm, there is an intermediate state that they pass through which can have a varying length of time until they actually take rebirth in the appropriate rebirth state, whether it’s desire realm or a form realm.
But immediately upon but if a being is going to be reborn in the formless realm, immediately upon their death they are reborn without interval in the formless realm. Yeah. So we can can assume that we have created negativities in previous lives in the same way that we’ve accumulated them over the course of this life, and that as a means in order to purify them, making that assumption and developing and applying the practice of the four powers with regard to those even though we can’t remember exactly what they were, we can assume that they do exist. And developing applying these four powers with regard to them, observing those presumed negativities that we’ve accumulated in the past. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.