Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A cup of tea’s sediment — dregs you’d throw away rather than drink — is Khensur Rinpoche’s anchor image in this 45-minute session from his King of Prayers series. Picking up after homage, offering, and disclosure, he explains the verse on degenerate times through the five dregs: afflictive emotions (a mind igniting like a struck match at the slightest provocation), distorted views, harmful actions, shortened lifespan, and degraded beings. He then moves through the remaining limbs: rejoicing — including why delighting in another’s virtuous action can yield equal or doubled merit — requesting the Dharma wheel be turned, asking teachers to remain, and dedication. The session closes with Guru Yoga of Tsongkhapa, followed by a direct appeal to his longtime Buddha House students: years of listening have planted seeds, but only actual meditation brings realizations.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 KoP 1997 12 08.mp3
UUID: 28a2d276-8ccd-4893-bbeb-ce24131a1cfd
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: King of Prayers (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-12-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.3 minutes
Words: ~2,799
Proceeding in the union with the spiritual master of Je Tsongkhapa. And first, we invite Je Tsongkhapa to the space before ourselves, and then we offer the seven limbs. And the first of which is the the limb of our homage. Then we the limb of offering. And then the third limb is the disclosure of negativities.
So we have finished the first of three of the seven limbs. So we’ll begin, if you have the translation in front of you, where it begins, or in English, in this degenerate time. This verse begins by talking about in the translation here it calls it the degenerate times. Think we could call it the time of the five dregs in which there are various dregs or degenerates, degenerations which are enumerated, especially at present time. And this was talked about when we had the teaching on mind training, we talked about the dregs of afflictive emotions, the view, the time, sentient beings, etc.
When it talks about the degenerate of the afflictive view, afflictive emotions, this pertains to humans but also to sentient beings in general. Whenever we look at another person or just an article, just by seeing them automatically there arises some afflictive emotion in terms of if it’s an attractive person or article, then we automatically develop attachment. If it’s unattractive, we develop aversion, anger. If it’s neither attractive nor unattractive, we develop bewilderment or confusion. Just, but the emphasis here is that on just seeing the article, some slight condition can act as a means for us to generate the afflictive emotions of attachment, anger and confusion.
Just by sight, the coming together of some slight minor condition can provoke the afflictive emotions and this is a sign of the degeneration of afflictive emotions. So what we mean by dregs, actually as I mentioned here it’s translated as degeneration but most literally it’s dregs. And what we mean by dregs is that it’s not so common in Australia because we use tea bags but when you use loose tea and you make a cup of tea and then when you finish drinking the tea that which is left over is there, either sitting on the bottom of the cup. That’s the dregs of the tea. And that’s what we mean by the five dregs.
So if would, you know, if we drank some it, we’d spit it out. Don’t you know, it’s something that you throw away. So when we talk about one of these five dregs, the dreg of afflictive emotions, This is in comparison to the golden age which previously occurred where people simply did not generate to the same degree attachment and aversion as we do presently. During that previous time they had tremendous creative potential. They were habituated to skillful ways of acting and thinking.
This was through the power of having cultivated antidotes to these afflictive emotions. But now during the present time we don’t cultivate the power of the afflictive emotions. So almost with even the coming together of a slight minor condition immediately the afflictive emotion arises within our mind. Just like when you strike a match, just a slight friction, the match ignites. Likewise, just a slight condition, our mind ignites into an afflictive emotion.
The second of these five dregs was the dreg of views. There are a variety of views. Within the context of the Four Noble Truths, there are such views as that all products are impermanent, that that all phenomena are selfless and empty, that all all contaminated phenomena are of the nature of suffering. These are what we would call authentic views. They’re pure views.
But these days there’s a tendency to grasp to impure views, unauthentic views. And why is this? Because people simply do not investigate. They don’t examine what views that they take on. And they grasp to various views as they’re presented about them and they think, this is wonderful.
This is what I’m going to hold to. And quite often it’s in terms of that militancy, you know, thinking that war is the best way to bring about world peace, that thinking to amassing wealth for oneself is the best view to hold, that all of these views of ways to conduct oneself are all in some way perverted views but people simply don’t examine them to see whether they’re authentic or not. And then out of these first two dregs, that of afflictive emotions and views, we go on to the third dreg which is that is of actions. Out of the afflictive emotion and views we’re continuously, almost moment by moment, accumulating perverted types of actions. Out of acting in in these various ways, we not only do not accumulate positive potential, but on the contrary, we involve ourselves in a great deal of negative actions.
We accumulate destructive ways of actions which act to bring about a shortening of our life. So there is the fourth of these dregs which is the dreg of lifespan, that sentient beings during this period have very short lives. And then those who are actually involved in these ways of acting, the people themselves who are accumulating these negative actions, are termed fifth of these dregs, the dreg of the people or sentient beings. But in in this verse, which is the verse of the seven limbs of rejoicing, we look to Je Tsongkhapa who even though the present times are highly degenerated, that these are the times of the of the five dregs. Still, he was an individual who who acted in extremely positive fashions, foregoing any type of negative activity and moreover trained well in all of the texts within Buddhism, both of discourses of sūtra and those of tantra, listening to them and trying to fathom their meaning.
And that through this process that he abandoned all of the secular preoccupations, the eight worldly dharmas, and thereby made his life of leisure and freedom meaningful. So it is we are looking to Je Tsongkhapa here and seeing how he enacted his life in terms of abandoning the secular preoccupations of the eight worldly dharmas and thereby was able to make his life of leisure and fortune meaningful and rejoicing in all that he did. So with regard to rejoicing, we rejoice in the skillful actions of five categories of of beings. First, in terms of the skillful actions of the Buddhas and then those of their offspring, the Bodhisattvas, and then the hearers, the solitary realizers, and finally sentient beings in general, and rejoicing in all the skillful actions of these five categories of living beings. What do we mean by rejoicing?
In the context of skillful action, when we see someone involved in a skillful practice, cultivating some kind of positive action in the various ways that they do. And taking this to mind and thinking, oh, this is really wonderful. And our mind is fulfilled with delight at them acting in such a skillful fashion. This is rejoicing. If we act if we think in such a way, then it’s said that however much creative potential that person may be accumulating through their skillful action, through our rejoicing in that skillful action we act, we accumulate a creative potential equal to that.
By way of example, if there was someone who was involved in the practice of offering prostrations and say that they did a hundred prostrations and you were to think about how wonderful it is that they were doing these prostrations, thinking, that’s really wonderful. That’s really great that somebody would act in such a skillful fashion as that. And your mind is filled with delight with regard to their accumulating skillful action through the offering of a hundred prostrations. If the person toward if the person you are directing this delight toward was of the same quality in terms of attainments, of understandings as yourself, then you would accumulate the same creative potential or skillful action equal to theirs through delighting in their skillful action. On the other hand, if your qualities were greater than them, if you’re in terms of your own attainment of qualities were greater than the person to whom you’re taking joy in, then it would be doubled with regard to the skillful action that they’re creating.
Then the next verse is requesting the turning of wheel of Dharma. So before ourselves is Je Tsongkhapa along with Kedrup Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Rinpoche and the various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas in the space before our ourselves and that their unimaginable wisdom and compassion takes the form of clouds which spread out to the extent of sentient beings, that all of space is filled with clouds. And just as the when the clouds rain, they they rain down on all things equally. Likewise, requesting that from these clouds of compassion and wisdom of the Buddhas and these holy beings before ourselves to rain down the holy Dharma upon all living beings, thereby as a means to lead them to the state of liberation and omniscience. So this is termed requesting the turning of the wheel of dharma.
What turning of the wheel of dharma means is asking to be taught the dharma and moreover to be taught in terms of our individual capacity and dispositions according to what it will be of use for ourselves. And this rain, just like when it falls upon the earth and thereby nourishing a crop, bringing about a harvest. Likewise, in terms of ourselves through the teachings of the Dharma asking that there there are that grow a harvest of realizations within our minds, the various grounds and paths by means of the teaching of the Dharma. And when we request the teaching of turning the wheel of Dharma, the teachings, we should make an offering of a universal representation of the universe in terms of a mandala. So placing and this is symbolic of offering a golden wheel in return for being given teachings.
So also in the offering of the mandala, it should be a mandala of five heaps where we place upon the vajra ground a heap in the center, and then four in the cardinal directions, the main directions, and offering that to the object of our faith. And moreover, these beings not to pass into parinirvana but to remain. So this is the limb of requesting to remain. So these limbs are extremely important. The limb of requesting the turning of the wheel of Dharma and to remain and not pass into parinirvana or beyond sorrow.
When we it is necessary that we receive teachings. If we don’t receive teachings then we simply won’t understand what is to be adopted and what is to be rejected. Not understanding that then we will not act in skillful ways and thereby we will not achieve liberation and Buddhahood. So it’s extremely important that we ask for teachings so that we can understand what to cultivate and what to abandon. And moreover, it’s necessary that we have teachers who are able to turn the wheel of Dharma for ourselves, who are able to give the teachings.
And we should ask them not to pass beyond but to remain in the world as a light for ourselves in order to teach us the Dharma that we can practice. Without the teachers only darkness will prevail. This is in the case of Christianity. Christ presented his teachings and those teachings have spread have extensively been propagated. And likewise the teachings of Buddha Śākyamūni he taught and those teachings too have also extensively spread throughout.
And finally, the seventh limb, the verse, the limb of dedication. And here it talks about that oneself, that is the I, that having accumulated through these various actions, that is the practice of the preceding six limbs, the limbs where one pays homage, making offerings, disclosure of negativities, rejoicing, requesting for the turning of the wheel of Dharma and requesting to remain within the world. That through these skillful actions one has accumulated a vast mass of creative potential and taking all of that skillful action and dedicating it and dedicating it first that the Buddha Dharma may remain for a long time in the world and that it may benefit all sentient beings. And then most more particularly, the the the essence of Buddhist Yakima Muni’s teachings, that is the teachings of Je Tsongkhapa. May those teachings remain for a long time in the world and may they benefit all living beings.
And making prayers that all of this creative potential, whether it be whether it be great or small, that may be combined with the vast ocean of creative potential of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and taking all of that creative potential of both oneself and all others and dedicating it that it may act as a cause for the attainment of Buddhahood, the Buddhahood of all sentient beings. That all of that skillful action may act as a conducive condition whereby to to bring to make manifest all the aspirations of the buddhas and of all buddhas and bodhisattvas. Then subsequent to having offered the seven-limb prayer, one then offers a a mandala and and then reciting the verse of the request to Jetsün Kapa, which is embodied in the verse, and having recited the verse of request, inviting to come to the crown of your head. And there one proceeds to meditate on whatever the subject matter might be. It might be the Lam Rim or the graduated path.
And within that it might be graduated path of the being of limited capacity, perhaps on the impermanence in terms of death. It might be that of Guru Yoga, the union with the spiritual master. It might be that of the being of middling capacity, the suffering nature of cyclic existence, developing an aspiration to be liberated from it. It may be that of the level of being of great capacity, cultivating love and compassion in the awakened heart and the authentic view. But whatever meditation it may be, I’m I’m visualizing that above your crown is.
Then having meditated well, inviting Je Tsongkhapa, who is indistinguishable in nature from one’s own root lama, one’s spiritual master, to bless oneself by dissolving into one’s own heart. And there Je Tsongkhapa dissolves downward into the lotus and sun at one’s heart, and there the lotus closes and one experiences a union with one’s spiritual master. So this is the Guru Yoga or the union with the spiritual master of Je Tsongkhapa. What we mean by union with the spiritual master is that that the spiritual master of the lama is representative of all the compassion and wisdom of all the Buddhas and that they are that in their by way of their very nature. And that by that in this case, Tsongkhapa entering into our very minds, like water poured into water, that the lama’s mind is integrated with our mind, that they are mixed indistinguishably as one.
It’s necessary that we practice this well. By practicing it well, will attain the appropriate realizations of the various levels, the level of the being of small capacity, the various grounds and paths of that being, the various grounds and paths of the being of middling capacity, grounds and paths of the being of greatest capacity, that we will develop the awakened heart and the various realizations and we will ultimately attain Buddhahood. Simply mindlessly reciting mantras and reading books will not bring you to that state. It takes something more than merely that. Okay.
So we we finished union with the spiritual master, Lama Naljor, Guru Yoga. So now we’ve finished the teaching. So I’ve been teaching Dharma at Buddha House for many years now, except for one year. I’ve been teaching since nineteen eighty eight. Why is it that I have been doing all of this?
It is in order that you will practice well, that we both go through a great deal of hardship in myself and you and coming together in the way that we do and that we and it’s all meant to help us to eliminate help you eliminate your suffering and to find a final happiness. Within the Buddhadharma there is both sūtra or discourse and that of secret mantra. Have taught extensively in terms of sūtra, many teachings on sūtra, and also I’ve taught a great deal in terms of secret mantra. So you’ve implanted many latencies within your mind through having listened to these various teachings, merely latencies are not sufficient. Merely latencies are not completely beneficial.
What you have to do is practice. You have to go on and meditate what has been taught.