Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The image of ministers from every nation convening and concluding that money is the world’s most important thing opens Khensur Rinpoche’s central claim: bodhicitta holds the equivalent supreme position within all Dharma. In this 90-minute Lam Rim commentary, Rinpoche works through the great-scope chapter, introducing Atisha’s sevenfold cause-and-effect method for generating bodhicitta — six causes (recognising all beings as one’s mother, recalling their kindness, repaying it, appealing love, great compassion, special insight) leading to bodhicitta as the result. Before the first step, he addresses a practical obstacle: Western students sometimes resist the mother-kindness meditation because of difficult family histories. His answer is to establish equanimity first — an even regard for enemies and strangers alike — likened to levelling soil before anything useful can be planted.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 LR 2000 02 15.mp3
UUID: edf6feb9-18af-46bc-9531-bd45d3fe3447
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-02-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 90.2 minutes
Words: ~4,630
Hello? We’ll first set our motivation We should proceed our practice by developing a love and compassion, thinking that may wishing that all both oneself and others sentient beings be free from all the sufferings and their causes and then develop a love to have happiness and happiness and causes of happiness for both oneself and others. And it is also very necessary to develop a special insight upon love and compassion, taking, through taking all the responsibility on oneself to alleviate all the sentient beings from the sufferings and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness. And taking that special insight as a basis should should work to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings or to free all the sentient beings from the sufferings and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness. For that purpose here, one should, practice in, practice to eliminate all the negativities and faults of oneself which obstructs enlightenment.
So should have the motivation here in order to in order to fulfill those wishes are still here. Listen to this teaching, contemplate, and meditate upon this teaching. So we’ll do a short meditation on this motivation. So this teaching on the Lam Rim teaching has been a graduated path towards enlightenment. The name of this teaching, Lam Rim, derived or comes from the great Indian master called the great master Atisha.
He, in order to cultivate the bodhicitta altruistic intention, he traveled to Indonesia to receive the teachings from the great master Serlingpa. And by receiving by taking by taking he took numbers of teachings from the great master Serlingpa. And after his teachings he meditate upon bodhicitta to meditate to cultivate bodhicitta for twelve years and after twelve years he been So after twelve years of meditation he finally generated or developed a bodhicitta and then sent forth to India and Tibet and give numbers of teachings on bodhicitta. So here, the teaching here is the Lam Rim teaching and within the Lam Rim teaching we are giving a teaching on the great scope, the third chapter. And that chapter begins with, in that chapter, beginning of the third chapter, the great master Atisha set forth about how to recognize the sufferings.
So he firstly said that he has realized the sufferings by checking or taking and making investigation or examining upon himself and by taking in various through various door by door like checking how many sufferings he face physically or mentally and also the sufferings he face from like suffering of not completing or not accomplishing one wish even by hard works and also the suffering of not accomplishing oneis wishes by itself. So like through various point of checking himself in various doors he recognises, realises the suffering so long. And by through this investigation, one will understand, one will come to know that how what makes one happy and unhappy. So by knowing that one one has a suffering, whenever one faces the problems or sufferings, one realizes that one is not one is very unhappy. And if one has no suffering, one is happy.
And also by examining oneself, one will also, one can understand that like oneself, the other person is also same as oneself that’s not happy when he or she face the problem or has a suffering and they are happy when there’s no suffering. And then and through this investigation, he realizes that he he himself is a single person and the other sentient beings or even other humans are are greater great many and and greater in numbers compared to himself. So this he can and by applying this investigation towards others he came to know that all other all the sentient beings are same as oneself, that they are they are happy when there is no suffering, and they are they are unhappy when there is suffering. So not only the humans. So the humans are countless as well.
Like human beings, the animals are also innumerable and they are same as us, that wanting happiness. They are same as us, happy with happy when there is no suffering and they are unhappy when suffering is there. So and then through this investigation, he then one came to realize that one is just a single and other sentient beings are innumerable and they are, yeah, yeah, yeah, innumerable. So by knowing they are same as oneself wishing, happiness that do not want suffering. And this teaching of Mahāyāna is like democratic teaching or democratic country that because the other sentient beings are more in number than oneself, they are majority, the one the per person considered the more number, the greater number considered more important than the lesser of oneself.
Elf. So even in this, the world, everyone consider the majority number is more important than the lesser one. So likewise, even Buddhist teachings, they consider the greater the number, majority is more important than the lesser minority. So as sentient beings, the others are are are greater or innumerable and more than oneself in this in the in Mahāyāna teaching, they consider it the it consider the others more important than oneself and work for the benefits or happiness for others, the great for the majority So in the Mahāyāna teaching or Mahāyāna practitioners, they consider others more important than oneself, and they they are willingly to take a burden of all, to this burden freeing all these sentient beings from the suffering or separating them from suffering and bring them to the and let them have or attain the attain the ultimate happiness or the happiness. The happiness is not a contaminated or simple enjoyment.
Here, the happiness is the ultimate happiness or it’s the Buddhahood or unchangeable stable happiness. And so this is how the Mahāyāna teaching is set forth, and whenever one has developed such a mind within oneself, this is the beginning, that is the sign or it’s the beginning of generating the path of Mahāyāna or great scope within one’s mind stream. And so a person, a practitioner who had who who developed such a mind and which is called or or a person who has such a mind is called the person have a great perspective. And whenever the person has this perspective or or mind within within the person, then the person is considered to be the practitioner of great scope, and he or she is being called the person of great great scope.
So whoever has such a broad perspective or a mind within the mind stream, then all those advantages or the qualities of the bodhicitta which we have set forth in the last teachings, last teaching are generating or being and will be developed within that person. So the bodhicitta is, within the Dharma, there have been many kinds of teachings, the various teachings in the Dharma. Within the teachings of Dharma, the bodhicitta is like the gist of the Dharma, it has the most benefits and it’s the most powerful Dharma or practice and also it has the most powerful effect or result. And so it is like in the olden days, the bodhicitta is like a king of the region or king of the place, because the king is the head and he is the most powerful, and I don’t know, it is just it could be a prime minister. For example, if we demonstrate an example here or analogy, it’s like the, say, ministers of all the countries is gathered for a conference and making a, say, discussion about what is or what is the most important things in this world.
And they will probably will conclude by saying that, Oh, the money is the most important. So, and as they have met and they made the conclusion and then you can see that all the people, all countries will work so hard day and night, morning and evening, all twenty four hours to make a huge amount of money. So here, the great master Śāntideva has set It’s the equivalent of that analogy we have just demonstrated. So Śāntideva has set forth. So there have been numbers of Buddhas, and so this is not the only Buddha, this is the Buddha of our era.
And there have been numbers of Buddha, and once all the Buddhas had got together and had a meeting and they talked, they had discussion about the practice and within the practice, what is the most benefit and the most gist of the practice or the most important of the practice or within the practice. And the conclusion was made that within the Dharma, the bodhicitta is the gist of the Dharma and it’s also the most powerful, most effective practice or Dharma. So as they made a conclusion, and this is the reason, and since then the great Mahāyāna practitioners, they worked so hard to develop this bodhicitta. So the bodhicitta is a very effective practice and and it’s like it is the gist of the practice or Dharma and it itself has lots of qualities within the bodhicitta. Therefore, here we should try very hard to try and seeking the method and the path to develop this bodhicitta.
So, in order to develop a bodhicitta, there have been two sets of path, method and path to cultivate a bodhicitta, and those the method and path, as I said, the two sets: the one been set forth by the great master, Chowje Pandita Atisha, and then another one is from Śāntideva. So as we said, there’s been two sets of pattern, pattern, method or skillful means to cultivate the bodhicitta and there is no differences in those paths and the skillful means. And if one wants to practice, you can practice any of those and both are suitable to cultivate the bodhicitta. But there is a reason why the different teachers set forth the different path and path and skillful means to cultivate the bodhicitta, cultivate bodhicitta.
There is a difference in, there is a difference because the path and the wisdoms or skillful, path and skillful means set forth, great master Atisha, was set forth in the audience or within his teaching or in a, yeah, In the audience, like like like, you know, many more very vast audience. So, those are the two sets of path and skillful means to cultivate the bodhicitta. Although there are no differences within those two in order to cultivate the bodhicitta, the difference is, as we said, the great master Atisha set his forth in a very vast audience whereas the path and the skillful means set forth by Śāntideva is a method and skillful means to secretly cultivate the bodhicitta and it was more profound for that reason. So the path and skillful means set forth by the great master Śāntideva was not really set forth in a big audience.
It has been considered more profound and more secret and only taught for the person with a very sharp faculty or very intelligent or to a very, very enthusiastic students. So it is like a worldly policy of the world or just for one country. Say there are some information or some news of the country which are set forth in public or in public sight. And whereas some of the informations about about the country has been, are meant to be very confidential and kept secret. So likewise the teachings, some teachings are set forth in a general audience where some others are meant to be, are bit more profound and they are kept to be very secretly and been practiced by the person who has very sharp faculty or very intelligent students.
So here, first we will we shall here deal with the the pattern, the wisdoms to cultivate the bodhicitta set forth by the great master Atisha. And so the method and the path set forth by master Atisha is called the way of cultivating the bodhicitta done by training in the sevenfold cause and effects, which means there are six causes and one result which becomes sevenfold cause and effects. So we’ll go through the seven fold cause and effect instructions. And as we said, there are six causes and results, one result. So we’ll go through all the sevens and it would be good if you can take the notes.
So, the first of the six causes, the first one is, the first cause is recognizing or recognizing all sentient beings as your mother. Second cause is recalling their kindness. Third is repaying their kindness. And the fourth one is appealing love. And the fifth is great compassion.
And sixth is special wish or special insight. And these six causes, these are the six causes which are the causes to cultivate the bodhicitta. And the seventh, which is the result, the result is the actual altruistic intention of bodhicitta. So, yeah, so the seventh is the bodhicitta, which is the result of those all six causes. And then the Buddha, and if you go through the reverse order or vice versa, then say the Buddha is the result and where does the Buddha comes from?
Then Buddha comes from the bodhisattva, so that shows that bodhisattva is also a cause. So therefore, and also without bodhicitta or in order to overcome all the negativities of oneself and perfect it, bodhicitta, without a bodhicitta. Without bodhicitta, one one cannot complete or perfect both the purposes, which are self and the purposes of self and others. So here we are going through the reverse order. So in order to So the bod So in order to develop a bodhicitta, one one one needs to have a special insight or a special wish.
Without special wisdom, without special insight, one cannot have one will not develop a, bodhicitta. So yep. So the special insight becomes a cause a cause for bodhicitta. So in order to develop a a special insight, the generation of the great compassion should be preceded before developing a special insight. So without having a great compassion, one will not have or develop a special insight.
And then the appealing love, which is number four, is the cause for the great compassion. Without it, the great compassion will not be developed or generated. And with and then without developing a third, which is repaying repaying their kindness, one will not have or one will not generate a appealing love. And in order to pay make repay their kindness, one should understand or develop a or one should recall or one should recall their kindness. Without knowing or without recalling their kindness, one won’t repay their kindness.
In order to develop or recall their kindness, one should recognize them or see them as one’s mother. And without recognizing them as one’s mother, one will not recall their kindness because, yeah, and once you see them or recognize them as one’s mother, it is because within the dear ones, among the dear ones, the mother is the only one who has shown the great benefits and great help to you. So by knowing, so this is how one should see, see them as one’s mother because she has shown the greatest kindness towards you. And seeing and and by recognizing by recognizing or seeing them as one’s mother, then one will know the kindness or recall the kindness of the kindness of the mother or their kindness, how they have shown a lot. Yeah.
Their kindness which they have shown to you. So when we say to see them as one’s mother or recognize, recall, yeah, recognize as a mother and it doesn’t mean that one should recognize them as one’s mother, as a mother of this life because it’s very obvious and we we, it’s British. It’s pretty sure no one has a doubt to recognize their present life present mother. So recognize here, to recognize as a mother or recognize a mother, which means that it doesn’t mean to recognize one’s present mother. It means that one should recognize all entire sentient beings as one’s mother.
So you should see all the entire sentient beings as one’s mother. And the reason why those sentient beings should be seen as one’s mother is because, as we said, within the dear ones, the present mother has been considered the one who has given you the greatest benefits and the greatest help in this life. And so likewise, because of that, the present mother in this present life is considered the person who has shown the greatest help in your life or this present life. And due to that, within, so within the dear ones, one is, one consider that mother is the best or the best relative or or or best among the friends or best among the relatives or best among the family. So so likewise, for that reason, so that that for that reason, we have set forth that the sentient beings should should see sentient beings, all sentient beings as one’s mother.
And in in the in Tibetan and the Indian culture, and some of the some of the ancient cultures, they they consider the mother as a very holy and a very important, person in one’s life. So but in the west or in Australia, I’m not quite sure. And I’m sure yeah, I’m very I’m very much sure there are some people who really consider one’s mother as the most important and very special person in one’s life. But I had a doubt about the majority of how they feel about the present, for their mom or their mother. So for that reasons, sometimes I feel bit, say it a bit difficult, explaining about this, explaining this topic about the mom the mom one’s mother being so kind and so forth.
So I have given this teaching many times in the past, And some people, they don’t like this teaching. And they said, yeah. My mom is not good. My knee is up. So and, yeah.
Excuse But for for for for some people, it is possible that that they don’t like their their mother. It is it could be it could be the reason that they they don’t know how to how, that that they don’t understand how one’s mother has shown a kindness to oneself. Or or it could be a, it could be it could be it could be that they or it could be that they’ve been not well looked after by their their mother when they were young. So so that that the reason is that they don’t recall or they don’t understand how one’s mother has, how their mother has shown a great help and kindness to them and what they can recall only the harms or slight harms which caused by their mother and that harm or, yeah, that harm becomes more stronger than the mother’s, stronger than the help or kindness. And due to that, they developed anger or no, excuse me.
Due to that, they start disliking their mother. So, in order to see them or recognize those sentient beings as one’s mother, it is very important to cultivate equanimity before recognizing them as one’s mother. So here today, I shall go on briefly on how to cultivate equanimity. So as and not only that, even in the west, the people really like to meditate or cultivate a good, cultivate a compassion towards the sentient beings. So in order to, develop a proper or a proper compassion, it’s also very important or necessary to cultivate a, equanimity without that, developing, cultivating a equanimity.
One will not will not be able will one will not be able to cultivate compassion. No. So without cultivating equanimity, one will not cultivate a great compassion or a proper compassion because if one cultivates a compassion without cultivating equanimity, then the compassion which one developed will become a very discriminative compassion or a very partial one. So in order to have, to develop it, once, when one develop a compassion, one one should develop a proper or a good compassion that that that pervades entire sentient beings without any discrimination. And in order to have that or develop that, one needs to cultivate equanimity.
So without equanimity, one will not develop a great compassion or a proper compassion. It is because we always cultivate or develop compassion all the time. But when we checked about our compassion, where we develop a compassion, we are almost develop compassion for our dear ones or we are able to develop a compassion for the dear ones the one’s relatives or the dear ones are very appealing and always see them as very appealing. And due to that, one can develop a compassion. So whereas for the enemies and for neutral person, one for example, like for the enemy, one see them as unappealing or it’s not some yeah, it’s unappealing due to this.
One cannot develop a compassion as well as we we can’t as well as one is one one cannot develop a proper or one cannot develop compassion for the neutral person. It is because it it is reason. It is because because we have we haven’t cultivate the equanimity yet. And you can we or you can understand this through your own personal experiences. For example, like, that when you see one of your dear ones is suffering or in a huge, like, like, like, is is suffering or going through a very traumatic time, And during that time you always get worried and feel on saying, I’m so sorry for you and so and so.
And, you’ve been distracted and feeling very sad. That shows your compassion. Whereas for the the the for one’s enemy, you would rather say, oh, that’s great. You deserve this. And and and also once wishing he or him or her to have even more, mean, greater suffering than they are undergoing presently.
And for the neutral person, you would rather, you won’t care or you don’t care about other people whether the person is happy or is undergoing true suffering or how bad the person is. You just, you would rather, you you don’t just take notice. I don’t really care. I don’t yeah. So, the fault of making discriminations between or within the dear ones, the enemies, and the neutral person, comes due to not having developed a great equanimity. So any compassion you develop without equanimity will become a very discriminative compassion which won’t pervade all the entire sentient beings. And that compassion won’t become a great compassion, and it won’t become a cause to cultivate the bodhicitta. So, if we demonstrate a comparison example here, it’s like an artist or someone who wants to draw something on a ground or particular surface. And in order to draw a very good drawing on or proper drawing on the the ground, first the person the ground has to be very, very clean and very smooth and flat.
So yeah, to in order to have or or in order to draw a very good drawing without, if without having a proper ground or a very flat and smooth ground, one cannot draw prop very nicely on that particular ground. Take example at the fields. In order to in the field, in order to cultivate a very good crops, one has to, it’s good to, it’s very important to have a very fertile and, and, and a very good soil. And if if if that field is, consists of, consists of lots of rocks and bad grass and other very good, bad substances and not really a fertile soil, then be sure that one will not have a very good one cannot cultivate very good crops from that field. So we’ll stop our class here today, and I would like to express something other than this, other than the text teaching now.
And yes, so FPMT central office has set up basic programs in entire centers, and now the Buddha House has implemented or has already begun the basic study program at the center. And I was very pleased and happy to know that that the basic program has been attended by many students. And I thank for those who has who attain enlightenment the basic programs, and and I would advise here to so you have already joined, you have joined the basic programs and please continue with your effort and, use your full strength to study. And the the teachings or studies you do will be very will be very helpful and and also will be very helpful to, in the future to have a clear and proper understanding and and of the teachings as well as to avoid the doubts for about teachings. So by studying and and to yeah, to by by doing practice studies, it yeah, it’s very helpful.
And and if not only just by study, if you implement all this all those teachings you have or the text you have studied into into practice. Put it if you put all those into practice, then, one can one can be able to lead a very meaningful life and but still there is a benefit. Even if, by studying this, even if one fails to put them into the, into practices, but, but through going through investigation or just studying in the, studying the text, one, one, one will eventually leave a very, good, predispositions or good imprints, in, within one’s mind stream. So, yeah, so one will lead a very good imprints within oneself. And for the best, one can, that imprints can ripen within this life and one will attain a great, qualities or great, yeah, great qualities, very vast, profound qualities within this lifetime.
Even even if one fails to, to cultivate a good or cultivate a good knowledge within this life, but what one has, one has, one has so a seed of the great knowledge within one’s mind and in future, in the next, in in in in the future lives, and whenever one met, one whenever one meets with the teaching and that meeting of your teaching will become like a meeting of a water and a seed and one can easily, and then, and one can one cultivate or a great knowledge very instantly or or or without any difficulty. And just by leaving an imprint or sowing a seed of the great knowledge within one’s mind, one can also hope to attain arhathood, bodhisattvahood, or become a bodhisattva or a Buddha in the next life, which is good. So this is the way all the Buddhist bodhisattvas and arhats have attained arhathood, Buddhahood, bodhisattvahood in the past. It’s not like they jumped on a certain level and reached that level. They attained arhat, became Buddha, became bodhisattva, by leaving a very good imprint of Dharma in one’s mind in previous lives and in a certain life ripened their imprints and attained arhathood or Buddhahood or bodhisattvahood. So and, yeah, this time, it’s very, very hot summer in Australia. And and and we have it is quite hard to be or attain enlightenment class in this kind of weather. It’s very hot and a bit of a struggle, but we but we still, you still come here to receive the teachings.
So you still come for the teachings and disregarding all those difficulties. And by doing such effort, it’s been very helpful to be sure that through attending the class with such hard work, one purifies or one cultivates the numbers of virtues or positive actions and abandons the negativities or non-virtues. Oh, yeah. Take care. I’m very much.