Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 105-minute Lam Rim session with Śāntideva’s image of butter churned from milk — bodhicitta as the concentrated essence of all Buddhist teaching. The bulk of the class works through Atisha’s step-by-step method for cultivating bodhicitta, beginning with equanimity as its indispensable foundation: without a balanced mind toward friend, stranger, and enemy alike, any compassion remains selective and partial. Rinpoche introduces a concrete visualization — neutral person centered, beloved person to the right, enemy to the left — as a training device for gradually leveling emotional responses across all three. He then explains why rebirth makes Dharma necessary: consciousness travels like a great river, changing bodies as an actor changes costumes, so lasting happiness depends on karma cultivated now. A brief Q&A closes the session, including a practical answer on compulsive overeating.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 LR 2000 02 22.mp3
UUID: be943d75-b039-4ee7-b9d1-9505d3a94eff
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-02-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 105.2 minutes
Words: ~4,005
Very, very strong craving towards the food in the past life. And due to this, you have very strong, say I mean, have trap I mean, problem with eating that that you can’t stop eating. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Alright. So we have taken, like, minutes extra, so we won’t do any lamrim dedication here. Okay. Thank you. The great master, the Indian great master, Śāntideva, has said for has stated that the Dharma or the teachings is like milk.
What it means is the teaching, Dharma, by itself is very pure by nature, by itself. It’s very pure, clean, and very white. So, what he means is that the teachings of the Dharma is like milk, and what you get by churning that milk, then you can get the butter, and butter is like a the gist or the most essence of the milk. So the butter is the gist or the most essence of of the teachings. And bacha has been said to be very tasty, and it also gives it’s very good for one’s nutrition, and also, such as sometimes, in some cases, it prevents the diseases as well.
So what it actually means is that statement and analogy, the milk stands for the Dharma, the teaching itself, and as we said, the butter is like a gist the gist of the milk. So that butter stands for the bodhicitta or altruistic intention? So the bodhicitta is the most gist of the Buddhist teachings or it’s the most essence of the Buddhist teachings. By developing bodhicitta, one attains the huge or great qualities. Also, the bodhisattva itself has been considered as the utmost quality of the teachings, and We have taught the benefits of developing bodhicitta in last teachings and hope everyone can recall it.
So, as we said, the bodhicitta is the most essence of the teachings, but at this stage, we haven’t achieved the bodhicitta completely, therefore one should try to attain that quality of bodhicitta through skillful means and wisdom. So bodhicitta can be attained, and if one trains or one works for it through skillful means and wisdom, If one tries to cultivate, one can achieve that bodhicitta. But we haven’t achieved it yet because of the lack of cultivation. It can be achieved by anyone because there have been many bodhisattvas. The bodhisattva is being called an exalted being.
And bodhisattvas are the ones who possess or who have cultivated the bodhicitta. And they have attained by training in or through cultivating skillfulness in the wisdom. One can be sure that one can attain it if one cultivates to attain it. So there are many ways of cultivating the bod bodhicitta. One system which has been set forth by a great master, Atisha, through his experiences, his way of cultivating the bodhicitta is first training or developing a special insight.
It is because the bodhicitta derives or comes from or after the special insight. And to generate the special wish or special insight, one has to cultivate or develop great compassion because without great compassion, one cannot cultivate a special insight. Then, to cultivate great compassion, first one needs to cultivate the affectionate love or appealing love, but seeing no matter whoever one sees any kind of beings or one should see this being, any being, as a very appealing love without appealing love. It is important because without having appealing love, one cannot cultivate a great compassion. So to cultivate a perfect or proper appealing love, it’s very important for one to see or repay the kindness towards the sentient beings or the motherly sentient beings.
By knowing that should repay their kindness by knowing or understanding the kindness shown by those or shown by them. Cultivating or to repaying their kindness is impossible unless one remembers their kindness. Therefore, before repaying their kindness, it is important for one to remember their kindness. So, before remembering or to remember your kindness, it is very important for one to see them as one’s mother. It is because it’s been said that one should see them or recognize them as one’s mother because the mother is considered to be a very is person who shows great kindness in both the worldly system in the sense Both Say it, what is the word?
Say, the mother is the one who shows the kindness in both spirit both in the spiritually as well as non spiritually all in the world. So recognize as one’s or your mother, which means it is very easy for one to understand or recognize the mother of this present life, but here, in the sense, the recall is she was one’s mother, which means not only the mother of this life, one recall that other sentient beings who have been one’s mother in the previous lives. In order to cultivate or to recognize the sentient beings as one’s mother, or Okay, put it this way. Recognizing sentient beings, entire sentient beings as one’s mother is impossible if one does not have a balanced mind, which means that having the mind which is free from attachment and also undiscriminating mind. For that reason, if one hasn’t got a balanced mind, then one cannot recognize all the sentient beings as one’s mother.
So therefore, cultivating a balanced mind or cultivating an equanimity that seeing all sentient beings as one without any attachment and any discriminations, then one can cultivate or attain or generate all those above qualities or the numbers which we have dealt with. Cultivating a limitless or cultivating equanimity is very, very important, and it’s like building a very it’s like the foundation of the building. Say, suppose one is trying to build a seven floor building, and if one fails to build a proper or very firm foundation or a very solid foundation, then it’s quite impossible for one to build at that high building on that foundation or on that weak foundation, as well as even if one succeeds to build a house, the house won’t stay long. So equanimity is like a foundation, and cultivating it from the beginning is very important. Without this, without it, then all this recognizing sentient beings as oneself, remembering their kindness, repaying their kindness, appealing love, compassion, special wish, or special insight, and the altruistic intention are impossible.
What normally we do is that we divide all the entire sentient beings into three groups that are considering one type of being or one group as one’s dear ones or relative or friend and so forth. The second group considers as one’s enemy, and the third one is called the neutral being. So relatives or the dead ones are the one that you feel happy to see, and the enemies are the ones who you feel unhappy by seeing them, and the third person the third one is the neutral being where there is no feelings at all even you see those people. So we should try to cultivate the equanimity through meditation, and especially in the West, people, the Westerners, they love meditation. Once you do a meditation first, focusing or taking a neutral person as the object of meditation because one has a strong equanimity or neutral mind towards the person because one hardly has any feelings that if the neutral person is being one will hardly feel any depressed or sad, hardly feel any sadness.
If the person is very happy or has done something good, then one will not feel that happy or may not feel happy at all, just consider the person as neutral. Of that, everyone has a strong, balanced mind or the very balanced mind on the neutral person, so therefore cultivating or meditating on the neutral person from the beginning or very offset is very important. So now here, we are training in how to cultivate equanimity. So when when when one meditates, first put three beings in front of you. The place the neutral place the neutral person in the middle, and then at the right, place somebody whom you really liked.
And the left, someone who has caused you harm. So by placing all the three people in front of you, three types of beings in front of you, by focusing on those three beings, one will have all sorts of feeling, the neutral feeling for the person at the center, that one is not angry at all and one will not feel genuine anger and one will not cultivate any happiness. To choose to write as the person who’s been very helpful and kind of person whom you like very much, you have, say, happy seeing that person, and then not happy seeing the person at the opposite direction at the other end, which is the enemy at the left. So during that time, by focusing on the three person at once, one has all three types of feelings at all at one time. So while focusing on those three, and then you look at the sensitive person, a neutral person, and for that person you have no attachment, no hatred at all, just a neutral and you can maintain a very balanced mind.
So, while focusing on that person, then replace that one’s focus towards the right person at the right, which is the dear ones, and then try to cultivate that imbalanced mind without attachment and hatred towards the dear ones. And then, whenever one has been able to maintain a balanced mind on the dear ones and then swap it towards the left one to the enemy and maintain the same balance. Whenever one comes to have a balanced mind to all these three types of person, that is the sign that one has attained or achieved the equanimity. So so whenever one attains, one has whenever one has a balanced mind towards all these three beings, then one can develop great compassion to all sentient beings or all beings. If one does not have the balance amount towards those three type of beings, then one can only develop a compassion for the person at the right, the dear ones, because you have attachment towards the person.
You may not develop a compassion for the middle person because it’s just a neutral person, so you don’t really care. Forget about cultivating a compassion for the third person, the enemy. You would rather wish the person to have a I mean, have a bad luck or If that happens, then the compassion you develop will the compassion you develop is being called a very discriminative compassion or a partial compassion, that compassion cannot be a great compassion. Cultivating a balanced or equal mind, balanced mind towards the all sentient beings or the three type of beings is very important. If asked, Can one develop a balance mind or not?
Then the answer yes, one can, and also the Buddhist Pramāna or the logics, the training in the logics of the number ten, what I’m saying? The training, one can cultivate the equanimity or equal mind through training in the pramāna or the logic Buddhist logics. No. I’m going to repeat the call. So training in Buddhist logics is very helpful to cultivate the balanced mind.
Cultivating that equanimity is possible. We can take an example that, say, the very like an iron pillar, it’s a very big iron. It’s very hard to bend by hand or anything, but through your ideas, say, to put it in the fire and melt it up, by doing this, one can easily make that pillar into different any kind of shape you like, either rounded or long or flat, so it’s like that. At this stage, mind is like that iron pillar, it’s very solid and hard, so due to we have attachment towards the dear ones and no feelings towards the neutral and then the hatred or anger towards enemy. But our mind, that mind can be trained like the pillar being melted in the fire and make it into any shapes you like.
Mind can be trained, their mind can be trained through practicing in the Buddhist philosophies or through Buddhist philosophies and through meditations. meditations like doing analytical meditation but through analytical meditation and Joramang, Joramang, and then the placing meditation. So at this stage, we are training in the great scope or the third chapter. In this, we visit the teaching of the great vehicle, and great vehicle has two schools, like the sūtra and the tantra, and the training in this great scope is like training in the highest quality or highest degree of the sūtra schools. So as we are training in the in this in in the in the highest quality or highest teachings of the Sūtrayāna or Sūtra schools.
So what sort of yeah, Sūtra Skills, it’s very important having a very open minded, very relaxed, and shouldn’t be very close minded at that time. So especially at this stage, when cultivating the equanimity, having a very open minded and, say, the relaxed mind is very, very important. If one hasn’t got that kind of mind and one’s been If one has a very covered mind, it’s very difficult for difficult to cultivate the equanimity. So I’ll explain a bit about this before we start cultivating on the equanimity. So so just listen to this teaching with a very broad mind.
We are studying the great scope and by training in the great scope, which means that we don’t consider this life very important and we are analyzing or investigating or, yes, said investigating our own lives, thinking that what we have done in the past and what is going on at this time and where one will go or what one will do in the future. So as we investigate investigating in the past, present, and the future, we can easily see or understand about this present life that what what what one is and where one is or what one is doing. So at this stage, we have both demand and the body. If on us, does our mind and body come and grow like the radish grow on the field? The answer is no, it’s not like that.
So, our mind and body comes from? Then, so these two, the mind and body, are the results from the previous causes in the previous lives and these all comes by causes and conditions accompanied by, say, a good karma and it is the result in this body and the mind is the result of those causes and causes, say those kamas. So, this body and mind are the results of the previous life. So, as we said, at the time of the birth, yes, at the time of our birth, it comes from the mother’s womb and at the first stage we have a body, but that body is the continuation or the renewal of the body which was in mother’s womb. As we can understand that body is a continuation or the result of the body inside mother’s womb.
That establishes that the body in the mother’s womb are also a result of the body which was from the previous life. By knowing this, one can easily establish that the previous lives does exist, do exist. So at the time yeah. So During the time of or at the time the meeting of the father and mother drops, at during that time our consciousness enters in the drops in the drop and that the so during that time, the meeting the two drops and one consciousness enters into the drop and that consciousness is the continuation or the consciousness of the previous life. And then, at this stage, not only that we that we not only we have a body, we do have very, very beautiful, good looking body, plus have good financially, okay, and have very good companions, good friends, and good All these are the results of a good karma or good actions in previous life.
So so all these All these good things we have are the real of the good things done by good actions or good karma performed by a previous previous person. So, we can say that person has done a very good job or cultivated good karma by seeing the result at this stage. By knowing these results, we can rejoice or we can pretty much show that the previous life is was a good person and has done good things. So, yeah, so that previous person is also a result or a continuation of its former life or the results of the actions of his or her former life, and that is the result of his or her karma. So if one tries to count, then it becomes countless.
So that shows that one has taken a limitless So at this stage, we have attained a very good rebirth and while having this very fortunate rebirth, it is very important to make good use of this life or this rebirth by practicing use this word to meditate, to practice, to attain, to perform a very good practice meditation. If one does this, then one one have chances of attaining arhathood or become arhats or the bodhisattvas. If that happens, then it’s very fortunate and one is very lucky because by becoming arhat or bodhisattva, then one does not need to reborn again in the cyclic existence or saṃsāra. So as we said that if one becomes arhat or bodhisattva, then one no longer needs to take a rebirth in the samsaric existence or saṃsāra because it is because we circle or we we circle in cyclic existence through the influence of of the ignorance or or the influence of desire, hatred, and anger, and these are the main disturbing emotions. We circle in cyclic existence through the power or by influence of these three: desire, hatred, and anger.
Also, these are the causes to take birth inside of existence. By becoming arhat and bodhisattva, one abandons or eliminates those three desires, hatred and anger. By abandoning these or abandoning those, then one eradicates all the causes of the cyclic existence and due to this, as there is no causes at all, one does not need to take birth in cyclic existence. So you can see at this stage, within you, you have attachment, you have anger, and you have ignorance or confusions, Due to that, whenever these disturbing emotions encounter with the karma or action, then as a result, we suffer by meeting of action and those disturbing emotions, we get tortured. We get tortured and we suffer, and after that one dies or we die and being in the intermediate states, then after the intermediate state, we enter in the mother’s womb and take rebirth and we are back again in cyclic existence or saṃsāra and that continue.
Say, if one does not abandon all these disturbing emotions, then one cannot be free from cyclic existence. Instead, one keeps circles in the cyclic existence and continuing suffering in the saṃsāra. So we have taken many countless, say, the countless birth in the past. And if one if if still one does not If still does not abandon the disturbing emotions, desire, hatred and anger, then one still needs to take even more rebirths than the birth one has taken in the past. So when we call this this life means that this life so what is this life?
This life starts from the date of birth till one leaves this body, so that duration is or that is the time of what this life. The time of the death is the end of this life and at that time one leaves this body, the body you have taken from the mother’s womb and at the time of death, you get, say, expired from the body and you leave the body, so you have stopped the body but the same mind has not stopped it yet. That mind or the consciousness still continues and so it is, say that mind never stops, the consciousness never stops, it still goes and it is very long or it continues like a very big water, very big river. So our consciousness keep continuing, and it never stops. The consciousness keep traveling and keep continues, but time to time it changes the body.
It’s like a person, say, participating in a play. During each role, the person changes the dress or the costumes, so by changing the costumes, we can call that person as different names. But in the true sense, it’s the same person, he or she just tends to dress, but it’s the same person. Likewise, our body sorry, our consciousness changes the body but in whatever form or whatever body one is, the consciousness is still the same consciousness. Some people, they ask questions, why we do practice or why we practice Dharma?
That question is actually a very good question to ask. Yes. So, As we said, the life continues, so this life continues or projected the next life, and the next life produces the next life. Therefore, if one wants to cultivate pleasure or happiness only in this life, that which is temporary happiness, then to attain such happiness, one does not necessarily need to practice or need Dharma to attain this because just by cultivating enough money, food, and clothings can give you this temporary happiness. But for us, we are not contented with the happiness in this lot.
As we said, it is not like that the time of death is the end of yourself or the the end of you, but we don’t say this because we still continue in the next lives. Due to that, still not only we need happiness in this life, we also need to achieve happiness in the future lives. Due to this, the money All those money, clothes, and fruits cannot produce or cannot give any happiness, produce happiness in next lives. So, the person of this life really needs happiness in next lives because we can say that person needs happiness in next lives by seeing that the today person wants happiness tomorrow or wants to be happy tomorrow, so likewise, this life person needs the happiness in next life. In order to have the happiness in their life, only dharma can help you to have happiness life in the next lives.
So so time’s up. So we’re actually taking about five extra minutes. So but yeah. So we’ll take a few questions. Yep.
Can you speak a bit louder? Yes. I’m just talking to the Ven-la. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Yeah. Are having a secret conversation here. So, yeah, it it it could be by, say, eating a very excess of foods in certain days, you eat too much, and some days, you are able to maintain with enough amount of food, so that could be the reason that sometimes you have hard days and sometimes you have very, say, a fine day. So in order to avoid that, it could be quite good by making a resolution or a kind of intention from the beginning when one starts eating things, say making an exact time, say, I will eat only three times a day. Not only that, from the beginning, along with that intention, if you’re cooking, just try to make enough amount of food which is suitable for you to cope with, and also putting a reasonable amount on the plate and then saying, After this, I won’t eat anything.
So by this, probably it could help you. So and at this stage, having with that problem, like eating things, like eating very excess amount of food could be a result of your past lives that that you can’t stop eating. Yeah. Nice. Okay.
Yeah. Alright. You say that. Okay. So we have taken, like, minutes extra, so we won’t do any lamrim dedication here.
Okay. Thank you.