Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A Tibetan tsampa analogy anchors this 96-minute session: mix a small sack into a large one and your portion never runs out until the whole supply does — Khensur Rinpoche uses this image to explain why dedicating merit into Buddha’s inexhaustible store makes it last forever. The talk works through the final four of the seven-part practices: rejoicing (equal capacity earns the full merit of another’s deed; greater capacity earns half; lesser earns double); requesting the Wheel of Dharma to turn, tracing the nine-heap mandala offering back to Brahma’s golden gift to Buddha; requesting gurus to remain, illustrated by the story of Ānanda being possessed by demons and failing to petition Buddha to stay for aeons; and dedication, which Rinpoche distinguishes from prayer — dedication requires accumulated virtue as its substance; prayer needs none.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 LR 1998 10 13.mp3
UUID: f760d7ba-9f41-4d2e-978e-a18d636a3cf7
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1998-10-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 96.0 minutes
Words: ~4,856
First, we will train our motivation along with bodhicitta. So, we try to take all sentient beings as well as oneself and bring them into the ultimate happiness. To do that, for that sake, I should acquire all the good qualities and abandon all the negativities. So, to do that I should listen to this listen to this Lamrim teaching, is the essence of the Mahāyāna teaching, and then contemplate on it and then meditate on them to bring huge benefits for both oneself and others. We’ll do a short meditation.
So, we were dealing with the seven-part practices and the mandala offering in the last week and out of the seven we have done the first three, which is homage, making offerings and confession. Now we are on to the fourth point, which is rejoicing. So, here the rejoicing means feeling great happiness or rejoicing by seeing other people doing good work or doing positive things. So that kind of happiness or feeling happy is called the rejoicing. So, if one is being able to visualize of other people’s work or other people’s positive work, then and if oneself has equal knowledge or equal capability with that person, then how much merit that person gained by his practice, we can also one can also develop or gain the same amount of virtue.
So, for example, it is like No. For example, it is like this. If the person who if a person has the same knowledge and same capability than yourself. And the person, that person does the hundred ton, hundred prostration and you feel rejoice for his work or his prostration. And you also gain the same amount of doing or same amount of virtues of doing the hundred times prostrations.
And if that person has a higher knowledge or capability than oneself and you feel rejoice of his doing prostration, then you gain half the virtue. Means the person has gained a hundred percent and you’ve gained about fifty percent. So, if your knowledge is higher than that person, then you gain a double merit of that person’s doing one hundred prostrations. So, if you are able to do this practice rejoicing then you can gain huge amount of huge amount of virtue or merit without any hardship, like you don’t have to do like making offerings and doing practice of givings, but it is the work of your mental work which has no hardships or you don’t have to work very hard, but it’s just by the mental way of thinking or mind thinking and you can yeah, you got you accumulate great store of merit without any hardships, you know, or have effort. So, it’s very easy that we don’t have to work very hard, just easily gain huge amount of merit.
This practice is very, very beneficial and helpful, but one has to do this practice by seeing or by seeing the meditator or practitioner, something like that. For example, Rinpoche take an example, Buddha, Buddha for an example, think about how Buddha developed a love for sentient beings and then he generates the bodhicitta and then he how he accumulates, gets to merit in three countless aeons and finally he accomplished his goal of become enlightened. So, and he has accumulated great store of merit which is same as the sky. So, and if you feel rejoice for His work, even if you are not able to gain equal amount of His Merit, but if you’re able to gain just a part or just a side of his merit, it’s great. So, as you said that you should feel rejoice, but while you are sleeping, when you are sleeping, just feel rejoice, this is good and how wonderful.
So, it is same for the negative action. If you feel rejoice of someone’s doing negative action, like someone kills or act of killing, stealing or harms somebody and you feel rejoice for that work, then it’s equal that your negative will generate or increase. So, one should never feel rejoice or happy with someone’s bad work. So, for example, say that Hitler has killed countless people and he had accumulated many, many negative deeds. So if you feel rejoice for his work, you’ll develop or increase the same negative as Hitler has done.
So, in the point of Buddhist view is the negative action and the positive action are being commit or accumulate through the way of thinking, means through one’s mind. And as for rejoicing, we have two types of rejoicing, feeling rejoicing for one’s virtue and feeling rejoicing for others’ virtue. So, the feeling rejoice for one’s virtue is like one has done meditation and bring help others and at the end feeling rejoice and today I have done very good things feel rejoicing, then by rejoicing you will increase your positive actions. So, and if we we have many types of rejoicing for one’s virtue, what one has done in this lifetime and seeing I have done good things in this life. And also one can think back to the previous lifetime and you can be sure that previous lifetime has done many positive things, because our previous lifetime has led a very ethical practice, a good ethical discipline.
Through that I have gained this human rebirth and due to his or her practice of patience I got this beautiful figure or appearances. And then due to his practice of giving, then I have no problem with my living at the moment. And so, seeing all this, one should really feel rejoice for once our past life that that person has done a very good job and he had he has accumulated great merit and you should feel rejoice. If you feel rejoice for his the previous life’s virtues, then one can have a one can have a longer lifetime and then And so if you feel rejoice for the past person’s virtue then one have one can increase one’s lifespan and also develop in one’s living financially and have become more and more beautiful. So, and our Buddhist teachings usually deals with are very logical or very logic.
So, we can be sure that by seeing this precious human rebirth at present one’s present status, like one’s body and one’s living, and we can be sure that we have done a good thing in our past life. And so we can know by saying this present human rebirth, we have done good in the past life and about going what where one goes to the next rebirth is entirely depends on one’s mind at this time. So, some Tibetans, they consult their astrologer or their teachers and gurus and just ask them to do divination and etcetera. And by see by doing that, they just ask, can you please do this divination for me where I where I’ll born in next rebirth? And so actually we don’t have to ask our master to do divination for our next rebirth because Buddha has already predicted and preached us that if he said that if one does a good positive thing, one will have a one will go to better rebirth and have good migration.
And if one does bad things or unwholesome deeds, then one will be born in the lower rebirth. So Buddha has already predicted and we don’t have to ask our masters to do the So, Buddha has already mentioned or predicted us that if one does the good action, then it will lead you to the better migration or better rebirth and have great bliss or better happiness. And if one commits the unwholesome deeds and then the result will be result is one who is born in the low rebirths and undergo the great sufferings. So, it is entirely dependent on one’s mind that one’s mind and whether one does the good or one does the wholesome or unwholesome deed. So it’s entirely dependent on one’s mind.
So, one can be sure that it’s very important to look upon one’s mind and as it is said that look into one’s mind where one shall born in, where one shall go in the next rebirth. So, what this means is, and for that reason, one need to look into one’s mind that if one mind always conjoins or goes with the negative actions, then and negative actions, disturbing emotions and commit negative all the time, then it is sure that one will have a bad rebirth in the next lifetime. And one will have a bad rebirth. If one has if one mind if one sees one mind always goes with the positive action, then it is sure that one will have a better rebirth. So, it’s so one always one should look into one’s mind all the time and one can see that where one where one can see by one can know by seeing one’s mind where it goes, whether it’s to the negative side or the positive side.
So, when one does the meditation, means one should when one does the meditation, one always check where one’s mind is going. And one should always train one’s mind not to go with negative actions and to disturbing emotion and always convert one’s mind to towards positive actions and all the time. So it is very important, it’s very hard for the, from the beginning to turn, keep one, keep converting one’s mind to the positive side all the time because one has a very, our mind is being familiarized with doing negative actions from the past from the previous times. So but but through our great effort, but day by day doing meditation and trying to convert one’s mind to the positive side every day, gradually one will becomes accustomed to it and one can easily convert one’s mind to the positive side all the time. So always try hard to always try to stop one’s mind going after the negative actions and and to after disturbing emotion and let it go with the virtues and the positive action all the time.
So, all the time. This is called the practice of Dharma. If one can do this very well, then this is called good meditation. So, and now rejoicing for others is like others means that others, there are five types of beings, which first is Buddha and then is then the Bodhisattvas and then solitary realizers and then the hearers and then the, we call it learners. So there are five types of human beings where we can do practice of rejoicing for others.
So, if one can feel rejoice for the virtues of any of these five beings and can rejoice any of these five beings’ positive action, one can one increase or develops a merit which we have mentioned earlier of this lesson. So, that was the part of rejoicing, the fourth of the seven-part practices. Now, we are to the fifth one which is requesting or petitioning the victors to turn the wheel of Dharma, which means, as this is the practice of bodhisattva and bodhisattva works is always help others and bring happiness for sentient beings or to others. For that, to help to help to help others and bring happiness for others, one then one has to, bodhisattva, request one’s guru on Bodhisattvas and then Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma, means to teach the Dharma, to alleviate all the negativities and and gain all sentient beings about the good qualities or the positive actions through that and through their teaching then one can all sentient beings can have the happiness without any without suffering. So, this means the requesting all the gurus, Buddhas and bodhisattvas to turn the wheel of Dharma, means to teach.
So, for example, like at this time, we have the pure teachings of Buddha to practice here at this present time, which is the great kindness of Buddha. So Buddha first become enlightened and Bodh Gaya, and then he didn’t teach for forty nine days after his enlightenment. And we call the Brahma, the king of king of this universe or king of the world. And he offered a huge gold wheel or golden wheel to Buddha and request him to teach the Dharma. By his, by Brahma’s request, Buddha then turned the first wheel of Dharma in Varanasi.
So it is because of his request that Buddha taught. Without request, Buddha would not teach. And so by his request, Brahma’s request, Buddha turned the first wheel of Dharma. And at the time when he taught, he turned or he teach the first wheel of Dharma, there were there were only five beings or five disciples there. And out of the five, the first, Kaundinya, who had suddenly, instantly achieved arhathood or become an arhat, and then the rest four became stream-enterers. So, and then he turned the second wheel of dharma at Vulture Peak, and then the third wheel of dharma at the place called Vaishali.
So, and by his grace by turning all those wheel of dharmas and then the many has become enlightened have become enlightened and and many others also attains $2rhat, arhathood or become arhat and then some becomes bodhisattvas. So it is the intention of Buddha to turn the wheels of Dharma. And at this time, we may we have no Buddhas and bodhisattvas at this time, but still we have this teaching access and it will help us to have more Buddhas and bodhisattvas or arhats in the futures, So it’s like when we make a mandala with nine heaps, placing for the four directions and then the four corners and at the middle, which means nine heaps, and this is to represent the golden mandala which the king Brahma, Tshangs pa in Tibetan, which is Brahma, had first offered this golden mandala to Buddha to turn the wheel of Dharma. So this nine heaps of mandala offering is representing Brahma’s mandala and when one offers, one can actually as Brahma is the one who offers the mandala, then golden mandala to Buddha, one can visualize or imagine oneself as as that Brahma and then and imagine offering this huge or like countless golden mandala to Buddha to turn the wheel of Dharma.
So every time when we offer mandala make mandala offering before the teaching is to do that do that Brahman’s practice of offering mandala to Buddha to turn the wheel of Dharma, so that we are doing that practice. And now we’re on to the sixth limb prayer which is requesting Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Gurus not to enter nirvana. So the reason why we are doing this is if all of if Buddha’s Bodhisattvas or Gurus enters enters enter the nirvana, then we don’t we we couldn’t we won’t find any anyone to taught us Dharma. And if there is no teacher for us, then the all sentient beings can’t understand to be practiced and what things to be abandoned. And without knowing, without understanding that, then one, all sentient beings always accumulate the non virtues and always never be free from suffering.
For that we always request Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and our Guru not to enter nirvana. And for that we make a five-piece heaps of mandala, which we call a vajra cushion, placing in four directions and one at the center and requesting all the Buddhas of ten directions not to enter nirvana. So, our making the long life doing the long life pujas or prayers for our master is include which comes under the six seven-limb prayers making request not to enter the nirvana because we are requesting our when we make a long life prayers, we are requesting our guru not to enter nirvana and request him to stay long. So, at the time of Buddha, Buddha taught to his nephew called Ānanda who takes care of Buddha as an attendant. Buddha taught that I have attained a vajra like body that I can I have a capability or a quality to stay eons and eons if I want?
And if you request me to stay for aeons and aeons then I can, so if you want me to stay aeons and aeons please request me. But at that time when he was teaching Ānanda, Ānanda couldn’t hear anything of Buddha’s teaching because Ānanda was like possessed by demons and due to that he couldn’t hear any teachings of Buddha at that time. Due to that, Ānanda didn’t request Buddha to stay for many aeons and that’s why Buddha entered nirvana. And the reason Ānanda was possessed by demons is because if Buddha stays for that long time it hurts the demons. So due to that reason at that time, the demons possessed Ānanda.
So, for that reason, if so, say, the Lama has a wish to stay longer, but if the disciples didn’t request one’s guru or Lama to stay long, then the Lama may pass away or enter nirvana if the student didn’t request the Lama to stay. It will be like Buddha. So Buddha can stay as long as he wants, but and if there’s no request then he won’t stay. He will enter the nirvana. And the Buddha has a freedom and they always check or look into the disciple if there is a benefit for them to or not.
If they find any benefit, will stay, but they need to request from disciples to stay or leave, so to speak. So, all our Buddhas and our Gurus came to this world to help the sentient beings and if they have finished their work to help sentient beings, then they will leave at any time. It’s like if one finishes the work, one will leave. It will be like this. So but when when Buddhists, they enter to nirvana, it doesn’t mean that they just disappeared or they can’t be seen.
It means if when they finish a work or they finish benefiting sentient beings in this world, then they enter nirvana and goes to another continent or another world to help other sentient beings? And the seventh is dedication. So, the seventh one is dedication. For dedication here means we have accumulated merits by doing these practices. First, you have gained the virtues, accumulated merit through practicing, doing prostrations, and then making offerings, and doing confessions, and then rejoicing, requesting to turn the wheel of Dharma, and then requesting to stay long. So through this practice, having done this practice through bodhicitta, one has accumulated great store of merit and if one just leaves those merits as they are, then it’s just like wasting them, just leaving them without care.
So what one do is to dedicate all those merits, then, but one should never leave those merits as it is. Because if one leave it as it is, then it becomes life away. So one should never leave as it is and do the dedication. So one has accumulated great merit and one should never leave that merit just without any dedication, or just it would become wasted. So one should try to make use of its result until the attainment of one’s final goal or until the attainment of enlightenment.
And for that reason, one always make dedication to, dedication for one’s enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. Then, and the way why we are doing, so the merit and the dedication is like the merit, so what we need to dedicate is our merit. So merit is like a horse and so Tibetan we have all this example, horse, so virtuous is like a horse and then the dedication is like a horse, I don’t know, just with rain or? Rains. So Rinpoche also said that now Tibet, we take an example horse and that rains, but we can hear there are many, for example, the car.
So virtue is like a car and then the dedication is like the steering. So, we have accumulated great merit, and if we dedicate that for this life, for the concern of this life, like I’m not sickness and then get becoming like collecting goods, so merit, sorry, money, then it becomes like we have dedicate our virtue for just the very for this life’s concern, you know? No. So you have turned like stirring or the rinse has turned to this life. And you can get nothing in the next life.
And so one should never dedicate one’s merit for this life concern. If one this for the good rebirth, then next have good rebirth and become wealthy and having good companion or partner, then the one would have this and one had to dedicate just for the next births. And so one that reason, one should never dedicate one’s merit for present life’s consent, present life consent. And if one does it, then one had really used it for a very small purpose. No good.
And if one dedicates one’s merit to have a better rebirth, then it’s a bit better because this is the practice of the person of the small scope, which means a bit better. But if one dedicate for that, the second one, then one’s merit had become a cause to re enter the saṃsāra and it has never been to the cause of one’s liberation. Some more good. And so, Yeah, so once you think and if one can think that it’s not good to dedicate this dedicate one’s merit to have a better rebirth in the next life because one is because we are not quite satisfied with this in Samsāra and it’s not good to be born again in Samsāra. So instead of making dedication for that purpose, if one dedicates for the cause of enlightenment in the next rebirth, then one’s merits will really become a cause for enlightenment in the next life, which is good.
Very good. So, and the best is if one can dedicate one’s merit, as one has accumulated great store of merit which is same as space, and mix that great store of merit with the merit of Buddhadharma and Sangha, which will become very, very powerful or very, very huge, and dedicate those merits for both one and others of sentient beings enlightened, enlightenment, and then enlightenment, which enlightened state, enlightenment or enlightened state which is free from all the negativities and acquires all the good qualities, if one is able to do this dedication, then which is very very good. So if one can do this, then one’s merit will become inexhaustible, means one can utilize it and enjoy its results forever. It’s like everlasting. Even one can use the result of this, even one after one’s one become enlightened.
So one once once merit will become inexhaustible because one has already mixed one’s virtues into Buddha’s virtue and Buddha’s virtue is inexhaustible. So, it’s like that, so one’s one’s virtues becomes inexhaustible. So it is like a drop of water is being dropped into the ocean, and then this drop of water will never dry up until the whole until the ocean has been dried, so it’s like this. There is an example I’ll tell it to you. I’m also giving another Tibetan example which is it’s about two people.
So once a person has big sack full of tsampa, which is made of a grind barley, and then another one has just a small sack of tsampa made of beans. And so they have decided to eat together and the person with a small amount has told that, you know, we’ll eat together and we’ll mix it, alright? So what happened was they mixed the tsampa and then the person with that smaller one has mixed up totally and fully shake up or mixed in, and then they eat together for a while and then a person, another person said, I think now your sample is finished because it was this much from the beginning, alright? And then the person is, no, no, no, you can still see my sample in your sample, look that, because, you know, they can see. So, and then his sample was not finished until the big sack was finished.
So the first, the huge sack person has to share his whole tsampa until the end of the sack. So likewise, if we mix our virtue or merit with the Buddha’s merit then it will become like the person with the two tsampa sacks. So, we have Mö and Mönam, two words in Tibetan, which here mean dedication and prayer, which are different. When we do dedication, we need a substance which is virtue. We need something to dedicate.
Prayer here means Mönam, which means we’re just requesting or making requests or praying to have a better life, better rebirth, etc. Which means we can do prayers without any substance or virtue. So this is the difference. Dedication needs to have virtue to dedicate, and prayer doesn’t need to have any substance.
So, it’s for example, like when we do the Guru Puja at Buddha house, and at the time we leave time for dedication, at that time we are actually just doing prayers, because the person hasn’t got any substance or virtue to dedicate, which means we are just doing prayers. So, dedication means like while we’re doing Guru Puja and we offer something, like here in a spiritual group making offerings like five dollars or one hundred dollars or one thousand dollars and request them to dedicate, so which will become a dedication. So, that person will get both the prayers and dedication because he had accumulated something by offering. So, that will become like a person who make offerings, and he he or she will get, like, both dedication and prayers. So, for example, in our monastery in Sera, like during our pujas and the tea break between the pujas, our disciplinarian, we offered money and extra tea and passed it to our disciplinarian and requested him to ask for dedication from the guru during the puja.
And what our disciplinarian does is he reads the list of the dedications, he said, that person has offered something for this, and that person has made offering like hundred rupees for the sake of, suppose some other deceased person, and he will recite the list of the dedications to the assembly of monks, and then later the monks make the dedication prayers. So it’s like that. So we can do this here as well. So, the practice of dedication and prayer is very important. So, being a practitioner, we always do this practice of dedication and prayers, which will help us not to waste our merits or virtues, so it’s very important. And so we have three things: what things are to be dedicated,
Things for dedicated and then the object of dedication, three beings. And if one do this practice dedication from the viewpoint or through thinking, through thinking the emptiness, then which will become really powerful even when one gets angry, that memory cannot be distraught by that particular anger. So it’s very important to do this dedication through thinking about the emptiness. So what we need is happiness, and we don’t want suffering. And so we should always strive for positive things and do good things, and if one accumulates or does the positive all the time, it is definite that one will have happiness all the time.
So without doing any good positive things and expecting for virtues then it won’t be it is impossible and one can never get happiness. So always do the positive things all the time. Okay. Any questions?
But we need to use that money for the Dharma purpose, like using it for making stupas, or like a construction of stupas or making spiritual things. Meaning body, speech and mind representations, which is the statue and then the texts, teachings, and for the teaching purpose. So, if one just consume it or use it just for ordinary use, then it will become very, very bad. One atom, not the slightest bit of difference between saṃsāra and nirvana. No different?
Not one atom of inherent difference between saṃsāra and nirvana. Can I I this Question is the one? All protectors, something like that. Can you use the another one? I couldn’t find you.
Forget it. I that was really It’s alright. I can I can read the phonetics here? No. No.
No. No. No. No. It it’s it’s it means like say here it says the saṃsāra nirvana, like, even in atoms of true existence, which means if we Explain it completely.
Which means is, I mean, both the saṃsāra and both the saṃsāra and nirvana are not inherently existent, means which has no true existence. Means true existence means which is not inherently existent, but means not existing by its own. So which means the both the saṃsāra and nirvana is equal in terms of not inherently existent. Yeah. Okay.
I think you yeah.