Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Khensur Rinpoche opens this 55-minute Lamrim session with a striking claim: offering even a crumb with the awakening heart creates merit equal to space, because bodhichitta multiplies a single act into numberless merits — one per sentient being. For those with nothing to give, he argues that five minutes of genuine love and compassion in meditation outweighs material generosity. The session’s central argument — drawing on Śāntideva and Tsongkhapa — is that bodhichitta alone determines whether one is a Mahāyāna practitioner: not robes, wealth, or which texts one reads. Two stories make this vivid: an animal who retained compassion across death and rebirth, and the future Buddha who first generated bodhichitta as a hell being watching a fellow prisoner suffer. The class ends with a guided meditation on love, compassion, and the awakening heart.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 LR 1991 08 18.mp3
UUID: eedfa4ba-fbf0-4e4b-9968-9dbff2ec07c7
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-08-18
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 55.7 minutes
Words: ~2,492
We said that this offering of a crumb would create a skillful action equal to space. How does this come about? With the motivation of the awakening heart, when one offers even a crumb, it is for the sake of all sentient beings in order to eliminate their suffering and to bring them complete happiness. When we offer with the motivation of the awakening heart, we are practicing generosity for the sake of all beings in order to eliminate the suffering of all sentient beings and to establish them in happiness. So we bring about not only our own welfare but because our motivation is directed to benefit all sentient beings in this action that in dependence upon each sentient being we are creating a skillful action on every individual sentient with respect to every because of our motivation with respect to individual sentient beings we are creating a concordant skillful action and because sentient beings are innumerable, likewise the skillful action that we are creating creating is innumerable.
If we were to explain by way of an analogy that if there were ten beggars who were very hungry and had no food. One developed a kind hearted attitude of compassion, feeling sympathy for them in the suffering of their hunger and developing compassion motivation to end their suffering and to give them food. Then in giving them food, we would not only eliminate the suffering of ten individuals, but we would bring happiness to ten individuals. So out of our motivation is directed towards bringing happiness to ten individuals and therefore the skillful action created out of our mental attitude would be as if ten skillful actions corresponding to the ten individuals whose happiness we would bring. That would be the way it works.
Generosity with respect to twenty individuals then we would create as if twenty factors of skillful action. So in the same way when we direct our attitude toward the elimination of suffering and the bringing of complete happiness to all sentient beings, then there’s not one sentient being who is not included within this intention whether it be an animal, any being whatsoever is And sentient beings are numberless so we develop a corresponding skillful action with respect to each of them therefore the factors of our skillful action become numberless. Some may develop a qualm with respect to this explanation. They may say well you know that’s all very good if you can actually practice generosity with respect to everybody, but I don’t have anything to give. I don’t have enough things that I can practice such a generosity.
What do I do? But there’s no need to worry. There’s a great method that such a person can enjoy. What is this greatness? If we were to generate through the power of our meditation extremely forceful attitudes of love and compassion.
Love may all sentient beings have happiness in the causes of happiness. Compassion may all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. That even for five minutes generating such an attitude we would create a greater skillful action or creative potential than those who practice generosity with respect to all sentient beings. So to the degree of the power of our love and compassion generated in the course of our meditation, that to that same degree we will create even vaster, proportionally vaster creative potential for action. And even more so with respect to cultivating love and compassion if we were to go on and develop the attitude of the awakening heart and the amount of benefit.
If we were to go on and generate the awakened heart, then no matter what we might be doing, whether it’s sleeping, going, staying, continually we are creating creative potential and skillful action. So we should appreciate the great importance of the awakening heart and understanding its importance to as much as we are able to cultivate it each day and in doing so we will be cultivating ethical actions equal to space each day. And through the power of these skillful actions that we create, undesired results will cease of themselves and desired results will continue to experience desirable results. Whether one is practitioner of the universal vehicle, the great vehicle or not depends only upon whether one has generated the awakening heart. It is not a matter of as to whether one is rich, how rich one might be, smart one might be, how lucky one is, whether one wears red robes, whether one lived in a great house, whether one has many statues about one.
Even a lesser vehicle foe destroyer who dwells in great bliss and has completely abandoned cyclic existence is not a practitioner of the universal vehicle. Even if we have no other quality whatsoever, if we have developed the awakening heart than we are a practitioner of the great vehicle. Even an animal who develops the awakening heart is a practitioner of the great vehicle. It is only dependent upon this single quality. So all these others are important, are not determining factors.
Way we carry on our activities, whether how we sleep, how we eat, what clothes we wear, where we go, where we don’t go in determining whether we are actually a practitioner of the great vehicle. It is only in terms of our mind and within our mind the attitude of the awakening heart which determines whether we’re a practitioner of the universal vehicle or not. A quote from a verse by Śāntideva in which he said, Whosoever the individual might be, whether they’re poor, without clothes, without food, whether they have no other qualities. Once they have generated the awakening heart then they have become they are born into the they are born as an offspring of the victors. They become a bodhisattva.
They are practitioners of the great vehicle. It is simply and they become worthy of prostration or veneration. The sole determining factor is with respect to mind and within the mind the attitude of the awakening heart whether one is a great vehicle practitioner or not, whether one has the awakening heart. As Je Tsongkhapa explained, the teaching is not the great vehicle teaching simply because it is within the great vehicle Dharma, but only if it is being listened to by a practitioner of the great vehicle.
That is to say it is the person who makes the Dharma the great vehicle and not the teaching. Even if one would listen to teachings on the lesser vehicle, if the person has the awakened heart then it is a teaching on the great vehicle and it is determining factor as to whether one is a practitioner of the great vehicle as to whether one has the awakened heart or not. So even if for example if one were to read a book which set forth the teachings on the great vehicle, though one might be reading that book, one is not a practitioner of the great vehicle. Simply if one does not have the attitude of the awakening heart, it is only the attitude of the awakening heart which makes one, not what one reads, but through one’s attitude within one’s mind, a great practitioner of the great vehicle. So if we cultivate the attitude of the awakening heart, if we expound the Dharma, if we practice tolerance, if we meditate on emptiness or impermanence, then our practice becomes a practice of the great vehicle.
Whatever activity we might be engaged in, if it is done with the motivation of the awakening heart, then it becomes an activity of the great vehicle. No matter what we might be doing, even if it’s an insignificant activity, it is the benefits are magnified through the motivation of the awakening heart. Amongst all the possible qualities that we might be able to develop and there are innumerable excellent qualities, there is none like those of the awakening heart and the wisdom understanding emptiness. Even a wonderful, magnificent individual as the Buddha with all his unimaginable qualities, such a state is achieved only by means of the development of the awakening heart and the wisdom understanding emptiness.
Without these, there is no way to achieve the magnificence of a Buddha. As Candrakīrti sets out, in dependence upon the foundation of compassion and the two realizations of the awakening heart and the wisdom realizing emptiness, then we will achieve all qualities, all excellent qualities whatsoever of the world of the lesser vehicle and the greater vehicle. So we have completed the presentation within the graduated path of the being of the middling perspective. And we continually talk about the necessity and the ways of training with respect to the being of the great perspective, the training in the awakening heart and the wisdom realizing emptiness. Therefore, to all intents and purposes we have completed our explanation of the graduated path.
Therefore, having heard this explanation, then you should seek to cultivate the awakening heart on a regular basis and we’re going to meditate briefly upon the generation of the awakening heart and begin with the developing the attitudes of love and compassion. Compassion being the attitude wishing others to be free from suffering and to be free from the causes of suffering and love being the attitude of wishing others to have happiness in the causes of happiness. But thinking that this simply is not enough, that in order to actualize this wish that I myself must eliminate all my various faults and bring the consummation of my excellent qualities through my practices in order to be able to bring this wish to actualization and therefore I must achieve enlightenment. It was traditional in Tibet that upon the completion of the teaching on the graduated path then there would be the taking of the vows of the awakening heart. There would be an offering and then a meditation.
So we can make, we can commit ourselves to generating the awakening heart and we can meditate on the awakening heart and offer the, make this meditation our offering. We’ll meditate together. So, you know, I’m going to explain how to proceed. So, we’ll go slowly and meditate in this way. Consider all sentient beings.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of their suffering. Consider all sentient beings. I must establish all of the sentient beings in a happiness completely divorced of any suffering. Consider all sentient beings. In order to establish all sentient beings in a happiness divorced all suffering.
I must achieve a state in which I have eliminated all my various faults and brought to consummation all my excellent qualities. If I were to achieve this state myself then I would be empowered to be able to establish all sentient beings in a like state of having eliminated all their various faults and developed all their excellent qualities. I’m going to stop there for the day but it will take five minutes if you have some questions. So this animal had in a previous life practiced the Dharma and going through various stages. For example, having recognized all sentient beings as one’s mother, remembering their kindness, developing gratitude for their kindness, had developed in the course of their practice a great compassion, but having died, did not go on to develop the awakening heart.
And over the course of death and due to the influence of karma took rebirth as an animal, but the compassion did not degenerate. Through the force of the previous great compassion, even as an animal, went on to generate the awakening heart. When the future Buddha initially generated the awakening heart, he did so as a hell being. How did this come about? In a previous life, the future Buddha had developed great compassion through the methods of recognizing sentient beings as one’s mother, remembering their kindness, developing gratitude for their kindness, affection and love, and then having developed great compassion but was not able to go on due to impermanence and death to develop the awakening heart, and due to previous negative karma created took rebirth in hell. Within the hell realm, he and another individual were forced to pull a great cart and the other person pulling the cart was in terrible shape and seeing this, the future Buddha couldn’t bear this and out of the sense of not being able to stand this person’s suffering, developed great compassion, and out of that the awakening heart was generated.
Today we created a great deal of creative potential through meditation on the awakening heart. There are prayers of dedication on page five verses eight and nine. First the Long Life Prayer on page ten. And then on page five. You are a human being with the vast potential of wisdom and having great capacity to make effort in expressing this wisdom.
What is it that we want? We are all the same in wanting to bring about desire in unchanging happiness and to bring a cessation to all that we do not desire. This is the goal of our life. How are we going to achieve these two ends of bringing the cessation to undesired results and to achieve the desired ends that we seek. That it is through the mind itself through the development of healthy attitude.
And amongst the highest is that of a kind heart. So how can we develop a kind heart? Begin by reflecting upon the fact that developing the attitude of wanting to free both oneself and others, all sentient beings from the suffering and the cause of the suffering that is to develop compassion. And then go on to develop the attitude of love which is expressed in the thought, may myself and all sentient beings have unchanging happiness and the causes of happiness. Once we’ve engendered love and compassion in our minds then we have to go on from there to think that in order to establish them in such a state, in order to bring fulfillment all they desire in, then I myself must train.
I myself must bring to fulfillment my training in order to bring this about in fact. How am I to proceed with my training? This initially takes the form of listening, that is the reading of books, listening to teachings and then going on to reflect upon them trying to understand the meaning and finally integrating them, the meaning into meditation. It is by this means that one can achieve this end. So with such an attitude, develop such a motivation for listening to the present teaching in order to benefit all sentient beings. We have a few preliminary prayers that we recite if you’d like to recite along with us.
You’re quite welcome. Doc. First we recite verse number three on page one. We do that three times and then verse number two. Verse number five, page four.