Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 98-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche opens with a teaching on the foundational importance of hearing — the first of the three stages of listening, contemplation, and meditation. Two vivid analogies anchor the doctrine: Buddha House plunged into total darkness without light, and an ancient lama’s saying that meditating without prior hearing is like a disabled person trying to scale a cliff. The session then shifts entirely: Rinpoche recounts a recent journey through eastern Tibet and Lhasa — visiting Tharya monastery, witnessing monk ordinations, and observing the constraints of Chinese occupation on religious practice. He closes with a candid appeal for Western support of Tibetan schools and monasteries, including details of a $39,000 personal donation he made to Tharya monastery.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 18 LR 2000 06 13.mp3
UUID: 6d38259a-201b-4fdf-94f3-e0bb87e53222
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-06-13
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 97.9 minutes
Words: ~4,683
So first we’ll set our motivation of altruistic intention and then follow the practices of listening, hearing, contemplation and meditation. Through this, by doing the practice along with the motivation of altruistic intention, then our practices will eventually become very helpful for both self and others. The master, the Indian great master, Śāntideva, has said forth that we are very fortunate to have having found this precious human rebirth, precious human rebirth with eighteen qualities, which are the eight leisures and ten endowments. And through this, the fortunate rebirth, we can accomplish all our wishing happiness and overcome all the unwanted sufferings. After having this very special opportunity, should put huge effort on practicing in order to overcome from overcome all the unwanted sufferings from the from its from the roots and try to attain the ultimate happiness which is free from entire sufferings.
So we have this very special opportunity by having this opportunity one should one should practice as much as one practice put huge effort on the practice and maintain that that effort continues and attain the ultimate happiness. But if one fails to to to to make use of this special opportunity, then that becomes then that will the if one if one fails to put effort in making use of that opportunity, then the person will have the waste the opportunity or the person will leave his or her life empty, which is, in the sense meaningless. And also, the great master says that we sometimes had some bad lucks that losing, say, the losing hundred ten thousand dollars and people might feel very upset and and also some people may drop some tears of losing the ten thousand dollars. But but if one fails to make use of this precious human rebirth, which has the or which has the whole capability of attaining the ultimate happiness, If one weighs that, then there’s no such greater disaster or greater loss than this. And if one fails to make use of this special opportunity, then there is no such greater ignorance or greater fool than this.
So, if one fails to make use of this, then there’s no such greater than this. So as this precious human rebirth, having this very opportune special opportunity, one one can accomplish the ultimate happiness within this lifetime. One should not fail oneself to put put oneself into practices. And if one and should not postpone as well, because impermanence is unpredictable or it’s uncertain, we never one can never be sure that when it comes. So make use of this special opportunity and try to attain the ultimate happiness and and should also try to make cultivate the positive actions as much as one can as as as much as one can.
And in terms of cultivating positive actions, there are the many ways of achieving the attainments, like the attainments of the temporal and ultimate ultimate achievements, and and also to also to create positive actions which brings benefit which benefits both self and others, and which is the which is which is the bodhicitta or altruistic intention that that brings help towards both oneself and others. Therefore, one should cultivate a bodhicitta, the altruistic intent intention as much as one can. So, therefore, we should practice the bodhicitta and meditate on it. When one does the meditation on bodhicitta, the altruistic intention should cultivate see should see that both should see like like what like oneself, all other motherly sentient beings are also wishing happiness and do not want do not want to suffer. Therefore, wishing those out the motherly sentient beings being free Mhmm.
Yeah. Wishing those motherly sentient beings to be free, to have the ultimate, to have the happiness, and through this one, and through this develop a love to it, develop a love. And likewise, then develop a wish that all both self and others be free from all these sufferings and and and wishing them to be free from suffering. And I will free all those free both both self and others from the suffering and develop a a compassion or affection. And after having developed the love and compassion, developed a wish that in order to free all those motherly sentient beings from all the sufferings and bring bring them into the state of ultimate happiness, I shall here purify all my negativities and attain all the good qualities, and through this, one roughly developed a certain amount of bodhicitta.
And along with this, along with development of bodhicitta or altruistic intention, I want you to motivate that through along with this motivation, I shall shall yeah, I shall do the practices of listening, contemplation and meditation. So we’ll do a short meditation on We’ll be reciting a few prayers. So, from the beginning we said that along with such motivation, we shall involve in the practices of listening, contemplation, and meditation. So what is listening or hearing? So the the hearing is very important.
The knowledge of hearing is very important because through listening, one understands. And whatever the thing is, whether it’s good or bad, first, we need to hear through this, through hearing one, wow, we understand, and we can distinguish the what which is beneficial and which is not. And through this, one can distinguish also what things to be taken and what to be abandoned, and and this is how the the listening or hearing is very important as well as the hearing in the sense we can read books, make discussions, or ask questions. Through this, one one hears and one understands the the good the the part of the good and bad. And and if one does not have listening or have listening, then one will not understand or distinguish the the the good or the bad.
And through this, we without lack of understanding because of not having a proper listening, one commits mistakes and so forth, and without understanding, we without understanding, we accumulate or we produce lots of actions which are not useful in our life, and we spend our entire life cultivating something meaningless, and that wastes ones that makes one to lead the life meaningless. So through hearing one understands, also through hearings one will free one shall free from the non negativities or non virtuous actions because by through through listening, one understands which are the negatives, and and one can avoid accumulating the non virtuous actions. And, also, hearing hearing also abandons the the the the, yeah, mean meaningless items or or, yeah, meaningless items in the sense through through through hearing, one can abandon the the laziness or laxity, mental wanderings, which are the the the harmful factors of one’s meditation. So by but through hearing, one one can avoid the the mental wanderings, mental wandering that that that helps one to to to keep one’s mind focused within or during the med during meditation, and and also the by avoiding those laziness, then one during one one laziness, one will have a clear visualizations of any meditation one one one is doing, and also it helps ones to have a good meditative stabilization.
So, by making all this process, the steps which are the benefits of the listening differs, but through listening one avoids accumulating the non virtuous actions, which actually helps one to lead a very ethical discipline. And then the the it also helps through one’s meditation, avoiding all this laziness and the mental wanderings and which helps one to attain the meditative stabilization. And and then the third step of it and by having all this good ethical disciplines and the meditative stabilization, then one can meditate upon medit do meditation on emptiness and which helps ones to purify purifies all the non virtuous actions as well as free ones from the disturbing emotions and eventually frees one from the cyclic existence. So, if if one has a great knowledge of listening and or listening or hearing, then through through through proper knowledge of listening and hearing, one can also attain all those qualities like compassion, love, and altruistic intention, and also perfect all the six perfections starting from generosity and also perfect the parts of both the Mahāyāna Sūtra and Tantra.
For example, if I demonstrate an example here at Buddha House, because of this very bright light, we can see what things are contained within Buddha House, particularly in this teaching hall. Because of the brightness of the light, we can distinguish each and every object like the statues, the frames, pictures, persons, the teachings, the texts of the Buddha’s speech, mind, text and so forth, and that is the kindness of the light which we can easily distinguish what is what and which is which. If there is no light in that Buddha house, then Buddha house remains dark and forget about seeing the statues and so forth, you can hardly understand or know who is sitting next to you. And in the worst part, you can’t even see your hands in the darkness. Darkness.
And so so so, likewise, the the hearing hearing is like a light that by because yeah. It’s like a light that the hearing makes you understand the the entire entire teachings and what are the the real quality and the and the and the and the reality of the teachings. And through through through through, yeah, all these understandings, which you can you can you can do derive from the listening or the hearing and and can can see the good can see the practices or through the what what what practices are contained within the teachings and and and which which practices. For example, like the practices of of taking and abandoning, that seeing that what things to be abandoned and what things to be preserved or or what things to be taken. And through this one can one can one can perform a very good good practice.
And if one hasn’t had the knowledge of listening or hearing, then it is like a room without light — a Buddha house in darkness — and you won’t understand anything. There is a great saying from the ancient lamas or early lamas that the meditation without hearing is like a handicapped person climbing a rock, which means that without hearing doing a meditation without hearing, one is like a handicapped person climbing a rock because without hearing, one will not understand what is the object of meditation and what are the benefits meditation and what is meditation. Without knowing all these requirements for the meditation, no matter how much meditation one does, one can achieve nothing. Like the handicapped person, no matter how much he tries he or she tries to climb the wall, but it is be sure that the person will not make to the top. So we do meditation.
To do a meditation, first, before doing a meditation, one should understand of the the stages or the process of meditation and should have a clear understanding of meditation and and should know what one is meditate or what one is meditating. Without knowing this, then the meditation will not become very effective. And so to understand to go through the stage stages or the process of meditation, They are first, one one has to understand what is the the meditation meditational object or or or or, yeah, focal object of the meditation. And then and then should know that what is to meditate and what is not to meditate and distinguish the the good and the bad part of get bad part of the things, and what happens if one mislead the meditation. And then then she should should understand the benefits of doing meditation or or how it how it brings help towards both self and others.
And knowing all this the the requirements of meditation and one does the meditation, then that meditation will eventually give or produces produce a very good result result. Without understanding of those, then whatever one simply jumped into the meditation without a knowledge of doing a meditation, then meditation wouldn’t become very effective. And so in order to understand all this, first one has to have a knowledge of listening or hearing, so this is how the knowledge of hearing or listening is very important. So so the hearing or the knowledge of listening is very important, and one should not let the hearing face backwards, which means that whatever one receives, whatever one hears or listens to, should try to bring all those hearings into one’s heart, not just simply let it remain outside just to seeing that, yeah, this is this. This is the understanding, but not really putting it into the main practice.
If that happens, then which is called the hearing has faced backwards. So the knowledge you gain through the listening and hearing should not waste the knowledge and bring all this hearing try to bring all this hearing into into one’s practices that make those make sure that the knowledge you gain from the hearing will will will will help make make those knowledge to help you to overcome make use me excuse me. Make make use of all those hearing within what use within one’s practices to help you to overcome all your disturbing emotions, bad actions, and and make use those hearing the knowledge of hearings in order to stop the stop accumulating bad actions. And if if one does this or if one is able to do such, then the the hearing the the the the practice of the practices of hearing has been very helpful. So through listening, one can understand the reality of the practices or the ultimate the purposes of the practices.
And by doing a meditation through the knowledge of of of listening, then one it also helps one to to to increase the the the increase or develop one’s one kindheartedness or or or or a good heart and will help ones to to to decrease or abandon the bad set good state of mind and increase the good state of mind and abandons the bad state of mind. So what is the purpose of listening? The purpose of listening is to understand the true true true or the reality of the thing. And what is the benefit of understanding the true or the reality, then So, yes, what is the purpose of listening? The purpose of the listening is to understand the the understand the true nature or the reality of a thing.
And what and after after understanding it after understanding, then one should put put all the under sorry, into into into practices and through through one’s through practice one stops the bad actions and cultivate the good actions. And the purpose of doing so is or the benefit of doing the practices is that one will be free from all the sufferings and attain the ultimate happiness. So, we’ll stop today’s teaching here, and I think some of you might be very interested to know that what I have what I did during my trip in Tibet. So I’ll talk a bit about my trip to Tibet. So we’ll have a good time here today and just drink a cup of tea or chai, actually.
Jerry made it. On the seventh of May, we left from Hong Kong, and reached, on the same day, Chengdu in China. I know what it is. So we spent two days in Tindu, and there was no problem at all And on ninth, we left Chengdu and reached Dartsedo, which is on the border of China and Tibet, and we spent a night there, and the next day, we reached the Tharya monastery in eastern part of Tibet. So, between Dartsedo and the Kham region, sorry, the Tharya monastery, there is a very big hill or mountain which is very, very high.
So and then they made a tunnel through mountain, which will last about fifteen minutes drive through. And then we reached the monastery and the people at Tarja monastery were lined up to welcome Rinpoche, holding the scarves in their hands and playing all those instruments like instruments Lots of people lined up and waiting to welcome and holding scarves, the Tibetan greeting scarf in their hands and offering and saying, And then we had a tour in the Targaen monastery, which is being reestablished, and they have built it very, very well, and lots of many statues like Buddha and so forth, and also lots of teachings in the sense that the texts they have produced. The next day we went for a tour to Tharya school. They have a school called Tharya school. And they were very cute little kids, like school kids, went there and they were greeting, saying touch the lei and waving their hands and so forth.
There were many students or many kids in the school, and most of them are from a very poor family and wearing very poor clothes and so forth, and it’s very sad to show this. I can’t help myself to drop a few tears. Then I went through each classroom to see how they’ve been taught and what they’re learning, and it was very nice and they were doing very well. I think this is my knowledge. And the next day I went to my home.
And then, Rinpoche was staying at the monastery, and he’s leaving from monastery to his hometown, like his home, and there were many people from his hometown to receive him from monastery to his camp, and lots of horsemen and bikies. And then taught the Graduated Path of Lamrim in three days in Tharya Monastery. And one day during the I don’t know what date, but during the every fortnight the monks have the confession days, purification days, and on that day, special day, we have organized a very special puja on that day. And the next day, then there were many people who wanted to take vows, like the novice vows and the fully ordered vows. There were thirty one people who take the novice monks vow and twenty something who takes the fully ordained vows.
We’ll make the tea offering first. Excuse me. Tea offering is page number page number five, first ten. When I visit my camp hometown, and on Sunday, all village people gather together and request to give some advice, spiritual advice. First, Rinpoche gave them a number of oral transmissions of the teachings like the oral transmission of the hundred deities of the land of Tuśita, which we recited at the beginning of the teaching, and the oral transmission of six syllable mantras, Chenrezig’s mantra, Om Mani Padme hum, and Mañjuśrī’s mantra, Om Ara Pa Tsa Na Dhi.
After this, give them advice of the importance of avoiding the ten non virtuous actions and cultivating the ten positive actions and so forth, and how to and importance of keeping being living in harmony. And after this, then each people passed by, just to say, agreed and often making offerings and putting their scarves and making promise in front of making promise that some people says that I promise to recite Sixth Sibbol mantra, one hundred thousand, some says three hundred thousands, and some people say I will recite the Vajrasattva mantra, hundred thousand, and some says I quit, I will quit. Stop gambling, stop cigarettes, and so forth. And then, so the approach with making all these commitments and also making offerings as much as they can afford. After the end of the queue, then they receive a certain amount of money for the offering, and I donate all the money back to the can and saying they have used it during the special year of the month, during the particular month this time.
They do different sort of practices in group, and I donate all this money to make use during this time. Alliance. Mainly donated all this money to use during the festival in their camp. They do lots of newness, so I use that as an asset or something. And then we left the east to Tindu, and then from Tindu to Lhasa in central Tibet.
In Lhasa, we stayed in the Potala guesthouse. And then the second day in Lhasa, I had visited inside the Potala and went inside the Potala, and then the third day went to see Jokhang in Lhasa, and then Sera Monastery, and then Drepung Monastery. On the fourth day, went to Norbulingka. Very good.
We reached Sera during the debate sessions on what’s going on there, and Shinzo, one of Rinpoche’s, the monk Rinpoche, senior, very senior monk. He is in discipline here in these days in Lhasa, Sera Monastery in Lhasa, and I was there, and he’s very fine, with Kwan Manning’s good friend. Yeah, so we checked how monks were debating and asked them questions and give answers. It was nice, good time. So, and then, yeah, I have during my visit in different places, I’ve met numbers of friends and visited very holy places.
Now, feel very happy to being able to have this chance or opportunity to visit all those. Very, very happy. Very, very happy. Do you understand? No translation.
Lots of Chinese in Lhasa and lots of Chinese houses there and buildings. I feel a bit sad to see all those. What I heard was there were about one hundred thousand Chinese military in Lhasa. The Tibetan colony is very, very small in Lhasa, whereas Chinese colony is very much, much bigger, and say it’s very gigantic. Not good.
And I also heard there are a lot of Chinese moving in this year as well to Tibet. So there’s great danger of losing our own native people in the country now. They have made a new Chinese rule. Like in monastery, there are only certain numbers of monks are allotted, and beyond that number, monastery is not permitted to accept a new monk beyond that number. Something about one hundred and eighty in the monastery, and after that, new monk can ordinate.
There are no religious pictures allowed in the gompas or in the temple. Yeah, that’d do it. Okay. We’ll stop here now. Have any idea how people in the west could help the Tibetan people who are in a lot of trouble, you know they are disappearing in their own country.
Is there any For example, like the eastern part of Tibet and the Thargeo region, entire monastery, there were three main incarnations who are head of the Tharya monastery. Among those, the main one called Yaktrul Rinpoche was the main chairman or in charge of Tharya monastery and trying to rebuild the monastery, as well as he has an idea of building up the schools and educate the local people as well. His idea was to preserve the traditional tradition, one’s own culture, Tibetan language, as well as English, and different types of subjects like studies, like mathematics and so forth, as well as Chinese, and also the art, drawing, building, architects, and so forth, and his idea was mainly to preserve one’s own culture and tradition. These are in process, but still it was his idea, and also he is working at the temporary stage. Although his ideas are great, there is the shortage the difficulty of the financial things to set up all these things happened.
On one hand, we can support the person financially to build up and make his wish happen. In monasteries, externally it looks very good these days that the houses have got new temples and the houses have been reestablished and newly built now, and looks okay, and also inside all the statues, texts, and everything is perfectly alright these days. But we can say that the people have freedom to practice religion, and it is just merely a work that you can see through externally. You can just see the beautiful houses and so forth, but it is very, very It’s just a mere word that monks hardly have a right to go through proper education and broadcasting the teachings and all these sorts of things are not allowed to do these days still. And the elderly or elderly people in those region or those area have very, very little knowledge of religious studies, as well as any kind of studies, they are not educated at all.
What they’re doing these days is as the parents, the elderly people, uneducated, they are trying to educate their children now, and therefore, they have set up a new school, established a new school where they can educate a child from age of seven, eight till twenty, and it’s running okay at the moment, and if there is no any Chinese problems in future, they will continue the school, and by continuing that school of education, I’m pretty sure that there will be a huge benefit for the younger generation about their knowledge or education. So they have established a school, at this stage the school is not that perfect. Still haven’t got really proper classrooms and also haven’t got any proper toilets, kitchen, and so forth, especially the electricity. They have problems with these sort of things, and we can also help them that way as well. In winter, the is located between it’s located in a creek where there’s huge two hills in both sides, and it runs a little creek a big creek, actually and Rinpoche, who was just establishing building those schools.
They said that in winter it really, really get cold and lots of snow on both sides, and the students really suffered from the cold winter. Therefore, Rinpoche also, for that reason, in order to have the heating in place, and as it’s running, it’s established in a valley, and there is water going through. Rinpoche’s idea is really good. He has an idea of building up one electricity, whatever. It’s very, very cold there during winter, and the Rumbuche has an idea of being, as we said, the electricity, one electricity house there, and the Rinpoche said that to build up that electricity house would cost about two hundred thousand Chinese yuan, and he’s not sure.
He said something about, I have one hundred thousand support, I mean, been supported, yes or no, sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s up and down at the moment, but there’s still shortage of something, especially for that electricity pump, and so we can support on that part as well, and if one can, if we are able to do this, that’s going to be very, very helpful for the kids, especially in winter, they can have a nice inside the house. So I was discussing all this project with the Rinpoche, and at that time I felt very, very keen to help, and I have a very strong sense of wishing to help the Rinpoche to support with his things, but I mean, I have a mere wish, but I really can’t do anything at this stage financially to help the person. So, yeah, so, I mean, I really wish to help, but I can’t at this stage. And before I left here for Tibet.
Although I don’t have anything, but I try my best to raise doing all this fundraising to help the people in Tibet. But all the fundraising I made, I’d donate all this money to the Tharya monastery. They said they were a big monastery, and they said they have about two hundred, three hundred monks, but eventually the monks who are actually staying there is about more than one hundred, and so I donate all those money I have raised to Thayer Monastery for the food asset for the monks, that through interest they can they use the interest for their food to feed the monks in the monastery. The money I gave there was thirty nine thousand US dollars. So and they are