Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A morning promise not to commit the ten non-virtuous actions — just for today — is the practical discipline Khensur Rinpoche recommends in this 88-minute Lamrim commentary. He arrives there after mapping each of the six perfections to a karmic result: generosity yields good material conditions, ethics yields a well-endowed rebirth, patience yields stable companionship, effort yields the means to achieve one’s aims. A sustained section argues that compassion for oneself must precede genuine compassion for others, citing the Kadampa teaching that one cannot subdue others’ minds without first subduing one’s own. The session closes with Q&A on anger: drawing on Śāntideva and Candrakīrti, Rinpoche shows how one moment of anger, like fire on a seed, destroys the potentiality of virtues built over many lifetimes.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 25 LR 2000 08 15.mp3
UUID: 52bf7f91-cae3-4707-98ad-02f816d8ce71
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-08-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 87.9 minutes
Words: ~4,691
The motivation of altruistic intention. So by by nature, all entire sentient beings are same wishing happiness and do not want suffering. So those all entire sentient beings wish happiness and do not want suffering. And there are only few who it’s rare or few that among the beings who have attained the ultimate happiness and as well as the happiness of liberation. So the most the majority sentient beings have lacks the happiness or lacks those unchangeable and the ultimate happiness.
Therefore, by focusing on those sentient beings who lacks happiness should develop a a love and meditate on that love, wishing them to have all the entire happiness and its causes as well as they have the causes they wish them to attain the causes of all causes of correct view for the citta as well as the cause of renunciation or the wish to free from cyclic existence. Doing so will have a huge And those motherly sentient beings not just lack the happiness. They are on top of it. They are tortured by the sufferings of sufferings like the suffering of suffering, suffering of change, suffering of pervasive conditionings, etcetera. So therefore we should develop a compassion for those sentient beings and wishing them to be free from all the sufferings and its causes.
And through this, a wish to attain enlightenment to help those entire attain enlightenment to free those sentient beings from the sufferings and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness. So in order to accomplish such wish, I shall hear I shall hear, listen to this, the the Lamrim teaching, which is the essence of the Mahāyāna teaching, and bring all the hearing into contemplation and meditation. And through this, I will bring great help towards both self and others. So we shall develop a meditation on such motivation for a while for a few few minutes. The great master, Ārya Maitreya, the future Buddha, has stated that the the purpose of practicing our meditation on the bodhicitta, the altruistic intention are to achieve two, which are the higher rebirths and the definite goodness.
And that is to that is to be attained through practicing the six perfections. So for the attainment, we have two types of attainment. The temporal and the ultimate attainment. So likewise, the Bodhisattvas has also have also two types of attainments. The temporal attainment is the higher rebirths and the definite one is the definite goodness.
The The higher rebirth is to attain the improved one’s status of rebirths that migrating or improving from the bad towards the good migration or a good rebirth. And in order to improve in the rebirths, one has the different there are four types of attainments. Four types of attainments which are having an excellent, excellent enjoyment, excellent body, excellent surroundings or a company. An excellent means of attaining what one wishes. The the bodhisattvas wishes to to to to perfect both the purposes, the self and others’ purposes in order to in order to free all those sentient beings from from, you know, from the sufferings.
So in in order in order to bring all those sentient beings towards the state which is free from all the sufferings, first one has to attain that stage or one has to reach the enlightened state without reaching oneself towards the state of ultimate happiness, one will one cannot bring sentient beings towards that that that stage. So reach oneself, to reach the ultimate state of ultimate happiness, it can’t be achieved through the one higher rebirth of the human rebirth. So in order to achieve that level, one should take the numbers of the human rebirth which is the higher rebirths And through this one attends. Through taking the continuous human rebirth on this one increases one develops one’s practices and then achieve the final goal. So to be able to develop one’s practices through the continuous rebirth, one needs to have along with the continuous higher rebirth, one also needs to have a good enjoyment in the sense one should have the conducive conditions.
Because without having a good enjoyment or conducive conditions, there is obstacles, One face obstacles to practice. So therefore, one has to one needs to attain the good good enjoyment or the good conducive conditions to in each in each life rebirths. So in order to attain enlightenment good conducive conditions practice. And in general terms, when people cultivate the conditions or the conditions they involve in many activities. Whereas in the bodhisattvas, when they cultivate the conducive conditions to practice, adhere to the conducive condition, which is the good enjoyments.
The Bodhisattvas practices the practice of giving first perfection. Practicing giving in all the lifetime, they received a good enjoyment without any difficulty. So by practicing the by by practicing the practice of giving, will as a result, one will have good enjoyment. And here the Lord Buddha Śākyamūni has stated that through giving one will one one receives the good enjoyments and through practicing the ethical discipline, one have a good rebirth. So therefore or for this reason, to have a good enjoyment in every lifetime, one the Bodhisattvas, the practices the practice of giving, which is the first perfection.
So just by having a mere conducive condition, which is the excellent enjoyment is not enough for one to it’s not enough. Along with it, one also needs to have a good basis to practice which is good rebirth. Good rebirth to practice So in order to have a good basis to practice, one needs to the second perfection, which is ethics. The practice of ethical disciplines by living with good ethics. As a result, attains good migrations and also attains can attain the the human rebirth.
So by practicing generosity or giving, one will as a result, one will have a good enjoyment. And through by practicing ethical ethics, the second perfection, one will have a good rebirth or a good basis. Then one needs to practice, meditate, or practice patience because one needs to have excellent company or excellent friends. So by practicing the patience as a result one will have a good company and one can live harmoniously live in the community and have good company and good company harmonious good company and it’s not a company. Yeah.
One will have a very stable, steady company which won’t separate in a couple of days. So the company is any kind of company as a company to practice as a partner or whatever. So one will have very stable company and it’s not something, you know, can easily split or separate. So by practicing all these three, the giving, ethics and patience, as a result, one will have good enjoyment, good good rebirth or good basis, and good excellent company. On top of it, one also needs to attain a means to attainment which helps one to achieve what one wishes.
So in order to have that, one needs to practice the fourth perfection, which is effort. Because by attaining by practicing on effort, one will have good enthusiasm or enthusiasm. By having enthusiasm, whatever one wishes, with that enthusiasm, can achieve anything. So in in these days, we can see we can see different types of people, and some of them have very good enjoyment. Some of them has good good body or good physical appearances.
And some have very good partner or a company. And some are very skillful and can attains $2nything what they wish. Some kind of people have attains $2ll four. So all this happens due to their practices of the the four perfect four first perfections in the earlier life. Some people very poor because and and and, yeah, financially difficulty.
It is because of the lack of the the the not doing not doing a practices of generosity on giving in, yeah, in the previous life. And some beings, they have no good haven’t attained the good rebirths because they like that they haven’t attained the precious human rebirth with eighteen qualities, eight leisures and ten endowments. Some human beings, even though they take a human rebirth, but their organs are not presented absence of organs and so forth. And there are numbers of sentient beings who suffers in the lower rebirths. It happens because of their lack of practice, either lack or not practicing the ethics in the previous life.
And then some people and and you can see these days, some people have problem and suffers through the suffering of loneliness, having no company or a partner. And some people have partner but or a company which won’t last for long just ended up in a few months or or seven months or what. Yes. So for it’s because I’m not practicing the patience in the previous labs. Some, they have company or a partner, but the problem is it’s not a good partner.
And then some and in this love, people, they try to achieve all the different sort of thing, and they work so hard to attain something or attain their wish. Many of them, they can’t achieve what they want and they can’t, yeah, achieve what they want. It is because of not practicing the effort previous lives. So we see some people, they have all attained all these good enjoyments, good body or good basis, good company and so forth. It is because of their practices in the previous life.
But and these are the achievements of the previous practice or previous work the work in the previous life lifetime. About the way of working or how they perform the actions to achieve those are in different types. Some people, they work along with the attachment, hatred, as well as under the influence of disabling emotions, which is not a good way of doing. So in order to do a good work without attachment and hatred, as well as not under the influence of disturbing emotions, the bodhisattvas engages or perform the practice of the fifth perfection, which is the perfection of concentration. Because by practicing perfection of concentration, which keeps mind alert, being mindful on one’s mind and never letting it go towards or under the influence of disturbing emotions like attachment and anger and so forth.
Through this, by doing so, it always directs one’s mind towards the positive actions and cannot cultivate any negative actions. Therefore, the Bodhisattvas, for that reason, Bodhisattvas practice the concentration. So the purpose of practicing concentration is to is to guide is to protect one’s mind from the disturbing emotions and, you know, and keeping it directing it towards the positive virtuous side. So and and also bodhisattva also practices the the the perfection of wisdom in order to have a good wisdom in the in order to have a good wisdom. And having having or attaining a good wisdom is very, very important, and it is because we need to be able to distinguish the derail nature or in the sense to be able to distinguish what is to be or what is right to practice or perform and what is not appropriate or what is bad to perform.
So by knowing, because here what is good to attain in the sense to benefit sentient beings, to give them happiness. And the negative side is what brings harm to sentient beings and cause them to suffer. So order to distinguish, so one needs to have knowledge to distinguish what is to be performed and what is to be avoided. So in order to have that, the practice of wisdom is very important because the perfection of wisdom helps one to attain a good wisdom which can see the true nature, the perfect nature of reality, and can never let one involve in the activities which cause harm to others. So therefore, the Buddhist practice is the perfection of wisdom.
So, for that purpose, the Bodhisattvas practice the six perfections. Nice. So so the bodhisattvas practice the six for that reason, the bodhisattvas practice the practice the six perfections. And it’s not but the the practice of six perfection is not not not not it’s it’s not just a practice for Bodhisattvas. It is also very important to be practiced by us because we yeah.
It is also helpful and important for us. We went through the teachings of the previous classes of the Lamrim text, the small scope and the middling. During the small scope, the first chapter, we went through the topic of how important it is to attain the precious human rebirth with the eighteen qualities, the six, eight freedoms or the leisures and the ten endowments. So in order to achieve that, up to now, we have attained numbers of precious human rebirth with eighteen qualities in the previous lives, and at this stage we have attained that quality or that fortunate rebirth. It is not just okay to attain that human rebirth at once.
We still need to achieve that precious human rebirth with those qualities in future lives as well. So if there is no rebirth or next life, then it’s okay. We don’t need to work for it. Because of having rebirth and accepting the next lives, it is important for us practice important for us to practice to attain the human rebirth, fortunate rebirth, which is the human rebirth of eighteen qualities. In order to have that, one needs to have the numbers of conditions which are the causes to attain that rebirth.
So to achieve that, one needs to have a good ethical, one needs to have a good practice of ethics which acts as a basis. And that basis needs a company which is the practices of the rest of the perfections, giving concentration, patience, wisdom and so forth. By having these two, the good basis and the good company, we need to make good prayers which helps to combine those company and the basis together. And through having all these three, the good basis, good company or a surrounding or a company, and the prayers to conjoin those two together, we will we attend to good human rebirth with the eighteen qualities. So therefore if one has practiced these requirements in this present life, in this present time, then it is sure and one does not need to worry worry because it’s be sure that one can achieve the good rebirth in the next life.
So it is very important for one to understand all this and see knowing the the the the the pure ethics or ethical discipline is the basis to attain the human rebirth with the eighteen qualities. And so therefore, the understanding if one does not know about the importance of all this, and it’s very, very there is a huge loss in it. One should try hard to understand the importance of this and should learn very hard to understand. And after having learned how important known how important the practices of all this, six perfections and so forth, and whether and putting them into practice or not is entirely dependent on on oneself. One one knows about the importance of all those practices, now that depends on and bringing them into the practice entirely depends on you, as we said, that if one has a good affection and love towards oneself, one one should practice and put bring all those into practice.
And if one does not have affection or love towards oneself, then don’t don’t don’t practice. So as we said, pure ethical discipline or ethics act as is the basis or act as a basis. Because It is because the practice of ethical discipline is the main which closes the door of lower rebirths and shut the doors of the lower rebirths and help ones to attain the higher rebirths like human and god and so forth. Also it’s been stated that there is no other cost to attain higher rebirth except ethical good, the pure ethics or ethical disciplines. So now the point here is how to lead a good ethical discipline.
Leading a good ethic is, for example, since from the very morning one wakes up and making promise at that time, thinking that by committing any of the non virtuous action, it would result one cultivates a negative or non virtuous, which will result one to take rebirth in the lower migration or a bad migration. Therefore, making promise that one should practice the good ethical disciplines of abandoning the ten non virtuous actions and cultivate the ten virtuous actions and making that promise, keeping that promise for one entire lifetime. Or if one can’t do it for entire lifetime, making a promise not to commit any actions, non virtuous actions, ten non virtuous actions in one day. By doing so, one leads pure ethical discipline. And for the betterment, one should aim to protect, lead the ethical discipline to attain enlightenment for the sake of entire sentient beings.
Or if one can’t do that, should lead a good ethical discipline to attain liberation, which is being free from saṃsāra. Or even if one can’t do that, just do the practice, lead ethical discipline. Lead that practice to avoid the lower rebirth. And then so by doing so practice in, say, get up in the morning and making a promise not to commit any non virtuous actions in the in that particular day. And then and as a result of doing that, one will have a good result or or good rebirth in the next life.
And say one is able one was been successful and able to maintain it, to lead a good ethics in one day and follow the same in the next day and then the next and the next. By doing so, then there’s no difficulty to attain a good rebirth in the next life. So in order to attain a very in order to attain a good human rebirth, good here, the attained human rebirth to practice. To practice, then one should, on top of practicing the good ethical discipline or maintaining good ethics, one should practice the practice of the rest of the six perfections, like the giving, patience. Practice giving, practice patience.
Don’t respond towards the harm from others and should maintain patience and never respond and don’t be distracted by others’ harms. And then practice effort or enthusiasm and practice concentration or meditative to lead good meditative stabilization to maintain one’s mind, focus only on the positive actions, not to convert towards the negative. Then try to increase or practice the perfection of wisdom. So in order to practice one’s wisdom, receive the teachings, listen to the teachings, read the books, and so forth. And by practicing all these six perfections, at every end of the day, good prayers to attain the human and good human rebirth in the next life.
So doing so, one cultivates the entire causes to achieve the good rebirth, good human rebirth in the next life. And having cultivated all the causes, it is to be sure that one will have the result because it is the nature of the law. Once there is a cause, one will have the result of the cause. By cultivating all the causes to have the human attain the good precious human rebirth, there is no problem of attending that rebirth. If one does not cultivate the causes, then one one will not have the the human a good human rebirth.
So our previous lives have worked so hard and as a result have done a great job. So as a result, we have this good human rebirth. So during this lifetime, one work hard to have a better state than than this life. And but so should one should work harder to to have a better state than this. And then next life works even harder to have a better than the next, and then that next is better than the next.
And through this, one attains the liberation free from saṃsāra or a cyclic existence. And then working harder, finally attains enlightenment. So this is the process through becoming better in every lifetime, then finally one attains the enlightenment just by the the two or three human rebirths, one cannot attain the enlightenment. So it is very important and also good to develop a compassion towards the sentient beings who are the suffering sentient beings. One needs to have compassion, yes.
One but one also needs to have a good compassion towards oneself. Without having compassion towards oneself, it is very, very difficult to develop compassion for others. Develop compassion towards oneself and try to work free oneself from the suffering and bring oneself towards the happiness. Because without freeing oneself from the sufferings and attain happiness, it is very difficult to others, to bring others towards happiness and free from sufferings. So therefore, one should develop a compassion towards oneself.
Because if one does not do that, then say there is a danger of dropping oneself towards the bad migrations because say one hasn’t have compassion towards oneself and trying to work for others, and which won’t be that effective, and one cannot develop a proper compassion towards others because one has no compassion towards self. So therefore, instead of helping one will drop oneself down towards the the lower bad migrations. So so so, like, if one does not have compassion towards oneself, then forget about fulfilling others’ purposes. One will not fulfill one’s own purposes. So therefore, the great Kadampa masters has set forth that without subduing one’s own mind, one will not subdue others’ mind.
The meaning is that the Dharma, the practicing Dharma or a teaching is to subdue the bad state of mind. In order to subdue others’ bad state of mind, first one needs to subdue one’s own bad state of mind through practice. Without subduing one’s own bad state of mind, it is impossible to help others subdue their bad state of mind through teachings. So therefore, one should first try to subdue one’s own bad state of mind and then help others. So likewise, it is also said that without freeing oneself, one cannot free others.
And so likewise, without attaining arhathood, one will not bring others towards arhathood, which is freedom from saṃsāra. And and also it is like without attaining Buddha for oneself, one cannot help others to achieve Buddhahood. So therefore, so one should have compassion and and first try to subdue one’s own mind first, then help others. So so therefore, one needs to one needs to fulfill the self purposes first. And in order to fulfill the self purposes, there are two ways of fulfilling self purpose.
And according to the lower vehicle, the Hīnayāna, those arhats are the great practitioners, and they are free from the saṃsāra and free from the sufferings of saṃsāra. And they are free from all the disturbing emotions. But their motivation from the beginning is to consider self more important than others, and they develop a fear towards the sufferings of saṃsāra and develop a fear of undergoing huge suffering themselves, and in order to free oneself from those sufferings. They look for a method to free oneself from those sufferings, and so finally they practice the four noble truths to free oneself from saṃsāra and free from the sufferings. And from the very beginning, the intention was to free just oneself from suffering.
So those practitioners of the lower vehicle have a huge compassion for themselves but not that strong for others. Whereas the bodhisattvas, they develop a compassion towards the both self and others. And they first develop a compassion towards compassion to its self. And taking that as an example, then they develop compassion to other.
And because of that compassion towards other or for others, then they wish to free others from the suffering and bring them to the state of happiness. So in order to do this, then they practice. They pract and they practice they they engage in the practices, which is to free others from from this from sufferings. So therefore, by from the beginning, they first develop compassion to self and then to others. And by having the compassion towards both the self and others, then they engages in the practices from the beginning.
So and they have a strong equal compassion towards helping others. They they engage in the practices of of helping others. And doing such practice will will will will accomplish both the purposes, self and others. So and you should should practice like Buddhist practice as well. And very, very good.
Okay. So we’ll stop here today. And if you have, you can ask. We’ll leave a few minutes for the questions, but you don’t need to if you don’t have any questions. So, yeah, it is it is true that the the the one moment of anger will destroy or harm the virtues one have cultivated in the previous lifetime or in the many lifetimes.
So the great master Śāntideva as well as the master Candrakīrti — Śāntideva in his Bodhisattva Deeds has said that one moment of anger will destroy the virtues collected in numberless eons, and likewise Candrakīrti in his middle way text has said the same thing, that a moment of anger will destroy the virtuous actions one has worked hard to cultivate in numbers of lifetimes. It is because the anger is like a fire and that moment of anger, the anger harms towards the potentiality of the causes, which are the causes for the good causes harms the cause of the good results. We cultivate the positive actions to create or to cultivate a good cause, to have a good result in present lifetime or future lifetime. And if the causes, good cause, we have cultivated has a result or a potentiality to have a result which we can enjoy for a long time, the moment of anger will shorten the period of enjoying the result. If it has a very small cause, it may destroy the entire potential or the capability of the cause to produce a result.
Because, so as we said, the anger is like a fire. The fire destroys the the potentiality or the, yeah, the potential of the seeds. The seed has a potential to give rise to its crops or say the sprout. When the seed comes into contact with fire, either it is burnt or, being kept next to it, very close to the fire, because of the heat of the fire, the potential of the seed is harmed and it will never give rise to its sprout and so forth. So likewise anger is like that.
It destroys the the the the power of the causes. So developing anger has a huge force. And there are four main disadvantages. The first, the anger is not like other disturbing emotions. Anger is the heaviest negative action in that it will give you huge results of suffering.
And the second is that it destroys one’s peace and happiness, and also it destroys all the causes of happiness. So these are the two main disadvantages of developing anger. These are the huge negative disadvantages of developing anger, because anger will not let you sleep happily or it will destroy your sleep. It will destroy your peace. And and and and and it will makes you unhappy or uncomfortable seeing other people.
And if it’s really, really strong anger one develops, then one may see everything red. And also the anger will cause one to develop hatred or dislike towards people who are helpful to you or who have been kind to you. And if it’s and also the anger, if it’s really, really strong anger, it may cause one to kill other people like one’s parents, friends, and so forth. So we’ll stop here today and we’ll recite the Words of Truth, the page number — Words of Truth, the page number — sorry?