Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A merchant who visits a mountain of precious jewels but returns home empty-handed and in debt — this is Khensur Rinpoche’s image for a wasted precious human rebirth, and it anchors the urgency throughout this 80-minute Lamrim commentary. The session focuses on ethical discipline, the second of the six perfections. Rinpoche defines it as a mind resolved to abandon the ten non-virtuous actions and stresses that genuine practice requires inner commitment, not passive avoidance. Three subdivisions follow: restraint from faulty conduct, accumulating virtues, and benefiting others. He illustrates the advantages through three analogies — ethics as water washing a dirty cloth, as moonlight cooling disturbing emotions, as the radiant autumn moon that draws spontaneous respect. He closes with Candrakīrti’s practical guidance: generosity, ethics, and patience are accessible to laypeople; concentration and wisdom require seclusion and belong mainly to ordained practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 27 LR 2000 08 29.mp3
UUID: 3040c6a8-5e4e-4a67-9011-e397fb4d2067
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-08-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 80.0 minutes
Words: ~3,149
We’ll first have the motivation of altruistic intention, and then follow the practices of listening and so forth. During practice with the motivation of altruistic intention, our practice will become very helpful. Should free all these motherly sentient beings from the suffering of saṃsāra and the lower rebirth and bring them to the state of the ultimate happiness. Unless one free oneself from all the sufferings and attain the ultimate happiness, one will one cannot help others to free from the sufferings. So in order to free all the sentient beings from suffering I shall here purify all the negativities of my all the negativities mainly the stains, the bad state of mind, the stains of disturbing emotion.
So in order to do so, purify all one’s negative ways in order to help sentient beings, first one needs to the the understand the way of this the teaching or the practices. So in order to do that, I shall listen to the teachings to understand, and then bring all the hearings into contemplation and towards meditation. So with this motivation, we shall here do just a few minutes’ meditation. We’ve been dealing through the six perfections, the perfection of giving or generosity, ethical discipline, patience, effort, and concentration, and wisdom. So and we finished the first perfection, which is perfection of giving.
We have briefly talked about the second perfection about ethical discipline, and we’ll continue with the teaching of ethical discipline again. The ethical discipline is the path towards the higher rebirths or higher attainments. As for the attainments, we have two types of attainments, the higher rebirths and the definite goodness. So in order to attain either of those, one needs to travel the path to attain those attainments. And as for the path for those attainments is the ethical discipline, and main one is to practice the ethical discipline of maintaining ten, practicing ten virtuous actions.
The higher rebirths are the rebirths of god realms, in god realms humans. So attaining those rebirth with a good physical appearance or physical and have good enjoyments, good companies. In order to achieve those higher rebirths, one needs to maintain a good And also, guiding ethical discipline is the main to attain the attainment of definite goodness. As for the definite goodness, there are two. One can achieve liberation liberation just free from the suffering of saṃsāra or cyclic existence, and the other one is enlightenment, from all the faults.
So, in order to maintain or practice a good ethics or ethical discipline, one needs to know what is ethic or ethical discipline here. So the definition of ethical discipline is the mind that wishes to abandon the basis of and refrain from actions which harm others. To clarify: the mind wishes to abandon the basis of harming others. If we explain the meaning of the definition, The basis of harming the basis of harming others others, which refers to us the refraining from the seven non virtuous actions of body and speech, three from the body and four of speech.
So, the or harming others are the seven, refers to it, the seven non virtuous actions of the body and speech. By doing all those seven non virtuous actions, one causes harm towards others, like the killing harms others, it hurts other sentient beings. The killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, telling lie, and the harsh words, divisive speech, and the idle gossips. Performing all those actions, which causes harm to others in different ways, like the using harsh words telling lies which deceit other people, harsh words harm others with rough words, and divisive speech which causes schisms between people and idle gossip which wastes the time and led people to generate hatred and attachment. So any of those actions one commits becomes a non-virtuous action.
So the mind wished to abandon or refrain from harming others and their basis. The basis here refers to the three non virtuous actions of mind, which are the covetousness, harmful intention, and the wrong views. These three are the basis or cause to create the previous seven non virtuous actions. So a mind which refrains from creating those seven non virtuous actions which causes harm others, and as well as from the basis of all those which are three. A mind that wishes to abandon all those ten is called the ethical discipline.
So that is the definition or meaning of ethical discipline. And the ethical discipline has been categorized or divided into three subdivisions, which are called the ethical discipline restraint from faulty conduct and this ethical discipline of accumulating virtues and ethical discipline of working for the welfare of other sentient beings or living beings. So, the ethical discipline of restraint from faulty conduct is to practice that, one needs to first see the fault or the disadvantages of doing those ten non-virtuous actions. And by knowing the disadvantages seeing that by performing those actions which cause suffering in the future, So in order not to suffer and develop a fear of the sufferings and making resolution within one self not to commit any of those actions is called the ethical discipline of restraint from faulty conduct. So to lead or guard ethical discipline, the first one, one needs to make a promise or resolution within oneself not to commit all those actions.
If one if if one do not make a commit a commitment not to not to do such actions and simply maintain those simply maintain not not cultivating those actions without any resolution with one self, even though one do not commit any of those actions, but one is not one do not maintain one is not practicing ethical discipline. To practice those, one needs to make commitment. If one makes a resolution or a promise within oneself not to commit any of those actions and maintain the promise or commitment each day, one each day, then one guides the ethics or ethical discipline daily, no? This is the essence of practicing Buddhism — the Buddhist practice is mainly to do within one’s mind, making the resolution or promising within one’s mind not to do such and such. To maintain to guard the ethical discipline, they are set forth to be ten, the seven non virtues of the body and speech, and three from the mind, which are the the causes or the basis to create the previous seven non actions.
Although there has been set forth ten, mainly the first seven, the non-virtuous actions of the body and the speech are called to guard in the ethical discipline, and the three from the mind are not strongly considered to be the practice of ethical discipline. By guiding those last three of the mind, one cultivates a great store of merit, but it doesn’t necessarily say that one needs a good ethical discipline. And the ethical discipline, the second one, the ethical discipline of accumulating merits, virtues, is called by practicing any of the six perfections, starting from generosity, patience, ethical discipline generosity, ethical discipline, patience, contemplation the concentration, wisdom, And by newly developing any of those and maintaining the developed one and increasing that practice is called guiding or leading the ethical discipline of cultivating virtues. Practice of six perfection is a very important practice. Bodhisattvas have many activities to practice, but all the activities and practices of Bodhisattvas are included in the practice of six perfections.
And this practice of perfection is also very important for both the audience and the lay people. If one has the practice of six perfection, if one has those six perfection, one is set forth to be one has practice. If one do not have the practice of six perfection, it’s more likely that one has no practice at all. And the third one is the ethical discipline of working for the welfare of other sentient beings, which is with the intention of helping sentient beings in both the present and future lives and bringing only help and not harm at any time — this is called the ethical discipline of benefiting others. So, if And the other activities or the practices of ethical discipline is in excuse me.
There are many other ways of practicing the ethical discipline and we don’t really we can’t if we go through it, it takes lots of time so we can’t really have time to go through it. If we here explain about advantages of practicing ethical discipline, then the ethical discipline is like it’s been set forth. It is the water to cleanse the negativities or the faults. The ethical discipline is like water. For example, the demonstrated example here is a cloth with a huge amount of dirt on it, and it’s very filthy.
And in order to make it nice and clean, we we need to wash it with the water. So and by washing it, it becomes very clean. So likewise, the ethical discipline like a water to cleanse all the faults and negativities, like our sufferings of the body and the mind. The ethical discipline is like the light of the moon, to overcome the heat of disturbing emotions, which means that if one lacks the ethical discipline, then one’s body and the mind is with the disturbing emotions, and that causes harm and suffering towards causes harm and suffering. If one practice the ethical discipline or or or maintains the ethic, then by maintaining that, one one received the huge benefits and had attained comfortability or the happiness, and it is like it becomes like the light of the moon.
For example, during the full moon night, if one goes out for a walk and the moon is bright and the light fills everything, it’s cool outside, and one received kind of the the happiness or or or yeah. And have no problems of of heat, so it is the benefit or or or the grace of the the moonlight. So likewise, the ethical discipline is like the light of the moon to overcome the heat of disturbing emotions. We can understand this through our own experiences through our experiences. For example, how you feel that particular day when you get angry.
And because of that, it’s just whole day has been not a good day and one feels uneasy or not peace and so forth. And how days go without any anger, without those the And also the benefits of maintaining good ethics or discipline is it is like the the they become like the the autumn moon. So in the full moon during the autumn, the the autumn moon has been forth to be very bright and and and nice and cool. So so, likewise, if one has the very has the good ethics or ethical discipline, then the the person automatically has the very good appearances and very glamorous that just walk in the public, the people without any reason just pay develop happiness and like pays respect and so forth. By maintaining a good ethical discipline one has the good basis and by doing so, one can easily attain the upper teachings, the practice or realizations.
And also, at the time of death, one has no fear of death because one does not need to think that to develop any fear by thinking, Oh, I’ve done this bad action or such and such in my early days or in my life. By maintaining good ethical discipline, one can die happily without any regrets. Without distraction and no fear, one can happily and peacefully go to sleep. And that kind of person, while asleep, is protected by the deities from obstacles. And also without any fear and uneasiness, one can easily walk peacefully in the crowd. Likewise, there are many other advantages of maintaining good ethical discipline.
Briefly speaking, all those — the attainment of higher rebirths, becoming arhat or attaining arhathood, Bodhisattvas, Buddhas — are the result of maintaining and practicing ethical discipline. So, if one maintains the good ethical discipline then it is the basis of all the higher good qualities and one can attain the higher qualities. The disadvantages of not practicing or maintaining good ethics is one will not attain higher qualities. And also, disadvantage is that after death one has to travel towards bad migrations. And We make lots of prayers to accomplish our wishes, but if one hasn’t got a good ethics or discipline, one will not fulfill one’s wishes by prayers.
If one do not maintain the good ethical discipline, then it is very difficult to achieve the higher rebirths because the attendance of higher rebirths and so forth are being attained with the basis of ethical discipline. Without ethical discipline, one cannot achieve those, and for bad disadvantages, by lacking good ethical by lacking to practice ethical discipline, one goes towards the bad migrations and keep traveling from the migration towards bad, and it’s very rare to attain the good travel towards the good migration without a good practice of ethics. We have difficulty to attain or achieve liberation from here, It is even harder to travel towards good migration or happy migration from the bad migration. At this stage, we are very fortunate to have attained this very good body or good rebirth with a good companion, met with the good teaching, have all these conducive conditions. Having all these facilities, one should develop affection or compassion towards oneself and try for the betterment, try to achieve Buddhahood or become enlightened.
If not, should try to attain the liberation free from the cyclic existence. Even if one fails to achieve that, at least one should try not to take rebirth in the lower rebirths. The merchant, if the merchant comes home empty-handed from a place or hill full of precious jewels — Everyone would consider that person like the merchant who visits a mountain or hill full of jewels, and if he or she fails to trade and instead of taking jewels, goes there, wastes all the time, wastes the money, takes out a mortgage or a loan, and spends all the money on trivial things or gambling and so forth, and comes home empty-handed plus with a huge amount of loans — then that person would be considered mad or crazy. So, likewise, the precious human rebirth is like a place or like that hill full of jewels.
Within this precious human rebirth, we can attain numbers or peak numbers of jewels like renunciation, bodhicitta, the correct view, become bodhisattva, attain liberation, buddhas, and so forth. If one fails to achieve any of those, having reached the place which is the precious human rebirth, and like the merchant takes a loan plus cultivates many non-virtuous actions, then returns home to the lower rebirth — as we have taken many lower rebirths in previous lives. After having attained all this and still failing to reduce our negativities and failing to achieve any of those, and traveling towards that home migration, it is very sad. So, the great previous master’s guru has a saying that should not become like the merchant who comes home with empty hand from the land of jewel. Therefore, one should develop compassion and love towards oneself and encourage oneself not to have a bad migration in the next life, and to cultivate virtuous actions, because if we do not — if we simply perished after our death, that would be the end and okay, but it is not that way.
We need to take rebirth again and again. So as we have to take rebirth after death, and we have no right at the time of death, the actions, the karma, whatever we have cultivated will lead us towards the next rebirth. If one has good karma, it will take us towards a good migration. If it’s a bad karma, we’ll lead towards the bad migrations, and so therefore should try to cultivate a positive action as much as one can. It is very obvious that every day, in every single minute or every day, we cultivate the non-virtues.
So we should try our best not to cultivate any of those non-virtuous actions. Think about ourselves — we say that we can’t bear our present suffering. If you take a rebirth towards the bad migration — I hope you can hear me —
At the present time, we say that we can’t bear our sufferings, the sufferings in the lower migrations are even worse than these present sufferings, and we can’t bear sufferings in the bad migrations. Therefore, we’re concerned for our next rebirth and try not to cultivate any non virtuous actions. The great master Candrakīrti has set forth that the first three perfections are easier and important for the laypeople to practice the practice of giving the ethical discipline and maintaining patience, which are a bit easier, and even laypeople can practice or maintain. So it’s very important to practice. And the fifth and the sixth perfection, concentration and the wisdom, should mainly be practiced by ordained people.
It is because the last two, concentration and the wisdom, should practice in the seclusions, very remote area where there’s less activities, less distractions, and should have more hearings and more contemplation. So, as those two have to be practiced in the seclusion with less activities and so forth, it’s quite hard for the laypeople to practice for a while because of the family being in a big community and have to look after family and it’s a bit hard for them to stay in a seclusion. Buddha has said for those three, the first three perfections. If one does, the lay person wants to, one can really practice, that one can practice the generosity no matter how much work a person has or how many activities a person has, but one can still practice generosity because one can involve in numbers of activities activities and can do numbers of things. Then you can also practice ethical discipline, and ethical disciplines as well as the patience, the perfection of patience.
If one wants to, one can and one also needs to practice because these are very important and will give one a good rebirth in the next lives. By practicing generosity, one will not be born very poverty or poor in the next life and have good enjoyments. By practicing good ethical discipline, travels towards the good migrations, and by maintaining good patience, one will have good partner or good friend, company in the next lives. Therefore, it is important one can and one should practice this. If one fails to do this, then one will be born as poor in the next life; without practicing patience, one will not have a good partner or companion.
Okay, So, we’ll stop here today and take a couple of questions, if you have.