Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Langri Thangpa’s instruction to take loss and offer victory to others is the doctrinal heart of Khensur Rinpoche’s 98-minute Lamrim session on patience — the third of the six perfections. He begins by arguing that patience underlies everyday harmony: good friendships, stable families, peace between nations. He then grounds Geshe Langri Thangpa’s verse in the teaching that self-cherishing, not the person who harms you, is the root of suffering, and surveys patience’s long-term fruits — beautiful appearance, honored rebirth, wisdom of interdependence, realization of emptiness, freedom from saṃsāra. The session ends with a practical meditation: when someone strikes you with a stick, investigate whether they truly have control; they do not, driven by anger and karma, so cultivate gratitude rather than retaliation, since the harm purifies your own past negative actions.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 28 LR 2000 09 12.mp3
UUID: cb5c69e5-2398-4519-950d-5ee74363a706
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-09-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 98.1 minutes
Words: ~4,078
So we’ll first develop the motivation of altruistic intention. Develop the intention of wishing that free both self and the entire sentient beings from all the sufferings and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness. For that purpose I shall here purify all the negativities and attain the good qualities. So, in order to accomplish those wishes, I shall hear or listen to this teaching of the this Lamrim teaching which is the essence of Mahāyāna teaching and bringing bring all the hearings into contemplation and meditation. With this motivation, we shall do a short meditation here.
The we’ll be reciting a refuge prayers, one hundred deities of the Nangsi Siliwa and the Outer Mandala, page four and verse Outer mandala, the page numbers are reaching at the front, back of the front cover. So among the practices of six perfections, we have finished the first two perfections. The perfections of giving and ethical discipline have been taught in earlier classes. Today we’ll start with the third perfection which is perfection of patience. The definition of patience is that patience is the mental factor, a mind, a virtuous mind that never gets disturbed if it encounters sufferings and harms.
Patience is very important in both one’s normal life as well as particular the practitioner, especially for the practitioners. Patience is very important in both ways in our normal or in worldly life as well because the patient is the root cause for the harmonies or the friendship. Patience will help to maintain a good relationship or to keep the harmony between countries, towns. We’ll keep peaceful in families, friends within friends and so forth. The friendship or relationship is the root of the the the worldly happiness because because of because of having a good relationship or a good friendship, the communication is easier and better between the groups.
Therefore, in order to have a good friendship or relationship, patience is very important. Good friendships and relationships come from the basis of patience. So always, the disharmony or poor communication, the sufferings, comes from the lack of patience. Because of not having enough patience, people get disturbed by either the harm caused by others by hitting or using harsh words or by particular looks and stares and so forth, and it is because of not having patience that one gets disturbed. So in order to avoid that, one needs to have good patience to tolerate the harms of the others.
So therefore, maintaining a patience is very important and always because from the beginning our mind both the mind and the body are in the nature of a peace, but it gets disturbed because of the lack of patience when harm comes, of course, from others. So so it’s important one not to not to get distracted, to remain in that peaceful nature of both the mind and and and the body. By doing so, not just one gets the peaceful nature, but it also causes the other one who gets angry to automatically cool down. So no matter how harmful one’s counterpart acts, you should always maintain and not disturb the peaceful nature of the mind. And by maintaining the peaceful nature of mind, it also gives the peaceful or peace or pleasure or the happiness towards the body, and one can remain undisturbed.
If it gets distracted or disturbed by the harms of others, then the anger comes, and that will produce numbers of sufferings like it’s either cause to hurt oneself and so forth. Therefore, one of the great Kadampa masters, Geshe Langri Thangpa, has stated that even if others speak a harsh word to me out of anger, I shall still give the profit or victory to others and take the loss for myself. Geshe Langri Thangpa said that one should take loss and give the win or profit to others, the victory to others. The reason why one should take loss is because oneself is the basis or source of all the sufferings and the faults and negativities, and others are the basis and source of happiness and of attaining happiness of both the temporal and the ultimate. It is because the I or self possessing that I or self, it it it develops a mind to attain happiness for I and the self.
And because of having that mind to attain happiness for the self, it involves or let it it lets one to in involved in the very bad actions bad actions, and that will result in bad consequences. And it is because of having that mind that the self-cherishing attitude comes, and the self-cherishing attitude is the root of sufferings. If we make it a bit clearer, then because of that clearer, it is because of the self-cherishing or wanting to have a win for that particular I or self, and it involves in activities like killing others or harming, hitting physically, stealing, and so forth. All this the negative activities been done because of wanting happiness and pleasure towards that self. So because of because of that mind, it involves in the bad activities of those negative activities, killing, and so forth.
And and by doing such actions, it causes harm towards other. And as a result of harming others in the future, one will have the results of causing harm to to to to others, and that will causes us the sufferings and all these unwanted sufferings. And for example, even in our daily present lifetime, we at times go through difficult times when things are not going okay, having some little problems. All these happen because of all these are the results of harming others in the past. So therefore, one should not one should not take a a one should offer a a profit or win to others, victory to others, and like like not retaliate like like, not retaliate towards their bad actions, towards you, their harms, or we don’t return their harms.
And in and plus, additional to that, develop with the kindheartedness of love and compassion and and offer help as much as one can. By doing so, we’ll give yeah. By by doing so, it offers the the victory or or help to others, and As a result of those, one will have a a one will not yeah, one will have the win in futures. For example, like by giving or contributing or giving something to others and as a result of such actions, one will receive the benefits of such actions in future. And also by bringing help towards others, for example, not harming or not killing other sentient beings plus saving their lives who are under the danger of lives and prolonging their life by saving them from the danger.
And by doing such actions as a result by doing so, by saving other sentient beings from the life threatening, one helps this being to prolong their lifespan. As a result, in the future, one will have a long lifespan. So, in briefly speaking, then it’s been stated that if one if help others if one wishes happiness then help others; if one wants to suffer then harm others. So, as we want happiness, therefore, think on that statement and should always help others and never always should help others and not get distracted, but even maintain patience for the harm caused by others. Developing the patience, maintaining patience is very helpful.
So so should maintain patience and benefit of practicing or maintaining patience are is are that in future in in future lives, one will have less harm from others. One will have less or no enemies, and have more happiness and peace, and will have men have received many help from others, as well as after one’s death, one will migrate towards the good rebirth. So, these are the benefits or advantages of maintaining patience and there are others like by maintaining patience as a result in future when one bone, one will be born, one will have very good appearances and have very good look that it it it it attracts or or it steals the other’s mind just by having one look or something. It is not just simply said, it has valid reasons to say such, because for example, one’s mind is in the very peaceful nature and because of the mind is being peace nature, it’s being with the kind hearted and relaxed nature.
Due to as a result of that, one’s physical gesture and appearances are also in a very lovable and very calm and peace nature. And suddenly, at that moment, somebody came with out of anger and say say such harsh words or heed you or give a look at you with this, by doing so, if one maintains that mind, the peaceful nature of mind not being disturbed by the provocations of other people, and as it has not been disturbed, that mind will still remain on the peace and relaxed nature, and as a result of that, the body, the the the gesture and the appearances of the body still remains the peace and calm. And and that will help one to maintain and yeah. Help one to maintain very relaxed, and even if the person hit you out of anger, because the mind is not disturbed, the physical gesture will still be very pleasing, and it will show a smile to others, even to the angry person, and as a result of that, it automatically calms the person’s anger. So so so because of maintaining that peaceful nature of mind and the relaxed mind, the physical gesture or con the physical itself remains in the peace and relaxed, and it shows that huge has a rounded face, smile smile can maintain a very smiley face.
And so that will help others to cool and and and get let go of their anger. So because it helps one to remain maintained undisturbed and have a very smiley face, and among the faces, the most beautiful face is the smiley face. So it helps them to have a maintain their smile face and as a result of that, in future, one will have a very, beautiful face or good looking. And if one does not maintain the patience, For example, when you breathe, the mind is in a very peace and relaxed nature and as a result, the body naturally remains in a very calm and peaceful condition. And then somebody out of anger uses harsh words, and one suddenly gets disturbed — meaning one gets angry. One’s mind gets disturbed and because the mind has been disturbed, one develops anger, and as a result of that, it also changes the physical look or gesture — one can see when the body is shaking and the face is reddening and so forth. With the lack of patience getting disturbed, mind gets angry, and all of that shows us the different types of physical gestures and showing very nasty looks and so forth. As a result of that, in the future, one will be born or will have physical appearances like getting scared, the others get scared by just one look at you. And to be born as something that find very difficult for others or uneasy for others to see such things, and like born as a snake, you’d get scared and unlike a scorpion, very uneasy to look at.
For example, when somebody gets very angry and we face difficult to look at the person, it’s very difficult for us to look at the very angry person and we’re pretending, trying not to look at the person because it’s not easy to see at the person’s face because it’s been definitely of a strong anger. So the patience will help one to maintain a very peaceful mind and remain very peaceful and good appearances or mental sorry, physical appearances, and it will give a very beautiful face as a result of maintaining patience, whereas the anger developing because of anger, getting angry or developing anger which destroy the peace of mind along with the mind it also destroys the peace of the physical and as a result of that, then it will cause others to dislike you and also people say he or she is at odds with huge anger, and they will try to avoid you and will result one to remain single or travel alone because others award you because of the anger. So, by meditating or maintaining the patience as a result, one will be able to travel to rebirth or rebirth towards or born as an honored being or honored person or honored being as a human, for example.
So, here interpretation of kyebu dampa, the honored being, the being referred for instance, being is a human and the honored referred to as the person who never cultivates any non virtuous actions, the ten non virtuous actions, which implies that being born as a person who always cultivates the virtuous actions. Therefore, the great master, one of the great Indian masters, Candrakīrti, has stated in his middle way text that patience will result in being born with very good appearances, plus being born as an honored being. So, The master also said that, so, by being born as such a rebirth — the person who cultivates only virtuous actions — as a result of cultivating virtuous actions all the time, one will have very good wisdom, and as a result of having that good wisdom, then one will understand both the forward order and the reverse order of how one circles in saṃsāra, and one will also understand how to abandon and free oneself from saṃsāra. So, by receiving or being born as the receive that kind of rebirth as an honored being, then one understands entering nature and the abandoning the saṃsāra in the sense how one will understand that how one bone or circles and enter the saṃsāra and how one how can one abandon the saṃsāra?
Which means by knowing so, one understands the interdependence of the things. And by knowing the interdependence, the knowledge or understanding of the interdependence, then one will understand how good and the bad results how they come. So, and understand that from the good causes it produces or comes the good result and the bad comes the bad results. By knowing this, one abandons all the bad causes so that it avoids all the suffering results and cultivate the good causes which will produce the uninterrupted good results. So by understanding the developing or knowing the interdependent of the old phenomena, as we develop knowing that interdependent of the phenomenas, then one will have one generates a knowledge of emptiness.
And by having a good understanding on emptiness, then one with the wisdom of developing the wisdom, the realizing or wisdom understanding the emptiness, abandon the root of all the sufferings, root of all the root of all the sufferings, which is self grasping attitude. And it abandons the self-grasping attitude and its seeds. So it will help one to abandon the root of all suffering, the self-grasping attitude, along with its seeds.
And by doing so, by abandoning such, one abandons all the negative views or faults and attains all the good qualities and becomes or attains Buddhahood. So these all come under the advantages of practicing patience. So, these are the advantages of practicing or meditating on patience. If one does not maintain or practice patience, then one will have the opposite part of those disadvantages. For example, by maintaining patience, one will have a rebirth as an honored being, which cultivates only virtuous actions, and by not practicing so will born as a dishonored person, so that who never cultivates the virtuous action, and we are, are, or, and always interest in cultivating the non virtuous actions.
One will always, by not practicing patience, one will one born as the opposite of that honored being, the dishonored being, and we’re always interested in cultivating negative actions as a result of cultivating the continuous negative actions, one will not be able to develop a good wisdom, and as a result of that, one born as a well, unintelligent or foolish person who doesn’t understand the interdependent of the phenomena as a result. By not understanding the interdependent nature of the phenomena, one will not understand how one circles or enters or circles in saṃsāra and as well as do not know how to abandon the themselves. So, by not having understanding of the interdependent nature of phenomena, one will not have the wisdom of understanding emptiness. As a result, by not understanding the Yeah, having not the wisdom understanding or realizing emptiness, then it’s been stated that one who does not understand the emptiness is not the basis to attain liberation and will burn in or will circle in the saṃsāra like a wheel, not just circles in the saṃsāra. Each time when one circles into the different rebirths in saṃsāra, along with the circulation, one also undergoes through the sufferings of each rebirth, like the sufferings of human, the animals, and also suffers the suffering of aging, birth, and so forth.
So if one maintains or practices patience, will receive all those advantages of practicing the patience. If one does not, will have the disadvantages part. So it comes, all this happens because of the law of actions and results, These law of action and results are infallible that one can prove or understand that the particular causes will produce the similar result of its own. Likewise, by sowing the seed of rice will give a sprout of the rice and will give rise to its rice. One should practice and meditate or do the meditation on the patience.
And there are numbers of meditation, various types of meditation on patience, but if I Like the patience, like meditating on patience if one receives the harms from others, or meditating on patience when one goes through the huge sufferings. Also, there are methods like maintaining patience to gain certainty with regard to the teaching and so forth. So if I talk about how to meditate when one encounters or receives harm — for example, one is sitting and then suddenly — one should scrutinize the situation when one does the meditation on patience. For example, if one was sitting there and somebody hit, somebody with the stick hit on your head, and then at that time one should examine or investigate the situation by checking that did the person hit you and check whether the person has has control over him or not.
By such investigation, one will come to know the person has no control on its own, and by knowing that the person hasn’t got a control, and there comes one way of meditating on a patient. So, from the very beginning, a person with a stick hit on your head, so and at the very beginning, you got you got a stick on your head. And it was from the very beginning your own fault — in the past you had hit that person.
So it is because of your fault from the beginning of hitting others — by doing such actions, one cultivates a non-virtuous action of hitting others, and that non-virtuous action leaves a karmic seed. And then in future, that seed will arise and ripen due to the mistaken mind. For example, like the self-cherishing attitude. And because of by meeting with that self-cherishing attitude, the person out of own self-cherishing, his or her own self-cherishing attitude, it develops anger and then involves in the activities which causes harm to others. Because of that unmistaken mind, the deceptive cherishing attitude within his or her mind, and that influences a person to involve in the bad actions of harming others, and person causes harm towards others.
That person has no control or has no freedom for him or herself because it has been controlled by that anger or by the self-cherishing attitude. With that mistaken mind, self-cherishing attitude, the person gets angry and develops involved in the action of harming others. So due to that, it harms others, but the person hasn’t got control or freedom. It’s been under the influence of the disturbed mind. Due to this, it hits on your head.
Because the person has no control over him or herself, one should not get disturbed or angry to that person. It is like, so we get that the person hits the stick on your head and you get pain, it hurts. The pain actually caused by the stick which touched your head, but you don’t get angry on the stick. So we don’t get angry on that stick because we know the stick can do nothing, it hasn’t got any control over its own because it’s in the person’s hands and controlled by the hand or a person. Due to this, by knowing that the stick hasn’t got its own control, we don’t get angry to the stick.
Likewise, the person hits with his hand and his hand, one should not get angry on his hands because his hand has no control by its own. It’s been controlled by the person him or herself. And the person has no control because it’s been controlled by that cherishing attitude and that mistaken mind’s cherishing attitude mixing with the bad seed which you had sown in a previous life by hitting others. So the person has been controlled by those mistaken minds and the seeds of the bad actions, and mostly the anger — the angry mind which causes impulses to come to the feet and then the person gets influenced by that mind and hits you and so forth. Therefore, by knowing the person has no control, you should not develop angry or get angry to the person.
So one should not get angry and If one wants to get angry, then get angry towards the anger of the person, not the person. If you want to When one gets the angry towards the anger, then should cut the head off that anger and to do so, one should practice or maintain patience to minimize or get rid of that anger. You should not get angry to the person and instead one should develop a love and compassion towards the person, thinking that the person has no control over him herself and as a result of doing such action, the person will suffer in the future. It was my fault — thinking that because of me, the person has cultivated very bad actions by hitting, and as a result the person will suffer — and should develop love and compassion towards that person. And should give thanks, say thanks to the person.
So instead of getting angry, one should thank the person, thinking that because the person hits you, which is the result of the previous bad actions in the past — by receiving the stick on your head, the cultivated non-virtuous action has ripened and been purified through the stick on your head. Think it’s very kind of the person to help you purify that negative action. And if one hadn’t purified that negativity or bad action through the person’s stick, that negative action could cause you bigger suffering in the future. So as a result of the stick, one does not need to go through a future severe suffering. In the future, it has been purified.
Therefore, one should thank the person. The great practitioners, Dharma practitioners, always rejoice and are thankful to such a person. In other respects, one also maintains patience and by maintaining patience, one cultivates many virtues. Okay. We’ll stop here and if and also take few questions.
Excuse me? Last bit. Forget about the first part of the story, and just go to a U. Street somewhere. Yeah.
It depends on how many times you hit the person’s hit with a stick. If you have hit the person once in the previous life, then just getting one stick on your head will pay back that one. If you have hit ten times, you will see ten. Yeah, and you either retaliate or run away? Yeah.
Okay. So, it’s like the So therefore, one should and need to practice patience for a long time, continuous practices on patience. By doing so, then