Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a refugee analogy as his central image, Khensur Rinpoche opens this 46-minute Lam Rim Weekend session by comparing the graduated path to fleeing a dangerous homeland: a new country may reduce hardship but cannot remove problems at their root — only the inner path can do that. He then identifies the three root afflictive emotions — ignorance (misknowledge of how things truly exist), attachment, and anger — as the foundation of all suffering, and shows how a single burst of anger can instantly dissolve a morning’s peaceful meditation. The session closes with a concrete threefold method: first eliminating the harmful results of afflictive emotions, then the emotions themselves, and finally the deep predispositions that generate them. A clear entry point for those new to Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 LR 1992 05 16.mp3
UUID: 56ac94ea-f684-4744-8a08-1dce1b66cf8c
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim Weekend (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-05-16
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.4 minutes
Words: ~1,989
Begin with meditation. So as a prerequisite to meditation, it is necessary to develop a healthy motivation. In accordance with the positive motivation, we will experience a constructive result. On the other hand, if our motivation is simply neutral, then the result will be neutral. Still on the other hand, if our motivation is negative, then we will have a negative result.
In terms of motivation, what do we mean by healthy motivation? This is mainly concerned with the attitude of benefiting both oneself and others, an altruistic motivation. In terms of developing this healthy motivation, it’s emphasized that whatever beings exist within the world, whether human or any type of life form, They all want happiness and they don’t want to suffer. And therefore, in seeking to develop a healthy motivation, to develop the attitude which wishes that others be free from the suffering and the cause of their suffering. And this is what constitutes compassion.
But additionally, develop the attitude which is expressed in the thought, may others have happiness and the causes of happiness, which is the development of love. Rinpoche will explain the meditation as we go along, so It would be wonderful if myself and all sentient beings were free of suffering. May myself and all living beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. I myself will free all living beings from their suffering and the causes of their suffering. Would it be wonderful if myself and all living beings had happiness divorced of any suffering and the causes of happiness?
May myself and all living beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. I will bring myself and all living beings happinesses and the causes of happiness. In order to achieve these various ends, I’m going to train myself well. There are a few preliminary prayers that we usually recite before the teaching. If you would like to recite them along with us, you are welcome to.
Today we’re going to be discussing the Lam Rim, which means the graduated path to awakening. So in order to help us to come to an understanding of what we mean by the graduated path, I’m going to discuss it in terms of an analogy and then explain the meaning of that analogy. So the in Tibetan, it’s the term is So means a road, a path. And it means stages. We move along the first stage of the road, and the second stage of the road, or we gradually move along the road.
So lam rim refers to the way of traveling this road. So in terms of traveling the road, it’s traveled by means of both in terms of one’s mind, but also in terms of one’s body. So the mode of traversing the road, traveling the road, is in physical terms and mental terms. So in terms of the body, if we don’t have a car, then we’re going to have to walk. So putting one foot in front of next.
But in terms of the path, we aren’t traveling the path by physical means, but we’re going to walk along the path mentally. So if we take an example, when meditate, the body sits on the cushion, the body remains still, but it is and it is the mind which does the traveling along the path. So in terms of the Tibetans, we are refugees. And if one were to remain in the previous place, one would have to endure a lot of difficulties, there would be a lot of fears, anxieties, dangers to one’s life. So in order to be free of those, one becomes a refugee.
One travels away from that place to another place in which all of these problems do not exist. Why is it that we travel from one place to another? It’s because in the previous place, there was a great deal of difficulties, problems. And we have great expectations that by moving to this new place, that all of those previous difficulties will be eliminated, that they won’t exist there. Though we may move on to another place in order to rid ourselves of those previous difficulties, this new place at best can only decrease difficulties.
It cannot remove those problems from their very root. So that’s the analogy that we’re going to work with. And if I’m going to explain that analogy, we not only have physical problems, but we also have mental problems. So we have both mental and physical problems. And if we begin to reflect upon the nature of these problems, we begin to question, is there some method, some means whereby I can eliminate these problems?
And we begin to investigate. And this investigation involves a gradual movement along in stages in the elimination of our problems, beginning to discover the methods whereby we can eliminate mainly our mental difficulties. We are seeking to eliminate both physical and mental difficulties, but if we are able to eliminate our mental difficulties, then the elimination of our physical difficulties will follow along naturally. So the path is constituted of a gradual investigation of the methods and stages of the elimination of our mental difficulties. So how does, how do all the various mental difficulties come about?
What is their foundation, what is their root? The basis for all our difficulties are the afflictive emotions, or the various distress patterns, that is to say negative states within the mind. We have both positive and negative states. It is these negative states which bring about our mental difficulties, mental problems. And under the influence of these mental problems we experience physical difficulties.
So the root of all our problems are these afflictive emotions. What do we mean by the various afflictive emotions? There are many types of afflictive emotions, but if we were to abbreviate them, to condense them down, we could condense them into the main three basic afflictive emotions. And those are ignorance, or also termed misknowledge, attachment, and anger. These are the basic three afflictive emotions.
What do we mean by ignorance or misknowledge? It is misknowledge with respect to the nature of phenomena, the the way in which phenomena exist. We have a misunderstanding with respect to the nature of reality. And that which understands the way things exist is wisdom. So the factor of the mind which inhibits, obscures, acts to obstruct the function of wisdom is ignorance or a misknowledge.
It is due to the factor of misknowledge which obstructs our wisdom with respect to the nature of phenomena, which brings about all our various fears, all our various anxieties. We conceive of that which is is, in fact which is not. We conceive of that which is not as is. All of these mistaken notions and conceptions, out of this arises all our various troubles, all our various problems. So it is the factor of misknowledge which is the foundation of all the various other afflictive emotions.
in dependence upon this basic misknowledge, the other afflictive emotions such as attachment arise. Attachment is the superimposition or exaggeration of the attractive characteristics of phenomena. That there is an exaggeration which is superimposed upon phenomena, and that we aren’t able to see their actual nature due to due to misknowledge. And this superimposition of the attractiveness is termed attachment. Then again, with respect to others, when others appear to harm us, they hurt us in various ways, they speak harsh words toward us, they appear to us to be sources of problems.
They appear to be sources of difficulties for ourselves. And that we are seeing things not in their correct fashion due to the factor of misknowledge obscuring the actual nature of the object. We misconceive the nature of others and see them as sources of harm, where in fact they are not the ultimate sources of our harm, of our problem. These are the three fundamental faults of our mind which bring about all our various difficulties and problems. Under the influence of misknowledge, we engage in various types of actions, know, hurting others, speaking harsh words, even killing others.
And these constitute the manifestations of the afflictive emotion of anger. We separate, we cause disharmony, we cause division amongst others due to anger. But additionally, out of attachment, again arising out of misknowledge, we steal others things, we take others things for our own. And so all our various difficulties, all our various problems arise out of these three basic afflicted emotions. When we wake up in the morning, we could wake up with a very happy mind.
We could meditate and have a very peaceful sense of well-being about us. But the moment that we generate attachment, all that peaceful sense of well-being and happiness is lost. We become immediately unhappy. Our mind is unfree. If we were to generate anger, our mind becomes unhappy.
It’s suffering. We develop an intention to harm others, we want to hurt others. And we keep thinking about hurting someone, our mind is filled with hatred. And in such a state, even if we ate delicious food, the food would have no flavor. We aren’t able to sleep.
And even if we were to see someone we usually like, we wouldn’t even want to talk to them under it’s under the influence of anger. So once the afflictive emotions have generated within the mind, there is no happiness within the mind, there is only trouble. So the the graduated path represents the method whereby we can eliminate our mental and physical difficulties. You know, it is It is the road which is traveled by the mind. It is by means of implementing these various methods we can begin to decrease the negative or destructive factors within the mind and begin to increase the positive or constructive factors of the mind and continually experiencing greater degrees of well-being until eventually we can attain a state of an unchanging happiness of both body and mind.
What is it that we essentially want? We want to eliminate all our various problems. We want happiness, we don’t want to suffer. So it is by means of implementing these various methods that we are able to decrease the negative factors which bring about suffering and to generate and increase the positive factors which bring about happiness. Can we bring about the cessation of all of these various negative states all at once?
We can you know, we we can only bring about the cessation of these negative states in a in a gradual manner. It that we are due to our habitual previous habituation, we are so totally accustomed to these negative states that they exert a great power over our mind. So by gradations, applying the various methods, we can gradually eliminate these negative states but not all at once. So we have to identify what is our enemy, and it is these various afflictive emotions. These afflictive emotions are what are to be eliminated.
They are the bringers of they are that which harm. They harm us both in terms of mentally and physically. They harm us in terms of harming oneself, harming others. What are the means to bring about a cessation to all of these various difficulties? It’s a gradual process.
Initially, it’s very difficult to eliminate the afflictive emotions themselves. But we begin by eliminating the negative consequences, the dissatisfactory results of the afflictive emotions initially, that’s first. Then secondly, we begin to eliminate the afflictive emotions themselves, the actual afflictive emotions, the causes of our problems. And then thirdly, we begin to eliminate our predispositions toward the afflictive emotions, the tendencies moving us in the directions of these afflictive emotions. So there is this gradual threefold method.
First, getting rid of the results of the afflictive emotions, then the afflictive emotions themselves, and then the predispositions to these afflictive emotions, which constitute the graduated path.