Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of hot water gradually warming cold, Khensur Rinpoche opens this 85-minute Lojong commentary with the core logic of mind training: suffering arises from the mind, so antidotes must be cultivated until negative emotions weaken of themselves. He works through remedies for the three root afflictions — love and compassion against anger; for attachment, two vivid techniques: visualizing the desired person as a skeleton, or mentally relating strangers to parents, siblings, or children to dissolve craving; and for ignorance, contemplation on dependent arising. The second half grounds practice in Lamrim motivations: the preciousness of a human life with all conducive conditions, the certainty and unpredictability of death, and the folly of deferring practice to old age. A short Q&A closes the session, addressing whether Dharma can serve one’s own happiness and why pleasure arising from negative actions is ultimately illusory.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 LMT 1997 05 20.mp3
UUID: 6fa1cc66-3e9b-4d54-b150-08ad675b9a5c
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lojong Mind Training (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-05-20
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 85.0 minutes
Words: ~5,014
Yeah. We’ll begin by meditating for a few moments, cultivating the kind hearted attitude of the awakened heart as our motivation. I must establish myself and all living beings in a state completely free of all suffering and where they have complete happiness. And in order to achieve that meaning, I must rid my mind of all its undesirable faults and bring to consummation all its desirable qualities. The aspiration to achieve such a state is the awakened heart.
And, in order to achieve such a state, a state which is whereby each of ourselves is made up of our various faults and have brought to consummation all our excellent qualities that we develop as our motivation to that end that I am going to listen to this present teaching on the essence of the universal real doctrine, the Mahāyāna. The teaching which sets up the means for developing the precious awakened heart, the seven point training of the mind. Then I am going to listen to this teaching, having once listened to it, reflect upon it, meditate, and put it into practice. Yeah. Darn it.
So, quoting from it says that all of the teachings of the Buddha along with the various commentaries which were which were made in order to explain the teachings of the Buddha by the various past masters, were all set up for the purpose of taming our minds. So just to say, to reduce the negative states of mind and to promote positive states of mind. All of the undesired suffering that we experience arises from the mind itself. We are constituted of two components, the body and the mind. And it is the mind which leads us into suffering.
Due to the rising of various negative states, such as the various afflictive emotions, we are led to involve ourselves in negative activities. We create unskillful karma. And as a result of that unskillful karma, we experience suffering. What are we to do in such a situation when we want to be rid of suffering and, on the contrary, wish to experience only happiness. That we have to implement various methods whereby to eliminate the negative states of mind, but not only to eliminate them in a temporal sense, to eliminate them from their very root.
If we are able to do this, then we can completely eliminate suffering. We can eliminate our undesired experiences from their root. What do we mean by negative states of mind? We can These are exemplified by such states as attachment, anger, pride, jealousy, and ignorance. These constitute negative states of mind.
So, how are we to bring about a cessation of undesired suffering, what the experiences that we don’t want? It is by cultivating an antidote to these negative states of mind. As the antidotes increase in their forcefulness, their opposing states, let us say the negative states, will decrease of themselves. The reason that we so many, we go through so many undesired experiences in terms of our suffering is that the antidotes weak in nature but on the contrary, our negative states are powerful. So, by way of analogy, it’s like trying to raise the temperature of cold water by pouring hot water in.
Presently, as we continue to, as we increase the amount of hot water, the overall temperature rises soon the cold is completely diminished. It’s gone. Likewise, with these negative states as we increase the forcefulness of the antidote, those negative states which we’re seeking to be rid of will cease of themselves. But it’s obvious from this analogy that without adding hot water, there’s no way that the cold water is going to warm up. So, the hot water which we’re adding to the cold is analogous to positive states of mind.
And how are we to go about and practice adding this hot water positive state? It’s necessary that we cultivate these positive states of mind. At first it’s necessary for us to identify, well what are positive states of mind and then to reflect upon them to meditate. That is to actually cultivate and practice them. And slowly the positive states will increase and the negative will of itself decrease.
So, tomorrow we will our mind will be that much more positive. The day after tomorrow, it will be that much more positive and so forth and on and on. So, initially we must recognize within our own minds what is the most forceful of these negative states of mind. Perhaps it’s anger attachment or perhaps it’s jealousy or miserliness or pride or whatever it might be to recognize it. And once having ascertained what is the most forceful of our particular negative states to begin to oppose that particular state.
By way of example, we could take anger. We all experience anger from time to time and we need to oppose it. And, the way that we can oppose it is by cultivating the contrary positive states. The states of mind such as love and compassion. Anger is a desire that the other person not have happiness, that in fact that they suffer, that they be harmed in some way.
Love and compassion are the complete opposite. Love is the wish that the other person be happy and compassion is the wish that they not suffer, that they not experience any harm. So, these act as the contrary states and act as antidotes to the negative state of anger. Taking a look at the negative state of attachment. Here, in the case of other persons, we see them in an exaggerated fashion.
Perhaps in terms of their body, their shape or their color. Though they may be handsome or beautiful, we go on to exaggerate that quality about them. What we perceive exceeds the actual state of the object itself. And so, order to oppose that, exaggerated, grasping at the exaggerated qualities, we look at the faults the object in order to bring it back as an antidote. Maybe you wouldn’t enjoy meditating on that.
So, another good way to work with attachment, especially towards others bodies, is to imagine them as having no flesh. To see them only as skeletons. This is really a good one. Again, if you were, you know, completely captivated by someone’s complexion, you thought what a wonderful color and complexion they have, then you could imagine them as having a yellowish complexion or even a black complexion. Or maybe their body is covered with oozing blisters with blood dripping out.
So, continuing with this, in terms of antidotes for others than we have attachment, if in the case of those who are older than ourselves, then we should look upon them in terms of if they are males, to see them, to think of them as our fathers or if they’re females, to think of them as our mothers. Generally, we don’t have a sexual attachment toward fathers and mothers. Or, if they’re of our own age, then we could think of them as our brother or sister. Or, if they’re younger than ourselves, think of them as our children. So, there’s a variety of measures that we can make use of in our meditation as again, another negative state which we may see, which may be predominant within ourselves is that of ignorance or bewilderment can be translated as ignorance.
There are three root afflictions. There’s attachment, anger, and ignorance. And, if the dominant negative state of our mind out of ignorance, then we should meditate on dependent arising. Especially that phenomena, that products arise dependent upon causes and conditions. That they’re dependent upon causes and conditions for their existence.
Reason that we meditate is to put to an end that which has been continually harming ourselves. And, that is to say the effect of emotions. If we can cease harming ourselves, then we will experience well-being. This is the purpose of the Dharma. Understanding the purpose of Dharma, though we may understand the purpose of Dharma, we lack an inclination to actually practice it.
And so, it’s necessary for us to arouse a real longing to practice the Dharma. And so, one of the ways that we can begin is by gaining appreciation for our human life composed of leisures and fortune. How meaningful, what great meaning such a life is and its difficulty in finding such a life. And once we appreciate its great meaningfulness and its difficulty in finding such a life, then we won’t allow it to be wasted. We’ll long to actually make use of it.
We have a human life, a life that has a higher rebirth, high status. And, this human life of ours is extremely precious. It is dependence upon such a precious embodiment that we’re able to practice the Dharma. And, it is by practicing the Dharma that we can eliminate completely our suffering and achieve an ultimate happiness. This is the great meaningfulness of such a human life.
But, human embodiment which we all possess, the means in which we can cultivate the Dharma, is not something that everyone has. It has very specific characteristics that makes it very precious. For example, an animal cannot carry on a practice of Dharma. They cannot implement the methods whereby to eliminate their suffering. And again, even those beings below the state of an animal, those beings such as hungry ghosts who go without food and drink And beneath them, the hell beings are unable to carry on a practice of Dharma.
In status than ourselves, the celestial beings who have a much better type of embodiment, have greater pleasures than ourselves. Even they have obstacles in their practice of Dharma that most of them don’t even consider practice of Dharma. And many of them are absorbed in pleasure like states very close to sleep. And there’s no practice of Dharma. But even amongst humans, there is not all who have the type of precious life that we have whereby we can carry on a practice of Dharma.
There’s many of them who, many amongst humans, they simply do not accept religious practice or spiritual practice. For example, the communist Chinese. They don’t accept the spiritual practice. They don’t accept the existence of, for example, past and future lives. Therefore, there’s no inclination to practice the Dharma.
And, even amongst those who accept the Dharma, the practice of spirituality in general, there are those who though accepting the practice have various physical faults, physical problems, disabilities. They lack certain senses which present a great obstacle to them actually practicing the Dharma. And, again, there are those who may wish to practice some type of spirituality, but in case those who abide in places where Buddhism, the Dharma of Buddhism has not reached, where there is not even the existence of books where they can read, they too have an obstacle to their practice. And, with regard to those who created extreme negativities, and amongst these extreme extremities of negativities are such as having killed one’s mother or one’s father or a foe destroyer, they have tremendous obstacles to their practice. Even where there are no inhibitory conditions, it’s necessary that there be supportive conditions present.
There must be a place where the Dharma is still extant, where it’s being taught, and where there are practitioners actually trying to implement the teachings. So, if we were to reflect upon our individual situations, we would see that this is what we all possess is an extremely wonderful opportunity that we have all of the, all of the supports and conditions necessary to carry on a practice. It’s like a golden opportunity for us to practice the Dharma. So, we have such a precious human life. Precious human life which is a tremendous meaning.
With tremendously meaningful. Which has been difficult to have found. A life whereby we can rid ourselves of all our suffering whatsoever and find and achieve a final happiness. That this embodiment which we all possess has such a capacity. So, if we were to put the question to you, we keep saying how precious the dharma is, especially that of the Mahāyāna, the universal vehicle.
And, you know, we were saying, well why is it so precious? What exactly is the great purpose of which we can make, to which we can make use of the Dharma and the Mahāyāna? If we were to put that question to you, what would you answer? So, we have to reflect, we have to think about this. What do I get out of practicing Dharma?
What do I miss out if I don’t practice the Dharma? So, we’re all free individuals that we can do as we wish, we can do as we like. We can practice or not practice according to our wish. So, we have to consider, if I were to what are the benefits? What are the advantages of practicing?
Upon our death, we will not be totally annihilated. The body and mind are distinct. The body upon our death is left behind. But, the mind continues on to take rebirth. And, where is it going to take rebirth?
Here, while we are alive, we have some freedom, but in the course of taking rebirth, we have no freedom in the choice of our rebirth. If we have practiced the Dharma, then we can be assured that we will take a fortunate rebirth. If we have not, then we will take an unfortunate rebirth. There’s no choice in this. There’s no It’s already decided by what we’ve done.
It is our mind which will continue on to take rebirth, and it and it is our mind which carries the latencies of our past actions, what we’ve done and not done. What the negative and positive actions that we’ve created in the course of this life. It is what will, upon our death, what will we incur? That is, that is, that is decided in terms of these potencies, latencies, these predispositions which have been left upon our minds by our previous actions. It’s like printing upon a page that it’s set.
Though our bodies will not continue on, what is printed within our minds will continue on. And it’s in terms of what is written there which will determine the quality of our rebirth. If we have practiced the Dharma, we will have imprinted positive latencies within our minds. And due to the force of these positive latencies, we will go on to take a fortunate rebirth. On the other hand, if we haven’t practiced, if we’ve simply gone about creating negativities over the course of our lives, then due to these predispositions within our mind, we will be thrown into an unfortunate rebirth.
There’s no agent involved in determining this. It’s simply the latencies which have been implanted in our minds. So, in discussing what are the benefits, advantages, on the one hand, we can be assured of a fortunate rebirth of having taken it through our practice. But on the contrary, if we forgo practice, we can be assured of a negative rebirth, an unfortunate rebirth. So, that’s on the one hand.
But, on another on another hand, we could, we could say, Well, why practice the Dharma? It comes down to the fact that we are all the same in wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. That is the basic reason for practicing the Dharma because we don’t want to suffer, we want to be happy. And It is the function of Dharma to accomplish both of these ends. It is by means of our practice of Dharma, we will eliminate our suffering.
We will bring ourselves happiness. This is the main reason. We practice because we don’t want to suffer and we want to be happy. Therefore, we implement these methods to achieve that in. Just like if, you know, we’re always after money.
Money, money, money. We want money. Maybe we wanted to feed our empty stomachs. Maybe we wanted to close naked body. For whatever reason, that’s what we want.
So we implement methods to get it. But money, at best, can only be of limited benefit in the course of this life. It can supply us with food and clothing for this life. But here we are talking about something not only for this life but also for the benefit of future lives. You know, we can’t even take one cent with us to a future life.
Likewise, we have to leave behind our own body. Whatever we may have gathered together accumulated over the course of this life, no matter how rich, no matter how many material possessions our house and even our own body will all have to be left behind at the time of our death. That whether one is a rich person or whether one is a beggar, at one’s death one goes forth equally the same. So, I mean, you were going to, you know, you would have to make some kind of preparations even if you were on a simple matter of going for a holiday to India. If went without any money, wouldn’t even be able to find any get any food for yourself.
So, it’s very much like dharma would be very much analogous to money in the case of when we were going to India to be able to ensure that we got what we wanted once we got there. The Dharma is like a way of preparing for ourselves that where we’re going we get what we want. So, this is the essence of why we practice the Dharma. Why do we practice the Dharma? Because we want to be happy, we don’t want to suffer.
And it is only the Dharma which is able to eliminate our suffering and bring us happiness. So, how can we ensure that we’re making preparations for the future to get what it is that we want? Well, we can begin by observing ethics, that we can abandon the unskillful we abandon the ten unskillful actions and thereby ensure that we at least achieve a human life in the future. Not only just to achieve a human life, but we go on and practice tolerance or patience. This ensures that we will not only have a human embodiment but that we will have a beautiful body as well.
We look very good. People will look at us and say, So we see for ourselves that there are some who are very attractive and this quality is a result of them having practiced tolerance for patience in past lives. On the contrary, those who aren’t very attractive, this is a result of them having been intolerant in the past lives. Then to go further and to ensure that we get what we want in the future, we go on to practice generosity. A generosity with a beneficial intention, you know, benefiting whoever it might be through our practice of giving.
This will ensure that we have wealth in the future. There’s You know, some people, money just comes to them. They really have to make very little effort in order to get it. And this is a result of them having practiced generosity in the past. On the other hand, there are those who are born as beggars and no matter how much much they try, they never able to lift themselves out of that state.
And this is a result of their lack of generosity in the past. And there are those who are very intelligent, have great wisdom, And this is the result of them having trained in the Dharma in the past, having developed their wisdom, developed their intelligence through their practice. There are, on the contrary to this, there are those who are very stupid. You know, you teach them A, they may learn that, but when you teach them B, they forget A and so then you have to go back to A and by that time they forgot B. So this is indicative that they didn’t they had not trained their mind in the past, that they did not try to practice mind training, they did not try to practice the Dharma.
They used their mind as if in the same way that an animal uses theirs. All that we have at present that we find as pleasant that brings us about brings our well-being as a result of the positive actions that we’ve created in a past life. All results whatsoever arise in dependence upon a cause. Results If something is of a hot tasting quality, it must have come from a cause which had the same quality. If something is of sweet variety, it comes from a cause which was of a sweet variety.
That things don’t arise haphazardly nor do they arise with no cause. So, why are we to practice Dharma? Because we want happiness and we don’t want to suffer. So, we may conclude for ourselves that I definitely have to practice. I don’t want to suffer.
I want to be happy. But we may go on to question, given that I definitely should practice, am I able to practice? Do I have the ability or not? We have to go on to investigate whether we do or not. So, we have to involve ourselves in some investigation.
Really meditation Can you hear me? Meditation is a process of analysis. Just sitting there, just just merely sitting with the mind fixed is really really doesn’t empower ourselves. It’s not a particularly powerful way to meditate. We want to develop wisdom.
Wisdom is mainly in terms of discriminative awareness. We reflect. We try to analyze, investigate. What is this? What is it not.
We develop a discrimination especially with regard to what is to be practiced, what is to be adopted, what is to be gotten rid of, what is to be abandoned, trying to discriminate between those. So, we are investigating as to whether I though I though I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to practice, can I actually practice? Do actually have the ability? And we we the Buddha Dharma is very much based upon a process of reasoning. It should everything should reasoned out.
So, considering whether I have the ability or not, what reasons can I supply for myself? Well, I have I found I had this wonderful human life. And moreover, I have come in contact with a spiritual guide who is teaching me the Dharma. That I have the necessary books which I can study. I have companions assist me in my practice.
I have all the complete conditions whereby to carry on a practice. You know, when all of the conducive, supportive conditions come together, then we can be assured that there is the ability is there. So, we might conclude from this process of investigation that I I do I do have the ability to carry on a practice of Dharma. But I’ve got a lot of work to do. I I I’m really too busy.
Maybe I can practice in some future life. So if we were to think in that way, we are very much mistaken in our way of thinking. We have to understand that this human life that we all possess, possessing having all of these conducive conditions whereby to practice is brought about by a a rare constellation of cause and conditions. It has been very difficult to have brought this about and it will be very difficult to bring it about again. To simply think that you can put off your practice to a future life is very much mistaken.
But even if say, well, okay, I can go along with that, it will be difficult to attain again in the future. So, I will practice, but not just right now. I’m young. I’ve got lots of other things to do. You know, I have a lot of pleasures to take advantage of.
You know, when I get old, then I’ll get around to practicing Dharma by and by. When I’ve gotten all the material things that I want to get out of life altogether and I’ve got plenty of money saved up, then I’ll practice the Dharma when I get very old. That way of thinking is also very much mistaken. We simply don’t know how long we’re going to live. There’s no definite span to our life.
We Because of simply the impermanence in terms of death. That the impermanence in terms of death can come quickly, it can come at any age. We simply don’t know. Even the fetuses die in the womb, die as people die as infants, as young people in their twenties and thirties. They die at any age.
We simply cannot be sure. Sometimes parents outlive their children. We’re not sure if we’re going to be alive tomorrow. We don’t know. When death comes to ourselves, we can’t put it off even for five minutes.
So we not knowing at the time of not knowing when the time of our death is going to arrive, we have to come to some kind of determination with our mind. I have to begin to practice now. We’ve all seen this for ourselves that there was someone who we may have seen yesterday who was well but grew sick overnight and today they were no longer with us. They died. Or the case may be that someone amongst us now who appears well may grow ill and be dead tomorrow.
We simply don’t know. We see this directly for ourselves that we cannot be sure that we’re even going to live until tomorrow. There’s no assurity about it. So if we think well in this way, reflecting upon this process of reasoning, this method of investigation, then we will will feel an urgency in our wish to practice Dharma that we have to get on with our practice. So the reason that we meditate is to bring benefit to ourselves.
We have to be assured that what we meditate on is going to help us. Merely meditating on the breath or merely imagining different colored lights. There’s no it’s not sure that there’s going be any effect for you. But these types of meditations that we’re outlining here, these are included in what is called the Lam Rim or the Graduated Path. We said that there were these four preliminary contemplations and beginning with the contemplation on leisure and fortune.
These we can be assured if we meditate upon them, there will be great benefit. Meditate on leisure and fortune motivated by the awakened heart, then our practice would be that of the being at great capacity. If we meditated as on the on the same subject, the leisure, our human life with a motivation of renunciation of cyclic existence, our practice would be included within the being of middling capacity. If we meditated upon the same subject with a lack of attachment to the present life and seeking to benefit future lives, then our practice our meditation would be included within the practice of a being of small or limited capacity. So we’re going to stop there for the evening.
If you have some questions, we’ll take time for that. Yes. So what you have pointed out as examples, there’s no fault in them, in in in those ambitions or desires. So you desire to for pleasure and once you get the pleasure, you want to hang you want to hold on to the pleasure. Yeah.
But using Dharma using Dharma practices to do as for essentially egotistical purposes and of of of drawing pleasure in in my case and for myself. So the we are we are trying to seek happiness. We we we aren’t trying to forego our own happiness. That we but in our our practice is very much directed at achieving happiness of both ourselves and others. So it’s not a matter of just trying to make others happy.
We are trying to make both ourselves and others happy. For example, by way of analogy, if you were going to prepare a meal for your family, say there were five people five people in the family, you prepare them. You don’t leave yourself out. You also cook for yourself, right? But you’re you’re cooking for five people including yourself.
Numba, West Indies, Numba, West Indies. So, that’s due to individual tastes of food. Yeah. So maybe what what are you attached to when you say the person? Pardon?
Are you attached to You you just wanna say the person? Are you attached to their body or their mind or both? Money. The kimzema the you have to look at what condition is causing the arising of attachment. Maybe, you know, what you’re talking about is not a matter of any bodily any physical condition, you know.
It’s not a matter of this person’s shape or their complexion or their touch. You know, maybe so what is it for you? What is the condition which is acting provoke the attachment? And looking at that. In terms of criticizing them, you know, what is the condition that provokes you to criticize them and looking at, on the contrary, of what they do right as opposed to what you see them as doing wrong.
You were to maybe you should meditate on them in the form of a skeleton. Yes? So the the the What it what it what appears? What arises from what did you call it? Negative action, the type of happiness that you say that arises from negative actions. It only appears as happiness.
It is not happiness. It cannot It does not remain in the nature of happiness. If if it were, then however much one were to experience it, it should One should only experience it as happiness. It it only gives an appearance of happiness but is, in fact, not real happiness. Okay.
Thank you.