Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A striking image anchors this session: Khensur Rinpoche asks practitioners to imagine transforming their own body into a wish-fulfilling gem the size of a mountain, then radiating whatever each class of being most needs. In this 102-minute commentary on the lojong instruction to “train alternately in giving and taking,” Rinpoche first defines love precisely — not pleasant feelings but stable, uncontaminated happiness — and cites the Buddha’s own verse that ten minutes of meditating on love surpasses unimaginable offerings to the Buddhas. He then walks realm by realm through a giving visualization: cooling rains for hot-hell beings, warmth for those frozen in cold hells, food for hungry ghosts, wisdom for animals, non-attachment for desire-bound humans, diligence for the gods, and finally empowering bodhisattvas and Buddhas themselves. He closes by stressing that this is a practice of mind alone, its power proportionate to the sincerity of one’s aspiration to give.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 LMT 1997 07 22.mp3
UUID: c0456ef2-6b60-4cda-a3dc-59fcfbc8deec
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lojong Mind Training (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1997-07-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 102.5 minutes
Words: ~5,437
We’ll begin by adjusting our motivation, the motivation that we’re to listen to this teaching of the Dharma with. We should we’re going to spend a few minutes cultivating as our motivation the kind hearted attitude of the awakened heart. And just as we ourselves want happiness and do not want to suffer, likewise, all sentient beings are exactly the same in wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. So we begin by cultivating compassion, is expressed in the thought, may myself and all sentient beings be free of all unwanted suffering and the cause of that suffering. And just as no one wants to suffer, likewise, all living beings want happiness.
So developing love toward all sentient beings expressed in a thought, may myself and all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. Having cultivated as a preliminary love and compassion, we go on to develop the attitude that wishes to free all sentient beings from suffering and to lead to complete happiness, and moreover that I myself will achieve this end. And in order to do that, I am going to listen to the essence of the universal vehicle Dharma, the teaching on the awakened heart. Having listened to this teaching, I will reflect upon it. Having reflected, I will meditate and put it into practice for the sake of all sentient beings.
So we will be reading from the root text of the seven-point training of the mind, where it says, train alternately in giving and taking. Train alternately in giving and taking. So that’s where we’ll be teaching from today. So with regard to the precious awakening heart, there are two types. There is the awakened heart, which is conventional bodhicitta, and the awakened mind, which is ultimate bodhicitta.
Here we’re going to be discussing the actual method for cultivating the conventional bodhicitta, the awakened heart. And this again is divided into two sections. The method of cultivating it within the meditative session itself, and the way it’s cultivated outside the session. So here the text actually says that in terms of the actual mode of training in the awakened heart. The awakened heart here is qualified with the description that it is a desire that strives to benefit others.
That is to to bring about the welfare of others. And this is this concerns itself with the cultivation of love and compassion. So as a prerequisite to the actual cultivation of the awakened heart, it’s necessary that we cultivate love and compassion as its cause. If we don’t have the cause, then we will not be able to realize the result. The result is an altruistic attitude wishing to benefit others, and its cause is love and compassion.
Contrary, without love and compassion, we will bring harm to others through various expressions such as through lying, tricking them, stealing from them, beating them, even killing them. What do we mean by love? First, love is an attitude which is directed toward sentient beings who are without happiness. And here, what we mean by happiness is not simply happy feelings. Happy feelings are susceptible to change, to corruption.
They quickly change into neutral feelings and then eventually degenerate into types of suffering. They’re unstable. So when we say that we are viewing sentient beings who are without happiness, the happiness which is specifically referred to here is an uncontaminated happiness, the happiness of liberation, a type of stable happiness which no cause of suffering can corrupt. So the happiness which is specifically being described here is a happiness no matter how long or how much we may experience of it, it never degenerates into suffering. It is an unchanging, stable happiness.
So it is this specific happiness which we are looking to sentient beings with regard to. And we can readily understand that there are multitudes of sentient beings who are bereft or without such a type of happiness. And looking upon these sentient beings and wishing, first thinking how wonderful it would be if they had happiness and the causes of such happiness. Going on, may all sentient beings have such a type of happiness and the causes of that happiness. And then finally, I myself will bring them that happiness and the causes of such happiness.
This is love. In order that sentient beings have such a happiness, we are going to practice the method of giving and taking. The giving is motivated with such a love, a love which readily gives to others one’s own body, possessions, and roots of skillful actions or virtues from the heart, wanting them to possess all that is necessary for them to be happy and the willingness to give it to them. If we are to actually give our body possessions roots of skillful actions, our virtues, from the depths of our hearts to others, we have to create the causes, and the cause of the ability to actually give in such a way is love. Without love, there’s no way that we can give in such a manner, that we must develop such a motivation.
And therefore, it’s necessary for us to cultivate a powerful love. This practice of giving is the main practice of the bodhisattva. bodhisattva gives over their body, their possessions, the roots of all of their virtues, skillful actions, and gives them to sentient beings. What is the benefit to be derived from such a practice? By means of their giving, they are able to accumulate the collection of creative potential, great waves of skillful actions.
As a means through accumulating the collection of creative potential or merit, all unwanted suffering is pacified. And moreover, one is empowered to be able to bring about the welfare of both oneself and others. That is to say, one will be able to achieve Buddhahood. But there’s a good chance that you’re now thinking in your mind. If I were to give away my own body, my possessions, and all of my skillful actions, then I wouldn’t be happy.
Not only wouldn’t I be happy, it would just cause me more problems than I already have. It’s not really such a good idea. Sure, it would be difficult initially that we have attachment and that we would find such a practice difficult at first. But once we began to enter into such a practice and began to accumulate merit, a vast wave of skillful actions that we attain through such a practice, and begin to experience the results of that skillful actions, then it won’t be so difficult because as a result of implementing such a practice, we will achieve happiness. But not just the usual happiness that we may normally experience, but a type of happiness that the more we experience, the greater it becomes.
That it is a happiness which is inexhaustible, which just keeps on coming. By way of an analogy, if a farmer had a bag of rice, there are two possibilities or ways that the farmer could make use of this rice, either to eat it then and have some short term enjoyment and derive that much benefit, or on the other hand, to take that bag of rice and plant a field. And from that field, he would harvest a great abundance of rice where he could enjoy that crop himself and he could share it with others. So it’s like that. So in this analogy, the field is likened to sentient beings, and the planting of seeds is the practice of giving.
Through the planting of seeds and the practice of Chenrezig, we will harvest a great crop. So near Sera Monastery, which is situated in India, there were Indian farmers and they received a support by the Indian government of seed, corn, and fertilizer. But rather than planting it, they ate the corn and sold the fertilizer. So they weren’t able to they didn’t last long on the land. And the same applies to ourselves.
However much money that we have, we usually spend it all on ourselves, whether it’s one dollar we go out and have something to eat, or or it’s one hundred dollars we go out and spend it on ourselves, and then it’s finished. But on the contrary, a bodhisattva motivated by love gives what they have and thereby experiences unremitting peace and bliss in the future. This is a practice of a bodhisattva which we are seeking to emulate. So we have to try to emulate these great bodhisattvas in in their conduct. We have to begin at the level of where we are now, but as a means of cultivating a greater and greater ability to give in the future.
The method whereby we begin to cultivate love is to begin to reflect upon the benefits of love. If we think again and again about what the benefits of love are, then we will be willing to again and again put it into meditation. Quoting from a verse by the Buddha, where the Buddha is trying to get across the tremendous benefits to be derived from even cultivating love, what to say of actual love itself. And he says that even if we were to make infinite offerings, you know, as unimaginable as we could suppose, to the greatest field of offering, objects of offering, That is a numberless Buddha’s and Bodhisattvas. And we were to make these numberless offerings to this field of merit for many, many, many years.
That even this could not equal meditating, that the skillful action, the merit that we derive from such an unimaginable way of offering cannot compare to even ten or fifteen minutes of cultivating, meditating love. So Buddha is trying to describe the comparable benefits between making these unimaginable offerings and even meditating on love for ten or fifteen minutes. So this is what the Buddha himself said, and he himself had experienced such a way of a result. But we don’t have to take the Buddha’s word on these vast benefits to be derived from the cultivation of love. We can reason it out.
We can establish it through reasoning. So what is the reasoning that we can make use of here to establish the tremendous benefits of cultivating love? If, for example, we were to cultivate love toward one hundred sentient beings, we would derive a proportionate amount of merit or skillful actions with that is to say, with having cultivated with regard to one hundred sentient beings, we would have one hundred proportions proportionate units of creator potential or merit. So the proportionate benefit would increase according to the number of sentient beings that we cultivated love toward. If we went on to cultivate love toward a thousand, then there would be the a thousandfold benefit, a thousandfold creative potential or skillful action derived, if we went on to ten thousand.
But in fact, sentient beings are numberless. They are as vast as all of space. And if we can cultivate a love which wishes all sentient beings happiness and the causes of happiness, then the skillful action to be derived will be proportionately infinite. The benefit in terms of skillful actions of the cultivation of such a love were to have physical shape, it would not be able to fit in our universe. If we cultivate love, then various types of benevolent beings, demons, spirits can can no longer harm us.
We are able to combat their harm through our love itself. Not only will they not be able to harm us, but on the contrary, they will begin to take a liking to ourselves because of our great love for them. And taking a liking taking a shine toward us, They befriend ourselves begin to be our helpers, our assistants. If we were to meditate love, then we could all of with all that we struggle for so hard to get would come to us naturally. You know, that we we spend a great deal of difficulty in in trying to meet all our various expenses and trying to you know, in enduring all the physical and mental problems that we do.
But if we were simply to sit and cultivate love, we would derive even greater benefit as compared to all the hardships that we go through in order to get what we want. You know, we if we reflect well upon this, we can we can come to understand that through the cultivation of love, we will amass a great deal of skillful action. And the and the result of our skillful action will be all of those things that we struggle presently struggle so hard to get. That through our skillful action as a result of our skillful actions, we will have food, we will have clothing, we will have shelter, we will have friends, we will have happiness and peace. So if we want happiness, this is the way to achieve it.
But on the contrary, at present, we we jump up in the morning, go running about, and spend a busy day, And whatever we’re able to earn over the course of that day is quickly spent, and we really don’t have much happiness to show for it. So this is a practice of the bodhisattva. Through this practice, the bodhisattva amasses creative potential and thereby, as a result, achieves happiness, but not just ordinary happiness, ultimately the happiness of Buddha, of Buddhahood. It was Śākyamūni Buddha who meditated on love at Bodh Gaya and thereby achieved his status. There are overall two means by which we can seek happiness.
There are spiritual means and secular means. Initially, the spiritual means of finding happiness are difficult. We have to go to a lot of trouble, and we may only experience a small happiness as a result. But as we progress in our practice, the difficulty that is necessary to practice becomes less and less, and inversely, the happiness that we experience becomes greater and greater until it becomes an unending happiness. But in terms of the secular, initially, we don’t have to expend a great deal of difficulty, and we experience some happiness.
But as we grow older, the happiness that we experience becomes less and less. Life becomes more difficult for ourselves. We have more problems, more troubles, it seems, until and we have to work harder even to find that the small happiness that we do And the suffering simply seems to increase. It becomes greater and greater. And then finally, even looking past this life, if we were to fall to the levels of hell being or a hungry ghost, where we face almost numberless sufferings for numberless periods of time.
So we have to broaden our perspective and not think just of this life, but think in terms of numberless future lives as well. This if we think in this way, it will bring us back to the essential point where we think where we understand how precious the Dharma is and then and that I must practice it. So we have to think in terms of not only our practice of this life, but a practice which is going to continue from life after life. So, you know, we should think of our cultivation of love very much like the starting of a fire.
The the first we maybe we just have only the light of a match, and we have we just light a stick. And we we having lit lit that stick, we add another stick, and then another, and then we add more and more fuel to the fire. From such insignificant beginnings, a great conflagration which could burn into the entire countryside could come about. Likewise, with our cultivation of love, though at first it’s going to be difficult. We have only perhaps a spark of love to begin with, and we meditate today, but we continue and we meditate again tomorrow and our love grows just that much more.
And then we meditate the next day and then the next week and the next month and the next year until a blazing love fills our our entire being. Having developed this powerful love, we will look to sentient beings who are bereft of happiness and reflect, what is it in what way can I bring them happiness? And we will gladly give over whatever will bring them happiness, whether it be our body, our possessions, our roots of virtue. So in this practice of giving and taking, we can begin by imagining that we are giving our body away to all sentient beings. And initially, we’re going to imagine that we’re transforming it into an environment for the welfare of all sentient beings.
But when we give our body away, we shouldn’t think of it simply as a body of flesh and blood, but that we imaginatively transform our body into a wish fulfilling gem. A wish fulfilling gem is a gem which simply by requesting, it is able to bestow whatever is needed, whether it’s food, clothing, whatsoever. And that we are going to we transform our body into such a wish fulfilling body, not just even the size of our body, but as if it were the size of a mountain. And we’re giving it to all sentient beings and bringing about first a beneficial environment, a beautiful place which is divorced of any roughness or thorns, any types of cliffs where there is plentiful water, where it’s neither hot nor cold, extremely pleasant environment. So having created for all sentient beings a completely pleasant environment, we then go on to bestow upon them a perfect embodiment, their bodies.
And our body radiates out light. And if the sentient beings have some physical problems, maybe they aren’t particularly pleasant looking, or maybe they should have some kind of handicap, that when this light of our own body strikes them, their body is transformed into a perfect embodiment. It is beautiful and healthy. There is said to be seven or a list of seven or a list of eight qualities of such an embodiment to having long life without any disabilities and perfect health, etcetera. So restoring our body to them, imagine giving our body to all sentient beings, And it’s a wish fulfilling body, and whatever possessing this wish fulfilling gem of our body, whatever they wish for comes about, whatever possession they may need, whether it’s food or clothing or shelter, simply by their thinking of it, it it it manifests.
So whether it whatever it may be, food or clothing, shelter, a home, just whatever it is they need, just by them thinking of it, it manifests. So sending to sentient beings all that we have, all our possessions, whatever they may need given to them. And then finally, giving over our roots of virtue, that is to say our skillful actions, our skillful actions that we’ve accumulated in the past, that we are communicating at present, and that we will accumulate in the future. All that has come about through whatever qualities that we may have, whether in terms of our love, our awakened heart, our understanding of emptiness. All of the good qualities that we’ve been able to accumulate is going to be given over to them.
And upon them receiving it, it transforms into the meditative concentrations, transforms into wisdoms within their own mind, it transforms into this thirty seven harmonies with enlightenment. And by means of all of these qualities they are able to develop and all the faults they’re able to eliminate, they achieve Buddhahood. This is the general way in which we are to practice giving. But additionally, there is the method of giving, is specific or particular objects of our giving. So, in this practice of giving, we are taking as objects specific types of sentient beings.
Those beings which have the greatest types of suffering, for example, those beings in the hell realms and hungry ghosts and animals. Beginning with, for example, the hell realms, there are beings which are being burnt in fire, and those beings are beings frozen in ice. And beginning with those taking specifically those who are undergoing the sufferings of the cold hells, who are frozen in ice, that we transform our skillful actions and imagine they radiate out in the form of fire and sun, that is, say, heat. And as a result, the ice melts, and these beings are no longer suffering from cold. They experience the pleasure of warmth.
And then we we can go on, for example, once they are no longer experiencing the suffering of cold, to send as we did before, giving over our body possessions and skillful actions and providing them with an embodied within a perfect environment, perfect embodiments, and all the necessary possessions that they need and inner qualities, and finally establishing them in Buddhahood. And likewise, with regard to those beings who abide in the hot hells, who undergo the great sufferings of being continually burnt in fires, that we transform our body, our possessions, our roots of skillful actions into cooling rains, into the cooling rays of the moon, into cool breezes, pacifying the great heat of their suffering, and whereby they they experience the pleasure of coolness. And we go on to to give them to give to give over all that we have until they have achieved a perfect embodiment, necessary possessions, all the inner qualities, and they too achieve Buddhahood. And then we can specifically imagine giving to the hungry ghosts. hungry ghosts are beings who go without food for long periods of time, without drink, without clothes.
Sometimes they only find a crumb of food over a ten or fifteen year period, and they’re extremely thin and withered and almost dried away. When they run and walk, their legs and arms rub against them, and these sparks fly out. Transforming all that we have, giving them whatever it is that they need, bringing about as before a perfect environment, embodiment, possessions, inner qualities, and they too achieve Buddhahood. And then we take as our object of giving the animals. Animals are plagued by stupidity.
They have many obscurations. And so what they need foremost is wisdom. So we imagine that we radiate out wisdom to them. But they also need compassion for one another. It’s often the case where animals will eat one another.
Radiating out the qualities of love and compassion where they no longer harm one another and their embodiment radiate into a light from ourselves which strikes them, and they achieve a perfect human body, a beautiful, healthy body. And they often live in very poor places. And so, again, transforming the place where they abide into a perfect abode. So again, creating a perfect abode, embodiment, whatever it is that they need, and in all the qualities of perfection. And then there’s the human realm.
And the humans are most noted for their great desires. They want a lot. And so we’re going to give them whatever it is that they want. No whether it be food or clothing, home, money. We’re going to give it all to them.
But still, they need more than just these material things. Need the inner qualities the lessening of their attachment, so giving them non attachment. human beings are quite prone to anger, so giving them love. They experience a great deal of bewilderment and confusion. So sending them wisdom.
So giving them beautiful, healthy bodies. So bringing all the desires that they could ever hope for to fulfillment, giving them whatever they want in in terms of perfect embodiments, perfect possessions, perfect inner qualities until they achieve Buddhahood. Then on top of those we’ve given to thus far, there are the celestial beings, the gods. And the gods are characterized by laziness and jealousy. They have great many obscurations with respect to the Dharma.
And so radiating out to them what it is that they need in terms of wisdom in overcoming their obscurations and joyous effort in overcoming their laziness and helping them to develop meditative concentrations. And then we can take as our object of giving the hearers, the Shravakas, and the Bodhisattvas. And even these highly realized beings still have obscurations of wisdom. Still, they have obscurations of unknowing. They still have the afflictive obstructions and the knowledge obstructions which still need to be abandoned.
So radiating out all of our roots of virtue, which are transformed into wisdom and concentrations and great joyous effort by means of which they are able to quickly abandon the two obscurations and achieve Buddhahood. And then we can take as our object of giving the our spiritual master, the lama, and radiating out lights which bring about their long life, and empowering them with the means to be of extensive benefit to all other sentient beings. And then we can even take the Buddhas as our object and transforming our roots of virtues, radiating out and thereby empowering the Buddhas to be of even greater benefit in bringing about the welfare of sentient beings. It is through such a practice that we can accumulate tremendous amount of merit or skillful action that this altruistic attitude that we developed, that, you know, thinking of what you have simply imagined and rejoicing in having even only imagined to bring this about. Now the Dharma is mainly something which is practiced in terms of our mind.
Its physical and verbal practice is in is insignificant in comparison. So through the power of our imagination, through the power of our prayers, through the power of our aspirations, we can achieve a great deal in terms of our practice. So it’s it’s necessary to emphasize that how very much our practice depends upon our way of thinking, our own mind. But this holds true both in terms of positive and negative. We can readily understand that just in terms of thinking in a negative fashion towards someone, out of an afflictive emotion, we’re accumulating a great deal of unskillful actions, just through our mental attitude toward them.
But this holds true both in terms of the negative but also the positive. By thinking in a skillful fashion, thinking in a beneficial fashion within our own minds, we bring about a great deal of positive potential. So this is very much emphasized within the universal vehicle. The way of practice is very much in terms of our attitudes of mind. It is something which depends upon our thinking.
All that is good or bad, all that is skillful or unskillful, all that is positive and negative depends upon the mind. So nothing is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. That if someone were to see, oh, this is very good, this is very good, it’s not so much that it’s good that the thing itself is good, but their attitude is thinking that it it is good in terms of the way they’re thinking about it. And the same holds true for whether something is bad and thinking this is this is it’s not so much that the thing is bad in itself, but the way that we are thinking of it is is in terms of it being bad. So the measure of of the quantity of the positive or negative, all is in terms of the power of our way of thinking in terms of negative and positive.
The almost unimaginable deeds of the bodhisattva come about through his almost unimaginable greatness of mind, And thereby, the result is almost unimaginable. But those of lesser intention, the hearers and the solitary realizers, they aren’t as great minded in their intentions. Therefore, their deeds are are not as great, and thereby, their results will be that much less. But this holds true just as much so in the world, that there are those who are small minded, and their activities in which they involve themselves reflect their small mindedness, and what they achieve in their life is also proportionately small. But there are those who have great vision, and out of this great vision comes great works, and out of these great works comes great results.
So we’re going to stop there. So what we have been describing has been in terms of imagination, something that we are doing within our own minds. It’s not as if in this practice which has been described that we’re actually physically giving away all of these things. We have not distracted from ourselves physically, but only in terms of expanding our mental attitude of giving. In the practice of giving that we have been describing, it is practiced in terms of a longing to give from the depth of our heart all that we are, in fact, all that we are imaginatively giving.
There has to be a sincerity of wanting to give. It’s not simply a game, and then at the end it doesn’t make any difference. But there has to be a sense of actually longing to be able to give in this way and to imagine giving as best one can. But having said that, within the area of the category of the teachings called Vinaya or moral discipline, It is said, once we give in such a way, that is if we actually dedicate something to another, if we dedicate, say, money to another, then even even if we weren’t to give it to them physically, it is still to be thought of theirs. If I were, for example, to have ten dollars in my mind, I dedicated or gave it over to Champa.
And then later, if someone were to ask me whose ten dollars is that, I would have to say it’s Champa’s. It’s not mine. So we have given over our body, our possessions, our roots of virtue, and dedicated it to all sentient beings. So we don’t have anything really left for ourselves. So if you’ve dedicated, for example, your clothes to sentient beings, then you don’t have any clothes of your own.
So does that mean that we have to go around naked? That’s not the case because out of our love and wanting to bring about the welfare of others, it is it is necessary that we wear clothing. But one wears the clothing of others in order to benefit them. And then there’s no fault. And the same would be true for the use of money.
We’ve given all our money over to sentient beings, but because we have to eat in order to bring about the welfare of others, we can use that money to buy food in order to feed ourselves so that we can work for the sake of sentient beings. And that way, there’s no fault in using their money. So there’s two benefits to be derived from such a way of thinking. One is having given it away. Firstly, we accumulate a creative potential.
And then secondly, sentient beings allow us to make use of what we’ve given them. They benefit through our practice of using it. Also, have less attachment to various articles that are around us. Because these articles aren’t ours, we have no attachment toward them. We create a great deal of negativity out of our attachment.
This is a skillful method to reduce our attachment and thereby block the negativity. So bodhisattvas are really skillful in method. They have many skills in the means of their practice, that through such a practice that they stop creating negativities, that they reduce their attachment, they accumulate creative potential, and they still get to use it. So it’d be good for you if you you know, and when you go to work, you think, I’m going to work for the I’m going I’m going to work for the sake of sentient beings. Very good, yeah.
Okay. So we’ll take one or two minutes for questions. Yes. So the question: does the bodhisattva experience pleasure for all sentient beings as well? So the question is, does the bodhisattva experience pleasure for the sake of all sentient beings?
The Bodhisattva. Pardon? For the Bodhisattva. So — yeah. Go.
So the bodhisattva doesn’t experience the suffering for their own purpose. They experience it for the for the welfare of others. And they give it they give away their happiness to others. They do experience happiness. And they send they give their happiness away.
They don’t experience for the out of self interest, I guess.