Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 99-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche works through Nāgārjuna’s account of the thirty-two auspicious signs adorning a Buddha’s body — golden wheels on palms and soles, webbed hands, a golden complexion, the famous hair-curl between the eyebrows — tracing the specific karmic cause behind each sign. Generosity produces certain marks; keeping vows firmly produces others; looking upon beings with love rather than attachment produces beautiful eyes. Rinpoche ties the whole catalogue to the two accumulations: merit builds the Buddha’s form body, wisdom realizing emptiness builds the Buddha’s mind. The session closes with practical community matters: a call for Buddha House membership and a sponsorship appeal for newly arrived, destitute monks at Sera Monastery in India.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 PG 1991 06 05.mp3
UUID: 0c66dcea-46c0-469f-b2bf-dadc26dcceab
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Precious Garland 1990-1991 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1991-06-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 99.0 minutes
Words: ~2,933
Begin by adjusting our motivation. Begin by developing love. The attitude reflected in the thought wishing that myself and all sentient beings have happiness and the causes of happiness and compassion reflected in the wish that may myself and others, all sentient beings, be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. You try to increase the forced one off of that attitude in development of the exceptional resolve, developing the wish that others have happiness and the causes of happiness, so that I myself will bring them happiness and the causes of happiness. And developing the wish that may others be separated from their suffering and the causes of suffering to I will separate them from their suffering and the causes of their suffering.
Though one wishes to take the responsibility to free others from suffering and to bring them the causes of happiness, still we have to examine as to whether we have that ability or not. And upon examination we find, in fact, we don’t. And we question, well who does? Only an individual who has removed all the various faults and brought the consummation of all their excellent qualities has such a capacity. If I myself were to eliminate all my various faults and bring the consummation of my excellent qualities, then I would be able to free all sentient beings from their suffering and to bring them complete happiness.
That I myself must attain a state free of all various faults and having brought the consummation of excellent qualities, and having done that, then I, in turn, will lead all sentient beings to the state free of all faults and the development of all their excellent quality. So for the next three minutes cultivate the motivation that in order to achieve that great end, that I am going to listen well to the essence of the great vehicle, the Precious Garland, and having listened to that put into practice what I have heard. The text, Precious Garland, was written in a form of advice to a king. And here we’re beginning a section where Nāgārjuna is addressing himself to the king saying that the Buddha has thirty two excellent signs and that if are the bodhisattvas also have similar signs. If one were to have these, for example, yourself, or the king, then this would be a wonderful thing.
And so I’m going to describe the nature of these signs and their causes. So for example, of the auspicious, these auspicious signs, the Buddha has two golden wheels, one on the palm of each hand and two on the soles of his feet. So there are these signs, the four golden wheels, two on his feet, two on his hands. So these golden wheels are extremely beautiful. We have lines on the palm of our hands, but the Buddha’s hands are smooth and have the clear impression of golden wheels.
Extremely beautiful. So, what are the causes of these auspicious signs? The causes are that previously the Buddha had these signs arise through the honoring of stupas or reliquary monuments, honorable beings, superiors, and elders, older people. By respecting them, by showing them honor, this was the cause for these signs of the golden wheels. So this is one auspicious sign, the golden wheels.
Then another sign is that the Buddha’s feet are flat, level, that they don’t have an arch, and that he does not touch the ground upon which he walks, but the impression is made upon the ground though he doesn’t touch it. So these level feet are a second auspicious sign. So this is one more auspicious sign. So the cause of these level feet of not touching the ground is that previously when having committed oneself to vows, but holding them very firmly, continuously. This is the cause of the auspicious signs, this particular auspicious sign.
The next auspicious sign is just in the way that ducks have webbed feet. The Buddha’s hands have webbing between the fingers. The spaces between our fingers are empty. But between Buddha’s fingers there’s webs, he has webbed hands. So the cause of the Buddha’s webbed hands is first the practice of generosity, and second that his speech is very pleasant, it’s beneficial, it’s spoken in order to help others in their practice.
Okay. The next auspicious sign is that the back of the hands are convex. I don’t know what you would call it. The back of the hands are convex as is the instep of the foot. Instep of the foot, the upper side — convex, convex, convex.
Bulging outward, bulging upward. The back of the hands and the back of the feet are convex. The shoulders broad, and the nape of the neck is convex, is thick and convex. [Not concave. Buddha is convex.]
So these beautiful markings the cause of these beautiful markings are the giving of food and drink. And thereby developing these auspicious signs. The next auspicious sign is that the Buddha’s body is very beautiful. It’s straight, it’s not bent, It’s very big. The next one is that he has long fingers and long teeth.
Cause of this auspicious sign is by having abandoned the harming of others, the cultivation of tolerance, and the freeing of those who are troubled by suffering. The auspicious signs, further auspicious signs are that the Buddha’s face is very beautiful, that his ankles are not prominent, and that his bodily hairs, the hairs on his body grow upwards. His fingernails are the color of copper. You know, some women, they paint their nails. His are naturally the color of copper.
And his calves not bulging, they’re slender like those of an antelope. With clear mind, sharp intelligence. So this clear-minded, sharp intelligence has as its cause making effort through respect of his teachers and making great effort with respect to various crafts such as the painting of deities, the drawing of mandalas, Another sign is the Buddha has broad hands which are very texturous. The cause of this auspicious sign is that of immediate giving or that is to say if someone were to, a thief were to steal your possessions, simply say, Oh, take them. I don’t need them.
They’re yours. This would act as the cause. And the next auspicious sign is that secret organ is retracted inside. It’s retracted inside. Because of this sign is the reconciling of those who are in division, those who are in disharmony, bringing them together, reconciling their differences.
The Buddha’s body is golden. It is clean, very clear complexion, very smooth. The cause of this sign is the giving of delicious, nutritious food, and along with comfortable seats, carpets, carpets, seats. Then the auspicious sign that the Buddha has very little body hair, he does have the hair, the circle of hair between his eyebrows. And this is a hair which is curled around itself.
And if this hair were extended to its full length, it would extend to Sydney, and it’s white in color. When you see a painting of a Buddha, you see a white spot there. That is this hair curl. Cause of this auspicious sign is that all of the Buddha’s activities are extremely powerful and produce only good. None of them are negative.
But they’re all beneficial. The next auspicious lines are the Buddha’s shoulders are curved, the level, the even with one another, but he was big chested like a lion. The cause of this auspicious sign is that the Buddha’s speech was always present, pleasing, always in accordance with the facts. So, on a special sign that the extreme stability of the Buddha’s mind and that whatever he, whatever tastes, whatever he tastes is extremely delicious and this arises through the caring for the sick and to those who are depressed. His teeth, there are twenty four on the bottom, twenty four on top.
They’re extremely white and even. They’re not crooked. And this has come about through showing respect to one’s lama and honoring those who are worthy of honor. Has long-lashed eyes and beautiful, lovely eyebrows. The cause of this was that whenever he was to look upon someone, he didn’t look at them out of attachment or anger or confusion, but only out of love.
So these are the thirty two auspicious signs beautifying a Buddha’s body, and with respect to their cause, mainly their cause was generosity and a kind heart. So if we practice generosity well, then we can achieve these auspicious signs of a Buddha. Temporally, we will achieve objects of enjoyment as a temporal result, but ultimately we will achieve these thirty two signs. Through the cultivation of love, we can achieve the eighty marks of a Buddha, sometimes referred to as the minor signs, the minor signs of the eighty marks. A Buddha’s body is ornamented with thirty two signs and eighty marks, making a total of one hundred and twelve signs and marks.
And by these practices, we can achieve these ornaments. So the various practices such as love, compassion, the awakening heart, generosity, ethics, and tolerance, they all comprise the accumulation of creative potential. There are two types of accumulations. There’s the accumulation of creative potential and the accumulation of wisdom. Merit.
So the accumulation of creative potential achieves the body of the Buddha, whereas the wisdom realizing emptiness is the means to achieve the mind of a Buddha. Okay. Doctor Lin here. She’s here.
She’s always used to. So that’s my Dharma teaching for tonight. So we are all to the Dharma and cultivating the Dharma, and through this process we’re planting many latencies of the Dharma within ourselves and we’re developing many excellent qualities. You have an extremely wonderful opportunity that there are all these various teachings on Dharma, and that if you want to go to the teachings, then you can go. If you don’t want to go, then you don’t go.
You can choose whatever you want to go without any difficulty deciding which one or not to go at all. If we were seeking out the dharma, it would be extremely difficult to go somewhere else. For example, to go all the way to India or even to go to Sydney or Melbourne or Queensland to Chenrezig for example? The fact that we have no difficulty finding the teachings. We can do exactly as we wish.
The Dharma is easily available to us. We’re able to listen to it, meditate on it, cultivate it. This all comes about through the kindness of If Buddha House can remain for a long time and grow, then you can continue as you desire to attain enlightenment teachings, to listen, to cultivate that which is being taught. Buddha House is extremely kind to its students, and that must be mutual, the students must be also kind to Buddha House. So the students are benefiting from Buddha House through their spiritual development.
If the the student, if Buddha House is to continue and to grow, must make effort in helping Buddha House. So it’s very beneficial and it’s excellent that there are as many members that the students become members of Buddha House. So if those who were not presently members were to become members, then this would be a great benefit to Buddha House. Not only to be a member of Buddha House, but additionally to help Buddha House in whatever way you can, whatever abilities that you may possess, try to make use of those in benefiting Buddha House to develop. Previously I have not spoken about the situation of Tenzin and myself, but I would like to speak about that for the first time.
So I had been to Chenrezig, the Dharma center, three times, to the Sydney Dharma center three times, to the Tasmania Dharma center twice. So, at each of these centers, when I went there, I spoke about the new arriving monks who were coming from my homeland in Kham, who were coming to Sera and they had, without any possessions, and asking for the students’ help. And I said that it would be extremely beneficial because they have no food or clothing that if they could be given some kind of monthly support. So I explained that we had worked out a system whereby individuals could send a sum of two or three months allowance to Buddha House and there was in charge a woman by the name of Vasily and Tenzin and that they would forward these donations to the teachers and the teachers would allot each of the students the necessary amount to supply them with their needs and the students would in turn write to their various donors. So I have never mentioned this to a group at Buddha House.
I have mentioned this individually to Kimball. Vasily has been doing this job for about two or three years, and she was finding it more and more difficult because she has a lot of work to do. So she asked to be excused, and she was given she was allowed to give up the job. So I asked Margaret to work with Tenzin and she accepted, so now Margaret and Tenzin share this responsibility. Vasily was really extremely beneficial for over two years, and I asked her to pray that things go well for her, that she have a long life.
So I would like to thank all of the esteemed of Buddha House who have been acting as patrons up to now, the many students who have acted as patrons up to now. It’s been very beneficial. With Sera there are many new arrivals and without food, without clothing, without necessary living quarters and if you’re able I ask you to help in supporting them. There some who say that the life of a monk is quite easy, that things are quite luxurious. So there are those who do have sufficient livelihood, sufficient food and shelter, so therefore whatever donations are made are not given to them, but only those who are in need.
So I want you to understand that whatever donations are made are not given to those who have sufficient means already. It’s given to those who are newly arriving, some with only the clothes on their back. They have not even five cents. And it’s to them that we, to those, the very needy, that we are trying to supply the needs of. So what we ask in order of support is ten dollars a month, and this can feed one monk.
In India it’s sufficient and ten dollars a month will not make an Australian poor. Presently there are many cases where, for example, a teacher may have five students and three of those students may have a patron and the food is shared out equally amongst all five. So it’s a very difficult situation. On the other hand, aside from the individual support, the support for individual monks, There’s the support for Sera Monastery as a whole, which any support would provide for the monks as a whole. Having saved up money, to have acted as a patron to the Sera Monastery as a whole.
So there is, the Dalai Lama has established a health clinic at their monastery where the monks are examined and given medicine over and those who, for example, have TB are attended to over long periods of time. The health clinic serves not only monks but laypeople and Indians. They requested that we send them money and we sent them eight eight thousand rupees. They needed new toilet block, so we sent them five thousand rupees for that. Initially when the monastery was set up, there was only a plant with three hundred monks, living quarters for three hundred monks.
Now there are over two thousand. And so more land needs to be purchased and to that end we sent six thousand rupees. Then it is necessary to build a stupa for my teacher, Yönden Gyatso, and his students asked me for donations to help in building this stupa and I sent five thousand rupees. I also made a general offering to the monks of Sera of twenty five thousand rupees. India, India.
Yeah, twenty five thousand Indian rupees. So I have been sending whatever I have been requested in terms of individual requests and common requests for the general whole. So I wanted to explain a little to you about the situation at Buddha House, but also the situation with respect to Tenzin and myself. I thought it would be worthwhile if you were to know this. So there have been maybe requests that we recite Khensur Rinpoche’s long life prayer at the end of each teaching, but Rinpoche feels that many students would probably enjoy doing that, would like to do that, but there might be some who wouldn’t like to do that, and it might be troublesome for some of you.
So you can make your individual prayers for his well-being and long life, and that we can recite his long life prayer at our pujas. Maybe sometimes when the students come for the first time, they might not appreciate it. It might be a trouble for them, so we won’t. There’s another very short verse that we can add to our prayer book which would be appropriate, but we don’t have it at present, so we’ll put it in the prayer book in the near future. So this is just simple four line prayer that we can add in the future.