Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche opens with a live guided meditation on bodhicitta — the awakening heart — inviting listeners to hold the wish that all beings find happiness and its causes. He then unpacks what bodhicitta actually means: not a matter of robes, gender, or setting, but the aspiration to lead all beings to ultimate freedom — which first requires eliminating one’s own faults. A vivid analogy carries the point: two people trapped in a well cannot rescue each other; one must climb out first. Rinpoche traces all suffering to its root in self-grasping, then shows how the view of dependent arising dissolves it. He closes with a courtroom image: the wisdom realizing emptiness, like an honest witness supported by love and compassion, defeats the conception of true existence, which is bolstered by attachment and anger. Accessible to general audiences with no prior background required.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 29 1992 12 08 PT The Awakening Heart 1a.mp3
UUID: a5560b0a-62cb-4eeb-9f53-5484b04d176a
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks 1988-2003 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-12-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.9 minutes
Words: ~2,107
So cultivate our motivation. So as a as our motivation, seeking to cultivate the healthy attitude of altruism, a beneficial intention toward others. If we were to cultivate such an attitude, it would be beneficial for all of us. So we’re going to cultivate a beneficial attitude, that of love. So I think if you were to meditate as I proceed explanation, then I think the cultivation will go well.
So just as we ourselves want happiness, likewise all living beings, whosoever, are exactly the same in wanting happiness. So developing a wish that both ourself and others have happiness and the causes of happiness. Would it not be wonderful if myself and all living beings had happiness and the causes of happiness? May myself and all living beings have happiness and the causes of happiness. In developing the exceptional resolve that I myself will lead all living beings to the state where they have only happiness and the causes of happiness.
In order to achieve that end, I myself must achieve a state of having removed all my various faults and brought to consummation all my excellent qualities. Today we’re going to talk about the essence of the universal vehicle, that is the Mahāyāna vehicle. The state of awakening, the awakening of the heart. The Buddha Śākyamūni in a verse extolled the virtues of the awakening heart, talking about how precious it was, this inner quality of the awakening heart and how extremely beneficial it is if one develops it within one’s mind. The universal vehicle is determined by means of the quality of mind.
Whether it is the universal vehicle or not, it is not something that matter whether the person who talks about it has red or yellow clothes, and whether one has hair on one’s head or not, whether the room is a special type of room or building or not. But it’s a quality of mind and this quality is the awakening heart. Whether one is a practitioner of the universal vehicle or not is a matter of having developed the awakening heart. If one develops this mind of the awakening heart, whether one is a male or female, whether one is a layperson or a monk, whether one the various clothes, the various shapes, sizes make no difference whatsoever. Even an animal, having developed the awakening heart, is a practitioner of the universal vehicle.
So what do we mean by the awakening heart? It is a quality of mind. As we proceeded in our meditation at the beginning of our talk, it is aspiration which seeks the welfare of all living beings in a sense of out of compassion wishing to free them from their suffering and out of love, wishing to bring them consummate happiness. And in order to do that, aspiring to remove all of one’s various faults and develop all of one’s excellent qualities. So in order to bring about this benefit to others, one oneself has to develop the qualities of removing all one’s faults and having brought to consummation all of one’s excellences.
And it’s this aspiration which is the awakening heart. So it is an attitude wishing to benefit others, a sense of altruism. Encompassed within the intention to eliminate all other sufferings and to bring them an ultimate happiness, to bring them an unchanging type of happiness. So an intention to lead all living beings to this state where they have eliminated all of their suffering and have brought to consummation all of their excellent qualities. So it is this kind hearted attitude, a sense of altruism.
If in order to bring about this end of leading all living beings to this state where they have eliminated all their various sufferings and have brought to have found ultimate happiness in order to achieve that. And if one oneself does not eliminate all of one’s own suffering and bring complete happiness to oneself, then one is not able to lead others. One cannot establish others in such a state. So by way of analogy, if there were two people who fell into a well, and though one may have the intention to save the other, while they’re both within that well, other person, though having an intention, cannot really save the other. Likewise, with respect to ourselves, while we are abiding within suffering, then it’s it’s we cannot lead others to a state which is completely free of all suffering, where they have an ultimate happiness, while we ourselves abide in such a suffering state.
And with respect to this analogy that if having the intention to save the other, if one in fact climbed out of the well, freed oneself from that difficult situation, then one could thereby be free to implement the methods and one would have the ability to save the other person. And likewise, with respect to ourselves, though we have these various healthy attitudes of love and compassion which aspire to lead others to a state of unchanging happiness where they are completely free of all their suffering, suffering. But we simply don’t have that ability until we ourselves initially have removed all our various faults and have brought to consummation all excellent qualities. Until we achieve that same state of complete happiness where we ourselves are not suffering, we will not be able to lead others to that same state. Seeing this situation that is necessary to achieve this state and aspiring to this state in order for the benefit of others is the awakening heart.
In order to eliminate others suffering and to lead them to a state of complete happiness, is it necessary that we ourselves achieve that state as a prerequisite? How is that having achieved that state where we have eliminated all our various faults and brought to consummation all our excellent qualities going to be a benefit to others? How are we going to lead others if we were to reflect upon that? Then we could, having achieved that state of removing our various faults and developing our excellent qualities, would have the ability whereby we could emanate hundreds and thousands of bodies from ourselves. And each of those emanations would be able to teach the Dharma to living beings, to give them various methods to assist them in alleviating their suffering and finding happiness.
For example, there are many varieties of living beings. There are many types, there are many capacities and dispositions. And a Buddha has the ability to simply by speaking one word, whether it be impermanence or emptiness, that even if there were a hundred people listening, each of them would be able to that one word, even if they understood different languages, they would be able to understand. It perfectly fit their need at that present time. It would be perfectly attuned to their unique situation that Buddha is able to teach in that skillful way.
Even in teaching the Dharma, even speaking one word, the word impermanence or emptiness, would be understood by thousands of people. Whatever was necessary for them to understand, that’s what they would hear. That whatever would be a benefit, that’s what they would hear. And whatever would fulfill their desire, their longing, that is what they would hear. You know, there would be no need for translators.
Whatever Whatever language they understood, whether it’s Hindi or English or Chinese, each of them would understand that teaching in their own individual language, then they quickly gain realizations of the path and be able to bring about the elimination of their problems and find happiness. Having achieved such a state when all of one’s activities are extremely powerful, they have tremendous potential, have great blessings involved in them. If oneself has eliminated one’s own faults and developed all of one’s excellent qualities, then one has the ability to lead others to that same state. If not, then one cannot lead one’s students to a state which oneself has not attained. It just says in the case if one understands English then one can teach others English.
If one understands Tibetan language then one can teach Tibetan to others. If one doesn’t understand Tibetan, then you can’t teach others how to Tibetan. You have no ability to be able to help them to understand Tibetan since you don’t understand the language yourself. So one can lead others to the same state that oneself has achieved. By having achieved the state of eliminating all of one’s various faults and developed all of one’s excellent qualities, one understands how to go about doing that and therefore one has the ability to lead others to that same state.
So this is extremely wonderful. We would agree that to eliminate all the sufferings of others and to lead them to a state of complete happiness whereby by means of having eliminated all of one’s various own faults and brought to consummation one’s own excellent qualities. We will all agree that that’s one very wonderful. But the question might arise, well can I actually achieve that state? Can I actually do it?
And we can do that and if you were to ask, well what kind of reasoning can I use to establish this? We can clearly set out the reason which establishes this fact. So how can we go about this process? What is the reasoning which establishes it? The root of all our various sufferings, all our faults, all that we experience as undesirable in our life, is self grasping.
This attitude of the mind. It is as in the case if we were to cut the roots of a tree, and by cutting the roots, then the rest of the tree will of its very nature wilt away. All the various leaves and branches will slowly die simply by cutting the root. Likewise, if we are able to eliminate the root of all our problems, that is the self then all that arises from that root, all our various sufferings, all that is undesirable, all our various faults will of themselves cease. If there is no cause, then there is no result.
So how are we to eliminate self grasping? It is by means of the view which is set out by was set out by Śākyamūni Buddha, that is to say the view of dependent arising. And that is to say, whatsoever the phenomenon may be, that they arise in dependence upon causes and conditions upon their parts, they all rely upon being imputed by means of terms and concepts. There is nothing which does not rely upon these factors. There is not even an atom which exists that does not rely upon these factors for its arising.
And it is by means of dependent arising, by means of dependent arising we are able to eliminate the conception of true existence. The conception of true existence is positing something which does not exist to exist. It is a distorted awareness and through the realization of dependent arising that we are able to eliminate this distorted awareness from our minds. The object of the conception of true existence is false. It in fact does not exist.
But the object of the wisdom realizing emptiness is true. And these two minds of the realization of emptiness and the conception of true existence cannot exist simultaneously. They are incompatible. And the truth is stable, whereas the false can be eliminated by the power of the truth. And so the conception of true existence, which has a false object, can be overcome by means of the realization of emptiness.
So it’s analogous to a situation where a thief is brought to court and he in fact is lying about the fact that he stole whereas the person who was stolen from is honestly reporting what happened, telling the truth, and the truth will win out over the falsity. So not only to carry this analogy further, further, that the wisdom realizing emptiness in itself is true. But it is also assisted by the truth, as if it’s being represented by an honest lawyer. And these truths which assist the wisdom realizing emptiness are the qualities of love and compassion, the awakening heart, generosity, ethics, tolerance, etc. These all are concordant awarenesses which are extremely powerful and able to assist the wisdom realizing emptiness.
On the other hand the conception of true existence in itself is false and is represented by false deceptive lawyers — such types of consciousness as distorted awarenesses such as attachment, hatred, anger, confusion. So the conception of true existence is additionally being assisted by other distorted awarenesses.