Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Framing five minutes of meditation on the awakening heart as generating merit equal to space, Khensur Rinpoche builds that claim from first principles in this 36-minute talk. He opens by explaining why ignorance can be uprooted: it is false awareness while wisdom realizing emptiness is true, and the false yields to the true. Buddha nature follows — the seed of all excellent qualities already present in every mind — before the tone sharpens with a blunt comparison: those who neglect practice despite having intelligence, teachers, and the Dharma are no better placed than cats and dogs. He then unpacks the awakening heart’s vast merit through a proportional argument — aspiring to help innumerable beings generates proportionally boundless skillful actions — and closes the formal teaching with a seed-and-field metaphor for patient cultivation. Q&A covers Abhidharma practice, animal intelligence, and the formal definition of the awakening heart.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 30 1992 12 08 PT The Awakening Heart 1b.mp3
UUID: f6555368-1515-495e-94bb-2be280b98379
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks 1988-2003 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-12-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 36.3 minutes
Words: ~2,244
Ignorance is a false awareness, whereas the wisdom realizing emptiness is truth. But more than that, ignorance is associated with various afflicted emotions, other distorted awarenesses, whereas the wisdom realizing emptiness is associated with non distorted awarenesses with very powerful awarenesses which enable which are in accordance with the facts. So by their very nature the conception of the wisdom realizing emptiness along with its various assisting factors is able to overcome that which is false. That which is false is eliminated by that which is true, due to by their very nature until the false, that is the ignorance, is completely eliminated from the mind. And out of all of these assisting factors and the wisdom realizing emptiness itself out of the awakening heart and compassion etc, we are able to generate happiness within our mind.
We have eliminated all our various faults and by the wisdom realizing emptiness we are able to bring to consummation all our excellent qualities. So from this line of reasoning we can clearly see that we have the capacity; it is quite reasonable that there is a method by which we can remove all the various faults from the mind and bring our excellent qualities to fulfillment. So we may agree that well in general I can understand that it’s possible to attain this state, but can I in particular? And there is no reason that we ourselves individually cannot achieve this state, because its root is within all of our individual minds, that is its basic cause, that is our Buddha nature. Because we have Buddha nature, then we are able to develop all of these qualities such as wisdom realizing emptiness, love, compassion and the awakening heart.
If we did not have Buddha nature then we would not be able to develop them, but in fact we have, we have the seeds of all of these excellent qualities within our mind. So this healthy attitude, kind hearted attitude and the awakening heart is extremely beneficial both to ourselves and others and that if we were to cultivate it through our meditation, to train, then we can generate this quality of mind. If we don’t meditate, we don’t train in its development, then of course we will not develop. So whatever the quality it may be, it’s necessary for us to proceed in a method of training our mind and its development. At one time or other we have to actually cultivate it.
It doesn’t it’s not there by its very nature. We have very we have many excellent qualities within us which have been brought about by the force of familiarity over previous lives and those qualities which we have not developed as yet, it’s necessary that we we make the effort in developing over the course of this life. It’s it’s in terms of the degree of our effort and the forcefulness of our meditation which will determine whether we go on to develop these other excellent qualities. So it’s necessary for us to train, we can read various books, we can listen to teachings and to finally meditate well and we have to employ a variety of methods in this pursuit of developing these excellent qualities. In the normal course of events, when we we want to achieve some kind of result, have to engage in various types of activities.
We have to employ many various methods. If we don’t make effort then we won’t even get food in our life. If we just want to eat then we have to do something about it. And likewise with respect to the fact that we all want happiness, that none of us want to suffer. So we have to begin to to understand, well what are the causes of happiness?
And understanding the causes, begin to practice those causes, and understanding what are the causes of suffering that which we don’t want, and understanding their causes, begin to abandon those causes. And if we act in this way that we begin to abandon the causes of suffering, cultivate the causes of happiness, then of its then happiness will arise by way of its own nature having once created the cause and our sufferings will cease. So we all have we all are intelligent, we all have the time to practice the Dharma, we all understand the various ways of practicing, the ways of meditating. If we don’t, then it’s our own individual fault. Not working this way, one’s life actually has very little meaning; there’s a danger that one’s life will be meaningless, purposeless. But on the other hand, if we were to, as much as we were able, implement these means, use our intelligence and finally cultivate these states, then our life has great meaning.
So, you know, there are many beings which don’t have the intelligence that we possess, that don’t have that aren’t able to understand the Dharma, that don’t have the Dharma, that don’t have a spiritual teacher. For example cats and dogs, you know they they’re simply not able to understand. Even if you were to teach them they would not understand and it’s no great wonder that they don’t meditate. We don’t even think about them not engaging in meditation. But on the other hand, we ourselves have intelligence and we can understand what is presented to us, we have teachers, we have those who assist us in our practice, help us in our meditation, and if we were not to meditate then we would be on the same level as a cat or a dog.
So these you know, ourselves have to bring about our own individual happiness, no one else can do it for us. And likewise we ourselves have to eliminate our own sufferings no one else can do it for us and this is going to be this is true of this life and it’s going to be true of other lives. So it’s necessary for us to begin to as individuals within our own lives to abandon the cause of suffering to begin to bring about to implement the causes of happiness. This is there’s no other way than this. If we were If we were to meditate only for five minutes on the awakening heart, that we would in that process of meditation we would cultivate creative potential equal to space.
Powerful, it has that much ability, has that much potential, that great of a blessing. It’s that would be that much benefit. The results would be equal to all of space. As you know initially we talked, we discussed a verse from that the Buddha taught in which he was describing the benefits of the awakening heart, and if meditating only for five minutes on the awakening heart, if the results, if the positive results of that meditation were to have formed, then that result would not be able to fit in the universe. When we say the results are equal to space, we aren’t just using that term haphazardly or meaninglessly, but in fact we can set up some correct reason which establishes that very fact.
When we develop the attitude of aspiring to eliminate our various faults, to bring the consummation of our excellent qualities in order to eliminate the suffering of one living being and to bring that one living being to happiness, for example our own mother developing this attitude, then we develop a proportionate amount of skillful actions. It is as if we develop one skillful action with respect to one living being. But if we were to go on to observe more and more living beings, we were to observe ten and develop this aspiration to eliminate their suffering and to achieve bring them to happiness by eliminating our own faults and developing our own excellent qualities, we would proportionally develop ten skillful actions, and then we could go on to a hundred living beings and develop a hundred skillful actions. But in fact all living beings are innumerable. If we are able to develop that attitude toward innumerable living beings, living beings are as if equal to space and then proportionally the skillful actions that we create will be equal to space.
If it had form, it would not be able to fit in space. The Śākyamūni Buddha said that whatever that we seek to cultivate should have its basis in sound reasoning. It shouldn’t be something which we pull out of thin air, but it should be rational. So the awakening heart is extremely beneficial, it’s very precious and we should try to implant latencies within our mind with respect to we shouldn’t think well you know I meditated on the awakening heart last year and I didn’t develop it or I meditated on yesterday and I didn’t gain any realizations. It’s not going to happen.
In fact you know we have to implant the seeds within our mind. The awakening heart is like the sprout and we have to initially implant the seed. It’s like you know if you could grow a crop without ever planting the fields, without ever planting the seeds, without ever cultivating watering etc, then there would be no famine in Africa. There would be crops growing everywhere, but that’s simply not the case. We know that if we want a crop we have to plant the seeds, have to cultivate, prepare the field, we have to water it and nurture it, and likewise with development of the awakening heart.
So our mind is like a field in which is necessary to, in order to grow a crop to plant seeds, and we’re trying to plant the seeds of the development of the awakening heart and it’s necessary in trying to cultivate the crop of the awakening heart to plant its seeds. And this is done through a very powerful and unmistaken way of meditating in which we plant faultless seeds. If we plant seeds which in fact have some kind of blemish then they won’t grow properly. But if we plant powerful and faultless unmistaken seeds through our meditation on the awakening heart we plant it today and we go on to meditate tomorrow and the next year then these the potent these seeds will be extremely potent, they’ll be very fertile and then at some time in the future simply by listening to the teachings on the awakening heart this will act as if watering these seeds and these seeds will be activated and the flowers of the awakened heart will quickly shoot forth. So we’re going to stop and let’s if you have some questions, If you have some questions, then we’ll we’ll discuss those.
Otherwise, we’ll we’ll we’ll stop there. So do you have any questions? So, you know, whatever suffering arises for myself, because I’m able to view it in terms of Abhidharma practice, it doesn’t amount to much suffering and in fact I can eventually eliminate it and there’s no suffering. And because my mind is happy, then naturally my mind, body, I experience physical happiness. When one experience a mental happiness, this induces physical happiness, so I’m happy.
Is this so? Is it true? What do you mean by true? Is it true or not? So the embodiment, the dog’s embodiment has, like our own, evolved out of ignorance.
It has its root cause in ignorance, and therefore it is is said to be false. But just in terms of its appearance, it does not exist the way it appears. It is not established the way it appears and therefore it is not true. It does not truly exist the way it appears. But it does have intelligence, it can it’s able to, when it’s cold, it’s able to understand it’s cold, when it’s hot it’s able to understand it when it’s hot, it’s able to understand that this person is kind in giving us food, this person is someone who harms me.
But in terms it’s actually very limited in intelligence with respect to being able to understand the Dharma. If you were to teach it, then it simply doesn’t have the capacity at present to be able to understand and not being able to understand it, it cannot go on to meditate on what it’s heard. Roughly speaking, it is initially the cultivation of love and compassion. And out of our sense of love, wishing to bring others happiness, out of our sense of compassion, wishing to eliminate their suffering in a complete way. Then going on from there, in order to achieve that end, simply in order to actually be able to actualize that, that aspiring to a state where one has that ability and that is the state where oneself has eliminated all of one’s own various faults and has brought to consummation all of one’s excellent qualities.
And taking on the responsibility to bring this about in fact, and committing oneself to the achievement of that state, then when this aspiration to achieve that state comes spontaneously, arises in one’s mind spontaneously. The spontaneous aspiration to achieve the state of having removed one’s faults and developed one’s excellent qualities in order to eliminate the suffering of others and to lead them to complete happiness — that is the development of the awakening heart. And then there’s a few final prayers. First one on page ten. On page five verses eight and nine.