Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 48-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche asks why we readily love friends yet struggle with strangers and enemies — tracing the answer to “attractive love,” the sense that someone appears appealing to us. He argues this quality must be extended to all beings before genuine compassion can arise, then walks through the meditation on seeing every sentient being as a former mother, noting frankly that accepting rebirth is a prerequisite for this step to make sense. He closes with a doctor-of-the-mind metaphor: physical medicine offers only temporary relief, whereas love, compassion, exceptional resolve, and the awakening heart remove suffering at its root. A concrete example — anger flaring after a single harsh word ruins an otherwise pleasant morning — illustrates the mental illness these practices are designed to cure.
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File: 02 TAH 1993 08 14.mp3
UUID: 3dcd2cb9-798f-4a6b-aa0e-fa4d281639db
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Awakening Heart (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-08-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.1 minutes
Words: ~2,617
As a preliminary to the generation of the exceptional resolve, it’s necessary that we generate great compassion. Great compassion is is an altruistic attitude of wishing to benefit others in their suffering, and the attitude which wishes that that all living to free all living beings from their suffering. And as a preliminary as a prerequisite to the the generation of this great compassion, we develop love, which is expressed in in a longing that others be joined with happiness, that the longing would it would be wonderful if if all living beings had happiness. So these two love and compassion constitute altruism. This attitude of wishing to benefit others.
As a preliminary to generating altruism, it’s necessary that we develop attractive love. And attractive love views living beings as attractive or appealing. So with respect to the attractive love, we’re trying to see all living beings equally attractive or equally pleasant or appealing in our eyes. At present, we generate or develop love and compassion for loved ones, those who we hold dear, our friends. But we do not, find it difficult to deal with love and compassion for those individuals that are such as strangers and enemies.
So you can think about that for yourself, is that the case or not? So we as was mentioned, we develop love and compassion for those we like, those we hold dear, those who close to ourselves, and we do not generate it for those other than these. Why is that, if we analyze? We generate love and compassion toward those we like or those we hold close because they to us very attractive. They appear very appealing and very pleasant to us.
And therefore, we are able to develop love and compassion for them. On the other hand, our enemies and strangers, we don’t they don’t appear as in that appealing attractive manner. They don’t appear in that present way. Therefore, we we are unable to develop love and compassion for them. But on the contrary on the contrary, we not only do we not generate love and compassion for our for enemies and strangers, we actually treat them in various negative ways and bringing them harm and through harsh words and and hurting them.
That’s this arises because So we we we are unable to generate love and compassion for these individuals because they do not appear attractive to ourselves, that we don’t have attractive love toward them. On on the other hand, we holding to ourselves because at that moment they are appearing very attractive, we have a pleasant love toward them, and that they appear very appealing to us. We don’t relate with them in in negative ways. We don’t have fights with them. We don’t we don’t beat them.
But even these individuals, if once we if we lose that if they lose that attractive appearance to ourselves, that appealing appearance, if we lose our attractive love toward them, then even then we we find it difficult at that moment to develop love and compassion. And we would we would we could we could speak to them harshly and even and beat them at such a moment. So the development of attractive love is extremely important. If we if we do not develop attractive love, there’s no way that we can develop love and compassion. So how are we to to generate attractive love?
And this toward all living beings. That we presently see those we hold close, that is, say, our friends and our partners, we are able to develop attractive love for them. We have attractive love for them. And why is that? Because we see that they are benefiting ourselves.
But we don’t see that in terms of enemies and strangers. And therefore, do not them as being close to ourselves. We do not hold them close to ourselves and that they’re appealing very attractive to ourselves. We are unable to see them in that light. And therefore, we cannot generate attractive love for them, and we cannot by develop love and compassion for them.
Ultimately, the individuals who we hold dear. For those who are practicing in Dharma, we can look upon in that context of those who are practicing in Dharma. We can ultimately look upon those we hold dear as two different types. From the point of view of a worldly ways of holding the others dear and a spiritual way of holding others dear. So that that one from the point of view of of spiritual practice, that one who who is held to be most dear is that individual who facilitates our the means by which we eliminate our our various faults and bring us to consummation our excellent qualities.
That is to say someone who assists us in in eliminating our suffering and bringing ourselves happiness. And that is our lama or spiritual teacher. And within worldly context, that individual who is to be held most dear is one’s mother. I’m not sure if this applies to Westerners. So I’d like to ask you, within a worldly context, over the course of this life, is there someone other than your mother who is your best friend, that person to hold most dear?
Yeah. Come on. Come on. Your pardon? It says that, So here we’re trying to we’re looking at who has been of the greatest benefits to you in the course of this life.
And this is what we mean by the ultimate friend or that person who’s ultimately held us most dear, not at any but you know, over the course of our life. That person who has been ultimately the greatest benefit to ourselves. So I think that’s right wherever we might be, whether it’s Tibet or India or where wherever, that person who has been most ultimate benefit in the course of our life is our mother. But there is a there is so this is the case with whatsoever. There is a case there is a difference in the way that that children are raised in India and Tibet as compared to the West.
So the tradition of India and Tibet are very much the same in respect to the way in which a mother raises a child. First, she has to go through the great pain and difficulty of giving birth. And then all of her attention is then turned toward our welfare as we grow old, us clean, feeding us. She’s the one who teaches us how to speak. As we grow older, she begins to help us to develop whatever excellent qualities that we may develop, teaching us even the alphabet.
Then gradually, so she’s taking care of us our whole life until we reach a certain age where we are going to leave home. And in the Tibetan and Indian tradition then, even at this time, in the parents of the children, the now leaving children, would give a dowry or they would help them to set up in a new home, giving them whatever necessities they might need. Again, if in the case of a monk or a nun, they would ensure that they had all the provisions that they needed, that they had the clothing and food, etc. Even when the child leaves home, the parents are still making provisions for their welfare, still benefiting them, still protecting them and caring for them even when they become adults. I think perhaps this is different in the West, that the children simply leave the house and there is no longer any type of caring relationship which is left.
But I think up to that point, while the children are still small, the kindness and the caring are very much the way of raising the child are very much the same whether in the West or Tibetan or India. So I think if we look at the person who has been most dear to ourselves over the course of our life is in fact our mother. That the person who has ultimately brought us the greatest benefit is in fact our mother. And now we’re trying to cultivate the attitude that in fact all sentient beings have in fact been our mother. But you know, I think when you hear this, this is quite difficult for you to handle, to understand that all living beings have, in fact, been our mother.
Because may not you may not accept the existence of past and future lives. And not accepting the existence of past and future lives, then it makes no sense to say all living beings have been our mother. Without the acceptance of past and future lives and seeing that we have been taking an infinite number of rebirths over each of these rebirths that we have had a mother, and therefore we have had infinite mothers, and that therefore all living beings have in fact been our mother. Without accepting the notion of rebirth, then it becomes very difficult to come to understand that all living beings are in fact our mother. So it’s necessary to meditate on the fact that all living beings are a mother because attractive love, we are seeking to direct that toward all living beings, whosoever, whether male or female or whoever.
And it is necessary to see that additionally, that the person who has been ultimately the most dear to ourselves is our mother. And that all living beings are our mother. If we can make that connection, then we will be able to see all living beings with attractive love. They will look very appealing to us because they have been our mother, and we can direct that even towards strangers and enemies. And and dependence upon that, then we can go on to develop love and compassion for all living beings.
So that’s that’s difficult to proceed if one does not accept past and future rebirth. So this is what we’ve been discussing in our Friday night class, using the means to establish the existence of past and future life and trying to understand the reasoning in the way it is proved. So there are many who have been making effort to understand these reasonings have come to a conclusion for themselves that in fact, past and future lives do exist. So last night, we were having previously discussed the existence of past lives, the establishment of past lives, then went on to explain the proof of future lives. I think your stomachs are rumbling.
Do you have a question? So you’re hungry, so we won’t take too long. But if if you, just take a few minutes if you have a question. So you can meditate that all of your beings are your daughter. So though I meditate on the awakening heart, haven’t cultivated very powerfully as yet.
Once it once that is powerful, then it will then that will as you have described, that will that will come about. So there’s concluding prayers. We can begin with it on page ten. This human embodiment we is extremely important because it is dependent upon this human embodiment that the mind is able to function in such a way whereby we can eliminate from its very root all of our suffering, and we can bring about an ultimate happiness. That the mind in combination with our present human embodiment has this power, has this potentiality.
And how are we going to bring this vow, this end? It is through a development of the mind. Through training our mind, we can eventually eliminate all experiences of dissatisfaction. In terms of the body, when we have some kind of physical ailment, we can, through diagnosing the physical ailment and prescribing the correct medicine, the correct diet, we can eliminate sickness of bring the body to a state of health. This is the job of a doctor.
They diagnose your problem, they prescribe a particular medicine and by taking that treatment you can get better physically. But at best this health that we’re able to gain is temporary. By this means alone, we cannot remove from its very root our ailments of the body, that we cannot eliminate physical suffering. And why is that? Because the root of all of our physical illnesses is the mind itself, and a doctor is not able to eliminate the ills within our mind.
In order to remove the ills from the mind, it’s necessary to take some sort of medicine for the mind. Any other than that which works with the mind can never ultimately cure all our various ills. We take as our mental doctor, the doctor of the mind, Buddha Śākyamūni, because the treatment offered is able to remove the ills of the mind completely. And the medicine which treats the ills of the various medicines that treat the ills of the mind, the best is the medicine of love and compassion. And we can begin to make use of even more powerful types of medicine, stronger and stronger types of medicine.
Above love and compassion there is the exceptional resolve, and finally the awakening heart. There is also the additional medicine of realizing emptiness. Through the training of the mind, gradually cultivating the mind through our practices, we can achieve a state where we can remove all of the ills from the mind completely, where we can remove all dissatisfaction from the mind whatsoever. Having removed all the suffering from the mind, this in turn facilitates the removing of any physical pains and ills. We experience only happiness, we see suffering, we don’t even hear the word suffering.
This is the mistake of liberation. So it is through a process of reading the teachings. We can read books, we can listen to the various teachings, and then we integrate these through a process of meditation. Gradually this is the way that we introduce of the mind to cure its ills. So we are quite familiar with the various types of physical illnesses, but when we talk about the illnesses of the mind, are we talking about?
The various ills of the mind would be attachment, anger, pride, jealousy. These are the ills of the mind. So how do these ills of mind come about if we consider it? We could take an example that you wake up early in the morning, you wash, and you’re relaxing, you’re having a cup of tea, things are very pleasant, you feel happy and relaxed. But somebody comes around and they say something very nasty to you, something that hurts you, and suddenly all your happiness is gone, that your mind becomes very unhappy.
So someone comes around and says a harsh word to you, and your happiness is lost. In fact, now you’re unhappy and you quickly become angry. And over the course of the day though we are eating delicious food, it doesn’t have any flavor for us, though someone says nice things to us we cannot feel their kindness, and when we try to sleep we can’t sleep. And our face turns red, and we feel uptight. So in such a state, this is what we mean by ills of the mind that we aren’t happy that automatically the anger arises that this anger can increase greater and greater and we want to fight, we would get to the place where we might even want to hurt this person, kill the person and even if it’s a friend we don’t want to see them, want to talk to them at all, or if we do talk to them we want to say something nasty to them.
So the illness