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 by unpacking a verse from Ārya Maitreya defining the awakening heart — bodhicitta — as a mind vast enough to include all beings without exception. He explains its two essential components — the wish to free others from suffering and the commitment to perfect oneself in order to achieve it — then traces the sequential path from attractive love through compassion to exceptional resolve. The centerpiece is a sustained philosophical argument for the existence of past lives: Rinpoche draws on the discrepancy between parents’ and children’s mental traits, the impossibility of consciousness arising from matter, and a seed-and-sprout analogy to establish that every being has been our mother across countless rebirths — the practical foundation for extending genuine love to enemies and strangers alike.
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File: 03 TAH 1993 08 15.mp3
UUID: b954e17b-8f9c-4b27-a8b3-e81779e94e2a
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Awakening Heart (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-08-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 48.0 minutes
Words: ~3,124
Yes. The quoting from a line, two lines from Ārya Maitreya where he said, mind generation, the desire to achieve complete enlightenment for the sake of others. So these two lines in in explaining them, what we mean by mind training, generation. Mind generation is the awakened heart, but here is the term mind generation. It’s with the connotation that we generate a very vast vision, that this is a kind hearted attitude, but it’s not a narrow narrow perspective.
It’s extremely vast in in his perspective, in his vision. Seem includes all living beings without exception. And it it is the attitude which wishes that to free them from their suffering and to lead them to happiness. This, the the awakening heart, the mind of the awakening heart has components. And it’s necessary that these two components be present in order for it to be a fully qualified awakening heart.
That is to say, the these two components are the the welfare or the purpose of oneself and the welfare or purpose of other and the purpose of others. So one’s own welfare and the welfare of others are incorporated in this mind of this awakening heart. So these two welfares or two purposes which are incorporated in the awakening heart are first that of adharma. And this is incorporated in the in the longing that others be to free others from their suffering and to lead them to happiness. So this is the this is what brings about the welfare of others.
And secondly, there is the purpose of self. In order to achieve that purpose, that I myself must remove all my various faults and must bring to consummation all my excellent qualities. So this represents one’s own welfare. So the welfare of others is expressed in in three attitudes of mine. Those are the as has been explained in terms of exceptional resolve that I myself will bring this end about and compassion that the longing that others be free from their suffering and love the longing that to lead others to happiness.
Having generated this, the mind which seeks the welfare as welfare of others in terms of wishing them to be free of suffering and to have happiness in the in the commitment to lead them to such a state, that subsequently one then goes on to develop the attitude which brings about one’s own welfare. That is to say, in order to achieve this end, I must eliminate all my various faults. I must bring to consummation all my acts and qualities. This brings about one’s own welfare. So of these two, initially, we developed the the attitude which brings about six to bring about the welfare of others and subsequently, the attitude which which will bring about one’s own welfare.
So in in developing his attitude of bringing about the welfare of others, As we have mentioned, it’s necessary to to develop love and compassion. And as a preliminary to that, it’s necessary to develop attractive love or appealing love or pleasant love. And without attractive love, there’s no way that we can develop love and compassion. So attractive love is the preliminary as was mentioned yesterday. So what is the need for the development of attractive love?
This was as was mentioned previously that it is in dependence upon attractive love that we go on to develop love and compassion. That we have those those who we hold dear, we have an attractive love for them, and therefore we can go on to develop love and compassion for them. But others, such as our enemies and and our strangers, we we don’t have an attractive love. Therefore, we are unable to generate love and compassion for them. So how will we proceed in the development of attractive love towards our enemies and strangers?
That we just, we have to duplicate the same attitude of attractive love that we have toward those we hold dear. If by through our meditation, we are we will seek to develop a sense of holding dear those those whom we now regard as our enemy and strangers. If we can develop that sense of holding dear or close, then we can go on to develop attractive love toward them just as we now have toward those we presently hold dear. And in dependence upon this, then we can go on to develop love and compassion for them. So what is the method we’re going to make use of in in developing this sense of endearing endearment of those toward whom we presently conceive of as enemies and strangers?
It was as we mentioned yesterday that the the ultimate individual toward whom we hold dear is our mother. So making use of this fact that the the ultimate object of our endearment is our mother. Develop an attitude and or and a recognition that that our our enemies and strangers are like our mothers, the mother of this life. So generating the attitude and the recognition that that these those we presently hold as enemies and strangers are like our mothers and independence. If we can do this, then we can develop attractive love toward them.
But we might think, strangers and enemies aren’t my mother, then how can I how can I meditate on them as such? But but we’re not the fact is that the enemy and stranger are not our mothers of this life. So we’re not trying to convince ourselves that they are. But we are trying to develop an attitude which thinks upon them as if like they are our mothers of this life. That they are like our mothers of this life in from the point of view that they have been our actual mothers in previous lives.
Both enemies and strangers have been our mothers like our mother of this life, but in previous lives. Previous lives. And when we proceed in this this way of thinking then we come to the point where the thought arises, well, there are no previous lives so therefore it doesn’t work. Establishing the fact that in fact previous rebirths do exist that we can establish some in dependence upon lines of reasoning. So how are we Then how can we establish the existence of these previous lives?
And all the peoples of the world were born as small infants from from parents. And we are constituted of two factors, body and mind. Our body comes from the bodies of our parents. On the other hand, our mind does not come from the body of the parents nor from the minds of the parents. So we can can already understand in in trying to establish that our mind that the the mind of the child did not come from the minds of the parents.
There are many cases where the parents can be geniuses, but they, on the other hand, give birth to dull minded children. Or on the other hand, the parents can be extremely dull minded people and they give birth to geniuses. Or the parents can be very compassionate and the child lacks compassion. Or the child is very compassionate where their parents have no compassion. There are many discrepant varieties of relationships between parents and children.
We can see this for ourselves. We can establish this for ourselves. So we can, from this we can deduce that the continuum of the infant, the mind of the infant is not in a in a continuum with the minds of the parents. But but though the consciousness does not derive from the parents, the the body of the newborn if it does evolve out of the the elements of the sperm and ovum of the parents. Initially this combination of sperm and ovum, the fertilized ovum is liquid in substance.
And if we say that the consciousness is generated by this liquid substance, then we would have to say that the water in the cup could also generate consciousness, but it doesn’t. So the the four elements are present within within the liquid of the cup. And if if the consciousness arose simply from the four elements, then the consciousness would arise from liquid in the cup. But you would say, well, that’s that the there’s a different different difference in the between the the liquid and the glass, the water in the glass, and the the fertilized ovum. The one is in the continuum of a of a living being.
The other one isn’t. One is organic. But we could fill up the cup with milk or yogurt, which is in the continuum of a living being and then we could expect consciousness to be generated from that liquid. No. On the other hand, some people say that consciousness, the brain or nervous system is the consciousness.
And if this were the case, then there, then those beings who do not have brains or nervous systems, which there are many types, they would not have consciousness, but they do have consciousness. So these varieties these types of beings have mind, but they have no nervous system or brain. What the thing Then how does the mind arise? If by way of an by way of an analogy, if we we if in a field we had we had necessary water, soil, fertilizer, but we planted no seed in that field, would we expect sprouts to grow, to shoot forth? We wouldn’t expect sprouts to shoot forth having not planted seeds.
So not only is it necessary to plant a seed, but we can expect what rises from that seed to be of a similar type to the variety of seed that we plant. We plant rice, then we will have it that which grows from that seed will be of the similar type. That is, a rice plant will grow. If it’s barley, a barley plant will grow. If it’s corn, a corn variety will grow.
If it’s chili, then having planted a chili seed, a chili plant will grow. Not only do we have to plant the seed, but we can expect a similarity of type between the seed and the result. So likewise, with the consciousness of a newly born born infant. It it is necessary that it arise dependent upon a similar type. And that similar type does not arise from the parents, neither the neither their body nor their mind.
So we can only posit as we can trace back that similar type of cause of the newly born infant to consciousness present in the fetus in the womb. But again, that consciousness arose from a similar type. And tracing back, we it rose from a similar type in a continuum of itself, and that was the the death consciousness of the being of the same continuum of a previous life. That is to say, it’s necessary that we be able to trace that consciousness back to a previous life. And again, that previous life’s consciousness arose from a similar type to itself, and that could only be a consciousness from life previous to that.
And we can go back back in infinite regression without interruption. We have we have been born innumerable times. Having taken rebirth having taken rebirth, we took rebirth prior to that. We took prior to that. We took rebirth prior to that.
We take rebirth numberless times. And just like in having the fact that we are born from mother in this life, have been born from mother in previous lives. And it it has not been the same mother that we have been born through these infinite rebirths. So and that mother of a previous life that from whom we born was was not the same mother that we were born from the life previous to that. And therefore, over the course of these these numberless rebirths, we have been born to to an infinite number of different mothers.
Because our rebirths are numberless, our mothers are also numberless. We can we can point to no one individual, one we can point to no one living being who has not been our mother, who who we have no experience having been reborn from. But we not only can we not point to anyone who we have not experienced being who has not been we have experienced them being our mother, but we can but additionally, there is no one who has not been our father, our brother, our sister. No. There’s no one who has not been our children.
And our mother of all of throughout all our mothers throughout all of these previous lives have been just like our mother this life and that we were born from these individuals, that they that they cared for this. We we nursed from their breasts just as if and just like the way we’ve related with the mother of this life. Therefore, aren’t all living beings our mothers? And if and therefore, they are all individuals whom we hold are ultimately dear as we do our mother. And thinking of all of these individuals in that way, we we can then develop attractive love toward them, develop love and compassion, exceptional resolve, and finally the awakening heart towards all of them.
If we were to explain, we can make use of an illustration in which someone who helped us previously, some years ago, and went through a great deal of difficulty and benefited us on the one hand. And on the other, that someone who helps us this year goes through great difficulty and benefits ourselves. We would we would have a caring for both of them since they both have helped us, that they both went through difficulty. We would they would have, in fact, been just as as helpful they would have been equally as helpful to ourselves. But on the other hand, a contrary example, if someone had beat us had beat us a few years ago, and of course, we don’t like to be beaten, it causes us pain.
And someone beat us this year, and again, we don’t like to be beaten because it causes us pain. Our attitude toward them would be very much the same. That had they both having beaten us, they would have done the same to ourselves. So they’re the same in hurtiness. In the previous example, were the same in benefiting us.
So they’re the same in in in terms of benefiting and harming us. So can, through this means we can begin to look upon all beings as ultimately deer, just since we can look upon them as our own mothers and depend upon that develop attractive love. And why is it that a mother has such a holds their child child dear. I’m just thinking of an example in this life. That, you know, to a mother, her child is appears very appealing, very attractive.
That is because the baby is born from her own body and therefore she looks upon the child as being extremely pleasant and appealing to her. And in dependence upon that, she’s able to develop love and compassion for her child. But this not only happens amongst humans, but even animals also, that they have a special bonding relationship with their offspring since the child the offspring has been born from their own bodies. So but here in this example of how there arises this attractive appearance from the mother’s side toward their child, we’re trying to develop from the child’s side this attitude of attractive appearance toward their mother. And the way that we can develop this attitude is by considering the great kindness of our mother, by meditating on this.
And it’s generally the case that upon receiving kindness from others, there develops a natural inclination to return their kindness. So if we can develop a sense of wishing to reap a sense of gratitude, wishing to repay the kindness of the great kindness of our mother, then she will begin to appear very attractive to us. We will generate attractive love. You know, we can we can set aside the the the attitudes of love and compassion of a child toward their mother. But on the contrary, there are many who not only do not have that quality of attitudes toward their mother, but in fact they fight with their mother, they they beat their mother, some even kill their own mother.
And why is that? It’s because they do not remember the great kindness of their mother. On the contrary, some people not only do not remember their great kindness of their mothers or forget all the kindnesses that their mother has shown them, but they only remember the wrongs that their mothers have done them, the negativity. They’re no Considering the the way in which we can reflect upon the kindness of our mother from the point of view, we can begin to grasp some idea of the great kindness of our mother by reflecting upon all difficulties that mothers go through during their pregnancy over the course of nine months, the various discomforts and care that they take of their growing fetus within their womb, and then the great pain the mother endures at the moment of birth. They do not, even though they haven’t gone through this great pain, they simply do not dismiss us.
But they instantly look upon us as extremely precious, even though they are getting all their great pain. If they were not to take care of us at our birth even for five minutes, we would not live. Then they begin to nurture us, feeding us, taking care of our physical needs as if we were something extremely precious to them. And as we grow, they seek to train us and give us the best advice to lead us in growing up in healthy manners, to provide to our education, oftentimes at the great expense and difficulty for them, to providing all our food and clothing and shelter. And everything that we have attained as adults would not have come about had not our mothers taken care of us over all those years.
So this this is in terms of just the ordinary ways of the world that all that we might achieve, the fact that all goes well over the course of our life, is through the great benefit of our mother. But also in terms of our spiritual practice, our mother is a kindness of our mother has been of a huge benefit. So the fact that we’re able to practice the Dharma that we’re able to carry on our training and develop our