Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of a blind mother stumbling toward a cliff — her child watching nearby — Khensur Rinpoche grounds bodhicitta in gut-level moral obligation. In this 44-minute talk at Buddha House, he walks through the sevenfold cause-and-effect instruction for developing the awakening heart: beginning with equanimity toward friend, enemy, and stranger (achieved by reflecting that all three have alternately helped and harmed us across infinite past lives), then progressing through recognition of all beings as one’s mother, remembrance of their kindness, gratitude, attractive love, compassion, and exceptional resolve. He frames the awakening heart as one of the three fundamentals of the path alongside renunciation and the view of emptiness — topics he notes are the running subject of the Tuesday-night series. A short Q&A follows on karma and rebirth, specifically why physical beauty and mental sharpness reflect a child’s past-life practice rather than parental inheritance.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 TAH 1993 08 15.mp3
UUID: a8e3ce17-7697-452f-a988-fc4c8be22a72
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Awakening Heart (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-08-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.2 minutes
Words: ~2,779
We can eventually attain such states as liberation, or we can generate the awakening heart. We can ultimately attain that of Buddhahood, or we can we can work to achieve the well-being in future lives. This all comes about through the kindness of our mother, through the fact of having provided us with a wonderful healthy body in this embodiment which we depend upon in order to carry out this practice was dependent upon her kindness. So this embodiment which we now all possess, by means of which we can eliminate our suffering, by means of which we can achieve happiness is really solely could come about through the kindness of our mother. For those who are able to discriminate, are able to reflect and to distinguish what is actually helpful to ourselves and what is actually harmful to ourselves, if we apply this ability to discriminate with respect to our mother, we will begin to appreciate the great kindnesses and the tremendous benefit which she has shown us.
If we don’t consider this fact, then we will simply forget the kindnesses that she has shown us. We we simply won’t remember them. So if if we do consider and weigh up the benefits that we have been given by to our mother, then there will there will arise this arise in this tremendous appreciation for the great kindnesses that she has in fact shown us and and a natural longing to return that kindness that I’m I have to do something to show my gratitude toward my mother. That if we don’t consider it in this way, if we don’t reflect upon the kindnesses, then there’s a tendency simply to overlook them, and we will not develop this attitude. What what constitutes healthy ways of being in the world, or what healthy ways of acting in the world is dependent upon our ability to discriminate what is helpful and what is harmful.
What is what is what if if having seen the great benefit that someone has shown us, if that those with wisdom, those who are able to to discriminate what is worthwhile in life, what is good, what what is bad, what is of use and no use, that such individuals who have a sense of righteousness and ill righteousness would tend toward the would quite naturally begin to tend toward a sense of repaying this great benefit. To not repay this would be not only a sad situation but would display a lack of wisdom, a lack of discriminatory quality, a lack of understanding the the is, you know, the lack of the ability to discriminate between right and wrong. This applies throughout whether it be in secular matters when somebody does something good to oneself. There is an expectation to return that good toward others. And what to say of how this should be extended in the domain of one’s spirituality?
So this is the very foundation of the universal vehicle, the Mahāyāna. You’re looking upon all of these living beings as one’s parents and not forgetting the great kindness that they have shown you again and again. And in the view of this great kindness, what are we to do? What is it that they want? They want to be happy.
They don’t want to suffer. Then it’s incumbent upon us as their children who have experienced their great kindness to try as well as we can to bring this in about, to bring about the welfare of our parents, to eliminate their suffering, to bring happiness. And this is the awakening heart. So if we were to apply this situation in a descriptive metaphor that we can imagine that our mother of this life was was blind and unable to walk well, and she was stumbling toward a cliff. And while you, her child, sat by watching this situation, you know, remembering the, you know, if one doesn’t help one’s own mother, then who can we expect to help our mother?
And that seeing her stumbling about as she is in suffering, if one does not take it upon oneself to eliminate her difficulties, to eliminate her suffering, then one is in a it’s a very sad situation. The one Do you want can you hear me? That’s it. It’s a very sad situation that one is acting in a very shameful manner. What in remembering the great kindness and the difficulty that our mother is now experiencing.
The child who has who has been recipient of that kindness, it’s incumbent upon them to try to do whatever they can to allay their mother’s circumstance. So you know, if this child were not to come to the aid of the mother then I think everyone would think that this person was really a worthless person, that they really had an extremely negative mind, that they weren’t very they weren’t simply they weren’t a good person. So you know, we really have to try to help as our as as our as children to help our mothers. On the other hand, if the child were to help the mother to try seek to benefit her, to lay her circumstance, know, everyone would say, well, that’s really a good child and that they would praise and not only that, but the child would him or herself be happy. So this is the way that we can proceed in developing an awakening heart on the foundation which of equanimity which we haven’t spoken of.
We then we we initially begin to recognize all living beings as our mothers, that they are the individual who is ultimately to be held dear, or is to be held ultimately dear. And then we go on, this arises through remembering their great kindness. Then we develop in a sense of gratitude which wishes to repay their kindness. And dependence upon that we will develop attractive love, and dependence upon that compassion and love wishing to free them from suffering to lead them to happiness. And in dependence upon that we will go on to develop exceptional resolve, and dependence upon that we will develop the awakening heart, this tremendously precious attitude which is the foundation of the universal vehicle in which its excellence in quality is equal to space.
So that’s the that’s the method of ex explanation of these seven cause and effect instruction. So this is the sevenfold cause and effect precept, and the way that it derives its name is that the, there are seven causes and effects. There is one effect, is, let us say, the result, which is the awakening heart. This one result arises in dependence upon six causes. First, not first, but the direct cause of the awakening heart is the preceding development of the exceptional resolve.
That arises in dependence upon compassion and love. That arises in dependence upon attractive love. That arises in dependence upon the development of a wish to repay kindness. That arises in dependence upon remembering the kindness of our mothers. And that arises in dependence upon recognition of all living beings as our mothers.
So these six causes act to bring about this one result. Therefore it is called the seven cause and effect pre instruction. The name has as its prerequisite the development of equanimity. Before going on to recognize all living beings as one’s mother, we seek to develop an equanimity which does not hold some close and others at a distance. That is to say, we try to develop an even minded attitude toward the three categories of friend, enemy, and stranger.
We try to see them in the same light, have an even minded attitude toward all three, see them as equal. And it’s just as by way of analogy, you know, if we were going to grow a crop, it is necessary that we prepare the field, that we remove all the stones and wood, whatever, to prepare it in such a way that we can then go on to plant the field. Or if we were going to paint a mural on a wall, for example, we would want that the surface be very smooth and even. Otherwise it would be very difficult to paint well upon such a rough surface. Likewise, in the development of this sevenfold cause and effect precept, it is developed on the foundation of the smooth surface, an even surface of equanimity where we have an even minded attitude toward all living beings.
The way that we can proceed in the development of equanimity is by first imagining these three categories of individuals before you, that we imagine before ourselves, a friend or someone you hold dear, a stranger, an enemy. And we will have a natural feeling of a liking toward the friend, a dislike for the enemy, and a feeling of indifference toward the stranger. On the other hand, if we were to reflect well and train our mind through our meditation, we could develop the attitude of it. We could have an even minded attitude toward those three. How do these natural inclinations of liking, dislike, how do they arise?
If examine, we will see that this person who we look upon as our friend with liking, that we like them because they have benefited us in some way over the course of this life and therefore we have a liking for them. On the other hand, the enemy we see as having harmed us and therefore we have dislike or anger toward them. And then the third category that of the stranger, we see them as neither harmonious nor helping us over the course of this life, and therefore, we remain indifferent to them. To our dear friends, we see that having out of their benefit to us that we have a liking for them. But if we reflect in a deeper way, we can see that we can begin to see that over an infinite number of rebirths that this same person has previously killed us many times, has treated us awfully many, many times.
With respect to the person we view as an enemy and understanding that it’s because they we see them as having harmed us, therefore, dislike them, reflecting in a deeper manner that over infinite numbers of rebirths, this person has been our mother and has been of tremendous benefit and has shown us great kindness. So then we go on to the stranger and we see the reason that we hold this sense of indifference toward them, feeling of indifference, is simply because we cannot see that they have benefited us or harmed us and therefore it doesn’t matter. We develop a sense of neutrality or indifference toward them. In fact, this person over in the numbers of previous lives has been our mother and has benefited us greatly. Additionally, they have harnessed also in the past.
In fact, all of these three friend, enemy and stranger have treated us over the long haul in exactly the same ways that they have benefited us, they have harmed us. And therefore we begin to develop the attitude which sees them with a sense of equanimity, an even minded attitude, seeing that they have all the stranger has harmed me and helped me, the friend has harmed me and helped me, The enemy has harmed me and helped me equally. No difference whatsoever over the infinite numbers of rebirths. And through this we develop an even minded attitude is in which there is an absence of aversion or attachment? So this person who who has done good things to us, this person who has done bad things to us, this person who has who appears to have not done neither, they are in fact the same.
Have all Do the same. They have all treated us just as badly as well, whether it be the stranger, enemy, or friend, they are all the same in that regard. So one develops a sense of equanimity where one is divorced of either liking or dislike for any of them where there’s no aversion or attachment. So if you if you are aspiring to the universal vehicle, if you see that the precious that the awakening heart is extremely worthwhile and precious, and you want to develop it, then you can develop it through meditating in this manner, gradually working through these steps. First on the foundation of equanimity, then going on with the development of recognizing all living beings as one’s mother, remembering their great kindness, developing their gratitude, which wishes repay their kindness, attractive love, great compassion, exceptional resolve in the awakening heart.
So there are these eight steps by which we can develop an awakening heart. So the two essences of the universal vehicle are firstly, the awakening heart. The awakening heart is one of the essences of the universal vehicle, dharma and the other is the view of emptiness. And to ensure that these two are able to be developed well, they rely upon the determination to be free or renunciation. So these three, the determination to be free, the awakening heart and the awakening mind, the view of emptiness, are the three fundamentals of the path.
This is what we are discussing on Tuesday nights. These represent the essence of the Buddhadharma. You. Doctor. Kasha?
Yeah. Okay. Question? So we’ll just take a few questions because you’re hungry. So the body, the flesh and blood of the child, component, which constitutes the child’s body, came from the flesh and blood of the parents.
But the beauty of how that flesh and blood is arranged comes from the karma of the child. That, as we mentioned, beautiful body arises through the practice of patience. Having cultivated patience in the past, that the child has that karma whereby the flesh and blood will take on a beautiful appearance. On the other hand, having out of anger, having accustomed habituated to anger in the past, one will have a very unattractive body. The very fact that one can take such a human embodiment is dependent upon ethics.
The fact that we have great wealth is dependent upon our generosity in the past. So all of these karmas are are part of the factors of the of the of the child. And these aren’t coming from the parents. Just the flesh and blood blood component are coming from the parents. So the the fact that the parents are are adult minded or is is is product of their karma, not they having not trained the mind in the previous lives, not having developed wisdom, then then that karma consequences that that they have adult mind.
On the other hand, the child being a genius is dependent upon that child having trained their mind in the past, having developed wisdom, and that karma is now expressed as being a genius in this life. So the the wisdom the genius quality of the child is is a result of their karma. So that which continues on to take rebirth, goes on to future life, is the consciousness. We are constituted of a of a body and mind which are which are held in in relationship through the force of karma, just like gluing two pieces of paper together. The glue holds these two pieces of paper together.
When the potency of this glue is weakened, then finally they separate. And likewise, when the karma which holds, maintains this relationship between our present body and mind is exhausted, then the body is left behind, but the conscious will continue onward. And that is what will take rebirth. But the it is the consciousness which will go on to take rebirth. This process of taking of rebirth is facilitated by, due to the force of karma and afflictive emotions, that these are assisting in, they are facilitating this process of taking rebirths.
So it is due to our karmic affinity and the afflictive emotions that we will enter into, this consciousness will enter into a particular union of sperm and ovum. Gradually this union, this zygote, this fertilized egg, will then develop into a fully formed body. And subsequent to the gestation period, we take rebirth. We are born. And again, the process will reoccur that the karma which binds the consciousness to this particular embodiment will eventually weaken and become exhausted.
And then the body is again left behind in the mind, then proceeds onward to another rebirth. If that karma is positive, then we will take a positive rebirth. If that karma is negative, we will take a negative rebirth. Okay.