Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. When someone harms us, Khensur Rinpoche argues, there are two simultaneous profits to be made — and this double-gain framework anchors the first half of this 32-minute talk. He explains that the harmer is generating negative karma through their anger and deserves compassion, while the harm we receive is ripening karma from our own past actions, making patient tolerance a form of purification. The session then moves to the four opponent powers for confessing negativity: generating bodhicitta, sincere regret, commitment not to repeat the action, and remedial practices such as Vajrasattva mantra or confession to the thirty-five Buddhas. A brief Q&A explores whether purification fully restores the mind — Rinpoche answers with the image of a washed cloth: the stain is gone, but the fabric’s quality has diminished. Suited to practitioners already familiar with basic karma teaching.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 TCC 1993 06 06.mp3
UUID: e67807c9-b569-41f2-9718-adeb259fbf93
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Challenges of Change (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1993-06-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.4 minutes
Words: ~1,534
So you have to make use of two ways of thinking on occasions. So in such a, how are we to think on such an occasion that when someone harms us, how did that harm come about? One way in which we should reflect upon the harm which we are experiencing is that this is a result of the harm that we have done to them in the past. This is simply harm returning to ourselves. And I was really mistaken in the way I acted toward this person.
Harmed them and now I’m experiencing harm in return. So I can see that was quite a mistaken way to act. And but further, harming this person in the past, I made them angry. Through their anger, they are creating a negative action for themselves due to which they themselves are going to experience suffering in the future. So we should generate compassion for them because of the negative action that they are creating through their anger and the suffering that they’re going to have to experience in the future.
Actually, I’m the one who’s doing the harming because I’m I’m the one who’s causing them to be angry. And out of this anger, they’re creating negative actions due to which they will experience suffering in the future. So, one should develop a sense of compassion for them, but also understand that oneself is doing the harming. So they’re developing a sense of of compassion for them because of the negative negative actions that they are creating and due to which they will experience suffering in the future. But also understanding that by them bringing harm to you in this way, then this is a way of purifying the negative action that you created towards them in the past.
And having purified the negative action through actually experiencing this harm, then one will not have to experience it again. Should, out of that, one should develop a sense of being able tolerate or have patience with harm because in fact it is purification. And so there are two profits to be made in this way of thinking. Compassion for them, and the other one develops tolerance with respect to them creating negative actions. And the other is that we tolerate harm to ourselves, and we see it as a means of purifying the negative actions that we created for ourselves.
And we accumulate creative potential or merit through this means. So we create, we generate compassion and accumulate creative potential and tolerance. So out of our development of tolerance, we’re going to there’s going to be two means for which we’re going to profit. We’re going to accumulate creative potential by tolerating the harm, which is brought to us by non retaliation. And we are purifying the negativities that we’ve created in the past.
But additionally, understanding that this person through their anger is creating negative actions themselves, and there’s a great fault in this since this will act as a cause for future sufferings for them and going on to generate compassion and caring for them, seeing how they are creating their own suffering. So if one thinks along these lines, then one will not get angry, one will not retaliate, one will not harm the other person and one’s practice will go well. And if we practice in this way, what what would be the result that we ourselves would experience a happiness where there is no suffering? Even if we didn’t want this happiness because we’ve created the causes, it would still we would still experience it. Generate love and compassion toward this person who’s harming us, then eventually they’re going to take a liking to ourselves.
They’re going to act in a more friendly fashion to us. And in this way of relating with others, we ourselves are going to have many friends, we’re going to have many people around us who wish to benefit ourselves. And we will have happiness and our life will go well. If on the other hand, if we were simply to to fight back and that’s the both of us are fighting with each other and both of us are creating negative actions, both of us will experience result in suffering in the future. So, if someone hits us with a stick and we’ve already experienced the pain, we can’t give it back to them.
So if you have some questions, we’ll take we’ll take some time for questions. Yes. So if if one hasn’t created the causes, one will not experience the result. So there are many cases of this where it’s not apparent having created negative causes in this life, but in fact, but there’s still suffering, negative causes have been created in a previous life. So there are two ways in which purifications of previously negative creative actions can be purified.
One of which is to actually experience the result and the second is to acknowledge or to set out or confess the negative action previously created. So if neither of these two has taken place, then it’s definite that the previously created negativity will remain. And then when the proper conditions and causes aggregate together, come together, then the experience will, the result will be experienced. So during the course of our life, we create a lot of negativities. We in our ways of our thinking, our ways that we speak, the ways that we act.
And we get angry, we harm others, we say harmful things to others, various ways that we create negativity. It’s very important to acknowledge or to say set out or confess these negativities. Otherwise, we will eventually experience the resultant suffering. So in the process of actually purifying previously created negativities, it involves four steps. First, we should develop a sense of wishing to benefit living beings as a first step.
And secondly, that recollecting the negativity that we we created, developing a sincere sense of regret, seeing it as some in some way as mistaken. Thirdly, committing oneself to reverse, to not commit that same action again in the future. And fourthly, as a means of purification, then cultivating love and compassion, or meditating on emptiness, recitation of the mantra of Vajrasattva, recitation of the confession to the thirty five Buddhas, etcetera, and these various methods of purification. And if one applies these four steps in a rigorous manner, then whatever negativity that one may have created, it can be completely eliminated. So by through exposing or setting out or confessing these negativities, we accumulate creative potential, and creative potential is the basis for happiness.
I care? One question based on what you said. What if somebody engaged in a negative So if we were to give it, you can, by applying these four opponent powers, purify the negativities. But if we were to give an analogy, if you had some, a piece of material and it was new and a fine quality, and you were to stain it, drop something on it, and you were to wash it and you removed the stain, there would be a difference in quality of that cloth previously to having stained it stained it though having cleaned it. Though in fact there’s no stain left, the quality of the cloth has diminished in the process.
Though there’s no stain whatsoever, still the quality is different. And likewise, though we can purify these negativities, the mind is not as suitable for generation of realization, for developing realizations. Realizations do not come as easily the various realizations of the grounds and paths. There is no stain in previous and then having purified the negativity, there still a difference in the quality of suitability to generate realizations. So some of the texts give an analogy of the difference between having, if one breaks a bone, though the bone may knit, it’s still, though the bone is whole again, in which state is the bone in better condition, previous to a non broken bone or the bone which been knitted.
So these prayers are mainly recited in order to cultivate a kind hearted attitude. Just like a mother or a parent for their child would wish them to not experience suffering or know they have the causes of suffering because they have compassion for them. And likewise try to develop this kind heart attitude of compassion toward all sentient beings. You know we could develop it’s something that we it’s an expression of our something from a heartfelt expression state of mind that we’re trying to cultivate. Mean, people cultivate also we can say, may there be no wars in the world, may there be only peace in the world, and these states of mind.
If, as far as the way they can actually free themselves from suffering is, as you mentioned, if they were to know the causes and cease creating those causes, but the situation is that even people who know the causes of suffering continue to create the causes. So if you’d like to recite the concluding prayers together, the first one that we recite is on page ten. And then finally the prayers, verses eight and nine.