Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using a vivid farming metaphor — enlightenment as the harvest, bodhicitta as the mature stalk, compassion as the seed, and equanimity as the fertile field — Khensur Rinpoche opens this 32-minute commentary by placing equanimity at the foundation of the eleven-part method for developing bodhicitta. He then names the obstacle clearly: in ordinary life we feel attachment toward friends, hatred toward enemies, and blank indifference toward strangers, and these three attitudes must be levelled before genuine altruism can grow. The remainder of the session is step-by-step meditation instruction — first stabilising equanimity by holding a neutral person as the object of focus, then gradually introducing a liked person and a disliked person on either side, and finally applying past-lives reasoning to dissolve the apparent grounds for attachment and hatred toward each.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 GS 1994 Easter.mp3
UUID: 2e037c4d-56d1-400d-bfb3-b02b221a8745
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Great Scope (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1994 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.0 minutes
Words: ~1,977
Oh, this morning, we discussed that in order to achieve the excellent and good fruit, which is enlightenment, one needs to depend on excellent and good means. And to have that, one needs to have equally excellent motive. And the best motive one can have is the motive of precious and enlightened mind. Therefore, one needs to develop that, and to develop that we went through the method of developing it by combining the methods into one integrated whole, which has eleven parts. Now amongst the eleven methods, one first does meditation on equanimity, to develop equanimity.
Here, this even to have that one must definitely should one must definitely have developed the realizations of the small practitioner’s part and intermediate practitioner’s path. That seems not to mention there is no doubt about that that to develop this first equanimity one must first have trained on those two realizations. To produce develop the thought wanting to benefit others, the altruism, the thought wanting to benefit others. To do to develop that, one would need the basis of such thought, the referent of such thought. Therefore, one first needs to establish the referent, the basis for developing that thought one benefit others and that thought has to be a level one.
Establishing that basis the reference has to be a neutral one. Before going into that let’s look at an example. If one is to reap a crop by farming a land, the beginning part would be the referent, the basis, the field has to be leveled, cleaned up, and made very well fertile fertile. That process may involve getting rid of the weeds, pebbles, rocks, so forth, and then doing whatever necessary other needs to be done to make it really fertile field, the basis. Let’s say that is the example.
If one has made the has made the land fertile in that way, on the basis of such fertile land, the field, if one has one has one plants have the seed encounter with moist and heat and proper menu and so forth, then the germination of the crop would be excellent and ultimately the harvest would be excellent. In the case if the field in the beginning lacked such fertility due to not having been leveled and cleaned up properly, the germination of the seed and the harvest of excellent crop will not be possible. Or we can put the example into perspective by giving the whole example together. The resultant enlightenment to be achieved is like the crop. And enlightenment mind, the precious bodhicitta is like the thick, well matured stem of the crop.
And the compassion is like the seed which germinates into thin stalk. So it is the seed seed and the thin stalk before it gains maturity. And in order for the seed to germinate it will need water and heat. These two context are like loving kindness. And for the seed and the water and all these to be properly associated to produce good crop one needs to have a labeled good fertile land which is like in this case the thought of equanimity so in this way we can fit the examples quite well.
The basis, the foundation from which the loving kindness becomes possible are repaying kindness, remembering to repay the kindness, remembering the kindness, and recognition of all beings as one’s mother. So those three are the foundation for loving kindness. In a way, when we look at the previous example and the meaning, they are very similar. The way the illustration can demonstrate the working of the thought process are similar. The thought of equanimity here is the thought having no distance and closeness with reference to different types of people.
And in that way it is a thought leveled without any attachment and hatred. This means that there is no hatred to people or beings one considers as enemies and there is no close attachment clinging to those one considers as one’s friends or dear ones. Instead, to both these reference sentient beings one has equal attitude, No distance, no closeness. In this way to all sentient beings from one side one sees them all equally same, not to be attached to some or with hatred to others or close to some and distant from others. Well, it is definitely difficult to maintain a thought of equanimity of that level because in our ordinary state normally, when we encounter our dear ones, there is attachment and people we don’t like, enemies or so forth, is dislike and hatred.
And then people whom we think we whom we consider as nothing to do with the neutrals. We have neither attachment nor hatred. It is indifference. Therefore, we live in a state of attitudes of any of the three with reference to three types of sentient beings we associate, we deal with. And these facts about our attitudes are something we don’t have to apply sharp reasonings because we can easily relate by how, in our own experience, we actually do engage engage in these attitudes, activities, attitudes.
So in a way it is quite something we can easily relate to and don’t have to go into serious reasonings and so forth. It is something we ourselves the latter part was it could be interpreted as something we are guilty of ourselves so we can relate to it in that way. Now why is so and how we really experience that and how we in our own feeling experience are committing that is whenever a person who seemed to have benefited to help us slightly when we see next time we automatically feel attached to the person. And then someone who even slightly speaks rudely to you, you when seeing the person, have hatred, dislike for the person. And someone who doesn’t seem to you as good or bad, there is indifference which can be categorized as ignorance.
So if we put into a picture we have these three types of sentient beings, dear ones, enemies, and neutrals, to which the three basic impure thoughts are generated attachment, hatred, and ignorance. And that’s how we do as ordinary person, what’s called keep our attitudes in that way, our state of thought when dealing with others. Therefore, we now need to develop equanimity free of distance, closeness, and indifference in the sense of negligence. Therefore, to develop that equanimity we need to engage in study analysis of the need for equanimity and to meditate in developing equanimity. How one can start and go about with that would be can in one’s formal meditation keep a focus of thinking as a neutral person.
Now, because a neutral person is someone whom one considers as who hasn’t explicitly or apparently helped nor harmed, therefore it’s not subject to attachment hatred, it is quite natural one will feel a kind of neutral attitude to this person. So keep that as focus of one’s meditation, and occasionally it may be possible that there will be moments of attachment to this neutral person in one’s, say, meditation. And occasionally it is possible there will be moments of hatred towards the person. But because the person is considered oneself as a neutral person, it is easy to stop such arising attachment and hatred straight away or without much difficulty in stopping and bring the thought back to equanimity and maintain the equanimity for as long duration as possible. This is then in the beginning one starts in this way.
And once and once once the stability on that equanimity to the neutral person is gained, then one now go to the next part where bring that neutral person in the center and to the one side of the neutral person one imagine someone whom just by the mere sight of the person you like and there is attachment and then on the other side to this neutral person at the center on the other side you imagine a person whom by the mere sight of the person you feel angry at, really dislike completely. To which you have hatred. So you then bring these three focus of one’s present meditation in that order, the neutral at the center and the other two on the two sides. So you have these three types of people, and to the central, the neutral person, there is a reasonable stability of equanimity gained by your previous meditation on it. Now to the right person whom one likes there will be attachment because by the mere sight of the person brings a kind of a how beautiful, how delightful the person is and that way attachment.
And to the left to one whom one doesn’t like that even with the mere sight of the person one feels so disliking, thinking may I not see the person at all. And to put it more dramatically when one sees the person it really bores you down to your bone. So then that person, you have an aversion to the person. So you have that. Now when these with the case of the two other person when these attachment and hatred arises one needs to analyze and think about why does this happen that I have attachment to this and hatred to the other.
Well one would find that it is only from one’s own thinking and manner of attitude from one’s mind that that is happening, whereas from the part of the object, the person themselves, there is really nothing to be blamed at all. It is not the cause. So the main arising of these are the workings of one’s own One will find that it is because one considers on the basis of slight help the person has rendered in this life that when the person appears to one one feels attached and liking to the person whereas to the other one on the basis that because the person has harm in dislike that by the mere sight of the person when one sees there is dislike and hatred. So it is on the basis of one’s thinking that the person has helped or harmed that there is these two attitudes. Metaphorically speaking then the one person would appear to one as white person, the other as black.
And the central, the neutral person who seemed not to have to one to oneself seemed not to have a harm to our health appears as neither white or black. Yeah. So in this way, there are these three appearances. Feeling attached and liking towards this person on the basis the person has helped me but why I need to be attached and liking to this person because it is only in this life the person has held very slightly as such a halt which is very slight because although in this this life the person has held but there have been so many lifetimes in the past during which time this person has inflicted so much harm on me on sometimes killing me, bashing me and in many other ways. So there is no reason why I should feel attached in liking this person.
Similarly to the other person whom on the basis the person seem to harm in this life one feels hatred for one thinks. Why I need to be feeling hatred against this person? It is not right. Because although in this life the person has very slightly harmed me but in the past the person has been my parents father and mother and has been my relatives friends during which time the person has helped me or benefited me so much. Now and it is extremely mean for my part if I am to consider this person as enemy on this life’s basis of minor infliction of harm, it is not right.
In this way, one