Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 16-minute session, Khensur Rinpoche focuses on what he calls the “twofold destruction” of self-cherishing: it blocks genuine happiness for oneself and causes suffering for others — and ultimately for oneself. He grounds this in a classical verse contrasting beings who wish only their own happiness with those who wish happiness for others, then cites Śāntideva’s blunt comparison: infantile beings work solely for themselves and remain trapped in saṃsāra; Buddhas cherish others and attain enlightenment — “look at the difference.” Rinpoche drives the point home personally, noting that practitioners have pursued self-interest across countless lives yet still haven’t secured even their own welfare. The session closes by tallying seven of the eleven Great Scope points now covered — from equanimity through recognising all beings as one’s mother, remembering kindness, and cherishing others — with four still ahead.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 GS 1994 Easter.mp3
UUID: d90035ef-61c2-4026-8e89-7ec7bf8252d4
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Great Scope (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1994 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 16.5 minutes
Words: ~1,063
Completely absorbed only to fulfill one’s own happiness. And it is natural that a person would engage in actions hurting and unwholesome in reference to others in long term with one’s own state of mind and it is possible then through that way that the self-cherishing thought by engaging in trying to acquire happiness for oneself brings about suffering for others which in long term as well would bring suffering to oneself and instead of happiness to be accomplished it is not the right method therefore therefore it will not bring happiness to oneself. Has then the self-cherishing has then the two fold destruction. It stops happiness to be actually gained for oneself and it brings suffering for oneself by going about wrongly. In this way all in these two manners of functioning, all unwanted experiences we face are produced by self-cherishing thought, self centeredness.
We then all have to make the determination as a practitioner to get rid of it. The great classical teacher says whatever to the worldly beings, unhappiness happens, they are from thought wishing happiness for oneself. Whatever to the worldly beings suffering happens whatever suffering happens to the worldly ones, they are from the thought wishing happiness for oneself alone. To the only ones, whatever happiness happens, they are from the thought wishing happiness for others. Here in the verse, the only ones refers to sentient beings.
And when explained, the instruction says when one when one only wishes happiness for oneself and doesn’t mind about others, sentient beings happiness and so forth. And on the course of accomplishing happiness for oneself one inflicts sufferings, harm to sentient beings then that is the source of one’s suffering. Whereas if one cherishes sentient beings dearly, help them, they will bring happiness for oneself. Through these two ways of explanation it is instructed All virtues and excellent qualities one attains are the result of cherishing others dear, and all evils and shortcomings one may have are the results of not considering others dear. To loving kindness and compassion.
Loving kindness the thought wishing others to be with happiness and causes of happiness. And compassion the thought wishing others to be free of suffering and causes of suffering. The thought cherishing other is not separate from these two thoughts. When one when one develops these two thoughts, then it is natural that one will engage in activities trying to remove others’ problems and suffering and to bring happiness to others. When one does that then that automatically brings happiness for oneself and that automatically makes one progress on to depart finally achieving enlightenment.
Whatever in this way excellent qualities one attains on one’s spiritual life and practices are the outcome of thought considering others dear. And because of that it is then said that thought cherishing others is the door. The word used is door. The thought cherishing other is the door to all virtues. Śāntideva, the great master, says there’s no need to say much.
In brief, the infantile beings work only for themselves while the Buddhas or the able ones work solely for the welfare of others, look at the difference between the two. The advice here is that we don’t need to, we don’t need to look too far into applying kind of other supportive cases and so forth, we can sharply observe how sentient beings, the infantile beings, the childish are in the present state whereas the able ones, the Buddhas are in that state. The sentient beings who here are referred as infantile because their state of mind and the attitude is so low as a child not knowing the right things that they, by working only for their own welfare and benefit out of self-cherishing, has ended up being here still in being in the cycle of saṃsāra continuously tormented by suffering and so forth. Whereas the able one, the Buddha, by training on the thought cherishing others, meditating and developing that has made to the state of enlightenment. This then would give us a clear picture how self-cherishing is the door to all evils and thought cherishing others, thought considering others dear is the door to all virtues.
That’s a very brief talk. So, Śāntideva, the teacher explains, you just look at the difference. No need to say more. That’s what the implication is. And we can easily relate that is very true because so far we from so many previous lives have always been trying to accomplish our own projects, our own welfare and through this and that has been done due to our self-cherishing thought considering ourselves only as the dear.
And look we have not accomplished our projects and welfare not to talk about accomplishing others welfare because by accomplishing others welfare it would mean to free oneself from weaknesses, sufferings and problems to be liberated from the cycle from the saṃsāra which we can observe that we have not achieved in most of our cases have not achieved. So we have not clearly achieved or accomplished our own welfare not to talk about accomplishing others welfare because in their case as well it would mean if we have been working to accomplish others welfare then we would we would have been leading others freed from all sufferings which we have not. Not possible. That’s how we in our case, things are like because of self-cherishing thought, working only to accomplish our own projects and so forth. On the other hand, are enlightened beings, Buddhas, who are of thought considering others dear have always worked for others to accomplish others’ welfare to remove others from suffering and due to such they themselves have freed them from all weaknesses of mind by which they themselves have freed from all sufferings and ultimately attain enlightenment.
So we have so far covered seven points, equanimity, the recognition of all sentient beings as one’s mother, remembering kindness which has two parts, special remembering of kindness and repaying the kindness and then followed by the special equanimity and then seeing the evils of self-cherishing thought followed by thought cherishing others or looking at the qualities of thought cherishing others. So amongst the eleven, there are four more left to go. So it’s been bit over time. Therefore, we’ll have no questions. And you please discuss your among yourself and do meditation.
It should be okay. Okay.