Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of gold shaped into a Buddha statue, Khensur Rinpoche makes Buddha lineage concrete in this 72-minute session: just as gold is the substance transformed into a statue, it is the “I” imputed to the body — not the body itself — that transforms into Buddhahood. He examines which qualities can undergo this transformation, noting that fine singing voices and soccer skill cannot become Buddha qualities while virtuous mental factors can. A school analogy illustrates how diligence determines the pace of progress, followed by reflection on the urgency of the precious human life. The Q&A addresses whether a cat can take human rebirth, whether married practitioners can achieve Buddhahood, and how past-life study habits shape present wisdom. He closes with a technical point: only non-afflicted factors of mind constitute Buddha lineage, since afflicted emotions must be eliminated before Buddhahood.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 NoM 1992 02 25.mp3
UUID: 78fd2426-a562-40bc-a124-907176e9a2cf
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Nature of Mind 1991-1992 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-02-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 72.6 minutes
Words: ~2,263
That in fact phenomena are not established as they appear. They appear to exist independently; in fact they do not exist independently — they exist dependent upon being imputed by terms and concepts. If we meditate on the inhalation and exhalation of the breath, then we exhale, we can imagine a black light going out and this is representative of all our sicknesses and suffering, all that is undesirable. And upon inhalation, imagine that we are inhaling a white light and this is representative of love and compassion and happiness and well-being. So whatever you can meditate on, whatever you wish, I’m going to meditate for ten minutes.
So we’ve been discussing things for some time now and we have questions at the end of the of the session. And I’m gathering some of the questions which are being asked that perhaps it’s not being understood too well. So I’m going to begin getting fresh. We’re talking about a Buddha lineage, the factor which is transformed into a Buddha. And it is the sentient beings themselves who are the factors which is transformed into a Buddha.
Therefore we can say that living being itself is in fact lineage. So if we’re good at managing that we can make an image of a Buddha out of various types of materials. We can make it out of clay, we can make it out of copper, silver, gold, iron, and we form all those the, for example the substance of gold which is shaped into a Buddha image. This is the substance which is transformed into a Buddha image. Likewise, it is our Buddha lineage which will, in the process of meditation in terms of eliminating our various faults and generating all the excellent qualities through this working process with our Buddha lineage, generating a bodhicitta awakening heart, eliminating all various faults and bringing to consummation all excellent qualities, and thereby transformed into a Buddha.
So presently we all have various faults. We have these afflicted emotions along with their latencies, their predispositions to those afflicted emotions. And these act as an obstruction. They obstruct us from generating excellent qualities. If I hinder the development of ourselves into the entity of the Buddha, that through the process of cultivating the path, meditation, we can eliminate all of the obstruction and all the various faults and to bring the consummation, all of the excellent qualities and thereby become, we become what is called a Buddha, we become a Buddha.
This is the way that an individual becomes a Buddha. There’s no other way than proceeding in this fashion. And this is what we mean by an individual who has become a Buddha. It’s not like having horns on their head or something like that. I am not my body.
I am imputed to the body. I am designated to the body, but I am not the body. I am not my head, I am not my hand. Therefore, lineage is not my head, lineage is not my hand. It is the I which is imputed or designated to the body, which is unique.
And by the I meaning that which I, I would say I go, I eat. It is this which is transformed into the Buddha which gradually develops itself, becomes a bodhisattva, and in the course of meditation we can, depending upon our application, attain Buddhahood in this very life. But if we want to do that, in our future life we could proceed and attain Buddhahood. Or we could go to another future life and proceed in that fashion. What we are seeking to do is abandon all our various faults and go into consummation of excellent qualities.
To a degree, there are different speeds in which this occurs. Some do it very quickly, some do it at a middling pace, and some do it at a slower pace. The quickness of our achieving Buddhahood definitely corresponds to our diligence — we all begin with the same basis. But some people apply themselves to their study very diligently, and they pass through all of the classes very quickly. Others are not so diligent, they don’t study so hard, and they pass through in a middling fashion.
Others make very little effort in their study and they pass through the various classes very slowly. And this would be the same case. They would be able to graduate in terms of how hard they studied. Bring about elimination of our various faults, such as the afflicted emotions. By accumulating these qualities, those which are extremely powerful, these are able to bring about a cessation of the faults.
If we aren’t able to accumulate know there are many popular singers who have very beautiful voices and there are many great sports people who are quite popular and they’re very skillful in playing the various sports like soccer, things like that. These qualities of having, you know being a great singer, having beautiful voices, being very skillful at soccer, are qualities which are not able to be transformed into a Buddha. So It is mainly in terms of the factor of motivation. By means of these qualities which can be used as careful actions, what is the benefit of living again are better than each quality. Not for the sake of this life, can also be transformed, are transformable qualities into Buddha’s nature, into Buddha’s image.
But those qualities which those which are directed toward Those qualities we’re and they’re saying that some of them are Buddha lineage. They are types of qualities which are suitable to be transformed into Buddha qualities. Beings will then take rebirth as a person, as a fortunate being, that is to say a fortunate type of rebirth. And if this person were to take a fortunate type of rebirth as a person, just like ourselves, they could go on and listen to the Dharma, reflect upon it and meditate on it, and at very last they could achieve they would be able to accumulate excellent qualities and in the future we both again take a fortune type of we both to carry on in their practice and gradually their practice would improve greater and greater until finally they were able to eliminate all their various faults and to bring to consummation all their various acts and qualities. So we ourselves have this wonderful opportunity — we’ve achieved this excellent foundation of the human life and we’re listening to the Dharma. Through the Dharma, we are able to understand what is suffering and what is happiness.
And we know that we don’t like suffering, we know that we want to abandon it, we know that we like happiness and we want to bring it about. So all of us have complete conducive conditions. Whereby to eliminate our various faults and generate the excellent qualities that we have the ability and the conditions whereby to achieve it. And we all have this potential, we have the ability and we have the various conditions conditions and predominant conditions and a few inhibitory conditions, we have this great opportunity to develop wonderful qualities and we can gradually achieve this. But the fact is that we are also impermanent and we’re eventually going to die.
Just as we said, a dog and a cat could go on to take rebirth as a human being. If we were not to practice well, we are no better than them. It is a great deal of trouble to be a dog or a cat. So it is not definite that we will keep a good rebirth. There are many cases So we have to be careful.
Now that we have this fortune, we should try to improve our lot, keep things progressing higher and higher. What method can we implement to ensure that we are improving our situation? There’s no other method than simply developing or curing all of the various excellent qualities and ceasing, eliminating our various faults. We try to make effort to generate all of the various qualities in our mind and whatever thoughts there are, make effort to bring about their lessening. And therefore if we do that, we can only improve, cannot go, things cannot become worse.
Initially we have to understand what are the important qualities? What are beneficial qualities? And upon understanding this, we then have to go on to understand how do I cultivate these qualities, what is the method. And then understanding that, then we actually begin the cultivation. And gradually in this way, we will begin to develop these excellent qualities.
If we have to implement some methods, we have to create the cause through our practice. If we practice the cause, we don’t really need to talk about will the result arise or not. It’s definitely not the will. But on the other hand, if we don’t create the cause, if we don’t practice the method, then there’s no way that these qualities can arise. Before we as individuals understand that we possess lineage, there is a tendency to devalue oneself in thinking, for example, that I can’t attain Buddhahood.
I can’t generate an awakening heart. That we can attain good hope, that we can generate an awakening heart. Why is that? Because we possess Buddha lineage. That we have, for example, the lineage for generating the awakening heart, and that this can be attained.
Possessing the needs we are able to generate any excellent quality. Out of this we arise a sense of enthusiasm or courage. Previously I used to think that I can never become a Buddha, I can’t generate an awakening heart. But now I understand that I have Buddha lineage and therefore I can do all of these things. I have great power, I have great ability, and there is great benefit to be gained — possessing Buddha lineage I can achieve great results.
And this all comes about through understanding that I possess Buddha lineage. So I hope for this discussion that you have normally understood what we mean by lineage. And if you have any questions, we’ll we’ll take those now. This cat took rebirth in this bad migration by the power of unskilled actions previously accumulated. But additionally to having unskillful actions previously, there’s been accumulated skillful actions and those skillful actions do not deteriorate and the results of them are not somehow dissipated. But upon elimination of the unskillful actions, then the skillful actions will remain and it’s by the power of these skillful actions that the cat will go on to take rebirth as a human being.
The rebirth of sentient beings, of living beings is beginningless. The number of rebirths that we’ve taken are numberless. And we pass through, we take rebirth in a happy migration, then we take rebirth in a bad migration and a happy migration. So we have all of these potentials of skillful and unskillful action. Yeah.
So even in a married situation one can create a great deal of skillful actions. One can cultivate the awakening heart, meditate on emptiness, develop love and compassion. By these means one can gradually become a Buddha. For example, in a previous life if one had accumulated a great deal of actions of listening, reflecting and meditating, in the course of this life, born in this life, one would have great wisdom and in dependence upon that wisdom. One could quickly understand the various subjects and gain various realizations and excellent qualities very quickly.
On the other hand, if one had not performed those various actions in the past, it would be very difficult for us to generate wisdom and we find development of these qualities extremely difficult. Analogy would be the case where a small child reads many books and though he’s not able to understand them in that time, later on during his life, he goes on to read other books and depending upon having done this previous reading, he is able to understand quite quickly what is being said. So having read in the past, but one is not able to understand at that point, this serves as a basis for being able to understand in the future. If one were to really read a book which one had never read previously, it’s difficult to immediately gain an understanding of what’s being said. So this demonstrates that the ability to comprehend is dependent upon the degree of habituation accordance with having been habituated in the past and facilitates the ability to understand the future if there is great habituation.
Our minds possess Buddha lineage, the mind has two categories. There is the afflicted mind and non afflicted mind. So, the non afflicted minds constitute the lineage, not the afflicted category of mind, the afflicted emotion. So are the non afflicted factors of the mind and the afflicted factors of the mind. For example, afflicted factors would be the conception of true existence, attachment and hatred and those, the impetus of being is not Buddha limited.
It is only the impetus of the non afflicted factors of the mind which are the delimitation. Why is that? Because these affective factors of the mind are to be abandoned and we are seeking to eliminate them. And therefore, previous to the time of Buddhahood, they are necessarily eliminated. Therefore, the emptiness of these never is present at the state of Buddhahood whereas the various positive factors of the mind are transformed into Buddha qualities and therefore their emptiness is present at the state of Buddha.
Page ten.