Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 94-minute session from his Nature of Mind series, Khensur Rinpoche opens with a striking image: the mind’s naturally abiding lineage is like a gold mine — a built-in source of immeasurable qualities. He then unpacks skillful and unskillful actions under four headings: intrinsic nature, similarity (anger colors every accompanying mental factor just as chili makes any food hot), motivation, and ultimate fruition in liberation. Concrete examples follow — abandoning killing, lying, and divisive speech — alongside a Śāntideva verse on tracing suffering back to unskillful causes and the story of Geshe Ben as a model of gradual purification. Mind transformation, Rinpoche argues, is simply this: decreasing unskillful states and increasing skillful ones — nothing more. The session closes with practical guidance on how to listen to teachings: bring bodhicitta motivation if possible, keep the mind free of attachment and distraction, and make genuine effort to retain what is heard.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 NoM 1992 03 17.mp3
UUID: af0cb0e0-3822-4d35-a139-4e757594081a
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Nature of Mind 1991-1992 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-03-17
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 94.0 minutes
Words: ~1,485
The naturally abiding lineage which exists within our own minds is just as a gold mine is a source of gold; likewise our mind, the naturally abiding lineage, is a source of immeasurable qualities. Those who make offerings to deceased parents are mistaken with respect to what causes happiness, and they’re creating immeasurable suffering for themselves. And by own experience of the result, they were able to say that this is the cause of and this is in fact not the cause of happiness. So they were able to come to this conclusion through their own experience.
Examined these teachings in light of their reasoned analysis, examining them. And then subsequent to that, other masters actually practiced them and attained the results within their own experience. So by many of these three characteristics, then you can come to a firm conviction as to what is in fact the correct cause of happiness or not. A skillful action is that which brings a happy result to the mind — that which brings pleasure to the mind.
It is the result of skillful actions. For example, our human body, it’s very beautiful. And when others see it, they consider it as being attractive. Then it also experiences bringing happiness. So it’s both attractive and brings happiness to the mind.
An animal’s body, it is unattractive and it is the source of suffering feelings. So when talking about skillful actions, we can list four types of skillful actions. We can talk about actions from four types of skillful actions. There is the actions we can discuss skillful actions in four different terms. In terms of its entity, that is the nature, in terms of its similarity, in terms of motivation, and ultimate skillful action(s), that is liberation.
Consciousness which arise simultaneously with love in the mind by the power of the nature of the skillful action of love. And these other accompanying consciousnesses are also of skillful. Taking as an example anger, anger is by its very nature unskillful. When it arises, there are ten accompanying consciousnesses. And by the power of their nature of anger being unskillful, these ten consciousnesses also become unskillful.
Just as in the case of chili, whatever food chili is put on becomes hot due to the power of the nature of chili. We mentioned that for example when faith arises there are ten accompanying mental factors where consciousnesses arise. If we were, just to give examples of these, there’s a class of mental factors called the omnipresent thrive. For example, feeling, discrimination, intention, contact, and then there’s another classification of consciousness such as conscientiousness, effort, equanimity. These are mental factors which accompany the mental factor of faith when it arises.
The third type of skillful action was that of, in terms of motivation. And if as a preliminary to our meditation we develop a skillful motivation, then our meditation becomes skillful. And whatever we do, motivated by a skillful state of mind becomes a skillful action in terms of whether it’s a physical action of the body or a verbal action of speech becomes skillful because it’s motivated by a skillful action. There are various types of physical actions such as abandonment of killing, abandonment of stealing, abandonment of sexual impropriety, verbal actions such as giving up lying, divisive speech, harmful words. If these actions are preceded by a skillful motivation, then they all become skillful.
And then finally the last of these was in terms of bringing one’s skillful practice to completion and this would be the attainment of liberation, the abandonment of cyclic existence. In terms of motivation, the same would hold true for unskillful actions. If we were, for example, motivated by anger and we spoke hurtful words or we actually physically fought, then these verbal and physical actions would be unskillful because they’re motivated by unskillful actions. So we should try to recognize what are skillful actions, having identified them, and to accumulate them each day. And then through the accumulation of the skillful actions, then by means of the penitarrays rising, then we’re going to experience happiness in the future.
And on the other hand, if by recognizing well what are the unskillful actions and then determining to refrain and to abandon skillful actions, then in the future we will not undergo suffering. It’s very important that we be able to identify what are the causes of happiness and what are the causes of unhappiness. It would be if we were going to plant a crop and we wanted to grow rice. But instead of planting rice seeds, planted pea seeds and we would not get the crop that we wanted. On the other hand, if we were to be able to identify what are the right seeds, then we would be able to correctly plant what we wanted for to come up.
So it’s really wonderful if we are able to identify well what are the causes of happiness, but the same holds true with respect to suffering. We don’t want to suffer, so it’s very necessary that we be able to identify what are the causes of suffering. It’s extremely beneficial. Quoting from a verse from Śāntideva, which describes how if we’re not willing to suffer, then we have to understand how suffering arises and how it comes about from unskillful actions. We can understand what is unskillful by a process of analysis and beginning to examine our actions, if they are in fact unskillful or skillful.
Just as in the case of the well known Geshe Ben who decreased his unskillful actions and finally was able to eliminate them altogether. And then the same holds true for skillful actions. So initially, we may only create a few skillful actions, but we can increase those until such a time arises when actions are only skillful. So this is what is meant by mind transformation or the thought transformation. It’s in terms of decreasing and finally abandoning the various unskillful states and increasing the various skillful states.
Other than this, there’s no other mind training. There’s no other thought transformation. It’s only in terms of decreasing unskillful and increasing skillful states. Today we’ve been examining the nature, have been examining skillful and unskillful, what we mean by those. And we’ve discussed them in terms of these types.
That is to say skillful by its very nature, skillful by similarity, skillful by motivation, and the ultimate skillful. And the same holds true in terms of unskillful. Other than these four types, with respect to each of these two categories, there’s no other skillful or unskillful. The commitment is that if you can, to do the self-generation of Vajrasattva. If you can’t do that, then to do a retreat.
If you can’t do that, then to say as many mantras as you can each day. The best way to listen to teachers is to discuss in terms of one’s motivation. If one can, then the motivation for listening to teaching is the awakening heart. One is listening to the teaching in order to benefit oneself and all other sentient beings. If one cannot develop that motivation, then the motivation to listen to the teaching in order to achieve liberation.
If one cannot develop that motivation, then to listen with the motivation that in order to benefit, to achieve a human life in the future. So these types of motivations are the best ways to listen to the teachings. Buddha also advised in listening to the teachings that one should listen with a mind which is free of attachment and hatred — a mind which is free of these. So it’s important that we listen to the teachings with the mind which is free of attachment or hatred. That is a mind which is clear of these or pure of these states.
And also we should listen without lots of distractions, mind wandering here and there. But we should listen attentively to what is being said. And then thirdly, we should try not to forget what has been said. We should try to remember, try to hold what has been said in the mind. So these three qualities are: mind free of attachment and hatred, mind which is not wandering here and there, and then endeavoring to hold and not forget — to remember — what has been said.
With respect to that third quality, if we don’t remember what’s been said, if we forget, then the reason for listening is to practice. And if we can’t remember what was said, then we can’t practice. And there’s been no benefit. And if we sit and listen in distracted state, then we can’t really ascertain what has been said. It’s not understood.
And if the mind is mixed with either attachment or hatred in the process of listening, then there’s no benefit to our practice. The prayer on page ten.