Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Khyentse Rinpoche addresses fundamental Buddhist concepts with direct, practical force. He begins by examining why happiness pursued through worldly education and ambition fails: because sentient beings mistake subtle suffering for happiness and lack understanding of reality. He reframes suffering not as something to flee, but as a mirror reflecting emptiness—essential knowledge that the Buddha himself taught first as the First Noble Truth. Rinpoche then explains why, despite all phenomena being inherently pure and empty from the beginning, practitioners must engage dualistic methods: ethics, meditation, visualization, offering, prayer. These are useful tools, not obstacles. He uses the metaphor of removing a thorn with a thorn: once enlightenment is reached, the path is abandoned naturally, like getting off a bus upon arrival. The teaching concludes with discussion of how Buddhist imagery and cultural forms—wrathful deities, different artistic depictions across regions, even the Shambhala prophecy—serve the principle of meeting beings where they are, not as fixed dogma but as skillful means grounded in perception and circumstance.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 WR.mp3
UUID: 133e4808-8712-40ff-92fd-da4020c8e691
Teacher: Khyentse Rinpoche
Collection: Weekend Retreat (Khyentse Rinpoche)
Date: 1986 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~4,326
It is spontaneously accomplished from the beginning because it has all the potential so that for the other being’s view, they can perceive any sort of perception. And this is a combination of awareness and emptiness. And this is Samantabhādra Buddha. Abide at all times in this recognition undistracted. Okay.
Any questions you have? Well, the value of Dharma can be only realized when you put it into practice. And the reason why we practice the Dharma is to gain happiness. Everybody seeks happiness, and everybody wants happiness equally. Nobody wants unhappiness, but sentient beings don’t know how to collect the cause of happiness.
Instead, they cause unhappiness. The things which you call happiness, things which we call happiness in this saṃsāra, are not actually happiness. They are just subtle suffering. When a big gross suffering becomes smaller and smaller, then we call it happiness. But actually, they are not happiness.
The cause of living, such as food and clothes, we call it cause of living, but actually they can also cause death. So all these phenomena, all these circumstances in this saṃsāra are all a cause of suffering or suffering itself. Why is there suffering? Because we have this not knowing. We have this ignorance.
That’s why we suffer. If we know how to live in this world, we won’t suffer. But to know how to live—of course everybody struggles trying to know how to live. But all what we do is go to a school, better school, and go to college or go to university and try to educate oneself so that one knows how to live better, how to gain happiness. For centuries and centuries, mankind has been trying to do this, but nobody has ever succeeded to gain a permanent happiness through this worldly method of gaining happiness.
Why? Because we all have a lack of understanding of the reality. That’s why we have this suffering. And another thing is it is good that suffering is something like a reflection, something like a mirror that shows you the emptiness. Many people, it seems, many people don’t want to know and don’t want to hear about suffering.
It seems, for some people, suffering is even a big word. But suffering is—what is the definition of suffering in the West? It is something very unpleasant, something you don’t want to talk about, that you don’t want to imagine. But it is good to imagine. You should talk about it, and you should imagine, and you should see the suffering.
That’s why Buddha Śākyamūni, after he got enlightenment in Bodhgaya, when he went to Varanasi, in his first sermon, he gave the Four Noble Truths. And of all the Four Noble Truths, first, what he said was know suffering. Without knowing the suffering, one will never understand what is the cause of suffering and we will not know what is the suffering itself. Everybody misunderstands suffering, something as happiness. But if that lasted very long, then okay, then you can misunderstand.
But obviously it doesn’t last long. That’s why we have this constant regret, this feeling of anxiety and a kind of guilt of not knowing something, not knowing behind. Even there are people who don’t believe in everything and who say, “My life is okay. I don’t believe in everything. My life is okay.”
But actually, I think they are lying to themselves. Everybody has anxiety. Everybody has ambition. And all these are considered as suffering in Buddhism. Everything that has got to do with effort, ambition—these are all suffering.
If you know the suffering, then you will know the cessation of suffering. You see, one thing in the samsaric world is we don’t know suffering. Why? Because we don’t know the cessation of suffering. We think that our suffering is endless.
Even though we know by logic, by book, by intellectually, we don’t experience. We always think that suffering is something you have to get out of this suffering. Otherwise, this suffering is something solid. Suffering is something that doesn’t go out, something permanent. That is one reason why you don’t know the suffering.
If you know the suffering, then you will know the cessation of the suffering. And then you will know the path of the cessation of suffering. And you will know what is the cause of suffering. That is very important.
For example, like death or dying. People seem to avoid thinking about death, thinking about dying. But actually, death and dying is the biggest tragedy in this life. Everyone tries to live better. Everybody is full of anxiety, ambition.
When we talk about bad news such as war, nuclear war, and if you talk about flood, if you talk about civil war, if you talk about earthquake, if you talk about disasters, if you talk about robbery, gangsters and hijacking and that kind of thing—all inwardly, the main reason why we are afraid of this is because of our life, because of death. Because of death. So death is one of the biggest tragedies that we have. But it seems that many people try to not talk about death, not think about death. We always try to plan.
We plan, thinking that life is yet to come. Tomorrow we will live. Tomorrow we will do this. Next day we will do this. After the next day we will do this.
We are always making plans and trying to avoid that. Not only that. For example, when some person dies, you send friends to their place and say some nice things, throw parties or send cards. What you are really doing is trying to hide something that cannot be hidden, right? Something that cannot be hidden, and you are trying to hide it.
And we all know this, that death cannot be hidden. This will come. For that reason, we should talk about death. Exactly the same. We should talk about the suffering.
And when we talk about death, death will become like a mirror of life. Then we will know the value of life. Then we will respect our life. And then we won’t be shallow. Friendship is also the same.
If two friends stay long, then it’s quite normal that friends don’t value friendship. Whenever there’s a separation, then they think about the value of friendship. That’s what we always do. If a person is good to you, when you are close and if you stay for years and years together, almost what you do is always try to dig the fault in each other.
When a person dies, then, “Oh, he was a nice man. She was a nice woman,” or something like that—then we see the value of the person, we see the value of friendship, and we see the value of togetherness. That’s why every phenomenon is actually like a mirror. Death is a mirror to life.
Life is a mirror to death. And everything is dependent. So that’s why one thing we should know is suffering. Everything is dependent. It’s not that emptiness is never dependent with suffering.
They are both very, very dependent. If you want to know emptiness, you have to know suffering because they are very dependent. If you want to know life, you have to know death. It is thanks to death that you are alive. Without death, there is no life.
Death and life—death is a big part of life. You see? If there’s no death, there’s no beauty of life. One should paint like that. We are always being extreme.
All the time we are being extreme. This is the problem. We always try to make something. We try to put our own concept on the thing. So that’s why there is always a mistake.
Even for an artist, it seems that most of the artists, they bring a paper, empty paper, white paper, and then try to use black ink or something, blue ink, and then they try to draw something. And then they call it “this is art.” And then they concentrate more on what they do, the black thing.
But for Tibetan, when we learn the calligraphy of Tibetan—actually, these Tibetans, they don’t do it. They have this philosophy and this idea, but they don’t do it. So that is very sad. Anyway, when they try to draw something in calligraphy writing or that kind of thing, the teacher always tells you the white paper is more important than the black which you put.
The art comes from the white paper, not only from—most of this, ninety-nine percent of art comes from the white paper which you have, not drawing or anything. Only about one percent of art comes from the thing which you apply. You see? So like that, everything—what we do is always extreme, too extreme, never balanced.
So when there’s no balance, then we don’t understand the fact. So that’s why understanding of perception is very important. And then, even though, as we talked this morning and previously, every phenomenon is pure from the beginning, empty from the beginning—even though the nature of all phenomena is nondualistic, pure—even though in our nature we have Buddha-nature inside, we just can’t say, “Oh, we all have Buddha-nature,” and do whatever we like, because our mind cannot be accustomed by that.
One cannot get enlightenment saying that one is Buddha and chanting that one is Buddha and oneself is Buddha because one’s mind has to be accustomed. You see? So for that reason, even though to reach the non-dualistic state, you have to be dualistic. You have to have a teacher.
You have to practice. You have to have a book. You have to have all these methods of meditating, visualizing, completing, prostration, offering, confessing—all these sorts of giving, ethics, patience, prayer—all these are necessary. I know that we all know that these are dualistic, but they are useful dualistic. They bring you to the non-dualistic.
Like, if you have a thorn inside your palm or hand somewhere, then you have to get another thorn to take it out. When you take it out, when the thorn that is inside your hand is reached, then you can get rid of both thorns—the thorn that is inside your hand and the thorn that picks out the thorn inside.
So exactly the same. When you get nirvana, when you become enlightened, then if you ask, “Do we still have to do the meditation?” then that’s a very stupid question. Once we get enlightenment, then we are not on the path. The path will be automatically abandoned. Actually, you’re not talking about reality.
There won’t be anything to be abandoned at that time. Dharmakīrti, one of the logicians, he said the path is like a ship or a coach, a bus. If you go to Sydney by bus, then the path is like a bus. And then once you reach Sydney, if you’re still inside the bus, then you are still in the bus, not in Sydney where you wanted to go.
You don’t call it abandoned, but automatically, you will get out of the bus. It’s exactly the same. The path will be automatically abandoned. But during the path time, one needs any method of the path. One cannot criticize—”this path is better than the other path.” “This has more blessing.” This is all our dualistic mind.
This is all applied from dualistic mind. Even some people, some Vajrayāna practitioners, they say that Mañjuśrī is only good for wisdom but not for compassion. Avalokiteśvara is specialized for compassion but not for wisdom—as if saying that Avalokiteśvara is some sort of ignorant person who has no wisdom but who is a kind person, and Mañjuśrī is someone who is very intelligent but quite arrogant.
So these are all our perception. You know, we do this, a lot of perception. Of course, ourselves, we have lots of perception, right? We are not satisfied with our own perception, but we even apply our perception to the Buddha. If you go to China, you will see Buddha which has a hat, round face, wearing more clothes, big belly.
If you go to India, you will find thin, big shoulders, and tall. And if you go to Tibet, thin eyes. And if you go to Afghanistan or near Pakistan, in this area, Buddha with a mustache, beard. You go to Japan, you see Avalokiteśvara was female. You see?
It’s all because we are applying our perception to the Buddha—our perception. But I’m not saying that this is not correct. Listen. When you talk about dualistic mind and non-dualistic mind, of course dualistic mind is something negative and non-dualistic mind is something positive. But when you talk about the path, there’s nothing wrong there.
If you think, for example, in America or in Africa where there’s a lot of Negroes, maybe they can have a Buddha exactly the same looking as them. And then they can have faith and devotion to this kind of Buddha where they perceive he’s the best-looking man, and they can receive the blessings whatever they like.
All—even the offerings, you see. For example, usually we have these seven offerings, right? Water and this kind of thing. But the first one is to wash your feet, you know? Why? No one washes our feet these days.
I mean, in India—when I mean is, in India, when a guest comes, in ancient times—even these days, I think some people do that. In ancient times, if a guest comes, then you quickly bring water and wash their feet first. This is a tradition. And then you give them drinking water.
Maybe some of you must have gone to India. When you enter an Indian restaurant, the first thing what they give is water. Water is something very popular in India, even though it is dirty or whatever. So anyway, the first bowl of water is to wash your feet, wash the guest’s feet—that’s the Indian concept.
The true Buddhism is never the ultimate teaching—Buddha is not a tradition, but tradition can help. For example, Buddha taught in India. Buddhism was in India. I’m sure there must have been lots of influence from Indian culture and tradition. Why? Because Buddha is skillful.
The teaching has to fit into that kind of society. For example, nuns and monks have this annual summer retreat. Do you call it summer retreat? Yeah. Rainy season retreat. Yeah.
This was first conducted during Buddha’s time because actually, before Buddhism, Buddhism doesn’t have this kind of tradition. But Hindus, they have. During the rainy season, they never go out. They always stay somewhere in their hermitage and do meditation. And at that time, there was a lot of influence of Hinduism.
And then people started to say a lot of things like, “These Buddhists, these bald-headed Buddhists, they go out even in the rainy season. Can’t they see how many insects and things are dying?” And because of that and because of also other reasons, Buddha then started this annual summer rainy season retreat. You see?
So like that, the teaching has to be connected with some tradition. Then Buddhism came to Tibet, and there are lots of Tibetan culture and tradition that is mixed with Buddhism. That doesn’t mean that it is not good. It is good for Tibetans because it will be very easier for them to accept.
You see? But the true Buddhism, the real Buddhism won’t change by changing the tradition. This is one thing that one should understand. Also, earlier, as I said, different places—like we have this image, we have all these wrathful images, peaceful images. We have Avalokiteśvara, someone like Avalokiteśvara who has four arms.
Some deities have six arms, a thousand arms. All these are significations or representations. Buddha himself said to his followers, “One should not depend on the person, but one should depend on the truth of the person or the word of the person.” We have Buddha images or thangkas or paintings on our altar, not because we respect him or we respect the person.
But he taught us, he gave us advice, and we thought that his advice is good for us. His advice will bring us into some way called nirvana. And then, in our perception, we have affinity with his advice, and we like his advice. So we respect his advice.
Automatically, when you respect the advice, automatically you respect the advisor. So that’s why we have this image. It’s exactly the same as you keep your friend’s photographs. You see, you like him. Why? Because you like his words, his presence, his teachings, and then you like him.
And so you don’t want to forget him. You want to show respect to him or something like that. Lots of reasons, right? And we keep our friends’ photographs. So in order to remind us of compassion, in order to remind us of compassion and skillful means, we have Avalokiteśvara’s image.
In order to remind us of wisdom, we have Mañjuśrī’s image, Mañjuśrī sutras, and like that. Any questions you have? Yeah. Shambhala? No. But that’s how the world—yeah. Yeah.
I’m talking, yeah. Bodhgaya. They will meet in Bodhgaya. But are you talking about Shambhala? No. This Shambhala war? Mm-hmm.
Ah, a new Buddha will come. Lord. Yeah. He will come. But you also—you will be born in India. Mm-hmm. Now these thousand Buddhas—this thousand Buddhas have chosen that place, so they will come to India only because they have made this prayer.
You see? You know, when we talk about realms of sentient beings, generally we have the six realms, right? Six realms. But in Abhidharma or in the Mahāyāna sutras, there are countless and countless and countless realms. This realm is one of the very, very, very small realms, and some realms remain for one hundred thousand kalpas.
Some realms remain within this moment, start and end. In some realms, the size of some realms is thumbnail size. And some realms are round. Some realms are square. Some realms are triangular. There are lots of different types of realms.
And all these realms, everywhere, there are lots of different types of sentient beings. And wherever there are sentient beings, there is Buddha helping—as a Nirmānakāya Buddha, like Śākyamūni, or as an ordinary. You see? They can be ordinary. They can be like someone like a prostitute or whatever.
But this particular thousand Buddhas—the thousand Buddhas of the Good Kalpa, we call it the Good Kalpa, right? Bhadrakalpa, Good Kalpa—they chose Bodhgaya. They made a prayer that way. But for those who are realized beings, who know, there are thousands and thousands of Buddhas right now, in this moment, getting enlightenment right near us somewhere.
You see? But then one has to make a history, right? We just can’t keep on saying this. One has to make a history of Buddhism. Follow what I’m saying? Mm-hmm. Right. We can make—if that helps sentient beings and if that doesn’t bring misunderstanding.
You see? For example, if you, Ani-la, and me make a Buddha Śākyamūni with two heads and three legs, if that helps thousands of sentient beings, that’s good. But if we do make that, we are almost sure that we will have lots of criticism. You see? But we are very free to do that, you know, if we help sentient beings.
Buddha, for three legs or two legs, he doesn’t mind. Buddha. No. This is the problem, you see. Why do you think that Buddha is not manifesting in the West? Are you saying that Buddha is a bit sectarian?
I think you’re just saying the tradition of Buddha. You know, why do you try to just live here? They’re not—this is chosen, you know, a chosen place. They have chosen this particular place. Maybe after these one thousand Buddhas, they might choose Adelaide.
In the viewpoint of the general—but in the viewpoint of some particular person, maybe they are choosing it right now. Thousands and thousands of Buddhas are getting enlightened in Adelaide, you see, in some particular perception. You are only talking about historical, right? Recognized by whom?
Recognized by whom? What makes you think that Buddha Śākyamūni is recognized by all the sentient beings as Buddha? Generally. Generally. Yeah. That’s a group phenomenon. You are talking about a group phenomenon. Right? Yes. According to the group phenomenon of Buddhist history, then Lord Maitreya is going to come to Bodhgaya only, and he is going to be a son of a Brahman.
He’s going to be white or something also. Any more questions? Oh, The Sacred Path of the Warrior. We have a new name, a new book written by Chögyam Trungpa. It’s a quite good book, you know, very good book.
Shambhala is another realm. But it actually exists. Yes. It exists. In the Shambhala book in Tibetan, you know, the first paragraph says if you know, the place where you are reading this book is Shambhala. You see? And if you don’t know, and if you want to know Shambhala somewhere as you want to know, then Shambhala is in the north because that’s where you want to know.
That’s where—that’s how you want to know. Right? If I say Shambhala is in the east, you don’t like Shambhala. So you prefer more north. So Shambhala is in the north. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yes.
Twenty-one kings will rule this Shambhala, and I think—I’m really not sure—I think this is about the fifteenth or sixteenth king, something like that. And the twenty-first king, he is going to come to India. Like that. All the people in Shambhala are supposed to be on the stage of the tenth level.
Some say on the stage of the Path of Preparation, which means everybody is a bodhisattva. Talking about Star Wars now. This is something like Star Wars also. I don’t know where they get some idea. Maybe they read something like this kind of thing.
In these modern movies, they have some certain ideas which are exactly written in Shambhala books and that kind of thing. For example, this movie called—what? 2001. We have two suns coming afterwards. Two suns. In one of the books, something like we have seven suns coming and all this planet war.
There’ll be a war of beings. That could be a realm of animals, for example, and maybe another. Both. But the last one is stronger. Last one. Last one. You have your realm.
I have my realm. Right? You like this place? This room? This place. This place. It gets a bit hot with the windows. Yeah. I like that. I’m very cold right now.
Would you like to close your window? You see? You don’t perceive my room. If you close the window, then you will be cold. Right? You will be hot then. No. No. No. No.
You will be very hot because your realm is very hot. Right? So what are we going to do now? Someone must go outside. But that’s not fair. You know? But that’s not fair. Who is going to go outside?
Yeah. That’s, I think, a very good idea. No. No. No. Don’t worry. In fact, I’m just giving you an example. In fact, I’m sharing the same realm. What can I do about that in my own view?
Ah, you can change your realm by prayer. I do that for you. Ah, that’s good. That’s why prayer works, you know. People don’t believe in dedication. Why? Because they think that everybody has just one realm. You see? It’s not true.
One can always change the realm. Prayer works. Dedication works. Why? Because everybody has their own different realm, and we also share a group realm. Because you are in this house, you think this is a house, I think this is a house.
You think this is a good house, I think this is a good house. We both have agreement, you see? But yet, inside, perception of house is your perception, and my perception of house is my perception. When I die, my perception of house will die, but your perception of house will still be there.
If your perception and my perception is just one, then when I die, half of this house will die, and you will only have half a house. Oh, yeah. Sure. That helps. Even though I don’t see the results, I should know that it does help.
I think you will also know. You will also know because Buddha said everything is circumstances, and circumstances are mind. You see? So mind can control. So prayer can control circumstances. Even though it is not like a hair that grows bigger and you can see, obviously.
You see? Any more debate? The benefit of visualizing is—because this is what I was thinking of talking about tomorrow, actually. But briefly, I can tell you.