Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute weekend retreat, Khyentse Rinpoche opens with a sustained examination of perception—how each observer has only access to their own perceptual experience, not another’s, and how this insight generates genuine compassion when fully grasped. He then shifts to a classical Buddhist theme: the futility of endless samsaric activity driven by dissatisfaction and attachment, and traces the spiritual disadvantages of ignoring impermanence and death. Woven through are practical teachings on turning the mind toward Dharma, guru devotion, and phowa practice, culminating in a discussion of how reincarnation lineages are recognized in Tibetan Buddhism through signs, dreams, and historical precedent. The retreat closes with a substantial historical digression on the first Jamyang Khyentse’s ecumenical collecting mission and how his non-sectarian scholarship preserved teachings across Tibet’s schools. Suited to practitioners already oriented to Buddhist practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 WR.mp3
UUID: cf6b15c4-d350-43e9-a42e-09bf64e14f0d
Teacher: Khyentse Rinpoche
Collection: Weekend Retreat (Khyentse Rinpoche)
Date: 1986 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.6 minutes
Words: ~3,916
Constantly. Not only sometimes. That is what is happening when you look at this hand. You are looking to your perception. You are not looking to my perception.
You are not looking to something that is not your perception and not my perception. You are only looking to your perception. Other than your perception, where is my hand? My perception is my perception. Right?
Your perception is your perception. Other than that, only difference between my perception of hand and your perception of hand is you don’t feel my hand. You only perceive form, but I can feel. Why? I have extra habit.
Because hand this hand has been about twenty six years with me. You see? But your hand is not my hand. Like that. Because it has not been with me.
But can you show me your hand now? Now I have a glimpse of your hand perception. Now if my memory and if my habit is strong, maybe I can still remember it tomorrow. But I still don’t know what is the weight and how many hairs your hand has, what kind of shape behind your hand. I still don’t know.
That. You understand? So now you you understand, You are looking to your perception, not somebody’s, not something solidly existent outside. You are only looking to your perception, but you are looking to you. So that is Rikpa, awareness, self awareness.
That’s it? Is it clear? I don’t know. I’m trying to make it so that it it will be your phenomenon. It will be your perception.
And this is the difficulty here. People always try to give one’s perception to other. I teach you something. This is paper, and then I reason you. I give you some logic why this is paper.
And then you look at your paper, which is completely different from my perception and say, Ah, this is paper. I see. And you have your perception. You don’t have my perception. We have agreement.
Yes, that I But actually you have your perception of paper and I have my perception of paper. But since it is in agreement, since it is the same perception, we say, Ah, communication. Now you have learned a lot. I say, Now you know this is a paper. Now you have to thank for me.
I like that. Actually you are having only your perception. And then if I give you hundred thousand of logic why this is paper, and if you don’t know, then I call it US stupid. You don’t know. You don’t know.
But what hap you if that time what happens, you are having another perception. You see, you are having a perception which you don’t know what to call. Something but which you don’t know what to call. And my perception I want to give my perception to you but logic was not good with you. That’s why karma is important.
Now this time, the karma is the sort of manager there, you see, to link your perception, my perception, agreement, karma. You are human being, I’m human being. You are thrown by your karma as a human being. I’m also thrown by and then we look into this water. Yes, water.
I like that. But if your karma and meet you as a fish, then hundred thousand times I say this is water. You will not agree. Okay. Yeah.
Absolutely. That is good. When you know how other people have a different perception, then the pure compassion will arise. You see? You understand?
When you know how different different perceivers have a different perception, then you will know how to excuse, how to give forgiveness. Then you will have pure compassion. Then you will like to help. Ah, nobody is right. Nobody is wrong.
But you always call your perception. It’s always right. Yes. What do you mean? We have to live without perception.
No. We don’t have to live without perception. We have to know the reality of perception, and that is nirvana. If you realize the reality of perception, then that is nirvana. nirvana means liberation.
You and I had disagreement, a big disagreement, that makes us so bound in the fight. And then we try to communicate. And then if we agree, then there’s no more fight. Like this. People have suffered because they have a different perception, and this can’t connect to them.
Sort of like Karl Marx or Lenin, they felt that communism, their philosophy is good for everybody. But that is not good for everybody. It’s good for some people but it’s not good for some people. There’s nothing that is good for everybody. Because there are different perceivers.
That’s why Buddha gives you more than eighty four thousand teachings, all different. But all have one aim to bring you to the one reality, And that reality is not different. Dharma is good for everybody, but there are a lot of different types of Dharma. Buddha has given more than eighty four thousand Dharma. Buddhism isn’t for everybody, you are saying?
Or Buddhism is for everybody? Both, I think. I think Buddhism is for everybody because Buddhism For example, if you talk about Buddhist great compassion, then Buddhism also agrees such as Jesus Christ who helped certain people something very rejoice about. Many lamas also say he could be one of the bodhisattvas. So this field Buddhism is for everybody.
Maybe for some sentient beings, you should not talk about this name Buddhism because name Buddhism is very little important. Name is just an identification. Maybe you should say this is Muslim and then talk about love, compassion, and bring that person to the reality or to the nirvana. Or you can call it Muslim, but it’s good. So that way, Buddhism, the name is not for everybody, but the fact of the Buddhism is for everybody.
And now there’s yeah. Maybe we go to the. Advice. There’s no end to this activity and delusions of saṃsāra. The second page.
The more you do, the more they increase because sentient beings are naturally have a habit of dissatisfaction. Like one of the Sakya Panditas said, all the sentient things, what we do, we always do some arrangements and then finish our life. We always make plans and do arrangements, and the result of that arrangement, the final result of that arrangement never arrives. Just in a bedroom, for example, we always try to change the bed, this side, that side, put this here, that side here, trying to make and better change, trying to change the, you know, arrangements in like this way. But the result doesn’t come because there’s a dissatisfaction.
And then animosity and attachment just grow more and more, and gradually all this animosity and attachment work towards one’s own downfall, and we create lots of bad karma. And then we will never understand what is the true meaning of love and compassion. And when there is no love and compassion within ourselves, you know one will always suffer or one will have no happiness like. Not only one side, but one’s friends and all the surroundings will have the same effect. Because negative action or negative intention is very powerful.
Intention is usually more powerful than the action. Intention produces the action. That’s why one should control the intention. Therefore, instead, turn your mind towards Dharma. Here you will find the first glimpse towards enlightenment and liberation.
You won’t be ashamed of the moment of death. This is one of the very popular sayings or teaching that is always taught in Tibetan Buddhism. Even you will find in Milarepa’s song, he said in one of his songs that my practice of Dharma is for not having shame when I die. I don’t know whether the ashamed is correct word or not. I may regret it.
Won’t be ashamed at the moment of death. Right now we have not knowing of impermanence and death. Disadvantage of not knowing of impermanence and death is countless. For example, if don’t know the impermanence and death, then since we don’t know the impermanence and death, since we don’t expect them constantly, since we don’t plan plan to have death and impermanence, that’s why one is always unable to accept changes in the life. If some big change, some accidents or some disasters or something big change comes between friends or within whatever, your friend has to be separated or something like that, then one has faced a lot of difficulty of unable to accept the change in our life.
You see, one of the Buddhist main practices, all these Buddhist teachings, two relative teachings are to make oneself to accept the changes in the life. Life. And when one knows or when one is able to accept changes in one’s life, changes in life, then when the changes come, we will know how to take care of them. Or even if we don’t know how to take care of them, we will know how to take it easily. Also, if one doesn’t realize the importance of impermanence and death, then that will make you that will increase a lot of laziness and that will make you forgetfulness or lack of mindfulness.
And then when we don’t know impermanence and death, then we don’t know value of one’s life and value of others’ life. So then we commit lots of negative actions that are harmful to others. And then another thing, the disadvantage of not knowing the impermanence and death is when we die, we die regretfully. And due to lots of bad karma, due to lots of bad or negative actions which you have collected by not knowing the impermanence and death that will cause unhappy rebirth. But do we believe reincarnation in the first place?
Just because you feel like that way or there’s some certain logic? Logic? What is the good best logic you have to accept the good? Yeah. karma is a good one.
You know, in Tibet, there are some identified reincarnations. Identified reincarnation. In the west, so far I mean, for many years, there’s no identified reincarnations. It should be quite hard for the in the western society to accept reincarnation. Oh, like, Have you ever heard of him?
He passed away. And then he was born in Spain. So he’s identified as a reincarnation of Lama Yeshe. We have lots of libraries in Tibet. So Tibetans are born Buddhist, born Buddhist.
Oh, some high lamas or maybe sometimes they themselves. Lots of tests. You know? Like, he’s already missed the Dalai Lama. This is Dalai Lama.
One of thirteen Dalai Lama passed on. You you you didn’t teach before some kids. Shouldn’t Just a Reting Rinpoche, the regent, his disciple. He made a lot of prayers. He went to one of the lake Lhamoi Latso, the protector’s lake in Tibet, and he saw three letters in the lake, AKA, and then make commentary on these three letters like, like this, you know, these places.
Everything comes from there. And then through the prediction, through the meditation, through the prayers, through the signs. Signs. For example, in Lhasa, Lhasa’s young boys and girls, they always sing some short songs, and these songs are sometimes quite meaningful. But you don’t know who started this song, you don’t know who sort of first wrote this song, And you don’t know the meaning of the song, and sometimes you don’t know the meaning of the song until it really happens.
So before this Dalai Lama was born, pastors, young girls and boys sing one phrase of song for about a few years. And after this Dalai Lama was in front, this song was also no more singing, they don’t sing anymore. But then that song has lots of names of this Dalai Lama’s father, mother, and the place of his all this. Like that. And like six Dalai Lama, when six Dalai Lama, before he died he’s a great poet.
You know? Before he died, he made a poem to a bird. He said that, please, you know, give me one of your wings. I won’t go further but I will go to Litang and then come back, and I will give back your wings. And that was sort of very meaningless and very childish-.
But later on they found that seventh Dalai Lama was born in Litang. You see? That kind of significations. And then, so that’s why one should really think about impermanence and death.
Buddha himself said many times, best meditation that can make us enter one’s mind into Dharma is to remember impermanence and death all the time, because this will make you ability to accept and cope with major changes in life. And then when you know the impermanence and death, then this will make you lack of fear and expectation. And in this life and others, you will go from happiness to happiness. There’s no doubt. So the one who has been most gracious to you, your lama and Vajradhāra or Vajrayoginī, or Samantabhādra, inseparable, visualize on top of your head and over your heart and soul in fervent and one pointed devotion.
And whatever arises, good or bad, happiness and sorrows, rely on your only father, lama, and pray to him. Mix your mind one with him. Now this is from something of guru devotion. Whatever arises, good or bad, usually, most of the practitioners, whenever there’s a bad happens, then they will remember guru or Triple Gem. But when there’s good happening, good happening, then they forget the blessing of guru, that is not so good.
And at the moment of death abandon all the thoughts of attachment and aversion We visualize one’s guru on the top of one’s head and one’s consciousness in the form of light symbolized by HRI. Now this is like power. And transfer it into the wisdom of the lama Vajradhāra. In the rest, you could meditate and practice in this manner always. At the moment of death, it will become easier to recite the prayer of Phowa prayer.
In conclusion, Dharma practice is to cut attachment to saṃsāra, to generate love and compassion for all the beings of the six realms, to tame this mind of ours again and again. This I take to heart to practice all the time. Please do. This was written by. Here he says, even though I have no practice in myself, this story advised the word of noble ones of the past was written by the one who has no Dharma that stays by his side, the so called.
For the fortunate woman, One of his disciples, a nun, requested him to write this. And just not to reject her request, he wrote this. Which one? Mhmm. Heart advice.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is the fourth time in Australia.
I think it really doesn’t matter much as long as it is a letter. But using some of the shape of the letter Like this. On the top of the hum, there’s one circle thing. And then on the top of the circle, is what is this symbol? Yeah.
That in English you don’t have, this kind of symbol. Now this thing is quite important in the practice of completion meditation because this is a container of flame, flame burning energy. You see? This is very important.
So if you are depending on the Sanskrit text, then do a Sanskrit. And if you do depending on the Tibetan, do it in Tibetan. But if you really can’t do it, then I think English letter or letter or whatever is offering you. Chinese letter. And then when you did you do any?
Yeah. Are you going to do it this evening? That’s good. I think you should do practice also. Yeah.
That’s it. I think Lots of gossip is not so much useful. I don’t know. My previous incarnation, I don’t remember. What is your previous incarnation?
First, tell me that. We will we will, like, we will swap. Yeah. Then? What do you think?
Do you think it’s beneficial? It’s your perception. Yeah? Oh, I was I was actually requesting. You know Vimalamitra?
King Trisong Detsen invited Vimalamitra. You know, king, the Tibetan king, who is is the invader of Guru Rinpoche, and who is the sort of a great patron of Tibetan Buddhism, who really invited Buddhism in Tibet. King. This Jamyang Khyentse lineage. Jamyang Khyentse incarnations are supposed to be his incarnation, this king and combination of Vimalamitra.
Why? Because it’s supposed to have there’s actually about seventy one incarnation from that king to Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodro. This one up to this. Seventy one reincarnations. And but they are not called as Jamyang Khyentse.
Jamyang Khyentse — this name was only found in the first Jamyang Khyentse. First Jamyang Khyentse was quite became quite famous and very respected and very well known during the end of eighteenth century. Because at that time, in Tibet, there was a lot of this problem about sectorism. You know? Nyingma ba, Nyingmapas ruled Tibet for a while.
Then Sacha, Gaiju, Nyingma, they ruled. Country was ruled by different school. Then on the top of that we have this problem of Langdarma, king Langdarma. He also sort of destroyed lots of Dharma. Then people had so much sectarianism, and then lots of lineage are missing because you practice only your teaching, and I practice only my teaching, and we too are very I don’t send my students to you.
You don’t send your students to me. You don’t teach your lineage openly because you have to be careful. That kind of thing a lot. Anyway, the teachings become very, very narrow. At that time, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo the first, he then thought they should have a collection.
So first, he went to almost all the places in Tibet, and he had about hundred and fifty guru teacher. Some some of his teachers are very interesting. He okay. For example, he has this this book, some advice of how to recite, for example, initiation of Vajrayoginī. Then he went to this guru and asked, Do you have this initiation?
But he doesn’t because lineages, he doesn’t have that. He has received. So he’s searching because this teaching is very important. Sometimes he finally got a cowherd who has this initiation, but he doesn’t know how to read the book now. It’s a problem, you see.
So he stayed there for six or seven months. First, he teach how to read to this. After he know how to read only that text, then he prostrate to him, and then he received the teaching from him just to hold the lineage. So after collecting all this lineage with Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, with Chogyur Lingpa Rinpoche, and with all this There were a lot of scholars actually at that time. With Chogyur Lingpa.
They made a lot of collection. There’s a collection of terma teachings. Have you ever heard of teacher teaching? Teachings? Yeah.
Teacher teachings. Now with and they collect they made a collection of terma teachings, which is about hundred and eleven volumes. So many terma teachings. Now these are all qualified terma teachings, you know, nice, because at that time, one problem is there were lots of fake lamas who money and who wants to just go and sit. They have some sort of a magic, then people like this kind of magic, you see.
So they go and For example, what they do here in Tibet, some who really don’t have any true dharma, who understand the reality, who doesn’t have love and compassion, but who only wants to have some position, who are very craved for positions, what they do, for example, they eat a rock. And then when they give back the rock, there’s an Avalokiteśvara image on the rock. I like that. Quite powerful, you know? And then people like this kind of thing.
People think this is the teaching, you see? So the real teaching is gone. That’s why they had this difficulty. And then there are lots of treasure teachings, good treasure teachings. But at the same time, again these fake lamas, they invented their own terma teachings, wrote lots of terma teachings.
Now, Jamyang Khyentse and Jamgon Kongtrul, they all gathered and then checked, and then they made this collection called Rinchen Terdzod. With Jamgon Ngawang Kunga, one of the Sakya Lama, he collected all the advices, which is about volumes, collection of advice. And then he with Jamgon Lama Rinpoche, again, he collected all the sadhanas, collection of sadhanas, which is almost about fourteen volumes. Like that, he did lots of collections. And with one of some of the Gelugpa lamas, he did lots of collections.
So that’s why he he was well known as a nonsectarian lineage holder. And then then he practiced. He did very well. For example, first he went to all these different lamas and received teachings. Then he didn’t write first.
From forty nine no, from forty four forty five, I think, forty five years of his age to seventy six, he shut his door, never went out to the retreat, and practiced all what he has received. Then at the same time he collected and he did all the writings. Then there’s all this collection. So at that time, Gelugpa tradition is quite very well flourished. There’s Sera University, Drepung University, and Gelugpa school is new.
At that time, the Gelugpa school is sort of Because Dalai Lama and his Pänchen Lama, they are the ruler of Tibet. So there is not so much, what do you call it? Disharmony. No. There’s nothing left, you see?
Because the ruler of the kingdom or whatever, most of them are Gelugpas. Other than that, those who are already scattered or thin lineages are mostly Sakya and Nyingma and Kaju and many, many different school. So now if you for example, if you go on studying different schools, you will find Jamgon Kongtrul and Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s name a lot because they have made lots of collection. You see? So and then when he passed away, he said he wrote his own biography, auto autobiography.
And he said, when I die, I will my consciousness or I will dissolve into the heart of Mañjuśrī who is still existing in Mount Wutai Shan in China. And from then, he will manifest into five reincarnation. And then there comes five reincarnation, body reincarnation, speech, mind, quality, and activity. And Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodro, the writer of this heart advice, is supposed to be the speech incarnation. That’s all.
Did I do well? I think we will end here. Some prayers. So what we do, some dedication, and we do dedication. We dedicate if there’s some I don’t know whether there’s any merit of talking all these gossips.
If there is, we dedicate this for a long life of his and his successful for his own wish and quick enthronement. And, also, partly, we dedicate for the peace of the world, and we dedicate especially for our friend here, who had made this possible. And we dedicate for this Buddha house for all the help. Okay. Okay.
I think you should do some Lam Rim practice. Who’s going to stand up first? Maybe I should.