Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 50-minute Lam Rim meditation, Kyabje Rinpoche guides practitioners through developing bodhicitta—the aspiration to free all sentient beings from suffering. He begins with posture and refuge prayers, then introduces the Three Principal Aspects of the Path (renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom realizing emptiness), establishing the foundation for all Buddhist practice. The teaching covers bodhicitta’s definition, its supreme importance across Buddhist traditions, and the role of great compassion as its essential root. The second half is a detailed guided meditation that cultivates bodhicitta through: recognizing all beings as one’s mothers across lifetimes; generating equanimity toward friend, enemy, and stranger; and practicing tonglen—the visualization of taking others’ suffering and giving them happiness. Suited for practitioners with foundational Buddhist knowledge and familiarity with Tibetan meditation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2011-04-25 – KR.mp3
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Meditation
Date: 2025-04-11
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,927
Good morning once again. We’ve survived another day. A night. So first, we’ll just check our physical posture. Back straight, shoulders even.
Lips and mouth relaxed. Just defocusing in the direction of our nose. Arms loosely by our side, right hand and left thumbs touching the level of the navel. Full half lotus or whatever is comfortable. Feet squarely on the floor.
Taking the gentle in and out flow of the breath as our object. Mindful of the merit field, Buddha Śākyamūni. If we wish, can imagine breathing in white light just to settle the mind. Putting it in a virtuous state. But it is with the mind that we meditate.
The motivation makes a difference as to whether our practice is virtuous or non virtuous or neutral. And so we can think of the remarkable improbability of us being here in this form, in this place with the connection that we have to such a highly realized being. Not knowing as to what will come next, our next life or our next breath. Given the non virtue in our mind, thinking if we died now the weight of our karma would take us straight to the lower realms where there is unimaginable suffering. We need to rely upon a reliable refuge.
And thinking about the sufferings within cyclic existence, coming to realize that there is not one atom of happiness within it. And so with an attitude of renunciation we practice the higher trainings of ethics, concentration and wisdom. But to attain liberation for our own purposes is so limited, given that we’re only here because of kind mother sentient beings. It would be unconscionable to attain our own happiness and not work for the happiness of such beings. And therefore out of great compassion we expand our awareness to have a vast motivation to attain and bring to fruition all our positive qualities separating from our negative qualities, so that we can become the personification of all that is love, compassion and wisdom, a Buddha.
And so we can determine that we will do this practice so that it will be a cause to bring this about. And so to affirm such a motivation we will recite the refuge in bodhicitta prayer on page two, verse 1A and then the four immeasurables. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. By the merit of practicing generosity and so on, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
By the merit of practicing generosity and so on. May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha by the merit of practicing generosity and so on. May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and its causes. May all sentient beings never be separated from happiness and be free of suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment and anger, holding some close and others distant. And so just checking our posture, our awareness to rest, at the breath as we take a few moments to settle the mind. If it’s helpful, we can count breathing in, breathing out, one, breathing in, breathing two, etc, up to say five.
When we’re distracted by thoughts, sounds, sensations, just say thinking, bring the mind back to the breath, continue counting. It may not get past one or two, that doesn’t matter. When the mind settles, you can suspend the counting. And just continue like this for a couple of minutes. We’ll just recite the three principal aspects of the path.
Homage to all the foremost holy Lamas. I will explain as best as I can the essential meaning of all the conqueror’s teachings, path praised by his noble children, a crossing for the fortunate seeking liberation. Listen with clear minds those fortunate of you, who unattached to the pleasures of conditioned existence and striving that your life of freedom and richness will find meaning, entrust yourself to paths pleasing to the conquerors. Without real renunciation, there is no way to stop struggling for sought pleasures in the seas of conditioned existence, and addiction to such existence utterly enslaves you. Thus, at the outset, seek the will to awaken.
Freedoms and richesnesses are hard to find, and life does not last long. Keeping this always in mind will alter the priority you give to this life, thinking again and again about the unvarying relation between actions and their effects. And the sufferings of cyclic existence will alter the priority you give to future lives. Meditating in this way, when your thoughts are turned night and day towards liberation, and not even for a moment do you entertain a wish for the splendours of cyclic existence, then you have given birth to the will to awaken. But even such a will, if not combined with the complete opening of your heart, does not serve as cause for the perfect bliss of highest awakening.
Thus, those of you who truly understand go on to develop the supreme awakened heart. Think about what is happening to your mothers, how they are swept along in the currents of four raging rivers, abound by the near unbreakable chains of compulsive actions and held in the iron grip of self grasping. Think how they are enveloped in the thick darkness of ignorance, are reborn into limitless lives, and in those lives are relentlessly made to bear the three sufferings. In this way give birth to the highest of hearts. But even if you were to instill within you the will to awaken and the awakened heart, without the wisdom realizing reality of the awakened mind, still you have no way to cut the root of conditioned existence.
Thus work with the means of realizing dependent arising. Whoever sees the unvarying relation between a cause and its effect in all things of cyclic existence and beyond, and brings to an end holding them as real, has entered onto the path that pleases the Buddhas. As long as the two, appearance as infallible dependent arising and emptiness as freedom from assertion as true, appear distinct one from another, you have yet to realize the subduer’s intent. But when they are no longer alternate but coincide such that in the mere seeing of the infallibility of dependent arising definite knowledge totally destroys the way you conceive of things as real, Then your analysis of the view is complete. Moreover, the extreme of true existence is dispelled by appearance and that of non existence by emptiness.
And if you understand the way emptiness finds expression within the context of cause and effect, you no longer will be captivated by extreme views. Then, when you have realised, just as they are, these essentials for the three principal aspects of the path, resort to solitude, intensify your joyous effort and quickly, my child, for fulfil your eternal dream. So we will continue with our analytical meditation. So here we actively engage with the topic until we get a sense of the meaning, hold that for as long as we can, and then continue our analysis. This morning’s Lam Rim meditation is bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment.
Bodhi enlightenment, Chitta mind, and its root cause, compassion. bodhicitta, the heartfelt wish to free all sentient beings from their suffering, is itself the root cause of enlightenment of Buddhahood. Our precious teacher Venerable Kyabje Rinpoche quoted Maitreya’s definition of bodhicitta as generating the mind to strive for full enlightenment for the sake of others, thus making the mind infinitely vast, striving for the benefit of all beings as vast as space. This requires a huge force to generate such a mind, and this force is great compassion, compassion extending to not just some, but to all numberless sentient beings. The Buddha said: Furthermore, Venerable Śāriputra, the great compassion of the bodhisattvas is inexhaustible.
Why? Because it is the prerequisite. Venerable Śāriputra, just as the movement of the breath is the prerequisite for the life force of a human being, the great compassion of the bodhisattvas is the prerequisite for correctly reaching the Mahāyāna. Venerable Lama Tsongkhapa says that compassion is important in the beginning, the middle and in the end of our practice. In the beginning to become motivated to want to free all beings from suffering.
In the middle, when we see that beings are innumerable and act improperly, that the training is very difficult and limitless, you may lose heart. However, by accustoming yourself to increasing greater compassion, you become less concerned with your own happiness or suffering, and are not discouraged at providing others welfare. Therefore, you easily accomplish all the collections. And in the end, because even after becoming a Buddha, they do not abide in solitary peace, but continue to work for the welfare of beings as long as space remains. Therefore, hold the spirit of enlightenment together with its root compassion to be the supreme instruction.
Compassion in turn has its cause, love, the heartfelt wish that all beings have happiness in its causes. As has been stated many times, there is no effect without a corresponding cause. To have love and compassion for others we must desire happiness and freedom from suffering for ourselves. Our precious teacher and protector Venerable Khabje Rinpoche underlines the fact that it is impossible to have compassion for others if we don’t have compassion for ourselves, if we don’t understand our own sufferings within cyclic existence, he says, we will not be able to project it onto others, to understand the suffering of others and wish to free them. To do this of course we must realize clearly the reality of how we actually do suffer, so that we will be motivated to identify and put an end to the cause.
Our precious teacher continues to highlight this in his teachings, stating that the entire Buddhist canon rests upon three main points: definite emergence or the will to awaken or renunciation, bodhicitta and the view realizing emptiness. He echoes Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche, who incidentally was one of Rinpoche’s teachers, who says in a commentary on the three principal aspects of the path: Renunciation is an absolute necessity. In fact, it has to be a fierce renunciation. If we see cyclic existence as attractive rather than in the very nature of suffering, will have no incentive to escape. Therefore, saying that we can’t bear to see other living beings suffering and talking about compassion and the greater way will be, he says, quoting Venerable Lama Tsongkhapa, nothing but some flimsy understanding of the descriptions you find in books.
However, once we have understood how we suffer and strive for liberation, we must Rinpoche says, then turn our mind to this higher goal which is and I quote, absolutely fundamental because once we have been able to generate bodhicitta within our mind stream, then everything we do acts as a cause for full enlightenment. It is extraordinarily important. The great teacher Śāntideva says, bodhicitta is the supreme ambrosia that overcomes the sovereignty of death. It is the inexhaustible treasure that eliminates all poverty in the world. It is the supreme medicine that quells the world’s disease.
It is the quintessential butter from the churning milk of Dharma. It is the only gateway into the Mahāyāna. The secret tantras are only a fast path, says Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche, because they increase one’s bodhicitta so very much. Without bodhicitta tantra is only a cause for the lower realms. Just giving a handful of food to a dog if done with bodhicitta is said to be to bring more benefits than giving a a universal jewel to every living being without such a motivation.
Meditating on bodhicitta for one session will be more effective in removing delusions and negativities than practice purification for a hundred years without bodhicitta. Śākyamūni Buddha said that if all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were to meet and discuss bodhicitta, they could not enumerate all of its benefits. Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche said, bodhicitta alone should be recognized as the essence of the 84,000 heaps of the Dharma. As Atisha said, give up this life, be familiar only with love, compassion and bodhicitta. We will now do a brief meditation to develop bodhicitta, combining the seven fold cause and effect and the five-point interchange of self with other instructions.
Firstly, we must cultivate an attitude of equanimity. A farmer needs an evenly plowed field in which to sow a crop, so we need a mind having equal regard for everyone. At present, we favor those who affirm our self-cherishing. We’re resistant, afraid, or hostile to those who don’t, and indifferent to those we regard as neutral. Universal love and compassion is just that, universal.
Therefore, imagine in front of you three people. To your right is someone you consider a friend. That is someone you like. To your left an enemy or someone you dislike, who annoys you. And in the middle, someone you feel indifferent towards, a stranger.
Just keep these three people there throughout the practice, the meditation. Now turn to your friend. Remember this person was not your friend before you became acquainted and could easily cease to be your friend now. Imagine a situation would cause the friendship to end. Where is your friend now?
This friend is impermanent. Now turn to your present enemy. Imagine a situation in which you could be drawn together. Look carefully at the person now. Can you imagine the negative feeling softening?
Under the right circumstances you can learn to feel warmly towards this person. An enemy can become a close friend. This enemy is also impermanent. And what of a stranger? Imagine how one act of kindness or anger from this person could immediately turn them into a friend or an enemy.
There is no inherent stranger and no sound reason for indifference. Remember that your present friend or enemy were strangers once also. For most of us, our understanding of reincarnation rebirth is either non existent or very limited, so for this next just allow yourself to gain a real sense of the power of the meaning by thinking I’ll accept this for the moment and investigate later. So bring your awareness to the endless number of thoughts, sensations and feelings of this present moment. Think how your present thoughts and feelings have been preceded by a previous thought and feeling back to when you got up this morning.
Through your dreaming last night, through a continuum like a stream back to yesterday, last week, back and back throughout your life, through to childhood, on and on, one moment preceding the next, Back to your previous self as a baby, a fetus in the womb, to the point of conception and back into a previous life, a previous death, a previous life, an indefinite unbroken continuum of consciousness. Taking because of ignorance and craving innumerable forms male, female, human, animal, bird, fish, insect. Every embodiment requires a mother because this process of death and rebirth has been limitless. We can conclude that every living being at one time or another has been our mother, and countless times at that. Your friend has been your mother, your enemy has been your mother, The one labeled stranger has been your mother also.
Recall the kindness of your mother of this life who carried you in her womb, a great challenge to her own health. It was either she or other mother figures who ensured that we were fed, clothed, protected, taught us to talk and walk. Without the doting love of our mother or mother substitute, we would have died. All beings have been our mothers and have shown us similar great kindness. Our clothing, food, houses, transport, entertainment, everything comes from the kindness of others.
We cannot develop love and compassion, bodhicitta or buddhahood without others. Others are therefore as precious as the Buddhas themselves. Your enemy is precious because they are your greatest teacher of compassion and patience. Like a precious loved one who is temporarily psychotic, they are controlled by their delusions. Besides, our anger only harms us and certainly does them no good.
Thinking deeply in this way, it is only natural to want to repay the kindness of those who have been kind to us, others. Friend, enemy and stranger, your mothers are suffering in cyclic existence, burdened by many delusions and the force of their karma. It is as if your frail elderly blind mother is about to fall off a cliff and there is no one else around. Think, who will help her if I don’t? Recall the friend, enemy, and stranger.
Just as you do not want to suffer, neither do they. Just as you want to be happy, so do they. You are the same in this respect, there is no difference. To regard yourself as somehow more important and more worthy has no validity. The Buddha taught that an exaggerated self importance, clinging ignorantly to a sense of I, me and mine, is the cause of all our suffering.
This chronic disease of cherishing myself is the cause of unwanted suffering, perceiving this may I be inspired to blame, begrudge and destroy this self-cherishing demon. The source of every happiness and good fortune is remembering and cherishing the kindness of others, holding others as most precious. Considering this, we should think that now I have an incredibly unique opportunity to shift my focus from I to other. I and other are just relative terms like hot and cold, long and short. The far side of a mountain now becomes the near side when you stay there a while.
As His Holiness says, there are infinite numbers of others compared to one, myself. Naturally, the welfare of infinite others is more important than one. So we can think, since beginningless time, I used to ignore others, but from now on I shall ignore my own needs. I have been cherishing myself, but from now on I shall cherish others. Recall the friend and enemy and stranger before you.
Bring to mind your own suffering. Remember how you are the same. Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche suggests a graphic and confronting way to develop compassion by imagining a sheep turned upside down, legs tied, held in the grip of a butcher, it can tell its life is threatened but it is helpless. It has no protector or refuge to turn to. Its eyes are full of tears and it stares into the butcher’s face.
Contemplate, he says, the way the sheep dies, in a state of unbearable agony and terror. We are sheep, regardless of the labels, friend, enemy or stranger, naively grazing near the abattoir about to be slaughtered. It’s just a matter of time for each of us. All have been our mothers. Think just as I do not wish to suffer, may you also be free of suffering.
Imagine breathing in your own fear, suffering and non virtue, that you will experience later today as black smoke, which obliterates the black granite rock of self-cherishing at your heart. Then extend this to tomorrow’s suffering, and then for the coming week gradually build up over time to take upon oneself all of one’s own suffering for the rest of this life, one’s death and on to future rebirths. Then do the same for one’s immediate loved ones. Then strangers, then enemies, then all sentient beings in all the realms of saṃsāra. Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche says, it is good if this makes you fear for your life.
Imagine as a consequence that they are without suffering and have been purified of all negativities because these have ripened upon you. Now remembering their kindness. With love, think, May you be happy and experience the causes of happiness. On the out breath, visualize a white light giving whatever beings need to be happy, practice giving them your happiness, love, merit, past, present and future, sharing them with every blessing friends, strangers, enemies and eventually all beings in all the six realms of saṃsāra. Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche says, you ought to make this mind training visualization your main practice.
Finally thinking if I don’t help suffering kind beings and bring them to unsurpassable happiness who will? Remembering the friend, enemy and stranger with love, compassion and gratitude think I’ll do it. However, you may well contemplate that I can’t even help myself, let alone one other being. Think therefore that I must achieve a state of complete freedom from suffering and establish complete happiness, that is, I must become enlightened, a Buddha, and therefore I will do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, to achieve this. Alternate between wanting to release sentient beings from their suffering and the thought to pursue enlightenment for achieving others welfare.
And now imagine above the crown of your head sits Śākyamūni Buddha, inseparable from the Guru, small in size, the embodiment of all love, compassion and wisdom of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the past, present and future. With great love and delight, He dissolves into you, descending to the level of your heart and radiating out countless rays of light in every direction, as far into space as the mind can reach, touching all sentient beings, placing them in a state of complete happiness, and eventually leading them to full enlightenment. When bodhicitta is combined with an understanding of the wisdom realizing emptiness, ultimate bodhicitta, like the two wings of a bird, we cannot help but soar into the blissful heights of full enlightenment. Venerable Pabongka Rinpoche concludes his Lam Rim commentary with, Above all, make bodhicitta your main practice. And so as we are instructed, we will dedicate whatever benefits that we have attained to achieve this noble purpose.
And we will recite verse 8a, prayer for Tsongkhapa’s teachings to remain. And then verse nine, etcetera. I dedicate whatever virtues I have ever collected for the benefit of the teachings and of all the sentient beings and in particular for the essential teachings of Venerable Losang Drakpa to shine forever. Oh holy and venerable Lama from the clouds of compassion, you are the source of all happiness and bliss, all powerful Chenrezig, Chenrezig, Tsongkhapa and Mañjuśrī, so please remain to the end of existence. Should the situation arise where the supreme precious teachings no longer pervade, although pervading should they degenerate, Then through the mind being moved by great compassion, may the treasure of benefit and happiness be revealed.
May the jewel of supreme bodhicitta which has not arisen arise, and may it never diminish but increase more and more. May all father and mother sentient beings be happy and successful. May all the abodes of evil migration always be empty. May the prayers of all Bodhisattvas wherever they are and wherever they reside be quickly accomplished. We’ll just recite the tea offering.
Om, Om, Om, Om, The spiritual teacher is the Buddha, the Dharma and the spiritual community. The spiritual teacher is the creator of all. To all spiritual teachers, I make this offering. Thank you.