Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Lama Lhundup addresses the fundamental obstacle to Dharma practice: attachment to this life’s pleasures and security. He opens with a practical concern—the fear that renunciation might lead to poverty or death—and shows how genuine practitioners throughout history have overcome it. Using stories of Geshe Dromtönpa (who repeatedly redirected a monk’s efforts toward pure motivation) and Geshe Ben Gungyal (a former thief who found abundance only through Dharma), Lama Lhundup illustrates that the real measure of practice is freedom from the eight worldly concerns, not the outer form of what you do. He then walks through the four counteracting agents for purifying negative karma: reliance on the Three Jewels and bodhicitta, regret for past actions, firm determination not to repeat, and antidote practices such as mantra recitation or meditation on emptiness. The final section offers concrete methods for transforming everyday activities—eating, dressing, working, even bodily functions—into genuinely virtuous actions by reframing motivation toward benefiting all beings. Suitable for practitioners beginning to examine their motivation seriously.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 HY.mp3
UUID: ef76d5e8-7b78-4596-98be-cbb7dd4c0b22
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Helping yourself helping others (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~2,801
So, you know, if you were to think, you know, if I give up all the if I give away all the all possessions, all the food, etcetera, then I there’s a there’s a chance I could die if this fear arises that you may die. So you should think in answer to this that, you know, from beginning this time I have died again and again. I have died over and over and over and over again, but I have never died for the sake of practicing the Dharma. So therefore So therefore we should think, even if I have to die, I will practice the Dharma. We have to come to that firm determination.
You know you know, in order to practice this Dharma, do I have to give up all my all my clothes and food? By practicing non attachment, by giving up the pleasures of this life, up all the happiness and pleasures of this life, In order to practice the Dharma? You will not become a beggar. You will not be without food, etcetera. We should have no doubt that if we practice the Dharma we are going to become a beggar.
The Dharma purely, he should think of the example of Śākyamūni Buddha, who by giving up his life, he actually gained complete happiness. It says in his biographies, the stories of the life of the Buddha, that if one acts in the way he did, that means the world or giving up this life, then you will become exactly as I have. You will gain complete happiness. One who is attached to the eight worldly dharmas is a worldly being. One who gives up this life is Dharma practitioner.
This is the measure of whether you’re a Dharma practitioner or not. So there’s a story of Geshe Dromtönpa. One man was giving, was what do you say, charity. He was giving charity to a beggar. Dromtönpa said, It’s good to give charity, but it’s better to practice Dharma. What he meant was if his practice of giving charity was mixed with the eight worldly dharmas, then it’s not practice of Dharma. For example, when we practice charity, we give something, we think that by giving something we’re going to get something back in return, or that this will give us a great name, people will have a high regard for this. Therefore, when we give something, we have great hopes and expectations.
This is not a pure practice of giving. Then there was Dromtönpa, who was one day he saw a man who was circumambulating a stupa and he said it would be better to practice Dharma. They said it’s good to circumambulate the stupa, but it’s better to practice the Dharma. So then this man who was circumambulating, he wondered what Dromtönpa meant. And so then he went into the temple and he began to read the scriptures.
And again Dromtönpa came to where the man was reading. And he said to the man, you know, it’s very good to read the scriptures, but it’s better to practice the Dharma. So the man thought, well, you know, maybe this isn’t the practice of Dharma. So he thought, well, maybe I’ll meditate. So the next day he came back to the temple and he was sitting there with his eyes closed in meditation.
And again, Dromtönpa came to where the man was meditating. He said it’s very good to meditate to develop a strong concentration, but it’s better to practice the Dharma. So he got upset and he said, whatever I do is not the Dharma. Then he asked his teacher, then what is the practice of Dharma? And Dromtönpa answered, Give up this life.
So no matter what we do, if we have attachment for the happiness and pleasures of this life, no matter what is a circumambulating, meditating, it is not a practice of Dharma. So it’s extremely important that our various actions, activities of body and speech, we have to check out what our motivation is to see whether they’re attachment to this life. So there was Geshe Ben Gungyal who said that, you know, previously, he used to be a farmer, And he had many occupations, one of which was a farmer. And he also was a thief. So he used to sneak into the town and steal at night.
Through all his efforts of stealing and as a farmer, found that he had almost no food. He not only had no food, he had many enemies and no one liked him. This is when he was leading his worldly life. But when he began to practice the Dharma, he had all the necessities that he needed for living, and he had no enemies. This is what Geshe Ben Gungyal said.
So if we try to practice it when we practice the Dharma by giving up this life, we’re always going to be happy. Unhappiness arises through attachment. So we should treat attachment as enemy and make effort to always keep decreasing attachment. When we finally got rid of attachment, then we will achieve ultimate happiness. So we have to make a regular practice of examining our mind to see whether we are being motivated by the worldly dharmas.
We should use our mindfulness and awareness to continually examine our motivation for actions. So, you know, we can disregard past lives, and we can just if we just look at this life from from our birth up to the present, have we practiced the Dharma? We can say it’s been extremely difficult, rare that when we practice the Dharma. If we didn’t practice the Dharma and we didn’t create negative karmas, it would be okay. If we didn’t create negative karmas, it would be okay if we didn’t practice the Dharma.
But there’s never a time when we’re not creating negative karmas. But in fact, we are continually creating negative karmas. You know, if we look within our mind, we’re going to say we’re going to see that we’re we usually have a manifest a mistaken consciousnesses, a mistaken minds, whereas we never have we never have non mistaken moments or manifestations of mind. Actually, actually, things don’t exist the way they appear to our mind. The way things appear to us, the way we conceive of them, the things actually don’t exist that way.
Therefore, we cannot we do not understand actual reality or how things actually exist. The ignorance is continually manifest and therefore dependent upon ignorance attachment arises. And because we are continually developing attachment and delusion, we are continually creating negative karma. We should think that up to this time I haven’t practiced any Dharma. If I die without having practiced, There’s great danger.
Be mindful of that. If If we create good causes, then we’re going to experience good results. And likewise, we create bad causes, we’re going to experience bad results. They will not go away by themselves. Nobody can We cannot give these away.
We cannot sell them. We we have to experience we, by ourselves, have to experience the suffering from our negative karmas. You know, we’re always creating negative karmas, and when we die, we’re going to have to experience the results. And since we’re always creating negative karmas, in the future, we’re going to experience continuous suffering. So, you know, thinking, you know, I always I’m always creating negative karma, always accumulating negative karma, and in the future, I’m going to have to experience suffering because of this, and there will arise a fear of this suffering in the future.
Due to the negative karma that I’m continually creating, I’m going to experience Due to this negative karma which I am continually creating, so I’m always creating negative karma and I’m going to take as a result of these various non virtues, I’m going to take a body which will continually be experiencing the suffering of these negative karmas until the time I finally exhaust or extinguish my negative karmas. One thinks, you know, I’m always collecting negative karmas. I’m always creating non virtues. You know, and I don’t I don’t want to suffer, then what what can I do? What kind of method can I use to stop this process?
Being born in the world does not exhaust our negative karma. So this fear that arises from future suffering does not exhaust our karma, our negative karma. But because of this fear we’re going to question, because we don’t want to suffer and we realize that this suffering arises from creating negative karma, we question, is there a way to stop creating negative karma? The answer is that there is a method whereby we can stop creating negative karma. So this method is the confession of one’s negative karmas.
So this method of purifying the negative karmas that we have created are what are called the four counteracting agents. The first is the power of reliance. The second is the power of regret. Power which is determination not to do again.
And the fourth is the power of antidote. So with respect to the first of the power of reliance, now the two objects that we mainly create a negative karma toward are either the Three Jewels that is the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha or sentient beings. So in the case of when we create a negative action, negative create a negative karma with respect to the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, then we should go for refuge. Again and again go for refuge. In this way in reliance upon the Three Jewels, we purify the negative action.
Likewise, if we create negative actions with respect to sentient beings then we should generate the mind of enlightenment bodhicitta and therefore in reliance upon sentient beings we purify these negative actions. So with the second, that is the power of regret, we try to recall all the negative actions that we have created in this life or in fact whatever negative actions we may have committed. And for example, we can take as an object, visualize the Buddha. So we recall or remember all these various negative actions and we develop regret for having done these negative actions. So as much as the strength of this is the most important factor.
As much as our regret for having performed this negative action, that much the negative action will be purified. Even if we’ve created a great negative action, if we have great regret then the negative action will become small. And even if we created a great negative action, if we have extremely powerful regret, we can completely purify the negative action. So the third is the power of the determination not to repeat again. It’s not enough just to merely regret it if we go ahead and do it again.
We have to make the firm determination that I’m not going to do this negative action again. So among these four, the second and third, these middle two are the most important. If we have these two very strongly, then whatever negative action we may create, we can purify it. So there is a story, for example, of Angulimala who killed nine hundred ninety nine people and he developed tremendous, by the force of his tremendous regret, in one second he purified all that negative karma. So the Buddha spoke of one king, King Ajatashatru, and he killed his father.
But later on due to developing a strong regret for having killed his father, the negative action was completely purified. So we should remember that if we create a negative action that these two, the second and third powers are extremely important to apply and we can purify our negative actions. So the fourth is the power of antidote. There are many types of practices. For example, we can recite mantras, recite the names of the Buddhas, we can do prostrations.
But in general, any type of virtuous action we create can act as an antidote. So very powerful antidote is the meditation on emptiness. So by merely seeing images of the Buddha or pictures of the Buddha, we purify negative karma. Additionally, if we’re motivated by faith, then even more negative actions are purified. So this is by merely coming in contact with these images of the Buddha’s pictures of the Buddha, it is said by the power of the Buddha that we can purify negative actions.
Do you have questions? Okay. Well, I find that when I when I try to practice some virtuous action, sometimes I find it turns into nothing but a a meditation on how worldly is my concern. In other words, practicing virtue, all I am aware of is the non virtue of my worldly concern. Question is, sometimes when I try to perform a virtuous action, I’m only aware that my motivation is non virtuous, is with worldly concerns, is caught up in worldly concerns.
So we both have the same experience. We have develop we have to check on our motivation, on the action. If we can develop a positive motivation, for example, being motivated by renunciation, being motivated by the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta, thinking, I’m going to perform this action. What this action I’m going to do in order to attain Buddhahood. Then of course with such motivations then eight worldly dharmas cannot become mixed with our action.
So we don’t have to be meditating in order to develop a good motivation. Whatever we’re doing, whether in body and speech, we’re going to the office working, if we can develop the attitude that whatever this work is or whatever action I’m going to perform, I’m doing it in order to benefit others. That is, we develop altruism as a motivation for these various actions that we’re performing. Even when you go to the toilet, you can develop the attitude that I am doing this action in order to benefit others. Even whatever we’re doing, we’re always creating actions.
So we should try to make these develop whatever these actions, try to do them for the benefit of others. When we’re urinating, we can be thinking that this is going to benefit certain types of sentient beings which the Buddha has said there’s certain types of sentient beings which enjoy, which take pleasure in these things. So even in doing this kind of action, we can think we’re doing it for the benefit of these type of beings. When we dress in the morning, we can develop the motivation that today I’m going to, I am dressing in order to, I have to keep this body well in order to benefit sentient beings. Today I’m going to bring benefit to sentient beings therefore I have to address my body in order to do that.
Even when we’re eating we can eat for the benefit of all sentient beings in order that we can keep our body for a long time. If we don’t eat we’re going to lose our body. So we have to keep our body to benefit all sentient beings. And even within our body there are many sentient beings within our own body and therefore we can think that I’m actually feeding the sentient beings within my own body. These actions can also become positive actions.
It’s with this motivation. This may be a wrong view because it’s not definite just because we eat food that we’re going to do kill a sentient being. I think you said that to practice the Dharma we need to die. Is that what you said? Is that what I meant?
Mhmm. That’s I think you said to practice. To practice the Dharma, you need to be prepared to die for the Dharma. Oh, you are.
Right. Before the Dharma. What? Pre prepare. Before the Dharma, you you how you do that.
It’s not a safety question. Thank you. Visualize with that. And, you know, you’re gonna show it to me too. So we remember what we meant with the karma section.
Also, in you can visualize this is mainly sentient beings round. So we met so much negative, so many times negative. So you can clearly visualize Buddha and take light through through you and others around the sentient beings. Then absorb all light inside, purify all negativities to go out under the ground. You know?
All just you can think of. All just you can come light inside. All just visualize negativity is trapped in the heart. And with this light coming in in into your body mind, and all darkness just display. So negative all purified, all negativities just you can think and receive the Buddha’s blessing to him.
Okay?