Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Lama Lhundup addresses the foundation of spiritual practice: the motivation to benefit both oneself and others. He emphasizes that happiness and suffering arise from the state of our own mind, not external circumstances, and that cultivating this internal quality is essential for helping others authentically. He guides practitioners through three types of patience, the practice of examining and blocking destructive mental states like anger and attachment, and the cultivation of altruism. A central theme is recognizing the interdependence of all beings and their kindness toward us, which naturally inspires the wish to benefit them equally. Lama Lhundup concludes with practical advice on maintaining commitment to practice and developing courage, particularly relevant during times when the world lacks internal virtue despite technological advancement.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 HY.mp3
UUID: 5014849f-78d3-404c-ba55-6c3ce83c782c
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Helping yourself helping others (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.1 minutes
Words: ~2,781
So, it’s extremely important in the beginning to develop the motivation which is directed towards a virtuous state of mind. The purpose for taking this time out is we are trying to benefit both ourselves and others. And in order to do that we have to begin to subdue our own mind and help others subdue their own mind. In order to do that we must study, we must listen and we must meditate. In order to meditate we have to know the methods of Dharma, we have to listen to the explanations of Dharma.
Therefore with this motivation seeking to benefit not only yourself but others we are going to listen to this teaching on the Dharma. So, you know, we are human beings and we have to begin to think not only of ourselves, but it’s of great importance that we begin to think about benefiting others. So, in our practice, the way we should always be constantly practicing is to think from the depths of our hearts, to always be thinking about others, both trying to benefit oneself and others. Now, what do others need? Others need, they want happiness.
So, in order to bring about that happiness, then we should develop, we should try to place our body, speech, and mind. So we should always be making use of our body, speech and mind in order to bring about the welfare and benefit and happiness of others. If we don’t have this thought wishing to benefit others constantly in depths of our hearts, then other people are just going to bring us problems. We’re always going to have problems with other people. So, we have to think, you know, I am a human being.
We have to regard all of society, all the different races of beings, regard them without any difference. There’s no difference between any of the types of beings and to work for their benefit equally. So, no matter from one’s own side, when benefiting others, what religion they practice, whether they’re relatives or not, no matter whether others benefit us or not, no matter what religion they may be a part of, whether they’re relatives or not, from our own side, we should make no difference whatsoever in differentiating amongst them and should seek to bring them all happiness and to benefit all of them equally. We have to think again and again of other sentient beings.
We have to think of how important others are, of their great kindness. We have to think and consider, you know, in trying to bring about benefit of others, the happiness that we, ourselves, will experience. In thinking this way, again and again, we will develop a correct proof, or we’ll establish by our own experience, our own self, why we should benefit other sentient beings. In thinking about trying to benefit oneself and others, even those times when someone causes us trouble, then we develop the mind of patience. If we don’t have patience, then we can’t really bring about the benefit of others.
There are three types of patience. There’s the patience of enduring our own suffering. There’s the patience of, for example, when we’re trying to benefit others, then we have to again and again meditate on compassion. We have to again and again on love. And this takes a lot of difficulty involved in again and again meditating.
We have to go through a lot of trouble, but we have to be patient in these difficulties of trying to develop these states of mind. So there’s the patience of forbearing difficulties. And then there’s the patience of not returning harm to others when harm has been directed towards us. You know, if someone causes some harm and then at that time if we meditate on patience, whether we meditate one minute or two minutes or five minutes, by this meditation on patience, there’s no better way to purify our own negative actions, own negative karma in this way. If we have a good practice of patience, then no matter what happens to us, we’re always going to feel comfortable.
We’re not going to have any problems. So, we shouldn’t look, you know, in seeing the source of our suffering, we shouldn’t look to the world, to the various relatives, family. The real source of our problem, our happiness and unhappiness, comes from our own mind. So it’s our own mind which brings us happiness and unhappiness. Within our own mind we engage in bad actions, within our own mind, then suffering is going to come.
If on the other hand, within our own mind we develop good states of mind, then happiness is going to come. Our problems aren’t outside of our own mind. We bring our own troubles by means of our own mind. So, you know, the friends that we like, the people we like, the relatives, you know, these all very good to have. But we must understand that our happiness comes from a subdued mind, and all our problems, our suffering comes from an unsubdued mind.
Subdued mind is a happy mind. An unsubdued mind is an unhappy mind. So we should always be examining, always checking our own mind no matter what we’re doing, whether we’re going here and there, whether we’re talking to someone, always looking at the state of your mind. So, our mind should be relaxed and not involved in a great deal of activities. We should not get caught up in many external activities.
We try to develop within ourselves to allow our mind to relax or to be peaceful. So, we must be, you know, every day we should be examining our own mind. Always constantly trying to recognize whenever, for example, if anger arises, then we have to identify it, recognize it, and then we have to block it. We have to cease it. Or, if attachment arises, then we should know that attachment or we should recognize that attachment has arisen or if laziness or any of these arise, be constantly examining your mind and recognize them and block them.
If we do this every day, one month, one year, then they will slowly cease. Of the greatest negative actions that we can create is becoming angry. A person who becomes angry cannot be happy. So we can never really find a basis for our anger. No matter what type of person we may look at, whatever object of observation, the basis of that anger really does not exist.
There’s no reason whatsoever for becoming angry. When we have an object, some person that we’re becoming angry at, we don’t like this person, and we realize we’re just almost starting to become angry. You’re about to become angry, and you should think, you know, how is my anger going to hurt that person? My anger is only going to hurt myself. It’s really stupid for me to get angry, and this way we can begin to block, to cut our anger.
If you act in this way, then your mind will become happy and you will benefit others. So it’s extremely important to examine your mind. For example, when we gather together and there are your female friends and male friends gather together, then if you don’t examine the state of your mind, then one day you’re going to develop an aversion for some of them, and the next day you’re going to develop attachment toward them, shifting back and forth constantly. So, when we’re amongst our friends, male and female friends, it’s possible that in these times we have to examine for attachment.
But this is not mainly what we should be thinking about at this time. We should be trying to develop from the depth of our heart, our mind, the intention that these are the conditions to benefit others, that I should try to bring others happiness, I should try to benefit them. This should be our main concern, to develop this mind which is benefiting others. If we don’t have this mind of seeking to benefit others, then if in fact attachment does arise, we’re going to have problems. If you don’t, when you stay together with two people, four people, five people, you don’t make them really happy, not making them upset, then you cannot make a great number, large number of people, you cannot make them happy and you cannot help them.
You can, you cannot, that’s all right. Or sit there for two months, really, you cannot help a large number. You cannot make peace and happiness. So you make one person, two person happy, when you’re together, really make them happy. You know?
Then you’re a good example. Then others, it’s easy coming. The important practice is that when we’re together with others, then we should develop, not be concerned with the attachment but be concerned mainly with the development from the depth of our heart wanting to benefit these other people that we’re with. Sometimes, if a husband and wife, they may have problems with one another, we should, you know, rather than developing anger at such a time, we should think that this problem that’s happening is the effect or the result of an unsubdued mind, that I’ve created negative actions in the past, and now I’m experiencing the results, and this will help to block the anger. What we should always be doing, what is important, what we mainly should be doing is seeking to benefit others. This should be the basis of our practice.
You know, in order to do that, we have to take up the practice of subduing our minds. In order to do that, we have to practice patience. Therefore, whenever a little problem begins to arise, immediately we should try to practice patience towards that object. So, the time that we have together as human beings is quite short if we compare it to the lifespan of gods. Therefore, during this short time that we have together, we should try to develop this feeling of harmony.
Harmony. Getting along together well. Getting along. Yeah. Good communication.
You know, good communication. All of society, good communication. So, this should be each of our practices. This should be our practice that even someone whom we don’t know, a stranger, we should try to help them and try to benefit them. This is the practice of generosity in practice.
So, you know, the present time in the world is passing through a very bad time, especially in the West. The scientists have made great progress, still within the individuals it’s a very difficult time. Therefore, it’s extremely important for us to practice the Dharma, especially now. We have to develop the practices of altruism when seeking to benefit others. In order to do that, we study and practice the Dharma.
So, if we can combine the advances in science, all the technology of science along with the mind of altruism, then we can bring peace to the world. But now, the technology is, actually because we have not developed the internal quality of wishing to benefit others, we do not have altruism. This great technology that scientists have come up with is only bringing harm to hundreds of thousands of people. So all these various problems that the world is experiencing and ourselves come about through our own self-cherishing.
We cherish ourselves. We say, my country, this feeling of mine, cherishing my and myself. So, in the world, there are very few people who practice the Dharma, so it’s up to us. We must try to practice as much as possible, as much as we can. We have to always be practicing up to the time of our death.
And not only should we be practicing up to the time of our death, but, again, we’re going to take rebirth and we have to, again, try to extinguish all the negative mental states. And we should make prayers that we will be able to completely extinguish all our negative mental states in the future and that we have to have great courage in our practice. So, you know, we shouldn’t become discouraged thinking, you know, I’ve been practicing for many years and I have no realizations and no attainments. We have to have confidence and develop great courage to keep on practicing.
So there’s no doubt that we can attain Buddhahood. The reason we haven’t attained it to this time is that we haven’t created the dependently arising causes and conditions for its attainment, but it’s definite that we have Buddha nature and that we will eventually attain Buddhahood. We want to find ultimate happiness. We want to find some type of ultimate, complete happiness. Now, we have this potential within us to find this type of happiness, but we have to create the causes to find that happiness.
Now, what is the main cause of finding this happiness? It is abandoning or getting rid of the mind of a harmful mind, of a mind wishing to harm others, and developing a mind which seeks only to benefit others. So, the way things actually are or the reality, the situation is described from the Buddhist point of view as being dependent arising. Therefore, since all things are dependent arising, if we create good causes and conditions, positive causes and conditions, then only happiness will arise from that.
If, on the other hand, we create negative causes and conditions, then they will arise from that, problems and suffering. So, we have to examine our own mind, check our own mind. If attachment or hatred is arising, then we have to block, we have to cease that attachment and hatred. We have to develop, we have to abandon the mind which seeks to hurt others, which wishes to harm others, and we should again and again seek to develop the mind which wishes to bring happiness to others, wishes to benefit others, which wishes to place them in happiness.
You know, even if it’s one person, we try to develop the mind which seeks to benefit one person, to make that person happy, then we develop the mind which seeks to make two people, then five people, a hundred people, thousand people, a hundred thousand people. Like this way, we keep progressing and we should try to make strong prayers and we have to take courage and we have to practice. You know, there are times someone makes us unhappy and we develop dislike for this person, so we should not superimpose or project on this person. We shouldn’t think that this person is a bad person.
It’s the mind which thinks that this person is bad, this thought which thinks that this person is bad, which is actually the thing that’s bad. This is our real enemy and this we should immediately destroy. We should try to see all sentient beings as being pleasing. We should see them as being kind, as being our best friends. Whether it’s our mother, father, all the sentient beings, they are all the same.
We should try to develop seeing them all the same in this way. So, all sentient beings, they are very kind to us. So, we have to again and again think about their kindness. So, you know, why should we try to benefit others? Now, what is the reason we should try to benefit others?
Because we begin to again and again think of the great kindness that sentient beings have shown us. So all that we have is dependent upon the kindness of others. The very fact that we took a human rebirth is dependent upon the kindness of others. Our food, our drink, our house, our place that we live, this is all dependent upon the kindness of others. The fact that we can speak English is dependent upon the kindness of others.
We should think of how kind all sentient beings are. You know, a husband should think again and again about how kind his wife is to him and likewise the wife thinks about how kind the husband is to her. It’s extremely important that we have, like a husband and wife, have mutual respect and mutual love between them. So, in relating in this way, the result of such a type of relation is that in the future rebirths that we will have completely happy, harmonious relationships continually. If the two people do not live together with this mutual respect and mutual love, then they’re only living together out of attachment and they’re only creating negative actions.