Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 23-minute talk, Lama Lhundup establishes why Dharma practice is urgent and central to our lives. He begins with the foundational argument that happiness depends on our own mind and the causes we create, then expands the perspective beyond this lifetime: since we will be reborn countless times, we must prepare not just for tomorrow or next year, but for future lives. He then teaches how to transform harmful encounters by understanding the kindness hidden within them—using the example of an enemy as an invaluable teacher of patience, which purifies past negative actions and builds the cause of lasting happiness all the way to Buddhahood. The talk closes with a guided meditation on Śākyamūni Buddha, visualizing healing light, and a dedication of the positive potential created through listening to the teachings toward universal liberation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 PoD.mp3
UUID: b6bdc168-d115-4cdf-8a7e-0433f08cc2a4
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: The practice of dharma (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 23.2 minutes
Words: ~1,584
So essentially, the happiness that we are seeking is dependent upon our own mind. We have to create the causes for this happiness that we are seeking. Therefore, in order to create the causes we have to practice Dharma in order to create those causes. We must practice Dharma in this life, only in this life, but we must begin to practice Dharma now. We have a great deal of work.
But even within the situation that we have of having many things to do, we have to place a great deal of emphasis. We must see Dharma as being very important in our lives. Why is it so important? It’s because this is not the only life that we are going to live, and that in fact we are going to take rebirth again.
We are going to take rebirth numberless times in the future. Therefore, we cannot be caught up with concern for only this life, that we must be concerned with these numberless future lives that lie ahead of us. Just like in this life, we make preparations, we make plans. We don’t think, well, we aren’t satisfied with merely filling our stomach up today with having a pleasant place to live for this day only. In fact, we say, Well, I have to make preparations for next week.
I have to make preparations for what I am going to be experiencing a month from now, a year from now. As matter of fact, we make long term plans which take us future up to the point of our death. We’re always making these constant preparations. So, we’re constantly making preparations for our future happiness, even within the context of this life. For example, we didn’t consider that we were going to have to eat tomorrow, when tomorrow comes we were going to have some difficulties, we were going to have to endure an empty stomach, the suffering of being hungry.
Such a type of suffering is extremely minute compared with the causes that we are constantly creating, the type of preparation which we are making for future lives. Such a type of suffering that we in fact make preparations for to prevent, not wanting to have an empty stomach tomorrow. Such a type of experience is extremely minute when compared to the type of preparation we need to make preparations for in the future lives. We are constantly creating the negative actions for the experiences of future lives. In making the preparations for future lives, the way we can bring this about most effectively is to abandon harming others.
That’s simply developing a beneficial attitude which sees all sentient beings as equal, having no distinctions, making no difference amongst the sentient beings, and only wishing, cultivating the attitude of wanting to benefit them. So we want to develop this altruistic thought of benefiting others. Now, what is the reason for wanting to benefit others? We shouldn’t think that we’re trying to benefit others as a way to finding our own happiness. But in fact, we developed a natural attitude of wanting to help others, wanting to benefit others by seeing the great kindness that they have shown us.
Everything that we have is dependent upon the kindness of others. Our clothes, our home, where we live, even this very body is dependent upon the kindness of others. When we came into this world, when we left our mother’s womb, we came into this world naked. We didn’t have anything. We didn’t have anything..
There’s no way that this person is kind to me. You know, we should think we can imagine for ourselves that someone is harming us, we just imagine that that person is in front of us, and can we actually cultivate the mind, can we actually develop the mind which sees the great kindness that this person is showing us? This person that we imagined before us, this person who’s harming us, just by his appearing to our mind, just by his appearing to us, our mind becomes unhappy. So, when this harmful person appears to our mind, we become unhappy. Now, where does the fault lie?
Generally, we think it’s all his fault, but such a thought is mistaken. Actually, the fault for our own unhappiness that we experience in that moment lies within our own mind. If, on the other hand, if this person that we think is so bad that get who we develop anger at, if we can understand that this is a mistaken way of thinking, that in fact there’s no fault from his side, if we can transform our mind at that point into an understanding of how great his kindness is to us. Why is it kind to us? Because it’s only in dependence upon the enemy that we can train or practice in patience.
By cultivating patience for even one moment, we can purify unimaginable negative actions that we created in the past. Therefore, looking at it this way, there’s a great deal of profit to be made from cultivating patience, and it’s obvious that there’s no profit, that there’s loss in developing anger toward this object. So, just for making a few dollars, giving a person a few dollars, we derive a great deal of profit. Even without giving any money, if we get a great profit in return, this of course would make us very happy. If a businessman were engaging in business and in return for investment of one thousand dollars he got back ten thousand dollars he of course would be extremely happy.
This is really just an extremely small profit, and not only that, it’s creating the cause of suffering. On the other hand, by developing patience toward the enemy, we not only will we create the causes for happiness in this life, but all the way to the time of our Buddhahood, we’re creating the causes of happiness. We have some questions. Any questions?
Could you explain So, any type of consciousness, when it manifests, disturbs the peace of the mind. A coarse type of consciousness which disturbs the peace of the mind is an afflictive emotion. So this is the nature. That which functions to disturb the peace of one’s own mind is definition of afflictive emotion. There’s eighty four thousand of them.
Any other questions? We should be mindful of impermanence. Impermanent. Could you explain that further?
Don’t want to just touch on Dharma because we are strongly resonating with it. You see, you you you think, oh, just you my life is going changing, momentum changing changing.
My possessions are momentarily changing, changing. So I want and desire my happiness, peace. So how do I make it? Conclusion: only by practicing Dharma. I don’t want to become lazy.
Do do something right away. You tell yourself like that. That brings the thinking of impermanence. Thinking: dry, dry breath, breath. Final time, then you get problem.
So you think that. Next life, what you have? Pull it down. So I don’t want that. So what do now?
Do preparation, ready to go to the next life. So that bring your thinking strongly die, death strongly. Then thinking, remember, next life, what the problem is. Then that bring your strong energy up, come up. You don’t want any more lazy.
Okay? Clear. Sounds okay? Okay. Me too.
But thank you. Alright. Alright. So we’re going to meditate for a few minutes. Lama Lhundup is going to give us the oral transmission.
We’re going to repeat the mantra, which is associated with Śākyamūni Buddha, the figure in this painting here. And we can repeat it after him three times, and then we’re going to do a meditation. We should try to imagine the this figure of the of Śākyamūni Buddha before us. Within imagine in our mind that this figure is before us. He’s made of light.
He’s seated on a throne. On top of the throne is a lotus. On top of the lotus is a a disk, a flat disk of sun and moon. And then on top of this is Śākyamūni Buddha. He’s in the nature of should think of it as being in light.
And from his body, there radiates light, and light comes down into our own body. This light fills our body and purifies all the negative actions that we have created since beginningless time. We should try to imagine that there is a purifying effect and we are not going to experience the suffering results of the negative actions that we have created in the past. We are being purified from this and thinking that there arises a feeling of happiness or joy from thinking that we don’t have to experience that suffering that we created, the causes that we created in the past. And then, we should Through the process of listening to the Dharma, we’ve created some positive potential.
It’s a positive action, listening to the Dharma. We’re going to dedicate that positive energy that we’ve created. We can dedicate it that dedicate it that there will be peace in the world, and that we dedicate it that each of us may attain Buddhahood in order that eventually we may be able to establish all sentient beings, all sentient beings without exception in that same state of Buddhahood and deliver them from their suffering. So we’ll dedicate this positive potential that we’ve created by listening to the teachings towards that end.