Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Lama Lhundup introduces the Lamrim, or graduated path, beginning with the foundational motivation of seeking enlightenment for all sentient beings. He emphasizes the extraordinary rarity and value of human rebirth, comparing those who practice Dharma to dust settled on a roof while ordinary humans cover the earth like dust below. He explains why attachment to this life alone undermines genuine practice, using the inevitability of death and the certainty that only Dharma protects us in that moment. He walks through the first level or small capacity, which focuses on abandoning non-virtue and cultivating ethics to secure a favorable future rebirth, and introduces the reckoning that leads practitioners to the second level: recognizing that even good human rebirths lead to cyclic repetition without deeper transformation. The teaching is pitched at beginning practitioners developing conviction in future lives and initiating systematic ethical practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 TK and I.mp3
UUID: 6dd8c45e-a50a-45a9-b85a-456649274753
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Towards kindness and insights (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~2,980
So in the beginning we should develop the motivation. In order that I can place all sentient beings in Buddhahood, I must understand the Dharma. In order to understand the Dharma, I must listen to the teachings and I must listen to them with a pure motivation. Therefore, with the intention of the motivation to place all sentient beings in Buddhahood, you should develop a motivation to purely listen to these teachings. We have been taking rebirth from the beginningless time.
We can establish this through a process of reasoning. And likewise, we should try to understand that through this beginningless process of taking rebirth over and over again, we have finally attained a precious human body. And this is the best situation, opportunity for us to practice that is having that appreciating the fact that we have this opportunity by having a perfect human rebirth. So, how can we put this precious opportunity of this human body to best use? What is its ultimate purpose?
We should not be concerned only for the pleasures of this life, but we should strive for complete, perfect happiness. If we merely strive for the happiness of this life, then the essence of the practice. Our practice will not become a perfect practice. So, in our practice Dharma we are going to progress through the graduated path. In order to do that, we are going to listen to this teaching on the graduated path.
So we’ve discussed the various qualities of cyclic existence. We discussed its nature, its various faults, the cause of cyclic existence, and how to reverse or start to move away from cyclic existence. So, the graduated path, you know, there are infinite number of methods for accomplishing our purpose. But if we condense them, then they are condensed into the paths of the three capacities of being, so the three scopes of being. So we are going to discuss these three levels of being or three scopes or capacities.
Now, each we go through these three levels of being and again and again we think about the various methods within their scope. Again and again thinking about them, will develop the experience of each of these beings and this is the way we will progress. So initially, of these three beings, these three levels of capacities, we begin with the path of the being of small capacity or small scope. This is the easiest place to begin. So we’ve already covered the thinking or the methods of the being of small capacity.
We explained that before, but just briefly we’ll go over it again. If we’re only attached to this life, the pleasures of this life, that we are only seeking the happiness of this life, that we are seeking to avoid the problems of this life, and even though we meditate, it will not become a practice of Dharma. So, we should understand that the happiness that we experience in this life is brought about as a result of the actions or karma that we committed in past lives. And therefore to make a great deal of effort in trying to attain this, we shouldn’t make a great deal of effort in trying to attain only the happiness of this life since the results are coming from previous lives. If we only, because of our previous karma, if we work only for the pleasures of this life, If we strive only for the happiness of this life, if we try to gather great wealth, if we try to develop and have a great name or whatever, if we haven’t established the karma to accomplish these in previous lives, no matter how much effort we make, we’re not going to accomplish our aims.
So, in order to develop the proper motivation, we think along certain lines. We should contemplate the fact that what is our ultimate goal? What is the goal that we’re striving for? We’re trying to eliminate all our suffering and we’re trying to achieve Buddhahood. And therefore, we’re going to practice the Dharma in order to attain that end.
And in trying to bring about our goal, if we don’t experience the path of the being of small scope, then we can’t experience the path of the being of middling scope or capacity. Likewise, if we don’t experience the paths of the small and middling capacities, we cannot experience the paths of the being of great capacity. And if we don’t experience the path of being of great capacity, though we may want to achieve Buddhahood, there’s no way that we can achieve it. So, begin with, in cultivating the path of small capacity, the simple fact that we have attained a human body. This body is — in dependence upon this body that we now possess that we can eliminate all our sufferings and we can attain whatever type of happiness that we want in the future.
In dependence upon this body, we can attain any type of happiness that we desire. And therefore, this body has a great meaning. It has great purpose and we should take great joy in having such type of opportunity. So we should cultivate this joy that the great value of this human body that we have, that it’s of great value. And thinking about this again and again what great value we can make of this opportunity of this human body, again cultivate this joy in what we have now.
This joy that we are trying to cultivate is not a product of attachment. Should think that in dependence upon this body that I now possess, this opportunity to have, I can eliminate all my sufferings. I can attain all the happiness that I can ever hope for in the future. I can do that because I can practice the Dharma purely. I can practice the Dharma purely because I have this opportunity of having this precious human rebirth.
So, this body of leisure and fortune that we now possess has great meaning. It can fulfill our great purposes. It has great value. Even if, you know, we have all the money in the world So, all the money in the world cannot buy the precious human body that we now have. It’s worth more than all the money in the world.
You know, trying to come to seeing the great value of this human body, its great meaning, then we have to make, we should make use of it. We should make ultimate use of it and not use it for insignificant goals, insignificant ways, or unimportant uses. If we had a golden vase, a golden container, golden vase, for example, and it was extremely precious, this vase. But we just used this vase to throw trash in, to throw dirt in. Other people who saw us using this vase — which is really extremely precious — in such a meaningless and ridiculous way.
They would say we were very stupid for acting in such a way. Likewise, if we use this human body, this human opportunity that we have which is of great value in a way and only in using it for unimportant activities, then there is no difference between us and this person who uses this golden pot as a trash can. But you know this precious body, you know, if we just merely use it coming and going and not making use of it because we think, well, you know, I’m going to get this opportunity again in the future. But in fact, this opportunity is extremely rare. It’s very difficult to attain.
Why it difficult to gain this human rebirth again? It’s because the cause of attaining a perfect human rebirth is pure morality or pure ethics. If we think about it, to actually practice pure ethics is difficult. We have to abandon the ten non virtuous actions, and it’s extremely difficult for us to abandon the ten non virtuous actions. If we had this golden vase and we didn’t make use of it in some way to make use of its great value.
And we just threw it. So, we’ve gathered together a lot of gold, for example, and we don’t realize its value. We just use it in a useless manner and we just throw it away. Are we going to gather this gold again easily or is it going to be difficult to again amass a lot of gold as we had before? Well, likewise, if we don’t make use of this precious human rebirth, which is of great value, and we use it meaninglessly and just merely throw it away, it’s going to be extremely difficult to gain this opportunity again.
But not only do we have just a human body, in general, in the world there are many, many people with having a human body, of course. But we have a very special body. We have a body which acts as a basis for the pure practice of Dharma. To give us an idea of how rare it is that we have this precious human body to practice Dharma, you know there are many people in the world who, of course, have human bodies. They’re like all the earth in the entire world, in the entire country, all the stretches of land, and all the dirt and dust in the entire land.
Those are the people in general. But those who actually are trying to practice Dharma are like just the dust that settles on top of this roof of this building. Practitioners of Dharma are extremely rare. These days it’s extremely difficult to develop the thought, I practice the Dharma. So, today, we have a chance, an opportunity to practice the Dharma.
We have the time and even this time has great meaning. Not only do we have the time, but we have the body, precious human body. The conditions, the conducive conditions are extremely rare to actually make use of our time and this opportunity in this body that we have. There are many contradictory or hindrances to practice. But now we have this opportunity.
We have the body, time, everything has come together so we should generate a great sense of joy and our great fortune. So, this body has great meaning and it’s difficult to attain. One realizes the fact that I have this precious human body and it has great meaning. Therefore, I should practice the Dharma. But, you know, I don’t have to practice now.
I can put it off until later. You know, sometime in the future when I get old, then I’m going to really practice. That’s the time I’m really going to get into my practice. But the fact is we have no control over our situation. We have no control over the time of our death.
No matter how important, how great, how much power a person has, everyone has to die. So, it’s definite that we’re going to die, but it’s indefinite when we’re going to die. In the time of our death, our wealth, our possessions, our mother and father, even this body will be of no benefit at that moment. The only thing which can benefit us at that moment is our practice of Dharma. The thing which will protect us at the moment of death is the Dharma.
So, what is it that brings us not only the suffering now, will bring us suffering in the future? It’s a negative karma. At the time of our death, we do not cease. It’s not like a mere fire going out. We’re going to continue on.
And whatever black or white karma, let us say negative and positive karma that we accumulated, it’s going to accompany this on. It’s like our shadow. Know, wherever we go, our shadow is always following us. Likewise, both our positive and negative karmas are going to follow us wherever we go. So, therefore, thinking in such a way, we should think that must practice the Dharma.
In the course of our life, through in dependence upon developing enemies, in dependence upon trying to please our loved ones. In the course of trying to gain wealth, in the course of all the effort that we put into various business activities, we are constantly creating through attachment hatred and the various negative actions, we create negative karma. Now, this negative karma — we’re going to carry this negative karma ourselves. Even those people who love us, they cannot share in this negative karma. It’s ours alone to bear.
So, the resultant suffering which is going to arise from the negative karma, even it was created out of trying to help others or trying to benefit others, they cannot share in that suffering. We have to experience that suffering ourselves alone. You know, when we die, even though we have hundreds of thousands of dollars, we cannot we have to leave that all behind. We cannot even carry one dollar with us. So if we don’t, you know, by not practicing, we are constantly creating negative actions.
Whatever we do, we’re usually creating negative actions because of the afflicted emotions. For example, we always have the conception of I or grasping for an I. This serves as a motivating force. We’re constantly engaging in negative actions and at the time of death it will only bring us suffering or problems. So we should think that we begin to recognize the situation that we’re in and think Today I’m going to practice the Dharma purely.
From today I’m going to practice the Dharma purely. I’m going to give up. I’m going to abandon all the various negative actions. And in doing this, I can attain in the future rebirth as either a human or a god. So, and then we think So, we think of the impermanence in the case of death that we’re going to definitely die.
And the only thing which is going to benefit us at the time of death is Dharma. And we also realize that this life is not going to simply end, that we’re going to take a future rebirth. And considering all the negative actions that we have stored up in us, we’re going to most likely take rebirth in a bad migration. And we develop a great fear of the future sufferings of bad migrations. So, we begin to lessen our attachment for only this life and we begin to practice in order to bring about a better rebirth in the future.
In order to do this, we practice the abandoning non virtues and cultivating virtuous actions. In order to attain a human rebirth or birth as a god, we begin to practice ethics. And such a manner of practice is the practice of the path of a being of small capacity. So, when we first begin to practice, it’s difficult to have conviction or confidence that future lives actually exist. But we shouldn’t have any doubts about that.
Those who have pure minds have seen future lives through clairvoyance. But because we have the seeds of our negative actions, they obscure us or block us from having the ability to see future lives. We cannot even know that tomorrow exists. But we have confidence and conviction. But, you know, we still make plans for the future. As you say, tomorrow I’m going to do this, the next day I’m going to do that.
We make this entire course of future plans for us, never really having seen that the future exists or not. Likewise, you know, it’s to our advantage to plan in this way, to plan for the future even though we haven’t seen, we are not even sure that tomorrow exists. Likewise, though we, at this time, we cannot see that these future lives exist, it’s of great profit for us to make a plan as if they did in fact exist. There’s a great benefit to derive from it and we should in such a way that we’re one hundred percent sure that these future lives exist. So, we should use various types of reasoning.
So, in this explanation, we’re using different approaches, different types of reasoning and you should try to use various types of reasoning. And ultimately, we want to come to the point where we have the confidence to completely put our body, speech, mind into the practice of Dharma. In such a way, through the pure practice of ethics, it’s definite that we will attain rebirth as either a human or a God. By abandoning the non virtues and cultivating the virtuous actions, it’s definite that we will not take rebirth in a bad migration. If we do not guard our ethics, if we do not practice in such a way, then we are going to take rebirth in a bad migration.
So, then we pass on to the second level of thinking. We’re going to think, well, is this sufficient? Merely using this precious opportunity of the human body in this way, is that sufficient practice? By practicing the ten virtues, abandoning the ten non virtues, I have attained this human body. And again, I’m going to practice ethics purely.
Again, I’m going to take a human body. Eventually, we cannot be sure we’re going to continue our practice of Dharma, and that we’re gathering up negative actions and sooner or later, we’re going to due to the negative actions, this process is going to continually be repeated over and over and over again. We’re just going to keep taking rebirth over and over again and there will be no end to it. So, though in future life we take rebirth as a human, if we do not practice the Dharma due to negative actions, then we’re going to take a bad rebirth.