Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute talk, Lama Lhundup offers a detailed breakdown of the ten root afflictions—attachment, hatred, pride, ignorance, doubt, and the five wrong views—as the true enemies behind all suffering in cyclic existence. He emphasizes that recognizing these emotions is the first step: using mindfulness to spot them the moment they arise in daily life. For each affliction, he teaches practical antidotes. Against attachment, the supreme method is analytical investigation into where the perceived beauty actually exists, revealing it to be a projection of mind rather than inherent in the object. Against hatred, he prescribes cultivating love and patience, noting that even one moment of anger at a teacher or parent carries severe karmic consequences. He stresses immediate application of antidotes before negative action takes root, and cautions that attachment is the stickiest affliction, requiring repeated cultivation of its remedies. Addressed to practitioners working on foundational Buddhist understanding of mental transformation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 05 TK and I.mp3
UUID: a69ffb5f-33b8-4e0c-9d11-a1a2bd2093f9
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: Towards kindness and insights (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.8 minutes
Words: ~2,587
So when we consider these contaminated aggregates that we have, whether they’re good or bad, then we can come to the conclusion that they’re nothing but suffering. Not only are these contaminated aggregates a source of suffering in this life, but they will act to induce suffering in future lives. So we should when we think about the sufferings and there’s always undesirable sufferings, unwanted sufferings that we experience, it should be like as if we ate some ate some kind of kind of bad food. And we and and we want to throw it up. Likewise, when we think about having to go through this process of suffering again and again and again and again, We want to throw up cyclic existence.
So, you know, we we can when we think about suffering, the all this unwanted suffering that we continue experience and we want to get rid of it, merely this wish to get rid of it will not make it go away. We have to investigate what is the cause of suffering. And the cause of suffering are actions and emotions. If we didn’t have afflictive emotions, we wouldn’t experience suffering. So we have to recognize very clearly what is our real enemy.
Our real enemy is afflictive emotions. It’s afflictive emotions which create all our suffering. So there are many different types of afflictive emotions, but if we were to condense them, then we would list them list the six root afflictions. So six root afflictions are attachment, hatred, pride, ignorance, afflicted doubt, and afflicted view. And When you can see, it’s just some beautiful things.
Then you can say your mind is, you know, just going into there. You don’t want separate this object. That that mind is attachment. Okay. Take your go on.
Okay. Got this. Yeah, hatred is is has an aspect of anger which which views a a displeasing object and wishes to harm it. Takes its object’s observation as a displeasing object and wishes to harm that object. So the the third is pride and we all easily generate pride.
Pride is the feeling when the mind is puffed up and thinking that in comparison with someone else, I’m better than that person, I’m a better race than that person, beautiful. I have a better voice. In some way, we compare ourselves and think ourselves better. So, in general, are many types of ignorance. And here we’re talking about specifically the root of the afflicted emotion, that type of ignorance.
Now, there is ignorance which is merely not knowing the presentation of the law of cause and effect. Here, we are talking about ignorance which is an unknowing, which obscures the ultimate reality or the final way things exist. That obscuration, that unknowing of the way things finally the final mode of existence or reality is ignorance we’re talking about here. So afflicted doubt. That would be, for example, that if we had doubt whether the law of cause and effect was in fact true, whether by committing a virtuous action we’re actually going to experience happiness, whether by committing a virtuous action in the future life we’re going to have happiness, or whether future and past lives exist at all or whether the Three Jewels exist.
Such types of doubt are said to be afflicted doubt. The afflicted doubt is the worst. If we had doubt with respect to the law of cause and effect, for example, this acts as an obstacle to taking rebirth in a happy migration in the future. Also, have doubt with respect to the actuality of the Four Noble Truths, And this doubt acts as an obstacle to liberation. So there are within the within the last afflicted view, there are included five five afflicted views.
So there are five afflicted views. The first is the afflicted view with respect to the transitory collection. With respect to the transitory collection. The second is the view of extremes. The third is holding views as supreme.
The fourth is holding wrong modes of behavior and rituals as supreme. The fifth is wrong view. Wrong view itself. So, there’s five afflicted views. So, there was a view of the transition.
Holding modes of wrong modes of conduct or behavior and rituals as supreme. The first, the view of the transitory collection is holding that is afflicted wisdom, would say an afflicted intelligence holding the aggregates to be the self, Holding to be the I, grasping the conception of the aggregates as being the I or the self. This is the view of the transitory collection. This this this view is the root of all afflictive emotions. We eliminate this view of the transitory collection, we eliminate cyclic existence.
Until we finally get rid of this view of the transitory collection, we will never be liberated from cyclic existence. This is the source of cyclic existence. So the view of the extremes, the second, the holding view which conceives of extremes. The two extremes would be the extreme of permanency and annihilation. Permanency, annihilation or eternal in a way you say they are eternalism and nihilism.
The first eternalism is holding that which is transitory as being unchanging or permanent. That’s eternalism. And the second is holding which continues to exist to not exist. For example, when we say the view that when we die that we no longer that the person comes to an end is a view of nihilism that we become non existent. So, third was the view holding views as best.
This is the view which holds the first, the second, and the fifth of these five views. That is the view which holds the view of the transitory collection, view of a conception of extremes, and the view of wrong views holding these views as the highest or supreme is the view of as holding view as best. So this fourth one should be translated as view of conceiving bad behavior, bad ethics and rituals as supreme. This would be holding actual bad ethics as certain types of modes of conduct, ethics, morality as being the supreme way of behaving, the best way of behaving. So an example would be someone who holds a certain type of liberation which is not actually liberation and he performs ascetic practices a means to attain this liberation which he is seeking.
For example, that which is not actually liberation, seeking this as actual liberation and performing ascetic practices such as starving oneself, sitting in fires, etcetera. Type of practices, holding these as being supreme type of practices. It’s a wrong view. It’s when you’ve come to the final conclusion that there is no past and future life, that there are no Three Jewels, for example. Also, when we try when we hold worldly gods as being supreme, for example, Īśvara, Indra, etcetera, that these are the supreme gods when holding them as supreme would be a wrong view.
So we should try to understand these ten afflicted emotions, recognize them so that when they arise in our mind we can be aware that they have risen in our mind. So, we to use mindfulness to examine our mind and be aware whenever any of these afflicted emotions manifest in our mind. And we should think that now when we recognize an enemy has arisen in our mind and when we recognize it as the enemy has arisen, we should make use of some method in order to eliminate the enemy. So, we need a very stable mindfulness and awareness. For example, if attachment arises in our mind, a temporary antidote, if strong attachment manifests in our mind, we can use a temporal antidote of cultivating or meditating on ugliness.
So we should try to investigate for ourselves what is the nature of attachment. When it arises in our mind, try to see what its nature is, that it’s actually some afflicted mind is trying to hold on to an object which is pleasing to us, a desired object which appears pleasing to us and seeking to hold on to it. And at this time investigate what this attachment is doing to your mind. It’s it’s as if there was a fire burning inside of ourselves and our mind cannot be at peace. So, you know, we should try to recognize attachment whenever it arises in our mind.
When we go to town or when we are among many different types of people to see we should examine again and again our mind to be able to recognize when attachment has arisen. When we recognize attachment, we should at once begin to apply antidotes. We should meditate on the repulsiveness of the object. We should think about it as unpleasing aspects of the object. We should think about the impermanence of the object.
This way, this attachment will become pacified. Likewise, if we become desirous, become attached to our own body, then we should think of it that this body of ours is in the nature of it’s filthy. Think about how dirty the body is. That our body is just made up of it’s just a collection of flesh, blood, and bones. That it’s not permanent but in fact it’s constantly changing from moment to moment.
Likewise, when develop attachment, desire for someone else’s body, just like our own body is dirty. Likewise, the other person’s body is all dirty or filthy. The body, its cause, its nature, and the effects of their body are all filthy. We should also think about the impermanence of the object of this other body. And if we search this body which appears so pleasing to us, you know, appears so beautiful to us, we should also understand that if we make some kind of search, an ultimate search analyzing to find that beautiful pleasing body, we will not find anything.
You know, from the point of view of cause, the body is being filthy from the point of view of cause. If you were to blow your nose and make a place dirty there, no one would even want to look at it, let alone put their hand in it, touch it with their hand. So in in this the first the initial cause of this body is the sperm and ovum of our mother and father. This this this sperm and ovum are dirty. This is the cause of this body.
Therefore, we can say that the body is filthy by way of causes. And likewise, from the point of view of nature, you know, if somebody we think this body is very clean, if somebody somebody throws up and we look at that, we see and realize that and we think it’s filthy. But this but all the time that filth has been inside our body. If we think in this way, whenever attachment arises and we merely think about the repulsiveness of the object, then immediately our attachment is going to go away. So immediately when we see a beautiful object and attachment arises through the powerful through the power of mindfulness and awareness we should apply an antidote immediately. If we wait, then if we do not apply an antidote immediately, we are going to enter into negative action.
We are going to create negative karmas. So, but the supreme method for combating attachment is whenever we see a beautiful object, some object which pleases a great deal and we realize that attachment has developed with respect to the object, we say where is that beauty of that object? We begin to analyze the object to find where that beauty is in that object that we think is so beautiful. When we begin this analysis investigation, will come to the understanding that this is merely an appearance within our own mind. This beauty is being merely projected by our own mind upon that object. There’s nothing we can find in that object which is really the beauty that we see there.
And this is the supreme method to eliminate attachment. Attachment will immediately be eliminated. So, in many ways, we always almost have always have this attachment. It’s it’s almost is the worst of the afflictions. Other afflictions like the other afflictions are like as if we had some dirty paper.
You know, the the the Oh, okay. Like dust settling on a Dust which settles on a piece of cloth material, a cloth. Whereas attachment is as if the oil was in the cloth itself. So with attachment, it is as if oil absorbed into the cloth, into the paper itself? The the very paper itself has become oily.
It’s extremely difficult to separate the mind from attachment. So we should again and again cultivate the antidotes. The best would be to be able to get to the place where even just before an afflictive emotion arises we recognize that I’m just about to some sort of afflictive emotion is about to arise in my mind and you apply an antidote. But if we can’t do that, that is even before it develops we recognize it. But even after it develops we should try to immediately try to recognize it and apply an antidote.
So the greatest negative action among the afflicted emotions is hatred. The antidote to hatred is love. Someone who we love from the depths of our heart for a child or a husband, we cannot generate hatred towards them. To the degree that we have love for a particular person, to that same degree, we will have that much less hatred toward that person. If we have little love for our child or our husband, then hatred can arise that much easier towards that same person.
It’s the nature of the hatred that is like an anger which wishes to hurt or has a harmful intention towards this object and therefore it’s the worst of the negative actions. If if we were to go into retreat for a long time and when we came out of retreat, all the once we met someone, we became angry at this person. Just a few minutes of becoming angry at that person destroys all the good effects of having been in retreat for say one month. So the degree of harm to the object of our anger would be quite different. For example, it’s extremely extreme negative action to get angry at your mother and your father or your teachers, for example your guru or the Buddhas.
Even just one minute of such anger has very negative consequences. So we have to think about the that anger has the greatest negative consequences. Not only that by developing when anger arises in our mind, it imprints negative latencies, potentials in our mind which are going to ripen in future lives and they can only ripen to bring us suffering. We should begin to recognize the great how the negative consequences of anger, even a moment of anger. You know, we shouldn’t develop anger even towards someone who’s kept trying to kill us.
If someone were to try to kill us, this is one life, and we’re going to take another life, and we’re going to take rebirth again. Through the power of the patience or being able to bear without anger his killing us, there’s no doubt that we will not be reborn in a bad migration. So we should make effort by trying to reduce our anger.