Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 64-minute teaching, Lama Ribur Rinpoche explores why the practice of Dharma is essential for both this life and future lives. He begins by establishing that attachment, hatred, and ignorance—the three mental poisons—are the root cause of all suffering and inner unrest, and that no material progress can overcome them without an inner science. Rinpoche then outlines the structure of Buddhist practice, emphasizing the Lamrim or gradual path to enlightenment, which rests on three foundations: a stable relationship with one’s spiritual teacher, renunciation of samsaric attachment, and the development of both compassion and wisdom that realizes emptiness. He stresses that these three principles are the actual antidotes to mental delusion and must be built through meditation—not study alone. In the latter part, he addresses the ordained Sangha in the West, underlining the critical importance of monastic vows and the responsibility of lay practitioners to support those who have taken robes, before turning to the main topic of the session: how to recognize the eight freedoms that make human rebirth precious and to meditate on them to strengthen one’s commitment to practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: precious human life tape 4.mp3
UUID: 66158dde-076d-4fc2-a30d-fbe7eb15ac88
Teacher: Lama Ribur Rinpoche
Collection: Precious Human Life (Lama Ribur Rinpoche)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 63.8 minutes
Words: ~4,391
Really? So as the famous Śāntideva wrote, having, obtaining this precious human rebirth, we should strive for the, for the benefit of future lives. So in order to take the essence of the of this life and in order to create the cause for the happiness of the future life, we should strive for, the practice of Dharma. And the practice of Dharma aiming for the, future happiness in the, future lives indirectly brings you the happiness and joy in this life. In which way, while you’re practicing Dharma, your mind gets pacified and controlled and subdued.
And all this is what is going to bring you happiness. If you look at if you on the opposite side, if you look to a person who doesn’t practice Dharma, you will see that apart from not creating any cause for the future life’s happiness, but he will he will face a lot of trouble, a lot of physical and mental trouble in this life. And at the end of this life, when he’s dying, he will have a lot of regret and a lot of unhappiness due to the fact that his mind is not pacified. And the peace of mind is something that everybody, everyone requires or every everyone wanted. There’s no discrimination in that.
Old people want pacified mind, as well as young people requires peace of mind, as well as male and female, and rich and poor. There’s no there’s no there’s not even a single human being who doesn’t want to reach human p mind peace or peace of mind. And if you ask to yourself which is the main cause and condition that, doesn’t allow yourself to, obtain or to achieve peace of mind, the main cause are three, attachment, hatred, and ignorance. These are the three main mental poisons which are not allowing you to reach the peace of mind. So the practice of Dharma is an antidote for this three mental poisons in order to reach stabilization or peace of mind.
So, the main cause and condition that, doesn’t allow you to have peace of mind and, and a subdue mind or control mind and the main cause which makes you to be uptight and so forth. This is if you check well, you will see that either directly or indirectly the three mental poison. Sometimes you sometimes you are completely uncontrolled because due to having attachment. Sometimes you are completely unpackified due to hatred and sometimes due to ignorance. So either they are themselves directly or there are some other mental poison, but created from these three mental from these three main ones that are not allowing you to dwell in a sort of peaceful state of mind.
So if you’re looking for an antidote for those mental delusion which are creating this unpackified state of mind, then in every every religious tradition, there are methods for that. I’m not I’m not saying that it’s only Buddhism which has these methods or these techniques, but all of the religious tradition have basically the method in order to improve yourself to get better. But, so in the such in such a detailed and in such an extraordinary, detailed explanation like it is in Buddhism is difficult to find in some other tradition. So why I’m saying this is because we are Buddhist, and the founder of Buddhism, Buddha Śākyamūni, two thousand five hundred years ago, taught the eighty four thousand subjects which are only techniques or method in order to overcome or, yeah, overcome or completely subdue the three mental poison. So if you if you want to if you want to, like, for in in other words, to be more clear, this eighty four thousand subject can be divided in twenty one thousand subject for as a method for attachment and twenty one thousand subject against the and techniques against the hatred and twenty one thousand subjects in order to overcome ignorance, and at last, twenty one thousand subjects in order to overcome all the three of them simultaneously, attachment, hatred, and ignorance in a simultaneous way.
And the fact is that if you don’t overcome those three mental delusion, you’re not going to reach any peace of mind, any state of control mind. So if you look at the Western history, what happened is that it might be only twenty years that the people understood the importance of the science of the mind or psychology or psychiatry or whatever. Up to twenty years ago, I think the majority of Western people thought that in order to achieve the peace or and the joy, happiness, of body and mind, the main, like, the main method that the people should follow is the progress, is the materialistic the material progress. And they were, like, basing their, their method on the, on what the scientists were telling them. So up to twenty years ago maybe, the pro the materialist progress in in the West had really advanced till, like, reaching other planet and visiting other, visiting, other place on the planet.
And, in on the earth, like advancing to a really great, to a great limit, to a great extent. But, what happened is that, they actually reached the moon, they reached some other planet, but the problem, the main problem that is the three the presence of the three mental poison in the mental continuum of the human being are still there. So and this, the people understood being main being the main cause of the unhappiness and the uncontrolled state of the mind. And because of this, now they are turning so that, like, they start to turning their attention towards what is the inner science. So sometimes ago when the progress was really was really the the main key or the main point of everybody, So whatever was the old tradition, like the old religious tradition or the and the old inner inner tradition of the west and the east has been sort of leave aside, left aside.
But, right now, understanding that only with the materialist progress is not, with the materialistic progress is not possible to reach the total happiness of mind and body. So the people are starting to turn their attention to the religious tradition again. So what happened is that they really advanced to a high extent, and the progress is really admirable. But it didn’t succeed in bringing complete or the total physical and mental happiness. So, because the human being is is constitute or is formed by body and mind, we should, give the attention in an equal way.
So, so now there’s no, there’s no a path there’s no other, techniques or method to in order to bring happiness, in order to bring the mental happiness than to overcome the three mental delusion. So, obviously, the mental progress the sorry. The progress the materialistic progress can’t overcome those those obstacles, those mental delusion. Otherwise, it would have been done up already. So it’s not still, even if we we are so much advanced, but we are not able to control our hatred, our competition, and and envy and so forth.
So because of this, still we are in in an unhappy in unhappy state of mind. So, honestly, I see that, the progress can, bring a lot of happiness, but also a lot of troubles. If, if the progress is not, guided by a virtuous mind, then it creates more trouble than happiness. You can see, like, the progress brought the atomic bomb as well as many other dangerous weapon and pollution and so forth. So, it actually brings a lot of benefit.
It has a lot of benefit. It brings a lot of happiness, but he has the the potential of bringing a lot of unhappiness too. So, honestly honestly, it’s like that. And, on the other hand, the dharma is something that can bring happiness and joy for this life as well as for the future lives. So, and what is the essence?
If you’re looking for the essence of all dharmas, this is the lamrim or the gradual path to enlightenment. And if the source of or the first well, the first of the lamrim or the source of the lamrim is the is the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. And and what is what is in there? What’s the main, let’s say, root or what’s the main track of that Lamrim? It’s the three principal paths.
So renunciation, an altruistic mind of enlightenment, and superior view or wisdom that realize emptiness. So these three are the three the three main point of the path to enlightenment, and these are the three methods are the three main method in order to overcome the mental delusion. If you can’t overcome the mental delusion with these three, then overcoming the mental delusion is difficult. So in order to practice Dharma, the practice of the Dharma must be preceded by contemplation, and the contemplation should be preceded by listening. So, what we have done yesterday is that, we’ve talked about the root of the practice of Dharma, which is the, correct relation towards your spiritual guide.
And, I told you that, it’s just like you see, a tree. In order to have, flowers and leaves and, fruits and so forth, you must have a very, stable root. If you have the stable root, then for many years, the tree can, develop itself. And in the same way, if you have a very stable base of guru devotion, then whichever practice, whichever techniques you apply, those are going to be successful, and you’re going to be you’re going to improve. And, so on the base of guru devotion, then you start the, actual lamrim, which is the, which start with the topics of precious human rebirth.
And then from that on and from that onward, you can, you can advance towards the enlightenment on the basis of the on the base of this, guru devotion. So, again, want to emphasize that everything depends on this. Everything is depend upon your guru devotion, upon the way how you relate with your spiritual guide. So the way how you meditate on guru devotion, it’s you contemplate the eight benefits of having proper relation towards your spiritual guide, and then you develop the attitude yourself, you know, the first to, first contemplate the reason why you should devote to your, to your guru and contemplating or slightly being grateful to your teacher is teaching you the like, in the three, they’re calling the three kindnesses, and then being the embodiment of all Buddha Buddha of the three times. And so going from one from each and every of these reasons, you should generate what is called the devotion of your towards your guru that sees your guru non-different from the Buddha himself.
And and then from that point on, you should start the precious human rebirth topics. But you see, especially regarding the generation, a firm, generation of the devotion towards your guru is not something very easy, especially if, you want to generate the top one, the top range one, the one that sees the Buddha, the, the lama as your Buddha as the Buddha. I remember, once told me that when he did his retreat on Lamrim, he took a year he took a year to him just to generate the firm conviction, then the and then the teacher was a Buddha and to generate a strong devotion towards him. And so if he if he if he took one year to him, I’m I’m pretty sure that he would take no less than two years to us. And, and so in order to be maybe quicker, what we can do is that, we can start, the Lamrim, from two doors simultaneously, from the doors of, the precious, sorry, the guru devotion and from the door of the precious human rebirth.
In this way, what you can do is that you can meditate in the morning session on the topic of guru devotion, going over and over this eight benefit and the eight shortcoming, and so trying to generate as much as possible the guru devotion. And then on in the evening session, in the afternoon session, you can meditate on the, precious human rebirth topics. So in this way, simultaneously, you might, you might improve in in in two different tracks. Otherwise, if you have to if you if you have to wait, to have some experience about precious human rebirth while you are meditating, guru devotion, it might take a long time. Again, Pabongka was saying that, in Lamrim, the two main difficult, topics to have experience, it’s the first is, generating guru devotion.
The second is recognizing the mother, recognizing all being as your mother. So these two are the one that takes very long time. To him, also, the second one, the realization of all beings being, being our mother took a year. So I guess also for us, it would take long time. So instead of dealing with one topics per every time, we can do, like, some simultaneously.
We can deal with some simultaneously. So first of all, we should practice the, Lamrim path in order to have experience of the three principle of the path, the renunciation, altruistic mind of enlightenment, and the superior view. Because, in this way, we are going to build a very stable basis for our, tantric practice. So after we, have trained in the in the what is called common path, then, we are able to enter in the tantric path and to practice the two stages, generation and completion stage. And, because if we if we think that we can have experience of tantric path without having, the base of the, Lamrim or the common path, then, is really like a utopia, like, well, and hopeless and hopeless hopeless things.
And it’s like if you want to build a house, the first things which you have to take care of are the are the foundation. If you don’t build a very stable foundation, then you’re not going to build the first floor and neither the second or the the roof. So, it’s stupid to think that you can build something on the top if you don’t have the one at the bottom. And, Khedrup Je was saying, he said in his text, the one who think that the one who think that without having the base, he can meditate on the channels, drops and winds, is well, translation is a poor thing. And, it’s like object of compassion.
And, and, the base in this case is the common path. Without having an experience principle of the path, without having renunciation, but it’s just an empty thing, it’s, hopeless that you’re going to, achieve some, some realization in the Tentric path. But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t practice. What I mean is that it’s also it it is it is nonsense trying to get realization of Tantra without having the common path. But it is also not very skillful to practice Tantric method before, still, after you have complete realization of the three principle of the path.
So, because it it can be it may it may be possible that you die before having any any realization of these three, so you don’t have even the imprints of tantra. So it’s much better if you, do the two things simultaneously. It’s better if you, together, you train yourself in the, common path, trying to realize, trying to generate the three principle of the path, and meanwhile, trying to have some experience of tantra. So it’s good if you take initiation and and then following the instruction, you practice a little bit. For example, if you take initiation of and then, this is not only going to establish an imprint of tantric imprint into your mental continuum, but together with that is going to improve your compassion.
It’s going to put, really strong cause in order for your compassion to generate it. So, the two, light tantric, can be conducive for the common path, and common path is conducive for Tendra. So the skillful one does the two together. So the way, how you should train in the common path is through meditation. There’s no way of establishing what is called the base, without meditating.
It’s not just it’s not enough just studying. And, so if you have to take experience so if you have to meditate and generate some sort of experience of the three principle of the path, and that, the only way to do that is through meditation. If you can have experience of all three, of renunciation as well as bodhicitta and emptiness, that is the act that’s the excellent one. That’s the excellent. But, but if you can’t do all three, at least try to have some experience of renunciation.
At at least try to emphasize in your, in your meditation, the analysis in order to generate some renunciation in your mental continuum. Why? Because if you don’t, if you don’t generate a little bit of renunciation, if you have done if you don’t have experience of renunciation, then, it’s going to, it’s going to become difficult to, keep, for example, your vows and, as well as, practicing like, putting effort in practice because, what is renunciation is the mind that sees, the, samsaric phenomena as, essenceless or without, yeah, without without essence. And this you’re going to, this view of the essenceless phenomena of saṃsāra, you are going to generate it if you meditate especially on impermanence and on the four characteristics of saṃsāra. And if you if you do if you contemplate in that way, then, you’re going to generate you’re going to perceive the phenomena as without essence, without importance, and in the nature of saṃsāra, in the nature of suffering.
So, this is very important to, is to be done. That that that topics the topics of renunciation is very, is very important because, for example, especially for monks and nuns, if they don’t, if they don’t train themselves continuously, on seeing the phenomena of the world like essenceless, being essenceless, then then, there is a great danger of, being, again, like, in the, in the saṃsāra, in the worldly matter. And, for example, look at the in Europe, the Ganden Shartse monks. It was it was crowded of very, very intelligent, monks and a lot of scholars and so forth, but all of them all of the all of them, give back their vows. And the reason was because, they didn’t meditate on, lamrim.
They didn’t, emphasize on their meditation, the renunciation topic. So that’s the was the main that is the main reason why they gave back their vows, as well as for Nālānda monastery and so forth. So, it’s very important that especially for beginners, especially at the beginning of the path, emphasizing the topics which are going to generate a strong renunciation in your mind to continue. So, especially in the West, it’s very important to emphasize, among the ordained, among the ordained one, the practice the meditation of and the especially the practice in order to generate renunciation. Why?
Because in the West, monks and nuns are really rare. So and they become, important. And in in India, for example, the, ordained Sangha among Tibetan, is really big. So if there’s something that doesn’t work there, it’s because there are too many. If there are some mistakes there, Rinpoche said, if there’s if there is if there is a mistake, it’s because there are too many.
Not that they are, they are too, like, they are too few. So your mistake is that you are few, and their mistake is because there are too many. And, so, Rinpoche said, if some of them, disrobe, no problem. It’s better. But but you but you, you should you should keep really, you should keep you should emphasize.
You should take care of your vows. Because in the west, now you have, Gelongma, Getsulma, and Gelong. You have the two Gelong, Gelong and Gelongma, and you have the two Getsul, Getsulma and Getsul. So, these are like the four root. These are the four cardinal root of a very, of a very, strong and, how do you say, very, yeah, very strong plant, which is going to be the foundation, which is going to be the like, the cardinal point which the dharma is going to, be sustained.
So those are like the four cardinal, point on which the, the dharma is going to, be sustained. So, this that’s why you should take care of that because it’s very important. How many how many bells has? The hilarious part, Rinpoche said not to translate that. Sorry.
Rinpoche said, so for example, the Gelongma has three hundred forty-eight vows. And, so in comparison with the with the Gelong that have two hundred fifty-three vows, they are really I mean, they have much more vows than the than the complete ordained, monks. So, what does it mean this? It means that they have a lot of vows and a lot of, boundaries to, to take care of. And so the lay community should be aware of this.
The lay community and the western lay community should start to be to take care and to be aware of what the monks and nuns have, like, they should observe, so some like, their vows. So, there are a lot of vows which, doesn’t allowed a monk or a nun to, for example, joke or to laugh or to, have any sort of contact with laypeople. So, I’ve seen in the West that, there are a lot of trouble, there are a lot of problem created because the lay community is not really aware of that. And so, they don’t find any, problem with, like, joking or, making fun together with, an ordained ordained Sangha. So that’s, that’s a problem, especially when attachment arise.
So when attachments arise, then there is the danger of of going beyond those boundaries. So you should, so because of this, also, the monks and nuns should be aware of their boundaries, and the, and the lay community, they should start to be aware of the importance of having an ordained Sangha in the West. So they should, start to take care. So, if you look at in Tibet, for example, the there are no Gelongma in Tibet. So, you have in the west, now you have the, like, the four categories of ordained people complete.
So, if you compare this with Tibet, it’s much greater opportunity to have the stable Sangha, stable Buddhadharma. So His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself, is, is putting a lot of effort in order to create a stable, like, ordained Sangha community in the West. And so, he is ordaining monk as well as nuns. And among those those nuns, they are like, that he perceived like being brave and and steadfast ones, then he’s encouraging to take the full ordination in places like Taiwan or Hong Kong and so forth. And so he himself is encouraging this, to take this ordination in order to stabilize a very strong, ordained Sankar community in the West.
So if my my hope is that if, those ordained one that are now, that are now living in the West, if they can stabilize their mind, if they can subdue their mental continuum, then there is a great hope that they can start their lineage. Like, they can at their from their side, they can give ordination to some, new ordained, monks and nuns. So that is my hope. So so now, finally, I’m going to do the topic of today. So that is that is because, you see, when when people get old, they start to they start to talk and they don’t they don’t stop.
You see, they don’t they don’t stop. It’s not that I’m talking completely nonsense. I I said something, but is is completely, like, without control because of being old. So now now I’m going to start the real topic. So yesterday, yesterday, we, talked about the, guru devotion and the way how to, generate, the devotion towards your guru through the contemplation of the eight benefits.
Today, we are going to talk about the precious human rebirth and especially the way how to, become aware of the, preciousness of the, precious human rebirth. So, this is and and doing this through meditation, so this is what we’re going to talk about. So there are, there are eight condition which limit your Dharma practice, or in other words, there are eight, situation of not freedom, which can, sort of limited your Dharma practice and, which you can find yourself to be involved with. And, so our now the job is to recognize that we are completely free from all these eight condition, and, and this gives us the opportunity of fully, practicing Dharma. And so what we have to do is that we have to, meditate.
We have to analyze all these eight, condition of freedom and then having experience, each and every of them. And we we should, try to generate an experience of each and every of these eight, eight condition of, freedom freedom. So, because of you have, heard a lot of, I’m not going to explain in details, but just remember, there are eight condition. Four are related to be a nonhuman being, and four are in relation with human beings. So, the four, in relation with the nonhuman beings are, being in the hell realm, being in the, hungry ghost realm, being in animal realm, and, in the long life god realm.
So, what you should, how how you should experience this, how you have to analyze these four points is that, you should understand which are the shortcomings of being in the hell realm and, in in in relation with dharma. And then arriving, like, through analysis, you, you reach the conclusion of saying, it’s very good that I’m not there. Like, it’s, it’s perfect, that I’m that I’m free from that from that situation, from that con