Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 30-minute session, Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides listeners through the mental preparation essential for receiving teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment. He outlines a hierarchy of motivations that must underpin the act of listening itself: moving from avoiding attachment to this life, to seeking happiness in future lives, to aspiring for personal liberation from saṃsāra, and finally to the highest frame — cultivating bodhicitta, the determination to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. He then connects this framework to practical fruit: how recognizing the samsaric aggregates as inherently problematic naturally generates compassion, ethical restraint, and genuine spiritual effort. For practitioners beginning serious Dharma study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 1991 08 08 E.mp3
UUID: 407c5467-51f5-480e-8a87-379f470e21c3
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Emptiness (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 1991-08-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.9 minutes
Words: ~541
And then before listening to the teaching of the graduated path to enlightenment, it is extremely important that the action of listening to the teaching should become Dharma should become Dharma, the holy Dharma. So, Therefore, the action, listening, teaching has to become holy Dharma. Then the motivation of doing this action should not be sustained by the ordinary thought, the thought of attachment, the clinging to this life. And Even the action of listening to Dharma, become holy Dharma, and become cause of happiness in future lives, even that is not sufficient. That is not sufficient.
Even one is listening to teaching for the attitude to seek happiness in future lives. And then, in one listening to teaching, even the action, listening to teaching becomes cause to achieve the liberation from the sufferings of the saṃsāra, everlasting freedom or release from the whole entire the suffering of saṃsāra including the cause that is that is not sufficient. Listen to the teaching, you see, with the motivation to achieve liberation and the ultimate happiness for self. That is not sufficient. And then the action of listening and teaching should become caused to achieve the full enlightenment, the great liberation, in order to free every sentient being from all the sufferings of obscurations and lead to the full enlightenment.
And to achieve that, thought to achieve enlightenment. So the action of listening to teaching of that should become cause for oneself to achieve, achieve the full enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Action and energy become cause of that. Then it should be done with the motivation that is possessed by the which is the bodhicitta, the altruism seeking enlightenment for sentient beings who are equal in the infinite sky. So therefore, in the event, I must achieve, instead of omniscient mind in order to free everyone, every sentient being from all the suffering, all the obscurations, and lead to peerless happiness, the full enlightenment.
Therefore, I’m going to listen to the teaching of the graduated path to enlightenment. So, please listen to teaching well by clarifying the motivations and the righteous conduct of listening to according to the traditional practice of the teaching. That it is mentioned in the Bodhicaryāvatāra. By understanding suffering, it eliminates the pride, the sadness. Understanding suffering eliminates the haughtiness.
Then rises. So one rises, one generates compassion for saṃsāra beings. One becomes careful in negative karmas, the negative actions, the cause of the suffering, and one becomes happy. One becomes happy to accommodate virtue. One becomes careful the non virtuous actions, and one becomes happy with virtue.
In other words, protects. So like this. So knowing this, knowing this, you see, by seeing suffering, by knowing the suffering, the saṃsāra, the cycle of suffering, these are aggregates. These aggregates, you see, this association of body and mind, that which is defiled defiled and creating the future saṃsāra. So how this aggregates?
You see? How this is in nature of suffering, how this is in nature problems, how this is a container of problems. So, knowing the shortcoming of this saṃsāra, this cycle.