Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 108-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche uses the Wheel of Sharp Weapons—an ancient Indian image of a weapon that cuts enemies before returning to the thrower—to explain how karma and causality work. He begins with bodhicitta practice, then addresses a central puzzle: why do non-virtuous people sometimes prosper while genuine dharma practitioners suffer? The answer lies in understanding karma across lifetimes—past virtuous actions ripening as present happiness, while non-virtuous deeds mature in future lives. He then teaches lojong mind training through tonglen: taking on others’ suffering to destroy self-cherishing, giving one’s happiness to others. Compassion and love are direct antidotes to causing harm, strengthened only through meditation. The closing Q&A addresses instant karma and right motivation in study. For practitioners familiar with bodhisattva teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2010-12-08 – KR.mp3
UUID: fe89b5f1-86fa-4b6b-ab4f-8287ce0d3714
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Meditation
Date: 2010-12-08
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,664
So we will meditate a couple of minutes on generating the motivation to listen to these teachings on the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, is the very inner most essence of the great vehicle of the Mahāyāna. And we will do this through reflecting on the fact that we must generate a good motivation both for engaging in the activities of listening and the activities of explaining the dharma. This good motivation refers to a motivation which realizes that all we ourselves are only one in number. Sentient beings, conscious beings are infinite in number. Let alone this, they are all identical to us in all wishing to be happy and all wishing to be free from from suffering.
However, their tragic predicament is even though they wish to be happy, they are not aware of the causes which could lead them to happiness. And even though they wish not to suffer, they are unaware of the causes which should be abandoned for suffering to cease. In addition to this, all of these sentient beings are related to us as our former fathers and mothers, our former relatives. Thinking about this, we should say to ourselves, I myself will take upon myself the responsibility to free all of these sentient beings from suffering and the causes of suffering and to place them in a state of happiness and unalloyed bliss. And looking upon our present situation, we can see that we are unable to do this, and we generate then the motivation of eliminating all of our thoughts without exception and of perfecting all of our qualities without exception, attaining ourselves the sake of full enlightenment for the sake of all of the sentient beings.
We’ll now meditate for one or two minutes to generate this motivation. Page one one b. If you’re not familiar with the Tibetan phonetic, you can look in the page two in English. Page Mandala offering from verse six. We got the first and last verse.
We are now on page 13 of the English translation of the root text in the commentary. The stanza reads as follows, I will heap upon the self that wishes for happiness, the sufferings incurred by the totality of beings of similar type, which have been driven by karma and by becoming accustomed to the afflictions. So here Rinpoche says, and we will comment the verses in reverse order since Tibetan reads from the end to the beginning. The final verses which have been driven by karma and becoming accustomed to the afflictions, this is the situation we are in. We are in a situation where having accumulated karma and the delusions which accompany karma, having become accustomed to those delusions, we transmigrate in cyclic existence endlessly experiencing the countless varieties of suffering.
So this is alluded to by the last verse of the stanza, and the second verse, the sufferings incurred by the totality of beings of similar type. The sufferings here are sufferings which we share with all other beings of similar type with ourselves. This means all beings like us, in other words, all sentient beings. Now here the totality in Tibetan reads the nine classes of beings. Nine in Tibetan is just a totalizer, this refers to the sum total of sentient beings.
This suffering we experience because of a combination of self-cherishing and wish for our own happiness. It is in dependence upon this that both our own suffering and the suffering of others arises. Therefore, we have to abandon both this self-cherishing and the wish for happiness. In turn, in doing so, we can abandon suffering. Here we are talking of practices which are connected with mind training or lojong.
Lojong or mind training are the practices which are focused on the elimination of self-cherishing and the elimination of the apprehension of the true existence of the self, which jointly are the cause for the accumulation of all non virtue. Specifically, Lojong can be said to be that inner crux of practices connected with Tonglen, or with giving and taking, which are practices engaged in by the bodhisattvas aiming at, on the one hand, taking upon themselves the sum total of all of the sufferings of all sentient beings without exception, as well as their own individual sufferings, and using the taking upon themselves of all these sufferings to annihilate the self-cherishing at their heart, which is the root of cyclic existence. For this great courage is needed. This is the taking aspect of the practice. The giving aspect of the practice is for the practitioner to give all of his happiness, all of his virtue, all of his roots of virtue to other sentient beings without exception.
So through initially taking upon oneself the suffering of all beings, all of the sufferings beings had has been eliminated, so they are at present in a neutral state. Then in addition, we raise them from their neutral state to a state of infinite happiness, through giving them all our own happiness and roots of happiness. This practice of Tonglen enables a tremendous purification of non virtue and a tremendous accumulation of virtue and the accumulation of large collections of merit. Therefore, Rinpoche says the second component of this practice he will elaborate upon somewhat, which is giving one’s happiness to others. Even beginning bodhisattvas are aware of the fact that aiming for their own happiness is mistaken and it is wrong.
One should aim for the welfare or the happiness of others and reflecting on the fact that wishing for one’s own happiness is wrong, they then give this happiness of theirs to others, and in so doing, lead others to a state of complete happiness, as is explained in the commentary. Since this is how it has become, it is said that from now on I will heap upon the self-cherishing which wishes for bliss and happiness for myself alone, the sufferings incurred by myself and the totality of beings of similar types since it must be overcome. So, this covers the following verses on page 14. If selfish craving enters my mind at that time, opposing it opposing it, I will offer my happiness to my aggressors. And the following stanza, likewise, when my relations rebel against me, satisfaction will rise in my heart and I will think it is an answer to my own wandering, refers to situations where, for instance, if one is a teacher, one’s students do not listen to one’s advice, or if one is a parent, one’s children rebel against one’s self, or for that matter one is in disharmony with one’s friends.
In every single such case, we should think that this is actually not the responsibility of the students, of the children or of the friends, but it is actually a result, an effect which arises in dependence on a past cause. The past cause is that we ourselves in past lives were disobedient towards our spiritual teachers, rebelled against our parents, and lived in disharmony with our friends. And as a result of this, and as a result of this alone, in this life, there are difficulties with a spiritual teacher, with the parents, or with friends. So it is not a fault from the side of the teacher, the children, or the friends. It is actually from our side that the thought exists and thinking in this way, we should realize that if we do not take on board the advice of other sentient beings, the advice of our teachers, and if hardship is inflicted to us, if we do not practice patience, then we will experience difficulties from them later on.
Moreover, we can see in our daily experience in life that there are people who lead rather horrific lives, who perform all of the non virtuous deeds in the book, and who yet seem to be very happy, very wealthy, very fortunate and to succeed in everything they do. Others on the other hand who are excellent dharma practitioners, humble, quiet and who nonetheless experience only hardship and suffering. Upon seeing this we might wonder, just how precisely does karma and causality operate. One who does what he precisely shouldn’t do is happy, whereas another who is quiet, humble and practices, is unable to accomplish his purposes, suffers, experiences diseases in his body and a troubled mind. This is something which we do see in daily life and it might lead to our conviction in the effectiveness of karma and causality to dwindle.
When we see that someone who is forceful and pushy nonetheless attains his goals and someone who is quiet and humble suffers from disease and so forth. So here one must analyze very carefully karma and causality to understand precisely how it operates so that one’s conviction in karma and causality does not abate. And what does Buddha say about this? On page 15 of the commentary, you have a quote from sūtra. The karma of the foolish will not be exhausted in one hundred eons and when the collection of conditions and the time is right, the effect will reach maturation.
So this stanza refers to the fact that karma, whether virtuous or non virtuous, can abide indefinitely within the mind stream. Virtuous karma can abide for eons within the mind stream unless it is destroyed by anger. Anger has the potentiality to destroy virtuous karma from the very its very its very roots. Great anger will destroy great virtuous karma, middling anger will destroy a middling virtuous karma, and weak anger will destroy the smaller virtuous karma. Likewise, non virtuous karma can dwell for eons in the mind stream until it is brought to maturation by an affliction such as desire.
This is a meaning of the two stanzas will not be exhausted in 100 eons and when the collections of conditions and the time is right, the effect will reach maturation. So when we consider for instance the life of a human being who at present is experiencing great happiness, is wealthy, is in great health, is powerful, and yet engages constantly in non virtuous deeds. And we wonder how it is possible in the light of karma and causality. This arises from our misunderstanding of karma and causality. The human rebirth that a person has obtained at present is the result of virtuous karma accumulated in a past life, which has come to maturation at present.
What that person is doing at present, the non virtuous deeds he or she is doing at present, they will not probably mature in this life, they will mature in a future life. Likewise, if we were to take the case of the humble dharma practitioner, who nonetheless experiences great physical and mental hardship, disease and mental disorder, this physical and mental hardship is a result of past non virtue, which is maturing in this life, and is in no way connected to their Dharma practice in this life. This practice, the humility and meditation they practice, will lead to results in future lives. So reflecting on this, we will understand that it is not the case that karma and causality are non existent, instead they are extraordinarily subtle and in dependence on this, our faith and conviction will increase. And Some might think I myself am a very fine character and I have done nothing wrong.
When disease befalls me, it’s not my fault. I’m really an outstanding person. This is a completely wrong view. Such people often think that disease befalls them because of spirits of, for that matter, attempts to harm them from others through witchcraft and so forth. This is completely wrong.
What actually is the case is that it is the fact of having harmed another person in a previous life which leads directly to this. And as a result of this, it is necessary for us to understand carefully just how karma and causality function. When one accumulates non virtuous karma in a past life, it leads to suffering in a future life. That non virtuous karma which one has accumulated does not disappear. The disease one experiences in life is the result of non virtuous karma which comes from a previous life.
If we do not understand this correctly, we are not able to modify our behavior in the light of karma and causality. For instance, if we engage at present in non virtuous deeds such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh words and so forth, harming others in the present, we ourselves in the future will be harmed and we ourselves in the future will be killed, will be stolen from, will be the victims of the sexual misconduct of others and so forth. Therefore, benefiting others is to benefit oneself, since in the future we ourselves will experience benefit from having benefited others at present. Harming others is to harm oneself, since in the future we will experience harm from others. Understanding this, we should abstain from harming others in the short term, since harming others in the short term leads to our long-term suffering.
We should put effort in helping others in the short term, since this leads to our happiness in the long term. So the Bodhisattvas understand that through giving happiness to others, they themselves reap happiness, and through inflicting suffering on others, they themselves experience suffering. If one abandons the 10 non-virtues, in turn one will experience happiness and bliss in the future. On the other hand, if one engages in the 10 non-virtues, one will experience suffering oneself in the future. We ourselves do not understand this and because we do not understand this, we cannot practice in keeping with karma and causality.
We can see for instance in this very life of ours that if we are short-tempered, when we get angry with others, sometimes our anger comes back into our own face and we experience the full consequences of the wrath we have unleashed upon others. This teaching is called the Wheel of Sharp Weapons precisely because karma functions in the same way as a Wheel of Sharp Weapons. When a Wheel of Sharp Weapons is thrown or was thrown outwards by the ancient warriors in India, it would cut the enemy, it would then come back to them. Likewise here, when the Wheel of Sharp Weapons of non virtuous deeds, such as the deed of killing, inflicts harm onto another sentient being, it eventually circles back upon our self and causes suffering to us. Karma and causality function as a circle, as a wheel.
We can see very clearly in this world that there are people who initially are indeed fairly good practitioners, but who progressively see their collection of merit decay and degenerate in their practice, whereas there are others who move upwards in their practice and through engaging in activities to benefit others, they are ever more happy. So the sole practice of Bodhisattvas is to benefit others and in dependence on this they move upwards all the way to full enlightenment. The sole practice of Buddha’s has been to benefit others and in dependence on this they have attained full enlightenment, whereas the sole practice of sentient beings, ordinary beings such as ourselves, has been to harm others through self-cherishing. And in dependence on this, we have moved downwards evermore. As I said in the Lama Chöpa, in the Guru Puja, the childish only practice their own welfare, whereas the Lord of the Sages has trained in benefiting others.
Compare carefully the thoughts and the qualities, and thereby bless me to equalize and interchange self and others. It is through cherishing others, as this quote from the Lama Chöpa teaches, that full Buddhahood is attained. And it is through that self-cherishing which tries only to accomplish one’s own welfare that one cycles endlessly in cyclic existence. This is something which we have to understand clearly. We have to understand clearly why we have been transmigrating in cyclic existence and we also have to understand clearly why Buddhas have attained full enlightenment.
This has occurred by the power of karma and causality. Karma and causality is an extremely profound topic. The Buddhas alone understand it fully, whereas, for instance, non-omniscient beings, such as Ārya beings, understand emptiness. So how should we practice? At least we should abstain from harming others.
This means not inflicting suffering on others and not engaging in the 10 non virtuous deeds. If we do this, we ourselves will not experience suffering in the future. Ideally, however, the best is to benefit others. If we do this, we will experience happiness in the future. So we must understand the means to abandon the process of harming others And there are two principal means for this.
They are training in compassion, which is the wish for others to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, and training in love, which is a wish for others to have happiness and the causes of happiness. Why is it that training in empathy or compassion is the means to eliminate suffering? It is because if we wish others from our side to be free of suffering, then naturally we will not inflict suffering on them. Compassion acts or empathy acts as a direct antidote to suffering inflicted on others. Likewise, if we wish others to be happy, in other words if we train in love, then obviously we will not inflict suffering on them since this destroys their happiness.
It is not just a matter of reflecting on this, one must again and again meditate upon this. It is through the constant increase in empathy and compassion within our mind stream that suffering will be eliminated, and through the constant increase of love that happiness will be realized. Through understanding clearly that harming others is something we engage in with a strong sense of I, thinking I want, I need, I must have, and in dependence on this we engage in deeds such as killing others, stealing from others, beating others, seducing others, and so forth, then we understand that we should abstain from engaging in this and generate the causes to eliminate this. The causes to eliminate this are these twin feelings of love and of compassion for others, which arise through seeing others as one’s parents. Now all of us within us have such feelings of love and compassion.
All of us have love and compassion for our parents. We have love and compassion for friends and relatives. But these feelings of love and compassion are weak. We have to increase them. To do this, we must meditate.
Because we do not meditate, these feelings of love and compassion are not able to influence powerfully our mind. The bodhisattvas meditate day and night on love and compassion. As a result, these become very powerful within their mind streams. We can see, for instance, that animals, for that matter, have compassion. Tigers, ferocious tigers which kill to feed themselves, nonetheless when they are full lie down and play with their cubs and give them actually flesh.
Likewise birds will give the little ones food first before feeding themselves. This is the case with elephants too. So we can see that even animals have compassion, let alone us. However, we should train in love and compassion so that they become more powerful within our mind stream. There is no means otherwise for them to become more powerful than if we meditate upon them.
There are questions, Rinpoche will be glad to answer them at present. We put five minutes aside for questions. I understand that the gist of the teaching is such that all illness we experience in this incarnation is a result of non virtuous karma in a previous incarnation. What about the concept of instant karma and in the same It’s difficult for karma to mature within one lifetime. However, if a minor non virtue is accumulated, there is still hope to obtain a human rebirth in the next life.
A very powerful non virtue is accumulated in this life, then it is probably impossible not to be reborn in the lower realms in the next life. You have to make a distinction between diseases which are the result of karma and causality and diseases which might be the result from other factors. But please please, we have to give space to other people for questions as well. Yes. So in which case we are not talking of this life, basically if one tries to abandon self-cherishing, to reduce self-cherishing, to cherish others, then there will be no direct impact on this life.
But there will be a very powerful impact on future lives, since in future lives one will have a better financial situation, less hardship, less difficulty and greater happiness. No such thing as perfect happiness in this life. Yes. We’ll take your your question. Yes.
Okay. Could you narrow your question? Are you saying because The head meaning study. Yeah. The heart meaning emotions.
So Rinpoche says that one studies, much depends on the motivation with which one studies. If one studies with a good motivation to help others, then those studies will lead to one’s progressive development. Otherwise, there are many topics one can study and if one studies them without a good motivation, it is not clear that they can lead one very far. On the other hand, if one trains in love and empathy and at the beginning one moves upwards in one’s training and the strength of one’s love and empathy increases, then in dependence on this one will have the wish to start studying and those studies will bear great fruits. The great bodhisattvas engage in extremely advanced studies.
And as a result of this, there will be great benefit. Okay, thank you. Very good. Okay. You.
Short, Verse nine. Okay. I think you’re