Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute teaching, Khensur Rinpoche explores mind training through developing the awakening heart and the practice of taking and giving. He establishes that all beings equally seek happiness and avoid suffering, then systematically shows how self-centeredness generates afflictive emotions and suffering, while other-centeredness opens the path to genuine happiness. The core practice, tonglen, involves breathing in others’ suffering and breathing out one’s happiness—an imaginative meditation that accumulates spiritual merit and purifies the mind moment by moment. Rinpoche directly addresses why we practice when the transfer is not literal. His answer centers on karma: all experience arises from mental causes and conditions. Verse nine teaches us to blame our self-interest when others harm us, revealing how all adversity traces back to our own past actions, making acceptance and compassion the logical response.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1992-11-10 – Side 1 – Wheel of Sharp Weapons – KR.MP3
UUID: 2bb113be-ec20-44ca-9724-73bbf8761b08
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Mind Training
Date: 1992-11-10
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,629
The universal vehicle mind training concerns itself foremost with the purification of destructive states of mind and the cultivation of the precious state of the awakening heart. In general, all of the Buddhadharma is a method whereby to eliminate our various thoughts and bring to consummation all our excellent qualities. But especially here in terms of mind training or thought transformation, the emphasis is placed upon the cultivation of the precious state of mind of the awakening heart. And within this, the method of equalizing and exchanging self for others, and especially the practice of taking and giving. And this is the reason that it’s given this special name of thought transformation or mind training.
Though all of Buddhism is concerned with the training of the mind, because it concerns itself most with the development of the awakened heart, it is given this name of mind training or thought transformation. Thus far in our explanation of mind training, with respect to cultivating the awakening heart. We have been discussing the method of cultivating the awakening heart of equalizing and exchanging self with others. And initially this involves developing a sense of equality between ourselves and others, understanding that both ourselves and all living beings are equal in wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. On the basis of that, then we go on to secondly look at the disadvantages and faults of self centeredness.
That under the influence of our self centeredness we generate many types of afflicted emotions. Out of these afflictive emotions, under the control of these afflictive emotions, we engage in unskillful actions and as a result of unskillful actions experience various types of sufferings. These are the basic faults of our self centered attitude. Thirdly, looking at the benefits of other centeredness. In the context of the development of love and compassion toward others, we begin to hold others more dear than ourselves.
And this holding of others more dear than ourselves, in that context we seek to benefit them, to bring about their welfare. And we especially abandon bringing them any harm. And by means of these skillful types of actions we are able to bring about both our temporal and ultimate happiness. And this is the advantage of other centeredness. Out of cultivating a sense of other centeredness where we see that all of the benefits which are derived out of other centeredness, we begin to see the great kindness of other sentient beings, of other living beings because of the great benefits that they can bring to us.
Out of this sense of the great kindness of others comes the sense of attractive love or pleasant love. In terms of the seven cause and effect instruction for the cultivation of the awakening heart, there is the sequence of meditations whereby we recognize all sentient beings as our mothers, remember their kindness and develop a sense of gratitude and repaying their kindness. Out of this arises attractive love. So it is the same here. But this in the sense of seeing, appreciating the great kindness of sentient beings and bringing about both our temporal and ultimate welfare, we also develop a sense of seeing sentient beings as very attractive, as very pleasant.
But this is even a more powerful and special type of attractive love than that which is developed in the seven cause and effect instruction. If we do not develop a powerful attractive love then we cannot develop great compassion. Here we’re not talking about ordinary compassion, but a very great compassion. And in order to develop that great compassion it’s necessary that we practice well the development of attractive love. And therefore, in this particular meditative tradition, the attractive love is very powerful, leading to a very great compassion.
So we can take as an analogy the relationship between the parents, father and mother, toward their children. In general, children appear very attractive to their parents. They look very pleasant. They have a very pleasant appearance. And to the degree that the children appear very attractive, pleasing to them, the parents will proportionately develop that much compassion and love toward them.
On the other hand, if the children appear unpleasing to them, unattractive, then the parents cannot develop a sense of compassion and love for them. So in order to develop this sense of the attractiveness of the person, it’s not a matter of just they have attractive figure, and they look very pleasing according to their shape. It’s an experience of the mind which is necessary to reflect upon. It doesn’t come spontaneously. We have to reflect upon these meditations in order that they begin to appear very pleasing, very attractive, very pleasant to us.
So in the development of great love and great compassion, it’s necessary that we include all living beings in the scope of our intention. That developing the attitude living beings be free of suffering or may they have happiness is compassion and love. But it’s not great compassion and love. Great compassion and love must extend to all living beings whosoever. This includes those who we hold dear naturally, but also those who are neutral to ourselves, strangers, but even our enemies.
And developing including is all inclusive intention, wish that all be free of suffering, that all have happiness. And then developing in the context of this great compassion and great love, the attitude which is the resolve of I myself will free them from suffering, that I myself will bring them happiness. And this is the exceptional resolve. When this spontaneously arises, that is that we don’t have to think about it, this intention by oneself to take on their suffering and to bring them happiness is exceptional resolve. It is in this context of the exceptional resolve that we practice the taking and giving, that we take on their suffering, that we give them our happiness.
So we proceed in the meditation of taking and giving, whereby in association with the exhalation of the breath we give away our happiness. In association with the inhalation of the breath we take on the sufferings of others. And we try to develop these states of mind extremely powerfully through this technique. But this is simply an imaginative technique. When we look at the actual situation, we see that in fact I cannot take on the suffering of others, I cannot bring happiness to others.
And we go on to question, well who can? And we come to understand that it’s only an individual who has removed all their various faults and brought to consummation all their excellent qualities. Only an individual who has achieved that state is empowered to remove from the root the sufferings of all living beings and to establish them in great and complete happiness. Therefore we develop the aspiration to achieve such a state for the sake of all living beings, and this is the generation of the awakening heart. But as was explained previously, that if oneself individually does not attain a state of having removed all of one’s own suffering and achieve complete happiness for oneself, that is to say, by means of removing all of one’s faults and being in the consummation of one’s own excellent qualities, then one cannot do this for others.
Having removed all of one’s various faults and brought the consummation of one’s excellent qualities, then how does one actually go about doing it for others? Is, let us say, having developed the awakening heart, how does one go about benefiting others having attained that state? And this has been explained previously. In meditating, taking and giving, we are imaginatively taking on the sufferings of others and giving away our happiness to them. But in order that this meditation serve as a means to develop the awakening heart, it’s necessary that we meditate it with the motivation that we’re doing this in order to bring happiness to others, in order that we’re able to eliminate the sufferings of others.
If our meditation a factor of self interest, has a degree of self interest, then this is considered a faulty motivation, it’s a mistaken motivation. We’re meditating, taking and giving in order to bring ourselves happiness, in order to rid ourselves of suffering, then it will not lead to development of the awakening heart. So one, it’s possible that one may become anxious in meditating in this way. That we ought to consider our own happiness and our own suffering as a motivating reason for engaging in this meditation. But we are engaging in this meditation only for the sake of bringing the happiness of others, eliminating their suffering.
And so they’re exactly right, well what about my happiness and what about my suffering? Don’t they get eliminated? Don’t I get rid of my suffering? And don’t I get to be happy? But we don’t need to worry. It’s not necessary to be concerned about our own welfare.
We don’t need to think about ourselves separately, to concern ourselves with other than those who we are trying to benefit. To be empowered, to develop the ability of this motivation in terms of only wishing to remove their suffering, to give our happiness to them, then if out of this we can develop the awakening heart, then we will be benefited. We don’t need to think of ourselves as we don’t have to single ourselves out. We don’t have to make a special consideration for ourselves if we just follow this process and being only concerned about their welfare. We don’t need to concern ourselves with our own welfare.
But additionally, in terms of this imaginative process of taking on their suffering, we in fact cannot take on their suffering. That they created the actions and they must experience the results of their actions. And likewise in giving away our own happiness. It’s not like we actually are giving away them some precious articles that we own. But we are developing the aspiration to take on the suffering and to give away our happiness.
It is an imaginative aspect in terms of the aspiration or the strong wish to be able to do this. But then the you know, some kind of doubt might arise. Well, then what’s the use? There’s no really It’s not necessary to engage in this practice of taking and giving. Because in fact we can’t take on their suffering, in fact we can’t give away our happiness.
The whole thing is rather meaningless. But in fact it’s not. The foundation of the Buddhadharma is the development of the mind. The practice is always in terms of the mind. In developing healthy states of mind, we are accumulating merit or creative potential.
We are creating skillful actions which will bring that happiness. On the other hand, various unhealthy states of mind, destructive states of mind are the causes for experiencing suffering. So all of our experiences are brought about in terms of the qualities of our mind. Considering the great difficulties, all the problems, the sufferings that these imagined individuals are experiencing, and determining to eliminate those sufferings by taking them on yourself on the one hand, and then taking all of the happiness that one experiences, all the various sources of happiness that one has, and developing the intention to give them all to this object that we’re cultivating meditation on. In the course of this we’re developing tremendously healthy attitudes of mind.
Develops a sense of great personal power in thinking in this way and cultivating these attitudes. And there’s a tremendous wave of the collection or the collection of creative potential. And moment by moment, we’re purifying all our various negativity. What is it that we need to do, essentially most? We need to bring about a great wave of the collection of creative potential.
And we need to even moment by moment eliminate the various negativities from our mind. And this is what we’re doing here in the process of this meditation. The bodhisattva is really a great expert with how to work with the mind. And this is the way in which we’re working with the mind to bring about what it is that we actually want. By way of analogy, in India, where we grow corn, and it’s necessary when the corn is ready to be harvested to go out into the field and cut each stalk of corn singly.
Cut it down each one by one. Cut off each ear of corn singly, individually. But in Australia they have these huge combines and they just go down through you know through a whole large part of the field. And not only does it pick the corn, but it also loads it up into a trailer which is following behind. So this is really a very skillful way of doing the same thing and this is what we’re trying to do here, to become very skillful in operating with our mind.
So way that we can use this high technology to work skillfully in the field, the bodhisattva uses this high technology of its practice of this taking and giving. Looking at verse nine. For should the impulse arise now to the latter part of verse nine, for even if loved ones should rise up against us, we must blame our self interest and feel it’s our due. So explaining these two lines of the text, we can explain it in terms of an analogy. Today in Melbourne there was a general strike by the employees.
And if in the case where an employer doesn’t do well by his employees, you know, in the way of in their relationship, in the way of dealing with employees, and the employees go out on strike, then the employer should consider this as their own fault that they have brought about this circumstance. That they have made somehow they made a mistake and they should apologize and take and voluntarily accept responsibility for the situation. And the meaning of that analogy in terms of the mind training is that whenever any undesired experience arises for ourselves, any type of suffering, whether it be someone fights with us, someone says nasty words to us, all the very many types of harm which others may appear to bring us, we have to see that it is in fact a result of our own self centeredness, that it is a result of our own mistakes that we have created in the past. To apologize, for having brought harm to this other person in the past. And we should react with a sense of tolerance and compassion and voluntarily accept the suffering of others as our due.
Voluntarily accept our suffering as our due. So the practice of Buddha Dharma, of Buddhism, is practiced in the context of the general law of cause and effect. We see cause and effect operating amongst external things. For example, from a seed comes a sprout. And this is a case of the general law of cause and effect.
But Buddhism is not concerned with this external process of cause and effect. Buddhism is always concerned with in terms of inner mental processes. And in terms of inner mental processes, this is termed karma as actions and the results. Karma as actions and the results. So in relating this operation of the law of cause and effect, see that karma, that is to say the various activities of the mind, act as causes and they bring about results.
And that whatever results we experience are appropriate to the causes that we have created. And if we don’t experience a particular result, that is also appropriate to not having created the cause in terms of karma.