Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 99-minute teaching, Khensur Rinpoche introduces the lojong practice of giving and taking from the Seven Points of Mind Training. He begins by cultivating love and compassion—distinguishing stable, liberating happiness from fleeting worldly pleasure—then teaches a meditation on generosity as the main bodhisattva practice. Rather than physical giving, practitioners imaginatively transform their body into a wish-fulfilling gem and radiate it to suffering beings: hell beings frozen in ice receive warmth; hungry ghosts receive food and clothing; animals receive wisdom. Rinpoche emphasizes that practice power lies in mind and intention, not external action. He addresses a practical concern through Vinaya rules: once mentally dedicated to others, your possessions become theirs, yet you use them for their benefit without fault. He returns to the farmer’s choice to plant seeds rather than eat the harvest, establishing why generosity accumulates greater happiness than hoarding.
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File: 1997-07-22 – KR.mp3
UUID: 25e4ff4c-9e89-4699-b89a-acca62f35ac4
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Mind Training
Date: 1997-07-22
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~5,304
Begin by adjusting our motivation, the motivation that we’re going to listen to this teaching of the Dharma with. We’re going to spend a few minutes cultivating as our motivation the kind hearted attitude of the awakened heart. And just as we ourselves want happiness and do not want to suffer, likewise all sentient beings are exactly the same in wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. Begin by cultivating compassion which is expressed in the thought, may myself and all sentient beings be free of all unwanted suffering and the cause of that suffering. And this is no one wants to suffer.
Likewise, all living beings want happiness. So developing love toward all sentient beings expressed in the thought, may myself and all sentient beings have happiness in the causes of happiness. Having cultivated as a preliminary love and compassion, we go on to develop the attitude with which to free all sentient beings from suffering and to lead them to complete happiness and moreover that I myself will achieve this end. And in order to do that, I am going to listen to the essence of the universal vehicle Dharma, the teaching on the awakened heart. Having listened to this teaching, I will reflect upon it, having reflected I will meditate and put it into practice for the sake of all sentient beings.
With reading from the root text of the Seven Points of Mind Training where it says train alternately in giving and taking, train alternately in giving and taking. So that’s where we’ll be teaching from today. So with regard to the precious awakening heart, there are two types. There is the awakened heart which is conventional bodhicitta and the awakened mind which is ultimate bodhicitta. Here we’re going to be discussing the actual method for cultivating the conventional bodhicitta, the awakened heart.
And this again is divided into two sections: the method of cultivating it within the meditative session itself and the way it’s cultivated outside the session. So here the text actually says that in terms of the actual mode of training in the awakened heart, the awakened heart here is qualified with the description that it is a desire that strives to benefit others, that is to to bring about the welfare of others. And this concerns itself with the cultivation of love and compassion. As a prerequisite to the actual cultivation of the awakened heart, it’s necessary that we cultivate love and compassion as its cause. If we don’t have the cause, then we will not be able to realize the result.
The result is an altruistic attitude wishing to benefit others, and its cause is love and compassion. But on the contrary, without love and compassion, we will bring harm to others through various expressions such as through lying, tricking them, stealing from them, beating them, even killing them. Well, do we mean by love? First, love is an attitude which is directed towards sentient beings who are without happiness. And here, what we mean by happiness is not simply happy feelings.
Happy feelings are susceptible to change, to corruption. They quickly change into neutral feelings and then eventually degenerate into some types of suffering. They’re unstable. So when we say that we are viewing sentient beings who are without happiness, the happiness which is specifically referred to here is an uncontaminated happiness, the happiness of liberation, a type of stable happiness which no cause of suffering can corrupt. So the happiness which is specifically being described here is a happiness no matter how long or how much we may experience of it, it never degenerates into suffering.
It is an unchanging, stable happiness. So it is this specific happiness which we are looking to sentient beings with regard to and we can readily understand that there are multitudes of sentient beings who are bereft or without such a type of happiness and looking upon these sentient beings and wishing, first thinking how wonderful it would be if they had happiness and the causes of such happiness. Going on, may all sentient beings have such a type of happiness and the causes of that happiness And then finally, I myself will bring them that happiness and the causes of such happiness. This is love. In order that sentient beings have such a happiness, we are going to practice the method of giving and taking.
The giving is motivated with such a love, a love which readily gives to others one’s own body, possessions and roots of skillful actions or virtues from the heart wanting them to possess all that is necessary for them to be happy and the willingness to give it to them. If we are to actually give our body possessions and roots of skillful actions, our virtues from the depths of our heart to others, we have to create the causes and the cause of the ability to actually give in such a way is love. Without love there’s no way that we can give in such a manner that we must develop such a motivation and therefore it’s necessary for us to cultivate a powerful love. This practice of giving is the main practice of the bodhisattva. bodhisattva gives over their body, their possessions, their roots, skillful actions and gives them to sentient beings.
What is the benefit to be derived from such a practice? By means of their giving, they are able to accumulate the collection of creative potential or skillful, or great ways of skillful actions. As a means of accumulating the collection of creative potential or merit, all unwanted suffering is pacified and moreover one is empowered to be able to bring about the welfare of both oneself and others, that is to say one will be able to achieve Buddhahood. But there’s a good chance that you’re now thinking in your mind, if I were to give away my own body, my possessions, and all of my skillful actions, then I wouldn’t be happy. Not only wouldn’t I be happy, it would just cause me more problems than I already have.
It’s not really such a good idea. Sure, it would be difficult initially, that we have attachment and that we would find such a practice difficult at first, but once we began to enter into such a practice and began to accumulate merit, a vast wave of skillful actions that we obtain through such a practice and begin to experience the results of that skillful action then it won’t be so difficult because as a result of implementing such a practice we will achieve a happiness but not just the usual happiness that we may normally experience but a type of happiness that the more we experience the greater it becomes. That this is a happiness which is inexhaustible, which just keeps on coming. By way of an analogy, if a farmer had a bag of rice, there are two possibilities or ways that the farmer could make use of this rice. Either to eat it then and have some short term enjoyment and derive that benefit, that much benefit or on the other hand to take that bag of rice and plant a field and from that field he would harvest a great abundance of rice where he could enjoy that crop himself and he could share it with others.
So it’s like that. So in this analogy, the field is likened to sentient beings and the planting of seeds is the practice of generosity. Through the planting of seeds and the practice of generosity, we will harvest a great crop. So, near Sera Monastery, which is situated in India, there were Indian farmers and they received a support by the Indian government of seed corn and fertilizer. But rather than plant seeds, they ate the corn and sold the fertilizer.
So they weren’t able to they didn’t last long on the land. And the same applies to ourselves, however much money that we have, we usually spend it all on ourselves, whether it’s $1 we go out and have something unique, or it’s $100 we go out and spend it on ourselves, and then it’s finished. But on the contrary, a bodhisattva motivated by love gives what they have and thereby experiences unremitting peace and bliss in the future. This is a practice of the bodhisattva which we are seeking to emulate. So we have to try to emulate the great bodhisattvas in their conduct and we have to begin at the level of where we are now, but as a means of cultivating a greater and greater ability to give in the future.
The method whereby we begin to cultivate love is to begin to reflect upon the benefits of love. If we think again and again about what the benefits of love are, then we will be willing to again and again put it into meditation. Quoting from a verse by the Buddha, when the Buddha is trying to get across the tremendous benefits to be derived from even cultivating love, what to say of actual love itself. And he says that even if we were to make infinite offerings, you know, as unimaginable as we could suppose, to the greatest field of offering, objects of offering, that is the numberless Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and we were to make these numberless offerings to this field of merit for many, many, many years that even this could not equal meditating, that the skillful action, the merit that we derive from such an a unimaginable way of offering cannot compare to even ten or fifteen minutes of cultivating, meditating love. Buddha is trying to describe the comparable benefits between making these unimaginable offerings and even meditating on love for ten or fifteen minutes.
So this is what the Buddha himself said, and he himself had experienced such a way of result. But we don’t have to take the Buddha’s word on these vast benefits to be derived from the cultivation of love. We can reason it out, we can establish it through reasoning. So what is the reason that we can use of here to establish the tremendous benefits of cultivating love? If, for example, we were to cultivate love toward one hundred sentient beings, we would derive a proportionate amount of merit or skillful actions with, that is to say, with having cultivated with regard to 100 sentient beings, we would have 100 proportions, proportionate units of creative potential or merit.
So the proportionate benefit would increase according to the number of sentient beings that we cultivated love toward. If we went on to cultivate love toward a thousand, then there would be the thousand fold benefit, thousand fold creative potential or skillful action derived, if we went on to 10,000. But in fact, sentient beings are numberless. They are as vast as all of space and if we can cultivate a love which wishes all sentient beings happiness and the causes of happiness, then the skillful action to be derived will be proportionally infinite. If the benefit in terms of skillful actions of the cultivation of such a love were to have physical shape, it would not be able to fit in our universe.
If we cultivate love, then various types of benevolent beings, demons, spirits can no longer harm us. We are able to combat their harm through our love itself. Not only will they not be able to harm us, but on the contrary, they will begin to take a liking to ourselves because of our great love for them. And taking a liking, taking a shine toward us, they befriend ourselves and begin to be our helpers, our assistants. If we were to meditate love, then we could all of the with all that we struggle for so hard to get would come to us naturally.
You know, that we spend a great deal of difficulty in trying to meet all our various expenses and trying to, you know, enduring all the physical and mental problems that we do. But if we were simply to sit and cultivate love, we would derive even greater benefits as compared to all the hardships that we go through in order to get what we want. If we reflect well upon this, we can come to understand that through the cultivation of love, we will amass a great deal of skillful action and result of our skillful action will be all of those things that we presently struggle so hard to get. But through our skillful action, as a result of our skillful actions, we will have food, we will have clothing, we will have shelter, we will have friends, we will have happiness and peace. So if we want happiness, this is the way to achieve it.
But on the contrary, at present we jump up in the morning, go running and spend a busy day and whatever we’re able to earn over the course of that day is quickly spent and we really don’t have much happiness to show for it. So, this is a practice of the bodhisattva. Through this practice, the bodhisattva masters creative potential and thereby, as a result, achieves happiness, but not just ordinary happiness, ultimately the happiness of Buddhahood. It was Śākyamūni Buddha who meditated on love at Bodh Gaya and thereby achieved his status. There are overall two means by which we can seek happiness.
There are spiritual means and secular means. Initially, the spiritual means of finding happiness are difficult. We have to go through a lot of trouble and we may only experience a small happiness as a result. But as we progress in our practice, the difficulty that is necessary to practice becomes less and less, and inversely, the happiness that we experience becomes greater and greater until it becomes an unending happiness. But in terms of the secular, initially, we don’t have to expend a great deal of difficulty and we experience some happiness.
But as we grow older, the happiness that we experience becomes less and less. Life becomes more difficult for ourselves and we have more problems, more troubles, it seems, and we have to work harder even to find the small happiness that we do. And the suffering simply seems to increase. It becomes greater and greater. And then finally, even looking past this life, if we were to fall to the levels of hell being or a hungry ghost where we face almost numberless sufferings for numberless periods of time.
So, we have to broaden our perspective and not think just of this life, but think in terms of numberless future lives as well. If we think in this way, it will bring us back to the center point where we think, where we understand how precious the Dharma is and that I must practice it. So we have to think in terms of not only our practice of this life, but a practice which is going to continue from life after life. So, we should think of our cultivation of love very much like the starting of a fire. At first, maybe we just have only the light of a match and we have just light a stick and we having that stick, add another stick and then another and then we add more and more fuel to the fire.
From such insignificant beginnings, great conflagration which could burn into the entire countryside could come about. Likewise, with our cultivation of love, though at first it’s going to be difficult, we have only perhaps a spark of love to begin with and we meditate today, but we continue and we meditate again tomorrow and our love grows just that much more. And then we meditate the next day, and then the next week, and the next month, the month next month, and the next year until we have a till a blazing love fills our our entire being. Having developed this powerful love, we will look to sentient beings who are bereft of happiness and reflect what is it, in what way can I bring them happiness? And we will gladly give over whatever will bring them happiness, whether it be our body, our possessions, our roots of virtue.
So, in this practice of giving and taking, we can begin by imagining that we are giving our body away to all sentient beings. And initially, we’re going to imagine that we’re transforming it into an environment for the welfare of all sentient beings. But when we give our body away, we shouldn’t think of it simply as a body of flesh and blood, but that we imaginatively transform our body into a wish fulfilling gem. A wish fulfilling gem is a gem which simply by requesting, it is able to bestow whatever is needed, whether it’s food, clothing, whatsoever, and that we are going to transform our body into such a wish fulfilling body, not just even the size of our body but as if it were the size of a mountain We’re giving it to all sentient beings and bringing about first a beneficial environment, a beautiful place which is divorced of any roughness or thorns, any types of cliffs where there is plenty for water, where it’s neither hot nor cold, extremely pleasant environment. Having created for all sentient beings a completely pleasant environment, we then go on to bestow upon them a perfect embodiment, bodies.
Our body radiates out light And if the sentient beings have some physical problem, maybe they aren’t particularly pleasant looking or maybe they have some kind of handicap, that when this light of our own body strikes them, their body is transformed into a perfect embodiment, beautiful and healthy. There is said to be seven, a list of seven or a list of eight qualities of such an embodiment to having long life without any disabilities and perfect health, etc. So, bestowing our body to them, imaginatively giving our body to all sentient beings, and it’s a wish fulfilling body and whatever possessing this wish fulfilling gem of our body, whatever they wish for comes about, whatever possession they may need, whether it’s food or clothing or shelter, simply by their thinking of it, it manifests. So, it may be, food or clothing, shelter or home, just whatever it is they need, just by them thinking of it, it manifests. So, sending to sentient beings all that we have, all our possessions, whatever they may need given to them.
And then, finally, giving over our roots of virtue, that is to say our skillful actions, our skillful actions that we’ve accumulated in the past, that we are accumulating at present, and that we will accumulate in the future. All that has come about through whatever qualities that we may have whether in terms of our love, our awakened heart, our understanding of emptiness. All of the good qualities that we’ve been able to accumulate is going to be given over to them and upon them receiving it, it transforms into the meditative concentrations, it transforms into wisdoms within their own mind, it transforms into the 37 harmonies with enlightenment. And by means of all of these qualities they are able to develop and all the faults they are able to eliminate, they achieve Buddhahood. So, this is the general way in which we are to practice giving.
But additionally, there is the method of giving which is specific or particular objects of our giving. So, in this practice of giving, we are taking as objects specific types of sentient beings. Those beings which have the greatest types of suffering, for example, beings in the hell realms and hungry ghosts and animals. Beginning with, for example, the hell realms, there are beings which are being burnt in fire and those beings are being frozen in ice. And beginning with those taking specifically those who are undergoing the sufferings of the cold hells, who are frozen in ice, that we transform our skillful actions and then imagine they radiate out in the form of fire and sun, let us say heat, and as a result the ice melts and these beings are no longer suffering from cold, they experience the pleasure of warmth.
And then we can go on, for example, once they are no longer experiencing the suffering of cold, to send as we did before, giving over our body possessions and skillful actions and providing them with a perfect environment, perfect embodiments, and all the necessary possessions that they need and inner qualities, and finally establishing them in Buddhahood. And likewise with regard to those beings who abide in the hot hells, who undergo the great sufferings of being continually burnt in fires, that we transform our body, our possessions, our roots of skillful action into cooling rains, into the cooling rays of the moon, into cool breezes, pacifying the great heat of their suffering whereby they experience the pleasure of coolness. And we go on to give over all that we have until they have achieved a perfect embodiment, necessary possessions, all the inner qualities and they too achieve Buddhahood. And then we can specifically imagine giving to the hungry ghosts. Hungry ghosts are beings who go without food for long periods of time, without drink, without clothes.
Sometimes they only find a crumb of food over a ten or fifteen year period and they’re extremely thin and withered and almost dried away. When they run and walk, their legs and arms rub against them and the sparks fly out. Transforming all that we have, giving them whatever it is that they need, bringing about as before a perfect environment, embodiment, possessions, inner qualities, and they too achieve Buddhahood. And then we take as our object of giving the animals. Animals are plagued by stupidity.
They have many obscurations. And so what they need foremost is wisdom. So we imagine that we radiate out wisdom to them. But they also need compassion for one another. It’s often the case where animals will eat one another.
So radiating out the qualities of love and compassion where they no longer harm one another and their embodiment radiating a light from ourselves which strikes them and they achieve a perfect human body, a beautiful healthy body. They often live in very poor places and so again transforming the place where they abide into a perfect abode. So again, creating a perfect abode, embodiment, whatever it is that they need and in all the qualities of perfection. And then there’s the human realm. Humans most noted for their great desires.
They want a lot. And so we’re going to give them whatever it is that they want. No matter whether it be food or clothing, home, money, we’re going to give it all to them. But still, they need more than just these material things. They need the inner qualities lessening of their attachment, so giving them non attachment.
Human beings are quite angry, so giving them love. They experience a great deal of bewilderment and confusion, so sending them wisdom. So giving them beautiful, healthy bodies. So bringing all the desires that they could ever hope for to fulfillment, giving them whatever they want in terms of perfect embodiments, perfect possessions, perfect inner qualities until they achieve Buddhahood. And then on top of those we’ve given to thus far, there are the celestial beings, the gods.
And the gods are characterized by laziness and jealousy. They have a great many obscurations with respect to the Dharma. Radiating out to them what it is that they need in terms of wisdom, clearing their obscurations and joyous effort in overcoming their laziness and helping them to develop meditative concentrations. Then we can take as an object of giving the hearers, the Shravakas, and the solitary realizers. Even these highly realized beings still have obscurations of wisdom.
Still they have obscurations of unknowing, they still have the afflictive obstructions and the knowledge obstructions which still need to be abandoned. So radiating out all of our roots of virtue which are transformed into wisdom and concentrations and great joyous effort by means of which they are able to quickly abandon the two obscurations and achieve Buddhahood. And then we can take as an object of giving our spiritual master, the lama, and radiating out lights which bring about their long life and empowering them with the means to be of extensive benefit to all other sentient beings. And then we can even take the Buddhas as our object and transforming our roots of virtues, radiating out this empowering the Buddhas to be of even greater benefit benefit in bringing about the welfare of sentient beings. It is through such a practice that we can accumulate tremendous amount of merit or skillful action, that this altruistic attitude that we develop, that thinking of what you have simply imagined and rejoicing in having even only imagined to bring this about.
The Dharma is mainly something which is practiced in terms of our mind. Its physical and verbal practice is insignificant in comparison. Through the power of our imagination, through the power of our prayers, through the power of our aspirations, we can achieve a great deal in terms of our practice. So, it’s necessary to emphasize that how very much our practice depends upon our way of thinking, our own mind. This holds true both in terms of positive and negative.
We can readily understand that just in terms of thinking in a negative fashion towards someone, out of an afflictive emotion, we are accumulating a great deal of unskillful action just through our mental attitude toward them. But this holds true both in terms of the negative but also the positive. But thinking in a skillful fashion, thinking in a beneficial fashion within our own minds, we bring about a great deal of positive potential. So this is very much emphasized within the universal vehicle. The way I practice is very much in terms of our attitudes of mind.
It is something which depends upon our thinking. All that is good or bad, all that is skillful or unskillful, all that is positive and negative depends upon the mind. Nothing is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. That if someone were to see, oh, this is very good, this is very good, it’s not so much that the thing itself is good, but their attitude is good in terms of the way they’re thinking about it. And the same holds true for whether something is bad.
Thinking this is not so much that the thing is bad in itself, but the way that we are thinking of it is in terms of it being bad. So the measure of the quantity of the positive or negative, all is in terms of the power of our way of thinking in terms of negative and positive. The almost unimaginable deeds of the bodhisattva come about through his almost unimaginable greatness of mind and thereby the result is almost unimaginable. But those of lesser intention, the hearers and the solitary realizers, they aren’t as great minded in their intentions. Therefore, their deeds are not as great and thereby their results will be that much less.
But this holds true as much so in the world. That there are those who are small minded and their activities in which they involve themselves reflect this small mindedness and what they achieve in their life is also proportionately small. But there are those who have great vision and out of this great vision comes great works and out of these great works comes great great results. So we’re going to stop there. So, what we have been describing has been in terms of imagination, something that we are doing within our own minds.
It’s not as if in this practice which has been described that we’re actually physically giving away all of these things. We have not detracted from ourselves physically, physically, but only in terms of expanding our mental attitude of giving. So, in the practice of giving that we have been describing, it is practiced in terms of a longing to give from the depth of a heart all that we are imaginatively giving. There has to be a sincerity of wanting to give. It’s not simply a game and then at the end it doesn’t make any difference.
But there has to be a sense that actually wanting to be able to give in this way and imagine giving as best one can. But, having said that, within the area of the category of the teachings called Vinaya or moral discipline, it is said once we give in such a way, that is if we actually dedicate something to another, if we dedicate some money to another, then even if we weren’t to give it to them physically, it is still to be thought of as theirs. If I were, for example, to have $10 in my mind, I dedicated or gave it over to Jampa And then later if someone were to ask me whose $10 is that, I would have to say it’s Jampa’s. It’s not mine. So, we have given over our body, our possessions, our roots of virtue and dedicated it to all sentient beings.
So, we don’t have anything really left for ourselves. So, if dedicated, for example, your clothes to sentient beings, then you don’t have any clothes of your own. So does that mean that we have to go around naked? That’s not the case because out of our love and wanting to bring about the welfare of others, it is necessary that we wear clothing. But one wears the clothing of others in order to benefit them.
And Then there’s no fault. And the same would be true for the use of money. We’ve given all our money over to sentient beings, but because we have to eat in order to bring about the welfare of others, we can use that money to buy food in order to feed ourselves so that we can work for the sake of sentient beings. In that way, is there no fault in using their money. So, there’s two benefits to be derived from such a way of thinking.
One is having given it away. Firstly, we accumulate a creative potential and then secondly, sentient beings allow us to make use of what we’ve given them. They benefit through our practice of using it. Also, we have less attachment to various articles that are around us. Because these articles aren’t ours, we have no attachment toward them.
We create a great deal of negativity out of our attachment and this is a skillful method to reduce our attachment and thereby block the negativity. So, bodhisattvas are really skillful in method. They have many skills in the means of their practice. Through such a practice that they stop creating negativities, that they reduce their attachment, they accumulate creative potential and they still get to use it. So, it’d be good for you if you, you know, when you go to work you think, I’m going to work for the sake of sentient beings.
Very good, yeah. Okay. So we’ll take one or two minutes for questions. Yes? So the question is, does the bodhisattva experience pleasure for the sake of all sentient beings?
So, the bodhisattva doesn’t experience the suffering for their own purpose. They experience it for the welfare of others and they give away their happiness to others. They do experience happiness and they send they give their happiness away. They don’t experience out of self interest, I guess.