Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 97-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche introduces mind training by grounding it in your own mother’s kindness, then extending that gratitude as compassion to all beings. The central practice is shifting from self-cherishing to other-cherishing through Tonglen, where you breathe in another’s suffering and exhale happiness in return. He then addresses practical ethics: abandoning a harmful action for a single day, sustaining right motivation while working, and examining your conduct each evening with confession. Using classical metaphors—the doctor and patient, the four noble truths, the three afflictions and their antidotes—Rinpoche shows how mental and physical disease both arise from the mind and respond only to mental training. For practitioners new to Buddhism or seeking concrete daily practice methods.
File metadata (for organising)
File: WSW 22 Dec 2010 – KR.mp3
UUID: 2b7cd860-1ebe-45da-bc93-994d7ef2f978
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Mind Training
Date: 2010 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,802
To listen to the Dharma and to have the Dharma explained, one needs a good motivation, a good means of explaining it. And this good motivation should be the motivation to be of benefit both to others and oneself. Therefore, he who explains the Dharma must explain it with the motivation of being of benefit to others and to himself, and the one who listens likewise. So, Rinpoche will therefore explain the teachings after we have generated the motivation through meditating for a couple of minutes on the fact that all mother sentient beings are unaware of how to eliminate suffering and the causes of suffering, and they are unaware of how to generate happiness and the causes of happiness. And therefore, we ourselves, who are engaging the threefold activities of hearing, thinking, and meditating, must create the conditions where we can place them in this state of unalloyed happiness.
Page one. So as a preliminary to Mahāyāna training, it is necessary to train in equanimity, which is the preliminary training to generate the awareness of all sentient beings as one’s mothers in past lives. And the equanimity which is referred to here is the same as equanimity in the immeasurable equanimity, where we pray that all beings be endowed with the equanimity which is free from closeness and distance. Closeness and distance here refer respectively to desire and hostility. So we are aware of who our mother in this life is, and the kindness of this mother to us in this life is that she has given us a body, which is this precious human rebirth, which is the foundation for Dharma practice.
So we owe this to our mother in this life. But let alone this, she didn’t merely give birth to us and abandon us. She took care of us after. She nourished us with her own milk. She clothed us with clothes, she fed us, she taught us everything we know, and then reflecting on the kindness which our mother has bestowed upon us, we generate in turn in dependence on this reflection, the wish to pay back this kindness.
The wish to pay back this kindness arises through reflecting on the kindness we have received, through the love and the empathy of our mother in this life, and then by extension to the love and the empathy of all mothers in all lives. If we do not reflect on the kindness which we have received, it is not possible from our side to wish to pay back the kindness of mother sentient beings. It is through reflecting in this way that we can give rise to cherishing mother sentient beings, which is the wish to benefit mother sentient beings and which leads us to try to find a means to eliminate their sufferings. Without this other cherishing, there is no Mahāyāna. There is no such thing without other cherishing there as the authentic view as love or as empathy.
So reflecting in this way, we can see that we must discard self-cherishing from which we have been afflicted since beginningless time and which has only caused suffering, and and lead other cherishing to perfection. It is actually through perfecting other cherishing that in turn we can destroy completely self-cherishing and destroy our own suffering. This is the supreme means for this. And this destruction of self-cherishing occurs in dependence on the enhancement of other cherishing. It is through practicing in this way that we can lead all of the effects to their fruition.
And therefore, one should reflect on the fact that mother sentient beings are unaware of what to practice and are unaware of what to abstain from. They are unaware of how to abandon non virtue and how to practice virtue. And on this basis, love and empathy to arise within our mind, and then practice giving and taking, or Tonglen. At the beginning, one practices this through setting aside other sentient beings and just focusing on one’s own mother. And as long as one has a close relation with one’s mother, this is a very powerful practice.
One visualizes one’s own mother in front of oneself, and one thinks she doesn’t know what to practice, she doesn’t know what to abstain from, she has accumulated great non virtue and no real virtue, she will suffer greatly in the future. And in dependence on this, one allows great compassion to arise within one’s mind stream, the wish to free one’s own mother from all suffering. At this point, one imagines that one’s mother’s suffering is entering within oneself. It is being drawn into the force of one’s breath, and it hits the self-cherishing at one’s own heart, completely destroying this. As a result, one has taken all the suffering from one’s mother, and one has destroyed the suffering within one’s own mind.
There is suffering neither in one’s mother’s mind nor in our own mind, therefore there is no suffering whatsoever. And one meditates on joy upon this, one rejoices in this. Then in turn, one thinks that one has to give one’s mother in this life happiness, because she’s bereft of happiness, and one gives her all the happiness one has, and one places her in a state of complete and unalloyed happiness. Then in dependence on that, in turn, we ourselves become happy, because our mother is happy. And then one generates rejoicing upon this.
After training in this way, when one’s own love and empathy become more powerful, one extends this to one’s father, then to one’s sister, then as it becomes even more powerful to one’s friends, people who are indifferent to us, and eventually to all sentient beings. But he has seen with his own eyes in Australia, the very low esteem children hold their parents in. He has seen children who don’t even call their mother by the name mother or by her name. They just say, hey, hey, bring me this, do that. But he says, this is ghastly behavior.
This is extremely poor behavior. It means that the child is completely unaware of the kindness of his parents, and then it is impossible to generate on this basis recollection of the kindness. To call one’s parents in that way is the sign that one thinks one has arisen independently. And, people who behave in that way will find it extremely difficult to generate either love or empathy for other sentient beings since they lack love and empathy for their own mother who has been so kind to them. So if one cannot recollect the kindness of one’s own parents, then it will be impossible for us to generate the wish to repay this kindness, let alone the wish that one’s parents and by extension all sentient beings be free of suffering and be placed in a state of happiness.
So the Mahāyāna is rooted in love and empathy. Without love and empathy, there is no Mahāyāna. However, at the beginning, we are unable to practice love and empathy towards all sentient beings. Therefore, we practice it with respect to the one we are closest to, our mother, and then we extend it progressively from our mother to other sentient beings. At present, we are completely unable to think, may all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, may they have happiness and the causes of happiness.
When we think in this way, it is just to train our minds that we become familiar with this because there’s benefit for us. So the way to practice therefore is initially to listen to Dharma and we listen to the Dharma with actually the intention to practice. To practice what to train in empathy and love. And then having trained in empathy and love, in turn, over time, we can train the more advanced practices such as bodhicitta or emptiness, which at present, we have no access to. And therefore, at present, when we attend teachings and we pray for the four immeasurables, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable love, immeasurable joy, and immeasurable equanimity.
To be frank, he says, it is very difficult for us to generate this. We are unable to think of all sentient beings to start with, and therefore, it is perhaps preferable for us when we utter the prayer of the four immeasurables, which is of great benefit, to think first and foremost of parents. Because if we think of our parents and we pray, may all sentient beings be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, may they have happiness and the causes of happiness, may they have immeasurable joy and may they not be afflicted by or may they have the equanimity, which is a non separation from non animosity and non desire. In every single case, we should try to reflect on our parents, and doing so, we can in turn make these four immeasurables more stable. Otherwise, at present, we do not really understand what they mean, and therefore, when we utter the immeasurables, to be frank, but he says, this is empty talk.
We do not understand exactly what suffering is. We do not understand what happiness is, since we are bereft of both the happiness of liberation and of non contaminated happiness. So what exactly do we mean when we pray in this way? And therefore, it is important for us to pray that those beings which are at present suffering be free of suffering and the causes of suffering. Ārya beings, Arhats, for instance, are already free of suffering.
They do not need us to pray for them in that sense. It is important for us also to pray that beings which do not have happiness at present be endowed with happiness and the causes of happiness. Arhats again already have happiness. Now we might wonder, if we take our parents as a basis at present, sometimes our parents do not have explicit suffering. Even though they do not have explicit suffering, they nonetheless have implicit suffering since they have already accumulated the causes for suffering in the future.
So at present, we have obtained a human rebirth, and this rebirth is free of interfering conditions, and we have all of the favorable conditions. Conditions. Then in this rebirth, when we listen to Dharma, we have to listen to Dharma with the intention to practice. Otherwise, at the time of death, if we have not practiced, our listening to Dharma will not have been of any benefit to us. And we have to put effort in this, otherwise we would not achieve our goals.
So just to listen, listen, listen to teachings and never to practice, this is meaningless. There are many listeners of Dharma and many Dharma teachers who are born in the lower realms, who are born as hell beings, as hungry ghosts, or as animals, and this is a direct result of not having practiced the Dharma they listen to or the Dharma they taught. So we have to practice as much as we can, as often as we are able to. If today, we can say, today, I will take the vow not to harm sentient beings, then on this basis, we accumulate virtue. It is not sufficient to know, for instance, what the act of killing is.
If we know what the act of killing is, but do not abandon it, then there will have been no benefit for us. So first, we study to understand precisely what killing entails, and then we abandon such a non virtuous deed. It is the same thing for theft or for sexual misconduct. If we are able to abandon one of these just for one day and say, today, I would not engage in this, there is benefit. Then if we can abandon them for one week, let alone one month, then the benefit increases and as the power of practice increases, we abandon these forever longer.
Rinpoche says it’s exactly the same thing as accumulating wealth. You accumulate wealth penny by penny. If you never accumulate any pennies, then there’s no wealth which is ever accumulated. So initially, one must train in empathy and love. And if we reflect on the foundation of our training, the foundation of our training is refuge, since it is refuge, which closes the door to lower rebirth.
So, we must reflect on this. And therefore, a Mahāyāna being is a being who vows to practice until he or she has attained full enlightenment, and he or she starts by saying, this is a deed which I will not engage in, and I will not engage in it today, then if things work out well for abandonment for one day, then one does not engage in it for the following day. And in this way, day after day, one’s practice increases. So saying today, I will not engage engage in this, and seeing that things have gone well for today, one then says tomorrow I will not engage in this, and moves upwards ever more. For this, one has to generate a good motivation.
This is motivation which reflects on the advantages of such practice and disadvantages of not engaging in this practice. Otherwise, if we never practice thinking always, oh, I will practice tomorrow, I will practice later when I have more time, then as impermanence comes, then on the basis of impermanence, we may die when we are old, we may die when we are young, we do not know when we die. And at that point, all is over. So, we should realize that after death it is not the case that we become non existent. The mind moves on and the question has to be where do we go.
Now, we might assert quite casually, I for one won’t be reborn in the lower realms. And if we say something like that, we have to think quite carefully. These lower realms, what are they? What are the causes of being reborn there? Then after investigating what the causes are, we should check-in our own continuum.
Are these causes present or not? The odds are we will find that they are heavily present. Basically, there is no such thing as not being reborn in the lower realms if one has not abandoned the 10 non virtues. Abandoning the 10 non virtues, in other words, ethics, is the main source of protection against being reborn in the lower realms. If we have not abandoned the 10 non virtues, most probably, even certainly, we will be reborn in the lower realms, and we will stay there for countless eons because once reborn there, it is extraordinarily difficult to get out.
And then, how would we rise up from the lower realms? So it is important, Rinpoche says at the beginning, to have compassion, to have empathy for oneself. It is on the basis of pity for oneself, of empathy for oneself that progressively we can understand other sentient beings are in the same predicament as us, and we can extend the sense of empathy and pity to others. Otherwise, there is no way to do this. So Śāntideva says to pray, may all sentient beings be free from suffering.
Without he says, having the wish to abandon one’s own suffering is akin to praying in a dream. At the beginning, we must understand our own suffering. We must meditate on our own suffering, and only then will we be able to think of the suffering of others and wish to free them from this. And then how should we practice when we rise in the morning? After washing, we should pay homage to the supports of the body, speech and mind of the Buddha on our altar, and if we meditate a bit, meditate at this point, and then before going to work, we should generate the correct motivation for working, a good motivation.
One can either think I am going to work for the benefit of others, for the sake of others, or alternatively, one can also think, I’m going to work because I’m a Dharma practitioner, and I need the conditions to practice Dharma. We should not think about money. Money is of no real benefit, so we just put it aside. And then during the day, we try to work with this motivation, and when the evening comes, when we have returned to our home, then we should check how we have done during the day our motivation. If our motivation was good, then we should rejoice, and we should say tomorrow I will practice in the same way.
If on the other hand, our motivation was bad, and we accumulated non virtue and sin, then we should become aware that we have accumulated sin, and we should engage confession using either the recitation of the Vajrasattva mantra or the sūtra of Confession. There is no such thing as a non virtue which cannot be purified by confession. And by forceful confession and purification, it can be completely eliminated. By middling confession and purification, it can be greatly reduced. And with small confession and purification, at least, it will be prevented from increasing.
Otherwise, Rinpoche says non virtuous karma doubles in potency every day. So after two days, it is two times as powerful, after one day it is two times as powerful, after days, four times as powerful, and so forth. And we are all similar in wanting happiness, and we are all similar in wishing to not experience suffering. We are all similar in not knowing how to obtain happiness, and we are all similar in not knowing how to eliminate suffering. So it is capital for us to understand what is to be practiced and what is to be abandoned.
The Buddha from his own side cannot cleanse our sufferings by himself. All he can do is teach what is to be engaged in because by teaching what is to be engaged in, he teaches the path of happiness and to teach what is to be abstained from, which leads to the elimination from suffering. So it is through listening to the to the teachings of the Buddha that we benefit. If we do not listen to this, then we will not benefit. Dharma therefore therefore is meant to be practiced.
Dharma is nothing other, but the twin collection of what is to be practiced and what is to be abandoned. If we engage in the practice of this advice, then we can be said to have taken refuge in Dharma. In turn, through respect for him who teaches this, we will have taken refuge in the Buddha, and through respect for those who accompany us, we will have taken refuge in the Sangha. There is no other refuge in this. The Buddha said, I do not take the suffering of beings with my hand.
I do not cleanse their thoughts with water. I do not transmit my realizations to them. It is through teaching suchness that I benefit beings. Here, in the broadest sense of the term, teaching is to be understood as a teaching of the four noble truths. The two first truths, the truth of suffering and the cause of suffering, are what is to be abandoned.
The two latter truths, the truth of cessation and the path, the noble path, are what is to be practiced. It is in dependence on two later truths that one can attain liberation. So, there is no other means but this for the Buddha to benefit us. The Buddha has infinite infinite compassion and would not abandon one single sentient being. Unlike, Rinpoche says, some versions of what he has heard of the Christian God.
So in this case, it is through teaching that the Buddha helps, and it is this connection of the blessing of the Buddha and the capacity of beings, which is necessary. They are of equal potency, both are necessary. We ourselves can be understood as sick. Someone who is sick receives two categories of advice from his doctor. The doctor here corresponds to the Buddha.
The first category of advice is what to be in, what is to be engaged in. The doctor will say you should take this and this medicine. The second category of advice is what should be avoided. A doctor will say you should not eat this or that. If we are serious about getting well, then we will follow the advice of our doctor.
In other words, to use the Buddhist version of the metaphor, we will practice. Likewise, Rinpoche says, diseases are of two categories, bodily and mental diseases. Body diseases can be treated by the doctor and we take physical medicine for them. Mental diseases cannot be treated by doctors and can only be treated by the Buddha. For them we need mental medicine.
For that matter, a doctor cannot even eliminate physical diseases since the root of physical diseases is mental. And the roots of mental diseases are the three afflictions of desire, anger, and ignorance. The antidote or the medicine against these three afflictions are renunciation or definite emergence, which is the antidote against desire, bodhicitta, which is the antidote against anger, and the view of emptiness, which is the antidote against ignorance. in dependence on these three, we can eliminate completely mental afflictions and mental diseases. If we actually understand that mental and bodily diseases both arise from the mind, we can see how through training in these three principles of the path and increasing them ever more, we can eliminate totally all the diseases of the body and all the diseases of the mind.
And then on this basis can become Arhats or eventually Buddhas. So, this is why the main practice of the Arhats and the Buddhas are practices to eliminate mental ailments. Okay. So Rinpoche has given us advice today, and he would like us all to practice well. in dependence on these collections will increase, and we will improve.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. What was completed?
The transcripts of the transmissions of Rinpoche’s teachings and presented today was the teachings of Gaden Lhagyama in Singapore and how to meditate, the transmission of the dharani, the cloaklike dharani, extracts of teachings on emptiness, and the teachings on the Bodhicittavivarāna. As well as teachings on So I would like to thank to thank all of those who have input these texts, those who have input them in the computer, those who have edited them, the translator. Translator. And he would like to pray that all of them have human rebirths life after life. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. Mhmm.