Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 52-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches rejoicing—the eleventh Lamrim path from Maitreya’s Ornament of Clear Realization. He begins with bodhicitta meditation, then covers merit dedication in detail: how bodhisattvas unite method and wisdom by recognizing the three circles (merit, agent, object) as empty of inherent existence. The core teaching is rejoicing: cultivating genuine joy in one’s own virtues and in others’ practice without jealousy. Rinpoche shows that rejoicing multiplies merit with minimal effort, accumulating different amounts depending on whether a person is superior, equal, or inferior in realization. He distinguishes rejoicing from prayer and emphasizes that dedication and rejoicing make any practice far more powerful. The closing Q&A addresses the “king of dedications”: meeting virtuous teachers and preserving the dharma. For serious Lamrim practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-11-02 – 22A – KR.mp3
UUID: 054b13cb-89a7-423f-9662-c34673478a98
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Ornament of Clear Realization
Date: 1989-11-02
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,031
We will meditate for about five or three minutes, let’s say three minutes on trying to generate the great altruistic mind of enlightenment. bodhicitta thinking this way for the sake of all infinite beings who are suffering and who are as countless as the expanse of the space. In order to remove these sentient beings from suffering and in order to place them to ultimate happiness, I must practice the Dharma through which I should get rid of all the faults and through which also I can attain all the excellent qualities. So try to think that way and thinking that way generate the bodhicitta motivation for about three minutes meditation. So when the dedication is being done, it is done in this way whatever merits one’s of and other sentient beings have accumulated, one gathers those together in one’s thinking and one dedicates the merit thinking that these merits are common merits of oneself and all other sentient beings, emphasizing on the word common.
So it is the common or shared merits of me and all of the sentient beings and thereby dedicating it to become cause for attaining Buddhahood. So as I explained before, the purpose of dedication is for the merits to be not exhausted and for continuous enjoyment on the results of these merits. And that’s why the dedication is done. So when a bodhisattva dedicates the merits or when bodhisattva does the dedication, he does the dedication with the combination of method and wisdom and how that is done especially with wisdom part, how that is done is he thinks on the selfless nature of everything, thinking that they are not truly existent, truly existing, but still conventionally or nominally, but still nominally they do form or they do exist. So with that thinking, he does the dedication and especially to be more clear in elaboration, he does with the understanding of the three circles being empty of inherent existence, thinking that the merits which is to be dedicated and bodhisattva Himself who is the subject doing the dedication and the object Buddhahood to which the merit is to be dedicated.
So all these three are not truly existent. Thinking that way, he does the dedication. So if one does the dedication by thinking on the emptiness nature of things, it becomes very powerful and that sort of dedication done with thinking on emptiness is powerful because that sort of merits can never be eliminated by anger. And next one in the eleventh series is called path of meditation’s rejoicing. So rejoicing is like if one has done something virtuous action like meditation on love, meditation on emptiness, on bodhicitta, then if you feel, oh, I’ve been very fortunate, oh, what a good thing I have done.
So that feeling of joyfulness on virtuous things one has done, that is called rejoicing. So the eleventh at this point is the path of $1 is rejoicing. So one does rejoicing on the virtuous actions one has done and one is doing. And also one does rejoicing on the virtuous actions being done by other sentient beings like if other sentient beings are doing meditation on love, on bodhicitta, on emptiness, one feels, oh, that’s very good. So that sort of feeling at this point is what the practitioner does.
Appreciation, rejoicing. And because there is this what I call this because there is rejoicing on the merits accumulated by one another, therefore at this point of 11 series we got this one which is called path of meditation rejoicing. That’s how it comes about at this point. So this part of meditation, so this path of meditation rejoicing has three parts, definition, divisions, and ranging border. So regarding the definition, the first part is exactly the same as before, contaminated great vehicle’s total realization.
Being a contaminated great vehicle’s total realization. The part which is different at this point is this one, the following: feeling joyful on any of the merits either done by oneself or by others. So the definition, the first part where it says being a contaminated great vehicle’s total realization. Why that is called is because it actually is within the category of contaminated part of meditation, therefore that part of definition comes. And second part of definition where it says feeling joyful on the merits done either by oneself or by others.
So that’s because that part comes in the definition because all the merits which are being accumulated can be grouped to these two categories, either accumulated by oneself or by others. So those merits which one has done can be in this form like if one does a good meditation then one can do what we call rejoicing on that, oh, I have done very good, what call meditation. And same like if somebody else you see happens to be doing good meditation, good Dharma practice and if feel good about that feeling joyful about the other person doing then that’s how you feel rejoicing on other person’s good actions, virtuous actions. If you happen to do virtuous action and accumulate merit, and after that if you, what I call, do rejoicing on that, then what would be the benefit, what would be the purpose for that? If that’s a question, then the answer has to be, oh there is purpose because it has one’s merit to increase more and more and it makes one’s merit more powerful.
So because the rejoicing makes one’s merit increase more, become more powerful, become more forcible. Therefore, if one happens to be doing meditation or Dharma practice and after that if you rejoice on that thinking, Oh, I have done excellent thing today. So if you do that, then rejoicing will become very beneficial in the sense of producing those two results, making the merits increase more and making the merits more powerful. So same like in in the case of other persons doing virtuous action without jealousy if you feel, oh, that’s excellent, that’s good, then you’re rejoicing on the other person’s marriage. Normally rejoicing on other person’s merits without jealousy will be only possible if you have a genuine compassion and loving heart for other persons.
Otherwise, normally when we see someone else doing a very excellent job, we see, ah, he has just done that. He has just done that. It’s sort of a total dislike. You just feel helplessly you have to accept, but still you don’t feel like accepting his doing that action. So in this way we try to have rejoicing in whatever virtuous actions other people do and main opponents is the jealousy which we have to avoid.
The great master in Tibetan has said in a verse, two line verse, with little effort drawing vast merit is the rejoicing which has been supremely recommended. So this in meaning saying what sort of action will with least effort accumulate the maximum merit. So that’s rejoicing because if we do rejoicing we don’t have to exert much effort and still we can accumulate vast merit. Suppose if there are two people or two persons doing meditations together, then if you happen to be the one person in the example, then if you do not work or rejoice on the other person, it may perhaps be not very certain what sort of realization the other person may have had. Normally, any person can be grouped into three kinds of a A person category.
Who may be superior to you in realization, a person who may be of equal realization to you, a person who may be inferior in realization to you. So that example, two person one being you and the other being the other person, somehow the other person will have to be among those three categories. If the other person is inferior to you in realization, then if you rejoice on that person’s merits or out of his having done meditation, then the merits which you by doing rejoicing, which you accumulate will be double the amount of what the other person has accumulated, because he being inferior to you in realization. And if the other person is of equal realization to you, then if you do rejoicing, then you will have the merit equal to what the other person accumulates. And if the other person is of superior in realization to you, then if you rejoice on his merits out of meditation, you receive half the amount of what the other person accumulates.
Therefore whenever we do meditations or any sort of Dharma actions or with other people or in case of seeing other people doing it, if we rejoice on them, then we can accumulate what call many merits. Some could be inferior to you, some superior, some equal to you, so you accumulate in accordance to those labels. In the same way, if we rejoice on the merits accumulated by hearers, solitary realizers, bodhisattvas, and buddhas, then we can receive so many merits because even though we may be receiving only half their amount, but because the merits which they possess are so inconceivably what called large, great in number. Therefore, the one which you receive would be incredibly many. So without without any need for exerting any great effort, if you just lie down in your bed and rejoice on others’ merits, you can accumulate a lot of merits.
And that’s the reason why in the previous verse, he says with little effort drawing vast merits. So this saying, you don’t have to put much effort in rejoicing. Even though it may seem easy, but for us, it’s very difficult rejoicing. It’s rejoicing is very difficult for us to cultivate in our mind because we have a whole lot of different, constant thoughts of jealousy and competitiveness. And as long as they are there, rejoicing is something very difficult to arise.
But still, if we go on doing, then there will come time it becomes more spontaneous. So regarding the divisions, regarding the divisions, it is of two kind Part of meditation rejoicing fundamentally it is of two kinds. First one being part of meditation rejoicing, doing rejoicing on one’s merits. And second one, path of meditation rejoicing, doing rejoicing on the merits of others. So in the previous work on borderline, we have to alter a little bit.
We say from path of meditation up to Buddhahood, so that Buddhahood will have to be changed into last continuity. So last continuity technically is what is called last continuity, meaning the moment prior to attaining Buddhahood and moment which is last in the ground. And same here, same here with this border, ranging border, it starts from path of meditation up to the last continuity. And that’s because it is path of meditation. So even though these inclination, dedication, rejoicing, they may seem exclusively belonging to a path of meditation, but still on ordinary level, we can still do those practices.
These subjects are extremely important for us who are supposed to be Dharma practitioner because we do a whole lot of practices, we are still not very sure how our goal is directed toward, which direction and how everything relating to our practice is complete or not. Meaning does it still have all the factors of rejoicing dedication complete with it or not. If we are able to do rejoicing and dedication on whatever merits we have accumulated by doing Dharma practices and by others, then because due to these two, dedication and rejoicing, our merit becomes very powerful, increases and becomes inexhaustible until attaining Buddhahood. Therefore, whatever Dharma practice which we have done into which we have put so much effort, they all become meaningful and are not wasted at all. So if we in our course for doing Dharma practice, if we have inclination, maybe interest will be more active.
If we have interest, then due to that interest we will do the practice and out of that practice we can do dedication and from dedication we can have a basis to do rejoicing. Therefore whatever Dharma practice we can do becomes very powerful and meaningful. The great master Śāntideva has said all the sets or all the groups of virtue, they have been explained by the able Buddha as being source, as lying their source in the inclination or interest, and this is in meaning saying sets or groups of virtue refers to all the cause and effect part of virtue like merits and the merits bringing results of happiness. All those whichever we see as virtue, they have been explained by the Buddha as being lying their source in the inclination, having interest in the virtuous areas. Generally, there are two things, prayer and dedication.
And in prayer, you don’t have to have a basis or merit because prayer is just a kind of aspirational thing, thinking, may I have no sickness, and so forth. And whereas with the dedication, there has to have basis merit which you pray which you pray as becoming cause for attaining Buddhahood, attaining enlightenment, whatever purpose you dedicate for. And whereas with the prayer, without any basis of having past merit, can just aspire or you can just pray like saying, may I have no sickness, may I have long life, may I be able to realize emptiness, may I be able to generate bodhicitta, and so forth. So that whole lot where you don’t require, you just aspire and just pray. So there is this difference.
And in the language of debaters, we normally say the dedication pervades prayer and prayer doesn’t pervade doesn’t pervade dedication. Meaning, dedication has to be prayer and prayer doesn’t have to be dedication. And that’s all the dedications of prayer, and all the prayers can’t be dedication. So tonight, we stop here, and we perhaps instead of meditation, if you have any questions, five minutes questions. Yeah.
So like, can you dedicate for one purpose, dedicate for many causes behind it, something like that? Means you can do it like having very many, what I call, objectives of dedication. I said. Yes. Oh, you can ask.
Have as many objectives as possible. How much? Is there a number? That’s As greedy as possible, and that’s better. Alright. It’s alright to dedicate this way. May all my may all my interest be successful.
May all others’ interest be successful. May the Dharma may by this merit, may the Dharma spread for all the the ages, and may it also help for the migrators to have happiness. So ask why it has many. That’s better. Among the dedications, the king among dedications are regarded on these points dedicating for the purpose that this merit may become cause for the Dharma to be preserved continuously and by this merit I and all other sentient beings be able to meet friend of virtue meaning be able to meet teachers.
So these points are considered normally as the king of dedications. Because if you meet a very good teacher who shows you the things to be abandoned and who shows you things to adopt, meaning who shows you what things are not to be practiced and what things are to be practiced, then according to his guidance, if you do those practices, then in the long run it will help you to be perfected in accomplishing your own welfare and also in accomplishing others’ welfare. Therefore, you get everything accomplished through him. And also if you dedicate for the merit to become cause for oneself to be able to become or if you dedicate for the merit to become course for one to be able to preserve the teaching, then because teaching is normally of two kinds, scriptural teaching and transmission teaching, because they are these two, and these two both being source for happiness for all sentient beings. Therefore, if you become the preserver of the teaching, it is like you are becoming source for happiness for countless sentient beings or even due to your merit it becomes cause for other sentient beings to be the preserver of the teaching and it also somehow is the source for happiness for countless sentient beings.
Therefore, this point of dedication also is normally considered dedication, one of the kings of dedication. So normally when you preserve the teaching, you preserve it in the aspect of the practice and teaching, practice and instructing. So practice refers to your own self, doing the practice of the teaching and out of whatever realization experience you happen to have, you tell that same path and guidance to other sentient beings which helps other sentient beings. Therefore preserving the teaching in those two ways helps oneself to be perfect to accomplish one’s own interest and it also helps for other persons, other sentient beings to accomplish their interests. Therefore, either universal happiness and comfort or others happiness and comfort both will have to come through this way, means through the preservation of the teaching and through the right correct teaching.
And also some other dedications are like normally we start at the end, the precious mind of enlightenment not born, be born, those born cannot decline and grow more and more. So that also is what we call normally considered one of the most powerful dedication and in actual word it is like dedicating to become the holder of the banner of the teaching. I mean, Indirectly it is meaning oneself to be ready, the guardian source for all of the sentient beings because of being the profound preserver, the actual preserver of the teaching. And also we can do dedication for the long life or stable stay of lama. Like normally, here we recite Gangri Rawo Khorwe Shingkhamdir, long life prayer for his holiness saying in this land of Snowy Mountains, you are the source of the happiness and benefit all sentient beings.
May you, Tenzin Gyatso, remain for long eternal life. So this in this way, if we dedicate our merit for one’s lama’s life to remain stable, that also is considered quite a powerful dedication and meaningful too.