Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche uses vivid analogies—a flower hidden under layers of paper, an onion peeling—to explain how meditation on emptiness and bodhicitta progressively remove mental obscurations. He elaborates on the eight categories of the Ornament of Clear Realization, a commentary on the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, tracing the five paths and the trainings practiced on each. He identifies grasping at true existence as the root ignorance from which all afflictive emotions arise, and explains why antidotes must be positive mental states, not suppression. Wisdom realizing emptiness combined with bodhicitta serves as the ultimate medicine; the Buddha is a doctor prescribing treatment for mental illness. The session concludes with audience questions about how practitioners of different capacities progress through the path. For serious students in this multi-year study program.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1990-02-08 – 29B – KR.mp3
UUID: 36531841-5ab4-44f0-9769-4cac5ca89a73
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Ornament of Clear Realization
Date: 1990-02-08
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,365
The first of these paths, the path of accumulation. We study the various trainings which are set out in these eight categories. In this case, at the at the path of accumulation, we we practice the first training, which is complete training in the aspects, and the third training, the serial training. We do not train we do not practice the, for example, peak training on the path of accumulation. The first and third trainings we practice.
Whereas on the second path, the proper path of preparation, we practice the second of the of the four trainings, the peak training. And then going further with respect to the third of the five paths, path of seeing. Here we practice the the two knowers, knower of paths and the knower of bases. And we practice the three trainings. The trainings we have previously practiced of complete training in aspects, peak training, and serial training.
So there are the five categories which are practiced at the path of seeing. And these these five that were just listed, these two these two knowers and three trainings are also practiced on the fourth of the five paths, the path of meditation. On the path of meditation we practice the fourth of the four trainings which is momentary training. So on the path of meditation, we practice these four trainings and generate two exalted knowers. These are our practices.
As a result of these practices, when we attain the fifth of the five paths, the path to no more learning, we attain the third of the three knowers. Then the exalted knower of all aspects, and the final fruit of the resultant truth body. So it is in dependence upon practice in these six trainings that we eliminate all faults and bring to fulfillment all excellent qualities in dependence upon practice of the six categories, I said training specific categories, this is in dependence upon practicing these six categories we attain the further two categories which are the exalted knower of all aspects and the resultant truth body, which are Buddhahood. It is we we presently are not able to understand all the various modes of phenomena. We have obstructions which prevent us from understanding all phenomena.
But upon the elimination of these obstructions, all of these various faults, we will be able to directly understand all phenomena as if they were in the palm of our hand. So to use a simple analogy, if there was a flower present here, then it was covered over with many sheets of paper. And I wouldn’t be able to see it. But if, you know, I used a method whereby I just, for example, took my hand and I each day I kept removing, not each day, but I kept removing each sheet of paper continually. One sheet at a time.
Eventually, the sheets which acted to obscure, obstruct my vision from seeing the flower would be removed. Would be exhausted. There would be no more obstacles to my seeing the flower. And then I could see whatever type of flower it was, whatever type of color it was, whether it was red, green, blue, yellow flower. I would be able to see it directly.
Likewise, presently we have obscurations, obstructions, which are the various faults which obscure our mind. And through the process of meditation, meditating on, for example, the emptiness, awakening heart, we are Through continual meditation in this way, we are able to remove layer upon layer of these various obstructions, all of these various faults, until these faults are exhausted. And we will be able to perceive all phenomena whatsoever as if they existed within the palm of our hand. That is to say, all phenomena of the three times past, present, and future. We will know what exists and what doesn’t exist.
It will be perfectly clear to us. So presently, our mind has many faults. That our the excellent our excellent mind isn’t very powerful. But our positive mind isn’t very positive isn’t very powerful at present. Our negative states of mind are more dominant.
This is due to our habitual acquaintance with negative states in previous rebirths. So, but if we use a method of training the mind to eliminate these negative states and through the Dharma, the Buddha Dharma in particular, which presents an unerring method, we can begin to eliminate these faults like the layers of an onion peeling away until the purity of mind and the positive states are achieved. And this is the reason that we train our mind, that we go through this process of study. So what do we mean by negative minds? Most especially we mean the conception grasping at the true existence of self and phenomena.
in dependence upon this, this is, in dependence upon this, the various other types of negative minds arise. It is these mistaken, these misconceptions as to the nature of phenomena act as an obstruction, obstruct us from seeing the emptiness of phenomena. And this obstructing quality is what we mean when we say ignorance or unawareness, this negative mind which prevents us from seeing the way things actually exist. And dependence upon this, the various other afflictive emotions such as attachment, hatred, jealousy, miserliness arise. So it’s necessary for us to eliminate these negative minds and as a means of doing this we employ antidotes.
Now, these negative minds are the faults of the minds. And we, in order to rid the mind of a fault, a negative mind, we must generate a positive mind. There’s no other way. We can’t wash away these faults, these negative minds. We can’t throw them away.
We have to generate a positive state which counter is a counter agent to these negative states. All of these negative minds are mistaken consciousnesses. As counter agent, we develop minds which are in accordance with actual reality. By meditating, by training our mind, we develop these positive states which act as an antidote to these various negative states. So the antidote must be in accordance with the object that is seeking to be eliminated.
They use an analogy that when we have a illness, we must make use since the illness is of a physical nature, our antidote must be also of a physical nature. That is to say the medicine must be of a made of matter or physical in order to eliminate physical illness. On the other hand, when we have mental sickness, it’s necessary to make a physical antidote will not work. We have to make use of a mental antidote, which are positive states of mind. And just as in the case of a physical illness, we go to a doctor, a medical doctor, and he or she examines us and prescribes a course of treatment.
We follow that treatment in order to rid ourselves of the illness. Likewise, when we have a mental sickness, we must go to a doctor who is an expert with respect to the mind and this is the Buddha. The Buddha prescribes a course of treatment and it’s necessary for us to implement that course of treatment in order to rid ourselves of our mental illness. Yeah. The it is necessary to take a medicine to relieve ourselves of our mental illnesses.
And therefore, it is the ultimate medicine is the wisdom realizing emptiness and the awakening heart. It is the union. This is the purpose of setting forth the ornament. Setting forth the means of generating the wisdom, understanding, emptiness, the development of awakening heart. It is said the union of these two is the king of all medicines in that it is able to cure any illness.
Therefore, our practice must be a combination of these two, the development of the wisdom, understanding, emptiness, and the awakening heart. Just as in the case we go to a doctor in order to cure our physical illnesses. In order to do that, we follow the course of treatment that he or she prescribes in order to finally achieve bodily well-being. We go to the Buddha in order to rid ourselves of our mental sickness. And following the course of treatment that the Buddha set forth by means of our practice, we achieve Buddhahood, which is the ultimate mental well-being.
Because of the intimate relationship between the mind and body, if we are able to relieve all mental sickness and achieve complete mental well-being, then physical well-being will follow. So we will leave all our mental illnesses behind today. This teaching is carrying over from last year and that we have progressed through these eight categories. Were 10 topics to be discussed with respect to the first category, the Exalted Knower of All Aspects or Omniscience.
And then with respect to the second category, the Knower of Paths, there were 11. And then we were in the midst of discussing the third category, the Knower of Bases. And we there are a total of nine, and we got to about the fourth or the fifth topic within that category. Now so we have to decide what we would like to do. Would you like we could go we could start back at the beginning and go through roughly, many people weren’t here last year, and go through roughly up to where we we finished off last year, and then proceed from there?
Or should we just start off from where we finished last year? It’s up to you. Whatever you desire. Whatever you want. So we do this very democratically by by a show of hands.
So you can you can you can discuss this for a moment, but we’re we’re actually going to take a vote of, you know, those who would like to begin again from the beginning and go through roughly what we’ve done up till now. Or there would you or the second choice is that we begin where we left off last year. So any yes.
So if we if we review from the beginning, we’re just going to go through it roughly, and so it won’t take very long. So it depends on how rough. If it if it if it’s very abbreviated, it could be three teachings. If it’s extended a little bit more, it could be five. If it’s extended a little bit more, eight.
How many from the beginning? So we’ll begin from the beginning. And for the remaining, remaining, we have about five minutes if you have any questions. So I was just wondering the three So for instance, the person of lesser capacity as they progress through the trainings, do they go on to engage in the in the way that that is set forth for the capacity of medium and high, or are they complete paths in themselves? So, you know, whatever doubts you have, questions, you know, you shouldn’t feel uneasy.
You should feel free to to ask them. So the Ornament of Clear Realization is a commentary to the perfection of wisdom sutras that is the discourses setting forth, that the Buddha set forth, the subject matter which is taken up are the eight categories. What we’re trying to understand are the eight categories. So there in order for different trainees to understand these categories, for some, it’s necessary to put the explanation be in great detail. For others, in middling detail.
And for others it can be simply an abbreviated explanation. Therefore, for the highest intelligent practitioner, the eight categories are set out by way of three. The four, for example, the four trainings are condensed down into one single explanation. They don’t have to be set out individually. And it depends upon that presentation.
He’s able to or she is able to understand the eight categories. It depends upon this way of present presenting. A person in middling intelligence, it depends upon having six categories, six divisions of six presented to him or her can understand the eight categories. The less those of lesser intelligence have to have the explanation done in very great detail. So he has to have it or she has to have an explanation of each of the four trainings, each of the exalted knowers, and the resultant truth body.
So everything has to be explained in much more detail. So it’s the degree of detail that is that is necessary to make use of in explaining in order to understand the eight categories which by which the three divisions are posited and set forth. So the the Buddha set forth the teachings on the perfection of wisdom. And in dependence upon those discourses or sutras themselves, at his while he was actually presenting them, the intelligent disciples were able to gain the realization of the perfection of wisdom directly from the sutras themselves. But subsequent to that, there were commentaries written about the perfection of wisdom because the the trainees of the perfection of wisdom were not able to gain the realization dependence upon the sutras directly.
They needed a more extensive explanation in order to gain understanding. What they’re trying to understand are the eight categories which are which constitute perfection of wisdom. The Ornament of Clear Realization is such a commentary which is which sets out extensively the thought of the Buddha with respect to the perfection of wisdom in eight categories. For those of the highest intelligence, they can easily come to understand the perfection of wisdom and dependence upon the ornament. For those in middling, they can they can also readily understand it.
And even the those of lesser intelligence because the eight categories are set out individually in detail, then even they, in dependence upon the ornament, can come to an understanding the eight core categories constituting the perfection of wisdom. Which was written by Maitreya. So the ultimate practice is dependent upon the perfection of wisdom. And this is what the Buddha set forth in the sutras.
And therefore, it is in dependence upon the sutras and the the commentaries which are written subsequently that we carry on on our ultimate practice in order to achieve the same end that the Buddha himself achieved.