Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 53-minute public talk, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches how to cultivate compassion by working directly with its chief obstacle: anger. He shows why anger harms only yourself, destroys positive karma, and damages relationships, then outlines practical antidotes. A core theme: distinguishing compassion from attachment through careful analysis. Compassion arises from observing another’s suffering and wishing it removed; attachment projects desirable qualities onto an object—illustrated via a suit, a meal, and a relationship across lifetimes. The Q&A deepens the inquiry: Can compassion extend to those who harm you? When might killing an animal be compassionate rather than harmful? How does understanding spiritual reality reshape your response to injustice? Pitched at anyone beginning Dharma practice or exploring how mind actually works.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-03-19 – 1B – Public Talk Compassion in Everyday Life – KR.mp3
UUID: 4b08bfc1-f5f6-4a13-98ba-a3d4e94504fd
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 1989-03-19
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,726
So, you know, we have to to make effort in seeking to not allow anger to arise, and if when it does arise, to pacify it as quickly as possible. We have to make, apply antidotes. So we have to think about the great negativity of anger in itself, that even generally a good hearted person, that someone who’s generally happy, upon developing anger, immediately their mind is unpeaceful, immediately their mind is in a state of suffering, and not only are they suffering, but immediately they begin to bring suffering to those immediately around them. That even more than this, than the immediate suffering that we’re experiencing, we’re creating suffering for the future, and that any type of positive potential that we’ve created in the past, we’re destroying that. So, first, we have to think about all the great faults, the drawbacks of becoming angry, and begin to exercise the will to, and apply the various antidotes to cease it.
After having done that, seeking to prevent anger, then we develop the thinking about the advantages, the positive qualities of love. That it is the preciousness of love, that it benefits not only oneself, but it also is of great benefit to others. So, we’ve explained very roughly some of the things that we can begin to think about, about the disadvantages of anger, the negativity of anger, the advantages of the qualities of love and compassion, positive qualities of love and compassion. And that keeping these in mind, and just sort of going over within your own experience, what anger has done for you, and what love has done for you, that we can, we’re going to just meditate for about five minutes, and simply recollect the thoughts. When we talk about compassion, it simply is directed toward all sentient beings, may you be separated from suffering.
The wish may be separated from suffering. And to direct love toward all sentient beings, the wish, the thought, may you have happiness, that we’re going to spend just a few minutes in meditation. So we can spend some time answering questions, if you have some questions. Yeah. Okay.
What is if someone someone does something bad to you, what’s wrong with being angry as a response? Yeah. And they continue to be bad. Such as? Such as lying to you.
So becoming, no matter what the badness of the activity of the other person, it’s inappropriate to respond with anger, since immediately makes you unhappy to be angry. It doesn’t harm in any way the other person, it only hurts yourself. And it also has the disadvantage of any sort of positive potential, any skillful karma that you’ve created in the past is destroyed through the force of your own anger. On the other hand, no matter what negativity might, the other person might direct towards you, if you can, if you cultivate love, then anger will never arise. Yes.
Indeed. So the two, compassion and attachment, are actually unrelated to one another. Don’t necessarily have to be mixed with one another. In developing compassion, we observe the suffering of another person, and observing that we develop the wish, may you be separated, you not experience that suffering. When we, so this is completely unrelated with any type of attachment.
Attachment arises when we observe not their suffering, but some desirable quality which we see can bring us ourselves happiness. That something about them, some attribute which we see as pleasing, and which is desirable, likable, and this acts as the object of observation which causes the creation, the development of attachment. Observing suffering, we will never develop attachment if it’s actual compassion. Yes. Upon the object of their upon their object of anger.
Does that I I lost it there. Had it for more. Does that anger, what, have a negative result to the various object of the people who were yeah. So you know, anger, you know, whatever an animal, in this case, only hurts the animal themselves, only hurts the person themself. It doesn’t harm the world in general, or the object of that, of which it’s generating anger toward.
Yeah. So the initial root cause or reason for the development of compassion and the development of attachment are quite dissimilar. If we understand the way the mind is operating with respect to its object, then we will be able to quite easily distinguish between attachment and compassion or attachment and love. The initial motivating force for the development of these states of mind are quite different. In the case of attachment, attachment is a misconception, or a wrong conception as to the nature of the object.
It is superimposing qualities which in fact are not present in that object. Whereas in the case of compassion, it actually understands the nature of the object well. So there’s, one is a misconception, a wrong conception with respect to the object, and the other understands the object well, and is in according with the real situation of the object, the nature of the object. So there are many, many dissimilarities between attachment and compassion. Are dissimilarities in subtlety and coarseness, and dissimilarity in their actual nature.
Yes. What were the the last few sentences? So where does the factor of attachment come in? Yeah. The relationship is finished.
Again. So you have the through the force of previous actions or karma, you have come into a relationship in this life with a particular person. Now, again in this life, you’re creating karma with that person. You’re creating the activity of the the relationship is again, is a type of action creating more karma. So even though the karma from previous existences to be with this person may have exhausted upon death because of the karma that you’re creating in this life.
Again, causes a force which will bring you in together again in a future relationship, in a future life. So therefore, it becomes important what type of relationships we develop in this life, because it’s going to determine the type of relationships that going to happen in the future. And in this respect, if we, for example, say prayers that those who we wish to have a harmonious relationship in the future to this will act as a mitigating force to bring about a harmonious relationship in the future through the force of these prayers, this karma, this action. So we’re talking about the quality, the dissimilarity between attachment and compassion. Just by way of example, one, if you went downtown and you’re just walking around looking at the shop windows, and you saw, maybe I don’t know, whatever you’re into.
You saw some some beautiful beautiful clothing, okay? It’s aw, wow, look at that suit, that’s really nice color, nice fabric and you really thought how wonderful it was. You would develop attachment toward that suit. Yeah, that piece of clothing, which wouldn’t develop compassion for it. So there’s this difference between compassion and attachment.
So likewise, some type of food maybe you like steak you think, and that was I had a great steak the other night, I’d love to have that again. And you think about it and you would develop an attachment or desire to have that delicious meal again. This is this isn’t compassion. Yes. The So amongst the Tibetan people, we could say there are two types.
There’s the one type who understands the nature of the spiritual reality, and understanding that what is it, what they are experiencing and why it has come about, and such a type of individual could easily develop compassion for the Chinese. Now there’s the other type of Tibetan person who doesn’t understand the nature of the spirit, of the spiritual reality, doesn’t understand Dharma, and for them all they could think about was that they had their homeland taken away from them, that they had their country destroyed and everything has been lost. And for such a person, they couldn’t develop compassion, but in fact they would develop a great deal of hatred. So two possibilities. Yes.
So this type of compassion that we were speaking of is the initial level of compassion where one simply wishes that others be separated from their suffering. As one’s compassion develops in its force, eventually it would develop into the compassion which is called exceptional resolve, in which one resolves to, that I take responsibility to eliminate that person’s suffering, and it necessitates some kind of action on one’s own part. So this is the fully blown, you might say matured compassion as compared to simply the wish, which is an initial compassion. So there’s many levels in the development of compassion that we go through, that we increase its strength, its power, and so this is all these various possibilities from a mere wish to taking responsibility in action. Yeah.
So that would be very good. So in general, plants are not sentient beings, but there’s some types of beings due to the force of their karma have appear as, as pure as plants, appear as plants, have the appearance of plants, embodiment of plants. But in general plants are not sentient beings. Rinpoche went to, you know, has been visiting zoos and things like this and seen many types of animals and creatures which appear very much like plants. Like some insects, some appear like sticks, some of them appear like flowers.
So this they have this appearance, so these are these aren’t actually plants, they’re sentient beings. Question? Yeah. To protect the I mean, to kill certain types of animals or to protect plant life? By take away you mean kill?
So within the context of Mahāyāna, the great vehicle, if out of compassion for that particular animal, that you see that because it’s through its harming these other type, other varieties of animals that it’s creating a great deal of negativity for itself, bad karma for itself, and this is going to cause it rebirth in a hell realm, and you have great compassion for that animal because you don’t want to see it suffer in the future. If within that, with that as a motivating force, then there are cases where it would be acceptable to kill that animal. Without that motivating force of compassion, it’s not acceptable. Yes.