Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute public talk, Kyabje Rinpoche explores joyous effort as the essential cause of all development and benefit. Drawing on Candrakīrti’s classical path of liberation, he argues that effort—the joy and willingness to engage in skilful action—underlies every worthwhile achievement, secular or spiritual. He illustrates this through concrete examples: learning to write, training as a doctor or tailor, building a livelihood through craft. Each develops personal benefit and genuine service to others. He then identifies three key obstacles: lethargy and comfort-seeking; absorption in activities of no real benefit; and self-defeating beliefs about one’s capacity. The teaching is direct and practical, grounded in observable human experience rather than abstraction.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-11-04 – 1A – Public Talk C – KR.mp3
UUID: 63ddf246-6723-430a-8ebb-c6b1049d6ce0
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 1989-11-04
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~816
Wishing to benefit your view. And if from your side, you listen to this talk with a sense of wishing to benefit others, then this beneficial intention combined together, then something very wonderful, Reading from a work by a great Indian master by the name of Candrakīrti, which sets out the path of liberation through the joy of effort. And he goes on to explain that no matter what our aim might be, no matter what purpose we’re setting ourselves toward, that it is effort which will help us to achieve that goal and this applies both to secular and to spiritual realm. So, by way of a simple example of training and developing some type of excellent qualities, some type of wisdom or learning even the writing of being able to learn how to write the letters, the alphabet. By means of these we can set forth, we can express ourselves and in turn others can understand what it is, can understand what it is we’re trying to express.
So, we ourselves are temporarily benefited from training Another simple example would be if one had developed, had educated, had been educated in training oneself as a doctor for example and by means of this training one would be able to diagnose others illness and be able to prescribe the actual remedy whereby to cure their illness and in this sense one’s education can bring about fulfill one’s purpose in helping others and also help others from their side. Engage in if we have been trained. For example, being able to be a tailor, one can gain a livelihood out of being a tailor, but additionally, And all the various trades crafts that we can train in, whether it’s simply a building laborer or carpenter or food processors, all that these bring about not only benefit themselves, they bring benefits to others in supplying what is needed for them one’s various qualities in the areas of education and training, one will be a benefit not only in this life, but for those who accept the notion of future lives as well. How does such a result come about? How do we actually develop in the various training and develop educational skills and craft skills. This all comes about through dependence upon effort.
Effort is the cause for such development. If we don’t make an effort then we’re not going to be of any benefit neither to oneself or to others. So the greater that we have trained ourselves, have developed some very skill developed various skills, that we were going to be of benefit not only to ourselves, to others. And this benefit comes about through through a factor of mind whose nature is the taking of joy in practicing skillful action. The taking of joy in skillful action..
So in general, effort is to take the taking of joy in implementing skillful actions, involving oneself in activities which are skillful which benefit others. We can talk about in terms of activity. There are three types. There are those which bring about benefit to oneself and others, those which harm oneself and others, and those which are neither beneficial nor harmful to oneself and others. Investigating a particular activity, and we come to understand that it’s beneficial, it’s going to be beneficial in terms of the present situation additionally If we determine that some particular activity, some particular action is positive, It’s going to be a benefit, and then we don’t actually bring it about. We don’t achieve our end. And what is the thought? Obviously, it is that we’re not going to derive the benefit. On the other hand, if making use of our wisdom and coming to understand a particular activity is of no benefit but even more than that it is a harmful activity, then it’s necessary that we cease making effort trying to implement that to achieve that activity.
On one hand, it’s necessary that we apply effort to implement the methods which are going to bring about great benefit and we have to examine ourselves whether we have this factor of effort within us. Why is it that you might not have implement these activities since you’re going to benefit both oneself and others. But quite often we simply can’t be bothered. We don’t have any desire To actually make effort involves sense of difficulty in overcoming some sense of lethargy in which we have to make some kind of striving. Quite often we simply like just to hang out.
It feels rather comfortable just to do nothing. So the second type of obstacle to the development of joyous effort would be absorbing oneself in activities which have no benefit. There’s simply that one understands there is nothing that can be of any great benefit to either oneself or others. And the third the one of self-defeat is the feeling of insufficiency,