Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 28-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche opens with a striking image: intelligence without effort is like a corpse—possessing no life force and unable to achieve human goals. He teaches that intelligence and effort must be coupled together; when both are developed, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. He then identifies three obstacles blocking the development of joyous effort: self-defeatism (the thought that one cannot do anything), busyness and wasting time on activities of little benefit, and apathy—a dull heaviness that prevents action. For each, he offers a practical antidote: examine what you’re doing and whether it’s beneficial; recognize you’re wasting your life; remember your mortality and finite time. By removing these three faults and developing genuine effort, he teaches, we cultivate the excellent qualities that benefit both ourselves and others.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-11-04 – 1B – Public Talk C – KR.mp3
UUID: 6c22cde6-814d-4c4b-b8f4-1a56434dd801
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 1989-11-04
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~508
Though one has great intelligence without effort, it is just like a corpse. Why why are they making use of this? That corpse does not have a life force. It cannot achieve human end, the goals of a human being. And likewise, though one has great intelligence, if we don’t make use of that intelligence, it’s as if we didn’t have it and one cannot achieve whatever goals one sets upon.
So we should try to couple our intelligence and our effort. These two are mutually reciprocally beneficial benefiting one another and mutually supporting one another. Together, these two coupled together, there’s nothing that we cannot achieve, there’s nothing that I cannot do, there’s nothing that I cannot attain. So these two these are the two of the greatest qualities that a human possesses. These qualities of of joyous effort and intelligence coupled together If we think in this way then and make use of our intelligence and effort and training and reflecting in this way, then we will be able to cease this attitude of self defeatism.
It’s thinking, oh, I can’t do anything. This feeling And then the second obstacle to the development of joyous effort is busyness. And I’d say continuing involving yourself in activities which are of little or no benefit. Beginning to examine what you’re actually involving yourself and are they of any benefit beginning to see that you’re simply more often than not wasting your time looking at the fault of wasting your time. Then the the third type of, well, obstructing the development of joyous effort is this attitude of where one simply cannot be bothered.
Apathy. It’s sort of a of a dull sensation that one has simply not and one cannot be bothered to wake oneself out of it. And so you have to inspect that your life and the fact it’s going by and you’re not achieving the happiness or the goals that you would like to achieve and the fact is your life isn’t permanent, you’re going to die and if you don’t do something your life is going to have slipped by, and you’re never going to have it achieve anything that you ever hope for. So, to this method of examining your types of activities which are predominantly involved in, I’m beginning to see that these three types of fault reflecting, making use of an antidote to overcome them. If you remove these three faults, which are obstacles to the development of joyous effort and depending upon actually developing a sense of effort in one’s life, then out of this will come all the various, very excellent qualities which will benefit oneself and others, and one’s life will become comfortable and happy.
Sense of joyous effort is extremely important both initially, in the intermediate, and in the end. Initially overcoming any obstacles to engaging and developing ourselves, applying ourselves in the intermediate and achieving the ultimate goal and seeking to make use of that goal and benefiting benefiting others. Others. Do you have any questions?