Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 52-minute public talk, Kyabje Rinpoche establishes the foundation of Dharma practice: the relationship between mind, action, and suffering. He opens with a Buddha verse—the Buddha shows the path to liberation rather than removing suffering by hand—then drives home the practical consequence: aspiration and prayer alone are not enough. Like planting seeds to grow flowers, lasting happiness requires identifying actual causes. Those causes, he explains, are the three delusions: attachment, hatred, and ignorance. These delusions generate negative actions and suffering; a virtuous mind free of delusions produces good actions and happiness. He connects this directly to present life: our human rebirth is the accumulated fruit of past good karma. He closes by addressing a modern delusion—that happiness equals material comfort—when both mental and physical happiness matter equally.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-11-05 – 1A – Public Talk D – KR.mp3
UUID: d1be3ef2-23c5-4998-97f6-94db7d9ecc20
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 1989-11-05
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,600
Yeah. From Rinpoche’s side, he will be giving a teaching with a good heart with a good heart, intending that his teaching may be of help or benefit to you all. And as from your side, he maintains that good heart in turning it to the good help or benefit to you. Therefore, it would be quite beneficial also from your side if you maintain a good heart, intending that I’m going to listen to these teachings so that I can be able to help other people, help others. The great compassionate master Buddha has said in a verse which goes like, the Buddha doesn’t the Buddha doesn’t remove the suffering of the living beings by extending his hand, nor does he wash away the negativity of sentient beings as we normally would wash away dirt. And, also, he doesn’t have sentient beings get to higher get to higher level by pouring down his realization.
But rather, actually, he leads other sentient beings to ultimate happiness by showing the path on which he has trained. So to interpret that verse, it goes in meaning like the master explained that we all live in this world. We all we, all sentient beings, are equal in the sense we all equally want to get rid of our problems, misery, suffering, and we are equal in the sense that we all want to attain satisfaction, happiness, and so forth. And it also further the words explained that we are all equal in the sense we want happiness.
We want satisfaction. But is it alright? Is it just enough? May I have an aspiration? Praying or may I have happiness?
May I have satisfaction? And is it just enough to keep that aspiration and pray for that? And as explained in that verse, it answers. In that words, it explains that it’s not enough just to pray and just to have an aspiration and leave it there. And in the same way, it is explained that it’s not just enough in terms of the suffering to be get removed.
It’s not just enough to have an aspiration and just make a prayer. Oh, may I have not may I oh, may I not have something? So just to have an aspiration and just to pray is not a solution. The real solution lies in firstly trying to identify from where do these sufferings and from where do these different types of happiness which we want, from where these actually arise. So in course of trying to search out, we definitely must pinpoint down to the causes from which these two — sufferings and the happiness arise.
And as it is a fact in normal, what I call phenomena, the way how things are exist, how things are being produced, it is the fact that everything has to have a cause. And because that is the fact, therefore, happiness and suffering must have come from certain causes. Therefore, at the or, therefore, in the course of trying to find a solution, we first have to pinpoint from where what causes determines the happiness and suffering. For example, to explain it more clearly, in Australia, most people are fond of flowers. And as it is a fact that most Australians like flowers, it’s it’s not not just enough for people to have a kind of aspiration.
Oh, may I have the flower? May I have flower? And to make prayer prayer to have a flower. It’s not just enough. People just have to plant the seed of the flower and let it grow and finally have the flower.
So I was saying the point here is being emphasized is that everything has to have a cause. And if you have the cause, then you can have the product or result. Regarding the causes of suffering and happiness. So suffering, you can include anything which you don’t like physically and mentally, dissatisfaction state or stress, everything. So regarding the causes of suffering and happiness, they have to be identified in this way..
The suffering, all the sufferings, they come from actions which technically are called negativity and all the happiness that come from virtuous actions which are technically called virtues. And regarding the negativities which are causes of suffering, what actually do we mean by negativity? So this will have to be understood as meaning is being understood as meaning the bad minds which are normally called afflictions or delusions. And these delusions are such as main example, there are three, attachment, hatred, and ignorance. Ignorance in the actual word meaning, wrong understanding,, not understanding the very nature of things.
So like those three represented by those three main the mind — the whole of what is called impure mind from which all the sufferings come. The word called attachment is translated as what’s called desire. So if one has attachment, then because of attachment, will speak inappropriate words harms other beings, other people, other beings. And also, as long as one has attachment and through body, one may do inappropriate inappropriate actions. And also, as long as one has attachment, one will start having all sort of bad ideas, trying to attain the object of attachment in the course of which one does wrong actions.
And in the same way, if one has hatred, then because of that hatred, one will do non virtuous actions through body and through speech. And there will also arise accompanying bad actions of body and speech along with bad thoughts of the mind. And same with the the same happens with what is called ignorance. As long as one is ignorant, one would do non-virtuous actions through body. These three main principles — as long as they are there, Now please be very well identified what actually caused the suffering.
We have fairly well come to the point that because of these bad minds represented mainly by attachment, hatred, and ignorance, there comes the bad actions of both his speech and mind and which determines our experiencing suffering, problems, stress, and so forth. Therefore, please be clearly identified that all our suffering do come from those three principal bad causes. And in the same way, from where does from where do all the happiness come from? Old happiness will in the same way, our old happiness will have to come from good actions of body, speech, and mind, which are further more powerful if one has a good pure mind, free of those delusion. So to explain more clearly from from where do the good actions of body, speech, and mind arise is from a good mind free of those delusions.
Those three principal delusions. And that has to be in this way, the practitioner person has to avoid — award maybe not a good word. The practitioner should not do — the practitioner should avoid maintaining the mind of attachment, maintaining the mind of hatred, maintaining the mind of ignorance, stop those, and then the good actions of body, speech, and mind come after that. Now at the moment in this life, we have attained our rebirth as a human. So this rebirth as a human having human body is the result of past life good states of mind, having no attachment and having no ignorance, and it’s result of those two or not having those three bad thoughts.
And, also, being human in this life, we have fairly attractive body, delightful and seen by others. And that delightful body is the result of not keeping the mind of hatred in the past life. unlike other animals. And some other animals who lay who in their, what called, physical appearance, they seem so bad in terms of appearance. So those states of in such ugly or physical form, they are result of particularly having hatred.
The bad part of hatred in the past life. But in short, those three bad causes issue the suffering, and the good happiness, good rebirth, are the result of having those good virtuous minds. So at the moment, we have very beautiful, quite relatively attractive human body and nice rebirth as human and all facilities for doing practice of the practice, which is to be understood as having cultivated nice or good thoughts So it’s because of past lives, good actions which have come from good causes that in this present life, we have everything fairly what I call fairly good in the sense of having all the factors for doing or practices. This has been the past phase. Now, in this life, if we continue to be good in our Dharma practice and maintaining good thought, then in the next life, we can go on improving improving and having higher and higher states. Nowadays, nowadays, in the sense, like, meaning in this world, we have a kind of thinking that happiness is something as long as we have enough food, our food to eat, enough clothes to wear, and a stable house and means of a stable livelihood, standard of life, then that’s happiness.
And towards that end, we try to make money through different kinds of sources. I mean, by opening factories, by doing business, by farming land, and also always being satisfied without adverse conditions. Happiness is of two kinds, physical happiness and mental happiness. And and that sort of me trying to obtain happiness limited to material things and trying to obtain that happiness material happiness through financial earning. That means we can never forcefully attain the mental happiness of those two.
It may perhaps temporarily