Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 18-minute public talk, Kyabje Rinpoche addresses questions on ethics, karma, and rebirth, grounding Buddhist doctrine in everyday concerns. He begins with the ethics of committed relationships, emphasizing how sexual restraint protects one’s partner from harm, then broadens to the principle that meaningful life requires cultivating compassion and avoiding harm to all beings. He explores how present character traits arise from past karma—illustrating with greed—and explains how karma combined with attachment forces us into repeated rebirth across different realms: human, celestial, and the formless regions. Throughout, he emphasizes that even negative patterns can be transformed through cultivation of antidotes. Oriented toward lay practitioners seeking to connect daily conduct to wider Buddhist teaching.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1991-04-07 – 2A – Public Talk Path of Liberation – KR.mp3
UUID: 7f41fca7-8e95-4b09-b2cc-3e5f2d16565b
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 1991-04-07
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~722
So you can do it in or serially. And one after the other. One today, one tomorrow. Are you is this referring to her her question? Is that is that connect not necessarily.
This is separate. Okay. So I don’t know, maybe we have to there’s the ethics of ethics of abandoning sexual impropriety for example, in a committed relationship where whereby you would not, it would be considered improper to have relationships with anyone other than one’s committed partner, for example. The observance of ethics is is necessary within a marriage in order to maintain the harmony of a committed relationship. If even though one may have a desire to have relationships outside the sexual relationship, outside the marriage, that this would cause this would bring harm to your partner.
And therefore, the observance of ethics is necessary to abandon any relationship, sexual relationships outside of the marriage in order to not to harm the other person, the partner. I don’t know if that’s So, in order to make our life meaningful, that we have to ensure that we try to cultivate these healthy states of mind, such as kind hearted attitudes of love and compassion. So, if we can, we should try to benefit others as much as possible. And if for one reason or another we can’t benefit them, then at least we shouldn’t harm others. That is all types of creatures.
We should abandon harming them if we can’t help them. And in doing in this way, we can assure that our life is meaningful. Yes. Other than dealing with our karma. Dealing with our karma.
Yeah. Another word for dealing? So the reason that we’re involved within cyclic existence, a type of existence that we’re involved in within cyclic existence, and having to undergo these experiences of rebirths which have a nature of suffering, is due to the force of karma or actions. But also, these are assisted by the attachment, or the afflictive emotions in general. So it’s due to the force of this combination of karma and the afflictive emotion, most especially attachment, that we’re forced to take these types of rebirth.
But even if once we achieve liberation from cyclic existence, still we have karma. But this now, this karma is is coupled with compassion and love, and it’s under this influence that we continue to take rebirth. Yes. So, with respect to your first question, general we could say it is a type of attachment, but for those individuals who are seeking liberation, then they seek to achieve a human rebirth not out of attachment. But in general, it would be a product of attachment simply to want to achieve a human rebirth in the future, not out of making use of it to achieve liberation.
So, then with respect to the second question, aren’t there other types of rebirths higher than that of a human rebirth? There are various levels of degrees of karma or actions that we create, and due to this forcefulness, we can take higher types of rebirth than even as a human being. The lower type of rebirth is the positive karma that we create is that of a human being. But that of a middling variety would, we would take rebirth as a celestial being. And that even a higher type, more forceful type of positive karma, we would take rebirth as a celestial being within the form and formless realms.
So, yeah, it’s I’m a I’m a greedy person today. I’m a greedy person today. And the reason for that is because in my past life, I I was habituated to greed. Or because I’m not acting virtuously. When that I I’m Today, I’m a greedy person.
The reason I’m a greedy person is because I acted with greed in my past lives. And then, I’m a greedy person today. And then, taking that as basis of illustration, what would be your question? Obviously, I’m not acting properly. I’m a greedy person today.
That’s right. Because I’m a greedy person because of my actions in my past life. Okay. So one can even though one is, say, greedy, for example, now, one can begin to cultivate antidotes whereby to bring a cessation to lessen, decrease one’s greed. So at the end, have a prayer of dedication.