Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 20-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches equanimity grounded in recognizing our complete dependence on others. He argues that all beings—past, present, and future—have been fundamentally kind to us, since our survival and every comfort depends entirely on their contributions. Significantly, this applies equally to everyone, regardless of education or perceived strength. Therefore, it is inappropriate and mean to discriminate with attachment toward some beings and hatred toward others. He then fields a question about enemies as teachers: difficulties with those who harm us offer training opportunities for patience and merit accumulation, mirroring the functions of a conventional teacher. The underlying principle unites both teachings: happiness arises from virtuous action, suffering from its opposite. Accessible to practitioners with or without familiarity with Buddhist rebirth theory.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-08-14 – 2B – Public Talk – KR.mp3
UUID: 577ed730-483e-4acf-9517-a0a2ebe9ee8b
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 1994-08-14
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~1,420
For people who want to expand their meditation on equanimity a little bit further on top of those previous three, then they can do the next three types of equanimity meditation and those three are done from perspective of oneself towards others. And how one does that meditation is? One thinks all beings who have in the past helped me, benefited me, they continue to help and benefit me and in future too they will continue to help and benefit me. If that’s the case then it is inappropriate, not only it is inappropriate it is extremely mean to in return from my side for their kindness and help, to have discrimination and have hatred against some and be with attachment towards others. So one thinks in that way and brings about equanimity.
So in this way one does the meditation and as the primary what’s called decision is to think it is extremely mean to discriminate from my side from that perspective. I was trying to say it is not cool to do that. In thinking about how others been kind to oneself, one think how they had been kind to one in the past countless times many times. Of course when there’s talk about past and kindness done by others to help and benefit than others in the past. This inevitably brings in the assumption that there was a past life, that there was previous life.
But it could be possible amongst the people who attend here there could be some who are not yet comfortable to accept the theory of reincarnation, to accept the theory that there was past life and there will be next life or rebirth so forth, yet let’s presently assume that it was correct that there was past life and there will be future lives and Buddha in the first place when teaching these instructions taught to disciples who felt comfortable about such theory so was has taught this. Based on that let’s assume for people who are not comfortable for them they can assume that that is fact. Now if that’s fact then we as well have the additional fact to go with that which is in our countless rebirths in the past we did have parents of whom we were born as a child. And during those countless times we had countless parents who had been our parents, they had been our father, mother and so forth, and if they had been our parents then they would have been kind to us as our parents of this life right from the time of conception in the womb and delivery so forth.
And averagely speaking if the parents have been kind in this life we can relate it much better even if not we can relate how whatever kind people we can relate in this life are similar that we had same kind of care received from all other beings during our countless rebirths in the past. In our present life, we depend our whole survival and and pleasant experience we experience the comfort we enjoy would depend on others for all of these. This applies equally this applies equally even to people who are extremely extremely educated, learned, or if people who are so called extremely brave, extremely brave, that even in their case that the very fact that they are able to survive, survive, the very fact that they enjoy comforts of life and so forth depends entirely on others facilitation, kindness, help so forth. It is not possible for one person to be isolated and be self reliant completely on her or his own. Therefore it is quite obvious that in present case in this life too everything we enjoy so much and our comfort so forth depends entirely on others contribution therefore in that way others are extremely kind to us.
In future too, our whole rebirth also would depend on would rely on other sentient beings and our our survival in the future rebirths as well would depend on other sentient beings, other beings contributions, help and so forth and whatever comfort so forth we will enjoy in future they also would come forth by depending on others. We can clearly observe that all we wear comes from by depending on other beings, other sentient beings. All that we eat come by depending on other sentient beings, other beings’ contributions. So whatever is we depend on, whatever there is that we on which we survive we can track down as coming with contributions by others so others in that way are kind to one’s survival and existence. Also in this way all other beings have been kind to me in matters of my happiness and welfare in the past and in the present and also will continue to be so in future.
Due to such reasons, it is not appropriate for this it is not appropriate for my side to discriminate with attachment, hatred, nearness and distance to some and others. So that is one reasoning from one’s perspective. And perhaps we will limit our discussion this afternoon only to this because the time is almost being up and we won’t be able to finish the lot. That’s where the latter part was. We won’t have enough time to go through the rest in briefing, so we then try to develop an equal feeling of kindness towards others through this additional perspective from one side about one’s happiness, welfare, so forth being dependent on others.
We shall have few minutes for questions if you have any questions. In the case of a normal so called enemy, we would say someone is enemy based on the reason that the person has done something wrong to us or has harmed us or so forth. And then we consider such person, say, an enemy in normal convention. Now in the advice there that your enemy is your best teacher, in that case the meaning would be, although such an enemy may keep doing harm and doing all sorts of things to you, but from one side, if one looks at it as an opportunity to practice spiritual development, such as to meditate on tolerance, patience, then it gives one a chance to train on those meditations, meditation on tolerance and patience and so forth. If one does that then one, in Buddhist term, one would be accumulating merits, which is one would be having a clear potential developing one’s mind, out of which will come happiness and higher states of mental development in the future.
So one would accumulate merits. That is one obvious benefit. But also by meditating on patience and tolerance that itself is powerful state of mind to compensate for any major wrongdoings or non virtuous actions one has done in the past. So it is in a way a double function of purification of negativities, purification of negative deposits of actions in the past. So that’s what happens in the present case.
Now in the normal case with the teacher, a teacher is someone who explains the way how to train the mind and so forth, gives teachings and sets the example. And if one follows the guidance and the example so forth then one can accumulate merit, improve one’s mind, and as well purify past wrongdoings. So the function of teacher in that way which is the normal function and through which one reaps the benefit is equally gained from such situation of dealing with enemy in a spiritual way, that there is the same benefit. And in that sense that would be the meaning to look at enemy as one’s teacher, not only as teacher, as one of one’s best teachers. If your neighbor is that bad then can be seen as a teacher.
Both have the same advice. Both are compatible advices because the key thing is to love, to be kind. Happiness comes as a result of virtuous actions and suffering or unhappiness comes as a result of non virtuous actions. So in a way we can say happiness is a product of good action and unhappiness product of bad action. In the case of advanced practitioners it is possible when one experiences physical sufferings such as immense sickness that the practitioner cannot let the mind be distracted and be tormented by the physical suffering, and through that way it can actually transform that into spiritual training and make it an experience of happiness.
So suffering can be changed into happiness. Thank you.