Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 89-minute public talk, Khensur Rinpoche begins with a guided meditation on compassion — wishing happiness for all beings and taking responsibility to free them from suffering — before turning to what happiness actually is. He carefully distinguishes physical happiness, which arises when the five senses encounter pleasant objects, from mental happiness, rooted in how we think and what we remember. A third form, the stable and unchanging happiness of liberation, stands apart from both. Using the sustained metaphor of cooking a good meal — you must know the recipe and gather ingredients; wishing alone creates nothing — Rinpoche explains why mere desire for happiness fails. You must identify and cultivate happiness’s actual causes. The talk closes with a sharp critique of how people pursue happiness through competition, theft, and harm, fundamentally mistaking the causes of suffering for the path to joy. Open to both newcomers and experienced practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2000-03-12 – Public Talk Happiness – KR.mp3
UUID: 1baf6c64-fcfa-4c89-8e59-5deee620bf2d
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Public Talks
Date: 2000-03-12
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,955
Hello? So we’ll be saying a few short prayers from beginning of the talk and then afterwards we do a short meditation then focus on today’s talk. The page one verse three and then the page one verse two, number two. Sorry. We’ll do the number three first and then go back to number two.
Number three first and then number two. So we’ll be doing a short meditation about the happiness and love. So what we’re doing with meditation, focusing on wishing that that that how wonderful it is that for to have happiness for both oneself and others and wishing to have them both, oneself and others, happiness, plus also I’ll take all the entire responsibility to let them have happiness. So we’ll start a meditation with with with intention wishing that both how wonderful it is to have happiness for both oneself and others. The that that both oneself and others had others had happiness.
Now that taking or responsibility responsibility that I will make them have the ultimate happiness. Likewise, also wishing that wishing that that both oneself and others be free from all these sufferings. By doing this, you’re cultivating or meditating on compassion. And then now they have they both want, all beings, all being free from sufferings. Then I will take all the responsibility to free all this both oneself and entire sentient beings from the suffering and it causes.
So the meditation which we have just done before is called the meditation of cultivating a compassion and love. So by performing such a meditation, we have derived lots of benefits from doing this. So as one understands that both the entire sentient beings, the humans, animals, and so forth, they are by nature, they are one. They’re wishing happiness and do not want suffering. So happiness is the main cause to have a very pleasant have physical and mental happiness or to attain mental and physical happiness.
Because if one has or any kind of sentient beings receive the happiness, the benefit of this, one has an easy feeling, comfortable physically. Not only that, one also has a mental stable or mental happiness and feel very happy. And there are certain things which we call the unwanted, which are sufferings or unhappiness, which is not happy. Whenever we encounter with unwanted things, it causes us to have uneasiness, both physically and mentally, except for those great yogis. The yogis are in exceptional or a different case that the yogis are the one who even they don’t really get the mental uneasiness.
It’s not necessary for them to have mental uneasiness when they encounter with the body or physical sufferings. And there are certain bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are called the beings who have or has had cultivated the altruistic intention, which is called the bodhicitta. The person, the bodhisattvas who does the meditation called the equalizing the self and others, or equalizing and exchanging self and others. So those who does those meditation, they never felt unhappy with the suffering.
They willingly accept this difficulty or or disastrous. It’s because those bodhisattvas, they have a strong affection or love and compassion towards the sentient beings. Due to this, it is their practice to receive or taking on other sentient beings’, other’s sufferings onto them. So this is the reason they feel happy when they receive the other’s difficulty or the suffering. So whenever it happens, they feel happy because it is a sign that their practice is really progressing or increasing.
So those bodhisattva offers a great compassion and love to sentient beings it is as strong as like a mother who has a strong affection and love towards a single child. It is true that mother, whenever doesn’t want to see her son or her daughter undergoing through suffering or problems, and she’s willingly to accept any difficulty and problems of the particular child as well as sometimes she can pray that they pray that she herself may die instead as a replacement, for her baby? Today we’ll be talking about what is happiness and how to cultivate that happiness because everyone has the same intention or wish to pray that may all have happiness. So as for the happiness or happy or happiness, there are two types of happiness we will be dealing with. One is called physical and physical or mental happiness and the yeah.
Physical happiness and the mental or the chitta, Sanskrit word, for the mind or mental. So the physical happiness comes from the living that of one’s feeling or not feeling, it comes to what forms of one’s living. So we speak of five aggregates within ourselves. There are the five aggregates which are called the first one, the body or form. Second is feeling. Third is recognition.
Fourth is compositional factors. And the fifth, the consciousness. The happiness derived from the feelings, and then the first happiness, which is physical happiness, is the one which is the feeling that comes through the body. Then the second is the feeling, which is the feeling, the second aggregate or form, which is the one who changes in our feeling. The third one is recognition, is the one which distinguishes in our daily life to recognizing the things like table, flower, and so forth.
The fourth one is called the compositional factors, which is a form besides those four other forms of the body, sorry, of the being, which is also one the secondary one of the secondary minds. Fifth one is the consciousness, and that is the consciousness. It’s happiness the feeling comes from, the mental happiness which we are just dealing with, we just set forth, happiness of that consciousness, the fifth form or it’s been called the mental as well. There are five bases from where we derive the physical happiness, which are the eye or the five sense organs. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body.
So as we said, the physical happiness derived from five bases, which are the five sense organs. The first one, is the eye, and it is like when one sees something, which is the reflection, and that reflects which is meant to be two appearances. One is the physical, external one which one sees, and internally within inside its own eye, that particular appearance reflects inside that eye and that’s been seen by the consciousness which is called the eye consciousness. Whenever that eye consciousness contact with the appearances or the reflection, it produces, it has a feeling and then that Because of that contact of the eye consciousness and the reflection, it produces the feeling. So because of the meeting of that eye consciousness and the object, and that eye consciousness experiences the feeling.
If that is a very beautiful object or appealing one, then the feeling is being set forth as a happiness or a happy feeling. Happy. . No. So if it is a very good appealing one or a very beautiful object, then that produces a very happy feeling.
Oh, good. Very good. Very good. Very good. So It depends.
As we said, because of the contact of our consciousness and the object, it produces the feeling of happy and unhappy. Our consciousness is the one which reflects everything within it and it never sees only appealing one at all the time. Sometimes it also encounter with the object which one or you really dislikes and do not want to see it, but there is no help. You still see the object. By meeting, seeing that the Seeing it’s not an appealing one or it’s a bad one or one you really dislikes, then that induces or that produces an uneasy or unhappy feeling.
Because our consciousness experiences the feeling of unhappy, happy and unhappy, and that feeling acts as conditions in which conditions the cause in one’s mind, it becomes a cause for one’s mind to feel liking or disliked. So we can say that the eye consciousness acts as a condition to cause or produce a feeling in one’s mind because after one’s look to object, and then after that you shut or you close your eyes or you shut your eyes, so there’s no longer the object is reflecting in your eye, but still in your mind you still have the vision or the reflection. You still see the object, whether it’s a good one or a bad one. So that is the case. We can see that the eye consciousness produces or acts as a condition for the mind to receive the feeling.
Then there are some other things which are being called the neutral object, which means that whenever you see or our consciousness different that object, there is a feeling which is called the equanimity feeling that it’s neither bad nor good. So this is another kind of feeling one receives. So taking the eye consciousness as an example or role model, we can it’s it’s the same for the other rest of the sense organs that the meeting with a good sound, the ear consciousness produces its feeling of happy and unhappy likewise for the nose one, based on smell, and then for the tongue it’s based on the taste and the body is based on meeting with the smooth or the rough objects. So so so whenever any of these five sense organs meet with the pleasant objects, then they produce a good, happy feeling or produces a good feeling, which is the happiness. Any feeling or the happiness which comes from the meeting of any of those with the pleasant object is called the physical happiness.
Beyond that, we can hardly have any physical happiness rather than those five. So they are, as we said, the two types of happiness, the mental and the physical happiness. Actually, the main cause of this happiness is mental happiness, which is being set forth as a cause, whereas the happiness of those physical which derive from all those five sense organs meeting with the pleasant objects are called the conditions. The meaning of that conditions and the causes inside the mental which produces way of feeling and the happiness or the physical happiness, which is the meaning of the sense organ meeting with objects, are not the perfect happiness in the sense they are not reliable and not stable. Changes in every moment.
And as for the mental happiness, which are set forth to be many, and some of them are like all this mental happiness derives or comes from the way of which comes through from the conceptual thoughts which act as the conditions. And because of the thinking of that conceptual thought, it produces the different feeling of happiness and the suffering. So the happiness and the unhappiness of mental happiness and unhappiness are based on the way of happiness or way of thinking by the conceptual thoughts. For example, like if, say, one has done something today and at the end of the day, if that conceptual thought recalls one’s work and then recalls one’s action during the day and if that recall is in a good way, rejoicing in oneself, that I have done a pretty good job or pretty good work today, and because of that recalling it acts as the conditions and produces happiness within one’s mind. If that was a bad recall, like, I haven’t done much today or I shouldn’t have done this and that, and it causes the suffering.
So those are called the mental and physical happiness. There are or there is happiness beside those mental and physical happiness. Mental and physical happiness are set forth to be unstable and they change momentarily and one cannot really rely on it. The other happiness, which is called the happiness free from sufferings, which is the happiness of liberation, being free from cyclic existence or saṃsāra, and that happiness is stable and it never changes. So as we all saying that wanting happiness and do not wish suffering, just by waiting one cannot receive the happiness and avoid the suffering.
So it is like the appreciating or liking one’s job and disliking another one. Just by wishing that it’s a good job and waiting, one cannot get the job. One has to cultivate or work hard with the skillful means to obtain that particular work or a job. Just by waiting or wishing, one cannot get the particular thing. Whereas, suffering as well.
If one really If just by saying that I don’t like this or don’t like the suffering, the suffering will eventually won’t go by its own, or just by wishing. One needs to involve in the skillful means to get rid of that suffering without implementing or working for or seeking a skillful means to attain the happiness or avoid suffering. Just by waiting, one cannot accumulate or accomplish anything what one needs or what wants. It’s wishing a very delicious lunch. Just by wishing one cannot get it.
In order to have a good lunch or good delicious food, one has to be a good chef or good chef, plus need to do all the shopping, groceries. Just by waiting or wishing, one cannot receive any delicious food, so that means that one has to work for So in order to have a delicious lunch, one needs to do the shopping to buy all the groceries to make the food. Whatever you’re intended to cook, first, to make a very delicious food, first one needs to recognize what are the perfect or right recipes. Recipes. So, Like the delicious lunch.
If you do not recognize the right recipe for a particular lunch, then you can’t have a good lunch or delicious lunch because you don’t recognize the causes of the good lunch. Likewise, in order to have happiness, first one needs to recognize the causes of the happiness. Without knowing the causes of the happiness, one cannot have any or attain any happiness. So first, one needs to recognize. And by recognizing the causes of the happiness, then you can cultivate or train or obtain those causes of happiness through the skillful means.
Without knowing the causes of the happiness, then no matter how skillful one is, one cannot attain or cultivate happiness. So about the happiness, now they are set forth to be different types of happiness, that happiness of this present lifetime, and they are set forth to happiness which travels from happiness to happiness. Way of cultivating, which is said, the perfect and the unchangeable happiness, and to cultivate all this happiness, we have set forth numbers of skillful methods and path methods in the teachings or in Sanskrit terms. It’s Dharma. Through this we can cultivate or accomplish, attain all this happiness.
There are certain types of happiness which we can say the happiness which we cultivate these days. There are other ways or techniques or other ways to accomplish the happiness of this present lifetime. But those kind of type of happiness which are not steady and one cannot really rely upon it. So about cultivating the happiness for this present life, I’m pretty sure that we all know about is how it can be cultivated or attained through what? Through, for example, keeping oneself very busy and undergoing through all the hardships since from the early morning when you wake up until the late night, work so hard.
Even when tries to be very busy that one has trouble finding a break time for lunch or food. Those hardships, we are doing it to have happiness, and that is for the present lifetime happiness, to have good food, drinks, and have been rich or have lots of money and so forth. I’m pretty sure that everyone knows about this. But it is true that we do need that kind of happiness and we do need that happiness. But those happiness, they may last or they could be very helpful until since from one’s birth to the end of one’s life.
But it’s still that those happiness we cultivate is not really that type of happiness. It’s not a reliable one. It’s changeable. So the money is the main main cause for that happiness because by having lots of money, one can have all these luxurious food and drinks and so forth. Still, we work so hard to cultivate that money which is the cause for that happiness.
Working for everyone still undergoes through huge suffering or difficulties. By having lots of money, there’s still lots of problem with it or lots of suffering that one worries after losing that money or worrying that it may be stolen by some or been stolen by someone else or coming into the end of the money so forth? No matter how much money one has, that will only last until end of one’s days. At the time of death, one cannot take money, one’s possessions with oneself, not only one’s money, even one’s body. One has to leave one’s own body which was with oneself since from the birth.
And in in the teaching or in Sanskrit, which has been set forth, the Dharma. It is very, very helpful if one accepts or train in this Dharma, can help you ways, you know, many different ways. The Sanskrit word Dharma, and what the Dharma means is actually Dharma means which Dharma is the one which helps or gets rid of all the unwanted or all the sufferings and which brings up or which attains all the wanted or happiness. It is true that by having lots of money, it is in some level or some amount, but in some stage it can get rid of some degree of one’s unwanted and as well as attain some wish or one’s bit of wishing happiness. But the potentiality of those that money and the Dharma are in huge differences.
The Dharma is way too powerful than the money. From the very outset, one may find if the word Dharma is unfamiliar with oneself or it’s the first time one is hearing or without understanding the meaning of Dharma, one might find it a bit strange within oneself. But the fact is in every day we do Dharma. Whether one accepts Dharma or not, but one still does the Dharma because one tries to help as much as other people and try not to harm any sentient beings or others. Helping others and not harming them are the Dharma, so one is eventually doing Dharma.
So Australians, they like helping others or benefiting others? Whether one accepts or say Dharma in verbally say Dharma or not, but just by helping others, it is a Dharma. So as we said that helping others is the Dharma as well as not harming others is the Dharma. Here one needs to know that doing this, helping others and not harming others, one should hear one needs to know what are the benefits of doing so. So once you see the reason why it is beneficial or helpful, it is very beneficial not harming others, because harming or causing harm to others, which produces unhappiness or suffering to that particular person whom you give causes or harm.
As a result, the person receives unhappiness, sufferings, so forth. As a result of that, in future, the suffering or difficulty you have caused will return to one, will return and then will, or then by receiving that, you will go through all the returned sufferings as well. That is the disadvantages of harming others. So by abandoning or getting rid of that harming others, then as a result of doing so, one will not have any difficulties or sufferings in the future. That is the benefit of not harming others.
The method of avoiding suffering is abandoning harm to others which cause suffering to them. As as so You need happiness. In order to receive that happiness, one should bring help and happiness to others. By bringing help and happiness to others as a result, one will receive happiness as well. So that means that to receive happiness, one should help others.
So Dharma is the main or very good objects that which alleviates all the sufferings and bring you to happiness. But the world in these days, what people do, the world in these days, people want happiness. They wish to remain happy, but what they do is come totally opposite. In order to receive the happiness and yeah, happiness, one’s own happiness, they try to compete with or defeat others. Through this, they turn others into one’s enemy.
Through this, they started producing or starting a war. And as a result, one goes to the bombings and slaughtering peoples and so forth, which is not the right way of doing. What the people who does this are the mistaken ones because they see the cause of the suffering as a cause for happiness, and by doing so, they will not have any happiness. So, likewise, some people in these days, in order to have to have one own personal happiness or benefit, they try to destroy others’ happiness and trying to steal others’ possessions and so forth. But doing so is a mistaken one because by stealing, for example, stealing other’s possessions, one may have received temporal benefits which last for a couple of days, weeks, months, but in future one will a very difficulty by going through all sufferings because by stealing other’s possession, which causes them a huge suffering, that suffering will return to oneself.
So to those people who who are involved in those bad activities, activities in killing other people, causing harm and stealing and so forth, and thinking or with the hope of deriving some happiness for oneself, but those things are people are very confused and they are ignorant because they don’t understand the reality of the things that they Because of that, they see the causes of the sufferings as happiness and they engage in such a bad activity. If one knows that kind of persons, one should feel very much sympathy and feel sorry for those persons because they have done it with confusion or ignorance. Okay. So we’ll we’ll take couple of questions if you have. To accept it.
Some people who are very abusive to you, and you mentally accept it or or respond to it. Give it back to them. I mentally say, this is yours, mentally give it back. Yeah. When you said you mentally response or give it back, in this stage, probably you may be right that you know that you haven’t done anything, which is the right thing to say or giving it back.
But it could possibly improve these things that you have done something which you don’t really understand and it’s returning or which you can’t remember or recall. That thing is returning to you at that time. For example, you have you do something during your childhood, and you say, you’ve grown up these days, and you may not recall what you have done during the childhood, and the person has been very abusive to you at this time. As you can’t recall your childhood, and the person didn’t say anything that you know, childhood you did this, but you have done something during your childhood and that could possibly ripen at this time, but you don’t understand it. So we’ll stop here today.
Thanks. I hope no one has any leftover questions. We’ll do a short dedication prayers from the page 10, His Holiness, and then the page five, verse eight, and nine.