Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 41-minute session, Kyabje Rinpoche explores how motivation fundamentally transforms the moral quality of every action—a cornerstone of Buddhist ethics. He teaches through the vivid example of a bodhisattva who saves a thousand people from death, demonstrating that the same outer deed becomes either positive or negative depending entirely on the inner intention. If driven by attachment or pride, it generates negative karma; if rooted in genuine compassion and love, it creates profound positive potential. The teaching draws the crucial distinction between the deed itself and the intention that animates it, highlighting the essence of thought transformation for practitioners studying Buddhist karma and motivation.
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File: 1990-02-27 – 4B – KR.mp3
UUID: bfaac728-4727-4a72-873d-109a20ebb1ad
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1990-02-27
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~207
This transcript was generated using AI speech recognition and has been reviewed for Buddhist terminology accuracy. Some inaccuracies may remain. Please refer to the original audio recording as the authoritative source.
# Thought Transformation 4b 1990-02-27 **Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Thought Transformation (1989-90, 1992) **Duration:** 40.7 minutes **Words:** 207 **Model:** Deepgram Nova-3 **Corrections applied:** 0 **Transcribed:** 2026-03-01 03:10 — Of the of the negative the negative path of action are there, but there’s no intention unless you ordered the meat. There if you haven’t ordered the meat, there is no intention…
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# Thought Transformation 4b 1990-02-27
**Collection:** Rinpoche Recordings — Thought Transformation (1989-90, 1992)
**Duration:** 40.7 minutes
**Words:** 207
**Model:** Deepgram Nova-3
**Corrections applied:** 0
**Transcribed:** 2026-03-01 03:10
—
Of the of the negative the negative path of action are there, but there’s no intention unless you ordered the meat. There if you haven’t ordered the meat, there is no intention that that is their part. He’s creating negative action by killing these 100 people. Then with the with respect to the part of seeking the benefit of a thousand people, saving the life of a thousand people, there’s there’s two parts. He could do it out of out of a sense of attachment or pride, and then it would be completely negative.
It would be it would be a negative action. Even trying to benefit those people was a negative motivation, of pride or attachment. If on the other hand, his motivation for for saving these thousand was love and compassion, then there would be this positive positive potential created. It’d be a positive action. Be He came to learn that this passenger was gonna kill the other thousand, and he had he had these great qualities of the bodhisattva.
And out of his tremendous compassion to So we have to differentiate between the two, the the levels of of doctrine and four modes of activity, which I said before, contract. There’s calming, nurturing, directing,