Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 17-minute introduction, Kyabje Rinpoche explains the metaphysical foundation of all Buddhist practice: the Buddha-activities (wisdom and compassion of Buddhas) that sustain all conditions for Dharma. He uses striking imagery—if these activities withdrew, even a yellow robe would vanish—to emphasize their totality. The teaching pivots on a seed metaphor: hearing explanations of tantra and sūtra now plants predispositions in your mind that will flower into rapid realization upon meeting a qualified teacher again. He illustrates this through Buddha Śākyamūni’s time, when hearing his words brought instant Arhatship to students whose dormant seeds were activated. Rinpoche stresses the extraordinary fortune of human birth and access to both sūtra and tantra traditions, concluding that sincere practice now opens the door to Buddhahood in a single lifetime.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1989-03-04 – 4A – Introduction to Tantra – KR.mp3
UUID: 9c6616b4-7dc6-4e1a-a30e-64587f9dc687
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Tantra Introduction
Date: 1989-03-04
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~970
This process ultimately begins with the Buddhas themselves by means acting as the condition of their actual wisdom truth body and through their love expressing this through embodiment and then it filters down through this process of the highly realized bodhisattvas and down to the various representations of the Buddhas and our teachers, the Lamas, etc. And finally down to us. It’s by this means of this filtering down process of the love and wisdom of the wisdom truth body that all our positive potential is developed. So we can take the case of when the emanation body, so to say, took embodiment as an emanation body previously in India through the forces love and compassion and there proceeded to turn the wheel of Dharma, teaching others, and it’s simply a matter of the carrying on of that initial turning that we are sitting here today. Positive qualities.
So all the conditions which provide all the factors which provide the necessary conditions for the development of positive states are an action of are brought about by means of the Buddha activities. Even for example this book, this Dharma book is able to abide due to the force of Buddha activities. If the Buddha activities were withdrawn then this book would disappear. If the yellow within the robe that Rinpoche is wearing, if the Buddha’s activities were to be withdrawn then that yellow would disappear. All these conditions would disappear.
So all of the conducive conditions for practice are a manifestation of the Buddha activities and that upon the withdrawal of these activities that even within the time of a finger snap and all the teachings of the Buddha along with their commentaries would go out of existence. Not even remain the color of a red or yellow robe as a condition for practice. So if it wasn’t for the presence of the Buddha activities then we would not even be able to understand the first letter. We wouldn’t be able to understand the first letter of Dharma, ka, or e. We wouldn’t even be able to understand it.
So everything that we all these conducive circumstances that were affected we’re able to gather here is due to the great kindness of the Buddhas. So we’re even more fortunate in the sense that Buddha Śākyamūni was even kinder than many of the other Buddhas in the sense that he taught both sūtra and tantra and therefore we’re able to engage in both of these types of practices. So, you know, there’s very much we couldn’t be any more fortunate than we are now, that there’s no better basis upon which to practice the Dharma than the human body and that there is no greater teaching than was taught by Buddha Śākyamūni in teaching tantra and sūtra. And that there is no better method to make use of the Buddhist teachings on tantra and sūtra than the essence of which Je Tsongkhapa took from the vast profound and vast teachings and condensed them and that there is nothing more that we need outside of these.
There’s nothing greater, there’s no greater basis or teaching or method than what we have now. If we’re willing to exert ourselves and make effort then there’s no reason that why we can’t attain Buddhahood in this life. So what is occurring even now in my giving this explanation of tantra and you’re being able to listen to an explanation of tantra is It shows that we have a positive vast store potential, extremely auspicious and excellent. So we should definitely at least try to implant some positive predisposition latencies within our mind, thinking about the teachings, contemplating them, and training and practicing. So if we can If we can at least try to implant some latencies predispositions on our mind stream through practice, contemplating listening Then it’s going to be such that in the future that when we’re in a future lifetime when we receive teachings from a Buddha again teaches tantra that due to the force of these latencies, these predispositions that we will be able to on the basis of one lifetime, on one human basis attain Buddhahood.
It occurred in Buddha Śākyamūni’s lifetime that simply hearing his words that many people almost instantaneously achieved the state of foe destroyer, Arhat. They achieved high grounds, great realizations, and some achieved Buddhahood almost instantaneously simply by him acting as a condition due to the force of their latencies of predispositions which existed in their mind stream. It’s like adding water to a seed. The seed is already there simply by providing that condition then it flowers. If we’re able to in this lifetime to at least implant some predisposition, some seeds of the practice of tantra and the practice of sūtra, then in the future, upon meeting with a spiritual friend again, that acting as a condition, then we can have great realizations arise very easily and readily.
We can on this basis we can achieve Buddhahood in one lifetime. So due to having come together in such a way at Buddha house and then implanting the various seeds predisposition Then sometime in future existence that again there’s no reason why that you, the students along with your teacher activating these predispositions which are being implanted even at present cannot fly off together up into the sky like birds to the grounds of Buddhahood. So the very fact of us coming here together and engaging in such a situation as teacher and student, And this shows that we have created some relation previously to this and that this is a matter of auspicious auspicious auspicious arising, auspicious co origination, auspicious co origination. And that again creating this auspiciousness, this relationship, planting further latencies, predisposition that this situation is going to occur again in the future.