Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. I invoked the brainstorming skill, but I see now that your request comes with very explicit specifications already — rules, forbidden elements, a style example, and a clear deliverable. This is a straightforward execution task, not something that needs the full brainstorming design process.
Let me just deliver what you asked for:
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In this 45-minute talk, Kyabje Rinpoche teaches the awakening heart—the second of the Three Principal Aspects of the path to enlightenment—through the vivid metaphor of four raging rivers carrying bound, suffering beings. These rivers represent the afflictive emotions and compulsions that trap all sentient beings in cycles of rebirth, aging, disease, and death, while the iron chains binding the passengers symbolize karma and the thick darkness symbolizes ignorance. The teacher systematically unpacks each element of the metaphor, then shifts to the practical implication: because all our mother-sentient-beings have no hope of liberating themselves from this suffering, their only expectation is that we—having access to the Dharma and human opportunity—will develop compassion, eliminate our faults, perfect our qualities, and ultimately achieve enlightenment in order to free them from their plight. For practitioners working with the bodhisattva path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1993-10-26 – Side 1 – KR.MP3
UUID: c3b09344-d8e4-45a7-b6e0-e27da42e16b2
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Three Principal Aspects
Date: 1993-10-26
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,942
No, it’s not. Okay. Quoting from Tsongkhapa’s Three Fundamentals of the Path, he says, all ordinary beings are carried by the continuum of the four powerful currents, are tied with tight bonds of actions difficult to oppose, have entered into the iron cage of apprehending self, inherent existence, are completely beclouded with thick darkness of ignorance, are born into cyclic existence limitlessly and in their births are tortured ceaselessly by the three sufferings, thinking thus of the condition of mothers who have come to such a state generate the complete altruistic intention to become enlightened. So in our discussion of the awakening heart, the second of the three fundamentals of the path, we have we have we’re going to discuss it in terms of the reasons for its development, the way of developing it, and the measure of having once developed it. And we have completed the first of these, the reasons why we should seek to develop it.
So if we were to question, well, in how in reflecting upon the way in which the the awakening heart is developed, you know, what what is the method? How can I actually develop the awakening heart? And in answer to this question, it is given these these two verses or these eight lines which we have just given. So this is explained in terms of an analogy and the meaning of that analogy. So the the the metaphor, the way a metaphor is being presented and it’s it’s explained in terms of we we think of of four raging rivers, four vast rivers.
And there is a boat which is being swept along by the current of these within these four raging rivers. It’s extremely vast rivers. And within these boats are those beings who are like our mothers, but those beings who have tremendous compassion for ourselves. It could be a father, but those very compassionate beings have shown us great compassion in the past, have shown us great caring in the past whether father or mother. And moreover, they’re in this boat and their their legs and hands are bound and that their their, their their their their their bodies are chained iron with iron chains.
Bond are are secured by iron chains. And it’s it’s it’s it’s the thick darkness of night. And they’re traveling they’ve been traveling a long distance. And moreover, they’re experiencing great the tortures of various sufferings, of the sufferings of pain, the sufferings of fluctuation, and sufferings of universal conditionality in uninterrupted and violent manner. So that’s the metaphor which has been described.
So we should understand in in describing this metaphor that in these four raging rivers, that this these are simply not streams, but they’re extremely wide, vast, raging rivers, these four vast currents. And And and they are they are being carried away by the current of these these four raging rivers. That is to say, they are it’s compulsive there, and they have not chosen to be sailing on this river but are being carried away. And moreover, if if if their legs and hands were free, then they could swim to the shore but they’re but they can’t because their legs and hands are bound. And moreover, that these these bindings are not thin.
If they were thin, they could they could break them. But in fact, they’re iron chains, unbreakable. And and it but if and also if it were daylight, then they could call out to people. They could see people along the shore and they could call out and ask, please help me, please help me. But it’s it’s completely dark, thick darkness where they they can see no one that can help them.
Like, there’s no one who they feel they can call out to. And moreover, they are experiencing immeasurable suffering. So given this this situation that these individuals who are being carried away are our mothers and fathers, that those individuals who have cared for us such a great deal and that from their side, there’s no way that they can can free themselves. There’s no way that because they cannot break their their bonds and therefore swim, There’s no hope from their side. That from their side, there’s no way that they can free themselves from that situation.
That they all their hope is completely pinned upon their children, ourselves, and it’s necessary that we we enact the means to freedom. So we I have to understand that from their own side, our mothers have no hope. That is the there are no hope from their being able to free themselves from their own side. And if but in their minds understanding, thinking, who who can I hope that will set me free? And in their minds, they only have hope that their child that their child will set them free.
There’s no one else that they can look to. There’s no other hope than that their that their only child will will set them free. From their own side, they have no means of liberating themselves. You know, if there are children understanding how their age mothers are being carried away by these raging rivers, you know, that it is is only them who who are able to help. It is only them who should it feel there should be some certainty.
If anyone is going to help, it should be their child. So but if if their children upon knowing the plight of their mother were not to come to their aid but but lacked a sense of compassion even for their own mother and was simply were to leave them to their own devices. What a sad situation that such a person would be without any redeeming qualities. But on the other hand, if if these individual’s children had great compassion, powerful compassion, then there would they would there would be no difficulty which would be too great. There would be no effort which they would not spare in helping their mother.
Whatever was necessary and whoever they had to enlist in helping, they would make that effort. So in this metaphor that we’ve explained that seeing how our mothers are suffering, then there’s no there’s there’s nothing there is no effort that we should not make in trying to free them from their suffering, to liberate them from their plight. So then so we’ve we’ve we’ve prevented presented a metaphor, and now we’re going to to discuss the meaning of, each of the elements of that metaphor. And first, the the four rivers. These are the four types of afflictive emotions.
The first one is the the afflictive emotion of desire. And within the the the three realms of existence, there is the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. And here, we’re talking about the afflictive emotion of desire in the in the desire realm terms of the desires of the of humans, the the lesser celestial beings, and the celestial beings. So those types of desires within the desire realm. And secondly, there is the afflicted view.
These are types of negative views such as view of the transitory, perverted views. These types of views are afflicted views. Then there’s the third affliction, the afflicted existence. And this afflicted existence in terms of existence within the upper realms, the realms of the form and formless realms. And then fourthly, ignorance.
So it is under the influence of these four types of afflictive emotions that one continues to circle within cyclic existence. So in terms of these currents, these rivers, we can talk of them in terms of causal and resultant currents or rivers. And what we’ve just described thus far is causal and that the causal rivers being the current of the afflictive emotions. It’s like, you know, we’re we are sitting in a Ferris wheel and the the Ferris wheel keeps circling up and coming back down again. We, you know, we we we are in the we exist within the hell realms and we come up into the human realms and the celestial realms and we go back down the human realms and down to the hell realms and then up to the human realms and the celestial realms and we keep circling in this fashion under the influence of the afflictive emotions.
And in terms of so the causal current, the the afflictive emotion and the causal results of the afflictive not the causal results, the resultant current, the river in which we are being swept up in, are the continual reoccurring process of take having taken rebirth, then we go through a process of aging, various diseases, and then death. And we are circling on the Ferris wheel of rebirth, aging, disease, and death. Rebirth these recurring cycles of rebirth, aging, disease, and death. This is the resultant current in which we’re caught up in. There’s no way that we can free ourselves from these reoccurring cycles because, we are bound by the bonds of karma just like the the iron chains which bound our mothers.
These chains are symbolic of the the bonds of karma. And the element in the metaphor of this thick, you know, the age mothers are enveloped in thick darkness and this is symbolic of our own ignorance that the our old mothers are obstructed by by ignorance which blinds them, which prevents them from seeing what is to be adopted and what is to be avoided, you know, what is they simply do because of the ignorance, that’s the obscuring factor of ignorance. They are not they do not understand what is to be cultivated, what is to be abandoned. They don’t understand emptiness. They don’t know how to carry out their carry on their practice.
And they are under experiencing suffering and the the various types of suffering, you know, the suffering of suffering or pain. And even when they have happiness, this happiness, fluctuates. It changes into suffering so they undergo the the suffering of fluctuation. And because they’re continually under the they are conditioned by the factors of karma and afflictive emotions, they undergo the tortures of the suffering of condition universal conditionality or pervasive conditionality. And just as the the these individuals who are being swept away in this current, from their own side, they they simply have no hope of freeing themselves and each within their mind thinks that their child looks to their child and hopes that their child will find a way to free them.
Likewise, all living beings from their own side simply don’t have the ability to free themselves and they are all looking to us. They all hope that we are going to aid them in liberating them from their sufferings. So we, from our side, we have this golden opportunity that we have achieved a human life and that we have come in contact with the Dharma and we can carry on our practice of Dharma. We understand the ways of practice and we have we have companions who assist us in practicing the Dharma. So the our mother living beings have from their own side no way to free themselves.
And having through our development of compassion looking upon their plight then it’s up to us to achieve the means by which we can free all the our mother our mothers from their suffering and lead them to complete happiness. And just like if in in the metaphor if if the child of of this mother who was being swept away in this current were simply to overlook, had no compassion and simply were to be indifferent to their plight and leave them, then then likewise if we having the ability, the potential to to free mother living beings when they have no hope from their own side, if we were simply to leave them to their own devices then we are this would be a terribly sad situation and we ourselves could not think of ourselves as having any really redeeming qualities. So, you know, we have to ask the question, if, you know, if it were the case that some child’s mother was being carried away down a river and that the only hope of her safety was the child making effort to try to help her. But the child simply had no compassion for no caring what happened to her her plight and simply left her to her own devices.
What would we think of that child? Would we think well of him or would we think negatively of him? Would he be a good person or a bad person? Question. What do think?
So you know, if we if we were to look at a situation where in a a mother and her child, you know, the mother had been shown tremendous kindness to the child, had been a great benefit in giving birth and raising the child and now this child had grown up and was well and comfortable and and then seen his mother or her mother in this plight and that the mother had no hope other than if the child helped and the child didn’t, then from the point of view of Dharma, you know, this individual would be very ignoble. They would have no redeeming qualities, but would rather be a despicable person. When we if someone has been of great benefit to ourselves, has made a lot of effort from their side to help us and having been, benefited by them, if if we don’t return that welfare that they have shown to us, then we we are not involving ourselves in a practice of karma as actions and the results. And not involving not practicing karma as action and results, the law of cause and effect, then we are not practicing karma at all. bodhisattva helps those who who harm them.
You know, even those beings who harm them, the bodhisattva still returns help for harm. What to say of those who benefit the bodhisattva? So though we we name we may not return benefit for harm to others, we if we don’t even return benefit for benefit, then we are simply not creating the causes of our own happiness. If if we don’t return benefits for benefit, then we have no practice. We have no love or compassion.
We in fact have no We have nothing in terms of redeeming qualities. We are really quite despicable in that way. And that having been treated well by others, having been shown benefit by others, then when others are in trouble out of compassion, it’s necessary that we return benefit for benefit. And this is the the practice of karma as actions and the results. So if if one wants happiness, then we have to bring about the welfare of others out of a sense of caring, seek to lead others out of their suffering.
So all our all living beings living beings who have all been our mothers, they’ve been our fathers, numberless times they’ve been our children, they’ve been our sisters, they’ve been our brothers and have shown us tremendous kindness. All of these living beings are tortured within cyclic existence. And if if in in order to out of our compassion, you know, seeking to return in this great kindness, if we want to free them from their suffering, if we want to establish them in happiness then we have to eliminate all our various faults and bring the consummation our own excellent qualities. If we don’t eliminate our faults and we if we don’t develop our all our excellent qualities, then there’s no way that we can really free them from their suffering. There’s no way that we can lead them to an ultimate happiness.
So therefore, one in seeing this and wishing to free them from their suffering and to lead them to happiness, one thinks that I must achieve a state where I have eliminated all my faults and I brought to consummation all my excellent qualities and this is the awakening heart. So in order to to free all living beings from their suffering and to establish them in complete happiness, I first must free myself from suffering and establish myself in complete happiness. If I don’t attain this in, there’s no no way that I can achieve my aim for others. It’s just analogous situation would be if myself and my mother, we we fell down on the ground, walking walking along the road, and I wanted to give her a helping hand up. But as long as I’m lying down on the road, there’s no way that I can help her up.
So first I have to stand up and get up, then I can give her a hand up. Otherwise, there’s no way we’re both simply going to remain lying on the road. So this is this is an analogy where, you know, one’s mother and and oneself having fallen down and wishing to lift her up, give her hand up, oneself has to rise up first and and then one is has the ability to give her a hand up likewise. If one wants to free all living beings from their suffering and to establish them in complete happiness, oneself first must free oneself of all faults. One oneself must develop one all of one’s excellent qualities.
One must achieve complete happiness and freedom from suffering through one’s practice And then when when one develops the longing, the aspiration to achieve that end, then this is mind generation, the awakening heart.