Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Before reviewing months of bodhicitta teachings, Ven Jampa Gendun opens this 45-minute session with collective recitation of a long aspirational sūtra — sweeping verses praying all beings be freed from every suffering and attain enlightenment — setting the devotional tone for the review that follows. He then recaps both classical traditions for developing the awakened heart: the equalizing and exchanging method (the case for equal regard, the costs of self-cherishing, the fulfillment of caring for others, taking-and-giving visualization) and the sevenfold cause and effect instruction, moving through equanimity, recognizing all beings as mother, gratitude, love, compassion, to the arising of bodhicitta. The session closes with the pointed observation that even the awakened heart, without wisdom realizing dependent arising, cannot cut the root of cyclic existence — announcing the series will turn to this third principal aspect next term. For practitioners who have been following the series across several months.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 HMA 1997 07 02.mp3
UUID: c9ea7635-09d6-4e5c-921a-34e8b7088bf0
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-07-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.6 minutes
Words: ~5,954
So I thought it would might be nice to to read the the first sūtra as a preliminary to our meditation and then maybe at the end of the evening we could read the the excerpt from the second sūtra, if that’s okay with you. So if you so we so we do the do the, you know, the nine round breathing meditation, and then then we’ll recite the sūtra together, and then we’ll practice mindfulness of breathing. And I thought we’d do the exchange of self for others meditation, which I’ll lead you through. So in in the if you remember back that far, you know, we’re going to practice development of empathy, identifying with as best we can with the with the world of others, their feelings, how trying to look at the situation, the world out of their eyes, how they might feel, developing a sensitivity for how others might be experiencing the same situation as ourselves and being able to develop a facility of mind to put yourself in their place, to empathize and identify with them. So we’re going to work with a number of individuals.
We’ve done this meditation before. But the main thing is is do as best you can, set aside your own agenda, your own issues, and and begin to put yourself in their place, you know, walk in their moccasins as as we say. Put yourself in their shoes. So take a firm comfortable posture. And then perhaps getting first, can you touch with the body?
It’s important to relax the body. If your is tense, it’s going to affect the stability of your mind, the quality of your mind. So we we can we have to begin to approach the mind through the body the, you know, at the grosser level. So it has some meaning, some purpose. So bringing you and noticing any tightnesses, any tension, and Bring your awareness to those areas.
The three thousands of worlds. May the sufferings of cruel migrations, the sufferings of the Lord of Death’s domain, and the sufferings of deprivation be brought to an end. By the thunder of that mighty drum may all want in the world be ended and just as the Lords of subduers are without fear, their fears are laid. So too may all sentient beings be without fear, parted from their fears. Just as the all knowing able Lords that are dwelling within the cycles of existence possess all holy qualities so too may the concentrations of all beings possess the qualities of the harmonies of enlightenment and may those qualities become oceans of qualities.
By the thunder of that mighty drum may all beings come to possess the voice of Brahma. May they attain the most blessed enlightenment of the Buddhas. May they turn the virtuous wheel of doctrine. May they live for unimaginable eons. May they teach the way for the welfare of wanderers.
May they relieve suffering and destroy afflictions. May they extinguish desire, hatred, and delusion. May those beings who abide in places of tortured existence, those beings whose bodies and bones are burning in flames of pain, may they hear the beating of the drum, and may they cry, I bow to you, the Buddhas. May all beings remember their births in hundreds of lives and thousands of lives and tens of millions of lives. May they ever be mindful of the Lord of sages and may they heed their vast words.
May the thunder of that mighty drum, may all beings find constant companionship in the Buddhas and may they abandon the actions of ill deed. May they practice those of good. May all the suffering of all that lives in all the lands of all worlds be forever stilled and those creatures crippled in limbs, impaired of sense, all be made whole. May those afflicted with sickness, weak and frail, without refuge in the ten regions, all swiftly be relieved of their ills, be renewed in their organs and strength. May those threatened with death by rulers and thieves, those who lie at the mercy of a hundred different miseries, those living beings besieged and suffering while we freed from their hundreds of underemble fears, and those tortured by bonds bound and beaten, those who live in the manifold poverty are oppressed by many thousands of afflictions, incur all manner of misery and terrors which they cannot bear.
May they be released from their bonds. May the scourge be delivered from their beatings. May the condemned have a life, the troubled be unafraid. May those who hurt with hunger and thirst partake of a feast. May the blind see a myriad of shapes.
The deaf hear a symphony of sounds. The naked to be clothed. The poor find a treasure. May all have the pleasure of possessing many precious jewels. May none be tormented by feelings of pain.
May they all be fair face and figure, their bodies subdued, their minds abounding with unremitting bliss. By their mere thought, may their wishes for merit and riches, food and drink, at once be made manifest. May their longings for the melodies of lute and drum, for streams, lakes and ponds, pools full of golden lotus and Utpala. May their dreams of clothes and wealth, pearls, gems, exquisite gold ornaments, and napkins, absolutely, all instantly be fulfilled. May there not arise an anguish cry in any world.
May none know unhappiness. May they all be beautiful, and may they be a light for one another. Whatever is held high by humanity, may it be theirs simply through thought. May all the desires immediately upon conception be altogether realized as the fruit of their merit. Throughout the three times, may they have incense and garlands, scented oils, aromatic powders, variegated flowers and flowering trees.
May they take them, may they be happy, may they worship in the ten directions all the inconceivable ones, the Bodhisattvas, the hearers, and the immaculate pure teachings of Dharma. May all greatest shunners of these unworthy pass beyond the eight states of unrest and attain crowning kingly leisure. May all beings ever have the Buddhas at their side. May they always be born into noble families. May their affluence and fortune flourish.
May they be richly adorned for endless eons with praise and fame, lovely radiant bodies. May they be brave. May they be strong. May they be wise and lucid. May they ever strive for enlightenment.
May they engage in the six perfections. May they behold in the ten quarters the Buddhas perfectly seated upon thrones of precious Lapis Lazuli before the supremely sanctified tree of enlightenment. And there may they hear the truth revealed. So as a means to actually actualize all that we’ve aspired to and wishing others to be free of suffering, to actually do something about it in a practical way, I’m going to meditate. If only to proceed that half a breath closer to who I want to become for myself in the sake of all sentient beings.
And then bring your mind to the breath. And meant tonight to be sort of a review of the methods that we’ve been working we’ve been looking at, discussing in as a means to develop the awakened heart, the second of the three principal aspects of the path. In there are two meditative traditions for the development of the awakened heart. Method called equalizing, exchanging self, other, and sevenfold cause and effect instruction. We’ve we’ve looked at both methods over the last I guess, it’s been a few months now, hasn’t it?
Equalizing and exchanging self with others begins with the practice of equalizing self and others. So the the means to develop an unconditioned positive regard toward others. Unconditioned by how the temporary aberrations of our our present relationship is an abiding way of relating to them, and it’s of a positive fashion regarding all living beings in a positive enduring fashion. And we looked at that from the method that we worked with was in terms of from the conventional point of view, from from their own side, for example, that all all living beings coming, you know, coming to more than simply intellectual understanding. Penny they’re trying to get the penny to drop.
And, you know, being understanding that there’s a there there is a vast difference between our intellectual way of thinking about the world and things in our situations and the way that we relate emotively, emotionally. Sometimes they’re they’re in opposition to one another. So we may intellectually agree with many of these ideas, but it’s not the way we emotionally relate with the world in in these terms. We we operate on different premises when we when we shift over into our emotional lives. From the conventional point of view from the side of others, all living beings, whosoever, do not want to suffer.
I mean, it might sound like kindergarten stuff, simple minded. But we don’t emotionally relate with others in that way. That we have a sense that maybe they don’t mind suffering. Maybe perversely, some people actually get off on it or something like that. No living being wants to suffer no matter what form it may be manifesting.
All living beings want to be happy. No living being is indifferent to happen. They may they may be lethargic. They may be apathetic, but they still want to be happy. That’s that’s the primary reality about who they are.
All of them. And and, you know, we can’t simply divorce people from that understanding. We have to see them in their context. Their primary primary living beings are primarily feeling beings. And in in in those terms, they want pleasant feelings.
They don’t want suffering feeling. This has this makes a practical difference in the way that we relate with If this is if this becomes our the premise on which we emotionally relate with the world in those terms. We will we’ll treat people differently. And moreover, they’re wanting to be happy, they’re not wanting to suffer. They, in fact, don’t have genuine happiness.
In fact, they still continue to suffer. Whosoever. You know, it’s not just the little children that I saw in North Korea on television tonight. It is also Tim Fisher, John John Howard. They all they’re suffering each in their own way, whether they’re laughing on the outside or not.
From our own point of view, all living beings are equal. That they have all all living beings have been equally kind to us in the past as our primary caregiver. And as has been mentioned when we actually discussed it in details, requires some acceptance of the notion of infinite past, rebirths, that in fact all living means whosoever have been mothers, for example. And it is the kindness-remembering. And again, there’s no living being in this room who hasn’t been your mother.
Okay. Maybe that doesn’t work so well for you. But even when they aren’t our mother, even when they are acquaintances, even when they are friends or strangers or enemies, still they are kind to ourselves. And being being, you know, not taking it for granted. You know, okay, friends, we don’t perhaps we don’t need to meditate on that so long to know, you know, to to appreciate their kindness.
The reason that they are our friends are because we, to some degree, appreciate their kindness or are aware of their kindness. But strangers and enemies, vast majority of people we feel in terms of strangers that we feel totally unrelated to. Their existence doesn’t make any difference to our lives, but the facts, it makes a terrible, a great difference. In fact, our very lives depend upon them and what they do for us. That we have is very much dependent upon others, these many strangers.
But also in terms of our enemies, difficult for sure. It’s not to say these aren’t easy to come to an understanding, but we have to work at it. If we never even begin, there’s no hope that it will happen. That, you know, it is our enemies which who it probably help us to extend our limits more than anyone else, and therefore, to grow. And growth is commitment with a more fulfilling, meaningful way of life.
And therefore, benefited us. You know, the kindness maybe quite different than that of a friend. Still, it’s a significant kindness, significant way of benefiting ourselves. And then finally, from our own side, we’re all going to die. And what uses are holding this person at a distance and pulling this person close to me when this person is gonna be a corpse in about a few years.
And and so is this other person. And then I I guess, you know, the acknowledging that we don’t have that much time together. So we’re trying to rise above these temporal aberration, passing emotions and have attachment and aversion, to relate on a more primary level, something which is deeper than that. All the same and the fact that we’re all going to die. And then from the ultimate point of view that people that’s to say by ultimate, means a deeper of trying to come to an understanding of the quality of others.
That that that people don’t exist the way they appear to ourselves. And that that what is what is more what is a deeper what is more primary to human existence than friend, enemy, and stranger? You know, that that they are what is central is the fact of wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. Yeah. You know, the the notion of our conceptual thinking is somehow misleading ourselves.
It’s it’s a fundamental notion of Buddhism That we mistake we mistake our ideas for the things themselves, the map for the territory, the people and their reality, and their and their individuality, their their richness, their unique personality, and what it is that they’re struggling for and what it is that they that they want for their life. And the uniqueness of them all, of all of us, as opposed to the stereotypes, the the generalizations that are our conceptual ways of thinking about people make use of. We mistake our ideas. When people talk about aboriginals, no matter how nobly they may talk about them carrying them. Still it’s not as if they were someone who was sitting next to them and who they had maybe maybe had just had a tough time catching a bus to get to where you they just are, and they were saying they were sorry, they were late, and how’s the kids, and, you know, what’s happening for you?
And then they they they don’t they rarely live life as a unique human being, aboriginal, something other than that. This this person or a friend or a stranger. You know, these and these have meaning. There are ways of speaking, but they’re not they don’t come close to who are we who we are in fact relating with in our everyday life, through flesh and blood living people with their histories and the stories that they have to tell about how their lives are going. So not getting hung up in in your images and ideas about these people, that that there is something more primary to them.
From the point of view that our relationships are continually changing. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends. From the point of view that these categorizations that we make in terms of friend, enemy, and stranger are relative to one another, that they that they depend upon one another. They don’t exist independent of one another. If we lost all our friends and then our acquaintances would become friends.
You know, there’d be this kind of shift up the scale. And as we begin to recognize more and more good qualities about these people who are we presently think of it as acquaintances that just don’t feel very close to it. Believe we can see more and more likable things about them. And somehow, strangely enough, they might overnight become our friends. We never noticed how they in fact are.
But anyway the notion of friend only exists in relationship to an enemy. If we didn’t have friends we wouldn’t have enemies, if we didn’t have enemies we wouldn’t have friends. But we do and they’re conventionally useful in that way but to hold on to them to give them some kind of reality more than a manner of way of speaking of categorizing. Just for convenience sake. All of our conceptual thinking is a way of it gives us a is useful in that we can think about things which aren’t present.
I can think about what’s happening outside, what’s going on in Bosnia, what’s going in North Korea. I can think about the world. I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to see it. But it but it lacks something.
It’s a and we we shouldn’t mistake these symbols that we use in thinking about people for the people themselves. Useful to think about them, but it can be it can mislead us. It can be distortion, perversion in some way. Okay. Developing a sense of equality in terms of having most basically, what we call an unconditioned positive regard.
Most basically, having a penny drop that you and you and you and you and and me and people, somebody next door here, street across the street. That person wants to be happy and doesn’t want to suffer just like myself. You know, I think if we can come to that kind of understanding, and that is to say that they’re feeling beings primarily. And and and feeling they want happy feelings. They don’t want suffering feeling.
And accommodating that conception or accommodating that understanding in how you’re going to relate with the world about you. You know, making that a premise in what you’re going to operate in the world. Then we go on to look at the advantages of other sentient beings and the disadvantages of self-cherishing. Trying to, again, relating it with our own experience as best we can to see to see if we can find out some evolution of all of our suffering, all of our frustrations and disappointments. You know, maybe we can’t see the evolution at all times, at least beginning to see those we can, which are most self evident to ourselves.
Trying to see the cause and effect relationship between our suffering and this can our habitual me first, I I I attitude that we bring to all our relationships. The attitude of self referencing everything in terms of what’s in it for me, looking at it from our own point of view, not valuing others in and for themselves as being intrinsically worthy of our of our caring, our respect, and valuing. It’s simply being commodities for our consumption in one way or another. On the one hand, in terms of, you know, and then in terms of other cherishing that maybe our happiest, finest, most fulfilled moments of our life have been when we’ve been able to escape the bounds of the prison in which we most us exist, this isolation and mistrust, and been able to participate in the world of another and caring for them in a sense of self forgetfulness and going out to another and answering responding to their needs. Maybe there’s something we can learn from that, our actual what we felt in those in those times.
And then the actual exchange of self rather than we just meditated, made use of a way of meditating on that. That trying to see one fundamental notion of in training of the mind is to look at it is, to look at things in terms of their advantages and disadvantages. If the if if it’s like we’re making use of our own innate sanity and bringing it to bear on what it is that we do. Seeing that if through being more considerate, caring, making others a greater priority in my life is a more fulfilling way of experiencing my life, a better quality of life. On the other hand, if, you know, if making myself the only priority, the only reality that I know, that I recognize at present is somehow disadvantageous to myself, then there’s going to be some shift.
We’re going to see the there’s going to be some kind of exchange of what takes precedence in my life, either others or myself. And beginning actually, the center of psychological center of is going to shift from a total preoccupation from ourselves alone, oftentimes at the exclusion and expense of others, to one where there’s a greater and greater including of others in a natural social awareness. You know, that how we are in this world with others is becomes more an instinctive part of how we how how we be in the world. And we got we we begin to open our vision rather than seeing only ourselves, exchanging self for others. And finally, practice of taking and giving.
Imagine the practice that we worked on taking upon ourselves the sufferings of others. You know, imagine to it. Developing the aspiration to do it, visual and through the technique of visualization, performing it and giving away our happiness so that we are training the mind. It’s it’s something that we hope to actualize in reality, in fact, in the future. And then, you know, having meditated in this way, nothing you know, though, you know, it’s really unimaginably thank you.
You know, this I mean, it’s like a a star during the day. You know, how rare it is for for anyone even to to aspire to doing it, you know, even just to do an imagination what to actually to aspire to doing it in fact. But when we come out of our meditation, nothing has really changed. Are still you know, we we have done something really wonderful in terms of of training our own mind, what is going on about this has not really changed, altered it in any way. So he said, well, I want it to I I want I I don’t want it to continue like this.
I want it to change. You know, it’s not just a head trip. I want something to change in fact. How are you going to do that? You know, what is the best way that we can benefit others?
By all means, we do what we can. But what would be optimum? You know, we can affect the greatest effect that we have in the world is in terms of who we are as a person, not in what we own or what we control. I mean, I’m talking about in an ultimate term. Sure, if you’re president Clinton, can do a great deal of good in the world.
And if you have that power and you have that resources at your at your disposal. But but in in terms of Buddhist conception of our suffering, it has been at best. And it’s not to say it’s it’s not significant, but at best, it’s only temporal. We have to help people to change themselves, to change their attitudes. And that we can most readily affect by becoming more of who we are ourselves.
If we can come become Buddha, we can affect that to an optimum degree. So you determine, you develop an intense resolve. I must become a Buddha. I I really have to do something with myself if I’m ever going to really be able to do anything with others, you know, about their suffering. And I care.
I want them to be happy. So a commitment, an aspiration aspiration to become the best that you can be for their sake. I must attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, the awakened heart. Then there’s the this oh my goodness. Then we went through the second of the two meditative traditions that have the seven cause and effect instruction developing as a foundation equanimity.
And here equanimity is an even minded attitude divorced of aversion and attachment, holding some close enough as at a distance. So it’s more of a simply an even minded attitude. This is the starting point. That’s kind of the like the like the use the image of leveling the field and then we’re going to plant. We don’t leave it there.
But that’s a necessary prerequisite. Then we go on with the six causes and then finally the seventh result, the six causes and the sevenfold cause and effect instruction. Recognizing all beings as our mother, our primary caregiver, someone who’s really been a tremendous kindness to ourselves, recognizing them as such, going on to remembering their great kindness, realizing what what has been done for ourselves, not taking it for granted, appreciating it in a very deep way. And then developing a sense of gratitude which which which wishes to repay that kindness, you know. Even you want to return the cuddle.
Someone has been tremendously kind to you. And when you want to show them, you want to return that kindness. Appealing love. You know, with others that you know, others begin to appear lovable to us. Maybe because we are we we have finally realized how lovable we are.
And the reflection of this, other speaking people are very attractive to us. They’re very endearing. Like, you just wanna protect them, take them into to your bosom, shelter them, help them in some way. And then fifthly, universal compassion, a sense of extending of our care to the alleviation of suffering of all living beings. Your love is concerned with happiness, compassion with suffering.
And out of that arises, again, an intense resolve. To remove all your various faults, to bring consummation all your excellent qualities. You know, these ex to cultivate these seeds of wisdom, love, and compassion, their creative potential, our personal power, and to begin to find ways to express them in our everyday life in creative fashions to be able to benefit others, you know, to become all that we can be. And then finally, there rises the awakened heart. The altruistic aspiration to achieve complete awakening for the sake of all living beings.
But then and this is just a prelude. I’m I’m going to stop here. We want to become Buddha. We want to become all that we can be. But not only for our own sake for the sake of all beings.
What are we gonna do? It has to we have to it has to be something more than just a noble thought no matter no matter how immeasurable unimaginable thought. Such a such a thought might be, such an aspiration might be. It’s still only that. How are we going to actually do it?
You don’t want this suffering to continue. You and you you want people to be happy. You have to do something. We have to do something. And here at some point, if you do not have the wisdom realizing the way things are, even though you have developed the thought definitely to leave cyclic existence and the altruistic intention.
So the thought definitely to leave cyclic existence is the determination to be free and the altruistic intention is the awakened heart. Even if you have these two which we developed thus far, the root of cyclic existence cannot be cut. Therefore, work at the means realizing dependent arising. We have to now go on, you know, with this as our motivating force to develop wisdom. And this is the wisdom of the awakened mind which we’ll begin to look at after the break.
The third principal aspect of the path, the realization of the ultimate nature of reality. This is the only way that we can ever actualize what it is that we want, to remove the causes of suffering most basically from our minds and to place ourselves and all sentient beings in complete peace such that suffering can never arise again. The only way that we can become Buddhas is by developing the awakened mind. Therefore, for their sake, for the sake of ourselves and all others, we have to develop the awakened mind. There’s no other way.
And we’re gonna do that next term. So we we we, you know, dedicate the all the creative potential that we’ve accumulated together in this way. In the land encircled by snow mountains, you are the source of happiness and good. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel of the awakened heart that has not arisen arise and grow.
And may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more. That suffering, that mass of suffering, the suffering suffering of all sentient beings and their various obstructions and hindering actions because of which they do not see the Buddhas nor hear the Dharma nor know the Sangha. Do I take upon this, my own body, a bundle of pain accumulated through three defiled actions. The suffering of those beings who are born in hell, who dwell in realms of cruel migrations, may death take them beyond such migrations. That awesome mass of suffering do I assume, to that end I strive, in that end I take joy.
From that end I shall not turn away nor shall I run away nor towards that end shall I be dismayed or afraid nor shall I draw back or be apathetic. If you question why, it is because I bear the burden of all that lives. This is not out of desire for my own pleasure, but that I have vowed to free all sentient beings and thus to fully unfold them. I shall free all wandering beings. Free them from the suffering of being born, from the suffering of old age and of disease.
Free them from the suffering of the rounds of birth and death, from the suffering of all bad migrations and of never ending unrest. Freedom from the suffering of all that is conditioned, of all obscuring views, from the dissolution of the depletion of virtuous actions and of not knowing, rising from the depths. From all shall I liberate all. All those creatures entangled in depths of their own desires, shrouded in veils of ignorance, clinging to their worlds, beings, in their final moments afraid. All those creatures plunged through the depths of pain, subsisting in prisons of repeating patterns of existence without wisdom, without honor in their worlds, in doubt, irresolute, knowing only sadness, unknowing of dependent arising, alone swept round in whirlpools of afflicted minds and subjugated lives.
All these creatures shall I establish in the kingdom of sovereign wisdom. My struggle is not for liberation for myself alone but by the mind of very omniscience shall I guide all others from the wheel of existence, the ever turning wheel from which it is hard to be freed. I shall deliver them out of the awful abyss, save them from all harm, rescue them from the torrent of their own swirling minds. Upon myself do I rest the load of sorrow of all of them. It is my pleasure to suffer the pain of each and every tortured existence in all however many realms of existence.
I shall not defraud all the world and my roots to virtue. I shall strive to abide in even a single bad migration until the last eon to come. And just as in one bad migration, I shall without exception abide in all bad migrations in all the realms of existence for the sake of all living beings. If you question why, is it not reasonable for one being to suffer rather than all beings fall to the realms of ruin? I myself who shed my blood that I might redeem all wandering beings from the wilderness of the Lord of death’s domain, from places of birth as animal and as hell being.
With this very body shall I endure all suffering aggregates of feeling for the sake of all sentient beings. I take joy in reaffirming the trustworthy truth of my proclamation. I am the yoke-bearing nape of all sentient beings. For the sake of all sentient beings, I shall not forsake even one sentient being. If you question why with all that lives as my object I shall engender the very mind of omniscience itself, that is not for my own pleasure but that I may altogether liberate all living beings have I wholly set forth towards unsurpassed perfect complete enlightenment.
Thus whenever and for however long all beings are attaining great happiness from happiness is never before known up to the ecstasies of very omniscience, shall I wholly dedicate my roots of virtue. Dedicate them that I may be a leader drawing others along, a bearer of a lamp, a guide for those on their journey to peace, provisioner for those on their voyage towards leisure. Dedicate them that I may be skilled in methods and wise in meanings, that I may abide on the further most shore, having navigated the seas of cyclic existence in the wisdom ship of all knowing, that I may be a master of pure dedication and a teacher pointing the way to transcendence. I shall in every way cultivate roots of virtue for the sake of every living being. I shall totally dedicate these roots of virtue.
Dedicate them that I may liberate all sentient beings, that I may appear to all sentient beings, that I may be seen by all and free all sentient beings, that I may care for them, spiritually mature them, fulfill the needs and dispel the doubts of all sentient beings. I am like the sun. I depend upon no other. I shall not surrender the bodhisattva’s armor to another. Indeed, I shall eliminate the very need for others.
I shall not pause from effort to protect but even one being and as one all, all living beings. Shall not cease from other devotion to assuage all suffering. I shall not settle for trifling roots of virtue. I shall know no peace with less than all consuming dedication. I’m gonna let you go.
But before I do that, can I make a commercial announcement? We we received a a an email from the central office of the the FPMT, as I mentioned, that’s the foundation for the preservation of the Mahāyāna tradition and of Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director. And that he said that he has some obstacles to his health and long life. So they’ve asked us through some various practices as a means of eliminating those obstacles. So there are various practices that we are doing and ask that you might want to become involved in them.
The releasing of animals that are going to be killed, for example, can buy fish and just put them back into the sea. That’s said to be a a and dedicating that towards the long life and health of Lama Zopa for example. So if you’d like to make a donation toward the purchase of animals like that, you can leave them in the donation bowl. There is a mantra that you can say, a mantra, and there’s no particular practice associated with it. You can just recite it whenever you have a chance.