Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A Thai monk’s simple advice — “begin again” — opens this nearly two-hour session with Ven Jampa Gendun and becomes a gateway into examining why hope and fear keep practitioners locked in repetitive patterns. Using the “biography in five chapters” poem about falling into the same sidewalk hole again and again, Gendun argues that anxiety about recurring failures is basic sanity — the mind signalling that its current refuge is not working. The session then turns to Tsongkhapa’s three scopes of practitioners — lesser, intermediate, and great — mapping each scope’s aspiration (better rebirth, liberation from cyclic existence, Buddhahood for all beings), its characteristic practices, and how each scope is the indispensable foundation for the next. The closing emphasis: genuine concern for others cannot be reached by skipping the work on yourself first.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 3PA 2006 09 11.mp3
UUID: f138758d-319f-476a-b46c-23b147f7a827
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principle Aspects of the Path 2006-2007 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 2006-09-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 119.7 minutes
Words: ~12,896
Okay. Okay. Good. Thanks. We’ll begin again.
It reminds me of Koh. I spent some time in Thailand. This was about nineteen eighty eight. I spent about a year in Thailand and about seven months on an island called Koh Samui. I don’t know if you may have been there.
It’s really quite a tourist island. It’s beautiful beaches and nice restaurants and everything. I was a monk then. I didn’t I didn’t go in the water once, believe it or not. I lived in the inner part of the island.
There was a what, a monastery where there was and I think there were about three monks there, Thai monks. And at one time they had built a large Buddha footprint, you know, maybe a hundred years ago or something. I don’t know how old it is. By a Buddha footprint. I mean, it’s about the size of the length of this room out of cement in the shape of a footprint.
And they had built it on this huge boulder. And in the construction of this footprint, they, there was two boulders that came together, something like that. And they built it across the two boulders. So the space between the two boulders had been filled in. So there was a crevice, like a hollow between the two boulders.
It was very very large. And, they put, one end of it. They had put, a plywood over it and and a door. And I lived under the Buddhist footprint. And one one side was exposed to the jungle.
It was very strange experience. It was very, you know, sometimes I’d be sitting there on my my I had a a wooden pallet I used to sleep on and meditate whenever I did meditate, which wasn’t very often. And this and I’d be sitting there like I knew, you know, like a Buddha, you know, and this huge lizard or his go walking by. But I actually eventually, I had to these large beasts, they started to build a hive in in the roof of my little cave. And we got along well for a while.
Eventually, I wasn’t very mindful. One of them landed on me and I flicked it off like that and it bit me. And my my arms swelled up. So they say if you if, like, three or four bite you one time, you die. So anyway, the the the abbot of that monastery thought, maybe I shouldn’t stay there.
So I went up. I got on top of the Buddha footprint in which was inside an enclosure. So I started living on the inside, the above, the Buddha’s footprint. I I moved up in the world. I got under his I got out from under his feet.
Anyway, I don’t know why I’m telling that story. It had to do with his begin again. You know, sometimes and there I spent about seven months on this island and living with two other monks and only three, sometimes three, three, only one of whom speak spoke a little bit of English. I’ve been never quite sure how much he understood me, but and I remember during that period of time, I used to you know, you go through a lot of emotions and feelings feelings coming up and old memories. And, I mean, there’s nothing to do.
You’re sitting there and you’re looking out. It was it was in the central part of the island, so it was fairly high up. All you could see with coconut trees and this ship would come beginning of the day. Beginning of the day. You’d just watch it come across the horizon.
At the end of the day, it would vanish in the other end of the horizon. That was the excitement of the day. There wasn’t much else. Not quite right. Bad introduction.
And so I used to get down and disappointed and frustrated and feeling sorry for myself. And, you know, here I was far away from everything that I knew that was familiar to me that that that people I loved and loved me and feeling lonely and forlorn and lost. Anyway, I used to tell once in a while, we used to meet in the afternoon these two other, sometimes three other monks, and wear a cup of hot chocolate in the afternoon. And even though I wasn’t sure whether this monk understood everything that I was telling him, I used to tell him how I was feeling. And he was very patient, and he listened to me.
He listened, listened. And at the end, he would always inevitably smile at me and he’d say, begin again. And I thought about that for a long time. And finally, I began to understand that, you know, whatever the situation is, where we find ourselves, you know, the past only comes up to the present. It doesn’t determine our future.
That our future is very much open ended, open ended and whatever predicament we might find ourselves in, whatever mindset we may become tangled up in, we can begin again. We can start from just where we’re at now. It doesn’t, you know, we have that ability. We have, you know, there’s, I think a few weeks ago I mentioned that we are I used this phrase, we are the nexus of determinism and free will. And someone one of the students at the time questioned me well, you know, do we really have free will?
And, you know, I mean, this is something that’s been debated by Western philosophers since the beginning of time, whether, you know, it’s not so important to me, because I think we do and we feel like we do and, but we only have free will to the extent that we exercise it. We have these reoccurring compulsive patterns, which which unless we begin to intervene, disrupt them in some way, they’re going to repeat themselves endlessly into the future. But once we begin to become aware of the patterns, the various themes, the dysfunctional structures and plots to the stories of our life, we can begin to act and make choices. Choice is the most valuable thing that we have. We probably hold a lot of things of higher value, in a way, it’s the most precious gift that we have as as human beings.
It opens up a window of opportunity to go beyond everything that we’ve been in the past, to start anew, to begin again, to begin all over again if necessary. We don’t have to be the same person that we were. We can change. We can become, in many ways, anything that we want to be, anything that we can imagine ourselves to be. We can always begin again.
It’s it’s open to us. The future is open ended. It is not set. There’s no predestiny. The past only goes up to the present.
It only goes that far. The future is still open ended. If we have awareness and we begin to intervene intelligently in the light of our own wisdom, in light of our own caring, you know, we begin to express and exercise our innate nature of being, of the bodhicitta to be. We can intervene for the better. We can change our future.
We have to have that kind of faith in ourselves and the possibility of the goodness of life. That’s important. That’s like the beginning of all that we do here. Otherwise, it becomes intellectual curiosity or some academic trip. It doesn’t really work where it’s meant to at the very basis of our being to change our lives for the better.
We can begin again. Do you believe that? We begin to make choices. I don’t I I don’t know whether to you know, last week, in talking about the motivation, was began to discuss the notion of hope. Hope is normally seen as something valuable, isn’t it?
Something worthwhile. That there’s an there’s a type of hope which keeps us stuck. And by the hope, this type of hope, mean an unfounded hope. A hope that things are going to get better all by themselves. We we with great hope, we can face almost anything except with the truth of what’s in front of us and what we’re actually experiencing inside of ourselves.
You know, as long as we have hope for the future, we don’t have to become sincere. We don’t have to become serious about dealing with the present. The reality of what’s before us now. And we can always, you know, hope tends to take us away from what is. And what if what is is not what we want, we better do something now to change it.
We only have the opportunity in the present moment. The future is simply existing in our imagination. The past is in memory. The only time to we have to think about change is now. That’s the window opportunity that we can exercise choice, that we can begin again.
But if we don’t, if we if we substitute hope for beginning again, for making choices, the only thing we’re left with is so many unfulfilled hopes. And our life remains very much the same. The same patterns, the same themes continually, to be endlessly keep playing themselves out in one way or another. You know, this hope is is one of the obstacles to change, to to deciding it’s time to get better. You know, I I mentioned the fact that we’ve all been recruited into the fiction of time, that in time things will get better.
Something better will come along, that I’ll be healed, that I’ll be happy in time in time. But change and getting better and healing ourselves is not about time. It’s about change. You know, our minds are behaving. They all have to change in some way.
We have to give up our hope that things are gonna get better unless I do something about it. It’s a difficult one, I think. Two things keep us stuck. I guess many things keep us stuck, but two things we’re talking about now here. Hope and fear.
Hope that things will get better in time, that things will change for the better. And the other is the fear of fear of change itself. If fear is the mother of cowardness, hope is the father. Men accept indignities without end and a life not worth living in the hope that their miseries will end and eventually life may be worth living again. They renounce love, courage, and honesty, pride, and humanity hoping.
Hope is as great an enemy of courage as this fear. And I think to some extent we are all cowards about change. We don’t want to change at some level of our being, though maybe superficially we might think about it in some form or another. But deep down we cling to what has been. It’s like home, isn’t it?
It’s all that we’ve ever known. Oh, it’s what we grew up with. It’s the we find some security in that, in the the familiar, the predictable. There’s a constellation that that at least we can presume pretty much to know who we are and what we can expect out of life. There’s a there’s a kind of a a nostalgia for the slums of cyclic existence.
The the sentimental attachment for the the dysfunctional streets that we keep traveling down, the the pathological places that we know so well. You know, it’s like the neighborhood that we grew up with. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place quite like home, even though it’s lonely and depressing and full of dissatisfaction and disappointment. It’s all I’ve ever known. I walked down the street.
This is a biography in five I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out. Part two. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes me a long time to get out. Part three.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in. It’s a habit.
But my eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately. Part four.
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Part five. I walk down another street.
Sooner or later, depending on how how, maybe sanely or insanely we’re living our lives, we grow we get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Know, we we we become become weary of falling into the same damn holes all the time in one way or another, in one form or another. And we we begin to to vaguely discern the the the reoccurring patterns and themes of our life. You know, beneath all the the the self deception of our unfounded hopes and their and it’s unrealistic thinking that these holes are going to go away all by themselves. There develop an undercurrent of anxiety, but maybe they won’t.
Maybe these holes are always going to be there. Maybe they’re part of life, at least the way I’m living my life. So this anxiety is undercurrent, this uneasy feeling, some kind of discomfort. It’s kind of a vague, undefined, ill defined sense that something’s wrong somewhere. You know, the maybe the way I’m living my life.
I I keep seeing I seem to keep making the same mistakes over and over again, even against my better judgment, even against my will. Or I I I keep missing the lessons that life is continually bringing me or even those lessons I once learned. I forget and I make the same mistakes again and again. We see there’s a sense of ineffectiveness, a sense of powerlessness about what’s happening to ourselves. You know, we and even if we even if we knew exactly even if we could do exactly what we wanted to do with our lives, we wouldn’t know what we wanted anyhow.
So this anxiety about the future prospects, like, you know, are continually falling into the same damn holes over and over again. This anxiety is one of the two fundamental causes motivating us toward change, towards alternative refuges in our lives. You know, we talked a couple weeks ago about our present refuges. What forms the the various forms that they take and they beginning to question, you know, whether our particular refuge is working for ourselves. Is it delivering the goods?
Is it bringing me what I, in fact, want in my life? And this sense of anxiety begins to tell us. It’s a kind of a wisdom saying that your refuge isn’t simply working. Maybe there are alternatives. Maybe you have to begin to look down another street, look at other possibilities.
This this anxiety is is really is it’s it’s indicative. It’s of our basic sanity. The mind’s tendency toward toward wakefulness and a sense of a sense of purposefulness in seeking a state of wholeness, a sense of integration. And somehow this anxiety can overcome the psychological inertia of hope. You know, hope is like a parallel paralysis.
We can’t move or we don’t move. My hope isn’t working. And the anxiety begins to tell us that. It’s like it’s like a mouth, and we have to listen. Carl Jung discovered that each person’s psycho psychological structure includes an independent religious function.
This does not mean that there is a need necessary to follow a particular creed or dogma, but it means that each human being comes with an inborn psychological urge to find meaning in life. We all have an intuition that we could see ourselves as whole persons, see the ultimate meaning of life, experience ourselves totally. Jung saw that most Westerners, although they consciously only believe in what is physical and rational, have dreams and fantasies overflowing with symbols of those very qualities that people used to seek in their religious life. Symbols evoking sense of wholeness and a vision of a world larger than ego. So, you know, if we didn’t possess the the the potential to go beyond our suffering, we would not we wouldn’t become weary of it.
We wouldn’t despair of it. We wouldn’t we wouldn’t be anxious about its continued reoccurrence in the future. And this this anxiety is is a basic sanity about ourselves. It’s saying it’s true. It will if we listen to that anxiety, if we stay with it, if we don’t numb it, if we don’t avoid it, this sense of uncomfortability, it will turn us toward other finding other possibilities.
So, you know, anxiety goes with becoming aware, the state of our being, what is actually happening to us. And it becomes anxiety comes with when we begin try try to assume our potentialities, when we actually begin the process of change, during that transition period from one level to another, from what is only a potential to some kind of actuality in terms of of what we can do with ourselves and how we can develop our mind. There’s a sense of tension. And one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to stay with attention, to to to not avoid it, to not numb it, to not distract yourself, but to be with it. You know, we we begin to, out of this sense of anxiety, the the mind is self healing system.
If we if we give it the opportunity to do so, It can help us to solve our problems at a deeper level. You know, we will out of this will come some kind of decision at a at a at a deeper level. It’s time to change. It’s time to get better. It’s time to stop hoping that things will get better of themselves.
It’s time to do something. Begin to search out and explore other other streets to travel down. You know, you know, that is to say, to be able to begin to actively look for alternative refuges in our life. So in the present context, the point context of Buddhism, you know, this alternative refuge is a is Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha. The Buddha as the embodiment of wisdom, love, compassion, and personal power, and the fearless and skillful expression in our everyday life.
And the Dharma, you know, the the the means, the techniques, the trainings, the truth of things whereby we actualize the Buddha inside of ourselves. And when this all of this process occurs within the third refuge that of this the spiritual community, the Sangha, those who assist us in implementing the Dharma in our lives, validate our our Buddhist story that we’re beginning to tell ourselves about ourselves. This becomes a real alternative refuge in our lives. It’s the other street that we can begin to explore, that we can begin to travel down. And we try to raise the level of motivation why we’re doing what we’re doing such that, you know, that the the the the why behind and the reason for is not just out of our own narrow self concerns, limited needs, but out of a a growing commitment to an ever widening circle of others.
Ultimately, we go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in order that we perfectly and completely awaken for the sake of all sentient beings. I’m looking for the refuge prayer. Thank you. I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Through my practice of generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity and the perfections. May I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am awakened to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha through my practice of generosity generosity and the other perfections, may I become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness in the causes of happiness. May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all sentient beings beings be inseparable from the joy that is without sorrow. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for some and aversion toward others. Okay. Would you like to stand up for a minute? We’ll stretch.
So let’s take a comfortable but firm and stable posture. Perhaps most importantly, just keeping your back straight. And we will begin with mindfulness of breathing and then we will do an analytic meditation of the same meditation that we did last week. And for example, thinking of a of a female who you admire and respect a great deal. And then deciding what what is it about them, what quality, what characteristic is it about them that you admire so much.
And then playing a role, creating an imaginative situation as if you yourself had the same quality but in the same degree, feeling it, believing it as best you can, and putting yourself in a situation where you express this quality. You know, playing a role and imagine it creating imaginative situation where you feel as if you had the same quality, which you now admire in this other person. And we’ll go we’ll do that with four different objects. So taking a firm, comfortable posture. And first beginning relaxing, getting in touch with the body.
So starting at the crown of your head, the scalp, the forehead, feeling the wrinkles of your brow beginning to smooth out, tension beginning to move down and out of your body, your eyes, the pressure beginning to lessen, to dissipate, Your facial muscles beginning to relax, to soften. Your jaw relax. Moving down to your neck, perhaps moving, turning your head gently to the side a few times. Softening, relaxing the muscles of the neck. Moving down to your shoulders, perhaps rotating your shoulders a few times, letting them drop, feeling the burden that we carry on our shoulders begin to lessen, to dissipate, the tension being released from the shoulder muscles.
And your hands relax, limp. Lower arms. Upper arms. Chest relax, steady. Relaxing the tension in your stomach muscles, your belly going soft.
Pelvic area, near buttocks. Upper legs. Lower leg. Feet. So get in touch with your body.
Notice any tightness with any tensions. Bring your awareness to those spots. Begin to to dissipate the tension. Feel the solidity beginning to break up and disperse. The tension is flowing down and out of your body, your body becoming comfortable, At ease, relaxed, soft.
And then bring your mind to your breath. Just easy, gentle, and not flow the natural breath. It’s a bit if it’s helpful using the techniques of counting and noting the breaths. Now we’re going to begin analytic meditation. Begin by thinking of a female that you admire, that you respect, that you look up to?
And what is it about her that you admire and respect much that you look up to? What quality? What characteristic? Now imagine that you yourself have the same exact quality to the same degree and create an imaginative situation where you express, where you feel and play out out the same quality that you admire in this person. So play a role and feel that you have this quality yourself and imagine the situation we express it.
We’re going to do the same. But this time, think of a male that you admire and respect, that you look up to. And again, what is that you you respect so much, what quality? And again, imagine that you yourself have the same exact qualities to the same degree and create an imaginative situation where you express it. Feel that you have it and live it out in this situation.
Now think of a quality, something about yourself that you like, something that you admire in yourself. And we want to feel that this quality has been many many times developed, completely fully developed. Feel that. Believe that yourself, that about yourself. Create and imagine some situation where you express this fully developed quality about yourself.
And then finally, think of some something about yourself that you don’t like, some quality that you don’t feel so good about. But now imagine that you have the exact opposite, the contrary quality, the opposite quality. And that quality is fully, completely developed. Feel that you have this opposite quality about what you presently don’t like. And create imagine the situation where you express it, where you live it out, feel and believe that you have it and express it.
And then bring your mind back to the breath. And then get in touch with your body, feeling your feelings, sensations in the body. And then gently in a slow, relaxed manner, become aware of what’s going about you. Just take your time. There’s no hurry.
Would you like to stretch? Everybody is stretching. You want to stand up and stretch? So, anyway, we’re discussing the three aspects of the path by the fourteenth century master, Yogi master, Tsongkhapa. So there’s lots of pictures of Tsongkhapa around.
It’s all these pictures. Pictures. On the top are the various depict various sequence episodes in his life. So he’s he’s an important figure in our tradition. He’s the important figure in our tradition.
He’s the founder of our tradition. And we the very first line in his text, this it’s only fourteen verses long. And the very first line in which he says, homage to all the foremost holy Lama. We begin, so we began to talk about the Lama. And we said that the role of the Lama was to instill confidence in ourselves that we can change, that we can go beyond these perpetual cycles of dissatisfaction.
We can grow in compassion and we can grow in wisdom. We can do this. We can, to inspire us, to take up the challenge, to do the work that’s necessary, to give us, to teach us the necessary skills that we can actually bring it about in fact, and to act as a model, a living example of someone who’s done that. But, it was important to keep in mind that when we use the word lama, sometimes maybe it’s a spiritual teacher. Lama is the Tibetan word for guru.
That that it denotes the quality of a relationship between ourselves, the students, and our teacher. That it it’s it’s not a particular title that someone maybe have come to be known by. That it is a relationship which is to be entered into only upon careful examination of the qualities of the teacher. We talked about the necessary qualifications of the teacher. And no matter how famous the the longer the teacher might be, no matter how in fact qualified from their side they might be, if still we are unable to feel any confidence and trust in them or in their capabilities, then we will be we will have little inspiration to put into practice with what they teach us.
And without putting into practice what they teach us, it’s of no use. There’s little they’re going to be little benefit. That so it’s not something that we want to enter to enter into out of desperation without a great deal of examination. It’s a very important relationship even if it takes years of examination. But in the meanwhile, Tsongkhapa has advised us that we can, in the stead, we can rely upon a spiritual friend, you know, someone who’s virtuous and trustworthy and reliable.
Our Sangha, our spiritual community, we can ask them for support. And that we we said that that cultivating this this sense of devotion to the lama is in a way a very skillful way of cult of devoting ourselves to our own inner teacher, our own inner lama, our own basic compassion and wisdom and decency about ourselves. We have to, we talked about Buddha nature, about this beginningless wakefulness about ourselves and that there is this basic sanity, goodness about ourselves and which is hindered by simply hindered by the or obscured by the our various afflictive emotions, you know, attachment and hatred and most basically ignorance. But also there there’s a the quality of the mind is being essentially pure by very nature. Yeah.
Just like just like water, muddy water. When it’s allowed to sit, the mud will settle out when you’re left with the actual nature of the water, which is clear and pure. And that we have to begin to trust ourselves, to trust in our own basic goodness and our own basic sanity. And to we you know, using the the the we have to do some work. Using the metaphor of a seed, we have to nurture the seed of compassion and wisdom within ourselves just like that through our practices.
And using the image of the unfolding of a lotus, we have to begin to remove the obscurations of the mind to reveal a primordial purity and wakefulness that has always been there, which needs no development, which needs no improvement. It it’s simply obscured. It’s not apparent to ourselves just like just like the the sun covered over by clouds. But somehow, we it’s difficult for us to believe in ourselves. We have a very very much stuck into a particular self image, a way of thinking about ourselves.
And we perpetuate our patterns and the ideals that we have out of ourselves. We notice and dwell upon information or data which confirms our notion about who we are. We we tend not to notice or we dismiss or we forget anything which disconfirms, which in any way contradicts our idea about ourselves. You know, we we misinterpret situations and people to conform to our expectations about who we are and how we can relate with the world. And we surround ourselves with people who complement our patterns and keep us fixed and stuck in the same ways of thinking and behaving.
Our world begins and ends within the limiting conceptions of ego. And all we come to know about ourselves is simply the reflections about of our of our own egos and the the the projected back at us. That’s we are our our contact with reality is very partial at best. It’s difficult for us to genuinely feel that there’s another way of being that’s open to us, that that we can radically change. Know, Buddhism is not saying that where we are to perform some kind of mental gymnastics, twist ourselves into some preconfigured mental attitude, and then twist our minds to some prescribed way that we are supposed to be.
That’s not the point. But we’re not to ourselves. We’ve had enough of that, oppressing ourselves, all the shoulds and ought tos of our life. We’ve got to stop shooting on ourselves. But but what we can do, we Buddhism is asking ourselves to open up to the possibility that about ourselves that we could be mistaken about ourselves in terms of who we can be and what we are.
That we are not our patterns. We are not our self image. We are not any of the identities that we cling to over the time over our life. We’re we’re something much greater than that. That any ID identity, any idea that we may have about ourselves, any self image cannot possibly encompass the totality of who we are and all that we can be.
And begin to open up to that possibility to relate not only with the clouds, but also begin to to intuit that behind the clouds, there is always the sun, which is never in any way affected by the clouds. So this this simple line, homage to all the foremost holy lamas. There’s another way that we can interpret this line. And this line can be interpreted, and this is where we’re going to begin where we left off, in terms of the psychological, of three psychological types of practitioners. Are those of a lesser, intermediate and great scope.
So we’re going to talk about Tsongkhapa’s teaching on the three scopes. These are aspirations which correspond to the three goals of Buddhism or the three goals of our Buddhist practice of the Dharma. The short term goal of a temporary higher rebirth and the longer term goals of definite goodness. And by definite goodness, there are there are two types of definite goodness. There is liberation from cyclic existence and complete Buddhahood.
These are said to be definitely good because they are definitely and unalterably positive. So there are these three aspirations or three goals that we have for ourselves. And with regard to these three goals, there are three types of psychological types which aspire to each of these three goals. So there is a person of what we call lesser scope. Sometimes it’s called lesser capacity or perspective.
So a person of lesser scope is capable only of aspiring to a higher rebirth in a future life. And I I I realized that right now we’re beginning this like an area that perhaps we don’t have a great deal of of confidence in about the nature of future life. But we can we can we can operate on we can make this a working basis for a working basis for for our for our practice with the reservation that you’re going to continue examine it, and we’re going to examine it at some length further on down the line. We’re going to look into it. But here, you know, we’re going to look at into the the reasonableness and the rationale behind the notion of.
But for now, we can simply take it as a working basis, you know, a provisional basis. It’s again, you’re not to believe in anything that you don’t believe. This you’re not you’re not meant to do that. We don’t know for most of us. I mean, Dalai Lama said no one has no one has never seen.
No one has no one has not seen the nonexistence of future lives. Or we can, at best, if we’re going to look at the the question of past and future lives, at best, you say, I don’t know. And later on we can begin to look at some of the supported reasoning which establishes its existence. Or we can begin to intuit it by looking at the nature of our own minds and how it arises. And we’ll do that.
We’ll just operate on a working basis as if it perhaps it did exist with some provisions. So there is the person of lesser scope. And this type of psychological type is capable of only aspiring to a higher rebirth in the future. A rebirth with a good form, a good body, sufficient wealth, long life, and all the favorable conditions in that life. And such a person has to become aware of, you know, this person is a particular type of practitioner.
And what is it that they have to what is it that they have practice and come to understand? They have to understand the rarity, the preciousness, and fragility of their present human life. They have to understand the nature of the lower realms, which we’re going to talk about in the future. They have to begin to understand that the positive and negative actions or karma lead to corresponding positive and negative results. So these are the types of understandings or awarenesses that are necessary to develop this attitude of the person of lesser scope.
They have to begin to appreciate the fragility and the rarity and the preciousness of present human life, which we all have. They have to understand the nature of the lower realms, the great suffering which may be in store for them. They have to understand the correspondence between negative and positive actions, karma, and the resultant negative and positive experiences which result from that. Out of that, they will begin to abandon negative actions actions and practice positive ones. And thereby, by that means they’re going to achieve what they aspire.
That is, say, a higher rebirth in the future. That’s why it’s a person of a smaller scope or capacity. The person of intermediate scope or capacity. They have to become aware of all that we have talked about just with regard to a person of smaller or lesser capacity scope. They have to become aware of all of that, understand all of that.
But also they become aware of the impermanence and subtle sufferings of even higher rebirth in cyclic existence. And by cyclic existence, I mean, any state which is bounded by karma and afflictive emotions. A situation where you’re not free, you cannot you cannot experience what you might want for yourself. But there are there are certain variables which which which you are under the control of, which you are under the power of karma and afflictive emotions. Any state with that’s bounded in that way constitutes some kind of is what we might is some kind of dissatisfactory existence.
And this person becomes aware of the subtle sufferings of even the highest states within this type of existence. And the way in which the twelve links, and we’re going to talk about the twelve links, a lot that we talked about. The twelve links of dependent origination. How this how our patterning, how this situation evolved that we find ourselves in now is an evolution which at its basis is ignorance. All of what we’ve come to experience, all that we’ve come to know has evolved on the basis of misconception of ignorance.
And becoming aware of these points, they determined to be free of ignorance since it’s the basis for all this dissatisfaction that we’ve come to experience. They have to free themselves from cyclic existence and they engage in practices in order to do that of the three higher trainings. This is a lot of information, isn’t it? We’ll go through it again. The three higher trainings of ethics, meditative stabilization, and wisdom.
You know, wisdom meditating one pointedly on the absence of a substantially existent self, the nature of the I, this person that we believe ourselves to be. Meditating in this way, practicing the three higher trainings, ethics, meditative stabilization, and developing this wisdom on that basis of ethics and meditative stabilization, they will they will achieve what they aspire to, a liberation from cyclic existence, a type of liberation which is free from any state bounded by karma and afflictive emotions, and therefore, suffering, all dissatisfaction. So that’s the person of intermediate scope. And the the highest scope is that of the person of great scope. And this person has to become aware of or come to understand all of what we’ve talked about thus far.
So they’ve got a bigger job set up for them. That’s why they sometimes called a person of great capacity. They’re capable of understanding and becoming aware of all that. And they they go beyond that and understand that not only am I in this situation, in cyclic existence, but every sentient being around me is in the same predicament as myself. Aware of this, they determined to liberate all sentient beings from cyclic existence, not just themselves, which is which was the aspiration of the being of middleing of intermediate scope.
But they they aspire to liberate all sentient beings from cyclic existence, from suffering. They develop a great love and compassion. They develop the awakened heart wishing to, you know, bodhicitta, wishing to completely become enlightened, to become a Buddha for the sake of liberating all sentient beings. And eventually they go on to develop the awakened mind as a means of doing this. That is to say, they develop an understanding, a profound understanding of emptiness, realizing that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence.
And we’re going to talk about what that means. Thereby, they achieve what their goal of Buddhahood, what they aspire to. So these three persons differ in their ability to set goals in terms of the two dimensions of time and responsibility. So we’re talking about three levels of aspiration, three scope, three types of psychological types of beings, of practitioners. They’re all practitioners, but they’re aspiring to three different levels of goals.
They have a capacity to aspire to only certain levels of outcomes which which they’re seeking. The aspiration of higher rebirth and cyclic existence, the aspiration to achieve liberation of cyclic existence, and the aspiration to achieve perfectly good king Buddhahood. These three different scopes. And these are these these scopes are being set in terms of the dimension of time and responsibility. One can set goals for all levels of time.
In fact, one needs to set goals for all levels of time. One needs to plan at least what one will accomplish today, this week, this month, this year, and ten years. To set these goals for all these times and all these levels and integrate them makes immediate goals much more achievable. One can set goals for all the different concentric spheres of one’s responsibility. One can set goals for oneself.
One can set goals to achieve in relation to one’s close, intimate loved ones, for one’s extended family, for one’s various groups, for one’s city, country, state, nation, province, for one’s continent, for one’s species, for the world of living beings, and for the universe as a whole. Not only can one set goals for all these levels, but setting them at all levels greatly reinforces the power of the goal. Every level of goal becomes more workable if it is integrated with all the other levels. So in terms of time, it’s necessary to set goals for varying periods of time. Short term goals, intermediate goals, long term goals.
And to begin to integrate them so that the achievement of one will facilitate the achievement of the other. You know, for example, if someone had the long term goal of wanting to become a doctor, that was their goal for whatever reason. They found that as a worthwhile profession, some worthwhile rewarding way of living their life, to be a doctor. In order to achieve that long term goal, they would take up short term goals. For example, studying physics.
Okay? And they might hate physics. It might be terribly difficult for them. But they see that only by achieving the short term goal can they achieve their long term goal. Maybe they have to study chemistry.
Yeah? So a subject that they would in isolation, they would not consider, they wouldn’t take up. Or even if they took it up, they they might give it up quickly after a while when it became difficult, became boring or whatever. So establishing our long term goals and seeing what are the short term goals in order to achieve that, we will take up short term goals which we would never have taken up or achieved otherwise. So we begin to integrate these different levels of goals.
But as well we can set goals in terms of responsibility. Initially, have to take responsibility for ourselves. We we can’t we can’t skip that. We can’t we can’t side step that. We have to first cultivate a sincere wish for ourselves to be free of suffering and to find happiness.
From there, can gradually extend the scope of this concern, this compassion and love that’s developing to another. And then then by learning how to to to take care learning how to take care of ourselves, we can begin to understand how to take responsibility for others. If we can’t learn how to take care of ourselves, we don’t know how to take responsibility. What does it mean to take responsibility for others? By by beginning to learn how to take care of a few, we can learn how we can learn how to take responsibility for many.
You know, seeing that ultimately we are to take responsibility for all living beings, we can come back to ourselves and question, can I actually do that? I can only do that if I do the work on myself. We come back to ourselves. So, you know, we have, we, that we become aware that the basic ground of work that needs to be done is on ourselves first before we can ever hope to achieve this greater responsibility. So in in this in Tsongkhapa’s homage, where he says, homage to the all the foremost holy lamas.
Foremost holy lamas. The word foremost is denotes a person of lesser scope or capacity. So this person is convinced of the invariable relation between cause and effect, between happiness and suffering experienced in the future states and their present skillful and unskillful actions. There’s between what we experience in terms of feeling and what actions preceded that. And now we’re going to talk about karma.
karma is simply a subcategory of the law of cause and effect, which we all make use of every day of our lives. When you turn the key of your car, it it it there’s a certain you instigate a certain process and and hopefully, sometimes not. Eventually, the motor turns over and the car is humming, you know. So there’s a there was a chain of sequence of events, a chain of events beginning with the sequence of turning the key. Some kind of action on our part brings about a result.
Likewise, in terms of the ethical quality of our actions, they bring about an experiential result that we are the agent of, that we have certain types of feelings, good and bad feelings. So this person has become convinced that I want to be happy in the future. I don’t want to suffer in the future. That happiness in the future and that absence of suffering future is dependent upon what my various actions that I do now. There’s a relationship.
It’s not chance. It doesn’t arise causelessly. There’s a there’s there’s variable with there’s predictable variables which come into play, and I can begin to to take some kind of conscious control in terms of what I do, what I say, what I think, bringing about the types of results that I want. We we we start to make choices. So they they they are no longer in this way, understanding that what I do now is what I’m going to become and what I’m going to experience.
They begin to take control of their lives. They’re no longer controlled by simply by the desires for immediate short term gratification. They’re not carried away by their desires to the same extent as they were. They’re willing to forego gratifying their desires if they involve creating unskillful actions. If you’re convinced that if you commit a negative action, you’re going to experience suffering, you’re going to be think twice about committing that action.
You could do some kind of discrimination, some type of choice enters into what what you begin to how you begin to act. They begin to on the other hand, they they they are willing to take up difficult actions if they involve creating skillful if they’re skillful in in in thereby bringing about happiness in the future types of situations. What they want in the future for themselves. So their actions are seen not just in terms of their immediate result, but they they they have the capacity to see their what they do and don’t do in a longer in the long term. Consequently, there’s a lessening of emphasis given to immediate gratification of their desires.
You know, we we we do this all the time and, you know, what we call, you know, some some high school students, you know, they see they see other, you know, they have some people, you know, driving around nice cars and nice flat and stereo. Oh, I wish I had that. You know? And and this desire to have all those little goodies, which looks so good to them. And they they they don’t have any perspective on what what is what is happening for them.
So they they they they they react. And they say, oh, I dropped out of school and I get a job. You know? It doesn’t matter what I do. And then I can get I can get all this good.
So, you know but if someone were to say, you know, if you finish high school, statistically, the the your your level of income will increase over the course of your life by x numbers of percent. I don’t know. It’s but there is significant increase in expected income if you’re a high school graduate. Just forego, you know, these goodies for now for a longer return in the future. And then they graduate from high school and they get, you know well, and they thought, now I’m gonna get all get all the goodies.
Yeah. But wait a minute. Yeah. What what what if you went to university? You know?
How much greater would be your income? What what greater and more job choices would be open to you? The quality of your of your of your livelihood would be that much better, and you’d be able to have that many more goodies if you were to hold off for only three or four more years. You know, it goes like that. Anyway, you get the idea.
So is it one begins to discriminate. Begins to use some kind of wisdom around your choices. You’re not controlled by the need to have immediate goal gratification. I have to have that now or I’m going to die. We feel that sometimes.
You know, people do this, when you put money for using your superannuation, that money you could have been using now for some kind of pleasure, but you but you you put it off. So here, you know, there’s a scope in terms of time has been greatly lengthened. And so for the main practice of the practitioner of lesser scope is not to harm others. This is the main practice that we have to and we’re going to necessarily have to work through all of these levels of scope. Not to harm others, avoiding killing.
Taking only what is given. That is a that’s the opposite opposite of stealing. Not committing sexual misconduct. That is a this means not harm others through sexual activity. And then that of telling the truth, not lying or deceiving.
So these these are the ways that we we not harm others. The key to attaining a higher rebirth is avoiding any kind of action that’s harmful to others. So this is what this level of practitioner going to, the means that they can achieve what they’re aspiring to. And so that’s what the word foremost. That is the person of lesser capacity.
Holy denotes the person of intermediate capacity or scope. This person has given up trying to find any type of real happiness within cyclic existence. That is in any situation which is bounded by karma and afflictive emotions. karma, you know, this process of action and reaction and affect of emotions like hatred, attachment, and jealousy, which govern our lives to a great extent. Any any state within that is dissatisfactory by its very nature.
So this person has given up trying to find any real happiness. You know, we’re gonna talk about what real happiness is and what and how we might be a little bit confused about what that in fact is. There’s a deeper discrimination as to the nature of happiness. We we we have some some misconceptions about the nature of happiness, I think. What is real happiness?
And they they they they have so they there’s a deeper deeper discrimination about the nature of happiness and suffering and increased there’s an increased purposefulness about their lives. They Their life is more directed. How what I do and don’t do supports what I’m trying to achieve in the long run. But still, what they’re trying to achieve is viewed solely in terms of themselves, achieving their own, you know, piece of chocolate cake, this liberation from cyclic existence. So this is of middling scope of capacity.
So the main practice of such a practitioner is the to the cultivation of the path of the four noble truths and to eliminate the two kinds of whole unwholesome conduct. Two types of two types of unwholesome conduct are actions which are conduct which is naturally negative, like killing is by by its very nature negative. But there’s a another type of unwholesome conduct which is acting in contradiction to to some type of vows that you’ve taken. Formally took some type of made some kind of commitment, took some precepts and types of vows in actually contradiction. So it’s not naturally negative.
For example, for a monk to eat after lunch, it would be a type of negative action. It’s not naturally negative. Thank goodness. But it is having taken a vow not to eat after lunch that if you would act in a way which contradicted that vow. So these are the ways that this being of middling scope or intermediate scope would practice in order to achieve their goal, their aspiration.
Lama. So homage to the foremost holy Lama. Lama denotes a person of great scope. So such a person takes responsibility there for their future happiness and suffering. They’ve given up trying to find any real happiness within a, within cyclic existence.
And most especially, they’ve extended the scope of their concern to include all others. They have they’ve awakened their heart to others, all sentient beings, which so this entails this awakening of our heart entails two aspirations. One is aspiring to enlightenment or Buddhahood, and one one is aspiring to bring about the welfare of all sentient beings. So these are their aspirations. You know, the word the Tibetan word for lama, you know, which guru or spiritual teacher is made up of two syllables, la and ma.
La means high. Ma is a negative particle. So the word lama can come to mean none higher. There is no one higher who than someone who has gone beyond the selfishness of self centeredness and and exchanged it for altruism of other centeredness, of love and compassion for others. There also, the mother.
So the ultimate mother of all sentient beings seeking to end all their suffering through the attainment of Buddhahood. The highest mother, Dharma. So the main practice of this practitioner, of the great scope, is the six perfections. The perfections of generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, meditative concentration, and wisdom. They practice those, but they also practice what is called the four means of cultivating the minds of others.
So the four means of cultivating or developing the minds of their students or disciples. So supplying their material needs, speaking in ways, in skillful ways, which such as teaching words of encouragement, guiding them through, you know, personal advice and personal instruction. And the fourth way is to act as a model of your teachings to be be an example of what you say. So there is this is an evolution from a practitioner of a lesser scope to one of greater scope. And this represents a progress in terms of setting our goals in the dimension of time What does okay.
Let’s what does most basically means in trying to, you know, trying to identify what this might mean for me. Most basically, this involves an increased orientation towards, like, you know, we a primary a priority is given to what lies beyond the immediate gratification of our selfish desires. Now our goals, most of what we seek, lies within the area of the immediate gratification of our selfish desires. That way leads nowhere. Here we’re beginning to to develop greater discrimination, greater purpose for us in what we’re about, what type of life we want to live.
And the way that we can begin to we’re goal directed. The mind is dynamic. If we present to it, if the goals that we set for it, if we have faith in them, we have confidence in them, if we if we if we believe in them, the mind will begin to orientate us. So the goals that we’re beginning to set for ourselves are are beyond the immediate gratification of our selfish desires. They’re longer term goals, and they go beyond our selfish desires in terms of time and responsibility.
So the the purpose the purpose for Tsongkhapa in this three principal aspect of the path for writing or composing the Three Principal Aspects of the path is not to guide a person of lesser scope. It’s not to guide a person of middling scope. Not merely that. These but however, these two paths are part of the practice of the path of the person of great scope. We have to pass through these understandings.
We have to become aware of what they are aware of and we have to develop the same aspirations as them. It’s the common path, the common basis for what we are working with. These two paths, the path of lesser scope and the path of intermediate scope are function as a preparation for the path of the great vehicle. The path of the person of great scope. Even though these two preliminary paths are called the path of the lesser scope and the path of intermediate scope, nonetheless they are integral part of the path, of the being of great scope, the person of great scope.
Without traveling these preliminary paths, you cannot get to the path of the great vehicle. You have to start on that common basis. So what this means is that you can wish to eliminate other people’s suffering. Know, even though you might wish to do that, first you must you have to want yourself to be free of suffering. We can’t we can’t we can’t we have to start from where we’re at.
We have to start at the beginning. So if you feel nothing when you think about your own situation and cyclic existence, how great compassion ever arise when you see that others are in that same situation? If you don’t feel it for yourself, that I want to be free of this situation of cyclic existence. If you don’t feel that towards yourself, how could you feel it for others? How could you ever have the great compassion which wishes to liberate them from that sudden situation, that cyclic existence.
Śāntideva, one of the greatest Indian masters, said in his text Engaging in the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, If those beings have never before felt such an attitude for their own sake, even in their dreams, how could it arise for the sake of others? Therefore, in all you know, our goal is perfect, complete, but maybe we don’t know what that is. But can begin to develop an image, an idea, a sense, a feeling for it and begin to orientate the directionality of our mind or purpose from us in our in what we do in our everyday life in that way. Our life has a greater meaning in that way.
It has there’s more fulfillment in that way. There’s some kind of we had sometimes our our life has some kind of goal, some aim beyond my own immediate gratification and my egotistical ends, my own selfish needs, my my my my like like a hungry dog biting it, scraps of food which which are tossed to it, which we’re going beyond that. There’s something worthwhile beyond that, some level that we’re looking towards. In order to ultimately generate great compassion and love for others, you must develop an aversion for all the harms and sufferings that you yourself were experiencing the lower rebirth. So this is the practice of the person of lesser scope.
There’s development of this aversion for the harms and suffering of lower rebirth. The scope of your concern is extended in time. We’re beginning to orientate in terms, you know, gaining some kind of perspective. And right now we’re like, you know, this person walking through this woods and we we we bump into each tree and we deal with each tree as it comes along. We don’t see the shape of the forest where how we could ever find our way out of it altogether.
We don’t have any perspective on where we’re at and where we’re going. It’s kind of chaotic, haphazard at best. So here we’re beginning to develop some kind of perspective. And here it’s in terms of time. And we’re still beginning to think of our of our sense of who I am in terms of an expanded sense of time over lifetimes.
And where do I want to go in terms of the lifetimes? So on the path of the person of immediate scope, you meditate on how even higher rebirths in these future lives are are are just simply a form of suffering, even though subtle suffering. Even if you were born in the highest state, you will not find lasting peace. There is no escape from suffering even in the best of situations within cyclic existence. It’s at best, it’s only temporary.
You know, it’s going it’s all things it’s always subject to change. So thinking this way with regard to yourself, you do develop a desire to be free from even these higher states. So the scope of your concern extended in terms of responsibility. And, you know, you’re willing to take full responsibility for yourself. I think I think it’s to take responsibility for yourself, I think, is much more than we normally normally intend by by when we say that, to take full risk to to take responsibility in the actual meaning is to be able to respond.
How can you take responsibility if you aren’t able to respond in what is needed and what it is that’s going to solve the situation in the ways that you want it. Otherwise, responsibility means nothing. So after you think, you know, after you think about yourself in your own situation, we begin to change the subject of our thinking slightly. We begin to think in terms of our of our family, our loved ones, those close to us. And that they are in the same situation.
And we know from your own experience you can infer their situation and what they must be experiencing because you’ve looked at it for yourself in terms of yourself. And now you can simply, you know, you simply take the compassion, the love that you you have developed from yourself and you simply change the object to those close to you, most immediate. And you know that they’re just like you, that they want to be happy, that they don’t want to suffer. No difference. And you know that they’re not happy.
They’re not they’re suffering just like yourself because to a large extent, except for the the minor differences, in a deeper sense, we’re all in the same situation. All of us, no matter, you know, what we may look like on the outside. Our circumstances, basically, there’s always within cyclic existence, there’s no real happiness. That’s the nature of our situation at a deeper level. So from there, you extend the scope of your concern, you know, to and begin to extend out to those to a greater and wider scope.
Then finally, you begin to think about all sentient beings. And you meditate in this way, you develop great love and compassion which desires to place all sentient beings in happiness and free them from their suffering and to take responsibility for doing this. So once great love and compassion are developed sincerely and spontaneously, the awakened heart will arise. And with that, one enters the great vehicle. But just having, you know, just having a sincere wish to help others, though, you know, a wonderful thing to to have arisen in your mind.
That in itself does not help others. It does not solve other people’s problems. So we have to actually practically do something. We have to, we engage in the Bodhisattva’s activities in order to be able to accomplish this goal. So motivated by the awakening heart, we take up the practice of, as we mentioned, the six perfections.
And most importantly, the emphasis is placed upon the perfection of meditative concentration as a basis for eventually developing the perfection of wisdom. So having developed this single point of concentration, you investigate the true nature of the self and our phenomena. You engage in this analysis to eliminate ignorance which conceives of inherent existence. And we’re going to talk a lot about that down the line. What inherent existence means and what the nature of ignorance is.
These things appear to us to exist inherently. All objects including the eye, the self, the tables, chairs, this building, they appear to exist external, to exist independently as if they exist independent of the force of our mind, independent of the force of language, conceptuality, independent of causes and conditions, as if they exist in and of themselves. And so out of this misconception as to the nature of objects arises attachment, hatred, all the various affliction emotions. The basis is ignorance. So it is by means of developing this wisdom that we’re able to sever the roots of ignorance.
And when this is combined, when this wisdom, this awakened mind is is empowered by the awakened heart, this great love and compassion will remove all the obstructions to Buddhahood, to complete awakening. So the the the path to complete awakening is is composed of and we can do it. There’s five consecutive paths. No. We we we enter into the great vehicle.
A vehicle is what that which carries us to where we want to go to. Yeah. It’s able to carry a particular burden or weight. And here we’re in the great vehicle. It’s able to carry us to to a great weight.
It’s able to carry the Bodhisattva to the goal of Buddhahood. So this path is is is composed of five consecutive paths. Path of accumulation, preparation, talk more about these, seeing, meditation, and no more learning. These are the five paths that we want to follow. At the time of the path of accumulation and the path of preparation, you need to generate a thorough understanding of emptiness.
This is this wisdom, understanding that all phenomena are empty of independent existence, independent inherent existence. There’s lots of ways of expressing this, but it’s but we we have to come and understand what it is what do we mean by the fact inherent existence? What do we mean to say that phenomena are empty of inherent existence? So you generate this through understanding of emptiness. Then through the through meditation on the path of seeing, you directly So here, before we were just thinking about it.
When here at the path of seeing, we directly realize emptiness. Non conceptual understanding. It’s not an idea. We see it just like just like you see this this metal cup in my hand, one realizes emptiness in a direct fashion. Directly.
Not ideal about it. Not thinking about it, but directly. Just like the eye consciousness sees the metal cup. And then on the path of meditation you fill out your understanding. You have that you’ve already reproduced.
You eliminate and in doing it you begin to eliminate what is to be abandoned. The afflictive emotions and all and the two obscurations or obstructions. The obscuration or the obstruction to liberation and the obstruction to omniscience. And you fill out, bring to completion all of your various realization or the path to meditation. And this way, there is a three stage accomplishment.
We are developing the understanding of emptiness during the paths of accumulation and preparation. That is one stage. So developing this understanding. Then stage where we directly realize path of seeing, on the path of seeing. And then on the path of meditation, filling out that understanding, that realization.
And these three stages lead to the path of no more learning. The path of no more learning is Buddhahood. So in order to become a Buddha, you have to generate the awakened mind. You have to generate the wisdom realizing emptiness. No question.
Moreover, this awakened mind must be under influence, under the power of conjoined with the awakened heart. The altar is the aspiration to achieve perfect complete enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. This is what empowers this wisdom consciousness. The wisdom consciousness is like a rocket, but the fuel is the awakened heart, this love, this great love and compassion. So in order to generate the awakened heart, you have to generate the will to awaken.
That is to say, order to if in order to want to liberate all sentient beings, to bring about the welfare welfare of all sentient beings, one must have first generated the the love and compassion to liberate yourself, which is the will to awaken, the determination to be free of cyclic existence. In order to develop that, that, that the, so this path, this path is of, this determination to be free of cyclic existence is the path of being of the person of intermediate perspective. But it’s also the path shared by the person of great great scope. It’s a common path. So in order to generate the will to awaken, you must first begin to orientate your priorities in terms of avoiding grosser states of suffering in the future.
In order to want to be free of cyclic existence in general, first you have to begin to want to avoid grosser states and suffering within cyclic existence in the future. As well as creating the situation where that you will ensure that you’ll be able to carry on your practice in the future. So you want to so you want to avoid grosser states of suffering, for example, three lower realms. And moreover, you want to ensure that you’ll be able to continue your practice. You know, this is a tremendous undertaking and it’s useful to think of it in this way.
It takes some of the pressure. It takes some of the egotistic ambition out of what we’re doing. The Dalai Lama says it’s useful to to think of it, you know, it’s going to take young to do this, to travel this, to make this journey. And it’s useful to think in that way. We have to do the work now because that’s the only time we can do it, but we don’t have to do it all now.
It’s a gradual unfolding. We just have to do the work and things will take care of themselves. We went to avoid grosser states of suffering and create a situation for ourselves where we can continue. It’s not as if we’re carrying on. What you do now is what you become.
And we can carry on from that. No. Who we are now is what we have done. It hasn’t come about by chance or the haphazardly or causelessly. Who we are now or what we we’re in our present situation is is the outcome of discernible variables.
And what we know what we do now is what we will come become. And that that we will find ourselves in the same position and we’ll be able to go to to carry on our practice further and further. Know, gaining some kind of cosmic perspective about what we’re doing. So we have to we have to this is the this is the path of the being of small scope, avoiding lower rebirths, suffering where there’s gross suffering. But it’s also a path shared by the person of intermediate perspective.
We have to concern ourselves with that as well. So the motivation for each of these goals is the foundation of the next higher one. There is no way to jump over the necessary steps. In this way, the practice of the two lower paths are all the preparations for awaking their hearts, thereby entering into the great vehicle. In order to achieve higher goals, you have to be grounded earlier goals, in the earlier ones.
You know, we we might we might wish to, but we simply cannot cannot leap to awakening. It would be nice if it were otherwise, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. We have to begin at the beginning, and we have to begin where each of us is at. And if if we if we were ever to have any realistic hope of ever achieving, you know, Buddhahood or totality or enlightenment, awakening, whatever, we have to, you know and thereby being of greatest benefit to both ourselves and to others. We have the reality is that we have there is no other way.
You know, if you want to solve this this I’m gonna stop very quickly. Perfection of patience. If you want to solve the world’s problems, you have to put your own house, your own individual life in order first. That is somewhat of a paradox. People have a genuine desire to go beyond their individual cramped lives to benefit the world.
But if you do not start at home, then you have no hope of helping the world. So the first step in learning how to rule is learning how to rule your own household, your immediate world. There is no doubt that if you do so, then your next step will come naturally. If you fail to do so, then your contribution to the world will be further chaos. You know, many many many people, many of us, we have a sincere wish to help others, to work with others, to be of service to others.
And this is this is a tremendously wonderful and beautiful quality, and we should value it. We should hold it precious. We should we should guard it. We should hang on to it. And we we we should we should do whatever we can to help others, you know, with whatever it is that we have and whatever way that we’re able.
But what we need to always keep in mind that the more we are ourselves, the more we can benefit others. The more we are as a person, the more we will naturally be able to give to others. We have to do the work here in order to benefit there. So we’ll stop there. Sorry to keep you over time.
We’ll dedicate the skillful actions that we’ve created. I’m sorry we didn’t have questions. Say that every week, don’t I? Male beings everywhere plagued by suffering of body and mind attain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creatures suffer, commit evil, or fall ill.
No one be afraid or belittled with a mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms and the deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose. May the naked find clothing, the hungry find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drink.
May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy. May the forlorn find hope, constant happiness, and prosperity. May the ripening of the rains and bountiful harvest. May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all who are sick and ill, quickly be freed from their ailments.
Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid and those bound be freed. May the powerless find power and may people think of benefiting each other. Through these skillful actions, may I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to that awakened realm. May the supreme jewels of the three principal aspects of the path that have not arisen arise and grow.
And those that have arisen, may they never diminish but increase more and more. In the land circled by snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Powerful Chenrezig, Tenzin Gyatso, please remain at the end of cyclic existence. Have a good week. Thank you very much.