Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 26-minute talk, Ven Jampa Ignyen opens with a sharp warning: don’t judge where other beings are spiritually, no matter how quickly your mind forms conclusions. He illustrates this with the story of Śāntideva—apparently a lazy monk until the other monks invited him to teach, when he levitated to a high throne and delivered the teaching that became the Bodhicharyavatara. From there, Jampa Ignyen explores how vows amplify our actions—why a monk transgressing even a minor rule accumulates heavier karma than a layperson committing major misdeeds—and unravels the moral complexity of bodhisattva compassion: how a realized bodhisattva might kill to prevent greater harm, or teach a path leading to death because it accelerates deeper liberation. Pitched at practitioners with some grounding in Lamrim.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 2001 04 05 LR.mp3
UUID: e6e7dabc-3781-48b3-9e6f-fea5eeba7d12
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Lam Rim 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-04-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 26.0 minutes
Words: ~2,817
It’s very difficult for us to see what level other beings are at. And it’s also said even in text on logic, a person should not hold to the opinion or assessment of an assessment of another, otherwise, will surely fall. So we should not we look at someone else and think we’re very skillful at estimating where they’re at. I look at someone and like, you know, they don’t know anything. I look at someone else and they’re they’re probably like that or they’re like this.
We sum up people instantaneously. We have these very strong likes and dislikes. Just one look at a person. I don’t like them. Disregard them.
Okay. They’re, you know, they’re right at the bottom of the pile as far as I’m concerned. They come to me for anything. Well, know, they better get down their hands and knees. Think I’m gonna help them.
But as it said in that statement from I think that came no. It wasn’t from Manusmriti. It was another text I can’t remember the name of, but it’s quoted in Lam Rim. But it says, Gangzag gangzag, one person shouldn’t hold to their estimate of another. So we shouldn’t hold to that estimate.
In a sense of saying, have an estimate if you like, but don’t hold onto it. And you can have an opinion, but be very careful with that opinion. Because if you project it on that other person, you say, oh god, you know, they’re worthless. They’re useless. They can’t do anything.
It may be correct. But we have to be careful that we’re not using that to develop negative intention towards them. Because that will be to our detriment. That will harm us. But also, we really don’t understand where they’re at anyway.
There’s a story of Śāntideva. Everyone’s familiar with the story of Śāntideva. He was a monk in Nālānda, and the other monks used to ridicule him. There’s good old three actions. Look at him.
He only does three things. He eats and he sleeps and he shits. That’s all he does. There’s one monk, and he never appeared to be doing anything. He didn’t attend teachings and didn’t appear to be meditating at all.
Didn’t attend very much. Didn’t do much of anything at all. And so one day, in order to shame him into doing something, they invited him to give a teaching. But they may have put the throne so high that he couldn’t climb it, and there was no ladder or no steps in order to get to the top. But he agreed to do it.
He had a teaching, and so he came along and noticing that there was no ladder, he decided to levitate up to the top, which impressed a number of the people in the audience to start. And then he asked, what sort of teaching would you like? Would you like me to comment on something of the Buddhas or or something that’s already been composed, or would you like something completely new? And I said, oh, okay. So he might know one or two things, but it’s okay.
Okay. Give us something new, completely new, unheard before. And so then he composed the Bodhicaryāvatāra, which is quite a famous text. And it’s said that when he started teaching the ninth chapter on emptiness, only those that comprehended emptiness could see beyond that point. But then after he gave the teaching, decided he’d depart from the monastery.
Then the monks came after him begging him to come back because they realized that that person just had the appearance of someone that wasn’t doing anything. But then he said, no, can’t. I’m not coming back. And he said that but I’ve left a copy of the text in my cell. So if you wanted, it’s there.
But we have to be careful with others. It’s hard for us to judge the level of another being. It seems sophisticated and intelligent to be able to assess someone very quickly and decide, oh, they like that. And in fact, at times, we may have to do this in our work. If we’ve got to hire someone, know, that person’s useless, and now this person’s better, and so forth.
But we have to be careful that we’re not okay. That’s their appearance. They appear to be that way, and maybe they’re not actually useless. Maybe they do have many skills. They may be a highly realized bodhisattva, but, okay, I won’t hire them now.
Maybe in future, I’ll hire them. We need to be a little bit careful. As I said, fools rush rush in where angels fear to tread. It’s a little bit like that. With fools, if they rush to judgment on others, angels or beings that are really practicing virtue realize that, oh, we judge another, we’re gonna be judged the same way.
And, certainly, probably don’t want to be judged as severely as we judge others. So, yeah, we need to reflect on the object of any action. Where are they? Can I definitely say that they’re, you know, worthy of being hated or worthy of being looked down on? So then there’s powerful according to the field.
And then there’s powerful because one had been a candidate for vows. So if one has vows in one’s continuum, then one’s actions become more potent. So if one has pratimoksha vows, then excellent. If one has bodhisattva vows, also excellent. One has tantric vows, again, it means that one’s actions are becoming more potent because one’s holding those vows, or one is at least in a position where one is has the very strong intention of restoring vows.
So being a candidate for the taking of vows is a way that our actions become more potent. So as it says in this section, a sūtra says one’s virtue is more extensive if one has taken vows than if one has not. And the same holds for non virtues. It is a heavier non virtue for someone ordained to commit a trivial misdeed than for a layperson to indulge in the ten non virtues. So if a monk or nun engages in a non virtue, it’s more difficult than if the same action were committed by, say, a layperson.
Person. And why is that? That’s because of the vows they have in their continuum. So having vows in one’s continuum does anyone have vows in their continuum? Anyone?
Who? Only oh, that’s suitable to be restored. Okay. Pure or suitable to be restored. Sorry?
Have you taken Yes. Every not everyone? Five lay vows? Yeah. They have vows.
What about that for vows? Who hasn’t taken vows? That’s fine. What a vow is or what a pledge or a commitment is is either a commitment to practice positive actions or a commitment to practice negative actions. And some take commitments to practice negative actions, so they’re to be avoided.
Oh, it’s said that well, give an example here like butchers and so forth that almost have a commitment to kill, which is very negative. So it’s said to be more potent. Our actions become more potent if we have vows in our continuum. What are vows? vows are a pledge not to commit a certain action like killing.
If they’re two people and one they both practice non killing equally, but one has taken a vow not to kill and the other one hasn’t. The one who’s taken the vow accumulates more merit because their actions are more potent because they possess vows and they continue. But if they commit negative actions, then those negative actions the one with vows, if they commit a negative action, then it’s more potent in its result. Is that positive action or is that negative action negative action? I think any negative action, but specifically to that particular vow.
But it’s more more actually to the vow itself. But but then taking of vows is not an indication that we’ve reached a point where we’re completely beyond transgression. We take the vows in order to help us get to that point. So the vows can be restored. Bodhisattva vows can be restored.
Tantric vows can be restored. Prātimokṣa vows can be generally restored. For a layperson, they can be restored. For ordained novices, they can be restored. For fully ordained, under certain circumstances, they can’t be restored.
So very important to keep the vows as purely as we can. But having the vows makes it possible to accumulate a great deal of merit. But that’s not the only reason. Of course, one is taking vows in order to develop the habit of not committing those actions. So as it goes on to say, if you take a vow, you will receive virtue continuously.
And if you take a non an unvirtuous vow, you will continuously receive nonvirtue. And it gives the example. A butcher and a woman who serves alcohol are examples of people who have taken unvirtuous vows and their sins will or non virtues will continue to increase even while they are sleeping or relaxing. So for that reason, it’s good to have taken positive vows because even when we’re doing nothing, those vows accumulate merit for us. Right.
And there’s also another section here that’s quite on the next page, it’s talking also about two types of prohibitions or vows that can be taken. And these are natural and proclaimed nonvirtue, vows against natural nonvirtue and vows against proclaimed nonvirtue. A natural or essential non virtue, probably the main example of that is killing. Because killing is something that’s always non virtuous. No matter what our intention is, killing is non virtuous.
With the best intention in the world, if we kill something, that action is non virtuous because it’s a natural non virtue. Doesn’t matter what the intention is. Positive, negative, neutral. The action is negative. Here, the intention with natural non virtue, the action itself is non virtuous.
So that even with a positive intention, that action is non virtuous. Sorry. No. This is this is like an exception to them. Sorry.
There’s an example given if this yep. This is the story of of the Buddha in a previous life by the sounds of it. When he was As a pirate. As a pirate? Yeah.
Pirate. Yeah. So that that’s the example here. In a far distant lifetime, Buddha Śākyamūni was a captain on a boat. And on board the boat, there were said to be five hundred arhats or liberated beings.
And the Buddha was the captain of this ship. And he saw a pirate vessel coming, and he had extra sensory perception. He had higher perception. He could see that the pirate intended to board the boat and kill everyone on board and steal what was on the boat, of course. And so the Buddha in his previous life as a bodhisattva decided I’ll kill that pirate.
To prevent the pirate from killing all the five hundred arhats and accruing such a huge amount of non virtue that they would be in hell for many, many eons. So the Buddha in that previous life, they waited till he was boarded by the pirate and killed the pirate. That action completed, I think, the first countless eon of merit. The action was non virtuous because of an act of killing. Yes.
The karma is the intention. And then what follows from that, whether it remains as a mental action or whether it becomes grosser as a verbal action or even grosser still as a physical action, is determined by the mental action itself. And generally, results then are of those actions are accord with the grossness of the cause. Anyway, in saying this, the killing is non virtuous. And when when the bodhisattva killed the pirate, Śākyamūni, in that previous life, he realized that by killing a pirate, he would have to experience himself the negative actions of killing.
But he was prepared to take that on in order to benefit that being, in order to stop that being from accumulating a vast amount of negative karma. So that was positive. So there’s a mixture there, mixed karma for the bodhisattva. But that’s a mark of bodhisattvas. They will even, to help beings.
They’ll go to the extent of killing beings to help them. That if one is in a position to help that being if one was a bodhisattva with great wisdom and could see that by killing the animal, that animal they could help that animal more than if that animal was to continue to live, are they willing to take on the responsibility of that action? Then they should. Or here, that bodhisattva would understand clearly what its karma was. There’s a story of Śāriputra who had some students, and he was teaching these particular students.
Śāriputra was one of the main disciples of the Buddha. The Buddha had two main disciples, Maudgalyayāna and Śāriputra. Śāriputra was the foremost disciple in wisdom, wisdom, and he had some disciples whom he’d been teaching for some time, and they’re progressing quite well. And it wouldn’t be long before those students would become liberated beings. And then along came Mañjuśrī, this great bodhisattva.
And he started teaching them the great vehicle path, whereby they quickly died. And Śāriputra became very annoyed with Mañjuśrī and went and complained to the Buddha. Mañjuśrī has gone and taught them this other doctrine whereby they’ve ended up dying. Whereas if I could have taught them for some time longer, they would have attained a state of a liberated being. But then the Buddha said, yes, but you don’t have the skill of Mañjuśrī.
Because Mañjuśrī could see that by teaching them what he taught, they would die, and not only die quickly, they’d be reborn in hell. And this also Śāriputra saw that what Mañjuśrī taught them caused them to be reborn in hell. But then Buddha said, but Śāriputra Mañjuśrī also could see that by being reborn in hell, they would only spend a short period of time there. After that, they would be reborn again in the higher realms where they would be taught by Mañjuśrī and quickly become bodhisattvas and quickly become Buddhas. Whereas if they’d become arhats, they would have spent many, many eons, in peace, but, that would have been a great obstacle for them becoming bodhisattvas.
So bodhisattvas even take on the responsibility of maybe being a condition for the death of of others, if that is something that will speed them to the path of attaining realization. But this is hard to understand anyway. But the Buddha himself taught all paths for the benefit of others. So the lesser vehicle paths, the great vehicle path, and so on. In fact, the Buddha taught many countless systems in order to benefit others.
Of course, we probably need all of them because because beings are so diverse. And what attracts one person is gonna be the object of complete disinterest by many others. And this would happen even at the time of the Buddha. The Buddha would give a teaching, and at times half the audience would get up and leave. Even when the Buddha was teaching.
The before. And once they’d gone, then the Buddha said, now the chaff have disappeared. I’ll give you the real teaching because it was a teaching for those of great vehicle motivation. But that’s not to say those are, you know, are incredibly wise and profound beings. If we were to come in contact with an arhat, a liberated being, it would be amazing.
Maybe someone that’s completely liberated. They have direct perceptual comprehension of emptiness. No afflictions whatsoever. Over completely overcome all suffering. Have great clairvoyance.
Infinite compassion. Infinite love. Able to read our minds, able to help us in many different ways. It could teach us Dharma beyond birth and death, beyond saṃsāra. Sorry.
Why? They haven’t generated great compassion yet. They haven’t overcome self-cherishing. But if you have done that, then that’s really not bad. You’ve seen it.
You’re you’re not far from being a Buddha in a sense. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Still haven’t overcome the sense of self importance that even we experience of course, we experience.
Yep. You can see perceptually comprehend selflessness and still have a sense of self importance. Because the mere self still exists, of course. The self. The merely labeled self.
Oh, they see it as an illusion. They say everything is an illusion. Everything is like an illusion because they perceptually comprehend emptiness. And they’ve their level of wisdom is equivalent to a seventh stage bodhisattva. There Oh, seventh stage bodhisattva has seen emptiness.
They perceptually comprehend emptiness. Yeah. We should stop here for a break. K. I’ll just do a quick dedication.