Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute session from the 2001 Lam Rim program, Ven Jampa Ignyen teaches the six causes and one result method for developing bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment that opens the gateway to the Buddhist great vehicle. Rather than presenting the method abstractly, he unfolds each cause: establishing equanimity, recognizing all beings as former mothers, remembering their kindness through reflection on parental sacrifice and care, and awakening genuine gratitude. He then guides practitioners into love through attraction and great compassion, emphasizing that these teachings must penetrate the heart and change our outlook rather than sit on the surface of the intellect. Drawing on Pabongka Rinpoche’s commentary and vivid examples—animals’ terror at slaughter, the hardheartedness we must overcome—he offers practical methods for awakening authentic compassion.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 2001 08 23 LR.mp3
UUID: 612620e1-e534-449e-8fc1-95dd32173a78
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-08-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~5,433
Next week, the tests for the first semester will be handed back, and there are then tests for the last semester the middle scope or the intermediate scope. If anyone hasn’t received a test for that particular semester, there’s still time to do the test because it’s an open book test, and we haven’t put a time limit on it. But it’s very good to do tests like that because it does focus our mind on these topics again. It’s one of doing a test is a very good way of developing at least understanding of the material, at least the presentation of the material. But we, in general, we need that in order to get a deeper understanding of the material.
So doing tests can be a very, very, very helpful. In fact, in the monasteries, tests are given all the time. In monasteries, they have three types of tests, the oral memorization exam, the debate exam, and the written exam. And they’re always going on. And, of course, the reason why we’re doing why these sorts of tests are done is simply as an aid, as an assistant to learning the material, to gaining an understanding of the meaning.
So those previous tests will be handed back next week. That’s on the first semester. Right. So here, we’re dealing with the section in the great vehicle on how to develop bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. So this really is the dealing with the gateway, the essential entrance to the great vehicle path, which is developing bodhicitta.
And so we’re dealing here with the two methods of generating bodhicitta. Firstly, the six causes and one result, instruction of Maitreya and exchanging self for others that was handed down by Śāntideva and so on. So the first one there, dealing with the six causes and one result. So far, we’ve dealt with the essential precondition for the six causes, which is immeasurable equanimity. And then we’ve started already on the six causes.
We’ve done the first one, which is recognizing all beings to have been our mothers. And the second one is remembering their kindness. The third one is repaying their kindness. So, these three we’ve done. And these three in fact, these four form a causal sequence.
We need to develop these in that order. It doesn’t mean that we can’t contemplate the meanings of the other, of all six and even the results even now, but the way that they actually developed is within this order. So we need to develop equanimity or immeasurable equanimity. We need to understand what the identity of that state is so that we can recognize it if we happen to generate it or we recognize it when we haven’t generated it. And then in that regard, we also need to understand its importance, that it does have value.
And in that context, we may have various doubts about whether it is valuable or not. And these doubts we need to bring up even if we have to debate ourselves on the issue. Do I need equanimity or not? Why do I need equanimity? What is equanimity?
What type of mind is it? If anyone is studying low rig cognition, which of the seven types of awareness is it? One can question in that way and so on. We need to develop an understanding of what the process is so that we gain confidence that the process does produce the result. And again, we also need to have some aspiration to generating the result, which is bodhicitta.
And here as much inspiration as we can develop, we need. So to that extent, it’s very good to read of the benefits of generating bodhicitta and even to go over that section on the advantages of generating this mind of enlightenment, what benefits it has for us, what practical value it has for us in the present and as well as in the future. These we need to think on quite a lot so that it does penetrate our mind to some degree. Otherwise, these these really essential instructions tend to simply sit on the surface and they don’t really change us very much. They sit there.
And even though we accept them, they don’t really sink in very deeply. They certainly don’t sink in far enough to change many of our negative habits. So in a way, need to contemplate them until they begin to change our outlook. And of course, this is the purpose of Dharma. Studying Dharma is there in order to change our mind.
If our mind is not changing, then Dharma is not having much effect. It’s not much practical value to us. So we need to give these instructions, especially this six cause and one result instruction, a chance to actually change our current state of mind. And, of course, this does take does take time. Right.
So so far, we’ve done equanimity contemplating all beings as having been our mothers, reflected on their kindness, and then generated the thought to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. Now, actually developing conviction in these is not easy, of course. Even developing equanimity, the preliminary stage is not easy. But again, we need to reflect reflect on these. For instance, that all mothers have been all sentient beings have been our mother.
In fact, no matter where we look, whoever we see, they’ve been our mother in the past. And, of course, that doesn’t automatically arise for us because we look around and it’s often hard for us to believe that another being has been our mother in the past. But through logic, through common sense, we can develop a feeling for this. We can develop a sense that this does reflect the way things actually are. And as Pabongka Rinpoche points out that we can reflect on the very nature of the mind itself, that we ourselves are not born with a completely clean slate.
That in fact, to think that we’re simply born in this lifetime and act anew as if all our instincts and habits and ways of doing things are simply arising anew for the first time would be an extraordinary belief. In other words, even babies, even from the time of birth, do have their own personality, do have a particular way of doing have likes and dislikes, are able to do some things and not able to do others. And no two are the same. These likes and dislikes, habits, skills, certain degree of wisdom, a certain degree of stupidity, all of these things are not coming from physical form. They’re actually coming from causes similar to the result.
So in and as Dharmakīrti states earlier on in the text that it’s extraordinary to think that maybe these attitudes that even a baby has may be coming from the genes of their parents or the physical conditions. And it’s simply that we haven’t investigated this area deeply enough that we don’t have conviction in this. Although in an external sense, we accept the law of causation that like causes give rise to like results, and we expect this in the physical world. If we wanna build a house, we’ve gotta, you know, get the building materials to build it. We need the bricks and we need the foundations, the slab.
We need the appropriate causes to give rise to the appropriate result. If we wanna become an electrician, we need to go to school, we need to do an apprenticeship. We need those conditions, just those conditions to get that sort of training. If we want to produce wine, we need to grow the grapes. We need the cuttings from the grape in order to do that.
We can’t get cuttings of a pear tree and hope that we’re gonna produce wine from that and so on. These things we know it’s obvious to us. But when it comes to the mind itself, things it’s not so clear to us. One of the reasons for that is the mind itself is more subtle than physical form, but our mind is similar. Our mind our mind of the previous moment, of the moment before that, all the way back to our birth.
Even the mind we had at the moment of our birth, our birth from the womb womb in this life was full of thoughts and attitudes and so on. These thoughts and attitudes came from previous states of awareness. Like cause gives like result. The law of causation always follows this particular this pattern. It cannot the law of causation cannot go outside of it.
And just as we accept how causation acts in the external world, in the physical world as we see it, so it equally applies to the internal world. States of mind that arise, they’re being substantially caused by previous states of mind. Physical form as we see it, as we interact with it, it’s being substantially produced by previous physical states. By thinking about the law of cause and effect, especially in relation to awareness, we can begin to develop a conviction that we have a stream of awareness. We experience within us a stream of awareness that really has no beginning.
Anyway, this gradually comes. It’s not something that’s gonna come along straight away. And if we can establish that we ourselves have existed in the past, really for just that reason, like cause gives like result. Then we can also establish other beings who are just like us, also have existed in the past. And if this stream of awareness is always substantially produced by a like cause to itself, meaning a previous state of awareness, and there is no beginning to this process, then we can establish that every sentient being has been our mother at some time in the past.
Anyway, gradually, we can do this. This we can reflect on at our leisure. Just observe our current state of mind and how it arises. Where is it coming from? What keeps it going?
What’s its substantial cause? From what substance is it coming from, in other words? So by this type of reasoning, we can establish that all beings have been our mothers. No matter where we look, at some point in the past, that being has been my mother and not once, but many, many times over. Not only that, they’ve even given up their life at some time in the past, some time in the past for my benefit.
But anyway, first cause there is recognizing all beings to have been our mothers in the past. This in fact is not simply a type of meditation to make us feel good. It’s a type of meditation to come to a realization of things as they are, the fact, the bottom line with other beings and ourselves. So the first is realizing that other beings have been our mother. Then we reflect on the kindness.
So in reflecting on the kindness, we really need to reflect on the kindness of our mother in this lifetime. And this we need a little bit of work on probably. Because when we think of our mother in this life, often the first thing we think about is not just how kind she’s been to us, we may think it various other things. But really, in terms of the second point, we have to establish the kindness of our mother in this lifetime first. And just the trouble that she’s gone to for our sake.
When really just by the fact that she’s been our mother, she’s looked after us, unceasingly during those early months, early years, taught us how to walk, taught us how to talk and so forth, taken all this time up just to teach us these things to help us and so on. It seems from our side that we deserve all this, that, well, you know, we’re just there and here here I am, you know, look after me for the next fifteen years or twenty years, and you look after me for that amount of time, and I’ll bless you with my presence. It’s a bit like that. And what do we do? We generally just create problems for our for our parents.
You know, they’ve got to clothe us and feed us and give us injections. And every time we get sick, they gotta take us to the hospital and so on. And every time we have a concern, they’ve gotta pat us on the head and tell us it doesn’t matter. You know, for those first few months, we wake up at every odd hour of the the night and still they’re they don’t take us down to the orphanage and dump us at the front gate. They actually persevere with us.
So really, we create a lot of problems for our parents over a long period of time. But the fact that they love us is why they didn’t get rid of us. And it’s against the law too, but but we should give them the benefit of the doubt. They weren’t just thinking about the law. They actually had some regard for us.
They had some affection for us. They really truly had sort of unquestioning affection for us even though we can’t do a thing for ourselves. All we do in the beginning is cry. Our mother feeds us. We go to sleep.
We piss everywhere. We shit everywhere. Then we start crying again. It’s two in the morning. Our mother’s there looking, rocking us, cleaning us up, putting us back to sleep, and then we wake up three hours later.
Of course, anyone that’s been a parent knows just how much sleep they’re deprived of. And if it wasn’t for the love of one’s parents, we probably wouldn’t survive that period. So we’re really dependent on the love of our parents. But this we need to think about quite a lot. Otherwise, we forget.
Actually, when we’re very young, we have this great affection for our parents. They like everything to us. We see our mother, you know, she’s there and she’s trying to make us happy. We like seeing her, and our father is the same. We have this really strong bond with our parents.
But then as we get older, it starts it starts to lessen. We don’t like being told what to do, and we don’t like the restrictions they put on us, and we don’t agree with what they say to us, and we see the faults of our parents and so on. All manner of things happen. But, of course, still, our parents are very kind to us. They’re inestimably kind to us.
And this anyway, we need to think about this and remind ourselves of their kindness because this we have to transfer them to all other sentient beings. If we can’t generate a thought of the kindness of our mother in this life, then we’re not going to establish the second cause. I don’t know between the first cause and the second cause, which is the more difficult? I think maybe the second cause, not easy. But this we need to work on.
We really need to reflect on just how much time and effort our parents have given us, love and affection, and so forth that they’ve showered upon us. It’s true though, isn’t it? Or is there is there anyone kinder to us than our mother in this life? Grandmother? Okay.
Well, every being’s been our grandmother too, so that’s fine. Oh, absolutely. We they carried us our mother carried us for nine months. And, of course, we without the cooperation of our mother, if she’d had an abortion, we would have been finished at an early date. So there is a kindness there.
There’s also a general sort of kindness that comes from this. That certainly without our mother and father, we wouldn’t have physical body. So on that ground alone, even if they gave us up at birth, they would be extraordinarily kind to us because having a physical body is due to our parents. Whether they intended that or not doesn’t really matter. They’ve actually given us our physical body.
Without this, we wouldn’t be a human being. Where would we be if we didn’t have this? Actually, it’s incredibly kind because in order to take rebirth with our particular parents, we need some sort of karmic connection with them. So there is a type of general kindness of our parents in this regard. Just having a physical body, a human body is an immense kindness of our parents.
Doesn’t matter whether they intended it or not. And similarly, the fact that they looked after us, it doesn’t matter if they have faults or don’t have faults. They are immeasurably kind to us. So really, they overlooked all our faults when we were young from our birth in this world. All our many faults that we we displayed from the those very first few hours.
Anyway, we need to think about this quite a lot because we probably have some resistance. It’s interesting. Maybe in the west, there’s more resistance to this type of idea than in the east. Still, we need to reflect on it because the second cause is remembering the kindness of one’s mother and therefore all mother sentient beings. And if at this point we try and think of their kindness and we strain and struggle and, god, what did my mother do?
What was kind there? Then it’s a sign that we need to think more deeply on the issues. It’s also a sign that we have some resentment there, and we need to question where the resentment is coming from. So all of these things we need to examine. Then having genuinely established that our mothers, all our mother of this life and equally every sentient being who has been our mother in the past have been immeasurably kind to us.
We need to repay that kindness. So that perhaps is a little bit easier. Once we really establish the kindness of someone, then repaying their kindness. And the need to repay their kindness is perhaps easier to establish. But generating an idea of their kindness, we probably need to put a lot of effort into that.
Because even though intellectually we can think, oh yeah, my mother has been kind, my father has been kind. We need to bring it down to a level where we actually feel it. This is where the head has really got to educate the emotions, the heart itself. Sometimes, I have to use a little bit of maybe wrathful some wrathful methods there. Because it’ll be a great pity that if some the resentment that we have when we’re growing up, and often it’s there, really just obscures the nature of our mother, how kind our mother has been.
And it’s something that we appreciated when we were really young, but later we tend to lose through various for various reasons. We need to examine whether those reasons are valid. So then we move on to the fourth cause. So the fourth cause here is dealing with love that comes from the force of attraction or Jampa as it is in Tibetan. So then having developed a strong aspiration to repay the kindness of all mother sentient beings without exception, one then contemplates the having a heartfelt wish for the happiness of all mother sentient beings.
So here, as Pabongka says, this love appears in the form of a heartfelt cherishing, an attraction for sentient beings. It’s really one develops a sense of nearness to other beings, seeing that especially in dependence on those first three conditions, all beings have been my mother, the kindness of all mother sentient beings, repaying that kindness, one begins to draw nearer to other beings. And as Geshe Potowa said, love through the force of attraction is just like the love you would have for your own son. So this type of love is like the love of a parent for a child. That whatever sentient being one sees, one has an attraction for them, a sense of nearness.
Just as with one’s children, one feel feels near to them, then that needs to be cultivated with all sentient beings, that type of attitude. In other words, love through the force of attraction is being attracted to all sentient beings as if they were your own children. This love is not a separate meditation topic. You will develop it automatically when you have developed some feeling for the preceding three sections. So we should contemplate as follows.
I cannot discern the uncontaminated happiness in the mind stream of all sentient beings. In fact, what he’s saying here is that that doesn’t exist. All sentient beings just have the contaminated form of happiness. And even what they take to be happiness happiness is in the nature of suffering itself. It’s in the nature of suffering, the suffering of change.
In other words, when we look at the field of all sentient beings, what they’re experiencing is contaminated. And so there’s no real there’s no genuine happiness there, no pure happiness. Then with that field of all sentient beings, then one cultivates the thought, it would be wonderful if all sentient beings had pure happiness, uncontaminated happiness. May they come to have that sort of happiness? How can I establish other beings in that happiness?
And then Nāgārjuna mentioned some of the benefits of this type of aspiration, this type of love for sentient beings. Though such a person might not be liberated, if we have this sort of love, even though we may not be liberated, they will achieve love’s eight cardinal virtues. The merit of giving the three hundred types of food every day in the three times cannot compare with a merit gain from meditating a short while on love. Gods and humans will come to love them and give protection. They will have mental ease and much happiness.
Poison and weapons will not harm. They will achieve their aims effortlessly and be born in Brahma’s world. So having this type of love has these types of advantages. As Pabongka continues to say that we will be reborn as universal emperors. In other words, we’ll be born as humans with in a position of great influence or even as Brahma, meaning as a being in the the form realm and so on.
Or as deities within the desire realm. As many times as the number of living beings you took as objects for your meditation on love. So if one has meditates on love with focusing on an infinite, immeasurable field of beings, then we will be reborn in that high state as many times as there are beings as objects of our meditation. So such a type of meditation on love is a great, great benefit to us. But it really depends on being conditioned by seeing all sentient beings as our mother, understanding their kindness, and repaying their kindness.
When those three are established, then great love, meditating on great love, which is the fourth cause, will tend simply to follow quite naturally, simply falling into a lotus pool or something like that. Then Pabongka Rinpoche goes on to the next cause, and the next cause is great compassion. Great love is the wish for others to be happy. All other sentient beings without exception to be happy. And it also follows it also it’s called love through the force of attraction because it’s that particular type of love that’s coming from those three previous causes.
It’s not like ordinary love that we generate. It’s love that’s based on understanding all beings to be one’s mother, remembering their kindness, and repaying their kindness. The love that’s generated in that way is a very special type of love that goes beyond the normal sort of love that we generate. Then the fifth cause is great compassion. So great compassion, as Pabongka says, this is a potent determinant cause for Buddhahood.
Actually, as it says in various scriptures, one scripture says, Really, the root of the path is great compassion. So generating great compassion is really the root of the entire path. Everything leads to it. First four causes then lead to this fundamental state of great compassion. And Je Tsongkhapa paid special attention to great compassion in the stages of the path of the Lamrim.
And in fact, these headings, there are various headings in which he explained the nature of great compassion. And Pabongka Rinpoche here gives some of these, and it’s useful just to list them. The first showing that great compassion is the root of the great vehicle path and the way the other causes and effects act as either cause or effect for great compassion and so on. In other words, he’s explaining the path in terms of how great compassion is generated, putting great compassion at the very heart of his explanation. Also in a sūtra, we are told that the whole great vehicle path and its results depend on great compassion.
Just as the universal emperor is dependent on his wheel or a man on his life force. And then also in the preface to engaging in the middle way or Madhyamakāvatāra, this text, it said, love is the need for a magnificent crop, the state of a victor. Like water, love makes the crop grow, and much later it ripens into that thing most desired as if it matured and were ready for use. That is why at the outset I praise great compassion. In this particular text called the Madhyamakāvatāra or the Madhyamakāvatāra, at the beginning, great compassion is praised, and it’s praised in a special way.
In many other treatises that we that are being composed by the Buddha or sutras that have been spoken by the Buddha, and then the vast amount of literature that has been written or composed in order to explain the intention of the Buddha. At the beginning, they generally pay homage to something. In general, if it’s a text on wisdom, then Mañjuśrī is praised at the beginning. Or if it’s a text on developing concentration, then the Buddhas will be praised, Buddhas and bodhisattvas and so on. But in this particular text called the Entering the Middle Way, Madhyamakāvatāra, Candrakīrti, who was the author of the text, he praised great compassion.
And the reason he praises great compassion is that everything comes from great compassion. As it said, that liberated beings come from Buddhas. Buddhas come from bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas come from great compassion. So really, in essence, everything comes from great compassion.
Anything of benefit in the universe comes from great compassion. Any virtue that exists in the universe, if we follow it back to its root cause, it’s coming from great compassion. Even the virtue that we have in our continuum at present. The virtue that we have, if we follow its root back, if we were able to do that, we would eventually come to great compassion. Not necessarily great compassion in our continuum, but the source of all virtue in the universe is great compassion.
And then as Pabongka Rinpoche goes on to state, it is important as a seed. Now in this praise, great compassion is praised as good in the beginning, in the middle, in the end. Compassion is good in the beginning. In fact, it’s essential in the beginning because in the beginning, it’s like water. In the beginning of anything positive, great compassion is like water.
And that’s because when a seed needs to be sprouted, we need water in order to sprout it initially. Great compassion is like that. It’s something that can sprout a seed. So in the beginning of the great vehicle path, compassion is like water that awakens the seed. And as Pabongka continues, it is as vital as water and manure because it produces a perseverance along the way that acts as armor against despondency at the tasks facing a child of the conquerors.
So initially, great compassion awakens the path within us. And then along the way, it aids our perseverance. And finally, it is important in establishing the result because it brings the entire process to maturity. So great compassion is essential in the beginning, essential in the middle, and essential at the end because it awakens the process, it enables the process to develop, and it brings the whole process to maturity at the end. So great compassion is something that we need at all times.
And also, as Pabongka says, the degree of strength of our bodhicitta is also a function of our great compassion. So to the extent we have great compassion or in accordance with the strength of our great compassion, in accordance with that, we can generate bodhicitta. And then Pabongka goes on to give us some idea of how to generate great compassion. Takes this example of taking as an object a a sheep, a lamb being slaughtered by a butcher. And then just reflecting on this way that a sheep dies, the sheep, as he says, you must contemplate the way the sheep dies, the sadistic way it is killed and how it dies in a state of unbearable agony and terror.
The sheep is turned upside down and laid on its back. Its legs are tied together with rope. It can tell its life is threatened, but it is helpless. It cannot escape and has no protector or refuge to turn to. Its eyes are full of tears and it stares into the butcher’s face.
Nevertheless, when we see a sheep being slaughtered like this, we wonder if it is an intelligent being, intelligent enough to know what is happening. And he gives a story. Once a butcher was slaughtering a number of sheep, after killing the first few, he bound up one of them for slaughter. Another sheep happened to be standing close to the butcher’s knife and it kicked up dirt to conceal it. This story shows that animals do experience unbearable terror and suffering.
Though the sheep now grazing in the grassy mountainside have not yet been led to the slaughter yard, In the end, exactly the same thing will be for them. So in our meditation, we can think about sheep who are undergoing such suffering and how they’ve been our mothers in our past lives. So in a sense, what Pabongka Rinpoche is encouraging us to do, of course, is just find methods by which we can awaken compassion towards other beings, and in fact, towards all other beings. And that whatever images we have do tend to appeal to us or wake us to the conditions of other beings, then those types of contemplation we should use and employ. In a way, we’ve got to trick ourselves into being less hard hearted towards others.
Because at present, we’re pretty hard hearted. We see the sufferings of others and we look back and we we don’t necessarily feel anything there. We step on an insect, think, oh, that we don’t necessarily understand or develop an empathy for their situation. So by whatever means we can, we should employ. And if we have an affection, for instance, for sheep, and if we’ve in fact experienced going to a slaughterhouse and seeing what happens to sheep or goats and the horror, and we really feel, you know, some repulsion at that and empathy for that being, then we can cultivate that type of meditation and then use it to develop compassion for those beings.
Because really what we’re trying to do is develop this sense that we don’t want that being to suffer. At present, we tend to be somewhat hard hearted towards other beings, and we can empathize to a degree, but it’s it’s conditional. And it depends on what mood we’re in and how much time we’ve got and so on. Many conditions come into it. So we need to develop strategies whereby we can get beyond the inertia that we have for empathizing with other beings, whatever that inertia is, whatever is causing it.
One may have empathy for other types of animal, maybe birds. One looks at birds and is concerned when one sees them. Oh, sees them when they’re in the middle of winter and they’re out there.