Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores how to transform difficult circumstances into the path of enlightenment through mind training. He explains how self-cherishing—our habit of prioritizing ourselves above others—blocks bodhicitta and keeps us in suffering. He then walks practitioners through concrete methods: understanding karma as the source of our experiences; using tonglen (breathing in others’ suffering, breathing out relief) to reverse self-focus; and reframing sickness, obstacles, and low status as purification. Suffering removes arrogance and builds compassion. Low rank offers freedom for practice while high status brings restriction. Suited to those working with adversity as a spiritual tool.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 LR 2001 09 06.mp3
UUID: 233e5a05-e911-4529-9ac4-7f618ddb3b45
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-06
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~4,820
The second one covers five points. So this is more or less summarized in this chart that we have. And giving us an eleven point meditation, which was taught by Chekawa. Now the advantage of having the third one is that it combines the the best parts of the first and the second one into an easy to comprehend system of meditating. A system that is designed to allow us to generate, designed to create the condition for the generation within us of great compassion and then bodhicitta.
And in attaining bodhisattva, then we become Bodhisattvas even though we’re only ordinary Bodhisattvas initially. But having entered great path of bodhicitta, At the end of the great vehicle, one then progresses through the five paths, that is the path of accumulation, the path of preparation, the path of seeing, the path of meditation until we get to the non learner’s path or the path of no more learning, which is the state of a Buddha. And this entire process is we enter the path. We become a being on the path once we’ve generated bodhicitta. If we’ve already generated bodhicitta, we’re already on the path.
What’s the sign of having generated bodhicitta? How would we know if we’ve generated bodhicitta? We would definitely need great compassion. What’s a sign of having generated great compassion? We wouldn’t have any self-cherishing either, would we?
What is self-cherishing? You know? Yes. It’s regarding ourselves is more important than other beings. In a way, it’s being self centered, and it’s this habit we have of thinking about ourselves first and thinking about ourselves to the exclusion of other beings.
So while we have that type of mind, then we don’t have bodhicitta. If we have bodhicitta, don’t have that type of mind. We don’t have self-cherishing. At present, it’s not easy for us to recognize self-cherishing. This the mind of self-cherishing It is at present for us is very much at home in our mental continuum.
It’s hard for us to oppose it. We don’t fully understand the disadvantages of it. It’s hard for us to identify it when it’s really strongly manifest and much harder again when it’s not strongly manifest. Just like our self grasping. We have self grasping and self-cherishing, these two attitudes.
Both of these attitudes keep us keep us on a limited level, on a level where problems will continue to arise for us. And, ultimately, we need to overcome both. We need to overcome self grasping, and we need to overcome self-cherishing. Understanding emptiness, overcome self grasping. Generating bodhicitta, overcome self-cherishing.
So we need really and they are method and wisdom. Wisdom is the wisdom comprehending emptiness, which cuts the root of self-grasping. And the method is bodhicitta, which cuts the root of self-cherishing. And so they’re likened to the two wings of a bird, the bird crossing the ocean, flying across the ocean of Samsāra. In order for us to cross the ocean of Samsāra, we need two sets of wings or one set of wings.
We need both wings. But to cross the ocean of Samsāra, that is to cross the ocean of Samsāra to the ultimate state of full enlightenment. Right. So we have this chart, and here are these three lists. Now a little bit later, we’ll go into the third column, but so far we’ve done the first and the second column.
So there shouldn’t be any problems with those two columns. That is the the seven points and the five points. Right. Now now continuing with the text of Bodhisattva Chekawa. Now he talks about converting unfortunate circumstances into the path of enlightenment.
This whole process of generating bodhicitta is not easy. In fact, it’s probably the most difficult thing that we could undertake, most difficult task we could undertake. More difficult than becoming a millionaire or climbing Everest or going to the moon. More difficulties arise in generating bodhicitta than those types of times. If it were easy to do, we already would have achieved it in this lifetime, in our previous lives.
But the fact that we haven’t achieved that purpose till now, from beginning of time up until this point, the fact that we haven’t generated great compassion, and then from great compassion generated bodhicitta, is the indication of just how difficult it is to achieve. To achieve. And there’s many conditions that arise for us that tend to impede our generation of bodhicitta. More beneficial to ourselves or others that we can do or we can put energy into than to generate great compassion and. Now as Chekawa says, in these degenerate times, for these degenerate times, we refer to the our current situation where we have the five the time of the five dregs, the five degenerations, when the cream has gone, probably most of the milk is gone, and just what’s left in the bottom of the barrel is is there.
This describes our current era, the time of the five degenerations. Era in which we live, these two practices, that is the six causes and one result, and the practices of exchanging self and others are the most beneficial practices we can engage in. However, as Chekawa says, when a practitioner meets with many hindrances and is unable to rid themselves of them, then they should be able to turn such unfavorable circumstances into favorable ones. So that’s how we are at present. Continuously or from time to time, we’re confronting conditions which are unfavorable to us.
If in fact we can convert these conditions into something favorable, then, of course, this would be to our advantage. So we need to be able to convert these negative conditions. If we’re not able to do so, as he says, we may give up the dharma in the face of even favorable and unfavorable conditions either. Either one of those. And as he says, some Dharma practitioners become arrogant when they are promoted.
So if at work, we get promoted, we may become arrogant, and so on. And then we give up the Dharma. In other words, we practice the Dharma when we have problems, but suddenly at work, we we become the vice president. And then, okay, things are solved. We don’t have to worry about our practice any longer.
We don’t have to worry about compassion and so forth any longer. So that would be an obstacle. And as he says, some acquire little wealth and then give up the Dharma in order to maintain their income. So we work and we start to build up our savings and we buy a house and we paid it we paid it off and things are looking good. So because our situation, our money situation is okay, in order to maintain our what, our That would be an obstacle.
Others despair when faced with such things. When various things happen which make it difficult to practice, nothing could be worse than slavishly practicing a little Dharma and then giving it up. And Chekawa was saying that, of course, in our practice various conditions arise whether they’re to do with money or whatever they’re to do with. Difficulties will arise from time to time, but we shouldn’t be put off by them. It would be silly to initially develop a great interest in Dharma and then practice it really as hard as we can only soon after to then put it to one side thinking, well, I didn’t get much out of that.
What’s next? Or what else can I do? Alright. So therefore, that is why it is necessary to be able to turn unfavorable circumstances into the path and into something that will not harm our practice. And this has two headings, converting circumstances through thought and converting them through action.
So there are two ways here that Chekawa is talking about. The difficult conditions that we face can be converted into positive ones. So first he is talking about converting them through thought itself, the way we think. And now the first one, how we convert circumstances through thought, is again divided into converting them through analysis or converting them by means of view. So here by analyzing our situation, we can convert a negative situation to a positive one.
As it says in the Guru Puja, when the universe is completely filled with the fruits of sin or negativity and then the root text on training the mind. Here’s the seven points mind training that also says, when the universe is full of negativity, turn these unfortunate conditions into the path of enlightenment. So let’s do the first thing here. The universe is filled with negativity, which is true. Although we can’t always see what’s negative still, we can infer that there is a great there’s negativity everywhere.
Negative thoughts are the fruits of those thoughts and so on. So this is how it how it actually is. Not to say that there isn’t something positive there as well, but negativity tends to pervade everywhere as well, and it’s no longer in the. At present, whenever worried by illness, enemies, spirits, etcetera, we put the blame on others. So his explanation is quite simple.
Whenever negative conditions arise, we blame those conditions on others. Because we do not understand that all sickness is the outcome of our karma, we claim that it is due to food or evil spirits and so on. However, when we look into the thing or the root of it, the root of this blame, we find that everything undesirable comes about through karma, comes about through negative karma. And for long, I’ve taught before in the small scope section. And that karma itself has come about through our self-cherishing.
So self-cherishing is fundamentally the blame. Although we have these two roots, we have self grasping and self-cherishing, here we’re concentrating on a self-cherishing. So here we’re reflecting that it’s self-cherishing which has given rise to all our negative karma, and all the negative conditions that we currently experience is coming from our negative karma. That insight. It’s our negative karma to blame, and it’s our self-cherishing which is to blame for our negative karma.
So as he continues, when a thief robs us of our valuables, we should not blame the thief. If someone robs us, steals from us, which happens from time to time, it’s not the thief to blame. We should blame instead our evil karma. And the thing that made us develop that evil karma, which which is our self-cherishing. Thus, whenever we are faced with sickness, suffering, unfavorable circumstances, headache, decline in the the car is not running too well, we’ve got to pay the insurance, we’ve got to pay the car registration, we’ve got bills here to pay, our parents are not well, and so on, we’re not well.
Whatever the circumstances is, and, of course, there’s so many different circumstances that come up day by day. We should actually list them all out all out. We had a long bit of paper. We could actually write them all down every time we thought of one or there’s another negative condition. Might be useful to write them all down.
We might need quite a a number of pages to do so, but all these negative conditions we tend to be concerned about. They’re a worry to us. We worry about them. It’ll be far better if they’re all positive conditions. So here, the author is saying that we can convert all of these to positive conditions.
So we must therefore think about how these negative conditions can be converted and how they can help us to achieve enlightenment. As it says, sickness, negativities, and obstructions are a broom. Everyone understands that that quote I did. Sickness, negativities, obscurations are a broom. Purification.
Yeah. That’s right. It’s sweeping out. It’s purifying us. It’s getting rid of the all the rubbish.
That’s right. If you think about it in the right way I think here maybe the normal way. Obscuration. An obscuration is they really basically, they refer to ignorance, an obscuration to us comprehending something. Or here, there’s two types of obscuration, obscurations that prevent us from attaining liberation and obscuration preventing us from attaining omniscience.
In other words, there seems to be abandoned on the path. At present, we have we probably have the full range of obscurations. Have we overcome any obscurations yet on the path? Have we overcome any obscurations here? We probably haven’t overcome any obscurations, for us it’s as if we’re entering the path.
But day to day, we can maybe temporarily whittle back some of the obscuration a little bit. But we have a fair amount of work to do here. That’s certainly a yes. Becoming aware of them is a necessary first step. We need to be able to understand what the observations are.
We’re in a way, that’s true. Yes. Some of the relative level ones or the preliminary ones. Yes. The obscuration to the path becomes like self-cherishing.
By becoming self-cherishing, we we enter the path itself. It’s a great vehicle path. So we haven’t entered the path. But, basically, we’ve still got quite a lot of work to do. So, anyway, sickness, sins, and obscurations are a broom.
In other words, they can be if we have the right attitude towards them, they can be understood to be like a broom, something which purifies. That is whenever we fall sick and so on, we feel that this evil karma, these negativities and obscurations, the results of which we would normally be obliged to experience in the lower realms, have ripened while we are present in a human rebirth. This should make us feel very happy. If we about it in that way, then this should make us feel happy. Whenever we get sick, when we notice the when we do have obscurations for this or that, we try to understand things and it’s hard for us to understand.
We see that we have negativity or the negative circumstances are occurring for us. We should actually be happy with that because those negative circumstances maturing for us now means they can’t be causing they would send us into a rebirth in the hell realms. So if we think along those lines, then the fact that we get sick at present is very good. Very positive. And if we think about it in that way, we can be really happy with the maturation of sickness.
Further, we should be glad and feel I’ve already been practicing giving and taking by visualizing myself and taking on the sins and obscurations of sentient beings. So this practice of giving and taking, we talked about about this a little last week. So this is the practice of, for instance, breathing. When we breathe, we breathe in the sufferings of other beings, of all other beings. And when we breathe out, we breathe out our own happiness, an accumulation of merit and give that to other beings.
So in reflecting that we’re engaging in that practice, then when we feel sick, we should also consider that, actually, this practice of giving and taking on the breath is producing some results. I’ve actually managed to take on the sufferings of others, but then we reflect in this way. And then with that in mind, then we should pray that the rest of the sufferings of other sentient beings should ripen on us. And we imagine in our med meditation that this relieves sentient beings of all the sufferings that they would otherwise have experienced for themselves. So, therefore, we wholeheartedly think while we are doing this practice of giving and taking, when we’re breathing in and breathing out, how welcome it would be if I could now actually take on the sufferings of all sentient beings.
And if we practice in this way, even sickness will not be a hindrance for us. Our virtuous practices will increase as in the story of a disciple. As it has been said, unfavorable conditions are an incentive to virtue. So in fact, when we do get sick, we should think great. This result now is maturing while I’m a human being, so it’s not gonna mature at another time and perhaps even cause my rebirth in a lower realm such as a hell realm. Also, should rejoice that these negative conditions I’m actually beginning to take on myself through just meditating on giving and taking.
So it’s a sign of success of giving and taking. So this also we should rejoice in. So by doing this, by actually reflecting in this way in our meditation on breathing in the sufferings of others and breathing out our own root of positive energy to others, that we will, in time, accumulate the collection of merit that will purify all our obscurations. So here, we need to convert negative conditions into positive conditions. So negative conditions like sickness, we just need to look at it in the right way.
And by looking at them in the right way, our mind, instead of becoming heavy and concerned, actually becomes much lighter and less and much less worried about the situation. And in fact, it becomes even thinking about our own sickness becomes a Dharma practice. And this also then becomes a means for us to practice virtue. So when we think that actually when I become sick or I become depressed, like a negative mental thought, so forth and fear. This is all coming from my past negative actions.
Nowhere else than that, and those are maturing in the present moment. Then also we should reflect rejoicing in that, my own negative actions are simply coming to fruition in a certain moment. Then also we make a strong dedication. I will not commit any negative action again in future because it will have a similar result as in the future. So we can rejoice in any physical or negative physical or mental negative experience that we we may encounter.
As it is said, spirits, evil spirits, and spirit kings are a device And in fact, when we begin to understand the process by which we experience what we do experience in the present, we can then use any experience whatsoever as a way of developing, as a way of increasing our happiness. Whether we wanna be happy or not, by skillfully approaching our experience in the present, our happiness will grow and grow beyond our control. So in this particular quotation, this actually is a little bit like the story of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, who made this vow. Kṣitigarbha means heart of the earth. Heart of the earth Bodhisattva, who made this vow that he would remain in hell until every being attained liberation, which is quite quite a strong dedication.
So when because the universe is contains myriads of sentient beings, and it’s gonna take a long time for all the sentient beings in hell to finally attain liberation. So to make the commitment to stay in hell until every sentient being being is liberated is quite a long term commitment. It’s almost an inconceivable commitment. This was the was the vow of Kṣitigarbha. And the vow there was to help being stay in hell and help those things that really need help.
Because in the universe, the ones that you know, the real, the ones that are really in strife are the ones existing in the hell realm who are undergoing far greater negative conditions than we are undergoing here on earth. In understanding particular Bodhisattva. But, of course, that body suffers by the strength of that vow, it means in a sense that such a being would not suffer whether they wherever they were in the universe. As it says here, such a Bodhisattva enjoys the company of suffering. Such a Bodhisattva who was one of the eight great sons of Śākyamūni Buddha.
There was like, Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, vajrapani, Maitreya, Samantabhādra, Ākāśagarbha, and Kṣitigarbha, and Sarvanivaraṇaviṣkambhin. One of the eight. Because they’re Bodhisattvas actually. These are Bodhisattvas who manifested as near disciples of Śākyamūni Buddha. But this one made this particular vow.
And one of the points he was making was that even the hell realm, which are populated by the vast majority of beings in the universe, are realms that are not devoid of of Buddhas. But even there, Buddhas manifest like. They manifest there to help beings as quickly as possible overcome their obscurations and in negative conditions so that they achieve Buddhahood. They achieve happiness. They achieve development, then enter the path and become Buddha.
All the hells are, in a sense, from that perspective, are a place where things are most quickly purified with negative action. Action. Although for us, it’s not necessarily gonna be a a positive move to be reborn in hell in order to purify a negative negativity is most quickly, But still, if we can see our negative conditions in a skillful way, then they can be understood as being the source of our happiness. So here, the main the main aspect is employing negative conditions in a skillful way. It just takes a change of perspective and something which is initially creating concern for us then can be seen that it’s something that’s like medicine for us.
So as the text says, when you are harmed by spirit beings, spells, evil spirits, and so on, consider that they are doing you a great kindness since this harm will act as an incentive for you to practice Dharma. Whereas, formerly, you were quite lost in worldly matters and had no recollection of Dharma. It is even possible for suffering to act as a contributory factor for your realization of suchness when you know how to direct your thinking. As sickness in is the result of our self-cherishing, we should feel that the illness, evil spirits, and so on are being very kind to us because they help us to subdue our enemy self-cherishing. So all these negative conditions in a sense can be seen to help us subdue the inner enemy of self-cherishing.
So we shouldn’t in other words, we shouldn’t be retaliating against our negative the negative conditions that occur either externally or internally. We should be seeing them as as being very kind to because they help us to overcome self-cherishing. Left to our own devices, it’s gonna be very difficult to overcome our self-cherishing nature, but our negative conditions that arise help us to do this. In a sense, without them, we wouldn’t be able to overcome our self-cherishing. So when some negative situation arises, we should not curtail our practice.
We should when something negative happens, it’s not as if well, we think the Dharma isn’t working here. I practiced Dharma, but now I feel unhappy. I practiced Dharma. Now I feel bored and so on. Or my money is starting you know, I lost my job or I didn’t get the raise and so forth.
Think of the Dharma and see it as a way of see it as ammunition for overcoming our self-cherishing attitude. As the the text on Bodhicaryāvatāra says, the good quality of suffering is that it removes arrogance through sorrow. So through feeling sorry sorrow at our suffering, our arrogance is removed. So at least it has that quality, our suffering, helps to overcome our arrogance. And we develop compassion for other beings in similar situations to ourselves in Samsāra.
And then also through that suffering, we begin to avoid the causes of the suffering, which is our our negative action. And we begin to rejoice in virtue because it’s virtue that from which all our happiness has come. So suffering has the quality of helping us to understand that. So when faced with suffering, we become unhappy, and this removes pride. We also feel compassion for others by reason of our own suffering.
We understand our own suffering, and then we can transfer that understanding to other beings who are just like ourselves. And this act as a cause for us to abandon, therefore, what we should abandon. And then when suffering does not come our way, we feel things are going well and are happy. We should not be like this. When suffering does not come our way, we shouldn’t feel that things are going well and be happy.
Or it is said, do not be glad when happy. Rejoice when sad. Happiness uses up our accumulated merits. Unhappiness purifies our obscurations. This almost needs tattooed on our arm, I think.
You know? We look at it continuously. We shouldn’t be too much moved by having happy feelings or positive feelings. But instead, we should rejoice when we’re not feeling happy. Because when we’re not happy, that feeling of unhappiness, whether it’s physical or mental, especially for us, the mental feelings of unhappiness, whenever they occur, we feel depressed.
We’re feeling down about this, down about that. Oh, then we should rejoice. Great. Because it’s my negative actions in the past exhausting themselves in the present moment. So good.
There’s a positive result from that. We’re using up our past negative potential. And then Chekawa then goes on to say that holding a high position is tantamount to being under house arrest as in the case of high lamas and officials who cannot go wherever they wish. So just the wish for high status is not much use for us either. Because even if we get high status like that, then our situation becomes more difficult.
We can’t do what we want to do. Although it looks from the outside to be good, one has high status, it looks like, oh, some influence and so on. It’s actually it’s just the appearance where the actuality is one has less freedom. And as said, they say that high rank is like being under house arrest. Low rank is a royal dwelling of the victorious one.
So that’s this is very useful for us. High rank is like being under house arrest. Low rank is a royal dwelling of the victorious one. Being of low rank is is like is really like having a dwelling of a an emperor or something like that. So or something like that.
So low rank is good. If we’ve at times that we are concerned, we don’t seem to be progressing very fast. I am at the bottom levels of of society or whatever. Many others, most other people are above me and so on. Actually, that’s the best position.
By far that’s the best position. To see, we can simply practice and we’ve got lots of freedom to do what we we need to do. Whereas the higher up the up the the hill we are, the less freedom we have, the more difficult to do. And then everyone’s watching what you do. Unless one’s a really good practitioner, it could potentially be very very restricted.
One can look at the Dalai Lama. On the one hand, he’s able to achieve a great deal for sentient beings. On the other hand, he’s very restricted. Every minute of his day is more or less accounted for for the next ten years. I once saw his the book of what?
His schedule for one year that had him listed within the private office in. There’s a gate there where you can request an interview. I was requesting an interview there once, and and one of the undersecretaries brought out the book and said, where do you want to fit in? It was for one year and there was like all these requests and they had more people, many more people there than they could possibly fit in. They were saying, well, this is just no room here.
You know, this is a cancellation. And it’s true for someone like the Dalai Lama. It’s bedtime is just about all taken taken up. So there’s not much freedom. In fact, if we had a schedule like that, we’d probably it’ll be very heavy.
We’d probably get quite unhappy thinking about it. Although, if we get unhappy, then we can rejoice because that is but far better to be of low rank. And even the Dalai Lama has said this, that we really need to think about, you know, this issue of low rank. Not so low rank, but think about people. You know, the thought is that we have to do things or we have to be associated with those of high rank before we think that there’s anything meaningful.
But, actually, the the meaning what what makes things meaningful is simply whether it’s associated with something like love and compassion, not necessarily to do with the rank of the person