Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute talk, Ven Jampa Ignyen unpacks Pabongka Rinpoche’s mind training teachings through a striking metaphor: a mango can appear ripe externally while remaining green within—and so can a practitioner. He covers the sevenfold instruction and six causes/one result method for generating bodhicitta, the exchange of self for others, and the eleven-point meditation synthesizing both. The session probes the gap between internal transformation and outward appearance, offering concrete measures of progress: reducing delusions and afflictive states, applying antidotes even when distracted, and the five signs of mastery. Throughout, Pabongka Rinpoche stresses that real practice stays hidden, citing Kadampa examples like Śāntideva, whose profound realization went unnoticed. For monastics and serious practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 LR 2001 09 19.mp3
UUID: ca8f3c7d-6f90-4f9f-8ae0-593f5e3b9d64
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~5,081
So we’re continuing with the text of Pabongka Rinpoche. This text is full of full of advice on how we should proceed to train our mind, and it becomes evident that especially in today’s world, we need to train our mind. Life is short and we can’t put off the practice. As Pabongka Rinpoche reminds us again and again, that we should contemplate death and impermanence and then use the time that we have at present to develop our mind. And in developing our mind, tomorrow, the next day, and in all our future, lifetimes.
Fact, the other mental factors can be dispensed with. If we can practice love and compassion then in a way that’s sufficient. So here, Pabongka Rinpoche has been talking about how we practice the sevenfold instruction, the six causes and one result on how to generate the mind of bodhicitta. And then the five points of exchanging self for others, that was taught by Śāntideva and others. And then combining these two methods, have the eleven point meditation.
And this eleven point meditation, which is a synthesis of these two methods, is in a sense a guaranteed system for generating bodhicitta. And for us, there’s no greater protection for ourselves and other beings than employing this method to generate great compassion and then bodhicitta. Pabongka Rinpoche’s advice is very practical and very pertinent with many, many examples on how the practice should be implemented with stories and so forth. He quotes advice, teachings from different texts. He’s seeking to deal with the various doubts that we will generate in regards to these practices.
The reason he’s coming up with this advice is because Pabongka Rinpoche is familiar himself with this practice and the various obstacles that arise for our practice and how we should counter them. And that in fact this eleven point system of meditation, on the previous experience of beings who have tried to generate great compassion, this particular system is one that does work. And these general guidelines can be put into use by us to develop this result. And again, in order to generate enthusiasm for the practice, then it’s useful for us to think about, the advantages of bodhicitta, advantages for ourselves and advantages for other beings. And often we need to think about these at some length in order to make an impression on us, in order for us to our mind to change a little bit.
So all of these practices, they really depend on us giving time to contemplating issues. The more time we can bring to these issues, think about them, the more chance we have of changing the mind. That’s all really there is. We tend to be reasonably practical as beings. And when we see the advantage in doing something, we will do it.
Getting to the point of seeing the advantage also takes time. So Pabongka Rinpoche then continues in the text with the criteria of having trained the mind. So if one practices in this way, by contemplating the eleven points, then what is the measure of us having begun to achieve success? What’s the measure of having success in our training? So then, Pabongka Rinpoche says, all Dharma comes within one thought.
So as he states, the Bhagavan gave a vast number of individual teachings, all of which boil down to being antidotes to self-cherishing. So in fact, if we were to read all the sutras of the Buddha, there’s a vast collection, one hundred and eight volumes. And if we had to read the entire one hundred and eight, it might take about three months or longer. We took about eight hours a day, maybe nine hours a day. So take about three months, which would be very good to do.
And in fact, Khensur Rinpoche gave the transmission of the teachings of the Buddha in Dharmasala, I think, in nineteen seventy three, and it took about three, four months to do it. So in fact, that’s the a recording of the actual teachings of the Buddha. We probably don’t have that amount of time. But if we were to condense all those teachings down into a pith instruction, they form all the antidotes to self-cherishing. And the fine dividing line between what is Dharma and what is not Dharma is said to be whether or not a thing is an antidote to delusion or affliction.
So dharma itself is that which opposes delusion or affliction. In other words, dharma is what opposes all the unsuitable states of mind that arise within us, the agitated states or the uncomfortable states, and so on. The unsatisfactory states, in other words. If it’s an antidote to an unsatisfactory state, it’s dharma. Otherwise, it’s nondharma.
Probably in the West there’s fewer antidotes to unsatisfactory states than there should be. But that is what Dharma is. Anything that’s opposing the unsatisfactory, unsatisfactory states of mind, that is Dharma. Thus, the best sign of accomplishment in our practice, in our practice of mind training, is how much we have reduced our delusions or reduced our unsuitable internal states. If we haven’t managed to reduce these, then other signs of accomplishment do not mean a thing.
And that’s true. Unless we have a practical value, we can see that we’re lessening just those states that are agitating the mind or creating unsuitable states within the mind, then any other accomplishments, are not that useful to us. For instance, if suddenly, you know, a couple of lamas appear at the door with silk scarves and says, oh, we found you, you’re the reincarnation of such and such, they wouldn’t be of much use to us. If our current internal state is not pacifying, we’re not applying antidotes to afflictive states that occur within our mental continuum. And as Pabongka Rinpoche says, even vultures and so on can fly in the air.
Even mice can burrow underground, and fish can glide through water. So even if we were to accomplish miraculous powers, like being able to fly like a bird or burrow through the earth or swim underwater for long periods and so on, that would not be that much of an accomplishment if still our mind was not pacified. So they say that you should test whether a thing is dharma by using the mind training as your set of scales. So our mind training then gives us a means by which we can our mind training is something by which we can test what dharma is. Here dharma is what reduces the internal afflictive states.
Success in our mind training is an increase in dharma, an increase in antidotes to afflictive states, a lessening of afflictive states. So if the scales are tipping towards a lessening, an increase of virtue, that’s a sign of success. Because it’s very difficult for us to see how we’re doing because we’re probably too close to our own situation. And it’s not easy for us to be really mindful of just how we are progressing. But this type of mindfulness we should start to develop.
So then the next piece of advice. Now this advice here is based on the seven point mind training, which occurs at the back of this particular text. So the next advice is uphold the chief of the two witnesses. So as Pabongka Rinpoche mentions, there are two witnesses, yourself and others. Your practice may be far from perfect, but you can give the impression that it is.
Others may take you at face value and respect your seemingly pure ethics. There are said to be four states of ripeness for mangoes. So here, Pabongka Rinpoche is giving the example of mangoes in terms of our own individual practice. So there’s four types of mango in terms of their ripeness or lack of ripeness on the inside and the outside of the fruit. So in fact, in India, they call them pakka and kacha.
Pakka is when the fruit is ripe, people call it pakka, and kacha is when it’s unripe, it’s green, you can’t eat it. In general, we’re more like the kacha version. Our mind is not mature yet. It’s still unripe. It still needs to practice.
Similar to that, there are mangoes which are ripe and mangoes which are unripe. So we could be like the mango that is ripe externally but green inside. So this occurs. You can have a mango which looks nice color on the outside, and you buy a kilo of them thinking that they’re ready to eat, and you cut into them that they’re all solid underneath.
You maybe have a quarter of an inch of flesh that you can eat on the outside, the rest is green. So we ourselves as practitioners can be like that. So we can be appear to be right on the outside. But inside, we can be completely green. In other words, practice hasn’t really been established internally.
And as Pabongka Rinpoche says, in this case your movements would be as studied as a cat stalking its prey, and you would be thought a good person by people who do not know other dharma, who do not know the dharma. So at times, you know, we could appear as if we’re good practitioners, our external appearance and actions and so forth, look, mature or tamed. But internally we can we can be smiling, internally we can be thinking all manner of negative thoughts.
So that’s like a mango ripe on the outside, green on the inside. We should not think like this. And also, Pabongka Rinpoche says we should not be ripe inside and green outside, which is of course the opposite. If you display outward discipline, others will not be offended. So sometimes we might have the thought that I shouldn’t look as if I know anything, or act in a certain way, act with a certain degree of strict discipline.
Others may not appreciate that and so on. We shouldn’t think like that. It shouldn’t be ripe on the inside and green on the outside. As he says, when we are inwardly disciplined, our mind stream is enriched by our practice. So both outside and inside must be sound.
In fact, we should strive to having a mature practice both internally externally. Also, there is a further statement that’s said here, that bodhisattvas should not abandon ill repute. In other words, although you should take care to abandon those actions which could serve as the basis of a poor reputation, the most important thing is to retain your self respect. In other words, it’s good to we need to be both ripe on the inside and the outside. And at times, of those two, the inside and the outside, the inside is more important in our actions.
And at times, bodhisattvas give up their reputation for a particular purpose in order to help other beings. And they may engage in actions that bring criticism, but still, for bodhisattvas practicing in that way, the essential point is to maintain one’s self respect. But these are more exceptional cases. Actually, lot of this advice is very important and requires a certain degree of some contemplation. It’d be good if we could go into it in much more depth because, often the meaning only begins to emerge after some discussion on each of the points.
So this is more like a homework to cover this in more depth. Now another thing is always cultivate mental happiness, and this also is extremely important. And this cannot be overestimated or overemphasized. As it said, if you become rich, you should not be made mentally unhappy by any preconditions of increasing or safeguarding your wealth. If you are not rich, should not worry about your livelihood.
Think about the disadvantages of being wealthy. Be happy and content. Know how to convert both favorable and unfavorable conditions into the path, do not let the eight worldly concerns rear their ugly heads when you are praised or condemned, check over the reasons for your being happy or sad, and then they say you will not have mental unhappiness. So as Pabongka Rinpoche says, just do that and you’ll have mental happiness. So really we shouldn’t be concerned about things that conditions which we can’t change, and we shouldn’t really be worried about conditions that we can change.
This again takes effort and patience in order to develop because we tend by nature to be concerned about our situation. And this is coming about through our past habits to be worried about things like having money or not having money. And therefore, we should be very skillful in this regard. Also about having feelings of guilt about the past or dread about the future and so on. Things that already have happened that we should be able to resolve and let go These things can really affect our mental happiness in the present.
Skillful practice there is to be able to let go of those past, especially past negative actions that we’ve committed, apply the antidotes to them, engage in positive actions to overcome that past accumulation, and then in a sense to move on is very important. So again, Pabongka Rinpoche is giving a very brief instruction on the way to cultivate mental happiness, which is of course something that we need moment by moment. Now the criterion, as he says, the criterion for having trained our mind is as follows. You have mastered it if you are capable while distracted. So again, that’s a pith instruction.
We know we’ve mastered something if we’re capable of, doing that when we’re even when we’re distracted by something else. The inexperienced rider is not thrown by his horse if he keeps his mind on the job. But when his mind wanders, he or she will be thrown. The experienced horseman is never thrown even when distracted. Someone who has not mastered the mind training is like the inexperienced rider.
If someone insults him or her when they are off guard, at first they will tend to get angry. Only afterwards will they recollect themselves what has happened and then seek to pacify the anger. So it’s a bit like that. We’re like someone that hasn’t learned to ride a horse and we’re learning to ride. If our attention is focused on the horse, then we can stay on the horse.
We can ride the horse. Even when the horse does something unexpected, we’re there. But if they do something unexpected, then we’ll, when we’re distracted, then definitely there’s a great danger that we’ll fall off. Similarly, the mind is like the horse. In practicing mindfulness, it’s like we’re riding a horse, observing where the mind is going, and when the mind makes a sudden veer to the left, it gets angry, oh, getting angry at this person.
If we’re mindful, then we can start applying antidotes. Don’t get angry. No point in doing that. It’s coming from a negative feeling. Negative feeling is coming from our past karma, so on.
We can apply reasons to deal with that. And then at that point, we can apply them so then we’re not, we don’t lose our mindfulness. Otherwise, if we’re distracted, even though we have the intention not to become angry, can easily become angry, impatient. And then it’s only ten minutes later, half an hour later, a day later, or whatever, that it occurs to us, I’ve been angry. I’m angry at this particular person.
I’m angry at this situation and so on. So the measure of having trained our mind is just that. If we’re capable of practicing even when distracted, that means that even if we’re distracted doing something and the situation, the environment there is conducive for us to become angry, we’re not getting angry. At present for us, we get angry. We’re straight away.
So we have further work to do. Then the next one, the criterion for being trained is when we have reversed it. In other words, when it in other words, a criterion for having trained our mind is mind in the meditation on death, death and impermanence, or renunciation. The measure of having trained our mind in those is the fact that we can stop being preoccupied with the trivia of this life or aspiring to the affluence of Samsāra or the magnificence of Samsāra or any part of it, and so on. Similarly, we have mastered mind training if we have reversed our self-cherishing.
So another way of investigating whether our mind is working is whether, in fact, we are able to counter those negative states. At present when we look inside, see those negative states are there. There’s self-cherishing that’s there. Impatience is there, and so on. Further it says, you will have When we develop success in our practice, then we have the five signs of great mastery.
With familiarity, we will receive five signs. That is, we will be a great ascetic because we are able to be patient. So really, the great asceticism is being patient. It’s not being able to wear a hair shirt or be able to sleep on a bed of nails and so on, starve ourselves. The great austerity, the great practice of austerity or asceticism is being able to bear any conditions that arise.
Your mind will not tend to delusion. Whatever suffering, harm and so on will befall us. In other words, our minds will not become unhappy or, be a field for the development of afflictive states, whatever, our situation is or our circumstances are, we will be a great person because we cherish others more than ourselves. And we will be a great practitioner of virtue because in all our activities, we never depart from the practice of the ten types of Dharma or dharmic behavior, the ten virtuous actions. And we will be a great upholder of ethics because we remain calm, composed and quite untarnished by the least non virtuous action.
And we will be a great yogi because we practice the great actual Mahāyāna path. So these are some of the some of the means by which we can comprehend our whether we’ve assimilated the practices on mind training or not. So then Pabongka Rinpoche further begins the discussion of the eighteen commitments of the mind training practice. So personally he suggests that we always keep to the three general points. First of these is never to transgress the precepts of mind training.
We do not use mind training as a pretext for ignorance oh, sorry, There’s a pretext for ignoring the more basic vows such as those in the Vinaya. So the first thing that the first commitment in mind training there is that we’re not going to transgress, different ethical commitments, such as the individual emancipation vows that are taken by, laypeople and also by monks and nuns. The individual emancipation vows for laypeople include the lay vows, the five, the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven or even eight vows that can be taken by laypeople, or the thirty-six vows of a novice, or the two hundred and fifty-three vows of a monk, or the three hundred and sixty-four vows of a fully ordained nun. The second point, the second commitment for mind training is not to let our mind training become a mere travesty. And we should not use mind training as a pretext for not refraining from upsetting creatures and humans by cutting down trees and so on, because you pretend to have no more self-cherishing.
We shouldn’t use the pretext of being engaged in mind training to commit actions that may harm other beings as an excuse, uses that as an excuse to harm others, indirectly or directly, such as using it to, you know, cut down trees and so forth. This is possible, not maybe easy to envisage how this may happen, but human nature being what it’s like, we can even use the pretext of engaging in mind training in order to overcome self-cherishing as a pretext or an excuse to inconvenience other beings. So the third commitment is to not let our mind training become incomplete. So meaning that we should not be patient with friends and impatient with enemies, or tolerant of humans and intolerant of animals and so on. So these three commitments are important.
Then we have the following two aspects of mind training: change your aspirations, but preserve your old manner. So change the internal, leave the external as it is. So we should not leave the old obstinate thoughts we have in our mind stream the way they are. We should employ some remedy to improve them a good deal. The best type of person sees improvement in a day, the medium in a month, and the most inferior in a year.
And beyond that, in ten years, there might be something, twenty years. Yes, I think not including people that see some change after ten years and twenty years, perhaps it’s necessary to put those of us who are in that category as well. But a best practitioner is one that sees some improvement even at the end of the day. Or a month, intermediate, or after a year, a slack practitioner. But it’s possible to change the mind in that way because the mind is impermanent and everything, the attitudes and the views that exist within the mind itself are all impermanent and have been established there through causes.
Pabongka Rinpoche then says we must see which of these we can manage. Okay, so if we can change our mind even in a year, then at least we’re on the level of least practitioner. Every month, that’s excellent. That’s an intermediate level of practice. And every day,, if we have anyone here at that level, we should, I think, go prostrate to them at present.
So we must see which of these we can manage. If even this much is beyond us, then even though we have already received ordination and since become old, you will still have preserved the thoughts that you had before you were ordained. Pabongka Rinpoche, of course, he’s giving this teaching to monks. Indirectly he’s including the lay practitioners as well. And he’s talking here about those who have even become old as monks, but still have the old habits from even prior to them becoming monks, still not able to eradicate old negative habits from long before.
And he says then that we should not be like the rocks behind our house that never change from year to year. So our mind shouldn’t be like that. We shouldn’t be holding to these negative thoughts that we’ve had there from the age of five or ten. All of those have got to go. We should change our aspirations.
They must be changed into bodhicitta, renunciation, the realization of impermanence, emptiness, and so on. But we shouldn’t be bothered about changing our external behavior in the least. There are those who do not even have two annas worth of good qualities developed internally. Two annas is not very much. It’s a coin.
An anna is a coin. Actually, I think they’re an Indian coin. Two annas, four annas used to be twenty five paisa in India. You used to be able to get a cup of tea for four anas. Annas. Char anna, twenty five paisa, very, very cheap.
It’s about five, ten times that amount. So as it says, there are those who do not even have two annas, so that’s twelve paise. Twelve paise is not much, it’s about half a cent. Twelve paise, oh, it’s about that I guess. Do not even have that worth of good qualities developed internally.
Yet pretend to be practicing and wearing a holier than thou far away look in their eyes, and so on. So this happens. Not much internal practice, but very skilled like the cat, being able to project an air of virtue and so on. You should only develop insights and improve your mind. Do not make any outward display.
Again, Pabongka Rinpoche is saying we shouldn’t be bothered with our external appearance. But then put our effort into developing internally. Nor should anyone know you have made any progress. You be like Śāntideva or Ārya Chudapanthaka. Śāntideva was a monk who lived in Nālānda monastery and he was called the monk of the three actions because all anyone saw him doing was being engaged in the three activities, which was eating and sleeping and going to the toilet.
No one ever saw him do anything more than that, so he was just given this name. Śāntideva, who is the source of the tradition for exchanging self for others, in fact was a very highly realized practitioner. But externally he looked like someone that was doing nothing at all. That is exactly how we need to practice. Even glorious Candrakīrti only seemed to be an unexceptional pandit.
Candrakīrti was this, another monk who was a great practitioner and scholar who wrote very extensively on the meaning of emptiness. And even to Candrakīrti, because of his unexceptional external appearance, no one paid him much attention. Yet inwardly he had achieved various siddhis or attainments or miraculous abilities and was able to even milk a drawing of a cow. There is a famous story where he milked a drawing of a cow, gained milk from that. However, such beings in general did not make themselves conspicuous.
Their practice was internal and not external. And the past lamas of the Kadampa tradition did not court fame by practicing in public, revealing their signs of accomplishment and so on. We should follow their example. In doing so, we should not meet with many hindrances. On the other hand, if we try and make a show of our practice, advertise ourselves and so on, then hindrances do arise.
It is like boasting to others about your wish granting gem. Yes, so we should practice internally and not be concerned so much about how we appear externally. If, on the other hand, we practice the opposite of that, we try and look as if we are a practitioner but internally, there is nothing there, then we are just a worldly being. By doing that, we will just tend to revert into a practice for this life alone or into the activities of this life alone. So even if we ever do one Dharma practice, we should make sure, others don’t know about it.
We don’t need to let them know. It’s not as if we do one dharmic practice, we should hoist a flag on a mountaintop and proclaim it to the world. We should not be like this. In this tradition of the tradition of the Kadampas, we must hide our good qualities like a butter lamp concealed inside a pot. And then the next advice is: do not mention others’ withered limbs, which means, of course, do not speak of others’ defects.
So that’s appropriate for us not to act in that way. Do not be obsessed with others. That is, you should always analyze your own faults and not look into the faults of others at all. We shouldn’t be concerned about the faults of others. When we notice ourselves starting to look into others’ faults and meditate on them, then we should stop and withdraw from that.
Otherwise, you will only look for faults in your fellow practitioners, the members of your monastic college, the members of your discussion class or whatever. And by maintaining this or developing this, we will begin even to find faults in the Buddhas. So therefore, we should not attribute faults to others. For if you do, you will only ignore people, belittle them, and so on all the more. So in fact, we should not pursue the faults of others.
Simply Simply be aware, but don’t go beyond that. And then we should purify the greatest delusion first. So whatever delusion in our mind stream is the largest, then we should deal with that first. So, for instance, if attachment is the largest, we should, apply the antidotes to that delusion first, such as contemplating the thirty two parts of the body, such as the eyes, the nose, the skin, the bones, the blood, the mucus, the flesh, the heart, the lungs, the spleen, the kidneys, the liver, and so on. If attachment arises in relation to the human body, then we should separate the body into its parts and contemplate the real nature of the human body, and so on.
Then again, if it’s, hatred, then we should apply love and so on. Delusion or ignorance, we should then apply the antidotes to ignorance. So in general, beings fall into one of the three categories. Either they have a predominance or the greatest delusion is ignorance, attachment, or anger, hatred. So we should investigate internally which is our what is our greatest.
Maybe it’s a mixture of the three, or maybe it’s two of them together. But in observing what our greatest delusions are, our greatest afflictions are, then we should apply the remedies or the antidotes to those or to that first. Abandon all hopes of a result. So when we’re doing something virtuous, expect neither reward nor some favorable ripening of karma. So as much as possible, we need to release that and then act without expectation.
Throw any expectation away, and then act in a positive way without expectation. Then abandon food with poison in it. Do not cultivate any food of virtue that is mixed with the poison of self-cherishing. So again, if what we’re doing is mixed with self-cherishing, then what we’re doing becomes infused with self-cherishing, with the poison of self-cherishing. And so it’s it’s, something that we need to abandon in our practice.
So then Pabongka Rinpoche says, let us deal with the rest without quoting root text further. So all of the root text of the seven point mind training has been quoted here by Pabongka Rinpoche. Now he’s saying, now discuss the further elements here without using the root text. Should you develop a delusion, should we develop an afflictive mental state, apply its antidote right away and do not allow it to persist, treat it under