Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Ignyen frames the Wheel of Sharp Weapons in this 46-minute talk as a practical tool — a weapon or medicine you reach for when suffering strikes, not a book to finish and set aside. He walks through the text’s structure and explains why it works: radical personal responsibility. External circumstances and other people, even parents and friends, are not to blame for our suffering. The real enemies are two internal patterns: self-grasping and self-cherishing. The Wheel of Sharp Weapons cuts through these, not external beings. Like long-term medication for serious illness, the text requires repeated, persistent study to reshape deeply rooted habits — one reading will not be enough.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 Wheel of Sharp Weapons 2001 04 10.mp3
UUID: 03bce3a7-b632-48a4-ad77-8425a14030ef
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Wheel of Sharp Weapons 2011 Month 04 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-04-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~4,390
And in a way, the title is to inspire a little bit of fear or awe. And that is because our afflictions that we experience, the problems, the troubles, the dissatisfaction, the boredom, the limitations, etcetera, that we experience on a day to day basis, hour to hour basis, do require firm methods to overcome. So in fact, this entire text is about the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. It’s about overcoming these negative conditions that we face continuously, more intensely from time to time. So they’re actually directed at finding the opponent to these problems.
So in fact, we we need to understand the title of the text. There’s a few things that are absolutely essential. If we’re gonna study this text, we need to understand what the title is, why it’s called that, what the text is designed to do. And in fact, any text that we study has different elements to it. It needs a purpose for it being composed.
No sense in just composing something without a purpose. It’d be a bit like a treatise on the teeth of crows. The treatise explaining why crows have teeth. Do crows actually have teeth? They don’t, do they?
Similarly, such a treatise explaining what they’re about would be meaningless. So in fact, when we read something, a work by someone of the past, then we have to evaluate whether it has purpose or not. We have to understand what the purpose is. Otherwise, the text will not be remembered by us for a start. And when even we’re reading it, we won’t really understand why we’re reading it or what we’re supposed to be doing with the text and the subject matter of the text.
So here, this particular text, it does have a purpose. And the purpose of the text here is to overcome our dissatisfaction, our problems, our unhappiness, dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction, etcetera, however or whatever we experience day to day that is unsatisfactory. This text, in fact, possesses the four elements of a treatise. That is, it has a subject matter, it has a purpose, it has an inner purpose, and those three former things are related. So what that means is, in brief, is the subject matter of this treatise is really the two bodhicittas.
And the the purpose is to develop them in one’s continuum. The inner purpose is to attain Buddhahood, And the relationship is the fact that by studying the two Bodhicittas, we are able to develop bodhicitta in our continuum and ultimately attain Buddhahood. So this text is has those four elements. So it’s called the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. In fact, if there’s any any questions that come up during the session, we can also deal with them at the same time.
Because the purpose of the purpose of studying this text is not to add more of the bit more bits and pieces to our our collection of things, but it’s really the purpose of it is to benefit us in the present, to be a practical benefit so that we can apply it. When problems arise in the present, it should be like something we can apply. Like we’re a soldier out there on the battlefield. If we come up against a particular problem, we’ve got somewhere we can reach in and okay. There’s my AK forty seven or there’s my, you know, bayonet.
There’s my hand grenade. And there’s my armor. There’s my walkie talkie. So what we need in the in our ongoing situation in life are practical methods that can help us defend us against the problems that we experience. So we need something very practical, something we can draw on, and use whenever a problem comes up.
You know, we’re sitting there and we get you know, we’re unhappy about something, then this is a type of text that’s like a a treasure trove. It’s like a manual of what to do when a problem arises. So we can reach down and bring out a something that we can use, something we can apply, some like medicine or even a weapon to overcome, you know, a particular state that we have, that we want to overcome. So really we need something practical. So we have to, if possible, understand the text on that level, then studying such a text becomes very beneficial.
And in fact, we have to be absolutely practical about this. No sense in just studying such a text just so that we can say, oh, well, I studied the text and sort of store it away as, like, been there, done that, which we have a tendency to do. You know? We go to Sydney. Okay.
I’ve been to Sydney. Been there. Done that. Now I can go somewhere else or or whatever. These types of texts are something that has benefit in this lifetime and then in future lifetimes, many, many future lifetimes.
But the benefit only comes about when it’s applied to the mind. Otherwise, it’s a bit like having having an ointment. We got a skin rash and we got the ointment sitting over there. We keep looking every time we lift the arm or we brush it against something, it’s painful, and we keep on thinking, what am I gonna do? The ointment is sitting there.
If we don’t apply it, then it’s not gonna benefit the rash that we have. So we have to actually take the medicine and apply it. So that also means we have to be mindful that we have, you know, the oh, I have a problem in this particular area or, you know? There’s a fault here. You know?
I’m not happy about this, and I’m uncomfortable about that. So in any of these situations, when the mind is a little bit agitated, unhappy, unworkable, not very flexible, a bit down, then the Wheel of Sharp Weapons is like, you know, there’s something we can consult. I can actually use that information there to treat my current unhappiness. But we need to be mindful that that’s possible. The many factors have to come together for a text like this to be a benefit to us.
And one of the major factors is being mindful. Even being mindful that I’m unhappy. I got a problem. I don’t like this. I don’t like that.
Being mindful of that is not necessarily very easy. And then then to realize, oh, that state is impermanent. It’s a result of something. It’s caused by something. If I eliminate the cause of it, then no longer will I experience the result of it.
If I don’t like this experience, then I really, because this experience is impermanent, it’s possible to do something about it. Anything which is impermanent, we can change. But we have to know what we don’t want, and we have to know, in fact, what we do seek. And then we also have to know what to apply so that that result comes about. Is that true?
This we need to examine. Otherwise, there’s no sense in us discussing these issues if it isn’t something we agree with. Or if we disagree, we should disagree. But these issues are important. They’re very important.
I’m talking with Geshe Pema Tsering about this at one stage, and he was saying that, yeah, actually, in talking about these issues, it’s better either that one’s, you know, very enthusiastic about them or very or opposes them very strongly. Those two are okay. But to sort of be lukewarm in the middle there, well, maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not true, is not so useful. Better to look and decide. Okay.
Maybe there is something there. But if there is something, what is it? If there’s something that’s that’s gonna benefit me, what is it? So this is important. Otherwise, if we’re lukewarm to these issues, then we’ll remain lukewarm.
Then it’s not possible to progress very far. So it’s important to think through these issues. It’s a degenerate age here on this planet. Things are in decline in general. Do people accept that, or is that too pessimistic?
Well, from a Buddhist perspective, it’s a period of decline. And, also, from the Hindu point of view, it’s a period of Kali Yuga. Oh, a long time ago. Many, many years ago. Before the Before the Buddha.
The Buddha was born in a degenerate period. He was born when the lifespan was a hundred years, but declining. There were three other Buddhas born in this fortunate eon, and they were actually also born, I think, on a decline of lifespan, like Kanakamuni and Kakuchanda and Kāśyapa. Those three Buddhas were born, I think, forty when the lifespan was forty thousand years, thirty thousand years, and twenty thousand years. When the lifespan of human beings was said to have been forty thousand years, thirty thousand years, and twenty thousand years.
Oh, that’s right. Although it’s a in general, it’s decline. It’s a period of decline. It’s a fortunate time because a Buddha has appeared and his teachings still exist. And the teachings of the Buddha will last for five thousand years.
So they’re halfway through. The Buddha lived two and a half thousand years ago. We’ve reached about the midpoint of the teachings. But in general, it’s a a downward. It’s a time of the five degenerations or the five dregs where the standard of human beings has declined.
Intelligence has declined. Afflictions are on the increase, the afflictions of beings, and so on. There is. There is. Although in a period of general decline, you can have up periods or, you know, cycles where things do improve.
But in general, it’s a decline. And, for instance, it was said at the time of the Buddha that the lifespan was a hundred years. And at that time, there were many fewer beings on earth, many fewer humans. Now the lifespan what’s the lifespan now, roughly? Or if all people taken together?
Seventy. Seventy, maybe? Well, in a way that would accord with Abhidharma because sorry? If you take into account all the human beings, I guess, because the lifespan in the West is much greater than the lifespan in the East and Africa and India and so on. But it was said in the scriptures that the Buddha was born when the lifespan was one hundred years.
That was two thousand five years ago and the lifespan has declined one year every one hundred years since then. So the lifespan now would be about seventy five years. That’s that’s a large question. Are there other humans in the universe? From the point of view of Buddhism, yes, there’s billions of other planets where humans exist.
From the point of view of traditional Indian culture, this earth is regarded as the rose apple island or Jambudvipa. And it was given that name because, apparently, on this particular planet, the rose apple grows, and so it was given the name. And, anyway, without going into into that, there’s said to be, perhaps in this galaxy, there’s four directions. And in this direction of the galaxy, there’s the human realm of Earth is. And in the other directions, are other planets such as Dramyen, Zhang Dramyen.
In the north, there is unpleasant sound. Because there, humans live, and I think they live for a thousand years. But after a thousand years, they hear this sound saying that they’re about to die, which is unpleasant. And then in the east, there are further continents and subcontinents or planets. In the west, there’s other planets, continents.
But there are countless human realms within the universe. And it’s also said that when Śākyamūni Buddha taught on this human realm, Earth here, he was also teaching in other other human realms. simultaneously. In the treatises, especially in the Prajñāpāramitā, the perfection of wisdom sutras, it states, a billion, a billion world systems that the Buddha taught in a billion world systems similar to this one, but even not at the same time. But that Śākyamūni Buddha emanated, had the capacity to emanate.
And so he did teach in many different realms for a long period of time, human beings. And on this planet, there are human beings, where human beings exist. The Buddha came two and a half thousand years ago and taught for about sixty years. No. From thirty five to eighty one, so about forty five years.
Anyway, this is extensively set out in the perfection of wisdom. And therefore, it implies that there are many different human realms. Our divine being. Yeah. That’s right.
Also, Buddhism asserts that there are divine beings as well, that there are humans, but there are many levels higher than human, many different types of divine being. Even in this realm of existence, there are many different types of divine being that exist. And also asura, demigods as well. But we don’t necessarily see them. In fact, the majority of beings, we don’t see.
Yeah. Go on.
Yeah. Yeah. I have a problem with that. You sound like a postmodernist, so that’s okay. Well, that’s hard enough to Right.
That’s okay. Buddhist cosmology or metaphysics and so on is based on basically on Buddhist psychology and the Buddhist explanation of the mind itself. So studying cosmology from a Buddhist perspective is really studying the mind itself and how the mind is structured because the universe, as it exists, really reflects the structure of the mind itself. So to that extent, studying cosmology can be useful. Because in understanding the cosmology and the different levels of beings, it’s possible to begin to understand even the individual mind of a being.
And all minds of all beings have the same or have a similar structure, if we could put it in in those terms. Depends what you mean by symbolic. In a sense, a literal truth. Well, it’s literal in a sense that, for instance, the Buddha talked about these realms as existing, like the realm of the thirty three, which is in the desire realm. And that’s a realm where his mother was reborn after his mother passed away, after the Buddha’s mother.
The Buddha’s Buddha’s mother died when he was seven days old and was reborn in this divine realm. And later, after the Buddha had attained enlightenment, he, spent one full rains retreat in that realm teaching his former mother who was reborn there as a deva, a divine being. And so on. There’s many references by the Buddha to the existence of these realms. But from the other point of view, they’re no more real than this existence here.
It’s scary in the sense that we have many preconceptions about our existence. And a lot of our preconceptions we’re very attached to. To. And being attached to them, sometimes it is fearful, it is scary for us. But then again, there’s also positive types of fear and negative types of fear as well.
And it’s the positive types of fear that we should cultivate. Negative types of fear, we don’t really need, or they’re not that useful to us. But sometimes it’s useful if things are a little bit scary. A little bit more careful. Pay a bit more attention.
Right. Excellent text, and it’s something that we can go back to again and again, reread, even memorize it as, Atisha did. And that can be very useful to memorize it because then it’s always with us. Then, you know, we can we have those words with us whenever something comes up. And those words are of great comfort as well because they remind us that whatever we experience in the present, it really is coming from our own past actions.
We’re responsible. If I’m unhappy or feeling a little depressed or, disturbed by various emotions or agitated by this or that, It’s not there without a purpose. All of that is coming from my own past actions. It’s the Wheel of Sharp Weapons returning, bearing the result of the seeds that I laid down. It’s unpleasant, but who who’s to blame?
Up till now, we’ve blamed everyone else. Whenever something’s gone wrong, we always look for a scapegoat. We always tend to blame someone else. Oh, it’s that person. No.
I didn’t didn’t get the new job because that person didn’t like me, or I got problems understanding this because I can’t find the right text or I that person didn’t help me or I’m feeling sad now because of what that person said to me and so on. We have such a strong tendency to do this all the time. We tend to blame everyone else. It’s a habit that’s just so strong with us, so strong. But to even stop it, even for an instant, is very difficult.
We just tend to blame. We blame our parents. What’s going wrong in this lifetime? It’s our parents’ fault. They either beat me too much or they didn’t beat me enough.
They gave me too much money when I was young and spoiled me, or they didn’t give me enough money when I was young. And I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. Now I’m scarred for life because of that. So we tend, for instance, to blame our parents. And that’s one reason why even today, we often don’t get on very well with our parents.
And we blame our parents for many of our limitations. But in fact, parents are not in the least to blame. There’s not one atom of blame that we can attribute to our parents. Also with our friends, they have not put not the least amount of blame. There’s no being on this earth that we can blame for our unhappiness.
Seen or unseen, this world or any other world in the universe. So what this text is talking about is who’s to blame? It’s ourselves for everything. Completely. Absolutely.
Coming to an understanding of that will take us a long time because our habits will tend to make us think otherwise. And that’s why reading this text many times over is it’s like medicine. It sort of wakes us up a little bit. But we’re gonna take a lot of convincing that the problem is with ourselves and not with the outside world, with other beings. And to that extent, suffering is the best teacher.
It’s the greatest teacher. And in a sense, we’ll continue to have to suffer, to have problems until we recognize where those problems are coming from. If we deny where they’re coming from, they definitely will continue. So this text is actually it’s like a flash of lightning in a dark sky. Suddenly, things are lit up.
Oh, I’m to blame. This text is telling me that. Like, when lightning flashes, we can see everything instantly. That’s why such a text as this is a a great treasure. And a real benefit to taming this mind that we have is absolutely unruly, negative, destructive mind that we possess.
But our mind is only negative because of the all these negative habits that we have. The mind itself is quite neutral. But through anger and hatred, resentment, jealousy, pride, and so forth, our mind becomes heavy and dark, so on. And that’s not due to anyone else. No one else is forcing us to develop these attitudes.
We have complete free will. So such a text is really a great benefit, but we have to read it frequently. It’s a bit like medicine. If we only take one pill, then probably we’re not going to get better. Like, we’ve got TB, we’ve got to take TB medicine for six months without break.
And then we can eliminate the TB. We used to have problems in India. People would take it until they started feeling better, and then they’d stop taking it and the TB would not be completely eliminated and it would just grow stronger and become resistant. So we need to take the medicine for a long time. So at least six months we need to take this type of medicine.
And if we’re not cured in six months, then a further six months. Not totally cured in one year, then another year. And if not totally cured after two years, then another two. Not cured in one lifetime, two lifetimes. Also, need to investigate.
Does this have the information to really eliminate from the roots all of our everything that afflicts us. We also need to keep this in mind and examine this. Now I’m just wondering also, there’s a test that will be, given for this, for the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, and that’ll be printed out and can be taken home tonight. And doing this test is also very can be very useful because it makes us think a little bit about the subject matter of what the text is. So I thought, because now we finished the text and this week is more like a review of what the entire text is about, then maybe, to go back and just cover some of the things about the text, again, in a little a little bit of detail.
But, again, if anyone has any points that come up, it’s good to mention them as we’re going through. So it’s good to remember the name of the text, the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, and the author, Dharmarakshita. And this text was taught to Atisha. It’s also important because our connection, the way that we’ve received this text is through Atisha. And Atisha took it to took it to Tibet and then taught it extensively in Tibet through being translated into Tibetan by his disciple, Dromtönpa. The spelling looks a bit strange in the in the back of the book, or as he was also called. He was a layperson, but he was the foremost disciple of Atisha in Tibet. And I think Atisha went to Tibet in about ten forty two. So about nine hundred and fifty years ago, sixty years ago.
And then from there, it’s been preserved in Tibet until now when it’s been, now given in the West. This teaching is given in the West, and so the transmission is spreading to the West of this treatise. So which is good for us? The fact that it is types of text on mind training coming to the west is very important, very useful for us. And the name of the text is the Wheel of Sharp Weapons striking at the very core of the enemy, The long title of it.
Striking at the very core of the enemy. So the enemy that the Wheel of Sharp Weapons strikes at the very core of are two. That’s self grasping and self-cherishing. And we need to keep this in mind that this text is talking about two enemies within. One is self grasping, and the other one is self-cherishing.
If we can eliminate both of those, then we don’t have any more problems. Problems. So the Wheel of Sharp Weapons is directed towards overcoming self grasping and self-cherishing. Or self grasping and self-cherishing actually tend to go along and assist each other. So even their union.
So the Wheel of Sharp Weapons, this text and the words of this text are directed towards overcoming self-cherishing and self grasping, and thereby developing so we can develop relative bodhicitta and ultimate bodhicitta. Okay. So self grasping and self-cherishing are our enemy. Why are they our enemy? Why are self grasping and self-cherishing our enemy?
Yes. Yeah. They’re our enemy because they destroy our happiness. Always, they destroy our happiness. So self-cherishing and self grasping destroy our happiness by making us, cycle in existence, take rebirth again and again.
Existence, take rebirth again and again in states where we’re unhappy. So therefore, they’re our enemy. Anyone that makes us unhappy unhappy is an enemy. True? What’s the definition of enemy?
An enemy is someone that makes us unhappy, isn’t it? True? True. Okay. That’s what we’re talking about here, an enemy.
Anything that makes us unhappy is our enemy, has to be destroyed. True? But in fact, the only enemy that we have is an internal enemy or, in fact, two internal enemies, self-cherishing and self grasping. So they’re the enemy. And they’re the enemy that are destroyed or that the Wheel of Sharp Weapons will strike to the very core of to eliminate.
Oh, no. Those those other beings, there’s they’re not enemies. No. No. No.
They’re not even enemies. To even call them an enemy, one has to be there’s only one there’s only really two enemies. What are the two enemies? We have to maybe recite this every day. My enemy.
Who’s my enemy? The union of self grasping and self-cherishing. Where’s that? Where does it exist? It’s true.
It only exists that exists in our own continuum. And then what is the means by which this the Wheel of Sharp Weapons strikes at this enemy? This text is the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. How does it actually strike the enemy of self grasping and self-cherishing? It strikes at those two by seeking to eliminate them from the very core, to absolutely eradicate them completely, absolutely, without any remainder.
So that’s the way that this text seeks to destroy these enemies. Now, also, it said in the text that that I pay homage, to the Three Jewels. Also, I pay homage in the first verse, it said, I pay homage to the great rough wrathful one, the enemy of the lord of death also. Also, the lord of death can be regarded as our enemy. I pay heartfelt homage to you, Yamāntaka.
Your wrath is opposed to the great lord of death. So that also is important, that in this text, homage is being paid to Yamāntaka, who in fact opposes the lord of death. We all know who the lord of death is. The lord of death is our death. Uncontrolled death is the lord of death.
The fact that we can die at any point. We don’t know when we’re gonna die. The fact of uncontrolled death is is is the representation of the lord of death.