Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 21-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen opens a commentary on the Wheel of Sharp Weapons with the first verse—a homage to Yamāntaka, the wrathful wisdom that defeats uncontrolled death. He explains: death is driven by karma and affliction, and to oppose it, we must cultivate wisdom comprehending selflessness. The teaching then focuses on the practical core—identifying the “enemy within”: self-grasping (clinging to a truly existent self) and self-cherishing (holding oneself as more important than others). He walks through why these are so difficult to recognize as enemies: they feel natural and essential, woven into every thought. Through audience questions about equanimity and Bodhisattva practice, he stresses that suffering itself is the greatest teacher, perpetually pointing practitioners back to examine what self-grasping and self-cherishing are actually doing. This is mind-training (Lojong). For intermediate practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 Wheel of Sharp Weapons 2001 04 10.mp3
UUID: 566b2ce8-9784-4fa2-8839-07de5f959bff
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: 21.5 minutes
Words: ~2,061
So therefore, here the lord of death represents, our uncontrolled death or otherwise, our uncontrolled death that’s brought about through karma and affliction. So presently, our situation is we could die at any time. Why would we die at any time in an uncontrolled fashion? It’s because our death is controlled by karma and affliction. And that that’s how it is for us at present.
We could die this evening. We could die tomorrow morning. We could die next week. Our death is uncontrolled. We don’t know when it will occur.
It’s uncontrolled because it’s controlled by karma and affliction, our own karma and affliction, or in other words, by our ignorance. What opposes that? Yamāntaka opposes that. And what does what is Yamāntaka? Yamāntaka represents wisdom.
And here, the wisdom is the wisdom comprehending selflessness. So I pay homage here in the first verse to the wisdom comprehending selflessness, which opposes uncontrolled death, which is the lord of death. So also also this, we need to reflect on. We therefore pay homage to Yamāntaka, who represents wisdom, the wrathful aspect of wisdom. Why do we pay homage?
We pay homage because that’s what we want. We really pay homage to those things that we seek to achieve or whose qualities we seek to achieve. We pay homage to the Buddha because we wanna become like the Buddha. We may pay homage to Brad Pitt because we like wanna become like Brad Pitt, or we might put pay homage to anything, to money, or to this quality or that quality because we wanna achieve that quality. But here, we pay homage to the Yamāntaka because we wanna develop the wisdom that opposes the lord of death.
That wisdom also not only is the selflessness comprehending wisdom comprehending selflessness, but it’s also wisdom or it’s also the cherishing other beings as well. So that also opposes the lord of death. Is this pretty heavy going? It’s often necessary in one sense to go through these aspects because as much as possible, we need to understand what and why the author is stating what he’s stating. And if we know the symbols, if we know what things represent in the text, then it becomes much more meaningful.
And why do we need to understand the meaning? No. Not to pretend to practice, of course. Put it. We have to actually practice.
Well, no. We under we understand that. We’re all like that. But as much as possible, we need to practice it. And we can only practice it when we understand the meaning, when we understand the how it’s practiced, why we’re practicing it, what’s the reason for practicing it.
And that comes about because we begin to understand where we actually are. Where are we? We un begin to understand where we are, and we start to understand where we need to get to. So this is important. Important.
So, basically, that’s where the text starts off from. We need to apply the Wheel of Sharp Weapons in order to overcome the lord of death, in order to overcome the enemy within, which is grasping at self and grasping for self-cherishing. So then if the enemy within is self grasping and self-cherishing, we need to be able to identify them when they exist. Do they exist in the present moment? Who has self grasping and self-cherishing at present?
How do we know we’ve got them? They might not be there. Yeah. But how would we know if we hadn’t? Is it possible that we’ve already developed it, we just don’t know it?
But we have suffering. But Bodhisattvas have suffering. Yeah. That’s yeah. It’s starting in yeah.
It’s along that line, isn’t it? If, because even the foundation of the path of bodhicitta, the first what’s the first step in developing bodhicitta? Equanimity. Do we have equanimity? Who has equanimity?
How would we know equanimity if we came across it? Do we still make value judgments about people all the time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, Bodhisattvas often have to make value judgments. Absolutely. But they would. Even for Bodhisattvas, depending on what level they’re at, they still have ignorance and so forth, but they don’t have self-cherishing. They have equanimity.
So what is equanimity? It is. It’s having an even mind to other beings, not seeing some as distant and some as close, which we tend to do. Always happening. You know, we think about someone or we dislike someone and we see them, we tend to try and distance ourselves from them.
They’re on one side of the street, and we’re on this on their side of the street as well. We’ll cross the street so we don’t see them. Or we keep keep them at a distance and so on. And those that we really like, we keep near. So if we have that tendency, don’t have equanimity.
Yeah. Yeah. Although with equanimity, it’s being able to see those three as being equal, that they’re really any being we look at, we have an equal even attitude towards. Yeah. Even in the ego, which well, I-grasping I-grasping can still be there.
And other attitudes can arise. That can arise. Yeah. But at a fundamental level, there is an evenness towards all beings. Now at times, even bodhisattvas can get annoyed and impatient with others.
But still, they have this equanimity that is at the basis of that. So because they that equanimity is supporting their great compassion, which supports their bodhicitta. But even so, it’s possible that they, you know, can they see the faults of others, and they can point out the faults of others and so on. It’s hard for that reason, it’s hard to necessarily just look at a person and say, oh, they they are a body sattva or not. Because just by their actions, one may not, be able to understand whether they’re a Bodhisattva for a moment.
Probably with some people, it’s easy to see that, you know, that they’re really like with the Dal Lama, for instance. But they can be wrathful bodhisattvas as well. Others like Mahatma Gandhi, you know, reading about the life of Gandhi. As the Dalai Lama said when he went to the place where Gandhi was cremated, Rajghat in Delhi, that, you know, he Gandhi was really a great being. But that it’s with someone like Mahatma Gandhi, it’s not hard to appreciate because he was such a really a powerful unifying force in India.
Anyway, so we also need to develop an understanding of these two to be able to recognize self grasping and self-cherishing within us. They’re not the same thing. Self grasping is not the same as self-cherishing. Self grasping is grasping at a truly existent eye. It’s holding that there is a type of eye, like a truly existent I or an inherently existent I, to exist when it actually doesn’t exist.
That is what self grasping is. In fact, our current thought I is mixed with that. When we ever whenever we think I, there, there’s self grasping. At present, we don’t see the fault of it. We hardly recognize it when it comes up.
It comes up very quickly and disappears. It merges or it’s mixed with much of our thinking, I and my. But, really, that thought, I and my, is associated with self grasping. And that self grasping is a type of ignorance which is at the very root of all our problems. So we need to recognize what this self grasping is, grasping at a self.
And the object grasped by self grasping is this truly existent self, a nonexistent self. We grasp that to be existent. Then also we have self-cherishing. self-cherishing is a type of attitude which regards the mere I as being more important than other beings. So, therefore, it’s it’s self-cherishing.
It’s holding itself to be dear. In Tibetan, it’s grasping self as dear. We’re all very familiar with it, is holding ourselves to be dear, to be important. And in fact, it seems so natural and obvious that we would wonder how could that ever be our enemy? Grasping at I, how could that be an enemy?
Cherishing I, how could that be an enemy to me? Surely, it’s other way around. By cherishing the I, it’s benefiting me. We hardly have a doubt about this. So it’s very difficult for us to see those two as enemies, self-cherishing, self grasping.
They’re so much a part of everything that we do. And we almost stand back and, you know, throw our hands back and say, yes. There’s nothing wrong with self-cherishing and self grasping. I know they’re always there. Whenever I need to do something, ah, self grasping, self-cherishing, they’re right there immediately.
Don’t need we don’t have to think. Should I generate self grasping? Should I generate self-cherishing? They’re there all the time. Being able to see them as an enemy, that they’re our real enemy, will take some time because we don’t even really recognize them when they arise, let alone have the capacity to begin to see the trouble that they cause us.
Sometimes it also also seems that, well, if they didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist. There’s so much a part of us, so much a part of our everyday existence that if they didn’t exist, how could we continue? So because of that, it’s not easy to give up self grasping and self-cherishing. As long as we see them as being useful to us and beneficial to us, we’ll never give them up, impossible to give them up. And the object of self-cherishing, the object grasped by self-cherishing is the importance of the eye.
The fact that the eye is more important than other beings. That almost sounds that’s how it should be. That’s the it’s self evident. I’m more important than anyone else. What’s wrong with self-cherishing?
Cherish other beings. Very difficult. Very, very difficult. Yeah. We’re so used to it being this way around that this seems how it should be.
I’m the most important being in the universe. That’s just how it seems to us. Even we seem to be at the center of the universe. We’re at the center of our own awareness and our own perspective. Therefore, we’re at the center, and we’re the most important.
And to even begin to find fault with that is difficult. That’s why giving up, seeing self-cherishing and self grasping as the enemy is very difficult. The only thing that, in a sense, begins to wake us up is our suffering. Our suffering is our greatest teacher. It keeps on pointing us back to the fact, now take a second look at self and self grasping.
And we try and we don’t get very far, and we go back. And we suffer some more. We’re unhappy about this, unhappy about that. Where is all this unhappiness coming from? Look again at self-cherishing and self grasping.
So it’s gonna take time. We need patience. If it were easy, everyone would achieve enlightenment. Enlightenment is the most difficult of all things to achieve, so we’re not gonna achieve it tomorrow or soon. And why is it difficult?
Because we’ve gotta get rid of self-cherishing and self grasping, our two enemies. And even individually, they’re hard to overcome because a bodhisattva initially overcomes self-cherishing, but they don’t overcome self grasping. And someone that’s an arhat overcomes self grasping, but not self-cherishing. And a bodhisattva overcomes self-cherishing, but not self grasping. So we can overcome one and not the other, but we need to overcome both in order to progress. So, anyway, it’s this text is zeroing in on an essential practice, and that’s why it’s a text of mind training.
In Tibetan, it’s Lojong. Lo is referring to our awareness, our discernment. Jon means to train, purify. So it’s that type of text. It’s a type of text that’s saying, this is how we train the mind at present.
How do I train the mind at present? Okay. I get a first verse. In fact, we can use this type of text, use the Wheel of Sharp Weapons. We can just take up and read any verse, and there’s benefit there.
Oh, that’s how I train the mind in the present. So anyway, we better have a break, I think.